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The Apostle Bartholomew was a Galilean. In the division of the world among the Apostles it fell to his lot to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in India. He went and preached to those nations the coming of the Lord Jesus, according to the Gospel of St. Matthew. When he had turned many in that province to Jesus Christ, and had endured many toils and woes, he came into the Greater Armenia. After converting many to the faith, he was flayed alive by the barbarians, and having his head cut off by order of King Astyages, he fulfilled his martyrdom. His body was buried at the town of Albanopolis in the Greater Armenia, where he had suffered. It was afterwards taken to the Island of Lipari, and thence carried to Benevento. Lastly, the Emperor Otho III brought it to Rome, where it was laid in the Church dedicated to God in his name on the Island in the Tiber where it is venerated by the pious faithful. Philip was a scion of the noble Florentine family of the Beniti; from his very cradle he showed signs of holiness. When he had scarcely entered the fifth month of his life, his cries marvellously assumed the form of word, entreating his mother to give some alms to the servants of the Mother of God. While he was a young man at Paris studying letters, but ever of a fervent piety, he stirred up in many the love of our Fatherland which is in heaven. After his return to his own country, the most blessed Virgin appeared to him in a vision, and specially called on him to enter the Order of her Servants, which had then been newly founded. He withdrew himself to a cave on Monte Senario, where he led a life hard as touching the chastisement of the flesh, but sweet with thoughts of the agonies of Christ. Thence he came forth and went through nearly all Europe and great part of Asia, preaching the Gospel, founding Guilds everywhere in honour of the Seven Sorrows of the Mother of God, and extending his Order by the wonderful example of his own holy life. He was forced against his own wishes to undertake the duties of General of his Order, and, in his love of God and of the spreading of the Catholic Faith, sent forth brethren to preach the Gospel of Christ in Russia. He himself went through many cities of Italy, stilled the raging quarrels of the inhabitants, and recalled many of them to their obedience to the Bishop of Rome. He left nothing undone to forward the salvation of his neighbour, and brought the most depraved wretches to leave the slough of their sins, to do penance, and to love Jesus Christ. He was most earnest in prayer, and was often seen to fall into trances, while engaged in it. Virginity he so prized that to his very last breath he kept it unsullied by dint of self-imposed and stern penances. There appeared in him an extraordinary pity towards the poor, whereof it is a famous instance that at the village of Camiliano in the territory of Siena he gave his own garment to a naked leper who asked him for an alms, and as soon as the said leper had cast it about him he was straightway cleansed of his leprosy. The fame of this miracle spread far and wide, and some of the Cardinals who had assembled at Viterbo after the death of Clement IV, to elect a successor to him, cast their eyes upon Philip, with whose heavenly wisdom they were also acquainted. When the man of God found how things stood, lest he should be constrained to take upon him the burden of the Pastoral Office, he went and hid himself on Montagnate, until Gregory X had been proclaimed Pope. By his prayers he obtained medicinal powers for the waters in these mountains, which are still called St. Philip's Baths. At length, in the year 1285, he departed this life in a most holy manner at Todi, while embracing the image of Christ hanging upon the Cross, which he called his Book. At his grave the blind received their sight, the lame walked, and the dead were raised. Pope Clement X, finding him famous for these and many other great signs and wonders, enrolled his name among those of the Saints. Timothy came from Antioch to Rome in the time of Pope Melchiades. He had preached the faith of Christ, there for a year, when he was thrown into irons by Tarquinius, Prefect of that city. After suffering a long imprisonment he was brought to the idols to offer them sacrifice. He refused right boldly to commit this great sin, and was thereupon savagely scourged, and his raw body covered with quick-lime. He steadily persisted in his testimony under these and other tortures, and at last was beheaded. His body is buried upon the road to Ostia, hard by the sepulchre of the blessed Apostle Paul. On the same day, under the Emperor Alexander, and at Ostia, Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, on account of his illustrious confession of the faith, had his hands and feet bound, and was thrown into a deep pit full of water, and so received the crown of his testimony. The Christians buried him there. Also on the same day, under the Emperor Aurelian, and at Autun, the young boy Symphorian was tortured in divers ways for professing the same faith. As he was being led to die, he heard his mother crying out to him: My child, my child! think of life eternal! Look to heaven and to him that reigneth there! Thy life is not being taken away, but changed for a better. And so, for Jesus Christ's sake, he bravely offered his neck to the executioner. Sermon by St. Bernardine of Siena What man, unless secure in a divine oracle, may presume to speak with impure, indeed with polluted lips, anything little or great about the true Parent of God and of man, whom the Father before all ages predestined a perpetual Virgin, whom the Son chose as his most worthy Mother, whom the Holy Ghost prepared as the dwelling place of every grace? With what words shall I, a lowly man, give expression to the highest sentiments of the virginal Heart uttered by the holiest mouth, for which the tongues of all the Angels do not suffice? For the Lord saith: A good man bringeth forth good things from the good treasure of his heart; and this word can also be a treasure. Among pure mortals who can be conceived of as better than she who was worthy to be the Mother of God, who for nine months had as a guest in her heart and in her womb God himself? What better treasure than the divine love itself, which was burning in the Heart of the Virgin as in a furnace? And so, from this Heart as from a furnace of divine ardour the blessed Virgin brought forth good words, that is, words of the most ardent charity. For as from a vessel full of the richest and best wine only good wine can be poured; or as from a furnace of intense heat only a burning fire is emitted; so indeed from the Mother of Christ no word can go forth except of the greatest and most intense divine love and ardour. It is also the mark of a wise woman and matron to speak few words, but words that are effective and full of meaning; and so seven times, as it were, seven words of such wonderful meaning and virtue are read as having been uttered by the most blessed Mother of Christ, that mystically it may be shewn she was full of the sevenfold grace. To the Angel twice only did she speak; to Elizabeth also twice; with her Son likewise twice, once in the temple, and a second time at the marriage feast; and once to the attendants. And on all those occasions she always said very little; with this one exception that she spake at length in the praise of God and in thanksgiving, namely, when she said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. But here she did not speak with man, but with God. Those seven words were spoken in a wonderful degree and order according to the seven courses and acts of love; as if they were seven flames from the furnace of her Heart. The liturgical worship, through which due honour is given to the Immaculate Heart of the Virgin Mary, and for which many holy men and women have prepared the way, the Apostolic See itself first approved in the beginning of the nineteenth century, when Pope Pius VII instituted the feast of the Most Pure Heart of the Virgin Mary, to be piously and reverently celebrated by all the dioceses and religious families who had asked for it. Afterwards Pope Pius IX added an Office and a proper Mass to it. But an ardent desire and longing, which had arisen in the seventeenth century, grew day by day, that namely, the same Feast, given greater solemnity, might be spread to the entire Church. In 1942, Pope Pius XII, graciously acceding to this wish, and during the terrible war then ravaging almost the entire world, pitying the infinite hardships of men, and because of his devotion and confidence in our heavenly Mother, in solemn supplication earnestly entrusted the entire human race to her most generous Heart, and in honour of the same Immaculate Heart he ordered a Feast to be kept forever with its proper Office and Mass. Jane Frances Frémiot de Chantal was born of parents of the highest rank, at Dijon in Burgundy. From her earliest childhood she gave no dark promise of a life of eminent holiness. It is said that when she was scarcely fifteen years of age she confuted with precocious acuteness a Presbyterian nobleman, and when he gave her a little present she put it in the fire, saying: That is how heretics will burn in hell for not believing Christ when he speaketh. On the death of her mother, she placed herself under the keeping of the Virgin Mother of God, and discharged a maid who strove to beguile her into loving the world. She had nothing youthful about her ways. She shrank from the pleasures of life. She had a strong wish that she might die a martyr. She devoted herself unweariedly to religion and godliness. Her father gave her in marriage to the Baron de Chantal, and she strove to excel in all the duties and graces of a wife. She made it her work to see that her children, her servants, and all others under her authority were taught the doctrines of the faith and the practice of good living. She relieved the sufferings of the poor by plentiful almsgiving, for which purposes God not unfrequently miraculously multiplied her money. And so it came to pass that no one ever asked her for food in Christ's name and was refused it. Her husband was accidentally killed out shooting, and in her widowhood she determined to embrace the more excellent way, and took a vow not to marry again. She bore her bereavement with resignation to the Will of God, and so far overcame her horror of the gentleman who had fired the shot, that, to shew she attributed no blame to him, she stood godmother to his little boy. She was quite content with few servants and plain cookery and dress, and sold her rich wardrobe for the benefit of charities. She received offers of second marriage which would have been both politic and honourable, but never was induced to accept one of them, and to harden herself in her intention of remaining in her widowhood, she renewed her vow to that effect, and branded on her chest with a hot iron the most holy Name of Jesus Christ. Her love grew tenderer every day, and she had brought to her the starving, the abandoned, the diseased, and those who were afflicted with the most sickening disorders. Them she not only sheltered, comforted, and nursed, but washed, and mended their filthy and ragged garments, and shrank not from putting her mouth to their sores oozing with disgusting matter. She used the services of St. Francis de Sales as her spiritual adviser, and when she learnt from him what was the will of God, she scrupled not to disregard the wishes of her own father, brother-in-law, and even of her son, whom she left with calm determination, went forth from her home, and founded the holy Institution of the Sisters of the Visitation of St. Mary. She most rigidly kept the rules of this Institute, and loved so well to be poor, that it made her glad to lack even the necessaries of life. She shewed herself a model of Christian lowliness, obedience, and all graces. Having settled in her heart still to go up higher and higher towards the Temple of the Lord, she bound herself by a most difficult vow always to do that which she should understand to be best. It was chiefly through her labour that the holy Institute of the Visitation became spread far and wide, and she stirred up the sisters to godliness and love by her words, by her example, and by writings full of Divine wisdom. She duly received the Sacraments before her death, and then, at Moulins, on the 13th day of December, in the year 1641, departed hence, to be for ever with the Lord. St. Vincent de Paul, who was far distant, in a vision beheld her soul borne to heaven, and St. Francis de Sales coming to meet it. Her body was afterwards taken to Annecy. She was famous for miracles both before and after her death, and Pope Benedict XIV enrolled her among the Blessed, and Pope Clement XIII among the Saints. Pope Clement XIV ordered her Feastday to be kept by the whole Church upon the twenty-first day of August. Bernard was born at a decent place in Burgundy called Fontaines. On account of extraodinary good looks, he was as a boy very much sought after by women, but he could never be turned aside from his resolution to keep chaste. To fly from these temptations of the devil, he determined at two-and-twenty years of age to enter the monastery of Citeaux, whence the Cistercian Order took its rise. When this resolution of Bernard's became known, his brothers did all their diligence to change his purpose, but he only became the more eloquent and happy about it. Them and others he so brought over to his mind, that thirty young men entered the same Order along with him. As a monk he was so given to fasting, that as often as he had to eat, so often he seemed to be in pain. He exercised himself wonderfully in watching and prayer, and was a great lover of Christian poverty. Thus he led on earth an heavenly life, purged of all care and desire for transitory things. He was a burning and shining light of lowliness, mercifulness, and kindness. His concentration of thought was such, that he hardly used his senses except to do good works, in which latter he acted with admirable wisdom. Thus occupied, he refused the Bishoprics of Genoa, Milan, and others, which were offered to him, declaring that he was unworthy of so high a sphere of duty. Being made Abbot of Clairvaux he built monasteries in many places, wherein the excellent rules and disciplines of Bernard long flourished. When Pope Innocent II restored the monastery of St. Vincent and St. Anastasius at Rome, Bernard set over it the Abbot who was afterwards the Supreme Pontiff Eugene III, and who is also the same to whom he addressed his book upon Consideration. He was the author of many writings, in which it is manifest that his teaching was rather given him of God, than gained by hard work. In consequence of his high reputation for excellence, he was called by the most exalted Princes to act as arbiter of their disputes, and for this end, and to settle affairs of the Church, he often went to Italy. He was an eminent helper to Pope Innocent II, in putting down the schism of Peter Leoni, and worked to this end, both at the Courts of the Emperor and of Henry, King of England, and in the Council of Pisa. He fell asleep in the Lord in the sixty-third year of his age. He was famous for miracles, and Pope Alexander III numbered him among the Saints. Pope Pius VIII, acting on the advice of the Congregation of Sacred Rites, declared and confirmed St. Bernard a Doctor of the Universal Church. He also commanded that all should use the Mass and Office for him as for a Doctor, and granted perpetual yearly plenary indulgences to all who should visit Churches of the Cistercian Order upon the Feastday of this Saint. John was born in the year 1601, of pious and respectable parents, at a village commonly known as Ri, in the diocese of Seez. While still a boy, when he was fed with the bread of Angels, he cheerfully made a vow of perpetual chastity. Having been received at the College of Caen, directed by the Fathers of the Society of Jesus, he was conspicuous for a remarkable piety; and, committing himself to the protection of the Virgin Mary, when still a youth he signed with his own blood, the special covenant he had entered into with her. Having completed his courses of letters and of philosophy with great distinction, and having spurned opportunities of marriage which had been arranged for him, he enrolled himself with the Congregation of the Oratory de Bérulle, and was ordained priest at Paris. He was on fire with a marvellous love towards his neighbour: for he took the most constant pains in caring for both the souls and bodies of those smitten with the Asiatic plague, in many different places. He was made Rector of the Oratorian house at Caen, but since he had been thinking for a long time of educating suitable young men for the ministry of the Church, earnestly asking for the divine assistance, with a brave spirit he most regretfully departed from the associates with whom he had lived for twenty years. Accordingly, associating five priests with himself, in the year 1643, on the feastday of the Annunciation of the blessed Virgin Mary, he founded a Congregation of Priests, to whom he gave the most holy names of Jesus and Mary, and opened the first seminary at Caen; and a great many others followed immediately in Normandy and Brittany, also founded by him. For the recalling of sinful women to a Christian life, he founded the Order of Our Lady of Charity; of which most noble tree, the Congregation of the Good Shepherd of Angers is a branch. Furthermore, he founded the Society of the Admirable Heart of the Mother of God, and other charitable institutions. He was the author of many excellent treatises, and laboured as an Apostolic Missionary to the very end of his life, preaching the Gospel in very many villages, towns, and cities, and even in the royal court. His matchless zeal was very conspicuous in promoting the salutary devotion towards the most sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, whose liturgical worship he was the first of all to devise, although not without some divine inspiration. He is therefore held to be the father, the teacher, and the apostle of that worship. Courageously withstanding the doctrines of the Jansenists, he preserved unalterable obedience towards the Chair of Peter, and he constantly prayed to God, both for his enemies as well as for his brethren. Broken by so many labours, rather than by years, desiring to be freed and to be with Christ, on the 19th day of August, 1680, frequently repeating the sweet names of Jesus and Mary, he died in peace. As he became illustrious by many miracles, Pope Pius X added him to the list of the Blessed, and as he still shone forth with new signs and wonders, Pope Pius XI, in the holy year and on the day of Pentecost, placed him among the Saints, and extended his Office and Mass to the universal Church. Hyacinth was a Pole, and was born of a noble and Christian family in the town of Kamin in the Bishoprick of Breslau. He was trained up in learning from his youth, and after studying law and theology, became a Canon of Krakow, where he was eminent above his fellows by the singular godliness of his life and the depth of his learning. Being at Rome, he was received into the Order of Friars Preachers by the Founder, St. Dominic, himself, and kept in holiness to the end of his life the rule of perfect living which he had learnt from him. He remained always a virgin, and loved modesty, long-suffering, lowliness, self-restraint, and all other good graces as his heritage in the life of a Friar. In the heat of his love for God, he sometimes passed whole nights in pouring forth prayers and chastising his body, to which he never gave rest but in leaning against a stone or lying upon the ground. He was sent back to his own country, and on the way, founded a very large house of his Order at Friesach; and soon afterwards another at Krakow. In other provinces of the kingdom of Poland he founded four others, and it passeth belief what success he had with all kinds of men, by his preaching of the Word of God, and the innocency of his life. Not a day passed wherein he did not display some bright gift of faith, godliness, or innocency. The zeal of this most holy man for the salvation of his neighbours was that which God marked by his greatest miracles. Among these is famous the time when coming to the River Vistula near Visograd, and finding it in flood, he crossed it without a boat, drawing over also his three companions standing upon the waves upon his outspread mantle. He led a wonderful life for nearly forty years after his profession, and then foretold to his brethren the day of his death. Upon the very day of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, he finished the recitation of the Office of the Church, received the Sacraments with the utmost reverence, and then with the words, Into thy hands, O Lord, gave up his soul to God in the year of salvation 1257. He was illustrious for miracles even after his death, and Pope Clement VIII numbered him among the saints. The Martyr Mamas was born in Paphlagonia, Asia Minor in the third century of pious and illustrious parents, the Christians Theodotus and Rufina. The parents of the saint were arrested by the pagans for their open confession of their faith and locked up in prison in Caesarea in Cappadocia. Knowing his own bodily weakness, Theodotus prayed that the Lord would take him before being subjected to tortures. The Lord heard his prayer and he died in prison. St Rufina died also after him, after giving birth to a premature son. She entrusted him to God, beseeching Him to be the Protector and Defender of the orphaned infant. God heard the dying prayer of St Rufina: a rich Christian widow named Ammia reverently buried the bodies of Sts Theodotus and Rufina, and she took the boy into her own home and raised him as her own son. [He was named Mamas because, after he had long remained without speaking, he addressed his foster mother Ammia as "mama." The boy learned easily and willingly. He was not of an age of mature judgment but distinguished himself by maturity of mind and of heart. By means of prudent conversations and personal example young Mamas converted many of his own peers to Christianity. The governor, Democritus, was informed of this, and the fifteen-year-old Mamas was arrested and brought to trial. In deference to his illustrious parentage, Democritus decided not to subject him to torture, but instead sent him off to the emperor Aurelian (270-275). The emperor tried at first kindly, but then with threats to turn St Mamas back to the pagan faith, but all in vain. The saint bravely confessed himself a Christian and pointed out the madness of the pagans in their worship of lifeless idols. Infuriated, the emperor subjected the youth to cruel tortures. They tried to drown the saint, but an angel of the Lord saved St Mamas and bade him live on a high mountain in the wilderness, not far from Caesarea. Bowing to the will of God, the saint built a small church there and began to lead a life of strict temperance, in exploits of fasting and prayer. Soon he received a remarkable power over the forces of nature: wild beasts inhabiting the surrounding wilderness gathered at his abode and listened to the reading of the Holy Gospel. St Mamas nourished himself on the milk of wild goats and deer. The saint did not ignore the needs of his neighbors. Preparing cheese from this milk, he gave it away freely to the poor. Soon the fame of St Mamas's life spread throughout all of Caesarea. The governor sent a detachment of soldiers to arrest him. When they encountered St Mamas on the mountain, the soldiers did not recognize him, and mistook him for a simple shepherd. The saint then invited them to his dwelling, gave them a drink of milk and then told them his name, knowing that death for Christ awaited him. The servant of God told the servant of the Emperor to go on ahead of him into Caesaria, promising that he would soon follow. The soldiers waited for him at the gates of the city, and St Mamas, accompanied by a lion, met them there. Surrendering himself into the hands of the torturers, St Mamas was brought to trial under a deputy governor named Alexander, who subjected him to intense and prolonged tortures. They did not break the saint's will, however. He was strengthened by the words addressed to him from above: "Be strong and take courage, Mamas." When they threw St Mamas to the wild beasts, these creatures would not touch him. Finally, one of the pagan priests struck him with a trident. Mortally wounded, St Mamas went out beyond the city limits. There, in a small stone cave, he gave up his spirit to God, Who in the hearing of all summoned the holy Martyr Mamas into His heavenly habitation [In the year 275]. He was buried by believers at the place of his death. He is mentioned in the Martyrology for today |
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