December 1
Saint Eligius of Noyon
December1
Daily Saints – 1 December.
Feast of Saint Eligius of Noyon.
Eligius, a goldsmith at Paris, was commissioned by King Clotaire to make a throne. With the gold and precious stones given him he made two. Struck by his rare honesty, the king gave him an appointment at court, and demanded an oath of fidelity sworn upon holy relics; but Eligius prayed with tears to be excused, for fear of failing in reverence to the relics of the Saints. On entering the court, he fortified himself against its seductions by many austerities and continual ejaculatory prayers. He had a marvellous zeal for the redemption of captives, and for their deliverance would sell his jewels, his food, his clothes, and his vety shoes, once by his prayers breaking their chains and opening their prisons. His great delight was in making rich shrines for relics. His striking virtue caused him, a layman and a goldsmith, to be made Bishop of Noyon; and his sanctity in this holy office was remarkable. He possessed the gifts of miracles and prophecy, and died in 665.
Feast of Saint Eligius of Noyon.
Eligius, a goldsmith at Paris, was commissioned by King Clotaire to make a throne. With the gold and precious stones given him he made two. Struck by his rare honesty, the king gave him an appointment at court, and demanded an oath of fidelity sworn upon holy relics; but Eligius prayed with tears to be excused, for fear of failing in reverence to the relics of the Saints. On entering the court, he fortified himself against its seductions by many austerities and continual ejaculatory prayers. He had a marvellous zeal for the redemption of captives, and for their deliverance would sell his jewels, his food, his clothes, and his vety shoes, once by his prayers breaking their chains and opening their prisons. His great delight was in making rich shrines for relics. His striking virtue caused him, a layman and a goldsmith, to be made Bishop of Noyon; and his sanctity in this holy office was remarkable. He possessed the gifts of miracles and prophecy, and died in 665.
Reflection – When God called His Saints to himself, He might, had He so pleased, have taken their bodies also; but he willed to leave them in our charge, for our help and consolation. Be careful to imitate Saint Eligius in making a good use of so great a treasure.
Patronage :
against boils, against epidemics, against equine diseases, against poverty, against ulcers, agricultural workers, basket makers, blacksmiths, boilermakers, cab drivers, cabmen
carpenters, carriage makers, cart makers, carters, cartwrights, clock makers, coachmen, coachwrights, computer scientists, craftsmen, cutlers, cutlery makers, electricians, engravers, farm workers, farmers, farriers, garage workers, gas station, workers, gilders, gold workers, goldsmiths, guards, gunsmiths, harness makers, horse traders, horseshoe makers, jewelers, jockeys, knife makers, laborers lamp makers, locksmiths, mechanics, metal workers, metalsmiths, miners, minters ,minting, numismatics, saddle makers, saddlers, scissors grinders, security guards servants, silversmiths, taxi drivers, tinsmiths, tool makers, veterinarians, watch makers, wheelwrights, coin collectors, garages, gas stations, horses, livestock, metal collectors, numismatists, peasants, petrol stations, precious metal collectors, sick horses
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December 2
Daily Saints – 2 December.
Feast of Saint Bibiana.
She is the patron of single laywomen, torture victims, mentally ill people and invoked against epilepsy, epileptics, hangovers, headaches, insanity, mental illness.
Saint Bibiana was the daughter of St. Flavian, a Roman knight, and St. Dafrosa, his wife. St. Demetria was her sister. All four of this family were martyred for the Catholic Faith.
In the year 363, Julian the Apostate made Apronianus Governor of Rome. Flavian was tortured and sent into exile, where he died of his wounds. Dafrosa was beheaded, and their two daughters, Bibiana and Demetria, were stripped of their possessions and left to suffer poverty. However, they remained in their house, spending their time in fasting and prayer.
Apronianus imprisoned them with orders to give them no food. The Roman praetorian offered them rewards if they would abandon their faith, and threatened a cruel death if they would not conform, but they replied courageously that the goods and advantages of this world had no attraction for them, and that they would endure a thousand deaths rather than betray their faith and their Saviour. Demetria, after having pronounced this ardent defense, fell to the ground and expired at her sister’s side.
St. Bibiana was reserved for greater sufferings. She was placed in the hands of a wicked woman called Rufina in order to seduce her to sinful life or to mistreat her. She used blows as well as persuasion, but the Christian virgin remained faithful.
Enraged at the constancy of this saintly virgin, Apronianus ordered her to be tied to a pillar and beaten with scourges, laden with lead plummets, until she expired. The saint endured the torments with joy, and died under the blows inflicted by the hands of the executioner. Her body was then put in the open air to be torn apart by wild animals, yet none would touch it. She was buried two days later by a holy priest.
Feast of Saint Bibiana.
She is the patron of single laywomen, torture victims, mentally ill people and invoked against epilepsy, epileptics, hangovers, headaches, insanity, mental illness.
Saint Bibiana was the daughter of St. Flavian, a Roman knight, and St. Dafrosa, his wife. St. Demetria was her sister. All four of this family were martyred for the Catholic Faith.
In the year 363, Julian the Apostate made Apronianus Governor of Rome. Flavian was tortured and sent into exile, where he died of his wounds. Dafrosa was beheaded, and their two daughters, Bibiana and Demetria, were stripped of their possessions and left to suffer poverty. However, they remained in their house, spending their time in fasting and prayer.
Apronianus imprisoned them with orders to give them no food. The Roman praetorian offered them rewards if they would abandon their faith, and threatened a cruel death if they would not conform, but they replied courageously that the goods and advantages of this world had no attraction for them, and that they would endure a thousand deaths rather than betray their faith and their Saviour. Demetria, after having pronounced this ardent defense, fell to the ground and expired at her sister’s side.
St. Bibiana was reserved for greater sufferings. She was placed in the hands of a wicked woman called Rufina in order to seduce her to sinful life or to mistreat her. She used blows as well as persuasion, but the Christian virgin remained faithful.
Enraged at the constancy of this saintly virgin, Apronianus ordered her to be tied to a pillar and beaten with scourges, laden with lead plummets, until she expired. The saint endured the torments with joy, and died under the blows inflicted by the hands of the executioner. Her body was then put in the open air to be torn apart by wild animals, yet none would touch it. She was buried two days later by a holy priest.
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December 2
Saint Bibiana
December 3
Daily Saints – 3 December.
Feast of Saint Francis Xavier.
He is the patron saint of missionaries, navigators, parish missions, plague epidemics, African missions, black missions, foreign missions.
Francis Xavier was born in the royal castle of Xavier, in the Kingdom of Navarre, on 7 April 1506. He was the youngest son of Juan de Jasso y Atondo. Francis’s mother was Doña María de Azpilcueta y Aznárez. Francis’s father died when Francis was only nine years old.
In 1525, Francis went to study in Paris at the Collège Sainte-Barbe, University of Paris. In 1529, Francis shared lodgings with his friend Pierre Favre. A new student, Ignatius of Loyola, came to room with them. At 38, Ignatius was much older than Pierre and Francis, who were both 23 at the time. Ignatius convinced Pierre to become a priest, but was unable to convince Francis, who had aspirations of worldly advancement.
At first Francis regarded the new lodger as a joke and was sarcastic about his efforts to convert students. According to most biographies Ignatius is said to have posed the question: “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26a). Though at first hesitant, Xavier was eventually inspired by his friend’s example.
In 1530 Francis received the degree of Master of Arts, and afterwards taught Aristotelian philosophy at Beauvais College, University of Paris. On 15 August 1534, seven students met in a crypt beneath the Church of Saint Denis. They made private vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the Pope, and also vowed to go to the Holy Land to convert infidels. Pope Paul III approved the formation of their order in 1540, which became The Society of Jesus.
Francis began his study of theology in 1534 and was ordained on 24 June 1537. While Francis Xavier was becoming a priest, Portugal was colonizing India. The Portuguese settlers in India and elsewhere were losing their faith and Christian values. To restore these values, the King of Portugal asked the Pope to send missionaries to the region. Pope Paul III asked the new order to take the mission, particularly since they could not undertake their preferred mission to the Holy Land due to warfare there. Ignatius ultimately decided to send Francis. He became the first Jesuit missionary Priest.
Francis led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time and was influential in evangelization work, most notably in India. The Goa Inquisition was proposed by St. Francis Xavier. Francis Xavier left for India in 1541, on his thirty-fifth birthday. As he departed he was informed that the pope appointed him to be the Papal Nuncio in the East. A Papal Nuncio is a diplomat who takes up permanent residence in another country to formally represent the Church there. He arrived in the region and colony of Goa, India on May 6, 1542.
In Goa, India, while waiting to take ship, he preached in the street, worked with the sick, and taught children their catechism. He would walk through the streets ringing a bell to call the children to their studies. Said to have converted the entire city. Francis Xavier lived with the poorest people, sharing their food and rough accommodations. He spent countless hours ministering to the sick and the poor, particularly to lepers. Very often he had no time to sleep or even to say his breviary but, as we know from his letters, he was filled always with joy.
He scolded his patron, King John of Portugal, over the slave trade: “You have no right to spread the Catholic faith while you take away all the country’s riches. It upsets me to know that at the hour of your death you may be ordered out of paradise.”
He also was the first Christian missionary to venture into Japan, Borneo, the Maluku Islands, and other areas. In those areas, struggling to learn the local languages and in the face of opposition, he had less success than he had enjoyed in India.
Tremendously successful missionary for ten years in India, the East Indies, and Japan, baptizing more than 40,000 converts. His epic finds him dining with head hunters, washing the sores of lepers in Venice, teaching catechism to Indian children, baptizing 10,000 in a single month. He tolerated the most appalling conditions on long sea voyages, enduring extremes of heat and cold. Wherever he went he would seek out and help the poor and forgotten. He traveled thousands of miles, most on his bare feet, and he saw the greater part of the Far East. He had the gift of tongues. He was known as a miracle worker and said to have raised people from the dead and calmed storms. He was also a prophet and a healer.
Francis Xavier wanted to extend his missionary preaching to China. Arriving on the island of Sancian at the mouth of the Canton river, he became ill of a fever. He would have died abandoned on the burning sands of the shore if a poor man named Alvarez had not taken him to his hut. Here he lingered for two weeks, praying between spells of delirium, and finally died, fixing his eyes with great tenderness on his crucifix. He died on the island on December 3, 1552, at the age of 46.
He was buried in a shallow grave and his body covered with quicklime, but when exhumed three months later it was found fresh and incorrupt. It was taken to Goa, India where it is still enshrined.
“I will go anywhere and do anything in order to communicate the love of Jesus to those who do not know Him or have forgotten Him.”
“Prayer is powerful! It fills the earth with mercy, it makes the Divine clemency pass from generation to generation; right along the course of the centuries wonderful works have been achieved through prayer.”
“It is impossible to find a saint who did not take the “two P’s” seriously: prayer and penance.”
“It is not the actual physical exertion that counts towards a man’s progress, nor the nature of the task, but by the spirit of faith with which it is undertaken.”
“The best way to acquire true dignity is to wash one’s own clothes and boil one’s own pot.”
“We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend upon material success . . . but on Jesus alone.”
“Speak to them of the great mercy of God… Sometimes people are helped by your telling of your own lamentable past.”
“No one can excel in great things who does not first excel in small.”
“Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians.”
“If you are in danger, if your hearts are confused, turn to Mary; she is our comfort, our help; turn towards her and you will be saved.”
Feast of Saint Francis Xavier.
He is the patron saint of missionaries, navigators, parish missions, plague epidemics, African missions, black missions, foreign missions.
Francis Xavier was born in the royal castle of Xavier, in the Kingdom of Navarre, on 7 April 1506. He was the youngest son of Juan de Jasso y Atondo. Francis’s mother was Doña María de Azpilcueta y Aznárez. Francis’s father died when Francis was only nine years old.
In 1525, Francis went to study in Paris at the Collège Sainte-Barbe, University of Paris. In 1529, Francis shared lodgings with his friend Pierre Favre. A new student, Ignatius of Loyola, came to room with them. At 38, Ignatius was much older than Pierre and Francis, who were both 23 at the time. Ignatius convinced Pierre to become a priest, but was unable to convince Francis, who had aspirations of worldly advancement.
At first Francis regarded the new lodger as a joke and was sarcastic about his efforts to convert students. According to most biographies Ignatius is said to have posed the question: “What will it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Matthew 16:26a). Though at first hesitant, Xavier was eventually inspired by his friend’s example.
In 1530 Francis received the degree of Master of Arts, and afterwards taught Aristotelian philosophy at Beauvais College, University of Paris. On 15 August 1534, seven students met in a crypt beneath the Church of Saint Denis. They made private vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the Pope, and also vowed to go to the Holy Land to convert infidels. Pope Paul III approved the formation of their order in 1540, which became The Society of Jesus.
Francis began his study of theology in 1534 and was ordained on 24 June 1537. While Francis Xavier was becoming a priest, Portugal was colonizing India. The Portuguese settlers in India and elsewhere were losing their faith and Christian values. To restore these values, the King of Portugal asked the Pope to send missionaries to the region. Pope Paul III asked the new order to take the mission, particularly since they could not undertake their preferred mission to the Holy Land due to warfare there. Ignatius ultimately decided to send Francis. He became the first Jesuit missionary Priest.
Francis led an extensive mission into Asia, mainly in the Portuguese Empire of the time and was influential in evangelization work, most notably in India. The Goa Inquisition was proposed by St. Francis Xavier. Francis Xavier left for India in 1541, on his thirty-fifth birthday. As he departed he was informed that the pope appointed him to be the Papal Nuncio in the East. A Papal Nuncio is a diplomat who takes up permanent residence in another country to formally represent the Church there. He arrived in the region and colony of Goa, India on May 6, 1542.
In Goa, India, while waiting to take ship, he preached in the street, worked with the sick, and taught children their catechism. He would walk through the streets ringing a bell to call the children to their studies. Said to have converted the entire city. Francis Xavier lived with the poorest people, sharing their food and rough accommodations. He spent countless hours ministering to the sick and the poor, particularly to lepers. Very often he had no time to sleep or even to say his breviary but, as we know from his letters, he was filled always with joy.
He scolded his patron, King John of Portugal, over the slave trade: “You have no right to spread the Catholic faith while you take away all the country’s riches. It upsets me to know that at the hour of your death you may be ordered out of paradise.”
He also was the first Christian missionary to venture into Japan, Borneo, the Maluku Islands, and other areas. In those areas, struggling to learn the local languages and in the face of opposition, he had less success than he had enjoyed in India.
Tremendously successful missionary for ten years in India, the East Indies, and Japan, baptizing more than 40,000 converts. His epic finds him dining with head hunters, washing the sores of lepers in Venice, teaching catechism to Indian children, baptizing 10,000 in a single month. He tolerated the most appalling conditions on long sea voyages, enduring extremes of heat and cold. Wherever he went he would seek out and help the poor and forgotten. He traveled thousands of miles, most on his bare feet, and he saw the greater part of the Far East. He had the gift of tongues. He was known as a miracle worker and said to have raised people from the dead and calmed storms. He was also a prophet and a healer.
Francis Xavier wanted to extend his missionary preaching to China. Arriving on the island of Sancian at the mouth of the Canton river, he became ill of a fever. He would have died abandoned on the burning sands of the shore if a poor man named Alvarez had not taken him to his hut. Here he lingered for two weeks, praying between spells of delirium, and finally died, fixing his eyes with great tenderness on his crucifix. He died on the island on December 3, 1552, at the age of 46.
He was buried in a shallow grave and his body covered with quicklime, but when exhumed three months later it was found fresh and incorrupt. It was taken to Goa, India where it is still enshrined.
“I will go anywhere and do anything in order to communicate the love of Jesus to those who do not know Him or have forgotten Him.”
“Prayer is powerful! It fills the earth with mercy, it makes the Divine clemency pass from generation to generation; right along the course of the centuries wonderful works have been achieved through prayer.”
“It is impossible to find a saint who did not take the “two P’s” seriously: prayer and penance.”
“It is not the actual physical exertion that counts towards a man’s progress, nor the nature of the task, but by the spirit of faith with which it is undertaken.”
“The best way to acquire true dignity is to wash one’s own clothes and boil one’s own pot.”
“We must pray without tiring, for the salvation of mankind does not depend upon material success . . . but on Jesus alone.”
“Speak to them of the great mercy of God… Sometimes people are helped by your telling of your own lamentable past.”
“No one can excel in great things who does not first excel in small.”
“Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians.”
“If you are in danger, if your hearts are confused, turn to Mary; she is our comfort, our help; turn towards her and you will be saved.”
Close
December 3
Saint Francis Xavier
December 4
Daily Saints – 4 December.
Feast of Saint John of Damascus.
He is the patron saint of Pharmacists, icon painters, theology students.
John was born in 676 and raised in Damascus. His father worked for the Muslim government which controlled the city, but John’s family were faithful Christians and respected in the community. John inherited his father’s job, but he resigned when people began to complain that a Muslim, not a Christian, should have the job.
John was educated by a Sicilian monk who had been captured as a slave and brought to Damascus. Between the Christian teaching from the monk, and that of the Muslim schools, John became highly educated in the classical fields (geometry, literature, logic, rhetoric, etc.).
He worked to correct the teachings of a group called the iconoclasts. The iconoclasts wanted all the beautiful images, statues, and pictures of Jesus, Mary, and the saints destroyed. They believed that these icons led to false worship and violated the First Commandment: “I am the Lord your God, you shall not have strange gods before me.” John wrote several important articles explaining that sacred images help us to honor the person pictured in the icon. He helped people to understand that we do not worship the icon, but the memory of the person it portrays.
He wrote against the anti-icon decrees of Germanus. Legend says that Germanus plotted against him, and forged a letter in which John betrayed the caliph; the caliph ordered John’s writing hand chopped off, but the Virgin Mary appeared and re-attached the hand, a miracle which restored the caliph’s faith in him.
After this incident, John became a monk near Jerusalem and was ordained a Priest. He was anathematized by name by the 754 Council of Constantinople over his defense of the use of icons, but was defended by the 787 Seventh Council of Nicea.
He wrote the foundation of wisdom, the first real compendium of Christian theology, along with other works defending the orthodox faith, commentaries on Saint Paul the Apostle, poetry, and hymns. He was a Philospher and Orator; such an excellent speaker he was known as Chrysorrhoas (“golden-stream”). He is considered as last of the Greek Fathers of the Church, and the first of the Christian Aristotleans. He adapted choral music for use in the liturgy. He died on 749 of natural causes.
“Show me the icons that you venerate, that I may be able to understand your faith.”
“Envy is pain over the good fortune.”
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: “But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God.” Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory.”
“Even though your most holy and blessed soul was separated from your most happy and immaculate body, according to the usual course of nature, and even though it was carried to a proper burial place, nevertheless it did not remain under the dominion of death, nor was it destroyed by corruption. Indeed, just as her virginity remained intact when she gave birth, so her body, even after death, was preserved from decay and transferred to a better and more divine dwelling place. There it is no longer subject to death but abides for all ages.”
“The first kind is the worship of latreia, which we give to God, who alone is adorable by nature, and this worship is shown in several ways, and first by the worship of servants. All created things worship Him, as servants their master.”
“The second kind is the worship of admiration and desire which we give to God on account of His essential glory. He alone is worthy of praise, who receives it from no one, being Himself the cause of all glory and all good.”
“The third kind of worship is that of thanksgiving for the goods we have received. We must thank God for all created things, and show Him perpetual worship, as from Him and through Him all creation takes its being and subsists.”
“The fourth kind is suggested by the need and hope of benefits. Recognising that without Him we can neither do nor possess anything good, we worship Him, asking Him to satisfy our needs and desires, that we may be preserved from evil and arrive at good.”
“The fifth kind is the worship of contrition and confession. As sinners we worship God, and prostrate ourselves before Him, needing His forgiveness, as it becomes servants. This happens in three ways. A man may be sorry out of love, or lest he should lose God’s benefits, or for fear of chastisement. The first is prompted by goodness and desire for God himself, and the condition of a son: the second is interested, the third is slavish.”
Feast of Saint John of Damascus.
He is the patron saint of Pharmacists, icon painters, theology students.
John was born in 676 and raised in Damascus. His father worked for the Muslim government which controlled the city, but John’s family were faithful Christians and respected in the community. John inherited his father’s job, but he resigned when people began to complain that a Muslim, not a Christian, should have the job.
John was educated by a Sicilian monk who had been captured as a slave and brought to Damascus. Between the Christian teaching from the monk, and that of the Muslim schools, John became highly educated in the classical fields (geometry, literature, logic, rhetoric, etc.).
He worked to correct the teachings of a group called the iconoclasts. The iconoclasts wanted all the beautiful images, statues, and pictures of Jesus, Mary, and the saints destroyed. They believed that these icons led to false worship and violated the First Commandment: “I am the Lord your God, you shall not have strange gods before me.” John wrote several important articles explaining that sacred images help us to honor the person pictured in the icon. He helped people to understand that we do not worship the icon, but the memory of the person it portrays.
He wrote against the anti-icon decrees of Germanus. Legend says that Germanus plotted against him, and forged a letter in which John betrayed the caliph; the caliph ordered John’s writing hand chopped off, but the Virgin Mary appeared and re-attached the hand, a miracle which restored the caliph’s faith in him.
After this incident, John became a monk near Jerusalem and was ordained a Priest. He was anathematized by name by the 754 Council of Constantinople over his defense of the use of icons, but was defended by the 787 Seventh Council of Nicea.
He wrote the foundation of wisdom, the first real compendium of Christian theology, along with other works defending the orthodox faith, commentaries on Saint Paul the Apostle, poetry, and hymns. He was a Philospher and Orator; such an excellent speaker he was known as Chrysorrhoas (“golden-stream”). He is considered as last of the Greek Fathers of the Church, and the first of the Christian Aristotleans. He adapted choral music for use in the liturgy. He died on 749 of natural causes.
“Show me the icons that you venerate, that I may be able to understand your faith.”
“Envy is pain over the good fortune.”
“The saints must be honored as friends of Christ and children and heirs of God, as John the theologian and evangelist says: “But as many as received him, he gave them the power to be made the sons of God.” Let us carefully observe the manner of life of all the apostles, martyrs, ascetics and just men who announced the coming of the Lord. And let us emulate their faith, charity, hope, zeal, life, patience under suffering, and perseverance unto death, so that we may also share their crowns of glory.”
“Even though your most holy and blessed soul was separated from your most happy and immaculate body, according to the usual course of nature, and even though it was carried to a proper burial place, nevertheless it did not remain under the dominion of death, nor was it destroyed by corruption. Indeed, just as her virginity remained intact when she gave birth, so her body, even after death, was preserved from decay and transferred to a better and more divine dwelling place. There it is no longer subject to death but abides for all ages.”
“The first kind is the worship of latreia, which we give to God, who alone is adorable by nature, and this worship is shown in several ways, and first by the worship of servants. All created things worship Him, as servants their master.”
“The second kind is the worship of admiration and desire which we give to God on account of His essential glory. He alone is worthy of praise, who receives it from no one, being Himself the cause of all glory and all good.”
“The third kind of worship is that of thanksgiving for the goods we have received. We must thank God for all created things, and show Him perpetual worship, as from Him and through Him all creation takes its being and subsists.”
“The fourth kind is suggested by the need and hope of benefits. Recognising that without Him we can neither do nor possess anything good, we worship Him, asking Him to satisfy our needs and desires, that we may be preserved from evil and arrive at good.”
“The fifth kind is the worship of contrition and confession. As sinners we worship God, and prostrate ourselves before Him, needing His forgiveness, as it becomes servants. This happens in three ways. A man may be sorry out of love, or lest he should lose God’s benefits, or for fear of chastisement. The first is prompted by goodness and desire for God himself, and the condition of a son: the second is interested, the third is slavish.”
Close
December 4
Saint John of Damascus
December 5
Daily Saints – 5 December.
Feast of Saint Sabbas of Mar Saba.
Saint Sabbas was born in the year 439 AD at Motalala, Cappadocia. His father, John, was a Roman soldier and his mother was a woman named Sophia. Both of them were devout Christians. According to tradition, Journeying to Alexandria on military matters, his wife went with him, but they left their five-year-old son in the care of an uncle.
When he was about eight years old, he encountered the monastery of Bishop Flavian. Afterwards he soon decided that he would become a monk, to the dismay of his parents. The gifted child quickly learned to read and became an expert on the Holy Scriptures. Sabbas resisted his parents’ pressure to return to the world and enter into marriage.
At age 18 he traveled to Jerusalem, seeking to learn more about living in solitude. Soon he asked to be accepted as a disciple of a well-known local solitary, Saint Euthymius the Great, though initially he was regarded as too young to live completely as a hermit. Initially, Sabas lived in a monastery, where he worked during the day and spent much of the night in prayer.
At the age of 30 he was given permission to spend five days each week in a nearby remote cave, engaging in prayer and manual labor in the form of weaving baskets. Following the death of his mentor, Saint Euthymius, Sabas moved farther into the desert near Jericho. There he lived for several years in a cave near the brook Cedron.
A rope was his means of access. Wild herbs among the rocks were his food. Occasionally men brought him other food and items, while he had to go a distance for his water. He was once tempted to eat an apple outside of the prescribed mealtime, whereupon he vowed never to eat apples again.
Some of these men came to him desiring to join him in his solitude. At first he refused. But not long after relenting, his followers swelled to more than 150, all of them living in individual huts grouped around a church, called a laura.
The bishop persuaded a reluctant Sabas, then in his early 50s, to prepare for the priesthood so that he could better serve his monastic community in leadership. While functioning as abbot among a large community of monks, he felt ever called to live the life of a hermit.
Sabbas was a simple man with little education, but with a firm belief in the spiritual benefits of simple living. The combination of his lack of education and his severe austerities caused some of his charges to rebel. Sabbas tired of the squabbling, and he missed his time in prayer, so he fled to TransJordania. There he found a cave inhabited by a lion; the lion moved on, finding a new home, and giving the cave to the holy man.
A distorted version of this tale reached the rebellious monks; they seized on it, reported to the patriarch that Sabbas had been killed by a lion, and requested a new leader be appointed. As this message was being formally presented to the patriarch, Sabbas walked into the room. This led to a confrontation during which the complaints of the monks were aired. However, the patriach took Sabbas’s side, and the two restored order and discipline to the lives of the anchorites.
Throughout each year—consistently in Lent—he left his monks for long periods of time, often to their distress. A group of 60 men left the monastery, settling at a nearby ruined facility. When Sabas learned of the difficulties they were facing, he generously gave them supplies and assisted in the repair of their church.
Over the years Sabas traveled throughout Palestine, preaching the true faith and successfully bringing back many to the Church. At the age of 91, in response to a plea from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sabas undertook a journey to Constantinople in conjunction with the Samaritan revolt and its violent repression.
Sabbas founded several more monasteries. It is claimed that many miracles took place through the prayers of Sabbas: at the lavra a spring of water welled up, during a time of drought they received abundant rain, and there were also healings of the sick and the possessed. He fell ill and soon after his return, died at the monastery at Mar Saba.
Feast of Saint Sabbas of Mar Saba.
Saint Sabbas was born in the year 439 AD at Motalala, Cappadocia. His father, John, was a Roman soldier and his mother was a woman named Sophia. Both of them were devout Christians. According to tradition, Journeying to Alexandria on military matters, his wife went with him, but they left their five-year-old son in the care of an uncle.
When he was about eight years old, he encountered the monastery of Bishop Flavian. Afterwards he soon decided that he would become a monk, to the dismay of his parents. The gifted child quickly learned to read and became an expert on the Holy Scriptures. Sabbas resisted his parents’ pressure to return to the world and enter into marriage.
At age 18 he traveled to Jerusalem, seeking to learn more about living in solitude. Soon he asked to be accepted as a disciple of a well-known local solitary, Saint Euthymius the Great, though initially he was regarded as too young to live completely as a hermit. Initially, Sabas lived in a monastery, where he worked during the day and spent much of the night in prayer.
At the age of 30 he was given permission to spend five days each week in a nearby remote cave, engaging in prayer and manual labor in the form of weaving baskets. Following the death of his mentor, Saint Euthymius, Sabas moved farther into the desert near Jericho. There he lived for several years in a cave near the brook Cedron.
A rope was his means of access. Wild herbs among the rocks were his food. Occasionally men brought him other food and items, while he had to go a distance for his water. He was once tempted to eat an apple outside of the prescribed mealtime, whereupon he vowed never to eat apples again.
Some of these men came to him desiring to join him in his solitude. At first he refused. But not long after relenting, his followers swelled to more than 150, all of them living in individual huts grouped around a church, called a laura.
The bishop persuaded a reluctant Sabas, then in his early 50s, to prepare for the priesthood so that he could better serve his monastic community in leadership. While functioning as abbot among a large community of monks, he felt ever called to live the life of a hermit.
Sabbas was a simple man with little education, but with a firm belief in the spiritual benefits of simple living. The combination of his lack of education and his severe austerities caused some of his charges to rebel. Sabbas tired of the squabbling, and he missed his time in prayer, so he fled to TransJordania. There he found a cave inhabited by a lion; the lion moved on, finding a new home, and giving the cave to the holy man.
A distorted version of this tale reached the rebellious monks; they seized on it, reported to the patriarch that Sabbas had been killed by a lion, and requested a new leader be appointed. As this message was being formally presented to the patriarch, Sabbas walked into the room. This led to a confrontation during which the complaints of the monks were aired. However, the patriach took Sabbas’s side, and the two restored order and discipline to the lives of the anchorites.
Throughout each year—consistently in Lent—he left his monks for long periods of time, often to their distress. A group of 60 men left the monastery, settling at a nearby ruined facility. When Sabas learned of the difficulties they were facing, he generously gave them supplies and assisted in the repair of their church.
Over the years Sabas traveled throughout Palestine, preaching the true faith and successfully bringing back many to the Church. At the age of 91, in response to a plea from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sabas undertook a journey to Constantinople in conjunction with the Samaritan revolt and its violent repression.
Sabbas founded several more monasteries. It is claimed that many miracles took place through the prayers of Sabbas: at the lavra a spring of water welled up, during a time of drought they received abundant rain, and there were also healings of the sick and the possessed. He fell ill and soon after his return, died at the monastery at Mar Saba.
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December 5
Saint Sabbas of Mar Saba
December 6
Daily Saints – 6 December.
Feast of Saint Nicholas of Myra.
He is the patron saint of altar servers, archers, boys, brides, captives, children, choir boys, happy marriages, lawsuits lost unjustly, lovers, maidens, penitent murderers, newlyweds, paupers, pilgrims, poor people, prisoners, scholars, schoolchildren, students, penitent thieves, spinsters, travellers, unmarried girls, apothecaries, bakers, bankers, barrel makers, boatmen, boot blacks, brewers, butchers, button makers, candle makers, chair makers, cloth shearers, coopers, dock workers, druggists, educators, farm workers, farmers, firefighters, fish mongers, fishermen, grain merchants, grocers, grooms, hoteliers, innkeepers, judges, lace merchants, lawyers, linen merchants, longshoremen, mariners, merchants, millers, notaries, parish clerks, pawnbrokers, perfumeries, perfumers, pharmacists, poets, ribbon weavers, sailors, ship owners, shoe shiners, soldiers, spice merchants, spinners, stone masons, tape weavers, teachers, toy makers, vintners, watermen, weavers.
He is invoked against against fire, against imprisonment, against robberies, against robbers, against storms at sea, against sterility, against thefts.
Nicholas was born in Lycia in Asia Minor around the late third or fourth century as an only child to Christian parents. He was exceedingly well brought up by his parents and trod piously in their footsteps. The child enlightened his mind and encouraged his thirst for sincere and true religion.
Both of his parents tragically died during an epidemic when he was a young man, leaving him well off, but to be raised by his uncle – the Bishop of Patara. Obeying Jesus’ words to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. Nicholas was determined to devote his inheritance to works of charity, and his uncle mentored him as a reader and later ordained him as a presbyter (priest).
As a young man he is said to have made a pilgrimage to Palestine and Egypt in order to study in the school of the Desert Fathers. On returning some years later he was almost immediately ordained Bishop of Myra, which is now Demre, on the coast of modern day Turkey. Nicholas used to have nourishment only once on Wednesdays and Fridays, and that in the evening according to the canons. Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships.
Under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who ruthlessly persecuted Christians, Bishop Nicholas suffered for his faith, was exiled and imprisoned. The prisons were so full of bishops, priests, and deacons, there was no room for the real criminals—murderers, thieves and robbers. He was released when Constantine the Great came to power and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
After his release, Nicholas attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. He died on December 6 in or around 345 at Myra, Lycia (in modern Turkey) of natural causes.
There are many stories about the generosity of Saint Nicholas. A man of Patara had lost his fortune, and finding himself unable to support his three maiden daughters, was planning to turn them into the streets as prostitutes. Nicholas heard of the man’s intentions and secretly threw three bags of gold through a window into the home, thus providing dowries for the daughters. The three bags of gold mentioned in this story are said to be the origin of the three gold balls that form the emblem of pawnbrokers.
The gold is said to have landed in the family’s shoes, which were drying near the fire. This is why children leave their shoes out by the door, or hang their stockings by the fireplace in the hopes of receiving a gift on the eve of his feast.
St. Nicholas is associated with Christmas because of the tradition that he had the custom of giving secret gifts to children. It is also conjectured that the saint, who was known to wear red robes and have a long white beard, was culturally converted into the large man with a reindeer-drawn sled full of toys because in German, his name is “San Nikolaus” which almost sounds like “Santa Claus.”
Three theological students were traveling on their way to study in Athens. A wicked innkeeper robbed and murdered them, hiding their remains in a large pickling tub. It so happened that Bishop Nicholas, traveling along the same route, stopped at this very inn. In the night he dreamed of the crime, got up, and summoned the innkeeper. As Nicholas prayed earnestly to God the three boys were restored to life and wholeness. These stories led to his patronage of children in general, and of barrel-makers besides.
He induced some thieves to return their plunder. This explains his protection against theft and robbery, and his patronage of them – he’s not helping them steal, but to repent and change. In the past, thieves have been known as Saint Nicholas’ clerks or Knights of Saint Nicholas.
When he was young, Nicholas sought the holy by making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There as he walked where Jesus walked, he sought to more deeply experience Jesus’ life, passion, and resurrection. Returning by sea, a mighty storm threatened to wreck the ship. Nicholas calmly prayed. The terrified sailors were amazed when the wind and waves suddenly calmed, sparing them all. And so St. Nicholas is the patron of sailors and voyagers and those like dockworkers who work on the sea.
St. Nicholas’ presence was found in a separate occasion involving three imperial officers simply on their way to duty in Phrygia. When the men were back again in Constantinople, the jealousy of the prefect Ablavius caused them to be imprisoned on false charges and an order for their death was procured from the Emperor Constantine. When the officers heard this they remembered the example they had witnessed of the powerful love of justice of the Bishop of Myra and they prayed to God that through his merits and by his instrumentality they might yet be saved.
That night St. Nicholas appeared in a dream to Constatine, and told him with threats to release the three innocent men, and Ablavius experienced the same thing. In the morning the Emporor and the prefect compared notes, and the condemned men were sent for and questioned. When he heard they had called on the name of the Nicholas of Myra who appeared to him, Constatine set them free and sent them to the bishop with a letter asking him not to threaten him any more, but to pray for the peace of the world. For a long time, this has been the most famous miracle of St. Nicholas.
One of the stories showing St. Nicholas as a protector of children takes place long after his death. The townspeople of Myra were celebrating the good saint on the eve of his feast day when a band of Arab pirates from Crete came into the district. They stole treasures from the Church of Saint Nicholas to take away as booty. As they were leaving town, they snatched a young boy, Basilios, to make into a slave. The emir, or ruler, selected Basilios to be his personal cupbearer, as not knowing the language, Basilios would not understand what the king said to those around him. So, for the next year Basilios waited on the king, bringing his wine in a beautiful golden cup. For Basilios’ parents, devastated at the loss of their only child, the year passed slowly, filled with grief. As the next St. Nicholas’ feast day approached, Basilios’ mother would not join in the festivity, as it was now a day of tragedy. However, she was persuaded to have a simple observance at home—with quiet prayers for Basilios’ safekeeping. Meanwhile, as Basilios was fulfilling his tasks serving the emir, he was suddenly whisked up and away. St. Nicholas appeared to the terrified boy, blessed him, and set him down at his home back in Myra. Imagine the joy and wonderment when Basilios amazingly appeared before his parents, still holding the king’s golden cup.
Feast of Saint Nicholas of Myra.
He is the patron saint of altar servers, archers, boys, brides, captives, children, choir boys, happy marriages, lawsuits lost unjustly, lovers, maidens, penitent murderers, newlyweds, paupers, pilgrims, poor people, prisoners, scholars, schoolchildren, students, penitent thieves, spinsters, travellers, unmarried girls, apothecaries, bakers, bankers, barrel makers, boatmen, boot blacks, brewers, butchers, button makers, candle makers, chair makers, cloth shearers, coopers, dock workers, druggists, educators, farm workers, farmers, firefighters, fish mongers, fishermen, grain merchants, grocers, grooms, hoteliers, innkeepers, judges, lace merchants, lawyers, linen merchants, longshoremen, mariners, merchants, millers, notaries, parish clerks, pawnbrokers, perfumeries, perfumers, pharmacists, poets, ribbon weavers, sailors, ship owners, shoe shiners, soldiers, spice merchants, spinners, stone masons, tape weavers, teachers, toy makers, vintners, watermen, weavers.
He is invoked against against fire, against imprisonment, against robberies, against robbers, against storms at sea, against sterility, against thefts.
Nicholas was born in Lycia in Asia Minor around the late third or fourth century as an only child to Christian parents. He was exceedingly well brought up by his parents and trod piously in their footsteps. The child enlightened his mind and encouraged his thirst for sincere and true religion.
Both of his parents tragically died during an epidemic when he was a young man, leaving him well off, but to be raised by his uncle – the Bishop of Patara. Obeying Jesus’ words to “sell what you own and give the money to the poor,” Nicholas used his whole inheritance to assist the needy, the sick, and the suffering. Nicholas was determined to devote his inheritance to works of charity, and his uncle mentored him as a reader and later ordained him as a presbyter (priest).
As a young man he is said to have made a pilgrimage to Palestine and Egypt in order to study in the school of the Desert Fathers. On returning some years later he was almost immediately ordained Bishop of Myra, which is now Demre, on the coast of modern day Turkey. Nicholas used to have nourishment only once on Wednesdays and Fridays, and that in the evening according to the canons. Bishop Nicholas became known throughout the land for his generosity to those in need, his love for children, and his concern for sailors and ships.
Under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who ruthlessly persecuted Christians, Bishop Nicholas suffered for his faith, was exiled and imprisoned. The prisons were so full of bishops, priests, and deacons, there was no room for the real criminals—murderers, thieves and robbers. He was released when Constantine the Great came to power and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.
After his release, Nicholas attended the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. He died on December 6 in or around 345 at Myra, Lycia (in modern Turkey) of natural causes.
There are many stories about the generosity of Saint Nicholas. A man of Patara had lost his fortune, and finding himself unable to support his three maiden daughters, was planning to turn them into the streets as prostitutes. Nicholas heard of the man’s intentions and secretly threw three bags of gold through a window into the home, thus providing dowries for the daughters. The three bags of gold mentioned in this story are said to be the origin of the three gold balls that form the emblem of pawnbrokers.
The gold is said to have landed in the family’s shoes, which were drying near the fire. This is why children leave their shoes out by the door, or hang their stockings by the fireplace in the hopes of receiving a gift on the eve of his feast.
St. Nicholas is associated with Christmas because of the tradition that he had the custom of giving secret gifts to children. It is also conjectured that the saint, who was known to wear red robes and have a long white beard, was culturally converted into the large man with a reindeer-drawn sled full of toys because in German, his name is “San Nikolaus” which almost sounds like “Santa Claus.”
Three theological students were traveling on their way to study in Athens. A wicked innkeeper robbed and murdered them, hiding their remains in a large pickling tub. It so happened that Bishop Nicholas, traveling along the same route, stopped at this very inn. In the night he dreamed of the crime, got up, and summoned the innkeeper. As Nicholas prayed earnestly to God the three boys were restored to life and wholeness. These stories led to his patronage of children in general, and of barrel-makers besides.
He induced some thieves to return their plunder. This explains his protection against theft and robbery, and his patronage of them – he’s not helping them steal, but to repent and change. In the past, thieves have been known as Saint Nicholas’ clerks or Knights of Saint Nicholas.
When he was young, Nicholas sought the holy by making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There as he walked where Jesus walked, he sought to more deeply experience Jesus’ life, passion, and resurrection. Returning by sea, a mighty storm threatened to wreck the ship. Nicholas calmly prayed. The terrified sailors were amazed when the wind and waves suddenly calmed, sparing them all. And so St. Nicholas is the patron of sailors and voyagers and those like dockworkers who work on the sea.
St. Nicholas’ presence was found in a separate occasion involving three imperial officers simply on their way to duty in Phrygia. When the men were back again in Constantinople, the jealousy of the prefect Ablavius caused them to be imprisoned on false charges and an order for their death was procured from the Emperor Constantine. When the officers heard this they remembered the example they had witnessed of the powerful love of justice of the Bishop of Myra and they prayed to God that through his merits and by his instrumentality they might yet be saved.
That night St. Nicholas appeared in a dream to Constatine, and told him with threats to release the three innocent men, and Ablavius experienced the same thing. In the morning the Emporor and the prefect compared notes, and the condemned men were sent for and questioned. When he heard they had called on the name of the Nicholas of Myra who appeared to him, Constatine set them free and sent them to the bishop with a letter asking him not to threaten him any more, but to pray for the peace of the world. For a long time, this has been the most famous miracle of St. Nicholas.
One of the stories showing St. Nicholas as a protector of children takes place long after his death. The townspeople of Myra were celebrating the good saint on the eve of his feast day when a band of Arab pirates from Crete came into the district. They stole treasures from the Church of Saint Nicholas to take away as booty. As they were leaving town, they snatched a young boy, Basilios, to make into a slave. The emir, or ruler, selected Basilios to be his personal cupbearer, as not knowing the language, Basilios would not understand what the king said to those around him. So, for the next year Basilios waited on the king, bringing his wine in a beautiful golden cup. For Basilios’ parents, devastated at the loss of their only child, the year passed slowly, filled with grief. As the next St. Nicholas’ feast day approached, Basilios’ mother would not join in the festivity, as it was now a day of tragedy. However, she was persuaded to have a simple observance at home—with quiet prayers for Basilios’ safekeeping. Meanwhile, as Basilios was fulfilling his tasks serving the emir, he was suddenly whisked up and away. St. Nicholas appeared to the terrified boy, blessed him, and set him down at his home back in Myra. Imagine the joy and wonderment when Basilios amazingly appeared before his parents, still holding the king’s golden cup.
Close
December 6
Saint Nicholas of Myra
December 7
Daily Saints – 7 December.
Feast of Saint Ambrose of Milan.
He is the patron saint of bee keepers, bees, bishops, candle makers, chandlers, domestic animals, geese, honey cake bakers, learning, livestock, police officers, schoolchildren, security personnel, starlings, students, wax refiners.
Ambrose was born around 340 in Trier, southern Gaul (modern Germany). He was the second son of Ambrosius, the imperial viceroy of Gaul and part of an ancient Roman family who numbered among their ancestors several Christian martyrs. He was the brother of Saint Marcellina and Saint Satyrus. There is a legend that as an infant, a swarm of bees settled on his face while he lay in his cradle, leaving behind a drop of honey. His father considered this a sign of his future eloquence and honeyed tongue.
Though Ambrose was born at Trier, his father died not long after, and thus he was brought to Rome to be raised. Throughout his childhood, the future saint would be acquainted with many members of the clergy and would regularly visit with his sister Marcellina, who was a nun.
After the early death of his father, Ambrose went to Rome, where he studied literature, law, and rhetoric. He then followed in his father’s footsteps and entered public service. Praetorian Prefect Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus first gave him a place in the council and then in about 372 made him governor of Liguria and Emilia, with headquarters at Milan.
When the bishop of Milan died, a dispute over his replacement led to violence. Ambrose intervened to calm both sides; he impressed everyone involved so much that though he was still an unbaptized catechumen, he was chosen as the new bishop. He resisted, claiming that he was not worthy, but to prevent further violence, he assented, and on 7 December 374 he was baptized, ordained as a priest, and consecrated as bishop. He immediately gave away his wealth to the Church and the poor, both for the good it did, and as an example to his flock.
He was a noted preacher and teacher, a Bible student of renown, and writer of liturgical hymns. He stood firm against paganism and Arians. He consoled St. Monika and prayed for her son Augustin. His preaching helped convert St. Augustine of Hippo, whom Ambrose baptized and brought into the Church. He called and chaired several theological councils during his time as bishop, many devoted to fighting heresy. He welcomed Saint Ursus and Saint Alban of Mainz when they fled Naxos to escape Arian persecution, and then sent them on to evangelize in Gaul and Germany.
In many of those sermons, Ambrose expounded upon the virtues of asceticism. He was so persuasive that noble families sometimes forbade their daughters to attend his sermons, fearing they’d trade their marriageable status for a life of austere virginity. One piece of his pastoral advice is still universally known: “When you are at Rome, live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere.”
Ambrose also introduced congregational singing, and he was accused of “bewitching” Milan by introducing Eastern melodies into the hymns he wrote. Because of his influence, hymn singing became an important part of the Western liturgy. St. Ambrose was generous to the poor. He considered them not a group of outsiders, but rather those of the united people. To him, giving to the poor was just a repayment of God’s resources, which were intended for everyone equally.
Ambrose also spoke out against anyone who did not follow the Gospels. Once the emperor put 7,000 people to death because one person killed a Roman governor. Ambrose made the emperor do public penance for his sin. But the emperor continued to hold the bishop in high regard and died in his arms. Two years later, St. Ambrose fell gravely ill and died on Holy Saturday, 4 April 397 at Milan, Italy of natural causes.
“It is not enough just to wish well; we must also do well.”
“No one heals himself by wounding another.”
“As in paradise, God walks in the Holy Scriptures, seeking man.”
“Our own evil inclinations are far more dangerous than any external enemies.”
“If you do not give the tenth part to God, he will take the nine parts.”
“Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God.”
“But if these beings angels guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers.”
“The devil tempts that he may ruin; God tests that he may crown.”
“He who read much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others. So Scripture says: “If the clouds are full, they will pour rain upon the earth.”
“When we find ourselves in some grave danger we must not lose courage but firmly trust in God, for where there is the greatest danger, there is also the greatest help from Him who wants to be called our ‘Help’ in times of peace and in times of tribulation.”
“When we speak of wisdom, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking about Christ. When we are speaking about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking about Christ.”
“A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to his parents, to give honor to his elders, to preserve his purity; he ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years.”
“He who reads much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others.”
“It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound.”
“Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show.”
“When in Rome, live as the Romans do; when elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere.”
“One of the duties of fortitude is to keep the weak from receiving injury; another, to check the wrong motions of our own souls; a third, both to disregard humiliations, and to do what is right with an even mind. All these clearly ought to be fulfilled by all Christians, and especially by the clergy.”
“Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy; mercy as shown chiefly towards the poor, that thou mayest treat them as sharers in common with thee in the produce of nature, which brings forth the fruits of the earth for use to all.”
“God, who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner, did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide.”
“If you have two shirts in your closet, one belongs to you and the other to the man with no shirt.”
“Therefore, let your words be rivers, clean and limpid, so that you may charm the ears of people. And by the grace of your words win them over to follow your leadership. Solomon says: “The weapons of the understanding are the lips of the wise”; and in another place he says: “Let your lips be bound with wisdom.” That is, let the meaning of your words shine forth, let understanding blaze out. Let no word escape your lips in vain or be uttered without depth of meaning.”
“God created the universe in such a manner that all in common might derive their food from it, and that the Earth should also be a property common to all.”
“Death was not part of nature; it became part of nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he prescribed it as a remedy. Human life was condemned because of sin to unremitting labour and unbearable sorrow and so began to experience the burden of wretchedness. There had to be a limit to its evils; death had to restore what life had forfeited. Without the assistance of grace, immortality is more of a burden than a blessing.”
“Woman, the child of so many tears shall never perish.”
“God is not accustomed to refusing a good gift to those who ask for one. Since he is good, and especially to those who are faithful to him, let us hold fast to him with all our soul, our heart, our strength, and so enjoy his light and see his glory and possess the grace of supernatural joy.”
“The Church of the Lord is built upon the rock of the apostles among so many dangers in the world; it therefore remains unmoved. The Church’s foundation is unshakable and firm against assaults of the raging sea. Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it. Although the elements of this world constantly beat upon the Church with crashing sounds, the Church possesses the safest harbor of salvation for all in distress.”
“There is a stream which flows down on God’s saints like a torrent. There is also a rushing river giving joy to the heart that is at peace and makes for peace.”
“To avoid dissensions, we should be ever on our guard, more especially with those who drive us to argue with them, with those who vex and irritate us, and who say things likely to excite us to anger. When we find ourselves in company with quarrelsome, eccentric individuals, people who openly and unblushingly say the most shocking things, difficult to put up with, we should take refuge in silence, and the wisest plan is not to reply to people whose behavior is so preposterous. Those who insult us and treat us contumeliously are anxious for a spiteful and sarcastic reply: the silence we then affect disheartens them, and they cannot avoid showing their vexation; they do all they can to provoke us and to elicit a reply, but the best way to baffle them is to say nothing, refuse to argue with them, and to leave them to chew the cud of their hasty anger. This method of bringing down their pride disarms them, and shows them plainly that we slight and despise them.”
Feast of Saint Ambrose of Milan.
He is the patron saint of bee keepers, bees, bishops, candle makers, chandlers, domestic animals, geese, honey cake bakers, learning, livestock, police officers, schoolchildren, security personnel, starlings, students, wax refiners.
Ambrose was born around 340 in Trier, southern Gaul (modern Germany). He was the second son of Ambrosius, the imperial viceroy of Gaul and part of an ancient Roman family who numbered among their ancestors several Christian martyrs. He was the brother of Saint Marcellina and Saint Satyrus. There is a legend that as an infant, a swarm of bees settled on his face while he lay in his cradle, leaving behind a drop of honey. His father considered this a sign of his future eloquence and honeyed tongue.
Though Ambrose was born at Trier, his father died not long after, and thus he was brought to Rome to be raised. Throughout his childhood, the future saint would be acquainted with many members of the clergy and would regularly visit with his sister Marcellina, who was a nun.
After the early death of his father, Ambrose went to Rome, where he studied literature, law, and rhetoric. He then followed in his father’s footsteps and entered public service. Praetorian Prefect Sextus Claudius Petronius Probus first gave him a place in the council and then in about 372 made him governor of Liguria and Emilia, with headquarters at Milan.
When the bishop of Milan died, a dispute over his replacement led to violence. Ambrose intervened to calm both sides; he impressed everyone involved so much that though he was still an unbaptized catechumen, he was chosen as the new bishop. He resisted, claiming that he was not worthy, but to prevent further violence, he assented, and on 7 December 374 he was baptized, ordained as a priest, and consecrated as bishop. He immediately gave away his wealth to the Church and the poor, both for the good it did, and as an example to his flock.
He was a noted preacher and teacher, a Bible student of renown, and writer of liturgical hymns. He stood firm against paganism and Arians. He consoled St. Monika and prayed for her son Augustin. His preaching helped convert St. Augustine of Hippo, whom Ambrose baptized and brought into the Church. He called and chaired several theological councils during his time as bishop, many devoted to fighting heresy. He welcomed Saint Ursus and Saint Alban of Mainz when they fled Naxos to escape Arian persecution, and then sent them on to evangelize in Gaul and Germany.
In many of those sermons, Ambrose expounded upon the virtues of asceticism. He was so persuasive that noble families sometimes forbade their daughters to attend his sermons, fearing they’d trade their marriageable status for a life of austere virginity. One piece of his pastoral advice is still universally known: “When you are at Rome, live in the Roman style; when you are elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere.”
Ambrose also introduced congregational singing, and he was accused of “bewitching” Milan by introducing Eastern melodies into the hymns he wrote. Because of his influence, hymn singing became an important part of the Western liturgy. St. Ambrose was generous to the poor. He considered them not a group of outsiders, but rather those of the united people. To him, giving to the poor was just a repayment of God’s resources, which were intended for everyone equally.
Ambrose also spoke out against anyone who did not follow the Gospels. Once the emperor put 7,000 people to death because one person killed a Roman governor. Ambrose made the emperor do public penance for his sin. But the emperor continued to hold the bishop in high regard and died in his arms. Two years later, St. Ambrose fell gravely ill and died on Holy Saturday, 4 April 397 at Milan, Italy of natural causes.
“It is not enough just to wish well; we must also do well.”
“No one heals himself by wounding another.”
“As in paradise, God walks in the Holy Scriptures, seeking man.”
“Our own evil inclinations are far more dangerous than any external enemies.”
“If you do not give the tenth part to God, he will take the nine parts.”
“Prayer is the wing wherewith the soul flies to heaven, and meditation the eye wherewith we see God.”
“But if these beings angels guard you, they do so because they have been summoned by your prayers.”
“The devil tempts that he may ruin; God tests that he may crown.”
“He who read much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others. So Scripture says: “If the clouds are full, they will pour rain upon the earth.”
“When we find ourselves in some grave danger we must not lose courage but firmly trust in God, for where there is the greatest danger, there is also the greatest help from Him who wants to be called our ‘Help’ in times of peace and in times of tribulation.”
“When we speak of wisdom, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about virtue, we are speaking about Christ. When we speak about justice, we are speaking about Christ. When we are speaking about truth and life and redemption, we are speaking about Christ.”
“A good youth ought to have a fear of God, to be subject to his parents, to give honor to his elders, to preserve his purity; he ought not to despise humility, but should love forbearance and modesty. All these are an ornament to youthful years.”
“He who reads much and understands much, receives his fill. He who is full, refreshes others.”
“It is not from your own goods that you give to the beggar; it is a portion of his own that you are restoring to him. The Earth belongs to all. So you are paying back a debt and think you are making a gift to which you are not bound.”
“Let us take refuge from this world. You can do this in spirit, even if you are kept here in the body. You can at the same time be here and present to the Lord. Your soul must hold fast to him, you must follow after him in your thoughts, you must tread his ways by faith, not in outward show.”
“When in Rome, live as the Romans do; when elsewhere, live as they live elsewhere.”
“One of the duties of fortitude is to keep the weak from receiving injury; another, to check the wrong motions of our own souls; a third, both to disregard humiliations, and to do what is right with an even mind. All these clearly ought to be fulfilled by all Christians, and especially by the clergy.”
“Nothing graces the Christian soul so much as mercy; mercy as shown chiefly towards the poor, that thou mayest treat them as sharers in common with thee in the produce of nature, which brings forth the fruits of the earth for use to all.”
“God, who preferred the correction rather than the death of a sinner, did not desire that a homicide be punished by the exaction of another act of homicide.”
“If you have two shirts in your closet, one belongs to you and the other to the man with no shirt.”
“Therefore, let your words be rivers, clean and limpid, so that you may charm the ears of people. And by the grace of your words win them over to follow your leadership. Solomon says: “The weapons of the understanding are the lips of the wise”; and in another place he says: “Let your lips be bound with wisdom.” That is, let the meaning of your words shine forth, let understanding blaze out. Let no word escape your lips in vain or be uttered without depth of meaning.”
“God created the universe in such a manner that all in common might derive their food from it, and that the Earth should also be a property common to all.”
“Death was not part of nature; it became part of nature. God did not decree death from the beginning; he prescribed it as a remedy. Human life was condemned because of sin to unremitting labour and unbearable sorrow and so began to experience the burden of wretchedness. There had to be a limit to its evils; death had to restore what life had forfeited. Without the assistance of grace, immortality is more of a burden than a blessing.”
“Woman, the child of so many tears shall never perish.”
“God is not accustomed to refusing a good gift to those who ask for one. Since he is good, and especially to those who are faithful to him, let us hold fast to him with all our soul, our heart, our strength, and so enjoy his light and see his glory and possess the grace of supernatural joy.”
“The Church of the Lord is built upon the rock of the apostles among so many dangers in the world; it therefore remains unmoved. The Church’s foundation is unshakable and firm against assaults of the raging sea. Waves lash at the Church but do not shatter it. Although the elements of this world constantly beat upon the Church with crashing sounds, the Church possesses the safest harbor of salvation for all in distress.”
“There is a stream which flows down on God’s saints like a torrent. There is also a rushing river giving joy to the heart that is at peace and makes for peace.”
“To avoid dissensions, we should be ever on our guard, more especially with those who drive us to argue with them, with those who vex and irritate us, and who say things likely to excite us to anger. When we find ourselves in company with quarrelsome, eccentric individuals, people who openly and unblushingly say the most shocking things, difficult to put up with, we should take refuge in silence, and the wisest plan is not to reply to people whose behavior is so preposterous. Those who insult us and treat us contumeliously are anxious for a spiteful and sarcastic reply: the silence we then affect disheartens them, and they cannot avoid showing their vexation; they do all they can to provoke us and to elicit a reply, but the best way to baffle them is to say nothing, refuse to argue with them, and to leave them to chew the cud of their hasty anger. This method of bringing down their pride disarms them, and shows them plainly that we slight and despise them.”
Close
December 7
Saint Ambrose of Milan
December 8
Daily Saints – 8 December.
Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
A feast called the Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century. It came to the West in the eighth century. In the 11th century it received its present name, the Immaculate Conception. In the 18th century it became a feast of the universal Church. It is now recognized as a solemnity.
Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full of grace” through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed on December 8, 1854: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
It is in accord with the texts of Scripture (Genesis 3), “I will put enmities between thee [the serpent] and the woman, and thy seed and her seed”; (Luke 1), “Hail, full of grace.” The sons of the Church learn from the words of the Archangel Gabriel that the fullness of the mystery of God’s grace was realized in Holy Mary. St Paul the Apostle teaches us that the Father made all fullness dwell in His Incarnate Son (c.f. Col 1:12-20), which overflows from Christ’s head and spills out on His Mystical Body that is the Church. Before descending in Body, Christ’s fullness was spread in a unique and unrepeatable way on Mary, predestined from eternity to be the Mother of God.
It is established by tradition, by the writings of the Fathers, by feasts observed in honour of this prerogative, by the general belief of the faithful. Furthermore, four years later the same Virgin Mary, appearing in Lourdes to St. Bernadette, confirmed the truth of the doctrine by presenting herself with the title ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’.
The Encyclical Mystici Corporis from Pope Pius XII (1943) in addition holds that Mary was also sinless personally, “free from all sin, original or personal”.
Mary’s birth without original sin, leads us to ponder in the deepest depths the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity’s salvific plan. God, One and Triune, had foreseen from the very beginning the future incarnation of the Word culminating in the redemption of human nature that had fallen into sin. He therefore predestined pure Mary, so that He could draw from her uncontaminated humanity, which the Son could adopt in order to re-establish in Himself the original purity of creation and reorientate it to eternal glory.
It took a long time for this doctrine to develop. While many Fathers and Doctors of the Church considered Mary the greatest and holiest of the saints, they often had difficulty in seeing Mary as sinless—either at her conception or throughout her life. This is one of the Church teachings that arose more from the piety of the faithful than from the insights of brilliant theologians. Even such champions of Mary as Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas could not see theological justification for this teaching.
Two Franciscans, William of Ware and Blessed John Duns Scotus, helped develop the theology. They pointed out that Mary’s Immaculate Conception enhances Jesus’ redemptive work. Other members of the human race are cleansed from original sin after birth. In Mary, Jesus’ work was so powerful as to prevent original sin at the outset.
John Duns Scotus argued that Mary’s immaculate conception did not remove her from redemption by Christ; rather it was the result of a more perfect redemption granted her because of her special role in salvation history.
The logic of piety helped God’s people to believe that Mary was full of grace and free of sin from the first moment of her existence. Moreover, this great privilege of Mary is the highlight of all that God has done in Jesus. Rightly understood, the incomparable holiness of Mary shows forth the incomparable goodness of God.
Every person is called to recognize and respond to God’s call, to their own vocation, in order to carry out God’s plan for their life and fulfill the mission prepared for them since before the beginning of time. Mary’s “Let it be done to me according to Thy Word,” in response of the Angel Gabriel’s greeting is the response required of all Christians to God’s Plan.
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is a time to celebrate the great joy of God’s gift to humanity in Mary, and to recognize with greater clarity, the truth that each and every human being has been created by God to fulfill a particular mission that he and only he can fulfill.
“The background for today’s solemnity is the biblical icon of the Annunciation, when the angel’s mysterious greeting resounded: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). “Full of grace”! Here is Mary, as God conceived of her and desired her in his inscrutable plan: a creature filled with divine love, all goodness, all beauty, all holiness.” – Pope John Paul II
“The Immaculate Virgin however invites us not to fix our eyes on her but to pass beyond, and as much as possible, to enter into the mystery in which she was conceived: the mystery of God who is One and Three, full of grace and fidelity. As the moon shines with the light of the sun, so the immaculate splendour of Mary is totally relative to that of the Redeemer. The Mother leads us to her Son; passing through her, we reach Christ. For this reason, Dante Allighieri notes fittingly: “that her radiance alone can dispose you to see Christ”. – Pope John Paul II
“Today the Church is celebrating the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If Christ is the day that never fades, Mary is its dawn, shining with beauty. Chosen in advance to be the Mother of the incarnate Word, Mary is at the same time the first-fruits of his redeeming action. The grace of Christ the Redeemer acted in her in anticipation, preserving her from original sin and from any contagion of guilt.” – Pope John Paul II
“We are also given the “fullness of grace” which we must make shine in our life, for, as St Paul writes: the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, … has blessed us … with every spiritual blessing … even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless …. to be his sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:3-5). We receive this sonship through the Church on the day of Baptism.” – Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, 8 December 2011.
“Today we look at the beauty of Our Lady, who was born and lived without sin, always docile and transparent with God. This does not mean that life was easy for her. Living with God does not magically solve problems.” – Pope Francis
“The feast of the Immaculate Conception expresses the grandeur of God’s love. Not only does he forgive sin, but in Mary he even averts the original sin present in every man and woman who comes into this world. This is the love of God which precedes, anticipates and saves.” Pope Francis, December 8, 2015
St. Anslem of Aosta wrote: ‘Assuredly, it was fitting that the Virgin be beautified with a purity than which a greater cannot be conceived, except for God’s. For, toward her, God the Father was so disposed to give His only Son who was naturally one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Virgin.’ (De conceptu virginali et originali peccato, XVIII).
Saint Irenaeus compares the virginity of the pure earth from which Adam was drawn to the virginity of the immaculate humanity of Mary from which the Second Adam was drawn. ‘And as the protoplast himself, Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil (for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground (Genesis 2:5)) so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin’ (Adversus hereses III, 21:10).
Mary is full of grace. She is not only Christ’s disciple, who with the help of grace has overcome the chains of sin, but she is totius Trinitatis nobile triclinium, the noble resting place of the Holy Trinity (St Thomas Aquinas, Exposito Salutationis Angelicae, I).
“This Virgin Mother of the Only begotten of God, is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one.” – Origen
“Thou alone and Thy Mother
are in all things fair;
there is no flaw in Thee
and no stain in Thy Mother.” – St. Ephrem
“Mary, a Virgin,
not only UNDEFILED
but a Virgin whom grace
has made INVIOLATE,
FREE from EVERY STAIN of SIN.” – St. Ambrose
Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
A feast called the Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century. It came to the West in the eighth century. In the 11th century it received its present name, the Immaculate Conception. In the 18th century it became a feast of the universal Church. It is now recognized as a solemnity.
Through the centuries the Church has become ever more aware that Mary, “full of grace” through God, was redeemed from the moment of her conception. That is what the dogma of the Immaculate Conception confesses, as Pope Pius IX proclaimed on December 8, 1854: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary was, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God and by virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, preserved immune from all stain of original sin.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church)
It is in accord with the texts of Scripture (Genesis 3), “I will put enmities between thee [the serpent] and the woman, and thy seed and her seed”; (Luke 1), “Hail, full of grace.” The sons of the Church learn from the words of the Archangel Gabriel that the fullness of the mystery of God’s grace was realized in Holy Mary. St Paul the Apostle teaches us that the Father made all fullness dwell in His Incarnate Son (c.f. Col 1:12-20), which overflows from Christ’s head and spills out on His Mystical Body that is the Church. Before descending in Body, Christ’s fullness was spread in a unique and unrepeatable way on Mary, predestined from eternity to be the Mother of God.
It is established by tradition, by the writings of the Fathers, by feasts observed in honour of this prerogative, by the general belief of the faithful. Furthermore, four years later the same Virgin Mary, appearing in Lourdes to St. Bernadette, confirmed the truth of the doctrine by presenting herself with the title ‘I am the Immaculate Conception’.
The Encyclical Mystici Corporis from Pope Pius XII (1943) in addition holds that Mary was also sinless personally, “free from all sin, original or personal”.
Mary’s birth without original sin, leads us to ponder in the deepest depths the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity’s salvific plan. God, One and Triune, had foreseen from the very beginning the future incarnation of the Word culminating in the redemption of human nature that had fallen into sin. He therefore predestined pure Mary, so that He could draw from her uncontaminated humanity, which the Son could adopt in order to re-establish in Himself the original purity of creation and reorientate it to eternal glory.
It took a long time for this doctrine to develop. While many Fathers and Doctors of the Church considered Mary the greatest and holiest of the saints, they often had difficulty in seeing Mary as sinless—either at her conception or throughout her life. This is one of the Church teachings that arose more from the piety of the faithful than from the insights of brilliant theologians. Even such champions of Mary as Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas could not see theological justification for this teaching.
Two Franciscans, William of Ware and Blessed John Duns Scotus, helped develop the theology. They pointed out that Mary’s Immaculate Conception enhances Jesus’ redemptive work. Other members of the human race are cleansed from original sin after birth. In Mary, Jesus’ work was so powerful as to prevent original sin at the outset.
John Duns Scotus argued that Mary’s immaculate conception did not remove her from redemption by Christ; rather it was the result of a more perfect redemption granted her because of her special role in salvation history.
The logic of piety helped God’s people to believe that Mary was full of grace and free of sin from the first moment of her existence. Moreover, this great privilege of Mary is the highlight of all that God has done in Jesus. Rightly understood, the incomparable holiness of Mary shows forth the incomparable goodness of God.
Every person is called to recognize and respond to God’s call, to their own vocation, in order to carry out God’s plan for their life and fulfill the mission prepared for them since before the beginning of time. Mary’s “Let it be done to me according to Thy Word,” in response of the Angel Gabriel’s greeting is the response required of all Christians to God’s Plan.
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is a time to celebrate the great joy of God’s gift to humanity in Mary, and to recognize with greater clarity, the truth that each and every human being has been created by God to fulfill a particular mission that he and only he can fulfill.
“The background for today’s solemnity is the biblical icon of the Annunciation, when the angel’s mysterious greeting resounded: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” (Lk 1:28). “Full of grace”! Here is Mary, as God conceived of her and desired her in his inscrutable plan: a creature filled with divine love, all goodness, all beauty, all holiness.” – Pope John Paul II
“The Immaculate Virgin however invites us not to fix our eyes on her but to pass beyond, and as much as possible, to enter into the mystery in which she was conceived: the mystery of God who is One and Three, full of grace and fidelity. As the moon shines with the light of the sun, so the immaculate splendour of Mary is totally relative to that of the Redeemer. The Mother leads us to her Son; passing through her, we reach Christ. For this reason, Dante Allighieri notes fittingly: “that her radiance alone can dispose you to see Christ”. – Pope John Paul II
“Today the Church is celebrating the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. If Christ is the day that never fades, Mary is its dawn, shining with beauty. Chosen in advance to be the Mother of the incarnate Word, Mary is at the same time the first-fruits of his redeeming action. The grace of Christ the Redeemer acted in her in anticipation, preserving her from original sin and from any contagion of guilt.” – Pope John Paul II
“We are also given the “fullness of grace” which we must make shine in our life, for, as St Paul writes: the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, … has blessed us … with every spiritual blessing … even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless …. to be his sons through Jesus Christ” (Eph 1:3-5). We receive this sonship through the Church on the day of Baptism.” – Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus, 8 December 2011.
“Today we look at the beauty of Our Lady, who was born and lived without sin, always docile and transparent with God. This does not mean that life was easy for her. Living with God does not magically solve problems.” – Pope Francis
“The feast of the Immaculate Conception expresses the grandeur of God’s love. Not only does he forgive sin, but in Mary he even averts the original sin present in every man and woman who comes into this world. This is the love of God which precedes, anticipates and saves.” Pope Francis, December 8, 2015
St. Anslem of Aosta wrote: ‘Assuredly, it was fitting that the Virgin be beautified with a purity than which a greater cannot be conceived, except for God’s. For, toward her, God the Father was so disposed to give His only Son who was naturally one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Virgin.’ (De conceptu virginali et originali peccato, XVIII).
Saint Irenaeus compares the virginity of the pure earth from which Adam was drawn to the virginity of the immaculate humanity of Mary from which the Second Adam was drawn. ‘And as the protoplast himself, Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil (for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground (Genesis 2:5)) so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin’ (Adversus hereses III, 21:10).
Mary is full of grace. She is not only Christ’s disciple, who with the help of grace has overcome the chains of sin, but she is totius Trinitatis nobile triclinium, the noble resting place of the Holy Trinity (St Thomas Aquinas, Exposito Salutationis Angelicae, I).
“This Virgin Mother of the Only begotten of God, is called Mary, worthy of God, immaculate of the immaculate, one of the one.” – Origen
“Thou alone and Thy Mother
are in all things fair;
there is no flaw in Thee
and no stain in Thy Mother.” – St. Ephrem
“Mary, a Virgin,
not only UNDEFILED
but a Virgin whom grace
has made INVIOLATE,
FREE from EVERY STAIN of SIN.” – St. Ambrose
Close
December 8
The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
December 9
Daily Saints – 9 December.
Feast of Saint Juan Diego.
He is the patron saint of Indigenous people.
Saint Juan Diego was born in 1474 as Cuauhtlatoatzin, a native to Mexico. He became the first Roman Catholic indigenous saint from the Americas.
Following the early death of his father, Juan Diego was taken to live with his uncle. From the age of three, he was raised in line with the Aztec pagan religion, but always showed signs of having a mystical sense of life.
From the age of three, he was taught, as were all young Aztecs, to join in domestic tasks and to behave in a dignified manner. At school, he learned singing, dancing, and especially the worship of many gods.
After his military service, Cuauhtlatoazin married a young woman of his social status. Together they led a modest life as farmers.
When a group of 12 Franciscan missionaries arrived in Mexico in 1524. Cuauhtlatoazin and his wife were among the first to receive Baptism, under the respective names of Juan Diego and Maria Lucia. Juan Diego was very committed to his new life and would walk long distances to receive religious instruction at the Franciscan mission station at Tlatelolco.
After his wife’s death in 1529, Juan Diego withdrew to Tolpetlac, 14 km from Mexico City, to the home of his uncle, Juan Bernardino, who had become a Christian as well.
On December 9, 1531, as was his custom every Saturday, he left very early in the morning to attend the Mass celebrated in honor of the Blessed Virgin, at the Franciscan fathers’ church, close to Mexico City. He walked past Tepeyac Hill. Suddenly, he heard a gentle and resounding song that seemed to come from a great multitude of birds. Raising his eyes to the top of the hill, he saw a white and radiant cloud. He looked around him and wondered if he was dreaming. All of a sudden, the song stopped and a woman’s voice, gentle and graceful, called him: “Juanito, Juan Dieguito!” He quickly climbed the hill and found himself in the presence of a very beautiful young woman whose garments shone like the sun.
Speaking to him in Nahuatl, his native language, she said to him, “Juanito, my son, where are you going?”—”Noble Lady, my Queen, I am going to the Mass in Mexico City to hear the divine things that the priest teaches us there.”—”I want you to know for certain, my dear son, that I am the perfect and always Virgin MARY, Mother of the True God from Whom all life comes, the Lord of all things, Creator of Heaven and Earth. I greatly desire that a church be built in my honor, in which I will show my love, compassion, and protection. I am your Mother full of mercy and love for you and all those who love Me, trust in Me, and have recourse to Me. I will hear their complaints and I will comfort their affliction and their sufferings. So that I might show all My love, go now to the bishop in Mexico City and tell him that I am sending you to make known to him the great desire I have to see a church dedicated to me built here.”
Juan Diego went straight to the bishop. Bishop Zumárraga, a Franciscan, the first bishop of Mexico, was a pious man and full of zeal, who had a heart overflowing with kindness towards the Indians. He heard the poor man attentively, but fearing an illusion, did not put much faith in his story.
Towards evening, Juan Diego started on his way home. At the top of Tepeyac Hill, he had the pleasant surprise of meeting the Apparition again. He told her about his mission, then added, “I beg you to entrust your message to someone more known and respected so that he will believe it. I am only a simple Indian whom you have sent as a messenger to an important person. Therefore, he didn’t believe me, and I do not want to greatly disappoint you.”—”My dearest son, “replied the Lady, “you must understand that there are many more noble men to whom I could have entrusted my message and yet, it is because of you that my plan will succeed. Return to the bishop tomorrow… Tell him that it is I myself, the Blessed Virgin MARY, Mother of God, who am sending you.”
On Sunday morning after the Mass, Juan Diego went to the bishop’s house. The prelate asked him many questions, then asked for a tangible sign of the truth of the apparition. When Juan Diego went home, the bishop had him discreetly followed by two servants. At Tepeyac Bridge, Juan Diego disappeared from their sight, and despite all their searches on the hill and in the surrounding area, they could not find him again. Furious, they declared to the bishop that Juan Diego was an impostor who must absolutely not be believed.
Juan Diego went straight to Tepeyac and told the beautiful Lady, who was waiting for him on the hill, about his most recent meeting with the bishop. “Come back tomorrow morning to seek the sign he is asking for,” replied the Apparition.
Returning home, he found his uncle ill, and the next day, he had to stay at his bedside to take care of him. As the illness got worse, the uncle asked his nephew to go look for a priest.
At dawn on Tuesday, December 12, Juan Diego started on the road to the city. Approaching Tepeyac Hill, he thought it best to make a detour so as not to meet the Lady. But suddenly, he perceived her coming to meet him. Embarrassed, he explained his situation and promised to come back when he had found a priest to administer last rites to his uncle.
“My dear little one,” replied the Apparition, “do not be distressed about your uncle’s illness, because he will not die from it. I assure you that he will get well… Go to the top of the hill, pick the flowers that you will see there, and bring them to me.”
When he had arrived at the top of the hill, the Indian was stunned to find a great number of flowers in bloom, Castillian roses that gave off a very sweet fragrance. Indeed, in the winter, the cold allows nothing to survive, and besides, the place was too dry for flowers to grow there.
Juan Diego gathered the roses, enfolded them in his cloak, or tilma, then went back down the hill. “My dear son,” said the Lady, “these flowers are the sign that you are to give the bishop… This will get him to build the church that I have asked of him.”
Juan Diego ran to the bishop. When he arrived, the servants made him wait for hours. Amazed at his patience, and intrigued by what he was carrying in his tilma, they finally informed the bishop, who, although with several people, had him shown in immediately. Juan Diego related his adventure, unfolded his tilma, and let the flowers, which were still shining with dew, scatter to the floor.
With tears in his eyes, Bishop Zumárraga fell to his knees, admiring the roses from his country. All of a sudden, he perceived, on the tilma, the portrait of Our Lady. MARY’s image was there, as though printed on the cloak, very beautiful and full of gentleness. The bishop’s doubts gave way to a sure faith and a hope filled with wonder. He took the tilma and the roses, and placed them respectfully in his private oratory.
The next day he went with Juan Diego to the hill where the apparitions had taken place. After having examined the sites, he let the seer return to his uncle’s house. Juan Bernardino had been completely cured. His cure had taken place at the very hour when Our Lady appeared to his nephew. He told him, “I have also seen her. She even came here and talked to me. She wants a church to be built on Tepeyac Hill and wants her portrait to be called ‘Saint MARY of Guadalupe.’ But she didn’t explain to me why.” The name “Guadalupe” is well known by the Spanish, because in their country there is a very old sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The news of the miracle spread quickly. In a short time, Juan Diego became well-known. “I will spread your fame,” MARY had told him, but the Indian remained as humble as ever. To make it easier to meditate on the Image, Bishop Zumárraga had the tilma transported to his cathedral. Then work was begun on the construction of a small church and a hermitage for Juan Diego on the hill of apparitions.
The next December 25, the bishop consecrated his cathedral to the Most Blessed Virgin, to thank her for the remarkable favors with which she had blessed his diocese. Then, in a magnificent procession, the miraculous Image was carried to the sanctuary that had just been completed on Tepeyac Hill.
To express their joy, the Indians shot arrows. One of them, shot carelessly, went through the throat of a participant in the procession, who fell to the ground, fatally wounded. A great silence fell and intense supplication rose to the Mother of God. Suddenly the wounded man, who had been placed at the foot of the miraculous Image, collected himself and got up, full of vigor. The crowd’s enthusiasm was at its peak.
Juan Diego moved into his little hermitage, seeing to the maintenance and cleaning of the site. His life remained simple—he carefully farmed a field close to the sanctuary that had been placed at his disposal. He received pilgrims in ever larger numbers, and enjoyed talking about the Blessed Virgin and untiringly relating the details of the apparitions. He was entrusted with all kinds of prayer intentions. He listened, sympathized, and comforted.
A good amount of his free time was spent in contemplation before the image of his Lady. He made rapid progress in the ways of holiness. Day after day, he fulfilled his duty as a witness up until his death on December 9, 1548, seventeen years after the first apparition.
“Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything.” – Our Lady to Juan Diego, 9 December 1531
Feast of Saint Juan Diego.
He is the patron saint of Indigenous people.
Saint Juan Diego was born in 1474 as Cuauhtlatoatzin, a native to Mexico. He became the first Roman Catholic indigenous saint from the Americas.
Following the early death of his father, Juan Diego was taken to live with his uncle. From the age of three, he was raised in line with the Aztec pagan religion, but always showed signs of having a mystical sense of life.
From the age of three, he was taught, as were all young Aztecs, to join in domestic tasks and to behave in a dignified manner. At school, he learned singing, dancing, and especially the worship of many gods.
After his military service, Cuauhtlatoazin married a young woman of his social status. Together they led a modest life as farmers.
When a group of 12 Franciscan missionaries arrived in Mexico in 1524. Cuauhtlatoazin and his wife were among the first to receive Baptism, under the respective names of Juan Diego and Maria Lucia. Juan Diego was very committed to his new life and would walk long distances to receive religious instruction at the Franciscan mission station at Tlatelolco.
After his wife’s death in 1529, Juan Diego withdrew to Tolpetlac, 14 km from Mexico City, to the home of his uncle, Juan Bernardino, who had become a Christian as well.
On December 9, 1531, as was his custom every Saturday, he left very early in the morning to attend the Mass celebrated in honor of the Blessed Virgin, at the Franciscan fathers’ church, close to Mexico City. He walked past Tepeyac Hill. Suddenly, he heard a gentle and resounding song that seemed to come from a great multitude of birds. Raising his eyes to the top of the hill, he saw a white and radiant cloud. He looked around him and wondered if he was dreaming. All of a sudden, the song stopped and a woman’s voice, gentle and graceful, called him: “Juanito, Juan Dieguito!” He quickly climbed the hill and found himself in the presence of a very beautiful young woman whose garments shone like the sun.
Speaking to him in Nahuatl, his native language, she said to him, “Juanito, my son, where are you going?”—”Noble Lady, my Queen, I am going to the Mass in Mexico City to hear the divine things that the priest teaches us there.”—”I want you to know for certain, my dear son, that I am the perfect and always Virgin MARY, Mother of the True God from Whom all life comes, the Lord of all things, Creator of Heaven and Earth. I greatly desire that a church be built in my honor, in which I will show my love, compassion, and protection. I am your Mother full of mercy and love for you and all those who love Me, trust in Me, and have recourse to Me. I will hear their complaints and I will comfort their affliction and their sufferings. So that I might show all My love, go now to the bishop in Mexico City and tell him that I am sending you to make known to him the great desire I have to see a church dedicated to me built here.”
Juan Diego went straight to the bishop. Bishop Zumárraga, a Franciscan, the first bishop of Mexico, was a pious man and full of zeal, who had a heart overflowing with kindness towards the Indians. He heard the poor man attentively, but fearing an illusion, did not put much faith in his story.
Towards evening, Juan Diego started on his way home. At the top of Tepeyac Hill, he had the pleasant surprise of meeting the Apparition again. He told her about his mission, then added, “I beg you to entrust your message to someone more known and respected so that he will believe it. I am only a simple Indian whom you have sent as a messenger to an important person. Therefore, he didn’t believe me, and I do not want to greatly disappoint you.”—”My dearest son, “replied the Lady, “you must understand that there are many more noble men to whom I could have entrusted my message and yet, it is because of you that my plan will succeed. Return to the bishop tomorrow… Tell him that it is I myself, the Blessed Virgin MARY, Mother of God, who am sending you.”
On Sunday morning after the Mass, Juan Diego went to the bishop’s house. The prelate asked him many questions, then asked for a tangible sign of the truth of the apparition. When Juan Diego went home, the bishop had him discreetly followed by two servants. At Tepeyac Bridge, Juan Diego disappeared from their sight, and despite all their searches on the hill and in the surrounding area, they could not find him again. Furious, they declared to the bishop that Juan Diego was an impostor who must absolutely not be believed.
Juan Diego went straight to Tepeyac and told the beautiful Lady, who was waiting for him on the hill, about his most recent meeting with the bishop. “Come back tomorrow morning to seek the sign he is asking for,” replied the Apparition.
Returning home, he found his uncle ill, and the next day, he had to stay at his bedside to take care of him. As the illness got worse, the uncle asked his nephew to go look for a priest.
At dawn on Tuesday, December 12, Juan Diego started on the road to the city. Approaching Tepeyac Hill, he thought it best to make a detour so as not to meet the Lady. But suddenly, he perceived her coming to meet him. Embarrassed, he explained his situation and promised to come back when he had found a priest to administer last rites to his uncle.
“My dear little one,” replied the Apparition, “do not be distressed about your uncle’s illness, because he will not die from it. I assure you that he will get well… Go to the top of the hill, pick the flowers that you will see there, and bring them to me.”
When he had arrived at the top of the hill, the Indian was stunned to find a great number of flowers in bloom, Castillian roses that gave off a very sweet fragrance. Indeed, in the winter, the cold allows nothing to survive, and besides, the place was too dry for flowers to grow there.
Juan Diego gathered the roses, enfolded them in his cloak, or tilma, then went back down the hill. “My dear son,” said the Lady, “these flowers are the sign that you are to give the bishop… This will get him to build the church that I have asked of him.”
Juan Diego ran to the bishop. When he arrived, the servants made him wait for hours. Amazed at his patience, and intrigued by what he was carrying in his tilma, they finally informed the bishop, who, although with several people, had him shown in immediately. Juan Diego related his adventure, unfolded his tilma, and let the flowers, which were still shining with dew, scatter to the floor.
With tears in his eyes, Bishop Zumárraga fell to his knees, admiring the roses from his country. All of a sudden, he perceived, on the tilma, the portrait of Our Lady. MARY’s image was there, as though printed on the cloak, very beautiful and full of gentleness. The bishop’s doubts gave way to a sure faith and a hope filled with wonder. He took the tilma and the roses, and placed them respectfully in his private oratory.
The next day he went with Juan Diego to the hill where the apparitions had taken place. After having examined the sites, he let the seer return to his uncle’s house. Juan Bernardino had been completely cured. His cure had taken place at the very hour when Our Lady appeared to his nephew. He told him, “I have also seen her. She even came here and talked to me. She wants a church to be built on Tepeyac Hill and wants her portrait to be called ‘Saint MARY of Guadalupe.’ But she didn’t explain to me why.” The name “Guadalupe” is well known by the Spanish, because in their country there is a very old sanctuary dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.
The news of the miracle spread quickly. In a short time, Juan Diego became well-known. “I will spread your fame,” MARY had told him, but the Indian remained as humble as ever. To make it easier to meditate on the Image, Bishop Zumárraga had the tilma transported to his cathedral. Then work was begun on the construction of a small church and a hermitage for Juan Diego on the hill of apparitions.
The next December 25, the bishop consecrated his cathedral to the Most Blessed Virgin, to thank her for the remarkable favors with which she had blessed his diocese. Then, in a magnificent procession, the miraculous Image was carried to the sanctuary that had just been completed on Tepeyac Hill.
To express their joy, the Indians shot arrows. One of them, shot carelessly, went through the throat of a participant in the procession, who fell to the ground, fatally wounded. A great silence fell and intense supplication rose to the Mother of God. Suddenly the wounded man, who had been placed at the foot of the miraculous Image, collected himself and got up, full of vigor. The crowd’s enthusiasm was at its peak.
Juan Diego moved into his little hermitage, seeing to the maintenance and cleaning of the site. His life remained simple—he carefully farmed a field close to the sanctuary that had been placed at his disposal. He received pilgrims in ever larger numbers, and enjoyed talking about the Blessed Virgin and untiringly relating the details of the apparitions. He was entrusted with all kinds of prayer intentions. He listened, sympathized, and comforted.
A good amount of his free time was spent in contemplation before the image of his Lady. He made rapid progress in the ways of holiness. Day after day, he fulfilled his duty as a witness up until his death on December 9, 1548, seventeen years after the first apparition.
“Let not your heart be disturbed. Do not fear that sickness, nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I not here, who is your Mother? Are you not under my protection? Am I not your health? Are you not happily within my fold? What else do you wish? Do not grieve nor be disturbed by anything.” – Our Lady to Juan Diego, 9 December 1531
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December 9
Saint Juan Diego
December 10
Daily Saints – 10 December.
Feast of Saint Eulalia of Merida.
She is the patron saint of runaways, torture victims, widows.
St. Eulalia descended from one of the most prominent families in Spain. She was educated in the Christian religion and was taught the sentiments of perfect piety. From her infancy she distinguished herself by an admirable sweetness of temper, modesty and devotion.
She showed a great love of the holy state of virginity, and by her seriousness and her contempt of dress, ornaments diversions and worldly company, she gave early signs of her sincere desire to lead a heavenly life on earth. Her heart was raised above the world before she was thought capable of knowing it, so that its amusements, which usually fill the minds of youth, had no charms for her, and every day of her life she continued to grow in virtue.
She was just twelve years old when the bloody edicts of the Emporer Diocletian were issued, by which it was ordered that all persons, without exception of age, sex, or profession, should be compelled to offer sacrifice to the gods of the empire.
Eulalia, although young, took the publication of this order as a sign of battle, but her mother, observing her impatient ardor for martyrdom, carried her into the country. However, the young saint quickly found a means to make her escape by night, and after much fatigue, arrived at Merida before daybreak.
That same morning, as soon as the court convined, she presented herself before the cruel judge, whose name was Dacian, and reproached him with impiety in attempting to destroy souls by compelling them to renounce the only true God.
The governor then commanded her to be seized. First, employing caresses, Dacian presented to her the advantages which her birth, youth and fortune gave her in the world, and the grief which her disobedience would bring to her parents. Seeing that these temptations had no effect, he began to threaten her, placing the most cruel instruments of torture before her eyes, saying to her, “All this you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and frankincense with the tip of your finger.”
Provoked at these seducing flatteries, she threw down the idol, trampled upon the cake which was laid for the sacrifice and spat at the judge — an action only to be excused by her youth and inattention under the influence of a warm zeal, and fear of the snares which were laid before her.
Upon the judge’s order, two executioners began to tear her tender sides with iron hooks, so as to leave the very bones bare. While this was happening, she called the strokes the trophies of Christ. Next, lighted torches were applied to her breasts and sides: under which torment, instead of groans, nothing was heard from her mouth but thanksgivings. The fire at length catching her hair, surrounded her head and face, and the saint was stifled by the smoke and flame.
History says that a white dove seemed to come out of her mouth, and to wing its way upward when the holy martyr expired: at which prodigy the executioners were so much terrified that they fled and left the body. Snow fell to cover her; later when her ashes were dumped in a field, snow fell on them to create a burial pall.
Feast of Saint Eulalia of Merida.
She is the patron saint of runaways, torture victims, widows.
St. Eulalia descended from one of the most prominent families in Spain. She was educated in the Christian religion and was taught the sentiments of perfect piety. From her infancy she distinguished herself by an admirable sweetness of temper, modesty and devotion.
She showed a great love of the holy state of virginity, and by her seriousness and her contempt of dress, ornaments diversions and worldly company, she gave early signs of her sincere desire to lead a heavenly life on earth. Her heart was raised above the world before she was thought capable of knowing it, so that its amusements, which usually fill the minds of youth, had no charms for her, and every day of her life she continued to grow in virtue.
She was just twelve years old when the bloody edicts of the Emporer Diocletian were issued, by which it was ordered that all persons, without exception of age, sex, or profession, should be compelled to offer sacrifice to the gods of the empire.
Eulalia, although young, took the publication of this order as a sign of battle, but her mother, observing her impatient ardor for martyrdom, carried her into the country. However, the young saint quickly found a means to make her escape by night, and after much fatigue, arrived at Merida before daybreak.
That same morning, as soon as the court convined, she presented herself before the cruel judge, whose name was Dacian, and reproached him with impiety in attempting to destroy souls by compelling them to renounce the only true God.
The governor then commanded her to be seized. First, employing caresses, Dacian presented to her the advantages which her birth, youth and fortune gave her in the world, and the grief which her disobedience would bring to her parents. Seeing that these temptations had no effect, he began to threaten her, placing the most cruel instruments of torture before her eyes, saying to her, “All this you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and frankincense with the tip of your finger.”
Provoked at these seducing flatteries, she threw down the idol, trampled upon the cake which was laid for the sacrifice and spat at the judge — an action only to be excused by her youth and inattention under the influence of a warm zeal, and fear of the snares which were laid before her.
Upon the judge’s order, two executioners began to tear her tender sides with iron hooks, so as to leave the very bones bare. While this was happening, she called the strokes the trophies of Christ. Next, lighted torches were applied to her breasts and sides: under which torment, instead of groans, nothing was heard from her mouth but thanksgivings. The fire at length catching her hair, surrounded her head and face, and the saint was stifled by the smoke and flame.
History says that a white dove seemed to come out of her mouth, and to wing its way upward when the holy martyr expired: at which prodigy the executioners were so much terrified that they fled and left the body. Snow fell to cover her; later when her ashes were dumped in a field, snow fell on them to create a burial pall.
Close
December 10
Saint Eulalia of Merida
December 11
Daily Saints – 11 December.
Feast of Pope Saint Damasus I.
Patron saint of archeologists.
Saint Damasus was born in Rome at the beginning of the fourth century. His father, a widower, had received Holy Orders there and served as parish priest in the church of St. Laurence.
Damasus was archdeacon of the Roman Church in 355 when the Pope, Saint Liberius, was banished to Berda. Damases followed him into exile, but afterwards returned to Rome. On the death of Saint Liberius in 366, our Saint was chosen to succeed him, at the age of sixty-two.
A certain Ursinus, jealous of his election and desiring for himself that high office, had himself proclaimed pope by his followers, inciting a revolt against Damasus in Rome, in which 137 people died. The holy Pope did not choose to resort to armed defense, but the Emperor Valentinian, to defend him, drove the usurper from Rome for a time. Later he returned, and finding accomplices for his evil intentions, accused the holy Pontiff of adultery. Saint Damasus took only such action as was becoming to the common father of the faithful. He assembled a synod of forty-four bishops, in which he justified himself so well that the calumniators were excommunicated and banished.
Having freed the Church of this new schism, Saint Damasus turned his attention to the extirpation of Arianism in the West and of Apollinarianism in the East, and for this purpose convened several councils. He sent Saint Zenobius, later bishop of Florence, to Constantinople in 381 to console the faithful, cruelly persecuted by the Emperor Valens.
He commanded Saint Jerome to prepare a correct Latin version of the Bible, since known as the Vulgate, and he ordered the Psalms to be sung accordingly. He rebuilt and adorned the Church of Saint Laurence, still called Saint Laurence in Damaso. He caused all the springs of the Vatican to be drained, which were inundating the tombs of the holy persons buried there, and he decorated the sepulchers of a great number of martyrs in the cemeteries, adorning them with epitaphs in verse.
He presided over the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list of Sacred Scripture.
Throughout his papacy, St. Damasus spoke out against major heresies in the church and encouraged production of the Vulgate Bible with his support for St. Jerome. He helped reconcile the relations between the Church of Rome and the Church of Antioch, and encouraged the veneration of martyrs. Saint Damasus is praised by Theodoret as head of the famous doctors of divine grace of the Latin church. The General Council of Chalcedon calls him the “honor and glory of Rome.”
Having reigned for eighteen years and two months, he died on December 10, 384, when he was nearly eighty years old.
“He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; he who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: he, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust.”
“The arrangement of the names of Christ, however, is manifold:
LORD, because He is Spirit;
WORD, because He is God;
SON, because He is the only-begotten son of the Father;
MAN, because He was born of the Virgin;
PRIEST, because He offered Himself as a sacrifice;
SHEPHERD, because He is a guardian;
WORM, because He rose again;
MOUNTAIN, because He is strong;
WAY, because there is a straight path through Him to life;
LAMB, because He suffered;
CORNER-STONE, because instruction is His;
TEACHER, because He demonstrates how to live;
SUN, because He is the illuminator;
TRUTH, because He is from the Father;
LIFE, because He is the creator;
BREAD because He is flesh;
SAMARITAN, because He is the merciful protector;
CHRIST, because He is anointed;
JESUS, because He is a mediator;
VINE, because we are redeemed by His blood;
LION, because He is King;
ROCK, because He is firm;
FLOWER, because He is the chosen one;
PROPHET, because He has revealed what is to come.”
– from the Decree of Damasus (attributed to St. Pope Damasus I)
Feast of Pope Saint Damasus I.
Patron saint of archeologists.
Saint Damasus was born in Rome at the beginning of the fourth century. His father, a widower, had received Holy Orders there and served as parish priest in the church of St. Laurence.
Damasus was archdeacon of the Roman Church in 355 when the Pope, Saint Liberius, was banished to Berda. Damases followed him into exile, but afterwards returned to Rome. On the death of Saint Liberius in 366, our Saint was chosen to succeed him, at the age of sixty-two.
A certain Ursinus, jealous of his election and desiring for himself that high office, had himself proclaimed pope by his followers, inciting a revolt against Damasus in Rome, in which 137 people died. The holy Pope did not choose to resort to armed defense, but the Emperor Valentinian, to defend him, drove the usurper from Rome for a time. Later he returned, and finding accomplices for his evil intentions, accused the holy Pontiff of adultery. Saint Damasus took only such action as was becoming to the common father of the faithful. He assembled a synod of forty-four bishops, in which he justified himself so well that the calumniators were excommunicated and banished.
Having freed the Church of this new schism, Saint Damasus turned his attention to the extirpation of Arianism in the West and of Apollinarianism in the East, and for this purpose convened several councils. He sent Saint Zenobius, later bishop of Florence, to Constantinople in 381 to console the faithful, cruelly persecuted by the Emperor Valens.
He commanded Saint Jerome to prepare a correct Latin version of the Bible, since known as the Vulgate, and he ordered the Psalms to be sung accordingly. He rebuilt and adorned the Church of Saint Laurence, still called Saint Laurence in Damaso. He caused all the springs of the Vatican to be drained, which were inundating the tombs of the holy persons buried there, and he decorated the sepulchers of a great number of martyrs in the cemeteries, adorning them with epitaphs in verse.
He presided over the Council of Rome of 382 that determined the canon or official list of Sacred Scripture.
Throughout his papacy, St. Damasus spoke out against major heresies in the church and encouraged production of the Vulgate Bible with his support for St. Jerome. He helped reconcile the relations between the Church of Rome and the Church of Antioch, and encouraged the veneration of martyrs. Saint Damasus is praised by Theodoret as head of the famous doctors of divine grace of the Latin church. The General Council of Chalcedon calls him the “honor and glory of Rome.”
Having reigned for eighteen years and two months, he died on December 10, 384, when he was nearly eighty years old.
“He who walking on the sea could calm the bitter waves, who gives life to the dying seeds of the earth; he who was able to loose the mortal chains of death, and after three days darkness could bring again to the upper world the brother for his sister Martha: he, I believe, will make Damasus rise again from the dust.”
“The arrangement of the names of Christ, however, is manifold:
LORD, because He is Spirit;
WORD, because He is God;
SON, because He is the only-begotten son of the Father;
MAN, because He was born of the Virgin;
PRIEST, because He offered Himself as a sacrifice;
SHEPHERD, because He is a guardian;
WORM, because He rose again;
MOUNTAIN, because He is strong;
WAY, because there is a straight path through Him to life;
LAMB, because He suffered;
CORNER-STONE, because instruction is His;
TEACHER, because He demonstrates how to live;
SUN, because He is the illuminator;
TRUTH, because He is from the Father;
LIFE, because He is the creator;
BREAD because He is flesh;
SAMARITAN, because He is the merciful protector;
CHRIST, because He is anointed;
JESUS, because He is a mediator;
VINE, because we are redeemed by His blood;
LION, because He is King;
ROCK, because He is firm;
FLOWER, because He is the chosen one;
PROPHET, because He has revealed what is to come.”
– from the Decree of Damasus (attributed to St. Pope Damasus I)
Close
December 11
Pope Saint Damasus I
December 12
Daily Saints – 12 December.
Feast of Saint Spyridon of Cyprus.
He is the patron saint of potters, sailors and against flood.
Spyridon was born in Askeia, in Cyprus. He worked as a shepherd and was known for his great piety. He married and had one daughter, Irene. Upon the death of his wife, Spyridon entered a monastery, and their daughter, a convent. Became Bishop of Tremithus, Cyprus and spiritual teacher of Saint Tryphillius of Leucosia. He fought Arianism.
During the persecution of Galerus, his right eye was torn out, his left calf cut off, and he was sent to forced labor in the Spanish mines. The Edict of Milan eventually freed him, and allowed him to return to his see, and attended the Council of Nicaea and Council of Sardica.
Legend says that he once ordered a gold ingot to resume its true form; it immediately turned into a serpent.
Another time, while listening to a deacon read Scripture, he saw that the lector was using his speaking ability to draw attention to himself, not the word of God. He silenced the deacon who immediately developed a stammer, understood his error, and lost all desire for people to notice his diction.
He converted a prominent philosopher by using a chunk of pottery to explain the Christian concept of the trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit, unified but distinct). He explained that pottery is made of the three elements of earth, fire, and water, and yet is unified into a single object. During this mini-lesson, water flowed from the bottom of the shard as fire miraculously billowed from the top – hence his patronage of potters. He died peacefully on c.348 of natural causes.
Feast of Saint Spyridon of Cyprus.
He is the patron saint of potters, sailors and against flood.
Spyridon was born in Askeia, in Cyprus. He worked as a shepherd and was known for his great piety. He married and had one daughter, Irene. Upon the death of his wife, Spyridon entered a monastery, and their daughter, a convent. Became Bishop of Tremithus, Cyprus and spiritual teacher of Saint Tryphillius of Leucosia. He fought Arianism.
During the persecution of Galerus, his right eye was torn out, his left calf cut off, and he was sent to forced labor in the Spanish mines. The Edict of Milan eventually freed him, and allowed him to return to his see, and attended the Council of Nicaea and Council of Sardica.
Legend says that he once ordered a gold ingot to resume its true form; it immediately turned into a serpent.
Another time, while listening to a deacon read Scripture, he saw that the lector was using his speaking ability to draw attention to himself, not the word of God. He silenced the deacon who immediately developed a stammer, understood his error, and lost all desire for people to notice his diction.
He converted a prominent philosopher by using a chunk of pottery to explain the Christian concept of the trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit, unified but distinct). He explained that pottery is made of the three elements of earth, fire, and water, and yet is unified into a single object. During this mini-lesson, water flowed from the bottom of the shard as fire miraculously billowed from the top – hence his patronage of potters. He died peacefully on c.348 of natural causes.
Close
December 12
Saint Spyridon of Cyprus
December 13
Daily Saints – 13 December.
Feast of Saint Lucy (Lucia) of Syracuse.
She is the patron saint of blind people, martyrs, peasants, penitent prostitutes, poor people, sick children, authors, cutlers, eyes, farmers, glass blowers, glass makers, glaziers, gondoliers, laborers, lamp lighters, lawyers, maid servants, notaries, ophthalmologists, opticians, porters, printers, saddlers, sailors, salesmen, seamstresses, stained glass workers, tailors, upholsterers, weavers, writers.
She is specially invoked against blindness, against dysentery, against epidemic, against eye disease, against eye problems, against hemorraghes, against sore eyes, against sore throats, against throat infections, against fire, against poverty, against spiritual blindness.
Lucy was born in Syracuse, Sicily, in the year 283, as the daughter of noble and wealthy parents, and was raised a Christian. She vowed her life to Christ. Her Roman father died when she was young. Her mother, Eutychia, arranged a marriage for her. For three years she managed to keep the marriage on hold. She prayed to God for some way to persuade her mother that she didn’t have to marry the rich young man.
Lucy’s mother became ill, and they both went on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Agatha to pray for healing. It is said that after praying devoutly at the tomb, Agatha appeared to her in a dream and consoled her. When Lucy’s mother was miraculously healed, Lucy told her mother about how she had asked God for help so that she wouldn’t have to marry. Her mother agreed with Lucy’s desire to live for God, and Lucy became known as a patron of those with maladies like her mother’s. Lucy proceeded to distribute the full proceeds from the sale of her property among the poor.
Her rejected pagan bridegroom, Paschasius, denounced Lucy as a Christian to the governor of Sicily. The governor sentenced her to forced prostitution, but when guards went to fetch her, they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. The governor ordered her killed instead. After torture that included having her eyes torn out, she was surrounded by bundles of wood which were set afire; they went out.
She prophesied against her persecutors, and was executed by being stabbed to death with a dagger. She was stabbed in the throat c.304 at Syracuse, Sicily.
Legend says that she was miraculously still able to see without her eyes and her eyesight was restored before her death. This and the meaning of her name led to her connection with eyes, the blind, eye trouble, etc. Lucy’s Latin name Lucia shares a root (luc-) with the Latin word for light, lux.
“No one’s body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will and knows all things. If now, against my will, you cause me to be polluted, a twofold purity will be gloriously imputed to me. You cannot bend my will to your purpose; whatever you do to my body, that cannot happen to me.”
“Those whose hearts are pure are temples of the Holy Spirit.”
Feast of Saint Lucy (Lucia) of Syracuse.
She is the patron saint of blind people, martyrs, peasants, penitent prostitutes, poor people, sick children, authors, cutlers, eyes, farmers, glass blowers, glass makers, glaziers, gondoliers, laborers, lamp lighters, lawyers, maid servants, notaries, ophthalmologists, opticians, porters, printers, saddlers, sailors, salesmen, seamstresses, stained glass workers, tailors, upholsterers, weavers, writers.
She is specially invoked against blindness, against dysentery, against epidemic, against eye disease, against eye problems, against hemorraghes, against sore eyes, against sore throats, against throat infections, against fire, against poverty, against spiritual blindness.
Lucy was born in Syracuse, Sicily, in the year 283, as the daughter of noble and wealthy parents, and was raised a Christian. She vowed her life to Christ. Her Roman father died when she was young. Her mother, Eutychia, arranged a marriage for her. For three years she managed to keep the marriage on hold. She prayed to God for some way to persuade her mother that she didn’t have to marry the rich young man.
Lucy’s mother became ill, and they both went on a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Agatha to pray for healing. It is said that after praying devoutly at the tomb, Agatha appeared to her in a dream and consoled her. When Lucy’s mother was miraculously healed, Lucy told her mother about how she had asked God for help so that she wouldn’t have to marry. Her mother agreed with Lucy’s desire to live for God, and Lucy became known as a patron of those with maladies like her mother’s. Lucy proceeded to distribute the full proceeds from the sale of her property among the poor.
Her rejected pagan bridegroom, Paschasius, denounced Lucy as a Christian to the governor of Sicily. The governor sentenced her to forced prostitution, but when guards went to fetch her, they could not move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen. The governor ordered her killed instead. After torture that included having her eyes torn out, she was surrounded by bundles of wood which were set afire; they went out.
She prophesied against her persecutors, and was executed by being stabbed to death with a dagger. She was stabbed in the throat c.304 at Syracuse, Sicily.
Legend says that she was miraculously still able to see without her eyes and her eyesight was restored before her death. This and the meaning of her name led to her connection with eyes, the blind, eye trouble, etc. Lucy’s Latin name Lucia shares a root (luc-) with the Latin word for light, lux.
“No one’s body is polluted so as to endanger the soul if it has not pleased the mind. If you were to lift my hand to your idol and so make me offer against my will, I would still be guiltless in the sight of the true God, who judges according to the will and knows all things. If now, against my will, you cause me to be polluted, a twofold purity will be gloriously imputed to me. You cannot bend my will to your purpose; whatever you do to my body, that cannot happen to me.”
“Those whose hearts are pure are temples of the Holy Spirit.”
Close
December 13
Saint Lucy
December 14
Daily Saints – 14 December.
Feast of Saint John of the Cross.
He is the patron saint of contemplative life, contemplatives, mystical theology and mystics.
Saint John of the Cross was born Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, in Fontiveros, Avila, Spain in 1542. He was the youngest child of Gonzalo and Catalina. His father, Gonzalo, was an accountant to richer relatives who were silk merchants. However, when in 1529 he married John’s mother, Catalina, who was an orphan of a lower class, Gonzalo was rejected by his family and forced to work with his wife as a weaver.
His father died when he was three, and his older brother, Luis died two years after that, likely because of malnutrition. John’s mother eventually found work weaving which helped her to feed her family.
John found academic success from his early years, but failed in his effort to learn a trade as an apprentice. Instead he spent several years working in a hospital for the poor, and continuing his studies at a Jesuit college in the town of Medina del Campo.
After discerning a calling to monastic life, John entered the Carmlite Order in 1563. He had been practicing severe physical asceticism even before joining the Carmelites, and got permission to live according to their original rule of life – which stressed solitude, silence, poverty, work, and contemplative prayer. John received ordination as a priest in 1567 after studying in Salamanca, but considered transferring to the more austere Carthusian order rather than remaining with the Carmelites.
Before he could take such a step, however, he met the Carmelite nun later canonized as Saint Teresa of Avila. During the 1560s she began a movement to return the Carmelites to the strict observance of their original way of life. She convinced John not to leave the order, but to work for its reform.
Changing his religious name from “John of St. Matthias” to “John of the Cross,” the priest began this work in November of 1568, accompanied by two other men of the order with whom he shared a small and austere house. For a time, John was in charge of the new recruits to the “Discalced Carmelites” – the name adopted by the reformed group, since they wore sandals rather than ordinary shoes as sign of poverty. He also spent five years as the confessor at a monastery in Avila led by St. Teresa.
Their reforming movement grew quickly, but also met with severe opposition that jeopardized its future during the 1570s. Early in December of 1577, during a dispute over John’s assignment within the order, opponents of the strict observance seized and imprisoned him in a tiny cell. His ordeal lasted nine months and included regular public floggings along with other harsh punishments. Yet it was during this very period that he composed the poetry that would serve as the basis for his spiritual writings.
John managed to escape from prison in August of 1578, after which he resumed the work of founding and directing Discalced Carmelite communities. Over the course of a decade he set out his spiritual teachings in works such as “The Ascent of Mount Carmel,” “The Spiritual Canticle” and “The Living Flame of Love” as well as “The Dark Night of the Soul.” But intrigue within the order eventually cost him his leadership position, and his last years were marked by illness along with further mistreatment.
Suspicion, mistreatment, and humiliation had characterized much of his time in religious life, but these trials are understood as having brought him closer to God by breaking his dependence on the things of this world. Accordingly, his writings stress the need to love God above all things – being held back by nothing, and likewise holding nothing back.
Only near the end of his life had St. John’s monastic superior recognized his wisdom and holiness. Though his reputation had suffered unjustly for years, this situation reversed soon after his death. He died in the early hours of 14 December 1591 at Ubeda, Andalusia, Spain. He is sometimes called the “Mystical Doctor.”
“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”
“Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?”
“Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good.”
“If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.”
“The Lord measures our perfection neither by the multitude nor the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them.”
“Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.”
“Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.”
“Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.”
“When there is union of love, the image of the Beloved is so sketched in the will and drawn so vividly, that it is true to say that the Beloved lives in the lover and the lover in the Beloved. Love produces such likeness in this transformation of lovers that one can say each is the other and both are one. The reason is, that in the union and transformation of love, each gives possession of self to the other, and each leaves and exchanges self for the other. Thus each one lives in the other and is the other, and both are one in the transformation of love.”
“Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it.”
“The endurance of darkness is the preparation for great light.”
“The soul that is quick to turn to speaking and conversing is slow to turn to God.”
“It is best to learn to silence the faculties and to cause them to be still so that God may speak.”
“Be joyful and gladdened in your interior recollection with Him, for you have Him so close to you. Desire Him there, adore Him there. Do not go in pursuit of Him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and wearied thereby, and you shall not find Him, nor enjoy Him more securely, nor sooner, nor more intimately than by seeking Him within you.”
“Who teaches the soul if not God?”
“What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.”
“Faith “is like the feet wherewith the soul journeys to God, and love is the guide that directs it.”
“The road and ascent to God, then, necessarily demands a habitual effort to renounce and mortify the appetites; the sooner this mortification is achieved, the sooner the soul reaches the top. But until the appetites are eliminated, a person will not arrive, no matter how much virtue he practices. For he will fail to acquire perfect virtue, which lies in keeping the soul empty, naked, and purified of every appetite.”
“Even as vapours darken the air and allow not the bright sun to shine; or as a mirror that is clouded over cannot receive within itself a clear image; or as water defiled by mud reflects not the visage of one that looks therein; even so the soul that is clouded by the desires is darkened in the understanding and allows neither the sun of natural reason nor that of the supernatural Wisdom of God to shine upon it and illumine it clearly.”
“Contemplation is nothing else but a secret, peaceful, and loving infusion of God, which if admitted, will set the soul on fire with the Spirit of love.”
“The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly.”
“Desolation is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light.”
“Abide in peace, banish cares, take no account of all that happens, and you will serve God according to his good pleasure and rest in him.”
“He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again.”
“If you purify your soul of attachment to and desire for things, you will understand them spiritually. If you deny your appetite for them, you will enjoy their truth, understanding what is certain in them.”
“In tribulation immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.”
“Beloved, all that is harsh and difficult I want for myself, and all that is gentle and sweet for thee.”
“It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.”
“Before this Divine fire of love is introduced into the substance of the soul, and is united with it, by means of a purity and purgation that is perfect and complete, this flame is wounding the soul, and destroying and consuming in it the imperfections of its evil habits; and this is the operation of the Holy Spirit, wherein he prepares it for Divine union and the transformation of its substance in God through love.”
Feast of Saint John of the Cross.
He is the patron saint of contemplative life, contemplatives, mystical theology and mystics.
Saint John of the Cross was born Juan de Yepes y Alvarez, in Fontiveros, Avila, Spain in 1542. He was the youngest child of Gonzalo and Catalina. His father, Gonzalo, was an accountant to richer relatives who were silk merchants. However, when in 1529 he married John’s mother, Catalina, who was an orphan of a lower class, Gonzalo was rejected by his family and forced to work with his wife as a weaver.
His father died when he was three, and his older brother, Luis died two years after that, likely because of malnutrition. John’s mother eventually found work weaving which helped her to feed her family.
John found academic success from his early years, but failed in his effort to learn a trade as an apprentice. Instead he spent several years working in a hospital for the poor, and continuing his studies at a Jesuit college in the town of Medina del Campo.
After discerning a calling to monastic life, John entered the Carmlite Order in 1563. He had been practicing severe physical asceticism even before joining the Carmelites, and got permission to live according to their original rule of life – which stressed solitude, silence, poverty, work, and contemplative prayer. John received ordination as a priest in 1567 after studying in Salamanca, but considered transferring to the more austere Carthusian order rather than remaining with the Carmelites.
Before he could take such a step, however, he met the Carmelite nun later canonized as Saint Teresa of Avila. During the 1560s she began a movement to return the Carmelites to the strict observance of their original way of life. She convinced John not to leave the order, but to work for its reform.
Changing his religious name from “John of St. Matthias” to “John of the Cross,” the priest began this work in November of 1568, accompanied by two other men of the order with whom he shared a small and austere house. For a time, John was in charge of the new recruits to the “Discalced Carmelites” – the name adopted by the reformed group, since they wore sandals rather than ordinary shoes as sign of poverty. He also spent five years as the confessor at a monastery in Avila led by St. Teresa.
Their reforming movement grew quickly, but also met with severe opposition that jeopardized its future during the 1570s. Early in December of 1577, during a dispute over John’s assignment within the order, opponents of the strict observance seized and imprisoned him in a tiny cell. His ordeal lasted nine months and included regular public floggings along with other harsh punishments. Yet it was during this very period that he composed the poetry that would serve as the basis for his spiritual writings.
John managed to escape from prison in August of 1578, after which he resumed the work of founding and directing Discalced Carmelite communities. Over the course of a decade he set out his spiritual teachings in works such as “The Ascent of Mount Carmel,” “The Spiritual Canticle” and “The Living Flame of Love” as well as “The Dark Night of the Soul.” But intrigue within the order eventually cost him his leadership position, and his last years were marked by illness along with further mistreatment.
Suspicion, mistreatment, and humiliation had characterized much of his time in religious life, but these trials are understood as having brought him closer to God by breaking his dependence on the things of this world. Accordingly, his writings stress the need to love God above all things – being held back by nothing, and likewise holding nothing back.
Only near the end of his life had St. John’s monastic superior recognized his wisdom and holiness. Though his reputation had suffered unjustly for years, this situation reversed soon after his death. He died in the early hours of 14 December 1591 at Ubeda, Andalusia, Spain. He is sometimes called the “Mystical Doctor.”
“In the evening of life, we will be judged on love alone.”
“Deny your desires and you will find what your heart longs for. For how do you know if any desire of yours is according to God?”
“Whoever flees prayer flees all that is good.”
“If you do not learn to deny yourself, you can make no progress in perfection.”
“The Lord measures our perfection neither by the multitude nor the magnitude of our deeds, but by the manner in which we perform them.”
“Live in the world as if only God and your soul were in it; then your heart will never be made captive by any earthly thing.”
“Take God for your spouse and friend and walk with him continually, and you will not sin and will learn to love, and the things you must do will work out prosperously for you.”
“Love consists not in feeling great things but in having great detachment and in suffering for the Beloved.”
“When there is union of love, the image of the Beloved is so sketched in the will and drawn so vividly, that it is true to say that the Beloved lives in the lover and the lover in the Beloved. Love produces such likeness in this transformation of lovers that one can say each is the other and both are one. The reason is, that in the union and transformation of love, each gives possession of self to the other, and each leaves and exchanges self for the other. Thus each one lives in the other and is the other, and both are one in the transformation of love.”
“Strive to preserve your heart in peace; let no event of this world disturb it.”
“The endurance of darkness is the preparation for great light.”
“The soul that is quick to turn to speaking and conversing is slow to turn to God.”
“It is best to learn to silence the faculties and to cause them to be still so that God may speak.”
“Be joyful and gladdened in your interior recollection with Him, for you have Him so close to you. Desire Him there, adore Him there. Do not go in pursuit of Him outside yourself. You will only become distracted and wearied thereby, and you shall not find Him, nor enjoy Him more securely, nor sooner, nor more intimately than by seeking Him within you.”
“Who teaches the soul if not God?”
“What we need most in order to make progress is to be silent before this great God with our appetite and with our tongue, for the language he best hears is silent love.”
“Faith “is like the feet wherewith the soul journeys to God, and love is the guide that directs it.”
“The road and ascent to God, then, necessarily demands a habitual effort to renounce and mortify the appetites; the sooner this mortification is achieved, the sooner the soul reaches the top. But until the appetites are eliminated, a person will not arrive, no matter how much virtue he practices. For he will fail to acquire perfect virtue, which lies in keeping the soul empty, naked, and purified of every appetite.”
“Even as vapours darken the air and allow not the bright sun to shine; or as a mirror that is clouded over cannot receive within itself a clear image; or as water defiled by mud reflects not the visage of one that looks therein; even so the soul that is clouded by the desires is darkened in the understanding and allows neither the sun of natural reason nor that of the supernatural Wisdom of God to shine upon it and illumine it clearly.”
“Contemplation is nothing else but a secret, peaceful, and loving infusion of God, which if admitted, will set the soul on fire with the Spirit of love.”
“The soul that is attached to anything however much good there may be in it, will not arrive at the liberty of divine union. For whether it be a strong wire rope or a slender and delicate thread that holds the bird, it matters not, if it really holds it fast; for, until the cord be broken the bird cannot fly.”
“Desolation is a file, and the endurance of darkness is preparation for great light.”
“Abide in peace, banish cares, take no account of all that happens, and you will serve God according to his good pleasure and rest in him.”
“He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again.”
“If you purify your soul of attachment to and desire for things, you will understand them spiritually. If you deny your appetite for them, you will enjoy their truth, understanding what is certain in them.”
“In tribulation immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.”
“Beloved, all that is harsh and difficult I want for myself, and all that is gentle and sweet for thee.”
“It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.”
“Before this Divine fire of love is introduced into the substance of the soul, and is united with it, by means of a purity and purgation that is perfect and complete, this flame is wounding the soul, and destroying and consuming in it the imperfections of its evil habits; and this is the operation of the Holy Spirit, wherein he prepares it for Divine union and the transformation of its substance in God through love.”
Close
December 14
Saint John of the Cross
December 15
Daily Saints – 15 December.
Feast of Saint Mary di Rosa.
Mother Maria Crocifissa was born Paolina Francesca di Rosa, the sixth of nine children of Clement di Rosa and the Countess Camilla Albani. The di Rosas were a wealthy family of Brescia, Italy.
Losing her mother to a terminal illness at age eleven, her education was entrusted to the Visitation Sisters. At seventeen Paolina left school to assist in the running of her father’s estate and household. To these duties she soon added the care and spiritual welfare of the girls working at her father’s mills and other factories in the city.
She also founded a woman’s guild and arranged retreats and special missions. When the cholera epidemic devastated Brescia in 1836, she and a widow, Gabriela Bornati, served the victims in the hospital with such dedication that Paolina was next asked to undertake the supervision of a workhouse for penniless girls, which she did for two years.
She continued to engage in social work, always giving signs of ability and a perspicacious intelligence with a surprising grasp of theology. In 1840, with Gabriela Bornati, she started a congregation with the purpose of serving the ill and suffering in hospitals. Taking the name of Handmaids of Charity, they started with four members and soon grew to number twenty-two.
The name she took upon her profession of religious vows was a synthesis of her whole life: Maria Crocifissa. Her spiritual life was firmly grounded on the imitation of Christ’s suffering on the Cross. This was the foundation of her life, her teaching and her contemplation. Her love for Christ Crucified was reflected in her unstinting and total dedication to the suffering members of his Mystical Body.
As the community expanded, Clemente di Rosa provided a commodious house in Brescia, and their rule of life was provisionally approved by the bishop in 1843. Anticipating Florence Nightingale by several years, the Handmaids of Charity ministered to the wounded in the war which ravaged the region in 1848. After a meeting with Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1850, the constitutions of the Handmaids of Charity of Brescia were approved.
A second cholera epidemic hit northern Italy and pushed the growing order to its limit. After a flurry of foundations in Spalato, Dalmatia and Verona, Mother Maria collapsed, and was brought home to Brescia to die. She passed away peacefully on December 15, 1855 at the age of forty-two.
Feast of Saint Mary di Rosa.
Mother Maria Crocifissa was born Paolina Francesca di Rosa, the sixth of nine children of Clement di Rosa and the Countess Camilla Albani. The di Rosas were a wealthy family of Brescia, Italy.
Losing her mother to a terminal illness at age eleven, her education was entrusted to the Visitation Sisters. At seventeen Paolina left school to assist in the running of her father’s estate and household. To these duties she soon added the care and spiritual welfare of the girls working at her father’s mills and other factories in the city.
She also founded a woman’s guild and arranged retreats and special missions. When the cholera epidemic devastated Brescia in 1836, she and a widow, Gabriela Bornati, served the victims in the hospital with such dedication that Paolina was next asked to undertake the supervision of a workhouse for penniless girls, which she did for two years.
She continued to engage in social work, always giving signs of ability and a perspicacious intelligence with a surprising grasp of theology. In 1840, with Gabriela Bornati, she started a congregation with the purpose of serving the ill and suffering in hospitals. Taking the name of Handmaids of Charity, they started with four members and soon grew to number twenty-two.
The name she took upon her profession of religious vows was a synthesis of her whole life: Maria Crocifissa. Her spiritual life was firmly grounded on the imitation of Christ’s suffering on the Cross. This was the foundation of her life, her teaching and her contemplation. Her love for Christ Crucified was reflected in her unstinting and total dedication to the suffering members of his Mystical Body.
As the community expanded, Clemente di Rosa provided a commodious house in Brescia, and their rule of life was provisionally approved by the bishop in 1843. Anticipating Florence Nightingale by several years, the Handmaids of Charity ministered to the wounded in the war which ravaged the region in 1848. After a meeting with Blessed Pope Pius IX in 1850, the constitutions of the Handmaids of Charity of Brescia were approved.
A second cholera epidemic hit northern Italy and pushed the growing order to its limit. After a flurry of foundations in Spalato, Dalmatia and Verona, Mother Maria collapsed, and was brought home to Brescia to die. She passed away peacefully on December 15, 1855 at the age of forty-two.
Close
December 15
Saint Mary di Rosa
December 16
Daily Saints – 16 December.
Feast of Saint Adelaide of Burgundy.
She is the patron saint of abuse victims, brides, empresses, exiles, parenthood, parents of large families, people in exile, princesses, prisoners, second marriages, step-parents, victims of abuse, widows and against in-law problems.
Saint Adelaide of Burgundy was born around 931 at Burgundy, France. She was the daughter of King Rudolf II (Rupert II) of Upper Burgundy. Promised at age two in an arranged marriage as part of a treaty between Rudolf and Hugh of Provence. Married at age 16 to Lothair of Italy, who eventually became king of Italy.
Lothair was killed and she was widowed in 950 while still a teenager. Lothair was probably poisoned by his successor to the throne, Berengarius. As part of his attempt to solidify his grip on power, Berengarius ordered Adelaide to marry his son. She refused, and was imprisoned. She was freed soon after when the German king Otto the Great defeated Berengarius.
King Otto proposed marriage and she accepted it. On Christmas Day 951 she married Otto at Pavia. The marriage consolidated his authority in northern Italy, and in 962 they were crowned emperor and empress by Pope John XII in Rome. Adelaide reigned with him for 20 years.
King Otto died in 973. Her daughter-in-law, the Byzantine princess Theophano turned her son Otto II against her. Adelaide had to leave the court and live for a time with her brother in Burgundy. A reconciliation was effected, and in 983 just before he died Otto appointed her his viceroy in Italy.
When Otto II died in 983, he was succeeded by his infant son, Otto III. Theophano acted as regent, and since she still did not like Adelaide, used her power to exile her from the royal court. Theophano died in 991, and Adelaide returned once again to the court to act as regent for the child emperor.
She used her position and power to help the poor, to evangelize, especially among the Slaves, and to build and restore monasteries and churches. She was especially friendly with the monastery of Cluny, then the centre of a movement for reform and with its abbots St. Majolus and St. Odilo. The latter wrote a memoir of her, calling her ‘a marvel of beauty and goodness’.
When Otto III was old enough, Adelaide retired to the convent of Selta near Cologne, a house she had built. Though she never became a nun, she spent the rest of her days there in prayer until her death in 999.
Feast of Saint Adelaide of Burgundy.
She is the patron saint of abuse victims, brides, empresses, exiles, parenthood, parents of large families, people in exile, princesses, prisoners, second marriages, step-parents, victims of abuse, widows and against in-law problems.
Saint Adelaide of Burgundy was born around 931 at Burgundy, France. She was the daughter of King Rudolf II (Rupert II) of Upper Burgundy. Promised at age two in an arranged marriage as part of a treaty between Rudolf and Hugh of Provence. Married at age 16 to Lothair of Italy, who eventually became king of Italy.
Lothair was killed and she was widowed in 950 while still a teenager. Lothair was probably poisoned by his successor to the throne, Berengarius. As part of his attempt to solidify his grip on power, Berengarius ordered Adelaide to marry his son. She refused, and was imprisoned. She was freed soon after when the German king Otto the Great defeated Berengarius.
King Otto proposed marriage and she accepted it. On Christmas Day 951 she married Otto at Pavia. The marriage consolidated his authority in northern Italy, and in 962 they were crowned emperor and empress by Pope John XII in Rome. Adelaide reigned with him for 20 years.
King Otto died in 973. Her daughter-in-law, the Byzantine princess Theophano turned her son Otto II against her. Adelaide had to leave the court and live for a time with her brother in Burgundy. A reconciliation was effected, and in 983 just before he died Otto appointed her his viceroy in Italy.
When Otto II died in 983, he was succeeded by his infant son, Otto III. Theophano acted as regent, and since she still did not like Adelaide, used her power to exile her from the royal court. Theophano died in 991, and Adelaide returned once again to the court to act as regent for the child emperor.
She used her position and power to help the poor, to evangelize, especially among the Slaves, and to build and restore monasteries and churches. She was especially friendly with the monastery of Cluny, then the centre of a movement for reform and with its abbots St. Majolus and St. Odilo. The latter wrote a memoir of her, calling her ‘a marvel of beauty and goodness’.
When Otto III was old enough, Adelaide retired to the convent of Selta near Cologne, a house she had built. Though she never became a nun, she spent the rest of her days there in prayer until her death in 999.
Close
December 16
Saint Adelaide of Burgundy
December 17
Daily Saints – 17 December.
Feast of Saint John of Matha.
John de Matha was born on June 23, 1160 in Faucon-de-Barcelonette, France. His parents were wealthy and sent him away to school so that he could receive the best education. But his chief attention was to advance in virtue. He used the money his parents sent him to help the poor. He spent his free time performing other works of charity and paid visits to the local hospital to tend the sick.
When John graduated, he moved to a hermitage so he could spent his days in quiet prayer, but his friends visited him so often that he saw this as a sign from God that he was called to serve others as a priest. He entered the seminary and was ordained when he was 32 years old.
On January 28, 1193, as tradition tells us, John celebrated his first Mass. During that Mass, he was struck with a vision of Christ holding by the hand two chained captives, one a Moor, the other a Christian (the Crusades were in full force at the time). The Christian captive carried a staff with a red and blue cross. Three other bystanders at the church that day had the same vision. After the Mass, John decided to devote himself to the task of ransoming Christian captives from the Moors – a work which impressed him as one of the greatest acts of charity since it benefited their souls and their bodies.
According to tradition, he sought out the hermit St. Felix of Valois at Cefroid, France, to spend time in prayer before taking on such an important task. One day while walking with Felix, John had another vision – a white stag appeared at a stream with a red and blue cross between its antlers. John told Felix of his plans and impressed Felix so much that Felix joined John in his mission. John founded the motherhouse at Cerfroid in the region of Picardy and adopted a Rule of Life specifically designed for the Order.
John set out for Rome, where on December 17, 1198, Pope Innocent III consented to the founding of a new religious order and declared that John would become the first superior general. John directed the religious to wear a white habit with a red and blue cross and to take the name of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives. On his return to France, John, possibly accompanied by Felix, was received by King Philip II Augustus, who sanctioned the establishment of the Trinitarians in France.
St. John went himself to Tunis, where he purchased the liberty of one hundred and ten more. He returned into Provence, and there received great charities, which he carried into Spain, and redeemed many in captivity under the Moors. On his return he collected large alms among the Christians towards this charitable undertaking. His example produced a second order of Mercy, instituted by St. Peter Nolasco, in 1235.
St. John made a second voyage to Tunis in 1210 in which he suffered much from the infidels, enraged at his zeal and success in exhorting the poor slaves to patience and constancy in their faith. As he was returning with one hundred and twenty slaves he had ransomed, the barbarians took away the helm from his vessel and tore all its sails, that they might perish in the sea. The saint, full of confidence in God, begged him to be their pilot, and hung up his companions’ cloaks for sails, and, with a crucifix in his hands kneeling on the deck, singing psalms, after a prosperous voyage, they all landed safe at Ostia, in Italy.
Felix, by this time, had greatly propagated his order in France, and obtained for it a convent in Paris, in a place where stood before a chapel of St. Mathurin, whence these religious in France are called Mathurins.
The men who joined the order went to Morocco, Tunis, and Spain to ransom Christian slaves and return them to their homes. The Trinitarians collected the money to pay for the ransoms by begging for coins from average people and by asking for larger donations from wealthy benefactors.
John spent his life redeeming Christian captives from the Moors, who often tortured the Christians and tried to get them to renounce their faith. John died on December 17, 1213. Before his death, tradition tells us, he met St. Francis of Assisi and introduced Francis to the Frangipani family, one of the benefactors of the Franciscan order.
Feast of Saint John of Matha.
John de Matha was born on June 23, 1160 in Faucon-de-Barcelonette, France. His parents were wealthy and sent him away to school so that he could receive the best education. But his chief attention was to advance in virtue. He used the money his parents sent him to help the poor. He spent his free time performing other works of charity and paid visits to the local hospital to tend the sick.
When John graduated, he moved to a hermitage so he could spent his days in quiet prayer, but his friends visited him so often that he saw this as a sign from God that he was called to serve others as a priest. He entered the seminary and was ordained when he was 32 years old.
On January 28, 1193, as tradition tells us, John celebrated his first Mass. During that Mass, he was struck with a vision of Christ holding by the hand two chained captives, one a Moor, the other a Christian (the Crusades were in full force at the time). The Christian captive carried a staff with a red and blue cross. Three other bystanders at the church that day had the same vision. After the Mass, John decided to devote himself to the task of ransoming Christian captives from the Moors – a work which impressed him as one of the greatest acts of charity since it benefited their souls and their bodies.
According to tradition, he sought out the hermit St. Felix of Valois at Cefroid, France, to spend time in prayer before taking on such an important task. One day while walking with Felix, John had another vision – a white stag appeared at a stream with a red and blue cross between its antlers. John told Felix of his plans and impressed Felix so much that Felix joined John in his mission. John founded the motherhouse at Cerfroid in the region of Picardy and adopted a Rule of Life specifically designed for the Order.
John set out for Rome, where on December 17, 1198, Pope Innocent III consented to the founding of a new religious order and declared that John would become the first superior general. John directed the religious to wear a white habit with a red and blue cross and to take the name of the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives. On his return to France, John, possibly accompanied by Felix, was received by King Philip II Augustus, who sanctioned the establishment of the Trinitarians in France.
St. John went himself to Tunis, where he purchased the liberty of one hundred and ten more. He returned into Provence, and there received great charities, which he carried into Spain, and redeemed many in captivity under the Moors. On his return he collected large alms among the Christians towards this charitable undertaking. His example produced a second order of Mercy, instituted by St. Peter Nolasco, in 1235.
St. John made a second voyage to Tunis in 1210 in which he suffered much from the infidels, enraged at his zeal and success in exhorting the poor slaves to patience and constancy in their faith. As he was returning with one hundred and twenty slaves he had ransomed, the barbarians took away the helm from his vessel and tore all its sails, that they might perish in the sea. The saint, full of confidence in God, begged him to be their pilot, and hung up his companions’ cloaks for sails, and, with a crucifix in his hands kneeling on the deck, singing psalms, after a prosperous voyage, they all landed safe at Ostia, in Italy.
Felix, by this time, had greatly propagated his order in France, and obtained for it a convent in Paris, in a place where stood before a chapel of St. Mathurin, whence these religious in France are called Mathurins.
The men who joined the order went to Morocco, Tunis, and Spain to ransom Christian slaves and return them to their homes. The Trinitarians collected the money to pay for the ransoms by begging for coins from average people and by asking for larger donations from wealthy benefactors.
John spent his life redeeming Christian captives from the Moors, who often tortured the Christians and tried to get them to renounce their faith. John died on December 17, 1213. Before his death, tradition tells us, he met St. Francis of Assisi and introduced Francis to the Frangipani family, one of the benefactors of the Franciscan order.
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December 17
Saint John of Matha
December 18
Daily Saints – 18 December.
Feast of Saint Winebald OSB.
Saint Winebald OSB (c 701-761) Priest, Abbot, Confessor, Missionary, Founder of many Monasteries, disciple of St Boniface – born in c 701 at Wessex, England and died on 18 December 761 at Heidenheim, Germany of natural causes. St Wieibald was the son of St Richard, Prince of Wessex, brother of St Willibald and St Walburga. Also known as – Winebaldus, Winnibald, Wunebald, Wunibald, Wynbald, Wynnebald, Vunibaldo, Vinebaldo. Patronages – construction workers, engaged couples.
God blessed St Richard with three saintly children, St Winebald, the eldest, St Willibald, who died Bishop of Eichstätt and St Walburga, Abbess. St Richard leaving his native country, took with him his two sons and landed on the coast of Normandy. They visited all the places of devotion on their way and then travelled into Italy, intending to go to Rome but at Lucca, St Richard fell sick and died about the year 722.
Winebald and Willibald accomplished their pilgrimage to Rome. After some stay there to perform their devotions, St Willibald undertook another pilgrimage to the holy places in Palestine but Winebald, who was from his childhood of a weak constitution, remained at Rome, where he pursued his studies for seven years, took the tonsure and devoted himself with his whole heart to the divine service. Then returning to England, he engaged several amongst his kindred and friends to accompany him in his journey back to Rome and there to dedicate themselves to God in a religious state.
Around 737, St Boniface, who was Uncle of St Winebald, visited Rome. By this time Willibald had returned from his travels and had become a Monk at Monte Cassino. Boniface recruited both nephews for the German mission. Willibald was Ordained and based in Eichstätt. Boniface received a promise that Winebald would go to Germany. Winebald arrived in Thuringia on 30 November, 740 and was Ordained Priest by his Uncle who, thereafter, placed him in charge of seven Churches.
Winebald established a Monastery in Schwanfeld but in 742 transferred it to Heidenheim, where the brothers founded a double Monastery for the training of Priests and as a centre of learning. Winibald became the first Abbot.
Winebald took part in the Concilium Germanicum, (the first major Synod of the German Church which was presided over by St Boniface) in 742, and subscribed Pepin’s donation to Fulda in 753. In 762, he joined the League of Attigny, a confraternity of prayer established by Chrodegang, Archbishop of Metz. All this the saint accomplished in spite of continual illness, which prevented him from ending his life at Monte Cassino as he had hoped. Wieibald died at Heidenheim on 18 December 761.
The Vita of St Winebald assures us of several miraculous cures which were performed at his tomb. St Ludger also writes in the life of St Gregory of Utrecht, “Winebald was very dear to my master Gregory and shows, by great miracles since his death what he did whilst living.”
Feast of Saint Winebald OSB.
Saint Winebald OSB (c 701-761) Priest, Abbot, Confessor, Missionary, Founder of many Monasteries, disciple of St Boniface – born in c 701 at Wessex, England and died on 18 December 761 at Heidenheim, Germany of natural causes. St Wieibald was the son of St Richard, Prince of Wessex, brother of St Willibald and St Walburga. Also known as – Winebaldus, Winnibald, Wunebald, Wunibald, Wynbald, Wynnebald, Vunibaldo, Vinebaldo. Patronages – construction workers, engaged couples.
God blessed St Richard with three saintly children, St Winebald, the eldest, St Willibald, who died Bishop of Eichstätt and St Walburga, Abbess. St Richard leaving his native country, took with him his two sons and landed on the coast of Normandy. They visited all the places of devotion on their way and then travelled into Italy, intending to go to Rome but at Lucca, St Richard fell sick and died about the year 722.
Winebald and Willibald accomplished their pilgrimage to Rome. After some stay there to perform their devotions, St Willibald undertook another pilgrimage to the holy places in Palestine but Winebald, who was from his childhood of a weak constitution, remained at Rome, where he pursued his studies for seven years, took the tonsure and devoted himself with his whole heart to the divine service. Then returning to England, he engaged several amongst his kindred and friends to accompany him in his journey back to Rome and there to dedicate themselves to God in a religious state.
Around 737, St Boniface, who was Uncle of St Winebald, visited Rome. By this time Willibald had returned from his travels and had become a Monk at Monte Cassino. Boniface recruited both nephews for the German mission. Willibald was Ordained and based in Eichstätt. Boniface received a promise that Winebald would go to Germany. Winebald arrived in Thuringia on 30 November, 740 and was Ordained Priest by his Uncle who, thereafter, placed him in charge of seven Churches.
Winebald established a Monastery in Schwanfeld but in 742 transferred it to Heidenheim, where the brothers founded a double Monastery for the training of Priests and as a centre of learning. Winibald became the first Abbot.
Winebald took part in the Concilium Germanicum, (the first major Synod of the German Church which was presided over by St Boniface) in 742, and subscribed Pepin’s donation to Fulda in 753. In 762, he joined the League of Attigny, a confraternity of prayer established by Chrodegang, Archbishop of Metz. All this the saint accomplished in spite of continual illness, which prevented him from ending his life at Monte Cassino as he had hoped. Wieibald died at Heidenheim on 18 December 761.
The Vita of St Winebald assures us of several miraculous cures which were performed at his tomb. St Ludger also writes in the life of St Gregory of Utrecht, “Winebald was very dear to my master Gregory and shows, by great miracles since his death what he did whilst living.”
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December 18
Saint Winebald OSB
December 19
Daily Saints – 19 December.
Feast of Saint Nemesion – Martyr.
IN the persecution of Decius, Nemesion, an Egyptian; apprehended at Alexandria upon an indictment for theft. The servant of Christ easily cleared himself of that charge, but was immediately accused of being a Christian, and, after scourged and tormented more than the thieves, was condemned to be burnt with the robbers and other malefactors. There at the same time near the prefect’s tribunal four soldiers and another person, who, being Christians, boldly encouraged a confessor who was hanging on the rack. They were taken before the judge, who condemned them to be beheaded; but was astonished to see the joy with which they walked to the place of execution. Heron, Ater, and Isidore, all Egyptians, with Dioscorus, only fifteen years old, were committed at Alexandria in persecution. After enduring the most cruel rending and disjointing of their limbs, they were burnt alive, with the exception of Dioscarus, whom the judge discharged on account of the tenderness of his years.
Feast of Saint Nemesion – Martyr.
IN the persecution of Decius, Nemesion, an Egyptian; apprehended at Alexandria upon an indictment for theft. The servant of Christ easily cleared himself of that charge, but was immediately accused of being a Christian, and, after scourged and tormented more than the thieves, was condemned to be burnt with the robbers and other malefactors. There at the same time near the prefect’s tribunal four soldiers and another person, who, being Christians, boldly encouraged a confessor who was hanging on the rack. They were taken before the judge, who condemned them to be beheaded; but was astonished to see the joy with which they walked to the place of execution. Heron, Ater, and Isidore, all Egyptians, with Dioscorus, only fifteen years old, were committed at Alexandria in persecution. After enduring the most cruel rending and disjointing of their limbs, they were burnt alive, with the exception of Dioscarus, whom the judge discharged on account of the tenderness of his years.
REFLECTION —Can we call to mind the fervor of the Saints in laboring and suffering cheerfully for God, and not feel a holy ardor glow in our own breasts, and our souls strongly affected with their heroic sentiments of virtue ?
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December 19
Saint Nemesion
December 20
Daily Saints – 20 December.
Feast of Saint Dominic of Silos.
He is the patron saint of captives and prisoners, pregnant women, shepherds and against hydrophobia or rabies, against insects, against mad dogs.
Saint Dominic was born in 1000 in Cañas, Navarre, Spain. He was born a peasant, and as a youth worked as a shepherd. St. Dominic of Silos came to know God in the solitude of a shepherd boy. It was this love of solitude that drew him into monastic life where he could be alone with his God.
He entered the Benedictine monastery in Navarre. When Dominic refused to hand over the monastery lands at the King of Navarre’s demands, he was forced to leave the house with two other monks.
They sought protection from King Ferdinand I of Old Castile. They found a new home in the San Sebastian monastery at Silos, diocese of Burgos where Dominic was appointed abbot. Founded in 954, the house had fallen on hard times, had only six monks, and was in terrible shape physically, financially and spiritually. He turned around the house’s spiritual life, straightened out its finances, rebuilt its structure.
The house was soon a spiritual center noted for book design, printed art, its gold and silver work, and charity to the local poor. The rebuilt abbey cloisters survive to today, and are considered a great architectural treasure.
He got wealthy patrons to endow the monastery, and raised funds to ransom Christians taken prisoner by the Moors. Under Dominic’s leadership, however, it became one of the most famous houses in Spain. Many healings were reported there. He died on 10 December 1073 in Silos, Spain.
About 100 years after Dominic’s death, a young woman who experienced difficult pregnancies made a pilgrimage to his tomb. There Dominic of Silos appeared to her and assured her that she would bear another son. The woman was Joan of Aza, and the son she bore grew up to be the “other” Dominic—Dominic Guzman, the one who founded the Dominicans. Dominic’s special patronage thus became connected with pregnancy, and until the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, his abbatial crozier was used to bless the queens of Spain, and was placed by their beds when they were in labor.
Feast of Saint Dominic of Silos.
He is the patron saint of captives and prisoners, pregnant women, shepherds and against hydrophobia or rabies, against insects, against mad dogs.
Saint Dominic was born in 1000 in Cañas, Navarre, Spain. He was born a peasant, and as a youth worked as a shepherd. St. Dominic of Silos came to know God in the solitude of a shepherd boy. It was this love of solitude that drew him into monastic life where he could be alone with his God.
He entered the Benedictine monastery in Navarre. When Dominic refused to hand over the monastery lands at the King of Navarre’s demands, he was forced to leave the house with two other monks.
They sought protection from King Ferdinand I of Old Castile. They found a new home in the San Sebastian monastery at Silos, diocese of Burgos where Dominic was appointed abbot. Founded in 954, the house had fallen on hard times, had only six monks, and was in terrible shape physically, financially and spiritually. He turned around the house’s spiritual life, straightened out its finances, rebuilt its structure.
The house was soon a spiritual center noted for book design, printed art, its gold and silver work, and charity to the local poor. The rebuilt abbey cloisters survive to today, and are considered a great architectural treasure.
He got wealthy patrons to endow the monastery, and raised funds to ransom Christians taken prisoner by the Moors. Under Dominic’s leadership, however, it became one of the most famous houses in Spain. Many healings were reported there. He died on 10 December 1073 in Silos, Spain.
About 100 years after Dominic’s death, a young woman who experienced difficult pregnancies made a pilgrimage to his tomb. There Dominic of Silos appeared to her and assured her that she would bear another son. The woman was Joan of Aza, and the son she bore grew up to be the “other” Dominic—Dominic Guzman, the one who founded the Dominicans. Dominic’s special patronage thus became connected with pregnancy, and until the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, his abbatial crozier was used to bless the queens of Spain, and was placed by their beds when they were in labor.
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December 20
Saint Dominic of Silos
December 21
Daily Saints – 21 December.
Feast of Saint Peter Canisius.
He is the patron saint of Catholic press and writers of catechisms. He is also considered the second apostle of Germany after St. Boniface.
Peter Kanis – his name later Latinized to “Canisius” – was born in the Netherlands during May 1521. His father Jacob was a wealthy public official, but his mother Aegidia died soon after his birth. Peter began his university studies in Cologne around age 15.
Although Peter once accused himself of idleness in his youth, he could not have been idle too long, for at the age of 19 he received a master’s degree from the university at Cologne. His friends during this period included several men who held to the Catholic faith in opposition to the Protestant doctrines then gaining ground in Germany.
Despite his father’s preference that he should marry, Peter made a decision in 1540 to remain celibate. He changed his original plan to remain at the university and study theology when he heard about a newly-founded religious order, the Society of Jesus. One of its founders was then at Mainz, so Canisius traveled there to meet Father Peter Faber.
The Jesuit appreciated Canisius’ potential and agreed to lead him through the 30-day retreat known as the Spiritual Exercises. During the second week of the retreat, Canisius made an election to join the Society and Faber accepted him as a novice on his 22nd birthday, May 8, 1543.
Canisius returned to Cologne and finished his studies in theology and then was ordained in 1546. Even before he became a priest, he taught Scripture and published new editions of texts of Cyril of Alexandria and Leo the Great.
Only one year after his ordination, Peter accompanied the Bishop of Augsburg to the Council of Trent as a theological adviser. He spent a portion of his time in Italy working directly with Saint Ignatius Loyola, before leaving for Bavaria where he would serve as a university professor as well as a catechist and preacher. This combination of academic and pastoral work continued at Vienna from 1552, allowing him to visit and assist many Austrian parishes which found themselves without a priest.
During the mid-1550s Peter’s evangelistic journeys took him to Prague, where he eventually founded a Jesuit school along with another in Bavaria, and later a third in Munich. The year 1555, in particular, was a landmark for Canisius: St. Ignatius promoted him to a leadership position within the order, which he held until 1569, and he published the first and longest version of his Catholic catechism. This work, and its two shorter adaptations, went through hundreds of printings and remained in use for centuries.
Involved in discussions with Protestants during 1557, Peter made a strong case for the Church by showing how the adherents of Protestantism could not agree with one another in matters of doctrine. Meanwhile, he maintained his commitment to religious instruction on the popular level – teaching children, giving retreats, and preaching carefully-crafted, doctrinally-rich sermons to large crowds.
Canisius’ service to the Council of Trent continued during the early 1560s, though mostly from a distance. He kept up a demanding schedule of preaching and establishing universities, while also working to ensure that the council’s decrees were received and followed in Germany after it concluded. His tireless efforts over the next two decades contributed to a major revival of German Catholicism.
A mystical experience in 1584 convinced Canisius that he should cease his travels and remain in Switzerland for the rest of his life. He spent his last years building up the Church in Fribourg through his preaching, teaching, and writing.
Peter suffered a near-fatal stroke in 1591, but recovered and continued as an author for six years. The Dutch Jesuit saw writing as an essential form of apostolic work, a view supported by the continued use of his catechism long after his death on Dec. 21, 1597.
Canisius taught that, while there are many roads leading to Jesus Christ, for him the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the best. He is credited with adding to the Hail Mary the sentence: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.
When asked if he felt overworked, Peter replied, “If you have too much to do, with God’s help you will find time to do it all.”
“Let my eyes take their sleep, but may my heart always keep watch for you. May your right hand bless your servants who love you.”
“We have dishonored the altar of God with impure hands and corrupted lips, with our polluted hearts, scandalous lives and enormous abuses. Our sin is all the greater because we insult the [priestly] dignity that was bestowed upon us. Therefore, because of us, the name of God is blasphemed. For such men, there is no honesty in the home, no sobriety at the table, no continence in the bed, no studying from their books, and no devotion in their hearts.”
“Those churchmen err, who imagine, that it is by brilliant preaching, rather than by holiness of and all-embracing love, they fulfil their office.”
“Christmas Day is nothing if not a day of universal joy. Children should rejoice because on this day God Himself became as one of them; virgins, because a Virgin brought forth and remained unstained even after giving birth; wives, because one of their number became the Mother of God; sinners, because their Mediator and Savior and Healer has come to redeem them; the just, because their Reward exceeding great has been born into the world. In fine, all faithful Christians should rejoice that their Creator and Lord has taken on human flesh and begun His reign over the hearts of men, not only as God, but also as the Son of Man among the children of men.”
Feast of Saint Peter Canisius.
He is the patron saint of Catholic press and writers of catechisms. He is also considered the second apostle of Germany after St. Boniface.
Peter Kanis – his name later Latinized to “Canisius” – was born in the Netherlands during May 1521. His father Jacob was a wealthy public official, but his mother Aegidia died soon after his birth. Peter began his university studies in Cologne around age 15.
Although Peter once accused himself of idleness in his youth, he could not have been idle too long, for at the age of 19 he received a master’s degree from the university at Cologne. His friends during this period included several men who held to the Catholic faith in opposition to the Protestant doctrines then gaining ground in Germany.
Despite his father’s preference that he should marry, Peter made a decision in 1540 to remain celibate. He changed his original plan to remain at the university and study theology when he heard about a newly-founded religious order, the Society of Jesus. One of its founders was then at Mainz, so Canisius traveled there to meet Father Peter Faber.
The Jesuit appreciated Canisius’ potential and agreed to lead him through the 30-day retreat known as the Spiritual Exercises. During the second week of the retreat, Canisius made an election to join the Society and Faber accepted him as a novice on his 22nd birthday, May 8, 1543.
Canisius returned to Cologne and finished his studies in theology and then was ordained in 1546. Even before he became a priest, he taught Scripture and published new editions of texts of Cyril of Alexandria and Leo the Great.
Only one year after his ordination, Peter accompanied the Bishop of Augsburg to the Council of Trent as a theological adviser. He spent a portion of his time in Italy working directly with Saint Ignatius Loyola, before leaving for Bavaria where he would serve as a university professor as well as a catechist and preacher. This combination of academic and pastoral work continued at Vienna from 1552, allowing him to visit and assist many Austrian parishes which found themselves without a priest.
During the mid-1550s Peter’s evangelistic journeys took him to Prague, where he eventually founded a Jesuit school along with another in Bavaria, and later a third in Munich. The year 1555, in particular, was a landmark for Canisius: St. Ignatius promoted him to a leadership position within the order, which he held until 1569, and he published the first and longest version of his Catholic catechism. This work, and its two shorter adaptations, went through hundreds of printings and remained in use for centuries.
Involved in discussions with Protestants during 1557, Peter made a strong case for the Church by showing how the adherents of Protestantism could not agree with one another in matters of doctrine. Meanwhile, he maintained his commitment to religious instruction on the popular level – teaching children, giving retreats, and preaching carefully-crafted, doctrinally-rich sermons to large crowds.
Canisius’ service to the Council of Trent continued during the early 1560s, though mostly from a distance. He kept up a demanding schedule of preaching and establishing universities, while also working to ensure that the council’s decrees were received and followed in Germany after it concluded. His tireless efforts over the next two decades contributed to a major revival of German Catholicism.
A mystical experience in 1584 convinced Canisius that he should cease his travels and remain in Switzerland for the rest of his life. He spent his last years building up the Church in Fribourg through his preaching, teaching, and writing.
Peter suffered a near-fatal stroke in 1591, but recovered and continued as an author for six years. The Dutch Jesuit saw writing as an essential form of apostolic work, a view supported by the continued use of his catechism long after his death on Dec. 21, 1597.
Canisius taught that, while there are many roads leading to Jesus Christ, for him the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the best. He is credited with adding to the Hail Mary the sentence: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.
When asked if he felt overworked, Peter replied, “If you have too much to do, with God’s help you will find time to do it all.”
“Let my eyes take their sleep, but may my heart always keep watch for you. May your right hand bless your servants who love you.”
“We have dishonored the altar of God with impure hands and corrupted lips, with our polluted hearts, scandalous lives and enormous abuses. Our sin is all the greater because we insult the [priestly] dignity that was bestowed upon us. Therefore, because of us, the name of God is blasphemed. For such men, there is no honesty in the home, no sobriety at the table, no continence in the bed, no studying from their books, and no devotion in their hearts.”
“Those churchmen err, who imagine, that it is by brilliant preaching, rather than by holiness of and all-embracing love, they fulfil their office.”
“Christmas Day is nothing if not a day of universal joy. Children should rejoice because on this day God Himself became as one of them; virgins, because a Virgin brought forth and remained unstained even after giving birth; wives, because one of their number became the Mother of God; sinners, because their Mediator and Savior and Healer has come to redeem them; the just, because their Reward exceeding great has been born into the world. In fine, all faithful Christians should rejoice that their Creator and Lord has taken on human flesh and begun His reign over the hearts of men, not only as God, but also as the Son of Man among the children of men.”
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December 21
Saint Peter Canisius
December 22
Daily Saints – 22 December.
Feast of Saint Flavian of Acquapendente.
Saint Flavian was a descendant of a noble Roman family. He was the the husband of Saint Dafrosa and the father of two holy daughters, St. Bibiana and St. Demetria.
His incomparable talents, great knowledge and holy life, made him so beloved and esteemed, not only by the people but also by Constantine the Great, that the latter raised him to the high office of Governor of Rome. The duties of this exalted dignity he fulfilled untiringly, but, at the same time, neglected nothing that his faith demanded of him; on the contrary, his principal thought was to disseminate more and more the Christian religion among his subjects.
Those who had already embraced Christianity he endeavored to assist whenever an opportunity presented itself. After the death of Constantine the Great, his son Constantius, persuaded by his wicked empress, favored the Arian heresy, and persecuted the Catholics almost as much as had formerly been done by the heathen emperors.
Flavian endeavored to strengthen the Catholics in their faith, and to defend the divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian blasphemies. This zeal made him hateful to the emperor; and as neither promises nor menaces had any power to change him, he was divested of the high office which he had filled for so many years to the satisfaction of all Rome. Flavian was not cast down, but rather rejoiced because, for the sake of the true faith, he suffered so great a loss and no less ignominy.
Julian, the apostate, who succeeded Constantius, persecuted the Christians most cruelly, as he was resolved to exterminate Christianity entirely. Flavian took this opportunity again to manifest his fearless zeal for the defense of the true faith. He encouraged the Christians to constancy, visited them in their imprisonment, comforted them, sent them nourishment, and admonished them rather to suffer everything than forsake their faith. The officers whom Julian had appointed to apprehend and torture the Christians, took no notice of this for some time, as Flavian was still greatly esteemed on account of his high rank and the dignity of the office with which he had been invested; but at last they informed the tyrant of it.
The latter commanded his new governor, Apronian, to apprehend Flavian immediately, and either force him to abandon his faith, or to take his life by the most cruel tortures. Apronian obeyed the order: Flavian was seized and brought before him. The governor endeavored to persuade him to forsake his faith, but Flavian said fearlessly: “I am a Christian, and will remain a Christian, and, further, I consider it the greatest honor to give not only all I possess, but also my life for the honor of Christ.”
The governor, greatly embittered, sentenced him to be dispossessed of his nobility, and placed in the rank of the most abject slaves, which, to a high-minded man, must have been more cruel than death. Hence, they tore the insignia of his nobility and of his former high office from his body, and, with a red-hot iron, burned a mark on his forehead. The pain was great, the ignominy and disgrace much greater; but Flavian bore it cheerfully. “I receive,” said he, “this disgrace as the greatest honor that was ever bestowed upon me.”
Apronian would have tortured him still more, but as he knew that Flavian was highly esteemed on account of the faithfulness with which he had labored for the public weal, he desisted, fearing a revolt. He deprived him, therefore, of all his possessions, and sent him into banishment, giving orders to those who were to transport him to torment him on the road in every possible manner, in order that misery and grief might soon kill him. Flavian received the sentence of his banishment with the same joy that he had manifested at the preceding ignominy.
The hardest thing for him to bear was to leave his spouse and his two daughters, as he foresaw that they would not be treated better than he had been. But this, also, he bore heroically, and placing them under the protection of the Most High, he went into his banishment, guarded by a troop of soldiers. The soldiers delighted in obeying the orders of Apronian and maltreating him most cruelly.
His only comfort was prayer, which so greatly supported him. But he was never seen sad, but always cheerful. One day, when conversing with God, his head sank quietly upon his breast, and his heroic soul became free. He collapsed and died while in prayer.
Feast of Saint Flavian of Acquapendente.
Saint Flavian was a descendant of a noble Roman family. He was the the husband of Saint Dafrosa and the father of two holy daughters, St. Bibiana and St. Demetria.
His incomparable talents, great knowledge and holy life, made him so beloved and esteemed, not only by the people but also by Constantine the Great, that the latter raised him to the high office of Governor of Rome. The duties of this exalted dignity he fulfilled untiringly, but, at the same time, neglected nothing that his faith demanded of him; on the contrary, his principal thought was to disseminate more and more the Christian religion among his subjects.
Those who had already embraced Christianity he endeavored to assist whenever an opportunity presented itself. After the death of Constantine the Great, his son Constantius, persuaded by his wicked empress, favored the Arian heresy, and persecuted the Catholics almost as much as had formerly been done by the heathen emperors.
Flavian endeavored to strengthen the Catholics in their faith, and to defend the divinity of Jesus Christ against the Arian blasphemies. This zeal made him hateful to the emperor; and as neither promises nor menaces had any power to change him, he was divested of the high office which he had filled for so many years to the satisfaction of all Rome. Flavian was not cast down, but rather rejoiced because, for the sake of the true faith, he suffered so great a loss and no less ignominy.
Julian, the apostate, who succeeded Constantius, persecuted the Christians most cruelly, as he was resolved to exterminate Christianity entirely. Flavian took this opportunity again to manifest his fearless zeal for the defense of the true faith. He encouraged the Christians to constancy, visited them in their imprisonment, comforted them, sent them nourishment, and admonished them rather to suffer everything than forsake their faith. The officers whom Julian had appointed to apprehend and torture the Christians, took no notice of this for some time, as Flavian was still greatly esteemed on account of his high rank and the dignity of the office with which he had been invested; but at last they informed the tyrant of it.
The latter commanded his new governor, Apronian, to apprehend Flavian immediately, and either force him to abandon his faith, or to take his life by the most cruel tortures. Apronian obeyed the order: Flavian was seized and brought before him. The governor endeavored to persuade him to forsake his faith, but Flavian said fearlessly: “I am a Christian, and will remain a Christian, and, further, I consider it the greatest honor to give not only all I possess, but also my life for the honor of Christ.”
The governor, greatly embittered, sentenced him to be dispossessed of his nobility, and placed in the rank of the most abject slaves, which, to a high-minded man, must have been more cruel than death. Hence, they tore the insignia of his nobility and of his former high office from his body, and, with a red-hot iron, burned a mark on his forehead. The pain was great, the ignominy and disgrace much greater; but Flavian bore it cheerfully. “I receive,” said he, “this disgrace as the greatest honor that was ever bestowed upon me.”
Apronian would have tortured him still more, but as he knew that Flavian was highly esteemed on account of the faithfulness with which he had labored for the public weal, he desisted, fearing a revolt. He deprived him, therefore, of all his possessions, and sent him into banishment, giving orders to those who were to transport him to torment him on the road in every possible manner, in order that misery and grief might soon kill him. Flavian received the sentence of his banishment with the same joy that he had manifested at the preceding ignominy.
The hardest thing for him to bear was to leave his spouse and his two daughters, as he foresaw that they would not be treated better than he had been. But this, also, he bore heroically, and placing them under the protection of the Most High, he went into his banishment, guarded by a troop of soldiers. The soldiers delighted in obeying the orders of Apronian and maltreating him most cruelly.
His only comfort was prayer, which so greatly supported him. But he was never seen sad, but always cheerful. One day, when conversing with God, his head sank quietly upon his breast, and his heroic soul became free. He collapsed and died while in prayer.
Close
December 22
Saint Flavian of Acquapendente
December 23
Daily Saints – 23 December.
Feast of St. John of Kanty.
John Cantius was born 23 June 1390 at Kęty, a small town near Oświęcim, Poland. He was the son of Stanisław and Anna Kanty. He became a brilliant student at the University of Cracow, Poland. He was Ordained as a Priest and became Professor of theology at University of Cracow.
John had indeed been kicked out of his university position — unjustly. Rivals who resented John’s popularity with the students had cooked up a false charge against him. John was not even allowed to appear at his own hearing or testify in his own defense. So at age 41, he was shipped off to be an apprentice pastor.
Certainly no one would have blamed John if he was furious at such injustice. However, he was determined that his new parishioners would not suffer because of what he happened to him. But there was no overnight miracle waiting of him in Olkusz. He was nervous and afraid of his new responsibilities. And, despite the energy he put into his new job, the parishioners remained hostile. But John’s plan was very simple, and came not from the mind but from the heart.
He let his genuine interest and concern for these people show in everything he did. Despite working for years without any sign of success, he was very careful not to demonstrate impatience or anger. He knew that people could never be bullied into love, so he gave them what he hoped they would find in themselves.
After eight years, he was exonerated and transferred back to Cracow. He had been so successful that these once-hostile people followed him several miles down the road, begging him to stay. For the rest of his life, he was professor of sacred Scripture at the university.
He was so well-liked that he was often invited to dinner with nobility. Once, he was turned away at the door by a servant who thought John’s cassock was too frayed. John didn’t argue but went home, changed into a new cassock, and returned. During the meal, a servant spilled a dish on John’s new clothes. “No matter,” he joked. “My clothes deserve some dinner, too. If it hadn’t been for them I wouldn’t be here at all.”
Once John was sitting down to dinner when he saw a beggar walk by outside. He jumped up immediately, ran out, and gave the beggar the food in his bowl. He asked no questions, made no demands. He just saw someone in need and helped with what he had.
On foot he visited the holy places of Rome and Palestine. One day, after robbers had deprived him of all his effects, they asked him whether he had anything more. The saint said no, but hardly had they gone when he remembered having sewn some gold pieces inside his clothing; immediately he followed and overtook them. The robbers, astonished at the man’s sense of truthfulness, refused to accept the money and returned to him the stolen luggage.
To guard himself and his household from evil gossip he wrote upon the wall of his room (after the example of St. Augustine): “Guard against causing trouble and slandering others, for it is difficult to right the evil done.”
John was a serious man, and humble, but known to all the poor of Kraków for his kindness. His goods and his money were always at their disposal, and time and again they took advantage of him. He kept only the money and clothes absolutely needed to support himself. He slept little, ate sparingly, and took no meat. He made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, hoping to be martyred by the Turks. Later John made four subsequent pilgrimages to Rome, carrying his luggage on his back.
When he was warned to look after his health, he was quick to point out that, for all their austerity, the fathers of the desert lived remarkably long lives. St. John Kanty died on December 24, 1473. By the time of his death the people of Krakow already considered him a very holy man.
His motto: “Beware disturbing: it’s not sweetly pleasing, Beware speaking ill: for taking back words is burdensome.”
“Fight all error, but do it with good humor, patience, kindness, and love. Harshness will damage your own soul and spoil the best cause.”
“What kind of work can be more noble than to cultivate the minds of young people, guarding it carefully, so that the knowledge and love of God and His holy precepts go hand-in-hand with learning? To form young Christians and citizens-isn’t this the most beautiful and noble-minded way to make use of life, of all one’s talents and energy?”
Feast of St. John of Kanty.
John Cantius was born 23 June 1390 at Kęty, a small town near Oświęcim, Poland. He was the son of Stanisław and Anna Kanty. He became a brilliant student at the University of Cracow, Poland. He was Ordained as a Priest and became Professor of theology at University of Cracow.
John had indeed been kicked out of his university position — unjustly. Rivals who resented John’s popularity with the students had cooked up a false charge against him. John was not even allowed to appear at his own hearing or testify in his own defense. So at age 41, he was shipped off to be an apprentice pastor.
Certainly no one would have blamed John if he was furious at such injustice. However, he was determined that his new parishioners would not suffer because of what he happened to him. But there was no overnight miracle waiting of him in Olkusz. He was nervous and afraid of his new responsibilities. And, despite the energy he put into his new job, the parishioners remained hostile. But John’s plan was very simple, and came not from the mind but from the heart.
He let his genuine interest and concern for these people show in everything he did. Despite working for years without any sign of success, he was very careful not to demonstrate impatience or anger. He knew that people could never be bullied into love, so he gave them what he hoped they would find in themselves.
After eight years, he was exonerated and transferred back to Cracow. He had been so successful that these once-hostile people followed him several miles down the road, begging him to stay. For the rest of his life, he was professor of sacred Scripture at the university.
He was so well-liked that he was often invited to dinner with nobility. Once, he was turned away at the door by a servant who thought John’s cassock was too frayed. John didn’t argue but went home, changed into a new cassock, and returned. During the meal, a servant spilled a dish on John’s new clothes. “No matter,” he joked. “My clothes deserve some dinner, too. If it hadn’t been for them I wouldn’t be here at all.”
Once John was sitting down to dinner when he saw a beggar walk by outside. He jumped up immediately, ran out, and gave the beggar the food in his bowl. He asked no questions, made no demands. He just saw someone in need and helped with what he had.
On foot he visited the holy places of Rome and Palestine. One day, after robbers had deprived him of all his effects, they asked him whether he had anything more. The saint said no, but hardly had they gone when he remembered having sewn some gold pieces inside his clothing; immediately he followed and overtook them. The robbers, astonished at the man’s sense of truthfulness, refused to accept the money and returned to him the stolen luggage.
To guard himself and his household from evil gossip he wrote upon the wall of his room (after the example of St. Augustine): “Guard against causing trouble and slandering others, for it is difficult to right the evil done.”
John was a serious man, and humble, but known to all the poor of Kraków for his kindness. His goods and his money were always at their disposal, and time and again they took advantage of him. He kept only the money and clothes absolutely needed to support himself. He slept little, ate sparingly, and took no meat. He made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, hoping to be martyred by the Turks. Later John made four subsequent pilgrimages to Rome, carrying his luggage on his back.
When he was warned to look after his health, he was quick to point out that, for all their austerity, the fathers of the desert lived remarkably long lives. St. John Kanty died on December 24, 1473. By the time of his death the people of Krakow already considered him a very holy man.
His motto: “Beware disturbing: it’s not sweetly pleasing, Beware speaking ill: for taking back words is burdensome.”
“Fight all error, but do it with good humor, patience, kindness, and love. Harshness will damage your own soul and spoil the best cause.”
“What kind of work can be more noble than to cultivate the minds of young people, guarding it carefully, so that the knowledge and love of God and His holy precepts go hand-in-hand with learning? To form young Christians and citizens-isn’t this the most beautiful and noble-minded way to make use of life, of all one’s talents and energy?”
Close
December 23
Saint John of Kanty
December 24
Daily Saints – 24 December.
Feast of Saint Paola Elisabetta Cerioli.
Costanza Cerioli was born on 28 January 1816 in Soncino, Italy into a noble family. She was the last of 16 children of Francesco Cerioli and Francesca Corniani. She was a frail child plagued by a heart condition throughout her life.
Costanza lived at home until she was 11 years old, when she was sent off to school in Bergamo; here she remained for five years, suffering terribly from the loneliness of being away from home. But this experience helped her grow to depend on God, finding her comfort in him alone.
At age 19, Costanza returned to Soncino where a planned marriage awaited her; 59-year-old Gaetano Busecchi, widow of a countess, was set to be her husband. Seeing it as God’s will, she accepted this proposal and was married on 30 April 1835.
Her marriage lasted 19 years and was marked by suffering on all sides: her husband’s difficult character and poor health weighed on her, and three of the four children that Costanza gave birth to died prematurely; Carlo, her greatest “consolation”, lived to be 16.
Before his death due to serious illness in January 1854, Carlo spoke these prophetic words to his mother: “Mama, do not cry… the Lord will give you other children”. At the end of that same year, on 25 December, Gaetano also died.
This marked a dark period for Costanza, causing a profound existential crisis. Never had she found herself so alone and abandoned, her life so seemingly senseless. It was during this time that the words spoken by her son became a constant echo in her soul and sustained her, becoming her “guiding light”.
She sought spiritual direction and entrusted her tragedies and entire life into the hands of God, asking constantly for the grace to live her life with eyes of faith.
Costanza continued to feel the need to express her “maternity” and to “give of herself” to others, as she had done with Carlo. She was now 38 years old and, inspired by the Gospel, understood that charity was the only truly meaningful road.
She thus began to visit and assist the sick and share her belongings with the poor and orphans. Looking into the searching and frightened eyes of the orphaned children who begged along the streets inspired her to make even more courageous decisions.
She began to give all her wealth and belongings to the poor and opened her home to welcome orphans. Her family and neighbours would remark: “The anguish that this devout woman passed through must have driven her crazy… she does not realize what she is doing”.
The money she received once she sold her jewellry was used to purchase materials for the orphanage. Even before giving away all her goods, she had made the most important decision: to give her entire self to God, making a perpetual vow of chastity on 25 December 1856. And with her confessor’s approval, she made vows of poverty and obedience on 8 February 1857.
It was not long before other young women desired to join Costanza and “follow” in her works of charity. God’s plan was unfolding before her eyes with greater clarity; in silence, prayer and recollection she began to draw up the Rule for her “work”.
On 8 December 1857, Costanza, “mother of many orphans”, founded the Institute of the Sisters of the Holy Family in Comonte, Italy. She took the name “Sr Paola Elisabetta”, and summarized the charism of the Congregation in this way:
“The humility, simplicity, poverty and love of work found in the Holy Family of Nazareth is what makes up the specific spirituality of this Institute. The Sisters that belong to it must strive to model themselves on this life, full of the recollection, hiddenness and same spirit of humble labour that Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived in this blessed home”.
From that day, Mother Paola dedicated herself to the growth and development of the religious community. On 4 November 1863, in Villacampagna, a male branch was also founded by her, the Religious of the Holy Family.
With the House of Nazareth as the model of both branches, Mother Paola entrusted her “work” to the special protection of St Joseph and willed that the orphans under their care be known as the “sons and daughters of St Joseph”.
She was very attentive to the education of these parentless children and to the problem of poverty. Her motherly spirit was limitless and she understood the importance of carefully and properly forming her religious sons and daughters, so that they would be able to love and educate well the children God placed under their care, these “neglected and lost ones”.
Mother Paola Elisabetta died unexpectedly in her home in Comonte on 24 December 1865. She was 49 years old.
Feast of Saint Paola Elisabetta Cerioli.
Costanza Cerioli was born on 28 January 1816 in Soncino, Italy into a noble family. She was the last of 16 children of Francesco Cerioli and Francesca Corniani. She was a frail child plagued by a heart condition throughout her life.
Costanza lived at home until she was 11 years old, when she was sent off to school in Bergamo; here she remained for five years, suffering terribly from the loneliness of being away from home. But this experience helped her grow to depend on God, finding her comfort in him alone.
At age 19, Costanza returned to Soncino where a planned marriage awaited her; 59-year-old Gaetano Busecchi, widow of a countess, was set to be her husband. Seeing it as God’s will, she accepted this proposal and was married on 30 April 1835.
Her marriage lasted 19 years and was marked by suffering on all sides: her husband’s difficult character and poor health weighed on her, and three of the four children that Costanza gave birth to died prematurely; Carlo, her greatest “consolation”, lived to be 16.
Before his death due to serious illness in January 1854, Carlo spoke these prophetic words to his mother: “Mama, do not cry… the Lord will give you other children”. At the end of that same year, on 25 December, Gaetano also died.
This marked a dark period for Costanza, causing a profound existential crisis. Never had she found herself so alone and abandoned, her life so seemingly senseless. It was during this time that the words spoken by her son became a constant echo in her soul and sustained her, becoming her “guiding light”.
She sought spiritual direction and entrusted her tragedies and entire life into the hands of God, asking constantly for the grace to live her life with eyes of faith.
Costanza continued to feel the need to express her “maternity” and to “give of herself” to others, as she had done with Carlo. She was now 38 years old and, inspired by the Gospel, understood that charity was the only truly meaningful road.
She thus began to visit and assist the sick and share her belongings with the poor and orphans. Looking into the searching and frightened eyes of the orphaned children who begged along the streets inspired her to make even more courageous decisions.
She began to give all her wealth and belongings to the poor and opened her home to welcome orphans. Her family and neighbours would remark: “The anguish that this devout woman passed through must have driven her crazy… she does not realize what she is doing”.
The money she received once she sold her jewellry was used to purchase materials for the orphanage. Even before giving away all her goods, she had made the most important decision: to give her entire self to God, making a perpetual vow of chastity on 25 December 1856. And with her confessor’s approval, she made vows of poverty and obedience on 8 February 1857.
It was not long before other young women desired to join Costanza and “follow” in her works of charity. God’s plan was unfolding before her eyes with greater clarity; in silence, prayer and recollection she began to draw up the Rule for her “work”.
On 8 December 1857, Costanza, “mother of many orphans”, founded the Institute of the Sisters of the Holy Family in Comonte, Italy. She took the name “Sr Paola Elisabetta”, and summarized the charism of the Congregation in this way:
“The humility, simplicity, poverty and love of work found in the Holy Family of Nazareth is what makes up the specific spirituality of this Institute. The Sisters that belong to it must strive to model themselves on this life, full of the recollection, hiddenness and same spirit of humble labour that Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived in this blessed home”.
From that day, Mother Paola dedicated herself to the growth and development of the religious community. On 4 November 1863, in Villacampagna, a male branch was also founded by her, the Religious of the Holy Family.
With the House of Nazareth as the model of both branches, Mother Paola entrusted her “work” to the special protection of St Joseph and willed that the orphans under their care be known as the “sons and daughters of St Joseph”.
She was very attentive to the education of these parentless children and to the problem of poverty. Her motherly spirit was limitless and she understood the importance of carefully and properly forming her religious sons and daughters, so that they would be able to love and educate well the children God placed under their care, these “neglected and lost ones”.
Mother Paola Elisabetta died unexpectedly in her home in Comonte on 24 December 1865. She was 49 years old.
Close
December 24
Saint Paola Elisabetta Cerioli
December 25
Happy Christmas!
December 25
The Nativity of Jesus shows the Incarnation of Jesus as God made Man, in fulfillment of the Divine Will of God, undoing the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. The Canonical Gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus being born in Bethlehem, in Judea, to a Virgin Mother named Mary. Luke features the Christmas story, in which Joseph and Mary, as part of a census, travel to Bethlehem. It is there, that Jesus is born in a manger.
In the earliest days of the Church there was no such feast; the Saviour’s birth was commemorated with the Epiphany by the Greek and other Eastern Churches. First mention of the feast, then kept on 20 May, was made by Clement of Alexandria c.200. The Latin Church began c.300 to observe it on 25 December, though there is no certainty that Our Lord was born on that day. Many of the early Church Fathers regarded this as the actual date of Christ’s birth, though it does coincide with the Roman festival of Natalis Invicti (the winter solstice, which the Romans celebrated on December 25).
Many Fathers of the Church thought that Jesus was born on January 4th, in 4 B.C. before the death of King Herod the Great. Some Bible scholars fix Jesus’ birth in the month of September during the Feast of the Tabernacles when people travelled and when the sheep were in the field at night. December 25th was fixed by Pope Julius in A.D. 353 as a part of baptizing or Christianizing pagan feasts so that the converted pagans might celebrate the birthday of Jesus on Dec 25th instead of celebrating the birthday the Sun-god during winter solstice, while converted Roman soldiers might celebrate Christmas instead the birthday of Mithras, the Roman god-of-virility (Deus Solus Invictus).
By the middle of the sixth century, Christians had begun to observe Advent, the season of preparation for Christmas, with fasting and abstinence; and the Twelve Days of Christmas, from Christmas Day to Epiphany, had become established. For Christmas, Priests have the privilege of saying three Masses, at midnight, daybreak, and morning. This was originally reserved to the pope alone; beginning about the 4th century he celebrated a midnight Mass in the Lateran Basilica (in which according to tradition, the manger of Bethlehem is preserved), a second in the church of Saint Anastasia, whose feast comes on 25 December, and a third at the Vatican Basilica.
Most of the present-day Christmas decorations like the Christmas carols and gifts, Christmas tree and Christmas lights are remnants of the pagan celebrations. It was St. Francis of Assisi who first introduced the manger or Christmas crib in the 13th century. The Christmas tree, of which the first known mention was made in 1605 at Strasbourg, was introduced into France and England in 1840. The feast is a holy day of obligation, preceded by the preparatory season of Advent and by a special vigil; should it fall on a Friday it abrogates the law of abstinence.
The accounts of the Nativity of Jesus in the New Testament appear in only two of the four Canonical Gospels, namely the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. Luke’s story takes place mostly before the birth of Jesus and centers on Mary, while Matthew’s story takes place mostly after the birth of Jesus and centers on Joseph. The other Canonical Gospels, the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, begin their narratives of Jesus’s life in his adulthood. Both mention him coming out of Galilee and John mentions the name of Jesus’s father, but neither John or Mark give any other details of His life prior to adulthood. The betrothal of Jospeh and Mary and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem appear in both Matthew and Luke. Luke includes several events prior to the birth of Jesus that do not appear in Matthew; the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, while Matthew alone discusses the Flight to Egypt after his birth. The Nativity accounts in the New Testament are generally viewed as ending with “Finding Jesus in the Temple” several years later, after the family has returned to Galilee.
“Let us pause before the Child of Bethlehem. Let us allow our hearts to be touched, let us allow ourselves to be warmed by the tenderness of God; we need his caress. God is full of love: to him be praise and glory forever! God is peace: let us ask him to help us to be peacemakers each day, in our life, in our families, in our cities and nations, in the whole world. Let us allow ourselves to be moved by God’s goodness.” – Pope Francis’ Christmas message
December 25
The Nativity of Jesus shows the Incarnation of Jesus as God made Man, in fulfillment of the Divine Will of God, undoing the damage caused by the fall of the first man, Adam. The Canonical Gospels of Luke and Matthew describe Jesus being born in Bethlehem, in Judea, to a Virgin Mother named Mary. Luke features the Christmas story, in which Joseph and Mary, as part of a census, travel to Bethlehem. It is there, that Jesus is born in a manger.
In the earliest days of the Church there was no such feast; the Saviour’s birth was commemorated with the Epiphany by the Greek and other Eastern Churches. First mention of the feast, then kept on 20 May, was made by Clement of Alexandria c.200. The Latin Church began c.300 to observe it on 25 December, though there is no certainty that Our Lord was born on that day. Many of the early Church Fathers regarded this as the actual date of Christ’s birth, though it does coincide with the Roman festival of Natalis Invicti (the winter solstice, which the Romans celebrated on December 25).
Many Fathers of the Church thought that Jesus was born on January 4th, in 4 B.C. before the death of King Herod the Great. Some Bible scholars fix Jesus’ birth in the month of September during the Feast of the Tabernacles when people travelled and when the sheep were in the field at night. December 25th was fixed by Pope Julius in A.D. 353 as a part of baptizing or Christianizing pagan feasts so that the converted pagans might celebrate the birthday of Jesus on Dec 25th instead of celebrating the birthday the Sun-god during winter solstice, while converted Roman soldiers might celebrate Christmas instead the birthday of Mithras, the Roman god-of-virility (Deus Solus Invictus).
By the middle of the sixth century, Christians had begun to observe Advent, the season of preparation for Christmas, with fasting and abstinence; and the Twelve Days of Christmas, from Christmas Day to Epiphany, had become established. For Christmas, Priests have the privilege of saying three Masses, at midnight, daybreak, and morning. This was originally reserved to the pope alone; beginning about the 4th century he celebrated a midnight Mass in the Lateran Basilica (in which according to tradition, the manger of Bethlehem is preserved), a second in the church of Saint Anastasia, whose feast comes on 25 December, and a third at the Vatican Basilica.
Most of the present-day Christmas decorations like the Christmas carols and gifts, Christmas tree and Christmas lights are remnants of the pagan celebrations. It was St. Francis of Assisi who first introduced the manger or Christmas crib in the 13th century. The Christmas tree, of which the first known mention was made in 1605 at Strasbourg, was introduced into France and England in 1840. The feast is a holy day of obligation, preceded by the preparatory season of Advent and by a special vigil; should it fall on a Friday it abrogates the law of abstinence.
The accounts of the Nativity of Jesus in the New Testament appear in only two of the four Canonical Gospels, namely the Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew. Luke’s story takes place mostly before the birth of Jesus and centers on Mary, while Matthew’s story takes place mostly after the birth of Jesus and centers on Joseph. The other Canonical Gospels, the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, begin their narratives of Jesus’s life in his adulthood. Both mention him coming out of Galilee and John mentions the name of Jesus’s father, but neither John or Mark give any other details of His life prior to adulthood. The betrothal of Jospeh and Mary and the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem appear in both Matthew and Luke. Luke includes several events prior to the birth of Jesus that do not appear in Matthew; the trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem, while Matthew alone discusses the Flight to Egypt after his birth. The Nativity accounts in the New Testament are generally viewed as ending with “Finding Jesus in the Temple” several years later, after the family has returned to Galilee.
“Let us pause before the Child of Bethlehem. Let us allow our hearts to be touched, let us allow ourselves to be warmed by the tenderness of God; we need his caress. God is full of love: to him be praise and glory forever! God is peace: let us ask him to help us to be peacemakers each day, in our life, in our families, in our cities and nations, in the whole world. Let us allow ourselves to be moved by God’s goodness.” – Pope Francis’ Christmas message
Close
December 25
Happy Christmas
December 26
Daily Saints – 26 December.
Feast of Saint Stephen the Martyr.
He is the patron saint of deacons, altar servers, brick layers, casket makers, coffin makers, horses, masons, stone masons and against headaches.
Stephen in Greek Stéphanos, meaning “wreath, crown” and by extension “reward, honor”. He is the first martyr.
The 6th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles contains an account of the choice of the first seven deacons of the Church. As the Apostles worked to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ as his elders, some of the Greek-speaking widows were being neglected in their practical needs. The Twelve decided to ordain seven deacons to oversee their care. In doing so, the deacons extended the pastoral care of the Apostles, the first Bishops of the early Church, enabling them to attend more to teaching.
Of the seven ordained, Stephen was the oldest and given the title of “archdeacon,” the chief among them. Little is known about him before this account. Like most of the early Christian leaders, he was Jewish, but may have come from among the Greek speaking or Hellenistic believers, the ones feeling slighted in the distribution of alms.
Great preaching and miracles were attributed to Stephen. The Bible records that Stephen “full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.” Stephen’s popularity created enemies among some Jews, members of the Synagogue of Roman Freedmen. They debated with him, to generate evidence against him in furtherance of their persecution of the early Church.
They accused him of blasphemy, of speaking against God and Moses. The charges inflamed the local populace which demanded he be tried and punished. When Stephen was put on trial, several false witnesses were brought forward by the Sanhedrin to testify that he was guilty of blasphemy. He was charged with predicting that Jesus would destroy the Temple and for preaching against Mosaic law.
Stephen was filled with wisdom from heaven. He responded by detailing the history of Israel and outlining the blessings God had bestowed upon his chosen people. He also explained how disobedient Israel had become, despite the goodness and mercy of the Lord. Stephen explained that Jesus had come to fulfil the law of Moses, not destroy it. He quoted extensively from the Hebrew scriptures to prove his case.
Finally, he admonished the Sanhedrin, saying, “You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Upright One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers. In spite of being given the Law through angels, you have not kept it.” (Acts 7:51-53)
As Stephen concluded his defense, he looked up and saw a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, “Look, I can see heaven thrown open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” That vision was taken as the final proof of blasphemy to the Jews who did not believe Jesus was the Messiah or Son of God. For them, Jesus could not possibly be beside the Father in Heaven. The crowd rushed upon Stephen and carried him outside of the city to stone him to death.
As Stephen was being brutally stoned, he spoke his last words, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Words which echoed the very words of Jesus on the Cross. Following those words, Stephen died, in the Lord.
Watching the trial and execution was a Rabbi named Saul of Tarsus, a virulent persecutor of the early Church. Shortly thereafter, that Rabbi would himself encounter the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus and be dramatically converted. His encounter is recorded in the 9th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He took the name Paul as a sign of his new life in Jesus Christ and went on to become the great apostle to the Gentiles.
Stephen was buried by Christians. He died as Jesus did: falsely accused, brought to unjust condemnation because he spoke the truth fearlessly. He died with his eyes trustfully fixed on God, and with a prayer of forgiveness on his lips.
Feast of Saint Stephen the Martyr.
He is the patron saint of deacons, altar servers, brick layers, casket makers, coffin makers, horses, masons, stone masons and against headaches.
Stephen in Greek Stéphanos, meaning “wreath, crown” and by extension “reward, honor”. He is the first martyr.
The 6th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles contains an account of the choice of the first seven deacons of the Church. As the Apostles worked to continue the ministry of Jesus Christ as his elders, some of the Greek-speaking widows were being neglected in their practical needs. The Twelve decided to ordain seven deacons to oversee their care. In doing so, the deacons extended the pastoral care of the Apostles, the first Bishops of the early Church, enabling them to attend more to teaching.
Of the seven ordained, Stephen was the oldest and given the title of “archdeacon,” the chief among them. Little is known about him before this account. Like most of the early Christian leaders, he was Jewish, but may have come from among the Greek speaking or Hellenistic believers, the ones feeling slighted in the distribution of alms.
Great preaching and miracles were attributed to Stephen. The Bible records that Stephen “full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.” Stephen’s popularity created enemies among some Jews, members of the Synagogue of Roman Freedmen. They debated with him, to generate evidence against him in furtherance of their persecution of the early Church.
They accused him of blasphemy, of speaking against God and Moses. The charges inflamed the local populace which demanded he be tried and punished. When Stephen was put on trial, several false witnesses were brought forward by the Sanhedrin to testify that he was guilty of blasphemy. He was charged with predicting that Jesus would destroy the Temple and for preaching against Mosaic law.
Stephen was filled with wisdom from heaven. He responded by detailing the history of Israel and outlining the blessings God had bestowed upon his chosen people. He also explained how disobedient Israel had become, despite the goodness and mercy of the Lord. Stephen explained that Jesus had come to fulfil the law of Moses, not destroy it. He quoted extensively from the Hebrew scriptures to prove his case.
Finally, he admonished the Sanhedrin, saying, “You stubborn people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears. You are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Can you name a single prophet your ancestors never persecuted? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Upright One, and now you have become his betrayers, his murderers. In spite of being given the Law through angels, you have not kept it.” (Acts 7:51-53)
As Stephen concluded his defense, he looked up and saw a vision of Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, “Look, I can see heaven thrown open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.” That vision was taken as the final proof of blasphemy to the Jews who did not believe Jesus was the Messiah or Son of God. For them, Jesus could not possibly be beside the Father in Heaven. The crowd rushed upon Stephen and carried him outside of the city to stone him to death.
As Stephen was being brutally stoned, he spoke his last words, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Words which echoed the very words of Jesus on the Cross. Following those words, Stephen died, in the Lord.
Watching the trial and execution was a Rabbi named Saul of Tarsus, a virulent persecutor of the early Church. Shortly thereafter, that Rabbi would himself encounter the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus and be dramatically converted. His encounter is recorded in the 9th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. He took the name Paul as a sign of his new life in Jesus Christ and went on to become the great apostle to the Gentiles.
Stephen was buried by Christians. He died as Jesus did: falsely accused, brought to unjust condemnation because he spoke the truth fearlessly. He died with his eyes trustfully fixed on God, and with a prayer of forgiveness on his lips.
Close
December 26
Saint Stephen the Martyr
December 27
Daily Saints – 27 December.
Feast of Saint John the Apostle.
He is the patron saint of love, loyalty, friendships, art dealers, authors, writers, basket makers, bookbinders, booksellers, butchers, compositors, editors, engravers, glaziers, government officials, harvests, lithographers, notaries, painters, papermakers, printers, publishers, saddle makers, scholars, sculptors, tanners, theologians, typesetters, vintners and invoked against burns; burn victims, against epilepsy, against foot problems, against hailstorms, against poisoning. St. John is called the Apostle of Charity.
St. John was born in Bethsaida. He was the Son of Zebedee and Salome. Like his brother St. James the Greater, he was also a Fisherman. He became a disciple of Saint John the Baptist and friend of Saint Peter the Apostle.
John was called by Jesus during the first year of His ministry, and traveled everywhere with Him, becoming so close as to be known as the beloved disciple. For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. John’s Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2).
Jesus gave James and John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.
In the first, as Matthew tells it, their mother asked that they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them the true nature of authority: “…[W]hoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).
On another occasion, the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).
John and Peter were the only two apostles sent by Jesus to make preparations for the final Passover meal. He took part in the Last Supper and was allowed to rest on Our Savior’s bosom at the Supper.
He was the only one of the Twelve disciples who did not to forsake the Saviour in the hour of His Passion. He stood at the foot of the cross along with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Made guardian of Our Lady by Jesus, and he took her into his home. Upon hearing of the Resurrection, he was the first to reach the tomb. When he met the risen Lord at the lake of Tiberias, he was the first to recognize Him.
Tradition holds that it is John who wrote the fourth Gospel, three Epistles, and possibly the Book of Revelation. His passages on the pre-existence of the Word, who by His Incarnation became the light of the world and the life of our souls, are among the finest of the New Testament. He is the evangelist of the divinity of Christ and His fraternal love.
John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending the night in jail together. During the era of the new Church, he worked in Jerusalem and at Ephesus. During Jesus’ ministry, he tried to block a Samaritan from their group, but Jesus explained the open nature of the new Way, and he worked on that principle to found churches in Asia Minor and baptizing converts in Samaria.
He was later exiled to the Island of Patmos, but afterwards returned to Ephesus. In his extreme old age he continued to visit the churches of Asia. St. Jerome relates that when age and weakness grew upon him so that he was no longer able to preach to the people, he would be carried to the assembly of the faithful by his disciples, with great difficulty; and every time said to his flock only these words: “My dear children, love one another.”
John is believed to be the longest living apostle and the only not to die a martyr’s death. He died in peace at Ephesus (in modern Turkey).
Traditional stories:
• Emperor Dometian had him brought to Rome, beaten, poisoned, and thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, but he stepped out unharmed and was banished to Patmos instead. This is commemorated by the feast of Saint John before the Latin Gate.
• When John was en route to preach in Asia, his ship was wrecked in a storm; all but John were cast ashore. John was assumed dead, but two weeks later the waves cast him ashore alive at the feet of his disciple Prochoros.
• When John denounced idol worship as demonic, followers of Artemis stoned him; the rocks turned and hit the throwers.
• He prayed in a temple of Artemis; fire from heaven killed 200 men who worshipped the idol. When the remaining group begged for mercy, he raised the 200 from the dead; they all converted and were baptized.
• Drove out a demon who had lived in a pagan temple for 249 years.
• Aboard ship, he purified vessels of sea water for drinking.
• Ceonops, a magician, pretended to bring three dead people come to life; the “people” were actually demons who mimicked people so the magician could turn people away from Christ. Through prayer, John caused the magician to drown and the demons to vanish.
• Once a year his grave gave off a fragrant dust that cured the sick.
Feast of Saint John the Apostle.
He is the patron saint of love, loyalty, friendships, art dealers, authors, writers, basket makers, bookbinders, booksellers, butchers, compositors, editors, engravers, glaziers, government officials, harvests, lithographers, notaries, painters, papermakers, printers, publishers, saddle makers, scholars, sculptors, tanners, theologians, typesetters, vintners and invoked against burns; burn victims, against epilepsy, against foot problems, against hailstorms, against poisoning. St. John is called the Apostle of Charity.
St. John was born in Bethsaida. He was the Son of Zebedee and Salome. Like his brother St. James the Greater, he was also a Fisherman. He became a disciple of Saint John the Baptist and friend of Saint Peter the Apostle.
John was called by Jesus during the first year of His ministry, and traveled everywhere with Him, becoming so close as to be known as the beloved disciple. For the three former fishermen—Peter, James and John—that faith was to be rewarded by a special friendship with Jesus. They alone were privileged to be present at the Transfiguration, the raising of the daughter of Jairus and the agony in Gethsemane. But John’s friendship was even more special. John’s Gospel refers to him as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (see John 13:23; 19:26; 20:2).
Jesus gave James and John the nickname, “sons of thunder.” While it is difficult to know exactly what this meant, a clue is given in two incidents.
In the first, as Matthew tells it, their mother asked that they might sit in the places of honor in Jesus’ kingdom—one on his right hand, one on his left. When Jesus asked them if they could drink the cup he would drink and be baptized with his baptism of pain, they blithely answered, “We can!” Jesus said that they would indeed share his cup, but that sitting at his right hand was not his to give. It was for those to whom it had been reserved by the Father. The other apostles were indignant at the mistaken ambition of the brothers, and Jesus took the occasion to teach them the true nature of authority: “…[W]hoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:27-28).
On another occasion, the “sons of thunder” asked Jesus if they should not call down fire from heaven upon the inhospitable Samaritans, who would not welcome Jesus because he was on his way to Jerusalem. But Jesus “turned and rebuked them” (see Luke 9:51-55).
John and Peter were the only two apostles sent by Jesus to make preparations for the final Passover meal. He took part in the Last Supper and was allowed to rest on Our Savior’s bosom at the Supper.
He was the only one of the Twelve disciples who did not to forsake the Saviour in the hour of His Passion. He stood at the foot of the cross along with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Made guardian of Our Lady by Jesus, and he took her into his home. Upon hearing of the Resurrection, he was the first to reach the tomb. When he met the risen Lord at the lake of Tiberias, he was the first to recognize Him.
Tradition holds that it is John who wrote the fourth Gospel, three Epistles, and possibly the Book of Revelation. His passages on the pre-existence of the Word, who by His Incarnation became the light of the world and the life of our souls, are among the finest of the New Testament. He is the evangelist of the divinity of Christ and His fraternal love.
John was with Peter when the first great miracle after the Resurrection took place—the cure of the man crippled from birth—which led to their spending the night in jail together. During the era of the new Church, he worked in Jerusalem and at Ephesus. During Jesus’ ministry, he tried to block a Samaritan from their group, but Jesus explained the open nature of the new Way, and he worked on that principle to found churches in Asia Minor and baptizing converts in Samaria.
He was later exiled to the Island of Patmos, but afterwards returned to Ephesus. In his extreme old age he continued to visit the churches of Asia. St. Jerome relates that when age and weakness grew upon him so that he was no longer able to preach to the people, he would be carried to the assembly of the faithful by his disciples, with great difficulty; and every time said to his flock only these words: “My dear children, love one another.”
John is believed to be the longest living apostle and the only not to die a martyr’s death. He died in peace at Ephesus (in modern Turkey).
Traditional stories:
• Emperor Dometian had him brought to Rome, beaten, poisoned, and thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, but he stepped out unharmed and was banished to Patmos instead. This is commemorated by the feast of Saint John before the Latin Gate.
• When John was en route to preach in Asia, his ship was wrecked in a storm; all but John were cast ashore. John was assumed dead, but two weeks later the waves cast him ashore alive at the feet of his disciple Prochoros.
• When John denounced idol worship as demonic, followers of Artemis stoned him; the rocks turned and hit the throwers.
• He prayed in a temple of Artemis; fire from heaven killed 200 men who worshipped the idol. When the remaining group begged for mercy, he raised the 200 from the dead; they all converted and were baptized.
• Drove out a demon who had lived in a pagan temple for 249 years.
• Aboard ship, he purified vessels of sea water for drinking.
• Ceonops, a magician, pretended to bring three dead people come to life; the “people” were actually demons who mimicked people so the magician could turn people away from Christ. Through prayer, John caused the magician to drown and the demons to vanish.
• Once a year his grave gave off a fragrant dust that cured the sick.
Close
December 27
Saint John the Apostle
December 28
Daily Saints – 28 December.
Feast of Holy Innocents.
Patron of altar servers, babies, children, children’s choir, choir boys, foundlings, students and against ambition, against jealousy.
During this octave of Christmas the Church celebrates the memory of the small children of the neighborhood of Bethlehem put to death by Herod.
Herod “the Great,” king of Judea, was unpopular with his people because of his connections with the Romans and his religious indifference. Hence he was insecure and fearful of any threat to his throne. He was a master politician and a tyrant capable of extreme brutality. He killed his wife, his brother, and his sister’s two husbands, to name only a few.
Matthew 2:1-18 tells this story: Herod was “greatly troubled” when astrologers from the east came asking the whereabouts of “the newborn king of the Jews,” whose star they had seen. They were told that the Jewish Scriptures named Bethlehem as the place where the Messiah would be born. Herod cunningly told them to report back to him so that he could also “do him homage.” They found Jesus, offered him their gifts, and warned by an angel, avoided Herod on their way home. Jesus escaped to Egypt.
Herod became furious and “ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under.” The horror of the massacre and the devastation of the mothers and fathers led Matthew to quote Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children…” (Matthew 2:18). Rachel was the wife of Jacob (Israel). She is pictured as weeping at the place where the Israelites were herded together by the conquering Assyrians for their march into captivity.
“Blessed are you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah! You suffered the inhumanity of King Herod in the murder of your babes and thereby have become worthy to offer to the Lord a pure host of infants. In full right do we celebrate the heavenly birthday of these children whom the world caused to be born unto an eternally blessed life rather than that from their mothers’ womb, for they attained the grace of everlasting life before the enjoyment of the present. The precious death of any martyr deserves high praise because of his heroic confession; the death of these children is precious in the sight of God because of the beatitude they gained so quickly. For already at the beginning of their lives they pass on. The end of the present life is for them the beginning of glory. These then, whom Herod’s cruelty tore as sucklings from their mothers’ bosom, are justly hailed as “infant martyr flowers”; they were the Church’s first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief.” – St. Augustine
Feast of Holy Innocents.
Patron of altar servers, babies, children, children’s choir, choir boys, foundlings, students and against ambition, against jealousy.
During this octave of Christmas the Church celebrates the memory of the small children of the neighborhood of Bethlehem put to death by Herod.
Herod “the Great,” king of Judea, was unpopular with his people because of his connections with the Romans and his religious indifference. Hence he was insecure and fearful of any threat to his throne. He was a master politician and a tyrant capable of extreme brutality. He killed his wife, his brother, and his sister’s two husbands, to name only a few.
Matthew 2:1-18 tells this story: Herod was “greatly troubled” when astrologers from the east came asking the whereabouts of “the newborn king of the Jews,” whose star they had seen. They were told that the Jewish Scriptures named Bethlehem as the place where the Messiah would be born. Herod cunningly told them to report back to him so that he could also “do him homage.” They found Jesus, offered him their gifts, and warned by an angel, avoided Herod on their way home. Jesus escaped to Egypt.
Herod became furious and “ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under.” The horror of the massacre and the devastation of the mothers and fathers led Matthew to quote Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children…” (Matthew 2:18). Rachel was the wife of Jacob (Israel). She is pictured as weeping at the place where the Israelites were herded together by the conquering Assyrians for their march into captivity.
“Blessed are you, Bethlehem in the land of Judah! You suffered the inhumanity of King Herod in the murder of your babes and thereby have become worthy to offer to the Lord a pure host of infants. In full right do we celebrate the heavenly birthday of these children whom the world caused to be born unto an eternally blessed life rather than that from their mothers’ womb, for they attained the grace of everlasting life before the enjoyment of the present. The precious death of any martyr deserves high praise because of his heroic confession; the death of these children is precious in the sight of God because of the beatitude they gained so quickly. For already at the beginning of their lives they pass on. The end of the present life is for them the beginning of glory. These then, whom Herod’s cruelty tore as sucklings from their mothers’ bosom, are justly hailed as “infant martyr flowers”; they were the Church’s first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief.” – St. Augustine
Close
December 28
Holy Innocents
December 29
Daily Saints – 29 December.
Feast of Saint Thomas a Becket.
Patron of clergy, secular clergy.
St. Thomas was born in London, England around the year 1117. He was the son of pius parents, and his mother converted to Christianity through the example and teachings of his father.
From his early youth, Thomas was educated in religion and holiness. After his childhood, Thomas was then taught at a monastery and later at a school in London. After the death of both his parents, Thomas decided to finish his schooling by studying canon law. He was successful in his studies and was made secretary to one of the courts of London.
After working for a while at law, Thomas decided to dedicate the rest of his life to God, and began to work towards ordination. In all that he did, Thomas diligently applied himself and became well known as a holy and honest worker. His work came under the scrutiny of King Henry II and both became friends.
While archdeacon of Canterbury, he was made chancellor of England at the age of 36 by his friend King Henry II. When Henry felt it advantageous to make his chancellor the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas gave him fair warning: he might not accept all of Henry’s intrusions into Church affairs. Nevertheless, in 1162 he was made archbishop, resigned his chancellorship, and reformed his whole way of life!
Thomas served as bishop by seeking to help the people and develop his own holiness. He practiced many penances and was very generous to the poor with both his time and his money. As Henry’s reign continued, he began more and more to exercise his hand in Church affairs. This caused many disagreements with Thomas.
At one time, supposing some conciliatory action possible, Thomas came close to compromise. He momentarily approved the Constitutions of Clarendon, which would have denied the clergy the right of trial by a Church court and prevented them from making direct appeal to Rome. But Thomas rejected the Constitutions, fled to France for safety, and remained in exile for seven years.
When he returned to England he suspected it would mean certain death. Because Thomas refused to remit censures he had placed upon bishops favored by the king, Henry cried out in a rage, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest!”
Four of Henry’s knights, probably not the brightest of men, took this as a summons to action, and left for Canterbury immediately. They reached Canterbury Cathedral and they found Becket before the High Altar, as he had gone there to hear Vespers.
One of the knights approached him, and struck Becket on the shoulder with the flat of his sword. It seems that the knights did not at first intend to kill Becket, but as he stood firm after the first blow, the four attacked and butchered him. It is recorded that they cracked open his skull spilling his brains onto the cathedral floor! He was murdered in his cathedral on December 29, 1170.
Henry did penance at the grave of Thomas, seeking forgiveness for the actions of his knights, and the tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage for the faithful.
“Wait the end with joy. It is the end which characterizes everything and which tests a man’s expectations.”
“Do you not know that the largest trees, which have required years to grow, are cut down in one hour? It is foolish to look for their fruits and yet to be unprepared for their fall. Let it be your consolation, then, that God’s enemies, however honorable and exalted they may have been, shall nevertheless fade away like the smoke.”
“Whosoever wisely examines the works of God will speedily discover what is next to be done.”
“Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered… the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith… All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.”
“The Church of Christ is constituted in two orders, the clergy and the people, the one having the care of the Church that all may be ruled for the salvation of souls; the other contains kings, princes, and nobles who have to carry on secular government that all things may lead to the peace and unity of the Church.”
“Hereafter, I want you to tell me, candidly and in secret, what people are saying about me. And if you see anything in me that you regard as a fault, feel free to tell me in private. For from now on, people will talk about me, but not to me. It is dangerous for men in power if no one dares to tell them when they go wrong.” – Saint Thomas Becket to a friend on his way to Ordination
Feast of Saint Thomas a Becket.
Patron of clergy, secular clergy.
St. Thomas was born in London, England around the year 1117. He was the son of pius parents, and his mother converted to Christianity through the example and teachings of his father.
From his early youth, Thomas was educated in religion and holiness. After his childhood, Thomas was then taught at a monastery and later at a school in London. After the death of both his parents, Thomas decided to finish his schooling by studying canon law. He was successful in his studies and was made secretary to one of the courts of London.
After working for a while at law, Thomas decided to dedicate the rest of his life to God, and began to work towards ordination. In all that he did, Thomas diligently applied himself and became well known as a holy and honest worker. His work came under the scrutiny of King Henry II and both became friends.
While archdeacon of Canterbury, he was made chancellor of England at the age of 36 by his friend King Henry II. When Henry felt it advantageous to make his chancellor the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas gave him fair warning: he might not accept all of Henry’s intrusions into Church affairs. Nevertheless, in 1162 he was made archbishop, resigned his chancellorship, and reformed his whole way of life!
Thomas served as bishop by seeking to help the people and develop his own holiness. He practiced many penances and was very generous to the poor with both his time and his money. As Henry’s reign continued, he began more and more to exercise his hand in Church affairs. This caused many disagreements with Thomas.
At one time, supposing some conciliatory action possible, Thomas came close to compromise. He momentarily approved the Constitutions of Clarendon, which would have denied the clergy the right of trial by a Church court and prevented them from making direct appeal to Rome. But Thomas rejected the Constitutions, fled to France for safety, and remained in exile for seven years.
When he returned to England he suspected it would mean certain death. Because Thomas refused to remit censures he had placed upon bishops favored by the king, Henry cried out in a rage, “Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest!”
Four of Henry’s knights, probably not the brightest of men, took this as a summons to action, and left for Canterbury immediately. They reached Canterbury Cathedral and they found Becket before the High Altar, as he had gone there to hear Vespers.
One of the knights approached him, and struck Becket on the shoulder with the flat of his sword. It seems that the knights did not at first intend to kill Becket, but as he stood firm after the first blow, the four attacked and butchered him. It is recorded that they cracked open his skull spilling his brains onto the cathedral floor! He was murdered in his cathedral on December 29, 1170.
Henry did penance at the grave of Thomas, seeking forgiveness for the actions of his knights, and the tomb soon became a place of pilgrimage for the faithful.
“Wait the end with joy. It is the end which characterizes everything and which tests a man’s expectations.”
“Do you not know that the largest trees, which have required years to grow, are cut down in one hour? It is foolish to look for their fruits and yet to be unprepared for their fall. Let it be your consolation, then, that God’s enemies, however honorable and exalted they may have been, shall nevertheless fade away like the smoke.”
“Whosoever wisely examines the works of God will speedily discover what is next to be done.”
“Remember the sufferings of Christ, the storms that were weathered… the crown that came from those sufferings which gave new radiance to the faith… All saints give testimony to the truth that without real effort, no one ever wins the crown.”
“The Church of Christ is constituted in two orders, the clergy and the people, the one having the care of the Church that all may be ruled for the salvation of souls; the other contains kings, princes, and nobles who have to carry on secular government that all things may lead to the peace and unity of the Church.”
“Hereafter, I want you to tell me, candidly and in secret, what people are saying about me. And if you see anything in me that you regard as a fault, feel free to tell me in private. For from now on, people will talk about me, but not to me. It is dangerous for men in power if no one dares to tell them when they go wrong.” – Saint Thomas Becket to a friend on his way to Ordination
Close
December 29
Saint Thomas a Becket
December 30
Daily Saints – 30 December.
Feast of Saint Anysia of Salonika.
Anysia was a young woman who lived in the year 304, during the reign of the cruel Maximian Galerius. She was the daughter of rich and noble christian parents who had died and left her an orphan. She dedicated herself to vows of chastity and poverty, praying and helping the poor.
Under the reign of Maximian Galerius, there was much persecution of Christians. Anysia lived in the region of Thessalonica, under the governorship of Dulcitius. Christians were unable to worship in the open place so would meet secretly.
One day as she left her home to go to the assembly of the faithful, she passed by the gates of Cassandra. One of the emperor’s guards took notice of her and stepped in front of her so that she couldn’t pass. He asked her where she was going. Frightened, Anysia made the sign of the cross on her forehead and said nothing. This enraged the soldier and he grabbed her and again demanded that she tell him who she was and where she was going.
Anysia answered, “I am a servant of Jesus Christ, and am going to the Lord’s assembly.”
The soldier quickly replied, “I will prevent that and will bring thee to sacrifice to the gods, for today we adore the sun.” Then the soldier tore off her veil.
When she lifted her arm to keep him from removing her veil, he became even more enraged, drew his sword and ran it through her body so that it came out the other side. Anysia immediately fell to the ground, bathed in her blood, and died.
Feast of Saint Anysia of Salonika.
Anysia was a young woman who lived in the year 304, during the reign of the cruel Maximian Galerius. She was the daughter of rich and noble christian parents who had died and left her an orphan. She dedicated herself to vows of chastity and poverty, praying and helping the poor.
Under the reign of Maximian Galerius, there was much persecution of Christians. Anysia lived in the region of Thessalonica, under the governorship of Dulcitius. Christians were unable to worship in the open place so would meet secretly.
One day as she left her home to go to the assembly of the faithful, she passed by the gates of Cassandra. One of the emperor’s guards took notice of her and stepped in front of her so that she couldn’t pass. He asked her where she was going. Frightened, Anysia made the sign of the cross on her forehead and said nothing. This enraged the soldier and he grabbed her and again demanded that she tell him who she was and where she was going.
Anysia answered, “I am a servant of Jesus Christ, and am going to the Lord’s assembly.”
The soldier quickly replied, “I will prevent that and will bring thee to sacrifice to the gods, for today we adore the sun.” Then the soldier tore off her veil.
When she lifted her arm to keep him from removing her veil, he became even more enraged, drew his sword and ran it through her body so that it came out the other side. Anysia immediately fell to the ground, bathed in her blood, and died.
Close
December 30
Saint Anysia of Salonika
December 31
Daily Saints – 31 December.
Pope Saint Sylvester I
He is the patron saint of animals, for good harvests, stone masons.
Sylvester was born in Rome around the year 250. He was the son of Rufinus. Some legends state that at a young age, Sylvester was put under the care of a priest to be formed in the practice of religion and sacred literature. He enjoyed providing shelter to Christians passing through the city, and would take them with him, wash their feet, serve them at table and give them all the care the needed in the name of Christ.
One of the Christians that Sylvester hosted was Timothy of Antioch, an illustrious confessor of the faith. When he arrived in Rome, no one dared to receive him, but Sylvester considered it an honor.
For a year, Timothy preached the gospel Jesus Christ with great zeal, while Sylvester selflessly shared his own home. After Timothy died as a martyr, Sylvester buried his remains, but was quickly accused of having hidden the martyr’s treasures, and the governor had him imprisoned. In reply to the accusation, Sylvester said, “Timothy left to me only the heritage of his faith and courage.”
After the governor one day swallowed a fish bone and died, the guards’ hearts were softened, and they set the brave young man free. Sylvester’s courageous acts became known to Pope Melchiades, who elevated him to the diaconate.
Under the tyranny of Diocletian, the persecution of Christians grew worse while Sylvester was still a young priest. Most Christians that went abroad were put to the test of offering sacrifice, with the alternative of apostasy or death.
During this difficult time, Sylvester strengthened the confessors and martyrs, and God preserved his life from many dangers. He passed through those days of terror, witnessed the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, and saw the triumph of Constantine in the year 312. Two years later he succeeded St. Melchiades as Bishop of Rome. In the same year, he sent four legates to represent him at the great Council of the Western Church, held at Aries. He confirmed it’s decision and imparted them to the Church.
The Council of Nice was assembled during his reign, in the year 325, but not being able to assist at it in person, on account of his great age, he sent his legates, who headed the list of subscribers to its decrees, preceding the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch.
During Sylvester’s reign, the city began its transition into its Christian era, with the construction of the great Constantinian basilicas – the Basilica of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, the Lateran Basilica and Baptistery, the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls and several cemeterial churches over the graves of martyrs. No doubt St. Sylvester helped towards the construction of these churches.
Pope St. Sylvester also contributed to the development of the liturgy. It was most probably during his reign that the first Roman Martyrology was composed, and his name is associated with the creation of the ancient Roman school of sacred song.
Numerous legends dramatize his life and work, e.g., how he freed Constantine from leprosy by baptism; how he killed a ferocious dragon that was contaminating the air with his poisonous breath.
St. Sylvester was Pope for twenty-four years and eleven months. He died in the year 335.
Pope Saint Sylvester I
He is the patron saint of animals, for good harvests, stone masons.
Sylvester was born in Rome around the year 250. He was the son of Rufinus. Some legends state that at a young age, Sylvester was put under the care of a priest to be formed in the practice of religion and sacred literature. He enjoyed providing shelter to Christians passing through the city, and would take them with him, wash their feet, serve them at table and give them all the care the needed in the name of Christ.
One of the Christians that Sylvester hosted was Timothy of Antioch, an illustrious confessor of the faith. When he arrived in Rome, no one dared to receive him, but Sylvester considered it an honor.
For a year, Timothy preached the gospel Jesus Christ with great zeal, while Sylvester selflessly shared his own home. After Timothy died as a martyr, Sylvester buried his remains, but was quickly accused of having hidden the martyr’s treasures, and the governor had him imprisoned. In reply to the accusation, Sylvester said, “Timothy left to me only the heritage of his faith and courage.”
After the governor one day swallowed a fish bone and died, the guards’ hearts were softened, and they set the brave young man free. Sylvester’s courageous acts became known to Pope Melchiades, who elevated him to the diaconate.
Under the tyranny of Diocletian, the persecution of Christians grew worse while Sylvester was still a young priest. Most Christians that went abroad were put to the test of offering sacrifice, with the alternative of apostasy or death.
During this difficult time, Sylvester strengthened the confessors and martyrs, and God preserved his life from many dangers. He passed through those days of terror, witnessed the abdication of Diocletian and Maximian, and saw the triumph of Constantine in the year 312. Two years later he succeeded St. Melchiades as Bishop of Rome. In the same year, he sent four legates to represent him at the great Council of the Western Church, held at Aries. He confirmed it’s decision and imparted them to the Church.
The Council of Nice was assembled during his reign, in the year 325, but not being able to assist at it in person, on account of his great age, he sent his legates, who headed the list of subscribers to its decrees, preceding the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch.
During Sylvester’s reign, the city began its transition into its Christian era, with the construction of the great Constantinian basilicas – the Basilica of St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, the Lateran Basilica and Baptistery, the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem, the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls and several cemeterial churches over the graves of martyrs. No doubt St. Sylvester helped towards the construction of these churches.
Pope St. Sylvester also contributed to the development of the liturgy. It was most probably during his reign that the first Roman Martyrology was composed, and his name is associated with the creation of the ancient Roman school of sacred song.
Numerous legends dramatize his life and work, e.g., how he freed Constantine from leprosy by baptism; how he killed a ferocious dragon that was contaminating the air with his poisonous breath.
St. Sylvester was Pope for twenty-four years and eleven months. He died in the year 335.
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December 31
Pope Saint Sylvester I