October 24: St Raphael

St Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church: October 15

Today is the feast day of St Teresa of Avila, founder of the Discalced Carmelites.

Teresian monastic theology always seems to me to be, in many respects diametrically opposed to Benedictine: the choral Office plays a much smaller role in Carmelite life; the love of learning is not a noticeable feature of the spirituality, displaced by a more structured approach to meditation; Carmelites are hermits in community rather than cenobites per se; the Teresian attitude to debate and obedience within the monastery is much more absolutist than the Benedictine; and the approach to enclosure much stricter. 

Others, though, do find ways to combine the two spiritualities, and her doctrine of mystical prayer has been extraordinarily influential, and her Life and major works such as The Interior Castle should be on everyone's essential spiritual reading list.

How do you choose which form of the Divine Office/Liturgy of the Hours to say? Part I - Introduction

c15th book of hours

Many people become interested at one point or another, in saying some or all of the Divine Office (aka Liturgy of the Hours). 

And rightly so, since it is an important part of the patrimony of our faith, a continuous tradition of prayer that reaches back to the earliest years of Christianity, and provides access to the great prayerbook of the Church, the psalms.

But which one?

When you start looking for books or websites to aid you though, there are a bewildering array of options to choose from. And as learning the Office actually involves quite a lot of effort (and potentially cost in buying books) you don't want to make too many wrong choices!

So how do you decide which one you should be saying?

I want to start a little series here that aims to help you through the process of choosing an appropriate form of the Office for you and thus hopefully minimising the time and cost involved.

And I should start by thanking members of the Trad Ben yahoo group who provided some comments a while back on this subject that I intend to draw on heavily.

But first a few basics....

What is the Divine Office?

The Divine Office, or Liturgy of the Hours as it is known in the Ordinary Form, is, just like the Mass, part of the Church's public prayer, its liturgy.  There are a number of different versions of the Office - the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours and the 1962 Roman Breviary being the main ones.  But there are also many (mainly traditional) versions of the Office associated with individual religious Orders, such as the Benedictine and Dominican, as well as popular forms of it using a much smaller number of psalms (such as the Office of the Dead and the Little Office of Our Lady).

Like the Mass, each officially approved form of the Office has approved texts and associated requirements for it to be said validly (ie as liturgical prayer, the public worship of God) and licitly (according to law).

Like the Mass it is intended to be said (or rather sung in the case of the Office) in a church accompanied by appropriate ritual as befitting the highest form of prayer offered by the Church.

Where it differs from the Mass, however, is that although it is preferable that it be said by a group of people in a Church, led by a cleric (or group of religious in the case of the Office), it can also validly be said (in accordance with a permission granted following Vatican II) by groups of laypeople, or even by individuals alone. 

Indeed, these days, most priests and religious (who are required to say the Office everyday) are far more likely to say it by themselves than 'in choir' or 'in common'. 

And the flexibility this implies makes it a very attractive option for people who want to increase their prayer commitment in a way that links closely to the Mass, and join themselves to the public prayer of the Church.

The Office as a devotion

It is worth noting though, that though the Divine Office is part of the liturgical prayer of the Church, it can also be said devotionally, giving it the same (lesser) status as the rosary and other acts of piety.  And there are a number of 'Offices' which were always intended solely to be said as devotions rather than as part of the official prayer of the Church.

In part this is because of history: prior to the Council of Trent there were few restrictions on the laity saying the Divine Office.  Most priests in parish churches, as well as monasteries, sang the hours publicly everyday.  But many people said them privately as well, the reason why 'Books of Hours' were amongst the most popular books of the Middle Ages.

The need to counter widespread heresy, however, led to the introduction of much tighter controls over liturgical texts, as well as the decision to restrict the 'delegation' to say the Office (the Church can decide who can say its public prayers on behalf of us all) to clerics and religious (monks and nuns).  Laypeople could still say the Office - but only as a devotion.

The result was, particularly in association with the liturgical movement in the early twentieth century, the development of a large number of devotional 'short offices', intended solely for the laity.  An example is the relatively recent Benedictine Daily Prayer A Short Breviary, but there are many others around.

That all changed with Vatican II, with Sacrosanctum Concilium urging a recovery of the Church's longer tradition of the Office as a liturgical prayer involving the laity as well as priests and religious.  The Council (and subsequent law) removed the restriction of the formal delegation to say the Office to clerics and religious, allowing laypeople also to say it liturgically. 

Unfortunately, in my view at least, as with so much else of the positives that can be found in the texts of Vatican II, its laudable  objective of reopening the Office to the laity was largely sabotaged by the botched job of reform represented by the 1970 Liturgy of the Hours.

Yet despite the problems associated with the Liturgy of the Hours, there has been something of a revival of interest in the Office on the part of the laity, not least (perhaps somewhat ironically depending on your attitude to the pastoral decision made at Trent and in its wake) amongst the more traditionally inclined.  As a result, an increasing number of new editions or reprints of various traditional forms of the Office are becoming increasingly available.

A disclaimer

This website is of course dedicated to the traditional form of the Benedictine Office said according to the 1962 rubrics, which is my favourite form of the Divine Office.  So my comments will of course to some extent be biased towards this option!

But I, like most people, only arrived at this preference by a process of experimentation, and I am perfectly well aware that my preference is shaped by a number of particular factors - the amount of time I have to devote to the Office, my preference for the Latin, and my attraction to Benedictine spirituality in particular.  Accordingly, in the course of this series I will try to make it clear why some other options may suit others better.  Just keep in mind my possible biases on this subject...

More soon.

October 3: St Thérèse of Lisieux, Memorial

St Teresa of the Child Jesus, better known today as Therese of Lisieux or the Little Flower was born at Alençon, France, on 2 January, 1873 and died at Lisieux 30 September, 1897.

The ninth child of the family, she was fifteen when she first applied for permission to enter the Carmelite Convent. When initially refused on the ground of age, she went to Rome to seek the consent of Pope Leo XIII. She died of tuberculosis at the age of 24, and the release of her autobiography led to the rapid spread of her cult. She was declared a doctor of the Church in 1997.

Change of hymn....

Just a reminder that from this Sunday, the Office hymns for Matins and Lauds on Sunday change to Primo Dierum and Aeterne Rerum Conditor respectively.

And don't forget that you can listen to Lauds (as well as Vespers and occasionally Compline) sung by the monks of Norcia by downloading and playing or saving the recordings from their website (if time zone considerations mean it is going to appear too late on the site, save the week before's ready for use, and it will be fine except for the canticle antiphons on Sunday and the collect, provided no feasts intervene!).  Note that they also provide a weekly Ordo with page references to the Graduale (for Mass) and Antiphonale Monasticum...

In the meantime, here is the Carthusian chant version of Aeterne Rerum for your enjoyment.

September 30: St Jerome

Cavarozzi, C17th

The first of two General Audience's on the saint given by Pope Benedict XVI in 2007:

"Today, we turn our attention to St Jerome, a Church Father who centred his life on the Bible: he translated it into Latin, commented on it in his works, and above all, strove to live it in practice throughout his long earthly life, despite the well-known difficult, hot-tempered character with which nature had endowed him.

Jerome was born into a Christian family in about 347 A.D. in Stridon. He was given a good education and was even sent to Rome to fine-tune his studies. As a young man he was attracted by the worldly life (cf. Ep 22, 7), but his desire for and interest in the Christian religion prevailed.

He received Baptism in about 366 and opted for the ascetic life. He went to Aquileia and joined a group of fervent Christians that had formed around Bishop Valerian and which he described as almost "a choir of blesseds" (Chron. ad ann. 374). He then left for the East and lived as a hermit in the Desert of Chalcis, south of Aleppo (Ep 14, 10), devoting himself assiduously to study. He perfected his knowledge of Greek, began learning Hebrew (cf. Ep 125, 12), and transcribed codices and Patristic writings (cf. Ep 5, 2). Meditation, solitude and contact with the Word of God helped his Christian sensibility to mature. He bitterly regretted the indiscretions of his youth (cf. Ep. 22, 7) and was keenly aware of the contrast between the pagan mentality and the Christian life: a contrast made famous by the dramatic and lively "vision" - of which he has left us an account - in which it seemed to him that he was being scourged before God because he was "Ciceronian rather than Christian" (cf. Ep. 22, 30).

In 382 he moved to Rome: here, acquainted with his fame as an ascetic and his ability as a scholar, Pope Damasus engaged him as secretary and counsellor; the Pope encouraged him, for pastoral and cultural reasons, to embark on a new Latin translation of the Biblical texts. Several members of the Roman aristocracy, especially noblewomen such as Paula, Marcella, Asella, Lea and others, desirous of committing themselves to the way of Christian perfection and of deepening their knowledge of the Word of God, chose him as their spiritual guide and teacher in the methodical approach to the sacred texts. These noblewomen also learned Greek and Hebrew.

After the death of Pope Damasus, Jerome left Rome in 385 and went on pilgrimage, first to the Holy Land, a silent witness of Christ's earthly life, and then to Egypt, the favourite country of numerous monks (cf. Contra Rufinum, 3, 22; Ep. 108, 6-14). In 386 he stopped in Bethlehem, where male and female monasteries were built through the generosity of the noblewoman, Paula, as well as a hospice for pilgrims bound for the Holy Land, "remembering Mary and Joseph who had found no room there" (Ep. 108, 14). He stayed in Bethlehem until he died, continuing to do a prodigious amount of work: he commented on the Word of God; he defended the faith, vigorously opposing various heresies; he urged the monks on to perfection; he taught classical and Christian culture to young students; he welcomed with a pastor's heart pilgrims who were visiting the Holy Land. He died in his cell close to the Grotto of the Nativity on 30 September 419-420.

Jerome's literary studies and vast erudition enabled him to revise and translate many biblical texts: an invaluable undertaking for the Latin Church and for Western culture. On the basis of the original Greek and Hebrew texts, and thanks to the comparison with previous versions, he revised the four Gospels in Latin, then the Psalter and a large part of the Old Testament. Taking into account the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Septuagint, the classical Greek version of the Old Testament that dates back to pre-Christian times, as well as the earlier Latin versions, Jerome was able, with the assistance later of other collaborators, to produce a better translation: this constitutes the so-called "Vulgate", the "official" text of the Latin Church which was recognized as such by the Council of Trent and which, after the recent revision, continues to be the "official" Latin text of the Church. It is interesting to point out the criteria which the great biblicist abided by in his work as a translator. He himself reveals them when he says that he respects even the order of the words of the Sacred Scriptures, for in them, he says, "the order of the words is also a mystery" (Ep. 57, 5), that is, a revelation. Furthermore, he reaffirms the need to refer to the original texts: "Should an argument on the New Testament arise between Latins because of interpretations of the manuscripts that fail to agree, let us turn to the original, that is, to the Greek text in which the New Testament was written. "Likewise, with regard to the Old Testament, if there are divergences between the Greek and Latin texts we should have recourse to the original Hebrew text; thus, we shall be able to find in the streams all that flows from the source" (Ep. 106, 2). Jerome also commented on many biblical texts. For him the commentaries had to offer multiple opinions "so that the shrewd reader, after reading the different explanations and hearing many opinions - to be accepted or rejected - may judge which is the most reliable, and, like an expert moneychanger, may reject the false coin" (Contra Rufinum 1, 16).

Jerome refuted with energy and liveliness the heretics who contested the tradition and faith of the Church. He also demonstrated the importance and validity of Christian literature, which had by then become a real culture that deserved to be compared with classical literature: he did so by composing his De Viris Illustribus, a work in which Jerome presents the biographies of more than a hundred Christian authors. Further, he wrote biographies of monks, comparing among other things their spiritual itineraries as well as monastic ideal. In addition, he translated various works by Greek authors. Lastly, in the important Epistulae, a masterpiece of Latin literature, Jerome emerges with the profile of a man of culture, an ascetic and a guide of souls.

What can we learn from St Jerome? It seems to me, this above all; to love the Word of God in Sacred Scripture. St Jerome said: "Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ". It is therefore important that every Christian live in contact and in personal dialogue with the Word of God given to us in Sacred Scripture. This dialogue with Scripture must always have two dimensions: on the one hand, it must be a truly personal dialogue because God speaks with each one of us through Sacred Scripture and it has a message for each one. We must not read Sacred Scripture as a word of the past but as the Word of God that is also addressed to us, and we must try to understand what it is that the Lord wants to tell us. However, to avoid falling into individualism, we must bear in mind that the Word of God has been given to us precisely in order to build communion and to join forces in the truth on our journey towards God. Thus, although it is always a personal Word, it is also a Word that builds community, that builds the Church. We must therefore read it in communion with the living Church. The privileged place for reading and listening to the Word of God is the liturgy, in which, celebrating the Word and making Christ's Body present in the Sacrament, we actualize the Word in our lives and make it present among us. We must never forget that the Word of God transcends time. Human opinions come and go. What is very modern today will be very antiquated tomorrow. On the other hand, the Word of God is the Word of eternal life, it bears within it eternity and is valid for ever. By carrying the Word of God within us, we therefore carry within us eternity, eternal life.

I thus conclude with a word St Jerome once addressed to St Paulinus of Nola. In it the great exegete expressed this very reality, that is, in the Word of God we receive eternity, eternal life. St Jerome said: "Seek to learn on earth those truths which will remain ever valid in Heaven" (Ep. 53, 10). "

September 24-25: Fourth Sunday in September/Fifteenth after Pentecost

Judith with the head of Holophernes,
Cristofano Allori (1577–1621)

Matins moves this Sunday to the Book of Judith, hence the salutation in the Magnificat antiphon for I Vespers:

Adonai Domine, Deus magne et mirabilis, qui dedisti salutem in many feminae, exaudi preces servorum tuorum.

O Adonai, Lord God, great and wonderful, Who didst give salvation by the hand of a woman, hear the prayers of Thy servants.

Mattias Gerung, 1500-1570

Sunday's Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons refer to the Gospel, St Luke 7:11-16, the raising of the son of the widow of Naim.

September 16: SS Cornelius, Pope and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs, memorial

Pope St Cornelius was elected in 251, two years after the death of Pope St Fabian - in the intervening period persecution had made a fresh election impossible.  The major issue he dealt with during his reign was whether apostates could be reconciled, and his decision that they could sparked the rebellion of the anti-pope, Novation. 

St Cornelius won out though, with the support of St Cyprian, an African bishop. 

St Cornelius was exiled a year later due to a new outbreak of persecution, and died a martyr.  St Cyprian was bishop of Carthage, and a number of his important writings have survived. 

He was martyred in 258.

September 8: Nativity of the BVM, Class II

Giotto

September 3: St Pius X, Pope, Class III

Pope St Pius X, whose feast we celebrate today, lived from 2 June 1835 to 20 August 1914, and was Pope from 1903 onwards. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized.   His life perhaps illustrates the problems associated with canonising popes! 

On the one hand, Pope his tough stance against modernism, promotion of traditional devotional practices and Gregorian chant, promotion of Thomism, and catechism have won him many traditionalist fans.  But his wreckovation of the traditional Roman Breviary, fiddling with the order of the sacraments, encouragement of frequent communion, and other liturgical innovations, arguably laid the ground work for the liturgical revolution of the twentieth century.

Pope Benedict XVI gave a General Audience on the saint in 2010:

"Today I would like to reflect on my Predecessor, St Pius X whose liturgical Memorial we shall be celebrating next Saturday and to underline certain features that may be useful to both Pastors and faithful also in our time.

Giuseppe Sarto, that was his name, was born into a peasant family in Riese, Treviso, in 1835. After studying at the Seminary in Padua he was ordained a priest when he was 23 years old. He was first curate in Tombolo, then parish priest at Salzano and then canon of the Cathedral of Treviso with the offices of episcopal chancellor and spiritual director of the Diocesan Seminary. In these years of rich and generous pastoral experience, the future Pontiff showed that deep love for Christ and for the Church, that humility and simplicity and great charity to the needy which characterized his entire life. In 1884 he was appointed Bishop of Mantua, and in 1893, Patriarch of Venice. On 4 August 1903, he was elected Pope, a ministry he hesitated to accept since he did not consider himself worthy of such a lofty office.

Pius X's Pontificate left an indelible mark on the Church's history and was distinguished by a considerable effort for reform that is summed up in his motto: Instaurare Omnia in Christo, "To renew all things in Christ". Indeed, his interventions involved various ecclesiastical contexts. From the outset he devoted himself to reorganizing the Roman Curia; he then began work on the Code of Canon Law which was promulgated by his Successor Benedict XV. He later promoted the revision of the studies and formation programme of future priests and founded various Regional Seminaries, equipped with good libraries and well-qualified teachers. Another important sector was that of the doctrinal formation of the People of God. Beginning in his years as parish priest, he himself had compiled a catechism and during his Episcopate in Mantua he worked to produce a single, if not universal catechism, at least in Italian. As an authentic Pastor he had understood that the situation in that period, due partly to the phenomenon of emigration, made necessary a catechism to which every member of the faithful might refer, independently of the place in which he lived and of his position. As Pontiff, he compiled a text of Christian doctrine for the Diocese of Rome that was later disseminated throughout Italy and the world. Because of its simple, clear, precise language and effective explanations, this "Pius X Catechism", as it was called, was a reliable guide to many in learning the truths of the faith.

Pius X paid considerable attention to the reform of the Liturgy and, in particular, of sacred music in order to lead the faithful to a life of more profound prayer and fuller participation in the Sacraments. In the Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini (1903), the first year of his Pontificate, he said that the true Christian spirit has its first and indispensable source in active participation in the sacrosanct mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church (cf. AAS 36[1903], 531). For this reason he recommended that the Sacraments be received often, encouraging the daily reception of Holy Communion and appropriately lowering the age when children receive their First Communion "to about seven", the age "when a child begins to reason" (cf. S. Congr. de Sacramentis, Decretum Quam Singulari: AAS 2 [1910] 582).

Faithful to the task of strengthening his brethren in the faith, in confronting certain trends that were manifest in the theological context at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Pius X intervened decisively, condemning "Modernism" to protect the faithful from erroneous concepts and to foster a scientific examination of the Revelation consonant with the Tradition of the Church. On 7 May 1909, with his Apostolic Letter Vinea Electa, he founded the Pontifical Biblical Institute. The last months of his life were overshadowed by the impending war. His appeal to Catholics of the world, launched on 2 August 1914 to express the bitter pain of the present hour, was the anguished plea of a father who sees his children taking sides against each other. He died shortly afterwards, on 20 August, and the fame of his holiness immediately began to spread among the Christian people.

Dear brothers and sisters, St Pius X teaches all of us that at the root of our apostolic action in the various fields in which we work there must always be close personal union with Christ, to cultivate and to develop, day after day. This is the essence of all his teaching, of all his pastoral commitment. Only if we are in love with the Lord shall we be able to bring people to God and open them to his merciful love and thereby open the world to God's mercy. "

July 31 : St Ignatius of Loyola, Class III

St Ignatius of Loyola (1491 – 1556) founded the Jesuits. 

Originally a soldier by profession, he underwent a conversion process induced by a long period of recovery from broken bones.

His famous spiritual exercizes drew heavily on a Benedictine set of exercizes, but in general it must be said that, while at various times attempts to combine Benedictine and Ignatian spirituality have been made with some success, in their fundamentals, such as approach to liturgy, they are deeply at odds!

July 30: SS Abdon and Sennen, Martyrs, Memorial

SS Abdon and Sennen were early Persian martyrs.  The Golden Legend relates their story:

"Abdon and Sennen suffered martyrdom under Decius the emperor. When Decius the emperor had surmounted Babylon and the other provinces, he found some christian men within the city, and brought them with him to the city of Corduba. And made them there to die by divers torments. And then Abdon and Sennen, which were as governors of the country, took the bodies and buried them.

Then were they accused and brought to Decius, and he did do lead them with him bound in chains to Rome. Then were they brought before Decius, and before the senators. Then was it commanded that they should do sacrifice, and they should have all their things freely, or else they should be devoured by bitings of wild beasts.

But they despised to make sacrifice, and spit against the false idols and statues; and then were they drawn to the place of martyrdom, and made to be brought to them two lions and two bears, which did to them no harm, nor touched them, but rather kept them from harm. Then began they to cast spears and swords at them, and at last they were all torn with swords, and then they were bound by the feet and drawn through the town unto the idol of the sun, and when they had lain there three days, Quirinus, sub-deacon, took the bodies up and buried them in his house. And they suffered death about the year of our Lord two hundred and fifty-three."

July 29: SS Felix, Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrice, Martyrs, Memorial

c14th manuscript

Today's saints are all early martyrs - Simplicius, Faustinus and Beatrice were siblings martyred under Diocletian around 302. Nothing is known of St Felix beyond his name, not least because of a longstanding confusion between him and an antipope of the same name.

July 26: SS Joachim and Anne, Class III

Tradition, drawing on the (non-canonical but very early) Gospel of James, gives us Saints Joachim and Anne as the names of the father and mother of the Mother of God.

In the Protoevangelium of James, Joachim is described as a rich and pious man of the house of David who regularly gave to the poor and to the temple (synagogue) at Sepphoris.  However, as his wife was barren, the high priest rejected Joachim and his sacrifice, as his wife's childlessness was interpreted as a sign of divine displeasure. Joachim consequently withdrew to the desert where he fasted and did penance for forty days. Angels then appeared to both Joachim and Anne to promise them a child. Joachim later returned to Jerusalem and embraced Anne at the city gate.

The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that "the apocryphal character of these writings, that is to say, their rejection from the canon, and their ungenuineness do not imply that no heed whatever should be taken of some of their assertions; side by side, indeed, with unwarranted and legendary facts, they contain some historical data borrowed from reliable traditions or documents; and difficult though it is to distinguish in them the wheat from the tares, it would be unwise and uncritical indiscriminately to reject the whole."

July 25: St James the greater, Class II

St James the Moorslayer
Anonymous, 18th century, Cuzco School of Peru

St James was the son of Zabadee and Salome, and brother of St John.  He was executed by the sword on the orders of Herod around 44 AD (Acts 12).  His remains are at Compostela in Spain, the destination of many of the major pilgrimage routes of Europe.

Pope Benedict XVI gave a General Audience on the apostle in 2006:

"We are continuing the series of portraits of the Apostles chosen directly by Jesus during his earthly life. We have spoken of St Peter and of his brother, Andrew. Today we meet the figure of James. The biblical lists of the Twelve mention two people with this name: James, son of Zebedee, and James, son of Alphaeus (cf. Mk 3: 17,18; Mt 10: 2-3), who are commonly distinguished with the nicknames "James the Greater" and "James the Lesser".

These titles are certainly not intended to measure their holiness, but simply to state the different importance they receive in the writings of the New Testament and, in particular, in the setting of Jesus' earthly life. Today we will focus our attention on the first of these two figures with the same name.

The name "James" is the translation of Iakobos, the Graecised form of the name of the famous Patriarch, Jacob. The Apostle of this name was the brother of John and in the above-mentioned lists, comes second, immediately after Peter, as occurs in Mark (3: 17); or in the third place, after Peter and Andrew as in the Gospels of Matthew (10: 2) and Luke (6: 14), while in the Acts he comes after Peter and John (1: 13). This James belongs, together with Peter and John, to the group of the three privileged disciples whom Jesus admitted to important moments in his life.

Since it is very hot today, I want to be brief and to mention here only two of these occasions. James was able to take part, together with Peter and John, in Jesus' Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane and in the event of Jesus' Transfiguration. Thus, it is a question of situations very different from each other: in one case, James, together with the other two Apostles, experiences the Lord's glory and sees him talking to Moses and Elijah, he sees the divine splendour shining out in Jesus.

On the other occasion, he finds himself face to face with suffering and humiliation, he sees with his own eyes how the Son of God humbles himself, making himself obedient unto death. The latter experience was certainly an opportunity for him to grow in faith, to adjust the unilateral, triumphalist interpretation of the former experience: he had to discern that the Messiah, whom the Jewish people were awaiting as a victor, was in fact not only surrounded by honour and glory, but also by suffering and weakness. Christ's glory was fulfilled precisely on the Cross, in his sharing in our sufferings.

This growth in faith was brought to completion by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, so that James, when the moment of supreme witness came, would not draw back. Early in the first century, in the 40s, King Herod Agrippa, the grandson of Herod the Great, as Luke tells us, "laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the Church. He had James, the brother of John, killed by the sword" (Acts 12: 1-2).

The brevity of the news, devoid of any narrative detail, reveals on the one hand how normal it was for Christians to witness to the Lord with their own lives, and on the other, that James had a position of relevance in the Church of Jerusalem, partly because of the role he played during Jesus' earthly existence.

A later tradition, dating back at least to Isidore of Seville, speaks of a visit he made to Spain to evangelize that important region of the Roman Empire. According to another tradition, it was his body instead that had been taken to Spain, to the city of Santiago de Compostela.

As we all know, that place became the object of great veneration and is still the destination of numerous pilgrimages, not only from Europe but from the whole world. This explains the iconographical representation of St James with the pilgrim's staff and the scroll of the Gospel in hand, typical features of the travelling Apostle dedicated to the proclamation of the "Good News" and characteristics of the pilgrimage of Christian life.

Consequently, we can learn much from St James: promptness in accepting the Lord's call even when he asks us to leave the "boat" of our human securities, enthusiasm in following him on the paths that he indicates to us over and above any deceptive presumption of our own, readiness to witness to him with courage, if necessary to the point of making the supreme sacrifice of life.

Thus James the Greater stands before us as an eloquent example of generous adherence to Christ. He, who initially had requested, through his mother, to be seated with his brother next to the Master in his Kingdom, was precisely the first to drink the chalice of the passion and to share martyrdom with the Apostles.

And, in the end, summarizing everything, we can say that the journey, not only exterior but above all interior, from the mount of the Transfiguration to the mount of the Agony, symbolizes the entire pilgrimage of Christian life, among the persecutions of the world and the consolations of God, as the Second Vatican Council says. In following Jesus, like St James, we know that even in difficulties we are on the right path."

July 23: Our Lady on Saturday; St Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr, Memorial



c6th mosaic,
Basilica of St Apollinaris in Classe, Ravenna

 St Apollinarius was the first bishop of Ravenna, appointed by St Peter according to tradition.

One of the first great martyrs of the Church, his forthright preaching against paganism led to him being  was beaten up and left for dead on the seashore.  Although kept in hiding for a while by his fellow Christians, he was captured again and compelled to walk on burning coals and a second time expelled from the city. But he remained nearby, and continued to preach. 

When he returned to Ravenna a third time, he was captured, hacked with knives, had scalding water poured over his wounds, was beaten in the mouth with stones because he persisted in preaching, and then, loaded with chains, was flung into a horrible dungeon to starve to death; but after four days he was put on board ship and sent to Greece.

After three years of preaching there, he returned once more to Ravenna. At this time the Emperor Vespasian issued a decree of banishment for all Christians, and as the bishop was passing out of the gates of the city, he was set upon and savagely beaten, probably at Classis, a suburb, but he lived for seven days, foretelling meantime that the persecutions would increase, but that the Church would ultimately triumph.

The precise date of his consecration cannot be ascertained, but he was Bishop of Ravenna for twenty-six years.

July 22: St Mary Magdalen, Class III

Today is the feast of the most famous penitent saint, St Mary Magdalene. 

Few saints have attracted so many attempts at revisionist history. On the one hand, protestant horror at the idea of a sinner turned saint has gained new followers amongst those attempting to make her a feminist heroine; while on the other, assorted conspiracy theorists have seized on apocryphal works on her life. The traditional Latin liturgy, however, insists on her identity as both the penitent woman and the sister of Lazarus and Martha.  Tradition holds that St Mary and her brother went to Provence after the Resurrection, where St Mary became a hermit.

In a General Audience on 'Women at the service of the Gospel', Pope Benedict XVI commented:

"The Gospels then tell us that the women, unlike the Twelve, did not abandon Jesus in the hour of his Passion (cf. Mt 27: 56, 61; Mk 15: 40). Among them, Mary Magdalene stands out in particular. Not only was she present at the Passion, but she was also the first witness and herald of the Risen One (cf. Jn 20: 1, 11-18).

It was precisely to Mary Magdalene that St Thomas Aquinas reserved the special title, "Apostle of the Apostles" (apostolorum apostola), dedicating to her this beautiful comment: "Just as a woman had announced the words of death to the first man, so also a woman was the first to announce to the Apostles the words of life" (Super Ioannem, ed. Cai, 2519)."

July 20: SS Jerome Aemiliain, Joseph Calanctius and John Baptist de la Salle, Confessors, Memorial

Today's saints are all founders of religious orders.

St Jerome Emiliani (1481 – February 8, 1537) is the founder of the Somaschi Fathers Fathers.

Born in Venice, St Jerome joined the army and, in 1508, defended Castelnuovo against the League of Cambray. Taken prisoner and miraculously liberated, he made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Treviso, in fulfillment of a vow. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1518, he spent much time working in and establishing hospitals and other institutions for the poor. In 1532 St Jerome founded a religious society whose principal work of the community was to be the care of orphans, poor and sick, and demanded that dwellings, food and clothing would bear the mark of religious poverty. St Jerome fell a martyr to his zeal; contracting a disease at Bergamo, he died at Somasca in 1537.

Goya, The Last Communion of
St Joseph of Calasanz

 Saint Joseph Calasanctius  (1557 – 1648), also known as Joseph Calasanz and Josephus a Matre Dei, was the founder of the Pious Schools and the Order of the Piarists, the first teaching order.

St Joseph studied law, and following the deaths of his mother and brother, his father wanted him to  marry and perpetuate the family. But a sickness in 1582 soon brought Joseph to the brink of the grave, and on his recovery he was ordained a priest.   After holding a variety of offices in his home diocese and two surrounding ones, he moved to Rome in 1592.  He joined the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and gathered the boys from the streets and brought them to school, and after some struggles, established first free public school in Europe.  In 1600 Calasanz opened his “Pious Schools” in the center of Rome and soon there were extensions in response to growing demands for enrollment from students. He was able to convince the Pope of the need to approve a religious Order with solemn vows dedicated exclusively to the education of youth, and his the congregation was made a religious order on November 18, 1621.  The Order of the Pious Schools was the last of the religious Orders of solemn vows approved by the Church.

John Baptist de La Salle (1651 – 1719) was a priest, educational reformer, and founder of the Christian, or De La Salle, Brothers, the first community of men composed solely of lay brothers. He is patron saint of teachers. He dedicated much of his life for the education of poor children in France; in doing so, he started many lasting educational practices.

Named a canon of Rheims Cathedral when he was sixteen, he had to assume the administration of family affairs after his parents died.He nonetheless completed his theological studies and was ordained to the priesthood at the age of 26. Two years later he received a Doctorate in Theology. De La Salle became involved in education little by little, without ever consciously setting out to do so. In 1679, what began as a charitable effort to help Adrian Nyel establish a school for the poor in De La Salle's home town gradually became his life's work.

July 19: St Vincent de Paul, memorial

One of the most famous saints by virtue of the society bearing his name, St Vincent de Paul (24 April 1581 – 27 September 1660) was a Catholic priest dedicated to serving the poor.

Captured by Turkish pirates and sold into slavery, he managed to convert his owner to Christianity and then escape.

He studied in Rome for several years before being sent back to France on a mission to Henry IV of France.  He served as chaplain to Marguerite de Valois, as a parish priest, and then as chaplain to the Gondi family, at which time he began giving peasant missions. He subsequently served as chaplain to galley slaves.

In 1625 founded the Vincentians, and in 1633 assisted in the foundation of the Daughters of Charity.

July 17: St. Leo IV OSB Pope and confessor

Today is the feast of Pope St. Leo IV, whose pontificate lasted from 847 to 855. A Roman by birth, he was a Benedictine monk who served in the papal curia under Pope Gregory IV, was made a cardinal by Pope Sergius II and was unanimously chosen to succeed him.

His main claim to fame relates to his efforts to defend Rome against Muslim attacks. He had defensive walls built, including around St. Peter's, and repaired much of the damage done by attacks during the reign of his predecessor.

When the Muslim fleet again threatened, he rallied the leaders of Rome, Naples, Gaeta and Amalfi to form a league. The subsequent Battle of Ostia (depicted above in a painting by Raphael or his disciples, with the Pope at the left), in which the attacking Saracen force was destroyed, was one of the most famous in the history of the papacy during the Middle Ages.

Leo held three synods, including one in 850, that was distinguished by his crowning of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis II. He also reportedly anointed the young King Alfred the Great of England.

Leo's papacy is also noted for his attempts to bring rebellious bishops and political leaders into line with Rome. He excommunicated Cardinal Anastasius of San Marcello (later Antipope Anastasius Bibliothecarius) for disobedience and censured the soon to be famous Archbishop Hincmar of Reims.