First Church for
The Virgin Mary in the city of Philippi. Commemoration of
On this day, the church celebrates the commemoration of the first church
to be built in the name of the Virgin Lady, the All pure St. Mary, the Theotokos
(Mother of God), through whom the salvation of Adam and his posterity was
fulfilled. When the two apostles Paul and Silas preached among the gentiles,
many believed of them in the city of Philippi. They built a church there
in the name of the Virgin, the Mother of God, and its consecration was on
that day. It is meet for us to celebrate for her a spiritual festival, for
she has borne the Savior of the world. May her intercession be with
us. Amen.
|
95 Departure of
St. Cedron (Kardonos), the Fourth Patriarch of Alexandria This father was
baptized by the hand of St. Mark the apostle, and the evangelist of the land
of Egypt
This day also (June 15th, 16 A.D.) marks the departure of St. Cedron (Kardonos),
the Fourth Patriarch of Alexandria. This father was baptized by the hand
of St. Mark the apostle, and the evangelist of the land of Egypt. He learned
the doctrines and the books of the Church. After the departure of Pope Melius,
he was ordained a Pope for the See of St. Mark in the 7th day of Tute (September
5th, 95 A.D.). He shepherded his people with the best of care, by preaching,
teaching, and instructing them for eleven years, one month, and twelve days,
then departed in peace. May his prayers be with us and Glory be to
God forever. Amen.
|
Martyrdom of St. Timothy
of Memphis (El-Masry).
On this day also, St. Timothy of Memphis (El-Masry) was martyred. He was
one of the soldiers of Arianus, governor of the city of Ansena. When he read
the Edict of the Emperor Diocletian, which commanded the worship of idols,
this soldier rose up in the middle of the people, seized the Edict, and tore
it up saying, "There is no God except Jesus Christ the Son of the Living
God." The Governor became enraged. He seized Timothy by the hair of his head,
and cast him down on the ground. He commanded him to be beaten until his
flesh was mangled. The Saint cried out, saying, "O my Lord Jesus Christ,
help me for there is no God but You." God considered his endurance, and sent
His angel, who healed his wounds. The Saint returned to the Governor crying,
"There is no God except Jesus Christ the Son of the Living God." The Governor
tortured him severely again, and finally he cut off his head and thus St.
Timothy received the crown of martyrdom. May his prayers be with us.
Amen.
|
202 Saint Plutarch Martyr
of Alexandria, Egypt With brother, Heraclides, and group of fellow students
Marcella and her daughter Potamioena; soldier Bailides
Alexandríæ, in
persecutióne Sevéri, sanctórum Mártyrum Plutárchi,
Seréni, Heraclídis catechúmeni, Herónis neóphyti,
et altérius Seréni, Rháidis catechúmenæ,
et Potamiœnæ cum ipsíus matre Marcélla; inter quos præcípue
enítuit Potamiœna Virgo, quæ, primo imménsos innumerósque
agónes pro virginitáte desudávit, deínde étiam
exquisíta et inaudíta torménta pro fide sustínuit,
ad últimum, simul cum matre, igne consúmpta est.
At Alexandria, in the persecution of Severus, the holy
martyrs Plutarch, Serenus, Heraclides, catechumen, Heron, a neophyte, another
Serenus, Rhais, a catechumen, Potamioena and Marcella her mother. Among
them the virgin Potamioena is particularly distinguished. She first
endured many painful trials for the preservation of her virginity, and then
cruel and unheard-of torments for the faith, after which both she and her
mother were consumed with fire.
202
SS. PLUTARCH, POTAMIAENA AND THEIR COMPANIONS, MARTYRS
THE catechetical school of Origen at Alexandria was a training ground in
virtue: for the master, not content with lecturing on the sciences, made
a great point of inculcating upon his pupils the loftiest principles of Christian
perfection. The school furnished some illustrious martyrs in the persecution
of Severus which raged with great fury from 202-the year before Origen was
appointed catechist-until the death of the emperor in 211.
The first to suffer was St Plutarch, brother of St Heraclas, afterwards bishop
of Alexandria. The two brothers had been converted to the faith together,
through listening to the lectures of Origen. Being a prominent personage
Plutarch was arrested at an early stage of the persecution. He was visited
and encouraged in prison by Origen, who accompanied him to the place of execution
and who was nearly lynched by the mob because they held him responsible for
Plutarch's death. Serenus, another of the master's disciples, was burnt alive;
Heraclides, a catechumen, and Hero, a neophyte, were beheaded. A second confessor
of the name of Serenus was also decapitated after undergoing torture. Women
as well as men attended the catechetical school, and three of them suffered
martyrdom. Herais, a maiden who was still a catechumen, was baptized by fire-to
quote Origen's own words.
The other two, Marcella and Potamiaena, were mother and daughter. Attempts
were made to induce Potamiaena to purchase her freedom at the expense of
her chastity, for she was young, accomplished and beautiful, but she rejected
the proposals with scorn. She was then condemned to be stripped and cast
into a cauldron of boiling pitch. Upon hearing her sentence, she said to
the judge, "I beg of you, by the life of the emperor whom you honour, not
to oblige me to appear unclothed; rather suffer me to be slowly lowered into
the cauldron fully dressed, that you may see the patience which Jesus Christ,
whom you know not, bestows upon those who trust Him." The magistrate granted
her request and charged Basilides, one of the guards, to lead her to execution.
The man treated her with respect, protecting her from the insults and pressure
of the crowd. She thanked him for his courtesy and told him that after her
death she would obtain his salvation from God. The cruel sentence was then
carried out. Her mother suffered at the same time.
Shortly afterwards Basilides surprised his fellow soldiers by refusing to
take an oath when called upon to do so: he was a Christian, he said, and
could not swear by false gods. At first they thought he was joking, but when
he persisted they took him to the prefect, who consigned him to prison. In
reply to the inquiries of Christians who came to visit him in gaol, he told
them that Potamiaena had appeared to him after her martyrdom and had placed
on his head a crown which she said she had won for him by her prayers. He
received baptism in prison and, having made a glorious confession of faith
before the magistrate, was beheaded. Several other persons in Alexandria
are said to have been converted to Christianity as the result of visitations
from St Potamiaena who came to them in their dreams.
The authority for this narrative
is the Ecclesiastical History of
Eusebius, bk vi, ch. 5· See also Delehaye, in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xl (1922),
pp. 9, 23, 89; and Augar, in Texte und
Untersuchungen, N.F., vol. xiii, part 4 (1905), pp. 17 seq.
Plutarch studied in the famed Catechetical School of Alexandria.
Like his brother, he was converted to Christianity by Origen and was arrested by Roman officials during
the persecution launched by Emperor Septimius Severus. Plutarch, along with
the others, was executed. The two women, Marcella and her daughter Potamioena,
also died; the latter was lowered into a cauldron of boiling pitch. According
to custom, the soldier Bailides, who had led Potamioena to her execution,
was converted through a vision of the girl and was baptized in prison just
before his beheading.
|
202 Saint
Irenaeus writings of Saint
Irenaeus entitle him to a high place
among the fathers of the Church, for they not only laid the foundations of
Christian theology but, by exposing and refuting the errors of the gnostics,
they delivered the Catholic Faith from the real danger of the doctrines of
those heretics: He was most influenced by Saint Polycarp who had known
the apostles or their immediate disciples
Lugdúni, in Gállia,
sancti Irenæi, Epíscopi et Mártyris; qui (ut scribit
sanctus Hierónymus) beáti Polycárpi, Smyrnénsis
Epíscopi, discípulus fuit, et Apostolicórum témporum
vicínis. Is, cum advérsus hæréticos verbis
ac scriptis plúrimum decertásset, tandem, in persecutióne
Sevéri, cum omni fere civitátis suæ pópulo, coronátus
est glorióso martyrio.
At Lyons in
France, St. Irenæus, bishop and martyr. St. Jerome relates that
he was the disciple of blessed Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, and lived near
the time of the apostles. After having strenuously opposed the heretics
by word and by writing, he was crowned with a glorious martyrdom along with
almost all the people of his city, during the persecution of Severus.
203 ST IRENAEUS, BISHOP OF LYONS
July 25, 1960, this feast was In a Motu Proprio of John XXIII dated transferred
to 3 July.
THE writings of St Irenaeus entitle him to a high place amongst the fathers
of the Church, for they not only laid the foundations of Christian theology
but, by exposing and refuting the errors of the gnostics, they delivered
the Catholic faith from the real danger it ran of being leavened by the insidious
doctrines of those heretics. Of his parentage nothing is recorded. He was
born, probably about the year 125, in one of those maritime provinces of
Asia Minor where the memory of the Apostles was still cherished and where
Christians were numerous. He received what must have been an exceptionally
liberal education, for it gave him a thorough knowledge of the text of Holy
Scripture and a good general acquaintance with Greek philosophy and literature.
Moreover, he had the inestimable privilege of sitting at the feet of men
who had known the Apostles or their immediate disciples. Of these the one
who influenced him the most was St Polycarp. So profound indeed was the impression
made upon him by the holy bishop of Smyrna that throughout his after life,
as he told a friend, he could recall every detail of St Polycarp's appearance,
the sound of his voice, and the very words he used when describing his intercourse
with the evangelist St John, and others who had seen the Lord, or when he
was expounding the doctrine he had learnt from them. St Gregory of Tours
asserts that it was St Polycarp who sent Irenaeus as a missionary to Gaul,
but there is no evidence to support this statement.
Commercial relations had existed from early times between the ports of Asia
Minor and Marseilles, and in the second century of our era Levantine traders
were regularly conveying their wares up the Rhone as far as Lyons, which
became in consequence the chief mart of western Europe and the most populous
city in Gaul. In the train of the Asiatics, many of whom settled in Lyons,
came their priests and missionaries who brought the Gospel to the pagan Gauls
and founded a vigorous local church. To this church of Lyons Irenaeus came
to serve as a priest under its first bishop, St Pothinus, an oriental like
himself; to it he was to remain permanently attached. The high opinion held
of him by his brother clergy was evinced in the year 177, when he was dispatched
on a somewhat delicate mission to Rome. It was after the outbreak of the
terrible persecution, which is dealt with at some length under June 2 in
this volume [Butlers Lives of the Saints], and already some of the leaders
of the church of Lyons were in prison. Their captivity, however, did not
prevent them from continuing to take a deep interest in their fellow Christians
in Asia Minor. Conscious of the sympathetic hearing to which they were entitled
as confessors in imminent peril of death, they sent to Pope St Eleutherius,
by the hands of Irenaeus, what is described by Eusebius as "a most religious
and most orthodox" letter, in which they appealed to him-in the interest
of the peace and unity of the Church to deal leniently with their Montanist
brethren in Phrygia. They commended the bearer of the letter to his notice
as a priest" filled with zeal for the testament of Christ", and as one who
was, as his name implied, a lover of peace.
This mission, entailing as it did absence from Lyons, explains how it was
that Irenaeus was not called upon to share the martyrdom of St Pothinus and
his fellowsufferers, and does not seem to have witnessed it. How long he
remained in Rome we do not know, but when he returned to Lyons it was to
occupy its vacant bishopric. By that time the persecution was over and the
twenty or more years of his episcopate were years of relative peace. Information
about his activities is scanty, but it is clear that in addition to his purely
pastoral duties he did much to evangelize the neighbouring lands. He is said
to have sent SS. Felix, Fortunatus and Achilleus as missionaries to Valence,
and SS. Ferrutius and Ferreolus to Besançon. A small indication of
the extent to which he identified himself with his flock is supplied by the
fact that he habitually spoke the Celtic language instead of his native Greek.
It was the spread of Gnosticism in Gaul, and the ravages it was making amongst
the Christians of his diocese, that inspired him to undertake the task of
exposing its errors. He began by mastering its tenets-no easy matter, since
each gnostic master was inclined to introduce variations of his own. Fortunately
for Irenaeus he was, Tertullian tells us, “a curious explorer of all kinds
of learning", and he found the work not uncongenial. He then produced a treatise
in five books in which he sets forth fully the inner doctrines of the various
sects, and afterwards contrasts them with the teaching of the Apostles and
the text of Holy Scripture.
A good example of his method is provided by his treatment of the gnostic
doctrine that the visible world has been created, preserved and governed
by angelic beings and not by God, who remains unconnected with it, aloof,
indifferent, and incapable of activity in the Pleroma (the invisible spiritual
world). Irenaeus states the theory, develops it to its logical conclusion,
and by an effective reductio ad absurdum proceeds to demonstrate its fallacy.
The true Christian doctrine of the close relationship between God and the
world He has created Irenaeus sets forth in the following terms: "The Father
is above all, and He is the head of Christ, but the Word is through all things
and He is Himself the head of the Church, whilst the Spirit is in us all;
and His is the living water which the Lord gave to those who believe in Him
and love Him and know that there is one Father above all things and through
all things and in all things." Concerned as he is to convert rather than
to confound, Irenaeus writes with studied moderation and courtesy, but now
and then humorous comments escape him. Referring, for instance, to the attitude
of the newly “initiated" he says: "As soon as a man has been won over to
their way of salvation he becomes so puffed up with conceit and self-importance
that he imagines himself to be no longer in Heaven or on earth, but to have
already passed into the Pleroma, and with the majestic air of a cock he goes
strutting about-as if he had already embraced his ange1." Irenaeus was firmly
convinced that a great part of the attractiveness of Gnosticism lay in the
veil of secrecy with which it surrounded itself, and he was determined to
"strip the fox", as he expressed it. The event proved him to have been right.
His work, written in Greek but quickly translated into Latin, was widely circulated
and succeeded in dealing to second century Gnosticism what appears to have
been its death-blow. At any rate, from that time onwards, it ceased to offer
a serious menace to the Catholic faith.
Thirteen or fourteen years after his mission to Pope Eleutherius, Irenaeus
again acted as mediator between a pope and a body of Christians in Asia Minor.
Because the Quartodecimans refused to keep Easter in accordance with the
Western use they had been excommunicated by Victor III, and there was in
consequence a real danger of schism. Irenaeus intervened on their behalf.
In a singularly beautiful letter addressed to the pope he pleaded with him
to raise the ban, pointing out that they were only following their old tradition,
and that a difference of opinion on that very point had not prevented Pope
Anicetus and St Polycarp from remaining in communion. The outcome of his
representations was the restoration of good relations between the two parties
and a peace which proved permanent. After the Council of Nicaea in 325, the
Quartodecimans voluntarily conformed to the Roman usage without any pressure
from the Holy See.
The date of the death of St Irenaeus is not known: it is usually assigned
approximately to the year 202. According to a later tradition he suffered
martyrdom, but this is highly improbable. The treatise against the gnostics
has come down to us, entire in its Latin version; and an Armenian translation
of an exposition of apostolic preaching has comparatively lately been discovered.
Though the rest of his writings have perished, in these two works alone may
be found all the elements of a complete system of Christian theology.
The bodily remains of St Irenaeus, as we learn from Gregory of Tours, were
buried in a crypt under the altar of what was then called the church of St
John, but what was later known by the name of St Irenaeus himself. This tomb
or shrine was destroyed by the Calvinists in 1562, and all trace of his relics
seems to have perished. It is remarkable that though the feast of St Irenaeus
has long been observed in the East (on August 23), it has been general in
the Western church only since 1922.
We possess nothing in the nature
of an early biography of St Irenaeus, but there is a vast literature dealing
with his importance as a witness to early traditions, and as a teacher of
orthodox belief. The evidence for and against the supposition that he suffered
martyrdom is briefly but clearly summarized by Fr Delehaye in his CMH., pp.
341-342. Much interest was roused in 1904 by the discovery of an Armenian
version of a work of which little more than the name was previously known,
viz., "Proof of the Apostolic Preaching". It is mainly an appeal to the prophecies
of the Old Testament, and not much fresh information regarding the mind and
thought of the author is to be derived from it. A fuller discussion of the
theology of Irenaeus would be out of place here; see the very complete article
of F. Vernet (nearly 150 columns) in DTC., vol. vii (1922), cc. 2394-2533,
with copious bibliography. There are also good articles in Bardenhewer, and
DCB. The originality of St Irenaeus was called in question by T. Loofs in
Texte und Untersuchungen,
vol. xlvi, part II (1932). A convenient little study of St Irenaeus is that
of A. Dufourcq in the series “Les Saints"; and see F. R. M. Hitchcock, Irenaeus of Lugdunum (1914).
St. Irenaeus (130?-220)
The Church is fortunate that Irenaeus was involved in many of its controversies
in the second century. He was a student, well trained, no doubt, with great
patience in investigating, tremendously protective of apostolic teaching,
but prompted more by a desire to win over his opponents than to prove them
in error.
As bishop of Lyons he was especially concerned with the Gnostics, who took
their name from the Greek word for “knowledge.” Claiming access to secret
knowledge imparted by Jesus to only a few disciples, their teaching was attracting
and confusing many Christians. After thoroughly investigating the various
Gnostic sects and their “secret,” Irenaeus showed to what logical conclusions
their tenets led. These he contrasted with the teaching of the apostles and
the text of Holy Scripture, giving us, in five books, a system of theology
of great importance to subsequent times. Moreover, his work, widely used
and translated into Latin and Armenian, gradually ended the influence of the
Gnostics.
The circumstances and details
about his death, like those of his birth and early life in Asia Minor, are
not at all clear.
Comment: A deep
and genuine concern for other people will remind us that the discovery of
truth is not to be a victory for some and a defeat for others. Unless all
can claim a share in that victory, truth itself will continue to be rejected
by the losers, because it will be regarded as inseparable from the yoke of
defeat. And so, confrontation, controversy and the like might yield to a
genuine united search for God's truth and how it can best be served.
He was probably born about the year 125, in one
of those maritime provinces of Asia Minor where the memory of the apostles
was still cherished and where Christians were numerous.
Many Asian priests and missionaries brought the gospel to the
pagan Gauls and founded a local church.
To this church of Lyon, Irenaeus
came to serve as a priest under its
first bishop, Saint Pothinus, an
oriental like himself. In the year 177, Irenaeus was sent to Rome. This mission
explains how it was that he was not called upon to share in the martyrdom
of St Pothinus during the terrible persecution in Lyons. When he returned
to Lyons it was to occupy the vacant bishopric. By this time, the persecution
was over.
It was the spread of gnosticism in Gaul, and the ravages it was
making among the Christians of his diocese, that inspired him to undertake
the task of exposing its errors. He produced a treatise in five books in which
he sets forth fully the inner doctrines of the various sects, and afterwards
contrasts them with the teaching of the Apostles and the text of the Holy
Scripture. His work, written in
Greek but quickly translated to Latin, was widely circulated and succeeded
in dealing a death-blow to gnosticism. At any rate, from that time onwards,
it ceased to offer a serious menace to the Catholic faith.
The date of death of Saint Irenaeus is not known, but it is believed
to be in the year 202. The bodily remains of Saint Irenaeus were buried in
a crypt under the altar of what was then called the church of Saint John,
but was later known by the name of Saint Irenaeus himself. This tomb or shrine
was destroyed by the Calvinists in 1562, and all trace of his relics seems
to have perished. |
Eódem die sancti Pápii Mártyris,
qui, in persecutióne Diocletiáni Imperatóris, flagris
cæsus, atque in lebétem, óleo et ádipe fervénti
plenum, immíssus, áliaque horrénda supplícia perpéssus,
demum, datis cervícibus, coronátur.
St. Papius, martyr, Also during the persecution of Diocletian, who
was scourged with knotted cords, cast into a cauldron of seething oil and
grease, and after other horrible torments was beheaded, and thus won an eternal
crown.
|
412 Cyrus and
John from the city of Konopa, near Alexandria Transfer of the Relics of the
Holy Martyrs, Unmercenaries and Wonderworkers
many miracles, healings of the sick and infirm
(where they suffered in the year 311) to the nearby village of
Manuphin, took place in the year 412. This Egyptian village prompted fear
in everyone, since in a former time there was a pagan temple inhabited by
evil spirits. Patriarch Theophilus (385-412) wanted to cleanse this place
of demons, but he died. His wish was fulfilled by his successor in the See
of Alexandria, the holy Patriarch Cyril (412-444). He prayed fervently in
carrying out this project. An angel of the Lord appeared in a vision to the
hierarch and commanded the venerable relics of Sts Cyrus and John be transferred
to Manuphin. His Holiness Patriarch Cyril did the angel's bidding and built
a church at Manuphin in the name of the holy martyrs.
From that time this place was purified of the Enemy's influence,
and by the prayers of the holy Martyrs Cyrus and John there began to occur
many miracles, healings of the sick and infirm. An account Sts Cyrus and
John is located under January 31.
Orthodoxe und Katholische
Kirche: Cyrus und Johannes - Übertragung der Gebeine - 28. Juni
Cyrus wurde in Alexandria geboren.
Er war Arzt und Christ und behandelte alle Armen unentgeltlich an Leib und
Seele. Er konnte durch sein Bekenntnis zu Christus viele heiden bekehren.
Während der diokletianischen Verfolgung floh er in die arabische Wüste.
Auch hier wirkte er weiter als Arzt und Heiler, wobei er auch viele Kranke
durch Gebet und Handauflegung heilen konnte.
Johannes war ein Soldat und lebte in Edessa. Auf
einer Pilgerreise nach Jerusalem hörte er von Cyrus, ging zu ihm in
die Wüste und wurde sein Schüler. Beide gingen nach der Legende
dann nach Canopis in Ägypten, um Athanasia und ihren Töchtern Theoktista,
Theodotia und Eudoxia, die verhaftet worden waren, beizustehen. Cyril und
Johannes wurden ebenfalls verhaftet und hingerichtet. Beide werden zu den
heiligen Ärzten gezählt. Im 5. Jahrhundert wurden ihre Reliquien
von Cyrill von Alexandria nach Menuthis übertragen (Festtag 28. Juni).
Cyrill wollte dem Kult der Isis, die als heilende Göttin verehrt wurde,
begegnen. Am Grab der Märtyrer sollen sich nach dem Bericht des Patriarchen
Sophronios über 79 Wunderheilungen ereignet haben. Da über Cyrus
und Johannes nichts weiter bekannt ist, könnte ihre Lebensgeschichte
auch eine Legendenbildung zur Begründung der Heilkraft ihrer Reliquien
sein.
|
5th v. Saint Crummine Bishop
and disciple of Saint Patrick of Ireland.
Saint Patrick placed Crummine over the church in Lachan County, Westmeath. |
6th
v. Saint Austell Confessor and disciple of Saint Newman of Cornwall, England.
Modern scholars believe that Austell was a woman named Hoystill, a daughter of Brychan
of Wales. |
6th century Saint Benignus
Bishop and martyr. He is mentioned in Pope Pelagius II's decretal concerning
his resignation from his see. Benignus retired to Utrecht, in the Netherlands.
He is listed in the Roman Martyrology, and his relics were found in Utrecht,
in 996.
Trajécti
sancti Benígni, Epíscopi et Mártyris.
At Utrecht, St. Benignus, bishop and martyr.
|
| 660 Saint Theodichildis
She served as the first abbess of the Benedictine house of Jouarre, Meaux,
France. In some lists she is called Telchildis. |
683 SAINT LEO II Pope he accomplished good
works which have caused his name to be blessed by all succeeding generations
"Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe
that you shall receive it, and it shall come to you. St. Mark 11:24"
The pontificate of this great Pope was very brief but very fruitful, since
in the ten months of his reign he accomplished good works which have caused
his name to be blessed by all succeeding generations. Born in the seventh
century in Sicily, he had been a Canon Regular, that is, an ecclesiastical
dignitary who resided in his bishop’s palace, was charged with recitation
of the Office in the cathedral, and was relied upon to serve as the auxiliary
of the Ordinary. Saint Leo was a devout student of Holy Scripture, and was
well versed in the Greek as well as the Latin language.
In his day grave difficulties frequently arose between the Holy See and the
emperors of Constantinople, whose representatives at Ravenna tried to control
the bishops of that see; the latter had been striving to become autonomous.
Saint Leo published a decree ordering that in the future no bishop of Ravenna
could enter into function before being consecrated for that office at Rome,
by the Roman Pontiff.
He built three churches in Rome, to honor Saint Paul the Apostle, Saint Sebastian,
and Saint George. Saint Leo was highly gifted in the domain of music, and
he renovated the Gregorian literature or library, then in a state of confusion;
he also composed new hymns, still conserved by the Church. He took special
care of widows and orphans and the poor in general, relieving their sufferings
with a truly apostolic charity.
Saint Leo confirmed the Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council which his predecessor
had convoked at Constantinople against the Monothelite heresy, and translated
its acts into Latin for the benefit of the Occidentals. When he died in July
of 683, his death was deeply regretted by all the faithful. He was interred
according to established custom in the church of Saint Peter. He is ordinarily
pictured embracing a beggar or holding a book of music. Source: Les Petits
Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral:
Paris, 1882), Vol. 7 |
767
Saint Paul I, Pope {Pope from 757-767}. The brother of Pope Stephen II and
a Roman, he was educated in the Lateran Palace, became a deacon under Pope
Zachary, and wielded considerable influence in his brother’s administration.
Elected to succeed Stephen, he took as his primary concern the threat posed
to Rome and the Papal States by the Lombards.
Romæ sancti Pauli Primi, Papæ et
Confessóris. At Rome, Pope St. Paul I, confessor.
ST PAUL I,
POPE (A.D. 767)
THE immediate successor of Pope Stephen III in the chair of St Peter was
his younger brother Paul. They had been educated together at the Lateran
school, they had been made deacons together by Pope St Zachary, and Paul
remained closely associated with his brother, whom he tenderly nursed in
his last illness and whose policy he continued to pursue. A contemporary,
writing in the Liber Pontificalis,
pays an eloquent tribute to Paul's personal character, emphasizing his kindness,
his clemency and his magnanimity. He was always ready to help those in distress
and never did he return evil for evil. Often, under cover of the night, he
would visit the sick poor in their homes or in hospitals. Sometimes he would
enter the prisons and redeem poor debtors: occasionally he would release prisoners
under sentence of death. If he erred, it was always on the side of leniency.
Paul's pontificate of ten years was relatively peaceful abroad, owing to
his good relations with King Pepin, and peaceful at home owing to his own
firm government: "firm" is hardly a strong enough word-the severity of Paul's
administration is in marked contrast with the kindness of character attributed
to him by the Liber Pontificalis.
At the same time the record of his pontificate is chiefly one long tale of
political diplomacy; in the words of Monsignor Mann: "By unceasing diplomatic
effort Paul prevented the Lombards on the one hand and the Greeks on the
other from effecting anything of moment against the newly acquired temporal
power of the supreme pontiff; he caused great events never to get beyond
the eve of happening." He kept on the best of terms with Pepin, sending him
exceedingly polite letters, presents (including an organ) and relics of the
martyrs. In Rome itself the pope's activities took a more concrete form.
From catacombs, reduced to ruin by the ravages of time or of the barbarians,
he transferred the relics of many saints to churches in the City. Amongst
others the remains of St Petronilla, the supposed daughter of St Peter, were
brought to a restored mausoleum which became known as the Chapel of the Kings
of France. He built or rebuilt a church of SS. Peter and Paul; he also erected
in St Peter's an oratory in honour of our Lady. In his paternal mansion,
which he converted into a monastery under the dedication of the popes St
Stephen I and St Silvester, he placed Greek monks, refugees from the iconoclast
persecution. The adjoining church, entirely rebuilt by him for them, received
the name of San Silvestro in Capite, from the head, reputed to be that of
St John Baptist, which the monks had brought from the East. Eleven hundred
years later that same church (but long since again rebuilt) was given by
Pope Leo XIII to the Catholics of England.
Pope Paul was staying at St Paul's outside the Walls, whither he had gone
to escape the summer heat in Rome, when he was seized with a fever which
proved fatal. He died on June 28, 767.
The Liber Pontificalis, in Duchesne's edition
(vol. i, pp. 463-467), is the most reliable source for an estimate of the
pope's personal character. The letters of Paul I may be studied in MGH.,
Epistolae, vol. iii, in the
edition of Gundlach. For English readers, the painstaking account given in
Mgr Mann's Lives of the Popes (vol.
i, part II, pp. 331-360) is the most satisfactory, and easily accessible.
See also the Acta Sanctorum, June;
vol. vii; Duchesne, Les premiers temps
de l’État Pontifical (1904), pp. 79-94; M. Baumont in Mélanges d’archéologie et d'histoire,
1930, pp. 7-24; F. H. Seppelt, Das Papsttum
im Früh-Mittelalter (1934), pp. 137-146; Fliche and Martin, Histoire de l'Église, t. vi (1937),
pp. 17-31.
Paul secured an alliance with the Frankish king Pepin the Short, thereby
cementing the relationship between the Holy See and the Frankish Empire which
culminated with the historically significant alliance between Pope Leo III
and Charlemagne. Paul also opposed the Iconoclast policies of the Byzantine
emperor Constantine V, thereby exacerbating further the deteriorating relationship
between the papacy and the Byzantine Empire. He died on June 28 at Saint
Paul’s Outside the Walls, in Rome. |
9th v.St. John of
Damascus "Of the Three Hands" The Icon of the Mother of God, Mary reattached
his hand John placed on the icon a hand fashioned of silver, from which the
icon received its name
In the ninth century during the time of the Iconoclasts, St. John of Damascus
(December 4) was zealous in his veneration of holy icons. Because of this,
he was slandered by the emperor and iconoclast Leo III the Isaurian (717-740),
who informed the Damascus caliph that St. John was committing treasonous
acts against him. The caliph gave orders to cut off the hand of the monk
and take it to the marketplace. Towards evening St. John, having asked the
caliph for the cut-off hand, put it to its joint and fell to the ground before
the icon of the Mother of God. The monk begged Our Lady to heal the hand,
which had written in defense of Orthodoxy. After long prayer he fell asleep
and saw in a dream that the All-Pure Mother of God had turned to him promising
him quick healing.
Before this the Mother of God bid him toil without fail with this hand. Having
awakened from sleep, St. John saw that his hand was unharmed. In thankfulness
for this healing St. John placed on the icon a hand fashioned of silver,
from which the icon received its name "Of Three Hands." (Some iconographers,
in their ignorance, have mistakenly depicted the Most Holy Theotokos with
three arms and three hands.) According to Tradition, St. John wrote a hymn
of thanksgiving to the Mother of God: "All of creation rejoices in You, O
Full of Grace," which appears in place of the hymn "It is Truly Meet" in
the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great.
St. John Damascene accepted monasticism at the monastery of St. Sava the
Sanctified and there bestowed his wonderworking icon. The Lavra presented
the icon "Of Three Hands" in blessing to St. Sava, Archbishop of Serbia (+
1237, January 12). During the time of an invasion of Serbia by the Turks,
some Christians who wanted to protect the icon, entrusted it to the safekeeping
of the Mother of God Herself. They placed it upon a donkey, which without
a driver proceeded to Athos and stopped in front of the Hilandar monastery.
The monks put the icon in the monastery's cathedral church (katholikon).
During a time of discord over the choice of igumen, the Mother of God deigned
to head the monastery Herself, and from that time Her holy icon has occupied
the igumen's place in the temple. At the Hilandar monastery there is chosen
only a vicar, and from the holy icon the monks take a blessing for every
obedience .
|
858 Saint Argymirus
Martyr of Spain, native of Cabra, Spain, he held a high position in one of
the Islamic domains in the peninsula. Fired because of his Christian faith,
Argymirus became a monk. He made a public statement of his beliefs and was
beheaded.
Córdubæ, in Hispánia,
sancti Argymíri, Mónachi et Mártyris, qui in persecutióne
Arábica, pro Christi fide, in equúleo pósitus et ense
transfóssus est.
At Cordova in Spain, St. Argymirus, monk and
martyr, slain for faith of Christ during the persecution by Arabs.
|
875 Saint Egilo abbot
of Prum, near Trier, Germany founder, also called Egilo and Eigil. He was
abbot of Prum, near Trier, Germany. There he gave the habit to Saint Humphrey.
In 860, he was directed by Emperor Charles the Bald to restore Flavigny Abbey
in Dijon, France. He then founded the abbey of Corbigny, in Yonne.
|
976 Gero von Köln
971 holte Gero die byzantinische Prinzessin Theophanu als Braut für
Oto II. nach Deutschland. Dabei brachte er auch Reliquien von Pantaleon nach
Köln mit
Orthodoxe Kirche und Katholische Kirche: 28. Juni
Gero, Sohn des thüringischen Markgrafen Christian war Kaplan von Kaiser
Otto I.. Als er 969 zum Erzbischof von Köln gewählt wurde, widersetzte
sich Otto der Ernennung. 971 holte Gero die byzantinische Prinzessin Theophanu
als Braut für Oto II. nach Deutschland. Dabei brachte er auch Reliquien
von Pantaleon nach Köln mit. Gero gründete die Abteien Dammersfeld
und Gladbach. Er starb am 28.6.976 .
|
1019 Saint Heimrad
Benedictine hermit and pilgrim. He was a monk at various abbeys before beginning
his ceaseless pilgrimages to Rome and Jerusalem. He was considered a lunatic
by many until he setteld as a hermit at Wolfhagen, Hesse Nassau. His tomb
there drew many pilgrims.
ST HEIMRAD (A.D. 1019)
THE cultus of St Heimrad is a purely popular
one; it has never received any official sanction. It arose from reports of
miraculous happenings at his tomb, which accordingly became a place of pilgrimage.
His career casts a curious light upon social conditions of the age in which
he lived. His parents were serfs, attached to a great estate in Swabia; but
Heimrad himself was trained for the priesthood, and appointed chaplain to
the great lady on whose property he had been born. The post proving to be
one for which he was quite unfitted, he was released at his own request.
He then went on pilgrimages, first to Rome and then to Jerusalem, begging
his bread as he went, and sharing with other wayfarers whatever he received
from charity. After his return, he took to a life of vagrancy, and wandered
about, mainly in Thuringia, Hesse and Westphalia. At one time, indeed, he
seemed disposed to settle down in the abbey of Hersfeld, where he was allowed
to stay on, though he refused to take the habit or to submit to the rule.
Before long, however, the old restlessness returned. One day, when the community
were at chapter, he flung himself down dramatically in their midst and asked
leave to depart. He was sure, he declared, that he could never find his salvation
there. Far from wishing to detain him, the abbot seems to have been glad
to be relieved of his presence, and the malcontent was rather unceremoniously
turned out of the monastery.
Heimrad was, or pretended to be, aggrieved, and bewailed aloud the treatment
that had been meted out to him. It was very wrong, he declared, of the abbot
and monks to subject him, an emperor's brother, to such indignity. His biographer
insinuates, let us note, that he only meant that he, like the rest of mankind,
was a brother of Jesus Christ. The preposterous claim however, highly amused
the bystanders, but the abbot, when he heard of it, took the matter more
seriously, and directed that Heimrad should be whipped. While a kindly brother
was administering a not too severe castigation, the victim, we are told, recited
the first half of the Miserere. Afterwards he resumed his nomad existence,
and in the course of his peregrinations came to Kirchberg and to Detmold
in Westphalia. Here the parish priest allowed him to take over a disused
church, but soon had reason to regret the concession. For he found himself
abandoned by his congregation, who preferred the ministrations of the newcomer,
whose abnegation and eccentric ways they, rightly or wrongly, took for sanctity,
and transferred to him their customary offerings. Insult seemed to be added
to injury when Heimrad refused a gift from the priest's wife-this was before
the strict enforcement of celibacy in the West on the ground that she was
living an immoral life. This was too much for the incumbent; he set the dogs
at his rival, and hounded him out of the place.
Wherever Heimrad went, his gaunt form, emaciated countenance and strange
utterances could not fail to attract notice; but whilst in some quarters
he was honoured as a saint, in others he was treated as an impostor or a
demoniac. St Cunegund, when she came to Paderborn with the Emperor St Henry,
sentenced him to a flogging, and he fared no better at the hands of St Meinwerk,
Bishop of Paderborn, before whom he subsequently appeared. For the prelate,
recognizing him at once, began the proceedings by treating him as an energumen,
and inquiring where that demoniac had sprung from now. Then, when Heimrad
asserted that he had not a devil, but was a priest and had offered Mass that
day, Meinwerk told him to produce the books he had used. Heimrad obeyed;
but their dirty and dilapidated condition so scandalized the bishop that
he consigned them to the flames, and condemned their owner to be beaten.
Heimrad's wanderings came to an end before long-possibly as the result of
advancing years and increasing infirmities. He made a retreat for himself
in a wood near the modern town of Wolfhagen in Hesse-Nassau, and there leading
an existence of great austerity and destitution, he remained unmolested until
his death in the year 1019. Many miracles are said to have followed, and
half a century later, in fulfilment, it is stated, of one of his prophecies,
a monastery was erected over his last resting-place, which was dedicated
under the names of SS. Peter and Paul and St Heimrad.
The
medieval life which relates this strange story was written, seemingly, not
much more than fifty years after Heimrad's death, by Egbert, a monk of Hersfeld.
The author claims to have learnt details from his own father, and from others
who had known the recluse personally. The life is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, June, vol. vii, and also
in MGH., Scriptores, vol. x, pp.
598-607. Egbert seems to suggest that many of the extravagant things recorded
of Heimrad were deliberately done by him to draw contempt upon himself. We
must remember that a similar purpose at times animated St Francis of Assisi
and his first companions, and may probably be recognized in St Benedict Joseph
Labre, who was a sort of professional vagrant nearer our own day, while such
a form of ascesis is almost a commonplace in Eastern hagiology.
|
Saint Paul the Physician,
from the city of Corinth, in his youth took monastic tonsure at one of the
monasteries. Here the saint toiled much and became an experienced ascetic.
Once Paul, through demonic malice, was slandered by a woman. She came to
the monastery with a newborn infant and said, that St. Paul was the father.
The Elder with humility and joy endured the slander, he did not deny it and
he took the infant, as though it were his own son. When they began to reproach
the saint for breaking his monastic vows, St. Paul said, "Brethren, let us
ask the infant who his father is!" The newborn, pointing his hand at the
blacksmith, said, "Here is my father and not the monk Paul." Seeing this
miracle, people bowed down to the Elder, asking forgiveness. From this time
St. Paul received from God the gift of healing the sick, whereby he received
the name physician. St. Paul died at age 70 .
|
SS. SERGIUS AND GERMANUS OF VALAAM,
ABBOTS
SS. SERGIUS and GERMANUS (Herman) are venerated as Greek monks who founded
the great Russian monastery of Valaam (Valamo), on the island of that name
in the huge lake called Ladoga in the south-eastern corner of Finland, from
whence they evangelized the heathen Karelians on its shores. This event is
commonly put between the years 973 and 992, at the time when the evangelization
of the Russians was beginning around Kiev, but there is no solid ground for
accepting so early a date. The monastery was certainly founded before the
fifteenth century and it was re-established by the Tsar Peter the Great in
1718; but before then it had been an unoccupied ruin for a century, because
of the wars between Sweden and Russia. Accordingly both written and oral
tradition has been broken, and there are only uncertain or obviously mistaken
suppositions about the foundation of the house.
A more likely date than 992 is 1329, when Russian monasteries were being
planted in the Ladoga region as part of a political consolidation against
the Swedes in western Karelia. There is a story that at this time St Sergius
took up his abode in the Vaaga cave, an old site of heathen worship: he was
a stranger, from Novgorod or from Byzantium, and according to one version
he had been at the head of the powerful trading community in the first-named
city. From his cave he tended the souls and bodies of the people, and for
his living and recreation he carved in stone. As well as becoming head of
a monastic community, he was looked on as head-man of the neighbourhood in
civil affairs.
There is a legend that St Sergius baptized a Karelian called Munga, who became
his successor under the name of Germanus. It seems that this legend has arisen
from confusion with a seventeenth-century Hans Munck, who was a local Swedish
governor and a Lutheran, and certainly did not end his days in a monastery.
All that is known about Germanus is that he was a contemporary of St Sergius
and his collaborator. At any rate until the war of 1939, the shrines of the
two saints were venerated in the katholikon
of the Valaam monastery.
SS. Sergius and Germanus are among
the Russian saints mentioned under St Sergius of Radonezh on September 25.
Their history is extremely elusive, and for the above notes the writer is
principally indebted to Mr Ragnar Rosén, formerly director of the
Finnish state archives at Viborg and now director of the municipal archives
at Helsinki. The Valaam monastery of the Russian Orthodox Church is one of
those recognized by the Soviet authorities since 1943. For an account of
it before World War II, see an article by Father S. M. Quandalle, in Russie et Chrétienté, no.
1 (1938); see also C. F. L. St George in Eastern Churches Quarterly, vol. iii,
no. 3 (1938).
|
1262 Saint Xenophon
of Robeika a student of St. Barlaam of Khutyn head of the Khutyn monastery
after the igumen Isidore founded the Trinity Monastery on the banks of the
Robeika River (not far from Novgorod)
St. Barlaam of Khutyn (+ 1192, November 6). He was the head of the Khutyn
monastery after the igumen Isidore (+1243). Resigning as igumen, St. Xenophon
founded the Trinity Monastery on the banks of the Robeika River (not far
from Novgorod). Here he reposed blessedly on June 28, 1262.
|
1270 Saint Almus Cistercian abbot monk at Melrose
when he was elected abbot of Scotland's Balmerino monastery, founded by Ermengardis,
the widow of William I of Scotland.
Also called Alme and Alanus. He was a monk in the English Cistercian monastery
at Melrose when he was elected abbot of Scotland's Balmerino monastery, founded
by Ermengardis, the widow of William
I of Scotland.
|
1353 Saints
Sergius and Herman settled on the island of Valaam in 1329. The brethren gathered
by them spread the light of Orthodoxy in
this frontier land. The Karelian people began to regard Christianity with
renewed suspicion, with its authority in the fourteenth century being undermined
by the Swedes, who sought to spread Catholicism by means of the sword.
Sts Sergius and Herman died about the year 1353.
They are also commemorated on September 11 (The translation of
their holy relics).
Many scholars consider Rublev's Trinity the most perfect of all
Russian icons and perhaps the most perfect of all the icons ever painted.
The work was created for the abbot of the Trinity Monastery, Nikon of Radonezh,
a disciple of the famous Sergius, one of the leaders of the monastic revival
in the 14th-century Russia. Asking Rublev to paint the icon of the Holy Trinity,
Nikon wanted to commemorate Sergius as a man whose life and deeds embodied
the most progressive processes in the late 14th-century Russia.
From the earliest times, the
idea of the Trinity was controversial and difficult to understand, especially
for the uneducated masses. Even though Christianity replaced the pagan polytheism,
it gave the believers a monotheistic religion with a difficult concept of
one God in three hypostases -- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. Not only the uneducated population but many theologians had difficulties
with the concept of the triune God; from time to time, a heretical movement,
like Arianism, questioned the doctrine, causing long debates, violent persecutions,
and even greater general confusion. Trying to portray the Trinity, but always
aware of the Biblical prohibition against depicting God, icon painters turned
to the story of the hospitality of Abraham who was visited by three wanderers.
In their compositions, icon painters included many details -- the figures
of Abraham and Sarah, a servant killing a calf in preparation for the feast,
the rock, the tree of Mamre, and the house (tent) -- trying to render as
faithfully as possible the events described in the text:
Rublev's Trinity the most perfect of all Russian
icons
"And the Lord appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the
tent door in the heat of the day; And he lift up his eyes and looked, and,
lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from
the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, And said, My Lord, if
now I have found favour in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy
servant: Let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash your feet,
and rest yourselves under the tree: And I will fetch a morsel of bread, and
comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye
come to your servant. And they said, So do, as thou hast said. And Abraham
hastened into the tent unto Sarah, and said, Make ready quickly three measures
of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth. And Abraham ran unto
the herd, and fetcht a calf tender and good, and gave it unto a young man;
and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter, and milk, and the calf that
he had dressed, and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree,
and they did eat" (KJV, Genesis, 18: 1-8 and passim).
Very few artists before Rublev dared to eliminate all the narrative
elements from the story, leaving only the three angels; usually those who
did so had to deal with limited space. The results of their efforts did not
find general acceptance or many copyists. Rublev was the first to make a
conscious decision not to include in his composition the figures of Abraham
and Sarah because he did not set out to illustrate the story of the hospitality
of Abraham, as did many painters before him, but to convey through his image
the idea of the unity and indivisibility of the three persons of the Trinity.
The doctrine of the Trinity,
difficult to explain logically, found various interpretations. Some thought
that the Trinity consisted of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. Others believed that it was just God and two angels. In the 14th
and 15th-century Russia, in the period of many heretical movements, the idea
of the Trinity was often questioned. The heretics in Novgorod claimed that
it is not permissible to paint the Trinity on icons because Abraham did not
see the Trinity but only God and two angels. Other heretics rejected the idea
of the three hypostases of God altogether. The church fought the heresies
with all the means it had -- usually with polemical treaties, but also with
force, if necessary. Russian icon painters before Rublev subscribed
to the same point of view that Abraham was visited by God (in Christ's image)
and two angels. Hence, Christ was represented in icons of the Trinity as
the middle angel and was symbolically set apart either by a halo with a cross,
by a considerable enlargement of his figure, by widely spread wings or by
a scroll in His hand.
|
1654 Saint John Southworth
became a priest in 1619 in Douai One of the Forty Martyrs of England and
Wales relics are in Westminster Cathedral in London, discovered there in
1927. Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1970.
BD JOHN SOUTHWORTH, MARTYR 1654)
INTEREST in Bd John Southworth was quickened by the discovery of his remains
at Douai in 1927, and by their enshrining in the chapel of St George and
the English Martyrs in Westminster cathedral. The Southworths were a Lancashire
family which remained staunch to the Catholic faith throughout the penal
days, although it suffered much persecution and became greatly impoverished
by heavy fines. John, a member of the younger branch of the house, was sent
to Douai College in 1613 at the age of twenty-one to be trained for the priesthood.
After his ordination five years later he tried his vocation for a short time
with the Benedictines, but finding that he was not called to the monastic
life he decided to remain a secular priest. On December 13, 1619, he was
sent on the English mission. All that is known of his whereabouts and activities
during the next few years is that he was living in or near London in 1623.
The following year he was back in Belgium, first at Douai and then in Brussels,
where he was confessor to the Benedictine nuns. Before long, however, he
returned to England-this time to his native Lancashire. He laboured there
until 1627, when he was arrested and tried on the charge of being a priest
and of exercising his sacerdotal functions on English soil. Though condemned
to death he was reprieved, and from the window of his cell in Lancaster castle
he was able to give absolution to Bd Edmund Arrowsmith as that martyr was
being carried to execution.
After three years Mr Southworth was transferred to London and there released,
together with some fifteen other priests, at the instance of Queen Henrietta
Maria. All of them were ordered to leave the country. Whether Bd John obeyed
the injunction is doubtful. He was certainly living in England soon afterwards,
and in 1632 he was a prisoner in the Clink. We learn, however, from a complaint
made by the Puritan, Prynne, that “he had full liberty to walk abroad at
his pleasure as most priests had during their imprisonment". Of that licence
he made full use during a virulent outbreak of plague in 1636. Relief granted
to poor sufferers through parish officials was withheld from households known
to be Catholic, and their fate would indeed have been tragic had it not been
for the devotion of John Southworth and of his fellow martyr, Bd Henry Morse.
The two priests visited daily the stricken houses of the Westminster area,
distributing the alms provided by the queen and other charitable persons,
besides administering the consolations of religion. Some four hundred families
were thus assisted. When Morse fell a victim to the prevailing epidemic Southworth
carried on alone, until he found himself strictly confined within the prison
walls as the result of representations made by the curate of St Margaret's,
who had seen him emerge from an infected house and who asserted that he was
seducing the people and had recently reconciled two dying men to the Catholic
faith. However, an appeal made to the queen led to a restoration of his former
privileges; and not long afterwards, through her influence and that of Windebank,
the secretary of state, he was released from captivity.
"Any other particulars relating to Mr Southworth's missionary labours I have
not been able to find", writes Bishop Challoner, "for want of proper memoirs,
or any more of him till his final apprehension in 1654 when, upon information
of one Jefferies, a pursuivant...he was taken out of bed at night by Colonel
Worsley, and upon his own confession of having exercised his functions since
his reprieve, he was condemned and dragged to Tyburn upon a sledge, between
two coiners. "Efforts had been made to save him by the foreign ambassadors
and even by his judges, who urged him to plead “not guilty"; but he would
not appear to disavow his priesthood, and they had no option but to pass
upon him the sentence of death. His martyrdom took place on the eve of the
feast of SS. Peter and Paul, 1654, when he was sixty-two years of age. His
body was bought by the Spanish ambassador and transported to the chapel of
the English College at Douai, where it remained until the confiscation of
the establishment by the revolutionary authorities in 1793. To save the martyr's
relics from profanation his coffin was secretly removed by four of the students
and buried inside the building. In 1927 it was discovered by a workman when
he was excavating the foundations of what had once been the college. The
contents were identified and Bd John Southworth's partly desiccated remains
were brought back to England to rest at St Edmund's College, near Ware, which
carries on the work of the old Douai seminary. Four months after the 1929
beatification of English martyrs it was removed to Westminster, and on May
I, 1930, it was solemnly translated to its present place in the cathedral.
Everything that is known concerning
Bd John seems to have been brought together in the volume published in 1930
by Fr A. B. Purdie, The Life of Bd John
Southworth. See also Challoner, MMP., pp. 504-510.
He was born in Lancashire and became a priest in 1619 in Douai.
Sent to England that same year, he was arrested but released through the
intercession of Queen Henrietta Maria. He joined Saint Henry Morse, subsequently
working diligently during the plague of 1636. Arrested again, he was martyred
by being hanged, drawn, and quartered at Tybum. His relics are in Westminster Cathedral
in London, discovered there in 1927.
Pope Paul VI canonized him in 1970. |
1847 Saint Vincenza Gerosa Co-foundress of the
Sisters of Charity native of Lovere, Italy gave her life to aiding the poor
Lúere, in diœcési Brixiénsi, sanctæ Vincéntiæ
Gerósa Vírginis, Institúti Sorórum a Caritáte
una cum sancta Bartholomǽa Capitánio Fundatrícis, quam Pius
Papa Duodécimus albo sanctárum Vírginum accénsuit.
At Lovere, in the diocese of Brescia, St. Vincenza Gerosa,
virgin, who co-founded the Institute of the Sisters of Charity with St. Bartolomea
Capitanio, and whom Pope Pius XII added to the list of holy virgins.
Originally named Catherine, orphaned in her youth and ever after
gave her life to aiding the poor. About 1824, she and Saint Bartolomea Capitanio
founded the Sisters of Charity of Lovere to help the poor and sick and educate
children, Following the passing of Bartolomea in 1833, Vincenza assumed the
directorship of the Order and expanded its efforts until her death after
a long illness on June 29. She was canonized in 1975 by Pope Paul VI (r.
1963-1978). |
Mary Mother of GOD
Saint of the Day June 28 Quarto Kaléndas Júlii 
Et álibi
aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum,
atque sanctárum Vírginum.
The Constitutional Convention deadlocked over how large and small
states could be represented equally.
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.