Cornelius
was elected to the papal dignity during a time in which both the Church
and civil society were in great turmoil. About the year 250, Rome was
ruled by the Emperor Decius, who savagely persecuted Christians. He
ordered all Christians to deny Christ by offering incense to idols or
through some other pagan ritual. Many Christians refused and were
martyred, among them St. Fabian, the Pope, while others burnt the
sacrificial incense in order to save their own lives. In hopes that
Christianity would fade away, Decius prevented the election of a new
pope. However, he was soon compelled to leave Rome to fight the invading
Goths and, in his absence, the papal election was held.
fter
World War II, Austria was divided between four countries: America,
France, the United Kingdom, and Russia. At the time, Russia was still
communist. The section of Austria controlled by the communists was the
richest, and included the city of Vienna. The Viennese were subject to
the all the atrocities and tyrannies of communism. However, in 1946, Fr.
Petrus Pavlicek, after making a pilgrimage to Mariazell, the principle
Marian shrine in Austria, was told by an interior voice: “Do as I say and there will be peace.”
With
great clarity the Gospels show us how much our Divine Savior in His
mercy pities our pains of body and soul. We need only to recall the
awesome miracles He performed in His omnipotence in order to mitigate
these pains. But let us never make the mistake of imagining that this
combat against pain and sorrow was the greatest gift He dispensed to
mankind.
John
– later surnamed Chrysostomos, meaning “golden-mouthed” so called on
account of his eloquence – was born in Antioch in Syria around 347.
Raised by his widowed mother, he studied under Libanius, a famous orator
of the period.
Chrysostom
was banished from Constantinople in 403 after he delivered too zealous a
sermon against immodesty and vanity. The Empress Eudoxia took his words
as a direct insult against herself. His exile was of short duration
however, because a slight earthquake that shook the city was taken as a
terrifying sign by the superstitious lady. Shortly afterwards he was
again banished for preaching against the disorder, impropriety, and
superstition occasioned by the public games commemorating the raising of
a silver statue of Eudoxia in front of the great church dedicated to
the Divine Wisdom. He was exiled to a remote place called Cucusus in the
Taurus Mountains of Armenia, where he suffered greatly from the heat,
fatigue, and the cruelty and brutality of his guards. The local bishop,
however, vied with his people in showing the aging patriarch every mark
of kindness and respect..jpg)
“God the Father gathered all the waters together and called them the sea – mare. He gathered all his graces together and called them Mary – Maria,” writes the great Marian apostle St. Louis Marie de Montfort in his renowned work, Treatise on True Devotion to Mary.
In
1683, Vienna was besieged by Turkish invaders. Jan Sobieski, the devout
King of Poland, came to the assistance of Vienna with an army that was
vastly outnumbered by that of Mustapha. Early on the morning of
September 12, having himself served at Holy Mass, the King entrusted
himself and his army to the Virgin Mary, imploring her blessing upon
himself and his troops and her assistance in the upcoming conflict. Then
rising from his knees, the "Northern Lion," as he was called by the
Turks, said aloud: “Let us now march to the enemy with an entire
confidence in the protection of heaven, under the assured patronage of
the Blessed Virgin.” And charging upon the enemy camp, they defeated and
routed the Muslims completely. The Turkish forces were overwhelmed and
Vienna was saved under the banner of Mary Most Holy.
After
spending many years in the desert under the direction of St. Anthony,
Paphnutius, the holy confessor of Egypt, was made a bishop. Paphnutius
suffered persecution under the rule of Emperor Maximinus, which is said
to have been the bloodiest persecution of Christians during the Roman
Empire. After his right eye was gouged out, and his left knee hamstrung
and mutilated, the bishop was condemned to work in the mines for
refusing to comply with traditional Roman religious practices.
The American reaction
In
the small Italian town of Sant’ Angelo, a couple prayed for a child at
the shrine of St. Nicholas of Bari. They prayed for a son and promised
to dedicate him to God if their prayers were answered. In the Spring of
1245, Nicholas was born.
At
the time, Cartagena was the main slave market of the New World.
Africans by the thousands were being shipped in from the Congo and
Angola and it was estimated that one third of them died in transit due
to their harsh treatment and the foul conditions of the voyage. Other
Jesuits had been working among them prior to Peter’s arrival in 1610,
but whereas they visited the slaves where they worked, Peter met them at
the wharf. Most often he boarded the slave ships before they even
docked, going down into their filthy and disease-ridden holds to treat
the terror-stricken human cargo. Infants and the dying, he would baptize
immediately; to the others he offered food, clothing and medical
assistance; with the help of interpreters, he taught them about the
sacraments and how to pray, educating them in the Catholic faith before
baptizing them. In the course of forty years, Peter instructed and
baptized over 300,000 slaves.
Many
days passed before Almighty God finally completed the masterpiece of
His creation. For nine months, the soul of Mary had given form to her
virginal body, and the hour, the moment, of her joyful birth approached.
As the suffocating Palestinian summer neared its end, the mellowing sun
poured abundant torrents of golden light on the opulent plain of
Samaria, ripening the rich orchards of autumn fruit. On a magnificent
September day, with nature adorned in radiant beauty, the most Holy
Virgin came into the world in the white-walled city of Nazareth.
Anne
and Joachim had been childless for many years, but the Lord had at last
answered their prayers. They saw their daughter Mary as the measure of
His celestial goodness to them. Little did they suspect, however, the
veritable treasures the Most High had instilled in the soul of their
child. They could not have imagined the wonder of her Immaculate
Conception. They did not realize that the Mother of the Redeemer now lay
in their loving arms.
After
the death of the Frankish king in 511, his realm was divided among his
four sons. Born in 524, Clodoald was the youngest son of Clodomire,
second son of the king. When Clodomire died in battle, leaving his
section of the kingdom to his own three sons, the princes were sent to
Paris to live with their grandmother, St. Clotilda.
| First Day | Second Day | Third Day |
| Fourth Day | Fifth Day | Sixth Day |
| Seventh Day | Eighth Day | Ninth Day |
Prayer in honor of the First Sorrow of Mary:
Prayer in honor of the Second Sorrow of Mary:
Prayer in honor of the Third Sorrow of Mary:
Prayer in honor of the Fifth Sorrow of Mary:
Prayer in honor of the Sixth Sorrow of Mary:
Prayer in honor of the Seventh Sorrow of Mary:
Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14
Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Sorrows
Bega
was the daughter of an Irish King. Her father had promised her in
marriage to the son of the King of Norway, but Bega had already
consecrated her life to Christ by a vow of virginity. A bracelet marked
with a cross was given to her by an angel as a token of her sacred
promise. The day before her wedding, she escaped with the help of the
holy bracelet: it guided her outside to a clod of earth and she was
transported across the Irish Sea and safely deposited upon the English
coast at Cumbria.
She settled there for some years living in the
strictest seclusion in a hut she had built in a grove of trees near the
seashore. Finding herself rejected by the people living along the coast,
she survived on nourishment miraculously brought to her by seagulls and
gannets. In the course of time that coastline became frequented by
pirates. Fearing the Viking pirates, not on account of her life or
possible mutilation, but on account of her virginity, Bega left the
Cumbrian coast and traveled to Northumbria where, on the advice of King
Oswald (later St. Oswald), she professed her religious vows. She
established a monastery at St. Bees, which later became a cell of the
Benedictine Abbey of St. Mary at York. The people there came to revere
her for her goodness and kindness, and she is still venerated in
Northumbria and Scotland today.
Photo by: Doug Sim
