 2nd v. Saint Sophia
and her Daughters Faith, Hope and Love The Holy Martyrs were born in Italy. Their
mother was a pious Christian widow who named her daughters for the
three Christian virtues. Faith was twelve, Hope was ten, and Love was
nine. St Sophia raised them in the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. St
Sophia and her daughters did not hide their faith in Christ, but openly
confessed it before everyone.
An official named Antiochus denounced them to the emperor Hadrian
(117-138), who ordered that they be brought to Rome. Realizing that
they would be taken before the emperor, the holy virgins prayed
fervently to the Lord Jesus Christ, asking that He give them the
strength not to fear torture and death. When the holy virgins and their
mother came before the emperor, everyone present was amazed at their
composure. They looked as though they had been brought to some happy
festival, rather than to torture. Summoning each of the sisters in
turn, Hadrian urged them to offer sacrifice to the goddess Artemis. The
young girls remained unyielding.
Then the emperor ordered them to be tortured. They burned the holy
virgins over an iron grating, then threw them into a red-hot oven, and
finally into a cauldron with boiling tar, but the Lord preserved them.
The youngest child, Love, was tied to a wheel and they beat her with
rods until her body was covered all over with bloody welts. After
undergoing unspeakable torments, the holy virgins glorified their
Heavenly Bridegroom and remained steadfast in the Faith.
They subjected St Sophia to another grievous torture: the mother was
forced to watch the suffering of her daughters. She displayed adamant
courage, and urged her daughters to endure their torments for the sake
of the Heavenly Bridegroom. All three maidens were beheaded, and
joyfully bent their necks beneath the sword.
In order to intensify St Sophia's inner suffering, the emperor
permitted her to take the bodies of her daughters. She placed their
remains in coffins and loaded them on a wagon. She drove beyond the
city limits and reverently buried them on a high hill. St Sophia sat
there by the graves of her daughters for three days, and finally she
gave up her soul to the Lord. Even though she did not suffer for Christ
in the flesh, she was not deprived of a martyr's crown. Instead, she
suffered in her heart. Believers buried her body there beside her
daughters.
The relics of the holy
martyrs have rested at El'zasa, in the church of Esho since the year
777.
|
130 St.
Ariadne
slave Martyr of Phrygia miracle her tomb provided, a chasm in a ridge
In Phrygia sanctæ Ariádne Mártyris, sub
Hadriáno Imperatóre.
In Phrygia, St. Ariadne, martyr, under Emperor
Hadrian.
Ariadne was a slave in the
household of a Phrygian prince. When pagan
rites were performed in honor of the prince's birthday, she refused to
take part. Hunted by the authorities, she entered a chasm in a ridge.
The chasm opened miraculously before her and closed behind her,
providing her with a tomb.
Ariadne The Holy Martyr was a servant of
Tertillos, a
city official of Promyssia (Phrygia) during the reign of the emperor
Hadrian (117-161). Once, when on the occasion of the birth of a son,
the master made a sacrificial offering to the pagan gods, the Christian
Ariadne refused to participate in the impious ceremony.
They subjected her to beatings and lacerated her body with sharp iron
hooks. Then they threw the martyr into prison and for a long while they
exhausted her with hunger, demanding that she worship their gods.
When
they released the saint from prison, she left the city, but Tertillos
sent pursuers after her. Seeing that they were chasing her, she ran,
calling out to God to defend her from her enemies. Suddenly, through
her prayers, a fissure opened in the mountain, and St Ariadne hid in
it. This miracles brought the pursuers into confusion and fear. In
their depravity of mind they began to strike one another with spears.
|
2nd v. St.
Flocellus a
boy Martyr of Autun, France
Augustodúni sancti Flocélli púeri, qui, sub
Antoníno Imperatóre et Valeriáno Præside,
multa passus, demum, a feris discérptus, martyrii corónam
adéptus est.
At Autun, under Emperor Antoninus and the governor
Valerian, St. Flocellus, a boy, who, after many sufferings, was torn to
pieces by wild beasts, and thus won the crown of martyrs.
in the reign of Marcus
Aurelius {161-180}. While a young man, Flocellus
was tortured almost to the point of death and thrown to wild beasts.
|
3rd v. The Holy Martyr
Theodota, a native of Cappadocia;
through the prayer of the saint, the idols fell and were shattered
She suffered in the city of Nicea during the reign of the
emperor Alexander Severus (222-235). At this time the governor of
Cappadocia was a certain Symblicius. They told him that a rich woman
named Theodota was confessing Christ. The governor summoned Theodota
and for a long time urged her to turn from the true Faith. Seeing
the futility of his attempts, he gave Theodota over to torture. They
suspended her and began to rake her with iron hooks, but she did not
feel any pain. Then they put her in chains and led her away to a prison
cell. After eight days, when they led the saint out for new
tortures, only faint traces of the tortures already endured remained on
her body. The governor was amazed and asked, "Who are you?" The saint
answered: "Your mind is darkened, but if you were sober, then you would
have realized that I am Theodota."
Symblicius commanded the martyr to be cast into a red-hot furnace.
Flames shot out from the furnace and scorched those standing nearby,
while those remaining unharmed shut the furnace and scattered in
fright. After a certain while, pagan priests came and opened the
furnace to scatter the ashes of the martyr, but they too were burned by
the flames. Those remaining unhurt saw St Theodota unharmed. She stood
in the midst of the flames between two youths in white raiment, and was
glorifying the Lord. This apparition so terrified the pagans that they
fell down as if dead. Later, they returned the saint to prison.
The invincibility of the martyr gave Symblicius no peace. He made a
journey to Byzantium, on the return trip he stopped over at Ancyra and
tried to get the better of Theodota. He gave orders to throw her all at
once onto red-hot iron, but again the martyr remained unharmed.
Then Symblicius gave orders that the saint be taken to Nicea. There, in
a pagan temple he wanted to compel her to offer sacrifice to the idols,
but through the prayer of the saint, the idols fell and were shattered.
The outraged governor gave orders to stretch the martyr out and saw
through her body, but here also the power of God preserved the saint.
The saw caused Theodota no harm, and the servants became exhausted.
Finally, they beheaded the saint. Bishop Sophronius of Nicea buried her
body.
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230 The Holy martyr
Agathocleia; Tradition states that she was a virgin Christian slave
owned by two people who had converted to paganism from Christianity,
named Nicolas and Paulina. They subjected Agathoclia to regular
physical abuse, including whipping and other violence, in an effort to
get Agathoclia to renounce her faith. She repeatedly refused to do so.
A servant in the home of a
certain Christian named Nicholas. His wife Paulina was a pagan. For
eight years Agathocleia underwent abuse from her mistress because of
her faith. Paulina fiercely beat the servant, and made her walk
barefoot over sharp stones.
Eódem die sanctæ Agathoclíæ, quæ, cum
esset ancílla cujúsdam mulíeris infidélis,
a dómina sua longo témpore verbéribus
aliísque ærúmnis est vexáta ut Christum
negáret; demum, obláta Júdici ac sævius
laniáta, et nihilóminus in confessióne
fídei persístens, ídeo, post excisiónem
linguæ, in ignem projécta est.
On the same day, St. Agathoclia, servant of an
infidel woman, who was for a long time subjected by her to blows and
other afflictions that she might deny Christ. She was finally
presented to the judge and cruelly lacerated, but since she persisted
in confessing the faith, they cut off her tongue and threw her into the
flames.
Once in a fit of nastiness, Paulina broke her rib with a blow from a
hammer, and then cut out her tongue. Nothing could make the saint give
in to the demand of her mistress to worship idols. Then Paulina locked
the martyr in prison and exhausted her with hunger. But Agathocleia did
not perish: birds brought her food each day. Finally, in a fit of evil,
Paulina went to the prison and murdered the holy martyr.
Tradition states that she was a virgin Christian slave owned by two
people who had converted to paganism from Christianity, named Nicolas
and Paulina. They subjected Agathoclia to regular physical abuse,
including whipping and other violence, in an effort to get Agathoclia
to renounce her faith. She repeatedly refused to do so.
Her owners then subjected her to a public trial by a local magistrate.
There too, she refused to renounce Christinaity, which subjected her to
savage mangling from the authorities. When she was found guilty, her
sentence included having her tongue cut out, a nonfatal injury.
There is some disagreement about how Paulina met her death. Some
sources say that her mistress Paulina poured burning coals on her neck.
Other sources say that she herself was cast into fire. |
259 St.
Justin
Martyred priest condemned for burying the remains of Pontiff Sixtus II, of Lawrence,
Hippolytus, and many other saints Christian martyrs
Romæ, via
Tiburtína, natális sancti Justíni, Presbyteri et
Mártyris; qui, in persecutióne Valeriáni et
Galliéni, ob confessiónis glóriam fuit
insígnis. Hic beáti Pontíficis Xysti
Secúndi, Lauréntii, Hippólyti aliorúmque
plurimórum Sanctórum córpora sepelívit, ac
demum, sub Cláudio, martyrium consummávit.
At Rome, on the road to Tivoli, the birthday of St. Justin, priest and
martyr, who distinguished himself by a glorious confession of the faith
during the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus. He buried the
bodies of the blessed Pontiff Sixtus II, of Lawrence, Hippolytus, and
many other saints, and finally completed his martyrdom under Claudius.
He was executed and his
relics were translated to Frisingen, Germany.
|
305 St.
Theodora
Roman martyr ease the suffering of the Christians
Romæ sanctæ Theodóræ matrónæ,
quæ, in persecutióne Diocletiáni, sanctis
Martyribus sédulo ministrábat.
At Rome, St. Theodora, a matron who zealously
ministered to the martyrs in the persecution of Diocletian.
A wealthy woman of noble birth,
she contributed freely of her fortune
to ease the suffering of the Christians during the persecutions of
Emperor Diocletian (r.
284-305). She died, perhaps by martyrdom, while the persecutions were
still ongoing.
|
4th v. Ss. Peleus
and Nilus, Bishops of Egypt, Presbyter Zeno, Patermuthius, Elias and
another 151 The Holy
Martyrs suffered during the reign of the emperor Maximian Galerius
(305-311). The majority of them were Egyptians, but there were also
some Palestinians among them. Firmilian, the governor of Palestine,
arrested 156 Christians. They gouged out the eyes of the holy
martyrs, cut the tendons of their feet, and subjected them to all
manner of tortures. They beheaded 100 of the martyrs, and burned the
rest.
|
376 St.
Satyrus
Confessor and brother of Sts. Ambrose and Marcellina
Medioláni deposítio sancti Sátyri
Confessóris, cujus insígnia mérita sanctus
Ambrósius, ejus frater, commémorat.
At Milan, the death of St. Satyrus, confessor, whose
distinguished merits are mentioned by his brother, St. Ambrose.
Born at Trier, Germany, he
moved to Rome with his family and was subsequently trained as a lawyer.
Appointed prefect to one of the Roman provinces, he resigned his post
when Ambrose became
archbishop of Milan in order to assume administration of the secular
affairs of the archdiocese. He died unexpectedly at Milan and was
eulogized by his brother with the funeral sermon, "On the death of a
brother."
379 St Satyrus
Satyrus was the elder brother of St Ambrose, born sometime before the
year 340, probably at Trier. The sister, St Marcellina, was the eldest.
When their father, who was prefect of the praetorium of the Gauls, died
about 3-4 the family moved to Rome, where the two boys were well
educated under the watchful eyes of their mother and sister.
Satyrus undertook a public career, practised as a lawyer, and became
prefect of an unnamed province. When St Ambrose was elected bishop of
Milan in 374, Satyrus resigned his post to undertake the administration
of the temporal concerns of the see for his brother. He made several
voyages to Africa, on the last of which he nearly lost his life through
shipwreck, and in consequence took the first opportunity to receive
baptism, having hitherto been only a catechumen. Before jumping
overboard from the wrecked vessel he was given a particle of the
Blessed Sacrament by one of his fellow voyagers, which he wrapped in a
scarf and fastened about his neck. He died suddenly at Milan, in the
arms of his sister and brother, who distributed his estate among the
poor in accordance with his wish that they should deal with it as they
thought best. St Ambrose eulogized the mighty merits of St Satyrus, his
integrity and his kindness, in his funeral sermon, in the course of
which he asks God mercifully to accept the priestly sacrifices, which
he offers for his dead brother.
The
passages in the writings of St Ambrose, upon
which all our knowledge of St Satyrus is based, are printed in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. v.
|
4th v. Ss Socrates and
Stephen, MM. perhaps in Wales
In
Británnia sanctórum Mártyrum Sócratis et
Stéphani. In England, the holy martyrs
Socrates and Stephen.
Ss. Socrates And Stephen,
Martyrs
Nothing whatever is known of these martyrs and they are only
of interest because the Roman Martyrology, following the “Martyrology
of Jerome”, says that their passion took place in Britain. Dom Serenus
Cressy refers to them in his Church History as “two noble British
Christians”, disciples of “St Amphibalus”. They are supposed to have
suffered in the persecution of Diocletian, and Monmouth is put forward
as the place because, it is said, there were churches dedicated in
their honour in that neighbourhood, but these churches have not been
identified. The Britannia of the martyrologists may have been a mistake
for Abretannia, in Asia Minor, or it may have been Bithynia.
Fr Delehaye has discussed
this entry in a paper printed in
the Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. xvii (1932). He abandons
the suggestion made by D. Serruys that “Britannia” has been written by
mistake for Abretannia, and suggests that the original reading was
probably Bithynia.
|
St.
Valerian, Niacrinus, & Gordian martyrs
Noviodúni, in Gálliis, sanctórum Mártyrum
Valeriáni, Macríni et Gordiáni.
At Noyon in France, the holy martyrs Valerian,
Macrinus, and Gordian.
A group of who were put to death
at Noviodonum, in
Lower Moesia on the Danube, although the site of their martyrdom may
have been in Rhaetia, modern Switzerland.
|
St.
Narcissus and
Crescentio
Roman martyrs
Item Romæ sanctórum Mártyrum Narcíssi et
Crescentiónis.
Also at Rome, the holy martyrs Narcissus and
Crescentio.
mentioned in the Acts of St. Lawrence the
Martyr. According to that
generally authentic source, Narcissus owned a house at which Lawrence
distributed alms to the poor and cured Narcissus of blindness. Cemetery
on Via Salaria named after Crescentio
|
7th. century St.
Brogan Abbot author of a hymn to St. Brigid
Abbot of Ross Tuirc, Ossory, Ireland, he is called the author of a hymn
to St. Brigid. Others of the name (Broccan, Bracan, Brogan) and of the
sixth or seventh century are venerated on Jan. 1. Apr. 9, June 27, July
8 and Aug. 25.
|
7th v. St. Rodingus
Benedictine abbot; successful preacher converting local pagans;
founded Beaulieu community
also listed as Rouin and
Radingus. Originally from Ireland, he went to
Germany and found much success preaching and converting the local
pagans. After spending time in the monastery of Tholey, near Trier,
Germany, he pursued a hermit’s life in the Argonne forest, France,
where he soon attracted followers and founded the community which was
later called Beaulieu.
|
 709 St.
Lambert of
Maastricht Bishop, martyr, and patron of St. Willibrord’s missions
Apud Leódium, in Bélgio, beáti Lambérti,
Epíscopi Trajecténsis, qui, cum régiam domum zelo
religiónis increpásset, a nocéntibus
ínnocens occísus est, sicque aulam regni
cæléstis perpétuo victúrus intrávit.
At Liege in Belgium, blessed Lambert, bishop of
Maestricht. Through his zeal for religion he rebuked the royal
family, and was undeservedly put to death by the guilty, and thus he
entered the court of the heavenly kingdom, to enjoy it forever.
He was the son of a noble family
of Maastricht, Flanders, Belgium, educated by St. Theodard and succeeding him as
bishop of Tongres-Maastricht in 668 when Theodard was murdered. He was
driven from his see by Ebroin, the tyrannical mayor of the royal
palace, and lived as a Benedictine in Stavelot until 681, when he was
reinstated.
Lambert denounced the Mayor of the Palace Pepin of Heristal for
adultery, was murdered in Liege, Belgium.
705 St Lambert, Bishop of Maestricht, Martyr
St Landebet, called in later ages Lambert, was a native of Maestricht,
and born of a noble and wealthy family between the years 633 and 638.
His father sent him to St Theodard to perfect his education. This holy
bishop had such an esteem for his pupil that he spared no trouble in
instructing and training him in learning and Christian virtue, and he
was a credit to his master: his biographer, who was born soon after
Lambert’s death, describes him as, “a prudent young man of pleasing
looks, courteous and well behaved in his speech and manners; well
built, strong, a good fighter, clear-headed, affectionate, pure and
humble, and fond of reading”. When St Theodard, who was bishop of
Tongres-Maestricht, was murdered, Lambert was chosen to succeed him.
But the tyrannical Ebroin was reinstated as mayor of the palace
when the Austrasian king, Childeric II, was slain in 674, and he at
once began to revenge himself on those who had supported Childeric.
This revolution affected St Lambert, who was expelled from his see. He
retired to the monastery of Stavelot, and during the seven years that
he continued there he obeyed the rule as strictly as the youngest
novice could have done. One instance will suffice to show how he
devoted his heart to serve God according to the perfection of his
temporary state. One night in winter he let fall his shoe, so that it
made a noise. This the abbot heard, and he ordered him who was
responsible for that noise to go and pray before the great cross, which
stood outside the church door. Lambert, without making any answer, went
out as he was, barefoot and covered only with his shift; and in this
condition he prayed, kneeling before the cross, three or four hours.
Whilst the monks were warming themselves after Matins, the abbot
inquired if all were there. Answer was made that he had sent someone to
the cross who had not yet come in. The abbot ordered that he should be
called, and was surprised to find that the person was the Bishop of
Maestricht, who made his appearance almost frozen.
In 681 Ebroin was assassinated, and Pepin of Herstal,
being made mayor of the palace, expelled the usurping bishops and,
among other exiled prelates, restored St Lambert to Maestricht. The
holy pastor returned to his flock animated with redoubled fervour,
preaching and discharging his other duties with wonderful zeal and
fruit. Finding there still remained many pagans in Kempenland and
Brabant he applied himself to convert them to the faith, softened their
barbarous temper by his patience, regenerated them in the water of
baptism, and destroyed many superstitious observances. In the
neighbourhood of his own see he founded with St Landrada the monastery
of Munsterbilzen for nuns.
Pepin of Herstal, after living many years in wedlock with
St Plectrudis, entered into adulterous relations with her sister Alpais
(of whom was born Charles Martel), and St Lambert expostulated with the
guilty couple. Alpais complained to her brother Dodo, who with a party
of his followers set upon St Lambert and murdered him as he knelt
before the altar in the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian at Liege.
That is the later story of the circumstances of St
Lambert’s death, but his earliest biographers, writing in the eighth
and tenth centuries, tell a quite different tale. According to them,
two relatives of Lambert, Peter and Andolet, killed two men who were
making themselves obnoxious to the bishop. When Dodo, a kinsman of the
men thus slain, came with his followers to take revenge, Lambert told
Peter and Andolet that they must expiate their crime. They were killed
on the spot; and when the bishop’s room was found to be barred, one of
Dodo’s men climbed to the window and cast a spear which killed Lambert
too, as he knelt in prayer. This took place at a house where is now the
city of Liege.
Lambert’s death, suffered with patience and meekness, joined with the
eminent sanctity of his life, caused him to be venerated as a martyr.
His body was conveyed to Maestricht. Several miracles, which ensued,
excited the people to build a church where the house stood in which he
was slain, and his successor, St Hubert, translated thither his relics.
At the same time he removed to the same place the episcopal see of
Tongres—Maestricht, and around the cathedral that enshrined the relics
of St Lambert the city of Liege grew up. He is to this day the
principal patron of that place.
There
are several medieval lives of St Lambert,
and most of them may be found printed in the Acta
Sanctorum, September, vol. v. The earliest in date, and much
the most important, has been critically edited by Bruno Krusch in MGH.,
Scriptores Merov., vol. vi, the text
being supplemented by notable extracts from the later biographies
written by
Stephen, Sigebert of Gembloux and Nicholas. The long-standing
controversy
regarding the precise cause which brought about the assassination of St
Lambert
has been very well stated in the Analecta
Bollandiana, vol. xxxiii (1914), pp.
247—249; but see also pp. 219—347 in the second volume of Kurth’s Études franques (1919). This last
scholar many years before, in the Annales
de l’Académie archéol. de Belgique, vol. xxxiii (1876), had set
the whole controversy in a new light. Cf. further
Hauck, Kirchengeschichte
Deutschlands, vol. i, pp. 400—401, and J. Demarteau, Vie
la plus ancienne de S. Lambert (1890).
|
St.
Agathoclia
abused slave who suffered for the faith
Virgin martyr, a patroness of a region in Aragon, Spain. Agathoclia was an abused
slave who suffered for the faith in a public trial. She was last of all
brought before the judge and treated with even greater cruelty, and as
she persisted in the confession of the faith, her tongue was cut out
and she was cast into the fire.
|
853 St.
Columba
Spanish virgin martyr of Cordoba; nun at Tabanos; refused to deny the
faith and was beheaded.
Córdubæ, in Hispánia, sanctæ
Colúmbæ, Vírginis et Mártyris.
At Cordova in Spain, St. Columba, virgin and martyr.
She served as a nun at Tabanos until the Moorish
persecution started in 852. Going to Cordoba, she refused to
deny the faith and was beheaded.
853 ST COLUMBA, VIRGIN
Martyr
This Columba was one
of the victims of the persecution of Christians in Spain begins by the
Moors in
the year 850. According to St Eulogius, who wrote an account of those
who
suffered, called The Memorial of the
Saints, and then himself gave his life for the faith, Columba was
a native
of Cordova. Her brother Martin was an abbot and her sister Elizabeth
had, with
her husband Jeremy, founded a double monastery at Tabanos, whither they
both
retired with their children. Inspired by these examples Columba
determined to
give herself to God in the cloister, but was hindered by her widowed
mother,
who wished her to marry. The mother tried to prevent her visiting her
sister,
where she knew Columba got her encouragement to persevere, but her
efforts were
fruitless and the girl became a nun at Tabanos.
In the year 852 the
persecution drove the religious away from this place, and the nuns took
refuge
in a house at Cordova, near the church of St Cyprian. In spite of the
fact that
in the same year a council at Cordova had forbidden Christians to
provoke
persecution, Columba secretly left this house, presented herself before
the
Moorish magistrate, and openly and deliberately denied Mohammed and his
law.
She was beheaded for her temerity, and her body thrown into the river
Guadalquivir, whence it was recovered and buried.
The
notice of St Columba in the Acts Sanctorum, September,
vol. v, reproduces all that St Eulogius has
recorded concerning her history.
|
936
St. Uni Bishop and missionary; evangelized Denmark and Sweden, enjoying
considerable success in his efforts.
Also called Huno and Unno. Originally a Benedictine monk at New Corvey in
Saxony, Germany. He received appointment in 917 to the post of bishop
of Bremen-Hamburg. As bishop. he strove to evangelize Denmark and Sweden,
enjoying considerable success in his efforts.
|
 1179
St. Hildegarde visions and prophecies works written called Scivias; the
first of the great German mystics as well as a poet, a physician, and a
prophetess.
Apud Bíngiam, in diœcési Moguntinénsi,
sanctæ Hildegárdis Vírginis.
At Bingen, in the diocese of Mainz, St. Hildegard,
virgin.
Hildegarde at Bockelheim, Germany,
in 1098. Afflicted with fragile health as a child, she was placed in
the care of her aunt, Blessed Jutta,
who lived as a recluse.
Jutta eventually formed a community of nuns,
and Hildegarde joined the group, becoming prioress of the house when
Jutta died in 1136. Hildegarde moved the community to Rupertsburg, near
Bingen on the Rhine, and she established still another convent at
Eibengen around the year 1165, overcoming great opposition on many
occasions. Hildegarde was
known for visions and prophecies, which at her spiritual directors
request, she recorded. They were set down in a work called
Scivias {written between 1141 and 1151, relating twenty six of her
visions} and approved by the archbishop of Mainz and Pope Eugenius III
at the
recommendation of St. Bernard of
Clairvaux.
Living in a turbulent age, Hildegarde put her talents to
work in quest for obtaining true justice and peace. She corresponded
with four popes, two emperors, King Henry II of England, and famous
clergy. Her pronouncements attracted the fancy of the
populace-drawing down upon her both acclaim and disparagement.
Hildegarde wrote on many subjects. Her works included commentaries on
the Gospels, the Athanasian Creed, and the Rule of St. Benedict as well as Lives of the
Saints and a medical work on the well-being of the body.
She is
regarded as one of the
greatest figures of the 12th century the first of the great German
mystics as well as a poet, a physician, and a prophetess. She
has been compared to Dante and to William Blake. This remarkable woman
of God died on September 17, 1179. Miracles were reported at her death,
and she was proclaimed as a Saint by the multitudes.
She was never formally
canonized, but her name was inserted in the
Roman Martyrology in the fifteenth century.
St Hildegard, Abbess of
Rupertsberg, called in her own day
the “Sibyl of the Rhine”, was one of the great figures of the twelfth
century and one of the most remarkable of women. She was the first of
the great German mystics, a poet and a prophet, a physician and a
political moralist, who rebuked popes and princes, bishops and
lay-folk, with complete fearlessness and unerring justice. She was born
in the year 1098 at Böckelheim, on the Nahe, and when she was
eight years old her parents confided her to the care of Bd Jutta,
sister to Count Meginhard of Spanheim, who was living as a recluse in a
cottage adjoining the church of the abbey founded by St Disibod on the
Diessenberg close by her home.
The child was sickly, but she continued her education,
learning to read and sing Latin and other things appertaining to a nun,
as well as those domestic accomplishments, which adorned all medieval
women, from queens to peasants. By the time Hildegard was old enough to
receive the veil of a nun the hermitage of Bd Jutta had received
several recruits so that it had become a community, following the Rule
of St Benedict. She was clothed when she was fifteen, and continued for
another seventeen years to lead an uneventful life exteriorly
uneventful only, for she grew in the grace of God, unusual experiences
which she had known from very early years continued, and “it became
habitual with me to foretell the future in the course of conversations.
And when I was completely absorbed in what I saw I used to say many
things that seemed strange to those who heard me. This made me blush
and cry, and often enough I would have killed myself had that been
possible. I was too frightened to tell anyone what I saw, except the
noble woman to whom I was entrusted, and she told a little to a monk
whom she knew.”
In 1136 Bd Jutta died, and Hildegard became prioress
in her place.
Her revelations and visions pressed more and more upon her. There was a
continual interior urging that she should write them down, but she
feared what people would say, their mockery, and her own inadequate
Latin. But the voice of God seemed to say to her: “I am the living and
inaccessible Light, and I enlighten whomever I will. According to my
pleasure I show forth through any man marvels greater than those of my
servants in times past.” At last she opened her heart fully to her
confessor, the monk Godfrey, and authorized him to refer the matter to
his abbot, Conon, who after careful consideration ordered Hildegard to
write down some of the things she said God had made known to her. They
dealt with such matters as the charity of Christ and the continuance of
the kingdom of God, the holy angels, the Devil and Hell. These writings
Conon submitted to the archbishop of Mainz, who examined them with his
theologians and gave a favourable verdict: “These visions come from
God.” The abbot then appointed a monk named Volmar to act as secretary
to Hildegard, and she at once began the dictation of her principal
work, which she called Scivias, for Nosce vias [Domini]. In the year
1141, she tells us, “a shaft of light of dazzling brilliancy came from
the opened heavens and pierced my mind and my heart like a flame that
warms without burning, as the sun heats by its rays. And suddenly I
knew and understood the explanation of the psalms, the gospels, and the
other Catholic books of the Old and New Testaments, but not the
interpretation of the text of the words or the division of the
syllables or the cases and tenses.”
This book took ten years to complete, and consists of
twenty-six visions dealing with the relations between God and man by
the Creation, the Redemption and the Church, mixed with apocalyptic
prophecies, warnings, and praises expressed in symbolical fashion. She
reiterated time and again that she saw these things in vision, and they
were the inspiration of all her active work.
In 1147 the pope, Bd Eugenius III, came to Trier and the
archbishop of Mainz referred St Hildegard’s writings to him. Eugenius
appointed a commission to examine both them and her, and on receiving a
favourable report he read and discussed the writings himself with his
advisers, including St Bernard of Clairvaux, who wished him to approve
the visions as genuine. The
pope then wrote to Hildegard expressing wonder and happiness at the
favours granted her by Heaven, and warning her against pride;
authorizing her to publish, with prudence, whatever the Holy Ghost told
her to publish; and exhorting her to live with her sisters in the place
she had seen in vision in faithful observance of the Rule of St
Benedict. St Hildegard wrote a long letter in reply, full of parabolic
allusions to the troubles of the times and warning Eugenius against the
ambitions of his own household.
The place to which Bd Eugenius referred was the new home
that Hildegard had chosen for her community, which had outgrown its
accommodation at the Diessenberg. The monks of St Disibod’s, whose
abbey owed much of its importance to the neighbouring convent, with its
relics of Bd Jutta and the growing reputation of Hildegard, stoutly
opposed the migration. The abbot accused her of acting from pride, but
she claimed that God had revealed to her that she should move her nuns
and the place to which they should go. This was the Rupertsberg, an
exposed and unfertile hill above the Rhine, near Bingen.
During the dispute with the monks of St Disibod’s
Hildegard was reduced to a very bad state of weakness and ill-health.
Abbot Conon, perhaps doubting the reality of her illness, visited her
and, when he saw she was “not putting it on”, he told her to get up and
prepare to visit the Rupertsberg. Immediately she was cured and got
ready to obey. This was enough for Conon, who withdrew his objections;
but the strong feeling of his monks in the matter was by no means
allayed, though the leader of the opposition, one Arnold, was won to
Hildegard’s side by being cured of a painful malady in her church. The
move was made some time between 1147 and 1150, the nuns exchanging
their convenient house on the vine-clad Diessenberg for a dilapidated
church and unfinished buildings in a deserted spot.
The energy of St Hildegard was responsible for the
building of a large and convenient monastery, with “water piped to all
the offices”, we are told, which housed a community of fifty nuns. For
the recreation of these the versatility of Hildegard provided a large
number of new hymns, canticles and anthems, of which she wrote both the
words and the music, and a sort of morality play, or sacred cantata,
called Onto Virtutum, and for reading in the chapter-house and
refectory she composed fifty allegorical homilies.
Her Lives of St Disibod and St Rupert were claimed to be
revelations (in common with a good deal else that was probably a purely
natural production), gratuitously, for they bear the marks of local
traditions. Among the diversions of her leisure hours—though it is hard
to believe that St Hildegard ever had any leisure—is the so-called
“unknown language”, a sort of Esperanto, of which nine hundred words
and a made-up alphabet have come down to us. These words seem to be
simply assonant versions of Latin and German words with a liberal
addition of final zeds.
From the Rupertsberg St Hildegard conducted a voluminous
correspondence, and nearly three hundred of her letters have been
printed, though doubt has been thrown on the authenticity of some of
them and of the letters she received. Except when writing to one or
other of the numerous abbesses that consulted her, the letters are
rather in the nature of homilies, prophecies and allegorical treatises.
They were addressed to popes and emperors, to kings (including Henry II
of England, before he had slain Becket), to bishops and abbots. She
wrote once to St Bernard and received a reply, to St Eberhard of
Salzburg, and frequently to the Cistercian mystic, St Elizabeth of
Schönau. In two letters to the clergy of Cologne and Trier she
rates the carelessness and avarice of so many priests, and foretells,
in what
are for her unusually clear terms, the scourges that will follow.
Her letters are very full of these prophecies and
warnings, and they soon made her notorious. On the one hand people of
all kinds came from all parts to consult her on the other she was
denounced as a fraud, a sorceress, a demoniac. Though her meaning was
often wrapped up in difficult symbolism, she always made it quite clear
when she was reproving, which she most frequently found occasion to do.
Henry, Archbishop of Mainz, wrote rather brusquely
requiring St Hildegard to allow one of her nuns, Richardis, to become
abbess of another monastery. She replied: “All the reasons given for
the promotion of this young woman are worthless before God. The spirit
of this jealous God says: Weep and cry out, ye pastors, for you know
not what you do, distributing sacred offices in your own interest and
wasting them on perverse and godless men…As for yourself, arise!— for
your days are numbered.” He was in fact deposed and died soon after.
To the bishop of Speyer she wrote that his deeds
were so evil that his soul was scarcely alive, and told the Emperor
Conrad III to reform his life lest he have to blush for it. But she did
not pretend to make these judgements on her own. “I am a poor earthen
vessel and say these things not of myself but from the serene Light”,
she writes to St Elizabeth of Schönau. Nevertheless such a
disclaimer could not save her from criticism, and she had trouble even
with some of her own nuns, highborn German girls in whom personal pride
and vanity were still strong. “Some of them persist in regarding me
with an unfavourable eye, pulling me to pieces with malicious tongues
behind my back, saying that they cannot stand this talk about
discipline that I keep on dinning into them, and that they won’t let
themselves be ruled by me.”
In spite of all her work and continual sickness the
activities of St Hildegard were not confined to her convent, and
between 1152 and 1162 she made numerous journeys in the Rhineland. She
founded a daughter-house at Eibingen, near Rudesheim, and did not
hesitate roundly to rebuke the monks and nuns of those monasteries
whose discipline she saw to be relaxed; indeed, her expeditions were
rather in the nature of the progress of an “abbess visitor”.
At Cologne, Trier, and elsewhere, she addressed herself to
selected representatives of the clergy, imparting to them the divine
warnings she had received, and exhorted bishops and lay folk with equal
ease and straightforwardness. Probably the first of these journeys was
the one she made to Ingelheim to meet Frederick Barbarossa, but what
took place at that interview is not known. She also visited Metz,
Wurzburg, Ulm, Werden, Bamberg and other places, and with all this
travelling, penetrating in spite of her weakness and the bad conditions
into inaccessible spots to visit remote monasteries, she continued to
write.
Among other works she wrote two books of medicine and natural
history. One of these treats of plants, elements, trees, minerals,
fishes, birds, quadrupeds, reptiles and metals, and is distinguished by
careful scientific observation; the other treats of the human body, and
the causes, symptoms and treatment of its ailments. Some modem methods
of diagnosis are at least adumbrated, and she came near to certain
later discoveries, such as the circulation of the blood.
She deals with normal and morbid psychology, refers to frenzy,
insanity, dreads, obsessions and idiocy, and says that “when headache,
vapours and giddiness attack a patient simultaneously they make him
foolish and upset his reason. This makes many people think that he is
possessed by an evil spirit, but that is not true.”
During the last year of her life St Hildegard was in great trouble on
account of a young man who, having been at one time excommunicated,
died and was buried in the cemetery at St Rupert’s. The vicar general
of Mainz ordered that the body be removed. St Hildegard refused, on the
grounds that the man had received the last sacraments and that she had
been favoured with a vision justifying her action. Thereupon the church
was put under an interdict; and Hildegard wrote to the chapter of Mainz
a long letter about sacred music—“A half-forgotten memory of a
primitive state which we have lost since Eden”—“symbol of the harmony
which Satan has broken, which helps man to build a bridge of holiness
between this world and the World of all Beauty and Music. Those
therefore who, without a good reason, impose silence on churches in
which singing in God’s honour is wont to be heard, will not deserve to
hear the glorious choir of angels that praises the Lord in Heaven.”
Apparently she was doubtful of the effect of her touching
eloquence on the canons of Mainz; for at the same time she wrote very
energetically to the archbishop himself who was in Italy. He thereupon
removed the interdict, but, in spite of a promise, he did not fulfil
Hildegard’s other request, to leave fighting and intriguing and come
and govern his diocese. St Hildegard was now broken by infirmity and
mortifications; she could not stand upright and had to be carried from
place to place. But the broken instrument, in the phrase of her friend
and chaplain, Martin Guibert, still gave out melody; to the last she
was at the disposition of everybody, giving advice to those that sought
it, answering perplexing questions, writing, instructing her nuns,
encouraging the sinners who came to her, never at rest. She survived
her trouble with the chapter of Mainz a very little time, and died
peacefully on September 17, 1179. Miracles, of which a number are
recorded of her during her life, were multiplied at her tomb, and the
process of her canonization was twice undertaken. It was never
achieved, but she is named as a saint in the Roman Martyrology and her
feast is kept on this day in several German dioceses.
The visions and revelations claimed by or for St Hildegard
are among the best known in this class of phenomena, and her
actualization of ideas in symbols and images has provoked comparison
both with Dante and William Blake. She thus describes the fall of the
angels “I saw a great star, most splendid and beautiful, and with it a
great multitude of falling sparks which followed it southward. And they
looked on Him upon His throne as it were something hostile, and turning
from Him they sought rather the north. And suddenly they were all
annihilated and turned into black coals…and cast into the abyss, so
that I could see them no more.”
In the drawings which illustrate some of the manuscripts
these fallen angels are shown as black stars with points of white in
the centre and a gold disc surrounded by white points in one of them,
while above the horizon other stars still shine in golden light. In
many of them “a prominent feature is a point or a group of points of
light, which shimmer and move, usually in a wave-like manner, and are
most often interpreted as stars or flaming eyes. . . Often the lights
give that impression of working, boiling, or fermenting, described by
so many visionaries from Ezekiel onwards.” “These visions which I saw”,
wrote St Hildegard, “I beheld neither in sleep nor dreaming nor in
madness nor with my bodily eyes or ears, nor in hidden places; but I
saw them in full view and according to God’s will, when I was wakeful
and alert, with the eyes of the spirit and the inward ears. And how
this was brought about is indeed hard for human flesh to search out.”
The visions recorded in the Scivias received the guarded
approbation of Pope Eugenius III,
but this and similar approvals of private revelations impose no
obligation of belief. The Church receives them only as probable, and
even those most worthy of faith may be prudently rejected by
individuals.
A great
part of our information concerning the
life of St Hildegard is derived from her own correspondence and
writings, but
there are also two or three formal biographies, as biography was
understood in
the middle ages. The most noteworthy is that by two monks, Godefrid and
Theodoric, printed in the Acta Sanctorum, September,
vol. v. Another, by Guibert of Gembloux, was
edited by Cardinal
Pitra in his Analecta Sacra,
vol. viii. Also there are
remnants of an inquisition made in 1233 with a view to her
canonization, most
of which has been published by the Bollandists. Moreover, in recent
times, a
considerable literature has grown up dealing with this remarkable
mystic. See
in particular J. May, Die hl. Hildegard von Bingen (1911); and for a fuller
bibliography
DTC., vol. vi, cc. 2468— 2480. But now almost every aspect of St
Hildegard’s
activities is being independently studied. Her
work as a pioneer in science has attracted attention in
England, as may be noted in C. Singer, Studies
in the History and Method of Science (1917). A number of
monographs have
appeared in Germany and France, dealing not only with her medical
speculations,
but also with her musical and artistic compositions. The illustrations,
for
example, which adorn the codex minor of
the Scivias have been reproduced by
L. Baillet in Monuments et Mémoires publiés
par l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, vol. xix
(1911). A short
popular account of St Hildegard is provided in F. M. Steel’s Life and Visions of St Hildegarde (1914).
See also J. P. Schmelzeis, Das Leben und
Wirken der hi. Hildegardis (1879) and J. Christophe, Ste
Hildegarde (1942).
St Hildegard, Virgin;
|
|
1224 St. Francis, imprinting of the holy Stigmata
In monte
Alvérniæ, in Etrúria, commemorátio
Impressiónis sacrórum Stígmatum, quibus sanctus
Francíscus, Ordinis Minórum Institútor, in suis
mánibus, pédibus et látere, mirábili Dei
grátia, impréssus fuit.
The
commemoration of the
Impression of the Sacred Stigmata which St.
Francis, founder of the Order of Friars Minor, received through a
wonderful favour of God in his hands, feet, and side, at Mount Alverina
in Etruria.
1. At Mount Alvernia in
Tuscany, the commemoration of the
St.
Francis, imprinting
of the holy Stigmata with
which the founder of the Order of Friars
Minor,
was marked in his hands, feet and side by the wondrous favour of God.
1224 The Impression of The Stigmata Upon St Francis
In the month of August
1224 St Francis of Assisi withdrew himself from the world for a while
to commune with God on the summit of La Verna, a lonely mountain in the
Apennines. He was accompanied by Brother Leo and five or six others,
but he chose a hut apart, under a beech tree, and gave instructions
that no one was to come near him except Leo when he brought him food or
other ministrations. About the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy
Cross, Francis, being in prayer on the side of the mountain, raised
himself towards God with seraphic ardour and was transported by a
tender and affective compassion of charity into Him who out of love was
crucified for us. In this state he saw as it were a seraph, with six
shining wings, bearing down from the highest part of the heavens
towards him with a most rapid flight, and placing himself in the air
near the saint. There appeared between his wings the figure of a man
crucified, with his hands and feet stretched out, and fastened to the
cross. The wings of the seraph were so placed that two he stretched
above his head, two others he extended to fly, and with the other two
he covered his body. At this sight a sudden joy, mingled with sorrow,
filled Francis’s heart. The close presence of his Lord under the figure
of a seraph, who fixed on him His eyes in the most gracious and loving
manner, gave him great joy, but the sorrowful sight of His crucifixion
pierced his soul with compassion. At the same time he understood by an
interior light that, though the state of crucifixion in no way agreed
with that of the immortality of the seraph, this wonderful vision was
manifested to him that he might understand he was to be transformed
into a resemblance with Jesus Christ crucified, not by the martyrdom of
the flesh, but in his heart and by the fire of love. Suddenly, in a
moment of great pain, the seraph smote him as it were in body and soul,
and Francis had great fear, till the seraph spoke and made plain many
things, which had hitherto been hidden, from him. Then, after a moment,
which seemed an age, the vision vanished.
But the saint’s soul remained interiorly
burning with ardour, and his body appeared exteriorly to have received
the image of the crucifix, as if his flesh had received the marks of a
seal impressed upon it. For the scars of nails began to appear in his
feet and hands, resembling those he had seen in the vision of the man
crucified. His hands and feet seemed bored through in the middle with
four wounds, and these holes appeared to be pierced with nails or hard
flesh; the heads were round and black, and were seen in the palms of
his hands and in his feet in the upper part of the instep. The points
were long, and appeared beyond the skin on the other side, and were
turned back as if they had been clinched with a hammer. There was also
in his right side a red wound, as if made by the piercing of a lance,
and this often shed blood, which stained the clothes of the saint.
This wonderful miracle was performed whilst
Francis’s understanding was filled with the most vivid ideas of Christ
crucified, and his love employed in the utmost strength of its will in
directing its affections on that object and assimilating them to his
Beloved in that suffering state; so that in the imaginative faculty of
his soul he seemed to form a second crucifix, with which impression it
acted upon and strongly affected the body. To produce the exterior
marks of the wounds in the flesh, which the interior love of his heart
was not able to do, the fiery seraph, or rather Christ Himself in that
vision, by darting piercing rays from His wounds represented in the
vision, really formed exteriorly in St Francis those signs which love
had interiorly imprinted in his soul.
Whether or no St Francis was the first person to be thus
marked with the stigmata (Gk.
marks) of our crucified Lord, his is
unquestionably the most famous example, and the best authenticated
until we come to recent and contemporary times; moreover, it is the
only occurrence of the sort to be celebrated by a liturgical feast
throughout the Western church. The happening and general nature of the
phenomenon are beyond doubt. It is referred to by Brother Leo in the
note which he wrote with his own hand on the “seraphic blessing” of St
Francis, a document preserved by the Conventual friars at Assisi, and
in announcing the death of their patriarch to the friars of France
Brother Elias wrote in 1226: “From the beginning of ages there has not
been heard so great a wonder, save only in the Son of God who is Christ
our God. For a long while before his death, our father and brother
appeared crucified, bearing in his body the five wounds which are
verily the Stigmata of the Christ; for his hands and feet had as it
were piercing made by nails fixed in from above and below, which laid
open the scars and had the black appearance of nails ; while his side
appeared to have been lanced, and blood often trickled therefrom.”
In the earliest life of the saint, written between two and
four years after his death, the stigmata are described thus “ His hands
and feet seemed pierced in the midst by nails, the heads of the nails
appearing in the inner part of the hands and in the upper part of the
feet and their points over against them. Now these marks were round on
the inner side of the hands and elongated on the outer side, and
certain small pieces of flesh were seen like the ends of nails bent and
driven back, projecting from the rest of the flesh. So also the marks
of nails were imprinted in his feet, and raised above the rest of the
flesh. Moreover his right side, as if it had been pierced by a lance,
was overlaid with a scar, and often shed forth blood…” The Book
of Miracles, probably written by the same eyewitness about
twenty years
later (Thomas of Celano), adds that the crowds who flocked to Assisi
“saw in the hands and feet not the fissures of the nails but the nails
themselves marvelously wrought by the power of God, indeed implanted in
the flesh itself, in such wise that if they were pressed in on either
side they straightway, as if they were one piece of sinew, projected on
the other”. The statement, repeated above by Alban Butler from the
Fioretti, that the points of the nails were “bent back and clinched on
such wise that under the clinching and the bend, which all stood out
above the flesh, it would have been easy to put a finger of the hand,
as in a ring”, can be traced back to before 1274, but the most careful
critics are inclined to reject its truth as a literal statement;
nothing of the like kind is reported of any other well-attested cases
of stigmata. There is not, of course, any suggestion that the “nails”
referred to were other than fleshy or sinewy substances, and that they
were even this (rather than part of the appearance and shape of the
wounds or raised scars) is hardly warranted by the evidence, and not at
all by comparison with the stigmata of others.
The fact of stigmatization has been confirmed by modern
examples; the stigmata often bleed periodically, especially on Fridays,
and in no recorded case do the wounds suppurate. It would appear then
that God singles out certain noble souls to be united more closely with
the sufferings of His Son, souls who are willing and in some degree
worthy to expiate the sins of others by bearing before the world the
form of Jesus crucified, “not portrayed upon tables of stone or wood by
the hand of an earthly artist but drawn in their flesh by the finger of
the living God”. In the large number of reported stigmatizations in the
past seven hundred years only some fifty or sixty are at all well
attested, and some of these are explainable by fraud or other natural
means, so the valid phenomenon remains a rare and remarkable indication
by God of some of those who are heroically His servants. With some few
exceptions the best-known stigmatisés
were friars, nuns or
tertiaries of one or other of the mendicant orders, and nearly all of
them women.
Nearly
all the many published Lives of St
Francis give prominence to the stigmata. The contemporary evidence,
notably
that of Brother Elias, of the document called the “Blessing” of Brother
Leo,
and of the Vita prima by Thomas of
Celano, is quite conclusive as to the existence of these wound marks.
Paul
Sabatier, Dr J. Merkt (The Wundmale des
Franzithus von Assisi, (1910), and
others have propounded a
naturalistic explanation, on which
see Bihl in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum, July, 1910,
and Königer in the Historisches
Jahrbuch, 1910, pp. 787 seq. In the collection Studi Francescani (1924) a volume was devoted to the
seventh centenary of the stigmatization. This contains an important
article
(pp. 140—174) by A. Gemelli on
“Le Affirmazione della
Scienza intorno alle Stimmate di S. Francesco”. Cf. also
V. Facchinetti, Le
Stimmate di S. Francesco (1924); and Faloci
Pulignani, Miscellanea
Francescana, vol. xv, pp. 129—137. For stigmatization in
general see H.
Thurston, The Physical Phenomena of
Mysticism (1952) and Douleur et
stigmatisation (1956) in
the series “Etudes carmelitaines”. This
contains an excellent article by Fr P. Debongnie on stigmatization in
the
middle ages; he sharply criticizes the work of Dr Imbert-Gourbeyre (La stigmatisation…2 vols.,
1894), following, among others, Fr Gemelli and Fr
Thurston. See also
F. L. Schleyer, Die Stigmatisation mit
den Blutmalen (1948), who examines the very frequent coincidence
of
stigmatization and serious nervous disorders.
|
1442 The Makariev "Directress" Icon of the
Mother of God On September 17,
1442 at about the third hour of the morning, when
St Macarius was finishing his usual morning Akathist to the Most Holy
Theotokos, his cell was illumined suddenly by an unknown light. The
monk became confused in spirit and fervently began to pray.
The Icon appeared during the reign of Prince Basil the Dark (1425-1462)
to St Macarius the Wonderworker, who labored in asceticism on the
desolate shores of the River Unzha. Beyond the cell walls he
heard the angelic refrain: "Hail, Full of Grace, O Virgin Mother!" With
fear and astonishment the monk went out from his cell and on the
northwest horizon he saw the icon of the Mother of God, surrounded by a
luminous radiance.
The icon approached towards the cell of the ascetic. With joyful
trembling the monk fell to the ground and cried out: "Hail, Mother of
God! Hail, Ever-Flowing Fountain issuing salvation to all the world and
assuring protection and intercession to all the land of Galicia!"
He reverently took up the icon and placed it in his cell, thus it also
came to be named the "Cell-Icon." Afterwards, the disciples of the monk
gave it the title of "Makariev." On the place of the appearance of the
holy icon a monastery was founded, and was also named Makariev. Copies
of the Makariev Icon of the Mother of God were made, which are
renowned as the original.
|
 1485
St. Peter Arbues; Augustinian inquisitor; a master of Canon Law at the
University of Bologna
Cæsaraugústæ, in Hispánia, sancti Petri de
Arbues, primi in Aragóniæ regno Quæsitóris
fídei; quem, a relápsis Judæis ob eándem,
quam pro múnere suo strénue tuebátur,
cathólicam fidem, immániter trucidátum,
sanctórum Mártyrum catálogo Pius Papa Nonus
adjúnxit.
At Saragossa in Spain, St. Peter of Arbues, first
inquisitor of the faith in the kingdom of Aragon, who received the palm
of martyrdom by being barbarously massacred by apostate Jews for
courageously defending the Catholic faith, according to the duties of
his office. He was added to the list of martyr saints by Pius IX.
1485 ST PETER ARBUES, MARTYR
ONE of the chief problems of church and state in medieval Spain was how
to deal with the Jews and the Mohammedans who were so numerous in the
country: a problem complicated by the active hatred against them
displayed by the common people, who shared neither the Christian
sentiments of the more tolerant ecclesiastics nor the material interest
involved for the civil authorities. During the fourteenth century Jews
in particular had acquired great influence, not only the underground
influence of finance but also the open power of high secular and even
ecclesiastical offices. This had been attained, could be attained, only
by profession of Christianity, a profession to a considerable extent
false, and when genuine often superficial and unreliable. Two classes
who gave particular trouble and were regarded as especially dangerous
were the Maranos and the Moriscos, Jews and Moors respectively who,
having for one reason or another, good or bad, been converted to
Christianity and received baptism, subsequently relapsed, either openly
or secretly.
In the year 1478 Pope Sixtus IV, at the urgent
request of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile,
issued a bull empowering them to appoint a tribunal to deal with Jewish
and other apostates and sham converts. Thus was established the
institution known in history as the Spanish Inquisition. It may be
noted in passing that, though primarily an ecclesiastical tribunal, it
acted, independently and often in defiance of the Holy See; and that
though it was undoubtedly often brutal, harsh and cruel in its methods,
yet its theoretical basis was not indefensible. It was not concerned
with bona-fide Jews and Mohammedans, and those who voluntarily
confessed apostasy and promised amendment were reconciled, with a light
penance.
A few years before the establishment of this Inquisition there was
professed with the canons regular at Saragossa a certain Peter Arbues.
He had been born at Epila in Aragon about the year 1440, and had
graduated brilliantly in theology and canon law in the Spanish College
at Bologna. His virtue and enthusiasm had turned him to the religious
life, but the reputation of his learning and zeal caused him to be
called from his cloister some years after his profession. The
organization of the nascent Inquisition was in the hands of the
Dominican friar Thomas Torquemada, and he, looking about for a
provincial inquisitor for the kingdom of Aragon, selected Peter Arbues,
who took up his appointment in 1484.
During the few months that he discharged this office Peter
preached and worked unwearyingly against the sham Christians and
apostates, and their characteristic vices of perjury, usury and sexual
immorality. His zeal made him many enemies, who traduced his character
and started the legend of his cruelty, a legend familiar to many, who
have not otherwise heard of Peter Arbues, from the picture painted by
Wilhelm von Kaulbach, in which the forty-four-year-old canon is
represented as an aged and sadistic tyrant. Apart from the fact that in
St Peter’s day the Spanish Inquisition was still more or less in the
control of the more humane spirit of Rome, no sentence of death or
torture has been proved against him.
But the Maranos were determined to get rid of him. St
Peter was aware of what was going on, but refused to take any
extraordinary precautions, even after an unsuccessful attempt had been
made on his life. But on the night of September 14—15, 1485, three men
entered the cathedral of St Saviour at Saragossa and stabbed the canon
as he knelt in prayer. He died two days later, and was at once
acclaimed throughout the land as a martyr; as such he was canonized in
1867.
A
sufficient account of St Peter is given in the Acta
Sanctorum, September, vol. v. We
have no formal biography of early date, but a good deal of information
is
provided by the chronicles of the time. See also G. Cozza, Della
vita, miracoli e culto del martire S. Pietro de Arbues (1867).
|
 1621 St.
Robert
Bellarmine; important writings, works of devotion and instruction;
spiritual father of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, helped St. Francis de Sales
obtain formal approval of the Visitation Order, and in his prudence
opposed severe action in the case of Galileo; Pope Pius XI bestowed on
him honours of the Saints, declared him a Doctor of the
Universal Church, and appointed May 13 as his festival day.
Saint Robert
Bellarmine's feast day is on 17 September, the day of his
death; but some continue to use pre-1969 calendars, in which for 37
years his feast day was on 13 May. The rank attributed to his feast has
been "double" (1932-1959), "third-class feast" (1960-1968), and since
1969 an "optional memorial", all of them equivalent.
Romæ
natális sancti Robérti Bellarmíno,
Confessóris, e Societáte Jesu, atque Cardinális et
Capuáni olim Epíscopi, sanctitáte,
doctrína, et plúrimis ad cathólicæ
fídei et Apostólicæ Sedis defensiónem
suscéptis labóribus claríssimi; quem Pius
Undécimus, Póntifex Máximus, Sanctórum
honóribus auxit et universális Ecclésiæ
Doctórem declarávit, ejúsque festum tértio
Idus Maji recoléndum indíxit.
At Rome, the birthday of St. Robert Bellarmine of
the Society of Jesus, confessor and cardinal, and also formerly bishop
of Capua. He is noted for his holiness, learning, and the many
great tasks he performed in defence of the Catholic faith and the
Apostolic See. Pope Pius XI bestowed on him the honours of the
saints, declared him to be a doctor of the universal Church, and
appointed 13th of May as feast day.
Born 1542 at
Montepulciano, Italy,
October 4, the third of ten children.
His mother, Cinzia Cervini, a niece of Pope
Marcellus II, was dedicated
to almsgiving, prayer, meditation, fasting, and mortification of the
body.
Robert entered the newly formed Society
of Jesus in 1560 and after his ordination went on to teach at
Louvain (1570-1576) where he became famous for his Latin sermons. In
1576, he was appointed to the chair of controversial theology at the
Roman College, becoming Rector in 1592; he went on to become Provincial
of Naples in 1594 and Cardinal in
1598.
This outstanding scholar
and devoted servant of God defended the
Apostolic See against the anti-clericals in Venice and against the
political tenets of James I of England. He composed an exhaustive
apologetic work against the prevailing heretics of his day. In the
field of church-state relations, he took a position based on principles
now regarded as fundamentally democratic - authority originates with
God, but is vested in the people, who entrust it to fit rulers.
This saint was the spiritual
father of St. Aloysius Gonzaga,
helped St. Francis de Sales
obtain formal approval of the Visitation
Order, and in his prudence opposed severe action in the case
of Galileo. He has left us a host of important writings,
including works of devotion and instruction, as well as controversy
.
St. Robert
Bellarmine (1542-1621)
When Robert Bellarmine was ordained in 1570, the study of Church
history and the Fathers of the Church was in a sad state of neglect. A
promising scholar from his youth in Tuscany, he devoted his energy to
these two subjects, as well as to Scripture, in order to systematize
Church doctrine against the attacks of the Protestant Reformers.
He was the first Jesuit to
become a professor at Louvain.
His most famous work is his three-volume Disputations on the
Controversies of the Christian faith. Particularly noteworthy
are the sections on the temporal power of the pope and the role of the
laity.
He incurred the anger of both England and France by showing the
divine-right-of-kings theory untenable.
He developed the theory of the indirect power of the pope in temporal
affairs; although he was defending the pope against the Scottish
philosopher Barclay, he also incurred the ire of Pope Sixtus V.
Bellarmine was made a cardinal by Pope
Clement VIII on the grounds that "he had not his equal for
learning." While he occupied apartments in the Vatican, Bellarmine
relaxed none of his former austerities. He limited his household
expenses to what was barely essential, eating only the food available
to the poor. He was known to have ransomed a soldier who had deserted
from the army and he used the hangings of his rooms to clothe poor
people, remarking, "The walls won't catch cold."
Among many activities, he became theologian to Pope Clement VIII,
preparing two catechisms which
have had great influence in the Church.
The last major controversy of Bellarmine's life came in 1616 when he
had to admonish his friend Galileo, whom he admired. Bellarmine
delivered the admonition on behalf of the Holy Office, which had
decided that the heliocentric theory of Copernicus was contrary to
Scripture. The admonition amounted to a caution against putting
forward—other than as a hypothesis—theories not yet fully proved. It
was an example of the fact that saints are not infallible.
Bellarmine died on September 17, 1621. The process for his canonization
was begun in 1627 but was delayed for political reasons, stemming from
his writings, until 1930. In 1931 Pius
XI declared him a Doctor of the Church.
Comment: The renewal
in the Church sought by Vatican II was
difficult for many Catholics. In the course of change, many felt a lack
of firm guidance from those in authority. They yearned for the stone
columns of orthodoxy and an iron command with clearly defined lines of
authority. Vatican II assures us in The Church in the Modern
World, "There are many realities which do not change and which have
their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same yesterday and
today, yes, and forever."
Robert Bellarmine devoted his life to the study of
Scripture and
Catholic doctrine. His writings help us understand that not only is
content of our faith important, it is Jesus' living person—as revealed
by his life, death and resurrection—source of revelation.
The real source of our faith is not merely a set of doctrines but
rather the person of Christ still living in the Church today.
When he left his apostles,
Jesus assured them of his living presence:
"When the Spirit of truth comes, he will lead you to the
complete truth" (see John 16:30).
Quote: "Sharing in
solicitude for all the Churches, bishops
exercise this episcopal office of theirs, received through episcopal
consecration, in communion with and under the authority of the Supreme
Pontiff. All are united in a college or body with respect to teaching
the universal Church of God and governing her as shepherds" (Decree on
the Bishops' Pastoral Office, 3).
|
1798 St.
Emmanuel
Trieu Vietnam Martyr ordained priest native
He joined the army but was ordained and worked under the auspices of
the Foreign Mission of Paris. While visiting his mother, he was
arrested in the anti-Christian persecution and martyred by beheading.
Emmanuel was canonized in 1988.
|
1866 ST FRANCIS
CAMPOROSSO laybrother the best-known and most welcome questor in
Genoa (Transferred to September
25)
CAMPOROSSO is a
small town on the coast of Liguria, and there was living there at the
beginning
of the last century a family called Croese, who were farmers and
olive-cultivators in a small way. To the master and mistress was born
in 1804 a
son, whom they had baptized John. He was one of four children and had a
simple
and religious upbringing, and as a matter of course began to work on
his
father’s farm. When he was about eighteen, however, John met a
lay-brother of
the Conventual Friars Minor, who gave him the idea of the same
vocation. John
presented himself at the friary at Sestri Ponente and was accepted as a
tertiary
and given the name of Antony. He spent two years in the service of that
house,
and then, desiring a life of greater austerity, he offered himself to
the
Capuchin Friars Minor. He was sent to their novitiate at Genoa and in
1825 was
clothed as a lay-brother, with the names Francis Mary. In the following
year he
was professed and set to work in the infirmary, from whence he was
taken to be
questor, whose office it is to beg food from door to door for the
community.
This was a new experience for Brother Francis, and he disliked it so
much that
he thought of asking to be relieved of it. But instead, when the
guardian asked
him if he would undertake to beg in the city of Genoa itself, he
accepted with
alacrity. The Genoese were not invariably well disposed towards the
religious,
and Brother Francis sometimes received stones instead of bread, but he
persevered for ten years and became the best-known and most welcome
questor in
the place.
He
was a particularly familiar figure in the
dockyard, where people would come to ask of him news of their friends
and
relatives overseas, for he was reputed to be able to give correct
information
about people in distant lands, whom he had never seen. Miracles of
healing too
were attributed to him and, though there were some still who insulted
and
jeered at him, to the majority he was known as “Padre santo”. It was in
vain
that he protested that he was a lay-brother and not a priest—” good
father” he
remained, and he was indeed a father to the poor and afflicted who
flocked to
him.
During two years
Brother Francis suffered from varicose veins, of which he told nobody
till his
limp betrayed him, and he was found to be in a most shocking state. By
the time
he was sixty he was nearly worn out, and his leg had to be operated on,
without
much effect.
In August 1866 Genoa
was devastated by cholera. The Capuchins and other religious of the
city were
out among the sufferers at once, and Bd Francis was so moved by all he
saw
around him that he solemnly offered his own life to God that the
epidemic might
cease; and he accurately predicted the circumstances of his approaching
death.
On September 15 he was himself smitten
by the disease, and two days later he was called to God. From that time
the
cholera began to abate. The tomb of St Francis became famous for
miracles. He
was beatified in 1929 and canonized in 1962.
The decree of
beatification,
printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, vol. xxi (1929), pp. 485—488,
includes a biographical sketch of his life. Several biographies were
issued or
republished at the same time. The most considerable is one in Italian
by Fr
Luigi da Porto Maurizio; another, also of some length, is in French, by
Fr
Constant de Pélissanne (1929).
|
Mary Mother of GOD
1145-1153 Bd
Eugenius III, Pope Cistercian monk at Clairvaux; he took in
religion the name of Bernard, his great namesake being his superior at
Clairvaux 
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.