October 6: St Bruno, Memorial

St Bruno (1030-1101) is of course the founder of the Carthusian Order.

From Saints and Angles online:

"Bruno was born in Cologne of the prominent Hartenfaust family. He studied at the Cathedral school at Rheims, and on his return to Cologne about 1055, was ordained and became a Canon at St. Cunibert's.

He returned to Rheims in 1056 as professor of theology, became head of the school the following year, and remained there until 1074, when he was appointed chancellor of Rheims by its archbishop, Manasses. Bruno was forced to flee Rheims when he and several other priests denounced Manasses in 1076 as unfit for the office of Papal Legate.

Bruno later returned to Cologne... when Manasses was deposed, and though the people of Rheims wanted to make Bruno archbishop, he decided to pursue an eremitical life.

He became a hermit under Abbot St. Robert of Molesmes (who later founded Citeaux) but then moved on to Grenoble with six companions in 1084. They were assigned a place for their hermitages in a desolate, mountainous, alpine area called La Grande Chartreuse, by Bishop St. Hugh of Grenoble, whose confessor Bruno became. They built an oratory and individual cells, roughly followed the rule of St. Benedict, and thus began the Carthusian Order. They embraced a life of poverty, manual work, prayer, and transcribing manuscripts, though as yet they had no written rule.

The fame of the group and their founder spread, and in 1090, Bruno was brought to Rome, against his wishes, by Pope Urban II (whom he had taught at Rheims) as Papal Adviser in the reformation of the clergy.

Bruno persuaded Urban to allow him to resume his eremitical state, founded St. Mary's at La Torre in Calabria, declined the Pope's offer of the archbishopric of Reggio, became a close friend of Count Robert of Sicily, and remained there until his death on October 6. He wrote several commentaries on the psalms and on St. Paul's epistles. He was never formally canonized because of the Carthusians' aversion to public honors but Pope Leo X granted the Carthusians permission to celebrate his feast in 1514, and his name was placed on the Roman calendar in 1623.

October 5: SS Maurus and Placid, OSB

St Benedict receives SS Maurus and Placid
Sodoma, c15th

SS Maurus and Placid were both child oblates under St Benedict, and several incidents relating to them feature in St Gregory's Life of St Benedict.

Both, however, have subsequent legends attached to them that though largely dismissed by most contemporary historians, in fact do have some plausibility in my opinion, and are worth reconsidering.

St Maurus (512-584)

St Maurus was one of the most popular saints of the middle ages, with a widespread cult, in part due to the references to him in St Gregories Life of St Benedict, and in part to two later works, his Life and the Little Book of Miracles.

In the Life, St Maurus is credited with the introduction of Benedictine monasticism into France due to his foundation of the monastery of Glanfeuil, in response to a request from the bishop of Le Mans.

According to the story, by the time he and his fellow monks arrived in France to make the proposed new foundation, the bishop had died and his successor was less than enthusiastic.  St Maurus managed to find another benefactor however, and the monastery was duly founded, and thrived (albeit with the usual trials and tribulations) until its destruction by the Vikings.  The monks, however, fled to Paris, and established a new monastery there to continue his cult.

The modern translator of St Maurus' life (published, somewhat ironically given the Cistercian rejection of the type of monasticism St Maurus' life represented, in the Cistercian Studies Series in 2008), John Wickstrom, is a sceptic about both the authenticity of the life, and the historical claims it sought to bolster.

But though the Life itself may well have been largely a larger redaction or much later composition, I'm not convinced we should so quickly dismiss the underlying historicity of the main events it chronicles.

First, archeological excavations in the late nineteenth century established that there was indeed a monastery at this location in the sixth century, founded on the remains of a roman villa.

Secondly, this was a period of expansion of monasticism in Northern Europe, so the idea of seeking out a delegation from an existing monastery of some fame in Italy to assist in making a foundation is not at all implausible.

Thirdly, this region seems to have been a very early centre of enthusiastic devotion to Benedictine saints that is otherwise hard to explain.  The nearby monastery of Fleury, founded by 640, is famous for its raid on Monte Cassino to obtain the relics of St Benedict, as is Le Mans, which claimed to have obtained the relics of St Scholastica).

In any case, St Maurus was an important disciple of St Benedict, and the blessing for the sick named for him remains an important part of the Benedictine patrimony.

St Placid

St Placid was also one of St Benedict's disciples: he was originally credited as having been sent to establish a monastery at Messina in Sicily, and being martyred there by pirates, but 1969 (modernist-rationalist) revisionism has led to this claim being dropped from the modern martyrology.

It is certainly true that the ninth century attribution of his martyrdom to Muslim raiders was anachronistic.

But his was certainly a turbulent period in the history of Sicily, so whether the addition of this detail is enough to invalidate the underlying story of his martyrdom is, in my view, debatable.

**And for the record, here is the older Roman Office reading for the Office on him:

Commemoration of Ss. Placidus and Companions, Martyrs

Placidus was the son of Tertullus, one of the noblest persons of Rome. He was offered to God (by his father) when a child (only seven years of age) and given over to holy Benedict, in whose teaching and Rule of monks he so profited that he was reckoned among the chiefest of his disciples.

By him he was sent into Sicily, where he founded near the Port of Messina a Church and monastery in honour of St John the Baptist, and lived therein with his monks in wonderful holiness. Thither there came to see him his brothers Eutychius and Victorinus and his virgin sister Flavia, and while they were together, there landed there a certain brutal pirate, named Manucha, who took the monastery, and when he could in no wise prevail upon Placidus and the others to deny Christ, he commanded him, his brothers, and his sister to be cruelly murdered. With them Donatus, Firmatus a Deacon, Faustus, and thirty other monks brought the conflict of testimony to the blessed end of martyrdom, upon the fifth day of October, in the year of salvation 539

Statue of St Placid by Meinrad, 1679-81

October 4: St Francis of Assisi

Pope Benedict XVI gave a General Audience on the saint in 2010.  Here are a few extracts:

"A sun was born into the world". With these words, in the Divine Comedy (Paradiso, Canto XI), the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri alludes to Francis' birth, which took place in Assisi either at the end of 1181 or the beginning of 1182.

As part of a rich family his father was a cloth merchant Francis lived a carefree adolescence and youth, cultivating the chivalrous ideals of the time. At age 20, he took part in a military campaign and was taken prisoner. He became ill and was freed. After his return to Assisi, a slow process of spiritual conversion began within him, which brought him to gradually abandon the worldly lifestyle that he had adopted thus far.

The famous episodes of Francis' meeting with the leper to whom, dismounting from his horse, he gave the kiss of peace and of the message from the Crucifix in the small Church of St Damian, date pack to this period. Three times Christ on the Cross came to life, and told him: "Go, Francis, and repair my Church in ruins". This simple occurrence of the word of God heard in the Church of St Damian contains a profound symbolism.

At that moment St Francis was called to repair the small church, but the ruinous state of the building was a symbol of the dramatic and disquieting situation of the Church herself. At that time the Church had a superficial faith which did not shape or transform life, a scarcely zealous clergy, and a chilling of love. It was an interior destruction of the Church which also brought a decomposition of unity, with the birth of heretical movements. Yet, there at the centre of the Church in ruins was the Crucified Lord, and he spoke: he called for renewal, he called Francis to the manual labour of repairing the small Church of St Damian, the symbol of a much deeper call to renew Christ's own Church, with her radicality of faith and her loving enthusiasm for Christ.

This event, which probably happened in 1205, calls to mind another similar occurrence which took place in 1207: Pope Innocent III's dream. In it, he saw the Basilica of St John Lateran, the mother of all churches, collapsing and one small and insignificant religious brother supporting the church on his shoulders to prevent it from falling.

On the one hand, it is interesting to note that it is not the Pope who was helping to prevent the church from collapsing but rather a small and insignificant brother, whom the Pope recognized in Francis when he later came to visit. Innocent III was a powerful Pope who had a great theological formation and great political influence; nevertheless he was not the one to renew the Church but the small, insignificant religious. It was St Francis, called by God. On the other hand, however, it is important to note that St Francis does not renew the Church without or in opposition to the Pope, but only in communion with him. The two realities go together: the Successor of Peter, the Bishops, the Church founded on the succession of the Apostles and the new charism that the Holy Spirit brought to life at that time for the Church's renewal. Authentic renewal grew from these together...

Actually, several 19th-century and also 20th-century historians have sought to construct a so-called historical Francis, behind the traditional depiction of the Saint, just as they sought to create a so-called historical Jesus behind the Jesus of the Gospels. This historical Francis would not have been a man of the Church, but rather a man connected directly and solely to Christ, a man that wanted to bring about a renewal of the People of God, without canonical forms or hierarchy.

The truth is that St Francis really did have an extremely intimate relationship with Jesus and with the word of God, that he wanted to pursue sine glossa: just as it is, in all its radicality and truth. It is also true that initially he did not intend to create an Order with the necessary canonical forms. Rather he simply wanted, through the word of God and the presence of the Lord, to renew the People of God, to call them back to listening to the word and to literal obedience to Christ. Furthermore, he knew that Christ was never "mine" but is always "ours", that "I" cannot possess Christ that "I" cannot rebuild in opposition to the Church, her will and her teaching. Instead it is only in communion with the Church built on the Apostolic succession that obedience too, to the word of God can be renewed..." It is also true that Francis had no intention of creating a new Order, but solely that of renewing the People of God for the Lord who comes.

He understood, however, through suffering and pain that everything must have its own order and that the law of the Church is necessary to give shape to renewal. Thus he placed himself fully, with his heart, in communion with the Church, with the Pope and with the Bishops. He always knew that the centre of the Church is the Eucharist, where the Body of Christ and his Blood are made present through the priesthood, the Eucharist and the communion of the Church. Wherever the priesthood and the Eucharist and the Church come together, it is there alone that the word of God also dwells. The real historical Francis was the Francis of the Church, and precisely in this way he continues to speak to non-believers and believers of other confessions and religions as well..."

St Terese of the Child Jesus (EF/Ben), Oct 3

From the martyrology:

"St Teresa of the Child Jesus, of the Order of Discalced Carmelites, Virgin, the special patroness of all the missions..."

St Terese of Lisieux (1873-97) is one of the small but growing band of female doctors of the Church.  One of the best known of all the saints, her 'little way' has been vastly influential.

Pope Benedict XVI gave a General Audience on her in 2011:


Today I would like to talk to you about St Thérèse of Lisieux, Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face, who lived in this world for only 24 years, at the end of the 19th century, leading a very simple and hidden life but who, after her death and the publication of her writings, became one of the best-known and best-loved saints. “Little Thérèse” has never stopped helping the simplest souls, the little, the poor and the suffering who pray to her. However, she has also illumined the whole Church with her profound spiritual doctrine to the point that Venerable Pope John Paul II chose, in 1997, to give her the title “Doctor of the Church”, in addition to that of Patroness of Missions, which Pius XI had already attributed to her in 1939. My beloved Predecessor described her as an “expert in the scientia amoris” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, n. 42). Thérèse expressed this science, in which she saw the whole truth of the faith shine out in love, mainly in the story of her life, published a year after her death with the title The Story of a Soul. The book immediately met with enormous success, it was translated into many languages and disseminated throughout the world.

I would like to invite you to rediscover this small-great treasure, this luminous comment on the Gospel lived to the full! The Story of a Soul, in fact, is a marvellous story of Love, told with such authenticity, simplicity and freshness that the reader cannot but be fascinated by it! But what was this Love that filled Thérèse’s whole life, from childhood to death? Dear friends, this Love has a Face, it has a Name, it is Jesus! The Saint speaks continuously of Jesus. Let us therefore review the important stages of her life, to enter into the heart of her teaching.
Thérèse was born on 2 January 1873 in Alençon, a city in Normandy, in France. She was the last daughter of Louis and Zélie Martin, a married couple and exemplary parents, who were beatified together on 19 October 2008. They had nine children, four of whom died at a tender age. Five daughters were left, who all became religious. Thérèse, at the age of four, was deeply upset by the death of her mother (Ms A 13r). Her father then moved with his daughters to the town of Lisieux, where the Saint was to spend her whole life. Later Thérèse, affected by a serious nervous disorder, was healed by a divine grace which she herself described as the “smile of Our Lady” (ibid., 29v-30v). She then received her First Communion, which was an intense experience (ibid., 35r), and made Jesus in the Eucharist the centre of her life.

The “Grace of Christmas” of 1886 marked the important turning-point, which she called her “complete conversion” (ibid., 44v-45r). In fact she recovered totally, from her childhood hyper-sensitivity and began a “to run as a giant”. At the age of 14, Thérèse became ever closer, with great faith, to the Crucified Jesus. She took to heart the apparently desperate case of a criminal sentenced to death who was impenitent. “I wanted at all costs to prevent him from going to hell”, the Saint wrote, convinced that her prayers would put him in touch with the redeeming Blood of Jesus. It was her first and fundamental experience of spiritual motherhood: “I had such great trust in the Infinite Mercy of Jesus”, she wrote. Together with Mary Most Holy, young Thérèse loved, believed and hoped with “a mother’s heart” (cf. Pr 6/ior).

In November 1887, Thérèse went on pilgrimage to Rome with her father and her sister Céline (ibid., 55v-67r). The culminating moment for her was the Audience with Pope Leo XIII, whom she asked for permission to enter the Carmel of Lisieux when she was only just 15. A year later her wish was granted. She became a Carmelite, “to save souls and to pray for priests” (ibid., 69v).

At the same time, her father began to suffer from a painful and humiliating mental illness. It caused Thérèse great suffering which led her to contemplation of the Face of Jesus in his Passion (ibid., 71rc). Thus, her name as a religious — Sr Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face — expresses the programme of her whole life in communion with the central Mysteries of the Incarnation and the Redemption. Her religious profession, on the Feast of the Nativity of Mary, 8 September 1890, was a true spiritual espousal in evangelical “littleness”, characterized by the symbol of the flower: “It was the Nativity of Mary. What a beautiful feast on which to become the Spouse of Jesus! It was the little new-born Holy Virgin who presented her little Flower to the little Jesus” (ibid., 77r).

For Thérèse, being a religious meant being a bride of Jesus and a mother of souls (cf. Ms B, 2v). On the same day, the Saint wrote a prayer which expressed the entire orientation of her life: she asked Jesus for the gift of his infinite Love, to be the smallest, and above all she asked for the salvation of all human being: “That no soul may be damned today” (Pr 2).

Of great importance is her Offering to Merciful Love, made on the Feast of the Most Holy Trinity in 1895 (Ms A, 83v-84r; Pr 6). It was an offering that Thérèse immediately shared with her sisters, since she was already acting novice mistress.

Ten years after the “Grace of Christmas” in 1896, came the “Grace of Easter”, which opened the last period of Thérèse’s life with the beginning of her passion in profound union with the Passion of Jesus. It was the passion of her body, with the illness that led to her death through great suffering, but it was especially the passion of the soul, with a very painful trial of faith (Ms C, 4v-7v). With Mary beside the Cross of Jesus, Thérèse then lived the most heroic faith, as a light in the darkness that invaded her soul. The Carmelite was aware that she was living this great trial for the salvation of all the atheists of the modern world, whom she called “brothers”.

She then lived fraternal love even more intensely (8r-33v): for the sisters of her community, for her two spiritual missionary brothers, for the priests and for all people, especially the most distant. She truly became a “universal sister”! Her lovable, smiling charity was the expression of the profound joy whose secret she reveals: “Jesus, my joy is loving you” (P 45/7). In this context of suffering, living the greatest love in the smallest things of daily life, the Saint brought to fulfilment her vocation to be Love in the heart of the Church (cf. Ms B, 3v).

Thérèse died on the evening of 30 September 1897, saying the simple words, “My God, I love you!”, looking at the Crucifix she held tightly in her hands. These last words of the Saint are the key to her whole doctrine, to her interpretation of the Gospel the act of love, expressed in her last breath was as it were the continuous breathing of her soul, the beating of her heart. The simple words “Jesus I love you”, are at the heart of all her writings. The act of love for Jesus immersed her in the Most Holy Trinity. She wrote: “Ah, you know, Divine Jesus I love you / The spirit of Love enflames me with his fire, / It is in loving you that I attract the Father” (P 17/2).

Dear friends, we too, with St Thérèse of the Child Jesus must be able to repeat to the Lord every day that we want to live of love for him and for others, to learn at the school of the saints to love authentically and totally. Thérèse is one of the “little” ones of the Gospel who let themselves be led by God to the depths of his Mystery. A guide for all, especially those who, in the People of God, carry out their ministry as theologians. With humility and charity, faith and hope, Thérèse continually entered the heart of Sacred Scripture which contains the Mystery of Christ. And this interpretation of the Bible, nourished by the science of love, is not in opposition to academic knowledge. The science of the saints, in fact, of which she herself speaks on the last page of her The Story of a Soul, is the loftiest science.

“All the saints have understood and in a special way perhaps those who fill the universe with the radiance of the evangelical doctrine. Was it not from prayer that St Paul, St Augustine, St John of the Cross, St Thomas Aquinas, Francis, Dominic, and so many other friends of God drew that wonderful science which has enthralled the loftiest minds?” (cf. Ms C 36r). Inseparable from the Gospel, for Thérèse the Eucharist was the sacrament of Divine Love that stoops to the extreme to raise us to him. In her last Letter, on an image that represents Jesus the Child in the consecrated Host, the Saint wrote these simple words: “I cannot fear a God who made himself so small for me! […] I love him! In fact, he is nothing but Love and Mercy!” (LT 266).

In the Gospel Thérèse discovered above all the Mercy of Jesus, to the point that she said: “To me, He has given his Infinite Mercy, and it is in this ineffable mirror that I contemplate his other divine attributes. Therein all appear to me radiant with Love. His Justice, even more perhaps than the rest, seems to me to be clothed with Love” (Ms A, 84r).

In these words she expresses herself in the last lines of The Story of a Soul: “I have only to open the Holy Gospels and at once I breathe the perfume of Jesus’ life, and then I know which way to run; and it is not to the first place, but to the last, that I hasten…. I feel that even had I on my conscience every crime one could commit… my heart broken with sorrow, I would throw myself into the arms of my Saviour Jesus, because I know that he loves the Prodigal Son” who returns to him. (Ms C, 36v-37r).

“Trust and Love” are therefore the final point of the account of her life, two words, like beacons, that illumined the whole of her journey to holiness, to be able to guide others on the same “little way of trust and love”, of spiritual childhood (cf. Ms C, 2v-3r; LT 226).

Trust, like that of the child who abandons himself in God’s hands, inseparable from the strong, radical commitment of true love, which is the total gift of self for ever, as the Saint says, contemplating Mary: “Loving is giving all, and giving oneself” (Why I love thee, Mary, P 54/22). Thus Thérèse points out to us all that Christian life consists in living to the full the grace of Baptism in the total gift of self to the Love of the Father, in order to live like Christ, in the fire of the Holy Spirit, his same love for all the others."

September 30: Feast of St Jerome, Priest, Confessor, Doctor of the Church, Class III

St Jerome is of course best known for his translations of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate) and commentaries on Scripture, but he was also the founder of a monastic community in Bethlehem with a group of Roman women in 386.

St Jerome's knowledge of and interest in monasticism came largely from his trips to the East, including two (not entirely successful) years spent in an eremitical community. He wrote extensively on monasticism, and translated a number of key Eastern documents (such as the Rule of St Pachomius, which was known to St Benedict) into Latin.

He is a saint who can give hope to us all in that he was, as a 'difficult and hot-tempered man' who made many enemies (he had a less than amiable relationship with St Ambrose, and hotly debated views with St Augustine amongst others).

The Catholic Encyclopedia tells us that St Jerome was born at Stridon, a town on the confines of Dalmatia and Pannonia, about the year 340-2, and died at Bethlehem on 30 September, 420.

"He went to Rome, probably about 360, where he was baptized, and became interested in ecclesiastical matters. From Rome he went to Trier, famous for its schools, and there began his theological studies.

Later he went to Aquileia, and towards 373 he set out on a journey to the East. He settled first in Antioch, where he heard Apollinaris of Laodicea, one of the first exegetes of that time and not yet separated from the Church.

From 374-9 Jerome led an ascetical life in the desert of Chalcis, south-west of Antioch. Ordained priest at Antioch, he went to Constantinople (380-81), where a friendship sprang up between him and St. Gregory of Nazianzus.

From 382 to August 385 he made another sojourn in Rome, not far from Pope Damasus. When the latter died (11 December, 384) his position became a very difficult one. His harsh criticisms had made him bitter enemies, who tried to ruin him. After a few months he was compelled to leave Rome.

By way of Antioch and Alexandria he reached Bethlehem, in 386. He settled there in a monastery near a convent founded by two Roman ladies, Paula and Eustochium, who followed him to Palestine. Henceforth he led a life of asceticism and study; but even then he was troubled by controversies which will be mentioned later, one with Rufinus and the other with the Pelagians..."

September 29: Feast of the Dedication of St Michael the Archangel, Class I

 

The most famous shrine to St Michael in Western Christendom is of course Mont St-Michel in France, where St. Michael appeared to St. Aubert, bishop of Avranches in 708 and instructed him to build a church on the rocky islet.  St Aubert repeatedly ignored the angel's instruction, being sceptical of apparitions, until St. Michael burned a hole in the bishop's skull with his finger! 

St Michael, whose name means Who is like God?", rates several Scriptural mentions:

(1) Daniel 10:13 sqq., Gabriel says to Daniel, when he asks God to permit the Jews to return to Jerusalem: "The Angel [D.V. prince] of the kingdom of the Persians resisted me . . . and, behold Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me . . . and none is my helper in all these things, but Michael your prince."

(2) Daniel 12, the Angel speaking of the end of the world and the Antichrist says: "At that time shall Michael rise up, the great prince, who standeth for the children of thy people."

(3) In the Epistle of St. Jude: "When Michael the Archangel, disputing with the devil, contended about the body of Moses", etc.

(4) Apocalypse 12:7, "And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon."

There is a lot more about him in the apocryphal Book of Enoch (quoted by St Jude), which, though judged not one of the inspired books of Scripture, still has considerable value.

The Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Christian tradition gives to St. Michael four offices:

•To fight against Satan.

•To rescue the souls of the faithful from the power of the enemy, especially at the hour of death.

•To be the champion of God's people, the Jews in the Old Law, the Christians in the New Testament; therefore he was the patron of the Church, and of the orders of knights during the Middle Ages.

•To call away from earth and bring men's souls to judgment ("signifer S. Michael repraesentet eas in lucam sanctam", Offert. Miss Defunct. "Constituit eum principem super animas suscipiendas", Antiph. off. Cf. The Shepherd of Hermas, Book III, Similitude 8, Chapter 3).  

St Michael, pray for us.

September 27: SS Cosmas and Damian, Memorial

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, Cosmas and Damian, familiar to us from the litany, were:

"Early Christian physicians and martyrs whose feast is celebrated on 27 September.

They were twins, born in Arabia, and practised the art of healing in the seaport Ægea, now Ayash (Ajass), on the Gulf of Iskanderun in Cilicia, Asia Minor, and attained a great reputation.

They accepted no pay for their services and were, therefore, called anargyroi, "the silverless". In this way they brought many to the Catholic Faith.

When the Diocletian persecution began, the Prefect Lysias had Cosmas and Damian arrested, and ordered them to recant. They remained constant under torture, in a miraculous manner suffered no injury from water, fire, air, nor on the cross, and were finally beheaded with the sword."