Saint Sithney(or Setna) was one of a group of Irish monks who travelled to western Cornwall, and from there he moved to Guic-Sezni in Brittany, where he founded a monastery. He was a native of Munster, the son of Erc and Magna – a sister of St. David. Sithney had two brothers, Saint Govan and Multos. He may be the Setna, a deaf and mute boy who kept cows on Slieve-Bloom. Saint Columba of Terryglass pitied the child and blessed him. He not only recovered hearing and speech, but also acquired the gift of prophecy.
When God chose Sithney to be the patron of girls seeking husbands; the saint recoiled, saying he would never get to rest in that case, and that he would rather take care of mad dogs than women. Ever since, sick or mad dogs have been given water from Sithney’s well as a tonic.
He died in 529, of natural causes. William Worcester recorded in 1478 that the body of the saint lay within the church of Saint Sithney.
Saint Sithney church
Patronages: Against hydrophobia, against rabies, against mad dogs, Sithney, Cornwall, England
Madonna dell’Apparizione / Our Lady of the Apparition, Pellestrina, Italy (1716) – 4 August:
The Sanctuary of Madonna dell’Apparizione in Pellestrina was built in July 1717, a year after the appearance of the Madonna on the island. The event of 4 August 1716, the Feast day of St Dominic, was in fact confirmed true by canonical process: – a young boy from Pellestrina met a woman who advised him to tell the parish priest to celebrate Mass and to pray for the salvation of Venice, which, at that time, was besieged by the Turks. The following day, at the same hour of the Apparition, the Venetians won the Battle of Petrovaradin against the Turks.
Throughout the entire year the Sanctuary is a destination for many pilgrims and devotees in search of grace and even today, on 4 August in Pellestrina, the Madonna dell’Apparizione and the victory of Venice is celebrated over three days.
St Dominic de Guzman OP (1170-1221) (Memorial) Founder of the Dominican Order of Preachers – Priest, Founder, Confessor, Teacher, Preacher, Mystic, Miracle-Worker, Apostle of the Holy Rosary. At Dominic’s baptism, Blessed Joan, his Mother, saw a star shining from his chest, which became another of his symbols in art, and led to his patronage of astronomy. The Roman Martyrology states today: “At Bologna, St Dominic, Confessor, Founder of the Order of Friars Preachers, most renowned for sanctity and learning. He preserved his chastity unsullied to the end of his life and by his great merits, raised three persons from the dead. After having repressed heresies by his preaching and instructed many in the religious and Godly life, he rested in peace on the 6th of this month. His Feast, however, is celebrated on this day by decree of Pope Paul IV.
St Hyacinth of Rome St Ia of Persia St Isidore of Besançon St Lua of Limerick St Onofrio of Panaia St Perpetua of Rome St Protasius of Cologne St Rainerio of Split St Sithney (Died c 529) St Tertullinus of Rome Bl William Horne
Our Morning Offering – 4 August – The Memorial of St Dominic de Guzman OP (1170-1221)
St Dominic’s Blessing By St Dominic de Guzman (1170-1221)
May God the Father, who made us, bless us. May God the Son, send His healing among us. May God the Holy Spirit, move within us and give us eyes to see with, ears to hear with, and hands, that Your work, might be done. May we walk and preach the word of God to all. May the angel of peace watch over us and lead us at last, by God’s grace, to the Kingdom. Amen
One Minute Reflection – 4 August – “Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” – Readings: Ps 36:30-31, Ps 36:1, 2 Tim. 4:1-8, Luke 12:35-40
Blessed are those servants whom the master, on his return, shall find watching.
Luke 12:35-40
REFLECTION – “The just soul, for whom life finishes in the affection of charity and the bonds of love, cannot increase in virtue, time having come to naught, but she can always love with that affection with which she comes to Me, and that measure that is measured to her. She always desires Me, and loves Me, and her desire is not in vain—being hungry, she is satisfied, and being satisfied, she has hunger, but the tediousness of satiety and the pain of hunger are far from her. In love, the Blessed rejoice in My eternal vision, participating in that good that I have in Myself, everyone according to his measure, that is that, with that measure of love, with which they have come to Me, is it measured to them. Because they have lived in love of Me and of the neighbor, united together with the general love, and the particular, which, moreover, both proceed from the same love. And they rejoice and exult, participating in each other’s good with the affection of love, besides the universal good that they enjoy altogether. And they rejoice and exult with the angels with whom they are placed, according to their diverse and various virtues in the world, being all bound in the bonds of love. And they have a special participation with those whom they closely loved with particular affection in the world, with which affection they grew in grace, increasing virtue, and the one was the occasion to the other of manifesting the glory and praise of My name, in themselves and in their neighbor; and, in the life everlasting, they have not lost their love, but have it still, participating closely, with more abundance, the one with the other, their love being added to the universal good, and I would not that you should think that they have this particular good, of which I have told you, for themselves alone, for it is not so, but it is shared by all the proved citizens, My beloved sons, and all the angel —for, when the soul arrives at eternal life, all participate in the good of that soul, and the soul in their good.”
These then do not await, with fear, the Divine judgment, but with joy, and the Face of My Son will not seem to them terrible, or full of hatred, because they finished their lives in love and affection for Me, and good-will towards their neighbor. So you see then, that the transformation is not in His Face, when He comes to judge with My Divine Majesty, but in the vision of those who will be judged by Him. To the damned He will appear with hatred and with justice. And to the saved with love and mercy.”
God the Father to St Catherine of Siena (The Dialogue)
PRAYER – Lord God, You gave St Dominic to the Church as a great preacher of the Truth. We pray that he will help us in these times, our times of lies, ruled by the evil one, by his merits, his teachings and his unfailing prayer. Through Jesus the Christ, Our Lord in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God now and for all eternity, amen.
Quote/s of the Day – 4 August – The Memorial of St Dominic de Guzman OP(1170-1221)
Greatly do we rejoice and thank God because of your holy life and because He has freed you from the corruption of this world. Daughters, fight the ancient adversary insistently with fasting, for only he will be crowned who has striven according to the rules. Be not sparing of discipline and vigils. Be obedient to your prioress. Avoid talking idly to one another. Let not your time be wasted in conversation.
When asked what he would say if faced with martyrdom
I would tell them to kill me slowly and painfully, a little at a time so that I might have a more glorious crown in heaven.
A man who governs his passions is master of the world. We must either rule them or be ruled by them. It is better to be the hammer than the anvil.
If I do not become a saint, I am doing nothing.
The Holy Rosary is the best artillery against demons and their followers.
None who perseveres in devotion to the Holy Rosary will be condemned.
You are my companion and must walk with me. For if we hold together, no earthly power can withstand us.
The Holy Ghost is wont to describe many things with few words. Wishing to praise the principal faculties of the body and soul of His Spouse, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and to exalt the merits of her Heart, He uses very few words, which nevertheless contain many meanings. What does He say? How does He praise Mary, the sovereign of hearts? He utters only three words: Quod intrinsecus latet (“what is hid within“). But these three words encompass all the great and admirable utterances that can be said or thought of her royal Heart; they reveal to us that it is a treasure hidden from the most enlightened eyes of heaven and earth, a treasure so filled with celestial riches that God alone can have a perfect knowledge of its wonders.
The spiritual heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the intellectual element of her soul, comprising her memory, intelligence, will and the supreme point of her spirit. This is the heart which expresses itself in the first words of her admirable Canticle, the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord: and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.” It is the spirit, the soul’s first and noblest part, which must, in a very special manner, glorify God and rejoice in Him. If the virginal heart beating in the consecrated breast of the Virgin of virgins, the most excellent organ of her holy body, is so admirable, as we have already seen, what must be the marvels of her spiritual heart, the noblest portion of her soul? Is it not true that, as the condition of the soul surpasses that of the body, so also does the spiritual heart excel the corporeal?
First of all, Divine Bounty miraculously preserved the heart of the Mother of Our Saviour from the stain of sin, which never touched it because God filled it with grace from the moment of its creation, and clothed it with purity so radiant that, next to God’s, it is impossible to conceive of greater purity. His Divine Majesty possessed her heart so completely from its first instant that it never ceased for a moment to belong entirely to Him and to love Him more ardently than all the holiest hearts of heaven and earth united.
In the second place, the Father of Light has filled this beautiful Sun with the most brilliant lights of nature and of grace. If we consider the natural illumination shining within Mary, we see that God gave to the chosen Spouse of the Holy Ghost a natural intellect more clear, lively, profound, vaster and more perfect in every way than any other intellect, an intellect worthy of the Mother of God, worthy of the woman destined to guide and rule Divine Wisdom, worthy of the Mistress of the Church and Queen Regent of the universe, worthy of her who was to converse familiarly on earth with the angels of heaven, and what is more, with the King of Angels, for thirty four years, an intellect worthy of the lofty functions and sublime contemplation to which she was consecrated.
As regards supernatural light, the luminous heart of Mary, Seat of Wisdom, was so filled with its radiance that the learned Albert the Great, nurtured in the school of the Mother of God, plainly teaches, together with many other holy Doctors, that there was nothing Our Lady did not know. They assert that she possessed infused knowledge of every science, and in a much more eminent degree than the most learned minds that ever existed.
The vast knowledge of the Blessed Virgin Mary was dedicated to a most holy use, employed only to urge her to love God with greater ardor, to procure the salvation of souls with greater fervor, to hate sin more vigorously, to humble herself more profoundly, to despise still further everything that the world esteems and to prize and embrace with greater affection the things it detests, namely poverty, abjections and suffering.
AnaStpaul 
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