21 JUNE – SAINT ALOYSIUS GONZAGA (Confessor)

Aloysius was born in 1568 in the castle of Castiglione near Brescia. His father was Ferdinand Gonzaga, the marquis of Castiglione delle Stivere, and his mother was a lady of honour to Queen Isabella, the wife of King Philip II of Spain. He was so hurriedly baptised on account of danger that he seemed to be born to Heaven almost before he was born to Earth, and he so faithfully kept this his first grace that he seemed to have been well near confirmed in it. From his first dawn of reason, which he used in offering himself to God, he led a more holy life by the day. At Florence, when he was nine years old, he made a vow of perpetual virginity before the altar of the Blessed Virgin on whom he always looked as a Mother, and by a remarkable mercy from God, he kept this vow wholly and without the slightest impure temptation, either of body or of mind, during his entire life.

At the age of 12 Aloysius was put under the spiritual guidance of Saint Charles Borromeo and received his first Holy Communion from him. In 1581 he went with his father and brother to Spain, and was made a page to the infante James, the son of King Philip II. He kept three days as fasts in every week, and that mostly upon a little bread and water. But indeed, he, as it were, fasted every day, for he hardly ever took so much as an ounce weight of food at his meal. Often also, even three times a day, he would, with cords or chains scourge himself to blood. Sometimes he would supply the place of a discipline or hair-shirt, by his own spurs or dog-thongs. He secretly strewed his soft bed with pieces of broken wood or potsherds, that he might find it easier to wake to pray. He passed great part of the night even in the depth of winter clad only in his shirt, either kneeling on the ground, or lying prostrate, when too weary to remain upright, occupied in heavenly contemplation. Sometimes he would keep himself thus immoveable up to five hours until he had spent at least one without any distraction of mind. Such constancy obtained for him the reward of being able to keep his understanding quite concentrated in prayer without any wandering of mind, as though rapt in God, in unbroken ecstasy.

In Spain Aloysius, called by a voice from Heaven, he resolved to join the Society of Jesus. In order that he might adhere to God alone, having overcome his father’s bitter resistance in a sharp contest of three years’ duration, and having procured the transfer of his right to the Marquessate to his brother, he took his vows in Rome in 1585 and received minor Orders. In his noviciate he began to be held as a master of all virtues. His obedience even to the most trifling rules was exact, his contempt of the world was extraordinary, and his hatred of self was implacable. His love of God was so ardent that it gradually undermined his bodily strength. Being commanded, therefore, to divert his mind for a while from divine things, he struggled vainly to distract himself from Him Who met him everywhere. He joyfully ministered to the sick in the public hospitals, and in the exercise of this charity he caught an infection and died in 1591 at the age of 23 years. He was beatified by Pope Gregory XV in 1621 and was canonised by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726. Saint Aloysius is the patron of youth.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“O how exceeding great is the glory of Aloysius, Son of Ignatius! Never could I have believed it, had not my Jesus shown it to me. Never could I have believed that such glory as that was to be seen in Heaven!” Thus cries out Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, whose memory we were celebrating a month ago: she is speaking in ecstasy. From the heights of Carmel from which her ken may reach beyond the heavens, she reveals to Earth the splendour with which the youthful hero of this day shines amid the celestial phalanxes.

Yet short was the life of Aloysius, and nothing had it offered to the superficial gaze of a vast majority save the preliminaries, so to say, of a career broken off in its flower, ere bearing fruit of any kind. God does not account of things as men do: of very slight weight are their appreciations in His Judgement! Even in the case of the Saints themselves, the mere fractional number of years or brilliant deeds goes far less to the filling up of a lifetime, in His view, than does love. The usefulness of a human existence ought surely to be measured as a matter of fact by the amount produced in it of what is lasting. Now, beyond this present time, charity remains alone, fixed forever at that precise degree of growth attained during this life of passage. Little matters it, therefore, if without any long duration or any apparent works, one of God’s Elect have developed in himself a love as great or greater, than some others have done, in the midst of many toils, be they never so holy, and throughout a long career admired of men.

The illustrious Society that gave Aloysius Gonzaga to Holy Church owes the sanctity of her members and the benedictions poured on their works to the fidelity she has ever professed to this important truth which throws so much light on the Christian life. From the very first age of her history it would seem that our Lord Jesus, not content to allow her to assume His own blessed Name, has been lovingly determined so to arrange circumstances in her regard that she may never forget in what it is her real strength lies in the midst of the actively militant career which He has especially opened before her. The brilliant works of Saint Ignatius her Founder, of Saint Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, of Saint Francis Borgia, the noble conquest of Christ’s Humility, manifested truly wondrous holiness in them, and to the eyes of all. But these works of theirs had no other spring nor basis than the hidden virtues of that other glorious triumvirate in which, under the Eye of God alone, by the sole strength of contemplative prayer, Saints Stanislaus Kostka, Aloysius Gonzaga and John Berchmans rose to such a degree of love, and consequently to the sanctity of their heroic Fathers.

Again, it is by Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, the depository of the secrets of the Spouse, that this mystery is revealed to us. In the rapture during which the glory of Aloysius was displayed before her eyes, she thus continues while still under the influence of the Holy Ghost: “Who could ever explain the value and the power of interior acts? The glory of Aloysius is so great, simply because he acted thus, interiorly. Between an interior act and that which is seen, there is no comparison possible. Aloysius, as long as he dwelt on Earth, kept his eye attentively fixed on the Word, and this is just why he is so splendid. Aloysius was a hidden martyr. Whoever loves you, my God, knows you to be so great, so infinitely amiable, that keen indeed is the martyrdom of such a one, to see clearly that he loves you not so much as he desires to love you, and that you are not loved by your creatures, but are offended!.. Thus he became a martyrdom to himself. Oh he did love, while on Earth, wherefore now in Heaven he possesses God in a sovereign plenitude of love. While still mortal, he discharged his bow at the Heart of the Word, and now that he is in Heaven his arrows are all lodged in his own heart. For this communication of the Divinity which he merited by the arrows of his acts of love and of union with God, he now verily and indeed possesses and clasps forever.”

To love God, to allow His grace to turn our heart towards Infinite Beauty which alone can fill it, such is then the true secret of highest perfection. Who can fail to see how this teaching of today’s feast answers to the end pursued by the Holy Ghost ever since His coming down at our glorious Pentecost? This sweet and silent teaching was given by Aloysius wherever he turned his steps during his short career. Born to Heaven in holy Baptism, almost before he was born to Earth, he was a very Angel from his cradle. Grace seemed to gush from him into those who bore him in their arms, filling them with heavenly sentiments. At four years of age he followed the Marquess, his father, into the camps, and thus some unconscious faults which had not so much as tarnished his innocence became for the rest of his life the object of a penitence that one would have thought rather beseemed some grievous sinner. He was but nine years old when, being taken to Florence there to be perfected in the Italian language, he became the edification of the Court of duke Francis: but though the most brilliant in Italy, it failed to have any attraction for him and rather served to detach him more decisively than ever from the world. During this period, likewise, at the feet of the miraculous picture of the Annunziata, he consecrated his virginity to Our Lady.

The Church herself, in the Breviary Lessons, will relate the other details of this sweet life in which, as is ever the case with souls fully docile to the Holy Ghost, heavenly piety never marred what was of duty in earthly things. It is just because he really was a model for all youth engaged in study that Aloysius has been proclaimed Protector thereof. Of a singularly quick intelligence, as faithful to work as to prayer in the midst of the gay turmoil of city life, he mastered all the sciences then exacted of one of his rank. Very intricate and ticklish negotiations of worldly interest were more than once confided to his management: and thus was opportunity afforded of realising to what a high degree he might have excelled in government affairs. Here again, he comes forward as an example to such as have friends and relatives who would fain hold them back when on the threshold of the religious state under pretense of the “great good they may do in the world, and how much evil they may prevent.” Just as though the Most High must be contented with useless non-entities in that select portion of men He reserves to Himself amid nations. Or, as though the aptitudes of the richest and most gifted natures may not be turned all the better, and all the more completely to God their very principle, precisely because they are the most perfect. On the other hand, neither State nor Church ever really loses anything by this fleeing to God, this apparent throwing away of the best subjects! If, in the old Law, Jehovah showed Himself jealous in having the very best of all kinds of goods offered at His altar, His intention was not to impoverish His people. Whether admitted or not, it is a certain fact that the chief strength of society, the fountain-head of benediction and protection to the world, is always to be found in holocausts well pleasing to the Lord.

*  *  * * 

VENERABLE old age is not that of long time, nor counted by the number of years, but the understanding of man is grey hairs and a spotless life is old age (Wisdom iv. 8). And therefore, Aloysius, you hold a place of honour amid the ancients of your people. Glory be to the holy Society in the midst of which you, in so short a space, fulfilled a long course. Obtain that she may ever continue to treasure, both for herself and others, the teaching that flows from your life of innocence and love. Holiness is the one only thing when one’s career is ended that can be called true gain, and holiness is acquired from within. External works count with God only in as far as the interior breath that inspires them is pure. If occasion for exercising works be wanting, man can always supply that deficiency by drawing near to the Lord in the secret of his soul, as much and even more than he could have done by their means. Thus did you see and understand the question. And therefore prayer which held you absorbed in its ineffable delights succeeded in making you equal to the very martyrs. What a priceless treasure was not prayer in your eyes, what a Heaven-lent boon, and one that is indeed in our reach too, just as it was in yours!

But in order to find in it, as you expressed it, the short cut to perfection, perseverance is needed and a careful elimination from the soul, by a generous self repression, of every emotion which is not of God. For how could muddy or troubled waters mirror forth the image of Him who stands on their brink? Even so, a soul that is sullied, or a soul that without being quite a slave of passion, is not yet mistress of every earthly perturbation, can never reach the object of prayer, which is to reproduce within her the tranquil Image of her God. The reproduction of the one great Model was perfect in you, and hence it can be seen how nature (as regards what she has of good), far from losing or suffering anything, rather gains by this process of recasting in the divine crucible. Even in what touches the most legitimate affections you looked at things no longer from the earthly point of view, but beholding all in God, far were the things of sense transcended with all their deceptive feebleness, and wondrously did your love grow in consequence. For instance, what could be more touching than your sweet attentions, not only on Earth, but even from your throne in Heaven, for that admirable woman given to you by our Lord to be your earthly mother, where may tenderness be found equal to the affectionate effusions written to her by you in that letter of a Saint to the mother of a Saint, which you addressed to her shortly before quitting your earthly pilgrimage? And still more, what exquisite delicacy did you evince in making her the recipient of your first miracle, worked after your entrance into glory! Furthermore, the Holy Ghost by setting you on fire with the flame of divine charity, developed also within you immense love for your neighbour: necessarily so, because charity is essentially one, and well was this proved when you were seen sacrificing your life so blithely for the sick and the pestiferous.

Cease not, dearest Saint, to aid us in the midst of so many miseries. Lend a kindly hand to each and all. Christian youth has a special claim on your patronage, for it is by the Sovereign Pontiff himself that this precious portion of the flock are gathered around your throne. Direct their feeble steps along the right path, so often enticed as they are, to turn into dangerous by-roads. Be prayer and earnest toil for God’s dear sake, their stay and safeguard. Be they illumined in the serious matter before them of the choosing a state of life. We beseech you, dearest Saint, exert strong influence over them during this most critical period of their opening years so that they may truly experience all the potency of that fair privilege which is ever yours, of preserving in your devout clients the angelical virtue! Yes, furthermore, Aloysius, look compassionately on those who have not imitated your innocence, and obtain that they may yet follow you in the example of your penance: such is the petition of Holy Church this day.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Demetria, virgin, who was crowned with martyrdom under Julian the Apostate.

At Syracuse in Sicily, the birthday of the holy martyrs Rufinus and Martia.

In Africa, the holy martyrs Cyriacus and Apollinaris.

At Mayence, St. Alban, martyr, who was made worthy of the crown of life after long labours and severe combats.

The same day, St. Eusebius, bishop of Samosata, who, in the time of the Arian emperor Constantius, disguised himself under a military dress and visited the churches of God to confirm them in the faith. By Valens he was banished into Thrace, but when peace was restored to the Church in the reign of Theodosius, he was recalled. As he again visited the churches, an Arian woman struck him with a tile, which fractured his skull and made him a martyr.

At Iconium in Lycaonia, St. Terentius, bishop and martyr.

At Pavia, St. Urciscenus, bishop and confessor.

At Tongres, St. Martin, bishop.

In the diocese of Evreux, St. Leutfrid, abbot.

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

Thanks be to God.

21 JUNE – FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

 

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The fourth Sunday after Pentecost was called for a long period in the West the Sunday of Mercy because, formerly, there was read upon it the passage from Saint Luke beginning with the words: “Be merciful, as your Father is merciful.” But this Gospel having been since assigned to the Mass of the first Sunday after Pentecost, the Gospel of the fifth Sunday was made that of the fourth, the Gospel of the sixth became that of the fifth, and so on up to the twenty-third. The change we speak of was, however, not introduced into many Churches till a very late period, and it was not universally received till the sixteenth century.

While the Gospels were thus brought forward a week — in almost the whole series of these Sundays, the Epistles, Prayers and the other sung portions of the ancient Masses were, with a few exceptions, left as originally drawn up. The connection which the liturgists of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries had fancied they found between the Gospel and the rest of the Liturgy for these Sundays was broken. Thus the Church spared not those favourite views of explanations which were at times far-fetched, and yet she did not intend by that to condemn those writers, nor to discourage her children from perusing their treatises, for, as the holy reflections they contained were frequently suggested by the authority of the ancient Liturgies, such reading would edify and instruct. e are quite at liberty, then, to turn their labours to profit. Let us only keep this continually before us — that the chief connection existing between the several portions of the proper of each Mass for the Sundays after Pentecost consists in the unity of the Sacrifice itself.

In the Greek Church, there is even less pretension to anything approaching methodical arrangement in the Liturgy of these Sundays. On the morrow of Pentecost they begin the reading of the Gospel of Saint Matthew and continue it, chapter after chapter, up to the feast of the Exaltation of the holy Cross in September. Saint Luke follows Saint Matthew, and is read in the same way. The weeks and Sundays of this Season are simply named according to the Gospel of each day, or they take the name of the Evangelist whose text is being read: thus, our first Sunday after Pentecost is called by them the first Sunday of Saint Matthew. The one we are now keeping is their fourth of Saint Matthew.

In a former volume we have spoken of the importance of the eighth day as the Christian substitute for the seventh of the Jewish Sabbath, and as the holy day of the new people of God. The Synagogue, by God’s command, kept holy the Saturday, or the Sabbath —and this in honour of God’s resting after the six days of the creation. But the Church, the Bride of Jesus, is commanded to honour the work of her Spouse. She allows the Saturday to pass — it is the day of her Lord’s rest in the sepulchre: but now that she is illumined with the brightness of the Resurrection, she devotes to the contemplation of His work the first day of the week, the Sunday: it is the day of Light, for on it He called forth material Light (which was the first manifestation of order amid chaos) and, on the same day, He that is the Brightness of the Father (Hebrews i. 3) and the Light of the world (John viii. 12) rose from the darkness of the tomb.

So important, indeed, is the Sunday’s liturgy which every week is entrusted to honour such profound mysteries, that for a long time the Roman Pontiffs kept down the number of Feasts which were above the rank of semi-doubles, that thus the Sunday, which is a semi-double, might not be disturbed. It was not till the second half of the seventeenth century that this discipline of reserve was relaxed. Then it was that it had to give way in order thereby to meet the attacks made by the Protestants and their allies the Jansenists, against the cult of the Saints. Need was of reminding the Faithful that the honour paid to the servants of God detracts not from the glory of their Master, that the cult of the Saints, the Members of Christ, is but the consequence and development of that which is due to Christ their Head. The Church owed it to her Spouse to make a protest against the narrow views of these innovators who were really aiming at lessening the glory of the Incarnation by thus denying its grandest consequences. It was, therefore, by a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit that the Apostolic See then permitted several feasts, both old and new, to be ranked as of a double rite. To strengthen the solemn condemnation she had pronounced against the heretics of that period, she wisely adopted the course of, from time to time, allowing the Feasts of Saints to be kept on Sundays, although these latter were considered as being especially reserved for the celebration of the leading mysteries of our Catholic faith, and for the obligatory attendance of the people.

The Sunday, or Dominical, Liturgy was not, however, altogether displaced by the celebration of any particular feast on the Lord’s Day. For no matter however solemn that feast, falling on a Sunday, may be, a commemoration must always he made of the Sunday by adding its Prayers to those of the occurring Feast, and by reading its proper Gospel, instead of that of Saint John at the end of Mass. Neither let us forget that after the assisting at the solemn Mass and the Canonical Hours, one of the best means for observing the precept of keeping holy the Sabbath day is our own private meditation on the Epistle and Gospel appointed by the Church for each Sunday.

Epistle – Romans viii. 18‒23

Brethren, the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared to the glory to come that will be revealed in us. For the expectation of the creature waits for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him that made it subject, in hope: because the creature also itself will be delivered from the servitude of corruption, to the liberty of the glory of the children of God. For we know that every creature groans and travails in pain even till now. And not only it, but ourselves also, who have the first, fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves, groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God; the redemption of our body.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The first fruits of the Spirit are the grace and virtues which He has put into our souls as the earnest of salvation and the germ of future glory. Our faith confirms our possession of these divine pledges and regenerate human nature, even amid all the trials of this life, is consoled at the very thought of the noble destiny to which it is called. Satan may use his fiercest efforts to regain his lost ground, and the soul may have many and frequent battles to fight for the holding what was once under the dominion of the enemy, but Christian hope is an armour of Heaven’s own making. Hope enters in even within the veil (Hebrews vi. 19), and then she comes telling the combatant about the disproportion here mentioned by the Apostle between the fatigues of the march here below, and the bliss which is to reward our fidelity in the happy land above. He has the promises of God, and the marvellous dealings of the Paraclete in his regard, both in the past and now — all justifying his expectations of the future glory that will then be revealed, be realised, in him. The very Earth he dwells on, which now so often tyrannises over him and deceives his senses — yes, this very Earth urges him to fix his heart on something far better than herself. She even seems to share in his hopes. Saint Paul tells us so in today’s Epistle: the wild upheavings, the restless changes of material creation, are so many voices clamouring for the destruction of sin, and for the final and total triumph over the corruption which followed sin.

The present condition of this world, therefore, furnishes a special and most telling motive inviting us to the holy virtue of hope. Only they can find anything strange in such teaching who have no idea of how man’s being raised up to the supernatural order was, from the beginning, a real ennobling of the world which was made for man’s service. Men of this stamp have each their own way of explaining God’s creation, but the truth which explains everything both on Earth and in Heaven — the divine axiom which is the principle and reason of everything that has been made — is this: that God, who, of necessity, does everything for His own glory, has, of His own free choice, appointed that the perfection of this His glory will consist in the triumph of His love by the ineffable mystery of divine union realised in His creature. To bring this divine union about is, consequently, by God’s gracious will, not only the one sole end, but, moreover, is the one only law, the vital and constitutive law, of creation.

When the Spirit moved over chaos He adapted the informal matter to the designs of infinite love. Thereby the various elements, and the countless atoms, of the world that was in preparation, really derived from this infinite love the principle of their future development and power. They received it as their one single mission to co-operate, each in its own way, with the Holy Spirit: that is, co-operate in leading man, the creature chosen by Eternal Wisdom, to the proposed glorious end — union with God. Sin broke the alliance and would have destroyed the world from the very fact of sin’s taking from it the purpose of its existence, had it not been for the incomprehensible patience of the God it outraged, and the marvellous renovations of the original plan achieved by the Spirit of love. A violent state, the state of struggle and expiation has now been substituted for what, in the primal design of the Creator, was to be the effortless advance of the king of creation to His grand destiny, the spontaneous growth of, what some one has called man, the god in the bud. Divine union is still offered to the world but, at what a cost of trouble and travail!

We may still enjoy the eternal music of triumph and all the joys of the divine nuptial banquet but what a long prelude of sighs and sobs must precede! Men, who recognise no other law than that of the flesh, may be as deaf and as indifferent as they please to the teachings of positive revelation, but mere matter will go on ever condemning their materialism. Nature, which they pretend to acknowledge as their only authority, will continue to preach the supernatural with her thousand mouths, and will preach it in every nook of the earth. And creation, disturbed though it be, and turned astray by the Fall of Adam, will still keep proclaiming all the louder because it is in suffering — that the fallen king whom it was intended to serve has a destiny far beyond all finite things. You mysterious sufferings of creatures, which the Apostle here calls your groanings, may we not name you, as one of the poets (Aeneas) did, and speak of you as the tears of things? Truly, you are like the soul of music of this land of trial. We have but to listen to your sweet plaintive sounds, and let you speak your eloquence, and you lead us to Him who is the source of all beauty and love. The pagan world heard your voice, but its philosophers would have it that you meant pantheism! The Holy Ghost had not yet begun His reign. He alone could explain to us the strange language of nature, and her vehement aspirations, all of which had been put into her by Himself. All is now made clear to us: the Spirit of the Lord has filled the whole earth (Wisdom i. 7), the divine Witness who giveth us assurance that we are the sons of God (Romans vii. 16) has carried His precious testimony to the furthest limits of creation, for all creation thrills with expectancy, impatient to see the coming of that glorious day which is to be the revelation of the glory that belongs to these sons of God. It is on their account that they too have had to suffer. Together with them they will be set free, and will share in the brightness of their coronation day. Saint John Chrysostom compares the Earth to “the nurse who has brought up the king’s son. When he succeeds to his father’s kingdom, she too is made all the better off... It is much the same with all men: when a son of theirs is to appear in the splendour of some new dignity, they let his very servants wear richer suits. So will God vest in incorruption every creature when the day of the deliverance and glory of His children will come.”

Gospel – Luke v. 1‒11

At that time, when the crowd pressed upon Jesus to hear the word of God, He stood by the Lake of Genesareth. And He saw two ships standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets; and going up into one of the ships that was Simon’s, He desired him to draw back a little from the land: and sitting, He taught the multitudes out of the ship. Now when He had ceased to speak, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.” And Simon, answering, said to Him, “Master, we have laboured all night and have taken nothing, but at your word I will let down the net.” And when they had done this they enclosed a very great multitude of fishes and their net broke, and they beckoned to their partners that were in the other ship to come and help them; and they came and filled both the ships, so that they were almost sinking. Which, when Simon Peter saw, he fell down at Jesus’s knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” For he was wholly astonished, and all who were with him, at the draught of fishes they had taken; and so were also James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. And Jesus said to Simon, “Fear not: from now on you will catch men.” And having brought their ships to land, leaving all things, they followed Him.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Gueranger:

The prophecy and promise made by Jesus to Simon the son of John is now fulfilled. We were in amazement on the day when the Holy Ghost came down at the success which attended Peter’s first fishing for men. He cast in his nets, and it was the choicest of the sons of Israel that he took and offered them to the Lord Jesus. But the barque of Peter was not to be long confined within Jewish waters. Insignificant as it seems to human views, the ship is now sailing on the high seas. It rides on the deep waters, which are, so Saint John tells us, peoples and nations (Apocalypse xvii. 15). The boisterous wind, the surging billows, the storm, no longer terrifies the boat-man of Lake Tiberias, for he knows that he has on board Him who is the Master of the waves, Him, that is, who has given the deep as a garment to clothe the earth (Psalms ciii. 6). Endued with power from on high (Luke xxiv. 49), Peter has cast his net, the apostolic preaching, all over the great ocean: for it is large as is the world, and is to bring the sons of the great fish the divine ICTHUS to the eternal shore. Grand indeed is the work assigned to Peter. Though fellow-labourers have been joined to him in his divine enterprise, yet does he preside over them all as their undisputed head, as master of the ship where Jesus commands in person and directs all the operations to be done for the world’s salvation. Today’s Gospel very opportunely prepares us for and sums up the teachings included in the Feast of the Prince of the Apostles, which always comes close on the fourth Sunday after Pentecost. For that very reason, we leave for the Feast the detailed enumeration of the glories inherent in the Vicar of Christ and limit ourselves, for the present, to the consideration of the other mysteries contained in the text before us.

The Evangelists have left us the account of two miraculous fishings made by the Apostles in presence of their divine Lord: one of these is related by Saint Luke, and the Church proposes it to our considerations for this Sunday. The other, with its exquisite symbolism, was put before us by the Beloved Disciple on Easter Wednesday. The former of these, which took place while our Lord was still in the days of His mortal life, merely describes that the net was cast into the water just as it served the fishermen’s purpose. That it broke with the multitude of the draught, but no notice is taken, by the Evangelist, as to either the number or kind of the fish. in the second it is our Risen Lord who tells the fishermen, His disciples, that it is to be on the right side of their boat that the net must be let down. It catches, and without breaking, a hundred-and-fifty great fishes. These are brought to the shore where Jesus was waiting for them that He might join them with the mysterious bread and fish that He Himself had already got ready for His labourers (John xxi. 1-13).

The Fathers are unanimous in the interpretation of these two fishings — they represent the Church, first of all, the Church as she now is, and next, as she is to be in eternity. As she now is, the Church is the multitude without distinction between good and bad. But afterwards, that is, after the Resurrection, the good alone will compose the Church, and their number will be forever fixed. “The kingdom of Heaven,” says our Lord, “is like a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes; which, when it was filled, they drew out, they chose out the good into vessels, but the bad they cast forth” (Matthew xiii. 47, 48).

To speak with Saint Augustine, the fishers of men have cast forth their nets. They have taken the multitude of Christians which we see in wonderment. They have filled the two ships with them, the two peoples, Jew and Gentile. But what is this we are told? The multitude weighs down the ships, even to the risk of sinking them. It is what we witness now, the pressing and mingled crowd of the Baptised is a burden to the Church. Many Christians there are who live badly: they are a trouble to, and keep back, the good. Worse than these, there are those who tear the nets by their schisms or their heresies: they are fish which are impatient of the yoke of unity and will not come to the banquet of Christ. They are pleased with themselves. Under pretext that they cannot live with the bad, they break the net which kept them in the apostolic track and they die far off the shore. In how many countries have they not thus broken the great net of salvation? The Donatists in Africa, the Arians in Egypt, Montanus in Phrygia, Manes in Persia. And since their times, how many others have excelled in the work of rupture! Let us not imitate their folly. If grace have made us holy, let us be patient with the bad while living in this world’s waters. Let the sight of them drive us neither to live as they do, nor to leave the Church. The shore is not far off, where those on the right, or the good, will alone be permitted to land, and from which the wicked will be repulsed, and cast into the abyss.

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Besançon in France, the holy martyrs Ferreol, priest, and Ferrution, deacon, who were sent by the blessed bishop Irenaeus to preach the word of God, and after being exposed to various torments under the judge Claudius, were put to the sword.

At Tarsus in Cilicia, in the reign of the emperor Diocletian, the holy martyrs Quiricus, and Julitta, his mother. Quiricus, a child of three years, seeing his mother cruelly scourged in the presence of the governor Alexander, and crying bitterly, was killed by being dashed against the steps of the tribunal. Julitta, after being subjected to severe stripes and grievous torments, closed the career of her martyrdom by decapitation.

At Mayence, the passion of the Saints Aurens, and Justina, his sister, and other martyrs, who, being at Mass in church, were massacred by the Huns then devastating Germany.

At Amathonte in Cyprus, St. Tychon, a bishop in the time of Theodosius the Younger.

At Lyons, the demise of blessed Aurelian, bishop of Arles.

At Nantes in Brittany, St. Similian, bishop and confessor.

At Meissen in Germany, St. Benno, bishop.

In the village of La Louvesc, formerly of the diocese of Vienne in Dauphiny, the decease of St. John Francis Regis, confessor, of the Society of Jesus, distinguished by his zeal for the salvation of souls, and by his patience. He was placed on the list of saints by Pope Clement XII.

In Brabant, St. Lutgard, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 JUNE – SAINT JULIANA FALCONIERI (Virgin)

Juliana of the noble family of Falconieri was the daughter of the illustrious nobles Chiarissimo and Reguardata Falconieri who founded and built the Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation, still to be seen in Florence. When she was born in 1270 both were already advanced in years and up to this, quite childless. From her very cradle, she gave tokens of the holiness of life to which she afterwards attained. And from the lisping of her baby lips was caught the sweet sound of the names of Jesus and Mary. As she entered on her girlhood, she delivered herself up entirely to the pursuit of Christian virtues, and so excellently shone therein that her uncle, the blessed Alexius, scrupled not to tell her mother that she had given birth to an Angel rather than to a woman. So modest, indeed, was her countenance, and so pure her soul from the slightest speck of indiscretion, that she never in her whole life raised her eyes to a man’s face, and that the very mention of sin made her shiver; and when the story of a grievous crime was told her, she dropped down fainting and almost lifeless.

Before she had completed her fifteenth year, she renounced her inheritance, although a richone, and all prospect of earthly marriage, solemnly making to God a vow of virginity, in the hands of St.Philip Benizi, from whom .she was the first to receive the religious habit of what are called the “Mantellatoo”. Juliana’s example was followed by many young women of noble families, and even her own mother put herself under her daughter's instructions. Thus in a little while, their number increased, and she became foundress of the Order of the Mantellatffi, to whom she gave a rule of life, full of wisdom and holiness. St. Philip Benizi having thorough knowledge of her virtues, being at the point of death, thought that to none better than to her, could he leave the care not only of the women but of the whole Order of Servites, of which he was the propagator and head; yet of herself she ever deemed most lowly; even when she was the mistress of others, ministering to her sisters in the meanest offices of the household work. She passed whole days in incessant prayer, and was often rapt in spirit; and the remainder of her time, she toiled to make peace among the citizens, who were at variance amongst themselves; to recall sinners from evil courses; and to nurse the sick, to cure whom she would sometimes use even her tongue to remove the matter that ran from their sores, and so healed them. It was her custom to afflict her body with whips, knotted cords, iron girdles, watching, and sleeping upon the bare ground. Upon four days in the week, she ate very sparingly, and that only of the coarsest food; on the other two she contented herself with the Bread of Angels alone, except Saturday whereon she took only bread and water.

This hardship of life caused her to fall ill of a stomach complaint, which increasing,brought her to the point of death, when she was seventy years of age. She bore the daily sufferings of this long illness with a smiling face and a brave heart; the only thing of which she was heard to complain being, that her stomach was so weak, that unable to retain food, she was withheld, by reverence for the holy Sacrament, from the Eucharistic Table. Finding herself in these straits she begged the Priest to bring her the Divine Bread, and as she dared not take It into her mouth, to put It as near as possible to her heart exteriorly. The Priest did as she wished, and to the amazement of all present, the Divine Bread at once disappeared from sight, and at the same instant, a smile of joyous peace crossed the face of Juliana, and she gave up the ghost. This matter seemed beyond all belief, until the virginal body was being laid out in the accustomed manner; for then there was found, upon the left side of the bosom, a mark like the stamp of a seal, reproducing the form of the Sacred Host, the mould of which was one of those that bear a figure of Christ crucified. The report of this and of other wonders procured for Juliana a reverence not only from Florence, but from all parts of the Christian world, which reverence so increased through the course of four hundred years, that Pope Benedict XIII commanded a proper Office in her honour to be celebrated by the whole Order of Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and Clement XII. the munificent Protector of the same Order, finding new signs and wonders shedding lustre upon her glory every day, inscribed the name of Juliana upon the catalogue of holy virgins in 1737.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

This day witnesses the close of the pilgrimage of one, who was miraculously supplied with the divine Viaticum: Juliana presents herself at heaven’s gate, showing upon her heart, the impress of the Sacred Host. The lily emblazoned on the city escutcheon of Florence, glistens with fresh radiance today, for it was she gave birth to our Saint, as well as to so many others, some of whom have already beamed across our path, and some are about to follow,—all of them brilliant in sublime virtues practised within the ancient walls of this “City of flowers”, under the delighted glance and the urging influence of the Spirit of Love. But what shall we say of the glory of yonder mountains, that nobly crown this fair city, —a diadem lovely in men’s eyes and still more so, to Angels’ gaze? What, of Vallombrosa, and further in the blue distance, of Camaldoli, of Alberno? —all sacred fortresses, at whose foot hell trembling howls—all sacred reservoirs of choicest grace, guarded by Seraphim, whence flow in gushing streams more abundant and more pure than Arno’s tide, living waters of salvation on all the smiling land around! In 1233, just thirty seven years previous to Juliana’s birth, Florence seemed destined to be, under the holy influence of such a neighbourhood, a very paradise of sanctity; so common did the higher Christian life become—of such everyday occurrence were supernatural prodigies. The Mother of Divine Grace was then multiplying her gifts. Once on a certain festival of the Assumption, seven of the citizens the most distinguished for nobility of blood, fortune, and public offices of trust, were suddenly inflamed by a heavenly desire to consecrate themselves unreservedly to the service of Our Lady. Presently, as these men passed along, bidding adieu to the world, babes at the breast cried out, all over the city: “Behold the Servants of the Virgin Mary!” Among the innocents whose tongue was thus unloosed to announce divine mysteries, was the new-born son of the illustrious family of Benizii, he was named Philip and had first seen the light on the very feast of the Assumption, whereon Mary had just founded for her glory and that of her Divine Son, the Order of the Servites. We shall have to return to this child, who was to be the chief propagator of the new order; for holy Church celebrates his birthday into heaven, on the morrow of the Octave of the Assumption. He was destined to be Juliana’s spiritual father. In the meanwhile, the Seven invited by Mary to the festival of penitence, who all persevering faithful unto death, are inscribed on the catalogue of the Saints—had retired three leagues from Florence to the desert of Monte Senario. There Our Lady, during seven years, formed them to the great work, of which they were the predestined though unwitting instruments.

According to His wont, the Holy Ghost, during all this preparatory season, though of long duration, —kept from them every idea save that of their own santification, employing them in the mortification of the senses, and in a spirit of exclusive contemplation of the sufferings of Our Lord and those of His divine Mother. Two amongst them, daily came down to the city to beg bread for themselves and their companions. One of these illustrious mendicants was Alexius Falconieri, the most eager for humiliations, amongst all the seven. His brother who, still continuing in the world, held one of the highest positions amongst the citizens, was in every way worthy of this blessed man, and paid homage to his heroic self-abasement. He likewise took an honourable share in the united gift bestowed, with the concurrence of all classes of these religious citizens, upon the solitaries of Monte Senario, whereby a magnificent Church was added to the poor retreat, they had been induced to accept, for greater convenience, at the gates of Florence. To honour the mystery wherein their Sovereign Lady declared herself to be the humble servant of the Lord,—this church and monastery of the Servites of Mary received the title of the “Annunziata.” Among the marvels which wealth and art, in succeeding ages, have lavished upon its interior, the principal treasure which puts all the rest in the shade, is a primitive fresco of the angelical salutation, dating from the lifetime of the founders—the painter whereof, more devout to Mary, than skilful with his pencil, deserved to be aided by the hands of Angels. Signal favours obtained without interruption, from this sacred picture, still attract flocks of devout visitors. If the city of the Medici and of the Tuscan Grand Dukes, though swallowed up by the universal brigandage of the house of Savoy, has preserved better than many others, the lively piety of better days—she owes it to this her ancient Madonna, as well as to her numerous saints, who seem gathered within her walls, to serve as a cortege of honour for Our Lady.

These details seem necessary to throw light on the abridged account given in the Liturgy, regarding our Saint. Juliana, born of a sterile mother and of a father advanced in years, was the reward of the zeal displayed for the Annunziata, by her father, Carissimo Falconieri. Beside this picture of the Madonna was she to spend her life and to yield up her last breath; close by, her sacred relics now repose. Educated by her uncle, Saint Alexius, in the love of Mary and of humility, she devoted herself from her very youth to the Order founded by Our Lady; ambitioning no title save one, that of Oblate, which would entail upon her the serving, in the lowest rank, the Servites of God’s Mother: for this reason, she was later on, acknowledged to be the foundress of the Third Order of the Servites, and was Superioress of the first community of these female tertiaries, surnamed “Mantellatae.” But her influence extended further still, so that the whole Order, both the men and the women, alike hail her as their Mother; for it was indeed she who put the finishing stroke to the work of its foundation, and gave it the stability it has been possessed of for centuries.

The Order which had become marvellously extended during forty years of miraculous existence and under the government of Saint Philip Benizi, was at that moment passing through a dangerous crisis, the more to be feared because the storm had taken rise in Rome itself. There was question of everywhere carrying into effect, the canons of. The Councils of Lateran and Lyons, prohibiting the introduction of new Orders into the Church; now,. the institute of the Servites being posterior to the first of these Councils, Innocent V was resolved on its suppression. The superiors had already been forbidden to receive any novice to Profession or to Clothing; and whilst awaiting the definitive sentence, the goods of the Order were considered, beforehand, as already devolved on the Holy See. Philip Benizi was about to die, and Juliana was but fifteen years of age. Nevertheless, enlightened from on high, the Saint hesitated not: he confided the Order to Juliana’s hands, and so slept in the peace of our Lord. The event justified his hopes: after various catastrophes which it were long to relate, Benedict XI, in 1304, gave to the Servites the definitive sanction of the Church. So true is it, that in the Counsels of Divine Providence, nor rank, nor age, nor sex, count for aught! The simplicity of a soul that has wounded the Heart of the Spouse, is stronger in her humble submission, than highest authority; and her unknown prayer prevails over powers established by God Himself.

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To serve Mary, was the only nobility that had any attraction in your eyes, Juliana! to share her Dolours, was the only recompense which your generous soul in its lowliness, could ambition. Your desires were granted: but from that lofty Throne where She reigns as Queen of Angels and of men, She who confessed Herself the Handmaid of the Lord and beheld God to have regard to her humility—was also pleased to exalt you, like herself, above all the mighty ones. Counteracting that hidden silence wherein you would fain have had the human brilliancy of your pedigree forgotten and lost for ever —she has made your holy glory eclipse the fair honour of your sires, in Florence; so that if the name of Falconieri has now a world-wide fame, it is on your account, humble Tertiary, lowly Servant of the Servites of Our Lady! Further still: in that fair Home of true Nobility, in yonder City of God, where ranks are distinguished by the varying degree of radiance shed by the Lamb on the brow of each one of the Elect—you shine resplendent with an aureola, which is nothing less than a participation of Mary’s glory. Just as she acted in regard of Holy Church, after the Ascension of our Lord, so did you in respect of the Servite Order; for while leaving to others, such action as appears externally, and such authority as must rule souls—you were nonetheless, in your lowliness, the real mistress and mother of the new Family, formed of the men and the women chosen by God for that Order. More than once, in other centuries likewise, has the divine Mother been pleased thus to glorify her faithful imitatrices, by making them become, beyond all calculation of their own, faithful copies of herself. Just, as in the family confided to Peter by her Divine Son, Our Lady was the most submissive of all others to the rule of Christ’s Vicar and that of the other Apostles; whereas all knew right well that she was their Queen, and the very fountain-head of the graces of consolidation and growth, that were inundating the Church—so, Juliana, the weakness of your sex and age in no way restrained a strong religious Order, from proclaiming you its light and its glory. This was because the Most High, ever liberal in His gifts, was pleased to grant to your youthfulness, results which He refused to the greater maturity, to the genius—yes, to the sanctity of your Father, Saint Philip Benizi!

Continue, then, to shield your devout family of Servites of Mary: stretch forth your protecting mantle over every religious Order severely tried in these our days. May Florence, through your aid, ever hold in most precious remembrance the favours lavished on her by Our Lady and the Saints, because of her Faith, in the good days of old. May Holy Church ever have more and more cause to sing your power, as a Bride, over the Heart of the Divine Spouse. In return for the signal grace He bestowed on you, as the crown of your life, and the consummation of His Love in you, be propitious to us in our last struggle: obtain for us that we may not die unhelped by the reception of the holy Viaticum. The whole of this portion of the Cycle is illumined with the rays of the adorable Host, proposed to our prostrate worship in so special a manner, at this season, by another Juliana: Oh may that sweet Host be the one Love of our life’s career; may It be our strong bulwark in life’s final combat! Yes, may our death be nothing else than a passing from the divine Banquet of Earth’s land of shadows, up to the delicious Festal Board of Eternal Union.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Milan, the holy martyrs Gervasius and Protasius, brothers. The former, by order of the judge Astasius, was so long scourged with leaded whips, that he expired. The latter, after being scourged with rods, was beheaded. Through divine revelation their bodies were found by St. Ambrose. They were partly covered with blood, and as free from corruption as if they had been put to death that very day. When the translation took place, a blind man recovered his sight by touching their relics and many persons possessed by demons were delivered.

At Ravenna, St. Ursicinus, martyr, who remained firm through many torments in the confession of the Lord, and consummated his martyrdom by capital punishment under the judge Paulinus.

At Sozopolis, under the governor Domitian, during the persecution of Trajan, St. Zosimus, martyr, who suffered bitter tortures, was beheaded and thus triumphantly went to heaven.

At Arezzo in Tuscany, the holy martyrs Gaudentius, bishop, and Culmatius, deacon, who were murdered by furious Gentiles during the reign of Valentinian.

The same day, St. Boniface, martyr, a disciple of blessed Romuald, who was sent by the Roman Pontiff to preach the Gospel in Russia. Having passed through fire uninjured, and baptised the king and his people, he was killed by the enraged brother of the king and thus gained the palm of martyrdom which he ardently desired.

At Ravenna, St. Romuald, anchoret, founder of the monks of Carnaldoli, who restored and greatly extended monastic discipline which was much relaxed in Italy. He is also mentioned on the seventh of February.

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

Thanks be to God.

18 JUNE – SAINTS MARK AND MARCELLIAN (Martyrs)

 

Mark and Marcellian were twin brothers born to a noble family in Rome. They were baptised in their youth and were secretly Christians for many years before being denounced. They were arrested and condemned to be beheaded, but their execution was delayed, their friends obtaining a respite of 30 days in the hope that they could convince them to renounce their faith and worship the state gods. Their parents Tranquillinus and Maria, and their wives and children visited them, in an attempt to break their constancy, but Saint Sebastian also visited them and encouraged them to remain true to Christ. He also succeeded in converting Tranquillinus and Maria, and afterwards by loosening the tongue of Zöe, the wife of Nicostratus (the registrar), converted him also, and Chromatius (an officer of the Prefect of Rome), who set Mark and Marcellian free and resigned his position. Marcus and Marcellian were hidden by a Christian officer named Castulus in his apartments in the palace of Diocletian, but were betrayed by the false Christian Torquatus and were arrested again. They were tortured and killed in 286 AD.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

We have already met with these noble athletes of today’s feast, for on January 20th, when celebrating Saint Sebastian, the brave defender of holy Church, Mark and Marcellian, appeared at his side as the noblest conquest won by the sainted head of the praetorian guards. There are other heroes likewise gained over by his zealous intrepidity whose names gild the pages of the Martyrology. But these two whose festival we are keeping were the immediate occasion of Sebastian’s leading to God so goodly a troop of valiant Christians. Their conversion prepared Sebastian’s martyrdom by reason of his apostolate in their regard, and their glory eternally redounds to him, around whom in Heaven, they form a resplendent phalanx.

Captivity, torments, and even the sentence of death pronounced on them, had failed to shake the courage of these two brethren. A trial yet more terrible awaited them, namely the sight forced on them of the heart-broken grief caused to all they loved on Earth, by this their sentence of condemnation. For their family not being Christian knew no bounds to sorrow. Their father and mother bent down by years, the wife of each, leading by the hand or in her arms a group of weeping children, all uttering bitterest reproaches against these soldiers of Christ for the destitution in which their coming death would plunge the survivors, such was the dire attack!

Sebastian, profiting by the liberty his position afforded to approach the Christians in prison, was ever their comfort and encourager. He failed not to be present at this scene, for his noble heart fully realised how dangerously severe such a trial must be for souls as yet unscathed by any personal peril. The danger he knew might be imminent at that moment. Wherefore scorning his own safety, he there and then revealed himself a Christian in order to hold out a strengthening hand to the two brethren. Moreover, God lent such wondrous efficacy to his words that they converted even the pagans there assembled. Thus Mark and Marcellian had the joy of beholding those whose piteous complaints had a moment before so painfully thrilled their souls, now applauding their constancy and demanding Baptism.

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THE Holy Ghost filled you with strength, glorious martyrs, and the love which He poured into your hearts changed into exquisite delights, torments that terrify our cowardice. Yet, after all, of how much less account are those tortures that touched but your perishable body, compared with that intense anguish of soul over which you so nobly triumphed! The dire grief of those whom you held dearer far than life, and whom, to all appearance, you needs must leave in hopeless woe, was verily the culminating pitch of your martyrdom. Only such can fail to realise this, who deserve the reproach cast by Saint Paul on the pagans of his day, that they are without affection (Romans i. 32). Yes, when the world once more presents such a hateful spectacle as this, then will be the sign of the last day’s near approach, so says the same Apostle (2 Timothy iii. 1, 3). Nevertheless, human love must needs cede to that of God: “He that loves father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me: and he who loves son or daughter more than Me, is not worthy of Me” (Matthew x. 3, 7). You understood all this, dear martyrs. Your relatives who would separate you from our Lord became but enemies in your eyes (Matthew x. 36). At that very instant, our Jesus who can never let Himself be outdone in generosity, restored these dear ones to you by taking them, through a miracle of grace, together with you and because of your example, to Himself. Thus do you complete for us, the instructions already given by a Julitta and her boy, by a Vitus and his glorious companions. Obtain for us, you victors in such keen trials, an ever growing courage and love proportionate to our increase in the light and knowledge of our duty to God.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Malaga in Spain, the holy martyrs Cyriacus, and the virgin Paula, who were overwhelmed with stones and yielded up their souls to God.

At Tripoli in Phoenicia, in the time of the governor Hadrian, St. Leontius, a soldier, who, through bitter torments, attained to the crown of martyrdom, together with the tribune Hypatius and Theodulus, who he had converted to Christ.

The same day, St. Jetherius, martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian. After enduring fire and other torments he was put to death with the sword.

At Alexandria, the passion of St. Marina, virgin.

At Bordeaux, St. Amandus, bishop and confessor.

At Sacca in Sicily, St. Calogerus, hermit, whose holiness is principally manifested by the deliverance of possessed persons.

At Schongau, St. Elizabeth, virgin, celebrated for her observance of monastic discipline.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 JUNE – SAINT GREGORY LUIGI BARBARIGO (Bishop and Confessor)

Gregory Luigi Barbarigo was born in Venice in 1625 to the Venetian Senator Giovanni Francesco Barbarigo and his wife Lucrezia Leoni. After serving as a diplomat, Gregory was ordained a priest in 1655 and became a prelate to Pope Alexander VII. In 1567 he became Bishop of Bergamo and in 1660 he became a Cardinal. In 1664 he became Bishop of Padua and took Saint Charles Borromeo as his model. He died in 1697, was beatified by Pope Clement XIII in 1761 and was canonised by Pope John XXIII in 1960.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, during the persecution of Diocletian, the birthday of 262 holy martyrs who were put to death for the faith of Christ and buried on the old Via Salaria, at the foot of Cucumer hill.

At Terracina, St. Montanus, a soldier, who received the crown of martyrdom after suffering many torments in the time of the emperor Hadrian and the ex-consul Leontius.

At Venafro, the holy martyrs Meander and Marcian who were beheaded in the persecution of Maximian.

At Chalcedon, the holy martyrs Manuel, Sabel, and Ismael, who the king of Persia sent as ambassadors to Julian the Apostate to treat of peace. Having firmly refused to worship idols as they had been commanded by the emperor, they were put to the sword.

At Apollonia, in Macedonia, the holy martyrs Isaurus, deacon, Innocent, Felix, Jeremiah and Peregrinus, natives of Athens, who were tortured in different manners by the tribune Tripontius, and finally decapitated.

At Amelia in Umbria, the bishop St. Himerius, whose body was translated to Cremona.

In the territory of Bourges, St. Gundulphus, bishop.

At Orleans, St. Avitus, priest and confessor.

In Phrygia, St. Hypatius, confessor. Also St. Bessarion, anchorite.

At Pisa in Tuscany, St. Rainerius, confessor.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 JUNE – FERIA

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Besançon in France, the holy martyrs Ferreol, priest, and Ferrution, deacon, who were sent by the blessed bishop Irenaeus to preach the word of God, and after being exposed to various torments under the judge Claudius, were put to the sword.

At Tarsus in Cilicia, in the reign of the emperor Diocletian, the holy martyrs Quiricus, and Julitta, his mother. Quiricus, a child of three years, seeing his mother cruelly scourged in the presence of the governor Alexander, and crying bitterly, was killed by being dashed against the steps of the tribunal. Julitta, after being subjected to severe stripes and grievous torments, closed the career of her martyrdom by decapitation.

At Mayence, the passion of the Saints Aurens, and Justina, his sister, and other martyrs, who, being at Mass in church, were massacred by the Huns then devastating Germany.

At Amathonte in Cyprus, St. Tychon, a bishop in the time of Theodosius the Younger.

At Lyons, the demise of blessed Aurelian, bishop of Arles.

At Nantes in Brittany, St. Similian, bishop and confessor.

At Meissen in Germany, St. Benno, bishop.

In the village of La Louvesc, formerly of the diocese of Vienne in Dauphiny, the decease of St. John Francis Regis, confessor, of the Society of Jesus, distinguished by his zeal for the salvation of souls, and by his patience. He was placed on the list of saints by Pope Clement XII.

In Brabant, St. Lutgard, virgin.

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

Thanks be to God.

15 JUNE – SAINTS VITUS, MODESTUS AND CRESCENTIA (Martyrs)

Unknown to his pagan father, Vitus (or Guy) was baptised as a child. When his father found out, he used his best endeavours to dissuade Vitus from the Christian religion, but as he persisted in it, he he handed him over to the judge Valerian to be whipped. Remaining unshaken as before, he was given back to his father. But while his father was turning over in his mind to what severe discipline to subject him, Vitus, being warned by an Angel, fled to another country with Crescentia (his nurse) and her husband Modestus, who had brought him up. There he gained great praise for holiness so that his fame reached Diocletian. The Emperor, therefore, sent for him to deliver his own child that was vexed by a devil. Vitus delivered him, but when Diocletian found that with all his gifts, he could not bring him to worship the gods, he cast him, Crescentia and Modestus into prison. When they were found in the prison more faithful than ever to their confession, the Emperor commanded them to be thrown into a great vessel full of burning resin, pitch and melted lead. There, like the three Hebrew Children in the fiery furnace, they sang praise to God. They were dragged out and cast to a lion, but he only lay down before them and licked their feet. Then, Diocletian being filled with fury, more especially because he saw that the crowd looking on were stirred up by the miracles, he ordered Vitus, Crescentia and Modestus to be stretched on a block and their limbs crushed so that their bones were broken. While they were dying, there came thunder, lightning and earthquakes so that the temples of the gods fell down and many men were killed. Their remains were gathered up by a noble lady named Florentia who gave them honourable burial.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

One of the titles of this Divine Spirit who is reigning so specially over this portion of the Cycle is the Witness of the Word (John xv. 26). Thus was He announced to the world by the Man-God Himself when about to quit it in order to return to His Father after having on His part rendered His own great testimony to Sovereign Truth (John xviii. 37). Formed by the Holy Ghost on the type of Jesus Christ, the faithful too are witnesses whose mission is to trample on lying error, the enemy of God, by expressing the Truth, not in words only but in deeds. There is a testimony however, that is not given to all to render: this is the Testimony of blood. The martyrs hold this privilege, this is the special stand granted to them in the ceaseless battle ever being waged betwixt Truth and Falsehood, and this battle is the sum total of all History. Hence Martyrs come crowding on the brilliant heavens of Holy Church at this season. In a few days the Church will be all thrilling with gladness at the birth of Saint John the Baptist, that man great beyond all men (Matthew xi. 11), and whose greatness specially consists in that he was sent by God to be a witness, to give testimony of the Light (John i. 6, 8). We will then meditate at leisure on these thoughts for which we seem to be prepared by the ever swelling groups of joyous martyrs who cross our path as it were to announce the near approach of the Friend of the Bridegroom (John iii. 29).

Today we have Vitus, accompanied by his faithful foster-parents, Modestus and Crescentia. He is but a child, yet he comes teaching us the price of Baptism and the fidelity we owe to our Father in Heaven despite all else beside. Great is his glory, both on Earth and in Heaven. The demons who used to tremble before him in life still continue their dread of him. His name remains ineffacably inscribed on the memory of the Christian people, just as that of a Saint Elmo or Erasmus, among their most potent “helpers” in daily needs. Saint Vitus, or more commonly Saint Guy, is invoked to deliver those who are attacked by that lamentable sickness which is named from him, as also to neutralise bad effects from the bite of a mad dog, and his beneficence is evinced even to the dumb brutes also. He is likewise implored in cases of lethargy, or unduly prolonged sleep. For this reason, the cock is his distinctive attribute in Christian art, as well as because recourse is usually had to this Saint when one wants to awake at some particular hour.

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You have won the battle, glorious Martyrs! The struggle was not long, but it gained for you an eternal crown! You have purchased to yourselves, O Modestus and Crescentia, the everlasting gratitude of your God Himself, for to Him you faithfully gave back the precious charge committed to your keeping in the person of that dear child who became your very own through Faith and Baptism. And you too, noble boy, who preferred your Father in Heaven to your earthly parent, who may tell the caressing tenderness lavished on you eternally by Him whom before men you did so unflinchingly own to be your true Father? Even here below He is pleased to load you with striking marks of His munificence, for to you he confides, on a large scale, the exercise of His merciful power. Because of that holy liberty which reigned in your soul from reason’s earliest dawn by which your body was subjected to your soul’s control, you now hold over fallen nature a marvellous power. Unhappy sufferers whose distorted limbs are worked violently at the caprice of a cruel malady, and are no longer mastered by the will or, on the other hand, those who are rendered powerless and no longer free to act by reason of resistless sleep: all these recover at your feet, that perfect harmony of soul and body, that needful docility of the material to the spiritual, by which man may freely attend to the duties incumbent on him, whether as regards God or his neighbour. Vouchsafe to be ever more and more lavish in the granting of these favours, which are the precious gifts specially at your disposal, for the good of suffering mankind, and for the greater glory of your God who has given you an eternal crown. We implore you, in the words of the Church and by your merits, that God may destroy in us that pride which spoils the equilibrium of man himself and makes him deviate from his path. May it be granted us to have a thorough contempt of evil for thus is restored to man, liberty in love: superbe non sapere, sed placita humilitate proficere, ut prava despiciens, quoecumque recta sunt libera exerceat charitate.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Dorostorum in Mysia, St. Hesychius, a soldier, who was arrested with blessed Julius and after him crowned with martyrdom under the governor Maximus.

At Cordova in Spain, St. Benildes, martyr.

At Zephirium in Cilicia, St. Dulas, martyr, who, under the governor Maximus was, for the name of Christ, scourged, laid on the gridiron, scalded with boiling oil, and after enduring other trials, received for his victory the palm of martyrdom.

At Palmyra in Syria, the holy martyrs Libya and Leonides, sisters, and Eutropia, a girl of twelve years, who won the crown of martyrdom by various torments.

At Valenciennes, the decease of St. Landelin, abbot.

At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Abraham, confessor, illustrious by his holiness and miracles.

In Switzerland, on Mount Jou, St. Bernard of Menthon, confessor.

At Pibrac, in the diocese of Toulouse, St. Germana Cousin, virgin. After a life of poverty, humility and patient suffering amid many trials in the care of her flocks, she went to her heavenly spouse and became renowned for numerous miracles after her death. Blessed Pius IX placed her in the number of holy virgins.

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

Thanks be to God.

14 JUNE – SAINT BASIL THE GREAT (Bishop, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Basil, the most celebrated of the Greek Fathers, came of a family of saints, the best known being his father, Saint Basil the Elder, his brother Saint Gregory Nyssen, and his sister Saint Macrina. Born at Caesarea in Cappadocia, Basil distinguished himself as a student at Constantinople and Athens. In the latter city he became close friends with Saint Gregory Nazianzen who was also destined to become a Bishop and Doctor of the Church. Basil was consecrated Bishop of Caesarea on the 14th of June 370 and died on the first of January 379. He defended the Catholic faith before the Emperor Constantius, in particular the use of the word “Consubstantial,” which was inserted in the Nicene Creed. He left many writings, including a Treatise (Hexaemeron) on the Book of Genesis, several hundred letters and a series of homilies. Saint Gregory Nazianzen put him in first place among commentators on the Bible and Erasmus declared Saint Basil the finest orator of all time. Saint Basil led the life of a monk and wrote a Rule which is still followed in the East.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Doctors who form the fourfold glory of the Greek Church complete their sacred number on the Cycle this day. John Chrysostom was the first to greet us, with his radiant light, during Christmastide. The glorious Pasch saw the rise of two resplendent luminaries, Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen. Basil the Great, having checked his effulgent blaze till now, illumines the reign of the Holy Ghost. He well deserves so distinguished a place by reason of his eminent doctrine and brave combats which prepared the way for the triumph of the Divine Paraclete over the blasphemies of the impious sect of Macedonius who used against the Third Person of the Consubstantial Trinity the very same arguments invented by Arius against the Divinity of the Word. The Council of Constantinople putting the finishing stroke to that of Nicaea, formulated the Faith of the Churches, in Him who proceeds from the Father, no less than does the Word Himself, Who is adored and glorified conjointly with the Father and the Son. Basil was not there on the day of victory. Prematurely exhausted by austerities and labours, he had been sleeping the sleep of peace for quite two years when this great definition was promulgated. But it was his teaching that inspired the assembled council. His word remains as the luminous expression of Tradition concerning the Holy Spirit, Who is Himself the Divine Loadstone attracting all in the vast universe that aspire after holiness, the potent Breeze uplifting souls, the Perfection of all things. Just as we hearkened to Gregory Nazianzen on his feast day, speaking magnificent truths concerning the great Paschal Mystery, let us listen now to his illustrious friend explaining that of the present season, sanctification effected in souls:

“The union of the Holy Ghost and the soul is effected by the estrangement of the passions which having crept in had separated her from God. Whoever, therefore, would disengage himself from the deformity that proceeds from vice and return to that beauteousness which he holds of His Creator would restore within himself the primitive features of that royal and divine original, such a one does verily draw near to the Paraclete. But then also, even as the sun coming in contact with an unsullied eye illumines it, so the Paraclete reveals to such a one the image of Him that cannot be seen. And in the blissful contemplation of this image, he perceives the ineffable beauty of the Principle, the Model of all. In this ascension of hearts of which the first tottering steps, as well as the growing consummation, are equally His work, the Holy Spirit renders them spiritual who are quit of all stain, by reason of that participation of Himself into which He initiates them. Bodies that are limpid and translucent, pierced by a brilliant ray, become resplendent and shed light all around them. Thus also souls bearing the Holy Spirit within them are all luminous with Him, and becoming themselves spiritualised, shed grace all around. Hence, the superior understanding possessed by the Elec, and their converse in the Heavens. Hence, all fair gifts. Hence, your own resemblance to your God. Hence, truth sublime! You yourself are a god. Wherefore it is that properly and in very truth, by the illumination of the Holy Ghost, we contemplate the splendour of God’s glory. Yes, it is by the character of resemblance which He has imprinted in our soul that we are raised up even to the loftiness of Him whose full similitude He, the Divine Seal, bears with Himself. He, the Spirit of Wisdom reveals to us, not as it were outside, but within Himself, Christ, the Wisdom of God. The path of contemplation leads from the Holy Ghost, by the Son, to the Father. Concurrently, the goodness, holiness and royal dignity of the Elect come from the Father by the Son to the Holy Ghost, whose temples they are. And He fills them with His own glory, illuminating their brow with a radiance like that of Moses at the sight of God. Thus likewise did He, in the case of our Lord’s Humanity. Thus does He to the Seraphim who cannot cry their triple Sanctus save in Him. So also to all the choirs of Angels, whose concerts He regulates, whose songs He vibrates. But the carnal man who has never exercised his soul in contemplation, holding her captive in the mud and mire of the senses, cannot lift his eyes to Light supernal: the Holy Spirit belongs not to him.”

The action of the Paraclete surpasses the power of any creature. Therefore, in thus drawing attention to the operation of the Spirit of Love, Saint Basil is anxious to bring his adversaries to confess of their own accord the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, who can fail to recognise in this burning exposition of doctrine, not merely the invincible theologian, vindicating dogma, but furthermore the experienced guide of souls, the sublime ascetic, deputed by God to bring down within reach of all marvels of holiness such as an Anthony or a Pachomius brought forth in the desert? Even as the bee humming amid the flowers avoids the thorn and knows how to eschew poisoned sap, so Basil in his youthful days had hovered amid the schools of Athens and Constantinople without sucking in any of their poison. According to the advice he himself gave to youth at a later date in a celebrated discourse, his quick intelligence unsullied by passions (too often found even in the most gifted) had succeeded in stealing from rhetoricians and poets all that could adorn as well as develop his mind, and discipline it for the struggle of life. The world smiled on the young orator whose pure diction and persuasive eloquence recalled the palmy days of Greek Literature.

But the noblest gifts of glory Earth could offer were far beneath the lofty ambition with which with his soul was fired in reading the holy Scriptures. Life’s struggle in his eyes seemed a combat for truth alone. In himself, first of all, must Divine Truth be victorious by the defeat of nature and by the Holy Ghost’s triumphant creation of the new man. Therefore, heedless to know before God’s own time whether he might not be used in winning souls to God, never once suspecting how soon multitudes would indeed come pressing to receive the law of life from his lips, he turned his back on all things and fled to the wilds of Pontus, there to be forgotten of men in his pursuit after holiness. Nor did the misery of those times cause him to fall into that error, so common nowadays, namely that of wishing to devote one’s self to others before having first regulated one’s own soul. Such is not the true way of setting charity in order. Such is not the conduct of the saints. No, it is yourself God wants of you before all things else. When you are become His in the full measure He intends, He Himself will know how to bestow you on others, unless perchance He prefers, for your greater advantage, to keep you all to Himself! But in any case He is no lover of all that hurry to become useful. He does not bless these would be utilitarians who are all eagerness, as it were, to push themselves into the service of His Providence.

Anthony of Padua showed us this truth yesterday. And here we have it given to us a second time. Mark it well: that which really tends to the extension of our Lord’s glory is not the amount of time given to the works, but the holiness of the worker. According to a custom frequent in that century, owing to the fear entertained of exposing the grace of Baptism to woeful shipwreck, Basil remained a simple Catechumen until his youth had well near matured to manhood. Of the years that followed his Baptism, thirteen were spent in the monastic life and nine in the episcopate. At the age of fifty he died. But his work, carried on under the impulse of the Holy Ghost, far from finishing with him, appeared more fruitful and went on thus increasing during the course of succeeding ages. While living the life of a humble monk on the banks of the Iris where his mother and sister had preceded him, his whole being was all intent on the saving of his soul from the judgement of God, and on running generously in the way that leads to the eternal recompense. Later on, others having begged him to form them also to the warfare of Christ the King according to the simplicity of faith and the Scriptures, our Saint would not have them embrace the life of solitaries, such isolation being not without danger for the many. But he preferred for them one that would join to the blissful contemplation of the solitary, the rampart and completeness of community life in which charity and humility are exercised under the conduct of a head who, in his turn, deems himself but the servitor of all.

Moreover, he would admit none into his monasteries without serious and prolonged trial followed by a solemn engagement to persevere in this new life. At the remembrance of what he had admired among the Solitaries of Egypt and Syria, Basil compared himself and his disciples to children who fain would strive in a puny way to mimic strong men, or to beginners sticking at the first difficulties of the rudiments, and scarce yet fairly started on the path of true piety. Yet the day would come when the ancient giants of the wilderness and the hoary legislators of the desert would see their heroic customs and their monastic codes cede the place of honour to the familiar conferences, to the unprepared answers given by Basil to his monks, in solution of their proposed difficulties, and to form them to the practice of the divine counsels. Ere long, the whole of the East ranged itself under his Rule, while in the West, Saint Benedict called him his Father.

His Order, like a fruitful nursery of holy monks and virgins, bishops, doctors and martyrs, has stocked heaven with saints. For a long time it served as a bulwark of the faith to Byzantium and [in the nineteenth century] beheld, despite the schism, its faithful children sparing not to render under the savage persecution of the Tsar of Russia, their testimony of blood and suffering, to Holy Mother Church. Worthily also have they in it paid a personal testimony, as it were, to their intrepid father. For Basil too was the grandson of Martyrs, the son and brother of Saints. Would that we might be allowed to devote a page to the praises of his illustrious grandmother, Macrina the elder, who seems to have miraculously escaped from the hands of her executioners, and from a seven years’ exile in the wild forests on purpose to be instrumental in infusing into Basil’s young heart that faith firm and pure which she had herself received from Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus.

Suffice it to say that towards the close of his life the great Basil, Doctor of the Church and Patriarch of Monks, was proud to appeal to Macrina’s name as a guarantee for the orthodoxy of his faith when once called in question. Basil’s lifetime was cast in one of those periods exceptionally disastrous to the Church, when shipwrecks of faith are common because darkness prevails to such an extent as to cast its shades even over the children of Light (1 Thessalonians v. 5), a period in fact when, as Saint Jerome expresses it, “the astonished world waked up to bewail itself Arian.” Bishops were faltering in essentials of true belief and in questions of loyalty to the Successor of Peter so that the bewildered flock scarcely knew whose voice to follow. For many of their pastors, some through perfidy, and some through weakness, had subscribed at Rimini to the condemnation of the Faith of Nicaea. Basil himself was assuredly not one of them, not one of those blind watchmen: dumb dogs not able to bark. When but a simple Lector he had not hesitated to sound the horn of alarm by openly separating himself from his Bishop who had been caught in the meshes of the Arians. And now himself a Bishop, he boldly showed that he was so indeed. For, when entreated for peace’s sake to make some compromise with the Arians, vain was every supplication, every menace of confiscation, exile or death. He used no measured terms in treating with the Prefect Modestus, the tool of Valens. And when this vaunting official complained that none had ever dared to address him with such liberty, Basil intrepidly replied: “Perhaps you never yet had to deal with a Bishop.”

Basil, whose great soul was incapable of suspecting duplicity in another, was entrapped by the guile of a false monk, a hypocritical bishop, one Eustathius of Sebaste, who by apparent austerity of life and other counterfeits long captivated the friendship of Basil. This unconscious error was permitted by God for the increase of his servant’s holiness, for it was destined to fill his declining days with utmost bitterness, and to draw down on him the keenest trial possible to one of his mould, namely, that several in consequence began to doubt of his own sincerity of faith. Basil appealed from the tongue of calumny to the judgement of his brother bishops, but yet he recoiled not from likewise justifying himself before the simple Faithful. For he knew that the richest treasure of a Church is the pastor’s own surety of faith and his personal plenitude of doctrine. Athanasius, who had led the battles of the first half of that century and had conquered Arius, was no more: he had gone to join in the well-merited repose of eternity his brave companions, Eusebius of Vercelli and Hilary of Poitiers.

In the midst of the confusion that Valens’ persecution was then reproducing in the East, even holy men knew not how to weather the storm. Many such were to be seen adopting first the extreme measure of utter withdrawal through mistaken excess of prudence, and then rushing into equally false steps of indiscreet zeal. Basil alone was of a build proportioned to the tempest. His noble heart bruised in its most delicate feelings, had drunk the chalice to the dregs, but strong in Him who prayed the prayer of agony in Grethsemani, the trial crushed him not. With wearied soul and with a body well near exhausted by the jading effects of chronic infirmities, already in fact a dying man, he nevertheless nerved himself up against death and bravely faced the surging waves. From this ship in distress, as he termed the Eastern Church, dashing against every rock amid the dense fog, his pressing cry of appeal reached the ears of the Western Church seated in peace in her unfailing light,— reached Rome from where alone help could come, yet whose wise slowness, on one occasion, made him almost lose heart. While awaiting the intervention of Peter’s Successor, Basil prudently repressed anything like untimely zeal and, for the present, required of weak souls merely what was indispensable in matters of faith, just as under other circumstances and with equal prudence, he had severely reproved his own brother, Saint Gregory of Nyssa, for suffering himself to be betrayed by simplicity into inconsiderate measures, motived indeed by love of peace.

Peace, yes, this is just what Basil desired as much as anybody: but the peace for which he would give his life could be only that true Peace left to the Church by our Lord. What he so vigorously exacted on the grounds of Faith proceeded solely from this very love of his, for peace. And therefore, as he himself tells us, he absolutely refused to enter into communion with men of just medium, men who dread nothing so much as a clear, close drawn, expression of dogma. In his eyes, their captious formulae and ungraspable shiftings were but the action of hypocrites in whose company he would scorn to approach God’s altar. As to those merely misled, “let the Faith of our Fathers be proposed to them with all tenderness and charity. If they will assent thereunto, let us receive them into our midst. In other cases, let us dwell with ourselves alone, regardless of numbers. And let us keep aloof from equivocating souls who are not possessed of that simplicity without guile indispensably required, in the early days of the Gospel, from all who would approach to the Faith. The believers, so it is written, had but one heart and one soul (Acts iv 32). Let those, therefore, who would reproach us for not desiring pacification, mark well who are the real authors of the disturbance, and so not point the question of reconciliation on our side any more.”

In another place, he thus continues, “To every specious argument that would seem to counsel silence on our part, we oppose this other, namely, that charity counts as nothing, either her own proper interests, or the difficulties of the times. Even though no man is willing to follow our example, what then? Are we ourselves, just for that, to let duty alone? In the fiery furnace the children of the Babylonian captivity chanted their canticle to the Lord without making any reckoning of the multitude who set truth on one side: they were quite sufficient for one another, merely three as they were!” He thus wrote to his monks, likewise pursued and vexed by a government that would fain not own itself a persecutor: “There are many honest men who though they admit that you are being treated without a shadow of justice, still will not grant that the sufferings you are enduring can quite deserve to be called confessing the faith. Ah, it is by no means necessary to be a pagan in order to make martyrs! The enemies we have nowadays detest us no less than did the idolaters. If they would fain deceive the crowd as to the motive of their hatred, it is merely because they hope thereby to rob you of the glory that surrounded Confessors in bygone days. Be convinced of it: before the face of the just Judge, your confession is every whit as real. So, take heart under every stroke, renew yourselves in love. Let your zeal gain strength every day, knowing that in you are to be preserved the last remains of godliness which the Lord, at His return, may find upon the Earth. Trouble not yourselves about treacheries, nor from where they come: was it not the princes among God’s priests, the scribes and the ancients among His own, that plotted the snares in which our divine Master suffered Himself to be caught! Heed not what the crowd may think, for a breath is sufficient to sway the crowd to and fro like the rippling wave. Even though only one were to he saved, as in the case of Lot out of Sodom, it would not be lawful for him to deviate from the path of rectitude merely because he finds that he is the only one that is right. No, he must stand alone, unmoved, holding fast his hope on Jesus Christ.”

Basil himself, from his bed of sickness, set an example to all. But what was not the anguish of his soul when he realised how scant correspondence his efforts received among the leading men in his own diocese! He sadly wondered at seeing such as these, and how their ambition was in no wise quenched by the lamentable state of the Churches, how they still could listen to nothing but their own puny jealous susceptibilities when the vessel was actually foundering, and could bicker and quarrel about who should command the ship when she was already sinking. Then, there were others, and even these were to be found among the better sort who would fain hold aloof, hoping to get themselves forgotten in the silence of their own inertia, quite ignoring that when general interests are at stake egotistic estrangement from the scene of struggle can never save an individual, nor absolve him from the crime of treason. It is curious to hear our Saint himself relating the story to his friend Eusebius of Samosata, the future Martyr, of how once Basil’s death was noised abroad, and consequently all the bishops hurried at once to Caesarea to choose a successor.

“But,” Basil continues, “as it pleased God that they should find me alive, I took this opportunity to speak to them weighty words. Yet vainly, for while in my presence they feared me and promised everything, but scarce had they turned their backs than they were just the same again.” In the meanwhile, persecution was pursuing its course, and sooner or later, the moment came for each in turn to choose between either downright heresy or banishment. Many, unfortunately, then consummated their apostasy. Others, opening their eyes at last, took the road to exile where they were able to meditate at leisure on the advantages of their policy of “keeping quiet,” and “out of the struggle.” Or better still, where they could repair their past weakness by the heroism with which they would henceforth suffer for the faith. Basil’s virtue held even his persecutors at bay, and God preserved him in such wondrous ways that at last he was almost the only one that remained at the head of his Church, although he had really exposed himself far more than anyone else to the brunt of every attack and to every peril. He profited hereby to the benefit of his favoured flock on whom he lavished the boon of highest teaching and wisest administration. This he did with such marvellous success that so much could scarcely have been attainable by another bishop in times of peace, when exclusive attention could be devoted to those employments.

Caesarea responded splendidly to his pastoral care. His word excited such avidity amongst all classes that the populace would hang upon his lips and await his arrival the live long day, in the ever more and more closely thronged edifice. We learn this from his remarks: for instance, once, when his insatiable auditory would allow him no repose in spite of his extreme fatigue, he tenderly compares himself to a worn out mother who gives her baby the breast, not so much to feed it, as to stay its cries. The mutual understanding of pastor and flock in these meetings is quite delicious! When the great orator would chance by inadvertence to leave some verse of Scripture unexplained, with all decorum, yet eagerly, would these sons of his, by signs and half suppressed mutterings, recall the attention of the venerable father to the passage of the text before him, from the explaining of which they were not going to let him off free. On such occasions Basil would pour himself out in charming excuses for his mistake, and then give what was asked of him, but in such a way as to show he really was proud of his flock! When he was explaining, for example, the magnificence of the great ocean among other wonders of the Works of the Six Days, he suddenly paused and casting a glance of ineffable pleasure over the vast crowd, closely pressing around his episcopal chair, he thus continued: “If the sea is beauteous, and in God’s sight worthy of goodly praise, how far more beautiful is this immense assembly whereof better than the waves that swell and roll and die away against the coast, the mingled voices of men, women, and children bear to God our swelling prayer: you tranquil ocean, peaceful in your mighty deep, because evil winds of heresy are impotent to rouse your waves!”

Happy people, thus formed by Basil, to the understanding of the Scriptures, especially of the Psalms of which he inspired the Faithful with so great love that it was quite the custom for all to repair at night to the House of God, there, in the solemn accents of alternate psalmody, to pour out their souls, in one united homage. Prayer in common was one of those fruits of his ministry that Basil (like a true monk) valued the most. The importance he attached to it has made him to be one of the principal Fathers of the Greek Liturgy. “Talk not to me,” he cries out, “of private homes, of private assemblies. Adore the Lord in His Holy Court, says the Psalmist. The adoration here called for is that which is paid not outside the Church, but in the Court, the one only Court of the Lord” (in Psalms xxviii.). Time and space would fail us, were we to attempt to follow our Saint through all the details of this grand family life which he so thoroughly lived with his whole people, and which formed his one consolation in the midst of his otherwise stormy career.

It would behove us to show how he made himself all to all, in gladness and in sorrow, with a simplicity which is so admirably blended in him with lofty greatness. How he would reply to the humblest consultations, just as though he had nothing more urgent on hand than to satisfy the demands of the least among his sons. How he would cry out against every touch of injustice offered to one of his flock and cease not, till full compensation was made. And finally, how, with the aid of his Faithful of Caesarea, rising up as one man to defend their bishop, he would oppose himself as a strong rampart to protect virgins and widows against the brutal oppression of men in power. Though himself poor and stripped of all things since the day when about to enter the monastic state, he had distributed the whole of his rich paternal inheritance among the poor, he nevertheless found the secret of how to raise in his episcopal city an immense establishment destined as an assured refuge for pilgrims and the poor — an asylum ever open and admirably organised to meet the requirements of every kind of suffering and the needs of all ages: or rather, a new city, built beside the great Caesarea, and named by the gratitude of the people after its sainted founder. Ever ready for any combat, Basil intrepidly maintained his rights as exarch, which he possessed by reason of his See over the eleven provinces composing the vast administrative division known to the Romans by the generic name of the diocese of Pontus. Indefatigable in his zeal for the sacred canons, he both defended his clergy against all attempts aimed at their immunities, and reformed such abuses as had crept in during times less troubled than his own. Even in the very vortex of the storm, he knew how to bring back ecclesiastical discipline to the perfection of its best days. At last the time came when the main interests of the Faith, the perils of which seemed up to this, to have suspended in his worn out body the law of all flesh — now no longer demanded his presence, so absolutely as before. On the 9th of August 378, the arrow of the Goth exercised justice on Valens. Soon afterwards, Gratian’s Edict recalled the exiled Confessors and Theodosius appeared in the East. On the First of January 379, Basil at last set free, slept in the Lord.

The Greek Church celebrates the memory of this great Bishop on the day of his death conjointly with the Circumcision of the Word made Flesh, a second time, on the Thirtieth of the same month of January, uniting therewith two other of her doctors, namely Saints Gregory Nazianzen and John Chrysostom, bringing all the magnificence of her gorgeous Liturgy to give splendour to this grand solemnity of January 30th, illumined as it is by a “triple sun, beaming glory concordantly to the Holy Trinity.” The Latin Church has chosen for her celebration of Saint Basil the day of his Ordination, namely June 14th.

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To give thus a list of your admirable works is in itself to sing your praises, mighty Pontiff! Would that nowadays you had imitators, for history teaches us that Saints of a build like yours are those who cause an epoch to be really great and who save society. No matter how tried, how abandoned even, a people may apparently be, if only blessed with a ruler docile in all things — docile to heroism, to the inspirations of the Holy Ghost ever abiding in Holy Church — this people will assuredly weather the storm and conquer at last. Whereas, if the salt lose its savour (Matthew v. 13), society necessarily falls away without the need of any Julian or any Valens to bring about its ruin. Basil, do then obtain for this our waning society, leaders such as you were. May the astonishment of Modestus be justly renewed in these days of ours. Let prefects, Valens’ successors, meet at the head of every Church a Bishop in the full sense of the term as used by you. Then will their astonishment be for us a signal of victory, for a Bishop is never vanquished, even should he be exiled or put to death!

While maintaining the Pastors of the Church up to the high standard of the state of perfection in which the sacred unction supposes them to be, lead the flock likewise, to higher paths of sanctity, such as Christianity gives scope for. Not to monks alone is that word spoken: “the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke xvii. 21). You have taught us that the kingdom of Heaven, that beatitude that can be ours already, is the contemplation, accessible to us here below, of eternal realities, not indeed by clear and direct vision, but in that mirror of which the Apostle speaks. How foolish is it to cultivate and feed in man nothing but the senses that crave for the material alone, and to refuse to the spirit its own proper food and bent? Does not the spirit urge of its own nature towards intellectual regions for the which it is created? If its flight be slow and heavy, the reason is that the senses by prevailing, impede its ascent.

Teach us, therefore, to furnish it more and more with increased faith and love, by which it may become light and agile as the hart to leap to loftiest heights. Tell in our age, as you did formerly in yours, that forgotten truth, namely how earnestness in maintaining an upright faith is no less necessary for this end than rectitude of life. Alas, how far have your sons for the greater part forgotten that every true monk, as well as every true Christian, detests heresy and all that savours of it. Wherefore, dear Saint, bless all the more particularly those few whom such a continuity of trials has, as yet, failed to shake in their constancy. Multiply conversions. Hasten the happy day when the East, casting off the yoke of schism and Islam, may resume her former glorious place in the one Fold of the one Shepherd. Doctor of the Holy Ghost, Defender of the Word Consubstantial to the Father, grant that we, now prostrate at your feet, may ever live to the glory of the Holy Trinity. These are the words of your own admirable formulary: “To be baptised in the Trinity, to hold one’s belief conformable to one’s Baptism, to glorify God according to our Faith,” such was the essential basis set down by you for the being a Monk. But is it not that also of the being a Christian? Would that all might thoroughly understand this! Vouchsafe, dear Saint, to bless us all.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Samaria, in Palestine, the holy prophet Eliseus, whose grave, says St. Jerome, makes the demons tremble. With him rests also the prophet Abdias.

At Syracuse, St. Marcian, bishop, who was made bishop by the blessed Apostle St. Peter, and killed by the Jews after he had preached the Gospel.

At Soissons, the holy martyrs Valerius and Rufinus who, after enduring many torments, were condemned to be beheaded by the governor Rictiovarus in the persecution of Diocletian.

At Cordova, the holy martyrs Anastasius, priest, Felix, monk, and Digna, virgin.

At Constantinople, St. Methodius, bishop.

At Vienne, St. Ætherius, bishop.

At Rhodez, St. Quinctian, bishop.

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

Thanks be to God.