Memorial of Saint Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 434

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

1 Corinthians 3:18-23

Brothers and sisters:

Let no one deceive himself.

If anyone among you considers himself wise in this age,

let him become a fool, so as to become wise.

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God,

for it is written:

God catches the wise in their own ruses,

and again:

The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.

So let no one boast about human beings, for everything belongs to you,

Paul or Apollos or Cephas,

or the world or life or death,

or the present or the future:

all belong to you, and you to Christ, and Christ to God.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 24:1bc-2, 3-4ab, 5-6

R. (1) To the Lord belongs the earth and all that fills it.

The LORD’s are the earth and its fullness;

the world and those who dwell in it.

For he founded it upon the seas

and established it upon the rivers.

R. To the Lord belongs the earth and all that fills it.

Who can ascend the mountain of the LORD?

or who may stand in his holy place?

He whose hands are sinless, whose heart is clean,

who desires not what is vain.

R. To the Lord belongs the earth and all that fills it.

He shall receive a blessing from the LORD,

a reward from God his savior.

Such is the race that seeks for him,

that seeks the face of the God of Jacob.

R. To the Lord belongs the earth and all that fills it.

Alleluia

Matthew 4:19

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Come after me, says the Lord,

and I will make you fishers of men.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Luke 5:1-11

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God,

he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.

He saw two boats there alongside the lake;

the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.

Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,

he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.

Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Simon said in reply,

“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,

but at your command I will lower the nets.”

When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish

and their nets were tearing.

They signaled to their partners in the other boat

to come to help them.

They came and filled both boats

so that the boats were in danger of sinking.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,

“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”

For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him

and all those with him,

and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,

who were partners of Simon.

Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid;

from now on you will be catching men.”

When they brought their boats to the shore,

they left everything and followed him.

Pope and Doctor of the Church; born at Rome about 540; died 12 March 604. Gregory is certainly one of the most notable figures in Ecclesiastical History. He has exercised in many respects a momentous influence on the doctrine, the organization, and the discipline of the Catholic Church. To him we must look for an explanation of the religious situation of the Middle Ages; indeed, if no account were taken of his work, the evolution of the form of medieval Christianity would be almost inexplicable. And further, in so far as the modern Catholic system is a legitimate development of medieval Catholicism, of this too Gregory may not unreasonably be termed the Father. Almost all the leading principles of the later Catholicism are found, at any rate in germ, in Gregory the Great. (Biography continues below the video)

Novena Prayer to St. Gregory the Great
St. Gregory, you are known for your zeal for the Catholic faith, love of liturgy, and compassion and mercy toward those in need. Please help and guide us so that we may share in these virtues and thereby bring Jesus into the hearts of our families and all we encounter. We especially ask for blessings on our parish family, our priests and our deacons.
I also ask that you graciously intercede for me before God so that I might be granted the special assistance and graces that I seek (state personal intentions here.). Help me to live as a faithful child of God and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
St. Gregory the Great pray for us. Amen (Say for 9 Days - Say 1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary and 1 Glory Be each day of the Novena) (Novena from

https://stgregorythegreatchurch.org)

From birth to 574
Gregory’s father was Gordianus, a wealthy patrician, probably of the famous gens Amicia, who owned large estates in Sicily and a mansion on the Caelian Hill in Rome, the ruins of which, apparently in a wonderful state of preservation, still await excavation beneath the Church of St. Andrew and St. Gregory. His mother Silvia appears also to have been of good family, but very little is known of her life. She is honoured as a saint, her feast being kept on 3 November. Portraits of Gordianus and Silvia were painted by Gregory’s order, in the atrium of St. Andrew’s monastery, and a pleasing description of these may be found in John the Deacon.

Besides his mother, two of Gregory’s aunts have been canonised, Gordianus’s two sisters, Tarsilla and Æmiliana, so that John the Deacon speaks of his education as being that of a saint among saints.

Of his early years we know nothing beyond what the history of the period tells us. Between the years 546 and 552 Rome was first captured by the Goths under Totila, and then abandoned by them; next it was garrisoned by Belisarius, and besieged in vain by the Goths, who took it again, however, after the recall of Belisarius, only to lose it once more to Narses. Gregory’s mind and memory were both exceptionally receptive, and it is to the effect produced on him by these disasters that we must attribute the tinge of sadness which pervades his writings and especially his clear expectation of a speedy end to the world.

Of his education, we have no details. Gregory of Tours tells us that in grammar, rhetoric and dialectic he was so skilful as to be thought second to none in all Rome, and it seems certain also that he must have gone through a course of legal studies. Not least among the educating influences was the religious atmosphere of his home. He loved to meditate on the Scriptures and to listen attentively to the conversations of his elders, so that he was “devoted to God from his youth up”.
His rank and prospects pointed him out naturally for a public career, and he doubtless held some of the subordinate offices wherein a young patrician embarked on public life. That he acquitted himself well in these appears certain, since we find him about the year 573, when little more than thirty years old, filling the important office of prefect of the city of Rome. At that date the brilliant post was shorn of much of its old magnificence, and its responsibilities were reduced; still it remained the highest civil dignity in the city, and it was only after long prayer and inward struggle that Gregory decided to abandon everything and become a monk. This event took place most probably in 574. His decision once taken, he devoted himself to the work and austerities of his new life with all the natural energy of his character. His Sicilian estates were given up to found six monasteries there, and his home on the Caelian Hill was converted into another under the patronage of St. Andrew. Here he himself took the cowl, so that “he who had been wont to go about the city clad in the trabea and aglow with silk and jewels, now clad in a worthless garment served the altar of the Lord” (Gregory of Tours, X, i).
As monk and abbot (c. 574-590)
There has been much discussion as to whether Gregory and his fellow-monks at St. Andrew’s followed the Rule of St. Benedict. Baronius and others on his authority have denied this, while it has been asserted as strongly by Mabillon and the Bollandists, who, in the preface to the life of St. Augustine (26 May), retract the opinion expressed earlier in the preface to St. Gregory’s life (12 March). The controversy is important only in view of the question as to the form of monasticism introduced by St. Augustine into England, and it may be said that Baronius’s view is now practically abandoned.
For about three years Gregory lived in retirement in the monastery of St. Andrew, a period to which he often refers as the happiest portion of his life. His great austerities during this time are recorded by the biographers, and probably caused the weak health from which he constantly suffered in later life.
However, he was soon drawn out of his seclusion, when, in 578, the pope ordained him, much against his will, as one of the seven deacons (regionarii) of Rome. The period was one of acute crisis. The Lombards were advancing rapidly towards the city, and the only chance of safety seemed to be in obtaining help from the Emperor Tiberius at Byzantium. Pope Pelagius II accordingly dispatched a special embassy to Tiberius, and sent Gregory along with it as his apocrisiarius, or permanent ambassador to the Court of Byzantium. The date of this new appointment seems to have been the spring of 579, and it lasted apparently for about six years.
Nothing could have been more uncongenial to Gregory than the worldly atmosphere of the brilliant Byzantine Court, and to counteract its dangerous influence he followed the monastic life so far as circumstances permitted. This was made easier by the fact that several of his brethren from St. Andrew’s accompanied him to Constantinople. With them he prayed and studied the Scriptures, one result of which remains in his “Morals”, or series of lectures on the Book of Job, composed during this period at the request of St. Leander of Seville, whose acquaintance Gregory made during his stay in Constantinople.
Much attention was attracted to Gregory by his controversy with Eutychius, Patriarch of Constantinople, concerning the Resurrection. Eutychius had published a treatise on the subject maintaining that the risen bodies of the elect would be “impalpable, more light than air”. To this view Gregory objected the palpability of Christ’s risen body. The dispute became prolonged and bitter, till at length the emperor intervened, both combatants being summoned to a private audience, where they stated their views. The emperor decided that Gregory was in the right, and ordered Eutychius’s book to be burned. The strain of the struggle had been so great that both fell ill. Gregory recovered, but the patriarch succumbed, recanting his error on his death bed.
Mention should be made of the curious fact that, although Gregory’s sojourn at Constantinople lasted for six years, he seems never to have mastered even the rudiments of Greek. Possibly he found that the use of an interpreter had its advantages, but he often complains of the incapacity of those employed for this purpose. It must be owned that, so far as obtaining help for Rome was concerned, Gregory’s stay at Constantinople was a failure. However, his period as ambassador taught him very plainly a lesson which was to bear great fruit later on when he ruled in Rome as pope. This was the important fact that no help was any longer to be looked for from Byzantium, with the corollary that, if Rome and Italy were to be saved at all, it could only be by vigorous independent action of the powers on the spot. Humanly speaking, it is to the fact that Gregory had acquired this conviction that his later line of action with all its momentous consequences is due.
In the year 586, or possibly 585, he was recalled to Rome, and with the greatest joy returned to St. Andrew’s, of which he became abbot soon afterwards. The monastery grew famous under his energetic rule, producing many monks who won renown later, and many vivid pictures of this period may be found in the “Dialogues”.
Gregory gave much of his time to lecturing on the Holy Scripture and is recorded to have expounded to his monks the Heptateuch, Books of Kings, the Prophets, the Book of Proverbs, and the Canticle of Canticles. Notes of these lectures were taken at the time by a young student named Claudius, but when transcribed were found by Gregory to contain so many errors that he insisted on their being given to him for correction and revision. Apparently this was never done, for the existing fragments of such works attributed to Gregory are almost certainly spurious.
At this period, however, one important literary enterprise was certainly completed. This was the revision and publication of the “Magna Moralia”, or lectures on the Book of Job, undertaken in Constantinople at the request of St. Leander. In one of his letters (Epistle 5.53) Gregory gives an interesting account of the origin of this work.
To this period most probably should be assigned the famous incident of Gregory’s meeting with the English youths in the Forum. The first mention of the event is in the Whitby life (c, ix), and the whole story seems to be an English tradition. It is worth notice, therefore, that in the St. Gall manuscript the Angles do not appear as slave boys exposed for sale, but as men visiting Rome of their own free will, whom Gregory expressed a desire to see. It is Venerable Bede (Hist. Eccl., II, i) who first makes them slaves. In consequence of this meeting Gregory was so fixed with desire to convert the Angles that he obtained permission from Pelagius II to go in person to Britain with some of his fellow-monks as missionaries. The Romans, however, were greatly incensed at the pope’s act. With angry words they demanded Gregory’s recall, and messengers were at once dispatched to bring him back to Rome, if necessary by force. These men caught up with the little band of missionaries on the third day after their departure, and at once returned with them, Gregory offering no opposition, since he had received what appeared to him as a sign from heaven that his enterprise should be abandoned. The strong feeling of the Roman populace that Gregory must not be allowed to leave Rome is a sufficient proof of the position he now held there. He was in fact the chief adviser and assistant of Pelagius II, towards whom he seems to have acted very much in the capacity of secretary (see the letter of the Bishop of Ravenna to Gregory, Epistle 3.66, “Sedem apostolicam, quam antae moribus nunc etiam honore debito gubernatis”). In this capacity, probably in 586, Gregory wrote his important letter to the schismatical bishops of Istria who had separated from communion with the Church on the question of the Three Chapters (Epp., Appendix, III, iii). This document, which is almost a treatise in length, is an admirable example of Gregory’s skill, but it failed to produce any more effort than Pelagius’s two previous letters had, and the schism continued.
The year 589 was one of widespread disaster throughout all the empire. In Italy there was an unprecedented inundation. Farms and houses were carried away by the floods. The Tiber overflowed its banks, destroying numerous buildings, among them the granaries of the Church with all the store of corn. Pestilence followed on the floods, and Rome became a very city of the dead. Business was at a standstill, and the streets were deserted save for the wagons which bore forth countless corpses for burial in common pits beyond the city walls.
Then, in February, 590, as if to fill the cup of misery to the brim, Pelagius II died. The choice of a successor lay with the clergy and people of Rome, and without any hesitation they elected Gregory, Abbot of St. Andrew’s. In spite of their unanimity Gregory shrank from the dignity thus offered him. He knew, no doubt, that its acceptance meant a final good-bye to the cloister life he loved, and so he not only refused to accede to the prayers of his fellow citizens but also wrote personally to the Emperor Maurice, begging him with all earnestness not to confirm the election. Germanus, prefect of the city, suppressed this letter, however, and sent instead of it the formal schedule of the election.
In the interval while awaiting the emperor’s reply the business of the vacant see was transacted by Gregory, in commission with two or three other high officials. As the plague still continued unabated, Gregory called upon the people to join in a vast sevenfold procession which was to start from each of the seven regions of the city and meet at the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin, all praying the while for pardon and the withdrawal of the pestilence. This was accordingly done, and the memory of the event is still preserved by the name “Sant’ Angelo” given to the mausoleum of Hadrian from the legend that the Archangel St. Michael was seen upon its summit in the act of sheathing his sword as a sign that the plague was over.
At length, after six months of waiting, came the emperor’s confirmation of Gregory’s election. The saint was terrified at the news and even meditated flight. He was seized, however, carried to the Basilica of St. Peter, and there consecrated pope on 3 September, 590. The story that Gregory actually fled the city and remained hidden in a forest for three days, when his whereabouts was revealed by a supernatural light, seems to be pure invention. It appears for the first time in the Whitby life (c. vii), and is directly contrary to the words of his contemporary, Gregory of Tours (Hist. Franc., X, i). Still he never ceased to regret his elevation, and his later writings contain numberless expressions of strong feeling on this point.
As pope (590-604)
Fourteen years of life remained to Gregory, and into these he crowded work enough to have exhausted the energies of a lifetime. What makes his achievement more wonderful is his constant ill-health. He suffered almost continually from indigestion and, at intervals, from attacks of slow fever, while for the last half of his pontificate he was a martyr to gout. In spite of these infirmities, which increased steadily, his biographer, Paul the Deacon, tells us “he never rested” (Vita, XV). His work as pope is of so varied a nature that it will be best to take it in sections, although this destroys any exact chronological sequence.
At the very outset of his pontificate Gregory published his “Liber pastoralis curae”, or book on the office of a bishop, in which he lays down clearly the lines he considers it his duty to follow. The work, which regards the bishop pre-eminently as the physician of souls, is divided into four parts.
He points out in the first that only one skilled already as a physician of the soul is fitted to undertake the “supreme rule” of the episcopate. In the second he describes how the bishop’s life should be ordered from a spiritual point of view; in the third, how he ought to teach and admonish those under him,
and in the fourth how, in spite of his good works, he ought to bear in mind his own weakness, since the better his work the greater the danger of falling through self-confidence.
This little work is the key to Gregory’s life as pope, for what he preached he practiced. Moreover, it remained for centuries the textbook of the Catholic episcopate, so that by its influence the ideal of the great pope has moulded the character of the Church, and his spirit has spread into all lands.
Life and work in Rome
As pope Gregory still lived with monastic simplicity. One of his first acts was to banish all the lay attendants, pages, etc., from the Lateran palace, and substitute clerics in their place. There was now no magister militum living in Rome, so the control even of military matters fell to the pope. The inroads of the Lombards had filled the city with a multitude of indigent refugees, for whose support Gregory made provision, using for this purpose the existing machinery of the ecclesiastical districts, each of which had its deaconry or “office of alms”. The corn thus distributed came chiefly from Sicily and was supplied by the estates of the Church.
The temporal needs of his people being thus provided for, Gregory did not neglect their spiritual wants, and a large number of his sermons have come down to us. It was he who instituted the “stations” still observed and noted in the Roman Missal. He met the clergy and people at some church previously agreed upon, and all together went in procession to the church of the station, where Mass was celebrated and the pope preached. These sermons, which drew immense crowds, are mostly simple, popular expositions of Scripture. Chiefly remarkable is the preacher’s mastery of the Bible, which he quotes unceasingly, and his regular use of anecdote to illustrate the point in hand, in which respect he paves the way for the popular preachers of the Middle Ages. In July, 595, Gregory held his first synod in St. Peter’s, which consisted almost wholly of the bishops of the suburbicarian sees and the priests of the Roman titular churches. Six decrees dealing with ecclesiastical discipline were passed, some of them merely confirming changes already made by the pope on his own authority.
Much controversy still exists as to the exact extent of Gregory’s reforms of the Roman Liturgy. All admit that he did make the following modifications in the pre-existing practice:
In the Canon of the Mass he inserted the words “diesque nostros in tua pace disponas, atque ab aeterna damnatione nos eripi, et in electorum tuorum jubeas grege numerari”;
he ordered the Pater Noster to be recited in the Canon before the breaking of the Host;
he provided that the Alleluia should be chanted after the Gradual out of paschal time, to which period, apparently, the Roman use had previously confined it;
he prohibited the use of the chasuble by subdeacons assisting at Mass;
he forbade deacons to perform any of the musical portions of the Mass other than singing the Gospel. Beyond these and some few minor points it seems impossible to conclude with certainty what changes Gregory did make. As to the much-disputed question of the Gregorian Sacramentary and the almost more difficult point of his relation to the plain song or chant of the Church, for Gregory’s connection with which matters the earliest authority seems to be John the Deacon (Vita, II, vi, Xvii), see GREGORIAN CHANT; SACRAMENTARY.
There is no lack of evidence, however, to illustrate Gregory’s activity as manager of the patrimony of St. Peter. By his day the estates of the Church had reached vast dimensions. Varying estimates place their total area at from 1300 to 1800 square miles, and there seems no reason for supposing this to be an exaggeration, while the income arising therefrom was probably not less than $1,500,000 a year. The land lay in many places — Campania, Africa, Sicily, and elsewhere — and, as their landlord, Gregory displayed a skill in finance and estate management which excites our admiration no less than it did the surprise of his tenants and agents, who suddenly found that they had a new master who was not to be deceived or cheated.
The management of each patrimony was carried out by a number of agents of varying grades and duties under an official called the rector or defensor of the patrimony. Previously the rectors had usually been laymen, but Gregory established the custom of appointing ecclesiastics to the post. In doing this he probably had in view the many extra duties of an ecclesiastical nature which he called upon them to undertake. Thus examples may be found of such rectors being commissioned to undertake the filling up of vacant sees, holding of local synods, taking action against heretics, providing for the maintenance of churches and monasteries, rectifying abuses in the churches of their district, with the enforcing of ecclesiastical discipline and even the reproof and correction of local bishops. Still Gregory never allowed the rectors to interfere in such matters on their own responsibility.
In the minutiae of estate management nothing was too small for Gregory’s personal notice, from the exact number of sextarii in a modius of corn, or how many solidi went to one golden pound, to the use of false weights by certain minor agents. He finds time to write instructions on every detail and leaves no complaint unattended to, even from the humblest of his multitude of tenants. Throughout the large number of letters which deal with the management of the patrimony, the pope’s determination to secure a scrupulously righteous administration is evident. As bishop, he is the trustee of God and St. Peter, and his agents must show that they realize this by their conduct. Consequently, under his able management the estates of the Church increased steadily in value, the tenants were contented, and the revenues paid in with unprecedented regularity. The only fault ever laid at his door in this matter is that, by his boundless charities, he emptied his treasury. But this, if a fault at all, was a natural consequence of his view that he was the administrator of the property of the poor, for whom he could never do enough.
Relations with the suburbicarian Churches
As patriarchs of the West the popes exercise a special jurisdiction over and above their universal primacy as successors of St. Peter; and among Western churches, this jurisdiction extends in a most intimate manner over the churches of Italy and the isles adjacent.
On the mainland much of this territory was in the hands of the Lombards, with whose Arian clergy Gregory was, of course, not in communion. Whenever opportunity offered, however, he was careful to provide for the needs of the faithful in these parts, frequently uniting them to some neighboring diocese, when they were too few to occupy the energies of a bishop.
On the islands, of which Sicily was by far the most important, the pre-existing church system was maintained. Gregory appointed a vicar, usually the metropolitan of the province, who exercised a general supervision over the whole church. He also insisted strongly on the holding of local synods as ordered by the Council of Nicaea, and letters of his exist addressed to bishops in Sicily, Sardinia, and Gaul reminding them of their duties in this respect.
The supreme instance of Gregory’s intervention in the affairs of these dioceses occurs in the case of Sardinia, where the behaviour of Januarius the half-witted, aged Metropolitan of Cagliari, had reduced the church to a state of semi-chaos.
A large number of letters relate to the reforms instituted by the pope (Epistles 2.47; 3.36; 4.9; 4.23-27; 4.29; 5.2; 9.1; 9.11; 9.202-204; 14.2). His care over the election of a new bishop whenever a vacancy occurs is shown in many cases, and if, after his examination of the elect, which is always a searching one, he finds him unfitted for the post, he has no hesitation in rejecting him and commanding another to be chosen (Epistles 1.15; 1.16; 7.38; 10.7).
With regard to discipline the pope was specially strict in enforcing the Church’s laws as to the celibacy of the clergy (Epistles 1.42; 4.5; 4.26; 4.34; 7.1; 9.110; 9.218; 10.19; 11.56; 13.38; 13.39); the exemption of clerics from lay tribunals (Epistles 1.39; 6.11; 9.53; 9.76; 9.79; 10.4; 11.32; 13.1); and the deprivation of all ecclesiastics guilty of criminal or scandalous offences (Epistles 1.18; 1.42; 3.49; 4.26; 5.17; 5.18; 7.39; 8.24; 9.25; 12.3; 12.10; 12.11; 14.2). He was also inflexible with regard to the proper application of church revenues, insisting that others should be as strict as he was in disposing of these funds for their proper ends (Epistles 1.10; 1.64; 2.20-22; 3.22; 4.11; 5.12; 5.48; 8.7; 11.22; 11.56; 13.46; 14.2).
Relations with other Churches
With regard to the other Western Churches limits of space prevent any detailed account of Gregory’s dealings, but the following quotation, all the more valuable as coming from a Protestant authority, indicates very clearly the line he followed herein:
“In his dealings with the Churches of the West, Gregory acted invariably on the assumption that all were subject to the jurisdiction of the Roman See. Of the rights claimed or exercised by his predecessors he would not abate one tittle; on the contrary, he did everything in his power to maintain, strengthen, and extend what he regarded as the just prerogatives of the papacy. It is true that he respected the privileges of the Western metropolitans, and disapproved of unnecessary interference within the sphere of their jurisdiction canonically exercised. . . . But of his general principle there can be no doubt whatever” (Dudden, I, 475).
In view of later developments Gregory’s dealings with the Oriental Churches, and with Constantinople in particular, have a special importance. There cannot be the smallest doubt that Gregory claimed for the Apostolic See, and for himself as pope, a primacy not of honor, but of supreme authority over the Church Universal. In Epistle 13.50, he speaks of “the Apostolic See, which is the head of all Churches”, and in Epistle 5.154, he says: “I, albeit unworthy, have been set up in command of the Church.” As successor of St. Peter, the pope had received from God a primacy over all Churches (Epistle 2.46; 3.30; 5.37; 7.37). His approval it was which gave force to the decrees of councils or synods (Epistle 9.156), and his authority could annul them (Epistles 5.39, 5.41, 5.44). To him appeals might be made even against other patriarchs, and by him bishops were judged and corrected if need were (Epistles 2.50; 3.52; 3.63; 9.26; 9.27).
This position naturally made it impossible for him to permit the use of the title Ecumenical Bishop assumed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster, at a synod held in 588. Gregory protested, and a long controversy followed, the question still at issue when the pope died. A discussion of this controversy is needless here, but it is important as showing how completely Gregory regarded the Eastern patriarchs as being subject to himself; “As regards the Church of Constantinople,” he writes in Epistle 9.12, “who can doubt that it is subject to the Apostolic See? Why, both our most religious lord the emperor, and our brother the Bishop of Constantinople continually acknowledge it.”
At the same time the pope was most careful not to interfere with the canonical rights of the other patriarchs and bishops. With the other Oriental patriarchs his relations were most cordial, as appears from his letters to the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria.
Relations with the Lombards and the Franks
Gregory’s consecration as pope preceded by a few days only the death of Authari, King of the Lombards, whose queen, the famous Theodelinde, then married Agilulf, Duke of Turin, a warlike and energetic prince. With Agilulf and the Dukes Ariulf of Spoleto and Arichis of Benevento, Gregory soon had to deal, as, when difficulties arose, Romanus, the exarch, or representative, of the emperor, preferred to remain in sulky inactivity at Ravenna.
It soon became clear that, if any successful resistance was to be made against the Lombards, it must be by the pope’s own exertions. How keenly he felt the difficulty and danger of his position appears in some of the earliest letters (Epistles 1.3, 1.8, 1.30); but no actual hostilities began till the summer of 592, when the pope received a threatening letter from Ariulf of Spoleto, which was followed almost immediately by the appearance of that chief before the walls of Rome. At the same time Arichis of Benevento advanced on Naples, which happened at the moment to have no bishop nor any officer of high rank in command of the garrison. Gregory at once took the surprising step of appointing a tribune on his own authority to take command of the city (Epistle 2.34), and, when no notice of this strong action was taken by the imperial authorities, the pope conceived the idea of himself arranging a separate peace with the Lombards (Epistle 2.45). No details of this peace have come down to us, but it seems certain that it was actually concluded (Epistle 5.36). Dr. Hodgkin (Italy and her Invaders, v, 366) pronounces Gregory’s action herein to have been wise and statesmanlike, but, at the same time, undoubtedly ultra vires, being quite beyond any legal competency then possessed by the pope, who thus “made a memorable stride towards complete independence”.
Gregory’s independent action had the effect of rousing up Romanus the exarch. Wholly ignoring the papal peace, he gathered all his troops, attacked and regained Perugia, and then marched to Rome, where he was received with imperial honours. The next spring, however, he quitted the city and took away its garrison with him, so that both pope and citizens were now more exasperated against him than before. Moreover, the exarch’s campaign had roused the Northern Lombards, and King Agilulf marched on Rome, arriving there probably some time in June, 593. The terror aroused by his advance is still mirrored for us in Gregory’s homilies on the Prophet Ezechiel, which were delivered at this time. The siege of the city was soon abandoned, however, and Agilulf retired. The continuator of Prosper (Mon. Germ. SS. Antiq., IX, 339) relates that Agilulf met the pope in person on the steps of the Basilica of St. Peter, which was then outside the city walls, and “being melted by Gregory’s prayers and greatly moved by the wisdom and religious gravity of this great man, he broke up the siege of the city”; but, in view of the silence both of Gregory himself and of Paul the Deacon on the point, the story seems scarcely probable. In Epistle 5.39, Gregory refers to himself as “the paymaster of the Lombards”, and most likely a large payment from the papal treasury was the chief inducement to raise the siege.
The pope’s great desire now was to secure a lasting peace with the Lombards, which could only be achieved by a proper arrangement between the imperial authorities and the Lombard chiefs. On Queen Theodelinde, a Catholic and a personal friend, Gregory placed all his hopes. The exarch, however, looked at the whole affair in another light, and, when a whole year was passed in fruitless negotiations, Gregory began once again to mediate a private treaty. Accordingly, in May, 595, the pope wrote to a friend at Ravenna a letter (Epistle 5.34) threatening to make peace with Agilulf even without the consent of the Exarch Romanus. This threat was speedily reported to Constantinople, where the exarch was in high favour, and the Emperor Maurice at once sent off to Gregory a violent letter, now lost, accusing him of being both a traitor and a fool. This letter Gregory received in June, 595. Luckily, the pope’s answer has been preserved to us (Epistle 5.36). It must be read in its entirety to be appreciated fully; probably very few emperors, if any, have ever received such a letter from a subject. Still, in spite of his scathing reply, Gregory seems to have realized that independent action could not secure what he wished, and we hear no more about a separate peace.
Gregory’s relations with the Exarch Romanus became continually more and more strained until the latter’s death in the year 596 or early in 597. The new exarch, Callinicus, was a man of far greater ability and well disposed towards the pope, whose hopes now revived. The official peace negotiations were pushed on, and, in spite of delays, the articles were at length signed in 599, to Gregory’s great joy. This peace lasted two years, but in 601 the war broke out again through an aggressive act on the part of Callinicus, who was recalled two years later, when his successor, Smaragdus, again made a peace with the Lombards which endured until after Gregory’s death.
Two points stand out for special notice in Gregory’s dealings with the Lombards: first, his determination that, in spite of the apathy of the imperial authorities, Rome should not pass into the hands of some half-civilized Lombard duke and so sink into insignificance and decay; second, his independent action in appointing governors to cities, providing munitions of war, giving instructions to generals, sending ambassadors to the Lombard king, and even negotiating a peace without the exarch’s aid. Whatever the theory may have been, there is no doubt about the fact that, besides his spiritual jurisdiction, Gregory actually exercised no small amount of temporal power.
Of Gregory’s relations with the Franks there is no need to write at length, as the intercourse he established with the Frankish kings practically lapsed at his death, and was not renewed for about a hundred years. On the other hand he exercised a great influence on Frankish monasticism, which he did much to strengthen and reshape, so that the work done by the monasteries in civilizing the wild Franks may be attributed ultimately to the first monk-pope.
Relations with the Imperial Government
The reign of Gregory the Great marks an epoch in papal history, and this is specially the case in respect to his attitude towards the imperial Government centered at Constantinople. Gregory seems to have looked upon Church and State as co-operating to form a united whole, which acted in two distinct spheres, ecclesiastical and secular. Over this commonwealth were the pope and the emperor, each supreme in his own department, care being taken to keep these as far as possible distinct and independent.
The latter point was the difficulty. Gregory definitely held that it was a duty of the secular ruler to protect the Church and preserve the “peace of the faith” (Mor., XXXI, viii), and so he is often found to call in the aid of the secular arm, not merely to suppress schism, heresy, or idolatry, but even to enforce discipline among monks and clergy (Epistles 1.72; 2.29; 3.59; 4.7; 4.32; 5.32; 8.4; 11.12; 11.37; 13.36). If the emperor interfered in church matters the pope’s policy was to acquiesce if possible, unless obedience was sinful, according to the principle laid down in Epistle 11.29; “Quod ipse [se imperator] fecerit, si canonicum est, sequimur; si vero canonicum non est, in quantum sine peccato nostro, portamus.” In taking this line Gregory was undoubtedly influenced by his deep reverence for the emperor, whom he regarded as the representative of God in all things secular, and must still be treated with all possible respect, even when he encroached on the borders of the papal authority. On his side, although he certainly regarded himself as “superior in place and rank” to the exarch (Epistle 2.14), Gregory objected strongly to the interference of ecclesiastical authorities in matters secular. As supreme guardian of Christian justice, the pope was always ready to intercede for, or protect anyone who suffered unjust treatment (Epistles 1.35; 1.36; 1.47; 1.59; 3.5; 5.38; 9.4; 9.46; 9.55; 9.113; 9.182; 11.4), but at the same time he used the utmost tact in approaching the imperial officials. In Epistle 1.39, xxxix a, he explains for the benefit of his Sicilian agent the precise attitude to be adopted in such matters.
Still, in conjunction with all this deference, Gregory retained a spirit of independence which enabled him, when he considered it necessary, to address even the emperor in terms of startling directness. Space makes it impossible to do more than refer to the famous letters to the Emperor Phocas on his usurpation and the allusions in them to the murdered Emperor Maurice (Epistles 13.34, 13.41, 13.42). Every kind of judgement has been passed upon Gregory for writing these letters, but the question remains a difficult one. Probably the pope’s conduct herein was due to two things: first, his ignorance of the way in which Phocus had reached the throne; and second, his view that the emperor was God’s representative on earth, and therefore deserving of all possible respect in his official capacity, his personal character not coming into the question at all. It should be noted, also, that he avoids any direct flattery towards the new emperor, merely using the exaggerated phrases of respect then customary, and expressing the high hopes he entertains of the new regime. Moreover, his allusions to Maurice refer to the sufferings of the people under his government, and do not reflect on the dead emperor himself.
Had the empire been sound instead of in a hopelessly rotten state when Gregory became pope, it is hard to say how his views might have worked out in practice. As it was, his line of strong independence, his efficiency, and his courage carried all before them, and when he died there was no longer any question as to who was the first power in Italy.
Missionary work
Gregory’s zeal for the conversion of the heathen, and in particular of the Angles, has been mentioned already, and there is no need to dwell at length on the latter subject, as it has been fully treated under SAINT AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY. In justice to the great pope, however, it must be added that he lost no opportunity for the exercise of his missionary zeal, making every effort to root out paganism in Gaul, Donatism in Africa, and the Schism of the Three Chapters in North Italy and Istria.
In his treatment of heretics, schismatics, and pagans his method was to try every means — persuasions, exhortations, threats — before resorting to force; but, if gentler treatment failed, he had no hesitation in accordance with the ideas of his age, in resorting to compulsion, and invoking the aid of the secular arm therein. It is curious, therefore, to find him acting as a champion and protector of the Jews. In Epistle 1.14, he expressly deprecates the compulsory baptism of Jews, and many instances appear in which he insists on their right to liberty of action, so far as the law permitted, both in civil affairs and in the worship of the synagogue (Epistles 1.34; 2.6; 8.25; 9.38; 9.195; 13.15). He was equally strong, however, in preventing the Jews from exceeding the rights granted to them by the imperial law, especially with regard to the ownership by them of Christian slaves (Epistles 2.6; 3.37; 4.9; 4.21; 6.29; 7.21; 8.21; 9.104; 9.213; 9.215). We shall probably be right, therefore, in attributing Gregory’s protection of the Jews to his respect for law and justice, rather than to any ideas of toleration differing from those current at the time.
Gregory and monasticism
Although the first monk to become pope, Gregory was in no sense an original contributor to monastic ideals or practice. He took monasticism as he found it established by St. Benedict, and his efforts and influence were given to strengthening and enforcing the prescriptions of that greatest of monastic legislators. His position did indeed tend to modify St. Benedict’s work by drawing it into a closer connection with the organization of the Church, and with the papacy in particular, but this was not deliberately aimed at by Gregory. Rather he was himself convinced that the monastic system had a very special value for the Church, and so he did everything in his power to diffuse and propagate it. His own property was consecrated to this end, he urged many wealthy people to establish or support monasteries, and he used the revenues of the patrimony for the same purpose.
He was relentless in correcting abuses and enforcing discipline, the letters on such matters being far too numerous for mention here, and the points on which he insists most are precisely those, such as stability and poverty, on which St. Benedict’s recent legislation had laid special stress. Twice only do we find anything like direct legislation by the pope. The first point is that of the age at which a nun might be made abbess, which he fixes at “not less than sixty years” (Epistle 4.11). The second is his lengthening of the period of novitiate. St. Benedict had prescribed at least one year (Reg. Ben., lviii); Gregory (Epistle 10.9) orders two years, with special precautions in the case of slaves who wished to become monks.
More important was his line of action in the difficult question of the relation between monks and their bishop. There is plenty of evidence to show that many bishops took advantage of their position to oppress and burden the monasteries in their diocese, with the result that the monks appealed to the pope for protection. Gregory, while always upholding the spiritual jurisdiction of the bishop, was firm in support of the monks against any illegal aggression. All attempts on the part of a bishop to assume new powers over the monks in his diocese were condemned, while at times the pope issued documents, called Privilegia, in which he definitely set forth certain points on which the monks were exempt from episcopal control (Epistles 5.49; 7.12; 8.17; 12.11; 12.12; 12.13). This action on Gregory’s part undoubtedly began the long progress by which the monastic bodies have come to be under the direct control of the Holy See.
It should be mentioned that in Gregory’s day the current view was that ecclesiastical work, such as the cure of souls, preaching, administering the sacraments, etc., was not compatible with the monastic state, and in this view the pope concurred. On the other hand a passage in Epistle 12.4, where he directs that a certain layman “should be tonsured either as a monk or a subdeacon”, would suggest that the pope held the monastic state as in some way equivalent to the ecclesiastical; for his ultimate intention in this case was to promote the layman in question to the episcopate.
Death, canonization, relics, emblem
The last years of Gregory’s life were filled with every kind of suffering. His mind, naturally serious, was filled with despondent forebodings, and his continued bodily pains were increased and intensified. His “sole consolation was the hope that death would come quickly” (Epistle 13.26). The end came on 12 March, 604, and on the same day his body was laid to rest in front of the sacristy in the portico of St. Peter’s Basilica. Since then the relics have been moved several times, the most recent translation being that by Paul V in 1606, when they were placed in the chapel of Clement V near the entrance of the modern sacristy. There is some evidence that the body was taken to Soissons in France in the year 826, but probably only some large relic is meant.
Venerable Bede (Hist. Eccl., II, i) gives the epitaph placed on his tomb which contains the famous phrase referring to Gregory as consul Dei. His canonization by popular acclamation followed at once on his death, and survived a reaction against his memory which seems to have occurred soon afterwards.
In art the great pope is usually shown in full pontifical robes with the tiara and double cross. A dove is his special emblem, in allusion to the well-known story recorded by Peter the Deacon (Vita, xxviii), who tells that when the pope was dictating his homilies on Ezechiel a veil was drawn between his secretary and himself. As, however, the pope remained silent for long periods at a time, the servant made a hole in the curtain and, looking through, beheld a dove seated upon Gregory’s head with its beak between his lips. When the dove withdrew its beak the holy pontiff spoke and the secretary took down his words; but when he became silent the servant again applied his eye to the hole and saw the dove had replaced its beak between his lips. The miracles attributed to Gregory are very many, but space forbids even the barest catalogue of them. Text from The Catholic Encyclopedia

 Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

 Lectionary: 433 

 Reading 1 

1 Corinthians 3:1-9

 Brothers and sisters, I could not talk to you as spiritual people, but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were unable to take it. Indeed, you are still not able, even now, for you are still of the flesh. While there is jealousy and rivalry among you, are you not of the flesh, and walking according to the manner of man? Whenever someone says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely men? What is Apollos, after all, and what is Paul? Ministers through whom you became believers, just as the Lord assigned each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth. Therefore, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who causes the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive wages in proportion to his labor. For we are God’s co-workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.

 Responsorial Psalm

 Psalm 33:12-13, 14-15, 20-21 R. (12) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own. Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD, the people he has chosen for his own inheritance. From heaven the LORD looks down; he sees all mankind. R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own. From his fixed throne he beholds all who dwell on the earth, He who fashioned the heart of each, he who knows all their works. R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own. Our soul waits for the LORD, who is our help and our shield, For in him our hearts rejoice; in his holy name we trust. R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own. 

 Alleluia Luke 4:18 

R. Alleluia, alleluia. The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives. R. Alleluia, alleluia. 

 Gospel Luke 4:38-44 

After Jesus left the synagogue, he entered the house of Simon. Simon’s mother-in-law was afflicted with a severe fever, and they interceded with him about her. He stood over her, rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up immediately and waited on them. At sunset, all who had people sick with various diseases brought them to him. He laid his hands on each of them and cured them. And demons also came out from many, shouting, “You are the Son of God.” But he rebuked them and did not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Christ. At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place. The crowds went looking for him, and when they came to him, they tried to prevent him from leaving them. But he said to them, “To the other towns also I must proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God, because for this purpose I have been sent.” And he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea

Born in Skänninge, Sweden, in the 13th century, St. Ingrid lived under the spiritual direction of Peter of Dacia, a Dominican priest. She was the first Dominican nun in Sweden and in 1281 she founded the first Dominican cloister there, called St. Martin's in Skänninge. She died in 1282 surrounded by an aura of sanctity.

 Miracles obtained through her intercession followed and led to a popular cult of this saint. In 1405, a canonization process was begun and the Swedish Bishops introduced her cause at the Council of Constance. An inquest was held in Sweden in 1416-1417 and the results were inconclusive. In 1497, the cause was reactivated and in 1507 her relics were solemnly translated, and a Mass and Office were composed - but formal canonization seems never to have occurred. During the Reformation, her cult came to an end and her convent and relics were destroyed.

Source: https://catholicfire.blogspot.com/2013/09/st-ingrid-of-sweden.html

Tuesday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 432

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

1 Corinthians 2:10b-16

Brothers and sisters:

The Spirit scrutinizes everything, even the depths of God.

Among men, who knows what pertains to the man

except his spirit that is within?

Similarly, no one knows what pertains to God except the Spirit of God.

We have not received the spirit of the world

but the Spirit who is from God,

so that we may understand the things freely given us by God.

And we speak about them not with words taught by human wisdom,

but with words taught by the Spirit,

describing spiritual realities in spiritual terms.

Now the natural man does not accept what pertains to the Spirit of God,

for to him it is foolishness, and he cannot understand it,

because it is judged spiritually.

The one who is spiritual, however, can judge everything

but is not subject to judgment by anyone.

For “who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to counsel him?”

But we have the mind of Christ.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-13ab, 13cd-14

R. (17) The Lord is just in all his ways.

The LORD is gracious and merciful,

slow to anger and of great kindness.

The LORD is good to all

and compassionate toward all his works.

R. The Lord is just in all his ways.

Let all your works give you thanks, O LORD,

and let your faithful ones bless you.

Let them discourse of the glory of your Kingdom

and speak of your might.

R. The Lord is just in all his ways.

Making known to men your might

and the glorious splendor of your Kingdom.

Your Kingdom is a Kingdom for all ages,

and your dominion endures through all generations.

R. The Lord is just in all his ways.

The LORD is faithful in all his words

and holy in all his works.

The LORD lifts up all who are falling

and raises up all who are bowed down.

R. The Lord is just in all his ways.

Alleluia

Luke 7:16

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

A great prophet has arisen in our midst

and God has visited his people.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Luke 4:31-37

Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town of Galilee.

He taught them on the sabbath,

and they were astonished at his teaching

because he spoke with authority.

In the synagogue there was a man with the spirit of an unclean demon,

and he cried out in a loud voice,

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

Have you come to destroy us?

I know who you are–the Holy One of God!”

Jesus rebuked him and said, “Be quiet! Come out of him!”

Then the demon threw the man down in front of them

and came out of him without doing him any harm.

They were all amazed and said to one another,

“What is there about his word?

For with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits,

and they come out.”

And news of him spread everywhere in the surrounding region.

Born: Athens, Greece - Died: France
Major Shrine: St. Giles’ Cathedral (Edinburgh, Scotland)
Patron Saint of: beggars; blacksmiths; breast cancer; breast feeding; cancer patients; disabled people; epilepsy; fear of night; forests; hermits; horses; lepers; mental illness; noctiphobics; outcasts; poor peoples; rams; spur makers; sterility; (SEE Novena and Prayers below)

Biography: An Abbot, said to have been born of illustrious Athenian parentage about the middle of the seventh century. Early in life he devoted himself exclusively to spiritual things, but, finding his noble birth and high repute for sanctity in his native land an obstacle to his perfection, he passed over to Gaul, where he established himself first in a wilderness near the mouth of the Rhone and later by the River Gard.

Legend says that a wounded deer took refuge in his cave.

But here again the fame of his sanctity drew multitudes to him, so he withdrew to a dense forest near Nîmes, where in the greatest solitude he spent many years, his sole companion being a deer. This last retreat was finally discovered by the king’s hunters, who had pursued the hind to its place of refuge. The king [who according to the legend was Wamba (or Flavius?), King of the Visigoths, but who must have been a Frank, since the Franks had expelled the Visigoths from the neighbourhood of Nîmes almost a century and a half earlier] conceived a high esteem for solitary, and would have heaped every honour upon him; but the humility of the saint was proof against all temptations. He consented, however, to receive thenceforth some disciples, and built a monastery in his valley, which he placed under the rule of St. Benedict. Here he died in the early part of the eighth century, with the highest repute for sanctity and miracles.
His cult spread rapidly far and wide throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, as is witnessed by the numberless churches and monasteries dedicated to him in France, Germany, Poland, Hungary, and the British Isles; by the numerous manuscripts in prose and verse commemorating his virtues and miracles; and especially by the vast concourse of pilgrims who from all Europe flocked to his shrine. In 1562 the relics of the saint were secretly transferred to Toulouse to save them from the hideous excesses of the Huguenots who were then ravaging France, and the pilgrimage in consequence declined. With the restoration of a great part of the relics to the church of St. Giles in 1862, and the discovery of his former tomb there in 1865, the pilgrimages have recommenced. Besides the city of St-Gilles, which sprang up around the abbey, nineteen other cities bear his name, St-Gilles, Toulouse, and a multitude of French cities, Antwerp, Bridges, and Tournai in Belgium, Cologne and Bamberg, in Germany, Prague and Gran in Austria-Hungary, Rome and Bologna in Italy, possess celebrated relics of St. Giles. In medieval art he is a frequent subject, being always depicted with his symbol, the hind. His feast is kept on 1 September. On this day there are also commemorated another St. Giles, an Italian hermit of the tenth century (Acta SS., XLI, 305), and a Blessed Giles, d. about 1203, a Cistercian abbot of Castaneda in the Diocese of Astorga, Spain (op. cit. XLI, 308).
SOURCE the Catholic Encyclopedia

Prayers in Honor of St. Giles:

O GOD, we beseech Thee to grant us, through the merits and intercession of St. Giles, to flee from the vanity and praise of this world, to avoid carefully all occasions of sin, to cleanse our hearts from all wickedness by a sincere Confession, to leave this world in Thy love and rich in good works, and to find Thee gracious on the day of judgment. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Invocation of St. Giles

ZEALOUS follower of Christ, St. Giles; from early youth thou didst take to heart the words of our Savior: “Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart.” Therefore thou didst flee from the praise and honors of the world, and wast rewarded with the grace to preserve thy heart from all sin and to persevere in a holy life to a ripe old age. I, on my part, through pride, self-confidence, and negligence, yielded to my evil inclinations, and thereby sinned grievously and often, offending my God and Lord, my Creator and Redeemer, my most loving Father. Therefore I implore thee to help me through thy mighty intercession to be enlightened by the Holy Ghost, that I may know the malice, grievousness, and multitude of my sins, confess them humbly, fully, and contritely, and receive pardon, tranquillity of heart, and peace of conscience from God. Amen.

Prayer

My Lord and God! I offer up to Thee my petition in union with the bitter passion and death of Jesus Christ, Thy Son, together with the merits of His immaculate and blessed Mother, Mary ever virgin, and of all the Saints, particularly with those of the holy Helper in whose honor I make this novena.

Look down upon me, merciful Lord! Grant me Thy grace and Thy love, and graciously hear my prayer. Amen.

Novena in Honor of St. Giles

Preparatory Prayer
For Each Novena to a Holy Helper

ALMIGHTY and eternal God! With lively faith and reverently worshiping Thy Divine Majesty, I prostrate myself before Thee and invoke with filial trust Thy supreme bounty and mercy. Illumine the darkness of my intellect with a ray of Thy Heavenly light and inflame my heart with the fire of Thy Divine love, that I may contemplate the great virtues and merits of the Saint in whose honor I make this novena, and following his example imitate, like him, the life of Thy Divine Son.

Moreover, I beseech Thee to grant graciously, through the merits and intercession of this powerful Helper, the petition which through him I humbly place before Thee, devoutly saying, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” Vouchsafe graciously to hear it, if it redounds to Thy greater glory and to the salvation of my soul. Amen. Say 1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary and 1 Glory Be each day of the Novena.

SOURCE:

THE FOURTEEN HOLY HELPERS, Fr. Bonaventure Hammer, O.F.M.

The Official Novena for the Birth of Mary, Blessed Virgin, Mother of God, with Plenary Indulgence. It is normally said 9 days before (August 31st) or after the Feast on September 8th. However, this novena can be recited anytime during the year. Complete - full novena - days 1-9:

NOVENA PRAYER FOR THE FEAST OF OUR LADY’S NATIVITY

Begin: Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Thy faithful, and kindle in them the fire of Thy love.
V. Send forth Thy Spirit, and they shall be created.
R. And Thou shalt renew the face of the earth.
O God, who hast taught the hearts of Thy faithful people by the light of the Holy Spirit; grant us in the same Spirit to relish what is right, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort. Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.
OR in Latin:
Veni Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium, et tui amoris in eis ignem accende. V. Emitte Spiritum tuum, et creabuntur.
R. Et renovabis faciem terrae.
Oremus: Deus, qui corda fidelium Sancti Spiritus illustratione docuisti: da nobis in eodem Spiritu recta sapere, et de ejus semper consolatione gaudere. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. R. Amen.

Daily Prayer and Short Version of the Novena: Most holy Mary, Elect One, predestined from all eternity by the Most Holy Trinity to be Mother of the only-begotten Son of the Eternal Father, foretold by the Prophets, expected by the Patriarchs, desired by all nations, Sanctuary and living Temple of the Holy Ghost, Sun without stain, conceived free from original sin, Mistress of Heaven and of Earth, Queen of angels:- humbly prostrate at thy feet we give thee our homage, rejoicing that the year has brought round again the memory of thy most happy Nativity; and we pray thee with all our hearts to vouchsafe in thy goodness now to come down again and be reborn spiritually in our souls, that, led captive by thy loveliness and sweetness, they may ever live united to thy most sweet and loving heart.

(for the Short version repeat this prayer for 9 days with an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be each day)

Specific Prayers for Each of the 9 days:

Day 1. So now whilst we say nine angelic salutations, we will direct our thoughts to the nine months which thou didst pass enclosed in thy mother’s womb; celebrating at the same time thy descent from the royal house of David, and how thou didst come forth to the light of heaven with high honour from the womb of holy Anna, thy most happy mother. Ave Maria or Hail Mary
Day 2. We hail thee, heavenly Babe, white Dove of purity; who in spite of the serpent was conceived free from original sin. Ave Maria or Hail Mary
Day 3. We hail thee, bright Morn; who, forerunner of the Heavenly Sun of Justice, didst bring the first light to earth. Ave Maria or Hail Mary
Day 4. We hail thee, Elect; who, like the untarnished Sun, didst burst forth in the dark night of sin. Ave Maria or Hail Mary
Day 5. We hail thee, beauteous Moon; who didst shed light upon a world wrapped in the darkness of idolatry. Ave Maria or Hail Mary
Day 6. We hail thee, dread Warrior-Queen; who, in thyself a host, didst put to flight all hell.
Ave Maria or Hail Mary
Day 7. We hail thee, fair Soul of Mary; who from eternity was possessed by God and God alone. Ave Maria or Hail Mary
Day 8. We hail thee, dear Child, and we humbly venerate thy most holy infant body, the sacred swaddling-clothes wherewith they bound thee, the sacred crib wherein they laid thee, and we bless the hour and the day when thou was born. Ave Maria or Hail Mary

Day 9. We hail thee, much-loved Infant, adorned with every virtue immeasurably above all saints, and therefore worthy Mother of the Saviour of the world; who, having been made fruitful by the Holy Spirit, didst bring forth the Word Incarnate.
Ave Maria or Hail Mary

PRAYER
O most lovely Infant, who by thy holy birth hast comforted the world, made glad the heavens, struck terror into hell, brought help to the fallen, consolation to the sad, salvation to the weak, joy to all men living; we entreat thee, with the most fervent love and gratitude, to be spiritually reborn in our souls by means of thy most holy love; renew our spirits to thy service, rekindle in our hearts the fire of charity, bid all the virtues blossom there, that so we may find more and more favour in thy gracious eyes. Mary! be thou our Mary, and may we feel the saving power of thy sweetest name; may it ever be our comfort to call on that name in all our troubles; may it be our hope in dangers, our shield in temptation, and our last utterance in death. Sit nomen Mariae mel in ore, melos in aure, et jubilus in corde. Amen. Let the name of Mary be honey in the mouth, melody in the ear, joy in the heart. Amen.
V. Thy Nativity, O Virgin Mother of God.
R. Hath brought joy to the whole world.
Let us pray.
Grant to us Thy servants, we beseech Thee, O Lord, the gift of heavenly grace; that to all those for whom the delivery of the Blessed Virgin was the beginning of salvation, this her votive festival may give increase of peace. Through, &c.

Or Latin:

V. Nativitas tua, Dei Genitrix Virgo.
R. Gaudium annuntiavit universo mundo.
Oremus.
Famulis tuis, quaesumus Domine, coelestis gratiae munus impertire: ut quibus Beata Virginis partus extitit salutis exordium, nativitatis ejus votiva solemnitas pacis tribuat incrementum.
Oremus.
Deus, qui corda fidelium Sancti Spiritus illustratione docuisti: da nobis in eodem Spiritu recta sapere, et de ejus semper consolatione gaudere. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. R. Amen.
Let us pray.

O God, who hast taught the hearts of Thy faithful people by the light of the Holy Spirit; grant us in the same Spirit to relish what is right, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort. Through Christ our Lord. R. Amen.

************Indulgence Rules:

To all faithful Christians who, in private or public, in church or in their own houses, shall keep any of the following Novenas, in preparation for the principal feasts of most holy Mary, Pope Pius VII., at the prayer of several holy persons, granted, by Rescripts issued through his Eminence the Cardinal-Vicar, Aug. 4 and Nov. 24, 1808, and Jan. 11, 1800 (all of which are kept in the Segretaria of the Vicariate) -

i. An indulgence of 300 days, daily.

ii. A plenary indulgence to all who shall assist at these Novenas every day, and who shall afterwards, either on the Feast-day itself, to which each Novena respectively has reference, or on some one day in its Octave, after Confession and Communion, pray to our Lord and to the Blessed Virgin ac cording to the pious intention of the Sovereign Pontiff.

Monday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 431

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

1 Corinthians 2:1-5

When I came to you, brothers and sisters,

proclaiming the mystery of God,

I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you

except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling,

and my message and my proclamation

were not with persuasive words of wisdom,

but with a demonstration of spirit and power,

so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom

but on the power of God.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 119:97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102

R. (97) Lord, I love your commands.

How I love your law, O LORD!

It is my meditation all the day.

R. Lord, I love your commands.

Your command has made me wiser than my enemies,

for it is ever with me.

R. Lord, I love your commands.

I have more understanding than all my teachers

when your decrees are my meditation.

R. Lord, I love your commands.

I have more discernment than the elders,

because I observe your precepts.

R. Lord, I love your commands.

From every evil way I withhold my feet,

that I may keep your words.

R. Lord, I love your commands.

From your ordinances I turn not away,

for you have instructed me.

R. Lord, I love your commands.

Alleluia

Luke 4:18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me;

he has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Luke 4:16-30

Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,

and went according to his custom

into the synagogue on the sabbath day.

He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

because he has anointed me

to bring glad tidings to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

Rolling up the scroll,

he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,

and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them,

“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

And all spoke highly of him

and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.

They also asked, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”

He said to them, “Surely you will quote me this proverb,

‘Physician, cure yourself,’ and say, ‘Do here in your native place

the things that we heard were done in Capernaum.’”

And he said,

“Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place.

Indeed, I tell you,

there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah

when the sky was closed for three and a half years

and a severe famine spread over the entire land.

It was to none of these that Elijah was sent,

but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon.

Again, there were many lepers in Israel

during the time of Elisha the prophet;

yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

When the people in the synagogue heard this,

they were all filled with fury.

They rose up, drove him out of the town,

and led him to the brow of the hill

on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong.

But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

(In Spanish SAN RAMON). Born 1200 or 1204 at Portello in the Diocese of Urgel in Catalonia; died at Cardona, 31 August, 1240.(See Novena Prayer at Bottom)His feast is celebrated on 31 August. He is pictured in the habit of his order surrounded by ransomed slaves, with a padlock on his lips. He was taken from the womb of his mother after her death, hence his name. Of noble but poor family, he showed early traits of piety and great talent.

His father ordered him to tend a farm, but later gave him permission to take the habit with the Mercedarians at Barcelona, at the hands of the founder, St. Peter Nolasco. Raymond made such progress in the religious life that he was soon considered worthy to succeed his master in the office of ransomer. He was sent to Algiers and liberated many captives. When money failed he gave himself as a hostage. He was zealous in teaching the Christian religion and made many converts, which embittered the Mohammedan authorities. Raymond was subjected to all kinds of indignities and cruelty, was made to run the gauntlet, and was at last sentenced to impalement. The hope of a greater sum of money as ransom caused the governor to commute the sentence into imprisonment. To prevent him from preaching for Christ, his lips were pierced with a red-hot iron and closed with a padlock. After his arrival in Spain, in 1239, he was made a cardinal by Gregory IX. In the next year he was called to Rome by the pope, but came only as far as Cardona, about six miles from Barcelona, where he died. His body was brought to the chapel of St. Nicholas near his old farm. In 1657 his name was placed in the Roman martyrology by Alexander VII. He is invoked by women in labour and by persons falsely accused. The appendix to the Roman ritual gives a formula for the blessing of water, in his honour, to be used by the sick, and another of candles. Text shared from The Catholic Encyclopedia

NOVENA TO SAINT RAYMOND NONNATUS

Glorious St. Raymond,filled with compassion for those who invoke you and with love for those who suffer heavily burdens with the weight of my troubles, I cast myself at your feet and humbly beg of you to take my present concerns which I recommend to you under your special protection. [Mention your intention(s) here...]
Promise to recommend these to the Blessed Virgin Mary and lay them before the Throne of Jesus, so that He may bring it to a happy ending. Cease not to intercede for me until my request is granted. Above all, obtain for me the grace of one day coming face to Face with God, and with you, the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints praising and blessing together for all eternity. Amen.
Good St. Raymond, pray for us and obtain our request.
Good St. Raymond, pray for us and obtain our request. Good St. Raymond, pray for us and obtain our request.
Say 1 Our Father..., Say 1 Hail Mary..., Say 1 Glory Be... (Say these prayers for 9 days)

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 124

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

Jeremiah 20:7-9

You duped me, O LORD, and I let myself be duped;

you were too strong for me, and you triumphed.

All the day I am an object of laughter;

everyone mocks me.

Whenever I speak, I must cry out,

violence and outrage is my message;

the word of the LORD has brought me

derision and reproach all the day.

I say to myself, I will not mention him,

I will speak in his name no more.

But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart,

imprisoned in my bones;

I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 63:2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9

R. (2b) My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.

O God, you are my God whom I seek;

for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts

like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.

R. My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.

Thus have I gazed toward you in the sanctuary

to see your power and your glory,

for your kindness is a greater good than life;

my lips shall glorify you.

R. My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.

Thus will I bless you while I live;

lifting up my hands, I will call upon your name.

As with the riches of a banquet shall my soul be satisfied,

and with exultant lips my mouth shall praise you.

R. My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.

You are my help,

and in the shadow of your wings I shout for joy.

My soul clings fast to you;

your right hand upholds me.

R. My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.

Reading 2

Romans 12:1-2

I urge you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God,

to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice,

holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.

Do not conform yourselves to this age

but be transformed by the renewal of your mind,

that you may discern what is the will of God,

what is good and pleasing and perfect.

Alleluia

cf. Ephesians 1:17-18

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

enlighten the eyes of our hearts,

that we may know what is the hope

that belongs to our call.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 16:21-27

Jesus began to show his disciples

that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly

from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,

and be killed and on the third day be raised.

Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him,

“God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you.”

He turned and said to Peter,

“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me.

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

Then Jesus said to his disciples,

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself,

take up his cross, and follow me.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world

and forfeit his life?

Or what can one give in exchange for his life?

For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory,

and then he will repay all according to his conduct.”

St. Fiacre an Abbot, born in Ireland about the end of the sixth century; died 18 August, 670.
Patron Saint of:gardeners; herbalists; florists, cab - taxi drivers, victims of hemorrhoids and venereal diseases; Saint-Fiacre, Seine-et-Marne, France

Prayer: Dear God our Father, Giver of all good, we lift up our hearts to You in thanksgiving for who You are and for the power and majesty You manifest in the earth. We thank You for the sun, the rain, and the abundant fruits, flowers, vegetables and herbs You cause to spring forth in our gardens, fields, and flower ports, all signs of Your never-ending love. Through the intercession of Saint Fiacre, patron of gardeners, please bless our fields and gardens with Your verdant blessings. Give us the strength and wisdom to tend our plants and all living things with care, diligence, and joy. May we bring forth a good harvest in due season. In Jesus’ name. Amen. (Can be said as a Novena for 9 days with an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be, each day)
Biography - Having been ordained priest, he retired to a hermitage on the banks of the Nore of which the townland Kilfiachra, or Kilfera, County Kilkenny, still preserves the memory. Disciples flocked to him, but, desirous of greater solitude, he left his native land and arrived, in 628, at Meaux, where St. Faro then held episcopal sway. He was generously received by Faro, whose kindly feelings were engaged to the Irish monk for blessings which he and his father’s house had received from the Irish missionary Columbanus. Faro granted him out of his own patrimony a site at Brogillum (Breuil) surrounded by forests. Here Fiacre built an oratory in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a hospice in which he received strangers, and a cell in which he himself lived apart. He lived a life of great mortification, in prayer, fast, vigil, and the manual labour of the garden. Disciples gathered around him and soon formed a monastery. There is a legend that St. Faro allowed him as much land as he might surround in one day with a furrow; that Fiacre turned up the earth with the point of his crosier, and that an officious woman hastened to tell Faro that he was being beguiled; that Faro coming to the wood recognized that the wonderworker was a man of God and sought his blessing, and that Fiacre henceforth excluded women, on pain of severe bodily infirmity, from the precincts of his monastery. In reality, the exclusion of women was a common rugin the Irish foundations. His fame for miracles was widespread. He cured all manner of diseases by laying on his hands; blindness, polypus, fevers are mentioned, and especially a tumour or fistula since called “le fic de S. Fiacre”.
His remains were interred in the church at Breuil, where his sanctity was soon attested by the numerous cures wrought at his tomb. Many churches and oratories have been dedicated to him throughout France. His shrine at Breuil is still a resort for pilgrims with bodily ailments. In 1234 his remains were placed in a shrine by Pierre, Bishop of Meaux, his arm being encased in a separate reliquary. In 1479 the relics of Sts. Fiacre and Kilian were placed in a silver shrine, which was removed in 1568 to the cathedral church at Meaux for safety from the destructive fanaticism of the Calvinists. In 1617 the Bishop of Meaux gave part of the saint’s body to the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and in 1637 the shrine was again opened and part of the vertebrae given to Cardinal Richelieu. A mystery play of the fifteenth century celebrates St. Fiacre’s life and miracles. St. John of Matha, Louis XIII, and Anne of Austria were among his most famous clients. He is the patron of gardeners. The French cab derives its name from him. The Hôtel de St-Fiacre, in the Rue St-Martin, Paris, in the middle of the seventeenth century first let these coaches on hire. The sign of the inn was an image of the saint, and the coaches in time came to be called by his name. His feast is kept on the 30th of August.

Source: The Catholic Encyclopedia

St. John the Baptist is the elder cousin of Jesus. His Feast days are June 24th (his Birth - a Solemnity) and August 29th (his Martyrdom). The principal sources of information concerning the life and ministry of St. John the Baptist are the canonical Gospels. Of these St. Luke is the most complete, giving as he does the wonderful circumstances accompanying the birth of the Precursor and items on his ministry and death. St. Matthew’s Gospel stands in close relation with that of St. Luke, as far as John’s public ministry is concerned.

Zachary, the father of John the Baptist, was a priest of the course of Abia, the eighth of the twenty-four courses into which the priests were divided (1 Chronicles 24:7-19); Elizabeth, the Precursor’s mother, “was of the daughters of Aaron”, according to St. Luke (1:5); the same Evangelist, a few verses farther on (1:36), calls her the “cousin” (syggenis) of Mary. These two statements appear to be conflicting, for how, it will be asked, could a cousin of the Blessed Virgin be “of the daughters of Aaron”? The problem might be solved by adopting the reading given in an old Persian version, where we find “mother’s sister” (metradelphe) instead of “cousin”.

A somewhat analogous explanation, probably borrowed from some apocryphal writing, and perhaps correct, is given by St. Hippolytus (in Nicephor., II, iii). According to him, Mathan had three daughters: Mary, Soba, and Ann. Mary, the oldest, married a man of Bethlehem and was the mother of Salome; Soba married at Bethlehem also, but a “son of Levi”, by whom she had Elizabeth; Ann wedded a Galilean (Joachim) and bore Mary, the Mother of God. Thus Salome, Elizabeth, and the Blessed Virgin were first cousins, and Elizabeth, “of the daughters of Aaron” on her father’s side, was, on her mother’s side, the cousin of Mary. Zachary’s home is designated only in a vague manner by St. Luke: it was “a city of Juda”, “in the hill-country” (1:39). Reland, advocating the unwarranted assumption that Juda might be a misspelling of the name, proposed to read in its stead Jutta (Joshua 15:55; 21:16; D.V.; Jota, Jeta), a priestly town south of Hebron. But priests did not always live in priestly towns (Mathathias’s home was at Modin; Simon Machabeus’s at Gaza). A tradition, which can be traced back to the time before the Crusades, points to the little town of Ain-Karim, five miles southwest of Jerusalem.
The birth of the Precursor was announced in a most striking manner. Zachary and Elizabeth, as we learn from St. Luke, “were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and justifications of the Lord without blame; and they had no son, for that Elizabeth was barren” (1:6-7). Long they had prayed that their union might be blessed with offspring; but, now that “they were both advanced in years”, the reproach of barrenness bore heavily upon them. “And it came to pass, when he executed the priestly function in the order of his course before God, according to the custom of the priestly office, it was his lot to offer incense, going into the temple of the Lord. And all the multitude of the people was praying without, at the hour of incense. And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zachary seeing him, was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him: Fear not, Zachary, for thy prayer is heard; and they wife Elizabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John: and thou shalt have joy and gladness, and many shall rejoice in his nativity. For he shall be great before the Lord; and shall drink no wine nor strong drink: and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb. And he shall convert many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias; that he may turn the hearts of the fathers unto the children, and the incredulous to the wisdom of the just, to prepare unto the Lord a perfect people” (1:8-17). As Zachary was slow in believing this startling prediction, the angel, making himself known to him, announced that, in punishment of his incredulity, he should be stricken with dumbness until the promise was fulfilled. “And it came to pass, after the days of his office were accomplished, he departed to his own house. And after those days, Elizabeth his wife conceived, and hid herself five months” (1:23-24).
Now during the sixth month, the Annunciation had taken place, and, as Mary had heard from the angel the fact of her cousin’s conceiving, she went “with haste” to congratulate her. “And it came to pass, that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant” — filled, like the mother, with the Holy Ghost — “leaped for joy in her womb”, as if to acknowledge the presence of his Lord. Then was accomplished the prophetic utterance of the angel that the child should “be filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb”. Now as the presence of any sin whatever is incompatible with the indwelling of the Holy Ghost in the soul, it follows that at this moment John was cleansed from the stain of original sin. When “Elizabeth’s full time of being delivered was come. . .she brought forth a son” (1:57); and “on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they called him by his father’s name Zachary. And his mother answering, said: Not so, but he shall be called John. And they said to her: There is none of thy kindred that is called by this name. And they made sign to his father, how he would have him called. And demanding a writing table, he wrote, saying: John is his name. And they all wondered” (1:59-63). They were not aware that no better name could be applied (John, Hebrew; Jehohanan, i.e. “Jahweh hath mercy”) to him who, as his father prophesied, was to “go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways; to give knowledge of salvation to his people, unto remission of their sins: through the bowels of the mercy of our God” (1:76-78). Moreover, all these events, to wit, a child born to an aged couple, Zachary’s sudden dumbness, his equally sudden recovery of speech, his astounding utterance, might justly strike with wonderment the assembled neighbours; these could hardly help asking: “What an one, think ye, shall this child be?” (1:66).
As to the date of the birth of John the Baptist, nothing can be said with certainty. The Gospel suggests that the Precursor was born about six months before Christ; but the year of Christ’s nativity has not so far been ascertained. Nor is there anything certain about the season of Christ’s birth, for it is well known that the assignment of the feast of Christmas to the twenty-fifth of December is not grounded on historical evidence, but is possibly suggested by merely astronomical considerations, also, perhaps, inferred from astronomico-theological reasonings. Besides, no calculations can be based upon the time of the year when the course of Abia was serving in the Temple, since each one of the twenty-four courses of priests had two turns a year. Of John’s early life St. Luke tell us only that “the child grew, and was strengthened in spirit; and was in the deserts, until the day of his manifestation to Israel” (1:80). Should we ask just when the Precursor went into the wilderness, an old tradition echoed by Paul Warnefried (Paul the Deacon), in the hymn, “Ut queant laxis”, composed in honour of the saint, gives an answer hardly more definite than the statement of the Gospel: “Antra deserti teneris sub annis. . .petiit . . .” Other writers, however, thought they knew better. For instance, St. Peter of Alexandria believed St. John was taken into the desert to escape the wrath of Herod, who, if we may believe report, was impelled by fear of losing his kingdom to seek the life of the Precursor, just as he was, later on, to seek that of the new-born Saviour. It was added also that Herod on this account had Zachary put to death between the temple and the altar, because he had prophesied the coming of the Messias (Baron., “Annal. Apparat.”, n. 53). These are worthless legends long since branded by St. Jerome as “apocryphorum somnia”.
Passing, then, with St. Luke, over a period of some thirty years, we reach what may be considered the beginning of the public ministry of St. John (see BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY). Up to this he had led in the desert the life of an anchorite; now he comes forth to deliver his message to the world. “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. . .the word of the Lord was made unto John, the son of Zachary, in the desert. And he came into all the country about the Jordan, preaching” (Luke 3:1-3), clothed not in the soft garments of a courtier (Matthew 11:8; Luke 7:24), but in those “of camel’s hair, and a leather girdle about his loins”; and “his meat” — he looked as if he came neither eating nor drinking (Matthew 11:18; Luke 7:33) — “was locusts and wild honey” (Matthew 3:4; Mark 1:6); his whole countenance, far from suggesting the idea of a reed shaken by the wind (Matthew 11:7; Luke 7:24), manifested undaunted constancy. A few incredulous scoffers feigned to be scandalized: “He hath a devil” (Matthew 11:18). Nevertheless, “Jerusalem and all Judea, and all the country about Jordan” (Matthew 3:5), drawn by his strong and winning personality, went out to him; the austerity of his life added immensely to the weight of his words; for the simple folk, he was truly a prophet (Matthew 11:9; cf. Luke 1:76, 77). “Do penance: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2), such was the burden of his teaching. Men of all conditions flocked round him.
Pharisees and Sadducees were there; the latter attracted perhaps by curiosity and scepticism, the former expecting possibly a word of praise for their multitudinous customs and practices, and all, probably, more anxious to see which of the rival sects the new prophet would commend than to seek instruction. But John laid bare their hypocrisy. Drawing his similes from the surrounding scenery, and even, after the Oriental fashion, making use of a play on words (abanimbanium), he lashed their pride with this well-deserved rebuke: “Ye brood of vipers, who hath shewed you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of penance. And think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham for our father. For I tell you that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham. For now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that doth not yield good fruit, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire” (Matthew 3:7-10; Luke 3:7-9). It was clear something had to be done. The men of good will among the listeners asked: “What shall we do?” (Probably some were wealthy and, according to the custom of people in such circumstances, were clad in two tunics. - Josephus, “Antiq.”, XVIII, v, 7). “And he answering, said to them: He that hath two coats, let him give to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do in like manner” (Luke 3:11). Some were publicans; on them he enjoined not to exact more than the rate of taxes fixed by law (Luke 3:13). To the soldiers (probably Jewish police officers) he recommended not to do violence to any man, nor falsely to denounce anyone, and to be content with their pay (Luke 3:14). In other words, he cautioned them against trusting in their national privileges, he did not countenance the tenets of any sect, nor did he advocate the forsaking of one’s ordinary state of life, but faithfulness and honesty in the fulfillment of one’s duties, and the humble confession of one’s sins. To confirm the good dispositions of his listeners, John baptized them in the Jordan, “saying that baptism was good, not so much to free one from certain sins [cf. St. Thomas, Summa III.38.2 and 3] as to purify the body, the soul being already cleansed from its defilements by justice” (Josephus, “Antiq.”, XVIII, vii). This feature of his ministry, more than anything else, attracted public attention to such an extent that he was surnamed “the Baptist” (i.e. Baptizer) even during his lifetime (by Christ, Matthew 11:11; by his own disciples, Luke 7:20; by Herod, Matthew 14:2; by Herodias, Matthew 14:3). Still his right to baptize was questioned by some (John 1:25); the Pharisees and the lawyers refused to comply with this ceremony, on the plea that baptism, as a preparation for the kingdom of God, was connected only with the Messias (Ezekiel 36:25; Zechariah 13:1, etc.), Elias, and the prophet spoken of in Deuteronomy 18:15. John’s reply was that he was Divinely “sent to baptize with water” (John 1:33); to this, later on, our Saviour bore testimony, when, in answer to the Pharisees trying to ensnare him, he implicitly declared that John’s baptism was from heaven (Mark 11:30). Whilst baptizing, John, lest the people might think “that perhaps he might be the Christ” (Luke 3:15), did not fail to insist that his was only a forerunner’s mission: “I indeed baptize you with water; but there shall come one mightier than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to loose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire: whose fan is in his hand and he will purge his floor; and will gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Luke 3:16, 17). Whatever John may have meant by this baptism “with fire”, he, at all events, in this declaration clearly defined his relation to the One to come.
Here it will not be amiss to touch on the scene of the Precursor’s ministry. The locality should be sought in that part of the Jordan valley (Luke 3:3) which is called the desert (Mark 1:4). Two places are mentioned in the Fourth Gospel in this connection: Bethania (John 1:28) and Ennon (A.V. Ænon, John 3:23). As to Bethania, the reading Bethabara, first given by Origen, should be discarded; but the Alexandrine scholar perhaps was less wrong in suggesting the other reading, Bethara, possibly a Greek form of Betharan; at any rate, the site in question must be looked for “beyond the Jordan” (John 1:28). The second place, Ennon, “near Salim” (John 3:23), the extreme northern point marked in the Madaba mosaic map, is described in Eusebius’s “Onomasticon” as being eight miles south of Scythopolis (Beisan), and should be sought probably at Ed-Deir or El-Ftur, a short distance from the Jordan (Lagrange, in “Revue Biblique”, IV, 1895, pp. 502-05). Moreover, a long-standing tradition, traced back to A.D. 333, associates the activity of the Precursor, particularly the Baptism of the Lord, with the neighbourhood of Deir Mar-Yuhanna (Qasr el-Yehud).
The Precursor had been preaching and baptizing for some time (just how long is not known), when Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan, to be baptized by him. Why, it might be asked, should He “who did no sin” (1 Peter 2:22) seek John’s “baptism of penance for the remission of sins” (Luke 3:3)? The Fathers of the Church answer very appropriately that this was the occasion preordained by the Father when Jesus should be manifested to the world as the Son of God; then again, by submitting to it, Jesus sanctioned the baptism of John. “But John stayed him, saying: I ought to be baptized by thee, and comest thou to me?” (Matthew 3:14). These words, implying, as they do, that John knew Jesus, are in seeming conflict with a later declaration of John recorded in the Fourth Gospel: “I knew him not” (John 1:33). Most interpreters take it that the Precursor had some intimation of Jesus being the Messias: they assign this as the reason why John at first refused to baptize him; but the heavenly manifestation had, a few moments later, changed this intimation into perfect knowledge. “And Jesus answering, said to him: Suffer it to be so now. For so it becometh us to fulfil all justice. Then he suffered him. And Jesus being baptized, forthwith came out of the water: and lo, the heavens were opened to him. . .And, behold, a voice from heaven, saying: This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:15-17). After this baptism, while Jesus was preaching through the towns of Galilee, going into Judea only occasionally for the feast days, John continued his ministry in the valley of the Jordan. It was at this time that “the Jews sent from Jerusalem priests and Levites to him, to ask him: Who are thou? And he confessed, and did not deny: and he confessed: I am not the Christ. And they asked him: What then? Art thou Elias? And he said: I am not. Art thou the prophet? And he answered: No. They said, therefore, unto him: Who are thou, that we may give an answer to them that sent us? What sayest thou of thyself? He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Isaias” (John 1:19-23). John denied he was Elias, whom the Jews were looking for (Matthew 17:10; Mark 9:10). Nor did Jesus admit it, though His words to His disciples at first sight seem to point that way; “Elias indeed shall come, and restore all things. But I say to you, that Elias is already come” (Matthew 17:11; Mark 9:11-12). St. Matthew notes “the disciples understood, that he had spoken to them of John the Baptist” (Matthew 17:13). This was equal to saying, “Elias is not to come in the flesh.” But, in speaking of John before the multitude, Jesus made it plain that he called John Elias figuratively: “If you will receive it, he is Elias that is to come. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:14, 15). This had been anticipated by the angel when, announcing John’s birth to Zachary, he foretold that the child would go before the Lord “in the spirit and power of Elias” (Luke 1:17). “The next day, John saw Jesus coming to him and he saith: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I said: After me there cometh a man, who is preferred before me: because he was before me. . .that he may be made manifest in Israel, therefore am I come baptizing with water . . . . And I knew him not; but he who sent me to baptize with water, said to me: He upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining upon him, he it is that baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and I gave testimony, that this is the Son of God” (John 1:20-34). Among the many listeners flocking to St. John, some, more deeply touched by his doctrine, stayed with him, thus forming, as around other famous doctors of the law, a group of disciples. These he exhorted to fast (Mark 2:18), these he taught special forms of prayer (Luke 5:33; 11:1). Their number, according to the pseudo-Clementine literature, reached thirty (Homily 2.23). Among them was Andrew of Bethsaida of Galilee (John 1:44). One day, as Jesus was standing in the distance, John, pointed Him out, repeated his previous declaration: “Behold the Lamb of God”. Then Andrew, with another disciple of John, hearing this, followed Jesus (John 1:36-38). The account of the calling of Andrew and Simon differs materially from that found in St. Matthew, St. Mark, and St. Luke; yet it should be noticed that St. Luke, in particular, so narrates the meeting of the two brothers with the Saviour, as to let us infer they already knew Him. Now, on the other hand, since the Fourth Evangelist does not say that Andrew and his companions forthwith left their business to devote themselves exclusively to the Gospel or its preparation, there is clearly no absolute discordance between the narration of the first three Gospels and that of St. John. The Precursor, after the lapse of several months, again appears on the scene, and he is still preaching and baptizing on the banks of the Jordan (John 3:23). Jesus, in the meantime, had gathered about Himself a following of disciples, and He came “into the land of Judea: and there He abode with them, and baptized” (John 3:22), — “though Jesus himself did not baptize, but his disciples” (John 4:2). — “There arose a question between some of John’s disciples and the Jews [the best Greek texts have “a Jew”] concerning purification” (John 3:25), that is to say, as is suggested by the context, concerning the relative value of both baptisms. The disciples of John came to him: “Rabbi, he that was with thee beyond the Jordan, to whom thou gavest testimony, behold he baptizeth, and all men come to him” (John 3:26-27). They undoubtedly meant that Jesus should give way to John who had recommended Him, and that, by baptizing, He was encroaching upon the rights of John. “John answered and said: A man cannot receive anything, unless it be given him from heaven. You yourselves do bear me witness, that I said, I am not Christ, but that I am sent before him. He that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth with joy because of the bridegroom’s voice. This my joy, therefore, is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease. He that cometh from above, is above all. He that is of the earth, of the earth he is, and of the earth he speaketh. He that cometh from heaven, is above all. And what he hath seen and heard, that he testifieth. . .” (John 3:27-36). The above narration recalls the fact before mentioned (John 1:28), that part of the Baptist’s ministry was exercised in Perea: Ennon, another scene of his labours, was within the borders of Galilee; both Perea and Galilee made up the tetrarchy of Herod Antipas. This prince, a son worthy of his father Herod the Great, had married, likely for political reasons, the daughter of Aretas, king of the Nabathaeans. But on a visit to Rome, he fell in love with his niece Herodias, the wife of his half-brother Philip (son of the younger Mariamne), and induced her to come on to Galilee. When and where the Precursor met Herod, we are not told, but from the synoptic Gospels we learn that John dared to rebuke the tetrarch for his evil deeds, especially his public adultery. Herod, swayed by Herodias, did not allow the unwelcome reprover to go unpunished: he “sent and apprehended John and bound him in prison”. Josephus tell us quite another story, containing perhaps also an element of truth. “As great crowds clustered around John, Herod became afraid lest the Baptist should abuse his moral authority over them to incite them to rebellion, as they would do anything at his bidding; therefore he thought it wiser, so as to prevent possible happenings, to take away the dangerous preacher. . .and he imprisoned him in the fortress of Machaerus” (Antiq., XVIII, v, 2). Whatever may have been the chief motive of the tetrarch’s policy, it is certain that Herodias nourished a bitter hatred against John: “She laid snares for him: and was desirous to put him to death” (Mark 6:19). Although Herod first shared her desire, yet “he feared the people: because they esteemed him as a prophet” (Matthew 14:5). After some time this resentment on Herod’s part seems to have abated, for, according to Mark 6:19-20, he heard John willingly and did many things at his suggestion. John, in his fetters, was attended by some of his disciples, who kept him in touch with the events of the day. He thus learned of the wonders wrought by Jesus. At this point it cannot be supposed that John’s faith wavered in the least. Some of his disciples, however, would not be convinced by his words that Jesus was the Messias. Accordingly, he sent them to Jesus, bidding them say: “John the Baptist hath sent us to thee, saying: Art thou he that art to come; or look we for another? (And in that same hour, he cured many of their [the people’s] diseases, and hurts, and evil spirits; and to many that were blind he gave sight.) And answering, he said to them: Go and relate to John what you have heard and seen: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead rise again, to the poor the gospel is preached: and blessed is he whosoever shall not be scandalized in me” (Luke 7:20-23; Matthew 11:3-6).
How this interview affected John’s disciples, we do not know; but we do know the encomium it occasioned of John from the lips of Jesus: “And when the messengers of John were departed, he began to speak to the multitudes concerning John. What went ye out into the desert to see? A reed shaken with the wind?” All knew full well why John was in prison, and that in his captivity he was more than ever the undaunted champion of truth and virtue. — “But what went you out to see? A man clothed in soft garments? Behold they that are in costly apparel, and live delicately, are in the houses of kings. But what went you out to see? A prophet? Yea, I say to you, and more than a prophet. This is he of whom it is written: Behold, I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee. For I say to you: Amongst those that are born of women, there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” (Luke 7:24-28). And continuing, Jesus pointed out the inconsistency of the world in its opinions both of himself and his precursor: “John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and you say: He hath a devil. The Son of man is coming eating and drinking: and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners. And wisdom is justified by all her children” (Luke 7:33-35).
St. John languished probably for some time in the fortress of Machaerus; but the ire of Herodias, unlike that of Herod, never abated: she watched her chance. It came at the birthday feast which Herod, after Roman fashion, gave to the “princes, and tribunes, and chief men of Galilee. And when the daughter of the same Herodias [Josephus gives her name: Salome] had come in, and had danced, and pleased Herod and them that were at table with him, the king said to the damsel: Ask of me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee. . .Who when she was gone out, said to her mother, what shall I ask? But she said: The head of John the Baptist. And when she was come in immediately with haste to the king, she asked, saying: I will that forthwith thou give me in a dish, the head of John the Baptist. And the king was struck sad. Yet because of his oath, and because of them that were with him at table, he would not displease her: but sending an executioner, he commanded that his head should be brought in a dish: and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother” (Mark 6:21-28). Thus was done to death the greatest “amongst them that are born of women”, the prize awarded to a dancing girl, the toll exacted for an oath rashly taken and criminally kept (St. Augustine). At such an unjustifiable execution even the Jews were shocked, and they attributed to Divine vengeance the defeat Herod sustained afterwards at the hands of Aretas, his rightful father-in-law (Josephus, loc. cit.). John’s disciples, hearing of his death, “came, and took his body, and laid it in a tomb” (Mark 6:29), “and came and told Jesus” (Matthew 14:12). The lasting impression made by the Precursor upon those who had come within his influence cannot be better illustrated than by mentioned the awe which seize upon Herod when he heard of the wonders wrought by Jesus who, in his mind, was not other than John the Baptist come to life (Matthew 14:1, 2, etc.). The Precursor’s influence did not die with him. It was far-reaching, too, as we learn from Acts 18:25; 19:3, where we find that proselytes at Ephesus had received from Apollo and others the baptism of John. Moreover, early Christian writers speak of a sect taking its name from John and holding only to his baptism. The date of John the Baptist’s death, 29 August, assigned in the liturgical calendars can hardly be relied upon, because it is scarcely based upon trustworthy documents. His burial-place has been fixed by an old tradition at Sebaste (Samaria). But if there be any truth in Josephus’s assertion, that John was put to death at Machaerus, it is hard to understand why he was buried so far from the Herodian fortress. Still, it is quite possible that, at a later date unknown to us, his sacred remains were carried to Sebaste. At any rate, about the middle of the fourth century, his tomb was there honoured, as we are informed on the testimony of Rufinus and Theodoretus. These authors add that the shrine was desecrated under Julian the Apostate (c. A.D. 362), the bones being partly burned. A portion of the rescued relics were carried to Jerusalem, then to Alexandria; and there, on 27 May, 395, these relics were laid in the gorgeous basilica just dedicated to the Precursor on the site of the once famous temple of Serapis. The tomb at Sebaste continued, nevertheless, to be visited by pious pilgrims, and St. Jerome bears witness to the miracles there wrought. Perhaps some of the relics had been brought back to Sebaste. Other portions at different times found their way to many sanctuaries of the Christian world, and long is the list of the churches claiming possession of some part of the precious treasure. What became of the head of the Precursor is difficult to determine. Nicephorus (I, ix) and Metaphrastes say Herodias had it buried in the fortress of Machaerus; others insist that it was interred in Herod’s palace at Jerusalem; there it was found during the reign of Constantine, and thence secretly taken to Emesa, in Phoenicia, where it was concealed, the place remaining unknown for years, until it was manifested by revelation in 453. In the many and discordant relations concerning this relic, unfortunately much uncertainty prevails; their discrepancies in almost every point render the problem so intricate as to baffle solution. This signal relic, in whole or in part, is claimed by several churches, among them Amiens, Nemours, St-Jean d’Angeli (France), S. Silvestro in Capite (Rome). This fact Tillemont traces to a mistaking of one St. John for another, an explanation which, in certain cases, appears to be founded on good grounds and accounts well for this otherwise puzzling multiplication of relics. The honour paid so early and in so many places to the relics of St. John the Baptist, the zeal with which many churches have maintained at all times their ill-founded claims to some of his relics, the numberless churches, abbeys, towns, and religious families placed under his patronage, the frequency of his name among Christian people, all attest the antiquity and widespread diffusion of the devotion to the Precursor. The commemoration of his Nativity is one of the oldest feasts, if not the oldest feast, introduced into both the Greek and Latin liturgies to honour a saint. But why is the feast proper, as it were, of St. John on the day of his nativity, whereas with other saints it is the day of their death? Because it was meant that the birth of him who, unlike the rest, was “filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb”, should be signalized as a day of triumph. The celebration of the Decollation of John the Baptist, on 29 August, enjoys almost the same antiquity. We find also in the oldest martyrologies mention of a feast of the Conception of the Precursor on 24 September. But the most solemn celebration in honour of this saint was always that of his Nativity, preceded until recently by a fast. Many places adopted the custom introduced by St. Sabas of having a double Office on this day, as on the day of the Nativity of the Lord. The first Office, intended to signify the time of the Law and the Prophets which lasted up to St. John (Luke 16:16), began at sunset, and was chanted without Alleluia; the second, meant to celebrate the opening of the time of grace, and gladdened by the singing of Alleluia, was held during the night. The resemblance of the feast of St. John with that of Christmas was carried farther, for another feature of the 24th of June was the celebration of three masses: the first, in the dead of night, recalled his mission of Precursor; the second, at daybreak, commemorated the baptism he conferred; and the third, at the hour of Terce, honoured his sanctity. The whole liturgy of the day, repeatedly enriched by the additions of several popes, was in suggestiveness and beauty on a part with the liturgy of Christmas. So sacred was St. John’s day deemed that two rival armies, meeting face to face on 23 June, by common accord put off the battle until the morrow of the feast (Battle of Fontenay, 841). “Joy, which is the characteristic of the day, radiated from the sacred precincts. The lovely summer nights, at St. John’s tide, gave free scope to popular display of lively faith among various nationalities. Scarce had the last rays of the setting sun died away when, all the world over, immense columns of flame arose from every mountain-top, and in an instant, every town, and village, and hamlet was lighted up” (Guéranger). The custom of the “St. John’s fires”, whatever its origin, has, in certain regions, endured unto this day. Text Source: The Catholic Encyclopedia

Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist

Lectionary: 430/634

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Consider your own calling, brothers and sisters.

Not many of you were wise by human standards,

not many were powerful,

not many were of noble birth.

Rather, God chose the foolish of the world to shame the wise,

and God chose the weak of the world to shame the strong,

and God chose the lowly and despised of the world,

those who count for nothing,

to reduce to nothing those who are something,

so that no human being might boast before God.

It is due to him that you are in Christ Jesus,

who became for us wisdom from God,

as well as righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,

so that, as it is written,

Whoever boasts, should boast in the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 33:12-13, 18-19, 20-21

R. (12) Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Blessed the nation whose God is the LORD,

the people he has chosen for his own inheritance.

From heaven the LORD looks down;

he sees all mankind.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

But see, the eyes of the LORD are upon those who fear him,

upon those who hope for his kindness,

To deliver them from death

and preserve them in spite of famine.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Our soul waits for the LORD,

who is our help and our shield,

For in him our hearts rejoice;

in his holy name we trust.

R. Blessed the people the Lord has chosen to be his own.

Alleluia

Matthew 5:10

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,

for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Mark 6:17-29

Herod was the one who had John the Baptist arrested and bound in prison

on account of Herodias,

the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married.

John had said to Herod,

“It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife.”

Herodias harbored a grudge against him

and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so.

Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man,

and kept him in custody.

When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed,

yet he liked to listen to him.

She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday,

gave a banquet for his courtiers,

his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee.

Herodias’ own daughter came in

and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests.

The king said to the girl,

“Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you.”

He even swore many things to her,

“I will grant you whatever you ask of me,

even to half of my kingdom.”

She went out and said to her mother,

“What shall I ask for?”

She replied, “The head of John the Baptist.”

The girl hurried back to the king’s presence and made her request,

“I want you to give me at once

on a platter the head of John the Baptist.”

The king was deeply distressed,

but because of his oaths and the guests

he did not wish to break his word to her.

So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders

to bring back his head.

He went off and beheaded him in the prison.

He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl.

The girl in turn gave it to her mother.

When his disciples heard about it,

they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb.

Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Lectionary: 429

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

1 Corinthians 1:17-25

Brothers and sisters:

Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the Gospel,

and not with the wisdom of human eloquence,

so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its meaning.

The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,

but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

For it is written:

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the learning of the learned I will set aside.

Where is the wise one?

Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater of this age?

Has not God made the wisdom of the world foolish?

For since in the wisdom of God

the world did not come to know God through wisdom,

it was the will of God through the foolishness of the proclamation

to save those who have faith.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom,

but we proclaim Christ crucified,

a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,

but to those who are called, Jews and Greeks alike,

Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom,

and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 10-11

R. (5) The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

Exult, you just, in the LORD;

praise from the upright is fitting.

Give thanks to the LORD on the harp;

with the ten-stringed lyre chant his praises.

R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

For upright is the word of the LORD,

and all his works are trustworthy.

He loves justice and right;

of the kindness of the Lord the earth is full.

R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

The LORD brings to nought the plans of nations;

he foils the designs of peoples.

But the plan of the LORD stands forever;

the design of his heart, through all generations.

R. The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.

Alleluia

Luke 21:36

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Be vigilant at all times and pray,

that you may have the strength to stand before the Son of Man.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 25:1-13

Jesus told his disciples this parable:

“The Kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins

who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.

Five of them were foolish and five were wise.

The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,

brought no oil with them,

but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.

Since the bridegroom was long delayed,

they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight, there was a cry,

‘Behold, the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

Then all those virgins got up and trimmed their lamps.

The foolish ones said to the wise,

‘Give us some of your oil,

for our lamps are going out.’

But the wise ones replied,

‘No, for there may not be enough for us and you.

Go instead to the merchants and buy some for yourselves.’

While they went off to buy it,

the bridegroom came

and those who were ready went into the wedding feast with him.

Then the door was locked.

Afterwards the other virgins came and said,

‘Lord, Lord, open the door for us!’

But he said in reply,

‘Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.’

Therefore, stay awake,

for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

Saint Augustine a Convert and Doctor of the Church who is the Patron Saint of Theologians and Printers. His Feast day is August 28th.
Augustine was born on November 13, in 354, Tagaste, Numidia, Algeria, Africa. He Died on August 28th, in 430, Hippo Regius, Numidia, Algeria.
Saint Augustine is the Patron Saint of:brewers; printers; and theologians.
BIOGRAPHY:His father, Patricius, one of the curiales of the city, was still a pagan. However, the admirable virtues that made Monica the ideal of Christian mothers at length brought her husband the grace of baptism and of a holy death, about the year 371. Augustine received a Christian education.

His mother had him signed with the cross and enrolled among the catechumens. Once, when very ill, he asked for baptism, but, all danger being soon passed, he deferred receiving the sacrament.
But a great intellectual and moral crisis stifled for a time all these Christian sentiments. Augustine had to spend his sixteenth year at Tagaste. Before long he was obliged to confess to Monica that he had formed a sinful relationship with a woman who bore him a son (in 372). In 373, Augustine and his friend Honoratus joined the heretical Manichæans. He was afterwards baptized with him at Milan, eventually becoming Bishop of Tagaste, his native city. But Monica deeply deplored Augustine’s heresy and would not have received him into her home or at her table but for the advice of a saintly bishop, who declared that “the son of so many tears could not perish.” The illusion had lasted nine years.The religious crisis of this great soul was only to be resolved in Italy, under the influence of Saint Ambrose. Having visited Bishop Ambrose, the fascination of that saint’s kindness induced him to become a regular attendant at his preaching.
However, before embracing the Faith, Augustine underwent a three years’ struggle.
Monica, who had joined her son at Milan, prevailed upon him to become betrothed, but his affianced bride was too young, and although Augustine dismissed the mother of Adeodatus, her place was soon filled by another. Finally, through the reading of the Holy Scripture light penetrated his mind. Soon he possessed the certainty that Jesus Christ is the only way to truth and salvation. In 386, he went with Monica, his son Adeodatus, and his friends to Cassisiacum.

Augustine gradually became acquainted with Christian doctrine. The solitude of Cassisiacum realized a long-cherished dream. In his books “Against the Academics,” Augustine has described the ideal serenity of this existence, enlivened only by the passion for truth. He completed the education of his young friends, now by literary readings in common, now by philosophical conferences to which he sometimes invited Monica, and the accounts of which, compiled by a secretary, have supplied the foundation of the “Dialogues.” Licentius, in his “Letters,” would later on recall these delightful philosophical mornings and evenings, at which Augustine was wont to evolve the most elevating discussions from the most commonplace incidents. The favourite topics at their conferences were truth, certainty (Against the Academics), true happiness in philosophy (On a Happy Life), the Providential order of the world and the problem of evil (On Order) and finally God and the soul (Soliloquies, On the Immortality of the Soul).

It is admitted that Augustine received baptism at Easter, 387. ingenuously acknowledges (Confessions IX.4); nevertheless, they contain the entire history of his Christian formation. As early as 386, the first work written at Cassisiacum reveals to us the great underlying motive of his researches. The object of his philosophy is to give authority the support of reason, and “for him the great authority, that which dominates all others and from which he never wished to deviate, is the authority of Christ”; and if he loves the Platonists it is because he counts on finding among them interpretations always in harmony with his faith (Against the Academics, III, c. x). To be sure such confidence was excessive, but it remains evident that in these “Dialogues” it is a Christian, and not a Platonist, that speaks. He reveals to us the intimate details of his conversion, the argument that convinced him (the life and conquests of the Apostles), his progress in the Faith at the school of St. Paul (ibid., II, ii), his delightful conferences with his friends on the Divinity of Jesus Christ, the wonderful transformations worked in his soul by faith, even to that victory of his over the intellectual pride which his Platonic studies had aroused in him (On The Happy Life, I, ii), and at last the gradual calming of his passions and the great resolution to choose wisdom for his only spouse (Soliloquies, I, x).

It is now easy to appreciate at its true value the influence of neo-Platonism upon the mind of the great African Doctor. It would be impossible for anyone who has read the works of St. Augustine to deny the existence of this influence. However, it would be a great exaggeration of this influence to pretend that it at any time sacrificed the Gospel to Plato. The same learned critic thus wisely concludes his study: “So long, therefore, as his philosophy agrees with his religious doctrines, St. Augustine is frankly neo-Platonist; as soon as a contradiction arises, he never hesitates to subordinate his philosophy to religion, reason to faith. He was, first of all, a Christian; the philosophical questions that occupied his mind constantly found themselves more and more relegated to the background” (op. cit., 155). But the method was a dangerous one; in thus seeking harmony between the two doctrines he thought too easily to find Christianity in Plato, or Platonism in the Gospel. More than once, in his “Retractations” and elsewhere, he acknowledges that he has not always shunned this danger. Thus he had imagined that in Platonism he discovered the entire doctrine of the Word and the whole prologue of St. John. He likewise disavowed a good number of neo-Platonic theories which had at first misled him — the cosmological thesis of the universal soul, which makes the world one immense animal — the Platonic doubts upon that grave question: Is there a single soul for all or a distinct soul for each? But on the other hand, he had always reproached the Platonists, as Schaff very properly remarks (Saint Augustine, New York, 1886, p. 51), with being ignorant of, or rejecting, the fundamental points of Christianity: “first, the great mystery, the Word made flesh; and then love, resting on the basis of humility.” They also ignore grace, he says, giving sublime precepts of morality without any help towards realizing them.

It was this Divine grace that Augustine sought in Christian baptism. Towards the beginning of Lent, 387, he went to Milan and, with Adeodatus and Alypius, took his place among the competentes, being baptized by Ambrose during Eastertide. It was at this time that Augustine, Alypius, and Evodius resolved to retire into solitude in Africa. In the autumn of 387, he was about to embark at Ostia, when Monica died. In all literature there are no pages of more exquisite sentiment than the story of her saintly death and Augustine’s grief. He sailed for Africa after the death of the Maximus (August 388) and after a short sojourn in Carthage, returned to his native Tagaste. Immediately upon arriving there, he wished to carry out his idea of a perfect life, and began by selling all his goods and giving the proceeds to the poor. Then he and his friends withdrew to his estate, which had already been alienated, there to lead a common life in poverty, prayer, and the study of sacred letters.

Augustine did not think of entering the priesthood, and, through fear of the episcopacy. One day, having been summoned to Hippo by a friend whose soul’s salvation was at stake, he was praying in a church when the people suddenly gathered about him, cheered him, and begged Valerius, the bishop, to raise him to the priesthood. In spite of his tears Augustine was obliged to yield to their entreaties, and was ordained in 391. The new priest looked upon his ordination as an additional reason for resuming religious life at Tagaste, and so fully did Valerius approve that he put some church property at Augustine’s disposal, thus enabling him to establish a monastery the second that he had founded. His priestly ministry of five years was admirably fruitful; Valerius had bidden him preach, in spite of the deplorable custom which in Africa reserved that ministry to bishops. Augustine combated heresy, especially Manichæism, and his success was prodigious. He took part, in 393, st the Plenary Council of Africa, presided over by Aurelius, Bishop of Carthage, and, at the request of the bishops, was obliged to deliver a discourse which, in its completed form, afterwards became the treatise “De Fide et symbolo”.

Enfeebled by old age, Valerius, Bishop of Hippo, obtained the authorization of Aurelius, Primate of Africa, to associate Augustine with himself as coadjutor. Augustine had to resign himself to consecration at the hands of Megalius, Primate of Numidia. He was then forty two, and was to occupy the See of Hippo for thirty-four years. The new bishop understood well how to combine the exercise of his pastoral duties with the austerities of the religious life, and although he left his convent, his episcopal residence became a monastery where he lived a community life with his clergy, who bound themselves to observe religious poverty. Was it an order of regular clerics or of monks that he thus founded? This is a question often asked, but we feel that Augustine gave but little thought to such distinctions. Be that as it may, the episcopal house of Hippo became a veritable nursery which supplied the founders of the monasteries that were soon spread all over Africa and the bishops who occupied the neighbouring sees. Possidius (Vita S. August., xxii) enumerates ten of the saint’s friends and disciples who were promoted to the episcopacy. Thus it was that Augustine earned the title of patriarch of the religious, and renovator of the clerical, life in Africa. But he was above all the defender of truth and the shepherd of souls. His doctrinal activities, the influence of which was destined to last as long as the Church itself, were manifold: he preached frequently, sometimes for five days consecutively, his sermons breathing a spirit of charity that won all hearts; he wrote letters which scattered broadcast through the then known world his solutions of the problems of that day; he impressed his spirit upon divers African councils at which he assisted, for instance, those of Carthage in 398, 401, 407, 419 and of Mileve in 416 and 418; and lastly struggled indefatigably against all errors. To relate these struggles were endless; we shall, therefore, select only the chief controversies and indicate in each the doctrinal attitude of the great Bishop of Hippo.

The Manichæan controversy and the problem of evil

After Augustine became bishop the zeal which, from the time of his baptism, he had manifested in bringing his former co-religionists into the true Church, took on a more paternal form without losing its pristine ardour — “let those rage against us who know not at what a bitter cost truth is attained. . . . As for me, I should show you the same forbearance that my brethren had for me when I blind, was wandering in your doctrines” (Contra Epistolam Fundamenti 3). Among the most memorable events that occurred during this controversy was the great victory won in 404 over Felix, one of the “elect” of the Manichæans and the great doctor of the sect. He was propagating his errors in Hippo, and Augustine invited him to a public conference the issue of which would necessarily cause a great stir; Felix declared himself vanquished, embraced the Faith, and, together with Augustine, subscribed the acts of the conference. In his writings Augustine successively refuted Mani (397), the famous Faustus (400), Secundinus (405), and (about 415) the fatalistic Priscillianists whom Paulus Orosius had denounced to him. These writings contain the saint’s clear, unquestionable views on the eternal problem of evil, views based on an optimism proclaiming, like the Platonists, that every work of God is good and that the only source of moral evil is the liberty of creatures (City of God XIX.13.2). Augustine takes up the defence of free will, even in man as he is, with such ardour that his works against the Manichæan are an inexhaustible storehouse of arguments in this still living controversy.

In vain have the Jansenists maintained that Augustine was unconsciously a Pelagian and that he afterwards acknowledged the loss of liberty through the sin of Adam. Modern critics, doubtless unfamiliar with Augustine’s complicated system and his peculiar terminology, have gone much farther. In the “Revue d’histoire et de littérature religieuses” (1899, p. 447), M. Margival exhibits St. Augustine as the victim of metaphysical pessimism unconsciously imbibed from Manichæan doctrines. “Never,” says he, “will the Oriental idea of the necessity and the eternity of evil have a more zealous defender than this bishop.” Nothing is more opposed to the facts. Augustine acknowledges that he had not yet understood how the first good inclination of the will is a gift of God (Retractions, I, xxiii, n, 3); but it should be remembered that he never retracted his leading theories on liberty, never modified his opinion upon what constitutes its essential condition, that is to say, the full power of choosing or of deciding. Who will dare to say that in revising his own writings on so important a point he lacked either clearness of perception or sincerity?

The Donatist controversy and the theory of the Church

The Donatist schism was the last episode in the Montanist and Novatian controversies which had agitated the Church from the second century. While the East was discussing under varying aspects the Divine and Christological problem of the Word, the West, doubtless because of its more practical genius, took up the moral question of sin in all its forms. The general problem was the holiness of the Church; could the sinner be pardoned, and remain in her bosom? In Africa the question especially concerned the holiness of the hierarchy. The bishops of Numidia, who, in 312, had refused to accept as valid the consecration of Cæcilian, Bishop of Carthage, by a traditor, had inaugurated the schism and at the same time proposed these grave questions: Do the hierarchical powers depend upon the moral worthiness of the priest? How can the holiness of the Church be compatible with the unworthiness of its ministers? At the time of Augustine’s arrival in Hippo, the schism had attained immense proportions, having become identified with political tendencies — perhaps with a national movement against Roman domination. In any event, it is easy to discover in it an undercurrent of anti-social revenge which the emperors had to combat by strict laws. The strange sect known as “Soldiers of Christ,” and called by Catholics Circumcelliones (brigands, vagrants), resembled the revolutionary sects of the Middle Ages in point of fanatic destructiveness — a fact that must not be lost sight of, if the severe legislation of the emperors is to be properly appreciated.

The history of Augustine’s struggles with the Donatists is also that of his change of opinion on the employment of rigorous measures against the heretics; and the Church in Africa, of whose councils he had been the very soul, followed him in the change. This change of views is solemnly attested by the Bishop of Hippo himself, especially in his Letters, 93 (in the year 408). In the beginning, it was by conferences and a friendly controversy that he sought to re-establish unity. He inspired various conciliatory measures of the African councils, and sent ambassadors to the Donatists to invite them to re-enter the Church, or at least to urge them to send deputies to a conference (403). The Donatists met these advances at first with silence, then with insults, and lastly with such violence that Possidius Bishop of Calamet, Augustine’s friend, escaped death only by flight, the Bishop of Bagaïa was left covered with horrible wounds, and the life of the Bishop of Hippo himself was several times attempted (Letter 88, to Januarius, the Donatist bishop). This madness of the Circumcelliones required harsh repression, and Augustine, witnessing the many conversions that resulted therefrom, thenceforth approved rigid laws. However, this important restriction must be pointed out: that St. Augustine never wished heresy to be punishable by death. But the bishops still favoured a conference with the schismatics, and in 410 an edict issued by Honorius put an end to the refusal of the Donatists. A solemn conference took place at Carthage, in June, 411, in presence of 286 Catholic, and 279 Donatist bishops. The Donatist spokesmen were Petilian of Constantine, Primian of Carthage, and Emeritus of Cæsarea; the Catholic orators, Aurelius and Augustine. On the historic question then at issue, the Bishop of Hippo proved the innocence of Cæcilian and his consecrator Felix, and in the dogmatic debate he established the Catholic thesis that the Church, as long as it is upon earth, can, without losing its holiness, tolerate sinners within its pale for the sake of converting them. In the name of the emperor the Proconsul Marcellinus sanctioned the victory of the Catholics on all points. Little by little Donatism died out, to disappear with the coming of the Vandals.

The Pelagian controversy and the Doctor of Grace

The close of the struggle against the Donatists almost coincided with the beginnings of a very grave theological dispute which not only was to demand Augustine’s unremitting attention up to the time of his death, but was to become an eternal problem for individuals and for the Church. Farther on we shall enlarge upon Augustine’s system; here we need only indicate the phases of the controversy. Africa, where Pelagius and his disciple Celestius had sought refuge after the taking of Rome by Alaric, was the principal centre of the first Pelagian disturbances; as early as 412 a council held at Carthage condemned Pelagians for their attacks upon the doctrine of original sin. Among other books directed against them by Augustine was his famous “De naturâ et gratiâ”. Thanks to his activity the condemnation of these innovators, who had succeeded in deceiving a synod convened at Diospolis in Palestine, was reiterated by councils held later at Carthage and Mileve and confirmed by Pope Innocent I (417). A second period of Pelagian intrigues developed at Rome, but Pope Zosimus, whom the stratagems of Celestius had for a moment deluded, being enlightened by Augustine, pronounced the solemn condemnation of these heretics in 418. Thenceforth the combat was conducted in writing against Julian of Eclanum, who assumed the leadership of the party and violently attacked Augustine.

Towards 426 there entered the lists a school which afterwards acquired the name of Semipelagian, the first members being monks of Hadrumetum in Africa, who were followed by others from Marseilles, led by Cassian, the celebrated abbot of Saint-Victor. Unable to admit the absolute gratuitousness of predestination, they sought a middle course between Augustine and Pelagius, and maintained that grace must be given to those who merit it and denied to others; hence goodwill has the precedence, it desires, it asks, and God rewards. Informed of their views by Prosper of Aquitaine, the holy Doctor once more expounded, in “De Prædestinatione Sanctorum”, how even these first desires for salvation are due to the grace of God, which therefore absolutely controls our predestination.

Struggles against Arianism and closing years

In 426 the holy Bishop of Hippo, at the age of seventy-two, wishing to spare his episcopal city the turmoil of an election after his death, caused both clergy and people to acclaim the choice of the deacon Heraclius as his auxiliary and successor, and transferred to him the administration of externals. Augustine might then have enjoyed some rest had Africa not been agitated by the undeserved disgrace and the revolt of Count Boniface (427). The Goths, sent by the Empress Placidia to oppose Boniface, and the Vandals, whom the latter summoned to his assistance, were all Arians. Maximinus, an Arian bishop, entered Hippo with the imperial troops. The holy Doctor defended the Faith at a public conference (428) and in various writings. Being deeply grieved at the devastation of Africa, he laboured to effect a reconciliation between Count Boniface and the empress. Peace was indeed reestablished, but not with Genseric, the Vandal king. Boniface, vanquished, sought refuge in Hippo, whither many bishops had already fled for protection and this well fortified city was to suffer the horrors of an eighteen months’ siege. He was stricken with what he realized to be a fatal illness, and, after three months of admirable patience and fervent prayer, died on 28 August, 430, in the seventy-sixth year of his age.

Text Shortened from the Catholic Encyclopedia

Memorial of Saint Monica

Lectionary: 428

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

1 Corinthians 1:1-9

Paul, called to be an Apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God,

and Sosthenes our brother,

to the Church of God that is in Corinth,

to you who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be holy,

with all those everywhere who call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

their Lord and ours.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father

and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I give thanks to my God always on your account

for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus,

that in him you were enriched in every way,

with all discourse and all knowledge,

as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you,

so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift

as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He will keep you firm to the end,

irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is faithful,

and by him you were called to fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 145:2-3, 4-5, 6-7

R. (1) I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

Every day will I bless you,

and I will praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the LORD and highly to be praised;

his greatness is unsearchable.

R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

Generation after generation praises your works

and proclaims your might.

They speak of the splendor of your glorious majesty

and tell of your wondrous works.

R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

They discourse of the power of your terrible deeds

and declare your greatness.

They publish the fame of your abundant goodness

and joyfully sing of your justice.

R. I will praise your name for ever, Lord.

Alleluia

Matthew 24:42a, 44

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Stay awake!

For you do not know when the Son of Man will come.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 24:42-51

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Stay awake!

For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.

Be sure of this:

if the master of the house

had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,

he would have stayed awake

and not let his house be broken into.

So too, you also must be prepared,

for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.

“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent servant,

whom the master has put in charge of his household

to distribute to them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master on his arrival finds doing so.

Amen, I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his property.

But if that wicked servant says to himself, ‘My master is long delayed,’

and begins to beat his fellow servants,

and eat and drink with drunkards,

the servant’s master will come on an unexpected day

and at an unknown hour and will punish him severely

and assign him a place with the hypocrites,

where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.”

Saint Monica, Mother of Saint Augustine - Feast Day August 27 - Widow; born of Christian parents at Tagaste, North Africa, in 333; died at Ostia, near Rome, in 387.
Patron Saint of:patience, married women, homemakers and housewives, mothers, wives, widows, alcoholics, difficult marriages, disappointing children, victims of adultery or unfaithfulness, and victims of (verbal) abuse
Prayer in honor of St. Monica -Eternal and merciful Father, I give you thanks for the gift of your divine Son, who suffered, died and rose for all people. I thank you also for my Catholic faith, and ask your help that I may grow in fidelity by prayer, by works of charity and penance, by reflecting on your word, and by regular participation in the sacraments of Penance and the Holy Eucharist. You gave St. Monica a spirit of selfless love, manifest in her constant prayer for the conversion of her son, Augustine.

Inspired by boundless confidence in your power to move hearts, and by the success of her prayer, I ask the grace to imitate her constancy in prayer for (name a person here) who no longer shares in the intimate life of the Catholic family. Grant through my prayer and witness, that he/she may be open to the promptings of your Holy Spirit to return to loving union with your people. Grant also that my prayer be ever hopeful and that I may never judge another, for you alone can read hearts. I ask this through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Biography of St. Monica - We are told but little of her childhood. She was married early in life to Patritius who held an official position in Tagaste. He was a pagan, though like so many at that period, his religion was no more than a name; his temper was violent and he appears to have been of dissolute habits. Consequently Monica’s married life was far from being a happy one, more especially as Patritius’s mother seems to have been of a like disposition with himself.

There was of course a gulf between husband and wife; her almsdeeds and her habits of prayer annoyed him, but it is said that he always held her in a sort of reverence. Monica was not the only matron of Tagaste whose married life was unhappy, but, by her sweetness and patience, she was able to exercise a veritable apostolate amongst the wives and mothers of her native town; they knew that she suffered as they did, and her words and example had a proportionate effect.

Three children were born of this marriage, Augustine the eldest, Navigius the second, and a daughter, Perpetua. Monica had been unable to secure baptism for her children, and her grief was great when Augustine fell ill; in her distress she besought Patritius to allow him to be baptized; he agreed, but on the boy’s recovery withdrew his consent. All Monica’s anxiety now centred in Augustine; he was wayward and, as he himself tells us, lazy. He was sent to Madaura to school and Monica seems to have literally wrestled with God for the soul of her son. A great consolation was vouchsafed her — in compensation perhaps for all that she was to experience through Augustine — Patritius became a Christian. Meanwhile, Augustine had been sent to Carthage, to prosecute his studies, and here he fell into grievous sin. Patritius died very shortly after his reception into the Church and Monica resolved not to marry again. At Carthage Augustine had become a Manichean and when on his return home he ventilated certain heretical propositions she drove him away from her table, but a strange vision which she had urged her to recall him. It was at this time that she went to see a certain holy bishop, whose name is not given, but who consoled her with the now famous words, “the child of those tears shall never perish.” There is no more pathetic story in the annals of the Saints than that of Monica pursuing her wayward son to Rome, wither he had gone by stealth; when she arrived he had already gone to Milan, but she followed him. Here she found St. Ambrose and through him she ultimately had the joy of seeing Augustine yield, after seventeen years of resistance. Mother and son spent six months of true peace at Cassiacum, after which time Augustine was baptized in the church of St. John the Baptist at Milan. Africa claimed them however, and they set out on their journey, stopping at Cività Vecchia and at Ostia. Here death overtook Monica and the finest pages of his “Confessions” were penned as the result of the emotion Augustine then experienced.

St. Monica was buried at Ostia, and at first seems to have been almost forgotten, though her body was removed during the sixth century to a hidden crypt in the church of St. Aureus. About the thirteenth century, however, the cult of St. Monica began to spread and a feast in her honour was kept on 4 May. In 1430 Martin V ordered the relics to be brought to Rome. Many miracles occurred on the way, and the cultus of St. Monica was definitely established. Later the Archbishop of Rouen, Cardinal d’Estouteville, built a church at Rome in honour of St. Augustine and deposited the relics of St. Monica in a chapel to the left of the high altar. The Office of St. Monica however does not seem to have found a place in the Roman Breviary before the sixteenth century.

In 1850 there was established at Notre Dame de Sion at Paris an Association of Christian mothers under the patronage of St. Monica; its object was mutual prayer for sons and husbands who had gone astray. This Association was in 1856 raised to the rank of an archconfraternity and spread rapidly over all the Catholic world, branches being established in Dublin, London, Liverpool, Sydney, and Buenos Aires. Eugenius IV had established a similar Confraternity long before.

Biography Source: The Catholic Encyclopedia - New Advent - Prayer - CatholicIreland.net

Wednesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 427

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

2 Thessalonians 3:6-10, 16-18

We instruct you, brothers and sisters,

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

to shun any brother

who walks in a disorderly way

and not according to the tradition they received from us.

For you know how one must imitate us.

For we did not act in a disorderly way among you,

nor did we eat food received free from anyone.

On the contrary, in toil and drudgery, night and day we worked,

so as not to burden any of you.

Not that we do not have the right.

Rather, we wanted to present ourselves as a model for you,

so that you might imitate us.

In fact, when we were with you, we instructed you that

if anyone was unwilling to work, neither should that one eat.

May the Lord of peace himself

give you peace at all times and in every way.

The Lord be with all of you.

This greeting is in my own hand, Paul’s.

This is the sign in every letter; this is how I write.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with all of you.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 128:1-2, 4-5

R. (1) Blessed are those who fear the Lord.

Blessed are you who fear the LORD,

who walk in his ways!

For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork;

blessed shall you be, and favored.

R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.

Behold, thus is the man blessed

who fears the LORD.

The LORD bless you from Zion:

may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem

all the days of your life.

R. Blessed are those who fear the Lord.

Alleluia

1 John 2:5

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Whoever keeps the word of Christ,

the love of God is truly perfected in him.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 23:27-32

Jesus said,

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside,

but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.

Even so, on the outside you appear righteous,

but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You build the tombs of the prophets

and adorn the memorials of the righteous,

and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors,

we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets’ blood.’

Thus you bear witness against yourselves

that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets;

now fill up what your ancestors measured out!”

Our Lady of Czestochowa - Feast day: August 26 ( Hist.
The image of Our Lady in Czestochowa, Poland [above] is among that small group of Black Madonnas recognized throughout the entire world, largely due to the recent manifestations of public piety shown by the Polish Pope, John Paul II. The image is sometimes called Our Lady of Jasna Gora after the name of the monastery site in which it has been kept for six centuries.

Prayer to Our Lady of Czestochowa (Can be said as a Novena for 9 Days) Holy Mother of Czestochowa, you are full of grace, goodness and mercy. I consecrated to you all my thoughts, words and actions - my soul and body. I beseech your blessings and especially prayers for my salvation. Today I consecrate myself to you, good Mother, totally - with body and soul amid joy and sufferings, to obtain for myself and others your blessings on this earth and eternal life in heaven. Amen

Our Lady of Czestochowa, Queen of Poland, pray for us. Amen (Say 1 Our Father, 1 Hail Mary and 1 Glory Be)Continues below the Video

Joan Carroll Cruz relates the following ‘miracle story’ :
St. Ladislaus determined to save the image from the repeated invasions of the Tartars by taking it to the more secure city of Opala, his birthplace. This journey took him through Czestochowa, where he decided to rest for the night. During this brief pause in their journey, the image was taken to Jasna Gora [meaning “Bright Hill”]. There it was placed in a small wooden church named for the Assumption. The following morning, after the portrait was carefully replaced in its wagon, the horses refused to move. Accepting this as a heavenly sign that the portrait was to remain in Czestochowa, St. Ladislaus had the image solemnly returned to the Church of the Assumption.
Another ‘miraculous’ aspect of this image is that its antiquity is so great that its origins are unknown, as if “dropped from the heavens.” Legend attributes its creation to St. Luke, the evangelist, who “painted a portrait of the Virgin on the cedar wood table at which she had taken her meals.” St. Helena, the Queen-Mother of Emperor Constantine is said to have located the portrait during her visit to the Holy Land and to have brought it to Constantinople in the fourth century. After remaining there for five centuries, it allegedly was transferred in royal dowries until it made its way to Poland, and the possession of St. Ladislaus in the fifteenth century.
The legend continues: During Ladislaus’ time, the image was damaged during a siege, by a Tartar arrow, “inflicting a scar on the throat of the Blessed Virgin.” In 1430, Hussites stole and vandalized the precious image, breaking it into three pieces. One of the robbers drew his sword, struck the image and inflicted two deep gashes. While preparing to inflict a third gash, he fell to the ground and writhed in agony until his death ... The two slashes on the cheek of the Blessed Virgin, together with the previous injury to the throat, have always reappeared--despite repeated attempts to repair them.
However, modern scholarship has its own views on this legend. Leonard Moss claims: “the figure is distinctly thirteenth-fourteenth century Byzantine in form.” In general, its Byzantine style is obvious, a variant on Hodegetria. Janusz Pasierb states of the image that “in 1434 it was painted virtually anew” due to the extensive damage caused by vandalism. He adds that “the authors of the new version were faithful to the original as regards its contents.” This might explain the persistence of the damage marks mentioned earlier. Finally, note that Pasierb sees the prototype of Our Lady of Czestochowa as “a Byzantine icon ... which from the fifth century on had been worshipped in a church in Constantinople’s ton hodegon quarter.”

Miracles
The miracles worked by Our Lady of Czestochowa seem to occur mainly on a public scale. During her stay in Constantinople, she is reported to have frightened the besieging Saracens away from the city. Similarly, in 1655 a small group of Polish defenders was able to drive off a much larger army of Swedish invaders from the sanctuary. The following year, the Holy Virgin was acclaimed Queen of Poland by King Casimir. It is also recorded that Our Lady dispersed an army of Russian invaders by an apparition at the River Vistula on September 15, 1920. In more recent times, the Czestochowa Madonna has also been acknowledged for her protection of and cooperation with the Polish nation. Beyond these public prodigies:
The miracles attributed to Our Lady of Czestochowa are numerous and spectacular. The original accounts of these cures and miracles are preserved in the archives of the Pauline Fathers at Jasna Gora.
The image is not so well-known only on account of its history of miracles. Its international reputation has been considerably enhanced because of the personal devotion of Blessed John Paul II:
In modern times, Karol Wojtyla, a native son of Poland, prayed before the Madonna during his historic visit in 1979, several months after his election to the Chair of Peter as John Paul II. He made another visit to Our Lady of Czestochowa in 1983 and again in 1991.
Why Is Our Lady of Czestochowa black? Cruz mentions a possible link to the Canticle of Canticles: “I am black but beautiful.”; but concludes that “The darkness is ascribed to various conditions [e.g. accumulated residue from candles], of which its age is primary.”
Broschart, writes:
the shrine was destroyed by fire, but the picture was not burned--however, the flames and smoke had darkened it and from that day it has been known as the “Black Madonna.”
Recall that Moss saw the image as Byzantine in form, dating from the Medieval period. He added: “the skin pigmentation is characteristic of this stylized portraiture.”Interestingly, Ernst Scheyer, an art historian who studied the image, believed that “the present image was restored in the nineteenth century and painted somewhat darker than previously.”

Sources: “In Quest of the Black Virgin ...” by Leonard W. Moss; pp. 53-74 in Mother Worship: Themes and Variations (1982) by James Preston (ed.); Miraculous Images of Our Lady (1993) by Joan Carroll Cruz; Call Her Blessed (1961) by Charles B. Broschart; and The Shrine of the Black Madonna of Czestochowa (1989) by Janusz Pasierb.
Source: The Marian Library : Michael Duricy

Tuesday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 426

Prayer to make Spiritual Communion: At your feet, O my Jesus I bow down and offer you the repentance of my contrite heart, which abysses itself into its nothingness and Your holy presence. I adore you in the Sacrament of Your love, the ineffable Eucharist. I wish to receive you in the poor home that my heart offers you. In anticipation of the happiness of sacramental communion, I want to possess you in spirit. Come to me, oh my Jesus, that I may come to you. May Your love inflame my whole being, for life and death. I believe in you, I hope in you, I love you. So be it. Amen

Reading 1

2 Thessalonians 2:1-3a, 14-17

We ask you, brothers and sisters,

with regard to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ

and our assembling with him,

not to be shaken out of your minds suddenly,

or to be alarmed either by a “spirit,” or by an oral statement,

or by a letter allegedly from us

to the effect that the day of the Lord is at hand.

Let no one deceive you in any way.

To this end he has also called you through our Gospel

to possess the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, stand firm

and hold fast to the traditions that you were taught,

either by an oral statement or by a letter of ours.

May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father,

who has loved us and given us everlasting encouragement

and good hope through his grace,

encourage your hearts and strengthen them

in every good deed and word.

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 96:10, 11-12, 13

R. (13b) The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Say among the nations: The LORD is king.

He has made the world firm, not to be moved;

he governs the peoples with equity.

R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice;

let the sea and what fills it resound;

let the plains be joyful and all that is in them!

Then shall all the trees of the forest exult.

R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Before the LORD, for he comes;

for he comes to rule the earth.

He shall rule the world with justice

and the peoples with his constancy.

R. The Lord comes to judge the earth.

Alleluia

Hebrews 4:12

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

The word of God is living and effective,

able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Gospel

Matthew 23:23-26

Jesus said:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin,

and have neglected the weightier things of the law:

judgment and mercy and fidelity.

But these you should have done, without neglecting the others.

Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You cleanse the outside of cup and dish,

but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence.

Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup,

so that the outside also may be clean.”