St. Jerome

This is rather long, but worth the read (I think), especially if you want to know any history of the Church, and why his version was the only accepted one for 1200+ years.

SAINT JEROME
Doctor of the Church
(329-420)

Saint Jerome, born in Dalmatia in 329, was sent to school in Rome. His boyhood was not free from faults; his thirst for knowledge was excessive, and his love of books, a passion. He had studied under the best masters, visited foreign cities, and devoted himself to the pursuit of learning. But Christ had need of his strong will and active intellect for the service of His Church. He told him in a supernatural experience he never forgot that he was not a Christian, but a Ciceronian: "Your heart is where your treasure is," said the Lord to him - that is, in the eloquent writings of antique times. Saint Jerome obeyed the divine call, making a vow never again to read profane works, and another of celibacy. In Rome he had already assisted a number of holy women to organize houses of retirement where they consecrated themselves to God by vow. Calumnies, arising from jealousy, made a certain headway against the scholar whose competence was beginning to attract honors.

He fled from Rome to the wild Syrian desert, and there for four years learned in solitude, intense sufferings and persecution from the demons, new lessons in humility, penance and prayer, and divine wisdom. "I was very foolish to want to sing the hymns of the Lord on foreign soil, and to abandon the mountain of Sinai to beg help from Egypt," he declared.

Pope Damasus summoned him back to Rome, and there assigned to the famous scholar, already expert in Hebrew and other ancient languages, the task of revising the Latin Bible. Saint Jerome obeyed his earthly Head as he had obeyed his Lord. Retiring once more in 386 to Bethlehem, the eloquent hermit sent forth from his solitary cell not only a solidly accurate version of the Scriptures, but during thirty years' time, a veritable stream of luminous writings for the Christian world. He combated with unfailing efficacy several heresies being subtly introduced by various personages in his own region and elsewhere.

For fourteen years the hand of the great scholar could no longer write; but Saint Jerome could still dictate to six secretaries at a time, to each on a different subject, in those final years. He died in his beloved Bethlehem in 420, when over 80 years old. His tomb is still in a subterranean chapel of its ancient basilica, but his relics were transported to Saint Mary Major Basilica of Rome, where the crib of Bethlehem is conserved.

Now, for an in-depth review from the 'Lives of the Saints', by Alban Butler:

Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymus Sophronius), the father of the Church most learned in the Sacred Scriptures, was born about the year 342 at Stridon, a small town upon the confines of Pannonia, Dalmatia and Italy, near Aquileia. His father took great care to have his son instructed in religion and in the first principles of letters at home and afterwards sent him to Rome. Jerome had there for tutor the famous pagan grammarian Donatus. He became master of the Latin and Greek tongues (his native language was the Illyrian), read the best writers in both languages with great application, and made progress in oratory; but being left without a guide under the discipline of a heathen master he forgot some of the true piety which had been instilled Into him in his childhood. Jerome went out of this school free indeed from gross vices, but unhappily a stranger to a Christian spirit and enslaved to vanity and other weaknesses, as he afterward confessed and bitterly lamented. On the other hand he was baptized at Rome (he was a catechumen till he was at least eighteen) and he himself tells us that “it was my custom on Sundays to visit, with friends of my own age and tastes, the tombs of the martyrs and apostles, going down into those subterranean galleries whose walls on either side preserve the relics of the dead.”
After some three years in Rome he determined to travel in order to improve his studies and, with his friend Bonosus, he went to Trier. Here it was that the religious spirit with which he was so deeply imbued was awakened, and his heart was entirely converted to God.

In 370 Jerome settled down for a time at Aquileia, where the bishop, St. Valerian, had attracted so many good men that its clergy were famous all over the Western church. With many of these St. Jerome became friendly, and their names appear in his writings. Among them were St. Chromatius, then a priest, who succeeded Valerian; his two brothers, the deacons Jovinian and Eusebiu; St. Heliodorus and his nephew Nepotian; and, above all, Rufinus, first the bosom friend and then the bitter opponent of Jerome. Already he was beginning to make enemies and provoke strong opposition, and after two or three years an unspecified conflict broke up the group, and Jerome decided to withdraw into some distant country. Bonosus, who had been the companion of his studies and his travels from childhood, went to live on a desert island in the Adriatic. Jerome himself happened to meet a well-known priest of Antioch, Evagrius, at Aquileia, which turned his mind towards the East. With his friends Innocent, Heliodorus and Hylas (a freed slave of St. Melania) he determined to go there.

St. Jerome arrived in Antioch in 374 and made some stay there. Innocent and Hylas were struck down by illness and died, and Jerome too sickened. In a letter to St. Eustochium he relates that in the heat of fever he fell into a delirium in which he seemed to himself to be arraigned before the judgement seat of Christ. Being asked who he was, he answered that he was a Christian. “Thou liest,” was the reply, “Thou art a Ciceronian: for where thy treasure is, there is thy heart also.” This experience had a deep effect on him which was deepened by his meeting with St. Malchus, whose strange story is related herein under October 21. As a result, St. Jerome withdrew into the wilderness of Chalcis, a barren land to the south-east of Antioch, where he spent four years alone. He suffered much from ill health, and even more from strong temptations of the flesh. “In the remotest part of a wild and stony desert,” he wrote years afterwards to St. Eustochium, “burnt up with the heat of the scorching sun so that it frightens even the monks that inhabit it, I seemed to myself to be in the midst of the delights and crowds of Rome... In this exile and prison to which for the fear of Hell I had voluntarily condemned myself, with no other company but scorpions and wild beasts, I many times imagined myself witnessing the dancing of the Roman maidens as if I had been in the midst of them. My face was pallid with fasting, yet my will felt the assaults of desire: in my cold body and in my parched-up flesh, which seemed dead before its death, passion was able to live. Alone with this enemy, I threw myself in spirit at the feet of Jesus, watering them with my tears, and I tamed my flesh by fasting whole weeks. I am not ashamed to disclose my temptations, but I grieve that I am not now what I then was. I often joined night to day crying and beating my breast till calm returned.” Thus does God allow His servants to be from time to time severely tried; but the ordinary life of St. Jerome was doubtless quiet, regular and undisturbed. To forestall and ward off the insurgence of the flesh he added to his corporal austerities a new study, which he hoped would fix his rambling imagination and give him the victory over himself. This was to learn Hebrew. “When my soul was on fire with bad thoughts,” says he writing to the monk Rusticus in 411, “as a last resource I became a scholar to a monk who had been a Jew, to learn of him the Hebrew alphabet; and, from the judicious rules of Qumtilian, the copious flowing eloquence of Cicero, the grave style of Pronto, and the smoothness of Pliny, I turned to this language of hissing and broken-winded words. What labour it cost me, what difficulties I went through, how often I despaired and left off, and how I began again to learn, both I myself who felt the burden can witness, and they also who lived with me. And I thank our Lord, that I now gather such sweet fruit from the bitter sowing of those studies.” However, he still continued to read the pagan classics from time to time, The church of Antioch was at this time disturbed by doctrinal and disciplinary disputes.

The monks of the desert of Chalcis vehemently took sides in these disputes and wanted St. Jerome to do the same and to pronounce on the matters at issue. He preferred to stand aloof and be left to himself, but he wrote two letters to consult St. Damasus, who had been raised to the papal chair in 366, what course he ought to steer. In the first he says: “I am joined in communion with your holiness, that is, with the chair of Peter; upon that rock I know the Church is built. Whoever eats the Lamb outside of that house is a profane person. Whoever is not in the ark shall perish in the flood. I do not know Vitalis; I disown Meletius; Paulinus is a stranger to me. Whoever gathers not with you, scatters; he who is not Christ’s belongs to Antichrist... Order me, if you please, what I should do.” Not receiving a speedy answer he soon after sent another letter on the same subject. The answer of Damasus is not extant: but it is certain that he and the West acknowledged Paulinus as bishop of Antioch, and St. Jerome received from his hands the order of priesthood when he finally left the desert of Chalcis. Jerome had no wish to be ordained (he never celebrated the holy Sacrifice), and he only consented on the condition that he should not be obliged to serve that or any other church by his ministry: his vocation was to be a monk or recluse.

Soon after he went to Constantinople, there to study the Holy Scriptures under St. Gregory Nazianzen. In several parts of his works Jerome mentions with satisfaction and gratitude the honour and happiness of having had so great a master in expounding the divine writings. Upon St. Gregory’s leaving Constantinople in 382, St. Jerome went to Rome with Paulinus of Antioch and St. Epiphanius to attend a council which St. Damasus held about the schism at Antioch. When the council was over, Pope Damasus detained him and employed him as his secretary; Jerome, indeed, claimed that he spoke through the mouth of Damasus. At the pope’s request he made a revision, in accordance with the Greek text, of the Latin version of the gospels, which had been disfigured by “false transcription, by clumsy correction, and by careless interpolations,” and a first revision of the Latin psalter. Side by side with this official activity he was engaged in fostering and directing the marvellous flowering of asceticism which was taking place among some of the noble ladies of Rome. Among them are several of the most famous names of Christian antiquity; such were St. Marcella, who is referred to herein under January 31, with her sister St. Asella and their mother, St. Albiaa; St. Lea; St. Melania the Rival claimants to the see of Antioch Elder, the first one of them to go to the Holy Land; St. Fabiola (December 27); and St. Paula (January 26) with her daughters St. Blesilhi and St. Eustochium (September 28). But when St. Damasus died in 384, and his protection was consequently withdrawn from his secretary, St. Jerome found himself in a very difficult position. In the preceding two years, while impressing all Rome by his personal holiness,learning and honesty, he had also contrived to get himself widely disliked; on the one hand by pagans and men of evil life whom he had fiercely condemned and on the other by people of good will who were offended by the saint’s harsh outspokenness and sarcastic wit. When he wrote in defense of the fashionable young widow, Blesilla, who had suddenly renounced the world, he was witheringly satirical of pagan society and worldly life, and opposed to her lowliness the conduct of those who “...paint their cheeks with rouge and their eyelids with antimony; whose plastered faces, too white for those of human beings, look like idols, and if in a moment of forgetfulness they shed a tear it makes a furrow where it rolls down the painted cheek; they to whom years do not bring the gravity of age, who load their heads with other people’s hair, enamel a lost youth upon the wrinkles of age, and affect a maidenly timidity in the midst of i troop of grandchildren.” In the letter on virginity which he wrote to St. Kuatochium he was no less scathing at the expense of Christian society, and made a particular attack on certain of the clergy. “All their anxiety is about their clothes... You would take them for bridegrooms rather than for clerics; all they think about is to know the names and houses and doings of rich ladies;” and he proceeds to describe a particular individual, who hates fasting, looks forward to the smell of his meals, and has a barbarous and froward tongue. Jerome wrote to St. Marcella of a certain man who wrongly supposed that he was an object of attack: “I amuse myself by laughing at the grubs, the owls and the crocodiles, and he takes all that I say to himself... Let me give him some advice. If he will only conceal his nose and keep his tongue still he may be taken to be both handsome and learned.” It cannot be matter of surprise that, however justified his indignation was, his manner of expressing it aroused resentment. His own reputation was attacked with similar vigor; even his simplicity, his walk and smile, the expression of his countenance were found fault with. Neither did the severe virtue of the ladies that were under his direction nor the reservedness of his own behavior protect him from calumny: scandalous gossip was circulated about his relations with St. Paula. He was properly indignant and decided to return to the East, there to seek a quiet retreat. He embarked at Porto in August 385. Before he left he wrote a fine apologia, in the form of a letter to St. Asella. “Salute Paula and Eustochium,” it concluded, “mine in Christ whether the world wills it or no... say to them, we shall all stand before the judgement seat of Christ, and there it shall be seen in what spirit each has lived.” At Antioch nine months later he was joined by Paula, Eustochium and the other Roman religious women who had resolved to exile themselves with him in the Holy Land. Soon after arriving at Jerusalem they went to Egypt, to consult with the monks of Nitria, as well as with Didymus, a famous blind teacher in the school of Alexandria. With the help of Paula’s generosity a monastery for men was built pear the basilica of the Nativity at Bethlehem, together with buildings for three communities of women. St. Jerome himself lived and worked in a large rock-hewn cell near to our Saviour’s birthplace, and opened a free school, as well as a hospice, “so that,” as St. Paula said, “should Mary and Joseph again visit Bethlehem there would be a place for them to lodge in,” Here at last were some years of peace. “The illustrious Gauls congregate here, and no sooner has the Briton, so remote from our world, made some progress in religion than he leaves his early-setting sun to seek a land which he knows only by reputation and from the Scriptures. And what of the Armenians, the Persians, the peoples of India and Ethiopia, of Egypt, of Pontus, Cappadocia, Syria and Mesopotamia? ... They throng here and set us the example of every virtue. The languages differ but the religion is the same; there are as many different choirs singing the psalms as there are nations... Here bread, and vegetables grown with our own hands, and milk, country fare, afford us plain and healthy food. In summer the trees give us shade. In autumn the air is cool and the fallen leaves restful. In spring our psalmody is sweeter for the singing of the birds. We do not lack wood when winter snow and cold are upon us. Let Rome keep its crowds, let its arenas run with blood, its circuses go mad, its theatres wallow in sensuality and, not to forget our friends, let the senate of ladies receive their daily visits.

But Jerome could not stand aside and be mute when Christian truth was threatened. He had at Rome composed his book against Helvidius on the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Helvidius having maintained that Mary had other children, by St. Joseph, after the birth of Christ. This and certain associated errors were again put forward by one Jovinian. St. Paula’s son-in-law, St. Pammachius, and other laymen were scandalised at his new doctrines, and sent his writings to St. Jerome who in 393 wrote two books against Jovinian. In the first he shows the excellence of virginity embraced for the sake of virtue, which had been denied by Jovinian, and in the second confutes his other errors. This treatise was written in Jerome’s characteristically strong style and certain expressions in it seemed to some persons in Rome harsh and derogatory from the honour due to matrimony; St. Pammachius informed St. Jerome of the offence which he and many others took at them. Thereupon Jerome wrote his Apology ( which is an explanation, not asking forgiveness for anything) to Pammachius, sometimes called his third book against Jovinian, in a tone that can hardly have given his critics satisfaction. A few years later he had to turn his attention to Vigilantius Dormantius, sleepy, he calls him a Gallo-Roman priest who both decried celibacy and condemned the veneration of relics, calling those who paid it idolaters and worshippers of ashes. St. Jerome in his answer said: “We do not worship the relics of the martyrs; but we honour them that we may worship Him whose martyrs they are. We honour the servants that the respect which is paid to them may be reflected back on the Lord.” He vindicates the honour paid to martyrs from idolatry because no Christian ever worshipped them as gods, and in order to show that the saints pray for us he says: “If the apostles and martyrs while still living upon earth can pray for other men, how much more may they do it after their victories? Have they less power now they are with Jesus Christ?” He defends the monastic state, and says that a monk seeks security by flying occasions and dangers because he mistrusts his own weakness and knows that there is no safety if a man sleeps near a serpent. St. Jerome often speaks of the saints in Heaven praying for us. Thus he entreated Heliodorus to pray for him when he should be in glory, and told St. Paula, upon the death of her daughter Blesilla, “She now prays to the Lord for you, and obtains for me the pardon of my sins.” But the general tone of his reply to Vigilantius is even more vehement than that to Jovinian.

From 395 to 400 St. Jerome was engaged in a war against Origenism, which unhappily involved a breach of his twenty-five years friendship with Rufinus. Years before he had written to him the doubtful statement that “friendship which can perish has never been a true one,” as Shakespeare would write twelve hundred years later:

... Love is not love
Which alters when its alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove.



Now his affection for Rufinus was to succumb to his zeal for truth. Few writers made more use of Origen’s works and no one seemed a greater admirer of his erudition than St. Jerome; but finding in the East that some had been seduced into grievous errors by the authority of his name and some of his writings he joined St. Epiphanius in warmly opposing the spreading evil. Rufinus, who them lived in a monastery at Jerusalem, had translated many of Origen’s works into Latin and was an enthusiastic upholder of his authority; though it does not appear that he had any intention of upholding those heresies which are undoubtedly contained, at least materially, in Origen’s writings. St. Augustine was not the of the good men who were distressed by the resulting quarrel, which, however, he the more easily understood because he himself became involved in a long controversy with St. Jerome arising out of the exegesis of the second chapter of St. Paul’s epistle to the Galatians. By his first letters he had unintentionally provoked Jerome, and had to use considerable charitable tact to soothe his easily wounded susceptibilities. St. Jerome wrote in 416: “I never spared heretics and have always done my utmost that the enemies of the Church should be also my enemies;” but it seems that sometimes he unwarrantably assumed that those who differed from himself were necessarily the Church’s enemies. He was no admirer of moderation whether in virtue or against evil. He was swift to anger, but also swift to remorse, even more severe on his own shortcomings than on those of others. There is a story told that Pope Sixtus V, looking at a picture of the saint which represented him in the act of striking his breast with a stone, said: “You do well to carry that stone, for without it the Church would never have canonized you.”

But his denunciations and controversies, necessary as most of them were, are the less important part of his activities: nothing has rendered the name of St. Jerome so famous as his critical labours on the Holy Scriptures. For this the Church acknowledges him to have been raised by God through a special providence, and she styles him the greatest of all her doctors in expounding the divine word. Pope Clement VIII did not scruple to call him a man divinely assisted in translating the Bible. He was furnished with the greatest helps for such an undertaking, living many years upon the spot where the remains of ancient places, names, customs which were still recent, and other circumstances set before his eyes a clearer representation of many things recorded in holy writ than it is possible to have at a greater distance of place and time. Greek and Aramaic were then living languages, and Hebrew, though it had ceased to be such from the time of the captivity, was not less understood and spoken among the doctors of the law. It was thought that he could not be further instructed in the knowledge of Hebrew, but this was not his own judgment of the matter and he applied again to a famous Jewish master, called Bar Ananias, who came to teach him in the night-time, lest the Jews should know it. Above other conditions it is necessary that an interpreter of the Bible be a man of prayer and sincere piety. This alone can obtain light and help from Heaven, give to the mind a turn and temper which are necessary for being admitted into the sanctuary of the divine wisdom, and furnish the key. Jerome was prepared by a great purity of heart and a life spent in penance and contemplation before he was called by God to this undertaking. We have seen that while in Rome under Pope St. Damasus he had revised the gospels and the psalms in the Old Latin version, followed by the rest of the New Testament. His new translation from the Hebrew of most of the books of the Old Testament was the work of his years of retreat at Bethlehem, which he undertook at the earnest entreaties of many devout and illustrious friends, and in view of the preference of the original to any version however venerable. He did not translate the books in order, but began by the books of Kings, and took the rest in hand at different times. The only parts of the Latin Bible called the Vulgate which were not either translated or worked over by St. Jerome are the books of Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Baruch and the two books of Machabees. The psalms he revised again, with the aid of Origen’s Hexapla and the Hebrew text, and this is the version included in the Vulgate and used in the Divine Office.


The first revision, called the Roman Psalter, is still used for the invitatory psalm at Matins and throughout the Missal, and for the Divine Office in St. Peter’s at Rome, St. Mark’s at Venice, and in the Milanese rite. St. Jerome’s Vulgate was declared by the Council of Trent to be the authentic or authoritative Latin biblical text of the Catholic Church, without thereby implying any preference of this version above the original text or above versions in other languages. In 1907 Pope Pius X entrusted to the monks of St. Benedict the duty of restoring so far as possible St. Jerome’s text of the Vulgate, which during fifteen centuries of use has become considerably modified and corrupted. The version of the Bible ordinarily used by English-speaking Catholics is the translation of the Vulgate made at Rheims and Douay towards the end of the sixteenth century, as revised by Bishop Challoner in the eighteenth; and the English version officially made by Monsignor Ronald Knox was also from the Vulgate. (NOTE: I hi-lited these names in case you look for a Bible which will be truer to the original) In the year 404 a great blow fell on St. Jerome in the death of St. Paula and a few years later in the sacking of Rome by Alaric; many refugees fled into the East, and he wrote of them: “Who would have believed that the daughters of that mighty city would one day be wandering as servants and slaves on the shores of Egypt and Africa? That Bethlehem would daily receive noble Romans, distinguished ladies brought up in wealth and now reduced to beggary? I cannot help them all, but I grieve and weep with them, and, completely given up to the duties which charity imposes on me, I have put aside my commentary on Ezekiel and almost all study. For today we must translate the words of the Scriptures into deeds, and instead of speaking saintly words we must act them.” Again towards the end of his life he was obliged to interrupt his studies by an incursion of barbarians, and some time after by the violence and persecution of the Pelagians who sent a troop of ruffians to Bethlehem to assault the monks and nuns who lived there under the direction of St. Jerome, who had opposed them. Some were beaten, and a deacon was killed, and they set fire to the monasteries. In the following year St. Eustochium died and Jerome himself soon followed her; worn out with penance and work, his sight and voice failing, his body like a shadow, he died peacefully on September 30, 420. He was buried under the church of the Nativity close to Paula and Eustochium, but his body was removed long after and now lies somewhere in St. Mary Major’s at Rome. He is often represented in art in the habit of a cardinal, because of the services he discharged for Pope St. Damasus, and also with a lion from whose paw he was said to have drawn a thorn. This story has been transferred to him from the legend of St. Gemsimus, but a lion is a far from inapt emblem of this fearless and fierce defender of the faith.

He was one of the greatest saints of the Church. He translated the Holy Scripture into one language, Latin. Protestants don't know this, or at least act like they don't. They couldn't possibly believe that a Catholic could actually do something good. They are not sincere in their search. Losers! They don't know any history before the Protestant 'reformation'. It was more like a deformation, if you ask me. What ever happened to the 'one Lord, one Faith, and one baptism'? And how about the fact that Jesus said it, and that should settle it?!

ST. MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL

Today is the feast of St. Michael, the Archangel, the Guardian Angel of the Blessed Sacrament. Saints Gabriel and Raphael, also Archangels, are also to be honored this day. These are among those spirits who stand before the throne of God Himself. I know there are seven of them, but don't know the names of the others. These faithful spirits protect us from the dangers of the 'arch' enemy and his minions, who attack us every moment we let our guard down. These are the spirits who instantaneously apprehend the whole compass of primary truths, therefore, it is impossible for them to be surprised, as we are, into error. These faithful angels prostrate themselves in joyous adoration at the feet of the Infant-God foreshown to them enthroned on Mary's knee, and then rose up to sing: 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.' (Notice that they DID NOT say 'peace on earth to all men', but only to those of good will.)

According to our beloved Abbot Gueranger: 'Angels, Archangels, and Principalities; heaven's messengers, ambassadors, and overseers here below: are ye not also, as the apostle says, ministers of the salvation wrought on earth by Jesus, the heavenly High Priest?

We also, through this same Jesus, O most holy Trinity, glorify Thee, together with the three princely hierachies, which surround Thy Majesty with their nine immaterial rings as with a many-circled rampart. To tend to Thee, and to draw all things to Thee, is their common law. Purification, illumination, union: by these three ways in succession, or simultaneously, are these noble beings attracted to God, and by the same they attract those who strive to emulate them. Sublime spirits, it is with your gaze ever fixed on high that you influence those below and around you. Draw plentifully, both for yourselves and for us, from the central fires of the Divinity; purify us from more than the involuntary infirmities of nature; enlighten us; kindle us with your heavenly flames. For the same reason that satan hates us, you love us: protect the race of the Word made Flesh against the common enemy. So guard us, that we may hereafter be worthy to occupy among you the places left vacant by the victims of pride.'


SAINT MICHAEL THE ARCHANGEL
Protector of the People of God

"MI-CA-EL," or "Who is like unto God?" was the cry of the great Archangel when he smote the rebel Lucifer in the conflict of the heavenly hosts. From that hour he has been known as Michael, Captain of the armies of God, the archetype of divine fortitude, the champion of every faithful soul in strife with the powers of evil. What is more, we see him in Holy Scripture as the special guardian of the children of Israel, their comfort and protector in times of sorrow or conflict. It is he who prepares their return from the Persian captivity, when the prophet Daniel prays for that favor (Daniel 10:12-13); who leads the valiant Maccabees to victory in battle, after the prayer of Judas Maccabeus (I Mac. 7:41-44).

Ever since its foundation by Jesus Christ, the Church has venerated Saint Michael as her special patron and protector. She (the Church), invokes him by name in her Confiteor, when accusing her faults; she summons him to the side of her children in the agony of death, and chooses him as their escort from the chastening flames of purgatory to the realms of holy light. Lastly, when Antichrist shall have set up his kingdom on earth, it is Michael who will unfurl once more the standard of the Cross. This we know from a prophecy of Scripture which states clearly that in those days the great prince Michael will rise up to protect the children of God. (Daniel 12:1-4)

During the plague in Rome in the 6th century, Pope Gregory the Great saw Saint Michael in a vision sheathing his flaming sword to show that he would put an end to the scourge which was ravaging the city. In 608 a church was erected in thanksgiving to Saint Michael for the help he gave.

St. Bernard wrote: "Whenever any grievous temptation or vehement sorrow oppresses you, invoke your Guardian, your Leader. Cry out to him and say, Lord, save us, lest we perish!"

THE VISION OF POPE LEO XIII

Exactly 33 years to the day prior to the miracle of the sun at Fatima, on October 13, 1884, Pope Leo XIII had a vision. Here follows an account of that vision:

According to the most widely accepted version of what happened, On October 13, 1884, after Pope Leo XIII had finished celebrating Mass in the Vatican Chapel, attended by a few Cardinals and members of the Vatican staff, he suddenly stopped at the foot of the altar. He turned to step down the stairs and collapsed, falling into what was thought to be a coma or even death.

The priests and even cardinals rushed to his side, fearing the worst. The Pope rose, and was visibly shaken. He stood there for about 10 minutes, as if in a trance, his face ashen white. When asked what had happened, he explained that, as he was about to leave the foot of the altar, he suddenly heard voices - two voices, one kind and gentle, the other guttural and harsh. They seemed to come from near the tabernacle. As he listened, he heard the following conversation:

The guttural voice, the voice of satan in his pride, boasting to Our Lord: "I can destroy your Church"

The gentle voice of Our Lord: "You can? Then go ahead and do so."

Satan: "To do so, I need more time and more power."

Our Lord: "How much time? How much power?

Satan: "75 to 100 years, and a greater power over those who will give themselves over to my service."

Our Lord: "You have the time, you will have the power. Do with them what you will."


He had looked traumatized after this incident, and rushed back to his apartment where he immediately wrote a 'Prayer of Leonine Exorcism', the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel to "protect us in battle." He then mandated this prayer to be said after every Mass from that point forth.

Interesting enough, Pope John XXIII summoned Vatican II exactly 75 years after this vision. AND, one of the first things that had to go was, you guessed it, these Leonine prayers after Mass to St. Michael. Coincidence? I think NOT! Also, the 100th anniversary of our Lady's visit to Fatima, Portugal, will be next year. Will something happen? ?


The following is the entire prayer to St. Michael by Pope Leo XIII:
(We do the shortened version after Low Masses)

O Glorious Archangel St Michael, Prince of the heavenly host, be our defense in the terrible warfare which we carry on against principalities and Powers, against the rulers of this world of darkness, spirits of evil. Come to the aid of man, whom God created immortal, made in his own image and likeness, and redeemed at a great price from the tyranny of the devil. Fight this day the battle of the LORD, together with the holy angels, as already thou hast fought the leader of the proud angels, Lucifer, and his apostate host, who were powerless to resist thee, nor was there place for them any longer in Heaven. That cruel, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil or Satan, who seduces the whole world, was cast into the abyss with his angels. Behold, this primeval enemy and slayer of men has taken courage. Transformed into an angel of light, he wanders about with all the multitude of wicked spirits, invading the earth in order to blot out the name of God and of his Christ, to seize upon, slay and cast into eternal perdition souls destined for the crown of eternal glory.

This wicked dragon pours out, as a most impure flood, the venom of his malice on men of depraved mind and corrupt heart, the spirit of lying, of impiety, of blasphemy, and the pestilent breath of impurity, and of every vice and iniquity. These most crafty enemies have filled and inebriated with gall and bitterness the Church, the spouse of the immaculate Lamb, and have laid impious hands on her most sacred possessions. In the Holy Place itself, where has been set up the See of the most holy Peter and the Chair of Truth for the light of the world, they have raised the throne of their abominable impiety, with the iniquitous design that when the Pastor has been struck, the sheep may be scattered. Arise then, O invincible Prince, bring- help against the attacks of the lost spirits to the people of God, and give them the victory. They venerate thee as their protector and patron; in thee holy Church glories as her defense against the malicious power of hell; to thee has God entrusted the souls of men to be established in heavenly beatitude. Oh, pray to the God of peace that He may put Satan under our feet, so far conquered that he may no longer be able to hold men in captivity and harm the Church. Offer our prayers in the sight of the Most High, so that they may quickly conciliate the mercies of the LORD; and beating down the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, do thou again make him captive in the abyss, that he may no longer seduce the nations. Amen.


V. Behold the Cross of the LORD; be scattered ye hostile powers.
R. The Lion of the tribe of Judah has conquered, the root of David.
V. Let thy mercies be upon us, O LORD.
R. As we have hoped in thee.
V. O LORD, hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come unto thee.


Let us pray:

O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, we call upon thy holy name, and as suppliants we implore thy clemency, that by the intercession of Mary, ever Virgin immaculate and our Mother, and of the glorious Archangel St Michael, thou wouldst deign to help us against Satan and all other unclean spirits, who wander about the world for the injury of the human race and the ruin of souls. Amen.

(An Indulgence of 300 days)



Saint Michael, first Champion of the Kingship of Christ, pray for us.
(An Indulgence of 300 days)


Holy archangel Michael, defend us in battle, that we may not perish in the tremendous judgment.
(An Indulgence of 100 days)

This is also the birthday of my sweetie. She was one of many to help me in when I joined the REAL Church. And this happened when the program 'RENEW' was the rage. Go figure! Anyway, join me in wishing her the best in the years to come.

St. Isaac Joques/North American Martyrs

Isaac Jogues and his companions were the first martyrs of the North American continent officially recognized by the Church. As a young Jesuit, Isaac Jogues, a man of learning and culture, taught literature in France. He gave up that career to work among the Huron Indians in the New World, and in 1636 he and his companions, under the leadership of Jean de Brébeuf, arrived in Quebec. The Hurons were constantly warred upon by the Iroquois, and in a few years Father Jogues was captured by the Iroquois and imprisoned for 13 months. His letters and journals tell how he and his companions were led from village to village, how they were beaten, tortured, and forced to watch as their Huron converts were mangled and killed.

An unexpected chance for escape came to Isaac Jogues through the Dutch, and he returned to France, bearing the marks of his sufferings. Several fingers had been cut, chewed, or burnt off. Pope Urban VIII gave him permission to offer Mass with his mutilated hands: “It would be shameful that a martyr of Christ not be allowed to drink the Blood of Christ.”

Welcomed home as a hero, Father Jogues might have sat back, thanked God for his safe return, and died peacefully in his homeland. But his zeal led him back once more to the fulfillment of his dreams. In a few months he sailed for his missions among the Hurons.

In 1646, he and Jean de Lalande, who had offered his services to the missioners, set out for Iroquois country in the belief that a recently signed peace treaty would be observed. They were captured by a Mohawk war party, and on October 18 Father Jogues was tomahawked and beheaded. Jean de Lalande was killed the next day at Ossernenon, a village near Albany, New York.

The first of the Jesuit missionaries to be martyred was René Goupil who, with Lalande, had offered his services as an oblate. He was tortured along with Isaac Jogues in 1642, and was tomahawked for having made the sign of the cross on the brow of some children.

The first of the Jesuit missionaries to be martyred was René Goupil who, with Lalande, had offered his services as an oblate. He was tortured along with Isaac Jogues in 1642, and was tomahawked for having made the sign of the cross on the brow of some children.

Jean de Brébeuf was a French Jesuit who came to Canada at the age of 32 and labored there for 24 years. He went back to France when the English captured Quebec in 1629 and expelled the Jesuits, but returned to his missions four years later. Although medicine men blamed the Jesuits for a smallpox epidemic among the Hurons, Jean remained with them.

He composed catechisms and a dictionary in Huron, and saw 7,000 converted before his death. He was captured by the Iroquois and died after four hours of extreme torture at Sainte Marie, near Georgian Bay, Canada.

Father Anthony Daniel, working among Hurons who were gradually becoming Christian, was killed by Iroquois on July 4, 1648. His body was thrown into his chapel, which was set on fire.

Gabriel Lalemant had taken a fourth vow—to sacrifice his life for the Native Americans. He was horribly tortured to death along with Father Brébeuf.

Father Charles Garnier was shot to death as he baptized children and catechumens during an Iroquois attack.

Father Noel Chabanel was killed before he could answer his recall to France. He had found it exceedingly hard to adapt to mission life. He could not learn the language, and the food and life of the Indians revolted him, plus he suffered spiritual dryness during his whole stay in Canada. Yet he made a vow to remain until death in his mission.

These eight Jesuit martyrs of North America were canonized in 1930.



St. Isaac Jogues and Companions
from the Roman Breviary



Among the members of the Society of Jesus who brought most renown to the infant church in North America in the middle of the seventeenth century. God chose as victims eight men of outstanding integrity, that from the seeds of faith watered with their blood there might spring up a more abundant harvest.

All these Martyrs--six priests and two laymen--natives of France, were sent by their Superiors to the Missions in Canada, at that time known as New France. With Quebec as a center they made numberless missionary journeys to the various sectors of this vast territory, laboring there amidst the greatest hardships. In the end all were most cruelly put to death and for the same reason, their faith, although not at the same time and place. John de Brebeuf, born at Conde-sur-Vire, in the diocese of Bajon (now Constance), of an illustrious family, and Isaac Jogues, born in Orleans, are regarded as their leaders and masters and rightly so. For they were valiant men, fired with apostolic zeal, living most mortified lives, in intimate prayerful union with God, and at times were honored with heavenly visions.

Not unlike them were their four companion priests: Anthony Daniel, born at Dieppe, Gabriel Lalemant and Charles Gamier, both Parisian born, and Noel Chabanel, a native of Mende; all of these faithfully fulfilled their priestly functions, laboring principally in various villages of the Huron country.

Frequent raids by the Iroquois, a hostile neighboring tribe, often wrought havoc in the Huron missions and seriously endangered the lives of the Fathers in charge of them. In 1642, on a journey from Quebec to the Huron country, Isaac Jogues together with Rene Goupil, a lay coadjutor of the Society of Jesus, fell in with the Iroquois who held him and his companion as slaves, and subjected them to most horrible torments. In the same year on the 29th of September, Rene was killed by order of an old savage, out of hatred for the cross of salvation. It was near Auriesville in the present State of New York where this most sincere man breathed forth his soul to God. In the following year Isaac managed to escape and made his way back to France. He returned to America after another year and along with John Lalande who was also a coadjutor of the Society of Jesus, made a second and third journey to the savages, his erstwhile tormentors.

On October 18, 1646, in the present diocese of Albany, Isaac was struck with a tomahawk and thus obtained the palm of martyrdom. The following day his companion, John, meeting with a like fate, took his flight to heaven, to be rewarded with the same crown of martyrdom.

On July 4, 1648, in an attack upon the village of St. Joseph by the Iroquois, Anthony Daniel, in charge of the Huron mission there, was slain while fearlessly defending his flock. Overwhelmed by a shower of arrows and bullets at the entrance of the church, like a good shepherd he laid down his life for his sheep. Within a year, on March 16, 1649, at St. Ignace, a village situated in what is now the province of Ontario, Canada, John de Brebeuf and Gabriel Lalemant were captured by the Iroquois. That same day, Brebeuf, rightly called the Apostle of the Hurons, died a glorious death, after undergoing long drawn-out tortures of the most atrocious description during which this gallant soldier of Christ manifested such fortitude as to excite even the admiration of the savages themselves. On the following day Gabriel Lalemant suffered the same cruel martyrdom, during which he showed the same heroic virtue.

In December of the same year, 1649, on the eve of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Charles Garnier, after several bullet Wounds was killed by a blow from a hatchet, thereby adding a glorious crown to a life of exceptional innocence. On the following day Noel Chabanel became the victim of the treachery of a Huron apostate who killed him and threw his body into a river. His longing for the palm of martyrdom was thus realized in his own beloved mission. Although he felt a natural repugnance for this work among the savages, hero that he was, he bound himself by a vow to remain in this mission until death. These eight martyrs, the first in North America, were beatified by Pope Pius XI in 1925 and were canonized by the same Pontiff five years later.


Prayer for the intercession of the Jesuit Martyrs

O God, Who by the preaching and blood of Thy sainted martyrs, Isaac and John and their companions, didst consecrate the first fruits of the faith in the vast regions of North America, graciously grant that, by their intercession, the flourishing harvest of the Christians may everywhere and always be increased. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.





Prayer to St. Isaac Jogues

Saint Isaac Jogues! By thy preaching and by thy blood, the eternal Word did consecrate the first-fruits of the faith in the vast regions of North America. Pray for us, O martyr of Christ, that by the example of our lives, we may bring others to follow Christ and so assist in increasing the harvest of souls, sown by thee in America. Amen.

R.I.P. ARNOLD PALMER

Good-bye to one of the best ambassadors of the game of golf to ever live, Arnold Palmer.

A couple of quotes:

May his soul rest in peace.

19th Sunday after Pentecost

We hear, once again, from the Gospel of St. Matthew about the wedding feast, in which many were called to join in, but they did not. This represents the Church calling all to come in. Those who refuse will be burned. Man, why do people have to be so obtuse? St. Gregory, a holy Pope, explains these passages:

'The kingdom of heaven is the assembly of the just; for, the Lord says by Isaiah: "Heaven is My throne." Solomon says: "The soul of the just man is the throne of wisdom"; and St. Paul calls Christ the Wisdom of God. If therefore, heaven be the throne of God, and the soul of the just man is the throne of Wisdom, this soul is a heaven...The kingdom of heaven, then, is the assembly of the just...If this kingdom is said to be like to a King, Who made a marriage for His Son, your charity at once understands who is this King, who is the Father of a Son, King like Himself. It is He, of whom the psalmist says: "Give to the King Thy judgment, O God, and to the King's Son Thy justice!" God the Father made the marriage of God His Son, when He wished that He, who had been God before all ages, should become Man towards the end of ages. But we must not, on that account, suppose that there are two persons in Jesus Christ, our God and our Saviour...It is, perhaps, clearer and safer to say, that the King made a marriage for His Son, in that, by the mystery of the Incarnation, He united the Church to Him. The womb of the Virgin-Mother was the nuptial chamber of that Bridegroom, of whom the psalmist says: "He hath set His tabernacle in the sun; and He, as a Bridegroom, cometh out of His bride chamber!"'


In this parable the king is our Heavenly Father who has espoused His only-begotten Son to the Church, and on this occasion prepares the most sumptuous marriage-feast by giving the evangelical doctrine, the holy Sacraments, and the heavenly joys. The servants sent to invite the guests are the prophets, apostles and disciples of Christ. Those invited are the Jews who despised the honor and grace of the divine King, destined for them, abused and killed His servants, and were, therefore, cast aside and with their city Jerusalem, destroyed by the armies of their enemies, as a just punishment; in their stead the heathens and all those nations were called, who were on the broad road to destruction, and who now occupy the places of the unfortunate Jews at the marriage feast of the Church, and shall also occupy them in heaven. In the Jews to whom Christ addressed this parable, is verified that many of them, nay, all are called, but few chosen, because they would not heed the invitation.

When Divine Providence calls, RESPOND! (And, hopefully in the correct way)

Let us end this part with the prayer after the Antiphon of the Magnificat:

'O almighty and merciful God, graciously keep away from us all things that are adverse: that being free in mind and body, we may, with unimpeded minds, attend to the things that are thine.'






Nineteenth Sunday After Pentecost
by Fr. Francis Xavier Weninger, 1877

"The kingdom of heaven is likened to a king, who made a marriage for his son."--Matt. 22.


In the Gospel of today we are told of a marriage feast prepared by the royal father for his son. This parable manifestly has reference to heaven, for St. John in his Apocalypse expressly mentions the nuptials of the Lamb, Who is the Son of God made man, whose union with the Church triumphant is symbolically expressed in this parable of the marriage-feast. This triumphant Church in heaven is verily, and indeed the one same Church which Christ established here upon earth; in which we, if we live as her true children, have a foretaste of those pleasures and delights which we shall one day enjoy in their plenitude, forever, when invited to the marriage-feast of the Lamb in heaven. The certainty which we feel of this truth, and the sweet hope arising therefrom, may well dispose our hearts to follow the admonition of the Apostle: "If ye have arisen with Christ, seek ye the things which are above."

Thrice happy are those children of the Church who properly appreciate the privilege they enjoy in belonging to her fold, who live so that they will one day enjoy in perfection the bliss they now participate in but partially. The subject of my sermon, then, today will be the marriage-feast in heaven which has already begun on earth in the kingdom of the one true Church.

Mary, queen of heaven, pray that the fruit of this meditation may be a clearer knowledge of how to be come true children of thy divine Son! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, for the greater honor and glory of God!

To realize that we, as St. Paul asserts, behold in part the joys of heaven as if "through a glass," and have already a foretaste of them, we need only consider what causes heaven to be heaven, and inspires the saints to sing forever the praises of the Lamb. To this our attention is directed by the different names by which heaven is designated.

Holy Scripture calls heaven paradise, that wonder of creation which God called into existence for His faithful creatures.

Of the beauty of this celestial paradise we can form no idea; but if we view even the charms of this fair earth in the light of faith, and behold in them so many marks of the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, do we not feel disposed with holy David to cry out: "The heavens declare the glory of God?" We learn from the life of St. Ignatius how powerfully his heart was moved by the sight of the firmament, brilliant with stars to do all for the greater honor and glory of God. So, too, upon beholding lovely and fragrant flowers the heart of this great servant of God was elevated to his Creator. But what words can I find to portray the spiritual beauty of the holy Catholic Church,--rather, should say, to convey some faint idea of it? How infinitely more lovely does she appear in the eyes of the children of God, in the grandeur and magnificence of her heavenly attributes, than that terrestrial paradise which our first parents found so fair. By those ever-flowing streams of grace the Holy Sacraments by the good works perpetually budding and ripening in her garden, she is indeed rendered "all fair," and in her "there is no spot!"

According to the expression of Holy Scripture, heaven is the promised land, our true country, that home where loved ones meet to part no more. Oh, what happiness in the very thought!

Already we have a foretaste of this sweetness if we are so fortunate as to live near some holy souls, or if, after a long separation, we meet again some of God's faithful servants.

The Church, like heaven, is also our true country, and her children feel at home in her, be it in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or Oceanica, every-where the priest's "Dominus vobiscum" falls as sweetly upon the ear as when heard from the altar in the home of our youth.

According to Holy Writ heaven is a kingdom of delight, where naught but joy can enter; so also is the Church a kingdom of delight to those who keep her commandments. Hear the call of the Apostle: "Rejoice, I say, in the Lord; and again I say, rejoice!" To those who love God everything works unto good, and is therefore a source of joy. The heart of the true Catholic has every reason to rejoice and be glad. How could he be otherwise, remembering the infinitely great grace bestowed upon him? What constant opportunities he has of acquiring merits and treasures for heaven, and multiplying them a thousand-fold! In this vale of tears, where all is transitory and fleeting, we often have troubles which almost crush the heart. Then think, O friends! of that weary road to Calvary which your suffering Saviour trod for you, and mark it well that sorrows, patiently borne, will one day change to celestial joys. Every Christian, in the state of grace, and living in union with God, can enjoy that sweetness and delight of which our Saviour speaks when He says: "My peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you!" a peace, my brethren, which the world knoweth not, and which hath not entered into the heart of its votaries to conceive. We know that eye hath not beheld the joys of heaven, nor ear listened to its ravishing strains of music, neither can the heart of man imagine the delights which God hath prepared for those who love Him.

These words apply also to the spiritual joy which is the portion of the faithful, devoted child of the Holy Church, and to the utter ignorance of the worldling in regard to those joys. Yes, the Church is a kingdom of delight, to which can truly be applied the words of St. John: "And I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride for her husband." "And I heard a voice, saying, Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and He will dwell with them. And they shall be His people, and God himself with them shall be their God. And God will wipe away all tears from their eyes."

Whether it be sickness, or the loss of temporal goods, or some bitter humiliation, or the death of a beloved child, the true Christian accepts all as coming from the divine hand, uniting his will with the most holy will of God, ready to sacrifice, if necessary, even life itself, and yet to say, with St. Paul, "we suffer tribulation, but are not distressed."

Heaven is the reward offered for a holy life, and even here the zealous Catholic experiences the joy of this reward in proportion as his merits increase, and he advances in piety and fervor, walking in the way of the saints. New graces are bestowed upon him as his union with God becomes more intimate, and Christian hope sweetly whispers to his heart that heaven is near.

And God will be our portion forever in that happy home! Heaven itself would not be heaven were it not that there we will enjoy forever the presence of God. There, too, we will be with the immaculate mother of God, and the angels and saints to share forever in their joys. Those same bright spirits surround us here, and we live in the midst of many holy souls who are doing the will of God upon earth, while the saints in heaven will one day welcome the deserving ones to their blissful home.

On earth we are especially near to the sweet mother of God in this kingdom of His Church, and how often do we not experience her maternal protection! But, more than all, the saints in heaven are not nearer to the king of heaven than we, and they can hardly possess Him more fully than we do by union with Him in the Blessed Sacrament. Oh, if we fully appreciated the happiness of this union with Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament, we would comprehend why the Scripture speaks of heaven as a banquet, for which the table is already prepared on earth! God is God every-where; He is present on our altars on earth as truly as in the grandeur and magnificence of his celestial throne.

To all, then, who truly live according to the spirit of the Holy Catholic Church, Christ fulfills His promise that He, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, will take up His abode in their souls.

Surely, most Holy Church, thou art heaven upon earth; and if we truly apply the graces we receive through Thee, then will we, as the Apostle assures us, live, while yet on earth, as if we shared the joys of heaven! Amen!


"But He was silent."--Matt. 22, 12.


God would not judge the world were He not just, on account of the angels. So St. Paul assures us. A remarkable expression! The sense of these words of the Apostle is that, were not all God's ways the ways of truth, and emanations from His infinite perfection, the angels--those beings of the highest intelligence and holiness--would discover the defect.

In this world the ways of divine Providence often appear dark and mysterious; but a day will come when that which is dark will be made light, and men will perceive that God condemns no one who, by his own fault and free will, has not deserved that fearful fate. On that day Lucifer, with all the infernal host, will be forced to confess and cry out that the Lord is just, and that just are all His decrees.

His justice will fall with terrible and crushing weight upon those sinners who, although members of the true Church, have abused the grace of God, and for that reason are condemned to eternal misery. Nothing is of more frequent occurrence on this earth than for those who have transgressed to find or invent some plausible excuse; but on that dreadful day, when Christ shall come to judge the world by fire, oh, then the sinner can find no plea or excuse, but will rather cry out to the mountains to fall on him and hide him from the wrath of an angry Judge!

Let the subject of this day's meditation, then, be, how we can escape the terrible fate of the reprobate!

Mary, whose sweet office of mediatrix will on that fearful day be ended, obtain for us the grace so to live that on the day of judgment we may turn to you with love and gratitude for having secured our salvation! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, for the greater honor and glory to God!

It is natural for man to excuse himself. We, the fallen children of Eve, have learned the lesson well from our first parents, who not only sought to palliate their offense, but would fain have cast the blame upon their Lord and Maker. As it was with the world in its earliest ages, so it is today. Seldom do we find delinquents ready to acknowledge their faults, at least not in their entire magnitude; for if they do not exactly justify their evil doings, they palliate them as much as possible, and too often try to cast the blame upon others. But when Christ shall come to judge all men, that His justice may be vindicated before the whole world, there will be no room for excuses. Then he who has been an unfaithful child of the Church will not dare to break the awful silence which will reign while his evil life is being judged. When Christ shall have pronounced the awful sentence of condemnation, the wretched being will vainly call upon the mountains to fall upon him and hide his shame.

On considering the excuses most generally made for transgressions, we can readily see how there can be only silence before the Judge.

Listen to the first, it is a plea of ignorance: "I did not know." Sinner, Christian, would that excuse avail you on the last day? Christ would say to you: "What, sinner! you say you did not know? Did I not, from no merit of your own, create you, and make you a child of the true Church? Did not your parents, your teachers and confessors continually admonish you? Have you not listened to sermons which instructed you how to avoid sin? Yet you committed it over and over again! And what of the accusations of your conscience? did not they whisper that you were doing wrong that you were outraging My adorable majesty? Did you not know that for the relapsing sinner there is no excuse? and yet how often and often you willfully fell back into sin! You advanced in age, and grew better able to discern the greatness of your offenses against Me, yet you would not give up those mortal sins! Can you deny it?" The sinner is silent!

The second excuse is: "I could not help it. I was tempted too strongly." Sinner, child of the Catholic Church! will this plea avail you at the judgment-seat of Christ? Far from it, for there you will be reminded of the numberless graces by which you could have resisted temptation, and fulfilled the most holy will of God! You will be forced to recall the many inspirations of the Holy Ghost by which a loving Redeemer sought to touch your heart and strengthen your will!

How, then, can you excuse yourself? Then will be placed before you the constant admonitions given you by your teachers, parents and confessor. You will be reminded of the power of prayer, which was within your reach, even as a child to ask and obtain grace to resist temptations. You will be reminded that, when you fell, there was the Sacrament of Penance, wherein you could obtain forgiveness and grace to amend!

If you consider that Lucifer and his rebellious angels committed but one sin, and received no grace to confess or repent, and then reflect on the numberless sins you have committed in the course of your life, in thought, word and deed, for which God has vouchsafed you both time and means of repentance, what excuse can you put forward? Cast but one glance at all the heathens, who for centuries have lived without the pale of the Church, not having had even for one single time the privilege of going to confession--a grace which you have despised and trampled upon, keeping away from the Sacraments perhaps for years, or approaching them in such dispositions as to bring additional guilt upon your soul! What plea can you find, O sinner, when the terrible voice of the Judge addresses you thus? "Was I not ever present in your Churches, where you, as a child of My Church, might have sought Me, to beg for the grace which it would have been My joy to enrich you with?" O sinner, you will not dare to utter a word!

Another favorite excuse is: "No one helped me." Do you think that will avail you with Christ? He will remind you of the guides in the way of virtue with whom you were blessed--your parents, teachers and the priests of His Church, who warned you and were ever ready to help you. He will remind you that He was always ready to enter your heart, and strengthen you with His sacred body and blood. He will tell you that you might have visited Him in His tabernacles, and drawn spiritual strength from the sweetness of His presence; but that you passed His abode unheeded, allowing months and even years to pass without receiving Him in Holy Communion, or approaching the holy table, merely through habit! O sinner, how terrible will be that silence in which you will stand before the Judge!

It is frequently urged: "I was forced to do so." What will such an excuse avail you then? You are free, and neither man nor devil has power to make you commit sin, if you call upon God and firmly resist.

"No one advised me, and I saw others commit the same sin, while I was too young to know its evil." That excuse may pass in this life, but not in the next. Christ would say: "Had you not the warnings and threats of divine faith? They were often repeated to you, and you knew that a judgment awaited you after death, and that, if death surprised you while in a state of mortal sin, you would be lost forever!

If it had been a question of earthly danger, what care you would have taken! Had you been walking along a precipice, how cautiously you would have proceeded! If a dangerous illness had overtaken you, what efforts you would have made for the restoration of your health! If your temporal possessions were lost or injured, how solicitous you would have been for their recovery!

And what of the excuse of youth,--too young? Did you not persist in your evil habits long after youth had passed? The evil examples of others--will that have any value? If that led you away, had you not models of holiness in all the saints, whom you might have imitated? Above all, was God not ready to bestow sufficient grace upon you for salvation, even at your last breath? But you despised His mercy; you must accept the rigors of His justice!

And the wretched sinner, the lost and miserable child of the Catholic Church, will be silent before his Judge; but for all eternity his cries of despair will resound through the terrible abyss of hell! Amen!


"Many are called, but few are chosen."--Matt. 22, 14.


Our holy mother, the Church, has uttered many threats to the children of men, warning them of the certainty of a final judgment. But among them all there is none more powerful than that by which the Gospel of today is concluded. These terrible words: Many are called, but few are chosen," serve to remind the Christian of the constant danger in which he lives, of not being one of the chosen few.

Christ speaks of those who are lost as by far the greater number, when He utters this threat through His Church!

Therefore, those who are in earnest about their salvation will ask with the Apostles, when they heard the fearful prediction that one of them would betray our Lord: "Is it I, O Lord?" No one knoweth. Christ does not return a direct answer, but each one can examine his own heart, and discover within himself whether he bears any of the marks of the elect. Let us, then, today, carefully consider what are those marks and characteristics of elect.

Mary, mother of celestial hope, cast over us the mantle of thy maternal protection, that we may live so as to be among the chosen few! I speak in the most holy name of Jesus, for the greater honor and glory of God!

Holy Scripture assures us that no one knoweth whether he is worthy of love or hatred; and the Church, through the Council of Trent, teaches as a dogma, that no one, without a particular revelation, can possess certainty of his salvation. St. Paul, speaking of himself, says: "But I chastise my body, lest perhaps when I have preached to others, I myself should be come a castaway;" and in another place he tells us that his conscience does not reproach him, but that "it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God, before whom even the angels are not pure;" and he admonishes all: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."

But to a very few of the saints has been granted, by revelation, a previous assurance of salvation, and the uncertainty of their election has caused many who are now among the most glorious of the celestial host, as St. Bernard, to tremble lest they might not be saved. Nevertheless, my brethren, Christ has given us certain signs and tokens from which we may form some idea of our spiritual state, and how it will be with us on the day of final judgment. I will direct your attention to those virtues so highly extolled by our Lord and Saviour, that He called their possessors blessed.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." If any one tries to detach his affections from the empty honors of this world, and to prevent his heart from being taken up with its perishable goods,--if he never commits an act of duty or piety for the sake of temporal gain, he will certainly be rewarded eternally!

Are you really detached from the goods and possessions of this world? Do you sincerely try to cultivate this poverty of spirit? Let your own conscience answer; and if it tell you yes, oh, then indeed it is well with you; for you have the words of Christ Himself, that "of such is the kingdom of heaven!"

>"Blessed are the meek." Thus speaketh our Lord. Have you the right to claim any part of this benediction? Look into your hearts and find the answer there! Do you cultivate a meek and gentle spirit, carefully shunning everything that would wound the feelings of your neighbor? Then you possess one of the marks of election; for Christ Himself has pronounced you blessed.

"Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted." The soul that, for pure love of Jesus, continually mourns for having offended Him, and also for all the sins by which God is continually offended, has every reason to hope for salvation. Of such souls it has been said that "they sow in tears, but in joy gather up the harvest of their merits."

"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice; for they shall be filled." Happy indeed is the Christian whose daily walk is in the way of penance, whose earnest desire is to know and love God, and to do His holy will in all things, who praises Him in His justice as well as in His mercy. Yes, he may indeed look forward to a happy eternity; for only in heaven will he find what Christ has promised. He possesses one of the signs of election.

"Blessed are the clean of heart." Yes, blessed indeed are those who are free from the least willful sin against the angelic virtue of purity! They can, even on earth, anticipate the joys of heaven; for to them our divine Lord has promised the bliss of beholding Him in a blissful eternity. "Blessed are the clean of heart; for they shall see God."

"Blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy." Precious to the most sacred Heart of our Lord are those of His children who are compassionate and merciful to their suffering fellow-creatures. They possess one of the surest marks of election, since to them will be addressed those words of benediction: "Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world."

This applies also to those who, with true zeal for souls and ardent love of God, assist their neighbor in his spiritual necessities. Whoever saves the soul of his neighbor works efficaciously for his own salvation; whoever is zealous in his efforts to bring our separated brethren into the bosom of the Holy Catholic Church, and does all in his power for the sanctification and salvation of souls, may, with loving confidence, feel sure that the Lord will not cast him off on the day of judgment, when those souls, restored to grace through his prayers and good works, enter bright and glorified into the kingdom of eternal happiness. The Lord will never be unmindful of what is done for Him, especially in the way of saving souls, whose redemption was purchased by His precious blood!

"Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God." Well is it for you, dear Christians, if your hearts are free from bitterness and rancor, if you love your neighbor, if you forgive him as you hope to be forgiven, if you strive to banish envy from your hearts, and seek occasion to heal the dissensions of those around you. Then may you hope to enjoy the bliss of heaven; for God has called you His "children," and a father is ever anxious to gather his children to his home!

"Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake." So Christ testifies. Yes; He not only promises to you a bright crown in the kingdom of eternal joy, but a reward beyond measure in that celestial home. "Blessed are they who suffer persecution for justice sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Can we doubt that a member of the Holy Catholic Church, who is zealous in promoting the interests of religion, and ready to give up every thing, riches, honors, even life itself, for Christ; who hates the enemy of salvation, and strives to destroy his kingdom on earth, will one day participate, as a child of the Church triumphant, in the glorious victory of Christ over death and hell?

In general, my brethren, if you can truly say with St. Peter to our Saviour: "Lord, Thou who knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee;" if your heart is firmly united to the Heart of Jesus, and imbedded in it, so to speak, like a shell in the rock, surely you possess the mark of predilection.

A certain test of this, however, is the love and devotion you have towards Jesus, ever present in the adorable Sacrament of the altar, and the fervor you manifest in receiving Him frequently in Holy Communion. "Whosoever eateth this bread will abide in Me and I in him," and he will have life everlasting. These are the words of Christ Himself, our Creator and Redeemer, Who will one day appear to us as the Judge of the living and the dead! Amen!

This is the wedding feast we want to go to!

OUR LADY OF RANSOM

OUR LADY of RANSOM
(Her Order's establishment 1218)

The story of Our Lady of Ransom is, at its outset, that of Saint Peter Nolasco, born in Languedoc about 1189. At the age of twenty-five he took a vow of chastity and made over his vast estates to the Church. After making a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Montserrat, he went to Barcelona where he began to practice various works of charity. He conceived the idea of establishing an Order for the redemption of captives seized by the Moors on the seas and in Spain itself; they were being cruelly tormented in their African prisons to make them deny their faith. He spoke of it to the king of Aragon, James I, who knew him well and already respected him as a Saint; for the king had already asked for his prayers when he sent out his armies to combat the Moors, and he attributed his victories to those prayers.

In effect all the Christians of Europe, and above all of Spain, were praying a great deal to obtain from God the remedy for the great evil that had befallen them. The divine Will was soon manifested. On the same night, August 1, 1218, the Blessed Virgin appeared to Saint Peter, to his confessor, Raymund of Pennafort, and to the king, and through these three servants of God established a work of the most perfect charity, the redemption of captives.

On that night, while the Church was celebrating the feast of Saint Peter in Chains, the Virgin Mary came from heaven and appeared first to Saint Peter, saying that She indeed desired the establishment of a religious Order bearing the name of Her mercy. Its members would undertake to deliver Christian captives and offer themselves, if necessary, as a gauge. Word of the miracle soon spread over the entire kingdom; and on August 10th the king went to the cathedral for a Mass celebrated by the bishop of Barcelona. St. Raymund went up into the pulpit and narrated his vision, with admirable eloquence and fervor. The king besought the blessing of the bishop for the heaven-sent plan, and the bishop bestowed the habit on Saint Peter, who emitted the solemn vow to give himself as a hostage if necessary.

The Order, thus solemnly established in Spain, was approved by Gregory IX under the name of Our Lady of Mercy. By the grace of God and under the protection of His Virgin Mother, the Order spread rapidly. Its growth was increased as the charity and piety of its members was observed; they very often followed Her directive to give themselves up to voluntary slavery when necessary, to aid the good work. It was to return thanks to God and the Blessed Virgin that a feast day was instituted and observed on September 24th, first in this Order of Our Lady, then everywhere in Spain and France. It was finally extended to the entire Church by Innocent XII.

Reflection: St. Peter Nolasco and his knights were not priests, and yet they considered that the salvation of their neighbor was entrusted to them. We, too, can by good counsel and by prayer, but above all by holy example, assist the salvation of our brethren, and thereby secure our own.



Prayer of St. Ephrem to the Blessed Virgin Mary:

O Immaculate and wholly pure Virgin Mary, Mother of God, Queen of the world, hope of those who are in despair, thou art the joy of the Saints; thou art the peacemaker between sinners and God; thou art the advocate of the abandoned, the secure haven of those who are on the sea of the world; thou art the consolation of the world, the ransom of slaves, the comfortress of the afflicted, the salvation of the universe. O great Queen, we take refuge in thy protection: 'We have no confidence but in thee, O most faithful Virgin.' After God thou art all our hope. We bear the name of thy servants; allow not the enemy to drag us to hell. I salute thee, O great Mediatrix of peace, between men and God, Mother of Jesus our Lord, who is the love of all men and of God, to whom be honor and benediction with the Father and the Holy Ghost. Amen.


Thou alone, O Mary, canst break the inextricable chains, in which the cunning prince of darkness entangles the dupes he has deceived by the high-sounding names of equality and liberty. Show thyself a Queen, by coming to the rescue. The whole world depends on thee.



Prayer of a Sinner to Our Lady of Mercy
from the Glories of Mary
by St. Alphonsus Liguori

O my sovereign Queen and worthy mother of my God, most holy Mary: I, seeing myself, as I do, so despicable, and loaded with so many sins, ought not to presume to call thee Mother, or even to approach thee; yet I will not allow my miseries to deprive me of the consolation and confidence that I feel in calling thee Mother; I know well that I deserve that thou shouldst reject me; but I beseech thee to remember all that thy son Jesus has endured for me, and then reject me if thou canst. I am a wretched sinner, who, more than all others, have despised the infinite majesty of God: but the evil is done. To thee have I recourse; thou canst help me: my Mother, help me. Say not that thou canst not do so; for I know that thou art all powerful, and that thou obtainest whatever thou desirest of God; and if thou sayest that thou wilt not help me, tell me at least to whom I can apply in this my so great misfortune. Either pity me, will I say, with the devout St. Anselm, 'O, my Jesus, and forgive me, or do thou pity me, my mother Mary, by interceding for me, or at least tell me to whom I can have recourse, who is more compassionate, or in whom I can have greater confidence than in thee.' Oh, no; neither on earth, nor in heaven, can I find anyone who has more compassion for the miserable, or who is better able to assist me, than thou canst, O Mary. Thou, O Jesus, art my Father, and thou, Mary, art my Mother. You both love the most miserable, and go seeking them in order to save them. I deserve hell and am the most miserable of all. But you need not seek me, nor do I presume to ask so much. I now present myself before you with a certain hope that I shall not be abandoned. Behold me at your feet; my Jesus, forgive me; my Mother Mary, help me.

EMBER DAYS

Today, as well as Friday and Saturday of this week are known as 'Ember Days'. Following is what it is all about:

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8:

All things have their season,
and in their times all things pass under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.
A time to kill, and a time to heal.
A time to destroy, and a time to build.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh.
A time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather.
A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.
A time to get, and a time to lose.
A time to keep, and a time to cast away.
A time to rend, and a time to sew.
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak.
A time of war, and a time of peace.


Four times a year, the Church sets aside three days to focus on God through His marvelous creation. These quarterly periods take place around the beginnings of the four natural seasons that "like some virgins dancing in a circle, succeed one another with the happiest harmony," as St. John Chrysostom wrote.

These four times are each kept on a successive Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday and are known as "Ember Days," or Quatuor Tempora, in Latin. The first of these four times comes in Winter, after the Feast of St. Lucy; the second comes in Spring, the week after Ash Wednesday; the third comes in Summer, after Pentecost Sunday; and the last comes in Autumn, after Holy Cross Day. Their dates can be remembered by this old mnemonic:

Sant Crux, Lucia, Cineres, Charismata Dia
Ut sit in angaria quarta sequens feria.

Which means:

Holy Cross, Lucy, Ash Wednesday, Pentecost,
are when the quarter holidays follow.

These times are spent fasting and partially abstaining (voluntary since the new Code of Canon Law) in penance and with the intentions of thanking God for the gifts He gives us in nature and beseeching Him for the discipline to use them in moderation.



I. The meaning of the law of fasting and abstinence.

1. The law of fasting requires that only one full meal be taken a day; but it does not forbid that, in addition to this, some food be taken in the morning and in the evening in accordance with the approved custom of one's locality. This law does not forbid the eating of fish and flesh at the same meal, and it permits one to take his full meal either at noon or in the evening, as he may wish.

2. The law of abstinence requires that one abstain from meat, as well as soup or broth made from meat; it does not forbid the use of eggs, butter, milk, cheese, etc.

3. The days of abstinence are all the Fridays of the year; this is in memory of our Lord's death on Good Friday. But when Friday falls on a Holyday, e.g., Christmas, meat may be eaten.

4. The times of fasting are:

(a) the Ember Days, i.e., Wednesday, Friday and Saturday in a week of each of the four seasons of the year. The purpose of these fasts is to consecrate each season of the year by some days of mortification, to thank God for His graces, ask His blessing upon the harvest, and to pray for those whom it is customary to ordain to the priesthood at those times,

(b) The vigils of Pentecost, Assumption, All Saints, and Christmas. These days are called vigils because in ancient times the faithful used to spend the night before them in watching, prayer and fasting,

(c) The longest, strictest and most venerable fast of the year is that of Lent, which goes back to the times of the Apostles. It commemorates our Lord's forty days' fast in the desert, associates us with His suffering by the practice of penance, and prepares us for the great feast of Easter. Lent begins with Ash Wednesday and terminates at noon on Easter Saturday.

5. The days of both fasting and abstinence are: (a) Ember Days; (b) the vigils mentioned above: (c) Ash Wednesday and the Fridays and Saturdays in Lent.

II. The obligation of the law of fasting and abstinence.

l. Fasting in general is of the natural law, because nature and common sense teach us that it is necessary for subduing the passions, elevating the mind to spiritual things and making satisfaction for sin. Hence it has been practiced at all times, as we learn from the Old Testament (Exod. xxiv. 18; Jonas iii. 10; Dan. i. 15; I Esdras. viii. 23, etc.). Moreover, fasting has its basis in the law of mortification laid down by our Lord (Luke xiii. 5). But as neither the natural, nor the divine law has fixed the time and circumstances for observing fast and abstinence, the Church, in virtue of her divinely given authority of making laws that are for the advantage of the faithful, has determined the days, the times, and the manner of fasting and abstaining.

2. The law of abstinence binds all those who have completed their seventh year. The law of fasting obliges all who have completed their twenty-first year, and who have not yet entered upon their sixtieth year.

3. Reasons which excuse from the law of fasting and abstinence are: (a) infirm health, which would be made worse by fasting; (b) necessary work that is incompatible with fasting; (c) works of charity or piety for which there is some necessity, or which are more valuable than fasting, e.g., waiting on the sick, making a pilgrimage.

4. Those who are in doubt as to whether they are excused from fasting or abstinence should consult their confessor. Dispensations may be granted by parish priests (See Code, ec. 1243 ff.).


EXHORTATION,

1. Those who are able to fast should do so gladly and cheerfully in memory of the great event which Lent commemorates, and for the sake of the great blessings it brings with it.

2. Those who are excused from fasting and abstinence should remember that they are not exempt from the law of mortification and self-denial which they can fulfill by saying extra prayers, hearing Mass when possible on week days, giving alms to the poor or for holy purposes, refraining from unnecessary amusements, delicacies, etc.

Catechism of the Council of Trent, Part IV





The point is also beautifully made (of the seasons) in the eighth Psalm:

O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in the whole earth! For thy magnificence is elevated above the heavens. Out of the mouth of infants and of sucklings thou hast perfected praise, because of thy enemies, that thou mayst destroy the enemy and the avenger. For I will behold thy heavens, the works of thy fingers: the moon and the stars which thou hast founded.

What is man that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man that thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little less than the angels, thou hast crowned him with glory and honour: And hast set him over the works of thy hands. Thou hast subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen: moreover the beasts also of the fields. The birds of the air, and the fishes of the sea, that pass through the paths of the sea. O Lord our Lord, how admirable is thy name in all the earth!


Be mindful of your effects on our dear earth and don't allow people to "politicize" the issue of our stewardship of God's creation! But to be mindful of nature, it helps to actually see her first. Go outside and look! And praise God for all you see, hear, smell, feel, and taste as you allow His glorious works to touch your senses!