Stigmata of St Francis of Assisi
Two years before the great Saint Francis of Assisi died and when he was forty-two years old — one year after he had built the first crib in honour of Our Lord — he went off to a lonely mountain called Mount Alvernia, to prepare himself by forty days of fasting and prayer for the feast of Saint Michael, the greatest of God’s angels, whose feast day is 29 September. On the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on 14 September, Saint Francis received in his hands, feet and side the Sacred Wounds from Our Lord’s own body.
Never was a saint more beautifully loved by Jesus than Saint Francis of Assisi. The wounds Jesus gave him stayed in his hands, feet and side and continually bled for two more years, until he died in 1226. The day on which Saint Francis received the Five Wounds of Our Lord was 14 September but so, that this beautiful event might have a feast day for itself, the Stigmata of Saint Francis are commemorated today, on 17 September. The simple liturgy of this holy saint’s life might be put this way – the crib in 122, and the Cross in 1224.
St Justin of Rome
St Lambert of Maastricht
St Narcissus of Rome
St Peter Arbues
St Rodingus
St Satyrus of Milan
St Socrates
Bl Stanislaus of Jesus and Mary
St Stephen
St Theodora
St Uni of Bremen
St Zygmunt Sajna St Zygmunt Szcesny Felinski TOSF (1822-1895)
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Martyred in the Spanish Civil War
• Blessed Álvaro Santos Cejudo Moreno Chocano
• Blessed Juan Ventura Solsona
• Blessed Timoteo Valero Pérez
Thought for the Day – 16 September – Monday of the Twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time, Year Cand the Memorial of St Pope Corneliu s and St Cyprian of Carthage, Martyrs
A Faith that is Ready and Unshaken
Saint Cyprian of Carthage (c 200-258)
Bishop, Father of the Church and Martyr
An excerpt from his Letter 60
Cyprian sends greetings to his brother Cornelius. My very dear brother, we have heard of the glorious witness given by your courageous faith. On learning of the honour you had won by your witness, we were filled with such joy that we felt ourselves sharers and companions in your praiseworthy achievements. After all, we have the same Church, the same mind, the same unbroken harmony. Why then should a priest not take pride in the praise given to a fellow priest as though it were given to him? What brotherhood fails to rejoice in the happiness of its brothers wherever they are?
Words cannot express how great was the exultation and delight here when we heard of your good fortune and brave deeds, how you stood out as a leader of your brothers in their declaration of their faith. You led the way to glory but you gained many companions in that glory, being foremost in your readiness to bear witness, on behalf of all, you prevailed on your people to become a single witness. We cannot decide which we ought to praise, your own ready and unshaken faith, or the love of your brothers who would not leave you. While the courage of the bishop who thus led the way has been demonstrated, at the same time the unity of the brotherhood who followed, has been manifested. Since you have one heart and one voice, it is the Roman Church as a whole that has thus borne witness.
Dearest brother, bright and shining is the faith which the blessed Apostle praised in your community. He foresaw in the spirit the praise your courage deserves and the strength that could not be broken, he was heralding the future when he testified to your achievement, his praise of the fathers was a challenge to the sons. Your unity, your strength have become shining examples of these virtues to the rest of the brethren.
Divine providence has now prepared us. God’s merciful design has warned us that the day of our own struggle, our own contest, is at hand. By that shared love which binds us closely together, we are doing all we can to exhort our congregation, to give ourselves unceasingly to fasting, vigils and prayers in common. These are the heavenly weapons which give us the strength to stand firm and endure, they are the spiritual defences, the God-given armaments that protect us.
Let us then remember one another, united in mind and heart. Let us pray without ceasing, you for us, we for you, by the love we share, we shall thus relieve the strain of these great trials.
Quote/s of the Day – 16 September – The Memorial of Sts Cornelius & Cyprian
“Not by words alone but also by deeds, has God taught us to pray. He Himself prayed frequently and demonstrated what we ought to do, by the testimony of His own example. As it is written: “But he himself was in retirement in the desert and in prayer” and again, “He went out into the mountain to pray and continued all night in prayer to God.” But if He who was without sin prayed, how much more ought sinners to pray and if He prayed continually, watching through the whole night with uninterrupted petitions, how much more ought we to lie awake at night in continuing prayer!”
“So, my brothers, let us pray as God our master has taught us. To ask the Father in words His Son has given us, to let Him hear the prayer of Christ ringing in His ears, is to make our prayer one of friendship, a family prayer. Let the Father recognise the words of His Son. Let the Son who lives in our hearts, be also on our lips. We have Him as an Advocate for sinners, before the Father, when we ask for forgiveness for ours sins, let us use the words given by our Advocate. He tells us – Whatever you ask the Father in my name, He will give you. What more effective prayer could we then make, in the name of Christ, than in the words of His own prayer?”
An excerpt from his “On the Lord’s Prayer”
“As we do battle and fight, in the contest of faith, God, His angels and Christ Himself, watch us. How exalted is the glory, how great the joy of engaging in a contest with God presiding, of receiving a crown, with Christ as judge.” An excerpt from his Letter 58
“{Lapsed Christians} will often take Communion before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offence of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to His body and blood and they sin now, against their Lord, more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord.” (The Lapsed 15–16 [written in 251])
“He not only receives and pardons those adversaries, those blasphemers, those persistent enemies of His name, provided they do penance for their offence and acknowledge the crime committed but He admits them to the reward of the kingdom of heaven.”
“Whatever a man prefers to God, that, he makes, a god to himself.”
St Cyprian of Carthage (c 200-258)
Bishop and Martyr, Father of the Church
One Minute Reflection – 16 September – Monday of the Twenty-fourth week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 7:1-10 and the Memorial of St Pope Cornelius and St Cyprian of Carthage, Martyrs
“Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, therefore, I did not presume to come to you. But say the word and let my servant be healed.”…Luke7:6b-7
REFLECTION – “This man was a pagan, for the Jewish people were occupied by the Imperial Roman army at that time. So it was as a centurion in Judaea that he was commanding his soldiers…
But our Lord, although he was in the midst of the people of Judaea, was already talking about the Church being spread all over the earth wherever His apostles were to be sent (Mt 8:11). Indeed, the gentiles believed in Him without having see Him… Our Lord did not physically enter the centurion’s house and, even though absent in body, He was present in majesty and healed both that house and its faith. Similarly, our Lord stood physically only amongst the people of Judaea – other peoples did not see His being born of a virgin, or suffering, or walking, or subject to the condition of human nature, or carrying out divine miracles. None of these things were done amongst the gentiles and yet it was amongst them that what was said about Him was fulfilled: “A people I did not know have served me.” In what way did they serve Him? The Psalm continues: “As soon as they heard me, they obeyed me” (Ps 18[17]:44-45).”…St Augustine (354-430) Father and Doctor of the Church
PRAYER – Lord God and holy Father, guard our faith we pray and grace us with Your mercy. Keep us every faithful to Your precepts and bring us to Your home, to look upon Your Face. May the prayers of Your saints assist us on our journey. In your untiring life of trust in God, Sts Cornelius and Cyprian, you sought to make Him the goal of all and the love of all, please pray that we may imitate your zeal and love. We ask all this through Christ, our Lord with the Holy Spirit, one God forever, amen.
Saint of the Day – 16 September – Blessed Pope Victor III (1027-1087) “the Gentle Pope” Benedictine Abbot, Monk, Advisor, diplomat, reformer – papal ascension – elected 24 May 1086 and enthroned on 9 May 1087 – until his death. He was born Dauferio in 1027 in Benevento, Italy and died on 16 September 1087 at the monastery of Monte Cassino of natural causes. He was buried at Monte Cassino. He is also known as Desiderius.
Few have been more reluctant to accept the papacy than the Monk who became Victor III. Blessed Pope Victor III was born a Prince of the dukes of Benevento around the year 1026, the only son of Prince Landulf V. Victor was always monastically inclined, having skilfully avoided not one but two arranged marriages before opting for life as a hermit and monk.
When his father died fighting the Normans, Dauferio escaped the watch of his relatives and entered a monastery. But the enraged relatives hunted him down, tore off his religious habit and hustled the would-be monk home. Dauferio, however, had a mind of his own and soon escaped again. This time his relatives agreed to let him remain a Monk. As a Benedictine Monk, he received the name Desiderius. In spite of his aversion to honour and power, his sweet disposition and pronounced ability caught the attention of the reforming Popes. St Leo IX and Victor II took a great liking to the young Benedictine. He succeeded Abbot Frederick when the latter was elected Pope Stephen IX.
Desiderio proved to be one of the greatest in the long line of Cassinese Abbots. He had found the old abbey in a ruinous state and energetically undertook a wide-scale rebuilding program. Under his leadership there rose a chapter house, an Abbots’ house, a library, a dormitory and a great church. Pope Alexander II consecrated it in 1071. As Abbot, Desiderius became renowned as the greatest Abbot the monastery had seen since St Benedict himself. Desiderius’ reputation brought gifts and exemptions to the Abbey. The money was spent on church ornaments, including a great golden altar front from Constantinople adorned with gems and enamels and “nearly all the church ornaments of Victor II, which had been pawned here and there throughout the city”. Peter the Deacon gives a list of some seventy books Desiderius had copied at Monte Cassino, including works of Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint Bede, Saint Basil, Saint Jerome, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus and Cassian, the histories of Josephus, Paul Warnfrid, Jordanes and Saint Gregory of Tours, the Institutes and Novels of Justinian, the works of Terence, Virgil and Seneca, Cicero’s De natura deorum and Ovid’s Fasti.
Vicente Carducho: Vision of Pope Victor III.
No mere bricks-and-mortar Abbot, Desiderius took great pains to help his Monks’ advance in the spiritual life. Nor was he neglectful of the abbey’s intellectual life. As Abbot of Monte Cassino, Desiderius was a great personage in Southern Italy. This power he used loyally to back the reform popes. Nicholas II made him a Cardinal and Papal Legate. He had great influence with the Normans and it was he who secured their help for St Gregory VII in his time of need. So great was his reputation with the Holy See that he “…was allowed by the Roman Pontiff to appoint Bishops and Abbots from among his Benedictine brethren in whatever churches or monasteries he desired, of those that had lost their patron”.
It is not surprising that when Gregory VII died, Abbot Desiderius was sought as his successor. But Desiderius simply would not agree to accept the heavy honour. At last on Pentecost Sunday, 24 May 1086, the exasperated Cardinals and clergy carried Desiderius to the Church of St Lucy, and forcibly clothED him with the papal mantle, called him Victor III. But four days later Victor put off the papal insignia and withdrew to Monte Cassino. It was almost a year later, before he finally consented to serve as Pope. At a great council held at Capua in 1087 Victor at last surrendered. When the Normans drove antipope Guibert out of Rome, Victor was solemnly enthroned in St Peter’s on 9 May 1087.
Much could be hoped for from such a Pope as Blessed Victor III but his health was failing and his short pontificate was stormy. Unable or unwilling to maintain himself in Rome against Antipope Guibert, Victor held a council at Benevento, which once more excommunicated the antipope and once more condemned lay investiture. When the council had lasted three days, Victor became seriously ill and retired to Monte Cassino to die. He had himself carried into the chapter-house, issued various decrees for the benefit of the abbey, appointed with the consent of the monks the prior, Cardinal Oderisius, to succeed him in the Abbacy, just as he himself had been appointed by Stephen IX and proposed Odo of Ostia to the assembled cardinals and bishops as the next Pope. He died on 16 September 1087 and was buried in the tomb he had prepared for himself in his beloved Abbey’s chapter-house. Odo was duly elected his successor as Pope Urban II
In the sixteenth century his body was removed to the abbey church and again translated in 1890. The cult of Blessed Victor III seems to have begun not later than the pontificate of Pope Anastasius IV, about six decades after his death. In 1727 the Abbot of Monte Cassino obtained from Pope Benedict XIII permission to keep his feast. Pope Leo XIII Beatified Victor I on 23 July 1887.
St Abundantius of Rome
St Abundius of Rome
St Andrew Kim Taegon
St Cunibert of Maroilles
St Curcodomus
Bl Dominic Shobyoye
St Dulcissima of Sutri
St Edith of Wilton
St Eugenia of Hohenburg
St Euphemia of Chalcedon
St Geminianus of Rome
St John of Rome
Bl Louis Allemand
St Lucy of Rome
St Ludmila
St Marcian the Senator
Bl Martin of Huerta
Bl Michael Himonaya St Ninian (Died 432) Apostle to the Southern Picts Biography: https://anastpaul.com/2018/09/16/saint-of-the-day-16-september-st-ninian-c-360-died-432-apostle-to-the-southern-picts/
Bl Paul Fimonaya
St Priscus of Nocera
St Rogellus of Cordoba
St Sebastiana
St Servus Dei
St Stephen of Perugia Blessed Pope Victor III OSB (1027-1087)
St Vitalis of Savigny
Martyrs of the Via Nomentana: Four Christian men martyred together, date unknown – Alexander, Felix, Papias and Victor. They were martyred on the Via Nomentana outside Rome, Italy.
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
• Blessed Antonio Martínez García
• Blessed Ignasi Casanovas Perramón
• Blessed Manuel Ferrer Jordá
• Blessed Pablo Martínez Robles
• Blessed Salvador Ferrer Cardet
Thought for the Day – 15 September – The Memorial of Blessed Paolo Manna PIME (1872-1952) “A Soul on Fire” – Priest, Missionary in Burma (Myanmar), Superior General of the P.I.M.E., Founder of the Pontifical Missionary Union
In Father Paolo Manna we perceive a special reflection of the glory of God. He spent his entire life promoting the missions. In every page of his writings there stands out the person of Jesus, centre of his life and reason for the missions.
In one of his letters to the missionaries, he stated: “In fact the missionary is nothing if he does not put on the person of Jesus Christ…. Only the missionary who copies Jesus Christ faithfully in himself can reproduce his image in the souls of others”(Letter 6).
Indeed, there are no missions without holiness, as the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio pointed out: “The missionary spirituality of the Church consists in the movement towards holiness. One must stir up a new zeal for holiness among missionaries and in the whole Christian community” (n. 90).
St Pope John Paul II, Beatification Homily, Sunday 4 November 2001
“We missionaries often wonder why the work of the conversion of the non-Christian world goes so slowly. We usually give various reasons to explain this painful fact and in truth, the problem may be considered from many angles, some of which do not concern our responsibility. But for the part that does concern us and it is the main part, the problem has a very clear solution. To save the world, God in His infinite wisdom wanted to have co-workers. God does His part well – do the people called to help Him do their part equally well? Let us work in such a way that the whole Church, all Christian people, led by their bishops and clergy, truly feel the apostolic duty that is incumbent upon them to promote the propagation of the faith with every means. Let us work in such a way that that missionaries, the most direct instruments for the conversion of souls, are saints and non-Christians will not be slow to be converted. The missionary problem has been and still is, almost ignored by the Christian people. Those who were interested in the past were always a minority and it is extremely painful to see today too, although some progress has been made, how the enormous question is far from being understood and faced fully by clergy and people. It is extremely painful, because Catholic peoples would have more than enough energies to promote the work of evangelisation more worthily if priests taught, organised and above all inflamed them with a greater spirit of faith and zeal. Missionaries, also from the human viewpoint, have been excellent people…but neither brilliance nor prudence, nor courage have made them great in our eyes and the eyes of God. They have been great, they have saved many souls, they have founded Churches, mainly because they were holy men, that is, spiritual men. This is the secret, the soul of their zeal, their perseverance and their success; this is the solemn teaching they have handed down to us and which I love to remind you of, so that our missionaries of today and those of tomorrow may always build upon it the first and essential reason for their own sanctification and the sanctification of the souls that are and will be, entrusted to them. You, missionaries in active service in the field, are particularly concerned with your part of co=operation. Therefore, I say to you, be holy missionaries by following the footsteps of those great missionaries who went before you and, for the part that concerns you, your apostolic duty will have been done to the full. The souls the Lord in His merciful designs has entrusted to each one of you that you may lead them to salvation, will be saved and at the end of your days, you will be able to say with the Divine Redeemer: “(Father) I kept those you had given me true to you name. I have watched over them and not one is lost” (John 17:12).”
Blessed Paolo
Of Manna, Father Piero Gheddo writes: He was a great writer, superior general, missionary animator, organiser, a man of revolutionary ideas and initiatives . He was the first in Italy to encourage the clergy to work for Christian unity. But it was above all his holiness, that led him to comply with God’s plan with humility, loyalty and a spirit of sacrifice. He was a man of prayer and in spite of poor health, he achieved much. His missionary animation was genial. He was known to be a “soul on fire”, in love with Jesus Christ, the only love of his life.” (S.L.) (Fides Service 16/1/2004
Quote/s of the Day – 15 September – Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 15:1–32 and the Memorial of Blessed Paolo Manna PIME (1872-1952)
“Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
Luke 15:7
“The whole Church for the whole world!”
“Go for a divine call, go where obedience has destined you. Go for the love of Jesus, for the interests of Jesus and Jesus will always be at your side, always in your heart”
“We are apostles! We are apostles and we wander far and wide, we work generously, only for the sake of souls, only for the Church, only for heaven!”
Blessed Paolo Manna (1872-1952)
Christ only knows how to count to one and that one, is each of us!
Saint of the Day – 15 September – Blessed Paolo Manna PIME (1872-1952) “A Burning Soul”Priest, Missionary in Burma (Myanmar), Superior General of the P.I.M.E., Founder of the Pontifical Missionary Union, Evangeliser, Founder of various Newspapers and Movements to promote the missions and the evangelic and apostolic zeal that accompany it. Born on 16 January 1872 at Avellino, Italy and died on 15 September 1952 at Naples, Italy of natural causes. He is buried at the seminary in Ducenta, Italy. Patronages – Pontifical Missionary Union, Missionaries.
Blessed Father Paolo Manna was born in Avellino on 16 January 1872. After primary and technical education in Avellino and in Naples he went to Rome for higher studies. While studying philosophy at the Gregorian University he followed the call of the Lord and entered the Theology Seminary of the Institute for Foreign Missions in Milan. On 19 May 1894 he was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Milan.
On 27 September 1895 he departed for the mission of Toungoo in Eastern Burma. He worked there for a total of ten years with two short repatriations until 1907, when his illness forced him to come back to Italy for good.
Beginning in 1909, through writing and a variety of other activities, he dedicated all his energy for the next forty years to fostering missionary zeal among the clergy and the faithful. In 1916 he founded the Missionary Union of the Clergy on which Pius XII bestowed the title of “Pontifical” in 1956. He saw the Union as “a radical solution to the problem of involving Catholics in the apostolate.” His assumption was that a mission-minded clergy would make all Catholics missionaries. Today, the Union has spread throughout the world and the membership includes seminarians, religious and consecrated laity.
By 1909 he became the director of Le Missioni Cattoliche and in 1914 he launched Propaganda Missionaria – a popular broadsheet with a large circulation, in 1919 he started Italia Missionaria for young people.
In an effort to foster the missionary vocations in Southern Italy, the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith asked Father Manna to establish a seminary for foreign missions. He opened the Sacred Heart Seminary at Ducenta in the province of Caserta – a foundation he had long encouraged and promoted.
In 1924 was elected Superior General of the Institute of Foreign Missions of Milan. In 1926 at the instigation of Pope Pius XI the Institute united with the Missionary Seminary of Rome to form the Pontifical Institute for the Foreign Missions (P.I.M.E.).
The P.I.M.E. General Assembly of 1934 gave him mandate to establish the Society of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate. He played a primary role in the foundation of this institute in 1936. From 1937 to 1941 Father Manna was in charge of the International Secretariat for the Missionary Union of the Clergy .
The Italian Southern Province of P.I.M.E. was established in 1943 and Father Manna became its first superior and launched the family missionary magazine Venga il tuo regno.
Father Manna wrote quite a number of well-known books and booklets. Several of them had a lasting effect such as: Operarii autem pauci, I Fratelli separati e noi – The Separated Brethren, Le nostre Chiese e la propagazione del Vangelo, Virtù Apostoliche – Apostolic Virtues (1943). He envisioned innovative methods of missionary work that foresaw developments at the Second Vatican Council. But Fr Manna’s greatest legacy is the example he left behind – he was driven by an overwhelming passion for the missions that sickness, suffering and setbacks could never diminish. Tragella, his first biographer, called him “A burning soul”. Until his death his motto was: “All the Church for all the World”!
Father Paolo Manna died in Naples on 15 September 1952. His remains were laid to rest at Ducenta, “his seminary”. On 13 December 1990 St Pope John Paul II visited his tomb.
His Beatification Cause began in Naples in 1971 and concluded in Rome on 24 April 2001 with a Papal Decree on a miracle attributed to the intercession of the Servant of God. … Vatican.va
St Pope John Paul II Beatified Blessed Paolo on 4 November 2001.
St Aichardus
St Albinus of Lyon
Bl Anton Maria Schwartz
St Aprus of Toul
St Bond of Sens
St Catherine of Genoa
Bl Camillus Constanzo
St Emilas of Cordoba
St Eutropa of Auvergne
St Hernan
Bl Jacinto de Los Ángeles and Bl Juan Bautista
St Jeremias of Cordoba
St Joseph Abibos
St Mamillian of Palermo
St Melitina
St Mirin of Bangor
St Nicetas the Goth
St Nicomedes of Rome Blessed Paolo Manna PIME (1872-1952)
St Porphyrius the Martyr
St Ribert
St Ritbert of Varennes
Bl Rolando de Medici
Bl Tommasuccio of Foligno
St Valerian of Châlon-sur-Saône
St Valerian of Noviodunum
St Vitus of Bergamo
Bl Wladyslaw Miegon
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Martyrs of Adrianopolis – 3 saints: Three Christian men martyred together in the persecutions of Maximian – Asclepiodotus, Maximus and Theodore. They were martyred in 310 at Adrianopolis (Adrianople), a location in modern Bulgaria.
Martyrs of Noviodunum – 4 saints: Three Christian men martyred together, date unknown – Gordian, Macrinus, Stratone and Valerian.
They were martyred in Noviodunum, Lower Moesia (near modern Isaccea, Romania).
Mercedarian Martyrs of Morocco – 6 beati: A group of six Mercedarians who were captured by Moors near Valencia, Spain and taken to Morocco. Though enslaved, they refused to stop preaching Christianity. Martyrs. – Dionisio, Francis, Ildefonso, James, John and Sancho. They were crucified in 1437 in Morocco.
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
Bl Antonio Sierra Leyva
Bl Pascual Penades Jornet
Saint of the Day – 14 September – Saint Peter of Tarentaise O.Cist (1102-1174) Cistercian Religious Monk, Archbishop of Tarentaise from 1141 until his death, Abbot, Apostle of Charity, Miracle-worker. Born 1102 at Saint-Maurice-l’Exil, Kingdom of France and died on 14 September 1174 (aged 72) at Bellevaux Abbey, Cirey, Franche-Comté, Kingdom of France. Patronage – Tarentaise. St Peter founded Tamié Abbey as a daughter house of Bonnevaux Abbey. Abbot Peter tried to refuse an elevation to the episcopate though his superiors, one of them being Saint Bernard of Clairvaux insisted that he accept the position. As Archbishop, he had special care for the poor, the ill and those who travelled the Alpine passes.
There are two men named Saint Peter of Tarentaise who lived one century apart. The man we honour today is the younger Peter, born in France in the early part of the 12th century. The other man with the same name became Pope Innocent the Fifth.
He was born in 1102 on a farm near Saint-Maurice-l’Exil, not far from the Cistercian Bonnevaux Abbey. His father often offered hospitality to the monks, when they had to leave the monastery on business. St Peter joined this Cistercian monastery at the age of 20 in 1122. He lived with such modesty, charity and humility that people were moved and inspired to conversion, by his great holiness. He was such a great witness of the religious life that many others followed him and joined the abbey as well. In fact, his whole family followed him and joined communities of their own—his mother, father, and siblings!
He was appointed as Abbot of the new monastery that he was instrumental in establishing, in the mountains. This monastery soon became known as a resting place for travellers. Peter began a hospice there for sick and poor travellers.
In 1142, at the insistence of his superiors including St Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot Peter reluctantly accepted the position as the Archbishop of Tarentaise. In his episcopal role he applied the Cistercian principles to restore the diocese and met with a good deal of success, since the diocese’s management had declined and discipline lax. He removed corrupt priests (and elevated good priests to important pastoral positions) and promoted education for all the faithful. He visited all parts of his mountainous diocese on a regular basis. He also frequently visited the Grand Chartreuse, during the tenure of Hugh of Lincoln.
His specific concerns included the welfare of travellers to and from Switzerland and from the Italian cities. He rebuilt a hospice in poor repair at Little St Bernard Pass. He also founded a charity which distributed food to farms in the surrounding hills. This would become known as pain de Mai and became a tradition continued in the region until the French Revolution.
Miracles were attributed to him during this time—healings and the multiplication of food during a famine. He became widely known as a wonder-worker, which increased his longing for the solitude he found in his life as a monk. After 13 years as archbishop, in 1155, he one day suddenly vanished without a trace.. He was discovered one year later in a remote Cistercian abbey in Switzerland, where he had joined the community under an assumed name as a lay brother. He was ordered to return and was warmly greeted when he got back to Tarentaise. He redoubled his efforts at leading the diocese, and took even greater care of the poor—twice he endangered his own life by giving away his own cloak in severe weather.
Religious and state authorities turned to Peter, a man of great peace, in moments of conflict so that he could effect reconciliation with his words and presence. He preached outspokenly and fearlessly, in disputes over the papacy and between the kings of France and England and his words were backed by miracles of healings.
Pierre died in 1174 as he attempted to mediate between feuding monarchs after a serious but brief illness. For his charity and healing powers, Peter was viewed as a saint even in his lifetime. His Canonisation was formalised under Pope Celestine III in 1191.
St Caerealis
Bl Claude Laplace
St Cormac of Cashel
St Crescentian of Carthage
St Crescentius of Rome
St Generalis of Carthage
St Giulia Crostarosa
St Jean Gabriel Taurin du Fresse
St Maternus of Cologne Saint Peter of Tarentaise O.Cist (1102-1174)
Bl Pedro Bruch Cotacáns
St Rosula of Carthage
St Sallustia
St Victor of Carthage
Thought for the Day – 13 September – the Memorial of St John Chrysostom (347-407) Father & Doctor of the Church
Life to Me, means Christ
and Death, is Gain
Saint John Chrysostom
An excerpt from his Sermon, Before the Exile
“The waters have risen and severe storms are upon us but we do not fear drowning, for we stand firmly upon a rock. Let the sea rage, it cannot break the rock. Let the waves rise, they cannot sink the boat of Jesus. What are we to fear? Death? Life to me means Christ, and death is gain. Exile? The earth and its fullness belong to the Lord. The confiscation of goods? We brought nothing into this world and we shall surely take nothing from it. I have only contempt for the world’s threats, I find its blessings laughable. I have no fear of poverty, no desire for wealth. I am not afraid of death nor do I long to live, except for your good. I concentrate, therefore, on the present situation and I urge you, my friends, to have confidence.
Do you not hear the Lord saying – Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst? Will He be absent, then, when so many people united in love are gathered together? I have His promise; I am surely not going to rely on my own strength! I have what He has written – that is my staff, my security, my peaceful harbour. Let the world be in upheaval. I hold to His promise and read His message, that is my protecting wall and garrison. What message? Know that I am with you always, until the end of the world!
If Christ is with me, whom shall I fear? Though the waves and the sea and the anger of princes are roused against me, they are less to me than a spider’s web . Indeed, unless you, my brothers, had detained me, I would have left this very day. For I always say: Lord, Your will be done; not what this fellow or that would have me do but what You want me to do. That is my strong tower, my immovable rock, my staff that never gives way. If God wants something, let it be done! If He wants me to stay here, I am grateful. But wherever He wants me to be, I am no less grateful.
Yet where I am, there you are too and where you are, I am. For we are a single body and the body cannot be separated from the head nor the head from the body. Distance separates u, but love unites us and death itself cannot divide us. For though my body die, my soul will live and be mindful of my people.
You are my fellow citizens, my fathers, my brothers, my sons, my limbs, my body. You are my light, sweeter to me than the visible light . For what can the rays of the sun bestow on me that is comparable to your love? The sun’s light is useful in my earthly life but your love is fashioning a crown for me in the life to come.
It is evident, then, that if they had not seen Him risen and had proof of His power, they would not have risked so much.”
Quote/s of the Day – 13 September – the Memorial of St John Chrysostom (347-407) Father & Doctor of the Church
“Are we in poverty? Let us give thanks.
Are we in sickness? Let us give thanks.
Are we falsely accused? Let us give thanks.
When we suffer affliction, let us give thanks.
This brings us near to God.“
“What prayer, could be more true before God the Father, than that which the Son, who is Truth, uttered with His own lips?”
“You can call happy those who saw Him. But, come to the altar and you will see Him, you will touch Him, you will give to Him holy kisses, you will wash Him with your tears, you will carry Him within you like Mary Most Holy.”
“Since we are talking about the Body,
know that we, as many of us as partake of the Body,
as many as partake of that Blood,
we partake of something which is in no way different
or separate from that which is enthroned on high,
which is adored by the angels,
which is next to Uncorrupt Power.”
“Do you understand, then, how Christ has united His bride to Himself and what food He gives us all to eat? By one and the same food, we are both brought into being and nourished. As a woman nourishes her child with her own blood and milk, so does Christ unceasingly nourish with His own blood those to whom He himself has given life.’”
” …It is ever thus; the more you envy your brother, the greater good you confer upon him. God, who sees all, takes the cause of the innocent in hand and, irritated by the injury you inflict, deigns to raise up him whom you wish to lower and will punish you to the full extent of your crime. If God usually punishes those who rejoice at the misfortunes of their enemies, how much more will He punish those who, excited by envy, seek to do an injury to those who have never injured them?”
One Minute Reflection – 13 September – Friday of the Twenty third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 6:39–42 and the Memorial of St John Chrysostom (347-407) Father & Doctor of the Church
“Then you will see clearly” … Luke 6:42
REFLECTION –
“O Lord, drive away the darkness from our minds
with the light of Your wisdom,
so that enlightened in this way
we may serve You with renewed purity.
The beginning of the sun’s passage through the sky
marks the beginning of the working-day for us mortals,
we ask You, Lord, to prepare in our minds
a place where the day that knows no end may give its light.
Grant that we may have within us, this light,
the life of the resurrection,
and that nothing may take away our delight in You.
Mark us with the sign of that day that does not begin
with the movement and the course of the sun,
by keeping our minds fixed on You.
In your sacraments we welcome You every day
and receive You in our bodies.
Make us worthy to experience within us
the resurrection for which we hope.
Be the wings for our thoughts, O Lord,
Drawing us lightly to the heights
And bearing us up to our true home.
By the grace of baptism we conceal within our bodies
the treasure of Your divine life…
Let us appreciate the great beauty that is ours
through the spiritual beauty that Your immortal will
arouses in our mortal nature…
May Your Resurrection, Jesus,
cause the spiritual man to grow in us (cf Eph 3:16)
and may the contemplation of Your mysteries
become the mirror in which we come to recognise you (1Cor 13:12).
Grant, Lord, that we may hasten to our true home,
and, like Moses on the mountain-top
seeing the promised Land, (Dt 34:1)
let us possess it even now through contemplation.” Saint Ephrem (306-373)
Father & Doctor of the Church
PRAYER – Lord God, strength of those who hope in You, by Your will, St John Chrysostom became renowned in the Church, for his astounding eloquence and his forbearance in persecution. Grant that we may be enriched by his teaching and thus grow in sanctity, to follow the commandments You set forth in Your Word, Your Son who is our Saviour and Redeemer. By the prayers of St John Chrysostom, may we attain the place You have prepared for us. We make our prayer through Jesus Christ with the Holy Spirit, one God, forever amen.
Saint of the Day – Saint Maurilius of Angers (c 336-426) Bishop of Angers between 423 and 453. Patronages – Angers, fishermen and gardeners.
Saint Maurilius, closely associated with the early history of the church of France, was born near Milan, of an illustrious Christian family, around the year 336. He was later drawn to Tours by the virtues of Saint Martin (died 397), who had built a monastery in Milan, where he had undertaken to form young men to virtue and sacred studies. Maurilius was among them but when the Arians drove Saint Martin, a stranger in Italy, from the city, he lost his beloved master. He remained for a time as cantor for Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan and Father and Doctor of the Church but after the death of his father renounced his patrimony and went to Tours to rejoin Saint Martin, there the Apostle of Gaul ordained him a priest.
He devoted himself to the salvation of souls, his zeal led him to a site near Angers where, by his prayers, he brought down fire from heaven on a pagan temple and afterwards built a church of at the same site. Alongside it, he had a monastery constructed and soon many souls came to dwell in the shadow of the cross, thus forming the city of Chalonne. When the Bishop of Angers died, Maurilius was chosen by Saint Martin to succeed him. On the day of his consecration, a dove entered the church and came to rest on his head.
A few years later, a strange episode occurred. During the consecration of a Mass celebrated by the Bishop, a dying child was brought in great haste to the church, to receive Confirmation. St Marilius, not thinking that the lad was in danger, continued Mass but during this time the child died. Maurilius was so grieved by this that he fled without advising anyone and embarked for England, where in great humility he took employment as the gardener of a nobleman.
His community and diocese at Angers were inconsolable and sought him out so diligently that they discovered his retreat. He refused, however, to return as Bishop, stating that he could not do so because during his voyage he had lost at sea the keys to the Cathedral and had vowed not to return until he found them. But see, said the messengers, what we have here, during our crossing a fish was cast up by a wave onto the deck of the ship and in its stomach we found these keys! Maurilius obeyed the Will of Heaven. When he returned, he asked to be taken to the tomb of the child and with tears streaming from his eyes asked God to restore him to life. The resurrected child was given the name of René for this reason, which in French means reborn and he eventually became the successor to Maurilius as Bishop of Angers.
The remainder of his life the Saint passed in his habitual austerity and in great zeal for the salvation of souls. When he had reached his ninetieth year, God revealed to him the hour of his departure. Preparing himself with the greatest solicitude, he ordered his grave to be dug and after a short illness, gave up his soul to his Creator. At his funeral, besides other miracles which took place, two persons who had been blind from birth received their sight and a man who had been paralysed thirty-one years, regained the use of his limbs, on kissing the coffin in which the relics of the Saint reposed. Well worth considering are the words which the holy man spoke shortly before his death to those around him: “Ponder well,” said he, “that your souls are bought at a great price: the precious blood of Jesus Christ.”
In the seventh century, devotion to St Maurilius grew. A biography of him was written by Magnobodus and, in 873, his body was transferred to the Cathedral of Angers, which had already been dedicated to St Maurice. Two hundred years later, St Maurilius was frequently mentioned together with St Maurice as the patron saints of the Cathedral. Nevertheless, on 16 August 1239, the remains of St Maurilius were placed in a new urn but they were scattered in 1791, when the Cathedral was vandalised during the French Revolution. Only a few small parts were recovered and they are now kept at the Cathedral.
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In Vouziers, in the Ardennes region of France, the Église Saint-Maurille (Church of St. Maurilius). was dedicated to him in the twelfth century.
In art, he is represented as a bishop with a fish holding a key or a garden spade. He can be seen in one of the stained glass windows of the south side of the choir of the Cathedral of Angers and also, in the tapestries of Angers from the 15th and 16th Centuries, see below.
Dedication of the Basilicas of Jerusalem: Commemoration of the dedications of the basilicas built on Mount Calvary and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.
—
St Aigulf
St Amatus
St Amatus of Sion
St Barsenorius
Bl Claude Dumonet
St Columbinus of Lure
St Emiliano of Valence
St Evantius of Autun
St Gordian of Pontus
Bl Hedwig of Hreford
St Julian of Ankyra
St Ligorius
St Litorius of Tours
St Macrobius
St Marcellinus of Carthage
Bl María López de Rivas Martínez St Maurilius of Angers (c 336 426)
St Nectarius of Autun
St Notburga (c 1265-1313)
St Philip of Rome
St Venerius of Tino
—
Martyrs of Ireland:
• Blessed Edward Stapleton
• Blessed Elizabeth Kearney
• Blessed James Saul
• Blessed Margaret of Cashel
• Blessed Richard Barry
• Blessed Richard Butler
• Blessed Theobald Stapleton
• Blessed Thomas Morrissey
• Blessed William Boyton
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War including the Martyrs of Pozo de Cantavieja – 11 beati:
• Blessed Bienvenido Villalón Acebrón
• Blessed Emilio Antequera Lupiáñez
• Blessed Florencio Arnáiz Cejudo
• Blessed Francisco Rodríguez Martínez
• Blessed Joaquín Gisbert Aguilera
• Blessed José Álvarez-Benavides de La Torre
• Blessed José Cano García
• Blessed José Román García González
• Blessed Juan Capel Segura
• Blessed Juan Ibáñez Martín
• Blessed Luis Eduardo López Gascón
• Blessed Manuel Alvarez y Alvarez
• Blessed Manuel Martínez Giménez
• Blessed Pío Navarro Moreno
• Blessed Ramiro Argüelles Hevia
• Blessed Sabino Ayastuy Errasti
• Blessed Teófilo Montes Calvo
Saint of the Day – 12 September – Saint Guy of Anderlecht (c 950–1012) Hermit and Pilgrim known as “the Poor Man of Anderlecht”(also called – Guido, Guidon, Wye of Laken) Patronages – Anderlecht, Belgium, epileptics, against epilepsy, rabies, rabid animals, animals with horns, bachelors, convulsive children, farmers, labourers, workers, protection of outbuildings, sheds and stables, sacristans, sextons, work horses.
Born in Anderlecht, Belgian, a small village outside of Brussels, Guy was raised and instructed by poor but pious parents. From an early age, he demonstrated great devotion to the Lord and to Our Blessed Mother Mary. He proclaimed, while still a child, his wish to count himself among the special flock of Christ—the poor—for his entire life and dedicated himself to a life of poverty and service to those who had nothing. Throughout his childhood, he gave away all he had and spent his days visiting the sick and elderly of the town. It is said that when he worked the fields of his parents, an angel came and pushed the plough so that he might better pray undisturbed. Guy came to be recognised as a saint by many!
As Guy matured, his devotion only increased. He spent hours in prayer each day, rarely sleeping but instead contemplating the Lord. He travelled frequently to the church of Our Lady at Laeken, outside Brussels and demonstrated such devotion to Mary that the priest approached him and asked him to stay and serve the Church. It was with tremendous joy that Saint Guy remained in the church as a Sacristan, constantly cleaning, sweeping, polishing the altars and attending to the most menial needs during the day—stopping only to befriend and serve those who were poor and came on foot to the church looking for assistance. Each night he spent in prayer, rarely sleeping but instead could be found kneeling at the foot of the cross, praying for the poor.
After many years of service, a savvy merchant from Brussels sought to take advantage of Guy and offered him a share of his business, convinced him that through making more money, he could help more people. Guy wished nothing more than to remain in the churc, but he saw the benefit in helping others and left his post. Almost immediately the business failed and Guy, realising his mistake, returned to the church only to find his position filled. Guy engaged in severe acts of penance for the remainder of his life, offering all he had to the Lord for his inconstancy. He travelled on pilgrimage—on foot—for seven years, visiting Rome and then the Holy Land, returning to Belgium and serving as a guide at the holy shrines.
Eventually, in his early 60s, Guy returned to Anderlecht and died soon thereafter. In death, a golden light shone around hi, and a heavenly voice was heard my many, proclaiming his eternal reward in heaven. He was buried in Anderlecht and many miracles were attributed to his intercession at his grave.
His grave is said to have become a place of pilgrimage for horses too, when a horse stopped at it. Cabdrivers of Brabant led an annual pilgrimage to Anderlecht until the beginning of World War I in 1914. They and their horses headed the procession followed by farmers, groom, and stable boys, all leading their animals to be blessed. The village fair that ended the religious procession was celebrated by various games, music and feasting, followed by a competition to ride the carthorses bareback. The winner entered the church on bareback to receive a hat made of roses from the parish pastor.
Most Holy Name of Mary (Optional Memorial): Feast of the entire Latin Church. It was first observed at Cuenca, Spain in 1513, then extended to the universal Church and assigned to its present place and rank by Pope Innocent XI in 1683 in thanksgiving to God and the Blessed Virgin for the liberation of Vienna, France and the signal victory over the Turks on 12 September 1683. It is the titular feast of the Society of Mary (Marianists) and of the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
St Ailbe
Bl Apolinar Franco
St Autonomous
St Curonotus
St Dominic Magoshichi
St Eanswida
St Francis of Saint Bonaventure
St Franciscus Ch’oe Kyong-Hwan St Guy of Anderlecht (c 950–1012)
St Juventius of Pavia
Bl Maria Luisa Angelica/Gertrude Prosperi (1799-1847)
St Mancius of Saint Thomas
St Paul of Saint Clare
Bl Pierre-Sulpice-Christophe Faverge
St Sacerdos of Lyon
St Silvinus of Verona
St Tomás de Zumárraga Lazcano
—
Martyrs of Alexandria – 6 saints: A group of Christians martyred in the persecutions of Diocletian. We know little more than their names – Hieronides, Leontius, Sarapion, Seleusius, Straton and Valerian. They were drowned c 300 at Alexandria, Egypt.
Martyrs of Phrygia – 3 saints: Three Christians who were martyred for destroying pagan idols. We know little more than their names – Macedonius, Tatian and Theodolus. They were burned to death in 362 in Phrygia (modern Turkey).
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
• Blessed Fortunato Arias Sánchez
• Blessed Francisco Maqueda López
• Blessed Jaume Puigferrer Mora
• Blessed Josep Plana Rebugent
• Blessed Julián Delgado Díez
Thought for the Day – 11 September – – Wednesday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 6:20–26 and The Memorial of St John Gabriel Perboyre (1802-1840) Martyr of the Congregation of the Mission
“Blessed are you when men hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for so their fathers did to the prophets. ... Luke 6:22-23
A sermon he heard at age 15 inspired St John Gabriel to become a missionary in China. There he met a brutal death on a cross for refusing to renounce his faith.
Born in France in 1802, Jean-Gabriel became a Vincentian priest. He displayed so many gifts and had such fine personal and spiritual qualities that, for a time, his religious order kept him busy closer to home.
He finally received permission to begin his missionary endeavours in 1835. After a 1,000-mile trip by boat and foot across three provinces, he arrived in central China. In one early letter, written to his community in Paris, he described himself as a curious sight – “my head shaved, a long pig-tail, stammering my new languages, eating with chopsticks.”
He soon joined the Vincentians in helping to rescue abandoned Chinese children and in educating them in the Catholic faith. He was arrested in 1839 under an edict that banned Christianity. He was tortured and interrogated for months. Almost one year later he was executed by strangling while hanging on a cross.
Saint Jean-Gabriel was Canonised by St Pope John Paul II in 1996. Chinese government officials denied permission for any public Mass commemorating the new saint.
So many saints seem to have lived centuries ago. Jean-Gabriel is far more recent and we can identify better with his life and circumstances. His life and death speak to us of living the faith in our own times and places, for these are times of great persecution and endurance for the Son of man!
Saint of the Day – 11 September – Blessed Bonaventure of Barcelona OFM (1620-1684) Franciscan Friar, Reformer, Papal Adviser, Founder of Retreat houses – born on 24 November 1620 on Carrer de la Butxaca (Pocket Street) in Riudoms, Tarragona, Catalonia (in modern Spain) as Miguel Baptista Gran Peris (the street where he was born has been re-named in his honour) and died on 11 September 1684 at the friary of Saint Bonaventure on the Palantine Hill in Rome, Italy of natural causes. Patronage – Riudoms, Spain.
He was born in Riudoms, Catalonia, on 24 November 1620 in a modest house in the street known as a Pocket Street and now has his name. After marrying at the age of 18 as his father wished, he was widowed in a few months. He entered the Franciscan convent of Sant Miquel d’Escornalbou and made religious profession on 14 July 1641, changing his name to Bonaventura. In the following years, he was sent to Mora d’Ebre , Figueres, la Bisbal d’Empordà and Terrassa, where another street has been named for him.
The Birth Home of Blessed Bonaventure
In 1658 he was sent to Rome where he founded Santo Retiro are four monasteries in the province of Rome, including San Bonaventura al Palatino. He was an adviser to four popes – Alexander VII, Clement IX, Clement X and Innocent XI. In Rome in 1662 he founded the Riformella, a reform movement within the Reformed Order of Friars Minor of the Strict Observance, so the monks and Franciscan priests who dedicated themselves to the apostolate could gather in meditation and spiritual retreat, living the founding spirit of the Franciscan order.
In 1679, he sent from Rome the relics of Saint Boniface, Saint Julian and Saint Vincent. Since then, the second Sunday of May is celebrated in Riudoms as the Feast of the Holy Relics.
In 1775 he was declared venerable and in 1906 he was beatified by the Pope Pius X, after the verification of two miraculous healings. The first one in 1790 when a woman was in a serious condition after falling from the horse and was inexplicably cured after have invoked him. The other, in 1818 in which another woman remained unconscious for three days after childbirth and cured instantaneously after applying a relic of Bonaventura.
In Riudoms, his remains are preserved since 1972, when they were moved from Rome. They are currently in the tabernacle chapel in the church of Saint James the Apostle. In Riudoms, there is a great devotion to Blessed Bonaventura and a feast in his honour is celebrated every 24 November the day he honoured Riudoms by his birth, where his remains are taken in procession through the village.
Our Lady of Coromoto/Venezuela: Apparition – 8 September 1652 at Guanare, Portuguesa, Venezuela.
Approval – 1950 by Pope Pius XII
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St Adelphus of Remiremont
St Almirus
Bl Baldassarre Velasquez Bl Bonaventure of Barcelona OFM (1620-1684)
Bl Charles Spinola
St Deiniol of Bangor
St Didymus of Laodicea
St Diodorus of Laodicea
Bl Dominic Dillon
St Emilian of Vercelli
St Essuperanzio of Zurich
St Felix of Zurich
Bl Francesco Giovanni Bonifacio
Bl Franciscus Takeya
Bl François Mayaudon
Bl Gaspar Koteda
St Gusmeo of Gravedona sul Lario
St Hyacinth of Rome St John Gabriel Perboyre/Jean Gabriel Perboyre Martyr Biography:
Bl John Bathe
St Leudinus of Toul
St Matthew of Gravedona sul Lario
St Paphnutius of Thebes
St Patiens of Lyon
Bl Peter Taaffe
Bl Petrus Kawano
St Protus of Rome
St Regula of Zurich
Bl Richard Overton
St Sperandea
St Theodora the Penitent
Bl Thomas Bathe
—
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
• Blessed José María Segura Panadés
• Blessed José Piquer Arnáu
• Blessed Josep Pla Arasa
• Blessed Lorenzo Villanueva Larrayoz
Thought for the Day – 10 September – The Memorial of St Ambrose Edward Barlow OSB (1585-1641) Martyr
Ambrose ministered to the Catholic population in an area between Manchester and Liverpool.
We are fortunate in that the primary sources give us substantial detail about the manner in which Ambrose carried out his work. Richard Challoner (who wrote Memoirs of Missionary Priests) wrote:- “such was the fervour of his zeal, that he thought the day lost in which he had not done some notable thing for the salvation of souls…. Night and day he employed in seeking after the lost sheep and correcting sinners…. He found so much pleasure in this inward conversation with God… as much as worldlings would be when going to a feast. He was always afraid of honours and preferments and had a horror of vainglory, which he used to call the worm or moth of virtues and which he never failed to correct in, others. He industriously avoided feasts and assemblies and all meetings for merrymaking, as liable to dangers of excess, idle talk and detraction…..He chose to live in a private country house, where the poor, to whom he had chiefly devoted his labours, might have, at all times, free access to him. He would never have a servant, till forced to it by sickness, never used a horse but made his pastoral visits on foot….He allowed himself no manner of play or pastime and avoided all superfluous talk and conversation, more especially, with those of the fair sex. His diet was chiefly whitmeats and garden stuff…. He drank only small beer and that very sparingly and always abstained from wine. He was never idle but was always either praying, studying, preaching, administering the sacraments or painting pictures of Christ or His blessed mother….He feared no dangers, when God’s honour and the salvation of souls called him forth…passed, even at noonday through the midst of his enemies, without apprehension….Yet he was very severe in rebuking sin, so that obstinate and impertinent sinners were afraid of coming near him.”
On the eve of principal festivals, Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide, Catholics would gather from a wide area. The night was spent in prayer and hearing confessions. On the following day, all were fed, the richer members and Ambrose serving the rest and then they had their meal from the leavings. “Their cheare was boil’d beefe and pottage, minched pies, goose and groates and to every man a gray coate at parting.”
About six months before his arrest in 1641, Ambrose suffered a stroke which affected the use of one side of his body. A Jesuit priest was sent to help him and may have provided some assistance to him while he was in prison.
Ambrose laboured in south Lancashire between 1617 and 1641. It appears that he was arrested and imprisoned on at least four occasions. He ministered to St Edmund Arrowsmith SJ (1585 – 1628) Martyr, in 1628 while the latter was awaiting trial and subsequent execution in Lancaster Prison. He was said to be as well known in the area in which he served. Probably local support enabled him to continue in his role for so long. He had a premonition of what his fate would be since it is reported that St Edmund Arrowsmith appeared to him in a dream and said that he too would become a martyr.
One Minute Reflection – 10 September – Tuesday of the Twenty third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 6:12-19 and the Memorial of St Ambrose Barlow (1585-1641) Martyr
“Jesus departed to the mountain to pray and he spent the night in prayer to God” … Luke 6:12
REFLECTION – “Contemplatives and ascetics of every age and every religion have always sought God in the silence and solitude of deserts, forests and mountains. Jesus Himself lived for forty days in complete solitude, spending long hours in intimate converse with the Father in the silence of the night.
We, too, are called to withdraw into a deeper silence from time to time, alone with God. Being alone with Him – not with our books, our thoughts, our memories but in complete nakedness, remaining in His presence – silent, empty, motionless, waiting.
We cannot find God in noise and restlessness. Look at nature, the trees, flowers, grasses all grow in silence; the stars, the moon, the sun all move in silence. The important thing is, not what we are able say but what God says to us and what He speaks to others through us. In silence, He listens to us, in silence He speaks to our souls, in silence we are granted the privilege of hearing His voice –
Silence of the eyes,
Silence of the ears,
Silence of our mouths,
Silence of our minds.
In the silence of the heart
God will speak.
… Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997) – No Greater Love
PRAYER – Our Father who art in heaven, almighty and eternal God, teach us to pause often during our active lives and recollect ourselves. Let us put away the problems of life and commune with You in prayer and meditation. St Ambrose Barlow, amidst your life of constant threat and charity to all, you renewed your courage and strength in silence. Pray for us that we may be inspired to turn to our God for strength, in this vale of tears. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, with the Holy Spirit,God forever, amen.
Saint of the Day – 10 September – Saint Ambrose Edward Barlow OSB (1585-1641) – Benedictine Priest, Monk and Martyr. Born in 1585 in Barlow Hall, England and died by being hanged, drawn, quartered and his body parts boiled in oil, on Friday 10 September 1641 at Lancaster, Lancashire, England. St Ambrose was 56 years old. Also known as Ambrose Brereton, Ambrose Radcliffe, Edward Ambrose Barlow. Additional Memorials – 25 October as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales and 29 October as one of the Martyrs of Douai.
Ambrose was born at Barlow Hall, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, near Manchester in 1585. He was the fourth son of the nobleman Sir Alexander Barlow and his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Urian Brereton of Handforth Hall. The Barlow family had been reluctant converts to the Church of England following the suppression of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Ambrose’s grandfather died in 1584 whilst imprisoned for his beliefs and Sir Alexander Barlow had two thirds of his estate confiscated as a result of his refusing to conform with the rules of the new established religion. On 30 November 1585, Ambrose was baptised at Didsbury Chapel and his baptism entry reads “Edwarde legal sonne of Alex’ Barlowe gent’ 30.” Ambrose went on to adhere to the Anglican faith until 1607, when he converted to Roman Catholicism.
Barlow Hall
In 1597, Ambrose was taken into the stewardship of Sir Uryan Legh, a relative who would care for him whilst he served out his apprenticeship as a page. However, upon completing this service, Barlow realised that his true vocation was for the priesthood, so like the sons of many of the Lancashire Catholic gentry, Edward decided to travel to Douai where, since 1569, an English College created by William Allen had operated. This missionary college or seminary, working with neighbouring monasteries, was intended to provide university-style education to young men prior to them being sent to England to maintain and promote the Catholic faith. So he travelled to Douai in France to study before attending the Royal College of Saint Alban in Valladolid, Spain. In 1615, he returned to Douai where he became a member of the Order of Saint Benedict, joining the community of St Gregory the Great (now Downside Abbey) and was ordained as a priest in 1617.
The decision by Ambrose to take religious orders is summarised by Richard Challoner author of Memoirs of Missionary Priests: “As he grew up and considered the emptiness and vanity of the transitory toys of this life and the greatness of things eternal, he took a resolution to withdraw himself from the world and to go abroad, in order to procure those helps of virtue and learning, which might qualify him for the priesthood and enable him to be of some assistance to his native country.”
Well aware of the activities of English spies on the Continent looking for persons likely to return to England as priests, Edward operated under his mother’s maiden name, Brereton. Merely entering the country as a Catholic priest was treasonable and hazardous. Ports were dangerous and officials had descriptions from spies of those attempting to return to these shores. In Elizabeth I’s “Proclamation against Jesuits”, 1591 it was said:-
“And furthermore, because it is known and proved by common experience…that they do come into the same (realm) by secret creeks and landing places, disguised both in names and persons, some in apparel as soldiers, mariners or merchants, pretending that they have heretofore been taken prisoners and put into galleys and delivered. Some come as gentlemen with contrary names in comely apparel as though they had travelled to foreign countries for knowledge and generally all, for the most part, are clothed like gentlemen in apparel and many as gallants, yea in all colours and with feathers and such like, disguising themselves and many of them in their behaviour as ruffians, far off to be thought or suspected to be friars, priests, Jesuits or popish scholars.”
After his ordination into the priesthood, Ambrose returned to Barlow Hall, before taking up residence at the home of Sir Thomas Tyldesley, Morleys Hall, Astley. Sir Thomas’ grandmother had arranged for a pension to be made available to the priest which would enable him to carry out his priestly duties amongst the poor Catholics within his parish. From there he secretly catered for the needs of Catholic ‘parishioners’, offering daily Mass and reciting his Office and Rosary for the next twenty-four years. To avoid detection by the Protestant authorities, he devised a four-week routine in which he travelled throughout the parish for four weeks and then remained within the Hall for five weeks. He would often visit his cousins, the Downes, at their residence of Wardley Hall and conduct Mass for the gathered congregation.
Ambrose was arrested four times during his travels and released without charge. King Charles I signed a proclamation on 7 March 1641, which decreed that all priests should leave the country within one calendar month or face being arrested and treated as traitors, resulting in imprisonment or death. Ambrose’s parishioners implored him to flee or at least go into hiding but he refused. Their fears were compounded by a recent stroke which had resulted in the 56-year-old priest being partially paralysed. “Let them fear that have anything to lose which they are unwilling to part with”, he told them.
On 25 April 1641, Easter Day, Ambrose and his congregation of around 100 people were surrounded at Morleys Hall, Astley by the Vicar of Leigh and his armed congregation of some 400. Father Ambrose surrendered and his parishioners were released after their names had been recorded. The priest was restrained, then taken on a horse with a man behind him to prevent his fallin, and escorted by a band of sixty people to the Justice of the Peace at Winwick, before being transported to Lancaster Castle.
Father Ambrose appeared before the presiding judge, Sir Robert Heath, on 7 September when he professed his adherence to the Catholic faith and defended his actions. On 8 September, the feast of the Nativity of Mary, Sir Robert Heath found Ambrose guilty and sentenced him to be executed. Two days later, he was taken from Lancaster Castle, drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, hanged, dismembered, quartered and boiled in oil. His head was afterwards exposed on a pike. His cousin, Francis Downes, Lord of Wardley Hall, a devout Catholic rescued his skull and preserved it at Wardley where it remains to this day.
When the news of his death and martyrdom reached his Benedictine brothers at Douai Abbey, a Mass of Thanksgiving and the Te Deum were ordered to be sung.
On 15 December 1929, Pope Pius XI proclaimed Father Ambrose as Blessed at his Beatification ceremony at St Peter’s Basilica. In recognition of the large number of British Catholic martyrs who were executed during the Reformation, most during the reign of Elizabeth I, Pope Paul VI decreed that on 25 October 1970 he was Canonising a number of people who were to be known as the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales of whom Ambrose was one.
Barlow’s biography from two manuscripts belonging to St Gregory’s Monastery, one of which was written by his brother Dom Rudesind Barlow, President of the English Benedictine Congregation. A third manuscript, titled “The Apostolical Life of Ambrose Barlow”, was written by one of his pupils for Dom Rudesind and is in the John Rylands Library, Manchester; it has been printed by the Chetham Society.
Several relics of Ambrose are also preserved, his jaw bone is held at the Church of St Ambrose of Milan, Barlow Moor, Manchester, one of his hands is preserved at Stanbrook Abbey now at Wass, North Yorkshire and another hand is at Mount Angel Abbey in St Benedict, Oregon. His skull is preserved on the stairwell at Wardley Hall in Worsley, at one time, the home of the Downes family and now the home of the Catholic Bishop of Salford.
Beata Vergine Maria della Vita/Our Lady of Life:
Celebration of the Blessed Virgin Mary as patroness of the Our Lady of Life Hospital in Bologna, Italy, and as depicted in a painting in a sanctuary dedicated to her c 1375 in the hospital.
Patronage – hospitals in the diocese of Bologna, Italy.
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St Agapius of Novara
St Alexius Sanbashi Saburo St Ambrose Edward Barlow OSB (1585-1641) Martyr
Bl Ogerius
St Peter Martinez
St Pulcheria
St Salvius of Albi
St Sosthenes of Chalcedon
St Theodard of Maastricht
St Victor of Chalcedon
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Martyrs of Bithynia – 3 sister saints: Three young Christian sisters martyred in the persecutions of emperor Maximian and governor Fronto: Menodora, Metrodora, Nymphodora. They were martyred in 306 in Bithynia, Asia Minor (in modern Turkey).
Martyrs of Japan – 205 beati: A unified feast to memorialise 205 missionaries and native Japanese known to have been murdered for their faith between 1617 and 1637.
Martyrs of Sigum – 8 saints: A group of Nicomedian martyrs, condemned for their faith to be worked to death in the marble quarries of Sigum. There were priests, bishops and laity in the group but only a few names have come down to us: Dativus, Felix, Jader, Litteus, Lucius, Nemesian, Polyanus, Victor. They were worked to death c 257 in Sigum.
Martyred in the Spanish Civil War:
• Blessed Félix España Ortiz
• Blessed Leoncio Arce Urrutia
• Blessed Tomàs Cubells Miguel
One Minute Reflection – 9 September – Monday of the Twenty-third week in Ordinary Time, Year C, Gospel: Luke 6:6-11 and the Memorial of St Peter Claver SJ (1581-1654) “slave of the slaves” and Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813–1853) “Servant to the Poor”
“On another sabbath, he went into the synagogue and taught and there was a man there whose right hand was withered.” … Luke 6:6
REFLECTION – “Are you angry at me because I have healed the whole man on the sabbath day?” In this place he revivified, with the salutary strength of good works, the hand which Adam stretched out to pluck the fruit of the forbidden tree. The hand which had withered through a crime, was healed by good deeds. Christ thereby rebuked the Jews who violated the precepts of the law with evil interpretations. They thought that they should rest even from good works on the sabbath, since the law prefigured in the present, the form of the future, in which indeed the days of rest from evils, not from blessings, would come.
Then you heard the words of the Lord, saying, “Stretch forth your hand.” That is the common and universal remedy. You, who think that you have a healthy hand, beware lest it is withered by greed or by sacrilege. Hold it out often. Hold it out to the poor person who begs you. Hold it out to help your neighbour, to give protection to a widow, to snatch from harm one whom you see subjected to unjust insult. Hold it out to God for your sins. The hand is stretched forth, then it is healed. Jeroboam’s hand withered when he sacrificed to idols, then it stretched out when he entreated God” … St Ambrose(340-397)- One of the 4 original Doctors of the Latin Church – Exposition on the Gospel of Luke, 5
PRAYER – God of mercy and love, You offer all peoples the dignity of sharing in your life. Rule over our hearts and bodies this day. Sanctify us and guide our every thought, word and deed, my our hands be held out to our neighbour in imitation of Your love and mercy. By the example and prayers of St Peter Claver and Bl Frederic Ozanam, strengthen us to overcome all racial hatreds and to love each other as brothers and sisters. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever amen.
Thought for the Day – 9 September – The Memorial of Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813–1853) “Servant to the Poor” and Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society
A man convinced of the inestimable worth of each human being, Frédéric served the poor of Paris well and drew others into serving the poor of the world. Through the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, which he founded, his work continues to the present day.
Once, after Frédéric spoke about Christianity’s role in civilisation, a club member said: “Let us be frank, Mr Ozanam, let us also be very particular. What do you do besides talk to prove the faith you claim is in you?”
Frédéric was stung by the question. He soon decided that his words needed a grounding in action. He and a friend began visiting Paris tenements and offering assistance as best they could. Soon a group dedicated to helping individuals in need under the patronage of Saint Vincent de Paul formed around Frédéric.
Feeling that the Catholic faith needed an excellent speaker to explain its teachings, Frédéric convinced the Archbishop of Paris to appoint Dominican Father Jean-Baptiste Lacordaire OP (1802-1861), the greatest preacher then in France, to preach a Lenten series in Notre Dame Cathedral. It was well-attended and became an annual tradition in Paris. Meanwhile, the Saint Vincent de Paul Society was growing throughout Europe. Paris alone counted 25 conferences.
In 1846, Frédéric, Amelie, and their daughter Marie went to Italy, there he hoped to restore his poor health. They returned the next year. The revolution of 1848 left many Parisians in need of the services of the Saint Vincent de Paul conferences. The unemployed numbered 275,000. The government asked Frédéric and his coworkers to supervise the government aid to the poor. Vincentians throughout Europe came to the aid of Paris.
In 1852, poor health again forced Frédéric to return to Italy with his wife and daughter. He died on 8 September 1853. In his sermon at Frédéric’s funeral, Fr Lacordaire described his friend as “one of those privileged creatures who came direct from the hand of God in whom God joins tenderness to genius, in order to enkindle the world.”
Frédéric was beatified in 1997. Since Frédéric wrote an excellent book entitled Franciscan Poets of the Thirteenth Century, and since his sense of the dignity of each poor person was so close to the thinking of Saint Francis, it seemed appropriate to include him among Franciscan “greats.”
His commitment to the plight of those in need and social justice for all, inspires us to look around our communities today—outside our safety zones—and activate the Christian virtues of charity that we are all called to by the life of Jesus. He said:
“Yours must be a work of love, of kindness, you must give your time, your talents, yourselves. The poor person is a unique person of God’s fashioning with an inalienable right to respect. You must not be content with tiding the poor over the poverty crisis, You must study their condition and the injustices which brought about such poverty, with the aim of a long term improvement.”
Prayer for the Canonisation of Blessed Frédéric Ozanam
Lord, you made Blessed Frédéric Ozanam a witness of the Gospel, full of wonder at the mystery of the Church. You inspired him to alleviate poverty and injustice and endowed him with untiring generosity in the service of all those suffering. In family life, he revealed a most genuine love as a son, brother, husband and father. In secular life, his ardent passion for the truth enlightened his thought, writing and teaching. His vision for our society was a network of charity encircling the world inspired by St Vincent de Paul’s love, boldness and humility. His prophetic social vision appears in every aspect of his life, together with the radiance of his virtues. We thank you Lord, for these many gifts. May the Church proclaim his holiness, as a saint, a providential light for today’s world! We ask this prayer through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen
Quote/s of the Day – 9 September – The Memorial of Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813–1853) “Servant to the Poor” and Founder of the St Vincent de Paul Society
“The best way to economise time, is to ‘lose’ half-an-hour each day, attending Holy Mass.”
“It is our vocation to set people’s hearts ablaze, to do what the Son of God did, who came to light a fire on earth in order to set it ablaze with His love.”
“I am now completely convinced, that when one does a deed of charity, one need not worry about where the money will come from, it will always come!”
“I would like to embrace the whole world in a network of charity.”
“Society today seems to me to be not unlike the wayfarer described in the parable of the Good Samaritan. For while journeying along the road mapped out for it by Christ, it has been set upon by thieves of evil human thought. Bad men have despoiled the wayfarer of all his goods, of the treasures of faith and love… . The priests and the Levites have passed him by. But this time, being real priests and true Levites, they have approached the suffering, wretched creature and attempted to cure him. But in his delirium he has not recognised them and has driven them away. Then we weak Samaritans, outsiders as we are, have dared to approach this great sick patient. Perhaps he will be less affrighted by us? Let us try to measure the extent of his wounds, in order to pour oil into them. Let us make words of peace and consolation ringing in his ears. Then, when his eyes are opened, we will hand him over to the tender care of those, whom God has chosen, to be the guardians and doctors of souls.”
“In my life I want to become better and do a little good”
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813–1853) “Servant to the Poor”
St Agathoclia
It was with tremendous joy that Saint Guy remained in the church as a Sacristan, constantly cleaning, sweeping, polishing the altars and attending to the most menial needs during the day—stopping only to befriend and serve those who were poor and came on foot to the church looking for assistance. Each night he spent in prayer, rarely sleeping but instead could be found kneeling at the foot of the cross, praying for the poor.
This missionary college or seminary, working with neighbouring monasteries, was intended to provide university-style education to young men prior to them being sent to England to maintain and promote the Catholic faith. So he travelled to Douai in France to study before attending the Royal College of Saint Alban in Valladolid, Spain. In 1615, he returned to Douai where he became a member of the Order of Saint Benedict, joining the community of St Gregory the Great (now Downside Abbey) and was ordained as a priest in 1617.
AnaStpaul 
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