 721-691
B.C. Righteous Hezekiah was the son of the impious king Ahaz. The life
of Righteous Hezekiah is described in the Bible (4/2 Kings 18-20); He became King of Judah at the age of
twenty-five, and reigned at Jerusalem for 29 years. A zealous
worshipper of the True God, Hezekiah reopened the Temple of Solomon (2
Chron. 20:3). At the time of the celebration of the Passover, to which
he summoned all the subjects of the kingdom of Israel, Hezekiah gave
orders to destroy the idols throughout his kingdom, reminding the
people of the punishments which befell their ancestors for forsaking
the True God. After
this, idolatry ceased not only in the kingdom of Judah, but also in
many places in the kingdom of Israel.
Therefore, God delivered him from his enemies and fulfilled his
petitions.
Thus, in the fourteenth year of the reign of Hezekiah, the Assyrian
king Sennacherib son of Salmanassar, having conquered Israel, gathered
his forces to make war upon Hezekiah. The Assyrian
king took the
fortress of Lachis and sent an army towards Jerusalem, demanding that
the Jewish king surrender. Hezekiah turned to God in
prayer, and an angel of the Lord struck down
185,000 soldiers in the Assyrian camp. Soon after the withdrawal of
Sennacherib, Hezekiah fell ill.
The Prophet Isaiah came to him through the will of God and told him to
set his affairs in order, since he would soon die. But the power of
Hezekiah's prayer was so great that God prolonged his life for another
fifteen years.
His prayer was fervent when he besought God to help him. But even more
ardent was his prayer of thanks. Hezekiah died at age 54 and was buried
with great reverence at
Jerusalem. memory of Righteous Hezekiah also celebrated Cheesefare
Saturday .
|
Micah, the Prophet
Departure On this day, the great righteous prophet Micah, departed. He
prophesied about Samaria and Jerusalem during the time of Jotham, Ahaz
and Hezkiah, kings of Judeah. He prophesied about the incarnation of
the Lord, to Whom is the Glory, saying, "For behold, the Lord is coming
out of His high place. He will come down and tread on the high places
of the earth." (Micah 1:3) He prophesied about His birth in Bethlehem,
saying, "But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me. The one to
be ruler in Israel. Whose goings forth have been from of old, from
everlasting." (Micah 5:2) He prophesied about the futility of the
Jewish temple and the going forth of the Law of the Gospel from Zion,
saying, "... For out of Zion the Law shall go forth, and the word of
the Lord from Jerusalem." (Micah 4:2) He also prophesied about the
perdition of Ahab, king of Israel. (Micah 5:15,16) When this prophet
finished his strife in peace, he departed at a good old age. He
preceded the Lord Christ by about eight hundred years.
|
 Righteous Anna the
Prophetess; Righteous Anna led a strict and pious life, "not leaving
the Temple,
and serving God both day and night in fasting and prayer" (Luke. 2:
37). When Righteous Anna was 84 years old, she saw the Infant
Jesus
Christ at the Temple of Jerusalem. He was brought to be dedicated to
God as a firstborn child according to the Mosaic law.
Anna descended from the tribe of Aser, and was the daughter
of Phanuel.
She lived with her husband for seven years until he died.
Righteous Anna also heard the prophetic words of St Simeon
the
God-Receiver spoken to the Most Holy Theotokos. The
Prophetess Anna together with St Simeon glorified God,
and told
everyone that the Messiah had come into the world (Luke. 2: 38).
|
 120 St.
Hermes
Martyr with companions in Rome
Romæ item natális sancti Hermétis, viri
illústris, qui (ut in Actis beáti Alexándri
Papæ légitur), prius carceráli
custódiæ mancipátus, deínde, cum
áliis plúrimis, gládio cædénte,
martyrium complévit, sub Aureliáno Júdice.
At Rome, the birthday of St. Hermes, an illustrious
man, who, as we read in the Acts of blessed Pope Alexander, was first
confined in prison, and afterwards fulfilled his martyrdom by the
sword, at the time of the judge Aurelian.
Who suffered at the hands of a
judge named
Aurelian.
They are
mentioned in the Acts of Pope St.
Alexander I.
Their cult was confined to local calendars in 1969.
<>2nd
v. ST HERMES, MARTYR
FOR the martyrdom of
St Hermes at Rome and for his early cultus there and
elsewhere we have the fullest evidence. He is
mentioned in the Depositio martyrum of the year 354, and his name occurs in the
“Martyrology of Jerome” and in the
itineraries of the pilgrims. But upon the Passion of St Hermes, which
forms
part of the so-called acta of Pope
Alexander I, no reliance can be placed; “it is a
romance, whose principal heroes are martyrs known to history,
but the
plot and the parts therein attributed to the different characters are
the
invention of the hagiographer” (Delehaye).
St Hermes was buried
in the cemetery of Basilla on the Old Salarian Way, where the remains
of a
large basilica have been found over his tomb; there
have also been found fragments of an inscription put up
there by Pope St Damasus, containing the martyr’s name. What purported
to be
the relics of this St Hermes were given by Pope St Leo IV to the
Emperor
Lothair I in 850, and these eventually
came to rest in the church of Renaix in Flanders, where they are still
an
object of pilgrimage. This led to a certain diffusion of cultus
in western Europe. But by what process St Hermes came to be
the titular of three churches in Cornwall—Saint Erme, Saint Ervan,
Marazion—is
not clear.
See Acta Sanctorum, August, vol. vi; CMH., pp. 472—473 ; and
DAC., vol.
vi, cc. 2303 seq. G.
H. Doble in his St Hermes (1935) Cornish
Saints series) refers to “an excellent little book” the cult of the
saint at
Renaix, by Abbe F. d’Hollander (1934).
|
 283 St.
Pelagius A
child martyr put to death in Pannonia
Constántiæ, in Germánia, sancti Pelágii
Mártyris, qui sub Numeriáno Imperatóre et
Evilásio Júdice, cápite amputátus, martyrii
corónam accépit.
At Constance, in Germany, St. Pelagius, martyr, who
received the crown of martyrdom under Emperor Numerian and the judge
Evilasius.
During the persecution of Emperor
Numerian
Maximian. He is revered as
the patron saint of Constance, in Switzerland, owing to the transfer of
his relics to that place early in the tenth century.
|
303
St. Fortunatus Martyr with Anthes and Gaius
Salérni sanctórum Mártyrum Fortunáti, Caji
et Anthis; qui, sub Diocletiáno Imperatóre et
Leóntio Procónsule, decolláti sunt.
At Salerno, the holy martyrs Fortunatus, Caius, and
Anthes, beheaded under Emperor Diocletian and the proconsul Leontius.
Who suffered near Salerno, Italy,
possibly
one of the “Three Holy
Brothers.” Relics enshrined in Salerno in 940.
|
304 St.
Julian of
Auvergne Martyred Roman army officer
Briváte, apud Arvérnos, item pássio sancti
Juliáni Mártyris, qui, cum esset beáti
Ferreóli Tribúni comes et in hábitu
militári occúlte Christo servíret, in
persecutióne Diocletiáni, a milítibus tentus est,
et, desécto gútture, morte horríbili
necátus.
At Prinde in Auvergne, St. Julian, martyr, during
the persecution of Diocletian. He was the companion of the
blessed tribune Ferreol, and under a military garb he secretly served
Christ until arrested by the soldiers, and killed in a barbarous manner
by having his throat cut.
Also called Julian of Brioude. He
was from
France and retired to
Auvergne when persecution started. Julian surrendered to the
authorities and was beheaded at Brioude.
3rd v. ST
JULIAN OF BRIOUDE, MARTYR
THIS Julian was one
of the most famous martyrs of Gaul; he is sometimes called Julian of
Auvergne.
His unreliable passio tells us that
he was a soldier, who knew how to reconcile the profession of arms with
the
teaching of the gospel. Crispin, governor of the province of Vienne,
having
declared himself against the Christians, Julian withdrew to Auvergne;
afterwards, learning that he was sought by the persecutors, of his own
accord
he presented himself before them, saying, “I have been too long in this
bad
world; I would be with Jesus”. He had scarce uttered these words, when
they
fell upon him and cut off his head. This is said to have happened near
Brioude.
Later a church was built at Brioude (near Clermont-Ferrand) to
shelter his
relics, and it became a great place of pilgrimage. St Gregory of Tours
relates
a number of miracles wrought by St Julian’s intercession; he also
mentions a
church dedicated at Paris under the invocation of the holy martyr: it is that which is now known as St
Julien-le-Pauvre, used by the Catholic Melkites of the city.
Apollinaris
Sidonius, Gregory of Tours, and the “Hieronymianum” sufficiently attest
the
early cultus of this martyr, but
Gregory also lets us know that they were at first in doubt on what day
he ought
to he venerated. See Delehaye, Les
Origines du Culte des Martyrs, p. 357. The passio, printed in the Acta
Sanctorum, August, vol. vi, and also by E. Munding (1918), is of
little
value, but E. C. Babut in the Revue
d’histoire et de littérature religieuses, vol. V (1914),
pp. 96—116, has
tried to turn it to historical account.
|
Venúsiæ, in Apúlia,
pássio sanctórum Septimíni, Januárii et
Felícis, qui, sanctórum Bonifátii et Theclæ
fílii, a Valeriáno Júdice, sub Maximiáno
Imperatóre, jussi sunt decollári. Ipsórum
tamen ac reliquórum ex duódecim frátribus
festívitas ágitur Kaléndis Septémbris.
Saints Septiminus, Januarius, and Felix
At Venosa in Apulia, the
passion of Saints
Septiminus, Januarius, and Felix. During the reign of Emperor
Maximian, the judge Valerian ordered these sons of Saints Boniface and
Thecla to be beheaded. Their feast, however, is observed with
that of the other Twelve Holy Brethren on the first of September.
|
 340
St. Alexander
of
Constantinople Bishop apostle against Arianism
Constantinópoli sancti Alexándri Epíscopi,
gloriósi senis; ob cujus oratiónem Arius, divíno
judício damnátus, crépuit médius, et
effúsa sunt víscera ejus.
At Constantinople, the holy bishop Alexander, an
aged and celebrated man, through whose efficacious prayers Arius, by
the judgement of God, burst asunder and his bowels were poured out.
He was elected the bishop of Byzantium in
317, at age seventy-three.
Alexander was well known for his wisdom and holiness. He attended the Council of Nicaea in
325 and joined St. Alexander
of Alexandria in condemning Arius and his heretical teachings.
In
336, Arius was sponsored by Emperor Constantine the Great to be
received
into the Church. Alexander, unable to be a party to such a disastrous
enterprise, prayed that either he or Arius be removed from the scene.
Arius died the day before
Alexander was exonerated in the court of
Constantinople.
340,
577, 784 Ss.
Alexander, John III And Paul IV, Patriarchs Of Constantinople
Alexander of
Byzantium was already seventy-three years old when he was elected to
the
episcopal throne of Constantinople, and he filled the office for
twenty-three years
in the troubled days of the heresiarch Anus. Soon after his election
the
Emperor Constantine ordered a conference between the Christian
theologians and
a number of pagan philosophers, and the discussion was thrown into
confusion by
all the philosophers trying to talk at the same time. On St Alexander’s
suggestion they then chose the most learned among them to voice their
views,
and while one of them was speaking Alexander suddenly exclaimed, “In
the name
of Jesus Christ, I command you to be silent!” Whereupon, it is said,
the
unfortunate man found his tongue was paralysed and his mouth unable to
utter a
word until Alexander gave him leave, and by this manifestation of
divine power
the Christian cause made more impression than by the most solid
arguments.
In 336 Anus arrived
in triumph at Constantinople, with an order from the emperor that St
Alexander
should receive him into communion. It is said that Alexander shut
himself in
church and prayed, with St James of Nisibis, that God would remove
either himself
or Anus. In any case, on the night before the day appointed for his
solemn
reception, Anus suddenly died. It was natural that many Christians
should look
on this as a divine intervention at the intercession of St
Alexander, and this
view is expressed by the Roman Martyrology, which refers to him as, “a
glorious
old man, on account of whose prayers Anus, condemned by the judgement
of God,
brake in the middle and his bowels poured out”.
The
Byzantine
Catholics join in one commemoration with St Alexander two other holy
archbishops of Constantinople, John III and Paul IV, called
“the Young”.
John was born near Antioch, and had been a lawyer before he was
ordained. He
was sent as patriarchal legate from Antioch to Constantinople, where
his
learning caused him to be known as “the Scholastic”; he had already
made a
collection of canons of ecclesiastical law, which recommended him to
the Emperor
Justinian I, and in the year 565 he
was made patriarch of the imperial
city. While he held that office he revised and enlarged his collection
of
canons, which was the first to be made systematically; this work grew
eventually into the compendium of Eastern church law called the Nomokanon. St. John the Scholastic died
in 577.
St
Paul the Young
was a native of Salamis who became patriarch of Constantinople in 780,
during
the last months of the Emperor Leo IV. Directly the Empress Irene
became regent
he advocated the restoration of holy images and their veneration; in
784 he
withdrew to the monastery of Florus, avowedly as an act of penance for
his
compromises and lack of boldness during the iconoclast regime. Until
his death
shortly afterwards he encouraged the assembling of a council for the
condemnation of Iconoclasm; it eventually met in the year 787.
The
not entirely
concordant stories of St Athanasius and the church historians
concerning St
Alexander will be found sufficiently illustrated in the Acta
Sanctorum, August, vol. vi. Cf. also DCB., s. nn.
|
Item sancti Móysis
Æthíopis, qui, ex insígni latróne
insígnis Anachoréta, multos latrónes
convértit et secum duxit ad monastérium.
St.
Moses the Ethiopian Also,
who
gave up a life of robbery and became a renowned anchoret. He
converted many robbers, and led them to a monastery.
|
 400 Saint Moses
Murin and he was black of skin and therefore called "Murin" (meaning
"like an Ethiopian") Moses the brigand spent several years leading a
sinful life, but
through the great mercy of God he repented, left his band of robbers
and went to one of the desert monasteries; the band of robbers heard
about the repentance of St Moses, then they also gave up their thievery
and became fervent monks. Received from the Lord power over demons.
405 ST MOSES THE
BLACK
THIS
Moses was an Ethiopian and the most picturesque
figure among those remarkable men who are known as the Fathers of
the Desert.
At first he was a servant, or slave, in the house of an Egyptian
official; the
general immorality of his life, but particularly his continual thefts,
caused
his dismissal—in those days he was lucky to have got off with his
life—and he
took to brigandage. He was a man of huge stature, with corresponding
strength
and ferocity, and he soon gathered a gang about him that was a terror
to the
district. Once some contemplated villainy was spoiled
by the
barking of a sheep-dog giving the alarm, and Moses swore to kill the
shepherd.
To get at him he had to swim across the Nile with his sword in his
teeth, but
the shepherd had hidden himself by burrowing into the sand; Moses could
not
find him, so he made up for it by killing four rams, tying them
together and
towing them back across the river. Then he flayed the rams, cooked and
ate the
best parts, sold the skins for wine, and walked fifty miles to join his
fellows. That was the sort of man Moses was.
Unfortunately the
circumstances of his conversion are not known; it is possible that he
hid
himself among the solitaries to avoid the law and was touched and
conquered by
their example, for when next heard of he was at the monastery of Petra
in the
desert of Skete. Here he was attacked in his cell by four robbers.
Moses fought
and overpowered them, then tied them together, slung them across his
back, and
went to the church, where he dumped them on the floor, saying to the
astonished
monks, “I am not allowed to hurt anybody, so what do you want me to do
with
these?” They are said to have reformed their ways and become monks
themselves.
But Moses did not become well-behaved in a day and, despairing of
overcoming
his violent passions, he consulted St Isidore. The abbot took him up to
the
roof of the house at dawn: “See” he said, “the light only gradually
drives away
the darkness. So it is with the soul.”
Eventually by hard
physical labour, especially in waiting on his brethren, hard physical
mortification, and persevering prayer he so conquered himself that
Theophilus, Archbishop
of Alexandria, heard of his virtues and ordained him priest. Afterwards
as he
stood in the basilica, anointed and vested in white, the archbishop
said, “Now,
Father Moses, the black man is made white”. St Moses smiled ruefully.
“Only
outside God knows that inwardly I am yet dark”, he replied.
When a raid on the
monastery by Berbers was threatened, Moses refused to allow his monks
to defend
themselves but made them run away before it was too late: “All that
take the
sword shall perish with the sword.” He remained, and seven with him,
and all
save one were murdered by the infidels. St Moses was then seventy-five
years
old, and he was buried at the monastery called Dair al-Baramus,
which still
exists.
A Greek
life, said to have been written by Laurence, a
monk in Calabria, is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, August,
vol. vi, with a commentary. But St Moses also figures
in
Palladius’s Historia Lausiaca and in
some of the early church historians.
Moses lived during
the fourth century in Egypt. He was an Ethiopian, and he was black of
skin and therefore called "Murin" (meaning "like an Ethiopian"). In his
youth he was the slave of an important man, but after he committed a
murder, his master banished him, and he joined a band of robbers.
Because of his bad character and great physical strength they chose him
as their leader. Moses and his band of brigands did many evil deeds,
both murders and robberies. People were afraid at the mere mention of
his name. Moses the brigand spent several years leading a sinful
life, but through the great mercy of God he repented, left his band of
robbers and went to one of the desert monasteries. Here he wept for a
long time, begging to be admitted as one of the brethren. The monks
were not convinced of the sincerity of his repentance, but the former
robber would not be driven away nor silenced. He continued to ask that
they accept him. St Moses was completely obedient to
the igumen and the
brethren, and he
poured forth many tears of sorrow for his sinful life. After a certain
while St Moses withdrew to a solitary cell, where he spent the time in
prayer and the strictest fasting in a very austere lifestyle.
Once, four of the robbers of his former band
descended upon
the cell of
St Moses. He had lost none of his great physical strength, so he tied
them all up. Throwing them over his shoulder, he brought them to the
monastery, where he asked the Elders what to do with them. The Elders
ordered that they be set free. The robbers, learning that they had
chanced upon their former ringleader, and that he had dealt kindly with
them, followed his example: they repented and became monks. Later, when
the rest of the band of robbers heard about the repentance of St Moses,
then they also gave up their thievery and became fervent monks.
St Moses was not quickly freed from the passions. He went
often to the
igumen, Abba Isidore, seeking advice on how to be delivered from the
passions of profligacy. Being experienced in the spiritual struggle,
the Elder taught him never to eat too much food, to remain partly
hungry while observing the strictest moderation. But the passions did
not cease to trouble St Moses in his dreams. Then Abba Isidore
taught him the all-night vigil. The monk stood the whole night at
prayer, so he would not fall asleep. From his prolonged struggles St
Moses fell into despondency, and when there arose thoughts about
leaving his solitary cell, Abba Isidore instead strengthened the
resolve of his disciple. In a vision he showed him
many demons in the west, prepared for battle,
and in the east a still greater quantity of holy angels, also ready for
fighting. Abba Isidore explained to St Moses that the power of the
angels would prevail over the power of the demons, and in the long
struggle with the passions it was necessary for him to become
completely cleansed of his former sins.
St Moses undertook a new effort.
Making the rounds by night of the wilderness cells, he
carried water
from the well to each brother. He did this especially for the Elders,
who lived far from the well and who were not easily able to carry their
own water. Once, kneeling over the well, St Moses felt a powerful blow
upon his back and he fell down at the well like one dead, laying there
in that position until dawn. Thus did the devils take revenge upon the
monk for his victory over them. In the morning the brethren carried him
to his cell, and he lay there a whole year crippled. Having recovered,
the monk with firm resolve confessed to the igumen, that he would
continue to live in asceticism. But the Lord Himself put limits to this
struggle of many years: Abba Isidore blessed his disciple and said to
him that the passions had already gone from him.
The Elder commanded him to
receive the Holy Mysteries, and to go to his own cell in peace. From
that time, St Moses received from the Lord power over demons.
Accounts about his
exploits spread among the monks and even beyond the
bounds of the wilderness.
The governor of the land wanted to see the saint. When he
heard of
this, St Moses decided to hide from any visitors, and he departed his
own cell. Along the way he met servants of the governor, who asked him
how to get to the cell of the desert-dweller Moses. The monk answered
them: "Go no farther to see this false and unworthy monk." The servants
returned to the monastery where the governor was waiting, and they told
him the words of the Elder they had chanced to meet. The brethren,
hearing a description of the Elder's appearance, told them that they
had encountered St Moses himself.
After many years of monastic exploits, St Moses was ordained
deacon.
The bishop clothed him in white vestments and said, "Now Abba Moses is
entirely white!" The saint replied, "Only outwardly, for God knows that
I am still dark within."
Through humility, the saint believed himself unworthy of the
office of
deacon. Once, the bishop decided to test him and he bade the clergy to
drive him out of the altar, reviling him as an unworthy Ethiopian. In
all humility, the monk accepted the abuse. Having put him to the test,
the bishop then ordained St Moses to be presbyter. St Moses labored for
fifteen years in this rank, and gathered around himself 75 disciples.
When the saint reached age 75, he warned his monks that soon
brigands
would descend upon the skete and murder all that were there. The saint
blessed his monks to leave, in order to avoid violent death. His
disciples began to beseech the monk to leave with them, but he replied:
"For many years already I have awaited the time when therethe words
which my Master, the Lord Jesus Christ, should be fulfilled: "All who
take up the sword, shall perish by the sword" (Mt. 26: 52). After this,
seven of the brethren remained with the monk, and one of them hid
nearby during the attack of the robbers. The robbers killed St Moses
and the six monks who remained with him. Their death occurred in about
the year 400 .
|
 430 St.
Augustine
of Hippo is the patron of brewers; son of St. Monica
Hippóne
Régio, in Africa, natális sancti
Augustíni Epíscopi, Confessóris et
Ecclésiæ Doctóris exímii, qui, beáti
Ambrósii Epíscopi ópera ad cathólicam fidem
convérsus et baptizátus, eam advérsus
Manichæos aliósque hæréticos acérrimus
propugnátor deféndit, multísque áliis pro
Ecclésia Dei perfúnctus labóribus, ad præmia
migrávit in cælum. Ejus relíquiæ, primo
de sua civitáte propter bárbaros in Sardíniam
advéctæ, et póstea a Rege Longobardórum
Luitprándo Papíam translátæ, ibi
honorífice cónditæ sunt.
At Hippo in Africa, the birthday of St. Augustine,
bishop and famous doctor of the Church. Converted and baptized by
the blessed bishop Ambrose, he defended the Catholic faith with the
greatest zeal against the Manicheans and other heretics, and after
having sustained many other labours for the Church of God, he went to
his reward in heaven. His relics, owing to the invasion of
barbarians, were first brought from his own city into Sardinia, and
afterwards taken by Luitprand, king of the Lombards, to Pavia, where
they were deposited with due honours.
Because
of his conversion from a former life
of loose living, which
included parties, entertainment, and worldly ambitions. His complete
turnaround and conversion has been an inspiration to many who struggle
with a particular vice or habit they long to break.
Augustinus
Orthodoxe
Kirche: 15. Juni
Katholische, Anglikanische und Evangelische Kirche: 28. August
Weitere Gedenktage: Gedenktag der Bekehrung: 5. Mai (in
Brügge) Überführung der Gebeine nach Pavia: 11. Oktober
ST AUGUSTINE, who used
commonly to be called Austin in English, was
born on November 13 in the year 354 at Tagaste, a small town of Numidia
in north Africa, not far from Hippo, but at some distance from the sea,
which he had never seen till he was grown up. His parents were of
good position, but not rich; his father, Patricius, was an idolater,
and a violent disposition; but through the example and prudent
conduct of St Monica, his wife, he was baptized a little before his
death. She bore him several children; St Augustine speaks of his
brother Navigius, who left a family behind him, and of a sister who
died a dedicated virgin.
He was entered in his infancy among the
catechumens, baptism itself being deferred, according to a common
custom of the time; but in early youth he fell into evil ways and
until the age of thirty-two led a life morally defiled by licence and
intellectually by Manicheism. Of this time, up to his conversion
and the death of St Monica, Augustine speaks at large in his
Confessions, a book written for "a people curious to know the lives of
others, but careless to amend their own"; written not indeed to
satisfy such curiosity, but to show forth to his fellows the mercy of
God. His ways as exemplified in the life of one sinner, and to
endeavour that no one should think of him above that which he confessed
himself to be.
As a child Monica
instructed him in the Christian
religion and taught him to pray; falling dangerously ill, he desired
baptism and his mother got everything ready for it: but he suddenly
grew better, and it was put off. This custom of deferring baptism
for fear of sinning under the obligations of that sacrament, St
Augustine later very properly condemns; but the want of a sense of its
sanctity and the sacrileges of Christians in defiling it, by relapsing
into sin, is an abuse which no less calls for our tears. "And so
I was put to school to learn those things in which, poor boy, I knew no
profit, and yet if I was negligent in learning I was whipped: for this
method was approved by my elders, and many that had trod that life
before us had chalked out unto us these wearisome
ways..."
Augustine thanks God that, though the persons
who pressed
him to learn had no other end in view than, "penurious riches" and
"ignominious glory", yet divine Providence made a good use of their
error, and forced him to learn for his great profit and manifold
advantage. He accuses himself of often studying only
by constraint, disobeying his parents and masters, not writing,
reading, or minding his lessons so much as was required of him; and
this he did, not for want of wit or memory, but out of love of
play. But he prayed to God with great earnestness that he might
escape punishment at school, for which dread he was laughed at by his
masters and parents.
Nevertheless, "we were
punished for
play by them that were doing no better; but the boys' play of them that
are grown up is named business. Who is he that,
weighing things well will justify my being beaten when I was a boy for
playing at ball, because by that play I was hindered from learning so
quickly those arts with which, when grown up, I should play far
worse?" "No one does well what he does against his will", he
says,
and takes notice that the master who corrected him for a small fault
"if overcome in some petty dispute by a fellow teacher, was more
envious and angry than the boy ever was when outdone by a playfellow at
ball." He liked Latin, having learned
that language from his nurses, and others withwhom he conversed; but
not the Latin "which the first masters teach; rather that which is
taught by those who are called grammarians". Whilst he was
little he hated Greek, and, for want of understanding it sufficiently,
Homer was disagreeable to him; but Latin poets became his early
delight.
Augustine went to
Carthage towards the end of 370, in
the beginning of his seventeenth year. There he took a foremost
place in the school of rhetoric and applied himself to his studies with
eagerness and pleasure; but his motives were vanity and ambition, and
to them he jointed loose living, though it was acknowledged that he
always loved decency and good manners even in his excesses. Soon he
entered into relations with a woman, irregular but stable, to whom he
remained faithful until he sent her from him at Milan in 385; she bore
him a son, Adeodatus, in 372. His father,
Patricius, died in 371 but Augustine still continued at Carthage and,
by reading the Hortensius of Cicero, his mind was turned from rhetoric
to philosophy; he also read the Christian sacred writings, but he was
offended with the simplicity of the style, and could not relish their
humility or penetrate their spirit. Then it was that he fell into the
error of the Manichees, that infirmity of noble mind troubled by the
"problem of evil", which seeks to solve the problem by teaching a
metaphysical and religious dualism, according to which there are two
eternal first principles, God, the cause of all good, and matter, the
cause of all evil. The darkening of the understanding and
clumsiness in the use of the faculties which wait on evil-living helped
to betray him into this company, which he kept till his twenty-eighth
year; and pride did the rest.
"I sought with pride", he
says, "what
only humility could make me find. Fool that I was, I left
the nest, imaginiag myself able to fly; and I fell to the ground."
For nine years Augustine had his own schools of
rhetoric
and
grammar at Tagaste and Carthage, while his devoted mother, spurred on
by the assurance of a holy bishop that "the son of so many tears could
not perish", never ceased by prayer and gentle persuasion to try to
bring him to conversion and reform. After meeting the leading
Manichean teacher, Faustus, he began to be disillusioned about that
sect, and in 383 departed to Rome, secretly, lest his mother should
prevent him. He opened a school of rhetoric there, but finding
the scholars were accustomed frequently to change their masters in
order to cheat them of their fees he applied for and received a post as
master of rhetoric in Milan. Here he was well received and
the bishop, St Ambrose, gave him marks of
respect.
Augustine was very desirous of knowing St Ambrose,
not as a teacher of the truth, but as a person of great learning
and reputation. He often went to his sermons, not so much with
any expectation of profiting by them as to gratify his curiosity and to
enjoy the eloquence but he found the discourses more learned than those
of the heretic Faustus, and they began to make impression on his heart
and mind; at the same time he read Plato and Plotinus: "Plato gave me
knowledge of the true God, Jesus Christ showed me the way." St Monica,
having followed him to Milan, wished to see him married, and the mother
of Adeodatus returned to Africa, leaving the boy behind but neither
marriage nor single continence followed. And so the struggle,
spiritual, moral, intellectual, went on.
Augustine
became convinced of the truth and
excellence of that virtue which the divine law prescribes in the
Catholic Church, but was haunted with an apprehension of insuperable
difficulties in its practice, that kept him from resolutely entering
upon it. And so, by listening to St Ambrose and reading the Bible
he was convinced of the truth of Christianity, but there was still
wanting the will to accept the grace of God.
He says
of himself:
"I sighed and longed to be delivered but was kept fast
bound, not with exterior chains but with my own iron will. The
Enemy held my will, and of it he had made a chain with which be had
fettered me fast for from a perverse will was created wicked
desire or lust, and the serving this lust produced custom, and custom
not resisted produced a kind of necessity, with which, as with links
fastened one to another, I was kept close shackled in this cruel
slavery. I had no excuse as I pretended formerly when I
delayed to serve Thee, because I had not yet certainly discovered thy
truth: now I knew it, yet I was still fettered...I had
nothing now to reply to thee when thou saidst to me, `Rise, thou that
sleepest, and rise up from the dead, and Christ shall enlighten
thee`...I had nothing, I say, at all to reply, being now convinced
by thy faith, except lazy and drowsy words, `Presently, by and by, let
me alone a little while longer'; but this' presently did not
presently come; these delays had no bounds, and this `little while`
stretched out to a long time."
He had been greatly impressed by hearing the
conversion of Roman neo-Platonist professor, Victorinus, related by
St Simplician; and soon after Pontitian, an African, came to visit
Augustine and his friend Alipius. Finding a book of
St Paul's epistles lying on the table, he took occasion to speak of the
life of St Antony, and was surprised to find that his name was unknown
to them. Pontitian then went on to speak of two men who had been
suddenly turned to the service of God by reading a life of St
Antony. His words had a powerful influence on
the mind of Augustine, and he saw, as it were in a glass, his own
filthiness and deformity. In his former half desires of conversion he
had been accustomed to beg of God the grace of continence, but was at
the same time in some measure afraid of being heard too
soon.
"In the first dawning of my
youth", says he, "I had
begged of thee chastity, but by halves, miserable wretch that I am;
and I said, `Give me chastity, but not yet awhile'; for I was afraid
lest thou shouldst hear me too soon, and heal me of the disease which I
rather wished to have satisfied than extinguished." He was ashamed his
will had been so weak, and directly Pontitian had gone he turned to
Alipius "What are we doing to let the unlearned seize Heaven by
force, whilst we with all our knowledge remain behind, cowardly and
heartless, wallowing in our sins? Because they have outstripped
us and gone on before, are we ashamed to follow them? Is it not
more shameful not even to follow them?"
He got up and went
into the
garden. Alipius, astonished at his manner and
emotion, followed, and they sat down as far as they could from the
house, Augustine under going a violent inward conflict. He was
torn between the voice of the Holy Ghost calling him to chastity and
the seductive memory of his former sins, and going alone further into
the garden he threw himself on the ground under a tree, crying out,
"How long, 0 Lord?
Wilt thou be angry for ever?
Remember not my past iniquities!" He reproached himself
miserably: "How long? How long? To-morrow, to-morrow?
Why not now? Why
does not this hour put an end to my filthiness?"
As he spoke
these things and wept with bitter contrition of heart, on a sudden he
heard as it were the voice of a child singing from a neighbouring
house, which frequently repeated these words, Tolle lege! Tolle lege!
"Take up and read Take up and read!" And he began to consider
whether in any game children
were wont to sing any such words; and he could not call to mind that
he had ever heard them.
Whereupon he rose up,
suppressing
his tears, and interpreted the voice to be a divine admonition,
remembering that St Antony was converted from the world by hearing a
particular passage of the gospel read. He returned to where Alipius was
sitting with the book of St Paul's epistles, opened it, and read in
silence the words on which he first cast his eyes: "Not in rioting and
drunkenness; not in chambering and impurities; not in contention and
envy; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for
the flesh in its concupiscences." All the darkness of his
former hesitation was gone. He shut the book, and with a serene
countenance told Alipius what had passed. Alipius asked to
see the passage he had read, and found the next words to be: "Him
that is weak in faith, take unto you"; which he applied to himself,
and joined his friend in his resolution. They immediately went in
and told St Monica, who rejoiced and praised God, "who is able to do
all things more abundantly than we desire or
understand". This was in September 386, and Augustine
was
thirty-two.
He at once gave up his school and retired to a
country house at Cassiciacum, near Milan, which his friend Verecundus
lent to him; he was accompanied by his mother Monica, his brother
Navigius, his son Adeodatus, St Alipius, and several other friends, and
they lived a community life together. Augustine
employed himself in prayer and study, and his study was a kind of
prayer by the devotion of his mind therein. Here he sought by
austere penance, by the strictest watchfulness over his heart and
senses, and by humble prayer, to control his passions, and to prepare
himself for the grace of leading a new life in Christ and becoming in
Him a new creature.
"Too late", he prayed, "have
I loved thee, 0
Beauty so ancient and so new, too late have I loved thee I Thou
wast with me, and I was not with thee. I was abroad, running
after those beauties which thou hast made; those things which could
have no being but in thee kept me far from thee. Thou hast
called, thou hast cried out, and hast pierced my deafness. Thou hast
enlightened, thou hast shone forth, and my blindness is
dispelled. I have tasted thee, and am
hungry for thee. Thou hast touched me, and I am afire
with the desire of thy embraces."
From
the conferences and
conversations which took place during these seven months St Augustine
drew up his three dialogues, Against
the Academicians, Of the
Happy
Life and Of Order,.
St Augustine
was baptized by St Ambrose on
Easter-eve in 387, together with Alipius and his dearly loved son
Adeodatus, who was about fifteen years of age and was to die not long
afterwards. In the autumn he resolved to return to
Africa. Accordingly he went to Ostia with his mother and several
friends, and there St Monica died in November
387. To her life and last days
Augustine devotes six moving chapters of his Confessions. He
returned for a short while to Rome, and went on to Africa in September
388, where he hastened with his friends to his house at Tagaste. There
he lived almost three years, disengaged from temporal concerns, serving
God in fasting, prayer, good works, meditating upon His law and
instructing others by his discourses and books. All things were
in common and were distributed according to everyone's needs. St
Augustine himself reserved nothing which he could call his own. He had
no idea of becoming a priest, but in 391 he was ordained as an
assistant to Valerius, Bishop of Hippo. So Augustine had to move
to that city; and in a house adjoining the church he established a
sort of monastery, modelled on his household at Tagaste, living there
with St Alipius, St Evodius, St
Possidius, and others "according to the rule of the holy
Apostles". Valerius, who was a Greek, and had, moreover,
an impediment in speaking, appointed him to preach to the people in his
own presence, as was customary for bishops to do in the East, but till
that time was unusual in the West; more unusual still, he was given
permission to preach "on his own"; he from that time never
interrupted the course of his sermons till his death.
We have
nearly four hundred extant, though many were not written by him but
taken down by others as he delivered them. During these
early days he vigorously opposed the Manicheans and the beginnings of
Donatism, as well as effected such domestic reforms as the abolition of
feasting in the chapels of the martyrs and of family fights as a public
amusement. St Augustine preached always in Latin, though among
the peasants of the country in certain parts of his diocese some
understood only the Punic tongue, and these he found it difficult to
furnish with priests.
In 395 he was
consecrated bishop as coadjutor to Valerius, and
succeeded him in the see of Hippo on his death soon
after. Augustine established
regular and common life in his episcopal residence, and required all
the priests, deacons, and subdeacons that lived with him to renounce
property and to follow the rule he established there; nor did he admit
any to holy orders who did not bind themselves to a similar manner of
life. His biographer, St Possidius, tells us that the clothes and
furniture were modest but decent, and not slovenly. No silver was
used in his house, except spoons; dishes were of
earthenware or wood. He exercised hospitality,
but his table was frugal; nor was wine wanting, but the quantity was
regulated, which no guest was ever allowed to exceed. At meals he
preferred reading to secular conversation. All his clerks who
lived with him ate at the same table and were clothed out of the common
stock.
Thus, in the words of Pope Paschal II, "The regular mode
of life recognized in the early Church as instituted by the Apostles
was earnestly adopted by the blessed Augustine, who provided it with
new regulations".
He also founded a community of religious women
to whom, on the death of his sister, the first "abbess", he addressed
a letter on the general ascetic principles of the religious life. This
letter, together with two sermons on the subject, constitutes the
so-called Rule of St Augustine, which is the basis of the constitutions
of many canons regular, friars and nuns. St Augustine employed
the revenues of his church in relieving the poor, as he had before
given
his own patrimony, and Possidius says that he sometimes melted down
part of the sacred vessels to redeem captives in which he
was authorized by the example of St Ambrose. In several of his
letters and sermons mention is made of the custom he had got his flock
to establish, of clothing all the poor of each parish once a year, and
he was not afraid sometimes to contract considerable debts to help the
distressed. Nor did his zeal and charity for the spiritual welfare of
others have bounds.
"I do not wish to be saved
without you", said he
to his people, like another Moses or St Paul. "What shall I
desire? What shall I say? Why am I a bishop? Why am I in the
world? Only to live in Jesus Christ: but to live in Him with you.
This is my passion, my honour, my glory, my joy and my riches."
There
were few men endowed by nature with a more affectionate and friendly
soul than St Augustine. He conversed freely with infidels,
and often invited them to his table; but generally refused to eat with
Christians whose conduct was publicly scandalous, and was severe in
subjecting them to canonical penance and to the censures of the
Church. He never lacked courage to oppose iniquity without
respect of persons, though he never forgot charity, meekness and good
manners. He complains that some sins were by custom become so common
that, though he condemned them, he dare not oppose them too strongly
for fear of doing much harm and no good.
He observed the three rules of St Ambrose: never to make
matches for
any persons, lest they should prove unhappy; never to persuade any to
be soldiers; and never to dine out in his own city, lest invitations
should become frequent. The letters of great men are generally
interesting both for illustrating their history and throwing light on
their minds. Those of St Augustine are particularly
so. In his fifty-fourth to Januarius he says that they do well
who communicate daily, provided it be done worthily and with the
humility of Zaccheus when he received Christ under his roof; but that
they are also to be commended who sometimes imitate the humble
centurion and set apart Sundays and Saturdays or other days for
communicating, in order to do it with greater devotion.
He
explains the duties of a wife towards her husband in his letter to
Ecdicia, telling her that she ought not to wear black clothes, seeing
this gave him offence, and she might be humble in mind in rich and gay
dress if he should insist upon her wearing such. He tells her she
ought, in all things reasonable, to agree with her husband as to the
manner of educating their son, and leave to him the chief care of
it. In like manner did he impress upon husbands the respect,
tender affection and consideration which they owe to their wives.
There is a good example of St Augustine's modesty and humility in his
discussion with St Jerome over the interpretation of a text of
Galatians. Owing to the miscarriage of a letter Jerome, not an
easily patient man, deemed himself publicly attacked. Augustine wrote
to him, "I entreat you again and again to correct me confidently when
you perceive me to stand in need of it; for though the office of a
bishop be greater than that of a priest, yet in many things Augustine
is inferior to Jerome." He grieved at the violence with
which the controversy between St Jerome and Rufinus was carried on. He
always feared the deceit of vain-glory in such disputes, in which men
love an opinion, as he says, "Not because it is true, but because it
is their own, and they dispute, not for the truth, but for the
victory".
Throughout his thirty-five years as bishop of Hippo St
Augustine had to defend the Catholic faith against one heresy or
another. Serious trouble was given by the Donatists, whose chief
errors were that the Catholic Church by holding communion with sinners
had ceased to be the Church of Christ, this being confined within the
limits of their sect, and that no sacraments can be validly conferred
by those that are not in the true Church.
These Donatists were
exceedingly numerous in Africa, and they carried their fury to the
greatest excesses, murdering Catholics and committing all sorts of
violence. By the learning and indefatigable zeal of St
Augustine, supported by the sanctity of his life, the Catholics began
to gain ground; at which the Donatists were so exasperated that some
preached publicly that to kill him would be doing service to their
religion, and highly meritorious before God. Augustine was
obliged in 405 to invoke the civil power to restrain the Donatists
about Hippo from the outrages which they perpetrated, and in the same
year the Emperor Honorius published severe laws against
them. Augustine at first disapproved such measures,
though he afterwards changed his opinion, except that he would not
countenance a death-penalty. A great conference
between the two parties at Carthage in 411 marked the beginning of the
decline of these heretics, but almost at once the Pelagian controversy
began.
Pelagius is commonly called a Briton, but as St Jerome
refers to him as "big and fat, a fellow bloated with Scots porridge",
he has been claimed for Ireland he rejected the doctrine of original
sin and taught therefore that baptism was simply a title of admission
to Heaven, and that grace is not necessary to salvation. In 411
he left Rome for Africa with his friend Caelestius, and during that
year their doctrines were for the first time condemned by a synod at
Carthage. St Augustine was not at this council, but from that
time he began to oppose these errors in his sermons and
letters. Before the end of that year he was persuaded by
the tribune St Marcellinus to write his first treatises against
them. This, however, he did without naming the authors of the
heresy, hoping thus more easily to gain them he even praised Pelagius
by name. "As I hear, he is a holy man, well
exercised in Christian virtue: a good man, and worthy of
praise." But he was fixed in his errors and
throughout the series of disputations, condemnations and subterfuges
that followed, St Augustine pressed him relentlessly to him is
the Church indebted as the chief instrument of God in overthrowing this
heresy.
When Rome was plundered by Alaric the Goth in 410 the pagans
renewed their blasphemies against the Christian religion, to which they
imputed the calamities of the empire. To answer their slanders,
St Augustine began his great work Of
the City of God in 413, though he
only finished it in 426, the work of his which is the most widely read
after his Confessions; it
goes far beyond simply answering the pagans to a development of his
philosophy of God-controlled history.
In the Confessions St.
Augustine, with the most sincere humility and contrition, lays open the
errors of his conduct; in his seventy-second year he began to do the
like for his judgement. In this work, his Retractations, he
reviewed his writings, which were very numerous, and corrected with
candour and severity the mistakes he had made, without seeking the
least gloss or excuse to extenuate them. To have more leisure to
finish this and his other writings, and to provide against a
trouble-some election after his death, he proposed to his clergy and
people to choose for his coadjutor Heraclius, the youngest among his
deacons, and his election was confirmed with acclamation in
426. But in spite of this precaution Augustine's last
years were full of turmoil. Count Boniface, who had been the
imperial general in Africa, having unjustly incurred the suspicion of
the regent Placidia and being in disgrace, incited Genseric, King of
the Vandals, to invade the African provinces. Augustine wrote a
wonderful letter to Boniface, recalling him to his duty, and the count
sought a reconciliation with Placidia, but could not stay the Vandal
invasion.
St Possidius, now bishop of Calama, describes the dreadful
ravages by which they[Vandals] scattered horror
and desolation as they
marched. He saw the cities in ruin and
the houses in the country razed to the ground, the inhabitants either
being slain or fled. The praises of God had ceased in the
churches, which had in many places been burnt. Mass was offered
up in private houses, or not at all, for in many parts there were none
left to demand the sacraments, nor was it easy elsewhere to find any to
minister to those who required them. The bishops and the rest of
the clergy who had escaped were stripped of everything, and reduced to
beggary; and of the great number of churches in Africa, there were
hardly three remaining (namely, Carthage, Hippo and Cirta) whose cities
were yet standing. Count Boniface fled to Hippo, and St Possidius
and several neighbouring bishops took refuge in the same place. The
Vandals appeared before it about the end of May 430, and the siege
continued fourteen months. In the third month St Augustine was seized
with a fever, and from the first moment of his illness knew that it was
the summons of God to Himself. Ever since he retired, death had
been the chief subject of his meditations and in his last illness he
spoke of it with great cheerfulness, saying, "We have a merciful
God". He often spoke of the joy of St Ambrose in his last
moments,
and of the saying of Christ to a certain bishop in a vision mentioned
by St Cyprian. "You are afraid to suffer here, and unwilling to
go hence what shall I do with you? What love of Christ can
that be, to fear lest He, whom you say you love, shall
come? Brethren, are we not ashamed to say we love, when we add
that
we are afraid lest He come."
In this last illness he asked for the
penitential psalms to be written out and hung in tablets upon the wall
by his bed and as he there lay he read them with
tears. The strength of his body daily and hourly
declined, yet his senses and intellectual faculties continued sound to
the last, and he calmly resigned his spirit into the hands of God on
August 28, 430, after having lived seventy-six years and spent almost
forty of them in the labours of the ministry.
St Possidius adds, "We being
present, the Sacrifice was offered to God for his recommendation, and
so he was buried", in the same manner as St Augustine says was done
for his mother. Whilst the saint lay sick in bed, by the
imposition of his hands he restored to health a sick man, and Possidius
says, "I know, both when he was priest and when he was bishop, that
being asked to pray for certain persons that were possessed, he poured
out supplications to our Lord, and the evil spirits departed from them."
It is from St
Augustine's own writings, more particularly
from his Confessions, his De Civitate Dei, his
correspondence, and his sermons, that we obtain the fullest insight
into his life and character. All these are readily accessible
both in the original and in translations. The text of the Vienna Corpus scriptorum ecciesiasticorum
latinorum is generally reliable so far as it is available, but
for the Confessions that of
Pierre de Labriolle, published in 1926 with an excellent French
translation, may he preferred. The best English
translation of this last work, among many, is probably that of Gibb and
Montgomery (1927) a more recent one is by F. J. Sheed (1944). A
convenient edition of the De
Civitate Dei with English notes has been published by Dean
Welldon (1924); W. J. Sparrow Simpson has produced a good
translation of the Letters (1919),
as well as a sympathetic study, St Augustine's Conversion (1920). Of all modern
contributions to Augustinian literature the most outstanding is the
publication, the merit of which mainly rests with Dom Germain Morin, of
a revised and much enlarged collection of the sermons. This forms
the first volume of the Miscelianea
Agostiniana (1931) brought out to commemorate the fifteenth
centenary of the saint's death. The early life of Augustine by
his disciple St Possidius has also been re-edited and translated into
German by Adolf Harnack (1930). But the
whole literature is too vast for detailed discussion; to quote
only the titles of books produced in the past twenty years would fill
several pages. It must suffice here to mention A Monument
to St Augustine (1930), a volume of essays by English Catholic
writers, H. Pope, St Augustine of Hippo (essays
1937), G. Bardy, S.
Augustin, l'homnie et l'oeuvre (1940), E. Gilson, Introduction a l'etude de S. Augustin (1943) and a biography
in French by J. D. Burger (1948). For a general account of both
life and writings, the article by Fr Portalié in DTC., vol. i,
cc. 2208-2472, may be specially recommended as also Bardenhewer's Geschichte der altkirch. Literatur,
vol. iv, pp. 435-511. There are lives of a more popular
character in English by Bertrand and by Hatzfeld, and Mary Allies
brought out or two or three volumes of selections and translations from
St Augustine's various works more recently translations
have begun to appear in USA., edited by competent
scholars. There is a translation of the
vita by Possidius in F. R. Hoare, The
Western Fathers (1954) and see J. J. O'Meara, The Young
Augustine (1954).
 This famous
son of St. Monica was born in
Africa and
spent many years of his life in wicked living and in false beliefs.
Though he was one of the most intelligent men who ever lived and though
he had been brought up a Christian, his sins of impurity and his pride
darkened his mind so much, that he could not see or understand the
Divine Truth anymore. Through the prayers of his holy mother and the
marvelous preaching of St. Ambrose,
Augustine finally became convinced that Christianity was the one true
religion. Yet he did not become a Christian then, because he thought he
could never live a pure life. One day, however, he heard about two men
who had suddenly been converted on reading the life of St. Antony, and he felt terrible ashamed
of himself. "What are we doing?" he cried to his friend Alipius.
"Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force, while we, with all our
knowledge, are so cowardly that we keep rolling around in the mud of
our sins!"
Full of bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the
garden and
cried out to God, "How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an
end to my sins?" Just then he heard a child singing, "Take up and
read!" Thinking that God intended him to hear those words, he picked up
the book of the Letters of St. Paul, and read the first passage his
gaze fell on. It was just what Augustine needed, for in it, St. Paul
says to put away all impurity and to live in imitation of Jesus. That
did it! From then on, Augustine began a new life.
He was baptized, became a
priest, a bishop, a famous Catholic writer,
Founder of religious priests, and one of the greatest saints that ever
lived. He becam e very devout and charitable, too. On the wall of his
room he had the following sentence written in large letters: "Here we
do not speak evil of anyone." St. Augustine overcame strong heresies,
practiced great poverty and supported the poor, preached very often and
prayed with great fervor right up until his death. "Too late have I
loved You!" he once cried to God, but with his holy life he certainly
made up for the sins he committed before his conversion.
St. Augustine (354-430) A Christian at 33, a priest at 36, a
bishop at
41: many people are familiar with the biographical sketch of Augustine
of Hippo, sinner turned saint. But really to get to know the man is a
rewarding experience. There quickly surfaces the intensity with
which he lived his life, whether his path led away from or toward God.
The tears of his mother, the instructions of Ambrose and, most of all,
God himself speaking to him in the Scriptures redirected Augustine’s
love of life to a life of love.
Having been so deeply immersed in creature-pride of life in
his early
days and having drunk deeply of its bitter dregs, it is not surprising
that Augustine should have turned, with a holy fierceness, against the
many demon-thrusts rampant in his day. His times were truly
decadent—politically, socially, morally. He was both feared and loved,
like the Master. The perennial criticism leveled against him: a
fundamental rigorism.
In his day, he providentially fulfilled the office of
prophet. Like
Jeremiah and other greats, he was hard-pressed but could not keep
quiet. “I say to myself, I will not mention him,/I will speak in his
name no more./But then it becomes like fire burning in my
heart,/imprisoned in my bones;/I grow weary holding it in,/I cannot
endure it” (Jeremiah 20:9).
Comment: Augustine is
still acclaimed and condemned in
our day.
He is a prophet for today, trumpeting the need to scrap escapisms and
stand face-to-face with personal responsibility and dignity.
Quote: “Too late have
I loved you, O Beauty of ancient days, yet
ever new! Too late I loved you! And behold, you were within, and I
abroad, and there I searched for you; I was deformed, plunging amid
those fair forms, which you had made. You were with me, but I was not
with you. Things held me far from you—things which, if they were not in
you, were not at all. You called, and shouted, and burst my deafness.
You flashed and shone, and scattered my blindness. You breathed odors
and I drew in breath—and I pant for you. I tasted, and I hunger and
thirst. You touched me, and I burned for your peace” (St. Augustine,
Confessions).
Augustinus Orthodoxe Kirche:
15. Juni
Katholische, Anglikanische und Evangelische Kirche: 28. August
Weitere Gedenktage:
Gedenktag der Bekehrung: 5. Mai (in Brügge) Überführung
der Gebeine nach Pavia: 11. Oktober
Augustinus Aurelius wurde am 23. 11 345 in Thagaste
(Tunesien) geboren.
Er wurde von seiner frommen Mutter Monnica
christlich erzogen, liess sich aber nicht taufen sondern führte
ein
ausschweifendes Leben. Um 384 begann er als Lehrer für Rhetorik in
Mailand zu arbeiten. Hier hörte er sich die Predigten des
Mailänder
Bischofs Ambrosius
regelmäßig an, um dessen Rhetorik zu studieren. Er wurde
aber auch von
dem Inhalt der Botschaft angerührt und bekehrte sich nach langem
Glaubenskampf. In der Osternacht 387 wurde er von Ambrosius getauft.
Über diese Zeit hat Augustinus in seinen "Bekenntnissen"
ausführlich
berichtet.
388 kehrte Augustinus nach Tagaste zurück,
verkaufte
seine Besitzungen und gründete mit Freunden eine
Klostergemeinschaft.
Bischof Valerius von Hippo ernannte Augustinus, der zunächst
widerstrebte, 392 zum Priester und kurze Zeit später zu seinem
Stellvertreter. Nach dem Tode Valerius wurde Augustinus 396 Bischof von
Hippo Regius (heute Annaba/Algerien). Neben seinen Bekenntnissen und
dem "Gottesstaat" schrieb er zahlreiche bedeutende Werke. Es sollen
über 1000 Schriften gewesen sein, erhalten sind über 800.
Augustinus
war auch ein großer Seelsorger und Lehrer. In der
Auseinandersetzung
mit den geistigen Strömungen seiner Zeit, den Manichäern,
Donatisten
und Pelagianern entwickelte er seine Theologie, die bis in die
Reformationszeit die Lehre beeinflußte. Augustinus schrieb
außerdem für
ein Frauenkloster in Hippo eine Regel; sie ist die Grundlage für
den
Augustinerorden, der sich schnell ausbreitete. Augustinus starb am
28.8.430 in Hippo Regius.
|
460
St. Vivian Bishop of Saintes invading Visigoths
Apud Sántonas, in Gállia, sancti Viviáni,
Epíscopi et Confessóris. At Saintes,
St. Vivian, bishop and confessor. France; dedicated to relieving
suffering of local people caused by invading Visigoths. |
 475 Saint
Shushanik wife of the Georgian prince Varsken, ruler of Hereti (a
province of southeastern Georgia) under Persian control at that time;
martyr for her faith
Varsken was essentially the viceroy for the Persians. Having
been
raised in a pious Christian family, she was deeply penetrated with love
and the fear of God.
At that time Kartli was under heavy political pressure from
Persia, and
Prince Varsken visited the Persian king Peroz in hopes of encouraging
more friendly relations between the two countries. He willingly denied
the true Faith, converted to the worship of fire, and promised the king
to convert his wife and children upon his return to Hereti.
Having approached the border of Hereti, Varsken sent messengers to
Tsurtavi, the city in which he ruled, to ensure that his subjects met
him with due respect. The blessed Shushanik, having learned of her
husband’s betrayal, fell to the ground and wept over him with bitter
tears. Then she took her four children, deserted the palace, and sought
refuge in a nearby church.
That evening Shushanik was visited by her spiritual father,
the elder
Jacob, who predicted, “Varsken’s cruelty and mercilessness are
unmistakable. Know that terrible trials await you. Will you be firm and
unbending in your position?” “I would rather die than unite with
him and destroy my soul!” she answered.
Three days later the prince arrived in Tsurtavi. As
promised, he tried
to persuade his wife to convert, but St. Shushanik firmly answered,
“As you have renounced
your
Creator, so I am renouncing you. I will no longer take part in your
affairs, no matter what suffering I must endure!”
The next time, Varsken
sent his younger brother Jojik and Bishop Apots
to convince Shushanik to return to the palace. Shushanik refused for
some time, but in the end she yielded to their persuasion. She set off
for the palace with the Holy Gospel and the Lives of the holy martyrs,
and when she arrived she locked herself in a squalid cell. Two days
later Varsken returned to the palace and invited Shushanik, his brother
Jojik, and his sister-in-law for supper. The queen, however, could not
bring herself to share a meal with one who had betrayed Christ: she
pushed away the cup that Jojik’s wife had offered her, thus further
angering her husband.
The furious Varsken beat his wife mercilessly, fettered her
in irons,
locked her in prison, and forbade the guards to let anyone in to see
her. St. Shushanik spent six years in captivity. While she was
serving her sentence, she helped the poor that came to her. Through her
prayers the sick were healed and children were born to the childless.
Before her death, Holy Martyr Shushanik blessed those around her and
requested that she be buried at the place from which her unbelieving
husband had dragged her out of the palace. This happened in the
year 475. The clergy and people alike wept bitterly over Shushanik’s
tragic fate. Her holy relics were buried in accordance with her will.
In 578, with the blessing of
Catholicos Kirion I, St. Shushanik’s holy relics were translated to
Tbilisi, where they remain today, in the Metekhi Church of the Most
Holy Theotokos.
|
650 St.
Rumwald
largely legendary saint
A prince, the son of King Aldfrith and Queen Cuneburga, in the kingdom
of Northumbria, England. He is said to have been only three days old
when, upon his Baptism, he declared the profession of faith and then
died. While venerated for centuries in parts of England, he is
considered to be the subject of highly dubious traditions.
|
965 St.
Gorman
Benedictine bishop of Schleswig
Denmark. He was a missionary in this region.
|
Synaxis of
the Holy Fathers of the Kiev Caves today we honor the whole assembly of
these monastic saints who were a
light upon the  earth, guiding us
on the path of salvation.
On this day the Church celebrates whose relics repose in the Far Caves
of St Theodosius. They have their own individual days of commemoration
Igumen Theodosius, the Founder (May 3, August 14, September 2) Monk
Agathon the Wonderworker (February 20) Archimandrite Acindynus (+1235)
Monk Ammon (October 4) Bishop Amphilochius of Vladimir, Volhynia
(October 10) Monk Anatolius the Recluse (July 3) Monk Aquila the Deacon
(January 4) Monk Arsenius, Lover of Labor (May 8) Monk Athanasius the
Recluse (December 2) Monk Benjamin the Recluse (October 13) Monk
Cassian the Recluse (February 29, May 8) Elder Daniel (14th Century)
Hieromonk Dionysius the Recluse (October 3) Archimandrite Dositheus (+
1218) Elder Eulogius (14th Century) Hieroschemamonk Euthymius (January
20) Monk Gerontius the Canonarch (April 1) Monk Gregory the Recluse
(January 8, August 8) Schemamonk Hilarion (October 21) Monk Hypatius
the Healer (March 31) Archimandrite Ignatius (December 20) Monk Isidore
the Recluse (12th-13th Centuries) Monk Joseph the Much-Ailing (April 4)
Monk Laurence the Recluse (January 20) Monk Leontius the Canonarch
(April 1, June 18) Monk Longinus the Gate-Keeper (October 16)
Hieromartyr Lucian the Priest (October 15) Monk Macarius the Deacon
(January 19) Monk Mardarius the Recluse (December 13) Monk Martyrius
the Recluse (October 25) Monk Martyrius the Deacon (October 25) Monk
Mercurius the Faster (November 4, 24) Monk Moses the Wonderworker (July
26, 28) Monk Nestor the Unlearned (October 29) Monk Paisius (July 19)
Hieromonk Pambo the Recluse (July 18) Hieromonk Pancratius the Recluse
(February 9) Monk Paphnutius the Recluse (February 15) Monk Paul the
Obedient (September 10) Igumen Pimen the Faster (May 8, August 7) Monk
Pior the Recluse (October 4) Monk Rufus the Obedient (April 8)
Schemamonk Silvanus (June 10, July 10) Schemamonk Sisoes (July 6) Monk
Sophronius the Recluse (March 11, May 11) Monk Theodore the Silent
(February 17) Monk Theodosius (Prince Theodore) (August 11) Archbishop
Theophilus of Novgorod (October 26) Igumen Timothy (+ 1132) Monk Titus
the Soldier (January 27, February 27) Monk Zachariah the Faster (March
24) Monk Zeno the Faster (January 30).
|
1495 Saint Sava of
Krypetsk was tonsured at Athos, and from there he came to Pskov. He
began to struggle on Mount Snetna at the monastery of Mother of God
near Pskov, and then he went to a more remote spot along the River
Tolva, at the monastery of St Euphrosyne (May 15). Finally, he withdrew
for complete solitude to the Krypetsk wilderness, 15 versts from the
Tolva, and he settled alone in a small cave in the impenetrable forest.
 His food was bread and water, and on Wednesdays
and Fridays he ate nothing. Living the life of a hermit he was assailed
by unclean spirits, but always he prevailed over them through prayer.
After several years in the solitary life, those zealous for wilderness
life began to gather around St Sava. They asked him to form a monastery
and build a church in honor of the Apostle John the Theologian. The
monk refused to be igumen of the monastery and entrusted its guidance
to the monk Cassian. Many came out from Pskov to the austere Elder, and
he healed and admonished them, but never did he accept gifts from them.
One time the Pskov prince Yaroslav Vasilievich Obolensky,
who
frequently visited at the monastery, journeyed with his sick wife to
see the saint. St Sava sent him a message saying, "The Elder, the
sinner Sava, tells you, Prince, not to enter the monastery with the
princess. Our rule here states that women are not to enter the
monastery. If you transgress this fatherly command, your princess will
not receive healing."
The prince asked forgiveness, since it was through ignorance
that he
was on the point of violating the rule. St Sava came out through the
monastery gates with the brethren, and served a Molieben there. The
princess was healed. In 1487, through the mediation of the prince,
Pskov received a deed to the lands for the monastery.
The monk taught the laity to guard their purity, reminding
them of the
injunction of the Apostle against the defilers of the body (I Cor.
6:9-10). He told the rich and the judges not to make their living at
the expense of the poor and to preserve righteous truth. He frequently
reminded everyone to avoid quarrels and enmity, to preserve love and
peace and to overlook the faults of others by courtesy, even as they in
turn have forgiven us.
At the monastery, a strict cenobitic life had been
introduced from the
very beginning. Then, when sufficient brethren and means had been
gathered, there was nothing in the cell of the monk except for two
icons, his monk's garb and the cot upon which he lay down to take his
rest.
Through such poverty he taught the brethren. The monk
commanded them to
work the land with their own hands. He said, "How can we call the
ancient ascetics our Fathers, when we do not live their way of life?
How can we be counted as their children? They were homeless and poor,
they spent their time in caves and in the wilderness, and for the Lord
with all their strength they subjected their flesh to the spirit. They
knew no respite by day, or by night. We should love the good Lord,
children, and show our love for Him not only by words, nor by our
manner of attire, but by deeds: by love one for another, by tears, by
fasting, by every manner of temperance, just as the ancient Fathers
did."
The grateful prince built
a bridge to the monastery through the fens
and the swamps 1400 sazhen [1 sazhen = 7 feet] in length. After his
death (August 28, 1495), St Sava did not forsake the monastery, and
many times came to its defense.
Once, robbers approached the monastery at night, and they
saw an august
Elder who held a staff in his hand and threateningly ordered them to
repent. In the morning, they learned that there was no such Elder at
the monastery, and they realized that it had been St Sava himself. The
leader of the robbers repented before the igumen and remained at the
monastery.
St Sava was tall of stature, with a beard grey as snow,
roundish and
thick and not very long. In this form he appeared to the monk Isaiah in
the mid-sixteenth century, and showed him where to find his incorrupt
relics. Later, in the year 1555, the Pskov priest Basil compiled the
Life of St Sava at the request of the Krypetsk brethren, and his
Feastday was established.
|
THE LONDON MARTYRS
OF 1588
WHATEVER
the
attitude of those on the continent, English Catholics at home did not
lag behind
in opposition to the Great Armada of Spain or in preparation for
defence
against it; nationalist patriotism as we know it today was not then
matured,
but, even though one of Philip’s admitted objects was to re-establish
the
Church, Catholics no more than anybody else wanted a Spanish invasion
of
England: the queen persecuted them, but she was still the queen.
Nevertheless
the defeat of the Armada at the end of July 1588 was followed at once
by a more
severe persecution, of which the first victims suffered in London
on August 28
and 30. Six new gallows were set up in various parts of the city, and
each of
these received its hallowing of innocent blood. At Mile End Green was
hanged BD
WILLIAM DEAN, a Yorkshire man born at Linton in Craven. He was a
convert
minister, who had been ordained at Rheims and already banished once on
pain of
death if he returned to the country; but come back he did, and was the
first
victim after the Armada. At the place of execution he began to speak to
the
people, “but his mouth was stopped by some that were in the cart, in
such a
violent manner, that they were like to have prevented the hangman of
his wages”.
With this remarkably grave and learned man died the Ven. Henry Webley,
a layman
who had befriended him. A short distance away, at Shoreditch, was
hanged BD
WILLIAM GUNTER, a Welshman from Raglan in Monmouthshire. He also was a
priest
from Rheims and had been ordained only the previous year. BD ROBERT
MORTON and BD
HUGH MORE (see September 1) were both hanged in Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
Mr Morton
was born at Bawtry in Yorkshire, educated and ordained at Rheims and
Rome, and
sent on the mission in 1587. Bd THOMAS HOLFORD (alias Acton
and Bude) was the son of a minister of Aston in
Cheshire. He became tutor in the household of Sir James Scudamore at
Holme Lacy
in Herefordshire, where he was converted by Mr Davis, a very zealous
priest in
those parts, who wrote an account of him. From it we learn that he was
ordained
at Rheims and ministered in Cheshire and London, having many narrow
escapes,
till he was seen coming out of the house of Bd Swithin Wells after
celebrating
Mass there, when the pursuivant “dogged him into his tailor’s house,
and there
apprehended him”. He was hanged at Clerkenwell.
BD
JAMES CLAXTON (or
Clarkson) was sent on the mission from Rheims in 1582; he was banished
in 1585 but
returned, and was hanged at Isleworth, together with BD THOMAS FELTON.
Bd
Thomas was a Minim friar, the son of Bd John Felton, only twenty years
old and
not yet a priest, and of him there is an account from the hand of his
sister,
Mrs Frances Salisbury. She tells us that he came into England to
recover his
health and was about to return to his monastery when he was arrested
and
imprisoned for two years. He was twice released and re-arrested, and in
Bridewell was confined in the “little ease”, put to labour at the mill,
and
finally tortured, in order to make him betray the names of priests.
When
brought up at Newgate after the Armada and asked whether he would have
taken
the queen’s side or that of the pope and the Spaniards, he replied, “I
would
have taken part with God and my country”. According to Mrs Salisbury he
was
condemned for denying the Queen’s ecclesiastical supremacy: “I have
read divers
chronicles, but never read that God ordained a woman should be supreme
head of
the Church”; but other accounts say it was for being reconciled, and,
as Mrs
Salisbury certainly fell away from the faith for a time, her brother
may have
done so too, in spite of their martyred father.
On
August 30 six
more martyrs were hanged, all at Tyburn. One only was a priest, BD
RICHARD
LEIGH (alias Garth), a Londoner, who
had made his studies at Rheims and Rome, been sent to England in 1586,
banished
in the same year, returned almost at once, and was committed for
offering to
answer questions put to a Catholic gentleman on his examination by the
Protestant
bishop of London. Mr Leigh and all the priests mentioned above were
condemned
for their priesthood. BD EDWARD SHELLEY, BD RICHARD MARTIN, and the
Ven.
Richard Flower (vere Lloyd) all
suffered for harbouring or relieving priests. Mr Shelley was a
gentleman of
Warminghurst in Sussex, son of that Edward Shelley whose name is
familiar to
men-of-law from “the rule in Shelley’s case”; Mr Martin, born in
Shropshire and
educated at Broadgates Hall, Oxford, had had the infamy to pay sixpence
for a
supper for Bd Robert Morton; Flower was from Anglesey. The other two
victims at
Tyburn on this day were BD MARGARET WARD and BD JOHN ROCHE (alias Neale). Bd Margaret was a
gentlewoman, born at Congleton in
Cheshire, in the service of another gentlewoman, Mrs Whitall, in
London. She had visited in the Bridewell prison Mr Richard Watson, a
secular priest; to him she smuggled a rope, but in making use of it to
escape Watson had fallen and broken an arm and a leg. He was got away
by Margaret's young Irish serving-man, John Roche, who, to assist the
priest's escape, changed clothes with him and so was himself arrested.
When charged, both Bd Margaret and Bd John refused to disclose Mr
Watson's whereabouts; they were offered their liberty if they would ask
the queen's pardon and promise to go to church: to which they replied
that they had done nothing that could reasonably offend her Majesty,
and that it was against their conscience to attend a Protestant church.
And so they were condemned. Father Ribadeneira, s.j., wrote that all
these martyrs, who suffered with such firm constancy and patience, were
forbidden to speak to the people from the scaffold because their
persecutors were afraid of the impression they would make; "but the
very death of so many saint-like innocent men (whose lives were
unimpeachable), and of several young gentlemen, which they endured with
so much joy, strongly pleaded for the cause for which they died."
Three more beati achieved
their crowns on the following October 5.
BD WILLIAM HARTLEY was of yeoman stock, born about 1557 at Wilne,
Derbyshire, in the same parish as Bd Edward James. He was educated a
Protestant and went up to St John's College, Oxford, where he
ultimately became a chaplain. He was ejected by the vice-chancellor in
1579, went to Rheims, was ordained in 1580, and came back to England in
the same year. For a time he helped Bd Edmund Campion and Father
Persons in their printing and publishing activities, but in eighteen
months he was apprehended in the house of the Lady Stonor. For three
and a half years he was in prison in London, the last twelve months in
irons, having been caught celebrating Mass before other prisoners in
his cell. At the beginning of 1585 he was deported, without trial, but
he returned secretly to London. In September 1588, Bd William was
arrested in Holborn, and a rumour was spread that he had apostatized.
This was effectually contradicted by the heroic way in which he met his
death, by hanging, "near the Theatre" in Shoreditch, and in the
presence of his own mother. "He was a man", says a contemporary, "of
the meekest disposition and naturally virtuous, modest, and grave, with
a sober and peaceful look."
BD JOHN HEWETT, who was
hanged on the same day at Mile End Green for his priesthood, was son of
a York draper and had been a student at Caius College, Cambridge. While
yet a deacon he was arrested and banished. After ordination to the
priesthood at Rheims in 1586, he came back to London and was seized in
Grays Inn Lane in the following year. At that time he went under the
name of John Weldon (alias Savell) and in that name he was again sent
into exile. But he was arrested on a false charge in the Netherlands by
the Earl of Leicester, who sent him to London for trial. Here he was
tried and sentenced (as John Weldon) for being a seminary priest in
England. BD ROBERT SUTTN, a schoolmaster of Paternoster Row, was hanged
at Clerkenwell for being reconciled to the Church, he having been
brought up a Protestant at his birthplace, Kegwell in Leicestershire.
An eye-witness of his martyrdom, William Naylor, wrote: ". . . the
sheriff promised to procure his pardon if he would but pronounce
absolutely the word all: for he would that he should acknowledge the
queen to be supreme head in all causes without any restriction ; but he
would acknowledge her to be supreme head in all causes temporal; and
for that he would not pronounce the word all without any restriction,
he was executed. This I heard and saw."
There may also be mentioned with this group of martyrs BD
WILLIAM WAY (alias Flower). Though Challoner calls him a Cornishman he
seems to have been born in Exeter, in 1561. He was trained at Rheims,
ordained, and sent on the mission at the end of 1586. Six months later
he was in jail in London; and on September 23, 1588, he was hanged,
drawn and quartered for his priesthood at Kingston-on-Thames.
See
MMP., pp. 133-146 and 150-151 ; Burton and Pollen, LEM., vol.
i, pp. 351-430 and 508-536 ; and Publications of the Catholic Record
Society, vol. v, pp. 150-159 and passim.
|
1588
Blessed
John
Roche & Margaret Ward John Roche London martyrs
Blessed Margaret Ward was a gentle woman born at Congleton in Cheshire,
in the service of another gentle woman, Whitall, in London. She had
visited in the Bridewell prison, Mr. Richard Watson, a secular priest;
to him she smuggled a rope, but in making use of it to escape, Watson
had fallen and broken an arm and a leg. He was gotten away by
Margaret's young Irish serving-man, John Roche, who, to assist the
priest's escape, changed clothes with him and so, was himself arrested.
When charged, both Blessed Margaret and Blessed John refused to
disclose Mr. Watson's whereabouts. They were offered their liberty if
they would ask the Queen's pardon and promise to go to church; to which
they replied that they had done nothing that could reasonably offend
her Majesty, and that it was against their conscience to attend a
protestant church. So they were condemned. These martyrs, who suffered
with such firm constancy and patience, were forbidden to speak to the
people from the scaffold because their persecutors were afraid of the
impression they would make; "but the very death of so many saint-like
innocent men (whose lives were unimpeachable), and of several young
gentlemen, which they endured with so much joy, strongly pleaded for
the cause for which they died."
|
1588
Bl. William Dean Martyr of England
Born at Linton in Craven, Yorkshire, he was originally a minister who
was converted to
Catholicism. William left England and received ordination at
Reims, France, in 1581. Returning to England, he was arrested and
exiled but returned and was arrested again in London. William executed
in Nile End Green, London was beatified in 1929.
|
1588 Bl.
William
Guntei Martyr of Wales
A native of Raglan, Gwent, Wales, he was a Catholic who received
ordination at Reims, France, in 1587. He returned to England to work
for the Catholic mission. Captured, hanged at Shoreditch and beatified
in 1929.
|
1588 Bl. Thomas
Felton English martyr
The son of Blessed John Felton, he was born at Bermondsey, England, in
1568. Leaving England to study at Reims, France, he entered the Friars
Minim and went home to England to recover from an illness. He was
arrested and imprisoned for two years. Released, he was again put in
prison and hanged at lsleworth, London.
|
1588 Bl.
Thomas
Holford English martyr
Also known as Thomas Acton, he was born at Aston, in Cheshire, England.
Raised a Protestant,
he worked as a schoolmaster in Herefordshire until converting to the
Catholic faith. He left England and was ordained at Reims in 1583.
Going home, he labored in the areas around Cheshire and London until
his arrest. He was hanged at Clerkenwell in London.
|
1588 Bl. Hugh
More
Martyr of England
He was a native of Lincolnshire, educated at Oxford. After converting
while at Reims, Hugh was martyred at Lincoln’s Inn Fields by hanging.
Pope Pius XI beatified him in 1929.
|
1588 Bl.
Robert
Morton English martyr of London
Born in Bawtry, Yorkshire, he left England and studied for the priesthood at Reirns and Rome.
After ordination in 1587, he returned home immediately and was soon
arrested. He was executed at Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. Robert was
beatified in 1929 as one of the Martyrs of London of 1588.
|
1628 St.
Edmund
Arrowsmith one of the Forty Martyrs
Edmund was the son of
Robert Arrowsmith, a farmer, and was born 1585 at
Haydock, England. He was baptized Brian, but always used his
Confirmation name of Edmund. The family was constantly harrassed for
its adherence to Catholicism, and in 1605 Edmund left England and went
to Douai to study for the priesthood. He was ordained in 1612 and sent
on the English mission the following year. He ministered to the
Catholics of Lancashire without incident until about 1622, when he was
arrested and questioned by the Protestant bishop of Chester. He was
released when King James
ordered all arrested priests
be freed, joined the Jesuits in
1624, and in 1628 was
arrested when betrayed by a young man he had censored for an incestuous
marriage. He was convicted of being a Catholic priest, sentenced to
death, and hanged, drawn, and quartered at Lancaster on August 28th. He
was canonized as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales by Pope
Paul VI in 1970.
1628 BD EDMUND
ARROWSMITH, MARTYR
HE was born in 1585
at Haydock, near Saint Helens, the son of Robert Arrowsmith, a yeoman
farmer,
and his wife Margery, a Gerard of Bryn, both of families which had
already
suffered for the faith. He was baptized Brian, but took the name of
Edmund at
confirmation and ever after used it. The recusant Arrowsmiths were
subjected to
a good deal of persecution on one occasion their house was searched for
priests
at night and the father and mother taken off to Lancaster jail, leaving
four
small children shivering in their shirts. When the father died, his
widow
confided young Edmund to the care of an old priest who had him
educated. The
youth was of an unquestionably religious disposition, and he managed to
make
his way out of the country to Douay in December 1605. His studies there
were
interrupted by ill-health, and he was not ordained till 1612, and sent
to
Lancashire in the following year. For ten years he worked there
fruitfully and
without mishap, in spite of the fact that his enthusiasm for
controversy made
him indifferent to its dangers. “Though his presence was very
mean, yet he was
both zealous, witty and fervent, and so forward in disputing with
heretics that
I often wished him merrily to carry salt in his pocket to season his
actions,
lest too much zeal without discretion might bring him too soon into
danger, considering
the vehement and sudden storms of persecution that often assailed us.”
“He was
a man”, says another contemporary, “of great innocency in his life, of
great
sincerity in his nature, of great sweetness in his conversation and of
great
industry in his function. And he was ever of a cheerful countenance— a
most
probable sign of an upright and unspotted conscience” (Both quoted by
Challoner).
About
1622—23 Bd Edmund was taken up and examined
before the Protestant bishop of Chester, but King James being at that
time
interested in a Spanish match for his son, all priests in custody were
ordered
to be released in order to make a good impression on his Most Catholic
Majesty.
Dr Bridgeman, the bishop, a kindly old man, was at supper with several
ministers
when he was brought in, and apologized for eating meat on a Friday
because of
his age and infirmity. “But who has dispensed these lusty gentlemen?”
inquired
Bd Edmund. He decided to offer himself to the Jesuits, and after a
retreat of
several months in Essex in lieu of a novitiate abroad he was admitted
to the
order. Five years later he was betrayed to a magistrate by a young man
whom he
had reproved for his irregular life, and at Lancaster assizes in August
1628 he
was indicted before Sir Henry Yelverton on charges of being a priest
and a
Jesuit and of persuading the king’s subjects to join the Church of Rome.
The charges, of course, were true, but he was convicted on grossly
insufficient
evidence and sentenced to death. At the express command of the judge he
was
heavily manacled and put into a cell so small that he could not lie
down; here
he was left from two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon till midday on
Thursday,
apparently without food and with no one allowed to speak to him except
a
Protestant minister. When he was passing through the courtyard on his
way to
execution, there was standing at a window Bd John Southworth, who had
been
(temporarily) reprieved; Bd Edmund lifted up his hands to him as a sign
of
humble contrition, and Bd John gave him absolution before all the
people, who
had assembled in great numbers. Up to the last moment before he was
thrown off
the ladder he was pestered with offers of life and liberty if he would
conform,
that is, apostatize. “Tempt me no more,” he replied, “I will not do it,
in no
case, on no condition.” He was allowed to die before the rest of the
sentence
was carried out; his last audible words were “Bone Iesu!”
A
relic of this
martyr, known as the Holy Hand, is preserved in the church of St Oswald
at
Ashton-in-Makerfield and is greatly venerated; it has been and is the
occasion
of remarkable cures of sickness and disease and of the granting of
spiritual
requests.
The
fullest account of this martyr is probably that
preserved in a booklet entitled A Full
and Exact Relation of the Death of Two Catholicks who suffered for
their
Religion at Lancaster in 1628
(1737). It is taken in large part from Henry More, s.j., Historia
Provinciae Anglicanae (1630). See also MMP., pp. 362—373 ;
Bede Camm, Forgotten Shrines (1910), pp.
183—201 and G. Burns, Gibbets and Gallows (1944).
|
 1651 Saint Job of
Pochaev died October 28; his relics were transferred to the church of
the Holy Trinity on August 28, 1659; A second uncovering of the relics
took place on August 28, 1833
In the year 1902, the Holy Synod decreed that on this day the holy
relics of St Job be carried around the Dormition cathedral of the
Pochaev Lavra after the Divine Liturgy .
|
Mary Mother of GOD 
<105-116 Pope St.
Alexander I
Roman by birth ruled the Church in reign of Trajan (98-117). attributes
to him, but scarcely with accuracy, insertion in the canon of the Qui
Pridie, or words commemorative of the institution of the Eucharist,
such being certainly primitive and original in the Mass. He is also
said to have introduced the use of blessing water mixed with salt for
the purification of Christian homes from evil influences (constituit
aquam sparsionis cum sale benedici in habitaculis hominum). Duchesne
(Lib. Pont., I, 127) calls attention to the persistence of this early
Roman custom by way of a blessing in the Gelasian Sacramentary that
recalls very forcibly the actual Asperges prayer at the beginning of
Mass.
As
we watch the
spectacle of the world
seeming to self-destruct before our eyes, we can’t help but be saddened
and even frightened by so much evil run rampant. Iraq, Lebanon,
Afghanistan, Somalia, North Korea—It is all a disaster of epic
proportions displayed in living color on our television screens.