Day by Day with the Saints

June 29

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 17:37:00 -0500

SAINTS PETER and PAUL
Apostles (†67)

This feast day commemorates the martyrdom of the two great Apostles, assigned by tradition to the same day of June in the year 67. They had been imprisoned in the famous Mamertine Prison of Rome and both had foreseen their approaching death. Saint Peter was crucified; Saint Paul, a Roman citizen, was slain by the sword. Tomorrow the Church commemorates the Apostle of the Gentiles; today is dedicated primarily to Saint Peter.

The Chief of the Apostles was a native of Galilee like Our Lord. As he was fishing on its large lake he was called by Our Lord to be one of His apostles. Peter was poor and unlearned, but candid, eager, and loving. In his heart, first of all, his conviction grew, and then from his lips came the spontaneous confession: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God!” Our Lord chose him and prepared him to be the Rock on which He would build His Church, His Vicar on earth, the Head and Prince of His Apostles, the center and indispensable bond of the Church’s unity, the unique channel of all spiritual powers, the guardian and unerring teacher of His truth.

All Scripture is alive with Saint Peter; his name appears no fewer than 160 times in the New Testament. But it is after Pentecost that he stands out in the full grandeur of his office. He sees to the replacement of the fallen disciple; he admits the Jews by thousands into the fold and in the person of Cornelius, opens it to the Gentiles; he founds and for a time rules the Church at Antioch.

Ten years after the Ascension Saint Peter transferred his apostolic capital to Rome, going in person to the center of the majestic Roman Empire, where were gathered the glories and riches of the earth, along with all the powers of evil. From there he sent Saint Mark, his valued secretary, to establish the Church of Alexandria in Egypt. In Rome Saint Peter’s Chair was placed; there for twenty-five years he labored at building up the great Roman Church. He was crucified by order of Nero and buried on the Vatican Hill, where now the Basilica stands which bears his name.

June 28

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:34:00 -0500

SAINT IRENAEUS
Doctor of the Church, Bishop and Martyr
(120-202)

Saint Irenaeus was born in the year 120; he was of the Greek tongue, and probably a native of Asia Minor. His parents, who were Christians, placed him while still young under the care of the great Saint Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna. It was in this holy school that he learned the sacred science which later made him a great ornament of the Church and the terror of her enemies. Saint Polycarp cultivated his rising genius and formed his mind to piety by his precepts and example, and the zealous young scholar was careful to reap all advantages offered him by the solicitude of such a master. Such was his veneration for his tutor’s sanctity that he observed all the acts and virtues he saw in that holy man, the better to copy his example and learn his spirit. He listened to his instructions with an insatiable ardor, and so deeply did he engrave them in his heart that the impressions remained vivid even in his old age. In order to confound the heresies of his age, this Doctor of the Church acquainted himself with the conceits of the pagan philosophers, and thereby became qualified to trace every error to its sources and set it in its full light. By his writings he was already known to Tertullian, Theodoret and Saint Epiphanus, who speak of him as a luminous torch of truth in the darkness of those times.

After Irenaeus had spent a number of years in combat against the eastern gnostics and philosophers of error, Saint Polycarp determined to send him to Gaul, where many of the heretics of Asia Minor had already migrated to pursue the Catholic religion, which was beginning to find roots there. With a company of about forty Christians, the valiant soldier of Christ ascended the Rhone to Lyons to rejoin and aid Saint Pothinus, its bishop. Saint Pothinus was already advanced in age, and his church’s neophytes could not always distinguish truth from the gnostic aberrations. Saint Pothinus received the apostles with joy and soon ordained Saint Irenaeus.

A hundred times he exposed himself to martyrdom by his zeal, acting as the right arm of the aging bishop, but God was reserving that crown for him twenty-five years later. When Saint Pothinus had glorified God by his splendid martyr’s death in the year 177, Ireneus was chosen to be the second bishop of Lyons. The persecutors imagined that Christianity had been stifled in Lyons, and they ceased their pursuits for a time.

This great Doctor of the Church wrote many important works, of which the most famous is his Adversus Haereses, Against the Heresies, in explanation of the Faith. By his preaching, Saint Irenaeus in a short time converted almost the whole country to the Faith; the Christians of Lyons became models by their candor, their estrangement from all ambition, their poverty, chastity and temperance, and in this way confounded many adversaries of their religion. Saint Irenaeus continued to imitate what he had seen done by his beloved master, Saint Polycarp, himself the disciple and imitator of Saint John the Apostle. One can readily imagine the excellence of the administration and the breadth of charity reigning in the Church of Lyons.

Finally he suffered martyrdom there, with many others, in the year 202, under the Emperor Septimus Severus, after eighty years spent in the service of the Lord. The imperial decrees renewing the persecutions arrived at Lyons at the time of the celebration of Severus’ tenth year of reign; the pagans found amid the celebrations an opportunity to take vengeance on the Christians, who refused to participate in the debaucheries which accompanied these feastings. Assassins armed with daggers, stones and knives filled the city with blood, and thousands of Christians won, with their bishop, the crown they had always admired as the greatest glory God could grant His servants.

June 27

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 17:32:00 -0500

OUR LADY of PERPETUAL HELP
(1863)

The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help measures around 50 centimeters (25 inches) high. It is in the Byzantine style, painted on wood with a gold leaf background. The Virgin is there with Her divine Child; each of them has a golden halo. Two Angels, one on the right and the other on the left, present the instruments of the Passion to the Child Jesus who is frightened, whereas the Blessed Virgin looks at the pathetic scene with calm, resigned sorrow.

The image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help had long been venerated on the Isle of Crete. The inhabitants of that island, fleeing a Turkish invasion, took it with them to Rome. By the invocation of Mary under the title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the ship transporting Her holy image was saved from a terrible storm.

On March 27, 1499, the portrait of the Virgin of Perpetual Help was carried in triumph through the streets of Rome. Preceded by the clergy and followed by the people, it was placed over the main altar of St. Matthew’s church, near St. Mary Major. Thanks to the care of the Augustinian friars, the holy image became the object of a very popular devotion which God rewarded for several centuries with many miracles.

During the disturbances of the French Revolution (1789-1793), the French troops occupying Rome destroyed St. Matthew’s church. One of the friars serving in that sanctuary had the time to secretly remove the miraculous Madonna. He hid it so well that for sixty years, no one knew what had become of the famous painting.

God permitted a concourse of providential circumstances which led to rediscovery of the venerated image. In 1865, in order to return the holy picture to the same spot it had been prayed to before, Pius IX gave orders to have it taken to the Esquiline Hill, in St. Alphonsus Liguori’s church, built on the site of old St. Matthew’s. On April 26, 1866, the Redemptorists solemnly enthroned Our Lady of Perpetual Help in their chapel.

From that time on, thanks to the zeal of the sons of Saint Alphonsus and the countless miracles obtained in their pious sanctuary, devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help has had an extraordinary development. To acknowledge and perpetuate the remembrances of these precious favors, the Vatican Chapter crowned the holy image in great pomp on June 23, 1867.

In 1876, Pope Pius IX erected an Archconfraternity in St. Alphonsus’ church under the title of Our Lady of Perpetual Help. Today the Blessed Virgin is invoked by this name throughout the Western Church.

June 26

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 17:28:00 -0500

SAINTS JOHN and PAUL
Martyrs (†362)

These two Saints were brothers and were officers of the Roman army in the days of Constantine the Great. They served in the house of Constance, daughter of Constantine, who was consecrated to God; their virtues and services to her father rendered them very dear to her. They would soon glorify God by a great moral victory; after despising the honors of the world, they triumphed by their martyrdom over its threats and torments.

With the aid of the liberality of the Christian princess, they were practicing many works of charity and mercy, until the deaths of both Constantine and Constance. Then, at the accession of Julian the Apostate to the imperial throne, they resigned their position in the palace. Julian had returned to the cult of idols and was attempting to re-establish it in the empire. The Christian brothers saw many wicked men prosper in their impiety, but were not dazzled by their example. They considered that worldly prosperity accompanied by impunity in sin is the most dreadful of all judgments, indicating reprobation. And history reveals how false and short-lived was the glittering prosperity of Julian.

While still in power the apostate attempted to win back these influential officers into active service. When he was refused, he gave them ten days to reconsider. The officer Terentianus, who at the end of that time brought to their house a little idol of Jupiter for their adoration, found them in prayer. In the middle of that night they were decapitated secretly in their own garden, since the emperor feared their execution might cause a sedition in Rome. He instigated a rumor that they had been exiled, but the demons took hold of possessed persons in Rome, and published the fact of their martyrdom everywhere.

The son of the officer who had slain them also became possessed, and it was only after their father, Terentianus, had prayed at the tomb of the martyrs that the child was liberated. This so impressed him that he became a Christian, with all his family, and wrote the history we have reported.

The martyrs, by their renouncement of favors and their heroic resistance, purchased an immense weight of never-fading glory, and were a spectacle worthy of God. Their house became a magnificent Christian basilica already at the end of the fourth century.

June 25

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 21:58:00 -0500

SAINT WILLIAM of VERCELLI
Abbot, Founder of the Congregation of Monte-Vergine
(†1142)

Saint William of Monte Vergine, born in Vercelli, a city of Lombardy, lost his father and mother in his infancy and was brought up by a relative in great sentiments of piety. At fifteen years of age, having an earnest desire to lead a penitential life, he left his native region and made a long and austere pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin founded by Saint James at Saragossa. He would have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but God made known to him that he was calling him to a solitary life, and he retired into the kingdom of Naples. There he chose for his abode an uninhabited mountain, and lived in perpetual contemplation and the exercises of rigorous penitential austerities.

After a miracle of healing wrought by his prayers, he was discovered and his contemplation interrupted, so he decided to move to another mountain, where he built a very beautiful church in honor of Our Lady. With several former secular priests who joined him there, in 1119 he began the establishment of the Congregation of Monte Vergine, or Mount of the Virgin. This site is between Nola and Benevento in the same kingdom of Naples. These sons of Our Lady lived in great austerity. Seeing the progress in holiness of the good religious being formed there, the devil sowed division and criticism; but God drew good from the evil when Saint William went elsewhere and founded several more monasteries, both for men and women, in various places in the kingdom of Naples. He assisted the king of Naples, who greatly venerated him, to practice all the Christian virtues of a worthy sovereign, and the king in gratitude had a house of the Order built at Salerno opposite his palace, to have him near him more often.

When Saint William died on the 25th of June, 1142, he had not yet written a Rule for his religious; his second successor, Robert, fearing the dissolution of a community without constitutions, placed them under that of Saint Benedict, and is regarded as the first abbot of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte-Vergine. A portrait of the Virgin venerated there has been an unfailing source of holy compunction; pilgrims continue to visit it.

June 24

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 21:56:00 -0500

NATIVITY of SAINT JOHN the BAPTIST
Prophet (†ca. 30 A.D.)

The birth of Saint John was foretold by Saint Gabriel, Archangel of the Lord, to his father, Zachary, who was offering incense in the Temple. The son of Zachary was to be the prophesied Messenger, Zachary was told, whose mission would prepare the way for Christ. Before he was born into the world John had already begun to live for the Incarnate God; even in the womb he recognized the presence of Jesus and of Mary, and leaped with joy at the glad coming of the Son of man. Before Christ’s public life began, a divine impulse sent Saint John into the desert; there, with locusts for his food and wearing haircloth, in silence and in prayer, he chastened his soul. In his youth he remained hidden, because He for whom he waited was also hidden.

Then, as crowds broke in upon his solitude, he warned them to flee from the wrath to come, and gave them the baptism of penance, while they confessed their sins. At last there stood in the crowd One whom Saint John did not know, until a voice within told him that it was his Lord. He affirmed: “I did not know Him, but He who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He upon whom thou wilt see the Spirit descending and abiding, He it is who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ ” With the baptism of Saint John, Christ began His voluntary abasement for the sins of His people; and Saint John indeed saw the Holy Ghost descend, under the visible form of a dove, indicating in the humble Jesus of Nazareth the divine Perfection of the peaceable Eternal King and High Priest. Then the Saint’s work was done. He had but to point his own disciples to the Lamb, he had only to decrease as Christ increased. He saw all men leave him and go after Christ. “I told you,” he said, “that I am not the Christ. The friend of the Bridegroom rejoices hearing the Bridegroom’s voice. This, my joy, is fulfilled.”

Saint John was cast into the fortress of Herod on the east coast of the Dead Sea by the tyrant whose crimes he had rebuked; he would remain there until beheaded at the will of a girl and her cruel mother. During this time of imprisonment, some of his disciples visited him. Saint John did not speak to them of himself, but sent them to Christ, that they might witness His miracles and hear His doctrine, proofs of His mission. After Saint John’s death, the Eternal Truth pronounced the panegyric of the Saint who had lived and breathed for Him alone: “Verily I say unto you, among those born of women there has not risen a greater than John the Baptist.”

June 23

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:54:00 -0500

SAINT MARY of OIGNIES
Recluse (†1213)

Mary of Oignies was born in the diocese of Liege in Belgium in 1167, of very wealthy parents. But while still very young, she rejected everything childish or vain — games, beautiful clothing, ornaments. At the age of fourteen, despite her desire to be a nun, she was obliged to marry a virtuous young lord. Her holy life caused admiration in her spouse and decided him to follow her examples; and together they resolved to practice continence for life, to distribute their wealth to the poor and consecrate themselves to works of piety. The demon tried every artifice to make them relent in their holy resolution, but failed. They drew down on themselves the most abundant blessings, as well as sarcasms and insults from the worldly.

Mary had the gift of tears, and could not look at a crucifix without breaking into a torrent of tears or being ravished in ecstasy. When a priest told her to cease these exhibitions, she asked God to make him understand that it is not possible for a creature to arrest tears which the Holy Spirit obliges to well up. And the priest, that same day while saying his Mass, began to shed so many tears that the altar cloths and his vestments were wet with them.

She had a great devotion to Saint John the Evangelist and conversed with him as well as with her Guardian Angel. By vision and revelation she often knew the temptations and secrets of the hearts of the persons who consulted her. She converted many, obtained graces by her prayers for the living and especially for the dead, for whom she offered prayers and sacrifices, and suffered various illnesses with invincible patience. Her many visitors made her life of contemplation difficult, and she decided to change her residence; her husband permitted her to go to Oignies, where she lived in retreat amidst her heavenly favors and conversations.

She saw the place destined for her in heaven, and gave up her holy soul surrounded by angelic songs of bliss. The faithful who have addressed her were so impressed with the value of her intercession that her relics became the object of great respect. Buried at Oignies, her remains in 1609 were placed in a silver reliquary in its parish church of Our Lady; in 1817 they were transferred to the Church of Saint Nicolas at Nivelle, near her birthplace.

June 22

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 21:49:00 -0500

SAINT PAULINUS OF NOLA
Bishop, Confessor (†353)

Paulinus was of a family which boasted a long line of senators, prefects and consuls of Rome, and he was educated with great care. His genius and eloquence in oratory, prose and verse were the admiration of all the brilliant Christian minds of his time, including Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Ambrose, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, and Saint Martin of Tours. It is believed that Saint Ambrose would have chosen him to replace him as bishop of Milan, but Saint Paulinus was far from Milan when Saint Ambrose died. He said of him that Christians should follow and imitate Saint Paulinus, and that the greatest good fortune of the century in which they were living was to be witness to the life of so rare and admirable a man.

Saint Paulinus, at first Roman Consul and then Prefect or Governor of Rome, had more than doubled his wealth by his marriage with a virtuous Spanish noblewoman; he was one of the wealthiest and most honored men of his time, possessing domains in several nations of Europe. Though he was the chosen friend of Saints, he was still only a catechumen, and trying to serve two masters. But God drew him to Himself along the way of sorrows and trials. The first and only child of Paulinus and Theresia died shortly after birth. Saint Paulinus received baptism soon afterwards, at the age of thirty-eight, from the bishop of Bordeaux, Saint Delphin; then he withdrew into Spain to be at liberty to pray in solitude.

He was ordained a priest in Barcelona, and afterwards retired to Nola in Campania. And then, in consort with his holy wife, he liberated all his slaves, sold all his vast estates in various parts of the empire, distributing their proceeds so widely and generously that Saint Jerome says both East and West were filled with his alms. In Nola he built the magnificent Church of Saint Felix and served it night and day, living a life of extreme abstinence and toil. He and his wife agreed to live as brother and sister; they exchanged their silver utensils for those of wood and pottery, and wore robes of rude cloth, practicing from that time on a genuine poverty. Certain highly-placed worldly persons were very much offended by this abrupt change in the way of life of these persons of such great dignity.

Nonetheless, in 409 Saint Paulinus was chosen Bishop of Nola, and for more than thirty years so ruled as to be conspicuous, in an age blessed with many great and wise bishops. Saint Gregory the Great tells us that when the Vandals of Africa made a descent on Campania, Paulinus spent all he had in relieving the distress of his people and redeeming them from slavery. Finally, when all had been disposed of, there came to him a poor widow, whose only son had been taken away by the son-in-law of the Vandal king. “What I have I give you, said the Saint to her; “we will go to Africa and you will offer me to the prince, saying I am one of your slaves, in exchange for the prisoner.” Her resistance once overcome, they went, and Paulinus was accepted in place of the widow’s son and employed as gardener. After a time the king discovered, by divine interposition, that this valuable slave of his son-in-law was the renowned Bishop of Nola. He at once set him free, granting him also the freedom of all the townsmen of Nola who were in slavery.

One who knew Saint Paulinus well says he was “meek as Moses, as priestly as Aaron, innocent as Samuel, tender as David, wise as Solomon, apostolic as Peter, loving as John, cautious as Thomas, brilliant as Stephen, fervent as Apollos.” Saint Paulinus died in 431. His holy remains were transferred several times but restored to the cathedral of Nola in 1908.

June 21

Sat, 21 Jun 2008 21:47:00 -0500

SAINT ALOYSIUS GONZAGA
Jesuit Seminarian
(1568-1591)

Saint Aloysius, the eldest son of Ferdinand Gonzaga, Marquis of Castiglione, was born on the 9th of March, 1568. The first words he pronounced were the holy names of Jesus and Mary. When he was nine years of age he made a vow of perpetual virginity, and by a special grace was always exempted from temptations against purity. He received his first Communion at the hands of Saint Charles Borromeo. At an early age he resolved to leave the world, and in a vision was directed by our Blessed Lady to join the Society of Jesus. The Saint’s mother rejoiced on learning his determination to become a religious, but his father for three years refused his consent. At length Saint Aloysius obtained permission to enter the novitiate on November 25, 1585.

He pronounced his vows after two years, and studied, as was customary, philosophy and theology. A fervent penitent at all times, he was accustomed to say that he doubted whether without penance grace could continue to make headway against nature, which, when not afflicted and chastised, tends gradually to relapse into its unredeemed state, and thereby loses the habit of suffering. “I am a crooked piece of iron,” he said, “and have come into religion to be made straight by the hammer of mortification and penance.”

During his last year of theology a malignant fever broke out in Rome. The Saint offered himself for the service of the sick, and was accepted for the dangerous duty. Several of the religious contracted the fever, and Aloysius was among them. He was at the point of death but recovered, only to relapse a little later into a slow fever, which after three months his fragile health could no longer resist. He died at the age of twenty-three, repeating the Holy Name, a little after midnight between the 20th and 21st of June, on the octave day of Corpus Christi.

June 20

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:44:00 -0500

SAINT SILVERIUS
Pope and Martyr (†538)

Silverius was son of Pope Hormisdas, who had been married before he entered the ministry. Upon the death of Saint Agapetas, and after a vacancy of forty-seven days, Silverius, then subdeacon, was elected Pope and consecrated on the 8^th of June, 536, despite maneuvers on the part of heretics opposed to the Council of Chalcedon.

The heretical empress Theodora, resolved to win Silverius over to her interests, wrote to him, ordering that he should either acknowledge as lawful bishop the Eutychian heretic Anthimus, who had been deposed as patriarch of Constantinople, or come in person to Constantinople and reexamine his cause. Without the least hesitation or delay, Silverius returned her a short answer, by which he gave her to understand that he neither could nor would obey her unjust demands, which would be to countermand his predecessor’s decision and betray the cause of the Catholic faith.

The empress, finding that she could expect nothing from him, resolved to have him deposed. Vigilius, archdeacon of the Roman Church, a man of diplomacy, was then at Constantinople. To this ambitious ecclesiastic the empress exposed her wishes, and promised to make him pope and to bestow on him seven hundred pieces of gold, if he would engage himself to condemn the Council of Chalcedon and receive into Communion the three deposed Eutychian patriarchs. Vigilius assented to these conditions, and the empress sent him to Rome, charged with a letter to the Roman general Belisarius, commanding him to drive out Silverius and contrive the election of Vigilius to the pontificate.

Vigilius urged the general to execute this project. In order to implement it, the Pope was accused of corresponding with the enemy, and a forged letter was produced, supposedly written by him to the king of the Goths, inviting him to the city and promising to open the gates to him. These dealings succeeded; Vigilius was made Pope, and Silverius was banished to Patara in Lycia.

The bishop of Patara received the illustrious exile with all possible marks of honor and respect, and thinking himself bound to undertake his defense, journeyed to Constantinople and spoke boldly to the emperor Justinian. He terrified him with threats of divine judgments for the expulsion of a bishop of so great a see, telling him, “There are many kings in the world, but there is only one Pope over the Church of the whole world.” Justinian appeared startled at the atrocity of the proceedings and gave orders that Silverius be sent back to Rome. The enemies of the Pope contrived to prevent this, however, and he was intercepted on his road toward Rome and transported to the deserted island of Palmeria, where he died of hunger a year later, on the 20^th of June, 538 and was buried.

It was perhaps in response to the martyred pope’s prayers that after his death the usurper of the pontifical throne, Vigilius, though he had wished to step down, was forced to remain in function and then transformed, like Saul of Tarsus, into another man. He exercised the pastoral duties with as much courage, piety, zeal and faith, as he formerly had used violence, avarice and cruelty during his predecessor’s lifetime. The traitor Belisarius was accused of conspiracy against the emperor, stripped of all he had, and his eyes put out; he was obliged to beg for alms in Constantinople. But he too repented and built a church with an inscription over the door which was a public reparation for his fault.