Quote/s of the Day – 24 November – The Solemnity of Christ the King
“Christ, has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped but His, by essence and by nature.”
St Cyril of Alexandria (376-444)
Father & Doctor of the Church
“Christ’s kingdom is not just a figure of speech. Christ is alive, He lives as a man, with the same body He took when He became man, when He rose after His death, the glorified body which subsists in the person of the Word together with His human heart. Christ, true God and true man, lives and reigns. He is the Lord of the universe. Everything that lives is kept in existence only through Him.”
St Josemaria Escrivá (1902-1975)
“Jesus Christ You have heard Him spoken of, indeed the greater part of you are already His – you are Christians. So, to you Christians I repeat His name, to everyone I proclaim Him – Jesus Christ is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and the Omega. He is the king of the new world. He is the secret of history. He is the key to our destiny.”
St Pope Paul VI (1897-1978)
“You say that I am a king. For this I was born and for this I have come into the world, to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”
John 18:37
“But what is the “truth” that Christ came into the world to witness to? The whole of His life reveals that God is love – so this is the truth to which He witnessed to the full, with the sacrifice of His own life on Calvary.”
Pope Benedict XVI
“When did Jesus reveal Himself as king? In the event of the Cross!”
Saint of the Day – 24 November – St Albert of Louvain (1166-1192) Bishop, Cardinal and Martyr. Born in c 1166 in Brabant (in modern Belgium) and died by stabbing on 21 November 1192 on the road outside Rheims, France.
Archduke Albert with His Patron Saint, Albert of Louvain by Peter Paul Rubens (1640)
Albert de Louvain was born in 1166 as the second of two sons to Duke Godfrey III, Count of Leuven and his first wife Margareta van Limburg. He was the brother of Henry I, Duke of Brabant.
Albert was educated at the cathedral school of Saint-Lambert in Liège. Saint Albert of Louvain entered into religious life at the age of 12. However, he left the Canonric at the age of 21 to become a knight of Count Baldwin. In 1187, when news of the fall of Jerusalem reached Liege, Albert resigned his offices, took the cross and had himself knighted in order to become a Crusader. The following year Cardinal Henry of Albano, restored his ecclesiastical status, within the Church and he received the sub-diaconate in 1191. That same year he was elected Bishop of Liège and despite the fact that he had not reached the canonical age of 30, his appointment was widely approved. Gilbert of Mons, chancellor of Count Baldwin V of Hainaut, who attended the election, along with other princes and nobles, described the proceedings as a power struggle between Albert’s brother Henry and Baldwin.
Albert’s appointment was opposed by Baldwin, who had a second group of canons elect his own relative, Albert de Rethel. Albert took the matter to Rome and appealed to Pope Celestine III. In May 1192, Pope Celestine III made Albert a Cardinal and ordained him in Rome as a Deacon on 30 May 1192. He was then Ordained to the Priesthood on 19 September 1192 by Cardinal Guillaume de Champagne. He received episcopal Consecration the next day and celebrated his first Mass on 21 September in the Rheims Cathedral.
Albert met three German knights in 1192 who persuaded him to ride on horseback with them outside of Rheims. Outside of the city they attacked Albert with their swords and struck him on the head which crushed his skull and caused him to fall, where they made sure they killed him prior to making an escape.
The immediate reaction to the murder was an uprising of the princes of Lower Lorraine led by the dukes of Brabant and Limburg, brother and uncle respectively of the slain bishop. They formed a group that eventually came to include the archbishops of Cologne and Mainz and other princes and laid waste the territory of Dietrich of Hochstaden. Faced with the hostility of the people of Leige, Bishop-elect Lothar fled to the imperial court. He was excommunicated by Pope Celestine. The assassins, including one Otto of Barenste, fled to the imperial court, where Henry seems to have taken no particular action against them. Historians are divided as to the part the Emperor may or may not have played in planning the murder of the Bishop Albert.
The reputation of the holiness of Albert de Louvain soon spread after his death and was hailed as a Martyr, thus, leading to the opening of his cause for Canonisation. Pope Paul V Canonised him on 9 August 1613 and instituted his feast day as the date of his death. His body reposed at Rheims until 1921, when it was moved to Brussels. Below is an image of his Crozier which is kept at his shrine in Brussels.
St Albert’s life was written around 1194 or 1195 by an anonymous monk of Lobbes, from information supplied by Abbot Werrich, who knew Albert well.
St Cardinal Albert of Louvain (1166-1192) Bishop and Martyr
St Alexander of Corinth
St Balsamus of Cava
St Bieuzy of Brittany
St Chrysogonus
St Colman of Cloyne
Bl Conrad of Frisach
St Crescentian of Rome
St Eanfleda of Whitby
St Felicissimus of Perugia
St Félix Alonso Muñiz
St Firmina of Amelia
St Flora of Cordoba
St Francisco Borrás Román
St Hitto of Saint-Gall
St Kenan of Damleag
St Leopardinus of Vivaris
Bl Maria Anna Sala
St Marinus of Maurienne
St Mary of Cordoba
St Phêrô Võ Ðang Khoa
St Pierre Rose Ursule Dumoulin Borie
St Portianus of Miranda
St Protasius of Milan
St Romanus of Le Mans
St Vinh-son Nguyen The Ðiem
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Martyred in the Spanish Civil War – Martyred Carmelite Sisters of Valencia – 12 beati:
• Blessed Antonia Gosens Sáez De Ibarra
• Blessed Cándida Cayuso González
• Blessed Clara Ezcurra Urrutia
• Blessed Concepción Rodríguez Fernández
• Blessed Daría Campillo Paniagua
• Blessed Erundina Colino Vega
• Blessed Feliciana de Uribe Orbe
• Blessed Félix Alonso Muñiz
• Blessed Francisco Borrás Román
• Blessed Justa Maiza Goicoechea
• Blessed María Concepción Odriozola Zabalía
• Blessed María Consuelo Cuñado González
• Blessed Niceta Plaja Xifra
• Blessed Paula Isla Alonso
Thought for the Day – 23 November – The Memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro – Priest and Martyr of the Cristero War (1891-1927)
“You have not only my forgiveness but my thanks.”
Often Our Lord gives His saints a premonition that the curtain is soon to close on their earthly pilgrimage.
Back in September, when he was beginning his Mass for a community of nuns, he asked the angelic flock to pray that God would accept his life as a victim for priests and for the welfare of the Mexican Church. One of the nuns present, noted, that during the Mass he was totally transported and bathed in tears the whole time they were chanting. At the end of the Holy Sacrifice, he mentioned to someone in the community, “I know not whether it is mere imagination or has actually occurred but I feel clearly,. that Our Lord has evidently accepted my offering.”
One could almost see his mother smiling down upon him from Heaven and repeating those words she had answered him when he was a little boy, “May God hear you, child. But that is too great a happiness for me.”
One of the officers who had captured Father Pro led him out of jail to be executed. He begged Father to forgive him. Miguel put his arm around him and said, “You have not only my forgiveness but my thanks.”He also softly told the firing squad, “May God forgive you all.”Then with arms spread as if on a cross, Father Pro shouted, “Viva Cristo Rey – Long live Christ the King!” before a bullet silenced him.
Although the real criminal and one of Miguel’s brothers were also shot, the other brother was pardoned at the last moment. Despite the government’s ban on a public funeral, thousands came to Father Pro’s wake, for the ‘Blood of the Martyrs, is the seedbed of Faith!’
When Fr Miguel Pro was executed in 1927, no one could have predicted that 52 years later the bishop of Rome would visit Mexico, be welcomed by its president and celebrate open-air Masses before thousands of people. St Pope John Paul II made additional trips to Mexico in 1990, 1993, 1999, and 2002. Those who outlawed the Catholic Church in Mexico did not count on the deeply rooted faith of its people and the willingness of many of them, like Miguel Pro, to die as martyrs.
Quote/s of the Day – 23 November – The Memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro – Priest and Martyr of the Cristero War (1891-1927)
“We ought to speak, shout out against injustices, with confidence and without fear. We proclaim the principles of the Church, the reign of love, without forgetting that it is also a reign of JUSTICE!”
“Does our life become from day-to-day more painful, more oppressive, more replete with sufferings? Blessed be He a thousand times, who desires it so. If life be harder, love makes it also stronger and only this love, grounded in suffering, can carry the Cross of my Lord, Jesus Christ.”
After he had taken his vows in the Society, he recorded the following meditations in his spiritual notebook. The booklet was entitled My Treasure. The words speak for themselves:
“Deceitful are the ephemeral pleasures and joys of this world. Our supreme comfort in this life, is to die to the world that we may live with Jesus crucified. Let others seek gold and other earthly treasures. I already possess the immortal treasure of holy poverty on the Cross of Jesus crucified. The angelic virtue, growing like a pure, fragrant lily in the hidden beauteous garden of the cloister, adorns the forehead with heavenly tints, for it has roots in the Cross of Jesus crucified. A third crown completes my oblation, it is the seal of glory, whereby the obedient, spotless Lamb gained victory. Obedience is the secure science of living with Jesus crucified. With this triple treasure, I can hope to pass beyond the fleeting confines of mortal man, by living poor on this earth and rich in heaven, united with Jesus crucified.”
One Minute Reflection – 23 November – Saturday of the Thirty Third Week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 20:27–40 and the Memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro – Martyr (1891-1927)
“He is not God of the dead but of the living…” … Luke 20:38
REFLECTION – “It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body but even more so, by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavours of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life, which is inescapably lodged in his breast.
Although the mystery of death, utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches, that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned, will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man, who was ruined by his own doing, is restored to wholeness, by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and still calls him, so that with his entire being, he might be joined to Him, in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death, He freed man from death. Hence to every thoughtful man, a solidly established faith, provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time, faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death, faith arouses the hope, that they have found true life with God.” … Vatican Council II – Constitution on the Church in the modern world “ Gaudium et spes ” # 18
PRAYER – O God, source and origin of all fatherhood, who kept the Martyr, Blessed Miguel Pro, faithful to the Cross of Your Son, even to the shedding of his blood, grant, through his intercession, that, spreading Your love among our brothers and sisters, we may be Your children both in name and in truth and thus come to our resurrection with Jesus Christ, Your Son. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with You in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever, amen.
Our Morning Offering – 23 November – The Memorial of Blessed Miguel Pro – Martyr (1891-1927)
Heart Of Jesus By Blessed Miguel Pro – Martyr (1891-1927)
I believe, O Lord
but strengthen my faith,
Heart of Jesus, I love Thee
but increase my love.
Heart of Jesus, I trust in Thee,
but give greater vigour
to my confidence.
Heart of Jesus,
I give my heart to Thee,
but so enclose it in Thee
that it may never
be separated from Thee.
Heart of Jesus, I am all Thine,
but take care of my promise
so that I may be able
to put it into practice even unto
the complete sacrifice of my life.
Amen
Saint of the Day – 23 November – Blessed Miguel Agustin Pro SJ (1891 – 1927) Priest and Martyr of the Cristero War, Jesuit – known as “Cocol” – born José Ramón Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez on 13 January 1891 in Guadalupe, Zacatecas, Mexico and died by being shot by firing squad on 23 November 1927 in Mexico City, Mexico. He was 36 years old.
Don Miguel and his wife were the happy parents of eleven children. Miguel Jr, was the third born. Four died in infancy. The two eldest, Maria de la Concepcion and Maria de la Luz, became Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Two of the boys, Miguel and his younger brother Humberto, were martyred. The rest of the children, Ana Maria, Edmundo Jose, and Roberto married. Since a young age, he was called “Cocol” as a nickname.
One of his companions, Pulido, said that he “had never seen such an exquisite wit, never coarse, always sparkling.” He was noted for his charity and ability to speak about spiritual subjects without boring his audience. Pulido remarked, that there were two Pros – the playful Pro and the prayerful Pro. He was known for the long periods he spent in the chapel.
Long-time President of Mexico Porfirio Díaz was ousted in 1911 after staging a rigged re-election and a struggle for power – the Mexican Revolution – began.
He entered the Jesuit novitiate at El Llano on 15 August 1911 and studied in Mexico until 1914 when a massive wave of governmental anti-Catholicism forced the novitiate to dissolve and the Jesuits to flee to Los Gatos, California, in the United States. He then went to study in Granada, Spain (1915–19) and from 1919 to 1922 taught in Nicaragua.
For his theological studies Pro was sent to Enghien, Belgium, where the French Jesuits (also in exile) had their faculty of Theology. His health continued to deteriorate. There he was ordained a priest on 31 August 1925. He wrote on that occasion: “How can I explain to you the sweet grace of the Holy Spirit, which invades my poor miner’s soul with such heavenly joys? I could not hold back the tears on the day of my ordination, above all at the moment when I pronounced, together with the bishop, the words of the consecration. After the ceremony the new priests gave their first blessing to their parents. I went to my room, laid out all the photographs of my family on the table and then blessed them from the bottom of my heart.”
His first assignment as a priest was to work with the miners of Charleroi, Belgium. Despite the socialist, communist and anarchist tendencies of the workers, he was able to win them over and preach the Gospel to them.
Three months after ordination, he was forced to undergo several operations for ulcers. He remained cheerful and courageous, explaining that the source of his strength was his prayer.
In summer 1926 – his studies in Europe completed – Pro returned to Mexico. On the way he visited Lourdes where he celebrated Mass and visited the grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes.
He arrived at Veracruz on 8 July 1926. Plutarco Elías Calles was now president of Mexico. Unlike his predecessors, Calles vigorously enforced the anti-Catholic provisions of the 1917 constitution, implementing the so-called Calles Law, which provided specific penalties for priests who criticised the government (five years’ imprisonment) or wore clerical garb in certain situations outside their churches (500 pesos). This law went into effect on 31 July 1926.
By this time, some states, such as Tabasco under the notorious anti-Catholic Tomás Garrido Canabal, had closed all the churches and cleared the entire state of serving priests, killing many of them, forcing a few to marry and the remaining few serving covertly at risk of their lives. On his return, Fr Miguel served a Church which was forced to go “underground.” He celebrated the Eucharist clandestinely and ministered the other sacraments to small groups of Catholics. Details of Pro’s ministry in the underground church come from his many letters, signed with the nickname Cocol. In October 1926, a warrant for his arrest was issued. He was arrested and released from prison the next day but kept under surveillance.
A failed attempt to assassinate Álvaro Obregón, which only wounded him, in November 1927, provided the state with a pretext for arresting Pro again, this time with his brothers Humberto and Roberto. A young engineer who confessed his part in the assassination testified that the Pro brothers were not involved. Miguel and his brothers were taken to the Detective Inspector’s Office in Mexico City.
President Calles gave orders to have Pro executed for the assassination attempt. Pro and his brothers were visited by Generals Roberto Cruz and Palomera Lopez around 11 p.m. on 22 November 1927. The next day, as Pro walked from his cell to the courtyard and the firing squad, he blessed the soldiers, knelt and briefly prayed quietly. Declining a blindfold, he faced his executioners with a crucifix in one hand and a rosary in the other and held his arms out in imitation of the crucified Christ and shouted out, “May God have mercy on you! May God bless you! Lord, Thou knowest that I am innocent! With all my heart I forgive my enemies!”Before the firing squad was ordered to shoot, Pro raised his arms in imitation of Christ and shouted the defiant cry of the Cristeros, “Viva Cristo Rey!” – “Long live Christ the King!”.
When the initial shots of the firing squad failed to kill him, a soldier shot him at point-blank range.
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Calles had the execution meticulously photographed and the newspapers throughout the country carried photos on the front page the following day. Presumably, Calles thought that the sight of the pictures would frighten the Cristero rebels who were fighting against his troops, particularly in the state of Jalisco. However, they had the opposite effect.
Calles is reported to have looked down upon a throng of 40,000 who lined Pro’s funeral procession. Another 20,000 waited at the cemetery where he was buried without a priest present, his father saying the final words. The Cristeros became more animated and fought with renewed enthusiasm, many of them carrying the newspaper photo of Pro before the firing squad.
At Pro’s Beatification in Saint Peter’s Square on 25 September 1988, St Pope John Paul II said:
“Neither suffering nor serious illness, nor the exhausting ministerial activity, frequently carried out in difficult and dangerous circumstances, could stifle the radiating and contagious joy which he brought to his life for Christ and which nothing could take away. Indeed, the deepest root of self-sacrificing surrender for the lowly was his passionate love for Jesus Christ and his ardent desire to be conformed to Him, even unto death.”
This portrait of Blessed Miguel resides in the La Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, Spain
Bl Miguel Agustin Pro SJ (1891 – 1927) Priest and Martyr (Optional Memorial)
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St Adalbert of Casauria
St Alexander Nevski
St Amphilochius of Iconium
St Augusta of Alexandria
St Cecilia Yu Sosa
St Clement of Metz
Bl Detlev of Ratzeburg
Bl Enrichetta Alfieri
St Falitrus of Chabris
St Faustina of Alexandria
Bl Felícitas Cendoya Araquistain
St Felicity of Rome
St Gregory of Girgenti
Bl Guy of Casauria
St Jaume Nàjera Gherna
St Loëvan of Brittany
St Lucretia of Mérida
Bl Margaret of Savoy
St Mustiola of Chiusi
St Paternian of Fano
St Paulinus of Whitland
St Rachildis of Saint-Gall
St Severin of Paris
St Sisinius of Cyzicus
St Trudo of Hesbaye
St Wilfetrudis of Nivelless
Thought for the Day – 22 November – The Memorial of St Cecilia (died 3rd Century) Virgin Martyr – Patron of Musicians
Sing to God with Songs of Joy
Saint Augustine (354-430)
Bishop and Great Western Father & Doctor of the Church
An excerpt from his Discourse on Psalm 32
Praise the Lord with the lyre, make melody to Him with the harp of ten strings! Sing to Him a new song. Rid yourself of what is old and worn out, for you know a new song. A new man, a new covenant—a new song. This new song does not belong to the old man. Only the new man learns it, the man restored from his fallen condition through the grace of God and now sharing in the new covenant, that is, the kingdom of heaven. To it all our love now aspires and sings a new song. Let us sing a new song not with our lips but with our lives.
Sing to Him a new song, sing to Him with joyful melody. Everyone of us tries to discover how to sing to God. You must sing to Him but you must sing well. He does not want your voice to come harshly to His ears, so sing well, brothers!
If you were asked, “Sing to please this musician,” you would not like to do so without having taken some instruction in music, because you would not like to offend an expert in the art. An untrained listener does not notice the faults a musician would point out to you. Who, then, will offer to sing well for God, the great artist whose discrimination is faultless, whose attention is on the minutest detail, whose ear nothing escapes? When will you be able to offer Him a perfect performance that you will in no way displease such a supremely discerning listener?
See how He Himself provides you with a way of singing. Do not search for words, as if you could find a lyric which would give God pleasure. Sing to Him “with songs of joy.” This is singing well to God, just singing with songs of joy.
But how is this done? You must first understand that words cannot express the things that are sung by the heart. Take the case of people singing while harvesting in the fields or in the vineyards or when any other strenuous work is in progress. Although they begin by giving expression to their happiness in sung words, yet shortly there is a change. As if so happy that words can no longer express what they feel, they discard the restricting syllables. They burst out into a simple sound of joy, of jubilation. Such a cry of joy is a sound signifying that the heart is bringing to birth what it cannot utter in words.
Now, who is more worthy of such a cry of jubilation than God Himself, whom all words fail to describe? If words will not serve and yet you must not remain silent, what else can you do but cry out for joy? Your heart must rejoice beyond words, soaring into an immensity of gladness, unrestrained by syllabic bonds. Sing to Him with jubilation.
One Minute Reflection – 22 November – Gospel: Luke 19:45–48 – Friday of the Thirty Third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 19:45–48 – and the Memorial of St Pedro Esqueda Ramirez (1887-1927) Priest, Martyr of the Cristero War
And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who sold, saying to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’ but you have made it a den of robbers.”…Luke 19:45-46
REFLECTION – “Have I learned to watch over myself, that the temple of my heart is only for the Holy Spirit? Purify the temple, the inner temple and watch. Be careful, be careful, what happens in the heart. Who comes in and who goes out, the feelings, the ideas… Do we speak to the Holy Spirit? Do we listen to the Holy Spirit? Watch out. Let us be attentive to what happens in our temple, in (us) ourselves.”…Pope Francis – Santa Marta, 24 November 2017
PRAYER – Lord our God, in Your mercy listen to our prayers! Teach us the peace of Your love. Guide us in the ways of Your Commandments. Let the path laid out by Your Son, be our Light and our Joy. Grant that by the prayers of Your Martyr, St Pedro and all Your Saints, we may receive strength for our journey. Through Jesus our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, God for all eternity, amen.
Saint of the Day – 22 November – Saint Pedro Esqueda Ramirez (1887-1927) Priest, Martyr of the Cristero War, Apostle of Eucharistic Adoration, of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of Charity, devoted to the youth and especially their Catechesis – born on 29 April 1887 in San Juan de los Lagos, Jalisco, Diocese of San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico and died by being shot three times on 22 November 1927 in Teocaltitán, Jalisco, Mexico, he was 40 years old. Additional memorial 21 May as one of the Martyrs of the Mexican Revolution
St Pedro was born in San Juan de los Lagos, Jal. (Diocese of San Juan de los Lagos), on 29 April 1887. His parents Margarito Esqueda and Nicanora Ramírez did not realise that they had brought into the world, an authentic, brave and holy Priest, who would witness Christ to the world.
At 4 years of age he began his instruction in a private school. His early association with the parish as a choir and altar boy awakened his vocation to the priesthood. His academic record was impeccable. His childhood was enriched by piety and hopeful joy. He erected altars at which he pretended to be celebrating the Mass, the dream that fed his spirit.
At age 15 he entered the seminary in Guadalajara but in 1914 the Seminary was forcibly seized and closed by the Government. Pedro returned to San Juan de los Lagos where he helped as a Deacon in the parish. He completed his studies at the Seminary in Guadalajara and was ordained a Priest in 1916 and appointed Parish Priest of his native parish, a position he held during the 10+ years of his priestly ministry. The ministry to which he dedicated himself with true passion, was the Catechesis of children. He founded several study centres and a school for the formation of Catechists. He also promoted the Eucharistic Crusade association fed by his love for the Eucharist, devotion that, together with his love for the Blessed Virgin, he extended among the faithful. From the Eucharist he drew his strength and encouragement. He was also spared nothing of the little he had, in his kindness and help to the poor.
In 1926 Government forces began a fierce anti-clerical campaign and issued an order of persecution and the good people of the town tried to convince Pedro to flee to another place. He only agreed to take refuge on a provisional basis in some places always close to the faithful, whom he continued to attend pastorally.
Fr Pedro continued his work but lived in several private houses, in one of which, they opened a hole in the floor where they kept the ornaments and sacred vessels and where at times the priest had to hide.
At the beginning of November 1927 he sought refuge in Jalostotitlán, Jalisco. But he returned to San Juan, led by his love to the parishioners. He didn’t want to leave them without assistance. He stayed at the Sacred Heart hospital . And the hosts of the homes where he was welcomed, seriously begged him to escape. But Peter was not willing to do so and testifying to his great faith, he said: “God brought me here, I trust in God”.
He was arrested on 18 November of that year 1927. In a miserable and dark room he suffered patiently the fierceness of the scourges and other cruelties that caused the fracture of one of his arms. But the most painful torment was to see the sacred objects desecrated before him, the ornaments destroyed and the parish archive ransacked. A cruel and infamous torture for a man of God, an innocent person whose only mission was to love Christ and others. The incessant torture lasted until 22 November. Battered and full of wounds, they forced him to climb a tree by himself. There he was shot mercilessly by a high officer who poured into him his torrent of anger when he saw that he could not stand on the pyre they had arranged to burn him to death by setting fire to the tree in question.
On the way to his particular Calvary, wrapped in a heroic silence, he left his will of fidelity to Catechesis and the Gospel to some children who walked beside him in tears.
He was Beatified on 22 November 1992 and Canonized by St Pope John Paul II on 21 May 2000.
St Amphilochius of Iconium
St Ananias of Arbela
St Apphia
St Benignus of Milan
St Christian of Auxerre
St Dayniolen the Younger
St Mark of Antioch
St Maurus of North Africa St Pedro Esqueda Ramirez (1887-1927) Martyr
St Philemon
St Pragmatius of Autun
St Sabinian the Abbot
Stephen of Antioch
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Apostles of Bulgaria – 7 saints
Martyrs of Armenia – 8 beati: A group of eight Franciscans martyred in the region of Mujuk-Dersi, Armenia (modern Turkey) by invading Islamic Turks who tortured them, demanded they convert, and murdered them when they did not. They were
• Baldji Oghlou Ohannes
• David Oghlou David
• Dimbalac Oghlou Wartavar
• Geremia Oghlou Boghos
• Khodianin Oghlou Kadir
• Kouradji Oghlou Tzeroum
• Salvatore Lilli
• Toros Oghlou David
They were martyred on 22 November 1895 in Mujuk-Dersi, Armenia (in modern Turkey) and Beatified on 3 October 1982 by St Pope John Paul II.
Martyrs of England, Scotland and Wales – 85 beati: 85 English, Scottish and Welsh Catholics who were martyred during the persecutions by Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. They are commemorated together on 22 November.
• Blessed Alexander Blake • Blessed Alexander Crow • Blessed Antony Page • Blessed Arthur Bell • Blessed Charles Meehan • Blessed Christopher Robinson • Blessed Christopher Wharton • Blessed Edmund Duke • Blessed Edmund Sykes • Blessed Edward Bamber • Blessed Edward Burden • Blessed Edward Osbaldeston • Blessed Edward Thwing • Blessed Francis Ingleby • Blessed George Beesley • Blessed George Douglas • Blessed George Errington • Blessed George Haydock • Blessed George Nichols • Blessed Henry Heath • Blessed Henry Webley • Blessed Hugh Taylor • Blessed Humphrey Pritchard • Blessed John Adams • Blessed John Bretton • Blessed John Fingley • Blessed John Hambley • Blessed John Hogg • Blessed John Lowe • Blessed John Norton • Blessed John Sandys • Blessed John Sugar • Blessed John Talbot • Blessed John Thules • Blessed John Woodcock • Blessed Joseph Lambton • Blessed Marmaduke Bowes • Blessed Matthew Flathers • Blessed Montfort Scott • Blessed Nicholas Garlick • Blessed Nicholas Horner • Blessed Nicholas Postgate • Blessed Nicholas Woodfen • Blessed Peter Snow • Blessed Ralph Grimston • Blessed Richard Flower • Blessed Richard Hill • Blessed Richard Holiday • Blessed Richard Sergeant • Blessed Richard Simpson • Blessed Richard Yaxley • Blessed Robert Bickerdike • Blessed Robert Dibdale • Blessed Robert Drury • Blessed Robert Grissold • Blessed Robert Hardesty • Blessed Robert Ludlam • Blessed Robert Middleton • Blessed Robert Nutter • Blessed Robert Sutton • Blessed Robert Sutton • Blessed Robert Thorpe • Blessed Roger Cadwallador • Blessed Roger Filcock • Blessed Roger Wrenno • Blessed Stephen Rowsham • Blessed Thomas Atkinson • Blessed Thomas Belson • Blessed Thomas Bullaker • Blessed Thomas Hunt • Blessed Thomas Palaser • Blessed Thomas Pilcher • Blessed Thomas Pormort • Blessed Thomas Sprott • Blessed Thomas Watkinson • Blessed Thomas Whitaker • Blessed Thurstan Hunt • Blessed William Carter • Blessed William Davies • Blessed William Gibson • Blessed William Knight • Blessed William Lampley • Blessed William Pike • Blessed William Southerne • Blessed William Spenser • Blessed William Thomson •
Beatified on
22 November 1987 by St Pope John Paul II.
Quote of the Day – 21 November – Thursday of the Thirty Third week in Ordinary Time, Year C and Memorial of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
“Hail, holy throne of God, divine sanctuary, house of glory, jewel most fair, chosen treasure house and mercy seat for the whole world, heaven showing forth the glory of God.
Purest Virgin, worthy of all praise, sanctuary dedicated to God and raised above all human condition, virgin soil, unploughed field, flourishing vine, fountain pouring out waters, virgin bearing a child, mother without knowing man, hidden treasure of innocence, ornament of sanctity, by your most acceptable prayers, strong with the authority of motherhood, to our Lord and God, Creator of all, your Son who was born of you without a father, steer the ship of the Church and bring it to a quiet harbour.”
St Germanus (378-448)
“Give thanks to Almighty God who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble and offer Him all the glory that this Maiden, accorded to His majesty, by her practice of the richest humility, during her childhood and throughout the rest of her life.”
The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary – 21 November
While the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was not generally celebrated in the West until the 11th century, it appears in most of the earliest calendars of the Eastern Churches. Derived from accounts in apocryphal literature, especially the Protoevangelium of James, the feast seems first to have appeared in Syria, where the Protoevangelium and other apocryphal books, such as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, originated. The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary first rose to prominence, however, in Jerusalem, where it was associated with the dedication of the Basilica of Saint Mary the New.
That basilica was built near the ruins of the Temple in Jerusalem and the Protoevangelium of James and other apocryphal works, told the story of Mary’s presentation at the Temple at the age of three. In gratitude for being granted a child after years of infertility, Mary’s parents, Saints Joachim and Anna, had vowed to dedicate Mary to the service of God at the Temple. When they presented her at the Temple at the age of three, she stayed willingly, showing her dedication to God even at that young age.
Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, Testa
The Protoevangelium of James, while an extra-biblical document, is the source of many details of Mary’s life that became universally accepted by the Church, including the names of her parents, the story of her birth, her age at her betrothal to Saint Joseph and Saint Joseph’s advanced age and his status as a widower with children by his first wife. It also played a large role among Christians, both Eastern and Western, in recognising Mary as the new Temple, the true Holy of Holies. When Mary left the Temple at the age of 12 after her betrothal to Joseph, she remained pure and chaste and at the Annunciation, God came to dwell in her.
The Feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary first made its way to the West through monasteries in Southern Italy in the ninth century, by the 11th century, it had spread to other locales but was by no means universally celebrated. Under the influence of a French nobleman, Philippe de Mazières, Pope Gregory XI began celebrating the feast during the Avignon papacy.
Pope Sixtus IV first placed the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary on the universal calendar in 1472 but in the Tridentine reform of the calendar in 1568, Pope Pius V removed the feast. It was restored 17 years later by Pope Sixtus V and remains in the Roman calendar today as a memorial.
La Pequeñita / Our Lady of Quinche, Ecuador (1586) – 21 November – Patron of Ecuador:
Also known as – • Virgen de Monte del Sol Virgin of the Rock Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the image of a cedar Statue in Quinche, Ecuador. About two foot tall, it was carved in 1586 by Don Diego de Robles, an artist who created many other images of Mary. He carved it on order from the Lumbici Indians, who were unable to pay for it at delivery. Diego traded the Statue to the Oyacachi Indians in exchange for a large load of cedar for future projects. Legend says that the vision of Our Lady appeared in a cave to some of the Oyacachi, promising to the protect their children; the image Diego brought for trade looked just like the lady in the vision. The Oyacachi asked Diego to stay and help them build a shrine for the statue; he declined and started home. His horse threw him as they crossed a bridge and Diego was miraculously saved after he had prayed for Our Lady’s intervention; he understood that this was a sign, went back to the Indian, and built an altar for the Statue. In 1604 the Statue was moved to the local village of Quinche and a Chapel was built for it. A new Sanctuary was built in 1630 where the Statue stayed until the Church was destroyed in an earthquake in 1869. The Church was re-built and housed the image until moved to another new Church in 1928; in 1985 the Vatican proclaimed the Chapel to be a national Sanctuary of Ecuador. Many miracles, especially cures, have been associated with the image and there is a huge catalogue of songs in several languages that have been written in devotion over the centuries. St Amelberga of Susteren.
St Celsus the Martyr St Clement the Martyr St Demetrius of Ostia St Digain Bl Eoin O’Mulkern St Pope Gelasius I Bl Gelasius O’Cullenan St Heliodorus of Pamphylia St Hilary of Vulturno St Honorius of Ostia Bl Maria Franciszka Siedliska St Maurus of Cesena St Maurus of Porec St Maurus of Verona Bl Nicholas Giustiniani St Rufus of Rome — Martyrs of Asta – 3 saints: Three Christians martyred together for their faith during the persecutions of Diocletian. The only details about them to survive are their names – Eutychius, Honorius and Stephen. They were martyred in c 300 at Asta, Andalusia, Spain.
Thought for the Day – 20 November – Wednesday of the Thirty Third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 19:11–28 and the Memorial of Blessed Maria Fortunata Viti OSB (1827-1922)
The Heart of the Just Man will Rejoice in the Lord
Saint Augustine (354-430) Bishop and Great Western Father and Doctor of the Church
An excerpt from Sermon 21
“The just man will rejoice in the Lord and put his hope in Him, the hearts of all good men will be filled with joy. We must surely have sung these words with our hearts as well as with our voices. Indeed, the tongue of the Christian expresses his deepest feelings when it addresses such words to God. The just man will rejoice, not in the world but in the Lord. Light has dawned for the just, Scripture says in another place and joy for the upright of heart. Were you wondering what reason he has for joy? Here you are told – the just man will rejoice in the Lord. Another text runs – Delight in the Lord and he will give you your heart’s desires.
What are we instructed to do then and what are we enabled to do? To rejoice in the Lord. But who can rejoice in something he does not see? Am I suggesting that we see the Lord then? No, but we have been promised that we shall see Him. Now, as long as we are in the body, we walk by faith, for we are absent from the Lord. We walk by faith and not by sight. When will it be by sight? Beloved, says John, we are now the sons of God, what we shall be has not yet been revealed but we know that when it is revealed we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is. When this prophecy is fulfilled, then it will be by sight.
That will be the great joy, the supreme joy, joy in all its fullness. Then we shall no longer drink the milk of hope but we shall feed on the reality itself. Nevertheless, even now, before that vision comes to us, or before we come to that vision, let us rejoice in the Lord, for it is no small reason for rejoicing to have a hope that will some day be fulfilled.
Therefore, since the hope we now have inspires love, the just man rejoices, Scripture says, in the Lord but because he does not yet see, it immediately goes on to say and hopes in Him.
Yet already we have the first-fruits of the Spirit and have we not also other reasons for rejoicing? For we are drawing near to the one we love and not only are we drawing near—we even have some slight feeling and taste of the banquet we shall one day eagerly eat and drink.
But how can we rejoice in the Lord if He is far from us? Pray God He may not be far. If He is, that is your doing. Love and He will draw near, love and He will dwell within you. The Lord is at hand, have no anxiety. Are you puzzled to know how it is that He will be with you if you love? God is love.
“What do you mean by love?” you will ask me. It is that which enables us to be loving. What do we love? A good that words cannot describe, a good that is forever giving, a good that is the Creator of all good. Delight in Him from whom you have received everything that delights you. But in that I do not include sin, for sin is the one thing that you do not receive from Him. With that one exception, everything you have comes from Him.”
Quote/s of the Day – 20 November – Wednesday of the Thirty Third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 19:11–28 and the Memorial of Blessed Maria Fortunata Viti OSB (1827-1922)
“‘I tell you, that to everyone who has, will more be given but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Luke 19:26
“The Love and the Power of God!”
Blessed Maria Fortunata Viti (1827-1922)
“Fear is the wrong attitude – the servant who is afraid of his master and fears his return, hides the coin inthe earth and it does not produce any fruit …. However, the parable places a greater emphasis on the good fruits brought by the disciples, who, happy with the gift they received, did not keep it hidden, with fear and jealousy but made it profitable by sharing it and partaking in it. Yes, what Christ has given us is multiplied in it’s giving!”
One Minute Reflection – 20 November – Wednesday of the Thirty Third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 19:11–28 and the Memorial of Blessed Maria Fortunata Viti OSB (1827-1922)
“He called ten of his servants and gave them ten gold coins and told them, ‘Engage in trade with these until I return.'” … Luke 19:13
REFLECTION – “What have we to offer God? Faith and love. That is where we find what God asks of us, as it is written: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God and follow his ways exactly, to love and serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul” (Dt 10:12). These are the offerings and these the gifts we should make to the Lord. And if we are to offer Him these gifts with all our heart, then first of all, we must get to know Him. We must have drunk of the knowledge of His goodness from the deep waters of His well…
People who deny that salvation lay within the power of the our freedom, should be ashamed on hearing these words! Would God ask something from us if we weren’t capable of responding to God’s demand and giving Him what he owed? For there is God’s gift but also our contribution. For example, it was well within that man’s power that one gold coin should make ten or five more but, that the man should possess that gold coin, with which to produce ten more, in the first place, belonged to God. Once he had given God the ten gold coins he had made, the man received a new sort of gift – not money this time but the power and sovereignty over ten cities.
In the same way, God asked Abraham to make an offering of his son, Isaac, on the mountain He would show him. And Abraham, without hesitation, offered his only son – he laid him on the altar and drew out his knife to slay him. But at once a voice restrained him and a ram was given him to be sacrificed in his son’s place (Gn 22). So you see – what we offer God depends on us but, this offering is asked of us, so that, in making our gift, we might witness to our love for God and faith in Him.” … Origen (c185-253) Priest and Theologian – Homilies on the Book of Numbers, no. 12, #3
PRAYER – Lord God, true Light and Creator of light, grant that faithfully pondering on all that is holy, we may ever live in the splendour of Your presence. Protect us by Your power throughout our days, that even as You enable us to begin, do not let us turn aside to any sin but let our every thought, word and deed, aim at doing what is pleasing in Your sight. Listen, we pray, to the intercession of Blessed Maria Fortunata Viti on our behalf. Through Christ our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, God for all eternity, amen.
Saint of the Day – 20 November – Blessed Maria Fortunata Viti OSB (1827-1922) Benedicitine Religious, Apostle of Eucharistic Adoration and of Prayer, the gift of prophesy and miracles – born on 10 February 1827 in Veroli, Frosinone, Italy as Anna Felicia Viti and died on 20 November 1922 in Veroli, Frosinone, Italy of natural causes. Patronages – against poverty, of the poor, against temptations, loss of parents, against mental illness and the mentally ill.
Anna Felicia Viti was born in Veroli, in Italy’s Province of Frosinone, on 10 February 1827. Her father was Luigi Viti, a landowner who was a gambling addict and a heavy drinker and her mother Anna, died when Maria was fourteen years old. The third eldest of nine children, Maria was burdened with the responsibility of raising the other children. In order to support her family, she worked as a housekeeper. Her father’s alcoholism grew worse and so Maria’s employment constituted the majority of the family’s income. For a while, she was wooed by a young man from Alatri but she decided to enter religious life instead.
Maria joined the Benedictines at the Monastery of San Maria de’Franconi in Veroli on 21 March 1851, at the age of 24. After her religious profession, she took the name Maria Fortunata.
She never went to school and remained illiterate and although she spent more than 70 years in the Convent, she never progressed beyond the office of housekeeper and there she grew in the vital spiritual virtue of humility. During her long life, she knew nothing but assiduous work and constant prayer. She invoked the Lord with such passion and devotion it would edify her fellow Sisters. Admiring the beauties of nature she would be in the habit of often exclaiming: “The Love and the Power of God!” which remained her favourite expression. She dedicated her prayers and sacrifices in particular for the needy, for derelicts and for the redemption of sinners.
Blessed Maria confided to her fellow Sisters, that the devil bothered her both day and night mocking her and hitting her in order to try her patience and humility. Her confessor, Father John Pasqualiti, wrote: “With tears in her eyes, Sister Fortunata confided to me that the devil insulted her with the most vile and crude expressions. Often he threatened and made life difficult for her but she never despaired. These insults became all the more frequent when the Saint was near her death. Many of these disturbances were also heard and witnessed by her fellow Sisters.” – Apparitions of Angels & Demons.
She died a holy death on 20 of November 1922. She was a wonderful example of humility.
After Sister Maria’s death, miracles were reported at her grave site. Also, reports of miracles were attested to during her lifetime, including certain episodes that proved her gift of prophecy. According to one story, she began to cry during Mass, because she had seen that the celebrating priest would leave his calling and she was filled with sorrow for him. She also predicted that another priest would leave the priesthood but that he would repent and come back. In addition, two women who had been healed of meningitis in their childhood attributed their cures to her prayers.
In 1935, her remains were transferred from a mass grave to the Abbey Church and the process of her Canonisation was begun. Sister Maria Fortunata was declared Venerable on 8 April 1964 by St Pope Paul VI and Beatified on 8 October 1967 by the same Pope.
St Agapius of Caesarea
Bl Ambrose of Camaldoli
St Ampelus of Messina
St Anatolius of Nicea
St Apothemius of Angers
St Autbodus of Valcourt
St Basil of Antioch
St Bernerio of Eboli
St Crispin of Ecija
St Dasius of Dorostorum
St Dorus of Benevento
St Edmund of East Anglia
St Eudo of Carméry
St Eustachius of Nicea
St Eval of Cornwall
St Felix of Valois
St Francis Xavier Can Nguyen
St Francisca Desamparados Honorata Lloret Martí
St Gaius of Messina
St Gregory Decapolites
St Hippolytus of Belley
St Humbert of Elmham
St Leo of Nonantula Bl Maria Fortunata Viti OSB (1827-1922)
St Maxentia of Beauvais
St Milagros Ortells Gimeno
St Nerses of Sahgerd and Companions
St Simplicius of Verona
St Sylvester of Châlons-sur-Saône
St Thespesius of Nicea
St Teonesto of Vercelli
—
Martyred Sisters of the Christian Doctrine – 17 beati: A group of 17 religious sisters, members all of the Sisters of the Christian Doctrine, who were martyred in two different incidents in 1936 during the anti-Catholic persecutions of the Spanish Civil War.
They were Beatified on 1 October 1995 by St Pope John Paul II.
Martyrs of Antioch – 3 saints: Group of three Christians executed together for their faith. No details have survived except their names – Basil, Dionysius and Rusticus. They were martyred in Antioch (Antakya, Turkey).
Martyrs of Heraclea – 3 saints: A group of 43 Christians martyred together. The only details about them to survive are three of their names – Agapitus, Bassus and Dionysius. They were martyred in Heraclea, Thrace.
Martyrs of Turin – 3 saints: Three Christian martyrs whose original stories were lost, and somehow came to be associated with the Theban Legion. They are – Adventor, Octavius and Solutor. They were beheaded in 297 in Turin, Italy. Patronage – Turin, Italy.
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
Thousands of people were murdered in the anti-Catholic persecutions of the Spanish Civil War from 1934 to 1939.
• Blessed Ascensión Duart Roig
• Blessed Aurea Navarro
• Blessed Catalina Calpe Ibáñez
• Blessed Emilia Martí Lacal
• Blessed Francisca Desamparados Honorata Lloret Martí
• Blessed Gertrudis Rita Florència Surís Brusola
• Blessed Isabel Ferrer Sabrià
• Blessed Josefa Pascual Pallardó
• Blessed Josefa Romero Clariana
• Blessed Josepa Mongoche Homs
• Blessed María Antonia del Sufragio Orts Baldó
• Blessed Maria Dolors Llimona Planas
• Blessed María Isabel López García
• Blessed María Purificación Gómez Vives
• Blessed Milagros Ortells Gimeno
• Blessed Paula de San Antonio
• Blessed Teresa Jiménez Baldoví
• Blessed Teresa Rosat Balasch
Thought for the Day – 19 November – The Memorial of St Matilda/Mechtilde of Hackeborn (c 1241-1298)
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
Matilda and Gertrude of Helfta/the Great, became ardent devotees and promoters of Jesus’ heart after it was the subject of many of their visions. The idea of hearing the heartbeat of God was very important to medieval saints, who nurtured devotion to the Sacred Heart. Women such as Saint Matilda and Saint Gertrude perceived Jesus’ heart as the breast of a mother. Just as a mother gives milk to nourish her child, so Jesus in the Eucharist gives us His life blood.
In one vision, Mechtilde reported that Jesus said, “In the morning let your first act be to greet My Heart and to offer Me your own. Whoever, breathes a sigh toward Me, draws Me to himself.”
One of the visions recounted by Mechtilde states that Jesus having appeared to her, commanded her to love Him ardently and to honour His Sacred Heart in the Blessed Sacrament as much as possible. He gave her His Sacred Heart as a pledge of His love, as a place of refuge during her life and as her consolation at the hour of her death. From this time Mechtilde had an extraordinary devotion to the Sacred Heart and she received such great graces from It, that she was accustomed to say, that if she had to write down all the favours and all the blessings which she had received by means of this devotion, a large book would not contain them.
In another, Jesus Himself recommended the Gospel. Opening to her, the wound of His most gentle heart, He said to her: “Consider how great is my love – if you want to know it well, you will not find it expressed more clearly anywhere, than in the Gospel. No-one has ever expressed stronger or more tender feelings than these – As my Father has loved me, so have I loved you (John 15:9)”.
Her accounts of these visions were later compiled in the Liber Specialis Gratiae – The Book of Special Grace.
Quote of the Day – 19 November – Tuesday of the Thirty Third Week of Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 19:1–10 and the Memorial of St Matilda/Mechtilde of Hackeborn (c 1241-1298)
Devotion of the Three Hail Marys
St Matilda of Hackeborn was distressed over her eternal salvation and prayed that the Most Holy Virgin would assist her at the hour of death.
The Blessed Virgin appeared to her and reassured her, saying:
“Yes, I will! But I wish, for your part, that you recite three Hail Marys everyday, remembering, in the first, the power received from the Eternal Father, in the second, the wisdom received from the Son, with the third one, the love that has filled the Holy Spirit”.
The Blessed Virgin taught her to pray and to understand especially, how the Three Hail Mary’s, honour, the three persons of the Bles
One Minute Reflection – – 19 November – Tuesday of the Thirty Third Week of Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 19:1–10 and the Memorial of St Matilda of Hackeborn (c 1241-1298)
“Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” … Luke 19:6
REFLECTION – “Celine, what a mystery is our grandeur in Jesus. This is all that Jesus has shown us in making us climb the symbolic tree about which I was just talking to you. And now, what science is He about to teach us? Has He not taught us all? Let us listen to what He is saying to us: “Make haste to descend, I must lodge today at your house.” Well, Jesus tells us to descend. Where, then, must we descend? Celine you know better than I, however, let me tell you where we must now follow Jesus. In days gone by, the Jews asked our divine Saviour: “Master, where do you live?” And He answered: “The foxes have their lairs, the birds of heaven their nests, but I have no place to rest my head.” This is where we must descend in order that we may serve as an abode for Jesus. To be so poor that we do not have a place to rest our head. This is, dear Celine, what Jesus has done in my soul during my retreat. You understand, there is question here of the interior. (…)
What Jesus desires is that we receive Him into our hearts. No doubt, they are already empty of creatures but, alas, I feel mine is not entirely empty of myself and it is for this reason that Jesus tells me to descend. He, the King of kings, humbled Himself in such a way that His face was hidden and no one recognised Him and I, too, want to hide my face, I want my Beloved alone to see it, that He be the only one to count my tears, that in my heart at least He may rest His dear head and feel that there, He is known and understood!” … St Thérèse of the Child Jesus (1873-1897) Doctor of the Church
PRAYER – Look with favour on our prayer Lord and in Your saving love, may your light so penetrate the hidden places of our hearts, that we may become like You, pure and humble of heart. May no sordid desires darken our minds and may we be renewed and enlightened as we receive Your heavenly grace. Grant that the intercession of St Matilda of Hackeborn lead us to a new way of remorse and repentance as we learn from You, our Saviour. Through Christ, our Lord, with the Holy Spirit, one God forever and ever, amen.
Saint of the Day – 19 November – Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn (c 1241-1298) Benedictine Nun, Mystic, Teacher, Spiritual adviser, called “God’s nightingale” – also known as Saint Matilda of Hackeborn and of Helfta, sister of St Gertrude the Great – born in c 1241 at her family’s castle of Helfta near Eisleben, Saxony, Germany and died on 19 November 1298 at Helfta monastery of natural causes. Patronages – against blindness (one well-known miracle was healing the blindness of a nun).
Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn’s life by Pope Benedict XVI
Catechesis given at his General Audience on 29 September 2010
Today I want to talk to you about St Matilda of Hackeborn, one of the great figures of the convent of Helfta, who lived in the 13th century. Her sister, St Gertrude the Great, tells of the special graces that God granted to St Matilda in the sixth book of Liber Specialis Gratiae (Book of Special Grace), which states : “What we have written is very little in comparison with what we have omitted. We are publishing these things solely for the glory of God and the usefulness of our neighbour, for it would seem wrong to us to keep quiet about the many graces that Matilda received from God, not so much for herself, in our opinion but for us and for those who will come after us” (Mechthild von Hackeborn, Liber specialis gratiae, vi, 1).
This work was written by St Gertrude and by another sister of Helfta and has a unique story. At the age of 50, Matilda went through a grave spiritual crisis, as well as physical suffering. In this condition, she confided to two of her sisters, who were friends, the special graces with which God had guided her since childhood. However, she did not know that they were writing it all down. When she found out she was deeply upset and distressed. However, the Lord reassured her, making her realise that all that had been written was for the glory of God and for the benefit of her neighbour (cf. ibid., II, 25; V, 20). This work, therefore, is the principal source to refer to, for information on the life and spirituality of our Saint.
With her, we are introduced into the family of Baron von Hackeborn, one of the noblest, richest and most powerful barons of Thuringia, related to the Emperor Frederick II, and we enter the convent of Helfta in the most glorious period of its history. The Baron had already given one daughter to the convent, Gertrude of Hackeborn (1231/1232 – 1291/1292). She was gifted with an outstanding personality. She was Abbess for 40 years, capable of giving the spirituality of the convent a particular hallmark and of bringing it to an extraordinary flourishing as the centre of mysticism and culture, a school for scientific and theological training. Gertrude offered the nuns an intellectual training of a high standard that enabled them to cultivate a spirituality founded on Sacred Scripture, on the Liturgy, on the Patristic tradition, on the Cistercian Rule and spirituality, with a particular love for St Bernard of Clairvaux and William of Saint-Thierry. She was a real teacher, exemplary in all things, in evangelical radicalism and in apostolic zeal. Matilda, from childhood, accepted and enjoyed the spiritual and cultural atmosphere created by her sister, later giving it her own personal hallmark.
Matilda was born in 1241 or 1242 in the Castle of Helfta. She was the Baron’s third daughter. When she was seven she went with her mother to visit her sister Gertrude in the convent of Rodersdorf. She was so enchanted by this environment that she ardently desired to belong to it. She entered as a schoolgirl and in 1258 became a nun at the convent, which in the meantime had moved to Helfta, to the property of the Hackeborns. She was distinguished by her humility, her fervour, her friendliness, the clarity and the innocence of her life and by the familiarity and intensity with which she lived her relationship with God, the Virgin and the Saints. She was endowed with lofty natural and spiritual qualities such as knowledge, intelligence, familiarity with the humanities and a marvellously sweet voice – everything suited her, to being a true treasure for the convent from every point of view (ibid, Proem.). Thus when “God’s nightingale”, as she was called, was still very young she became the principal of the convent’s school, choir mistress and novice mistress, offices that she fulfilled with talent and unflagging zeal, not only for the benefit of the nuns but for anyone who wanted to draw on her wisdom and goodness.
Illumined by the divine gift of mystic contemplation, Matilda wrote many prayers. She was a teacher of faithful doctrine and deep humility, a counsellor, comforter and guide in discernment. We read: “she distributed doctrine in an abundance never previously seen at the convent and alas, we are rather afraid that nothing like it will ever be seen again. The sisters would cluster round her to hear the word of God, as if she were a preacher. She was the refuge and consoler of all and, by a unique gift of God, was endowed with the grace of being able to reveal freely the secrets of the heart of each one. “Many people, not only in the convent but also outsiders, religious and lay people, who came from afar, testified that this holy virgin had freed them from their afflictions and that they had never known such comfort as they found near her. “Furthermore, she composed and taught so many prayers that if they were gathered together they would make a book larger than a Psalter” (ibid., VI, 1).
In 1261 a five year old girl came to the convent. Her name was Gertrude – She was entrusted to the care of Matilda, just 20 years of age, who taught her and guided her in the spiritual life until she not only made her into an excellent disciple but also her confidant. In 1271 or 1272, Matilda of Magdeburg also entered the convent. So it was that this place took in four great women two Gertrudes and two Matildas, the glory of German monasticism.
St Matilda instructing the novice, St Gertrude
During her long life which she spent in the convent, Matilda was afflicted with continuous and intense bouts of suffering, to which she added the very harsh penances chosen for the conversion of sinners. In this manner she participated in the Lord’s Passion until the end of her life (cf. ibid., VI, 2). Prayer and contemplation were the life-giving humus of her existence – her revelations, her teachings, her service to her neighbour, her journey in faith and in love have their root and their context here. In the first book of the work, Liber Specialis Gratiae, the nuns wrote down Matilda’s confidences pronounced on the Feasts of the Lord, the Saints and, especially, of the Blessed Virgin. This Saint had a striking capacity for living the various elements of the Liturgy, even the simplest and bringing it into the daily life of the convent. Some of her images, expressions and applications are at times distant from our sensibility toda, but, if we were to consider monastic life and her task as mistress and choir mistress, we should grasp her rare ability as a teacher and educator who, starting from the Liturgy, helped her sisters to live intensely every moment of monastic life.
Matilda gave an emphasis in liturgical prayer to the canonical hours, to the celebrations of Holy Mass and, especially, to Holy Communion. Here she was often rapt in ecstasy in profound intimacy with the Lord in His most ardent and sweetest Heart, carrying on a marvellous conversation in which she asked for inner illumination, while interceding in a special way for her community and her sisters. At the centre, are the mysteries of Christ which the Virgin Mary constantly recommends to people, so that they may walk on the path of holiness: “If you want true holiness, be close to my Son, He is holiness itself that sanctifies all things” (ibid., I, 40). The whole world, the Church, benefactors and sinners were present in her intimacy with God. For her, Heaven and earth were united.
Her visions, her teachings, the events of her life are described in words reminiscent of liturgical and biblical language. In this way it is possible to comprehend her deep knowledge of Sacred Scripture, which was her daily bread. She had constant recourse to the Scriptures, making the most of the biblical texts read in the Liturgy and drawing from them symbols, terms, countryside, images and famous figures. She had a special love for the Gospel – “The words of the Gospel were a marvellous nourishment for her and in her heart stirred feelings of such sweetness that, because of her enthusiasm, she was often unable to finish reading it….” The way in which she read those words was so fervent that it inspired devotion in everyone. “Thus when she was singing in the choir, she was completely absorbed in God, uplifted by such ardour that she sometimes expressed her feelings in gestures….”“On other occasions, since she was rapt in ecstasy, she did not hear those who were calling or touching her and came back with difficulty to the reality of the things around her” (ibid., VI, 1). In one of her visions, Jesus Himself recommended the Gospel to her; opening the wound in His most gentle Heart, He said to her: “consider the immensity of My love: if you want to know it well, nowhere will you find it more clearly expressed than in the Gospel. No one has ever heard expressed stronger or more tender sentiments than these: “As my father has loved me, so I have loved you (Jn 15: 9)'” (ibid., I, 22).
Dear friends, personal and liturgical prayer, especially the Liturgy of the Hours and Holy Mass are at the root of St Matilda of Hackeborn’s spiritual experience. In letting herself be guided by Sacred Scripture and nourished by the Bread of the Eucharist, she followed a path of close union with the Lord, ever in full fidelity to the Church. This is also a strong invitation to us to intensify our friendship with the Lord, especially through daily prayer and attentive, faithful and active participation in Holy Mass. The Liturgy is a great school of spirituality.
Her disciple, Gertrude, gives a vivid pictures of St Mechtilde of Hackeborn’s last moments. They were very difficult but illumined by the presence of the Blessed Trinity, of the Lord, of the Virgin Mary and of all the Saints, even Gertrude’s sister by blood. When the time came in which the Lord chose to gather her to Him, she asked Him let her live longer in suffering for the salvation of souls and Jesus was pleased with this further sign of her love.
Mechtilde was 58 years old. The last leg of her journey was marked by eight years of serious illness. Her work and the fame of her holiness spread far and wide. When her time came, “the God of majesty… the one delight of the soul that loves Him… sang to her: Venite vos, benedicti Patris mei…. Venite, o voi che siete i benedetti dal Padre mio, venite a ricevere il regno – Come, you who are blessed by my Father, come and receive the kingdom… and He united her with His glory” (ibid., VI, 8).
May St Mechtilde of Hackeborn commend us to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Virgin Mary. She invites us to praise the Son with the Heart of the Mother and to praise Mary with the Heart of the Son: “I greet you, O most deeply venerated Virgin, in that sweetest of dews which from the Heart of the Blessed Trinity spread within you. I greet you in the glory and joy in which you now rejoice forever, you who were chosen in preference to all the creatures of the earth and of Heaven even before the world’s creation! Amen” (ibid., I, 45).
Our Lady of Divine Providence: The title of “Mary, Mother of Divine Providence” is often traced to her intervention at the wedding in Cana. Christ’s first public miracle was occasioned in part by the intercession of his mother. She helped through her foresight and concern to avoid an embarrassing situation for the newlywed couple. Our Lady of Providence is sometimes also identified as Queen of the Home.
Devotion to Our Lady of Divine Providence originated in Italy and spread to France and Spain. The devotion was brought to Puerto Rico in the early 1850s by the Servite Fathers. According to tradition, Philip Benizi (1233 – 1285) prayed to Mary for help in providing food for his friars and subsequently found several baskets of provisions left at the door of the convent. Our Lady of Providence was declared the patroness of Puerto Rico by Pope Paul VI on 19 November 1969. Her feast day is celebrated in many immigrant Puerto Rican communities.
Around 1580, the Italian painter Scipione Pulzone created a work titled “Mater Divinae Providentiae,” which depicted the Blessed Mother cradling the Infant Jesus. Devotion to Mary, Mother of Divine Providence in the first house of the Congregation of the Clerics Regular of St Paul (Barnabites) in Rome at San Carlo ai Catinari church began around year 1611, when one of the clerics travelled to Loreto to pray for assistance in finding the financial resources to complete the Church of San Carlo. Upon his return, they received the necessary assistance and the Barnabites began to promote devotion to Our Lady of Providence.
Pulzone’s painting was given to the Barnabites in 1663. It was placed on the altar of a chapel on the first floor of the Saint Charles rectory behind the main altar. In 1732, a copy of the painting was placed in a location adjacent to the main altar of the church of San Carlo ai Catinari in Rome, where it drew many faithful visitors.
In 1774, Pope Benedict XIV authorised the Confraternity of Our Lady of Providence, a lay organisation created for the purpose of promoting special works of Christian charity or piety. Pope Gregory XVI elevated it to an Archconfraternity in 1839. In 1888, Pope Leo XIII ordered the solemn crowning of the “Miraculous Lady” and approved the Mass and Office of Mary, Mother of Divine Providence. On 5 August 1896, Superior General of the Barnabites, Father Benedict Nisser decreed that every Barnabite have a copy of the painting in their home.
Patronage:
Our Lady of Providence is the patroness of the Barnabite Order.
Our Lady of Providence is the patroness of Indiana and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island. The chapel of Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts is dedicated to Our Lady of Providence.
Our Lady of Divine Providence is the patroness of St Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison, Kansas.
Our Lady of Divine Providence is also the patroness of the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico.
Bl Alexandre Planas Saurí
St Atto of Tordino
St Azas of Isauria
St Barlaam of Antioch
St Ebbe of Minster-of-Thanet
Bl Eliseo García y García
Bl James Benefatti
St James of Sasseau
St Maximus of Caesarea
St Maximus of Rome St Matilda or Mechtilde of Hackeborn (c 1241-1298)
St Medana
St Nerses the Great
Obadiah the Prophet
St Pope Pontian St Raphael Kalinowski, OCD (1835-1907) Biography:
Thought for the Day – 18 November – The Memorial of Saint Odo of Cluny (c 880–942) Monk and Abbot
In the following passage, John of Salerno, Odo’s biographer, says he combined the power of his position as Abbot, with wry humour, to compel members of his entourage to behave charitably:
“The blind and the lame, Odo said, would be the doorkeepers of heaven. Therefore, no- one ought to drive them away from his house, so that in the future, they should not shut the doors of heaven against him. So if one of our servants, not being able to put up with their shameless begging, replied sharply to them or denied them access to the door of our tent, Odo at once rebuked him with threats. Then, in the servant’s presence, he used to call the poor man and command him, saying: “When this man comes to the gate of heaven, pay him back in the same way.” He said this to frighten the servants, so that they should not act in this way again, and that he might teach them to love charity.”
Perhaps Odo’s notion was not fictitious—that the poor we refuse or people we snub, will be our greeters after death.
Imagine that the person meeting us at heaven’s gate, will be the person we have offended most, now empowered to welcome or to reject us.
That thought, should make us hurry to be reconciled, with anyone we have hurt!
Let us run in haste and follow Odo’s bidding!
Quote/s of the Day – 18 November – The Memorial of Saint Odo of Cluny (c 880–942) Monk and Abbot
“My Lady, Mother of Mercy, who on this night gave birth to the Saviour, pray for me. May your glorious and unique experience of childbirth, O Most Devout Mother, be my refuge.”
“Jesus took upon Himself the scourging, that would have been our due, in order to save the creature, He formed and loves.”
“]This is the] sacrosanct mystery of the Lord’s Body, in whom the whole salvation of the world consists.”
Saint of the Day – 18 November – Saint Odo of Cluny (c 880–942) Monk and Abbot, Reformer – born in c 880 at Le Mans, France and died on 18 November 942 in Tours, France of natural causes while travelling to Rome, Italy. Patronage – for rain. He was buried in the church of Saint Julian but most of his relics were burned by Huguenots during the French Revolution.
St Odo’s life by Pope Benedict XVI
Catechesis given at his General Audience
on Wednesday, 2 September 2009
“Today, I present to you, the luminous figure of St Odo, Abbot of Cluny. He fits into that period of medieval monasticism which saw the surprising success in Europe of the life and spirituality inspired by the Rule of St Benedict. In those centuries, there was a wonderful increase in the number of cloisters that sprang up and branched out over the continent, spreading the Christian spirit and sensibility far and wide. St Odo takes us back in particular to Cluny, one of the most illustrious and famous monasteries in the Middle Ages, that still today, reveals to us, through its majestic ruins, the signs of a past rendered glorious by intense dedication to ascesis, study and, in a special way, to divine worship, endowed with decorum and beauty.
Ruins of Cluny
Odo was the second Abbot of Cluny. He was born in about 880, on the boundary between the Maine and the Touraine regions of France. Odo’s father consecrated him to the holy Bishop St Martin of Tours, in whose beneficent shadow and memory he was to spend his entire life, which he ended close to St Martin’s tomb. His choice of religious consecration was preceded by the inner experience of a special moment of grace, of which he himself spoke to another monk, John the Italian, who later became his biographer. Odo was still an adolescent, about 16 years old, when one Christmas Eve he felt this prayer to the Virgin rise spontaneously to his lips: “My Lady, Mother of Mercy, who on this night gave birth to the Saviour, pray for me. May your glorious and unique experience of childbirth, O Most Devout Mother, be my refuge” (Vita sancti Odonis, 1, 9: PL 133, 747). The name “Mother of Mercy”, with which young Odo then invoked the Virgin, was to be the title by which he always subsequently liked to address Mary. He also called her “the one Hope of the world … thanks to whom the gates of Heaven were opened to us” (In veneratione S. Mariae Magdalenae: PL 133, 721). At that time, Odo chanced to come across the Rule of St Benedict and to comment on it, “bearing, while not yet a monk, the light yoke of monks” (ibid., I, 14, PL 133, 50). In one of his sermons, Odo was to celebrate Benedict as the “lamp that shines in the dark period of life” (De sancto Benedicto abbate: PL 133, 725) and, to describe him as “a teacher of spiritual discipline” (ibid., PL 133, 727). He was to point out, with affection, that Christian piety, “with the liveliest gentleness commemorates him” in the knowledge that God raised him “among the supreme and elect Fathers of Holy Church” (ibid., PL 133, 722).
Fascinated by the Benedictine ideal, Odo left Tours and entered the Benedictine Abbey of Baume as a monk; he later moved to Cluny, of which in 927 he became abbot. From that centre of spiritual life, he was able to exercise a vast influence over the monasteries on the continent. Various monasteries or coenobiums were able to benefit from his guidance and reform, including that of St Paul Outside-the-Walls. More than once, Odo visited Rome and he even went as far as Subiaco, Monte Cassino and Salerno. He actually fell ill in Rome in the summer of 942. Feeling that he was nearing his end, he was determined and made every effort, to return to St Martin in Tours, where he died, in the Octave of the Saint’s feast, on 18 November 942. His biographer, stressing the “virtue of patience” that Odo possessed, gives a long list of his other virtues that include contempt of the world, zeal for souls and the commitment to peace in the Churches. Abbot Odo’s great aspirations were – concord between kings and princes, the observance of the commandments, attention to the poor, the correction of youth and respect for the elderly (cf. Vita sancti Odonis, I, 17: PL 133, 49).
He loved the cell in which he dwelled, “removed from the eyes of all, eager to please God alone”(ibid., I, 14: PL 133, 49). However, he did not fail also to exercise, as a “superabundant source”, the ministry of the word and to set an example, “regretting the immense wretchedness of this world” (ibid., I, 17: PL 133, 51). In a single monk, his biographer comments, were combined the different virtues that exist, which are found to be few and far between in other monasteries: “Jesus, in his goodness, drawing on the various gardens of monks, in a small space created a paradise, in order to water the hearts of the faithful from its fountains” (ibid., I, 14: PL 133,49). In a passage from a sermon in honour of Mary of Magdala the Abbot of Cluny reveals to us how he conceived of monastic life: “Mary, who, seated at the Lord’s feet, listened attentively to his words, is the symbol of the sweetness of contemplative life; the more its savour is tasted, the more it induces the mind to be detached from visible things and the tumult of the world’s preoccupations” (In ven. S. Mariae Magd., PL 133, 717). Odo strengthened and developed this conception in his other writings. From them transpire his love for interiority, a vision of the world as a brittle, precarious reality from which to uproot oneself, a constant inclination to detachment from things felt to be sources of anxiety, an acute sensitivity to the presence of evil in the various types of people and a deep eschatological aspiration. This vision of the world may appear rather distant from our own; yet Odo’s conception of it, his perception of the fragility of the world, values an inner life that is open to the other, to the love of one’s neighbour and in this very way, transforms life and opens the world to God’s light.
The “devotion” to the Body and Blood of Christ which Odo in the face of a widespread neglect of them which he himself deeply deplored, always cultivated with conviction deserves special mention. Odo was in fact, firmly convinced of the Real Presence, under the Eucharistic species, of the Body and Blood of the Lord, by virtue of the conversion of the “substance” of the bread and the wine.
He wrote: “God, Creator of all things, took the bread, saying that this was His Body and that He would offer it for the world and He distributed the wine, calling it His Blood”; now, “it is a law of nature that the change should come about in accordance with the Creator’s command” and thus “nature immediately changes its usual condition – the bread instantly becomes flesh and the wine becomes blood”; at the Lord’s order, “the substance changes” (Odonis Abb. Cluniac. occupatio, ed. A. Swoboda, Leipzig 1900, p. 121). Unfortunately, our abbot notes, this “sacrosanct mystery of the Lord’s Body, in whom the whole salvation of the world consists”, (Collationes, XXVIII: PL 133, 572), is celebrated carelessly. “Priests”, he warns, “who approach the altar unworthily, stain the bread, that is, the Body of Christ” (ibid., PL 133, 572-573). Only those who are spiritually united to Christ may worthily participate in His Eucharistic Body – should the contrary be the case, to eat His Flesh and to drink His Blood would not be beneficial but rather a condemnation (cf. ibid., XXX, PL 133, 575). All this invites us to believe the truth of the Lord’s presence with new force and depth. The presence in our midst of the Creator, who gives Himself into our hands and transforms us as He transforms the bread and the wine, thus transforms the world.
St Odo was a true spiritual guide both for the monks and for the faithful of his time In the face of the “immensity of the vices widespread in society, the remedy he strongly advised was that of a radical change of life, based on humility, austerity, detachment from ephemeral things and adherence to those that are eternal” (cf. Collationes, XXX, PL 133, 613). In spite of the realism of his diagnosis on the situation of his time, Odo does not indulge in pessimism: “We do not say this”, he explains, “in order to plunge those who wish to convert into despair. Divine mercy is always available; it awaits the hour of our conversion”(ibid., PL 133, 563). And he exclaims: “O ineffable bowels of divine piety! God pursues wrongs and yet protects sinners” (ibid., PL 133, 592). Sustained by this conviction, the Abbot of Cluny used to like to pause to contemplate the mercy of Christ, the Saviour whom he describes evocatively as “a lover of men”: “amator hominum Christus” (ibid., LIII: PL 133, 637). He observes “Jesus took upon Himself, the scourging, that would have been our due, in order to save the creature he formed and loves” (cf. ibid., PL 133, 638).
Here, a trait of the holy abbot appears that at first sight is almost hidden beneath the rigour of his austerity as a reformer – his deep, heartfelt kindness. He was austere but above all he was good, a man of great goodness, a goodness that comes from contact with the divine goodness. Thus Odo, his peers tell us, spread around him his overflowing joy. His biographer testifies that he never heard “such mellifluous words” on human lips (ibid., I, 17: PL 133, 31). His biographer also records, that he was in the habit of asking the children he met along the way to sing and that he would then give them some small token and he adds: “Abbot Odo’s words were full of joy … his merriment instilled in our hearts deep joy” (ibid., II, 5: PL 133, 63). In this way, the energetic, yet at the same time lovable medieval abbot, enthusiastic about reform, with incisive action nourished in his monks, as well as in the lay faithful of his time, the resolution to progress swiftly on the path of Christian perfection.
Let us hope that his goodness, the joy that comes from faith, together with austerity and opposition to the world’s vices, may also move our hearts, so that we too may find the source of the joy that flows from God’s goodness. Amen”
Thank you Papa Eneritus!
A story holds, that once Odo was writing a glossary to the life of St Martin written by Postumianus and Gallus. The book, however, was left in a cellar which was flooded with water during a rainstorm at night. The place where the book lay, was covered by a torrent but, the next day, when the monks came down to the cellar, they found that only the margin of the book was soaked through but all of the writing was untouched. Odo then told the monks, ‘Why do you marvel oh brothers? Know you not, that the water feared to touch the life of the saint?’Then a monk replied, ‘But see, the book is old and moth-eaten and has so often been soaked that it is dirty and faint! Can our father then persuade us that the rain feared to touch a book which in the past has been soaked through? Nay, there is another reason.’ Odo then realised that they were suggesting it was preserved because he had written a glossary in it but he then quickly gave the glory to God and St Martin.
During her long life, she knew nothing but assiduous work and constant prayer. She invoked the Lord with such passion and devotion it would edify her fellow Sisters. Admiring the beauties of nature she would be in the habit of often exclaiming: “The Love and the Power of God!” which remained her favourite expression. She dedicated her prayers and sacrifices in particular for the needy, for derelicts and for the redemption of sinners.
AnaStpaul 
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