Saint Gregory the Great

Pope, Doctor of the Church
(540-604)

Feast March 12

The exact date of Gregory’s birth is uncertain, but is usually estimated to be around the year 540, in the city of Rome, born into a wealthy patrician family with close connections to the church. His parents named him Gregorius, a Greek Name, which signifies in the Latin Tongue, Vigilantius, that is in English, Watchful….” The medieval writer who provided this etymology did not hesitate to apply it to the life of Gregory. Aelfric states, “He was very diligent in God’s Commandments.”

His father, Gordianus, who served as a senator and for a time was the Prefect of the City of Rome, also held the position of Regionarius in the church, though nothing further is known about that position. Gregory’s mother was well-born in Sicily. His mother and two paternal aunts are honored by Catholic and Orthodox churches as saints; Saint Silva and Saints Tarsilla and Emiliana.

Gregory’s great-great-grandfather had been Pope Felix III. Gregory’s election to the throne of St Peter made his family the most distinguished clerical dynasty of the period.

Gregory was born into a period of upheaval in Italy. From 542 the so-called “Plague of Justinian” swept through the provinces of the empire, including Italy. The plague caused famine, panic, and sometimes rioting. In some parts of the country, over 1/3 of the population was wiped out or destroyed, with heavy spiritual and emotional effects on the people of the Empire. Politically, although the Western Roman Empire had long since vanished in favor of the Gothic kings of Italy, during the 540s Italy was gradually retaken from the Goths by Justinian I, emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire ruling from Constantinople.

Like most young men of his position in Roman society, Saint Gregory was well educated, learning grammar, rhetoric, the sciences, literature, and law, and excelling in all. Gregory of Tours reported that “in grammar, dialectic and rhetoric … he was second to none….” He wrote correct Latin but did not read or write Greek. He knew Latin authors, natural science, history, mathematics and music and had such a “fluency with imperial law” that he may have trained in it “as a preparation for a career in public life.” Indeed, he became a government official, advancing quickly in rank to become, like his father, Prefect of Rome, the highest civil office in the city, when only thirty-three years old.

On his father’s death in 574 he gave his great wealth to the poor, turned his house on the Caelian Hill into the monastery which now bears his name, and for several years lived as a perfect monk. His famous exposition of the Book of Job dates from his monastic years.

The Pope drew him from his seclusion in 578 to make him one of the seven deacons of Rome; and for seven years he rendered great service to the Church as what we now call Papal Nuncio to the imperial court at Constantinople. He had been sent there to obtain assistance against the Lombard invasions, but returned with a conviction which was a foundation of his later activity, that no help could any longer be obtained from that court. When he was recalled to Rome he became Abbot of his Monastery, which was named after Saint Andrew at the time.

While still a monk the Saint was struck by the sight of some fair-complexioned boys who were exposed for sale in Rome, and heard with sorrow that they were pagans.” And of what race are they?” he asked. “They are Angles. Worthy indeed to be Angels of God”, said he. He at once obtained permission from the Pope to set out to evangelize the English. With several companion monks he had already made a three-day’ journey when the Pope, ceding to the regrets of the Roman people, sent out messengers to overtake and recall them.

589 was one of widespread disaster throughout all the empire. In Italy there was an unprecedented inundation. Farms and houses were carried away by the floods. The Tiber overflowed its banks, destroying numerous buildings, among them the granaries of the Church with all the store of corn. Pestilence followed on the floods, and Rome became a very city of the dead. Business was at a standstill, and the streets were deserted save for the wagons which bore forth countless corpses for burial in common pits beyond the city walls.

Then, in February, 590, as if to fill the cup of misery to the brim, Pelagius II died. The choice of a successor lay with the clergy and people of Rome, and without any hesitation they elected Gregory, Abbot of St. Andrew’s. In spite of their unanimity Gregory shrank from the dignity thus offered him. He knew, no doubt, that its acceptance meant a final good-bye to the cloister life he loved, and so he not only refused to accede to the prayers of his fellow citizens but also wrote personally to the Emperor Maurice, begging him with all earnestness not to confirm the election.

In the interval while awaiting the emperor’s reply the business of the vacant see was transacted by Gregory, in commission with two or three other high officials. As the plague still continued unabated, Gregory called upon the people to join in a vast sevenfold procession which was to start from each of the seven regions of the city and meet at the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin, all praying the while for pardon and the withdrawal of the pestilence. This was accordingly done, and the memory of the event is still preserved by the name “Sant’ Angelo” given to the mausoleum of Hadrian from the legend that the Archangel St. Michael was seen upon its summit in the act of sheathing his sword as a sign that the plague was over.

When a famine struck Rome in the 590s, Pope Gregory ordered the Church to use its assets to feed the poor. Instead of selling the product of the land, he ordered it shipped to Rome and given away for free. In this way, he saved thousands of people from certain death. Pope Gregory himself refused to eat until his monks returned from their work of handing out food. He also made certain to dine with a dozen poor people at each meal. Because of his great respect for the poor, it was Pope Gregory and the Church that became the most respected –and obeyed force in Rome and across Italy.

He healed schisms, revived discipline, and saved Italy by converting the wild Arian Lombards who were laying it waste; he aided in the conversion of the Spanish and French Goths, who also were Arians. He set in order the Church’s prayers and chant. (The mainstream form of Western plainchant, standardized in the late 9th century, was attributed to Pope Gregory I and so took the name of Gregorian chant.)

He is credited with re-energizing the Church’s missionary work among the non-Christian peoples of northern Europe. He is most famous for sending a mission, often called the Gregorian mission, under Augustine of Canterbury, prior of Saint Andrew’s, where he had perhaps succeeded Gregory, to evangelize the pagan Anglo-Saxons of England. It seems that the pope had never forgotten the English slaves whom he had once seen in the Roman Forum. The mission was successful, and it was from England that missionaries later set out for the Netherlands and Germany. The preaching of non-heretical Christian faith and the elimination of all deviations from it was a key element in Gregory’s worldview, and it constituted one of the major continuing policies of his pontificate.

Henry Hart Milman states: “Saint Gregory was not a man of profound learning, not a philosopher, not a conversationalist, hardly even a theologian in the constructive sense of the term. He was a trained Roman lawyer and administrator, a monk, a missionary, a preacher, above all a physician of souls and a leader of men. His great claim to remembrance lies in the fact that he is the real father of the medieval papacy.”

With regard to things spiritual, he impressed upon the minds of men the fact that the See of Peter was the one supreme, decisive authority in the Catholic Church. Since then the varied populations of Italy looked to the pope for guidance, and Rome as the papal capital continued to be the center of the Christian world.

Fourteen years his pontificate was a perfect model of ecclesiastical rule. Guiding and consoling pastors with innumerable letters, and preaching incessantly, most effectively by his own example. Many of his sermons are still extant and are famous for their constant use of Holy Scripture. His writings are numerous and include fourteen books of his letters.

Saint Gregory I died in 604, worn out by austerities and toils. The Church includes him among her four great Latin doctors, and reveres him as Saint Gregory the Great.
[1]Magnificat, Editions. “Lives of the Saints.” Saint Gregory the Great, Pope, Doctor of the Church. Sanctoral, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017. <http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_gregory_the_great.html>

[2]”Pope Gregory I.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 11 Mar. 2017. Web. 11 Mar. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_I>.

[3]Online, Catholic. “Pope Saint Gregory the Great – Saints & Angels.” Catholic Online. Catholic Online, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017. <http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=54#fun-facts>.

[4]”Pope St. Gregory I (“the Great”).” CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Gregory the Great. New Advent, n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2017. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06780a.htm>.

Saint Romuald

Feast day February 7

Founder and Abbot (906-1027)

In the tenth century Sergius, a nobleman of Ravenna, quarreled with a relative over an estate and, in a duel to which his son Romuald was witness, slew him. The young man of twenty years was horrified at his father’s crime, and entered a Benedictine monastery at Classe to do a forty days’ penance for him. After some indecision, Romuald became a monk there. San Apollinare had recently been reformed by St. Maieul of Cluny Abbey, but still was not strict enough in its observance to satisfy Romuald. His injudicious correction of the less zealous aroused such enmity against him that he applied for, and was readily granted, permission to retire to Venice, where he placed himself under the direction of a hermit named Marinus and lived a life of extraordinary severity.

The holy man had him recite the Psalter from memory every day. When he stumbled, the hermit struck his left ear with a rod. Romuald suffered with patience, but one day, noting that he was losing his hearing in that ear, asked the old man to strike him on his right ear. This episode supposes great progress in virtue. The two religious were joined by Peter Urseolus Duke of Venice. About 978, Urseolus (Pietro Orseolo I ) obtained his office by acquiescence in the murder of his predecessor, began to suffer remorse for his crime. On the advice of Guarinus, Abbot of San Miguel-de-Cuxa, in Catalonia, and of Marinus and Romuald, he abandoned his office and relations, and fled to Cuxa, where he took the habit of St. Benedict.

In his youth St. Romuald became acquainted with three major schools of western monastic tradition. Sant’Apollinare in Classe was a traditional Benedictine monastery under the influence of the Cluniac reforms. Marinus followed a much harsher, ascetic and solitary lifestyle, which was originally of Irish eremitic origins. The abbot of Saint Miguel de Cuxa, Guarinus, had also begun reforms but mainly built upon a third Christian tradition, that of the Iberian Peninsula. Romuald was able to integrate these different traditions and establish his own monastic order. The admonition in his rule “Empty yourself completely and sit waiting,” places him in relation to the long Christian history of intellectual stillness and interior passivity in meditation also reflected in the nearly contemporary Byzantine ascetic practice known as Hesychasm.

“Sit in your cell as in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish. The path you must follow is in the Psalms — never leave it.”

“If you have just come to the monastery, and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want, take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart and to understand them with your mind. And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.”

During periods of his life, he suffered great spiritual dryness. One day as he was praying Psalm 31 (“I will give you understanding and I will instruct you”), he was given an extraordinary light and spirit which never left him.

His aim was to restore the strict rules of the Order of Saint Benedict, he succeeded in founding around a hundred monasteries in both Italy and France, and he filled the solitudes with hermitages. The principal monastery was that at Camaldoli, a wild, deserted region, where he built a church, surrounded by a number of separate cells for the solitaries who lived under his rule; his disciples were thus called Camaldolese. For five years the fervent founder was tormented by furious attacks by the demon. He repulsed him, saying; “O enemy! Driven out of heaven, you come to the desert? Depart, ugly serpent, already you have what is due you”. And the shamed adversary would leave him. Saint Romuald’s father, Sergius, was moved by the examples of his son, and entered religion near Ravenna; there he, too, was attacked by hell and thought of abandoning his design. Romuald went to visit him; he showed him the error of the devil’s ruses, and his father died in the monastery, in the odor of sanctity.

For 30 years he travelled through Italy, founding and reforming monasteries and hermitages.

In 1012 he arrived at the Diocese of Arezzo. Here, according to the legend, a certain Maldolus, who had seen a vision of monks in white garments ascending into Heaven, gave him some land, afterwards known as the Campus Maldoli, or Camaldoli. St. Romuald built on this land five cells for hermits, which, with the monastery at Fontebuono, built two years later, became the famous mother-house of the Camaldolese Order.

Among his first disciples were Saints Adalbert, and Benedict of Poland, martyrs for the faith. He was an intimate friend of the Emperor Saint Henry, and was reverenced and consulted by many great men of his time. He once past seven years in solitude and total silence. He died, as he had foretold twenty years in advance, alone in his monastery of Val Castro, on the 19th of June, 1027, in an advanced and abundantly fruitful old age.

Many miracles were wrought at his tomb, over which an altar was allowed to be erected in 1032. In 1466 his body was found still incorrupt; it was translated to Fabriano in 1481. In 1595 Clement VIII fixed his feast on 7 Feb., the day of the translation of his relics, and extended its celebration to the whole Church. He is represented in art pointing to a ladder on which are monks ascending to Heaven.

[1]”Saint Romuald.” Sanctoral. N.p., n.d. Web. Feb.-Mar. 2017. <http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_romuald.html>.

[2]Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894); Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 2

[3]”Romuald.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2017. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romuald>.

[4]”St. Romuald.” CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: St. Romuald. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Feb. 2017. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13179b.htm>.

[5]Miller, OFM Fr. Don. “Saint Romuald.” Franciscan Media. N.p., 01 Nov. 2016. Web. 11 Feb. 2017. <https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-romuald/>.

 

Saint Peter Nolasco

Feast Day –January 28

Founder, confessor (1189-1256)

Saint Peter Nolasco was born about the year 1189 at Mas-Saintes-Puelles near Carcassonne in France.

When he was a teenager he went to Barcelona to escape the heresy then rampant in southern France. He joined an army fighting the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula, which still held much of Spain in the early thirteenth century, and in sudden raids from the sea they carried off thousands of Christians, holding them as slaves in Granada and in their citadels along the African coast. He was later appointed tutor to the young king, James I of Aragon.

After making a pilgrimage to Our Lady of Montserrat at the Santa Maria de Montserrat monastery on the Montserrat Mountain in Catalonia, Spain, he began to practice various works of charity. Nolasco became concerned with the plight of Christians captured in Moorish raids, he consecrated the fortune he had inherited to the redemption of the captives taken on the seas by the Saracens. He was obsessed with the thought of their suffering, and desired to sell his own person to deliver his brethren and take their chains upon himself. God made it known to him how agreeable that desire was to Him. Because of these large sums of money he expended, Peter became penniless. He was without resources and powerless, when the Blessed Virgin appeared to him and said to him: Find for Me other men like yourself, an army of brave, generous, unselfish men, and send them into the lands where the children of the Faith are suffering. Peter went at once to Saint Raymond of Pennafort, his confessor, who had had a similar revelation and used his influence with King James I of Aragon and with Berengarius, Archbishop of Barcelona, to obtain approbation and support for the new community. On August 10, 1218, Peter and two companions were received as the first members of the congregation of men that became the Royal and Military Order of Our Lady of Mercy of the Redemption of the Captives (the Mercedarians). They were approved by Pope Gregory IX in 1230, and were also known as the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, dedicated to the recovery of Christian captives. To the three traditional vows of religion, its members joined a fourth, that of delivering their own persons to the overlords, if necessary, to ransom Christians.

The Order spread rapidly. Peter and his comrades traveled throughout Christian Spain, recruiting new members and collecting funds to purchase the captives. Then they began negotiations with the slave-owners. They penetrated Andalusia, crossed the sea to Tunis and Morocco, and brought home cargo after cargo of Christians. Peter governed his Order for thirty years, within which time he opened their prison doors to thousands of captives, whom his own incessant labors, joined with those of his disciples, rescued from a miserable fate, and, in all probability, from eternal death. Although Peter, as General of the Order, was occupied with its organization and administration, he made two trips to Africa where, besides liberating captives, he converted many Moors.

St. Peter Nolasco built in Spain the church of St. Mary del Puche. For four Saturdays, seven strange lights were seen at night over a certain spot, and looked like seven stars. They were observed to drop from heaven seven times, and disappear in the earth in the same place. St. Peter Nolasco felt certain that this strange phenomenon announced something; so he commanded men to dig about the spot. They had not gone far into the earth, when they came upon a clock of prodigious size, bearing a beautiful image of the Virgin Mary. Nolasco took it up in his arms as a valuable gift from heaven, and built an altar on the spot where it was buried. This altar became very celebrated for the number of miracles performed there.

Before his death, he called his children to his bedside, and exhorted them to perseverance in their love for captives. His words to them were those of the Psalmist: “I will praise Thee, O Lord, who hast sent redemption to Thy people!”

He had long and ardently cherished the desire of visiting the tomb of his patron, the Prince of the Apostles, whose name he bore, and was saddened at not finding an opportunity to execute this project. But now this holy Apostle appeared to him and addressed him: “Not all of our pious desires can be fulfilled. God is, however, satisfied with the intention. I know your longing to visit me at Rome; but such is not the good pleasure of the Lord. Yet, because you cannot visit me, I have now come to see you, and to assure you of my assistance till your last breath.” St. Peter Nolasco obtained a similar favor from his Guardian Angel and other Saints, who visibly appeared to him, no doubt to reward his special devotion to them. But Mary, the Queen of all Saints, gave him special proofs of her love and esteem. He saw her in person several times, and was filled with such sweet joy and consolation at her promise always to befriend him, that he cried out ecstatically at his last hour: “O how sweet it is to die under the protection of Mary.” He died after a long illness on Christmas night of 1256; he was canonized by Pope Urban VIII in 1628. His Order continues its religious services, now devoted to preaching and hospital service.

References and Excerpts

[1] J. G. Shea, Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources, New York: Benziger Brothers, 1894.
[2] “Saint Peter Nolasco, Confessor,” Catholic Harbor of Faith and Morals, [Online]. Available: http://catholicharboroffaithandmorals.com/Saint%20Peter%20Nolasco.html. [Accessed 28 December 2016].
[3] “Peter Nolasco,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Nolasco. [Accessed 28 December 2016].
[4] “Saint Peter Nolasco – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_peter_nolasco.html. [Accessed 28 December 2016].

Saint Peter Fourier

Feast Day December 9th

Parish Priest, Reformer of the Canons of Saint Augustine, Founder of the Canonesses of Notre Dame (1565-1640)

This priest of God was consecrated to Him before and at his birth by his pious parents. Fourier was born on 30 November 1565 in the village of Mirecourt, in what was then the Duchy of Lorraine, a part of the Holy Roman Empire (now the French department of Vosges), which was a bulwark of the Catholic Counter-Reformation. He was the eldest of the three sons of a cloth merchant and his wife, who were faithful Catholics. At the age of 15, his father enrolled him in the new Jesuit University of Pont-à-Mousson (eventually merged into the University of Lorraine).

His aptitude for study, his high stature and beauty added the gifts of nature to those of grace. The young man was noted in particular for his devotion to the Mother of God and his great modesty. It was a surprise to all when he chose to consecrate himself to God in a religious Order which at that time had degenerated from its original fervor, that of the Canons of Saint Augustine. He made application for entrance into the Abbey of Chaumouzey, founded in 1094, situated a short distance from his native village of Mirecourt in Lorraine. There he made the traditional vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in 1587, and was ordained a priest in February of 1589.

Before saying his first Mass he passed several months of retreat in the exercises of prayer, penance and tears. He was then sent to complete his theological studies at the University of Pont-au-Mousson, also in Lorraine. There, Father Jean Fourier, a relative who was Rector of that University, directed him admirably. His progress in virtue and the sacred sciences placed him high in the opinion of the Cardinal of Lorraine and Bishop of Metz, who desired to have him in his diocese; he offered him a parish where his talents would bring him advancement. But the young priest, wishing to flee all honors, declined, to return to his Abbey.

There, hell instigated against him a persecution; he was the brunt of raillery, threats, and intrigues, and an effort was made to poison him, which did not succeed. For two years he lived in the midst of contradictions without complaining in any way to his abbot, who seemed unaware of what was happening; he increased in patience and kindness towards his persecutors. Eventually he was again offered a choice of three parishes, two of which would provide opportunity for advancement, while the third was in a village regarded as incorrigible and backward.

Fourier passed over two prestigious options and accepted the post of vicar of the parish of Mattaincourt in order to combat the indifference to religion widespread in the town, and to counter nascent Calvinism in the area. He went on to spend the next twenty years of his life serving its people.

The Sacraments were neglected and the feast days profaned; the altars were bare and the church was deserted when he arrived.

Fourier was charged with preaching to the people of the Principality of Salm-Salm, which had embraced Calvinism. Within six months his gentle persuasion and efforts were rewarded with the re-establishment of Catholicism in the realm.

To this end, Fourier instituted two major reforms that showed his intelligence and concern for his flock. The first of these was to improve the financial lives of his community by setting up a community bank, from which the townspeople could borrow without interest. His motto in serving the parish was to feed only one person was of use to all. His second innovation was in his preaching style, where he employed dialogues with small groups of his parishioners to explain better their Catholic faith to them. He had his pupils engage in dialectics on Sundays on the various virtues and vices in practice by the congregation. This style proved immensely successful.

He instituted three sodalities, of St. Sebastian for men, of the Holy Rosary for women and of the Immaculate Conception for girls, or “Children of Mary”.

He began by visiting families and assembling two or three of them to talk to them of the truths of the faith. He did not go to the banquets which followed funerals and weddings, save to offer the prayer of blessing or make a short exhortation. He did not accept a housekeeper, even when his own stepmother offered to assist him. He prayed for the greater part of every night, and never refused to go where he was called, at any time or in any season. So little did he need for himself that he was able to give alms and assistance to the poor. He prayed before Jesus on the altar: You are the principal parish priest, I am only Your vicar. And permit me to say to You, with all the humility of my heart, that You are under obligation to make succeed what I cannot.

He desired to remedy the evils of the times by forming children to virtue; and Providence soon brought to him several young women who offered themselves for the instruction of young girls. Within the space of only a few years, six schools were founded in the region, and before he died, about forty. Blessed Alice LeClerc was the first Sister and first Superior of the Canonesses of Notre Dame, dedicated to the education of young women. For this purpose Saint Peter was obliged to confide his parish to his vicar for a time, to journey and obtain the various permissions and assistance necessary; but it was God’s work and all efforts succeeded.

His own parish was gradually being transformed into a model, and priests came to visit it. One of them reported to his bishop the marvels of devotion he had seen in Mattaincourt, and said he had asked the parish priest where he had studied; Saint Peter had answered that he had studied in the fourth — corresponding in America to about the ninth grade. Astonished, the visitor was yet more so when he learned that this modest priest had certainly studied in the fourth, as he had said, but out of horror for vainglory had wanted to dissimulate his years of higher studies.

The bishops were asking him to visit their parishes to preach missions where needed; the holy priest obeyed, amid his increasing tears and penance, as he perceived the vices and ignorance of the populations. He also was concerned to reestablish the discipline and fervor of his own Order, an effort which had failed several times. But in 1621 the Bishop of Toul, Monsignor de Porcelets, entrusted this work to Father Fourier. A house was found to begin the Reform, the vacant ancient Abbey of Saint Remi, and six excellent subjects were sent there under his direction. In four years, eight houses of the Order had adopted the Reform. A General Superior was named; for a time Father Fourier was able to avoid that office, but when the good Superior died, he was obliged to accept its functions. Attacked by the devil, his influence distorted by calumnies, Saint Peter’s only response was to spread everywhere devotion to the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. More than two centuries before the Miraculous Medal in 1830 and the proclamation of the dogma in 1854, he saw to the distribution of large quantities of a medal he had struck, on which were engraved the words: Mary was conceived without sin.

Saint Peter Fourier died in exile as an effect of the difficulties and political problems of the 1630’s; he found shelter in a province which was at that time under the Spanish crown, and there he died in 1640. His spiritual sons, his spiritual daughters, the good people of Gray in Bourgogne, who had welcomed him and whom he had served admirably during an epidemic of the pestilence, all wanted the honor of possessing his mortal remains. But so did also the parish of Mattaincourt. To the reformed Order of Saint Augustine this privilege was granted officially, but the pious women of Mattaincourt, blocking the church door, would not permit the Canons to resume their journey with the coffin, after they had stopped in his former parish for a day or so. His heart had already been left to the parish of Gray. Miracles have abounded at his tomb, as they did during his lifetime, by his prayers. He was canonized by Pope Leo XIII in 1897.

References and Excerpts

[1] Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol.

[2] “Peter Fourier.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Nov. 2016. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.

[3] Allaria, Anthony. “St. Peter Fourier.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 12 Dec. 2016 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11767b.htm>.

[4]Online, Catholic. “St. Peter Fourier – Saints & Angels – Catholic Online.” Catholic Online. Catholic Online, n.d. Web. 12 Dec. 2016.

Saint Gregory Thaumaturge -“Miracle-Worker”

Feast Day November 17

Bishop, Confessor (213- 270)

Saint Gregory, originally known as Theodore “Gift of God,” was born in Neocaesarea (now Turkey), of distinguished parents who were still engaged in the superstitions of paganism. His father had destined him for the legal profession, in which the art of oratory is necessary, and in this pursuit he was succeeding well, having learned Latin. He was introduced to the Christian religion at the age of fourteen, after the death of his father. Gregory and his brother Athenodorus, later to be a bishop like himself, on the advice of one of their tutors, were eager to study at the Berytus in Beirut, then one of the four or five famous schools in the Hellenic world. At this time, their brother-in-law was appointed assessor (legal counsel) to the Roman Governor of Palestine; the youths had therefore an occasion to act as an escort to their sister as far as Caesarea in Palestine. On arrival in that town they learned that the celebrated scholar Origen, head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, resided there. Curiosity led them to hear and converse with the master. Soon both youths forgot all about Beirut and Roman law, and gave themselves up to the great Christian teacher, who gradually won them over to Christianity.

Origen discovered in them a remarkable capacity for knowledge, and more important still, rare dispositions for virtue. Gregory took up at first the study of philosophy; theology was afterwards added, but his mind remained always inclined to philosophical study, so much so indeed that in his youth he cherished strongly the hope of demonstrating that the Christian religion was the only true and good philosophy. For seven years he underwent the mental and moral discipline of Origen, who strove to inspire love for truth in them and an ardent desire to attain greater knowledge and the possession of the Supreme Good. Gregory studied also in Alexandria for three years, after a persecution drove his master, Origen, from Palestine, but returned there with the famous exegete in 238. He was then baptized, and in the presence of a large audience delivered a speech in which he testified to his gratitude towards his teacher, praising his methods, and thanking God for so excellent a professor.

When he returned to his native city of Neocaesarea in the Pont, his friends urged him to seek high positions, but Gregory desired to retire into solitude and devote himself to prayer. For a time he did so, often changing his habitation, because the archbishop of the region desired to make him Bishop of Neocaesarea. Eventually he was obliged to consent. That city was very prosperous, and the inhabitants were corrupted by paganism. Saint Gregory, with Christian zeal and charity, and with the aid of the gift of miracles which he had received, began to attempt every means to bring them to the light of Christ. As he lay awake one night an elderly man entered his room, and pointed to a Lady of superhuman beauty who accompanied him, radiant with heavenly light. This elderly man was Saint John the Evangelist, and the Lady of Light was the Mother of God. She told Saint John to give Gregory the instruction he desired; thereupon he gave Saint Gregory a creed which contained in all its plenitude the doctrine of the Trinity. Saint Gregory consigned it to writing, directed all his preaching by it, and handed it down to his successors. This creed later preserved his flock from the Arian heresy.

He converted a pagan priest one day, when the latter requested a miracle, and a very large rock moved to another location at his command. The pagan priest abandoned all things to follow Christ afterwards. One day the bishop planted his staff beside the river which passed alongside the city and often ravaged it by floods. He commanded it never again to pass the limit marked by his staff, and in the time of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, who wrote of his miracles nearly a hundred years later, it had never done so. The bishop settled a conflict which was about to cause bloodshed between two brothers, when he prayed all night beside the lake whose possession they were disputing. It dried up and the miracle ended the difficulty.

When the persecution of Decius began in 250, the bishop counseled his faithful to depart and not expose themselves to trials perhaps too severe for their faith; and none fell into apostasy. He himself retired to a desert, and when he was pursued was not seen by the soldiers. On a second attempt they found him praying with his companion, the converted pagan priest, now a deacon; they had mistaken them the first time for trees. The captain of the soldiers was convinced this had been a miracle, and became a Christian to join him. Some of his Christians were captured, among them Saint Troadus the martyr, who merited the grace of dying for the Faith. The persecution ended at the death of the emperor in 251.

It is believed that Saint Gregory died in the year 270, on the 17th of November. Before his death he asked how many pagans still remained in the city, and was told there were only seventeen. He thanked God for the graces He had bestowed on the population, for when he arrived, there had been only seventeen Christians.

These are some of the many miracles he worked. Through his prayer, a mountain that prevented the construction of a church moved, a lake that was the cause of dissension between two brothers dried, and the flooding of the Icus River that was devastating the fields stopped. His staff planted along the border of the river took root, and was transformed into a great tree beyond whose limits the water would not pass. Many times he expelled devils from the idols and the bodies of possessed persons. Some of the many miracles he worked caused multitudes to enter the Catholic Faith. He also had the spirit of the Prophets, foretelling many future events.

References and Excerpts

[1] M. P. Guérin, Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, Paris: Bloud et Barral, 1882.
[2] “Saint Gregory Thaumaturge – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_gregory_thaumaturge.html. [Accessed 30 October 2016].
[3] “Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Thaumaturgus. [Accessed 30 October 2016].
[4] P. P. C. d. Oliveira, “St. Gregory Thaumaturgus – November 17,” Tradition In Action, 2002. [Online]. Available: http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j203sd_Gregory_11-17.html. [Accessed 30 October 2016].
[5] R. E. Guiley, Encyclopedia of Saints, New York City, NY: Facts on File, 2001.

Saint Quentin, Apostle of Amiens

Feast Day October 31

Martyr (+ 287)

Saint Quentin was a Roman, descended from a senatorial family. Full of zeal for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, he left his country and went into Gaul, accompanied by eleven other apostles sent from Rome. They separated to extend their campaign of evangelization to the various regions of France. Saint Quentin remained at Amiens and endeavored by his prayers and labors to make that region part of Our Lord’s inheritance. By the force of his words and works he preluded the glory of his martyrdom. He gave sight to the blind, vigor to paralytics, hearing to the deaf, and agility to the infirm, in the name of Our Lord, simply by the sign of the Cross. At all hours of the day he invoked his God in fervent supplications.

But this apostolate could not escape the notice of Rictiovarus, the Roman prosecutor who at that time represented Maximian Herculeus in Gaul. Saint Quentin was seized at Amiens, thrown into prison, and loaded with chains. Rictiovarus asked him: How does it happen that you, of such high nobility and the son of so distinguished a father, have given yourself up to so superstitious a religion, a folly, and that you adore an unfortunate man crucified by other men? Saint Quentin replied: It is sovereign nobility to adore the Creator of heaven and earth, and to obey willingly His divine commandments. What you call folly is supreme wisdom. What is there that is wiser than to recognize the unique true God, and to reject with disdain the counterfeits, which are mute, false and deceiving?

When the holy preacher was found to be invulnerable to either promises or threats, the prosecutor condemned him to the most barbarous torture. He was stretched on the rack and flogged. He prayed for strength, for the honor and glory of the name of God, forever blessed. He was returned to the prison when the executioners who were striking him fell over backwards, and told Rictiovarus they were unable to stand up, and could scarcely speak. An Angel released the prisoner during the night, telling him to go and preach in the city, and that the persecutor would soon fall before the justice of God. His sermon, a commented paraphrase of the Apostles’ Creed, has been conserved. To his profession of faith in the Holy Trinity, he added that Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he adored, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick and even life to the dead. At His voice, the lame leaped up and ran, paralytics walked, and water was changed into wine… He has promised to be forever with those who hope in Him, and He never abandons those who place their hope in Him; by His omnipotence He delivers them, whenever it pleases Him, from all their tribulations. His guardians discovered that he had disappeared, though all doors were barred, and found him in the city preaching. They were converted by the prodigy. But Rictiovarus was furious and said to them: You, too, have become magicians?

Brought back before the tribunal as a sorcerer, Saint Quentin said: If by persevering in my faith, I am put to death by you, I will not cease to live in Jesus Christ; this is my hope, I maintain it with confidence. He was again placed on the rack and beaten, and tortured with other demoniacal means; his flesh pierced with two iron wires from the shoulders to the thighs, and iron nails were thrust into his fingers, his skull and body. Finally, this glorious martyr was decapitated, after praying and saying: O Lord Jesus, God of God, Light of Light…, for love of whom I have given up my body to all the torments… ah! I implore Thee, in Thy holy mercy, receive my spirit and soul, which I offer Thee with all the ardor of my desires. Do not abandon me, O most kind King, most clement King, who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, forever and ever!

His death occurred on October 31, 287.

His body was twice buried secretly, and twice it was rediscovered miraculously — in the year 338 Saint Eusebie, a blind woman, born of a senatorial family, came from Rome (following a divine order) and miraculously discovered the body. The intact remains of Quentin came into view, arising from the water and emanating an odor of sanctity. She buried his body at the top of a mountain near Augusta Veromanduorum (because the chariot on which the saint’s body lay could not go further). She built a small chapel to protect the tomb and recovered her sight.
The Second time was in 641, near the city of Augusta, by Saint Eloi. When he found the tomb, the sky night was lit and the odor of sanctity was evident, he also rebuilt the church (now the Saint-Quentin basilica). Saint Quentin remains in great honor in France above all, where more than fifty-two churches and as many localities were, at the beginning of the 20th century, dedicated to his memory; he is honored also in Belgium and in Italy. Charlemagne and the kings of France have gone to venerate the relics of Saint Quentin.

References and Excerpts

[1]     M. P. Guérin, Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, Paris: Bloud et Barral, 1882.
[2]     “Saint Quentin – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_quentin.html. [Accessed 5 October 2016].
[3]     “Saint Quentin – Wikipedia,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Quentin. [Accessed 5 October 2016].

Saint Nicholas of Tolentino

Feast day September 10

Confessor (1245-1310)

This Patron of the Universal Church was born in 1245, in answer to the prayer of a holy mother. His parents, said to have been called Compagnonus de Guarutti and Amata de Guidiani, were pious folk, perhaps gentle born, living content with a small substance. His mother was a model of holiness. They were childless until a pilgrimage to a shrine of the original Saint Nicholas at Bari, Italy where his mother asked for a son whom she promised to dedicate to God’s service. When her wish was granted, she named the boy Nicholas. Saint Nicholas of Tolentino never lost his baptismal innocence.

He soon gave unusual signs of saintliness. Already at seven he would hide away in a nearby cave and pray there like the hermits whom he had observed in the mountains. His religious formation was greatly influenced by the spirituality of the hermits of Brettino, one of the congregations which came to form part of the “Grand Union” of Augustinians in 1256. Their communities were located in the region of the March where Nicholas was born and raised. Characteristic of these early hermits was a great emphasis on poverty, rigorous practices of fasting and abstinence, and long periods of the day devoted to communal and private prayer.

After hearing the inspired preaching by Reginaldo da Monterubbiano, Prior (local superior) of the Augustinian monastery in Sant’Angelo, he felt a call to embrace the religious life. His parents gave a joyful consent. His piousness so impressed the Bishop of Fermo that he permitted Nicholas to join the minor orders as young boy.

A studious, kind and gentle youth, at the age of 16 Nicholas became an Augustinian Friar and was a student of the Blessed Angelus de Scarpetti. A monk at the monasteries at Recanati and Macerata.

His austerities as a very young religious were conspicuous even in the austere Order to which he belonged. To the protests of his superiors he only replied, “How can I be said to fast, while every morning at the altar I receive my God?” The demons undertook a war against his spirit of prayer, going so far as to beat him and leave him inert on the floor, but they could not separate his soul from his Lord. He did, however, remain lame for life.

He was ordained in 1270 at the age of 25, and soon became known for his preaching and teachings.

Saint Nicholas frequently went out of his monastery to beg for aid to the poor. He visited prisoners and the dying to administer the Last Sacraments. He quickly won over the trust and love of the locals; he was often called upon to pray for the deceased loved ones and was affectionately referred to as the “Patron of Holy Souls”. On account of his kind and gentle manner his superiors entrusted him with the daily feeding of the poor at the monastery gates, but at times he was so free with the friary’s provisions that the procurator begged the superior to check his generosity. Once, when weak after a long fast, he received a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Augustine who told him to eat some bread marked with cross and dipped in water. Upon doing so he was immediately stronger. He started distributing these rolls to the ailing, while praying to Mary, often curing the sufferers; this is the origin of the Augustinian custom of blessing and distributing Saint Nicholas Bread.

During his life, Nicholas is said to have received visions, including images of Purgatory, which friends ascribed to his lengthy fasts. Prayer for the souls in purgatory was the outstanding characteristic of his spirituality. Because of this Nicholas was proclaimed patron of the souls in Purgatory, in 1884 by Leo XIII.

He conceived an ardent charity for the holy souls of purgatory, so near and yet so far from their Saviour. Often, after his Mass, it was revealed to him that the souls for whom he had offered the Holy Sacrifice had been admitted to the presence of God.

Nicholas, who had had visions of angels reciting “to Tolentino”, in 1274 took this as a sign to move to that city, where he lived the rest of his life. Nicholas worked to counteract the decline of morality and religion which came with the development of city life in the late thirteenth century. In Tolentino, Nicholas worked as a peacemaker in a city torn by strife between the Guelphs and Ghibellines who, in the conflict for control of Italy, supported the Pope and the Holy Roman Emperor respectively. He ministered to his flock, helped the poor and visited prisoners. When working wonders or healing people, he always asked those he helped to “Say nothing of this”, explaining that he was just God’s instrument.

There are many tales and legends which relate to Nicholas. One says the devil once beat him with a stick, which was then displayed for years in his church. In another, during an illness, he was ordered to eat meat by a physician, which he had made a vow never to do. A plate containing well-prepared fowl was brought to him. In the presence of several witnesses, he made the sign of the cross over it, and the bird flew away out the window.

Nine passengers on a ship going down at sea once asked Nicholas’ aid, and he appeared in the sky, wearing the black Augustinian habit, radiating golden light, holding a lily in his left hand, and with his right hand, he quelled the storm. An apparition of the saint, it is said, once saved the burning palace of the Doge of Venice by throwing a piece of blessed bread on the flames. He was also reported to have resurrected over one hundred dead children, on one occasion bringing back to life several who had been under water for several days.

According to the Peruvian chronicler Antonio de la Calancha, it was St. Nicholas of Tolentino who made possible a permanent Spanish settlement in the rigorous, high-altitude climate of Potosí, Bolivia. He reported that all children born to Spanish colonists there died in childbirth or soon thereafter, until a father dedicated his unborn child to St. Nicholas of Tolentino (whose own parents, after all, had required saintly intervention to have a child). The colonist’s son, born on Christmas Eve, 1598, survived to healthy adulthood, and many later parents followed the example of naming their sons Nicolás.

He was known for his humility, meekness and sanctity. His preaching, instructions and work in the confessional brought about numerous conversions, and his many miracles were responsible for more, yet he was careful not to take any credit for these miracles. “Say nothing of this,” he would insist, “give thanks to God, not to me. I am only a vessel of clay, a poor sinner.”

“He was a joy to those who were sad, a consolation to the suffering, peace to those at variance, refreshment to those who toiled, support for the poor, and a healing balm for prisoners.”

Nicholas’ reputation as a saintly man and a worker of miracles led many people to the monastery of Tolentino.

During the year preceding his death, a star always appeared over the altar where he said his Mass; afterwards it would conduct him to his cell, or lead him back again, later, to the altar. Amid his loving labors for God and man, he was haunted by thoughts of his own unworthiness. The heavens, said he, are not pure in the sight of Him whom I serve; how then shall I, a sinful man, stand before Him? One day, as he pondered on the greatness of God and his own nothingness, Mary, Queen of all Saints, appeared before him. Fear not, Nicholas, She said, all is well with you: My Son bears you in His Heart, and I am your protection. Then his soul was at rest.

At the hour of his death, which occurred on September 10, 1310, he heard, it is said, the songs which the Angels sing in the presence of their Lord. He died and was buried in the chapel where he was accustomed to offer Holy Mass and say his prayers. He was canonized in 1446 by Pope Eugene IV. Three hundred and one miracles were recognized during the process. His tomb has become renowned by many more, despite the fact that his relics have been lost, save for two arms from which blood still exudes when the Church is menaced by a great danger. This occurred, for example, when the island of Cyprus was taken over by infidels in 1570. The religious of Saint Augustine continue to maintain the service of the large basilica of Saint Nicholas in Tolentino. Saint Nicholas of Tolentino, like Saint Joseph, virginal father of Jesus, has been declared a Patron of the Universal Church.

References and Excerpts

[1]     J. G. Shea, Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, New York: Benziger Brothers, 1894.
[2]     “Lives of the Saints, St. Nicholas of Tolentino,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_nicholas_of_tolentino.html . [Accessed 1 September 2016].
[3]     “Nicholas of Tolentino,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_of_Tolentino. [Accessed 1 September 2016].
[4]     “Our Patron – Nicholas of Tolentino,” Helpers of the Holy Souls, [Online]. Available: http://www.helpersoftheholysouls.com/ourpatron.htm. [Accessed 1 September 2016].

Saint John Vianney

Feast day August 9

Curé of Ars, Confessor (1786-1859)

Saint Vianney was born on 8 May 1786, three years before the French Revolution, in the town of Dardilly, France (near Lyon), and was baptized the same day. His parents, Matthieu Vianney and his wife Marie (Beluze), had six children, of whom John was the fourth. The Vianneys were devout Catholics, who helped the poor and gave hospitality to St. Benedict Joseph Labre, the patron saint of tramps, who passed through Dardilly on his pilgrimage to Rome.

By 1790, the anticlerical Terror phase of the French Revolution forced many loyal priests to hide from the regime in order to carry out the sacraments in their parish. Even though to do so had been declared illegal, the Vianneys travelled to distant farms to attend Masses celebrated by priests on the run. Realizing that such priests risked their lives day by day, Vianney began to look upon them as heroes. He received his First Communion catechism instructions in a private home by two nuns whose communities had been dissolved during the Revolution. He made his first communion at the age of 13.

From his earliest years he was noted for his candor, piety, love for the Blessed Virgin, and charity for the poor.

The Catholic Church was re-established in France in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte, resulting in religious peace throughout the country, culminating in a Concordat. By this time, Vianney was concerned about his future vocation and longed for an education. He was 20 when his father allowed him to leave the farm to be taught at a “presbytery-school” in the neighbouring village of Écully, conducted by the Abbé Balley. The school taught arithmetic, history, geography and Latin. Vianney struggled with school, especially with Latin, since his past education had been interrupted by the French Revolution. Only because of Vianney’s deepest desire to be a priest—and Balley’s patience—did he persevere.

Vianney’s studies were interrupted in 1809 when he was drafted into Napoleon’s armies. He would have been exempt, as an ecclesiastical student, but Napoleon had withdrawn the exemption in certain dioceses because of his need for soldiers in his fight against Spain. Two days after he had to report at Lyons, he became ill and was hospitalized, during which time his draft left without him. Once released from the hospital, on 5 January, he was sent to Roanne for another draft. He went into a church to pray, and fell behind the group. An imperial decree proclaimed in March 1810 granted amnesty to all deserters, which enabled Vianney to go back legally to Ecully, where he resumed his studies. He was tonsured in 1811, and in 1812 he went to the minor seminary at Verrières-en-Forez. In autumn of 1813, he was sent to major seminary at Lyons. Considered too slow, he was returned to Abbe Balley. However, Balley persuaded the Vicar general that Vianney’s piety was great enough to compensate for his ignorance, and the seminarian received minor orders and the subdiaconate on 2 July 1814, was ordained a deacon in June 1815. St Vianney desired to become a priest and reached the altar through his piety rather than through his talents. The bishop asked, however, whether he was pious; and when he heard that Vianney said his Rosary like an Angel, ordained him on 12 August 1815 in the Couvent des Minimes de Grenoble. Vianney said his first Mass the next day, and was appointed assistant to Balley in Écully. After a few years of parish work as an Assistant Pastor, in 1817 he was placed in charge of the parish of Ars, a small village considered backward and scarcely half-Christian. On his way there, solitary and in poverty, when he saw in the distance the steeple of the church, he knelt and prayed God to bless his ministry.

Situations calling for “impossible” deeds followed him everywhere. As pastor of the parish at Ars, John encountered people who were indifferent and quite comfortable with their style of living. His vision led him through severe fasts and short nights of sleep. (Some devils can only be cast out by prayer and fasting.)

His first concern was to visit his parishioners, and he soon won them over by his far-from-ordinary virtue. To their indifference to religion, then, a profoundly Christian spirit succeeded, and one saw the Lord’s day observed to perfection; under the influence of a Saint, the parish of Ars became like a religious community.

With Catherine Lassagne and Benedicta Lardet, he established La Providence, a home for girls. Only a man of vision could have such trust that God would provide for the spiritual and material needs of all those who came to make La Providence their home.

Word of this transformation passed from one person to another and soon, from many surrounding regions people came to hear him, enter humbly into the confessional, and obtain miracles. These he attributed to Saint Philomena, whose tomb had recently been discovered, and whom he called his dear little Saint. He was very attentive to the beauty of the sanctuary, to the preparation of his sermons, and to the orphanage which he founded; no application was excessive where these were concerned. For himself he was unsparing, sleeping in a damp basement and persecuted there incessantly by the devil.

His work as a confessor is John Vianney’s most remarkable accomplishment. In the winter months he was to spend 11 to 12 hours daily reconciling people with God. In the summer months this time was increased to 16 hours. Unless a man was dedicated to his vision of a priestly vocation, he could not have endured this giving of self-day after day. As his fame spread, more hours were consumed in serving God’s people. Even the few hours he would allow himself for sleep were disturbed frequently by the devil.

It has been said of more than one person, of more than one Saint, that they were the prodigies of their century. This is perhaps true of no one more than of the Curé of Ars. This man, who was so remarkably humble, for about thirty years saw the whole world, as it were, attentive to his virtues, the entire Christian world at his feet. He is certainly a marvel of the pastoral apostolate and sanctity.

Many people look forward to retirement and taking it easy, doing the things they always wanted to do but never had the time. But John Vianney had no thoughts of retirement.

The reputation of this humble country priest had spread over Europe, and from everywhere there came impious scoffers, unbelievers, and libertines, as well as fervent Christians and those in sorrow; the former were converted by the thousands, the latter consoled and strengthened for their combats. He spent ordinarily from sixteen to eighteen hours daily in the confessional, in winter with his feet on an unheated stone floor; and the rest of his time in preaching, prayer, and teaching catechism in the church. He died at the advanced age of 73, despite his unrelenting penance and long-standing rheumatism, and loved by the whole world.

In 1929, Pope Pius XI named him the patron of parish priests worldwide.

References and Excerpts

[1] Wikipedia, “John Vianney,” [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vianney. [Accessed 2 August 2016].
[2] “Saint John-Marie Vianney – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_john_vianney.html. [Accessed 2 August 2016].
[3] “Saint John Vianney – Saint of the Day,” American Catholic, [Online]. Available: http://www.americancatholic.org/Features/Saints/saint.aspx?id=1097. [Accessed 2 August 2016].
[4] M. F. Trochu, in Life of the Curé of Ars, Tours, 1950.

Saint John Gualbert

Feast -July 12

Founder of the Vallombrosa Order (999-1073)

Saint John Gualbert was born in Florence in the year 999. He was raised with care in piety and the study of the humanities, but no sooner had he entered adult life than he acquired a taste for pleasures. God, desiring to save and sanctify him, found a means to open his eyes. He was following the profession of arms at that troubled period, when on Good Friday, as he was riding into Florence accompanied by armed men, he encountered his brother’s murderer in a place where neither could avoid the other. John would have slain him, according to the customary vengeance of those times; but his adversary, who was totally unprepared to fight, fell upon his knees with his arms outstretched in the form of a cross, and implored him, for the sake of Our Lord’s holy Passion, to spare his life. Saint John said to his enemy, I cannot refuse what you ask in Christ’s name. I grant you not only your life, but my friendship. Pray that God may forgive me my sin! They embraced and parted; grace had triumphed.

A humble and changed man, he went to a nearby abbatial church, and while he prayed with fervor for forgiveness, the figure of our crucified Lord, before which he was kneeling, bowed its head toward him, as if to confirm His pardon and manifest His gratitude for the generous pardon John himself had granted. Abandoning the world then, Saint John devoted himself to prayer and penance and became a Benedictine monk at San Miniato. His virtue and austerity were so great that when his abbot died, he was unanimously chosen to replace him; but he could not be prevailed upon to accept that honor.

He fought actively against simony, (of which both his abbot, Oberto, and the Bishop of Florence, Pietro Mezzabarba, were accused). Unwilling to compromise he left the monastery to lead a more perfect life. His attraction was for the cenobitic, and not eremitic life, so after staying for some time with the monks at Camaldoli, he finally settled at Valle Ombrosa in Tuscany. Together with two hermits whom he found there, he and his companions built a small monastery, observing the primitive rule of St. Benedict. Thus was laid the foundation of the Order of Vallombrosa. The area surrounding his monastery at Vallombrosa was wild and deserted when he first arrived. John thought that it would be more conducive to contemplation and discipline if the grounds were better kept. But instead of a traditional garden, he opted to have his monks plant trees (firs and pines mostly), creating a park and nature preserve to enhance the prayerful environment.

The humility of the saint was such that he would never be promoted, even to Minor Orders. His charity for the poor caused him to make a rule that no indigent person should be sent away without an alms.

Once during a time of famine, he went to the nearly empty storeroom, and at his prayer the provisions multiplied to the point that he could distribute grain to all his houses and to all the poor who presented themselves. On an occasion when he found one of the monasteries too rich, he prayed a stream flowing past it to take on the violence of a torrent and overturn the building. This was done without delay. Another time, the enemies of the Saint came to his convent of Saint Salvi, plundered it and set fire to it and, after treating the monks with ignominy, beat them and injured them. Saint John rejoiced. Now, he said, you are true monks. Oh, how I envy your lot!

After a life of great austerity, he died while Angels were singing near his bed, on July 12, 1073.

References and Excerpts

[1] J. G. Shea, Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources, New York: Benziger Brothers, 1894.
[2] C. Online, “St. John Gaulbert, Abbot,” [Online]. Available: http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=358. [Accessed 2 July 2016].
[3] Wikipedia, “John Gaulbert,” [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gualbert. [Accessed 2 July 2016].
[4] Magnificat, “Lives of the Saints, Saint John Gualbert,” 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_john_gualbert.html. [Accessed 2 July 2016].

Saint Basil the Great

Feast June 14th

Bishop, Doctor of the Church (329-379)

Basil was born into the wealthy family of Basil the Elder, a famous rhetor, and Emmelia of Caesarea, in Pontus, around 330. His parents were renowned for their piety. His maternal grandfather was a Christian martyr, executed in the years prior to Constantine I’s conversion. His pious widow, Macrina, herself a follower of Gregory Thaumaturgus (who had founded the nearby church of Neocaesarea), raised Basil and his four siblings Macrina the Younger, Naucratius, Peter of Sebaste and Gregory of Nyssa. Peter and Gregory became bishops, and with his mother and his sister, are honored as Saints.

Basil received more formal education in Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia (modern-day Kayseri, Turkey) around 350-51.

He studied with great success in Athens, where he formed a tender and perpetual friendship with Saint Gregory Nazianzen. At the time he taught oratory. The study of philosophy had already raised him above all worldly ambition, causing him to dread the honors of the world. At the end of his sojourn at Athens, Basil was well equipped to be a teacher. He refused the splendid offers of the citizens of Neo-Caesarea, who wished him to undertake the education of the youth of their city. Basil’s life changed radically after he encountered Eustathius of Sebaste, a charismatic bishop and ascetic. Abandoning his legal and teaching career, Basil devoted his life to God. A letter described his spiritual awakening: “I had wasted much time on follies and spent nearly all of my youth in vain labors, and devotion to the teachings of a wisdom that God had made foolish. Suddenly, I awoke as out of a deep sleep. I beheld the wonderful light of the Gospel truth, and I recognized the nothingness of the wisdom of the princes of this world.”

He gave up all things to become the father of monastic life in the East. His older sister, Saint Macrina, encouraged him when he abandoned the greater part of his inheritance.

He retired into Pontus, where his sister was the Superior of a convent, into which his mother also had entered; there he founded a monastery on the opposite side of the river from the convent, and governed it from 358 to 362. He founded several other religious houses in the same region, both for men and for women. It was for them that he composed his ascetic works, including his famous “Rule,” still followed by the monks of the Orient.

He then resigned, leaving his office to his brother, Saint Peter of Sebastus, to retire in prayer. Saint Gregory came to join his friend for a time, in response to his invitation. Ever afterwards, Basil would recall with regret the peace and happiness they had enjoyed, singing Psalms, studying Scripture, keeping vigil in prayer, and disciplining their flesh by manual work. It was only in 363 that this holy hermit was ordained a priest by Eusebius of Caesarea in Cappadocia.

The Arian heretics, supported by the court, were then persecuting the Church, and Basil was summoned from his retirement by his bishop to give aid against them. His energy and zeal soon mitigated the disorders of the Church, and his solid and eloquent words silenced the heretics.

In 370, Eusebius died, and Basil was chosen to succeed him, and was consecrated bishop on June 14, 370. His new post as bishop of Caesarea also gave him the powers of exarch of Pontus and metropolitan of five suffragan bishops, many of whom had opposed him in the election for Eusebius’s successor. It was then that his great powers were called into action. Hot-blooded and somewhat imperious, Basil was also generous and sympathetic. He personally organized a soup kitchen and distributed food to the poor during a famine following a drought. He gave away his personal family inheritance to benefit the poor of his diocese.

His letters show that he actively worked to reform thieves and prostitutes. They also show him encouraging his clergy not to be tempted by wealth or the comparatively easy life of a priest, and that he personally took care in selecting worthy candidates for holy orders. He also had the courage to criticize public officials who failed in their duty of administering justice. At the same time, he preached every morning and evening in his own church to large congregations. In addition to all the above, he built a large complex just outside Caesarea, called the Basiliad, which included a poorhouse, hospice, and hospital, and was compared by Gregory of Nazianzus to the wonders of the world

When Saint Basil was summoned by the emperor Valentius to admit the Arians to Communion, the prefect in charge, finding that soft words had no effect, said to him, “Are you mad, that you resist the will before which the whole world bows? Do you not dread the wrath of the emperor, nor exile, nor death?” “No,” said Basil calmly; “he who has nothing to lose need not dread loss of goods; you cannot exile me, for the whole earth is my home; as for death, it would be the greatest kindness you could bestow upon me; torments cannot harm me; one blow would end both my frail life and my sufferings.” The prefect answered, “Never has anyone dared to address me thus.” “Perhaps,” suggested Basil, “you never before measured your strength with a Christian bishop.” The emperor desisted from his commands.

Saint Basil’s entire life was one of suffering, both physical and moral; he lived amidst jealousies, misunderstandings and seeming disappointments. However, he sowed the seed which bore good fruit in future generations. He was God’s instrument to resist the Arians and other heretics in the East, and to restore the spirit of discipline and fervor in the Church. He died peacefully in 379 at the age of fifty-one, and is venerated as a Doctor of the Church.

 

References and Excerpts

[1] “St. Basil the Great,” New Advent, 2012. [Online]. Available: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02330b.htm. [Accessed 1 June 2016].

[2] “Basil of Caesarea,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_of_Caesarea. [Accessed 1 June 2016].

[3] “Saint Basil the Great,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_basil_the_great.html. [Accessed 1 June 2016].