The plenary Indulgence attached to the recitation of the Franciscan Crown,
and applicable to the dead, may be gained as often as the crown is recited.

Franciscan Crown (Or Seraphic Rosary.) by the Catholic Encyclopedia

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DEDICATION OF THE BASILICA OF ST MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL,

A starting—point may be found in the authentic scriptures, for the tenth and twelfth chapters of the Book of Daniel speak of Michael as “one of the chief princes“, the special protector of Israel, and describe how at that time shall Michael rise up, “the great prince who standeth for the children of thy people“ (Dan. xii x). In the Book of Henoch, which is regarded as the most important and influential of all the Old Testament apocrypha, Michael comes before us repeatedly as “the great captain“,“ the chief captain“, he “is set over the best part of mankind“, i.e. over the chosen race who are the inheritors of the promises.

In New Testament times it is written in the Apocalypse of St John (xii 7—9) “there was a great battle in Heaven. Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels; and they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in Heaven.  And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent who is called the Devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world: and he was cast unto the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.”

The Shepherd of Hermas was treated by some of the early fathers as if it formed part of the canon of scripture, but it hardly seems to have been so widely popular as a very extravagant apocryphal writing of Jewish origin known as the Testament of Abraham, which is probably not very much later in date. In this the archangel Michael throughout plays almost the leading part. His difficult task is to reconcile Abraham to the necessity of death. Michael is presented to the reader as God’s commander-in-chief, the organizer of all the divine relations with earth, one whose intervention is so powerful with God that at his word souls can be rescued even from Hell itself. We have, for example, passages like the following

And Abraham said to the chief-captain [i.e. St Michael, “I beseech thee, archangel, hearken to my prayer, and let us call upon the Lord and supplicate His compassion and entreat His mercy for the souls of the sinners whom I formerly in my anger cursed and destroyed, whom the earth swallowed up and the wild beasts tore in pieces and the fire consumed through my words. Now I know that I have sinned before the Lord our God. Come then, Michael, chief captain of the hosts above, come let us call upon God with tears, that He may forgive my sins and grant them to me.” And the chief captain heard him and they made entreaty before the Lord, and when they had called upon Him for a long space there came a voice from Heaven, saying: Abra­ham, Abraham, I have hearkened to thy voice and to thy prayer, and I forgive thee thy sin, and those whom thou thinkest that I destroyed I have called up and brought them into life by my exceeding kindness, because for a season I have requited them in judgment and those whom I destroy living upon earth I will not requite in death.”

Whether this and similar apocrypha were based on Jewish traditions or not there can be no doubt that they were read by Christians. In most of them there is nothing so glaringly unorthodox as to stamp them as attacks upon the Christian faith. What is more, the thinly disguised fictional element, which is predominant in most of the hagiographical literature even of the early centuries, must infallibly have dulled the critical sense of the great majority of readers, however piously inclined. To this we may safely attribute the fact that these apocryphal writings were very widely circulated and that we find echoes of them even in a canonical epistle like that of St Jude and still more in several of the early Greek fathers. The liturgy itself was imperceptibly coloured by them. A most conspicuous example is the still existing offertory chant in Masses for the dead

Lord Jesus Christ, king of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of Hell and from the deep pit deliver them from the mouth of the lion that Hell may not swallow them up and that they may not fall into darkness, but may the standard-hearer Michael conduct them into the holy light, which thou didst promise of old to Abraham and his seed. We offer to thee, Lord, sacrifices and prayers; do thou receive them in behalf of those souls whom we commemorate this day. Grant them, Lord, to pass from death to that life which thou didst promise of old to Abraham and to his seed

There are many reminiscences here of the type of apocryphal literature which has just been spoken of. The association of St Michael with Abraham is full of significance for anyone who is acquainted with the so-called Testament of Abraham. To enter into details would here be out of place, but it must suffice to point out that from the prominence thus given to St Michael, further developments followed very naturally, as has been pointed out herein under the Appearing of St Michael, on May 8.

Today’s festival has been kept with great solemnity at the end of September ever since the sixth century at least. The Roman Martyrology implies that the dedication of the famous church of St Michael on Mount Gargano gave occasion to the institution of this feast in the West, but it would appear that it really cele­brates the dedication of a basilica in honour of St Michael on the Salarian Way six miles north of Rome. In the East, where he was regarded as having care of the sick (rather than, as today, captain of the heavenly host and protector of soldiers), veneration of this archangel began yet earlier and certain healing waters were named after him, as at Khairotopa and Colossae. Sozomen tells us that Constantine the Great built a church in his honour, called the Michaelion, at Sosthenion, some way from Constantinople, and that in it the sick were often cured and other wonders wrought. Many churches in honour of St Michael stood in the city of Constan­tinople itself, including a famous one at the Baths of Arcadius, whose dedication gave the Byzantines their feast of November 8.

Though only St Michael he mentioned in the title of this festival, it appears from the prayers of the Mass that all the good angels are its object, together with this glorious tutelary angel of the Church. On it we are called upon in a particular manner to give thanks to God for the glory which the angels enjoy and to rejoice in their happiness to thank Him for His mercy in constituting such beings to minister to our salvation by aiding us ; to join them in worshipping and praising God, praying that we may do His will as it is done by these blessed spirits in Heaven and lastly, we are invited to honour them and implore their intercession and succour.

ALTHOUGH these maidens, apparently the protomartyrs of the Armenian church, are mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on this date as suffering under King Tiridates, nothing at all is known of their history or the circumstances of their passion. They are referred to in the legend of St Gregory the Enlightener, and may have been put to death during the persecution which preceded the baptism of Tiridates and his family by Gregory, but more likely later their acta is a romance of the most barefaced kind.

These legends tell us that Rhipsime (Hrip’sime) was a maiden of noble birth, one of a community of consecrated virgins at Rome presided over by Gaiana. The Emperor Diocletian, having made up his mind to marry, sent a painter around Rome to paint the portraits of all those ladies who seemed to him eligible, and he did his work with such thoroughness that he penetrated into the house of Gaiana and made likenesses of some of her Christian maidens. When Diocletian examined the portraits his choice fell on Rhipsime, and she was informed of the honour that had befallen her. It was not at all to her liking, and Gaiana was so afraid of what the emperor might do that she summoned her charges at once from Rome, went aboard ship, and proceeded to Alexandria. From thence they made their way through the Holy Land to Armenia, where they settled down at the royal capital, Varlarshapat, and earned their living by weaving. The great beauty of Rhipsime soon attracted attention, but the noise of it apparently reached back to Rome before it came to the ears of King Tiridates, for Diocletian wrote asking him to kill Gaiana and send Rhipsime back—unless he would like to keep her for himself. Tiridates thereupon sent a deputation to fetch her to his palace with great magnificence, but when it arrived at the convent Rhipsime prayed for deliverance, and so fierce a thunderstorm at once broke out that the horses of the courtiers and their riders were scattered in confusion. When Tiridates heard this and that the girl refused to come he ordered her to be brought by force, and when she was led into his presence he was so attracted by her beauty that he at once tried to embrace her. Rhipsime not only resisted but threw the king ignominiously to the floor, so that in a rage he ordered her to prison. But she escaped and returned to her companions during the night.

At morning when they found her gone the king sent soldiers after her with orders that she was to die, and all the other maidens with her. St Rhipsime was roasted alive and torn limb from limb, and St Gaiana and the others to the number of thirty-five likewise were brutally slain. St Mariamne was dragged to death from a bed of sickness, hut one, St Nino, escaped and became the apostle of Georgia in the Caucasus. This massacre took place on October 5, on which date the martyrs are named in the Armenian menology. A week later retribution overtook the brutal Tiridates who, as he was setting out to hunt, was turned into a wild boar. He was brought back to nature by St Gregory the Enlightener, who had been confined in a pit for fifteen years. These martyrs figured in the fabulous vision of St Gregory at Etshmiadzin, and around the great church there are three smaller churches on the alleged site of the martyrdom of St Rhipsime, of St Gaiana and of the others.

Extravagant as the legend is, there can be no question that the cultus of these martyrs meets us at an early date in Armenia, and that it was very widely diffused. We find Rhipsime mentioned in Egypt under the Coptic form Arepsima” (see Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xlv (1927), pp. 157 and 395), as well as in Arabic texts and in the Syriac martyrology of Rabban Sliba. From the testimony of the Armenian historians Faustus and Lazarus, it seems safe to state that the martyrs were venerated before the middle of the fifth century. See Tournebize, Histoire politique et religieuse d’Armenie, pp. 452 seq. and passim. One Greek version of their “acts”, attributed to Agathangelus, is printed in the Acta Sanctorum, September, vol. viii, associated with those of St Gregory on September 30 all students of his legend agree that the Rhipsime part of it is pure fable. Cf. also S. Weber, Die katho­lische Kirche in Armenien (1903), p. 117, etc., and the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lx (1942), pp. 102-114. In the opinion of Fr Paul Peeters “It would perhaps be going too far to deny the existence of these martyrs…”

THE authority for the attribution of the title Blessed to Richard Rolle is no more than that given by a considerable popular cultus in the past, which has never yet been confirmed by the competent authority. After his death the honour in which he was held and the miracles reported at his tomb caused preparations for his canonization to he made, but the cause was never prosecuted. The Breviary of the Church of York had an office prepared for his feast, to which this warning was attached “The Office of Saint Richard, hermit, after he shall be canonized by the Church, because in the meantime it is not allowed to sing the canonical hours de eo in public, nor to solemnize his feast.” Nevertheless, having evidence of the extreme sanctity of his life, we may venerate him and in our private devotions seek his intercession, and commend ourselves to his prayers.” The Matins lessons of this office are the principal source for the life of Richard, in whom more interest has been taken in recent years than in-any other English uncanonized saint on account of the unique position which he holds among English mystical writers.

Richard was born about the year 1300 at Thornton in Yorkshire, traditionally identified as Thornton-le-Dale in the North Riding. With the help of Master Thomas Neville, afterwards archdeacon of Durham, his parents sent him to Oxford, which he left in his nineteenth year. The officium tells us that he went home, begged two of his sister’s gowns, and made out of them so well as he was able a habit which roughly resembled that of a hermit. His sister thought he was mad and told him so, and he fled away lest his friends should prevent him, for he was acting without his father’s knowledge and against his wish. On the vigil of our Lady’s Assumption he turned up in the church of a neighbouring parish (Top­cliffe?) at Vespers, and knelt down at the bench reserved to the squire, John of Dalton. He was recognized by the squire’s sons, who had been with him at Oxford. Next day he was in church again and, vested in a surplice, assisted at the singing of Matins and Mass. After the gospel he came and asked the celebrant’s blessing, and went into the pulpit and “gave the people a sermon of wonderful edification, in so much that the crowd that heard it was moved to tears, and they all said that they had never before heard a sermon of such virtue and power.”

After Mass John of Dalton asked Richard to dinner, and when he had convinced himself of the youth’s good faith and honesty of purpose he offered him a suitable place to live in and gave him proper clothes, food and all else that he required.

“Then be began with all diligence by day and night to seek how to perfect his life and to take every opportunity to advance in contemplation and to be fervent in divine love.’’

    On the face of it there are certain features in this narrative appropriate to a more primitive age of Christianity than England in the fourteenth century, and there is reason to think that the author of the officium has somewhat “telescoped events”, with the usual object of making his story more edifying to the faithful. In his own works Richard Rolle refers to his youth as having been unclean and sinful, which, even after allowing for the self-depreciation of holiness, does not accord with the tone of the officium.

Therefore when his sudden appearance in a Yorkshire parish church and subsequent events took place he was not a youth fresh from Oxford but an experi­enced man of twenty-seven or twenty-eight not, as is usually supposed, a relatively unlearned layman, but perhaps a priest, even a doctor of theology. “He was first a Doctor, and then leaving the world became an Eremite”, wrote the priest John Wilson, who published an English martyrology in 1608. For some years Richard continued his eremitical life on the Daltons’ estate. Writers on mysticism have described from his own writings his progress in contemplation, and brought it into accord with the now classical scheme of the purgative, illuminative and unitive ways, though the terms which he uses, dulcor, canor and calor or fervor do not correspond with these stages. The last is undoubtedly the state of passive contemplation or mystical union where, as he says, the soul “ascends not into another degree, but as it were confirmed in grace, so far as mortal can be, she rests”. “I did not think anything like it or anything so holy could be received in this life.” But Richard claims no direct revelations or visions such as are apparently granted to so many of the mystics, and his spiritual experiences were, so far as we know, unaccompanied by any unusual physical phenomena. His seeing the Devil in a certain woman who tempted him seems to be a figure of speech, as perhaps were the demons who left the death-bed of Dame Dalton only to infest his own cell.

Some think that Richard Rolle’s best-known work, Incendium amoris, was written here, the book in which “I here stir all manner of folk to love, and am busy to show the hottest and supernatural desire of love”. But it is more likely that he was now writing only, or mostly, in English. He had already translated and commented on the psalms for Margaret Kirkby (a chained copy was kept at Hampole Priory) and written a little book in English for a Benedictine nun at Yedingham, and he now wrote for one of the Hampole nuns the Commandment of Love to God, a fruit of the experience of middle age and one of the most moving of all his works. Any further details of his life we do not know, but it is abundantly clear from his own writings that he had reached those heights of contemplation and joyful resignation to God’s will that are hardly attainable without an exercise of virtue not less than heroic. “As death slays all living things in this world, so perfect love slays in a man’s soul all earthly desires and covetousness. And as Hell spares nought to dead men but torments all that come thereto, so a man that is in this degree of love not only forsakes the wretched solace of this life but also he desires to suffer pains for God’s love.”

Richard Rolle died at Hampole on September 29, 1349; the circumstances are not known but it is extremely likely that he was a victim of the Black Death which raged in Yorkshire in that year. The sort of man Richard was, as seen in his written works, is no less attractive than the works themselves he was the opposite of all those qualities which ignorance and prejudice attribute to those who choose to be hermits and seek God alone rather than in company. “The holy lover of God shows himself neither too merry nor full heavy in this habitation of exile, but he has cheerfulness with maturity. Some, indeed, reprove laughter and some praise it. Laughter therefore which is from lightness and vanity of mind is to be reproved, but that truly which is of gladness of conscience and spiritual mirth is to be praised; the which is only in the righteous, and it is called mirth in the love of God. Wherefore if we be glad and merry the wicked call us wanton; and if we he heavy, hypocrites.”

Miss Hope Emily Allen has of all other investigators rendered the greatest service to students in her books, Writings ascribed to Richard Rolle and Materials for his Biography (1927) and his English Writings (1931). See also F. Comper, Life and Lyrics of Richard Rolle (1928) R. M. Woolley, Richard Rolle of Hampole (1919); C. Horstman, English Works of Richard Rolle, 2 vols. (1896)—an uncritical compilation M. Deanesly, the Incendiun, amoris (1926); G.C.Heseltine, Selected Works of Richard Rolle (1930); and a French translation of sundry works by Dom Noetinger, in his Mystiques anglais (1928). See too an article by this last writer in the Month, January 1926, pp. 22 seq

He was housed in the Tower and a huge sum of money was asked for his ransom, so that it was nine years before Charles regained his liberty. Like many prisoners in the Tower before and since his time, he sanctified his confinement by patience and prayer and earned the ungrudging admiration of his gaolers. He pursued his struggle for the defence of his duchy another nine years, with varying fortunes but with ever growing respect and admiration from his people. At one time it was even thought that the pilgrimage of Bonne Nouvelle at Rennes commemorated one of the battles, but this has been shown not to be so. The last engagement took place at Auray on September 29, 1364, a battle in which the English forces were commanded by Sir John Chandos, and Bertrand du Guesclin was taken prisoner. Charles, the man who would always rather have been a Franciscan friar than a prince, was killed on the field. Numerous and remarkable miracles were reported at his tomb at Guingamp, and there was a strong movement for his canonization in spite of the opposition of John IV de Montfort, whose cause in Brittany might suffer were his late rival to be canonized. Pope Gregory XI seems in fact to have decreed it, but in the turmoil of his departure from Avignon in 1376 the bull was never drawn up. The people nevertheless continued to venerate Bd Charles, his feast was celebrated in some places, and finally in 1904 this ancient cultus was confirmed by St Pius X.