St John Gualbert OSB (July 12)

St John Gualbert (985 - 1073) was a member of the Florentine nobility.

One Good Friday he was entering Florence accompanied by armed followers, when in a narrow lane he came upon a man who had killed his brother. He was about to kill the man in revenge, when the other fell upon his knees with arms outstretched in the form of a cross and begged for mercy in the name of Christ, who had been crucified on that day. John forgave him. He entered the Benedictine Church at San Miniato to pray, and the figure on the crucifix bowed its head to him in recognition of his generosity.

He became a Benedictine monk at San Miniato, but unwilling to compromise in the fight against simony, of which both his abbot and bishop were guilty, he left and settled at Vallombrosa, where he founded his monastery. 

The Congregation he founded was united with the Slyvestrines by 1680.

Feast of the translation of the relics of St Benedict (July 11)

There are actually two feasts of St Benedict celebrated each year in the Benedictine calendar: his heavenly birth is also celebrated on March 21 in the Extraordinary Form calendar; while the translation of his relics, July 11 is celebrated in the Ordinary Form calendar. 

The subject of today's feast, the translation of the relics of St Benedict, is a subject of some dispute between the abbies of Monte Cassino and Fleury even unto this day as to who has the genuine ones!

Here is Fleury's version of the story from a medieval source, from GG Coulton, Life in the Middle ages:

"IN the name of Christ. There was in France, by God's gracious providence, a learned Priest who set about to journey towards Italy, that he might discover where were the bones of our father St Benedict, no longer worshipped by men. [Note: Monte Cassino, St Benedict's own monastery on a spur of the Apennines between Rome and Naples, had been destroyed by the Lombard barbarians in 580, and was not inhabited again until 718].

At length he came into a desert country some 70 or 80 miles from Rome, where St Benedict of old had built a cell whose indwellers had been bound together in perfect charity. Yet, even then, this Priest and his companions were disquieted by-the uncertainties of the place, since they could find neither vestiges of the monastery nor any burial-place, until at last a swineherd showed them, or hire, exactly where the monastery had stood; yet he was utterly unable to find the sepulcher' until he and his companions had hallowed themselves by a two or three days' fast. Then it was revealed to their cook in a dream, and the matter became plain unto them; for in the morning it was shown unto them by him who seemed lowest in degree, that St Paul's words might be true (I Cor. 1: 27), that God despises that which is held in great esteem among men; or again, as the Lord Himself foretold (Matt. 20:26), "Whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister." Then, searching the spot with greater diligence, they found a marble slab which they had to cut through.

At last, having broken through the slab, they found the bones of St Benedict, and his sister's bones beneath, with another marble slab between; since (as we believe) the almighty and merciful God would that those should be united in their sepulcher who, in life, had been joined together in brotherly and sisterly love, and in Christian charity."

Having collected and washed these bones they laid them upon fine clean linen, each by itself, to be carried home to their own country. They gave no sign to the Romans lest, if these had learnt the truth, they would doubtless never have suffered such holy relics to be withdrawn from their country without conflict or war-relics which God made manifest, in order that men might see how great was their need of religion and holiness, by the following miracle. For, within a while, the linen that wrapped these bones was found red with the saint's blood, as though from open wounds on living whereby Jesus Christ intended to show that those whose bones are here so glorious would truly live with Him in the world to come. Then they were laid upon a horse which bore them over all that long journey as lightly as though he had felt no burden.

Again, when they journeyed through forest ways and on narrow roads, neither did the trees impede them nor did any ruggedness of the path obstruct their journey; so that the travelers saw clearly how this was through the merits of St Benedict and his sister St Scholastica, in order that their journey might be safe and prosperous even into the realm of France and the monastery of Fleury. In which monastery they are now buried in peace, until they I arise in glory at the Last Day; and here they confer benefits upon all who pray unto the Father through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who lives and reigns in the unity die Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.

SS Thomas More and John Fisher (9 July)

In England and Wales, the feasts of SS Thomas More (martyr) and St John Fisher (bishop and martyr) are celebrated.

St Thomas More's story is well-known; St John Fisher's perhaps less so.

Like More, he treasured learning, encouraging the study of Greek and Hebrew, and indeed was vice-chancellor, and subsequently chancellor, of the University of Cambridge.

He was appointed bishop of Rochester at Henry VII's insistence.

Renowned as a preacher, he also served as tutor to the future Henry VIII.

Like More, he was part of the active resistance to attempts by Lutheranism to gain ground in England.

But he was also Catherine of Aragon's chief supporter in the cause of her marriage, and after St Thomas More's resignation from the chancellorship of England, preached a sermon against the divorce. 

He was arrested shortly after Cranmer's appointment as Archbishop of Canterbury, in order to prevent him opposing Cranmer's pronouncement of the divorce.  He was attainted of treason in March 1534, but subsequently pardoned, only to be attained again a few months later for refusing to take the oath of succession. 

Kept in prison in harsh circumstances, the Pope hoped to ease the terms of his imprisonment by appointing him a Cardinal: but it had the opposite effect, and he was executed on June 22, 1535.

St Anthony Mary Zaccaria (EF, July 5)

Saint Anthony Maria Zaccaria (1502 – 1539) was the originator of the Forty Hours devotion to the Blessed Sacrament.

Born in Cremona, Italy in 1502 to noble parents, his father died when he was two his father died.  He took a private vow of chastity at an early age.

The saint studied philosophy at the University of Pavia, and, from 1520, medicine at the University of Padua. After completing studies in 1524, he practised as a doctor in Cremona for three years.  In 1527, he started studying for the priesthood and was ordained in 1528.

Initially he worked mainly working in hospitals and institutions for the poor.  He subsequently established three religious orders, initially in Milan: the Clerics Regular of St Paul, commonly known as the Barnabites; a female branch of uncloistered nuns, the Angelic Sisters of St. Paul; and a lay congregation for married people, the Laity of St. Paul (Oblates of St. Paul).  Their aim was the reform of the decadent society of their day, beginning with the clergy and religious.

While on a mission to Guastalla, Italy, in 1539, he caught a fever. Combined with the strict penances he performed, his health waned and he died on 5 July 1539, at the age of 37.

Feast of the Visitation (July 2)

Jacques Daret c1434

In Verbum Domini, Pope Benedict XVI commented on the story of the Visitation as follows:

"This close relationship between God’s word and joy is evident in the Mother of God. Let us recall the words of Saint Elizabeth: “Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Lc 1,45). Mary is blessed because she has faith, because she believed, and in this faith she received the Word of God into her womb in order to give him to the world. The joy born of the Word can now expand to all those who, by faith, let themselves be changed by God’s word. The Gospel of Luke presents this mystery of hearing and joy in two texts. Jesus says: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Lc 8,21). And in reply to a woman from the crowd who blesses the womb that bore him and the breasts that nursed him, Jesus reveals the secret of true joy: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” (Lc 11,28). Jesus points out Mary’s true grandeur, making it possible for each of us to attain that blessedness which is born of the word received and put into practice. I remind all Christians that our personal and communal relationship with God depends on our growing familiarity with the word of God. Finally, I turn to every man and woman, including those who have fallen away from the Church, who have left the faith or who have never heard the proclamation of salvation. To everyone the Lord says: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me” (Ap 3,20).

May every day of our lives thus be shaped by a renewed encounter with Christ, the Word of the Father made flesh: he stands at the beginning and the end, and “in him all things hold together” (Col 1,17). Let us be silent in order to hear the Lord’s word and to meditate upon it, so that by the working of the Holy Spirit it may remain in our hearts and speak to us all the days of our lives. In this way the Church will always be renewed and rejuvenated, thanks to the word of the Lord which remains for ever (cf. 1P 1,25 Is Is 40,8). Thus we too will enter into the great nuptial dialogue which concludes sacred Scripture: “The Spirit and the bride say: ‘Come’. And let everyone who hears say: ‘Come!’” The one who testifies to these things, says: ‘Surely I am coming soon!’. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”. (Ap 22,17)."

Feast of the Most Precious Blood, July 1

In the 1962 Roman Calendar (but not the 1962 Benedictine calendar), July 1 marks the Feast of the Most Precious Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, a first class feast, so with I Vespers of the feast.

The feast has its origins in the sixteenth century, but was extended to the universal Church in 1849, to recognition of the liberation of Rome.

It was originally always celebrated on the first Sunday in July; Pope St Pius X shifted it to July 1 as part of his clean out of feasts fixed for Sundays. 

Pope John XXIII went so far as to write an encyclical promoting devotion to the feast in 1960, and as a particularly liturgical devotion, one might have expected to escape the wreckovaters, but alas, it was abolished altogether in the 1969 calendar on the grounds that it duplicated other Solemnities (though it still exists as a votive mass).  One can't help suspecting, however, that the real reason those 1960s revolutionaries baulked at it was the perceived 'triumphalism' in its association with the return to the Papal States to their proper ruler...

It was in the older Benedictine calendar, so those with an Antiphonale Monasticum (or older form of the Breviary) will find the texts there.  Others wishing to say the Office of the feast could utilise the antiphons and proper texts from the Divinum Officium website, and apply them to the Sunday festal psalms.

You might want also to consider saying the litany of the Most Precious Blood, traditionally said each day during July.

Trinity Sunday