St. Anthony Gianelli

Anthony Maria Gianelli was born in 1789 into a middle-class family living near Genoa in the north of Italy. As a child, people were often struck by his gentle nature, industriousness, and extraordinary intelligence. When he came of age, the lady who owned the farm his family lived on became his generous benefactress and financed his schooling and entry into the ecclesiastical seminary in Genoa.

He quickly distinguished himself by his virtue and exceptional eloquence, thus earning him the unusual privilege of being allowed to preach while still a subdeacon. In 1812, when he was twenty-three years old, he was granted special dispensation to be ordained a priest two years before the required canonical age.

Although Fr. Anthony was dedicated to his educational work, he also devoted himself to the work of preaching and hosting missions which resulted in a great harvest of souls. All this was in addition to all his ordinary duties and functions as a parish priest – indeed, he was often confined to his confessional for long stretches of time in order to accommodate the endless stream of penitents who flocked to him for spiritual aid. He was ordained a bishop in 1838 and appointed to the diocese of Bibbio, where he led his flock by his extraordinary example of virtue, prudence and firm government.

Before his death from a fever in 1846, at the age of fifty-seven, Bishop Gianelli founded three religious orders - two for men and one for women. The Missionaries of St. Alphonsus and the Oblates of St. Alphonsus were established in 1827-1828; but sadly, both lasted only twenty years. The Sisters of Our Lady of the Garden were founded in 1829 and dedicated their lives to teaching poor children and caring for the ill and infirm. They are still active and well known today in Italy and in other parts of the world as well.

Anthony Gianelli was canonized in 1951 by Pope Pius XII.

Why should we give ourselves to God?

God gave Himself
to you:
give yourself to God.

Bl. Robert Southwell

St. Norbert of Magdeburg

Norbert was born in the year 1080 in Xanten, Germany, to a noble and wealthy family. Norbert lived a life of pleasure until one day he lost consciousness after being thrown from his horse during a thunderstorm. He awoke an hour later, and said, “Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?” “Turn from evil and do good: seek after peace and pursue it,” came the heavenly reply.

After his conversion, Norbert pursued the priesthood and was ordained in 1115. He received special permission from the Pope to preach the Gospel wherever he chose. Fiinding himself at Prémontré in France, Norbert founded a community under the rule of St. Augustine, with the sanction of the Holy See. At first, Norbert had only thirteen followers but the numbers increased to forty by 1121 and by 1125, eight abbeys and two convents had been established.

In 1126, Norbert was chosen Archbishop of Magdeburg. He struggled to reform the clergy, many of whom were leading careless lives, and ultimately succeeded in his reformation endeavors. Four years later, he defended Pope Innocent II, whose claim to the papacy was threatened by Antipope Anacletus II. Norbert won over the hierarchy of the Church in Germany to Innocent’s cause and influenced the German King Lothar to defend Innocent.

Norbert died in Magdeburg in 1134 at the age of fifty-three. He was formally recognized as a saint by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582.

The Church is like a great ship

In her voyage across the ocean of this world, the Church
is like a great ship being pounded by the waves of life’s different stresses.
Our duty is not to abandon ship but to keep her on her course.

St. Boniface of Mainz

St. Boniface of Mainz

Boniface was born Winfrid around the year 680 to a respected and noble English family, and it was to his father’s great displeasure that, at the young age of five, his son devoted himself to the monastic life.
Educated at the monastery school close to Exeter, with further studies guided by the monks and, later, directed by the learned Abbot Winbert at the Abbey of Nursling in Winchester, Boniface became a very learned and popular scholar.
His popularity and skill in teaching attracted many other students and scholars, for whose benefit he wrote the first Latin grammar known to have been compiled in English. After continued studies, he was ordained to the priesthood at the age of thirty.
Convinced of his calling to be a missionary, Winfrid declined the position of abbot at the monastery of Nursling and obtained from his superior permission to travel to Frisia to assist the famous missionary, St. Willibrord, who had been struggling for a long time to bring the Gospel home to his people. However, the mission ended in failure and Winfrid was forced to return to England a few months later.
Refusing to give up though, Winfrid set out for Rome to ask the Holy Father himself for an official mission and the backing of the Church. Pope Gregory II consented, gave him the new name of Boniface, and assigned him to work in Thuringia, Germany, where the Church was in bad shape, isolated, and subjected to superstition and heresy.
However, Boniface received no help from the local clergy and once more traveled to Frisia to join Willibrord and get training by the expert missionary. He was so helpful that St. Willibrord wanted to make Boniface his successor; but after three years of training, Boniface still felt the pull of the missionary work in Germany that he had left behind. Returning first to Rome where he was consecrated bishop by the pope, Boniface set out once more to Hesse.
Boniface had enormous work ahead of him. The pagans, though attracted to Christianity, were still bound by fear and superstition to their old religion and gods. To prove to them the falseness of their beliefs and the reality of the one true God, Boniface called the people together and, approaching the “sacred” oak of Geismar, struck it down with an axe, whereupon it split into four parts and fell to the grown in the shape of a cross. Yet, there stood Boniface, still holding his axe, unharmed by their gods.
The work of evangelization and conversion advanced steadily thereafter; and in answer to his appeal, monks and nuns enthusiastically began to arrive from England to assist him.
Boniface also lent his own support to the Frankish Church which was also in sad need of repair, setting up councils and synods and instituting reforms which revitalized the Church there.
One day, while camped in the open fields near the banks of the little river Borne with his attendants, he was awaiting the arrival of some confirmandi when they were attacked by a hostile band of pagans. The saint exhorted his companions to faith and courage and they all died the death of martyrs. St. Boniface’s body was taken to Fulda where it still rests.

June - The Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

 

Hope of a Hopeless World
If there is an age whose sole hope lies in the Sacred Heart of Jesus, it is our own. The evils committed by mankind today can scarcely be exaggerated. To mention just a few, these include blasphemy, the destruction of the family through abortion, divorce, euthanasia, widespread pornography, immoral fashions and lifestyles, homosexuality and so on. As Pope Pius XI once said, the contemporary world is so morally depraved that at any moment it could be plunged into a deeper spiritual misery than that reigning in the world when Our Blessed Redeemer was born. In consideration of so many crimes, the idea of divine vengeance naturally comes to mind. When we view this sinful world, groaning beneath the weight of a thousand crises and a thousand afflictions but nevertheless unrepentant; when we consider the alarming progress of neo-paganism, which is on the verge of conquering humanity; and when, on the other hand, we consider the lack of resolve, foresight, and unity among the so-called remnant, we are understandably terrified at the grim prospects of catastrophes that this generation may be calling upon itself.

There is something liberal in imagining that so many crimes do not deserve punishment, that such a widespread apostasy of humanity is merely the fruit of some intellectual error without moral accountability. The reality is otherwise, for God does not abandon His creatures. Rather, He continuously assists and supports them with sufficient grace to aid them in choosing the right path. If they choose to follow a way other than His, the responsibility is theirs.

Behold the grim picture of the contemporary world: on one hand, an iniquitous and sinful civilization and, on the other, the Creator holding high the divine scourge. Is there nothing left for mankind but fire and brimstone? As we begin a new millennium, can we hope for a future other than the scourge foretold by Sacred Scriptures for the final impenitence of the last days? Were God to act solely according to His justice, there is no doubt what we should expect. Indeed, could we even have made it as far as the twentieth century? Nevertheless, since God is not only just but also merciful, the gates of salvation have not yet been shut against us. A people unrelenting in its impiety has every reason to expect God’s rigor. However, He Who is infinitely merciful, does not want the death of this sinful generation but that it “be converted...and live” (Ezech.18:23). His grace thus insistently pursues all men, inviting them to abandon their evil ways and return to the fold of the Good Shepherd.

If an impenitent humanity has every reason to fear every catastrophe, a repentant humanity has every reason to expect every mercy. Indeed, for God’s mercy to be poured on the contrite sinner, his repentance need not have run its full course. Even while still in the depths of the pit, if the sinner but sincerely and earnestly turn to God with a budding repentance in his heart, he will immediately find help, for God never disregards him.
The Holy Ghost says in Sacred Scripture: “Can a woman forget her infant…. And if she should forget, yet will not I forget thee” (Isa. 49:15). That is, even in such extreme cases where even a mother gives up, God does not. God’s mercy benefits the sinner even while divine justice cuts him down on the way of iniquity. Modern man cannot lose sight of these two basic concepts of divine justice and divine mercy—justice lest we dare presume that we can save ourselves without merits; mercy, so that we do not despair of our salvation as long as we repent and start anew.


God is charity, so the simple mention of the Most Holy Name of Jesus evokes love. It is the infinite, limitless love that drove the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity to become man. It is the love expressed in the utter humiliation of a God Who comes to us as a poor infant, born in a cave. It is the love shown in those thirty years of hidden life spent in the humility of the strictest poverty, in the three grueling years of evangelization, when the Son of Man traveled highways and country roads, climbed mountains, crossed valleys, rivers and lakes, visited cities and villages, walked through deserts and hamlets, spoke to rich and poor, dispensing love and, for the most part, reaping ingratitude. It is the love manifested in that supreme moment of the Last Supper when, after generously washing the feet of His apostles, He instituted the Holy Eucharist. It is the love of that last kiss taken from Judas, of that poignant look at Peter, of those insults received and born patiently and meekly, of those sufferings endured until the last drop of blood was shed. It is the love in that last pardon of Dismas, which enabled the dying thief to steal heaven. Finally, it is the love manifested in the supreme gift of a heavenly mother for a wretched humanity! Each of these episodes has been painstakingly studied by the learned, wondrously reproduced by artists, devoutly contemplated by saints, and, above all, incomparably celebrated in the Divine Liturgy.

In venerating the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Church specially praises the infinite love demonstrated by Our Lord Jesus Christ to men. Since His heart is the symbol of love, by venerating His Heart, the Church celebrates Love.

Our Lady of the Sacred Heart

Many and beautiful are the invocations used by Holy Mother Church in reference to Our Blessed Lady. Yet, every single one of these clearly underscores her relationship to God’s love. Each celebrates either a gift of God to her, to which she was perfectly faithful, or some special power or influence she has with her Divine Son.
Now, what are God’s gifts but a special manifestation of His love? And what is Our Lady’s power of intercession with God in our favor but a sublime aspect of God’s special love for us? Thus, it is perfectly appropriate to call her Speculum Justitiae, “mirror of justice” on one hand and “omnipotent intercessor” on the other. She is the mirror of justice because God so loved her that He concentrated in her all perfections possible to a human creature. In no other creature is He so well reflected as in her. Thus, she mirrors His justice perfectly. She is the omnipotent intercessor because no grace is obtained without Our Lady and there is no grace she cannot obtain for us. Thus, on invoking Mary as Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, we make a beautiful synthesis of all the other invocations; we recall the purest reflection of the Divine Maternity; we simultaneously strike all the chords of love in beautiful harmony, the same chords we strike when we recite her litany or sing the Salve Regina.

Yet, there is one other invocation of Our Lady that I especially wish to recall. It is “Advocate of Sinners.” Our Lord Jesus Christ is our judge, and as great as is His mercy, He nevertheless remains our supreme judge and cannot fail to exercise His judicial duty. But Our Lady is our advocate and does solely what an advocate is supposed to do—defends the accused. Do we not have in Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, the Advocate of Sinners, an all-powerful advocate before the bar of divine justice whose pleas for mercy will not be refused? To say then, that Our Lady of the Sacred Heart is our advocate is equivalent to saying that we have an omnipotent advocate in heaven who holds the golden key to an infinite store of mercy. So, what better solution for a sinful humanity, a humanity that falls deeper into sin if justice is not mentioned but despairs of salvation if it is mentioned? By all means, let justice be mentioned; it is a duty; its omission has produced only sorry fruits. But right alongside justice, which targets the sinner, let us never forget mercy. Mercy helps the seriously repentant sinner to abandon sin and thus be saved as He desires with all His Heart—the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Why Does Love Arouse Hatred?

*by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

A friendly reader asked me to explain why the Church has been fought so fiercely throughout her history even though she is the preacher of the Truth. He also wants to know why true Catholics, who do not compromise with present-day errors and remain faithful to the immutable teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ are so relentlessly attacked. 

It seems to me that the reader could have broadened the scope of his question even further. Persecutions against the Church and today’s true Catholics are historic prolongations of those carried out against Our Lord Jesus Christ. How to explain that the Man-God, who is the Truth, the Way and the Life was persecuted to the point of being crucified between two vulgar thieves? 

This question was given a luminous answer by one of the greatest Church Doctors of all time, Saint Augustine, Bishop of Hyppo. To facilitate the readers’ understanding, I reproduce here, slightly adapted, the teaching of the great Doctor of the fourth and fifth centuries.

 

Saint Augustine (by Fra Angelico)

Commenting on the famous phrase of Terentius, “truth engenders hatred,” Saint Augustine [Confessions, Book 10, Chapter 23] asks himself how to explain such an illogical fact. 

Indeed, he says, man naturally loves happiness. Now, happiness is the joy born of the truth. 

Thus, it is an aberration for anyone to see the man who preaches truth in the name of God as an enemy. 

Having thus enunciated the issue, the holy doctor goes on to explain it. Human nature has such a propensity to the truth that when man loves something contrary to the truth he still wants that something to be true. In so doing he falls into error by persuading himself of something which in reality is false. 

Therefore, someone must open his eyes. Now then, since man does not allow anyone to show him that he was mistaken, for the same reason he tolerates no one to show him the error in which he finds himself. 

And the Doctor of Hyppo notes: In so doing, some men hate the truth for the sake of that which they have taken as true! They love the light of truth but not being reprehended by it… They love it when it shows itself to them; they hate it when it makes them see who they are. 

This is how such men are punished for their disloyalty: they do not want to be unveiled by it and nevertheless it blows their cover. And yet, it — the truth — remains hidden to their eyes. “This is precisely how the human heart is shaped. Blind and slothful, unworthy and dishonest, it hides while not allowing anything to be hidden from it. So it happens to be unable to flee from the eyes of the truth, but the truth flees from its eyes.” With these words, Saint Augustine concludes his masterly commentary.

The heart of the most Holy Virgin Mary

The Father takes pleasure in looking upon
the heart of the most Holy Virgin Mary, as
the masterpiece of His hands; for we always
like our own work, especially when it is well done.
The Son takes pleasure in it as the heart of His Mother,
the source from which He drew the Blood that has ransomed us;
the Holy Ghost as His temple.

St. John Vianney

St. Francis Caracciolo

On October 15, 1563 Francis Caracciolo was born into a noble Italian family. When he was twenty-two, he developed a skin disease similar to leprosy. The disease was incurable, but Francis vowed that if he was healed, he would dedicate his life to God and the service of others. He quickly recovered after his vow and the healing was reported to be miraculous.

Francis then became a priest, and on June 1, 1588, officially began the Minor Clerks Regular, an order that combined the active with the contemplative life. Some of the priests and brothers lived in hermitages, devoting themselves entirely to prayer and contemplation, but the others worked mainly as missionaries and attended to those in hospitals and prisons.

Though he was opposed to filling the post himself, Francis eventually became superior. For seven years he remained in this position, all the while taking his turn maintaining household tasks. He founded houses in Madrid, Valladolid and Alcala before being allowed to retire in 1607 that he might prepare himself for death.

In 1608, at the age of forty-four, Francis was seized with a fever and died. He was canonized in 1807.

How much love?

The particular object of this devotion
 [to the Sacred Heart of Jesus]
is the immense love of the Son of God which induced Him
to deliver Himself up to death for us and
to give Himself entirely to us in the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
The thought of all the ingratitude and all the outrages
which He was to receive in this state of immolated victim until the end of time
did not prevent Him from operating this prodigy.
He preferred to expose Himself each day to the insults and opprobrium of men
rather than be prevented from testifying
– by working the greatest of all miracles –
to what excess He loved us!

Fr. Jean Croiset, spiritual director of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque

St. Charles Lwanga and Companions

Charles Lwanga was one of twenty-two Ugandan martyrs who were converted from paganism by the Society of Missionaries of Africa. Chief of the royal pages, Charles eventually became a moral leader: he protected the other pages from the immoral demands of the Babandan ruler, Mwanga, and instructed them in the Catholic Faith, even baptizing some of them. He inspired and encouraged his companions to remain chaste and to be faithful to God even through imprisonment and persecution.
When Mwanga began to see the Catholics as a threat to his rule, he sentenced them to death. He ordered his pages into a great room and ordered the Catholics to separate themselves from the rest. Then he asked if they intended to remain true to their faith, even when faced with persecution. “Until death!” they responded.

On June 3, 1886, the converts were tortured and burned alive. Soon persecution spread, and more and more Catholics were sacrificing their lives rather than deny Christ. The twenty-two martyrs were solemnly beatified in 1920 and canonized in 1946.

Can anything fill the heart?

Nothing created
has ever been able to fill the heart of man.
God alone can fill it infinitely.

St. Thomas Aquinas

Sts. Marcellinus and Peter

Although not much is known about these two early martyrs, we do know that Marcellinus was a priest in Rome and Peter was an exorcist who worked in close association with him. They were both renowned for their zeal and piety and attracted many followers to Christ.

About the year 304, during the persecution of Diocletian, the two holy men were arrested for the practice of their faith. Whilst in prison, and awaiting sentencing, Marcellinus and Peter not only confirmed and helped strengthen the faith of the other Christians imprisoned with them, but they also made new converts, including their jailer and his wife and daughter, who later became martyrs themselves.

In the hopes that the Christians might not know of their execution and that their example of courage and faith be forgotten, a secret order was passed by the judge. Marcellinus, Peter and the other Christians were one day led into a thicket in the woods several miles out of Rome, called Silva Nigra, where they were beheaded in secret after cheerfully clearing away the thorns and briars to prepare their own burial places.

Some time after, a pious lady named Lucilla was shown by divine revelation the place of the holy martyrs death and burial, and she and another devout lady by the name of Firmina took the bodies and interned them in the Catacombs where they could be duly venerated. Pope Damascus himself assures us that, as a child, he learned all these particulars from the mouth of the executioner himself, who was also later converted.

Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary to her cousin St. Elizabeth was established throughout the Church in the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

When the Archangel Gabriel announced to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she would bear the Son of God, he also told her of her cousin’s miraculous pregnancy. We read in Luke 1:39-40 “…And Mary rising up in those days, went into the hill country with haste into a city of Juda. And she entered into the house of Zachary, and saluted Elizabeth.”

At Mary's greeting, Elizabeth felt her six-month baby leap in her womb and exclaimed filled with the Holy Ghost: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” Luke 1:42-44

The first part of Elizabeth’s salutation forms the second sentence of the Hail Mary. Mary, in turn, overflowing with joy and gratitude for her election, responds with the prayer of the Magnificat.

Elizabeth’s salutation to Mary as “Blessed…among women” and “mother of my Lord” can be viewed as the first expression of the Church’s devotion to Mary as the exalted handmaid of the Lord, and true mother of God made man.

This love will never pass away

The saints in heaven, seeing God face to face,
love Him above all things, because they see with the most perfect evidence
that God is better than all creatures combined.
This love will never pass away.
Faith will give place to vision; hope will be replaced by possession: but
“charity never falleth away.” I Cor. 13:8.

Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

Would you rather die?

I would rather die
than do a thing
which I know to be a sin.

St. Joan of Arc

St. Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc’s story is nothing but extraordinary. Born in Domremy, Champagne, in 1412, she was a peasant girl who received from on high the mission of leading France militarily against the invading English.

Joan’s father was Jacques D’Arc, a farmer of some means, and her mother a kind, caring woman. One of five children, Joan was a pious, prayerful and charitable girl.

In 1415, when Joan was three, the English king, Henry V, taking advantage of a civil war between the Dukes of Orleans and Burgundy, invaded Normandy and claimed several cities. Things were going from bad to worse for France when, in the village of Domremy, God began to put in motion a most unexpected solution.

At age thirteen, Joan began to receive visions of St. Michael and Sts. Catherine and Margaret who gently prepared her for her mission.

By 1428, when she was about sixteen, the saints insisted that Joan go to Charles VII, the ineffectual heir to the throne and offer him to lead an army with the objective of repelling the English, and crowning him king. The frightened girl resisted but finally took action on being assured that her extraordinary calling “was God’s will”.

Joan persuaded an uncle to take her to the nearby town of Vaucouleurs to the commander, Robert de Baudricourt. At first Baudricourt and his entourage laughed at the maiden, but when Joan announced that the city of Orleans had just fallen to the English, and the fact was later verified, hilarity turned to respect.

Accompanied by respectful soldiers, and dressed in a man’s clothing for her personal protection, Joan traveled to the court of Charles VII who, wishing to test the visionary maiden, hid himself among his courtiers. But Joan promptly picked him out, and set at rest for him an intimate doubt he had secretly prayed about as to his legitimacy as true son of the king of France, Charles VI.

Ultimately, after extensive debriefing and debate, Joan was outfitted with armor, sword and a white-gold standard bearing the names of Jesus and Mary, and an image of God the Father and angels offering Him a Fleur-des-Lys, the symbol of France.

In the company of the Duke of Orleans, other French nobles, and their armies she freed the besieged city of Orleans. To everyone’s amazement, Joan proved an effective general and strategist, though she never personally killed a man.

After other victories, she and her army accompanied the reluctant prince to Rheims where he was triumphantly crowned. But after his coronation the weak king began to haggle with Joan, and ultimately failed and abandoned her.

In a skirmish outside the city of Compiegne, she was taken prisoner and led to Rouen where she underwent an infamous “trial” conducted by a bishop, Pierre Cauchon, who courted English favor. She suffered a long, painful imprisonment, was finally branded a heretic and a sorceress and condemned to burned at the stake. She was nineteen years old.

To the very end she sustained that her “voices” had not deceived her. Her last gasping word was “Jesus!” Although the flames consumed her virginal body, her heart never burned.

What Joan had begun others picked up and France was ultimately freed.

Twenty-three years after her death, Joan’s mother and brothers appealed to Pope Callistus III for a re-trial. This new trial completely vindicated the “Maid of Orleans”on July 7, 1456.

Joan was canonized on May 16, 1920.

We Grow Old by Deserting Our Ideals*

*General Douglas MacArthur was so inspired by Samuel Ullman’s poem that he popularized it and kept a framed copy in his office while Supreme Allied Commander in Japan. He quoted it so often in his speeches that it became known as “MacArthur's Credo.”  
Youth is not a time of life. It’s a state of mind. It’s a test of the will, a quality of imagination, vigor of emotions, and a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.
Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years wrinkle the skin but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.  
Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair . . . these are the quick equivalents of the long years that bow the head and turn the growing spirit back to dust.  
Whether 70 or 16, there is, in every being’s heart the love of wonder, the sweet amazement of the stars, and the star-like things and thoughts, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for “What Next?”. 
You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt, as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. 
So long as your heart receives messages of beauty, cheer, courage, grandeur and power from the earth, from man and from the Infinite, so long are you young. 
When all the wires are down, and all the central places of your heart are covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, are you grown old indeed, and may God have mercy on your soul. 
By Samuel Ullman

How long does He remain with us?

He remains among us
until the end of the world.
He dwells on so many altars,
though so often
offended and profaned.

St. Maximilian Kolbe

St. William of Toulouse and Companions

William Arnaud, a Dominican, and companions were sent to Toulouse in the South of France by Pope Gregory IX to combat the Albigensian heresy then entrenched throughout the region.

The Albigensian heresy preached a dualism where the body was considered evil. As a consequence, they denied that Christ could have been human, rejected the Sacraments and adopted, in their stead, pagan rituals of “purification”.

The priests, meeting with much hostility in town, set up in a house in the surrounding country, and were making many converts, which upset the local government under Count Raymond III of Toulouse.

They and others, a total of eleven, including some Franciscans, Benedictines, and a layman, were deceived into accepting an invitation to the local castle where seven of them were set upon and slaughtered in a most barbarous manner.

The other four, William Arnaud among them, escaped to a local church where they were found singing religious hymns. Violating the medieval “sanctuary” – an unforgivable act at that time – and angered by the singing, the soldiers first cut off William’s tongue, then killed all four. Their bodies were thrown in a ravine, but that night, light streamed from them leading the faithful to their relics. They were interred in the Church of San Romano at the monastery in Toulouse.

The church in Avignonet where the martyrs had been murdered, was placed under interdict and for years the doors remained locked because of the sacrilege.

Many cures were reported at their graves.

In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties, call upon Mary!

In dangers, in doubts, in difficulties,
think of Mary, call upon Mary.
Let not her name depart from your lips; never suffer it to leave your heart.
And that you may obtain the assistance of her prayer,
neglect not to walk in her footsteps.
With her for guide, you shall never go astray;
while invoking her, you shall never lose heart; so long as
she is in your mind, you are safe from deception; while
she holds your hand, you cannot fall;
under her protection you have nothing to fear;
if she walks before you, you shall not grow weary;
if she shows you favor, you shall reach the goal.

St. Bernard of Claivaux

St. Germanus of Paris

Germanus, one of the glories of the Church in France, was born near Autun, about 496. From his early youth he was exceedingly pious, never missing midnight vespers at a church a mile from his home, regardless of the weather.

Carefully trained for the priesthood, Germanus was ordained by St. Agrippinus, Bishop of Autun, and was made Abbot of St. Symphorian on the outskirts of the town. A contemporary of his tells us that at that time he was already favored with the gifts of prophecy and miracles.

One night in a dream he saw an elderly man who presented him with the keys of the city of Paris, telling him to look after the Parisians and to save them from perishing.

In 554, happening to be in the capital when the bishop died, he was elevated to the see although he tried to refuse the honor with many tears.

Though a bishop, Germanus continued to lead a life of austerity and assiduous prayer, receiving the poor continuously at his residence, and having them at his own table where he not only nourished their bodies but also their souls with holy exhortations.

God granted to the holy prelate’s sermons a great power to move the hearts of peoples of every rank. Under his influence, the spiritual life of the city changed: frivolous dances and profane amusements were abolished, enmities were extinguished and sinners reconciled to the Church. Even the king, Childebert, son of Clovis and St. Clothilde, until then a worldly, ambitious prince, converted to a life of piety, building religious houses, and placing his coffers in the hands of the holy bishop for the aid of the poor. One of the churches he built became St. Germain des Prés, for generations the burial place of French royalty.

Throughout his episcopate, Germanus strove to reprove the behavior of wayward nobles, and even excommunicated King Charibert, nephew of Childebert, for his wicked, immoral life. During the fratricidal wars that followed by the nephews, he made every effort to reconcile them, but was unsuccessful.

The holy prelate died at the age of eighty, mourned by all his people.

Despair is the last extreme of selfishness and self-love

Children in a family without love
become rebellious, recalcitrant, stubborn,
selfish and cruel.
Adults who live in a loveless or Godless world
end in despair
which is the last extreme of self-love.
Those who are loved
become kind, ready for service
and quick to love others.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

St. Augustine of Canterbury

One day, the story goes, Gregory was walking through the Roman slave market when he noticed three fair, golden-haired boys. He asked their nationality and was told that they were Angles. "They are well named," said Gregory, "for they have angelic faces." He asked where they came from, and when told "De Ire," he exclaimed, "De ira (from wrath)—yes, verily, they shall be saved from God's wrath and called to the mercy of Christ. What is the name of the king of that country?" "Aella." "Then must Alleluia be sung in Aella's land."

This brief encounter in the Roman Forum between the monk Gregory – later Pope St. Gregory the Great – and the English youths planted in him such a desire to evangelize England that having secured the blessing of Pope Pelagius, he immediately set forth with several monk companions. This ardent missionary desire, however, was not to be fulfilled by himself but by another.

Augustine was prior of a Benedictine monastery in the Eternal City when Pope St. Gregory the Great asked him and another thirty monks to take up the evangelization of England, a project close to the pontiff’s heart.

England had been Christianized before the seventh century, but the Saxon invasion had sent Anglo-Christians into hiding.

As Augustine and companions made their way to the isle, they heard so many stories of the cruelty of their future hosts, that by the time they reached France, they decided to turn back to Rome. But Pope Gregory who had heard differently, including the fact that King Ethelbert had married the Christian-French princess Bertha, respecting her religion, insisted on the mission being carried out.

On arriving in England, King Ethelbert in fact received the monks respectfully and allowed them to preach. In 597 the king accepted baptism, and although, unlike other kings of the time, he let his people free to choose, conversions began to happen.

Augustine was consecrated bishop of the English and ruled wisely, stepping carefully around the prevalent pagan practices, Christianizing old temples, and keeping certain holidays as feasts of Christian saints.

The holy prelate had more success with the pagans then with the old Christians who had taken refuge in Cornwall and Wales. They had a strayed a little from the teachings of Rome, and though Augustine met with them many times trying to bring them back, they could not forgive their Saxon conquerors and chose bitterness and isolation instead.

St. Augustine was primate of England for only eight years, and died in May of 605.

Why we should seek the height of sanctity even if we are unable to attain it

Even though a man may be unable
to attain such a height of sanctity,
he ought to desire it,
so as to do at least in desire
what he cannot carry out in effect.

St. Philip Neri

St. Philip Neri

Philip Neri, known as “The Apostle of Rome,” was Florentine by birth, one of four children born to a notary.
At eighteen, sent to work with a well-to-do uncle, Phillip had a mystical experience which he called his “conversion”. All taste for earthly things left him and he subsequently made his way to Rome.
There he found lodgings at the house of one Galeotto Caccia and taught his children in return for his keep.
For the next two years, Philip led the life of a virtual recluse, giving up whole days and nights to prayer and contemplation. When he did emerge from his garret, he immersed himself in the study of philosophy and theology, determined to live for God alone.
Philip started an apostolate, first at street corners talking to all who would listen, and then with young Florentines working in Rome.
In 1548 with the help of his confessor, Fr. Persiano Rossa, Philip founded a confraternity of poor laymen, popularized the devotion of the forty hours, and undertook the care of pilgrims in need. Greatly blessed, this work developed into the celebrated hospital of Santa Trinitá dei Pellegrini.
Philip Neri was ordained on May 23, 1551 and became known for the gift of reading the thoughts of his penitents. As the number of conversions increased, he began to give regular conferences.
With five initial disciples, among them the future historian and cardinal, Cesare Baronius, he went on to found the Congregation of the Oratory, which was approved in 1575 by Pope Gregory XIII who gave them the ancient church of Santa Maria in Vallicella. Philip rebuilt the church on a larger scale and it became known as the “Chiesa Nuova,” or the "New Church."
On May 25, 1595, Philip, who was known for his good humor and infectious joy, was in an especially radiant mood. His doctor told him he hadn’t looked so well in years. Only the saint knew his hour had come. He heard confessions all day, and saw visitors as usual but, upon retiring, he remarked to those around him, “Last of all, we must die.”
At midnight he was seized by a severe hemorrhage. His disciples gathered around him, and as Baronius besought him for a parting word, unable to speak, the ardent apostle raised his hand and imparted a last blessing to his congregation before entering his reward.
He was eighty years old. St. Philip’s body is interred in the Chiesa Nuova, which his sons in the Congregation of the Oratory serve to this day.

When is seems that God has withdrawn his grace...

“I will take away
not the grace but the feeling of grace.
Though I will seem to leave you
I will be closer to you.”

Our Lord to St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi

Pope St. Gregory VII

Pope Gregory VII was born Hildebrand in Tuscany, Italy. Little else is known of his early life. Hailed, historically, as one of the greatest of the Church's pontiffs and one of the most remarkable men of all time, his name, Hildebrand, meant “bright flame”. Those who hated him, which were many, interpreted the name as “brand of Hell”.

Hildebrand was a Benedictine monk, for a time living in Cluny, from whence he certainly gleaned the monastery’s ideal of societal reform.

As a cleric, he became chaplain to Pope Gregory VI, and a few years later, under Leo IX was made Cardinal Deacon. A man of outstanding energy and insight, Hildebrand became a power in Rome. It is greatly due to him that the practice of electing popes through a college of cardinals was established.

In 1073 at the death of Alexander II, the people of Rome cried out for the holy genius who had helped steer the Church for twenty years, “Hildebrand for Pope! Holy Peter wants Hildebrand, the Archdeacon!” Once before the holy monk had eluded the tiara but this time a proper college of cardinals, seconding the popular cry, induced him to accept an honor duly his.

Hildebrand assumed the name Gregory VII, and threw his energy and zeal into a continued reform, especially fighting simony (the sale of ecclesiastical posts) and clerical incontinence.

He confronted Emperor Henry IV head- on about his practice of choosing men for ecclesiastical positions. On meeting with dogged resistance, the pontiff finally had recourse to excommunication which drastically curtailed the proud monarch’s power, ultimately bringing Henry on foot to the Pope at the Castle of Canossa. Because of Henry’s rebellious obstinacy, Pope Gregory saw fit to leave him out in the cold for three days before receiving and reinstating the royal penitent.

But Henry failed to make any true personal reform and alienated his princes who elected another ruler. Still, he later rallied and went as far as electing another Pope, a Clement III, calling down upon himself another sentence of excommunication. He also attacked and entered the Eternal City in 1084, which forced Pope Gregory into exile. Henry had his protégée “pope” crown him Emperor. Ultimately repelled by an army fighting for the true pope, the Emperor Henry left Rome, but complications sent Gregory VII again into exile, this time to die.

His last words before his death were a summary of how he had lived, “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile.”

Visiting a Muslim Family

Fatima custodians often meet people who know little or nothing about the Catholic faith.  A few years ago I had such an experience in Florida. 
Upon arrival at the home, an elderly grandmother with a group of young children and teens met me at the door. The group was sullen as I brought in the statue, set up the projector and began the introduction.  Unknown to me, I was speaking to a Muslim family.
At a certain point, one of the teens vehemently objected to the phrase “Mother of God” and accused me of blasphemy since Jesus was not God. Quickly the visit became an interesting defense of the Catholic faith. After answering several more objections to the best of my ability, my Islamic hosts allowed me to explain the Rosary, with an attentive audience, I proceeded to pray alone.
After reciting the Rosary, the attendants and I listened to the hostess, who explained why she had assembled the family for the visit.
Several weeks ago, she was hospitalized for a serious illness. She felt alone and abandoned until one day a stranger walked in with a bouquet of flowers, placed it by the bedside and stayed to listen to all of her concerns. The stranger returned repeatedly to renew her flowers, fix her pillows and talk to her. Then the Muslim mother questioned the stranger’s motives, explaining that her own family wasn’t visiting her. The stranger replied that she was a Catholic and Catholics are encouraged to visit the sick.
Requesting more information about the Catholic faith, the mother was told that it was against hospital policy to discuss religion and therefore she would have to search for information on her own.
Upon her release from the hospital, my hostess entered a nearby Catholic church and encountered an America Needs Fatima flier about Our Lady of Fatima. She called the number and set up a home visit to which she then invited her family.
I may never know what has happened to the family, but I regularly pray that their interest in Catholicism has brought them into the folds of the Catholic Church. Of one thing I am certain: Our Lady will never abandon those who invite her into their homes.
By Michael Chad Shibler

What leads to the annihilation of all religion?

Modernism leads to
the annihilation of all religion.
The first step in this direction was taken by Protestantism;
the second is made by Modernism;
the next will plunge headlong into atheism.

Pope St. Pius X

St. Vincent of Lérins

St. Eucherius of Lyons, describes St. Vincent of Lérins as “a man pre-eminent in eloquence and learning”. Little is known of his early life, though it seems that he was a soldier before taking the religious habit on the Mediterranean island of Lérins, now St. Honorat Island, after its founder.

His fame rests on his work, Commonitorium Against Heresies, which he wrote three years after the Council of Ephesus. Because of the many heresiarchs, each proposing a different heresy in the first centuries of the life of the Catholic Church, St. Vincent felt the need and the calling to define what constitutes heresy.

From the writings of the Church Fathers, he recorded certain principles for distinguishing Christian Truth from falsehood. These notes expanded into his Commonitorium, a serious treatise of forty-two short chapters, from which an immense body of literature has emerged.

He asks why, Scripture being complete, we need to guide ourselves by the interpretation of the Church: “For this reason,” St. Vincent explains, “…owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another, so that it (Scriptures) seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds in one way, Sabellius in another, Donatus in another, Arius, Eunomius and Macedonius in another, Photinus, Apollinaris and Priscillian in another, Jovinian, Pelagius and Caelestius in another, and lastly Nestorius in another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various errors, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation. “ (The Vincentian Canon, Commonitorium)

In this book St. Vincent goes on to enunciate for the first time the axiom that for a dogma to be regarded as Catholic Truth it must have been held always, everywhere, and by all.

The exact date of St. Vincent’s death is uncertain, but is believed to have been in the year 445.

St. John Baptist de Rossi

Giovanni Battista de Rossi was born in the Piedmontese village of Voltaggio, in the diocese of Genoa, and was one of four children. His parents, of modest means, were devout and well esteemed.
A nobleman and his wife vacationing in Voltaggio, and impressed with the ten-year-old John Baptist, obtained permission from his parents to take him to live with them and be trained in their house in Genoa.
After three years, hearing of his virtues, John’s cousin, Lorenzo Rossi, Canon of Santa Maria in Cosmedin, invited him to join him in Rome. Thus John Baptist entered the Roman Jesuit College at thirteen. Despite episodes of epilepsy, brought on by excessive zeal in imposing harsh penances upon himself, he was granted a dispensation and was ordained at the age of twenty-three.
From his student days he loved visiting hospitals. Now, as a priest there was much more he could offer suffering souls. He particularly loved the Hospice of St. Galla, a night shelter for paupers. There he labored for forty years.
He also worked at the hospital of Trinita dei Pellegrini and extended his assistance to other poor such as cattlemen who came to market at the Roman forum. He had a great pity for homeless women and girls and from the little that he made in Mass stipends, and the 400 scudi sent to him by the Pope, he rented a refuge for them.
John Baptist was also selected by Pope Benedict XIV to deliver courses of instruction to prison officials and other state servants. Among his penitents was the public hangman.
In 1731 Canon Rossi obtained for his cousin a post of assistant priest at St. Maria in Cosmedin. He was a great confessor to whom penitents flocked, and as a preacher, the saint was also in demand for missions and retreats.
On the death of Canon Rossi, Fr. John inherited his canonry, but applied the money attached to the post to buy an organ, and hire an organist. As to the house, he gave it to the chapter and went to live in the attic.
In 1763 St. John Baptist’s health began to fail, and he was obliged to take up residence in the hospital of Trinita dei Pellegrini. He expired after a couple of strokes on May 23, 1764 at sixty- six years of age. He died so poor that the hospital prepared to pay for his burial. But the Church took over and he was given a triumphant funeral with numerous clergy and religious, and the Papal choir, in attendance.

Obedience

Obedience is a virtue
of so excellent a nature, that
Our Lord was pleased to mark its observance
upon the whole course of His life; thus
He often says, He did not come to do His Own will,
but that of His Heavenly Father.

St. Francis de Sales

As my sufferings increase...

O loving Jesus,
increase my patience
according as my sufferings increase.

St. Rita of Cascia

The Holy Trinity

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which states that God is One in three Persons – Father, Son and Holy Ghost – is central to our Catholic faith. This awesome teaching is so far beyond human understanding that it could only be known through revelation.
Yet as lofty and mysterious as it is, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity does not contradict our reason, nor totally elude our grasp. The great St. Patrick, when evangelizing Ireland, made the mystery “palpable” by using the humble shamrock, with its three leaves on the one stem, as an example.
Thus God is a pure, eternal, omnipotent and omnipresent spirit with one nature and one substance, but three distinct persons, the second of which, the Son, became man to redeem mankind from the original stain of Adam and Eve.

Pray: Novena to the Holy Trinity



Scriptural Examples
Whilst the triune nature of God was known in the Old Testament, the clarity with which the mystery of the Holy Trinity is revealed in the New Testament is truly remarkable.
In St. Luke’s Gospel (1:35), the Archangel Gabriel says to the Virgin Mary: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.”
At Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan, it is the Father Himself Who gives witness to the Son: “And lo, the heavens were opened…And behold a voice from heaven saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Matt. 3:16.
And while Jesus often speaks of His Father to His Apostles, He also distinctly mentions the Spirit to them in such passages as John 15: 26: “But when the Paraclete comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he shall give testimony of me.”
Later, as Our Lord commands His disciples to spread the Gospel throughout the world, the triune nature of God shines forth in full splendor in the baptismal formula He entrusts to them: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations: baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Matt. 28:19. Notice one name but three persons.
Even Satan, while tempting Him in the desert, endeavored to pry from Jesus His true identity: Was He the Son of God? Matt.4:3, 6.

The Trinity Attacked, and Defined, through the Centuries
Throughout the history of the Church, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity has been challenged by multiple heresies. Thus, as early as 259 AD, Pope Saint Dionysius was already defending the Trinitarian doctrine against the heretical errors of Sabellius who held that God had three “faces” or “masks” rather than being three distinct persons within the Godhead.
One of the most extensive declarations of the Church on the Blessed Trinity dates from 675 AD and was issued in Toledo, Spain, at that time in the throes of an Islamic invasion, whose Koranic claim branded Christians as idolaters because they adored Jesus Christ as God.
In 1213, in face of the Albigensian heresy which believed in a good and an evil source to creation, the Fourth Lateran Council defined: “We firmly believe and profess without qualification that there is only one true God, eternal, immense, unchangeable, incomprehensible, omnipotent, and indescribable, the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit: three persons but one essence, and a substance or nature that is wholly simple.”
Thus has the Church defended, and defined, the Trinitarian Dogma down through the centuries and into modern times.

Our God, not Distant, but a Friend
And so, through divine revelation and the definitions of the Church’s Magisterium based upon this same Revelation, we can know who our God is: one in substance, three in personhood, eternal, creator of all things visible and invisible, all powerful, everywhere present.
But such an awesome Creator is not distant from His creation. Our God is Love, and Love, by its very nature, is communicative. A marvelous aspect of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which has inspired and drawn the saints through the ages, is what is called the “indwelling of the Trinity”.
This doctrine teaches that not only is God present everywhere in a general way, but with those who keep His commandments, and live in His grace, He establishes an intimate relationship.
Our Lord Jesus pointed to this “indwelling” at the Last Supper when He said: “I shall ask the Father, and he will give you another Paraclete to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth whom the world can never receive because it neither sees him nor knows him; but you know him, because he is with you, he is in you.”
And just so we don’t think the Spirit alone dwells in us, Jesus clarified: “If any one loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” John 14: 16, 23. So, not only the Holy Spirit, but the Father and the Son dwell in a soul keeping “His word”.
The indwelling of the Holy Trinity begins at Baptism and continues so long as that soul remains in God’s friendship and grace. Serious sin “expels” this presence, but can be regained with repentance, and a sincere sacramental confession.
Just as with any other relationship, we can grow in friendship with our three divine guests by prayer and the practice of the Christian virtues. The saints took this friendship all the way to deep union, a state that gave them uncommon love, joy, trust and fearlessness in all they did, even the gift of miracles. This divine friendship is offered to each and every one of us.
Indeed, the doctrine of the Most Holy Trinity is central to our faith, and our awesome patrimony.

---

 By A.F. Phillips

 Pray: Novena to the Holy Trinity

St. Rita of Cascia

Rita was born in Roccaborena, Italy in 1381 to aged parents who were known for their charity, and who fervently thanked God for the gift of a daughter so late in life.
Extraordinarily pious from an early age, Rita set her heart on entering the Augustinian convent in Cascia, but her parents had plans for her to marry the town’s watchman, Paolo Mancini, and she submitted to their desires in the matter.
Her husband proved to have an explosive temper, and became abusive, but Rita bore with his ill-treatment patiently for eighteen years bearing him two sons, who fell under their father’s pernicious influence.
She wept and prayed for her husband and children unceasingly. Finally won over by her virtue, Paolo had a change of heart and asked her forgiveness. Soon after, involved in a local feud, he was ambushed and brought home dead.
His two young sons vowed to avenge their father’s slaying, which was a new source of affliction for Rita, who begged God to take them before they committed murder. The Lord heard the saint’s heroic plea and her sons contracted a disease from which both died, not before being reconciled to their mother and to their God.
Free from all earthly cares, Rita turned to the Augustinians seeking admittance only to be told that she could not be accepted on reason of having been married. Rita prayed and persisted and it is said that one morning she was found inside the walls of the convent though none knew how, the doors having been locked all night. She was received then at age thirty-six.
In religious life she was a model of virtue, prayer and mortification. One day, after hearing a sermon on Our Lord's crown of thorns, she felt as if one of the thorns was being pressed to her forehead. On the spot, an open wound developed, and the stench it emitted became so offensive that she had to be secluded. She bore this wound until her death.
Rita died on May 22, 1457 and her body has remained incorrupt to this day.
So many miracles were reported after her death, that, in Spain, she became known as “la santa del impossible”, the saint of impossible cases, a title that spread throughout the Catholic world.

St. Christopher Magallanes and Companions

Christopher Magallanes was born in 1869 in the province of Guadalajara, Mexico, of devout parents who were poor farmers. As a youth, he worked as a shepherd, but felt called to be a shepherd of souls. He entered the seminary at nineteen and was ordained at the age of thirty.
He worked as a parish priest in his hometown of Totatiche for two decades, and there also opened a carpentry business to help provide jobs for the local men.
When, in the first decades of the twentieth century, the atheistic Mexican government launched a merciless persecution of the Catholic Church, a new constitution banned the training of priests.
In 1915, Fr. Christopher opened his own small seminary in Totatiche where he soon had a dozen students.
Consequently accused of trying to incite rebellion, Fr. Christopher was arrested on his way to say Mass, imprisoned and condemned to be shot without trial.
His few possessions he gave away to his jailer and he was executed on May 21, 1927 with another twenty-one priests and three lay Catholics.
His last words were, “I die innocent, and ask God that my blood may serve to unite my Mexican brethren.”
He was canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 21, 2000.

Every grace has 3 steps

Every grace granted to man
has three degrees in order:
by God it is communicated to Christ,
from Christ it passes to the Virgin, and
from the Virgin it descends to us.

St. Bernardine of Siena

St. Bernardine of Siena

Bernardine, “The Apostle of Italy,” was born on September 8, 1380 in the Tuscan town of Massa Marittima. His father, a member of the noble Sienese family of Albizeschi, was governor of the region.

Because Bernardine was orphaned at an early age, two aunts raised him like their own son. His youth was blameless, pious and studious.

In the year 1400, the plague descended with a vengeance upon Siena. Twelve to twenty people were dying daily at the city’s largest hospital, which was soon bereft of caring personnel. The twenty-year-old Bernardine volunteered to take charge of the hospital with another ten companions whom he had convinced to lay down their lives for the sake of the countless stricken and dying.

Four grueling months later, several of his companions died, but Bernardine escaped contagion. Nevertheless, weakened by his tireless labor, he contracted a fever from which his health never fully recovered.

He went on to join the Franciscans and was ordained on September 8, 1404. About two years later, St. Vincent Ferrer, one of the greatest preachers of all time, while in Italy, foretold that his mantle would descend upon one listening to him, saying he would return to France and Spain leaving to another the task of evangelizing the people of Italy. Twelve years were to pass before this prediction was fulfilled, as Bernardine lived a life of retirement in the monastery.

In 1417 his fiery eloquence burst forth, inflaming the souls of the multitudes. He preached fearlessly in cities large and small rebuking evil in places high and low. After hearing him, penitents of all classes flocked in droves to the confessionals. His great devotion was to the Holy Name of Jesus and as he preached, he would hold up a plaque with the initials "I.H.S." an acronym for the name of JESUS, and had people place the Holy Name over the gates of towns, and over the entrances of their houses and businesses. Pope Pius II who listened to Bernardine in his youth said that people listened to him as to another Apostle St. Paul. Tirelessly and on foot, he traversed the length and breath of Italy, launching a true moral reform.

In 1444, although ill, Bernardine traveled to the Kingdom of Naples to preach. Being too weak to walk, he was obliged to ride an ass. Nevertheless, worn out by his forty years of apostolate, he died lying on the bare ground on the eve of the Ascension, as his companion Friars chanted: Pater manifestavi nomen Tuum hominibus … Father I have manifested Thy Name to men.

After a funeral of unprecedented splendor, miracles multiplied and he was canonized in 1450.

Let the storm rage and the sky darken

 Let the storm rage and the sky darken
– not for that shall we be dismayed.
If we trust as we should in Mary,
we shall recognize in her, the Virgin Most Powerful
“who with virginal foot did crush the head of the serpent.”

Pope St. Pius X

St. Dunstan of Canterbury

St. Dunstan, most famous of the Anglo-Saxon saints, was born near Glastonbury of a noble family closely connected to the ruling house.

While expecting him, his saintly mother was in church on Candlemas Day, when all the lights were extinguished. Suddenly, the candle she held spontaneously re-ignited, and all present rekindled their tapers from this miraculous flame. This was taken to foreshadow that the child she bore was to be a light to the Church in England.

In fact, from early on, Dunstan gave signs of religious and academic fervor, and demonstrated a remarkable artistic talent. He studied under the Irish monks of Glastonbury Abbey and later, under the guidance of his uncle St. Alphege, the Bishop of Winchester, became a monk himself and received Holy Orders from his hands. After ordination, he retired to a cell near an old church where he divided his time between prayer and the crafting of sacred vessels and illuminating manuscripts. He also played the harp.

In 943 Dunstan was appointed Abbot of Glastonbury. As soon as he took office, he set about reconstructing the monastic buildings, restoring the church and revamping communal life. Under his stewardship, Glastonbury became a center of learning and the standard for the revitalization and restoration of other monastic communities.

Dunstan became chief council to King Edred, and then his successor, King Edgar. He stood firmly for discipline and reform, especially in morals, among the laity and particularly among the clergy. He also worked for the unification of his country becoming the leader of a party. Later, learning of Benedictine perfection, he applied its maxims to his labors.

Under Kind Edgar he was first consecrated Bishop of Worcester, then Bishop of London, and subsequently Archbishop of Canterbury. Upon going to Rome, he was appointed legate of the Holy See by Pope John XII. Armed with this authority, the saint set himself to energetically reestablish ecclesiastical discipline under the powerful protection of the king.

He was Edgar’s counselor for sixteen years, and continued to direct the state during the short reign of Edward the Martyr. The political assassination of the young prince and the dubious accession of his half-brother Ethelred in 970 ended Archbishop Dunstan’s influence at court, and he foretold the calamities which were to mark the new king’s reign.

No longer directly involved in the affairs of state, the holy archbishop retired to Canterbury. On the feast of the Ascension in 988, although gravely ill, he preached three sermons to his people and announced his impending death. He died peacefully two days later.

Why does Our Lord not always show us the sweetness of His love?

Our Lord loves you
and loves you tenderly; and
if He does not let you feel the sweetness of His love,
it is to make you more humble and abject in your own eyes.

St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina

Pope St. John I

St. John I was a native of Siena in Tuscany and was one of the seven deacons of Rome when he was elected to the papacy at the death of Pope Hormisdas in the year 523.

At the time, Theodoric the Great ruled over the Ostrogoths in Italy and Justin I was the Byzantine Emperor of Constantinople. King Theodoric supported the Arian heresy, which denied the divinity of Christ.

Justin I, the first Catholic on the throne of Constantinople in fifty years, published a severe edict against the Arians, requiring them to return to orthodox Catholics the churches they had taken from them. The said edict caused a commotion among eastern Arians, and spurred Theodoric to threaten war.

Ultimately, he opted for a diplomatic solution and named Pope John, much against his wishes, to head a delegation of five bishops and four senators to Justin.

Pope John, refused to comply with Theodoric’s wishes to influence Justin to reverse his policies. The only thing he did obtain from Justin was for him to mitigate his treatment of Arians, thus avoiding reprisals against Catholics in Italy.

After the delegation returned, Theodoric, disappointed with the result of the mission, and growing daily more suspicious at reports of the friendly relations between the Pope and Justin I, had the pontiff arrested at Ravenna.

Pope John I died in prison a short time later as a result of ill treatment.

Pray the Rosary – Free Souls from Purgatory

Saint Louis de Montfort tells the story of a young girl of noble station named Alexandra, who had been miraculously converted and enrolled by St. Dominic in the Confraternity of the Rosary.  

After her death, she appeared to him and said she had been condemned to seven hundred years in purgatory because of her own sins and those she had caused others to commit by her worldly ways.
So she implored him to ease her pains by his prayers and to ask the Confraternity members to pray for the same end. St. Dominic did as she had asked.
Two weeks later she appeared to him, more radiant than the sun, having been quickly delivered from purgatory by the prayers of the Confraternity members.
She also told St. Dominic that she had come on behalf of the souls in purgatory to beg him to go on preaching the Rosary and to ask their relations to offer their Rosaries for them, and that they would reward them abundantly when they entered into glory.

By Saint Louis de Montfort

How to love God more perfectly

Meditate well on this:
Seek God above all things.
It is right for you to seek God before and above everything else,
because the majesty of God wishes you to receive what you ask for.
This will also make you more ready to serve God and
will enable you to love Him more perfectly.

St. Paschal Baylon

St. Paschal Baylon

Paschal was born in Terra Hermosa, Spain on Pentecost Sunday, May 24, 1540 the son of Martin Baylon and Isabel Jubera, pious day laborers. The feast of Pentecost in Spain being called “Pasch of the Holy Ghost,” the child was named Paschal.

From age seven to twenty-four he tended sheep, and early on showed signs of a great passion for the Holy Eucharist. While out at pasture, he continuously contemplated from the book of nature, and was ever attentive to the sound of bells announcing the elevation at Mass.

His employer so esteemed Pachal’s virtues, that he offered to adopt him, which offer the youth gratefully declined, preferring to remain poor that he might better follow his chosen path to God.

At around age eighteen he applied to the Franciscan Friars Minors who, under St. Peter of Alcantara, then living, were undergoing a salutary reform. At first the friars put Paschal off, but when a few years later he was finally accepted, they soon realized what a treasure of virtue they had taken in. Though little educated, through his prayer life Paschal had reached a high degree of spiritual wisdom, which astounded his peers.

Again, his great spiritual characteristic was his devotion to the Holy Eucharist before which he spent hours on his knees, his hands clasped high in front of his face, at times rapt in ecstasy.

Once, when Paschal was sent on a mission through France, which was then undergoing fierce religious convulsions due to Calvinists and Huguenots, he bravely defended the doctrine of the Eucharistic Presence against a Calvinist preacher, barely escaping with his life afterwards.

Paschal died at fifty-two, on May 17, 1592 with the name of Jesus on his lips just as the host was being elevated.

His body was exposed for three days as multitudes gathered to venerate him and witnessed many miracles which God deigned to perform to confirm the sanctity of his servant. Paschal Baylon was canonized in 1690.

Our Lord gave ten times as much of His life to His Blessed Mother as He gave to His Apostles.

Let those who think that the Church
pays too much attention to Mary
give heed to the fact
that Our Blessed Lord Himself
gave ten times as much of His life to her
as He gave to His Apostles.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

St. Brendan of Clonfert

Little is known of the life of St. Brendan. Though his character is steeped in misty legend, he did very much exist and it is fairly certain that he was born near Tralee, Ireland, in County Kerry. He was baptized by St. Erc and, for five years, was entrusted to the care of St. Ita, the "Brigid of Muenster," to be educated. Later, in 512, Brendan was ordained by St. Erc.

He is thought to have started a community of monks, and at some point he embarked on his famous seven-year voyage with sixty companions, looking for the “Land of Promise”. Though much celebrated, this story is steeped in mystery. The isle of St. Brendan seems to have been one of his points of landing.

On more historically secure footing, St. Brendan established sees, churches and monasteries, the most famous of which was Clonfert in 557, where he appointed St. Moinenn as prior and school master. After his death, St. Brendan was interred in Clonfert.