Saint Norbert

Founder and Bishop (1080-1134)

Feast-June 6

St. Norbert also known as Norbert Gennep, was born at Xanten in the Rhineland near Cologne in Germany, about the year 1080. His father, Heribert, Count of Gennep, was a member of the high nobility of the Holy Roman Empire and related to the imperial house and also to the House of Lorraine. His mother was Hedwig of Guise.

Saint Norbert, of noble rank and rare talents, passed a frivolous youth, abandoning himself to the pleasures and vanities of the world. Though he was a canon of the church, he refused to receive ecclesiastical Orders so as to continue to live in his caprices. He went to the court of the Archbishop of Cologne, then he gained an appointment as a chaplain (religious counselor) to that of the Emperor Henry IV, the famous adversary of Pope Saint Gregory VII, known also as Hildebrand. The salaries from the Xanten fund and the royal treasury were enough to equip him to live in the style of the nobility of the times.

Norbert had always chosen the easy way, would never have deliberately gone on a journey that promised danger, risk, or discomfort. He had moved easily from the comforts of the noble family he was born into to the pleasure-loving German court. He had no hesitations about joining in any opportunity to enjoy himself, no matter what the source of that pleasure. To ensure his success at court, he also had no qualms about accepting holy orders as a canon and whatever financial benefices that came with that position, although he avoided ordination to the priesthood and even declined an appointment as bishop of Cambrai in 1113.

One day in the spring of 1115, as he rode his horse to Vreden, in the western part of the Münsterland, a thunderbolt from a sudden storm struck at his horse’s feet. The animal threw him and he lay unconscious for nearly an hour. Even the rain soaking his clothes and the howl of thunder did not bring him back to consciousness and life. When he awoke his first words were, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” — The same words Saul spoke on the road to Damascus. In response Norbert heard in his heart, “Turn from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it.”

He renounced his appointment at Court and returned to Xanten to lead a life of penance, placing himself under the direction of Cono, Abbot of St Sigeberg, near Cologne. In gratitude to Cono, in 1115, Norbert founded the Abbey of Fürstenberg, endowed it with a portion of his property, and made it over to Cono of Siegburg and his Benedictine successors After a severe and searching preparation, he went to the Archbishop of Cologne and humbly asked to receive Holy Orders. St. Norbert was then in his thirty-fifth year ordained a priest and began to preach against all the abuses and vices of his time. His complete conversion and new ways caused some to denounce the former courtier as a hypocrite. St. Norbert’s response was to give everything he owned to the poor, visited Pope Gelasius II, who gave him permission to become an itinerant preacher.

With this commission in hand, he preached traveling through Europe with his two companions. In an extreme response to his old ways, he now chose the most difficult ways to travel — walking barefoot in the middle of winter through snow and ice, wore a tunic which was a hair shirt, fasting all year long, being credited with a number of miracles.

His example spoke still more eloquently than his words. He was compared to John the Baptist by his austerity and by the fervor of his preaching. Unfortunately, the two companions who followed him died from the ill-effects of exposure, but St. Norbert was gaining the respect of those sincere clerics who had despised him before. In every place where St. Norbert preached, those in attendance saw sinners converted, enemies reconciled and usurers return extorted wealth.

In Paris he would have witnessed the Canons of St. Victor, who had adopted the ascetic ideals of William of Champagne. At Clairvaux and Citeaux he would have seen the Cistercian reforms among the monks. He also became acquainted with the Cistercian administrative system that created an international federation of monasteries with a fair amount of centralized power, though local houses had a certain amount of independence. These reforms, written up in their “Charter of Charity” would affect him significantly in his own future work.

The bishop of Laon wanted Norbert to help reform the canons in his see, but the canons wanted nothing to do with Norbert’s type of reform which they saw as far too strict. The bishop, not wanting to lose this holy man, offered Norbert land where he could start his own community. In a lonely valley called Premontre, began his community with thirteen canons. Despite the strictness of his regulation, or perhaps because of it, his reforms attracted many disciples until eight abbeys and two convents were involved. Even the canons who had originally rejected him asked to be part of the reform.

A chaplain of the bishop of Cambrai, impressed by the extraordinary changes in the former nobleman of the Emperor’s court, asked to join him; this good priest, by the name of Hugh, later would succeed him in the government of the new religious Order which he was soon to found

There he was favored, during a night of prayer, with a vision of many white-robed monks in procession with crucifixes and candles; the Blessed Virgin also appeared to him and showed him the habit he should give his religious. At the Council of Reims in October 1119, Pope Calixtus II requested Norbert to found a religious order. On Christmas Day, 1120, he gave to some trained disciples the rule of Saint Augustine, in addition he adapted some of the customs of the Cistercians, with the white habit he had been shown, denoting the angelic purity proper to the priesthood. The Canons Regular, or Premonstratensians, as they were called, were to unite the active work of the country clergy with the obligations of the monastic life. The foundations multiplied, and the fervor of these religious priests renewed the spirit of the priesthood, quickened the faith of the people. Blessed Hugh of Fosses, Saint Evermode, Antony of Nivelles, seven students of the celebrated school of Anselm, and Ralph of Laon were among his first thirteen disciples. By the next year the community had grown to 40. They all took their vows and the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré was founded. The young community at first lived in huts of wood and clay, arranged like a camp around the chapel of Saint John the Baptist, but they soon built a larger church and a monastery for the religious who joined them in increasing numbers. Going to Cologne to obtain relics for their church, Norbert is said to have discovered, through a dream, the spot where those of St. Ursula and her companions, of St. Gereon, and of other martyrs lay hidden.

St Norbert gained adherents in Germany, France, Belgium and Transylvania, and houses of his order were founded in Floreffe, Viviers, St-Josse, Ardenne, Cuissy, Laon, Liège, Antwerp, Varlar, Kappenberg, Grosswardein (Oradea/Nagyvárad) and elsewhere. In Norbert’s community we have the first evidence of lay affiliation with a religious order. This came about when a count Theobald II wanted to join Norbert. Norbert realized that Theobald was not called to holy orders but to marriage and worldly duties. But he did not entirely reject Theobald, giving him a rule and devotions as well as a scapular to wear to identify him as part of the community, and thus, in 1122, the Third Order of St. Norbert was instituted.

St Norbert was a great devotee of the Eucharist and Our Lady. A heretic named Tankelin appeared at Antwerp, denying the reality of the priesthood, and above all blaspheming the Holy Eucharist. The Saint was sent for, to quench the error and its source, since three thousand persons had followed this man, who was allowing every vice to pass for legitimate. By Saint Norbert’s burning words he exposed the impostor, corrected the erring, and rekindled faith in the Blessed Sacrament. Many of the apostates had proved their contempt for the Blessed Sacrament by burying it in walls and damp places; Norbert bade the converted ones search for the Sacred Hosts. They found them entire and uninjured, and the Saint bore them back in triumph to the tabernacle.

In 1126 Pope Honorius II appointed Norbert to the Archbishopric of Magdeburg in central Germany, a territory half pagan and half Christian. Legend has it the porter refused to let Norbert into his new residence, assuming he was a beggar. When the crowd pointed out to the flustered porter that this was the new bishop. Norbert told the porter, “You were right the first time.”

At the risk of his life, he put into practice the precepts he instituted at Premontre. Several assassination attempts were made as he began to reform the lax discipline of his see. He was especially vigilant in protecting the Church’s rights against the secular power.

In the schism following the election of Pope Innocent II in 1130, Norbert supported Innocent and resisted Antipope Anacletus II. In Norbert’s last years, he was chancellor and adviser to Lothair II, the Holy Roman Emperor, persuading him to lead an army in 1133 to Rome to restore Innocent to the papacy.

When Norbert died in Magdeburg on 6 June 1134, both the canons at the cathedral and the canons at St. Mary’s Abbey claimed the body. The two parties resorted to Lothair III who decreed the body should be buried in the Norbertine Abbey. In 1524, Martin Luther preached in the city and, as a result, Magdeburg became a Protestant city. Numerous attempts were made over the centuries by the Abbey of Strahov in Prague to retrieve the saint’s body. Only after several military defeats at the hand of Emperor Ferdinand II was the abbot of Strahov able to claim the body. On 2 May 1627 the body was finally brought to Prague where it remains to this day, displayed as an auto-icon in a glass-fronted tomb.

Saint Norbert was canonized by Pope Gregory XIII in the year 1582, and his statue appears above the Piazza colonnade of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome

References and Excerpts

[1]          F. Media, “Saint Norbert,” Franciscan Media, 06-Jun-2016. .

[2]          C. Online, “St. Norbert – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=87. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2018].

[3]          “Saint Norbert, Founder and Bishop.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_norbert.html. [Accessed: 06-Jun-2018].

[4]          “Norbert of Xanten,” Wikipedia. 10-May-2018.

Saint Athanasius

Bishop, Doctor of the Church(296-373)

Feast- May 2

St. Athanasius, also known as Athanasius the Great and Athanasius the Confessor, was a bishop and doctor of the church. He is called the “Father of Orthodoxy,” the “Pillar of the Church” and “Champion of Christ’s Divinity.” St. Athanasius was born to a Christian family in the city of Alexandria, Egypt, towards the end of the third century, sometime between the years 293 and 298. An earlier date, 293, is sometimes assigned as the more certain year of his birth corroborated by the undoubted maturity of judgement revealed in the two treatises “Contra Gentes” and “De Incarnatione”, which were admittedly written about the year 318 before Arianism as a movement had begun to make itself felt, as those writings do not show an awareness of Arianism. Cornelius Clifford places his birth no earlier than 296 and no later than 298, based on the fact that Athanasius indicates no first hand recollection of the Maximian persecution of 303, which he suggests St. Athanasius would have remembered if he had been ten years old at the time. Secondly, the Festal Epistles state that the Arians had accused Athanasius, among other charges, of not having yet attained the canonical age (30) and thus could not have been properly ordained as Patriarch of Alexandria in 328.

Of the claim that St. Athanasius’ parents were both prominent and well-to-do, we can only observe it is not contradicted by such scanty details as can be gleaned from the saint’s writings. Those writings undoubtedly betray evidences of the sort of education that was given, for the most part, only to children and youths of a better class. It began with grammar, went on to rhetoric, and received its final touches under the guidance of the more fashionable lecturers in the philosophic schools.

The Alexandria of his boyhood was an epitome intellectually, morally, and politically, of the ethnically many-colored Greco-Roman world. It was, moreover, the most important center of trade in the whole empire; and its primacy as an emporium of ideas was more commanding than that of Rome or Constantinople, Antioch or Marseilles.

St. Athanasius from his youth was pious. He left his paternal home to be raised by the bishop of Alexandria. Whether his long intimacy with Bishop Alexander began in childhood, we have no means of judging; but a story which pretends to describe the circumstances of his first introduction to that prelate has been preserved for us by Rufinus (Hist. Eccl., I, xiv). The bishop, so the tale runs, had invited a number of brother prelates to meet him at breakfast after a great religious function on the anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Peter, a recent predecessor in the See of Alexandria. While Alexander was waiting for his guests to arrive, he stood by a window, watching a group of boys at play on the seashore below the house. He had not observed them long before he discovered that they were imitating, evidently with no thought of irreverence, the elaborate ritual of Christian baptism. He therefore sent for the children and had them brought into his presence. In the investigation that followed it was discovered that one of the boys, who was no other than the future Primate of Alexandria, had acted the part of the bishop, and in that character had actually baptized several of his companions in the course of their play. Alexander, who seems to have been unaccountably puzzled over the answers he received to his inquiries, determined to recognize the make-believe baptisms as genuine; and decided that Athanasius and his playfellows should go into training in order to fit themselves for a clerical career. St. Athanasius received a wonderful education in Christian doctrine, Greek literature, philosophy, rhetoric and jurisprudence. He was well studied in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Gospel accounts and the Christian texts which would later be recognized by the Church as the canon of the New Testament.

Historical evidence indicates that he was fluent in Greek and Coptic as well. Some surviving copies of his writings are in Coptic, though scholars differ as to whether he himself wrote them in Coptic originally (which would make him the first patriarch to do so), or whether these were translations of writings originally in Greek.

As he grew up, St. Athanasius befriended many monks and hermits of the desert, including St. Antony. He became Alexander’s secretary in 318 after being ordained a deacon. Around this time, Athanasius wrote his first work, a theological treatise on the Incarnation which is still quoted extensively in Christian theological studies and spiritual literature. Around 323, Arius, an ambitious priest of the Alexandrian Church, denied the Divinity of Christ, and began spreading word that Jesus Christ was not truly divine, but merely created in time by the Eternal Father, causing the Arian Heresy. Learned, and deeply versed in the sacred writings St. Athanasius was like a new Samuel in the Lord’s temple, as befitted one whom God had chosen to be the champion and defender of His Church against this heresy.

St. Alexander demanded Arius produce a written statement on the false doctrine. It was condemned as heresy after two dissenting Bishops came forward. Arius and 11 other priests and deacons were deposed, or removed from their office, for teaching false doctrine. Arius left for Caesarea, but continued to teach his false doctrine and enlisted support from the Bishop of Nicomedia, Eusebius and other Syrian prelates.

Athanasius stood alongside Alexander during the famous Council of Nicaea to determine the matters of dogma. There he attracted the attention of all the prelates by the learning and ability with which he defended the Faith.  It was during this meeting, summoned by Emperor Constantine, that Arius’ sentencing was officially confirmed, and the Nicene Creed was adopted as the Creed of the Church and a worthy symbol of the orthodox Christian faith. The early Christian Church, still undivided, rejoiced at the defense of the true nature of Jesus Christ.

As Saint Alexander was dying, he recommended St. Athanasius for his successor. Frances A. M. Forbes writes that when the Patriarch Alexander was on his death-bed he called Athanasius, who fled fearing he would be constrained to be made Bishop. “When the Bishops of the Church assembled to elect their new Patriarch, the whole Catholic population surrounded the church, holding up their hands to Heaven and crying; “Give us Athanasius!”. He was consecrated as the 20th Bishop of Alexandria in 328. His on-again-off-again episcopate spanned 45 years, of which over 17 encompassed five exiles, not counting approximately six more incidents in which Athanasius fled Alexandria to escape people seeking to take his life. In addition to the conflict with the Arians (including powerful and influential Arian churchmen led by Eusebius of Nicomedia), he struggled against the Emperors Constantine, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate and Valens. This gave rise to the expression “Athanasius contra mundum” or “Athanasius against the world”.

During his first years as bishop, Athanasius visited the churches of his territory, which at that time included all of Egypt and Libya. He established contacts with the hermits and monks of the desert, including Pachomius, which proved very valuable to him over the years.

Arianism never lay in its ideas from whatever school it may have been logically derived, the sect, as a sect, was cradled and nurtured in intrigue. Its prophets relied more upon curial influence than upon piety, or Scriptural knowledge, or dialectics. That must be borne constantly in mind, if we would not move distractedly through the bewildering maze of events that make up the life of St. Athanasius.

Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had fallen into disgrace and been banished by the Emperor Constantine for his part in the earlier Arian controversies, had been recalled from exile, after an adroit campaign of intrigue, carried on chiefly through the instrumentality of the ladies of the imperial household.

He himself sent a characteristic letter to the youthful Primate of Alexandria, in which he bespoke his favor for the condemned heresiarch, who was described as a man whose opinions had been misrepresented. In 330, Eusebius approached Emperor Constantine and persuaded him to write to Athanasius, urging that all those who were ready to submit to the definitions of Nicaea should be re-admitted to ecclesiastical communion. This Athanasius stoutly refused to do, alleging that there could be no fellowship between the Church and the one who denied the Divinity of Christ.

However, Eusebius of Nicomedia did not give up on his cause. He brought various ecclesiastical and political charges against Athanasius, which, though unmistakably refuted at their first hearing, were afterwards refurbished and made to do service at nearly every stage of his subsequent trials. Four of these were very definite, to wit: that he had not reached the canonical age at the time of his consecration; that he had imposed a linen tax upon the provinces; that his officers had, with his connivance and authority, profaned the Sacred Mysteries in the case of an alleged priest named Ischyras; and lastly that he had put one Arenius to death and afterwards dismembered the body for purposes of magic.

Accused of mistreating Arians and Meletians, Athanasius answered those charges at a gathering of bishops in Tyre, Lebanon, in 335. The council was full of Athanasius’ opponents and was led by an Arian. Athanasius realized his condemnation was already pre-decided. Eusebius of Nicomedia and other supporters of Arius deposed Athanasius. It can hardly be wondered at, that Athanasius should have refused to be tried by such a court. He, therefore, suddenly withdrew from Tyre, escaping in a boat with some faithful friends who accompanied him to Byzantium, where he had made up his mind to present himself to the emperor.

The circumstances in which the saint and the great catechumen met were dramatic enough. Constantine was returning from a hunt, when Athanasius unexpectedly stepped into the middle of the road and demanded a hearing. The astonished emperor could hardly believe his eyes, and it needed the assurance of one of the attendants to convince him that the petitioner was not an impostor, but none other than the great Bishop of Alexandria himself. “Give me”, said the prelate, “a just tribunal, or allow me to meet my accusers face to face in your presence.” His request was granted. An order was peremptorily sent to the bishops, who had tried Athanasius and, of course, condemned him in his absence, to report at once to the imperial city. On 6 November, both sides of the dispute met with Emperor Constantine I in Constantinople. At that meeting, the Arians claimed Athanasius would try to cut off essential Egyptian grain supplies to Constantinople.

Athanasius was condemned to go into exile to Augusta Treverorum in Gaul, now Trier in Germany, where he was received with the utmost kindness by the saintly Bishop Maximinus and the emperor’s eldest son, Constans, in 336. While there, he kept in touch with his flock by letter. Athanasius’ exile lasted for two and a half years. He returned to Alexandria in 338 to find both Emperor Constantine and Arius had died. Constantine’s empire was divided between his three sons, Constantine II, Constantius and Constans.

After he returned to Alexandria, his enemies continued to try to bring him to exile. They accused him of raising sedition, of promoting bloodshed, and detaining corn from Egypt for his own use. Eusebius was able to obtain a second sentence of deposition against St. Athanasius and get the election of an Arian bishop for Alexandria approved. After this, a letter was written to Pope St. Julius asking for his intervention and a condemnation of Athanasius. The case for Athanasius was set forth, and the pope accepted the suggestion offered by Eusebius for a synod to discuss the situation.  St. Athanasius went to Rome to await his hearing, where he was under the protection of Constans, the Emperor of the West. During this time, Gregory of Cappadocia was installed as the Patriarch of Alexandria, usurping the absent St. Athanasius. St. Athanasius did, however, remain in contact with his people through his annual Festal Letters. In 339 or 340, nearly one hundred bishops met at Alexandria, declared in favor of St. Athanasius, and vigorously rejected the criticisms of the Eusebian faction at Tyre. Plus, Pope Julius I wrote to the supporters of Arius strongly urging St. Athanasius’s reinstatement, but that effort proved in vain. Pope Julius I called a synod in Rome in 340 to address the matter, which proclaimed St. Athanasius the rightful bishop of Alexandria. He was completely vindicated by the synod. His innocence was reaffirmed at the Council of Sardica. Two conciliar letters were prepared, one to the clergy and faithful of Alexandria, the other to the bishops of Egypt and Libya, in which the will of the Council was made known. Meanwhile, the Eusebian party had gone to Philippopolis, where they issued an anathema against St. Athanasius and his supporters. He was unable to return home to Alexandria until the death of the Cappadocian Gregory. Early in the year 343 we find St. Athanasius in Gaul; nowadays Belgium / Holland and surrounding areas, where the great champion of orthodoxy in the West, Hosius of Córdoba was Bishop. In 345 Emperor Constantius was forced to reconsider his decision, owing to a threatening letter from his brother Constans and the uncertain conditions of affairs on the Persian border, and he accordingly made up his mind to yield. Athanasius returned to Alexandria to scenes of people rejoicing after he had been absent for eight years.

However, in 353 Athanasius would face more condemnations by the Arians in the councils at Arles, France and again in 355 in Milan, Italy. Pope Julius died in April 352, and was succeeded by Liberius. The New Pope had been favorable to the cause of Athanasius. By Constantius’ order, the sole ruler of The Roman Empire after the death of his brother Constans, the Council of Arles was held in 353, which was presided over by Vincent, Bishop of Capua, in the name of Pope Liberius. The fathers, terrified of the threats of the Emperor, an avowed Arian, consented to the condemnation of St. Athanasius. The Pope refused to accept their decision, and requested the Emperor to hold another Council, in which the charges against St. Athanasius could be freely investigated. To this Constantius consented, for he felt able to control the Council in Milan. Persecution continued against St. Athanasius and escalated to physical attacks against him.

Emperor Constantius, renewing his previous policies favoring the Arians, banished St. Athanasius from Alexandria once again. This was followed, in 356, by an attempt to arrest St. Athanasius while he was celebrating a vigil Liturgy in a church in Egypt, soldiers forced their way in and killed some of the congregation. Athanasius fled to desert of Upper Egypt, where a group of monks kept him safe for six years as a hermit. During this period, St. Athanasius completed his work Four Orations against the Arians and defended his own recent conduct in the Apology to Constantius and Apology for His Flight. Constantius’ persistence in his opposition to St. Athanasius, combined with reports St. Athanasius received about the persecution of non-Arians by the new Arian bishop George of Laodicea, prompted St. Athanasius to write his more emotional History of the Arians, in which he described Constantius as a precursor of the Antichrist.

The Arians wanted the approval of an Ecumenical Council. They sought to hold two councils. Constantius, summoned the bishops of the East to meet at Seleucia in Isauria, and those of the West to Rimini in Italy. At Seleucia, one hundred and fifty bishops, of which one hundred and five were semi-Arian. The semi-Arians refused to accept anything less than the “Homoiousion,” formulary of faith.

At Rimini were over four hundred of which eighty were Arian, the rest were orthodox. The orthodox fathers refused to accept any creed but the Nicene, while the others were equally in favour of the Sirmian. Each party sent a deputation to the Emperor to say there was no probability to agreement and asked for the bishops to return to their dioceses. For the purpose of wearing-down the orthodox bishops; Constantius delayed his answer for several months, and finally prevailed on them to accept the Sirmian creed. It was about this Council that St. Jerome said: ” …the whole world groaned in astonishment to find itself Arian.”

Constantius ordered Pope Liberius into exile in 356 giving him three days to comply. He was ordered into banishment to Beroea, in Thrace. He sent expensive presents if he were to accept the Arian position, which Liberius refused. Attempts were made to leave the presents in The Church, but Liberius threw them out. Constantius hereupon sent for him under a strict guard to Milan, where in a conference recorded by Theodore, the Holy Father boldly told Constantius that St.  Athanasius had been acquitted at Sardica, and his enemies proved calumniators and impostors, and that it was unjust to condemn a person who could not be legally convicted of any crime. The Emperor Constantius, who had been the cause of so much trouble, died on 4 November 361 and was succeeded by Julian. Julian, revoked all sentences of exile enacted by his predecessor.

The Arians no longer presented an unbroken front to their orthodox opponents. The proclamation of the new prince’s accession was the signal for a pagan outbreak against the still dominant Arian faction in Alexandria. George, the usurping Bishop, was flung into prison and murdered. An edict had been put forth by Julian permitting the exiled bishops of the “Galileans” to return to their “towns and provinces”. St. Athanasius received a summons from his own flock, and he accordingly re-entered his episcopal capitol on 22 February 362. He convened a council at Alexandria and presided over it with Eusebius of Vercelli. St. Athanasius appealed for unity among all those who had faith in Christianity, even if they differed on matters of terminology. This prepared the groundwork for his definition of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The council also was directed against those who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit, the human soul of Christ, and Christ’s divinity. With characteristic energy he set to work to clear up the misunderstandings that had arisen in the course of the previous years, an attempt was made to determine still further the significance of the Nicene formularies. This lasted only a few months though. Emperor Julian’s plan for paganizing the Christian world couldn’t get very far as long as the champion for Catholic faith was around; therefore, Julian exiled St. Athanasius. On 23 October the people gathered about the proscribed bishop to protest against the emperor’s decree; but St. Athanasius urged them to submit, consoling them with the promise that his absence would be of short duration. He once again sought refuge in the desert. He stayed there until 363 when Julian died and the next emperor, Emperor Jovian, reinstated him. His first act was to convene a council which reaffirmed the terms of the Nicene Creed. Early in September 363 he set out for Antioch on the Orontes, bearing a synodal letter, in which the pronouncements of this council had been embodied. At Antioch he had an interview with the new emperor, who received him graciously and even asked him to prepare an exposition of the orthodox faith. The following February Jovian died; and in October 364 St. Athanasius was banished again by Jovian’s successor, Valens, who favored the Arian position and issued an order banning all Orthodox bishops who were exiled by Constantius. This time St. Athanasius simply left for the outskirts of Alexandria. Four months later, Valens was convinced by the local authorities, for fear of a popular uprising, to revoke his own order and have Athanasius was restored permanently. In 366 Pope Liberius died and was succeeded by Pope Damasus, a man of strong character and holy life. Two years later, in a council of the Church, it was decreed that no Bishop should be consecrated unless he held the Creed of Nicea. (F. A. Forbes).

St. Athanasius stood unmoved against four Roman emperors. Over the course of his life he was banished five times and spent 17 years in exile for the defense of the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. This man, who had endured exile so often, and risked life itself in defense of what he believed to be the first and most essential truth of the Catholic creed, died on May 2, 373 not by violence or in hiding, but peacefully in his own bed, surrounded by his clergy and mourned by the faithful of the see he had served so well.

Originally he was buried in Alexandria, but his remains were transferred first to Constantinople, then to Venice. In 1973, Pope Paul VI gave the Coptic Patriarch a relic of Athanasius. The relic is currently preserved under the new Saint Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt. However, the majority of Athanasius’s corpse remains in the Venetian church.

St. Athanasius was not a speculative theologian. As he stated in his First Letters to Serapion, he held on to “the tradition, teaching, and faith proclaimed by the apostles and guarded by the fathers.”

He is counted as one of the four great Eastern Doctors of the Church in the Catholic Church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, he is labeled as the “Father of Orthodoxy”.

Though strong as diamond in defense of the Faith, he was meek and humble, pleasant and winning in conversation, beloved by his flock, unwearied in labors, prayer and mortifications, eloquent in speech, and unsurpassed in zeal for souls.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus (330–390, also a Doctor of the Church), said: “When I praise Athanasius, virtue itself is my theme: for I name every virtue as often as I mention him who was possessed of all virtues. He was the true pillar of the Church. His life and conduct were the rule of bishops, and his doctrine the rule of the orthodox faith.”

The vigor of St. Athanasius’ writings earned him the title of doctor of the Church.

His biography of St. Anthony the Great entitled Life of Antony became his most widely read work. Translated into several languages, it became something of a best seller in its day and played an important role in spreading the ascetic ideal in Eastern and Western Christianity. He also wrote several works of Biblical exegesis, primarily on Old Testament materials. The most important of these is his Epistle to Marcellinus (PG 27:12–45) on how to incorporate Psalm saying into one’s spiritual practice. His works on ascetism also include a Discourse on Virginity, a short work on Love and Self-Control, and a treatise On Sickness and Health. Examples of St. Athanasius’ polemical writings against his theological opponents include “Orations against the Arians,” his “Defense of the Divinity of the Holy Spirit” (“Letters to Serapion” in the 360s, and “On the Holy Spirit”), against Macedonianism and “On the Incarnation.”

St. Athanasius is often shown as a bishop arguing with a pagan, a bishop holding an open book or a bishop standing over a defeated heretic. He is a patron saint of theologians.

References and Excerpts

[1]          F. Media, “Saint Athanasius,” Franciscan Media, 02-May-2016. .

[2]          C. Online, “St. Athanasius – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=336. [Accessed: 20-May-2018].

[3]          “Saint Athanasius, Bishop, Doctor of the Church.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_athanasius.html. [Accessed: 20-May-2018].

[4]          “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Athanasius.” [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02035a.htm. [Accessed: 20-May-2018].

[5]          “Athanasius of Alexandria,” Wikipedia. 18-May-2018.

Saint Peter Canisius

Doctor of the Church(1521-1597)

Feast-April 27

Born at Nimwegen in the Netherlands, on the 8th of May, son of the wealthy burgomaster (mayor, or head magistrate, of a town), Jacob Canisius and Ægidia van Houweningen; she died shortly after St. Peter’s birth.

In 1536 he was sent to Cologne, where he studied arts, civil law, and theology at the university; he spent a part of 1539 at the University of Louvain, and in 1540, at the age of 19, received the degree of Master of Arts at the University of Cologne.

Nicolaus van Esche was his spiritual adviser. He was on terms of friendship with such staunch Catholics as Georg of Skodborg (Archbishop of Lund), Johann Gropper (canon of the cathedral), Eberhard Billick (the Carmelite monk), Justus Lanspergius (Carthusian monk and ascetical writer). Although his father desired him to marry a wealthy young woman, on 25 February 1540 he pledged himself to celibacy.

In 1543 he met Peter Faber (the first disciple of St. Ignatius of Loyola), one of the founders of the Society of Jesus, having made the “Spiritual Exercises” under his direction, was admitted, and became the first Dutchman to join the Society of Jesus at Mainz, on May 8.

At this early age St. Peter Canisius had already taken up a practice he continued throughout his life—a process of study, reflection, prayer, and writing.

With the help of Leonhard Kessel, laboring under great difficulties, he founded at Cologne the first German house of the order; at the same time, he preached in the city and vicinity, and as a licensed Doctor of Civil Law taught at the University of Cologne. After his ordination in 1546, he became widely known for his editions of the writings of Saint Cyril of Alexandria and St. Leo the Great. He was sent by the clergy and university to obtain assistance from Emperor Charles V, the nuncio, and the clergy of Liège against the apostate Archbishop, Hermann von Wied, who had attempted to pervert the diocese. His mission, seconded by the Holy Spirit, succeeded; and the deputy was remarked by a Cardinal, who desired to send him to the Council of Trent as his representative and theologian. St. Peter’s Canisius superior, St. Ignatius of Loyola himself, approved this choice, and the young Jesuit took his place among the Fathers of the Council. He was commissioned to draft a memoir on the exact nature of the errors being propagated in the lands of the reform, in consort with the Pope’s theologian, another Jesuit named Jacques Laynez. Their work was admired; the Council was dissolved soon afterwards, however St. Peter Canisius was recalled to Rome by St. Ignatius, to consult with him concerning the formation of the religious and the future of their Order. Afterwards St. Peter and two other Jesuits founded a college at Ingolstadt, going there with only two books in their baggage, the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius and the famous Ratio Studiorum, or Plan of Studies of their Order. St. Peter Canisius was named Rector of the University by that institution.

He was in demand everywhere; King Ferdinand of Rome obtained his presence for Vienna. Called to Vienna to reform their university. He won peoples’ hearts by ministering to the sick and dying during a plague. A pestilence broke out there, and he was most often found at the bedside of the dying, caring for the bodies and regenerating the souls of the unfortunate citizens. He opened a boarding school for boys, and Vienna soon found itself reborn in the faith. Renowned as a popular preacher, Peter packed churches with those eager to hear his eloquent proclamation of the gospel. He had great diplomatic ability, often serving as a reconciler between disputing factions. He was offered the post of Bishop of Vienna in 1554 but declined in order to continue his traveling and teachings. He did, however, serve as administrator of the Diocese of Vienna for one year, until a new bishop was appointed for it.

For many years during the Reformation, St. Peter Canisius saw the students in his universities swayed by the flashy speeches and the well-written arguments of the Protestants. Following the Jesuit policy that harsh words should not be used, that those listening would see an example of charity in the way Catholics acted and preached, he rejected attacks against reformers: “With words like these, we don’t cure patients, we make them incurable. An honest explanation of the faith would be much more effective than a polemical attack.” St. Peter Canisius was not alone in wishing for a Catholic catechism that would present true Catholic beliefs. He and his friend Lejay were assigned to write it. The first issue of the Catechism appeared in 1555 and was an immediate success. Because of the success and the need, he quickly produced two more versions of Catechisms; one for middle school students and another for young children. The famous Catechism of Saint Peter Canisius, just during his lifetime, appeared in more than 200 editions, in at least twelve languages. It remains a monument of the triumph of the Church over heresy in the time of Luther.

In 1565, shortly after the Council of Trent, the Pope wanted to get the decrees of the Council to all the European bishops. What would be a simple errand in our day, was a dangerous assignment in the sixteenth century. The first envoy who tried to carry the decrees through territory of hostile Protestants and vicious thieves was robbed of the precious documents. Rome needed someone courageous but also someone above suspicion. They chose Peter Canisius. At 43 he was a well-known Jesuit who had founded colleges that even Protestants respected. They gave him a cover as official “visitor” of Jesuit foundations. Peter traveled from Rome and crisscrossed Germany successfully loaded down with the Tridentine tomes, 250 pages each, and the three sacks of books he took along for his own university.

The restoration of the Catholic Church in Germany after the Protestant Reformation is largely attributed to the work there of the Society of Jesus, which he led. Due to his frequent travels between the colleges, a tedious and dangerous occupation at the time, he became known as the Second Apostle of Germany.

St. Peter Canisius taught that, while there are many roads leading to Jesus Christ, for him the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the best. His sermons and letters document a clear preoccupation with Marian veneration. Under the heading “prayer” he explains the Ave Maria (Hail Mary), as the basis for Catholic Marian piety. Canisius published an applied Mariology for preachers. He defended Catholic Mariology, in his 1577 book, De Maria Virgine Incomparabili et Dei Genitrice Sacrosancta Libri Quinque. The book was ordered by Pope Pius V to present a factual presentation of the Catholic Marian teachings in the Bible, the early Christians, the Church Fathers and contemporary theology. He explains and documents Church teachings through the ages regarding the person and character of Mary, about the perpetual virginity of Mary, Her freedom from sin, explains the dogma of the “Mother of God”. He answers the sola scriptura arguments of Protestants by analyzing the biblical basis for Mariology.

By the time he left Germany, the Society of Jesus in Germany had evolved from a small band of priests into a powerful tool of the Counter-Reformation.

St. Peter Canisius spent the last twenty years of his life in Fribourg Switzerland, where he founded the Jesuit Collège Saint-Michel, which trained generations of young men for careers and future university studies.
In 1591, at the age of 70, he suffered a stroke which left him partially paralyzed, but he continued to preach and write with the aid of a secretary until his death on December 21 of 1597.
He was initially buried at the Church of St. Nicholas. His remains were later transferred to the church of the Jesuit College, which he had founded and where he had spent the last year of his life and interred in front of the main altar of the church; the room he occupied during those last months is now a chapel open for the veneration of the faithful.

Canisius was beatified by Pope Pius IX in the year 1864, and later canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church on 21 May 1925 by Pope Pius XI.

References and Excerpts

[1] F. Media, “Saint Peter Canisius,” Franciscan Media, 21-Dec-2015. .
[2] C. Online, “St. Peter Canisius – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=93. [Accessed: 31-Mar-2018].
[3] “Saint Peter Canisius, Doctor of the Church.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_peter_canisius.html. [Accessed: 31-Mar-2018].
[4] “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Peter Canisius.” [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11756c.htm. [Accessed: 31-Mar-2018].
[5] “Peter Canisius,” Wikipedia. 22-Feb-2018.

Saint Eulogius

Martyr († 859)

Feast- March 11

In the ninth century, the Muslim conquerors of Spain made Cordoba their capital. They allowed Christians to live in relative peace. During this time, the faithful could, it is true, worship freely, and retained their churches and property on the condition of paying a tribute for every parish, cathedral, and monastery. Frequently such tribute was increased at the will of the conqueror, and often the living had to pay for the dead. Many of the faithful then fled to Northern Spain, others took refuge in the monasteries of the Sierras, and thus the number of Christians eventually shrank to small proportions. In the large cities like Toledo and Cordova, the civil rule of the Christians did not differ from that of the Visigothic epoch. The government was exercised by the comes (count), president of the council of senators, among whom we meet a similarly named ancestor of St. Eulogius.

The family of the saint was of the senatorial class and held land in Córdoba from Roman times. The saint, like his five brothers, received an excellent education in accord with his good birth among the clergy of the Church of Saint Zoilus, a martyr who had suffered with nineteen others several centuries earlier, under Diocletian and his mother Isabel. The youngest of the brothers, Joseph, held a high office in the palace of Abd-er-Rahman II. His two other brothers, Alvarus and Isidore, were merchants and traded on a large scale as far as Central Europe. Of his sisters, Niola and Anulona, they first remained with their mother; the second was educated from infancy in a monastery where she later became a nun.

It is not certain on what date or in what year of the ninth century Eulogius was born; it must have been before 819, because in 848 he was a priest highly esteemed among the Christians of Catalonia and Navarre, and priesthood was then conferred only on men thirty years of age. As a boy, St. Eulogius showed intellectual promise. The monks of the monastery of St. Zoilus educated him in the Christian and Greco-Roman classics. After completing his studies in the monastery of St. Zoilus, Eulogius continued to live with his family to better care for his mother; also perhaps, to study with famous masters, one of whom was Abbot Speraindeo, an illustrious writer of that time.

St. Eulogius’s friend and biographer Paulus Alvarus affectionately described him as gentle, reverent, well-educated, steeped in Scripture, and so humble that he freely submitted to opinions of others less informed than he. He said that St.Eulogius had a pleasant demeanor and conducted his relationships with such kindness that everyone regarded him as a friend. A gifted leader, the most prominent among his charisma was the ability to give encouragement. As a priest serving in an occupied country, he used this gift to strengthen his friends in the face of danger.

He distinguished himself, by his virtue and quickly emerged as a leader among Mozarabic Christians.

Without ever weakening, St. Eulogius, who was a priest and head of the principal ecclesiastical school at Cordova, combated the perverse influence of the invaders, and it is primarily because of him that the Church saw a new and magnificent flowering of victims immolated for the faith, later to be the source of great blessings for Spain. St. Eulogius recorded the names and acts of these generous martyrs.

When Abd-er Rahman II became Emir of Córdoba in 822, there came a change in the attitude of the Arab rulers. While Muslims enjoyed the freedom to worship and to make converts, Christians who evangelized Muslims or made disparaging remarks about Muhammad could be executed. In 850 the Muslims imprisoned the bishop and priests of Cordoba, including St.Eulogius. In jail, the saint read the Bible to his companions and encouraged his fellow prisoners to remain faithful to Christianity. He addressed his Exhortation to Martyrdom to two young women he knew in prison. They were threatened with sexual slavery unless they renounced the faith: “Cowardly Christians will tell you in order to shake your constancy that the churches are silent, deserted and deprived of the sacrifice on account of your obstinacy: that if you will but yield temporarily you will regain the free exercise of your religion. But be persuaded that, for you, the sacrifice most pleasing to God is contrition of heart, and that you can no longer draw back or renounce the truth you have confessed.” The girls, named Flora and Mary, were in fact spared violation, and instead on the 24th of November 851 were beheaded by the sword. Six days later, the Umayyad authorities released St. Eulogius and his fellow prisoners from captivity. In the year 852 several others suffered the same martyrdom. St. Eulogius encouraged these martyrs, too, for their triumphs, and was the support of the distressed flock.

When the Archbishop of Toledo died in 858, the clergy and people of Toledo elected Eulogius bishop; he was never installed in that see. His past made him objectionable to the caliph, who monitored episcopal elections. The caliph’s officials knew not only that St. Eulogius had earlier advised imprisoned Christians, but that he had also hidden a young girl, a virgin, by name Leocritia, of a wealthy governing family of Moors, instructed from her infancy in the Christian religion by one of her relatives, and privately baptized. Like many Muslim girls who are abused today for having non-Muslim friends, Leocritia’s parents beat her cruelly to compel her to return to the Muslim religion. Having made her situation known to St. Eulogius and his sister, adding that she desired to go where she might freely exercise her religion, they secretly procured for her means of escaping, and concealed her for some time among faithful friends. She was found out, however, and all those who had helped her were brought before the Muslim magistrate who threatened to have Eulogius scourged to death. The Saint told him that his torments would be of no avail, for he would never change his religion; continuing, he exposed vigorously the impostures and errors of the Muslim religion and exhorted the judge to become a disciple of Jesus Christ, the unique Savior of the world. At this, the judge gave orders that he be taken to the palace and be presented before the king’s council. St. Eulogius denounced Muhammad as a false prophet, and boldly proposed the truths of the Gospel to these officials. But in order not to hear him, the council condemned him immediately to be decapitated. As they were leading him at once to execution, one of the guards gave him a blow on the face for having spoken against the prophet Mahomet; he turned the other cheek, and patiently received a second. He received the stroke of death with great cheerfulness, on the 11th of March, 859. St. Leocritia was beheaded four days afterwards, and her body thrown into the Guadalquivir River, but salvaged for burial by the Christians.

St. Eulogius left a perfect account of the orthodox doctrine which he defended, the intellectual culture which he propagated, and the imprisonment and sufferings which he endured. His writings show that he followed to the letter the exhortation of St. Paul: Imitatores mei estote sicut et ego Christi.

He is buried in the cathedral of Oviedo.

References and Excerpts

[1]          “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Eulogius of Cordova.” [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05604a.htm. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2018].

[2]          “Saint Eulogius, Martyr.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_eulogius.html. [Accessed: 14-Mar-2018].

[3]          “Eulogius of Córdoba,” Wikipedia. 04-Jan-2018.

Saint Leander

Archbishop of Seville (534- 596)

Feast- February 27

St. Leander was born around the year 534 at Cartagena, Spain, of Severianus and Theodora, an elite Hispano-Roman family. Some historians claim that his father Severian was either the duke or governor of Cartagena. The family emigrated from Carthagena around 554 and went to Seville. The eminent worth of the children of Severian would seem to indicate that they were reared in distinguished surroundings. The family was staunchly Catholic, enjoying an elite position in the secure surroundings of tolerated Catholic culture in Seville.

Severian had three sons, Leander, Isidore, and Fulgentius and one daughter, Florentina. St. Leander and St. Isidore both became bishops of Seville; St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Carthagena, and St. Florentina, a nun, who directed forty convents and one thousand nuns.

St. Leander entered into a monastery in Seville very young and became a Benedictine monk, where he lived many years and attained to an eminent degree of virtue and sacred learning. These qualities occasioned his being promoted to the see of Seville in 579; but this change of condition made little or no alteration to his way of life, though it brought on him a great increase of solicitude. In the meantime, he founded a celebrated school, which soon became a center of Catholic learning.

Spain at that time was held in possession by the Visigoths. These Goths, being infected with Arianism, established that heresy wherever they came, at the time Saint Leander was made bishop, it had already reigned in Spain a hundred years. The Catholic hierarchy were in collusion with the representatives of the Byzantine emperor, who had maintained a considerable territory in the far south of Spain ever since his predecessor had been invited to the peninsula by the former Visigoth king. Since the Visigoth nobles and the king were Arians, Catholic Christianity was in danger politically as well as physically. Nonetheless, by his prayers to God and his most zealous and unwearied endeavors, Leander became the happy instrument of conversion for Spain to the Catholic faith.

As Bishop he had access to the Catholic Merovingian princess Ingunthis, who had come as a bride for the kingdom’s heir, and he worked tirelessly with her to convert her husband St. Hermenegild, the eldest son of King Leovigild, an act of court intrigue that cannot honestly be divorced from a political context. Leander defended the new convert even when he went to war with his father “against his father’s cruel reprisals,” the Catholic Encyclopedia puts it. “In endeavoring to save his country from Arianism, St. Leander showed himself an Orthodox Christian and a far-sighted patriot.” And for this he was banished by King Leovigild. The pious Catholic prince, now known as Saint Hermenegild, a martyr, was put to death in prison in 585 by his unnatural father in the following year, for refusing to receive Communion from the hands of an Arian bishop.

Exiled by Leovigild, St. Leander drew to Byzantium from 579 to 582. Wrath and exile to Constantinople, where St. Leander met and became close friends of the Papal Legate, the future Pope Gregory the Great. It was Leander who suggested that Gregory write the famous commentary on the Book of Job called the Moralia.

When Leovigild fell sick and found himself past hopes of recovery, he sent for Saint Leander, and recommended to him his other son Recared. This son, by listening to Saint Leander, became a Catholic, and finally brought the whole nation of the Visigoths to the faith. The new king Recared also brought the Suevi back to Catholic unity.

Once back home, in this decisive hour for the future of Spain, Leander did most to ensure the religious unity, the fervent faith, and the broad culture on which its later greatness was based. He had a share in the conversion of King Reccared, and never ceased to exercise over him a deep and beneficial influence. Under King Reccared, St. Leander began his life work of propagating Christian orthodoxy against the Arians in Spain. Saint Leander was no less zealous in the reformation of morals than in restoring the purity of faith, and planted the seeds of zeal and fervor which produced martyrs and Saints. He received from Saint Gregory the Great a painting of the Mother of God by the hand of Saint Luke, Evangelist, since known as Our Lady of Guadelupe (of Spain). It is he who, as a refutation of Arianism, added to the liturgy of Spain the recitation of the Nicene Creed during Mass, and this practice spread to Rome and subsequently the entire Church. The next time you recite the Nicene Creed at Mass, think of St. Leander. For it was St. Leander of Seville who, as bishop, introduced this practice in the sixth century. He saw it as a way to help reinforce the faith of his people and as an antidote against the heresy of Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ.

The third local Council of Toledo (over which he presided in 589) decreed the consubstantiality of the three Persons of the Trinity and brought about moral reforms. St. Leander’s unerring wisdom and unyielding dedication brought the Visigoths and the Suevi back to the true Faith and obtained the gratitude of Gregory the Great. On his return from this council, St Leander convened an important synod in his metropolitan city of Seville, and afterwards never ceased his efforts to consolidate the work, in which his brother and successor St. Isidore was to follow him.

Worn out by his many activities in the cause of Christ. This holy doctor of Spain died about the year 596, on the 27th of February.

St. Isidore wrote of his brother Leander: “This man of suave eloquence and eminent talent shone as brightly by his virtues as by his doctrine. By his faith and zeal, the Gothic people have been converted from Arianism to the Catholic faith.”

*On leap years, the feast day of this Saint is celebrated on February 28.

[1]          “Saint Leander, Archbishop of Seville.” [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_leander.html. [Accessed: 16-Feb-2018].

[2]          “Saint Leander of Seville – Franciscan Media.” [Online]. Available: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-leander-of-seville/. [Accessed: 16-Feb-2018].

[3]          “CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Leander of Seville.” [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09102a.htm. [Accessed: 16-Feb-2018].

[4]          “St. Leander of Seville – Saints & Angels,” Catholic Online. [Online]. Available: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=706. [Accessed: 16-Feb-2018].

[5]          “Catholic Exchange,” Catholic Exchange. [Online]. Available: https://catholicexchange.com/. [Accessed: 16-Feb-2018].

[6]          “Leander of Seville,” Wikipedia. 30-Jan-2018.