St. Clementinus Martyr
with Theodotus and Philomenus in Heraclea in Thrace
Heracléæ,
in Thrácia, natális sanctórum Mártyrum Clementíni,
Theodóti et Philómeni.
At Heraclea in Thrace, the birthday of the holy martyrs
Clementinus, Theodotus and Philomenus.
Clementinus, Theodotus & Philomenus MM (RM) Martyrs of Heraclea in
Thrace. (Benedictines).
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Apostle Philip The Holy and All-praised profound knowledge of
Holy
Scripture, rightly discerning meaning of the Old Testament prophecies,
he awaited the coming of the Messiah
A native of the city of
Bethsaida in Galilee. He had a profound depth of knowledge of the Holy Scripture,
and rightly discerning the meaning of the Old Testament prophecies, he awaited
the coming of the Messiah. Through the call of the Savior (John 1:43), Philip
followed Him. The Apostle Philip is spoken about several times in the Holy
Gospel: he brought to Christ the Apostle Nathaniel (i.e. Bartholomew, April
22, June 30, and August 25. See John. 1:46). The Lord asks him where to buy
bread for five thousand men (John. 6: 5-7). He brought certain of the Hellenized
Jews wanting to see Jesus (John. 12:21-22); and finally, at the Last Supper
he asked Christ to show them the Father (John. 14:8).
After the Ascension of
the Lord, the Apostle Philip preached the Word of God in Galilee, accompanying his preaching with
miracles. Thus, he restored to life a dead infant in the arms of its mother.
From Galilee he went to Greece, and
preached among the Jews that had settled there. Some of them reported the
preaching of the Apostle to Jerusalem.
In response, some scribes arrived in Greece from Jerusalem, with one of the
Jewish chief priests at their head, to interrogate the Apostle Philip.
The Apostle Philip exposed
the lie of the chief priest, who said that the disciples of Christ had stolen
away and hidden the body of Christ. Philip told instead how the Pharisees
had bribed the soldiers on watch, to deliberately spread this rumor. When
the Jewish chief priest and his companions began to insult the Lord and lunged
at the Apostle Philip, they suddenly were struck blind. By his prayer the
Apostle restored everyone's sight. Seeing this miracle, many believed in Christ.
The Apostle Philip provided a bishop for them, by the name of Narcissus (one
of the Seventy Apostles, January 4).
From Greece the Apostle
Philip went to Parthia, and then to the city of Azotus, where he healed an
eye affliction of the daughter of a local resident named Nikoklides, who had
received him into his home, and then baptized his whole family.
From Azotus the Apostle
Philip set out to Syrian Hieropolis (there were several cities of this name)
where, stirred up by the Pharisees, the Jews burned the house of Heros, who
had taken in the Apostle Philip, and they wanted to kill the apostle. The
apostle performed several miracles: the healing of the hand of the city official
Aristarchus, withered when he attempted to strike the apostle; and restoring
a dead child to life. When they saw these marvels, they repented and many
accepted holy Baptism. After making Heros the bishop at Hieropolis, the Apostle
Philip went on to Syria, Asia Minor, Lydia, Emessa, and everywhere preaching
the Gospel and undergoing sufferings. Both he and his sister Mariamne (February
17) were pelted with stones, locked up in prison, and thrown out of villages.
Then
the Apostle Philip arrived in the city of Phrygian Hieropolis, where there
were many pagan temples. There was also a pagan temple where people worshiped
an enormous serpent as a god. The Apostle Philip by the power of prayer killed
the serpent and healed many bitten by snakes.
Among
those healed was the wife of the city prefect, Amphipatos. Having learned
that his wife had accepted Christianity, the prefect Amphipatos gave orders
to arrest St Philip, his sister, and the Apostle Bartholomew traveling with
them. At the urging of the pagan priests of the temple of the serpent, Amphipatos
ordered the holy Apostles Philip and Bartholomew to be crucified.
Suddenly,
an earthquake struck, and it knocked down all those present at the place
of judgment. Hanging upon the cross by the pagan temple of the serpent, the
Apostle Philip prayed for those who had crucified him, asking God to save
them from the ravages of the earthquake. Seeing this happen, the people believed
in Christ and began to demand that the apostles be taken down from the crosses.
The Apostle Bartholomew was still alive when he was taken down, and he baptized
all those believing and established a bishop for them.
But
the Apostle Philip, through whose prayers everyone remained alive, except
for Amphipatos and the pagan priests, died on the cross. Mariamne his sister buried
his body, and went with the Apostle Bartholomew to preach in Armenia, where
the Apostle Bartholomew was crucified (June 11); Mariamne herself then preached
until her own death at Lykaonia.
The
holy Apostle Philip is not to be confused with St Philip the Deacon (October
11), one of the Seventy.
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2nd v. St. Venaranda Virgin
martyr of Gaul
In Gállia
sanctæ Venerándæ Vírginis, quæ, sub Antoníno
Imperatóre et Asclepíade Præside, martyrii corónam
accépit.
Also in France, the holy virgin Veneranda, who received the crown of martyrdom
under Emperor Antoninus and the governor Asclepiades.
(modern France). It is
possible that she is to be identified with Parasceve, a saint venerated by
the Orthodox Church.
Veneranda
of Gaul VM (RM)
The Roman
Martyrology describes the virgin Veneranda as leaving her native Gaul to
preach the Gospel and being martyred under Antoninus in Rome. It seems that
Veneranda is a later corruption of Venera (from dies Veneris--Friday) the
Latin counterpart of Parasceves, and that she is identical with a Parasceves,
at one time venerated by the Greeks (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
|
252 St. Serapion
Egyptin Martyr during anti-Christian riots in Alexandria
Alexandríæ
sancti Serapiónis Mártyris, quem persecutóres, sub
Décio Príncipe, ita crudelíssimis affecérunt
supplíciis, ut cunctas et junctúras membrórum prius
sólverent, eúmque póstea de superióribus domus
suæ præcipitárent; atque ille sic gloriósus Christi
Martyr efficerétur.
At Alexandria, St. Serapion, martyr, whom the persecutors
under Emperor Decius subjected to torments so cruel that all his limbs were
disjointed. He became a martyr of Christ by being hurled from the upper
part of the house.
He was killed during anti-Christian
riots in the city when a mob which knew him to be a conspicuous Christian
hurled him from the roof of his house.
Serapion of Alexandria M (RM). During the reign of Emperor Philip, mobs
at Alexandria ranged the streets torturing and killing Christians. Among
their victims was Saint Serapion, who was tortured and thrown from the roof
of his home to his death (Benedictines, Delaney). In art this Saint Serapion
is represented as being flung from a window by an angry mob. Sometimes this
is changed to being flung from a rock or a housetop (Roeder).
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275 Saint Venerandus of Troyes M (RM)
Trecis, in Gállia, sancti
Venerándi Mártyris, sub Aureliáno Imperatóre.
At Troyes in France, under
Emperor Aurelian, St. Venerandus, martyr. An influential citizen
of Troyes in France, martyred under Aurelian (Benedictines).
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325 St. Hypatius Martyred
bishop of Gangra in Paphlagonia prominent defender of the divinity of Christ
Gangris, in Paphlagónia, sancti Hypátii
Epíscopi, qui, a magna Nicæna Synodo rédiens, a Novatiánis
hæréticis in via lapídibus impetítus, Martyr occúbuit.
At Gangra in Paphlagonia,
St. Hypatius, bishop, who on his way home from the great Council of Nicaea,
was attacked with stones by the Novatian heretics, and died a martyr.
He attended the Council
of Nicaea in 325 and upon his return he
was slain
by Arian heretics.
Hypatius
of Gangra BM (RM). Bishop Hypatius of Gangra in Paphlagonia attended the
council of Nicaea, where he was a prominent defender of the divinity of Christ.
While on his return from Nicaea, he was attacked by a band of heretics and
stoned to death (Benedictines). The Novgorod Icon Book has a Pectoral Icon
of Saint Hypatius (anonymous 12th-century Russian icon).
|
485 St. Jucundus
of Bologna Bishop
Bonóniæ sancti Jucúndi, Epíscopi et Confessóris.
At Bologna, St. Jucundus, bishop and confessor.
Jucundus of Bologna
B (RM) A bishop of Bologna, Italy.
|
545 St. Dubricus One founder
of monastic life in Wales also called Dubric, Dyfrig,
or Devereux.
6th
v. ST DUBRICIUS, OR DYFRIG, BISHOP
MANY legends have grown up around the figure of St Dubricius, who was undoubtedly
an important person in the Welsh church of the fifth-sixth century. Among
them, it is said that he was a pupil of St Germanus of Auxerre, which is chronologically
unlikely, and that he was the first bishop of Llandaff, an error or invention
of the twelfth century. Geoffrey of Monmouth makes him archbishop of Caerleon-on-Usk
and the prelate who confers the traditional crown of Britain on King Arthur
at Colchester (Dubricius is “the high
saint” of Tennyson’s Idylls ).
The original and chief centre of his influence was undoubtedly in
what is now called western Herefordshire, and he may have been born at Madley,
some six miles from Hereford. He became a monk and made the first foundation
of his own at Henilan, near Ross, where he had many disciples. Then he moved
up the Wye to Moccas, and from these two centres he and his disciples are
said to have founded numerous churches and monastic settlements of which many
have been identified. Some of them, such as Abbey Dore, carried their monastic
tradition on into the middle ages. St IlItyd came to St Dubricius to be shorn
a monk, and SS. Samson and Deiniol to be consecrated bishops; and with the
last named he induced St David to attend the synod of Llandewi Frefi and
resigned to him the” metropolitanship “of Wales. But this last is another
medieval invention.
It is stated in the Life of St Samson—a
less unreliable source—that St Dubricius used to go and spend Lent on Caldey.
He made Samson abbot of that ancient monastic island, in one of whose two
old churches (now restored to Catholic worship) is an inscribed stone whose
inscription seems to contain a reference to him, or to another Dubricius.
Near the end of his life, we are told, he retired to Ynys Enili (Bardsey),
and there he died and was buried. His reputed relics were translated to the
cathedral of Llandaff in 1120, and
he was made one of the four titulars of that church. The feast of St Dubricius
iá now observed only in the archdiocese of Cardiff and on Caldey.
The so-called life of St
Dubricius in the Book of Llandaff may be best consulted in the edition of
Evans (1893). Kenney describes it as “a liturgical composition posterior to
1120 which deserves no trust”. The life by Benedict of Gloucester is printed
in Wharton’s Anglia Sacra, vol. ii, pp. 654-661.
The fact that it has incorporated various details from the developed legend
of Geoffrey
of Monmouth
shows that it was written late in the twelfth century. See Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue
(Rolls Series),
vol. i, pp. 40—44; Lloyd, History of Wales, vol. i, pp. 147—148 LBS.,
vol. ii, pp. 359—382 but principally Canon Doble’s
St Dubricius
(1943), where
all the evidence is expertly examined. The latest examination of the Dubrician
church dedications is by E. G. Bowen in his Settlements of the Celtic Saints in Wales
(1954).
He was
born in Madley, Wales, and he founded monasteries at Henllan and Moccas. These
served as motherhouses for other abbeys in Herefordshire, Gwent, and the
Wye Valley.Dubricus also ruled Caldrey Island. He appointed St. Samson abbot
and ordained him as a bishop. Dubricus spent the last years of his life at
Ynys Enlli. He is believed to have been the arch-bishop of Caerleon. He died
and was buried on the island of Bardsey.
Dubricius
B (AC) (also known as Dubritius, Dubric, Dyfig, Dyfrig, Devereux)
Born
at Madley (?), near Hereford. Saint Dyfrig was an important church leader,
probably a monk, in southeast Wales and western Herefordshire. His earliest
foundation was Ariconium (Archenfield, Hereford), but his most important
centers were at Hentland (Henllan) and Moccas in the Wye valley. Dyfrig attracted
numerous disciples to the two monasteries, and from them founded many other
monasteries and churches. He was associated
with Saint Illtyd and, according to the 7th-century vita of Saint Samson,
with the island of Caldey for whose monastery he appointed Saint Samson (July
28) abbot. Later he consecrated Samson bishop. An ancient, but incomplete,
inscription at Caldey reads Magl Dubr ("the tonsured servant of Dubricius"). Dyfrig and Saint
Deinol (Daniel) were the two prelates who convinced Saint David to attend
the synod of Brefi. Dyfrig spent the last years of his life at Ynys Enlli
(Bardsey) and died there.
In later medieval legends
he becomes the 'archbishop of Caerleon' (Caerlon-on-Usk) and, according to
the unreliable Geoffrey of Monmouth, crowns 'King' Arthur at Colchester (he
is the high saint of Idylls of a King), and the ecclesiastical politics of
the 12th century claimed him as founder of the Normans' see of Llandaff, where
he was one of the four titular saints of the cathedral.
The
later vita written by Benedict of Gloucester claims that Dyfrig was a disciple
of Saint Germanus of Auxerre, but this is unlikely. Legend also inaccurately
states that Saint David resigned in his favor as metropolitan of Wales.
The
reputed relics of Saint Dyfrig were translated from Bardsey to Llandaff in
1120. He is the 'Dubric the high saint, Chief of the church in Britain' of
Tennyson's Coming of Arthur, and the place-name Saint Devereux in Herefordshire
is a corruption of the saint's name. Church dedications to him
at Gwenddwr (Powys) and Porlock (Somerset) suggest that his disciples were
active in the expansion of Christianity to the west and southwest, possibly
in association with the multitudinous children Saint Brychan of Brecknock
(Attwater, Benedictines, Doble, Delaney, Farmer). In art Saint Dubricius
is depicted holding two croziers and an archiepiscopal cross. He is venerated
in Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and Caldey Island (Roeder).
|
8th
v. St. Modanic Scottish bishop avid scholar reformer
traditionally
venerated in Aberdeen. Hewas an avid scholar and reformer in a troubled
era.
Modanic of
Aberdeen B (AC) (also known as Modan) possibly 8th century. The feast of the
Scottish bishop Modanic was kept at Aberdeen and Philorth (Fraserburgh), but
of whom we have no reliable particulars. His silver head-relic at Philorth
was previously carried in procession to invoke rain or otherwise improve the
weather. He is principally associated with the foundation at Timhood (Benedictines,
Farmer).
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690 Saint Sidonius of
Saint-Saëns, OSB Abbot (AC)
(also known
as Saëns)
Saint Sidonius,
an Irishman, became a monk at Jumièges (an offshoot of the Irish foundation
of Luxeuil) under Saint Philibert in 644. Later Sidonius was appointed by
Saint
Ouen, one
of the three brothers Saint
Columbanus blessed in their childhood,
to be the first abbot of a small monastery which that bishop had founded
near Rouen: this monastery was later called Saint-Saëns (Benedictines,
D'Arcy, Gougaud, Kenney, Montalembert, Tommasini).
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784 St. Alberic Benedictine
Bishop missionary
nephew of
St. Gregory
of Utrecht and a friend
of
the great scholar Alcuin. Little is known of his
life before his entrance into the Benedictine Order at Utrecht, Netherlands.
He served as prior of the cathedral of Utrecht, and was known for his piety
and preaching. In 775 he was made bishop of Utrecht, succeeding St. Gregory, who had administered
the area without being a prelate. Alberic spent the rest of his life preaching
to the Teutons who populated the region. Alberic died on August 21, 784.
784 Saint
Alberic of Utrecht, OSB B (AC)
Nephew of
Saint Gregory of Utrecht, Alberic was prior of Saint Martin's cathedral,
and on his uncle's death in 775 succeeded to the see of Utrecht. Perhaps
because he himself was a highly educated man, Alberic was a great friend
of Blessed
Alcuin. His
apostolate among the pagan Teutons was exceedingly fruitful (Benedictines).
|
Adaltrude Mother of Saint
Geraud Oct 13
(Encyclopedia).
|
1180 St. Lawrence O'Toole
Augustinian archbishop of Dublin 1172
convened a synod at Cashel General Lateran Council in Rome in 1179 unbounded
charity Corpus on the Crucifix before the kneeling prelate spoke papal legate
many miracles were reported at his tomb fought against King Henry II
Ireland.
He was born at Leinster, the Son of Murtagh, chief of the Murrays, in Castledermot,
Kildare. Taken hostage by King Dermot McMurrogh of Leinster in a raid, Lawrence
was surrendered to the bishop of Glendalough. Lawrence became a monk, and
in 1161 was named archbishop of Dublin. He was involved in negotiating with
the English following their invasion of Ireland, and in 1172 convened a synod
at Cashel. He also attended the General Lateran Council in Rome in 1179, and
was named papal legate to Ireland. While on a mission to King Henry II of
England, Lawrence died at Eu, Normandy, France. He was canonized in 1225.
Laurence
O'Toole, OSA B (RM) (also known as Lorcan
O'Tuathail) Born at Castledermot,
Kildare, Ireland, 1128; died at Eu, Normandy, France, on November 14, 1180;
canonized 1225 by Pope Honorius III.
Born Lorcan
O'Tuathail (or ua Tuathail), his mother was an O'Byrne and his father Murtagh
O'Tuathail, a Leinster chieftain of the Murrays--both sides were of princely
stock. In the 2nd century, the Celt Tuathail was one of the great Irish kings.
Another of the line reigned in 533. One of the seven churches of Glendalough
served as the burial site for many generations of O'Tuathails.
When Lorcan
was born his family had been ousted from their ancient throne and Dermot MacMurrough
was the representative of the usurping line. Dermot was a large, violent,
war-loving, vocal man hated by strangers and feared by his own people. (It
was he who invited King Henry of England to come and take possession of Ireland.)
Nevertheless, Lorcan's father had many soldiers, servants, land, and cattle.
At age 10 Lorcan was sent
to Dermot as a hostage to guarantee his father's fidelity to the new order.
For a time Lorcan lived in Dermot's castle, until the day his father refused
to obey an order. Lorcan was taken to a stony, barren region, to be punished
for his father's sin. At the end of the journey was a miserable, dilapidated
hut with a leaky roof. There he forced to practice austerity because he was
given only enough bread and greens and water to keep him alive, no clothes,
and no companionship except a guard. For two years he lived in this desolate
manner until threats restored him to his father.
The
bishop of Glendalough was the mediator between Dermot and O'Tuathail and
young Lorcan was sent across the hills to him. The bishop first introduced
Lorcan in Saint Kevin's sanctuary to the quiet recollectedness of Christian
life and studies. His father arrived a few days later and, in thanksgiving
for the safe return of his son, proposed dedicating one of his sons--to be
chosen by casting lots--to the service of God and Saint Kevin. Lorcan laughed
for the only time in his dolorous life, telling his father that he would
most willingly choose God as his inheritance.
So,
he became a student at the school for novices in Glendalough, where he stayed
for 22 years as novice, monk, then abbot. Lorcan's character was annealed
in the ascetic training of the early Irish Church whose austerities would
seem fabulous if they were not well authenticated. He stood in the direct
descent of Saint Kevin and the early anchorites of Glendalough, spending each
Lent throughout his life in lonely, but joyful, contemplation on the rocky
shelf beneath Saint Kevin's monastery, and practicing austerities as a normal
part of his life.
The
tall, extremely thin Lorcan was elected abbot in 1153 at the age of 25. His
tenure of office gave him the widest exercise of ruling men (abbots in Ireland
even overruled bishops). Within the household he had to reckon with the envy
and malice provided by his early elevation; outside the enclosure he had
distress to alleviate in the mountainous lands that gave precarious support
to the population, and he had to ensure peace and order along roads harassed
by robbers.
Lorcan's
unbounded charity first became evident during a famine that marked the beginning
of his office. He used the resources of the monastery and also his father's
fortune to minister to the poor as a servant, rather than a prelate. He spent
freely on church building, and from this period dates the beautiful priory
of Saint Saviour's at the eastern end of the valley.
After four years of service
as abbot, his spiritual stature was so plainly evident that men sought to
make him bishop of Glendalough. He refused stating that he was not of canonical
age. For 10 years the administration of the monastery engaged his full zeal
and charity; he was in touch with the great reform synod of Kells in 1152.
His name is inscribed on the 1161 charter of the new Augustinian foundation
at Ferns, where years later the fugitive King Dermot, its founder, sought
a monk's disguise when he was deserted by his kinsmen and friends.
In 1161
Gregory, archbishop of Dublin, died and Lorcan was unanimously elected to
succeed him by Danish and native clergy and laity, including the High King
O'Loughlin and even his former captor, Dermot McMurrough, who was now married
to Lorcan's sister Mor.
Momentously
for the Irish Church, Lorcan was consecrated the following year in the Danish
Christ Church, Dublin, founded by Sitric, which had never seen a native prelate.
And the sacrament was conferred by Gelasius of Armagh, the primate, in the
presence of his suffragan bishops. Dublin had been a Norse town for 300 years,
and, because the Norse were evangelized by Anglo-Saxons, the Irish Church
had always looked to Canterbury rather than Armagh. The vicissitudes of his
immediate predecessor are evidence of the racial and ecclesiastical jealousies
that his election allayed and the manner of his consecration (at the hands
of the Irish primate, rather than the English one) is signal testimony to
the new consolidation of the Irish hierarchy, which was a principal object
of the Irish Reform movement in the 12th century.
Reform
was necessary because the monastic system had been corrupted under the Norse
rule during which the abbot or comarba who ruled the monastery as heir of
the saintly founder was commonly a layman. The vices of laicisation were rampant,
even in the primatial see of Armagh which was in lay hands for generations.
There was a collateral necessity to organize according to the hierarchy of
the Catholic Church; the authority of the bishop, archbishop, and primate
had to be defined and established upon a territorial basis.
Behind
every reform movement there is a saint. In Ireland that person was Saint
Malachy,
having as precursors Cellach of Armagh and Gilbert of Limerick. Their movement
carried on from synod to synod beginning with Rath Bresail in 1111, achieved
its main purpose in the synod of Kells in 1152, when among other decisions
the sees of Dublin and Tuam were erected to archbishoprics and the number
and limits of the present dioceses were substantially fixed. Minor outstanding
disciplinary reforms were completed in synods held in 1162, 1167, and 1172--all
of which were attended by Lorcan.
After his consecration
Lorcan had to move from being an 'other worldly' man to a man of the world.
He might have lamented like Saint Bernard: "I am become the chimaera of my
century, neither cleric nor layman." Nevertheless, Lorcan managed with saintly
charm to integrate his inner and outer life. Tall, graceful Lorcan wore the
bishop's vestments with dignity, and a hairshirt underneath, for example.
He dispensed
discreetly liberal hospitality to rich and poor in his home beside his cathedral;
among rich foods choosing for himself the plainest and coloring water with
wine for courtesy and company's sake. Each day at his table 30 to 60 of the
poor dined among his other guests that the rich may be encouraged to do the
same. From the day he donned the white Augustinian robes he never ate meat,
and on Fridays he fasted on bread and water.
Three
times daily he used the discipline (self-flagellation); his nights were
lonely vigils or spent in the choir. Assiduous in attendance at Divine Office,
when at dawn the canons left the choir for their cells, he remained in solitary
prayer. Twice during his long periods of adoration, the Corpus on the Crucifix
before the kneeling prelate spoke. When day came he regularly went out to
the cemetery to chant the office of the dead. His life was what the old Irish
homily calls the "white martyrdom" of abnegation and labor.
The
bull of his canonization recites his constancy in prayer and his austere
mortification. These were the secret springs of his energy and profuse charity.
This white-robed figure of whose speech hardly four sentences remain is seen
always in the gracious gesture of giving and with the gravity of silence
about him.
Crowds
depend upon him, recognizing in him a source of supernatural power. The
records of his canonization attest to his miracles. He lived through two
famines and two sieges and saw the city of his adoption sacked. He moves
through hardships with the equilibrium of the saint and a saint's equal mind.
But also with the saint's energy.
He had
hardly taken his episcopal seat when his zeal turned to the reform of his
clergy. His predecessors had been trained in a milder climate and under laxer
monastic rules. The service of the cathedral had suffered. Looking abroad
for a model he persuaded his secular canons to join him in community life
as Augustinian regulars of the Arroasian Rule and converted the Cathedral
Church of the Holy Trinity into a priory. His community became a school for
bishops: Albin of Ferns, Marianus of Cork, and Malachy of Louth who were subsequent
witnesses to his sanctity.
In the Irish monasteries
psalmody occupied a central place in the monk's life. Lorcan raised the Gregorian
chant, still so little heard in Irish churches, to its proper place about
the altar and restored its appropriate splendor to the Divine Office. He commended
the rebuilding of the cathedral and added to the number of parish churches.
During a
famine which afflicted the city that destitute flocked to his doors. He exerted
himself in the public relief, not merely by prodigally multiplying his personal
charities but by organized assistance, quartering the city poor upon the abbey
lands of his cathedral--Swords, Lusk, and Finglas. When these were filled
and the famine still continued, he sent others farther afield throughout
Ireland, recommending them to the popular charity and chartering a vessel
at great cost to convey others to England.
King Dermot
McMurrough is often associated with Lorcan in these charities, but Dermot's
later actions invited the Anglo-Normans into Ireland. Dermot abducted Dervorgilla,
wife of Prince Tiernan O'Rourke of Brefni. In 1166, O'Rourke and his allies
reduced Dermot to ruin. He sailed to England for help, taking with him his
daughter Eva, Bishop O'Toole's niece, whose beauty and nobility made her a
desirable as a potential spouse. Although King Henry II of England was still
engaged in his conflict against Saint Thomas Becket and Aquitaine, he saw
the revolt and Dermot's arrival as an opportunity to realize his designs to
possess Ireland.
Then came
the scourge of war in 1170, King Henry promised Richard de Clare, Earl of
Pembroke ("Strongbow"), the hand of the beautiful Eva and succession to the
throne of Leinster. He dispatched Strongbow at the head of an army of nobles
and his Anglo-Norman adventurers landed in Ireland and took Waterford. Richard
de Clare married Lorcan's niece Eva in Waterford Cathedral before marching
on to Dublin.
The rest
of Lorcan's episcopate was conditioned by events that followed. He was in
the very act of negotiating terms with Dermot, when the city was seized by
Strongbow's sudden, treacherous irruption, and the peacemaker turned to save
the wounded, to bury his dead, to guard ecclesiastical property from spoliation,
and to recover the looted Church vessels and books.
Thoroughly
aroused for his country, the saint urged a united front under King Roderick
(Rory, Ruaidri) O'Connor. Henceforth he had to double as both a Mercier soldier
and a Saint Vincent de Paul. The princes of Ireland were moved to action by
the patriotic zeal of the archbishop, who joined with Ruaidri in rallying
the country and its allies, sending missives abroad to Gottred of Man and
to the other lords of the Isles.
When Dermot
died suddenly, the Earl of Pembroke declared himself king of Leinster, but
was recalled to England by Henry. Before Pembroke could return, the Irish
united behind O'Connor, and the earl barricaded himself in Dublin as the Irish
forces attacked. While Lorcan was trying to effect a settlement, Pembroke
suddenly attacked and won an unexpected victory.
The rest
of Lorcan's political life was busied with embassies of peace. When Henry
II came to Dublin in October 1171. Although his real purpose was to receive
the submission of the Irish princes, he publicly denounced the misconduct
of the English in Ireland, portraying a benevolent king on a mission of welfare.
His overture was rejected by Bishop Gelasius, the high king, and the northern
princes, but the princes of the south took King Henry at face value. The patriot
Lorcan journeyed to Connaught to call forth the dissident nobility.
Henry arranged
with the papal legate, Christian of Lismore, for the convocation of a synod
at Cashel. The English king's decrees presented nothing not already observed
in Ireland, except the celebration of the Divine Office according to the English
usage. At this time, Armagh was recognized as the primatial see of Ireland
under the submission of no see but that of Rome. This was the beginning of
the Irish "troubles" with England that were to endure for another eight centuries.
On the strength of such fair assurances the leaders of both Church and State
accepted Henry.
Then Henry
began to distribute Crown lands, until he was forced to leave Ireland in April
1172 in the face of threatened excommunication for the murder of Thomas Becket.
In the meantime, Henry's envoys reached Rome with the news of his success
in Ireland. Henry was pardoned by Pope Alexander III after walking through
the streets barefoot in penance.
In 1175 the
situation is reversed; Lorcan is Ruaidri's (Rory O'Connor) envoy to King Henry
II, sent to negotiate the Treaty of Windsor, a mission that required the
high qualities of skill and statesmanship, where the contracting parties represented
the feudal system opposed to Irish law and custom.
The task was not made easier
by a mischance that occurred. While saying Mass at the shrine of Saint Thomas
at Canterbury, a madman who had heard of Lorcan's reputation for sanctity,
thought that he would meritoriously make another martyr and felled the saint
to the ground with a club before the high altar. The traces of this blow on
the head were verified by the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen in 1876 on examining
the body. Unlike the martyred Becket, Lorcan was able to finish the Mass.
Meanwhile
synods had been held at Armagh, Cashel, and Dublin, which Lorcan attended
in his subordinate place. None of them shows any trace of his leadership or
statesmanship.
In 1178,
Henry II provided his son John with the title "Dominus Hiberiae," which was
not as exalted as the royal title allowed by Rome in order to ensure Ireland's
subordinate position. That same year, the papal legate to Scotland and Ireland,
Cardinal Vivian, arrived in Ireland. He was indignant at the incursions and
slaughter of the invading de Courcy, whom he admonished to withdraw. When
his command was unheeded, the cardinal exhorted King MacDunlevy of Ulster
to defend his country.
In 1179,
Lorcan left for Rome to attend the Third General Lateran Council with five
other Irish bishops, more than attended from Scotland and England combined.
On their passage through England, Henry compelled them to promise not to seek
anything at the council that was prejudicial to the king or his kingdom.
Some
300 bishops attended the council, and from that great assembly Lorcan passed
into the closest confidence of the Holy See. He obtained from Alexander III
a bull confirming the rights and privileges of the see of Dublin. Jurisdiction
was conferred over five suffragan sees and the pope took the archbishop's
church in Dublin and all its possessions under Saint Peter's protection and
his own, defining and confirming its possessions and ensuring it and the property
of his suffragans by strictest penalties against any lay or ecclessial interference.
Finally, on his return home Alexander gave him the supreme mark of his confidence
in naming Lorcan as papal legate.
In the
brief space of life that was left to him, Lorcan exercised his new powers
with exemplary decision. With the invaders new abuses had crept amongst his
clergy. Some abuses he refused to forgive and dispatched at least 140 clerics
to Rome.
Henry
was not pleased with the steps Lorcan had taken in Rome. A new Thomas Becket
had touched his authority. And, therefore, on a final peace mission for Ruaidri,
when Lorcan crossed the Irish Sea to take the king's son as a hostage to Henry,
he found the Channel ports closed against his return by royal edict. After
three weeks of virtual imprisonment in the monastery of Abingdon, Lorcan followed
the king to Normandy. He landed near Treport at a cove which still bears
his name, Saint-Laurent. There the saint fell ill and was taken to Saint
Victor's abbey at Eu, where he was received by the monks and where his bones
still rest.
A priest
companion was sent to find Henry. He brought back word that Henry would again
meet with King Rory. Saint Lorcan had done all that he could.
Only two
sentences are recorded of his last hours. Asked by the abbot to make his
will: "God knows, I have not a penny under the sun." A little later a farewell
in his native tongue, thinking of his own people. A good and just man, Giraldus
calls him; he died in exile--an exile and a fugitive, the Abbot Hugues wrote
to Innocent III, pro libertate ecclesiae --an exile as well, he might have
written, of charity and patriotism.
So
many miracles were reported at his tomb that less than five years after
his death, his remains were enclosed in a crystal case and translated to
a place of special honor before the high altar of the church at Eu. The canons
and faithful of that city forwarded his formal canonization.
His life was written and
rewritten at Eu from information eagerly gathered by the canons from the
saint's disciples and other pilgrims from Ireland who journeyed to his shrine;
from his nephew Thomas, Abbot of Glendalough; his intimates Albin, bishop
of Ferns, Marianus of Cork, and Malachy of Louth; and from Jean Comyn, who
succeeded him in the see of Dublin. In 1225, 45 years after his death, he
was canonized by Honorius III and thereupon became patron of the archdiocese
of Dublin (Attwater, Curran, Curtayne, Curtis, D'Arcy, Delaney, Healy, Kenney,
Legris, Messingham, O'Hanlon, Plummer, Sullivan).
1180 ST LAURENCE O'TOOLE, ARCHBISHOP
OP DUBLIN
LORCAN UA TUATHAIL was born in x 1128, probably near Castledermot in co.
Kildare, son of Murtagh, chieftain of the Murrays. When Laurence
O'Toole (as his name is commonly anglicized) was ten years old, the king of
Leinster, Dermot McMurrogh, made a raid on his neighbour's territory, and
Murtagh was forced to deliver up his son as a hostage. For two years
Laurence was badly treated, in a stony and barren region near Ferns, till
his father heard of it and by threats of reprisals forced Dermot to give
the boy up to the bishop of Glendalough. Murtagh hurried thither
and asked the bishop to cast lots which of his four sons he should destine
to the service of the Church. Laurence cried out with laughter, "There is
no need to cast lots. It is my desire to have for my inheritance the
service of God in the Church." Hereupon his
father, taking him by the hand, offered him to God by delivering him to the
bishop, in whose hands he left him.
Laurence when but twenty-five years old was chosen abbot of Glendalough
and soon after avoided episcopal dignity only by alleging the canons that
require in a bishop thirty years of age. He governed his community with virtue
and prudence, and in a great famine which raged during the first four months
of his administration was the saviour of the countryside by his boundless
charities. Outside the ecclesiastical enclosure he had to cope with the outlaws
and robbers who infested the Wicklow hills, and within it there were false
brethren, who could not bear the regularity of his conduct and the zeal with
which he condemned their disorders, and attacked his reputation by slander,
to which he opposed no other arms than silence and patience.
In 1161 died Gregory, the first archbishop of Dublin. Laurence
was elected in his place, and consecrated in Holy Trinity (later Christ Church)
cathedral by Gelasius, archbishop of Armagh. This was significant of the new
unity of the Irish church since the Synod of Kells in 1152, before which the
bishops of Dublin had depended on Canterbury. But the new state of affairs
was not fully to outlast St Laurence's own lifetime.
His first care was to reform his clergy and to furnish his church
with worthy ministers. He bound the canons of his cathedral to receive
the rule of the regular canons of Arrouaise, an abbey which was founded in
the diocese of Arras in 1090 and had such reputation for sanctity and discipline
that it became the pattern of numerous other houses. Laurence himself took
the religious habit, ate with the religious in the refectory, observed their
hours of silence and assisted with them at the midnight office. Every
day he entertained at table thirty poor persons, and often many more, besides
those which he maintained in private houses. All found him a father
both in their temporal and spiritual necessities, and he was indefatigable
in preaching and the due ordering of public worship. King Dermot had preferred
to the church of Glendalough one so unworthy that he was in a short time expelled,
and Thomas, a nephew of the saint, was canonically elected. By the care of
this young abbot-bishop discipline and piety again flourished and from that
time St Laurence frequently made choice of Glendalough for his retreats from
the noise and turmoil of Dublin, staying in a rock-hewn cell in the cliff
above the Upper Lake.
The enormities of Dermot McMurrogh caused him at length to be driven
from Ireland, and in order to regain his position he asked the help of Henry
II of England, who was only too glad to permit any of his nobles to join an
expedition that jumped with his own ambitions. The
chief of these volunteers was Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke (" Strongbow
"), who in 1170 landed at Waterford, overran part of Leinster, and marbhed
on Dublin. St Laurence was sent to negotiate with the invaders,
but during the discussions Dermot's Anglo-Norman allies seized the city and
gave themselves over to massacre and rapine. Laurence returned to succour
the sufferers and defend the survivors, and to be a centre of strength in
the new danger. Dermot died in his moment of success, and Strongbow claimed
Leinster, as Dermot's heir and husband of his daughter Eva (who was St Laurence's
niece). Thereupon King Henry recalled his vassal to England, the Irish united
under the high king, Rory O'Conor, and Strongbow shut himself up in Dublin.
Again Laurence conducted negotiations: they failed, but Strongbow made a sudden
rally of desperation and unexpectedly routed the Irish forces. St Laurence
saw the end of his patriotic hopes, and the “Irish problem” had begun.
Some fifteen years earlier King Henry II had obtained from Pope
Adrian IV a bull (“Laudabiliter”) authorizing him to proceed to Ireland in
order “to subject its people to the rule of law and to root out therefrom
the weeds of vice”.*{* And also to provide for
the collection of “Peter's pence”. The authenticity of this bull has been
contested, but not very convincingly. Among those who favour its authenticity
is Dorn Gougaud, who writes in his Christianity in Celtic Lands, p. 408 “Although
the bull is not drawn up in strict conformity with the rules followed at
the time by the papal chancery, it can nevertheless be proved that in substance
it is in accord with other contemporary and uncontested witnesses.”}
Henry now
went to Ireland for this beneficent purpose, and in 1171 received at Dublin
the submission of all the Irish chiefs, except those of Connaught, Tyrconnel
and Tyrone. In the following year he convened a synod at Cashel. Here for
the first time the Irish bishops were confronted by the bull of Adrian IV,
provision was made for clerical discipline, the English form of the Roman
liturgy (i.e. the use of Sarum) was adopted, and Pope Alexander III was asked
to confirm their decisions, which in due course he did. At this meeting
St Laurence accepted the papal bull, concurred in the synodal proceedings,
and from that time on was in frequent request as a go-between and peacemaker
between King Henry and the Irish princes. In 1175 he travelled to Windsor
and successfully negotiated a treaty between the English sovereign and the
high king, Rory O'Conor. While in England he visited Canterbury and was received
by the monks at Christ Church with the honour due to his repute and rank,
and that whole night he spent in prayer before the shrine of St Thomas Becket.
On the day following, as he was going up to the altar to officiate, a madman
who had heard much of his sanctity and had a wild idea of making so holy a
man a martyr and another St Thomas, gave him a violent blow on the head with
a staff. He fell senseless, but quickly recovered, asked for
the wound to be bathed, and proceeded to sing the Mass.*{* When Cardinal de Bonnechose,
archbishop of Rouen, examined the saint's relics at Eu in 1876 he found that
the effects of this blow were observable on the skull.}
The king ordered the would-be assassin to be hanged,
but Laurence interceded in his favour and obtained his pardon.
The third general council of the Lateran was held at Rome
in 1179, and St Laurence went to Rome, with five other Irish bishops.
Before they were allowed to leave England, King Henry extracted an oath that
they would make no representations to the Holy See likely to prejudice his
position in Ireland. Laurence explained to Alexander the state of the
Irish church, and begged that effectual remedies might be applied to many
disorders in the country and care taken for preserving the liberties of its
church. The pope was pleased with his proposals, confirmed all the rights
of his see, adding to them jurisdiction over five suifragan dioceses, and
appointed him his legate in Ireland. As soon as the saint was returned
home he began vigorously to execute his legatine powers. But King Henry remembered
Becket, and he was nervous at the authority which had been given Laurence
in Rome; and accordingly when in 1180 the archbishop had met him in England
to negotiate further on behalf of Rory O'Conor, the king afterwards forbade
him to return home. After waiting for three weeks at Abingdon Laurence determined
again to seek Henry, who was in Normandy. He got a passage across the Channel
and landed near Le Trdport, at a spot still called Saint-Laurent. The
king gave him permission to go back to Ireland, but on the way he was taken
very ill. As he approached the abbey of the canons regular of St Victor at
Eu, he murmured, "Haec requies mea in saeculum saeculi"
St Laurence was ready for death.
To the abbot who put him in mind to make a will, he answered with a smile,
“God knows I have not a penny in the world”. Then, his last thoughts
on his flock, he exclaimed in Irish, “Alas! you stupid, foolish people, what
will you do now? Who will look after you in your misfortunes? Who will
help you.”
St Laurence O'Toole died on Friday, November 14, 1180, and
he was canonized in 1225. His relics still rest principally in
the crypt of the church of our Lady at Eu. The feast of St Laurence is observed
throughout Ireland, by the Canons Regular of the Lateran, and in the diocese
of Rouen, in which Eu is situated.
By far the most important
of the ancient lives of St Laurence is that edited from the Codex Kilkenniensis
in Dublin, forming part of the Marsh library, by C. Plummer. The text, with
a valuable introduction, appeared in the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxiii (1914),
pp. 121-186. There are other Latin lives, notably one printed by the
Bollandists in their Catalogus Cod. Hagiogr.
Latin. Paris., vol. iii, pp. 236-248, but this, white probably based
upon the same materials as the former, has recounted the incidents in a different
order and expanded them with rather tedious moral reflections. It does
not make so good an impression of trustworthy history. Some useful
comments on the manuscript sources which have contributed to our knowledge
of the saint will also be found in the preface of Plurnmer's VSH., pp. xv-xxiii.
The life printed in Surius, so far as regards its first portion, is in close
agreement with that which Pluinmer has edited, but Surius, according to his
wont, has amended the Latin phraseology. A certain amount of information regarding
St Laurence is also obtainable from the chroniclers of the period. There
is a good short life in French by A. Legris (1914) that by O'Hanlon (1857)
is perhaps now hardly adequate. See further, J. F. O'Doherty,
Laurentius von Dublin und das irische Nonnannentum
(1933), and Born Gougaud, Les Saints irlandais
hors d'Irlande (1936), pp. 130-131. A Life in Irish was published
by Fr Benedict, O.D.C., in 1929. Cf.
also M. V. Ronan in the Irish Ecclesiastical
Record, 1926 and 1936 ; and Fr A. Gwynn on the saint as legate in
Analecta Bollandiana, vol.
lxviii (1950), pp. 223-240. P. Carpentier's S. Laurent O'Toole (1953) is a shortened
rewriting of Legris, above; unfortunately it has not been brought up to date.--
{Circa 1964}
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1180 St. Lawrence abbot
sanctity
Augæ,
in Gállia, tránsitus sancti Lauréntii, Epíscopi
Dublinénsis. At Eu
in France, St. Laurence, bishop of Dublin.
St.
Lawrence, it appears, was born about the year 1125. When only ten years
old, his father delivered him up as a hostage to Dermod Mac Murehad, King
of Leinster, who treated the child with great inhumanity, until his father
obliged the tyrant to put him in the hands of the Bishop of Glendalough,
in the county of Wicklow. The holy youth, by his fidelity in corresponding
with the divine grace, grew to be a model of virtues. On the death of the
bishop, who was also abbot of the monastery, St. Lawrence was chosen abbot
in 1150, though he was only twenty-five years old, and governed his numerous
community with wonderful virtue and prudence. In 1161 St. Lawrence was unanimously
chosen to fill the new metropolitan See of Dublin.
About the year 1171 he
was obliged, for the affairs of his diocese, to go over to England to see
the king, Henry II, who was then at Canterbury. The Saint was received by
the Benedictine monks of Christ Church with the greatest honor and respect.
On the following day, as the holy archbishop was going to the altar to officiate,
a maniac, who had heard much of his sanctity, and who was led on by the idea
of making so holy a man another St. Thomas, struck him a violent blow on
the head. All present concluded that he was mortally wounded; but the Saint
came to himself, asked for some water, blessed it, and having his wound washed
with it, the blood was immediately stopped, and the Archbishop celebrated
Mass. In 1175 Henry II of England became offended with Roderic, the monarch
of Ireland, and St.Lawrence undertook another journey to England to negotiate
a reconciliation between them. Henry was so moved by his piety, charity, and
prudence that he granted him everything he asked, and left the whole negotiation
to his discretion. Our Saint ended his journey here below on the 14th of
November, 1180, and was buried in the church of the abbey at Eu, on the confines
of Normandy.
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1240 Saint
Serapion of Algiers converted moors with help of Peter Nolasco and Saint
Raymond Nonnatus, O. Merc. M (RM)
Algáriæ, in Africa, beáti Serapiónis, qui, primus
ex Ordine beátæ Maríæ de Mercéde redemptiónis
captivórum, pro captívis fidélibus rediméndis
et Christiánæ fídei prædicatióne actus in
crucem et membrátim disséctus, martyrii palmam méruit
obtinére.
At Algiers in Africa, blessed Serapion, of the Order
of Our Blessed Lady of Ransom. For the redemption of the faithful in
captivity and the preaching of the Christian faith, he was the first of his
Order to merit the palm of martyrdom, being crucified and torn limb from
limb.
Born in England; cultus
confirmed in 1728. Serapion left his homeland to battle against the Moors
in Spain, but instead, with the help of Peter Nolasco and Saint Raymond Nonnatus,
converted them. While in Spain he joined the Mercedarian Order and surrendered
himself as a hostage at Algiers, where he was crucified for preaching the
gospel while awaiting his ransom (Benedictines, Encyclopedia). In art Saint
Serapion is shown as a young Mercedarian hanged on a cross with his arms
tied above his head. Serapion is venerated in Spain (Roeder).
1240 BD SERAPION,
MARTYR
IN 1728 Pope Benedict XIII approved the cultus of this little-known martyr,
who is said to have been born in England. The story goes that he became a
soldier in the service of Alfonso IX of Castile, and then joined the newly
founded Mercedarian Order for the redemption of captives. He is
supposed to have visited the British Isles to gain recruits for it, but without
much success. He went among the Moors of Murcia and obtained the release
of some Christian slaves, and then went to Algiers to negotiate for more.
Here he was kept as hostage for the payment of the balance of the ransom,
and employed his time in preaching to the Mohammedans, among whom he made
several conversions. This angered the Moors, and after cruel ill-treatment
Bd Serapion was nailed to a cross and cut to pieces. Pope Benedict XIV added
his name to the Roman Martyrology, wherein is also mentioned on this day,
“The passion at Alexandria of ST SERAPION, martyr, whom the persecutors under
the Emperor Decius..threw off the roof of his own house and so he became a
glorious witness for Christ.”
It has been pointed out
more than once in these pages that both for the Mercedarian and the Trinitarian
`Orders the historical records of their early years are very scanty and of
most unsatisfactory quality cf. for
example, St Peter Nolasco on January 28. The story of Bd Serapion's connection
with England, etc., cannot be depended on, but there seems to have been a
cultus of long-standing date. The case and documents are cited by Prosper
Lambertini (Pope Benedict XIV) in his De
beatificatione et canonizatione,
bk 2, ch. 24, § 42.
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1302 St. Gertrude Benedictine
nun great mystic “nuptial mysticism,”
(b. 1256?)
Gertrude,
a Benedictine nun in Helfta (Saxony), was one of the great mystics of the
13th century. Together with her friend and teacher St. Mechtild, she practiced a spirituality
called "nuptial mysticism," that is, she came to see herself as the bride
of Christ. Her spiritual life was a deep personal union with Jesus and his
Sacred Heart, leading her into the very life of the Trinity.
This
was no individualistic piety. Gertrude lived the rhythm of the liturgy,
where she found Christ. In the liturgy and Scripture, she found the themes
and images to enrich and express her piety. There was no clash between her
personal prayer life and the liturgy.
Comment: Gertrude's life
is another reminder that the heart of the Christian life is prayer: private
and liturgical, ordinary or mystical, always personal.
Quote: "Lord, you have
granted me your secret friendship by opening the sacred ark of your divinity,
your deified heart, to me in so many ways as to be the source of all my happiness;
sometimes imparting it freely, sometimes as a special mark of our mutual friendship.
You have so often melted my soul with your loving caresses that, if I did
not know the abyss of your overflowing condescensions, I should be amazed
were I told that even your Blessed Mother had been chosen to receive such
extraordinary marks of tenderness and affection" (Adapted from The Life and
Revelations of Saint Gertrude).
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1359 Saint Gregory Palamas
Gregory's cause, Hesychasm triumphed teaching declared Oorthodox by church
of Constantinople in 1351 after death declared 'Father and Doctor of the
church.' As well as being a speculative theologian of importance, Saint Gregory
Palamas was a devoted teacher and pastor.
In recent
years there has been a revival of interest in Hesychasm M(also known as Gregory of
Sinai) Probably born at Constantinople c. 1296; died at Salonika, 1359; canonized
by the Orthodox Church, 1368.
"The
prayer of the heart is the source of all good, which refreshes the soul
as if it were a garden." --Saint Gregory Palamas
Gregory Palamas
was the foremost exponent and upholder of an ascetical and mystical doctrine,
practice, and technique that caused great controversy in the Orthodox Church
during the 14th century. It is called Hesychasm, or sometimes, after Gregory,
Palamism.
Together
with the monks of Mount Athos, he believe that by perfect quieting of a person's
body and mind, the Christian may be granted an extraordinary vision of God's
uncreated light. It is a gift from God bringing purity and deep spiritual
insight.
St. Gregory
Palamas
In 1333
his teaching involved him in a controversy that lasted ten years with an able
Greek monk from southern Italy, Barlaam. Barlaam and other members
of the Eastern church believed that these mystics (known as 'hesychasts')
were wrong. Barlaam said that this 'uncreated light,' the light that surrounded
Jesus at his transfiguration, was part of God's essential unity and transcendence,
and that no human being could experience it.
Hesychasm
would almost certainly have been condemned at the Council of Constantinople
in 1341 had it not been vigorously defended by Gregory Palamas. He had the
powerful support of the Athonite monks, but his writings were condemned and
he was excommunicated.
Gregory Palamas
insisted that for true meditation a Christian must take a mentor, never forget
the supremacy of the Eucharist and, if possible, be attached in some way to
a monastic community. Nevertheless, two synods condemned his views, although
the monks of Mount Athos never ceased to support him.
Gregory Palamas
was restored to the sacraments and appointed bishop of Thessalonica in 1347,
when John Cantacuzenus seized the imperial throne and sought the support of
the monks of Athos, whose influence among the people was immense. His appointment,
however, reopened the controversy.
Finally Gregory's cause
triumphed and his teaching was declared to be orthodox by the church of
Constantinople in 1351; but by then he was worn out and his health was seriously
impaired. In 1368, eight years after his death, a synod declared him 'Father
and Doctor of the church.' As well as being a speculative theologian of importance,
Saint Gregory Palamas was a devoted teacher and pastor.
In recent
years there has been a revival of interest in Hesychasm and it has been the
subject of considerable study in both the East and West (Attwater, Bentley,
Meyendorff).
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1391 Saints Nicholas Tavelic
and Deodat, Peter of Narbonne and Stephen of Cuneo are the only Franciscans
martyred in the Holy Land to be canonized
Nicholas and his three
companions are among the 158 Franciscans who have been martyred in the Holy
Land since the friars became custodians of the shrines in 1335.
Nicholas
was born in 1340 to a wealthy and noble family in Croatia. He joined the
Franciscans and was sent with Deodat of Rodez to preach in Bosnia. In 1384
they volunteered for the Holy Land missions and were sent there. They looked
after the holy places, cared for the Christian pilgrims and studied Arabic.
In 1391 Nicholas,
Deodat, Peter of Narbonne and Stephen of Cuneo decided to take a direct approach
to converting the Muslims. On November 11, 1391, they went to the huge Mosque
of Omar in Jerusalem and asked to see the Qadi (Muslim official). Reading
from a prepared statement, they said that all people must accept the gospel
of Jesus. When they were ordered to retract their statement, they refused.
After beatings and imprisonment, they were beheaded before a large crowd.
Nicholas
and his companions were canonized in 1970. They are the only Franciscans
martyred in the Holy Land to be canonized.
Comment: Francis presented
two missionary approaches for his friars. Nicholas and his companions followed
the first approach (live quietly and give witness to Christ) for several years.
Then they felt called to take the second approach of preaching openly. Their
Franciscan confreres in the Holy Land are still working by example to make
Jesus better known.
Quote: In the Rule of 1221,
Francis wrote that the friars going to the Saracens (Muslims) "can conduct
themselves among them spiritually in two ways. One way is to avoid quarrels
or disputes and 'be subject to every human creature for God's sake' (1 Peter
2:13), so bearing witness to the fact that they are Christians. Another way
is to proclaim the word of God openly, when they see that is God's will,
calling on their hearers to believe in God almighty, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, the Creator of all, and in the Son, the Redeemer and Savior, that
they may be baptized and become true and spiritual Christians" (Ch. 16).
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1511 Blessed John Liccio
Dominican habit 96 years cured the sick when he was a baby reciting daily
Office of the Blessed Virgin Office of the Dead, and the Penitential Psalms
as a child frequently in ecstasy withered hand made whole cured 3 people whose
heads were crushed by accidents OP (AC) (also known as John Licci)
Born in Sicily in 1400; beatified in 1733.
The man who
holds the all-time record for wearing the Dominican habit--96 years-- was
also a person about whom some delightful stories are told. Perhaps only in
Sicily could so many wonderful things have happened to one man.
John was
born to a poor family. His mother died at his birth and his father, too poor
to hire a nurse for the baby, fed him on crushed pomegranates and other odds
and ends. He was obliged to leave the baby alone when he went out to work
in the fields, and a neighbor women, who heard the child crying, took the
baby over to her house and fed him properly.
She laid
the baby in bed beside her sick husband, who had been paralyzed for a long
time. Her husband rose up--cured, and the woman began to proclaim the saintly
quality of the baby she had taken in. When John's father came home, however,
he was not only unimpressed by her pious remarks, he was downright furious
that she had interfered in his household. He took the baby home again and
fed it more pomegranates.
At this point,
the sick man next door fell ill again, and his wife came to John's father
and begged to be allowed to care for the child. Begrudgingly, the father let
the wonderful child go. The good woman took care of him for several years,
and never ceased to marvel that her husband had been cured a second time--and
that he remained well.
Even as a
tiny baby, John gave every evidence that he was an unusual person. At an
age when most children are just beginning to read, he was already reciting
the daily Office of the Blessed Virgin, the Office of the Dead, and the Penitential
Psalms. He was frequently in ecstasy, and was what might be called an "easy
weeper"; any strong emotion caused him to dissolve in floods of tears.
At the
age of fifteen, John went to Palermo on a business trip for his father, and
he happened to go to confession to Blessed Peter Geremia, at the church of
Saint Zita. The friar suggested that he become a religious. John believed
himself quite unworthy, but the priest managed to convince him to give it
a try. The habit, which he put on for the first time in 1415, he was to wear
with distinction for nearly a century.
Humble, pure, and a model
of every observance, Brother John finished his studies and was ordained. He
and two brothers were sent to Caccamo to found a convent, and John resumed
his career of miracle-working, which was to bring fame to the order, and to
the convent of Saint Zita.
As the three
friars walked along the road, a group of young men began ridiculing them and
finally attacked them with daggers. One boy attempted to stab John, but his
hand withered and refused to move. After the friars had gone on, the boys
huddled together and decided that they had better ask pardon. They ran after
the Dominicans and begged their forgiveness. John made the Sign of the Cross,
and the withered hand was made whole.
The story
of the building at Caccamo reads like a fairy tale. There was, first of all,
no money. Since the friars never had any, that did not deter John Liccio,
but he knew it would be necessary to get enough to pay the workmen to begin
the foundations.
John went
into the parish church at Caccamo and prayed. An angel told him to "build
on the foundations that were already built." All he had to do was to find
them. The next day, he went into the woods with a party of young woodcutters
and found the place the angel had described: foundations, strongly and beautifully
laid out, for a large church and convent. It had been designed for a church
called Saint Mary of the Angels, but was never finished.
John moved
his base of operations to the woods where the angel had furnished him with
the foundations. One day, in the course of the construction, the workmen ran
out of materials. They pointed this out to John, who told them to come back
tomorrow anyway. The next day at dawn a large wagon, drawn by two oxen, appeared
with a load of stone, lime, and sand. The driver politely inquired where
the fathers would like the material put; he capably unloaded the wagon, and
disappeared, leaving John with a fine team of oxen--and giving us a fascinating
story of an angel truck-driver.
These
oxen figured at least once more in the legends of John Liccio. Near Christmas
time, when there was little fodder, a neighbor insisted on taking the oxen
home with him "because they were too much care for the fathers." John refused,
saying that they were not too heavy a burden, and that they had come a long
way.
The man took them anyway,
and put them into a pasture with his own oxen. They promptly disappeared,
and, when he went shamefacedly to report to the fathers, the man found the
team contentedly munching on practically nothing in the fathers' yard. "You
see, it takes very little to feed them," John said.
During the construction,
John blessed a well and dried it up, until they were finished with the building.
Whereupon, he blessed it again, and once more it began to give fine sweet
water, which had curative properties.
Beams that
were too short for the roof, he simply stretched. Sometimes he had to multiply
bread and wine to feed his workers, and once he raised from the dead a venturesome
little boy who had fallen off the roof while watching his uncle setting stones.
Word of his
miraculous gift soon spread, of course, and all the neighbors came to John
with their problems. One man had sowed a field with good grain, only to have
it grow up full of weeds. John advised him to do as the Scriptures had suggested--let
it grow until the harvest. When the harvest came, it still looked pretty bad,
but it took the man ten days to thresh the enormous crop of grain that he
reaped from that one field.
John never
let a day pass without doing something for some neighbor. Visiting a widow
whose six small children were crying for food, John blessed them, and he told
her to be sure to look in the bread box after he had gone. Knowing there had
been nothing in it for days, she looked anyway; it was full, and it stayed
full for as long as the need lasted.
Once when a plague had
struck most of the cattle of the vicinity, one of John's good friends came
to him in tears, telling him that he would be ruined if anything happened
to his cattle. "Don't worry," John said, "yours won't get sick." They didn't.
Another time
a neighbor came running to tell him that his wife was dying. "Go home," said
John. "You have a fine new son, and you shouldn't waste any time getting home
to thank God for him."
John was
never too famous as a preacher, though he did preach a good deal in the 90
years of his active apostolate. His favorite subject was the Passion, but
he was more inclined to use his hands than his speech. He was provincial
of Sicily for a time, and held office as prior on several occasions.
John Liccio
is especially invoked to help anyone who has been hit on the head, as he cured
no less than three people whose heads were crushed by accidents (Dorcy).
JOHN'S
mother died in giving him birth, and his father, whether through poverty
or malice
against the innocent child, provided no proper care, so that he would have died had not a kind
woman made herself responsible for him. John was eventually brought up by
an aunt and the boy soon showed signs of unusual devotion. When he
was about fifteen he met Bd Peter Geremia at Palermo, and was fired by him to take
the habit of St Dominic; in due course he became a good preacher. Bd John was sent
to establish a house of his order at Caccamq, his native town, which he did
under great difficulties. It was built on the foundations of an unfinished and forgotten
building, which, as nobody remembered them, were attributed to supernatural
provision. John became prior there in 1494, his administration being marked
by great virtue and many marvels. The lessons of his office state that he was
one hundred and eleven years old when he died, but even if he were a personal disciple
of Bd Peter Geremia he was probably not much more than seventy-five. The
cultus of Bd John Liccio was approved in 1753
See the Monumenta Ord. Praedic. Historica, vol.
xiv, pp. 229-230 Procter, Dominican
Saints, pp. 318-321 and lives by
M. Ponte (1853) and G. Barreca (1926). For a fuller bibliography consult Taurisano,
Catalogus Hagiographicus O.P.
|
1623 ST JOSAPHAT, ARCHBISHOP OP Potomic, MARTYR
Sancti Jósaphat,
e sancti Basilíi Ordine, Epíscopi Polocénsis et Mártyris,
cujus dies natális recensétur prídie Idus Novémbris.
St. Josaphat, of the Order of St. Basil, archbishop and martyr of Poland,
whose birthday was observed on the 12th of November.
IN the month of October
1595 at Brest-Litovsk in Lithuania (a town which three hundred and twenty-two
years later again became talked of throughout Europe but in a quite
different connection), the dissident Orthodox metropolitan of Kiev and five
bishops, representing millions of Ruthenians (to-day called Byelorussians and
Ukrainians), decided to seek communion with the HolySee of Rome.
The controversies which
followed this event were disfigured by deplorable excesses and
violence, and the great upholder of Christian unity whose feast is kept today was
called on to shed his blood for the cause, whence he is venerated as the protomartyr
of the reunion of Christendom. At the time of the Union of Brest he was still
a boy, having been born at Vladimir in Volhynia in 1580 or 1584, and baptized John.
His father, a Catholic, was a burgess of a good family
called Kunsevich, who sent
John to school in his native town and then apprenticed him to a merchant of Vilna.
John was not particularly interested in trade, and employed his spare time
in mastering Church Slavonic in order that he might assist more intelligently at divine
worship and recite some of the long Byzantine office every day; and he got to
know Peter Arcudius, who was then rector of the oriental college at Vilna, and the
two Jesuits, Valentine Fabricius and Gregory Gruzevsky, who took an interest in
him and gave him every encouragement.
At first his master was not favourably
disposed towards John's religious preoccupations, but he did his work so well
that eventually the merchant offered him a partnership and one of his daughters
in marriage. Both offers were refused, for John had decided to be a monk and
in 1604 he entered the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Vilna. He induced
to join him there Joseph Benjamin Rutsky, a learned convert from Calvinism
who had been ordered by Pope Clement VIII to join the Byzantine rite against
his personal wishes, and together the two young monks concerted schemes
for promoting union and reforming Ruthenian monastic observance.
John Kunsevich,
who had now taken the name of Josaphat, was ordained deacon and priest and speedily
had a great reputation as a preacher, especially on behalf of reunion with Rome.
He led a most austere personal life and added to a careful observance of the austerities
of easteril monastic life such extreme voluntary mortifications that he
was often remonstrated with by the most ascetic. At his beatification the burgomaster
of Vilna testified that "there was not a better religious in the town than Father
Josaphat ".
Meanwhile, the abbot of Holy Trinity having developed separatist views,
Rutsky was promoted in his place and the monastery was soon full, so Father
Josaphat was taken away from his study of the Eastern fathers to help in the
foundation of new houses in Poland. In 1614 Rutsky was made metropolitan of
Kiev and Josaphat succeeded him as abbot at Vilna. When the new metropolitan
went to take possession of his cathedral Josaphat accompanied him and took
the opportunity of visiting the great monastery of The Caves at Kiev.
The community of two hundred monks was relaxed, and they threatened to
throw the Catholic reformer into the river Dnieper. He was not successful
in his efforts to bring them to unity, but his personality and exhortations
brought about a somewhat changed attitude and a notable increase of good-will.
The archbishop of Polotsk at this time was a very old man and a favourer of
the dissidents, and in 1617 Abbot Josaphat was ordained bishop of Vitebsk
with right of succession to Polotsk. A few months later the old archbishop
died and Josaphat was confronted with an eparchy which was as large in extent
as it was degraded in life. The more religious people were inclined to schism
through fear of arbitrary Roman interference with their worship and customs;
churches were in ruins and benefices in the hands of laymen; many of the secular
clergy had been married two and three times *{*Though according to Eastern
canon law a married man may be ordained to the priesthood, if his wife dies
he cannot marry another and if ordained a bachelor he must remain single and the monks were decadent.
Josaphat sent for some of his brethren from Vilna to help
him and got to work. He held synods in the central towns, published
a catechism and imposed its use, issued rules of conduct for the clergy,
and fought the interference of the squires " in the affairs of
the local churches, at the same time setting a personal example of assiduous
instructing and preaching, administration of the sacraments and visiting
of the poor, the sick, prisoners and the most remote hamlets.
By 1620 the eparchy was practically solidly Catholic,
order had been restored, and the example of a few good men had brought about
a real concern for Christian life. But in that year a dissident hierarchy
of bishops was set up in the territory affected by the Union of Brest, side
by side with the Catholic one; and Meletius Smotritsky was sent as archbishop
to Polotsk, who began with great vigour to undo the work of the Catholic
archbishop.
He zealously spread a report that St Josaphat had "turned
Latin", that all his flock would have to do the same, and that Catholicism
was not the traditional Christianity of the Ruthenian people. St Josaphat
was at Warsaw when this began and on his return he found that, though his
episcopal city was firm for him, some other parts of the eparchy had begun
to waver; a monk called Silvester had managed to draw nearly all the people
of Vitebsk, Mogilev and Orcha to the side of Sniotritsky. The nobility and
many of the people adhered strongly to the union, but St Josaphat could do
little with these three towns; and not only at Vitebsk but even at Vilna,
when the proclamation of the King of Poland that Josaphat was the only legitimate
archbishop of Polotsk was publicly read in his presence, there were riots
and the life of St Josaphat was threatened.
Leo Sapieha, the chancellor of Lithuania and a Catholic, was
fearful of the possible political results of the general unrest, and lent
too willing an ear to the heated charges of dissidents outside of Poland that
Josaphat had caused it by his policy. Accordingly in iózz Sapieha wrote
accusing him of violence in the maintenance of the union, of putting the
kingdom in peril from the Zaporozhsky Cossacks by making discord among the
people, of forcibly shutting-up non-Catholic churches, and so on.
These and similar accusations were made in general terms, and their unjustifiability
was amply demonstrated by contemporary ad hoc testimony from both sides
the only actual fact of the sort is the admitted one that Josaphat invoked
the aid of the civil power to recover the chinch at Mogilev from the dissidents.
Thus the archbishop had to face misunderstanding, misrepresentation and opposition
from Catholics as well.
There is no doubt that some of the easy reversion to schism was due to
the firm discipline and reform of morals that had been inaugurated under
Catholic auspices, and St Josaphat did not receive the support he was entitled
to from the Latin bishops of Poland because of the uncompromising way in
which he maintained the right of the Byzantine clergy and customs to equal
treatmónt with those of Rome.
He continued doggedly and fearlessly on his way and, Vitebsk
continuing to be a hot-bed of trouble, he determined in October 1623 to go
there in person again. He could neither be dissuaded nor would he take a military
escort. “If I am accounted so worthy as
to deserve martyrdom, then I am not afraid to die”, he said.
He went accordingly, and for a fortnight preached in the churches and visited
the houses of all without distinction. He was continually threatened in the
streets, and his opponents tried to pick quarrels with his attendants in order
that he might be killed in the ensuing fracas. On the feast of St Demetrius
the Martyr he was surrounded by an angry mob, and exclaimed:
“You people of Vitebsk
want to put me to death. You make ambushes for me everywhere, in the streets,
on the bridges, on the highways, in the market-place. I am here among you
as your shepherd and you ought to know that I should be happy to give my
life for you. I am ready to die for the holy union, for the supremacy
of St Peter and of his successor the Supreme Pontiff.”
Smotritsky
was fomenting this agitation, his object doubtless being no worse than to
drive his rival from the diocese. But his followers got out of hand,
and a plot was laid to murder St Josaphat on November 12, if he could not
be induced to give excuse for violence before then. A priest named Elias
was put up to go into the courtyard of the archbishop's house and to use
insulting words to his servants about their master and their religion, and
after several complaints St Josaphat gave permission for him to be seized
if it happened again. On the morning of the 12th, as the archbishop
came to the church for the office of Daybreak, he was met by Elias, who began
to abuse him to his face; he therefore allowed his deacon to have the man
taken and shut up in a room of the house.
This was just what his enemies were waiting for: the bells of the
town-hall were rung and a mob assembled, demanding the release of Elias and
the punishment of the archbishop. After office St Josaphat returned
to his house unharmed, and let Elias go with a warning, but the people broke
in, calling for their victim and striking his attendants. St Josaphat went
out to them.
“My children”, he asked, “what are you doing with my servants? If
you have anything against me, here I am: but leave them alone”-words remarkably
reminiscent of those of another archbishop, St Thomas Becket, on a similar
occasion. Amid cries of
'Kill the papist!' he was brained with a halberd and pierced by a bullet.
The mangled body was dragged out and contemptuously cast into the river Dvina.
St Josaphat Kunsevich was canonized in 1867, the first saint of the Eastern
churches to be formally canonized after process in the Congregation of Sacred
Rites. Fifteen years later Pope Leo XIII gave his feast to the whole
Western church for this date. The Ukrainians and others keep it on November
12, or the Sunday following, according to the Julian calendar. An immediate
result of the martyrdom was a revulsion in favour of Catholicity and unity;
but the controversy continued to be carried on with an unholy bitterness,
and the dissidents too had their martyr, Abbot Athanasius of Brest, who was
put to death in 1648.
On the other hand, Archbishop Meletius Smotritsky himself eventually was
reconciled with the Holy See, and the great Ruthenian reunion persisted, with
varying fortunes, until after the partition of Poland the Russian sovereigns
forcibly aggregated a majority of the Ruthenian Catholics to the Orthodox
Church of Russia. To the afflictions with which a repetition of history has
visited the remainder in our own time Pope Pius XII bore sufficient witness,
in his encyclical letter “Orientales omnes”
issued at the 350th anniversary of the Union of Brest in 1946.
In 1874 Dom Alphonse Guepin
published two stout octavo volumes, amounting altogather to more than a thousand
pages, under the title Saint Josaphat, archevêque
martyr, et i'Eglise grecque unie en Palogne. In the preface
he speaks of the sources upon which his work is based. He thanks
Father J. Martynov in particular for placing at his disposition a copy of
the beatification process and a number of other papers transcribed from the
Roman archives. He also makes appeal to a vast collection of
documents formed by the Basilian hieromonk Paul Szymansky, and to another
great manuscript library of similar character which Bishop Naruszewicz had
accumulated with a view to his own work as a historian. All these had
been entrusted to Dom Guepin, and they were put to such good use that most
of the Western writers who have since then touched upon the subject have been
largely dependent upon his researches. Attention should, however, be called
to the very useful little books of Father G. Hofmann, nos. 6 and 12 of the
series “Onientalia Christiana”. When St Josaphat was put to death the news
spread quickly throughout Europe, and the British Museum possesses a copy
of a tract, Relacion verdadera de la Muerte
y Martirio de Yosafat; it was printed at Seville in 1625. See
also 0. Kozanewyc, Leben des hl. Josaphat
(1931) and the periodical Rome e l'Oriente,
vol. X (1920), pp. 27-34. The background of the events narrated above may
be read in the Cambridge History of Poland,
vol. i (1950), pp. 507 seq.
St Josaphat and the Metropolitan Rutsky were the initiators of that movement
in Ruthenian monasticism which eventually became the organized Order of St
Basil, and accordingly these monks have been officially known since 1932
as the Basilians of St Josaphat. In 1952 they published at Rome the first
volume of the Latin text, of the beatification documents of St Josaphat.
|
Saint Montan of Lorraine,
Hermit B
Saint Montan may have been a bishop or an actor. It is difficult to establish
the truth of the various traditions (Encyclopedia).
|
Mary Mother of GOD 15
Promises of the Virgin Mary to those who recite the Rosary
Saints November 14 Décimo octávo
Kaléndas Decémbris 
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.