September 2008 Archives

It is good to recall the prophetic prayer of Pope Leo XIII to St. Michael the Archangel on the feast of St. Michael, Sept. 29. The prayer says, "In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, [these most crafty enemies] have raised the throne of their abominable impiety." Is it a coincidence that, after Pope Paul VI discarded the Prayer to St. Michael after Low Mass, he soon afterward noted that the "smoke of Satan" had entered the Church? Advice to the wise: avoid all novelty as if your eternal salvation depended on it, for it does. St. Michael, Pray for Us!

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O glorious Archangel Saint Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil.

Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in His own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil.

(About 303 AD) SAINTS COSMAS and DAMIAN were brothers, and born in Arabia, but studied the sciences in Syria, and became eminent for their skill in physic. Being Christians, and full of that holy temper of charity in which the spirit of our divine religion consists, they practised their profession with great application and wonderful success; but never took any gratification or fee; on which account they are styled by the Greeks .Anargyri, that is, without fees, because they took no money. They lived at Aegae, in Cilicia, and were remarkable both for the love and respect which the people bore them on account of the good offices which they received from their charity, and for their zeal for the Christian faith, which they took every opportunity their profession gave them to propagate. When the persecution of Dioclesian began to rage, it was impossible for persons of so distinguished a character to lie concealed. They were therefore apprehended by the order of Lysias, governor of Cilicia, and, after various torments, were beheaded for the faith. Their bodies were carried into Syria, and buried at Cyrus. Theodoret, who was bishop of that city in the 5th century, mentions that their relics were then deposited in a church there, which bore their names. He calls them two illustrious champions, and valiant combatants for the faith of Jesus Christ. The emperor Justinian, who began his reign in 527, out of a religious regard for the treasure of these precious relics, enlarged, embellished, and strongly fortified this city of Cyrus; and finding a ruinous church at Constantinople, built in honor of these martyrs, as is said, in the reign of Theodosius the Younger (who died in the middle of the fifth age), raised a stately edifice in its room, as a monument of his gratitude for the recovery of his health in a dangerous fit of sickness, through their intercession, as Procopius relates. To express his particular devotion to these saints, he built also another church under their names at Constantinople. Marcellinus, in his chronicle, and St. Gregory of Tours, relate several miracles performed by their intercession. Their relics were conveyed to Rome, where the holy pope St. Felix, great-grandfather to St. Gregory the Great, built a church to their honor, in which these relics are kept with veneration to this day.

These saints regarded it as a great happiness, that their profession offered them perpetual opportunities of affording comfort and relief to the most distressed part of their fellow-creatures. By exerting our charity. toward all in acts of benevolence and beneficence, according to our abilities ; and in treating enemies and persecutors with meekness and good offices, we are to approve ourselves followers of Christ, animated with his spirit. Thus we shall approach nearest in resemblance to our divine original, and show ourselves children of our heavenly Father, who bears with the most grievous sinners, inviting them to repentance and pardon, and showering down his mercies and benefits upon them. He only then arms himself with his justice against them when they by willful malice forfeit his grace, and obstinately disappoint his gracious love and kindness. His very nature is boundless goodness, and continual emanations of mercy descend from him upon his creatures. All the scattered perfections and blessings which are found in them, come from this source. In the imitation of the divine goodness, according to our abilities, at least in the temper of our mind, consists that Christian perfection, which, when founded in the motive of true charity, is the accomplishment of the law. Men engaged in professions instituted for the service of their neighbor, may sanctify their labor or industry, if actuated by the motive of charity towards others, even whilst they also have in view the justice which they owe to themselves and their family, of procuring an honest and necessary subsistence, which is itself often a strict obligation and no less noble a virtue, if it be founded in motives equally pure and perfect.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

These were glorious Saints who followed Christ on the Cross, so that not all the poor natives would be lost.

The Collect from the Mass of September 26:

O God, Who didst consecrate the first-fruits of the faith in the northern regions of America by the preaching and blood of Thy blessed Martyrs Isaac, John, and their Companions: vouchsafe unto us, we beseech Thee, that through their intercession the fruitful harvest of Christians may everywhere daily receive an increase. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, Forever and ever. Amen.

The eight North American Martyrs (1642-1649) were six priests and two lay brothers. They were heroic members of the Society of Jesus who were martyred in North America to bring the Faith that is necessary for salvation to the Huron, the Iroquois and the Mohawk Indians. Five of the eight North American martyrs were put to death in what is now Canada, and three of them in New York State. There is a shrine to the United States' martyrs at Auriesville in New York. There is a shrine to the Canadian martyrs at Fort Saint Mary near Midland, Ontario. They are Saint Rene Goupil, a lay brother martyred in 1642 in New York State; Saint Isaac Jogues, a priest, and Saint John de Lalande, a lay brother, martyred in 1646 in New York State; Saint Anthony Daniel, a priest, martyred in Canada in 1648; Saint John de Brebeuf, Saint Charles Garnier, Saint Noel Chabanel and Saint Gabriel Lalemant, all priests, and all martyred in Canada in 1649.

Saint Isaac Jogues, after thirteen months' imprisonment by the Mohawks, had several fingers cut off his hand. He went back to Europe, but returned again to North America and was killed by tomahawk blows at Ossernenon, now called Auriesville, in New York State. Saint John de Brebeuf declared before he died, "I have a strong desire to suffer for Jesus Christ." He was tortured terribly, and a burning torch was put into his mouth, which strangled him. Saint René Goupil said, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!" as he died.

Some interesting pictures of the renovations from the blog Commentarii Mei. This Church looks like it will be glorious and a perfect setting for the Traditional Latin Mass.

And we received this note in the combox:

Dear friends of the Latin Mass, On Nov 6th 2008, our chaplain, Father Devillers, FSSP. will be in Quincy, Illinois, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois at the Shrine of St. Rose of Lima. if you are in the area (western tip of Illinois) our phone number is 217-222-2511. The first mass will be the following weekend.
Pax Vobiscum
Paul K. Geers
president of the Latin Mass society of Quincy

His Excellency Bishop Frank Dewane announced today that the Diocese of Venice in Florida has purchased a church for the exclusive use of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. This will be the first church to be dedicated exclusively for the Latin Mass in Florida. The church is situated on close to three acres of property and is located at 1900 Meadowood Street, Sarasota. The property previously belonged to Holy Trinity Anglican Church. Significant renovation will be necessary before doors can be opened, including a new roof, renovating the sanctuary and making the nave of the church larger. However it is hoped that the new church will be opened in the near future. Juridically, the building will be erected as a chapel, and at a future date it will be raised to the status of a parish. There will be an open house this coming Saturday afternoon (September 27th, 2008). All are welcome, bring friends!

Reported by Rorate Caeli

ST. THECLA, whose name has always been most famous in the church, and who is styled by St. Isidore of Pelusium and all the Greeks the protomartyr of her sex, was one of the brightest ornaments of the apostolic age. She was a native of Isauria or Lycaonia. St. Methodius, in his Banquet of Virgins, assures us that she was well versed in profane philosophy, and in the various branches of polite literature, and he exceedingly commends her eloquence, and the ease, strength, sweetness, and modesty of her discourse. He says that she received her instructions in divine and evangelical knowledge from St. Paul, and was eminent for her skill in sacred science. The same father extols the vehemence of her love for Christ, which she exerted on many great occasions especially in the conflicts which she sustained with the zeal and courage of a martyr and with a strength of body equal to the vigor of her mind. St. Austin, St. Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, and other fathers mention that St. Paul by his preaching converted he to the faith at Iconium, probably about the year 45, and that his discourses kindled in her breast a vehement love of holy virginity, which state she eagerly embraced, at an age which seemed very tender for so great a resolution. Upon this holy change, she broke off a treaty of marriage, which had been set on foot by her parents, with a rich, comely, and amiable young nobleman, of one of the best families in the country.

St. Gregory of Nyssa says that this blessed virgin undertook the sacrifice of herself, by giving death to the flesh, practising on it great austerities, extinguishing in herself all earthly affections, and subduing her passions by a life dead to the senses, so that nothing seemed to remain living in her but reason and spirit; the whole world seemed dead to her, as she was to the world. St. Chrysostom, or an author of the same age, whose homily is attributed to that father, lets us know that her parents, perceiving an alteration in her conduct, without being acquainted with the motive upon which she acted, plied her with the strongest arguments, mixed with commands, threats, reprimands, and tender persuasives, to engage her to finish the affair of her marriage to their satisfaction. The young gentleman, her suitor, pressed her with the most endearing flatteries and caresses, her servants entreated her with tears, her friends and neighbors exhorted and conjured her, and the authority and threats of the civil magistrates were employed to bring her to the desired compliance. Thecla, strengthened by the arm of the Almighty, was proof against all manner of assaults ; and regarding these worldly pagan friends as her most dangerous enemies, when she saw herself something more at liberty from the fury of their persecution, she took the first favorable opportunity of escaping out of their hands. and fled to St. Paul to receive from him comfort and advice. She forsook father and mother, and a house abounding in gold and riches where she lived in state and plenty; she left her companions, friends, and country, desiring to possess only the treasure of the love and grace of God, and to find Jesus Christ, who was all things to her.

The young nobleman to whom she was engaged, still felt his heart warm with his passion for the saint, and, instead of over- coming it, thought of nothing but how to gratify it, or to be revenged of her, from whom he pretended he had received a grievous affront. In these dispositions he closely pursued, and at length overtook her, and, as she still refused to marry him. he delivered her into the hands of the magistrates, and urged such articles against her, that she was condemned to be torn in pieces by wild beasts. Nevertheless her resolution was invincible. She was exposed naked in the amphitheatre, but clothed with her innocence; and this ignominy enhanced her glory and her crown. Her heart was undaunted, her holy soul exulted and triumphed with joy in the midst of lions, pards, and tigers ; and she waited with a holy impatience the onset of those furious beasts, whose roarings filled even the spectators with terror. But the lions on a sudden forgetting their natural ferocity and the rage of their hunger, walked gently up to the holy virgin, and laying themselves down at her feet, licked them as if it had been respectfully to kiss them; and, at length, notwithstanding all the keepers could do to excite and provoke them, they meekly retired like lambs, without hurting the servant of Christ. This wonderful circumstance is related and set off with the genuine beauties of unaffected eloquence, by St. Ambrose,’ St. Chrysostom, St. Methodius, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and other fathers.

She was, at another time, by the divine interposition, delivered from the power of fire, and preserved without hurt in the midst of the flames, as St. Gregory Nazianzen, Saint Methodius, and others testify; who add that she was rescued from many other dangers, to which the rage of persecutors exposed her. A very ancient Martyrology, which bears the name of St Jerom, published by Florentinius, mentions that Rome was the place where God extinguished the flames to preserve the life of this holy virgin. She attended St. Paul in several of his apostolical journeys, studying to form her own life upon that excellent model of Christian perfection. She is styled by St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Chrysostom, St. Austin, and others, a virgin and martyr. Her sufferings justly purchased her this latter title, though Bede, in his Mar- tyrology, tells us that she died in peace; which is proved also from other authorities by Papebroke and Tillemont. The latter part of her life she spent in devout retirement in Isauria, the metropolis of that country. Over her tomb in that city a sumptuous church was built under the first Christian emperors, which bore her name, was visited by SS. Marana and Cyra, two female anchorets mentioned by Theodoret, and crowds of pilgrims, and rendered famous by many miracles, as we learn both from Theodoret, St. Gregory Nazianzen, Basil of Seleucia and others. The great cathedral at Milan is dedicated to God in honor of St. Thecla, and has been long possessed of part of her precious remains.

If we desire to please Christ, we must imitate the saints in their love of purity, and in strict chastity according to the circumstances of our state. To obtain this great virtue, we must earnestly beg it of God, praying him to inspire us with his holy fear, to create in us an abhorrence of all sin and dangerous occasions, to cleanse our affections, and to teach us to set the strictest guard upon all our senses, especially upon our eyes, ears, and tongue. Secondly, we must study sincere humility of heart, and live in an entire distrust of ourselves, and fear of dangers. To forget our weakness, or to presume upon our own resolution or strength, is equally foolish, fatal, and criminal. Thirdly, we must shun all occasions which may incite and fire our passions, especially all fond friendships or intimacies between young persons. Even such as are begun in the spirit, without the utmost precautions, will degenerate into a carnal affection. Fourthly, we must be always employed, always eager in some serious exercises which must never leave us one moment idle. Devotions and labor or business must be alternately called in, so that the devil may always find our mind taken up. Fifthly, we must live in the habitual practice of frequently denying our inclinations, and mortifying the senses. If we give our appetites full liberty in things that are not forbid, they will quickly master us, and crave gratifications that are unlawful, with too great violence to be restrained by us. We shall not lose courage at the name of penance and mortification, as many are apt to do, if we look up at our eternal reward, and if we have before our eyes the austerities which the most tender virgins joyfully embraced for the sake of virtue. The habit of self-denial once acquired will raise us above our senses, render us masters of ourselves, make the remaining part of our life easy, and restore us in some measure to the happy state which our first parents enjoyed before their sin. We shall he so much the more perfectly conformed to the image of the Son of God, the more the old man is crucified, and the body of sin is destroyed in us.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

THE emperor Carus, who had impiously assumed the title of a god, being killed by lightning, and his son Numerianus Augustus being cut off by the treachery of his uncle Aper, Dioclesian, a man of low birth, was saluted emperor by the army which he then commanded in the East, on the 17th of September, 284. He defeated and slew Carinus, the second debauched son of Carus, the year following, in Maesia, and after this victory took the haughty name of Jovius from Jupiter, and creating Maximian Caesar, allotted to him the care and defence of the West. The Bagaudae, a people consisting chiefly of peasants in Gaul, who had been attached to the interest of Carinus, took up arms to revenge his death, under two commanders, Amandus and .Aelian. Dioclesian ordered Maximian to march against them, and on that occasion declared him Augustus and partner in the empire; and this new emperor assumed the surname of Herculeus, from the god Hercules. In this expedition the most judicious historians place the martyrdom of the Thebean legion. It seems to have received its name from being raised in Thebais or Upper Egypt, a country full of zealous Christians. This legion was entirely composed of such; and St. Maurice, who seems to have been the first commanding officer that was then with it, might make it a point to admit no others among them.

Dioclesian, in the beginning of his reign, was no enemy to the Christian religion, and employed many who openly professed it, near his own person, and in posts of trust and importance, as Eusebius assures us. Yet even private governors, and the giddy populace were at liberty to indulge the blindest passion and fury against the servants of Christ; and Maximian, on certain extraordinary occasions, stained his progresses with the blood of many martyrs. The Thebean legion was one of those which were sent by Dioclesian out of the East to compose his army for his expedition into Gaul. Maximian in crossing the Alps made a halt with his army some days, that the soldiers might repose themselves in their tedious march, while some detachments filed off towards Triers. They were then arrived at Octodurum, at that time a considerable city on the Rhone, above the lake of Geneva, now a village called Martignac or Martigni in the Valais. Its episcopal see seems to have been transferred to Sion in the sixth century. Here Maximian issued out an order that the whole army should join in offering sacrifice to the gods for the success of their expedition. The Thebean legion hereupon withdrew itself, and encamped near Agaunum, now called St. Maurice, three leagues from Octodurum. The emperor sent them repeated orders to return to the camp, and join in the sacrifices; and, upon their constant and unanimous refusal, he commanded them to he decimated. Thus every tenth man was put to death, according as the lot fell; the rest exhorting one another all the while to perseverance. After the first decimation, a second was commanded, unless the soldiers obeyed the orders given ; but they cried out over their whole camp, that they would rather suffer all extremities than do any thing contrary to their holy religion. They were principally encouraged by three of their general officers, Maurice or Mauricius, Exuperius, and Candidus. St. Eucherius does not style St. Mauricius tribune, but Primicerius, which was the dignity of the first captain, next to that of the tribune or colonel. He calls Exuperius campiductor or major, and Candidus the senator of the troops.

The emperor sent fresh threats that it was in vain they confided in their multitude; and that if they persisted in their disobedience, not a man among them should escape death. The legion, by the advice of their generous leaders answered him by a dutiful remonstrance, the substance of which was as follows: “We are your soldiers, but are servants of the true God. We owe you military service and obedience; but we cannot renounce him who is our Creator and Master, and also yours, even whilst you reject him. In all things which are not against his law we most willingly obey you, as we have hitherto. We readily oppose all your enemies, whoever they are; but we cannot dip our hands in the blood of innocent persons. We have taken an oath to God before we took one to you; you can place no confidence in our second oath, should we violate the first. You command us to punish the Christians; behold we are all such. We confess God the Father, author of all things, and his Son, Jesus Christ. We have seen our companions slain without lamenting them and we rejoice at their honor. Neither this extremity to which we are reduced, nor any provocation hath tempted us to revolt. We have arms in our hands, but we do not resist, because we had rather die innocent than live by any sin.”

This legion consisted of about six thousand six hundred men, who were all well armed, and might have sold their lives very dear. But they had learned to give to God what is God’s, and to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and they showed their courage more in dying than they had ever done in the most hazardous enterprises. Maximian having no hopes of overcoming their constancy, commanded his whole army to surround them, and cut them to pieces. They made no resistance, dropping their arms, suffered themselves to be butchered like innocent sheep, without opening their mouths, except mutually to encourage one another ; and not one out of so great a number failed in courage to the last. The ground was covered with their dead bodies, and streams of blood flowed on every side. Maximian gave the spoils of the slain to his army for their booty, and the soldiers were making merry over them, when Victor, a veteran soldier, who belonged not to that troop, happened to pass by. They invited him to eat with them, but he, detesting their feast, offered to retire. At this the soldiers inquired if he was also a Christian. He answered that he was, and would always continue one; upon which they instantly fell upon him and slew him. Ursus and Victor, two straggling soldiers of this legion, were found at Solodora, now Soleure, and massacred upon the spot. Their relics are still preserved at Soleure. There suffered at Turin, about the same time, SS. Octavius, Adventitius, and Solutor, who are celebrated by St. Maximus in his sermons, and by Ennodius of Pavia, in his poems. These martyrs were styled by Fortunatus: “The happy legion.” Their festival is mentioned on this day in the Martyrologies of St. Jerom, Bede, and others. St. Eucherius, speaking of their relics preserved at Agaunum in his time, says “Many come from divers provinces devoutly to honor these saints, and offer presents of gold, silver, and other things. I humbly present this monument of my pen, begging intercession for the pardon of my sins, and the perpetual protection of my patrons.” He mentions many miracles to have been performed at their relics, and says of a certain woman who had been cured of a palsy by them: “Now she carries her own miracle about her.” The foundation of the monastery of St. Maurice at Agaunum is generally ascribed to king Sigismund in 515; but Mabillon demonstrates it to have been more early, and that Sigismund only repaired and enlarged it.

In the martyrs we learn the character of true fortitude, of which virtue many may form a very false idea. Real valor differs infinitely from that fury, rashness, and inconsiderate contempt of dangers, which the basest passions often inspire. It is founded in motives of duty and virtue; it doth brave and great things, and it beareth injuries and torments ; nor this for hope or reward, the desire of honor, or the fear of punishment, but out of a conscience of duty, and to preserve virtue entire. So infinitely more precious is the least part of integrity than all the possessions of this world, and so much does it overbalance all torments, that, rather than to suffer it to be lost or impaired in the least point, the good man is ready to venture upon all perils, and behaves amidst them without terror. This foundation of great and heroical performances, this just and rational, this considerate and sedate, this constant, perpetual, and uniform contempt of dangers, and of death in all its shapes, is only derived from the Christian principle. The characters of true virtue go along with it, especially patience, humility, and gentleness. The Christian hero obeys the precepts of loving his enemies, doing good to those that persecute him, bearing wrong, and being ready to give his coat, without repining, to him that would take away his cloak.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

ST. MATTHEW is called by two evangelists Levi, both which names are of Jewish extraction. The latter he bore before his conversion, the other he seems to have taken after it, to show that he had renounced his profession, and was become a new man. St. Mark calls him the son of Alpheus; but the conjecture which some form from hence, that he was brother to St. James the Less, has not the very shadow of probability. He seems to have been a Galilean by birth, and was by profession a publican, or gatherer of taxes for the Romans which office was equally odious and scandalous among the Jews. The Romans sent publicans into the provinces to gather the tributes, and this was amongst them a pest of honor, power, and credit, usually conferred on Roman knights. T. Flavius Sabinus, father of the emperor Vespasian, was the publican of the provinces of Asia. These Roman general publicans employed under them natives of each province, as persons best acquainted with the customs of their own country. These collectors or farmers of the tributes often griped and scraped all they could by various methods of extortion, having frequent opportunities of oppressing others to raise their own fortunes, and they were usually covetous. On this account even the Gentiles often speak of them as exactors, cheats and public robbers. Zaccheus, a chief among these collectors, was sensible of these occasions of fraud and oppression, when he offered four- fold restitution to any whom he had injured.

Among the Jews these publicans were more infamous and odious, because this nation looked upon them as enemies to their privilege of natural freedom which God had given them, and as persons defiled by their frequent conversation and dealing with the pagans, and as conspiring with the Romans to entail slavery upon their countrymen. Hence the Jews universally abhorred them, regarded their estates or money as the fortunes of notorious thieves, banished them from their communion in all religious worship, and shunned them in all affairs of civil society and commerce. Tertullian is certainly mistaken when he affirms that none but Gentiles were employed in this sordid office, as St. Jerom demonstrates from several passages in the gospels. And it is certain that St. Matthew was a Jew, though a publican. His office is said to have particularly consisted in gathering customs of commodities that came by the lake Genesareth or Tiberias, and a toll which passengers paid that came by water; of which mention is made by Jewish writers. Hence the Hebrew gospel published by Monster renders the word Publican in this place by, “The Lord of the Passage.” St. Mark says, that St. Matthew kept his office or toll-booth by the side of the lake, where he sat at the receipt of custom.

Jesus having lately cured a famous paralytic, went out of Capharnaum, and walked on the banks of the lake or sea of Genesareth, teaching the people that flocked after him. Here he espied Matthew sitting in his custom-house, whom he called to come and follow him. The man was rich, enjoyed a very lucrative post, was a wise and prudent man, and perfectly understood what his compliance would cost him, and what an exchange he made of wealth for poverty. But he overlooked all these considerations, and left all his interests and relations to become our Lord’s disciple, and to embrace a spiritual kind of commerce or traffic. We cannot suppose that he was before wholly unacquainted with our Saviour’s person or doctrine, especially as his custom-office was near Capharnaum, and his house seems to have been in that city, where Christ had resided for some time, had preached and wrought many miracles, by which he was in some measure prepared to receive the impression which the call of Christ made upon him. St. Jerom says that a certain amiable brightness and air of majesty which shone in the countenance of our divine Redeemer, pierced his soul, and strongly attracted him. But the great cause of his wonderful conversion was, as Bede remarks, that, “He who called him outwardly by his word, at the same time moved him inwardly by the invisible instinct of his grace.” We must earnestly entreat this same gracious Saviour that he would vouchsafe to touch our hearts with the like powerful interior call, that we may be perfectly converted to him. He often raises his voice in the secret of our hearts; but by putting willful obstacles we are deaf to it, and the seed of salvation is often choked in our souls.

This apostle, at the first invitation, broke all ties; forsook his riches, his family, his worldly concerns, his pleasures, and his profession. His conversion was sincere and perfect, manifesting itself by the following marks. First, it admitted no deliberation or delay; to balance one moment between God and sin or the world, is to resist the divine call, and to lose the offered grace. Secondly, it was courageous; surmounting and bearing down all opposition which his passions or the world could raise in his way. Thirdly, it was constant; the apostle from that moment looked no more back, but following Christ with fervor, persevered to the end, marching every day forwards with fresh vigor. It is the remark of St. Gregory, that those apostles who left their boats and nets to follow Christ, were sometimes afterward found in the same employment of fishing, from which they were called; but St. Matthew never returned to the custom-house, because it was a dangerous profession, and an occasion of avarice, oppression, and extortion. St. Jerom and St. Chrysostom take notice that St. Mark and St. Luke mention our apostle by the name of Levi, when they speak of his former profession of publican, as if it were to cover and keep out of sight the remembrance of this apostle’s sin, or at least to touch it tenderly; but our evangelist openly calls himself Matthew, by which name he was then known in the church, being desirous out of humility to publish his former infamy and sin, and to proclaim the excess of the divine mercy which had made an apostle of a publican. The other evangelists, by mentioning him in his former dishonorable course of life under the name of Levi, teach us, that we ought to treat penitent sinners with all modesty and tenderness; it being against the laws of religion, justice, and charity, to upbraid and reproach a convert with errors or sins which God himself has forgiven and effaced, so as to declare that he no longer remembers them, and for which the devil himself, with all his malice, can no longer accuse or reproach him.

St. Matthew, upon his conversion, to show that he was not discontented at his change, but looked upon it as his greatest happiness, entertained our Lord and his disciples at a great dinner in his house, whither he invited his friends, especially those of his late profession, doubtless hoping that by our Saviour’s divine conversation, they also might he converted. The Pharisees carped at this conduct of Christ, in eating with publicans and sinners. Our divine Saviour answered their malicious secret suggestions, that he came for the sick, not for the sound and healthy, or for those who conceited themselves so, and imagined they stood in no need of a physician ; and he put them in mind that God prefers acts of mercy and charity, especially in reclaiming sinners, and doing good to souls, before ritual observances, as the more necessary and noble precept, to which other laws were subordinate. Commerce with idolaters was forbidden the Jews for fear of the contagion of vice by evil company. This law the proud Pharisees extended not only beyond its bounds, but even against the essential laws of charity, the first among the precepts. Yet this nicety they called the strict observance of the law, in which they prided themselves, whereas in the sight of God it was hypocrisy and overbearing pride, with a contempt of their neighbors, which degraded their pretended righteousness beneath the most scandalous sinners, with whom they scorned to converse, even for the sake of reclaiming them, which the law, far from forbidding, required as the first and most excellent of its precepts. Christ came from heaven, and clothed himself with our mortality, in the bowels of the most tender compassion and of his infinite mercy for sinners; he burnt continually with the most ardent thirst for their salvation, and it was his greatest delight to converse with those that were sunk in the deepest abyss, in order to bring them to repentance and salvation. How affectionately he cherished, and how tenderly he received those that were sincerely converted to him he has expressed by the most affecting parables, and of this St. Matthew is, among others, an admirable instance.

The vocation of St. Matthew happened in the second year of the public ministry of Christ, who soon after forming the college of his apostles, adopted him into that holy family of the spiritual princes and founders of his church. The humility of our saint is remarked in the following circumstance. Whereas the other evangelists, in describing the apostles by pairs, constantly rank him before St. Thomas, he places that apostle before himself, and in this very list adds to his name the epithet of the publican. He delighted in the title of Matthew the Publican, because he found in it his own humiliation, magnified by it the divine mercy and grace of his conversion, and expressed the deep spirit of compunction in which he had his former guilt always before his eyes. Eusebius and St. Epiphanius tell us, that after our Lord’s ascension, St. Matthew preached several years in Judea and the neighboring countries till the dispersion of the apostles; and that a little before it he wrote his gospel, or short history of our blessed Redeemer, at the entreaty of the Jewish converts, and, as St. Epiphanius says, at the command of the other apostles. That he compiled it before their dispersion appears, not only because it was written before the other gospels, but also because St. Bartholomew took a copy of it with him into India, and left it there. Christ no where appears to have given any charge about committing to writing his history or divine doctrine; particular accidents gave the occasions. St. Matthew wrote his gospel to satisfy the converts of Palestine ; St. Mark, at the pressing entreaties of the faithful at Rome; St. Luke, to oppose the false histories ; St. John, at the request of the bishops Asia, to leave an authentic testimony against the heresies of Cerinthus and Ebion. It was, nevertheless, by a special inspiration of the Holy Ghost, that this work was undertaken and executed by each of them. The gospels are the most excellent part of the sacred writings. For in them Christ teaches not by his prophets, but by his own divine mouth, the great lessons of faith, and of eternal life; and in the history of his holy life the most perfect pattern of sanctity is set before our eyes for us to copy after. The gospel of St. Matthew descends to a fuller and more particular detail in the actions of Christ, than the other three, but from ch. v, to ch. xiv, he often differs from them in the series of his narration, neglecting the order of time, that those instructions might be related together which have a closer affinity with each other. This evangelist enlarges chiefly on our Saviour’s lessons of morality, and describes his temporal or human generation, in which the promises made to Abraham and David, concerning the Messias to be born of their seed, were fulfilled; which argument was a particular inducement to the Jews to believe in him.

St. Matthew, after having made a great harvest of souls in Judea, went to preach the faith to the barbarous and uncivilized nations of the East. He was a person much devoted to heavenly contemplation, and led an austere life, using a very slender and mean diet; for he ate no flesh, satisfying nature with herbs, roots, seeds, and berries, as Clement of Alexandria assures us. St. Ambrose says that God opened to him the country of the Persians. Rufinus and Socrates tell us that he carried the gospel into Ethiopia, meaning probably the southern and eastern parts of Asia. St. Paulinus mentions that he ended his course in Parthia. Venantius Fortunatus relates that he suffered martyrdom at Nadabar, a city in those parts. According to Dorotheus, he was honorably interred at Hierapolis in Parthia. His relics were long ago brought into the West. Pope Gregory VII, in a letter to the bishop of Salerno, in 1080, testifies that they were then kept in a church which bore his name in that city. They still remain in the same place.

St. Irenaeus, St. Jerom, St. Austin, and other fathers find a figure of the four evangelists in the four mystical animals represented in Ezechiel, and in the Apocalypse of St. John. The eagle is generally said to represent St. John, who in the first lines of his gospel soars up to the contemplation of the eternal generation of the Word. The calf agrees to St. Luke, who begins his gospel with the mention of the priesthood. St. Austin makes the lion the symbol of Saint Matthew, who explains the royal dignity of Christ ; but others give it to St. Mark, and the man to St. Matthew, who begins his gospel with Christ’s human generation.

In the gospel, The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared him, and hath delivered to us the most sublime truths. Wherefore St. Austin writes, “Let as hear the gospel as if we listened Christ present.” The primitive Christians always stood when they read it, or heard it read. St. Jerom says: “While the gospel is read, in all the churches of the East, candles are lighted, though the sun shine, in token of joy.” St. Thomas Aquinas always read the gospel on his knees. In this divine book not only the divine instructions of our Blessed Redeemer are delivered to us, but moreover a copy of his sacred life on earth is painted before our eyes. As St. Basil says: “Every action and every word of our Saviour Jesus Christ is a rule of piety. He took upon him human nature that he might draw as on a tablet, and set before us a perfect model for us to imitate.” Let us study this rule, and beg the patronage of this apostle, that the spirit of Christ, or that of his humility, compunction, self-denial, charity, and perfect disengagement from the things this world, may be imprinted in our hearts.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

ST. EUSTACHIUS, called by the Greeks Eustachius, and before his conversion named Placidus, was a nobleman who suffered martyrdom at Rome, about the reign of Adrian, together with his wife Theopista, called before her baptism Tatiana, and two sons Agapius and Theopistus. These Greek names they must have taken after their conversion to the faith. The ancient sacramentaries mention, in the prayer for the festival of St. Eustachius, his profuse charities to the poor, on whom he bestowed all his large possessions, some time before he laid down his life for his faith. An ancient church in Rome was built in his honor, with the title of a Diacony; the same now gives title to a cardinal. His body lay deposited in this church, till, in the twelfth age, it was translated to that of St. Denis near Paris. His shrine was pillaged in this place, and part of his bones burnt by the Huguenots in 1567; but a portion of them still remains in the parish church which bears the name of St. Eustachius in Paris.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

It isn’t hard to find Catholics who will hands down vote for the McCain/Palin ticket (especially now that Sarah Palin has been added) nor is it hard to find Catholics who think that voting for McCain is wrong, immoral and possibly sinful.

The number one issue (or the litmus test as it is dismissively called) for Catholics is abortion. Succinctly put, how many babies can we save within our limited options? What is at stake are the allocation of Federal funds, policies that make it easier or more difficult to act as a Catholic if you are in the health care field, issues of contraception and its promotion to children in schools and in too many schools having it provided to children without their parents’ knowledge and a president’s view on stem cell research. But these are lesser issues in the minds of many because the “big tamale” of stopping abortion is seen as getting pro-life justices (or even strict constitutionalists to apply the laws!) and overturn Roe versus Wade.

St Gabriel's Church
914 Newfield Ave
Stamford, CT 06905
(203) 322-7383

Every Sunday 12:30 PM

JOSEPH DESA was born the 17th of June, 1603, at Cupertino, a small village of the diocess of Nardo, between Brindisi and Otranto, six miles from the coast of the gulf of Tarento. His parents were poor, but virtuous. His mother brought him up in great sentiments of piety, but treated him with great severity, punishing him frequently for the least fault, to inure him to an austere and penitential life. From his infancy he gave signs of an extraordinary fervor, and everything in him seemed to announce that he already tasted the sweets of heavenly consolations. He was very attentive to the divine service, and in an age when the love of pleasure is generally predominant, he wore a hair-shirt, and mortified his body by divers austerities. He was bound apprentice to a shoemaker, which trade he applied himself to for some time.

When he was seventeen years of age he presented himself to be received amongst the Conventual Franciscans, where he had two uncles of distinction in the Order. He was nevertheless refused because he had not made his studies. All he could obtain was to be received amongst the Capuchins in quality of lay-brother; hut after eight months he was dismissed as unequal to the duties of the Order. Far from being discouraged, he persisted in his resolution of embracing a religious state. At length the Franciscans, moved with compassion, received him into their convent of Grotella, thus called from a subterraneous chapel dedicated to God under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. This convent was situated near Cupertino. The saint having finished his novitiate with great fervor, he made his vows, and was received as lay-brother amongst the Oblates of the Third Order. Though employed in the meanest offices of the house, he performed them with the most perfect fidelity. He redoubled his fasts and austerities; he prayed continually, and slept only three hours every night. His humility, his sweetness, his love of mortification and penance, gained him so much veneration, that, in a provincial chapter held at Altamura in 1625, it was resolved he should be admitted amongst the Religious of the choir, that he might thus qualify himself for holy orders.

Joseph begged to go through a second novitiate, after which he separated himself more than ever from the company of men, to unite himself more closely to God by prayer and contemplation. He looked upon himself as a great sinner, and imagined it was through mere charity that the religious habit was given him. His patience made him bear in silence and with joy the severest rebukes for faults which he had not committed ; and his obedience was such that he executed without delay the most difficult duties enjoined him. So many virtues rendered him the object of universal admiration. Being ordained priest in 1628, he celebrated his first mass with inexpressible sentiments of faith, of love, and respect. He chose a retired cell that was dark and incommodius. He would often go to pray to the most unfrequented oratories, that he might give himself up more freely to contemplation. He divested himself of everything that was allowed him by his rule, and when he saw himself thus naked, he cried out, prostrate before his crucifix: “Behold me, 0 Lord, bereft of all earthly things; be thou, I beseech thee, my only good; I look upon every other thing as a real danger and as a loss to my soul.”

After having received the priesthood, he passed five years without tasting bread or wine ; during which time he lived only on herbs and dry fruits ; and even the herbs that he ate on Fridays were so distasteful that only himself could use them. His fast in Lent was so rigorous that for seven years he took no nourishment but on Thursdays and Sundays, except the holy eucharist which he received every day. His countenance in the morning was extremely pale, but after the communion it became florid and lively. He had contracted such a habit of fasting, that his stomach could no longer bear any food. His desire of mortification made him invent different instruments of penance. During two years he suffered many interior trials which tormented him exceedingly; but to this storm a profound calm succeeded.

A report being spread that he had frequent raptures, and that many miracles were wrought by him, the people followed him in crowds as he was travelling through the province of Bari. A certain vicar-general was offended at it, and carried his complaints to the inquisitors of Naples. Joseph was ordered to appear; but the heads of his accusation being examined, he was declared innocent, and dismissed. He said mass at Naples in the church of St. Gregory the Armenian, which belonged to a monastery of Religious. The holy sacrifice being finished, he fell into an ecstacy, as many eye-witnesses attested in the process of his canonization. The inquisitors sent him to Rome to his general, who received him with harshness, and ordered him to retire to the convent of Assisium. Joseph was filled with joy at this news, on account of the great devotion he had to the holy founder of his Order. The guardian of Assisium treated him also with roughness. But his sanctity shone forth more and more; and persons of the highest distinction expressed an ardent desire to see him. He arrived at Assisium in 1639, and remained there thirteen years. At first he suffered many trials both interior and exterior. His superior often called him hypocrite, and treated him with great rigor. On the other hand, God seemed to have abandoned him; his religious exercises were accompanied with a spiritual dryness that afflicted him exceedingly; the impure phantoms which his imagination represented to him, joined to the most terrible temptations, cast him into so deep a melancholy, that he scarce dare lift up his eyes. His general being informed of his situation, called him to Rome, and having kept him there three weeks, he sent him back to his convent of Assisium.

The saint, on his way to Rome, experienced a return of those heavenly consolations which had been withdrawn from him. At the name of God, of Jesus, or of Mary, he was, as it were, out of himself. He would often cry out: “Vouchsafe, O my God, to fill and possess all my heart. O that my soul was freed from the chains of the body, and united to Jesus Christ ! Jesus, Jesus, draw me to thyself; I am not able to live any longer on the earth.” He was often heard to excite others to the love of God, and say to them: “Love God; he in whom this love reigns, is rich although he does not perceive it.” His raptures were as frequent as extraordinary. He had many, even in public, to which a great number of persons of the first quality were eye-witnesses, and the truth of which they afterward declared upon oath. Amongst these, John Frederick, duke of Brunswick and Hanover, was one. This prince, who was a Lutheran, was so struck with what he had seen, that he abjured his former tenets, and embraced the Catholic faith. Joseph had also a singular talent for converting the most obdurate sinners, and quieting the minds of such as labored under any trouble. He used to say to some scrupulous persons who came to consult him: “I neither like scruples nor melancholy ; let your intention be right, and fear not.” He explained the most profound mysteries of our faith with the greatest clearness and this sublime knowledge he owed to the intimate communication he had with God in prayer.

His prudence, which was remarkable in the conduct of souls, drew to him a great concourse of people, and even of cardinals and princes. He foretold to John Casimir, son of Sigismund III, king of Poland, that he would one day reign for the good of the people, and the sanctification of souls, and advised hint not to engage in any religious Order. But this prince having afterward entered among the Jesuits, took the vows of the scholars of the society, and was made cardinal by pope Innocent X, in 1646. Joseph dissuaded him from the resolution he had taken of receiving holy orders. What the saint foretold came to pass; for, Uladislas, eldest son of Sigismund, dying in 1648, John Casimir was elected king of Poland; but after some time resigned his crown and retired into France, where he died in 1672. It was this prince who himself afterward disclosed all the circumstances of the fact which we have here related.

His miracles were not less remarkable than the other extraordinary favors he received from God. Many sick owed their recovery to his prayers. The saint falling sick of a fever at Osimo, the 10th of August, 1663, foretold that his last hour was near at hand. The day before his death he received the holy viaticum, and after it the extreme unction. He was heard often to repeat those aspirations of a heart inflamed with the love of God : “O that my soul was freed from the shackles of my body, to be reunited to Jesus Christ ! Praise and thanksgiving be to God! The will of God be done. Jesus crucified, receive my heart, and kindle in it the fire of thy holy love.” He died the eighteenth of September, 1663, at the age of sixty years and three months. His body was exposed in the church, and the whole town came to visit it with respect; he was afterward buried in the chapel of the Conception. The heroism of his virtues being proved, and the truth of his miracles attested, he was beatified by Benedict XIV, in 1753, and canonized by Clement XIII, in 1767. Clement XIV inserted his office in the Roman Breviary. See the Life of St. Joseph of Cupertino, written in Italian, by count Dominic Bernini in 1722, and dedicated to Innocent XIII. Agelli has given an abridgment of it in 1753, with an account of twenty-two new miracles. We have another abridgment of the life of this saint by Pastrovicchi, also in 1753.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

SHE was born of most noble parentage in 1098, in the county of Spanheim, in the Lower Palatinate of the Rhine, and educated, from the eighth year of her age, in the monastery of the Mount of St. Disibode, under the care of a very pious nun called Jutta, her relation, and sister to the count of Spanheim. Hildegardis excited herself to a contempt of the world, by representing to herself the phrensy which possesses a great part of mankind in the world, by what springs they are moved, how, in pursuit of empty imaginary honor or profit, they are driven into the most laborious and hazardous attempts, how easily they swallow the most bitter and poisonous pills when they are gilt over by ambition or avarice, how eagerly they hunt after the troubles of worldly greatness, and basely adore the gawdy nothings of this life. Full of gratitude to God who had rescued her out of that region of darkness, she gave herself to serve him with her whole heart. She was favored with heavenly visions; and St. Bernard, who preached the crusade in that country, examined and approved her prophetic spirit. It belongs only to God to vouchsafe to certain souls such favors, which are to us more a subject of admiration than of edification. For any one to fall into foolish desires of walking in such wonderful ways, is a certain mark of pride and presumption, and a dangerous illusion. Simplicity and humility is the character of true piety, which aims not at extraordinary gifts above itself. Hence the patience, the mortification, the profound humility and devotion of which this saint set us the most wonderful examples, are what it concerns us chiefly to study in her life.

Being chosen abbess, she seemed still to live always in the presence of God, always united to God, always conversing interiorly with God, and with Mary at the feet of Jesus, listening to his divine instructions, yet applying herself with Martha to the active life, serving him in his spiritual daughters with so much sweetness and attention, as if this care took up all her thought. Her community becoming much too numerous for the hermitage of Mount St. Disibode, she removed with it to Mount St. Rupert, near Binghem, so called because St. Rupert or Robert, Duke of Binghem, there ended his mortal pilgrimage. St. Hildegardis wrote the life of that saint, that of St. Disibode, and several letters to the popes Eugenius III, Anastasius IV, Adrian IV, and Alexander III ; the emperors Conrad III, and Frederic I, and other great personages. She changed the habit of St. Bennet for that of the Cistercians, and died on the 17th of September, in the year 1179, of her age eighty-two.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

"He cannot have God for his Father who does not have the Church for his Mother."

"There is need of constant prayer lest we defect from the heavenly kingdom, as have the Jews to whom it was first promised. This the Lord makes unmistakably clear by saying: "Many will come from the East and West and recline at the banquet table with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of Heaven, whereas those born to the kingdom will be driven into the darkness outside, there to wail and gnash their teeth ..."

"Whosoever might be, and whatsoever he might be, he is no Christian who is not in Christ's Church!"

"Heretics or schismatics, being placed outside the Church and cut off from unity and charity, even though one should be slain for the name of Christ, he could not be crowned in death."

"Change nothing; be content with tradition."

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

St. Cornelius

St. Cyprian

Reprinted below is a letter from the bishops of Kansas City, KS, and KC MO regarding voting. The original is found here. It is good to hear some bishops reiterating that you can't support abortion. On the other hand, their approach is the same as that of their predecessors, who failed to stop evil men because they wouldn't name those politicians for whom Catholics may not vote. Consequently, they now need to give us guidance on how to vote for the politician who would murder fewer babies.

Dear reader, could you vote for the lesser of two pro-aborts? Enjoy the letter, and give us your comments.

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Our Moral Responsibility as Catholic Citizens
Joint Pastoral Letter – September 8, 2008
Most Reverend Joseph F. Naumann, Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas
Most Reverend Robert W. Finn, Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph

Dear Friends in Christ,

With the approaching general election this November, we believe this to be an important moment for us to address together the responsibility of Catholics to be well informed and well formed voters.

Except for the election of our next President, the people of Northwestern Missouri and Northeastern Kansas will be choosing different candidates for different offices in our two dioceses. Yet the fundamental moral principles that should guide our choices as Catholic voters are the same.

This feast commemorates both the dedication of the basilica built by Constantine for the Holy Sepulcher, and also the return of the True Cross to Jerusalem by Emperor Heraclius of Judea during tile seventh century. After Heraclius had recovered it by force from King Chosroes of Persia, he tried to carry it along the Via Dolorosa to Calvary, but was unable to make any headway. Bishop Zachary of Jerusalem, pointing to his luxurious clothing, said, “Attired in these rich robes, you are far from imitating the poverty of Jesus Christ and His humility in bearing His Cross.” The Emperor caught the hint—and went on to Calvary barefooted and wearing a simple cloak.

From the Mass on this day, here are the Introit and Preface:

BUT it is fitting that we should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom is salvation, life, and resurrection for us, by whom we are saved and delivered. May God have mercy on us and bless us; may he let his face shine upon us; and may he have mercy upon us. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end...

IT IS TRULY RIGHT AND JUST, proper and helpful toward salvation, that we always and everywhere give thanks to you, 0 Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God; for you ordained that the salvation of mankind should be accomplished upon the tree of the cross, in order that life might be restored through the very instrument which brought death, and that Satan, who conquered us through the tree, might also be overcome by it; through Christ our Lord. Through the same Christ the Angels acclaim your majesty, the Dominations adore you, and the Powers worship in awe. Through him also the heavens and the Virtues of heaven join the blessed Seraphim in one grand chorus of joyous praise. We beg you, let our voices blend with theirs, as in humble praise we say: Sanctus...

From the news item Pope Denies Claim that Use of 1962 Missal is a Form of Regression:

The Pontiff said it is "groundless" to fear that "Summorum Pontificum" -- which opened the way for a wider celebration of the Mass according to the 1962 Missal -- is a regression.

"This 'motu proprio' is simply an act of tolerance, with a pastoral objective, for people who have been formed in this liturgy, who love it, know it and want to live with this liturgy," he said. "It is a small group, given that it presupposes a formation in Latin, a formation in a certain culture. But it seems to me a normal demand of faith and pastoral concern for a bishop of our Church to have love and tolerance for these people and permit them to live with this liturgy."

Bishop Robert Morlino (Diocese of Madison, WI) will celebrate a Pontifical High Mass at the Throne on Sept 14 at 2pm at Holy Redeemer Church (120 W. Johnson Street, Madison, WI 53703). This Mass is offered in thanksgiving for the 1st year anniversary of the implementation of Summorum Pontificum. The choirs will sing Gregorian chants and Sacred polyphony. There will be a reception after Mass.

At the Toronto Oratory:

Saturday, October 4, 2008 at 11:30 AM

To Celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary:

Church of the Holy Family
1372 King St W
Toronto, CANADA

Saints Peter and Paul Church
4309 Thomas Jefferson Pkwy
Palmyra, VA 22963

434-589-5201

saintspeterpaul.org

Sunday 7 AM

ST. EULOGIUS was a Syrian by birth, and embraced young the monastic state in that country. The Eutychian heresy was then split into various sects, as it usually happens among such as have left the centre of union. These, by their tyranny and the fury of their contests, had thrown the churches of Syria and Egypt into much confusion, and a great part of the monks of Syria were at that time become remarkable for their loose morals and errors against faith. Eulogius learned from the fall of others to stand more watchfully and firmly upon his guard, and was not less distinguished by the innocence and sanctity of his manners than by the purity of his doctrine. Having, by an enlarged pursuit of learning. attained to a great variety of useful knowledge in the different branches of literature, he set himself to the study of divinity in the sacred sources of that science, which are the holy scriptures, and the tradition of the church explained in its councils and the approved writings of its eminent pastors. From the time of his retreat he made this his chief study, to which he directed every thing else; and, as his industry was indefatigable, his parts quick, his apprehensions lively, and his judgment solid, his progress was such as to qualify him to be an illustrious champion for the truth, worthy to be ranked with St. Gregory the Great and St. Eutychius as one of the greatest lights of the church in the age wherein he lived. His character received still a brighter lustre from his sincere humility and spirit of holy compunction and prayer. In the great dangers and necessities of the church he was drawn out of his solitude, and made priest of Antioch by the patriarch St. Anastasius, who was promoted to that dignity in 561, and, dying in 598, was succeeded by Anastasius the Younger. St. Eulogius, whilst he lived at Antioch, entered into the strictest connexions with St. Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, and joined his forces with that holy prelate against the enemies of the truth.
The emperor Justinian and his nephew and successor, Justin the Younger, had been the plunderers of their empire, and the grievous oppressors of their subjects; the former to support his extravagance and vanity, the latter to gratify his insatiable avarice and scandalous lusts. Justin II dying in 576, after a reign of ten years and ten months, Tiberius Constantine, a Thracian, and a virtuous prince, was raised to the throne. He applied himself to heal the wounds caused during the former reigns, both in the church and state. His charities in all parts of the empire were boundless, and all his treasuries were open to the poor. Amongst the evils with which the church was then afflicted, the disorders and confusion into which the tyranny of the Eutychians had thrown the church of Alexandria, called aloud for a powerful remedy, and an able and zealous pastor, endued with prudence and vigor to apply them. Upon the death of the patriarch John, Saint Eulogius was raised to that patriarchal dignity toward the close of the year 583, at the earnest desire of the emperor, who, having reigned only six years and ten months, died the same year, leaving his son-in-law, Mauritius, his successor in the imperial throne. Our saint was obliged to make a journey to Constantinople, about two years after his promotion, in order to concert measures concerning certain affairs of his church. He met at court St. Gregory the Great, and contracted with him a holy friendship, so that, from that time, they seemed to be. one heart and one soul. Among the letters of St. Gregory, we have several extant which he wrote to our saint. St. Eulogius composed many exellent works against the Acephali and other sects of Eutychians. Photius has preserved us valuable fragments of some of these treatises; also of eleven discourses of our saint, the ninth of which is a commendation of a monastic life; likewise of his six books against the Novatians of Alexandria, in the fifth of which he expressly sets himself to prove that the martyrs are to be honored. Photius makes no mention of the treatise of St. Eulogius against the Agnoetae, a sect of Eutychians, who ascribed to Christ, as man, ignorance of the day of judgment and of many other things. St. Gregory the Great, to whose censure the author submitted it, sent him his approbation with high commendations, saying: “I have not found any thing but what is admirable in your writings, &c.” Saint Eulogius did not long survive St. Gregory, for he died in the year 606, or, according to others, in 608.
We admire the great actions and the glorious triumphs of the saints; yet it is not so much in these that their sanctity consisted, as in the constant habitual heroic disposition of their souls. There is no one who does no sometimes do good actions ; but he can never be called virtuous who does well only by humor, or by fits and starts, not by steady habits. It is an habitual poverty of spirit, humility, meekness, patience, purity, piety, and charity, which our Divine Master recommends to us. We must take due pains to plant the seeds of virtues in our souls, must watch and labor continually to improve and strengthen them, that they may be converted into nature, and be the principle by which all the affections of our souls, and all the actions of our lives are governed. If these pure heroic sentiments perfectly possess and fill our hearts, the whole tenor of our conduct, whether in private or in public life, will be an uniform train of virtuous actions, which will derive their perfection from the degree of fervor and purity from which they spring, and which, according to the essential property of virtue, is always improving, and always improvable.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

(excerpts from True Devotion by St. Louis Marie)

God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the seas or maria. He gathered all his grace together and called it Mary or Maria. The great God has a treasury or storehouse full of riches in which he has enclosed all that is beautiful, resplendent, rare, and precious, even his own Son. This immense treasury is none other than Mary whom the saints call the “treasury of the Lord”. From her fullness all men are made rich.

I declare with the saints: Mary is the earthly paradise of Jesus Christ the new Adam, where he became man by the power of the Holy Spirit, in order to accomplish in her wonders beyond our understanding. She is the vast and divine world of God where unutterable marvels and beauties are to be found. She is the magnificence of the Almighty where he hid his only Son, as in his own bosom, and with him everything that is most excellent and precious. What great and hidden things the all-powerful God has done for this wonderful creature, as she herself had to confess in spite of her great humility, “The Almighty has done great things for me”. The world does not know these things because it is incapable and unworthy of knowing them.

We've received another prayer request from Sam Orsot, this time for the folks in the path of Hurricane Ike. Landfall is expected around midnight Friday, and it could be very bad:

"Pray please for the Gulf Coast. We are about to be struck by a second hurricane in two weeks. Ike has everyone scared again. Texas's gulf coast is about to be torn too. Ike is so massive. Pray for us."

The holy confessor Paphnutius was an Egyptian, and, after having spent several years in the desert, under the direction of the great St. Antony, was made bishop in Upper Thebais. He was one of those confessors who, under the tyrant Maximin Daia, lost their right eye, and were afterward sent to work in the mines. Sozomen and Theodoret add that his left ham was cut; by which we are to understand that the sinews were cut so as to render the left leg entirely useless. Eusebius takes notice that this punishment was inflicted on many Christians in that bloody reign. Peace being restored to the church, Paphnutius returned to his flock, bearing all the rest of his life the glorious marks of his sufferings for the name of his crucified Master. The Arian heresy being broached in Egypt, he was one of the most zealous in defending the Catholic faith, and, for his eminent sanctity, and the glorious title of confessor (or one who had confessed the faith before the persecutors, and under torments), was highly considered in the great council of Nice. Constantine the Great, during the celebration of that synod, sometimes conferred privately with him in his palace, and never dismissed him without kissing respectfully the place where the eye he had lost for the faith was once situated.
The fathers of the council of Nice, in the third canon, strictly forbid all clergymen to entertain in their houses any woman, except a mother, aunt, sister, or such as could leave no room for suspicion. Socrates and Sozomen relate that the bishops were for making a general law forbidding all bishops, priests, deacons, and subdeacons, to live with wives whom they had married before their ordination ; but that the confessor Paphnutius rose up in the midst of the assembly, and opposed the motion, saying that it was enough to conform to the ancient tradition of the church, which forbade the clergy marrying after their ordination. These authors add, that the whole council came into his way of thinking, and made no new law on that point. On account of the silence of other writers, and on the testimonies of St. Jerom, St. Epiphanius, and others, Bellarmin and Orsi suspect that Socrates and Sozomen were misinformed in this story. There is, however nothing repugnant in the narration; for it might seem unadvisable to make too severe a law at that time against some married men, who, in certain obscure churches, might have been ordained without such a condition. St. Paphnutius remained always in a close union with St. Athanasius and the other Catholic prelates. He and St. Potamon, bishop of Heraclea, with forty-seven other Egyptian bishops, accompanied their holy patriarch to the council of Tyre, in 335, where they found much the greater part of the members who composed that assembly to be professed Arians. Paphnutius seeing Maximus, bishop of Jerusalem, among them, and full of concern to find an orthodox prelate who had suffered in the late persecution, in such bad company, took him by the hand, led him out, and told him he could not see that one who bore the same marks as he in defence of the faith, should be seduced and imposed upon by persons that were resolved to oppress the most strenuous assertor of its fundamental article. He then let him into the whole plot of the Arians, which, till that moment, had been a secret to the good bishop of Jerusalem, who was by this means put upon his guard against the crafty insinuations of hypocrites, and fixed for ever in the communion of St. Athanasius. We have no particular account of the death of St. Paphnutius; but his name stands in the Roman Martyrology on the 11th of September.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

This saint received his surname from the town which was his fixed residence for the most considerable part of his life, and in which he died. He was a native of St. Angelo, a town near Fermo, in the Marca of Ancona, and was born about the year 1245. His parents were of mean condition in the world, but rich in virtue, and he was reputed the fruit of their prayers and a devout pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Nicholas of Bari, in which his mother especially, who was then stricken in years, had earnestly begged of God a son who should faithfully serve him. At his baptism he received the name of his patron, and appeared by his towardly dispositions from his infancy to be prevented by an extraordinary share of divine grace. In his childhood he spent whole hours together at his prayers with wonderful application of his mind to God, and he heard the divine word with the utmost eagerness, and with a modesty which charmed all who saw him. He had a tender love for the poor, and used to conduct home those that he met, in order to divide with them whatever he had for his own subsistence. From his infancy he made it a cardinal maxim to renounce all superfluities, practised great mortifications, and from his tender age contracted a habit of fasting three days a week, namely, on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, to which, when he was grown up, he added Mondays, allowing himself on these days only one refection, and that of bread and water. From his very infancy he seemed exempt from the weaknesses and passions to which children are generally liable; his greatest pleasure was in reading good books, in his devotions, and in pious conversation, and his heart was always in the church. His parents neglected nothing that was in their power to improve his genius and happy dispositions. In his studies, as his parts were quick, his apprehensions lively, and his memory and judgment strong, so his progress was rapid.

He was yet a young student, when, for his extraordinary merit, he was preferred to a canonry in Our Saviour’s church. This situation was extremely agreeable to his inclination, as by it he was always employed in the divine service. But he aspired to a state which would allow him to consecrate his whole time and thoughts directly to God, without interruptions or avocations. Whilst he was in this disposition, a sermon preached by an Austin friar or hermit, on the vanity of the world, determined him to take a resolution absolutely to quit the world, and to embrace the Order of that holy preacher. This he executed without loss of time, entering himself a religious man in the convent of that Order of Tolentino, a small town in the ecclesiastical state. He went through his novitiate under the direction of the preacher himself, and made his profession before he had completed the eighteenth year of his age. His humility made him look on all his brethren as so many superiors, and he studied in all things as much as possible to do the will of every one, that he might the more perfectly learn to deny his own; and the love of humiliations gave him particular affection for the meanest and most mortifying employments in the house, and he embraced whatever was most painful and abject with the greatest pleasure. Such was the unalterable sweetness of his temper, and the equality of his mind, that he never betrayed the least impatience or irregularity of humor; a mark of the constant tranquility of his soul, and the perfect victory which he had gained over himself. His extraordinary fasts and austerities showed that he looked on his body as a constant enemy to his soul. The disciplines and iron girdles with which he afflicted it, are shown to this day in his convent. His ordinary food was only coarse bread with pulse or herbs; his bed was the bare floor, with a stone for his pillow. In obedience to his general, he once in time of sickness took a mouthful of flesh-meat; but immediately begged with tears, that since he had satisfied his precept, he might be allowed not to eat any more; to which the general assented.

He was sent successively to several convents of his Order at Recanati, Macerata, and others; in that of Cingole he was ordained priest by the bishop of Osimo. From which time, if he seemed an angel in his other actions, he appeared like a seraph at the altar; so wonderfully did the divine fire which burned in his breast manifest itself in his countenance, and sweet tears flowed in streams from his eyes. Devout persons strove every day to assist at his mass at a sacrifice offered by the hands of a saint. In the secret communications which passed between his pure soul and God in contemplation, especially after he had been employed at the altar or in the confessional, he seemed already to enjoy a kind of anticipation of the delights of heaven. The last thirty years of his life he resided at Tolentino, and his zeal for the salvation of souls produced there wonderful fruit. He preached almost every day, and his sermons were always signalized by remarkable conversions. His exhortations, whether in the confessional or in giving catechism, were always such as reached to the heart, and left lasting salutary impressions on those that heard him. What time could be spared from those charitable functions, he spent in prayer and contemplation. He was favored with visions, and wrought several miraculous cures. For the exercise of his virtue he was long afflicted with divers painful distempers. His holy death happened on the 10th of September in 1306, and he was canonized by Eugenius IV, in 1446. His body was buried in the church of his convent at Tolentino, in a chapel in which he used to say mass, and his tomb there is held in veneration.

The saints, how much soever they had subdued their passions, and strengthened themselves in habits of all virtues, always watched with extraordinary vigilance over all their words and actions, and every motion of their hearts, knowing this life to be a state of perpetual warfare and danger. To prevent all attacks from the enemy, it is the duty of a Christian to be always provided, and in time of peace to expect his return; this disposition will contribute to keep him at a distance; and a neglect of it will certainly invite him to take advantage of our supine sloth, and, by subtle stratagems, or by open force, easily to overthrow us unawares. By frequent self-examination, the practice of self-denial, the dispositions of humble fear and compunction, and by a watchfulness against all occasions of danger, we must continually be armed, and ready to repulse him; if we leave the avenues of our soul open or unguarded, and trust him within our gates, he enters smoothly, but, like a cancer, brings death.
(from Butler's Lives of the Saints)

(from the Roman Catechism, emphasis added)

It must be taught, then, that to priests alone has been given power to consecrate and administer to the faithful, the Holy Eucharist. That this has been the unvarying practice of the Church, that the faithful should receive the Sacrament from the priests, and that the officiating priests should communicate themselves has been explained by the holy Council of Trent, which has also shown that this practice, as having proceeded from Apostolic tradition, is to be religiously retained, particularly as Christ the Lord has left us an illustrious example thereof, having consecrated His own most sacred body, and given it to the Apostles with His own hands.

To safeguard in every possible way the dignity of so august a Sacrament, not only is the power of its administration entrusted exclusively to priests, but the Church has also prohibited by law any but consecrated persons; unless some case of great necessity intervene, to dare handle or touch the sacred vessels, the linen, or other instruments necessary to its completion. Priests themselves and the rest of the faithful may hence understand how great should be the piety and holiness of those who approach to consecrate, administer or receive the Eucharist.

The birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary announced joy and the near approach of salvation to the lost world; therefore is this festival celebrated by the church with praise and thanksgiving. It was a mystery of sanctity, and distinguished by singular privileges. Mary was brought forth into the world, not like other children of Adam, infected with the loathsome contagion of sin,but pure, holy, beautiful, and glorious, adorned with all the most precious graces which became her who was chosen to be the Mother of God. She appeared indeed in the weak state of our mortality; but in the eyes of heaven she already transcended the highest seraph in purity, brightness, and the richest ornaments of grace. I am black, but beautiful, O ye daughters of Jerusalem. (Cant. 1:4) The spouse says to her much more emphatically than to other souls sanctified by his choicest graces: As the lily among thorns, so is my beloved among the daughters.(Cant. 2:2) Thou art all fair, and there is not a spot in thee.(Cant. 4:7) Man was no sooner fallen in paradise through the woman seduced by the infernal spirit, but God promised another woman whose seed should crush that serpent’s head. I will put enmities, said he to the serpent, between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shalt crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel. (Gen. 3:15)

To understand the great present that in her God bestowed on the world, we must consider her transcendent dignity, and the singular privileges by which she was distinguished above all other pure creatures. Her dignity is expressed by the evangelist when he says, That of her was born Jesus, who is called the Christ. From this text alone is that article of the Catholic faith sufficiently evinced, that she is truly Mother of God. It is clear this is not to be understood as if she could be in any sense mother of the Divinity, the very thought whereof would imply contradiction and blasphemy, but by reason that she conceived and brought forth that Blessed Man who subsisting by the second divine person of the adorable Trinity, is consequently the natural, not the adoptive Son of God, which was the Semi-Nestorian error broached by Felix and Elipandus. In the Incarnation the human nature of Christ was assumed by, and hypostatically, that is, intimately and substantially, united to the person of God the Son, so that the actions done by this nature, are the actions of that Divine Person, whose assumed or appropriated nature this is. Hence we truly say with St. Paul, that we are redeemed by the blood of a God, and with the church, that God was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered and died on the cross; all which he did in that human nature which he had wonderfully taken upon him.

...The dignity of Mother of God is the highest to which any mere creature is capable of being raised. What closer alliance could any pure creature have with the Creator of all things? What name could be more noble, what prerogative more singular, or more wonderful? He who was born of the Father from all eternity, the only-begotten and consubstantial Son, Maker and Lord of all things, is born in time, and receives a being in his nature of man from Mary. “Listen and attend, O man,” cries out St. Anselm, “and be transported in an ecstacy of astonishment, contemplating this prodigy. The infinite God had one only-begotten co-eternal Son; yet he would not suffer him to remain only his own, but would also have him to be made the only Son of Mary.” And St. Bernard says: “Choose which you will most admire, the most beneficent condescension of the Son, or the sublime dignity of the Mother. On each side it is a subject of wonder and astonishment; that a God should obey a woman is a humility beyond example, and that a woman commands a God, is a preeminence without a rival.” The first, which is the humiliation of him who is infinite, in itself can bear no comparison with the other; but the astonishing exaltation of Mary transcends what we could have imagined any creature capable of. No creature can he raised to what is infinite: yet the object or term of this dignity of Mary is infinite, and the dignity has a nearer and closer relation to that object than could have been imagined possible by creatures, had not omnipotence made it real. To this transcendent dignity all graces and privileges, how great and singular soever, seem in some measure due. We admire her sanctity, her privileged virginity, all the graces with which she was adorned, and the crown with which she is exalted in glory above the cherubim; but our astonishment ceases when we reflect that she is the Mother of God. In this is every thing great and good, that can suit a mere human creature, naturally comprised.

To take a review of some other singular privileges of this glorious creature, we must further consider that she is both a mother and a spotless virgin. This is the wonderful prerogative of Mary alone; a privilege and honor reserved to her, which shall not be given to any other says St. Bernard. The ancient prophets spoke of it as the distinguishing mark of the Mother of the Messiah and the world’s Redeemer, and frequently call the Christ Jehovah or the true God, as Dr. Waterland demonstrates by many passages. This was the miraculous token of the assured deliverance of mankind by the long expected Saviour, which God himself was to give to the incredulous king Achaz, doubtful and anxious about his present deliverance from his temporal enemies. The Lord himself shall give you a sign, said Isaias: Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and hisniame shall be called Emmanuel. (Is. 7:14) This must evidently be understood of the Messiah, to whom alone many qualities and epithets in this and the following chapter can agree, though a son of the prophet mentioned afterward was also a present type of the king’s temporal deliverance. The title of Virgin must here mean one who remained such when a mother; for this circumstance is mentioned as a stupendous miracle. Jeremy also, contemplating this mystery in spirit, expressed his astonishment at this prodigy unheard of on earth, that a woman should encompass in her womb a man, the great Redeemer of the world.

...Her virginity was not only a miraculous privilege, but also a voluntary virtue, she having, by an early vow, consecrated her chastity to God, as the fathers infer from her answer to the angel. Such a privileged mother became the Son of God. The earth, defiled by the abominations of impurity was loaded with the curses of God, who said: .My spirit shall not remain in man for ever, because he is flesh. (Gen. 6) But God choosing Mary to take himself flesh of, prepared her for that dignity by her spotless virginity, and on account of that virtue said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. It is by imitating her perfect purity according to our state, that we shall recommend ourselves to our heavenly spouse, who is the lover of chaste souls, and is called by St. Gregory Nazianzen, the virgin by excellence, and the first of virgins. In the example and patronage of Mary we have a powerful succor against the opposite most abominable and destroying vice. We can only be victorious in its most dangerous conflicts by arming ourselves with her sincere humility, perfect distrust in ourselves, constant spirit of prayer, and flight of the shadow of danger, and with the mortification of our own will, and of our senses and flesh.

The Virgin Mary was the most perfect model of all other virtues. St. Ambrose, in the beginning of his second book, On Virginity, exhorts virgins in particular to make her life the rule of their conduct: “Let the life and virginity of Mary,” says he, “be set before you as in a looking-glass, in which is seen the pattern of chastity and virtue. The first spur to imitation is the nobility of the master. What more noble than the Mother of God !—she was a virgin in body and mind, whose candor was incapable of deceit or disguise; humble in heart ; grave in words; wise in her resolutions. She spoke seldom and little; read assiduously, and placed her confidence, not in inconstant riches, but in the prayers of the poor. Being always employed with fervor, she would have no other witness of her heart but God alone, to whom she referred herself, and all things she did or possessed. She injured no one, was beneficent to all, honored her superiors, envied not equals, shunned vain-glory, followed reason, ardently loved virtue. Her looks were sweet, her discourse mild, her behavior modest. Her actions had nothing unbecoming, her gait nothing of levity, her voice nothing of overbearing assurance. Her exterior was all so well regulated, that in her body was seen a picture of her mind, and an model of all virtues. Her charities knew no bounds; temperate in her diet, she prolonged her fasts several days, and the most ordinary meats were her choice, not to please the taste, but to support nature. The moments which we pass in sleep, were to her a time for the sweetest exercises of devotion. It was not her custom to go out of doors, except to the temple, and this always in the company of her relations,” &c. The humble and perfect virtue of Mary raised in St. Joseph the highest opinion of her sanctity, as appeared when he saw her with child. “This is a testimony of the sanctity of Mary,” says St. Jerom, “that Joseph knowing her chastity, and admiring what had happened, suppresses in silence a mystery which he did not understand.” Another ancient writer improves the same remark, crying out: O inestimable commendation of Mary ! Joseph rather believed her virtue than her womb, and grace rather than nature. He thought it more possible that Mary should have conceived by miracle without a man, that she should have sinned.”

Yet this sanctity of Mary, which was a subject of admiration to the highest heavenly spirits consisted chiefly in ordinary actions, and in the purity of heart and the fervor with which she performed them. All her glory is from within! (Ps. 44:14) From her we learn that our spiritual perfection is to be sought in our own state, and depends very much upon the manner in which we perform our ordinary actions. True virtue loves to do all things in silence and with as little show and noise as may be; it studies to avoid whatever would recommend it to the eyes of men, desiring to have no other witness but him who is its rewarder, and whose glory alone it seeks. A virtue which wants a trumpet to proclaim it, or which affects only public, singular, or extraordinary actions, is to be suspected of subtle pride, vanity, and self-love.

To study these lessons in the life of Mary, to praise God for the graces which he has conferred upon her, and the blessings which through her he has bestowed on the world, and to recommend our necessities to so powerful an advocate, we celebrate festivals in her honor. This of her Nativity has been kept in the church with great solemnity above a thousand years. The Roman Order mentions the homilies and litany which were appointed by pope Sergius in 688 to be read upon it ; and a procession is ordered to he made on this day from St. Adrian’s church to the Liberian basilic or St. Mary Major. In the Sacramentary of St. Gregory the Great, published by Dom Menard, particular collects or prayers are prescribed for the mass, procession, and matins on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, with a special preface for the mass. A mass with particular collects for this festival occurs in the old Roman Sacramentary or Missal, published by cardinal Thomasius, which is judged by the learned to be the same that was used by pope Leo the Great, and some of his predecessors. This feast is mentioned by St. Ildefonsus, in the seventh century. The Greeks, the Copths in Egypt, and the other Christian churches in the East, keep with great solemnity the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin. St. Peter Damian pathetically exhorts all the faithful to celebrate it with great devotion.
(edited from Butler's Lives of the Saints)