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SCRIPTURE
Jesus
called out with a loud
voice, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."
When he had said this, he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing what
had happened, praised God and said,
"Surely this was a righteous man."-- Luke 23:46-47
REFLECTION
by Fr. Frank Pavone,
Priests for Life
"Those of us who have
participated in the killing of unborn children
are the Centurions of today. We have dropped our swords against the
unborn child. Now we must recognize the depth of our guilt and deal
with the ramifications... To revitalize our humanity we need to forgive
and be forgiven, to reconcile and be healed."
These words come from a brochure of the Society of Centurions, an
organization for former abortion providers. These words convey in a
beautiful and moving way what is happening across the nation as
hundreds of abortionists and their staff members experience repentance,
conversion, and healing.
How does this conversion begin? Dr. Philip Ney writes, "The factors
that changed their opinion on performing abortions, in the following
order of frequency, were: evidence of the infant's humanity, a
spiritual experience, personal distress, evidence of the mother's
distress, scientific articles, being accepted as a person, a personal
relationship with a pro-lifer, pro-life pickets." (The Centurion's
Pathway, p. 77).
The journey is not easy. But the Jesus who heals us calls us to face
the truth of what we've done, make restitution where possible, and
engage in the hard work of mending relationships. Let's pray for the
Centurions; may their numbers increase!
PRAYER
Lord, we thank you for those who
have repented of committing abortions
and have resolved to defend life. We too repent and resolve.
We repent of every instance in which fear has made us silent when we
should have spoken. We repent of the ongoing bloodshed in our land, and
for thinking that we can deprive the unborn of protection but keep it
for ourselves.
We resolve that we will advance the cause of righteous candidates for
public office, and that we will be more afraid of offending you by our
silence than of offending others by our speech. We resolve that we will
proclaim your name to the nations, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
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 1st century St. Cleophas met
Christ on the road to Emmaus
Apud
castéllum Emmaus natális beáti
Cléophæ, qui fuit Christi discípulus,
quem et in eádem domo in qua mensam Dómino
paráverat, pro confessióne
illíus a Judæis occísum tradunt, et gloriósa
memória sepúltum.
Cleophas,
disciple of Christ At
Emmaus, the birthday of blessed . It is related that he was
killed by
the Jews for the confession of our Lord, and honourably buried in the
same house in which he had entertained him.
One of two disciples
who met Christ on the road to Emmaus. He was also
identified as the father of Mary, one of whom stood with the Mother of
God at the foot of the Cross. He has been identified as the father of
St. James the Less and as brother of St. Joseph.
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St. Paul
and Tatta
Martyred husband and wife;
Damásci sanctórum Mártyrum Pauli, et Tattæ
cónjugis, ac Sabiniáni, Máximi, Rufi et
Eugénii filiórum; qui, Christiánæ
religiónis accusáti, verbéribus aliísque
supplíciis torti sunt, et in cruciátibus ánimas
Deo reddidérunt.
At Damascus, the holy martyrs Paul, his wife Tatta,
and their sons Sabinian, Maximus, Rufus, and Eugene. Accused of
professing the Christian religion, they were scourged and tortured in
other ways until they gave up their souls unto God.
. Paul and Tatta were a
married couple in Damascus who, with their sons
were put to death by Roman authorities during the persecution of the
Church. The died under torture.
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5th century St.
Caian saint of Wales
A saint of Wales, England. He was the son or grandson of the local king
of Brecknock. A church at Tregaian in Anglesey is named after him.
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2nd century St. Herculafilis
Martyred Roman soldier
Eódem die, via Cláudia, sancti Herculáni,
mílitis et Mártyris; qui, sub Antoníno
Imperatóre, miráculis in passióne beáti
Alexándri Epíscopi ad Christum convérsus, atque ob
fídei confessiónem, post multa torménta,
gládio cæsus est.
At Rome, on the Claudian Way, under Emperor
Antoninus, St. Herculanus, soldier and martyr, who was converted to
Christ by the miracle wrought during the martyrdom of the blessed
bishop Alexander. After enduring many torments he was put to the
sword.
Martyred Roman soldier reportedly converted by Pope St. Alexander I.
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 4th century St.
Firminus of Amiens martyred missionary
Ambiáni, in Gállia, beáti Firmíni
Epíscopi, qui, in persecutióne Diocletiáni, sub
Rictiováro Præside, post vária torménta,
cápitis decollatióne martyrium sumpsit.
At Amiens in France, in the persecution of
Diocletian, blessed Firminus, bishop. Under the governor
Rictiovarus, after many torments he suffered martyrdom by being
beheaded.
Two bishops of that name, one celebrated on September 1
and listed as
the third bishop of the see; the other is cited as Amien’s first
bishop, a native of Spain and a convert of St. Satuminus consecrated by
St. Honestus. He went to France as a missionary and built his church at
Amiens. He was martyred by beheading.
4th v. ST FIRMINUS, BISHOP
AND MARTYR
ACORDING to his worthless “acts”, he was a native of
Pampeluna, in Navarre, initiated in the Christian faith by St
Honoratus, a disciple of St Saturninus of Toulouse, and consecrated
bishop of Toulouse by St Honoratus to preach the gospel in the remoter
parts of Gaul. Being arrived at Amiens, Firminus there chose his
residence and founded a church of faithful disciples. He received the
crown of martyrdom in that city, where the bishop St Firminus II (who
is honoured on September i) built a church over his tomb, dedicated
under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin, but now known as St
Acheul’s. It is possible that Firminus I and Firminus II were only one
man; they are both unheard of before the ninth century, the first known
bishop of Amiens being Eulogius in the middle of the fourth century.
Firminus was probably simply a missionary bishop in Gaul.
Two
texts are known which claim to represent the “acts” of St Firminus. The
Bollandists (September, vol. vii) print one entire with extracts from
the other. See also C. Salmon, Histoire
de S. Firmin (1861), and Duchesne, Fastes Épiscopaux, vol. iii,
pp. 122—127. For Firminus II, see Duchesne,
bc. cit.; the Acta Sanctorum,
September, vol. i. For both a popular account is provided by J.
Corblet, Hagiographie du diocese
d’Amiens (1870), vol. ii, pp. 31—216.
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480
St. Paphnutius Monk and abbot who is much venerated in the Eastern
Church. According to
tradition, he was the father of St. Euphrosyne.
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505 St. Principius (born 462), brother of St.
Remy of Reims
Eódem die sancti Princípii, qui fuit Epíscopus
Suessionénsis et frater beáti Remígii
Epíscopi.
On the same day, St. Principius, bishop of Soissons,
brother of the blessed bishop Remigius.
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542 St.
Lupus of Lyons
Archbishop of Lyons
Lugdúni, in Gállia, deposítio sancti Lupi, qui ex
Anachoréta factus est Epíscopus.
At Lyons in France, the death of St. Lupus, at one
time an anchoret, but later a bishop.
France, suffered considerably
from the political upheavals in the
region following the death of Sigismund, King of Burgundy.
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In Asia pássio sanctórum
Bardomiáni, Eucárpi et aliórum vigínti sex
Mártyrum.
In
Asia, the holy martyrs Bardomian, Eucarpus, and twenty-six others. |
575 ST CADOC, ABBOT
ST CADOC (Cadog, Catwg) was one of the most celebrated of the Welsh
saints, but the earliest accounts of him were not written till some 600
years after the events they claim to record. According to these he was
the son of St Gundleus and St Gwladys, and was baptized by the Irish St
Tatheus, to whom Gundleus entrusted the boy’s education, “ in
preference to all the other teachers of Britain”, in his school at
Caerwent. At Llancarfan (formerly Nantcarfan), between Cardiff and
Llantwit Major, Cadoc founded a monastery, and then passed over to
Ireland, where he spent three years in study. On his return he went
into Brecknock, for further study under a rhetor named Bachan; here he
miraculously relieved a famine by the discovery of an unknown store of
wheat, and at the scene of this find founded the church of Llanspyddid,
which still bears his name.
Cadoc then went back to Llancarfan, which was the resort of many
because. of its fame for holiness and learning. We are particularly
told that he gave his disciples (St Gildas is said to have been one of
them) the example of living by the work of his own hands and not those
of others, for “he who does not work shall not eat”. His biographer
Caradoc gives some details of the teaching methods at the monastery,
which clearly represent his own practice in the eleventh century at
Llancarfan, not Cadoc’s. The monastery fed five hundred dependants and
poor every day, and its abbot had authority over all the surrounding
country. During Lent Cadoc would retire from all this activity to the
solitude of the islands of Barry and Flatholm, but always came back to
his monastery in time for Easter. Another place of retreat, bearing his
name, is now called Cadoxton, by Neath.
There is evidence that St Cadoc visited Brittany, Cornwall, and
Scotland, founding a monastery at Cambuslang; and he is said to have
been present at the synod of Liandewi Frefi, and to have made the
common-form pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. Very surprising are the
circumstances of his death, as reported by his biographer Lifris.
Warned by an angel in a dream on the eve of Palm Sunday, he was
transported “in a white cloud” to Benevento in Italy, where he was made
bishop and met his death by martyrdom. Caradoc, too, takes him to
Benevento, not miraculously but by road, and says nothing about
martyrdom: he died peacefully, and all the city accompanied him to
burial, “with hymns and songs and lights”. It is not unlikely that the
actual place of St Cadoc’s death was at Llansannor, a few miles from
Llancarfan. His feast is observed today throughout Wales.
St Cadoc’s biographers were
both clerics of Llancarfan : Lifris wrote
his vita (text and translation in A. W. Wade-Evans, Vitae sanctorum
Britanniae, 1944) between 1073 and 1086, and Caradoc his about 1100.
This long-lost life by Caradoc, found in the Gotha MS. I. 81, is
printed in Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lx (1942), pp. 35—67, with an
introduction by Father.
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604 St.
Anacharius
Bishop patron of Divine Office and Litany of Saints
Antisiodóri sancti
Anachárii, Epíscopi et
Confessóris. At Auxerre, St. Anacharius,
bishop and confessor.
Bishop and patron of the Divine Office and the Litany of the
Saints.
Anacharius was born near Orleans, France,
and was educated at the court of King Guntram of Burgundy. Taking vows,
he was made bishop of Auxerre, France, in 561, and promoted litanies
and prayers.
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633
St. Finbar founded monastery developed into city of Cork Many
extravagant miracles
He was the son of an artisan and a lady of the Irish royal
court. Born
in Connaught, Ireland, and
baptized Lochan, he was educated at Kilmacahil, Kilkenny, where the
monks named him Fionnbharr (white head) because of his light hair; he
is also known as Bairre and Barr. He went on pilgrimage to Rome with
some of the monks, visiting St. David in Wales on the way back.
Supposedly, on another visit to Rome the Pope wanted to consecrate him
a bishop but was deterred by a vision, notifying the pope that God had
reserved that honor to Himself, and Finbar was consecrated from heaven
and then returned to Ireland. At any rate, he may have preached in
Scotland, definitely did in southern Ireland, lived as a hermit on a
small island at Lough Eiroe, and then, on the river Lee, founded a
monastery that developed into the city of Cork, of which he was the
first bishop. His monastery became famous in southern Ireland and
attracted numerous disciples. Many extravagant miracles are attributed
to him, and supposedly, the sun did not set for two weeks after he died
at Cloyne about the year 633.
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Blesis, in Gállia, sancti
Solémnii, Epíscopus Carnuténsis, miráculis
clari.
633
At Blois in France, St. Solemnius, bishop of Chartres, renowned for
miracles.
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| 7th v. St. Fymbert Bishop of western Scotland; He was ordained by
Pope St. Gregory the Great. |
St.
Mewrog A saint of Wales
of whom no details are extant.
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716 St.
Ceolfrid
Benedictine abbot St. Paul Monastery produced oldest Vulgate Bible
at Wearmouth-Jarrow, England, also called Geoffrey. He was born in Northumbria in 642 and became a
monk at Ripon. St. Benedict Biscop named him prior of Wearmouth, but he
was too strict and was forced to leave. Accompanying St. Benedict to
Rome in 678, Ceolfrid became the deputy abbot of St. Paul’s in 685. He and one young student were the
only ones to survive the regional plague. He became the abbot in
690 and developed the twin monasteries into cultural centers. The CodexAmatianus, the oldest known
copy of the Vulgate Bible in one volume, was produced at his command.
He also trained St. Bede. In 716, Ceolfrid retired and
started for Rome, dying on September 25 at Longres, in Champagne,
France.
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870
St. Egelred Benedictine monk died with the abbot and many
fellow monks at the hands of invading Danes.
at Crayland Abbey, Great Britain.
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Anágniæ sanctárum
Vírginum Auréliæ et Neomísiæ.
10th v. Aurelia and
Neomysia At Anagni,
the holy virgins .
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1013 Bl.
Herman the
Cripple wrote the hymns Salve Regina and Alma Redemptoris mater
Herman was born a cripple on February 18 at Altshausen, Swabia. He was
so terribly deformed he was almost helpless. He was placed in Reichenau
Abbey in Lake Constance Switzerland, in 1020 when he was seven and
spent all his life there. He was professed at twenty, became known to
scholars all over Europe for his keen mind, wrote the hymns Salve
Regina and Alma Redemptoris mater to Our Lady, poetry, a universal
chronicle, and a mathematical treatise. He died at Reichenau on
September 21 and is sometimes called Herman Contractus.
<>1054 BD HERMAN THE
CRIPPLE
A BRIEF notice must
be given to this well-known Herman for he is commonly called Blessed
and his
feast is observed in certain Benedictine monasteries, this being
allowed by the
Holy See. <>He was
born in
Swabia of the house of Altshausen in 1013, and from his birth was not
simply a
cripple but was practically helpless, so deformed (Contractus)
was he. As a child, charge was taken of him by the
abbey of Reichenau on an island of Lake Constance, where he spent all
his forty
years, being professed a monk at the age of twenty. As not infrequently
happens
with the physically disabled, Herman’s mind was as good an instrument
as his
body was a useless one, and his will bent it to the service of learning
and of
God. Among his works was one of the earliest medieval world-chronicles,
a long
unfinished poem on the deadly sins, and a mathematico_astronomical
treatise
which begins, “Herman, the rubbish of Christ’s little ones, lagging
behind the
apprentices of philosophy more slowly than a donkey or a slug . . .”
But the
unforgotten and unforgettable things that we owe to this bedridden monk
are the
two anthems of our Lady, “Alma Redemptoris mater” and, probably, “Salve
Regina”. It is only fitting that he also made, as well as astronomical,
musical
instruments.
This holy monk, whom
his own age admired as “the wonder of the times”, died in 1054.
See Die Kultur
der Abtei Reichenau (a vols., 1925). The best text of the
chronicle is in
MGFL, Scriptores, vol. v, and it has
been translated into German. F. A. Yeldham contributed an article on
Herman’s
fraction-tables to Speculum, vol. iii
(1928), PP. 240 seq. There is a short
essay on Herman in Fr C. C. Martindale’s What
are Saints? (1939). For the authorship of “ Salve regina”, see H.
Thurston, Familiar Prayers (1953), PP. 119—125.
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1068
St. Austindus Archbishop and Benedictine
Austindus was a native of Bordeaux, France. He entered the Benedictines
at St. Oren's Abbey, in Auch. When elected abbot, he instituted the Cluniac reform in
the abbey. Austindus became the archbishop of Auch, France, in
1041.
The Cluny
Reform
The earliest reform, which became practically a
distinct order, within
the Benedictine family. It originated at Cluny, a town in
Saone-et-Loire, fifteen miles north-west of Macon, where in 910 William
the Pious, Duke of Aquitaine, founded an abbey and endowed it with his
entire domain. Over it he placed St. Berno, then Abbot of Gigny, under
whose guidance a somewhat new and stricter form of Benedictine life was
inaugurated. The reforms introduced at Cluny were in some measure
traceable to the influence of St. Benedict of Aniane, who had put
forward his new ideas at the first great meeting of the abbots of the
order held at Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) in 817, and their development at
Cluny resulted in many departures from precedent, chief among which was
a highly centralized form of government entirely foreign to Benedictine
tradition. The reform quickly spread beyond the limits of the Abbey of
Cluny, partly by the founding of new houses and partly by the
incorporation of those already existing, and as all these remained
dependent upon the mother-house, the Congregation of Cluny came into
being almost automatically.
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1215 St.
Albert of
Jerusalem Patriarch of Jerusalem and the Carmelite Order
<>1214 ST ALBERT,
PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM
WHEN the Latin
kingdom of Jerusalem was set up in 1099 by the crusaders under Godfrey
de
Bouillon, the Greek hierarchs were driven from their principal sees and
churches and replaced by bishops from the West, whose only subjects
were in the
ranks of the crusaders themselves. Thus there came to be a Latin
patriarch in
Jerusalem, and it must be regretfully recorded that most of the
prelates who
held this office in crusading times were as equivocal in character as
they were
in position. When therefore the Patriarch Michael died in the year 1203
the
canons regular of the Holy Sepulchre, supported by King Amaury II de
Lusignan,
petitioned Pope Innocent III to send to succeed him a prelate whose
holiness
and abilities were well known even in Palestine. This was Albert,
Bishop of
Vercelli. He belonged to a distinguished family of Parma, and after
brilliant
theological and legal studies had become a canon regular in the abbey
of the
Holy Cross at Mortara in Lombardy. When he was about thirty-five years
old,
namely in 1184, he was made bishop of Bobbio and almost at once
translated to
Vercelli. His diplomatic ability and trustworthiness caused him to be
chosen as
a mediator between Pope Clement Ill and Frederick Barbarossa.
<>By Innocent III
he was made legate in the north of Italy, and in that capacity he
brought about
peace between Parma and Piacenza in 1199. Innocent did not want to
spare him
for Jerusalem, but approved the choice of the canons; he invested him
with the pallium and
created him his legate in
Palestine, and in 1205 St Albert set out.
<>Already
in 1187 the
Saracens had retaken Jerusalem, and the see of the Latin patriarch had
been
moved to Akka (Ptolemais), where the Frankish king had set up his
court. At
Akka accordingly St Albert established himself, and set out to gain the
respect
and trust not only of Christians but of the Mohammedans as well, which
his
predecessors had conspicuously failed to do.
As patriarch and
legate he took a foremost part in the ecclesiastical and civil politics
of the
Levant, and over a period of nine years had to deal with a variety of
matters
which exercised his patience and prudence to the utmost; in the first
place and
continually he was faced with the almost impossible task of keeping the
peace
between the Frankish leaders and their followers, within the factions
themselves, and between the invaders and the natives of the country.
But Albert is best
remembered now for a quite different work. Between 1205 and 1210 St
Brocard,
prior of the hermits living on Mount Carmel, asked him to embody the
life they
were leading in a rule for the observance of himself and his subjects.
This St
Albert did in a document of sixteen very short and definite “chapters”.
He provided
for complete obedience to an elected superior; a separate dwelling for
each
hermit, with a common oratory; manual work for all; long fasts and
perpetual
abstinence from flesh-meat; and daily silence from Vespers till after
Terce.
“Let each hermit remain in or near his cell, meditating day and night
on the
law of the Lord and persevering in prayer, unless engaged in some
legitimate
occupation.” This rule was confirmed by Pope Honorius III in
1226, and
modified by Innocent IV twenty years later. Whoever may have
been the
founder of the Carmelite Order, there is no doubt that St Albert of
Jerusalem,
an Augustinian canon, was its first legislator.
Innocent III summoned St Albert to the forthcoming
council of the Lateran; but he did not live to be present at that great
assembly, which opened in November 1215. For twelve months he
faithfully
supported the pope’s hopeless efforts to get back Jerusalem, and then
his life
was suddenly and violently cut short. He had found it necessary to
depose from
his office the master of the Hospital of the Holy Ghost at Akka, and
the man
was nursing his resentment. On the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross
in 1214
St Albert officiated at a procession in the church of the Holy Cross at
Akka,
and in the course of it he was attacked and stabbed to death by the
deposed
hospitaller. His feast was first introduced among the Carmelites
in 1411. The
anomaly to which the Bollandists draw attention by which he was not
honoured
liturgically in his own order no longer exists, for the Canons Regular
of the
Lateran now keep his feast on April 8.
A short
early Life of St Albert is printed with ample
prolegomena in the Acta Sanctorum, April,
vol. i. See also the Analecta Ordinis
Carmelitarum Discalceatorum, vol. iii (1926), pp. 212 seq.
and DTC., vol. i, cc. 662—663. Some other data are supplied
by
B. Zimmerman, Monumenta historica
Carmelitarum (1907), pp. 277—281. The rule compiled by St Albert
is also
edited in this last-named work, pp. 20—554; and see Fr Francois de
Ste-Marie, La Règle du Cannel et son esprit (1949).
He was an outstanding ecclesiastical figure in the era in which the
Holy See faced opposition from Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa.
Serving as a mediator in the dispute between the emperor and Pope
Clement III, Albert was made an imperial prince, a sign of favor from
Barbarossa. Albert was born in Parma, Italy,
about 1149, probably to a noble family. He became a canon at the Holy
Cross Abbey in Mortoba. In 1184 he was appointed as the bishop of
Bobbio, Italy, and soon after he was named to the see of Vercelli. It
was during this period of service as the bishop of Vereelli that he
served as mediator between the pope and emperor. In 1205, Albert was
appointed the patriarch of Jerusalem, a post established in 1099 when
Jerusalem became a Latin kingdom in the control of Christian crusaders.
Jerusalem, however, was no longer in Christian hands, as the Saracens
recaptured the city in 1187. The Christians needed a patriarch, but the
position was open not only to persecution but to martyrdom at the hands
of the Muslims. Albert accepted and he proved himself not only
diplomatic but winning in his ways.
The Muslims of the area respected him for his sanctity and his
intelligence. Because of the Muslim presence in Jerusalem, Albert took
up residence in Acre (now called Akko), a northern port. There he
became involved in a concern that assured his place in religious
history. Overlooking the city and bay of Acre is the holy mountain
called Carmel. At the time, a group of holy hermits lived on Mount
Carmel in separate caves and cells. Albert was approached by St.
Brocard, who was the prior or superior of the group of hermits. In
1209, the hermits asked Albert to draw up a rule of life for them, a
rule that would constitute the beginning of the Carmelite Order.
Albert's rule regulating the monastic life of these men included severe
fasts, a perpetual abstinence from meat, silence, and seclusions. Pope
Innocent IV mitigated the rule in 1254, allowing that it was too
rigorous. Albert mediated the dispute among various groups in Palestine
and conducted Church affairs. He was called to the general council of the Lateran in 1215
but was assassinated before leaving Palestine. A madman that he had
discharged from a local hospital stabbed him during the procession on
the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
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1283 St.
Elzear and
Blessed Delphina Franciscan couple
(1286-1323)
(1283-1358)
This is the only Franciscan couple to be canonized or beatified
formally.
Elzear came from a noble family in southern France. After he married
Delphina, she informed him that she had made a vow of perpetual
virginity; that same night he did the same. For a time Elzear, Count of
Ariano, was a counselor to Duke Charles of Calabria in southern Italy.
Elzear ruled his own territories in the kingdom of Naples and in
southern France with justice.
Elzear and Delphina joined the Secular Franciscans and dedicated
themselves to the corporal works of mercy. Twelve poor people dined
with them every day. A statue of Elzear shows him curing several people
suffering from leprosy.
Their piety extended to the running of their household. Everyone there
was expected to attend Mass daily, go to confession weekly and be ready
to forgive injuries.
After Elzear’s death, Delphina continued her works of charity for 35
more years. She is especially remembered for raising the moral level of
the king of Sicily’s court.
Elzear and Delphina are buried in Apt, France. He was canonized in
1369, and she was beatified in 1694.
Comment: Like Francis, Elzear and
Delphina came to see all
creation as pointing to its source. Therefore, they did not try
ruthlessly to dominate any part of creation but used all of it as a way
of returning thanks to God.
Though childless, their
marriage was life-giving for the poor and the
sick around them.
Quote: St. Bonaventure
wrote:
"Francis sought occasion to love God in everything. He delighted in all
the works of God's hands and from the vision of joy on earth his mind
soared aloft to the life-giving source and cause of all. In everything
beautiful, he saw him who is beauty itself, and he followed his Beloved
everywhere by his likeness imprinted on creation; of all creation he
made a ladder by which he might mount up and embrace Him who is
all-desirable" (Legenda Major, IX, 1) .
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1392 St.
Sergius
abbot foremost Russian saint mystic founded 40 monasteries
1392 ST SERGIUS OF
RADONEZH, ABBOT
WHEN in
1940 the Holy See authorized a liturgical
calendar for the use of the few Russian Catholics it included, among
other Slav
modifications of the Byzantine calendar, the feasts of some thirty
Russian
saints, twenty-one of whom had not previously figured in any calendar
in use
today among Catholics. These last all lived after the
trouble between Rome and Constantinople in 1054. Their admission
to Catholic
recognition is a further example of the Holy See’s practical judgement
that the
separation of the Eastern Orthodox Church was not fully consummated
till long
after the excommunication of the patriarch Cerularius of Constantinople
in that
year, and in any case the consummation became complete in different
places at
different times. The choice of these saints, as Father Cyril Korolevsky
has
remarked (in Eastern Churches Quarterly, July
1946, p. 394), “based upon impartial judgement, does not exclude the
possibility of still other Russian saints being admitted when more
progress has
been made in the study of Slav hagiography.”
According
to Father
Korolevsky this has no connexion, whether direct or indirect, with
canonization. “When a dissident Eastern church [or part thereof] comes
into the
Catholic Church she brings into it all her rites and all her liturgy;
so also
her menology or liturgical calendar. Only what is directly or
indirectly
against faith is excluded—but this does not prevent the need for there
being
well-chosen critical standards for the moral, historical and
hagiographical
aspects, so that the inclusion or exclusion of certain saints in a
Catholic
calendar can be decided upon, and so that the position of others can be
submitted to fresh examination in accordance with developments in
hagiographical studies.”
This of course is
true. Nevertheless, from the point of view of the Church’s present
practice, it
would canonically seem to be a case either of equivalent
(“equipollent”)
canonization or of confirmation of cultus.
Of these twenty-one
Russians, the best known and most important is certainly St Sergius of
Radonezh, a monk. In its earlier days the great centres of Russian
monasticism
were in or near the towns; but the Tartar invasion of the thirteenth
century
destroyed the urban culture of the southern part of the country, and
the state
of the monasteries suffered accordingly. Many of them continued to
exist, but
their life was weak and degenerate, and those men looking for a more
perfect
life began to move out into the country, particularly to the vast
solitudes of
the northern forests. These sylvan hermits were called pustiniky,
that is to say, men of the wilderness. St Sergius of
Radonezh is often looked on as the beginner of this movement. Actually
he was
only one in a general movement that broke out in several places
simultaneously
and gave rise to a number of new centres of monastic life. But if only
one
among many, he was the outstanding figure, and many regard him as the
most
resplendent of all Russian saints.
And he was not only
a great monk. The imposition of Tartar sovereignty and the continuance
of waves
of invasion, massacre and plunder (they went on from 1237 for a
century) had
reduced the Russian people to the depths of misery and demoralization;
and St
Sergius probably more than any other single man was able by his example
and
influence to unify them in the face of their oppressors and to restore
their self-respect
and trust in God. The historian Kluchevsky declared that the Russians
owe their
liberation to the moral education and spiritual influence of Sergius of
Radonezh.
He was born into a
noble family round about 1315 near Rostov, and was christened
Bartholomew; and of three boys he seems to have been
the least bright and quick. This preyed on his mind, so that when a
monk whom
he had met in the fields asked him what gift he desired, he replied
that he
wanted to be able to learn to read and write, especially in order to
study the
Bible. Whereupon the monk gave him a piece of sweet-tasting bread to
eat, and
from that hour he could read and write, as the biographer tells us.
This was the time of
the beginning of the growth of the principality of Moscow, one step in
which
was the destruction of the power and influence of Rostov, and among the
victims
of this policy were Bartholomew’s parents, Cyril and Mary. When he was
still
little more than a boy the whole family had to flee, and eventually
found a
refuge in the little village of Radonezh, fifty miles north-east of
Moscow.
Henceforward they had to live the life, not of nobles, but of peasant
farmers
working in the fields. Then, in 1335 his parents being dead,
Bartholomew
carried out his long-cherished plan of pursuing a solitary life. He was
accompanied by his widowed brother, Stephen.
The place they chose
for their hermitage was a piece of rising ground called Makovka, in the
forest
and several miles from the nearest neighbour. They built a hut and a
chapel of
timber, and at their request the metropolitan of Kiev sent a priest to
dedicate
it to the Most Holy Trinity, a very unusual dedication in Russia at
that time.
Shortly afterwards Stephen went away to live in a monastery at Moscow,
and for
years the now completely solitary Bartholomew almost disappears from
sight.
His biographer tells
us of onslaughts by demonic powers successfully beaten off, of
threatening wild
beasts reduced to docility, of hunger and hard tillage, of nights of
prayer and
growth in holiness. It is all very reminiscent of the early desert
fathers. But
there is one important point of difference. We in the West, associating
the
eremitical life chiefly with St Antony and other saints of Egypt and
Syria,
think of one of its hardships in terms of sandy and rocky wastes, of
fierce
heat and lack of water. For Bartholomew, or Sergius as we may now call
him, for
he had received the monastic tonsure from a visiting abbot, it was very
different: his physical foes were ice
and snow, fierce winds and lashing rain and dripping trees. The
attitude of
these hermits to wild nature has been likened to that of St Francis of
Assisi.
Paul of Obnorsk made friends with the birds, St Sergius with bears, and
he
called fire and light his friends (as well he might). But physically
they were
of a different type from Francis (at any rate as shown in his later
representations),
a big strong northern peasant type, bearded, sparing of speech and
gesture. St
Sergius “smells of fresh fir wood “
As in so many other
similar instances, it was only a matter of time before the young
hermit’s
reputation spread and disciples gathered round him. Each built his own
hut, and
the monastery of the Holy Trinity had begun. When they numbered twelve,
at
their request and by direction of the nearest bishop, Sergius agreed to
be
their abbot; he was ordained priest
at Pereyaslav Zalesky, and there he offered the Bloodless Sacrifice for
the
first time. “Brethren”, he said, epitomizing a whole chapter of the
Rule of St
Benedict, “pray for me. I am completely ignorant, and I have received a
talent
from on high for which I shall have to give an account and of the flock
committed to me.”
The monastery
flourished in all but worldly goods and increased in numbers, among its
recruits being the archimandrite of a monastery at Smolensk. The forest
was
cleared, a village grew up and, most unwelcome, a road was beaten out
along
which visitors began to arrive. And in all this development the abbot
remembered that he was only first among equals, and set a shining
example of
assiduity whether at work or in the church.
Then the
question arose which of the two forms of
monastic life prevalent in the East should be followed at the Holy
Trinity.
Hitherto the monks had followed the individual pattern, “hermits in
community”,
each having a separate free-standing
cell and
plot of ground. Sergius, however, was in favour of properly
cenobitical,
communal, life, and in 1354 this reform was carried out, partly as a
result of
a personal letter of recommendation of this course from the oecumenical
patriarch at Constantinople, Philotheus. Unhappily this led to trouble.
Some of
the monks were discontented at the change, and found a leader in
Sergius’s
brother Stephen, who had come back to the monastery. The upshot was
that, one
Saturday after Vespers, whereat there had been an “incident”, St
Sergius,
rather than quarrel with his brother, quietly left the monastery and
did not
return. He settled down by the river Kerzhach, near the monastery of
Makrish.
But some of the
brethren of the Holy Trinity soon followed him there, and the parent
monastery
began to degenerate, so that the Metropolitan Alexis at Moscow sent two
archimandrites with a message asking St Sergius to return. This he did,
after
appointing an abbot for the new settlement at the Kerzhach, and after
four years’
absence he arrived back at the Holy Trinity where the brethren came out
to meet
him, “so filled with joy that some of them kissed the father’s hands,
others
his feet, while others caught hold of his clothing and kissed that”.
Like St Bernard of
Clairvaux two centuries earlier, and like other holy monks in East and
West
before and since, St Sergius came to be consulted by the great ones of
church
and state; he was appealed to as a peace-maker and arbitrator, and more
than
one vain attempt was made to get him to accept the primatial see of the
Russian
church. Then, between 1367 and 1380, came the great “show-down” between
Dmitry
Donskoy, Prince of Moscow, and Khan Mamai, leader of the Tartar
overlords.
Dmitry was faced with making a decision of final defiance which, should
it
fail, would bring greater miseries on Russia than it had ever known
before. He
went to ask the advice of St Sergius, and St Sergius blessed him and
said, “It
is your duty, sir, to care for the flock which God has entrusted to
you. Go
forth against the heathen, and conquer in the might of God’s arm. And
may you
return in safety, giving God the glory.”
So Prince Dmitry set
out, accompanied by two of Sergius’s monks who had formerly been
fighting men.
At the last moment, seeing the enemy’s strength, he again hesitated.
But at
that moment arrived a messenger from St Sergius, saying, “Do not fear,
sir. Go
forward with faith against the foe’s ferocity. God will be with you.”
And so on
September 8, 1380, was fought the battle of Kulikovo Polye, which has
an equal
significance for Russia with Tours and Poitiers for western Europe (and
in
reverse, Kossovo for the Balkans nine years later): for the Tartars
were beaten
and scattered. “At that same time the blessed Sergius with his brethren
was praying
to God for victory. And within an hour of the overthrow of the heathen
he had
announced to the community what had happened—for he was a seer.”
Thus did Sergius of
Radonezh have a decisive part in beginning the break-down of Tartar
power in
Russia. But he was not then allowed to remain in his monastery in
peace, for
his services were required for both political and ecclesiastical
missions the
one particularly to help on peace and concord amid the rivalries of the
Russian
princes, the other particularly in connection with other monastic
foundations
to which his own community gave rise in one way or another. And it is
recorded
of all these journeyings that he made them on foot.
His biographer
speaks in general terms of Sergius’s “many incomprehensible miracles”
but
particularizes only a few marvels in the course of his narrative,
emphasizing
that the saint commanded reticence about these things. But he gives a
clear and
convincing account of a vision of the all-holy Mother of God (one of
the
earliest recorded in Russian hagiography), when with the apostles Peter
and
John she appeared to Sergius and another monk and assured him of the
flourishing future that was before his monastery. The objectiveness of
this
vision is characteristic of Russian hagiology: we hear rarely of
rapts and
ecstasies but rather of the Holy Spirit enabling people to see
realities,
whether earthly or heavenly, hidden from the eyes of those less holy.
Six months before
his death St Sergius saw his approaching end. He resigned his office,
appointed
a successor, and was then taken ill for the first time in his life. “As
his
soul was about to leave his body, he received the sacred Body and
Blood,
supported in the arms of his disciples; and, raising his hands to
Heaven with a
prayer on his lips, he gave up his pure and holy spirit to the Lord, in
the
year 1392, September 25, probably at the age of seventy-eight.”
In the words of Dr
Zernov, “It is difficult to define exactly what made people crowd round
St
Sergius. He was neither an eloquent preacher nor a man of great
learning, and
although there were several cases when people were cured by his prayers
yet he
could not be described as a popular healer. It was primarily the
quality of his
personality which attracted everybody to him. It was the warmth of his
loving
attention which made him so indispensable to others. He possessed those
gifts
which they lacked, he had the confidence in God and trust in men which
the
world around him was seeking in vain, and without which it could not
find rest.”
Like so many monks
in Christian history from the earliest to the latest times, St Sergius
looked
on direct active service for others as part of his monastic vocation.
And so
he, like then, was sought out by high and low as a healer of soul and
body, a
friend of those who suffer, as one who fed the hungry, defended the
unprotected, and counselled the wavering. The emphasis of these
northern monks
was laid particularly on poverty, both personal and corporate, and
solitude, so
far as a communal life and the requirements of brotherly charity would
allow.
Sergius urged them
“to keep before their eyes the example of those great light-bearers the
monks
of Christian antiquity, who while still in this world lived like the
angels:
such men as Antony, Euthymius, Sabas. Plain men and monarchs came to
them; they
healed disease and helped the suffering; they fed the needy and were
the
widows’ and orphans’ treasure-house.”
The body of St
Sergius was enshrined in the principal church of his monastery, where
it
remained until the revolution of 1917. The monastery was then forcibly
closed
by the bolshevists, and the saint’s relics deposited in the local
“antireligious museum”. In 1945 permission was given to the authorities
of the
Russian Orthodox Church to reopen the monastery, and the relics were
restored.
The Russians mention St Sergius of Radonezh in the preparation of the
holy
things at the Eucharistic Liturgy.
There
is a large
manuscript literature of Russian saints’ lives, of which the medieval
ones
belong to three distinct areas. Those of Kiev
and the Ukraine are the earliest, and are concerned particularly
with the
“holy princes” and the “holy monks”. The monastery of the Caves at Kiev
led in
this work, and there was produced the first paterik, that
is, a collection of short lives of saints concerned with
one
particular district or monastery. But there are extant only two
detailed lives
of pre-Mongol saints, viz, of St
Theodosius and of St Abraham of Smolensk. After the Tartar conquest a
new
hagiographical “school” developed in the North, with
its centres at Novgorod and further north. Its accounts
are
distinguished by their shortness and austerity of manner, often
containing no
more than is said in the proper office “hymn”. The third, Central,
school grew up around Moscow
One of the foremost Russian saints and mystics. Born to a noble family
near Rostov, he was christened Bartholomew. At
the age of fifteen, he fled with his family to Radonezh, near Moscow,
to escape a campaign against Rostov by the rulers of Moscow. As their
wealth was all but wiped out, the family became peasant farmers until
1335 when, after the death of his parents, he and his brother Stephen
became hermits at Makovka. Stephen left to become a monk, and Sergius
received a tonsure (received into the clerical order by the
shearing of his hair and the investment with the surplice)
from
a local abbot.
Increasingly well-known as a profoundly spiritual figure in the Russian
wilderness, he attracted followers and eventually organized them into a
community that became the famed Holy Trinity Monastery. He
was ordained at Pereyaslav Zalesky.
Serving as abbot, he thus restored the great monastic tradition which
had been destroyed some time before during the Mongol invasions of
Russia.
Sergius was soon joined by Stephen, who opposed his stern
cenobitical because he gathered together the ascetic monks, who
had been living in their own separate cells, under one roof. Each of
these ascetics became a cenobite. A cenobite is therefore the opposite
of a hermit (eremite). That caused Sergius to leave the community and
to become a hermit again. As his departure brought swift decline to the
monastery, Sergius was asked to return by none other than Alexis,
metropolitan of Moscow. As he was respected by virtually every segment
of society, Sergius was consulted by Prince flirnitry Donskoi of Moscow
encouraging the ruler to embark upon the campaign against the Mongols
which culminated in the triumphant Battle of Kulikovo (1380), thus
breaking the Mongol domination of Russia, Sergius sought to build upon
this victory by promoting peace among the ever-feuding Russian princes
and building monasteries; in all he founded around forty monastic
communities. In 1378 he declined the office of Metropolitan, resigning
his abbacy in 1392 and dying six months later on September 25,
Canonized in 1449, he is venerated as the fore-most saint in Russian
history.
|
1392
ST. SERGIUS confidence in God desire to help everybody
This famous Russian saint lived in the fourteenth century. He was given
the name of Bartholomew when he was baptized. He was not as bright as
his two brothers, but he did learn to read and write. This made him
very happy because he greatly desired to read the Bible. Bartholomew's
parents were nobles. While he was still a boy, the family had to flee
from enemies. They had to go to work as peasants. After his parents
died, Sergius and his brother Stephen went off to live as hermits. They
built a little church from trees they had cut down. The church was
dedicated to the Most Holy Trinity.
When his brother went to Moscow to enter a monastery, Bartholomew lived
alone. He wore the habit of a monk and took the name Sergius. He was a
tall, husky young man. He was strong enough to stand the biting cold
and fierce winds of his forest home. He was happy praying to God and
loving him with all his heart. He called fire and light his companions,
and even made friends with bears.
Before too long, other young men came to share St. Sergius's holy life.
They asked him to be their abbot and he did. He was ordained a priest
and ruled his monastery very wisely. Once when some of the monks
together with his own brother Stephen-who had come back-disagreed with
Sergius, he went away so as to keep peace. Four years later, he was
asked to return. The monks were so happy to see him that they kissed
his hands, his feet and even his robe. Powerful rulers often went to
ask St. Sergius for advice. He became so famous that he was asked to
become bishop of the greatest Russian diocese. But he was too humble to
accept. The prince of Moscow was not sure if he should try to fight the
terrible pagan Tartars. St. Sergius said, "Do not fear, sir. Go forward
with faith against the foe. God will be with you." And the Russians
were victorious.
It was not great learning that made people trust and love St. Sergius.
It was his confidence in God and his desire to help everybody. St.
Sergius died in 1392.
|
 1523-1534 Clement VII (GIULIO DE’ MEDICI).
Born 1478; died 25
September, 1534. Giulio de' Medici was born a
few months after the death of his father, Giuliano, who was slain at
Florence in the disturbances which followed the Pazzi conspiracy.
Although his parents had not been properly married, they had, it was
alleged, been betrothed per sponsalia de presenti, and Giulio, in
virtue of a well-known principle of canon law, was subsequently
declared legitimate. The youth was educated by his uncle, Lorenzo the
Magnificent. He was made a Knight of Rhodes and Grand Prior of Capua,
and, upon the election of his cousin Giovanni de' Medici to the papacy
as Leo X, he at once became a person of great consequence. On 28
September, 1513, he was made cardinal, and he had the credit of being
the prime mover of the papal policy during the whole of Leo's
pontificate. He was one of the most favoured candidates in the
protracted conclave which resulted in the election of Adrian VI;
neither did the Cardinal de' Medici, in spite of his close connection
with the luxurious regime of Leo X, altogether lose influence under his
austere successor. Giulio, in the words of a modern historian, was
"learned, clever, respectable and industrious, though he had little
enterprise and less decision" (Armstrong, Charles V, I, 166). After
Adrian's death (14 September, 1523) the Cardinal de' Medici was
eventually chosen pope, 18 November, 1523, and his election was hailed
at Rome with enthusiastic rejoicing. But the temper of the Roman people
was only one element in the complex problem which Clement VII had to
face. The whole political and religious situation was one of extreme
delicacy, and it may be doubted if there was one man in ten thousand
who would have succeeded by natural tact and human prudence in guiding
the Bark of Peter through such tempestuous waters. Clement was
certainly not such a man. He had unfortunately been brought up in all
the bad traditions of Italian diplomacy, and over and above this a
certain fatal irresolution of character seemed to impel him, when any
decision had been arrived at, to hark back upon the course agreed on
and to try to make terms with the other side.
The early years of his pontificate were occupied with
the
negotiations which culminated in the League of Cognac. When Clement was
crowned, Francis I and the Emperor Charles V were at war. Charles had
supported Clement's candidature and hoped much from his friendship with
the Medici, but barely a year had elapsed after his election before the
new pope concluded a secret treaty with France. The pitched battle
which was fought between Francis and the imperial commanders at Pavia
in February, 1525, ending in the defeat and captivity of the French
king, put into Charles' hands the means of avenging himself. Still he
used his victory with moderation. The terms of the Treaty of Madrid (14
January, 1526) were not really extravagant, but Francis seems to have
signed with the deliberate intention of breaking his promises, though
confirmed by the most solemn of oaths. That Clement, instead of
accepting Charles' overtures, should have made himself a party to the
French king's perfidy and should have organized a league with France,
Venice, and Florence, signed at Cognac, 22 May, 1526, must certainly
have been regarded by the emperor as almost unpardonable provocation.
No doubt Clement was moved by genuine patriotism in his distrust of
imperial influence in Italy and especially by anxiety for his native
Florence. Moreover, he chafed under dictation which seemed to him to
threaten the freedom of the Church. But though he probably feared that
the bonds might be drawn tighter, it is hard to see that he had at that
time any serious ground of complaint. We cannot be much surprised at
what followed. Charles' envoys, obtaining no satisfaction from the
pope, allied themselves with the disaffected Colonna who had been
raiding the papal territory. These last peretended reconciliation until
the papal commanders were lulled into a sense of security. Then the
Colonna made a sudden attack upon Rome and shut up Clement in the
Castle of Sant’ Angelo while their followers plundered the Vatican (20
September, 1526). Charles disavowed the action of the Colonna but took
advantage of the situation created by their success. A period of
vacillation followed. At one time Clement concluded a truce with the
emperor, at another he turned again despairingly to the League, at
another, under the encouragement of a slight success, he broke off
negotiations with the imperial representatives and resumed active
hostilities, and then again, still later, he signed a truce with
Charles for eight months, promising the immediate payment of an
indemnity of 60,000 ducats.
In the mean time the German mercenaries in the north
of Italy were
fast being reduced to the last extremities for lack of provisions and
pay. On hearing of the indemnity of 60,000 ducats they threatened
mutiny, and the imperial commissioners extracted from the pope the
payment of 100,000 ducats instead of the sum first agreed upon. But the
sacrifice was ineffectual. It seems probable that the Landsknechte, a
very large proportion of whom were Lutherans, had really got completely
out of hand, and that they practically forced the Constable Bourbon,
now in supreme command, to lead them against Rome. On the 5th of May
they reached the walls, which, owing to the pope's confidence in the
truce he had concluded, were almost undefended. Clement had barely time
to take refuge in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo, and for eight days the
"Sack of Rome" continued amid horrors almost unexampled in the history
of war. "The Lutherans", says an impartial authority, "rejoiced to burn
and to defile what all the world had adored. Churches were desecrated,
women, even the religious, violated, ambassadors pillaged, cardinals
put to ransom, ecclesiastical dignitaries and ceremonies made a
mockery, and the soldiers fought among themselves for the spoil"
(Leathes in "Camb. Mod. History", II, 55). It seems probable that
Charles V was really not implicated in the horrors which then took
place. Still he had no objection against the pope bearing the full
consequences of his shifty diplomacy, and he allowed him to remain a
virtual prisoner in the Castle of Sant’ Angelo for more than seven
months. Clement's pliability had already given offence to the other
members of the League, and his appeals were not responded to very
warmly. Besides this, he was sorely in need of the imperial support
both to make head against the Lutherans in Germany and to reinstate the
Medici in the government of Florence from which they had been driven
out. The combined effect of these various considerations and of the
failure of the French attempts upon Naples was to throw Clement into
the emperor's arms. After a sojourn in Orvieto and Viterbo, Clement
returned to Rome, and there, before the end of July, 1529, terms
favourable to the Holy See were definitely arranged with Charles. The
seal was set upon the compact by the meeting of the emperor and the
pope at Bologna, where, on 24 February, 1530, Charles was solemnly
crowned. By whatever motives the pontiff was swayed, this settlement
certainly had the effect of restoring to Italy a much-needed peace.
Meanwhile events, the momentous consequence of which
were not then
fully foreseen, had been taking place in England. Henry VIII, tired of
Queen Catherine, by whom he had no heir to the throne, but only one
surviving daughter, Mary, and passionately enamoured of Anne Boleyn,
had made known to Wolsey in May, 1527, that he wished to be divorced.
He pretended that his conscience was uneasy at the marriage contracted
under papal dispensation with his brother's widow. As his first act was
to solicit from the Holy See contingently upon the granting of the
divorce, a dispensation from the impediment of affinity in the first
degree (an impediment which stood between him and any legal marriage
with Anne on account of his previous carnal intercourse with Anne's
sister Mary), the scruple of conscience cannot have been very sincere.
Moreover, as Queen Catherine solemnly swore that the marriage between
herself and Henry's elder brother Arthur had never been consummated,
there had consequently never been any real affinity between her and
Henry but only the impedimentum publicæ honestatis. The king's
impatience, however, was such that, without giving his full confidence
to Wolsey, he sent his envoy, Knight, at once to Rome to treat with the
pope about getting the marriage annulled. Knight found the pope a
prisoner in Sant’ Angelo and could do little until he visited Clement,
after his escape, at Orvieto. Clement was anxious to gratify Henry, and
he did not make much difficulty about the contingent dispensation from
affinity, judging, no doubt, that, as it would only take effect when
the marriage with Catherine was concelled, it was of no practical
consequence. On being pressed, however, to issue a commission to Wolsey
to try the divorce case, he made a more determined stand, and Cardinal
Pucci, to whom was submitted a draft instrument for the purpose,
declared that such a document would reflect discredit upon all
concerned. A second mission to Rome organized by Wolsey, and consisting
of Gardiner and Foxe, was at first not much more successful. A
commission was indeed granted and taken back to England by Foxe, but it
was safeguarded in ways which rendered it practically innocuous. The
bullying attitude which Gardiner adopted towards the pope seems to have
passed all limits of decency, but Wolsey, fearful of losing the royal
favour, egged him on to new exertions and implored him to obtain at any
cost a "decretal commission". This was an instrument which decided the
points of law beforehand, secure from appeal, and left only the issue
of fact to be determined in England. Against this Clement seems
honestly to have striven, but he at last yielded so far as to issue a
secret commission to Cardinal Wolsey and Cardinal Campeggio jointly to
try the case in England. The commission was to be shown to no one, and
was never to leave Compeggio's hands. We do not know its exact terms;
but if it followed the drafts prepared in England for the purpose, it
pronounced that the Bull of dispensation granted by Julius for the
marriage of Henry with his deceased brother's wife must be declared
obreptitious and consequently void, if the commissioners found that the
motives alleged by Julius were insufficient and contrary to the facts.
For example, it had been pretended that the dispensation was necessary
to cement the friendship between England and Spain, also that the young
Henry himself desired the marriage, etc.
Camapeggio reached England
by
the end of September, 1528, but the proceedings of the legatine court
were at once brought to a standstill by the production of a second
dispensation granted by Pope Julius in the form of a Brief. This had a
double importance. Clement's commission empowered Wolsey and Campeggio
to pronounce upon the sufficiency of the motives alleged in a certain
specified document, viz., the Bull; but the Brief was not contemplated
by, and lay outside, their commission. Moreover, the Brief did not
limit the motives for granting the dispensation to certain specified
allegations, but spoke of "aliis causis animam nostram moventibus". The
production of the Brief, now commonly admitted to be quite authentic,
though the king's party declared it a forgery, arrested the proceedings
of the commission for eight months, and in the end, under pressure from
Charles V, to whom his Aunt Catherine had vehemently appealed for
support as well as to the pope, the cause was revoked to Rome. There
can be no doubt that Clement showed much weakness in the concessions he
had made to the English demands; but it must also be remembered, first,
that in the decision of this point of law, the technical grounds for
treating the dispensation as obreptitious were in themselves serious
and, secondly, that in committing the honour of the Holy See to
Campeggio's keeping, Clement had known that he had to do with a man of
exceptionally high principle.
How far the pope was influenced
by Charles V in his resistance, it is difficult to say; but it is clear
that his own sense of justice disposed him entirely in favour of Queen
Catherine. Henry in consequence shifted his ground, and showed how deep
was the rift which separated him from the Holy See, by now urging that
a marriage with a deceased husband's brother lay beyond the papal
powers of dispensation. Clement retaliated by pronouncing censure
against those who threatened to have the king's divorce suit decided by
an English tribunal, and forbade Henry to proceed to a new marriage
before a decision was given in Rome.
The king on his side (1531) extorted a vast sum
of money from
the English clergy upon the pretext that the penalties of
præmunire had
been incurred by them through their recognition of the papal legate,
and soon afterwards he prevailed upon Parliament to prohibit under
certain conditions the payment of annates to Rome. Other developments
followed. The death of Archbishop Warham (22 August, 1532) allowed
Henry to press for the institution of Cranmer as Archbishop of
Canterbury, and through the intervention of the King of France this was
conceded, the pallium being granted to him by Clement. Almost
immediately after his consecration Cranmer proceeded to pronounce
judgment upon the divorce, while Henry had previously contracted a
secret marriage with Anne Boleyn, which marriage Cranmer, in May, 1533,
declared to be valid. Anne Boleyn was consequently crowned on June the
1st. Meanwhile the Commons had forbidden all appeals to Rome and
exacted the penalties of præmunire against all who introduced
papal
Bulls into England. It was only then that Clement at last took the step
of launching a sentence of excommunication against the king, declaring
at the same time Cranmer's pretended decree of divorce to be invalid
and the marriage with Anne Boleyn null and void. The papal nuncio was
withdrawn from England and diplomatic relations with Rome broken off.
Henry appealed from the pope to a general council, and in January,
1534, the Parliament pressed on further legislation abolishing all
ecclesiastical dependence on Rome. But it was only in March, 1534, that
the papal tribunal finally pronounced its verdict upon the original
issue raised by the king and declared the marriage between Henry and
Catherine to be unquestionably valid. Clement has been much blamed for
this delay and for his various concessions in the matter of the
divorce; indeed he has been accused of losing England to the Catholic
Faith on account of the encouragement thus given to Henry, but it is
extremely doubtful whether a firmer attitude would have had a more
beneficial result. The king was determined to effect his purpose, and
Clement had sufficient principle not to yield the one vital point upon
which all turned.
With regard to Germany, though Clement never broke away from
his
friendship with Charles V, which was cemented by the coronation at
Bologna in 1530, he never lent to the emperor that cordial co-operation
which could alone have coped with a situation the extreme difficulty
and danger of which Clement probably never understood. In particular,
the pope seems to have had a horror of the idea of convoking a general
council, foreseeing, no doubt, grave difficulties with France in any
such attempt. Things were not improved when Henry, through his envoy
Bonner, who found Clement visiting the French king at Marseilles,
lodged his appeal to a future general council on the divorce question.
In the more ecclesiastical aspects of his pontificate
Clement was
free from reproach. Two Franciscan reforms, that of the Capuchins and
that of the Recollects, found in him a sufficiently sympathetic patron.
He was genuinely in earnest over the crusade against the Turks, and he
gave much encouragement to foreign missions. As a patron of art, he was
much hampered by the sack of Rome and the other disastrous events of
his pontificate. But he was keenly interested in such matters, and
according to Benvenuto Cellini he had excellent taste. By the
commission given to the last-named artist for the famous cope-clasp of
which we hear so much in the autobiography, he became the founder of
Benvenuto's fortunes. (See CELLINI, BENVENUTO.) Clement also continued
to be the patron of Raphael and of Michelangelo, whose great fresco of
the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel was undertaken by his orders.
In their verdict upon the character of Pope Clement VII
almost all
historians are agreed. He was an Italian prince, a de’ Medici, and a
diplomat first, and a spiritual ruler afterwards. His intelligence was
of a high order, though his diplomacy was feeble and irresolute. On the
other hand, his private life was free from reproach, and he had many
excellent impulses, but despite good intention, all qualities of
heroism and greatness must emphatically be denied him.
|
1569 Bl.
Mark
Criado Trinitarian martyr
He was born in Andujar, Spain,
in 1522, and joined the Trinitarians in 1536 . Mark was martyred by the
Moors in Almeria. Mark joined the Order of the Holy Trinity and was
later assigned to the apostolate of preaching. He set out for the
provinces of Almeria and Granada, where he zealously proclaimed the
Gospel to the Moors as well as to the Christians. Captured by the
Moors, he died a martyr near the town of La Peza in 1569. Mark
Criado was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 24 July 1899.
|
1622 Bl.
Augustine
Ota native martyr of Japan
Augustine aided the Catholic missions as a catechist and was caught up in the
persecution. Imprisoned at Iki, Augustine was received into the Jesuits
before his death by beheading. His beatification was declared in 1867.
|
1622 Bl.
Mancius
Shisisoiemon Martyr native Japan
He was an Augustinian tertiary, native born.Mancius was beheaded at
Nagasaki, Japan. He was beatified in 1867.
|
1824 St.
Vincent
Strambi Passionist after attending a retreat given by St. Paul of the
Cross; became a professor of theology, was made provincial in
1781, and in 1801, was appointed bishop of Macera and Tolentino. He was
expelled from his See when he refused to take an oath of alliance to
Napoleon in 1808,
Vincent Strambi was the son of a druggist, and was born on January 1 at
Civitavecchia, Italy. He
resisted his parents' wish that he become a diocesan priest, and though
he studied at the diocesan seminary and was ordained in 1767, he joined
the Passionists in 1768 after attending a retreat given by St. Paul of the Cross.
Vincent became a professor of theology, was made
provincial in 1781,
and in 1801, was appointed bishop of Macera and Tolentino. He was
expelled from his See when he refused to take an oath of alliance to
Napoleon in 1808, but returned in 1813 with the downfall of Napoleon.
When Napoleon escaped from Elba, Murat made Macerta his headquarters,
and when his troops were defeated by the Austrians, Vincent dissuaded
him from sacking and destroying the town. He imposed reform in his See
that caused threats to his life, labored for his people during a typhus
epidemic, and resigned his See on the death of Pope Pius VII to become
one of the advisers of his old friend Pope Leo XII in Rome. Vincent
died on January 1, and was canonized by Pope Pius XII in 1950.
|
ABORTION
IS A MORAL
OUTRAGE
10th v. Aurelia
and Neomysia At
Anagni, the holy virgins .
Quote: Pope
Paul
VI’s 1969 
Among the most important titles we have in
the Catholic Church for the Blessed Virgin Mary are Our Lady of Victory
and Our Lady of the Rosary. These titles can be traced back to one of
the most decisive times in the history of the world and Christendom.
The Battle of Lepanto took place on October 7 (date of feast of Our
Lady of Rosary), 1571. This proved to be the most crucial battle for
the Christian forces against the radical Muslim navy of Turkey. Pope
Pius V led a procession around St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City
praying the Rosary. He showed true pastoral leadership in recognizing
the danger posed to Christendom by the radical Muslim forces, and in
using the means necessary to defeat it. Spiritual battles require
spiritual weapons, and this more than anything was a battle that had
its origins in the spiritual order—a true battle between good and evil.