2 AUGUST – SAINT STEPHEN I (Pope and Martyr)

Stephen, a Roman and the son of Jovius, was the archdeacon of Rome when Pope Saint Lucius I entrusted him with the care of the Church shortly before his martyrdom in 254 AD in the persecution under Decius. During the interval between the Decian and Valerian persecutions, there sprang a controversy regarding baptism. The Churches of Africa and the East, and of Alexandria to a lesser extent, declared that baptisms performed by heretics were void and could only be valid when performed by duly consecrated clergy in communion with the Church. However, Pope Stephen I was of the view that every baptism performed with the right matter and the right words was effective.

Saints Cyprian of Carthage and Dionysius of Alexandria wrote to Pope Stephen who replied by denouncing Cyprian as a false Christ, a false apostle and a deceitful worker. He broke off communion with all the Churches of the East and of Africa which adhered to the more rigorous practice. Cyprian then held a council at Carthage attended by 71 bishops of Africa, and at it he asserted the independent judgement of the African Churches. Cyprian sent two bishops to Rome with a copy of the decisions of the Carthaginian council, and letters from himself. Stephen would not allow the messengers to enter his presence, and forbade the faithful to show them the smallest hospitality, to receive them into their houses, or wish them God-speed. Cyprian wrote in indignation. He condemned in severe terms the perverseness, obstinacy and contumacy of Stephen. He promulgated, in Latin, a letter of Saint Firmilian, the Bishop of Cappadocian Caesarea, even more unmeasured in its censures. Firmilian denounced the audacity and insolence of Stephen and scoffed at his boasted descent from Saint Peter. He declared that, by his sin, he had excommunicated himself: that he was a schismatic, an apostate from the unity of the Church. Cyprian assembled another council of 87 bishops who reasserted their previous decision, repudiated the assumption by Stephen of the title Bishop of Bishops, and the arbitrary dictation of one bishop to all Christendom.

This happened in 256 AD. In the council were fifteen confessors, some with scars, and maimed for the faith. It is not known what was the end of this dispute. It lasted under the pontificate of Saint Sixtus, the successor of Stephen. The sudden outbreak of persecution under Valerian in 257 AD drew attention from these questions to the more pressing necessities of a time of fiery trial. One of the first victims was Stephen. Soldiers suddenly entered a church while he was saying Mass, but he remained before the altar and concluded the sacred mysteries with intrepidity, and was beheaded on his throne. He was buried in the Catacombs of Saint Callistus.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The commemoration of the illustrious Pope and Martyr Stephen I adds a perfume of antiquity to the holiness of this day dedicated to the honour of a comparatively modern Saint. Stephen’s special glory in the Church is to have been the guardian of the dignity of holy Baptism. Baptism once given can never be repeated, for the character of child of God, which it imprints upon the Christian, is everlasting. And this unspeakable dignity of the first Sacrament in no wise depends upon the disposition or state of the minister conferring it. According to the teaching of Saint Augustine, whether Peter, or Paul, or Judas baptise, it is He upon whom the Divine Dove descended in the Jordan, it is He alone and always that baptises by them in the Holy Ghost. Such is the adorable munificence of our Lord with regard to this indispensable means of salvation, that the very pagan who belongs not to the Church, and the schismatic or heretic separated from her, can administer it with full validity on the one condition of fulfilling the exterior rite in its essence, and of wishing to do by it what the Church does.

In the time of Stephen I this truth was not so universally known as now. Great bishops whose learning and holiness had justly won them the admiration of their age wished to make the converts from various sects pass again through the laver of salvation. But the assistance promised to Peter was not wanting to his successor, and by maintaining the traditional discipline, Rome, through Stephen, saved the faith of the Churches. Let us testify our gratitude to the holy Pontiff for his fidelity in guarding the sacred deposit which is the treasure of all men. And let us beg him to preserve no less effectually, in us also, the nobility and the rights of our holy Baptism.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Nicaea in Bithynia, the martyrdom of St. Theodota with her three sons. The eldest, named Evodius, confessing Christ with confidence, was first beaten with rods, by order of Nicetius, ex-consul of Bithynia, and then the mother, with all her sons, was consumed by fire.

In Africa, St. Rutilius, martyr. He had frequently secured safety from the perils of persecution by flight, and sometimes even by means of money, but at last, being unexpectedly apprehended, he was led to the governor and subjected to many tortures. Afterwards he was cast into the fire and thus merited the glorious crown of martyrdom.

At Padua, St. Maximus, bishop of that city, who ended his blessed life in peace, with a reputation for miracles.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

2 AUGUST – SAINT ALPHONSUS DE LIGUORI (Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

 

Alphonsus Maria de' Ligouri was born in Marianella near Naples, Italy, on 27 September 1696 to Giuseppe Ligouri, a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys, and his wife Anna Maria Caterina Cavalieri. He was baptised two days later as Alphonsus Maria Antonio Giovanni Damiano Michele Gaspari de' Ligouri. His family was of noble origin.

As a young man he cared for the sick in the public hospitals and devoted his spare time to prayer in churches. In obedience to his father he became a lawyer, studying law at the University of Naples. He graduated with doctorates in both civil and canon law at the age of 16. Alphonsus was successful in his legal career but after losing an important case, and hearing an interior voice saying “leave the world and give yourself to me” he abandoned his profession.

Alphonus renounced his right of inheritance as the oldest son (primogeniture) and became a priest in 1726 at the age of 30. Zealous against vice, he procured the conversions of many sinners. He took particular pity on the poor and those living in the country. In 1732 Alphonsus founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer to preach the Gospel to them. To avoid any distractions from this mission he took a perpetual vow never to waste any time. Alphonsus was constant in contemplating the Passion of Christ and the Holy Eucharist and was outstanding in his devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Alphonsus wrote many books of devotion and religious instruction to gain souls for Christ. He consistently refused ecclesiastical honour but was forced by Rome to accept the episcopal chair of Sant'Agata dei Goti in 1762. He was generous to the poor and brought religious sisters back to a more perfect form of life. Serious chronic illnesses forced him to resign his office as bishop and return to his disciples. By May 1775 he was blind, deaf and full of other infirmities.

Alphonsus died on 1 August 1787 at the age of 90. He was beatified in 1816 by Pope Pius VII and canonised in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI. In 1949 the Redemptorists founded the Alphonsian Academy (Alphonsianum) for the advanced study of Catholic moral theology. It is situated in Rome and in 1960 became part of the Faculty of Theology of the Pontifical Lateran University. Pope Pius IX declared Alphonsus a Doctor of the Universal Church and Pope Pius XII designated him the heavenly patron of all confessors and moralists.

1 AUGUST – THE SEVEN HOLY MACCABEES

At Antioch in Syria took place the martyrdom of the Seven Holy Maccabees, seven Jewish brothers who lived in Old Testament times. According to tradition their names were Habim, Antonin, Guriah, Eleazar, Eusebon, Hadim (Halim) and Marcellus. Their story is told in the two Books of Maccabees which the Catholic Church holds to be canonical scripture. They are also referred to in the Books of Meqabyan which are regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The empress Saint Helena brought their relics to Constantinople and they were subsequently translated to the Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome.

 

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The August heavens glitter with the brightest constellations of the sacred cycle. Even in the sixth century, the Second Council of Tours remarked that this month was filled with the feasts of Saints. “My delights are to be with the children of men,” says Wisdom, and in the month which echoes with her teachings, she seems to have made it her glory to be surrounded with blessed ones who, walking with her in the midst of the paths of judgement, have in finding her found life and salvation from the Lord. This noble court is presided over by the Queen of all grace, whose triumph consecrates this month and makes it the delight of that Wisdom of the Father who, once enthroned in Mary, never quitted her. What a wealth of divine favours do the coming days promise to our souls! Never were our Father’s barns so well filled as at this season when the earthly as well as the heavenly harvests are ripe.

While the Church on Earth inaugurates these days by adorning herself with Peter’s chains as with a precious jewel, a constellation of seven stars appears for the third time in the heavens. The seven brothers Maccabees preceded the sons of Symphorosa and Felicitas in the blood-stained arena. They followed divine Wisdom even before she had manifested her beauty in the flesh. The sacred cause of which they were the champions, their strength of soul under the tortures, their sublime answers to the executioners, were so evidently the type reproduced by the later Martyrs, that the Fathers of the first centuries with one accord claimed for the Christian Church these heroes of the synagogue who could have gained such courage from no other source than their faith in the Christ to come. For this reason they alone of all the holy persons of the ancient covenant have found a place on the Christian cycle. All the Martyrologies and Calendars of East and West attest the universality of their cultus, while its antiquity is such as to rival that of St. Peter’s chains in that same basilica of Eudoxia where their precious relics lie.

At the time when in the hope of a better resurrection they refused under cruel torments to redeem their lives, other heroes of the same blood, inspired by the same faith, flew to arms and delivered their country from a terrible crisis. Several children of Israel, forgetting the traditions of their nation, had wished it to follow the customs of strange peoples, and the Lord in punishment had allowed Judea to feel the whole weight of a profane rule to which it had guiltily submitted. But when king Antiochus, taking advantage of the treason of a few and the carelessness of the majority, endeavoured by his ordinances to blot out the divine law which alone gives power to man over man, Israel, suddenly awakened, met the tyrant with the double opposition of revolt and martyrdom. Judas Maccabeus in immortal battles reclaimed for God the land of his inheritance, while by the virtue of their generous confession, the seven, brothers also, his rivals in glory, recovered, as the Scripture says, “the law out of the hands of the nations, and out of the hands of the kings” (1 Maccabees ii. 48). Soon afterwards, craving mercy under the hand of God and not finding it, Antiochus died devoured by worms, just as later on were to die the first and last persecutors of the Christians, Herod Agrippa and Galerius Maximian.

The Holy Ghost, who would Himself hand down to posterity the acts of the Protomartyr of the New Law, did the same with regard to the passion of Stephen’s glorious predecessors in the ages of expectation. Indeed it was he who then, as under the law of Love, inspired with both words and courage these valiant brothers, and their still more admirable mother who, seeing her seven sons one after the other suffering the most horrible tortures, uttered nothing but burning exhortations to die. Surrounded by their mutilated bodies, she mocked the tyrant who in false pity wished her to persuade at least the youngest to save his life. She bent over the last child of her tender love and said to him: “My son, have pity on me, that bore you nine months in my womb, and gave you suck three years, and nourished you, and brought you up to this age. I beseech you, my son, look upon Heaven and Earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also: so you will not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with your brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive you again with your brethren (2 Maccabees vii. 27, 28, 29). And the intrepid youth ran in his innocence to the tortures, and the incomparable mother followed her sons.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the holy virgins Faith, Hope and Charity, who won the crown of martyrdom under the emperor Hadrian.

Also at Rome, on the Via Latina, the holy martyrs Bonus, a priest, Faustus and Maurus, with nine others, mentioned in the Acts of Pope St. Stephen.

At Philadelphia in Arabia, the holy martyrs Cyril, Aquila, Peter, Domitian, Rufus and Menander, crowned on the same day.

At Pergen, in Pamphylia, the holy martyrs Leontius, Attius, Alexander, and six husbandmen, who were beheaded in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Flavian.

At Gerona in Spain, the birthday of the holy martyr Felix. After enduring various torments by order of Dacian, he was cut with knives until he gave his undaunted soul to Christ.

At Vercelli, St. Eusebius, bishop and martyr, who for the confession of the Catholic faith, was banished to Scythopolis and then to Cappadocia by the emperor Constantius. Afterwards returning to his church, he suffered martyrdom in the persecution of the Arians. His feast is kept on the sixteenth of December.

In the diocese of Paris, St. Justin, martyr.

At Vienne, St. Verus, bishop.

At Winchester in England, St. Ethelwold, bishop.

In the territory of Liswin, St. Nemesius, confessor.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.

1 AUGUST – THE CHAINS OF SAINT PETER

During the reign of Theodosius the younger, his wife Eudoxia went to Jerusalem to fulfil a vow, and while she was there she was honoured with many gifts, the greatest of which was given to her by Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem in about 439 AD. This was an iron chain adorned with gold and precious stones, and said to be that with which Saint Peter had been bound by Herod in Jerusalem. Eudoxia piously venerated this chain, and then sent it to Rome to her daughter Eudoxia. The latter took it to the Sovereign Pontiff Pope Saint Leo I (440‒461), who in turn showed her another chain which had bound Peter, under Nero, in the Marmetine Prison in Rome. On being brought together, the two chains miraculously united. On account of this miracle the holy chains began to be held in so great honour that a church at the title of Eudoxia on the Esquiline was dedicated under the name of Sancte Pietros ad Vincula (San Pietro in Vincoli), and the memory of its dedication was celebrated by a feast on the Kalends of August. From that time Saint Peter’s chains began to receive the honours of this day, instead of pagan festival which it had been customary to celebrate in honour of the emperor Augustus, after whom the month was named. Contact with the chains healed the sick and put demons to flight. In 909 a certain count who was very intimate with the Emperor Otho was taken possession of by an unclean spirit, so that he tore his flesh with his own teeth. By command of the emperor he was taken to the Pontiff John, who had no sooner touched the count’s neck with the holy chain than the wicked spirit was driven away, leaving the man entirely free. On this account devotion to the holy chains was spread throughout Rome.

The chains are kept in a gold reliquary case. One portion has 11 links of lengthened chain to bind the hands. The second portion has 23 links, to the last of which is affixed two half circles to hold the next. The feast of Saint Peter’s Chains was observed throughout the Universal Church until it was replaced in the General Roman Calendar of 1962 by the commemoration of the Seven Holy Maccabees.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Rome, making a god of the man who had subjugated her, consecrated the month of August to Caesar Augustus. When Christ had delivered her, she placed at the head of this same month, as a trophy of her regained liberty, the feast of the chains with which, in order to break hers, Peter the Vicar of Christ had once been bound. O Divine Wisdom, who has a better claim to reign over this month than had the adopted son of Caesar, you could not have more authentically inaugurated your empire. Strength and sweetness are the attributes of your works, and it is in the weakness of your chosen ones that you triumph over the powerful. You yourself, in order to give us life, swallowed death. Simon, son of John, became a captive to set free the world entrusted to him. First, Herod, and then Nero showed him the cost of the promise he had once received of binding and loosing on Earth as in Heaven: he had to share the love of the Supreme Shepherd, even to allowing himself, like Him, to be bound with chains for the sake of the flock, and led where he would not.

Glorious chains, never will you make Peter’s successors tremble any more than Peter himself. Before the Herods and Neros and Caesars of all ages you will be the guarantee of the liberty of souls. With what veneration have the Christian people honoured you ever since the earliest times!

One may truly say of the present feast that its origin is lost in the darkness of ages. According to ancient monuments, Saint Peter himself first consecrated on this date the basilica on the highest of the seven hills where the citizens of Rome are gathered today. The name Title of Eudoxia, by which the venerable Church is often designated, seems to have arisen from certain restorations made on occasion of the events mentioned in the Lessons. As to the sacred chains which are its treasure, the earliest mention now extant of honour being paid to them occurs in the beginning of the second century. Balbina, daughter of the tribune Quirinus, keeper of the prisons, had been cured by touching the chains of the holy Pope Alexander. She could not cease kissing the hands which had healed her. “Find the chains of blessed Peter, and kiss them rather than these,” said the Pontiff. Balbina, therefore, having fortunately found the Apostle’s chains, lavished her pious veneration on them, and afterwards gave them to the noble Theodora, sister of Hermes.

The irons which had bound the arms of the Doctor of the Gentiles, without being able to bind the word of God, were also after his martyrdom treasured more than jewels and gold. From Antioch in Syria, Saint John Chrysostom, thinking with holy envy of the lands enriched by these trophies of triumphant bond age, cried out in a sublime transport: “What more magnificent than these chains? Prisoner for Christ is a more beautiful name than that of Apostle, Evangelist, or Doctor. To be bound for Christ’s sake is better than to dwell in the heavens, to sit on the twelve thrones is not so great an honour. He that loves can understand me, but who can better understand these things than the holy choir of Apostles? As for me, if I were offered my choice between these chains and the whole of Heaven, I should not hesitate, for in them is happiness. Would that I were now in those places, where it is said the chains of these admirable men are still kept! If it were given me to be set free from the care of this Church, and if I had a little health, I should not hesitate to undertake such a voyage only to see Paul’s chains. If they said to me: Which would you prefer, to be the Angel who delivered Peter or Peter himself in chains? I would rather be Peter, because of his chains.”

Though always venerated in the great basilica which enshrines his tomb, Saint Paul’s chain has never been made, like those of Saint Peter, the object of a special feast in the Church. This distinction was due to the pre-eminence of him “who alone received the keys of the kingdom of heaven to communicate them to others,” and who alone continues, in his successors, to bind and loose with sovereign power throughout the whole world. The collection of letters of Saint Gregory the Great proves how universally, in the sixth century, was spread the cultus of these holy chains, a few filings of which enclosed in gold or silver keys was the richest present the Sovereign Pontiffs were wont to offer to the principal churches, or to princes whom they wished to honour. Constantinople, at some period not clearly determined, received a portion of these precious chains. She appointed a feast on the 16th January, honouring on that day the Apostle Peter as the occupant of the first See, the foundation of the faith, the immovable basis of dogma.

“Put your feet into the fetters of Wisdom, and your neck into her chains,” said the Holy Spirit under the ancient alliance, “and be not grieved with her bands.... For in the latter end you will find rest in her, and she will be turned to your joy. Then will her fetters be a strong defence for you... and her bands are a healthful binding. You will put her on as a robe of glory” (Ecclesiasticus vi. 25‒32). Incarnate Wisdom, applying the prophecy to you, O Prince of Apostles, declared that in testimony of your love the day would come when you should suffer constraint and bondage. The trial, O Peter, was a convincing one for Eternal Wisdom, who proportions her requirements to the measure of her own love. But you found her faithful. In the days of the formidable combat in which she wished to show her power in your weakness, she did not leave you in bands: in her arms you slept so calm a sleep in Herod’s prison, and going down with with you into the pit of Nero, she faithfully kept you company up to the hour when, subjecting the persecutors to the persecuted, she placed the sceptre in your hands, and on your brow the triple crown.

From the throne where you reign with the Man-God in Heaven, as you followed Him on Earth in trials and anguish, loosen our bands which are not glorious ones such as yours: break these fetters of sin which bind us to Satan, these ties of all the passions which prevent us from soaring towards God. The world, more than ever enslaved in the infatuation of its false liberties which make it forget the only true freedom, has more need now of enfranchisement than in the times of pagan Caesars: be once more its deliverer, now that you are more powerful than ever. May Rome especially, now fallen the lower because precipitated from a greater height, learn again the emancipating power which lurks in your chains. They have become a rallying standard for her faithful children in these latter trials. Make good the word once uttered by her poets, that “encircled with these chains she will ever be free.”