ArchbishopLefebvre.com
Links
  • Archbishop Lefebvre
    • Biography of Archbishop Lefebvre
    • Who is he?
    • In his own words
  • Sermons
    • Sunday Sermons
  • Letters
    • Archbishop Lefebvre >
      • To Friends and Benefactors
      • Other Letters
    • Bishop Williamson >
      • Friends and Benefactors
      • Eleison Comments >
        • Italiano
        • Espanol
      • To SSPX Priests
  • Blog
  • Books
    • E-Books
    • Free Catholic Books
    • Archbishop Lefebvre
    • Bibles
    • Blessed Sacrament
    • Children Books
    • Childrens Saints
    • DVDs
    • Hell
    • Purgatory
    • Our Lady
    • Sacred Heart
    • Missals
    • Missale Romanum
    • Summa Theologica
    • Saints
  • Catholic Faith
    • Catechisms
    • Catholic Art
    • Chant
    • Dogmas of the Catholic Church
    • Encyclicals
    • Sermons
    • History >
      • HughesVol1index
    • Liturgy
    • Sacraments
    • Prayers >
      • Blessings
    • Way of the Cross
  • SSPX Crisis
    • sspx Archbishop Lefebvre
    • monks nuns
    • SSPX Bishop Fellay
    • SSPX Bishop Tissier
    • ex-sspx Bishop Williamson
    • ex-sspx chazal
    • sspx couture
    • sspx fox
    • ex-sspx fuchs
    • ex-sspx girouard
    • ex-sspx hewko
    • sspx laisney
    • sspx ockerse
    • ex-sspx pfeiffer
    • sspx themann
    • Fr. Ringrose
  • Links
    • Other Sites
    • Donate
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • You Tube
  • TradCat Items
    • Beeswax Candles
    • Chapel Veils
    • Prayer Cards - Our Lady
    • Prayer Cards - Espanol
    • Protected Scapulars
    • Scapulars
    • Unbreakable Rosaries
  • Crisis in Church
    • Declaration of the 2006 Chapter (SSPX)
    • Fr Hewko to SSPX Superiors
    • History of the Archbishop and Rome
    • Vatican II more important than Nicea!
    • The Archbishop and Religious Liberty
    • The right to resist an abuse of power
    • How Are Catholics To Respond To The Present Crisis

Saint for Today - St Catherine of Siena

4/30/2014

 
Picture
Catherine was a maiden of Siena, and was born of godly parents.  She took the habit of the Third Order of St. Dominic.  Her fasts were most severe, and the austerity of her life wonderful.  It was discovered that on some occasions she took no food at all from Ash Wednesday till Ascension Day, receiving all needful strength by taking Holy Communion.  She was engaged oftentimes in a wrestling with devils, and was sorely tried by them with divers assaults: she was consumed by fevers, and suffered likewise from other diseases.  Great and holy was the name of Catherine, and sick folk, and such as were vexed with evil spirits were brought to her from all quarters.  Through the Name of Christ, she had command over sickness and fever, and forced the foul spirits to leave the bodies of the tormented.

While she dwelt at Pisa, on a certain Lord's Day, after she had received the Living Bread which came down from heaven, she was in the spirit; and saw the Lord nailed to the Cross advancing towards her.  There was a great light round about him, and five rays of light streaming from the five marks of the Wounds in his Feet, and Hands, and Side, which smote her upon the five corresponding places in her body.  When Catherine perceived this vision, she besought the Lord that no marks might become manifest upon her flesh, and straightway the five beams of light changed from the colour of blood into that of gold, and touched in the form of pure light her feet, and hands, and side.  At this moment the agony which she felt was so piercing, that she believed that if God had not lessened it, she would have died.  Thus the Lord in his great love for her, gave her this great grace, in a new and twofold manner, namely, that she felt all the pain of the wounds, but without there being any bloody marks to meet the gaze of men.  This was the account given by the handmaiden of God to her Confessor Raymund, and it is for this reason that when the godly wishes of the faithful lead them to make pictures of the blessed Catherine, they paint her with golden rays of light proceeding from those five places in her body which correspond to the five places wherein our Lord was wounded by the nails and spear.

The learning which Catherine had was not acquired but inspired.  She answered Professors of Divinity upon the very hardest questions concerning God.  No one was ever in her company without going away better.  She healed many hatreds, and quieted the most deadly feuds.  To make peace for the Florentines, who had quarrelled with the Church, and under an Ecclesiastical Interdict, she travelled to Avignon to to see the Supreme Pontiff Gregory XI.  To him she shewed that she had had revealed to her from heaven his secret purpose of going back to Rome, which had been known only to God and himself.  It was at her persuasion, as well as by his own judgment, that the Pope did in the end return to his own See.  She was much respected by this Gregory, as well as by his successor Urban VI, who even employed her in their embassies.  The Bridegroom took her home, when she was about thirty-three years old, after she had given almost countless proofs of extraordinary Christian graces, and manifestly displayed the gifts of Prophecy and miracles.  Pope Pius II enrolled her among the Virgin Saints.

Picture

Saint for Today - St Peter of Verona

4/29/2014

 
Picture
Peter was born at Verona of parents polluted with the Manichaean heresy, but he himself began his lifelong strife against error when he was but a little child.  When he was seven years old, he went to school, and was asked by his heretic uncle what he learnt there: he answered that he had learnt the Christian Creed: and neither his father nor his uncle were ever able to shake his constancy in the faith, either by cajolements or threats.  As a young man he went to Bologna to study, and there he was called by the Holy Ghost to an higher state of life, and entered the Order of Friars Preachers.

He was marked by great perfection as a Friar: so watchful was he over the purity of his body and soul, that he never felt himself defiled by a mortal sin.  He chastened his body by fasting and watching, and ennobled his soul by the contemplation of the things of God.  He was constantly busied in works for furthering the salvation of souls; and had a peculiar gift of grace for clearly convincing heretics.  Such was his power as a preacher, that countless crowds were drawn together to hear him, and many were moved to repentance.

The faith which was in him burnt so hotly, that he longed to seal his confession with his blood, and oftentimes he earnestly besought from God the the grace to do so.  It was but a little while before the heretics murdered him, that he foretold, in preaching, his own approaching death.  While he was intrusted with the duties of the Holy Inquisition, he was returning from Como to Milan, when an ungodly ruffian assailed him, and wounded him once and again in the head with a sword.  Peter, to whom these blows were nearly fatal, began with his last breath to recite that Profession of the Faith, to which as a little child he had clung with such manly courage, but the murderer thrust the weapon into his side, and he passed away to receive a Martyr's palm in heaven.  It was the year of salvation 1252.  In the following year, Innocent IV, seeing by how many miracles God had been pleased to glorify him, added his name to the sacred roll of Martyrs.

Picture

April 28th - St Paul of the Cross

4/28/2014

 
Picture
Paul of the Cross was born at Ovada in Liguria and, as soon as he came to the use of reason, burned with love for Jesus Christ crucified.  Fired with the desire for martyrdom, he joined the army which was being assembled in Venice to fight against the Turks.  But when the will of God was made known to him, and he had refused a most honourable marriage and an inheritance left to him by his uncle, he received a coarse tunic as a habit from his bishop and, although not yet a cleric, cultivated the field of the Lord by preaching the word of God.  In Rome, out of obedience to Pope Benedict XIII, he was raised to the priesthood.  Then he retired into the solitude of Monte Argentario, where the Blessed Virgin had already invited him to go, at the same time shewing unto him a black habit adorned with the insignia of her Son's Passion.  There he laid the foundations of a new congregation, whose members bind themselves by vow to promote the memory of the Lord's Passion, and he also established one for nuns to meditate continually upon this mystery.  Renowned for his preaching, virtues, and divine charisms, he fell asleep in the Lord at Rome, in the year 1775.  Pope Pius IX enrolled him among the Blessed and then among the Saints.

Saint for Today -  St Mark

4/28/2014

 
Picture
At that time: The Lord appointed other seventy also: and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come. 

Sermon
by St. Gregory the Pope


Dearly beloved brethren, our Lord and Saviour doth sometimes admonish us by words, and sometimes by works.  Yea, his very works do themselves teach us: for that which he doth silently his example still moveth us to copy.  Behold how he sendeth forth his disciples to preach by two and two: since there are two commandments to love, that is, a commandment to love God, and a commandment to love our neighbour: and where there are not two, the one, being alone, hath not whereon to do the Lord's commandment.  And no man can properly be said to love himself: for love tendeth outward toward our neighbour, if it be the love whereto the Gospel doth oblige us.

Behold, the Lord sendeth forth his disciples to preach by two and two: and thus doing, he doth silently teach us that whosoever loveth not his neighbour, such an one it behoveth not to take upon him the office of a preacher.  Well also is it said that he sent them before his face into every city and place whither he himself would come.  The Lord followeth his preachers: first cometh preaching, and then the Lord himself cometh to the house of our mind, whither the word of exhortation hath come before: and so cometh the truth into our mind.


The Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

4/11/2014

 
Picture
The Lesson is taken from a Sermon by Bernard the Abbot


The Martyrdom of the Virgin is set before us, not only in the prophecy of Simeon, but also in the story itself of the Lord's Passion.  The holy old man said of the Child Jesus: Behold, this Child is set for the fall and the rising again of many  in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; yea (said he unto Mary), a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.  Even so, O Blessed Mother!  The sword did indeed pierce through thy soul! for nought could pierce the Body of thy Son, nor pierce thy soul likewise.  Yea, and when this Jesus of thine had given up the ghost, and the bloody spear could torture him no more, thy soul winced as it pierced his dead side―his own Soul might leave him, but thine could not.

The sword of sorrow pierced through thy soul, so that we may truly call thee more than martyr, in whom the love, that made thee suffer along with thy Son, wrung thy heart more bitterly than any pang of bodily pain could do.  Did not that word of his indeed pierce through thy soul, sharper than any two-edged sword, even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit: Woman, behold thy son!  O what a change to thee!  Thou art given John for Jesus, the servant for his Lord, the disciple for his Master, the son of Zebedee for the Son of God, a mere man for Very God.  O how keenly must the hearing of those words have pierced through thy most loving soul, when even our hearts, stony, iron, as they are, are wrung at the memory thereof only!

Marvel not, my brethren, that Mary should be called a Martyr in spirit.  He indeed may marvel who remembereth not what Paul saith, naming the greater sins of the Gentiles, that they were without natural affection.  Far other were the bowels of Mary, and far other may those of her servants be!  But some man perchance will say: Did she not hope that he was soon to rise again?  Yea, she most faithfully hoped it.  And did she still mourn because he was crucified?  Yea, bitterly.  But who art thou, my brother, or whence hast thou such wisdom, to marvel less that the Son of Mary suffered than that Mary suffered with him?  He could die in the Body, and could not she die with him in her heart?  His was the deed of that Love, greater than which hath no man, hers, of a love, like to which hath no man, save he.

Saints for April 10th

4/10/2014

 
Picture
At Babylon, the prophet Ezechiel, who was put to death by a judge of the people of Israel because he reproved him for worshipping idols. He was buried in the sepulchre of Sem and Arphaxad, ancestors of Abraham. Many people were in the habit of going to his tomb to pray.
Picture
At Ghent in Flanders, St. Macarius, bishop of Antioch, celebrated for virtues and miracles.
Picture
At Valladolid in Spain, St. Michael of the Saints, confessor, of the Order of Discalced Trinitarians for the Redemption of Captives, a man known for his upright life, his penitential spirit, and his great love of God. He was placed on the roll of the saints by Pope Pius IX.

April 7th - St Calliopius

4/7/2014

 
Picture
The Holy Martyr Calliopius was born in Perge, Pamphylia of the pious woman Theoklia, wife of a renowned senator. Theoklia was childless for a long time. She fervently prayed for a son, vowing to dedicate him to God.

Soon after the birth of her son Theoklia was widowed. When St Calliopius reached adolescence, a fierce persecution against Christians began. Theoklia, learning that her son would be denounced as a Christian, sent him to Cilicia in Asia Minor.

When the saint arrived at Pompeiopolis, Paphlagonia there was a celebration in honor of the pagan gods. They invited the youth to take part in the proceedings, but he said he was a Christian and refused. They reported this to the prefect of the city Maximus. St Calliopius was brought before him to be tried. At first, he attempted to persuade Calliopius to worship the gods, promising to give him his own daughter in marriage. After the youth rejected this offer, Maximus subjected him to terrible tortures. He ordered the martyr to be beaten on the back with iron rods, and on the stomach with ox-hide thongs. Finally, the prefect had him tied to an iron wheel, and he was roasted over a slow fire. After these tortures, they threw the martyr Calliopius into prison.

When Theoklia heard about the sufferings of her son, she wrote her last will, freed her slaves, distributed her riches to the poor, and hastened to St Calliopius. The brave mother gave money to the guard and got into the prison to see her son. There she encouraged him to endure suffering to the end for Christ.

When on the following day the saint refused to renounce Christ, Maximus gave orders to crucify the martyr. The day of execution happened to be Great Thursday, when the Savior’s last meal with His disciples is commemorated.

Theoklia begged the guard to crucify her son head downward, since she considered it unworthy for him to be crucified like the Lord. Her wish was granted. The holy martyr hung on the cross overnight and died on Good Friday in the year 304.

When the holy martyr was removed from the cross, Theoklia gave glory to the Savior. She embraced the lifeless body of her son and gave up her own spirit to God. Christians buried their bodies in a single grave.

Saint for Today - St Vincent Ferrer

4/5/2014

 
Picture
Vincent was born of respectable parents, at Valencia in Spain, and even as a child he had an heart like the heart of an old man.  Considering to the utmost of his young understanding, how fleeting is the course of this dark world, he, in the eighteenth year of his age, took the habit of Friar in the Order of Preachers.  After he had made his solemn profession, he devoted himself to sacred learning, and took the degree of Master of Divinity with much distinction.  He soon after received permission from his superiors to preach the word of God, on which duty he entered with such power and success, striving against the unbelief of the Jews, and overthrowing the errors of the Saracens, that he brought an exceeding great multitude of unbelievers to believe in Christ, and turned many thousands of Christians from sin to sorrow, and from vice to virtue.  He was a chosen vessel unto God to proclaim the tidings of salvation among all nations, and tribes, and tongues, crying out that the last day, that awful day of judgment, is at hand, smiting consternation into the minds of all, as many as heard him, weaning their love from a perishing world, and turning it to God.

While Vincent wrought the Apostolic work of preaching committed to him, he lived ever as follows: Every morning he sang a solemn Mass, and every day he preached in public.  He fasted every day, unless prevented by some absolute necessity.  He refused to no one his holy and just advice.  He never ate meat, nor wore linen.  He quieted public disturbances, and negotiated the peace of kingdoms.  When the seamless garment of the Church was rent by an horrid schism, he worked his every nerve to unite it again, and keep it one.  He was a burning and shining light of all virtues, walking always in lowliness and simpleness, so that he meekly welcomed and embraced them which spake evil against him and persecuted him.

The Power of God confirmed his life and doctrine with many great signs and wonders.  He often laid his hands upon the sick and they recovered.  He cast out unclean spirits, and made the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the blind to see.  He cleansed the lepers, and raised the dead.  After passing through many countries of Europe with exceeding profit to souls, worn out with age and disease, but still ever the same unwearied herald of the Gospel, he brought his life and his preaching together to an happy end, at Vannes in Brittany, in the year of salvation 1419.  Pope Callistus III numbered him with the saints.

Picture

April 5th - Saints of the Martrology

4/5/2014

 
In the monastery at Palma, in the diocese of Majorca, the birthday of St. Catalina Tomas, Canoness Regular of the Order of St. Augustine, whom Pope Pius XI, in the fiftieth year of his priesthood, placed among the number of virgin saints. (on left)
(on right)
At Thessalonica, the virgin St. Irene, who was imprisoned for hiding the sacred books, contrary to the order of Diocletian.  She was pierced with an arrow, then burned to death by order of the governor Dulcetius, under whom her sisters Agape and Chionia had previously suffered.

Saint for Today - St Isidore of Seville

4/4/2014

 
Picture
Isidore, the admirable teacher, was a Spaniard by birth, being the son of Severian, governor of the Province of Carthagena.  He was trained up in all godliness and learning by his holy brethren Leander, Archbishop of Seville, and Fulgentius, Bishop of Carthagena.  He was well instructed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew letters, and he came from his masters a most eminent scholar in all human knowledge, and a pattern of all Christian graces.  While yet he was very young, he attacked with such firmness the Arian heresy, which had of former times polluted the Gothic nation, who then were the chief rulers of Spain, that he was near being murdered by the heretics.  After that Leander was departed this life, Isidore was chosen to the See of Seville, against his own will, but at the vehement insistence of King Reccared, and with the strong assent of the clergy and people.  Holy Gregory the Great not only confirmed his election by his own Apostolic authority, and caused him to be adorned, as is the custom, with a Pallium sent from the body of Blessed Peter, but is also stated to have appointed him Vicar of the Apostolic See for all Spain.

When he was Archbishop no tongue can tell how leal he was, how lowly and meek, and merciful, how careful to restore the laws of Christianity and the Church, and how unwearied in establishing the same by his word and writings, yea, how brightly he shone in all graces.  He was a leading promoter and spreader of monastic institutions throughout Spain.  He built many monasteries.  He founded colleges in which, when his duty allowed him spare time for sacred study and reading, he taught the many disciples who betook themselves to him from all quarters.  Among these, two of the most distinguished were the holy Bishops Ildephonsus of Toledo, and Braulio of Saragossa.  He called the Council of Seville, wherein, in a most incisive and eloquent discourse, he shattered and crushed the heresy of the Acephali, by which Spain was then threatened.  So great was his fame among all men for the holiness of his life and doctrine, that scarcely sixteen years after his death the whole Council of Toledo, by the acclamation of more than fifty Bishops, among whom was the holy Ildephonsus himself, declared him to be worthy to called the excellent Doctor, the newest ornament of the Catholic Church, one whose learning would endure to the end of the world, and of worshipful memory.  It was the opinion of the holy Braulio that he was not only fit to be compared to Gregory the Great, but also that he was a gift from God to Spain to take the place of the Apostle James.

Isidore wrote Books of Etymologies and on Church Offices, and likewise many others, so useful in the administration of Christian and Church Law, that the holy Pope Leo IV felt no scruple in writing to the Bishops of Britain, that the sayings of Isidore were worthy to be kept like those of Jerome and Augustine, whenever there is to be done some strange work, wherein the rules of the Canon Law are not enough defined.  Many sentences from his writings may also be discovered embedded in the Canon Law of the Church itself.  He presided over the Fourth Council of Toledo, the most celebrated that ever met in Spain.  Before his death he had purged Spain of the Arian heresy, and publicly foretold his own dissolution and the wasting of the kingdom by the Saracens which was to come.  He passed away to heaven, at Seville, where he had ruled his Church for forty years, in the year of our Lord 636.  In accordance with his own commands, his body was first buried between his brother Leander and his sister Florentina, but Ferdinand I, King of Castille and Leon, bought it for a great price from Enet, the Saracen, who then ruled at Seville, carried it to Leon, and there built a Church in honour of him

<<Previous


    archbishop lefebvre
    Click to see more

    Enter your email address for daily posts:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Archives

    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Apologetics
    Archbishop Lefebvre
    Bishop Williamson
    Blessed Sacrament
    Catechism
    Catholic History
    Chalk Talks
    Chastisement
    Devotions
    Easter
    Eleison Comments
    Eleison Comments
    Eleison Comments Italian
    Encyclicals
    Espanol Eleison Comments
    Families
    Fatima
    Feast Days
    For Fathers (Dads)
    For Moms
    Fortitude
    Holy Ghost
    Holy Name
    Holy Souls
    Holy Week
    Home Schooling
    Lent
    Liberalism
    Litanies
    Liturgy
    Marriage
    Martyrology
    Martyrs
    Mass
    Meditations Of Abl
    Modesty
    News
    New World Order
    Obedience
    Our Lady
    Our Lady Of Quito
    Our Lord
    Pentecost
    Pioneer Priests
    Prayers
    Sacramentals
    Sacraments
    Sacred Heart
    Saint Of The Day
    Saints For April
    Saints For August
    Saints For December
    Saints For February
    Saints For January
    Saints For July
    Saints For June
    Saints For March
    Saints For May
    Saints For November
    Saints For October
    Saints For September
    Scandal
    Scapular
    Sermons
    Sspx
    St Benedict
    St Joseph
    St Michael
    St Michael
    Sundays Of The Year
    Temptations
    The Church
    The Last Things
    The Mass
    The Pope
    The Rosary
    The Saints
    The Virtues
    Tradcat Comments
    Truth Society

    Picture
    Click to see inside the store
    Picture
    k d
    Counter Site
    While Archbishop Lefebvre Blog is provided free of charge, there are administrative and technical costs associated with making it available to subscribers worldwide and with operating this site. Contributions to offset these costs are appreciated, and may be made via the button below

    Archbishop Lefebvre

    Promote Your Page Too
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.