These seven holy brothers suffered martyrdom under Antiochus in the second century before Christ.

St. Alphonsus. This Neapolitan nobleman renounced all earthly things. He established the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists) to preach the Gospel to the poor. Illustrious by his preaching and writings, he was made to accept the bishopric of St. Agatha, in Southern Italy. He returned to his Congregation and died in 1787.

St. Stephen I, Pope, Martyr. St. Stephen was beheaded by the persecutors towards the end of the Mass he was celebrating, while seated in the Episcopal chair in the Catacombs in 257.
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ST. ALPHONSUS was born of noble parents, near Naples, in 1696. His spiritual training was entrusted to the Fathers of the Oratory in that city, and from his boyhood Alphonsus was known as a most devout Brother of the Little Oratory. At the early age of 16 he was made doctor in law, and he threw himself into this career with ardor and success.

A mistake, by which he lost an important cause, showed him the vanity of human fame, and determined him to labor only for the glory of God. He entered the priesthood, devoting himself to the most neglected souls; and to carry on this work he founded later the missionary Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. At the age of 66 he became Bishop of St. Agatha, and undertook the reform of his diocese with the zeal of a Saint. He made a vow never to lose time, and, though his life was spent in prayer and work, he composed a vast number of books, filled with such science, unction, and wisdom that he has been declared one of the Doctors of the Church.

St. Alphonsus wrote his first book at the age of 49, and in his 83rd year had published about 60 volumes, when his director forbade him to write more. Very many of these books were written in the half-hours snatched from his labors as missionary, religious superior, and Bishop, or in the midst of continual bodily and mental sufferings. With his left hand he would hold a piece of marble against his aching head while his right hand wrote. Yet he counted no time wasted which was spent in charity. He did not refuse to hold a long correspondence with a simple soldier who asked his advice, or to play the harpsichord while he taught his novices to sing spiritual canticles. He lived in evil times, and met with many persecutions and disappointments. For his last seven years he was prevented by constant sickness from offering the Adorable Sacrifice; but he received Holy Communion daily, and his love for Jesus Christ and his trust in Mary’s prayers sustained him to the end. He died in 1787, in his 91st year.

Reflection—Let us do with all our heart the duty of each day, leaving the result to God, as well as the care of the future.

St. Stephen I, Pope, Martyr. St. Stephen was beheaded by the persecutors towards the end of the Mass he was celebrating, while seated in the Episcopal chair in the Catacombs in 257.
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The second festival in honor of the holy protomartyr ST. STEPHEN was instituted by the Church on the occasion of the discovery of his precious remains. His body lay long concealed, under the ruins of an old tomb, in a place 20 miles from Jerusalem, called Caphargamala, where stood a church which was served by a venerable priest named Lucian. In the year 415, on Friday, the 3rd of December, about nine o’clock at night, Lucian was sleeping in his bed in the baptistery, where he commonly lay in order to guard the sacred vessels of the church. Being half awake, he saw a tall, comely old man of a venerable aspect, who approached him, and, calling him thrice by his name, bid him go to Jerusalem and tell Bishop John to come and open the tombs in which his remains and those of certain other servants of Christ lay, that through their means God might open to many the gates of His clemency.

This vision was repeated twice. After the second time, Lucian went to Jerusalem and laid the whole affair before Bishop John, who bade him go and search for the relics, which, the Bishop concluded, would be found under a heap of small stones which lay in a field near his church. In digging up the earth here, three coffins or chests were found. Lucian sent immediately to acquaint Bishop John with this. He was then at the Council of Diospolis, and, taking along with him Eutonius, Bishop of Sebaste, and Eleutherius, Bishop of Jericho, came to the place. Upon the opening of St. Stephen’s coffin the earth shook, and there came out of the coffin such an agreeable odor that no one remembered to have ever smelled anything like it. There was a vast multitude of people assembled in that place, among whom were many persons afflicted with divers distempers, of whom seventy-three recovered their health upon the spot. They kissed the holy relics, and then shut them up. The Bishop consented to leave a small portion of them at Caphargamala; the rest were carried in the coffin with singing of psalms and hymns, to the Church of Sion at Jerusalem. The translation was performed on the 26th of December, on which day the Church hath ever since honored the memory of St. Stephen, commemorating the discovery of his relics on the 3rd of August probably on account of the dedication of some church in his honor.

Reflection—St. Austin, speaking of the miracles of St. Stephen, addresses himself to his flock as follows: “Let us so desire to obtain temporal blessings by his intercession that we may merit, in imitating him, those which are eternal.”

Dominic Guzman, born in Spain, opposed the disorders of the Albigenses. He founded the Order of the Friars Preachers, propagated devotion to the Rosary, and saved the Western Church from heresy and anarchy. He died in 1221.
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ST. DOMINIC was born in Spain, in 1170. As a student, he sold his books to feed the poor in a famine, and offered himself in ransom for a slave. At the age of 25 he became superior of the Canons Regular of Osma, and accompanied his Bishop to France. There his heart was well-nigh broken by the ravages of the Albigensian heresy, and his life was henceforth devoted to the conversion of heretics and the defense of the Faith. For this end he established his threefold religious Order. The convent for nuns was founded first, to rescue young girls from heresy and crime. Then a company of apostolic men gathered around him, and became the Order of Friar Preachers. Lastly came the Tertiaries, persons of both sexes living in the world. God blessed the new Order, and France, Italy, Spain, and England welcomed the Preaching Friars. Our Lady took them under her special protection, and whispered to St. Dominic as he preached.

It was in 1208, while St. Dominic knelt in the little chapel of Notre Dame de la Prouille, and implored the great Mother of God to save the Church, that Our Lady appeared to him, gave him the Rosary, and bade him go forth and preach. Beads in hand, he revived the courage of the Catholic troops, led them to victory against overwhelming numbers, and finally crushed the heresy. His nights were spent in prayer; and, though pure as a virgin, thrice before morning broke he scourged himself to blood. His words rescued countless souls, and three times raised the dead to life. At length, on August 6, 1221, at the age of 51, he gave up his soul to God.

Reflection—“God has never,” said St. Dominic, “refused me what I have asked”; and he has left us the Rosary, that we may learn, with Mary’s help, to pray easily and simply in the same holy trust.

This Basilica of Our Lady of the Snow, called also St. Mary Major, was built on the Esquiline at Rome by Pope Liberius (352-366). Popular tradition relates that the site was traced out by a miraculous fall of snow on this date, which is that of the Feast of the Church’s Dedication.
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There are in Rome three patriarchal churches, in which the Pope officiates on different festivals. These are the basilicas of St. John Lateran, St. Peter’s on the Vatican Hill, and ST. MARY MAJOR. This last is so called because it is, both in antiquity and dignity, the first church in Rome among those that are dedicated to God in honor of the Virgin Mary. The name of the Liberian basilica was given it because it was founded in the time of Pope Liberius, in the fourth century; it was consecrated, under the title of the Virgin Mary, by Sixtus III, about the year 435. It is also called ST. MARY AD NIVES, or at the snow, from a popular tradition that the Mother of God chose this place for a church under her invocation by a miraculous snow that fell upon this spot in summer, and by a vision in which she appeared to a patrician named John, who munificently founded and endowed this church in the pontificate of Liberius. The same basilica has sometimes been known by the name of St. Mary ad Praesepe, from the holy crib or manger of Bethlehem, in which Christ was laid at His birth. It resembles an ordinary manger, is kept in a case of massive silver, and in it lies an image of a little child, also of silver. On Christmas Day the holy Manger is taken out of the case, and exposed. It is kept in a sumptuous subterraneous chapel in this church.

Reflection—To render our supplications the more efficacious, we ought to unite them in spirit to those of all fervent penitents and devout souls, in invoking this advocate for sinners.

The Gospel of this Mass gives a full description of the wonderful Transfiguration of our Lord on Mount Thabor.
St. Sixtus (or Xystus) II and two of his deacons, St. Felicissimus and St. Agapitus, were martyred during the persecution of Decius in 258.
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Our divine Redeemer, being in Galilee about a year before His sacred Passion, took with Him St. Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, Sts. James and John, and led them to a retired mountain. Tradition assures us that this was Mount Thabor, which is exceedingly high and beautiful, and was anciently covered with green trees and shrubs, and was very fruitful. It rises something like a sugar-loaf, in a vast plain in the middle of Galilee. This was the place in which the Man-God appeared in His glory. Whilst Jesus prayed, He suffered that glory which was always due to His sacred humility, and of which, for our sake, He deprived it, to diffuse a ray over His whole body. His face was altered and shone as the sun, and His garments became white as snow. Moses and Elias were seen by the three apostles in His company on this occasion, and were heard discoursing with Him of the death which He was to suffer in Jerusalem.

The three apostles were wonderfully delighted with this glorious vision, and St. Peter cried out to Christ, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tents: one for Thee, one for Moses, and one for Elias” Whilst St. Peter was speaking, there came, on a sudden, a bright shining cloud from heaven, an emblem of the presence of God’s majesty, and from out of this cloud was heard a voice which said, “This is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him” The apostles that were present, upon hearing this voice, were seized with a sudden fear, and fell upon the ground; but Jesus, going to them, touched them, and bade them to rise. They immediately did so, and saw no one but Jesus standing in his ordinary state. This vision happened in the night. As they went down the mountain early the next morning, Jesus bade them not to tell anyone what they had seen till He should be risen from the dead.

ST. SIXTUS (or Xystus) II and two of his deacons, ST. FELICISSIMUS and ST. AGAPITUS, were martyred during the persecution of Decius in 258.

Reflection—From the contemplation of this glorious mystery we ought to conceive a true idea of future happiness; if this once possess our souls, we will think nothing of any difficulties or labors we can meet with here, but regard with great indifference all the goods and evils of this life, provided we can but secure our portion in the kingdom of God’s glory.

St. Cajetan founded the Order of Theatines, who endeavored to imitate the Apostles in absolute poverty, trusting alone in the divine Providence. The “Hunter of souls,” as he was called, died in 1547, after a life of extraordinary austerity and mystical experiences.
St. Donatus, Bishop of Arezzo, in Tuscany, was beheaded under the Emperor Julian the Apostate in 361.
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CAJETAN was born at Vicenza, in 1480, of pious and noble parents, who dedicated him to our blessed Lady. From childhood he was known as the Saint, and in later years as “the hunter of souls” A distinguished student, he left his native town to seek obscurity in Rome, but was there forced to accept office at the court of Julius II. On the death of that Pontiff he returned to Vicenza, and disgusted his relatives by joining the Confraternity of St. Jerome, whose members were drawn from the lowest classes; while he spent his fortune in building hospitals, and devoted himself to nursing the plague-stricken. To renew the lives of the clergy, he instituted the first community of Regular Clerks, known as Theatines. They devoted themselves to preaching, the administration of the sacraments, and the careful performance of the Church’s rites and ceremonies.

St. Cajetan was the first to introduce the Forty Hours’ Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, as an antidote to the heresy of Calvin. He had a most tender love for our blessed Lady, and his piety was rewarded, for one Christmas eve she placed the Infant Jesus in his arms. When the Germans, under the Constable Bourbon, sacked Rome, St. Cajetan was barbarously scourged, to extort from him riches which he had long before securely stored in heaven. When St. Cajetan was on his death-bed, resigned to the will of God, eager for pain to satisfy his love, and for death to attain to life, he beheld the Mother of God, radiant with splendor and surrounded by ministering seraphim. In profound veneration, he said, “Lady, bless me!” Mary replied, “Cajetan, receive the blessing of my Son, and know that I am here as a reward for the sincerity of your love, and to lead you to paradise.” She then exhorted him to patience in fighting an evil spirit who troubled him, and gave orders to the choirs of angels to escort his soul in triumph to heaven. Then, turning her countenance full of majesty and sweetness upon him, she said, “Cajetan, my Son calls thee. Let us go in peace.” Worn out with toil and sickness, he went to his reward in 1547.

Reflection—Imitate St. Cajetan’s devotion to our blessed Lady, by invoking her aid before every work.

The Cure d’Ars was born at Dardilly, near Lyons, in 1786. The sanctity of St. John Vianney gives to the obscure village of Ars a universal fame. As parish priest he converted sinners and directed souls, not only those of his own flock, but people of all nations and conditions who came to consult this spiritual director. He died on August 4, 1859, and was canonized in 1925.

St. Cyriacus, Deacon, and his two companions, Largus and Smaragdus, were put to death in the persecution of Diocletian in 303.
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ST. JOHN VIANNEY was a French parish priest who is venerated as the patron saint of all priests. He is often referred to as the “Curé d’Ars.” He became internationally notable for his priestly and pastoral work in his parish because of the radical spiritual transformation of the community and its surroundings. Catholics attribute this to his saintly life, mortification, his persevering ministry in the sacrament of confession, and his ardent devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to Saint Philomena.

ST. CYRIACUS was a holy deacon at Rome, under the Popes Marcellinus and Marcellus. In the persecution of Diocletian, in 303, he was crowned with a glorious martyrdom in that city. With him suffered also Largua and Smaragdus, and 20 others. Their bodies were first buried near the place of their execution, on the Salarian Way, but were soon after removed to a farm of the devout Lady Lucina, on the Ostian Road, on the 8th day of August.

Reflection—To honor the martyrs and duly celebrate their festivals, we must learn their spirit and study to imitate them according to the circumstances of our state. We must, like them, resist evil, must subdue our passions, suffer afflictions with patience, and bear with others without murmuring or complaining. The cross is the ladder by which we must ascend to heaven.

St. Lawrence, Deacon, is one of the most famous Martyrs of the innumerable Roman persecutions.

St. Romanus, a Roman soldier, converted by St. Lawrence, was cruelly beaten, and beheaded in 261.
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ST. ROMANUS was a soldier in Rome at the time of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. Seeing the joy and constancy with which that holy martyr suffered his torments, he was moved to embrace the Faith, and addressing himself to St. Lawrence, was instructed and baptized by him in prison. Confessing aloud what he had done, he was arraigned, condemned, and beheaded the day before the martyrdom of St. Lawrence. Thus he arrived at his crown before his guide and master. The body of St. Romanus was first buried on the road to Tibur, but his remains were translated to Lucca, where they are kept under the high altar of a beautiful church which bears his name.

Reflection—We are bound to glorify God by our lives, and Christ commands that our good works shine before men. It was the usual saying of the apostle St. Matthias, “The faithful sins if his neighbor sins.” Such ought to be the zeal of every one to instruct and edify his neighbor by word and example.

St. Lawrence was a deacon of St. Sixtus II, Pope and Martyr. When the prefect of Rome arrested him, he distributed the possessions of the Church to the poor to save them from confiscation. He was slowly roasted to death on a gridiron in 258.
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ST. LAWRENCE was the chief among the seven deacons of the Roman Church. In the year 258 Pope Sixtus was led out to die, and St. Lawrence stood by, weeping that he could not share his fate. “I was your minister,” he said, “when you consecrated the blood of Our Lord; why do you leave me behind now that you are about to shed your own?” The holy Pope comforted him with the words, “Do not weep, my son; in three days you will follow me.” This prophecy came true. The prefect of the city knew the rich offerings which the Christians put into the hands of the clergy, and he demanded the treasures of the Roman Church from Lawrence, their guardian. The Saint promised, at the end of three days, to show him riches exceeding all the wealth of the empire, and set about collecting the poor, the infirm, and the religious who lived by the alms of the faithful. He then bade the prefect “see the treasures of the Church” Christ, whom Lawrence had served in his poor, gave him strength in the conflict which ensued. Roasted over a slow fire, he made sport of his pains. “I am done enough,” he said, “eat, if you will.” At length Christ, the Father of the poor, received him into eternal habitations. God showed by the glory which shone around St. Lawrence the value He set upon his love for the poor. Prayers innumerable were granted at his tomb; and he continued from his throne in heaven his charity to those in need, granting them, as St. Augustine says, “the smaller graces which they sought, and leading them to the desire of better gifts.”

Reflection—Our Lord appears before us in the persons of the poor. Charity to them is a great sign of predestination. It is almost impossible, the holy Fathers assure us, for anyone who is charitable to the poor for Christ’s sake to perish.

The Roman deacon Tiburtius, son of the prefect of Rome, was beheaded after suffering many cruel torments in 286.
Susanna, a holy virgin of high lineage, refused to marry the son of Diocletian, and was beheaded after grievous torments in 295.
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Agrestius Chromatius was vicar to the prefect of Rome, and had condemned several martyrs in the reign of Carinus; and in the first years of Diocletian, St. Tranquillinus, being brought before him, assured him that, having been afflicted with the gout, he had recovered a perfect state of health by being baptized. Chromatius was troubled with the same distemper, and being convinced by this miracle of the truth of the Gospel, sent for a priest, and, receiving the Sacrament of Baptism, was freed from that corporal infirmity. Chromatius’s son, TIBURTIUS, was ordained subdeacon, and was soon after betrayed to the persecutors, condemned to many torments, and at length beheaded on the Lavican Road, three miles from Rome, where a church was afterward built. His father, Chromatius, retiring into the country, lived there concealed, in the fervent practice of all Christian virtues.

ST. SUSANNA was nobly born in Rome, and is said to have been niece to Pope Caius. Having made a vow of virginity, she refused to marry, on which account she was impeached as a Christian, and suffered with heroic constancy a cruel martyrdom. St. Susanna suffered towards the beginning of Diocletian’s reign, about the year 295.

Reflection—Sufferings were to the martyrs the most distinguishing mercy, extraordinary graces, and sources of the greatest crowns and glory. All afflictions which God sends are in like manner the greatest mercies and blessings; they are the most precious talents to be improved by us to the increasing of our love and affection to God, and the exercise of the most heroic virtues of self-denial, patience, humility, resignation, and penance.

St. Clare of Assisi expressed to St. Francis the desire to consecrate herself to God. Together with him, she became the foundress of the Franciscan Nuns of the Second Order: the “Poor Clares.” She governed her convent for forty-two years, and died in 1253.
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On Palm Sunday, March 17, 1212, the Bishop of Assisi left the altar to present a palm to a noble maiden, 18 years of age, whom bashfulness had detained in her place. This maiden was St. Clare. Already she had learnt from St. Francis to hate the world, and was secretly resolved to live for God alone. The same night she escaped, with one companion, to the Church of the Portiuncula, where she was met by St. Francis and his brethren. At the altar of Our Lady, St. Francis cut off her hair, clothed her in his habit of penance, a piece of sack-cloth, with his cord as a girdle. Thus she was espoused to Christ. In a miserable house outside Assisi she founded her Order, and was joined by her sister, 14 years of age, and afterwards by her mother and other noble ladies. They went barefoot, observed perpetual abstinence, constant silence, and perfect poverty.

While the Saracen army of Frederick II was ravaging the valley of Spoleto, a body of infidels advanced to assault St. Clare’s convent, which stood outside Assisi. The Saint caused the Blessed Sacrament to be placed in a monstrance, above the gate of the monastery facing the enemy, and kneeling before it, prayed, “Deliver not to beasts, O Lord, the souls of those who confess to Thee.” A voice from the Host replied, “My protection will never fail you.” A sudden panic seized the infidel host, which took to flight, and the Saint’s convent was spared. During her illness of 28 years the Holy Eucharist was her only support and spinning linen for the altar the one work of her hands. She died in 1253, as the Passion was being read, and Our Lady and the angels conducted her to glory.

Reflection—In a luxurious and effeminate age, the daughters of St. Clare still bear the noble title of poor, and preach by their daily lives the poverty of Jesus Christ.

Hippolytus, guardian of St. Lawrence, was converted and baptized by the Saint. He was tied by the legs to wild horses in 260.
St. Cassian, a schoolmaster at Imola, was pierced to death by his pagan pupils, armed with styluses in 320. He is the patron of stenographers.
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HIPPOLYTUS was a prominent priest of the church of Rome at the beginning of the third century and guardian of St. Lawrence. Together with the Pope St. Pontian he was exiled to Sardinia, and his sufferings ended in martyrdom A.D. 235.
In about the year 320, officials at Imola, Italy, arrested CASSIAN, a Christian schoolmaster. The governor ordered him to be tortured by his own pagan pupils. After making barbarous sport of Cassian in various ways, the pagan boys stabbed their former teacher to death with their styluses.

The Liturgy of the Mass celebrated on this day is a fitting preparation for tomorrow’s ancient and solemn feast of our Lady.

In this festival the Church commemorates the happy departure from life of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, and her translation into the kingdom of her Son, in which she received from Him a crown of immortal glory, and a throne above all the other Saints and heavenly spirits.

After Christ, as the triumphant Conqueror of death and hell, ascended into heaven, His blessed Mother remained at Jerusalem, persevering in prayer with the disciples, till, with them, she had received the Holy Ghost. She lived to a very advanced age, but finally paid the common debt of nature, none among the children of Adam being exempt from that rigorous law. But the death of the Saints is rather to be called a sweet sleep than death; much more that of the Queen of Saints, who had been exempt from all sin. It is a traditionary pious belief, that the body of the Blessed Virgin was raised by God soon after her death, and taken up to glory, by a singular privilege, before the general resurrection of the dead.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the greatest of all the festivals which the Church celebrates in her honor. It is the consummation of all the other great mysteries by which her life was rendered most wonderful; it is the birthday of her true greatness and glory, and the crowning of all the virtues of her whole life.

Reflection—Whilst we contemplate, in profound sentiments of veneration, astonishment, and praise, the glory to which Mary is raised by her triumph on this day, we ought, for our own advantage, to consider by what means she arrived at this sublime degree of honor and happiness, that we may walk in her steps. No other way is open to us. The same path which conducted her to glory will also lead us thither; we shall be partners in her reward if we copy her virtues.

“Most blessed couple, the whole of creation is in your debt,” says St. John Damascene about JOACHIM and Anne, the parents of Our Lady. “For it is through you that it has been possible to offer the Creator a present above all other presents, the chaste Mother, who alone was worthy of the Creator. Rejoice, Joachim, for unto us a Son is born of thy daughter.” According to tradition, Joachim was untiring in his charity. He divided what he had into three parts, of which the first was given to the upkeep of the temple, the second to the poor, and the third was all that he reserved for his own household. This feast, originally kept on March 20, was transferred to the day following the Assumption, in order to associate the Blessed Daughter and her holy father in triumph.

Hyacinth Ronski, a Pole, was originally a canon of the Cathedral of Cracow. Having gone to Rome, he became acquainted with St. Dominic and was admitted into the Order of Friars Preachers by the holy Founder himself. He labored for the establishment of the Order in Poland and died in 1257.
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HYACINTH, the glorious apostle of Poland and Russia, was born of noble parents in Poland, about the year 1185. In 1218, being already Canon of Cracow, he accompanied his uncle, the bishop of that place, to Rome. There he met St. Dominic, and received the habit of the Friar Preachers from the patriarch himself, of whom be became a living copy. So wonderful was his progress in virtue that within a year Dominic sent him to preach and plant the Order in Poland, where he founded two houses. His apostolic journeys extended over numerous regions: Austria, Bohemia, Livonia, the shores of the Black Sea, Tartary, and Northern China on the east, and Sweden and Norway to the west, were evangelized by him, and he is said to have visited Scotland. Everywhere multitudes were converted, churches and convents were built; 120,000 pagans and infidels were baptized by his hands. He worked numerous miracles, and at Cracow raised a dead youth to life. He had inherited from St. Dominic a most filial confidence in the Mother of God; to her he ascribed his success, and to her aid he looked for his salvation.

When St. Hyacinth was at Kiev the Tartars sacked the town, but it was only as he finished Mass that the Saint heard of the danger. Without waiting to unvest, he took the ciborium in his hands, and was leaving the church. As he passed by an image of Mary a voice said: “Hyacinth, my son, why dost thou leave me behind? Take me with thee, and leave me not to mine enemies.” The statue was of heavy alabaster, but when Hyacinth took it in his arms it was light as a reed. With the Blessed Sacrament and the image he came to the river Dnieper, and walked dry-shod over the surface of the waters. On the eve of the Assumption he was warned of his coming death. In spite of a wasting fever, he celebrated Mass on the feast, and communicated as a dying man. He was anointed at the foot of the altar, and died the same day, 1257.

Reflection—St. Hyacinth teaches us to employ every effort in the service of God, and to rely for success not on our own industry, but on the prayer of His Immaculate Mother.

ST. AGAPITUS, when only fifteen years old, endured many cruel tortures, and was beheaded at Praeneste in Italy in 275.

Reflection—Let Thy Church, O God, be gladdened by the intercession of blessed Agapitus, Thy Martyr, in which she trusts: and through his glorious prayers may she ever remain devoted to Thee and ever abide in safety. Through our Lord.

ST. JOHN EUDES, born in Normandy, was educated by the Jesuits. Ordained priest, he founded the Congregation of the Priests of Jesus and Mary, called Eudists, and the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. As preacher, writer, and founder he promoted public devotion to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He was the author of the propers for the Mass and Divine Office of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. He died in 1680.

St. Bernard, born of noble Burgundian parents, was a monk of the Cistercian Order, a branch of the Benedictine Order. He became Abbot of the famous monastery of Clairvaux, which he himself had founded. The writings, sermons, and letters of this great Doctor rendered invaluable services to the Church. He also preached the second crusade, and died at Clairvaux in 1153.
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BERNARD was born at the castle of Fontaines, in Burgundy. The grace of his person and the vigor of his intellect filled his parents with the highest hopes, and the world lay bright and smiling before him when he renounced it forever and joined the monks at Citeaux. All his brothers followed Bernard to Citeaux except Nivard, the youngest, who was left to be the stay of his father in his old age. “You will now be heir of everything,” said they to him, as they departed. “Yes,” said the boy; “you leave me earth, and keep heaven for yourselves; do you call that fair?” And he too left the world. At length their aged father came to exchange wealth and honor for the poverty of a monk of Clairvaux. One only sister remained behind; she was married, and loved the world and its pleasures. Magnificently dressed, she visited Bernard; he refused to see her, and only at last consented to do so, not as her brother, but as the minister of Christ. The words he then spoke moved her so much that, two years later, she retired to a convent with her husband’s consent, and died in the reputation of sanctity.

Bernard’s holy example attracted so many novices that other monasteries were erected, and our Saint was appointed abbot of that of Clairvaux. Unsparing with himself, he at first expected too much of his brethren, who were disheartened at his severity; but soon perceiving his error, he led them forward, by the sweetness of his correction and the mildness of his rule, to wonderful perfection. In spite of his desire to lie hid, the fame of his sanctity spread far and wide, and many churches asked for him as their Bishop. Through the help of Pope Eugenius III, his former subject, he escaped this dignity; yet his retirement was continually invaded: the poor and the weak sought his protection; bishops, kings, and popes applied to him for advice; and at length Eugenius himself charged him to preach the crusade. By his fervor, eloquence, and miracles Bernard kindled the enthusiasm of Christendom, and two splendid armies were dispatched against the infidel. Their defeat was only due, said the Saint, to their own sins. Bernard died in 1153. His most precious writings have earned for him the titles of the last of the Fathers and a Doctor of Holy Church.

Reflection—St. Bernard used to say to those who applied for admission to the monastery, “If you desire to enter here, leave at the threshold the body you have brought with you from the world; here there is room only for your soul.” Let us constantly ask ourselves St. Bernard’s daily question, “To what end didst thou come hither?”

Born at Dijon, Jane Frances was a bright example as daughter, spouse, mother, and widow. She founded the Order of the Visitation, guided by Saint Francis de Sales. She died at Moulins in 1641.
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At the age of 16, JANE FRANCES DE FREMYOT, already a motherless child, was placed under the care of a worldly-minded governess. In this crisis she offered herself to the Mother of God, and secured Mary’s protection for life. When a Protestant sought her hand, she steadily refused to marry “an enemy of God and His Church,” and shortly afterwards, as the loving and beloved wife of the Baron de Chantal, made her house the pattern of a Christian home. But God had marked her for something higher than domestic sanctity. Two children and a dearly beloved sister died, and, in the full tide of prosperity, her husband’s life was taken by the innocent hand of a friend. For seven years the sorrows of her widowhood were increased by ill-usage from servants and inferiors, and the cruel importunities of friends, who urged her to marry again.

Harassed almost to despair by their entreaties, she branded on her heart the name of Jesus, and in the end left her beloved home and children to live for God alone. It was on the 19th of March, 1609, that Madame de Chantal bade farewell to her family and relations. Pale, and with tears in her eyes, she passed round the large room, sweetly and humbly taking leave of each. Her son, a boy of 15, used every entreaty, every endearment, to induce his mother not to leave them, and at last passionately flung himself across the door of the room. In an agony of distress, she passed on over the body of her son to the embrace of her aged and disconsolate father. The anguish of that parting reached its height when, kneeling at the feet of the venerable old man, she sought and obtained his last blessing, promising to repay in her new home his sacrifice by her prayers. Well might St. Francis call her “the valiant woman.” She was to found with St. Francis de Sales a great Order. Sickness, opposition, want, beset her, and the death of children, friends, and of St. Francis himself followed, while 87 houses of the Visitation rose under her hand. Nine long years of interior desolation completed the work of God’s grace; and in her 70th year St. Vincent of Paul saw, at the moment of her death, her soul ascend, as a ball of fire, to heaven.

Reflection—Profit by the successive trials of life to gain the strength and courage of St. Jane Frances, and they will become stepping-stones from earth to heaven.

In devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Roman Catholic venerates in a sense of love responding to love. In devotion to the HEART of MARY, study and imitation hold as important a place as love. The aim of the devotion is to unite mankind to God through Mary’s heart, and this process involves the ideas of consecration and reparation. The object of the devotion being to love God and Jesus better by uniting one’s self to Mary for this purpose and by imitating her virtues.

These martyrs, though commemorated together, suffered in different persecutions: TIMOTHEUS under Maximian, Bishop HIPPOLYTUS under Alexander, and the youth SYMPHORIAN under Aurelian.

St. Philip was born at Florence of the noble family of Benizi. He entered the Order of the Servites as a lay brother. Ordained a priest, he was made General of his Order in 1285.
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ST. PHILIP BENIZI was born in Florence, on the Feast of the Assumption, 1233. That same day the Order of Servites was founded by the Mother of God. As an infant at the breast, Philip broke out into speech at the sight of these new religious, and begged his mother to give them alms. Amidst all the temptations of his youth, he longed to become himself a servant of Mary, and it was only the fear of his own unworthiness which made him yield to his father’s wish and begin to practice medicine. Alter long and weary waiting, his doubts were solved by Our Lady herself, who in a vision bade him enter her Order. Still Philip dared only offer himself as a lay brother, and in this humble state he strove to do penance for his sins. In spite of his reluctance, he was promoted to the post of master of novices; and as his rare abilities were daily discovered, he was bidden to prepare for the priesthood. Thenceforth honors were heaped upon him; he became general of the Order, and only escaped by flight elevation to the Papal throne. His preaching restored peace to Italy, which was wasted by civil wars; and at the Council of Lyons, he spoke to the assembled prelates with the gift of tongues. Amid all these favors Philip lived in extreme penitence, constantly examining his soul before the judgment-seat of God, and condemning himself as only fit for hell.

St. Philip, though he was free from the stain of mortal sin, was never weary of beseeching God’s mercy. From the time he was 10 years old he said daily the Penitential Psalms. On his death-bed he kept reciting the verses of the Miserere, with his cheeks streaming with tears; and during his agony he went through a terrible contest to overcome the fear of damnation. But a few minutes before he died, all his doubts disappeared and were succeeded by a holy trust. He uttered the responses in a low but audible voice; and when at last the Mother of God appeared before him, he lifted up his arms with joy and breathed a gentle sigh, as if placing his soul in her hand. He died on the Octave of the Assumption, 1285.

Reflection—Endeavor so to act as you would wish to have acted when you stand before your Judge. This is the rule of the Saints, and the only safe rule for all.

St. Bartholomew the Apostle, whose name means son of Tholomy, is believed to be the same as the Nathanael whom the Master praised as the Israelite in whom was no guile. He preached the Faith in India and Armenia. He was flayed alive and beheaded in 71.
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ST. BARTHOLOMEW was one of the 12 who were called to the apostolate by our blessed Lord Himself. Several learned interpreters of the Holy Scripture take this apostle to have been the same as Nathaniel, a native of Cana, in Galilee, a doctor in the Jewish law, and one of the 72 disciples of Christ, to whom he was conducted by St. Philip, and whose innocence and simplicity of heart deserved to be celebrated with the highest eulogium by the divine mouth of Our Redeemer. He is mentioned among the disciples who were met together in prayer after Christ’s ascension, and he received the Holy Ghost with the rest.

Being eminently qualified by the divine grace to discharge the functions of an apostle, St. Bartholomew carried the Gospel through the most barbarous countries of the East, penetrating into the remoter Indies. He then returned again into the northwest part of Asia, and met St. Philip, at Hierapolis, in Phrygia. Hence he travelled into Lycaonia, where he instructed the people in the Christian Faith; but we know not even the names of many of the countries in which he preached. St. Bartholomew’s last removal was into Great Armenia, where, preaching in a place obstinately addicted to the worship of idols, he was crowned with a glorious martyrdom. The modern Greek historians say that he was condemned by the governor of Albanopolis to be crucified. Others affirm that he was flayed alive, which might well enough consist with his crucifixion, this double punishment being in use not only in Egypt, but also among the Persians.

Reflection—The characteristic virtue of the apostles was zeal for the divine glory, the first property of the love of God. A soldier is always ready to defend the honor of his prince, and a son that of his father; and can a Christian say he loves God who is indifferent to His honor?

The pious queen of France, Blanche, educated her son Louis IX to be a model for all kings in his faith, courage, and love of justice. He undertook two crusades to reconquer the Holy Land. The plague, which decimated his army in Africa, struck him down and he died at Tunis. This most Christian king reigned from 1226 to 1270.
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The mother of LOUIS IX told him she would rather see him die than commit a mortal sin, and he never forgot her words. King of France at the age of 12, he made the defense of God’s honor the aim of his life. Before two years, he had crushed the Albigensian heretics, and forced them by stringent penalties to respect the Catholic faith. Amidst the cares of government, he daily recited the Divine Office and heard two Masses, and the most glorious churches in France are still monuments of his piety. When his courtiers remonstrated with Louis for his law that blasphemers should be branded on the lips, he replied, “I would willingly have my own lips branded to root out blasphemy from my kingdom.” The fearless protector of the weak and the oppressed, he was chosen to arbitrate in all the great feuds of his age, between the Pope and the Emperor, between Henry III and the English barons.

In 1248, to rescue the land which Christ had trod, he gathered round him the chivalry of France, and embarked for the East. There, before the infidel, in victory or defeat, on the bed of sickness or a captive in chains, Louis showed himself the first, the best, and the bravest of Christian knights. When a captive at Damietta, an Emir rushed into his tent brandishing a dagger red with the blood of the Sultan, and threatened to stab him also unless he would make him a knight, as the Emperor Frederick had Facardin. Louis calmly replied that no unbeliever could perform the duties of a Christian knight. In the same captivity he was offered his liberty on terms lawful in themselves, but enforced by an oath which implied a blasphemy, and though the infidels held their swords’ points at his throat, and threatened a massacre of the Christians, Louis inflexibly refused. The death of his mother recalled him to France; but when order was reestablished he again set forth on a second crusade. In August, 1270, his army landed at Tunis, and, though victorious over the enemy, succumbed to a malignant fever. Louis was one of the victims. He received the Viaticum kneeling by his camp-bed, and gave up his life with the same joy that he had given all else for the honor of God.

Reflection—If we cannot imitate St. Louis in dying for the honor of God, we can at least resemble him in resenting the blasphemies offered against God by the infidel, the heretic, and the scoffer.

St. Zephyrinus, Pope, Martyr. The holy successor of St. Victor governed the Holy See for eighteen years and defended the doctrine of the Trinity against the heretics of his time. He suffered martyrdom under Antoninus in 217.
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ZEPHYRINUS, a native of Rome, succeeded Victor in the pontificate, in the year 202, in which Severus raised the 5th most bloody persecution against the Church, which continued not for two years only, but until the death of that emperor in 211. Under this furious storm this holy pastor was the support and comfort of the distressed flock of Christ, and he suffered by charity and compassion what every confessor underwent. The triumphs of the martyrs were indeed his joy, but his heart received many deep wounds from the fall of apostates and heretics. Neither did this latter affliction cease when peace was restored to the Church.

Our Saint had also the affliction to see the fall of Tertullian, which seems to have been owing partly to his pride. Eusebius tells us that this holy Pope exerted his zeal so strenuously against the blasphemies of the heretics that they treated him in the most contumelious manner; but it was his glory that they called him the principal defender of Christ’s divinity. St. Zephyrinus filled the pontifical chair 17 years, dying in 219. He was buried in his own cemetery, on the 26th of August. He is, in some Martyrologies, styled a martyr, which title he might deserve by what he suffered in the persecution, though he perhaps did not die by the executioner.

Reflection—God has always raised up holy pastors zealous to maintain the faith of His Church inviolable, and to watch over the purity of its morals and the sanctity of its discipline. We enjoy the greatest advantages of the divine grace through their labors, and we owe to God a tribute of perpetual thanksgiving and immortal praise for all those mercies which He has afforded His Church on earth.

St. Joseph Calasanctius, a Spaniard of noble family, famous for his charity towards children, founded the Piarists or the Order of Clerks Regular of the Poor Schools of the Mother of God for the education of youth. He died at the age of 92 in 1648.
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ST. JOSEPH CALASANCTIUS was born in Arragon, in 1556. When only five years old, he led a troop of children through the streets to find the devil and kill him. He became a priest, and was engaged in various reforms, when he heard a voice saying, “Go to Rome,” and had a vision of many children who were being taught by him and by a company of angels. When he reached the Holy City, his heart was moved by the vice and ignorance of the children of the poor. Their need mastered his humility, and he founded the Order of Clerks Regular of the Pious Schools. He himself provided all that was necessary for the education of the children, receiving nothing from them in payment, and there were soon about a thousand scholars of every rank under his care. Each lesson began with prayer. Every half-hour devotion was renewed by acts of faith, hope, and charity, and towards the end of school-time the children were instructed in the Christian doctrine. They were then escorted home by the masters, so as to escape all harm by the way. But enemies arose against Joseph from among his own subjects. They accused him to the Holy Office, and at the age of 86 he was led through the streets to prison. At last the Order was reduced to a simple congregation. It was not restored to its former privileges till after the Saint’s death. Yet he died full of hope. “My work,” he said, “was done solely for the love of God.”

Reflection—“My children,” said the Curé of Ars, “I often think that most of the Christians who are lost are lost for want of instruction; they do not know their religion well.”

Augustine, born at Tagaste (Africa) in 354, was the son of St. Monica and of a pagan father, Patricius. His mind was ensnared by errors and his soul and body corrupted by debauchery and impurity. Converted by the prayers of his mother, he became one of the most famous Doctors of the West and a Father of the Church. He died after an episcopate of 36 years at Hippo (Africa) in 430.
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ST. AUGUSTINE was born in 354, at Tagaste in Africa. He was brought up in the Christian faith, but without receiving baptism. An ambitious school-boy of brilliant talents and violent passions, he early lost both his faith and his innocence. He persisted in his irregular life until he was 32. Being then at Milan professing rhetoric, he tells us that the faith of his childhood had regained possession of his intellect, but that he could not as yet resolve to break the chains of evil habit.

One day, a however, stung to the heart by the account of some sudden conversions, be cried out, “The unlearned rise and storm heaven, and we, with all our learning, for lack of heart lie wallowing here.” He then withdrew into a garden, when a long and terrible conflict ensued. Suddenly a young fresh voice (he knows not whose) breaks in upon his strife with the words, “Take and read”; and he lights upon the passage beginning, “Walk honestly as in the day.” The battle was won. He received baptism, returned home, and gave all to the poor. At Hippo, where he settled, he was consecrated bishop in 395. For thirty-five years he was the center of ecclesiastical life in Africa, and the Church’s mightiest champion against heresy; whilst his writings have been everywhere accepted as one of the principal sources of devotional thought and theological speculation. He died in 430.

Reflection—Read the lives of the Saints, and you will find that you are gradually creating a society about you to which in some measure you will be forced to raise the standard of your daily life.

St. John reproached Herod with his unlawful union. The adulterous Herodias and her shameless daughter Salome forced Herod to behead the Precursor. The Gospel of the Mass describes his martyrdom.

ST. SABINA, a noble Roman widow, suffered martyrdom under the Emperor Hadrian in 126.
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ST. JOHN THE BAPTIST was called by God to be the forerunner of His divine Son. In order to preserve his innocence spotless, and to improve the extraordinary graces which he had received, he was directed by the Holy Ghost to lead an austere and contemplative life in the wilderness, in the continual exercises of devout prayer and penance, from his infancy till he was 30 years of age. At this age, the faithful minister began to discharge his mission. Clothed with the weeds of penance, be announced to all men the obligation they lay under of washing away their iniquities with the tears of sincere compunction; and proclaimed the Messias, Who was then coming to make His appearance among them. He was received by the people as the true herald of the Most High God, and his voice was, as it were, a trumpet sounding from heaven to summon all men to avert the divine judgments, and to prepare themselves to reap the benefit of Vie mercy that was offered them.

The tetrarch Herod Antipas having, in defiance of all laws divine and human, married Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, who was yet living, St. John the Baptist boldly reprehended the tetrarch and his accomplice for so scandalous an incest and adultery, and Herod, urged on by lust and anger, cast the Saint into prison. About a year after St. John had been made a prisoner, Herod gave a splendid entertainment to the nobility of Galilee. Salome, a daughter of Herodias by her lawful husband, pleased Herod by her dancing, insomuch that he promised her to grant whatever she asked. On this, Salome consulted with her mother what to ask. Herodias instructed her daughter to demand the death of John the Baptist, and persuaded the young damsel to make it part of her petition that the head of the prisoner should be forthwith brought to her in a dish. This strange request startled the tyrant himself; he assented, however, and sent a soldier of his guard to behead the Saint in prison, with an order to bring his head in a charger and present it to Salome, who delivered it to her mother. St. Jerome relates that the furious Herodias made it her inhuman pastime to prick the sacred tongue with a bodkin. Thus died the great forerunner of our blessed Savior, about two years and three months after his entrance upon his public ministry, about a year before the death of our blessed Redeemer.

Reflection—All the high graces with which St. John was favored sprang from his humility; in this all his other virtues were founded. If we desire to form ourselves upon so great a model, we must, above all things, labor to lay the same deep foundation.

St. Rose was the first flower of holiness which bloomed in South America. She was born at Lima in Peru. Too feeble for the monastic life, she lived a life of severe mortification as a Tertiary of St. Dominic and died at the age of thirty years in 1617.

ST. FELIX, a Roman priest, was martyred under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. An unknown Christian joined him at the last moment. The Church called him ADAUCTUS (Added). They were beheaded in 303.
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This lovely flower of sanctity, the first canonized Saint of the New World, was born at Lima in 1586. She was christened Isabel, but the beauty of her infant face earned for her the title of ROSE, which she ever after bore. As a child, while still in the cradle, her silence under a painful surgical operation proved the thirst for suffering already consuming her heart. At an early age she took service to support her impoverished parents, and worked for them day and night. In spite of hardships and austerities her beauty ripened with increasing age, and she was much and openly admired. From fear of vanity she cut off her hair, blistered her face with pepper and her hands with lime. For further security she enrolled herself in the Third Order of St. Dominic, took St. Catherine of Siena as her model, and redoubled her penance. Her cell was a garden hut, her couch a box of broken tiles. Under her habit Rose wore a hair-shirt studded with iron nails, while, concealed by her veil, a silver crown armed with ninety points encircled her head. More than once, when she shuddered at the prospect of a night of torture, a voice said, “My cross was yet more painful.” The Blessed Sacrament seemed almost her only food. Her love for it was intense. When the Dutch fleet prepared to attack the town, Rose took her place before the tabernacle, and wept that she was not worthy to die in its defense. All her sufferings were offered for the conversion of sinners, and the thought of the multitudes in hell was ever before her soul. She died in 1617, at the age of 31.

Reflection—Rose, pure as driven snow, was filled with deepest contrition and humility, and did constant and terrible penance. Our sins are continual, our repentance passing, our contrition slight, our penance nothing. How will it fare with us?

With SS. Peter Nolasco and Raymond of Peñafort, the Founders of the Order of Our Lady of Mercy, St. Raymond Nonnatus is the glory of his Congregation. He gave himself up to the Mohammedans in order to ransom a Christian. The Pope Gregory IX created him cardinal: he died on his return in 1240.
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ST. RAYMOND NONNATUS was born in Catalonia, in the year 1204, and was descended of a gentleman’s family of a small fortune. In his childhood he seemed to find pleasure only in his devotions and serious duties. His father perceiving in him an inclination to a religious state, took him from school, and sent him to take care of a farm which he had in the country. Raymond readily obeyed, and, in order to enjoy the opportunity of holy solitude, kept the sheep himself, and spent his time in the mountains and forests in holy meditation and prayer. Some time after, he joined the new Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of captives, and was admitted to his profession at Barcelona by the holy founder, St. Peter Nolasco. Within two or three years after his profession, he was sent into Barbary with a considerable sum of money, where he purchased, at Algiers, the liberty of a great number of slaves. When all this treasure was exhausted, he gave himself up as a hostage for the ransom of certain others. This magnanimous sacrifice served only to exasperate the Mohammedans, who treated him with uncommon barbarity, till, fearing lest if he died in their hands they should lose the ransom which was to be paid for the slaves for whom he remained a hostage, they gave orders that he should be treated with more humanity. Hereupon he was permitted to go abroad about the streets, which liberty he made use of to comfort and encourage the Christians in their chains, and he converted and baptized some Mohammedans. For this the governor condemned him to be put to death by thrusting a stake into the body, but his punishment was commuted, and he underwent a cruel bastinado. This torment did not daunt his courage. So long as he saw souls in danger of perishing eternally, he thought he had yet done nothing.

St. Raymond had no more money to employ in releasing poor captives, and to speak to a Mohammedan upon the subject of religion was death. He could, however, still exert his endeavors, with hopes of some success, or of dying a martyr of charity. He therefore resumed his former method of instructing and exhorting both the Christians and the infidels. The governor, who was enraged, ordered our Saint to be barbarously tortured and imprisoned till his ransom was brought by some religious men of his Order, who were sent with it by St. Peter. Upon his return to Spain, he was nominated cardinal by Pope Gregory IX. He died on the 31st of August, in the year 1240, the 37th of his age.

Reflection—This Saint gave not only his substance but his liberty, and even exposed himself to the most cruel torments and death, for the redemption of captives and the salvation of souls. But alas! do not we, merely to gratify our prodigality, vanity, or avarice, refuse to give the superfluous part of our possessions to the poor, who for want of it are perishing with cold and hunger? Let us remember that “He that giveth to the poor shall not want.”

St. Giles, an Athenian, fled to the south of France, where he lived as a hermit in a vast forest. Discovered by king Theodoric, he founded a renowned monastery and was so famous on account of his miracles that a great number of churches were dedicated to him. He died in the 6th century.

TWELVE HOLY BROTHERS. These Saints, natives of Africa, were martyred at Beneventura (Italy) under the emperor Valerian in 258.
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ST. GILES, whose name has been held in great veneration for several ages in France and England, is said to have been an Athenian by birth, and of noble extraction. His extraordinary piety and learning drew the admiration of the world upon him in such a manner that it was impossible for him to enjoy in his own country that obscurity and retirement which was the chief object of his desires on earth. He therefore sailed to France, and chose a hermitage first in the open deserts near the mouth of the Rhone, afterward near the river Gard, and lastly in a forest in the diocese of Nismes. He passed many years in this close solitude, living on wild herbs or roots and water, and conversing only with God. We read in his life that he was for some time nourished with the milk of a hind in the forest, which, being pursued by hunters, fled for refuge to the Saint, who was thus discovered. The reputation of the sanctity of this holy hermit was much increased by many miracles which he wrought, and which rendered his name famous throughout all France. St. Giles was highly esteemed by the French king, but could not be prevailed upon to forsake his solitude. He, however, admitted several disciples, and settled excellent discipline in the monastery of which he was the founder, and which, in succeeding ages, became a flourishing abbey of the Benedictine Order.

Reflection—He who accompanies the exercises of contemplation and arduous penance with zealous and undaunted endeavors to conduct others to the same glorious term with himself, shall be truly great in the kingdom of heaven.

St. Stephen consecrated his kingdom, Hungary, to our Blessed Lady. This apostolic king won over his enemies and converted his people to Christianity. He died famous for his justice and his boundless charity in 1038.
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Geysa, 4th Duke of Hungary, was, with his wife, converted to the Faith, and saw in a vision the martyr St. Stephen, who told him that he should have a son who would perfect the work he had begun. This son was born in 977, and received the name of STEPHEN. He was most carefully educated, and succeeded his father at an early age. He began to root out idolatry, suppressed a rebellion of his pagan subjects, and founded monasteries and churches all over the land. He sent to Pope Sylvester, begging him to appoint bishops to the eleven sees he had endowed, and to bestow on him, for the greater success of his work, the title of king. The Pope granted his requests, and sent him a cross to be borne before him, saying that he regarded him as the true apostle of his people. His devotion was fervent. He placed his realms under the protection of our blessed Lady, and kept the feast of her Assumption with peculiar affection. He gave good laws, and saw to their execution. Throughout his life, we are told, he had Christ on his lips, Christ in his heart, and Christ in all he did. His only wars were wars of defense, and he was always successful. God sent him many and sore trials. One by one his children died, but he bore all with perfect submission to the will of God.

When St. Stephen was about to die, he summoned the bishops and nobles, and gave them charge concerning the choice of a successor. Then he urged them to nurture and cherish the Catholic Church, which was still as a tender plant in Hungary, to follow justice, humility, and charity, to be obedient to the laws, and to show ever a reverent submission to the Holy See. Then, raising his eyes towards heaven, he said, “O Queen of Heaven, august restorer of a prostrate world, to thy care I commend the Holy Church, my people, and my realm, and my own departing soul.” And then, on his favorite feast of the Assumption, in 1038, he died in peace.

Reflection—“Our duty,” says Father Newman, “is to follow the Vicar of Christ whither he goeth, and never to desert him, however we may be tried; but to defend him at all hazards and against all corners, as a son would a father, and as a wife a husband, knowing that his cause is the cause of God.”

Joseph Sarto was born at Riese in Venetia on June 2, 1835. He was successively curate, parish priest, bishop of Mantua, patriarch of Venice. He was elected Pope on August 4, 1903. As chief pastor of the Church he realized to the full the value of the liturgy as the prayer of the Church and spared no effort to propagate the practice of frequent and daily Communion. In his encyclical Pascendi Dominici Gregis, he exposed and condemned the modernist heresy with force and clarity (1907). He died on August 20, 1914, and was canonized on May 29, 1954.
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POPE PIUS X, born in June, 1835, was head of the Catholic Church from August 1903 to his death in 1914. Pius X is known for opposing modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting liturgical reforms and scholastic philosophy and theology. He initiated the preparation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, the first comprehensive and systemic work of its kind.

Pius X was devoted to the Marian title of Our Lady of Confidence; while his papal encyclical took on a sense of renewal that was reflected in the motto of his pontificate. He advanced the Liturgical Movement by formulating the principle of active participation of the faithful. He encouraged the frequent reception of Holy Communion, and he lowered the age for First Communion, which became a lasting innovation of his papacy. Like his predecessors, he promoted Thomism as the principal philosophical method to be taught in Catholic institutions.

Pius X was known for his firm demeanor and sense of personal poverty. He regularly gave homily sermons in the pulpit, a rare practice at the time. After the 1908 Messina earthquake he filled the Apostolic Palace with refugees, long before the Italian government acted. He rejected any kind of favors for his family; his close relatives chose to remain in poverty living near Rome.

After his death, a strong cult of devotion followed his reputation of piety and holiness. He was beatified in 1951 and was canonized on 29 May 1954. The traditionalist Catholic priestly Society of Saint Pius X is named in his honor while a grand statue bearing his name stands within St. Peter’s Basilica; and his birth town was renamed Riese Pio X after his death.

Reflection—Many saints, who were not martyrs, have longed to shed their blood for Christ. We, too, may pray for some portion of their spirit; and the least suffering for the faith, borne with humility and courage, is the proof that Christ has heard our prayer.

ST. ROSALIA was daughter of a noble family descended from Charlemagne. She was born at Palermo in Sicily, and despising in her youth worldly vanities, made herself an abode in a cave on Mount Pelegrino, three miles from Palermo, where she completed the sacrifice of her heart to God by austere penance and manual labor, sanctified by assiduous prayer and the constant union of her soul with God. She died in 1160. Her body was found buried in a grot under the mountain, in the year of the jubilee, 1625, under Pope Urban VIII, and was translated into the metropolitan church of Palermo, of which she was chosen a patroness. To her patronage that island ascribes the ceasing of a grievous pestilence at the same time.

Reflection—Rose lived but 17 years, saved the Church’s cause, and died a Saint. We have lived, perhaps, much longer, and yet with what result? Every minute something can be done for God. Let us be up and doing.

St. Lawrence, of the noble family of Giustiniani, Bishop and first Patriarch of Venice, was “the pride and the ornament of the Catholic Episcopate.” He died in 1455.
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LAWRENCE from a child longed to be a Saint; and when he was 19 years of age there was granted to him a vision of the Eternal Wisdom. All earthly things paled in his eyes before the ineffable beauty of this sight, and as it faded away a void was left in his heart which none but God could fill. Refusing the offer of a brilliant marriage, he fled secretly from his home at Venice, and joined the Canons Regular of St. George. One by one he crushed every natural instinct which could bar his union with his Love.

When Lawrence first entered religion, a nobleman went to dissuade him from the folly of thus sacrificing every earthly prospect. The young monk listened patiently in turn to his friend’s affectionate appeal, scorn, and violent abuse. Calmly and kindly he then replied. He pointed out the shortness of life, the uncertainty of earthly happiness, and the incomparable superiority of the prize he sought to any his friend had named. The nobleman could make no answer; he felt in truth that Lawrence was wise, himself the fool. He left the world, became a fellow-novice with the Saint, and his holy death bore every mark that he too had secured the treasures which never fail. As superior and as general, Lawrence enlarged and strengthened his Order, and as bishop of his diocese, in spite of slander and insult, thoroughly reformed his see. His zeal led to his being appointed the first patriarch of Venice, but he remained ever in heart and soul an humble priest, thirsting for the sight of heaven. At length the eternal vision began to dawn. “Are you laying a bed of feathers for me?” he said. “Not so; my Lord was stretched on a hard and painful free.” Laid upon the straw, he exclaimed in rapture, “Good Jesus, behold I come.” He died in 1435, aged 74.

Reflection—Ask St. Lawrence to vouchsafe you such a sense of the sufficiency of God that you too may fly to Him and be at rest.

Wonderful simplicity and spirit of compunction were the distinguishing virtues of this holy man. ST. ELEUTHERIUS was chosen abbot of St. Mark’s near Spoleto, and favored by God with the gift of miracles. A child who was possessed by the devil, being delivered by being educated in his monastery, the abbot said one day: “Since the child is among the servants of God, the devil dares not approach him.” These words seemed to savor of vanity, and thereupon the devil again entered and tormented the child. The abbot humbly confessed his fault, and fasted and prayed with his whole community till the child was again freed from the tyranny of the fiend. St. Gregory the Great not being able to fast on Easter-eve on account of extreme weakness, engaged this Saint to go with him to the church of St. Andrew’s and put up his prayers to God for his health, that he might join the faithful in that solemn practice of penance. Eleutherius prayed with many tears, and the Pope, coming out of the church, found his breast suddenly strengthened, so that he was enabled to perform the fast as he desired. St. Eleutherius raised a dead man to life. Resigning his abbacy, he died in St. Andrew’s monastery in Rome, about the year 585.

Reflection—“Appear not to men to fast, but to thy Father Who is in heaven, and thy Father, Who seeth in secret, He will repay thee.”

ST. CLOUD is the first and most illustrious Saint among the princes of the royal family of the first race in France. He was son of Chlodomir, King of Orleans, the eldest son of St. Clotilda, and was born in 522. He was scarce three years old when his father was killed in Burgundy; but his grandmother Clotilda brought up him and his two brothers at Paris, and loved them extremely. Their ambitious uncles divided the kingdom of Orleans between them, and stabbed with their own hands two of their nephews. Cloud, by a special providence, was saved from the massacre, and, renouncing the world, devoted himself to the service of God in a monastic state. After a time he put himself under the discipline of St. Severinus, a holy recluse who lived near Paris, from whose hands he received the monastic habit. Wishing to live unknown to the world, he withdrew secretly into Provence, but his hermitage being made public, he returned to Paris, and was received with the greatest joy imaginable. At the earnest request of the people, he was ordained priest by Eusebius, Bishop of Paris, in 551, and served that Church some time in the functions of the sacred ministry. He afterward retired to St. Cloud, two leagues below Paris, where he built a monastery. Here he assembled many pious men, who fled out of the world for fear of losing their souls in it. St. Cloud was regarded by them as their superior, and he animated them to all virtue both by word and example. He was indefatigable in instructing and exhorting the people of the neighboring country, and piously ended his days about the year 560.

Reflection—Let us remember that “the just shall live for evermore; they shall receive a kingdom of glory, and a grown of beauty at the hand of the Lord.”

The BIRTH of the BLESSED VIRGIN MARY announced joy and the near approach of salvation to the lost world. Mary was brought forth in the world not like other children of Adam, infected with the loathsome contagion of sin, but pure, holy, beautiful, and glorious, adorned with all the most precious graces which became her who was chosen to be the Mother of God. She appeared indeed in the weak state of our mortality; but in the eyes of Heaven she already transcended the highest seraph in purity, brightness, and the richest ornaments of grace. If we celebrate the birthdays of the great ones of this earth, how ought we to rejoice in that of the Virgin Mary, presenting to God the best homage of our praises and thanksgiving for the great mercies He has shown in her, and imploring her mediation with her Son in our behalf! Christ will not reject the supplications of His mother, whom He was pleased to obey whilst on earth. Her love, care, and tenderness for Him, the title and qualities which she bears, the charity and graces with which she is adorned, and the crown of glory with which she is honored, must incline Him readily to receive her recommendations and petitions.

ST. ADRIAN suffered martyrdom with twenty-five others at Nicomedia under the emperors Diocletian and Maximian in 303.

PETER CLAVER was a Spanish Jesuit. In Majorca he fell in with the holy lay-brother Alphonsus Rodriguez, who, having already learned by revelation the saintly career of Peter, became his spiritual guide, foretold to him the labors he would undergo in the Indies, and the throne he would gain in heaven. Ordained priest in New Granada, Peter was sent to Cartagena, the great slave-mart of the West Indies, and there he consecrated himself by vow to the salvation of those ignorant and miserable creatures.

For more than 40 years he labored in this work. He called himself “the slave of the slaves.” He was their apostle, father, physician, and friend. He fed them, nursed. them with the utmost tenderness in their loathsome diseases, often applying his own lips to their hideous sores. His cloak, which was the constant covering of the naked, though soiled with their filthy ulcers, sent forth a miraculous perfume. His rest after his great labors was in nights of penance and prayer. However tired he might be, when news arrived of a fresh slave-ship, Saint Peter immediately revived, his eyes brightened, and he was at once on board amongst his dear slaves, bringing them comfort for body and soul. A false charge of reiterating Baptism for a while stopped his work. He submitted without a murmur till the calumny was refuted, and then God so blessed his toil that 40,000 were baptized before he went to his reward, in 1654.

At Nicomedia, St. GORGONIUS, an officer of Diocletian’s household, converted many servants of the imperial court. His cruel master condemned him and his companions to the most atrocious death in 302.

Reflection—When you see anyone standing in need of your assistance, either for body or soul, do not ask yourself why someone else did not help him, but think to yourself that you have found a treasure.

From his childhood St. Nicholas was a model of virtue and innocence. He entered the Order of St. Augustine and became a famous preacher. He died in 1310.
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Born in answer to the prayer of a holy mother, and vowed before his birth to the service of God, NICHOLAS never lost his baptismal innocence. His austerities were conspicuous even in the austere Order—the Hermits of St. Augustine—to which he belonged, and to the remonstrances which were made by his superiors he only replied, “How can I be said to fast, while every morning at the altar I receive my God?” He conceived an ardent charity for the Holy Souls, so near and yet so far from their Savior; and 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. Amidst his loving labors for God and man, he was haunted by fear of his own sinfulness. “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?” As he pondered on these things, Mary, the 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; and he heard, we are told, the songs which the angels sing in the presence of their Lord. He died September 10, 1310.

Reflection—Would you die the death of the just? there is only one way to secure the fulfilment of your wish. Live the life of the just. For it is impossible that one who has been faithful to God in life should make a bad or an unhappy end.

According to tradition, PROTUS and HYACINTH were brothers, and slaves in the household of St. Basilla at Rome. They were burned alive around 257, during the persecution of Valerian and Gallian. The unshakable fortitude of the martyrs throughout the Christian ages should serve as a stimulating reproach to us when we are tempted to lose patience under the most ordinary trials.

The NAME of MARY brings grace, hope, and sweetness to the hearts of men. First fostered in Spain, then invoked against the Turks at Vienna in 1683, this devotion to Mary inspired King John Sobieski of Poland to put the misbelievers to flight, and thus to save Christendom from devastation. Pope Innocent XI extended observance of the feast to the whole Church.

ST. EULOGIUS was a Syrian by birth, and while young embraced the monastic state in that country. The Eutychian heresy had thrown the Churches of Syria and Egypt into much confusion, and a great part of the monks of Syria were at that time become remarkable for their loose morals and errors against faith. Eulogius learned from the fall of others to stand more watchfully and firmly upon his guard, and was not less distinguished by the innocence and sanctity of his manners than by the purity of his doctrine. Having, by an enlarged pursuit of learning, attained to a great variety of useful knowledge in the different branches of literature, he set himself to the study of divinity in the sacred sources of that science, which are the Holy Scriptures, the tradition of the Church as explained in its councils, and the approved writings of its eminent pastors. In the great dangers and necessities of the Church he was drawn out of his solitude, and made priest of Antioch by the patriarch St. Anastasius. Upon the death of John, the Patriarch of Alexandria, St. Eulogius was raised to that patriarchal dignity toward the close of the year 583. About two years after his promotion our Saint was obliged to make a journey to Constantinople, in order to concert measures concerning certain affairs of his Church. He met at court St. Gregory the Great, and contracted with him a holy friendship, so that from that time they seemed to be one heart and one soul. Among the letters of St. Gregory we have several extant which he wrote to our Saint. St. Eulogius composed many excellent works against different heresies, and died in the year 606.

Reflection—We admire the great actions and the glorious triumph of the Saints; yet it is not so much in these that their sanctity consisted, as in the constant, habitual heroic disposition of their souls. There is no one who does not sometimes do good actions; but he can never be called virtuous who does well only by humor, or by fits and starts, not by steady habits.

Constantine was still wavering between Christianity and idolatry when a luminous cross appeared to him in the heavens, bearing the inscription, “In this sign shalt thou conquer.” He became a Christian, and triumphed over his enemies, who were at the same time the enemies of the Faith. A few years later, his saintly mother having found the cross on which Our Savior suffered, the feast of the “Exaltation” was established in the Church; but it was only at a later period still, namely, after the Emperor Heraclius had achieved three great and wondrous victories over Chosroes, King of Persia, who had possessed himself of the holy and precious relic, that this festival took a more general extension, and was invested with a higher character of solemnity. The feast of the “Finding” was thereupon instituted, in memory of the discovery made by St. Helena; and that of the “Exaltation” was reserved to celebrate the triumphs of Heraclius. The greatest power of the Catholic world was at that time centered in the Empire of the East, and was verging toward its ruin, when God put forth His hand to save it: the re-establishment of the great cross at Jerusalem was the sure pledge thereof. This great event occurred in 629.

Reflection—Herein is found the accomplishment of the Savior’s word: “If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to Myself.”

The psalms of David and the prophecies of Isaias told rather plainly what would happen to Mary’s Son. But to help extend God’s mercy to all men, Mary suffered the seven great swords of her life and the multitude of little swords. All of them were the cost of mothering the earth’s Redeemer and His members. Calvary was the climax of her sorrows. The graces and merits won by the anguish of Jesus and His Mother continually come to us through her hands. This fruit of her tears makes her also the “cause of our joy” and the sweetness and hope of the world.

ST. NICOMEDES, a priest of Rome, was scourged to death under Domitian in the first century.

Reflection—What words can ever describe the unspeakable anguish that rent the sacred heart of Mary as she looked upon her Divine Son hanging on the cross! Every wound in Jesus’ body was also a wound in the heart of Mary: every fiber, every nerve throbbing in agony, every pang He suffered re-echoed in her heart. She endured by her compassion a share in all the anguish of His Passion. Why did Mary suffer all this? That she might be our Mother, the Mother of mankind. She who brought forth her Divine Son without a pang suffered many a piercing pang when from the cross her dying Son commended to her the sinful sons of men. It was indeed a motherhood of sorrow that she suffered for our sins: for mine.

ST. CORNELIUS, the successor of St. Fabian, Pope and Martyr, was one of the greatest Popes of the third century. He was beheaded in 253.

St. Cyprian, a barrister, and later Bishop of Carthage and Primate of Africa, wrote works which are among the most precious documents of the Catholic Church. He suffered martyrdom in 258.
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CYPRIAN was an African of noble birth, but of evil life, a pagan, and a teacher of rhetoric. In middle life he was converted to Christianity, and shortly after his baptism was ordained priest, and made Bishop of Carthage, notwithstanding his resistance. When the persecution of Decius broke out, he fled from his episcopal city, that he might be the better able to minister to the wants of his flock, but returned on occasion of a pestilence. Later on he was banished, and saw in a vision his future martyrdom. Being recalled from exile, sentence of death was pronounced against him, which he received with the words “Thanks be to God.” His great desire was to die whilst in the act of preaching the faith of Christ, and he had the consolation of being surrounded at his martyrdom by crowds of his faithful children. He was beheaded on the 14th of September, 258, and was buried with great solemnity. Even the pagans respected his memory.

Reflection—The duty of almsgiving is declared both by nature and revelation: by nature, because it flows from the principle imprinted within us of doing to others as we would they should do to us; by revelation, in many special commands of Scripture, and in the precept of divine charity which binds us to love God for His own sake, and our neighbor for the sake of God.

In 1224, two years before his death, three years after he had laid down active leadership of his order, Francis of Assisi received the greatest gift of his singularly blessed life—the Stigmata. During the course of a 40-day fast on Mount Alvernia in honor of St. Michael, Francis was visited by a dazzling seraphic figure whose feet and hands were nailed to a cross—to indicate to Francis that the martyrdom he yearned for would be of the mystical, rather than the physical order. He was then afflicted with the five wounds of the Crucifixion, and bore their sufferings until his death.

St. Joseph, a humble Franciscan Friar of Cupertino in Italy, who could acquire but little of book knowledge and needed divine help to qualify for the priesthood, was favored by his crucified God with a marvelous grace of contemplation, and with the remarkable power of miracles. He died at Orsino in 1663.
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JOSEPH DESA was born the 17th of June, 1603, at Cupertino, a small village of the diocese of Nardo, between Brindisi and Otranto, six miles from the coast of the gulf of Tarento. His parents were poor, but virtuous. His mother brought him up in great sentiments of piety; but treated him with great severity, punishing him frequently for the least fault, to inure him to an austere and penitential life. From his infancy he gave signs of an extraordinary fervor, and everything in him seemed to announce that he already tasted the sweets of heavenly consolations. He was very attentive to the divine service, and in an age when the love of pleasure is generally predominant, he wore a hair shirt, and mortified his body by divers austerities. He was bound apprentice to a shoemaker, which trade he applied himself to for some time.

When he was seventeen years of age he presented himself to be received amongst the Conventual Franciscans, where he had two uncles of distinction in the Order. He was, nevertheless, refused because he had not made his studies. All he could obtain was to be received amongst the Capuchins in quality of lay-brother; but after eight months he was dismissed as unequal to the duties of the Order. Far from being discouraged he persisted in his resolution of embracing a religious state. At length the Franciscans, moved with compassion, received him into their convent of Grotella, thus called from a subterraneous chapel dedicated to God under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. This convent was situated near Cupertino. The saint having finished his novitiate with great fervor, he made his vows, and was received as lay-brother amongst the Oblates of the Third Order.

After having received the priesthood he passed five years without tasting bread or wine; during which time he lived only on herbs and dry fruits; and even the herbs that he ate on Fridays were so distasteful that only himself could use them. His fast in Lent was so rigorous that for seven years he took no nourishment but on Thursdays and Sundays, except the Holy Eucharist, which he received every day. His countenance in the morning was extremely pale; but after the communion it became florid and lively. He had contracted such a habit of fasting, that his stomach could no longer bear any food. His desire of mortification made him invent different instruments of penance. During two years he suffered many interior trials which tormented him exceedingly; but to this storm a profound calm succeeded.

Reflection—We learn a lot from the prudence of St. Joseph, which was remarkable in the conduct of souls, drew to him a great concourse of people, and even of cardinals and princes.

St. Januarius, Bishop of Beneventum, was beheaded with his companions Acutius, Eutychius, Desiderius, Festus, Proculus, and Socius at Puteoli in the persecution of Diocletian in 305. St. Januarius is the patron of Naples, where year by year the liquefaction of his blood, preserved in a phial, takes place.
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Many centuries ago, ST. JANUARIUS died for the Faith in the persecution of Diocletian, and to this day God confirms the faith of His Church, and works a continual miracle, through the blood which Januarius shed for Him. The Saint was Bishop of Beneventum, and on one occasion he travelled to Misenum in order to visit a deacon named Sosius. During this visit Januarius saw the head of Sosius, who was singing the gospel in the church, girt with flames, and took this for a sign that ere long Sosius would wear the crown of martyrdom. So it proved. Shortly after Sosius was arrested, and thrown into prison. There St. Januarius visited and encouraged him, till the bishop also was arrested in turn. Soon the number of the confessors was swollen by some of the neighboring clergy. They were exposed to the wild beasts in the amphitheater. The beasts, however, did them no harm; and at last the Governor of Campania ordered the Saints to be beheaded. Little did the heathen governor think that he was the instrument in God’s hand of ushering in the long succession of miracles which attest the faith of Januarius. The relics of St. Januarius rest in the cathedral of Naples, and it is there that the liquefaction of his blood occurs. The blood is congealed in two glass vials, but when it is brought near the martyr’s head it melts and flows like the blood of a living man.

Reflection—Thank God Who has given you superabundant motives for your faith; and pray for the spirit of the first Christians, the spirit which exults and rejoices in belief.

Eustace was commander-in-chief in the army of the Emperor Trajan. Having refused to thank the gods for a triumph, he was burned to death with his wife and two children, after undergoing many cruel tortures in 120.
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The legend relates that EUSTACHIUS (before baptism, Placidus), a Roman general under Trajan, while still a heathen, saw a stag coming towards him, with a crucifix between its horns; he heard a voice telling him that he was to suffer much for Christ’s sake. He received baptism, together with his wife Tatiana (or Trajana, after baptism Theopista) and his sons, Agapius and Theopistus. The place of the vision is said to have been Guadagnolo, between Tibur and Praeneste (Tivoli and Palestrina), in the vicinity of Rome. Through adverse fortune the family was scattered, but later reunited. For refusing to sacrifice to the idols after a victory, they suffered death in a heated brazen bull. Baronius would identify him with Placidus mentioned by Josephus Flavius as a general. Sts. Eustachius and Companions became martyrs under the Emperor Hadrian, in the year 118. The church of Sant’ Eustachio in Rome, title of a cardinal-deacon, existed in 827, according to the Liber Pontificalis, but perhaps as early as the time of Gregory the Great (d. 604). It claims to possess the relics of the saint, some of which are said to be at St-Denis and at St-Eustache in Paris. An island in the Lesser Canilles and a city in Canada bear his name.

Reflection—St. Eustachius is honored as one of the Holy Helpers, is invoked in difficult situations, and is patron of the city of Madrid and of hunters.

St. Matthew was at first a publican at the toll station at Capharnaum. The publicans, on account of their many acts of injustice and extortion, were looked upon as the greatest sinners by the Jews. Matthew himself by his humble confession gratefully acknowledged the gracious condescension of the Lord to sinners. At his Master’s invitation he promptly joined Him. He wrote the first Gospel and preached the Good News in Palestine and in Ethiopia, where he was attacked and killed while saying Mass in 60.
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One day, as Our Lord was walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw, sitting at the receipt of custom, MATTHEW the publican, whose business it was to collect the taxes from the people for their Roman masters. Jesus said to him, “Follow Me”; and leaving all, Matthew arose and followed Him. Now the publicans were abhorred by the Jews as enemies of their country, outcasts, and notorious sinners, who enriched themselves by extortion and fraud. No Pharisee would sit with one at table. Our Savior alone had compassion for them. So St. Matthew made a great feast, to which he invited Jesus and His disciples, with a number of these publicans, who henceforth began eagerly to listen to Him. It was then, in answer to the murmurs of the Pharisees, that He said, “They that are in health need not the physician. I have not come to call the just, but sinners to penance.” After the Ascension, St. Matthew remained some years in Judaea, and there wrote his gospel, to teach his countrymen that Jesus was their true Lord and King, foretold by the prophets. St. Matthew afterward preached the Faith far and wide, and is said to have finished his course in Parthia.

Reflection—Obey all inspirations of Our Lord as promptly as St. Matthew, who, at a single word, “laid down,” says St. Bridget, “the heavy burden of the world to put on the light and sweet yoke of Christ.”

St. Thomas, born in Spain, religious of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, Archbishop of Valencia, died having given away to the poor all he possessed in 1555.

St. Maurice and his Companions, Martyrs. These soldiers of the famous Theban legion were put to the sword by order of Maximian at Agaune, now called St. Maurice (Switzerland) in 285.
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ST. THOMAS, glory of the church of Spain, was born at Fuenlana in Castile in 1488: but received his surname from Villanova de los Infantes, a town where he had his education, situate about two miles from the place of his birth. His parents, Alphonsus Thomas Garcias and Lucy Martinez, were also originally of Villanova. Their fortune was not affluent; but it contented all their wishes, and with their prudent frugality enabled them liberally to assist the poor. Instead of selling that corn which was not necessary for the subsistence of their family, they made bread of it, which they bestowed on the necessitous, and they usually observed the same rule with regard to their cattle, and the rest of the produce of their small estate. The first words which his parents had taught him to pronounce were the names of Jesus and Mary; and during his whole life he had the most tender devotion to the mother of God.

His behavior in his novitiate was such as showed he had been long inured to austerities, to the renouncing his own will, and the exercises of holy contemplation. The simplicity of his behavior in his whole conduct charmed his fellow-religious, and made them admire how he seemed totally to forget that he had been professor in a famous university. Soon after the term of his novitiate was expired, he was promoted to priestly orders in 1520, and employed in preaching the word of God, and in administering the sacrament of penance. Of these functions he acquitted himself with such dignity and success that he was surnamed the apostle of Spain.

He rendered his soul into the hands of God, in the sixty-seventh year of his age, the eleventh of his episcopal dignity, of our Lord 1555. He was buried, according to his desire, in the church of the Austin Friars at Valentia: was beatified by Paul V., in 1618, and canonized by Alexander VII., in 1658. His festival was appointed to be celebrated on the 18th of September. His sermons, and his exposition of the book of Canticles, printed in two volumes in quarto, breathe an admirable spirit of humility, and the ardent love of God and our Blessed Redeemer. The relation of many miracles wrought through his intercession and by his relics, with most authentic attestations, may be seen in the process of his canonization prefixed to his works.

Reflection—Nothing can be more vehement or more tender than his exhortation to divine love. “O wonderful beneficence!” he cries out; “God promises us heaven for the recompense of his love. Is not his love itself a great reward? a blessing the most desirable, the most amiable, and the most sweet! Yet a recompense, and so immense a recompense, further waits upon it!”

The successor of St. Peter in the Apostolic See ruled the Church for about nine years. He was martyred, and was buried next to the Prince of the Apostles in 78.

St. Thecla was converted by St. Paul. Under the emperor Nero vain attempts were made to compass her death by fire, by serpents, by wild beasts. After a life of solitary retirement, she died at the age of 90.
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ST. LINUS was the immediate successor of St. Peter in the see of Rome, as St. Irenaeus, Eusebius, St. Epiphanius, St. Optatus, St. Austin, and others assure us. Tertullian says that St. Clement was appointed by St. Peter to be his successor; but either he declined that dignity till St. Linus and St. Cletus had preceded him in it, or he was at first only vicar of St. Peter, to govern under him the Gentile converts, whilst that apostle presided over the whole church, yet so as to be chiefly taken up in instructing the Jewish converts, and in preaching abroad. St. Linus, succeeding St. Peter after his martyrdom, sat twelve years, and is named among the martyrs in the canon of the Roman mass, which is certainly older in this part than the sacramentary of Gelasius, and of the greatest authority in this point. It is not indeed impossible that he might be called a martyr on account of his sufferings for the faith, without dying by the sword. St. Linus was buried on the Vatican hill, near the tomb of St. Peter.

Reflection—This saint distinguished himself among the illustrious disciples of the apostles, who were formed upon their model to perfect virtue, and filled with the holy spirit of the gospel. How little are we acquainted with this spirit of fervor, charity, meekness, patience, and sincere humility; without which it is in vain that we bear the honorable name of Christians, and are a reproach and scandal to so sacred a profession!

The Blessed Virgin Mary by repeated visions inspired St. Peter Nolasco and St. Raymond of Peñafort to found with the aid of King James of Aragon the Order of Our Lady of Ransom for the redemption of Christian captives from the infidels. The Church commemorates today this incomparable work of charity.
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St. Peter of the noble family of Nolasco, was born in Languedoc, about 1189. At the age of 25 he took a vow of chastity, and made over his vast estates to the Church. Some time after, he conceived the idea of establishing an order for the redemption of captives. The divine will was soon manifested. The Blessed Virgin appeared on the same night to Peter, to Raymund of Pennafort, his confessor, and to James, King of Arragon, his ward, and bade them prosecute without fear their holy designs. After great opposition, the Order was solemnly established, and approved by Gregory IX, under the name of OUR LADY OF MERCY. By the grace of God, and under the protection of His Virgin Mother, the Order spread rapidly, its growth being increased by the charity and piety of its members, who devoted themselves not only to collecting alms for the ransom of the Christians, but even gave themselves up to voluntary slavery to aid the good work. It is to return thanks to God and the Blessed Virgin that a feast was instituted which was observed in the Order of Mercy, then in Spain and France, and at last extended to the whole Church by Innocent XII, and the 24th September named as the day on which it is to be observed.

Reflection—St. Peter Nolasco and his knights were laymen, not priests, and yet they considered the salvation of their neighbor entrusted to them. We can each of us by counsel, by prayer, but above all by holy example, assist the salvation of our brethren, and thus secure our own.

ST. FIRMIN was a native of Pampelone in Navarre, initiated in the Christian faith by Honestus, a disciple of St. Saturninus of Toulouse, and consecrated bishop by St. honoratus, successor to St. Saturninus, in order to preach the Gospel in the remoter parts of Gaul. He preached the Faith in the countries of Agen, Anjou, and Beauvais, and being arrived at Amiens, there chose his residence, and founded there a numerous church of faithful disciples. He received the crown of martyrdom in that city, whether under the prefect Rictius Varus, or in some other persecution from Decius, in 250, to Diocletian, in 303, is uncertain.

SS. JEAN (JOHN) DE BRÉBEUF, ISAAC JOGUES, GABRIEL LALEMANT, ANTHONY DANIEL, CHARLES GARNIER, NOËL CHABANEL, Jesuit priests; JOHN DE LALANDE, an Oblate; and RENÉ GOUPIL, a Jesuit Brother-coadjutor, all born in France, labored as missionaries in North America. They suffered much for Christ and in the end were cruelly put to death by the Indian tribes in 1642, 1646, 1648, and 1649.
CYPRIAN, the magician, endeavored in vain to deceive the holy virgin JUSTINA by his sorcery. He was converted to the Faith, and both were beheaded at Nicomedia under Diocletian in 304.
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The detestable superstition of ST. CYPRIAN’s idolatrous parents devoted him from his infancy to the devil, and he was brought up in all the impious mysteries of idolatry, astrology, and the black art. When Cyprian had learned all the extravagances of these schools of error and delusion, he hesitated at no crimes, blasphemed Christ, and committed secret murders. There lived at Antioch a young Christian lady called JUSTINA, of high birth and great beauty. A pagan nobleman fell deeply in love with her, and finding her modesty inaccessible, and her resolution invincible, he applied to Cyprian for assistance. Cyprian, no less smitten with the lady, tried every secret with which he was acquainted to conquer her resolution. Justina, perceiving herself vigorously attacked, studied to arm herself by prayer, watchfulness, and mortification against all his artifices and the power of his spells. Cyprian finding himself worsted by a superior power, began to consider the weakness of the infernal spirits, and resolved to quit their service and become a Christian. Agladius, who had been the first suitor to the holy virgin, was likewise converted and baptized. The persecution of Diocletian breaking out, Cyprian and Justina were seized, and presented to the same judge. She was inhumanly scourged, and Cyprian was torn with iron hooks. After this they were both sent in chains to Diocletian, who commanded their heads to be struck off, which sentence was executed.
Reflection—If the errors and disorders of St. Cyprian show the degeneracy of human nature corrupted by sin and enslaved to vice, his conversion displays the power of grace and virtue to repair it. Let us beg of God to send us grace to resist temptation, and to do His holy will in all things.

SS. Cosmas and Damian, two brothers, physicians, born at Egæa (Arabia), were beheaded after many cruel tortures in Cilicia, under Diocletian, by order of the prefect Lysias in 283.
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STS. COSMAS and DAMIAN were brothers, and born in Arabia, but studied the sciences in Syria, and became eminent for their skill in physic. Being Christians, and full of that holy temper of charity in which the spirit of our divine religion consists, they practiced their profession with great application and wonderful success, but never took any fee. They were loved and respected by the people on account of the good offices received from their charity, and for their zeal for the Christian faith, which they took every opportunity to propagate. When the persecution of Diocletian began to rage, it was impossible for persons of so distinguished a character to lie concealed. They were therefore apprehended by the order of Lysias, Governor of Cilicia, and after various torments were bound hand and foot and thrown into the sea.

Reflection—We may sanctify our labor or industry, if actuated by the motive of charity toward others, even whilst we fulfill the obligation we owe to ourselves and our families of procuring an honest and necessary subsistence, which of itself is no less noble a virtue, if founded in motives equally pure and perfect.

St. Wenceslaus, duke of Bohemia, was persecuted by his unnatural mother Drahomira and his impious brother and successor, Boleslas, out of hatred for the Faith. He was murdered by the latter in a church where he was praying in 938.
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WENCESLAUS was the son of a Christian Duke of Bohemia, but his mother was a hard and cruel pagan. Through the care of his holy grandmother, Ludmilla, herself a martyr, Wenceslaus was educated in the true faith, and imbibed a special devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. On the death of his father, his mother, Drahomira, usurped the government and passed a series of persecuting laws. In the interests of the Faith Wenceslaus claimed and obtained, through the support of the people, a large portion of the country as his own kingdom. His mother secured the apostasy and alliance of her second son, Boleslas, who became henceforth her ally against the Christians. Wenceslaus meanwhile ruled as a brave and pious king, provided for all the needs of his people, and when his kingdom was attacked, overcame in single combat, by the sign of the cross, the leader of an invading army. In the service of God he was most constant, and planted with his own hands the wheat and grapes for the Holy Mass, at which he never failed daily to assist. His piety was the occasion of his death. Once, after a banquet at his brother’s palace, to which he had been treacherously invited, he went, as was his wont at night, to pray before the tabernacle. There, at midnight on the feast of the Angels, 938, he received his crown of martyrdom, his brother dealing him the death-blow.

Reflection—St. Wenceslaus teaches us that the safest place to meet the trials of life, or to prepare for the stroke of death, is before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.

This Basilica was consecrated to St. Michael by Boniface II on the site of the Roman Circus.
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“MI-CA-EL,” or “Who is like to God?” Such was the cry of the great Archangel when he smote the rebel Lucifer in the conflict of the heavenly hosts, and from that hour he has been known as “Michael,” the captain of the armies of God, the type of divine fortitude, the champion of every faithful soul in strife with the powers of evil. Thus he appears in Holy Scripture as the guardian of the children of Israel, their comfort and protector in times of sorrow or conflict. He it is who prepares for their return from the Persian captivity, who leads the valiant Maccabees to victory, and who rescues the body of Moses from the envious grasp of the Evil One. And since Christ’s coming the Church has ever venerated St. Michael as her special patron and protector. The Church invokes him by name in her confession of sin, summons him to the side of her children in the agony of death, and chooses him as their escort from the chastening flames of purgatory to the realms of holy light. Lastly, when Antichrist shall have set up his kingdom on earth, it is Michael who will unfurl once more the standard of the Cross, sound the last trumpet, and binding together the false prophet and the beast, hurl them for all eternity into the burning pool.

Reflection—“Whenever,” says St. Bernard, “any grievous temptation or vehement sorrow oppresses thee, invoke thy guardian, thy leader; cry out to him, and say, ‘Lord, save us, lest we perish!’”

St. Jerome, born in Dalmatia, educated at Rome, was soon led into the gravest disorders. Inspired by heaven, he was converted and became one of the greatest Doctors of the Latin Church, especially famous for his translation into Latin (the Vulgate) of the Holy Scriptures. He retired into a monastery at Bethlehem and died in 420.
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ST. JEROME, born in Dalmatia, in 329, was sent to school at Rome. His boyhood was not free from fault. His thirst for knowledge was excessive, and his love of books a passion. He had studied under the best masters, visited foreign cities, and devoted himself to the pursuit of science. But Christ had need of his strong will and active intellect for the service of His Church. St. Jerome felt and obeyed the call, made a vow of celibacy, fled from Rome to the wild Syrian desert, and there for four years learnt in solitude, penance, and prayer a new lesson of divine wisdom. This was his novitiate. The Pope soon summoned him to Rome, and there put upon the now famous Hebrew scholar the task of revising the Latin Bible, which was to be his noblest work. Retiring thence to his beloved Bethlehem, the eloquent hermit poured forth from his solitary cell for 30 years a stream of luminous writings upon the Christian world.

Reflection—“To know,” says St. Basil, “how to submit thyself with thy whole soul, is to know how to imitate Christ.”

St. Remigius, Bishop of Rheims, in France, converted the Merovingian king Clovis and the Frankish nation. He died in 534.
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REMIGIUS, or Remi, was born of noble and pious parents. At the age of 22, in spite of the canons and of his own reluctance, he was acclaimed Archbishop of Rheims. He was unusually tall, his face impressed with blended majesty and serenity, his bearing gentle, humble, and retiring. He was learned and eloquent, and had the gift of miracles. His pity and charity were boundless, and in toil he knew no weariness. His body was the outward expression of a noble and holy soul, breathing the spirit of meekness and compunction. For so choice a workman God had fitting work. The South of France was in the hands of Arians, and the pagan Franks were wresting the North from the Romans. St. Remigius confronted Clovis, their king, and converted and baptized him at Christmas, in 496. With him he gained the whole Frank nation. He threw down the idol altars, built churches, and appointed bishops. He withstood and silenced the Arians, and converted so many that he left France a Catholic kingdom, its king the oldest and at the time the only crowned son of the Church. He died in 533, after an episcopate of 74 years, the longest on record.

Reflection—Few men have had such natural advantages and such gifts of grace as St. Remi, and few have done so great a work. Learn from him to bear the world’s praise as well as its scorn with a lowly and chastened heart.

God’s love for us was not satisfied with giving us His Son, Jesus, for our Redeemer, and Mary for our Advocate; He has been pleased to give us also His Angels to be our guardians: “He hath given His Angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways” (Ps. 90:2). These holy spirits and princes of heaven are always present with us, and assist us in all our actions. And on this account, out of regard to our guardian Angels, we ought carefully to refrain from every action which can displease them.
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God does not abandon to mere chance any of His handiworks; by His providence He is everywhere present; not a hair falls from the head or a sparrow to the ground without His knowledge. Not content, however, with yielding such familiar help in all things, not content with affording that existence which He communicates and perpetuates through every living being, He has charged His angels with the ministry of watching and safeguarding every one of His creatures that behold not His face. Kingdoms have their angels assigned to them, and men have their angels; these latter it is whom religion designates as THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGELS. Our Lord says in the Gospel, “Beware lest ye scandalize any of these little ones, for their angels in heaven see the face of My Father.” The existence of Guardian Angels is a dogma of the Christian faith: this being so, what ought not our respect be for that sure and holy intelligence that is ever present at our side; and how great should our solicitude be, lest, by any act of ours, we offend those eyes which are ever bent upon us in all our ways!

Reflection—Ah! let us not give occasion, in the language of Holy Scripture, to the angels of peace to weep bitterly.

Mary Frances Martin was born at Alençon of parents most pious and endowed with a comfortable amount of the goods of this world. At the age of fifteen she entered the Carmel of Lisieux, living there in holiness and humility. Her whole ambition was to love God perfectly and to conquer souls for Jesus. She died in the odor of sanctity, promising to “spend her heaven in doing good upon earth” (1873-1897). His Holiness Pope Pius XI declared her Blessed on April 29, 1923, and canonized her on March 17, 1925.
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ST. THÉRÈSE was a Carmelite of Lisieux, better known as the Little Flower of Jesus, born at Alençon, France, January 2, 1873; died at Lisieux September 30, 1897.

She was the ninth child of saintly parents, Louis and Zélie Martin, both of whom had wished to consecrate their lives to God in the cloister. The vocation denied them was given to their children, five of whom became religious, one to the Visitation Order and four in the Carmelite Convent of Lisieux. Brought up in an atmosphere of faith where every virtue and aspiration were carefully nurtured and developed, her vocation manifested itself when she was still only a child. Educated by the Benedictines, when she was fifteen she applied for permission to enter the Carmelite Convent, and being refused by the superior, went to Rome with her father, as eager to give her to God as she was to give herself, to seek the consent of the Holy Father, Leo XIII, then celebrating his jubilee. He preferred to leave the decision in the hands of the superior, who finally consented and on April 9, 1888, at the unusual age of fifteen, Thérèse Martin entered the convent of Lisieux where two of her sisters had preceded her.

The account of the eleven years of her religious life, marked by signal graces and constant growth in holiness, is given by Soeur Thérèse in her autobiography, written in obedience to her superior and published two years after her death. In 1901 it was translated into English, and in 1912 another translation, the first complete edition of the life of the Servant of God, containing the autobiography, “Letters and Spiritual Counsels,” was published. Its success was immediate and it has passed into many editions, spreading far and wide the devotion to this “little” saint of simplicity, and abandonment in God’s service, of the perfect accomplishment of small duties.

The fame of her sanctity and the many miracles performed through her intercession caused the introduction of her cause of canonization only seventeen years after her death, 10 Jun, 1914. St. Thérèse is well known throughout the world, with the Basilica of Lisieux being the second largest place of pilgrimage in France after Lourdes.

ST. FRANCIS, the son of a merchant of Assisi, was born in that city in 1182. Chosen by God to be a living manifestation to the world of Christ’s poor and suffering life on earth, he was early inspired with a high esteem and burning love of poverty and humiliation. The thought of the Man of Sorrows, Who had not where to lay His head, filled him with holy envy of the poor, and constrained him to renounce the wealth and worldly station which he abhorred. The scorn and hard usage which he met with from his father and townsmen when he appeared among them in the garb of poverty were delightful to him. “Now,” he exclaimed, “I can say truly, ‘Our Father Who art in heaven.’” But divine love burned in him too mightily not to kindle like desires in other hearts. Many joined themselves to him, and were constituted by Pope Innocent III into a religious Order, which spread rapidly throughout Christendom. St. Francis, after visiting the East in the vain quest of martyrdom, spent his life like his Divine Master—now in preaching to the multitudes, now amid desert solitudes in fasting and contemplation. During one of these retreats he received on his hands, feet, and side the print of the five bleeding wounds of Jesus. With the cry, “Welcome, sister Death,” he passed to the glory of his God October 4, 1226.

Reflection—“My God and my all,” St. Francis’ constant prayer, explains both his poverty and his wealth.

St. Placid, when four years old, was committed by his father Tertullus to the care of St. Benedict, who sent him later into Sicily. He was murdered with his monks, out of hatred for the Faith, by heathen pirates in 541.
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ST. PLACID was born in Rome, in the year 515, of a patrician family, and at seven years of age was taken by his father to the monastery of Subiaco. At 13 years of age he followed St. Benedict to the new foundation at Monte Casino, where he grew up in the practice of a wonderful austerity and innocence of life. He had scarcely completed his 21st year when he was selected to establish a monastery in Sicily upon some estates which had been given by his father to St. Benedict. He spent four years in building his monastery, and the 5th had not elapsed before an inroad of barbarians burned everything to the ground, and put to a lingering death not only St. Placid and thirty monks who had joined him, but also his two brothers, Eutychius and Victorinus, and his holy sister Flavia, who had come to visit him. The monastery was rebuilt, and still stands under his invocation.

Reflection—Adversity is the touchstone of the soul, because it discovers the character of the virtue which it possesses. One act of thanksgiving when matters go wrong with us is worth a thousand thanks when things are agreeable to our inclinations.

St. Bruno, born at Cologne, retired with six of his friends to one of the desert mountains of Dauphiny in the southeast of France. There he established the first house of the Order of the Carthusians. He died on October 6, 1101.
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BRUNO was born at Cologne, about 1030, of an illustrious family. He was endowed with rare natural gifts, which he cultivated with care at Paris. He became canon of Cologne, and then of Rheims, where he had the direction of theological studies. On the death of the bishop, the see fell for a time into evil hands, and Bruno retired with a few friends into the country. There he resolved to forsake the world, and to live a life of retirement and penance. With six companions he applied to Hugh, Bishop of Grenoble, who led them into a wild solitude called the Chartreuse. There they lived in poverty, self-denial, and silence, each apart in his own cell, meeting only for the worship of God, and employing themselves in copying books. From the name of the spot the Order of St. Bruno was called the Carthusian. Six years later, Urban II called Bruno to Rome, that he might avail himself of his guidance. Bruno tried to live there as he had lived in the desert; but the echoes of the great city disturbed his solitude, and, after refusing high dignities, he wrung from the Pope permission to resume his monastic life in Calabria. There he lived, in humility and mortification and great peace, till his blessed death in 1101.

Reflection—“O everlasting kingdom,” said St. Augustine; “kingdom of endless ages, whereon rests the untroubled light and the peace of God which passeth all understanding, where the souls of the Saints are in rest, and everlasting joy is on their heads, and sorrow and sighing have fled away! When shall I come and appear before God?”

This festival was instituted to implore the divine mercy in favor of the church and of all the faithful, and to thank the Almighty for the protection he has afforded them, and for the innumerable benefits he has conferred upon them, particularly for his having delivered Christendom from the arms of the Infidels by the miraculous victory of Lepanto in 1571, through the patronage and intercession of the Mother of God, implored with extraordinary fervor in the devotion of the Rosary. To the same means Pope Clement XI acknowledged the church to be indebted for the wonderful victory which prince Eugene of Savoy obtained over the Turks near Belgrade in 1716. Upon which account his holiness caused one of the five standards which were taken from the infidels, and which was sent him by the emperor, to be hung up in the Dominicans’ church of the Rosary in Rome. At that time the infidels, with an army of two hundred thousand men, held the Christian army, as it were, besieged near Belgrade, and had a garrison of twenty thousand men in that strong city, then the bulwark of their empire. The isle of Corfu was also beleaguered by an army of forty thousand of the same infidels. The victory of the Christians was followed by the taking of Belgrade, and the deliverance of Corfu, and also the preservation of all Germany and Italy, which were next threatened.

The Angelical Salutation is often repeated in the Rosary, because, as it contains a form of praise for the Incarnation, it best suits a devotion instituted to honor the principal parts of that great mystery. Though it be addressed to the Mother of God, with an invocation of her intercession, it is chiefly a praise and thanksgiving to the Son, for the divine mercy in each part of that wonderful mystery. The Holy Ghost is the principal author of this holy prayer, which the archangel Gabriel, the ambassador of the Blessed Trinity in the most wonderful of all mysteries, began; Saint Elizabeth, another organ of the Holy Ghost, continued, and the Church finished. The first and second part consist of the sacred praises which were bestowed on the Blessed Virgin by the archangel Gabriel, and by Saint Elizabeth inspired by the Holy Ghost. The last part was added by the church, and contains a petition of her intercession, styling her Mother of God, with the general council of Ephesus against the blasphemies of Nestorius.

St. MARK, successor of St. Sylvester, occupied the Holy See for a few months, and died in 336.

Reflection—Mary is truly called blessed above all other women, she having been herself always preserved from the least stain of sin, and having been the happy instrument of God in converting the maledictions laid on all mankind into blessings. How emphatically should we from our hearts pronounce her blessed above all women, who brought forth Him who is the author of all manner of spiritual and eternal blessings to us!

St. Bridget, a descendant of the royal house of Sweden, was married to prince Ulfo. After the death of the latter, she founded the Order of the Most Holy Savior, commonly called Bridgettines. She died at Rome in 1373.
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ST. BRIDGET was born of the Swedish royal family, in 1304. In obedience to her father, she was married to Prince Ulpho of Sweden, and became the mother of eight children, one of whom, Catherine, is honored as a Saint. After some years she and her husband separated by mutual consent. He entered the Cistercian Order, and Bridget founded the Order of St. Savior, in the Abbey of Wastein, in Sweden. In 1344 she became a widow, and thenceforth received a series of the most sublime revelations, all of which she scrupulously submitted to the judgment of her confessor. By the command of Our Lord, Bridget went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and amidst the very scenes of the Passion was further instructed in the sacred mysteries. She died in 1373.

SERGIUS and BACCHUS, martyrs, d. in the Diocletian persecution in Coele-Syria about 303. They were officers of troops on the frontier, Sergius being primicerius, and Bacchus secundarius. They were high in esteem of the Caesar Maximianus on account of their bravery, but this favor was turned into hate when they acknowledged their Christian faith. When examined under torture they were beaten so severely with thongs that Bacchus died under the blows. Sergius, though, had much more suffering to endure; among other tortures, he had to run eighteen miles in shoes which were covered on the soles with sharp-pointed nails that pierced through the foot. He was finally beheaded. Christian art represents the two saints as soldiers in military garb with branches of palm in their hands.

The Church calendar gives the two saints MARCELLUS and APULEIUS on the same day as Sergius and Bacchus. They are said to have been converted to Christianity by the miracles of St. Peter. According to the “Martyrologium Romanum” they suffered martyrdom soon after the deaths of Sts. Peter and Paul and were buried near Rome.

Reflection—“Is confession a matter of much time or expense?” asks St. John Chrysostom. “Is it a difficult and painful remedy? Without cost or hurt, the medicine is ever ready to restore you to perfect health.”

This holy priest of Luna in Tuscany founded the Congregation of Regular Clergy called “of the Mother of God,” and other Institutes. He died at Rome on October 9, 1609. St. John Leonardi was beatified by Pope Pius XI. Pius XII extended his feast to the whole Catholic world in 1940.

St. Denis, the first bishop of Paris, together with the priest Rusticus and the deacon Eleutherius, preached the Gospel in Gaul, where they suffered martyrdom in the third century.
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GIOVANNI LEONARDI was the youngest of seven children born to middle-class parents in Diecimo (now within the comune of Borgo a Mozzano) in the Republic of Lucca. From childhood, he sought solitude and wished to dedicate himself to prayer and meditation. At age 17, he began his ten-year study to become a certified pharmacist’s assistant in Lucca. Afterward, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained in 1572. He first dedicated himself to the Christian formation of adolescents in his local Lucca parish. He also gathered a group of laymen around him to work in hospitals and prisons. In 1574 he founded a group charged to deepen Christian faith and devotion; this foundation occurred as part of the movement known as the Counter-Reformation. Leonardi worked with this group to spread devotion to the Blessed Mother and devotion to the Forty Hours as well as spreading the message of the importance of frequent reception of the Eucharist.

He became interested in the reforms instituted by the Council of Trent, and he proposed a new congregation of secular priests to convert sinners and to restore Church discipline. In 1583, his association, which became known as the Lucca Fathers, was recognized by the bishop of Lucca with the approval of Pope Gregory XIII. In 1595, his congregation was confirmed by Pope Clement VIII. He assumed the name of “Giovanni of the Mother of God” as his religious name. This foundation received approval from Pope Paul V on January 14, 1614. The pope, encouraged by the cardinal protector Giustiniani issued a papal decree approving the union of the Lucca Fathers with the Piarists of St. Joseph Calasanctius. This union would last only until the beginning of 1617 when Paul V issued another decree making the Piarists their own separate congregation. In 1621, his community would formally be designated Clerks Regular of the Mother of God. The final Rule of his institute was published in 1851. Two houses of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God were opened when he died and three others were opened during the seventeenth century. He died on October 9, 1609, from the great plague, which he contracted while ministering to his brothers suffering from the influenza epidemic that was raging in Rome at the time. Leonardi was beatified in 1861 and canonized in 1938 by Pope Pius XI. His liturgical feast is celebrated on 9 October. His relics lie enshrined in Santa Maria in Campitelli, Rome.

Reflection—Our saint was venerated for his miracles and his religious fervor. His memory was held so high in the Holy City that Pope Leo XIII had his name placed in the Roman Martyrology and ordered the Roman clergy to celebrate his Mass and Office, an honor which is otherwise strictly limited to beatified popes.

After the death of his wife, St. Francis, Duke of Gandia and Viceroy of Catalonia, renounced his high position in order to enter the Society of Jesus. He was the third General of his Order and died at Rome in 1572.
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FRANCIS BORGIA, Duke of Gandia and Captain-General of Catalonia, was one of the handsomest, richest, and most honored nobles in Spain, when, in 1539, there was laid upon him the sad duty of escorting the remains of his sovereign, Queen Isabella, to the royal burying-place at Granada. The coffin had to be opened for him that he might verify the body before it was placed in the tomb, and so foul a sight met his eyes that he vowed never again to serve a sovereign who could suffer so base a change. It was some years before he could follow the call of his Lord; at length he entered the Society of Jesus to cut himself off from any chance of dignity or preferment. But his Order chose him to be its head. The Turks were threatening Christendom, and St. Pius V sent his nephew to gather Christian princes into a league for its defense. The holy Pope chose Francis to accompany him, and, worn out though he was, the Saint obeyed at once. The fatigues of the embassy exhausted what little life was left. St. Francis died on his return to Rome, October 10, 1572.

Reflection—St. Francis Borgia learnt the worthlessness of earthly greatness at the funeral of Queen Isabella. Do the deaths of friends teach us aught about ourselves?

In 1931, in commemoration of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus, Pope Pius XI decreed that henceforth in the entire Church a Feast in honor of the Motherhood of Mary should be established on the eleventh of October. The history behind the Feast is of interest. In 431, in Ephesus, a great council of the Bishops met in the Church of Mary, the Mother of God, to assert the Catholic faith in the Person Jesus Christ, true God and true man. This was done to offset and denounce the false teaching of Nestorius, who asserted that Christ was a mere man but united to God. This was done to offset and denounce the false teaching of Nestorius, who asserted that Christ was a mere man but united to God. He taught that Jesus of Nazareth and the Word of God are two distinct persons. As a consequence of this teaching, it was held that Mary was only the mother of the human person, Christ. Of course, the Council of Ephesus gave out the true teaching as we find it today, for example in the Athanasian Creed “This is true faith, to believe and confess that Our Lord Jesus Christ is God and man. Although at the same time God and man yet He is one and the same Person.” It follows from this, that Mary, in becoming the human mother of the Person Christ is the Mother of God. Pius XI commended Mary and the Holy Family of Nazareth as models of the dignity and holiness of chaste wedlock, and as patterns of the holy education of youth.

Reflection—Two of the most common prayers to the Mother of God, the Hail Mary and the Hail Holy Queen, if said frequently and with devotion will enable us to live daily under the protection of Mary.

“A quick walker, expert at all good works, with never a sour face,” such was the great ST. WILFRID, whose glory it was to secure the happy links which bound England to Rome. He was born about the year 634, and was trained by the Celtic monks at Lindisfarne in the peculiar rites and usages of the British Church. Yet even as a boy Wilfrid longed for perfect conformity in discipline, as in doctrine, with the Holy See, and at the first chance set off himself for Rome. On his return he founded at Ripon a strictly Roman monastery, under the rule of St. Benedict. In the year 664 he was elected Bishop of Lindisfarne, and five years later was transferred to the see of York. He had to combat the passions of wicked kings, the cowardice of worldly prelates, the errors of holy men. He was twice exiled and once imprisoned; yet the battle which he fought was won. He swept away the abuses of many years and a too national system, and substituted instead a vigorous Catholic discipline, modelled and dependent on Rome. He died October 12, 709, and at his death was heard the sweet melody of the angels conducting his soul to Christ.

Reflection—To look towards Rome is an instinct planted in us for the preservation of the Faith. Trust in the Vicar of Christ necessarily results from the reign of His love in our hearts.

This King-Confessor was a grandson of St. Edward, king and martyr, and the last but one of the Anglo-Saxon Kings of England. He died in 1066.
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EDWARD was unexpectedly raised to the throne of England at the age of 40 years, 27 of which he had passed in exile. On the throne, the virtues of his earlier years, simplicity, gentleness, lowliness, but above all his angelic purity, shone with new brightness. By a rare inspiration of God, though he married to content his nobles and people, he preserved perfect chastity in the wedded state. So little did he set his heart on riches, that thrice when he saw a servant robbing his treasury he let him escape, saying the poor fellow needed the gold more than he. He loved to stand at his palace-gate, speaking kindly to the poor beggars and lepers who crowded about him, and many of whom he healed of their diseases. The long wars had brought the kingdom to a sad state, but Edward’s zeal and sanctity soon wrought a great change. His reign of 24 years was one of almost unbroken peace, the country grew prosperous, the ruined churches rose under his hand, the weak lived secure, and for ages afterwards men spoke with affection of the “laws of good St. Edward.” The holy king had a great devotion to building and enriching churches. Westminster Abbey was his latest and noblest work. He died January 5, 1066.

Reflection—David longed to build a temple for God’s service. Solomon reckoned it his glory to accomplish the work. But we, who have God made flesh dwelling in our tabernacles, ought to think no time, no zeal, no treasures too much to devote to the splendor and beauty of a Christian church.

St. Callistus I, successor of St. Zephyrinus, instituted the Ember Day Fasts, and provided for the honorable interment of the Martyrs. He himself suffered martyrdom under Alexander Severus in 223.
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Early in the third century, CALLISTUS, then a deacon, was entrusted by Pope St. Zephyrinus with the rule of the clergy, and set by him over the cemeteries of the Christians at Rome; and, at the death of Zephyrinus, Callistus, according to the Roman usage, succeeded to the Apostolic See. A decree is ascribed to him appointing the four fasts of the Ember seasons, but his name is best known in connection with the old cemetery on the Appian Way, which was enlarged and adorned by him, and is called to this day the Catacomb of St. Callistus. During the persecution under the Emperor Severus, St. Callistus was driven to take shelter in the poor and populous quarters of the city; yet, in spite of these troubles, and of the care of the Church, he made diligent search for the body of Calipodius, one of his clergy who had suffered martyrdom shortly before, by being cast into the Tiber. When he found it he was full of joy, and buried it, with hymns of praise. Callistus was martyred October 14, 223.

Reflection—In the body of a Christian we see that which has been the temple of the Holy Ghost, which even now is precious in the eyes of God, Who will watch over it, and one day raise it up in glory to shine forever in His kingdom. Let our actions bear witness to our belief in these truths.

The seraphic St. Teresa, born at Avila (Spain) at the age of 18 entered the convent of St. Mary of Mount Carmel. As the Reformer of the Carmelites, she re-established the primitive observance of their ancient Rule. On account of her invaluable works on mystical Theology, she may be considered one of the greatest Doctors of the Church. She died in 1582.
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When a child of seven years, Teresa ran away from her home at Avila in Spain, in the hope of being martyred by the Moors. Being brought back and asked the reason of her flight, she replied, “I want to see God, and I must die before I can see Him.” She then began with her brother to build a hermitage in the garden, and was often heard repeating “Forever, forever” Some years later she became a Carmelite nun. Frivolous conversations checked her progress towards perfection, but at last, in her 31st year, she gave herself wholly to God. A vision showed her the very place in hell to which her own light faults would have led her, and she lived ever after in the deepest distrust of self. She was called to reform her Order, favored with distinct commands from Our Lord, and her heart was pierced with divine love; but she dreaded nothing so much as delusion, and to the last acted only under obedience to her confessors, which both made her strong and kept her safe. She died on October 4, 1582.

Reflection—“After all I die a child of the Church.” These were the Saint’s last words. They teach us the lesson of her life—to trust in humble, childlike obedience to our spiritual guides as the surest means of salvation.

St. Hedwig, duchess of Poland, of royal stock and the maternal aunt of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, retired into a Cistercian convent after the death of her husband. She died in 1243.
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ST. HEDWIGE, the wife of Henry, Duke of Silesia, and the mother of his six children, led a humble, austere, and most holy life amidst all the pomp of royal state. Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament was the key-note of her life. Her valued privilege was to supply the bread and wine for the Sacred Mysteries, and she would attend each morning as many Masses as were celebrated. After the death of her husband she retired to the Cistercian convent of Trebnitz, where she lived under obedience to her daughter Gertrude, who was abbess of the monastery, growing day by day in holiness, till God called her to Himself, in 1242.

Reflection.—“If any one would be My disciple,” says Our Saviour, “let him deny himself.” The denial of self is, then, the royal road to perfection.

MARGARET MARY was born at Terreau in Burgundy, on the 22nd July, 1647. During her infancy she showed a wonderfully sensitive horror of the very idea of sin. In 1671 she entered the Order of the Visitation, at Paray-le-Monial, and was professed the following year. After purifying her by many trials, Jesus appeared to her in numerous visions, displaying to her His Sacred Heart, sometimes burning as a furnace, and sometimes torn and bleeding on account of the coldness and sins of men. In. 1675 the great revelation was made to her that she, in union with Father de la Colombière, of the Society of Jesus, was to be the chief instrument for instituting the feast of the Sacred Heart, and for spreading that devotion throughout the world. She died on the 17th October, 1690.

Reflection—Love for the Sacred Heart especially honors the Incarnation, and makes the soul grow rapidly in humility, generosity, patience, and union with its Beloved.

St. Luke was very probably born of pagan parents at Antioch. Converted, he became the missionary companion of St. Paul, who called him “the most dear physician” and “his fellow laborer.” After the death of his teacher, according to reliable authority, he preached the Gospel in Achaia, where he died at a ripe old age. He wrote a Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles.
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ST. LUKE, a physician at Antioch, and a painter, became a convert of St. Paul, and afterwards his fellow-laborer. He is best known to us as the historian of the New Testament. Though not an eye-witness of Our Lord’s life, the Evangelist diligently gathered information from the lips of the apostles, and wrote, as he tells us, all things in order. The acts of the Apostles were written by this Evangelist as a sequel to his Gospel, bringing the history of the Church down to the first imprisonment of St. Paul at Rome. The humble historian never names himself, but by his occasional use of “we” for “they” we are able to detect his presence in the scenes which he describes. We thus find that he sailed with St. Paul and Silas from Troas to Macedonia; stayed behind apparently for seven years at Philippi, and, lastly, shared the shipwreck and perils of the memorable voyage to Rome. Here his own narrative ends, but from St. Paul’s Epistles we learn that St. Luke was his faithful companion to the end. He died a martyr’s death some time afterwards in Achaia.

Reflection—Christ has given all He had for thee; do thou give all thou hast for Him.

St. Peter, a Spaniard of noble birth, entered the Order of St. Francis at the age of 16. He re-established the primitive Franciscan rule, and gave St. Teresa powerful support in her work of reformation. He died in 1562.
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PETER, while still a youth, left his home at Alcantara in Spain, and entered a convent of Discalced Franciscans. He rose quickly to high posts in the Order, but his thirst for penance was still unappeased, and in 1539, being then 40 years old, he founded the first convent of the “Strict Observance.” The cells of the friars resembled graves rather than dwelling-places. That of St. Peter himself was four feet and a half in length, so that he could never lie down; he ate but once in three days; his sack-cloth habit and a cloak were his only garments, and he never covered his head or feet. In the bitter winter he would open the door and window of his cell that, by closing them again, he might experience some sensation of warmth. Amongst those whom he trained to perfection was St. Teresa. He read her soul, approved of her spirit of prayer, and strengthened her to carry out her reforms. St. Peter died, with great joy, kneeling in prayer, October 18, 1562, at the age of 63.

Reflection—If men do not go about barefoot now, nor undergo sharp penances, as St. Peter did, there are many ways of trampling on the world; and Our Lord teaches them when He finds the necessary courage.

The holy priest St. John Cantius, a native of Kenty (Poland), was a professor at the University of Cracow. Famous for his heroic charity and zeal, he died in 1473.
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ST. JOHN was born at Kenty in Poland in 1403, and studied at Cracow with great ability, industry, and success, while his modesty and virtue drew all hearts to him. He was for a short time in charge of a parish; but he shrank from the burden of responsibility, and returned to his life of professor at Cracow. There for many years he lived a life of unobtrusive virtue, self-denial, and charity. His love for the Holy See led him often in pilgrimage to Rome, on foot and alone, and his devotion to the Passion drew him once to Jerusalem, where he hoped to win a martyr’s crown by preaching to the Turks. He died in 1473, at the age of seventy. The Roman Breviary distinguishes him with three hymns; he is the only confessor not a bishop who has been given this honor in the Roman Catholic liturgy.

Reflection—He who orders all his doings according to the will of God may often be spoken of by the world as simple and stupid; but in the end he wins the esteem and confidence of the world itself, and the approval and peace of God.

St. Hilarion, a native of Palestine, was instructed by the first lawgiver of the anchorites, St. Anthony the Great, and became one of the founders of the eremetical life in the Holy Land, Syria, and Egypt. He died in 372.

St. Ursula and her British companions were driven into exile to the continent and massacred at Cologne by the Huns out of hatred for their faith and chastity in 300.
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ST. HILARION was born of heathen parents, near Gaza, and was converted while studying grammar in Alexandria. Shortly after, he visited St. Antony, and, still only in his 15th year, he became a solitary in the Arabian desert. A multitude of monks, attracted by his sanctity, peopled the desert where he lived. In consequence of this, he fled from one country to another, seeking to escape the praise of men; but everywhere his miracles of mercy betrayed his presence. Even his last retreat at Cyprus was broken by a paralytic, who was cured by St. Hilarion, and then spread the fame of the Saint. He died with the words, “Go forth, my soul; why dost thou doubt? Nigh seventy years hast thou served God, and dost thou fear death?”

A number of Christian families had entrusted the education of their children to the care of the pious URSULA, and some persons of the world had in like manner placed themselves under her direction. England being then harassed by the Saxons, Ursula deemed that she ought, after the example of many of her compatriots, to seek an asylum in Gaul. She met with an abiding-place on the borders of the Rhine, not far from Cologne, where she hoped to find undisturbed repose; but a horde of Huns having invaded the country, she was exposed, together with all those who were under her guardianship, to the most shameful outrages. Without wavering, they preferred one and all to meet death rather than incur shame. Ursula herself gave the example, and was, together with her companions, cruelly massacred in the year 453. The name of St. Ursula has from remote ages been held in great honor throughout the Church; she has always been regarded as the patroness of young persons and the model of teachers.

Reflection—In the estimation of the wise man, “the guarding of virtue” is the most important part of the education of youth.

ST. MELLO is said to have been a native of Great Britain; his zeal for the Faith engaged him in the sacred ministry, and God having blessed his labors with wonderful success, he was consecrated first bishop of Rouen in Normandy, which see he is said to have held 40 years. He died in peace, about the beginning of the 4th century.

Reflection.—“Be mindful of them that have rule over you, who have spoken to you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end.”

Anthony Mary Claret founded the Missionary Sons of the Heart of Mary, the Teaching Sisters of Mary Immaculate, and other communities of nuns. For many years he labored in Catalonia, for six years in Cuba as Archbishop of Santiago, and finally in Madrid. He died in exile in France in 1870.
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ST. ANTHONY MARY CLARET was a Spanish prelate and missionary who was born at Sallent, near Barcelona, 23 Dec., 1807. Son of a small woolen manufacturer, at the age of twelve became a weaver. A little later he went to Barcelona to specialize in his trade, and remained there till he was twenty. Meanwhile he devoted his spare time to study and became proficient in Latin, French, and engraving; in addition he enlisted in the army as a volunteer. Recognizing a call to a higher life, he left Barcelona, entered the seminary at Vich in 1829, and was ordained on 13 June, 1835. He received a benefice in his native parish, where he continued to study theology till 1839. He now wished to become a Carthusian; missionary work, however, appealing strongly to him he proceeded to Rome. There he entered the Jesuit novitiate but finding himself unsuited for that manner of life, he returned shortly to Spain and exercised his ministry at Valadrau and Gerona, attracting notice by his efforts on behalf of the poor. Recalled by his superiors to Vich, he was engaged in missionary work throughout Catalonia. In 1848 he was sent to the Canary Islands where he gave retreats for fifteen months. Returning to Vich he established the Congregation of the Missionary Sons of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (16 July, 1849), and founded the great religious library at Barcelona which bears his name, and which has issued several million cheap copies of the best ancient and modern Catholic works.

Such had been the fruit of his zealous labors and so great the wonders he had worked, that Pius IX at the request of the Spanish sovereign appointed him Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba in 1851. In February, 1857, he was recalled to Spain by Isabella II, who made him her confessor. His influence was now directed solely to help the poor and to propagate learning; he lived frugally and took up his residence in an Italian hospice. For nine years he was rector of the Escorial monastery where he established an excellent scientific laboratory, a museum of natural history, a library, college, and schools of music and languages. His further plans were frustrated by the revolution of 1868. He continued his popular missions and distribution of good books wherever he went in accompanying the Spanish Court. In 1869 he went to Rome to prepare for the Vatican Council. Owing to failing health he withdrew to Prades in France, where he was still harassed by his calumnious Spanish enemies; shortly afterwards he retired to the Cistercian abbey at Fontfroide where he expired.

He was declared Venerable by Leo XIII in 1899. His relics were transferred to the mission house at Vich in 1897, at which time his heart was found incorrupt, and his grave is constantly visited by many pilgrims.

Reflection—God loads with His favor those who delight in exercising mercy. “According to thy ability be merciful: if thou hast much, give abundantly; if thou hast little, take care even so to bestow willingly a little.”

Benedict XV extended to the Universal Church the feast of the holy Archangel St. Raphael, who is known to us from the inspired words of the Book of Tobias as the angelical physician of soul and body.
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The name of this archangel (RAPHAEL = “God has healed”) does not appear in the Hebrew Scriptures, and in the Septuagint only in the Book of Tobias. Here he first appears disguised in human form as the travelling companion of the younger Tobias, calling himself “Azarias the son of the great Ananias.” The story of the adventurous journey during which the protective influence of the angel is shown in many ways including the binding “in the desert of upper Egypt” of the demon who had previously slain seven husbands of Sara, daughter of Raguel, is picturesquely related in Tobit 5-11, to which the reader is referred. After the return and the healing of the blindness of the elder Tobias, Azarias makes himself known as “the angel Raphael, one of the seven, who stand before the Lord” (Tobit 12:15. Cf. Revelation 8:2). Of these seven “archangels” which appear in the angelology of post-Exilic Judaism, only three, Gabriel, Michael and Raphael, are mentioned in the canonical Scriptures. The others, according to the Book of Enoch (cf. xxi) are Uriel, Raguel, Sariel, and Jerahmeel, while from other apocryphal sources we get the variant names Izidkiel, Hanael, and Kepharel instead of the last three in the other list.

Regarding the functions attributed to Raphael we have little more than his declaration to Tobias (Tobit 12) that when the latter was occupied in his works of mercy and charity, he (Raphael) offered his prayer to the Lord, that he was sent by the Lord to heal him of his blindness and to deliver Sara, his son’s wife, from the devil. The Jewish category of the archangels is recognized in the New Testament (1 Thessalonians 4:15; Jude 9), but only Gabriel and Michael are mentioned by name. Many commentators, however, identify Raphael with the “angel of the Lord” mentioned in John 5. This conjecture is based both on the significance of the name and on the healing role attributed to Raphael in the Book of Tobias. The Church assigns the feast of St. Raphael to 24 October.

Reflection—The hymns of the Office recall the healing power of the archangel and his victory over the demon. St. Raphael, pray for us!

St. Isidore was born at Madrid, Spain, in the latter half of the 12th century. For the greater part of his life he was employed as a laborer on a farm outside the city. Many marvelous happenings accompanied his lifelong work in the fields and continued long after his holy death. He was favored with celestial visions and, it is said, the angels sometimes helped him in his work in the fields. St. Isidore was canonized in 1622.

St. Chrysanthus was converted by his wife, St. Daria. They came from the East to Rome. After many torments under the prefect Celerinus, they were buried alive in a sandpit in 284.
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ST. ISIDORE was born near Madrid, Spain, about the year 1070. He was in the service of a certain Juan de Vargas on a farm in the vicinity of Madrid. Every morning before going to work he was accustomed to hear a Mass at one of the churches in Madrid. One day his fellow-laborers complained to their master that Isidore was always late for work in the morning. Upon investigation, so runs the legend, the master found Isidore at prayer, while an angel was doing the ploughing for him.
He was married to Maria Torribia, a canonized saint, who is venerated in Spain as Maria della Cabeza, from the fact that her head (Spanish, cabeza) is often carried in procession especially in time of drought. They had one son, who died in his youth. On one occasion this son fell into a deep well and at the prayers of his parents the water of the well is said to have risen miraculously to the level of the ground, bringing the child with it, alive and well. Hereupon the parents made a vow of continence and lived in separate houses. St. Isidore is said to have appeared to Alfonso of Castile, and to have shown him the hidden path by which he surprised the Moors and gained the victory of Las Nevas de Tolosa, in 1212. When King Philip III of Spain was cured of a deadly disease by touching the relics of the saint, the king replaced the old reliquary by a costly silver one. He was canonized by Gregory XV, along with Sts. Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Teresa, and Philip Neri, on 12 March, 1622. St. Isidore is widely venerated as the patron of peasants and day-laborers. The cities of Madrid, Leon, Saragossa, and Seville also, honor him as their patron. His feast is celebrated on 15 May.

CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA were strangers, who came from the East to Rome, the first from Alexandria, the second from Athens, as the Greeks tell us in their Menaea. They add, that Chrysanthus, after having been espoused to Daria, persuaded her to prefer a state of perpetual virginity to that of marriage, that they might more easily, with perfect purity of heart, trample the world under their feet, and accomplish the solemn consecration they had made of themselves to Christ in baptism. The zeal with which they professed the faith of Christ distinguished them in the eyes of the idolaters; they were accused, and, after suffering many torments, finished their course by a glorious martyrdom in the reign of Numerian; Baillet thinks rather in the persecution of Valerian, in 237. Several others who, by the example of their constancy, had been moved to declare themselves Christians, were put to death with them. Saint Gregory of Tours says, that a numerous assembly of Christians, who were praying at their tomb soon after their martyrdom, were, by the order of the prefect of Rome, walled up in the cave, and buried alive.
Reflection.—The Angelus was established to honor the Incarnation. How often might we derive grace from this beautiful devotion so enriched by the Church yet neglected by so many Christians!

St. Evaristus, successor of St. Anacletus I, governed the Church for nine years; he was condemned to death under Trajan in 109.
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ST. EVARISTUS succeeded St. Anacletus in the see of Rome, in the reign of Trajan, governed the Church for nine years, and died in 112. The institution of cardinal priests is by some ascribed to him, because he first divided Rome into several titles or parishes, assigning a priest to each; he also appointed seven deacons to attend the bishop. He conferred holy orders thrice in the month of December, when that ceremony was most usually performed, for holy orders were always conferred in seasons appointed for fasting and prayer. St. Evaristus was buried near St. Peter’s tomb on the Vatican.

Reflection—The disciples of the apostles, by assiduous meditation on heavenly things, were so swallowed up in the life to come, that they seemed no longer inhabitants of this world. If Christians esteem and set their hearts on earthly goods, and lose sight of eternity in the course of their actions, they are no longer animated by the spirit of the primitive Saints, and are become children of this world, slaves to its vanities, and to their own irregular passions. If we do not correct this disorder of our hearts, and conform our interior to the spirit of Christ, we cannot be entitled to His promises.

The royalty of Christ rests upon a twofold basis. He is our King by right of birth and by right of conquest. The first refers us to the personality of the Son of God, whereby, in His divine nature as God and by virtue of the hypostatic union, He is the sovereign Lord and Master. The second places before us the God-Man coming down on earth to rescue fallen man from the slavery of Satan, and by the labors and sufferings of His life, and passion, and death, to win a glorious victory for us over sin and hell.

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe (commonly referred to as the Feast of Christ the King) is a relatively recent addition to the western liturgical calendar, having been instituted in 1925 by Pope Pius XI.

SIMON was a simple Galilean, called by Our Lord to be one of the pillars of His Church. Zelotes, “the zealot,” was the surname which he bore among the disciples. Armed with this zeal he went forth to the combat against unbelief and sin, and made conquest of many souls for His divine Lord.

The apostle JUDE, whom the Church commemorates on the same day, was a brother of St. James the Less. They were called “brethren of the Lord,” on account of their relationship to His Blessed Mother. St. Jude preached first in Mesopotamia, as St. Simon did in Egypt; and finally they both met in Persia, where they won their crown together.

Reflection—Zeal is an ardent love which makes a man fearless in defense of God’s honor, and earnest at all costs to make known the truth. If we would be children of the Saints, we must be zealous for the Faith.

ST. NARCISSUS was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem about the year 180. He was already an old man, and God attested his merits by many miracles, which were long held in memory by the Christians of Jerusalem. One Holy Saturday in the church the faithful were in great trouble, because no oil could be found for the lamps which were used in the Paschal feast. St. Narcissus bade them draw water from a neighboring well, and, praying over it, told them to put it in the lamps. It was changed into oil, and long after some of this oil was preserved at Jerusalem in memory of the miracle. But the very virtue of the Saint made him enemies, and three wretched men charged him with an atrocious crime. They confirmed their testimony by horrible imprecations: the first prayed that he might perish by fire, the second that he might be wasted by leprosy, the third that he might be struck blind, if they charged their bishop falsely. The holy bishop had long desired a life of solitude, and he withdrew secretly into the desert, leaving the Church in peace. But God spoke for His servant, and the bishop’s accusers suffered the penalties they had invoked. Then Narcissus returned to Jerusalem and resumed his office. He died in extreme old age, bishop to the last.

Reflection—God never fails those who trust in Him; He guides them through darkness and through trials secretly and surely to their end, and in the evening time there is light.

The birthday of the Emperor Maximian Herculeus, in the year 298, was celebrated with extraordinary feasting and solemnity. MARCELLUS, a Christian centurion or captain in the legion of Trajan, then posted in Spain, not to defile himself with taking part in those impious abominations, left his company, declaring aloud that he was a soldier of Jesus Christ, the eternal King. He was at once committed to prison. When the festival was over, Marcellus was brought before a judge, and, having declared his faith, was sent under a strong guard to Aurelian Agricolaus, vicar to the prefect of the praetorium, who passed sentence of death upon him. St. Marcellus was forthwith led to execution, and beheaded on the 30th of October. Cassian, the secretary or notary of the court, refused to write the sentence pronounced against the martyr, because it was unjust. He was immediately hurried to prison, and was beheaded, about a month after, on the 3rd of December.

Reflection—“We are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God!” exclaimed one of the Machabees. This sentiment should ever be that of a Christian in presence of temptation.

ST. QUINTIN was a Roman, descended from a senatorial family. Full of zeal for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, he left his country, and, attended by St. Lucian of Beauvais, made his way to Gaul. They preached the Faith together in that country till they reached Amiens in Picardy, where they parted. Lucian went to Beauvais, and, having sown the seeds of divine faith in the hearts of many, received the crown of martyrdom in that city. St. Quintin stayed at Amiens, endeavoring by his prayers and labors to make that country a portion of Our Lord’s inheritance. He was seized, thrown into prison, and loaded with chains. Finding the holy preacher proof against promises and threats, the magistrate condemned him to the most barbarous torture. His body was then pierced with two iron wires from the neck to the thighs, and iron nails were thrust under his nails, and in his flesh in many places, particularly into his skull; and, lastly, his head was cut off. His death happened on the 31st of October, 287.

Reflection—Let us bear in mind that the ills of this life are not worthy to be compared to the glory “God has reserved for those who love Him.”