October
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
‘Who, O Lord, has treated Thee thus?’ ‘They that despise Me and forget My love.’ This was the first revelation of the Son of God to Bridget of Sweden. Francis of Assisi, raising before the world the standard of the cross, had announced that Christ was about to recommence the dolorous way; not now in His own Person, but in the Church, who is flesh of His flesh. The truth of this declaration Bridget experienced from the very opening of that fatal fourteenth century, during which such innumerable disasters, the results of crime, fell at once upon the west.
Born in the year when Sciarra Colonna, a new Pilate’s servant, dared to strike the Vicar of Christ, Bridget’s childhood was contemporaneous with those sad falls, which caused the Church to be despised by her enemies. There were no saints in Christendom comparable to the great ones of old; in the preceding age the Latin races had exhausted their vitality in producing flowers; but where were the promised fruits? Ancient Europe had nought but affronts for the Word of God; this feast, this apparition of Jesus in cold Scandinavia, seems to point to His flight from the habitual centre of His predilection. Bridget was ten years old, when the Man of sorrows sought a resting-place in her heart: and at that very time, the death of Clement V and the election of John XXII in a foreign land, fixed the papacy in its seventy years’ exile.
Rome meanwhile, widowed of her Pontiff, appeared the most miserable of cities: ‘The ways of Sion mourn, because there are none that come to the solemn feast.’[1] Sacked by her own sons, she was daily losing some remnant of her ancient glory; her public roads were scenes of bloodshed; solitude reigned amid the ruins of her crumbling basilicas; sheep grazed in St. Peter’s and the Lateran. From the seven hills anarchy had spread throughout Italy, transforming the towns into haunts of brigands, and the country parts into deserts. France was doomed to expiate, in the horrors of a hundred years' war, the captivity of the sovereign Pontiff.
Unfortunately, the captivity was loved; the court of Avignon did not mourn like the Hebrews by the rivers in Babylon; richer in gold than in virtues, it were well, had they not, for a long time, shaken the influence of the Holy See over the nations. The German empire and Louis of Bavaria could easily refuse obedience to the ward of the Valois; the Fratricelli accused the Pope of heresy; while, countenanced by the doctors of the law, Marsillus of Padua attacked the very principle of the papacy. Benedict XII discouraged by the troubles of Italy, abandoned his design of returning to Rome; and built upon the rock of Doms the famous castle, at once fortress and palace, which seemed to fix the residence of the Popes for ever on the banks of the Rhone. The misery of Rome, and the splendour of Avignon, reached their height under Clement VI who entered into a contract with Jane of Naples, Countess of Provence, securing to the Church the definitive possession of Avignon. At that time the papal court surpassed all others in luxury and worldliness. God in His justice visited the nations with the scourge of the black death; while in His mercy He sent warnings from heaven to Pope Clement:
Arise; make peace between the kings of France and England; and go into Italy to preach the year of salvation, and to visit the places watered by the blood of saints. Consider how, in the past, thou hast provoked My anger, doing thy own will and not thy duty; and I have held My peace. But now ray time is at hand. If thou wilt not obey, I shall require of thee an account of the unworthiness wherewith thou hast passed through all the degrees by which I permitted thee to be exalted in glory. Thou wilt be answerable for all the avarice and ambition that have been rife in the Church in thy days. Thou couldst have done much towards a reformation, but being carnal-minded thou wouldst not. Repair the past by zeal during the rest of thy life. Had not My patience preserved thee, thou wouldst have fallen lower than any of thy predecessors. Question thy conscience, and thou wilt see that I speak the truth.[2]
This severe message, dictated by the Son of God to the prophetess Bridget of Sweden, came from that northern land where sanctity seemed to have taken refuge during the past half century. Though incurring such reproaches, the Pope still had great faith, and he accordingly received with generous courtesy the messengers from the princess of Nericia. But, though he promulgated the celebrated Jubilee of the half-century, Clement VI allowed the holy year to pass away without going himself to prostrate at the tombs of the apostles, to which he convoked the entire world. The patience of God was at an end. The judgment of that soul was revealed to Bridget; she saw its terrible chastisement, which however was not eternal, and was tempered by hope.[3]
Hitherto wholly engaged with the supernatural interests of her own country, Bridget suddenly found her mission embrace the whole world. In vain, by her prayers to God, by her warnings to princes, had the saint striven to avert from Sweden the trials that were to end in the union of Calmar. Neither Magnus II nor his consort Blanche of Dampierre, took to heart the menaces of their noble relative: ‘I saw the sun and the moon shining together in the heavens, until both having given their power to the dragon, the sky grew pale, reptiles filled the earth, the sun sank into the abyss, and the moon disappeared, leaving no trace behind.’[4]
The criminal coldness of the south had been the occasion of grace for the north; but the latter in its turn did not profit by the time of its visitation: and Bridget quitted it for ever. She herself was a city of refuge to our Lord. Taking up her abode in Rome, she there, by her holiness, prepared the way for the return of Christ’s vicar. There for twenty years she, as it were, personified the eternal city, enduring all its bitter sufferings, knowing all its moral miseries, presenting its tears and prayers to our Lord; continually visiting the tombs of the apostles and martyrs throughout the peninsula; and at the same time never ceasing to transmit to Pontiffs and kings the messages dictated to her by God.
At length the horizon appeared to be brightening: while the just and inflexible Innocent VI reformed the papal court, Albornoz was restoring peace in Italy. In 1367 Bridget had the great joy of receiving in the Vatican the blessing of Urban V. Unhappily, in three short years Urban quitted the threshold of the apostles to return to his native land; but, as Bridget foretold, he re-entered Avignon only to die. He was succeeded by the nephew of Clement VI, Roger de Beaufort, under the name of Gregory XI, who was destined to put an end to the exile and break the chains of the Roman Pontiffs.
But Bridget’s hour had come. Another was to reap in joy what she had sown in tears; Catharine of Siena was to bring back to the holy city the vicar of our Lord. As to the valiant Scandinavian, who had never lost courage or faltered in faith through the failure of her missions, she was inspired by her divine Spouse to visit the holy places, the scenes of His Passion. It was on her return from this last pilgrimage, that, far from her native land, in that desolate Rome whose widowhood she had striven in vain to terminate, she was called to her heavenly reward. Her body was carried back to Scandinavia by her daughter St. Catharine of Sweden. It was laid in the yet unfinished monastery of Vadstena, mother-house of that projected Order of our Saviour, the foundations of which, like all the undertakings imposed by God upon Bridget, was not to be completed until after her death. Twenty-five years before, she had received almost simultaneously the command to found, and the command to quit, this holy retreat; as though the Lord would give her a glimpse of its blessed peace, only to crucify her the more in the very different path into which He immediately led her. Such is God’s severity towards His dear ones, and such His sovereign independence with regard to His gifts. In the same manner, He had allowed the saint, in her early years, to be attracted by the beautiful lily of virginity, and had then signified His will that the flower should not be hers. 'When I cry,’ said the prophet, in a captivity figurative of that whereof Bridget felt all the bitterness, ‘when I cry and entreat, He hath shut out my prayer. He hath shut up my ways with square stones, He hath turned my paths upside down.’[5]
Before reading the liturgical legend, let us call to mind that St. Bridget died on July 23, 1373; October 8 is the anniversary of the first Mass celebrated in her honour by Pope Boniface IX on the day following her canonization.[6] Martin V confirmed the Acts of Boniface IX in her honour; and approved her Revelations, which had been violently attacked in the Councils of Constance and Basle, only to come forth with a higher recommendation to the piety of the faithful. Many Indulgences are attached to the rosary which bears the saint's name. These are now, by the favour of the apostolic See, frequently applied to ordinary rosaries; but it must be remembered that the true rosary of St. Bridget is composed of the Ave Maria recited sixty-three times, the Pater nosterseven times, and the Credo seven times, in honour of the supposed number of our Lady’s years on earth, and of her joys and sorrows. It was also from a desire of honouring our Lady, that the saint vested in the abbess the superiority over the double monasteries in the Order of our Saviour.
Birgitta in Suecia illustribus et piis parentibus orta, sanctissime vixit. Cum adhuc in utero gestaretur, a naufragio propter eam mater crepta est. Decennis post auditum de passione Domini sermonem, sequenti nocte Jesum in cruce, recenti sanguine perfusum, vidit, et de eadem passiono secum loquentem. Quo ex tempore in ejusdem meditatione ita afficiebatur, ut de ea sine lacrimis cogitare deinceps numquam posset.
Ulfoni Nericiæ principi in matrimoninm tradita, virum ipsum ad pietatis officia, tum optimis exemplis, tum efficacibus verbis adhortata est. In filiorum educatione piissima; pauperibus, et maxime infirmis, domo ad id muneris dicata, inserviebat quam diligentissime, illorum pedes solita lavare et osculari. Cum autem una cum viro suo rediret Compostella, ubi sancti Jacobi apostoli sepulchrum visitaverant, et Atrebati Ulfo graviter ægrotaret, sanctus Dionysius Birgittæ noctu apparuit, et de mariti salute aliisque de rebus, quæ futuræ erant, præmonnit.
Viro Cisterciensi monacho facto, et paulo post defuncto, Birgitta, audita Christi voce in somnis, arctiorem vitæ formam est aggressa. Cui deinde arcana multa fuerunt divinitus revelata. Monasterium Vastanense sub regula sancti Salvatoris ab ipso Domino accepta, instituit. Romam Dei jussu venit, ubi plurimos ad am orerem divinum vehementer accendit. Inde Jerosolymam petiit, et iterum Romam. Qua ex peregrinatione cum in febrim incidisset, gravibus per annum integrum afflictata morbis, cumulata mentis, prænuntiato mortis die, migravit in cœlum. Corpus ejus ad Vastanense monasterium translatum est: et miraculis illustrem Bonifacius nonus in sanctorum numerum retulit.
Bridget was born in Sweden of noble and pious parents, and led a most holy life. While she was yet unborn, her mother was saved from shipwreck 'or her sake. At ten years of age, Bridget heard a sermon on the Passion of our Lord; and the next night she saw Jesus on the cross, covered with fresh blood, and speaking to her about his Passion. Thenceforward meditation on that subject affected her to such a degree, that she could never think of our Lord’s sufferings without tears.
She was given in marriage to Ulfo prince of Nericia; and won him, by example and persuasion, to a life of piety. She devoted herself with maternal love to the education of her children. She was most zealous in serving the poor, especially the sick; and set apart a house for their reception, where she would often wash and kiss their feet. Together with her husband, she went on pilgrimage to Compostella, to visit the tomb of the apostle St. James. On their return journey, Ulfo fell dangerously ill at Arras; but St. Dionysius, appearing to Bridget at night, foretold the restoration of her husband’s health, and other future events.
Ulfo became a Cistercian monk, but died soon afterwards. Whereupon Bridget, having heard the voice of Christ calling her in a dream, embraced a more austere manner of life. Many secrets were then revealed to her by God. She founded the monastery of Vadstena under the rule of our Saviour, which was given her by our Lord himself. At his command, she went to Rome, where she kindled the love of God in very many hearts. She made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem; but on her return to Rome she was attacked by fever, and suffered severely from sickness during a whole year. On the day she had foretold, she passed to heaven, laden with merits. Her body was translated to her monastery of Vadstena; and becoming illustrious for miracles, she was enrolled among the saints by Boniface IX.
O valiant woman! support of the Church in most unhappy times, mayst thou now be blest by all nations! When the earth, grown poor in virtue, no longer paid its debts to the Lord, thou wast the treasure discovered and brought from the uttermost coasts to supply for the indigence of many. Thou didst earn the good-will of heaven for the hitherto despised north. Then the holy Spirit was moved by the prayers of apostles and martyrs to lead thee to the land which their blood had not sufficed to render fruitful for the Spouse; thou didst appear as the merchant's ship bringing bread from afar to countries wasted and barren. At thy voice, Rome took heart again; after thy example, she expiated the faults which had wrought her ruin; thy prayers and hers won back to her the heart of her Spouse and of His vicar.
Thine own portion was one of suffering and labour. When, to the joy of all, thy work was consummated, thou hadst already quitted this world. Thou didst resemble the heroes of the old Testament, saluting from afar the promises that others were to see fulfilled, and acknowledging themselves to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Like them thou didst seek, not the fatherland thou hadst abandoned and whither thou couldst have returned, but the only true home which is heaven. Moreover God made it a glory to be called thy God.
From the eternal city where thine exile is at an end, preserve in us the fruit of thy example and teachings. Thy Order of our Saviour perpetuates them in the countries where it still exists though so much diminished; may it revive at Vadstena in its primitive splendour! By it and its rivals in holiness, bring hack Scandinavia to the faith, now so unhappily lost, of its apostle Anscharius, and of Eric and Olaf its martyr kings. Lastly, protect Home, whose interests were so specially confided to thee by our Lord; may she never again experience the terrible trial which cost thee a life-time of labour and suffering!
[1] Lam. i. 4.
[2] Birgett. Revelat. lib. vi. cap. lxiii.
[3] Ibid. lib. iv. cap. cxliv.
[4] Birgett. Revelat. lib. viii. cap. xxxi.
[5] Lam. iii. 8, 9.
[6] October 7 and 8, 1391.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Among the martyrs annually commemorated on this day, the names of Marcellus and Apuleius carry back the mind to apostolic times. They had been disciples of Simon Magus, but were convinced of his lying deceit by the miracles of St. Peter, and shed their blood in testimony of their faith in the true God.
St. Sergius is regarded in the east as one of the most glorious witnesses to our Lord. He suffered in the tenth and last persecution, with his companion St. Bacchus, a soldier like himself of the Roman army in Syria. So illustrious became his sepulchre, that a city sprang up around it, which was called Sergiopolis, and became a metropolitan See. The west soon joined the east in honouring these holy martyrs, and a church was dedicated to them in Rome. Saint-Serge at Angers, founded by Clovis II, testifies to the veneration in which they were held by the Franks.
Prayer
Sanctorum martyrum tuorum nos, Domine, Sergii, Bacchi, Marcelli et Apuleii beata merita prosequantur: et tuo semper faciant amore ferventes. Per Dominum.
May the blessed merits of thy holy martyrs, Sergius, Bacchus, Marcellus, and Apuleius accompany us, O Lord, and make us ever fervent in thy love. Through our Lord.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Ushered in by Bridget the northern prophetess, Dionysius appears as the brightest star in that constellation of mystics, which illumines the close of the cycle with the first glimmers of eternal union. Soon we shall salute Teresa of Jesus, and her guide Peter of Alcantara; while from the shades of his Obscure night, John of the cross will rise in glory next month near to the great St. Gertrude.
The Man-God began to do and to teach, gave us first example then doctrine; so too the Church, in her liturgical year, first sets before us the examples of the saints, and afterwards teaches us the rules of sanctity as formulated by these holy ones themselves. Strong in the results she has obtained, she now seems to rest in the security gained by experience; and, as in the proper of the time, of which that of the saints is the faithful echo, she yields to her desire of seeing her children able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth. To know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge, that they may be filled unto all the fulness of God.[1]Is not this the good work which the apostle prays may be perfected in us by that last day,[2] for which these weeks after Pentecost are preparing us, viz: perfect justice, the fruit of love in its full development? But this development of love cannot be without the progress of the soul in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;[3] and that approving of better things, of which St. Paul speaks, can be acquired only by the imitation of the saints or the study of their works.[4]
To-day the incomparable teacher Dionysius presides over the assembly of the faithful. With east and west let us keep silence; for it behoveth the master to speak and teach, and it beseemeth the disciple to hold his peace and listen.[5]
Every best gift, and every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.[6] Every emanation of splendour overflowing from the divine goodness upon man, reacts in him as a principle of spiritual simplification and of heavenly union; and by its own power leads him back towards the sovereign unity and godlike simplicity of the Father. For all things come from God, and return to God.
By the very fact that they exist, inanimate objects partake of God, who, by the sublimity of His Essence, is the being of all that is. Living things partake of His vital energy, which is superior to all life. Rational and intellectual creatures partake of His wisdom, which surpasses all reason and intelligence. The various beings approach nearer to the Divinity, in proportion as they partake of It in more ways.
It is a general law, that divine graces are communicated to the lower orders through the ministry of the higher.[7] The indivisible Trinity, who possesses Divinity by nature, has established the hierarchy for the deification of all beings, whether rational or purely spiritual. For salvation is possible only to deified spirits.[8] As deification is nothing else but the attainment of union with God, and resemblance to Him, the aim of the hierarchy is to assimilate and unite to God;[9]first of all by the absolute retrenchment of all that is contrary to His love; then by the knowledge of sacred truths; by participation in the simplicity of Him who is One, and by the nuptial banquet of the vision.[10]
The order of all hierarchy is therefore this: that some should be purified, and others should purify; that some should be enlightened, and others should enlighten; that some should be perfected, and others should work that perfection. Every function it imposes, tends to the twofold end of receiving and of giving purity, light, and perfect holiness.
The first hierarchy of blessed spirits receives the first influx of the virtues of Jesus the supreme initiator, and imitates Him in the highest manner. This first hierarchy is obeyed by the second, the second by the third, and the third by the hierarchy of men. And thus, by a divine harmony they rise, one by moans of another, towards Him who is the beginning and the end of all beautiful order.
As each hierarchy includes Powers of three different ranks, the same wonderful harmony exists between these several ranks. Moreover, in every intelligence, human or angelic, are to be found faculties corresponding to the three orders of each hierarchy. It is by passing through these successive degrees, that spirits partake, according to their capacity, of purity, light, and unlimited perfection. For nothing is perfect in itself; nothing is incapable of further progrees, save Him who is the primitive and infinite perfection.[11]
The blessed inhabitants of heaven, who have nothing sensible or corporeal, God attracts and raises to divine things, not by exterior means; He causes the pure rays and intelligible splendours of His adorable will to shine within them. What is thus imparted to them directly and in unity, is transmitted to us as it were in fragments, under the multiplicity of varied symbols: in the holy Scripture; in the figures wherein our hierarchy, adapting itself to human nature, shrouds for us the mystery of divine regeneration and all the other holy mysteries;[12] and again, in the harmony of the universe, which shows forth the images and footprints of the divine ideas.
Though all things speak of God to man, not one of them speaks aright. God is accessible to the understanding, to reason, to science; He is discerned by the sensibility, by thought, by the imagination; in a word, He can be named; nevertheless He is incomprehensible, ineffable, nameless. Everything reveals Him to all men, and yet nothing manifests Him to anyone. Everything may be predicated of Him, as being the universal cause;[13] but as He is beyond all expression, everything may be more truly denied of Him.[14]
Hence many, in their progress towards God, are not content with passing beyond the starting-point of exterior senses necessary to our nature, but rise beyond the manifold operations of reasoning and argumentation. As the senses are a hindrance, when the soul applies herself to intelligible things by the pure understanding; so the intellectual faculty itself becomes useless when the divinized soul, sublimely ignorant, forgetful of all things, plunges herself into the abysses of unfathomable wisdom. The simple adhesion of the angelic natures to Him who surpasses all knowledge, has become the property of these souls; emulating the angels, they have attained the aim of all hierarchy, by becoming as entirely as possible united with God.[15]
Guide of Christians in sacred wisdom, O Trinity, sovereignly good, lead us to that height, where all light is outshone by a darkness which coruscates in brilliant lightnings, and, though it can be neither seen nor grasped, inundates with the beauty of its fires the blessedly blinded spirits.[16]
Could we presume to add anything? As we have already remarked,[17] the Church herself, at this season which prepares the world for the last coming of the Spouse, moderates her voice. Especially ought we to imitate her to-day, when the divinely inspired Areopagite, oppressed with the weight of his own powerlessness, cries out:
‘Our language is the more redundant in proportion as it is less pertinent to God. As man rises nearer to heaven, the glance he casts upon the spiritual world becomes simplified and his speech abridged; nigh to the summit, not only do words grow fewer, but all language, nay thought itself, at length fails. Formerly our discourse expanded in proportion to the height whence it descended; as it ascends, it must equally diminish, until, arrived at the final term, it will altogether cease and be lost in the. ineffable.[18]
Meanwhile, Home will tell us how the revealer of the heavenly hierarchies, coming from Athens into the west, watered with his generous blood the seed he sowed in the future capital of France. Enriched with his sacred body, the humble borough now known as Saint-Denis long surpassed in renown its neighbour Lutetia (Paris). France repaid her apostle’s devotedness by the glory wherewith she surrounded him; it would seem as if, by a chivalrous inspiration, she had undertaken to compensate him for having abandoned his native country for her sake. Immense was the concourse of people to his holy tomb; and still greater was the piety of the kings. The martyr’s banner, the oriflamme, was their standard, Mountjoy St. Denys their battle-cry, in every clime whither victory led them. As in life they never quitted the kingdom without entrusting it to the protector of France in his abbey, so at death they bequeathed to him their mortal remains. In spite of sacrilegious profanations, what a sublime spectacle will the holy necropolis present to the world on the last day, when, before the eyes of Adrian and his prefects, he whom they executed at Montmartre and condemned to infamy, will rise from his tomb escorted by three dynasties of monarch proud to form, at the resurrection, the court of him whom they deemed it an honour to surround in death. Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honourable![19]
The account given by Rome of St. Dionysius and his companions, is the same as that in the Menæa of the Greek Church, though the latter keeps their feast on October 3.
Dionysius Atheniensis, unus ex Areopagitis judicibus, vir fuit omni doctrinæ genere instructus. Qui cum adhuc in Gentilitatis errore versaretur, eo die quo Christus Dominus cruci affixus est, solem præter naturam defecisse animadvertens exclamasse traditur: Aut Deus naturæ patitur, aut mundi machina dissolvetur. Sed cum Paulus apostolus veniens Athenas, et in Areopagum ductus rationem reddidisset ejus doctrinæ quam prædicabat, affirmans Christum Dominum resurrexisse, et mortuos omnes in vitam redituros esse: cum alii multi, tum ipse Dionysius in Christum credidit.
I taque et baptizatus est ab apostolo et Atheniensium ecclesiæ præfectus. Qui cum postea Romam venisset, a Clemente Pontifice missus est in Galliam prædicandi Evangelii causa. Quem Lutetiam usque Parisiorum Rusticus presbyter, et Eleutherius diaconus prosecuti sunt: ubi a Fescennio præfecto, quod inultos ad christianam religionem convertisset, ipse cum sociis virgis cæsus est: cumque in prædicatione Christianæ fidei constantissime perseveraret, in craticulam subjecto igne injicitur, multisque præterea suppliciis una cum sociis cruciatur.
Sed ea tormentorum genera omnibus forti ac libenti animo perferentibus, Dionysius annum agens supra centesimum, cum reliquis securi percutitur, septimo Idus octobris. De quo illud memoriæ proditum est, abscissum suum caput sustulisse, et progressum ad duo millia passuum in manibus gestasse. Libros scripsit admirabiles, ac plane cœlestes, de divinis nominibus, de cœlesti et ecclesiastica hierarchia, de mystica theologia, et alios quosdam.
Dionysius, an Athenian, was one of the judges of the Areopagus, and a man learned in every science. It is related of him that, on the day Christ our Lord was crucified, he, though still a pagan, on perceiving the unnatural eclipse of the sun, cried out: 'Either the God of nature is suffering, or the world is coming to an end.' Paul the apostle, coming to Athens, was brought before the Areopagus, to give an account of the doctrine he preached. He there proclaimed that Christ our Lord had risen from the tomb, and that the dead would all live again. Many thereupon believed in Christ, and among them Dionysius.
He was baptized by St. Paul, and appointed to govern the Church of Athens. Later on he came to Rome; whence Pope Clement sent him to preach the Gospel in Gaul; Rusticus a priest, and Eleutherius a deacon, accompanying him as far as Paris. As he converted many in that town to Christianity, Fescennius the prefect commanded him and his companions to be beaten with rods; but continuing to preach the faith as zealously as before, they were placed on hot gridirons, and suffered several other tortures.
They all endured the torments bravely and joyfully. Finally Dionysius, who was a hundred and one years old, was beheaded with his companions, on the seventh of the Ides of October. It is related of Dionysius, that after his decapitation, he took up his head and carried it in his hands for two miles. He wrote some wonderful and truly heavenly books on the divine names, on the celestial and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, on mystical theology, and several others.
Honour to thee on this day of thy triumph! Honour to the apostle of the Gentiles, who comes to meet thee, as his noble conquest, on the threshold of eternity. From early youth how thy soul yearned for that unknown God, whom the apostle at length revealed to the longing aspirations of thy grand, upright nature! To the darkness of polytheism, to the doubts of philosophy, to the vague glimmers of confused traditions, suddenly succeeded the light of truth; and its triumph was complete. Thou, O Christian Plato, didst enlarge the horizon of philosophy, and didst so rectify its formulas that in them truth eould be fittingly clothed. Thou, in thy turn, didst become an apostle; the distinction of Greek and barbarian, that law of the ancient world, was lost in the common origin assigned by St. Paul to all peoples; to the eyes of thy faith, slaves and freemen were equal in that nobility which makes the human race the race of God; while the charity, which overflowed in thy heart, filled it with the immense pity of God Himself for the long ages of ignorance in which mankind had been plunged.
Thus in thy zeal, obeying the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, thou, like a cloud laden with the blessings of the Lord, didst bring fertility to the far west. The people of Gaul learnt from thee to seek God, to find Him, and to live in Him; and this new church had no reason to envy the earlier ones built on the foundations of prophets and apostles. O chosen stone, good for the foundations, so intimately united to the Corner-Stone that every construction thou upholdest becomes a holy temple of the Lord: the church of France built upon thee, is also the house of God.
O Dionysius, quicken again the divine seed thou didst sow. Restore to Paris and to France their traditions, now forgotten in the fever of gain and pleasure. Bring back Athens to the communion of Christ’s vicar, the indispensable condition of union with our Lord. For every church under heaven obtain such pastors as thou didst describe in the following lines which reveal thyself: ‘By the holy love which draws us to Him, Jesus calms the tempest of distracting cares; and recalling our souls to the unity of the divine life, He confirms us in the permanent fruitfulness of this noble ministry. Soon, by the exercise of the sacred functions, we draw nigh to the angels, striving to set ourselves, like them, in the fixed state of unchangeable holiness. Thence, gazing upon the divine splendours of the blessed Jesus, and enriched with the profound knowledge of mystioal contemplation, we become fitted to be our-selves consecrated in order that we may consecrate, to receive light in order to communicate it, to become perfect in order to lead others to perfection.’[20]
[1] Eph. iii. 18, 19. Epistle of the 16th Sunday after Pentecost.
[2] Phil. i. 6-11. Epistle of the 22nd Sunday after Pentecost.
[3] Col. i. 9-14. Epistle of the last Sunday after Pentecost.
[4] Phil. iii. 17. Epistle of the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost.
[5] S. Benedict. Rig. vi.
[6] St. James i. 17.
[7] Dionys. Be eælesti hierarchia. i, iv, viii.
[8] De ecclesiastica hierarchia. i.
[9] De cælest. hier. iii.
[10] De eccl. hier. i.
[11] De cælesti hier. iii, vii, x.
[12] De eccl. hier. i-vii.
[13] De divinis nominibus, i-xiii.
[14] De mystica theologia, i-v.
[15] De divinis nominibus, i, iv, vii, xiii.
[16] De myst. theol, i.
[17] On the Decollation of St. John the Baptist.
[18] De mystica thialogia, iii.
[19] Ps. cxxxviii. 17.
[20] Dionys. Dt eccl. hier. i.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
Vanity of vanities and all is vanity.[1] No argument was needed to impress this truth upon the saint of to-day, when the coffin was opened which contained all that Spain had admired of youth and loveliness, and death suddenly revealed to him its awful reality. O ye beauties of all times, death alone never dies; it invites itself to your dances and pleasures, it assists at all your triumphs, it hears promises said to be eternal: and how quickly it can scatter your adorers! A few years, a few days, perhaps even less, and all your borrowed sweetness will be decaying in the tomb!
‘Enough of vain phantoms; enough of serving mortal kings; awaken, O my soul!’ Such was Francis Borgia’s reply to the teachings of death. The friend of Charles V, the great lord unequalled for nobility, fortune, and brilliant qualities, quitted the court as soon as possible. Ignatius, the soldier of the siege of Pampeluna, beheld at his feet the viceroy of Catalonia, begging to be protected against the honours which pursued him even under the poor habit of a Jesuit, which was now his glory.
The Church relates his life in the following lines.
Franciscus Gandiæ dux quartus, Joanne Borgia et Joanna Aragonia Ferdinandi Catholici nepte genitus, post puerilem ætatem inter domesticos mira innocentia et pietate transactam, in aula primum Caroli quinti Cæsaris, mox in Catalauniæ administratione admirabilior fuit christianæ virtutis et vitæausterioris exemplis. Ad Granatense sepulchrum Isabellam imperatricem cum detulisset, in ejus vultu fœde commutato, mortalium omnium caducitatem relegens, voto se adstrinxit, rebus omnibus, cum primum liceret, abjectis, regum Regi unice inserviendi. Inde tantum virtutis incrementum fecit, ut inter negotiorum turbas religiosæ perfectionis simillimam imaginem referens, miraculum principum appellaretur.
Mortua Eleonora de Castro, conjuge, ingressus est Societatem Jesu, ut in ea lateret securius, et præcluderet dignitatibus aditum, interposita voti religione: dignus, quem et viri principes complures in amplectendo severiori instituto fuerint secuti, et Carolus quintus ipse in abdicando imperio hortatorem sibi, aut ducem exstitisse non diffiteretur. In eo arctioris vitæ studio Franeiscus jejuniis, catenis ferreis, asperrimo cilicio, cruentis longisque verberationibus, somno brevissimo, corpus ad extremam usque maciem redegit: nullis præterea parcens laboribus ad sui victoriam et ad salutemanimarum. Tot itaque instructus virtutibus, a sancto Ignatio primum generaliscommissarius in Hispaniis, nec multo post præpositus generalis tertius a Societate universa, licet invitus, eligitur. Quo in munere principibus ac summis Pontificibus prudentia ac morura sanctitate apprime carus, præter complura vel condita vel aucta ubique domicilia, socios in regnum Poloniæ, in insulas Oceani, in Mexicanam et Peruanam provincias invexit: missis quoque in alias regiones apostolicis viris, qui prædicatione, sudoribus, sanguine, fidem catholicam Romanam propagarunt.
De se ita demisse sentiebat, ut peccatoris nomen sibi proprium faceret. Romanam purpuram, a summis Pontificibus sæpius oblatam, invicta humilitatis constantia recusavit. Verrere sordes, emendicare victum ostiatim,ægris ministrare in nosocomiis, mundi ac sui contemptor, in deliciis habuit. Singulis diebus multas continenter horas, frequenter octo, quandoque decena dabat cœlestium contemplationi. Centies quotidie de genu Deum adorabat. Numquam a sacrificando abstinuit, prodebatque sese divinus ardor, ejus vulfcu sacram Hostiam offerentis, aut concionantis interdum radiante. Sanctissimum Christi corpus in Eucharistia latens, ubi asservaretur, instinctu cœlesti sentiebat. Cardinali Alexandrino, ad conjungendos contra Turcas christianos principes, legato comes additus a beato Pio quinto, arduum iter, fractis jam pene viribus, suscepit ex obedientia, in qua et vitæ cursum Romæ, ut optarat, feliciter consummavit, anno ætatis suæ sexagesimo secundo, salutis vero millesimo quingentesimo septuagesimo secundo. A sancta Teresia, quæejus utebatur consiliis, vir sanctus, a Gregorio decimo tertio fidelis administer appellatus; demum a Clemente decimo, pluribus magnisque clarus miraculis, in sanctorum numerum est adscriptus.
Francis, fourth Duke of Gandia, was the son of John Borgia and of Joanna of Aragon, grand-daughter of Ferdinand the Catholic. He passed his childhood, in his father’s house, in wonderful innocence and piety; but appeared still more admirable when he showed himself a pattern of Christian virtue and austerity, first at the court of the emperor, Charles V, and afterwards as viceroy of Catalonia. He was charged to convey the body of the empress Isabella to her sepulchre at Granada. Seeing the horrible change in her features, he understood how fleeting are all earthly things, and vowed to renounce everything as soon as possible, and devote himself to the service of the King of kings. From that day forward he made such progress in virtue, that, in the midst of overwhelming occupations, his life was a faithful copy of religious perfection, so that he was called the miracle of princes.
On the death of his wife Eleanora de Castro, he entered the Society of Jesus, that he might be therein more hidden, on account of the vow which closes the door to ecclesiastical preferment. Many princes followed him in embracing a severe manner of life; and Charles V himself did not hesitate to acknowledge that his advice and example had led him to abdicate the throne. Francis devoted himself to the exercises of a penitential life, and macerated his body by fasting, iron chains, a rough Imir-shirt, long and bloody disciplines, allowing himself very little sleep; while at the same time he spared no elfort to conquer himself and to gain souls. His great virtue caused St. Ignatius to appoint him commissary general for Spain; and soon afterwards, against his will, he was chosen by the whole Society third General of the Order. In this position his prudence and holiness endeared him both to Popes and to temporal rulers. He founded and enlarged many houses of his Order, and introduced the Society into Poland, the islands of the Atlantic, Mexico, and Peru, and sent apostolic men into other regions who spread the Catholic, Roman faith by their preaching, their labours, and their blood.
He had a most lowly opinion of himself, always calling himself the sinner. This humility led him to persistently refuse the Roman purple, which was more than once offered him by the Pope. Filled with contempt for himself and the world, he delighted in sweeping away dirt, begging alms from door to door, and serving the sick in the hospitals. He devoted many hours every day to heavenly contemplation, spending sometimes eight or even ten hours in prayer, and genuflecting in adoration a hundred times in the day. He never omitted saying Mass; While he was offering the divine Victim, or preaching, the heavenly ardour which consumed him betrayed itself by the radiance of his countenance. He knew by a heavenly instinct where the most holy Body of Christ, hidden in the Eucharist, was kept. Saint Pius V appointed Francis companion to Cardinal Alessandrino,in an embassy for uniting the Christian princes against the Turks. Although his strength was almost exhausted, he undertook this journey in obedience; but on the way he happily closed his life, as he had wished, at Rome, in the sixty-second year of his age, and in the year of salvation 1572. By St. Teresa, who had often sought his advice, he was called a saint, and by Gregory XIII, a faithful servant of God. Finally, after many great miracles, he was canonized by Clement X.
‘O Lord Jesus Christ, the pattern and reward of true humility, we beseech Thee, that as Thou didst make blessed Francis a glorious follower of Thee in the contempt of worldly honour, so Thou wouldst grant us to be partakers of the same imitation and glory.’[2] Such is the prayer the Church offers through thee to her divine Spouse. She knows that the saints always have great power with God; but especially when they would obtain for their devout clients the virtues they themselves more particularly cultivated when on earth.
How precious is this prerogative in thy case, O Francis, for it concerns the virtue which attracts God’s grace in this life, and wins such glory hereafter! Since pride has hurled Lucifer into the abyss, and the self-abasement of the Son of God has led to His exaltation above the heavens, humility, whatever men may now say, has lost nothing of its inestimable value; it is still the indispensable foundation of every durable edifice, whether spiritual or social; the basis, without which the other virtues, and even charity the queen of them all, could not subsist a single day. Therefore, O Francis, obtain for us this humility; thoroughly convince us of the vanity of this world’s honours and false pleasures. May the holy Society, which thou after St. Ignatius didst render still more valuable to the Church, cherish this spirit of thine, so that it may deserve more and more the esteem of heaven and the gratitude of earth.
[1] Eccles. i. 2.
[2] Collect of the day.
From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
In the sixteenth century, even amidst their many divergences, the so-called Reformers agreed in utterly rejecting all the honours paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the grounds that such veneration of the Mother detracted from the supreme worship due to her divine Son. Four centuries have more than sufficed to show the result of so doing: the Son has followed the Mother! The descendants of those who refused to Mary the title and rights of Theotokos—Mother of God—refuse to Jesus the title of Son of God in the traditional sense of the term. Many
reject his Godhead altogether, placing him merely at the head of the line of great moral and social world-teachers; others still retain the word “divinity” with respect to him, but for them it is no longer synonymous with “deity.”
Holy Scripture tells us that those who first came to adore him who is Son of God and Son of Mary found him “with Mary his Mother.” At the scene of the first miracle at Cana, which marked the opening of his public life, “the Mother of Jesus was there.” In the tremendous hour when all was consummated, when types and shadows gave place to the mighty reality, “there stood by the cross of Jesus his Mother.” And when the little flock who were to be the nucleus of the Church of God awaited in prayer the coming of the Paraclete, who would teach them all truth, again it was in company with “Mary the Mother of Jesus.” Far from taking from the honour and love due to the Word Incarnate, devotion to Mary is a strong bulwark protecting the central doctrine. He is ever found with his Mother; where Mary is denied her rights, sooner or later Jesus is denied his; they stand or fall together.
This was realized in the year 431 when, at the General Council of Ephesus, the Church condemned the Nestorian heresy, whereby the Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, had taught that, since in Christ there are two persons, a divine and a human, Mary was mother only of the Man Christ, and therefore could not be called “Mother of God.” He therefore denied “that wondrous and substantial union of the two natures which we call hypostatic.”
On the occasion of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius XI, issued the Encyclical Lux Veritatis, recalling the history of the heresy and commenting thus upon the dogma of the hypostatic union: “When once the doctrine of the hypostatic union is abandoned, whereon the dogmas of the Incarnation and of man’s Redemption rest and stand firm, the whole foundation of the Catholic religion falls and comes to ruin. . . . When once this dogma of the truth is securely established, it is easy to gather from it that, by the mystery of the Incarnation, the whole aggregate of men and of mundane things has been endowed with a dignity than which certainly nothing greater can be imagined, and surely grander than that to which it was raised by the work of creation.”
Proceeding to speak of the special dignity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Pope emphasizes that, " because she brought forth the Redeemer of mankind, she is also in a manner the most tender Mother of us all, whom Christ our Lord deigned to have as his brothers; wherefore we may confidently ehtrust to her all things that are ours, our joys, our troubles, our hopes; especially if more difficult times fall upon the Church—if faith fail because charity has grown cold, if private and public morals take a turn for the worse.”
In this last connection we are reminded of another result of the loss of devotion to the Mother of God. Frequently and truly we hear and speak of the “paganism” of the present age. The decay of faith has been followed inevitably by a decline in morality, and our elaborate and complex civilization is threatened with the dissolving agent which contributed in no small measure to the overthrow of the magnificent civilization of old Rome: namely, the loss of the domestic virtues, the disappearance of healthy, normal family life, consequent upon the abandonment of the Christian ideals of marriage and parenthood.
It is a truism that one of the greatest social effects of Christianity was to raise the status of womanhood. Her legal position in the Ancient World was little better than that of a slave, and although classical literature furnishes us with examples of women who, in pagan homes, yet enjoyed high honour and affection, such are few indeed, and but serve to prove the rule. Divorce, infanticide, general degradation of womanhood, and not infrequently of childhood, were accepted features of pagan social order. The ideal and model of the “new woman” of the Christian dispensation was the Mother of God. It was Mary, “Mother of fair love,” “Madonna,” “our Lady,” who ennobled the degenerate old civilization, just as she tamed the fierce barbarian peoples; she it was who inspired the ideals of the later chivalry. In Mary, all her sex was uplifted; in her motherhood all motherhood became blessed. Now again the world needs the hallowing influence of the Mother of God and of men, if “the life of the family, the beginning and the foundation of all human society” is to be preserved in all its nobility and its purity.
Desirous “to mark the commemoration, and help to nourish the piety of clergy and people towards the great Mother of God,” His Holiness concludes the Encyclical by establishing the new feast of the Divine Motherhood, to be celebrated on October 11 by the universal Church.
MASS
Introit
Ecce, Virgo concipiet, et pariet Filium, et vocabitur nomen ejus Emmanuel.
Cantate Domino canticum novum, quia mirabilia fecit. Gloria Patri. Ecce.
Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel.
Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: because he hath done wonderful things. Glory be to the Father. Behold.
Collect
Deus, qui de beatæ Mariæ Virginis utero Verbum tuum, angelo nuntiante, carnem suscipere voluisti: præsta supplicibus tuis; ut, qui vere eam Genetricem Dei credimus, ejus apud te intercessionibus adjuvemur. Per eumdem Dominum.
O God, who wast pleased that at the message of an angel, thy Word should take flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary: grant that we, thy suppliants, who believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her intercession with thee. Through the same.
Epistle
Lectio libri Sapientiæ
Eccli. xxiv.Ego quasi vitis fructificavi suavitatem odoris: et flores mei fructus honoris et honestatis. Ego mater pulchræ dilectionis et timoris et agnitionis et sanctæ spei. In me gratia omnis viæ et veritatis: in me omnis spes vitæ et virtutis. Transite ad me, omnes qui concupiscitis me, et a generationibus meis implemini. Spiritus enim meus super mel dulcis, et hereditas mea super mel et favum. Memoria mea in generationes sæculorum. Qui edunt me adhuc esurient: et qui bibunt me, adhuc sitient. Qui audit me, non confundetur: et qui operantur in me non peccabunt. Qui elucidant me, vitam æternam habebunt.
Lesson from the book of Wisdom
Ecclus. xxiv.
As the vine I have brought forth a pleasant odour: and my flowers are the fruit of honours and riches. I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge, and of holy hope. In me is ail grace of the way and of the truth: in me is all hope of life and of virtue. Come over to me, all ye that desire me: and be filled with my fruits. For my spirit is sweet above honey and the honeycomb. My memory is unto everlasting generations. They that eat me shall yet hunger: and they that drink me shall yet thirst. He that hearkeneth to me shall not be confounded: and they that work by me shall not sin. They that explain me shall have life everlasting.
Gradual
Egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet.
℣. Et requiescet super eum Spiritus Domini.
Alleluia, alleluia. ℣. Virgo Dei Genetrix, quem totus non capit orbis, in tua so clausit viscera factus homo. Alleluia.
There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.
℣. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.
Alleluia, alleluia. ℣. O Virgin Mother of God, the world sufficeth not to contain him who, made man, was shut up in thy womb. Alleluia.
Gospel
Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Lucam.
Cap. ii.In illo tempore: Cum redirent puer remansit Jesus in Jerusalem, et non cognoverunt parentes ejus. Existimantes autem ilium esse in comitatu, venerunt ter diei, et requi rebant eum inter cognatos et notos. Et non invenientes, regressi sunt in Jerusalem, requirentes eum. Et factum est, post triduum invenerunt ilium in tempio sedentem in medio doctorum, audientem illos et interrogantem eos. Stupebant autem omnes qui eum audiebant, super prudentia et responsis ejus. Et videntes admirati sunt. Et dixit mater ejus ad ilium: Fili, quid fecisti nobis sic? Ecce, pater tuus et ego dolentes quærebamus te. Et ait ad illos: Quid est, quod me quærebatis? Nesciebatis quia in his quæ Patris mei sunt, oportet me esse? Et ipsi non intellexerunt verbum, quod locutus est ad eos. Et descendit cum eis, et venit Nazareth: et erat subditus illis.
Sequel of the Holy Gospel according to Luke.
Ch. ii.
At that time: When they returned, the child Jesus remained in Jerusalem. And his parents knew it not. And thinking that he was in the company, they came a day’s journey and sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And not finding him, they returned into Jerusalem seeking him. And it came to pass that, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers. And seeing him they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? Behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business? And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them. And he went down with them to Nazareth, and was subject to them.
Offertory
Cum esset desponsata mater ejus Maria Joseph, inventa est in utero habens de Spiritu Sancto.
When his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
Secret
Tua, Domine, propitiatione, et beatæ Mariæ semper Virginis, Unigeniti tui matris, intercessione, ad perpetuam atque præsentem hæc oblatio nobis proficiat prosperitatem et pacem. Per eumdem Dominum.
Through thy merciful forgiveness, O Lord, and through the intercession of Blessed Mary ever Virgin, may this oblation avail us to the ensuring, now and always, of prosperity and peace. Through the same.
Preface of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Et te in festivitate.
Communion
Beata viscera Mariæ Virginis, quæ portaverunt æterni Patris Filium.
Blessed is the womb of Mary the Virgin, which bare the Son of the eternal Father.
Postcommunion
Hæc nos communio, Domine, purget a crimine: et, intercedente beata Virgine Dei Genetrice Maria, cælestis remedii faciat esse consortes. Per eumden Dominum.
May this communion, O Lord, cleanse us from sin: and by the intercession of Blessed Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, may it unite us in him who is the heavenly healer of our souls. Through the same.