21 OCTOBER – SAINT URSULA AND COMPANIONS (Martyrs)

In about the middle of the fifth century when Attila, chief of the Huns, had been defeated at Chalons in his first invasion of Gaul, he returned into Pannonia, and before crossing the Rhine he attacked the city of Cologne. From his hatred of the Catholic religion which greatly flourished there, he gave it up to sack and slaughter. The savages, burning with lust, cruelly assaulted the young virgins who were abiding there on their journey from Britain, among whom the most famous is the virgin Ursula, who exhorted her companions to endure all torments, and rather to suffer the most cruel death than to submit to the loss of their virginity.

Ursula’s band of virgins were slain by the Huns: some by the sword, some pierced with arrows, and some felled with bludgeons. Ursula, bending as a glorious victim over the piles of her slaughtered companions as over heaps of heavenly pearls, red with the bloodshed for faith and chastity, led triumphantly into Heaven the army crowned with these double crowns. After the barbarian hordes had left, the surviving residents of Cologne gathered up the bodies of the virgins and other martyrs and buried them with all honour. On the field stained with the blood of the martyrs where they were laid to rest, a Church was erected in the seventh century and was named that of the Holy Virgins.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Saint Hilarion was one of the first Confessors, if not the very first, to be honoured in the East with a public cultus like the Martyrs. In the West, the white-robed army led by Ursula adds to the glory of the holy monk who has the first honours of this day. On the 21st October 451 Cologne was made equal to the most illustrious cities by a spiritual glory. Criticism, and there is no lack of it, may dispute the circumstances which brought together the legion of virgins, but the fact itself that eleven thousand chosen souls were martyred by the Huns in recompense for their fidelity is now acknowledged by true science. From the earth where so many noble victims lay concealed, they have more than once been brought to light by multitudes, bearing about them evidence of the veneration of those who had buried them. For instance, by a happy inspiration, the arrow that had set free the blessed soul would be left, as a token of victory, fixed in the breast or forehead of the martyr.

Saint Angela of Merici confided to the patronage of this glorious phalanx her spiritual daughters, and the numberless children whom they will continue till the end of time to educate in the fear of the Lord. The grave Sorbonne dedicated its church to the holy virgins as well as to the Mother of God, and here, as in the Universities of Coimbra and Vienna, an annual panegyric was pronounced in praise of them. Portugal, enriched with some of their precious relics, carried their cultus into the Indies. And pious confraternities have been formed among the faithful for obtaining their assistance at the hour of death.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Ostia, St. Asterius, priest and martyr, who suffered under the emperor Alexander, as we read in the Acts of the blessed Pope Callistus.

At Nicomedia, the birthday of the Saints Dasius, Zoticus, Caius and twelve other soldiers, who, after suffering various torments, were submerged in the sea.

At Maronia near Antioch in Syria, St. Malchus, monk.

At Lyons, St. Viator, deacon of blessed Justus, bishop of that city.

At Laon, St. Cilinia, mother of blessed Remigius, bishop of Rheims.

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

Thanks be to God.

21 OCTOBER – SAINT HILARION (Abbot)

Hilarion was born at Abatha in Palestine (near Gaza) to pagan parents in about 292 AD. He was sent to study at Alexandria where he became famous for his talents and the purity of his morals. He embraced the Christian religion and made wonderful progress in faith and charity. He was constantly in the church, devoted himself to prayer and fasting, and was full of contempt for the enticements of pleasure and earthly desires. The fame of Saint Anthony had then spread over all Egypt. Hilarion, desirous of seeing him, went to the wilderness and stayed two months with him learning his manner of life. He then returned home but on the death of his parents he bestowed his goods on the poor, and though only 15 years old, returned to the desert. He built himself a little cell scarcely large enough to hold him, and there he slept on the ground. He never changed nor washed the sackcloth he wore, saying it was superfluous to look for cleanliness in a hair-shirt.

Hilarion devoted himself to reading and studying the holy Scriptures. His food consisted of a few figs and the juice of herbs, which he never took before sunset. His mortification and humility were wonderful, and by means of these and other virtues he overcame many terrible temptations of the evil one, and cast innumerable devils out of the possessed in many parts of the world. Hilarion gathered many disciples around him and founded many monasteries in Palestine. In 357 he visited the tomb of Saint Antony in Egypt, and afterwards, to escape from the crowds who continually thronged about him seeking the cure of their maladies, he kept travelling from country to country. He visited Egypt, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Cyprus where he died in 371. In his last agony he exclaimed: “Go forth, my soul, why do you fear? Go forth, why do you hesitate? You have served Christ for nearly seventy years, and you fear death?”

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Monks were unknown in Syria before Saint Hilarion,” says his historian Saint Jerome. “He instituted the monastic life in that country, and was the master of those who embraced it. The Lord Jesus had his Anthony in Egypt and his Hilarion in Palestine, the former advanced in years, the latter still young.” Now our Lord very soon raised this young man to such glory that Anthony would say to the sick who came to him from Syria attracted by the fame of his miracles: “Why take the trouble to come so far, when you have near you my son Hilarion?” And yet Hilarion had spent only two months with Anthony, after which the patriarch had said to him: “Persevere to the end, my son, and your labour will win you the delights of Heaven.” Then, giving a hair-shirt and a garment of skin to this boy of fifteen whom he was never to see again, he sent him back to sanctify the solitudes of his own country, while he himself retired farther into the desert.

The enemy of mankind, foreseeing a formidable adversary in this new solitary, waged a terrible war against him. Even the flesh, in spite of the young ascetic’s fasts, was Satan’s first accomplice. But without any pity for a body so frail and delicate, as his historian says, that any effort would have seemed sufficient to destroy it, Hilarion cried out indignantly: “Ass, I will see that you kick no more. I will reduce you by hunger, I will crush you with burdens, I will make you work in all weathers. You will be so pinched with hunger, that you will think no more of pleasure.” Vanquished in this quarter, the enemy found other allies through whom he thought to drive Hilarion by fear back to the dwellings of men. But to the robbers who fell on his poor wicker hut, the Saint said smiling: “He who is naked has no fear of thieves.” And they, touched by his virtue, could not conceal their admiration and promised to amend their lives. Then Satan determined to come in person, as he had done to Anthony, but with no better success. No trouble could disturb the serenity attained by that simple, holy soul. One day the demon entered into a camel and made it mad so that it rushed on the Saint with horrible cries. But he only answered: “I am not afraid of you: you are always the same, whether you come as a fox or a camel.” And the huge beast fell down tamed at his feet.

There was a harder trial yet to come from the most cunning artifice of the serpent. When Hilarion sought to hide himself from the immense concourse of people who besieged his poor cell, the enemy maliciously published his fame far and wide, and brought to him overwhelming crowds from every land. In vain he quitted Syria and travelled the length and breadth of Egypt. In vain, pursued from desert to desert, he crossed the sea and hoped to conceal himself in Sicily, in Dalmatia, in Cyprus. From the ship which was making its way among the Cyclades he heard in each island the infernal spirits calling one another from the towns and villages and running to the shores as he passed by. At Paphos where he landed the same concourse of demons brought to him multitudes of men, until at length God took pity on His servant and discovered to him a place inaccessible to his fellow-men, where he had no company but legions of devils who surrounded him day and night. Far from fearing, says his biographer, he took pleasure in the neighbourhood of his old antagonist whom he knew well, and he lived there in great peace the last five years before his death.

To be a Hilarion, and yet to fear death! “If in the green wood they do these things, what will be done in the dry!” (Luke xxiii. 31) O glorious Saint, penetrate us with the apprehension of God’s judgements. Teach us that Christian fear does not banish love, but on the contrary, clears the way and leads to it, and then accompanies it through life as an attentive and faithful guardian. This holy fear was your security at your last hour. May it protect us also along the path of life, and at death introduce us immediately into Heaven!

20 OCTOBER – SAINT JOHN CANTIUS (Priest and Confessor)

John was born at Kenty near Oswiecim in Poland in 1412, hence his surname Cantius. His parents were pious and honourable persons, Stanislaus and Anna. From his very infancy his sweetness of disposition, innocence and gravity gave promise of very great virtue. John studied philosophy and theology at the University of Cracow and taking all his degrees proceeded professor and doctor. He taught sacred science for many years, enlightening the minds of his pupils and kindling in them the flame of piety, no less by his deeds than by his words. When he was ordained a priest he relaxed nothing of his zeal for study but increased his ardour for Christian perfection. Grieving exceedingly over the offences everywhere committed against God, he strove to make satisfaction on his own behalf and that of the people by daily offering the unbloody Sacrifice with many tears. For several years John was in charge of the parish of Olkusz which he administered in an exemplary manner. But fearing the responsibility of the cure of souls, he resigned his post and, at the request of the University, resumed the professor’s chair.

Whatever time remained over from his studies John devoted partly to the good of his neighbour especially by holy preaching, and partly to prayer, in which he is said to have been sometimes favoured with heavenly visions and communications. He was so affected by the Passion of Christ that he would spend whole nights without sleep in the contemplation of it and in order the better to cultivate this devotion he undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. While there, in his eagerness for martyrdom, he boldly preached Christ crucified even to the Turks. Four times he went to Rome on foot, and carrying his own baggage, to visit the threshold of the Apostles. In order to honour the Apostolic See to which he was earnestly devoted, and also (as he used to say), to save himself from Purgatory by means of the indulgences there daily to be gained. On one of these journeys he was robbed by brigands. When asked by them whether he had anything more, he replied in the negative, but afterwards remembering that he had some gold pieces sewed in his cloak, he called back the robbers who had taken to flight, and offered them the money. Astonished at the holy man’s sincerity and generosity, they restored all they had taken from him.

After Saint Augustine’s example, he had verses inscribed on the walls in his house, warning others, as well as himself, to respect the reputation of their neighbours. He fed the hungry from his own table and clothed the naked, not only with garments bought for the purpose, but even with his own clothes and shoes. On these occasions he would lower his cloak to the ground so as not to be seen walking home barefoot. He took very little sleep, and that on the ground. His clothing was only sufficient to cover him, and his food to keep him alive. He preserved his virginal purity, like a lily among thorns, by using a rough hair-shirt, disciplines and fasting. For about thirty-five years before his death he abstained entirely from flesh-meat. At length, full of days and of merits, he prepared himself long and diligently for death, which he felt drawing near. And that nothing might be a hindrance to him, he distributed all that remained in his house to the poor. Then, strengthened with the Sacraments of the Church, and desiring to be dissolved and to be with Christ, he passed to Heaven on Christmas Eve. He worked many miracles both in life and after death. His body was carried to Saint Anne’s, the church of the University, and there honourably interred.

The people’s veneration for John, and the crowds visiting his tomb, increased daily. He is honoured as one of the chief patrons of Poland and Lithuania. As new miracles continued to be wrought, Pope Clement XIII solemnly enrolled him among the Saints on the seventeenth of the Calends of August 1767.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Kenty, the humble village of Silesia which witnessed the birth of Saint John, owes its celebrity entirely to him. The canonisation of this holy priest who in the fifteenth century had illustrated the University of Cracow by his virtues and science was the last hope of expiring Poland. It took place in the year 1767. Two years earlier it was at the request of this heroic nation that Clement XIII had issued the first decree sanctioning the celebration of the feast of the Sacred Heart. When enrolling John Cantius among the Saints the magnanimous Pontiff expressed in moving terms the gratitude of the Church towards that unfortunate people, and rendered to it, before shamefully forgetful Europe, a supreme homage. Five years later Poland was dismembered.

* * * * *

The Church is ever saying to you, and we repeat it with the same unwavering hope: “O you, who never refuses assistance anyone, take in hand the cause of your native kingdom. It is the desire of the Poles, your fellow-countrymen, it is the prayer of even foreigners.” The treason of which your unhappy fatherland was the victim has not ceased to press heavily on disorganised Europe. How many other crushing weights have since been thrown into the balance of our Lord’s justice! O John, teach us at least not to add thereto our own personal faults. It is by following you along the path of virtue that we will merit to obtain pardon from Heaven and to hasten the hour of great atonements.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Abia near Aquila in Abruzzo, the birthday of blessed Maximus, deacon and martyr, who, through the desire of suffering, presented himself to the persecutors that sought him. After answering with great constancy, he was racked and tortured, then beaten with rods, and finally he died by being precipitated from an elevated place.

At Agen in France, St. Caprasius, martyr. As he was hiding himself in a cavern to avoid the violence of the persecution, the report of the blessed virgin Faith’s courage in suffering for Christ animated him to endure torments, and he prayed to God that, if he were deemed worthy of the glory of martyrdom, clear water might flow from the rock of his cavern. God having granted his prayer, he went with confidence to the scene of combat, and after a valiant struggle, merited the palm of martyrdom under Maximian.

At Antioch, St. Artemius, imperial officer. Although he had filled high stations in the army under Constantine the Great, Julian the Apostate, who he had reprehended for his cruelty towards Christians, ordered him to be beaten with rods, subjected to other torments, and finally beheaded.

At Cologne, the martyrdom of the holy virgins Martha and Saula, with many others.

At Minden, the birthday of St. Felician, bishop and martyr.

At Paris, the holy martyrs, George, deacon, and Aurelius.

In Portugal, St. Irene, virgin and martyr.

In the diocese of Rheims, St. Sindulphus, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 OCTOBER – SAINT PETER OF ALCANTARA (Confessor)

The apparation of St. John Capistrano to St. Peter of Alcantara

Peter was born at Alcántara in Spain in 1499. His father Peter Garavita was the governor of the Alcántara, and his mother was of the noble family of Sanabia. From his earliest years he gave promise of his future sanctity. At the age of sixteen he entered the Order of Friars Minor in which he became an example of every virtue. He undertook by obedience the office of preaching, and led numberless sinners to sincere repentance. Desirous of bringing back the Franciscan order to its original strictness, he founded, by God’s assistance and with the approbation of the Apostolic See, a very poor little convent at Pedroso. The austere manner of life which he was there the first to lead, was afterwards spread in a wonderful manner throughout Spain and even into the Indies. He assisted Saint Teresa, whose spirit he approved in carrying out the reform of Carmel. And she having learned from God that whoever asked anything in Peter’s name would be immediately heard, was wont to recommend herself to his prayers and to call him a saint while he was still living.

Peter was consulted as an oracle by princes, but he avoided their honours with great humility and refused to become confessor to the Emperor Charles V. He was a most rigid observer of poverty, having but one tunic, and that the meanest possible. Such was his delicacy with regard to purity that he would not allow the brother who waited on him in his last illness even lightly to touch him. By perpetual watching, fasting, disciplines, cold and nakedness, and every kind of austerity, Peter brought his body into subjection, having made a compact with it never to give it any rest in this world. The love of God and of his neighbour was shed abroad in his heart, and at times burned so ardently that he was obliged to escape from his narrow cell into the open, that the cold air might temper the heat that consumed him. Admirable was his gift of contemplation. Sometimes, while his spirit was nourished in this heavenly manner, he would pass several days without food or drink. He was often raised in the air, and seen shining with wonderful brilliancy. He passed dry-shod over the most rapid rivers.

When his brethren were absolutely destitute, he obtained them food from Heaven. He fixed his staff in the earth and immediately came a flourishing fig tree. One night when he was journeying in a heavy snow storm he entered a ruined house but the snow, lest he would be suffocated by its falling flakes, hung in the air and formed a roof over him. Peter was blessed with the gift of prophecy and the discernment of spirits, as Saint Teresa testifies. At the age of 63, he died in Arenas in Spain in 1592, at the hour he had foretold and fortified by a wonderful vision and presence of the saints. Saint Teresa who was at that moment at a great distance saw him being carried into Heaven. He afterwards appeared to her saying, “Oh happy penance which has won me such great glory!” After many miracles he was canonised by Pope Clement IX in 1669.

Dom Proper Gueranger:

“O happy penance which has won me such glory!” said the Saint of today at the threshold of Heaven. And on Earth, Teresa of Jesus wrote of him: “Oh what a perfect imitator of Jesus Christ God has just taken from us by calling to his glory that blessed religious, Brother Peter of Alcantara! The world, they say, is no longer capable of such high perfection. Constitutions are weaker, and we are not now in the olden times. Here is a Saint of the present day. Yet his manly fervour equalled that of past ages and he had a supreme disdain for everything earthly. But without going barefoot like him, or doing such sharp penance, there are very many ways in which we can practise contempt of the world, and which our Lord will teach us as soon as we have courage. What great courage must the holy man I speak of have received from God to keep up for forty-seven years the rigorous penance that all now know! Of all his mortifications, that which cost him most at the beginning was the overcoming of sleep. To effect this he would remain continually on his knees, or else standing. The little repose he granted to nature he took sitting with his head leaning against a piece of wood fixed to the wall. Indeed, had he wished to lie down, he could not have done so, for his cell was only four feet and a half in length. During the course of all those years he never put his hood up, however burning the sun might be, or however heavy the rain. He never used shoes or stockings. He wore no other clothing than a single garment of rough, coarse cloth. I found out, however, that for twenty years he wore a hair-shirt made of plates of tin, which he never took off. His Habit was as narrow as it could possibly be, and over it he put a short cloak of the same material. This he took off when it was very cold, and left the door and small window of his cell open for a while. Then he shut them and put his cape on again, which he said was his manner of warming himself and giving his body a little better temperature. He usually ate but once in three days, and when I showed some surprise at this, he said it was quite easy when one was accustomed to it. His poverty was extreme and such was his mortification that, as he acknowledged to me, he had, when young, spent three years in a house of his Order without knowing any one of the Religious except by the sound of his voice. For he had never lifted up his eyes so that, when called by the rule to any part of the house, he could find his way only by following the other brethren. He observed the same custody of the eyes when on the roads. When I made his acquaintance, his body was so emaciated that it seemed to be formed of the roots of trees.”

To this portrait of the Franciscan reformer drawn by the reformer of Carmel, the Church adds the history of his life. Three illustrious and worthy families now form the first Order, of Saint Francis, known as the Conventuals, the Observantines and the Capuchins. A pious emulation for more and more strict reform, brought about in the Observance itself a subdivision into the Observantines proper, the Reformed, the Discalced or Alcantarines and the Recollets. This division, which was historical rather than constitutional, no longer exists, for on the feast of the Patriarch of Assisi, October 4th 1897, the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII thought fit to re-unite the great family of the Observance, which is henceforth known as the Order of Friars Minor.

* * * * *

“Such then is the end of that austere life, an eternity of glory!” And how sweet were your last words: “I rejoiced at the things that were said to me: we will go into the house of the Lord” (Psalm cxxi. 1). The time of reward had not yet come for the body with which you had made an agreement to give it no truce in this life, but to reserve its enjoyment for the next. But already the soul, on quitting it had filled it with the light and the fragrance of the other world, signifying to all that the first part of the contract having been faithfully adhered to, the second should be carried out in like manner. Whereas, given over for its false delights to horrible torments, the flesh of the sinner will for ever cry vengeance against the soul that caused its loss. Your members, entering into the beatitude of your happy soul, and completing its glory by their own splendour, will eternally declare how your apparent harshness for a time was in reality wisdom and love.

Is it necessary, indeed, to wait for the resurrection in order to discover that the part you chose is incontestably the best? Who would dare to compare not only unlawful pleasures, but even the permitted enjoyments of Earth, with the holy delights of contemplation prepared, even in this world, for those who can relish them? If they are to be purchased by mortification of the flesh, it is because the flesh and the spirit are ever striving for the mastery, but a generous soul loves the struggle, for the flesh is honoured by it, and through it escapes a thousand dangers.

O you who, according to our Lord’s promise, are never invoked in vain, if you deign yourself to present our prayers to Him, obtain for us that relish for heavenly things which causes an aversion for those of Earth. It is the petition made by the whole Church, through your merits, to the God who bestowed on you the gift of such wonderful penance and sublime contemplation. The great family of Friars Minor cherishes the treasure of your teaching and example, for the honour of your holy father Francis and the good of the Church maintain in it the love of its austere traditions. Withdraw not your precious protection from the Carmel of Teresa of Jesus. Extend it to the whole Religious State, especially in these days of trial. May you at length lead back your native Spain to the glorious heights from which formerly she seemed to pour down floods of sanctity on the world. It is the condition of nations ennobled by a more sublime vocation that they cannot decline without the danger of falling below the level of those less favoured by the Most High.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the birthday of the holy martyrs Ptolemy and Lucius, under Marcus Antoninus. The former, as we learn from the martyr Justin, having converted an immodest woman to the faith of Christ, and taught her to practise chastity, was accused by a profligate man before the prefect Urbicius, and condemned to languish a long time in a filthy dungeon. At length, as he declared by a public confession that Christ was his master, he was led to execution. Lucius disapproving the sentence of Urbicius, and avowing freely that he was a Christian, received the same sentence. To them was added a third who was condemned to suffer a like punishment.

At Antioch, the holy martyrs Beronicus, the virgin Pelagia and forty-nine others.

In Egypt, St. Varus, soldier, under the emperor Maximinus. He used to visit and comfort seven saintly monks detained in prison, when one of them happening to die, he wished to take his place, and having suffered with them cruel afflictions, he obtained the palm of martyrdom.

At Evreux, St. Aquilinus, bishop and confessor.

In the diocese of Orleans, the departure from this world of St. Veranus, bishop.

At Salerno, St. Eusterius, bishop.

In Ireland, St. Ethbin, abbot.

At Oxford in England, St. Frideswide, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 OCTOBER – NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The divine Leader of God’s people is their salvation and that in all their distress. Did we not last Sunday see Him prove Himself as such, and in a very telling way, by curing both body and soul of the poor paralytic who was a figure of the whole human race?

Epistle – Ephesians iv. 23–28

Brothers, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. And put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth. Wherefore putting away lying, speak the truth every man with his neighbour; for we are members one of another. Be angry, and sin not. Let not the sun go down upon your anger. Give not place to the devil. He that stole, let him now steal no more; but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have something to give to him that suffers need.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Epistle to the Ephesians, which was interrupted last Sunday, in the manner we then described, is continued today by the Church. The Apostle has already laid down the dogmatical principles of true holiness. He now deduces the moral consequences of those principles.

Let us call to mind how the holiness, which is in God, is His very Truth — Truth living and harmonious which is no other than the admirable concert of the Three divine Persons united in love. We have seen that holiness, as far as it exists in us men, is also Union by infinite love with the eternal and living Truth. The Word took a Body to Himself in order to manifest, in the Flesh this sanctifying and perfect Truth (John i. 14) of which He is the substantial expression (Hebrews i. 3) of His Humanity, sanctified directly by the plenitude of the divine life and truth which dwell within Him (Colossians ii. 3, 9, 10) became the model, as well as the means, the way, of all holiness to every creature (John xiv. 6). It was not sin alone, but it was moreover the finite nature of man, that kept him at a distance from the divine life (Ephesians iv. 18), but he finds, in Christ Jesus, just as they are in God, the two elements of that life: truth and love. In Jesus, as the complement of His Incarnation, Wisdom aspires at uniting with Herself all the members also of that human race, of which He is the Head (Ephesians i. 10) and the First-Born (Colossians i. 15‒20) by Him, the Holy Ghost, whose sacred fount He is (John iv. 14; vii. 37, 39), pours Himself out upon man by which to adapt him to his sublime vocation, and consummate, in infinite love (which is Himself) that union of every creature with the divine Word. Thus it is that we verily partake of that life of God whose existence and holiness are the knowledge and love of His own Word. Thus it is that we are sanctified in Truth (John xvii. 17) by the participation of that very holiness with which God is holy by nature.

But although the Son of Man, being God, participates for us His brethren in the life of union in the Truth which constitutes the holiness of the blessed Trinity, He communicates that Life, that Truth, that deifying Union, to none save but to those who are truly become His members and who, in Him, reproduce between one another, by the operation of the Spirit of Truth (John xv. 26) and love, that unity of which that sanctifying Spirit is the almighty bond in the Godhead. “May they all be one, as you, Father, in me, and I in you,” said this Jesus of ours, to His Eternal Father: “that they also may be one in us. I have given to them the glory, that is to say, the holiness which you have given to me, that they may be one as we, also, are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be consummated (that is, be made perfect) in unity” (John xvii. 21‒23). Here we have, and formulised by our Lord Himself, the simple but fruitful axiom — the foundation — of Christian dogma and morals. By that sublime prayer He explained what He had previously been saying: “I sanctify myself for them that they, also, may be sanctified in Truth” (John xvii. 19).

Let us now understand the moral doctrine given us by Saint Paul in today’s Epistle, and what it is he means by that justice, and that holiness of truth, which is that of Christ (Romans viii. 14) of the new man whom every one must put on, who aspires to the possession of the riches spoken of in the passages already read to us from this magnificent Epistle. Let us re-read the Epistle for the 17th Sunday and we will find that all the rules of Christian asceticism, as well as of the mystic life, are to Saint Paul’s mind, summed up in those words: “Be careful to keep unity!” (Ephesians iv. 3). It is the principle he lays down for all, both beginners and the perfect. It is the crowning of the sublimest vocations in the order of grace, as well as the foundation and reason of all God’s commandments: so truly so, indeed, that if we be commanded to abstain from lying and speak the truth to them that live with us, the motive for it all is because we are members one of another.

There is a holy anger of which the Psalmist speaks (Psalm iv. 5) and which is the outcome, on certain occasions, of zeal for the divine law and charity. But the movement of irritation excited in the soul must, even then, be speedily calmed down. To foster it would be a giving place to the devil. That is, it would be the giving him an opportunity for weakening, or even destroying, within us, by bitterness and hatred, the structure of holy unity. Before our conversion, our neighbour, as well as God, was grieved by our sins. We cared little or nothing for injustice, provided it was not noticed. Egotism was our law, and it was proof enough of the reign of Satan over our souls. Now that the spirit of holiness has expelled the unworthy usurper, the strongest evidence of His being our rightful master is that not only the rights of others are sacred in our estimation, but that our toil and our labours are all full of the idea of how to make them serviceable to our neighbour. In a word, as the Apostle continues a little further on, we walk in love because, as most clear children, we are followers of God (Ephesians v. 1, 2).

It is by this means alone, says Saint Basil, that the Church manifests to this Earth of ours the many and great benefits bestowed on the world by the Incarnation. The Christian family which until then was split up into a thousand separate fragments is now made one, one in itself, and one in God. It is the repetition of what our Lord did by assuming Flesh and making it one with Himself.

Gospel – Matthew xxii. 1–14

Jesus answering, spoke again in parables to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who made a marriage for his son. And he sent his servants to call them that were invited to the marriage; and they would not come. Again he sent other servants, saying: Tell them that were invited, Behold, I have prepared my dinner; my beeves and fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage. But they
neglected, and went their ways, one to his farm, and another to his merchandise. And the rest laid hands on his servants, and having treated them contumeliously, put them to death. But when the king had heard of it, he was angry, and sending his armies he destroyed those murderers and burnt their city. Then he said to his servants: The marriage indeed is ready; but they that were invited were not worthy. Go therefore into the highways and as many as you shall find, call to the marriage. And his servants going forth into the ways, gathered together all that they found, both bad and good: and the marriage was filled with guests. And the king went in to see the guests: and he saw there a man who had not on a wedding garment. And he said to him: Friend, how did you come here not having on a wedding garment? But he was silent. Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. For many are called, but few are chosen”.

Praise to you, O Christ.

18 OCTOBER – SAINT LUKE (Evangelist)

Luke was a physician of Antioch and, as is shown by his writings, was skilled in the Greek language. He was a disciple of the Apostle Paul and accompanied him in all his journeys. He also wrote a Gospel so that Paul says of him: “We have sent also with him the brother whose praise is in the Gospel through all the churches.” And again to the Colossians: “Luke, the most dear physician salutes you.” And to Timothy: “Only Luke is with me.” He wrote another excellent work, the Acts of the Apostles, in which he relates the history of the Church as far as Paul’s two years’ sojourn at Rome that is to the fourth year of Nero. From this circumstance we infer that the book was written at Rome. Consequently we class the journeys of Paul and Thecla and the whole fable of the baptised lion among apocryphal writings. For is it possible that the Apostle’s inseparable companion should know everything concerning him except this one thing? Moreover, Tertullian who lived near to those times relates that a certain priest in Asia, an admirer of Paul, was convicted by John of having written that book, which he confessed he had done out of love for Paul, and was on that account deposed. Some are of the opinion that whenever Paul in his epistles says: “According to my Gospel,” he means that of Luke. Luke, however, was instructed in the Gospel not only by the Apostle Paul, who had never seen the Lord in the flesh, but also by the other Apostles. This he declares in the beginning of his work, saying: “According as they have delivered them to us, who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of the word.” He wrote his Gospel then from what he had heard, but the Acts of the Apostles from he had himself seen. He lived 84 years and was never married.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“The goodness and kindness of God our Saviour has appeared to all men” (Titus ii. 11; iii. 4) It would seem that the third Evangelist, a disciple of Saint Paul, had purposed setting forth this word of the Doctor of the Gentiles. Or may we not rather say, the Apostle himself characterised in this sentence the Gospel in which his disciple portrays the Saviour prepared before the face of all people: “a light to the revelation of the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel” (Luke ii. 31, 32). Saint Luke’s Gospel and the words quoted from Saint Paul were in fact written about the same time, and it is impossible to say which claims priority.

Under the eye of Simon Peter to whom the Father had revealed the Christ the Son of the living God, Mark had the honour of giving to the Church the Gospel of Jesus, the Son of God (Mark i. 1). Matthew had already drawn up for the Jews the Gospel of the Messiah, Son of David, Son of Abraham (Matthew i. 1). Afterwards, at the side of Paul, Luke wrote for the Gentiles the Gospel of Jesus, Son of Adam through Mary (Luke ii. 38). As far as the genealogy of this First-born of His Mother may be reckoned back, so far will extend the blessing He bestows on His brethren by redeeming them from the curse inherited from their first father.

Jesus was truly one of ourselves, a Man conversing with men and living their life. He was seen on Earth in the reign of Augustus, the prefect of the empire registered the birth of this new subject of Caesar in the city of His ancestors. He was bound in the swathing-bands of infancy. Like all of His race He was circumcised, offered to the Lord and redeemed according to the law of His nation. As a child He obeyed His parents. He grew up under their eyes. He passed through the progressive development of youth to the maturity of manhood. At every juncture during His public life He prostrated in prayer to God the Creator of all. He wept over His country. When His Heart was wrung with anguish at sight of the morrow’s deadly torments, He was bathed with a sweat of blood, and in that agony He did not disdain the assistance of an Angel. Such appears, in the third Gospel, the humanity of God our Saviour.

How sweet too are His grace and goodness! Among all the children of men, He merited to be the expectation of nations and the Desired of them all: He who was conceived of a humble Virgin, who was born in a stable with shepherds for His court and choirs of Angels singing in the darkness of night “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will.” But Earth had sung the prelude to the angelic harmonies. The precursor, leaping with delight in his mother’s womb, had, as the Church says, made known the king still resting in his bridal chamber. To this joy of the bridegroom’s Friend, the Virgin Mother had responded by the sweetest song that Earth or Heaven has ever heard. Then Zachary and Simeon completed the number of inspired Canticles for the new people of God. All was song around the new-born babe, and Mary kept all the words in her heart in order to transmit them to us through her own Evangelist.

The Divine Child grew in age and wisdom and grace, before God and man till His human beauty captivated men and drew them with the cords of Adam to the love of God. He was ready to welcome the daughter of Tyre, the Gentile race that had become more than a rival of Sion. Let her not fear, the poor unfortunate one, of whom Magdalene was a figure. The pride of expiring Judaism may take scandal, but Jesus will accept her tears and her perfumes. He will forgive her much because of her great love. Let the prodigal hope once more, when worn out with his long wanderings, in every way where error has led the nations, the envious complaint of his elder brother Israel will not stay the outpourings of the Sacred Heart, celebrating the return of the fugitive, restoring to him the dignity of sonship, placing again upon his finger the ring of the alliance first contracted in Eden with the whole human race. As for Judah, unhappy is he if he refuses to understand.

Woe to the rich man who in his opulence neglects the poor Lazarus! The privileges of race no longer exist: of ten lepers cured in body, the stranger alone is healed in soul, because he alone believes in his deliverer and returns thanks. Of the Samaritan, the Levite and the priest who appear on the road to Jericho, the first alone earns our Saviour’s commendation. The Pharisee is strangely mistaken when, in his arrogant prayer, he spurns the publican who strikes his breast and cries for mercy. The Son of Man neither hears the prayers of the proud nor heeds their indignation. He invites Himself, in spite of their murmurs, to the house of Zacheus, bringing with him salvation and joy, and declaring the publican to be henceforth a true son of Abraham. So much goodness and such universal mercy close against him the narrow hearts of his fellow-citizens. They will not have him to reign over them, but eternal Wisdom finds the lost groat, and there is great joy before the Angels in heaven. On the day of the sacred Nuptials, the lowly and despised and the repentant sinners will sit down to the banquet prepared for others. “In truth I say to you, there were many widows in the days of Elias in Israel... and to none of them was Elias sent, but to Sarepta of Sidon, to a widow woman. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elilleus the prophet, and none of them was cleansed but Naaman the Syrian” (Luke iv. 25‒27).

O Jesus, your Evangelist has won our hearts. We love you for having taken pity on our misery. We Gentiles were in deeper debt than Jerusalem, and therefore we owe you greater love in return for your pardon. We love you because your choicest graces are for Magdalene, that is, for us who are sinners and are nevertheless called to the better part. We love you because you cannot resist the tears of mothers but restore to them, as at Naim, their dead children. In the day of treason and abandonment and denial, you forgot your own injury to cast on Peter that loving look which caused him to weep bitterly. You turned away from yourself the tears of those humble and true daughters of Jerusalem who followed your painful footsteps up the heights of Calvary. Nailed to the Cross, you implored pardon for your executioners. At the last hour, as God you promised Paradise to the penitent thief, as Man you gave back your soul to your Father. Truly from beginning to end of this third Gospel appears your goodness and kindness, O God our Saviour!

Saint Luke completed his work by writing, in the same correct style his Gospel, the history of the first days of Christianity, of the introduction of the Gentiles into the Church, and of the great labours of their own Apostle Paul. According to tradition he was an artist as well as a man of letters, and with a soul alive to all the most delicate inspirations, he consecrated his pencil to the holiest use and handed down to us the features of the Mother of God. It was an illustration worthy of the Gospel which relates the Divine Infancy, and it won for the artist a new title to the gratitude of those who never saw Jesus and Mary in the flesh. Hence Saint Luke is the patron of Christian art, and also of the medical profession, for in the holy Scripture itself he is said to have been a physician. He had studied all the sciences in his native city Antioch, and the brilliant capital of the East had reason to be proud of its illustrious son.

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The symbolical Ox, reminding us of the figurative sacrifices, and announcing their abrogation, yokes himself, with the Man, the Lion, and the Eagle, to the chariot which bears the Conqueror of Earth, the Lamb in His triumph. O Evangelist of the Gentiles, be blessed for having put an end to the long night of our captivity, and warmed our frozen hearts. You were the confidant of the Mother of God, and her happy influence left in your soul that fragrance of virginity which pervaded your whole life and breathes through your writings. With discerning love and silent devotedness you assisted the Apostle of the Gentiles in his great work and remained as faithful to him when abandoned or betrayed, shipwrecked or imprisoned, as in the days of his prosperity. Rightly then does the Church in her Collect apply to you the words spoken by Saint Paul of himself: “In all things we suffer tribulation, are persecuted, are cast down, always bearing about in our body the mortification of Jesus. But this continual dying manifests the life of Jesus in our mortal Your inspired pen taught us to love the Son of Man in His Gospel. Your pencil portrayed Him for us in His Mother’s arms, and a third time you revealed Him to the world by the reproduction of His holiness in your own life.

Preserve in us the fruits of your manifold teaching. Though Christian painters do well to pay you special honour and to learn from you that the ideal of beauty resides in the Son of God and in His Mother, there is yet a more sublime art than that of lines and colours: the art of reproducing in ourselves the likeness of God. This we wish to learn perfectly in your school, for we know from your master Saint Paul that conformity to the image of the Son of God can alone entitle the elect to predestination. Be the protector of the faithful physicians who strive to walk in your footsteps and who, in their ministry of devotedness and charity, rely on your credit with the Author of life. Second their efforts to heal or to relieve suffering and inspire them with holy zeal when they find their patients on the brink of eternity. The world itself, in its decrepitude, now needs the assistance of all who are able, by prayer or action, to come to its rescue. “The Son of Man, when He comes, will He find, think you, faith on Earth?” (Luke xviii. 8). Thus spoke our Lord in the Gospel. But He also said that we ought always to pray and not to faint (Luke xviii. 1) adding, for the instruction of the Church both at this time and always, the parable of the widow whose importunity prevailed upon the unjust judge to defend her cause. “And will not God revenge His elect who cry to Him day and night, and will He have patience in their regard? I say to you that He will quickly revenge them” (Luke xviii. 2‒3).

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Antioch, St. Asclepiades, bishop, one of the celebrated troop of martyrs who suffered gloriously under Macrinus.

In the diocese of Beauvais, St. Justus, martyr, who, being but a boy, was put to death in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Rictiovarus.

At Neocaesarea in Pontus, the holy and learned bishop Athenodorus, brother of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, who underwent martyrdom in the persecution of Aurelian.

In Mesopotamia, on the bank of the Euphrates, St. Julian, hermit.

At Rome, the birthday of St. Paul of the Cross, confessor, founder of the Congregation of the Cross and Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who Blessed Pius IX canonised on account of his remarkable innocence of life and his penitential spirit, assigning the twenty-eighth of April as the day of his festival.

At Rome, St. Tryphonia, at one time wife of the Caesar Decius. She was buried in a crypt near St. Hippolytus.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 OCTOBER – SAINT MARGARET MARY ALACOQUE (Virgin)

Margaret Mary was born in 1647. She spent almost her entire life in prayer and seclusion as a nun of the Order of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Paray-le-Monial in Burgundy, France. In 1673 Our Lord appeared to her in a vision in which He revealed to her His Sacred Heart — a heart pierced, enthroned in flames, surrounded by a crown of thorns and surmounted by a cross. Our Lord told her:

“My Divine Heart is so full of love for men, and especially for you, that, unable any longer to keep within Itself the flames of its burning love, It needs must spread them abroad through means of you, and It must make Itself known unto them in order to enrich them with the treasures which It contains. I make known to you the worth of these treasures. They contain the graces of sanctification and of salvation which are needful to free them from the abyss of perdition. I have chosen you, who are an abyss of unworthiness and ignorance, to carry out this great work, so that it may be seen that every thing has been done by Me.”

Jesus also told Margaret Mary that He desired that the first Friday after the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi be observed in a special manner as a feast of His Heart, by the offering of Holy Communion with a reparation of honour for all the insults and indignities His Heart had received since the institution of the Holy Eucharist. He appeared to Margaret Mary another two times and made the following promises to those who practice devotion to His Sacred Heart:

• I will grant them the graces necessary for their state of life.
• I will establish peace in their families.
• I will comfort them in their afflictions.
• I will be their safe refuge during life, and especially at death.
• I will give abundant blessings on all their undertakings.
• Sinners will find a fountain and a boundless ocean of mercy in My Heart.
• Tepid souls will become fervent.
• Fervent souls will quickly achieve great perfection.
• I will bless every place where the picture of My Sacred Heart is exposed and honoured.
• I will give to priests the power to touch the hardest hearts.
• I will grant to all those who receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance.
• They will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments, and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

With the help of Margaret Mary’s confessor, the Jesuit priest Father Claude de la Colombière, the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus quickly took roots and began to spread. Father Claude died in 1682. Margaret Mary died in 1690. She was beatified by Blessed Pius IX in 1864 and was canonised by Pope Benedict XV in 1920.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Antioch, the birthday of St. Heron, a disciple of blessed Ignatius. Being made bishop after him, he religiously followed his master’s footsteps, and, as a true lover of Christ, died for the flock entrusted to his keeping.

The same day, the martyrdom of the Saints Victor, Alexander and Marian.

In Persia, St. Mamelta, martyr, who, being converted from idolatry to the faith by an angel, was stoned by Gentiles and cast into a deep lake.

At Constantinople, during the reign of Constantine Copronymus, St. Andrew of Crete, a monk, who was often scourged for the worship of holy images, and finally, after having one of his feet cut off, breathed his last.

At Orange in France, St. Florentinus, bishop, who died leaving a reputation for many virtues.

At Capua, St Victor, a bishop, distinguished for erudition and sanctity.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 OCTOBER – SAINT HEDWIG OF SILESIA (Widow)

Hedwig (or Hedwigis) was born in 1174 to Berthold IV, Count of Andechs and Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia. She had four brothers and three sisters. Of these, two brothers became bishops, Ekbert of Bamberg and Berthold of Aquileia, Otto succeeded his father as Duke of Dalmatia and Heinrich became Margrave of Istria. Gertrude married King Andrew II of Hungary and became the mother of Saint Elizabeth (Landgravine of Thuringia), Mechtilde became the Abbess of Kitzingen and Agnes became the unlawful wife of King Philip II of France. From childhood Hedwig was remarkable for her self-control, for at that age she refrained from all childish sports. While still a child she was married to Duke Henry of Silesia with whom she had six children. Later they mutually agreed to lead separate lives of spiritual perfection but Hedwig continued to assist and comfort her husband in the many political troubles he encountered.

After his death Hedwig took the Cistercian habit at the monastery of Trebnitz where she gave herself up to divine contemplation, spending from sunrise until midday assisting at the Divine Office and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. She would neither speak of worldly affairs nor hear them spoken of unless they affected the interests of God or the salvation of souls. All her actions were governed by prudence and it was impossible to find in them anything excessive or disorderly. She was full of gentleness and affability towards all. She triumphed completely over her flesh by afflicting it with fasting, watching and rough garments. She was adorned with the noblest Christian virtues. She was exceedingly prudent in giving counsel and pure and tranquil in mind so as to be a model of religious perfection. She ever strove to place herself below all the nuns, eagerly choosing the lowest offices in the house. She served the poor on her knees, and washed and kissed the feet of lepers, so far overcoming herself as not to be repulsed by their loathsome ulcers.

Hedwig died in 1243 and was canonised in 1267 by Pope Clement IV.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

At the beginning of the thirteenth century the plateau of Upper Asia poured down a fresh torrent of barbarians more terrible than all their predecessors. The one fragile barrier which the Graeco-Slavonian civilisation could oppose to the Mongols had been swept away by the first wave of the invasion. Not one of the States formed under the protection of the Byzantine Church had any prospect for the future. But beyond this Ruthania, which had fallen into dissolution before being conquered, the Roman Church had had time to form a brave and generous people. When the hour arrived, Poland was ready. The Mongols were already inundating Silesia when, in the plains of Liegnitz, they found themselves confronted by an army of 30,000 warriors headed by the Duke of Silesia, Henry the Pious. The encounter was terrible. The victory remained long undecided until at length, by the odious treason of some Ruthanian princes, it turned in favour of the barbarians. Duke Henry and the flower of the Polish knighthood were left on the battlefield. But their defeat was equal to a victory. The Mongols retired exhausted, for they had measured their strength with the soldiers of the Latin Christianity.

It is Poland’s happy lot that at each decisive epoch in its history a Saint appears to point out the road to the attainment of its glorious destiny. Over the battlefield of Liegnitz shines the gentle figure of Saint Hedwig, mother of Duke Henry the Pious. She had retired in her widowhood into the Cistercian monastery of Trebnitz founded by herself. Three years before the coming of the barbarians she had had a revelation touching the future fate of her son. She offered her sacrifice in silence, and far from discouraging the young duke, she was the first to animate him to resistance.

The night following the battle she awoke one of her companions and said to her: “Demundis, know that I have lost my son. My beloved son has fled from me like a bird on the wing. I will never see my son again in this life.” Demundis endeavoured to console her. No courier had arrived from the army and her fears were vain. “It is but too true,” replied the duchess, “but mention it to no-one.” Three days later the fatal news was confirmed. “It is the will of God,” said Hedwig, “what God wills, and what pleases Him, must please us also.” And rejoicing in the Lord: “I thank you, O my God,” said she, raising her hands and eyes to Heaven, “for having given me such a son. He loved me all his life, always treated me with great respect, and never grieved me. I much desired to have him with me on Earth, but I congratulate him with my whole soul, for that by the shedding of his blood he is united with you in Heaven, with you his Creator. I recommend his soul to you, O Lord my God.” No less an example was needed to sustain Poland under the new it had just accepted.

At Liegnitz it had raised up again the sword of Christendom, fallen from the feeble hands of Ruthania. It became henceforth as a watchful sentinel, ever ready to defend Europe against the barbarians. Ninety-three times did the Tartars rush upon Christendom, thirsting for blood and rapine: ninety-three times Poland repulsed them at the edge of the sword, or had the grief to see the country laid waste, the towns burnt down, the flower of the nation carried into captivity. By these sacrifices it bore the brunt of the invasion and deadened the blow for the rest of Europe. As long as blood and tears and victims were required, Poland gave them unstintedly while the other European nations enjoyed the security purchased by this continual immolation.

* * * * *

Daughter of Abraham according to faith, you imitated his heroism. Your first reward was to find a worthy son in him you offered to the Lord. Your example is most welcome in this month in which the Church sets before us the death of Judas Maccabeus. As glorious as his was the death of your Henry, but it was also a fruitful death. Of your six children he alone, the Isaac offered and immolated to God, was permitted to propagate your race. And yet what a posterity is yours, since all the royal families of Europe can claim to be of your lineage! “I will make you increase exceedingly, and I will make nations of you, and kings will come out of you” (Genesis xvii. 6). This promise made to the Father of the faithful is fulfilled once more on your behalf, O Hedwig. God never changes. He has no need to make a new engagement. A like fidelity in any age earns from Him a like reward. May you be blessed by all, O Mother of nations! Extend over all your powerful protection, but above all others, by God’s permission, may unfortunate Poland find by experience that your patronage is never invoked in vain!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In Africa, two hundred and seventy holy martyrs crowned together.

In the same country, the Saints Martinian and Saturnian with their two brothers. In the reign of the Arian king Genseric, while the persecution of the Vandals was raging, they were slaves belonging to a man of that race, and being converted to the faith of Christ by Maxima, a slave like themselves, they manifested their attachment to the truth with such courage, that they were beaten with rough clubs and lacerated in all parts of their bodies to the very bone. Although this barbarous treatment was continued for a considerable period, their wounds were each time healed over night, for which they were at length sent into exile. There they converted many barbarians to the faith and obtained from the Roman Pontiff a priest and other ministers to baptise them. Finally they were condemned to die by being dragged through thorns, with their feet tied behind running chariots. Maxima being miraculously delivered after enduring many tribulations, became the Superioress of a large monastery of virgins, where she ended her days in peace.

Also the Saints Saturninus, Nereus and three hundred and sixty-five other martyrs.

At Cologne, St. Eliphius, martyr, under Julian the Apostate.

Also St. Bercharius, abbot and martyr.

Near Bourges, St. Ambrose, bishop of Cahors.

At Mayence, St. Lullus, bishop and confessor.

At Treves, St. Florentinus, bishop.

At Arbon in Switzerland, St. Gall, abbot, a disciple of blessed Columban.

On Mount Cassino, blessed Pope Victor III, who succeeded Pope St. Gregory VII in the papal chair and threw new lustre round the Holy See by the signal triumph he gained over the Saracens through the divine assistance. The veneration paid to him from time immemorial Pope Leo XIII approved and confirmed.

At Muro in Lucania, St. Gerard Majella, a professed lay brother in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. Pope St. Pius X, on account of his reputation for miracles ranked him among the saints.

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

Thanks be to God.

15 OCTOBER – SAINT TERESA OF AVILA (Virgin and Doctor)

Teresa, the daughter of Alphonsus Sanchez de Cepeda, was born at Avila in Spain in 1515. She was brought up by them in the fear of God, and while still very young she gave admirable promise of her future sanctity. While reading the Acts of the holy martyrs, she was so enkindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit that she ran away from home, resolved to cross over to Africa, and there to lay down her life for the glory of Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls. She was brought back by her uncle but her heart still burned with the desire of martyrdom, which she endeavoured to satisfy by alms-deeds and other works of piety, weeping continually to see herself deprived of that happy lot. On the death of her mother she begged the Blessed Virgin to be a Mother to her, and she gained her request, for, ever afterwards the Mother of God cherished her as a daughter. At the age of 20 she joined the Nuns of Saint Mary of Mount Carmel and spent 18 years in that monastery, enduring severe illnesses and many trials. While she was courageously battling in the ranks of Christian penance, she was deprived of the support of heavenly consolations in which the saints usually abound even on Earth.

Teresa was adorned with angelic virtues and her charity made her solicitous not for her salvation only, but for that of all mankind. Inspired by God, and with the approval of Pope Pius IV, she restored the Carmelite Order to its primitive severity and caused it to be so observed first by women and then by men. The all-powerful blessing of God was evident in this work for, although destitute of all human assistance and opposed by many of the powerful in the world, she was able in her poverty to build 32 monasteries. She wept continually over the blindness of infidels and heretics, and offered to God the voluntary maceration of her body to appease the divine anger on their behalf. Her heart burned like a furnace of divine love, so that once she saw an Angel piercing it with a fiery dart and heard Christ say to her, taking her hand in His: “Henceforward, as my true bride, you will be zealous for my honour.” By our Lord’s advice Teresa made the extremely difficult vow always to do what she conceived to be most perfect. She wrote many works full of divine wisdom, which arouse in the minds of the faithful the desire of their heavenly country.

Whereas Teresa was a pattern of every virtue, her desire of bodily mortification was most ardent. And despite the various illnesses that afflicted her, she chastised herself with sharp disciplines, scourged herself with bundles of nettles and sometimes rolled among thorns. She would often speak to God saying: “O Lord, let me either suffer or die.” She considered that as long as she was absent from the fountain of life, she was dying daily and most miserably. She was remarkable for her gift of prophesy and was enriched to such a degree by our Lord with His divine favours that she would often beg Him to set bounds to His gifts, and not to blot out the memory of her sins so quickly. Consumed by the irresistible fire of divine love rather than by disease, she received the last Sacraments and exhorted her children to peace, charity and religious observance. She died at Alba de Tonnes on the day she had foretold, and her pure soul was seen ascending to God in the form of a dove. She died at the age of 67 in 1582.

Jesus was seen present at her deathbed surrounded by Angels and a withered tree near her cell suddenly burst into blossom. Her body has remained incorrupt to the present day, distilling a fragrant liquor. She was made illustrious by miracles both before and after her death, and was canonised by Pope Gregory XV in 1622. She was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Paul VI in 1970.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Although the Church Triumphant in Heaven and the Church Militant here on Earth appear to be completely separated,” says Bossuet on this feast, “they are nevertheless united by a sacred bond. This bond is charity, which is found in this land of exile as well as in our heavenly country, which rejoices the triumphant Saints and animates those still militant, which, descending from Heaven to Earth, and from Angels to men, causes Earth to become a Heaven, and men to become Angels. For, O holy Jerusalem, happy Church of the first-born whose names are written in Heaven, although the Church your dear sister, who lives and combats here below, ventures not to compare herself with you, she is not the less assured that a holy love unites her to you. It is true that she is seeking and you possess, that she labours and you are at rest, that she hopes and you rejoice. But among all these differences which separate the two so far asunder, there is this at least in common: that what the blessed spirits love, the same we mortals love. Jesus is their life, Jesus is our life. And and amid their songs of rapture and our sighs of sorrow, everywhere are heard to rebound these words of the sacred Psalmist: It is good for me to adhere to my God.”

Of this sovereign good of the Church Militant and Triumphant, Teresa, in a time of decadence, was commissioned to remind the world from the height of Carmel restored by her to its pristine beauty. After the cold night of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the example of her life possessed a power of irresistible attraction which survives in her writings drawing predestined souls after her in the footsteps of the Divine Spouse. It was not, however, by unknown ways that the Holy Spirit led Teresa. Neither did she, the humble Teresa, make any innovations. Long before the Apostle had declared that the Christian’s conversation is in Heaven. And we saw a few days ago how the Areopagite formulated the teaching of the first century. After him we might mention Saint Ambrose, Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, and many other witnesses from all the churches. It has been said, and proved far more ably than we could prove it, that “no state seems to have been more fully recognised by the Fathers than that of perfect union which is achieved in the highest contemplation, and in reading their writings we cannot help remarking the simplicity with which they treat of it. They seem to think it frequent and simply look upon it as the full development of the Christian life” (Spiritual Life and Prayer according to holy Scripture and monastic tradition. Chap. xix Translated by the Benedictines of Stanbrook).

In this, as in all else, Scholasticism followed the Fathers. It asserted the doctrine concerning these summits of Christian life even at a time when the weakness of faith in the people scarcely ever left full scope to divine charity, save in the obscurity of a few unknown cloisters. In its own peculiar form the teaching of the School was unfortunately not accessible to all, and moreover the abnormal character of that troubled epoch affected even the mystics that still remained. It was then that the Virgin of Avila appeared in the Catholic kingdom. Wonderfully gifted by grace and by nature, she experienced the resistances of the latter, as well as the calls of God, and the purifying delays and progressive triumphs of love. The Holy Ghost, who intended her to be a mistress in the Church, led her, if one may so speak, by the classical way of the favours He reserves for the perfect. Having arrived at the mountain of God, she described the road by which she had come, without any pretension but to obey Him who commanded her in the name of the Lord. With exquisite simplicity and unconsciousness of self, she related the works accomplished for her Spouse, made over to her daughters the lessons of her own experience, and described the many mansions of that castle of the human soul in the centre of which he that can reach it will find the holy Trinity residing as in an anticipated heaven. No more was needed: withdrawn from speculative abstractions and restored to her sublime simplicity, the Christian mystic again attracted every mind. Light re-awakened love. The virtues flourished in the Church, and the baneful effects of heresy and its pretended reform were counteracted.

Doubtless Teresa invited no one to attempt, as presumptuously as vainly, to force an entrance into the uncommon paths. But if passive and infused union depends entirely on God’s good pleasure, the union of effective and active conformity to the divine Will, without which the other would be an illusion, may be attained with the help of ordinary grace by every man of good will. Those who possess it “have obtained,” says the Saint, “what it was lawful for them to wish for. This is the union I have all my life desired, and have always asked of our Lord. It is also the easiest to understand, and the most secure.” She added however: “Beware of that excessive reserve which certain persons have, and which they take for humility. If the king deigned to grant you a favour, would it be humility to meet him with a refusal? And when the sovereign Lord of Heaven and Earth deigns to honour my soul with His visit, and comes to load me with graces, and to rejoice with me, should I prove myself humble if I would not answer Him, nor keep Him company, nor accept His gifts, but fled from His presence and left Him all alone? A strange sort of humility is that! Look upon Jesus Christ as a Father, a Brother, a Master, or a Spouse. And treat Him in one or other of these ways. He Himself will teach you which is the one that best pleases Him and that it behoves you to choose. And then, be not so simple as to make no use of it.”

But it is said on all sides: “This way is beset with snares: such a soul was lost in it. Such an one went astray. And another, who ceased not to pray, could not escape a fall... See the inconceivable blindness of the world. It has no anxiety about those thousands of unfortunate creatures who, entirely strangers to the path of prayer, live in the most horrible excess. But if it happens, by a misfortune deplorable no doubt but very rare, that the tempter’s artifices seduce a soul that prays, they take advantage of this to inspire others with the greatest terror, and to deter them from the holy practices of virtue. Is he not the victim of a most fatal error who believes it necessary to abstain from doing good in order to avoid doing evil? You must rise above all these fears. Endeavour to keep your conscience always pure. Strengthen yourself in humility. Tread under foot all earthly things. Be inflexible in the faith of our mother the holy Church, and doubt not, after that, that you are on the right road.” It is too true that “when a soul finds not in herself that vigorous faith, and her transports of devotion do not strengthen her attachment to holy Church, she is in a way full of perils. The Spirit of God never inspires anything that is not conformable to holy Scripture. If there were the slightest divergence, that of itself alone would suffice to prove so evidently the action of the evil spirit, that were the whole world to assure me it was the divine Spirit, I would never believe it.”

But the soul may escape so great a danger by questioning those who can enlighten her. “Every Christian must, when he is able, seek out a learned guide, and the more learned the better. Such a help is still more necessary to persons given to prayer, and in the highest states, they have most need of it. I have always felt drawn to men eminent for doctrine. Some, I grant, may not have experimental knowledge of spiritual ways. But if they have not an aversion for them, they do not ignore them, and by the assistance of holy Scripture, of which they make a constant study, they always recognise the true signs of the good Spirit. The spirit of darkness has a strange dread of humble and virtuous science. He knows it will find him out and thus his stratagems will turn to his own loss... I, an ignorant and useless creature, bless you, O Lord, for these faithful servants of yours who give us light. I have no more knowledge than virtue. I write by snatches, and even then with difficulty. This prevents me from spinning, and I live in a poor house where I have no lack of occupations. The mere fact of being a woman and one so imperfect is sufficient to make me lay down the pen.”

As you will, O Teresa: deliver your soul. Pass beyond that, and with Magdalene, at the recollection of what you call your infidelities, water with your tears the feet of our Lord, recognise yourself in Saint Augustine’s Confessions! Yes, in those former relations with the world, although approved by obedience. In those conversations which were honourable and virtuous: it was a fault in you, who were called to something higher, to withhold from God so many hours which he was inwardly urging you to reserve for Him alone. And who knows where your soul might have been led had you continued longer thus to wound your Spouse? But we, whose tepidity can see nothing in your great sins but what would be perfection in many of us, have a right to appreciate, as the Church does, both your life and your writings. And to pray with her on this joyful day of your feast that we may be nourished with your heavenly doctrine and kindled with your love of God.

According to the word of the divine Canticle, in order to introduce Teresa into His most precious stores the Spouse had first to set charity in order in her soul. Having, therefore, claimed His just and sovereign rights, He at once restored her to her neighbour, more devoted and more loving than before. The Seraph’s dart did not wither nor deform her heart. At the highest summit of perfection she was destined to attain, in the very year of her blessed death, she wrote: “If you love me much, I love you equally, I assure you. And I like you to tell me the same. Oh how true it is that our nature inclines us to wish for return of love! It cannot be wrong, since our Lord Himself exacts a return from us. It is an advantage to resemble Him in something, were it only in this.” And elsewhere, speaking of her endless journeys in the service of her divine Spouse, she says: “It cost me the greatest pain when I had to part from my daughters and sisters. They are detached from everything else in the world, but God has not given them to be detached from me. He has perhaps done this for my greater trial, for neither am I detached from them.” No, grace never depreciates nature which, like itself, is the Creator’s work. It consecrates it, makes it healthy, fortifies it, harmonises it, causes the full development of its faculties to become the first and most tangible homage, publicly offered by regenerated man to Christ His Redeemer. Let any one read that literary masterpiece, the Book of the Foundations, or the innumerable letters written by the seraphic Mother amid the devouring activity of her life. There he will see, whether the heroism of faith and of all virtues, whether sanctity in its highest mystical expression, was ever prejudicial —we will not say to Teresa’s constancy, devotedness or energy — but to that intelligence which nothing could disconcert, swift, lively and pleasant; to that even character, which shed its peaceful serenity on all around; to the delicate solicitude, the moderation, the exquisite tact, the amiable manners, the practical good sense, of this contemplative, whose pierced heart beat only by miracle, and whose motto was: “To suffer or to die.”

To the benefactor of a projected foundation she wrote: “Do not think, sir, that you will have to give only what you expect. I warn you of it. It is nothing to give money. That does not cost us much. But when we find ounelves on the point of being stoned, you, and your son-in-law, and as many of us as have to do with this affair, (as it nearly happened to us at the foundation of Saint Joseph’s at Avila), Oh! then will be the good time!” It was on occasion of this same foundation at Toledo, which was in fact very stormy, that the Saint said: “Teresa and three ducats are nothing. But God, Teresa, and three ducats, there you have everything.”

Teresa had to experience more than mere human privations: there came a time when God Himself seemed to fail her. Like Philip Benizi before her, and after her Joseph Calasanctius and Alphonsus Liguori, she saw herself, her daughters and her sons condemned and rejected in the name and by the authority of the Vicar of Christ. It was one of three occasions long before prophesied when it is “given to the beast to make war with the saints and to overcome them” (Apocalypse xiii. 7). We have not space to relate all the sad circumstances, and why should we do so? The old enemy had then one manner of acting, which he repeated in the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and will always repeat. In like manner, God has but one aim in permitting the evil, viz: to lead His chosen ones to that lofty summit of crucifying union where He who willed to be first to taste the bitter dregs of the chalice, could say more truly and more painfully than any other: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” (Matthew xxvii. 46).

The Beloved, who revealed Himself to you, O Teresa, at death, you had already found in the sufferings of this life. If anything could bring you back to earth, it would be the desire of suffering yet more. “I am not surprised,” says Bossuet speaking in your honour on your feast, “that Jesus willed to die: He owed that sacrifice to His Father. But why was it necessary that He should spend His days, and finally close them, in the midst of such great pains? It is because, being the Man of sorrows, as the Prophet calls Him, He would live only to endure. Or, to express it more forcibly by a beautiful word of Tertullian’s: He wished to be satiated, before dying, with the luxury of suffering: Saginari voluptate patientiae dicessurus volebat. What a strange expression! One would think, according to this Father, that the whole life of our Saviour was a banquet where all the dishes consisted of torments. A strange banquet in the eyes of men, but which Jesus found to His taste! His death was sufficient for our salvation, but death was not enough to satisfy His wonderful appetite for suffering for us. It was needful to add the scourges, and that blood-stained crown that pierced His head, and all the cruel apparatus of terrible tortures. And wherefore living only to endure, He wished to be satiated, before dying, with the luxury of suffering for us. In so far that upon His Cross, seeing in the eternal decrees that there was nothing more for Him to suffer, ‘Ah’ said He, ‘it is done, all is consummated. Let us go forth, for there is nothing more to do in this world,’ and immediately he gave up His soul to His Father.”

If such is the mind of Jesus our Saviour, must it not also be that of His bride, Teresa of Jesus? “She too wished to suffer or to die, and her love could not endure that any other cause should retard her death, save that which deferred the death of our Saviour.” Let us warm our hearts at the sight of this great example. “If we are true Christians, we must desire to be ever with Jesus Christ. Now, where are we to find this loving Saviour of our souls? In what place may we embrace Him? He is found in two places: in His glory and in His sufferings, on His throne and on His Cross. We must, then, in order to be with Him, either embrace Him on His throne, which death enables us to do, or else share in His Cross, and this we do by suffering. Hence we must either suffer or die, if we would never be separated from our Lord. Let us suffer then, O Christians; let us suffer what it pleases God to send us: afflictions, sicknesses, the "miseries of poverty, injuries, calumnies. Let us try to carry, with steadfast courage, that portion of His Cross with which He is pleased to honour us.'”

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O you, whom the Church proposes to her children as a mistress and mother in the paths of the spiritual life, teach us this strong an true Christianity. Perfection, doubtless, cannot be acquired in a day and you did say: “We should be much to be pitied, if we could not seek and find God till we were dead to the world. God deliver us from those extremely spiritual people who, without examination or discretion, would refer everything to perfect contemplation!” But God deliver us also from those mistaken devotions which you called puerile and foolish, and which were so repugnant to the uprightness and dignity of your generous soul. You desired no other prayer than that which would make you grow in virtue. Convince us of the great principle in these matters, that “the prayer best made and most pleasing to God is that which leaves behind it the best results proved by works, and not those sweetnesses which end in nothing but our own satisfaction.” He alone will be saved who has kept the commandments and fulfilled the law, and Heaven, your Heaven, O Teresa, is the reward of the virtues you practised, not of the revelations and ecstasies with which you were favoured.

May your sons be blessed with increase in members, in merit, and in holiness. In all the lands where the Holy Ghost has multiplied your daughters, may their hallowed homes recall those first dove-cotes of the Blessed Virgin where the Spouse delighted to show forth the miracles of His grace. To the triumph of the faith, and the support of its defenders, you directed their prayers and fasts. What an immense field now lies open to their zeal! With them and with you, we ask of God two things: first, that among so many men and so many religious, some may be found having the necessary qualities for usefully serving the cause of the Church, on the understanding that one perfect man can render more services than a great many who are not perfect. Secondly, that in the conflict our Lord may uphold them with His hand, enabling them to escape all dangers, and to close their ears to the songs of sirens... O God, have pity on so many perishing souls. Stay the course of so many evils which afflict Christendom, and without further delay, cause your light to shine in the midst of this darkness!

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, on the Via Aurelia, St. Fortunatus, martyr.

At Cologne, the birthday of three hundred holy martyrs who terminated their combat in the persecution of Maximian.

At Carthage, St. Agileus, martyr, on whose birthday St. Augustine preached his panegyric.

In Prussia, St. Bruno, bishop of the Euthenians and martyr, who, preaching the Gospel in that region, was arrested by impious men, had his hands and feet cut off and was beheaded.

At Lyons, St. Antiochus, bishop, who entered the heavenly kingdom after having courageously fulfilled the duties of the high station to which he had been called.

At Treves, St. Severus, bishop and confessor.

At Strasburg, St. Aurelia, virgin.

At Cracow, St. Hedwiges, duchess of Poland, who devoted herself to the service of the poor, and was renowned for miracles. She was inscribed among the saints by Pope Clement IV, and Pope Innocent XI permitted her feast to be celebrated on the seventeenth of this month.

In Germany, St. Thecla, abbess.

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

Thanks be to God.