Apostle Bartholomew
Transfer of the Relics of the took place at the end of the sixth century
Orthodoxe Kirche: 11.
Juni und 25. August (Überführung der Reliquien) Katholische, Anglikanische
und Evangelische Kirche: 24. August
His apostolic activity and martyr's end are remembered by the
Church on June 11. The Apostle
When the city of Anastasiopolis was captured by the Persian emperor
Chozroes, Christians took up the chest with the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew
and fled with it to the shores of the Black Sea. Having overtaken them, pagan
priests threw the chest with the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew into the
sea. Four other chests containing the relics of the holy Martyrs Papian,
Lucian, Gregory and Acacius were also thrown into the sea.
By the power of God the chests did not sink into the depths of
the sea, but miraculously floated upon the waves and reached Italy. The chest
with the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew came to land at the island of
Lipari, and the remaining chests continued their journey and came to land
at various places in Italy. The chest with the relics of the Martyr Papian
halted at Sicily, the Martyr Lucian at Messina, the Martyr Gregory at Calabria,
and the Martyr Acacius at Askalon.
The arrival of the relics of
the holy Apostle Bartholomew was revealed to Bishop Agathon of the island
of Lipari, who went with clergy to the shores of the sea, took the chest
from the waters and solemnly transferred it to church. Bartholomew
suffered for Christ in Armenian Albanus (now Baku) in the year 71, where
his holy relics were. Numerous miracles occurred from the relics of the holy
Apostle, and many of the unbelieving were converted to Christ. Under the
emperor Anastasius (491-518) the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew were transferred
into the newly constructed city of Anastasiopolis (or Dura) and remained there
until the end of the sixth century.
Myrrh flowed from the relics of the Apostle Bartholomew, healing
people of various illnesses.
The holy relics remained in the church of the island of Lipari
until the middle of the ninth century when the island was captured by pagans.
Christian merchants took up the holy relics of the Apostle Bartholomew and
transferred them to the city of Beneventum, near Naples, where they were
received with great veneration and placed in the main church of the city.
Apostel Bartholomäus
Orthodoxe Kirche: 11. Juni und 25. August (Überführung
der Reliquien) Katholische, Anglikanische und Evangelische Kirche: 24. August
Der Apostel Bartholomäus wird seit dem Mittelalter gern mit
Nathanael identifiziert, den Philippus zum Herrn führt und den der Herr
als "rechter Israelit, in dem kein Falsch ist" bezeichnet (Joh. 1,47). Johannes
nennt Nathanael außer in der Berufunsgerzählung noch in 21,2.
Bartholomäus wird in den Apostellisten (Mt. 10, 3/Mk 3, 18/Lk 6, 14
und Apg. 1,13) genannt.
Nach der Überlieferung hat Bartholomäus das Evangelium
in Persien und Indien verkündigt. "Als Pantäus zu Anfang des 3.
Jahrhunderts nach Indien kam, fand er da Spuren des Christentums und des
heiligen Bartholomäus. Von ihm sei das hebräische Evangelium Matthäi,
welches die dortigen Christen zeigten, ins Land gebracht worden" (Wilhelm
Löhe)
Michelangelo Sixtinische KapelleNach der Überlieferung soll
Bartholomäus bei lebendigem Leib die Haut abgezogen worden sein, dann
wurde er gekreuzigt. Das Martyrium wird in vielen Bildern dargestellt (z.
B. von Michelangelo in der Sixtinischen Kapelle). Spätere Legenden berichten
von abenteuerlichen Wegen der Gebeine, die sich heute in Rom und Frankfurt/Main
befinden.
|
Saint Titus,
Apostle of the Seventy was a native of the island of Crete, the son of an
illustrious pagan. In his youth he studied Hellenistic philosophy and the
ancient poets. Preoccupied by the sciences, Titus led a virtuous life, not
devoting himself to the vices and passions characteristic of the majority
of pagans. He preserved his virginity, as the Hieromartyr Ignatius the God-bearer
(December 20) testifies of him. By the prayer of St Titus, the idol
of Diana fell down and shattered before the eyes of all. Another time St
Titus prayed that the Lord would not permit the completion of a temple of
Zeus, and it collapsed.
For such a manner of life the Lord did not leave him without His
help. At age twenty St Titus heard a voice in a dream, suggesting that he
abandon Hellenistic wisdom, which could not provide salvation for his soul,
but rather to seek that which would save him. After this dream, St Titus
waited yet another year, since it was not actually a command, but it did
guide him to familiarize himself with the teachings of the prophets of God.
The first that he happened to read was the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Having
opened it to the 47th Chapter, he was struck by the words, speaking as it
were about his own spiritual condition.
When news reached Crete about the appearance of a Great Prophet
in Palestine, and about the great miracles He worked, the governor of the
island of Crete (an uncle of Titus) sent him there. This Prophet was the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself, incarnate of the Most Holy Virgin Mary Who came
into the world for the redemption of the race of mankind from the oppression
of ancestral sin.
At Jerusalem, St Titus saw the Lord. He heard His preaching and
believed in Him. He witnessed the sufferingand death of the Savior on the
Cross, His glorious Resurrection and Ascension to Heaven. On the day of Pentecost
the future apostlle heard how the Twelve Apostles, after the descentof the
Holy Spirit, spoke in various languages, among which was the Cretan language
(Acts 2: 11).
St Titus accepted Baptism from the Apostle Paul and became his
closest disciple. He accompanied St Paul on his missionary journeys, fulfilling
the tasks entrusted to him. He was involved in establishing new churches,
and was with Paul in Jerusalem.
St Titus was numbered among the Seventy Apostles and was made
Bishop of Crete by the Apostle Paul. Around the year 65, not long before
his second imprisonment, the Apostle Paul sent a pastoral epistle to his son
in the Faith (Tit. 1: 4).
When the Apostle Paul was taken
like a criminal to Rome to stand trial before Caesar, St Titus left his flock
in Cretefor a time and went to Rome to be of service to his spiritual Father.
After St Paul's death by martyrdom, Titus returned to Gortyna, the chief
city of Crete.
St Titus peacefully guided his flock and toiled at enlightening
the pagans with the light of faith in Christ. He was granted the gift of wonderworking
by the Lord. During one of the pagan feasts in honor of the goddess Diana,
Titus preached to a crowd of pagans.
When he saw that they would not listen to him, he prayed to the
Lord, so that the Lord Himself would show to the mistaken people the falseness
of idols. By the prayer of St Titus, the idol of Diana fell down and shattered
before the eyes of all. Another time St Titus prayed that the Lord would
not permit the completion of a temple of Zeus, and it collapsed.
By such miracles St Titus brought many to faith in Christ. After
bringing the light of faith to the surrounding regions, St Titus died peacefully
at the age of 97. At the time of his death, his face shone like the sun.
|
1st v. St. Gerintius
of Italica Bishop missionary martyr
who preached the Gospel in
that country in apostolic times, and after many labours died in prison.
Itálicæ, in Hispánia,
sancti Gerúntii Epíscopi, qui, Apostolórum témpore,
Evangélium in ea província prædicávit, et, post
multos labóres, in cárcere quiévit.
At Italica in Spain,
St. Gerontius, bishop, who preached the Gospel in that country in apostolic
times, and after many labours died in prison.
A missionary in Spain, he was said to be the bishop of Talco, near Seville,
Spain .
|
St. Maginus Martyr evangelist
Tarragona
Tarracóne,
in Hispánia, sancti Magíni Mártyris.
At Tarragona in Spain, St. Maginus, martyr.
Also called Magi
and Maximus, he evangelized the region until arrested in the Roman persecution.
Refusing to abjure the faith, Maginus was beheaded.
|
2nd v. Item Romæ sanctórum Mártyrum
Eusébii, Pontiáni, Vincéntii et Peregríni; qui,
sub Cómmodo Imperatóre, primum in equúleo leváti,
nervis quoque disténti, ac deínde fústibus cæsi
sunt, flammis circa eórum látera appósitis; et, cum
in laude Christi fidelíssime permanérent, plumbátis
usque ad emissiónem spíritus sunt mactáti.
Eusebius,
Pontian, Vincent, and Peregrinus, Also at Rome, in the time of Emperor Commodus,
the holy martyrs who were first racked, distended by ropes, then beaten
with rods and burned about their sides. As they continued faithfully
to praise Christ, they were scourged with leaded whips until they expired.
|
2nd v. St. Nemesius
and Lucilla Two Roman martyrs
Romæ prætérea natális beáti Nemésii
Diáconi, et fíliæ Lucillæ Vírginis; qui,
cum de fide Christi flecti nequáquam possent, decolláti sunt,
jubénte Valeriáno Imperatóre. Ipsórum córpora,
a beáto Stéphano Papa sepúlta, deínde a beáto
Xysto Secúndo via Appia, prídie Kaléndas Novémbris,
honéstius tumuláta, Gregórius Quintus in Diacóniam
sanctæ Maríæ Novæ tránstulit, una cum sanctis
Symphrónio, Olympio Tribúno, hujúsque uxóre Exsupéria
et Theodúlo fílio; qui omnes, Symphrónii ópera
convérsi et ab eódem sancto Stéphano baptizáti,
martyrio coronáti fúerant. Eadem Sanctórum córpora,
Gregório Décimo tértio Summo Pontífice, ibídem
invénta, sub altári ejúsdem Ecclésiæ honorificéntius
collocáta sunt sexto Idus Decémbris.
In the same city of Rome, the birthday of blessed Nemesius,
deacon, and his daughter, the virgin Lucilla. As they could not be
prevailed upon to abandon the faith of Christ, they were beheaded by order
of Emperor Valerian. Their bodies were buried by blessed Pope Stephen,
and afterwards more decently entombed on the 31st of October, by blessed
Sixtus on the Appian Way. Gregory V translated them into the sacristy
of Santa Maria Nova, together with the Saints Symphronius, Olympius, a tribune,
Exuperia, his wife, and Theodulus, his son, who, being all converted by the
exertions of Symphonius, and baptized by the same St. Stephen, had been crowned
with martyrdom. These holy bodies were found there during the pontificate
of Gregory XIII, and placed more honourably beneath the altar of the same
church, on the 8th of December.
Put to death under Emperor Valerian.
Nemesius was a deacon in Rome, and Lucilla was his daughter.
|
St. Marcian Abbot Founder of
St. Eusebius Abbey in Apt, France. He was born in Saignon or Vaucluse .
|
3rd. v. St. Genesius Patron
of actors said to be a catechumen and by
profession a notary, one of those notaril who took down shorthand notes of
judicial proceedings for the public archives to whom reference is several
times made in the acts of the martyrs.
Item Romæ sancti
Genésii Mártyris, qui, primum sub Gentilitáte mimus,
cum in theátro, spectánte Diocletiáno Imperatóre,
Mystériis Christianórum illúderet, repénte, inspirátus
a Deo, convérsus est ad fidem et baptizátus. Mox, Imperatóris
jussu, fústibus crudelíssime cæsus, deínde suspénsus
in equúleo, et ungulárum diutíssima laceratióne
vexátus, lampádibus étiam adústus est; ac tandem,
cum in fide Christi persísteret, dicens: «Non est Rex præter
Christum, pro quo si míllies occídar, ipsum mihi de ore, ipsum
mihi de corde auférre non potéritis», martyrii palmam
obtruncatióne cápitis proméruit.
Also at Rome, St. Genesius, martyr, who had embraced the profession of actor
while he was a pagan. One day he was deriding the Christian mysteries
in the theatre in the presence of Emperor Diocletian; but by the inspiration
of God he was suddenly converted to the faith and baptized. By command
of the emperor he was forthwith most cruelly beaten with rods, then racked,
and a long time lacerated with iron hooks, and burned with torches.
As he remained firm in the faith of Christ, even saying: "There is no king
besides Christ. Should you kill me a thousand times, you shall not
be able to take him from my lips or my heart." He was then beheaded,
and thus merited the palm of martyrdom.
Areláte, in Gállia, beáti
item Genésii, qui, cum ímpia edícta, quibus Christiáni
puníri jubebántur, exceptóris offício fungens,
nollet excípere, et, projéctis in públicum tábulis,
se Christiánum esse testarétur, comprehénsus et decollátus
est, atque ita martyrii glóriam, próprio cruóre baptizátus,
accépit.
At Arles in
France, another blessed Genesius, who, filling the office of notary, and
refusing to record the impious edicts by which Christians were commanded
to be punished, threw away his books publicly, and declared himself a Christian.
He was seized and beheaded, and thus attained the glory of martyrdom through
baptism in his own blood.
St Genesius The Comedian, Martyr.
Father Delehaye classes the story of St Genesius in the category of imaginative
romances it is possible that Genesius never existed at all, but is
a western version of St Gelasius of Heliopolis, of whom (and of others) a
similar tale is told. The legend of Genesius is narrated by Alban
Butler as follows.
The Emperor Diocletian coming to Rome, he was received
with great rejoicings. Among other entertainments prepared for him, those
of the stage were not neglected. In a comedy which was acted in his
presence one of the players took it into his head to burlesque the ceremonies
of Christian baptism, which could not fail to amuse the people, who held
our religion and its mysteries in contempt and derision. This player
therefore, whose name was Genesius and who had learned some things concerning
Christian rites from friends who professed that religion, laid himself down
on the stage, pretending to be ill, and said, Ah my friends, there
is a great weight upon me, and I would gladly be eased ". The others
answered, What shall we do to give you ease? Would you
like us to plane you and reduce the weight that way?" "Idiots" he exclaimed,
I am resolved to die a Christian, that God may receive me on this day of
my death as one who seeks His salvation by turning from idolatry and superstition."
Then a priest and exorcist were called, that is to say, two players
who impersonated these characters. These, sitting down by his bedside, asked,
"Well, my child, why did you send for us?" But here Genesius was suddenly
converted by a divine inspiration and replied, not in mockery but seriously,
"Because I desire to receive the grace of Jesus Christ and to be born again,
that I may be delivered from my sins." The other players then went
through the whole ceremony of baptism with him; but he in earnest answered
the usual interrogatories, and on being baptized was clothed with a white
garment. After this, other players, dressed like soldiers, to carry
on the jest, seized him and presented him to the emperor, to be examined
as the martyrs were wont to be.
Genesius then declared himself openly and seriously, standing upon
the stage, "Hear! 0 emperor, and all you that are present, officers, philosophers,
senators and people, hear what I am going to say. "I never yet so much
as heard the word Christian but I reviled it, and I detested my very relations
because they professed that religion. I learned its rites and mysteries
only that I might the better ridicule it, and inspire you with the utmost
contempt for it; but when I was to be washed with the water and examined,
I had no sooner answered sincerely that I believed, than I saw a company
of angels over my head, who recited out of a book all the sins I had committed
from my childhood and having plunged the book into the water which had been
poured upon me in your presence, they showed me the book whiter than snow.
Wherefore I advise you, 0 great and mighty emperor, and all people here present
who have mocked these mysteries, to believe with me that Jesus Christ is
the true Lord ; that He is the light and the truth ; and that it is through
Him you may obtain the forgiveness of your sins." {Assuming the story to
be true, the "baptism "administered would not be valid, for lack, on the
part of the sacrilegious actor, of any intention even "to do what the Church
does" when she baptizes. Genesius received the baptism, not of water,
but of desire and of blood..}
Diocletian, enraged at these words, ordered him to be beaten,
and afterward to be put into the hands of Plautian, the prefect of the praetorium,
that he might compel him to sacrifice. Plautian put him upon the rack,
where he was torn with iron hooks and then burnt with torches; but the martyr
persisted in crying out, "There is no other Lord beside Him whom I
have seen. Him I worship and serve, and to Him I will cling,
though I should suffer a thousand deaths. No torments shall remove
Jesus Christ from my heart and my mouth. Bitterly do I regret that I once
detested His holy name, and came so late to His service." At length his head
was struck off.
For satisfactory
proof that Dom Ruinart blundered in including the story of this probably
mythical personage among his Acta Sincera,
the reader must consult the Martyrologes
historiques of Dom Quentin, especially pp. 533-541, and also
the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxix
(1910), pp. 258-269. The legend of the mock baptism of the comedian Genesius
was no doubt in circulation before the sixth century, for "Genesius the actor"
is commemorated in the calendar of Carthage. Still the text in Ruinart is
certainly not the primitive form of his "acts". What Ruinart has printed
is only a copy of Ado's abridgement of the longer narrative which is known
to us through Surius and others. It is not disputed that in early times the
Christian rites were often burlesqued upon the stage (though H. Reich in
his book, Der Mimus, has greatly
exaggerated the evidence for this), and early currency was given to the tradition
or legend that the practice had resulted in the conversion of an actor, who
was thereupon put to death but unfortunately what is substantially the same
story is connected with four different names, Genesius, Gelasius or Gelasinus,
Ardalio and Porphyrius. We have no guarantee in any of these cases that it
is not a hagiographical fiction. See further Bertha von der Lage, Studien zur Genesiuslegende (1898) Mostert
and Stengel, L'ystoire et la Vie de Saint
Genis (1908) Paul Allard, La persecution
de Diocletien, vol. i (1908),
pp.7-9, who argue. In favour of the real existence of the martyr and
CMH.. pp. 463-465. Cf. also the
next notice.
303 St Genesius of
Arles, notary; Martyr patron of the city
On this day is commemorated another St Genesius (Genes), the patron
of the city of Arles. He was said to be a catechumen and by profession a
notary, one of those notaril who took down shorthand notes of judicial proceedings
for the public archives to whom reference is several times made in the acts
of the martyrs. His acta say that he studied with great perseverance and
exercised with much success that useful art by which he was able
at a single stroke to take down words, and by the speed of his hand to equal
the rapidity of the discourse of an orator, and to render word for word,
with abridged notes, the pleadings of counsel, the deposition of witnesses
and the answers of the accused...Now it happened one day that, while he was
performing his duties as clerk of the court before the judge at Arles, there
was read out an impious and sacrilegious edict which the emperors had published
throughout all the provinces [of persecution against the Christians].
The ears of the religious clerk were wounded and his hand refused to trace
the words on the wax. He did more : he got up from his seat, flung
his registers at the feet of the judge, and renounced for ever such a wicked
occupation." He then fled secretly, seeking safety from town to town,
and, as he thought that he had need to be fortified in the faith by baptism
(for he had not yet been born again by water and the Holy Spirit), he sent
his request to the bishop by some faithful persons. But whether the bishop
was meanwhile arrested himself, or that he distrusted the youth of Genesius,
would not risk conferring the sacrament, and put it off, he only told him
that his blood shed for Jesus Christ would take the place of the baptism
he so ardently wished to receive. And I think myself that it was not
without a special dispensation of Providence that the bishop made difficulties
for without doubt Heaven wished alone to consecrate Genesius, and Jesus Christ
had prepared for him a double baptism, that of the water and blood which
flowed from the side of the divine Saviour." Genesius was at length
overtaken by the persecutors and beheaded on the banks of the river Rhône,
during the persecution of Maximian and Diocletian.
The mention of this martyr by
Prudentius, by Fortunatus and by others, as well as his inclusion in the
"Hieronymianum" on this day, can leave little doubt that the honour paid
to him at Arles rested on a sound historical foundation. The brief "acts"
have been printed by Ruinart and again, with a much fuller discussion, in
the Acta Sanctorum, August, vol.
v. Delehaye in CMH., pp. 463-465, has discussed the case of the two saints
called Genesius in some detail. His conclusion is that the martyr of Arles
is alone historical. He became so famous that his cult was adopted
in Rome, and thence spread to Africa and other places. From the
fact that a church was built to him in Rome it was rashly announced that
his body was buried there and that he was a Roman martyr. In a short time
a story was invented transforming him into an actor who made sport of the
Christian religious rites in presence of the emperor himself.
During a stage performance before Emperor Diocletian in Rome,
the actor Genesius portrayed a catechumen about to be baptized in a play
satirizing the Christian sacrament. In the midst of the ceremony he was suddenly
converted to Christianity. When presented to the Emperor, he declared his
Christianity. Enraged, Diocletian had him turned over to Plautian, prefect
of the praetorium, who tortured him in an effort to force him to sacrifice
to the pagan gods. When Genesius persisted in his faith, he was beheaded.
|
4th v. Saint Barses
and Eulogius, Bishops of Edessa, and Protogenes the Confessor, Bishop of
Carrhae, suffered from the Arians in the second half of the fourth century.
The emperor Valentius (364-378), wishing to propagate the Arian heresy, fiercely
persecuted the Orthodox.
In the city of Edessa he removed St Barses, a champion for Orthodoxy, from
the bishop's throne. He sent him for confinement on the island of Arad. The
Orthodox population there received the exiled saint with great honor. They
banished him farther, to the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchos, but there also
the warm welcome was repeated. Then St Barses was banished to the very frontier
of the imperial realm, to the faraway city of Thenon where, exhausted by
his exiles, he died.
At Edessa the emperor Valentius placed an Arian pseudo-bishop upon the episcopal
cathedra. Lupus, both by name and by deed showed himself to be like a wolf,
scattering the sheep of Christ's flock. The Orthodox population of Edessa,
both clergy and laity, ceased to attend their church, which had been seized
by the Arians. They gathered outside the city and celebrated the divine services
in an open area.
After he learned of this, the emperor ordered the eparch Modestus to kill
all the Orthodox who met for divine services outside the city. The eparch
pitied the city, and he informed the Orthodox that they should not attend
divine services. The Orthodox, fervent with the desire to receive a martyr's
crown for Christ, went as one to the place where they usually gathered for
prayer.
Eparch Modestus, obeying his orders, went there with his armed soldiers.
Along the way he saw a woman who hastened to the services with her small
child, so as not to deprive him of the martyr's crown. Shaken, Modestus turned
back with his soldiers. Appearing before the emperor Valentius, he urged
him to cancel the decree to kill all the Orthodox and to apply it only to
the clergy.
They led persons of spiritual rank to the emperor, and in the lead the oldest
presbyter Eulogius. The emperor urged them to enter into communion with the
pseudo-bishop Lupus, but none of them agreed. After this they sent eighty
men of clerical rank in chains to prison in Thrace. The Orthodox met them
along the way, revering them as confessors, and furnished them all the necessities.
Learning of this, the emperor ordered the martyrs to be taken two by two,
and to disperse them to remote areas.
The holy presbyters Eulogius and Protogenes were sent to the Thebaid city
of Antinoe in Egypt. There by their preaching they converted many idol-worshippers
to Christ and baptized them. When the emperor Valentius perished and was
succeeded on the throne by the holy emperor Theodosius (379-395). The Orthodox
confessors remaining alive after the persecution were returned from exile.
The holy presbyters Eulogius and Protogenes returned to Edessa. In place
of the dead and banished St Barses, presbyter Eulogius was elevated to Bishop
of Edessa, and the holy presbyter Protogenes was made bishop in the Mesopotamian
city of Carrhae. Both saints guided their flocks until their death, which
occurred at the end of the fourth century.
|
St. Julian Syrian priest Martyr
In Syria sancti Juliáni Mártyris.
In Syria, St. Julian, martyr.
According to the historian Cesare Baronius, he was a Syrian priest
of whom nothing is known with certainty.
|
518-520 Saint John the
Cappadocian, Patriarch of Constantinople, occupied the patriarchal throne.
The holy Patriarch Photius (857-867) termed him "a habitation of virtues."
|
535 Saint Epiphanius,
Patriarch of Constantinople, occupied the cathedra from 520 to 535. He died
peacefully.
|
552
St. Menas Patriarch of Constantinople
Constantinópoli sancti Mennæ Epíscopi.
At Constantinople, St. Mennas, bishop.
ST MENNAS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE
MENNAS, a native of Alexandria,
was a priest in Constantinople until 536, he was appointed patriarch of that
church and consecrated by Pope St Agapitus,
who was then in Constantinople. Mennas set himself to repair the harm
done by his predecessor Anthimus, who was a monophysite, and to deal with
a number of sectaries who, sheltering under the name of Origen, were troubling
the East. In 544 the Emperor Justinian who, like most Eastern
emperors and with more reason than some, fancied himself as a theologian,
sought to conciliate his monophysite subjects by condenming certain writings,
called the Three Chapters. All his bishops were ordered to sign the
condemnation and St Mennas was the first to obey; not, however, very happily,
for he said that he would withdraw his signature if the pope of Rome did
not agree; but in the event he did not do this.
What followed need not be traced in detail here.
Many bishops of the West, although they recognized that the writings were
clearly heretical in part, objected to the condemnation because it seemed
to compromise the Council of Chalcedon. The pope, Vigilius, was first
on one side, then on the other, but eventually in 551 refused to accept Justinian's
edict, and sought refuge in St Peter's church in Constantinople (whither
he had been peremptorily summoned by the emperor), and then in St Euphemia's
at Chalcedon, from whence he excommunicated St Mennas and others who had
signed it. Mennas assured Vigilius that he in no way deviated from
the acts of the Council of Chalcedon, and the matter of the Three Chapters
was referred to an oecumenical council.
This council Mennas did not live to see, for he died on
August 24, 552, and the fifth general council did not assemble till the following
year. It then condemned the Three Chapters, as the emperor had done,
and Pope Vigilius approved and confirmed the condemnation. We thus
have the curious and unusual spectacle of a patriarch of Constantinople firmly
supporting a policy which was to be eventually confirmed by a general council,
as against a feeble pope who allowed his judgement and actions to be swayed
from side to side by the conflicting views of Western bishops and Eastern
emperor; it must be borne in mind that the matter at issue was concerned
not with any definition of faith, but with the expediency and implications
of the proposed condemnation. St Mennas is named in the Roman
Martyrology.
A short
Greek life with a general discussion of the saint's career is in the Acta Sanctorum, August, vol. v, but the
story belongs rather to general ecclesiastical history. See Hefele-Leclercq,
Conciles, vol. iv; F. Savio,
11 Papa Vigilio (1904); and especially DTC., vol. xi, cc. 1574-1588 ; and
Fliche and Martin, Histoire de l'Eg1ise,
t. iv, pp. 453-471.
He was a native of Alexandria,
Egypt. Also called Mennas, he was consecrated patriarch by Pope St. Agapitus
in 536 . He started his career as superior of the hospice of St. Samson.
Menas condemned Origenism but supported Emperor Justinian on “The Three Chapters,”
the emperor’s theologically misguided effort to reconcile the Monophysite
heretics to the Church. This involvement resulted in his excommunication
by Pope Vigilius in 551. He submitted immediately and was reconciled before
his death.
Saint Menas, Patriarch of Constantinople (536-552), was at first
a presbyter at Constantinople and supervisor there of the Home of St Sampson
the Hospitable for the poor and needy during the reign of St Justinian I
(527-565). After the removal of the heretic Anthimus (535-536), the holy
presbyter Menas was raised to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople as
one worthy to be bishop, because of his profound virtue and firm confession
of Orthodoxy.
Agapitus, the Bishop of Rome (535-536), participated in the consecration
of St Menas. He had come to Constantinople in order to depose the heretic
Anthimus. During the patriarchate of St Menas a miracle occurred at Constantinople,
which was known to the whole city.
A certain Jewish child went with other children to church and
he partook of the Holy Mysteries of Christ. At home, he told his father about
this. In a terrible rage, he seized the child and threw him into a red-hot
oven (the father was a glass-blower). He said nothing to his wife. For three
days, the mother tearfully searched for her son, calling loudly for him.
On the third day, he emerged from the red-hot oven. When she pulled the child
out, she found that he was unharmed.
The boy said that a most radiant Lady had come to him, cooling
the fire and bringing him water and food. This incident became known to St
Menas and the emperor Justinian I. The boy and his mother received Baptism,
but the father of the child was obdurate and did not wish to repent, in spite
of the great miracle that he had seen. Then the emperor ordered that the
father be tried as a child-killer, and sentenced him to death.
The holy Patriarch Menas ruled the Church of Constantinople for
sixteen years. During his patriarchate at Constantinople, the famous church
of Hagia Sophia, the Wisdom of God, was consecrated. The saint died peacefully
in the year 552.
|
591 St. Yrieix Abbot
monastery and also the surrounding village of Saint-Yrieux were named in
his honor
Yrieix, sometimes called Aredius. Born at Limoges, France, he served for
a time in the court of the Franks and then was founder of the monastery of
Atane in Limousin.The monastery and also the surrounding village of Saint-Yrieux
were named in his honor .
|
St. Patricia blood liquefies
1300 yr after
Neápoli, in Campánia, sanctæ
Patríciæ Vírginis. At Naples in Campania,
St. Patricia, virgin.
St Patricia,
Virgin
According to her legend, Patricia was a maiden of noble birth, belonging
seemingly to the imperial family of Constantinople. To avoid marriage
with the suitor chosen for her, she fled to Italy, and in Rome took vows
consecrating her virginity to God. She then returned to Constantinople
in order to distribute her goods to the poor, but, this done, she again made
her way to Italy, and reached Naples,
where not long after she died. The, miracles which followed led to
a cultus which was notably revived
some centuries later by the discovery and translation of her relics in 1549.
Since 1625 she has been honoured as one of the patrons of the city of Naples,
and what is believed to be a relic of her blood liquefies there, like that
of St Januarius, which is referred to by J. H. Newman when travelling in
Italy
in 1846.
In the Acta Sanctorum, August, vol. v, two short
medieval Latin lives are printed, with stories of miracles and other material.
The accounts given of her in various pious booklets published in Naples and
elsewhere are full of extravagances, describing her absurdly as an empress,
or as a daughter of Constantine the Great. Cf. Father Thurston's articles on "blood-miracles
"in The Month, 1927.
According to legend, was of a noble and perhaps royal family
in Constantinople who fled to Italy to escape marriage and became a virgin
consecrated to God in Rome. She returned to constantinople, distributed her
wealth to the poor, and then went back to Italy;, where she died soon after,
at Naples. She is a patron of Naples, and like St. Januarius there, a vial
believed to be filled with her blood reportedly liquefies thirteen hundred
years after her death .
|
683 St Ebba, Abdess
of Coldingham, Virgin
This St Ebba is sometimes called"
the Elder" to distinguish her from the St Ebba, also abbess of Coldingham,
said to have been put to death by the Danes about the year 870. She
was sister to St Oswald and Oswy of Northumbria, and Oswy wanted her
to marry the king of the Scots, but when she refused and took the monastic
habit from St Finan of Lindisfame he gave her a piece of land on the
Derwent, where she founded the monastery of Ebbchester. She afterwards
moved to Coldingham on the coast of Berwick, and there founded a double monastery,
which both in arrangement and situation resembled that of St Hilda
at Whitby the promontory on which it was built is still called St Abb's Head.
Here she was visited by St Cuthbert, and St Etheldreda was
a nun under her before becoming abbess of Ely.
Personal sanctity, that is, ability rightly to rule oneself,
by no means always involves ability to rule others well and apparently St
Ebba was not a very successful abbess. For St Bede relates that St
Adamnan (not he of Iona), who was a monk at Coldingham, had a vision
in which he learned that the monastery would be destroyed by fire, because
its monks and nuns were slack and frivolous "the cells that were built for
prayer or reading are now turned into places for feasting, drinking, talk
and other pleasures; the very maidens, dedicated to God, lay aside the respect
due to their profession and employ their leisure in weaving fine clothes,
either to adorn themselves like brides, which is dangerous to their state,
or to attract the attention of strangers". Perhaps St Adamnan, being himself
a holy man and seeing how things were, cast his prophecy in the form of a
vision from God for motives of prudence. For when it came to
the ears of St Ebba and she asked for an explanation, he said, "I was afraid
to say anything about it before, out of respect for yourself", and added tactfully,
"But this calamity will not happen in your time." The chronicler goes
on to say that the religious were frightened and behaved themselves better
for a short time, but after the death of St Ebba they became worse than ever,
and the house was in fact burned down very shortly after. That all this
fell out thus", says Bede, "was told me by my very reverend fellow priest,
Edgils, who then lived in that monastery. After its destruction he
lived for a long time in our monastery and died here."
A life of Ebbs by Capgrave, partly
based on Reginald of Durham, printed in the Acta Sanctorum, August, vol. v also Plummer's
Bede and DCB., vol. ii, pp. 22-23. Apart from the lessons in the Aberdeen
Breviary, there is not much trace of cultus
.
|
VII v. St. Warinus Martyr of the Franks ldin
The son of St. Sigrada and brother of St. Leodegarius, he was murdered by
Ebroin, the cruel Frankish Mayor of the Palace after Ebroin entered into
a bitter feud with Leodegarius .
|
775? St Gregory of
Utrecht, Abbot
Trajécti sancti Gregórii Epíscopi.
At Utrecht, St. Gregory, bishop.
This Gregory was born in the
territory of Trier about the year 707. One day when he was fifteen years
of age he was desired by his grandmother, the abbess of Pfalzel, near Trier,
to read to the nuns. St Boniface, who was travelling from Friesland into
Hesse and Thuringia, was present. After he had finished reading, Gregory
was asked to explain what he had read for the benefit of those who did not
understand Latin; but this he said he was not able to do. Whereupon St Boniface
got up and expounded the passages, and added a homily on the need and beauty
of an apostolic and virtuous life by way of commentary. Gregory was so moved
by his discourse that he resolved upon the spot to follow the holy man wherever
he went. St Boniface took him with him, and was himself his master and instructor,
made him his constant attendant, and always loved him as his son. The disciple
was a faithful imitator of his spirit and virtues, assisted him in his missions,
and accompanied him on his journeys. St Boniface a little before his
death sent Gregory to Utrecht to govern a monastery lately founded there,
dedicated in honour of St Martin. In 754 St Boniface received the crown of
martyrdom and at the same time St Eoban, who had administered the see of
Utrecht since the death of St Willibrord. Thereupon St Gregory had
to take upon himself the care of that church. He never received episcopal
consecration, though he administered the diocese during twenty years, to
his death; that he never was more than priest appears from his life written
by St Ludger, though he is called bishop in the Roman Martyrology and elsewhere.
The abbey of St Martin became a great missionary centre
under the rule of St Gregory; candidates came to it from all the neighbouring
countries, not least from England: among its alumni were St Ludger, just
mentioned, St Lebwin and St Marchelm, all three associated with England,
the last two as natives and Ludger being a student at York. By his preaching
and care St Gregory made the diocese for which he was responsible a fitting
surrounding to the abbey. St Ludger speaks particularly of his prudence, generous
alms-deeds and spirit of forgiveness. The last trait was exemplified after
his two half- brothers had been treacherously killed. When the murderers
were sent to him to be put to what death he should think fit, according to
the barbarous custom of the country in that age which left the punishment
of assassins to the direction of the relations of the deceased person, the
saint gave every one of them an alms, and dismissed them with good advice.
For the last three years of his life St Gregory bore with fortitude and patience
a creeping paralysis. He died at Maastricht on August 25, about
the year 775, and his feast is kept at Utrecht and Trier as well as by the
Canons Regular of the Lateran.
As mentioned above St Ludger wrote
a life of Gregory which is our principal source of information. It has been
printed by Mabillon and in the Acta Sanctorum
August, vol. v. Moreover it has been critically re-edited in Pertz, MGH.,
Scriptores, vol. xv. See further
H. Timerding, Die christliche Frühzeit
Deutschlands, vol. ii, Die angelsachsische Mission " (1929),
and J. A. Coppens, Kerkgeschiedenis van
Noord-Nederland (1902), pp. 62-70; with Hauck, Kirchengeschichte Deutschlands,
vol. ii.
Gregor von Utrecht / von Pfalzel
Katholische und Evangelische Kirche: 25. August
Gregor wurde um 707 in Franken geboren. Er lernte 721 im Kloster
Pfalzl, das von seiner Großmutter Adula geleitet wurde, Bonifatius
kennen und wurde sein Schüler. Er begleitete Bonifatius bei der Mission
in Hessen und Thüringen und wurde dann Leiter der Schule am Martinsmünster
und 747 Abt des Martinklosters in Utrecht. Um 742 wurde Gregor zum Nachfolger
Bonifatius in der Missionsarbeit bestimmt. Nach dem Tode Bonifatius übernahm
er das Missionswerk und verwaltete das Bistum Utrecht. Aus politischen Gründen
wurde er aber nicht zum Bischof ernannt. Gregor starb am 25.8. 775 oder 776.
Sein Schüler Liudger schrieb seine Biographie. Einige Lexika
nennen Gregor von Utrecht und Gregor von Pfalzel nebeneinander, es handelt
sich aber offensichtlich um die gleiche Person.
|
1057 St. Gurloes Benedictine
abbot of Sainte Croix of Quimperle in Brittany, France
|
1282 St.
Thomas of Hereford; relics were brought back to Hereford, where many miracles
were wrought by his intercession and his shrine became second only to that
of St. Thomas of Canterbury.
Apud Montem Falíscum, in Etrúria, sancti Thomæ, Confessóris,
qui Herfordiénsis Ecclésiæ, in Anglia, Epíscopus
éxstitit.
At Monte Falisco in Etruria, St. Thomas, bishop of the church
of Hereford in England, and confessor.
(THOMAS DE CANTELUPE). Born at Hambledon, Buckinghamshire,
England, about 1218; died at Orvieto, Italy, 25 August, 1282. He was the
son of William de Cantelupe and Millicent de Gournay, and thus a member of
an illustrious and influential family. He was educated under the care of his
uncle, Walter de Cantelupe, Bishop of Worcester, first at Oxford then at
Paris. During his studies he attended the Council of Lyons in 1245, when
he became a papal chaplain. Returning to Oxford, he taught canon law, and
in 1262 was elected chancellor of the university. In the Barons' Wars he
took the popular side and stated the Barons' case before St. Louis at Amiens,
1263. After the defeat of Henry III at the battle of Lewes he was made chancellor
of England (22 February, 1265), gaining wide renown for his judicial wisdom
and fairness. Deprived of the chancellorshp on the death of Simon de Montfort,
he went into exile, lecturing at Paris on theology and Scripture (1265-72).
He then resumed teaching at Oxford till 1274 when he attended the second Council
of Lyons. He held several benefices which he administered most zealously,
appointing responsible vicars, visiting them regularly, and showing himself
a model pastor by his holiness and wide charity. In June, 1275, he was appointed
Bishop of Hereford, and was consecrated by his friend Cardinal Kilwardby
(8 September, 1275). As bishop he continued his apostolic life, labouring
incessantly for the good of his people, maintaining the privileges and property
of his diocese against Gilbert of Gloucester, Llewellyn, and others, supporting
Edward I in his struggle with Llewellyn, combating the unjust practices of
the Jews, and reforming the clergy, secular and regular. He came into conflict
with Archbishop Peckham on questions of jurisdiction, and at the Council
of Reading (July, 1279) led the resistance of the bishops to the policy of
Peckham. (For the articles embodying the points in dispute see Wilkins, "Concilia",
II, 75.) His personal differences with Peckham led first to his withdrawal
to Normandy that he might avoid an interdict and appeal to Rome, and subsequently
in 1282 to his actual excommunication by the archbishop. He then went to
Rome to plead his own cause before Pope Martin IV, who received him kindly.
But his failing health succumbed to the fatigue of the journey and the summer
heat. He was buried at Orvieto, but subsequently his relics were brought
back to Hereford, where many miracles were wrought by his intercession and
his shrine became second only to that of St. Thomas of Canterbury. He was
canonized by John XXII (17 April, 1320), and his festival, formerly observed
on 2 October, is now kept in England on 3 October.
|
1270 St. Louis,
King of France the 9th of his name; patron of Tertiaries; In the person of
St Louis (Lewis) IX were united the qualities which form a great king, a
hero of romance, and a saint. He was endowed with qualifications for good
government, he excelled in the arts of peace and of war, and his courage
and greatness of mind received from his virtue the highest setting ambition
had no share in his enterprises, his only motives in them was the glory of
God and the good of his subjects. Though the two crusades in which
he was engaged were failures, he is certainly to be ranked among the most
valiant of princes, and a perfect example of the good and great medieval
nobleman.
Apud Cartháginem sancti Ludovíci Noni, Regis Francórum
et Confessóris, vitæ sanctitáte ac miraculórum
glória præclári; cujus ossa póstmodum Lutétiam
Parisiórum sunt reláta.
At Carthage, St. Louis IX, king of France and confessor,
illustrious for holiness of life and glorious miracles. His bones were
later translated to Paris.
He was son of Louis VIII and was eight years old when the death
of his grandfather, Philip II Augustus, put his father in possession of the
crown of France. He was born at Poissy on April 25, 1214. His mother
was Blanche, daughter of Alfonso of Castile and Eleanor of England, and to
her care and attention in the education of St Louis we are indebted, under
God, for the great example of his virtues. She used often to say to him when
he was a child, "I love you, my dear son, as much as a mother can love her
child; but I would rather see you dead at my feet than that you should ever
commit a mortal sin". Nor did Louis forget the lesson. His friend and biographer,
the Sieur de Joinville, historian of the crusades, relates that the king once
asked him, "What is God?" Joinville replied, "That which is so good that
there could be nothing better." "Well said. Now tell me, would you rather
be a leper or commit a mortal sin?" "And I, who never told a
lie", says Joinville, "answered, `I would rather commit thirty mortal sins
than be a leper`."
Later Louis led him apart and took him to task for his honest
but misguided reply. King Louis VIII died on November 7, 1226, and Queen
Blanche was declared regent for her son, who was then only twelve years old.
The whole time of the king's minority was disturbed by ambitious barons, but
Blanche by several alliances and by her courage and diligence overcame them
in the field and forced their submission. Louis rejoiced in his victories
chiefly because he procured by them the blessings of peace to his subjects.
He was merciful even to rebels, and by his readiness to receive any proposals
of agreement gave the proof that he neither sought revenge nor conquests.
Never had any man a greater love for the Church, or a greater veneration
for its ministers. Yet this was not blind; he opposed the injustices of bishops,
when he saw them betrayed into any, and did not listen to their complaints
till he had given a full hearing to the other party, as he showed in the
contests of the bishops of Beauvais and Metz with the corporations of those
cities.
Louis enjoyed the conversation of priests or other religious
men, and he often invited such (e.g. St
Thomas Aquinas) to his house, but he knew how to observe seasons with
a decent liberty. Once when a friar had started a grave religious topic at
table, he turned the discourse to another subject, saying, "All things have
their time". He celebrated feasts and rejoicings on the creation of knights
and other such occasions with magnificence, but banished from his court all
diversions dangerous to morals. And he would tolerate neither vulgar
obscenity nor thoughtless profanity; "I was a good twenty-two years in the
holy king's company", says Joinville, and never once did I hear him swear,
either by God or His mother or His saints. I did not even hear him name the
Devil, except if he met the word when reading aloud, or when discussing what
had been read." And a Dominican testified that he had never heard him speak
ill-naturedly of anyone. When he was urged to put to death the son of Hugh
de Ia Marche, who had followed his father in rebellion, Louis refused, saying,
"A son cannot refuse to obey his father".
When he was nineteen
St Louis married Margaret, the eldest daughter of Raymund Berenger, Count
of Provence, whose second daughter, Eleanor, was married to Henry III, King
of England; his third, Sanchia, to his brother Richard of Cornwall and Beatrice,
the youngest, to Charles, brother to St Louis. The marriage was blessed with
a happy union of hearts and eleven children, five sons, six daughters, from
whose descendants kings were given to France until that January 21, 1793,
when the Abbé Edgeworth, it is often stated, said to Louis XVI as
the guillotine was about to fall, "Son of St Louis, go up to Heaven!".
{* Edgeworth is said to have denied to Lord Holland that he used these words.}
In 1235, having come of age, St Louis took the government of his kingdom
into his own hands. But he continued to show the greatest deference
to his mother, and to profit by her counsel, though Blanche was inclined
to be jealous of and unkind to her daughter-in-law.
The first of many religious foundations for which Louis was
responsible was the abbey of Royaumont. In 1239 Baldwin II, the Latin emperor at Constantinople,
made St Louis (in gratitude for his largesse to the Christians in Palestine
and other parts of the East) a present of the Crown of Thorns, which was
then in the hands of the Venetians as a pledge for a loan of money to Baldwin,
which Louis had to discharge. He sent two Dominican friars to bring
this treasure to France, and met it himself beyond Sens, attended by his
whole court. To house it he pulled down his chapel of St Nicholas and
built the Sainte Chapelle, which is now empty of its relic. +{What remains
of it is now in Notre-Dame de Paris and is, in fact, only part of the rush
foundation, with no thorns thereon. Several of these were given away
by St Louis in golden reliquaries one such is in the British Museum
and appears still to contain the thorn it was made to enshrine. After the
Revolution what remained of the crown, or its rush foundation, was brought
to light in 1804 and handed over to the archbishop of Paris.
He brought the Carthusians
to Paris and endowed them with the palace of Vauvert, and helped his mother
in the foundation of the convent of Maubuisson. Several ordinances of this
prince show us how much he applied himself to see justice well administered.
In succeeding reigns, whenever complaints were raised among the people, the
cry of those dissatisfied was to demand that abuses should be reformed and
justice impartially administered as was done in the reign of St Louis.
In 1230 he forbade all manner of usury, and restrained the Jews in particular
from practising it. He published a law commanding all who should be
guilty of blasphemy to be branded, and thus punished a rich and important
citizen of Paris to some who murmured at this severity he said that he would
undergo that punishment himself if thus he might put a stop to the crime.
He protected vassals from oppressive lords, and when a Flemish count had
hanged three children for hunting rabbits in his woods, had him imprisoned
and tried, not by his peers as he demanded, but by the ordinary judges, who
condemned him to death. He afterwards spared his life, but subjected him
to a fine which deprived him of the greater part of his estates. This money
the king ordered to be expended on religious and charitable works.
He forbade feudal lords to make private war upon one another, and his scrupulous
fidelity in keeping his word and observing treaties was notable; this impartial
and inflexible integrity made barons, prelates and even foreign kings ask
to have him for judge and arbitrator, and put their affairs into his hands.
Hugh of Lusignan, Count of La Marche, made trouble soon
after the king's majority ; his estates were a fief of Poitou and he refused
to pay homage to the count of Poitiers, the brother of St Louis. Hugh's
wife, Isabel, was the widow of King John and mother of Henry III of England,
who came over to support his stepfather. St Louis defeated King
Henry III (who was never born to be a soldier) at Taillebourg in 1242. Henry
fled to Bordeaux and the next year returned to England, having made a truce
with the French. Seventeen years later Louis concluded another treaty with
Henry III. By it he yielded to England the Limousin and Périgord,
King Henry renouncing on his side all pretensions to Normandy, Anjou, Maine,
Touraine and Poitou. The French criticized their sovereign's concessions,
and Louis replied that he hoped by them to cement a lasting peace between
the two nations, and that it was very honourable to his crown to have so
great a king as vassal for Guienne. But some historians are of the
opinion that had Louis pushed home his advantage the Hundred Years' War would
have been averted for his successors.
After an illness in 1244
Louis determined to undertake a crusade in the East, and early the next year
he by letter assured the Christians in Palestine that he would make all possible
haste to their assistance against the infidels, who a few months before had
retaken Jerusalem. But the opposition of his councillors and nobles,
the preparation of the expedition, and the settling of his kingdom put off
his departure for three and a half years. At the thirteenth general
council at Lyons of 1245 all benefices were taxed a twentieth of their income
for three years for the relief of the Holy Land (the English representatives
strongly protested against this), and this gave encouragement to the crusaders.
In 1248 Louis sailed for Cyprus, where he was joined by William Longsword,
Earl of Salisbury, and two hundred English knights. The objective was
Egypt. Damietta, in the delta of the Nile, was easily taken and St
Louis made a solemn entry into the city, not with the pomp of a conqueror
but with the humility of a truly Christian prince, walking barefoot with
the queen, the princes his brothers and other great lords, preceded by the
papal legate. The king ordered that all plundering and other
crimes should be strictly inquired into and punished, and that restitution
should be made, and he forbade any infidel to be slain whom it was possible
to make prisoner. But notwithstanding all his watchfulness many, to
his grief, gave themselves up to debauchery and outrageous acts of violence.
Owing to the rising of the Nile and the summer heat the crusaders could not
follow up their advantage, and it was not till six months had passed that
they advanced to attack the Saracens, who were on the other side of the river.
Then followed another six months of desultory fighting, in which the crusaders
lost many by battle and sickness, until in April 1250 St Louis himself was
taken prisoner, and his army routed with frightful slaughter.
During his captivity
the king recited the Divine Office every day with two chaplains just as if
he had been in perfect health in his own palace, and to the insults that
were sometimes offered him he opposed an air of majesty and authority which
kept his guards in awe. When he was asked and refused to give up the
castles in Syria he was threatened with the most ignominious treatment and
with torture to which he coolly replied that they were masters of his body,
and might do with it what they pleased. The sultan seat to him a proposal
by which he demanded a million bezants of gold and the city of Damietta for
his ransom and that of the other prisoners. Louis answered that a king
of France ought not to redeem himself for money, but that he would give the
city for his own release and the million bezants for that of all the other
prisoners. The sultan. at that time was overthrown by the Mamluk emirs,
and these eventually released the king and the other prisoners on these terms,
but the sick and wounded crusaders in Damietta they treacherously slew.
St Louis then sailed to Palestine with the remainder of his army. There
he remained until 1254, visiting all the holy places he could, encouraging
the Christians, and strengthening the defences of the Latin kingdom-such
as it was. Then, news being brought to him of the death of his mother,
who was regent in his absence, he returned to France. He had been away
almost six years, but he was oppressed by the memory of the distresses of
the Christians in the East and he continued to wear the cross on his clothes
to show that he intended to return to their assistance. Their
position got rapidly worse : between 1263 and 1268 the Mamluk Baibars took
Nazareth, Caesarea, Jaffa and Antioch. About 1257 Master Robert de
Sorbon, a canon and very learned doctor of Paris, laid the foundations of
that theological institute in the city which became known after him as the
Sorbonne. Master Robert was a personal friend of St Louis and sometimes acted
as his confessor, and the king enthusiastically seconded his project and
helped to endow it. Louis also founded in Paris, for poor blind men,
the hospital of Quinze-Vingts, so called because there were in it at the
first foundation three hundred such patients. He likewise made provision
of all kinds for the poor; in addition to thirteen special indigent guests
he had daily a large number of poor folk to meals near his own palace, and
in Lent and Advent all who presented themselves ; and these he often served
in person. He kept lists of needy people, especially les pauvres honteux, whom he regularly
relieved in every province of his dominions. Though not personally
a legislator he had a passion for justice, and he transformed the feudal
"king's court " into a highly organized royal court of justice and, as in
the case of Henry III and his barons, sovereign princes submitted their difficulties
to his ruling; in all causes he endeavoured to substitute proof by witnesses
and decision by judicial process or arbitration for appeal to arms.
Having one day stood godfather to a Jew who was baptized
at Saint-Denis, St Louis said to the ambassador of the emir of Tunis that
to see his master receive that sacrament he would with joy pass the rest
of his life in chains under the Saracens. Accordingly people were
not surprised when in 1267 he announced another crusade: nor were they pleased.
Among less worthy reasons, they feared to lose so good a king, who if only
fifty-two years old was weak with toil, ill-health and austerities.
Joinville said bluntly that "those who recommended this voyage to the king
sinned grievously ", and excused himself, urging the necessity of his staying
at home to protect his vassals from oppression. The king embarked with
his army at Aigues-Mortes on July 1, 1270; when the fleet was over against
Cagliari in Sardinia it was resolved to proceed to Tunis, where soon after
landing the king himself and his eldest son Philip both sickened with typhus.
It was soon seen that Louis was dying. He gave his last instructions
to his sons and to his daughter, the queen of Navarre, and composed himself
for death. On August 24, which was Sunday, he received the
last sacraments, and called for the Greek ambassadors, whom he strongly urged
to reunion with the Roman Church. He lost his speech the next day from nine
till twelve o'clock, then, recovering it and lifting up his eyes towards
Heaven, he repeated aloud the words of the psalmist,
Lord, I will enter into
thine house; I will worship in thy holy temple, and will give glory to thy
name ". He spoke again at three in the afternoon, "Into thy hands I
commend my soul ", and immediately after breathed his last. His bones and
heart were taken back to France and enshrined in the abbey-church of St Denis,
whence they were scattered at the Revolution: he was canonized in 1297.
Authentic materials for the life
of St Louis are naturally abundant.
We have in the first place
the French memoirs of the Sieur de Joinville which have been translated into
almost every European language the English version by Sir Frank Marzials
is in the Everyman series, and there is an excellent new one by René
Hague (1955). Then, from a more religious point of view, there are
somewhat detailed Latin biographies by his confessors and chaplains, Geoffrey
de Eeaulieu and William de Chartres. Text of these two narratives will
be found in the Acta Sanctorum, August,
vol. v, but they have been printed more than once elsewhere.
Most valuable also is the copious French account of the saint compiled by
the confessor of the queen a Latin version of this life, which
contains a good deal of information about the canonization, is printed by
the Bollandists. From the king's own hand we have the account of his
captivity, and the instructions which he drew up for his son Philip and his
daughter Isabel these instructions should not be read without reference
to the comments of Paul Viollet in the Bibliothèque
de l'Ecole des chartes, 1869 and 1874. There are excellent
modern lives by H. Wallon (1875), and on a smaller scale (in the series "Les
Saints ") by Marius Sepet (Eng. trans.). Cf. also especially Elie Berger, Saint Louis et Innocent IV and the same
author's Histoire de Blanche de Castille
and the Cambridge Mediaeval History,
vol. vi. Among slighter sketches, which are numerous in every language,
that of W. F. Knox, The Court of a Saint,
may be recommended. The French name Louis should properly be rendered
in English as Lewis.
Was the 9th of his name. He
was born at Poissy, France, in 1214. His father was Louis VIII, and his mother
was Blanche, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castille, surnamed the Conqueror.
At the age of 12 he lost his father, and his mother became regent of the
kingdom. From his tenderest infancy she inspired him with a love for holy
things.
St. Louis of France (1226-1270)
At his coronation as king of France, Louis bound himself by oath
to behave as God’s anointed, as the father of his people and feudal lord of
the King of Peace. Other kings had done the same, of course. Louis was different
in that he actually interpreted his kingly duties in the light of faith.
After the violence of two previous reigns, he brought peace and justice.
He was crowned king at 12, at his father’s death. His mother,
Blanche of Castile, ruled during his minority. When he was 19, (and his bride
12) he was married to Marguerite of Provence. It was a loving marriage, despite
her arrogant and restless nature. They had 10 children.
Louis “took the cross” for a Crusade when he was 30. His army
took Damietta on the Nile but not long after, weakened by dysentery and without
support, they were surrounded and captured. Louis obtained the release of
the army by giving up the city of Damietta in addition to paying a ransom.
He stayed in Syria four years.
He is admired as a crusader, but perhaps he deserves greater credit
for his extending justice in civil administration. He drew up regulations
for his officials which became the first of a series of reform laws. He replaced
trial by battle with a form of examination of witnesses and encouraged the
beginning of using written records in court.
Louis was always respectful of the papacy, but defended royal
interests against the popes and refused to acknowledge Innocent IV’s sentence
against Emperor Frederick II.
Louis was devoted to his people,
founding hospitals, visiting the sick and, like his patron St. Francis, caring
even for people with leprosy. (He is one of the patrons of the Secular Franciscan
Order.) Louis united France—lords and townsfolk, peasants and priests and
knights—by the force of his personality and holiness. For many years the
nation was at peace.
Every day Louis had 13 special guests from among the poor to eat
with him, and a large number of poor were served meals near his palace. During
Advent and Lent, all who presented themselves were given a meal, and Louis
often served them in person. He kept lists of needy people, whom he regularly
relieved, in every province of his dominion.
Disturbed by new Muslim advances in Syria, he led another crusade
in 1267, at the age of 41. His crusade was diverted to Tunis for his brother’s
sake. The army was decimated by disease within a month, and Louis himself
died on foreign soil at the age of 44. He was canonized 27 years later.
Comment: Louis was strong-willed, strong-minded. His word
was trusted utterly, and his courage in action was remarkable. What is most
remarkable was his sense of respect for anyone with whom he dealt, especially
the “humble folk of the Lord.” To care for his people he built cathedrals,
churches, libraries, hospitals and orphanages. He dealt with princes honestly
and equitably. He hoped to be treated the same way by the King of Kings,
to whom he gave his life, his family and his country.
In 1234, he married Margaret, the virtuous daughter of Raymond
Berenger, Count of Provence, and two years later he took the reigns of government
into his own hands. In 1238, he headed a crusade, in which he fell a prisoner
among the Mohammedans, but a truce was concluded and he was set free and
he returned to France. In 1267, he again set out for the East at the head
of a crusade but he never again beheld his native land. In 1270, he was stricken
by the pestilence at the siege of Tunis, and died after receiving the Last
Sacraments.
|
1624
Bl. Louis Baba Martyr Japan Franciscan native
He went with Blessed Louis Sotelo to Europe, and upon returning to Japan,
was arrested. Louis received the Franciscan habit in Omura. He was burned
alive in Shimabara. Louis was beatified in 1867 .
|
1624 Bl. Peter
Vasquez Martyr in Japan Born in Galicia Spain
He entered the Dominicans and after training was sent to Japan. Captured
during the Japanese persecutions, he was burned alive at Shimabara with Blessed
Louis Sotelo and others .
|
1624 Bl. Louis
Sasanda native Martyr Japan
The son of Blessed Michael Sasanda. In 1613, this Japanese youth became a
Franciscan in Mexico and was ordained in 1622 in Manila, Philippines. He
returned to Japan and was arrested and burned alive at Shimabara with Blessed Louis Sotelo. He was beatified
in 1867 .
|
1624 Bl. Louis
Sotelo Franciscan martyr Japan noble of Spain
Louis Was a noble of Spain, who was ordained and sent to Manila, Philippines,
in 1601. He went to Japan in 1603 but was exiled. Returning to Spain in 1613,
he visited Rome in 1622, and then went again to Japan. He was arrested in
Nagasaki and burned alive at Shimabara. Louis was beatified in 1867
.
|
1648
St. Joseph Calasanctius Founder of Scolopi or Piarists
Romæ natális
sancti Joséphi Calasánctii, Presbyteri et Confessóris,
vitæ innocéntia et miráculis illústris; qui, ad
erudiéndam pietáte ac lítteris juventútem, Ordinem
Clericórum Regulárium Páuperum Matris Dei Scholárum
Piárum fundávit. Eum Pius Duodécimus, Póntifex
Máximus, ómnium Scholárum populárium christianárum
ubíque exsisténtium cæléstem apud Deum Patrónum
constítuit. Ipsíus tamen festívitas sexto Kaléndas
Septémbris recólitur.
At Rome, the birthday of St. Joseph Calasanctius, priest and confessor, noteworthy
for his holy life and miracles. He founded the Order of Poor Clerics
Regular of the Mother of God of the Christian Schools. The Sovereign
Pontiff, Pius XII, named him as heavenly patron of all Christian schoolchildren.
His feast is on the 27th of August.
St Joseph Calasanctius, Founder
of The Clerks Regular of The Religious Schools
Joseph Calasanctius was the
youngest of five children borne by Maria Gaston to her husband Pedro Calasanz.
He was born in his father's castle near Peralta de Ia Sal in Aragon in the
year 1556, and in due course was sent to study the humanities at Estadilla,
where his virtue and religious observances were regarded with considerable
disrespect by his fellow-students. His father wanted him to be a soldier,
but Joseph had other ideas and induced Don Pedro instead to send him to the
University of Lerida, where he took his doctorate in law before going on
to Valencia. It is said that he left this university in order to escape
the attentions of a young kinswoman, who subjected him to a temptation similar
to that undergone by his namesake many centuries before at the court of Pharaoh
certainly he continued his theology at Alcalá, and in 1583 he was
ordained priest, being already twenty-eight years old.
Soon the fame of Joseph's wisdom, learning and goodness was spread
abroad, and after varied experience he was appointed by the bishop of Urgel
vicar general of the district of Trempe. He was so successful here that he
was sent to deal with the Pyrenean part of the diocese, which comprises the
valleys of Andorra of which the bishop of Urgel was joint sovereign prince
(he still holds the title) as well as ordinary. This lonely and inaccessible
region was in a terrible state of religious and moral disorder, and St Joseph
conducted a long and arduous visitation of which the first task was to bring
the clergy to a sense of their responsibilities and obligations;
on its completion he returned to Trempe and remained there until he was made
vicar general of the whole diocese.
For some time Joseph had been listening to an interior call to undertake
a quite different sort of work; at length he resigned his office and
benefices, divided his patrimony between his sisters and the poor, reserving
a sufficient income for himself, endowed several charitable institutions,
and in 1592 left Spain for Rome. Here Joseph met an old friend of Alcalá,
Ascanio Colonna, already a cardinal, and for five years he was under the
direct patronage of the Colonnas. During the plague of 1595 he distinguished
himself by his devotion and fearlessness, and entered into a holy rivalry
with his friend St Camillus of Lellis
as to who should expend himself the more freely in the service of the sick
and.dying.
During these years St Joseph never lost sight of the work which had
drawn him to Rome, namely, the instruction of young children, of whom there
were so many, neglected or homeless, in the most urgent need of interest
and care. He had become a member of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,
whose business it was to teach both children and adults on Sundays and feast-days,
and in so doing was brought home vividly to St Joseph the state of degradation
and ignorance in which so many of the children of the poor lived. He
was soon convinced that periodical instruction was utterly inadequate to
cope with the situation; and that free day-schools for both religious and
secular education were required. He therefore first of all invited the official
parish-schoolmasters to admit poor pupils to their schools without payment,
but they would not undertake the extra work without a rise in salary, and
this the Roman senate refused to grant.
He approached the Jesuits and the Dominicans, but neither order could
see a way to extending its activities, for their members were already fully
engaged. St Joseph then came to the conclusion that it was God's will
that he should begin the work himself, single-handed if necessary.
Don Antonio Brendani, parish-priest of Santa Dorotea, offered him the use
of two rooms and his own services, two more priests joined them, and in November
1597 a public free school was opened. At the end of a week the school
had a hundred pupils and before long many more, and the founder had to engage
paid teachers from among the unbeneficed clergy of the city.
In 1599 it was moved into new quarters and St Joseph obtained permission
from Cardinal Ascanio to leave the Colonna household and take up his residence
on the school premises with the other masters; they lived a quasi-community
life and the founder acted as superior. During the following couple
of years the pupils increased to seven hundred, and in 1602 another move
was made, to a large house adjoining the church of Sant' Andrea della Valle.
While hanging a bell in the courtyard St Joseph fell from a ladder and broke
his leg, an accident the effects of which were a source of lameness and pain
for the rest of his life.
Pope Clement VIII having
made a grant towards the rent, and people of consequence having begun to
send their children to the school, the parish-schoolmasters and others began
to criticize it with some vehemence; complaints of its disorders were made
to the pope and he directed Cardinals Antoniani and Baronius to pay it a
surprise visit of inspection. This was done and as a result of
their report Clement took the institution under his immediate protection.
In similar circumstances the same course was taken and the grant
doubled in 1606 by Paul V.
These difficulties were the beginning of trials and persecutions which beset
St Joseph until the end of his life. Nevertheless during the succeeding five
years the work prospered and grew in spite of all opposition, and in 1611
a palazzo was purchased to house
it near the church of San Pantaleone; there were about a thousand pupils,
including a number of Jews whom the founder himself invited to attend and
encouraged by his kindness.
Other schools were opened, and in 1621 the teachers were recognized
as a religious order, of which St Joseph was named superior general.
He did not let the cares of the generalate diminish either religious observances
or his care for the needy, the sick, and any to whom he could be of service.
About this time there came to Rome, with his wife and family, an English
gentleman, Mr Thomas Cocket, who by abjuring Protestantism had brought himself
within reach of the penal laws. St Joseph assisted him,
and the pope followed his example assigning a pension to the refugee converts.
For ten years the congregation continued to prosper and extend, and spread
from Italy into the Empire.
In 1630, the institute
at Naples admitted one Mario Sozzi, a middle-aged priest, who in due course
was professed. For several years his froward and perverse behaviour
made him a great nuisance to his brethren but, having by a show of zeal gained
the good will and influence of the Holy Office, he contrived to get himself,
in 1639, made provincial of the Clerks Regular of the Religious Schools in
Tuscany, with extraordinary powers and independence of the superior general.
He proceeded to administer the province in the most capricious and damaging
way, harmed as much as he could the reputation of St Joseph with the Roman
authorities, and at length denounced him to the Holy Office.
Cardinal Cesarini, as protector of the new institute and in
order to vindicate Joseph, ordered Father Mario's papers and letters to be
seized these included some documents of the Holy Office and that congregation,
spurred on by Sozzi, straightway had St Joseph arrested and carried through
the streets like a felon.
He was brought before the assessors and only saved from imprisonment
by the intervention of Cardinal Cesarini. Father Mario was unpunished, and
continued to plot for control of the whole institute, representing St Joseph
to be too old and doddering for the responsibility he managed by deceit to
get him suspended from the generalate and contrived that a visitor apostolic
be appointed who was favourable to himself. This visitor and Father
Mario became in effect in supreme command, and St Joseph was subjected by
them to the most humiliating, insulting and unjust treatment, while the order
was reduced to such confusion and impotence that the loyal members were unable
to persuade the superior authorities of the true state of affairs.
Towards the end of 1643 Mario died and was succeeded by
Father Cherubini, who pursued the same policy. St Joseph bore these trials
with marvellous patience, urging the order to obey his persecutors for they
were defacto in authority, and on one occasion sheltering Cherubini from
the violent opposition of some of the younger fathers who were indignant
at his treachery.
The Holy See had some time previously set up a commission of cardinals
to look into the whole matter, and at length in 1645 it ordered the reinstatement
of St Joseph as superior general. This announcement was received with
great joy but it led at once to renewed efforts on the part of the malcontents,
who had the support of an aggrieved female relative of the pope. They
were successful, and in 1646 Pope Innocent
X published a brief of which the effect was to make the Clerks Regular
of the Religious Schools simply a society of priests subject to their respective
bishops. Thus in his ninetieth year St Joseph saw the apparent overturning
of all his work by the authority to which he was so greatly devoted and the
indirect disgrace of himself before the world when the news was brought to
him he simply murmured,
"The Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
The business of
drawing up new constitutions and regulations for the shattered institute
of Religious Schools was entrusted to Father Cherubini, but within a few
months he was convicted by the auditors of the Rota of the maladministration
of the Nazarene College, of which he was rector. He retired from Rome
in disgrace, but returned in the following year to die, repentant of the part
he had played and reconciled to St Joseph, who consoled him on his death-bed.
A few months later, on August 25, 1648, St Joseph himself died, and was buried
in the church of San Pantaleone he was ninety-two years old.
There is an obvious parallel between this history and that of St
Alphonsus Liguori and the early days of the Redemptorists, and during the
troubles of his young congregation St Alphonsus used to encourage and fortify
himself by reading the life of St Joseph Calasanctius; he was canonized in
1767, six years before the death of Alban Butler, who only gives to him a
brief notice, wherein he is referred to as "a perpetual miracle of fortitude
and another Job"-a comparison made by Cardinal
Lambertini (afterwards Pope Benedict XIV) before the Congregation
of Sacred Rites in 1728.
The failure of St Joseph's foundation was only apparent.
Its suppression was strongly objected to in several places, and it was reconstituted
with simple vows in 1656 and restored as a religious order in 1669.
Today the Clerks Regular of the Religious Schools (commonly called Piarists
or Scolopi) flourish in various parts of the world.
The documents submitted in the process of beatification
and canonization have been largely utilized by the biographers of St Joseph
Calasanctius, and this is notably the case in the life written in Italian
in the eighteenth century, a translation of which was published in the Oratorian
Series edited by Father Faber (1850). The earliest detailed account
of Calasanctius seems to have been compiled by one of his religious sons,
Father Mussesti, for the information of Pope
Alexander VII, less than twenty years after the saint's death. A considerable
number of biographies have since appeared in Italian, French, Spanish and
German. Those by Timon-David (1883), Tommasee (1898), Casanovas y Sanz (1930),
Heidenreich (1907), Giovanozzi (1930) and Santoloci (1948) may be specially
mentioned. See also Heimbucher, Orden, und Kongregationen der Kat. Kirche,
vol. iii, pp. 287-296 and Pastor, Geschichte
der Papste, especially vol. xi, pp. 431-433 (Eng. trans.).
St. Joseph Calasanctius Called
in religion "a Matre Dei", founder of the Piarists, b. 11 Sept., 1556, at
the castle of Calasanza near Petralta de la Sal in Aragon; d. 25 Aug., 1648,
at Rome; feast 27 Aug. His parents, Don Pedro Calasanza and Donna Maria Gastonia,
gave Joseph, the youngest of five children, a good education at home and
then at the school of Petralta. After his classical studies at Estadilla
he took up philosophy and jurisprudence at Lérida and merited the
degree of Doctor of Laws, and then with honours completed his theological
course at Valencia and Alcalá de Henares. His mother and brother having
died, Don Pedro wanted Joseph to marry and perpetuate the family. God interfered
by sending a sickness in 1582 which soon brought Joseph to the brink of the
grave. On his recovery he was ordained priest 17 Dec., 1583, by Hugo Ambrose
de Moncada, Bishop of Urgel. Joseph began his labours as priest in the Diocese
of Albarracin, where Bishop della Figuera appointed him his theologian and
confessor, synodal examiner, and procurator, and when the bishop was transferred
to Lérida his theologian followed him to the new diocese. In 1586
della Figuera was sent as Apostolic visitator to the Abbey of Montserrat,
and Joseph accompanied him as secretary. The bishop died the following year
and Joseph left, though urgently requested to remain. He hurried to Calasanza
only to be present at the death of his father. He was then called by his
Bishop of Urgel to act as vicar-general for the district of Trempe. In 1592
he embarked for Rome, where he found a protector in Cardinal Marcantonio
Colonna who chose him as his theologian and instructor to his nephew. Rome
offered a splendid field for works of charity, especially for the instruction
of neglected and homeless children, many of whom had lost their parents.
Joseph joined a Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and gathered the boys
and girls from the streets and brought them to school. The teachers, being
poorly paid, refused to accept the additional labour without remuneration.
The pastor of S. Dorotea, Anthony Brendani, offered him two rooms and promised
assistance in teaching, and when two other priests promised similar help,
Joseph, in November, 1597, opened the first public free school in Europe.
Pope Clement VIII gave an annual contribution and many others shared in the
good work, so that in a short time Joseph had about a thousand children under
his charge. In 1602 he rented a house at S. Andrea della Valle and commenced
a community life with his assistants and laid the foundation of the Order
of Piarists. Much envy and opposition arose against him and his new institute,
but all were overcome in time. In 1612 the school was transferred to the
Torres palace adjoining S. Pantaleone. Here Joseph spent the remaining years
of his life in his chosen calling. He lived and died a faithful son of the
church, a true friend of forsaken children. His body rests in S. Paltaleone.
His beatification was solemnized on 7 Aug., 1748, and his canonization by
Clement XIII, 16 July, 1767.
Founder of the Religious Schools,
called the Scolopi or Piarists. Joseph was born in Peralta, Aragon, Spain.
He went to Rome in 1592 and joined the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine,
founding his congregation as a result of his work with neglected children.
Joseph suffered unjust accusations but restored as head of his congregation
before he died. He was canonized in 1767.
|
1826 St Joan Antide-Thouret,
Virgin, Foundress of The Sisters of Charity Under St Vincent's Protection
Joan Antide-Thouret was born on November 27, 1765, at Sancey-le-Long,
near Besançon. Her father was a tanner, and she was the fifth
child of a large family. She lost her mother when she was sixteen,
and thereafter took charge of her father's household, which she managed for
six years until it was made clear to her that she was called to serve God
in the religious life, and she was accepted by the Sisters of Charity of
St Vincent de Paul in Paris. During her period of postulancy and noviceship
Sister Joan was twice taken very seriously ill, and when the Revolution began
the Sisters of Charity were allowed to carry on their work only on sufferance,
so when in 1793 the religious were dispersed she had not yet made her profession.
She made her escape from Paris and begged her way on foot to Besançon,
and then to her home at Sancey. Her father was now dead, and to her
bitter grief one of her brothers had become a revolutionary.
So she went to live with her godmother and opened a free school, where in
the mornings she taught reading, writing and catechism to the village children,
and spent the rest of the day, and much of the night, in visiting the sick
and needy all over the large parish. She sheltered priests and enabled
them to celebrate Mass and administer the sacraments. Joan was denounced
to the magistrates for these activities, but her disarming frankness kept
her from harm. But in 1796 she took refuge in Switzerland and attached herself
to the Sisters of the Christian Retreat, established by the Ven. Antony Receveur
at Fribourg; she accompanied them to Germany, but after a time was
advised to return to Switzerland, and again begged her way on
foot, this time to Landeron, in the canton of Neufchâtel. Here
she met M. de Chaffoy, vicar general of Besançon, who invited her
to come back there now conditions were improved and take charge of a school.
She at first demurred, pointing out that she had had no proper formation
and training in the religious life, but M. de Chaffoy waved aside her scruples:
"All that is true, but you can do it, nevertheless. Courage, virtue
and trust in God are what are required, and it seems to me that you have
these qualities."
In April 1799 the school
was opened at Besançon and in the following October, with four other
sisters, had to move to a larger house, to which they added a soup-kitchen
and a dispensary. In 1800 the community numbered twelve, and a regular
novitiate was begun. St Joan was subjected to much adverse criticism
for having established this new institute, it being objected that after the
Concordat of 1801 she ought to have returned to her own congregation in Paris.
She herself had scruples in this matter, but was assured by M. de Chaffoy
that she was under no obligation towards the community to which she had formerly
belonged: she had taken no vows with them, she had been separated from them
by force of the Revolution, and the community was not yet re-established.
And she had established the Besançon institute purely and simply in
obedience to her ecclesiastical superiors.
At request of prefect of the city she took charge of municipal female
asylum at Belleveaux, which sheltered orphans, beggars and criminals as well
as lunatics, and her acceptance of this charge involved her in a deal of
odium and persecution which for a time grievously hampered her work. But
this was put on a more secure footing when in 1807 the rule of her sisters
was approved by Mgr Le Coz, Archbishop of Besançon.
By 1810 they had spread into Switzerland and Savoy, and in that year
Joachim Murat, King of Naples, asked St Joan to occupy the convent of Regina
Coeli and administer a hospital in his capital city. With seven sisters
she accordingly went, and remained there until 1821 laying firm foundations
for the educating of girls, the care of the sick, and the spiritual and temporal
welfare of her community. One of the first things to be done, and St
Joan did it with determination and spirit, was to get rescinded in their
favour the local law which put nuns at the mercy of the civil authorities
and forbade their dependence on a foreign mother general.
In 1818 Pope Pius VII approved the institute, and confirmed it by
a brief in the following year.
But this, instead of giving joy and increased stability to the sisters,
precipitated a schism that filled with sorrow the remaining years of life
of the foundress. In its approbatory brief the Holy See made some small alterations
in the rule, and decreed that for the future all the convents of the congregation
of the Daughters of Charity under the protection of St Vincent de Paul (as
they were to be called) were to be subject to their local bishop and not,
as hitherto, to the archbishop of Besançon. The then archbishop, Mgr
Cortois de Pressigny, a Gallican-minded prelate, announced that he refused
to accept these ammedments, and he separated all the convents in his diocese
from the rest of the congregation and even forbade them to receive their
foundress and mother general within their walls.
In 1821 she came to France and passed eighteen months in Paris, trying
in vain to smooth out the difficulties. As a last resort she presented
herself at the mother-house in Besançon-and was refused admission.
Both charity and facts incline us to the view that this action was prompted
not by partizanship but by obedience to their archbishop. Before the
schism hardened many of the sisters of the Besançon diocese openly
adhered to their foundress and to the directions of the Holy See.
St Joan wrote of these troubtes, "As for French affairs, we commit
all to divine providence. With the advice of the Holy See we have done
all that is possible to achieve unity; that unity has not yet been effected.
We therefore leave it to the mercy of God, in whose hands we long ago placed
it. May His will be done and everything be for His glory!" Then
she returned to Naples and, having spent three strenuous years in founding
new convents in Italy, she died peacefully on August 24, 1826. St Joan
Antide-Thouret was canonized in 1934.
There are biographies in French by P. Bernard and by F.
Trochu (the best), and in English by Blanche Anderdon.
|
1865 St. Maria
Michaela Desmaisieres work for street women Foundress of The Handmaids of The Blessed Sacrament
St Mary Michaela Desmaisieres, Virgin, Foundress
of The Handmaids of The Blessed Sacrament
This Spanish lady, who had the title of viscountess and sometimes
referred to by her long family style, is Called in documents of the Congregation
of Rites simply Maria Michaela Desmaisières. She was born in Madrid
in 1809, lost her mother in childhood, and resisted all attempts to persuade
her to marry but she lived for some years with her brother while he was Spanish
ambassador at Paris and Brussels. Her position necessitated attendance at
banquets, state balls and theatrical performances, but she fortified herself
against this outwardly worldly life by daily communion and by wearing instruments
of penance beneath her dress. All her interest was given to the religious
instruction of the ignorant, the rescue of the unprotected and the fallen,
and the relief of sickness and poverty.
When she returned to Spain she started more than one organization
for work of this kind, but she had to encounter in full measure the contradictions
which usually beset such efforts. Her most lasting achievement was foundation
of the congregation of Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity,
of which she was elected mother general in 1859. Its work is for women of
the streets. This institute was approved by the Holy See for five years in
the lifetime of its foundress, and shortly after her death it obtained permanent
recognition. It had in the meantime spread widely and was full of promise
for the future. In 1865 in connection with this final approbation Mother
Michaela had set out on her way to Rcme, when an epidemic of cholera broke
out in Valencia. Thither she hastened to the succour of her religious
daughters, who were attending the plague-stricken. But though she had
more than once in previous outbreaks attended cholera patients, she took
the infection herself and died, a victim of charity, on August 24.
She was canonized in 1934.
The brief of beatification
with a biographical summary is printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. xvii (1925),
pp. 292-296. See also Kempf, Holiness
of the Church in the Nineteenth Century, pp. 199-201 and Angeio
Romano di S. Teresa, La Beata Maria Michelina
del Sacramento
This Spanish Lady was born in Madrid in 1809, lost her mother in childhood,
and resisted all attempts to persuade her to marry; she lived with her brother
for some years while he was Spanish ambassador at Paris and Brussels. All
her interest was given to the religious instruction of the ignorant, the
rescue of the unprotected and the fallen, and the relief of sickness and
poverty. When she returned to Spain she started more than one organization
for work of this kind; her most lasting achievement was the foundation of
the congregation of Handmaids of the Blessed Sacrament and of Charity, of
which she was elected Mother General in 1859. Its work is for women of the
streets. This Institute was approved by the Holy See for five years in the
lifetime of its foundress, and shortly after her death it obtained permanent
recognition. It had in the meantime spread widely and was full of promise
for the future. In 1865 in connection with this final approbation Mother
Michaela had set out on her way to Rome, when an epidemic of cholera broke
out in Valencia. She hastened to the help of her religious daughters, who
were attending the plague-stricken. But though she had more than once in
previous outbreaks attended cholera patients, she took the infection herself
and died, a victim of charity on August 24th. She was canonized in 1934
(1925). .
|
St. Macarius
Translocation of the Body of to His Monastery in Scetis. {Coptic}
On this day, the church celebrates the return of the body
of St. Macarius to his monastery in the desert of Sheahat (Scetis). After
the departure of St. Macarius, some of the natives of the city of Shanshour
(Shabsheer) came and stole his body. They built a large church for him, and
placed the body in it. Later on, his body was moved to another town where
he stayed for four hundred forty years, till the time of Pope Michael V (Anba
Mikhail V), the 71st Pope. When Pope Michael went to the wilderness to observe
the holy fast in the monastery, he sighed and said, "How much I yearn that
God would help us so that the body of our father Anba Macarius be in our
midst."
Later on, the abbot of the monastery, the Archpriest (Hegumen) Michael, went
with some of the elders on certain business of the monastery, and they thought
of bringing back the body of the saint to their monastery. They came to where
the body was, but the people of the town and the governor assembled against
them with swords and sticks and prevented them from taking the body. The
elders spent the night in great sorrow. The governor saw that night a vision
of St. Macarius telling him, "Let my children take my body and do not prevent
them." The governor was frightened and he called the elders and gave them
the body. The elders took the body with great joy, and many faithful people
followed them to bid the body farewell.
When the ship arrived in Mariot, they spent the night. The next morning they
celebrated the Divine Liturgy and received the Holy Mysteries. Then they
loaded the body on a camel to the wilderness. Midway through the journey,
they needed to rest, but the Abbot said, "As the Lord lives, we do not rest
until the Lord shows us the place where the angel of the Lord held our father's
hand." So they kept moving until the camel knelt down and did not get up.
The camel started to turn his head around, licking the body and bowing his
head down to the ground. Then the elders knew that was the right place, and
they glorified God.
As they reached the monastery, all the monks came out holding candles and
singing. Then they carried the body on their shoulders and went into the
church in a great celebration, and God performed many wonders on that day.
May his prayers be with us and
Glory be to our God forever. Amen .
|
Mary Mother of GOD 15
Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary 
Saints of this Day August 25 Octávo Kaléndas Septémbris
Quote: Pope Paul
VI’s 1969 
Benedict
XVI met with Aram
I Catholicos of
Cilicia, the highest
authority of the Orthodox
Church.
The Pope
remembered the martyrs
of the Armenian Church and
the Armenian genocide,
without explicitly
mentioning it, and denounced
the persecution of Christians
in modern times.
Benedict
XVI
Among
the most important
titles we have in the Catholic Church for
the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady
of Victory and Our Lady of the Rosary. These
titles can be traced back to one of the most
decisive times in the history of the world and
Christendom. The Battle of Lepanto took place
on October 7 (date of feast of Our Lady of Rosary),
1571. This proved to be the most crucial
battle for the Christian forces against the
radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope Pius V led a
procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican
City praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral
leadership in recognizing the danger posed to
Christendom by the radical Muslim forces,
and in using the means necessary to defeat it.
Spiritual battles require spiritual weapons, and
this more than anything was a battle that had its
origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between
good and evil.