Saint Anthony of the Desert

Patriarch of Monastic Life (251-356)

Anthony was born in Coma near Heracleopolis Magna in Fayum, Egypt in 251 AD to wealthy landowner parents. When he was about 18 years old, his parents died and left him with the care of his unmarried sister. Hearing at Mass the words, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven.”[Mt 19:21]— staying only to see that his sister’s education was completed,  placed his sister with a group of Christian virgins, a sort of proto-convent — gave away some of his family’s lands to his neighbors, sold the remaining property, and donated the funds thus raised to the poor He then left to live an ascetic life. For the next fifteen years, Anthony remained in the area.  He begged an aged hermit to teach him the spiritual life. He also visited various solitaries, undertaking to copy the principal virtue of each, and then retired into the desert.

Anthony is sometimes considered the first monk to initiate solitary desertification, but there were others before him. Christian ascetics such as Thecla had likewise retreated to isolated locations at the outskirts of cities. Anthony is notable for having decided to surpass this tradition and headed out into the desert. He left for the alkaline Nitrian Desert (later the location of the noted monasteries of Nitria, Kellia, and Scetis) on the edge of the Western Desert about 95 km (59 mi) west of Alexandria. He remained there for 13 years. According to St. Athanasius, the devil fought Anthony by afflicting him with boredom, laziness, and the phantoms of women, which he overcame by the power of prayer, providing a theme for Christian art. After that, he moved to a tomb, where he resided and closed the door on himself, depending on some local villagers who brought him food. When the devil perceived his ascetic life and his intense worship, he was envious and beat him mercilessly, leaving him unconscious. When his friends from the local village came to visit him and found him in this condition, they carried him to a church.

After he recovered, he made a second effort and went back into the desert to a farther mountain by the east bank of Nile called Pispir (now Der-el-Memun), opposite Arsinoe. To serve God more perfectly, Anthony immured himself in a ruin of old abandoned Roman fort, building up the door so that none could enter.

There he lived strictly enclosed for some 20 years. According to St. Athanasius, the devil again resumed his war against Anthony, only this time the phantoms were in the form of wild beasts, wolves, lions, snakes, and scorpions. They appeared as if they were about to attack him or cut him into pieces. But the saint would laugh at them scornfully and say, “If any of you have any authority over me, only one would have been sufficient to fight me.” At his saying this, they disappeared as though in smoke. One night, while Anthony was in his solitude, many devils scourged him so terribly that he lay as if dead. A friend found him in this condition, and believing him dead carried him home. But when Anthony came to himself he persuaded his friend to take him back, in spite of his wounds, to his solitude. Here, prostrate from weakness, he defied the devils, saying, I fear you not; you cannot separate me from the love of Christ. After more vain assaults the devils fled, and Christ appeared to Anthony in His glory.

While in the fort he only communicated with the outside world by a crevice through which food would be passed and he would say a few words. Saint Anthony’s only food was bread and water, which he never tasted before sunset, and sometimes only once in two, three, or four days. He would prepare a quantity of bread that would sustain him for six months. He wore sackcloth and sheepskin, and he often knelt in prayer from sunset to sunrise. He did not allow anyone to enter his cell; whoever came to him stood outside and listened to his advice.

Then one day he emerged from the fort with the help of villagers, who broke down the door. By this time most had expected him to have wasted away or to have gone insane in his solitary confinement. Instead, he emerged healthy, serene, and enlightened. Everyone was amazed that he had been through these trials and emerged spiritually rejuvenated. He was hailed as a hero and from this time forth the legend of Anthony began to spread and grow. Anthony went to Fayyum and confirmed the brethren there in the Christian faith before returning to his fort. His admirers became so many and so insistent that he was eventually persuaded to found two monasteries for them and to give them a rule of life. These were the first monasteries ever to be founded, and Saint Anthony is, therefore, the father of cenobites of monks. He anticipated the rule of Benedict by about 200 years, engaging himself and his disciples in manual labor. Anthony himself cultivated a garden and wove rush mats.

Amid the Diocletian Persecutions, Anthony wished to become a martyr and in 311 went to Alexandria. He visited those who were imprisoned for the sake of Christ by Maximinus and comforted them. When the Governor saw that he was confessing his Christianity publicly, not caring what might happen to him, he ordered him not to show up in the city. However, the Saint did not heed his threats. He faced him and argued with him in order that he might arouse his anger so that he might be tortured and martyred, but it did not happen. At the end Anthony returned to his old Roman fort.

By this time, many more had heard of his sanctity and he had many more visitors than before. He saw these visits as interfering with his worship and went further into the inner desert. He traveled for three days before reaching a small oasis with a spring and some palm trees, that lay between the Nile and the Red Sea, and chose to settle there. He fixed his abode on a mountain where still stands the monastery that bears his name, Der Mar Antonios.

In 338, he left the desert temporarily to visit Alexandria to help refute the teachings of Arius. Although not particularly learned, Anthony was able to confound the Arians.

According to St. Athanasius, Saint Anthony heard a voice telling him “Go out and see.” He went out and saw an angel who wore a girdle with a cross, one resembling the holy Eskiem (Tonsure or Schema), and on his head was a head cover (Kolansowa). He was sitting while braiding palm leaves, then he stood up to pray, and again he sat to weave. A voice came to him saying, “Anthony, do this and you will rest.” Henceforth, he started to wear this tunic that he saw, and began to weave palm leaves.

When Saint Macarius visited Anthony, Anthony clothed him with the monk’s garb and foretold him what would happen to him.

Once, Saint Anthony tried hiding in a cave to escape the demons that plagued him. There were so many little demons in the cave though that Saint Anthony’s servant had to carry him out because they had beaten him to death. When the hermits were gathered to Saint Anthony’s corpse to mourn his death, the Saint was revived. He demanded that his servants take him back to that cave where the demons had beaten him. When he got there, he called out to the demons, and they came back as wild beasts to rip him to shreds. Suddenly, a bright light flashed, and the demons ran away. Saint Anthony knew that the light must have come from God, and he asked God where was he before when the demons attacked him. God replied, “I was here but I would see and abide to see thy battle, and because thou hast mainly fought and well maintained thy battle, I shall make thy name to be spread through all the world.”

When Saint Anthony was over ninety, he was commanded by God in a vision to search the desert for Saint Paul the Hermit. Saint Anthony went to him and buried him, after clothing him in a tunic which was a present from Saint Athanasius the Apostolic, the 20th Patriarch of Alexandria.

The monasticism established under St. Anthony’s direct influence became the norm in Northern Egypt.

St. Anthony was a man who chose to live in dire poverty, but from this poverty arose his three divine paradoxes. He was extremely underfed, yet appeared in perfect health, standing a solid six-feet tall. He maintained the appearance of youth throughout his life. He was extremely isolated, yet he suffered the agony of popularity. He was extremely ignorant, yet outsmarted the cream of Greece’s intelligentsia. Two Greek philosophers came to meet St. Anthony, and he asked why they wished to meet with a fool. When they replied that he was no fool, but wise and prudent, Anthony told them this: “If you think me prudent, become as I am, for we ought to imitate what is good. And if I had come to you, I should have imitated you; but if you to me, become as I am, for I am a Christian.” Having no desire to be converted, the philosophers departed in silence.

He is said to have survived until the age of a hundred and five, when he died peacefully in a cave on Mount Kolzim near the Red Sea. Anthony had been secretly buried on the mountain-top where he had chosen to live. His remains were reportedly discovered in 361, and transferred to Alexandria. Sometime later, they were taken from Alexandria to Constantinople, so that they might escape the destruction being perpetrated by invading Saracens. In the eleventh century, the Byzantine emperor gave them to the French Count Jocelin. Jocelin had them transferred to La-Motte-Saint-Didier, which was then renamed Saint-Antoine-en-Dauphiné. There, Anthony is credited with assisting in a number of miraculous healings, primarily from ergotism, which became known as “St. Anthony’s Fire.”

Saint Athanasius, his biographer, says that the mere knowledge of how Saint Anthony lived is a good guide to virtue.

[1] “Saint Anthony of the Desert – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 13 December 2017. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_anthony_of_the_desert.html. [Accessed 2 January 2018].
[2] “Anthony the Great,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_the_Great. [Accessed 2 January 2018].
[3] “St. Anthony,” New Advent, 2017. [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01553d.htm. [Accessed 2 January 2018].
[4] J. Goerke, “St. Anthony of the Desert and the Three Divine Paradoxes,” National Catholic Register, [Online]. Available: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/st.-anthony-of-the-desert-and-the-three-divine-paradoxes. [Accessed 2 January 2018].

Saint Eulalia

Child Martyr (290-304 AD)

Saint Eulalia was a native of Emerita, the capital of Lusitania (modern Mérida in Spain). The daughter of Christian parents, descended from one of the most prominent families in Spain. She was educated in her childhood by a very holy priest of that city, and was taught the sentiments of perfect piety. From her infancy she distinguished herself by an admirable sweetness of temper, modesty and devotion.

She showed a great love of the holy state of virginity; by her seriousness and her contempt of dress, ornaments, diversions and worldly company, she gave early signs of her sincere desire to lead a heavenly life on earth. Her heart was raised above the world before she was thought capable of knowing it, so that its amusements, which usually fill the minds of youth, had no charms for her, and every day of her life she continued to grow in virtue.

She was but twelve years old when in AD 304 the bloody edicts of emperor Diocletian were issued. All citizens were required to avow faith in the Roman gods. Since she seemed determined to defy the decree requiring worship of the gods, her mother hid her at a home in the countryside. However, Eulalia slipped off at night and the very next morning, after much fatigue, arrived at Merida before daybreak. She fearlessly confronted the judge, standing before the cruel Calpurnianus, representing the viceroy of Diocletian, she professed herself a Christian. She reproached him for attempting to destroy souls, by compelling them to renounce the only true God, insulted the pagan gods and emperor, and challenged the authorities to martyr her.

According to the Spanish-Roman poet Prudentius of the fifth century, who devoted book 3 of his Peristephanon (“About martyrs”) to Eulalia, she said: “Miserable men, for the Christians you search! Lo, I am one of that odious race, foe to your fiendish idolatrous rites. Witness to Christ with my heart and lips, under my feet I will trample your gods. . .”

The governor then commanded her to be seized. First, employing caresses, Dacian presented to her the advantages which her birth, youth and fortune gave her in the world, and the grief which her disobedience would bring to her parents. Seeing that these temptations had no effect, he began to threaten her, placing the most dreadful instruments of torture before her eyes, saying to her, “All this you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and frankincense with the tip of your finger.”

Provoked by these seducing flatteries, our Saint threw down the idol before her, and trampled upon the cake placed there for the sacrifice.

At the judge’s order, she was stripped by the soldiers who intended to make her walk naked in streets to humiliate her, but then a dense fog covered Merida to prevent her from being seen. Two executioners tore her tender sides with iron hooks, so as to leave the very bones bare, then tortured her with burning torches, and dragged her by her hair to the site of execution. She said to the cruel persecutor, Calpurnianus, look well at me so that you may recognize me on the day of the Final Judgment, when both of us will appear before Jesus Christ, our common Lord, I to receive the reward of my torments, and you, the chastisement of your inhumanity toward the Christians. She was covered with hot coals; the fire caught in her hair and surrounded her head and face, and she suffocated amid the smoke and flames, and as she expired a dove flew out of her mouth. This frightened away the soldiers and allowed a miraculous snow to cover her nakedness, its whiteness indicating her sainthood.

The persecutor commanded that her body be left untended for three days, but Providence covered her body and the surrounding soil, which seemed to whiten it and give it a marvelous beauty, for several days. Since then, on each anniversary of her martyrdom, mists flood Merida for several days.

As Prudentius tells it:

“Forthwith two slaughterers seized her. When the executioners touched flames to her wounds, Eulalia’s hair caught fire and she was burned alive. Prudentius says that as she died a miraculous sign of her innocence amazed the onlookers. Then of a sudden a snowy-white dove Springs from the martyr and flies Forth to the stars in the sight of the crowd. It was Eulalia’s innocent soul, winging its way to celestial heights. Snow fell, covering Eulalia’s remains until the Christians buried them nearby.” Later, to mark the spot where she died, they constructed a church that became a popular shrine for pilgrims. Augustine, Jerome, and Venantius Fortunatus wrote about Eulalia, establishing her fame. And the earliest known French poem celebrated her courageous sacrifice.

The Christians buried Saint Eulalia in Merida and a shrine over her tomb was soon erected. Veneration of Eulalia was already popular with Christians by 350 AD; relics from her were distributed through Iberia. Bishop Fidelis of Merida rebuilt a basilica in her honor around 560 AD. Her shrine was the most popular in Visigoth Spain. In 780 her body was transferred to Oviedo, Spain, by King Silo. It lies in a coffin of Arab silver donated by Afonso VI in 1075, placed in a chapel dedicated to her memory, within the large church. In 1639, she was made patron saint of Oviedo.

Many graces have been received when her relics are transported in processions in times of public necessity.

[1] “Saint Eulalia – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_eulalia.html. [Accessed 25 November 2017].
[2] “Eulalia of Merida,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eulalia_of_M%C3%A9rida. [Accessed 25 November 2017].
[3] “Saint Eulalia of Merida,” Loyola Press, [Online]. Available: https://www.loyolapress.com/our-catholic-faith/saints/saints-stories-for-all-ages/saint-eulalia-of-merida. [Accessed 25 November 2017].
[4] “St. Eulalia of Merida,” Catholic News Agency, [Online]. Available: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=79. [Accessed 25 November 2017].
[5] “Dec 10 – St Eulalia of Merida,” Catholic Ireland, 2016. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholicireland.net/saintoftheday/st-eulalia-of-merida-d-304-virgin-martyr/. [Accessed 25 November 2017].
[6] “The Mists of the Martyr: The Legend of Saint Eulalia,” L’Aqua, [Online]. Available: http://www.laquaroutes.com/mistsmartyr/. [Accessed 25 November 2017].

Saint Leonard of Noblac

Hermit, Patron of prisoners (496-559)

Saint Leonard was born towards the end of the fifth century to illustrious parents, residing in the part of the province of Gaul which was then beginning to be called France. Several historians believe that with his brother was Saint Lifard. Saint Leonard’s origins can be traced to the castle of Vendome in the region of Orleans. He belonged to the nation of the Franks, and at the court of Clovis his relatives were dignitaries, baptized at the same time as the king, at Christmas 496, by Saint Remigius, Bishop of Reims. That monarch himself stood as sponsor in Baptism for this child of predilection.

As Leonard grew he was so moved by the holy examples of the bishop of Rheims that he renounced the world in order to lead a more perfect life. Leonard began a life of austerity and sanctification.

Ordained priest by St. Remigius, began to preach the word of God. He first preached At Orleans after which he travel through the whole of Gascony. His holy conduct gave great power to his words to move the hearts. There was hardly any one whom he did not succeed in converting. He decided to enter the monastery at Orleans, France. His brother, Saint Lifard, followed his example and left the royal court, built a monastery at Meun, and lived there.

Saint Leonard recognized that his role was not to remain always in the monastery, he desired further seclusion and departed to preach to the pagans of the province of Limoges. He found on a nearby mountain a forested solitude where he decided to remain, and there he built a cell of branches and considered himself rich in the possession of God, joyous in his freedom to devote himself to meditation, prayer and mortification. God bestowed on him the gift of miracles. He freed the possessed, made the blind see, the deaf hear, and restored health to the sick.

It happened one day that the king was hunting with his queen in a forest. The latter, who was with child, was suddenly taken sick, and her life and that of her child were in great danger. Leonard, not knowing anything of this, was at the same time traversing the forest, on his way to a neighboring village, where he was going to preach. Lead by Providence, he came to the place where the queen lay ill. Having been informed of the sad circumstances, he sank upon his knees and prayed, and when he arose, the queen was happily delivered. The King expressed his warmest thanks to the servant of the Lord, and offered him some valuable presents, which the Saint refused, telling the king to give them to the poor. The king promised to follow the charitable request, but insisted that Leonard should accept as a gift the forest in which the miracle had happened. The Saint, however, was satisfied with a portion of it, large enough to build a chapel in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and a hut for himself and his companions. The king had both buildings erected.

The fame of his holiness caused many to come to him who desired to serve the Almighty under his guidance. He received them kindly, and instructed them in virtue and piety. Seven families of persons who were his relatives in the north heard of his reputation and decided to come to him and remain with him. He was surprised but encouraged their good resolutions, saying: “A fare of dry bread, eaten in the joy of a pure conscience, is of more worth than a house abundantly furnished, where quarrels and divisions prevail.” Some of these were grieved that there was no water in the neighborhood, and that they had to bring it from the distance. Leonard offered a prayer to the Almighty, and immediately there gushed forth, near chapel, a spring of the purest water, which exists to this day. This and other miracles spread the fame of the Saint to distant countries, so that his assistance was often requested by people who lived afar off.

God bestowed upon him peculiar power to help the unfortunate, as several prisoners especially experienced. It is attested that many who were languishing in dungeons were miraculously restored to liberty when they had heard of the great holiness of St. Leonard and had begged of God to be merciful to them for his sake. The same happened to others who regarded Leonard, though still living and far away, as if he had been already one of the Saints reigning in heaven, and who requested him with the greatest confidence to intercede for them. Many of these brought to the Saint the chains and irons, with which they had been fettered, and thanked him for having released them by his prayers. This gave him opportunity to admonish them to free themselves, by true repentance, from the chains of sin, and to make their lives such that they would not one day be imprisoned in that dungeon from which there is no escape.

Similar admonitions he gave to others who visited him in his solitude. The inhabitants of the neighboring villages and hamlets he sought to lead to piety and fear of God by his sermons. After having thus lived a holy life for many years, he longed to be relieved from the fetters of life and admitted to the liberty of the children of God. His prayer was accepted; for God called him to heaven by happy death, in 549. The miraculous deliverance of prisoners, however, ended not at the death of St. Leonard. A great many chains were brought to the tomb of the Saint, by different persons, who said that, by calling on St. Leonard, they had been most miraculously led out of prison. For example, The Count of Limoges had chained an innocent man in heavy irons and in such a manner that he could not move without pain. Calling with great confidence on St. Leonard, he was immediately released by the Saint who appeared to him, struck of the chain and told him to take it along. The man obeyed, took the heavy chain upon his shoulder with the greatest ease, and followed his guide, who led him away into the church where the body of the Saint was buried. There the Saint disappeared, and he, who had been so miraculously delivered, related what had happened. A similar miracle was performed in favor of a prisoner of war, who against justice, had been cast into a deep pit in the earth, by his captor, who mockingly said, that St. Leonard could open the doors of the prisons, but it had never been heard that he had freed any one of a pit under the earth. The prisoner was not discouraged, but called the more fervently on the Saint, who appeared to him and led him from his subterranean vault to the gates of the monastery of Nouaille.

A considerable number wished to remain with him, and he often gave them part of his vast forest to clear and make ready for the labors of the fields, that they might have the means to live an honest life. He continued to be their guardian and father and preached the religion of our Savior to them; and those who had once been malefactors were transformed by prayer and labor.

After increasing in holiness until his last days, he died on the 6th of November 559 in the oratory he had dedicated to Our Lady, after having himself transported there.

Miracles on behalf of prisoners and the sick continued as they had preceding his death.

Pilgrims flocked to his tomb, and in one small town in Bavaria there are records of 4,000 favors granted through Saint Leonard’s intercession.

Saint Leonard’s cult spread through all of Western Europe, churches were dedicated to him in France, England, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Bohemia, Poland and other countries. In England, with its cultural connections to the region, no fewer than 177 churches are dedicated to him. In Italy almost 225 places are dedicated to saint Léonard. The various places named Saint Leonard or St Leonards refer to this saint. Notable among these is the town of St Leonards-on-Sea in East Sussex. Sussex is also home to St Leonard’s Forest. This part of England has a significant number of dedications to St Leonard. One of the best-known is the Parish church of St Leonard in Hythe, Kent, with its famous ossuary in the ambulatory situated beneath its chancel.

Bohemond, a charismatic leader of the First Crusade, subsequently visited the Abbey of Noblac, where he made an offering in gratitude for his release. Bohemond’s example inspired many similar gifts, enabling the Romanesque church and its prominent landmark belltower to be constructed.

He became one of the most venerated saints of the late Middle Ages, patron of political prisoners, imprisoned people, prisoners of war, and captives, women in labour, as well as horses.

[1.]R. F. X. Weninger, Lives of the Saints Compiled from Authentic Sources.
[2.]“Leonard of Noblac,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_of_Noblac. [Accessed 4 November 2017].
[3.]“Saint Leonard – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_leonard.html. [Accessed 4 November 2017].
[4.]“Saint Leonard of Noblac,” Catholic Saints Info, 13 August 2017. [Online]. Available: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-leonard-of-noblac/. [Accessed 4 November 2017].

Saint Francis Borgia

General of the Jesuits(1510-1572)

Saint Francis Borgia, born 28 October 1510, was the son of Juan Borgia, third Duke of Gandia, and of Juana of Aragon. His grandfather, Juan Borgia, was the second son of Alexander VI.

After the death of his mother when he was ten years old, Saint Borgia was placed under the tutelage of his uncle, Archbishop of Saragossa. In 1525 the Infanta Maria married King Juan III of Portugal. In 1528, the court of Charles V was opened to him, and the most brilliant future awaited him.

As he was destined to be one of the great lords of that nation he remained Christian, modest and virtuous. His noble and beautiful appearance soon brought upon him snares which he succeeded in escaping, setting for himself regimes of prayer and study to escape from the dangers. He wore a hair shirt, and never would enter into any games of chance that cause the loss not only of money but of time, the spirit of devotion, and peace of soul. In 1539, there was laid upon him the sad duty of escorting the mortal remains of his once beautiful sovereign, the Empress Isabella, who had died still young, to the royal burial ground at Granada. The coffin had to be opened for him, that he might verify the body before it was placed in the tomb; and so unrecognizable, so astonishing a sight met his eyes that he vowed never again to serve any earthly sovereign, subject to so drastic and terrible a change.

On 26 June, 1539, Charles V named Borgia the Viceroy of Catalonia, and the importance of the charge tested the sterling qualities of the courtier. Precise instructions determined his course of action. He was to reform the administration of justice, put the finances in order, fortify the city of Barcelona, and repress outlawry. On his arrival at the vice-regal city, on 23 August, he at once proceeded, with an energy which no opposition could daunt, to build the ramparts, rid the country of the brigands who terrorized it, reform the monasteries, and develop learning. During his vice-regency he showed himself an inflexible judiciary, and above all an exemplary Christian.

On the way to Valladolid, while passing, brilliantly escorted, through Alcalá de Henares, Francis encountered a poor man whom the servants of the Inquisition were leading to prison. It was Ignatius of Loyola. The young nobleman exchanged a glance of emotion with the prisoner, little dreaming that one day they should be united by the closest ties.

The Empress arranged for him to marry Eleanor de Castro of Portugal, who like himself was very pious. They were blessed with eight children, five sons and three daughters.

It was many years before he could follow the call of his Lord; the emperor named him Captain-General of Catalonia, and sent him to bring to justice a group of bandits who had ravaged the countryside. The poor found in him strong protection against oppression. Vices were banished by his ordinances; he endowed poor girls and assisted families ruined by misery and reversals; he delivered debtors from prisons by paying what they owed. He was in effect the very Christian Viceroy of the Emperor. Saint Francis was relieved of this duty when he asked the Emperor, after the death of his father, to return and govern his subjects at Gandia. In Gandia he again did much public good; he built monasteries, founded hospitals, helped the poor in every possible way. In 1546 his wife Eleanor died. He was told by God that this loss was for both his and her own advantage, and amid his tears he offered his own life and that of his children, if that would please the Eternal Master. He put his affairs in order circa 1551 and did something that astonished all the nobles of Spain; he gave up his Dukedom to his son Charles. After making a retreat according to the Exercises of Saint Ignatius, under Blessed Peter Favre, and adequate provisions for his children enter the newly formed Society of Jesus, and became a Jesuit priest. So many people came to his first Mass that they had to set up an altar outdoors.

His Superior tested him by treating him in exactly the opposite way he had been used to all his forty-one years of life. He who had once been a Duke had to help the cook, carrying wood for the fire and sweeping the kitchen. When he served food to the priests and brothers, he had to kneel down in front of them all and beg them to forgive him for being so clumsy! Still he never once complained or grumbled. The only time he became angry was when anyone treated him with respect as if he was still a Duke. Once a doctor who had to take care of a painful wound Francis had gotten said to him: “I am afraid, my lord, that I have to hurt your grace.” The saint answered that he would not hurt him more than he was right then by calling him “my lord” and “your grace.” It was not too long before the humble priest accomplished wonderful works for God’s glory as he preached everywhere and advised many important people. He spread the Society of Jesus all over Spain and in Portugal. When he was made Superior General of the Jesuits, he sent missionaries all over the world. Under his guidance, the Jesuits grew to be a very great help to the Church in many lands.  Through all such success, St. Francis Borgia remained completely humble.

Saint Ignatius made him his Vicar General for Spain, Portugal, and the East Indies, and there was scarcely a city of Spain and Portugal where he did not establish colleges or houses of the Company of Jesus. At the death of Saint Ignatius two years later, the Order chose him to be its General. Then his journeys became countless; to narrate them all would be an impossibility.

In order to ensure the spiritual and intellectual formation of the young religious and the apostolic character of the whole order, it became necessary to take other measures. The task of Borgia was to establish, first at Rome, then in all the provinces, wisely regulated novitiates and flourishing houses of study, and to develop the cultivation of the interior life by establishing in all of these the custom of a daily hour of prayer. He completed at Rome the house and church of S. Andrea in Quirinale, in 1567. Illustrious novices flocked thither, among them Stanislaus Kostka (d. 1568), and the future martyr Rudolph Acquaviva. Since his first journey to Rome, Borgia had been preoccupied with the idea of founding a Roman college, and while in Spain had generously supported the project. In 1567, he built the church of the college, assured it even then an income of six thousand ducats, and at the same time drew up the rule of studies, which, in 1583, inspired the compilers of the Ratio Studiorum of the Society. Being a man of prayer as well as of action, the saintly general, despite overwhelming occupations, did not permit his soul to be distracted from continual contemplation. Strengthened by so vigilant and holy an administration the Society could not but develop. Spain and Portugal numbered many foundations; in Italy Borgia created the Roman province, and founded several colleges in Piedmont. France and the Northern province, however, were the chief field of his triumphs. His relations with the Cardinal de Lorraine and his influence with the French Court made it possible for him to put an end to numerous misunderstandings, to secure the revocation of several hostile edicts, and to found eight colleges in France. In Flanders and Bohemia, in the Tyrol and in Germany, he maintained and multiplied important foundations. The province of Poland was entirely his work. At Rome everything was transformed under his hands. He had built S. Andrea and the church of the Roman college. He assisted generously in the building of the Gesù, and although the official founder of that church was Cardinal Farnese, and the Roman College has taken the name of one of its greatest benefactors, Gregory XIII, Borgia contributed more than anyone towards these foundations he was one of the chief restorers of sacred music. Borgia had introduced so many reforms into his order as to deserve to be called its second founder. Three saints of this epoch laboured incessantly to further the renaissance of Catholicism. They were St. Francis Borgia, St. Pius V, and St. Charles Borromeo.

On 7 June 1571, Pius V requested him to accompany his nephew, Cardinal Bonelli, on an embassy to Spain and Portugal. Francis was then recovering from a severe illness; it was feared that he had not the strength to bear fatigue, and he himself felt that such a journey would cost him his life, but he gave it generously. Spain welcomed him with transports. The old distrust of Philip II was forgotten. Barcelona and Valencia hastened to meet their former viceroy and saintly duke. The crowds in the streets cried: “Where is the saint?” They found him emaciated by penance. Wherever he went, he reconciled differences and soothed discord. At Madrid, Philip II received him with open arms, the Inquisition approved and recommended his genuine works. The reparation was complete, and it seemed as though God wished by this journey to give Spain to understand for the last time this living sermon, the sight of a saint.

The Turks were threatening Christendom, and Pope Saint Pius V commissioned two cardinal-legates to go and assemble the European Christian princes into a league for its defense. The holy Pope chose Francis to accompany one of the Cardinals and, worn out as he was, the Saint obeyed at once. The fatigues of the embassy exhausted what little life was left to him.

Wishing to die either at Loretto or at Rome, he departed in a litter on 3 September, spent eight days at Loretto, and then, despite the sufferings caused by the slightest jolt, ordered the bearers to push forward with the utmost speed for Rome. It was expected that any instant might see the end of his agony. They reached the “Porta del Popolo” on 28 September. The dying man halted his litter and thanked God that he had been able to accomplish this act of obedience. He was borne to his cell which was soon invaded by cardinals and prelates. For two days Francis Borgia, fully conscious, awaited death, receiving those who visited him and blessing through his younger brother, Thomas Borgia, all his children and grandchildren. Shortly after midnight on 30 September 1572, his beautiful life came to a peaceful and painless close. Saint Francis died in the same year as Saint Pius V, happy to do so in the service of God and the Church. In the Catholic Church he had been one of the most striking examples of the conversion of souls, and for the Society of Jesus he had been the protector chosen by Providence to whom, after St. Ignatius, it owes most.

In 1607 the Duke of Lerma, minister of Philip III and grandson of the holy religious, having seen his granddaughter miraculously cured through the intercession of Francis, caused the process for his canonization to begin. Saint Borgia was canonized on 20 June 1670, Rome by Pope Clement X.

[1.]http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_francis_borgia.html

[2.]http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=643

[3.]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Borgia,_4th_Duke_of_Gandía

[4.]http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06213a.htm

Saint Pius X

Pope
(1836-1914)

This canonized holy Pope of the twentieth century remains beloved by all as the Pope of Frequent Communion. This is indeed a beautiful and fitting title, but we would like to stress here what is less known of his pontifical works — his battle to preserve the faith against those mining it from within.

Giuseppe (Joseph) Melchiorre Sarto was born in Riese, Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia, owned by the Austrian Empire (now Italy, province of Treviso) in 1835. He was the second born of ten children of Giovanni Battista Sarto (1792–1852) and Margarita Sanson (1813–94). He was baptized June 3^rd, 1835. Giuseppe’s childhood was one of poverty, being the son of the village postman. Though poor, his parents valued education, and after finishing his elementary education, Giuseppe first received private lessons in Latin from the arch-priest of his town, Don Tito Fusaroni, after which he studied for four years at the gymnasium of Castelfranco Veneto, walking 3.75 miles (6.04 km) to school each day.

He had already announced his desire to become a priest, and his parents had approved. Their parish priest found financial aid for him. In 1850 he received the tonsure from the Bishop of Treviso, and was given a scholarship of the Diocese of Treviso in the seminary of Padua, where he finished his classical, philosophical, and theological studies with distinction. His profoundly Christian father died in 1852, His mother Margarita lived to see her son a cardinal.

On 18 September 1858, Giuseppe Sarto was ordained a priest, and for nine years was chaplain at Tombolo, having to assume most of the functions of parish priest, as the pastor was old and an invalid. He sought to perfect his knowledge of theology by assiduously studying Saint Thomas and canon law; at the same time he established a night school for adult students, and devoted himself to the ministry of preaching in other towns to which he was called. In 1867 he was named arch-priest of Salzano, a large borough of the Diocese of Treviso, where he restored the church, and expanded the hospital, the funds coming from his own begging, wealth and labor. He was consistently generous to the poor, and especially distinguished himself by his abnegation during the cholera plague that swept across northern Italy in the early 1870s. An ecclesiastic who witnessed his activity wrote that he was everywhere present. He buried the dead and confessed the sick; he saw to the needs of the various houses, he gave remedies if necessary, at all hours of the day and night. He inspired courage in all. His sisters tried in vain to moderate his zeal, but the Padre did not contract the disease, and continued to need only four hours of sleep all the time of his pastoral life.

He showed great solicitude for the religious instruction of adults. In 1875 he was made a canon of the cathedral of Treviso, and filled several offices, among them those of spiritual director and rector of the seminary, examiner of the clergy, and vicar-general; moreover, he made it possible for the students of the public schools to receive religious instruction.

In 1878, Bishop Zanelli died, leaving the Bishopric of Treviso vacant. Following Zanelli’s death, the canons of cathedral chapters (of which Monsignor Sarto was one) inherited the episcopal jurisdiction as a corporate body, and were chiefly responsible for the election of a vicar-capitular who would take over the responsibilities of Treviso until a new bishop was named. In 1879, Sarto was elected to the position, in which he served from December of that year to June 1880. After 1880, Sarto taught dogmatic theology and moral theology at the seminary in Treviso. On 10 November 1884, he was appointed bishop of Mantua by Pope Leo XIII. Upon his arrival, he asked his diocesans to come to the cathedral and to pray with him and receive Communion. As bishop, he taught catechism to the children and continued to visit the sick like a parish priest; and it seemed to them that it was his passage among them which cured them. He manifested a remarkable compassion for the working people. He defended a man who had calumniated him and who soon afterwards was ruined financially, and sent money anonymously to his wife. His chief care in his new position was for the formation of the clergy at the seminary, where, for several years, he himself taught dogmatic theology, and for another year moral theology. He wished the doctrine and method of St. Thomas to be followed, and to many of the poorer students he gave copies of the “Summa theological;” at the same time he cultivated the Gregorian Chant in company with the seminarians. The temporal administration of his see imposed great sacrifices upon him. In 1887 he held a diocesan synod. By his attendance at the confessional, he gave the example of pastoral zeal. The Catholic organization of Italy, then known as the “Opera Dei Congressi,” found in him a zealous propagandist from the time of his ministry at Salzano.

He was appointed to the honorary position of assistant at the pontifical throne on 19 June 1891.

Pope Leo XIII made him a cardinal in an open consistory on 12 June 1893. He was created and proclaimed as Cardinal-Priest of San Bernardo alle Terme. Three days after this, Cardinal Sarto became Patriarch of Venice, and never was there one more appreciated than Monsignor Sarto after his arrival. Ten years there confirmed the inhabitants’ profound affection and respect for him.

On 20 July 1903, Leo XIII died, and at the end of that month the conclave convened to elect his successor.

According to historians, the favorite was the late pope’s secretary of state, Cardinal Mariano Rampolla. However, the veto (jus exclusivae) against Rampolla’s nomination, by Polish Cardinal Jan Puzyna de Kosielsko from Kraków in the name of Emperor Franz Joseph (1848–1916) of Austria-Hungary, was proclaimed. After several ballots Giuseppe Sarto was elected on 4 August by a vote of 55 out of a possible 60 votes. His coronation took place on the following Sunday, 9 August, 1903.

At first, it is reported, Sarto declined the nomination, feeling unworthy. Additionally, he had been deeply saddened by the Austro-Hungarian veto and vowed to rescind these powers and excommunicate anyone who communicated such a veto during a conclave. With the cardinals asking him to reconsider, it is further reported, he went into solitude, and took the position after deep prayer in the Pauline chapel and the urging of his fellow cardinals.

In accepting the papacy, Sarto took as his papal name Pius X, out of respect for his recent predecessors of the same name, particularly that of Pope Pius IX (1846–78), who had fought against theological liberals and for papal supremacy.

Pius X reformed the Roman Curia with the constitution Sapienti Consilio, and specified new rules enforcing a bishop’s oversight of seminaries in the encyclical Pieni L’Animo. As the dioceses of Central and of Southern Italy were so small that their respective seminaries could not prosper, Pius X established the regional seminary which is common to the sees of a given region; and, as a consequence, many small, deficient seminaries were closed.

He also barred clergy from administering social organizations.

Interested in politics, Pope Pius encouraged Italian Catholics to become more politically involved. One of his first papal acts was to end the supposed right of governments to interfere by veto in papal elections—a practice that reduced the freedom of the 1903 conclave which had elected him.

In 1905, when France renounced its agreement with the Holy See and threatened confiscation of Church property if governmental control of Church affairs were not granted, Pius X courageously rejected the demand.

While he did not author a famous social encyclical as his predecessor had done, he opposed trade unions that were not exclusively Catholic, and denounced the ill treatment of indigenous peoples on the plantations of Peru; he sent a relief commission to Messina after an earthquake, and sheltered refugees at his own expense.

Pius X was particularly devoted to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the specific title of Our Lady of Confidence; his papal encyclical Ad diem illum expresses his desire through Mary to renew all things in Christ, which he had defined as the motto of his pontificate.

Accordingly, his greatest care always turned to the direct interests of the Church. Before all else his efforts were directed to the promotion of piety among the faithful, and he advised all (Decr. S. Congr. Concil., 20 Dec., 1905) to receive Holy Communion frequently and, if possible, daily, dispensing the sick from the obligation of fasting to the extent of enabling them to receive Holy Communion twice each month, and even more often.

Pius X’s attitude toward the Modernists was uncompromising whom he regarded as dangers to the Catholic faith. Modernism and relativism, in terms of their presence in the Church, were theological trends that tried to assimilate modern philosophers like Kant into Catholic theology, argued that beliefs of the Church have evolved throughout its history and continue to evolve. The movement was linked especially with certain Catholic French scholars such as Louis Duchesne, who questioned the belief that God acts in a direct way in the affairs of humanity, and Alfred Loisy, who denied that some parts of Scripture were literally rather than perhaps metaphorically true. In contradiction to Thomas Aquinas they argued that there was an unbridgeable gap between natural and supernatural knowledge. He saw with perfect perspicacity that the Church was falling ever more deeply into the disastrous errors of modernism, that crossroads of every heresy. Saint Pius X absolutely supported all that the great encyclicals of Popes Leo XIII and Pius IX had proclaimed or enjoined upon the authorities of the Church. He brought about the resignation of a considerable number who resisted that authority and who in ambiguous language continued to promulgate the subtle errors propagated by the manifold isms, the false doctrines of the modern world separated from Christ

The pope had at heart above all things the purity of the faith. Wherefore, in 1907, he caused the publication of the decree Lamentabili (called also the Syllabus of Pius X), in which sixty-five propositions are condemned. The greater number of these propositions concern the Holy Scripture, their inspiration, and the doctrine of Jesus and of the Apostles, while others relate to dogma, the sacraments, and the primacy of the Bishop of Rome. Soon after that, on 8 Sept., 1907, there appeared the famous encyclical Pascendi dominici gregis (or “Feeding the Lord’s Flock”), which expounds and condemns the system of Modernism. It points out the danger of Modernism in relation to philosophy, apologetics, exegesis, history, liturgy, and discipline, and shows the contradiction between that innovation and the ancient faith. Following these, Pius X ordered that all clerics take the Sacrorum antistitum, an oath against Modernism. Theologians who wished to pursue lines of inquiry in line with secularism, modernism, or relativism had to stop, or face conflict with the papacy, and possibly even excommunication.

In 1905, Pius X in his letter Acerbo Nimis mandated the existence of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (catechism class) in every parish in the world.

The Catechism of Saint Pius X was issued in 1908 in Italian, as Catechismo della dottrina Cristiana, Pubblicato per Ordine del Sommo Pontifice San Pio X.

The Catechism is his realisation of a simple and plain brief for uniform use throughout the whole world; it was used in the ecclesiastical province of Rome and for some years in other parts of Italy; it was not, however, prescribed for use throughout the universal church.  The catechism was extolled as a method of religious teaching in his encyclical Acerbo Nimis of April 1905. An English translation runs to more than 115 pages.

Because Canon Law in the Catholic Church varied from region to region with no overall prescriptions. On 19 March 1904, Pope Pius X named a commission of cardinals to draft a universal set of laws that was to be the Code of Canon Law for most of the twentieth century. In effect the first-ever definitive Code of Canon Law was promulgated by Benedict XV on 27 May 1917, obtained the force of law on 19 May 1918 and was in effect until Advent 1983.

In 1908, the papal decree Ne Temere came into effect which addressed mixed marriages. Marriages not performed by a Roman Catholic priest were declared legal but sacramentally invalid. Priests were given discretion to refuse to perform mixed marriages or lay conditions upon them, commonly including a requirement that the children be raised Roman Catholic.

In 1908, Pius X lifted the United States out of its missionary status, in recognition of the growth of the American church. Fifteen new dioceses were created in the US during his pontificate, and he named two American cardinals. He was very popular among American Catholics, partly due to his poor background, which made him appear to them as an ordinary person who was on the papal throne. On 8 July 1914, Pope Pius X approved the request of Cardinal James Gibbons to invoke the patronage of the Immaculate Conception for the construction site of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.

Saint Pius X labored until the very last days of his life. His Will and Testament contained the words: I was born poor, I have lived poor, and I wish to die poor. He died in 1914 at the age of 78 years, at the onset of the First World War, which he had foreseen. Pius X has secured great, practical, and lasting results in the interest of Catholic doctrine and discipline, and that in the face of great difficulties of all kinds. Even non-Catholics recognize his apostolic spirit, his strength of character, the precision of his decisions, and his pursuit of a clear and explicit faith.

Canonized by Pope Pius XII forty years later, on May 29, 1954, and recognized universally as a Saint for his charity, his piety, and his zeal. He will always be known as the Pope of the Eucharist.

Other than the stories of miracles performed through the pope’s intercession after his death, there are also stories of miracles performed by the pope during his lifetime. On one occasion, during a papal audience, Pius X was holding a paralyzed child who wriggled free from his arms and then ran around the room. On another occasion, a couple (who had made confession to him while he was bishop of Mantua) with a two-year-old child with meningitis wrote to the pope and Pius X then wrote back to them to hope and pray. Two days later, the child was cured. Cardinal Ernesto Ruffini (later the Archbishop of Palermo) had visited the pope after he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and the pope had told him to go back to the seminary and that he would be fine. Cardinal Ruffini gave this story to the investigators of the pontiff’s cause for canonization.

[1.] “Pope Pius X,” 2012. [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12137a.htm. [Accessed 31 August 2017].

[2.] “Saint Pius X – Lives of the Saints,” 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_pius_x.html. [Accessed 31 August 2017].

[3.] “Saint Pius X,” Franciscan Media, [Online]. Available: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-pius-x/. [Accessed 31 August 2017].

[4.] “Pope Pius X,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_X. [Accessed 31 August 2017].

Saint Alphonsus Liguori

Bishop and Doctor of the Church
(1696-1787)
Feast – August 2
Saint Alphonsus was born in Marianella, near Naples, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, in 1696. He was the eldest of seven children of Giuseppe and Anna Cavalieri Liguori. Two days after he was born, he was baptized at the Church of Our Lady the Virgin as Alphonsus Mary Anthony John Cosmas Damian Michael Gaspard de’ Liguori. The family was of noble and ancient lineage. Alphonsus’s father, Don Joseph de’ Liguori, was a naval officer and Captain of the Royal Galleys. His mother was of Spanish descent.

Saint Alphonsus, like so many saints, had an excellent father and a saintly mother. Don Joseph de’ Liguori had his faults. He was somewhat worldly and ambitious, at any rate for his son, and was rough tempered when opposed. However, he was a man of genuine faith, piety and stainless life, and he meant his son to be the same. Even when taking him into society in order to arrange a good marriage for him, he wished Alphonsus to put God first, and every year father and son would make a retreat together in some religious house. Alphonsus, assisted by divine grace, did not disappoint his father’s care. His spiritual formation was entrusted to the Oratorian Fathers of that city, and from his boyhood Alphonsus was known as a very devout little Brother of the Minor Oratory. A pure and modest boyhood passed into a manhood without reproach. A companion, Balthasar Cito, who afterwards became a distinguished judge, was asked in later years if Alphonsus had ever shown signs of levity in his youth. He answered emphatically: “Never! It would be a sacrilege to say otherwise.” The Saint’s confessor declared that he preserved his baptismal innocence till death. Alphonsus received his doctorate at the age of sixteen. When he was 18, like many other nobles, he joined the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mercy with whom he assisted in the care of the sick at the hospital for “incurables.”

Still there was a time of danger, by the age nineteen he was practicing law. There can be little doubt but that the young Alphonsus with his high spirits and strong character was ardently attached to his profession, and was on the way to be spoiled by the success and popularity which it brought. About the year 1722, when he was twenty-six years old, he began to go constantly into society, to neglect prayer and the practices of piety which had been an integral part of his life, and to take pleasure in the attention with which he was received everywhere.

“Banquets, entertainments, theatres,” he wrote later on–“these are the pleasures of the world, but pleasures which are filled with the bitterness of gall and sharp thorns. Believe me who have experienced it, and now weep over it.”

A mistake, however, by which he lost an important case, showed him the vanity of human fame and glory. For three days, he refused all food. Then the storm subsided, and he began to see that his humiliation had been sent him by God to break down his pride and wean him from the world. Confident that some special sacrifice was required of him, though he did not yet know what, he did not return to his profession, but spent his days in prayer, seeking to know God’s will. Visiting the local Hospital for Incurables on August 28, 1723, he had a vision and was told to consecrate his life solely to God.

He was ordained on 21 December 1726. He lived his first years as a priest with the homeless and the marginalized youth of Naples. He became very popular because of his plain and simple preaching. He said, “I have never preached a sermon which the poorest old woman in the congregation could not understand.” His father stopped in a church to pray one day, and amazed, heard his son preaching; he suddenly saw clearly how God had marvelously elevated his son, and was filled with joy, saying, “My son has made God known to me!”

As for Alphonsus, he loved and devoted himself to the most neglected souls in the region of Naples. He was a very perfect confessor, and wrote a manual which has been used ever since for the instruction of those who administer the sacrament of Penance. He founded the Evening Chapels, which were managed by the young people themselves. The chapels were centers of prayer and piety, preaching, community, social activities and education. At the time of his death, there were 72, with over 10,000 active participants. His sermons were very effective at converting those who had been alienated from their faith. A musician of the first rank, Saint Alphonsus gave up his instruments to devote himself more perfectly to his apostolic labors; he nonetheless composed joyous religious hymns for the poor folk he heard singing in the streets, that they might glorify God and not waste their voices and efforts in vain and worldly songs.

In April 1729, Alphonsus went to live at the “Chiflese College,” founded in Naples by Father Matthew Ripa, the Apostle of China. There he met Bishop Thomas Falcoia, founder of the Congregation of Pious Workers. This lifelong friendship aided Alphonsus, as did his association with a mystic, Sister Mary Celeste. With their aid, Alphonsus founded on November 9, 1732 the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer dedicated to evangelization of the poor.

He refused to become the bishop of Palermo, but in 1762 had to accept the see of St. Agatha of the Goths near Naples due to Papal command. He tried to refuse the appointment by using his age and infirmities as arguments against his consecration. At the age of sixty-six he undertook the reform of his diocese with the zeal of a Saint. He made a vow never to waste a moment of time, and thus his life was spent in prayer and work. Here with 30,000 uninstructed people, 400 mostly indifferent and sometimes scandalous secular clergy, and seventeen more or less relaxed religious houses to look after, in a field so overgrown with weeds that they seemed the only crop, he wept and prayed and spent days and nights in unremitting labor for thirteen years. More than once he faced assassination unmoved. In a riot which took place during the terrible famine that fell upon Southern Italy in 1764, he saved the life of the syndic of St. Agatha by offering his own to the mob. He addressed ecclesiastical abuses in the diocese, reformed the seminary and spiritually rehabilitated the clergy and faithful. He suspended those priests who celebrated Mass in less than 15 minutes. He sold his carriage and episcopal ring to give the money to the poor. He wrote sermons, books, and articles. These volumes were filled with such great science, unction, and wisdom that in 1871 he was declared by Pius IX a Doctor of the Church. Saint Alphonsus wrote his first book at the age of forty-nine, and in his eighty-third year had published about sixty volumes; at that time, his director forbade him to continue writing. The best known of his books is his volume entitled The Glories of Mary, by which he exalts the graces and narrates the wondrous deeds of mercy of the Mother of God for those who invoke Her. Very many of these books were written in the half hours snatched from his labors as a missionary, as a religious Superior, and finally as a Bishop, often in the midst of unrelenting bodily and mental sufferings. With his left hand he would hold a piece of marble against his aching head, while his right hand wrote. Yet he counted no time lost which was spent in charity. He did not refuse to maintain a long correspondence with a simple soldier who asked for his advice, or to play the harpsichord in his declining years, while he taught his novices to sing spiritual canticles.

His austerities were rigorous, and he suffered daily the pain from rheumatism that was beginning to deform his body. He spent several years having to drink from tubes because his head was so bent forward, so bent was it in the beginning, that the pressure of his chin produced a dangerous wound in the chest. Eight times during his long life, without counting his last sickness, the Saint received the sacraments of the dying, but the worst of all his illnesses was a terrible attack of rheumatic fever during his episcopate, an attack which lasted from May, 1768, to June, 1769, and left him paralyzed to the end of his days. It was this which gave St. Alphonsus the bent head which we notice in the portraits of him.

Saint Alphonsus suffered from scruples much of his adult life and felt guilty about the most minor issues relating to sin. Moreover, the saint viewed scruples as a blessing at times and wrote: “Scruples are useful in the beginning of conversion…. they cleanse the soul, and at the same time make it careful.”

He lived in times of religious laxity, and met with many persecutions and disappointments. During his last seven years he was prevented by constant sickness from offering the adorable Sacrifice, but he received Holy Communion daily, and his love for Jesus Christ and his trust in Mary’s prayers sustained him to the end. He died in 1787, in his ninety-first year.

Alphonsus’ greatest contribution to the Church was in the area of moral theology. His masterpiece was The Moral Theology (1748), which was approved by the Pope himself and was born of Alphonsus’ pastoral experience, his ability to respond to the practical questions posed by the faithful and his contact with their everyday problems. A prolific writer, he published nine editions of his Moral Theology in his lifetime, in addition to other devotional and ascetic works and letters. Among his best-known works are The Glories of Mary and The Way of the Cross, the latter still used in parishes during Lenten devotions.

He was canonized in 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius IX in 1871. One of the most widely read Catholic authors, he is the patron saint of confessors.

[1] “Saint Alphonsus Liguori – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_alphonsus_liguori.html. [Accessed 2 August 2017].
[2] “Alphonsus Maria de’Liguori,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphonsus_Maria_de%27_Liguori. [Accessed 2 August 2017].
[3] “St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori,” Catholic Online, [Online]. Available: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1284. [Accessed 2 August 2017].
[4] “St. Alphonsus Liguori,” New Advent, [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm. [Accessed 2 August 2017].

Saint Goar of Aquitaine

Priest and Hermit
(+575)
Feast –July 6
Saint Goar was born in the time of Childebert I, son of Clovis, of a noble family in Aquitaine. From his youth he was noted for his earnest piety, and having been raised by his bishop to sacred orders.

His holy conduct and zealous preaching brought many heathen to the knowledge of the true God, many sinners to repentance, and strengthened many pious people to persevere in the righteous path. A large number of people were converted. Wishing to serve God in anonymity, he went into a region where he would be unidentified, and settling in the neighborhood of Trier in Germany, he built a small church and a hermitage, then retired into prayer.

He came forth after a time and began preaching in the area to the pagans, who opened their eyes to the truth of the Gospel. Miracles seconded his teaching; he cured the sick and the lame by prayer and the sign of the cross. Saint Goar reached so eminent a sanctity as to be esteemed the oracle and miracle of the whole country. He practiced hospitality to the poor and to pilgrims, lodging them in his hermitage which he enlarged for that purpose; hospitality is the particular virtue for which he is and was then known. Despite his intention to live in solitude and obscurity, his renown for holiness spread all over the country.

The Almighty permitted the holy man to be accused by some persons of hypocrisy, pride and other vices. Among these were two servants of the bishop of Triers who, after having visited St. Goar and seeing his way of living, said unhesitatingly to the bishop that Goar was a hypocrite who assumed holiness only to deceive the people. The miracles wrought by him, they said, were nothing but deceptions of Satan. The bishop commanded the hypocrite to be brought before him. The servants went to the Saint and informed him of the bishop’s command. St. Goar received them kindly. Next day at day-break the holy man, according to custom, said Mass, and offered breakfast to the servants of the bishop, which they rejected, and reproached the Saint, that he already so early in the morning, thought of eating and drinking. But, notwithstanding this they requested him to give them some food for their journey. The holy man told them that Christianity enjoyed hospitality, and, having given them as much food as they desired for the journey, he went away with them. Upon the way, he occupied himself in singing Psalms. At midday the servants were faint from hunger and thirst, and unable to proceed on their journey, they wished to refresh themselves with the food which the holy man had given to them, and they looked about for some water wherewith to quench their thirst. But they found neither food nor water: God had taken from them for the wickedness with which they had judged the holy priest. They acknowledged their fault, and begged the saint’s pardon, who after a short prayer produced them by miracle, food and drink. Recognizing the holiness of him whom they had denounced a hypocrite and a glutton they changed their opinion of him and arriving at the bishop’s palace, told what had occurred and added much in the Saint’s praise. When Saint Goar entered the episcopal palace, he mistook a ray of sunshine for a coat hook and suspended his cloak upon it. The bishop, however was not so willing to alter the opinion he had already formed, but accused him, in the presence of great many priests of several vices, particularly of hypocrisy and intemperance. The Saint defended his innocence with great sweetness and tranquility, but found no willing ear in the bishop. Meanwhile an illegitimate child was brought in, which had just been found at the place where such children were deposited. The bishop said to the assemblage;” We shall now see if this hermit is a true servant of God, or only deceiver.” He then commanded the accused to reveal the name of the parents of the child, or induce the latter to name them. The holy man refused as long as possible to comply with this request, and gave reasons which ought to have induced the bishop to let the matter rest; but, as he insisted upon it, the Saint adjured the child in the name of the Holy Trinity to reveal the names of its parents. The child which was only three days old immediately opened its mouth, and said quite distinctly: “Rusticus is my father, and Flavia, my mother.” The bishop was thunderstruck at hearing his own name, and falling at the feet of St. Goar, begged him to forgive the rash judgment he had formed of him. The holy man was deeply grieved that this crime was thus made public, and took upon himself to make reparation for it by a penance of seven years.

This remarkable event soon spread abroad, and when it had come to the ears of King Siegbert, the Saint was called to inform the King of the whole proceedings. The holy man, however, refused to appear. The King insisted, saying that he was already acquainted with the principal facts, and having related them, desired to know if all had happened in that manner. The Saint replied: “As your majesty has related all, it would be superfluous to add anything.” This answer pleased the King greatly, who therefore desired to bestow on St Goar the See of Triers. The Saint earnestly refused, but as the King, the nobility, and the people urged him to accept it. He requested to have a few days, to take counsel with God. When this had been granted, he returned to his dwellings, and prayed, with tearful eyes, that God would avert what seemed to be in store for him. God heard his prayer, and sent him a dangerous fever, which kept him for seven years in his cell, not allowing him to set foot out of doors. These seven years of suffering he offered according to his promise to God, for the bishop, who then also led a penitential life. Hardly had the Saint recovered from his illness, when the King again requested him to accept the government of the See. But the Saint answered that they would not be able to remove him out of his cell, until they carried away his body in a coffin. These words proved true, for he was attacked by another disease which lasted four years, and which only terminated at his death, in the year of our Lord 575.

The many miracles wrought on the tomb of the Saint showed how much the Almighty was pleased with His servant, while they at the same time made the place, where his holy relicts rested, so famous, that near Coblentz in Germany a considerable town grew out of it which still at this day bears the name of “St. Goar”.

[1] “Saint Goar – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_goar.html. [Accessed 6 July 2017].
[2] “Goar of Aquitaine,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goar_of_Aquitaine. [Accessed 6 July 2017].
[3] F. X. Weninger, Lives of the Saints, New York: P. O’Shea, 1877.