Saint Fulgentius

Doctor of the Church, Bishop (462-533)
Fest January 1
Fabius Claudius Gordianus Fulgentius was born in the year 462 of illustrious and Catholic parents, at Telepte (modern-day Medinet-el-Kedima), Tunisia, in North Africa. His grandfather, Gordianus, a senator of Carthage, was despoiled of his possessions by the invader Genseric and banished to Italy; his two sons returned after his death, and though their house in Carthage had been made over to Arian priests, they recovered some property in Byzacene.

St.Fulgentius’s father, Claudius, died when he was still quite young. His mother, Mariana taught him to speak Greek and Latin. An excellent student of languages and of various other practical disciplines he became particularly fluent with Greek, speaking it like a native. His biographer says that at an early age he committed the entire works of Homer to memory.
As he grew older, he governed his house wisely in subjection to his mother. For the conduct of his family’s affairs he quickly gained wide public respect. This reputation helped him to acquire at an early age a post as a procurator of Byzacena, which gave him the duty of collecting taxes for the government of the Vandals in northern Africa.

His religious studies helped him to see the vanity of the world. He quickly grew tired of the material life and elevation in the world’s esteem was distasteful to him.

At the age of twenty-two, having read St. Augustine’s treatise on the Psalms, he resolved to embrace monastic life, and began to prepare for it by mental prayer, fasting, and other penances practiced in secret. Around the year 499 he set out to join the hermits of the Thebaid in Egypt but changed his mind once he learned of the influence of monophysitism on Egyptian monasticism from Eulalius, bishop of Syracuse. He applied to Faustus, a bishop who had been forced from his diocese by the Vandal king Huneric and later set up a monastery at Byzacena. The fervent appeal of the young man won his admission from Faustus, to whom he was already well known. When he was accepted into a monastery his mother hoped to change his mind, she clamored with tears at the door of the monastery to see her son, but he remained firm and did not accept to see her.
He renounced all his worldly goods on behalf of his mother and younger brother.

After six years of peace, his monastery was attacked by Arian heretics. Faustus, St. Fulgentius and the other monks were driven out, destitute, into the desert. He entered another monastery on his Superior’s advice. The abbot there, Felix, gave St. Fulgentius the duty of managing the temporal affairs of the monastery, while he managed the spiritual affairs.
The two of them worked well together, and so in 499, during another wave of persecution they were attacked by barbarians and both fled for Sicca Veneria. A local Arian priest had them arrested and tortured after learning the pair were preaching the catholic Chalcedonian teaching regarding the two natures of Jesus. He sought no vengeance when authorities offered him support if he would enter a complaint.

St. Fulgentius and his Superior, who was with him, decided to build another monastery; a new retreat was started at Idida in Mauretania.
He soon left Felix, having conceived an ardent desire to visit the monasteries of Egypt. He hoped to be no longer superior, and to be able to keep yet stricter abstinence, took ship at Carthage for Alexandria with a companion named Redemptus. On his arrival at Syracuse, the holy bishop of that city, Eulalius, told him: “The lands to which you wish to travel are separated from the communion of Peter by a heretical quarrel.”
St. Fulgentius therefore stopped a few months with Eulalius, and then sought further advice from an exiled bishop of his own province, who was living as a monk on a tiny island off the coast of Sicily. He was recommended to return to his own monastery, but “not to forget the Apostles.” In consequence, he made a pilgrimage to Rome, where he prayed at the tombs of the apostles. His visit coincided with a formal address to the people by king Theodoric, which confirmed St. Fulgentius in his low esteem for the earthly vanities of this world. In the year 500 he returned to Africa, where a nobleman of Byzacene gave him fertile land on which he established a new monastery to live in an isolated cell. Here he worked, read, and contemplated. He was an accomplished scribe and could make fans of palm leaves.

St. Fulgentius’s reputation quickly spread, and he was several times offered the post of bishop of one of the dioceses which had been vacated through the actions of the Arian king Thrasamund. King Thrasamund (496-523), though not so cruel a persecutor as his predecessors, allowed no Catholic bishops to be elected in Africa. It was decided in 508 by such bishops as could manage to meet together that it was necessary to brave this law, and it was decreed that elections should take place quietly and simultaneously in all the vacant sees, before the government had time to take preventive measures. St. Fulgentius was nominated in several cities; but he had fled into hiding and could not be found. When he thought all the appointments had been made, he reappeared, but the seaport of Ruspe in Tunisia, where the election had been delayed through the ambition of a deacon of the place, promptly elected him; and against his will in 508 he was consecrated bishop of a town he had never seen. His obvious virtues made a strong impression on the people of his new diocese, but he was summoned to face new dangers, and was shortly afterwards banished by the Arian king, with some sixty other Catholic prelates, to Sardinia. Pope Symmachus knew of their plight and sent them annual provisions of food and money.

Though the youngest of the exiles, he turned a house in Cagliari into a monastery and became the spokesman of his brethren and the support of their orphaned flocks. By his books and letters, which are still extant, he confounded both Pelagian and Arian heresiarchs, and strengthened the Catholics in Africa and Gaul.

In 515, he returned to Africa, having been summoned there by king Thrasamund for a public debate with his Arian replacement. Thrasamund issued a series of ten questions as a challenge to the Catholic bishops. The reputation of St. Fulgentius was now so great that the king choose him to speak in the name of the rest. He submitted to the king a small but able work which we still possess under the title of “Contra Arianos liber unus, ad decem objectiones decem responsiones continens” (Ten answers to ten objections of the Arians).

The king, impressed by St. Fulgentius’ knowledge and learning, fearing social discord if these persuasive arguments fell into the hands of his Arian subjects, proposed further objections. He took the unfair and tyrannical course of having the new questions, which were expressed at great length, read aloud once to St. Fulgentius, who was not allowed to have a copy of them, but was expected to give direct answers. When the bishop pointed out that he could not even recollect the questions after hearing them but once, the king declared that he showed a want of confidence in his own case. St. Fulgentius was therefore obliged to write a larger work. Thrasamund’s respect for St. Fulgentius grew, leading him to allow St. Fulgentius to stay in Carthage, but after renewed complaints from the local Arian clergy he banished him back to Sardinia in 520. He was put on board a ship at night so the people of Carthage might not know of his departure. However, contrary winds obliged the vessel to remain several days in port, and nearly all the city was able to take leave of the holy bishop, and to receive Holy Communion from his hand. To a religious man who was weeping he privately prophesied his speedy return and the liberty of the African Church.
On the death in 523 of the Arian king Thrasamund and the accession of his catholic son Hilderic the bishops returned to their flocks. St. Fulgentius was welcomed amid the greatest joy, after eighteen years of exile. He labored with his fellow bishops in the synods as their chosen leader, and re-established discipline. The power and effectiveness of his preaching was so profound that his archbishop, Boniface of Carthage, wept openly every time he heard St. Fulgentius preach, and publicly thanked God for giving such a preacher to his church.

When he felt his end was near, a year before his death he was moved to great compunction of heart; he suddenly quitted all his work, and even his monastery, and sailed with a few companions to the island of Circe, where he gave himself to reading, prayer, and fasting in a monastery which he had previously caused to be constructed on a small rock. There he mortified his members and wept in the presence of God alone, as though he anticipated a speedy death. But complaints were made of his absence, and he returned to his labors. He shortly fell into a grievous sickness. In his sufferings he said ceaselessly: “O Lord, give me patience here, and forgiveness hereafter.” He refused, as too luxurious, the warm bath which the physicians recommended. He summoned his clergy and in the presence of the monks asked pardon for any want of sympathy or any undue severity he might have shown. He was sick for seventy days, continuing in prayer and retaining all his faculties to the last. His possessions he gave to the poor, and to those of his clergy who were in need. He died on 1 January, 533.
References and Excerpts

[1] “St. Fulgentius,” Midwest Augustinians. [Online]. Available: https://www.midwestaugustinians.org/st-fulgentius/. [Accessed: 27-Dec-2018].
[2] “Saint Fulgentius, Doctor of the Church, Bishop.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_fulgentius.html. [Accessed: 27-Dec-2018].
[3] “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Saint Fulgentius.” [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06316a.htm. [Accessed: 27-Dec-2018].
[4] “St. Fulgentius of Ruspe,” Catholic.net. [Online]. Available: http://catholic.net/op/articles/1225/st-fulgentius-of-ruspe.html. [Accessed: 27-Dec-2018].

Saint Sabas

Patriarchal Abbot in Palestine (439-531)
Feast – December 5

Saint Sabas, one of the most renowned patriarchs of the monks of Palestine; founder of several convents, most notably the one known as Mar Saba; and considered one of the founders of Eastern monasticism. The saint’s name is derived from Aramaic: סַבָּא‎ Sabbāʾ meaning “old man.” Son of John, a military commander, and Sophia, born at Mutalaska near Caesarea of Cappadocia in the year 439. The name of the village has no known meaning in Greek, but the Aramaic “Mata la zkha” translates as “Village of Victory”.

Journeying to Alexandria on military matters, his parents left their five-year-old son in the care of an uncle. Mistreated by his uncle’s wife, St. Sabas ran away to another uncle. When the two uncles became involved in a lawsuit over his estate, he again ran away, this time to the nearby monastery of Bishop Flavian of Antioch. The gifted child quickly learned to read and became an expert on the Holy Scriptures. By the time the uncles were reconciled, the young boy felt drawn to monastic life. He resisted his parents’ pressure to return to the world and get married, he stated: “Do you want me to be a deserter, leaving God after placing myself in His service? If those who abandon the militia of earthly kings are severely punished, what chastisement would I not deserve if I abandoned that of the King of heaven?” He remained in the monastery.

Although the youngest monk in the house, he excelled in virtue. In 456, he went to Jerusalem seeking to learn more about living in solitude. Soon he asked to be accepted as a disciple of a well-known local solitary, though he was regarded as too young to live completely as a hermit he entered a monastery under St. Theoctistus. St. Sabas lived in a monastery, where he worked during the day and spent much of the night in prayer. When he was thirty years old, desiring greater solitude under the guidance of St. Euthymius, Abbot of a nearby monastery. He began to live an angelic life so far above nature that he seemed no longer to have a body. The young sage, as he was called by St. Euthymius, dwelt in a cavern on a mountain near Jerusalem, where he prayed, sang Psalms and wove baskets of palm branches. St. Euthymius attentively directed the life of the young monk, and seeing his spiritual maturity, he began to take him to the wilderness with him. They set out each January 14 and remained there until Palm Sunday. St. Euthymius called St. Sabas a child-elder and encouraged him to grow in the monastic virtues. When Euthymius died (c. 473), St. Sabas withdrew from the Lavra (a cluster of cells or caves for hermits, with a church and sometimes a refectory at the center) and moved to a cave near the monastery of St Gerasimus of Jordan. After the death of the Elder Theoctistus, his successor blessed Sabas to seclude himself in a cave near the brook Cedron. On Saturdays, however, he left his hermitage and came to the monastery, where he participated in divine services and ate with the brethren. After a certain time Sabas received permission not to leave his hermitage at all, and he lived in isolation in the cave for five years. A rope was his means of access. Wild herbs among the rocks were his food. Occasionally men brought him other food and items, while he had to go a distance for his water. Despite his desire for solitude, he attracted disciples. He was forty-five years old when he began to direct those who came to live as hermits, as he did, and he gave each of them a place to build a cell, living in individual huts. The traditional dating of the founding of this Lavra in the Kidron Valley, south of Jerusalem, is 484. Soon this was the largest monastery of Palestine. When his one hundred fifty monks asked for a priest and despite his opposition to monks being ordained, he was obliged to accept ordination by Patriarch Sallust of Jerusalem in 491, so that he could better serve his monastic community in leadership. He built several hospitals and another monastery near Jericho and was appointed archimandrite of all hermits in Palestine. While functioning as abbot among a large community of monks, he felt ever called to live the life of a hermit. Throughout each year—consistently in Lent—he left his monks for long periods of time, often to their distress. A group of 60 men left, settling at Thecuna, a nearby ruined monastery. When St. Sabas learned of the difficulties they were facing, he generously gave them supplies and assisted in the repair of their church.

As the years passed, he was in charge of seven monasteries; but his influence was not limited to Palestine. The heresies afflicting religion were being sustained by the emperor of Constantinople, Anastasios I who had exiled the Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem Elias.

St. Sabas a strenuous opponent of the Monophysites and the Origenists, tried to influence the emperors against them by calling personally on Emperor. He converted the one who had replaced Elias and wrote to the emperor that he should cease to persecute the Church of Jerusalem, and to impose taxes on the cities of Palestine which they were unable to pay. The emperor died soon afterwards, and the pious Justin replaced him. Justin restored the true faith by an edict and recalled the exiles, re-establishing the exiled prelates in their sees.

Over the years St. Sabas founded several more monasteries. Strong supporter of theological orthodoxy and a vigorous opponent of Origenism and monophysitism, traveled throughout Palestine, preaching the true faith and successfully bringing back many to the Church.

It is claimed that many miracles took place through the prayers of St. Sabas: at a Lavra a spring of water welled up, during a time of drought they received abundant rain, and there were also healings of the sick and the possessed. He composed the first monastic rule of church services, the so-called Jerusalem Typikon, for guidance of all the Byzantine monasteries.
At the age of 91, in response to a plea from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sabas undertook a long journey to Constantinople to ask Justinian (successor to Justin), not to act with severity against the province of Palestine, where a revolt had occurred by the non-submission of a group of Samaritans. The emperor honored him highly and wished to endow his monasteries with wealth, but the holy Patriarch asked him to use the riches he was offering to build a hospice for pilgrims in Jerusalem, to decorate the unfinished Church of the Blessed Virgin, to build a fortress where the monks could take refuge when barbarians invaded the land, and finally, to re-establish preaching of the true Faith, by edicts proscribing the various errors being propagated.

He fell ill soon after his return to his Lavra from this trip and died on December 5th, 531 after naming his successor.

The Lavra he founded in the desolate, wild country between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea, named Mar Saba after him, often called the Great Laura for its preeminence produced many great saints, among them St John of Damascus. It is still inhabited by monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church and is one of the three or four oldest monasteries in the world.

St. Sabas’s relics were taken by Crusaders in the 12th century and remained in Italy in The Church of Saint Anthony in Venice, until Pope Paul VI returned them to the monastery in 1965 as a gesture of good will towards the Orthodox.

References and Excerpts
[1] F. Media, “Saint Sabas,” Franciscan Media, 05-Dec-2015. .
[2] C. Online, “St. Sabas – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=758. [Accessed: 29-Nov-2018].
[3] “Saint Sabas, Patriarchal Abbot in Palestine.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_sabas.html. [Accessed: 29-Nov-2018].
[4] “Sabbas the Sanctified,” Wikipedia. 09-Nov-2018.

Saint Malachy d’Armagh

Primate of Ireland (1094- 1148)
Feast – November 2

Saint Malachy d’Armagh, whose family name was O’Morgair and whose brother was St. Christian O’Morgair of Clogher, was born in the archiepiscopal city of Armagh, Ireland, in 1094. St. Bernard describes him as of noble birth. He was baptized Máel Máedóc, which was rendered Malachus in Latin (and subsequently as Malachy in English). Raised in the fear and love of God, he seemed to have the virtues of maturity hidden under the appearances of childhood. Praises did not inflate him, and reproaches did not sadden him. He had a horror of idleness, and a command from his preceptors was always like a law for him. He would often separate from his companions to converse in prayer with God. When he was still a young man, he made himself the disciple of a holy hermit who had established a little cell near the cathedral church of Armagh. Malachy was also trained under Imhar O’Hagan, the future Abbot of Armagh. Imhar was in sympathy with the aims of those who sought to reform the Irish church, and it was probably through this influence that St. Malachy became imbued with their principles.
St. Cellach (Celsus) the archbishop of Armagh made him a deacon of his church. After a long course of studies, St. Malachy, in 1119 at the age of twenty-five, was ordained a priest. Shortly afterwards St. Cellach made the young priest his vicar. For the next year or two it was St. Malachy’s duty to administer the diocese of Armagh.
Commanded by St. Cellach to preach the Gospel and catechize his people. He uprooted vices and corrected abuses. He established in all the churches the apostolic sanctions, the decrees of the holy fathers and the customs and practices the Holy Roman Church. He introduced the Roman method of chanting the services of the canonical hours and instituted a new Confession, Confirmation and Marriage contract, since those over whom he was placed were either ignorant or negligent and the archdiocese derived great profit from his ministry.
With the consent of St. Cellach, in order to perfect himself in sacred liturgy and theology, he proceeded to Lismore, where he spent nearly two years under Bishop St. Maichius of Lismore. Since he ended his days at Lismore, it may be assumed that he was a friend of St. Maichius, and of the movement with which he was identified.
In 1123 the abbot of Bangor Abbey died. Bangor was the principal religious site in the north-east of Ireland. His successor, who was St. Malachy’s uncle, expressed his willingness to surrender his office and the site of the monastery to his nephew. In 1124 St. Malachy journeyed to Bangor and was installed as abbot.
He manifested great devotion and zeal in the reconstruction and re-establishment of a monastery whose nine hundred religious had been massacred by pirates. This lead to St. Malachy being consecrated by St. Cellach to become the Bishop of Connor, a small see whose inhabitants were Christian in name but pagan in practice. The venerable pastor taught the people with patience and warned them with gentleness. He endured many insults and outrages, but finally the hardened hearts were softened and began to listen to his voice and instructions.
In 1127, St. Malachy paid a second visit to Lismore and acted for a time as confessor to Cormac MacCarthy, Prince of Desmond. While Bishop of Down and Connor, St. Malachy continued to resided at Bangor, and when some of the native princes sacked the two dioceses of Down and Connor, Malachy brought the Bangor monks to Iveragh, County Kerry, where they were welcomed by now King Cormac.
At that time, the Archbishop of Armagh, St. Celsus, was nearing death and named St. Malachy to succeed him in this metropolitan see. In 1132 St. Malachy was promoted to the primacy of Armagh, which he accepted with great reluctance. Owing to intrigues, he was unable to take possession of his See for two years. The see of Armagh had been held somewhat like a throne by one single family, and it required on the part of the Saint no little tact and firmness to calm the dissensions caused by his election. The good bishop who had named St. Malachy had labored to correct the abuses, and hoped his virtuous successor might better succeed in the same post. Nonetheless, two years passed before St. Malachy could even enter into the city as its archbishop; troops were levied against his entry by the pretender to the same title. St. Malachy had accepted the office on the condition that he assume the charge only after the death or flight of the false bishop, for he did not want to cause a war and the death of those whose salvation he desired to procure. The pretender and his cousin, with several others of the same lineage, were struck down soon afterwards by the hand of God, and their exemplary chastisements gave great credit to the Saint and enabled him to make ordinances to countermand the disorders. During three years at Armagh, as St. Bernard of Clairvaux writes, St. Malachy restored the discipline of the Church, which had grown lax during the intruded rule of a series of lay-abbots, and had the Roman Liturgy adopted.
St Malachy’s influence in Irish ecclesiastical affairs has been compared with that of St. Boniface in Germany.
Having extirpated barbarism and re-established Christian morals, and seeing all things tranquil, St. Malachy began to think of his own peace. He therefore resigned Armagh, in 1138, and returned to Connor, dividing the see into Down and Connor and retained his title as Bishop of Down.
He founded a priory of Austin Canons at Downpatrick, and was unceasing in his episcopal labors. Early in 1139 he journeyed to Rome, travelling through Scotland, England and France, visiting St. Bernard at Clairvaux, Champagne. He petitioned Pope Innocent II for pallia for the Sees of Armagh and Cashel, and was appointed legate for Ireland. On his return visit to Clairvaux he obtained five monks for a foundation in Ireland, under Christian, an Irishman, as superior: thus arose the great Abbey of Mellifont in 1142.
St. Malachy set out on a second journey to Rome in 1148, but he was taken ill in France at the monastery of Clairvaux, where his great friend and biographer, St. Bernard, was Abbot. St. Malachy died in the arms of St. Bernard, on the 2nd of November 1148 at the age of fifty-four.
In the book Life of St. Malachy, his biographer St. Bernard of Clairvaux says Malachy was distinguished by his meekness, humility, obedience, modesty, and true diligence in his studies.
St. Charles Borromeo praised St. Malachy for attending to the needy, bringing the holy sacraments to all alike and renewing the fervor of the people in receiving them.
St. Malachy, a miracle worker and healer, he sometimes cured people instantly by laying his hands upon them, including healing the son of King David I of Scotland. St. Bernard, in his Life of St. Malachy, narrates many of his miracles, one of which he himself brought about, when he touched the paralyzed arm of a young boy to that of the mortal remains of the bishop, while he was laid out in his coffin at Clairvaux. It was instantly cured.
An episode from the life of St. Malachy teaches us several truths concerning purgatory. He had a sister who was very worldly, and whom he found indifferent to his efforts to lead her to reflect on the reason for her existence and her last ends. He learned one day that she had died after having manifested regret for her sins, and he offered a Mass for her soul; but he did not think of continuing this practice. After thirty days he heard in a dream that she was standing outside the church and had not eaten for one month. He began again to pray for her, and then in a dream beheld her clothed in a black robe, near the door of the church but unable to enter. He continued his suffrages, and on a third occasion saw her in a robe which was more or less white, having entered the church but unable to approach the altar. The last time he saw her she was within the church, clothed in white and near the altar, in the company of the just. We learn from this how serious our indifference and lack of love for God are; that our prayers are efficacious in relieving our dear ones; and that it is ordinarily a little at a time that souls are delivered from the bonds of their sins and negligence.
We must not neglect to mention the famous prophecy of St. Malachy, in which he assigns to every Pope of the future a motto describing each pontificate, from his own day until the last Pope he mentions, whom he calls Petrus Romanus — Peter the Roman. After the motto attributed to the present Vicar of Jesus Christ (in the year 2000), De Labore Solis, only one, De Gloria Olivae — From the glory of the Olive Tree — separates us from Peter II. The prophecy, which begins with Celestine II (1143-1144), was discovered in 1590 and includes one hundred and eleven mottos. Many a motto has been shown to have a striking exactitude in the description of its subject and his pontificate. Many interpreters have labored to prove the prophecy’s accuracy.
The Visio Tnugdali written c.1149 refers to St. Malachy as follows- When St. Ruadan had fallen silent, Tundale looked happily about him and saw St. Patrick of Ireland, dressed in shining robes alongside many bishops decked out in their finest regalia. They were all joyful and there was no sound of any sighing! Among that blessed company Tundale could see four bishops whom he recognised. They were all good men; one of them was St. Cellach, a former archbishop of Armagh, who did much good for the sake of Our Lord. Another was St. Malachias O’Moore, who had become archbishop of Armagh after him and gave everything that he had to the poor. He founded a large number of churches and colleges, as many as forty-four in all, endowed them with land and rents and so allowed many men of religion to serve God devotedly, although he hardly retained enough for himself to live on.
St. Bernard declared him a saint, an action confirmed in 1190 by Pope Clement III.

References and Excerpts
[1] “Saint Malachy d’Armagh, Primate of Ireland.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_malachy_d_armagh.html. [Accessed: 06-Nov-2018].
[2] “Saint Malachy – Wikipedia.” [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Malachy. [Accessed: 06-Nov-2018].
[3] “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Malachy.” [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09565a.htm. [Accessed: 06-Nov-2018].
[4] “St. Malachy – Saints & Angels – Catholic Online.” [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=4431. [Accessed: 06-Nov-2018].
[5] “CatholicSaints.Info » Blog Archive » Saint Malachy O’More.” [Online]. Available: https://catholicsaints.info/saint-malachy-omore/. [Accessed: 06-Nov-2018].
[6] “ICONOGRAPHIE CHRÉTIENNE: Saint MALACHIE O’MORE, d’ARMAGH, archevêque et confesseur.” [Online]. Available: http://har22201.blogspot.com/2015/11/saint-malachie-omore-archeveque-et.html. [Accessed: 06-Nov-2018].

Saint Remigius

Bishop († 533)

Feast-October 1 

Gaul (France) had become thoroughly Romanized by the 4th century A.D. and was just a province of the Roman Empire. Innumerable Romans in Gaul were Catholics, but lukewarm Catholics, without character and merit. The Vandals crossed Gaul starting in 406. Close to the city of Laón, lived a blind saintly hermit named Montanus. The hermit was afflicted over the situation of the Catholic Religion in Gaul, which had been devastated by the Vandal persecution. One night, while he was praying for the Church, he heard a celestial voice that said to him: “God has heard your prayers and deigns to look again upon the earth from the highest heaven so that all nations will praise the marvels of His omnipotence and kings will be honored to serve Him. Know that the woman named Celina will give birth to a son to whom she will give the name of Remigius. To him God reserves the glory to save His people.”

C.438 at Cerny-en-Laonnois, near Laon, Picardy Saint Remigius was born, into the Gallo-Roman noble and pious parents; Emilius, count of Laon, and of St. Celina. His mother had borne two other sons before him; the eldest, St. Principius, became the twelfth bishop of Soissons, and the second was the father of St. Lupus, thirteenth bishop of the same see.

He studied at Reims and soon became noted for his learning, sanctity and his high status. This meant that, even though St. Remigius was merely a 22 year old layman and humbly doubted his own competence, the people, inspired by God, called him to succeed the recently deceased Benange, the Archbishop of Rheims. When he was consecrated Bishop, he was anointed with a holy oil on his forehead by a mysterious hand that all present could see, and an exquisite perfume permeated the whole area. God wanted to manifest His favor, so Our Lord made His hand appear carrying the holy oils surrounded by light and emitting an exquisite perfume. Our Lord himself consecrated St. Remigius as Bishop.

He was unusually tall, his countenance manifested a blend of majesty and serenity; his bearing was gentle, humble, and retiring. He was learned and eloquent, and his pity and charity were boundless. In his labors he knew no weariness. His body was the outward expression of a noble and holy soul, breathing the spirit of meekness and compunction. The archbishop received the gift of miracles.

One day a terrible fire whipped through the city of Rheims. Everyone gathered to help extinguish the devouring flames. But all efforts were useless. When the people had given up hope of stopping it, St. Remigius advanced to the heart of the fire carrying a cross and faced the most violent flames. The fire was stopped in its tracks and soon was completely subdued. The people, who were following the scene with admiration, fell to their knees. After the fire was conquered, St. Remigius returned to the people and blessed them. St. Remigius is known per the Legend of the Baptism of Moribund Pagan, according to which a dying pagan asked for baptism at the hands of St. Remigius, but when it was found that there was no Oil of the Catechumens or sacred Chrism available for the proper administration of the baptismal ceremony, St. Remigius ordered two empty vials be placed on an altar and as he prayed before them the two vials miraculously filled respectively with the necessary Oil of the Catechumens and Chrism. He resurrected a young woman, and his fame continued to increase.

The south of France was in the hands of Arians, and in the last years of the 5th century the pagan Franks were wresting the north from the Romans. In 481, at the age of fifteen, Clovis the son of Childeric I, a Merovingian king of the Salian Franks, and Basina, a Thuringian princess, succeeded his father in what is now northern France, then northern Gaul. St Remigius with the help of St. Clotilde, wife of Clovis, were able to convert the pagan King to Catholicism. A very large army of invaders, which had cast all of France into panic, fled in disarray when the small army of Clovis attacked, and their leader was slain. After winning the famous battle of Tolbiac, he fulfilled a promise he had made to adopt the religion of his Christian wife and was baptized by St. Remigius on Christmas Eve of 496. While St. Remigius was speaking, a splendorous light appeared in the chapel that far outshone the dim light of the candles, and a loud voice was heard saying: “Peace be with you. It is I, do not fear. Remain in my love.” The physiognomy of the man of God was shining with a fiery brilliance. The King and the Queen knelt before the Prelate. Moved by the spirit of God, he made this prophecy: “Your posterity shall nobly govern this kingdom, which will give much glory to the Holy Church. It shall inherit the Empire of the Romans. This nation will not cease to prosper so long as it follows the path of truth, but decadence will come upon it with vices and bad customs. For, in truth, it is in this way that all kingdoms and nations have fallen into ruin.” The army was baptized at the same time. This opened the way to the conversion of all the Franks and the establishment of the Church throughout France.

Under the protection of King Clovis, St. Remigius threw down the altars of the idols and spread the gospel of Christ among the Franks. He silenced the Arians and presided at the Catholic First Council of Orleans in 511. In 517 he held a conference at Lyons against the Arians. The bishops who were assembled, declared that they were stirred to exert their zeal in defense of the Catholic Faith by the example of St. Remigius, “who,” say they, “has everywhere destroyed the altars of the idols by a multitude of miracles and signs.” St. Remigius, whom St. Gregory of Tours refers to as “a man of great learning, fond of rhetorical studies, and equal in his holiness to St. Silvester.” After a heated discussion  converted a bishop of Arian views.

The King granted St. Remigius stretches of territory, in which he established and endowed many churches, erected bishoprics at Tournai; Cambrai; Thérouanne, where he personally ordained the first bishop in 499; Arras, where he installed St. Vedast; and Laon, which he gave to his niece’s husband Gunband. In 530 St. Remigius consecrated Medardus, Bishop of Noyon. Eventually he converted so many that he left France a Catholic kingdom; its king was also the first crowned son of the Church, and at that time the only one. Ever since Saint Remigius, Catholic France has rejoiced in its title of eldest daughter of the Church.

At the end of his life, St. Remigius became blind. Far from grieving over this, he rejoiced, saying that by this means he could suffer with Our Lord Jesus Christ. He knew prophetically the day of his death many days before. At the end, he miraculously regained his sight so that he could see his flock and distribute his goods as he desired. After an episcopate of seventy-four years, the longest on record, Saint Remigius died in 533, leaving to France his famous Testament: predicting God’s graces of predilection for this blessed kingdom, as long as its Heads remained faithful to Him, with the most severe chastisements if the contrary ensued. The prophecy has already been fulfilled three times, as the nation’s Catholic historians affirm, for the three royal dynasties.

At the time of the Roman Empire there were few saintly kings, the powerful were not honored to serve Our Lord. St. Remigius and King Clovis opened a new era where the powerful and great of the earth frequently were the most zealous Catholics. When Christ reigns through the earthly kings, we have the Kingdom of Christ.

Canonized 1049 by Pope Saint Leo IX

St. Remigius is the patron saint against: epidemics, fever, plague, religious indifference, snakes, throat pain and of those who want to make good meditations. He helps to put the mind aright, so it can understand the things of God. Therefore, if one of us has difficulty in recollecting himself and elevating his thoughts toward God, he has the right intercessor in St. Remigius.

References and Excerpts

[1]          “The Barbarians Overrun the Roman Empire,” History Moments, 11-Mar-2011. [Online]. Available: http://historyweblog.com/2011/03/barbarians/. [Accessed: 18-Oct-2018].

[2]          C. Online, “St. Remigius – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=376. [Accessed: 18-Oct-2018].

[3]          “Saint Remi, Bishop.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_remi.html. [Accessed: 18-Oct-2018].

[4]          “St. Remigius, St. Remy, saint of October 1.” [Online]. Available: https://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j094sdRemigius_10-1.htm. [Accessed: 18-Oct-2018].

[5]          “Saint Remigius of Rheims,” CatholicSaints.Info, 17-May-2009.

[6]          “Saint Remigius,” Wikipedia. 08-Jun-2018.

Saint Jerome

Doctor of the Church (345-420)

Feast – September 30

Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus, today known as Saint Jerome, was born at Stridon, a town in the Roman province of Dalmatia around 345 A.D. He was of Illyrian ancestry and his native tongue was the Illyrian dialect. His parents were probably well-to-do and Christian. The young Jerome was educated by Aelius Donatus, who was a famous Roman grammarian. From him Jerome learned Latin and Greek. Despite parents’ efforts to raise Jerome properly, the young man led a wild and misspent youth. His thirst for knowledge was excessive, and due to his love of books, a passion shares with his friend Bonosus, Jerome went to pursue rhetorical and philosophical study in Rome to become a lawyer. He had studied under the best masters, visited foreign cities, and devoted himself to the pursuit of learning. While he was not studying, Jerome pursued pleasure. To alleviate the feelings of guilt he often felt afterwards, he would visit the crypts in Rome and imagine himself in hell. He did so every Sunday, even though he was not a Christian.

“Often I would find myself entering those crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything was so dark that almost it seemed as though the Psalmist’s words were fulfilled, Let them go down quick into Hell. Here and there the light, not entering in through windows, but filtering down from above through shafts, relieved the horror of the darkness. But again, as soon as you found yourself cautiously moving forward, the black night closed around and there came to my mind the line of Vergil, “Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent”. (Jerome, Commentarius in Ezzechielem)

Fortunately, Jerome had as a companion Bonosus, who was a Christian influence. He converted and joined the Church and was baptized around the year 366 by Pope Liberius, but it was only when one night, St. Jerome dreamed that he stood before the judgment seat of God. “Who are you?” the Lord asked. “I am a Christian,” Jerome responded. “No, you are no Christian. You are a Ciceronian. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” came the reply. Convicted, St. Jerome stepped away from the worldly things that had consumed him and began in earnest the pursuit of holiness making a vow never again to read profane works, and another of celibacy. In Rome he had assisted a number of holy women to organize houses of retirement where they consecrated themselves to God by vow. Calumnies, arising from jealousy, made a certain headway against the scholar whose competence was beginning to attract honors.

Interested in theological matters, St. Jerome set aside secular matters to pursue matters of the faith. In 370, he travelled close to home, ending up in a monastery at Aquileia. The monastery was overseen by Bishop St. Valerian, who had attracted some of the greatest minds in Christendom. While in Aquileia, St. Jerome met Tyrannius Rufinus and the two men became friends. Rufinus was a monk who became renowned for his translations of Greek works into Latin. St. Jerome himself was a translator, a skill he developed during his time in the Roman catacombs, translating the inscriptions on the tombs.

Following his time in Aquileia (Italy), St. Jerome traveled with his friend Bonosus to Treves, Gaul where he seems to have taken up theological studies, and where he copied, for his friend Rufinus, Hilary of Poitiers’ commentary on the Psalms and the treatise De synodis. He began to translate books for his own use. His goal was to build a personal library. After a time in Gaul, he returned to Aquileia in 373 where he stay of at least several months, or possibly years.

While there, St. Jerome and his friend Bonosus had a falling out and decided to part ways. Bonosus departed for an island in the Adriatic where he would live as a hermit for a time. In 374, St. Jerome finally reached Antioch, after making several lengthy stops along the way. While in that city, he began writing his first work, “Concerning the Seven Beatings.” Seized with a desire for a life of ascetic penance, he went for a time to the desert of Chalcis, to the southeast of Antioch, known as the “Syrian Thebaid”, from the number of hermits inhabiting it. There for four years St. Jerome learned in solitude, intense sufferings and persecution from the demons, new lessons in humility, penance and prayer, and divine wisdom. During this period, he seems to have found time for studying and writing. He made his first attempt to learn Hebrew under the guidance of a converted Jew; and he seems to have been in correspondence with Jewish Christians in Antioch. Around this time he had copied for him a Hebrew Gospel, of which fragments are preserved in his notes, and is known today as the Gospel of the Hebrews, and which the Nazarenes considered to be the true Gospel of Matthew. St. Jerome translated parts of this Hebrew Gospel into Greek.

After he emerged from his hermitage, returning to Antioch in 378 or 379, St. Jerome was quickly embroiled in conflicts within the Church at Antioch. This was not something he wanted to be associated with. He made clear that he did not want to become a priest, preferring instead to be a monk or a hermit. But Church officials in Antioch as well as Pope Damasus wanted him to be ordained. St. Jerome relented on the condition he would not be expected to serve in any ministry and would still be allowed to pursue his monastic life. He was subsequently ordained by Bishop Paulinus.

Making the most of his freedom as a priest, St. Jerome traveled to Constantinople where he studied under St. Gregory of Nazianzus, who was renown as a great theologian. After St. Gregory left Constantinople in 382, St. Jerome traveled to Rome for a council of the Church where he distinguished himself to the pope and took a prominent place in his councils. For the next three years (382–385) he was in Rome as secretary to Pope Damasus I. While serving as secretary to the pope, St. Jerome also promoted the ideal of aestheticism to everyone around him.

Pope Damasus assigned to him the task of revising the Latin Bible. St. Jerome obeyed his earthly Head as he had obeyed his Lord. In August 385, he left Rome for good and returned to Antioch, accompanied by his brother Paulinian and several friends, who had resolved to end their days in the Holy Land. The pilgrims, joined by Bishop Paulinus of Antioch, visited Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and the holy places of Galilee, and then went to Egypt, the home of the great heroes of the ascetic life. Late in the summer of 388 St. Jerome was back in Palestine and spent the remainder of his life working in a cave near Bethlehem, the very cave Jesus was born, surrounded by a few friends, to whom he acted as priestly guide and teacher.

The eloquent hermit sent forth from his solitary cell a solidly accurate version of the Scriptures which became the Latin Vulgate Bible. St. Jerome was a hard worker and he wrote extensively defending the virginity of Mary, which some clerics dared to question. He also engaged in several debates against various other heresies including a lengthy battle with his old friend Rufinus. He was above all a Scripture scholar, translating most of the Old Testament from the Hebrew. St. Jerome also wrote commentaries which are a great source of scriptural inspiration for us today. He was an avid student, a thorough scholar, a prodigious letter-writer and a consultant to monks, bishops, and pope. Saint Augustine said of him, “What Jerome is ignorant of, no mortal has ever known.”

As a modern scholar says, “No man before St. Jerome or among his contemporaries and very few men for many centuries afterwards were so well qualified to do the work.” The Council of Trent called for a new edition of the Vulgate and declared it the authentic text to be used in the Church.

For fourteen years the hand of the great scholar could no longer write; but Saint Jerome could still dictate to six secretaries at a time, to each on a different subject. He died in his beloved Bethlehem on September 30, 420. His tomb is still in a subterranean chapel of its ancient basilica, but his relics were transported to the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where the crib of Bethlehem is conserved.

Saint Jerome is the patron saint of archaeologists, Biblical scholars, librarians, students and translators.

References and Excerpts

[1]          F. Media, “Saint Jerome,” Franciscan Media, 30-Sep-2016. .

[2]          C. Online, “St. Jerome – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=10. [Accessed: 12-Sep-2018].

[3]          “Saint Jerome, Doctor of the Church.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_jerome.html. [Accessed: 12-Sep-2018].

[4]          “Saint Jerome,” CatholicSaints.Info, 26-Dec-2008. .

[5]          “What we probably don’t know about St. Jerome is just what we need to know,” Aleteia — Catholic Spirituality, Lifestyle, World News, and Culture, 28-Sep-2017. .

[6]          “Jerome,” Wikipedia. 04-Sep-2018.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe

Martyr (1894-1941)

Feast- August 14

The Knight of the Immaculate Virgin was born on January 8th, 1894 in Zduńska Wola, located at the part of partitioned Kingdom of Poland under Russian occupation, the second son of weaver Julius Kolbe (German descent) and midwife Maria Dąbrowska, an exceptionally pious family, all of whose living members became religious, including, eventually his parents. He had four brothers. Shortly after his birth, his family moved to Pabianice. Maria Dabrowska, formed his early years in the daily recitation of the Angelus, the Holy Rosary, and the Litany to Our Lady. The practice of these pious Marian devotions, however, would not subdue young Raymond’s natural, mischievous nature. One day in 1906 his mother, no longer knowing what to do with him, said to him: “My child, what will become of you?” He went to pray before a statue of his heavenly Mother. Tearfully and humbly he asked Her the same question. He was transformed that day into a new person, by a vision; “That night I asked the Mother of God what was to become of me. Then she came to me holding two crowns, one white, the other red. She asked me if I was willing to accept either of these crowns. The white one meant that I should persevere in purity, and the red that I should become a martyr. I said that I would accept them both.”

At age thirteen, Raymond Kolbe became fascinated by the Franciscan ideals preached by two Conventual Franciscans who conducted a parish mission at his church in Pabianice.

Soon thereafter, in 1907, he and his elder brother, Francis, joined the Conventual Franciscans.  They enrolled at the Conventual Franciscan minor seminary in Lwow. He fervently sought to draw profit from all the means accessible for his personal sanctification. Here he excelled in mathematics and physics and his teachers predicted a brilliant future for him in science. Others, seeing his passionate interest in all things military, saw in him a future strategist. For a time indeed, his interest in military affairs together with his fiery patriotism made him lose interest in the idea of becoming a priest. Tiny Raymond dreamed the political reunification of their Motherland would come about through the valorous efforts of some knights of Our Lady of Czestochowa. His courageous and generous soul to undertake great things for his country was intensified by his ardent devotion to the glorious Patroness of Poland.

As all their children were in seminaries, his parents separated to enter religious life. In 1910, Raymond was allowed to enter the novitiate, where he was given the religious name Maximilian. He professed his first vows in 1911. Sent to Rome in 1912, where he attended the Pontifical Gregorian University. Maximilian gradually discovered that in order to be a saint, one must be conformed to the likeness of Christ, a likeness which is authenticated in the perfection of the Immaculate.

In 1914, with final vows he adopted the additional name of Maria (Mary).

He earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1915. From 1915 he continued his studies at the Pontifical University of St. Bonaventure where he earned a doctorate in theology. He was ordained in 1918 on April 28th, the feast of the Marian apostle, Saint Louis Mary de Montfort.

The love of fighting didn’t leave him, but while he was in Rome he stopped seeing the struggle as a military one. He didn’t like what he saw of the world, in fact he saw it as downright evil.

During his time as a student, he witnessed vehement demonstrations against Popes St. Pius X and Benedict XV in Rome during an anniversary celebration by the Freemasons. According to Kolbe,

“They placed the black standard of the “Giordano Brunisti” under the windows of the Vatican. On this standard the archangel, St. Michael, was depicted lying under the feet of the triumphant Lucifer. At the same time, countless pamphlets were distributed to the people in which the Holy Father (i.e., the Pope) was attacked shamefully.”

The fight, he decided, was a spiritual one. The world was bigger than Poland and there were worse slaveries than earthly ones. The fight was still on, but he would not be waging it with the sword.

Soon afterward, Having obtained permission from his superiors at the Conventual Franciscan Collegio-Serafico in Rome on October 16, 1917, with six other friars, he founded the Militia Immaculatae (Army of the Immaculate One/Knights of the Immaculate), with the aim of “converting sinners, enemies of the Catholic Church, heretics and schismatics, particularly freemasons, through the intercession of the Virgin Mary. So serious was Kolbe about this goal that he added to the Miraculous Medal prayer:

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. And for all those who do not have recourse to thee; especially the Masons and all those recommended to thee.

A militia in honor of the Virgin destined to crush the head of the ancient serpent, master of pride and revolt. There should be an army at Her disposition, he was certain, and then She Herself could do all through its well-disciplined ranks. He found willing collaborators — a small group at first — ready to consecrate themselves to Her forever, for the fulfillment of Her desires.

When St. Maximilian returned to Poland in 1919, he rejoiced to see his country free once again, a liberation which he attributed to Mary Immaculate. Pius XI, in response to a request from the Polish bishops, had just promulgated the Feast of Our Lady, Queen of Poland, and Fr Maximilian wrote: “She must be the Queen of Poland of every Polish heart. We must labor to win each and every heart for her.” He set himself to extend the influence of his Crusade and formed cells and circles all over Poland.

From 1919 to 1922 he taught at the Cracow seminary. However, because of his failing health and having contracted tuberculosis, he was deemed unsuitable for the task. His superiors, therefore, decided to assign him to the office of confessor. Far from helping his already weakened condition, he became increasingly frail, and was subsequently consigned to the sanitarium of Zakopane.

But his zeal for souls, characteristic of a true saint, did not diminish because of his physical ailments. He provided various spiritual services among his sick companions and instilled in them the love of Our Lady. After having recovered from a long confinement – which served as a period of silence and purification for him – he was prepared to launch a new apostolic endeavor.

In January 1922, invoking the special assistance of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux he began to publish a monthly review, the Knight of the Immaculate, similar to the French Le Messager du Coeur de Jesus (Messenger of the Heart of Jesus), in Krakow. Its aim was to “illuminate the truth and show the true way to happiness”. As funds were low, only 5,000 copies of the first issue were printed. It all started in the humble surroundings of the friary in Grodno where Father Maximilian established a printer. From now on the review began to grow.  In 1927, 70,000 copies were being printed. The Grodno Friary became too small to house such a mammoth operation, so Fr Maximilian began to look for a site nearer to Warsaw. Prince Jan Drucko-Lubecki offered him some land at Teresin, west of Warsaw. St. Maximilian promptly erected a statue of Mary Immaculate there, and the monks began the arduous work of construction. On 21 November 1927, the Franciscans moved from Grodno to Teresin and on 8 December, the friary was consecrated and was given the name of Niepokalanow, the City of the Immaculate.

The prodigious growth of this enterprise left those who could not understand its heavenly Sources mystified and sometimes very much contradicted. At first, Niepokalanow consisted of no more than a few shacks with tar-paper roofs. Soon the walls were cracking, so to speak, by the arrival of printing presses and, above all, religious vocations. To cope with the flood of vocations all over Poland, a junior seminary was built at Niepokalanow “to prepare priests for the missions capable of every task in the name of the Immaculate and with Her help.” A few years later, there were more than a hundred seminarians and the numbers were still growing. The City of the Immaculate was organized, where some 50 low buildings were set up and mobilized for the various facets not only of publishing, but of the Franciscan life of prayer. Before long, Niepokalanow had become one of the largest (some say the largest) friaries in the world. In 1939, it housed 762 inhabitants: 13 priests, 18 novices, 527 brothers, 122 boys in the junior seminary and 82 candidates for the priesthood. No matter how many labourers were in the vineyard, there was always work for more. Among the inhabitants of Niepokalanow there were doctors, dentists, farmers, mechanics, tailors, builders, printers, gardeners, shoemakers and cooks. The place was entirely self-supporting. They lived heroic lives of poverty, continuous prayer and voluntary penance, united in their mission of evangelizing not only Poland, but the whole world! Day and night, the friars spent themselves in promoting Catholic doctrines, particularly those concerning Our Blessed Lady. They did all this in view of cultivating the need for conversion and sanctification of souls, both on the individual and collective levels, via the mediation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Niepokalanow”, said Fr Maximilian, “is a place chosen by Mary Immaculate and is exclusively dedicated to spreading her cult. All that is and will be at Niepokalanow will belong to her. The monastic spirit will flourish here; we shall practice obedience and we shall be poor, in the spirit of St Francis.”

They continued printing the Knight of the Immaculate — which had now reached the incredible circulation figure of 750,000 per month — and to produce other publications as well. In 1935, they began to produce a daily Catholic newspaper, The Little Daily, of which 137,000 copies were printed on weekdays and 225,000 on Sundays and holydays and eventually reached a circulation of one million. Miscellaneous books, magazines, and pamphlets for people in all walks of life were freely circulated by the friars.

St. Maximilian, despite a health which was never other than precarious — for he was undermined by tuberculosis for long years, and virtually abandoned at one time as incurable – with the permission of his superiors, considering the need for further expansion, started a mission in Japan with four other friars in 1930. The going was hard. The Poles’ only shelter was a wretched hut whose walls and roof were caving in. They slept on what straw they could find, and their tables were planks of wood. But despite such hardships, and the fact that they knew not a word of the Japanese language, and had no money, on 24 April 1930, exactly a month after their arrival, a telegram was dispatched to Niepokalanow: “Today distributing Japanese Knight. Have printing press. Praise to Mary Immaculate.”

By 1931 he founded a monastery at the outskirts of Nagasaki (it later gained a novitiate and a seminary), they established a new “City of the Immaculate” (Mugenzai no Sono – literally “Garden of the Immaculate”), thereby introducing his ideal, the Immaculate, to the Orient. In spite of problems with local authorities, language, culture, and climate, “Seibo no Kishi,” the Japanese version of the magazine “Knight of the Immaculate” the first 10,000 copies had swollen to 65,000 by 1936. The monastery he founded remains prominent in the Roman Catholic Church in Japan. St. Maximilian Kolbe built the monastery on a mountainside that, according to Shinto beliefs, was not the side best suited to be in harmony with nature. Local people thought Fr Maximilian was crazy to be building on steep ground sloping away from the town; but in 1945, when the atomic bomb all but levelled Nagaskai, Mugenzai no Sono sustained no more damage than a few broken pains of stained glass. Today it forms the centre of a Franciscan province.

Although he often complained of the lack of manpower and machines needed to serve the people of Japan, in 1932 he was already seeking fresh pastures. On 31 May he left Japan and sailed to Malabar where, after a few initial difficulties, he founded the third Niepokalanow. Poor health forced Kolbe to return to Poland in 1936, his major superiors appointed him as the superior of the Polish City of the Immaculate whose apostolic potentials had peaked at that moment in time. Since no priests could be spared for Malabar, that idea had to be given up.

Two years later, in 1938, St. Maximilian started a radio station, the Radio Niepokalanów.

Upon his return to Poland, with somewhat of a prophetic “instinct,” knowing perhaps his end was approaching, he busied himself giving continuous and regular spiritual conferences to the friars explaining; “The more souls there will be, totally given to the guidance of the Immaculate, the more Saints there will be, and very great Saints. Sanctity is not a luxury, but a simple duty, since Our Lord said,’ Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.’” He gave them as a formula, w=W — signifying the human will perfectly united and equivalent, through Her, to the Will of God. He said to them,” Our sanctification is Her affair and Her specialty, since we belong unconditionally to Her.”

Just before the Second World War broke out, St. Maximilian spoke to his friars about suffering. They must not be afraid, he said, for suffering accepted with love would bring them closer to Mary. All his life, he had dreamt of a martyr’s crown, and the time was nearly at hand.

After the outbreak of World War II, which started with the invasion of Poland by Germany, on September 19, 1939 Father Maximilian and many of the friars were arrested. Their incarceration lasted approximately two months. He refused to sign the Deutsche Volksliste, which would have given him rights similar to those of German citizens in exchange for recognizing his German ancestry. Upon his release from prison on December 8, 1939, the feast day of the Immaculate Conception of his Heavenly Queen, Father Maximilian returned to a ransacked Niepokalanów, galvanized into a new kind of activity. He began to organize a shelter for 3,000 Polish refugees, among whom were 2,000 Jews. “We must do everything in our power to help these unfortunate people who have been driven from their homes and deprived of even the most basic necessities. Our mission is among them in the days that lie ahead.” The friars shared everything they had with the refugees. They housed, fed and clothed them, and brought all their machinery into use in their service.

St. Maximilian Kolbe also received permission to continue publishing religious works, though significantly reduced in scope. The monastery thus continued to act as a publishing house, issuing a number of anti-Nazi German publications. “No one in the world can change Truth,” he wrote. “What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hecatombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?”

On 17 February 1941, the monastery was shut down by the German authorities. That day Kolbe and four others were arrested by the German Gestapo and sent to the infamous Pawiak prison in Warsaw. Here he was singled out for special ill-treatment. A witness tells us that in March of that year an SS guard, seeing this man in his habit girdled with a rosary, asked if he believed in Christ. When the priest calmly replied, “I do”, the guard struck him. The SS man repeated his question several times and receiving always the same answer went on beating him mercilessly. Shortly afterwards the Franciscan habit was taken away and a prisoner’s garment was substituted. On 28 May, St. Maximilian was with over 300 others who were transferred to Auschwitz as prisoner 16670. Continuing to act as a priest he would translate his theological and spiritual insights into practical words and actions for his fellow inmates, by tangibly showing that there is God, and therefore, love and hope exist even in the midst of horrific genocide in the camps of Auschwitz where he was subjected to violent harassment. On the last day of May he was assigned with other priests to the Babice section which was under the direction of “Bloody” Krott, an ex-criminal. “These men are layabouts and parasites,” said the Commandant to Krott, “get them working.” Krott forced the priests to cut and carry huge tree trunks. The work went on all day without a stop and had to be done running — with the aid of vicious blows from the guards. Despite his one lung, St. Maximilain accepted the work and the blows with surprising calm. Krott conceived a relentless hatred against the Franciscan and gave him heavier tasks than the others. Sometimes his colleagues would try to come to his aid but he would not expose them to danger. Always he replied, “Mary gives me strength. All will be well.” At this time he wrote to his mother, “Do not worry about me or my health, for the good Lord is everywhere and holds every one of us in his great love.”

One day, Krott found some of the heaviest planks he could lay hold of and personally loaded them on the Franciscan’s back, ordering him to run. When he collapsed, Krott kicked him in the stomach and face and had his men give him fifty lashes. When the priest lost consciousness Krott threw him in the mud and left him for dead. But his companions managed to smuggle him to the camp hospital.

Although he was suffering greatly, he secretly heard confessions in the hospital and spoke to the other inmates of the love of God. He seemed never to think of himself. He was once asked whether such self-abnegation made sense in a place where every man was engaged in a struggle for survival, and he answered: “Every man has an aim in life. For most men it is to return home to their wives and families, or to their mothers. For my part, I give my life for the good of all men.”

The cruelest treatment could not alter his calm. He brought light to the despairing and renewed the faith of all with whom he came into contact.

Fr Zygmunt Rusczak remembers: “Each time I saw Fr Kolbe in the courtyard I felt within myself an extraordinary effusion of his goodness. Although he wore the same ragged clothes as the rest of us, with the same tin can hanging from his belt, one forgot his wretched exterior and was conscious only of the charm of his inspired countenance and of his radiant holiness.”

At the end of July 1941, ten prisoners disappeared from the camp, prompting SS-Hauptsturmführer Karl Fritzsch, the deputy camp commander, to pick 10 men to be starved to death in an underground bunker to deter further escape attempts. When one of the selected men, Franciszek Gajowniczek, cried out, “My wife! My children!” St. Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to take his place.

Bruno Borgowiec was an eyewitness of those last terrible days, for he was an assistant to the janitor and an interpreter in the underground Bunkers. He tells us what happened: “In the cell of the poor wretches there were daily loud prayers, the rosary and singing, in which prisoners from neighboring cells also joined. When no SS men were in the Block, I went to the Bunker to talk to the men and comfort them. Fervent prayers and songs to the Holy Mother resounded in all the corridors of the Bunker. I had the impression I was in a church. Fr Kolbe was leading, and the prisoners responded in unison. They were often so deep in prayer that they did not even hear that inspecting SS men had descended to the Bunker; and the voices fell silent only at the loud yelling of their visitors. Since they had grown very weak, prayers were now only whispered. At every inspection, when almost all the others were now lying on the floor, Fr Kolbe was seen kneeling or standing in the center as he looked cheerfully in the face of the SS men. Two weeks passed in this way. Meanwhile one after another they died, until only Fr Kolbe was left.” This the authorities felt was too long; the cell was needed for new victims. On August 14, 1941 after fourteen days, a guard, named Bock, the head of the sickquarters, found him alone, still alive, seated in a corner in total deprivation, still praying. He stretched out his fleshless arm to the jailers who had come to finish him off with a hypodermic syringe. His expression in death was described as ecstatic;” he was gazing upward, as if to welcome the One he saw coming for his soul. His face was calm and radiant.” His remains were cremated on 15 August, the feast day of the Assumption of Mary.

Jerzy Bielecki, a Polish Catholic who managed to escape successfully in 1944 from Auschwitz concentration camp, recipient of the Righteous Among the Nations award, declared that Fr Kolbe’s death was “a shock filled with hope, bringing new life and strength. …It was like a powerful shaft of light in the darkness of the camp.”

On 12 May 1955, Maximilian Maria Kolbe was recognized as a Servant of God, declared venerable by Pope Paul VI on January 30th, 1969, beatified as a Confessor of the Faith by the same Pope in 1971. In June, 1979, Pope John Paul II would visit St. Maximilian’s death chamber in Auschwitz, proclaiming him “Patron Saint of our Difficult Age.” Canonized as a saint by Pope John Paul II on 10 October 1982. Upon canonization, the Pope declared St. Maximilian Kolbe a martyr of charity.

After his canonization, St. Maximilian Kolbe’s feast day was added to the General Roman Calendar.

He is one of ten 20th-century martyrs who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of Westminster Abbey, London. In 2000, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (U.S.) designated Marytown, located in Libertyville, Illinois, home to a community of Conventual Franciscan friars, as the National Shrine of St. Maximilian Kolbe, featuring the Kolbe Holocaust Exhibit.

The Polish Senate declared the year 2011 to be the year of St. Maximilian Kolbe.

References and Excerpts

[1]          “Saint Maximilian Kolbe, Martyr.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_maximilian_kolbe.html. [Accessed: 17-Aug-2018].
[2]          “Biography,” St. Maximilian Kolbe. .
[3]          “Saint Maximilian Kolbe | Catholic-Pages.com.” [Online]. Available: http://www.catholic-pages.com/saints/st_maximilian.asp. [Accessed: 17-Aug-2018].
[4]          “Maximilian Kolbe,” Wikipedia. 15-Aug-2018.

Saint Germanus

Bishop of Auxerre (380- 450)

Feast- July 30

St. Germanus was born in Auxerre around 380 AD, son of Rusticus and Germanilla, and his family was one of the noblest in Gaul in the latter portion of the fourth century.

He received the very best education provided by the distinguished schools of Arles and Lyons, then he studied rhetoric and law in Rome. He practiced there before the tribunal of the prefect for some years with great success. His high birth and brilliant talents brought him into contact with the court, and he married Eustachia, a lady highly esteemed in imperial circles. The emperor Honorius made him general of the imperial troops for his native province and sent him back to Gaul, appointing him one of the six dukes, entrusted with the government of the Gallic provinces. He resided at Auxerre.

St. Germanus, according to appearances, was not of outstanding piety during his youth. Returning to Auxerre, he indulged his passion for hunting and incurred the displeasure of the bishop, St. Amator by hanging hunting trophies on a certain tree, which in earlier times had been the scene of pagan worship. St. Amator remonstrated with him in vain, but God made known to this holy bishop his forthcoming death, and that St. Germanus was destined to succeed him. One day when the duke was absent, the bishop had the tree cut down and the trophies burnt. St. Amator went to see the Prefect Julius and asked his permission to have St. Germanus as a member of his clergy; and the permission was granted.

When the duke came to the church, St. Amator caused the doors to be barred and gave him the tonsure against his will, and clothed him with the ecclesiastical habit, taking him by surprise during an assembly of the faithful, telling him to live as one destined to be his successor, and forthwith made him a deacon.

A wonderful change was instantly wrought in St. Germanus. Fearing to oppose the Will of God he accepted everything that had happened as the Divine will, immediately became another man, and making over his lands to the Church adopted a life of humble penance. He gave himself up to prayer, study, and works of charity, rapidly attained high perfection. Chosen to succeed St. Amator, he was consecrated on 7 July 418 as Bishop of Auxerre. From that time on, St. Germanus’s faith became deeper, and his prayer more fervent. His education now served him in good stead in the government of the diocese, which he administered with great sagacity. He gave away his possessions to the poor, ate coarse barley bread only in the evening. He often fasted for several days, dressed in simple monastic garb. He built a large monastery dedicated to Saints Cosmas and Damian on the banks of the Yonne.

The gift of miracles was given him which he attempted to conceal, but it became known when he obliged the demon, during a public exorcism, to reveal the place where stolen money was concealed. Afterwards there was never a time when all the roads leading to his residence were not filled with crowds of people seeking his assistance. Many sick where healed, possessed delivered. Invariably his modesty caused him to attribute the multiplying prodigies to the relics of Saints which he wore around his neck, or to the sign of the Cross, or to the holy water he sometimes used, or to oil which he blessed. The furious demons tormented him with temptations and terrifying apparitions but found themselves powerless to disturb his peace.

Around 429, shortly after the Romans had withdrawn from Britain, the Pelagian heresy was laying waste among the British clergy, led by a British bishop’s son named Agricola. St. Germanus was chosen by the reigning Pontiff to go and deliver the Britons from the snare of Satan and to prevent the British church from breaking away from the Augustinian teachings of divine grace. On the way to Britain they passed through Nanterre, where St. Germanus noticed in the crowd which met them a young girl, whom he bade live as one espoused to Christ, and who later became St. Geneviève of Paris. With St. Lupus he preached in the fields and highways throughout the land. Eventually he met the heretics face to face in a public conference, where each party was given an opportunity to speak. The Pelagians were described as being ‘conspicuous for riches, brilliant in dress and surrounded by a fawning multitude’. When the heretics had defended their position, the two holy bishops answered with such force that their adversaries were reduced to silence, and the faithful rejoiced in the triumph of the Catholic faith.

Immediately after the debate with the Pelagians, St.Germanus gave thanks for his victory at the grave of Saint Alban, which was likely in some sort of tomb or basilica. Some translators use the word “shrine”; this word, which is not the original Latin, would have suggested that the cult of St. Alban had been established before St. Germanus’ visit to Britain.

In 447 he was invited to revisit Britain, and went with Severus, bishop of Trèves. It would seem that he did much for the Church there, if one can judge from the traditions handed down in Wales. On this visit he established public schools in Great Britain, which afterwards alleviated the ignorance of the people and preserved them from error. He ordained priests and established an archbishop, and many Saints were formed in the schools which his successors continued to found.

On one occasion St. Germanus took command of an army and led the native Britons to a victory (the Alleluia victory) against Pictish and Saxon raiders, at a mountainous site near a river, of which Mold in North Wales is the traditional location. The enemy approaching, the former general put himself at the head of the Christians. He led them into a vale between two high mountains, and ordered his troops to shout when he gave them a sign. When the Saxon pirates came near them, he cried out thrice, Alleluia, which was followed by the whole army of Britons. The sound echoed from the hills with a noise so loud that the barbarians, judging from the shout that they were facing a mighty army, flung down their arms and ran away, leaving behind their baggage and booty.

On his return to Gaul, he proceeded to Armorica (Brittany) to intercede for the Armoricans who had been in rebellion. Their punishment was deferred at his entreaty, till he should have laid their case before the emperor. He set out for Italy, and reached Milan on 17 June, 448. Then he journeyed to Ravenna, where he interviewed the empress-mother, Galla Placidia, on their behalf. The empress and the bishop of the city, St. Peter Chrysologus, gave him a royal welcome, and the pardon he sought was granted.

After pursuing his good works on behalf of the peoples of both his adopted and his native land, he died in Ravenna on 31 July, 450. His body, as he requested when dying, was brought back to Auxerre and interred in the Oratory of St. Maurice, which he had built. Later the oratory was replaced by a large church, which became a celebrated Benedictine abbey known as St. Germain’s. Some centuries later, Charles the Bald had the shrine opened, and the body was found intact. It was embalmed and wrapped in precious cloths, and placed in a more prominent position in the church. There it was preserved till 1567, when Auxerre was taken by the Huguenots, who desecrated the shrine and cast out the relics.

References and Excerpts

[1]   “Saint Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_germanus_of_auxerre.html. [Accessed: 7-Jul-2018].
[2]  “St. Germanus the Bishop of Auxerre.” [Online]. Available: https://oca.org/saints/lives/2012/07/31/102156-st-germanus-the-bishop-of-auxerre. [Accessed: 7-Jul-2018].
[3]  “Germanus of Auxerre,” Wikipedia. 04-Jul-2018.
[4]  “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Saint Germain, Bishop of Auxerre.” [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06472b.htm. [Accessed: 7-Jul-2018].