96 Saint Flavius
Clemens Roman martyr, the brother of Emperor Vespasian and uncle of Emperors
Titus and Domitian
Item Romæ Translátio sancti Flávii Cleméntis,
viri Consuláris et Mártyris; qui, sanctæ Plautíllæ
frater ac beátæ Vírginis et Mártyris Fláviæ
Domitíllæ avúnculus, a Domitiáno Imperatóre,
quocum Consulátum gésserat, ob Christi fidem interémptus
est. Ipsíus porro corpus, in Basílica sancti Cleméntis
Papæ invéntum, ibídem solémni pompa recónditum
est.
Likewise at Rome, the translation of St. Flavius Clemens,
exconsul and martyr, brother of St. Plautilla and uncle of St. Flavia Domitilla,
virgin and martyr. He was put to death for the faith of Christ by Emperor
Domitian. His body was found in the Basilica of Pope St. Clement, and
buried there with great pomp.
He was married to Flavia Domitilla. The year before his martyrdom,
Flavius held the post of consul with Domitian, who beheaded him for being
a Christian.
Flavius Clemens M (RM) Saint Flavius Clemens was the brother of
Emperor Vespasian and uncle of Titus and Domitian, whose niece, Flavia Domitilla,
he married. In 95 AD, he held the consular office together with Domitian.
The following year Domitian had him beheaded as a Christian (Benedictines,
Encyclopedia).
|
304 Zenon und Zenas
Orthodoxe Kirche: 22. Juni
Zenon, ein reicher Einwohner von Philadelphia, wurde Christ, verteilte seine
Habe an die Armen und klagte mit seinem Diener Zenas den Gouverneur der Stadt
an, weil er Götzen verehre. Beide wurdend araufhin gefoltert und, als
sie die Folterungen überlebten, geköpft. Sie erlitten ihr Martyrium
im Jahr 304.
The Holy Martyrs Zeno and Zenas (June 22) SerbianOrthodoxChurch.net
St Zeno was a Roman officer in the Arabian city of Philadelphia,
and Zenas was his servant. When a persecution of Christians began during
the reign of the Emperor Maximian, St Zeno stepped boldly before the governor,
Maximus, and confessed his faith in the one, living God, counselling Maximus
to give up dead idols and accept the one, true Faith. The governor was outraged
and threw Zeno into prison. When the faithful Zenas visited his master in
the prison, he too was seized and imprisoned. The two were thereupon tortured
for Christ and finally thrown into the flames, which the pagans brought to
a great heat with oil. Their souls were crowned in the Kingdom of Christ
while their mortal remains were buried in the Church of St George at a place
called Cyparisson.
|
304
Saint Alban first martyr of England soldier who was
to kill the Saint was converted himself, and he too, became a martyr;
the stream was miraculously divided, the river
bed drying up so as to afford an easy passage not only to the martyr, but
to a thousand other persons.
Verolámii, in Británnia,
sancti Albáni Mártyris, qui, témpore Diocletiáni,
pro Clérico hóspite, quem domi excéperat et a quo Christiánæ
fídei præceptiónibus imbútus fúerat, seípsum,
commutáta veste, trádidit; et hanc ob causam, post vérbera
et acérba torménta, cápite plexus est. Passus est
étiam cum illo unus de milítibus, qui, dum eum dúceret
ad supplícium, in via convérsus est ad Christum, et mox, gládio
decollátus, próprio sánguine méruit baptizári.
Hoc autem nóbile sancti Albáni ac Sócii durátum
pro Deo certámen sanctus Beda Venerábilis descrípsit.
At Verulam
in England, in the time of Diocletian, St. Alban, martyr, who gave himself
up in order to save a cleric whom he had harboured. After being scourged
and subjected to bitter torments, he was sentenced to capital punishment.
With him also suffered one of the soldiers who led him to execution, for
he was converted to Christ on the way and merited to be baptized in his own
blood. St. Venerable Bede has left an account of the noble combat of
St. Alban and his companion.
Alban (von England) Katholische
und Anglikanische Kirche: 22. Juni
ST ALBAN, MARTYR
ST ALBAN is venerated as the proto- or first martyr of the Island
of Britain, and his feast is kept throughout England and Wales on this day
(but in the diocese of Brentwood to-morrow). His story, or legend, as it
is set forth in Bede's Ecclesiastical
History, may be epitomized as follows: Alban was a native, and apparently
a prominent citizen of Verulamium, now St Albans in Hertfordshire. Although
he was a pagan, yet, when the persecution broke out under Diocletian and Maximian,
he gave shelter to a Christian priest who had sought refuge with him. So
profoundly impressed was he by his guest that he became a convert to Christianity
and received baptism. In the meantime the governor had been informed that
the preacher of the Christian religion after whom inquiry had been made lay
concealed at Alban's house. Soldiers were accordingly sent to make search,
but the priest was no longer there. To facilitate his escape Alban had exchanged
clothes with him, and it was Alban, wrapped in his guest's long cloak, or
caracalla, that the soldiers conveyed bound to the judge, who was then standing
beside an altar, engaged in offering sacrifice to the gods.
When the cloak which covered the prisoner's head was removed and
his identity was established the magistrate was very angry. Ordering the
confessor to be dragged before the images he said, "Since you have chosen
to conceal a sacrilegious person and a blasphemer whom you ought to have
handed over to the guard whom I despatched, the punishment due to him shall
be meted out to you unless you comply with the worship of our religion."
The saint boldly declared that he would do so no more. Asked by the judge
to what family he belonged, Alban exclaimed, "Why do you want to know about
my family? If you wish to know my religion -I am a Christian." He was then
asked his name. "I am called Alban by my parents", he replied, "and I worship
and serve the living and true God who created all things." The magistrate
impatiently urged him to waste no more time, but to offer sacrifice forthwith.
Alban retorted, "Your sacrifices are offered to demons who can neither give
help nor grant petitions: whoever offers sacrifices to these idols shall
receive as his recompense the eternal punishments of Hell."
The judge, still further incensed at these defiant words, caused the prisoner
to be scourged: then, seeing that he bore the lashes not merely with resignation
but with joy, he sentenced him to be beheaded. The whole population went
forth to witness the execution, the judge remaining alone in the city. Now
the river which they had to cross was in that part rapid, and if Alban had
waited to follow in the wake of the crowds who were thronging the bridge
he could scarcely have passed over that evening. So, going down to the water's
edge, he upraised his eyes to Heaven and immediately the stream was miraculously
divided, the river bed drying up so as to afford an easy passage not only
to the martyr, but to a thousand other persons. This marvel brought about
the instant conversion of the executioner, who threw down his sword at St
Alban's feet and begged to be allowed to die with him or instead of him.
The procession then made its way up a pleasant grassy slope, gay with flowers.
At the summit, in response to the martyr's prayers, there gushed up beside
him a fountain of clear water with which he was able to quench his thirst.
[This description of the place of martyrdom on Holmhurst Hill is perhaps
part of the early tradition. Except that the river Ver is neither deep nor
rapid the topographical particulars fit correctly. There was a spring of
water (now covered in) near the foot of Holmhurst (cf. Holywell Hill to-day).]
Another executioner carried out the sentence, but, as St Alban's head rolled
from the block, the headsman's eyes fell out and lay beside it on the ground.
As for the soldier who had been so recently converted, he also was beheaded,
thus receiving the baptism of blood.
It is impossible to decide how much truth underlies this story: there is
considerable difference of opinion on the subject. Mainly on the ground that
the decrees of Diocletian against the Christians were not enforced in Britain,
some scholars have been disposed to conclude that no such person as St Alban
ever existed. On the other hand, he may well have been the victim of some
local persecution; and the prevalence of an early and widespread cultus creates
a strong presumption-in the view of many, convincing evidence-of his real
existence and of his fate. The earliest known reference to St Alban is by
Constantius of Lyons who, in his life of St Germanus of Auxerre, written
in the fifth century, states that when on a visit to Britain Germanus visited
the tomb of St Alban (he does not say where), and declares that "the intercession
of the blessed martyr St Alban procured a smooth passage" for him and his
companions on their return to Gaul".
Gildas and Bede relied for their accounts on a passio Albani of the earlier part of
the sixth century. How popular the story was may be inferred from the number
of variants catalogued in Hardy's Materials for British History (vol. i,
pp. 3-30). It was considerably developed after the translation of the martyr's
relics to a new shrine in 1129. A passio
of St Amphibalus was then composed, a purely fictitious martyr,
at least as regards the name, which is derived from Geoffrey of Monmouth's
misinterpretation of the word amphibalus, which means a cloak. Amphibalus
was represented to have been the preacher originally sought for, and to have
been afterwards caught and stoned to death at Redbourn, four miles from St
Albans. At the same time his "relics" were very conveniently discovered in
a heathen Saxon burying-ground at the same place.
We know from Constantius that there was a church and tomb of St Alban in
429; Gildas, writing c. 540, connects Alban with Verulamium; and there was
a newer church and shrine there in Bede's time (731). The tradition is that
Offa of Mercia in 793 built a new church and founded a monastery, which developed
into the great Benedictine abbey of St Alban, and the tradition may well
be right.
In recent years the Rev. A. W. Wade-Evans has sought to localize the martyrdom
of St Alban in the neighbourhood of Caerleon in Monmouthshire, with St Julius
and St Aaron (July 3). This hypothesis has received more attention on the
continent than in England, and Father P. Grosjean, Bollandist, considers
that the passion of these three martyrs at Caerleon "is not without some
appearance of probability" (Analecta Bollandiana,
vol. lvii (1939), pp. 160-161). But Wilhelm Levison firmly rejects the theory:
the martyrdom of St Alban, he says, "can be ascribed without hesitation to
Verulamium and St Albans, as far as certainty or probability is at all applicable
in such traditions".
The whole subject is fully dealt
with by W. Levison, "St Alban and Saint Albans", in Antiquity, vol. xv (1941), pp. 337-359.
Bede's account is in the Ecclesiastical
History, bk. I, cap. vii (see also caps. xviii and xx, and Plummer's
notes); Gildas in De excidio Britanniae,
cap. x, says he conjectures that Alban was put to death under Diocletian.
For A. W. Wade-Evans's theory, see his Welsh
Christian Origins (1934), pp. 16-19, and his translation of Nennius
(1938), pp. 131-132. St Alban's fame was not confined to Britain, for Venantius
Fortunatus, towards the close of the sixth century, commemorates him in the
line, Albanum egregium fecunda Britannia
profert ("Fruitful Britain vaunts great Alban's name"), and a mention
of him is found in the Hieronymianum; on which see Delehaye's Commentary.
Although certain details occurring in Constantius's Life of St Germanus in
its later interpolated form do not belong to the original, as Levison (MGH.,
Scriptores Merov., vol. vii)
has shown, still there is every reason to believe that Germanus did bring
back with him to Auxerre relics of this martyr, and built a basilica there
in his honour, as Heiricus, the author of the metrical Life of St Germanus,
records. See also W. Meyer in the Abhandlungen
of the Gottingen Scientific Society, vol. viii (1904), no. I,
for the Passio Albani; E. P. Baker,
"The Cult of St Alban at Cologne", in the Archaeological Journal, vol. xciv (1938),
pp. 207-256; M. R. James et al., Illustrations
to the Life of St Alban (1924); and H. Delehaye, Les Passions des martyrs (192 I), pp.
403-407.
During a persecution of
Christians, Alban, though a pagan, hid a priest in his house. The priest
made such a great impression on him that Alban received instructions and
became a Christian himself.
Alban sheltered him, and after some days, moved by his example,
himself received baptism.
In the meantime, the governor had been told that the priest was
hiding in Alban's house, and he sent his soldiers to capture him. But Alban
changed clothes with his guest, and gave himself up in his stead. The judge
was furious when he found out that the priest had escaped and he said to
Alban, "You shall get the punishment he was to get unless you worship the
gods." The Saint answered that he would never worship those false gods again.
"To what family do you belong?" demanded the judge. "That does not concern
you," said Alban. "If you want to know my religion, I am a Christian." Angrily
the judge commanded him again to sacrifice to the gods at once. "Your sacrifices
are offered to devils," answered the Saint. "They cannot help you or answer
your requests. The reward for such sacrifices is the everlasting punishment
of Hell."
Since he was getting nowhere, the judge had Alban whipped. Then
he commanded him to be beheaded. On the way to the place of execution, the
soldier who was to kill the Saint was converted himself, and he too, became
a martyr.
Alban of Great Britain M (RM)
3rd or 4th century. There were probably already Christians in the British
Isles in the first century. In fact, by the end of the second century a great
many of the inhabitants of southern England were Christians. However, Alban
is the first recorded Christian martyr of the island. The traditional date
of his death is 304, during the persecution under the Emperor Diocletian; but many scholars
now date it as early as 209, during the persecution under the Emperor Septimus
Severus. This date was derived from a study of the Turin manuscript of a
Passio Albani.
The first known reference to him, outside the Turin manuscript,
is in the 5th century life of Saint Germanus of Auxerre. Gildas, writing
c. 540, gives the core of the tradition. Saint Bede gives an amplified account,
which includes a lively description of the beheading and more details of
signs from heaven.
Alban was a pagan, supposed to have been a Roman soldier, who,
during the persecution of Diocletian, took pity on a fleeing Christian priest
and sheltered him in his own home. When he saw that the priest spent day
and night in prayer, he was moved by the grace of God. They spent several
days talking together and Alban was so impressed by the priest's sanctity
and devotion that he became a Christian and wanted to imitate the piety and
faith of his guest. Encouraged and instructed by the priest, Alban renounced
his idol worship and embraced Christ with his whole heart.
He was a leading citizen in the old Roman city of Verulamium (Verulam),
Hertfordshire, England, now called Saint Albans. The town was originally
a collection of huts of wattle and daub that stretched along Watling Street,
and later destroyed by the army of Boadicea, the warrior queen.
The story continues that the
Roman governor of the city, hearing a rumor that a priest was hiding in the
house of Alban, sent a search party of soldiers to find him. Seeing them
approach, Alban took the priest's cloak and put it over his own head and
shoulders, and helped him to escape. Thus disguised, Alban opened the door
to the soldiers and was arrested in mistake for the priest. He was bound
in fetters and brought before the governor, who was attending a sacrifice
to the pagan gods. When the cloak was removed and his true identity was discovered,
the governor was furious. He then declared himself to be a Christian, whereupon
the governor angrily ordered him to be taken before the altar. He was threatened
with all the tortures that had been prepared for the priest if he did not
recant.
Alban faced his anger calmly and, ignoring his threats, declared
that he could not sacrifice to the gods. Upon Alban's refusal to deny his
faith, the governor enquired of what family and race he was. "How can it
concern you to know of what stock I am?" answered Alban. "If you want to
know my religion, I will tell you--I am a Christian, and am bound by Christian
obligations." When asked his name, he replied: "I am called Alban by my parents,
and I worship and adore the true and living God, who created all things."
He was then commanded to sacrifice to the Roman gods, but he refused and
was cruelly scourged. Alban bore the punishment with resignation, even joy.
When it was seen that he could not be prevailed upon to retract, he was sentenced
to decapitation.
On the way to his execution on Holmhurst Hill, the crowds that
gathered to honor his heroism were so great that his passage was delayed
because they could not reach the bridge over the river. Alban, who seemed
to fear that any delay might deprive him of the martyr's crown, decided to
cross at another point, and going down to the water's edge he prayed to God
and stepped into the river which he then forded without difficulty. Both
Gildas and Bede have accepted the tradition that this was a miracle and that
the waters dried up completely in answer to the saint's prayer.
They add that a thousand other people crossed over with him, while
the waters piled up on either side, and that this miracle converted the appointed
executioner. Still accompanied by a huge throng of people, Alban climbed
the hill to the place of execution. But, on his arrival there, the executioner
threw down his sword and refused to perform his office. He said that if he
were not allowed to take Alban's place then he would share his martyrdom.
Confessing himself to be a Christian, the soldier was replaced by another.
Then he took his stand beside Alban, and they faced death together. Alban
was beheaded first, then the soldier was baptized in his own blood to share
the glory of martyrdom. The third martyr was the priest, who when he learned
that Alban had been arrested in his place, hurried to the court in the hope
of saving Alban by turning himself in.
According to Bede, the governor
was so impressed by the miracles that followed Alban's martyrdom that he
immediately ended the persecutions, and Bede states that these miracles were
still occurring in his lifetime at the intercession of England's protomartyr.
On the hill where these martyrdoms took place a church was later
erected, and, 400 years later, Offa, the king of Mercia, founded on the same
site the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Albans. According to Constantius of Lyons,
Saint Germanus of Auxerre, at the end of a mission to England to combat the
Pelagian heresy, chose the Church of Saint Alban as the place in which to
thank God for the success of his mission. He brought back from England a
handful of earth from the place where Alban, the soldier, and the priest
were martyred (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Gill, Morris).
The Proto-Martyr of England is portrayed in art as a warrior with
a cross and shield. He may be depicted (1) crowned with laurel; (2) with a
peer's coronet, holding a crossing; (3) with his head cut off; (4) with his
head in a holly bush; (5) spreading his cloak under the sun; or (6) as his
executioner's eye drops out (Roeder). Alban is especially venerated in Saint
Albans and Angers (Roeder).
Alban (von England) Katholische und Anglikanische Kirche: 22.
Juni
Alban war Soldat der römischen Armee in England. Während
einer Christenverfolgung nahm er einen flüchtigen Priester bei sich
auf, der ihn taufte. Als Soldaten das Haus nach dem Priester durchsuchten,
zog Alban seine Kleider an und ließ sich festnehmen. Er wurde vor ein
Militärgericht gebracht, ausgepeitscht und (um 305) hingerichtet. Er
gilt als erster christlicher Märtyrer Englands. Sein Geburtsort soll
Verulamium gewesen sein, das in St. Albans umbenannt wurde. Auf der Hinrichtungsstätte
wurde die Kathedrale St. Albans errichtet.
|
304 Saint Aaron & Julius native of Britain hermit
Abbot attracted numerous disciples, among them St. Malo of Wales
He went to Brittany, where he became a hermit on Cesabre (St.
Malo) island. He attracted numerous disciples, among them St. Malo of Wales, and became their Abbot.
Aaron & Julius were executed during the religious persecutions
of the Emperor Diocletian in AD 304, traditionally on 1st July. The
earliest authority for their existence is Gildas. In his De Excidio
Britanniae, he says, "God…..in the…..time of persecution…..lest
Britain should be completely enveloped in the thick darkness of black night,
kindled for us bright lamps of holy martyrs…
I speak of Saint Alban of Verulamium, Aaron and Julius, citizens
of Caerleon, and the rest of both sexes in different places, who stood firm
with lofty nobleness of mind in Christ's battle." There appears to have been
a tradition of these latter two men at Caerleon, perhaps as early as the
sixth century, for the Book of Llandaff mentions 'Merthir Iun (Iulii) et
Aaron.' Merthyr denoting a 'place of martyr (or martyrs)' - that is a church,
or Martyrium, built in memory of a martyr, generally over his grave.
In the reign of the 7th century King Meurig of Glywysing
and Gwent, Bishop Nudd of Llandaff was, apparently, made a grant of all the
territory of the martyrs, Julius and Aaron, which had formerly belonged to
Saint Dubricius.
Giraldus Cambrensis mentions two
churches, with their convent and society of canons, at Caerleon, dedicated
to Aaron and Julius. Bede paraphrases the words of Gildas, but, not understanding
that his "Urbs Legionum" was Caerleon-on-Usk, mistakenly transferred their
martyrdom to Chester.
According to Bishop
Godwin (1595-1601), there existed, in the recollection of the generation
preceding that in which he wrote, two chapels called after Aaron and Julius,
on the east and west sides of the town of Caerleon, about two miles distant
from each other. There are a number of legends concerning the religious communities
which supposedly lived at these two places. "St. Julian's," now a farmhouse,
but once a mansion - the residence of Lord Herbert of Cherbury - probably
occupies the site of S. Julius's Church. The reputed site of St. Aaron's
Chapel is near the Roman camp of Penrhos, between the Afon Lwyd and the Sor
Brook that flows into the Usk above Caerleon. Here stone coffins have been
found, showing that it was a place of interment, possibly Christian.
Soon after the Norman Conquest,
there was a church in Caerleon itself dedicated to SS. Julius and Aaron,
which was granted, by Robert de Chandos, to the Priory of Goldcliff, founded
by him in 1113. Though the very ancient parish church remembers St. Cadfrod
(now St. Cadog). There is a Cae Aron (his field) near Caerleon and a Cwm
Aron (his dingle) in the parish of Llanfrechfa, in the neighbourhood.
|
303 Saint Acacius & Martyrs of Ararat Ten thousand Roman soldiers,
led by St. Acacius, reportedly massacred on Mount Ararat, in modern Turkey.
Samaríæ, in Palæstína,
sanctórum mille quadringentórum octogínta Mártyrum,
qui, sub Rege Persárum Chósroa, pro Christi fide interfécti
sunt.
At Samaria in Palestine, fourteen hundred and eighty holy
martyrs, under Chosroes, king of Persia.
This cult was suppressed in
1969.
On two days is a group of ten thousand martyrs mentioned in the
Roman Martyrology. On 18 March: "At Nicomedia ten thousand holy martyrs who
were put to the sword for the confession of Christ", and on 22 June:"On Mount
Ararat the martyrdom of ten thousand holy martyrs who were crucified." The
first entry, found in an old Greek martyrology, translated by Cardinal Sirleto
and published by H.Canisius, probably notes the veneration of a number of
those who gave their lives for Christ at the beginning of the prosecution
of Diocletian, in 303 (Acta SS., March, II, 616).
That the number is not an exaggeration is evident from Eusebius
("Hist. Eccl.", VIII, vi), Lactantius ("De morte prosecut.", xv). The entry
of 22 June is based upon a legend (Acta SS., June, V, 151) said to have been
translated from a Greek original (which cannot, however, be found) by Anastasius
Bibliothecarius (who died in 886), and dedicated to Peter, Bishop of Sabina
(? d. 1221)
The legend reads: The emperors Adrian and Anoninus marched at
the head of a large army to surpress the revolt of the Gadarenes and the
people of the Euphrates region. Finding too strong an opponent, all fled except
nine thousand soldiers. After these had
been converted to Christ by the voice of an angel they turned upon the enemy
and completely routed them. They
were then brought to the top of Mount Ararat and instructed in the faith.
When the emperors heard of the victory they sent for the converts to join
in sacrifices of thanksgiving to the gods. They refused, and the emperors
applied to five tributary kings for aid against the rebels. The kings reponded
to the call, bringing an immense army. The Christians were asked to deny their
faith, and, on refusal, were stoned. But the stones rebounded against the
assailants, and at this miracle a thousand soldiers joined the confessors.
Hereupon the emperors ordered all to be crucified.
Acacius (Achatius) and Companions MM (RM) The story of a martyrdom
of Saint Acacius and 10,000 Roman soldiers under his command on Mount Ararat,
which had great popularity in the later Middle Ages, is now discarded as
pure romance. The cultus seems to have arisen in Armenia in the 12th century
and their popularity from the time of the crusades. Their acta closely follow
that of Saint Maurice and the Theban
Legion. The story includes a scene in which Acacius prays to God just before
their death by crucifixion that anyone who venerates their memory would enjoy
health of mind and body; for this reason Acacius was included among the popular
Fourteen Holy Helpers. Relics are claimed by Cologne and Prague (Benedictines,
Farmer, Sheppard).
In art, Saint Acacius is depicted as a warrior
carrying a large cross. He may also be shown (1) crucified with his legionaries
on Mount Ararat, (2) impaled on trees or thorns (Roeder), or wearing a crown
of thorns (Sheppard). The story is captured in several notable works of art
from the 13th to the 16th centuries, including a 15th- century stained-glass
window in Berne, which provides a complete pictorial record of the martyrdom
(Farmer). Acacius is greatly venerated in Germany (Roeder) and Switzerland
(Farmer), and invoked against headache (Sheppard).
|
372 Saint Nicetas close friend of St. Paulinus of Nola
bishop of Remesiana in Dacia (modern Romania and Yugoslavia) noted for successful
missionary activities especially among Bessi race of marauders miracles
and healings began to be performed from the relics
Eódem die sancti Nicétæ, Romantiánæ civitátis
Epíscopi, doctrína sanctísque móribus clari.
The same day, St. Nicaeas, bishop of the town of Romatia,
celebrated for his learning and holy life.
St. Paulinus commemorates that
in a poem.
ST NICETAS, BISHOP OF REMESIANA (c. A.D. 414)
THE Roman Martyrology under January 7 has an entry: "In Dacia of St Nicetas,
Bishop, who by his preaching made nations mild and gentle that before were
barbarous and savage." This undoubtedly describes Nicetas of Remesiana, though
Baronius, owing to his erroneous identification of this Nicetas with Nicetas,
or Niceas, of Aquileia, transferred the commemoration, when he revised the
martyrology, from June 22 to January 7. Nicetas of Remesiana was a close
friend of St Paulinus of Nola, and it is principally from him that we learn
of Nicetas's marvellous success in taming the wild peoples among whom he
resided. The Bessi, in particular, were a race of marauders, as Strabo testifies,
but Paulinus congratulates his friend in a poem on having brought them like
sheep within Christ's peaceful fold:
Nam simul terris animisque duri
Et sua Bessi nive duriores,
Nunc oves facti, duce te gregantur Pacis in aulam.
Remesiana has been identified with a place called Bela Palenka,
in Serbia. We know little of Nicetas himself beyond the fact that on at least
two occasions he made his way from a country which Paulinus regarded as a
wild region of snow and ice to visit his friend at Nola in Campania. St Jerome
also speaks very appreciatively of his work in converting the people of Dacia,
but of the details of his missionary expeditions, the manner of his promotion
to the episcopate, or the date of his death, we know nothing.
On the other hand much interest has centred in Nicetas on account of his
writings, some of which, previously attributed to Nicetas of Aquileia or
others, have now on fuller investigation been restored to their true author.
Dom Germain Morin has been prominent in drawing attention to the importance
of his literary work and in particular has gone far to prove that it is to
Nicetas, and not to St Ambrose, that we owe the composition of the great
hymn of thanksgiving, the Te Deum.
This view has not found universal acceptance, but it has many adherents among
competent scholars.
The Bollandists have twice given
some account of Nicetas, so far as information was then available, viz. in
the Acta Sanctorum, January. vol.
i, and June, vol. v. But a newer and fuller investigation will be found in
A. G. Burn's volume, Niceta of Remesiana,
His Life and Works (1905), which re-edits the text of his remains. Further,
Dr Burn has published a booklet, The Hymn
"Te Deum" and Its Authors (1926). Dom Morin's articles have appeared
principally in the Revue Benedictine,
vol. vii (1890), pp. 151 seq.; vol. xi (1894), p. 49, and vol. xv (1898),
p. 99. See, further, W. A. Patin, Niceta
Bischof von Remesiana als Schriftsteller und Theolog (1909), and consult
DTC., vol. xi, cc. 477-479. Two of Nicetas's more important dissertations
have also been edited and made more intelligible by the care of Professor
C. H. Turner: the texts have been rearranged and annotated by him in the
Journal of Theological Studies,
vol. xxii (1921), pp. 305-320; and vol. xxiv (1923), pp. 225-252. A volume
of translations of Nicetas's writings by Fr G. G. Walsh was published in
New York in 1950.
Nicetas wrote several dissertations on faith, the creed, the
Trinity, and liturgical singing, and is believed by some scholars to be the
author of Te Deum. We know little of Nicetas himself beyond the fact that
on at least two occasions, he made his way from a country which Paulinus
regarded as a wild region of snow and ice to visit his friend at Nola in
Campania.
St. Jerome also speaks very
appreciatively of his work in converting the people of Dacia, but of the
details of his missionary expeditions, the manner of his promotion to the
episcopate.
A friend of Nicetas searched out his holy remains at night and
transferred them to Cilicia.
From that time, miracles and healings began to be performed from the relics
of the holy Martyr Nicetas. A particle of the relics of the Great-martyr
Nicetas is found in the monastery of Vysokie Dechany in Serbia.
414 Nicetas bishop
of Remesiana (Bela Palanka in Serbia) in Dacia B (RM)
Born c. 335; feast day formerly on January 7. Saint Nicetas was a close friend
of my hero, Saint Paulinus of
Nola. He was made bishop of Remesiana (Bela Palanka in Serbia) in
Dacia c. 370. Little is known about him except that he was noted for his
successful missionary activities, especially among the Goths, Dacians, and
Bessi, which Paulinus commemorates in a poem. Nicetas twice visited Paulinus
in Italy. Paulinus writes highly of him as a poet and evangelist among the
rude inhabitants of a frozen land.
Nicetas wrote an important exposition on the Apostles' Creed, dissertations
on faith, the Trinity, and the value of psalm- singing. He makes some excellent
remarks about the people's singing in church: "Sing wisely, that is, understandingly,
thinking of what you are singing. . . . Tunes should be in keeping with the
sacredness of religion . . ., not savoring of the theater. . . . Sing together,
and do not show off"; and he adds, "Neither must we give thought to what people
like, for everything in our worship must be done in God's sight, not to please
men." Nicetas is believed by some scholars to be the author or redactor of
the Te Deum (Attwater, Benedictines, Delaney) .
|
375
Eusebius Bischof von Samosata Orthodoxe Kirche: 22. Juni Katholische Kirche:
21. Juni
Eusebius war Bischof von Samosata. Er hielt an den Beschlüssen des Konzils
von Nicaea gegen die Arianer fest und wurde deshalb von mehreren Kaisern
verbannt. Eusebius zog während seiner Verbannung verkleidet durch Syrien
und Phönizien und stärkte die Gemeinden in ihrem Widerstand gegen
die Arianer. Als er 375 aus dem Exil zurückkehren konnte, baute er mit
Patriarch Meletius die orthodoxen Gemeinden wieder auf. Bei dieser Arbeit
wurde er 380 von einer Anhängerin der Arianer mit einem Dachziegel erschlagen.
379 Eusebius, Bishop of Samosata The Hieromartyr (June 22) SerbianOrthodoxChurch.net
He was a major opponent of Arianism. When the patriarchal
throne of Antioch became vacant, Meletius was elected Patriarch. This Meletius
was a shining light in the Church, and deserved the great eulogy given by
St John Chrysostom at his death. But the Arians soon drove Meletius from
Antioch. When Constantius, Constan-tine's evil son, died, he was followed
by Julian the Apostate, a man even worse than he, as ruler of the Empire.
During Julian's persecution of Christians, St Eusebius took off his cassock,
clad himself in soldier's garb and travelled around the persecuted churches
of Syria, Phoenicia and Palestine, strengthening the Orthodox faith everywhere
and creating the necessary priests, deacons and other clergy and raising
some to the episcopate. After the news of Julian's death, St Eusebius advised
Meletius to summon a Council of the Church in Antioch. This took place in
363, and the twenty-seven hierarchs present denounced Arianism once again
and proclaimed the Orthodox faith as it was expressed at the First Ecumenical
Council. Besides Meletius and Eusebius, St Pelagius of Laodicea, a man of
great asceticism and chastity, made a great impact at this Council, which
took place during the reign of the devout Emperor Jovian. But he died soon
after, and the evil Valens took the throne, and the persecution of Orthodoxy
began afresh. St Meletius was banished to Armenia, Eusebius to Thrace and
Pelagius to Arabia. After Valens, the Emperor Gratian came to the throne
and restored freedom to the Church, returning the exiled bishops to their
rightful places: Meletius to Antioch, Eusebius to Samosata and Pelagius to
Laodicea. Many dioceses were vacant at that time and Eusebius was quick to
find canonical pastors for the people. But when he arrived at the city of
Doliche with the newly-chosen bishop, Marinus, to install him as bishop and
denounce the Arian heresy (which was strong in that city), a certain fanatical
heretic threw a tile from the roof and gave him a mortal wound. This great
zealot for Orthodoxy, this saint and martyr, died and entered into eternal
life in the blessedness of Paradise in the year 379 .
|
431 Saint Paulinus
Bishop of Nola writer poet; gave away property vast fortune to poor
and Church and pursued life of deep austerity / mortifications
Apud Nolam, Campániæ urbem, natális beáti Paulíni,
Epíscopi et Confessóris, qui ex nobilíssimo et opulentíssimo
factus est pro Christo pauper et húmilis, et, quod supérerat,
seípsum pro rediméndo víduæ fílio, quem
Wándali, Campánia devastáta, captívum in Africam
abdúxerant, in servitútem dedit. Cláruit autem
non solum eruditióne et copiósa vitæ sanctitáte,
sed étiam poténtia advérsus dæmones; ejúsque
præcláras laudes sancti Ambrósius, Hierónymus,
Augustínus et Gregórius Papa scriptis suis celebrárunt.
Ipsíus corpus, póstea Benevéntum et inde Romam translátum,
tandem, Summi Pontíficis Pii Décimi jussu, Nolæ restitútum
fuit.
At Nola in Campania, the birthday of blessed Paulinus,
bishop and confessor, who, although a noble and wealthy man, made himself
poor and humble for Christ; and what is still more admirable, became a slave
to liberate a widow's son who had been carried to Africa by the Vandals when
they devastated Campania. He was celebrated, not only for his learning
and great holiness of life, but also for his power over demons. His
great merit has been extolled by Saints Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory
in their writings. His body was translated to Benevento, and later to
Rome, but was taken back to Nola by the order of Pope Pius X.
ST PAULINUS, BISHOP OF NOLA (A.D. 431)
ST PAULINUS, more formally designated Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus,
was one of the most remarkable men of his age, and we find him eulogized
in terms of warm appreciation by St Martin, St Sulpicius Severus, St Ambrose,
St Augustine, St Jerome, St Eucherius, St Gregory of Tours, Apollinaris,
Cassiodorus and other writers. His father, who was prefect of Gaul, had lands
in Italy, Aquitaine and Spain, and Paulinus was born at or near Bordeaux.
He had for his master in poetry and rhetoric the famous poet Ausonius. Trained
under such a teacher, Paulinus more than fulfilled the high hopes that had
been entertained of him, and while still quite young made a name for himself
at the bar. "Everyone", says St Jerome, "admired the purity and elegance
of his diction, the delicacy and loftiness of his sentiments, the strength
and sweetness of his style and the vividness of his imagination." He was entrusted
with various public offices, the exact nature of which we do not know, but
there is some ground for surmising that he held an appointment in Campania
and had also been prefect of New Epirus. His duties, whatever they were,
required or permitted him to travel extensively, and during the course of
his public life he made many friends in Italy, Gaul and Spain.
He married a Spanish lady called Therasia, and after some years he resigned
his offices and retired to lead a life of cultured leisure in Aquitaine.
He now came into relations with St Delphinus, bishop of Bordeaux, through
whose ministrations Paulinus and his brother were brought to receive baptism.
Then, about the year 390, he went with his wife to live on her estate in
Spain where, after years of childlessness, a son was born to them; but the
boy died at the end of a week. They now determined to live more austerely
and charitably, and proceeded to dispossess themselves of much property for
the benefit of the needy. This liberality had a result which appears to have
come upon them as a surprise. On Christmas day, about 393, in response to
a sudden outcry on the part of the people, the bishop of Barcelona in his
cathedral conferred upon Paulinus the orders of a priest, although he had
not previously been a deacon. [It should not be supposed that this conferring
of sacred orders in deference to popular c1amour is altogether without a
parallel. Apart from the well-known case of the raising of St Ambrose to
the episcopate, we have a very similar incident occurring to the husband
of St Melania the Younger (December 31). Melania and Pinian were not only
the contemporaries, but the personal friends of St Paulinus, and like him
they had divested themselves of large sums of money to give away in charity.]
If the citizens had hoped thereby to retain Paulinus amongst them, they were
disappointed. He had already decided to settle at Nola, a small town near
Naples, where he had property. As soon as his intentions became known and
he attempted to deal with his possessions in Aquitaine, as he had done with
those of Therasia in Spain, he found he had to encounter the remonstrances
of his friends and the opposition of his relatives. However, he did not allow
himself to be deterred, and successfully carried his purpose into effect.
He proceeded to Italy, where St Ambrose and other friends gave him a warm
welcome. In Rome, on the other hand, he met with a chilly reception from
Pope St Siricius and his clergy, who possibly resented the uncanonical nature
of his ordination. His stay in the City was accordingly a short one, and
he passed on to Nola with his wife. There he took up his residence in a long,
two-storied building outside the walls, close to the tomb of St Felix. Although
he had parted with so much he was still possessed of considerable means-presumably
his Italian property.
This he gradually disposed of to further religious and philanthropic schemes.
Thus he built a church for Fondi, gave Nola a much-needed aqueduct, and supported
a host of poor debtors, tramps and other necessitous persons, many of whom
he lodged in the lower part of his own house. He himself, with a few friends,
occupied the upper story, living under semi-monastic rule and reciting the
daily office in common; Therasia presumably was the housekeeper for this
establishment. Adjacent was a building with a garden which served as a guest-house
for visitors. Amongst those who enjoyed his hospitality may be mentioned
St Melania the Elder and the missionary bishop St Nicetas of Remesiana, who
stayed with him on two occasions. Very striking is the account preserved
in the Life of the younger Melania, which describes the coming to Nola of
herself and her husband with other devoted Christians. When St Paulinus went
to settle at Nola, there were already three little basilicas and a chapel
grouped about the tomb of the former presbyter there, St Felix; to these
he added another, which he caused to be adorned with mosaics of which he
has left a description in verse. Three of these churches shared a common
outside entrance, and they were probably connected in much the same way as
the seven old basilicas which constitute San Stefano in Bologna. Every year
for the festival of St Felix, Paulinus rendered him what he described as
a tribute of his voluntary service, in the shape of a birthday poem in his
honour. Fourteen or fifteen of these poems are still extant.
Upon the death of the bishop of Nola, about the year 409, St Paulinus was
chosen as obviously the right person to fill his place. He occupied the episcopal
chair until his death. Beyond the fact that he ruled with wisdom and liberality,
we have no reliable information about his career as a shepherd of souls.
Once a year he went to Rome for the feast of St Peter and St Paul: otherwise
he never left Nola. But he was a great letter-writer and kept in touch by
correspondence with the leading churchmen of his day-notably with St Jerome
and St Augustine, whom he consulted on many subjects, often on the meaning
of obscure passages of the Bible. It was in response to a query of his that
St Augustine wrote his book On the Care of the Dead, in which he emphasizes
that pompous funerals and similar honours are only comforts to surviving
friends, and of no use to the dead.
St Paulinus survived until the year 431, and the closing scenes of his life
are described in the letter of an eye-witness named Uranius. Three days before
his death he was visited by two bishops, Symmachus and Acyndinus, with whom
at his bedside he celebrated the Divine Mysteries. Then the priest Postumian
came to tell him that forty pieces of silver were owing for clothes for the
poor. The dying saint replied with a smile that someone would pay the debt
of the poor; and almost immediately afterwards there arrived a messenger
bearing a gift of fifty silver pieces. On the last day, at the hour for Vespers,
when the lamps were being lighted in the church, the bishop roused himself
from a prolonged silence, and, stretching out his hand, said in a low voice,
"I have prepared a lamp for my Christ." Some hours later the watchers felt
a sudden tremor, as of a slight earthquake, and at that moment St Paulinus
yielded up his soul to God. He was buried in the church he had built in honour
of St Felix; and his relics having been translated to Rome, they were restored
to Nola by order of St Pius X in 1909.
Of the writings of St Paulinus, which seem to have been numerous, only thirty-two
poems, fifty-one letters, and a few short fragments have come down to us.
But he is esteemed the best Christian poet of his time after Prudentius,
and his epithalamium for Julian, bishop of Eclanum and la, is one of the
earliest Christian wedding poems that has survived.
There is no proper life of St
Paulinus of early date, but we have a letter of Uranius describing his death
and a short notice by St Gregory of Tours. But in Paulinus's own correspondence
and in the references of contemporaries we have a good deal of biographical
material which has been used in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. v. Another
source which has only become available in comparatively recent times is the
Life of Melania the Younger, preserved both in a Greek and a Latin text,
which may be best consulted in the edition of Cardinal Rampolla, Santa Melania Giuniore (1905). There
are modern biographies by A. Buse, F. Lagrange and A. Baudrillart, and a
good article in DCB., vol. iv, pp. 234-245, as well as in DTC., vol. xii,
cc. 68-7J. See, further, G. Boissier, La
Fin du Paganisme, vol. ii, pp. 49-103; F. de Labriolle, La Correspondance d'Ausone et de Paulin
(1910); C. Weyman, Beiträge zur Geschichte
de, christ.-Latein. Poesie (1926), pp. 92-103; P. Fabre, S. Paulin et l'amitie chrétienne
(1947); and P. de Labriolle, Histoire de
la littérature chrétienne (1947), p. 877.
Apud Nolam, Campániæ urbem, natális beáti Paulíni,
Epíscopi et Confessóris, qui ex nobilíssimo et opulentíssimo
factus est pro Christo pauper et húmilis, et, quod supérerat,
seípsum pro rediméndo víduæ fílio, quem
Wándali, Campánia devastáta, captívum in Africam
abdúxerant, in servitútem dedit. Cláruit autem
non solum eruditióne et copiósa vitæ sanctitáte,
sed étiam poténtia advérsus dæmones; ejúsque
præcláras laudes sancti Ambrósius, Hierónymus,
Augustínus et Gregórius Papa scriptis suis celebrárunt.
Ipsíus corpus, póstea Benevéntum et inde Romam translátum,
tandem, Summi Pontíficis Pii Décimi jussu, Nolæ restitútum
fuit.
At Nola in Campania, the birthday of blessed
Paulinus, bishop and confessor, who, although a noble and wealthy man, made
himself poor and humble for Christ; and what is still more admirable, became
a slave to liberate a widow's son who had been carried to Africa by the Vandals
when they devastated Campania. He was celebrated, not only for his
learning and great holiness of life, but also for his power over demons.
His great merit has been extolled by Saints Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and
Gregory in their writings. His body was translated to Benevento, and
later to Rome, but was taken back to Nola by the order of Pope Pius X.
Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus was
born 354 to a wealthy Roman family at Bordeaux,
in Gaul. His father was the praetorian
prefect of Gaul who made certain that his son received a sound education.
Paulinus studied rhetoric and poetry and learned from the famed poet Ausonius. He subsequently
became a well known lawyer.
He became the prefect of Rome, married a Spanish
noble lady, Therasia, and led a luxury filled life.
Following the death of his son a week after his birth
in 390, Paulinus retreated from the world and came to be baptized a Christian
by St. Delphinus in Aquitaine.
With Therasia, he gave away their property and vast fortune to
the poor and to the Church, and they pursued a life of deep austerity and
mortifications.
About 393, he was forcibly ordained a priest by the
bishop of Barcelona. Soon after, he moved to an estate near the
tomb of St. Nola near Naples, Italy There, he and his wife practiced rigorous
asceticism and helped to establish a community of monks. To the consternation
of his other relatives, he sold all of their estates in Gaul and gave the
money to the poor. He also helped to build a church at Fondi, a basilica
near the tomb of St. Felix, a hospital
for travelers, and an aqueduct.
Many of the poor and sick he brought into his own
house, and he lived as a hermit with several of his friends. In 409, he was
elected bishop of Nola, serving in this office with great distinction until
his death. He was a friend and correspondent of virtually all
of the leading figures of his era, including Sts. Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Martin of Tours,
and Pope Anastasius I. Paulinus was also a gifted
poet, earning the distinction of being one of the foremost Christian Latin
poets of the Patristic period, an honor he shares with Prudentius. Paulinus
retained much of the style of the old classical poets, and composed most
of the poems in honor of the feast of St. Felix. He is the author of a body
of extant works including fifty one letters, thirty two poems, and several
prose pieces.
Paulinus of Nola
B (RM) Born in Bordeaux, Aquitaine, France, c. 354; died 431. Saint Paulinus
of Nola (and Thomas More below) is one of the few male saints with whom I
feel an absolute affinity, even though there are others that I admire.
Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus, was the son of
a Roman patrician who was the praetorian prefect in Gaul at the time of Paulinus's
birth. The family owned extensive lands in both Aquitaine and Italy. He was
taught by the poet Ausonius until he was 15, when he went to the University
of Bordeaux to study Roman law, poetry, eloquence, science, and Platonic philosophy.
He became a successful and prominent lawyer.
He was not attracted to the pious life. His father
died when Paulinus was 24, but he continued to live a restrained life even
though he inherited great wealth. At age 25, Emperor Gratian nominated him
a Roman senator to fill an unexpired term as a consul of Rome. At age 26,
he was made governor of Campania and took up residence in Nola in the mountains
east of Naples. Paulinus was apparently devoid of vanity and cared little
for honors.
His first year in Nola was decisive. On the Feast
of Saint Felix, patron of Campania, he saw several sick people healed at
the tomb of the saint--disturbing to a pagan philosopher. This was the time
of his initial conversion to Christianity. He sacrificed his first beard
to Saint Felix, resigned his post as governor, and returned to his awaiting
mother.
He travelled to Spain and brought back his strong-willed
wife Teresa, who was almost as wealthy as he. At age 36, the rich, erudite
pagan philosopher was baptized by Saint Delphinus, bishop of Bordeaux, after
the witness of his wife Theresa's life. (His brother was baptized at the
same time.) He later wrote that by marrying her, God gained two souls, ".
. . by the merits of the woman, Thou didst compensate for the hesitations
of the man."
Many men, who afterwards became saints, were the instruments
through which the grace of God operated on him: Martin of Tours, Ambrose,
Augustine, Victricius of Rouen, Jerome, Amadeus of Bordeaux, and Sulpicius
Severus.
Saint Martin of Tours miraculously cured his eye affliction.
He had religious talks with Saint Victricius and Saint Amadeus, and with
his friend Sulpicius Severus, who converted at about the same time. Above
all, Saint Ambrose's sermons finally led him to place himself under instruction.
Possibly Augustine's conversion and baptism two years before his own helped
move his stubborn will. His wife Theresa's prayers and merits were also not
without effect.
Paulinus and Theresa sold their estates in Gaul and
divided the money among the poor and their slaves. His ancient tutor tried
to dissuade him from doing this. His pagan friends saw it as a desertion
of the Empire at a critical time. Theresa approved and showed it by selling
her own lands when they got to Spain and using the proceeds to redeem captives
and free debtors.
Then they had a son who died soon after baptism at
8 days old. Paulinus thought this might be because of Theresa's physical
condition and that it would be an act of charity to relinquish his rights
as a husband. They both took vows of chastity and lived together as siblings
for the rest of their lives.
Three years after
his baptism, the populace of Barcelona physically carried him off to the
bishop and begged that he be ordained to the priesthood, to which the bishop
and Paulinus--under the condition that he not be tied to a parish or diocese--agreed.
The year following his ordination they were the guests
of Saint Ambrose, who instructed Paulinus in priestly duties. Then they visited
Rome, where they received a cold reception. (Eight years previously, in a
letter to Bishop Himerius of Taragona, Pope Siricius laid down seven regulations
against married priests (cf. Denzinger's Enchiridion Symbolorum, page 89).)
From Rome they retired to Nola to live a severely ascetic life near the tomb
of his beloved Saint Felix.
In 394, Saint Augustine wrote to them with admiration
for the example of Theresa. Saint Ambrose, in his 30th Epistle to Sabinus,
wrote in praise of their actions.
Paulinus could see the Empire was falling apart from
within and without, and that the Catholic Church was the only institution
that possessed any vitality. He chose to attach himself to the invincible
kingdom of Christ. Paulinus and Theresa made their home at Nola in a hospice
for the poor and sick, which they had founded when they sold their estates.
Theresa lived on the first floor and acted as matron.
The second floor was a monastery, where Paulinus and other hermits
established one of the first monastic centers in the West--a century before
Saint Benedict.
The monastery had strict rules
of silence and fasting, a diet consisting mostly of vegetables, shaved heads,
wore hair-cloth with a rope girdle, slept on the floor, and self-mortification.
Paulinus often ill, but philosophically said "the weakness of the body is
advantageous to the spirit, which rejoices in the losses of the flesh." Paulinus
lived 78 years. He found that to live according to faith required much more
than avoiding sin.
Saint Paulinus was an active apostle for justice and charity through
his oral teaching and letters. He ransomed many captives and fed those left
without possessions during the invasions of Alaric the Goth.
In 410, shortly before Theresa's death, the people of Nola chose
him for their bishop.
He proved to be
one of the best prelates of his time. Paulinus continued to live in the monastery.
He built an aqueduct for Nola, basilicas at Fondi and Nola. Msgr. Baudrillart,
a modern biographer, said, "to instruct one another, to edify, to assist
in the exercise of charity--such were in his eyes the true fruits of Christian
friendship." He was a friend of both Saint Jerome and Saint Rufinus, but
would not take sides in their dispute.
Paulinus integrated head and heart. His letters show
humility, an affectionate disposition, cheerful humor, charity, self-discipline,
and contemplation. Most of his poems and a number of his letters still exist.
They show him to have been a Christian poet of distinction as well as a fluent
writer of prose. Some of his poetry can be found in Medieval Latin Lyrics
translated by Helen Waddell (Benedictines, S. Delany, Encyclopedia).
Paulinus von Nola
Orthodoxe Kirche: 23. Januar Katholische und Evangelische Kirche: 22. Juni
Paulinus wurde um 353 in Bordeaux geboren. Vermutlich
381 wurde er Statthalter in Kampanien (Süditalien). Mehrere Leiderfahrungen,
insbesondere der Tod seines Sohnes, bestimmten ihn, sein Leben nach dem Vorbild
Martins auszurichten. Er beendete seine politische Laufbahn. ließ sich
in Barcelona zum Priester weihen und ging mit seiner Frau nach Nola in Kampanien.
Hier lebte er am Grab des hl. Felix (Gedenktag 14.1.) wie ein Mönch
in einer asketischen Priestergemeinschaft und verwendete seinen Besitz zum
Bau eines Hospitals, einer Wasserleitung und einer Kirche. Um 409 wurde er
zum Bischof von Nola ernannt. Der Durchzug der Goten unter Alarich bewog ihn,
alles zu geben, was er hatte. Schließlich bot er sich selbst als Lösegeld
an, um einen Kriegsgefangenen auszulösen. Alarich erfuhr, wer Paulinus
war und schenkte allen Gefangenen aus seinem Bistum die Freiheit. Paulinus
wurde schon zu Lebzeiten wie ein Heiliger verehrt. Er starb am 22.6.431 in
Nola. Sein Leichnam kam später nach Benevent, dann nach Rom, wurde aber
1908 wieder nach Nola überführt. Von dem Briefwechsel mit großen
Christen seiner Zeit sind 49 Briefe erhalten, ebenso 33 Gedichte.
In art, Saint Paulinus is a bishop, with a shovel
(his emblem), giving alms. He may also be shown preaching to the poor or
writing (Roeder).
|
Samaríæ, in Palæstína,
sanctórum mille quadringentórum octogínta Mártyrum,
qui, sub Rege Persárum Chósroa, pro Christi fide interfécti
sunt.
At Samaria in Palestine, fourteen hundred and
eighty holy martyrs, under Chosroes, king of Persia.
In Monte Ararath pássio sanctórum
Mártyrum decem míllium, crucifixórum.
On Mt. Ararat, the martyrdom of ten thousand
holy martyrs, who were crucified.
|
5th v. Saint John
I bishop of Naples translated the body of Saint Januarius from
Puteoli to Naples, "whom blessed Paulinus, bishop of Nola, called to the
heavenly kingdom" B (RM)
Neápoli, in Campánia, sancti Joánnis Epíscopi,
quem beátus Paulínus, Epíscopus Nolánus, ad cæléstia
regna vocávit.
At Naples in Campania, St. John, bishop, who was called
to the kingdom of heaven by blessed Paulinus, bishop of Nola.
Saint John was the bishop of Naples who translated
the body of Saint Januarius from Puteoli
to Naples, "whom blessed Paulinus, bishop of Nola, called to the heavenly
kingdom" according to the Roman Martyrology (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
|
552 Saint Aaron
of Brittany hermit Abbot joined by a group of disciples Among them Saint Malo
(AC)
The Briton Saint Aaron crossed into Armorica (Brittany) and lived as a hermit
on the island of Cesambre, called Saint Aaron until 1150 and now Saint Malo.
The island was separated from Aleth by an arm of the sea, which the tide
at low water left dry twice daily. Eventually Aaron was joined by a group
of disciples and became their abbot. Among the disciples was Saint Malo, who arrived from Wales about
the middle of the 6th century and was warmly welcomed. A parish church in
the diocese of Saint Brieuc bears Aaron's name (Benedictines, Husenbeth).
|
570 Saint Consortia Foundress of a convent endowed by
King Clotaire I of Soissons and the Franks miraculously healed his dying
daughter
In monastério
Cluniacénsi, in Gállia, deposítio sanctæ Consórtiæ
Vírginis.
In the monastery of Cluny, St. Consortia, virgin.
Consortia reportedly cured Clotaire’s daughter of
a mortal illness. She has long been venerated at Cluny, in France, but nothing
is known of her life.
Consortia V (RM) Saint Consortia is said to have been the foundress of a
convent generously endowed by King Clotaire out of gratitude for her having
miraculously healed his dying daughter. She was venerated at Cluny, but nothing
certain is known about her (Benedictines).
|
835
John IV bishop of Naples San Giovanni d'Acquarola, or "the Peacemaker,"
B (AC)
Locally known as San Giovanni d'Acquarola, or "the Peacemaker," Saint John
was the bishop of Naples, where he is now venerated as one of the patrons
of the city (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
|
869 Saint Rotrudis
of Saint-Omer either daughter or sister of Blessed Charlemagne V (AC)
The relics of Saint Rotrudis were enshrined at the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Bertin
at Saint-Omer. According to popular belief she was a daughter or sister of
Blessed Charlemagne (Benedictines).
|
1125 Blessed Lambert
Saint-Bertin 40th abbot introduced the Cluniac observances OSB Abbot (AC)
From childhood Lambert was trained in the monastic life at the Benedictine
abbey of Saint-Bertin, of which he eventually became the 40th abbot. He finished
the abbey church and introduced the Cluniac observances [ independent of
all but papal jurisdiction] (Benedictines).
|
1164 Saint Eberhard
(Everard) bishop of Salzburg greatest supporter of pope in Germany
during investiture controversy OSB B (AC)
ST EBERHARD, ARCHBISHOP OF SALZBURG (A.D. 1164)
ST EBERHARD was the son of a very religious mother of noble family, and was
born at Nuremberg between the years 108S and 1090. After being educated by
the Benedictines, he received a canonry in Bamberg cathedral, which he soon
resigned to enter the local abbey of Mount St Michael. The chapter, however,
would not allow him to remain there, and the dean insisted upon sending him
to Paris to study for a master's degree. He completed the course with distinction
and then returned home with his desire for the religious life as strong as
ever. Further opposition being useless, Bishop Otto and the canons consented
to his entering the monastery of Prüfening, near Regensburg. There he
found a spiritual guide after his own heart in the person of Abbot Erbo,
whom his contemporaries modestly described as a second Elias and John the
Baptist. From Prüfening Eberhard was called to become the superior of
a new abbey which his two brothers and his sister had founded at Biburg,
between Ingoldstein and Regensburg.
Under his wise rule the young community increased rapidly in numbers and
developed a fervent spiritual life. His virtues and ability were so generally
recognized that when in 1146 the see of Salzburg fell vacant, he was chosen
to fill the archiepiscopal chair. Eberhard began his episcopate by settling
a dispute between the chapter and two abbeys, and in the following years
he was constantly acting as mediator between contending parties. But the
main object to which he devoted his energies was the moral improvement of
his people, clergy as well as laity, and in particular he spared no effort
to bring about the abolition of certain abuses which had become widespread
in the archdiocese. He was so successful that the Emperor Conrad III, when
passing through Salzburg, publicly congratulated him upon the result of his
reforming ordinances.
The saint held two synods, at one of which he gave expression to his devotion
to the Mother of God by enacting that her greater festivals should be honoured
with octaves. In the struggle which took place between Frederick Barbarossa
and Pope Alexander III, St Eberhard was one of the very few German dignitaries
who refused to recognize the antipope "Victor IV". Frederick was annoyed
at his attitude, but so great was the prestige of the holy archbishop that
he made no attempt to coerce him or interfere with him in any way. The last
of St Eberhard's recorded acts was to undertake a journey as peacemaker between
two quarrelsome noblemen. He accomplished his object, but his strength gave
out as he was travelling home, and he died at the Cistercian monastery of
Rein. It was in the year 1164.
A life of Eberhard was written
about the year 1180. It is more accurately edited in Pertz, MGH., Scriptores , vol. xi, pp. 78-84, but
it is also in the Acta Sanctorum,
June, vol. v. St Eberhard was an important figure in the political world
of his day, and in consequence he figures prominently in the pages of those
who discuss the situation created by the anti-papal campaigns of Frederick
Barbarossa. See, for example, Hauck, Kirchengeschichte
Deutschlands, vol. iv, and]. Engel, Schisma Barbarossas im Bisthum Freising
(1930). It is worth noticing that there is no foundation for the statement
that St Eberhard was the author of the tract, Oratio de Hildebrandi antichristiano Imperio.
The cause of Eberhard's canonization was urgently pressed by Archbishop Burkhard
in 1469, but no formal pronouncement was ever reached.
Born at Nuremberg, Germany, 1085; died in Salzburg, Austria, June 11, 1164.
Saint Eberhard was educated by the monks of Michelberg at Bamberg. He obtained
a canonry at Bamberg, which, however, he gave up in order to become a Benedictine
at Prüfening in 1125. In 1133, he was made abbot of Biburg, and in 1147
consecrated bishop of Salzburg.
Eberhard was the greatest supporter of the pope in Germany during the investiture
controversy. In the early Middle Ages, an emperor or other lay prince invested
an abbot or bishop-elect with the ring and staff and received homage before
consecration. Pope Nicholas II condemned the practice in 1059. In 1075, all
lay investiture was forbidden by Pope Gregory VII (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
In art, Saint Eberhard serves the poor at table with his miter and crozier
at his feet. He is venerated in Bamberg and Salzburg (Roeder).
Born to a noble family of Nuremberg, Germany, he was ordained and became
a Benedictine in 1125 at
Pruffening, Germany. As abbot of Biburg near Regensburg, he renewed the community.
He became archbishop of Salzburg in 1146. When Pope Alexander III was faced
with the “Investiture Controversy,” led by Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I
Barbarossa and antipope Victor IV, Eberhard mediated the situation. He died
returning from one peacemaking mission.
|
1277 Peter of
Tarentaise -a simple, humble friar Blessed Pope Innocent V masterly tutelage
of Saint Albert the Great visited on foot all Dominican houses under his care
sent to Paris to replace Thomas Aquinas at the University of Paris succeeded
solving questions of Greek schism establishing short-lived truce OP Pope
(RM)
Romæ beáti Innocéntii
Papæ Quinti, ex Ordine Prædicatórum, Confessóris,
qui ad tuéndam Ecclésiæ libertátem et Christianórum
concórdiam suávi prudéntia adlaborávit.
Cultum autem, ei exhíbitum, Leo Décimus tértius, Póntifex
Máximus, ratum hábuit et confirmávit.
At Rome, blessed
Pope Innocent V, who laboured with mildness and prudence to maintain liberty
for the Church and harmony among the Christians. The veneration paid
to him was approved and confirmed by Pope Leo XIII.
BD INNOCENT V, POPE
(A.D. 1277)
THE first Dominican pope, Innocent V, was baptized Peter, and until his elevation
to the papacy was commonly known as Peter of Tarentaise, from the name of
his birthplace, Tarentaise-en-Forez (Loire).· [He must not be confnsed
with the Cistercian abbot and bishop, St Peter of Tarentaise (May 8).]
When still very young he received the Dominican habit from Bd Jordan of Saxony;
and he became one of the most eminent theologians of his age. After he had
taken his master's degree, he was given a chair in the University of Paris,
although, like his friend and fellow lecturer St Thomas Aquinas, he had not
yet entered upon his thirtieth year; and in 1259 he was associated with St
Albertus Magnus, St Thomas and two other members of the order in drawing
up a curriculum of study for the schools, which still remains the basis of
Dominican teaching. Besides lecturing orally to his students Peter wrote
books: some of them-notably his commentaries on the Pauline Epistles and
on the Sentences of Peter Lombard-were as highly esteemed by his contemporaries
as the writings of the Angelic Doctor himself.
Scholar though he was, Peter of Tarentaise was endowed with remarkable practical
qualities which qualified him to be a ruler of men, and at the age of thirty-seven
he was appointed prior provincial for France. Visitations of the fifty houses
under his control entailed much travelling, all of which he did on foot;
and in every priory he strove, generally with success, to maintain the discipline
of the rule. In the meantime requests were so continually being made for
his return to Paris (where he had been involved in difficulties) that, when
St Thomas was summoned to Rome by the pope, the general chapter sent Peter
to replace him in the University of Paris. In 1272 he was appointed archbishop
of Lyons by Pope Gregory X, who had formerly attended his lectures in Paris
and who held him in great esteem; and in the very next year Peter was promoted
to the cardinal bishopric of Ostia, but with the duty of administering Lyons,
which city the pope had chosen as the meeting-place for the ecumenical council
he was about to summon for the purpose of healing the Greek schism.
From the opening of the first session, in May, 1274, Cardinal Peter took
a prominent part in its deliberations. Twice he preached to the delegates,
and it was largely through his clear and scholarly enunciation of Catholic
dogma that the Greek envoys were led to give their adhesion and assent. The
council broke up amid general rejoicings at its success (which was very short-lived),
marred only by the death of St Bonaventure. His panegyric was preached by
Peter of Tarentaise, who chose as his text the words, "I grieve for thee,
my brother Jonathan", and who spoke of the great Franciscan in such affecting
terms that many of those present were moved to tears. With the appointment
of a new archbishop Peter's work at Lyons ended, and he was free to return
to Italy with the pope and the other cardinals. Consequently, he was with
Bd Gregory X when he died, shortly after their arrival at Arezzo in January,
1276.
In the election which ensued immediately no candidate seems to have been
seriously considered but Peter of Tarentaise, and he was thus unanimously
chosen. He took the name of Innocent V. His short pontificate was chiefly
remarkable for his efforts to establish peace among the Italian states which
were rent by internal and external dissensions, and to implement the reunion
with the Byzantines. He was arranging to send envoys to Constantinople to
obtain from the Emperor Michael Palaeologus his confirmation of the pact
agreed to at Lyons, but the delegates never left Italy. With tragic suddenness
all the high hopes which centred in the new pope were dashed to the ground.
Though a man of splendid physique and of a constitution so robust that neither
austerities nor hard work had ever impaired it, he was struck down by a malignant
fever which carried him off in a few days. He died on June 22, 1277, at the
age of fifty-one, after having been pope for only five months. The cultus
of Bd Innocent was confirmed in 1898, and his name added to the Roman Martyrology
as one who "laboured for concord among Christians".
A very full account with indication
of sources is supplied by Mgr Mann in his History of the Popes, .vol. xvi, pp.
1-22. See also Mortier, Histoire des Maîtres
Generaux O.P., vols. i and ii. There are modern lives by J. P. Mothon
(1896), Turinaz (1901), and Bourgeois (1899). But the definitive study is
by M. H. Laurent, Le b. Innocent V et son
temps (1947), in the series "Studi e testi" of the Vatican Library.
Born in Tarentaise-en-Forez, Burgundy, France, in 1245; died
in Rome, June 22, 1277; cultus confirmed by Pope Leo XIII in 1898. Peter
of Tarentaise was barely 10 years old when he was admitted to the Dominican
Order by Blessed Jordan of Saxony as
a boy-novice and sent to Paris to study. Like Saint Thomas Aquinas, Blessed
Ambrose of Siena, and other luminaries of the 13th century, he fell under
the masterly tutelage of Saint Albert the
Great.
He received his master's degree in theology in 1259, then he taught
for some years in Paris, where he contributed a great deal to the order's
reputation for learning. He wrote a number of commentaries on Scripture and
the Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, but he devoted most of
his time to the classroom. He soon became famous as a preacher and theologian,
and in 1259, with a committee including his friend Thomas Aquinas, composed
a plan of study that is still the basis of Dominican teaching.
At age 37, Peter began the long years of responsibility in the
various offices he was to hold in his lifetime as prior provincial of France.
He visited on foot all Dominican houses under his care, and was then sent
to Paris to replace Saint Thomas Aquinas at the University of Paris.
Twice provincial, he was chosen archbishop of Lyons in 1272 and administered
the affairs of the diocese for some time, though he was never actually consecrated
for that see.
The next year Peter
was appointed cardinal-archbishop of Ostia, Italy, while still administering
the see of Lyons. With the great Franciscan, Saint Bonaventure, assumed much of the
labor of the Council of Lyons to which Saint
Thomas was hastening at the time of his death. To the problems of
clerical reform and the healing of the Greek schism the two gifted friars
devoted their finest talents.
Before the council was over,
Bonaventure died, and Peter of Tarentaise preached the funeral panegyric.
In January 1276, Peter was with Blessed Pope Gregory X when the latter
died at Arezzo. The conclave was held in the following month. On January
21, 1276, Peter of Tarentaise received every vote except his own. With a
sad heart, he left the seclusion of his religious home to ascend the Fisherman's
Throne as Pope Innocent V.
The reign of the new pope, which promised so much to a harassed
people, was to be very brief. But, imbued with the spirit of the early apostles,
he crowded a lifetime into the short space given him.
He instigated a new crusade against the Saracens and began reforms
in the matter of regular observance. He actually succeeded in solving many
of the questions of the Greek schism and in establishing a short-lived truce.
He struggled to reconcile the Guelphs and Ghibellines, restored peace between
Pisa and Lucca, and acted as mediator between Rudolph of Hapsburg and Charles
of Anjou. He restored the custom of personally assisting at choral functions
with the canons of the Lateran, and he inspired all with the love that animated
his heart.
Had the measures
begun by Innocent V had time to be fully realized, he might have accomplished
great good for the Church; he did at least open the way for those who were
to follow him. Death stopped the hand of the zealous pope when he had reigned
only five months. Like his friends Saint
Thomas and Saint Bonaventure,
he was untouched by the honors and dignity with which he had been favored,
and death found him exactly what he had been for more than 40 years--a simple,
humble friar (Benedictines, Delaney, Dorcy).
Pope Bl. Innocent V (PETRUS
A TARENTASIA)
Born in Tarentaise, towards 1225; elected at Arezzo, 21 January,
1276; died at Rome, 22 June, 1276. Tarentaise on the upper Isère in
south-eastern France was certainly his native province, and the town of Champagny
was in all probability his birthplace. At the age of sixteen he joined the
Dominican Order. After completing his education, at the University of Paris,
where he graduated as master in sacred theology in 1259, he won distinction
as a professor in that institution, and is known as "the most famous doctor",
"Doctor famosissimus" For some time provincial of his order in France, he
became Archbishop of Lyons in 1272 and Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia in 1273.
He played a prominent part at the Second Ecumenical Council of Lyons (1274),
in which he delivered two discourses to the assembled fathers and also pronounced
the funeral oration on St. Bonaventure. Elected as successor to Gregory X,
whose intimate adviser he was, he assumed the name of Innocent V and was
the first Dominican pope. His policy was peaceable. He sought to reconcile
Guelphs and Ghibellines in Italy, restored peace between Pisa and Lucca,
and mediated between Rudolph of Hapsburg and Charles of Anjou. He likewise
endeavoured to consolidate the union of the Greeks with Rome concluded at
the Council of Lyons. He is the author of several works dealing with philosophy,
theology and canon law, some of which are still unpublished. The principal
among them is his "Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard" (Toulouse,
1652). Four philosophical treatises: "De unitate formæ", "De materia
caeligli", "De æternitate mundi", "De intellectu et voluntate", are
also due to his pen. A commentary on the Pauline Epistles frequently published
under the name of Nicholas of Gorran (Cologne, 1478) is claimed for him by
some critics.
|
1535 St.
John Fisher confessor to Lady Margaret Beaufort mother of Henry VII also
tutored Prince Henry who became Henry VIII refused to render allegiance to the King as
the Head of the Church of England
Londíni in Anglia, sancti Joánnis Fisher, Epíscopi Roffénsis
et Cardinális, qui pro fide cathólica et Románi Pontificis
primátu, jubénte Henríco Octávo Rege, decollátus
est.
At London in England, on Tower Hill, St. John Fisher,
bishop of Rochester and cardinal of the Holy Roman Church. For the
defence of the Catholic faith and the primacy of the Roman Pontiff he was
beheaded by order of King Henry VIII.
ST JOHN FISHER, BISHOP OF ROCHESTER
AND CARDINAL, MARTYR (A.D. 1535)
BEVERLEY, in Yorkshire, from which one St John, in the eighth
century, derived his surname, was the native place nearly eight hundred years
later of another and perhaps a greater, viz. St John Fisher, bishop, cardinal
and martyr. Born in 1469, the son of a small mercer who died when his children
were very young, John Fisher was sent to Cambridge University at the age
of fourteen. There he distinguished himself greatly in his studies, was elected
a fellow of Michaelhouse (since merged into Trinity), and was ordained priest
by special permission when he was only twenty-two. He became successively
senior proctor, doctor of divinity, master of Michaelhouse, and vice-chancellor
of the university. In 1502 he resigned his mastership to become the chaplain
of the king's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby.
She appears first to have made his acquaintance seven years earlier, when
as senior proctor he had visited the court at Greenwich on business; and,
like everyone else who knew him, she WdS deeply impressed by his scholarship
and by his sanctity. She was herself a capable and learned woman of great
wealth, who, during the lifetime of three husbands, had been involved in
many political intrigues: now finally a widow, she vowed to dedicate her
remaining years to God under the direction of Dr Fisher.
Under his guidance she made a noble use of her fortune. By founding
Christ's College and St John's College, Cambridge, to supersede earlier and
decadent institutions; by establishing there, as well as at Oxford, a Lady
Margaret divinity chair, and by other princely gifts, she has come to be
regarded-and justly so-as the greatest benefactress Cambridge has ever known.
The university's debt to St John Fisher is not so universally recognized.
When he went to Cambridge its scholarship had sunk to a low ebb: no Greek
or Hebrew was taught, and the library had been reduced to 300 volumes. Not
only did all the administrative work in connection with Lady Margaret's benefactions
fall upon his shoulders during her life and after her death, but he did much,
entirely on his own initiative, to foster learning in the university. He
endowed scholarships, he re-introduced Greek and Hebrew into the curriculum,
and he brought Erasmus over to teach and to lecture.
In 1504 he was elected chancellor of the University of Cambridge-a
post which he continued to hold until his death. Later in that same year King
Henry VII nominated him to the bishopric of Rochester, although he was only
thirty-five years of age. He accepted with reluctance an office which added
the cares of a diocese to his work for Cambridge. Nevertheless, he carried
out his pastoral duties with a zeal and thoroughness exceptional in those
days. He held visitations, administered confirmation, disciplined his clergy,
visited the sick poor in their hovels, distributed alms with his own hands,
and exercised generous hospitality. Moreover, he found time to write books
and to continue his studies. He was forty-eight when he began to learn Greek,
and fifty-one when he started upon Hebrew. The sermons he preached in 1509
for the funerals of Henry VII and of Lady Margaret Beaufort have been preserved
to us. Both of them are recognized as English classics of the period; that
on the king is particularly remarkable as a noble and sincere tribute to
the memory of a sovereign, with little trace of the exaggerated and adulatory
language almost universally employed in such circumstances. St John Fisher's
private life was most austere: he limited his sleep to four hours, used the
discipline freely and, though his fare was of the scantiest, he kept a skull
before him at meal-times to remind himself of death. Books were his one earthly
pleasure: and, with a view to bequeathing his books to Cambridge, he formed
a library which was among the finest in Europe.
Personal ambition he had none and, when offered preferment in
the shape of wealthier sees, he refused them, saying that “he would not leave
his poor old wife for the richest widow in England". Because of his learning
and eloquence, he was specially selected to preach against Lutheranism when
it was found to be making headway-particularly in London and in the universities.
He also wrote four weighty volumes against Luther which can claim the distinction
of being the first books to be published in refutation of the new doctrines.
These and other literary works helped to spread his fame abroad as well as
at home. But when a Carthusian monk afterwards congratulated him on the service
he had thus rendered to the Church, he expressed his regret that the time
he had devoted to writing had not been spent in prayer: prayer, he thought,
would have done more good and was of greater merit. Such was the man whom
the Emperor Charles V's ambassador described as "the paragon of Christian
bishops for learning and holiness", concerning whom young King Henry VIII
was wont to boast that no other prince or kingdom had so distinguished a
prelate. With unclouded vision John Fisher apprehended the evils of the time
and the dangers that threatened the Church of God. He was himself a reformer,
but of abuses and evils, not a deformer of religious truth. At a synod called
by Cardinal Wolsey in 1518 he boldly protested against the worldliness, the
laxity and the vanity of the higher clergy, the greater part of whom had
won their preferments through secular service to the state or by private
interest. Because, unlike them, he was not trying to serve two masters, he
had no hesitation, some nine years later, in upholding the validity of King
Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon when other men in high office were
temporizing or yielding.
He was chosen to be one of the queen's counsellors in the nullity
suit begun before Cardinal Campeggio at Blackfriars in 1529, and he proved
to be her ablest champion. In an eloquent speech before the court he demonstrated
that the marriage was valid and that it could be dissolved by no power, human
or divine, winding up with the reminder that the Baptist of old had died
in defence of the marriage tie. To his arguments, embodied in literary form
and presented to the king, Henry sent a furious reply, which with Fisher's
marginal comments may still be seen at the Record Office. Shortly afterwards
the case was recalled to Rome and Fisher's immediate connection with it ceased.
He had upheld the sanctity of marriage: he now became the champion of the
rights of the Church and the supremacy of the Pope. As a member of the House
of Lords he denounced the measures against the clergy which were being forced
through the Commons: "With them", he exclaimed, "is nothing but Down with
the Church! ,,, He uttered another great protest in Convocation when that
assembly was called upon to agree that Henry VIII was head of the Church
in England. To him it was due that the words "So far as the law of Christ
allows" were added to the form of assent that was eventually signed, but
he regarded even that as too much in the nature of a compromise.
The warnings of friends and the threats of his enemies were
not necessary to bring home to Bishop Fisher the danger he now ran by his
opposition to the ruling powers. Twice already he had suffered short terms
of imprisonment, at least one attempt was made to poison him, and on another
occasion a shot fired from across the river penetrated his library window.
Then came an unsuccessful effort on the part of Thomas Cromwell to connect
him with the affair of Elizabeth Barton, the "Holy Maid of Kent". Eventually
the passage into law of the bill of succession provided his enemies with
the means of securing his downfall. He was summoned to Lambeth to subscribe
to it, although he was so ill that he fainted on the road between Rochester
and London. To the actual succession he would have been willing to agree,
but he absolutely refused to take the oath in the form presented because
it was so worded as to make it practically an oath of supremacy. "Not that
I condemn any other men's conscience", he had written to Cromwell. "Their
conscience may save them, and mine must save me." For the other bishops took
the oath. John of Rochester was immediately arrested and conveyed to the
Tower.
An act of attainder of misprision
of treason was then passed against the prisoner; he was declared to be degraded
from his office and his see was pronounced vacant. He was sixty-six years
of age, but so reduced by physical ill-health, by his austerities, and by
all he had gone through that he looked more like a man of eighty-six. His
wasted body, we are told, could scarcely bear the weight of his clothes.
Three years earlier Cardinal Pole had reckoned him a dying man, and he afterwards
expressed his wonder that Fisher should have survived the ordeal of a ten-months'
imprisonment in the Bell Tower. In November 1534, a second act of attainder
was passed upon him, but he still lingered on in prison. By sending him the
cardinal's hat, six months later, Pope Paul III infuriated Henry VIII and
hastened the end. "Let the pope send him a hat", the king exclaimed, "I will
so provide that whensoever it cometh he shall wear it on his shoulders, for
head he shall have none to set it on." After that the result of his so-called
trial was a foregone conclusion, for the king's will was law. Though some
of the judges wept when the sentence was declared, John Fisher was condemned
to death on June 17, 1535.
Five days later, at five in the morning, he was roused with
the intelligence that he was to be executed that day. He asked to be allowed
to rest a little longer and he slept soundly for two hours. He then dressed,
putting on a fur tippet "to keep me warm for the while until the very time
of execution"; then he took his little New Testament, and, with great difficulty
owing to his excessive weakness, went down the steps to the entrance from
whence he was conveyed in a chair to the Tower gate. There, as he leant against
a wall before proceeding to the place of execution, he opened his book with
a prayer for some word of comfort. The first words he saw were, it is said,
those spoken by our Lord before His passion; "This is life everlasting that
they may know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.
I have glorified thee upon the earth; I have finished the work that thou
gavest me to do." Thus fortified, he walked up Tower Hill, mounted the scaffold
unassisted, and in the customary terms pardoned his executioner. As he stood
up to address the crowd his tall emaciated figure made him appear like a
living skeleton. With a clear voice he said that he was dying for the faith
of Christ's holy Catholic Church, and he asked the people to pray that he
might be steadfast to the end. After he had recited the Te Deum and the psalm
In te Domine speravi, he was blindfolded, and with one blow from the axe
his head was severed from his body. Henry's vindictive spirit pursued the
martyr even beyond his death. His body, after lying exposed all day, was thrust
without shroud or rites into a hole in All Hallows Barking churchyard, and
his head was impaled for fourteen days on London Bridge with the heads of
the Carthusian martyrs, seeming "as though it had been alive, looking upon
the people coming into London". A fortnight later it was thrown into the
river, to make room for More's.
In May 1935, almost exactly four hundred years after his death,
John Fisher was solemnly numbered among the saints, together with his friend
and fellow martyr, Sir Thomas More; and on July 9 the feast of these two
martyrs is kept together throughout England and Wales, and in the Scottish
diocese of Dunkeld.
It might be said that to a very
large extent the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of
Henry VIII, published by the Record Office, supply the best materials for
the life of St John Fisher, but there is also an important biography written
by one who was in part a contemporary. In 1891-93 an accurate edition of
it, based upon a collation of the available manuscripts and of the Latin
translation, was produced by the Bollandist, Fr van Ortroy, and printed in
the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. x
and vol. xii. Another text was printed in 1915 by the Early English Text Society.
Both these preserved the original spelling, but in 1935 an edition for popular
perusal with modernized spelling was brought out, together with an excellent
introduction and occasional notes, by Fr Philip Hughes. The author of this
biography was not, as was for a long time supposed, Richard Hall, though
it was he who made the Latin version, but, most probably, Dr John Young,
vice-chancellor of Cambridge in Mary's reign. It seems to have been written
some time after 1567. But nearly all the materials available for Fisher's
life have been utilized in the great work of Fr T. Bridgett; his Life of john Fisher (3rd ed., 1902) is
extremely thorough, discerning and spiritual, altogether a model biography.
See also the admirable lecture of E. A. Benians, entitled John Fisher (1935); N. M. Wilby's popular
sketch (1929); R. L. Smith, John Fisher
and Thomas More (1935). The E.E.T.S. has published Bishop Fisher's English Works (pt. i,
ed. J. E. B. Mayor, 1876; pt. ii, ed. R. Bayne, 1915).
St. John Fisher was born 1459 in Beverly, Yorkshire, in 1459,
and educated at Cambridge, from which he received his Master of Arts degree
in 1491. He occupied the vicarage of Northallerton, 1491-1494; then he became
proctor of Cambridge University. In 1497, he was appointed confessor to Lady
Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII, and became closely associated in
her endowments to Cambridge; he created scholarships, introduced Greek and
Hebrew into the curriculum, and brought in the world famous Erasmus as professor
of Divinity and Greek. In 1504, he became Bishop of Rochester and Chancellor
of Cambridge, in which capacity he also tutored Prince Henry who was to become
Henry VIII.
St. John was dedicated to the welfare of his diocese and his
university. From 1527, this humble servant of God actively opposed the King's
divorce proceedings against Catherine, his wife in the sight of God, and
steadfastly resisted the encroachment of Henry on the Church. Unlike the
other Bishops of the realm, St. John refused to take the oath of succession
which acknowledged the issue of Henry and Anne as the legitimate heir to
the throne, and he was imprisoned in the tower in April 1534. The next year
he was made a Cardinal by Paul III and Henry retaliated by having him beheaded
within a month. A half hour before his execution, this dedicated scholar
and churchman opened his New Testament for the last time and his eyes fell
on the following words from St. John's Gospel: "Eternal life is this: to
know You, the only true God, and Him Whom You have sent, Jesus Christ. I
have given You glory on earth by finishing the work You gave me to do. Do
You now, Father, give me glory at Your side". Closing the book, he observed:
"There is enough learning in that to last me the rest of my life."
John Fisher of Rochester BM
(RM) Born at Beverley, Yorkshire, England, 1469; died on Tower Hill, London,
on June 22, 1535; canonized in 1935; feast day formerly on June 13 (Roman
calendar) and July 9 (locally).
"Had you but tasted one drop of the sweetness
which inebriates the souls of those religious from their worship of this Sacrament,
you would never have written as you have, nor have apostatized from the faith
that you formerly professed. --John Fisher, writing to the bishop of Winchester
The son of a textile merchant who died while John was still a
boy, Saint John Fisher was a Catholic of high ideals. He was equally distinguished
as a humanistic scholar, a fosterer of sound learning in others, and a faithful
bishop. Educated at Michaelhouse at Cambridge (since merged into Trinity)
from age 14, forever afterwards he was connected with the life of the university.
Fisher was ordained a priest under a special dispensation at the age of 22.
He became a doctor of divinity, master of Michaelhouse, and vice chancellor.
In 1502, he resigned his mastership to become the chaplain of
the king's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, countess of Richmond and Derby.
Under his direction, Lady Margaret founded Christ's College and Saint John's
College at Cambridge, and established there and at Oxford a Lady Margaret
divinity chair. Because of this and other princely gifts, she has come to
be regarded as Cambridge's greatest benefactress.
Fisher's contributions have not been as readily recognized. He
was the first to fill the divinity chair at Cambridge. But more important
than that, he himself endowed scholarships, provided for Greek and Hebrew
in the curriculum, and engaged his friend, the famous humanist, Erasmus as
a professor of divinity and Greek at a time was the school's scholarship
was at its lowest ebb. Before that no Greek or Hebrew was taught, and the
library had been reduced to 300 volumes. In 1504, Fisher was elected chancellor
of the university. As such he did much to further the growth and progress
of his alma mater, of which he may justly be considered the second founder.
John Fisher lived in the last days of Catholic England and reached
high office under Henry VII. After serving as chaplain to his patron Margaret
Beaufort, he was appointed bishop of Rochester in 1504. He was only 35 years
old, young to be a bishop. He accepted the office warily, as it added greatly
to his responsibilities (he was still university chancellor until his death).
It was the smallest and poorest diocese in England, but so great was his
love for it that, later, he refused the richer sees of Ely and Lincoln, saying
he "would not leave his poor old wife for the richest widow in England."
The climate was so damp and the state of his palace so ruinous that Erasmus,
when staying with him, was appalled; yet for 30 years Fisher chose to remain
there and was one of the most faithful of the English bishops of the period.
Fisher was
a zealous and thorough pastor. He regularly made visitations, administered
confirmation, disciplined his clergy, visited the sick poor, and distributed
alms with his own hands. His personal life was strict and simple. "He kept
a good table for every one but himself." He was such an articulate preacher
that when King Henry VII died in 1509, he preached the funeral sermon, as
he did for Lady Margaret in her turn.
He discharged his public offices with dignity
and courage. His reputation both at home and abroad was that of a great and
distinguished figure. In the words of Erasmus: "There is not in the nation
a more learned man nor a holier bishop." Henry VIII, before Fisher had roused
his vindictive rage, openly gloried "that no other prince or kingdom had
so distinguished a prelate."
During this time, he continued to write books
and pursue his own studies, beginning to learn Greek at age 48, and Hebrew
at 51. Fisher lived austerely, sleeping and eating little, and he kept a
skull in front of him at meals to remind himself of his mortality. He formed
one of the most exceptional libraries in Europe with the intention of bequeathing
it to the university.
Fisher fully realized the urgent need of reform in the church,
from popes and bishops downwards, but was opposed to Lutheran ideas of reform
and wrote four weighty volumes against them. He preached at Paul's Cross
in defense of Christian doctrine when Luther's books were banned and burned.
Yet he preferred prayer and example before controversy.
With the utmost boldness
and not without justification, Fisher censured the clergy at a synod in the
presence of Cardinal Wolsey himself for their corruption, vanity, laxity,
and love of gain. Most of the higher clergy had won their preferments through
secular service to the state or by private interest. As a member of the House
of Lords, Fisher vigorously opposed the government's policy of war and criticized
the measures against the clergy that were being forced through the Commons.
He uttered another great protest in convocation when that assembly was called
upon to agree that Henry VIII was the head of the Church of England. He did
suggest adding to the oath the words, "So far as the law of Christ allows"
which smoothed the path of many who signed. But boldest of all was his uncompromising
attitude to the scandalous divorce of Catherine of Aragon by Henry.
As Queen Catherine's confessor, he appeared on her
behalf before the commissioners at Blackfriars in 1529 and also spoke and
wrote vigorously against it. This infuriated the king and when, later, Fisher
refused to take the Oath of Supremacy acknowledging the king to be head of
the English Church, he was deprived of his bishopric and committed to the
Tower.
The warnings of friends and the threats of
his enemies were not necessary to bring home to Fisher the danger he now
ran by his opposition to the ruling powers. Despite being imprisoned for
two short periods, and being the object of poisoning and a shooting attempt,
Fisher persisted in espousing his views. Thomas Cromwell unsuccessfully tried
to link him with Elizabeth Barton, the 'Holy Maid of Kent,' a nun who had
trances and made personal attacks upon Henry for trying to divorce the queen.
He was summoned to Lambeth, despite being
so ill that he fainted on the road between Rochester and London, to sign
the oath of the bill of succession. He refused, because it was in essence
an oath of supremacy. He was at Rochester at the time he was arrested, and
from the country round people flocked into the city to bid him farewell.
After settling his affairs and making gifts to the poor, he rode bareheaded
through the streets giving his blessing to the crowd.
On his arrival in London, when confronted with
the Oath he replied: "My answer is that forasmuch as mine own conscience
cannot be satisfied, I do absolutely refuse the Oath. I do not condemn any
other men's consciences. Their consciences may save them, and mine must save
me."
In April 1534, the 66-year-old prelate began a 15- month imprisonment
in the Tower of London, his property was confiscated, and he was stripped
of his offices. A confidential messenger from Henry asked him to declare,
for the king's ears alone, his opinion on royal supremacy. His negative opinion
sealed his conviction.
During this time Pope Paul III
named him a cardinal. King Henry was furious, and within a month Fisher was
brought to trial in Westminster Hall, charged with treason in that he had
denied the king's ecclesiastical supremacy and found guilty. Some of the
judges cried as "the most holy and learned prelate in Christendom" was sentenced
to death on June 17, 1535.
On a June morning a few days later, John was awakened at 5:00
a.m. and told that he was to be executed that day. He asked to rest a little
longer and slept for two hours. So frail and emaciated by illness that he
could barely stand, Fisher was carried in a chair from the Tower to the place
of execution.
He courteously thanked his guards for their attentive trouble
and pains. Saying that he was dying for he faith, he asked the people to pray
that he might have courage. He carried his little New Testament, and at Tower
Gate opened it at the words: "This is life eternal, that they may know Thee,
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified
Thee upon the earth, I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do"
(John 17:3- 5).
Closing the book, he said: "Here is learning enough for me to
my life's end." As he mounted the scaffold, facing the morning sun, he lifted
his hands and cried: "They had an eye unto Him, and were lightened; and their
faces were not ashamed." Then kneeling in prayer, he repeated Psalm 31, In
Thee, O Lord, have I put my trust (others say that he died with the words
of the Te Deum on his lips), and was beheaded with an axe.
His friend Thomas More wrote of Saint John of Rochester: "I reckon
in this realm no one man, in wisdom, learning, and long approved virtue together,
meet to be matched and compared with him."
John Fisher was buried in the churchyard of All Hallows, Barking,
without rites or a shroud. His head was exhibited on London Bridge for two
weeks, then was thrown into the Thames (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley,
Gill, Hughes, Reynolds, Surtz, Walsh, White).
In art, Saint John Fisher shown robed as cardinal, with haggard
ascetic features, or with an axe or his hat at his feet (White.)
|
1535 St. Thomas
More Martyr (Patron of Lawyers) 1516 wrote "Utopia" refused to render allegiance
to the King as the Head of the Church of England
Londíni in Anglia, sancti
Joánnis Fisher, Epíscopi Roffénsis et Cardinális,
qui pro fide cathólica et Románi Pontificis primátu,
jubénte Henríco Octávo Rege, decollátus est.
At London
in England, on Tower Hill, St. John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and cardinal
of the Holy Roman Church. For the defence of the Catholic faith and
the primacy of the Roman Pontiff he was beheaded by order of King Henry VIII.
ST THOMAS MORE, MARTYR (A.D. 1535)
AT either end of the medieval
monarchy in England stands the figure of a great martyr: one gave his life
to make the Church in this country safe from royal aggression for three hundred
and fifty years, the other in a vain effort to save it from the like aggression;
each was named Thomas, each was chancellor of the realm, each was a royal
favourite who loved God more than his king; the coincidence is remarkable,
though on closer examination the resemblance seems suddenly to end: yet the
contrast is after all largely one of difference in timebetween the late twelfth
century and the full tide of the Renaissance-and in status; Thomas Becket
was a churchman, Thomas More a layman.
More's father was Sir John More,
barrister-at-Iaw and judge, and he was born of his first wife Agnes, daughter
of Thomas Grainger, in Milk Street, Cheapside, on February 6, 1478. He was
sent as a child to St Antony's School in Threadneedle Street, and at thirteen
was received into the household of Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had
sufficient opinion of his promise to send him to Oxford, where he was entered
at Canterbury College (afterwards absorbed into Christ Church). Sir John
was strict with his son, allowed him money only against bills for necessaries,
and with nothing for himself; if young Thomas grumbled about this (and no
doubt he did), he afterwards saw the sense of it: it had kept him out of
mischief and he was not tempted away from the studies which he loved. But
his father called him home when he had been only two years at the university.
In February 1496, being now eighteen, he was admitted a student of Lincoln's
Inn; he was called to the bar in 1501, and in 1504 he entered Parliament.
He was already bosom friends with Erasmus, Dean Colet was his confessor,
he made Latin epigrams from the Greek Anthology with William Lilly, lectured
on St Augustine's de Civitate Dei at St Lawrence Jewry. He was a brilliant
and successful young man and popular.
On the other hand, he was for
a time very seriously perturbed about his vocation in life. For four years
he lived at the London Charterhouse, and was indubitably drawn to the Carthusian
life; alternatively, the possibility of becoming a Friar Minor engaged his
attention. But he could find no assurance of his calling either to the monastic
life or the secular priesthood; to be an unworthy priest was the last thing
he wanted; and so in the early part of 1505 he married. Nevertheless, though
a man of the world in the good sense of that expression, he had none of that
contempt for asceticism which characterized so many at the Renaissance: from
somewhere about his eighteenth year he wore a hair-shirt (to the amusement
of his daughter-in-law, Anne Cresacre), and used the discipline on Fridays
and vigils; he assisted at Mass every day and daily recited the Little Office.
"I never saw anyone", says Erasmus, "so indifferent about food....Otherwise,
he has no aversion from what gives harmless pleasure to the body."
Thomas More's first wife, "uxorcula
Mori", as he called her, was Jane, the eldest daughter of John Colt of Nether-hall
in Essex. We learn from his son-inlaw, William Roper, that More's mind "most
served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the fairest and
best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both great grief and
some shame also to the eldest to see her younger sister preferred before
her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his fancy toward her,
and soon after married her". That, surely, was an act of pietas rather than
pity and is worth recording both for what it tells about More and also as
an instructive example of the shifting standards of what may be required of
an English gentleman. They were happy together, and they had four children,
Margaret, Elizabeth, Cecilia and John. More's household was a seat of learning
and accomplishment which, from its lack of dilettantism, would today be dubbed
"highbrow"; he was all for educating women, not from any doctrinaire feminism,
but as a reasonable thing, recommended by the prudent and holy ancients,
such as St Jerome and St Augustine, "not to speak of the rest". All the family
and servants met together for night-prayers, and at meals a pericope from
the Scriptures, with a short commentary, was read aloud by one of the children:
this done, discussion and jesting followed; but cards and dicing he forbade
in his house. He endowed a chapel in his parish church of Chelsea, and even
when chancellor would sing in the choir, dressed in a surplice. "More was
used, whenever in his house or in the village he lived in there was a woman
in labour, to begin praying, and so continue until news was brought him that
the delivery had come happily to pass....He used himself to go through the
back lanes and inquire into the state of poor families...He often invited
to his table his poorer neighbours, receiving them...familiarly and joyously;
he rarely invited the rich, and scarcely ever the nobility" (Stapleton, Tres Thomae). But if the rich and great
were rarely seen at his house, such men as Grocyn, Linacre, Colet, Lilly,
Fisher, the religious and learned, not only of London but from the continent
as well, were ever-welcome visitors, and no one was more frequent or more
welcome than Desiderius Erasmus. Attempts have been made to misrepresent
this friendship: some Protestants by maximizing the alleged unorthodoxy of
Erasmus, some Catholics by minimizing the warmth of the friendship. There
is no testimony better than More's own: "For had I found with Erasmus my darling
the shrewd intent and purpose that I find in Tyndale, Erasmus my darling
should be no more my darling. But I find in Erasmus my darling that he detesteth
and abhorreth the errors and heresies that Tyndale plainly teacheth and abideth
by, and therefore Erasmus my darling shall be my darling still."
During his first period of married
life More lived in Bucklersbury, in the parish of St Peter Walbrook. In 1509
Henry VII died. More had led the opposition in Parliament to this king's
monetary exactions, and his success had caused his father to be imprisoned
in the Tower and fined £100. The accession of Henry VIII was to mean
an accession of worldly fortune to the young lawyer, and in the next year
it was presaged by his being elected a reader of Lincoln's Inn and appointed
undersheriff of the City of London; but almost at the same time the "little
Utopia of his own" was abruptly shaken: his beloved wife, Jane Colt, died.
Within a few weeks he had married another, Alice Middleton. Quite a lot of
nonsense has been written about this second and so quick marriage, but the
position is clear. More was a man of sense as well as of sensibility, and
he had four young children on his hands: so he married a widow, seven years
older than himself, an experienced housewife, talkative, kindly and full
of unimaginative common sense. Some writers have tried to see a double martyrdom
for More: but it is no reproach to Mistress Alice that she could not live
up to her second husband; she was no Xanthippe, and probably his only real
complaint (ifhe can be imagined complaining) would be that she did not appreciate
his jokes-an undeniable trial of patience. More now moved from Bucklersbury
to Crosby Place, in what was then Bishopsgate Street Within; he did not go
to his new house in Chelsea until some twelve years later.
In 1516 he finished writing
Utopia. This is not the place
to discuss the significance of that book; it is enough to say with Sir Sidney
Lee that, "More's practical opinion on religion and politics must be sought
elsewhere than in the Utopia". The king and Wolsey were now determined to
have More's services at court; if the idea was not repugnant to him, he was
at least unwilling: he knew too much about kings and courts, and that the
good life was not there. But he did not refuse, and he received a rapid succession
of preferments till he became, in October 1529, lord chancellor, in succession
to the disgraced Wolsey. Contemporary records enable us to see Sir Thomas
from two different sides at this period. Erasmus wrote: "In serious matters
no man's advice is more prized, while if the king wishes to recreate himself,
no man's conversation is gayer. Often there are deep and intricate matters
that demand a grave and prudent judge. More unravels them in such a way that
he satisfies both sides. No one, however, has ever prevailed on him to receive
a gift for his decision. Happy the commonwealth where kings appoint such
officials! His elevation has brought with it no pride...You would say that
he had been appointed the public guardian of all those in need." From a yet
more intimate knowledge, the Carthusian John Bouge wrote in 1535 : "Item,
as for Sir Thomas More, he was my parishioner at London...This Mr More was
my ghostly child; in his confession [he used] to be so pure, so clean, with
great study, deliberation and devotion, I never heard many such. A gentleman
of great learning both in law, art, and divinity...." Yet Sir Thomas was
as good a courtier as a Christian man and a saint can be, and that does not
mean to say he was not a very good one. Nor yet was the friendship with Henry
VIII one-sided: More retained his master's familiar affection,
and never failed in it-but he had no illusions about him: "Son Roper, I may
tell thee, I have no cause to be proud thereof, for if my head would win
him a castle in France, it should not fail to go."
At the time when he was appointed
lord chancellor, Sir Thomas More was engaged in writing against Protestantism,
and particularly in opposition to Tyndale. Though some complained at the
time that his controversial writing was insufficiently solemn, and others
have complained since that it was insufficiently refined, his tone was much
more moderate than was usual in the sixteenth centruy; "integrity and uprightness"
characterized his polemics, and he always preferred ridicule to denunciation
when sober and pitiless argument would not serve. But if More had the best
of the argument, Tyndale was the better writer: More could not match his clear,
terse English and perfect phrasing; he took six pages to say what Tyndale
could say in one. Statements to the contrary notwithstanding, there is no
doubt that More's attitude towards heretics was one of scrupulous fairness
and notable moderation. It was to heresy and not the persons of heretics
that he was opposed and "of all that ever came in my hand for heresy, as
help me God, saving (as I said) the sure keeping of them...had never any
of them any stripe or stroke given them, so much as a fillip on the forehead."
It is interesting, too, to read his view of the then acute question
of free circulation of vernacular Bibles.
He advocated the dissemination
of certain books thereof, but the reading of others should be at the discretion
of each individual's ordinary, who would probably "suffer some to read the
Acts of the Apostles, whom he would not suffer to meddle with the Apocalypse":
just as "a father doth by his discretion appoint which of his children may
for his sadness [i.e. seriousness] keep a knife to cut his meat, and which
shall for his wantonness have his knife taken from him for cutting of his
fingers. And thus am I bold, without prejudice of other men's judgement,
to show you my mind in this matter, how the Scripture might without great
peril, and not without great profit, be brought into our tongue and taken
to lay men and women both, not yet meaning thereby but that the whole Bible
might for my mind be suffered to be spread abroad in English...Among [the
clergy] I have perceived some of the greatest and of the best of their own
minds well inclinable thereto."
When King Henry VIII imposed
on the clergy the acknowledgement of himself as "Protector and Supreme Head
of the Church of England", to which Convocation managed to add, "so far as
the law of Christ allows", More, according to Chapuys, the ambassador of
the emperor, wished to resign his office, but was persuaded to retain it
and also to give his attention to Henry's" great matter". This was the petition
for a declaration of nullity ab initio of his marriage with Catherine of
Aragon, commonly called in English history the king's " divorce". The matter
was involved, both as to the facts and the law, and was one in which men
of good-will might well disagree; More upheld the validity of the marriage,
but was allowed at his own wish to stand aside from the controversy. When
in March 1531 he had to announce the then state of the case to the Houses
of Parliament, he was asked for and refused to give his own opinion. But
the position was fast becoming impossible. In 1532 the king proposed to forbid
the clergy to prosecute heretics or to hold any meeting without his permission,
and in May a parliamentary bill was introduced to withhold from the Holy
See the firstfruits of bishoprics (annates); Sir Thomas opposed all these
measures openly, and the king was greatly angered. On May 16 he accepted
his chancellor's resignation, after he had held office for less than three
years.
The loss of his official salary
reduced More to little better than poverty; he had drastically to reduce
his household and state, and gathering his family around him he explained
the position to them in a good-humoured statement, ending up, "then may we
yet with bags and wallets go a-begging together, and hoping that for pity
some good folk will give us their charity, at every man's door to sing Salve
regin " and so still keep company and be merry together". For eighteen months
he lived very quietly, engaging himself in writing, and he refused to attend
the coronation of Anne Boleyn. His enemies missed no opportunity to harass
him, as when they implicated him in the case of Elizabeth Barton, the "Holy
Maid of Kent", and caused his name to be included in her bill of attainder,
for misprision of treason; but the Lords wished to hear him in his own defence,
which did not suit the king and he withdrew the charge. But the time was
soon at hand. On March 30, 1534, the Act of Succession provided for the taking
of an oath by the king's subjects recognizing succession to the throne in
the offspring of Henry and Anne Boleyn; to which were later added particulars
that his union with Catherine of Aragon had been no true marriage, that his
union with Anne Boleyn was a true marriage, and repudiating the authority
of "any foreign authority, prince or potentate". To oppose the act was high
treason, and only a week before Pope Clement VII had pronounced the marriage
of Henry and Catherine to be valid. Many Catholics took the oath with the
reservation "so far as it be not contrary to the law of God". On April 13
Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, were tendered the oath
before the commission at Lambeth; they refused it. Thomas was committed to
the custody of the Abbot of Westminster. Cranmer advised the king to compromise,
but he would not; so the oath was again tendered and again refused, and More
was imprisoned in the Tower-in itself an illegal proceeding on the part of
the commissioners, for the proffered oath did not agree with the statute.
During the fifteen months that
Thomas was in the Tower two things stand out, his quiet serenity under so
unjust a captivity and his tender love for his eldest daughter, Margaret.
The two are seen together in his letters to and recorded conversations with
her there, as in the beautiful passage quoted by Roper, ending, "I find no
cause, I thank God, Meg, to reckon myself in worse case here than at home,
for methinks God maketh me a wanton and setteth me on His lap and dandleth
me". The efforts of his family to induce him to come to terms with the king
were fruitless; his custody was made more rigorous and visitors forbidden,
so he began to write the Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, the best
of his spiritual works, in which a French writer, the Abbe Bremond, sees
a forerunner of St Francis de Sales, and an Englishman, the late W. H. Hutton,
of Jeremy Taylor. In November he was attainted of misprision of treason and,
but for a small pension from the Order of St John of Jerusalem, rendered
penniless by forfeiture of the lands formerly granted by the Crown; Lady
More had to sell her clothes to buy necessaries for him, and twice in vain
petitioned the king for his release, pleading his sickness and poverty. On
February I, 1535, the Acts of Supremacy came into operation, which gave the
title of "only supreme head of the Church of England" to the king and made
it treason to deny it. In April Cromwell came to ask More his opinion of
this bill, but he would not give one. On May 4 his daughter visited him for
the last time, and together they watched the first three Carthusian monks
and their companions go to martyrdom: "Lo I dost thou not see, Meg, that
these blessed fathers be now as cheerfully going to their deaths as bridegrooms
to their marriage?...Whereas thy silly father, Meg, that like a most wicked
caitiff hath passed forth the whole course of his miserable life most sinfully,
God, thinking him not so worthy so soon to come to that eternal felicity,
leaveth him here yet still in the world further to be plagued and turmoiled
with misery." When a few days later Cromwell and others again examined him
on the statute and taunted him for his silence, he replied: "1 have not been
a man of such holy living as I might be bold to offer myself to death, lest
God for my presumption might suffer me to fall."
On June 19 the second three Carthusians
suffered, and on the 22nd, the feast of St Alban, protomartyr of Britain,
St John Fisher was beheaded on Tower Hill. Nine days later St Thomas More
was indicted and tried in Westminster Hall; he was very weak from illness
and long captivity, and was permitted to sit during the proceedings. The
charge was that he had in divers ways opposed the Act of Supremacy in conversation
with the members of the council who had visited him in prison and in an alleged
conversation with Rich, the solicitor general. St Thomas maintained that
he had always kept silence on the subject and that Rich was swearing falsely;
and he reminded the jury that, "Ye must understand that, in things touching
conscience, every true and good subject is more bound to have respect to
his said conscience and to his soul than to any other thing in all the world
beside...". He was found guilty and condemned to death. Then at last he spoke,
categorically denying that "a temporal lord could or ought to be head of
the spirituality", and ending that, as St Paul had persecuted St Stephen
"and yet be they now both twain holy saints in Heaven, and shall continue
there friends for ever, so I verily trust, and shall therefore right heartily
pray, that though your lordships have now here on earth been judges of my
condemnation, we may yet hereafter in Heaven merrily all meet together to
everlasting salvation". On his way back to the Tower he said farewell to
his son and daughter, most movingly described by Roper, and the martyr referred
to it four days later in a last letter which he sent to her with his hair-shirt
(most of which relic is now in the care of the Austin canonesses at Newton
Abbot, founded at Louvain by the daughter of More's adopted child, Margaret
Clement): "I love when daughterly love and dear charity hath no desire to
look to worldly courtesy."
Early on Tuesday, July 6, Sir
Thomas Pope came to warn him that he was to die that day at nine o'clock
(the king had commuted the sentence from hanging and quartering to beheading);
whereupon St Thomas thanked him, said he would pray for the king, and comforted
his weeping friend. He then put on his best clothes, walked quietly to Tower
Hill, speaking to sundry persons on the way, and mounted the scaffold, with
a jest for the lieutenant. He invoked the prayers of the people, protested
that he died for the Holy Catholic Church and was "the king's good servant-but
God's first", and said the psalm Miserere;
he kissed and encouraged the headsman, covered his own eyes and adjusted his
beard, and so was beheaded at one stroke. He was fifty-seven years old.
His body was buried somewhere
in the church of St Peter ad Vincula within the Tower; his head, after being
exposed on London Bridge, was begged by Margaret Roper and laid in the Roper
vault in the church of St Dunstan, outside the West Gate of Canterbury, beneath
the floor at the east end of the south aisle.
More was equivalently beatified
with other English martyrs in 1886, and canonized in 1935. But, as has been
pointed out more than once, had he never met his death as he did he would
have been a good candidate for canonization as a confessor. Some saints have
attained their honours by redeeming an indifferent or even sinful life by
martyrdom; not so Thomas More. He was from first to last a holy man, living
in the spirit of his own prayer: "Give me, good Lord, a longing to be with
thee: not for the avoiding of the calamities of this wicked world, nor so
much for the avoiding of the pains of Purgatory, nor of the pains of Hell
neither, nor so much for the attaining of the joys of Heaven in respect of
mine own commodity, as even for a very love of thee." And this when his ways
were cast, not in the cloister, but in the ordinary places of the world-home
and family, among scholars and lawyers, in tribunals, council-chambers, and
royal courts.
The earliest formal biography
of St Thomas More, that by Nicholas Harpsfield, has been edited by E. V.
Hitchcock and R. W. Chambers (1932), and that by his son-in-law, Wm. Roper,
by E. V. Hitchcock (1935), both published by the E.E.T.S. The first printed
life was Thomas Stapleton's in Tres Thomae
(1588; Eng. trans., 1928). The very valuable life by "Ro:
Ba:" (c. 1599) was edited by Miss Hitchcock, Mgr Hallett and Prof. A. W.
Reed in 1950 (E.E.T.S.). A fourth life, by his great-grandson, Cresacre More,
appeared before 1631. An edition of his English Works, ed. W. E. Campbell and
others, is in progress ; The Dialogue...concerning
Tyndale (with valuable supplementary matter) and the Early Works are issued. A. Taft edited
the Apologye for the E.E.T.S.
(1930); it contains in text and notes much useful detail bearing on More's
dealings with heretics. Father Bridgett's Life of Sir Thomas More (1891), with
his supplementary booklets, still remain the fullest source of information
for the reader who is not a specialist; but the best general life of all
is R. W. Chambers's Thomas More
(1935) j cf. review in Analecta Bollandiana,
vol. liv (1936), p. 245. There are shorter recent biographies by J. Clayton,
C. Hollis, D. Sargent, T. Maynard and others; and an excellent work by E.
E. Reynolds (1953). More's Correspondence
has been edited by E. F. Rogers (Princeton, 1947). But the bibliography
of More is very long.
St.
Thomas More was born at London in 1478. After a thorough grounding in religion
and the classics, he entered Oxford to study law. Upon leaving the university
he embarked on a legal career which took him to Parliament. In 1505, he married
his beloved Jane Colt who bore him four children, and when she died at a
young age, he married a widow, Alice Middleton, to be a mother for his young
children. A wit and a reformer, this learned man numbered Bishops and scholars
among his friends, and by 1516 wrote his world-famous book "Utopia".
He attracted the attention of Henry VIII who
appointed him to a succession of high posts and missions, and finally made
him Lord Chancellor in 1529. However, he resigned in 1532, at the height
of his career and reputation, when Henry persisted in holding his own opinions
regarding marriage and the supremacy of the Pope. The rest of his life was
spent in writing mostly in defense of the Church.
In 1534, with his close friend, St. John Fisher,
he refused to render allegiance to the King as the Head of the Church of
England and was confined to the Tower. Fifteen months later, and nine days
after St. John Fisher's execution, he was tried and convicted of treason.
He told the court that he could not go against his conscience and wished
his judges that "we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together
to everlasting salvation." And on the scaffold, he told the crowd of spectators
that he was dying as "the King's good servant-but God's first." He was beheaded
on July 6, 1535.
Thomas More M (RM) Born in London, England, 1478; died there in
1535; canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1935 as the "Martyr of the Papacy"; feast
day formerly on July 6.
"If I am distracted, Holy Communion
helps me become recollected. If opportunities are offered by each day to
offend my God, I arm myself anew each day for the combat by reception of
the Eucharist.
If I am in need of special light and prudence in order to discharge my burdensome
duties,
I draw nigh to my Savior and seek counsel and light from Him." --Saint Thomas
More
"These things, good Lord, that we pray for, give us Thy grace
to labor for." --Saint Thomas More.
"It is a shorter thing and sooner done, to write heresies, than
to answer them." --Saint Thomas More.
Thomas More studied at Canterbury
Hall, Oxford, and read law at the Inns of Court, being called to the bar
in 1501. Thomas was happiest in the bosom of his family--three generations
living under one roof in Chelsea, and the congenial group of poets, scientists,
and humanists that often gathered in his home, rather than at court.
Henry VIII was a man of rare personal magnetism; even Sir Thomas
yielded to his charm. Thomas's daughter Margaret married Roper, who writes
of More's friendship with Henry VIII: when the king had finished his devotions
on holy days, he would talk to More about diverse matters, often far into
the night. More often dined with the king and queen. Thomas would try to
get two days per month to spend with his family, but he would be recalled
to court. So Thomas tried to change his disposition before the king to be
less likable, until the king started to come to Chelsea with Thomas and to
be merry there. He recognized early that Henry's whims might prove dangerous
to Thomas's health and life.
More had considered the priesthood in his youth,
and of joining the Franciscans, but his confessor advised against it. In
1505, he married Jane Colt, though it is said he preferred her younger sister.
She bore him four children: Margaret (married Roper); Elizabeth, Cecily,
and John. In the evening, Jane would study for an hour or two because Thomas
wished her to be a scholar, or she would sing or play the clavichord. Jane
died in 1510.
Soon after Jane's death, he married Alice Middleton, an older
woman. Margaret, the eldest child, was five. Alice was unlearned, but had
a great sense of humor. Thomas scolded her for her vanity and she reproached
him for his lack of ambition. More cared strongly for his children
and their education, especially for Margaret. His home was a menagerie of
birds, monkeys, foxes, ferrets, weasels, etc.
More rose rapidly in public life despite his lack
of ambition. He was a renowned lawyer and elected to Parliament in 1504 (at
age 22). In 1510, he was appointed Undersheriff of London; 1518, Secretary
to Henry VIII; 1521, he was knighted; 1523, chosen Speaker of Parliament;
1529, Lord Chancellor in succession to Cardinal Wolsey. Nevertheless, he
continued to read, study, and write, and is known more as a scholar than
as a jurist. Yet he was realistic and wrote in Utopia (1516), "philosophy
had no place among kings....it is not possible for all things to be well,
unless all men were good, which I think will not be this good many years."
He had a horror of luxury and
worldly pomp. He found the lies and flatteries of court nauseating. It wearied
him to be constantly at the King's command. He felt the scholars life was
conducive to a virtuous life of piety toward God and service of his neighbor.
Virtue and religion were the supreme concerns of his life. He
considered pride the chief danger of education. Education should inculcate
a spirit of detachment from riches and earthly possessions, along with a
spirit of gentleness.
During Henry's reign, 12,000 people were put to death for theft.
Thomas as Chancellor was hesitant to apply the death penalty to heretics.
More was a leader of the humanists,
champion of the study of Greek and Latin classics, sympathetic to the Renaissance,
and an advocate of needed Church reform; yet he was grounded in the Catholic
tradition of the Middle Ages. He was also a friend of Erasmus. In 1527,
Erasmus wrote in a letter, "I
wrote the Praise of Folly in times of peace;
I should never have written it if I had foreseen this tempest" of the Reformation.
Again, Erasmus in a letter to
a monk about to leave his monastery, "...I see no one becoming better, every
one becoming worse, so that I am deeply grieved that in my writings I once
preached the liberty of the spirit....What I desired then was that the abatement
of external ceremonies might much redound to the increase of true piety.
But as it is, the ceremonies have been so destroyed that in place of them
we have not the liberty of the spirit but the unbridled license of the flesh....What
liberty is that which forbids us to say our prayers, and forbids us the sacrifice
of the Mass?"
Thomas More did not think his Utopia, which is written in Latin,
could be safely read by the multitude.
"Doubtless Christ could have
caused the apostles not to sleep at all, but to stay awake, if that had been
what He wished in an absolute and unqualified sense. But actually His wish
was qualified by a condition -- namely that they themselves wish to do so,
and wish it so effectually that each of them do his very best to comply with
the outward command Christ Himself gave and to cooperate with the promptings
of His inward assistance. In this way He also wishes for all men to be saved
and for no one to suffer eternal torment, that is, always provided that we
conform to His most loving will and do not set ourselves against it through
our own willful malice. If someone stubbornly insists on doing this, God
does not want to waft him off to heaven against his will, as if He were in
need of our services there and could not continue His glorious reign without
our support. Indeed, if He could not reign without us, He would immediately
punish many offenses which now, out of consideration for us, He tolerates
and overlooks for a long time to see if His kindness and patience will bring
us to repent. But we meanwhile abuse this great mercy of His by adding sins
to sins, thus heaping up for ourselves (as the apostle says) a treasure of
wrath on the day of wrath (Rom 2:5).
"Nevertheless, such is God's
kindness that even when we are negligent and slumbering on the pillow of
our sins, He disturbs us from time to time, shakes us, strikes us, and does
His best to wake us up by means of tribulations. But still, even though He
thus proves Himself to be most loving even in His anger, most of us in our
gross human stupidity misinterpret His action and imagine that such a great
benefit is an injury, whereas actually (if we have any sense) we should feel
bound to pray frequently and fervently that whenever we wander away from
Him He may use blows to drive us back to the right way, even though we are
unwilling and struggle against Him.
"Thus we must first pray that we may see the way and with the
Church we must say to God, "From blindness of heart, deliver us, O Lord."
And with the prophet we must say, "Teach me to do your will" and "Show me
your ways and teach me your paths." Then we must intensely desire to run
after you eagerly, O God, in the odor of your ointments, in the most sweet
scent of your Spirit. But if we grow weary along the way (as we almost always
do) and lag so far behind that we barely manage to follow at a distance,
let us immediately say to God, "Take my right hand" and "Lead me along your
path."
"Then if we are so overcome by weariness that we no longer have
the heart to go on, if we are so soft and lazy that we are about to stop altogether,
let us beg God to drag us along even as we struggle not to go. Finally, if
we resist when He draws on us gently, and are stiff-necked against the will
of God, against our own salvation, utterly irrational like horses and mules
which have no intellects, we ought to beseech God humbly in the most fitting
words of the prophet: "Hold my jaws hard, O God, with a bridle and bit when
I do not draw near to you" (Ps 32:9)." --Saint Thomas More in The Sadness
of Christ
|
1968 Relics of the
Great St. Mark the Apostle by the hand of Pope Paul the Sixth, Pope of Rome.
opening of the new St. Mark Cathedral
On this day, of the year 1684 A.M., that coincided with Saturday
the 22nd of June, 1968 A.D., and in the tenth year of the papacy of Pope Kyrillos
the sixth, 116th Pope of Alexandria, the official delegation of the Pope
of Alexandria received the relics of the great St. Mark the Apostle, the
evangelist of the Egyptian land and the first Patriarch of the See of St.
Mark from the hand of Pope Paul the Sixth, Pope of Rome, in the Papal palace,
Vatican City.
The delegation consisted of ten metropolitans and bishops, seven
of them were Coptic and three Ethiopians, and three lay leaders. The Alexandrian
papal delegation left Cairo on Thursday the 23rd day of Baounah, 1684 A.M.
(June 20th, 1968 A.D.) on a special plane accompanied by 90 of the Coptic
personalities, among them, seven priests. They were received by a delegation
of cardinals and priests delegated by Pope Paul the Sixth, and the ambassador
of Egypt to the Vatican, at the airport in Rome.
Twelve o'clock, the morning of Saturday the 15th of Baounah (June
22nd), was the appointed time for the Alexandrian Papal delegation to meet
the Pope of Rome and receive the relics of St. Mark the Apostle. At the appointed
time, the delegation went in headed by Anba Marcus, metropolitan of Abu-Teeg
and Tahta, and were received by Pope Paul VI in his private office. Pope
Paul greeted the delegation, commending Pope Kyrillos the sixth, and the
church of Alexandria. He congratulated the delegation on the opening of the
new St. Mark Cathedral and the receiving of the relics of St. Mark. Anba
Marcus, the head of the delegation, replied with a short speech, in which
he carried the greetings of his brother, the Pope of Alexandria. Then he
handed him a letter from Pope Kyrillos the sixth, thanking him and introducing
the members of the delegation.
Pope of Rome, along with the
head of the Alexandrian delegation, then carried the box that contained the
relics of St. Mark. They all walked in a procession to a grand room, which
was prepared to receive the Copts, accompanied by the official delegates
to witness this historical and joyful moment. The box containing the relics
was placed on a special table. The Roman Pontiff came forward and knelt before
the box and kissed it. He was followed by Anba Marcus, the head of the Alexandrian
Papal delegation, who was followed by the members of the delegation. During
the veneration of the relics of St. Mark the Apostle, the Coptic priests
and deacons present chanted appropriate ecclesiastical hymns. Joy filled
the hearts of everyone, Egyptian and foreign. An atmosphere of spirituality
and holiness filled the room.
The Roman Pope then sat on his throne, and Anba Gregorius, bishop
of higher studies and scientific research, gave a speech in English, representing
the delegation. He expressed in it the greetings of Pope Kyrillos the Sixth,
and the joy of the Christians of Egypt and Ethiopia for the return of the
relics of St. Mark the Apostle after eleven centuries. During which the body
of St. Mark was absent from the country in which he was martyred.
Pope of Rome, replied in an official speech in French, that he
read while sitting on the throne. In it he exalted the history of the Alexandrian
church, and its long struggle in the field of dogma. He also praised its
heros, and its learned people such as Athanasius the apostolic, Kyrillos
(Cyril) the Pillar of Faith, Pantaenus and Clement. He hoped that the celebration
of the day would be a sign of love and a bond between the church of Alexandria
and the church of Rome. The Roman Pope asked in his speech also from the
head, Cardinal Doval, and members of the Roman Papal delegation to carry
his greetings, admiration, and appreciation to Pope Kyrillos the Sixth, the
clergy of the church of Alexandria, Egypt and its people.
Afterwards, the Pope and Anba Marcus, the head of the delegation,
rose up to exchange the commemorative gifts. Anba Marcus gave the Pope the
presents which were sent by H.H. Pope Kyrillos. Pope of Rome admired the
precious gifts and asked Anba Marcus to convey his thanks to H.H. Pope Kyrillos.
The Pope in return gave the members of the delegation commemorative presents.
The Roman Pope, then gave Anba Marcus, the head of the Alexandrian
Papal delegation, an official document dated May 28th, 1968 A.D. testifying
that the relics were authentic and belonged to St. Mark the Apostle, and
were taken from their original place with veneration. The document was signed
by Cardinal Porfeer, the deputy of Vatican City. Thus, the official celebration
of handing over the relics of St. Mark the Apostle ended, and the delegation
went back to their hotel. May the blessings of St. Mark be with us
all. Amen.
4th v. Consecration
of the Church of Mari Mina at Maryut.
On this day also, is the commemoration of the appearance of the
body of the honorable saint, and great martyr Mari Mina, and the consecration
of his church at Maryut (Mareotis).
Now, the body of this saint
was hidden, and the Lord wished to reveal it. It came to pass that there
was a shepherd, who pastured his sheep near the place where the body of the
saint was buried. One day, one of his sheep, which was sick of a skin disease
(mangy), dipped itself in the water of a pond which was near that place.
It then went out of the water, and rolled itself in the sand of that place,
and it was healed straightway. When the shepherd saw this wonder, he marvelled,
and took the sand of that place and mixed it with the water of the pond.
He smeared every mangy sheep, or any that had a deformity, and they were healed
immediately.
The report of this shepherd became widespread in all the regions
of the empire, until the emperor of Constantinople heard of it. He had an
only daughter who was leprous.
Her father sent her there. She
questioned the shepherd about how she could get rid of her illness, and he
told her. She took some of that sand and mixed it with the water. She retired
to her quarters and smeared her body with the mixture and slept that night
in that place. She saw in a dream St. Mina and he told her,
"Rise up early and dig in this place and you shall find
my body."
When she woke up from her sleep,
she found herself healed. She dug in that place, and she found the holy body.
She sent to her father to inform him about what had happened. He rejoiced
exceedingly, thanked God and praised His Holy Name. He sent men and money
and built a church in that place which was consecrated on this day.
When Arcadius and Honorius reigned they ordered a city to be built
there which was called Maryut. The masses came to this church interceding
with the blessed Mari Mina. God had honored him by the miracles and wonders(1)
that were manifested from his pure body, until the Moslems occupied the city
and destroyed it.
The biography of this saint
is mentioned under the 15th day of Hatour. May his intercession be with
us and Glory be to God forever. Amen.
1. The Martyrdom of Saint Mari-Mina, the Wonder Worker
On this day St. Mina, who is
called the blessed faithful, was martyred. His father, Eudoxius, was a native
of the city of Nakiyos (Nikiu) and was its Governor. His brother was envious
of him and he brought charges against him before the Emperor. The Emperor
transferred him to Afrikia and appointed him Governor over it. The people
were pleased with him because he was merciful and God-fearing.
His mother Euphemia had no children. One day she went to church
on the feast of our Lady, the Virgin, the Mother of God, at Attribes. She
saw the children in the church wearing their beautiful clothes with their
parents. She heaved a sigh and wept before the icon of Our Lady St. Mary,
entreating her to intercede for her before her beloved Son, in order that
He would give her a son. A voice came from the icon saying, "Amen." She rejoiced
in what she had heard and realized that the Lord had heard her prayers. When
she returned to her home and told her husband about it, he replied, "May
God's Will be done."
The Lord gave them this saint and they called him Mina, according
to the voice that his mother heard. When he grew, his parents taught him reading
and writing and they reared him in a Christian manner. When he was eleven
years old, his father departed at a good old age. Then his mother departed
three years later. St. Mina devoted his life to fasting, praying and to living
a Christian life. Because of everyone's love towards him and his father,
they placed him in his father's position. In spite of that, he did not forsake
his worshipping.
When Diocletian had reneged Christianity and issued his orders
to worship idols, many were martyred for the Name of the Lord Christ. St.
Mina left his position and went to the desert, where he stayed many days
worshipping God with all his heart.
One day he saw the heavens open and the martyrs crowned with beautiful
crowns. He heard a voice saying, "He who toils for the Name of the Lord Christ
shall receive these crowns." He returned to the city over which he was Governor
and confessed the Name of the Lord Christ. Knowing that he belonged to a
noble family, they tried to dissuade him from his faith and promised him
honors and precious gifts. When he did not change his mind, they threatened
him and the Governor ordered him to be tortured. When the Governor failed
to turn him away from his faith in the Lord Christ, he sent him to his brother
so that he might influence him but he failed also. Finally, he ordered his
head to be cut off with the sword, his body to be cast in the fire and his
ashes to be scattered in the wind. The body remained in the fire for three
days and three nights, but it was not harmed.
His sister came and gave the soldiers a lot of money and they
let her take the body. She put it in a sack made of fronds and decided to
go to Alexandria, as her brother had previously advised her. She embarked
with her brother's body on one of the ships to Alexandria.
During their trip, sea beasts came out of the water and attacked
the passengers aboard the ship. They were frightened and screamed with fear.
The Saint's sister prayed to the Lord and asked for the intercession of her
brother. While the passengers were in fear, fire went forth from her brother's
body and burned the faces of the beasts. They dived immediately into the
water and as they reappeared, the fire burned them again. They finally dived
and did not reappear.
When the ship arrived at the
city of Alexandria, most of the people went out with the father, the Patriarch.
They carried the holy body with reverence and honor and entered the city
with a venerable celebration and placed it in the church, after they shrouded
it in expensive shrouds. When the time of persecution ended, the angel of
the Lord appeared to the honorable Patriarch, Anba Athanasius, the Apostolic.
The angel informed him of the Lord's command which was to place the body
of St. Mina on a camel and to take it out of the city without letting anyone
lead it, but to follow it from a distance until it stopped at a place that
the Lord had designated. They walked behind the camel until they arrived
at a place called Lake Bayad, in the district of Marriot. There they heard
a voice saying, "This is the place where the Lord wishes the body of his
beloved Mina to be placed." They lowered the body and placed it in a coffin,
then they situated it in a beautiful garden and many miracles happened through
the body.
Later on, the people of Pentapolis (the five cities) rose against
the cities around Alexandria. The people were getting ready to face the Berbers,
and the Governor decided to take the body of St. Mina with him to be his
deliverer and his strong protector. He took the body secretly and through
the blessings of this saint, he overcame the Berbers and returned victorious.
The Governor decided not to return the body of the Saint to its
original place and wanted to take it to Alexandria. On the way back, they
passed by Lake Bayad, St. Mina's original place. The camel carrying the body
knelt down and would not move in spite of frequent beatings. They moved the
body over another camel, but again this second camel did not move from its
place. The Governor finally realized that this was the Lord's command. He
made a coffin from decay-resistant wood and placed the silver coffin in it.
He then returned it to its place and invoked St. Mina's blessings, then returned
to his city.
When the Lord wanted to disclose the location of St. Mina's holy
body, He did it in this manner. There was a shepherd in the desert. One day
a sheep with mange slipped down into the water of a well near the place of
the saint's body. The sheep then came out of the water and rolled over in
the sand of that place, and instantly the sheep was healed. When the shepherd
saw this miracle, he was amazed. He took some of the sand and mixed it with
water and smeared it over every sheep with mange, as well as on those with
other infirmities, and immediately they were healed.
The news of these miracles spread
in all the countries until the Emperor of Constantinople heard of them. He
had an only daughter and she was leprous. Her father sent her to the place
where the saint's body was and she inquired from the shepherd how these miracles
were happening. She took some of the sand, moistened it with water, smeared
it on her body and slept the night in that place. In her sleep she saw St.
Mina saying to her, "Arise early and dig in this place, and you will find
my body." When she woke up, she found herself cured. She began digging as
she was told and she found the holy body. She sent word to her father, informing
him of the news. The Emperor rejoiced exceedingly, thanked the Lord and glorified
His Name. He then sent men and money and built a church in that place and
it was consecrated on the fifteenth day of the Month of Baounah.
When Arcadius and Honorius reigned, they ordered a city to be
built there. Multitudes of people came to that church asking for the intercession
of the blessed St. Mina. The Lord had honored him with many signs and wonders
that appeared from his pure body. When the Arabs came to Egypt, some of them
attacked the city and the church was destroyed, only ruins remained. When
His Grace, the late Pope Abba Kyrillos the Sixth was ordained Patriarch over
the See of St. Mark, he took interest in building a large monastery in this
area (Marriot) in the name of St. Mina. He spent a great deal of money in
establishing it. There are now many churches in the monastery, visited by
many Orthodox worshippers who go there to receive blessings and to pray.
He also bought one hundred acres of land and built a fence around it. He ordained
a number of monks who had a high degree of scientific and religious education.
The intercession of Mari-Mina be with us and Glory be to our God forever.
Amen.
|
Mary Mother of GOD
Saint of the Day June 22 Décimo Kaléndas Júlii
Luna 
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
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.