August
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
It was his Christian faith that made Louis IX so great a prince. ‘You that are the judges of the earth, think of the Lord in goodness, and seek Him in simplicity of heart.’[1] Eternal Wisdom, in giving this precept to kings, rejoiced with divine foreknowledge among the lilies of France, where this great saint was to shine with so bright a lustre.
Subject and prince are bound to God by a common law, for all men have one entrance into life, and the like going out.[2]Far from being less responsible to the divine authority than his subjects, the prince is auswerable for every one of them as well as for himself. The aim and object of creation is that God be glorified by the return of all creatures to their Author, in the manner and measure that He wills. Therefore, since God has called man to a participation in His own divine life, and has made the earth to be to him but a place of passage, mere natural justice and the present order of things are not sufficient for him. Kings must recognize that the object of their civil sovereignty, not being the last end of all things, is, like themselves, under the direction and absolute rule of that higher end, before which they are but as subjects. Hear therefore, ye kings, and understand: a greater punishment is ready for the more mighty.[3] Thus did the divine goodness give merciful warnings under the ancient Covenant.
But not satisfied with giving repeated admonitions, Wisdom came down from her heavenly throne. Henceforth the world belongs to her by a twofold title. By the right of her divine origin, she held the principality in the brightness of the saints, before the rising of the day star; she now reigns by right of conquest over the redeemed world. Before her coming in the flesh, it was already from her that kings received their power, and that equity which directs its exercise. Jesus, the Son of Man, whose Blood paid the ransom of the world, is now, by the contract of the sacred nuptials which united Him to our nature, the only source of power and of all true justice. And now, once more, O ye kings, understand: says the psalmist; receive instruction, you that judge the earth.[4]
St. Augustine:
It is Christ who speaks: Now that I am king in the name of God My Father, be not sad, as though you were thereby deprived of some good you possessed; but rather acknowledging that it is good for you to be subject to Him who gives you security in the light, serve this Lord of all with fear, and rejoice unto Him.[5]
It is the Church that continues, in the name of our ascended Lord, to give to kings this security which comes from the light: the Church who, without trespassing upon the authority of princes, is nevertheless their superior as mother of nations, as judge of consciences, as the only guide of the human race journeying towards its last end. Let us listen to the sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII, speaking with the precision and power which characterize his infallible teaching:
As there are on earth two great societies: the one civil, whose immediate end is to procure the temporal and earthly well-being of the human race; the other religious, whose aim is to lead men to the eternal happiness for which they were created: so also God has divided the government of the world between two powers. Each of these is supreme in its kind; each is bounded by definite limits drawn in conformity with its nature and its peculiar end. Jesus Christ, the founder of the Church, willed that they should be distinct from one another, and that both should be free from trammels in the accomplishment of their respective missions; yet with this provision, that in those matters which appertain to the jurisdiction and judgment of both, though on different grounds, the power which is concerned with temporal interests, must depend, as is fitting, on that power which watches over eternal interests. Finally, both being subject to the eternal and to the natural Law, they must in such a manner mutually agree in what concerns the order and government of each, as to form a relationship comparable to the union of soul and body in man.
In the sphere of eternal interests, to which no one may be indifferent, princes are bound to hold not only themselves but their people also in subjection to God and to His Church.
[For] since men united by the bonds of a common society depend on God no less than individuals, associations whether political or private cannot, without crime, behave as if God did not exist, nor put away religion as something foreign to them, nor dispense themselves from observing, in that religion, the rules according to which God has declared that He wills to be honoured. Consequently, the heads of the State are bound, as such, to keep holy the name of God, make it one of of their principal duties to protect religion by the authority of the laws, and not command or ordain anything contrary to its integrity.[6]
Let us now return to St. Augustine’s explanation of the text of the Psalm:
How do kings serve the Lord with fear, except by forbidding and punishing with a religious severity all acts contrary to the commands of the Lord? In his twofold character as man and as prince, the king must serve God: as man, he serves Him by the fidelity of his life; as king, by framing or maintaining laws which command good and forbid evil. He must act like Ezechias and Josias, destroying the temples of the false gods and the high places that had been constructed contrary to the command of the Lord; like the king of Ninive obliging his city to appease the Lord; like Darius giving up the idol to Daniel to be broken, and casting Daniel’s enemies to the lions; like Nabuchodonosor forbidding blasphemy throughout his kingdom by a terrible law. It is thus that kings serve the Lord as kings, viz: when they do in His service those tilings which only kings can do.[7]
In all this teaching we are not losing sight of to-day’s feast; for we may say of Louis IX as an epitome of his life: ‘He made a covenant before the Lord to walk after Him and keep His commandments; and cause them to be kept by all.’[8]God was his end, faith was his guide: herein lies the whole secret of his government as well as of his sanctity. As a Christian he was a servant of Christ, as a prince he was Christ’s lieutenant; the aspirations of the Christian and those of the prince did not divide his soul; this unity was his strength, as it is now his glory. He now reigns in heaven with Christ, who alone reigned in him and by him on earth. If then your delight be in thrones and sceptres, O ye kings of the people, love wisdom, that you may reign for ever.[9]
Louis was anointed king at Rheims on the first Sunday of Advent 1226; and he laid to heart for his whole life the words of that day’s Introit: ‘To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust!' He was only twelve years old; but our Lord had given him the surest safeguard of his youth, in the person of his mother, that noble daughter of Spain, whose coming into France, says William de Nangis, was the arrival of all good things.[10] The premature death of her husband Louis VIII left Blanche of Castille to cope with a most formidable conspiracy. The great vassals, whose power had been reduced during the preceding reigns, promised themselves that they would profit of the minority of the new prince, in order to regain the rights they had enjoyed under the ancient feudal system to the detriment of the unity of government. In order to remove this mother, who stood up single-handed between the weakness of the heir to the throne and their ambition, the barons, everywhere in revolt, joined hands with the Albigensian heretics; and made an alliance with the son of John Lackland, Henry III, who was endeavouring to recover the possessions in France lost by his father in punishment for the murder of prince Arthur. Strong in her son’s right and in the protection of Pope Gregory IX, Blanche held out; and she, whom the traitors to their country called the foreigner in order to palliate their crime, saved France by her prudence and her brave firmness. After nine years of regency, she handed over the nation to its king, more united and more powerful than ever since the days of Charlemagne.
We cannot here give the history of an entire reign; but, honour to whom honour is due: Louis, in order to become the glory of heaven and earth on this day, had but to walk in the footsteps of Blanche, the son had but to remember the precepts of his mother.
There was a graceful simplicity in our saint’s life, which enhanced its greatness and heroism. One would have said he did not experience the difficulty that others feel, though far removed from the throne, in fulfilling those words of our Lord: Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.[11] Yet who was greater than this humble king, making more account of his Baptism at Poissy than of his anointing at Rheims; saying his Hours, fasting, scourging himself like his friends the Friars Preachers and Minors; ever treating with respect those whom he regarded as God’s privileged ones, priests, religious, the suffering and the poor? The great men of our days may smile at him for being more grieved at losing his breviary than at being taken captive by the Saracens. But how have they behaved in the like extremity? Never was the enemy heard to say of any of them: ‘You are our captive, and one would say we were rather your prisoners.’ They did not check the fierce greed and bloodthirstiness of their gaolers, nor dictate terms of peace as proudly as if they had been the conquerors. The country, brought into peril by them, has not come out of the trial more glorious. It is peculiar to the admirable reign of St. Louis, that disasters made him not only a hero but a saint; and that France gained for centuries in the east, where her king had been captive, a greater renown than any victory could have won for her.
The humility of holy kings is not forgetfulness of the great office they fulfil in God’s name; their abnegation could not consist in giving up rights which are also duties, any more than charity could cast out justice, or love of peace could oppose the virtues of the warrior. St. Louis, without an army, felt himself superior as a Christian to the victorious infidel, and treated him accordingly; moreover the west discovered very early, and more and more as his sanctity increased with his years, that this king, who spent his nights in prayer, and his days in serving the poor, was not the man to yield to anyone the prerogatives of the crown. ‘There is but one king in France,’ said the judge of Vincennes rescinding a sentence of Charles of Anjou; and the barons at the castle of Bellême, and the English at Taillebourg, were already aware of it; so was Frederick II who, threatening to crush the Church and seeking aid from the French, received this answer: ‘The kingdom of France is not so weak as to suffer itself to be driven by your spurs.’
Louis’s death was like his life, simple and great. God called him to Himself in the midst of sorrowful and critical circumstances, far from his own country, in that African land where he had before suffered so much; these trials were sanctifying thorns, reminding the prince of his most cherished jewel, the sacred crown of thorns which he had added to the treasures of France. Moved by the hope of converting the king of Tunis to the Christian faith, it was rather as an apostle than a soldier that he had landed on that shore where his last straggle awaited him. ‘I challenge you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of His lieutenant Louis king of France;’ such was the sublime provocation hurled against the infidel city, and it was worthy of the close of such a life. Six centuries later, Tunis was to see the sons of those same Franks unwittingly following up the challenge of the saintly king, at the invitation of all the holy ones resting in the now Christian land of ancient Carthage.
The Christian army, victorious in every battle, was decimated by a terrible plague, Surrounded by the dead and dying, and himself attacked with the contagion, Louis called to him his eldest son, who was to succeed him as Philip III, and gave him his last instructions:
Dear son, the first thing I admonish thee is that thou set thy heart to love God, for without that nothing else is of any worth. Beware of doing what displeases God, that is to say mortal sin; yea rather oughtest thou to suffer all manner of torments. If God send thee adversity, receive it in patience, and give thanks for it to our Lord, and think that thou hast done Him ill service. If He give thee prosperity, thank Him humbly for the same and be not the worse, either by pride or in any other manner, for that very thing that ought to make thee better; for we must not use God’s gifts against Himself. Have a kind and pitiful heart towards the poor and the unfortunate, and comfort and assist them as much as thou canst. Keep up the good customs of thy kingdom, and put down all bad ones. Love all that is good and hate all that is evil of any sort. Suffer no ill word about God or our Lady or the saints to be spoken in thy presence, that thou dost not straightway punish. In the administering of justice be loyal to thy subjects, without turning aside to the right hand or to the left; but help the right, and take the part of the poor until the whole truth be cleared up. Honour and love all ecclesiastical persons, and take care that they be not deprived of the gifts and alms that thy predecessors may have given them. Dear son, I admonish thee that thou be ever devoted to the Church of Rome, and to the sovereign Bishop our father, that is the Pope, and that thou bear him reverence and honour as thou oughtest to do to thy spiritual father. Exert thyself that every vile sin be abolished from thy land; especially to the best of thy power put down all wicked oaths and heresy. Fair son, I give thee all the blessings that a good father can give to a son; may the blessed Trinity and all the saints guard thee and protect thee from all evils; may God give thee grace to do His will always, and may He be honoured by thee, and may thou and I after this mortal life be together in His company and praise Him without end.[12]
Continues Joinville:
When the good king had instructed his son my lord Philip, his illness began to increase greatly; ho asked for the Sacraments of holy Church, and received them in a sound mind and right understanding, as was quite evident; for when they were anointing him and saying the seven Psalms, he took his own part in reciting. I have heard my lord the Count d’Alencon his son relate, that when he drew nigh to death, he called the saints to aid and succour him, and in particular my lord St. James, saying his prayer which begins: Esto Domine; that is to say: O God, be the sanctifier and guardian of thy people. Then he called to his aid my lord St. Denis of France, saying his prayer, which is as much as to say: Sire God, grant that we may despise the prosperity of this world, and may fear no adversity! And I heard from my lord d’Alencon (whom God absolve), that his father next invoked Madame St. Genevieve. After this the holy king had himself laid on a bed strewn with ashes, and placing his hands upon his breast and looking towards heaven, he gave up his soul to his Creator, at the same hour wherein the Son of God died on the cross for the salvation of the world.
Let us read the short notice consecrated by the Church to her valiant eldest son.
Ludovicus nonus Galliæ rex, duodecim annos natus, patre amisso, et in Blanchæ matris sanctissima disciplina educatus, cum jam vigesimuin annum in regno ageret, in morbum incidit: quo tempore cogitavit de recuperanda possessione Jerosolymorum. Quamobrem ubi convaluisset, vexillum ab episcopo Parisiensi accepit: deinde mare cum ingenti exercitu trajiciens, primo prælio Saracenos fugavit. Sed cum ex pestilentia magna militum multitudo periisset, victus ipse captusque est.
Rebus postea cum Saracenis compositis, liber rex exercitusque dimittitur. Quinque annis in Oriente commoratus, plurimos christianos a barbarorum servituteredemit, multos etiam infideles ad Christi fidem convertit; præterea aliquot christianorum urbes refecit suis sumptibus. Interim mater ejus migrat e vita: quare domum redire cogitur, ubi totum se dedit pietatis officiis.
Multa ædificavit monasteria, et pauperum hospitia:beneficentia egentes sublevabat: frequens visebat ægrotos, quibus ipse non solum suis sumptibus omnia suppeditabat, sed etiam, quæ opus erant, manibus ministrabat. Vestitu vulgari utebatur, cilicio ac jejunio corpus assidue affligebat. Sed cum iterum transmisisset, bellum Saracenis illaturus, jamque castra in eorum conspectu posuisset, pestilentia decessit in illa oratione: Introibo in domum tuam; adorabo ad templum sanctum tuum, et confitebor nomini tuo. Ejus corpus postea Lutetiam Parisiorum translatum est, quod in celebri sancti Dionysii templo asservatur et colitur: caput vero in sacra æde sanctæ Capellæ. Ipse clarus miraculis a Bonifacio Papa octavo in sanctorum numerum est relatus.
Louis IX, king of France, having lost his father when he was only twelve years old, was educated in a most holy manner by his mother Blanche. When he had reigned for twenty years he fell ill and it was then he conceived the idea of regaining possession of Jerusalem. On his recovery therefore he received the great standard from the bishop of Paris and crossed the sea with a large army. In a first engagement he repulsed the Saracens; but a great number of his men being struck down by pestilence, he was conquered and made prisoner.
A treaty was then made with the Saracens, and the king and his army were set at liberty. Louis spent five years in the east. He delivered many Christian captives, converted many of the infidels to the faith of Christ, and also rebuilt several Christian towns out of his own lesources. Meanwhile his mother died, and on this account he was obliged to return home, where he devoted himself entirely to good works.
He built many monasteries and hospitals for the poor; heassisted those in need and frequently visited the sick, supplying all their necessities at his own expense and even serving them with his own hands. He dressed in a simple manner and subdued his body by continual fasting and wearing a hair-cloth. He crossed over to Africa a second time to fight with the Saracens, and had pitched his camp in sight of them when he was struck down by a pestilence and died while saying this prayer: ‘I will come into thy house; I will worship towards thy holy temple and I will confess to thy name.’ His body was afterwards translated to Paris and is honourably preserved in the celebrated church of St. Denis; but the head is in the Sainte-Chapelle. He was celebrated for miracles, and Pope Boniface VIII enrolled his name among the saints.
Jerusalem, the true Sion, at length opens her gates to thee, O Louis, who for her sake didst give up thy treasures and thy life. From the eternal throne whereon the Son of God gives thee to share His own honours and power, ever promote the kingdom of God on earth; be zealous for the faith; be a strong arm to our mother the Church. Thanks to thee, the infidel east, though it adores not Christ, at least respects His adorers, having but one name for Christian and Frank. For this reason our present rulers would remain protectors of Christianity in those lands, while they persecute it at home; a contradiction no less fatal to the country than opposed to its traditions of liberty, and its reputation for honour and honesty. How can they be said to know our traditions and our history, or to understand the national interests, who misunderstand the God of Clovis, of Charlemagne, and of St. Louis? In that Egypt, the scene of thy labours, what has now become of the patrimony of glorious influence which has been held by thy nation for centuries?
Thy descendants are no longer here to defend us against these men who use the country for their own purposes and exile those who have been the makers of it. But how terrible are the judgments of the Lord! Thou thyself hast said: ‘I would rather a stranger than my own son should rule my people and kingdom, if my son is to rule amiss.’[13] Thirty years after the Crusade of Tunis, an unworthy prince, Philip IV thy second successor, outraged the Vicar of Christ. Straightway he was rejected by heaven, and his direct male line became extinct. The withered bough was replaced by another branch, though still from the same root. But the nation had to suffer for its kings, and to expiate the crime of Anagni: the judgment of God allowed a terrible war to be brought about through the political indisoretion of the same Philip the Fair,[14] a prince as discreditable to the State as to the Church and to his own family. Then for a hundred years the country seemed to be on the brink of destruction; until by a wonderful protection of God over the land, the Maid of Orleans, blessed Joan of Arc, rescued the lily of France from the clutches of the English leopard.
Other faults alas! were to compromise still further, and then, twice over, to wither up or break the branches of the royal tree.Long did thy personal merits outweigh before God the scandalous immorality, which our princes had made their family mark, their odious privilege: a shame, which was transmitted by the expiring Valois to the Bourbons; which had to be expiated, but not effaced, by the blood of the just Louis XVI; and which so many illustrious exiles are still expiating in lowliness and sorrow in a foreign land. Would that thou couldst at least recognize these thy remaining sons by their imitation of thy virtues! For it is only by striving to win back this spiritual inheritance, that they can hope that God will one day restore them the other.
For God, who commands us to obey at all times the power actually established, is ever the master of nations and the unchangeable disposer of their changeable destinies. Then every one of thy descendants, taught by a sad experience, will be bound to remember, O Louis, thy last recommendation: 'Exert thyself that every vile sin be abolished from thy land; especially, to the best of thy power, put down all wicked oaths and heresy.’
[1] Wisd. i. 1.
[2] Ibid. vii. 6.
[3] Ibid. vi. 2, 9.
[4] Psalm ii. 10.
[5] S. Aug. Enarrat. in Ps. ii.
[6] Cf. Epist. Encycl. ad Episcopos Galliæ, Nohilissima Gallorum gens, 8 Febr. 1884,—Encycl. Immortale Dei, de civitatum constitutione Christiana, l Nov. 1885,—Encycl. Arcanum divinœ sapientiœ, de matrimonio Christiano, 10 Feb. 1880.
[7] Aug. ad Bonifac. Ep. 185.
[8] 2 Paralip. xxxiv. 31-33.
[9] Wisd. vi. 22.
[10] Gesta S. Ludovici.
[11] Matt, xviii. 3.
[12] Geoffrey do Beaulieu; Queen Margaret’s Confessor; William de Nangis; Joinville.
[13] Joinville, part 1.
[14] By marrying his daughter Isabella to Edward II of England; which marriage after the death of Philip’s three sons Louis X, Philip V, and Charles IX, without male issue, furnished the plea for Isabella’s son Edward III to pretend to the crown of France.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Zephyrinus was the first Pontiff to be buried in the celebrated crypt where the Popes of the third century came after their combat to sleep their last sleep. The catacomb which thus succeeded the Vatican cemetery in the honour of sheltering the vicars of Christ, had been opened thirty years before by the virgin martyr Cæcilia. As, when at the point of death, she had consecrated her palace into a church, so now from her tomb she caused her family burialplace to pass into the hands of the Church. This gift of the Cæcilii was the inauguration, in the very face of the pagan government, of common Church property officially recognized by the State. Zephyrinus entrusted the administration of the new cemetery to the person who ranked next to himself in the Roman Church, viz: the archdeacon Callixtus. The holy Pontiff witnessed the growth of heresy concerning the Unity of God and the Trinity of the divine Persons; without the help of the special vocabulary, which was later on to fix even the very terms of theological teaching, he knew how to silence both the Sabellians to whom the Trinity was but a name, and the precursors of Arms, who revenged themselves by reviling him.[1]
Zephyrinus Romanus Severo imperatore act regendam Ecclesiam assumptus, sancivit, ut qui ordinandi essent, opportuno tempore et multis præsentibus clerieia et laicis, de more sacris initiarentur; doctique ac spectatæ vitæ homines ad id officii munus deligerentur. Decrevit præterea, ut rem divinam facienti episcopo sacerdotes omnes astarent. Idem instituit ut patriarcha, primas, metropolitanus adversus episcopum non ferant sententiam, nisi apostolica auctoritate fulti. Vixit in pontificatu annos decem et octo, dies decem et octo. Habuit ordinationes quatuor mense decembri, quibus creavit presbyteros tredecim, diaconos septem, episcopos per diversa loca tredecim. Antonino imperatore martyrio coronatila est, et sepultus via Appia prope cœmeterium Callisti, septimo calendas septembris.
Zephyrinus, a Roman by birth, was chosen to govern the Church during the reign of the emperor Severus. He ordained that, according to custom, Holy Orders should be conferred on candidates at a fitting time and in presence of many both clergy and laity; and also that learned and worthy men should be chosen for that dignity. Moreover he decreed that when the bishop was offering the holy Sacrifice, he should be assisted by all the priests. He also ordained that neither patriarch, nor primate, nor metropolitan might condemn a bishop without the authority of the apostolic See. His pontificate lasted eighteen years and eighteen days. In four ordinations which he held in the month of December, he ordained thirteen priests, seven deacons, and thirteen bishops for divers places. He was crowned by martyrdom under the emperor Antoninus, and was buried on the Appian Way, near the cemetery of Callixtus, on the seventh of the Calends of September.
Victor I was the Pontiff of the Pasch; and thou also, his successor, wast devoured by the zeal of God's house, to maintain and increase the regularity, the dignity, and the splendour of the divine worship on earth. In heaven the court of the Conqueror of death gained, during thy pontificate, many noble members, such as Irenæus, Perpetua, and the countless martyrs who triumphed in the persecution of Septimus Severus. In the midst of dangerous snares thou wast the divinely assisted guardian of the truth, whom our Lord had promised to His Church. Thy fidelity was rewarded by the increasing advancement of the bride of Jesus, and by the definitive establishment of her foothold upon the world which she is to gain over wholly to her Spouse. We shall meet thee again in October, in company with Callixtus, who is now thy deacon, but will then, in his turn, be vicar of the Man-God. To-day give us thy paternal blessing; and make us ever true sons of St. Peter.
[1] Philosophumem, Lib, ix.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
‘To thee is the poor man left: thou wilt be a helper to the orphan.’[1] Proud Venice has already seen these words realized in her noble son Jerome Æmilian: to-day they indicate the sanctity of another illustrious person descended from the first princes of Navarre, but of still higher rank in the kingdom of charity.
God, who waters the trees of the field as well as the cedars of Libanus, because it is He that planted them all, takes care also of the little birds that do not gather into barns: will He then forget the child, who is of much more value than the birds of the air? Or will He give him corporal nourishment, and neglect the soul hungering for the bread of the knowledge of salvation, which strengthens the heart of man? In the sixteenth century one might have been tempted to think our heavenly Father’s granaries were empty. True, the holy Spirit soon raised up new saints; hut the reviving charity was insufficient for the number of the destitute; how many poor ohildren, especially, were without schools, deprived of the most elementary education which is indispensable to the fulfilment of their obligations, and to their nobility as children of God: and there was no one to break to them the bread of knowledge!
More fortunate than so many other countries overrun with heresy, Spain was at her apogee, enjoying the hundredfold promised to those who seek first the kingdom of God. She seemed to have become our Lord’s inexhaustible resource. A little while ago she had given Ignatius Loyola to the world; she had just enriched heaven by the precious death of Teresa of Avila, when the Holy Ghost drew once more from her abundance to add to the riches of the capital of the Christian world, and to supply the wants of the little ones in God’s Church.
The descendant of the Calasanz of Petralta de la Sal was already the admired apostle of Aragon, Catalonia, and Castille, when he heard a mysterious voice speaking to his soul: 'Go to Rome; go forth from the land of thy birth; soon shall appear to thee, in her heavenly beauty, the companion destined for thee, holy poverty, who now calls thee to taste of her austere delights; go, without knowing whither I am leading thee; I will make thee the father of an immense family; I will show thee all that thou must suffer for My name’s sake.’
Forty years of blind fidelity, in unconscious sanotity, had prepared the elect of heaven for his sublime vocation. 'What can be greater,' asks St. John Chrysostom, ‘than to direct the souls and form the characters of children? Indeed I consider him greater than any painter or sculptor, who knows how to fashion the souls of the young.’[2] Joseph understood the dignity of his mission: during the remaining fifty-two years of his life he, according to the recommendations of the holy Doctor, considered nothing mean or despicable in the service of the little ones; nothing cost him dear if only it enabled him, by the teaching of letters, to infuse into the innumerable children who came to him the fear of the Lord. From St. Pantaleon, his residence, the Pious schools soon covered the whole of Italy, spread into Sicily and Spain, and were eagerly sought by kings and people in Moravia, Bohemia, Poland, and the northern countries.
Eternal Wisdom associated Calasanctius to her own work of salvation on earth. She rewarded him for his labours as she generally does her privileged ones, by giving him a strong conflict, that he might overcome, and know that wisdom is mightier than all,[3] It is a conflict like that of Jacob at the ford of Jaboc which represents the last obstacle to the entrance into the promised land, when all the pleasures and goods of the world have been sent on before by absolute renouncement; it is a conflict by night, wherein nature fails and becomes lame; but it is followed by the rising of the sun, and sets the combatant at the entrance of eternal day; it is a conflict with God hand to hand, under the appearance, it is true, of a man or of an angel; but it matters little under what form God chooses to hide Himself, provided it takes nothing from His sovereign dominion. ‘Why dost thou ask my name?’ said the wrestler to Jacob; ‘thine shall be henceforth Israel, strong against God.’[4]
Our readers may consult the historians of Saint Joseph Calasanctius for the details of the trials which made him a prodigy of fortitude, as the Church calls him.[5] Through the calumnies of false brethren the saint was deposed, and the Order reduced to the condition of a secular congregation. It was not until after his death that it was re-established, first by Alexander VII, and then by Clement IX, as a Regular Order with solemn vows. In his great work on the Canonization of saints, Benedict XIV speaks at length on this subject, delighting in the part he had taken in the process of the servant of God, first as consistorial advocate, then as promoter of the faith, and lastly as Cardinal giving his vote in favour of the cause. We shall see in the lessons that it was he also that beatified him.
Let us now read the life of the founder of the Poor Regular Clerks of the Pious Schools of the Mother of God.
Josephus Calasanctius a Matre Dei, Petralte in Aragonia nobili genere natus, a teneris annis futuræ in pueros caritatis et eorum institutionis indicia præbuit. Nam adhuc parvulus eos ad se convocatos in mysteriis fidei et sacris precibus erudiebat. Humanis divinisque litteris egregie doctus, cum studiis theologicis Valentiæ operam daret, nobilis potentisque feminæ illecebris fortiter superatis, virginitatem quam Deo voverat, inoffensam insigni victoria servavit. Sacerdos ex voto factus, a compluribus episcopis in Castellæ Novæ, Aragoniæ, et Catalauniæ regnis in partem laboris ascitus, exspectationem omnium vicit, pravis ubique moribus emendatis, ecclesiastica disciplina restituta, inimicitiis cruentisque factionibus mirifice exstinctis. At cœlesti visione et Dei voce frequenter admonitus, Romam profectus est.
In urbe summa vitæ asperitate, vigiliis et jejuniis corpus affli gens, in orationibus et cœlestium rerum contemplatione dies noctesque versabatur, septem ejusdem Urbis ecclesias singuiis fere noctibus obire solitus: quem inde morem complures annos servavit. Dato piis sodalitatibus nomine, mirum quanto ardore pauperes, infirmos potissimum, aut carceribusdetentos eleemosynis omnique pietatis officio sublevaret. Lue Urbem depopulante, una cum sancto Camillo, tanto fuit actus impetu caritatis, ut præter subsidia ægrotis pauperibus large collata, ipsa etiam defunctorum cadavera suis humeris tumulanda transferret. Verum cum divinitus accepisset, se ad informandos intelligentiæ ac pietatis spiritu adolescentulos, præcipue pauperes, destinan, Ordinem Clerieoruin regularium pauperum Matris Dei scholarum piaruni fundavit, qui peculiarem curam circa puerorum eruditionem ex proprio instituto profiterentur: ipsumque Ordinem a Clemente octavo, a Paulo quinto, aliisque summis Pontificibus magnopere probatum, brevi tempore per plurimas Europæ provincias et regna mirabiliter propagavit. In hoc autem tot labores perpessus est, ac tot ærumnas invicto animo toleravit, ut omnium voce miraculum fortitudinis, et sancti Jobi exemplum diceretur.
Quamvis Ordini universo præesset, totisque viribus ad animarum salutem incumberet, numquam tamen intermisit pueros, præsertim pauperiores, erudire, quorum scholas verrere, eosque domum comitari consuevit. In eo summæ patientiæ et humilitatis munere, valetudine etiam infirma, duos et quinquaginta annos perse veravit: dignus propterea, quem crebria Deus miraculis coram discipulis illustraret et cui beatissima Virgo cum puero Jesu, illis orantibus benedicente, appareret. Amplissimis interim dignitatibus repudiatis, prophetia, abdita cordium et absentia cognoscendi donis et miraculis clarus, Deiparæ Virginis, quam singulari pietate et ipse ab infantia coluit, et suis maxime commendavit, aliorumque cœlitum frequenti apparitone dignatus, cura obitus sui diem, et Ordinis tunc prope eversi restitutionem atque incrementum prænuntiasset, secundum et nonagesimum annum agens, Romæ obdormivit in Domino, octavo calendas septembris, anno millesimo sexcentesimo quadragesimo octavo. Ejus cor et lingua post sæculum integra et incorrupta reperta sunt. Ipse vero multis post obitum quoque signis a Deo illustratus, primum a Benedicto decimo quarto beatorum cultu decoratus fuit, ac deinde a Clemente decimo tertio inter sanctos solemniter est relatus.
Joseph Calasanctius of the Mother of God was born of a noble family of Petralta in Aragon, and from his earliest years gave signs of his future love for children and their education. For, when still a little child, he would gather other children round him and would teach them the mysteries of faith and holy prayer. After having received a good education in the liberal arts and divinity, he went through his theological studies at Valencia. Here he courageously overcame the seductions of a noble and powerful lady, and by a remarkable victory preserved unspotted his virginity which he had already vowed to God. He became a priest in fulfilment of a vow; and several bishops of New Castille, Aragon, and Catalonia availed themselves of his assistance. He surpassed all their expectations, corrected evil living throughout the kingdom, restored ecclesiastical discipline, and was marvellously successful in putting an end to enmities and bloody factions. But urged by a heavenly vision, and after having been several times called by God, he went to Rome.
Here he led a life of great austerity; fasting and watching, spending whole days and nights in heavenly contemplation, and visiting the seven basilicas of the city almost every night. This last custom he observed for many years. He enrolled himself in pious associations, and with wonderful charity devoted himself to aiding and consoling the poor with alms and other works of mercy, especially those who were sick or imprisoned. When the plague was raging in Rome, he joined St. Camillus, and not content in his ardent zeal, with bestowing lavish care upon the sick poor, he even carried the dead to the grave on his own shoulders. But having been divinely admonished that he was called to educate children, especially those of the poor, in piety and learning, he founded the Order of the Poor Regular Clerks of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, who are specially destined to devote themselves to the instruction of youth. This Order was highly approved by Clement VIII., Paul V., and others of the Roman Pontiffs, and in a wonderfully short space of time it spread through many of the kingdoms of Europe. But in this undertaking Joseph had to undergo many sufferings and labours, and he endured them all with so much constancy, that every one proclaimed him a miracle of patience and another Job.
Though burdened with the government of the whole Order, he nevertheless devoted himself to saving souls, and moreover never gave over teaching children, especially those of the poorer class. He would sweep their schools and take them to their homes himself. For fifty-two years he persevered in this work, though it called upon him to practise the greatest patience and humility, and although he suffered from weak health. God rewarded him by honouring him with many miracles in the presence of his disciples; and the blessed Virgin appeared to him with the Infant Jesus who blessed his children while they were praying. He refused the highest dignities, but he was made illustrious by the gifts of prophecy, of reading the secrets of hearts, and of knowing what was going on in his absence. He was favoured with frequent apparitions of the citizens of heaven, particularly of the Virgin Mother of God, whom he had loved and honoured most especially from his infancy, and whose cultus he had most strongly recommended to his disciples. He foretold the day of his death and the restoration and propagation of his Order, which was then almost destroyed, and in his ninety-second year he fell asleep in our Lord, at Rome, on the eighth of the Calends of September, in the year 1648. A century later, his heart and tongue were found whole and incorrupt. God honoured him by many miracles after his death. Benedict XIV. granted him the henours of the blessed, and Clement XIII. solemnly enrolled him among the saints.
The Lord hath heard the desires of the poor,[6] by making thee the depositary of His love, and putting on thy lips the words He Himself was the first to utter: ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me.’[7] How many owe, and will yet owe, their eternal happiness to thee, O Joseph, because thou and thy sons have preserved in them the divine likeness received in Baptism, man’s only title to heaven! Be thou blessed for having justified the confidence Jesus placed in thee by entrusting to thy care those frail little beings, who are the objects of His divine predilection. Be thou blessed for having still further corresponded to that confidence of our Lord, when He suffered thee, like Job, to be persecuted by satan, and with yet more cruel surprises than those of the just Idumæan. Must not God be able to count unfailingly upon those who are His? Is it not fitting that, amidst the defections of this miserable world, He should be able to show His angels what grace can do in our poor nature, and how far His adorable will can be carried out in His saints?
The reward of thy sufferings, which thy unwavering confidence expected from the Mother of God, came at the divinely appointed hour. O Joseph, now that the Pious Schools have been long ago re-established, bless the disciples whom even our age continues to give thee; obtain for them, and for the countless scholars they train to Christian science, the blessing of the Infant Jesus. Give thy spirit and thy courage to all who devote their labours and their life to the education of the young; raise us all to the level of the teaching conveyed by thy heroic life.
[1] Ps. ix. 14.
[2] Homilia diei, ex Chyrs. in Matth. lx.
[3] Wisd. x. 12.
[4] Gen. xxxii.
[5] 2nd lesson of the second Nocturn.
[6] Offertory from Ps. ix. 17.
[7] Communion from St. Mark x. 14.
To-day Augustine, the greatest and the humblest of the Doctors, is hailed by heaven, where his conversion caused greater joy than that of any other sinner; and celebrated by the Church, who is enlightened by his writings as to the power, the value, and the gratuitousness of divine grace.
Since that wonderful, heavenly conversation at Ostia,[1] God had completed His triumph in the son of Monica’s tears and of Ambrose’s holiness. Far away from the great cities where pleasure had seduced him, the former rhetorician now cared only to nourish his soul with the simplicity of the Scriptures, in silence and solitude. But grace, after breaking the double chain that bound his mind and his heart, was to have a still greater dominion over him; the pontifical consecration was to consummate Augustine’s union with that divine Wisdom, whom alone he declared he loved ‘for her own sole sake, caring neither for rest nor life save on her account.’[2] From this height, to which the divine mercy had raised him, let us hear him pouring out his heart:
Too late have I loved Thee, O Beauty so ancient and yet so new! Too late have I loved Thee! And behold Thou wast within me, and I, having wandered out of myself, sought Thee everywhere without. . . . I questioned the earth, and she answered me: “I am not the one thou seekest”; and all the creatures of earth made the same reply. I questioned the sea and its abysses and all the living things therein, and they answered: “We are not thy God; seek above us.” I questioned the restless winds; and all the air with its inhabitants replied: “Anaximenes is mistaken, I am not God.” I questioned the sky, the sun, the moon, the stars, and they said: “We are not the God whom thou seekest.” And I said to all these things that stand without at the gates of my senses: “Ye have all confessed concerning my God that ye are not He, tell me now something about Him.” And they all cried with one great voice: “It is He that made us.” I questioned them with my desires, and they answered by their beauty.— Let the air and the waters and the earth be silent! Let man keep silence in his own soul! Let him pass beyond his own thought; for beyond all language of men or of angels, He, of whom creatures speak, makes Himself heard; where signs and images and figurative visions cease, there eternal Wisdom reveals Herself. . . . Thou didst call and cry so loud that my deaf ears could hear Thee; Thou didst shine so brightly that my blind eyes could see Thee; Thy fragrance exhilarated me, and it is after Thee that I aspire; having tasted Thee I hunger and thirst; Thou hast touched me and thrilled me, and I burn to be in Thy peaceful rest. When I shall be united to Thee with my whole being, then will my sorrows and labours cease.[3]
To the end of his life Augustine never ceased to fight for the truth against all the heresies then invented by the father of lies; in his ever repeated victories, we know not which to admire most: his knowledge of the holy Scriptures, his powerful logic, or his eloquence. We see too that divine charity which, while inflexibly upholding every iota of God’s rights, is full of ineffable compassion for the unhappy beings who do not understand those rights.
Let those be hard upon you who do not know what labour it is to reach the truth and turn away from error. Let those be hard upon you, who know not how rare a thing it is, and how much it costs, to overcome the false images of the senses and to dwell in peace of soul. Let those be hard upon you, who know not with what difficulty man’s mental eye is healed so as to be able to gaze upon the Sun of justice; who know not through what sighs and groans one attains to some little knowledge of God. Let those, finally, be hard upon you, who have never known seduction like that whereby you are deceived. ... As for me, who have been tossed about by the vain imaginations of which my mind was in search, and who have shared your misery and so long deplored it, I could not by any means be harsh to you.[4]
These touching words were addressed to the disciples of Manes, who were hemmed in on all sides even by the laws of the pagan emperors. How fearful is the misery of our fallen race, when the darkness of hell can overpower the loftiest intellects! Augustine, the formidable opponent of heresy, was, for nine years previously, the convinced disciple and ardent apostle of Manicheism. This heresy was a strange variety of Gnostic dualism, which, to explain the existence of evil, made a god of evil itself; and which owed its prolonged influence to the pleasure taken in it by satan’s pride.
Augustine sustained also a prolonged though more local struggle against the Donatists, whose teaching was based on a principle as false as the fact from which it professed to originate. This fact, which on the petitions presented by the Donatists themselves was juridically proved to be false, was that Cæcilianus, primate of Africa in 311, had received episcopal consecration from a traditor, i. e. one who had delivered up the sacred Books in time of persecution. No one, argued the Donatists, could communicate with a sinner, without himself ceasing to form part of the flock of Christ; therefore, as the bishops of the rest of the world had continued to communicate with Cæcilianus and his successors, the Donatists alone were now the Church. This groundless schism was established among most of the inhabitants of Roman Africa, with its four hundred and ten bishops, and its troops of Circumcellions ever ready to commit murders and violence upon the Catholics on the roads or in isolated houses. The greater part of our saint’s time was occupied in trying to bring back these lost sheep.
We must not imagine him studying at his ease, in the peace of a quiet episcopal city chosen as if for the purpose by Providence, and there writing those precious works whose fruits the whole world has enjoyed even to our days. There is no fecundity on earth without sufferings and trials, known sometimes to men, sometimes to God alone. When the writings of the saints awaken in us pious thoughts and generous resolutions, we must not be satisfied, as we might in the case of profane books, with admiring the genius of the authors, but think with gratitude of the price they paid for the supernatural good produced in our souls. Before Augustine’s arrival in Hippo, the Donatists were so great a majority of the population, that, as he himself informs us, they could even forbid anyone to bake bread for Catholics.[5] When the saint died, things were very different; but the pastor, who had made it his first duty to save, even in spite of themselves, the souls confided to him, had been obliged to spend his days and nights in this great work, and had more than once run the risk of martyrdom.[6] The leaders of the schismatics, fearing the force of his reasoning even more than his eloquence, refused all intercourse with him; they declared that to put Augustine to death would be a praiseworthy action, which would merit for the perpetrator the remission of his sins.[7]
‘Pray for us,’ he said at the beginning of his episcopate, ‘pray for us who live in so precarious a state, as it were between the teeth of furious wolves. These wandering sheep, obstinate sheep, are offended because we run after them, as if their wandering made them cease to be ours.—Why dost thou call us? they say; why dost thou pursue us?—But the very reason of our cries and our anguish is that they are running to their ruin.—If I am lost, if I die, what is it to thee? what dost thou want with me? —What I want is to call thee back from thy wandering; what I desire is to snatch thee from death. —But what if I will to wander? what if I will to be lost?—Thou wiliest to wander? thou wiliest to be lost? How much more earnestly do I wish it not! Yea, I dare to say it, I am importunate; for I hear the Apostle saying: “Preach the word: be instant in season, out of season.”[8] In season, when they are willing; out of season, when they are unwilling. Yes then, I am importunate: thou wiliest to perish, I will it not. And He wills it not, who threatened the shepherds saying: “That which was driven away you have not brought again, neither have you sought that which was lost.”[9] Am I to fear thee more than Him? I fear thee not; the tribunal of Donatus cannot take the place of Christ’s judgment seat, before which we must all appear. Whether thou will it or not, I shall call back the wandering sheep, I shall seek the lost sheep. The thorns may tear me; but however narrow the opening may be, it shall not check my pursuit; I will beat every bush, as long as the Lord gives me strength; so only I can get to thee wherever thou strivest to perish.’[10]
Driven into their last trenches by such unconquerable charity, the Donatists replied by massacring clerics and faithful, since they could not touch Augustine himself. The bishop implored the imperial judges not to inflict mutilation or death upon the murderers lest the triumph of the martyrs should be sullied by such a vengeance. Such mildness was certainly worthy of the Church; but it was destined to be one day brought forward against her in contrast to certain other facts of her history, by a school of liberalism that can grant rights and even preeminence to error. Augustine acknowledges his first idea to have been that constraint should not be used to bring any one into the unity of Christ; he believed that preaching and free discussion should be the only arms employed for the conversion of heretics. But on the consideration of what was taking place before his eyes, the very logic of his charity brought him over to the opinion of his more ancient colleagues in the episcopate.[11]
Who [he says] could love us more than God does? Nevertheless God makes use of fear in order to save us, although He teaches us with sweetness. When the Father of the family wanted guests for His banquet, did He not send His servants to the highways and hedges, to compel all they met to come in? This banquet is the unity of Christ’s body. If, then, the divine goodness has willed that, at the fitting time, the faith of Christian kings should recognize this power of the Church, let the heretics brought back from the by-ways, and schismatics forced into their enclosures, consider not the constraint they suffer, but the banquet of the Lord to which they would not otherwise have attained. Does not the shepherd sometimes use threats and sometimes blows, to win back to the master’s fold the sheep that have been enticed out of it? Severity that springs from love is preferable to deceitful gentleness. He who binds the delirious man, and wakes up the sleeper from his lethargy, molests them both, but for their good. If a house were on the point of falling, and our cries could not induce those within to come out, would it not be cruelty not to save them by force in spite of themselves? and that, even if we could snatch only one from death, because the rest, seeing it, obstinately hastened their own destruction: as the Donatists do, who in their madness commit suicide to obtain the crown of martyrdom. No one can become good in spite of himself; nevertheless, the rigorous laws, of which they complain, bring deliverance not only to individuals, but to whole cities, by freeing them from the bonds of untruth and causing them to see the truth, which the violence or the deceits of the schismatics had hidden from their eyes. Far from complaining, their gratitude is now boundless and their joy complete; their feasts and their chants are unceasing.[12]
Meanwhile the justice of heaven was falling upon the queen of nations; Rome, after the triumph of the cross, had not profited of God’s merciful delay; now she was expiating, under the hand of Alaric, the blood of the saints which she had shed before her idols. 'Go out from her my people.’[13] At this signal the city was evacuated. The roads were all lined with barbarians; and happy was the fugitive who could succeed in reaching the sea, there to entrust to the frailest skiff the honour of his family and the remains of his fortune. Like a bright beacon shining through the storms, Augustine, by his reputation, attracted to the African coast the best of the unfortunates; his varied correspondence shows us the new links then formed by God, between the bishop of Hippo and so many noble exiles. At one time he would send, as far as Nola in Campania, charming messages, mingled with learned questions and luminous answers, to greet his 'dear lords and venerable brethren, Paulinus and Therasia, his fellow disciples in the school of our Lord Jesus.’ Again it was to Carthage, or even nearer home, that his letters were directed, to console, instruct, and fortify Albina, Melania, and Pinianus, but especially Proba and Juliana, the illustrious grandmother and mother of a still more illustrious daughter, the virgin Demetrias, the greatest in the Roman world for nobility and wealth, and Augustine’s dear conquest to the heavenly Spouse. 'Oh! who,' he wrote on hearing of her consecration to our Lord, 'could worthily express the glory added this day to the family of the Anicii? For years, it has ennobled the world by the consuls its sons, but now it gives virgins to Christ! Let others imitate Demetrias; whosoever ambitions the glory of this illustrious family, let him take holiness for his portion!’[14] Augustine’s desire was magnificently realized, when, less than a century later, the gens Anicia gave to the world Scholastica and Benedict, who were to lead into intimate familiarity and union with God so many souls eager for true nobility.
When Rome fell, the shock was felt throughout the provinces and even beyond. Augustine tells us how he, a descendant of the ancient Numidians, groaned and wept in his almost inconsolable grief;[15] so great, even in her decadence, was the universal esteem and love for the queen city, through the secret action of Him who was holding out to her new and higher destinies. Meanwhile the terrible crisis furnished the occasion for Augustine’s most important writings. The City of Godwas an answer to the still numerous partisans of idolatry, who attributed the misfortunes of the empire to the suppression of the false gods. In this great work he refutes, in the most complete and masterly way, the theology and also the philosophy of Roman and Grecian paganism; he then proceeds to set forth the origin, the history, and the end of the two cities, the earthly, and the heavenly, which divide the world between them, and which are founded upon ‘two opposite loves: the love of self even to the despising of God, and the love of God even to the despising of self.’[16]
But Augustine’s greatest triumph was that which earned for him the title of the Doctor of grace. His favourite prayer: Da quod jubes, et jube quod vis,[17] offended the pride of a certain British monk, whom the events of the year 410 had led into Africa.[18]This was Pelagius, who taught that nature, all-powerful for good, was quite capable of working out salvation, and that Adam’s sin injured himself alone, and was not passed down to his posterity. We can well understand Augustine, who owed so much to the divine mercy, feeling so strong an aversion for a system whose authors seemed to say to God: ‘Thou madest us men, but it is we that justify ourselves.'
In this new campaign no injuries were spared to the former convert; but they were his joy and his hope. He had already said, with regard to similar arguments adduced by other adversaries:
Catholics, my beloved brethren, one flock of the one Shepherd, I care not how the enemy may insult the watch-dog of the fold; it is not for my own defence, but for yours, that I must bark. Yet I must needs tell this enemy that, as to my former wanderings and errors, I condemn them, as every one else does; I can but see therein the glory of Him who has delivered me from myself. When I hear my former life brought forward, no matter with what intention it is done, I am not so ungrateful as to be afflicted thereat; for the more they show up my misery, the more I praise my physician.[19]
While he made so little account of himself, his reputation was spreading throughout the world, by reason of the victory he had won for grace. Wrote the aged St. Jerome from Bethlehem:
Honour to you, honour to the man whom the raging winds have not been able to overthrow! . . . Continue to be of good courage. The whole world celebrates your praises; the Catholics venerate and admire you as the restorer of the ancient faith. But what is a mark of still greater glory, all the heretics hate you. They honour me, too, with their hatred. Not being able to strike us with the sword, they kill us in desire.[20]
These lines reveal the intrepid combatant with whom we shall make acquaintance in September, and who, soon after writing them, was laid to rest in the sacred cave near which he had taken refuge. Augustine had yet some years to continue the good fight, to complete the exposition of Catholic doctrine in contradiction to some even holy persons, who were inclined to think that at least the beginning of salvation, the desire of faith, did not require the special assistance of God. This was semi-pelagianism. A century later (529) the second Council of Orange, approved by Rome and hailed by the whole Church, closed the struggle, taking its definitions from the writings of the bishop of Hippo. Augustine himself, however, thus concluded his last work:
Let those who read these things give thanks to God, if they understand them; if not, let them pray to the teacher of our souls, to him whose shining produces knowledge and understanding. Do they think that I err? Let them reflect again and again, lest perhaps they themselves be mistaken. As for me, when the readers of my works instruct and correct me, I see therein the goodness of God; yea, I ask it as a favour, especially of the learned ones in the Church, if by chance this book should fall into their hands, and they deign to take notice of what I write.[21]
But let us return to the privileged people of Hippo, won over by Augustine’s devotedness, even more than by his admirable discourses. His door was open to every comer; and he was ever ready to listen to the requests, the sorrows, and the disputes of his children. Sometimes, at the instance of other churches, and even of councils, requiring of Augustine a more active pursuit of works of general interest, an agreement was made between the flock and the pastor, that on certain days of the week no one should interrupt him. But the convention could not last long. Whoever wished could claim the attention of this loving and humble shepherd, beside whom the little ones especially knew well that they would never meet with a refusal. As an instance of this we may mention the fortunate child, who wishing to enter into correspondence with the bishop, but not daring to take the initiative, received from him the touching letter which may be seen in his works.[22]
Besides all his other glories, our saint was the institutor of monastic life in Roman Africa, by the monasteries he founded, and in which he lived before he became bishop. He was a legislator by his letter to the virgins of Hippo, which became the rule whereon so many servants and handmaids of our Lord have formed their religious life. Lastly, together with the clerics of his church who lived with him a common life of absolute poverty, he was the example and the head of the great family of Regular Canons. But we must close these already lengthy pages, which will be completed by the narrative of the holy liturgy.
Let us, then, read this authentic account. Independently of the present feast, the Church, in her martyrology, makes special mention of Augustine’s conversion on the fifth of May.
Augustinus, Tagaste in Africa honestis parentibus natus, ac puer docilitate in genii æquales longe super ans, brevi omnibus doctri na antecelluit. Adolescens, dum esset Carthagine, in Manichæorum hæresim incidit. Poste. Romam profectus, inde Mediolanum missus ut rhetoricam doceret, cum ibi frequens Ambrosii episcopi esset auditor, ejus opera incensus studio catholicæ fidei, annos natus triginta tres ab ipso baptizatur. Reversus in Africani, cum religione vitæ sanctimoniam conjungens, a Valerio notæsanctitatis episcopo Hipponensi presbyter factus est. Quo tempore familiam instituit religiosorum, quibuscum victu communi eodemque cultu utens, eos ad apostolicæ vitæ doctrinæque disciplinam diligentissime erudiebat. Sed cum vigeret Manichæorum hæresis, vehementius in illam invehi cœpit, Fortunatumque hæresiarcham confutavit.
Hac Augustini pietate commotus Valerius, eum adjutorem adhibuit episcopalis officii. Nihil illo fuit humilius, nihil continentius. Lectus ac vestitus moderatus, vulgaris mensa, quam semper sacra vel lectione vel disputatione condiebat. Tanta benignitate fuit in pauperes, ut, cum non esset alia facultas, sacra vasa frangeret ad eorum inopiam sustentandam. Feminarum, et in eis sororis et fratris filiæ, contubernium familiaritatemque vitavit: quippe qui diceret, etsi propinquæ mulieres suspectæ non essent, tamen quæ ad eas ventitarent, posse suspicionem efficere. Nullum finem fecit prædicandi Dei verbum, nisi gravi morbo oppressus. Hæreticos perpetuo insectatus et coram et scriptis, ac nullo loco passus consistere, Africam a Manichæorum, Donatistarum, Pelagianorum, aliorumque præterea hæreticorum errore magna ex parte liberavit.
Tam multa pie, subtiliter et copiose scripsit, ut christianam doctrinam maxime illustrarit. Quem in primis secuti sunt, qui postea theologicam disciplinam via et ratione tradiderunt. Wandalis Africam bello vastantibus, et Hipponem tertium jam mensem obsidentibus, in febrim incidit. Itaque cum discessum e vita sibi instare intelligeret, psalmos David, qui ad pœnitentiam pertinent, in conspectu positos profusis lacrimis legebat. Solebat autem dicere neminem, etsi nullius sceleris sibi conscius esset, committere debere, ut sine pœnitentia migraret e vita. Ergo sensibus integris, in oratione defixus, astantibus fratribus, quos ad caritatem, pietatem, virtutesque omnes erat adhortatus, migravit in cœlum. Vixit annos Septuaginta sex, in episcopatu ad triginta sex. Cujus corpus primum in Sardiniam delatum, deinde a Luitprando, Longobardorum rege, magno pretio redemptum, Ticinum translatum est, ibique honorifice conditum.
Augustine was born at Tagaste[23] in Africa of noble pa rents. As a child he was so apt in learning that in a short time he far surpassed in know ledge all those of his own age. When he was a young man he went to Carthage where he fell into the Manichæan heresy. Later on, he journeyed to Rome, and was sent thence to Milan to teach rhetoric. Having frequently listened to the teaching of Ambrose the bishop, he was through his influence inflamed with a desire of the Catholic faith and was baptized by him at the age of thirty-three. On his return to Africa, as his holy life was in keeping with his religion, Valerius the bishop, who was then renowned for his sanctity, ordained him priest. It was at this time that he founded a religious community with whom he lived, sharing their food, and dress, and training them with the utmost care in the rules of apostolic life and teaching. The Manichæan heresy was then growing very strong: he opposed it with great vigour and refuted one of its leaders named Fortunatus.
Valerius perceiving Augustine’s great piety made him his coadjutor in the bishopric. He was always most humble and most temperate. His clothing and his bed were of the simplest kind: he kept a frugal table, which was always seasoned by reading or holy conversation. Such was his loving kindness to the poor, that when he had no other resource, he broke up the sacred vessels, for their relief. He avoided all intercourse and conversation with women, even with his sister and his niece, for he used to say that though such near relatives could not give rise to any suspicion, yet might the women who came to visit them. Never, except when seriously ill, did he omit preaching the word of God. He pursued heretics unremittingly both in public disputations and in his writings, never allowing them to take foothold anywhere; and by these means he almost entirely freed Africa from the Manichees, Donatists and other heretics.
His numerous works are full of piety, deep wisdom and eloquence, and throw the greatest light on Christian doctrine, so that he is the great master and guide of all those who later on reduced theological teaching to method. 'While the Vandals were devastating Africa, and Hippo had been besieged by them for three months, Augustine was seized with a fever. When he perceived that his death was at hand, he had the penitential psalms of David placed before him, and used to read them with an abundance of tears. He was accustomed to say that no one, even though not conscious to himself of any sin, ought to be presumptuous enough to die without repentance. He was in full posses sion of his faculties and intent on prayer to the end. After exhorting his brethren who were around him, to charity, piety and the practice of every virtue, he passed to heaven, having lived seventy-six years, and thirty-six as bishop. His body was first of all taken to Sardinia, afterwards Luitprand, king of the Lombards, translated it to Pavia, where it was honourably entombed.
What a death was thine, O Augustine, receiving on thy humble couch nought but news of disasters and ruin! Thy Africa was perishing at the hands of the barbarians, in punishment of those nameless crimes of the ancient world, in which she had so large a share. Together with Genseric, Arius triumphed over that land, which nevertheless, thanks to thee, was to produce, for yet a hundred years, admirable martyrs for the Consubstantiality of the Word. When Belisarius restored her to the Roman world, God seemed to be offering her, for the martyrs’ sake, an opportunity of returning to her former prosperity; but the inexperienced Byzantines, preoccupied with their theological quarrels and political intrigues, knew not how to raise her up, nor to protect her against an invasion more terrible than the first; and the torrent of Mussulman infidelity soon swept all before it.
At length, after twelve centuries, the cross reappeared in those places, where the very names of so many flourishing churches had perished. May the nation on which thy country is now dependent, show that it is proud of this honour, and understand its consequent obligations!
During all that long night which overhung thy native land, thy influence did not cease. Through out the entire world, thy immortal works were enlightening the minds of men and arousing their love. In the basilicas served by thy sons and imitators, the splendour of divine worship, the pomp of the ceremonies, the perfection of the sacred melodies, kept up in the hearts of the people the same supernatural enthusiasm which took possession of thine own, when for the first time in our west, St. Ambrose instituted the alternate chanting of the psalms and sacred hymns.[24]Throughout all ages the perfect life, in its many different ways of exercising the double precept of charity, draws from the waters of thy fountains. Continue to illumine the Church with thine incomparable light. Bless the numerous religious families which claim thine illustrious patronage. Assist us all, by obtaining for us the spirit of love and of penance, of confidence and of humility, which befits the redeemed soul. Give us to know the weakness of our nature and its unworthiness since the fall, and at the same time the boundless goodness of our God, the superabundance of His Redemption, the all-powerfulness of His grace. May we all, like thee, not only recognize the truth, but be able loyally and practically to say to God: ‘Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart is ill at ease till it rest in Thee.’[25]
[1] See life of St. Monica, May 4, Paschal time Vol II.
[2] Soliloq. i. 22.
[3] Confess. Lib. ix and x. passim.
[4] S. Aug. contra epist. Manichæi quam vocant fundamenti 2-3.
[5] Contra litteras Petiliani, ii. 184.
[6] Possidius, vita Augustini. 13.
[7] Ibid. 10.
[8] 2 Tim. iv. 2.
[9] Ezech. xxxiv. 4.
[10] S. Aug. sermon xlvi, 14.
[11] Epistolæ, passim.
[12] Epistolæ, passim.
[13] Apoc. xviii. 4.
[14] Epist. cl, cl. clxxix.
[15] De urbis excidio, 3.
[16] De ciritate Dei contra paganos xiv, xxviii.
[17] Lord give me grace to do what thou commandest, and command what thou wilt.
[18] De dono perseverantiæ, 53.
[19] Contra litteras Petiliani, iii, 11.
[20] Hieron. epist, cxli, al, lxxx.
[21] De dono perseverantiæ, 68.
[22] Epist. cclxvi, al. cxxxii. Augustinus Florentinæ puellæ.
[23] Souk-Arhas, in Algeria, 25 leagues to the south of Bona. the ancient Hippo.
[24] Aug. confess. ix.
[25] Ibid. i.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
According to the most ancient monuments of the Roman Church,[1] another saint has always been honoured on this same day, viz: Hermes, a Roman magistrate, who bore witness to Christ under Trajan. The crypt constructed, less than half a century after the death of the apostles, to receive this martyr’s relics, is remarkable for its majestic and ample proportions not usually found in the subterranean cemeteries. It was his sister Theodora, who received from Balbina, daughter of the tribune Quirinus, the venerable chains of St. Peter.
Prayer
Deus, qui beatum Hermetem, martyrem tuum, virtute constantiæ in passione roborasti: ex ejus nobis imitatione tribue, pro amore tuo prospera mundi despicere, et nulla ejus ad versa formidare. Per Dominum.
O God, who didst strengthen blessed Hermes, thy martyr, with the virtue of constancy in suffering: grant us in imitation of him to despise worldly prosperity for the love of thee, and not to fear any of its adversity. Through our Lord, &c.
[1] Calendarium Bucherii.