21 AUGUST – SAINT JANE FRANCES DE CHANTAL (Widow)

Jane Frances Frémiot was born at Dijon in Burgundy in 1572. From her childhood she gave clear signs of her future great sanctity. It was said that when only five years of age, she put to silence a Calvinist nobleman by substantial arguments, far beyond her age, and when he offered her a little present she immediately threw it into the fire, saying: “This is how heretics will burn in Hell, because they do not believe Christ when He speaks.” When she lost her mother, she put herself under the care of the Virgin Mother of God, and dismissed a maid servant who was enticing her to love of the world. There was nothing childish in her manners. She shrank from worldly pleasures, and thirsting for martyrdom, she devoted herself entirely to religion and piety. She was given in marriage by her father to the Baron de Chantal, and in this new state of life she strove to cultivate every virtue, and busied herself in instructing in faith and morals her four children, her servants and all under her authority. Her liberality in relieving the necessities of the poor was very great, and more than once God miraculously multiplied her stores of provisions. On this account she promised never to refuse anyone who begged an alms in Christ’s name.

Jane was widowed at the age of 28 when the Baron died in an accident while hunting. She determined to embrace a more perfect life and bound herself by a vow of chastity. She not only bore her husband’s death with resignation, but overcame herself so far as to stand godmother to the child of the man who had killed him in order to give a public proof that she pardoned him. She contented herself with a few servants and with plain food and dress, devoting her costly garments to pious usages. Whatever time remained from her domestic cares she employed in prayer, pious reading and work. She could never be induced to accept offers of second marriage, even though honourable and advantageous. In order not to be shaken in her resolution of observing chastity, she renewed her vow and imprinted the most holy name of Jesus Christ on her breast with a red-hot iron. Her love grew more ardent day by day. She had the poor, the abandoned, the sick, and those who were afflicted with the most terrible diseases brought to her, and not only sheltered, comforted and nursed them, but washed and mended their filthy garments, and did not shrink from putting her lips to their running sores.

Having learnt the will of God from her spiritual director and friend Saint Francis de Sales, she founded the Institute of the Visitation of our Lady for the spiritual advancement of young girls and widows who did not have the desire or strength to subject themselves to the severe ascetical practices then in force in all religious orders. For this purpose she quitted, with unfaltering courage, her father, her father-in-law, and even her son, over whose body she had to step in order to leave her home, so violently did he oppose her vocation. She observed her Rule with the utmost fidelity, and so great was her love of poverty that she rejoiced to be in want of even the necessaries of life. She was a perfect model of Christian humility, obedience and all other virtues. Wishing for still higher ascensions in her heart, she bound herself by a most difficult vow always to do what she thought most perfect. The Order of the Visitation spread far and wide, chiefly through her endeavours, and she encouraged her sisters to piety, and charity by words and example, and also by writings full of divine wisdom.

Jane died at Moulins, having duly received the Sacraments of the Church. She died on the 13th of December 1641. Saint Vincent de Paul, who was at a great distance, saw her soul being carried to Heaven and Saint Francis de Sales coming to meet her. Her body was afterwards translated to the crypt in the Church of the Visitation at Annecy. Miracles having made her illustrious both before and after her death, she was beatified by Pope Benedict XIV in 1751 and was canonised by Pope Clement XIII in 1767.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Although Mary’s glory is within her, beauty appears also in the garment with which she is clad: a mysterious robe woven of the virtues of the Saints who owe to her both their justice and their reward. As every grace comes to us through our Mother, so all the glory of Heaven converges towards that of the Queen.

Now among the blessed souls there are some more immediately connected with the holy Virgin. Prevented by the peculiarly tender love of the Mother of grace, they left all things when on Earth to run after the odour of the perfumes of the Spouse she gave to the world. In Heaven they keep the greater intimacy with Mary which was theirs even in the time of exile. Hence it is, that at this time of her exaltation beside the Son of God, the Psalmist sings also of the Virgins entering joyously with her into the temple of the King. The crowning of our Lady is truly the special feast of these daughters of Tyre, who have themselves become princesses and queens in order to form her noble escort and her royal court.

If the Saint proposed to our veneration today is not adorned with the diadem of virginity, she is nevertheless one of those who have deserved in their humility to hear the heavenly message: “Hearken, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear. And forget your people and your father’s house” (Psalms xliv. 11). In reply, such was her eagerness in the ways of love, that numberless virgins followed in her footsteps in order to be more sure of reaching the Spouse. She also, then, has a glorious place in the vesture of gold, with its play of colours, with which the Queen of Saints is clad in her triumph. For what is the variety noticed by the Psalm, in the embroideries and fringes of that robe of glory, if not the diversity of tints in the gold of divine charity among the elect? In order to bring forward the happy effect produced by this diversity in the light of the Saints, Eternal Wisdom has multiplied the forms under which the life of the counsels may be presented to the world. Such is the teaching given in the holy Liturgy by bringing together the feasts of yesterday and today on its sacred cycle. Between Cistercian austerity and the more interior renouncement of the Visitation of holy Mary, there seems to be a great distance: nevertheless the Church unites the memory of Saint Jane de Chantal and of the Abbot of Clairvaux in homage to the Blessed Virgin during the happy Octave which consummates her glory. It is because all rules of perfection are alike in being merely variations of the one Rule, that of love, of which Mary’s life was a perfect pattern. “Let us not divide the robe of the Bride,” says Saint Bernard.

“Unity, as well in heaven as on earth, consists in charity. Let him who glories in the Rule, not break the rule by acting contrary to the Gospel. If the kingdom of God is within us, it is because it is not meat and drink. But justice, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost (Romans xiv. 17). To criticise others on their exterior observance, and to neglect the Rule in what regards the soul, is to take out a gnat from the cup and to swallow a camel. You break your body with endless labour, you mortify with austerities your members which are on the earth, and you do well. But while you allow yourself to judge him who does not so much penance, he perhaps is following the advice of the Apostle: ‘More eager for the better gifts, keeping less of that bodily exercise which is profitable to little he gives himself up more to that godliness which is profitable to all things’ (1 Timothy iv. 8). Which then of you two keeps the Rule better? Doubtless he that becomes better thereby. Now which is the better? The humbler? or the more fatigued? ‘Learn of me,’ said Jesus, ‘because I am meek and humble of heart’” (Matthew xi. 29).

Saint Francis de Sales, in his turn, speaking of the diversity of religious Orders, says very well: “All Religious Orders have one spirit common to them all, and each has a spirit peculiar to itself. The common spirit is the design they all have of aspiring after the perfection of charity. But the peculiar spirit of each is the means of arriving at that perfection of charity, that is to say, at the union of our souls with God, and with our neighbour through the love of God.” Coming next to the special spirit of the institute he had founded together with our Saint, the Bishop of Geneva declares that it is “a spirit of profound humility towards God and of great sweetness towards our neighbour, inasmuch as there is less rigour towards the body, so much the more sweetness must there be in the heart.” And because “this Congregation has been so established that no great severity may prevent the weak and infirm from entering it and giving themselves up to the perfection of divine love,” he adds playfully: “If there be any sister so generous and courageous as to wish to attain perfection in a quarter of an hour by doing more than the Community does, I would advise her to humble herself and be content to become perfect in three days, following the same course as the rest. For a great simplicity must always be kept in all things: to walk simply, that is the true way for the daughters of the Visitation, a way exceedingly pleasing to God and very safe.”

With sweetness and humility for motto, the pious Bishop did well to give his daughters for escutcheon the divine Heart from which these gentle virtues derive their source. We know how magnificently Heaven justified the choice. Before a century had elapsed, a nun of the Visitation, the Blessed Margaret Mary, could say: “Our adorable Saviour showed me the devotion to His divine Heart as a beautiful tree which He had destined from all eternity to take root in the midst of our Institute. He wills that the daughters of the Visitation should distribute the fruits of this sacred tree abundantly to all those that wish to eat of it, and without fear of its failing them.”

“Love! Love! Love! my daughters, I know nothing else.” Thus did Jane de Chantal, the glorious co-operatrix of Saint Francis in establishing the Visitation of holy Mary, often cry out in her latter years. “Mother,” said one of the sisters, “I will write to our houses that your charity is growing old, and that, like your godfather Saint John, you can speak of nothing but love.” To which the Saint replied: “My daughter, do not make such a comparison, for we must not profane the Saints by comparing them to poor sinners. But you will do me a pleasure if you tell those sisters that if I went by my own feelings, if I followed my inclination, and if I were not afraid of wearying the sisters, I should never speak of anything but charity. And I assure you, I scarcely ever open my mouth to speak of holy things without having a mind to say: ‘You must love the Lord with your whole heart, and your neighbour as yourself.’”

Such words are worthy of her who obtained for the Church the admirable Treatise on the Love of God, composed, says the Bishop of Genoa, for her sake, at her request and solicitation, for herself and her companions. At first, however, the impetuosity of her soul, overflowing with devotedness and energy, seemed to unfit her to be mistress in a school where heroism can only express itself by the simple sweetness of a life altogether hidden in God. It was to discipline this energy of the valiant woman without extinguishing its ardour, that Saint Francis perseveringly applied himself during the eighteen years he directed her. “Do all things,” he repeats in a thousand ways, “without haste, gently, as do the Angels. Follow the guidance of divine movements and be supple to grace. God wills us to be like little children.” And this reminds us of an exquisite page from the amiable Saint, which we cannot resist quoting: “If one had asked the sweet Jesus when He was carried in His Mother’s arms, to where He was going, might He not with good reason have answered: ‘I go not, 'tis my Mother that goes for me:’ and if one had said to Him: ‘But at least do you not go with your Mother?’ Might He not reasonably have replied: ‘No, I do not go, or if I go to where my Mother carries me, I do not myself walk with her nor by my own steps, but by my Mother’s, by her, and in her.’ But if one had persisted with Him, saying: ‘But at least, O most dear divine child, you really will to let yourself be carried by your sweet Mother?’ No, verily, might He have said, ‘I will nothing of all this, but as my entirely good Mother walks for me, so she wills for me. I leave her the care as well to go as to will to go for me where she likes best. And as I go not but by her steps, so I will not but by her will. Aand from the instant I find myself in her arms, I give no attention either to willing or not willing, turning all other cares over to my Mother, save only the care to be on her bosom, to suck her sacred breast, and to keep myself close clasped to her most beloved neck, that I may most lovingly kiss her with the kisses of my mouth. And be it known to you that while I am amidst the delights of these holy caresses which surpass all sweetness, I consider that my Mother is a tree of life, and myself on her as its fruit, that I am her own heart in her breast, or her soul in the midst of her heart, so that as her going serves both her and me without my troubling myself to take a single step, so her will serves us both without my producing any act of my will about going or coming. Nor do I ever take notice whether she goes fast or slow, hither or thither, nor do I inquire whither she means to go, contenting myself with this, that go to where she please I go still locked in her arms, close laid to her beloved breasts, where I feed as among lilies...’ Thus should we be, Theotimus, pliable and tractable to God’s good pleasure.”

The office of Martha seemed at first to be destined for you, O great Saint! Your father, Francis de Sales, forestalling Saint Vincent de Paul, thought of making your companions the first daughters of Charity. Thus was given to your work the blessed name of Visitation, which was to place under Mary’s protection your visits to the sick and neglected poor. But the progressive deterioration of strength in modern times had laid open a more pressing want in the institutions of holy Church. Many souls called to share Mary’s part were prevented from doing so by their inability to endure the austere life of the great contemplative Orders. The Spouse, who deigns to adapt His goodness to all times, made choice of you, O Jane, to second the love of His Sacred Heart and come to the rescue of the physical and moral miseries of an old, worn-out and decrepit world.

Renew us, then, in the love of Him whose charity consumed you first. In its ardour, you traversed the most various paths of life and never did you fail of that admirable strength of soul which the Church presents before God today in order to obtain through you the assistance necessary to our weakness. May the insidious and poisonous spirit of Jansenism never return to freeze our hearts. But at the same time, as we learn from you, love is only then real, when, with or without austerities, it lives by faith, generosity, and self-renunciation, in humility, simplicity and gentleness. It is the spirit of your holy institute, the spirit which became, through your angelic Father, so amiable and so strong: may it ever reign amid your daughters, keeping up among their houses the sweet union which has never ceased to rejoice Heaven. May the world be refreshed by the perfumes which ever exhale from the silent retreats of the Visitation of holy Mary!

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O glorious saint, Blessed Jane Frances, who, by your fervent prayer, attention to the Divine Presence and purity of intention in your actions, attained on Earth an intimate union with God, be now our advocate, our mother, our guide in the path of virtue and perfection. Plead our cause near Jesus, Mary and Joseph to whom you were so tenderly devoted and whose holy virtues you so closely imitated. Obtain for us, O amiable and compassionate saint, the virtues you see most necessary for us: an ardent love of Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament, a tender and filial confidence in His blessed Mother and, like you, a constant remembrance of His sacred Passion and death.

V. Saint Jane Frances, pray for us.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

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Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

In the Campo Verano at Rome, St. Cyriaca, widow and martyr. In the persecution of Valerian, after devoting herself and all her goods in the service of the saints, she gave up her life by suffering martyrdom for Christ.

At Salona, St. Anastasius, a law officer, who was converted to the faith by seeing the fortitude with which blessed Agapitus bore his torments, and being put to death by order of the emperor Aurelian, for confessing the name of Christ, went to Our Lord.

In Sardinia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Luxorius, Cisellus and Camerinus who were put to the sword in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Delphius.

In Gevaudan, St. Privatus, bishop and martyr, who suffered in the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus.

The same day, the holy martyrs Bonosus and Maximian.

At Fundi in Campania, St. Paternus, a martyr, who came from Alexandria to Rome to visit the tomb of the Apostles. Then he retired to the neighbourhood of Fundi, where, being seized by the tribune while he was burying the bodies of the martyrs, he died in captivity.

At Edessa in Syria, during the persecution of Maximian, the holy martyrs Bassa, and her sons Theogonius, Agapius and Fidelis, who their pious mother exhorted to martyrdom and sent before her bearing their crowns. Being herself beheaded, she joyfully followed them and shared their victory.

At Verona, St. Euprepius, bishop and confessor.

Also St. Quadratus, bishop.

At Siena in Tuscany, blessed Bernard Ptolemy, abbot and founder of the Congregation of Olivetans.

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

Thanks be to God.

20 AUGUST – SAINT BERNARD (Abbot, Confessor and Doctor of the Church)

Bernard, the “mellifluous Doctor,” was born at Fontaines, near Dijon in France in 1091. As a youth, on account of his great beauty he was much sought after by women, but could never be shaken in his resolution of observing chastity. To escape these temptations of the devil, he, at twenty-two years of age, determined to enter the monastery of Citeaux, the first house of the Cistercian Order, then famous for sanctity. He consecrated himself to God under the leadership of the English Abbot, Saint Stephen Harding, in the newly instituted Abbey. When his brothers learnt Bernard’s design, they did their best to deter him from it but he, more eloquent and more successful,won them and many others to his opinion, so that together with him thirty young men embraced the Cistercian Rule.

 

As a monk Bernard was so given to fasting, that when ever he had to take food he seemed to be undergoing torture. He applied himself in a wonderful manner to prayer and watching, and was a great lover of Christian poverty. Thus he led a heavenly life on Earth, free from all anxiety or desire of perishable goods. The virtues of humility, mercy and kindness shone conspicuously in his character. He devoted himself so earnestly to contemplation that he seemed hardly to use his senses except to do acts of charity, and in these he was remarkable for his prudence. While thus occupied he refused the bishoprics of Genoa, Milan and others which were offered to him, declaring that he was unworthy of so great an office. He afterwards built monasteries in many places in which the excellent rules and discipline of Bernard long flourished. When the monastery of Saints Vincent and Anastasius at Rome was restored by Pope Innocent II, Bernard appointed as Abbot the future sovereign Pontiff Eugenius III, to whom he also sent his book De Consideratione.

Bernard wrote many other works which clearly show that his doctrine was more the gift of God than the result of his own labours. On account of his great reputation for virtue, the greatest princes begged him to act as arbiter in their disputes, and he went several times into Italy for this purpose, and for arranging ecclesiastical affairs. He was of great assistance to the Supreme Pontiff Innocent II in putting down the schism of Peter de Leone, both at the courts of the emperor and of king Henry of England, and at a Council held at Pisa. In obedience to Saint Stephen, Bernard founded the Abbey of Clairvaux in 1115 and remained Abbot of it for the rest of his life. In 1146 he preached the Second Crusade in France and exerted a strong and healthy influence on the European politics of his age. Bernard died in 1153 and was buried in the Marian chapel of his Abbey of Clairvaux. Pope Alexander III canonised Bernard 12 years later and and Pope Pius VIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The valley of wormwood has lost its bitterness. Having become Clairvaux, or the bright valley, its light shines over the world. From every point of the horizon vigilant bees are attracted to it by the honey from the rock which abounds in its solitude. Mary turns her glance upon its wild hills, and with her smile sheds light and grace upon them. Listen to the harmonious voice arising from the desert. It is the voice of Bernard, her chosen one. “Learn, O man, the counsel of God. Admire the intentions of Wisdom, the design of love. Before bedewing the whole earth, be saturated the fleece. Being to redeem the human race, he heaped up in Mary the entire ransom. O Adam, say no more: ‘The woman whom you gave me offered me the forbidden fruit.’ Say rather: ’The woman whom you gave me has fed me with a fruit of blessing.’ With what ardour ought we to honour Mary, in whom was set all the fullness of good! If we have any hope, any saving grace, know that it overflows from her who today rises replete with love: she is a garden of delights, over which the divine South Wind does not merely pass with a light breath, but sweeping down from the heights, he stirs it unceasingly with a heavenly breeze, so that it may shed abroad its perfumes, which are the gifts of various graces. Take away the material sun from the world: what would become of our day? Take away Mary, the star of the vast sea: what would remain but obscurity over all, a night of death and icy darkness? Therefore, with every fibre of our heart, with all the love of our soul, with all the eagerness of our aspirations, let us venerate Mary. It is the will of Him who wished us to have all things through her.”

Thus spoke the monk who had acquired his eloquence, as he tells us himself, among the beeches and oaks of the forest, and he poured into the wounds of mankind the wine and oil of the Scriptures. In 1113, at the age of twenty- two, Bernard arrived at Citeaux, in the beauty of his youth, already ripe for great combats. Fifteen years before, on the 21st March 1098, Robert of Molesmes had created this new desert between Dijon and Beaune. Issuing from the past, on the very feast of the patriarch of monks, the new foundation claimed to be nothing more than the literal observance of the precious Rule given by him to the world. The weakness of the age, however, refused to recognise the fearful austerity of these new comers into the great family: as inspired by that holy code, wherein discretion reigns supreme, for this discretion is the characteristic of the school accessible to all, where Benedict “hoped to ordain nothing rigorous or burthensome in the service of God.” Under the government of Stephen Harding, the next after Alberic, successor of Robert, the little community from Molesmes was becoming extinct, without human hope of recovery, when the descendant of the lords of Fontaines arrived with thirty companions, who were his first conquest, and brought new life where death was imminent.

“Rejoice, you barren one that bears not, for many will be the children of the barren.” La Forte was founded that same year in Chalonnais, next Pontigny, near Auxerre, and in 1115 Clairvaux and Morimond were established in the diocese of Langres; while these four glorious branches of Citeaux were soon, together with their parent stock, to put forth numerous shoots. In 1119 the Charter of charity confirmed the existence of the Cistercian Order in the Church. Thus the tree, planted six centuries earlier on the summit of Monte Cassino, proved once more to the world that in all ages it is capable of producing new branches, which, though distinct from the trunk, live by its sap, and are a glory to the entire tree.

During the months of his novitiate Bernard so subdued nature that the interior man alone lived in him. The senses of his own body were to him as strangers. By an excess, for which he had afterwards to reproach himself, he carried his rigour, though meant for a desirable end, so far as to ruin the body, that indispensable help to every man in the service of his brethren and of God. Blessed fault, which Heaven took upon itself to excuse so magnificently. A miracle (a thing which no one has a right to expect) was needed to uphold him henceforth in the accomplishment of his destined mission. Bernard was as ardent in the service of God as others are for the gratification of their passions. “You would learn of me,” he says in one of his earliest works, “why and how we must love God. And I answer you: The reason for loving God is God Himself. And the measure of loving Him is to love Him without measure.” What delights he enjoyed at Citeaux in the secret of the face of the Lord! When, after two years, he left this blessed abode to found Clairvaux, it was like coming out of Paradise. More fit to converse with Angels than with men, he began, says his historian, by being a trial to those whom he had to guide: so heavenly was his language, such perfection did he require surpassing the strength of even the strong ones of Israel, such sorrowful astonishment did he show on the discovery of infirmities common to all flesh.

But the Holy Spirit was watching over the vessel of election called to bear the name of the Lord before kings and people; the divine charity, which consumed his soul, taught him that love has two inseparable, though sadly different, objects: God, whose goodness makes us love Him, and man, whose misery exercises our charity. According to the ingenious remark of William de Saint-Thierry, his disciple and friend, Bernard re-learnt the art of living among men. He imbued himself with the admirable recommendations given by the legislator of monks to him who is chosen Abbot over his brethren: “When he gives correction, let him act prudently, and push nothing to extremes, lest whilst eager of extreme scouring off the rust, the vase get broke... When he enjoins work to be done, let him use discernment and moderation, and think of holy Jacob’s discretion, who said: ‘If I cause my flocks to be overdriven, they will all die in one day.’ Taking, therefore, these and other documents regarding that mother of virtue, discretion, let him so temper all things as that the strong may have what to desire and the weak nothing to deter them.”

Having received what the Psalmist calls “understanding concerning the needy and the poor,” Bernard felt his heart overflowing with the tenderness of God for those purchased by the divine Blood. He no longer terrified the humble. Beside the little ones who came to him attracted by the grace of his speech might be seen the wise, the powerful, and the rich ones of the world, abandoning their vanities, and becoming themselves little and poor in the school of one who knew how to guide them all, from the first elements of love to its very summits. In the midst of seven hundred monks receiving daily from him the doctrine of salvation, the Abbot of Clairvaux could cry out with the noble pride of the Saints: “He that is mighty has done great things in us, and with good reason our soul magnifies the Lord. Behold we have left all things to follow you: it is a great resolution, the glory of the great Apostles. Yet we, too, by his great grace have taken it magnificently. Perhaps, even if I wish to glory therein, I will not be foolish, for I will say the truth: there are some here who have left more than a boat and fishing-nets.”

“What more wonderful,” he said on another occasion, “than to see one who formerly could scarce abstain two days from sin, preserve himself from it for years, and even for his whole life? What greater miracle than that so many young men, boys, noble personages, all those, in a word, whom I see here, should be held captive without bonds in an open prison by the sole fear of God, and should persevere in penitential macerations beyond human strength, above nature, contrary to habit? What marvels we should discover, as you well knew, were we allowed to seek out the details of each one’s exodus from Egypt, of his passage through the desert, his entrance into the monastery, and his life within its walls.”

But there were other marvels not to be hidden within the secret of the cloister. The voice that had peopled the desert was bidden to echo through the world. And the noises of discord and error, of schism and the passions, were hushed before it. At its word the whole West was precipitated as one man upon the infidel East. Bernard had now become the avenger of the sanctuary, the umpire of kings, the confidant of sovereign Pontiffs, the thaumaturgus applauded by enthusiastic crowds. Yet, at the very height of what the world calls glory, his one thought was the loved solitude he had been forced to quit. “It is high time,” he said, “that I should think of myself. Have pity on my agonised conscience: what an abnormal life is mine! I am the chimera of my time, neither clerk nor layman, I have the habit of a monk and none of the observances. In the perils which surround me, at the brink of precipices yawning before me, help me with your advice, pray for me.”

While absent from Clairvaux he wrote to his monks: “My soul is sorrowful and cannot be comforted till I see you again. Alas! Must my exile here below, so long protracted, be rendered still more grievous? Truly those who have separated us have added sorrow upon sorrow to my evils. They have taken away from me the only remedy which enabled me to live away from Christ. While I could not yet contemplate his glorious Face, it was given me at least to see you, you his holy temple. From that temple the way seemed easy to the eternal home. How often have I been deprived of this consolation? This is the third time, if I mistake not, that they have torn out my heart. My children are weaned before the time. I had begotten them by the Gospel, and I cannot nourish them. Constrained to neglect those dear to me and to attend to the interests of strangers, I scarcely know which is harder to bear, to be separated from the former or to be mixed up with the latter. O Jesus, is my whole life to be spent in sighing? It were better for me to die than to live, but I would fain die in the midst of my family. There I should find more sweetness, more security. May it please my Lord that the eyes of a father, however unworthy of the name, may be closed by the hands of his sons; that they may assist him in his last passage; that their desires, if you judge him worthy, may bear his soul to the abode of the blessed; that they may bury the body of a poor man with the bodies of those who were poor with him. By the prayers and merits of my brethren, if I have found favour before you, grant me this desire of my heart. Nevertheless, your will, not mine, be done; for I wish neither to live nor to die for myself.”

Greater in his Abbey than in the noblest courts, Bernard was destined to die at home at the hour appointed by God, but not without having had his soul prepared for the last purification by trials both public and private. For the last time he took up again, but could not finish, the discourses he had been delivering for the last eighteen years on the Canticle. These familiar conferences, lovingly gathered by his children, reveal in a touching manner the zeal of the sons for divine science, the heart of the father and his sanctity, and the incidents of daily life at Clairvaux. Having reached the first verse of the third chapter, he was describing the soul seeking after the Word in the weakness of this life, in the dark night of this world, when he broke off his discourses, and passed to the eternal face to face vision, where there is no more enigma, nor figure, nor shadow.

It was fitting to see the herald of the Mother of God following so closely her triumphal car. Entering Heaven during this bright Octave, you delight to lose yourself in the glory of her whose greatness you proclaimed on Earth. Be our protector in her court. Attract her maternal eyes towards Citeaux. In her name save the Church once more, and protect the Vicar of Christ. But today, rather than to pray to you, you invite us to sing to Mary and pray to her with you. The homage most pleasing to you, O Bernard, is that we should profit by your sublime writings and admire the Virgin who, “today ascending glorious to heaven, put the finishing touch to the happiness of the heavenly citizens. Brilliant as it was already, heaven became resplendent with new brightness from the light of the virginal torch. Thanksgiving and praise resound on high. And will we not in our exile partake of these joys of our home? Having here no lasting dwelling, we seek the city where the Blessed Virgin has arrived this very hour. Citizens of Jerusalem, it is but just that, from the banks of the rivers of Babylon, we should think with dilated hearts of the overflowing river of bliss, of which some drops are sprinkled on earth today. Our Queen has gone before us. The reception given to her encourages us who are her followers and servants. Our caravan will be well treated with regard to salvation, for it is preceded by the Mother of mercy as advocate before the Judge her Son.”

“Whoever remembers having ever invoked you in vain in his needs, O Blessed Virgin, let him be silent as to your mercy. As for us, your little servants, we praise your other virtues, but on this one we congratulate ourselves. We praise your virginity, we admire your humility. But mercy is sweeter to the wretched. We embrace it more lovingly. We think of it more frequently, we invoke it unceasingly. Who can tell the length and breadth and height and depth of yours, O Blessed one? Its length, for it extends to the last day. Its breadth, for it covers the earth. Its height and depth, for it has filled heaven and emptied hell. You are as powerful as merciful. Having now rejoined your Son, manifest to the world the grace you have found before God: obtain pardon for sinners, health for the sick, strength for the weak, consolation for the afflicted, help and deliverance for those who are in any danger, O clement, O merciful, O sweet Virgin Mary!”

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

The same day, St. Lucius, senator, who was converted to the faith on seeing the constancy of Theodore, bishop of Gyrene, during his martyrdom. He also converted the governor Dignian, with whom he set out for Cyprus, where, seeing other Christians crowned for the confession of the Lord, he offered himself voluntarily and merited the same crown of martyrdom by having his head struck off.

In Thrace, in the time of the governor Apellian, thirty-seven holy martyrs, who had their hands and feet cut off for the faith of Christ and were cast into a burning furnace.

Also the holy martyrs Severus, and the centurion Memnon, who, suffering the same kind of death, went victoriously to heaven.

At Cordova, during the persecution of the Arabs, the holy martyrs Leovigildus and Christopher, monks, who were thrust into prison for the defence of the Christian faith, and soon after, by being beheaded and cast into the fire, obtained the palm of martyrdom.

At Rome, blessed Porphyry, a man of God, who instructed the holy martyr Agapitus in the faith and doctrine of Christ.

In the island of Noirmoutiers, St. Philibert, abbot.

At Chinon, St. Maxinms, confessor, a disciple of the blessed bishop Martin.

On Mount Senario in the diocese of Florence, blessed Manetius, confessor, one of the seven founders of the Order of the Servites of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who breathed his last while reciting hymns in her honour.

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

Thanks be to God.

19 AUGUST – SAINT JOHN EUDES (Confessor)

John Eudes was born in Normandy, France, in 1601. At the age of 14 he took a vow of chastity, and after studying with the Jesuits he joined the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri. He was ordained as a priest in 1625 but immediately afterwards became sick with an illness that kept him in bed for a year. During the great plagues of 1627 and 1631 John Eudes volunteered to care for the sick. At the age of 32 he became a parish missionary, preaching more than 100 missions in many parts of France. John Eudes founded the Congregation of the Priests of Jesus and Mary (Eudists) and the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, and wrote Propers for a Mass and Divine Office of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He died in Normandy in 1680, was beatified in 1909 and was canonised in 1925. Saint John Eudes is called the Apostle of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

O God, who wonderously inflamed blessed John your confessor to promote the public worship of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and through him willed to found new religious families in your Church, grant, we beseech you, that we who venerate his merits may also be taught by the example of his virtues. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Julius, senator and martyr, who was delivered up to the judge Vitellius, and by him thrown into prison. By order of the emperor Commodus, he was beaten with rods until he expired. His body was buried in the cemetery of Calepodius on the Via Aurelia.

In Cilicia, the birthday of St. Andrew, tribune, and his military companions, who were converted to Christianity through a miraculous victory they had gained over the Persians. Being accused on this account, they were massacred in the defiles of Mount Taurus by the army of the governor Seleueus under the emperor Maximian.

In Palestine, St. Timothy, a martyr, in the persecution of Diocletian under the governor Urbanus. After overcoming many torments, he was consumed with a slow fire. In the same country suffered also Thecla and Agapius. The former being exposed to the beasts, was torn to pieces by their teeth, and went to her spouse, but Agapius, after enduring many torments, was reserved for greater combats.

At Anagni, St. Magnus, bishop and martyr, who was put to death in the persecution of Decius.

At the castle of Brignoles in Provence, the demise of St. Louis, bishop of Toulouse, of the Order of Friars Minor, renowned for holiness of life and miracles. His body was taken then to Marseilles, and buried with due honours in the church of the Friars Minor.

In the neighbourhood of Sisteron in France, blessed Donatus, priest and confessor. Being from his very infancy endowed with the grace of God in an extraordinary manner, he lived the life of an anchoret for many years, and after having been renowned for glorious miracles, went to Christ.

In the territory of Bourges, St. Marian, confessor.

At Mantua, St. Rufinus, confessor.

At Rome, blessed Urban II, pope, who followed in the footsteps of Pope St. Gregory VII, in his zeal for learning and religion, and fired the Crusaders with enthusiasm for the recovery of the holy places in Palestine from the power of the infidels. The veneration paid to him from time immemorial Pope Leo XIII approved and confirmed.

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

Thanks be to God.

18 AUGUST – SAINT AGAPITUS (Martyr)

At Praeneste in Italy (modern Palestrina) a boy of 15 years named Agapetus was taken and brought before Prefect of Rome, Varius Antiochianus, in the reign of Aurelian in 275 AD. He was beaten severely and then thrust into a dark and loathsome dungeon where he was left without food, water and light for four days. He was then drawn forth sick, faint, dazzled by the glare of the sun, before Antiochianus. When asked if he would sacrifice to the gods of Rome, he shook his head. Red hot coals were poured over his head and bare shoulders. He was then suspended by his feet, head downwards, over smoke, and beaten. When nearly unconscious, he was laid on the ground and boiling water poured over his breast and belly, his jaw was broken with a stone, but still he lived. Antiochianus fell off his throne in a fit and died. News was taken to Aurelian, who ordered Agapetus to be thrown to lions in the amphitheatre, but the lions refused to touch him. Instead they crouched at his feet and licked them. He was therefore taken away to where stand two columns outside the gate of Praeneste, and then he was beheaded.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, during the persecution of Diocletian, the blessed John and Crispus, priests, who charitably buried the bodies of many saints, and afterwards becoming partakers of their merits, they deserved the joys of eternal life.

In the same city, the holy martyrs Hernias, Serapion and Polysenus. Being dragged through narrow, stony and craggy places, they yielded up their souls to God.

In Dalmatia, the holy martyrs Florus and Laurus, stonecutters, who, after the martyrdom of Proculus and Maximus, their employers, were subjected to many torments under the governor Licion, and plunged into a deep well.

At Myra in Lycia, the holy martyrs Leo and Juliana.

At Metz in France, St. Firmin, bishop and confessor.

At Rome, on the Via Labicana, St. Helena, mother of the pious emperor Constantine the Great, who was the first to set the example to other princes of protecting and extending the Church.

At Monte-Falo in Umbria, blessed Clare, virgin, nun of the Order of St. Augustine, in whom the mysteries of Our Lord’s Passion were renewed and are venerated with the greatest devotion. Pope Leo XIII solemnly added her to the list of holy virgins.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 AUGUST – SAINT ROCH (Confessor)

 

Roch was born at Montpellier in France in 1295. He showed his great love for his neighbour when a cruel pestilence ravaged the length and breadth of Italy. Leaving his native country he undertook a journey through Italy, and passing through the towns and villages, devoted himself to the service of the sick, not hesitating to lay down his life for his brethren. Miraculous cures bore witness how pleasing to God was the zeal of the holy man. For by the sign of the cross he saved many who were in danger of death through the plague, and restored them to perfect health. He returned to his own country and, rich in virtues and merits, died a most holy death in 1327. He was honoured by the veneration of the faithful immediately after his death. It is said their devotion was greatly increased at the Council of Constance when, in order to avert the pestilence that threatened them, the image of Saint Roch was, with the approbation of the bishops, carried solemnly through that town followed by the whole people. Thus devotion to him has spread in a wonderful way through the whole world, and he has been piously declared the universal protector against contagious diseases. Having carefully considered all this, Pope Urban VIII allowed his feast to be celebrated with an ecclesiastical office, in those places where there are churches dedicated to God under the invocation of Saint Roch.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Three years of famine, three months of defeats, three days of pestilence: the choice given to the guilty David between these three measures of expiation shows them to be equivalent before the justice of God. The terrible scourge which makes more havoc in three days than would famine or a disastrous war in months and years, showed in the fourteenth century that it kept its sad pre-eminence: the Black Death covered the world with a mantle of mourning, and robbed it of a third of its inhabitants. Doubtless the world had never so well merited the terrible warning: the graces of sanctity poured in profusion on the preceding century had but checked for a while the defection of the nations. Every embankment being now broken down, entrance was given to the irresistible tide of schism, reform and revolution by which the world must die. Nevertheless God has mercy as long as life lasts, and while striking sinful mankind, He gave them at the same time the Saint predestined to appease His vengeance.

At his birth he appeared marked with the cross. When a young man he distributed his goods to the poor, and leaving his family and country, became a pilgrim for Christ’s sake. Going to Italy to visit the sanctuaries, he there found the cities devastated by a terrible plague. Roch took up his abode among the dead and dying, burying the former and healing the latter with the sign of the cross. Himself stricken with the evil, he hid himself so as to suffer alone; and a dog brought him food. When cured by God he returned to Montpellier, his native town, it was only to be there seized as a spy and thrown into prison where he died after five years. Such are thy dealings with your elect, O Wisdom of God! But no sooner was he dead, than prodigies burst forth, making known his origin and history, revealing the power he still enjoyed of delivering from pestilence those who had recourse to him.

The reputation of his influence, increased by fresh benefits at each visitation of plague, caused his cultus to become popular. Hence although the feast of Saint Roch is not universal, this short notice was due to him.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Carthage in Africa, the holy martyrs Liberatus, abbot, Boniface, deacon, Servus and Rusticus, subdeacons, Rogatus and Septimus, monks, and Maximus, a young child. In the persecution of the Vandals under king Hunneric, they were subjected to various unheard-of torments for the confession of the Catholic faith and the defence of one baptism. Finally, being nailed to the wood with which they were to be burned, as the fire was always put out miraculously whenever kindled, they were struck with iron bars by order of the tyrant until their brains were dashed out. Thus they terminated the glorious series of their combats and were crowned by Our Lord.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, the birthday of St. Mamas, martyr, who, from childhood to old age endured a long martyrdom, and at length ended it happily in the reign of Aurelian under the governor Alexander. He was highly praised by the holy fathers Basil and Gregory Nazianzen.

In Achaia, St. Myron, priest and martyr, who was beheaded at Cyzicum, after undergoing many torments in the time of the emperor Decius and the governor Antipater.

At Nicomedia, the holy martyrs Straton, Philip and Eutychian, who were condemned to the beasts, but being uninjured by them, ended their martyrdom by fire.

At Teramo, St. Anastasius, bishop and confessor.

At Ptolemais in Palestine, the holy martyrs Paul, and his sister Juliana, who suffered under Valerian.

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

Thanks be to God.

17 AUGUST – SAINT HYACINTH (Confessor)

Hyacinth was born in 1185 near Breslau, Silesia, to Eustachius Konski of the noble Odrowaz family. After studying law and Divinity at Cracow, Prague and Bologna, he returned to Poland and became a Canon of Cracow, surpassing all his fellow-priests by his remarkable piety and learning. On a trip to Rome with his uncle Ivo Konski, the Bishop of Cracow, he met Saint Dominic and joined the Order of Preachers in 1220. Till the end of his life he observed in a most holy manner the mode of life he learnt from him. He remained always a virgin, and had a great love for modesty, patience, humility, abstinence and other virtues, which are the true inheritance of the religious life. In his burning love for God he would spend whole nights in prayer and chastising his body. He would allow himself no rest except by leaning against a stone, or lying on the bare ground.

After six months as novice he made his religious profession and returned to his own country, converting many sinners on the way. Not a day passed but he gave some striking proof of his faith, his piety, and his innocence. Throughout Poland he persuaded indifferent Christians to reform their lives. He founded monasteries in several places, then went to Prussia, Pomerania, Lithuania, the Scandinavian countries, and the south of Russia as far as the Black Sea. On another journey he founded a monastery in Kiev. In 1231 he undertook his longest apostolic mission, reaching the frontiers of Tibet and China. God honoured the holy man’s zeal for the good of his neighbour by very great miracles. The following is one of the most striking: he crossed without a boat the river Vistula which had overflowed near Wisgrade, and drew his companions also across on his cloak which he spread out over the water.

Having persevered in his admirable manner of life for forty years after his Profession, he foretold to his brethren the day of his death. On the feast of our Lady’s Assumption in 1257, having finished the Canonical Hours, and received the Sacraments of the Church with great devotion, saying these words: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit,” he gave up his soul to God. Hyacinth was canonised by Pope Clement VIII in 1594. Saint Hyacinth is called the Apostle of the North.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

One of the loveliest lilies from the Dominican field today unfurls its petals at the foot of Mary’s throne. Hyacinth represents on the sacred cycle that intrepid band of missionaries who in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries faced the barbarism of the Tartars and Muslims which was threatening the West. From the Alps to the Northern frontiers of the Chinese Empire, from the islands of the Archipelago to the Arctic regions, he propagated his Order and spread the kingdom of God. On the Steppes where the schism of Constantinople disputed its conquests with the idolatrous invaders from the North, he was seen for forty years working prodigies, confounding heresy, dispelling the darkness of infidelity.

The consecration of martyrdom was not wanting to this, any more than to the first Apostolate. Many were the admirable episodes where the Angels seemed to smile on the hard combats of their earthly brethren. In the convent founded by Hyacinth at Sandomir on the Vistula, forty-eight Friars Preachers were gathered together under the rule of Blessed Sadoc. One day the lector of the Martyrology, announcing the feast of the morrow, read these words which appeared before his eyes in letters of gold: AT SANDOMIK ON THE 4TH OF THE NONES OF JUNE, THE PASSION OF FORTY-NINE MARTYRS. The astonished brethren soon under stood this extraordinary announcement. In the joy of their souls they prepared to gather the palm which was procured for them by an irruption of the Tartars on the very day mentioned. They were assembled in choir at the happy moment, and while singing the Salve Regina they dyed with their blood the pavement of the church.

No executioner’s sword was to close Hyacinth’s glorious career. John, the beloved disciple, had had to remain on Earth till the Lord should come. Our Saint waited for the Mother of his Lord to fetch him. Neither labour nor the greatest sufferings, nor above all the most wonderful divine interventions were wanting to his beautiful life. Kiev, the holy city of the Russians, having for fifty years resisted his zeal, the Tartars, as avengers of God’s justice, swept over it and sacked it. The universal devastation reached the very doors of the sanctuary where the man of God was just concluding the Holy Sacrifice. Clothed as he was in the sacred vestments, he took in one hand the most Holy Sacrament and in the other the statue of Mary who asked him not to leave her to the barbarians. Then, together with his brethren, he walked safe and sound through the very midst of the bloodthirsty pagans, along the streets all in flames, and lastly across the Dnieper, the ancient Borysthenes, whose waters, growing firm beneath his feet, retained the marks of his steps. Three centuries later, the witnesses examined for the process of canonisation attested on oath that the prodigy still continued. The footprints always visible on the water, from one bank to the other, were called by the surrounding inhabitants St. Hyacinth’s Way.

The Saint, continuing bis miraculous retreat as far as Cracow, there laid down his precious burden in the convent of the Blessed Trinity. The statue of Mary, light as a reed while he was carrying it, now resumed its natural weight, which was so great that one man could not so much as move it. Beside this statue Hyacinth, after many more labours, would return to die. It was here that, at the beginning of his apostolic life, the Mother of God had appeared to him for the first time, saying: “Have great courage and be joyful, my son Hyacinth! Whatever you will ask in my name, will be granted to you.” This happy interview took place on the Vigil of the Assumption. The Saint gathered from it the superhuman confidence of the thaumaturgus which no difficulty could ever shake. But above all he retained from it the virginal fragrance which embalmed his whole life, and the light of supernatural beauty which made him the picture of his father Dominic.

Years passed away: heroic Poland, the privileged centre of Hyacinth’s labours, was ready to play its part, under Mary’s shield, as the bulwark of Christendom. At the price of what sacrifices we will hear in October from a contemporary of our Saint, Saint Hedwiges, the blessed mother of the hero of Liegoitz. Meantime, like Saint Stanislaus his predecessor in the labour, the son of Saint Dominic came to Cracow to breathe his last sigh and leave there the treasure of his sacred relics. Not on the Vigil this time, but on the very day of her triumph, August 10th 1257, in the church of the Most Holy Trinity, our Lady came down once more, with a brilliant escort of Angels and Virgins forming her court. “Oh! who are you?” cried a holy soul who beheld all this in ecstasy. “I,” answered Mary, “am the Mother of mercy. And he whom I hold by the hand, is brother Hyacinth, my devoted son, whom I am leading to the eternal nuptials.” Then our Lady intoned herself with her sweet voice: “I will go to the mountain of Libanus,” and the Angels and Virgins continued the heavenly song with exquisite harmony, while the happy procession disappeared into the glory of Heaven.

Great was your privilege, O son of Dominic, to be so closely associated to Mary as to enter into your glory on the very feast of her triumph. As you occupy so fair a place in the procession accompanying her to Heaven, tell us of her greatness, her beauty, her love for us poor creatures, whom she desires to make sharers, like you, in her bliss. It is through her you were so powerful in this your exile, before being near her in happiness and glory. Long after Adalbert and Anscharius, Cyril and Methodius, you traversed once more the ungrateful North where thorns and briars so quickly spring up again, where the people whom the Church has with such labour delivered from the yoke of paganism, are continually letting themselves be caught in the meshes of schism and the snares of heresy. In his chosen domain, the prince of darkness suffered fresh defeats, an immense multitude broke his chains, and the light of salvation shone further than any of your predecessors had carried it. Poland, definitively won to the Church, became her rampart, until the days of treason which put an end to Christian Europe.

O Hyacinth, preserve the faith in the hearts of this noble people until the day of its resurrection. Obtain grace for the Northern regions, which you warmed with the fiery breath of your word. Nothing you ask of Mary will be refused, for the Mother of Mercy promised you so. Keep up the apostolic zeal of your illustrious Order. May the number of your brethren be multiplied, for it is far below our present needs.

Akin to your power over the waves is another attributed to you by the confidence of the faithful, and justified by many prodigies: viz., that of restoring life to the drowned. Many a time also have Christian mothers experienced your miraculous power in bringing to the saving font their little ones whom a dangerous delivery threatened to deprive of Baptism. Prove to your devout clients that the goodness of God is ever the same, and the influence of His elect not lessened.

16 AUGUST – SAINT JOACHIM (Father of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

From time immemorial the Greeks have celebrated the feast of Saint Joachim on the day following our Lady’s birthday. The Maronites kept it on the day after the Presentation in November, and the Armenians on the Tuesday after the Octave of the Assumption of the Mother of God. The Latins at first did not keep his feast. Later on it was admitted and celebrated sometimes on the day after the Octave of the Nativity, September 16th, sometimes on the day following the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, December 9th. Thus both East and West agreed in associating Saint Joachim with his illustrious daughter when they wished to do him honour.

About the year 1510 Julius II placed the feast of the grandfather of the Messiah on the Roman Calendar with the rank of double major, and remembering that family in which the ties of nature and of grace were in such perfect harmony, he fixed the solemnity on the 20th March, the day after that of his son-in-law, Saint Joseph. The life of the glorious patriarch resembled those of the first fathers of the Hebrew people, and it seemed as though he were destined to imitate their wanderings also by continually changing his place on the sacred cycle. Hardly fifty years alter the Pontificate of Julius II the critical spirit of the day cast doubts on the history of Saint Joachim, and his name was erased from the Roman breviary. Gregory XV, however, re-established his feast in 1622 as a double, and the Church has since continued to celebrate it. Devotion to our Lady’s father continuing to increase very much, the Holy See was petitioned to make his feast a holiday of obligation, as it had already made that of his spouse, St. Anne. In order to satisfy the devotion of the people without increasing the number of days of obligation, Clement XII in 1738 transferred the feast of Saint Joachim to the Sunday after the Assumption of his daughter, the Blessed Virgin, and restored it to the rank of double major.

On the First of August 1879 the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII, who received the name of Joachim in baptism, raised both the feast of his glorious patron and that of Saint Anne to the rank of doubles of the second class. The following is an extract from the decree Urbi et Orbi, announcing this final decision with regard to the said feasts: “Ecclesiasticus teaches us that we ought to praise our fathers in their generation. What great honour and veneration ought we then to render to Saint Joachim and Saint Anne who begot the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and are on that account more glorious than all others.” “By your fruits are you known,” says Saint John Damascene, “you have given birth to a daughter who is greater than the Angels and has become their Queen.” Now since, through the divine mercy, in our unhappy times the honour and worship paid to the Blessed Virgin is increasing in proportion to the increasing needs of the Christian people, it is only right that the new glory which surrounds their blessed daughter should redound on her happy parents. May this increase of devotion towards them cause the Church to experience still more their powerful protection.

Epistle – Ecclesiasticus xxxi. 8–11

Blessed is the rich man that is found without blemish, and that has not gone after gold, nor put his trust in money, nor in treasures. Who is he, and we will praise him? For he has done wonderful things in his life. Who has been tried thereby, and made perfect, he will have glory everlasting: he that could have transgressed, and has not transgressed, and could do evil things, and has not done them: therefore are his goods established in the Lord, and all the church of the saints will declare his alms.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

Joachim’s wealth, like that of the first patriarchs, consisted chiefly in flocks and herds. The holy use he made of it drew down God’s blessing on it. But the greatest of all his desires Heaven seemed to refuse him. His holy spouse Anne was barren. Among all the daughters of Israel expecting the Messiah, there was no hope for her. One day the victims Joachim presented in the Temple were conemptuously rejected. Those were not the gifts the Lord of the Temple desired of him. Later on, instead of lambs from his pastures, he was to present the Mother of the Lamb of God, and his offering would not be rejected.

This day, however, he was filled with sorrow and fled away without returning to his wife. He hastened to the mountains where his flocks were at pasture and living in a tent, he fasted continually, for he said: “I will take no food till the Lord my God look mercifully upon me. Prayer will be my nourishment.” Meanwhile Anne was mourning her widowhood and her barrenness. She prayed in her garden as Joachim was praying on the mountain. Their prayers ascended at the same time to the Most High, and He granted them their request. An Angel of the Lord appeared to each of them and bade them meet at the Golden Gate, and soon Anne could say: “Now I know that the Lord has greatly blessed me. For I was a widow and I am one no longer, and I was barren, and lo! I have conceived!”

Gospel – Matthew i. 1–16

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the Son of Abraham. Abraham begot Isaac; and Isaac begot Jacob; and Jacob begot Judas and his brethren; and Judas begot Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begot Esron; and Esron begot Aram; and Aram begot Aminadab; and Aminadab begot Naasson; and Naasson begot Salmon; and Salmon begot Booz of Rahab; and Booz begot Obed of Ruth; and Obed begot Jesse; and Jesse begot David the king. And David the king begot Solomon, of her who had been the wife of Unas; and Solomon begot Roboam; and Roboam begot Abia; and Abia begot Asa; and Asa begot Josaphat; and Josaphat begot Joram; and Joram begot Ozias; and Ozias begot Joatham; and Joatham begot Achaz; and Achaz begot Ezechias; and Ezschias begot Manasses; and Manasses begot Amon; and Amon begot Josias; and Josias begot Jechonias and his brethren in the transmigration of Babylon. And, after the transmigration of Babylon, Jechonias begot Salathiel; and Salathiel begot Zorobabel; and Zorobabel begot Abiud; and Abiud begot Eliacim; and Eliacim begot Azor; and Azor begot Sadoc; and Sadoc begot Achim: and Achim begot Eliud; and Eliud begot Eleazar; and Eleazar begot Mathan; and Mathan begot Jacob; and Jacob begot Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus; who is called Christ.

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

“Rejoice, O Joachim, for of your daughter a Son is born to us,” exclaims Saint John Damascene. It is in this spirit the Church reads to us today the list of the royal ancestors of our Saviour. Joseph, the descendant of these illustrious princes, inherited their rights and passed them on to Jesus, who was his Son according to the Jewish law, though according to nature he was of the line of his Virgin Mother alone. Saint Luke, Mary’s Evangelist, has preserved the names of the direct ancestors of the Mother of the Man-God, springing from David in the person of Nathan, Solomon’s brother. Joseph, the son of Jacob according to Saint Matthew, appears in Saint Luke as son of Heli. The reason is, that by espousing Mary, the only daughter of Heli or Heliachim, that is Joachim, he became legally his son and heir. This is the now generally received explanation of the two genealogies of Christ the Son of David. It is not surprising that Rome, the queen city who has become the Bride of the Son of man in the place of the repudiated Sion, prefers to use in her Liturgy the genealogy which by its long line of royal ancestors emphasises the kingship of the Spouse over Jerusalem. The name of Joachim, which signifies “the preparation of the Lord,” is thus rendered more majestic, without losing aught of its mystical meaning. He is himself crowned with wonderful glory. Jesus, his Grandson, gives him to share in His own authority over every creature.

Father of Mary, we thank you. All creation owes you a debt of gratitude, since the Creator was pleased that you should give Him the Mother He had chosen for Himself. Husband of holy Anne, you show us what would have been in Paradise. You seem to have been reinstated in primeval innocence, in order to give birth to the Immaculate Virgin: sanctify Christian life, and elevate the standard of morals. You are the Grandfather of Jesus: let your paternal love embrace all Christians who are His brethren. Holy Church honours you more than ever in these days of trial. She knows how powerful you are with the Eternal and Almighty Father, who made you instrumental, through your blessed daughter, in the temporal Generation of His Eternal Son.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, St. Titus, deacon, who, when the city was taken by the Goths, was put to death by a barbarous tribune while distributing money to the poor.

At Nicaea in Bithynia, St. Diomedes, physician, who underwent martyrdom for the faith of Christ by being beheaded during the persecution of Diocletian.

Also thirty-three holy martyrs.

At Ferentino in Campania, St. Ambrose, centurion. In the persecution of Diocletian, he was subjected to different kinds of tortures, and finally passing through fire without injury, was cast into the water, and thus reached the place of eternal rest.

At Milan, the demise of St. Simplician, bishop, renowned by the testimony given of him by St. Ambrose and St. Augustine.

At Auxerre, St. Eleutherius, bishop.

At Nicomedia, St. Arsacius, confessor. Under the persecutor Licinius he left the military service, and leading a solitary life, became so famous for working miracles that we read of his expelling the demons and killing a huge dragon by his prayers. Finally he foretold the destruction of the city and gave up his soul to God in prayer.

Near Montpelier in France, the demise of blessed Roch, confessor, who by the sign of the cross, delivered many cities of Italy from an epidemic. His body was afterwards transferred to Venice, and deposited with the greatest honours in the church dedicated under his invocation.

At Rome, St. Serena, who had been the wife of the emperor Diocletian.

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

Thanks be to God.

16 AUGUST – TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST (GOOD SAMARITAN SUNDAY)

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

On this Sunday, which is their Twelfth of Saint Matthew, the Greeks read in the Mass the episode of the young rich man who questions Jesus, given in the Nineteenth Chapter of the Saint’s Gospel. In the West, it is the Gospel of the good Samaritan, which gives its name to this twelfth Sunday after Pentecost.

Epistle – 2 Corinthians iii. 4‒9

Brethren, such confidence we have, through Christ, towards God. Not that we are sufficient to think anything of ourselves, as of ourselves: but our sufficiency is from God. Who also has made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit quickens. Now if the ministration of death, engraved with letters upon stones, was glorious so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance which is made void: How will not the ministration of the spirit be rather in glory? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more the ministration of justice abounds in glory.

Thanks be to God.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The glorious promises mentioned in the concluding words of our Collect [grant us, we beseech you, that we may run on, without stumbling, to the things you have promised us] are described to us in the Epistle which seems at first sight to be entirely in praise of the Apostolic ministry. But the glory of the Apostles is the glory of Him whom they announce, and this one glory which is His, Christ, the Head, communicates it to all his members, making it also their one glory. This divine glory flows, together with the divine life, from that sacred Head. And they both flow, and copiously too, through all the channels of holy Church (Ephesians iv. 15, 16).

If they do not come to all Christians in the same proportions, such difference in no wise denotes that the glory or the life themselves are of a different kind to some from what they are to others. Each member of Christ’s mystical Body is called to form his own degree of capacity for glory. Not of course, as the Apostle says, that “we are of ourselves sufficient even to think anything as of ourselves,” but what diversity is there not in the way in which men turn to profit the divine capital allotted to each by grace! Oh if we did but know the gift of God! (John iv. 10) If we did but understand the super-eminent dignity reserved under the law of love, to every man of good will! (Luke ii. 14), then, perhaps, our cowardice and sluggishness would at last go. Perhaps then our souls would get fired with the noble ambition which turns men into saints.

At all events, we should then come to realise that Christian humility, of which we were speaking on the last two Sundays, is not the vulgar grovelling of a low-minded man, but the glorious entrance on the way which leads by divine Union to the one true greatness. Are not those men inconsistent and senseless who, longing by the very law of their nature for glory, go seeking it in the phantoms of pride, and allow themselves to be diverted by the baubles of vanity from the pursuit of those real honours, which Eternal Wisdom (Ecclesiasticus vi. 29‒32) had destined for them! And those grand honours were to have been heaped on them, not only in their future Heaven, but even here in their earthly habitation, and God and His Saints were to have been admiring and applauding spectators!

In the name, then, of our dearest and truest interests, let us give ear to our Apostle and get into us his heavenly enthusiasm. We will understand his exquisite teaching all the better if we read the sequel to the few lines assigned for today’s Epistle. It is but fully carrying out the wishes of the Church when her children, after or before assisting at her liturgical services, take the Sacred Scriptures and read for themselves the continuation of passages which are necessarily abridged during the public celebrations. It were well if they did this all through the Year. What a fund of instruction they would thus acquire! Today, however, there is an additional motive for the suggestion, inasmuch as this second Epistle to the Corinthians is brought before us for the first and only time during this season of the Liturgy.

But, let us examine what is this glory of the New Testament, which so fills the Apostle with ecstasy and, in his mind, almost entirely eclipses the splendour of the Old. Splendour there undoubtedly was in the Sinai covenant. Never had there been such a manifestation of God’s majesty, and omnipotence, and holiness, as on that day when, gathering together at the foot of the Mount, the descendants of the twelve sons of Jacob, He mercifully renewed, with this immense family, the covenant formerly made with their Fathers (Genesis xv. 18) and gave them His Law in the extraordinarily solemn manner described in the book of Exodus. And yet, that Law, engravened as it was on stone by God’s own hand, was not, for all that, in the hearts of the receivers. Neither did its holiness prevent, though it condemned, sin — sin which reigns in man’s heart (Romans vii. 12, 13). Moses, who carried the divine writing, came down from the Mount having the rays of God’s glory blazing on his face (Exodus xxxiv. 29‒35). But i was a glory which was not to be shared in by the people of whom he was the head. It was for himself alone, as was likewise the privilege he had enjoyed of speaking with God face-to-face (Exodus xxiii. 11). It ceased with him, thus signifying by its short duration the character of that ministration which was to cease on the coming of the Messiah, just as the night’s borrowed light vanishes when the day appears. And, as it were the better to show that the time was not as yet come when God would manifest His glory, the children of Israel were not able to gaze steadfastly on the face of Moses so that, when he had to speak to the people, he had need to put on a veil. Though a mere borrowed light, the brightness of Moses’ face represented the glory of the future Covenant, whose splendour was to shine, not, of course, externally, but in the hearts of us all, by giving us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians iv. 6). Light, living and life-giving, which is none other than the divine Word (John i. 4‒9), the Wisdom of the Father (Wisdom vii. 25, 26), a Light and a Wisdom which the energy of the Sacraments, seconded by contemplation and love, makes to pass from the Humanity of our divine Head to the very recesses of our souls.

We will find our Sunday giving us a second reminder of Moses, but the true and enduring greatness of the Hebrew leader is in what we have been stating. In the same way that Abraham was grander by the spiritual progeny which was the issue of his Faith than he was by the posterity that was his in the flesh, so the glory of Moses consisted, not so much in his having been at the head of the ancient Israelites for forty long years, as in his having represented, in his own person, both the office of the Messiah King and the prerogatives of the new people. The Gentile is set free from the law of fear and sin (Romans viii. 2) by the law of grace, which not only declares justice, but gives it. Tthe Gentile, having been made a son of God (Romans viii. 15), communes with Him in that liberty which comes of the Spirit of love (2 Corinthians iii. 17). But this privileged Gentile has no type which so perfectly represents him in the first Covenant as this the very lawgiver of Israel, this Moses who finds such favour with the Most High as to be admitted to behold His glory (Exodus xxxiii. 17‒19) and converse with Him with all the intimacy of friend to friend (Exodus xxxiii. 11). Whereas God showed Himself to this His servant — as far, that is, as mortal man is capable of such sight (Exodus xxxiii. 20) — and as He was seen by him without the intermediation of figures or images (Numbers xii. 8) — so, when he approached thus to God, Moses took from his face the veil he wore at other times. The Jew persists, even to this very day, in keeping between himself and Christ, this veil which is removed to all the world else (2 Corinthians iii. 14). The Christian, on the contrary, with the holy daring of which the Apostle speaks (2 Corinthians iii. 12), removes all intermediates between God and himself and draws aside the veil of all figures. Beholding the glory of the Lord with face uncovered, we are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians iii. 8), for we become other christs, and are made like God the Father, as is His Son Christ Jesus.

Thus is fulfilled the will of this Almighty Father for the sanctification of the elect. God sees Himself reflected in these predestined who are become, in the beautiful light divine, conformable to the image of His Son (Romans viii. 29). He could say of each one of them what he spoke at the Jordan and on Thabor: “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew iii. 17; xvii. 5). He makes them His true temple (2 Corinthians vi. 16), verifying the word He spoke of old: “I will set my tabernacle in the midst of you: I will walk among you, and will be your God (Leviticus xxvi. 12). I will bring your seed from the East and gather you from the West. I will say to the North: Give up and to the South: Keep not back! Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the Earth!” (Isaias xliii. 5‒7).

Such are the promises for whose realisation we should, as the Apostle says, be all earnestness in working out our sanctification, by cleansing ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit, in the fear of God (2 Corinthians vii. 1) and in His love. Such is that glory of the New Testament, that glory of the Church and of every Christian soul, which so immensely surpasses the glory of the Old and the brightness which lit up the face of Moses. As to our carrying this treasure in frail vessels, we must not on that account lose heart but the rather rejoice in this weakness, which makes God’s power all the more evident. We must take our miseries, and even Death itself, and turn them into profit by giving the stronger manifestation of our Lord Jesus’ life in this mortal flesh of ours. What matters it to our faith and our hope if our outward man is gradually falling to decay, when the inner is being renewed day-by-day? The light and transitory suffering of the present is producing within us an eternal weight of glory. Let us then fix our gaze not on what is seen, but on what is unseen: the visible passes, the invisible is eternal (2 Corinthians iv. 7‒18).

Gospel – Luke x. 23‒27

At that time, Jesus said to His disciples, “Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see. For I say to you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see the things that you see, and have not seen them; and to hear the things that you hear, and have not heard them.” And behold a certain lawyer stood up, tempting Him, and saying, “Master, what must I do to possess eternal life?” But He said to him: “What is written in the law? how do you read it?” He answering, said: “You must love the Lord your God with your whole heart, and with your whole soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind: and your neighbour as yourself.” And He said to him: “You have answered right: this do, and you will live.” But he willing to justify himself, said to Jesus: “And who is my neighbour?” And Jesus answering, said: “A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, who also stripped him, and having wounded him went away, leaving him half dead. And it chanced, that a certain priest went down the same way: and seeing him, passed by. In like manner also a Levite, when he was near the place and saw him, passed by. But a certain Samaritan being on his journey, came near him; and seeing him, was moved with compassion. And going up to him, bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine: and setting him upon his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And the next day he took out two pence, and gave to the host, and said: ‘Take care of him; and whatever you spend over and above, I, at my return, will repay you.’ Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbour to him that fell among the robbers?” But he said: “He that showed mercy to him.” And Jesus said to him: “Go, and do the same.”

Praise be to you, O Christ.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The Doctor and Apostle of the Gentiles was speaking to us in the Epistle of the glory of the New Testament: He, of whom Paul was but the servant, Jesus, the Man-God, reveals to us in the Gospel the perfection of that Law which He came to give to the world. And as though He would, in a certain way, unite His own divine teachings with those of His Apostle and justify that Apostle’s enthusiasm, it is from the very depth of His own most holy soul and in the Holy Ghost (Luke x. 21‒23) that, having thanked His Eternal Father for these great things, He cries out, turning to His Disciples: “Blessed are the eyes that see the things which you see!”

The same idea was expressed by the Prince of the Apostolic College when he spoke of the unspeakable and glorious joy (1 Peter i. 8) which resulted from the new Alliance in which figures were to be replaced by realities. In his first Epistle to the elect of the Holy Spirit (1 Peter i.) Peter speaks, in the same strain as his divine Master had done, of the unfulfilled aspirations of the Saints of the Old Testament — these admirable men whom Saint Paul describes (Hebrews xi.) as being so grand in faith, as to be both heroic in combat and sublime in virtue. Saint Peter, then, expresses in inspired language how the elect of the Church of expectation were continually looking forward to the grace of the time that was to come; how they were ever counting the years which were to intervene; how they were carefully searching (scrutinising, as our Vulgate words it) the long ages, to find out when that happy time would be realised, although they were well aware, that the longed-for sight of the mysteries of salvation was never to be theirs, and that their mission was limited to prophesying those future grandeurs to future generations (1 Peter i. 10‒12).

But, who are those Kings spoken of in our Gospel as uniting with the Prophets in the desire to see the things we see? To say nothing of those holy ones who thought less of the throne they sat on, than of the divine Object of the world's expectation, may we not say with the holy Fathers that they well deserved to be called kings, whom Saint Paul describes as, by their faith, conquering kingdoms, vanquishing armies, stopping the mouths of lions, masters of the very elements: what is more, masters of their own selves? Heedless of the mockeries, as well as of the persecutions of the world that was not worthy to possess such men, these champions of the faith were seen wandering in the deserts, sheltering in dens and caves, and yet as happy as kings, because of a certain Object whom they intensely loved and longed to see, and yet whom they knew they were not to see until after their deaths and until tedious ages had run their long course (Hebrews xi. 33‒39). We, then, who are their descendants — we for whom they were obliged to wait in order to enjoy a share of those blessings which their sighs and vehement desires did so much to hasten — do we appreciate the immense favour bestowed on us by our Lord? We, whose virtue scarcely bears comparison with that of the fathers of our faith and who, notwithstanding, by the descent of the Holy Spirit of love, have been more enlightened than ever were the prophets for, by that Holy Spirit we have been put in possession of the mysteries which they only foretold — how is it, that we are so sadly slow to feel the obligation we are under of responding, by holiness of life (1 Peter i. 13‒16) and by an ardent and generous love, to the liberality of that God who has gratuitously called us from darkness to His admirable light? (1 Peter ii. 9)

Having so great a cloud of witnesses over our heads, let us lay aside every weight and sin which surrounds us, and run, by patience, in the fight proposed to us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of faith who, having joy set before Him, preferred to endure the cross despising the shame, and now sits on the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews xii. 1, 2). We know Him with greater certainty than we do the events which are happening under our eyes for, He Himself, by His Holy Spirit, is ever within us, incorporating His mysteries into us.

The illumination of holy Baptism has produced within our souls that revelation of Christ Jesus which constitutes the basis of the Christian life, and for which the Man-God congratulated His disciples. It was of that revelation or knowledge that He spoke, rather than of the exterior sight of His human nature: a sight, which was common not only to His devoted followers, but to every enemy that chose to stare at Him. The Apostle of the Gentiles makes this very clear when, after the change produced in the Disciples by the Holy Ghost coming upon them, he thus spoke: “If we once knew Christ according to the flesh, now, we know Him so no longer” (2 Corinthians v. 16). It is literally in us, and no longer in the cities of Judea, that the kingdom of God is to be found (Luke xvii. 21). It is faith that shows us the Chris, who is dwelling in our hearts, that He may establish us in charity and grow in us by transforming us into Himself, and fill us with all the fullness of God (Ephesians iii. 16‒19). It is by fixing his eye on the divine image, which silently lights up the soul that has been purified by Baptism, that, as we were just now saying, the inner man is renewed from day-to-day by incessant contemplation and growing love, and persevering and, at last, perfect imitation, of his Creator and Saviour (Colossians iii. 10).

How important, then, that we let the supernatural light have such free scope and expansion within us, that not one of our acts, or thoughts, not even the deepest recess of our hearts, will escape its sovereign influence and guidance! It is on this point that the Holy Ghost works prodigies in faithful souls: the unrestrained development of those His highest Gifts — Understanding and Wisdom — gives such a predominance to the divine light that the brightness of the sun’s rays pales to the eyes of these Saints. Sometimes, even in His omnipotent freedom of breathing when and as He wills, this Holy Spirit waits not for the regular development of those Gifts of His which He bestows on all: the soul, drawn up to heights unreached by the ordinary paths of the Christian life, finds herself plunged in the deepest abyss of Wisdom. There she delightedly imbibes the rays which come to her from the eternal summits and, in their tranquil and radiant simplicity which holds all in itself, she feels that she has the secret of all things. There are moments when, raised up still higher — above the region of the senses or the domain of human reasoning as Saint Denis the Areopagite words it, above all the intelligible — she is permitted to rest her wings on the summit, where dwells the uncreated light in its essence — that thrice holy sanctuary from where it streams down even to the furthest limits of creation, lending something of its divine splendour to every creature. Then is it that mercifully acting on the soul, which cannot yet bear the direct infinite glory, the Blessed Trinity shrouds her in that mysterious darkness of which the Saints speak as belonging to these highest degrees of mystical ascension. The darkness, beyond which is the very God of Majesty (Psalms xvii. 12), is an obscurity which penetrates the soul with higher bliss than does light itself. It is a sacred night whose silence is more eloquent than any sound that this Earth could hear. It is a holy of holies where adoration absorbs the soul: vision is not there, still less is science, and yet it is in this sanctuary that understanding and love, acting together in ineffable unison, take hold of the sublimest mysteries of theology.

It is quite true that such favours as these are imparted to but few, and no man can lay the slightest claim to them, be his virtue ever so great, or his fidelity ever so tried. Neither does perfection depend on them. Faith, which guides the just man, is enough to make him estimate the life of the senses for what it really is: miserable and grovelling. With the aid of ordinary grace he easily lives in that intimate retirement of the soul in which he knows that the holy Trinity resides: he knows it because he has it from the teaching of the Scripture (John xiv. 23). His heart is a kind of Heaven where his life is hidden in God, together with that Jesus upon whom are fixed all his thoughts (Colossians iii. 3): there he gives to his beloved Lord the only proof of love which is to be trusted, the only one that this Lord asks at our hands — the keeping of the commandments (John xiv. 21). In spite of the ardent longings of his hope, he waits patiently and calmly for that final revelation of Christ which on the last day will give him to appear together with Him in glory (Colossians iii. 4), for, as without seeing Him he believes in Him, so, without seeing Him, he knows that he loves Him (1 Peter i. 8). The ever advancing growth in virtue which men observe in such a man is a more unmistakable proof of the power of faith than can be those extraordinary manifestations of which we were just speaking, and in which the soul is so irresistibly subdued that she has scarcely the power to refuse her love.

Hence it is not without a reason and a connection that the Gospel chosen for today passes at once, after the opening verses which we have been commenting, to the new promulgation of the great commandment which includes the whole Law and the Prophets (Matthew xxii. 36‒40). Faith assures man that he may and “must love the Lord his God with his whole heart, and with his whole soul, and his whole strength, and his whole mind, and his neighbour as himself.” In the Homily on the sacred text offered to us by the Church, the interpretation goes not beyond the question proposed by the Jewish lawyer: by this she as good as tells us that the latter portion of the Gospel, though by far the longer, is but the practical conclusion to the former, according to that saying of the Apostle, that “Faith works by charity” (Galatians v. 6). The parable of the good Samaritan, though containing materials for the sublimest symbolic teaching, is spoken here in its literal sense by our Lord for the one purpose of removing the restrictions put by the Jews on the great precept of love. If all perfection be included in love — if, without love, no virtue produces fruit for Heaven — it is important for us to remember that love is not of the right kind unless it include our neighbour. And it is only after stating this particular that Saint Paul affirms that “love fulfils the whole law” (Romans xiii. 8), and that “love is the plenitude of the law” (Romans viii. 10). Thus we find that the greater number of the precepts of the Decalogue are upon our duties to our neighbour (Romans xiii. 9), and we are told that the love we have for God is only then what it ought to be when we not only love Him, but when we also love what He loves, that is, when we love man whom He made to his own likeness (1 John iv. 20).

Hence the apostle Saint Paul does not explicitly distinguish, as the Gospel does, between the two precepts of love, and says: “All the law is fulfilled in one sentence: You must love your neighbour as yourself” (Galatians v. 14). Such being the importance of this love, it is necessary to have a clear understanding as to the meaning and extent of the word neighbour. In the mind of the Jews, it comprised only their own race, and in this they were following the custom of the pagan nations, for whom every stranger was an enemy. But here in our Gospel we have a representative of this Jewish diminished law (Psalms xi. 2) eliciting, from Him who is the author of the law, an answer which declares the precept in all its fullness. This time He does not make His voice be heard amid thunder and fire, as on Mount Sinai. He, as Man living and conversing with men (Baruch iii. 38) reveals to them, and in the most intelligible possible way, the whole import of the eternal commandment which leads to life (Baruch iv. 1). In a parable (in which, as many think, He is relating a fact which has really happened, and is known to those to whom He is addressing it) our Jesus describes how there was a man who went forth from the Holy City, and how he fell in with a Samaritan, that is, with a stranger the most despised and the most disliked of all that an inhabitant of Jerusalem looked on as his enemies (John iv 9). And yet, the shrewd lawyer who questions Jesus and, no doubt, all those who had been listening to the answer, are obliged to own that the neighbour, for the poor fellow who had fallen into the hands of robbers was not so truly the priest, or the levite (though both of them were of his own race) as this stranger, this Samaritan, who forgets all national grudges as soon as he sees a suffering creature, and cannot look on him in any other light than as a fellow-man. Our Jesus made Himself thoroughly understood, and every one present must have well learnt the lesson — that the greatest of all laws, the law of love, admits no exception, either here or in Heaven.