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98-117 St. Ignatius Bishop of Antioch
disciple of St. John the Evangelist enthusiastic devotion to duty, a
passionate love of sacrifice, and an utter fearlessness in the defense of
Christian truth
St. Ignatius was a convert to the Faith and a disciple of St.
John the Evangelist.
St. Chrysostom says that St. Peter appointed him Bishop of Antioch,
which See he governed for forty years. The saint longed to shed to shed his
blood for Christ but the opportunity was not granted him during the persecution
under Domitian. While the short reign of Nerva lasted the Church was in peace,
but under Trajan persecution broke out anew. In the year 107, the Emperor
came to Antioch. St. Ignatius was seized and brought before him. Having confessed
Christ, he was condemned to be taken in chains to Rome, there to be exposed
to the wild beasts.
St. Ignatius of Antioch (d. 107?)
Born in Syria, Ignatius converted to Christianity and eventually
became bishop of Antioch. In the year 107, Emperor Trajan visited Antioch
and forced the Christians there to choose between death and apostasy. Ignatius
would not deny Christ and thus was condemned to be put to death in Rome.
Ignatius is well known for the seven letters he wrote on the
long journey from Antioch to Rome. Five of these letters are to Churches
in Asia Minor; they urge the Christians there to remain faithful to God and
to obey their superiors. He warns them against heretical doctrines, providing
them with the solid truths of the Christian faith.
The sixth letter was to Polycarp,
bishop of Smyrna, who was later
martyred for the faith. The final letter begs the Christians in Rome not
to try to stop his martyrdom. "The only thing I ask of you is to allow me
to offer the libation of my blood to God. I am the wheat of the Lord; may
I be ground by the teeth of the beasts to become the immaculate bread of
Christ."
Ignatius bravely met the lions
in the Circus Maximus.
Comment: Ignatius's great concern
was for the unity and order of the Church. Even greater was his willingness
to suffer martyrdom rather than deny his Lord Jesus Christ. Not to his own
suffering did Ignatius draw attention, but to the love of God which strengthened
him. He knew the price of commitment and would not deny Christ, even to save
his own life.
Quote: “I greet you from Smyrna
together with the Churches of God present here with me. They comfort me in
every way, both in body and in soul. My chains, which I carry about on me
for Jesus Christ, begging that I may happily make my way to God, exhort you:
persevere in your concord and in your community prayers.” (Ignatius of Antioch,
Letter to the Church at Tralles).
During this last journey he was
welcomed by the faithful of Smyrna,
Troas, and other places along
the way. He arrived in Rome just as the public spectacles in the amphitheater
were drawing to a close. The faithful of the city came out to meet him. He
was at once hurried to the amphitheater, where two fierce lions immediately
devoured him. He ended his saintly life by a glorious death, exclaiming, “May
I become agreeable bread to the Lord.” His remains were
carried to Antioch, where they were interred. In the reign of Theodosius they
were transferred to a church within the city. At present they are venerated
in Rome. During his long journey he addressed seven epistles to various congregations,
in which, as a disciple of the Apostles, he testifies to the dogmatic character
of Apostolic Christianity. (d. c. 107 AD) --Father Robert
F. McNamara
This
great early bishop and martyr was quite possibly a convert of St. John the
Apostle. Nothing is known of the details of his life, but he was chosen second
bishop of Antioch around the year 60 AD, and he ruled that diocese forty years.
Antioch was by then the most important see in the Middle East. Indeed, it
was the first large center of mideast Christianity and, as the New Testament
tells us, the first place where Christ's followers were called “Christians.”
St. Ignatius the “Godbearer” (as he was called) won the respect of all the
faithful along the eastern Mediterranean.
But advanced age did not exempt Ignatius
from persecution. Under Emperor Trajan, around 107 AD, he was arrested for
not offering patriotic sacrifice to the Roman gods.
The judge condemned him to be thrown
to the wild beasts in the public “games” in Rome. The bishop was therefore
taken aboard a Rome-bound ship. En route he was under heavy guard -
ten soldiers who were so brutal that he called them his “ten leopards.”
Nevertheless, he was given freedom
at ports-of-call in Asia Minor to receive the local bishops and faithful.
He wrote to these Christian groups seven letters exhorting all to be strong
in faith and love. He also wrote ahead to the Christians of Rome. He suspected
that they might try to have his death sentence commuted. This he did not desire.
Martyrdom, he believed, was the only way in which he could prove to God his
total devotion. “Suffer me to be the food of wild beasts,” he said, “through
whom I may attain to God!”
His desire was not thwarted. Ground
by the teeth of the animals, he became, as he had hoped to be, the “pure
bread of Christ!” His martyrdom may have taken place in Rome's famous
“Colosseum,” then a fairly new stadium. Afterwards his relics were carried
back reverently to Antioch.
Ignatius' seven letters are among the
few non-biblical Christian writings of the apostolic period. (St. John the
Apostle was still alive when they were written.) They, therefore,
bear important witness to the earliest Christian belief and practices. Thus
the Bishop of Antioch becomes the first to emphasize Mary's virginity; to
declare the holy Trinity; and to present Jesus as both son of God and son
of Mary. He also defends the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist.
Of special interest are his references
to Church structure. While the apostles lived, it was they who ruled the
churches they founded; but they made arrangements to be succeeded by resident
bishops in various localities. By the time St. Ignatius (and St. John the
Apostle) were dead, the hierarchy was already well established.
Ignatius
lays special stress on the importance of the local bishop. He is even the
first writer to refer to the hierarchical church as “Catholic.”
“Wherever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as
wherever Christ Jesus appears, there is the Catholic Church.” He does
not as yet refer to the position of St. Peter's successors, the bishops of
Rome, in that hierarchy. Still, in writing to the Roman Christians, he indicates
that the city where SS. Peter and Paul died enjoyed a unique leadership. He
advises all other Christians to keep good order under the rule of their bishops:
“The bishop is to preside in the place of God, while the priests are to function
as the council of the apostles, and the deacons, who are most dear to me,
are entrusted with the ministry of Jesus Christ.”
Even
a youthful bishop is to be obeyed. (There must have been many younger bishops
in his day.) Whatever his age, “He embodies the authority of God the
Father.” The bishop is also the chief liturgist of his people, the supreme
minister and custodian of the sacraments: “Let that celebration of the
Eucharist be considered valid which is held under the bishop or anyone to
whom he has committed it.”
It is interesting to note that in formulating
this doctrine on bishops the Second Vatican Council drew extensively on
the apostolic witness of St. Ignatius of Antioch. --Father Robert F.
McNamara St. Ignatius of Antioch Catholic Encyclopedia
Also called Theophorus; born in
Syria, around the year 50; died at Rome between 98 and 117.
More than one of the earliest ecclesiastical writers have given
credence, though apparently without good reason, to the legend that Ignatius
was the child whom the Savior took up in His arms, as described in Mark 9:35.
It is also believed, and with great probability, that, with his friend Polycarp,
he was among the auditors of the Apostle St. John. If we include St. Peter,
Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch and the immediate successor of Evodius
(Eusebius, “Hist. Eccl.”, II,
iii, 22). Theodoret (“Dial. Immutab.”,
I, iv, 33a, Paris, 1642) is the authority for the statement that St. Peter
appointed Ignatius to the See of Antioch. St. John Chrysostom lays special
emphasis on the honor conferred upon the martyr in receiving his episcopal
consecration at the hands of the Apostles themselves (“Hom.
in St. Ig.”, IV. 587). Natalis Alexander quotes Theodoret
to the same effect (III, xii, art. xvi, p. 53).
All the sterling qualities of ideal pastor and a true soldier
of Christ were possessed by the Bishop of Antioch in a preeminent degree.
Accordingly, when the storm of the persecution of Domitian broke in its
full fury upon the Christians of Syria, it found their faithful leader prepared
and watchful. He was unremitting in his vigilance and tireless in his efforts
to inspire hope and to strengthen the weaklings of his flock against the terrors
of the persecution. The restoration of peace, though it was short-lived, greatly
comforted him. But it was not for himself that he rejoiced, as the one great
and ever-present wish of his chivalrous soul was that he might receive the
fullness of Christian discipleship through the medium of martyrdom. His desire
was not to remain long unsatisfied. Associated with the writings of St. Ignatius
is a work called “Martyrium Ignatii”,
which purports to be an account by eyewitnesses of the martyrdom of St.
Ignatius and the acts leading up to it. In this work, which such competent
Protestant critics as Pearson and Ussher regard as genuine, the full history
of that eventful journey from Syria to Rome is faithfully recorded for the
edification of the Church of Antioch. It is certainly very ancient and is
reputed to have been written by Philo, deacon of Tarsus, and Rheus Agathopus,
a Syrian, who accompanied Ignatius to Rome. It is generally admitted, even
by those who regarded it as authentic, that this work has been greatly interpolated.
Its most reliable form is that found in the “Martyrium
Colbertinum” which closes the mixed recension and
is so called because its oldest witness is the tenth-century Codex Colbertinus
(Paris).
According to these Acts, in the
ninth year of his reign, Trajan, flushed with victory over the Scythians and
Dacians, sought to perfect the universality of his dominion by a species of
religious conquest. He decreed, therefore, that the Christians should unite
with their pagan neighbors in the worship of the gods. A general persecution
was threatened, and death was named as the penalty for all who refused to
offer the prescribed sacrifice.
Instantly alert to the danger that threatened, Ignatius availed
himself of all the means within his reach to thwart the purpose of the emperor.
The success of his zealous efforts did not long remain hidden from the Church's
persecutors. He was soon arrested and led before Trajan, who was then sojourning
in Antioch. Accused by the emperor himself of violating the imperial edict,
and of inciting others to like transgressions, Ignatius valiantly bore witness
to the faith of Christ. If we may believe the account given in the “Martyrium”,
his bearing before Trajan was characterized by inspired eloquence, sublime
courage, and even a spirit of exultation. Incapable of appreciating the motives
that animated him, the emperor ordered him to be put in chains and taken to
Rome, there to become the food of wild beasts and a spectacle for the people.
That the trials of this journey to Rome were great we gather
from his letter to the Romans (par. 5): “From Syria
even to Rome I fight with wild beasts, by land and sea, by night and by
day, being bound amidst ten leopards, even a company of soldiers, who only
grow worse when they are kindly treated.” Despite all
this, his journey was a kind of triumph. News of his fate, his destination,
and his probable itinerary had gone swiftly before. At several places along
the road his fellow-Christians greeted him with words of comfort and reverential
homage. It is probable that he embarked on his way to Rome at Seleucia, in
Syria, the nearest port to Antioch, for either Tarsus in Cilicia, or Attalia
in Pamphylia, and thence, as we gather from his letters, he journeyed overland
through Asia Minor. At Laodicea, on the River Lycus, where a choice of routes
presented itself, his guards selected the more northerly, which brought the
prospective martyr through Philadelphia and Sardis, and finally to Smyrna,
where Polycarp, his fellow-disciple in the school of St. John, was bishop.
The stay at Smyrna, which was a protracted one, gave the representatives of
the various Christian communities in Asia Minor an opportunity of greeting
the illustrious prisoner, and offering him the homage of the Churches they
represented. From the congregations of Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles, deputations
came to comfort him. To each of these Christian communities he addressed
letters from Smyrna, exhorting them to obedience to their respective bishops,
and warning them to avoid the contamination of heresy. These, letters are
redolent with the spirit of Christian charity, apostolic zeal, and pastoral
solicitude. While still there he wrote also to the Christians of Rome, begging
them to do nothing to deprive him of the opportunity of martyrdom.
From Smyrna his captors took
him to Troas, from which place he dispatched letters to the Christians of
Philadelphia and Smyrna, and to Polycarp. Besides these letters, Ignatius
had intended to address others to the Christian communities of Asia Minor,
inviting them to give public expression to their sympathy with the brethren
in Antioch, but the altered plans of his guards, necessitating a hurried departure,
from Troas, defeated his purpose, and he was obliged to content himself with
delegating this office to his friend Polycarp. At Troas they took ship for
Neapolis. From this place their journey led them overland through Macedonia
and Illyria. The next port of embarkation was probably Dyrrhachium (Durazzo).
Whether having arrived at the shores of the Adriatic, he completed his journey
by land or sea, it is impossible to determine. Not long after his arrival
in Rome he won his long-coveted crown of martyrdom in the Flavian amphitheater.
The relics of the holy martyr were borne back to Antioch by the deacon Philo
of Cilicia, and Rheus Agathopus, a Syrian, and were interred outside the
gates not far from the beautiful suburb of Daphne. They were afterwards removed
by the Emperor Theodosius II to the Tychaeum, or Temple of Fortune which
was then converted into a Christian church under the patronage of the martyr
whose relics it sheltered. In 637 they were translated to St. Clement's at
Rome, where they now rest. The Church celebrates the feast of St. Ignatius
on 1 February.
The character of St. Ignatius, as deduced from his own and the
extant writings of his contemporaries, is that of a true athlete of Christ.
The triple honor of apostle, bishop, and martyr was well merited by this
energetic soldier of the Faith. An enthusiastic devotion to duty, a passionate
love of sacrifice, and an utter fearlessness in the defense of Christian truth,
were his chief characteristics. Zeal for the spiritual well-being of those
under his charge breathes from every line of his writings. Ever vigilant
lest they be infected by the rampant heresies of those early days; praying
for them, that their faith and courage may not be wanting in the hour of
persecution; constantly exhorting them to unfailing obedience to their bishops;
teaching them all Catholic truth ; eagerly sighing for the crown of martyrdom,
that his own blood may fructify in added graces in the souls of his flock,
he proves himself in every sense a true, pastor of souls, the good shepherd
that lays down his life for his sheep.
Collections
The oldest collection of the writings of St. Ignatius known
to have existed was that made use of by the historian Eusebius in the first
half of the fourth century, but which unfortunately is no longer extant.
It was made up of the seven letters written by Ignatius whilst on his way
to Rome; These letters were addressed to the Christians of Ephesus (Pros
Ephesious); of Magnesia (Magnesieusin); of Tralles (Trallianois); of Rome
(Pros Romaious); of Philadelphia (Philadelpheusin); of Smyrna (Smyrnaiois);
and to Polycarp (Pros Polykarpon).
We find these seven mentioned
not only by Eusebius (“Hist. eccl.”,
III, xxxvi) but also by St. Jerome (De viris illust., c. xvi). Of later
collections of Ignatian letters which have been preserved, the oldest is
known as the “long recension”.
This collection, the author of which is unknown, dates from the latter part
of the fourth century. It contains the seven genuine and six spurious letters,
but even the genuine epistles were greatly interpolated to lend weight to
the personal views of its author. For this reason they are incapable of bearing
witness to the original form. The spurious letters in this recension are those
that purport to be from Ignatius to Mary of Cassobola (Pros Marian Kassoboliten);
to the Tarsians (Pros tous en tarso); to the Philippians (Pros Philippesious);
to the Antiochenes (Pros Antiocheis); to Hero a deacon of Antioch (Pros Erona
diakonon Antiocheias). Associated with the foregoing is a letter from Mary
of Cassobola to Ignatius.
It is extremely probable that the interpolation of the genuine,
the addition of the spurious letters, and the union of both in the long recension
was the work of an Apollonarist of Syria or Egypt, who wrote towards the beginning
of the fifth century. Funk identifies him with the compiler of the Apostolic
Constitutions, which came out of Syria in the early part of the same century.
Subsequently there was added to this collection a panegyric on St. Ignatius
entitled, “Laus Heronis”. Though
in the original it was probably written in Greek, it is now extant only in
Latin and Coptic texts. There is also a third recension, designated by Funk
as the “mixed collection”. The
time of its origin can be only vaguely determined as being between that of
the collection known to Eusebius and the long recension. Besides the seven
genuine letters of Ignatius in their original form, it also contains the six
spurious ones, with the exception of that to the Philippians.
In this collection is also to be found the “Martyrium
Colbertinum”. The Greek original of this recension
is contained in a single codex, the famous Mediceo-Laurentianus manuscript
at Florence. This codex is incomplete, wanting the letter to the Romans, which,
however, is to be found associated with the “Martyrium
Colbertinum” in the Codex Colbertinus, at Paris. The
mixed collection is regarded as the most reliable of all in determining what
was the authentic text of the genuine Ignatian letters. There is also an ancient
Latin version which is an unusually exact rendering of the Greek. Critics
are generally inclined to look upon this version as a translation of some
Greek manuscript of the same type as that of the Medicean Codex. This version
owes its discovery to Archbishop Ussher, of Ireland, who found it in two
manuscripts in English libraries and published it in 1644. It was the work
of Robert Grosseteste, a Franciscan friar and Bishop of Lincoln (c. 1250).
The original Syriac version has come down to us in its entirety only in an
Armenian translation. It also contains the seven genuine and six spurious
letters. This collection in the original Syriac would be invaluable in determining
the exact text of Ignatius, were it in existence, for the reason that it
could not have been later than the fourth or fifth century. The deficiencies
of the Armenian version are in part supplied by the abridged recension in
the original Syriac. This abridgment contains the three genuine letters to
the Ephesians, the Romans, and to Polycarp. The manuscript was discovered
by Cureton in a collection of Syriac manuscripts obtained in 1843 from the
monastery of St. Mary Deipara in the Desert of Nitria. Also there are three
letters extant only in Latin. Two of the three purport to be from Ignatius
to St. John the Apostle, and one to the Blessed Virgin, with her reply to
the same. These are probably of Western origin, dating no further back than
the twelfth century.
The Controversy
At intervals during the last several centuries a warm controversy
has been carried on by patrologists concerning the authenticity of the Ignatian
letters. Each particular recension has had its apologists and its opponents.
Each has been favored to the exclusion of all the others, and all, in turn,
have been collectively rejected, especially by the coreligionists of Calvin.
The reformer himself, in language as violent as it is uncritical
(Institutes, 1-3), repudiates in globo the letters which so completely discredit
his own peculiar views on ecclesiastical government. The convincing evidence
which the letters bear to the Divine origin of Catholic doctrine is not conducive
to predisposing non-Catholic critics in their favor, in fact, it has added
not a little to the heat of the controversy. In general, Catholic and Anglican
scholars are ranged on the side of the letters written to the Ephesians, Magnesians,
Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, Smyrniots, and to Polycarp; whilst Presbyterians,
as a rule, and perhaps a priori, repudiate everything claiming Ignatian authorship.
The two letters to the Apostle St. John and the one to the Blessed
Virgin, which exist only in Latin, are unanimously admitted to be spurious.
The great body of critics who acknowledge the authenticity of the Ignatian
letters restrict their approval to those mentioned by Eusebius and St. Jerome.
The six others are not defended by any of the early Fathers. The majority
of those who acknowledge the Ignatian authorship of the seven letters do so
conditionally, rejecting what they consider the obvious interpolations in
these letters. In 1623, whilst the controversy was at its height, Vedelius
gave expression to this latter opinion by publishing at Geneva an edition
of the Ignatian letters in which the seven genuine letters are set apart from
the five spurious. In the genuine letters he indicated what was regarded as
interpolations. The reformer Dallaeus, at Geneva, in 1666, published a work
entitled “De scriptis quae sub Dionysii Areop. et Ignatii
Antioch. nominibus circumferuntur”, in which (lib.
II) he called into question the authenticity of all seven letters. To this
the Anglican Pearson replied spiritedly in a work called “Vindiciae
epistolarum S. Ignatii”, published at Cambridge, 1672.
So convincing were the arguments adduced in this scholarly work that for two
hundred years the controversy remained closed in favor of the genuineness
of the seven letters. The discussion was reopened by Cureton's discovery (1843)
of the abridged Syriac version, containing the letters of Ignatius to the
Ephesians, Romans, and to Polycarp. In a work entitled “Vindiciae
Ignatianae” London, 1846), he defended the position
that only the letters contained in his abridged Syriac recension, and in the
form therein contained, were genuine, and that all others were interpolated
or forged outright. This position was vigorously combated by several British
and German critics, including the Catholics Denzinger and Hefele, who successfully
defended the genuineness of the entire seven epistles. It is now generally
admitted that Cureton's Syriac version is only an abbreviation of the original.
While it can hardly be said that
there is at present any unanimous agreement on the subject, the best modern
criticism favors the authenticity of the seven letters mentioned by Eusebius.
Even such eminent non-Catholic critics as Zahn, Lightfoot, and Harnack hold
this view. Perhaps the best evidence of their authenticity is to be found
in the letter of Polycarp to the Philippians, which mentions each of them
by name. As an intimate friend of Ignatius, Polycarp, writing shortly after
the martyr's death, bears contemporaneous witness to the authenticity of
these letters, unless, indeed, that of Polycarp itself be regarded as interpolated
or forged. When, furthermore, we take into consideration the passage of Irenaeus
(Adv. Haer., V, xxviii, 4) found in the original Greek in Eusebius (Hist.
eccI., III, xxxvi), in which he refers to the letter to the Romans. (iv,
I) in the following words: “Just as one of our brethren
said, condemned to the wild beasts in martyrdom for his faith”,
the evidence of authenticity becomes compelling. The romance of Lucian of
Samosata, “De morte peregrini”,
written in 167, bears incontestable evidence that the writer was not only
familiar with the Ignatian letters, but even made use of them. Harnack, who
was not always so minded, describes these proofs as “testimony
as strong to the genuineness of the epistles as any that can be conceived
of” (Expositor, ser. 3, III, p. 11).
Contents of the letters
It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the importance of the
testimony which the Ignatian letters offer to the dogmatic character of
Apostolic Christianity. The martyred Bishop of Antioch constitutes a most
important link between the Apostles and the Fathers of the early Church.
Receiving from the Apostles themselves, whose auditor he was, not only the
substance of revelation, but also their own inspired interpretation of it;
dwelling, as it were, at the very fountain-head of Gospel truth, his testimony
must necessarily carry with it the greatest weight and demand the most serious
consideration.
Cardinal Newman did not exaggerate the matter when he
said (“The Theology of the Seven Epistles of St. Ignatius”,
in “Historical Sketches”, I, London,
1890) that “the whole system of Catholic doctrine may
be discovered, at least in outline, not to say in parts filled up, in the
course of his seven epistles”. Among the many Catholic
doctrines to be found in the letters are the following: the Church was Divinely
established as a visible society, the salvation of souls is its end, and those
who separate themselves from it cut themselves off from God (Philad., c.
iii); the hierarchy of the Church was instituted by Christ (lntrod. to Philad.;
Ephes., c. vi); the threefold character of the hierarchy (Magn., c. vi);
the order of the episcopacy superior by Divine authority to that of the priesthood
(Magn., c. vi, c. xiii; Smyrn., c. viii; Trall., c. iii); the unity of the
Church (Trall., c. vi; Philad., c. iii; Magn., c. xiii); the holiness of
the Church (Smyrn., Ephes., Magn., Trall., and Rom.); the catholicity of
the Church (Smyrn., c. viii); the infallibility of the Church (Philad., c.
iii; Ephes., cc. xvi, xvii); the doctrine of the Eucharist (Smyrn., c. viii),
which word we find for the first time applied to the Blessed Sacrament, just
as in Smyrn., viii, we meet for the first time the phrase “Catholic
Church”, used to designate all Christians; the Incarnation
(Ephes., c. xviii); the supernatural virtue of virginity, already much esteemed
and made the subject of a vow (Polyc., c. v); the religious character of
matrimony (Polyc., c. v); the value of united prayer (Ephes., c. xiii); the
primacy of the See of Rome (Rom., introd.). He, moreover, denounces in principle
the Protestant doctrine of private judgment in matters of religion (Philad.
c. iii), The heresy against which he chiefly inveighs is Docetism. Neither
do the Judaizing heresies escape his vigorous condemnation.
Editions
The four letters found in Latin only were printed in Paris in
1495. The common Latin version of eleven letters, together with a letter of
Polycarp and some reputed works of Dionysius the Areopagite, was printed in
Paris, 1498, by Lefevre d'Etaples. Another edition of the seven genuine and
six spurious letters, including the one to Mary of Cassobola, was edited by
Symphorianus Champerius, of Lyons, Paris, 1516. Valentinus Paceus published
a Greek edition of twelve letters (Dillingen, 1557). A similar edition was
brought out at Zurich, in 1559, by Andrew Gesner; a Latin version of the work
of John Brunner accompanied it. Both of these editions made use of the Greek
text of the long recension. In 1644 Archbishop Ussher edited the letters of
Ignatius and Polycarp. The common Latin version, with three of the four Latin
letters, was subjoined. It also contained the Latin version of eleven letters
taken from Ussher's manuscripts. In 1646 Isaac Voss published at Amsterdam
an edition from the famous Medicean Codex at Florence. Ussher brought out
another edition in 1647, entitled “Appendix Ignatiana”,
which contained the Greek text of the genuine epistles and the Latin version
of the “Martyrium Ignatii”.
In 1672 J.B. Cotelier's edition appeared at Paris, containing
all the letters, genuine and supposititious, of Ignatius, with those of the
other Apostolic Fathers. A new edition of this work was printed by Le Clerc
at Antwerp, in 1698. It was reprinted at Venice, 1765-1767, and at Paris by
Migne in 1857. The letter to the Romans was published from the “Martyrium
Colbertinum” at Paris, by Ruinart, in 1689. In 1724
Le Clerc brought out at Amsterdam a second edition of Cotelier's “Patres
Apostolici”, which contains all the letters, both
genuine and spurious, in Greek and Latin versions. It also includes the letters
of Mary of Cassobola and those purporting to be from the Blessed Virgin in
the “Martyrium Ignatii”,
the “Vindiciae Ignatianae”
of Pearson, and several dissertations. The first edition of the Armenian version
was published at Constantinople in 1783. In 1839 Hefele edited the Ignatian
letters in a work entitled “Opera Patrum Apostolicorum”,
which appeared at Tubingen. Migne took his text from the third edition of
this work (Tubingen, 1847). Bardenhewer designates the following as the best
editions: Zahn, “Ignatii et Polycarpi epistulae martyria,
fragmenta” in “Patr. apostol.
opp. rec.”, ed. by de Gebhardt, Harnack, Zahn, fasc.
II, Leipzig, 1876; Funk, “Opp. Patr. apostol.”,
I, Tubingen, 1878, 1887, 1901; Lightfoot, “The Apostolic
Fathers”, part II, London, 1885, 1889; an English version
of the letters to be found in Lightfoot's “Apostolic
Fathers”, London, 1907, from which are taken all the
quotations of the letters in this article, and to which all citations refer.
Ignatius of Antioch BM (RM)
Died c. 107; feast formerly on February 1. Saint Ignatius gives
us the earliest documentary evidence of primacy of the bishop of Rome. Information
about his letters can be found in any history of the early Church. This is
simply a synopsis.
However, little is known of his life, although his passio was
recorded for his flock. He was probably of Syrian origin, and legend identified
him with the child whom Christ set down among his disciples (Matthew 18:1-6).
Some sources say that Ignatius may have been a persecutor of Christians, who
then became a convert and disciple of Saint John the Evangelist or Saints
Peter and Paul.
He called himself both a disciple
and the “bearer of God” (theophoros),
so sure was he of the presence of God in himself.
In any case he became the second or third bishop of the great
Christian center of Antioch in Syria. Legend holds that he was appointed and
consecrated by Saint Peter after Peter left the deathbed of Saint Evodius,
the previous bishop. Ignatius governed for 40 years.
During Trajan's persecutions, Ignatius was seized by a guard
of ten soldiers, bound, and taken to Rome by them. The soldiers boarded a
ship that traveled along the southern and western shores of Asia Minor instead
of going straight to Italy. Ignatius was greeted by crowds of Christians wherever
the ship touched port, but he was ill-treated by his captors. In one of his
letters he says:
“From Syria to Rome
I seem to be fighting with wild beasts, night and day, on land and sea, bound
to ten leopards. I mean a bunch of soldiers whose treatment of me grows harsher
the kinder I am to them.”
The many stopovers enabled Ignatius to reaffirm religious fervor
in various ports along the way. They stopped for a time at Smyrna, where
Ignatius was met by Saint Polycarp, then a young man. Here the first four
letters were written: to the Ephesians, to the churches of Magnesia and Tralles--
whose bishops had come to visit him--and to the Christians in Rome. The guards
were anxious to leave Smyrna in order to reach Rome before the games were
over; distinguished victims drew great crowds.
They sailed on to Troas, where they learned that peace had been
restored to the church at Antioch. Then at Lystra, before crossing into
Europe, he wrote three more, to the Christians at Philadelphia and Smyrna,
and a farewell letter of advice to Bishop Saint Polycarp. (The letters can
also be found in short and long versions on the New Advent site at http://www.knight.org/advent/fathers.)
As the ship approached Rome, Christians are said to have
gathered to greet Ignatius, and although they wished to work for his release,
he begged them not to interfere with his martyrdom. He wrote, “I
pray that they will be prompt with me. I shall entice them to eat me speedily.”
Legend has it that he arrived in Rome on December 20, the last
day of the public games, was rushed to the amphitheater (probably the Colosseum),
and was killed by lions in the arena. As he was offered to the animals, he
described himself as “wheat of Christ.”
The saint insisted that in spite of his sufferings, he remained
a sinner, saved only because of the love of his Lord, who had been crucified
for him.
His relics are kept at Saint Peter's in Rome. A detailed description
of the trip to Rome is provided by Agathopus and a deacon named Philo, who
were with him, and who also wrote down his dictation of the seven letters
of instruction on the Church, marriage, the Trinity, the Incarnation, Redemption,
and the Eucharist.
These letters of Ignatius (English
translation, 1934 et alia) are among the most valuable documents of the ancient
Church because of the light they throw on Christian belief and practice less
than a century after Christ's Ascension. Ignatius continually urges his readers
to maintain unity amongst themselves, meeting together in the Eucharist under
the presidency of their bishop. Through his letters we have access
also to the mind and personality of a man who loved vivid images to express
his beliefs. The Eucharist he described as “the medicine
of immortality, the antidote against death.” To him,
Jesus on the Cross lured the devil, like a fish, with the bait of his own
body. The best-known letter is the one sent in advance to
the Roman Christians. In it he implores them not to try to get him reprieved.
It reveals a patient, gentle man, so passionately devoted to Christ that
he could not ear to miss the chance of dying a violent death for his sake:
“Let me follow the example of the suffering of
my God” (Attwater, Bentley, Delaney, White).
He is portrayed in art looking at a crucifix, with a lion at
his side; or standing between two lions; or in chains; or holding a heart
with IHS upon it; or with a heart with the IHS torn out by the lions according
to White. Depicted as a bishop holding a heart with IHS on
it. Sometimes he is shown with the image of Christ on his breast because the
image of Jesus was found on his heart after his martyrdom; holding a fiery
globe; or in an arena with lions. One Greek icon of Saint Ignatius can be
found at the Saint Isaac of Syria Skete site. Saint Ignatius is highly venerated
in the Eastern Church (Roeder).
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136
St. Herónis,
Herodion. Heron; Martyred bishop successor St. Ignatius
Antiochíæ natális sancti Herónis, qui fuit discípulus
beáti Ignátii; atque, post eum factus Epíscopus, viam
magístri pius imitátor est secútus, et pro commendáto
sibi grege amátor Christi occúbuit.
At Antioch, the birthday of St. Heron, a disciple of
blessed Ignatius. Being made bishop after him, he religiously followed
his master's footsteps, and, as a true lover of Christ, died for the flock
entrusted to his keeping.
at Antioch, Turkey, where he served
for two decades.
Heron of Antioch BM (RM) Bishop Saint Heron of Antioch was a disciple of
Saint Ignatius and his successor. He governed the see for 27 years before
dying a as martyr (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
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290 Solina of Gascony maiden who escaped to Chartres to avoid marriage
to a pagan VM (AC)
A Gascon maiden who escaped to Chartres to avoid marriage
to a pagan. She was beheaded at Chartres. Venerated in Poitiers, Angoulême,
and Chartres (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
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303 Sts. Victor,
Alexander, and Marianus Martyrs put to death at Nicomedia under Emperor Dioclctian.
Eódem die
pássio sanctórum Victóris, Alexándri et Mariáni.
The same day, the martyrdom of the Saints Victor, Alexander,
and Marian.
Martyrs put to death at Nicomedia under Emperor Dioclctian.
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4th v.St. Regulus An abbot of Scotland; best known for bringing the relics of St. Andrew
to Scotland from Greece
He is best known for bringing the relics
of St. Andrew to Scotland from Greece
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344 St. Mamelta Martyr of Persia
In Pérside sanctæ Maméltæ Mártyris, quæ,
a cultu idolórum ad fidem Angélico mónitu convérsa,
a Gentílibus lapidáta est et in profúndum lacum demérsa.
In Persia, St. Mamelta, martyr. He was converted
from idolatry to the faith by the warning of an angel, and was later stoned
by heathens and cast into a deep lake.
He was a pagan priest
at Bethfarme. Converted to Christianity, he was stoned because of his
faith and then drowned in a lake by Persian authorities
Mamelta of Persia M (RM). Saint Mamelta, reputed to have been a pagan priest
at Bethfarme, Persia, converted to Christianity. Thereafter he was stoned,
and then drowned in lake (Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
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554 St. Victor of Capua B (RM). A bishop
of Capua in southern Italy and an ecclesiastical writer (Benedictines).
A sixth-century bishop about whose life
nothing is known except what is found in his epitaph (C.I.L., 4503), which
has been preserved, though the tomb itself has disappeared. This inscription
simply states that his episcopate of thirteen years ended in April, 554. The
authenticity of the inscription and its chronological data admit of no doubt.
Victor is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on 17 Oct., as “eruditione
et sanctitate conspicus”.
His original writings, preserved only in fragments, show him to have been
a devoted student and a man of wide and varied learning. His best known work
is the “Codex
fuldensis”,
one of the most ancient manuscripts of the Vulgate, prepared under his direction,
and which he himself revised and corrected. In this codex the place of the
Four Gospels is taken by a harmony of the Gospels, or as he himself terms
it in the preface, a single Gospel composed from the four.
Victor was not certain that the harmony he used was identical with
the “Diatesseron”
of Tatian. The discovery of the text of the latter work and recent investigation
have made it clear that this Latin harmony used by Victor was drawn up about
A.D. 500. The anonymous author of this work simply substituted the Latin of
St. Jerome's Vulgate for the Greek of Tatian, and at times changed the order
or inserted additional passages. Many of the discrepancies may be due however
to subsequent changes. Other works by Victor were: “De
cyclo paschali”
written about 550 in refutation of the “Cursus
paschalis”
of Victorius. Only a few fragments of this work have survived (P.L., LXVIII,
1097-98; Pitra, “Spic.
Solesm.”,
I, 296); commentaries on the Old and New Testament, for the most part catenae
of quotations from the Greek exegetes; “Libelius
reticulus seu de arca Noe”
(Pitra, “Spic.
Solesm.”,
I, 287), containing an ingenious allegorical computation showing that the
dimensions of the ark typified the years of Christ's earthly life; “Capitula
de resurrectione Domini”
dealt with some of the chief difficulties regarding Christ's genealogy and
the hour of the Crucifixion as recorded in the Evangelists.
He was known for his patronage of
monastic scholarship and his personal sancity. Florentius defended his see
against the heresies of the era.
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554 St. Florentinus, Bishop of Capua Italy learning and historical
concerns
Aráusicæ, in Gálliis, sancti Floréntii Epíscopi,
qui, multis clarus virtútibus, quiévit in pace.
At Orange in France, St. Florentinus, bishop, who died
leaving a reputation for many virtues.
from 541 and an ecclesiastical writer. He is perhaps to be identified
with Victor, bishop of Capua of the same century. He is honored for his learning
and historical concerns.
Florentius of Orange B (RM). The 8th bishop of Orange
in southern France (Benedictines).
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5th v St. John
the Dwarf native of Basta in Lower Egypt pass his whole life in prayer
and manual labor
ST JOHN THE DWARF
St JOHN, surnamed Kolobos, that is “the Little” or “the Dwarf”, was famous
among the eminent saints that inhabited the deserts of Egypt. He retired when
a young man into the wilderness of Skete and set himself with his whole heart
to put on the spirit of Christ. The old hermit who was his director for his
first lesson bade him plant in the ground a walking stick, and water it every
day till it should bring forth fruit. John did so with great simplicity, though
the river was at a considerable distance. It is related that when he had
continued his task, without speaking one word about it, into the third year
the stick, which had taken root, pushed forth leaves and buds and produced
fruit. The old hermit, gathering the fruit, carried it to the church, and
giving it to some of the brethren, said, “Take, and eat the fruit of obedience”.
Postumian, who was in Egypt in 402, assured Sulpicius Sevens that he was shown
this tree, which grew in the yard of the monastery and which he saw covered
with shoots and green leaves.
St John believed that the perfection of a monk consists in
his keeping to his cell, watching constantly over himself and having God
continually present to his mind. He never discoursed on worldly affairs and
never spoke of “news”, the ordinary amusement of the superficial. He was
so intent on the things of God that he became very absent-minded. At his
work he sometimes plaited into one basket the material, which should have
made two, and often went wrong through forgetting what he was doing. One
day when a carrier knocked at his door to carry away his materials and tools
to another place, St John thrice forgot what he went to fetch in returning
from his door, till he repeated to himself, “The camel, my tools. The camel,
my tools. The camel, my tools.” The same happened to him when someone came
to fetch the baskets he had made, and as often as he came back from his door
he sat down again to his work, till at last he called the brother to come
in, and take them himself. How St John tested the good dispositions of St
Arsenius has already been related in the account of that saint on July 19.
His own humility was the more remarkable because of his natural quick temper
and good opinion of himself. But he knew his faults and he knew what provoked
them, and therefore he avoided the ways of men and their discussions and
so cultivated the things of peace that his words held the attention of all.
It is said that a certain brother coming one day to speak to him for two
or three minutes, so ardent and sweet was their conversation on spiritual
things that they continued it the whole night till morning. Perceiving it
was day, they went out, the one to return home, the other to go with him
for a few steps, but their talk again turned to God and His kingdom and it
lasted till midday. Then St John took him again into his cell to eat a little;
after which they really parted.
A certain charitable young woman, named Paesia, fell gradually
into a disorderly life. The monks entreated St John to try to reclaim her,
and he went to her house and sitting down by her he said with his accustomed
sweetness, “What reason can you have to complain of Jesus that you should
thus abandon Him?” At these words she was struck silent, and seeing the saint
in tears she said to him, “Why do you weep?” St John replied, “ How can I
not weep whilst I see Satan in possession of your heart?” She was moved by
his gentleness and concern for her, and grace entered into her heart and she
asked him, “Father, is the path of penitence still open to me?” “It is,” he
replied. “Then show me the way.” He rose up and she followed him without saying
another word. As they slept in the desert, their heads pillowed on mounds
of cold sand, St John dreamed he saw the soul of Paesia going up to Heaven
and heard a voice telling him that her penitence was as perfect before God
as it was short before man. And in the morning he found Paesia dead.
When the Berbers raided Skete, John went across the Nile towards
the Red Sea, and there, in the place hallowed by St Antony, he died. When
he drew near his end, his disciples entreated him to leave them some final
lesson of Christian perfection. He sighed, and that he might shun the air
of a teacher alleging his own doctrine and practice, he said, “I never followed
my own will; nor did I ever teach another what I had not first practised myself”.
The most reliable source of information
seems to be the Apophthegmata (see
Bousset, Apophthegmata Studien zur
Geschichte des ältesten mönchtums,
(1923); but consult also the Acta Sanctorum,
October, vol. viii, pp. 39—48. The panegyric of Bishop Zachary, published
in Coptic by Amélineau (Annales
du Musée Guimet, vol. xxv, 1894), and translated by Nau, from
the Syriac, in the Revue de l’Orient chrétien,
vols. vii to ix, is not very trustworthy. See also De L. O’Leary, The Saints of Egypt (1937), pp. 170-172.
John the Dwarf to the desert of Skeet when a young man
and became a disciple of St. Poemen.
John lived a life of obedience, humility, and austerity the rest of his days.
When he arrived at Skeet he is reputed to have watered a stick stuck in the
ground unquestioningly when his spiritual director ordered him to do so; in
the third year of his ministrations, it bore fruit. He left
Skeet to escape marauder Berbers and settled on Mount Quolzum, where he died.
Fifth Century Father Robert F. McNamara
Countless stories
are told about hundreds of hermits and hermitages that hallowed the deserts
of Egypt in the earliest Christian centuries. Some of these stories
are likely folklore. Usually they ring true. Always, they edify.
One of the best-known of the fifth-century desert saints was
a man called "John Kolobos;" that is, John the Little, of John the Dwarf.
He was a young man when he entered the monastic wilderness of Skete in northern
Egypt. There he would pass his whole life in prayer and manual labor.
Little John had a beautiful simplicity of character. On
his arrival, he was assigned to an old, experienced hermit as tutor.
The tutor straightway gave John a walking stick. "Plant this in the
ground," he ordered, "and water it every day." The command was a test
as well as a task. John obeyed at once, without question or delay.
Even though the river from which he fetched the water was at a distance, he
watered the stick dutifully every day. In the third year the walking
stick put forth buds and flowers and fruit. John had passed the test.
His tutor collected the fruit and distributed it among his companions.
"Take," he told them, "and eat the fruit of obedience."
(Although this sounds like folklore, there is a record, dating
from 402 AD, that refers to a certain tree in the monastery yard as John's
walking stick come to life.)
It is not surprising that such
a simple soul would be single-minded in his service of God. Divine things
were his only interest. He cared nothing for the "news" of the day.
(Here is something for us gossips to ponder; and, even more, the media people!)
In fact, his focus was so intense that he was often absent-minded about worldly
things. Once, for instance, a man on a camel came to his cell to pick
up John's basket making tools and transfer them elsewhere, according to an
agreement. But, between the door and his bench, John forgot his messenger
and his message. This happened three times. Finally he hammered
the caller's purpose into his mind be repeating to himself: "The camel; my
tools." So the caller on the camel finally did get the equipment.
On the other hand, John once spent a whole night and day without break discussing
spiritual matters with another monk.
Around that time, a hitherto reputable young Egyptian woman
named Paesia fell into unworthy ways. St. John's monks begged him
to try to bring her back to God. He called at Paesia's home and gently
expressed his concern for her. She asked why he was weeping.
"How can I not weep," he replied, "while I see Satan in possession
of your heart?"
Paesia was deeply touched. "Will you show me the route
to repentance?" she asked. John bade her to come back to the
desert with him. En route, they had to stop over night. As he
slept in the dark wasteland he dreamt that he saw Paesia going up to heaven,
and he heard a voice that said, "God has already considered her repentance
perfect." When he awoke and went to the place where she had been sleeping,
he found that she had indeed died.
Towards the end of St. John's life, Berbers from the west raided
the monastic fastness of Skete. John and his followers fled east across
the Nile to the desert made famous by St. Anthony, the pioneer Egyptian monk.
It was there that John, too, drew his last breath. When they saw that
his death was imminent, St. John's disciples asked him to give them one final
spiritual lesson. Still too humble to want to be thought an expert, he simply
said, "I have never followed my own will; nor did I ever teach another what
I had not practiced myself." There were spiritual giants in the ancient
deserts of Egypt. One of the tallest of these giants was St. John the
dwarf.
John the Dwarf, Hermit (RM) ( John Colobus) Born in Basta, Lower
Egypt; 5th century. While still a young man, Saint John retired with an elder
brother to the desert of Skete and became a disciple of Saint Poemen. John
lived a life of obedience, humility, and austerity the rest of his days. When
he first arrived at Skete he is reputed to have watered a stick stuck in
the ground unquestioningly when his spiritual director order him to do so;
in the third year of his ministrations, it bore fruit. He left Skete to escape
marauding Berbers and settled on Mount Quolzum, where he died (Delaney).
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6th v. St. Colman of Kilroot; s a disciple of Saint Ailbe of Emly. He retained
his abbacy while also in the episcopal chair
Abbot-bishop of Kiltrout, near Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland. He was
a disciple of St. Ailbhe of Emly.
Colman of Kilroot B (AC). Bishop Colman of Kilroot, near Carrickfergus,
was a disciple of Saint Ailbe of Emly. He
retained his abbacy while also in the episcopal chair (Benedictines). |
6th v. St. Louthiem Irish saint, patron of St.
Ludgran
Irish saint, patron of St. Ludgran
in Cornwall, England. Also called Luchtighem.
Louthiern of Cornwall B (AC). The Irish Saint Louthiern, patron
of Saint Ludgran in Cornwall, may be identical to Saint Luchtighern, abbot
of Ennistymon, who is associated with Saint Ita (Benedictines).
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670 Ethelbert (Ædilberct,
Ethelbricht) and Ethelred of Kent MM (AC)
Died c. 640-670; this is the feast of the translation of their relics.
These are the sons of Ermenred and great-grandsons of King Saint Ethelbert
of Kent, who were cruelly murdered by King Egbert of Kent's counsellor, Thunor,
at Eastry (near Sandwich). Egbert was held accountable for the assassinations
and founded Minster Abbey as a penance. Here their sister, Saint Ermenburga
was founding abbess of the convent. Saint Bede does not mention them, and
the source that does, leaves them unnamed. Apparently, there was competition
for their relics, which were translated to Wakering in Essex. Finally, in
the 10th century, Saint Oswald enshrined their relics at Ramsey abbey in
Huntingdonshire, where they are venerated. Their legend only fully developed
in the 11th century (Attwater, Benedictines, Farmer). In art, this pair is
portrayed as royal brothers, sometimes with swords (Roeder). They are also
venerated at Canterbury (Farmer).
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680
St. Berarius Bishop of Le Mans
France. He is remembered for translating the relics of St. Scholastica from Monte Cassino to Le Mans.
Berarius I of Le Mans B (AC) Bishop Berarius of Le Mans translated
the relics of Saint Scholastica from Monte Cassino to Le Mans (Benedictines).
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668 St. Anstrudis
Benedictine abbess affectionate in caring for her sisters, charitable
to the poor, and attentive to the voice of God
also known as Astrude. She is believed to be the daughter of Sts. Salaberga and Blandinus. Anstrudis succeeded her mother
as abbess of the abbey at Laon, France. When Anstrudis' brother, Baldwin,
was murdered, Anstrudis opposed Ebroin, the mayor of the royal palace. Ebroin,
a politically powerful man, sought many petty vengeances against Anstrudis
and made her life difficult. Blessed Pepin of Landen entered the dispute and
put a stop to Ebroin's harassment.
Anstrudis of Laon, OSB V (AC) (also known as Anstrude, Austru) Saint Anstrudis
was the daughter of Saints Blandinus and Salaberga, the founders of Saint
John the Baptist Convent at Laon. With the consent of her husband, Saint Salaberga
retired to the abbey and was chosen abbess. Anstrudis followed in her mother's
noble footsteps, though only reluctantly did she accept the abbacy at Salaberga's
death. Anstrudis was a model religious: scrupulous in her observance of the
rule, affectionate in caring for her sisters, charitable to the poor, and
attentive to the voice of God. Often she kept vigil throughout the night.
Except on Sunday and Christmas, feast days, she ate only once a day.
She was perfected by her sufferings at the hands of Ebroin, the mayor of
the palace and oppressor of all the saints of that period. After her brother,
Saint Baldwin, was assassinated, Anstrudis was threatened by Ebroin. He eventually
relented, won over by her virtue and innocence. Anstrudis is remembered in
the Gallican and Benedictines calendars (Benedictines, Husenbeth) .
700 St Anstrudis, Or Austrude, Virgin
She was probably the daughter of St Salaberga, who founded an abbey at
Laon, in which she, with the consent of her husband, took the religious veil.
Anstrudis faithfully walked in her steps, and after her death succeeded her
in the abbacy. The holiness of St Anstrudis was proved and made perfect by
afflictions. Her brother Baldwin was treacherously assassinated, and she
herself was accused to Ebroin, mayor of the palace, of taking side against
his interest. When he came to Laon he burst into the convent and had the
young abbess dragged before him, and would have led her to prison had he
not been frightened off. The next day an attempt was made on the life of
Anstrudis, but she escaped by clinging to the altar of the church. Attracted
by her intrepid constancy and proved virtue and innocence, Bd Pepin of Landen
declared himself her protector. When Madelgarius, Bishop of Laon, tried to
lay hands on the income of the convent, St Anstrudis lodged a complaint and
Pepin sent his son Grimoald to deal straitly with the unjust prelate. She
died before 709.
The Bollandists, following Mabillon,
have printed a life of this saint in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. VII, Pt
2. It purports to be of almost contemporary date, but Levison, in his critical
edition, MGH., Scriptores Merov.,
vol. vi, pp. 64 seq., assigns it to the ninth century.
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780 St. Nothlem Archbishop of Canterbury Originally a priest in London, he was named archbishop
in 734. Nothelm conducted research on the history of Kent which was collected
by Abbot Albinus and in turn utilized by the Venerable Bede in the writing
of his Ecclesiastical History.
Nothelm of Canterbury B (AC) Died c. 740. A priest in London, he
was named archbishop of Canterbury in 734. In his preface to his Ecclesiastical
History, the historian the Venerable Bede acknowledges that the chief authority
for his work was Abbot Albinus, who passed along to him the recollections
of Nothelm, including the research Nothelm has done in Roman archives on the
history of Kent and adjacent areas. Nothelm was also a correspondent of Saint
Boniface (Benedictines, Delaney) .
740 St Nothelm, Archbishop Of Canterbury
Nothelm, whom St Bede refers to as “a devout priest of the church of London
“, succeeded St Tatwin in the see of Canterbury in the year 734. Two years
later he received the pallium from Pope St Gregory III. He was consulted by
St Boniface from Germany and furnished him with a copy of the famous letter
of instruction from Pope St Gregory I
to St Augustine of Canterbury about how to deal with the English converts.
But St Nothelm’s name is principally remembered for his part in the composition
of St Bede’s Ecclesiastical History. In the preface thereto, addressed to
King Ceolwulf, Bede says that his chief aid and authority for his work had
been the learned abbot Albinus at Canterbury, who transmitted to him “either
by writing or by word of mouth of the same Nothelm, all that he thought worthy
of memory that had been done in the province of Kent, or the adjacent parts,
by the disciples of the blessed Pope Gregory, as he had learned them either
from written records or the traditions of his ancestors. The said Nothelm
afterwards went to Rome and, having with leave of the present Pope Gregory
[III] searched into the archives of the holy Roman church, found there some
letters of the blessed Pope Gregory and other popes. When he returned home
he brought them to me, by the advice of the aforesaid most reverend father
Albinus, to be inserted in my history. Thus . . . what was transacted in the
church of Canterbury by the disciples of St Gregory or their successors, and
under which kings they happened, has been conveyed to us by Nothelm through
the industry of abbot Albinus. They also partly informed me by what bishops
and under what kings the provinces of the East and West Saxons, as well as
of the East Angles and the Northumbrians, received the faith of Christ.”
Nothelm also wrote some observations on St Bede’s commentary on the books
of Kings in the Bible, to which Bede replied in a personal letter.
The saint is
noticed in the Acts Sanctorum, October, vol. viii. We know
little more than what Bede has told us: see Plummer’s edition and notes. But
since the publication of the work
of Dom S. Brechter, The Quellenl zur Angelsacksenmission Gregors
des Grossen (1941), the authenticity of the alleged Responsiones
of Pope Gregory to Augustine, and Nothelm’s finding of them in
the Roman archives, are subject to serious question: cf. Fr
P. Grosjean in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lx (1942),
p. 287. Some scholars do not find Dom Brechter’s arguments completely convincing.
|
1066 St. Rudolph
of Gubbio Benedictine bishop described as 'a miracle of unselfishness'
and disciple of St. Peter Damian,
also called Rodolph. He spent years under the spiritual care and monastic
leadership of St. Peter Damian until about 1061 when, while still young, he
was named bishop of Gubbio, Italy. His term as bishop was characterized for
its remarkable charity.
Rudolph of Gubbio, OSB B (AC). A monk of Fontavellana under Saint Peter
Damian. In 1061, while still very young, he was appointed bishop of Gubbio.
He is described as 'a miracle of unselfishness' (Benedictines) .
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1167 Blessed Gilbert
the Theologian, OSB Cist. Abbot (AC)
(also known as Blessed Gilbert the Great) Born in England; Gilbert, often
surnamed by Cistercian writers as “the Great” or “the
Theologian,” became abbot of Ourscamp monastery in
1147. In 1163, he was promoted abbot of Cîteaux (Benedictines).
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1492 Blessed Balthassar
of Chiavari, OFM (AC)
cultus confirmed in 1930. The Franciscan Blessed Balthassar was a fellow
preacher with Blessed Bernardino of Feltre. He is venerated in the diocese
of Pavia, Italy (Benedictines).
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1584
St. Richard Gwyn One of Forty Martyrs of England and Wales the
first Welsh martyr of Queen Elizabeth I's reign
Also called Richard White, he was born in Montgomeryshire, Wales, in 1547,
and studied at Cambridge University, England. Converted from Protestantism,
he returned to Wales in 1562, married, had six children, and opened a school.
Arrested in 1579, he spent four years in prison before his execution by being
hanged, drawn, and quartered at Wrexham on October 15, for being a Catholic.
While jailed, he composed many religious poems in Welsh. He is considered
the protomartyr of Wales and was included among the canonized martyrs of England
and Wales by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
Richard Gwyn M (RM) Born at Llanidloes, Montgomeryshire, Wales, in 1537;
died at Wrexham, Wales, on October 15, 1584; canonized by Pope Paul VI in
1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.
Richard Gwyn was raised a Protestant, studied briefly at Saint John's College,
Cambridge. He returned to Wales in 1562, opened a school at Overton, Flintshire,
married, and had six children. He left Overton after becoming a Catholic,
when his absence from Anglican services was noticed, but was arrested in 1579
at Wrexham, Wales.
He escaped but was again arrested in 1580 and imprisoned at Ruthin. He
was brought up before eight assizes, tortured, and fined in between, and
four years later, in 1584, he was convicted of treason on charges by perjuring
witnesses and sentenced to death. During his time in prison, he wrote
numerous religious poems in Welsh. He was hanged, drawn, and quartered at
Wrexham-- the first Welsh martyr of Queen Elizabeth I's reign. He is the protomartyr
of Wales (Benedictines, Delaney) .
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1604 Seraphino
famous for charity to the poor and power to heal sickness OFM Cap. (RM)
(also known as Seraphinus, Serafino) Born at Montegranaro, Italy, in 1540;
canonized 1767; feast day formerly October 12. Seraphino took the Capuchin
habit as a lay-brother in 1556 and spent the whole of his uneventful life
at the friary of Ascoli-Piceno. He is said to have been the spiritual advisor
of high ecclesiastical and civil dignitaries.
He was famous for his charity
to the poor and his power to heal sickness (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
1604 St. Seraphinus Capuchin spiritual gifts wisdom
spiritual advisor
Asculi, in Picéno, sancti
Seraphíni Confessóris, ex Ordine Minórum Capuccinórum,
vitæ sanctimónia et humilitáte conspícui; quem
Clemens Décimus tértius, Póntifex Máximus, Sanctórum
fastis adscrípsit.
At Ascoli in
Piceno, St. Seraphinus, confessor, of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin,
distinguished by his humility and holiness of life. He was enrolled
among the saints by the Sovereign Pontiff Clement XIII.
1604 ST SERAPHINO
The life of St Seraphino was of that uneventfulness which one associates
with the vocation of a lay brother, though spiritually he attained great heights
and numerous miracles are related of him. He was born at Montegranaro in
1540, of very humble parentage, and like many another saint he began to earn
his living as a shepherd boy.
When he was left an orphan he was taken
into the service of his elder brother, a bricklayer and a harsh master. Young
Seraphino was treated rather brutally by him, and when he was sixteen he ran
away and became a lay brother with the Capuchins. He had always been very
devout and good, and now he progressed rapidly on the path of heroic sanctity.
Every night he spent three hours in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, and
did not go to bed again after Matins; he won sinners by his kindness and
moving words, and was beloved by all the poor. Had his superiors allowed,
he would have emulated St Francis and gone to work among the infidels; but
he unmurmuringly accepted God’s will that he should live and die in obscurity
at home. The decree of his canonization (published in 1767) records two of
his miracles: namely, that when on a pilgrimage to Loreto he passed the river
Potenza in flood not merely unharmed but quite dry, and that when he was
reproved for his reckless generosity to the poor the vegetables which he
had cut for them overnight in the friary garden were grown up again the next
day. With the sign of the cross he cured the sick and he received the gifts
of discernment of spirits and reading the future, so that both civil and
ecclesiastical dignitaries consulted him. St Seraphino died at Ascoli Piceno
on October 12, 1604; his feast is kept on this day by the Capuchins in England,
but on the 13th elsewhere.
The story of
St Seraphino told in some detail is included in the Annals: Ordinis
Capuccini (1639) by Z. Boverio. This has been reprinted in the
Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. vi, and with it
the full text of the bull of canonization. There are other lives by C. de
Harenberg (1642), P. B. Joannini (1709) and Cardinal Svampa (1904); and see
Ernest de Beaulieu, Deux émules de St Felix de Cantalice
(1919). Further bibliographical details may be gleaned from Giuseppe
da Fermo, Gli Scrittori Cappuccini delle Marche (1928).
Also called Seraphino. Born at Montegranaro,
Italy, in 1540, he worked as a shepherd in his youth and was reportedly much
abused by his older brother. At the age of sixteen he entered the Capuchins
as a lay brother at Ascoli Piceno, earning a reputation for his holiness.
He was graced with considerable spiritual gifts and wisdom, as well as devotion
to the Blessed Sacrament. Seraphinus gave counsel to ecclesiastical and secular
leaders. He was canonized in 1767.
Seraphinus (Serafino) of Ascoli-Piceno, OFM Cap. (RM) Born at Montegranaro,
Italy, 1540; died 1604; canonized in 1767. At the age of 16, Saint Seraphinus
took the Capuchin habit as a lay-brother. He spent the whole of his uneventful
life during good works at the Ascoli-Piceno friary, where he became famous
for his charity to the poor and his power to heal sickness. He is also said
to have been the spiritual advisor to dignitaries of both the church and the
state (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia).
St. Seraphin of Montegranaro (1540-1604)
Born into a poor Italian family, young Seraphin lived the life of a shepherd
and spent much of his time in prayer. Mistreated for a time by his older brother
after the two of them had been orphaned, Seraphin became a Capuchin Franciscan
at age 16 and impressed everyone with his humility and generosity.
Serving as a lay brother, Seraphin imitated St. Francis in fasting, clothing
and courtesy to all. He even mirrored Francis' missionary zeal, but Seraphin's
superiors did not judge him to be a candidate for the missions.
Faithful to the core, Seraphin spent three hours in prayer before the Blessed
Sacrament daily. The poor who begged at the friary door came to hold a special
love for him. Despite his uneventful life, he reached impressive spiritual
heights and has had miracles attributed to him.
Seraphin died on October 12, 1604,
and was canonized in 1767.
Comment: For many people these
days, work has no significance beyond providing the money they need to live.
How many share the belief expressed in the Book of Genesis that we are to
cooperate with God in caring for the earth? The kind of work Seraphin did
may not strike us as earth-shattering. The work was ordinary; the spirit in
which he did it was not.
Quote: In Brothers of Men, Rene
Voillaume of the Little Brothers of Jesus speaks about ordinary work and holiness:
"Now this holiness [of Jesus] became a reality in the most ordinary circumstances
of life, those of work, of the family and the social life of a village, and
this is an emphatic affirmation of the fact that the most obscure and humdrum
human activities are entirely compatible with the perfection of the Son of
God." Christians are convinced, "that the evangelical holiness proper to
a child of God is possible in the ordinary circumstances of a man who is
poor and obliged to work for his living."
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1690 St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of
Jesus; France of the seventeenth century, love of God had gone cold, on the
one hand because of widespread rebellion and sinfulness, on the other because
of the numbing influence of Jansenism, which presented God as not loving
all mankind alike. And to rekindle that love there flourished, between 1625
and 1690, three saints, John Eudes, Claud La Colombière, and Margaret-Mary
Alacoque, who between them brought and taught to the Church, in the form
that we have had it ever since, devotion to our divine Lord in His Sacred
Heart, “the symbol of that boundless love which moved the Word to take flesh,
to institute the Holy Eucharist, to take our sins upon Himself, and, dying
on the cross, to offer Himself as a victim and a sacrifice to the eternal
Father.”
Parédii, in diœcési Augustodunénsi, sanctæ Margarítæ
Maríæ Alacóque, quæ, Ordinem Visitatiónis
beátæ Maríæ Vírginis proféssa, exímiis
in devotióne erga sacratíssimum Cor Jesu propagánda et
público ejúsdem cultu provehéndo méritis
excélluit; atque in sanctárum Vírginum album a Benedícto
Papa Décimo quinto reláta fuit.
At Paray, in the diocese of Autun, St. Margaret Mary Alacoque.
She made her profession in the Order of the Visitation of Blessed Mary the
Virgin, and she excelled with great merit in spreading devotion to the Most
Sacred Heart of Jesus and in furthering its public veneration. Pope
Benedict XV added her name to the list of holy virgins.
Religious of the Visitation Order.
Apostle of the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, born at Lhautecour,
France, 22 July, 1647; died at Paray-le-Monial, 17 October, 1690.
1690 St Margaret Mary, Virgin
Notwithstanding the great saints
and many other holy people of the time, in France of the seventeenth century,
love of God had gone cold, on the one hand because of widespread rebellion
and sinfulness, on the other because of the numbing influence of Jansenism,
which presented God as not loving all mankind alike. And to rekindle that
love there flourished, between 1625 and 1690, three saints, John Eudes, Claud
La Colombière, and Margaret-Mary Alacoque, who between them brought
and taught to the Church, in the form that we have had it ever since, devotion
to our divine Lord in His Sacred Heart, “the symbol of that boundless love
which moved the Word to take flesh, to institute the Holy Eucharist, to
take our sins upon Himself, and, dying on the cross, to offer Himself as
a victim and a sacrifice to the eternal Father.”
The third and most prominent of these “saints of the
Sacred Heart” was born in 1647 at Janots, the eastern quarter of L’Hautecour,
a small town in Burgundy. Her father was a notary of some distinction, whose
wife bore him seven children, of whom Margaret was the fifth. She was a devout
and good little girl, with a horror of “being naughty”. When she was four
she “made a vow of chastity”, though she admitted afterwards that, as one
would expect at that age, she knew not what either a vow or chastity might
be. When she was about eight her father died and she was sent to school with
the Poor Clares at Charolles; she was at once attracted by what she could
see and understand of the life of the nuns, and they on their side were so
impressed by Margaret’s piety that she was allowed to make her first communion
when she was nine. Two years later she was afflicted by a painful rheumatic
affection that kept her to her bed till she was fifteen, and in the course
of it she was taken back to her home at L’Hautecour. Several other members
of the family now occupied her father’s house as well, and one sister and
her husband had taken all domestic and business authority out of the hands
of the widow Alacoque. She and Margaret were treated almost as servants, and
she recovered from her sickness only to be confronted by this persecution
of her mother. “At this time”, she writes in her autobiography, “all my desire
was to seek happiness and comfort in the Blessed Sacrament, but as I lived
some way from the church I could not go without the leave of these persons,
and sometimes one would give and another refuse her consent.” They would say
it was a pretext to meet some boy or other, and Margaret would go and hide
herself in a corner of the garden, and stop there crying and praying for
the rest of the day, without food or drink unless somebody from the village
took pity on her. “The heaviest of my crosses was my powerlessness to lighten
those laid upon my mother.”
From the energy with which Margaret reproaches herself
for worldliness, faithlessness and resistance to grace, it may reasonably
be gathered that she was not averse from a reasonable participation in those
opportunities for gaiety and amusement that came her way, and when her mother
and other relatives wanted her to marry she considered the proposal not unfavourably
for some time. In her uncertainty she inflicted cruel austerities on herself
in punishment for her faults, and brought the further dislike of her relations
upon herself by collecting neglected village children into the house or garden
and giving them lessons. When she was twenty, more pressure was put on her
to marry, but now, fortified by a vision of our Lord, she made up her mind
once for all what she would do, and firmly refused. Not till she was twenty-two
did she receive the sacrament of confirmation (it was then that she took the
name of Mary), and thus armed she was able to withstand the final opposition
of her family. Her brother Chrysostom furnished her dowry, and in June 1671
she entered the Visitation convent at Paray-le-Monial.
As a novice Margaret-Mary was humble, obedient, simple and frank,
and she edified the community, testified a fellow-novice, “by her charity
to her sisters, to whom she never uttered an irritating word, and by her
patience under the sharp reproofs, scorn and ridicule to which she was often
submitted”. But her novitiate was not an easy one. A Visitation nun must
not “be extraordinary except by being ordinary”, and already God was leading
Margaret-Mary by extraordinary paths. For example, she was quite unable to
practice discursive meditation: “No matter how much I tried to follow the
method taught me, I invariably had to return to my divine Master’s way [i.e.
‘prayer of simplicity’], although I did my best to give it up.” In due course
she was professed, and on that occasion our Lord was pleased to accept her
as His bride, “but in a way that she felt herself incapable of describing”.
From that time “my divine Master urged me incessantly to ask for humiliations
and mortifications”, and they came unsought when she was appointed to assist
in the infirmary. The infirmarian, Sister Catherine Marest, was temperamentally
very different from her assistant: active, energetic, and efficient, while
Margaret-Mary was quiet, slow and clumsy. The result she summed up in her
own words: “God alone knows what I had to suffer there, as much through my
impulsive and sensitive disposition as from my fellow-creatures and the Devil.”
But, granted that Sister Marest was too vigorous in her methods, she on her
side probably had something to suffer too. During these two and a half years
our Lord continually made Himself sensibly present to Margaret-Mary, often
as crowned with thorns, and on December 27, 1673, her devotion to His passion
was rewarded with the first of the revelations.
She was kneeling alone at the grille before the Blessed
Sacrament exposed on the altar, and all at once she felt herself, as she says,
“invested” by the divine Presence, and heard our Lord inviting her to take
the place which St John (it was his feast) had occupied at the Last Supper.
He then went on speaking, “in so plain and effective a manner
as to leave no room for doubt, such were the results that this grace produced
in me, who am always afraid of deceiving myself about what I assert to take
place interiorly”. He told her that the love of His heart must needs spread
and manifest itself to men by means of her, and that He would reveal the
treasures of its graces through her, His chosen instrument and the disciple
of His Sacred Heart. Then it was as though our Lord took her heart and put
it within His own, returning it burning with divine love into her breast.
During a period of eighteen months our Lord continued to appear to Margaret-Mary
at intervals, explaining and amplifying the first revelation. He told her
that His heart was to be honoured under the form of a heart of flesh, represented
in a way now familiar to Catholics throughout the world, and that, in consideration
of the coldness and rebuffs given to Him by mankind in return for all His
eagerness to do them good, she should make up for their ingratitude so far
as she was able.
This was to be done by frequent
loving communion, especially on the first Friday of each month and by an hour’s
vigil every Thursday night in memory of His agony and desertion in Gethsemane—practices
which Catholics have made their own in the devotions of the Nine Fridays
and the Holy Hour.
After a long interval
a final revelation was made within the octave of Corpus Christi in 1675, when
our Lord said to St Margaret-Mary,
“Behold the heart which has so
much loved men that it has spared nothing, even exhausting and consuming itself
in testimony of its love. Instead of gratitude I receive from most only indifference,
by irreverence and sacrilege and the coldness and scorn that men have for
me in the sacrament of love.”
Then He asked that a feast of reparation be instituted for the
Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi (now the feast of the Sacred Heart).
Thus through His chosen instrument God made known to the world His will concerning
the reparation due for human ingratitude towards His goodness and mercy, by
worship of the heart of flesh of His Son, considered as united to His divinity
and as the symbol of His love in dying for our redemption.*{*It is interesting
to note that just before this time, in 1651, Thomas Goodwin, Independent
(Congregationalist) chaplain to Oliver Cromwell, wrote a book entitled The
Heart of Christ in Heaven towards Sinners on Earth (vol. iv of his Complete
Works, 1862). It has remarkable affinities with the teaching of Bd
Claud La Colombière.}
Our Lord had told St Margaret-Mary that she was to “do
nothing without the approval of those who guide you, in order that, having
the authority of obedience, you may not be misled by Satan, who has no power
over those who are obedient”. When she carried the matter to her superior,
Mother de Saumaise, she “mortified and humiliated her with all her might,
and allowed her to do none of the things that our Lord had asked of her, treating
contemptuously all that the poor sister had said”. “This”, adds St Margaret-Mary,
“consoled me very much and I withdrew in great peace.” But she was seriously
over-wrought by all that had happened, was taken ill, and her life was in
danger. Mother de Saumaise was looking for a sign to guide her in dealing
with Sister Alacoque, and said to her, “If God cures you, I shall take it
as a proof that all you experience comes from Him, and I will allow you to
do what our Lord wishes in honour of His Sacred Heart”. St Margaret-Mary
prayed accordingly, she at once recovered, and Mother de Saumaise fulfilled
her promise. But there was a minority in the community definitely hostile
to their sister and her spiritual experiences, and the superior ordered her
to set them out for the opinion of certain theologians. These men lacked
experience in such matters, diagnosed them as delusions, and recommended
that the visionary should take more food. Our Lord, however,
had promised that an understanding director should come to St Margaret-Mary,
and when Claud La Colombière arrived as confessor extraordinary to
the nuns she knew at once that he was the man. He did not stay at Paray long,
but long enough to be convinced of the genuineness of Margaret-Mary’s experiences,
to gain a deep respect and affection for her, and sincerely to adopt the
teaching of the Sacred Heart while confirming the saint herself in it.
Soon after Bd Claud had left for England (“where”, he
complained, “there are no Daughters of Holy Mary, much less a Sister Alacoque”),
Margaret-Mary underwent probably the most distressing trial of her life. She
was asked in vision to become the sacrificial victim for the shortcomings
of the nuns of her community and for the ingratitude of some to the Sacred
Heart. For long she demurred, asking that this cup might pass from her. Then
our Lord asked her again that she would do this thing, not merely interiorly
but in public. She accepted, not in desperation or defiance, but in an agony
of fear at what she felt bound to do because God had asked her—and had had
to ask her twice. On that very same day, November 20, 1677, this young nun
of only five years’ standing, having first told her superior and been told
by her to obey God’s voice, “said and did what her Lord required of her”—knelt
before her sisters in religion and told them in the name of Christ that she
was appointed to be the victim for their failings. They did not all take it
in the same spirit of utter humility and obedience, and on that occasion,
she says, our Lord, “chose to favour me with a little sample of the grievous
night of His own passion”.
It is a tradition at
Paray that the next morning there were not enough priests available to hear
all the nuns who wanted to go to confession, but unhappily there is reason
to believe that for many years afterwards there were sisters who nursed resentment
against St Margaret-Mary.
During the rule of Mother Greyfié, who succeeded Mother
de Saumaise, St Margaret-Mary alternately received great graces and underwent
great trials, both interiorly and from her fellow-creatures. She was tempted
to despair, vainglory, self-indulgence, and had a good deal of sickness. In
1681 Claud La Colombière came to Paray for the good of his health,
and died there in February of the following year. St Margaret-Mary is said
been supernaturally assured that his soul was in Heaven, as she was from
time to time regarding the state of others who were dead.
Two years later Mother Melin, who had known Margaret-Mary
during all her religious life, was elected superior at Paray and she appointed
the saint as her assistant, with the approval of the chapter. From henceforth
any remaining opposition ceased, or at least was silenced. The secret of her
divine revelations was made known to the community in a rather dramatic (and
for her embarrassing) way, being read out, presumably by accident, in the
refectory in the course of a book written by Bd Claud La Colombière.
But the ultimate triumph made no difference, one way
or another, to St Margaret-Mary. One of the duties of the assistant superior
was to sweep out the choir, and one day while she was doing it she was asked
to go and lend a hand in the kitchen. Without brushing up the dust under her
hand she went off, and when the nuns assembled for office the heap of dust
was still there in full view. That is the sort of thing that twelve years
before had upset Sister Marest the infirmarian she still lived and was to
have Sister Alacoque to help her again, and doubtless she remembered it with
a grim smile. St Margaret Mary was also made mistress of the novices, with
such success that professed nuns would ask leave to attend her conferences.
Her secret being now known, she was less reticent in encouraging devotion
to the Sacred Heart, and inculcated it among her novices, who privately observed
the feast in 1685. In the following year the family of a dismissed novice
caused trouble by denouncing the novice mistress as an impostor and unorthodox
innovator, and for a time some of the old feeling was raised against her in
the convent, but it soon subsided and on June 21 the whole house privately
celebrated the feast so far as they were able. Two years later a chapel was
built at Paray in honour of the Sacred Heart, and the devotion began to be
accepted in other convents of the Visitandines, and to be propagated here
and there throughout France.
While serving a second
term as assistant superior St Margaret-Mary was taken ill in October 1690.
“I shall not live”, she said, “for I have nothing left to suffer”, but the
doctor did not think anything was very seriously wrong. A week later she asked
for the last sacraments, saying, “I need nothing but God, and to lose myself
in the heart of Jesus”. The priest came and began to administer the last
rites; at the fourth anointing, of the lips, she died. St Margaret-Mary Alacoque
was canonized in 1920.
In the very complete Vie de Ste Marguerite-Marie by Fr A. Hamon,
of which the first edition appeared in 1907, nearly thirty pages are devoted
to an “étude des sources” and a full bibliography. It must suffice
here to note, as most important of all, the autobiographical sketch (Eng.
trans.) which was written by the saint at the bidding of her director five
years before her death, as well as 533 letters of hers and a number of notes
and spiritual memoranda in her own handwriting. Besides these we have a valuable
mémoire by her superior,
Mother Greyfié, with other letters concerning her, and the depositions
of the sisters at Paray-le-Monial, who were examined on oath with a view
to her ultimate beatification. The first printed summary of what was then
known of the saint’s history was published in 1691 as an appendix which Fr
Croiset added to his little book on Devotion
to the Sacred Heart. Upon this followed the very careful biography
of Mgr Languet, Bishop of Soissons (1729). Since then we have a long succession
of lives, among which it will be sufficient to mention those of Mgr Bougaud
(Eng. trans., 1890), Mgr Leon Gauthey (3 vols., 1915). Abbé Demimuid
(1912) in the series “Les Saints” (Eng. trans.), J. Rime (1947), and M. Yeo
in These Three Hearts. There are
many other short lives in every European language. For the text of the saint’s
own writings reference is generally made to the Vie et Oeuvres which was published by
the Visitation nuns of Paray-le-Monial in 1876. See further DTC., vol. iii,
cc. 320—351. For the Nine Fridays, see Fr Thurston in The Month, June 1903, pp. 635— 649; and
J. B. O’Connell, The Nine First Fridays
(1934).
Her parents, Claude Alacoque and Philiberte Lamyn, were distinguished
less for temporal possessions than for their virtue, which gave them an
honourable position. From early childhood Margaret showed intense love for
the Blessed Sacrament, and preferred silence and prayer to childish amusements.
After her first communion at the age of nine, she practised in secret severe
corporal mortifications, until paralysis confined her to bed for four years.
At the end of this period, having made a vow to the Blessed Virgin to consecrate
herself to religious life, she was instantly restored to perfect health. The
death of her father and the injustice of a relative plunged the family in
poverty and humiliation, after which more than ever Margaret found consolation
in the Blessed Sacrament, and Christ made her sensible of His presence and
protection. He usually appeared to her as the Crucified or the Ecce Homo,
and this did not surprise her, as she thought others had the same Divine
assistance. When Margaret was seventeen, the family property was recovered,
and her mother besought her to establish herself in the world. Her filial
tenderness made her believe that the vow of childhood was not binding, and
that she could serve God at home by penance and charity to the poor. Then,
still bleeding from her self-imposed austerities, she began to take part
in the pleasures of the world. One night upon her return from a ball, she
had a vision of Christ as He was during the scourging, reproaching her for
infidelity after He had given her so many proofs of His love. During her
entire life Margaret mourned over two faults committed at this time--the
wearing of some superfluous ornaments and a mask at the carnival to please
her brothers.
On 25 May, 1671, she entered the Visitation Convent at Paray,
where she was subjected to many trials to prove her vocation, and in November,
1672, pronounced her final vows. She had a delicate constitution, but was
gifted with intelligence and good judgement, and in the cloister she chose
for herself what was most repugnant to her nature, making her life one of
inconceivable sufferings, which were often relieved or instantly cured by
our Lord, Who acted as her Director, appeared to her frequently and conversed
with her, confiding to her the mission to establish the devotion to His Sacred
Heart. These extraordinary occurrences drew upon her the adverse criticism
of the community, who treated her as a visionary, and her superior commanded
her to live the common life. But her obedience, her humility, and invariable
charity towards those who persecuted her, finally prevailed, and her mission,
accomplished in the crucible of suffering, was recognized even by those who
had shown her the most bitter opposition.
Margaret Mary was inspired
by Christ to establish the Holy Hour and to pray lying prostrate with her
face to the ground from eleven till midnight on the eve of the first Friday
of each month, to share in the mortal sadness He endured when abandoned by
His Apostles in His Agony, and to receive holy Communion on the first Friday
of every month. In the first great revelation, He made known to her His ardent
desire to be loved by men and His design of manifesting His Heart with all
Its treasures of love and mercy, of sanctification and salvation. He appointed
the Friday after the octave of the feast of Corpus Christi as the feast of
the Sacred Heart; He called her "the Beloved Disciple of the Sacred Heart",
and the heiress of all Its treasures. The love of the Sacred Heart was the
fire which consumed her, and devotion to the Sacred Heart is the refrain of
all her writings. In her last illness she refused all alleviation, repeating
frequently: "What have I in heaven and what do I desire on earth, but Thee
alone, O my God", and died pronouncing the Holy Name of Jesus.
The discussion of the mission and virtues of Margaret Mary continued
for years. All her actions, her revelations, her spiritual maxims, her teachings
regarding the devotion to the Sacred Heart, of which she was the chief exponent
as well as the apostle, were subjected to the most severe and minute examination,
and finally the Sacred Congregation of rites passed a favourable vote on the
heroic virtues of this servant of God. In March, 1824, Leo XII pronounced
her Venerable, and on 18 September, 1864, Pius IX declared her Blessed. When
her tomb was canonically opened in July, 1830, two instantaneous cures took
place. Her body rests under the altar in the chapel at Paray, and many striking
favours have been obtained by pilgrims attracted thither from all parts of
the world. Her feast is celebrated on 17 October. [Editor's Note: St. Margaret
Mary was canonized by Benedict XV in
1920.]
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1794
Bl. Marie Magdalen Desjardin Ursuline martyr of the French Revolution
She was guillotined in Valenciennes with Marie Louise
Vanot. In religion, Marie Magdalen was called Marie-Augustine. Marie Louise
was called Natalie. Both received beatification in 1920.
Blessed Ursuline Nuns MM (AC); beatified in 1920. A group of
11 Ursuline nuns guillotined at Valenciennes for having reopened their school
in spite of the prohibition of the French revolutionary authorities. Each
has a special entry in the calendar (Benedictines).
1794 The Ursuline Martyrs Of Valenciennes
Ursuline nuns established themselves at Valenciennes in the year 1654;
nearly a hundred and forty years later, after devoting themselves throughout
that time to the interests of their fellow-citizens by teaching their children
and looking after the poor, their convent was suppressed under the Revolution
and the nuns took refuge in the house of their order at Mons. When the Austrians
occupied Valenciennes in 1793 they returned, reopened their school, and remained
in the town after the French had recaptured it. In September 1794 they were
arrested at the instance of Citizen Lacoste’s commission, on the charge
of being émigrées who had unlawfully returned and reopened
their convent, and confined in the public prison. On October 17 five of them
were brought up for trial, and on their stating openly that they had come
back to Valenciennes to teach the Catholic faith they were sentenced to death.
They were led to the guillotine in the great marketplace amid the tears of
their sisters. “Mother, you taught us to be valiant, and now we are going
to be crowned you weep!” exclaimed Bd Mary Augustine (Mother Dejardin) to
the mother superior. Five days later the superior herself, Bd Mary Clotilde
(Mother Paillot) and the other five nuns suffered in the same place, among
the last victims of the Revolution. “We die for the faith of the Catholic,
Apostolic and Roman Church”, said Bd Mary Clotilde, and the truth of this
statement was formally recognized by that same church when, in 1920, Pope
Benedict XV solemnly beatified as martyrs the eleven Ursulines of Valenciennes.
Among them were two, Bd Lilvina (Lacroix) and Anne Mary (Erraux), who had
been professed Bridgettines, and one, Bd Josephine (Leroux) who had been a
Poor Clare; they joined the Ursulines when their own communities were expelled.
As vice-postulator of the cause
of the Valenciennes martyrs, the Abbé J. Loridan in his little volume
Les bses Ursulines de Valenciennes
(in the series “Les Saints”) speaks with full authority
and gives proof of exhaustive research. See also Wallon, Les Représentants du peuple vol.
v (1890), pp. 163-167; and H. Leclercq, Les Martyrs, vol. xii.
(1794) -Father Robert F. McNamara
The biography of St. Ursula, Virgin and Martyr, is notable for
being strong in fable but weak in factuality. In Cologne, Germany, there is
a church dedicated to her, in which an obscure Latin inscription dating from
the fourth or fifth century states that a senator named Clematius had rebuilt
the structure to honor a group of Christian virgins who had been martyred
on that spot.
Legend took over thereafter. By the tenth century the story
had it that she was a Christian princess who desired to remain unwed and
who, to escape a proffered marriage, spent three years traveling on pilgrimage
by sea and by land, accompanied by a number of unmarried young women. She
and her companions happened to arrive at Cologne in 451, just after the pagan
Huns had captured that city. Attila, their leader, executed all these young
women out of hatred for Christianity.
The number of Ursula and her martyred companions was usually
given as eleven, but a later development of the legend said there were 11,000!
Some historians have guessed that this absurd figure could be the result
of misreading of a Latin inscription: "The "M" in "XI. M.V", meant to stand
for "martyrs" ("Eleven Martyr-Virgins") was taken for the Roman numeral "M",
which stands for one thousand.
What, now, of the Ursuline nuns
of Valenciennes, martyrs during the French Revolution?
In 1535 St. Angela Merici established, at Brescia, Italy, a
"Company of St. Ursula," dedicated to teaching, especially Christian doctrine.
She chose St. Ursula as their patroness because their primary occupation
was to be teaching. Originally, the members lived in their own homes; but
in 1585 a new rule was devised for those who wanted to live in community.
The OSU (Order of St. Ursula) thus became a regular religious order. It gradually
spread throughout the world (including Canada and the United States). Divisions
of the community led to the establishment of several different jurisdictions,
but the total number of members of all jurisdictions made the Ursulines one
of the largest of all women's religious families.
Ursuline nuns were particularly numerous in France: By 1700
there were 350 French Ursuline monasteries with 9,000 nuns.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, French Ursuline
nuns had a monastery and school at Valenciennes, within the boundary of France
but very close to the border of the Austrian Netherlands (the present Belgium).
The Revolutionary government closed a larger number of religious houses and
schools, including that of the Ursulines. Evicted, the Ursulines moved across
the border to Mons in the Netherlands, where another Ursuline monastery gave
them shelter.
In 1793 Austria invaded northern
France to vindicate its sovereignty over the Austrian Netherlands. In doing
so it also seized a strip of French territory that included Valenciennes.
The evicted nuns therefore returned to Valenciennes, now Austrian, and reopened
their school. But the French retaliated and recaptured Valenciennes. What
were the poor nuns to do now? They decided to continue with their school in
their old home.
Shortly thereafter, the French government arrested and jailed
the Ursulines of Valenciennes. On what charge? That they were emigrees who
had returned to France without permission and were illegally conducting
a religious school! Five of them were brought to trial on October 17,
1794. They stated frankly that they had returned to teach the Catholic religion.
For this crime they were condemned to death by the anti-Christian French authorities.
As the nuns were being led out to the guillotine in the marketplace,
one of them, Marie Augustine Dejardin, said to the mother superior (who
had not yet been sentenced), "Mother, you taught us to be valiant, and now
that we are going to be crowned, you weep!"
Five days later the same superior, Marie Clotilde Paillot, and
the other five nuns were condemned to die in the same manner. Mother Paillot
made the public declaration, "We die for the faith of the Catholic, Apostolic
Roman Church!" This time the victims were transported to the guillotine in
a tumbril or dump-cart.
Now, the commissioners had overlooked a lay sister of the community,
Cordule Barre. Cordule would not be separated from her sisters. Hurrying
over to the cart, she climbed in of her own accord, and was executed with
the rest. As they moved on to the scaffold, all six sang the Litany of Our
Lady.
Pope Benedict XV beatified these eleven women in 1920 as the
"Ursuline Martyrs of Valenciennes." Once again, eleven virgins bearing the
name of St. Ursula had laid down their lives for the Faith; but the story
of their heroic death is not clouded by the mist of fancy that enshrouds
the martyrdom at Cologne of St. Ursula herself and her young companions.
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1794 BB. JOHN BAPTIST TURPAN DU CORMIER, MARY L’HUILIER
and their companions. Fourteen priests, three nuns and a lay woman martyred
at Laval in 1794 during the French Revolution. They were beatified in 1955.
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1833 St. Francis
Isidore Gagelin Martyr of Vietnam Born in Montperreux France
in 1799, he entered the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris. He was sent
to Vietnam in 1822, where he was ordained a priest. In 1833, Francis was seized
by anti-Christian forces and was martyred by strangulation. He was canonized
in 1988.
Blessed Francis Isidore Gagelin M (AC) Born Montperreux (diocese of Besançon),
France, 1799; died in Cochin-China, 1833; beatified in 1900. Blessed Francis
was sent by the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris to Cochin-China in 1822.
Upon his arrival he was ordained a priest. He worked zealously until the persecution
broke out, when he gave himself up to the mandarin of Bongson and was strangled
(Benedictines) .
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Mary
the Mother of Jesus 
"Christianity is
not a moral code or a philosophy, 
590-604 Pope
St.
Gregory I (“”the Great") 
731-741 Pope
St. Gregory III; Nov 28: held
two synods in Rome (731) in which the image-breaking heresy was condemned.
By way of a practical protest against the emperor's action he made it a point
of paying special honour to images and relics, giving particular attention
to the subject of St. Peter's; Gregory III extended to St. Boniface the same
support and encouragement which had been afforded him by Gregory II. “Strengthened exceedingly by the help of the affection
of the Apostolic See”, the saint joyfully continued his glorious work
for the conversion of Germany. About 737 Boniface came to Rome for the third
time to give an account of his stewardship, and to enjoy the pope's “life-giving conversation”, At Gregory's order the monk and great traveller,
St. Willibald, went to assist his cousin St. Boniface in his labours; got
help from Charles Martel against the Lombards.
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.