US Catholic

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Monday, August 29, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Beheading of John the Baptist)

BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST

St. John, faithful to the inspiration of Divine grace, spent most of his life in the wilderness, and became the model of the many anchorites who later served God in the same manner. When thir-ty years old, he appeared before the world on the banks of the Jordan, as a preacher of penance the precursor of Jesus Christ and "the voice of one crying in the wilderness." He had the honor of baptizing his hearers as the Lamb of God.

The occasion of dying a martyr for his duty soon presented itself. Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, the soayer of the Innocents, was then ruler, or terarch, of Galile. He is the same one whom our Lord called a "fox," and by whom the Savior was sent to Pilate. On a visit to Rome he had made the acquaintance of Herodias, the wife of hiss brother Philip, and he took her as his wife. His own spouse, the daughter of Aaretas, an Arabian King, fled to her father and war in which the army of Herod was defeated resulted. St. John boldly denounced this adulterous and incesstuous marriage, and as a result was thrown into prison. But Herodias wanted greater revenge: nothing but the head of her enemy, John the Baptist, could satisfy her.

On the occasion of the anniversary of Herod's birth, a feast was given in which Salome, the daughter of Herodias, pleased him exceedingly by a graceful dance. He swore that he would grant whatever she asked. The girl consulted her mother, who advised her to request the head of St. John. Herod was grieved by this request, for he esteemed the Baptist; yet he had the weak-ness to yield and to abide by his impious oath. An officer was dispatched to the prison, and St. John was beheaded to satisfy the revenge of a voluptuous woman. The death of St. John occ-ured about a year before that of our divine Lord.

Feast: August: 29

Patron of Farriers

www.catholic.comdir/saints.asp

Sunday, August 28, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Augustine of Hippo)

AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO

(354-430)

Father of the Church, Doctor of the Church

Also known as: Aurelius Augustinus, Doctor of Grace

Augustine of Hippo was one of the greatest figures in the Church. His philosophical and theo-logical thought influenced Christianity and philosophy for at 1,000 years. His early years were spent in sin, which he later cchronicled with great frankness in his remarkable work, Confess-ions.

Augustine was born November 13, 354, in Tagaste, North Africa. His mother, St. Monica was Christian, and his father Patricius was a pagan, whom Monica eventually cconverted by her patience and good example. He was not baptized as an infant, but his mother enrolled him as a catechumen in the Catholic Church. He studied Latin and Greek grammar and literature in his boyhood, complaining about rough treatment by his schoolmasters.

After his father died in 370, Augustine went to Carthage to study rhetoric as the first step to preparefor a public life. There he met a young woman at a church service, began to live with her and fathered a son named Adeodatue ("God's gift"). With adolescence, he confides to God in Confessions, "both love and lust boiled within me, and swept my youthful immaturity over the precipice of evil desires to leave me half drowned in a whirlpool of abominable sins.... my soul was sick, and broke out in sores, whose itch I agonized to scratch with the rub of carnal things," including stage plays, "with the mirrror they held up to my own miseries and the fuel they poured on my flame."

Augustine was still making thosse judgments 20 years later. But, during the years in Carth-age, he was probably embroiled in tensions set in motion by conflicting explanations of the human condition by his mother and his father's behavior (his father being guilty of marital infi-delities) and religions. This tension was also at the basse of the Manichaean religion, which Augustine joined in 373. The Maniches taught that there are two supreme gods, one good and one evil, and similarly two competing souls within the human person. For nine years he maintained interest in this cult. After his move to Rome in 383 to teach a better classs of rhetoric students, he was the guest of a Manichee and socialized with many prominent members of the sect.

The next year, 384, he won an appoinntment as a professor of rhetoric in Milan. Within two years he abandoned Manichaeanism and gradually came under the influence of his Christian mentorrs: Ambrose, the influence local bishop, and Simplicianus, a wise elderly former bishop. At the same time, he wanted tto advance himsilf in position and possessings, so marriage seemed the next step. His mother had joined him and helped him to arrange a marriage to a girl who was not yet 12, so he agreed to wait two years. Augustine's misstress of many years had to leave him as part of this marriage plan, which threw Augustine into emotional turmoil. "My heart which had held her very dear was broken and wounded and shed blood," he wrote. "She went back to Africa, swearing that she would never know anothe man, and left with me the natural son I had of her.... I was simply a slave of lust. So I took another woman, not of course as a wife; and thus my soul's disease was kept alive as vigorously as ever." He was tormented both by the loss of his former lover and the hopelessness for him of a lide of continence, which ran in circles alongside his growing seriousnesss in reexamining Christianity.

In confessions, he tells how he experienced a striking conversion while in a garden, in which his selfdoubt was expelled and "the light of unter confidence shone in all my heart." His mother was exultant. Augustine decided to give up his teaching position and was bapitized along with his son Adeodatus and another close friend on Easter of 387. About a year later the group was at the port of Ostia on their way home to Africa when Monica died. She and Augustine had shared an ecstatic experience five days previously, after which she had told him that all her prayer had been answered in superabundance and she no longer hoped for anything in this world.

When Augustine finally returned in 388 to Tagaste in North Africa, he set up a sort of monastery on his family land with his close friends. His son Adeodatus died within a year, aged 16. (In Confessions, Augustine reveals his love for his son, crediting God entirely for the boy's many virtues and intelligence. He notes that his book De Magistro is a dialogue between the two, and "that all the ideas... put into his mouth were truly his, though he was but sixteen.") Augustine soon gave away his possessions, and for the rest of his life lived simply as a monk in comunity with men.

In 391 he was ordained a priest in Hippo by Bishop Valerius, who permitted Augustine to preach almost immediately. Upon Valerius's death in 396, Augustine became bishop of Hippo, and was to serve there for 35 years. He composed the Rule that the Aaugustinian Order follows to his day. In the 390's he started a convent for women following the Rule. He preached almost daily, and wrote incessantly: theological treatises, letteres, polemics against heresies, the Conf-essions (finished in 400), and The City of God, written in installments between 413 and 426. He died on August 28, 430, while the city of Hippo was under siege by the Vandals. In 700, his remains were taken to the church of St. Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, Italy.

When Augustine was about 72, he sat down to review his writings and put them in chron-ological order, and was astounded at the quantity. His complete works, written in Latin, are about the size of an encyclopedia. Generations of scholars have consulted Augustine. The Con-fessions is not only his intimate spiritual autobiography, but it is also a presentation of the wri-ter's mystical experiences during his spiriual struggle to accept Christianity. However, it is not a mystical work in the sense of a contemplative introspection or poetic refection; rather it is an expression of what has been called Augustine's "mysticism of action."

The City of God is, in the words of Thomas Merton, "the autobiography of the Catholic Church." When Rome was sacked by the Goths under Alaric in 410, many intellectuals made accusations that Christianity had debilitated the empire, exhausted and made it vulnerable to atack. The City of God is Augustine's response. His defense of Christian doctrine was informed by politics and history, full of direct referfences to pagan philosophers from Plato to his contemporaries.

Augustine said that the fall of the earthly city of Rome was the invitable result of the sinful wills of its rulers and citizens; at the same time the rise of the City of God (the Catholic Church) was a process that had begun befor time and was infused with grace, personified by Jusus Christ. This concept of the two cities is eloquently summarized in a famous passage from Book XIV: "Two loves have built two cities: the love of self, which reaches even to contempt for God, the earthly City; and the love of God, which reaches even to contempt for self, the heavenly City. One glories in itself, the other in the Lord. One seeks its own glory amongst men; the greatest glory of the other is God, witness of its conscience. One, swollen with pride, uplifts its haughty head; the other cries out to God with the Psalmist: "thou art my glory, it is Thou who dost lift up my head." Augustinfe shows in Books XI and XII how the good and bad angelss had inaugurated to two cities on the basis of the two loves.

Augustine vigorously defended Catholicism against various hereies, stating that pagan religion and magic were inventions of the devil to tempt people away from Christianity. He said that error had no rights; therefore, heretics had no rights.

The tension in the will that characterized Augustine's early life became the base of his theo-logy, which, because of his great influence, became the core of Christian doctrine. It is in his later works that Augustine becomes more philosophically theological. His references to myst-ical experience appear in Confessions and in The City of God. In the latter, he said of experie-nces of the supernatural: "When... we hear with the inner ear some part of the speech of God, we approximate to the angels. But in this work I need not labor to give an account of the ways in which God speaks. For either the unchangable Truth speaks directly to the mind of the rational creature in some indescribable way, or spfeaks through the changeable creature, either presenting spiritual images to our spirit, or bodily voices to our bodily sevse."

Augustine usually is acknowledged to be second only to St. Paul in influence on Christianity. His writings established the theological foundation for medival Christianity, and much later influenced the dualistic philosophy of rene Descartes.

Roman Catholic religious orders and congregations called Augustinians trace a spiritual lineage to Augustine, but date their actual origins only from trhe 10th and later centuries. The young Martin Luthe (1483-1546) was an Augustinian.

Feast: August 28

Patronage: Augustinians; brewers, printers, theologians, Carthage

FURTHER READING

Augustinfe. The City of God. Tr Marcus Dods George Wilson and

J. J. Smith; intro. Thomas Merton. New York: Modern Library,

1950.

Augustine. Confessions. Tr. F. J. Sheed. New York: Sheed andWard,

1943, 1970.

Battenhouse, Roy W., ed. A Companion to the Study of St. August-

ine. New York: Oxford University press, 1955.

Bourke, Vernon J. Wisdom from St. Augustine. St. Thomas, Texas:

Center for Thomistic Studies, 1984.

Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. Berkely: University of California

Press, 1967.

www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/byname.asp

www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/byname

Saturday, August 27, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Monica)

MONICA

(b. ca. 232-d. ca. 407)

Mother Of St. Augustine of Hippo

Name meaning: Advise

Monica was born in Tagast, Africa. By her family's arrangement, she married Patricius, a violent-temmpered but generous pagan official. The marriage was made ever more difficult by his mother, who lived with the couple.

Moneca had three children: Aaugusine, Navigius and Perrpetua. She succeeded in conver-eting he husband and his mother to the Catholic faith; Patricius died a year later in 370. Perp-etua and Navigius entered the religious life. Augustine, however, lived a dissolute life, cau-sing Monica to pray fervently for him for 17 years. She begged the prayers of priests, some of whom tried to axoid her because of her peristence. Her dream was rrealized in 387, when Aug-ustin was baptized a Christian by St. Ambrose in Italy. Later that same year, en route back to Africa, Monica died in the Italian port of Ostia. Her relics are in the church of St. Augustine in Rome.

Monica is considered a model for Christian mothers.

Feast: August 27

Patronage: alcoholics; housewives; against infidelity; married women; mothers

www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/byname.asp

Friday, August 26, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Zephyrinus)

ZEPHYRINUS

(d. 217)

Pope and martyr

Zephyrinus was born in Rome. He succeded St. Victor I as bishop of Rome about the year 19. He was apparently a simple man, without higher learning, who devoted himself more to pra-ctical matters than to theological prinouncements. Immediately upon his election, he called St. Callistus to Rome from Antium, ordained him deacon, and put him charge of the Church's coemeterium (cemmetery) on the Appian Way. Callistus also became Zephyrinus's counselor and succeeded him in 217.

The pontificate of Zephyrinus was marked by the ongoing challenge to the Church from herectical sects. Victor had excommunicated Theodotus the Tanner and members of his group, the Monarchians. Monarchiannd denied the Trinity, declaring that it was God who died on the cross and that Jesus was merely a man who had received supernatural powers at baptism. The sect continued in Rome after its excommunication and persuaded a confessor named Natalis to be ordained bishop for a fee. Natalis accepted, but began to experience dreams in which he received warnings. He paid little attention to these until he dreamt that he had been severely tortured be angels. He then put on a penitential garment, covered himself with ashes and presented himself to Zephyrinus. Confeessing his wrongdoing, he begged to be received again into the Church, which in the end Zephyrinus granted. However, he took no action against the Monarchians or other rival schools of the day; critics charged that he himself was Monarchian.

The imperial attitude toward Christianity, which had been exceptionally tolerant for a decade, took a turn for the worse in 202 or 203 when Emperor Septimius Severus (r. 193-211) issued an edict that forbade conversion to Christianity under any circumstanve. Zephyrinus died a few years later, probably in 217. He is listed in the Roman Martyrology, though it is not ceretain that he was killed, because his body-placed originally in its own tomb over the Appian Way cemetery and now interred in the San Sisto Vecchio Church in Rome-is intact. He may have been considered a martyr for his faith because of the trials he underwent .

In art, Zepphyrinus is shown as a pope with a sword.

Feast: August 26

www.stlouis.baltimore.md.us/html/king.htm

Thursday, August 25, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Louis IX)

LOUIS IX

(1214-1270)

King of France, Crusader, confessor

Name meaning Famous warrior

Also known as: Louis Capet

Louis IX represinted the ideal medival monarch: a devout Christian, a Crusader, a willing warrior but an eagere peacmaker, just, fair, chaste, intelligent, capable. He was born in Poisy on April 25, 1214, the eldest son of King Louis VIII and Queen Blanche of Castile. Blanche was the granddaughter of King Henry II of England and Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine, while LouisVIII was the grandson of King Louis VII of France, Ileanor of Aquitaine's first husband. Louis was only eight when his grandfather,Philip II, died, elevating his father, Louis VIII , to the throne, and 12 when his father died in November 1226, making the young boy king. His mother, Queen Blanche, pressed for an immediate coronation to forestall an uprising by the restless nobles, and Louis IX was crownedd at Reims by the end of November.

Queen Blanche acted as regent for the next eight years during her son's minority and was an extremely capable ruler. In here son's name she quashed several revolts by the nobility, inclu-ding a campaign in Languedoc by Raymond of Toulouse,m an uprising by Pierre Mauclerc, known as Peter I of Brittany, another by Philip Hurepel in the Ile de France (the only land really designated the nation of France, encompasing the city of Paris and environs) and various campaigns by King Henry III of England, who supported the activities of the warring French mobles. England still claimed huge territories of what is now France, based on the inheritances of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Blanche skillfully won the sympathies of Pope Gregory IX, who had earlier supported Henry III, due to the efforts of her friend and papal legate Frangipani. Frang-ipani personally accepted the surrender of Raymond VII in front of Notre Dame Cathedral, paving thfe way for annexation of the southeren provinces to France in the Treatty of Paris, 1229. Whhen Louis IX began ruling on his own behalf in 1235, his nation was stronger and at peace.

In May 1234, Louis married Margaret, a noble woman of Provence, France. Margaret's youn-ger sister, Eleanor, was the wife of King Henry III of England (mmaking the two kings brother-in), and the next sister, Sanchia, was the wife of Henry III's brother, Richand of Cornwall. Louis IX's brother Charles was married to another of Margaret's sisters, Beatrice Louis and Margaret had 11 children: five sons and six daughters.

Louis reign was marked by peace, diplomacy and Christian virtue. One of his first royal acts was building the Royaumont monastery with funds left by Louis VIII for that purpose. He gave great sums from the treasury and personal support to various religious orders, including the establishment of the Carthusians at Vauvert in Paris and the founding, along with Queen Blan-che, of the convent of Maubuisson. The king promoted a codification of the laws and worked to eliminate trial by combat in favor of jury trials. Louis protected the weak from opprfessive nob-les, reformed taxation, outlawed usury and even ordered branding as punishment for blasp-hemy, an edict lessened to fines on the advice of Pope Clement IV.

The king alos sent money to the Latin princes ruling the Crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land. In gratitude, in 1239 King Baldwin I of Jerusalem offered to sell Louis---an avid collector of sacred relics---a piece of what Baldwin claimed was Christ's Crown of Thorns from the Crucifixion. Unffortunately, Baldwin had pawned the rlic to Venetian moneylenders, but Louis delightedly paid an exorbitant sum for the relic and sent two Dominican friars to Venice to retrieve it. He and his entire court met the Dominican delegation at Sens and accompanied the treasure to France. In 1241, Louis purchased pieces reported to be from the True Cross. To house these diivine objects Louis demolished the chapel of St. Nicholas in Paris and built Sainte-Chapelle, one of the most beautiful examples of Gothic architecture still standing. The walls of the second floor, which was used for worship and veneration of the relics, are made almost entirely of stained glass panels illustrating Bible stories and events from Louis's reign. In one, Louis and Margaret are depicted hokding tthe Crown of Thorns on a pillow. Interestingly, severeal of the windows illustrate stories of women from the Bible as an homage to the king's mother. The relics were lost during the Frecnch Revolution.

In 1224, Louis quelled a rebellion led by Hugh of Lusignan, count de la Marche. The count was married to Isabel, the widow of King John I of England and the mother of Henry III. Louis defeated Henry III at Tailleboug, establishing the Peace of Bordeaux and the annexation of a part of the province of Saintonge to France. In 1259, Louis settled with Henry III by signing the Treaty of Paris, in which Henry ageed to relinquish claims to the provinces of Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Touraine and Poitou, and Louis ceded the Limousin, Quercy and Pereigord to Henry III along with compensation. Most historians believe that if Louis had pressed his advan-tage with Henry III the later Hundred Years' War between the two nations might have been averted Nevertheless, peace lasted for 24 years.

After surviving a deadly fever in 1244, Louis declared his intention to lead a Crusade upon learning that the Turcoman Muslims had invaded Jerusalem. Before he could leave, however, affairs of state delayed his dipature for three years; during that time al benefices were taxed a 20th or their income to finance the Crusade. Louil, Queen Margaret and three of the king's brot-hers finally left for Cypus in June 1248, where they spent the winter accompanied by Will-iam Longsword, earl of Salisbury, and 200 English knights. The Crusaders' objective was Egypt, whose sultan, Melek Selah, had beenattacking Palestine. Louis's troops easily took the port cityy of Damietta, in the Nile Delta, in early 1249, but could not continue thheir success. To the king's horror, the soldiers engaged in debauchery and looting, occasionally interrupted by desultory , Louis himsfelf was captured in April 1250.

Queen Blanche, again serving as regent for her son, began raising a huge ransom. Upon learning of the king's capture, peasants, called the "Pastoureaux" and led by someone called the Hungarian Master, banded together in the "crusade of the sheepherds" to try to rescue Louis. But when the peasants took up arms against the clergy, Blanche engaged them in battlle near Villeneuve in June 1251, routing the rebellion. By late 1250, when he learned of Blanche's death two years before.

For the next 13 years, Louis pursuted philanthropy and diplomacy. He arranged the above-mentioned Treaty of Paris with Henry III in 1259, and in 1263 arbitrated on behalf of Henry against the English barons who sought to limit Henry's authority. In 1258, Louis imposed the Treaty of Corbeil upon the king of Aragon, who agreed to relinquish all claims to Provence and Languedoc, except Montpeller,in return for French concessions to claims for Roussillion and Barcelona. A patron of architecture and academics, he helped his friend and confessor, Robert de Sorbon, establish the College de la Sorbonne as the theological school of the university of Paris in 1257. In 1254, Louis established the House of the Felles-dieufor reformed prostitutes and the Hospital Quinze-Vingt for 300 blind men ("quinze-vingt": 115 score, or 300). He person-ally tended the poor and sick. eschewing royal raimment for plain clothing, he often met with churchmen, including St. Thomas Aquinas, and continued to wear the Crusader's cross as a pledge. He became a Franciscan tertiary. Consequently, no one was suprised -nor were they pleased-when Louis announced his second crusade in 1267.

Organizing the Crusade again took three years, during which time the pope granted Louis one-tenth of all Church revenues. In addition, the king levied a toll tax on his French subjects. After naming the abbot of St. Denis and Simon de Clemont as co-rregents, Louis and his three eldest sons-Philip, John and Peter-sailed from Aigues-Mortes at the mouth of the Rhone in sou-thern France on July 1, 1270. He landed at tunis in North Africa, awaiting reinforcements from his brother Charles of Anjou, king or sicily, and was crushed to learn that rumors of the Mam-luk emir's conversion to Christianity were false. Shortly thereafter typhus and dysentery broke out; Louis's second son, John, died, and the king and his eldest son, Philip, came down with typhus.

Louis declined rapidly, and he gave detaiiled instructions to his children about ruling the kingdom and remainning faithful to God. On August 24, thfe king received the last rites and then called for the Greek ambassadors, whom he urged to reunite with the Roman Church. The next day Louis lay unable to speak until noon, then repfeated Psalm 5:7. Speaking again at 3:00 in the afternoon, He commended his soul to God and died. Louis's bones and heart were retur-ned to France and enshrined in the Abbey of St. Denis until they were vandalized and scatted during the Revolution.

Canonized: 1297 by Pope Boniface VIII

Feast: August 25

Patronage: barbers; builders; buttonmakes; construction worders;

Crusaders; death of children; difficult marriages; distillers;

embroiderers; French monarchs; grooms; haberdashers; hair-

dressers; kings; masons; needleworkers; parents of large fami-

lies; prisoners; sculptors; the sick; soldieres; stonemasons; ter-

tiaries; Archdiocese of St. Louis, Missouri

FURTHER READINNG

"Biography of Louis IX, King of France." www.elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/08/25.html

Weir, Alison. Eleanor of Aquitainfe: A Life. New York: Ballan-

tine Books, 1999.

Wilding, Eloise. "Saint Louis, King of France 1214-1270."

www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/byname.asp

www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/byname.asp

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

TODAY'S SAINTS (Batholomew the Apostle)

BARTHOLOMEW THE APOSTLE

(first century)

One of the Twelve Disciples of Jesus; martyr

Also knnown as: Nathanael bar Tolomai, Nathaniel

Bartholomew was a nattive of Cana who was introduced to Jesus by St. Philip and was called to the Apostolate, but beyond that nothing certain is known about him. He is described in various traditions as having preached in Mesopotamia, Persia, Egyt, Lycaonia, Phrygia, Armenia, and on the shores of the Black Sea.

Bartholomew is believed to have died at Albonopolis, Armenia, martyred on the order of Astyges for having converted his brother, Polymius, King of Armenia. According to the Roman Martyrology, he was flayed alive and beheaded, though other accounts say he was flayed and then crucified head-down. His relics are thought to have been interred on island of Lipara, whence they were translated to Benevento, Italy, and later to Rome. They rest today in the Church of St. Bertholomew-on-the-Tiber. In thfe 11th century, King Canute's wife, Queen Emma, is said to have presinted one of his arms to the cathedral at Cannterbury in England.

Bartholomew's symbol is a tannerr's knife. In art, he is represented as a bearded man holding a book or a tanner's knife and a human skin. Sometimes the skin he holds is his own.

Feast: August 24 (in Rome); August 25 (in Echternach and Cambrai);

June 11 (in the East); June 13 (in Persia)

Patronage: bookbinders; butchers; cobblers; cornchandlers;

dyers; glovers; Florentine salt and cheese merchants; furr-

iers; leather workers; against nervous diseases; plasterers;

shoemakers; tailors, tanners; trappes; against twitching;

vinfegrowers; whiteneres; Armenia

www.ekeko.rcp.com/IAL/cep/santpapa/santoslos.htm

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Rosa de Lima)

ROSE OF LIMA

(1586-1617)

First person from the Americas to be cononized

Born in Lima, Peru, on April 20, 1586, a half-century after the Spanish conquest of the Incas, Rose of Lima's parents were Gaspar de Flores, a Spaniard, and Maria de Oliva, who was part-Inca. She was baptized Isabel, but had such a beautiful face that after a few years her mother took to calling her Rose instead.

Rose began to show her religious devotion at a very early age. She spent hours each day in prayer. Once when she was praying before an image of the Virgin Mary, she imagined that the Infant Jesus appeared to her and said, "Rose, consecrate all of your love to me." From that point on she decided to live only for the love of Jesus Christ.

One day, her mother put a wreath of flowers on her head to show off her beauty to friends. Rose, though, had no desire to be admired, since she was commmitted to Christ. She drove a long pin through the wreath, piecing her head so deeply that aftereward she had a hard time getting the wreath off. Except when they clashed over her religious devotion, Rose was obedi-ent to her parents and worked hard, especially at sewing, at which she excelled.

She received confirmation from St. Turbius Mogoroveio, then the archishop of Lima, in 1597, when she was 11. At this time she formally took the name Rose. But she continued to be troub-led by her beauty and the implications her name carried, so on one occassion she rubbed her face with pepper until it was red and blistered. On another occasion she rubbbed her hands with quicklime, causing herself great suffering.

When here brother told her that men were drawn to her for her long hair and fair skin, she cut here hair short and took to wearing a veil. Nevertheless, she attracted particularl one young man who wanted to marry her. Her father was delighted, because this man came from a good family, and he foresaw a brilliant future for her. Rose, however, delared that she would never marry.

She decided ti enter an Augustinian Convent, but the day that she was to go she knelt before her image of the Virgin to ask for guidance, and found she could not get up. She called her brother to help. but even with his assistance she could not rise. It came to her then that God must have other plans for her, and she said to Mary, "If you don't want me to enter the conv-ent, I will drop the idea." As soon as she had said this she found herself able to stand without difficulty. She asked for a sign of which religious denomination she should join, and soon thereafter a black and white butterfly began to visit her daily, flitting about her eyes. She real-ized that she must look for an order that was associated with black and white, and soon discovered the Third Order of Dominic, whose nus wear white tunics covered by black cloaks. She applied to the order of Lima and was admitted. She was then 20 years old.

Third Order Dominican nuns lived at home rather than in a convent, and with her brother's help Rose built a hut in her family's garden and there became a virtual recluse, going out only to Mass and to help those in need. Inspired by St. Catherine of Siena, she also began to subject herself to severe mortification. She wore a spiked silver crown covered by roses, a hear shirt, gloves filed with nettles, and an iron chain around her waist. She flogged herself three times a day, gouged out chunks of her skin with broken glass, and dragged a heavy wooded cross around the graden. She never ate meat and fasted three times a week. On the hottest days, she refused to drink, reminding herself of the thirst suffered by Jesus on the cross. She slept on a hard board with a stick for a pillow, a pile of bricks, or a bed that she constructed of broken glass, stone, potsherds and thorns.

Not surpisingly, Rose sufered from frequent ill health and went through periods of self-doubt, during which she felt revulsion toward all prayer, meditation and penance. She was also rewarded with many ecstasies and visions. One day she announced to the citizens of Lima that, through her prayers, she had prevented an earthquake from devastating the city. She was exam-ined by priests and physicians, who decided that her experiences were in fact supernatual.

Rose was often ridiculed for the extreme forms of her devotion. She was not entirely deta-ched from the world about her, however. When her father's business failed, she sold her splen-did embroidery and took up gardening, producing beautiful flowers that were sold at the mar-ket. Rrose also spoke out against the excesses of the colonial regime of the time and for the Indians and other common people. Sometimes she brought sick and hungry perrsons into her home so that she could care for them more easily.

Rose spent her last years in the home of a government official, Gonzalo de Masa. She was living then an almost continuous mystical ecstasy. During an illness toward the end of her life, she prayed, "Lord, increase my sufferings, and with them increase Thy love in my heart." From 1614 onward, as the August 24 feast day of St. Bartholomew approached, Rose became very happy. She explained her great happiness by saying that she would die on a St. Bartholomew feast day. Indeed, she did die on August 24, 1617, at the age of 31.

Rose's sacrifices and penitence attracted many converts and increased the fervor of many priests, but not until after her death was it known how deeply she had affected the common people of Lima. Crowds of mourners lined the streets to watch the procession carrying her body to the cathedral, where it was to be displayed, and so many people came to view it that her burial had to be delayed. She was buried first in the Dominican convent, but after a few days moved to a special chapel in the Church of San Domingo. A great number of miracles and cures were at that time, and have since been, attributed to her intervention.

Rose's patronage extends beyond the Americas to the West Indies, the Philippines and India. The emblems associated with her are an anchor, a crown of roses and a city. She continues to be a popular saint in her native Peru, where her feast day is a national holiday. Her family home is now a shrine with a well where the faithful go to drop appeals for her help. The house where she died is now a convent (the Monasterio de Santa Rrosa) named in her honor.

Beatified: 1667 by Pope Clement IX

Canonized: April 2, 1671, by Pope Clement X

Feast: August 30 (Peru); August 23 (elswhere)

Patronage: florists; gardeners; needle workers;

people ridiculed for their piety; Americas;

India; Peru; Philippines; West Indies

FURTHER READING

Alphonsus, Mary. St. Rose of Lima. Rockford, Ill.: TAN Boooks

and Publishfers, 1993.

"Santa Rosa de Lima." Santos Peruanos.

Downloaded: November 17, 1999.

"Saint Rose of Lima." Stories of the Saints.

www.members.tripod.com/~dymphna/saints/stbio.html

Downloaded: November 17, 1999.

www.americancatholic.org/feature/saintsofday/default.asp

www.catholic-pages.org/dir/saint.asp

www.

Monday, August 22, 2005

TODAY'S SAINTS (Queenship of Mary)

QUEENSHIP OF MARY

On October 11, 1954, His Holiness, Pope Pius XII, in his encyclical letter, Ad Caeli Reginam, decreed and instituted the feast of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary to be celebrated throughout the world every year. He declared that the Church has believed in Mary's Queenship from the earliest centuries and that this belief rests on Holy Scripture and tradition.

Mary is Queen of all "since she brought forth a son, Who at the very moment that He was connceived, was, by reason of the hypsotatic union of the human nature with the Word, even as man, King and Lord of all things." Further, "as Christ is our Lord and King by a special title because He redeemed us, so the Blessed Virgin (is our Lady and Queen) because of the uni-que way in which she has cooperated toward our redempption by giving of her own subst-ance, by offering Him willingly for us, and by desiring, praying for, and bringing about our salvation in a singular manner."

Feast: August 22

www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/default.asp

www.catholic.org/saints

www.catholic-pages.com/dir/saints

Sunday, August 21, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Pius X)

PIUS X

(1835-1914)

Pope

Also known as: Josph Sarto Pope of the Blessed Sacrament

Giuseppe Mechiorre Sarto, who was to become Pope Pius X, was born on June 2, 1835, at Riesi (Riese), Treviso, in Austrian-conntrolled Venice. His was a poor family, but Giuseppe took Latin lessons from the archpriest of Riessi, then studied for four years at the gymnasium of Castelfranco Veneto. In 1850, he received a scholarship to the seminary in Padua, where he completed his studies in classics, philosophy and theology with distinction.

After his ordination in 1858, he spent nine years as a chaplain at Tombolo; but the parish priest was old and an invalid, and Giuseppe had to assume most of his duties. He studied can-on law assiduously, established a night school for adult students and in 1867 he was named archhpriest of Salzano, a large borough of the diocese of Treviso. In 1875, he became a canon of the cathedral there. In 1878, upon the death of Bishop Zanelli, he was elected vicar-capitular. An even more prestigious position followed in November 1884, when he was elected bishop of Mantua. Then in June 1883, at a secret consistory, Leo XIII (r. 1878-1903) created him cardinal under the title San Bernardo alle Terme; in the public consistory three days later, he named him patriarch of Venice. However, Giuseppe had to wait 19 months before taking possession of his new diocese because the Italian government refused to recognize his appointment.

Leo XII died at the end of July 1903, and on August 4, Giuseppe was elected his successor. At his coronation on August 8, he assumed the name Pius X. As pope, Pius continued to promote the doctrine and method of St. Thomas and to battle against what he considered the Modernist heresy.

Pius gave particular atention to the Eucharist, recommending that the First Communion of children not be delayed after they reached the age of discretion, advising all healthy Catholics to take Communion frequently--daily, if possible--and lifting the injunction on the sick to fast so that they, too, could participate. He embraced the Immaculate Conception and published a new catechism for the diocese of Rome and, most important, produced a new codification of Canon Law that separated the juridical from the administrative.

Pius died on August 20, 1914, of natural causes aggravated by worries over the beginning of World War I. In his will we find the words: "I was born poor; I lived poor; I wish to die poor."

Canonized: May 31, 1954, by Pope Pius XII

Feast: August 21

Patronage: Pilgrims

www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/default.asp

www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/default.asp

Saturday, August 20, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Bernard of Clairvax)

BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX

(1090-1153)

Cistercian abbot and Doctor of the Church

Also known as: Doctor Mellifluus, "The Honey-Mouthed Doctor,"
for the spiritual sweetness of his teaching

Bernard of Clairvaux was born in Fontaines, near Dijon, in France, to a leading family of the nobility. He excelled in his early studies, especially in literature, while at the same time giving evidence of great piety.

Bernard's lifelong devotion to Mary began in childhood in 1098. He dreamed he saw a young woman praying in a stable, who suddenly held a radiant baby in her arms. He recogn-ized the baby as Jesus. Mary smiled and allowed Bernard to caress him. He prayed often to Mary and felt a close bond to her. Bernnard found himself equally attracted to the reformed Benedictine community a Citeaux, and to a career as a writer and scholar as his family wished. In 1111, he prayed to God for direction. He had a vision of his own departed mother, whom he understood to be sent by Mary. He knew instantly that he was to become a monk.

At about age 23 he entered the monastery at Citeaux along with 30 companions; he was even-tually followed by his father and five brothers. In 1115, the abbot, St. Stephen Harding, sent Bernard to found a new daughter house that was to become famous as the Cistercian abbey of Clairvaux.

Though Bernard sought quiet and solitude to contemplate, the needs of the Church, the orders of his supeiors and the urgent pleas of rullers caused him to spend much time in travels and controversies. Early in his career, when denounced to Rome for "meeddling" in high eccl-esiastical affairs, he won over his acusers by explaining that he would like nothing better than to retire to his monastery, but had been ordered to assist at the Synod of Troyes. He likewise found himself called upon to judge the rival claims of Innocent II and Anacletus II to the papacy, and traveled widely to bring others over to the side of Innocent. His other activities included assisting at the Second Lateran Council (1139) and of Gilbert, bishop of Poitiers (1147-48). Bernard was a key figure in the condemnation of Abelard by the Council of Sens.

Despite his many activities, the real center of Bernard's life was prayer and contemplation: From them he drew stregth for his labors and journeys and inspiration for his writings. Bernard, like all Christians, believed that the vision of God and union with Him was the end for which man was created. This can be fully attained only in the afterlife, but Bernard and many others throughout the ages have claimed an experience, even in this life, of that vision and union. This mystical experience, like the Beatific Vision of which it is a foretaste, is, in the Christian view, a free gift of God; the most that man can do is desire it and strive to remove obstacles to it. The methods of removing obstacles are the subject of ascetic and mystical theology. Many Christ-ians before bernard had described this mystical experience, but he was one of the first to add-ress himself to the theological understanding of it, though not in any systematc way. His work shows a profound and precise knowledge of doctrinal subtleties.

Ascetic theology deals with groundwork of the spiritual life; the eradication of vices, the cultivation of cirtue, the attainment of detachmennt, by which one learns to give up one's own will and accept God's will for one. Bernard's works in this field include De Gratia et Libero Arbitrio (Of grace and free will) and De Gradibus Humilitatus et Superbiae (Of the steps of humility and pride ). Berrnard's teaching is typical of the paradoxical Christian view of man, simultaneously affirming his dignity as made in the image and likenes of God (which image, for Bernard, consisted primarily in man's fee will) and his need for humility as a creature--a fallen creature, in whom the likeness to God is obscured by sin.

But for Bernarrd, as for the author of the Johannine book (Fourth Gospel) of the New Testment, the Beginning, end and driving force of the whole mystery of creation and redem-ption is love: God's love for man enabling man to love God in return. In De Dilgendo Deo (Of loving God), Bernard presents motives for loving God, both those that all men may acknow-ledge (the gifts of creation) and those that compel Christians, who believe that God became incarnate and died to save them (the gods of redemption). Here, as elsewhere in his writings, the humanity of Christ has the central role.

Love is nurtured by conversation, and so in the four books De Consideratione (Of meditation), written for his pupil who had become pope as Eugene III, Bernard discusses meditation, or mentall prayer, by which one converses with God and may, perhaps, attain a vision of God and union with Him evern in this life. It is in the 86 Sermones super Cantica Canticorum (Sermons on the song of songs) that Bernard eloquently expounds on this vision and union, and the desire for it. As many would do after him, he sees these ancient Hebrew poems as describing the union of God and the soul as a mystical marriage. Bernard stresses that the mystical experience is, precisely, and experience, and thus strictly incommunicable, to be known only by one who has experienced it.

In addition to these works, Bernard composed more than 300 sermons and 500 letters, which demonstrate his deep devotion to Mary and the infant Jesus. A story is told that one letter to his cousin, Robert, was dictated in a field during a heavy downpour. The paper never became wet. The episode was looked upon as miraculous, and an oratory was built on the spot.

Of other miracles and unusual events ascribed to the saint, an interesting one concerns the "flies of Foigny." Bernard attended the dedication of a church in Foigny, and the service was disturbed by a great multitude of buzzing flies. Bernard cried, "Excommunicabo eas!" (I shall excommunicate them!). The next day the excommunicated flies were found dead. There were so many they blackened the pavement and had to be shoveled out of the church.

Bernard's symbol is a white dog. In art he is often depicte in Cistercian habit with a vision of Our Lady.

Canonized: 1174 by Pope Alexander III

Declared Doctor of the Church: 1830 by Pope Pius VIII

Feast: August 20

Patronage: bees; cancer victims; chandlers; Cistercians; climbers; Burgundy;

Gibraltar; Liguria, Italy; Speyer Cathedral, Germany

FURTHER READING

Brederro, Adrian H. Bernand of Clairvaux: Between Cult and

History. Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eedmans, 1996.

Brown, Raphael. Saints Who Saw Mary. Rockford, Ill.: Tan Bo-

oks, 1955

Gilson, Eetiennee. The Mystical Theology of Saint Bernard, tr.

A.H.C. Downes. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1940.

Liddy, Ailbe J., O. Cist. Life and Teaching of Saint Bernard.

Dublin: M.H. Gill & Son, 1950.

St. Bernard's Sermon on the Canticle of Canticles, tr. by a priest

of Mount Mellary. Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1920.

Williams, Watkin. The Mysticism of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux.

London: Burns Oates & Washbourne, 1931.

www.catholicc.org/saints

www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/default.asp

Friday, August 19, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (John Eudes)

JOHN EUDES

(1601-1670)

Initiator (With St. Margaret Mary Alacoque)

of the devotion to the Sacred Heart

John Eudes was born at Ri in Normandy, France, on November 14, 1601, to a farming family. At age 14 he attended the Jesuit college at Caen. Although his parents wanted him to marry, he joined the Congregatioon of the Oratory of France in 1623. He studied at Paris and at Aubervil-liers and was ordained in 1625.

John help victims of the plagues that struck Normandy in 1625 and 1631, annd spent the next decade giving missions. He earned a reputation as an outstanding preacher and confessor, and was esteemed for his opposition to the heresy of Jansenism. He became interested in helping fallen women, In 1641, with Madeleine Lamy, he founded a refuge for them in Caen under the direction of the Visitandines.

He resignned frrom the Oratorians in 1643, and founded the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (the Eudists) at Caen, composed of secular priests not bound by vows but dedicated to upgrad-ing the clegy by establishing effective seminaries and to preaching missions. His foundation was opposed by the Oratorians and the Jansenists, and he was unable to obtain papal approval for it. But in 1650 the bishop of Coutances invited him to establish a seminary iin that diocese. The same year the sisters at his refuuge in Caen left tthe Vissitandines and were recogregartion, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of the Refuge.

John founded seminarries at Lisieux in 1653 and Rouen in 1659 and was unsuccessful in another attempt to secure papal approval of his conngregation. In 1666 the Refuge sister recei-ved Pope Alexanderer III's approval as an institute to reclaim and care for penitent wayward women. John continued giving missions and established new seminaries at Evreux in 1666 and Rennes inn 1670.

He shared with Margaret Mary Alacoque the honor of initiating devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus (he composed the Mass for the Sacred Hearrt in 1668) and the Holy Heart of Mary, popularizing the devotions with his "The Devotion to the Adorable Heart of Jesus" (1670) and "The Admirable Heart of the Most Holy Mother of God," which he finished a month before his death at Caen on August 19, 1670.

Camonized: 1925 by Pius XI

Feast: August 19

www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/default.asp

Thursday, August 18, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Helena)

HELENA

(d. ca. 326-328)

Empress,mother of Constantine the Great

Also know as: Helen of the Cross

Helena, a native of Turkey, married Constantius I Chlorus, a Roman general who reigned as junior emperor from 293 to 306. The marriage took place in 270, and a son, Constantine, was born soon thereafter. After his elevation to caesar, Constantius was required to divorce Helena, a woman of a lower class than he, and marry Theodora, the stepdaughter of co-emperor Maxi-miann (r. 286-305).

Son Constantine became a junior emperor upon the death of his father in 306. In 312, he won a major military victory over Maximian and became emperor. Helena was named empress.

Helena converted to Christianity and was renowned for her charity and building of chur-ches. She went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land--by some accounts when she was nearly 80 years old--in search of the holy cross. In excavations, three crosses were discovered, including one that seemed to be the "true cross." Hene in art she is often shown holding a cross.

Helena died probably in Nicomedia (in modern Turkey). Her sarcophagus is in the Vatican Museum.

Feast: August 18

Patronage: converts; against divorce; empresses

www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/default.asp

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Hyacinth)

HYACINTH

(1185-1257)

Dominica missionary and wonder-worker

Also known as: the Aapostle of Poland; the Apostle of the North;

the Polish St. Dominic

Hyacinth was born in Oppeln, Silesia, which beloged to Poland, He studdied at Cracow, Prague and Bologna, earning the degrees of doctor of laws and divinity. Returning home, he went to work as an administrative assisstant to the bishhop of Cracow.

In 1218 he went to Rome with his uncle, Yvo, who had been appointed bishop, and his brother, Ceslas. In Rome they meet St. Dominic, and Yvo asked the saint to send friars to Pol-and. None of the Dominicans knew Polish, however. Hyacinth and Ceslas were inspired to join Dominic's order, and received the habit from Dominic himself. Hyacinth was appointed super-ior of the Dominican mission in in Poland. They preached along their way home and attracted new members.

Hyacinth was an effective preacher and was devoted especially to Mary. He was hugely popular in Cracow. He traveled throughout northen Europe, the Baltic, Scandinavia, Lithuania, Russia, China and Tibbet. He was known as a wonder-worker and his sermons and miracles attracted many converts.

On three occasions he reportedly was witnessed walking on water. Once in Moravia, Hyacinthe was traveling with three companionss to Wisgrade. they reached the Vistula River; on the other side were about 400 persons waiting for them. Hyacinth made the sign of the cross and walked across the water. Another such incident took place in Russia.

On another occasion Hyacinth was at a convent that was being threatened by invading Tartars, who set the building on fire. Hyacinth hurried to hide the Blessed Sacrament, when he heard the Blesssed Virgin Marry telling him not to leave her statue behind to be desecrated. The statue wass quite heavy and Hyacinth doubted he could move it himself . Mary told him she would lighten the load. He then picked up the statue with one hand, held the Blessed Sacrament in the other, and fled the convent. He walked across the Dnieper River to safety.

Hyacinth died in Cracow on August 15,1257.

Canonized: 1594 by Pope Clement VIII

Feast: August 17

www.amereicancatholic.org/features/saintofday/default.asp

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Stiphen of Hungary)

STEPHEN OF HUNGARY

(ca. 970-1038)

King and patron of Hungary

Name meaning: Vajk: rich or master

Also known as: Vajk, Vaik, Stephen the Great

Vajk was born in 970 to the Magyar leader Geza and his wife Charlotte.. That year alsso marked an end to the threat of terror from the great barbarian hordes when they suffered a crushing defeat by the Byzantines at Arccadiopolis (located in what is now northwestern Turkey). By 972, Otto II had married the Byzantine princess Theophanno, uniting the Holy Roman and Eastern Empired and leaving Hungary squeezed in the middle. In order to survive, Geza determined that his people's aggressive tribal and heathen culture had to be destroyed and replaced by Christianity so that paganism could not be used as an excusse for invasion.

So in 972, Geza announced the conversion of his people: an act of plitical expediency. Bishop Pilgrim of Passau established the first episcopal see near the rouyal residence at Esztergom on the Danube River. About 980, Bishop Pilgrim returned and baptized Geza and about 5,000 Hungarian nobles at Pannonholma (an event describbed as resembling a cattle round-up). Although Geza ruthlessly imposed Christianity on his people, he and Charlotte continued to worship their pagan gods.

Young Vajk was baptized along with the rest, receiving the name Stepphen (Istvan), but legend tells that he had been destined for Christian greatiness. During her Pregnancy, his mother Charlotte supposedly saw St. Stepphen the Protomartyr in a dream. He told her that she would bear a son who would be the greatest leader Pannonia (which became Hungary) had ever seen, and that the boy should be named after him. Young Stephen received Christian instruction from the martyed St. Adalbert of Prague.

By 995, Geza waas old and ill, exhausted from 10 years of battle with Bavaria's Prince Henry the Quarelsome. He named Stephen the future king, ignoring the practice of "semorate," in which
the next member of the rulling family ascends the throne--in this case Geza 's brother Koppany. In the old traditions, Koppany also had the right to Geza's widow, a practice called "levirate." To protect her son's interests, Charlotte arranged Stephen's marriage to Gisela, daughter of Prince Henry and sister of Emperor St. Hennry II. Geza died in 997, and Stephen became king after defeating and killing his uncle. Koppany's lands were give to the abbey of Pannonholma for the establishment of the great church of St. Martin, still the mother church of the Hungarian Benediictines.

In 999, still uncrowned officially, Stephen decided to cast Hungary's lot with Rome and the German princes. He also desired official recognition by the new pope, Sylvester II, formerly the learned French cleric Gerbert of Aurillac. So in 1000 Stephen sent St. Astrik to Rome to ask that the pope name him King of Hungary by the Grace of God, a designation that would make Stephen an apostolic king and canon of the Church. Sylvester II eagerly agreed, sending Astrik back to Hungary with thfe official papers and a crown originally made for Duke boleslaus the Brave of Poland. When Astrik arrived at Esztergom, Stephen rode out to meet his envoy and stood at attention to hear the pope's message. On August 15, 1000, Stephen received the papal crown in a coronation ceremony based on the Maninz Sacramentary, including his anointing with holy oil and reception of the ring, sword and scepter of the Church.

The young king concentrated on the organization of the Church and the just administration of his nation. He established the Church's primatial see at Esztergom, the royal residence, and used the spoils of a war with the Bulgarians to build the cathedral at Szekesfehrvar. Next the king divided his country into dioceses, decreeing that every 10 village join together and build a church and support the local priest. Tithing was mandatory. Any family forunate enough to have 10 children must dedicate the tenth as a monk at the abbey at Pannonholma. All people except churchmen and members of religious orders were rrequired to marry. To establish con-trol, Stephen built an extensive system of castles and royal residences that employed about a third of the population on their maintenance and subverted traditional clan loyalties in favor of the king. Stephen introduced private land ownership, wrote laws and established royal courts, repressed murder, theft, blasphemy and adultery, and establishhed a security force in the Alpss and along the Danube to protect travelers.

In 1014, Stephen allied Hungary with his former enemies, the Byzantines, aginst the Bulg-rians, and his success yielded not only the booty, which became Szekesfehervar Cathedral, but a Greek princess for his second son, Emeric. Stephen's first son, Otto, has died in childhood, and the king placed all his dreams for a Christian nonarchy on the young prince. Emeric's early spiritual adviser was St. Gellbert (who was martyred by pagans, like his predeccessor St, Adal-bert), and Stephed himself trained and educated his son in the responsibilities of a Christian king and servant. In 1030, Prince Emeric successfully led an army against the ambitious Ger-man emperor Conrad II, and Stephen, convinced his son was ready for kingship, prepared to name regent.

But a wild boar killed Emeric in a hunting accident in 1031, and the devastated Stephen faced the prospect of succession by his cousin Vazul, described as stupid and half-pagan. Often sick and delirious, Stephen began seeing parallels between his life at the millennium and that of Christ. Fears of the apocalypse abounded, and Queen Gisela set craftsmen and seamstresses to work making crosses and sacred vestments, particularly a red and gold silk mantle for the king that portrayed St. Stephen and King Stephen together with God. In and act establishing the cult of the Virrgin in Hungary, Szekesfehervar Cathedral was dedicated to the Virgin Mary--a move that appealed to the still-pagan worshipers of the goddess whose gown was the blue sky.

Shocking even his closest followers, the dying Stephen named his nephew Peter Oresolo as his successor, cutting out Vazul. Such a move also curtailed Hungarian independence since Orseolo was the son of the Venetian doge. Vazul sent assassins to kill the king in his bedch-amber, but they were aprehended. He was convicted and punished by being blinded and having hot lead poured in his ears.

King Stephen I died on August 15, 1038, exactly 38 years after his coronation. Orseolo ascended the throne, but Vazul's sons soon overthrew him, establishing a 200-year dynasty. Stephenn was buried next to his son, now Blessed, in Szekesfchervar, but his relics were event-ually enshrined in a chapel of the Church of Our Lady of Buda. Reports of miracles at his tomb circulated almost immediately, and Hungarians--even during the years of communist rule--still appeal to their patron for aid in time of crisis.

Canonized: 1038 by Pope Gregory VII

Feast: August 16

Patronage: Bricklayers; against deathh of children; kings; masons; stonecutters; stonemasons; Hungaary

www.americancatholic.org/features/saintofday/deault.asp

Monday, August 15, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Mary, Blessed Virgin)

MARY, BLESSED VIRGIN

(d. first century)

Also known as: Mother of God, Our Lady of the Angels,

Queen of the Angels, Queen of Martyrs, Our Lady and

other titles

Little is known about Mary's life. According to tradition, she was born in Jerusalem to SS. Anne and Joachim. She was presented to the temple and took a vow of virginty. Her Immaculate Conception was announced by the Archangel Gabriel (Luke 1:26-38). Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her in order to conceive her son. Mary became betrothed to St. Joseph. Her cousin Eliizabeth--whom Gabriel anounced would bear St. John the Baptist--called her the Mother of God. Mary replied with the Magnificat, "My soul magnifies the Lord..." (Luck 1:46-55).

Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem, Joseph's family, to comply with a census. There Jesus was born and visited by the Three Kings, or Magi. The baby was presented to the temple. War-ned that King Herod was searching for an infant boy destined to become King of the Jews, the family fled to Egypt, returning to Nazareth after Herod died.

Little is said in the Bible about the further activities of Mary. She visited the Temple of Jerrusalem and was instrumental in Jesus' first recorded miracle of turning water into wine at a wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1-5). She was present at the Crucifixion and give into St. John's care (John 19: 25-27). She was with the disciples before Pentecost (Acts 1:14). Tradition holds that she present at the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, though no records state so. The Bible does not tell of her last years. According to one tradition, she remained in Jerusalem; another holds that she went to Ephesus.

Tradition also has long held that Mary did not die a physical death, but was assumed into heaven. Her Asumption was made an artticle of faith in 1950 by Pope Pius XII (1939-58).

According to Catholic doctrine, Mary's Immaculate Conception makes her the one exception to the state of Original Sin (the state in whhich all humankind is born, due to the fall of Adam and Eve). Because Mary was destined to be the mother of Christ, God infused her soul with grace at the moment of her conception in the womb of her mother, St. Anne, which freed her from lust, slavery to the devil, depraed nature, darkness of intellect and other consequences of Original Sin. the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed in 1854 by Pope Pius IX (r. 1848-78).

The idea of the Immaculate Conception was rejected by St. Thomas aquinas in the 13th century. Many modern theologianns, challenging doctrines, consider the Imaculat Coneption to be symbolic and not literal. The Bible makes refereces to Jesus' brothers and sisters.

Mary and her place in Christian theology have been the subject of much controversy over the centuries. She absorbed characteristics of previous pagan goddesses, thus fulfilling the univeral need for worship of a mother-figure. Some early Church fathers attempted to discou-rage worship of her by saying that God would never be born of a woman. For the first five centuries after Christ, she was depicted as lower in status than even the Magi, who were graced by haloes in sacred art. The Marianite sect, which considered her divine, was persecuted foor heresy. In the early fourth century, Constantine I ordered all goddes temples destroyed and forbfafde the worship of Mary. She was prayed to as a mother who intercedes for her children, In the fifth century, she was given the title theotoks ("God-bearer") at the Church councils at Epheesus in 431 and at Chalcedon in 451. By the ninth century she was named Queen of Heaven. by the 11th cenntury, great Gothic cathedrals were built for her.

Mary has a special role in salvation; Pope Benedict XV (r. 1914-22) Wrote in 1918 that she "redeemed the human race together with Christ." She is seen as the Mediatrix of All Graces, ever present at the side of every pereson from baptism to death, ready to give support, hope, encouragement and strengh.

She reigns in the splendor of heaven, where angels behold her glory and are ravished at the sight of her. She is second only to Jesus in suffering, and so commands the obedience of the angelic host. It may be the archangel Michael who leads the good angels in the celestial war against evil, but he is under the command of Mary. The Queen of Paradise may even be considered the mother of angels, since she loves them and treats them as her own childen. The Precious Blood shed by Jesus is the song of angels, the liight of Mary and the jubilee of her woes.

The theological, philosophical and other academic studies of Mary are collectively called "Mariology," a distinct discpline that includes biblical refences to her, doctrines and devotions associated with her, and ger role in religious history and thought. There is a mariolog-ical Socifety of Amereica and several centers of Mariollogical research, including the Maria-num, the theological faculty directed in Rome by the Servite Fathers. There is also the Marian Library at the University of Dayton, Ohio, onfe of severral schools owned and operrated by the Socifety of mary (Marianists), A Rome Catholic religious order devoted espfecially to "filial piety," a devotion to Mary similar to that which they believe is accorded Christ.

Countless vision of Mary have been reported worldwide; the munbers rose dramatically beginning in the later part of the 20th century, spurred by the Catholic Chuch's acceptance of Mary's assumption into heaven as an artticle of faith in 1950, by a general increase in desire for spiriual experience, and by apocalyptic thinking concerning the change of millennia. The Cath-olic Church, wich conducts rigorous incestigations into such reports where it deems warranted, has authenticated eight of them. Some popular sites of Marian apparition pilgrimages, such as those in Zeitoun, Egypt, from 1968 to 1969, and those in Medjogorge, Bosnia-Herzegovina, beginning in 1981, have been neither investigated nor authernticated by the Church.

Numeous saints have seen visions of Mary, often accompanied by angels. Mary appears when she is needed in order to give comfort and inportant messages. Frequently, she exhorts people to pray to counter the exil at loose in the world.

In Catholic tradition, an unnamed Benedictine sister had a vision in which she saw the desol-ation wrought by evil. She heard Mary tell her that the time had come to pray to here as the Queen of the Angels, to ask her for the assistance of the angels in fighting the foes of God and men. The sister asked why could not Mary, who is so kind, send the angels without being asked. Mary responded that she could not, because prayer is one of the coditions God requires for the obtaining of favors. Mary then communicated the following prayer, which is part of the many devotions to Mary:

"August Queen of Heaven! Sovereign Mistress of the

angels! Thou who from the beginning hast received from

God the power and mission to crush the head of Satan,

we humbly beseech thee to send thy holy Legions, that,

under thy command and by thy power, they may pursue

the evil spirits, encountere them on every side, resist their

bold attacks and drive them hence into the abyss of eter-

nal woe. Amen.

The events of Mary's life are observed as feast days throughout the year, among them the Immaculate Conception, the Mativity, Purification, Annuumciation and Assumption. The most populaar devotion to Mary is the rosary, which is the saying of 50 "Hail Mary," five "Our Father " and five doxologies ("Glory be to the Father...") while meditating on specific traditional mysteries. This association with the rosary stems from apparitions of Mary seen at Fatima, Portugal, in 1917, in which she identified herself as the Lady of the Rosary, and asked that believers say the rosary every day. Devotion to Mary is a vital part of Catholic liturgical life.

Ex-canonical words such as the Book of John the Evangelist refer to Mary as an angle herself. The Apocryphal New Testament says she is the angel sent by God to receive the Lord, who enters her through the ear.

Among the saints who have had mystical visions of and encounters with Mary are Bernard of Clairvaux, Brnadine of Siena, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine Laboure, Catherine of Aiena, Frances of Rome, Francis of Assisi, Grtude, Gregtory the Great, Ignatius of loyola, John of the Cross, Mechtilde, Nicholas of Flue, Simon Dtock and Teresa of Avila.

FURTHER READING

Arintereo, Juan. Mystical Evolution in the Development and vitality of the Church, vol. 1. St. louis: B. Herder, 1949.
Attwater, Donald. A Dictionaary of Mary New York: P.J. Kennedy, 1960

St. Michael and the Angels. Rockford, III.: Tan Books and Publishers, 1983; first Published, 1977.

www.catholic-pages/dir/saints

Sunday, August 14, 2005

TODAY'S SAINT (Maximilian kolbe)

MAXIMILIAN KOLBE

(1894-1941)

Founder of the Knights of the Immaculata,

Franciscan martyr of World War II

Maximilian Kolbe was born Raymond Kolbe on January 7, 18894, in Zdunska-Wola, then located in Russian Poland, to a poor family. At age 10 he had a vision that changed his life. One day when he was misbehaving, his mother said, "Raymond, what is to become of you?" The boy went to church asking the same question and prayed about it. The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in a vision and held out two crowns to him. One was white for purity, the other red for martyrdom. She asked him which would he choose, and he answered, "I choose both."

Raymond attended a trade school and entered secondary school in 1907. He had a special love for the scciences, and even designed a rocket ship and appl-ied for a patent on it. When the Conventual Franciscans opened a minor semin-ary, both he and his brother, Leopoli, applied. Raymmond took the habit on September 4, 1910, and adopted the mame Maximilian.

He endured inner trials and was sent to Rome to study. He earned a doctorate in philosophy and later a doctorate in theology. He was indiference as the most deadly poison, and in 1917 founded an order, the Knights of the Immaculata, to countereact it. Members dedicated themselves to Mary Immaculate and pledged to work for the salvation of souls, particularly among the enemies of the Church, through prayer and apostolic work. The order was made a Primary Union by Pope Pius XI (r. 1922-39) in 1926.

Maximilian contracted tuberculosis in 1920, and his health was severely weakened for the rest of his life. He spent two years in a sanatorium. For the remainder of the 19220's and into the 1903's, Maximilian worked to build his order, and even went to Japan. He was recalled to Poland in 1939 to head the provincial chapter, the City of the Immacuata.

World War II brought attacks by the Nazis. Maximilian was arrested by the Gestapo in 1939, then released. He was arested again in 1941, and Jailed in Warsaw. On May 28, 1941, Maximilian was among about 320 prisoners who were transported to the Auschwitz concentration camp.

His openess as a Catholic priest brought him severe treatment. He was regul-arly beaten, attacked by dogs, given the worst job details and made to carry corpses. Once he was beaten and left for dead; his fellow prisoners carried him back to camp., where he recovered. His chronic lung inflammation required him to spend time in the infirmary. Throughout the brutalities, Maximilian maintained a positive outlook and was a source of strength to many prison-ers. He heard confessions, gave conditional absolution to the dead and coun-seled people. He always made himself last for any medical treatment.

In July 1941, a prisoner escaped. Camp rules were that if a missing prisoner was not caught and returned, 10 victims at random. One was a Pollish soldier, Sergeant Francis Gajowniczek, who cried out in distress, "What will happen to my family?" Immediately Maximilian stepped forward and volunteered him-self as a replacement. The commandant accepted.

The 10 men were herded into a starvation cell, stripped of their clothing and left to die. They received on food or water. One by one they died; some were kicked to death by the guards. Maximilian led the survivors in prayer and hymns, reminding them that their souls could not be killed.

The Knights of the Immaculata have spread around the world. The order is now known as the Militia of the Immaculata.

Beatified: October 17, 1971, by Pope Paul VI

Canonized: October 10, 1982, by Pope John Paul II

Feast: August 14

www.americancatholic.org/feature/saintofday/default.asp