August 1
Saint Alphonsus Maria
August 1
Daily Saints – 1 August.
Feast of Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.
He is the patron saint against arthritis, against scrupulosity, confessors, final perseverance, moral theologians, moralists, scrupulous people, theologians, vocations and the lay apostolate.
He was born Alphonsus Marie Antony John Cosmos Damien Michael Gaspard de Liguori on September 27,1696, at Marianella, near Naples, Italy to a noble family.
Raised in a pious home, Alphonsus went on retreats with his father, Don Joseph, who was a naval officer and a captain of the Royal Galleys. Alphonsus was the oldest of seven children, raised by a devout mother Anna, of Spanish descent.
Alphonsus was a child prodigy; he became extremely well-educated, and received his doctorate in law from the University of Naples at age 16.
He had his own legal practice by age 21, and was soon one of the leading lawyers in Naples, though he never attended court without having attended Mass first.
He loved music, could play the harpsichord, and often attended the opera, though he frequently listened without bothering to watch the over-done staging. As he matured and learned more and more of the world, he liked it less and less.
After unjustly losing a law case (concerning the feud of Amatrice), he decided to leave the court and dedicate himself totally to Christ.
Visiting the local Hospital for Incurables on August 28, 1723, he had a vision and was told to consecrate his life solely to God.
In response, Alphonsus dedicated himself to the religious life, even while suffering persecution from his family. He declined an arranged marriage, studied theology, and was ordained at age 29.
It is said he never refused absolution to anyone. But some people found fault with his behavior. Heorganized the “slackers”, ie the unemployed and idlers of Naples, in groups who gathered to receive religious instruction.
Once scolded one of the members that showed excessive zeal for fasting and another priest added, “God willing that we eat to live; if you have received the cutlets, eat them and be thankful: you will do well.”
The story began to circulate and turned to discredit Alfonso: You said that the groups were secret societies of Epicureans or quietist or even that they were part of a new sect called “cutlets”. Some members were arrested and Alfonso had to explain what had happened.
The archbishop told him to be cautious and “schnitzel circles” continued undisturbed;It was later transformed in the ‘Association of the Chapels’, which in the early twentieth century there were thousands of workers, with daily meetings for prayerand religious instruction in the chapels of the brotherhood.
He was a preacher and home missioner around Naples. He was noted for his simple, clear, direct style of preaching, and his gentle, understanding way in the confessional.
He was also a writer on asceticism, theology, and history. He was often opposed by Church officials for a perceived laxity toward sinners, and by government officials who opposed anything religious.
He founded the Redemptoristines women’s order in Scala in 1730. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Liguorians; Redemptorists) at Scala, Italy in 1732.
He was appointed bishop of the diocese of Sant’Agata de’ Goti, Italy by Pope Clement XIII in 1762. He worked to reform the clergy and revitalize the faithful in a diocese with a bad reputation.
He was afflicted with severe rheumatism, and often could barely move or raise his chin from his chest. He spent several years having to drink from tubes because his head was so bent forward.
An attack of rheumatic fever, from May 1768 to June 1769, left him paralyzed. In 1775 he resigned his see due to ill health, and went into what he thought would be a prayerful retirement.
In 1777 the royal government threatened to disband his Redemptorists, claiming that they were covertly carrying on the work of the Jesuits, who had been suppressed in 1773.
Calling on his knowledge of the Congregation, his background in thelogy, and his skills as a lawyer, Alphonsus defended the Redemptorists so well that they obtained the king’s approval.
However, by this point Alphonsus was nearly blind, and was tricked into giving his approval to a revised Rule for the Congregation, one that suited the king and the anti-clerical government.
When Pope Pius VI saw the changes, he condemned it, and removed Alphonsus from his position as leader of the Order. This caused Alphonsus a crisis in confidence and faith that took years to overcome. However, by the time of his death he had returned to faith and peace.
Alphonsus vowed early to never to waste a moment of his life, and he lived that way. He died in the night between July 31 and August 1, 1787, two months after his ninety-first birthday. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871.
When he was bishop, one of Alphonsus’s priests led a worldly life, and resisted all attempts to change. He was summoned to Alphonsus, and at the entrance to the bishop’s study he found a large crucifix laid on the threshold. When the priest hesitated to step in, Alphonsus quietly said, “Come along, and be sure to trample it underfoot. It would not be the first time you have placed Our Lord beneath your feet.”
“Realize that you may gain more in a quarter of an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament than in all other practices of the day.”
“Your God is ever beside you – indeed, He is even within you.”
“He who trusts himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things.”
“Our Savior says, if you have not received the graces that you desire, do not complain to me, but blame yourself, because you have neglected to seek them from me.”
“If you pray, you are positive of saving your soul. If you do not pray, you are just as positive of losing your soul.”
“When we hear people talk of riches, honors and amusements of the world, let us remember that all things have an end, and let us then say: “My God, I wish for You alone and nothing more.”
“We must show charity towards the sick, who are in greater need of help. Let us take them some small gift if they are poor, or, at least, let us go and wait on them and comfort them.”
“He who communicates most frequently will be freest from sin, and will make farthest progress in Divine Love.”
“If we should be saved and become saints, we ought always to stand at the gates of the Divine mercy to beg and pray for, as an alms, all that we need.”
“He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement.”
“Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears— of everything that concerns you. Converse with Him confidently and frankly; for God is not wont to speak to a soul that does not speak to Him.”
“I love you, Jesus my love, I love you more than myself. I repent with my whole heart for having offended you. Never permit me to separate myself from you again. May I love you always, and then do with me as you will.”
Feast of Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori.
He is the patron saint against arthritis, against scrupulosity, confessors, final perseverance, moral theologians, moralists, scrupulous people, theologians, vocations and the lay apostolate.
He was born Alphonsus Marie Antony John Cosmos Damien Michael Gaspard de Liguori on September 27,1696, at Marianella, near Naples, Italy to a noble family.
Raised in a pious home, Alphonsus went on retreats with his father, Don Joseph, who was a naval officer and a captain of the Royal Galleys. Alphonsus was the oldest of seven children, raised by a devout mother Anna, of Spanish descent.
Alphonsus was a child prodigy; he became extremely well-educated, and received his doctorate in law from the University of Naples at age 16.
He had his own legal practice by age 21, and was soon one of the leading lawyers in Naples, though he never attended court without having attended Mass first.
He loved music, could play the harpsichord, and often attended the opera, though he frequently listened without bothering to watch the over-done staging. As he matured and learned more and more of the world, he liked it less and less.
After unjustly losing a law case (concerning the feud of Amatrice), he decided to leave the court and dedicate himself totally to Christ.
Visiting the local Hospital for Incurables on August 28, 1723, he had a vision and was told to consecrate his life solely to God.
In response, Alphonsus dedicated himself to the religious life, even while suffering persecution from his family. He declined an arranged marriage, studied theology, and was ordained at age 29.
It is said he never refused absolution to anyone. But some people found fault with his behavior. Heorganized the “slackers”, ie the unemployed and idlers of Naples, in groups who gathered to receive religious instruction.
Once scolded one of the members that showed excessive zeal for fasting and another priest added, “God willing that we eat to live; if you have received the cutlets, eat them and be thankful: you will do well.”
The story began to circulate and turned to discredit Alfonso: You said that the groups were secret societies of Epicureans or quietist or even that they were part of a new sect called “cutlets”. Some members were arrested and Alfonso had to explain what had happened.
The archbishop told him to be cautious and “schnitzel circles” continued undisturbed;It was later transformed in the ‘Association of the Chapels’, which in the early twentieth century there were thousands of workers, with daily meetings for prayerand religious instruction in the chapels of the brotherhood.
He was a preacher and home missioner around Naples. He was noted for his simple, clear, direct style of preaching, and his gentle, understanding way in the confessional.
He was also a writer on asceticism, theology, and history. He was often opposed by Church officials for a perceived laxity toward sinners, and by government officials who opposed anything religious.
He founded the Redemptoristines women’s order in Scala in 1730. He founded the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Liguorians; Redemptorists) at Scala, Italy in 1732.
He was appointed bishop of the diocese of Sant’Agata de’ Goti, Italy by Pope Clement XIII in 1762. He worked to reform the clergy and revitalize the faithful in a diocese with a bad reputation.
He was afflicted with severe rheumatism, and often could barely move or raise his chin from his chest. He spent several years having to drink from tubes because his head was so bent forward.
An attack of rheumatic fever, from May 1768 to June 1769, left him paralyzed. In 1775 he resigned his see due to ill health, and went into what he thought would be a prayerful retirement.
In 1777 the royal government threatened to disband his Redemptorists, claiming that they were covertly carrying on the work of the Jesuits, who had been suppressed in 1773.
Calling on his knowledge of the Congregation, his background in thelogy, and his skills as a lawyer, Alphonsus defended the Redemptorists so well that they obtained the king’s approval.
However, by this point Alphonsus was nearly blind, and was tricked into giving his approval to a revised Rule for the Congregation, one that suited the king and the anti-clerical government.
When Pope Pius VI saw the changes, he condemned it, and removed Alphonsus from his position as leader of the Order. This caused Alphonsus a crisis in confidence and faith that took years to overcome. However, by the time of his death he had returned to faith and peace.
Alphonsus vowed early to never to waste a moment of his life, and he lived that way. He died in the night between July 31 and August 1, 1787, two months after his ninety-first birthday. He was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871.
When he was bishop, one of Alphonsus’s priests led a worldly life, and resisted all attempts to change. He was summoned to Alphonsus, and at the entrance to the bishop’s study he found a large crucifix laid on the threshold. When the priest hesitated to step in, Alphonsus quietly said, “Come along, and be sure to trample it underfoot. It would not be the first time you have placed Our Lord beneath your feet.”
“Realize that you may gain more in a quarter of an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament than in all other practices of the day.”
“Your God is ever beside you – indeed, He is even within you.”
“He who trusts himself is lost. He who trusts in God can do all things.”
“Our Savior says, if you have not received the graces that you desire, do not complain to me, but blame yourself, because you have neglected to seek them from me.”
“If you pray, you are positive of saving your soul. If you do not pray, you are just as positive of losing your soul.”
“When we hear people talk of riches, honors and amusements of the world, let us remember that all things have an end, and let us then say: “My God, I wish for You alone and nothing more.”
“We must show charity towards the sick, who are in greater need of help. Let us take them some small gift if they are poor, or, at least, let us go and wait on them and comfort them.”
“He who communicates most frequently will be freest from sin, and will make farthest progress in Divine Love.”
“If we should be saved and become saints, we ought always to stand at the gates of the Divine mercy to beg and pray for, as an alms, all that we need.”
“He who does not acquire the love of God will scarcely persevere in the grace of God, for it is very difficult to renounce sin merely through fear of chastisement.”
“Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears— of everything that concerns you. Converse with Him confidently and frankly; for God is not wont to speak to a soul that does not speak to Him.”
“I love you, Jesus my love, I love you more than myself. I repent with my whole heart for having offended you. Never permit me to separate myself from you again. May I love you always, and then do with me as you will.”
Close
August 2
Daily Saints – 2 August.
Feast of Saint Peter Julian Eymund.
Peter Julian Eymard was born near Grenoble, France, in 1811. He grew up in a poor family during the anti-clerical, anti-Catholic aftermath of the French Revolution.
One day, young Peter Julian Eymard, just five years of age, wandered off from the family home. His sister and half-sister searched frantically for the boy and finally located him in the parish church, standing on a stool close to the tabernacle of the high altar. In response to their anxious questioning, he answered simply, “I am here listening to Jesus.”
He wanted to enter the priesthood as a youth, but his father forbade him because he wanted Peter Julian to take over the family business.
Finally, at the age of 18, he was permitted to join the Oblate novitiate. However, he became very ill, so ill that he was sent back home to die. However, Peter Julian made a remarkable recovery and entered the seminary once again after his father passed away.
He was ordained to the diocesan priesthood in 1834, but later joined the Marists. He was the friend of Saint John Mary Vianney. He became the Provincial superior of the Society of Mary in 1845.
Peter Julian had a strong Marian devotion, and travelled to the assorted Marian shrines and apparition sites in France. He organized lay societies under the direction of the Marists, preached and taught, and worked for Eucharistic devotion.
Peter Julian was especially effective at preaching Eucharistic devotions, very popular at the time. It was on one such occasion, on Corpus Christi, May 25, 1845, that he had a powerful experience that would change the course of his life.
While carrying the Blessed Sacrament in procession at Saint Paul’s Church in Lyons, he felt an intense attraction to Christ in the Eucharist and resolved to “bring all the world to the knowledge and love of our Lord; to preach nothing but Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Eucharistic.”
He felt a call to found a new religious society, and founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in 1856, and the lay Servants of the Blessed Sacrament in 1858.
His work encountered a series of setbacks, including have to close his nascent houses and move twice, and the houses not being able to support themselves financially.
However, his vision of priests, deacons, sisters, and lay people dedicated to the spiritual values celebrated in the Mass and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament anticipated many of the renewals brought about by Vatican Councils I and II.
Late in life, during a lengthy retreat in Rome, he became more mystical as he came in closer communion with the love of Christ. Six volumes of his personal letters, and nine volumes of his meditations have been printed in English.
He is also considered a pioneer in involving laypeople more actively in the life of the Church. He died on 1 August 1868 at La Mure, Isère, France following a stroke.
“When we work hard, we must eat well. What a joy, that you can receive Holy Communion often! It’s our life and support in this life — Receive Communion often, and Jesus will change you into himself.”
“The Holy Eucharist is the perfect expression of the love of Jesus Christ for man, since it is the quintessence of all the mysteries of His Life.”
“Keep your soul at peace, in order to be able to be attentive and very faithful to the inner movement of the Holy Spirit.”
“People are afraid to be powerless and so are off their path. We are neither natural nor supernatural. What can we do? Follow grace. Let the mind become accustomed to the truth which God’s grace is offering. It takes a week or two for a truth to become natural and habitual, but we must make it the center of our piety and let everything converge toward it.”
“The essential thing is to strengthen our trust in God, feed upon his truth, dedicate ourselves to his glory as our sovereign love, love him in everything, everywhere, and above everything.”
“How kind is our Sacramental Jesus! He welcomes you at any hour of the day or night. His Love never knows rest. He is always most gentle towards you. When you visit Him, He forgets your sins and speaks only of His joy, His tenderness, and His Love. By the reception He gives to you, one would think He has need of you to make Him happy.”
“In order to succeed in it (prayer), it should be done when we first awaken, when our whole being is calm and recollected. We need to make our meditation before anything else.”
“Live on the divine Eucharist, like the Hebrews did on the Manna. Your soul can be entirely dedicated to the divine Eucharist and very holy in the midst of your work and contacts with the world.”
“Go to the good Lord very simply, with the surrender of a small child. Tell the good Lord what you are thinking, what you want, what is upsetting you. Oh! How happy we become when we discover this interior conversation with our Lord. We carry our treasure [with us] everywhere. He becomes the center of our heart and life.”
“We believe in the love of God for us. To believe in love is everything. It is not enough to believe in the Truth. We must believe in Love and Love is our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That is the faith that makes our Lord loved. Ask for this pure and simple faith in the Eucharist. Men will teach you; but only Jesus will give you the grace to believe in Him. You have the Eucharist. What more do you want?”
“Every time we come into the presence of the Eucharist we may say: This precious Testament cost Jesus Christ His life. For the Eucharist is a testament, a legacy which becomes valid only at the death of the testator. Our Lord thereby shows us His boundless love, for He Himself said there is no greater proof of love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
“He loves, He hopes, He waits. If He came down on our altars on certain days only, some sinner, on being moved to repentance, might have to look for Him, and not finding Him, might have to wait. Our Lord prefers to wait Himself for the sinner for years rather than keep him waiting one instant.”
“If the love of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament does not win our hearts, Jesus is vanquished! Our ingratitude is greater than His Goodness our malice is more powerful than His Charity.”
“Have confidence in prayer. It is the unfailing power which God has given us. By means of it you will obtain the salvation of the dear souls whom God has given you and all your loved ones.”
“We must know where mediocrity of spirit comes from. The first is the worst: it’s a scattered mind, a life which is too active. Nothing can cling to it. It’s like the seed of the Gospel falling on the open road. The remedy is to bring the mind back to natural reflection by some reading or serious meditations which strike it and help it to be focused. In general, it’s better to choose a great truth than a pious feeling. The work of truth is to refocus our attention, reflection, and finally, devotion. The second source of mediocrity of spirit is mental boredom toward what is serious and positive. This illness can only be healed by openness to divine love, since it is based on discouragement. The third source is laziness of the mind which fears to consider the truth. The fourth source is when we counteract the grace, the attraction of the moment. The mind becomes closed and foolish. We must follow the need and light of the moment.”
Feast of Saint Peter Julian Eymund.
Peter Julian Eymard was born near Grenoble, France, in 1811. He grew up in a poor family during the anti-clerical, anti-Catholic aftermath of the French Revolution.
One day, young Peter Julian Eymard, just five years of age, wandered off from the family home. His sister and half-sister searched frantically for the boy and finally located him in the parish church, standing on a stool close to the tabernacle of the high altar. In response to their anxious questioning, he answered simply, “I am here listening to Jesus.”
He wanted to enter the priesthood as a youth, but his father forbade him because he wanted Peter Julian to take over the family business.
Finally, at the age of 18, he was permitted to join the Oblate novitiate. However, he became very ill, so ill that he was sent back home to die. However, Peter Julian made a remarkable recovery and entered the seminary once again after his father passed away.
He was ordained to the diocesan priesthood in 1834, but later joined the Marists. He was the friend of Saint John Mary Vianney. He became the Provincial superior of the Society of Mary in 1845.
Peter Julian had a strong Marian devotion, and travelled to the assorted Marian shrines and apparition sites in France. He organized lay societies under the direction of the Marists, preached and taught, and worked for Eucharistic devotion.
Peter Julian was especially effective at preaching Eucharistic devotions, very popular at the time. It was on one such occasion, on Corpus Christi, May 25, 1845, that he had a powerful experience that would change the course of his life.
While carrying the Blessed Sacrament in procession at Saint Paul’s Church in Lyons, he felt an intense attraction to Christ in the Eucharist and resolved to “bring all the world to the knowledge and love of our Lord; to preach nothing but Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ Eucharistic.”
He felt a call to found a new religious society, and founded the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament in 1856, and the lay Servants of the Blessed Sacrament in 1858.
His work encountered a series of setbacks, including have to close his nascent houses and move twice, and the houses not being able to support themselves financially.
However, his vision of priests, deacons, sisters, and lay people dedicated to the spiritual values celebrated in the Mass and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament anticipated many of the renewals brought about by Vatican Councils I and II.
Late in life, during a lengthy retreat in Rome, he became more mystical as he came in closer communion with the love of Christ. Six volumes of his personal letters, and nine volumes of his meditations have been printed in English.
He is also considered a pioneer in involving laypeople more actively in the life of the Church. He died on 1 August 1868 at La Mure, Isère, France following a stroke.
“When we work hard, we must eat well. What a joy, that you can receive Holy Communion often! It’s our life and support in this life — Receive Communion often, and Jesus will change you into himself.”
“The Holy Eucharist is the perfect expression of the love of Jesus Christ for man, since it is the quintessence of all the mysteries of His Life.”
“Keep your soul at peace, in order to be able to be attentive and very faithful to the inner movement of the Holy Spirit.”
“People are afraid to be powerless and so are off their path. We are neither natural nor supernatural. What can we do? Follow grace. Let the mind become accustomed to the truth which God’s grace is offering. It takes a week or two for a truth to become natural and habitual, but we must make it the center of our piety and let everything converge toward it.”
“The essential thing is to strengthen our trust in God, feed upon his truth, dedicate ourselves to his glory as our sovereign love, love him in everything, everywhere, and above everything.”
“How kind is our Sacramental Jesus! He welcomes you at any hour of the day or night. His Love never knows rest. He is always most gentle towards you. When you visit Him, He forgets your sins and speaks only of His joy, His tenderness, and His Love. By the reception He gives to you, one would think He has need of you to make Him happy.”
“In order to succeed in it (prayer), it should be done when we first awaken, when our whole being is calm and recollected. We need to make our meditation before anything else.”
“Live on the divine Eucharist, like the Hebrews did on the Manna. Your soul can be entirely dedicated to the divine Eucharist and very holy in the midst of your work and contacts with the world.”
“Go to the good Lord very simply, with the surrender of a small child. Tell the good Lord what you are thinking, what you want, what is upsetting you. Oh! How happy we become when we discover this interior conversation with our Lord. We carry our treasure [with us] everywhere. He becomes the center of our heart and life.”
“We believe in the love of God for us. To believe in love is everything. It is not enough to believe in the Truth. We must believe in Love and Love is our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. That is the faith that makes our Lord loved. Ask for this pure and simple faith in the Eucharist. Men will teach you; but only Jesus will give you the grace to believe in Him. You have the Eucharist. What more do you want?”
“Every time we come into the presence of the Eucharist we may say: This precious Testament cost Jesus Christ His life. For the Eucharist is a testament, a legacy which becomes valid only at the death of the testator. Our Lord thereby shows us His boundless love, for He Himself said there is no greater proof of love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
“He loves, He hopes, He waits. If He came down on our altars on certain days only, some sinner, on being moved to repentance, might have to look for Him, and not finding Him, might have to wait. Our Lord prefers to wait Himself for the sinner for years rather than keep him waiting one instant.”
“If the love of Jesus in the Most Blessed Sacrament does not win our hearts, Jesus is vanquished! Our ingratitude is greater than His Goodness our malice is more powerful than His Charity.”
“Have confidence in prayer. It is the unfailing power which God has given us. By means of it you will obtain the salvation of the dear souls whom God has given you and all your loved ones.”
“We must know where mediocrity of spirit comes from. The first is the worst: it’s a scattered mind, a life which is too active. Nothing can cling to it. It’s like the seed of the Gospel falling on the open road. The remedy is to bring the mind back to natural reflection by some reading or serious meditations which strike it and help it to be focused. In general, it’s better to choose a great truth than a pious feeling. The work of truth is to refocus our attention, reflection, and finally, devotion. The second source of mediocrity of spirit is mental boredom toward what is serious and positive. This illness can only be healed by openness to divine love, since it is based on discouragement. The third source is laziness of the mind which fears to consider the truth. The fourth source is when we counteract the grace, the attraction of the moment. The mind becomes closed and foolish. We must follow the need and light of the moment.”
Close
August 2
Saint Peter Julian Eymund
August 3
Daily Saints – 3 August.
Feast of St. Lydia (Lydia of Thyatira or Lydia the Purpuraria)
Lydia Purpuraria (1st century) was born at Thyatira (Ak-Hissar), a town in Asia Minor, famous for its dye works, (hence, her name which means purple seller).
Lydia was a “seller of purple”, a person who traded in purple dyes and fabrics for which the city of Thyatira was noted. Purple goods were part of a high value industry and were used by emperors, high government officials, and priests of the pagan religions.
Tradition relates that she and her husband may have been involved in this business. At some point Lydia and her household moved from Asia Minor to the city of Philippi in Macedonia.
The reasons she moved may have been business related as Philippi was a Roman colony on the major east-west trade route, the Egnation Highway, between Rome and Asia. Also, she may have been a Jewish convert who no longer could worship in the custom of the Thyatirans.
As recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (16:12-30), Lydia was the Apostle Paul’s first convert to Christianity in Europe. Lydia met with the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey about the year 50.
While Saint Paul was at Troas, he beheld a certain Macedonian in a dream (Acts 16:9), who entreated him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
He heeded this voice as if it were the voice of God, and he decided to journey to Macedonia without delay, accompanied by Saints Timothy, Silas, and Luke.
They disembarked at Neapolis and made their way to Philippi. On the outskirts of Philippi, on the banks of a river, there was a Jewish place of prayer. It was the Sabbath and, to the women who had gathered there, the Apostle Paul preached the Word of God in Europe for the first time.
The God-fearing women listened to the words of this unknown Jew carefully and with reverence. The one who was most enthusiastic was St. Lydia, a proselyte and a seller of purple from Thyatira.
As she listened, the Lord opened her heart to heed the words that were being spoken by Saint Paul. When she heard him talk about the Messiah, she accepted the truth of what he said and she believed in Christ.
St. Lydia was baptized along with her family in the Gaggitis River and many idolaters became Christians. Her heart was filled with gratitude toward those who had opened the eyes of her soul, and so she asked them to accept the hospitality of her house.
“If you have judged me to be a believer in the Lord, come to my house and remain there.” And she insisted that they should come (Acts 16:15).
Paul and his companions were well received by Lydia as they stayed at her house after their release from the Philippi prison. Surely, during their imprisonment, Lydia and those who assembled in her home spent the night in prayer for the release of Paul and Silas, making her home the first Christian Church in Europe.
When Paul departed from Philippi he left Luke behind to preach the Gospel and to establish firmly the church in Philippi, using as its core Lydia, the jailer, and their households.
Paul speaks fondly, in his letter to the Philippians, of the brethren who were members of the church of Philippi, calling them ”…my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown…”. (Philippians 4:1)
Feast of St. Lydia (Lydia of Thyatira or Lydia the Purpuraria)
Lydia Purpuraria (1st century) was born at Thyatira (Ak-Hissar), a town in Asia Minor, famous for its dye works, (hence, her name which means purple seller).
Lydia was a “seller of purple”, a person who traded in purple dyes and fabrics for which the city of Thyatira was noted. Purple goods were part of a high value industry and were used by emperors, high government officials, and priests of the pagan religions.
Tradition relates that she and her husband may have been involved in this business. At some point Lydia and her household moved from Asia Minor to the city of Philippi in Macedonia.
The reasons she moved may have been business related as Philippi was a Roman colony on the major east-west trade route, the Egnation Highway, between Rome and Asia. Also, she may have been a Jewish convert who no longer could worship in the custom of the Thyatirans.
As recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (16:12-30), Lydia was the Apostle Paul’s first convert to Christianity in Europe. Lydia met with the Apostle Paul on his second missionary journey about the year 50.
While Saint Paul was at Troas, he beheld a certain Macedonian in a dream (Acts 16:9), who entreated him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.”
He heeded this voice as if it were the voice of God, and he decided to journey to Macedonia without delay, accompanied by Saints Timothy, Silas, and Luke.
They disembarked at Neapolis and made their way to Philippi. On the outskirts of Philippi, on the banks of a river, there was a Jewish place of prayer. It was the Sabbath and, to the women who had gathered there, the Apostle Paul preached the Word of God in Europe for the first time.
The God-fearing women listened to the words of this unknown Jew carefully and with reverence. The one who was most enthusiastic was St. Lydia, a proselyte and a seller of purple from Thyatira.
As she listened, the Lord opened her heart to heed the words that were being spoken by Saint Paul. When she heard him talk about the Messiah, she accepted the truth of what he said and she believed in Christ.
St. Lydia was baptized along with her family in the Gaggitis River and many idolaters became Christians. Her heart was filled with gratitude toward those who had opened the eyes of her soul, and so she asked them to accept the hospitality of her house.
“If you have judged me to be a believer in the Lord, come to my house and remain there.” And she insisted that they should come (Acts 16:15).
Paul and his companions were well received by Lydia as they stayed at her house after their release from the Philippi prison. Surely, during their imprisonment, Lydia and those who assembled in her home spent the night in prayer for the release of Paul and Silas, making her home the first Christian Church in Europe.
When Paul departed from Philippi he left Luke behind to preach the Gospel and to establish firmly the church in Philippi, using as its core Lydia, the jailer, and their households.
Paul speaks fondly, in his letter to the Philippians, of the brethren who were members of the church of Philippi, calling them ”…my beloved and longed-for brethren, my joy and crown…”. (Philippians 4:1)
Close
August 3
Saint Lydia
August 4
Daily Saints – 4 August.
Feast of St. John Maria Vianney.
He is the patron saint of confessors, priests and parish priests.
Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney was born May 8, 1786 in Dardilly, France and was baptized the same day. He was the fourth of six children born to Matthieu and Marie Vianney.
John was raised in a Catholic home and the family often helped the poor. As a youth, John shepherded sheep on his father’s farm.
John Vianney’s mother was a woman of great piety, and she led him into the way of religion at an early age. “I owe a debt to my mother,” he said, and added, “virtues go easily from mothers into the hearts of their children, who willingly do what they see being done.”
In 1790, when the anticlerical Terror phase of the French Revolution forced priests to work in secrecy or face execution and it was illegal for Catholics to attend Mass at the time. But the Vianney family traveled distances every Sunday to worship and pray in secret.
Because of this, young John saw priests as particularly heroic to the people. Vianney received his first communion when he was 13 years old in a private home conducted by two nuns whose communities had been dissolved during the Revolution.
John was allowed to leave the family farm to learn at a “presbytery-school” in Écully. There he learned math, history, geography and Latin.
As his education had been disrupted by the French Revolution, he struggled in his studies, particularly with Latin, but worked hard to learn.
In 1802, the Catholic Church was reestablished in France and religious freedom and peace spread throughout the country. Unfortunately, in 1809, John was drafted into Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies.
He had been studying as an ecclesiastical student, which was a protected title and would normally have excepted him from military services, but Napoleon had withdrawn the exemption in some dioceses as he required more soldiers.
Two days into his service, John fell ill and required hospitalization. As his troop continued, he stopped in at a church where he prayed. There he met a young man who volunteered to return him to his group, but instead led him deep into the mountains where military deserters met.
John lived with them for one year and two months. He used the name Jerome Vincent and opened a school for the nearby village of Les Noes’ children.
John remained in Les Noes and hid when gendarmes came in search of deserters until 1810, when deserters were granted amnesty.
Now free, John returned to Écully and resumed his ecclesiastic studies. He attended a minor seminary, Abbe Balley, in 1812. He was having great difficulty in his studies for the priesthood.
Mathias Loras, perhaps the most intelligent of Jean-Marie’s fellow seminarians, who was assigned to help him in his lessons, was of a nervous and excitable temperament.
One day his patience was exhausted by the sheer incapacity of the big young man, and he boxed his ears before all the others. Jean-Marie was also excitable, but he knelt down before the boy of twelve who had treated him so outrageously and humbly asked his forgiveness.
Mathias had a golden heart. Suddenly he felt smitten with grief and, his face bathed in tears, he threw himself into the arms of Jean-Marie who was still on his knees.
He was eventually ordained a deacon in June 1815. It took several years of study – he had little education, was not a very good student, and his Latin was terrible.
However, the bishop, seeing John’s goodness, went ahead and ordained him in 1815. He was assigned as a parochial vicar to Ecully, France.
In 1818 he was assigned to the parish of Ars-sur-Formans, France, a tiny village near Lyons, which suffered from very lax attendance.
Fr. Vianney realized many were either ignorant or indifferent to religion as a result of the French Revolution. Many danced and drank on Sundays or worked in their fields.
He began visiting his parishioners, especially the sick and poor, spent days in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, did penance for his parishioners, and leading his people by example.
Dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament, he spent much time in prayer and practiced much mortification. He lived on little food and sleep, while working without rest in unfailing humility, gentleness, patience and cheerfulness.
Fr. Vianney strived to transform his town spiritually. He vehemently preached against blasphemy and paganic dancing and refused to give absolution to parishioners who did not obey.
Since he considered that his self-mortification was all too inadequate, he had a special penitential garment made, which he wore next to his skin, and which, by reason of the constant friction against his body, was soon stained a reddish brown.
For the most part he slept on a bare mattress when he was not sleeping on a bundle of wood down in the cellar.
John began a home and school for deserted and orphaned children. He was concerned that in the wake of war, many people in France had no true religious education, and he used his homilies to try to teach about the faith.
It took St. Vianney 10 years to bring spiritual renewal to Ars but his perseverance resulted in greater attendance in his church and the people turning away from their vices. The town taverns started closing down and domestic quarrels became less.
He had the gifts of discernment of spirits, prophecy, hidden knowledge, and of working miracles. He was tormented by evil spirits, especially when he tried to get his 2-3 hours of sleep each night.
Crowds came to hear him preach, and to make their reconciliation because of his reputation with penitents.
Fr. Vianney read much and often the lives of the saints, and became so impressed by their holy lives that he wanted for himself and others to follow their wonderful examples. The ideal of holiness enchanted him. This was the theme which underlay his sermons
He was deeply devoted to St. Philomena and erected a chapel and shrine in her honor. When he later became deathly ill but miraculously recovered, he attributed his health to St. Philomena’s intercession.
By 1853, Fr. Vianney had attempted to run away from Ars four times, each attempt with the intention of becoming a monk but decided after the final time that it was not to be.
Vianney started drawing pilgrims who sought his advice. By 1855, about 20,000 people would visit him, seeking his counsel. In the last ten years of his life, he would spend 16 to 18 hours per day in the confessional.
He would often weep in the confessional and when he was asked why he wept, he would reply: “My friend, I weep because you do not weep.”
One day, under the pretext of sending him on an errand, the Baronne de Belvey dispatched to Fr. Vianney a hardened sinner, who only set foot in the church at Christmas and Easter.
It would seem that he had not been to confession since his first Communion. “How long is it since you were last at Confession?”, Fr. Vianney asked. “Oh, forty years.” “Forty-four,” the saint replied.
The man took a pencil and made a hasty calculation on the plastering of the wall. “Yes, it is quite true,” he admitted, overcome with amazement. The sinner was converted and died a good death.
Towards the end those who heard him preach admitted that they could hardly decipher a word, so inaudible was his speech. Yet they knew that God loved them because they saw this in his eyes.
To a priest who complained about the indifference of people in his parish, St. John Vianney answered: “You have preached, you have prayed, but have you fasted? Have you taken the discipline (a self imposed scourge)? Have you slept on the floor? So long as you have done none of these things, you have no right to complain.”
To a mother of a large family, who was expecting another child, he said with fatherly kindness and consideration: “Be comforted, my child. If you only knew the women who will go to Hell because they did not bring into the world the children they should have given to it.”
Claudine Venet, of Viregneux, was taken to Ars on February 1, 1850. In consequence of an attack of brain fever, she had become completely deaf and blind. Fr. Vianney had never seen her; no one had introduced her to him.
On that February 1, she happened to be standing outside the church as he went by. Without speaking a word, he took her hand, led her into the sacristy and made her kneel down in the confessional. He had hardly given her his blessing when her sight and hearing returned. It seemed to her that she had awakened from a long dream.
After her confession, Fr. Vianney made the following amazing prophecy: “Your eyes are healed, but you will become deaf for another twelve years. It is God’s will that it should be so!” On leaving the sacristy, Claudine Venet felt her ears closing once more. As a matter of fact, she could no longer hear anything.
The infirmity lasted twelve years as foretold on this February 1, 1850. Calm and resigned, enjoying the sight that had been restored to her, the stricken woman awaited the day of her deliverance. Great was her emotion when, on January 18, 1862, she felt perfectly cured.
In 1854, a girl of Montchanin of the name of Farnier, came to Ars to beg from Fr. Vianney the cure of her paralyzed leg.
“My child,” the saint told her, “you disobey your mother far too often, and answer her back in a disrespectful manner. If you wish the good God to cure you, you must correct that ugly defect. Oh! what a task lies before you! But remember one thing: you will indeed get well, but by degrees, according as you try to correct that defect.”
As soon as Farnier returned home she endeavored to show more obedience and respect to her mother. Her crippled leg, which had been four inches shorter than the other, insensibly grew longer, and at the end of a few years her infirmity had wholly vanished.
His cousin, Marguerite Humbert, came one day to beg his prayers for one of her little daughters who was dangerously ill. “She is ripe for heaven,” he said without hesitation. “As for you, my cousin, you need crosses to make you think of God.”
Françoise Lebeau, a poor girl of Saint-Martin-de-Commune in the Saoneet-Loire, had become quite blind. She went with her mother on a pilgrimage to Ars. They begged their bread the whole way and slept in stables or sheds.
To this poor girl Fr. Vianney did not fear to disclose something of the divine mystery of suffering, for his inspired gaze had fathomed her valiant spirit.
“My child,” he said, “you can be cured, but if the good God restores your sight, your salvation will be less assured; if, on the contrary, you consent to keep your infirmity, you will go to heaven, and I even guarantee that you will have a high place there.” The blind girl understood; she no longer asked for a cure and left Ars in a state of perfect resignation to God’s will.
Nor had Fr. Vianney the courage to pity the mothers whose children died in infancy. This is what Fr. Vianney replied to the brother-in-law who brought the news to him: “Happy mother, happy child! What a grace for both of them! How is it that this innocent little one has merited that its time of probation should have been shortened, to enable it to enter so soon into eternal bliss?”
Fr. Vianney could never speak of sin and sinners without shedding tears. He sobbed all the time he was making the Stations of the Cross. When he distributed Holy Communion, tears would often trickle down upon his chasuble.
In the last years of his life in particular, he could never preach about the Eucharist, the goodness and love of God, the happiness of heaven – those were his favorite topics – without being stopped by his tears.
For 41 years, John served the tiny parish of Ars. The strain was becoming too much and on 29 July he retired to bed for the last time. Then on August 4, 1859, at the age of 73, he died.
Mgr. Mermod, who was Curé of Gex at the time, relates the following incident: “One day the good man called at the priest’s residence; he was quite well, yet he wished to go to confession, giving as his reason that he was going to die. As he persisted in his request, I gave him absolution and Holy Communion. An hour later he was dead.”
“Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire, it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.”
“What does Jesus Christ do in the Eucharist? It is God who, as our Savior, offers himself each day for us to his Father’s justice. If you are in difficulties and sorrows, he will comfort and relieve you. If you are sick, he will either cure you or give you strength to suffer so as to merit Heaven. If the devil, the world, and the flesh are making war upon you, he will give you the weapons with which to fight, to resist, and to win victory. If you are poor, he will enrich you with all sorts of riches for time and eternity. Let us open the door of his sacred and adorable Heart, and be wrapped about for an instant by the flames of his love, and we shall see what a God who loves us can do.”
“I throw myself at the foot of the Tabernacle like a dog at the foot of his Master.”
“All the good works in the world are not equal to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they are the works of men; but the Mass is the work of God. Martyrdom is nothing in comparison for it is but the sacrifice of man to God; but the Mass is the sacrifice of God for man.”
“Every Consecrated Host is made to burn Itself up with love in a human heart.”
“Without the Holy Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be insupportable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and our happiness. The good God, wishing to give Himself to us in the Sacrament of His Love, gave us a vast and great desire, which He alone can satisfy. In the presence of this beautiful Sacrament, we are like a person dying of thirst by the side of a river — he would only need to bend his head; like a person still remaining poor, close to a great treasure — he need only stretch out his hand. He who communicates loses himself in God like a drop of water in the ocean. They can no more be separated.”
“To serve the Queen of Heaven is already to reign there, and to live under her commands is more than to govern.”
“The soul hungers for God, and nothing but God can satiate it. Therefore He came to dwell on earth and assumed a Body in order that this Body might become the Food of our souls.”
“Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”
“All our religion is but a false religion, and all our virtues are mere illusions and we ourselves are only hypocrites in the sight of God, if we have not that universal charity for everyone – for the good, and for the bad, for the poor and for the rich, and for all those who do us harm as much as those who do us good.”
“O, how great is the priest! … If he realized what he is, he would die.”
“Prayer is to our soul what rain is to the soil. Fertilize the soil ever so richly, it will remain barren unless fed by frequent rains.”
“You cannot please both God and the world at the same time, They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions.”
“Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.”
“If we really loved the good God, we should make it our joy and happiness to come and spend a few moments to adore Him, and ask Him for the grace of forgiveness; and we should regard those moments as the happiest of our lives.”
“The fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of Hell; the difference between them is that the fire of Purgatory is not everlasting.”
“We should consider those moments spent before the Blessed Sacrament as the happiest of our lives.”
“So, you will ask me, who then are the people most tempted? They are these, my friends; note them carefully. The people most tempted are those who are ready, with the grace of God, to sacrifice everything for the salvation of their poor souls, who renounce all those things which most people eagerly seek. It is not one devil only who tempts them, but millions seek to entrap them.”
“Jesus Christ, after having given us all he could give, that is to say, the merit of his toils, his sufferings, and bitter death; after having given us his adorable body and blood to be the food of our souls, willed also to give us the most precious thing he had let, which was his holy Mother.”
“The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus. When you see a priest, think of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“When our hands have touched spices, they give fragrance to all they handle. Let us make our prayers pass through the hands of the Blessed Virgin. She will make them fragrant.”
“I tell you that you have less to suffer in following the cross than in serving the world and its pleasures.”
“We must say many prayers for the souls of the faithful departed, for one must be so pure to enter heaven.”
“To be a Christian and to live in sin is a monstrous contradiction. A Christian must be holy.”
“If we are not now saints, it is a great misfortune for us: therefore we must be so. As long as we have no love in our hearts, we shall never be Saints.”
“My friend, the devil is not greatly afraid of the discipline and other instruments of penance. That which beats him is the curtailment of one’s food, drink and sleep. There is nothing the devil fears more, consequently, nothing is more pleasing to God. Oh! How often have I experienced it! Whilst I was alone – and I was alone during eight or nine years, and therefore quite free to yield to my attraction – it happened at times that I refrained from food for entire days. On those occasions I obtained, both for myself and for others, whatsoever I asked of Almighty God.”
“If a priest is determined not to lose his soul, so soon as any disorder arises in the parish, he must trample underfoot all human considerations as well as the fear of the contempt and hatred of his people. He must not allow anything to bar his way in the discharge of duty, even were he certain of being murdered on coming down from the pulpit. A pastor who wants to do his duty must keep his sword in hand at all times. Did not St. Paul himself write to the faithful of Corinth: ‘I most gladly will spend and be spent myself for your souls, although loving you more, I be loved less.’”
“My good friend, I write these lines in haste to tell you not to leave, in spite of all the trials that the good God wishes you to endure. Take courage! Heaven is rich enough to reward you. Remember that the evils of this world are the lot of good Christians. You are going through a kind of martyrdom. But what a happiness for you to be a martyr of charity! Do not lose so beautiful a crown. ‘Blessed are they that suffer persecution for my sake,’ says Jesus Christ, our model. Farewell, my most dear friend. Persevere along the way on which you have so happily entered and we shall see each other again in heaven….”
“Oh, how senseless we are! the good God calls us to Him, and we fly from Him! He wishes to make us happy, and we will not have His happiness. He commands us to love Him, and we give our hearts to the devil. We employ in ruining ourselves the time He gives us to save our souls. We make war upon Him with the means He gave us to serve Him.”
Prayer of St. John Vianney:
“I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.
I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You, than live without loving You.
I love You, Lord and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally…
My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.”
Feast of St. John Maria Vianney.
He is the patron saint of confessors, priests and parish priests.
Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney was born May 8, 1786 in Dardilly, France and was baptized the same day. He was the fourth of six children born to Matthieu and Marie Vianney.
John was raised in a Catholic home and the family often helped the poor. As a youth, John shepherded sheep on his father’s farm.
John Vianney’s mother was a woman of great piety, and she led him into the way of religion at an early age. “I owe a debt to my mother,” he said, and added, “virtues go easily from mothers into the hearts of their children, who willingly do what they see being done.”
In 1790, when the anticlerical Terror phase of the French Revolution forced priests to work in secrecy or face execution and it was illegal for Catholics to attend Mass at the time. But the Vianney family traveled distances every Sunday to worship and pray in secret.
Because of this, young John saw priests as particularly heroic to the people. Vianney received his first communion when he was 13 years old in a private home conducted by two nuns whose communities had been dissolved during the Revolution.
John was allowed to leave the family farm to learn at a “presbytery-school” in Écully. There he learned math, history, geography and Latin.
As his education had been disrupted by the French Revolution, he struggled in his studies, particularly with Latin, but worked hard to learn.
In 1802, the Catholic Church was reestablished in France and religious freedom and peace spread throughout the country. Unfortunately, in 1809, John was drafted into Napoleon Bonaparte’s armies.
He had been studying as an ecclesiastical student, which was a protected title and would normally have excepted him from military services, but Napoleon had withdrawn the exemption in some dioceses as he required more soldiers.
Two days into his service, John fell ill and required hospitalization. As his troop continued, he stopped in at a church where he prayed. There he met a young man who volunteered to return him to his group, but instead led him deep into the mountains where military deserters met.
John lived with them for one year and two months. He used the name Jerome Vincent and opened a school for the nearby village of Les Noes’ children.
John remained in Les Noes and hid when gendarmes came in search of deserters until 1810, when deserters were granted amnesty.
Now free, John returned to Écully and resumed his ecclesiastic studies. He attended a minor seminary, Abbe Balley, in 1812. He was having great difficulty in his studies for the priesthood.
Mathias Loras, perhaps the most intelligent of Jean-Marie’s fellow seminarians, who was assigned to help him in his lessons, was of a nervous and excitable temperament.
One day his patience was exhausted by the sheer incapacity of the big young man, and he boxed his ears before all the others. Jean-Marie was also excitable, but he knelt down before the boy of twelve who had treated him so outrageously and humbly asked his forgiveness.
Mathias had a golden heart. Suddenly he felt smitten with grief and, his face bathed in tears, he threw himself into the arms of Jean-Marie who was still on his knees.
He was eventually ordained a deacon in June 1815. It took several years of study – he had little education, was not a very good student, and his Latin was terrible.
However, the bishop, seeing John’s goodness, went ahead and ordained him in 1815. He was assigned as a parochial vicar to Ecully, France.
In 1818 he was assigned to the parish of Ars-sur-Formans, France, a tiny village near Lyons, which suffered from very lax attendance.
Fr. Vianney realized many were either ignorant or indifferent to religion as a result of the French Revolution. Many danced and drank on Sundays or worked in their fields.
He began visiting his parishioners, especially the sick and poor, spent days in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, did penance for his parishioners, and leading his people by example.
Dedicated to the Blessed Sacrament, he spent much time in prayer and practiced much mortification. He lived on little food and sleep, while working without rest in unfailing humility, gentleness, patience and cheerfulness.
Fr. Vianney strived to transform his town spiritually. He vehemently preached against blasphemy and paganic dancing and refused to give absolution to parishioners who did not obey.
Since he considered that his self-mortification was all too inadequate, he had a special penitential garment made, which he wore next to his skin, and which, by reason of the constant friction against his body, was soon stained a reddish brown.
For the most part he slept on a bare mattress when he was not sleeping on a bundle of wood down in the cellar.
John began a home and school for deserted and orphaned children. He was concerned that in the wake of war, many people in France had no true religious education, and he used his homilies to try to teach about the faith.
It took St. Vianney 10 years to bring spiritual renewal to Ars but his perseverance resulted in greater attendance in his church and the people turning away from their vices. The town taverns started closing down and domestic quarrels became less.
He had the gifts of discernment of spirits, prophecy, hidden knowledge, and of working miracles. He was tormented by evil spirits, especially when he tried to get his 2-3 hours of sleep each night.
Crowds came to hear him preach, and to make their reconciliation because of his reputation with penitents.
Fr. Vianney read much and often the lives of the saints, and became so impressed by their holy lives that he wanted for himself and others to follow their wonderful examples. The ideal of holiness enchanted him. This was the theme which underlay his sermons
He was deeply devoted to St. Philomena and erected a chapel and shrine in her honor. When he later became deathly ill but miraculously recovered, he attributed his health to St. Philomena’s intercession.
By 1853, Fr. Vianney had attempted to run away from Ars four times, each attempt with the intention of becoming a monk but decided after the final time that it was not to be.
Vianney started drawing pilgrims who sought his advice. By 1855, about 20,000 people would visit him, seeking his counsel. In the last ten years of his life, he would spend 16 to 18 hours per day in the confessional.
He would often weep in the confessional and when he was asked why he wept, he would reply: “My friend, I weep because you do not weep.”
One day, under the pretext of sending him on an errand, the Baronne de Belvey dispatched to Fr. Vianney a hardened sinner, who only set foot in the church at Christmas and Easter.
It would seem that he had not been to confession since his first Communion. “How long is it since you were last at Confession?”, Fr. Vianney asked. “Oh, forty years.” “Forty-four,” the saint replied.
The man took a pencil and made a hasty calculation on the plastering of the wall. “Yes, it is quite true,” he admitted, overcome with amazement. The sinner was converted and died a good death.
Towards the end those who heard him preach admitted that they could hardly decipher a word, so inaudible was his speech. Yet they knew that God loved them because they saw this in his eyes.
To a priest who complained about the indifference of people in his parish, St. John Vianney answered: “You have preached, you have prayed, but have you fasted? Have you taken the discipline (a self imposed scourge)? Have you slept on the floor? So long as you have done none of these things, you have no right to complain.”
To a mother of a large family, who was expecting another child, he said with fatherly kindness and consideration: “Be comforted, my child. If you only knew the women who will go to Hell because they did not bring into the world the children they should have given to it.”
Claudine Venet, of Viregneux, was taken to Ars on February 1, 1850. In consequence of an attack of brain fever, she had become completely deaf and blind. Fr. Vianney had never seen her; no one had introduced her to him.
On that February 1, she happened to be standing outside the church as he went by. Without speaking a word, he took her hand, led her into the sacristy and made her kneel down in the confessional. He had hardly given her his blessing when her sight and hearing returned. It seemed to her that she had awakened from a long dream.
After her confession, Fr. Vianney made the following amazing prophecy: “Your eyes are healed, but you will become deaf for another twelve years. It is God’s will that it should be so!” On leaving the sacristy, Claudine Venet felt her ears closing once more. As a matter of fact, she could no longer hear anything.
The infirmity lasted twelve years as foretold on this February 1, 1850. Calm and resigned, enjoying the sight that had been restored to her, the stricken woman awaited the day of her deliverance. Great was her emotion when, on January 18, 1862, she felt perfectly cured.
In 1854, a girl of Montchanin of the name of Farnier, came to Ars to beg from Fr. Vianney the cure of her paralyzed leg.
“My child,” the saint told her, “you disobey your mother far too often, and answer her back in a disrespectful manner. If you wish the good God to cure you, you must correct that ugly defect. Oh! what a task lies before you! But remember one thing: you will indeed get well, but by degrees, according as you try to correct that defect.”
As soon as Farnier returned home she endeavored to show more obedience and respect to her mother. Her crippled leg, which had been four inches shorter than the other, insensibly grew longer, and at the end of a few years her infirmity had wholly vanished.
His cousin, Marguerite Humbert, came one day to beg his prayers for one of her little daughters who was dangerously ill. “She is ripe for heaven,” he said without hesitation. “As for you, my cousin, you need crosses to make you think of God.”
Françoise Lebeau, a poor girl of Saint-Martin-de-Commune in the Saoneet-Loire, had become quite blind. She went with her mother on a pilgrimage to Ars. They begged their bread the whole way and slept in stables or sheds.
To this poor girl Fr. Vianney did not fear to disclose something of the divine mystery of suffering, for his inspired gaze had fathomed her valiant spirit.
“My child,” he said, “you can be cured, but if the good God restores your sight, your salvation will be less assured; if, on the contrary, you consent to keep your infirmity, you will go to heaven, and I even guarantee that you will have a high place there.” The blind girl understood; she no longer asked for a cure and left Ars in a state of perfect resignation to God’s will.
Nor had Fr. Vianney the courage to pity the mothers whose children died in infancy. This is what Fr. Vianney replied to the brother-in-law who brought the news to him: “Happy mother, happy child! What a grace for both of them! How is it that this innocent little one has merited that its time of probation should have been shortened, to enable it to enter so soon into eternal bliss?”
Fr. Vianney could never speak of sin and sinners without shedding tears. He sobbed all the time he was making the Stations of the Cross. When he distributed Holy Communion, tears would often trickle down upon his chasuble.
In the last years of his life in particular, he could never preach about the Eucharist, the goodness and love of God, the happiness of heaven – those were his favorite topics – without being stopped by his tears.
For 41 years, John served the tiny parish of Ars. The strain was becoming too much and on 29 July he retired to bed for the last time. Then on August 4, 1859, at the age of 73, he died.
Mgr. Mermod, who was Curé of Gex at the time, relates the following incident: “One day the good man called at the priest’s residence; he was quite well, yet he wished to go to confession, giving as his reason that he was going to die. As he persisted in his request, I gave him absolution and Holy Communion. An hour later he was dead.”
“Private prayer is like straw scattered here and there: If you set it on fire, it makes a lot of little flames. But gather these straws into a bundle and light them, and you get a mighty fire, rising like a column into the sky; public prayer is like that.”
“What does Jesus Christ do in the Eucharist? It is God who, as our Savior, offers himself each day for us to his Father’s justice. If you are in difficulties and sorrows, he will comfort and relieve you. If you are sick, he will either cure you or give you strength to suffer so as to merit Heaven. If the devil, the world, and the flesh are making war upon you, he will give you the weapons with which to fight, to resist, and to win victory. If you are poor, he will enrich you with all sorts of riches for time and eternity. Let us open the door of his sacred and adorable Heart, and be wrapped about for an instant by the flames of his love, and we shall see what a God who loves us can do.”
“I throw myself at the foot of the Tabernacle like a dog at the foot of his Master.”
“All the good works in the world are not equal to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because they are the works of men; but the Mass is the work of God. Martyrdom is nothing in comparison for it is but the sacrifice of man to God; but the Mass is the sacrifice of God for man.”
“Every Consecrated Host is made to burn Itself up with love in a human heart.”
“Without the Holy Eucharist there would be no happiness in this world; life would be insupportable. When we receive Holy Communion, we receive our joy and our happiness. The good God, wishing to give Himself to us in the Sacrament of His Love, gave us a vast and great desire, which He alone can satisfy. In the presence of this beautiful Sacrament, we are like a person dying of thirst by the side of a river — he would only need to bend his head; like a person still remaining poor, close to a great treasure — he need only stretch out his hand. He who communicates loses himself in God like a drop of water in the ocean. They can no more be separated.”
“To serve the Queen of Heaven is already to reign there, and to live under her commands is more than to govern.”
“The soul hungers for God, and nothing but God can satiate it. Therefore He came to dwell on earth and assumed a Body in order that this Body might become the Food of our souls.”
“Prayer is the inner bath of love into which the soul plunges itself.”
“All our religion is but a false religion, and all our virtues are mere illusions and we ourselves are only hypocrites in the sight of God, if we have not that universal charity for everyone – for the good, and for the bad, for the poor and for the rich, and for all those who do us harm as much as those who do us good.”
“O, how great is the priest! … If he realized what he is, he would die.”
“Prayer is to our soul what rain is to the soil. Fertilize the soil ever so richly, it will remain barren unless fed by frequent rains.”
“You cannot please both God and the world at the same time, They are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions.”
“Only after the Last Judgment will Mary get any rest; from now until then, she is much too busy with her children.”
“If we really loved the good God, we should make it our joy and happiness to come and spend a few moments to adore Him, and ask Him for the grace of forgiveness; and we should regard those moments as the happiest of our lives.”
“The fire of Purgatory is the same as the fire of Hell; the difference between them is that the fire of Purgatory is not everlasting.”
“We should consider those moments spent before the Blessed Sacrament as the happiest of our lives.”
“So, you will ask me, who then are the people most tempted? They are these, my friends; note them carefully. The people most tempted are those who are ready, with the grace of God, to sacrifice everything for the salvation of their poor souls, who renounce all those things which most people eagerly seek. It is not one devil only who tempts them, but millions seek to entrap them.”
“Jesus Christ, after having given us all he could give, that is to say, the merit of his toils, his sufferings, and bitter death; after having given us his adorable body and blood to be the food of our souls, willed also to give us the most precious thing he had let, which was his holy Mother.”
“The priesthood is the love of the heart of Jesus. When you see a priest, think of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“When our hands have touched spices, they give fragrance to all they handle. Let us make our prayers pass through the hands of the Blessed Virgin. She will make them fragrant.”
“I tell you that you have less to suffer in following the cross than in serving the world and its pleasures.”
“We must say many prayers for the souls of the faithful departed, for one must be so pure to enter heaven.”
“To be a Christian and to live in sin is a monstrous contradiction. A Christian must be holy.”
“If we are not now saints, it is a great misfortune for us: therefore we must be so. As long as we have no love in our hearts, we shall never be Saints.”
“My friend, the devil is not greatly afraid of the discipline and other instruments of penance. That which beats him is the curtailment of one’s food, drink and sleep. There is nothing the devil fears more, consequently, nothing is more pleasing to God. Oh! How often have I experienced it! Whilst I was alone – and I was alone during eight or nine years, and therefore quite free to yield to my attraction – it happened at times that I refrained from food for entire days. On those occasions I obtained, both for myself and for others, whatsoever I asked of Almighty God.”
“If a priest is determined not to lose his soul, so soon as any disorder arises in the parish, he must trample underfoot all human considerations as well as the fear of the contempt and hatred of his people. He must not allow anything to bar his way in the discharge of duty, even were he certain of being murdered on coming down from the pulpit. A pastor who wants to do his duty must keep his sword in hand at all times. Did not St. Paul himself write to the faithful of Corinth: ‘I most gladly will spend and be spent myself for your souls, although loving you more, I be loved less.’”
“My good friend, I write these lines in haste to tell you not to leave, in spite of all the trials that the good God wishes you to endure. Take courage! Heaven is rich enough to reward you. Remember that the evils of this world are the lot of good Christians. You are going through a kind of martyrdom. But what a happiness for you to be a martyr of charity! Do not lose so beautiful a crown. ‘Blessed are they that suffer persecution for my sake,’ says Jesus Christ, our model. Farewell, my most dear friend. Persevere along the way on which you have so happily entered and we shall see each other again in heaven….”
“Oh, how senseless we are! the good God calls us to Him, and we fly from Him! He wishes to make us happy, and we will not have His happiness. He commands us to love Him, and we give our hearts to the devil. We employ in ruining ourselves the time He gives us to save our souls. We make war upon Him with the means He gave us to serve Him.”
Prayer of St. John Vianney:
“I love You, O my God, and my only desire is to love You until the last breath of my life.
I love You, O my infinitely lovable God, and I would rather die loving You, than live without loving You.
I love You, Lord and the only grace I ask is to love You eternally…
My God, if my tongue cannot say in every moment that I love You, I want my heart to repeat it to You as often as I draw breath.”
Close
August 4
Saint John Maria Vianney
August 5
Daily Saint 5 August
Feast of Saint Oswald
Saint Oswald of Northumbria (c 604-642) Martyr and King, apostle of prayer and charity, diplomat – born in c 604 in Northumbria, England and was killed in battle with invading pagan Welsh and Mercian forces on 5 August 642 at Maserfield, Shropshire, England. Patronage – Zug, Switzerland.
St Oswald was the son of Ethelfrith, king of Northumbria. When Edwin seized the kingdom in 616, he fled to Scotland with his family and became a Christian at Iona. When Edwin died in 633, the royal exiles returned to Northumbria. Oswald’s brothers, Osric and Eanfrid, were killed by the tyrannical British king Cadwalla. Subsequently, Oswald, at the head of a small army (possibly with the aid of allies from the north, the Scots and/or the Picts, met Cadwallon in battle at Heavenfield, near Hexham. Before the battle, Oswald had a wooden cross erected, he knelt down, holding the cross in position until enough earth had been thrown in the hole to make it stand firm. He then prayed and asked his army to join in.
Adomnán in his Life of Saint Columba offers a longer account, which Abbot Ségéne had heard from Oswald himself. Oswald, he says, had a vision of Columba the night before the battle, in which he was told:
“Be strong and act manfully. Behold, I will be with thee. This coming night go out from your camp into battle, for the Lord has granted me that at this time, your foes shall be put to flight and Cadwallon your enemy shall be delivered into your hands and you shall return victorious after battle and reign happily.’
Oswald described his vision to his council and all agreed that they would be baptised and accept Christianity after the battle. In the battle that followed, the British were routed despite their superior numbers; Cadwallon himself was killed.
When peace was restored, he sent for a bishop to preach the Gospel. The first man who came was critical and strict and made no headway. He was soon replaced by the kindly St Aidan of Lindisfarne (c 590-651). Oswald interpreted his sermons and gave him the island of Lindisfarne for a monastery and episcopal seat near the royal residence of Bamburgh. As this was not far from 0swald’s main “palace” at Bamburgh, the king and the new bishop could work together for the conversion of the people.
Under St Oswald’s rule peace was restored in Northumbria and good relations developed with the Anglo Saxon kings. He married Cyneburga, daughter of the King of Wessex. But his reign did not last long. After only eight years St Oswald was killed by the pagan king Penda of Mercia at the battle of Maserfield. He was just 38. As he was dying, he prayed for the souls of his bodyguards who died with him. His body was dismembered and sacrificed to the god Woden in a pagan ritual.
Like all Anglo-Saxon kings Oswald was a warrior. Like other kings he expected to die on the battlefield and so indeed in the end he did. But unlike other kings, before he died Oswald had won for himself the reputation of being a saint and his death in battle against Penda the heathen king of Mercia was seen as a martyr’s death.
His remains and relics were moved many times around the country. His skull was said to have been discovered in the tomb of St Cuthbert in 1827. Many miracles were attributed to them. Seventy churches are dedicated to him in England and there are many in Portugal, Bohemia, Holland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. St Oswald was celebrated for his heroism, his generosity and his piety.
Feast of Saint Oswald
Saint Oswald of Northumbria (c 604-642) Martyr and King, apostle of prayer and charity, diplomat – born in c 604 in Northumbria, England and was killed in battle with invading pagan Welsh and Mercian forces on 5 August 642 at Maserfield, Shropshire, England. Patronage – Zug, Switzerland.
St Oswald was the son of Ethelfrith, king of Northumbria. When Edwin seized the kingdom in 616, he fled to Scotland with his family and became a Christian at Iona. When Edwin died in 633, the royal exiles returned to Northumbria. Oswald’s brothers, Osric and Eanfrid, were killed by the tyrannical British king Cadwalla. Subsequently, Oswald, at the head of a small army (possibly with the aid of allies from the north, the Scots and/or the Picts, met Cadwallon in battle at Heavenfield, near Hexham. Before the battle, Oswald had a wooden cross erected, he knelt down, holding the cross in position until enough earth had been thrown in the hole to make it stand firm. He then prayed and asked his army to join in.
Adomnán in his Life of Saint Columba offers a longer account, which Abbot Ségéne had heard from Oswald himself. Oswald, he says, had a vision of Columba the night before the battle, in which he was told:
“Be strong and act manfully. Behold, I will be with thee. This coming night go out from your camp into battle, for the Lord has granted me that at this time, your foes shall be put to flight and Cadwallon your enemy shall be delivered into your hands and you shall return victorious after battle and reign happily.’
Oswald described his vision to his council and all agreed that they would be baptised and accept Christianity after the battle. In the battle that followed, the British were routed despite their superior numbers; Cadwallon himself was killed.
When peace was restored, he sent for a bishop to preach the Gospel. The first man who came was critical and strict and made no headway. He was soon replaced by the kindly St Aidan of Lindisfarne (c 590-651). Oswald interpreted his sermons and gave him the island of Lindisfarne for a monastery and episcopal seat near the royal residence of Bamburgh. As this was not far from 0swald’s main “palace” at Bamburgh, the king and the new bishop could work together for the conversion of the people.
Under St Oswald’s rule peace was restored in Northumbria and good relations developed with the Anglo Saxon kings. He married Cyneburga, daughter of the King of Wessex. But his reign did not last long. After only eight years St Oswald was killed by the pagan king Penda of Mercia at the battle of Maserfield. He was just 38. As he was dying, he prayed for the souls of his bodyguards who died with him. His body was dismembered and sacrificed to the god Woden in a pagan ritual.
Like all Anglo-Saxon kings Oswald was a warrior. Like other kings he expected to die on the battlefield and so indeed in the end he did. But unlike other kings, before he died Oswald had won for himself the reputation of being a saint and his death in battle against Penda the heathen king of Mercia was seen as a martyr’s death.
His remains and relics were moved many times around the country. His skull was said to have been discovered in the tomb of St Cuthbert in 1827. Many miracles were attributed to them. Seventy churches are dedicated to him in England and there are many in Portugal, Bohemia, Holland, Germany, Austria and Switzerland. St Oswald was celebrated for his heroism, his generosity and his piety.
Close
August 5
Saint Oswald
August 6
Daily Saints – 6 August.
Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.
The feast commemorates one of the pinnacles of Jesus’ earthly life, when he revealed his divinity to three of his closest disciples by means of a miraculous and supernatural light.
The Transfiguration foretells the glory of the Lord as God, and His Ascension into heaven. It anticipates the glory of heaven, where we shall see God face to face. Through grace, we already share in the divine promise of eternal life.
Before his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ climbed to a high point on Mount Tabor with his disciples Peter, James, and John. While Jesus prayed upon the mountain, his appearance was changed by a brilliant white light which shone from him and from his clothing.
During this event, the Old Testament figures of Moses and the prophet Elijah also appeared, and spoke of how Christ would suffer and die after entering Jerusalem, before his resurrection.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record that the voice of God was heard, confirming Jesus as his son (Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:6, Luke 9:35). Peter and John make specific reference to the event in their writings, as confirming Jesus’ divinity and his status as the Messiah (2 Peter 1:17, John 1:14).
In the Transfiguration Christ enjoyed for a short while that glorified state which was to be permanently after His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
The splendor of His inward Divinity and of the Beatific Vision of His soul overflowed on His body, and permeated His garments so that Christ stood before Peter, James, and John in a snow-white brightness.
This event is significant in Jesus’ life and ministry because it confirms his divinity and demonstrates how he fulfills the Old Testament scriptures.
The purpose of the Transfiguration was to encourage and strengthen the Apostles who were depressed by their Master’s prediction of His own Passion and Death.
The Apostles were made to understand that His redeeming work has two phases: The Cross, and glory—that we shall be glorified with Him only if we first suffer with Him.
The presence of Moses and Elijah shows how Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets. In the Old Testament, the Levitical law was given to God’s people as a temporary administration, demonstrating their need for a Savior.
Later, the prophets told of a coming Messiah, who would mend the rift between God and man that had been caused by sin. Jesus was the only man able to satisfy the Law, the perfect, sinless sacrifice.
In this passage God affirms Jesus as his Son, confirming his deity, and telling the disciples to listen to him. Peter, James, and John now see a glimpse of Jesus’ true glory: God the Son, who reigns eternal, and against whom the gates of hell shall not prevail.
God the Father shows himself as he appeared to the Israelites of the Old Testament: in a cloud, because his glory is too great to be witnessed. That same glory is reflected on Jesus, whose clothes become dazzling white.
This event emphasizes both the mystery and necessity of the Incarnation—in order for man to be made right with God, God had to become a man, because we in our finite and sinful state are unable to behold his full glory.
Though the disciples did not understand the meaning, the Transfiguration and Jesus’ charge to the disciples present a promise of what is to come. There is hope, because he will soon triumph over sin and death, and be raised in the fullness of glory – the glory of which they have just been given a glimpse.
This event served as an inspiration for the disciples to persevere and be steadfast in their faith in Jesus who would suffer and die but would be resurrected after three days.
Jesus’s transfiguration is the symbol and hope of our glory in heaven. We hope it will give us some foretaste of our own Easter.
Tradition names Mount Tabor as the site of the revelation. A church first raised there in the fourth century was dedicated on August 6. A feast in honor of the Transfiguration was celebrated in the Eastern Church from about that time. Western observance began in some localities about the eighth century.
The feast probably reached Constantinople during the time of the great hymn-writer Andrew of Crete (c. 660-740), who was a monk at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from 675 until 685, when he moved to serve at the Great Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople. Later he became Archbishop of Gortyna in Crete.
The feast appeared in the West, first in Spain in the eleventh century, then at Cluny, when Peter the Venerable was abbot (1122-56). Its introduction to Rome is associated with the Christian defeat of the Turks at Belgrade on 22 July 1456.
The news reached Rome on 6th August, so Pope Callixtus III (Alfons de Borja 1455-8), a Valencian sensitive to the memory of Moorish domination in Spain, decreed it as a feast for the Roman Church beginning on 6th August 1457.
For Eastern Catholics, the Feast of the Transfiguration is especially significant. It is among the 12 “great feasts” of Eastern Catholicism.
Eastern Christianity emphasizes that Christ’s transfiguration is the prototype of spiritual illumination, which is possible for the committed disciple of Jesus. This Christian form of “enlightenment” is facilitated by the ascetic disciplines of prayer, fasting, and charitable almsgiving.
A revered hierarch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the late Archbishop Joseph Raya, described this traditional Byzantine view of the transfiguration in his book of meditations on the Biblical event and its liturgical celebration, titled “Transfiguration of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
“Transfiguration,” Archbishop Raya wrote, “is not simply an event out of the two-thousand-year old past, or a future yet to come. It is rather a reality of the present, a way of life available to those who seek and accept Christ’s nearness.”
In his address before the Angelus on August 6, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI described how the events of the transfiguration display Christ as the “full manifestation of God’s light.”
This light, which shines forth from Christ both at the transfiguration and after his resurrection, is ultimately triumphant over “the power of the darkness of evil.”
The Pope stressed that the feast of the Transfiguration is an important opportunity for believers to look to Christ as “the light of the world,” and to experience the kind of conversion which the Bible frequently describes as an emergence from darkness to light.
“In our time too,” Pope Benedict said, “we urgently need to emerge from the darkness of evil, to experience the joy of the children of light!”
In his Angelus Message on the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ (March 16, 2014) Pope Francis said “From the event of the Transfiguration I would like to take two significant elements that can be summed up in two words: ascent and descent. We all need to go apart, to ascend the mountain in a space of silence, to find ourselves and better perceive the voice of the Lord. This we do in prayer. But we cannot stay there! Encounter with God in prayer inspires us anew to “descend the mountain” and return to the plain where we meet many brothers weighed down by fatigue, sickness, injustice, ignorance, poverty both material and spiritual. To these brothers in difficulty, we are called to bear the fruit of that experience with God, by sharing the grace we have received. And this is curious. When we hear the Word of Jesus, when we listen to the Word of Jesus and carry it in our heart, this Word grows. Do you know how it grows? By giving it to the other! The Word of Christ grows in us when we proclaim it, when we give it to others! And this is what Christian life is. It is a mission for the whole Church, for all the baptized, for us all: listen to Jesus and offer him to others.”
Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord.
The feast commemorates one of the pinnacles of Jesus’ earthly life, when he revealed his divinity to three of his closest disciples by means of a miraculous and supernatural light.
The Transfiguration foretells the glory of the Lord as God, and His Ascension into heaven. It anticipates the glory of heaven, where we shall see God face to face. Through grace, we already share in the divine promise of eternal life.
Before his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, Christ climbed to a high point on Mount Tabor with his disciples Peter, James, and John. While Jesus prayed upon the mountain, his appearance was changed by a brilliant white light which shone from him and from his clothing.
During this event, the Old Testament figures of Moses and the prophet Elijah also appeared, and spoke of how Christ would suffer and die after entering Jerusalem, before his resurrection.
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record that the voice of God was heard, confirming Jesus as his son (Matthew 17:5, Mark 9:6, Luke 9:35). Peter and John make specific reference to the event in their writings, as confirming Jesus’ divinity and his status as the Messiah (2 Peter 1:17, John 1:14).
In the Transfiguration Christ enjoyed for a short while that glorified state which was to be permanently after His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
The splendor of His inward Divinity and of the Beatific Vision of His soul overflowed on His body, and permeated His garments so that Christ stood before Peter, James, and John in a snow-white brightness.
This event is significant in Jesus’ life and ministry because it confirms his divinity and demonstrates how he fulfills the Old Testament scriptures.
The purpose of the Transfiguration was to encourage and strengthen the Apostles who were depressed by their Master’s prediction of His own Passion and Death.
The Apostles were made to understand that His redeeming work has two phases: The Cross, and glory—that we shall be glorified with Him only if we first suffer with Him.
The presence of Moses and Elijah shows how Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets. In the Old Testament, the Levitical law was given to God’s people as a temporary administration, demonstrating their need for a Savior.
Later, the prophets told of a coming Messiah, who would mend the rift between God and man that had been caused by sin. Jesus was the only man able to satisfy the Law, the perfect, sinless sacrifice.
In this passage God affirms Jesus as his Son, confirming his deity, and telling the disciples to listen to him. Peter, James, and John now see a glimpse of Jesus’ true glory: God the Son, who reigns eternal, and against whom the gates of hell shall not prevail.
God the Father shows himself as he appeared to the Israelites of the Old Testament: in a cloud, because his glory is too great to be witnessed. That same glory is reflected on Jesus, whose clothes become dazzling white.
This event emphasizes both the mystery and necessity of the Incarnation—in order for man to be made right with God, God had to become a man, because we in our finite and sinful state are unable to behold his full glory.
Though the disciples did not understand the meaning, the Transfiguration and Jesus’ charge to the disciples present a promise of what is to come. There is hope, because he will soon triumph over sin and death, and be raised in the fullness of glory – the glory of which they have just been given a glimpse.
This event served as an inspiration for the disciples to persevere and be steadfast in their faith in Jesus who would suffer and die but would be resurrected after three days.
Jesus’s transfiguration is the symbol and hope of our glory in heaven. We hope it will give us some foretaste of our own Easter.
Tradition names Mount Tabor as the site of the revelation. A church first raised there in the fourth century was dedicated on August 6. A feast in honor of the Transfiguration was celebrated in the Eastern Church from about that time. Western observance began in some localities about the eighth century.
The feast probably reached Constantinople during the time of the great hymn-writer Andrew of Crete (c. 660-740), who was a monk at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre from 675 until 685, when he moved to serve at the Great Church of Sancta Sophia, Constantinople. Later he became Archbishop of Gortyna in Crete.
The feast appeared in the West, first in Spain in the eleventh century, then at Cluny, when Peter the Venerable was abbot (1122-56). Its introduction to Rome is associated with the Christian defeat of the Turks at Belgrade on 22 July 1456.
The news reached Rome on 6th August, so Pope Callixtus III (Alfons de Borja 1455-8), a Valencian sensitive to the memory of Moorish domination in Spain, decreed it as a feast for the Roman Church beginning on 6th August 1457.
For Eastern Catholics, the Feast of the Transfiguration is especially significant. It is among the 12 “great feasts” of Eastern Catholicism.
Eastern Christianity emphasizes that Christ’s transfiguration is the prototype of spiritual illumination, which is possible for the committed disciple of Jesus. This Christian form of “enlightenment” is facilitated by the ascetic disciplines of prayer, fasting, and charitable almsgiving.
A revered hierarch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, the late Archbishop Joseph Raya, described this traditional Byzantine view of the transfiguration in his book of meditations on the Biblical event and its liturgical celebration, titled “Transfiguration of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
“Transfiguration,” Archbishop Raya wrote, “is not simply an event out of the two-thousand-year old past, or a future yet to come. It is rather a reality of the present, a way of life available to those who seek and accept Christ’s nearness.”
In his address before the Angelus on August 6, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI described how the events of the transfiguration display Christ as the “full manifestation of God’s light.”
This light, which shines forth from Christ both at the transfiguration and after his resurrection, is ultimately triumphant over “the power of the darkness of evil.”
The Pope stressed that the feast of the Transfiguration is an important opportunity for believers to look to Christ as “the light of the world,” and to experience the kind of conversion which the Bible frequently describes as an emergence from darkness to light.
“In our time too,” Pope Benedict said, “we urgently need to emerge from the darkness of evil, to experience the joy of the children of light!”
In his Angelus Message on the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ (March 16, 2014) Pope Francis said “From the event of the Transfiguration I would like to take two significant elements that can be summed up in two words: ascent and descent. We all need to go apart, to ascend the mountain in a space of silence, to find ourselves and better perceive the voice of the Lord. This we do in prayer. But we cannot stay there! Encounter with God in prayer inspires us anew to “descend the mountain” and return to the plain where we meet many brothers weighed down by fatigue, sickness, injustice, ignorance, poverty both material and spiritual. To these brothers in difficulty, we are called to bear the fruit of that experience with God, by sharing the grace we have received. And this is curious. When we hear the Word of Jesus, when we listen to the Word of Jesus and carry it in our heart, this Word grows. Do you know how it grows? By giving it to the other! The Word of Christ grows in us when we proclaim it, when we give it to others! And this is what Christian life is. It is a mission for the whole Church, for all the baptized, for us all: listen to Jesus and offer him to others.”
Close
August 6
The Transfiguration of Our Lord
August 7
Daily Saints – 7 August.
Feast of St. Cajetan.
He is the patron saint of bankers; unemployed people; workers; gamers; gamblers; document controllers; job seekers.
Cajetan was born on October 1, 1487 in Vicenza, Italy. He was the youngest of three sons born to Gaspar, Count of Thiene, and Maria Porto.
His mother was a devout woman who consecrated Cajetan to the Blessed Virgin Mary at a young age and saw to it that he received a religious education and upbringing. His father died when he was just two years old.
From childhood he was known as “the Saint”, and in later years as “the hunter of souls.” In his 20s, Cajetan received degrees in both civil and canon law from the University of Padua.
He was offered positions in the government, but he turned them down and left his native town to seek a religious vocation and obscurity in Rome. Found out, he was forced at age 28 to accept a position at the court of Pope Julius II.
When Pope Julius II died, Cajetan resigned his position in order to study for the priesthood, and he was ordained in 1516 at the age of 36.
Cajetan returned to Vicenza and disgusted his relatives by joining the Confraternity of Saint Jerome, whose members normally were drawn from the lowest and poorest classes.
Cajetan spent his fortune in building hospitals, and devoted himself to nursing the plague-stricken.
He founded a bank to help the poor and offer an alternative to loan sharks; it later became the Bank of Naples.
He was known for a gentle game he played with parishioners where he would bet prayers, rosaries or devotional candles on whether he would perform some service for them; he always did, and they always had to “pay” by saying the prayers.
To renew the lives of the clergy, on 3 May 1524 in Rome, with the help of three others, including the future Pope Paul IV, he formed the Congregation of Clerks Regular, known as the Theatines.
They devoted themselves to preaching, the administration of the Sacraments, and the careful performance of the Church’s rites and ceremonies.
Cajetan was the first to introduce the Forty Hours’ Adoration of the Blessed Sacramentas an antidote to the heresy of Calvinism.
In 1527, the house of the Theatine order in Rome was sacked by troops of Emperor Charles V, and the members fled to Venice.
It is said that one of the soldiers had been acquainted with Cajetan, and believed the priest was hiding riches from his past life of nobility, and thus treated him cruelly and imprisoned him before he was allowed to rejoin his order.
Cajetan was particularly severe with himself, always wearing a hair shirt and partaking in prayers and devotions late at night and early in the morning with just a short rest on a bed of straw in between.
Cajetan was also known for some miraculous cures in his lifetime, including the curing of the foot of a priest of his order that had been scheduled to be amputated.
Cajetan had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. His piety was rewarded one Christmas eve when she appeared to him and placed the Infant Jesus in his arms.
Cajetan became dangerously sick, and offered his sufferings for the conversion of the people of Naples, reportedly refusing to be transferred from the planks of wood that served as his bed, so that he had more suffering to offer.
When doctors tried to get him to rest on a softer bed then the boards he slept on, Cajetan answered, “My savior died on a cross. Let me died on wood at least.”
When Cajetan was on his death-bed, resigned to the will of God, Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him again, this time surrounded by ministering angels.
He said, “Lady, bless me!” Mary replied, “Cajetan, receive the blessing of my Son, and know that I am here as a reward for the sincerity of your love, and to lead you to Paradise.”
She then told him to have patience with the illness that had attacked him, and gave orders to the choirs of angels to escort his soul to heaven. “Cajetan,” she said, “my Son calls you. Let us go in peace.” And so, he did. He died on August 6th 1547.
“In this oratory we try to serve God by worship; in our hospital we may say that we actually find him.”
“Do not receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so that you may use Him as you judge best but give yourself to Him and let Him receive you in this Sacrament, so that He Himself, God your Saviour, may do to you and through you whatever He wills.”
“I am a sinner and do not think much of myself; I have recourse to the greatest servants of the Lord, that they may pray for me to the blessed Christ and his Mother. But do not forget that all the saints cannot endear you to Christ as much as you can yourself. It is entirely up to you!”
Feast of St. Cajetan.
He is the patron saint of bankers; unemployed people; workers; gamers; gamblers; document controllers; job seekers.
Cajetan was born on October 1, 1487 in Vicenza, Italy. He was the youngest of three sons born to Gaspar, Count of Thiene, and Maria Porto.
His mother was a devout woman who consecrated Cajetan to the Blessed Virgin Mary at a young age and saw to it that he received a religious education and upbringing. His father died when he was just two years old.
From childhood he was known as “the Saint”, and in later years as “the hunter of souls.” In his 20s, Cajetan received degrees in both civil and canon law from the University of Padua.
He was offered positions in the government, but he turned them down and left his native town to seek a religious vocation and obscurity in Rome. Found out, he was forced at age 28 to accept a position at the court of Pope Julius II.
When Pope Julius II died, Cajetan resigned his position in order to study for the priesthood, and he was ordained in 1516 at the age of 36.
Cajetan returned to Vicenza and disgusted his relatives by joining the Confraternity of Saint Jerome, whose members normally were drawn from the lowest and poorest classes.
Cajetan spent his fortune in building hospitals, and devoted himself to nursing the plague-stricken.
He founded a bank to help the poor and offer an alternative to loan sharks; it later became the Bank of Naples.
He was known for a gentle game he played with parishioners where he would bet prayers, rosaries or devotional candles on whether he would perform some service for them; he always did, and they always had to “pay” by saying the prayers.
To renew the lives of the clergy, on 3 May 1524 in Rome, with the help of three others, including the future Pope Paul IV, he formed the Congregation of Clerks Regular, known as the Theatines.
They devoted themselves to preaching, the administration of the Sacraments, and the careful performance of the Church’s rites and ceremonies.
Cajetan was the first to introduce the Forty Hours’ Adoration of the Blessed Sacramentas an antidote to the heresy of Calvinism.
In 1527, the house of the Theatine order in Rome was sacked by troops of Emperor Charles V, and the members fled to Venice.
It is said that one of the soldiers had been acquainted with Cajetan, and believed the priest was hiding riches from his past life of nobility, and thus treated him cruelly and imprisoned him before he was allowed to rejoin his order.
Cajetan was particularly severe with himself, always wearing a hair shirt and partaking in prayers and devotions late at night and early in the morning with just a short rest on a bed of straw in between.
Cajetan was also known for some miraculous cures in his lifetime, including the curing of the foot of a priest of his order that had been scheduled to be amputated.
Cajetan had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. His piety was rewarded one Christmas eve when she appeared to him and placed the Infant Jesus in his arms.
Cajetan became dangerously sick, and offered his sufferings for the conversion of the people of Naples, reportedly refusing to be transferred from the planks of wood that served as his bed, so that he had more suffering to offer.
When doctors tried to get him to rest on a softer bed then the boards he slept on, Cajetan answered, “My savior died on a cross. Let me died on wood at least.”
When Cajetan was on his death-bed, resigned to the will of God, Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to him again, this time surrounded by ministering angels.
He said, “Lady, bless me!” Mary replied, “Cajetan, receive the blessing of my Son, and know that I am here as a reward for the sincerity of your love, and to lead you to Paradise.”
She then told him to have patience with the illness that had attacked him, and gave orders to the choirs of angels to escort his soul to heaven. “Cajetan,” she said, “my Son calls you. Let us go in peace.” And so, he did. He died on August 6th 1547.
“In this oratory we try to serve God by worship; in our hospital we may say that we actually find him.”
“Do not receive Christ in the Blessed Sacrament so that you may use Him as you judge best but give yourself to Him and let Him receive you in this Sacrament, so that He Himself, God your Saviour, may do to you and through you whatever He wills.”
“I am a sinner and do not think much of myself; I have recourse to the greatest servants of the Lord, that they may pray for me to the blessed Christ and his Mother. But do not forget that all the saints cannot endear you to Christ as much as you can yourself. It is entirely up to you!”
Close
August 7
Saint Cajetan
August 8
Daily Saints – 8 August.
Feast of St. Dominic de Guzman.
He is the patron saint of astronomers, astronomy, falsely accused people, scientists.
Dominic was born on 1170 at Calaruega, Burgos, Old Castile. His parents were members of the Spanish nobility and related to the ruling family.
His father was Felix Guzman, and was the royal warden of the village. His mother, Bl. Joan of Aza, was noted for her concern for the poor and was regarded by the local people as a saint.
Bl. Joan had difficulty conceiving, and prayed at the shrine of St. Dominic of Silos who had a tradition of patronage of that problem; when she became pregnant she named the child Dominic in honour of the Saint.
While pregnant, Blessed Joan had a vision that her unborn child was a dog who would set the world on fire with a torch it carried in its mouth; a dog with a torch in its mouth became a symbol for the Order which he founded, the Dominicans.
At Dominic’s baptism, Blessed Joan saw a star shining from his chest, which became another of his symbols in art, and led to his patronage of astronomy.
Dominic was initiated into clerical studies by his mother’s brother, a priest. When he was about fourteen, he went to the cathedral school of Palencia to study philosophy and theology.
He studied theology for four years, an unusually thorough formation for the average priest in those days. He was widely acclaimed as an exemplary student by his professors.
In 1191, a famine left many people desolate and homeless across Spain. Dominic sold everything he had, including his furniture and clothes and bought food for the poor.
When he sold his manuscripts, required for study, he replied, “Would you have me study from these dead skins when people are dying of hunger?”
On two other occasions, Dominic attempted to sell himself into slavery to the Moors to obtain the freedom of others.
Completing his studies when he was about twenty four, he joined the chapter of Canons Regular of the cathedral of Osma, and soon afterwards was ordained a priest. Later he became subprior of the chapter.
Dominic worked for clerical reform. He had a lifelong apostolate among heretics, especially Albigensians, and especially in France. He worked with Bl. Peter of Castelnau.
Dominic founded the Order of Friars Preachers (Dominicans) in 1215, a group who live a simple, austere life, and an order of nuns dedicated to the care of young girls. He was also a friend of St. Amata of Assisi.
At that time, the Albigensian heresy was flourishing. This heresy was so dangerous that it even praised the suicide of its members, often by means of self-inflicted starvation! The heresy wrongly taught that all material things,including the human body itself, were fundamentally evil.
The Christian faith teaches otherwise. In fact, it proclaims the very resurrection of the Body. Dominic debated the heretics. Many heretics threatened Dominic with violence.
Despite the threats, Dominic traveled throughout the region, preaching and converting many back to Catholic Christian faith and practice.
At one point Dominic became discouraged at the progress of his mission; no matter how much he worked, the heresies remained.
But he received a vision from Our Lady who showed him a wreath of roses, representing the rosary. She told him to say the rosary daily, teach it to all who would listen, and eventually the true faith would win out.
Dominic is often credited with the invention of the rosary; it actually pre-dates him, but he certainly spread devotion to it, and used it to strengthen his own spiritual life.
Reported miracle worker who brought four people back from the dead. Legend says that Dominic received a vision of a beggar who, like Dominic, would do great things for the Faith. Dominic met the beggar the next day.
Dominic embraced him and said, “You are my companion and must walk with me. If we hold together, no earthly power can withstand us.” The beggar was Saint Francis of Assisi.
According to writings about him, Dominic chose for himself only the most meager of provisions. His accommodations and clothes were described as “mean.”
Dominic refused to sleep on a bed. When he reached the edge of a town, he removed his sandals and walked barefoot, regardless of the path.
Dominic constantly prayed or issued instruction as he walked and whenever he faced discomfort, he praised God.
His only possessions were a small bundle and a staff. In his bundle he kept a copy of the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistles of St. Paul, which he would read over and over again. He always drew great crowds wherever he went.
Dominic loved to pray with his whole body, kneeling, prostrating himself, holding up his hands in various gestures. He prayed on his journey, sang hymns, and at night, even after a long day’s journey spent hours in the church in prayer, and even slept there.
He sang Mass frequently, often with tears, and he loved the Hours to be sung with spirit.
Dominic was merciless on himself with regard to fasting (in Lent on bread and water), and even when sick never ate meat. He wore a hair shirt, a chain, and frequently used the discipline to blood when praying at night for those he hoped to convert.
To his last days he was constantly on the road, often walking barefoot as much as 35 miles a day, taking the frequent hardships cheerfully, and ready to be martyred for the Gospel. He repeatedly refused offers of the episcopate.
In July of 1221, Dominic became ill with a fever. He asked to be laid on the ground, still refusing a bed. He exhorted his brothers to keep a spirit of humility and charity.
After several weeks of illness, he made a last confession and a will, then passed away on August 6, 1221. He died in the presence of his brother Dominicans. Dominic was just 51.
“One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, Our Lady will save the world.”
“A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil.”
“Heretics are to be converted by an example of humility and other virtues far more readily than by any external display or verbal battles. So let us arm ourselves with devout prayers and set off showing signs of genuine humility
and go barefooted to combat Goliath.”
“Arm yourself with prayer instead of a sword; be clothed with humility instead of fine raiment.”
“These, my much loved ones, are the bequests which I leave to you as my sons; have charity among yourselves; hold fast to humility; keep a willing poverty.”
“We must sow the seed, not hoard it.”
Feast of St. Dominic de Guzman.
He is the patron saint of astronomers, astronomy, falsely accused people, scientists.
Dominic was born on 1170 at Calaruega, Burgos, Old Castile. His parents were members of the Spanish nobility and related to the ruling family.
His father was Felix Guzman, and was the royal warden of the village. His mother, Bl. Joan of Aza, was noted for her concern for the poor and was regarded by the local people as a saint.
Bl. Joan had difficulty conceiving, and prayed at the shrine of St. Dominic of Silos who had a tradition of patronage of that problem; when she became pregnant she named the child Dominic in honour of the Saint.
While pregnant, Blessed Joan had a vision that her unborn child was a dog who would set the world on fire with a torch it carried in its mouth; a dog with a torch in its mouth became a symbol for the Order which he founded, the Dominicans.
At Dominic’s baptism, Blessed Joan saw a star shining from his chest, which became another of his symbols in art, and led to his patronage of astronomy.
Dominic was initiated into clerical studies by his mother’s brother, a priest. When he was about fourteen, he went to the cathedral school of Palencia to study philosophy and theology.
He studied theology for four years, an unusually thorough formation for the average priest in those days. He was widely acclaimed as an exemplary student by his professors.
In 1191, a famine left many people desolate and homeless across Spain. Dominic sold everything he had, including his furniture and clothes and bought food for the poor.
When he sold his manuscripts, required for study, he replied, “Would you have me study from these dead skins when people are dying of hunger?”
On two other occasions, Dominic attempted to sell himself into slavery to the Moors to obtain the freedom of others.
Completing his studies when he was about twenty four, he joined the chapter of Canons Regular of the cathedral of Osma, and soon afterwards was ordained a priest. Later he became subprior of the chapter.
Dominic worked for clerical reform. He had a lifelong apostolate among heretics, especially Albigensians, and especially in France. He worked with Bl. Peter of Castelnau.
Dominic founded the Order of Friars Preachers (Dominicans) in 1215, a group who live a simple, austere life, and an order of nuns dedicated to the care of young girls. He was also a friend of St. Amata of Assisi.
At that time, the Albigensian heresy was flourishing. This heresy was so dangerous that it even praised the suicide of its members, often by means of self-inflicted starvation! The heresy wrongly taught that all material things,including the human body itself, were fundamentally evil.
The Christian faith teaches otherwise. In fact, it proclaims the very resurrection of the Body. Dominic debated the heretics. Many heretics threatened Dominic with violence.
Despite the threats, Dominic traveled throughout the region, preaching and converting many back to Catholic Christian faith and practice.
At one point Dominic became discouraged at the progress of his mission; no matter how much he worked, the heresies remained.
But he received a vision from Our Lady who showed him a wreath of roses, representing the rosary. She told him to say the rosary daily, teach it to all who would listen, and eventually the true faith would win out.
Dominic is often credited with the invention of the rosary; it actually pre-dates him, but he certainly spread devotion to it, and used it to strengthen his own spiritual life.
Reported miracle worker who brought four people back from the dead. Legend says that Dominic received a vision of a beggar who, like Dominic, would do great things for the Faith. Dominic met the beggar the next day.
Dominic embraced him and said, “You are my companion and must walk with me. If we hold together, no earthly power can withstand us.” The beggar was Saint Francis of Assisi.
According to writings about him, Dominic chose for himself only the most meager of provisions. His accommodations and clothes were described as “mean.”
Dominic refused to sleep on a bed. When he reached the edge of a town, he removed his sandals and walked barefoot, regardless of the path.
Dominic constantly prayed or issued instruction as he walked and whenever he faced discomfort, he praised God.
His only possessions were a small bundle and a staff. In his bundle he kept a copy of the Gospel of Matthew and the Epistles of St. Paul, which he would read over and over again. He always drew great crowds wherever he went.
Dominic loved to pray with his whole body, kneeling, prostrating himself, holding up his hands in various gestures. He prayed on his journey, sang hymns, and at night, even after a long day’s journey spent hours in the church in prayer, and even slept there.
He sang Mass frequently, often with tears, and he loved the Hours to be sung with spirit.
Dominic was merciless on himself with regard to fasting (in Lent on bread and water), and even when sick never ate meat. He wore a hair shirt, a chain, and frequently used the discipline to blood when praying at night for those he hoped to convert.
To his last days he was constantly on the road, often walking barefoot as much as 35 miles a day, taking the frequent hardships cheerfully, and ready to be martyred for the Gospel. He repeatedly refused offers of the episcopate.
In July of 1221, Dominic became ill with a fever. He asked to be laid on the ground, still refusing a bed. He exhorted his brothers to keep a spirit of humility and charity.
After several weeks of illness, he made a last confession and a will, then passed away on August 6, 1221. He died in the presence of his brother Dominicans. Dominic was just 51.
“One day, through the Rosary and the Scapular, Our Lady will save the world.”
“A man who governs his passions is master of his world. We must either command them or be enslaved by them. It is better to be a hammer than an anvil.”
“Heretics are to be converted by an example of humility and other virtues far more readily than by any external display or verbal battles. So let us arm ourselves with devout prayers and set off showing signs of genuine humility
and go barefooted to combat Goliath.”
“Arm yourself with prayer instead of a sword; be clothed with humility instead of fine raiment.”
“These, my much loved ones, are the bequests which I leave to you as my sons; have charity among yourselves; hold fast to humility; keep a willing poverty.”
“We must sow the seed, not hoard it.”
Close
August 8
Saint Dominic
August 9
Daily Saints – 9 August.
Feast of St. Edith Stein also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
She is the patron saint of loss of parents; converted Jews; martyrs.
Edith Stein was born into an observant Jewish family on October 12, 1891 – a date that coincided with her family’s celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.”
Edith’s father ran a timber business. Her mother was a very devout, hard-working, and a strong-willed woman.
Her father died when she had only just turned two. Now her mother had to fend for herself and to look after the family and their large business. However, she did not succeed in keeping up a living faith in her children.
Edith lost her faith in God. “I consciously decided, of my own volition, to give up praying,” she said.
As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913.
Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired. In Gottingen Edith Stein also met the philosopher Max Scheler, who directed her attention to Roman Catholicism.
After earning her degree with the highest honors from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I.
This was a hard time for her, during which she looked after the sick in the typhus ward, worked in an operating theatre, and saw young people die.
When the hospital was dissolved, in 1916, she followed Husserl as his assistant to the German city of Freiburg, where she passed her doctorate summa cum laude (with the utmost distinction) in 1917, after writing a thesis on “The Problem of Empathy.”
During this period she went to Frankfurt Cathedral and saw a woman with a shopping basket going in to kneel for a brief prayer.
“This was something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant churches I had visited people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never forgot.”
She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment, but had not yet made such a commitment herself.
Edith Stein had been good friends with Husserl’s Göttingen assistant, Adolf Reinach, and his wife. When Reinach fell in Flanders in November 1917, Edith went to Göttingen to visit his widow.
The Reinachs had converted to Protestantism. Edith felt uneasy about meeting the young widow at first, but was surprised when she actually met with a woman of faith.
“This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it … it was the moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me – Christ in the mystery of the Cross.”
In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila.
“When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized on 1 January 1922 into the Roman Catholic Church.
Edith intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion, but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step.
Instead, she taught at a Dominican school, and gave numerous public lectures on women’s issues. She spent 1931 writing a study of St. Thomas Aquinas, and took a university teaching position in 1932.
In 1933, the rise of Nazism, combined with Edith’s Jewish ethnicity, put an end to her teaching career.
Edith Stein went to Breslau for the last time, to say good-bye to her mother and her family. Her last day at home was her birthday, 12 October, which was also the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Edith went to the synagogue with her mother. It was a hard day for the two women. Edith’s mother cried. The following day Edith was on the train to Cologne.
“I did not feel any passionate joy. What I had just experienced was too terrible. But I felt a profound peace – in the safe haven of God’s will.”
From now on she wrote to her mother every week, though she never received any replies. Instead, her sister Rosa sent her news from Breslau.
Edith joined the Carmelite Convent of Cologne on 14 October, and her investiture took place on 15 April, 1934. She received the name “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross” as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering.
“I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody’s behalf.”
She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear.
In 1938, she and her sister Rosa, by then also a convert and an extern sister (tertiaries of the Order, who would handle the community′s needs outside the monastery), were sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands, for their safety.
“I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.”
After completing her final work, a study of St. John of the Cross entitled “The Science of the Cross,” Teresa Benedicta was arrested along with her sister Rosa and the members of her religious community, on August 7, 1942.
The arrests came in retaliation against a protest letter by the Dutch Bishops, decrying the Nazi treatment of Jews. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.
“Do not accept anything as truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.”
“The nation… doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are.”
“One cannot desire freedom from the cross when one is especially chosen for the cross.”
“In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced, the kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together. Here is for us the source of life. This heart is the heart of the Triune Divinity, and the center of all human hearts… It draws us to itself with secret power, it conceals us in itself in the Father’s bosom and floods us with the Holy Spirit. This heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle where it remains mysteriously hidden in that still, white host.”
“Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God.”
“Whatever did not fit in with my plan did lie within the plan of God. I have an ever deeper and firmer belief that nothing is merely an accident when seen in the light of God, that my whole life down to the smallest details has been marked out for me in the plan of Divine Providence and has a completely coherent meaning in God’s all-seeing eyes. And so I am beginning to rejoice in the light of glory wherein this meaning will be unveiled to me.”
“For by doing what God demands of us with total surrender of our innermost being, we cause the divine life to become our own inner life. Entering into ourselves, we find God in our own selves.”
“Those who join the ……….. Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone.”
“God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace. And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the rasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him. Then you will be able to rest in Him – really rest – and start the next day as a new life.”
“The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.”
“On the question of relating to our fellowman — our neighbor’s spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.”
“In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will.”
“There is a state of resting in God, an absolute break from all intellectual activity, when one forms no plans, makes no decisions and for the first time really ceases to act, when one simply hands over the future to God’s will and ‘surrenders himself to fate’.”
“Since Mary is the prototype of pure womanhood, the imitation of Mary must be the goal of girls’ education.”
“The walls of our monasteries enclose a narrow space. To erect the structure of holiness in it, one must dig deep and build high, must descend into the depths of the dark night of one’s own nothingness in order to be raised up high into the sunlight of divine love and compassion.”
Feast of St. Edith Stein also known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.
She is the patron saint of loss of parents; converted Jews; martyrs.
Edith Stein was born into an observant Jewish family on October 12, 1891 – a date that coincided with her family’s celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.”
Edith’s father ran a timber business. Her mother was a very devout, hard-working, and a strong-willed woman.
Her father died when she had only just turned two. Now her mother had to fend for herself and to look after the family and their large business. However, she did not succeed in keeping up a living faith in her children.
Edith lost her faith in God. “I consciously decided, of my own volition, to give up praying,” she said.
As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Edith gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913.
Through her studies, the non-religious Edith met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired. In Gottingen Edith Stein also met the philosopher Max Scheler, who directed her attention to Roman Catholicism.
After earning her degree with the highest honors from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I.
This was a hard time for her, during which she looked after the sick in the typhus ward, worked in an operating theatre, and saw young people die.
When the hospital was dissolved, in 1916, she followed Husserl as his assistant to the German city of Freiburg, where she passed her doctorate summa cum laude (with the utmost distinction) in 1917, after writing a thesis on “The Problem of Empathy.”
During this period she went to Frankfurt Cathedral and saw a woman with a shopping basket going in to kneel for a brief prayer.
“This was something totally new to me. In the synagogues and Protestant churches I had visited people simply went to the services. Here, however, I saw someone coming straight from the busy marketplace into this empty church, as if she was going to have an intimate conversation. It was something I never forgot.”
She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment, but had not yet made such a commitment herself.
Edith Stein had been good friends with Husserl’s Göttingen assistant, Adolf Reinach, and his wife. When Reinach fell in Flanders in November 1917, Edith went to Göttingen to visit his widow.
The Reinachs had converted to Protestantism. Edith felt uneasy about meeting the young widow at first, but was surprised when she actually met with a woman of faith.
“This was my first encounter with the Cross and the divine power it imparts to those who bear it … it was the moment when my unbelief collapsed and Christ began to shine his light on me – Christ in the mystery of the Cross.”
In 1921, while visiting friends, Edith spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Avila.
“When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized on 1 January 1922 into the Roman Catholic Church.
Edith intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion, but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step.
Instead, she taught at a Dominican school, and gave numerous public lectures on women’s issues. She spent 1931 writing a study of St. Thomas Aquinas, and took a university teaching position in 1932.
In 1933, the rise of Nazism, combined with Edith’s Jewish ethnicity, put an end to her teaching career.
Edith Stein went to Breslau for the last time, to say good-bye to her mother and her family. Her last day at home was her birthday, 12 October, which was also the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles.
Edith went to the synagogue with her mother. It was a hard day for the two women. Edith’s mother cried. The following day Edith was on the train to Cologne.
“I did not feel any passionate joy. What I had just experienced was too terrible. But I felt a profound peace – in the safe haven of God’s will.”
From now on she wrote to her mother every week, though she never received any replies. Instead, her sister Rosa sent her news from Breslau.
Edith joined the Carmelite Convent of Cologne on 14 October, and her investiture took place on 15 April, 1934. She received the name “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross” as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering.
“I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the Cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody’s behalf.”
She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear.
In 1938, she and her sister Rosa, by then also a convert and an extern sister (tertiaries of the Order, who would handle the community′s needs outside the monastery), were sent to the Carmelite monastery in Echt, Netherlands, for their safety.
“I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.”
After completing her final work, a study of St. John of the Cross entitled “The Science of the Cross,” Teresa Benedicta was arrested along with her sister Rosa and the members of her religious community, on August 7, 1942.
The arrests came in retaliation against a protest letter by the Dutch Bishops, decrying the Nazi treatment of Jews. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.
“Do not accept anything as truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth.”
“The nation… doesn’t simply need what we have. It needs what we are.”
“One cannot desire freedom from the cross when one is especially chosen for the cross.”
“In the heart of Jesus, which was pierced, the kingdom of heaven and the land of earth are bound together. Here is for us the source of life. This heart is the heart of the Triune Divinity, and the center of all human hearts… It draws us to itself with secret power, it conceals us in itself in the Father’s bosom and floods us with the Holy Spirit. This heart, it beats for us in a small tabernacle where it remains mysteriously hidden in that still, white host.”
“Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God.”
“Whatever did not fit in with my plan did lie within the plan of God. I have an ever deeper and firmer belief that nothing is merely an accident when seen in the light of God, that my whole life down to the smallest details has been marked out for me in the plan of Divine Providence and has a completely coherent meaning in God’s all-seeing eyes. And so I am beginning to rejoice in the light of glory wherein this meaning will be unveiled to me.”
“For by doing what God demands of us with total surrender of our innermost being, we cause the divine life to become our own inner life. Entering into ourselves, we find God in our own selves.”
“Those who join the ……….. Order are not lost to their near and dear ones, but have been won for them, because it is our vocation to intercede to God for everyone.”
“God is there in these moments of rest and can give us in a single instant exactly what we need. Then the rest of the day can take its course, under the same effort and strain, perhaps, but in peace. And when night comes, and you look back over the day and see how fragmentary everything has been, and how much you planned that has gone undone, and all the rasons you have to be embarrassed and ashamed: just take everything exactly as it is, put it in God’s hands and leave it with Him. Then you will be able to rest in Him – really rest – and start the next day as a new life.”
“The limitless loving devotion to God, and the gift God makes of Himself to you, are the highest elevation of which the heart is capable; it is the highest degree of prayer. The souls that have reached this point are truly the heart of the Church.”
“On the question of relating to our fellowman — our neighbor’s spiritual need transcends every commandment. Everything else we do is a means to an end. But love is an end already, since God is love.”
“In order to be an image of God, the spirit must turn to what is eternal, hold it in spirit, keep it in memory, and by loving it, embrace it in the will.”
“There is a state of resting in God, an absolute break from all intellectual activity, when one forms no plans, makes no decisions and for the first time really ceases to act, when one simply hands over the future to God’s will and ‘surrenders himself to fate’.”
“Since Mary is the prototype of pure womanhood, the imitation of Mary must be the goal of girls’ education.”
“The walls of our monasteries enclose a narrow space. To erect the structure of holiness in it, one must dig deep and build high, must descend into the depths of the dark night of one’s own nothingness in order to be raised up high into the sunlight of divine love and compassion.”
Close
August 9
Saint Edith Stein
August 10
Daily Saints – 10 August.
Feast of Saint Lawrence.
He is the patron saint against fire, against lumbago, archives, archivists, armories, armourers, brewers, butchers, chefs, cooks, comedians, comediennes, comics, confectioners, cutlers, deacons, glaziers, laundry workers, librarians, libraries, paupers, poor people, restauranteurs, schoolchildren, students, seminarians, stained glass workers, tanners, vine growers, vintners, wine makers.
Lawrence is thought to have been born on 31 December AD 225 in Valencia, or less probably, in Huesca. The martyrs St. Orentius and St Patientia are traditionally held to have been his parents.
He encountered the future Pope Sixtus II, who was of Greek origin and one of the most famous and highly esteemed teachers, in Caesaraugusta (today Zaragoza). Eventually, both left Spain for Rome.
When Sixtus became the Pope in 257, he ordained Lawrence as a deacon, and though Lawrence was still young appointed him first among the seven deacons who served in the patriarchal church.
He is therefore called “archdeacon of Rome”, a position of great trust that included the care of the treasury and riches of the Church and the distribution of alms to the indigent.
At the beginning of August 258, the Emperor Valerian issued an edict that all bishops, priests, and deacons should immediately be put to death.
Pope Sixtus II was captured on 6 August 258, at the cemetery of St. Callixtus while celebrating the liturgy. Pope Sixtus was condemned to death.
As he was led to execution, Lawrence followed him weeping, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” he said. “I am not leaving you, my son,” answered the Pope. “In three days you will follow me.”
As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church, and the distribution of alms to the poor.
When Lawrence knew he would be arrested like the pope, he sought out the poor, widows, and orphans of Rome and gave them all the money he had on hand, selling even the sacred vessels of the altar to increase the sum.
When the prefect of Rome heard of this, he imagined that the Christians must have considerable treasure.
He sent for Lawrence and said, “You Christians say we are cruel to you, but that is not what I have in mind. I am told that your priests offer in gold, that the sacred blood is received in silver cups, that you have golden candlesticks at your evening services. Now, your doctrine says you must render to Caesar what is his. Bring these treasures—the emperor needs them to maintain his forces. God does not cause money to be counted: He brought none of it into the world with him—only words. Give me the money, therefore, and be rich in words.”
Lawrence replied that the Church was indeed rich. “I will show you a valuable part. But give me time to set everything in order and make an inventory.”
After three days he gathered a great number of blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned, and widowed persons and put them in rows. When the prefect arrived, Lawrence simply said, “These are the treasure of the Church.”
The prefect was so angry he told Lawrence that he would indeed have his wish to die—but it would be by inches. He had a great gridiron prepared with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence’s body placed on it.
After the martyr had suffered the pain for a long time, the legend concludes, he made his famous cheerful remark, “It is well done. Turn me over!”
From this derives his patronage of cooks, chefs, and comedians. He was cooked to death on a gridiron on 10 August 258 in Rome, Italy.
Lawrence’s care for the poor, the ill, and the neglected have led to his patronage of them. His work to save the material wealth of the Church, including its documents, brought librarians and those in related fields to see him as a patron, and to ask for his intercession.
And his incredible strength and courage when being grilled to death led to his patronage of cooks and those who work in or supply things to the kitchen.
The meteor shower that follows the passage of the Swift-Tuttle comet was known in the middle ages as the “burning tears of Saint Lawrence” because they appear at the same time as Lawrence’s feast.
Feast of Saint Lawrence.
He is the patron saint against fire, against lumbago, archives, archivists, armories, armourers, brewers, butchers, chefs, cooks, comedians, comediennes, comics, confectioners, cutlers, deacons, glaziers, laundry workers, librarians, libraries, paupers, poor people, restauranteurs, schoolchildren, students, seminarians, stained glass workers, tanners, vine growers, vintners, wine makers.
Lawrence is thought to have been born on 31 December AD 225 in Valencia, or less probably, in Huesca. The martyrs St. Orentius and St Patientia are traditionally held to have been his parents.
He encountered the future Pope Sixtus II, who was of Greek origin and one of the most famous and highly esteemed teachers, in Caesaraugusta (today Zaragoza). Eventually, both left Spain for Rome.
When Sixtus became the Pope in 257, he ordained Lawrence as a deacon, and though Lawrence was still young appointed him first among the seven deacons who served in the patriarchal church.
He is therefore called “archdeacon of Rome”, a position of great trust that included the care of the treasury and riches of the Church and the distribution of alms to the indigent.
At the beginning of August 258, the Emperor Valerian issued an edict that all bishops, priests, and deacons should immediately be put to death.
Pope Sixtus II was captured on 6 August 258, at the cemetery of St. Callixtus while celebrating the liturgy. Pope Sixtus was condemned to death.
As he was led to execution, Lawrence followed him weeping, “Father, where are you going without your deacon?” he said. “I am not leaving you, my son,” answered the Pope. “In three days you will follow me.”
As deacon in Rome, Lawrence was charged with the responsibility for the material goods of the Church, and the distribution of alms to the poor.
When Lawrence knew he would be arrested like the pope, he sought out the poor, widows, and orphans of Rome and gave them all the money he had on hand, selling even the sacred vessels of the altar to increase the sum.
When the prefect of Rome heard of this, he imagined that the Christians must have considerable treasure.
He sent for Lawrence and said, “You Christians say we are cruel to you, but that is not what I have in mind. I am told that your priests offer in gold, that the sacred blood is received in silver cups, that you have golden candlesticks at your evening services. Now, your doctrine says you must render to Caesar what is his. Bring these treasures—the emperor needs them to maintain his forces. God does not cause money to be counted: He brought none of it into the world with him—only words. Give me the money, therefore, and be rich in words.”
Lawrence replied that the Church was indeed rich. “I will show you a valuable part. But give me time to set everything in order and make an inventory.”
After three days he gathered a great number of blind, lame, maimed, leprous, orphaned, and widowed persons and put them in rows. When the prefect arrived, Lawrence simply said, “These are the treasure of the Church.”
The prefect was so angry he told Lawrence that he would indeed have his wish to die—but it would be by inches. He had a great gridiron prepared with coals beneath it, and had Lawrence’s body placed on it.
After the martyr had suffered the pain for a long time, the legend concludes, he made his famous cheerful remark, “It is well done. Turn me over!”
From this derives his patronage of cooks, chefs, and comedians. He was cooked to death on a gridiron on 10 August 258 in Rome, Italy.
Lawrence’s care for the poor, the ill, and the neglected have led to his patronage of them. His work to save the material wealth of the Church, including its documents, brought librarians and those in related fields to see him as a patron, and to ask for his intercession.
And his incredible strength and courage when being grilled to death led to his patronage of cooks and those who work in or supply things to the kitchen.
The meteor shower that follows the passage of the Swift-Tuttle comet was known in the middle ages as the “burning tears of Saint Lawrence” because they appear at the same time as Lawrence’s feast.
Close
August 10
Saint Lawrence
August 11
Daily Saints – 11 August
Feast St. Clare of Assisi.
She is the patron saint of embroiderers, needle workers, eyes, against eye disease, for good weather, gilders, gold workers, goldsmiths, laundry workers, telegraphs, telephones, television, television writers.
Clare was born in Assisi on July 16, 1194, as Chiara Offreduccio, the beautiful eldest daughter of Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana.
Traditional accounts say that Clare’s father was a wealthy representative of an ancient Roman family and her mother was a very devout woman belonging to the noble family of Fiumi. As a child, Clare was devoted to prayer.
Clare was taught to read and write as well as spin yarn and do needlework. She had little interest in her luxurious surroundings (she lived in a palace). Influenced by her mother’s religious devotion, Clare dedicated her life to God at an early age.
She also showed early on that her calling would involve helping the poor, as she set aside food from her family table to give to the needy on the streets.
Having refused to marry at 15, Clare was moved by the dynamic preaching of Francis. He became her lifelong friend and spiritual guide.
Inspired by his words, Clare asked Francis to help her in dedicating her life to God, and he vowed to do so. The following year (1211), Clare’s parents chose a wealthy young man for Clare to marry, but she pointedly refused.
At 18, Clare escaped from her father’s home one night, was met on the road by friars carrying torches. In the poor little chapel called the Portiuncula she received a rough woolen habit, exchanged her jeweled belt for a common rope with knots in it, and sacrificed her long tresses to Francis’ scissors.
Francis placed her in a Benedictine convent, which her father and uncles immediately stormed in rage. Clare clung to the altar of the church, threw aside her veil to show her cropped hair, and remained adamant.
Sixteen days later her sister Agnes joined her. They moved to the Church of San Damiano, recently rebuilt by Francis. It wasn’t long before other women joined them, and San Damiano’s residents, known for their ascetic lifestyle, became known as the “Poor Ladies.”
They lived a simple life of great poverty, austerity, and complete seclusion from the world, according to a Rule which Francis gave them as a Second Order.
The Poor Ladies went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat, and observed almost complete silence. Later Clare, like Francis, persuaded her sisters to moderate this rigor: “Our bodies are not made of brass.”
Clare had the joy not only of seeing her younger sister, Agnes ( St. Agnes of Assisi) join the Order but also her youngest sister Beatrix (Blessed), her mother Ortolana (Blessed) and her faithful Aunt Bianca.
At age 21, Francis obliged Clare under obedience to accept the office of abbess, one she exercised until her death.
She had a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to increase her love for Christ crucified, she learned by heart the Office of the Passion composed by St. Francis.
Clare is credited with saving Assisi on two occasions.
In 1224, the army of Frederick II came to plunder Assisi. Although very sick, Clare had herself carried to the wall and right there, where the enemies could see it, she had the Blessed Sacrament placed.
Then on her knees, she begged God to save the Sisters. “Does it please you, O God, to deliver into the hands of these beasts the defenseless children I have nourished with your love? I beseech you, dear Lord, protect these whom I am now unable to protect.”
A voice seemed to answer: “I will keep them always in My care.” To her sisters she said, “Don’t be afraid. Trust in Jesus.” Suddenly a mysterious terror seized the enemies, who fled without harming anybody.
In the second instance, Assisi was again under attack. Clare and her nuns prayed for the safety of their town, and a storm swept in and scattered the attackers.
Not the least important part of Clare’s work was the help and encouragement she gave to her spiritual father, Francis. It was to her that he turned when in doubt and it was she who urged him to continue his mission in preaching when he thought his vocation lay in becoming a hermit.
After receiving the Stigmata, blind, ill and dying, Francis came for the last time to San Damiano. Clare built a little reed hut for him outside the cloister and tended him. It was there that he composed his magnificent “Canticle of the Creatures”, in the spring of 1225.
Francis always remained her great friend and inspiration. Clare was always obedient to his will and to the great ideal of gospel life which he was making real. Clare cared for Francis toward the end of his life and was with him when he died in 1226.
In 1228, when Gregory IX offered Clare a dispensation from the vow of strict poverty, she replied: “I need to be absolved from my sins, but not from the obligation of following Christ.”
Clare served the sick and washed the feet of the begging nuns. She came from prayer, it was said, with her face so shining it dazzled those about her.
Clare became sick and suffered great pains for many years, but she expressed that no pain could trouble her.
So great was her joy in serving the Lord that she once exclaimed: “They say that we are too poor, but can a heart which possesses the infinite God be truly called poor?”
She suffered serious illness for the last 27 years of her life. Her influence was such that popes, cardinals, and bishops often came to consult her—Clare herself never left the walls of San Damiano.
Clare died on August 11, 1253 at the age of 59. Her last words as reported to have been, “Blessed be You, O God, for having created me.”
There are traditions of bringing offerings of eggs to the Poor Clares for their intercessions for good weather, particularly for weddings.
Her patronage of eyes and against their problems may have developed from her name which has overtones from clearness, brightness, brilliance – like healthy eyes.
Clare was designated as the patron saint of television in 1958 by Pope Pius XII, because when St. Clare was very ill, she could not attend mass and was reportedly able to see and hear it on the wall in her room.
“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God’s compassionate love for others.”
“Love God, serve God: everything is in that.”
“Love Him totally, who gave Himself totally for your love.”
“Love that cannot suffer is not worthy of that name.”
“For, I am sure that you know that the kingdom of heaven is promised and given by the Lord only to the poor, because as long as something temporal is the object of love, the fruit of charity is lost.”
“Cling to His most sweet Mother, who carried a Son whom the heavens could not contain; and yet she carried Him in the little enclosure of her holy womb and held Him on her virginal lap.”
“They say that we are too poor but can a heart which possesses the infinite God be truly called poor? We should remember this miracle of the Blessed Sacrament when in Church. Then we will pray with great Faith to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist: ‘Save me, O Lord, from every evil”
“Our body is not made of iron. Our strength is not that of stone. Live and hope in the Lord, and let your service be according to reason.”
“Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow. Do not let false delights of a deceptive world deceive you.”
“Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.”
“Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.”
Feast St. Clare of Assisi.
She is the patron saint of embroiderers, needle workers, eyes, against eye disease, for good weather, gilders, gold workers, goldsmiths, laundry workers, telegraphs, telephones, television, television writers.
Clare was born in Assisi on July 16, 1194, as Chiara Offreduccio, the beautiful eldest daughter of Favorino Sciffi, Count of Sasso-Rosso and his wife Ortolana.
Traditional accounts say that Clare’s father was a wealthy representative of an ancient Roman family and her mother was a very devout woman belonging to the noble family of Fiumi. As a child, Clare was devoted to prayer.
Clare was taught to read and write as well as spin yarn and do needlework. She had little interest in her luxurious surroundings (she lived in a palace). Influenced by her mother’s religious devotion, Clare dedicated her life to God at an early age.
She also showed early on that her calling would involve helping the poor, as she set aside food from her family table to give to the needy on the streets.
Having refused to marry at 15, Clare was moved by the dynamic preaching of Francis. He became her lifelong friend and spiritual guide.
Inspired by his words, Clare asked Francis to help her in dedicating her life to God, and he vowed to do so. The following year (1211), Clare’s parents chose a wealthy young man for Clare to marry, but she pointedly refused.
At 18, Clare escaped from her father’s home one night, was met on the road by friars carrying torches. In the poor little chapel called the Portiuncula she received a rough woolen habit, exchanged her jeweled belt for a common rope with knots in it, and sacrificed her long tresses to Francis’ scissors.
Francis placed her in a Benedictine convent, which her father and uncles immediately stormed in rage. Clare clung to the altar of the church, threw aside her veil to show her cropped hair, and remained adamant.
Sixteen days later her sister Agnes joined her. They moved to the Church of San Damiano, recently rebuilt by Francis. It wasn’t long before other women joined them, and San Damiano’s residents, known for their ascetic lifestyle, became known as the “Poor Ladies.”
They lived a simple life of great poverty, austerity, and complete seclusion from the world, according to a Rule which Francis gave them as a Second Order.
The Poor Ladies went barefoot, slept on the ground, ate no meat, and observed almost complete silence. Later Clare, like Francis, persuaded her sisters to moderate this rigor: “Our bodies are not made of brass.”
Clare had the joy not only of seeing her younger sister, Agnes ( St. Agnes of Assisi) join the Order but also her youngest sister Beatrix (Blessed), her mother Ortolana (Blessed) and her faithful Aunt Bianca.
At age 21, Francis obliged Clare under obedience to accept the office of abbess, one she exercised until her death.
She had a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and to increase her love for Christ crucified, she learned by heart the Office of the Passion composed by St. Francis.
Clare is credited with saving Assisi on two occasions.
In 1224, the army of Frederick II came to plunder Assisi. Although very sick, Clare had herself carried to the wall and right there, where the enemies could see it, she had the Blessed Sacrament placed.
Then on her knees, she begged God to save the Sisters. “Does it please you, O God, to deliver into the hands of these beasts the defenseless children I have nourished with your love? I beseech you, dear Lord, protect these whom I am now unable to protect.”
A voice seemed to answer: “I will keep them always in My care.” To her sisters she said, “Don’t be afraid. Trust in Jesus.” Suddenly a mysterious terror seized the enemies, who fled without harming anybody.
In the second instance, Assisi was again under attack. Clare and her nuns prayed for the safety of their town, and a storm swept in and scattered the attackers.
Not the least important part of Clare’s work was the help and encouragement she gave to her spiritual father, Francis. It was to her that he turned when in doubt and it was she who urged him to continue his mission in preaching when he thought his vocation lay in becoming a hermit.
After receiving the Stigmata, blind, ill and dying, Francis came for the last time to San Damiano. Clare built a little reed hut for him outside the cloister and tended him. It was there that he composed his magnificent “Canticle of the Creatures”, in the spring of 1225.
Francis always remained her great friend and inspiration. Clare was always obedient to his will and to the great ideal of gospel life which he was making real. Clare cared for Francis toward the end of his life and was with him when he died in 1226.
In 1228, when Gregory IX offered Clare a dispensation from the vow of strict poverty, she replied: “I need to be absolved from my sins, but not from the obligation of following Christ.”
Clare served the sick and washed the feet of the begging nuns. She came from prayer, it was said, with her face so shining it dazzled those about her.
Clare became sick and suffered great pains for many years, but she expressed that no pain could trouble her.
So great was her joy in serving the Lord that she once exclaimed: “They say that we are too poor, but can a heart which possesses the infinite God be truly called poor?”
She suffered serious illness for the last 27 years of her life. Her influence was such that popes, cardinals, and bishops often came to consult her—Clare herself never left the walls of San Damiano.
Clare died on August 11, 1253 at the age of 59. Her last words as reported to have been, “Blessed be You, O God, for having created me.”
There are traditions of bringing offerings of eggs to the Poor Clares for their intercessions for good weather, particularly for weddings.
Her patronage of eyes and against their problems may have developed from her name which has overtones from clearness, brightness, brilliance – like healthy eyes.
Clare was designated as the patron saint of television in 1958 by Pope Pius XII, because when St. Clare was very ill, she could not attend mass and was reportedly able to see and hear it on the wall in her room.
“We become what we love and who we love shapes what we become. If we love things, we become a thing. If we love nothing, we become nothing. Imitation is not a literal mimicking of Christ, rather it means becoming the image of the beloved, an image disclosed through transformation. This means we are to become vessels of God’s compassionate love for others.”
“Love God, serve God: everything is in that.”
“Love Him totally, who gave Himself totally for your love.”
“Love that cannot suffer is not worthy of that name.”
“For, I am sure that you know that the kingdom of heaven is promised and given by the Lord only to the poor, because as long as something temporal is the object of love, the fruit of charity is lost.”
“Cling to His most sweet Mother, who carried a Son whom the heavens could not contain; and yet she carried Him in the little enclosure of her holy womb and held Him on her virginal lap.”
“They say that we are too poor but can a heart which possesses the infinite God be truly called poor? We should remember this miracle of the Blessed Sacrament when in Church. Then we will pray with great Faith to Jesus in the Holy Eucharist: ‘Save me, O Lord, from every evil”
“Our body is not made of iron. Our strength is not that of stone. Live and hope in the Lord, and let your service be according to reason.”
“Our labor here is brief, but the reward is eternal. Do not be disturbed by the clamor of the world, which passes like a shadow. Do not let false delights of a deceptive world deceive you.”
“Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your soul in the brilliance of glory! And transform your entire being into the image of the Godhead Itself through contemplation.”
“Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me.”
Close
August 11
Saint Clare of Assisi
August 12
Daily Saints – 12 August.
Feast of Saint Jeanne de Chantal.
She is the patron saint against in-law problems, against the death of parents, forgotten people, parents separated from children, widows.
Jane (Jeanne) was born on 28 January 1572 at Dijon, Burgundy, France to a noble family. Her mother died when she was 18 months old, and her father, head of parliament at Dijon, France, became the main influence on her education.
Little Jane was a lively, intelligent child. Her father was pleased and proud to afford her every advantage proper to her age and social station. Jane developed into a woman of beauty and refinement, lively and cheerful in temperament.
At age 20 she was married to the Baron de Chantal. She had six children, three of whom died in infancy.
Baron de Chantal immediately placed her in charge of the management of his estate at Bourbilly. With courage and competence, she undertook and carried on these onerous duties to the satisfaction of all concerned.
As mother she most zealously instructed the children in the ways of virtue and piety and in the observance of every divine precept. At her castle, she restored the custom of daily Mass, and was seriously engaged in various charitable works.
With great generosity she supported the poor and took special joy in seeing how divine Providence often blesses and increases the smallest larder. Therefore she made a vow never to refuse anyone who asked for alms in the Name of Christ.
Jane’s husband Baron was killed after seven years of marriage and she was widowed at 28. Baron was killed in a hunting accident and died in her arms. Before he died, her husband forgave the man who shot him, saying to the man, “Don’t commit the sin of hating yourself when you have done nothing wrong.”
The heartbroken Jane, however, had to struggle with forgiveness for a long time. Sudden death of the husband sank her into deep dejection for four months at her family home.
Her father-in-law threatened to disinherit her children if she did not return to his home. He was then 75, vain, fierce, and extravagant. On the demand of her father-in-law, she went to live with him.
For seven years she was the victim of this old man’s whims and unreasonableness, bearing the arrogance of his housekeeper, and employing her days in service and charity and prayer. Jane Frances managed to remain cheerful in spite of him and his insolent housekeeper.
For seven years she was forced to live in the house of her father in law, a trial which she was forced to bare patiently due to his ill-disposition towards her, and it was during this time that she took a vow of perpetual chastity.
In all of her prayers, Jane asked God to send her a guide. In a vision, He showed her the spiritual director that He held in reserve for her.
During Lent, in 1604, she visited her father at Dijon. She went to church at the Sainte Chapelle and heard a bishop give a sermon about God’s love. The bishop’s name was Francis de Sales. His words opened her heart again. She forgave the man who caused her husband’s accident.
At first she tried just greeting him on the street. When she was able to do that, she invited him to her house. Finally she was able to forgive the man so completely that she even became godmother to his child.
She recognized in Francis de Sales the mysterious director who had been shown to her, and she placed herself under his guidance. The two became good friends.
Then began the famous correspondence between the two saints which produced volumes of letters of spiritual direction, some of which are available today, but most of which were destroyed by her upon the death of St. Francis.
She went to Annecy in 1610, where she believed God was calling her to found an order for women and girls who felt called to live the life of Christian perfection, but not practice the severe asceticism of the religious orders of the time.
Thus the Congregation of the Visitation was canonically established at Annecy on June 6th, 1610, Trinity Sunday. They were primarily intended to exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation—hence their name the Visitation nuns—humility and meekness.
She underwent great sufferings: Francis de Sales died; her son was killed; a plague ravaged France; her daughter-in-law and son-in-law died.
She encouraged the local authorities to make great efforts for the victims of the plague, and she put all her convent’s resources at the disposal of the sick.
Along the way she encountered persistent criticism from church authorities as well as internal tensions within the congregation.
The order attracted many women from an aristocratic background who found it difficult to adapt themselves to the spirit of poverty and obedience. Jeanne weathered these and greater trials.
Her trials were continuous and borne bravely, and yet she was exceedingly sensitive. She endured interior crosses which, particularly during the last nine years of her life, kept her in an agony of soul, from which she was not freed until three months before her death.
Her reputation for sanctity was widespread. Queens, princes, and princesses flocked to the reception-room of the Visitation. Wherever she went to establish foundations, the people gave her ovations. “These people”, she would say confused, “do not know me-they are mistaken”.
During a part of her religious life, Jane Frances had to undergo great trials of the spirit—interior anguish, darkness, and spiritual dryness.
In December of 1641 when she fell ill during a visit to the monastery in Moulins, she was more than ready to answer the summons of the Bridegroom.
After dictating a circular letter to all the monasteries and making a firm act of faith, she received Holy Viaticum with great fervor. Slowly and distinctly she pronounced the name of Jesus three times and died on 13 December 1641.
At that moment in Paris, St. Vincent de Paul, her director after St. Francis de Sales, had a vision of a small globe of fire rising to join a more luminous globe, and the two rising higher to blend with an infinitely larger and more splendid sphere, and he knew that the souls of the two saints that he had known on earth had been reunited in death and had together returned to God, their first and last end.
“Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to him. That is all the doing you have to worry about.”
“We should go to prayer with deep humility and an awareness of our nothingness. We must invoke the help of the Holy Spirit and that of our good angel, and then remain still in God’s presence, full of faith that he is more in us than we are in ourselves.”
“In prayer we must converse very familiarly with our Lord, concerning our little needs, telling him what they are, and remaining submissive to anything he may wish to do with us.”
“Fidelity toward God consists in being perfectly resigned to his holy will, in enduring everything that his goodness allows in our lives, and in carrying out all our duties, especially that of prayer, with love and for love.”
“There is no danger if our prayer is without words or reflection because the good success of prayer depends neither on words nor on study. It depends upon the simple raising of our minds to God, and the more simple and stripped of feeling it is, the surer it is. We must never dwell on our sins during prayer. Regarding our offenses, a simple humbling of our soul before God, without a thought of this offense or that, is enough….such thoughts act as distractions.”
“Above all we must love the good pleasure of God, accepting with equanimity things both agreeable and things painful, trusting everything to Him Who disposes of all things for the good of His children.”
“How delightful it is to see the servants of God gaining their livelihood by the labor of their hands, and having no other tomorrow than that of Divine Providence!”
“To pay no attention to an injury heals more evil in an hour than revengeful thoughts could ever bring to pass.”
“The life of man is deceitful and short. Eternity approaches. Let us advance towards it by a faithful practice of those virtues which, by the grace of God, may obtain for us its happy possession.”
“Though we should fall fifty times a day, let us rise again quite simply, without wasting thought in self-reflections on what we may have done or left undone. Such useless discouragements are often greater faults than the ones that so disturb us.”
“If we follow His plans for us, though heaven and earth should be overturned, in truth it does not matter whether we suffer or enjoy, so long as the Divine Will be accomplished.”
Feast of Saint Jeanne de Chantal.
She is the patron saint against in-law problems, against the death of parents, forgotten people, parents separated from children, widows.
Jane (Jeanne) was born on 28 January 1572 at Dijon, Burgundy, France to a noble family. Her mother died when she was 18 months old, and her father, head of parliament at Dijon, France, became the main influence on her education.
Little Jane was a lively, intelligent child. Her father was pleased and proud to afford her every advantage proper to her age and social station. Jane developed into a woman of beauty and refinement, lively and cheerful in temperament.
At age 20 she was married to the Baron de Chantal. She had six children, three of whom died in infancy.
Baron de Chantal immediately placed her in charge of the management of his estate at Bourbilly. With courage and competence, she undertook and carried on these onerous duties to the satisfaction of all concerned.
As mother she most zealously instructed the children in the ways of virtue and piety and in the observance of every divine precept. At her castle, she restored the custom of daily Mass, and was seriously engaged in various charitable works.
With great generosity she supported the poor and took special joy in seeing how divine Providence often blesses and increases the smallest larder. Therefore she made a vow never to refuse anyone who asked for alms in the Name of Christ.
Jane’s husband Baron was killed after seven years of marriage and she was widowed at 28. Baron was killed in a hunting accident and died in her arms. Before he died, her husband forgave the man who shot him, saying to the man, “Don’t commit the sin of hating yourself when you have done nothing wrong.”
The heartbroken Jane, however, had to struggle with forgiveness for a long time. Sudden death of the husband sank her into deep dejection for four months at her family home.
Her father-in-law threatened to disinherit her children if she did not return to his home. He was then 75, vain, fierce, and extravagant. On the demand of her father-in-law, she went to live with him.
For seven years she was the victim of this old man’s whims and unreasonableness, bearing the arrogance of his housekeeper, and employing her days in service and charity and prayer. Jane Frances managed to remain cheerful in spite of him and his insolent housekeeper.
For seven years she was forced to live in the house of her father in law, a trial which she was forced to bare patiently due to his ill-disposition towards her, and it was during this time that she took a vow of perpetual chastity.
In all of her prayers, Jane asked God to send her a guide. In a vision, He showed her the spiritual director that He held in reserve for her.
During Lent, in 1604, she visited her father at Dijon. She went to church at the Sainte Chapelle and heard a bishop give a sermon about God’s love. The bishop’s name was Francis de Sales. His words opened her heart again. She forgave the man who caused her husband’s accident.
At first she tried just greeting him on the street. When she was able to do that, she invited him to her house. Finally she was able to forgive the man so completely that she even became godmother to his child.
She recognized in Francis de Sales the mysterious director who had been shown to her, and she placed herself under his guidance. The two became good friends.
Then began the famous correspondence between the two saints which produced volumes of letters of spiritual direction, some of which are available today, but most of which were destroyed by her upon the death of St. Francis.
She went to Annecy in 1610, where she believed God was calling her to found an order for women and girls who felt called to live the life of Christian perfection, but not practice the severe asceticism of the religious orders of the time.
Thus the Congregation of the Visitation was canonically established at Annecy on June 6th, 1610, Trinity Sunday. They were primarily intended to exemplify the virtues of Mary at the Visitation—hence their name the Visitation nuns—humility and meekness.
She underwent great sufferings: Francis de Sales died; her son was killed; a plague ravaged France; her daughter-in-law and son-in-law died.
She encouraged the local authorities to make great efforts for the victims of the plague, and she put all her convent’s resources at the disposal of the sick.
Along the way she encountered persistent criticism from church authorities as well as internal tensions within the congregation.
The order attracted many women from an aristocratic background who found it difficult to adapt themselves to the spirit of poverty and obedience. Jeanne weathered these and greater trials.
Her trials were continuous and borne bravely, and yet she was exceedingly sensitive. She endured interior crosses which, particularly during the last nine years of her life, kept her in an agony of soul, from which she was not freed until three months before her death.
Her reputation for sanctity was widespread. Queens, princes, and princesses flocked to the reception-room of the Visitation. Wherever she went to establish foundations, the people gave her ovations. “These people”, she would say confused, “do not know me-they are mistaken”.
During a part of her religious life, Jane Frances had to undergo great trials of the spirit—interior anguish, darkness, and spiritual dryness.
In December of 1641 when she fell ill during a visit to the monastery in Moulins, she was more than ready to answer the summons of the Bridegroom.
After dictating a circular letter to all the monasteries and making a firm act of faith, she received Holy Viaticum with great fervor. Slowly and distinctly she pronounced the name of Jesus three times and died on 13 December 1641.
At that moment in Paris, St. Vincent de Paul, her director after St. Francis de Sales, had a vision of a small globe of fire rising to join a more luminous globe, and the two rising higher to blend with an infinitely larger and more splendid sphere, and he knew that the souls of the two saints that he had known on earth had been reunited in death and had together returned to God, their first and last end.
“Hold your eyes on God and leave the doing to him. That is all the doing you have to worry about.”
“We should go to prayer with deep humility and an awareness of our nothingness. We must invoke the help of the Holy Spirit and that of our good angel, and then remain still in God’s presence, full of faith that he is more in us than we are in ourselves.”
“In prayer we must converse very familiarly with our Lord, concerning our little needs, telling him what they are, and remaining submissive to anything he may wish to do with us.”
“Fidelity toward God consists in being perfectly resigned to his holy will, in enduring everything that his goodness allows in our lives, and in carrying out all our duties, especially that of prayer, with love and for love.”
“There is no danger if our prayer is without words or reflection because the good success of prayer depends neither on words nor on study. It depends upon the simple raising of our minds to God, and the more simple and stripped of feeling it is, the surer it is. We must never dwell on our sins during prayer. Regarding our offenses, a simple humbling of our soul before God, without a thought of this offense or that, is enough….such thoughts act as distractions.”
“Above all we must love the good pleasure of God, accepting with equanimity things both agreeable and things painful, trusting everything to Him Who disposes of all things for the good of His children.”
“How delightful it is to see the servants of God gaining their livelihood by the labor of their hands, and having no other tomorrow than that of Divine Providence!”
“To pay no attention to an injury heals more evil in an hour than revengeful thoughts could ever bring to pass.”
“The life of man is deceitful and short. Eternity approaches. Let us advance towards it by a faithful practice of those virtues which, by the grace of God, may obtain for us its happy possession.”
“Though we should fall fifty times a day, let us rise again quite simply, without wasting thought in self-reflections on what we may have done or left undone. Such useless discouragements are often greater faults than the ones that so disturb us.”
“If we follow His plans for us, though heaven and earth should be overturned, in truth it does not matter whether we suffer or enjoy, so long as the Divine Will be accomplished.”
Close
August 12
Saint Jeanne
August 13
Daily Saints – 13 August.
Feast of St. John Berchmans.
He is the patron saint of Altar servers, altar boys, altar girls, Oblate novices, young people and students.
John was born on March 13, 1599 to John Charles Berchmans and his wife Elizabeth. His father was a shoemaker. At Baptism he was named John in honor of St. John the Baptist.
John was one of five children, three of whom entered religious life. The child had a quick temper, but, under the careful religious training of his mother, grew up as gentle as a lamb.
At a great sacrifice, his father placed him, when still very young, under the direction of Fr. Peter Emmerich, a monk of the Premonstratensian Order, who was in charge of the Church of Our Lady of Diest, and who had in his house a kind of seminary for the training of boys who wished to become priests.
While he was there, he would undertake more than his share of the domestic work, selecting by preference the more difficult occupations. If he was loved by his comrades, he repaid their affection by his kindness, without, however, deviating from the dictates of his conscience.
It was noticed even that he availed himself discreetly of his influence over them to correct their negligence and to restrain their frivolous conversation.
During the three years Berchmans spent in this school he won the admiration of all by his mature judgment, good conduct and love of prayer.
John had great devotion to his position as an altar boy. At the age of 7, John would get up at 5 am and serve 2 or 3 Masses, carefully listening to the sermons (in those days every priest had to say his own Mass every day – it was not enough to concelebrate the Mass of another priest.)
He was sometimes known to leave his bed before daybreak, and when his grandmother asked him why he did so, the little fellow answered with great simplicity: “I want to have the blessing of God on my lessons and so I serve two or three Masses before I go to school.”
His greatest pleasure was to serve Mass. In priests, he saw the representatives of Jesus Christ and always conducted himself towards them with religious veneration. For this reason, John was later made the patron saint of altar servers.
When he was nine years of old, his mother was stricken with a long and serious illness. John would pass several hours each day by her bedside, and console her with his affectionate though serious, words.
His parish priest, Fr. Emmerick noticed all this and remarked that Our Lord would “work wonders in the soul of the child.”
John was always especially devoted to Mary, our Blessed Lady, and loved the Rosary, which he would often pray whilst walking along.
Financial difficulties pressed upon John’s father. Just at this juncture news came from Melchin that one of the officials of the Cathedral wanted a servant boy to wait upon him and the boarders he had in his house; the boy was to have the privilege of attending school. At the age of fifteen John went to Mechlin to fill the position.
In 1615, when the Fathers of the Society of Jesus opened a college in Mechlin, John was sent with the other boys from the Cathedral to attend the classes.
John was admitted at once to the highest class, and soon distinguished himself by success in his studies, and much more by his unusual piety.
He was enrolled among the members of the Sodality of our Lady and became a model Sodalist. He made a resolution to recite her Office daily.
He would, moreover, ask the director of the sodality every month to prescribe for him some special acts of devotion to Mary. On Fridays, at nightfall, he would go out barefooted and make the Stations of the Cross in the town.
Brought into contact with the Fathers or the Society of Jesus, he became acquainted with their mode of life, and found that it corresponded with all his own aspirations.
On reading the life of St. Aloysius, just published at the time, he felt a strong impulse to apply for admission into the Society. John’s father went at once to Mechlin to dissuade him from entering religion.
When the father failed to move John, he roundly rated John’s confessor for having put the idea into the boy’s head. The good priest answered the father so well that the latter seemed satisfied.
The storm, however, was not yet over. John was sent to the Franciscan convent in Mechlin, where a Franciscan friar, a relative of John’s, was to do all he could to make the boy change his mind.
To all the objections against his vocation, John gave clear replies, and when his relative still persisted in repeated attacks, John finally one day took the friar by the arm and showed him politely to the door.
His parents made a fresh appeal for delay, but John wrote his determination to go to the novitiate in two weeks time.
As a last resort his father told him that he would not give him a penny to enable him to carry out his purpose. “See, father,” was John’s answer, “if the very clothes I have on kept me back, I would strip them off, and follow Christ like the young man who cast away his linen cloth.”
On the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, September 24, 1616 John joined the Jesuit noviate. In the novitiate Berchmans was a model for all.
His progress, no doubt, being due to the principle which ruled his life and which he thus expressed: “Not so much the doing of great things, as doing well what one is told to do.”
On September 25, 1618, he took the first vows of the Society of Jesus. During his novitiate his mother died and his father became a secular priest. It was now determined to send John to the Roman College to make his studies.
Anxious to bid his father good-bye, he wrote, asking him to call and see him. The answer he received was, that his father had died one week before. This was a severe trial, which he bore well.
On January 2, John took up his quarters in the Roman College, in a room once occupied by St. Aloysius, about 25 years before.
John had a dream of helping and teaching multi-lingual migrants, and he studied all the chief languages of Europe. He wanted to work in China after ordination.
Early in August, 1621, he was attacked by the insidious Roman fever and was obliged to go to the infirmary. On the feast of St. Lawrence, inflammation of the lungs set in and his strength rapidly gave way.
He prepared most carefully for the reception of the last Sacraments. When the Rector came to give him Holy Communion he rose from his couch, dressed in his habit, and threw himself on his knees.
Two lay brothers supported him, and as he knelt he made the following act of faith: “I declare that there is here really present the Son of God, the Father Almighty, and of the most Blessed Mary, ever Virgin; I protest that I wish to live and die a true son of our Holy Mother, the Catholic Apostolic, Roman Church, a true son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a son of the Society.”
He then received Viaticum and Extreme Unction. At eight o clock on Friday morning, August 13, 1621, with his eyes on his crucifix and with the holy names of Jesus and Mary on his lips, he went to his reward.
John Berchmans was not noted for extraordinary feats of holiness or austerity, nor did he found orders or churches or work flashy miracles. He made kindness, courtesy, and constant fidelity an important part of his holiness. The path to holiness can lie in the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. St. John is called the “Saint of the Common Life.”
“If I do not become a Saint when I am young, I shall never become one.”
“My penance is to live the common life… I will pay the greatest attention to the least inspiration of God.”
Feast of St. John Berchmans.
He is the patron saint of Altar servers, altar boys, altar girls, Oblate novices, young people and students.
John was born on March 13, 1599 to John Charles Berchmans and his wife Elizabeth. His father was a shoemaker. At Baptism he was named John in honor of St. John the Baptist.
John was one of five children, three of whom entered religious life. The child had a quick temper, but, under the careful religious training of his mother, grew up as gentle as a lamb.
At a great sacrifice, his father placed him, when still very young, under the direction of Fr. Peter Emmerich, a monk of the Premonstratensian Order, who was in charge of the Church of Our Lady of Diest, and who had in his house a kind of seminary for the training of boys who wished to become priests.
While he was there, he would undertake more than his share of the domestic work, selecting by preference the more difficult occupations. If he was loved by his comrades, he repaid their affection by his kindness, without, however, deviating from the dictates of his conscience.
It was noticed even that he availed himself discreetly of his influence over them to correct their negligence and to restrain their frivolous conversation.
During the three years Berchmans spent in this school he won the admiration of all by his mature judgment, good conduct and love of prayer.
John had great devotion to his position as an altar boy. At the age of 7, John would get up at 5 am and serve 2 or 3 Masses, carefully listening to the sermons (in those days every priest had to say his own Mass every day – it was not enough to concelebrate the Mass of another priest.)
He was sometimes known to leave his bed before daybreak, and when his grandmother asked him why he did so, the little fellow answered with great simplicity: “I want to have the blessing of God on my lessons and so I serve two or three Masses before I go to school.”
His greatest pleasure was to serve Mass. In priests, he saw the representatives of Jesus Christ and always conducted himself towards them with religious veneration. For this reason, John was later made the patron saint of altar servers.
When he was nine years of old, his mother was stricken with a long and serious illness. John would pass several hours each day by her bedside, and console her with his affectionate though serious, words.
His parish priest, Fr. Emmerick noticed all this and remarked that Our Lord would “work wonders in the soul of the child.”
John was always especially devoted to Mary, our Blessed Lady, and loved the Rosary, which he would often pray whilst walking along.
Financial difficulties pressed upon John’s father. Just at this juncture news came from Melchin that one of the officials of the Cathedral wanted a servant boy to wait upon him and the boarders he had in his house; the boy was to have the privilege of attending school. At the age of fifteen John went to Mechlin to fill the position.
In 1615, when the Fathers of the Society of Jesus opened a college in Mechlin, John was sent with the other boys from the Cathedral to attend the classes.
John was admitted at once to the highest class, and soon distinguished himself by success in his studies, and much more by his unusual piety.
He was enrolled among the members of the Sodality of our Lady and became a model Sodalist. He made a resolution to recite her Office daily.
He would, moreover, ask the director of the sodality every month to prescribe for him some special acts of devotion to Mary. On Fridays, at nightfall, he would go out barefooted and make the Stations of the Cross in the town.
Brought into contact with the Fathers or the Society of Jesus, he became acquainted with their mode of life, and found that it corresponded with all his own aspirations.
On reading the life of St. Aloysius, just published at the time, he felt a strong impulse to apply for admission into the Society. John’s father went at once to Mechlin to dissuade him from entering religion.
When the father failed to move John, he roundly rated John’s confessor for having put the idea into the boy’s head. The good priest answered the father so well that the latter seemed satisfied.
The storm, however, was not yet over. John was sent to the Franciscan convent in Mechlin, where a Franciscan friar, a relative of John’s, was to do all he could to make the boy change his mind.
To all the objections against his vocation, John gave clear replies, and when his relative still persisted in repeated attacks, John finally one day took the friar by the arm and showed him politely to the door.
His parents made a fresh appeal for delay, but John wrote his determination to go to the novitiate in two weeks time.
As a last resort his father told him that he would not give him a penny to enable him to carry out his purpose. “See, father,” was John’s answer, “if the very clothes I have on kept me back, I would strip them off, and follow Christ like the young man who cast away his linen cloth.”
On the feast of Our Lady of Mercy, September 24, 1616 John joined the Jesuit noviate. In the novitiate Berchmans was a model for all.
His progress, no doubt, being due to the principle which ruled his life and which he thus expressed: “Not so much the doing of great things, as doing well what one is told to do.”
On September 25, 1618, he took the first vows of the Society of Jesus. During his novitiate his mother died and his father became a secular priest. It was now determined to send John to the Roman College to make his studies.
Anxious to bid his father good-bye, he wrote, asking him to call and see him. The answer he received was, that his father had died one week before. This was a severe trial, which he bore well.
On January 2, John took up his quarters in the Roman College, in a room once occupied by St. Aloysius, about 25 years before.
John had a dream of helping and teaching multi-lingual migrants, and he studied all the chief languages of Europe. He wanted to work in China after ordination.
Early in August, 1621, he was attacked by the insidious Roman fever and was obliged to go to the infirmary. On the feast of St. Lawrence, inflammation of the lungs set in and his strength rapidly gave way.
He prepared most carefully for the reception of the last Sacraments. When the Rector came to give him Holy Communion he rose from his couch, dressed in his habit, and threw himself on his knees.
Two lay brothers supported him, and as he knelt he made the following act of faith: “I declare that there is here really present the Son of God, the Father Almighty, and of the most Blessed Mary, ever Virgin; I protest that I wish to live and die a true son of our Holy Mother, the Catholic Apostolic, Roman Church, a true son of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a son of the Society.”
He then received Viaticum and Extreme Unction. At eight o clock on Friday morning, August 13, 1621, with his eyes on his crucifix and with the holy names of Jesus and Mary on his lips, he went to his reward.
John Berchmans was not noted for extraordinary feats of holiness or austerity, nor did he found orders or churches or work flashy miracles. He made kindness, courtesy, and constant fidelity an important part of his holiness. The path to holiness can lie in the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. St. John is called the “Saint of the Common Life.”
“If I do not become a Saint when I am young, I shall never become one.”
“My penance is to live the common life… I will pay the greatest attention to the least inspiration of God.”
Close
August 13
Saint John Berchmans
August 14
Daily Saints – 14 August.
Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
He is the patron saint of drug addicts, and against drug addiction, those with eating disorders, families, journalists, amateur radio operators, prisoners, including political prisoners, pro-life movement.
Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 In Zdunska Wola, Poland. He was the second of three sons born to a poor but pious Catholic family in Russian occupied Poland. His parents, both Franciscan lay tertiaries, worked at home as weavers.
His father, Julius, later ran a religious book store, then enlisted in the army of Pilsudski, fought for Polish independence from Russia, and was hanged by the Russians as a traitor in 1914. His mother, Marianne Dabrowska, later became a Benedictine nun. His brother Alphonse became a priest.
Raymond was known as a mischievous child, sometimes considered wild, and a trial to his parents. However, in 1906 at Pabianice, at age twelve and around the time of his first Communion, he received a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed his life.
“I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”
Raymond entered the Franciscan junior seminary in Lwów, Poland in 1907 where he excelled in mathematics and physics.
For a while he considered abandoning the priesthood for the military, but eventually relented to the call to religious life, and on 4 September 1910 he became a novice in the Conventual Franciscan Order at age 16.
He took the name Maximilian, made his first vows on 5 September 1911, his final vows on 1 November 1914.
He studied philosophy at the Jesuit Gregorian College in Rome, Italy from 1912 to 1915, and theology at the Franciscan Collegio Serafico in Rome from 1915 to 1919.
On 16 October 1917, while still in seminary, he and six friends founded the Immaculata Movement (Militia Immaculatae, Crusade of Mary Immaculate) devoted to the conversion of sinners, opposition to freemasonry (which was virulently anti–Catholic), to spread use and devotion to the Miraculous Medal (which they wore as their habit), and devotion to Our Lady as the path to Christ.
During this period of work in Rome, Brother Maximilian was stricken with tuberculosis; it nearly killed him, and left him in frail health for the rest of his life. But he never complained, received his illness as an opportunity to ‘suffer for Mary’.
He was ordained a priest on 28 April 1918 in Rome at age 24. He earned his Doctor of Theology degree on 22 July 1922.
Father Maximilian returned to Poland and began his untiring missionary activity, starting a monthly magazine and establishing two evangelization centers dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin: Niepokalanów, the “City of the Immaculata,” in Poland, and Mugenzai no Sono in Japan, and envisioned missionary centers worldwide.
To better “win the world for Christ through the Immaculata,” the friars utilized the most modern techniques. Maximilian used short-wave radio and planned to build a motion picture studio. In 1939, during WW II, at Niepokalanów he welcomed thousands of refugees, especially Jews.
Maximilian was arrested with several of his brothers on 19 September 1939, less than three weeks into the Nazi invasion of Poland. Others at the monastery were briefly exiled, but the prisoners were released on 8 December 1939, and the men returned to their work.
Back at Niepokalanów, Kolbe continued his priestly ministry. The brothers housed 3,000 Polish refugees, two-thirds of whom were Jewish, and continued their publication work, including materials considered anti-Nazi.
For this work the presses were shut down, the congregation suppressed, the brothers dispersed, and Maximilian was imprisoned in Pawiak prison in Warsaw, Poland on 17 February 1941.
On 28 May 1941 he was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland and branded as prisoner 16670. He was assigned to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards.
His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else. At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead.
The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital where he spent his recovery time hearing confessions. When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including conducting Mass and delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine.
In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner.
Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children, was chosen to die for the escape. When Franciszek Gajowniczek heard he was selected, he cried out “My wife! My children!” At this point, Kolbe volunteered to take his place.
The Nazi commander replied, “What does this Polish pig want?” Father Kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned Franciszek Gajowniczek and repeated: “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place because he has a wife and children.”
Rather surprised, the commander accepted Kolbe in place of Gajowniczek. He was condemned to slow death in a starvation bunker.
In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked, and their slow starvation began in darkness.
It is said during the last days of his life Kolbe led prayers to Our Lady with the prisoners and remained calm. He was the last of the group to remain alive, after two weeks of dehydration and starvation.
After two weeks, on the night before the Church’s feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the camp officials decided to hasten Fr. Kolbe’s death, injecting him with carbolic acid.
The guards gave him a lethal injection of carbolic acid. The stories tell that he raised his left arm and calmly awaited death.
Maximilian Kolbe died on 14 August 1941. His body was cremated by the camp officials on the feast of the Assumption.
He had stated years earlier: “I would like to be reduced to ashes for the cause of the Immaculata, and may this dust be carried over the whole world, so that nothing would remain.”
“In order that obedience be supernatural it must not proceed from reason, but from faith.”
“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.”
“Let us give ourselves to the Immaculate [Mary]. Let her prepare us, let her receive Him [Jesus] in Holy Communion. This is the manner most perfect and pleasing to the Lord Jesus and brings great fruit to us…the Immaculate knows the secret, how to unite ourselves totally with the heart of the Lord Jesus… We do not limit ourselves in love. We want to love the Lord Jesus with her heart, or rather that she would love the Lord with our heart.”
“Every fall, even if it be very grave and repeated, serves us always and only as a little step towards a higher perfection.”
“Courage, my sons, Don’t you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes.”
“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”
“For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more.”
“The most holy Mother is Mediatrix of all graces without exception. . . . Therefore the life of grace of a soul depends on the degree of its closeness to her. The closer a soul approaches her, the more pure it becomes, the more lively becomes its faith. Its love becomes more beautiful, and all virtues, being the work of grace, are strengthened and vivified. We cannot seek grace anywhere else because she is its Mediatrix.”
“Different prayers and formulas are good and beautiful, but the essential thing . . . is the simple relationship of a child to its mother, this sense of our need for this mother, the conviction that without her we can do nothing.”
“Modern times are dominated by Satan and will be more so in the future. The conflict with hell cannot be engaged by men, even the most clever. The Immaculata alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. However, assumed into Heaven, the Mother of God now requires our cooperation. She seeks souls who will consecrate themselves entirely to her, who will become in her hands effective instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spreading of God’s kingdom upon earth.”
Feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe.
He is the patron saint of drug addicts, and against drug addiction, those with eating disorders, families, journalists, amateur radio operators, prisoners, including political prisoners, pro-life movement.
Raymund Kolbe was born on 8 January 1894 In Zdunska Wola, Poland. He was the second of three sons born to a poor but pious Catholic family in Russian occupied Poland. His parents, both Franciscan lay tertiaries, worked at home as weavers.
His father, Julius, later ran a religious book store, then enlisted in the army of Pilsudski, fought for Polish independence from Russia, and was hanged by the Russians as a traitor in 1914. His mother, Marianne Dabrowska, later became a Benedictine nun. His brother Alphonse became a priest.
Raymond was known as a mischievous child, sometimes considered wild, and a trial to his parents. However, in 1906 at Pabianice, at age twelve and around the time of his first Communion, he received a vision of the Virgin Mary that changed his life.
“I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”
Raymond entered the Franciscan junior seminary in Lwów, Poland in 1907 where he excelled in mathematics and physics.
For a while he considered abandoning the priesthood for the military, but eventually relented to the call to religious life, and on 4 September 1910 he became a novice in the Conventual Franciscan Order at age 16.
He took the name Maximilian, made his first vows on 5 September 1911, his final vows on 1 November 1914.
He studied philosophy at the Jesuit Gregorian College in Rome, Italy from 1912 to 1915, and theology at the Franciscan Collegio Serafico in Rome from 1915 to 1919.
On 16 October 1917, while still in seminary, he and six friends founded the Immaculata Movement (Militia Immaculatae, Crusade of Mary Immaculate) devoted to the conversion of sinners, opposition to freemasonry (which was virulently anti–Catholic), to spread use and devotion to the Miraculous Medal (which they wore as their habit), and devotion to Our Lady as the path to Christ.
During this period of work in Rome, Brother Maximilian was stricken with tuberculosis; it nearly killed him, and left him in frail health for the rest of his life. But he never complained, received his illness as an opportunity to ‘suffer for Mary’.
He was ordained a priest on 28 April 1918 in Rome at age 24. He earned his Doctor of Theology degree on 22 July 1922.
Father Maximilian returned to Poland and began his untiring missionary activity, starting a monthly magazine and establishing two evangelization centers dedicated to the Immaculate Virgin: Niepokalanów, the “City of the Immaculata,” in Poland, and Mugenzai no Sono in Japan, and envisioned missionary centers worldwide.
To better “win the world for Christ through the Immaculata,” the friars utilized the most modern techniques. Maximilian used short-wave radio and planned to build a motion picture studio. In 1939, during WW II, at Niepokalanów he welcomed thousands of refugees, especially Jews.
Maximilian was arrested with several of his brothers on 19 September 1939, less than three weeks into the Nazi invasion of Poland. Others at the monastery were briefly exiled, but the prisoners were released on 8 December 1939, and the men returned to their work.
Back at Niepokalanów, Kolbe continued his priestly ministry. The brothers housed 3,000 Polish refugees, two-thirds of whom were Jewish, and continued their publication work, including materials considered anti-Nazi.
For this work the presses were shut down, the congregation suppressed, the brothers dispersed, and Maximilian was imprisoned in Pawiak prison in Warsaw, Poland on 17 February 1941.
On 28 May 1941 he was transferred to the Auschwitz concentration camp in occupied Poland and branded as prisoner 16670. He was assigned to a special work group staffed by priests and supervised by especially vicious and abusive guards.
His calm dedication to the faith brought him the worst jobs available, and more beatings than anyone else. At one point he was beaten, lashed, and left for dead.
The prisoners managed to smuggle him into the camp hospital where he spent his recovery time hearing confessions. When he returned to the camp, Maximilian ministered to other prisoners, including conducting Mass and delivering communion using smuggled bread and wine.
In July 1941 there was an escape from the camp. Camp protocol, designed to make the prisoners guard each other, required that ten men be slaughtered in retribution for each escaped prisoner.
Francis Gajowniczek, a married man with young children, was chosen to die for the escape. When Franciszek Gajowniczek heard he was selected, he cried out “My wife! My children!” At this point, Kolbe volunteered to take his place.
The Nazi commander replied, “What does this Polish pig want?” Father Kolbe pointed with his hand to the condemned Franciszek Gajowniczek and repeated: “I am a Catholic priest from Poland; I would like to take his place because he has a wife and children.”
Rather surprised, the commander accepted Kolbe in place of Gajowniczek. He was condemned to slow death in a starvation bunker.
In the “block of death” they were ordered to strip naked, and their slow starvation began in darkness.
It is said during the last days of his life Kolbe led prayers to Our Lady with the prisoners and remained calm. He was the last of the group to remain alive, after two weeks of dehydration and starvation.
After two weeks, on the night before the Church’s feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the camp officials decided to hasten Fr. Kolbe’s death, injecting him with carbolic acid.
The guards gave him a lethal injection of carbolic acid. The stories tell that he raised his left arm and calmly awaited death.
Maximilian Kolbe died on 14 August 1941. His body was cremated by the camp officials on the feast of the Assumption.
He had stated years earlier: “I would like to be reduced to ashes for the cause of the Immaculata, and may this dust be carried over the whole world, so that nothing would remain.”
“In order that obedience be supernatural it must not proceed from reason, but from faith.”
“The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.”
“Let us give ourselves to the Immaculate [Mary]. Let her prepare us, let her receive Him [Jesus] in Holy Communion. This is the manner most perfect and pleasing to the Lord Jesus and brings great fruit to us…the Immaculate knows the secret, how to unite ourselves totally with the heart of the Lord Jesus… We do not limit ourselves in love. We want to love the Lord Jesus with her heart, or rather that she would love the Lord with our heart.”
“Every fall, even if it be very grave and repeated, serves us always and only as a little step towards a higher perfection.”
“Courage, my sons, Don’t you see that we are leaving on a mission? They pay our fare in the bargain. What a piece of good luck! The thing to do now is to pray well in order to win as many souls as possible. Let us, then, tell the Blessed Virgin that we are content, and that she can do with us anything she wishes.”
“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”
“For Jesus Christ I am prepared to suffer still more.”
“The most holy Mother is Mediatrix of all graces without exception. . . . Therefore the life of grace of a soul depends on the degree of its closeness to her. The closer a soul approaches her, the more pure it becomes, the more lively becomes its faith. Its love becomes more beautiful, and all virtues, being the work of grace, are strengthened and vivified. We cannot seek grace anywhere else because she is its Mediatrix.”
“Different prayers and formulas are good and beautiful, but the essential thing . . . is the simple relationship of a child to its mother, this sense of our need for this mother, the conviction that without her we can do nothing.”
“Modern times are dominated by Satan and will be more so in the future. The conflict with hell cannot be engaged by men, even the most clever. The Immaculata alone has from God the promise of victory over Satan. However, assumed into Heaven, the Mother of God now requires our cooperation. She seeks souls who will consecrate themselves entirely to her, who will become in her hands effective instruments for the defeat of Satan and the spreading of God’s kingdom upon earth.”
Close
August 14
Saint Maximilian Kolbe
August 15
August 15
Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary commemorates the death of Mary and her bodily assumption into Heaven, before her body could begin to decay—a foretaste of our own bodily resurrection at the end of time.
It is one of the oldest holy days in the Church, with accounts of celebrations going back to the sixth century. Christians in the East, both Catholic and Orthodox refer to it as the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, or “the falling asleep of the Mother of God.”
On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII, exercising papal infallibility, declared in an Apostolic constitution known as the ‘Munificentissimus Deus’ that it is a dogma of the Church “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” As a dogma, the Assumption is a required belief of all Catholics.
Pope Pius XII, in the text explaining his definition of the dogma of the Assumption, refers repeatedly to the Blessed Virgin’s death before her Assumption, and the consistent tradition in both the East and the West holds that Mary did die before she was assumed into Heaven.
For Mary, death, in consequence of her freedom from original sin and from personal sin, was not a consequence of punishment of sin. However, it seems fitting that Mary’s body, which was by nature mortal, should be, in conformity with that of her Divine Son, subject to the general law of death.
At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when bishops from throughout the Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople to be enshrined in the capitol.
The patriarch explained to the emperor that there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem, that “Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later . . . was found empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven.”
We believe that the bodies of both Jesus and Mary are now in heaven. There is, however, this difference: Jesus arose from the tomb and ascended into heaven by his own power, whereas Mary’s body was taken up to heaven by the power of her Son. For that reason we use two different words: the Ascension of Christ and the Assumption of Mary.
According to legend, while preaching the Gospel in India, Saint Thomas the Apostle received the inner call to return to the West for the impending departure of the Virgin Mary from this earthly life.
Just as he had been separated from his brother apostles for a special mission, so he was in the final hour of the Virgin’s life. For he did not reach Gethsemane in time to be present at her going forth from the body, but only came there on foot the third day after her burial.
As he was approaching her tomb unawares, he was astounded to see her radiant living body emerge from the stone sepulchre and ascend. Realizing that she had finished her span of life without his being present, and fearing that he would never see her divine form again, he cried out to her in anguish of heart, imploring her not to leave him desolate.
Looking upon him with loving tenderness, the Virgin took from her waist the belt she habitually wore and threw it down to him with words of blessing.
Carrying the precious relic of her belt, Saint Thomas hastened and announced to the grieving apostles and all those gathered in the Mother’s house that she, too, was risen from the dead.
Whereas he had doubted the good news of Jesus’ resurrection and had received proof of its reality by touching the resurrected body of his Lord, now it was Thomas who gave physical evidence that Mary, too, was “alive for evermore” (Revelation 1:18).
“It was fitting,” St. John of Damascus wrote in a sermon on the assumption, “that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death,” and “that she, who had carried the creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles.”
Pope Pius XII pointed to several passages that have been legitimately used in a “rather free” manner to explain belief in the Assumption (meaning: these passages resonate with it in various ways, but they don’t provide explicit proof): Often there are theologians and preachers who, following in the footsteps of the holy Fathers, have been rather free in their use of events and expressions taken from Sacred Scripture to explain their belief in the Assumption.
Thus, to mention only a few of the texts rather frequently cited in this fashion, some have employed the words of the psalmist: “Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified” (Ps. 131:8); and have looked upon the Ark of the Covenant, built of incorruptible wood and placed in the Lord’s temple, as a type of the most pure body of the Virgin Mary, preserved and exempt from all the corruption of the tomb and raised up to such glory in heaven.
Treating of this subject, they also describe her as the Queen entering triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the right hand of the divine Redeemer(Ps. 44:10-14ff).
Likewise they mention the Spouse of the Canticles “that goes up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense” to be crowned (Song 3:6; cf. also 4:8, 6:9).
These are proposed as depicting that heavenly Queen and heavenly Spouse who has been lifted up to the courts of heaven with the divine Bridegroom [Munificentissimus Deus 26].
Moreover, the scholastic Doctors have recognized the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God as something signified, not only in various figures of the Old Testament, but also in that woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos (Rev. 12:1ff).
Similarly they have given special attention to these words of the New Testament: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women”(Luke 1:28), since they saw, in the mystery of the Assumption, the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve [Munificentissimus Deus 27].
Therefore, there are several implicit revelations of the Assumption in the Bible. The most important texts are: Gen. 3:15; Lk. 1:28; Apoc. 12:1-2.
According to Pope Benedict XVI: “By contemplating Mary in heavenly glory, we understand that the earth is not the definitive homeland for us either, and that if we live with our gaze fixed on eternal goods we will one day share in this same glory and the earth will become more beautiful. Consequently, we must not lose our serenity and peace even amid the thousands of daily difficulties. The luminous sign of Our Lady taken up into Heaven shines out even more brightly when sad shadows of suffering and violence seem to loom on the horizon. We may be sure of it: from on high, Mary follows our footsteps with gentle concern, dispels the gloom in moments of darkness and distress, reassures us with her motherly hand. Supported by awareness of this, let us continue confidently on our path of Christian commitment wherever Providence may lead us. Let us forge ahead in our lives under Mary’s guidance.” [General Audience, August 16, 2006].
Feast of Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary commemorates the death of Mary and her bodily assumption into Heaven, before her body could begin to decay—a foretaste of our own bodily resurrection at the end of time.
It is one of the oldest holy days in the Church, with accounts of celebrations going back to the sixth century. Christians in the East, both Catholic and Orthodox refer to it as the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, or “the falling asleep of the Mother of God.”
On November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII, exercising papal infallibility, declared in an Apostolic constitution known as the ‘Munificentissimus Deus’ that it is a dogma of the Church “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” As a dogma, the Assumption is a required belief of all Catholics.
Pope Pius XII, in the text explaining his definition of the dogma of the Assumption, refers repeatedly to the Blessed Virgin’s death before her Assumption, and the consistent tradition in both the East and the West holds that Mary did die before she was assumed into Heaven.
For Mary, death, in consequence of her freedom from original sin and from personal sin, was not a consequence of punishment of sin. However, it seems fitting that Mary’s body, which was by nature mortal, should be, in conformity with that of her Divine Son, subject to the general law of death.
At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when bishops from throughout the Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople to be enshrined in the capitol.
The patriarch explained to the emperor that there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem, that “Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later . . . was found empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven.”
We believe that the bodies of both Jesus and Mary are now in heaven. There is, however, this difference: Jesus arose from the tomb and ascended into heaven by his own power, whereas Mary’s body was taken up to heaven by the power of her Son. For that reason we use two different words: the Ascension of Christ and the Assumption of Mary.
According to legend, while preaching the Gospel in India, Saint Thomas the Apostle received the inner call to return to the West for the impending departure of the Virgin Mary from this earthly life.
Just as he had been separated from his brother apostles for a special mission, so he was in the final hour of the Virgin’s life. For he did not reach Gethsemane in time to be present at her going forth from the body, but only came there on foot the third day after her burial.
As he was approaching her tomb unawares, he was astounded to see her radiant living body emerge from the stone sepulchre and ascend. Realizing that she had finished her span of life without his being present, and fearing that he would never see her divine form again, he cried out to her in anguish of heart, imploring her not to leave him desolate.
Looking upon him with loving tenderness, the Virgin took from her waist the belt she habitually wore and threw it down to him with words of blessing.
Carrying the precious relic of her belt, Saint Thomas hastened and announced to the grieving apostles and all those gathered in the Mother’s house that she, too, was risen from the dead.
Whereas he had doubted the good news of Jesus’ resurrection and had received proof of its reality by touching the resurrected body of his Lord, now it was Thomas who gave physical evidence that Mary, too, was “alive for evermore” (Revelation 1:18).
“It was fitting,” St. John of Damascus wrote in a sermon on the assumption, “that she, who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth, should keep her own body free from all corruption even after death,” and “that she, who had carried the creator as a child at her breast, should dwell in the divine tabernacles.”
Pope Pius XII pointed to several passages that have been legitimately used in a “rather free” manner to explain belief in the Assumption (meaning: these passages resonate with it in various ways, but they don’t provide explicit proof): Often there are theologians and preachers who, following in the footsteps of the holy Fathers, have been rather free in their use of events and expressions taken from Sacred Scripture to explain their belief in the Assumption.
Thus, to mention only a few of the texts rather frequently cited in this fashion, some have employed the words of the psalmist: “Arise, O Lord, into your resting place: you and the ark, which you have sanctified” (Ps. 131:8); and have looked upon the Ark of the Covenant, built of incorruptible wood and placed in the Lord’s temple, as a type of the most pure body of the Virgin Mary, preserved and exempt from all the corruption of the tomb and raised up to such glory in heaven.
Treating of this subject, they also describe her as the Queen entering triumphantly into the royal halls of heaven and sitting at the right hand of the divine Redeemer(Ps. 44:10-14ff).
Likewise they mention the Spouse of the Canticles “that goes up by the desert, as a pillar of smoke of aromatical spices, of myrrh and frankincense” to be crowned (Song 3:6; cf. also 4:8, 6:9).
These are proposed as depicting that heavenly Queen and heavenly Spouse who has been lifted up to the courts of heaven with the divine Bridegroom [Munificentissimus Deus 26].
Moreover, the scholastic Doctors have recognized the Assumption of the Virgin Mother of God as something signified, not only in various figures of the Old Testament, but also in that woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the Island of Patmos (Rev. 12:1ff).
Similarly they have given special attention to these words of the New Testament: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blessed are you among women”(Luke 1:28), since they saw, in the mystery of the Assumption, the fulfillment of that most perfect grace granted to the Blessed Virgin and the special blessing that countered the curse of Eve [Munificentissimus Deus 27].
Therefore, there are several implicit revelations of the Assumption in the Bible. The most important texts are: Gen. 3:15; Lk. 1:28; Apoc. 12:1-2.
According to Pope Benedict XVI: “By contemplating Mary in heavenly glory, we understand that the earth is not the definitive homeland for us either, and that if we live with our gaze fixed on eternal goods we will one day share in this same glory and the earth will become more beautiful. Consequently, we must not lose our serenity and peace even amid the thousands of daily difficulties. The luminous sign of Our Lady taken up into Heaven shines out even more brightly when sad shadows of suffering and violence seem to loom on the horizon. We may be sure of it: from on high, Mary follows our footsteps with gentle concern, dispels the gloom in moments of darkness and distress, reassures us with her motherly hand. Supported by awareness of this, let us continue confidently on our path of Christian commitment wherever Providence may lead us. Let us forge ahead in our lives under Mary’s guidance.” [General Audience, August 16, 2006].
Close
August 15
Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 16
Daily Saints – 16 August.
Feast of Saint Roch.
He is the patron saint against cholera, against diseased cattle, against epidemics, against knee problems, against plague, against skin diseases and rashes, bachelors, dogs, falsely accused people, invalids, relief from pestilence, surgeons, tile makers.
Roch was born in 1295 at Montpelier, France, the son of the governor. He was born with an unusual and deep red mark on his chest in the shape of a cross, a sign that the Blessed Virgin Mary had heard and answered his mother’s prayers for her barrenness to be healed.
As a child, Roch was deeply religious, fasting twice a week after the example of his pious mother. His parents died when he was twenty years of age, after which he gave his inheritance to the poor, handed the government of the city over to his uncle, and began a new life as a poor mendicant pilgrim.
Free from all earthly cares, Roch joined the Third Order Franciscans, donned the familiar pilgrim’s garb (a common practice of popular piety at the time) and set out on a pilgrimage to visit and pray at the holy places in Rome.
When he came upon the town of Acquapendente near Viterbo, he saw that it was badly struck by the black plague which was wreaking havoc across Europe. He sojourned there for a time to care for the sick both in private homes and in the hospitals—at great risk to himself.
Instead of contracting the highly contagious disease, Roch cured many people simply by making the Sign of the Cross over them. He continued his charitable work until the disease was halted from spreading further in the village, after which he continued on his pilgrimage.
His miraculous healing power evidenced itself in the same manner in every plague-infested town that he passed through on his way to Rome, and in Rome itself.
When his travels brought him to the town of Piacenza, he discovered that he was no longer spared from the deadly disease, having finally contracted it in the leg.
Instead of burdening anyone with his sickness, he commended himself to God and awaited his death in a remote and abandoned forest hut.
Providentially, a local nobleman’s hunting dog found and befriended him, bringing him food daily and licking his wounds. A spring arose nearby to provide St. Roch with fresh water.
The nobleman followed his dog into the woods one day, which led him to discover and aid the holy pilgrim. Slowly Roch’s health was restored, after which he received divine inspiration that he should return to his native Montpellier.
Once there he found the city at war. He refused to disclose his identity to the soldiers so that he could remain poor and unknown, having renounced his former life as the son of the governor. But his obfuscation aroused suspicion.
He was accused of being a spy disguised as a pilgrim. Roch did not defend himself against these charges—wishing to conceal his true (and noble) identity—and instead entrusted himself completely to God’s will.
He was cast into prison by his own uncle, who failed to recognize his nephew’s altered appearance. According to legend, Roch was forgotten and abandoned in prison—but God sent angels to minister to him while he was held in captivity.
He died there five years later in 1327. After his death, it seems a birthmark in the form of a cross on his chest identified him as the son of the former governor.
Feast of Saint Roch.
He is the patron saint against cholera, against diseased cattle, against epidemics, against knee problems, against plague, against skin diseases and rashes, bachelors, dogs, falsely accused people, invalids, relief from pestilence, surgeons, tile makers.
Roch was born in 1295 at Montpelier, France, the son of the governor. He was born with an unusual and deep red mark on his chest in the shape of a cross, a sign that the Blessed Virgin Mary had heard and answered his mother’s prayers for her barrenness to be healed.
As a child, Roch was deeply religious, fasting twice a week after the example of his pious mother. His parents died when he was twenty years of age, after which he gave his inheritance to the poor, handed the government of the city over to his uncle, and began a new life as a poor mendicant pilgrim.
Free from all earthly cares, Roch joined the Third Order Franciscans, donned the familiar pilgrim’s garb (a common practice of popular piety at the time) and set out on a pilgrimage to visit and pray at the holy places in Rome.
When he came upon the town of Acquapendente near Viterbo, he saw that it was badly struck by the black plague which was wreaking havoc across Europe. He sojourned there for a time to care for the sick both in private homes and in the hospitals—at great risk to himself.
Instead of contracting the highly contagious disease, Roch cured many people simply by making the Sign of the Cross over them. He continued his charitable work until the disease was halted from spreading further in the village, after which he continued on his pilgrimage.
His miraculous healing power evidenced itself in the same manner in every plague-infested town that he passed through on his way to Rome, and in Rome itself.
When his travels brought him to the town of Piacenza, he discovered that he was no longer spared from the deadly disease, having finally contracted it in the leg.
Instead of burdening anyone with his sickness, he commended himself to God and awaited his death in a remote and abandoned forest hut.
Providentially, a local nobleman’s hunting dog found and befriended him, bringing him food daily and licking his wounds. A spring arose nearby to provide St. Roch with fresh water.
The nobleman followed his dog into the woods one day, which led him to discover and aid the holy pilgrim. Slowly Roch’s health was restored, after which he received divine inspiration that he should return to his native Montpellier.
Once there he found the city at war. He refused to disclose his identity to the soldiers so that he could remain poor and unknown, having renounced his former life as the son of the governor. But his obfuscation aroused suspicion.
He was accused of being a spy disguised as a pilgrim. Roch did not defend himself against these charges—wishing to conceal his true (and noble) identity—and instead entrusted himself completely to God’s will.
He was cast into prison by his own uncle, who failed to recognize his nephew’s altered appearance. According to legend, Roch was forgotten and abandoned in prison—but God sent angels to minister to him while he was held in captivity.
He died there five years later in 1327. After his death, it seems a birthmark in the form of a cross on his chest identified him as the son of the former governor.
Close
August 16
Saint Roch
August 17
Daily Saints – 17 August.
Feast of Saint Hyacinth.
He is the patron saint against drowning.
Hyacinth was born of noble parents in Poland around 1185. His father was of the noble family of Odrowacz. His birth took place in the castle of Lanka at Karim, which is in Silesia.
Almost from the cradle, Hyacinth seemed predisposed to virtue. God also blessed him with, a splendid mind. His parents not only fostered his happy disposition, but also used great care in selecting the teachers that would protect this innocence.
In this way, he was so well grounded in his religious duties that he passed through his higher studies at Cracow, Prague, and Bologna, without tarnish to his pure soul. Upon completion of his studies at Bologna, Hyacinth earned the title of Doctor of Canon Law and Divinity.
Doubtless his model life had much to do in helping him to win the admiration of both his professors and fellow-students.
When he returned to Poland he was given a prebend at Sandomir. In 1220 he accompanied his uncle Ivo Konski, the Bishop of Cracow, to Rome. Here they met with Saint Dominic.
At this time, Hyacinth was one of the first to receive the habit of the newly established Order of Friars Preachers at from Saint Dominic. Because of his spirit for prayer and his zeal for the salvation of souls, he was sent to preach and establish the Dominican Order in his native land, Poland.
On the way he was able to establish a convent of his order at Friesach in Carinthia. In Poland the new preachers were favorably received and their sermons were productive of much good.
Hyacinth founded communities at Sandomir, Cracow, and at Plocko on the Vistula in Moravia. He extended his missionary work through Prussia, Pomerania, and Lithuania; then crossing the Baltic Sea he preached in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It was these apostolic travels that earned Hyacinth the title “The Apostle of the North”.
His travels and missions did not end here. He came into Lower or Red Russia, establishing a community at Lemberg and at Haletz on the Mester; proceeded into Muscovy, and founded a convent at Dieff, and came as far as the shores of the Black Sea. Because of his evangelizing, multitudes were converted, and churches and convents were built.
However manifold were his duties, he did not permit them to interfere with his good works, dampen his spirit of prayer, or to lessen his practice of recollection.
None were more punctual or exact in their recitation of the divine office by the canons. He regularly visited hospitals were the sick found him a sympathetic comforter.
A friend to the poor, he distributed his income among them. He felt that money received through the Church could not be devoted to a better or more advantageous use.
Hyacinth is known to have performed numerous miracles. One miracle that has been most associated with him was the result of the Tartars siege of the city of Kiev.
Hyacinth gained a child-like and tender devotion to the Mother of God from Saint Dominic. To her he attributed his success, and to her aid he looked for his salvation. When Hyacinth was at Kiev, the fierce Tartars sacked the town.
Hyacinth was celebrating the Mass and did not know of the onslaught and danger until the Mass ended. Without waiting to unvest, he took the ciborium in his hands and was fleeing the church.
It is recorded that as he passed by an statue of Mary he heard a voice say, “Hyacinth, my son, why dost thou leave me behind? Take me with thee and leave me not to mine enemies.”
Although the statue was made of heavy alabaster, Hyacinth took it in his arms and carried it away along with the ciborium with the Holy Eucharist. It is for this miraculous moment that Saint Hyacinth is most often depicted.
The story continues that Hyacinth and the community that accompanied him came to the river Dnieper. There he urged them to follow him across the river. He led the way, and they all walked dry shod across the waters of the deep river, which then protected them from the fury of the Tartars.
Polish historians are in agreement on this marvelous fact, although some of the writers confuse it with a similar crossing of the Vistula which happened earlier.
A circumstance, which is recorded in connection with this miracle, renders it all the more remarkable. It is said that the footprints of the saint remained on the water, even after he had crossed the river; and that, when the stream was calm, they could be seen for centuries afterwards.
Worn out by his constant labors and vast journeys, Hyacinth spent the last few months of his life in a convent he had founded at Cracow. There on the Feast of Saint Dominic in 1257, he fell sick with a fever that was to lead to his death.
On the eve of the feast of the Assumption, he was warned of his coming death. In spite of his condition, he attended Mass on the Feast of the Assumption. He was anointed at the foot of the altar on August 15, 1257 and died the same day.
Feast of Saint Hyacinth.
He is the patron saint against drowning.
Hyacinth was born of noble parents in Poland around 1185. His father was of the noble family of Odrowacz. His birth took place in the castle of Lanka at Karim, which is in Silesia.
Almost from the cradle, Hyacinth seemed predisposed to virtue. God also blessed him with, a splendid mind. His parents not only fostered his happy disposition, but also used great care in selecting the teachers that would protect this innocence.
In this way, he was so well grounded in his religious duties that he passed through his higher studies at Cracow, Prague, and Bologna, without tarnish to his pure soul. Upon completion of his studies at Bologna, Hyacinth earned the title of Doctor of Canon Law and Divinity.
Doubtless his model life had much to do in helping him to win the admiration of both his professors and fellow-students.
When he returned to Poland he was given a prebend at Sandomir. In 1220 he accompanied his uncle Ivo Konski, the Bishop of Cracow, to Rome. Here they met with Saint Dominic.
At this time, Hyacinth was one of the first to receive the habit of the newly established Order of Friars Preachers at from Saint Dominic. Because of his spirit for prayer and his zeal for the salvation of souls, he was sent to preach and establish the Dominican Order in his native land, Poland.
On the way he was able to establish a convent of his order at Friesach in Carinthia. In Poland the new preachers were favorably received and their sermons were productive of much good.
Hyacinth founded communities at Sandomir, Cracow, and at Plocko on the Vistula in Moravia. He extended his missionary work through Prussia, Pomerania, and Lithuania; then crossing the Baltic Sea he preached in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It was these apostolic travels that earned Hyacinth the title “The Apostle of the North”.
His travels and missions did not end here. He came into Lower or Red Russia, establishing a community at Lemberg and at Haletz on the Mester; proceeded into Muscovy, and founded a convent at Dieff, and came as far as the shores of the Black Sea. Because of his evangelizing, multitudes were converted, and churches and convents were built.
However manifold were his duties, he did not permit them to interfere with his good works, dampen his spirit of prayer, or to lessen his practice of recollection.
None were more punctual or exact in their recitation of the divine office by the canons. He regularly visited hospitals were the sick found him a sympathetic comforter.
A friend to the poor, he distributed his income among them. He felt that money received through the Church could not be devoted to a better or more advantageous use.
Hyacinth is known to have performed numerous miracles. One miracle that has been most associated with him was the result of the Tartars siege of the city of Kiev.
Hyacinth gained a child-like and tender devotion to the Mother of God from Saint Dominic. To her he attributed his success, and to her aid he looked for his salvation. When Hyacinth was at Kiev, the fierce Tartars sacked the town.
Hyacinth was celebrating the Mass and did not know of the onslaught and danger until the Mass ended. Without waiting to unvest, he took the ciborium in his hands and was fleeing the church.
It is recorded that as he passed by an statue of Mary he heard a voice say, “Hyacinth, my son, why dost thou leave me behind? Take me with thee and leave me not to mine enemies.”
Although the statue was made of heavy alabaster, Hyacinth took it in his arms and carried it away along with the ciborium with the Holy Eucharist. It is for this miraculous moment that Saint Hyacinth is most often depicted.
The story continues that Hyacinth and the community that accompanied him came to the river Dnieper. There he urged them to follow him across the river. He led the way, and they all walked dry shod across the waters of the deep river, which then protected them from the fury of the Tartars.
Polish historians are in agreement on this marvelous fact, although some of the writers confuse it with a similar crossing of the Vistula which happened earlier.
A circumstance, which is recorded in connection with this miracle, renders it all the more remarkable. It is said that the footprints of the saint remained on the water, even after he had crossed the river; and that, when the stream was calm, they could be seen for centuries afterwards.
Worn out by his constant labors and vast journeys, Hyacinth spent the last few months of his life in a convent he had founded at Cracow. There on the Feast of Saint Dominic in 1257, he fell sick with a fever that was to lead to his death.
On the eve of the feast of the Assumption, he was warned of his coming death. In spite of his condition, he attended Mass on the Feast of the Assumption. He was anointed at the foot of the altar on August 15, 1257 and died the same day.
Close
August 17
Saint Hyacinth
August 18
Daily Saints – 18 August.
Feast of Saint Helena of Constantinople.
She is the patron saint of archeologists, converts, difficult marriages, divorced people, dyers, empresses, nail smiths, needle makers, new discoveries and invoked against fire, against thunder.
Flavia Iulia Helena was the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great and an Empress of the Roman Empire. Very little is known about Helena’s early life.
It is believed she is born in the city of Drepanum – later renamed Helenopolis – in Bithynia (modern north-eastern Turkey) in 248/9 AD.
She was born into a poor family and lower class in the Roman culture of the day. She was the daughter of innkeepers. St Ambrose of Milan (De obitu Theodosii 42) says she was a stabularia, a maid in a tavern or inn.
Around the year 270 she met Constantius Chlorus and a few years later gave birth to their son Constantine at Nish in Serbia around the year 274.
Nearly two decades later in 292, Constantius, now co-Regent of the West, got swept up in his rising stature and divorced Helena for Theodora, the step-daughter of Emperor Maximinianus Herculius. It is believed he did this to advance his own reputation and advance his standing in the Roman society.
Constantine was forever loyal to his dear mother, whom he loved very much. As he grew and became a member of the inner circle, he never left Helena’s side.
Following the death of Constantius in 308, Constantine became Emperor and summoned his mother back into inner circle and the imperial court. Helena received the title of Augusta.
Constantine ordered all to honor his mother. He even had coins minted, bearing her image. Through her son’s influence, Helena began to embrace Christianity.
With her title of Augusta Imperatrix, Helena was given free reign over the imperial treasury. She was tasked with locating relics of Christian tradition.
Between the years 326-328, Helena took a trip to the Holy Places in the Middle East. During her journey, Helena had many churches constructed, including the one at the site of Jesus Christ’s birth – the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem and another at the site of his ascension – Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives.
During this time Jerusalem was still being rebuilt after Titus’ destruction. Around the year 130, Emperor Hadrian had a temple built over the site of Jesus’ death. This temple was believed to be dedicated to Venus. Helena had this temple destroyed and chose a site in this location to be excavated. This led to the discovery of three crosses.
Tradition says Helena brought a woman near death to the crosses. There she had the woman place a hand on all three crosses. Nothing happened when she touched the first two crosses, but when she placed her hand on the third cross she suddenly recovered.
Helena declared the third cross to be the True Cross. At this site, Constantine ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be built.
Theodoret of Cyrus, an influential theologian, wrote that during her search, Helena also discovered the nails of the crucifixion.
She had one of the nails placed in Constantine’s helmet and one in the bridle of his horse to aid him with their miraculous powers. Churches were built at these sites, as well.
Several of the relics believed to be found by Helena are located in Cyprus. Among these are parts of Jesus’ tunic, pieces of the holy cross, and pieces of the rope used to tie Jesus to the cross.
When Helena returned to Rome from Jerusalem in 327, she brought parts of the True Cross back with her. She stored these in her palace’s chapel. They can still be seen to this day, though her palace has been converted to the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.
Helena was renowned for helping not only individuals, but entire communities through her works of charity. She often sought out to help the poor and destitute. She would visit churches and leave them with rich donations.
Helena died around 330 with her dearly devoted son by her side.
Feast of Saint Helena of Constantinople.
She is the patron saint of archeologists, converts, difficult marriages, divorced people, dyers, empresses, nail smiths, needle makers, new discoveries and invoked against fire, against thunder.
Flavia Iulia Helena was the mother of Emperor Constantine the Great and an Empress of the Roman Empire. Very little is known about Helena’s early life.
It is believed she is born in the city of Drepanum – later renamed Helenopolis – in Bithynia (modern north-eastern Turkey) in 248/9 AD.
She was born into a poor family and lower class in the Roman culture of the day. She was the daughter of innkeepers. St Ambrose of Milan (De obitu Theodosii 42) says she was a stabularia, a maid in a tavern or inn.
Around the year 270 she met Constantius Chlorus and a few years later gave birth to their son Constantine at Nish in Serbia around the year 274.
Nearly two decades later in 292, Constantius, now co-Regent of the West, got swept up in his rising stature and divorced Helena for Theodora, the step-daughter of Emperor Maximinianus Herculius. It is believed he did this to advance his own reputation and advance his standing in the Roman society.
Constantine was forever loyal to his dear mother, whom he loved very much. As he grew and became a member of the inner circle, he never left Helena’s side.
Following the death of Constantius in 308, Constantine became Emperor and summoned his mother back into inner circle and the imperial court. Helena received the title of Augusta.
Constantine ordered all to honor his mother. He even had coins minted, bearing her image. Through her son’s influence, Helena began to embrace Christianity.
With her title of Augusta Imperatrix, Helena was given free reign over the imperial treasury. She was tasked with locating relics of Christian tradition.
Between the years 326-328, Helena took a trip to the Holy Places in the Middle East. During her journey, Helena had many churches constructed, including the one at the site of Jesus Christ’s birth – the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem and another at the site of his ascension – Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives.
During this time Jerusalem was still being rebuilt after Titus’ destruction. Around the year 130, Emperor Hadrian had a temple built over the site of Jesus’ death. This temple was believed to be dedicated to Venus. Helena had this temple destroyed and chose a site in this location to be excavated. This led to the discovery of three crosses.
Tradition says Helena brought a woman near death to the crosses. There she had the woman place a hand on all three crosses. Nothing happened when she touched the first two crosses, but when she placed her hand on the third cross she suddenly recovered.
Helena declared the third cross to be the True Cross. At this site, Constantine ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to be built.
Theodoret of Cyrus, an influential theologian, wrote that during her search, Helena also discovered the nails of the crucifixion.
She had one of the nails placed in Constantine’s helmet and one in the bridle of his horse to aid him with their miraculous powers. Churches were built at these sites, as well.
Several of the relics believed to be found by Helena are located in Cyprus. Among these are parts of Jesus’ tunic, pieces of the holy cross, and pieces of the rope used to tie Jesus to the cross.
When Helena returned to Rome from Jerusalem in 327, she brought parts of the True Cross back with her. She stored these in her palace’s chapel. They can still be seen to this day, though her palace has been converted to the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem.
Helena was renowned for helping not only individuals, but entire communities through her works of charity. She often sought out to help the poor and destitute. She would visit churches and leave them with rich donations.
Helena died around 330 with her dearly devoted son by her side.
Close
August 18
Saint Helena
August 19
Daily Saints – 19 August.
Feast of Saint John Eudes.
He is the patron saint of Missionaries.
John was born to pious but uneducated peasant parents in Normandy, France, on November 14th, 1601. He was educated by Jesuits.
At the age of fourteen he took a vow of chastity and since the time he was a child he tried to live in imitation of the Lord Jesus.
He was ordained a priest in 1625, at the age of 24, and joined a religious community, the Oratorians. He was immmediately thrust into the service of victims of the plague, whom he cared for at great risk to his own life.
Using his gifts as a preacher and confessor, he gave parish missions and was known as the greatest preacher of his age, preaching missions all over France, especially throughout Normandy.
From 1638 until 1642, John, with his brethren in religion, was engaged in preaching missions in the dioceses of Bayeux and Lisieux, where the bishops encouraged him and soon were praising him highly. The fruits of these missions were rich and long-lived.
John Eudes was a follower of Saint Vincent de Paul in his ardent desire to evangelize the poor folk, so long neglected, and it was to the people that the preaching of the Oratorian missionaries was addressed.
Their missions lasted for several weeks. Otherwise, said John, we put a bandage on the wound, but do not heal it.
Processions, hymns, little religious plays, special conferences for specific groups, organization of leagues against duels and blasphemy, and visits to the sick occupied the missionaries’ very full days.
He saw that parish priests needed support in becoming men of prayer and action. He held conferences for them in which he outlined their duties.
Later, John started his own society of priests called the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, ultimately called the Eudists. The members were dedicated to promoting good seminary training, which would form Christlike priests.
Christian love impelled John to feel compassion for the women who were trying to escape prostitution. He wanted a place for them to live, a refuge from their former way of life.
To serve the women in these refuges, he established a society of religious women called the Congregation of Our Lady of the Refuge.
He is noted for his devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and for his strong opposition to the Jansenist heresy that was plaguing the French Church in his day.
The Jansenists became famous for insisting that no one should make a sacramental confession without perfect contrition for their sins, nor presume to receive Holy Communion without having made such a confession.
The result was a dramatic decline in the frequency of the reception of the Sacraments throughout France, and a decline in appreciation for the merciful love of God.
John discerned that the best remedy for this spiritual illness was devotion to the loving, compassionate Heart of Jesus. John has been called the Apostle of the Sacred Heart because he revived devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Christ’s heart, for John, was emblematic of His interiority, His hiddenness. It was a symbol of the heart of all mankind encased in the chest of God. John’s devotion to the Sacred Heart led, inevitably, to a very high ideal of the Catholic priest as a man after the heart of Christ.
He is probably best known for the central theme of his writings: Jesus as the source of holiness, Mary as the model of the Christian life.
John died on 19 August 1680 at Caen, Normandy, France.
“A man is no true Christian if he has no devotion to the Mother of Jesus Christ.”
“The Christian life is a continuation and completion of the life of Christ in us. We should be so many Christs here on earth, continuing His life and His works, laboring and suffering in a holy and divine manner in the spirit of Jesus.”
“The air that we breathe, the bread that we eat, the heart which throbs in our bosoms, are not more necessary for man that he may live as a human being, than is prayer for the Christian that he may live as a Christian.”
“Our wish, our object, our chief preoccupation must be to form Jesus in ourselves, to make his spirit, his devotion, his affections, his desires, and his disposition live and reign there. All our religious exercises should be directed to this end. It is the work which God has given us to do unceasingly.”
“Let us therefore give ourselves to God with a great desire to begin to live thus, and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin, and to establish His life within us.”
“A Christian has a union with Jesus Christ more noble, more intimate and more perfect than the members of a human body have with their head.”
“Faith is a beam radiating from the face of God.”
“I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are a member of his body. He belongs to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours: breath, heart, body, soul and all his faculties. All of these you must use as if they belonged to you, so that in serving him you may give him praise, love and glory.”
“The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion.”
“God inspired in the heart of the pure Virgin Mary His own intense love for humility…It was this humility which attracted to her the countless graces which rendered her worthy to be the Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth.”
“No one who shall invoke this Mother of Grace with devotion and perseverance can possibly perish forever.”
“Every Saint belongs to the court of the Queen of All Saints.”
Feast of Saint John Eudes.
He is the patron saint of Missionaries.
John was born to pious but uneducated peasant parents in Normandy, France, on November 14th, 1601. He was educated by Jesuits.
At the age of fourteen he took a vow of chastity and since the time he was a child he tried to live in imitation of the Lord Jesus.
He was ordained a priest in 1625, at the age of 24, and joined a religious community, the Oratorians. He was immmediately thrust into the service of victims of the plague, whom he cared for at great risk to his own life.
Using his gifts as a preacher and confessor, he gave parish missions and was known as the greatest preacher of his age, preaching missions all over France, especially throughout Normandy.
From 1638 until 1642, John, with his brethren in religion, was engaged in preaching missions in the dioceses of Bayeux and Lisieux, where the bishops encouraged him and soon were praising him highly. The fruits of these missions were rich and long-lived.
John Eudes was a follower of Saint Vincent de Paul in his ardent desire to evangelize the poor folk, so long neglected, and it was to the people that the preaching of the Oratorian missionaries was addressed.
Their missions lasted for several weeks. Otherwise, said John, we put a bandage on the wound, but do not heal it.
Processions, hymns, little religious plays, special conferences for specific groups, organization of leagues against duels and blasphemy, and visits to the sick occupied the missionaries’ very full days.
He saw that parish priests needed support in becoming men of prayer and action. He held conferences for them in which he outlined their duties.
Later, John started his own society of priests called the Congregation of Jesus and Mary, ultimately called the Eudists. The members were dedicated to promoting good seminary training, which would form Christlike priests.
Christian love impelled John to feel compassion for the women who were trying to escape prostitution. He wanted a place for them to live, a refuge from their former way of life.
To serve the women in these refuges, he established a society of religious women called the Congregation of Our Lady of the Refuge.
He is noted for his devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary and for his strong opposition to the Jansenist heresy that was plaguing the French Church in his day.
The Jansenists became famous for insisting that no one should make a sacramental confession without perfect contrition for their sins, nor presume to receive Holy Communion without having made such a confession.
The result was a dramatic decline in the frequency of the reception of the Sacraments throughout France, and a decline in appreciation for the merciful love of God.
John discerned that the best remedy for this spiritual illness was devotion to the loving, compassionate Heart of Jesus. John has been called the Apostle of the Sacred Heart because he revived devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Christ’s heart, for John, was emblematic of His interiority, His hiddenness. It was a symbol of the heart of all mankind encased in the chest of God. John’s devotion to the Sacred Heart led, inevitably, to a very high ideal of the Catholic priest as a man after the heart of Christ.
He is probably best known for the central theme of his writings: Jesus as the source of holiness, Mary as the model of the Christian life.
John died on 19 August 1680 at Caen, Normandy, France.
“A man is no true Christian if he has no devotion to the Mother of Jesus Christ.”
“The Christian life is a continuation and completion of the life of Christ in us. We should be so many Christs here on earth, continuing His life and His works, laboring and suffering in a holy and divine manner in the spirit of Jesus.”
“The air that we breathe, the bread that we eat, the heart which throbs in our bosoms, are not more necessary for man that he may live as a human being, than is prayer for the Christian that he may live as a Christian.”
“Our wish, our object, our chief preoccupation must be to form Jesus in ourselves, to make his spirit, his devotion, his affections, his desires, and his disposition live and reign there. All our religious exercises should be directed to this end. It is the work which God has given us to do unceasingly.”
“Let us therefore give ourselves to God with a great desire to begin to live thus, and beg Him to destroy in us the life of the world of sin, and to establish His life within us.”
“A Christian has a union with Jesus Christ more noble, more intimate and more perfect than the members of a human body have with their head.”
“Faith is a beam radiating from the face of God.”
“I ask you to consider that our Lord Jesus Christ is your true head and that you are a member of his body. He belongs to you as the head belongs to the body. All that is his is yours: breath, heart, body, soul and all his faculties. All of these you must use as if they belonged to you, so that in serving him you may give him praise, love and glory.”
“The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion.”
“God inspired in the heart of the pure Virgin Mary His own intense love for humility…It was this humility which attracted to her the countless graces which rendered her worthy to be the Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth.”
“No one who shall invoke this Mother of Grace with devotion and perseverance can possibly perish forever.”
“Every Saint belongs to the court of the Queen of All Saints.”
Close
August 19
Saint John Eudes
August 20
Daily Saints – 20 August.
Feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux.
He is the patron saint of beekeepers, candlemakers, bees, wax-melters, wax refiners.
Bernard was born near Dijon, in France, in 1090, of a noble family. Both his parents were models of virtue, but it was his mother who exerted the most influence on him.
Under the care of his pious parents he was sent at an early age to a college at Chatillon, where he was conspicuous for his remarkable piety and spirit of recollection.
At the same place he entered upon the studies of theology and Holy Scripture. The death of his mother in 1107, marked for Bernard the beginning of his “long path to complete conversion.”
Fearing the snares and temptations of the world, he resolved to embrace the newly established and very austere institute of the Cistercian Order. He also persuaded his brothers and several of his friends to follow his example.
At the age of 22, Bernard left his home to join the monastic community of Citeaux. His five brothers, two uncles, and some 30 young friends followed him into the monastery.
Here he began practicing lifelong ascetic disciplines (strict fasting, sleep deprivation, etc.), which severely impaired his health—he was plagued by anemia, migraines, gastritis, hypertension, and an atrophied sense of taste his whole life.
After a novitiate spent in great fervor, he made his profession in the following year. Within few years, a dying community had recovered enough vitality to establish a new house in the nearby valley.
His superior soon after, seeing the great progress he had made in the spiritual life, sent him with twelve monks to found a new monastery, which afterward became known as the celebrated Abbey of Clairvaux.
Bernard was at once appointed Abbot and began that active life which has rendered him the most conspicuous figure in the history of the 12th century.
The monastery, however, made rapid progress. Disciples flocked to it in great numbers putting themselves under his direction. His father and all his brothers entered Clairvaux so as to pursue religious life.
Even his sister, Humbeline, with the consent of her husband, took the veil in a Benedictine convent.
The zealous young man was quite demanding, though more on himself than others. A slight breakdown of health taught him to be more patient and understanding.
Every morning Bernard would ask himself, “Why have I come here?”, and then remind himself of his main duty – to lead a holy life. The valley was soon renamed Clairvaux, the valley of light.
Bernard is well-known for his Marian devotion, especially in using and promoting the “Memorare” prayer.
As the order grew, so did Bernard’s influence and responsibilities. Though he longed to return to a life of solitude, he was thrust into the world for many of his remaining years.
His ability as arbitrator and counselor became widely known. More and more he was lured away from the monastery to settle long-standing disputes. On several of these occasions, he apparently stepped on some sensitive toes in Rome.
Bernard was completely dedicated to the primacy of the Roman See. But to a letter of warning from Rome, he replied that the good fathers in Rome had enough to do to keep the Church in one piece. If any matters arose that warranted their interest, he would be the first to let them know.
Shortly thereafter it was Bernard who intervened in a full-blown schism and settled it in favor of the Roman pontiff against the antipope.
The Holy See prevailed on Bernard to preach the Second Crusade throughout Europe. His eloquence was so overwhelming that a great army was assembled and the success of the crusade seemed assured.
The ideals of the men and their leaders, however, were not those of Abbot Bernard, and the project ended as a complete military and moral disaster.
Bernard felt responsible in some way for the degenerative effects of the crusade. This heavy burden possibly hastened his death.
He grew gradually weaker and died at age sixty-three on August 20, 1153. He was forty years a monk.
“A saint is not someone who never sins, but one who sins less and less frequently and gets up more and more quickly.”
“”The measure of love is love without measure.”
“The Eucharist is that love which surpasses all loves in heaven and on earth.”
“God removes the sin of the one who makes humble confession, and thereby the devil loses the sovereignty he had gained over the human heart.”
“What we love we shall grow to resemble.”
“Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God’s loving-kindness; otherwise, sadness will harden the heart and lead it more deeply into despair.”
“The first food, then, is humility: bitter but medicinal; the second is charity: sweet and soothing; the third is contemplation: solid and strength giving.”
“In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps. With her for guide, you shall never go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; so long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal.”
“The only ones who can instruct the brethren are those who are merciful, those who are meek or humble. In other words, one cannot really be merciful if he is not humble.”
“We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable.”
“Consider carefully that it is not the people who call for peace but those who make peace who are commended.”
“Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love.”
“You wish me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason he is to be loved.”
“There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; that is Curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is Vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is Love.”
“Qui me amat, amet et canem meum. (Who loves me will love my dog also.)”
“Rest is in Him alone. Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God.”
“There are people who go clad in tunics and have nothing to do with furs, who nevertheless are lacking in humility. Surely humility in furs is better than pride in tunics.”
“I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam; I am made just by being washed in the blood of Christ and not by Christ’s ‘words and example’.”
“You have been entrusted with stewardship over the world, not given possession of it. … There is no poison more dangerous for you, no sword more deadly, than the passion to rule.”
“I ask you and advise you not to want to put your own business before the business of Christ.”
“The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then discharges the overflow without loss to itself … Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare … You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God.”
“Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire… Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.”
“Love is sufficient of itself; it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in the practice. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return. The sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.”
Feast of St Bernard of Clairvaux.
He is the patron saint of beekeepers, candlemakers, bees, wax-melters, wax refiners.
Bernard was born near Dijon, in France, in 1090, of a noble family. Both his parents were models of virtue, but it was his mother who exerted the most influence on him.
Under the care of his pious parents he was sent at an early age to a college at Chatillon, where he was conspicuous for his remarkable piety and spirit of recollection.
At the same place he entered upon the studies of theology and Holy Scripture. The death of his mother in 1107, marked for Bernard the beginning of his “long path to complete conversion.”
Fearing the snares and temptations of the world, he resolved to embrace the newly established and very austere institute of the Cistercian Order. He also persuaded his brothers and several of his friends to follow his example.
At the age of 22, Bernard left his home to join the monastic community of Citeaux. His five brothers, two uncles, and some 30 young friends followed him into the monastery.
Here he began practicing lifelong ascetic disciplines (strict fasting, sleep deprivation, etc.), which severely impaired his health—he was plagued by anemia, migraines, gastritis, hypertension, and an atrophied sense of taste his whole life.
After a novitiate spent in great fervor, he made his profession in the following year. Within few years, a dying community had recovered enough vitality to establish a new house in the nearby valley.
His superior soon after, seeing the great progress he had made in the spiritual life, sent him with twelve monks to found a new monastery, which afterward became known as the celebrated Abbey of Clairvaux.
Bernard was at once appointed Abbot and began that active life which has rendered him the most conspicuous figure in the history of the 12th century.
The monastery, however, made rapid progress. Disciples flocked to it in great numbers putting themselves under his direction. His father and all his brothers entered Clairvaux so as to pursue religious life.
Even his sister, Humbeline, with the consent of her husband, took the veil in a Benedictine convent.
The zealous young man was quite demanding, though more on himself than others. A slight breakdown of health taught him to be more patient and understanding.
Every morning Bernard would ask himself, “Why have I come here?”, and then remind himself of his main duty – to lead a holy life. The valley was soon renamed Clairvaux, the valley of light.
Bernard is well-known for his Marian devotion, especially in using and promoting the “Memorare” prayer.
As the order grew, so did Bernard’s influence and responsibilities. Though he longed to return to a life of solitude, he was thrust into the world for many of his remaining years.
His ability as arbitrator and counselor became widely known. More and more he was lured away from the monastery to settle long-standing disputes. On several of these occasions, he apparently stepped on some sensitive toes in Rome.
Bernard was completely dedicated to the primacy of the Roman See. But to a letter of warning from Rome, he replied that the good fathers in Rome had enough to do to keep the Church in one piece. If any matters arose that warranted their interest, he would be the first to let them know.
Shortly thereafter it was Bernard who intervened in a full-blown schism and settled it in favor of the Roman pontiff against the antipope.
The Holy See prevailed on Bernard to preach the Second Crusade throughout Europe. His eloquence was so overwhelming that a great army was assembled and the success of the crusade seemed assured.
The ideals of the men and their leaders, however, were not those of Abbot Bernard, and the project ended as a complete military and moral disaster.
Bernard felt responsible in some way for the degenerative effects of the crusade. This heavy burden possibly hastened his death.
He grew gradually weaker and died at age sixty-three on August 20, 1153. He was forty years a monk.
“A saint is not someone who never sins, but one who sins less and less frequently and gets up more and more quickly.”
“”The measure of love is love without measure.”
“The Eucharist is that love which surpasses all loves in heaven and on earth.”
“God removes the sin of the one who makes humble confession, and thereby the devil loses the sovereignty he had gained over the human heart.”
“What we love we shall grow to resemble.”
“Sorrow for sin is indeed necessary, but it should not be an endless preoccupation. You must dwell also on the glad remembrance of God’s loving-kindness; otherwise, sadness will harden the heart and lead it more deeply into despair.”
“The first food, then, is humility: bitter but medicinal; the second is charity: sweet and soothing; the third is contemplation: solid and strength giving.”
“In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, think of Mary, call upon Mary. Let not her name depart from your lips, never suffer it to leave your heart. And that you may obtain the assistance of her prayer, neglect not to walk in her footsteps. With her for guide, you shall never go astray; while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; so long as she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while she holds your hand, you cannot fall; under her protection you have nothing to fear; if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary; if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal.”
“The only ones who can instruct the brethren are those who are merciful, those who are meek or humble. In other words, one cannot really be merciful if he is not humble.”
“We are to love God for Himself, because of a twofold reason; nothing is more reasonable, nothing more profitable.”
“Consider carefully that it is not the people who call for peace but those who make peace who are commended.”
“Love seeks no cause beyond itself and no fruit; it is its own fruit, its own enjoyment. I love because I love; I love in order that I may love.”
“You wish me to tell you why and how God should be loved. My answer is that God himself is the reason he is to be loved.”
“There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; that is Curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is Vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is Love.”
“Qui me amat, amet et canem meum. (Who loves me will love my dog also.)”
“Rest is in Him alone. Man knows no peace in the world; but he has no disturbance when he is with God.”
“There are people who go clad in tunics and have nothing to do with furs, who nevertheless are lacking in humility. Surely humility in furs is better than pride in tunics.”
“I was made a sinner by deriving my being from Adam; I am made just by being washed in the blood of Christ and not by Christ’s ‘words and example’.”
“You have been entrusted with stewardship over the world, not given possession of it. … There is no poison more dangerous for you, no sword more deadly, than the passion to rule.”
“I ask you and advise you not to want to put your own business before the business of Christ.”
“The man who is wise, therefore, will see his life as more like a reservoir than a canal. The canal simultaneously pours out what it receives; the reservoir retains the water till it is filled, then discharges the overflow without loss to itself … Today there are many in the Church who act like canals, the reservoirs are far too rare … You too must learn to await this fullness before pouring out your gifts, do not try to be more generous than God.”
“Neither fear nor self-interest can convert the soul. They may change the appearance, perhaps even the conduct, but never the object of supreme desire… Fear is the motive which constrains the slave; greed binds the selfish man, by which he is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed (James 1:14). But neither fear nor self-interest is undefiled, nor can they convert the soul. Only charity can convert the soul, freeing it from unworthy motives.”
“Love is sufficient of itself; it gives pleasure by itself and because of itself. It is its own merit, its own reward. Love looks for no cause outside itself, no effect beyond itself. Its profit lies in the practice. Of all the movements, sensations and feelings of the soul, love is the only one in which the creature can respond to the Creator and make some sort of similar return however unequal though it be. For when God loves, all he desires is to be loved in return. The sole purpose of his love is to be loved, in the knowledge that those who love him are made happy by their love of him.”
Close
August 20
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
August 21
Daily Saints – 21 August.
Feast of Pope Saint Pius X.
He is the patron saint of first communicants and pilgrims.
Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was born June 2, 1835 in the Italian town of Riese near Venice. He was the oldest of eight children born to Giovanni Sarto, a postman, and his wife Margherita, a seamstress.
He was nicknamed “Bepi” by his family. His humble family background gave him a lifelong appreciation of poverty and simplicity.
Giuseppe Sarto was first in his grammar school class. When he was 11 years old, he told his father that he wanted to become a priest.
His father, with the help of their local parish priest, sent Giuseppe to a well-known Catholic high school about six miles outside of town.
Giuseppe was given a scholarship and he graduated first in his high school class at the age of 15. His parents encouraged their son’s discernment of a vocation to the priesthood, and he received a second scholarship to enter the seminary in Padua during 1850.
Ordained in 1858, Father Sarto served as a parish priest in a poor area of the Trentino district, assisting a pastor who observed his pastoral gifts and predicted his rise within the Church.
He was devoted to the Eucharist, enjoyed preaching and loved young people. His Masses were reverent, his sermons were carefully crafted and moving and, as the oldest boy from a large, poor family, he was able to relate to the poor youth in his parish.
In 1867 he became a pastor in the Treviso diocese, where he was known for his charity and sound teaching.
He began an after school program in Tombolo to help children learn more about their faith and develop their reading and writing skills. He also began a similar program in the evening for adults because his daytime program was so popular.
He was well known for helping poor farmers and cattle ranchers. He helped to fund schools and supported the local hospital when a cholera epidemic affected his parishioners. He rarely slept and so he earned the nickname, “Perpetuun Mobile”—a machine in perpetual motion.
Nine years later he became chancellor of the diocese, canon of its cathedral, and rector of its seminary. Alongside these responsibilities, he devoted time to instructing children in their faith, giving special attention to public school pupils who received no religious formation in the classroom.
In 1884, Pope Leo XIII appointed Canon Sarto as Bishop of Mantua. He asked the Vatican to reconsider his elevation but the Pope responded with one word, “obey!”
As a bishop, he worked to reform the troubled diocese, urging its priests to embrace their responsibility to communicate the truths of the faith. He continued to lead by example, personally undertaking the work of religious instruction.
Made a cardinal and named Patriarch of Venice in 1893. Upon hearing the news of his appointment, Cardinal Sarto told a local newspaper that he was “anxious, terrified and humiliated.”
He demonstrated his customary care for the poor and attention to the teaching of the faith. Social and economic problems were of prime concern to the new cardinal, and any worthy social action organization was assured of his help.
Once it seemed that an important diocesan newspaper would go into bankruptcy, and the cardinal declared, “I would rather sell my crozier and my robes of office than let that paper go under.”
But Cardinal Sarto had no expectation of becoming Pope after Leo XIII died in 1903, nor did he want to assume the responsibility.
Against his own wishes, however, he was chosen as Leo’s successor, taking the name of Pius X. He chose the name Pius because he said, “As I shall suffer, I shall take the name of those Popes who also suffered.”
His motto, “To restore all things in Christ,” was implemented with a focus on priestly formation, instruction of laypersons, the revival of traditional sacred music, and the Church’s liturgical and sacramental life.
During his pontificate, Pius X took steps to combat the heresy he termed “modernism,” characterized by the idea that religious truths were ultimately unknowable and subject to change throughout history.
Modernism received its strongest condemnation in his 1907 encyclical “Pascendi Dominici Gregis.”
Pope Pius X is perhaps best remembered for his encouragement of the frequent reception of Holy Communion, especially by children. Pius enacted a law that made the age of a person’s First Communion to be around seven years. So Pius X is often called “the Pope of the Eucharist.”
He also collected all of the laws of the church into one book, which is called the Code of Canon Law.
Pius X is often credited with developing the foundations of modern catechism and adult education.
Ever mindful of his humble origin, Pope Pius stated, “I was born poor, I lived poor, I will die poor.”
He was embarrassed by some of the pomp of the papal court. “Look how they have dressed me up,” he said in tears to an old friend. To another, “It is a penance to be forced to accept all these practices. They lead me around surrounded by soldiers like Jesus when he was seized in Gethsemani.”
Interested in politics, Pope Pius encouraged Italian Catholics to become more politically involved. He denounced the ill treatment of indigenous peoples on the plantations of Peru, sent a relief commission to Messina after an earthquake, and sheltered refugees at his own expense.
While his reforming efforts bore fruit among the faithful, Pope Pius X was distraught over his inability to prevent the coming World War, which he is said to have predicted as a catastrophe for civilization and the Church.
Pius had foreseen it, but it killed him. “This is the last affliction the Lord will visit on me. I would gladly give my life to save my poor children from this ghastly scourge.”
A little more than a month after the outbreak of the war, the Pope was seized with an attack of influenza, and his weakened constitution could not combat the illness. He died on Aug. 20, 1914.
“Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven.”
“The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.”
“Nothing would please us more than to see our beloved children form the habit of reading the Gospels – not merely from time to time, but every day.”
“The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity or rather the cowardice of the faithful.”
“If the Angels could envy, they would envy us for Holy Communion.”
“My hope is in Christ, who strengthens the weakest by His Divine help. I can do all in Him who strengthens me. His Power is infinite, and if I lean on him, it will be mine. His Wisdom is infinite, and if I look to Him for counsel, I shall not be deceived. His Goodness is infinite, and if my trust is stayed in Him, I shall not be abandoned”
“The daily adoration or visit to the Blessed Sacrament is the practice which is the fountainhead of all devotional works.”
“God could have given us the Redeemer of the human race, and the Founder of the Faiths in another way than through the Virgin, but since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Spirit and bore Him in her womb, it only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary.”
“Among all the devotions approved by the Church none has been so favored by so many miracles as the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary.”
“Let the storm rage and the sky darken – not for that shall we be dismayed. If we trust as we should in Mary, we shall recognize in her, the Virgin Most Powerful “who with virginal foot did crush the head of the serpent.”
“Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: “There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man.”
“We put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of evils which afflict our times.”
“Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist.”
“If there were one million families praying the Rosary every day, the entire world would be saved.”
“The collection of psalms found in Scripture, composed as it was under divine inspiration, has, from the very beginnings of the Church, shown a wonderful power of fostering devotion among Christians as they offer “to God a continuous sacrifice of praise, the harvest of lips blessing his name.” Following a custom already established in the Old Law, the psalms have played a conspicuous part in the sacred liturgy itself, and in the divine office. Augustine expresses this well when he says: “God praised himself so that man might give him fitting praise; because God chose to praise himself man found the way in which to bless God.” The psalms have also a wonderful power to awaken in our hearts the desire for every virtue. Athanasius says: “The psalms seem to me to be like a mirror, in which the person using them can see himself, and the stirrings of his own heart; he can recite them against the background of his own emotions.” Augustine says in his Confessions: “How I wept when I heard you hymns and canticles, being deeply moved by the sweet singing of your Church. Those voices flowed into my earts, truth filtered into my heart, and from my heart surged waves of devotion.” Indeed, who could fail to be moved by those many passages in the psalms which set forth so profoundly the infinite majesty of God, his omnipotence, his justice and goodness and clemency, too deep for words, and all the other infinite qualities of his that deserve our praise? Who could fail to be roused to the same emotions by the prayers of thanksgiving to God for blessings received by the petitions, so humble and confident, for blessings still awaited, by the cries of a soul in sorrow for sin committed? Who would not be fired wiht love as he looks on the likeness of Christ, the redeemer, here so lovingly foretold? His was “the voice” Augustine heard in every psalm, the voice of praise, of suffering, of joyful expectation, of present distress.” – from the apostolic consititution of Pope Saint Pius X on Sacred Scripture
Feast of Pope Saint Pius X.
He is the patron saint of first communicants and pilgrims.
Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto was born June 2, 1835 in the Italian town of Riese near Venice. He was the oldest of eight children born to Giovanni Sarto, a postman, and his wife Margherita, a seamstress.
He was nicknamed “Bepi” by his family. His humble family background gave him a lifelong appreciation of poverty and simplicity.
Giuseppe Sarto was first in his grammar school class. When he was 11 years old, he told his father that he wanted to become a priest.
His father, with the help of their local parish priest, sent Giuseppe to a well-known Catholic high school about six miles outside of town.
Giuseppe was given a scholarship and he graduated first in his high school class at the age of 15. His parents encouraged their son’s discernment of a vocation to the priesthood, and he received a second scholarship to enter the seminary in Padua during 1850.
Ordained in 1858, Father Sarto served as a parish priest in a poor area of the Trentino district, assisting a pastor who observed his pastoral gifts and predicted his rise within the Church.
He was devoted to the Eucharist, enjoyed preaching and loved young people. His Masses were reverent, his sermons were carefully crafted and moving and, as the oldest boy from a large, poor family, he was able to relate to the poor youth in his parish.
In 1867 he became a pastor in the Treviso diocese, where he was known for his charity and sound teaching.
He began an after school program in Tombolo to help children learn more about their faith and develop their reading and writing skills. He also began a similar program in the evening for adults because his daytime program was so popular.
He was well known for helping poor farmers and cattle ranchers. He helped to fund schools and supported the local hospital when a cholera epidemic affected his parishioners. He rarely slept and so he earned the nickname, “Perpetuun Mobile”—a machine in perpetual motion.
Nine years later he became chancellor of the diocese, canon of its cathedral, and rector of its seminary. Alongside these responsibilities, he devoted time to instructing children in their faith, giving special attention to public school pupils who received no religious formation in the classroom.
In 1884, Pope Leo XIII appointed Canon Sarto as Bishop of Mantua. He asked the Vatican to reconsider his elevation but the Pope responded with one word, “obey!”
As a bishop, he worked to reform the troubled diocese, urging its priests to embrace their responsibility to communicate the truths of the faith. He continued to lead by example, personally undertaking the work of religious instruction.
Made a cardinal and named Patriarch of Venice in 1893. Upon hearing the news of his appointment, Cardinal Sarto told a local newspaper that he was “anxious, terrified and humiliated.”
He demonstrated his customary care for the poor and attention to the teaching of the faith. Social and economic problems were of prime concern to the new cardinal, and any worthy social action organization was assured of his help.
Once it seemed that an important diocesan newspaper would go into bankruptcy, and the cardinal declared, “I would rather sell my crozier and my robes of office than let that paper go under.”
But Cardinal Sarto had no expectation of becoming Pope after Leo XIII died in 1903, nor did he want to assume the responsibility.
Against his own wishes, however, he was chosen as Leo’s successor, taking the name of Pius X. He chose the name Pius because he said, “As I shall suffer, I shall take the name of those Popes who also suffered.”
His motto, “To restore all things in Christ,” was implemented with a focus on priestly formation, instruction of laypersons, the revival of traditional sacred music, and the Church’s liturgical and sacramental life.
During his pontificate, Pius X took steps to combat the heresy he termed “modernism,” characterized by the idea that religious truths were ultimately unknowable and subject to change throughout history.
Modernism received its strongest condemnation in his 1907 encyclical “Pascendi Dominici Gregis.”
Pope Pius X is perhaps best remembered for his encouragement of the frequent reception of Holy Communion, especially by children. Pius enacted a law that made the age of a person’s First Communion to be around seven years. So Pius X is often called “the Pope of the Eucharist.”
He also collected all of the laws of the church into one book, which is called the Code of Canon Law.
Pius X is often credited with developing the foundations of modern catechism and adult education.
Ever mindful of his humble origin, Pope Pius stated, “I was born poor, I lived poor, I will die poor.”
He was embarrassed by some of the pomp of the papal court. “Look how they have dressed me up,” he said in tears to an old friend. To another, “It is a penance to be forced to accept all these practices. They lead me around surrounded by soldiers like Jesus when he was seized in Gethsemani.”
Interested in politics, Pope Pius encouraged Italian Catholics to become more politically involved. He denounced the ill treatment of indigenous peoples on the plantations of Peru, sent a relief commission to Messina after an earthquake, and sheltered refugees at his own expense.
While his reforming efforts bore fruit among the faithful, Pope Pius X was distraught over his inability to prevent the coming World War, which he is said to have predicted as a catastrophe for civilization and the Church.
Pius had foreseen it, but it killed him. “This is the last affliction the Lord will visit on me. I would gladly give my life to save my poor children from this ghastly scourge.”
A little more than a month after the outbreak of the war, the Pope was seized with an attack of influenza, and his weakened constitution could not combat the illness. He died on Aug. 20, 1914.
“Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven.”
“The Rosary is the most beautiful and the most rich in graces of all prayers; it is the prayer that touches most the Heart of the Mother of God…and if you wish peace to reign in your homes, recite the family Rosary.”
“Nothing would please us more than to see our beloved children form the habit of reading the Gospels – not merely from time to time, but every day.”
“The greatest obstacle in the apostolate of the Church is the timidity or rather the cowardice of the faithful.”
“If the Angels could envy, they would envy us for Holy Communion.”
“My hope is in Christ, who strengthens the weakest by His Divine help. I can do all in Him who strengthens me. His Power is infinite, and if I lean on him, it will be mine. His Wisdom is infinite, and if I look to Him for counsel, I shall not be deceived. His Goodness is infinite, and if my trust is stayed in Him, I shall not be abandoned”
“The daily adoration or visit to the Blessed Sacrament is the practice which is the fountainhead of all devotional works.”
“God could have given us the Redeemer of the human race, and the Founder of the Faiths in another way than through the Virgin, but since Divine Providence has been pleased that we should have the Man-God through Mary, who conceived Him by the Holy Spirit and bore Him in her womb, it only remains for us to receive Christ from the hands of Mary.”
“Among all the devotions approved by the Church none has been so favored by so many miracles as the devotion of the Most Holy Rosary.”
“Let the storm rage and the sky darken – not for that shall we be dismayed. If we trust as we should in Mary, we shall recognize in her, the Virgin Most Powerful “who with virginal foot did crush the head of the serpent.”
“Truly we are passing through disastrous times, when we may well make our own the lamentation of the Prophet: “There is no truth, and there is no mercy, and there is no knowledge of God in the land” (Hosea 4:1). Yet in the midst of this tide of evil, the Virgin Most Merciful rises before our eyes like a rainbow, as the arbiter of peace between God and man.”
“We put great confidence in the Holy Rosary for the healing of evils which afflict our times.”
“Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven. There are others: innocence, but that is for little children; penance, but we are afraid of it; generous endurance of trials of life, but when they come we weep and ask to be. The surest, easiest, shortest way is the Eucharist.”
“If there were one million families praying the Rosary every day, the entire world would be saved.”
“The collection of psalms found in Scripture, composed as it was under divine inspiration, has, from the very beginnings of the Church, shown a wonderful power of fostering devotion among Christians as they offer “to God a continuous sacrifice of praise, the harvest of lips blessing his name.” Following a custom already established in the Old Law, the psalms have played a conspicuous part in the sacred liturgy itself, and in the divine office. Augustine expresses this well when he says: “God praised himself so that man might give him fitting praise; because God chose to praise himself man found the way in which to bless God.” The psalms have also a wonderful power to awaken in our hearts the desire for every virtue. Athanasius says: “The psalms seem to me to be like a mirror, in which the person using them can see himself, and the stirrings of his own heart; he can recite them against the background of his own emotions.” Augustine says in his Confessions: “How I wept when I heard you hymns and canticles, being deeply moved by the sweet singing of your Church. Those voices flowed into my earts, truth filtered into my heart, and from my heart surged waves of devotion.” Indeed, who could fail to be moved by those many passages in the psalms which set forth so profoundly the infinite majesty of God, his omnipotence, his justice and goodness and clemency, too deep for words, and all the other infinite qualities of his that deserve our praise? Who could fail to be roused to the same emotions by the prayers of thanksgiving to God for blessings received by the petitions, so humble and confident, for blessings still awaited, by the cries of a soul in sorrow for sin committed? Who would not be fired wiht love as he looks on the likeness of Christ, the redeemer, here so lovingly foretold? His was “the voice” Augustine heard in every psalm, the voice of praise, of suffering, of joyful expectation, of present distress.” – from the apostolic consititution of Pope Saint Pius X on Sacred Scripture
Close
August 21
Pope Saint Pius X
August 22
Daily Saints – 22 August.
Happy feast of the Queenship of Mary.
Pope Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord.”
As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, she is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court.
In the fourth century Saint Ephrem called Mary “Lady” and “Queen.” Later Church fathers and doctors continued to use the title.
Hymns of the 11th to 13th centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven.” The Dominican rosary and the Franciscan crown as well as numerous invocations in Mary’s litany celebrate her queenship.
The feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption, and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast.
In his 1954 encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection, and because of her intercessory power.
Quotes from the encyclical, Ad Caeli Reginam (On the Proclamation of the Queenship of Mary), written by Blessed Pope Pius XII and promulgated on October 11, 1954 –
“From the earliest ages of the catholic church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother’s solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen.”
“In this matter We do not wish to propose a new truth to be believed by Christians, since the title and the arguments on which Mary’s queenly dignity is based have already been clearly set forth…From early times Christians have believed, and not without reason, that she of whom was born the Son of the Most High received privileges of grace above all other beings created by God…And when Christians reflected upon the intimate connection that obtains between a mother and a son, they readily acknowledged the supreme royal dignity of the Mother of God.”
“The theologians of the Church, deriving their teaching from these [the Early Church Fathers] and almost innumerable other testimonies handed down long ago, have called the most Blessed Virgin the Queen of all creatures, the Queen of the world, and the Ruler of all…The Supreme Shepherds of the Church have considered it their duty to promote by eulogy and exhortation the devotion of the Christian people to the heavenly Mother and Queen.”
“But the Blessed Virgin Mary should be called Queen, not only because of her Divine Motherhood, but also because God has willed her to have an exceptional role in the work of our eternal salvation. “What more joyful, what sweeter thought can we have” – as Our Predecessor of happy memory, Pius XI wrote – “than that Christ is our King not only by natural right, but also by an acquired right: that which He won by the redemption?…”
“Now, in the accomplishing of this work of redemption, the Blessed Virgin Mary was most closely associated with Christ; and so it is fitting to sing in the sacred liturgy: ‘Near the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ there stood, sorrowful, the Blessed Mary, Queen of Heaven and Queen of the World.’ Hence, as the devout disciple of St. Anselm (Eadmer, ed.) wrote in the Middle Ages: ‘just as . . . God, by making all through His power, is Father and Lord of all, so the blessed Mary, by repairing all through her merits, is Mother and Queen of all; for God is the Lord of all things, because by His command He establishes each of them in its own nature, and Mary is the Queen of all things, because she restores each to its original dignity through the grace which she merited.’”
Happy feast of the Queenship of Mary.
Pope Pius XII established this feast in 1954. But Mary’s queenship has roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. At the Visitation, Elizabeth calls Mary “mother of my Lord.”
As in all the mysteries of Mary’s life, she is closely associated with Jesus: Her queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship. We can also recall that in the Old Testament the mother of the king has great influence in court.
In the fourth century Saint Ephrem called Mary “Lady” and “Queen.” Later Church fathers and doctors continued to use the title.
Hymns of the 11th to 13th centuries address Mary as queen: “Hail, Holy Queen,” “Hail, Queen of Heaven,” “Queen of Heaven.” The Dominican rosary and the Franciscan crown as well as numerous invocations in Mary’s litany celebrate her queenship.
The feast is a logical follow-up to the Assumption, and is now celebrated on the octave day of that feast.
In his 1954 encyclical To the Queen of Heaven, Pius XII points out that Mary deserves the title because she is Mother of God, because she is closely associated as the New Eve with Jesus’ redemptive work, because of her preeminent perfection, and because of her intercessory power.
Quotes from the encyclical, Ad Caeli Reginam (On the Proclamation of the Queenship of Mary), written by Blessed Pope Pius XII and promulgated on October 11, 1954 –
“From the earliest ages of the catholic church a Christian people, whether in time of triumph or more especially in time of crisis, has addressed prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. And never has that hope wavered which they placed in the Mother of the Divine King, Jesus Christ; nor has that faith ever failed by which we are taught that Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, reigns with a mother’s solicitude over the entire world, just as she is crowned in heavenly blessedness with the glory of a Queen.”
“In this matter We do not wish to propose a new truth to be believed by Christians, since the title and the arguments on which Mary’s queenly dignity is based have already been clearly set forth…From early times Christians have believed, and not without reason, that she of whom was born the Son of the Most High received privileges of grace above all other beings created by God…And when Christians reflected upon the intimate connection that obtains between a mother and a son, they readily acknowledged the supreme royal dignity of the Mother of God.”
“The theologians of the Church, deriving their teaching from these [the Early Church Fathers] and almost innumerable other testimonies handed down long ago, have called the most Blessed Virgin the Queen of all creatures, the Queen of the world, and the Ruler of all…The Supreme Shepherds of the Church have considered it their duty to promote by eulogy and exhortation the devotion of the Christian people to the heavenly Mother and Queen.”
“But the Blessed Virgin Mary should be called Queen, not only because of her Divine Motherhood, but also because God has willed her to have an exceptional role in the work of our eternal salvation. “What more joyful, what sweeter thought can we have” – as Our Predecessor of happy memory, Pius XI wrote – “than that Christ is our King not only by natural right, but also by an acquired right: that which He won by the redemption?…”
“Now, in the accomplishing of this work of redemption, the Blessed Virgin Mary was most closely associated with Christ; and so it is fitting to sing in the sacred liturgy: ‘Near the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ there stood, sorrowful, the Blessed Mary, Queen of Heaven and Queen of the World.’ Hence, as the devout disciple of St. Anselm (Eadmer, ed.) wrote in the Middle Ages: ‘just as . . . God, by making all through His power, is Father and Lord of all, so the blessed Mary, by repairing all through her merits, is Mother and Queen of all; for God is the Lord of all things, because by His command He establishes each of them in its own nature, and Mary is the Queen of all things, because she restores each to its original dignity through the grace which she merited.’”
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August 22
The Queenship of Mary
August 23
Daily Saints – 23 August.
Feast of Saint Rose of Lima.
She is the patron saint of embroiderers, florists, gardeners, needle workers, people ridiculed for their piety, against vanity, for the resolution of family quarrels, indigenous peoples and people who suffer family problems.
She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America was in its first century of evangelization. She was named Isabel Flores de Olivia and was exceptionally beautiful. Her beauty was so great that she was nicknamed “Rose”. According to legend, a servant had a vision where her face turned into a rose. At her confirmation in 1597, she officially took the name of Rose.
From an early age, Rose wanted to become a nun. She often prayed and fasted in secret. She performed secret penances, some of which were painful and severe. She performed daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and took daily communion. She received Catherine of Siena as a model, in spite of the objections and ridicule of parents and friends.
As a young woman, her beauty began to attract suitors. To deter these men, St. Rose marred her face, rubbing it with pepper to make it blister. She cropped her hair short. Her parents opposed her plan to take a vow of chastity. This resulted in a clash of wills, because her parents wanted her to marry. Her father eventually relented and gave her a room to herself. Rose kept herself cloistered in her room, spending long periods in prayer. It was said she slept only two hours per night so as to have more time for prayer. She quit eating meat altogether, an extreme dietary restriction for that time.
Ten years of struggle against her parents began when they tried to make Rose marry. They refused to let her enter a convent, and out of obedience she continued her life of penance and solitude at home. When she turned 20, she was permitted to join the Third Order of St. Dominic. She continued a life of extreme prayer, fasting and penance. On one occasion she burned her hands as a self-imposed act of penance.
She was known to wear a heavy silver crown, with spikes that could pierce her flesh. The spikes reminded her of the Crown of Thorns. At one point, one of the spikes become so lodged in her skull that the crown was removed with great difficulty.
When her parents fell into financial trouble, she worked in the garden all day and sewed at night. She earned money by selling her flowers during the day. At night she did needlework, making designs with colorful threads on cloth. People bought the clothing she decorated. With the money she earned, Rose helped her family and also bought food for the needy people in her community. She put her prayers into action. With help from her brother, she added rooms to her hut and cared for homeless children and the elderly. Though secluded in life and activity, she was brought to the attention of Inquisition interrogators, who could only say that she was influenced by grace.
St. Rose died in on August 25, 1617, at the age of 31. According to legend, she accurately predicted the date of her death.
“Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase Your love in my heart.”
“When we serve the poor and the sick we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus.”
“Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”
“Without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of Grace. The gift of Grace increases as the struggle increases.”
“If they but knew, surely they would direct their energy with all care and diligence to procuring sufferings and afflictions for themselves. Instead of good fortune all men everywhere would seek out troubles, illness and suffering that they might obtain the inestimable treasure of grace.”
Our Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty: “Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation. Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. Let them know that the gifts of grace increase as the struggles increase. Let men take care not to stray and be deceived. This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.” When I heard these words, a strong force came upon me and seemd to place me in the middle of a street, so that I might say in a loud voice to people of every age, sex and status: “Hear, O people; hear, O nations. I am warning you about the commandment of Christ by using words that came from his own lips: We cannot obtain grace unless we suffer afflictions. We must heap trouble upon trouble to attain a deep participation in the divine nature, the glory of the sons of God and perfect happiness of soul.” “If only mortals would learn how great it is to possess divine grace, how beautiful, how noble, how precious. How many riches it hides within itself, how many joys and delights! No one would complain about his cross or about troubles that may happen to him, if he would come to know the scales on which they are weighed when they are distributed to men.” – from the writings of Saint Rose of Lima
Feast of Saint Rose of Lima.
She is the patron saint of embroiderers, florists, gardeners, needle workers, people ridiculed for their piety, against vanity, for the resolution of family quarrels, indigenous peoples and people who suffer family problems.
She was born to parents of Spanish descent in Lima, Peru, at a time when South America was in its first century of evangelization. She was named Isabel Flores de Olivia and was exceptionally beautiful. Her beauty was so great that she was nicknamed “Rose”. According to legend, a servant had a vision where her face turned into a rose. At her confirmation in 1597, she officially took the name of Rose.
From an early age, Rose wanted to become a nun. She often prayed and fasted in secret. She performed secret penances, some of which were painful and severe. She performed daily adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and took daily communion. She received Catherine of Siena as a model, in spite of the objections and ridicule of parents and friends.
As a young woman, her beauty began to attract suitors. To deter these men, St. Rose marred her face, rubbing it with pepper to make it blister. She cropped her hair short. Her parents opposed her plan to take a vow of chastity. This resulted in a clash of wills, because her parents wanted her to marry. Her father eventually relented and gave her a room to herself. Rose kept herself cloistered in her room, spending long periods in prayer. It was said she slept only two hours per night so as to have more time for prayer. She quit eating meat altogether, an extreme dietary restriction for that time.
Ten years of struggle against her parents began when they tried to make Rose marry. They refused to let her enter a convent, and out of obedience she continued her life of penance and solitude at home. When she turned 20, she was permitted to join the Third Order of St. Dominic. She continued a life of extreme prayer, fasting and penance. On one occasion she burned her hands as a self-imposed act of penance.
She was known to wear a heavy silver crown, with spikes that could pierce her flesh. The spikes reminded her of the Crown of Thorns. At one point, one of the spikes become so lodged in her skull that the crown was removed with great difficulty.
When her parents fell into financial trouble, she worked in the garden all day and sewed at night. She earned money by selling her flowers during the day. At night she did needlework, making designs with colorful threads on cloth. People bought the clothing she decorated. With the money she earned, Rose helped her family and also bought food for the needy people in her community. She put her prayers into action. With help from her brother, she added rooms to her hut and cared for homeless children and the elderly. Though secluded in life and activity, she was brought to the attention of Inquisition interrogators, who could only say that she was influenced by grace.
St. Rose died in on August 25, 1617, at the age of 31. According to legend, she accurately predicted the date of her death.
“Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase Your love in my heart.”
“When we serve the poor and the sick we serve Jesus. We must not fail to help our neighbors, because in them we serve Jesus.”
“Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.”
“Without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of Grace. The gift of Grace increases as the struggle increases.”
“If they but knew, surely they would direct their energy with all care and diligence to procuring sufferings and afflictions for themselves. Instead of good fortune all men everywhere would seek out troubles, illness and suffering that they might obtain the inestimable treasure of grace.”
Our Lord and Savior lifted up his voice and said with incomparable majesty: “Let all men know that grace comes after tribulation. Let them know that without the burden of afflictions it is impossible to reach the height of grace. Let them know that the gifts of grace increase as the struggles increase. Let men take care not to stray and be deceived. This is the only true stairway to paradise, and without the cross they can find no road to climb to heaven.” When I heard these words, a strong force came upon me and seemd to place me in the middle of a street, so that I might say in a loud voice to people of every age, sex and status: “Hear, O people; hear, O nations. I am warning you about the commandment of Christ by using words that came from his own lips: We cannot obtain grace unless we suffer afflictions. We must heap trouble upon trouble to attain a deep participation in the divine nature, the glory of the sons of God and perfect happiness of soul.” “If only mortals would learn how great it is to possess divine grace, how beautiful, how noble, how precious. How many riches it hides within itself, how many joys and delights! No one would complain about his cross or about troubles that may happen to him, if he would come to know the scales on which they are weighed when they are distributed to men.” – from the writings of Saint Rose of Lima
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August 23
Saint Rose of Lima
August 24
Daily Saints – 24 August.
Feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle.
He is the patron saint of bookbinders, butchers, cobblers, Florentine cheese merchants, Florentine salt merchants, leather workers, plasterers, shoemakers, tanners, trappers, whiteners and against nervous diseases, against neurological diseases, against twitching.
Saint Bartholomew lived in the first century AD and was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. He was introduced to Jesus Christ through Saint Philip and is also known as “Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee,” notably in John’s Gospel.
He is mentioned sixth in the three Gospel lists (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14), and seventh in the list of Acts (1:13). The name (Bartholomaios) means “son of Talmai” which was an ancient Hebrew name.
Probably he was a close friend of Saint Philip. Bartholomew’s name is always mentioned in the Gospels in connection with Philip, and it was Philip who brought Bartholomew to Jesus.
In the Synoptic Gospels, Philip and Bartholomew are always mentioned together, while Nathanael is never mentioned; in John’s gospel, on the other hand, Philip and Nathanael are similarly mentioned together. So he has been identified with Nathanael or Nathaniel. many ancient writers, and Catholic tradition have identified Bartholomew as Nathaniel in the Gospel of John (John 1:45-51, and 21:2).
Saint Bartholomew is precisely mentioned in the passage John 1:45-51 where Nathaniel is introduced to Jesus by his friend Phillip, and Jesus says of him “Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him (1:47).”
We are presented with the Apostle’s character in this brief and beautiful dialogue with the Lord Jesus. He is a good Jew, honest and innocent, a just man, who devotes much time to quiet reflection and prayer – “under the fig tree (1:48)” – and has been awaiting the Messiah, the Holy One of God.
At Jesus’ mention that “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you (1:48),” Nathaniel responded “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel (1:49)!”
Being “a true child of Israel,” Nathaniel was a man well-read in the Scriptures and knew what they said of the Messiah and where he would come from. This is why he is skeptical of Phillip’s claim that Jesus is the Messiah, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth (1:46)?”
But Nathaniel was lacking “duplicity” – that is, his heart was undivided, his intentions pure – his openness to reality was always ready to recognize and surrender to the truth when he encountered it. He remained open to his friend Phillip’s invitation to “Come and see (1:46).”
In encountering Jesus and hearing His words, he found himself face to face with the Truth Himself, and, like John the Baptist’s leap in his mother’s womb at the Lord’s presence, Nathaniel’s words lept out of his own heart in a clear and simple confession of faith, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
After his appearance in the Gospels, Bartholomew first resurfaces almost three hundred years later in the works of Eusebius, a bishop and church historian who wrote around 300 A.D. Eusebius relates a story about a Christian teacher traveling in India who is told that an Apostle, presumably Bartholomew, had preached there long before him and had brought a Hebrew Gospel with him. Equally vague traditions have Bartholomew evangelizing in Persia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.
Saint Bartholomew may have written a gospel, now lost; it is mentioned in other writings of the time.
According to tradition, Bartholomew converted the king of Armenia by casting out a demon from the chief idol in the temple and then destroying all of the idols. In a rage, the king’s older brother ordered Bartholomew to be seized, beaten, and executed. Different traditions describe different methods of Bartholomew’s execution. He is said either to have been beheaded or to have had his skin removed and been crucified upside down.
Feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle.
He is the patron saint of bookbinders, butchers, cobblers, Florentine cheese merchants, Florentine salt merchants, leather workers, plasterers, shoemakers, tanners, trappers, whiteners and against nervous diseases, against neurological diseases, against twitching.
Saint Bartholomew lived in the first century AD and was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. He was introduced to Jesus Christ through Saint Philip and is also known as “Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee,” notably in John’s Gospel.
He is mentioned sixth in the three Gospel lists (Matthew 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14), and seventh in the list of Acts (1:13). The name (Bartholomaios) means “son of Talmai” which was an ancient Hebrew name.
Probably he was a close friend of Saint Philip. Bartholomew’s name is always mentioned in the Gospels in connection with Philip, and it was Philip who brought Bartholomew to Jesus.
In the Synoptic Gospels, Philip and Bartholomew are always mentioned together, while Nathanael is never mentioned; in John’s gospel, on the other hand, Philip and Nathanael are similarly mentioned together. So he has been identified with Nathanael or Nathaniel. many ancient writers, and Catholic tradition have identified Bartholomew as Nathaniel in the Gospel of John (John 1:45-51, and 21:2).
Saint Bartholomew is precisely mentioned in the passage John 1:45-51 where Nathaniel is introduced to Jesus by his friend Phillip, and Jesus says of him “Here is a true child of Israel. There is no duplicity in him (1:47).”
We are presented with the Apostle’s character in this brief and beautiful dialogue with the Lord Jesus. He is a good Jew, honest and innocent, a just man, who devotes much time to quiet reflection and prayer – “under the fig tree (1:48)” – and has been awaiting the Messiah, the Holy One of God.
At Jesus’ mention that “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you (1:48),” Nathaniel responded “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel (1:49)!”
Being “a true child of Israel,” Nathaniel was a man well-read in the Scriptures and knew what they said of the Messiah and where he would come from. This is why he is skeptical of Phillip’s claim that Jesus is the Messiah, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth (1:46)?”
But Nathaniel was lacking “duplicity” – that is, his heart was undivided, his intentions pure – his openness to reality was always ready to recognize and surrender to the truth when he encountered it. He remained open to his friend Phillip’s invitation to “Come and see (1:46).”
In encountering Jesus and hearing His words, he found himself face to face with the Truth Himself, and, like John the Baptist’s leap in his mother’s womb at the Lord’s presence, Nathaniel’s words lept out of his own heart in a clear and simple confession of faith, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”
After his appearance in the Gospels, Bartholomew first resurfaces almost three hundred years later in the works of Eusebius, a bishop and church historian who wrote around 300 A.D. Eusebius relates a story about a Christian teacher traveling in India who is told that an Apostle, presumably Bartholomew, had preached there long before him and had brought a Hebrew Gospel with him. Equally vague traditions have Bartholomew evangelizing in Persia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt.
Saint Bartholomew may have written a gospel, now lost; it is mentioned in other writings of the time.
According to tradition, Bartholomew converted the king of Armenia by casting out a demon from the chief idol in the temple and then destroying all of the idols. In a rage, the king’s older brother ordered Bartholomew to be seized, beaten, and executed. Different traditions describe different methods of Bartholomew’s execution. He is said either to have been beheaded or to have had his skin removed and been crucified upside down.
Close
August 24
Saint Bartholomew the Apostle
August 25
Daily Saints – 25 August.
Feast of Saint Genesius of Rome.
He is the patron saint of actors, against epilepsy, epileptics, attorneys, barristers, lawyers, clowns, comedians, comediennes, comics, converts, dancers, musicians, printers, stenographers, torture victims.
Saint Genesius of Rome (c. 250s? – 303 A.D.) was a pagan comedic actor and a playwright who led a troupe of actors in Rome.
When the Emperor Diocletian announced his visit to Rome in 303 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his reign and his triumph over Persia, the whole city began to plan the most extravagant of festivities.
In an effort to court the Emperor’s favor, Genesius decided to perform a satirical piece making a mockery of Christianity.
Genesius decided that the best way to learn this Christian way in order to write such a satirical play and act in it, was to deceive members of the Christian community into believing that he wanted to enter the catechumenate and prepare for Baptism.
He was successful. They accepted him into the catechumenate. He was then instructed in the faith by the priests in Rome.
The idea of Baptism – and it’s ability to cleanse the soul of all stain of sins – particularly caught his imagination. He decided to base his satire on the theme of Baptism.
However, during the period of instruction in the Christian Way, he found himself increasingly drawn to the Savior whom the Christians proclaimed and became conflicted.
Once he had learned enough about it for his purposes, he abandoned the catechumenate and discussed the play with his theater troupe.
Performances of this kind were often done without scripts and relied mostly on witty improvisation between the actors.
As they were composing the comedy and Genesius taught them about baptism, he found that, despite himself, he was being drawn more and more to the beliefs he was mocking. Indeed, he found it difficult to resist his own growing desire to become a Christian.
On the opening night of the comedy, the Emperor Diocletian and the Imperial court were in attendance. In the play, Genesius played a sick, bed-ridden man who was about to die.
He called to the other actors and said to them: “Ah! my friends, I feel a great weight upon me and would like to be lightened!” Another actor laughed: “How shall we lighten you? Would you like us to plane you to make you lighter?”
Genesius replied, saying: “You stupid fools! I wish to die a Christian!” So two other actors, one playing a priest and another an exorcist, approached his bed-side and asked him why they had been sent for.
At this moment, Genesius began to believe in earnest, and said that he wished to truly receive baptism to be delivered from his sins.
The usual ceremonies were then performed, but he seriously answered the questions proposed, and declared that he was in earnest in professing his belief therein.
As the actor playing the Christian priest poured water over the head of Genesius, the grace of God fell upon him.
During the reception of this baptism he was favored with a vision in which he saw an angel, surrounded with heavenly light, holding a book in which his sins had been written.
The angel having immersed this book in the waters of baptism, showed it to Genesius perfectly white. He encountered the Risen Jesus Christ and saw the truth of the Christian faith.
The Emperor and the court laughed long and hard at the whole farce. After this, Genesius was clothed in white as a newly baptized Christian and led by some actors dressed as soldiers to another actor dressed as a Roman judge.
They began a ludicrous interrogation mimicking the trials of Christians. But when the usual questions were put to him, he replied in giving an earnest defense of Christianity and turned toward the Emperor and the audience, saying:
“Listen to me, O emperor, and all you who are here present, listen also O people of Rome! Before today, whenever I even heard the word ‘Christian’ it made me sick and angry. I made fun of them, insulted them, and encouraged others to abuse them as well. I so hated Christians that when I found out some members of my family were Christians I despised and deserted them. I detested them so much that I decided to learn all about their mysteries and secrets so that I could more completely mock and despise them. I composed this play as a way to arouse the utmost contempt in this audience for the Christians. Yet, while I was lying on that bed and answering the questions of the phony priest I realized that all my answers were sincere and true and that I most earnestly believed. As the water was poured over me I saw a bright angel carrying a book with all the sins I had committed. He plunged the book into the water and it came up clean and white. And so now I tell you, O mighty Emperor, and all of you here present who have ridiculed these mysteries as I have, come and now believe as I now do that Jesus Christ is the True God, the Light and the Truth; and it is through His baptism that you may be cleaned from your sins.”
The Emperor Diocletian, enraged at these words, immediately halted the performance and had all of the troupe members arrested and beaten.
When the other actors protested and had satisfied Diocletian that they had had nothing to do with Genesius’ profession of faith were released.
Genesius, however, was turned over to Plautian, the prefect of the praetorians, with orders to have the actor tortured until he should sacrifice to the Roman gods.
Genesius was therefore subjected to beatings and scourgings, as well as being racked, torn with hooks and burned with torches.
After days of this torture and being urged to sacrifice to the pagan gods, Genesius staunchly replied:
“There is no King but Him whom I have seen. I adore and worship Him, and for His sake, even though I be slain a thousand times, I will always be His. Torments are not able to take Christ from my mouth, nor from my heart. Bitterly do I regret that I detested His Holy Name in holy men, and came so late, like a haughty soldier, to adoring the true King.”
Plautian reported these words to the Emperor, and seeing that the saint would not relent, ordered him to be beheaded.
Feast of Saint Genesius of Rome.
He is the patron saint of actors, against epilepsy, epileptics, attorneys, barristers, lawyers, clowns, comedians, comediennes, comics, converts, dancers, musicians, printers, stenographers, torture victims.
Saint Genesius of Rome (c. 250s? – 303 A.D.) was a pagan comedic actor and a playwright who led a troupe of actors in Rome.
When the Emperor Diocletian announced his visit to Rome in 303 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of his reign and his triumph over Persia, the whole city began to plan the most extravagant of festivities.
In an effort to court the Emperor’s favor, Genesius decided to perform a satirical piece making a mockery of Christianity.
Genesius decided that the best way to learn this Christian way in order to write such a satirical play and act in it, was to deceive members of the Christian community into believing that he wanted to enter the catechumenate and prepare for Baptism.
He was successful. They accepted him into the catechumenate. He was then instructed in the faith by the priests in Rome.
The idea of Baptism – and it’s ability to cleanse the soul of all stain of sins – particularly caught his imagination. He decided to base his satire on the theme of Baptism.
However, during the period of instruction in the Christian Way, he found himself increasingly drawn to the Savior whom the Christians proclaimed and became conflicted.
Once he had learned enough about it for his purposes, he abandoned the catechumenate and discussed the play with his theater troupe.
Performances of this kind were often done without scripts and relied mostly on witty improvisation between the actors.
As they were composing the comedy and Genesius taught them about baptism, he found that, despite himself, he was being drawn more and more to the beliefs he was mocking. Indeed, he found it difficult to resist his own growing desire to become a Christian.
On the opening night of the comedy, the Emperor Diocletian and the Imperial court were in attendance. In the play, Genesius played a sick, bed-ridden man who was about to die.
He called to the other actors and said to them: “Ah! my friends, I feel a great weight upon me and would like to be lightened!” Another actor laughed: “How shall we lighten you? Would you like us to plane you to make you lighter?”
Genesius replied, saying: “You stupid fools! I wish to die a Christian!” So two other actors, one playing a priest and another an exorcist, approached his bed-side and asked him why they had been sent for.
At this moment, Genesius began to believe in earnest, and said that he wished to truly receive baptism to be delivered from his sins.
The usual ceremonies were then performed, but he seriously answered the questions proposed, and declared that he was in earnest in professing his belief therein.
As the actor playing the Christian priest poured water over the head of Genesius, the grace of God fell upon him.
During the reception of this baptism he was favored with a vision in which he saw an angel, surrounded with heavenly light, holding a book in which his sins had been written.
The angel having immersed this book in the waters of baptism, showed it to Genesius perfectly white. He encountered the Risen Jesus Christ and saw the truth of the Christian faith.
The Emperor and the court laughed long and hard at the whole farce. After this, Genesius was clothed in white as a newly baptized Christian and led by some actors dressed as soldiers to another actor dressed as a Roman judge.
They began a ludicrous interrogation mimicking the trials of Christians. But when the usual questions were put to him, he replied in giving an earnest defense of Christianity and turned toward the Emperor and the audience, saying:
“Listen to me, O emperor, and all you who are here present, listen also O people of Rome! Before today, whenever I even heard the word ‘Christian’ it made me sick and angry. I made fun of them, insulted them, and encouraged others to abuse them as well. I so hated Christians that when I found out some members of my family were Christians I despised and deserted them. I detested them so much that I decided to learn all about their mysteries and secrets so that I could more completely mock and despise them. I composed this play as a way to arouse the utmost contempt in this audience for the Christians. Yet, while I was lying on that bed and answering the questions of the phony priest I realized that all my answers were sincere and true and that I most earnestly believed. As the water was poured over me I saw a bright angel carrying a book with all the sins I had committed. He plunged the book into the water and it came up clean and white. And so now I tell you, O mighty Emperor, and all of you here present who have ridiculed these mysteries as I have, come and now believe as I now do that Jesus Christ is the True God, the Light and the Truth; and it is through His baptism that you may be cleaned from your sins.”
The Emperor Diocletian, enraged at these words, immediately halted the performance and had all of the troupe members arrested and beaten.
When the other actors protested and had satisfied Diocletian that they had had nothing to do with Genesius’ profession of faith were released.
Genesius, however, was turned over to Plautian, the prefect of the praetorians, with orders to have the actor tortured until he should sacrifice to the Roman gods.
Genesius was therefore subjected to beatings and scourgings, as well as being racked, torn with hooks and burned with torches.
After days of this torture and being urged to sacrifice to the pagan gods, Genesius staunchly replied:
“There is no King but Him whom I have seen. I adore and worship Him, and for His sake, even though I be slain a thousand times, I will always be His. Torments are not able to take Christ from my mouth, nor from my heart. Bitterly do I regret that I detested His Holy Name in holy men, and came so late, like a haughty soldier, to adoring the true King.”
Plautian reported these words to the Emperor, and seeing that the saint would not relent, ordered him to be beheaded.
Close
August 25
Saint Genesius of Rome
August 26
Daily Saints – 26 August.
Feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa (The Black Madonna).
The image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, also known as the Black Madonna, was traditionally believed to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist on a cypress wood panel from a table used by the Holy Family in Nazareth.
It was said to have been brought from Jerusalem by St. Helen and was enshrined in Constantinople for 500 years.
It was given to a Greek princess married to a Ruthenian nobleman and it was housed in the royal palace at Belz in the Ukraine for the next 600 years. Art historians believe it is a Byzantine icon of the Hodigitria type dating from the 6th – 9th Century.
The image was brought to Poland in 1382 by Ladislaus of Opole who rescued the painting from Belz while escaping an attack by the Tartars who had damaged the painting with an arrow.
On his way to Silesia, Ladislaus stopped to rest in the town of Czestochowa near the church on Jasna Góra (Bright Hill). He believed that it was Our Lady’s desire for her image to remain in Czestochowa so he left the image at the church and invited the Pauline monks from Hungary to be its guardians.
On April 14, 1430, robbers, sometimes associated with the Hussites of Bohemia, looted the monastery and made three slashes on the face of Our Lady in an attempt to remove valuable stones, finally smashing the image into three pieces.
In order to repair the icon, the original paint was removed and the icon was repainted. Although the icon was restored, the slashes in Our Lady’s face remain visible today.
The image of Our Lady of Czestochowa is associated with several miraculous events. One of the most spectacular occurred in 1655 during the height of the Protestant Revolution.
The Swedish Lutheran army invaded Poland winning victories over the city after city including Cracow and Warsaw. The Polish King fled the country.
When the Swedish army came to Jasna Góra hoping to plunder the sacred site, the monks refused to surrender although they were greatly outnumbered.
The following account is from the Polish historian Norman Davies as quoted in Warren Carroll’s series on Christianity.
“When negotiations brought no result the Swedes began a violent bombardment of the walls. Then, in order to spread fear among the defenders, they started to hurl blazing firebrands, setting the monastery’s barn alight together with a great quantity of corn. Next, all around the monastery, they set up a camp with wooden palisades and gun emplacements…But their attack had little effect.”
“The walls were banked with earth on the inside, and only the cannon displaced a few bricks. Before long, the defenders opened fire in reply. The aim of their gunners was so accurate that after three hours the Swedes were obliged to pull back with great loss. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of houses adjacent to the monastery, where the enemy had found shelter, set their homes on fire, not counting the cost…”
“The Swedes renewed their attack on the 19th of November, the day of the Transfiguration of the Virgin…the official printed a description of this siege, which records that bullets and missiles fell so thick on the church and tower that they seemed to be in flames. But…the cannon balls bounced off the walls and tiles or flew over the church roof, causing no damage….”
“Muller (the Swedish commander) was most angered by the monks, who would climb to the top of the tower and in full choir pour down pious hymns on his soldiers…”
“Jasna Góra was not saved by men…A thick mist screened the monastery from attack…Muller himself saw a Lady in a shining robe on the walls, priming the cannon and tossing shells back in the direction from which they came…He (General Muller) launched this last attack on Christmas Day, firing off all his guns in one salvo, and sending his entire army to storm the walls…”
“But at that very moment, he suffered a fatal accident. He was eating breakfast in a fairly distant house, and cursing Jasna Góra with blasphemies, when suddenly an iron shot penetrated the wall, knocked down all the plates, bottles and glasses from the table, scattered the guests, and struck him in the arm…”
“At last, in the night before St. Stephen’s Day, the Swedes started to drag the guns from their emplacements, to collect their equipment, and to direct their wagons in the direction of Klobuck…Of course, no heretic will believe that cannon balls were repulsed from the walls of Jasna Góra by supernatural means…but all that I have described is true.”
The victory of Our Lady of Czestochowa at Jasna Góra turned the tide of the war. In 1656, the Polish King Jan Casimir proclaimed the Mother of God the “Queen of the Polish Crown” and the shrine at Jasna Góra, the “Mount of Victory” and the spiritual capital of Poland.
In recognition of the miraculous image, Pope Clement XI donated a crown to be placed on the image in 1717. Thieves stole the bejeweled crown in 1909. Pope St. Pius X replaced the 1717 crown with a crown of gold.
Our Lady intervened again in 1920 when the Russian army was about to invade Warsaw. As they were about to cross the Vistula River on September 15th, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa appeared in the clouds over Warsaw and the Russian Army retreated.
Shortly after this Miracle of the Vistula, in 1925, Pope Pius XI designated May 3rd as the feast day of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
After the liberation of Poland from Nazi occupation, 1.5 million people gathered at Jasna Góra in 1945 to rededicate the nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Pope John Paul II visited the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa four times during his pontificate. Our Lady’s intercession is credited with the liberation of Poland from Communist rule.
The holy painting enshrined at Czestochowa has been a lighthouse of hope during centuries of hardship and defeat. Today, the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa attracts millions of who love and honor Our Lady’s intercession.
There have been reports for centuries of miraculous events such as spontaneous healings occuring to those who made a pilgrimage to the portrait. It is known as the “Black Madonna” because of the soot residue that discolors the painting.
The soot is the result of centuries of votive lights and candles burning in front of the painting. With the decline of communism in Poland, pilgrimages to the Black Madonna have increased dramatically.
Feast of Our Lady of Czestochowa (The Black Madonna).
The image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, also known as the Black Madonna, was traditionally believed to have been painted by St. Luke the Evangelist on a cypress wood panel from a table used by the Holy Family in Nazareth.
It was said to have been brought from Jerusalem by St. Helen and was enshrined in Constantinople for 500 years.
It was given to a Greek princess married to a Ruthenian nobleman and it was housed in the royal palace at Belz in the Ukraine for the next 600 years. Art historians believe it is a Byzantine icon of the Hodigitria type dating from the 6th – 9th Century.
The image was brought to Poland in 1382 by Ladislaus of Opole who rescued the painting from Belz while escaping an attack by the Tartars who had damaged the painting with an arrow.
On his way to Silesia, Ladislaus stopped to rest in the town of Czestochowa near the church on Jasna Góra (Bright Hill). He believed that it was Our Lady’s desire for her image to remain in Czestochowa so he left the image at the church and invited the Pauline monks from Hungary to be its guardians.
On April 14, 1430, robbers, sometimes associated with the Hussites of Bohemia, looted the monastery and made three slashes on the face of Our Lady in an attempt to remove valuable stones, finally smashing the image into three pieces.
In order to repair the icon, the original paint was removed and the icon was repainted. Although the icon was restored, the slashes in Our Lady’s face remain visible today.
The image of Our Lady of Czestochowa is associated with several miraculous events. One of the most spectacular occurred in 1655 during the height of the Protestant Revolution.
The Swedish Lutheran army invaded Poland winning victories over the city after city including Cracow and Warsaw. The Polish King fled the country.
When the Swedish army came to Jasna Góra hoping to plunder the sacred site, the monks refused to surrender although they were greatly outnumbered.
The following account is from the Polish historian Norman Davies as quoted in Warren Carroll’s series on Christianity.
“When negotiations brought no result the Swedes began a violent bombardment of the walls. Then, in order to spread fear among the defenders, they started to hurl blazing firebrands, setting the monastery’s barn alight together with a great quantity of corn. Next, all around the monastery, they set up a camp with wooden palisades and gun emplacements…But their attack had little effect.”
“The walls were banked with earth on the inside, and only the cannon displaced a few bricks. Before long, the defenders opened fire in reply. The aim of their gunners was so accurate that after three hours the Swedes were obliged to pull back with great loss. Meanwhile, the inhabitants of houses adjacent to the monastery, where the enemy had found shelter, set their homes on fire, not counting the cost…”
“The Swedes renewed their attack on the 19th of November, the day of the Transfiguration of the Virgin…the official printed a description of this siege, which records that bullets and missiles fell so thick on the church and tower that they seemed to be in flames. But…the cannon balls bounced off the walls and tiles or flew over the church roof, causing no damage….”
“Muller (the Swedish commander) was most angered by the monks, who would climb to the top of the tower and in full choir pour down pious hymns on his soldiers…”
“Jasna Góra was not saved by men…A thick mist screened the monastery from attack…Muller himself saw a Lady in a shining robe on the walls, priming the cannon and tossing shells back in the direction from which they came…He (General Muller) launched this last attack on Christmas Day, firing off all his guns in one salvo, and sending his entire army to storm the walls…”
“But at that very moment, he suffered a fatal accident. He was eating breakfast in a fairly distant house, and cursing Jasna Góra with blasphemies, when suddenly an iron shot penetrated the wall, knocked down all the plates, bottles and glasses from the table, scattered the guests, and struck him in the arm…”
“At last, in the night before St. Stephen’s Day, the Swedes started to drag the guns from their emplacements, to collect their equipment, and to direct their wagons in the direction of Klobuck…Of course, no heretic will believe that cannon balls were repulsed from the walls of Jasna Góra by supernatural means…but all that I have described is true.”
The victory of Our Lady of Czestochowa at Jasna Góra turned the tide of the war. In 1656, the Polish King Jan Casimir proclaimed the Mother of God the “Queen of the Polish Crown” and the shrine at Jasna Góra, the “Mount of Victory” and the spiritual capital of Poland.
In recognition of the miraculous image, Pope Clement XI donated a crown to be placed on the image in 1717. Thieves stole the bejeweled crown in 1909. Pope St. Pius X replaced the 1717 crown with a crown of gold.
Our Lady intervened again in 1920 when the Russian army was about to invade Warsaw. As they were about to cross the Vistula River on September 15th, the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa appeared in the clouds over Warsaw and the Russian Army retreated.
Shortly after this Miracle of the Vistula, in 1925, Pope Pius XI designated May 3rd as the feast day of Our Lady of Czestochowa.
After the liberation of Poland from Nazi occupation, 1.5 million people gathered at Jasna Góra in 1945 to rededicate the nation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Pope John Paul II visited the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa four times during his pontificate. Our Lady’s intercession is credited with the liberation of Poland from Communist rule.
The holy painting enshrined at Czestochowa has been a lighthouse of hope during centuries of hardship and defeat. Today, the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa attracts millions of who love and honor Our Lady’s intercession.
There have been reports for centuries of miraculous events such as spontaneous healings occuring to those who made a pilgrimage to the portrait. It is known as the “Black Madonna” because of the soot residue that discolors the painting.
The soot is the result of centuries of votive lights and candles burning in front of the painting. With the decline of communism in Poland, pilgrimages to the Black Madonna have increased dramatically.
Close
August 26
Our Lady of Czestochowa
August 27
Daily Saints – 27 August.
Feast of Saint Monica.
She is the patron saint of alcoholics, alcoholism, difficult marriages, disappointing children, homemakers, housewives, married women, wives, mothers, victims of adultery or unfaithfulness, victims of verbal abuse, widows.
Monica was born in 331 A.D. in Tagaste, present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria. As a child she lived with her family, but she and her sisters were raised by an elderly servant. This wise woman had also raised Monica’s father.
As a young girl, Monica had a shocking experience. According to the custom of the time, her parents would ask her to bring up wine from the cellar for them.
Once Monica took a sip of the wine before she brought it up. After that, she gradually began to drink just a little more each day. She thought no one knew about it.
Then one day, Monica quarreled with a servant, and the servant accused her of drinking too much. Monica realized that the maid was right. This helped her to face this temptation. She decided then and there to stop drinking and she did.
Monica was raised a Christian, but was given in marriage to a Roman pagan official named Patricius, who held an official position in Tagaste.
Patricius had a violent temper and appears to have been of dissolute habits; apparently his mother was the same way. Patricius’ mother lived with the couple and the duo’s temper flares proved to be a constant challenge to young Monica.
Monica’s mother-in-law turned against her because of ugly rumors spread by unhappy servants. Through patient forgiveness, Monica was able to win her cooperation.
Monica’s alms, deeds and prayer habits annoyed Patricius, but it is said that he always held her in respect.
Monica’s prayers and example finally won her husband and mother-in-law to Christianity. Her husband died in 371, one year after his baptism.
Monica had three children who survived infancy: sons Augustine and Navigius and daughter Perpetua. Unable to secure baptism for them, she grieved heavily when Augustine fell ill.
In her distress she asked Patricius to allow Augustine to be baptized; he agreed, then withdrew this consent when the boy recovered.
But Monica’s joy and relief at Augustine’s recovery turned to anxiety as he misspent his renewed life being wayward.
He was finally sent to school at Madauros. As time passed, Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious life, but unfortunately Augustine became lazy and uncouth. He was 17 and studying rhetoric in Carthage when Patricius died.
Monica was distressed to learn that her son had accepted the Manichean heresy (“all flesh is evil”). Augustine lived an immoral life and had a son although he was not married. For a while, she refused to let him eat or sleep in her house.
Then one night she had a vision that assured her Augustine would return to the faith. From that time on, she stayed close to her son, praying and fasting for him. In fact she often stayed much closer than Augustine wanted.
When he was 29, Augustine decided to go to Rome to teach rhetoric. Monica was determined to go along. One night he told his mother that he was going to the dock to say goodbye to a friend. Instead he set sail for Rome.
Monica was heartbroken when she learned of Augustine’s trick, but she still followed him. She arrived in Rome only to find that he had left for Milan. Although travel was difficult, Monica pursued him to Milan.
In Milan, Augustine came under the influence of the bishop, Saint Ambrose, who also became Monica’s spiritual director. He told her that “God’s time will come.” He added, “Go now, I beg you; it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.”
She accepted his advice in everything and had the humility to give up some practices that had become second nature to her. Monica became a leader of the devout women in Milan as she had been in Tagaste.
Mother and son spent 6 months of true peace at Rus Cassiciacum (present-day Cassago Brianza). She continued her prayers for Augustine during his years of instruction.
At Easter 387, Saint Ambrose baptized Augustine (after 17 years of resistance) and several of his friends in the church of St. John the Baptist at Milan. Soon after, his party left for Africa.
They set out on their journey, stopping at Civitavecchiaand at Ostia. Here death overtook Monica.
Although no one else was aware of it, Monica knew her life was near the end. She became ill shortly after and suffered severely for nine days before her death in 387. she was 56 years old.
Augustine’s grief inspired the finest pages of his Confessions.
Monica is a model of patience. Her long years of prayer, coupled with a strong, well-disciplined character, finally led to the conversion of her hot-tempered husband, her cantankerous mother-in-law and her brilliant but wayward son, Augustine.
“Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” (St. Augustine, quoting his mother, St. Monica; Confessions; from Office of the Readings for August 27)
“For my part, my son, I no longer find pleasure in anything that this life holds. What I am doing here still, or why I am still here, I do not know, for worldly hope has withered away for me. One thing only there was for which I desired to linger to linger in this life: to see you a Catholic Christian before I died. And my God has granted this to me more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me see even you spurning earthly happiness to be his servant. What am I still doing here?” (St. Augustine, quoting his mother, St. Monica; Confessions; from Office of the Readings for August 27)
“Nothing is far from God.”
Feast of Saint Monica.
She is the patron saint of alcoholics, alcoholism, difficult marriages, disappointing children, homemakers, housewives, married women, wives, mothers, victims of adultery or unfaithfulness, victims of verbal abuse, widows.
Monica was born in 331 A.D. in Tagaste, present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria. As a child she lived with her family, but she and her sisters were raised by an elderly servant. This wise woman had also raised Monica’s father.
As a young girl, Monica had a shocking experience. According to the custom of the time, her parents would ask her to bring up wine from the cellar for them.
Once Monica took a sip of the wine before she brought it up. After that, she gradually began to drink just a little more each day. She thought no one knew about it.
Then one day, Monica quarreled with a servant, and the servant accused her of drinking too much. Monica realized that the maid was right. This helped her to face this temptation. She decided then and there to stop drinking and she did.
Monica was raised a Christian, but was given in marriage to a Roman pagan official named Patricius, who held an official position in Tagaste.
Patricius had a violent temper and appears to have been of dissolute habits; apparently his mother was the same way. Patricius’ mother lived with the couple and the duo’s temper flares proved to be a constant challenge to young Monica.
Monica’s mother-in-law turned against her because of ugly rumors spread by unhappy servants. Through patient forgiveness, Monica was able to win her cooperation.
Monica’s alms, deeds and prayer habits annoyed Patricius, but it is said that he always held her in respect.
Monica’s prayers and example finally won her husband and mother-in-law to Christianity. Her husband died in 371, one year after his baptism.
Monica had three children who survived infancy: sons Augustine and Navigius and daughter Perpetua. Unable to secure baptism for them, she grieved heavily when Augustine fell ill.
In her distress she asked Patricius to allow Augustine to be baptized; he agreed, then withdrew this consent when the boy recovered.
But Monica’s joy and relief at Augustine’s recovery turned to anxiety as he misspent his renewed life being wayward.
He was finally sent to school at Madauros. As time passed, Perpetua and Navigius entered the religious life, but unfortunately Augustine became lazy and uncouth. He was 17 and studying rhetoric in Carthage when Patricius died.
Monica was distressed to learn that her son had accepted the Manichean heresy (“all flesh is evil”). Augustine lived an immoral life and had a son although he was not married. For a while, she refused to let him eat or sleep in her house.
Then one night she had a vision that assured her Augustine would return to the faith. From that time on, she stayed close to her son, praying and fasting for him. In fact she often stayed much closer than Augustine wanted.
When he was 29, Augustine decided to go to Rome to teach rhetoric. Monica was determined to go along. One night he told his mother that he was going to the dock to say goodbye to a friend. Instead he set sail for Rome.
Monica was heartbroken when she learned of Augustine’s trick, but she still followed him. She arrived in Rome only to find that he had left for Milan. Although travel was difficult, Monica pursued him to Milan.
In Milan, Augustine came under the influence of the bishop, Saint Ambrose, who also became Monica’s spiritual director. He told her that “God’s time will come.” He added, “Go now, I beg you; it is not possible that the son of so many tears should perish.”
She accepted his advice in everything and had the humility to give up some practices that had become second nature to her. Monica became a leader of the devout women in Milan as she had been in Tagaste.
Mother and son spent 6 months of true peace at Rus Cassiciacum (present-day Cassago Brianza). She continued her prayers for Augustine during his years of instruction.
At Easter 387, Saint Ambrose baptized Augustine (after 17 years of resistance) and several of his friends in the church of St. John the Baptist at Milan. Soon after, his party left for Africa.
They set out on their journey, stopping at Civitavecchiaand at Ostia. Here death overtook Monica.
Although no one else was aware of it, Monica knew her life was near the end. She became ill shortly after and suffered severely for nine days before her death in 387. she was 56 years old.
Augustine’s grief inspired the finest pages of his Confessions.
Monica is a model of patience. Her long years of prayer, coupled with a strong, well-disciplined character, finally led to the conversion of her hot-tempered husband, her cantankerous mother-in-law and her brilliant but wayward son, Augustine.
“Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” (St. Augustine, quoting his mother, St. Monica; Confessions; from Office of the Readings for August 27)
“For my part, my son, I no longer find pleasure in anything that this life holds. What I am doing here still, or why I am still here, I do not know, for worldly hope has withered away for me. One thing only there was for which I desired to linger to linger in this life: to see you a Catholic Christian before I died. And my God has granted this to me more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me see even you spurning earthly happiness to be his servant. What am I still doing here?” (St. Augustine, quoting his mother, St. Monica; Confessions; from Office of the Readings for August 27)
“Nothing is far from God.”
Close
August 27
Saint Monica
August 28
Daily Saints – 28 August.
Feast of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians and against sore eyes, against vermin.
Aurelius Augustine was born in 354 at Tagaste, Algeria, in North Africa. He was the son of Patricius, a non-believer, and his devout Catholic wife, St. Monica.
His father, while holding an official post in the state, remained a pagan until late in his life. His mother, Monica, was a devoted Christian. She had had him signed with the cross and registered among the catechumens, but she was not able to secure his baptism.
Her grief was immense when Augustine fell ill and decided to get baptized, only to withdraw his consent afterwards, denouncing Christianity.
From his earliest years, Augustine possessed an inquisitive mind and an attractive personality. His parents provide him the finest education possible. Augustine set his sights on a career that would bring him both wealth and fame, goals that were heartily endorsed by his parents.
Augustine’s religious education began in Tagaste and Madaura until he was 16 years old. Next he was off to Carthage, but before long, he fell to the pleasures of the pagan city’s theaters and debauchery.
He confessed to his mother that he had been living a sinful life with a lady with whom he had a child in 372, Adeodatus (meaning The Gift of God).
Still a student, and with the desire to yet again concentrate on exploration of his faith, Augustine became a confirmed Manichaean in 373.
He was persuaded by its pledge of free philosophy which allured his interest in natural sciences. It did not, however, rub out his desire of finding his faith. His intelligence having attained maturity, he went back to Tagaste to teach rhetoric.
Now in his 30s, he denounced Manichaeism after nine years, citing disagreements with its cosmology and a disenchanting meeting.
Going through yet another epoch of spiritual struggle, Augustine went to Italy in 383 to study Neoplatonic philosophy. Captivated by his kindness and generosity, he became a student of Ambrose.
His journey from city to city, occasioned by various opportunities and challenges, was suggestive of a more important spiritual journey that he made over a long period of time, in search of inner peace and lasting happiness.
Though he was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived and though he had been brought up a Christian, his sins of impurity and his pride darkened his mind so much, that he could not see or understand the Divine Truth anymore.
A summation of his thinking at the time comes from his Confessions: “God, give me chastity and continence – but not just now.”
Through the prayers of his holy mother and the marvelous preaching of St. Ambrose, Augustine finally became convinced that Christianity was the one true religion. Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he could never live a pure life.
One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been converted on reading the life of St. Antony, and he felt terrible ashamed of himself.
“What are we doing?” he cried to his friend Alipius. “Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins!”
Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out to God, “How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?” Just then he heard a child singing, “Take up and read!”
Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up the book of the Letters of St. Paul, and read the first passage his gaze fell on. It was just what Augustine needed, for in it, St. Paul says to put away all impurity and to live in imitation of Jesus. From then on, Augustine began a new life.
The example, prayers, and influence of Monica had no little part to play in the drama of her son’s spiritual itinerary, and Augustine ascribes largely to her his conversion to the Catholic faith.
He was baptized at the age of 33 by Bishop Ambrose of Milan. Augustine’s decision to embrace the Catholic faith was at the same time a commitment to spend the remainder of his life as a “servant of God,” that is, in celibacy.
Augustine received baptism together with Adeodatus and with Augustine’s own good friend, Alypius. Augustine set out for his native town where he wished to pursue a monastic style of life together with other men who had likewise experienced a radical conversion to the faith.
On the journey, at Ostia Antica, just outside of Rome, Monica became sick and died suddenly but happily, having witnessed Augustine’s total commitment to Christ and the Church.
At Tagaste, Augustine, Adeodatus, and several companions lived an intense life of prayer, work and fellowship, sharing their insights about Scripture and the Christian vocation.
After three years, however, while on a visit to the city of Hippo, about fifty miles distant from Tagaste, Augustine was called to become a priest, contrary to his wishes, but disposed, nevertheless, to accept what he believed was God’s will for him. In Hippo, too, he established a monastic community, which he directed while assisting the bishop, Valerius.
Several years later Augustine succeeded Valerius as head of the diocese, and feeling constrained to move to the bishop’s house so as not to disturb the peace of the monastic community.
Augustine wrote his Rule for its continued direction, and then established yet a third community for clerics in his new episcopal residence. Thus from the time of his return to Tagaste until his death, Augustine resolutely opted for a monastic style of life in community.
As bishop, Augustine found his desired life of contemplation and separation from worldly concerns necessarily influenced and refashioned by his many obligations as leader of the local Church and as a civil official, which the office of bishop at the time included.
In addition to his pastoral duties within Hippo, he traveled to church councils in the region of North Africa – forty to fifty times over the course of the 35 years he served as bishop. He fought Manichaeism, Donatism, Pelagianism and other heresies.
He made the nine-day journey to Carthage, the metropolitan see, for meetings with other bishops some thirty times.
But even these extensive travels, which Augustine always found to be a hardship physically, were modest in comparison with the great output of writings and sermons which he produced: over two hundred books and nearly a thousand sermons, letters and other works.
In the year 430 Augustine fell ill and took to his bed. His days and nights were spent praying the penitential psalms, which he asked to have written on the wall of his room. He died on August 28, as the city of Hippo was being sacked by the Vandals.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.”
“Love, and do what you like.”
“I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.”
“This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.”
“Hear the other side.”
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
“God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.”
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”
“Love the sinner and hate the sin.”
“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”
“Beauty grows in you to the extent that love grows, because charity itself is the soul’s beauty.”
“The measure of love is to love without measure.”
“He who sings prays twice.”
“In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.”
“You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.”
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
“The world is a book, and those who don’t travel only read one page.”
“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”
“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”
“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
“God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.”
“He who is filled with love is filled with God himself.”
“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues: hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.”
“Conquer yourself and the world lies at your feet.”
“God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it.”
“The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness and peril of falling?”
“What do you possess if you possess not God?”
“Unhappy is the soul enslaved by the love of anything that is mortal.”
“The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line, which entangles the soul, and prevents it flying to God.”
“This very moment I may, if I desire, become the friend of God.”
“God bestows more consideration on the purity of the intention with which our actions are performed than on the actions themselves.”
“I will suggest a means whereby you can praise God all day long, if you wish. Whatever you do, do it well, and you have praised God.”
“This is the business of our life. By labor and prayer to advance in the grace of God, till we come to that height of perfection in which, with clean hearts, we may behold God.”
“God in his omnipotence could not give more, in His wisdom He knew not how to give more, in His riches He had not more to give, than the Eucharist.”
“God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes you do what you can and to pray for what you cannot, and aids you that you may be able.”
“Our life and our death are with our neighbor.”
“Oh, God, to know you is life. To serve You is freedom. To praise you is the soul’s joy and delight. Guard me with the power of Your grace here and in all places. Now and at all times, forever. Amen.”
Feast of Saint Augustine of Hippo.
He is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians and against sore eyes, against vermin.
Aurelius Augustine was born in 354 at Tagaste, Algeria, in North Africa. He was the son of Patricius, a non-believer, and his devout Catholic wife, St. Monica.
His father, while holding an official post in the state, remained a pagan until late in his life. His mother, Monica, was a devoted Christian. She had had him signed with the cross and registered among the catechumens, but she was not able to secure his baptism.
Her grief was immense when Augustine fell ill and decided to get baptized, only to withdraw his consent afterwards, denouncing Christianity.
From his earliest years, Augustine possessed an inquisitive mind and an attractive personality. His parents provide him the finest education possible. Augustine set his sights on a career that would bring him both wealth and fame, goals that were heartily endorsed by his parents.
Augustine’s religious education began in Tagaste and Madaura until he was 16 years old. Next he was off to Carthage, but before long, he fell to the pleasures of the pagan city’s theaters and debauchery.
He confessed to his mother that he had been living a sinful life with a lady with whom he had a child in 372, Adeodatus (meaning The Gift of God).
Still a student, and with the desire to yet again concentrate on exploration of his faith, Augustine became a confirmed Manichaean in 373.
He was persuaded by its pledge of free philosophy which allured his interest in natural sciences. It did not, however, rub out his desire of finding his faith. His intelligence having attained maturity, he went back to Tagaste to teach rhetoric.
Now in his 30s, he denounced Manichaeism after nine years, citing disagreements with its cosmology and a disenchanting meeting.
Going through yet another epoch of spiritual struggle, Augustine went to Italy in 383 to study Neoplatonic philosophy. Captivated by his kindness and generosity, he became a student of Ambrose.
His journey from city to city, occasioned by various opportunities and challenges, was suggestive of a more important spiritual journey that he made over a long period of time, in search of inner peace and lasting happiness.
Though he was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived and though he had been brought up a Christian, his sins of impurity and his pride darkened his mind so much, that he could not see or understand the Divine Truth anymore.
A summation of his thinking at the time comes from his Confessions: “God, give me chastity and continence – but not just now.”
Through the prayers of his holy mother and the marvelous preaching of St. Ambrose, Augustine finally became convinced that Christianity was the one true religion. Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he could never live a pure life.
One day, however, he heard about two men who had suddenly been converted on reading the life of St. Antony, and he felt terrible ashamed of himself.
“What are we doing?” he cried to his friend Alipius. “Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of our sins!”
Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out to God, “How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my sins?” Just then he heard a child singing, “Take up and read!”
Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up the book of the Letters of St. Paul, and read the first passage his gaze fell on. It was just what Augustine needed, for in it, St. Paul says to put away all impurity and to live in imitation of Jesus. From then on, Augustine began a new life.
The example, prayers, and influence of Monica had no little part to play in the drama of her son’s spiritual itinerary, and Augustine ascribes largely to her his conversion to the Catholic faith.
He was baptized at the age of 33 by Bishop Ambrose of Milan. Augustine’s decision to embrace the Catholic faith was at the same time a commitment to spend the remainder of his life as a “servant of God,” that is, in celibacy.
Augustine received baptism together with Adeodatus and with Augustine’s own good friend, Alypius. Augustine set out for his native town where he wished to pursue a monastic style of life together with other men who had likewise experienced a radical conversion to the faith.
On the journey, at Ostia Antica, just outside of Rome, Monica became sick and died suddenly but happily, having witnessed Augustine’s total commitment to Christ and the Church.
At Tagaste, Augustine, Adeodatus, and several companions lived an intense life of prayer, work and fellowship, sharing their insights about Scripture and the Christian vocation.
After three years, however, while on a visit to the city of Hippo, about fifty miles distant from Tagaste, Augustine was called to become a priest, contrary to his wishes, but disposed, nevertheless, to accept what he believed was God’s will for him. In Hippo, too, he established a monastic community, which he directed while assisting the bishop, Valerius.
Several years later Augustine succeeded Valerius as head of the diocese, and feeling constrained to move to the bishop’s house so as not to disturb the peace of the monastic community.
Augustine wrote his Rule for its continued direction, and then established yet a third community for clerics in his new episcopal residence. Thus from the time of his return to Tagaste until his death, Augustine resolutely opted for a monastic style of life in community.
As bishop, Augustine found his desired life of contemplation and separation from worldly concerns necessarily influenced and refashioned by his many obligations as leader of the local Church and as a civil official, which the office of bishop at the time included.
In addition to his pastoral duties within Hippo, he traveled to church councils in the region of North Africa – forty to fifty times over the course of the 35 years he served as bishop. He fought Manichaeism, Donatism, Pelagianism and other heresies.
He made the nine-day journey to Carthage, the metropolitan see, for meetings with other bishops some thirty times.
But even these extensive travels, which Augustine always found to be a hardship physically, were modest in comparison with the great output of writings and sermons which he produced: over two hundred books and nearly a thousand sermons, letters and other works.
In the year 430 Augustine fell ill and took to his bed. His days and nights were spent praying the penitential psalms, which he asked to have written on the wall of his room. He died on August 28, as the city of Hippo was being sacked by the Vandals.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.”
“Love, and do what you like.”
“I was not yet in love, yet I loved to love…I sought what I might love, in love with loving.”
“This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections.”
“Hear the other side.”
“Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.”
“If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself.”
“God has promised forgiveness to your repentance, but He has not promised tomorrow to your procrastination.”
“It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.”
“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek him the greatest adventure; to find him, the greatest human achievement.”
“Love the sinner and hate the sin.”
“Right is right even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.”
“Beauty grows in you to the extent that love grows, because charity itself is the soul’s beauty.”
“The measure of love is to love without measure.”
“He who sings prays twice.”
“In order to discover the character of people we have only to observe what they love.”
“You aspire to great things? Begin with little ones.”
“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.”
“The world is a book, and those who don’t travel only read one page.”
“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”
“Some people, in order to discover God, read books. But there is a great book: the very appearance of created things. Look above you! Look below you! Read it. God, whom you want to discover, never wrote that book with ink. Instead, He set before your eyes the things that He had made. Can you ask for a louder voice than that?”
“What does love look like? It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the sighs and sorrows of men. That is what love looks like.”
“Patience is the companion of wisdom.”
“The truth is like a lion; you don’t have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.”
“God is always trying to give good things to us, but our hands are too full to receive them.”
“He who is filled with love is filled with God himself.”
“Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues: hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.”
“Conquer yourself and the world lies at your feet.”
“God has no need of your money, but the poor have. You give it to the poor, and God receives it.”
“The honors of this world, what are they but puff, and emptiness and peril of falling?”
“What do you possess if you possess not God?”
“Unhappy is the soul enslaved by the love of anything that is mortal.”
“The love of worldly possessions is a sort of bird line, which entangles the soul, and prevents it flying to God.”
“This very moment I may, if I desire, become the friend of God.”
“God bestows more consideration on the purity of the intention with which our actions are performed than on the actions themselves.”
“I will suggest a means whereby you can praise God all day long, if you wish. Whatever you do, do it well, and you have praised God.”
“This is the business of our life. By labor and prayer to advance in the grace of God, till we come to that height of perfection in which, with clean hearts, we may behold God.”
“God in his omnipotence could not give more, in His wisdom He knew not how to give more, in His riches He had not more to give, than the Eucharist.”
“God does not command impossibilities, but by commanding admonishes you do what you can and to pray for what you cannot, and aids you that you may be able.”
“Our life and our death are with our neighbor.”
“Oh, God, to know you is life. To serve You is freedom. To praise you is the soul’s joy and delight. Guard me with the power of Your grace here and in all places. Now and at all times, forever. Amen.”
Close
August 28
Saint Augustine
August 29
Daily Saints – 29 August.
Feast of St. Euphrasia Eluvathingal.(1877 – 1952)
Carmelite nun from Kerala , also known as the “Praying Mother”.
The daughter of Anthony and Kunjethy of Eluvathingal Cherpukaran, Rose Eluvathingal was born on 17 October 1877 in the village of Kattoor, in the Diocese of Trichur, India. Her mother’s deep devoutness to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, had a strong influence on her from her childhood. During her early years she began to isolate herself from earthly possessions and pleasures and took a great interest in spiritual matters.
This got deeply rooted in her at the age of 9 due to an apparition of the Blessed Mother, after which the young girl offered herself totally to the Lord.
Notwithstanding the strong opposition of her father, who wanted Rose to marry into a rich family, she wanted to become a religious Sister. Her intense prayer life, which included the rosary, fasting and abstinence, as well as the rather sudden death of her younger sister, brought about a change of heart in her father, Anthony, who granted Rose permission to enter the convent. She joined the convent of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel at Koonammavu, the first indigenous Congregation for women in the Syro-Malabar Church. She had a special talent in needlework and drawing and her handwriting was beautiful.
But even with her desire to be a Religious, Rose was often afflicted with various illnesses which caused her intense suffering. Once, during a particularly painful attack, the Sisters were resolved to send her away for ever, but through an apparition of the Holy Family she received a miraculous healing that permitted her to continue following God’s call.
On 10 May 1897 she became a postulant and took the name Sr Euphrasia of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and on 10 January 1898 she received the Holy Habit of Carmel. She practised the virtues of humility, charity and renunciation and grew steadily in holiness with the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the periods of grave illness and the trails of the powers of darkness that she endured, she was rewarded with intense spiritual joys.
From 1904 to 1913 Sr Euphrasia was entrusted with the duty of Novice Mistress. Sustained by the gifts and power of Holy Spirit, she formed the future members of her Congregation. She was then chosen as Superior of the Convent of St Mary at Ollur. After an internal inspiration she acquired a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, placed it in the centre of the convent and entrusted the duty of Mother Superior to his Sacred Heart.
For almost 48 years the convent of St Mary was home to Mother Euphrasia. She was an example to her daughters in prayer, zeal, keeping the rules, silent suffering and hard labour. She desired that no one should be slack in virtue. Mother was thoughtful of the needs and weariness of the sisters. Often God used to grant her desire through the help of generous people. Prayer was her life breath wherever she was and the local people called her “The Praying Mother”. Her Sisters in the community referred to her as the “The Mobile Tabernacle”, because the divine presence she kept within her radiated to everyone she encountered.
Mother Euphrasia spent much of her day in the convent chapel before the Blessed Sacrament and she also nourished a great love and devotion for the Blessed Virgin Mary; as a result, she was naturally an apostle of the Eucharist and of the Rosary.
She was totally dedicated to love and was continually consoled by the Crucified Lord. She was the first to humble herself and to accept suffering, misunderstandings and rejection for love of Christ. Her strength came from Jesus, who had become her betrothed in spiritual matrimony as her letters testify.
From her profound union with the Lord Jesus came her capacity to give herself to others. She adhered fully to the motto of her Congregation: “Remain united to me in contemplation and consecrated to me in action” (Jn 15:5). Mother Euphrasia had a profound sense of Church and she personally felt the sorrows and problems of the Church of her day. She offered her mortifications and penances for the conversion of schismatics and asked the novices and children to pray for them.
She prayed ardently before the Blessed Sacrament for the Holy Father, for Bishops, priests and Religious. She submitted herself to His will and finally joined Him in the heavenly embrace at her holy death on 29 August 1952. Mother Euphrasia grew in humility, poverty and holiness as she completely obeyed the will of God every moment. The whole life of this virgin was full of continuous prayer, penance and reparation. Her tomb at the convent has become a pilgrimage site as miracles have been reported by some of the faithful.
On Sunday, 3 December 2006, she became the fifth Blessed of Kerala (India) and the sixth in the whole of India and she was canonized on 23 November 2014. She is regarded as the patron saint of people with tumours because she miraculously healed a child of a neck tumour which led to her being canonised.
St. Euphrasia, pray for us.
Feast of St. Euphrasia Eluvathingal.(1877 – 1952)
Carmelite nun from Kerala , also known as the “Praying Mother”.
The daughter of Anthony and Kunjethy of Eluvathingal Cherpukaran, Rose Eluvathingal was born on 17 October 1877 in the village of Kattoor, in the Diocese of Trichur, India. Her mother’s deep devoutness to the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, had a strong influence on her from her childhood. During her early years she began to isolate herself from earthly possessions and pleasures and took a great interest in spiritual matters.
This got deeply rooted in her at the age of 9 due to an apparition of the Blessed Mother, after which the young girl offered herself totally to the Lord.
Notwithstanding the strong opposition of her father, who wanted Rose to marry into a rich family, she wanted to become a religious Sister. Her intense prayer life, which included the rosary, fasting and abstinence, as well as the rather sudden death of her younger sister, brought about a change of heart in her father, Anthony, who granted Rose permission to enter the convent. She joined the convent of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel at Koonammavu, the first indigenous Congregation for women in the Syro-Malabar Church. She had a special talent in needlework and drawing and her handwriting was beautiful.
But even with her desire to be a Religious, Rose was often afflicted with various illnesses which caused her intense suffering. Once, during a particularly painful attack, the Sisters were resolved to send her away for ever, but through an apparition of the Holy Family she received a miraculous healing that permitted her to continue following God’s call.
On 10 May 1897 she became a postulant and took the name Sr Euphrasia of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and on 10 January 1898 she received the Holy Habit of Carmel. She practised the virtues of humility, charity and renunciation and grew steadily in holiness with the help of the Blessed Virgin Mary. For the periods of grave illness and the trails of the powers of darkness that she endured, she was rewarded with intense spiritual joys.
From 1904 to 1913 Sr Euphrasia was entrusted with the duty of Novice Mistress. Sustained by the gifts and power of Holy Spirit, she formed the future members of her Congregation. She was then chosen as Superior of the Convent of St Mary at Ollur. After an internal inspiration she acquired a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, placed it in the centre of the convent and entrusted the duty of Mother Superior to his Sacred Heart.
For almost 48 years the convent of St Mary was home to Mother Euphrasia. She was an example to her daughters in prayer, zeal, keeping the rules, silent suffering and hard labour. She desired that no one should be slack in virtue. Mother was thoughtful of the needs and weariness of the sisters. Often God used to grant her desire through the help of generous people. Prayer was her life breath wherever she was and the local people called her “The Praying Mother”. Her Sisters in the community referred to her as the “The Mobile Tabernacle”, because the divine presence she kept within her radiated to everyone she encountered.
Mother Euphrasia spent much of her day in the convent chapel before the Blessed Sacrament and she also nourished a great love and devotion for the Blessed Virgin Mary; as a result, she was naturally an apostle of the Eucharist and of the Rosary.
She was totally dedicated to love and was continually consoled by the Crucified Lord. She was the first to humble herself and to accept suffering, misunderstandings and rejection for love of Christ. Her strength came from Jesus, who had become her betrothed in spiritual matrimony as her letters testify.
From her profound union with the Lord Jesus came her capacity to give herself to others. She adhered fully to the motto of her Congregation: “Remain united to me in contemplation and consecrated to me in action” (Jn 15:5). Mother Euphrasia had a profound sense of Church and she personally felt the sorrows and problems of the Church of her day. She offered her mortifications and penances for the conversion of schismatics and asked the novices and children to pray for them.
She prayed ardently before the Blessed Sacrament for the Holy Father, for Bishops, priests and Religious. She submitted herself to His will and finally joined Him in the heavenly embrace at her holy death on 29 August 1952. Mother Euphrasia grew in humility, poverty and holiness as she completely obeyed the will of God every moment. The whole life of this virgin was full of continuous prayer, penance and reparation. Her tomb at the convent has become a pilgrimage site as miracles have been reported by some of the faithful.
On Sunday, 3 December 2006, she became the fifth Blessed of Kerala (India) and the sixth in the whole of India and she was canonized on 23 November 2014. She is regarded as the patron saint of people with tumours because she miraculously healed a child of a neck tumour which led to her being canonised.
St. Euphrasia, pray for us.
Close
August 29
Saint Euphrasia Eluvathingal
August 30
Daily Saints – 30 August.
Feast of Saint Fiacre.
He is the patron saint against barrenness or sterility, against fistula, against fevers, tumours, cancers, against haemorrhoids or piles, against venereal disease, box makers, cab or taxi drivers, costermongers, florists, gardeners, hosiers, pewterers, tile makers.
Fiacre was born in Ireland at the end of the sixth century. He was raised in a monastery where he became a monk and imbibed knowledge of herbal medicine. In time he had his own hermitage and perhaps a monastery. As he earned fame for his knowledge of plants and healing abilities, disciples flocked to him. As crowds flocked to him because of his reputation for his holiness and cures, he sailed to France in search of greater solitude.
When he arrived at Meaux in 628, the bishop St Faro, well-disposed to him due to kindnesses he and his father’s house had received from the Irish missionary Columbanus, granted him a site at Brogillum (Breuil), in the province of Brie.
Faro offered Fiacre as much land as he could turn up in a day. Fiacre, instead of using a plough, turned the top of the soil with the point of his staff. He then cleared the ground of trees and briers, made a cell for himself, a garden for herbs and vegetables, a chapel and a hospice for travellers. All this developed into the village of Saint-Fiacre.
Many resorted to him for advice, and the poor, for relief. His charity moved him to attend cheerfully those that came to consult him; and in his hospice he entertained all comers, serving them with his own hands, and sometimes miraculously restored to health those that were sick. He died around 670.
Feast of Saint Fiacre.
He is the patron saint against barrenness or sterility, against fistula, against fevers, tumours, cancers, against haemorrhoids or piles, against venereal disease, box makers, cab or taxi drivers, costermongers, florists, gardeners, hosiers, pewterers, tile makers.
Fiacre was born in Ireland at the end of the sixth century. He was raised in a monastery where he became a monk and imbibed knowledge of herbal medicine. In time he had his own hermitage and perhaps a monastery. As he earned fame for his knowledge of plants and healing abilities, disciples flocked to him. As crowds flocked to him because of his reputation for his holiness and cures, he sailed to France in search of greater solitude.
When he arrived at Meaux in 628, the bishop St Faro, well-disposed to him due to kindnesses he and his father’s house had received from the Irish missionary Columbanus, granted him a site at Brogillum (Breuil), in the province of Brie.
Faro offered Fiacre as much land as he could turn up in a day. Fiacre, instead of using a plough, turned the top of the soil with the point of his staff. He then cleared the ground of trees and briers, made a cell for himself, a garden for herbs and vegetables, a chapel and a hospice for travellers. All this developed into the village of Saint-Fiacre.
Many resorted to him for advice, and the poor, for relief. His charity moved him to attend cheerfully those that came to consult him; and in his hospice he entertained all comers, serving them with his own hands, and sometimes miraculously restored to health those that were sick. He died around 670.
Close
August 30
Saint Fiacre
August 31
Daily Saints – 31 August.
Feast of Saint Raymond Nonnatus.
He is the patron saint of childbirth; expectant mothers; pregnant women; newborn babies; infants; children; obstetricians; midwives; against fever; the falsely accused; confidentiality of confession.
Raymond was born at Portella, Catalonia, Spain to a noble family in 1204. He was delivered by a caesarean operation when his mother died in childbirth. Hence his name non natus (not born).
His father had high expectations for Raymond to serve in the country’s Royal Court. However, the young Raymond felt drawn to religious life.
In an attempt to dissuade him, his father ordered him to manage one of the family farms. However, Raymond spent his time with the workers, studying, and praying. His father finally gave up and allowed Raymond to receive the religious life.
He joined the Mercedarians under Saint Peter Nolasco at Barcelona. He succeeded Peter as chief ransomer and went to Algeria to ransom slaves.
Raymond remained as hostage for several slaves when his money ran out and was sentenced to be impaled when the governor learned that he had converted several Mohammedans.
He escaped the death sentence because of the ransom he would bring, but was forced to run the gauntlet.
During his imprisonment, he succeeded at converting some of his guards. To keep him from continuing his preaching, his captors bored a hole through his lips with a hot iron, and attached a padlock.
He was sustained by the strength of the Eucharist, filial devotion to the Mother of God.
He was ransomed eight months later by Peter Nolasco and he returned to Barcelona in 1239. On his return, Raymond was appointed Cardinal by Pope Gregory IX.
The following year, in 1240, he was summoned to Rome, but died at Cardona a short distance from Barcelona while on the way to Rome at the age of 36 on the 31st of August, in the year 1240.
It is said that since there was no priest who could administer Viaticum to him, he received it miraculously, administered by Jesus Christ Himself accompanied by angels dressed in the Mercedarian habit.
Feast of Saint Raymond Nonnatus.
He is the patron saint of childbirth; expectant mothers; pregnant women; newborn babies; infants; children; obstetricians; midwives; against fever; the falsely accused; confidentiality of confession.
Raymond was born at Portella, Catalonia, Spain to a noble family in 1204. He was delivered by a caesarean operation when his mother died in childbirth. Hence his name non natus (not born).
His father had high expectations for Raymond to serve in the country’s Royal Court. However, the young Raymond felt drawn to religious life.
In an attempt to dissuade him, his father ordered him to manage one of the family farms. However, Raymond spent his time with the workers, studying, and praying. His father finally gave up and allowed Raymond to receive the religious life.
He joined the Mercedarians under Saint Peter Nolasco at Barcelona. He succeeded Peter as chief ransomer and went to Algeria to ransom slaves.
Raymond remained as hostage for several slaves when his money ran out and was sentenced to be impaled when the governor learned that he had converted several Mohammedans.
He escaped the death sentence because of the ransom he would bring, but was forced to run the gauntlet.
During his imprisonment, he succeeded at converting some of his guards. To keep him from continuing his preaching, his captors bored a hole through his lips with a hot iron, and attached a padlock.
He was sustained by the strength of the Eucharist, filial devotion to the Mother of God.
He was ransomed eight months later by Peter Nolasco and he returned to Barcelona in 1239. On his return, Raymond was appointed Cardinal by Pope Gregory IX.
The following year, in 1240, he was summoned to Rome, but died at Cardona a short distance from Barcelona while on the way to Rome at the age of 36 on the 31st of August, in the year 1240.
It is said that since there was no priest who could administer Viaticum to him, he received it miraculously, administered by Jesus Christ Himself accompanied by angels dressed in the Mercedarian habit.
Close
August 31
Saint Raymond Nonnatus