October
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Scarcely had two centuries elapsed since the triumph of the cross over Roman idolatry, when satan began to cry victory once more. While Eutychianism was crowned at Byzantium in the person of Anastasius the silent, Arianism was rife in the west. Throughout the whole ancient territory of the empire, heresy was supreme, and almost everywhere was persecuting the Church, who had now none but the vanquished for her sons.
‘But fear not; rather rejoice,’ says Baronius at this point of his Annals; ‘it is divine Wisdom still delighting to play in the world. The thoughts of men count for little before Him who holds the light in His hands, to hide it when He pleases, and, when He wills, to bring it forth again. The darkness, that now covers the earth, marks the hour when the dawn is about to break in the hearts of the Franks, and the Catholic faith is to shine there in all its glory.’[1]
Little known in our days is such a manner of writing history; yet this was the view taken by the first historian of the Church, and the greatest. On such a feast as this we could not do better than repeat summarily his account of the Franks. ‘How,’ says he, ‘can we help admiring the Providence which is never wanting to the Church? From the midst of tribes still pagan, on the morrow of the irremediable fall of the empire, God forms to Himself a new people, raises unto Himself a prince: against these must break the rising tide of heretics and barbarians. Such, in truth, appeared in the course of ages the divine mission of the Frankish kings.
What energy has faith to uphold kingdoms; and what fatal power has heresy to uproot every plant that is not set by our heavenly Father! In proof hereof, see how the principalities of the Goths, Vandals, Heruli, Alani, Suevi, and Gepidi have utterly disappeared; while the Franks behold their little spot of earth blessedly fertilized, and encroaching far upon the surrounding territories.’[2]
Henceforth appeared the might of the Franks, when preceded to battle by the cross. Hitherto obscure and struggling for existence, they were now everywhere victorious. They had only had to acknowledge Christ, in order to reach the highest summit of glory, honour, and renown. In so speaking I say nothing but what is known to the whole world. If they have been more favoured than other nations, it is because they were supereminent in faith, and incomparable in piety, so that they were more eager to defend the Church than to protect their own frontiers.[3]
Moreover, a privilege unique and truly admirable was theirs: never did the sins of kings bring upon this people, as upon so many others, subjection to a foreign yoke. The promise of the Psalm[4] would seem to have been renewed in favour of this nation: If his children forsake My law . . . and keep not My commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod . . . but My mercy I will not take away from him.’[5]
All honour, then, to the saintly pontiff, who merited to be the instrument of such heavenly benefits! According to the expression of the holy Pope Hormisdas, ‘Remigius converted the nation, and baptized Clovis, in the midst of prodigies similar to those of the apostolic age.’[6] The prayers of Clotilde, the labours of Genevieve, the penances of the monks who peopled the forests of Gaul, had doubtless a great share in a conversion which brought such joy to the angels. Did space allow, we might relate how it was also prepared by the great bishops of the fifth century, Germanus of Auxerre, Lupus of Troyes, Anian of Orleans, Hilary of Arles, Mamertus and Avitus of Vienne, Sidonius Apollinaris, and so many others who, in that age of darkness, held up the Church to the light of day, and commanded the respect of the barbarians. Remigius, contemporary and survivor of most of them, and their rival in eloquence, nobility, and holiness, seemed to personify them all on that Christmas night forestalled by so many desires, and prayers, and sufferings. In the baptistery of Saint Mary’s at Rheims, the Frankish nation was born to God; as heretofore on the banks of Jordan, the dove was again seen over the waters, honouring this time, not the Baptism of Jesus, but that of the Church's eldest daughter; it brought a gift from heaven, the holy vial containing the chrism which was to anoint the French kings in future ages into ‘the most worthy of all the kings of the earth.’[7]
Two churches in the city of Rheims claim the honour of these glorious souvenirs: the grand Church of our Lady, and the venerable basilica where Remigius lay, with the vial of chrism at his feet, and guarded by the twelve peers surrounding his splendid mausoleum. This church of St. Remigius bore the name of caput Franciæ,[8] head of all France, until those days of October 1793, when, from its desecrated pulpit was proclaimed the word that the days of darkness were at an end; when the holy ampulla was broken, and the relics of the apostle of France were thrown into a common grave.[9]
After an episcopate of seventy-four years, the longest ever recorded in history, Remigius took his flight to heaven on January 13, the anniversary of his episcopal consecration and also of his birth. Yet in the same century, the first of October was chosen for his feast; this being the day whereon his relics were first translated to a more honourable place, in the midst of miracles such as those which had graced his life. The translation of St. Remigius is the name still given to this day by the church of Rheims, which, by a special privilege, celebrates on the Octave day of the Epiphany the principal festival of its glorious patron. We borrow the following lessons from the Office of that day.
Remigius, qui et Remedius, Lauduni natus est, parentibus nobilibus, Æmilio et sancta Cilinia ætate jam provectis, et gratia apud suos nominatissimis. Ortum ejus prædixerat solitarius quid, m cæcus, nomine Montanus, qui et visum postea recepit, admoto ad oculos lacte quo infans Remigius alebatur. Studiis et orationibus primos impendebat annos futurus Francorum apostolus, secessum colens; quo magis hominum frequentiam fugere conabatur, eo notior toti provinciæ fiebat. Annos natus duos et vigniti, post transitum Bennadii archiepiscopi Remensis, ob seniles in adolescentia mores, ad sedem Remensem omnium votis raptus, potius quam electus fuit. Onus episcopale effugere cupiens, divinis monitis suscipere cogitur. Ab episcopis provinciæ consecratus, se tamquam veteranum gessit ili regimine Ecclesiæ suæ. Vir eloquens, potens in Seripturis, exemplum erat fidelium. Quod ore docebat, implebat opere. Grege suo summo labore ac vigilantia mysteriis fidei imbuto, et disciplina in clero constituta, regnum Christi in Belgio promovendum suscepit; populis ad fidem conversis, novos episcopatus iustituit: Teruanæ, ubi sanctum Antiruundum; Atrebatis, ubi sanctum Vedastum; Lauduni, ubi sanctum Genebaldum præfecit.
Remigius, also called Remedius, was born at Laon, of noble parents by name Æmilius and St. Celinia. They were far advanced in age, and renowned among their own people for their virtue, when the birth of this child was foretold to them by a blind hermit named Montanus; who afterwards recovered his sight, by applying to his eyes some of the milk wherewith the infant Remigius was nourished. The future apostle of the Franks devoted his youth to prayer and study in retirement; but the more he shrank from the company of men, the more his fame spread throughout the province. On the death of Bennadius, archbishop of Rheims, Remigius, who though but twenty-two years of age had the mature character of an old man, was unanimously elected, or rather forcibly installed as archbishop. He endeavoured to escape the burden of the episcopate, but was obliged by the command of God to submit. Having been consecrated by the bishops of the province, he governed his church with the wisdom of an experienced veteran. He was eloquent, learned in the Scriptures; and a pattern to his people, fulfilling in deed what he taught by word. He carefully and laboriously instructed his own flock in the mysteries of faith, and established discipline among his clergy. Then he undertook to spread the kingdom of Christ in Belgium; and having converted the people to the faith, he founded several new bishoprics and appointed them pastors: at Terouanne St. Antimund or Aumont, at Arras St. Vedast, and at Laon St. Genebald.
Clodovei et Francorum animi cultui pagano adhuc dediti movebantur stupendis Remigii operibus, quæ ubique vulgabantur. Cura autem Clodoveus, Gallorum victor, Alemannos Tolbiaci, invocato Christi nomine, debellasset, Remigium ad se evocatum, de religione Christiana disserentem libenter audiit. Et instanti Remigio ut fidem profiteretur, cum respondisset, vereri se ne per populum sibi non liceret: id ubi rescivit populus, statim acclamavit: Mortales deos abigimus, pie rex: et Deum quem Remigius prædicat immortalem, sequi parati sumus. Tum Remigius jejunia secundum Ecclesiæ morem illis indixit, et regem quem fidei documentis coram sancta Clotilde regina imbuerat, baptizavit ipso die Natalis Domini, his eum verbis allocutus: Mitis, depone colla, Sicamber: adora quod incendisti; incende quod adorasti. Baptizatum sacro inunxit chrismate, cum signaculo crucis Christi. De exercitu autem ejus ter mille et amplius baptismo initiati sunt: simul et Albofledis Clodovei soror, quæ cum paulo post de vivis decessisset, regem per litteras consolatus est Remigius. Lanthildis quoque altera soror regis, ab Ariana hæresi revocata, sacro chrismate inuncta est, et Ecclesiæ reconciliata.
The wonderful works of Remigius, being divulged far and wide, filled with astonishment the minds of Clovis and his still pagan Franks. When Clovis, who had already conquered the Gauls, triumphed over the Alemanni also at the battle of Tolbiac by the invocation of the name of Christ; he sent for Remigius, and willingly listened to his explanation of the Christian doctrine. Remigius urged the king to embrace the faith, but he replied that he feared the opposition of his people. When this was reported to the Franks, they cried out with one voice: ‘We renounce mortal gods, O pious king, and are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remigius preaches.’ Then the bishop imposed a fast upon them, according to the custom of the Church, and having in the presence of the queen St. Clotilde, completed the king’s religious instruction, he baptized him on the day of our Lord’s Nativity, addressing him in these words: 'Bow down thy head in meekness, O Sicambrian; adore what thou hast hitherto burnt, burn what thou hast adored.’ After the Baptism, he anointed him with holy chrism with the sign of the cross of Christ. More than three thousand of the army were baptized, as also Albofleda Clovis’s sister, who died soon after; upon which occasion Remigius wrote to console the king. His other sister, Lanthilda, was reclaimed from the Arian heresy, anointed with sacred chrism, and reconciled to the Church.
Eximia fuit ipsius erga pauperes liberalitas, et clementia in pœnitentes singularis: neque enim, inquiebat, nos posuit Dominus ad iracundiam, sed ad hominum curam. Arianum episcopum in synodo, divina virtute mutum reddidit; eique per nutus veniam poscenti, vocem his verbis restituit: In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi, si sic de eo recte sentis, loquere; et de illo sicut catholica credit Ecclesia, confitere. Recepto ille vocis usu, credere se et in eadem fide moriturum pollicitus est. Sub finern vitæ oculorum usu orbatus est Remigius, quem tamen paulo ante mortem recuporavit. Transitus diem non ignorans, finitis Missarum solemniis, plebe sacro Christi corpore confirmata; valefaciens clero et populo, dans singulis pacem in osculo oris Domini, plenus dierum et operum ex hac vita decessit idibus Januarii, armo ætatis nonagesimo sexto, post Christum quingentesimo trigesimo tertio. Sepultus est in ædicula sancti Christophori; et mortuus sicut et vivus claruit miraculis.
Remigius was exceedingly liberal to the poor and merciful towards sinners. 'God has not placed us here,’ he would say, 'to exercise wrath, but to take care of men` During a council, he once by divine power struck an Arian bishop with dumbness, until he begged forgiveness by signs, when he restored him his speech with these words: 'In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, if thou holdest the right belief concerning him, speak, and confess the faith of the Catholic Church.’ The bishop recovering his voice, protested that he believed, and would die in that faith. Towards the end of his life Remigius lost his sight, but recovered it shortly before his death. Knowing the day of his departure, he celebrated Mass, and fortified his flock with the sacred Body of Christ. Then he bade his clergy and people farewell, giving to each one the kiss of our Lord’s peace; and full of days and good works, he departed this life on the Ides of January, in the year of our Lord five hundred and thirty-three, being ninety-six years old. He was buried in the oratory of St. Christopher; and as in life, so also after death, he was famous for miracles.
This is a fitting occasion to bring forward the beautiful formula rightly called the Prayer of the Franks, which dates from the first ages of the monarchy.[10]
Prayer
Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui ad instrumentum divinissimæ tuæ voluntatis per orbem, et ad gladium et propugnaculum Ecclesiæ sanctæ tuæ, Francorum imperium constituisti: cœlesti lumine, quæsumus, filios Francorum supplicantes semper et ubique præveni: ut ea quæ agenda sunt ad regnum tuum in hoc mando efficiendum videant, et ad implenda quæ viderint charitate et fortitudine perseveranter convalescant.
Almighty, eternal God, who didst establish the empire of the Franks to be, throughout the world, the instrument of thy divine will, and the sword and bulwark of thy holy Church: ever and in all places prevent, we beseech thee, with thy heavenly light, the suppliant sons of the Franks; so that they may both see what they ought to do to promote thy kingdom in this world, and, in order to fulfil what they have seen, may continually increase in charity and in valour.
St. Leo IX said to his contemporaries, and we echo his words, concerning the land of France: ‘Be it known to your charity that you must solemnly celebrate the feast of the blessed Remigius; for if to others he is not an apostle, he is such with regard to you at least. Pay such honour, then, to your apostle and father, that you may merit, according to the divine promise, to live long upon the earth, and, by his prayers, may obtain possession of eternal beatitude.’[11] When he thus spoke, the sovereign Pontiff had just consecrated thy church, then for the third time rebuilt with the magnificence required by the growing devotion of the people. The nine centuries since elapsed have augmented thy claims to the gratitude of a nation, into which thou didst infuse such vigorous life, that no other has equalled it in duration. Accept our thanks, O thou who wast as a new Sylvester to a new Constantine.
Glory be to our Lord, who showed forth His wonders in thee! Remembering those gestes of God accomplished in all climes by her sons the Franks, the Church recognizes the legitimacy of applying to thee[12] the beautiful words which announced the Messias: ‘Give ear, ye islands, and hearken, ye people from afar. The Lord hath called me from the womb. . . And He said: . . . Behold I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation even to the farthest part of the earth.’ Truly it was a day of salvation, that Christmas day, whereon our Lord was pleased to bless thy labours and grant the desires of thy long episcopate. By the holy faith thou taughtest, thou wast then the ‘covenant of the people,' the new people composed of the conquerors and the conquered in that land of France, which, when once itself raised up, soon restored to God the inheritance that had been destroyed. O true Church, the one only bride, captive and destitute, behold Remigius rises to say to thy sons that are bound: ‘Come forth’, and to them that are in darkness: ‘Show yourselves’! From north and south, from beyond the sea, behold they come in multitudes: all these are come to thee. Therefore, give praise, O ye heavens, and rejoice O earth, because the Lord hath comforted His people; after a whole century of heresy and barbarity, God has once more demonstrated that they shall not be confounded that wait for Him.[13]
Our confidence in God will again be rewarded if thou, O Remigius, deign to present to our Lord the prayer of the Franks who have remained faithful in honouring thy memory. The renegades sold over to satan may tyrannize for a time over the deluded crowd; but they are not the nation. A day will come when Christ, who is ever King, will say to the angels of His guard those words of His lieutenant Clovis: ‘It displeases me that these Goths possess the good land of France; expel them, for it belongs to us.’[14]
[1] Baron. Annal. eccl. ad ann. 499, xv; the year 496 is now universally recognized as the date of the Baptism of Clovis.
[2] Ibid, ad ann. 484, cxxxv.
[3] Baron. Annal. eccl, ad ann. 514, xxiii.
[4] Ps. lxxxviii. 31-34.
[5] Baron. Annal. eccl. ad ann. 514, xxvii.
[6] Hormisd. Epist. 1, ad Remigium.
[7] Matth. Paris. ad ann. 1257: Archiepiscopus Remensis qui regem Francorum cælestt consecrat chrismats (quapropter rex Francorum regum censetur dignissimus) est omnium Franciæ parium primus et excellentissimus.
[8] Mabillon. Annal. benedict. xlvii. 30: Diploma Gerbergæ reginæ.
[9] They were, however, afterwards discovered and authentically recognized; and are, to this day, an object of the greatest veneration to pilgrims.
[10] Titra. Hist. de S. Léger, Introduct. p. xxii, xxiii.
[11] Leonix. Epist. xvii.
[12] Lect. 1 Noct. in proprio Remensi et aliis.
[13] Isaias xlix.
[14] Greg. Turon. Histor. Franc, ii. 37; Hincmar. Vita S. Remigii, li.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Although the solemnity of September 29 celebrates the praises of all the nine glorious choirs, yet the piety of the faithful, in the latter ages, desired to have a special day consecrated to the Guardian Angels. Several churches having taken the initiative, and kept the feast under various rites and on different days, Paul V (1608) authorized its celebration ad libitum. Clement X (1670) established it by precept as a feast of double rite[1] on October 2, the first free day after Michælmas, on which it thus remains in some way dependent.
It is of faith, on the testimony of the Scriptures and of unanimous tradition, that God commits to His angels the guardianship of men, who are called to contemplate
Him together with these blessed spirits in their common fatherland. Catholic theology teaches that this protection is extended to every member of the human race, without any distinction of just and sinners, infidels and baptized. To ward off dangers; to uphold man in his struggle against the demons; to awaken in him holy thoughts; to prevent him from sinning, and even, at times, to chastise him; to pray for him, and present his prayers to God: such is the office of the Guardian Angel. So special is his mission, that one angel does not undertake the guardianship of several persons simultaneously; so diligent is his care, that he follows his ward from the first day to the last of his mortal existence, receiving the soul as it quits this life, and bearing it from the feet of the sovereign Judge to the place it has merited in heaven, or to its temporary sojourn in the place of expiation and purification.
It is from the lowest of the nine choirs, the nearest to ourselves, that the Guardian Angels are for the most part selected. God reserves to the Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones the honour of forming His own immediate court. The Dominations, from the steps of His throne, preside over the government of the universe; the Virtues watch over the course of nature’s laws, the preservation of species, and the movements of the heavens; the Powers hold the spirits of wickedness in subjection. The human race in its entirety, as also its great social bodies, the nations and the churches, are confided to the Principalities; while the Archangels, who preside over smaller communities, seem also to have the office of transmitting to the Angels the commands of God, together with the love and light which come down even to us from the first and highest hierarchy. O the depths of the wisdom of God! Thus, then, the admirable distribution of offices among the choirs of heavenly spirits terminates in the function committed to the lowest rank, the guardianship of man, for whom the universe subsists. Such is the teaching of the School;[2] and the apostle, in like manner, says: ‘Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them, who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?’[3]
But God, magnificent as He is towards the whole human race, honours in a special manner the princes of His people, those who are most favoured by His grace, or who rule the earth in His name; the saints testify, that a supereminent perfection, or a higher mission in Church or State, ensures to the individual the assistance of a superior spirit, without the angel that was first deputed being necessarily removed from his charge. Moreover, with regard to the work of salvation, the Guardian Angel has no fear of being left alone at his post; at his request, and at God’s command, the troops of his blessed companions, who fill heaven and earth, are ever ready to lend him their aid. These noble spirits, acting under the eye of God whose love they desire to second by all possible means, have secret alliances between them, which sometimes induce between their clients, even on earth, unions the mystery whereof will be revealed in the light of eternity.
‘How profound a mystery,’ says Origen, ‘is the apportioning of souls to the angels destined for their guardians! It is a divine secret, part of the universal economy centred in the Man-God. Nor is it without ineffable order that the ministries of earth, the many departments of nature, are allotted to the heavenly Virtues; fountains and rivers, winds and forests, plants, living creatures of land and sea, whose various functions harmonize together by the angels directing them all to a common end.’[4]
Again, on these words ot Jeremias: How long shall the land mourn?[5] Origen, supported by the authority of his translator St. Jerome, continues:[6]
It is through each one of us that the earth rejoices or mourns; and not only the earth, but water, fire, air, all the elements; by which name we must here understand not insensible matter, but the angels who are set over all things on earth. There is an angel of the land, who, with his companions, mourns over our crimes. There is an angel of the waters to whom are applied the words of the psalm: The waters saw Thee, and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled; great was the noise of the waters; the clouds sent out a sound, for Thy arrows pass.[7]
How grand is nature viewed in this light! It is thus the ancients, more truthful as well as more poetical than our generation, always considered the universe. Their error lay in adoring these mysterious powers, to the detriment of the only God, under whom they stoop that bear up the world.[8]
‘Air and earth and ocean, everything is full of angels,’ says St. Ambrose.[9] ‘Eliseus, besieged by a whole army, felt no fear; for he beheld invisible cohorts assisting him. May the prophet open thine eyes also; may the enemy, be he legion, not terrify thee; thou thinkest thyself hemmed in, and thou art free: there are more with us than with them.’[10]
But let us return to our own specially-deputed angel, and meditate on this other testimony: ‘The noble guardian of each one of us sleeps not, nor can he be deceived. Close thy door, and make the darkness of night; but remember, thou art never alone; he has no need of daylight in order to see thy actions.’ And who is it that speaks thus? Not a father of the Church, but a pagan, the slave philosopher Epictetus.[11]
In conclusion, let us listen to the Abbot of Clairvaux, who here gives free rein to his eloquence:
In every place show respect to thy angel. Let gratitude for his benefits incite thee to honour his greatness. Love this thy future coheir, the guardian appointed for thee by the Father during thy childhood. For though we are sous of God, we are as yet but children, and long and dangerous is our journey. But God hath given His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk; and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.[12] Yes; where the road is smooth enough for a child, they will content themselves with guiding thee, and sustaining thy footsteps, as one does for children. But if trials threaten to surpass thy strength, they will bear thee up in their hands. Oh those hands of angels! Thanks to them, what fearful straits we have passed through, as it were without thinking, and with no other impression left upon us, than that of a nightmare suddenly dispelled![13]
And in his commentary on the Canticle of canticles, St. Bernard thus describes the triumph of the angel: 'One of the companions of the Spouse, sent from heaven to the chosen soul as mediator, on witnessing the mystery accomplished, how he exults, and says: “I give thee thanks, O God of majesty, for having granted the desire of her heart!” Now it was he that, as a persevering friend, had not ceased, on the way, to murmur into the soul’s ear: “Delight in the Lord, and He will give thee the requests of thy heart;” and again: “Expect the Lord, and keep His way”; and then: “If He make any delay, wait for Him, for He will surely come and will not tarry.” Meanwhile he represented to our Lord the soul’s desire, saying: “As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so this soul panteth after Thee, O God; have pity on her, hear her cries, and visit her in her desolation.” And now the faithful paranymph, the confidant of ineffable secrets, is not jealous. He goes from the Spouse to the bride, offering desires, bringing back gifts; he incites the one, he appeases the other. Sometimes, even in this world, he brings them into each other’s presence, either by raising up the bride in ecstasy, or by bringing down the Bridegroom; for he is one of the household, and well known in the palace; and he fears no rebuff, for every dav he beholds the face of the Father.’[14]
Let us unite with the Church, and offer to our Guardian angels this hymn of to-day’s Vespers.
Hymn
Custodes hominum psallimus angelos,
Naturæ fragili quos Pater addidit
Cadestis comites, insidiantibus
Ne succumberet hostibus.
Nam quod corruerit proditor angelus,
Concessis merito pulsus honoribus,
Ardens invidia pellere nititur
Quos cado Deus advocat.
Huc custos igitur pervigil ad vola,
Avertens patria de tibi eredita
Tam morbos animi, quam requiescere
Quidquid non sinit incolas.
Sanctæ sit Triadi laus pia jugiter,
Cujus perpetuo numine machina
Triplex hæc regitur, cujus in omnia
Regnat gloria sæcula.
Amen.
We celebrate the angels, guardians of men,
whom our heavenly Father has given us as companions,
lest our weak nature should he overcome
by the snares of our enemies.
For because the traitorous angel fell,
and was justly cast down from the honours he enjoyed,
burning with envy he now endeavours
to expel those whom God calls to heaven.
Fly hither, then, O everwatchful guardian;
ward off from the land committed to thy care
as well diseases of soul, as all that threatens to disturb
the peace of the inhabitants.
May loving praise be ever to the holy Three,
by whose eternal power is ruled
this triple world, heaven and earth and the abyss;
and whose glory is supreme throughout all ages.
Amen.
Before the establishment of a special feast in honour of the Guardian Angels, the following sequence was sung in certain churches on September 29.
Sequence
Paranymphos summi Regis
Defensores Christi gregis vocemus suspiriis:
Montes isti circa thronum
Nuncupantur, juxta donum quod habent præ aliis.
Cœli triplex hierarchia,
Vigens sub una Sophia, trino fruens lumine:
Hæc perficit nos et purgat,
Illuminat, ut resurgat nostra mens a crimine.
Contemplantur dum accedunt,
Cum mittuntur non recedunt, intra Deum cursitant:
Hostes arcent, justos regunt,
Fovent pios quos protegunt, desolatos visitant.
Cum sint isti jam beati,
Nobis tamen deputati nostras preces deferunt:
Ut ex ipsis integrai
Possint, hisque sociari, sanctos hic non deserunt.
O quam cives hi felices,
Qui, dum expient suas vices, fruuntur perenniter:
Hos fidentes deprecemur,
Ut ab ipsis adjuvemur apud Deum jugiter.
Amen.
Let us invoke with our desires the paranymphs of the most high King,
the defenders of Christ’s flock:
these are called mountains,
encircling the throne of God by a privilege all theirs.
These form the triple hierarchy of heaven,
flourishing under the one divine Wisdom, and enjoying the threefold light;
they perfect us, cleanse us,
enlighten us, that our soul may rise from sin.
They draw ever nearer to God in contemplation;
when sent to do his will, they depart not from him, for their coming and going is all within God.
They keep the enemy at bay, they guide the just,
they assist and protect their loving clients, and console them when afflicted.
Though themselves already blessed,
yet delegated to us, they carry our prayers to God:
they abandon not the saints on earth, but desire their company,
that their own ranks may be completed.
O happy citizens these! who, while fulfilling their offices,
lose not the joys of heaven:
let us pray to them with confidence,
that they may ever assist us before God.
Amen.
Blessed be ye, O holy angels, for that your charity is not wearied out by the crimes of men; among so many other benefits, we thank you for keeping the earth habitable, by deigning to dwell always therein. Solitude often weighs heavily upon the hearts of God’s children, in the great towns, and in the paths of the world, where one meets only strangers or enemies; but if the number of the just grows loss, yours never diminishes. In the midst of the excited multitude, as well as in the desert, not a human being that has not beside him an angel, the representative of universal Providence over wicked and good alike. O blessed spirits! you and we have the same fatherland, the same thought, the same love; why should the confused noises of a frivolous crowd disturb the heavenly life we may lead even now with you P Does the tumult of public places hinder you from holding your choirs there, or prevent the Most High from hearing your harmonies? We also, beholding by faith the face of our heavenly Father, which you ever delightedly contemplate, we wish to sing in every place the praises of our Lord and to unite at all times our adorations with yours. Thus, when our manners have become altogether angelic, the present life will be full of peace, and we shall be well prepared for eternity.
[1] It has been a greater double since 1883.
[2] Suarez. Dc Angelis, lib. vi. cap. xviii. 5.
[3] Heb. i. 14.
[4] Origen. in Josue, Hom, xxiii.
[5] Jerem. xii. 4.
[6] Origen. in Jerem. Hom. x.juxta Hieron. viii.
[7] Ps. lxxvi. 17, 18.
[8] Job ix. 13.
[9] Ambr. in Psalm. Cxviii, Sermon i. 9, 11, 12.
[10] iv Kings vi. 16.
[11] Ap. Arrian. Diss, 1. 14.
[12] Ps. xc. 11-13.
[13] Bern, in Psalm, xc. Sermon xii.
[14] Bernard, in Cunt. Sermon xxxi.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Wonder-worker as is the saint of to-day, fulfilling her dying prophecy, “After my death I will let fall a shower of roses,” she is her own greatest miracle. Her world-wide popularity, to which is united in most cases a devotion which has reorientated many a life, and in all has been a stimulus and an encouragement, is recognized to be phenomenal. It has been said with respect to doctrinal definitions that the faithful have a passive “infallibility,” whereby their need answers exactly to the definition; the same would seem to be true in the case of devotions and saints; they are given to us when and as they are needed.
In an age which worships visible efficiency which, even in the spiritual sphere, too often demands substantial material results before it will revere and believe, the saint who has won hearts—and souls— as few indeed have done, is no great religious and social reformer nor, in her lifetime, an apostle carrying the truth to the ends of the earth; nor even a preacher upon whose words crowds have hung spellbound, nor a scholar gathering around his rostrumall that was best in the intellectual world of his day; but a girl who was unknown beyond a small circle of relatives and friends. She had received no special educational advantages; she lived her life in a quiet little Norman town to which few travellers found their way. Still a child in years, but mature already in the things of God, she entered the Carmel in the same town, an obscure convent of recent foundation, barren of the historical associations which cluster around many French Carmels. For ten years she lived a life made up for the most part of religious exercises and simple domestic duties; a life, to the average man or woman of the world, colourless and monotonous, in which of necessity talents were wasted and all chance of doing good service to the world forever forfeited. At twenty-four she died of consumption, but over the simple grave accorded to such as she were placed the mysterious words: “I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth.”
Shortly before her death, she, Teresa of the Child Jesus, always so humble and simple, had declared, among other startling prophetic sayings, that: All the world would love her. During the last two years of her life, in obedience to her Superiors, she had written in her scanty free time, on poor scraps of paper, an account of her life, and for this, likewise, she foretold a strange success. To-day “The Story of a Soul” has been translated into every civilized tongue; the literature which has gathered round the book and its writer would form a library, and Lisieux is one of the great pilgrimage centres of the world.
In her book the young Carmelite explained the theory and practice of her own spiritual life: her “little Way”; the “Way of Spiritual Childhood and, when dying, she spoke with a strange solemnity and certainty of the mission awaiting her in the eternal future—to teach her “Way” to souls. Too often described as something new, it is, as two Sovereign Pontiffs have pointed out, but a return to the way of the Gospels. Others have walked the same path to heaven before St. Teresa of Lisieux, but to her it has been given to show it once more to a self-sufficient, sophisticated world, and that in such wise that, to men of good will, it may be a sure and safe highway wherein even the foolish cannot err.
The Way of Spiritual Childhood stresses again that “love,” and not great outward achievement, is the fulfilling of the law; that it is character, not career, which counts; that since for most souls sanctity, if achieved at all, must be achieved in a restricted sphere, the daily round of little duties, little sacrifices, common tasks and trials, all fulfilled and accepted perfectly and for love, generous doing and suffering of the will of God, will provide all that is needful for the highest heroism. Beneath her childlike phrasing the saint has portrayed a life which calls for an unflagging generosity and courage which, united with the humility and confidence of a little child, is heroic indeed. Benedict XV has called her way “the secret of sanctity.”
And because she lived “a little one” she was “pleasing to the Most High.” All the world had loved her; popular acclamation had soon declared her a saint, but the voice which alone can pronounce thereon was not long silent. Her cause was exempted from the years of delay normally required; Pope Benedict XV pronounced the Decree of Heroicity of her virtues, and by Pius XI, now happily reigning, she was both beatified and canonized at an interval of but two years, the first beatification and the first canonization of his pontificate. Two years later the Pope declared her the special patroness of all Catholic Foreign Missions in the same rank as St. Francis Xavier.
The following lessons are assigned to the second Nocturn of her office. By special privilege of His Holiness Pius XI her feast is kept in her own convent on September 30, the anniversary of her death. In the Carmelite Order it is celebrated on October 1, and elsewhere is transferred to October 3.
The Church relates her life in the following Lessons:
Teresia a Jesu Infante, Alensonii in Gallia, honestis parentibus, singulari et assidua erga Deum pietate conspicuis, orta est. Inde a prima ætate, divino Spiritu præventa, religiosam vitam agere cupiebat. Serio autem promisit, se nihil Deo denegaturam, quod ipse ab ea petere videretur: quam promissionem fideliter usque ad mortem servare sategit. Quinto ætatis anno, matre amissa, Dei providentiæ se totam commissit sub vigilanti custodia amantissimi patris, sororumque natu majorum: quibus magistris, Teresia ad currendam perfectionis viam ut gigas exsultavit. Novennis virginibus ex Ordine Sancti Benedicti Lexoviis excolenda traditur, ibique in rerum divinarum cognitione excellere visa est. Decimo ætatis anno, arcanus et gravis morbus eam diu cruciavit, a quo prout ipsa enarrat, ope beatissimæ Virginis, quæ eidem subridens apparuit, et quam, sub titulo Dominæ Nostræ a Victoria, per. novendialia invocare studuit, divinitus fuitliberata. Tunc, angelico fervore repleta, ad sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur, se diligentissimæ præparare curavit.
Ut primitus eucharistico pane fuit refecta, insatiabilem cælestis hujus cibi famem haurire visa est: unde volut inspirata, Jesum rogabat, ut omnem mundanam consolationem in amaritudinem sibi verteret. Indo tenerrimum in Christum Dominum et in Ecelesiam amore exæstuans, nihil antiquius liabuit, quam Carmelitarum Excalccatorum Ordinem ingredi, ut sui abnegatione, suisque sacrificiis, sacerdotibus, missionariis, totique Ecclesiæ opem afferret, et innumeras ani; mas Christo Jesu lucrifaceret: quod jam morti proxima, apud Deum se facturam pollicita est. Propter ætatis defectum, multas ad religiosam vitam amplectendam nacta est difficultates, quibus tamen incredibili animi fortitudine superatis, quindecim annos nata, Lexoviensem Carmelum feliciter ingressa est. Ibi mirabiles Deus in Teresiæ corde ascensiones disposuit, quæ, Mariæ Virginis vitam absconditam imitata, quasi hortus irriguus, flores omnium virtutum germinavit, præcipue vero eximiæ in Deum et in proximum caritatis.
Quo magis Altissimo placeret, quum in Sacris Scripturis monitum illud legisset: Si quis est parvulus veniat ad me; parvula in spiritu esse voluit, et inde filiali fiducia Deo, tamquam Patri amantissimo, se perpetuo tradidit. Hanc, spiritualis infantiæ viam, secundum Evangelii doctrinam, alios docuit, speciatim novitias, quas ex obedientia ad religiosarum virtutum studium informandas suscepit, atque ita apostolico zelo repleta, mundo, superbia inflato et vanitates diligenti, evangelicæ simplicitatis iter patefecit. Sponsus autem Jesus eam patiendi desiderio, tam in anima, quam in corpore, penitus inflammavit. Insuper, Dei caritatem undequaque neglectam animadvertens, summo dolore affecta, duobus ante obitum annis, Dei miserentis amori se victimam obtulit. Tunc, ut ipsa refert, cælestis ignis fiamma vulnerata est: unde caritate consumpta, in ecstasim rapta, ferventissime ingeminans: Deus meus, te diligo; viginti quatuor annos nata, die trigesima Septembris, anno millesimo octingentesimo nonagesimo septimo, ad Sponsum evolavit. Quod autem moriens promiserat, se perennem rosarum pluviam in terramdemissuram, hoc in cælum recepta, innumeris miraculis reapse adimplevit et in dies adimplet. Quare Pius undecimus, Pontifex Maximus, die vigesima nona April is anno millesimo nongentesimo vigesimo tertio, eam inter Beatas Virgines adscripsit; quam, novis fulgentem prodigi is, biennio post, jubilæo maximo recurrente, decimo sexto kalendas junias, solemniter Sanctorum fastis accensuit.
Teresa of the Child Jesus was bom at Alençon, in France, of respectable parents noted for their singular and constant piety. She was imbued with the grace of the divine Spirit from earliest childhood and desired to lead the religious life. She made an earnest promise that she would deny God nothing which He seemed to ask of her, and strove to observe it faithfully until death. She lost her mother when she was only five years old and committed herself wholly to divine providence, under the watchful care of her affectionate father and her elder sisters. Under such teachers Teresa exulted as a giant to run the way of perfection. At the age of nine, she was placed in the school of the Benedictine nuns at Lisieux, where she was remarkable for her progress in the knowledge of divine things. In her tenth year she suffered from a serious and mysterious illness, from which, as she herself relates, she was delivered by the Blessed Virgin, who appeared to her smiling, during a novena which she made to her under the title of our Lady of Victories. Then, filled with an gelie fervour, she began to prepare herself with all care for that sacred banquet “wherein Christ is received.”
After her first communion she felt an insatiable hunger for this heavenly food and, as if by inspiration, besought Jesus to turn all earthly consolation to bitterness for her. She was filled with a tender and burning love for Christ and the Church, and desired with all her heart to enter the Order of Discalced Carmelites, in order by self-abnegation and self-sacrifice to help priests, missionaries, and the whole Church, and to gain innumerable souls for Jesus Christ: all which, when at the point of death, she promised that she would obtain from God. Her extreme youth was the source of many difficulties for her entrance into religion, but she. overcame them by her incredible fortitude of soul, and entered the Carmel of Lisieux at the age of fifteen. God disposed the heart of Teresa in a wonderful manner to ascend to. Him by steps, and, imitating the hidden life of the Virgin Mary, she brought forth, like a well-watered garden, the flowers of all virtues, particularly charity towards God and her neighbour.
She read in the Holy Scripture the words: “Whosoever is a little one, let him come to me,” and desiring to please the Most High, determined to be a little one in spirit, and thus committed herself with childlike confidence to God as to a most loving Father. This path of spiritual childhood, according to the Gospel, she taught to others, especially the novices, whose training in the religious virtues she undertook out of obedience; and thus she set the way of evangelical simplicity before a world full of pride and of the love of vanities. Her heavenly Spouse inspired her with the desire of suffering in soul and body. Moreover, seeing that the love of God was almost everywhere neglected, she was filled with great grief, and two years before her death offered herself as a victim to the love of the merciful God. Then, *as she herself relates, she was wounded by a flame of heavenly fire. At last, consumed by charity, rapt in ecstasy, and murmuring with all fervour the words: My God, I love thee, she passed to her heavenly Spouse on September 30, 1897, at the age of twentyfour. When dying she promised that she would let fall a ceaseless shower of roses upon the earth, which promise she has actually fulfilled since her entrance into heaven, and continues still to fulfil by countless miracles. Therefore, Pope Pius XI enrolled her in the catalogue of blessed virgins on April 29, 1923, and two years later, after more wonderful miracles, proceeded on the sixteenth of the kalends of June (May 17), to her solemn canonization.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the sign of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying: Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we sign the servants of our God in their foreheads.[1]
The sixth seal of the Book of destinies had just been opened before the eyes of the prophet of Patmos. It was a time of anguish, the hour for the wicked to cry to the mountains: ‘Fall upon us!' The sun was darkened: an image of the Sun of justice eclipsed by the night of iniquity; the moon, the figure of the Church, appeared red as blood, through the evils that defiled the sanctuary; the stars fell from heaven, as the fig-tree casteth its green figs when it is shaken by a great wind. Who would appease the Lamb, and retard the day of wrath? At the invitation of the saints and of the apostolic See, let us recognize the angel who won for the world a delay of the judgment; the angel with the impress of God upon a mortal body; the seraph with his sacred stigmata, the sight of which once more disarmed the justice of God. Dante thus sings of the elect of God, under whose leadership took place on earth as it were a repetition of the first and only Redemption:
Between Tupino, and the wave that falls
From blest Ubaldo’s chosen hill, there hangs
Rich slope of mountain high, whence heat and cold
Are wafted thro’ Perugia’s eastern gate:
And Nocera with Gualdo, in its rear,
Mourn for their heavy yoke. Upon that side,
Where it doth break its steepness most, arose
A sun upon the world, as duly this
From Ganges doth: therefore let none who speak
Of that place say Ascesi; for its name
Were lamely so delivered; but the east,
To call things rightly, be it henceforth styled.
He was not yet much distant from his rising,
When his good influence ’gan to bless the earth.
A dame to whom none openeth pleasure’s gate
More than to death, was, ’gainst his father’s will,
His stripling choice: and he did make her his,
Before the spiritual court, by nuptial bonds,
And in his father’s sight: from day to day
Then loved her more devoutly. She bereaved
Of her first husband, slighted and obscure,
Thousand and hundred years and more, remain'd
Without a single suitor, till he came.
The lovers’ titles—Poverty and Francis.
Their concord and glad looks, wonder and love,
And sweet regard gave birth to holy thoughts,
So much that venerable Bernard[2] first
Did bare his feet, and, in pursuit of peace
So heavenly, ran, yet deemed his footing slow.
O hidden riches! O prolific good!
Egidius bares him next, and next Sylvester,
And follow, both, the Bridegroom: so the bride
Can please them. Thenceforth goes he on his way
The father and the master, with his spouse,
And with that family, whom now the cord
Girt humbly: nor did abjectness of heart
Weigh down his eyelids, for that he was son
Of Pietro Bernadone, and by men
In wondrous sort despised. But royally
His hard intention he to Innocent[3]
Set forth; and from him first received the seal
Of his religion.
And when
He had, thro’ thirst of martyrdom, stood up
In the proud Soldan’s presence, and there preached
Christ and his followers, but found the race
Unripen’d for conversion; back once more
He hasted, (not to intermit his toil,)
And reap’d Ausonian lands. On the hard rock,
’Twixt Arno and the Tiber, he from Christ
Took the last signet, which his limbs two years
Did carry. Then, the season come that he,
Who to such good had destin’d him, was pleased
To advance him to the meed, which he had earned
By his self-humbling; to his brotherhood,
As their just heritage, he gave in charge
His dearest lady: and enjoined their love
And faith to her; and, from her bosom, will’d
His goodly spirit should move forth, returning
To its appointed kingdom; nor would have
His body laid upon another bier.[4]
Francis took his flight, for his work was done; innumerable souls were now treading the paths of penance; the cross of Christ was set before the eyes of the whole world as the treasure of the Church, now that she was beginning her ascent of Calvary. How admirably had the sanctifying Spirit conducted this work!
At the age of four-and-twenty, Francis, who was destined not to see his forty-sixth year, was the head of a party of gay youths, who filled Assisi day and night with their songs. Full of the poetry of France (from which country he borrowed his name), be dreamed of nothing but worldly renown and knightly prowess. One night he beheld in a prophetic dream a large assortment of arms and weapons. ‘For whom are all these?' he inquired; and on hearing the answer: ‘For thee and thy soldiers,' he hastened to join Gauthier de Brienne, who was at war with the Germans in the south of Italy. But God arrested him: in a series of manifestations, to which the young man corresponded with all the generous ardour of his pure heart, our Lord revealed to him the object of his life's labour, the standard he was to carry through the world, and the lady in whose service he was to win his spurs.
The Church, ever under attack, vet hitherto ever victorious, seemed about to succumb, so undermined were her walls by heresy, so broken by the batteringram of the secular power; while, within the citadel, the ancient faith was sinking under prolonged soandals, leaving the field open to the enterprises of traitors, and multiplying defections in a society already beginning to feel the torpor of death. Nevertheless, it is written that the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. ‘Francis, seest thou not that My house is falling to decay? Go, then, and repair it for Me.’[5]
There was need of a sudden surprise to disconcert the enemy; and of an energetic appeal, to rouse the sleepy garrison, and rally them around the too forgotten ensign of Christians, the oross of Christ. Francis was to be, in his very flesh, the standard of the Crucified. The sacred wounds already pierced his soul, and made his eyes two ceaseless fountains of tears: ‘I weep for the Passion of Jesus Christ my Master; nor shail I blush to go weeping all over the world.'
Avarice was the crying sin of the age; the hearts of men, too preoccupied with earthly affairs to have a desire of heaven, must be delivered from a slavery which crushed out all noble thoughts, all love, all devotedness. Holy poverty, the mother of that true liberty which disarms hell and laughs at tyrants, could alone achieve such a deliverance. Francis was taken with the beauty of poverty, in spite of the jeers and insults of the vulgar, and of his rejection by his own family; but his sublime folly was the salvation of his people, and he was blest by our heavenly Father, as a true brother of His eternal Son.
As by nature the consubstantial Word receives His unbeginning Being from Him who begets Him eternally; so within the holy Trinity, He has nothing appropriated to Himself but the title of Son, to the glory of the Father, in the holy Spirit who is their love. Such is God’s destitution of all things, whereof nothing created could give an idea, but which is reflected in the Incarnate Word’s sublime disappropriation in presence of that Father from whom He derived His all. Would it, then, be far wrong to consider the poverty chosen by St. Francis as no other than eternal Wisdom, offering herself, even under the old Law, to the human race, as bride,[6] and as sister?[7] Once espoused in Mary’s womb at the Incarnation, how great has been her fidelity! But whoever loves her, must become in Jesus like unto her.
‘Lord Jesus,’ said Francis, ‘show me the paths of Thy well-beloved poverty. ’Tis she that accompanied Thee from Thy Mother’s womb to the crib in the stable, and, on the waysides of the world, took care Thou shouldst not have where to lay Thy head. In the combat which concluded the war of our Redemption, poverty, adorned with all the privations which form her bridal attire, mounted with Thee upon the cross, which even Mary could not ascend. She followed Thee to Thy borrowed tomb; and, as Thou didst yield up Thy soul in her embrace, so in her arms Thou didst take it again in the glorious nakedness of the Resurrection; and together with her didst enter heaven, leaving to the earth all that was earthly. Oh! who would not love this queen of the world which she tramples under her feet, my lady and my love? Most poor Jesus, my sweet Master, have pity on me; without her I can taste no peace, and I die of desire.’[8]
God cannot turn a deaf ear to such entreaties. If He contends, it is in order to add fresh wounds of love, until, the ‘old man’ being destroyed, the new rises from the ruins, in all things conformed to the image of the heavenly Adam. Eighteen years later, after the prodigy on Mount Alvernia, Francis, impressed with the divine seal of Christ’s wounds, sang in heavenly language the sublime combat which had made up his life:
Love has cast me into a furnace, love has cast me into a furnace, I am cast into a furnace of love.
My new Bridegroom, the loving Lamb, gave me the nuptial ring; then having cast me into prison, He cleft my heart, and my body fell to the ground.
Those arrows, propelled by love, struck me and set me on fire. From peace He made war, and I am dying of sweetness.
The darts rained so thick and fast, that I was all in an agony. Then I took a buckler, but the shafts were so swift that it shielded me no more; they mangled my whole body, so strong was the arm that shot them.
He shot them so powerfully, that I despaired of parrying them; and to escape death, I cried with all my might: “Thou transgressest the laws of the camp.” But He only set up a new instrument of war, which overwhelmed me with fresh blows.
So true was His aim, that He never missed. I was lying on the ground, unable to move my limbs. My whole body was broken, and I had no more sense than a man deceased;
Deceased, not by a true death, but through excess of joy. Then regaining possession of my body, I felt so strong, that I could follow the guides who led me to the court of heaven.
Returning to myself, I took up arms, and I made war upon Christ; I rode into His territory, and meeting Him, I engaged Him at once, and took my revenge on Him.
Having had my revenge, I made a treaty with Him; for from the beginning Christ had loved me with a true love. And now my heart has become capable of the consolations of Christ.[9]
Around the standard-bearer of Christ were already gathered those whom he called his knights of the Round Table.[10]However captivating he may have been when his fellow-citizens proclaimed him the flower of their youth, and he presided at their feasts and games; Francis was much more attractive now in his life of self-renunciation. Scarcely ten years after his espousals with holy poverty, he had so well avenged her for having been so long despised, that she held full court in the midst of five thousand Friars Minor encamped under the walls of Assisi;[11] while Clare and her companions formed for her such a suite of honour as no empress could ever boast of. The enthusiasm soon became so general, that Francis, in order to satisfy it without depopulating the State and the Church, gave to the world his Third Order; into which, led by Louis IX of France and Elizabeth of Hungary, entered countless multitudes of every nation, and tribe, and tongue. Thanks to the three seraphic Orders, as well as to the triple militia founded at the same time by Dominic de Guzman, devotedness to the Roman Church, and the spirit of penance and prayer, everywhere triumphed for a time over the anticipated rationalism, the luxury, and all the other evils, which had been threatening the speedy ruin of the world.
The influence of the saints springs from their sanctity, as rays from the focus. No rich man ever possessed the earth to such a degree as this poor man, who, seeking God and depending absolutely upon His Providence, had regained the condition of Adam in Eden. Thus, as he passed along, the flocks would welcome him; the fishes would follow his boat in the water; the birds would gather round him, and joyfully obey him. And why P Francis drew all things to himself because all things drew him to God.
With him there was no such thing as analyzing love, and making distinctions among those things which come from God and lead to God. To raise himself up to God, to compassionate with Christ, to be of service to his neighbour, to be in harmony with the whole universe like Adam when innocent, was for the seraphic father, says St. Bonaventure, one and the same impulse of that true piety which ruled his whole being.[12] The divine fire within him found fuel in everything. No touch of the holy Spirit, whencesoever it came, did Francis let pass; so much he feared to frustrate the effect of a single grace. He did not despise the stream for not being the ocean; and it was with an ‘unheard-of tenderness of devotion’, says his son and historian Bonaventure, that Francis relished God’s goodness in creation, contemplated His supreme beauty in every created beauty, and heard the echo of heaven’s harmonies in the concert of beings sprung like man himself from the only source of existence.[13] Hence it was by the sweet name of brothers and sisters that he invited all creatures to praise with him that well-beloved Lord, whose every trace on earth was the dear object of his love and contemplation.
Neither the progress nor the consummation of his holiness altered, in this respect, what would now be called his method of prayer. On hearing that his death was approaching, and again a few minutes before he passed away,[14] he sang, and would have others sing to him, his favourite canticle: ‘Praised be God, my Lord, for all creatures, and especially for our brother the sun, which gives us light, and is an image of Thee, my God! Praised be my Lord for our sister the moon; and for all the stars which He has created bright and beautiful in the heavens! Praised be my Lord for our brother the wind; and for the air, and the clouds, and the fine weather, and all the seasons; for our sister the water, which is very useful, humble, precious, and pure; for our brother the fire, which is bright and strong; for our mother the earth, which bears us, and produces the fruits and the flowers. Be Thou praised, O my God, for those who pardon and who suffer for love of Thee! Be Thou praised for our sister the death of the body, which no living man can escape; unhappy is he who dies in mortal sin; but happy is he whom death finds conformed to Thy holy will! Praise and bless my Lord, give Him thanks, and serve Him in great humility.’[15]
After having received the stigmata, Francis’s life was an unspeakable martyrdom; in spite of which, he continued to travel through towns and villages, riding, like Jesus of whom he was so touching an image, upon a poor little ass; and everywhere he preached the cross, working miracles and wonders of grace. Assisi cherishes the memory of the blessing bequeathed to it by its glorious son, when, gazing upon it for the last time from the beautiful plain that stretches at its feet, he exclaimed with tears: 'Be thou blessed of the Lord, O city faithful to God, for in thee and by thee shall many souls be saved!’[16]
The humble Portiuncula, the cradle of the Order, where Clare too had exchanged the vain ornaments of the world for the poverty of the cross: St. Mary of the angels, which awakens in the pilgrim a feeling of the nearness of heaven, and where the Great Pardon of August 2 proves the pleasure our Lord still takes in it: this was the appointed place of Francis’s death. He passed away on October 3, towards eight o’clock in the evening; and although darkness had already set in, a flight of larks descended, singing the rising in heaven of the new sun, which was mounting towards the Seraphim.[17]
Francis had chosen to be buried in the place of public execution, called the Colle d'Inferno, near the west wall of his native city. But within two years, Gregory IX enrolled him among the saints, and changed the name of the hill into Colle del Paradiso. James the German built over the bare rock, where lies the Poor Man of Assisi, a two-storied church, which the genius of Giotto has made to outshine in glory all the princely palaces on earth.
The Church’s narrative, though short, will complete these somewhat lengthy pages.
Franciscus, Assisii in Umbria natus, patris exemplum secutus, a prima ætate mercaturam fecit. Qui quodam die pauperem, pro Christi amore flagitantem pecuniam, cum præter consuetudinem repulisset, repente eo facto commotus, large ei misericordiam impertivit: et ex eo die Deo promisit se nemini unquam poscenti eleemosynam negaturum. Cum verum post in gravem morbum incidisset, ex eo aliquando confirmatus, cœpit ardentius colere officia caritatis. Qua in exercitatione tantum profecit, ut evangelioæ perfectionis cupidus, quidquid haberet pauperibus largiretur. Quod ferens iniquius pater, eum ad Assisinatem episcopum duxit, ut coram illo bonis cederet paternis: qui rejectis etiam vestibus, patri concessit omnia, illud subjungens, sibi in posterum majorem facultatem fore dicendi: Pater noster, qui es in cœlis.
Cum autem illud ex Evangelio audisset: Nolite possidere aurum, neque argentum, neque pecuniam in zonia vestris, non peram in via, neque duas tunicas, neque calceamenta: sibi eam regulam servanedam proposuit. Itaque detractis calceis, et una contentus tunica, cum duodecim socios adhibuisset, Ordinem Minorum instituit. Quare Romam venit, anno salutis millesimo ducentesimo nono, ut sui Ordinis regula ab Apostolica Sede confirmaretur. Quem cum accedentern ad se Summus Pontifex Innocentius Tertius rejecisset; quod in somnis postea sibi ille, quem repulerat, collabentem Lateranensem basilicam suis humeris sustinere visus esset, conquisitum accersiri jussit: benigneque accipiens, omnem ejus institutorum rationem confirmavit. Franciscus igitur, dimissis in omnes orbis terræ partes fratribus ad prædicandum Christi Evangelium, ipse cupiens sibi aliquam dari martyrii occasionem, navigavit in Syriam: ubi a rege Soldano liberalissime tractatus, cum nihil proficeret, rediit in Italiam.
Multis igitur exstructis suæ familiæ domiciliis, se in solitudinem montis Alverni contulit: ubi quadraginta dierum, propter honorem sancti Michælis archangeli, jejunio inchoato, festo die Exaltationis sanctæ Crucisei Seraphim crucifixi effigiem inter alas continens apparuit: qui ejus et manibus, et pedibus, et lateri vestigia ciavorum impressit: quæ sanctus Bonaventura, cum Alexandri quarti summi pontificis prædicationi iuteresset, narrasse Pontificem a se visa esse, litteris commendavit. His insignibus summi in eum Christi amoris, maximam habebat omnium admirationem. Ac biennio post graviter ægrotans, deferri voluit in ecclesiam sanctæ Mariæ angelorum, ut ubi gratiæ spiritum a Deo acceperat, ibi spiritum vitæ redderet. Eo in loco fratres ad paupertatem ac patientiam, et sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ fidem servandam cohortatus, psalmum illud pronuntians, Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi; in eo versiculo, Me exspectant justi, donec retribuas mihi: efflavit animamquarto nonas Octobris. Quem miraculis darum Gregorius nonus Pontifex maximus in sanctorum numerum adscripsit.
Francis was born at Assisi in Umbria, and, after his father’s example, followed from his youth a mercantile career. One day, contrary to his custom, he repulsed a poor man who begged an alms of him for Christ’s sake; but, immediately repenting of what he had done, he bestowed a large bounty upon the beggar, and at the same time made a promise to God, never to refuse an alms to any one that asked him. After this he fell into a serious illness; and on his recovery, devoted himself more eagerly than ever to works of charity, making such rapid progress in this virtue, that, desirous of attaining evangelical perfection, he gave all he had to the poor. His father, angered at his proceedings, brought Francis before the bishop of Assisi, that, in his presence, he might formally renounce all claim to his patrimony. The saint gave up all to his father, even stripping off his garments, that he might, he said, for the future, have more right to say: Our Father who art in heaven.
After hearing one day this passage of the Gospel: Do not possess gold nor silver, nor money in your purses; nor scrip for your journey, nor two coats, nor shoes, he took it for his rule of life, laid aside his shoes and kept but one tunic. He gathered together twelve disciples and founded the Order of the Minors. In the year of our salvation 1209 he went to Rome, to obtain the confirmation of his rule and Order from the apostolic See. Pope Innocent HI at first refused to see him; but having in sleep beheld the man he had repulsed supporting with his shoulders the Lateran basilica which was threatening to fall, he had him sought out and brought to him; and receiving him kindly confirmed the whole system of his institute. Francis then sent his brethren into every part of the world to preach the Gospel. He himself, desirous of an opportunity of martyrdom, sailed into Syria; but the Soldan treated him most kindly; so that, unable to gain his end, he returned into Italy.
He built many convents of his Order; and then retired into solitude on Mount Alvernia; where he fasted forty days in honour of the Archangel St. Michael. On the feast of the Exaltation of the holy Cross, he had a vision of a seraph bearing between his wings the figure of the Crucified, who impressed the sacred stigmata on his hands and feet and side. St. Bonaventure says he heard Pope Alexander IV, while preaching, relate how he had himself seen these wounds. These signs of Christ’s exceeding love for his servant excited universal wonder and admiration. Two years later, Francis grew very ill, and was carried, at his own request, into the church of St. Mary of the angels; that he might give up his mortal life to God, in the very place where he had commenced his life of grace. There, after exhorting the brethren to poverty and patience, and the preservation of the faith of the holy Roman Church, he said the psalm: I cried to the Lord with my voice. When he reached the verse: The just wait for me, until thou reward me, he breathed forth his soul, on the fourth of the Nones of October. He was renowned for miracles; and Pope Gregory IX enrolled him among the saints.
Mayst thou be blessed by every living soul, O thou whom our Saviour associated so closely with Himself in the work of Redemption. The world, created by God for Himself, subsists through the saints; for it is in them He finds His glory. At the time of thy birth the saints were few; the enemy of God and man was daily extending his darksome reign; and when society has entirely lost faith and charity, light and heat, the human race must perish. Thou didst come to bring warmth to the wintry world, till the thirteenth century became like a spring time, rich in beautiful flowers; but alas! no summer was to follow in its wake. By thee the cross was forced upon men’s notice; not indeed, as heretofore, to be exalted in a permanent triumph, but to rally the elect in the face of the enemy, who would too soon afterwards regain the advantage. The Church lays aside the robe of glory, which beseemed her in the days of our Lord’s undisputed royalty; together with thee, she treads barefoot the path of trials, which liken her to her divine Spouse suffering and dying for His Father’s honour. Do thou thyself, and by thy sons, ever hold aloft before her the sacred ensign.
It is by identifying ourselves with Christ on the cross, that we shall find Him again in the splendours of His glory; for man, and God in man, cannot be separated; and both, thou didst say, must be contemplated by every soul. Yet no otherwise than by effective compassion with our suffering Head can we find the way of divine union and the sweet fruits of love. If the soul suffers herself to be led by the good pleasure of the Holy Ghost, this Master of masters will conduct her by no other way, than that set forth by our Lord in the books of His humility, patience, and suffering.[18]
O Francis, cause the lessons of thy amiable and heroic simplicity to fructify in us. May thy children, to the great profit of the Church, increase in number and still more in sanctity; and never spare themselves in teaching both by word and example, knowing, however, that the latter is of greater avail than the former.[19] Raise them up again, with their former popularity, in that country of France which thou didst love on account of its generous aspirations, now stifled by the sordid vulgarity of money-makers. The whole religious state looks upon thee as one of its most illustrious fathers; come to its assistance in the trials of the present time. Friend of Dominic, and his companion under our Lady's mantle, keep up between your two families the fraternal love which delights the angels. May the Benedictine Order never lose the affection which causes it to rejoice always on this day; and by thy benefits to it, strengthen the bonds knit once for all by the gift of the Portiuncula![20]
[1] Apoc. vii. 2, 3.
[2] Bernard of Quintaval, the saint’s first disciple.
[3] Innocent III.
[4] Dante, Paradiso, canto xi; Cary's translation.
[5] Vita B. Fancisci; Thom. Celan. i. 3; Tres Soeii. i; Bonavent. ii.
[6] Wisd. viii. 2.
[7] Prov. vii. 4.
[8] Franc. Opuse. t. i. Oratio B. Patris pro obtinen da paupertate.
[9] lIn foco l'amor mi mise, Francisci, Opuse. t. iii. cant. ii.
[10] Francisci, Opusc. t. iii. Collatio xvi.
[11] Chapter of Mats, May 26, 1219.
[12] Bonavent. Legenda S. Francisci, viii.
[13] Bonavent. Legenda S. Francisci, viii, ix, x.
[14] Wadding, ad ann. 1226. xxii, xxxvii.
[15] Francisci, Opuse. t. iii. Canticum fratrum solis.
[16] Wadding, ad ann. 1226. xxv.
[17] Ibid. xxxix.
[18] Francisci, Opuse. t. iii. Collatio xxiv.
[19] Ibid. Coll. xvii.
[20] A property of the Benedictines on Monte Soubazo, ceded by them to Francis, to be the cradle of the Order he was about to found.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
The protomartyr of the Benedictine Order stands before us to-day in his strength and in his beauty. The empire had fallen, and the yoke of the Arian Goths lay heavy upon Italy. Rome was no longer in the hands of the glorious races which had made her greatness; these, nevertheless, kept up their honourable traditions. They offered a great lesson, for future times of revolution, to other descendants of not less noble families: in lieu of the ensign of civic honour once committed to their fathers, the survivors of the old patrician ranks made it their duty to raise still higher the standard of true heroism, of those virtues which alone are everlasting. Thus Benedict of Nursia, fleeing into the desert, had rendered greater service than any mighty conqueror to Rome and her immortal destinies. The world soon discovered this fact; and then began, as St. Gregory tells us, the concourse of Roman nobles, bringing their children to the patriarch of monks, to be educated by him for almighty God.[1]
Placid was the eldest son of the patrician Tertullus. The excellent qualities early discovered in the child led his worthy father to offer to God, without delay, this dear first-fruit of his paternity. In those days, parents loved their children not for this passing world, but for eternity; not for themselves, but for our Lord. The faith of Tertullus was well rewarded when, twenty years later, not only his first-born, but also his two other sons and their sister, were crowned with martydom. This was not the first holocaust of the kind in that heroic family, if it be true that they were relatives by blood, and heirs of the goods as well as of the virtues, of the holy martyr Eustace, who had been immolated four centuries earlier with his wife and sons.[2]
Among the children of promise enlisted by the vanquished nobles of the ancient empire in the new militia of the holy valley, Equitius brought to Subiaco his son Maurus, a boy some years older than Placid. Henceforth the names of Maurus and Placid became inseparable from that of Benedict; and the patriarch acquired a new glory from his two sons, so united and yet so different.
Equal in their love of their master and father, and themselves equally loved by him for their equal fidelity in good works, they experienced to the full that delight in virtue which makes its practice a second nature. However similar their zeal in using ‘the most strong and bright armour of obedience,’ in the service of Christ the King, it was wonderful to see the master accommodating himself to the age of his disciples; so adapting himself to their differences of character, that there was nothing precipitate, nothing forced, in his education. It disciplined nature without crushing it, and followed the Holy Ghost without endeavouring to take the lead. In Maurus was especially reproduced Benedict's austere gravity; in Placid his simplicity and sweetness. Benedict took Maurus to witness the chastisement inflicted on the wandering monk, who could not stay at prayer; but Placid accompanied him to the mountain-top, where his prayer obtained a spring of water to deliver from danger and fatigue the brethren dwelling on the rocks above the Anio. But when, walking along the river-side, holding Placid by the hand and leaning upon Maurus, the legislator of monks explained to them the code of perfection they were afterwards to propagate, the angels knew not which most to admire: the candour of the one, winning the father's tenderest affection; or the precocious maturity of the other, meriting the holy patriarch's confidence, and already sharing his burden.
Who does not recollect the admirable scene of Maurus walking on the water and saving Placid from drowning? Monastic traditions never weary of extolling the obedience of Maurus, Benedict's humility, and the sagacious simplicity of the child pronouncing sentence as judge of the prodigy.[3] Of such children the master could say from experience: ‘The Lord oftentimes revealeth that which is best, to him that is the younger.’[4] And we may well believe that the recollections of the holy valley prompted him, later on, to lay down in his rule this prescription: ‘In all places whatsoever, let not age be taken into account as regardeth order, neither let it be to the prejudice of anyone; for Samuel and Daniel, while yet children, were judges over the elders.’[5]
The following lessons, taken from the monastic breviary, will complete the account of Placid’s life, and relate the manner of his death. In 1588, the discovery of the martyrs’ relics at Messina confirmed the truth of their Acts. On this occasion, Pope Sixtus V extended the celebration of their feast, under the rite of a simple, to the universal Church.
Placidus Romanus, Tertulio patre, ex nobilissima Aniciorum familia natus, puer Deo oblatus, et sancto Benedicto tradi tus, tanta morum integritate, et monasticæ vitæ institutis profecit, ut inter præcipuos ejus discipulos numeraretur. In solitudine Sublacensi eidem sancto Benedicto fontem divinitus impetrandi adfuit. Adolescentulus ad hauriendam aquam egressus, et in lacum prolapsus, ejusdem sancti patris imperio per Maurum monachum super aquas sicco pede currentem salvus mirabiliter extractus fuit. In Cassinum montem cum illo deinde veniens, annum agens alterum et vigesimum mittitur in Siciliani, ut bona, et possessiones, quas pater ipsius monasterio Cassinensi donaverat, ab improba quorumdam cupiditate defenderet. Quo in itinere cum plurima, maximaque miracula fecisset, sanctitatis fama percelebris Messanam venit, constructoque non longe a portu in paterna possessione cœnobio, monachis triginta congregatis, monasticam disciplinarm primus ea in insula propagavit.
Nihil eo placidius, nihil humilius erat: prudentia, gravitate, misericordia, animique perpetua tranquillitate superabat omnes. In divinarum rerum contemplatione sæpissime pernoctabat, paululum sedens cum eum necessarius somnus oppressisset. Silentii præcipua cura: ubi autem loquendum esset, sermo omnis ad mundi despicientiam, Christique imitationem accommodatus. Jejunium vero ita coluit, ut carne, omnique opere lactario, totis annis abstineret; per Quadragesimam autem tertia, quintaque feria, et Dominica pane dumtaxat, frigidaque aqua contentus, cæteros dies sine ullo cibo traduceret. Vinum bibit numquam, cilicium perpetuo gestavit. Tot autem, tantisque Placidus miraculis coruscabat, ut non solum ex vicinis locis, sed ex Etruria et Africa ægroti ad eum sanitatis causa confluerent; quamquam is ab insigni quadam animi humilitate, miraculis quæfaceret omnibus, sancti Benedicti nomen, meritaque prætendere solitus erat.
Cum igitur sanctitatis exemplo et miraculorum magnitudine rem christianam augeret, quinto anno postquam in Siciliam venit, subita Sarracenorum irruptione cum Eutychio et Victorino fratribus, Flaviaque sorore virgine (qui forte per eos dies ad fratrem visendum Roma eo usque contenderant), nec non Donato, Fausto, Firmatoque diacono, monachisque triginta noctu psallens in ecclesia opprimitur. Ex quibus Donatus capite illico cæsus est: reliqui ante Manucham archipiratam ducti, cum se idolis cultum ullum adhibere constanter negarent, cæsi virgis, manibus pedibusque vincti sine ullo cibo contruduntur in carcerem, ac insuper quotidie flagellis conciduntur. Sed divinitus sustentati, post multos dies rursus ad tyrannum adducuntur, atque in eadem fide constantes, iterum ac sæpius affecti verberibus, nudi, capite demisso suspenduntur, ingentique fumo os eorum obruitur. Qui cum omnium opinione mortui relicti fuissent, pos tridie vivi,sanatis mirabiliter vulneribus reperti sunt.
Deinde Flaviam virginem separatim tyrannus aggressus, cum nihil aut terrendo, aut pollicendo proficeret, jubet illam nudam pedibus alta ex trabe suspendi. Cui cum tyrannus insultans nuditatis turpitudinem exprobaret: Unus est, inquit virgo, maris feminæque auctor conditorque Deua; quare neque sexus, neque nuditas hæc fraudi mihi apud illum futura est, quippe quam pro illius amore sustineo, qui mea causa non nudari solum, sed cruci etiam affigi voluit. Quo responso Manucha incitus, virginem fustibus cæsam, subjectoque fumo excruciatam lenonibua constuprandam tradidit. Virgine autem Deum deprecante, divinitua factum est, ut quotquot eam attingere vellent, subito membrorum omnium dolore, stuporeque corriperentur. Postea Placidum Virginis fratrem tyrannus invadit, eique idolorum vanitatem arguenti os dentesque lapidibus contundi, linguamque radicitua abscindi jubet. Sed cum nihilominus ille avulsa lingua dare et expedite loqueretur, ipso miraculo magia furens barbarus, Placidum cum sorore, ac fratribus, immanibus anchorarum molarumque ponderibus obrui resupinos imperat. Cumque ex iis etiam tormentis integri evasissent, ad extremum ex una Placidi familia sex et triginta in portus Mamertini littore, capitibus abscissis martyrii palmam cum duce suo, et aliis etiam pluribus retulere, tertio nonas Octobris, anno salutis humanæ quingentesimo trigesimo nono. Horum omnium corpora post aliquot deinde dies, Gordianus monachus ex eodem monasterio fuga elapsus, intacta cum reperisset, cum lacrymis sepelivit. Tyranni autem non multo post ultricibus maris undis absorpti crudelitatis suæ pœnas dederunt.
Placid, a Roman by birth and son of Tertullus, belonged to the noble family of the Anicii. Offered to God while still a child, he was entrusted to St. Benedict, and made such progress in sanctity and in the monastic life, as to become one of his principal disciples. He was present when the holy father obtained from God by prayer a fountain of water in the solitude of Subiaco. While still a boy, being sent one day to draw water, he fell into the lake, but was miraculously saved by the monk Maurus, who at the command of the holy father ran dry-shod over the water. Later on he accompanied St. Benedict to Monte Cassino. At the age of twenty-one, he was sent into Sicily, to defend, against certain covetous persons, the goods and lands which his father had given to Monte Cassino. On the way he performed so many great miracles, that he arrived at Messina with a reputation for sanctity. He built a monastery on his paternal estate, not far from the harbour, and gathered together thirty monks; being thus the first to introduce the monastic life into the island.
Nothing could be more placid or more humble than his behaviour; while he surpassed everyone in prudence, gravity, kindness, and unruffled tranquillity of mind. He often spent whole nights in the contemplation of heavenly things, only sitting down for a short time when overpowered by the necessity of sleep. He was most zealous in observing silence; and when it was necessary to speak, the subjects of his conversation were the contempt of the world and the imitation of Christ. His fasts were most severe, and he abstained all the year round from flesh and every kind of milk-meat. In Lent he took only bread and water on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays; the rest of the week he passed without any food. He never drank wine, and always wore a hairshirt. So numerous and so remarkable were the miracles he worked, that the sick came to him in crowds to be cured, not only from the neighbourhood, but also from Etruria and Africa. But Placid, in his great humility, worked all his miracles in the name of St. Benedict, attributing them to his merits.
His holy example and the wonders he wrought caused the Christian faith to spread rapidly. In the fifth year after his arrival in Sicily, the Saracens made a sudden incursion, and seized upon Placid and his thirty monks while they were singing the night Office in the church. At the same time were taken Eutychius and Victorinus, Placid’s brothers, and his sister the virgin Flavia, who had all come from Rome to visit him; and also Donatus, Faustus, and the deacon Firmatus. Donatus was beheaded on the spot. The rest were taken before Manucha, the chief of the pirates; and as they firmly refused to adore his idols, they were beaten with rods, and cast, bound hand and foot, into prison, without food. Every day they were beaten afresh, but God supported them. After many days, they were again led before the tyrant; and as they still stood firm in the faith, they were again repeatedly beaten, then stript of their clothes, and hung, head downwards, over thick smoke to suffocate. They were left for dead, but the next day were found alive. and miraculously healed of their wounds.
The tyrant then addressed himself to the virgin Flavia apart. But finding he could gain nothing by threats or promises, he ordered her to be stript, and hung by the feet from a high beam, insulting her meanwhile upon her nakedness. But the virgin answered: Man and woman have the same author and Creator, God; hence neither my sex, nor this nakedness which I endure for love of him will be any disadvantage to me in his eyes, who for my sake chose not only to be stript, but also to be nailed to a cross. Manucha enraged at this reply ordered her to be beaten, and tortured with the smoke, and then handed her over to be dishonoured. At the virgin’s prayer, God struck all who attempted to approach her, with sudden stiffness and pain in all their limbs. The tyrant next attacked Placid, the virgin’s brother, who tried to convince him of the vanity of his idols; Manucha thereupon commanded his mouth and teeth to be broken with stones, and his tongue to be cut out by the root; but the martyr spoke as clearly and easily as before. The barbarian grew more furious at this miracle, and commanded that Placid, with his sister and brethren should be crushed under an enormous weight of anchors and millstones; but even this torture was powerless to hurt them. Finally, thirty-six of Placid’s family, with their leader, and several others, were beheaded on the shore near Messina, and gained the palm of martyrdom on the third of the Nones of October, in the year of salvation five hundred and thirty-nine. Gordian, a monk of that monastery, who had escaped by flight, found all their bodies entire after several days, and buried them with tears. Not long afterwards the barbarians, in punishment of their crime, were swallowed up by the avenging waves of the sea.
‘Placid, my beloved son, why should I weep for thee? Thou art taken from me, only that thou mayst belong to all men. I will give thanks for this sacrifice of the fruit of my heart, offered to almighty God.’[6] Thus, on hearing of this day’s triumph, spoke Benedict, thy spiritual father, mingling tears with his joy. He did not survive thee long; yet long enough to complete, of his own accord, the sacrifice of separations, by sending into far-off France the companion of thy childhood, Maurus, who was destined not to rejoin thee in heaven for so many long years. Charity seeketh not her own interests; she finds them by forgetting self, and losing self in God. Placid had disappeared; Maurus had been sent away; Benedict was about to die: human prudence would have believed the holy patriarch’s work in danger of perishing; whereas, at this critical moment, it strengthened its roots and extended its branches over the whole world. Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.[7] As heretofore the blood of martyrs was the seed of Christians, it now produced a rich harvest of monks.
Blessed be thou, O Placid, far beyond thy native Italy, and Sicily the scene of thy combat. Blessed be thou for the numberless ears of corn, for the abundant harvest sprung from the choice grain that fell to the earth on this day: faith bids us see in thy immolation the secret of the success granted to the monastic mission of Maurus. Thus, despite the great diversity and the unequal length of your paths in life, you are ever united in the heart of your master and father. At the appointed hour he did not hesitate before the holocaust our Lord required of him; wherefore, he now in heaven beholds the fulfilment of the hopes he had centred in his two beloved sons.
Deign, O Placid, to continue thy interest in the extension of Christ’s reign upon earth, in the progress of the perfect life in the Church, in the diffusion throughout the world of the monastic family, whereof thou art the glory. Noviciates especially are confided to thee: remembering the blessed education thou wast privileged to receive, watch over the aspirants to the ‘better part’. To them above all is applied the Gospel saying: Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,[8] that kingdom of heaven, which consists in the anticipated possession of God here on earth, in the life of union attained by the way of the counsels. May they reproduce before the angels thy humble and sweet simplicity; and show their gratitude for the maternal solicitude of their holy Order by the same filial docility wherewith thou didst respond, to the holy legislator’s special tenderness. May they, in spite of the world’s opposition, increase in numbers and in merit, for the honour of God!
The trials of the present must prepare the monastic Order, and indeed the whole religious state, for the trials of the future. It is around the monks that the martyrs of the last days will gather, as around thee assembled the Christians of Messina, and thy two brothers, and the heroic Flavia, so truly worthy to be doubly thy sister. May the chosen flock increase, and be ever united; so as to be able to say with one voice to the persecutors both present and future:. ‘Do what you mean to do; for we are all of one mind, one faith, one manner of life.’[9]
[1] Gregor. Dialog, lib. ii. cap. 3.
[2] See above, Sept. 20.
[3] Gregor. Dialog. lib. ii.
[4] S. Benedict. Reg. cap. iii.
[5] S. Benedict. Reg. cap. lxiii.
[6] Acta S. Placidi et soc. cap. vii.
[7] St. John xii. 24, 25.
[8] St. Matt. xviii. 3.
[9] Acta S. Placidi et soc. cap. v