Saturday, February 5, 2011

February 5: St Agatha, Class III



St Agatha is one of the seven female saints named in the canon of the mass. 

She had vowed herself to virginity but was persecuted by the pagan official in charge of her city, Catania in Sicily.  Told to sacrifice to the gods or suffer, she stood firm, whereupon she was subjected to a series of tortures, including having her breasts cut off. 

Forbidden medical treatment, in the middle of the night an old man approached her, and revealed himself to be the apostle Peter.  He healed her, but this only spurred on her tormentor to greater indignities, ordering her to be burnt naked over hot coals. 

The Benedictus antiphon for her feast refers to the eruption of the volcano above Catania on the day of her death: crowds of pagans snatched up the pall that covered the saint’s tomb, and hung it up in the path of the advancing fire and lava; miraculously, the steam of lava ceased its advance.

Thursday, February 3, 2011

February 3: St Blaise, Memorial

St Blaise was a bishop and physician who was martyred in 316.  He is one of the fourteen holy helpers.

He is most famous for his association with the blessing of throats, done on this day as a sacramental. 

His legend states that as he was being led away after he was arrested during one of the persecutions of Christians, a mother set her only son, choking to death of a fish-bone, at his feet, and the child was cured straight away. Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs, and beheaded him.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

February 2: Candlemas, aka Purification of Our Lady, Class II


Candlemas, aka The Purification of Our Lady, aka the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, is celebrated 40 days after Christmas, the traditional date for the ceremonies of purification after childbirth in Jewish law that were translated over into Catholic tradition as the rites for the churching of women.

In Jewish tradition women were ritually impure after childbirth; in Catholic tradition the ceremony is a thanksgiving for survival of childbirth, and a blessing for the future. In both cases it was no doubt a practical measure in part, to allow the mother to recover before having to resume her normal duties including attending worship! These days of course the idea is considered ideologically unsound, so the feast has been renamed the Presentation of Our Lord in the Temple (which was certainly part of the traditional ceremonies, albeit the part supplanted by infant baptism).

The popular name for the feast comes from the ceremony held on the day whereby the candles to be used for the year ahead are blessed.

The Gospel for the day, Luke 2, describes the events, and gives us the Nunc Dimittis, Simeon's canticle used at Compline in the Roman Rite.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

February 1: St Ignatius of Antioch, Class III


St Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 35 or 50-107) was the third Bishop of Antioch from 70 to 107, when he was martyred in Rome.  A student of St John the Evangelist, his letters written on the way to his martyrdom in Rome have survived, giving important witness to the beliefs and practices of the early Church.

Pope Benedict XVI gave a General Audience on the saint in 2007:

"At that time, Rome, Alexandria and Antioch were the three great metropolises of the Roman Empire. The Council of Nicea mentioned three "primacies": Rome, but also Alexandria and Antioch participated in a certain sense in a "primacy".

St Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch, which today is located in Turkey. Here in Antioch, as we know from the Acts of the Apostles, a flourishing Christian community developed. Its first Bishop was the Apostle Peter - or so tradition claims - and it was there that the disciples were "for the first time called Christians" (Acts 11: 26). Eusebius of Caesarea, a fourth-century historian, dedicated an entire chapter of his Church History to the life and literary works of Ignatius (cf. 3: 36).

Eusebius writes: "The Report says that he [Ignatius] was sent from Syria to Rome, and became food for wild beasts on account of his testimony to Christ. And as he made the journey through Asia under the strictest military surveillance" (he called the guards "ten leopards" in his Letter to the Romans, 5: 1), "he fortified the parishes in the various cities where he stopped by homilies and exhortations, and warned them above all to be especially on their guard against the heresies that were then beginning to prevail, and exhorted them to hold fast to the tradition of the Apostles".

The first place Ignatius stopped on the way to his martyrdom was the city of Smyrna, where St Polycarp, a disciple of St John, was Bishop. Here, Ignatius wrote four letters, respectively to the Churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, Tralli and Rome. "Having left Smyrna", Eusebius continues, Ignatius reached Troas and "wrote again": two letters to the Churches of Philadelphia and Smyrna, and one to Bishop Polycarp.

Thus, Eusebius completes the list of his letters, which have come down to us from the Church of the first century as a precious treasure. In reading these texts one feels the freshness of the faith of the generation which had still known the Apostles. In these letters, the ardent love of a saint can also be felt.

Lastly, the martyr travelled from Troas to Rome, where he was thrown to fierce wild animals in the Flavian Amphitheatre.

No Church Father has expressed the longing for union with Christ and for life in him with the intensity of Ignatius. We therefore read the Gospel passage on the vine, which according to John's Gospel is Jesus. In fact, two spiritual "currents" converge in Ignatius, that of Paul, straining with all his might for union with Christ, and that of John, concentrated on life in him. In turn, these two currents translate into the imitation of Christ, whom Ignatius several times proclaimed as "my" or "our God".

Thus, Ignatius implores the Christians of Rome not to prevent his martyrdom since he is impatient "to attain to Jesus Christ". And he explains, "It is better for me to die on behalf of Jesus Christ than to reign over all the ends of the earth.... Him I seek, who died for us: him I desire, who rose again for our sake.... Permit me to be an imitator of the Passion of my God!" (Romans, 5-6).

One can perceive in these words on fire with love, the pronounced Christological "realism" typical of the Church of Antioch, more focused than ever on the Incarnation of the Son of God and on his true and concrete humanity: "Jesus Christ", St Ignatius wrote to the Smyrnaeans, "was truly of the seed of David", "he was truly born of a virgin", "and was truly nailed [to the Cross] for us" (1: 1).

Ignatius' irresistible longing for union with Christ was the foundation of a real "mysticism of unity". He describes himself: "I therefore did what befitted me as a man devoted to unity" (Philadelphians, 8: 1).

For Ignatius unity was first and foremost a prerogative of God, who, since he exists as Three Persons, is One in absolute unity. Ignatius often used to repeat that God is unity and that in God alone is unity found in its pure and original state. Unity to be brought about on this earth by Christians is no more than an imitation as close as possible to the divine archetype.

Thus, Ignatius reached the point of being able to work out a vision of the Church strongly reminiscent of certain expressions in Clement of Rome's Letter to the Corinthians.

For example, he wrote to the Christians of Ephesus: "It is fitting that you should concur with the will of your Bishop, which you also do. For your justly renowned presbytery, worthy of God, is fitted as exactly to the Bishop as the strings are to the harp. Therefore, in your concord and harmonious love, Jesus Christ is sung. And man by man, you become a choir, that being harmonious in love and taking up the song of God in unison you may with one voice sing to the Father..." (4: 1-2).

And after recommending to the Smyrnaeans: "Let no man do anything connected with Church without the Bishop", he confides to Polycarp: "I offer my life for those who are submissive to the Bishop, to the presbyters, and to the deacons, and may I along with them obtain my portion in God! Labour together with one another; strive in company together; run together; suffer together; sleep together; and awake together as the stewards and associates and servants of God. Please him under whom you fight, and from whom you receive your wages. Let none of you be found a deserter. Let your Baptism endure as your arms; your faith as your helmet; your love as your spear; your patience as a complete panoply" (Polycarp, 6: 1-2).

Overall, it is possible to grasp in the Letters of Ignatius a sort of constant and fruitful dialectic between two characteristic aspects of Christian life: on the one hand, the hierarchical structure of the Ecclesial Community, and on the other, the fundamental unity that binds all the faithful in Christ.

Consequently, their roles cannot be opposed to one another. On the contrary, the insistence on communion among believers and of believers with their Pastors was constantly reformulated in eloquent images and analogies: the harp, strings, intonation, the concert, the symphony. The special responsibility of Bishops, priests and deacons in building the community is clear.

This applies first of all to their invitation to love and unity. "Be one", Ignatius wrote to the Magnesians, echoing the prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper: "one supplication, one mind, one hope in love.... Therefore, all run together as into one temple of God, as to one altar, as to one Jesus Christ who came forth from one Father, and is with and has gone to one" (7: 1-2).

Ignatius was the first person in Christian literature to attribute to the Church the adjective "catholic" or "universal": "Wherever Jesus Christ is", he said, "there is the Catholic Church" (Smyrnaeans, 8: 2). And precisely in the service of unity to the Catholic Church, the Christian community of Rome exercised a sort of primacy of love: "The Church which presides in the place of the region of the Romans, and which is worthy of God, worthy of honour, worthy of the highest happiness... and which presides over love, is named from Christ, and from the Father..." (Romans, Prologue).

As can be seen, Ignatius is truly the "Doctor of Unity": unity of God and unity of Christ (despite the various heresies gaining ground which separated the human and the divine in Christ), unity of the Church, unity of the faithful in "faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred" (Smyrnaeans, 6: 1).

Ultimately, Ignatius' realism invites the faithful of yesterday and today, invites us all, to make a gradual synthesis between configuration to Christ (union with him, life in him) and dedication to his Church (unity with the Bishop, generous service to the community and to the world).

To summarize, it is necessary to achieve a synthesis between communion of the Church within herself and mission, the proclamation of the Gospel to others, until the other speaks through one dimension and believers increasingly "have obtained the inseparable Spirit, who is Jesus Christ" (Magnesians, 15).

Imploring from the Lord this "grace of unity" and in the conviction that the whole Church presides in charity (cf. Romans, Prologue), I address to you yourselves the same hope with which Ignatius ended his Letter to the Trallians: "Love one another with an undivided heart. Let my spirit be sanctified by yours, not only now, but also when I shall attain to God.... In [Jesus Christ] may you be found unblemished" (13).

And let us pray that the Lord will help us to attain this unity and to be found at last unstained, because it is love that purifies souls."

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

January 19: SS Marius, Martha, Audifax and Abachum, Memorial

Butler's Lives of the Saints gives this account of today's saints:

"Maris, a nobleman of Persia, with his wife Martha, and two sons, Audifax and Abachum, being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among the poor, as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem, and came to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles. The emperor Aurelian then persecuted the church, and by his order a great number of Christians were shut up in the amphitheater, and shot to death with arrows, and their bodies burnt. Our saints gathered and buried their ashes with respect; for which they were apprehended, and after many torments under the governor Marcianus, Maris and his two sons were beheaded; and Martha drowned, thirteen miles from Rome, at a place now called Santa Ninfa. Their relics were found at Rome in 1590. They are mentioned with distinction in all the western Martyrologies from the sacramentary of Saint Gregory. Their relics are kept principally at Rome; part in the church of Saint Adrian, part in that of Saint Charles, and in that of Saint John of Calybite. Eginhart, son-in-law and secretary of Charlemagne, deposited a portion of these relics, which had been sent him from Rome, in the abbey of Selghenstadt, of which he was the founder, in the diocese of Mentz.

The martyrs and confessors triumphed over the devil by prayer; by this, poor and weak as they were, they were rendered invincible, by engaging Omnipotence itself to be their comfort, strength, and protection. If the art of praying well be the art of living well, according to the received maxim of the fathers and masters of a spiritual life, nothing is certainly of greater importance, than for us to learn this heavenly art of conversing with God in the manner we ought. We admire the wonderful effects which this exercise produced in the saints, who by it were disengaged from earthly ties and made spiritual and heavenly, perfect angels on earth; but we experience nothing of this in ourselves. Prayer was in them the channel of all graces, the means of attaining all virtues, and all the treasures of heaven. In us it is fruitless: the reason is plain; for the promises of Christ cannot fail we ask, and receive not, because we ask amiss."

Sunday, January 16, 2011

January 16: Pope St Marcellus I, Memorial


Pope St Marcellus I was pope from May 308 to 309.  He seems to have been an active administrator, doing much to reorganize the Church after the devastation caused by the persecutions of Diocletian. 

He sparked the enmity, though, of those who had lapsed during this period by his demands that they do penance. 

Both this and the vigour of his efforts to re-establish the Church seem to have contributed to his banishment by the Emperor Maxentius.  He died not long thereafter.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

January 15: The Office of Our Lady on Saturday after Christmas

Though Christmastide is now technically over, as Dom Gueranger points out in his Liturgical Year, the older tradition is that the season conceived more broadly extends for the forty days Our Lady spent in contemplation after the birth of Our Lord, until her re-entry to the Temple at the Feast of the Purification on February 2. 

This is reflected liturgically in Marian antiphon and prayers at Compline and in the Office of Our Lady on Saturday where the psalm antiphons of the Nativity continue to be used until February 2.

Here is a setting of the Lauds antiphon (albeit with a few extra alleluias):