King St Edward (EF), Oct 13



Bayeux Tapestry

From the martyrology:

"In England, St. Edward, King, who died on the 5th of January. He is specially honored on this day, on account of the translation of his body."

St Wilfrid OSB (in some places), Oct 12

The feast of St Wilfrid (633-709), abbot and bishop of York, is not celebrated in the Universal Benedictine calendar, but in some places, such as England.

From the martyrology:

"At York, in England, St. Wilfrid, bishop and confessor."

Wilfrid was born in Northumbria in about 633 and left home early due to a family conflict, eventually studying at the monastery of Lindisfarne in Northumbria before ending up at the King of Kent's court at Canterbury in 652.

He undertook a pilgrimage to Rome with St Benedict Biscop some time between 653 and 658.  He seems to have split up with St Benedict Biscop in Lyon, when Wilfrid stayed under the patronage of Annemund, the archbishop. Although he did make eventually make it to Rome, he remained based in Lyons for some years, leaving only after his patron's murder.

St Wilfrid returned to Northumbria in about 658,and  shortly before 664 King Alhfrith gave Wilfrid a monastery he had recently founded at Ripon, formed around a group of monks from Melrose Abbey.  Wilfrid ejected the abbot, Eata, because he would not follow the Roman customs; Cuthbert, later a saint, was another of the monks expelled.

Shortly afterwards Wilfrid was ordained a priest in the kingdom of the Gewisse, part of Wessex.

He was the lead player in the push to adopt the Roman date for Easter (and other customs) at the Synod of Whitby in 666, and a year later was made bishop of York.  He refused to be ordained by the indigenous bishops (considering those of the Irish tradition invalidly ordained) so went to Gaul for the ceremony.  This proved to be a bad mistake though, as while he either lingered there or was detained, another bishop was installed in his place.  Worse, on his way home his ship was wrecked and his party attacked by the local pagans where he landed.

Wilfrid spent three years in exile as abbot of Ripon, before being restored to his see by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury after his arrival in 669.  Further disputes, however,led him to lose his diocese once again, resolved only partially in his favour after an appeal to Rome.  He eventually retired to his monastery and died at the age of 70.

St Wilfrid and the Rule

St Wilfrid is one of those saints that I have to admit I find difficult to like, though perhaps I have been unduly influenced by St Bede the Venerable's less than favourable presentation of him in his (contemporaneous) history.

Although a great fund raiser, and enthusiastic founder of churches and monasteries, he lived ostentatiously, travelled with a large retinue, seems to have utterly lacked humility, and managed to quarrel with virtually every leading figure of the time.

His main claim to Benedictine fame, though, is the claim in his life that he was the first to introduce the Rule of St Benedict to Northumbria.

Tuesdays of St Benedict - I Vespers of the Office of St Benedict on Tuesdays

c13th Limoges
image: Jerzy Banach (1976).

I recently came across a monastic website (for the Benedictines of La Garde Freinet) urging its Oblates to consecrate Tuesdays to St Benedict.

Votive Offices

I assume this reflects the older practice of saying the 'Office of St Benedict' on Tuesday, and the idea of saying some prayers or hymns for the saint on that day seems like a great idea to me.

Votive Offices of the saints (except for Our lady on Saturday) were, alas suppressed by the original wreckovator of the Office, Pope Pius X.

Still, even if one feels constrained to follow the churches pastoral instructions on this subject (and in these troubled times, who is all that concerned about rubrics and rules!**), one can still use the prayers from them, or perhaps say them devotionally.

Accordingly, I thought I'd start trying to describe the old votive Office in occasional posts on Tuesdays that are not feasts.  In fact most of the Office is simply that of the feast of St Benedict of 21 March, but used with the psalms of the day of the week.

In the older breviary approved after the Council of Tent, the Office of St Benedict was said on all Tuesdays that were not feasts, and an Office of St Scholastica was said monthly.

Vespers in the Office of St Benedict

The Office of St Benedict on Tuesdays started with I Vespers on Monday (and ends with None, so there is no II Vespers).

I've come across a few different variants on how the Office was said - my older breviary has the psalms as of the day with the rest of the Office, however the Liber Antiphonarius of 1896 has the antiphons being of the day of the week, not the votive Office                                                                                                                          .
 Either way, most of the texts come from the Offices of the feast days of the saint.  In particular, the antiphons, chapter, responsory and hymn were the same as for the feast of the saint on March 21.

The Magnificat antiphon can be found in the texts for the Office of 11 July (for Lauds), and is:

Sanctissime Confessor Domini, Monachorum Pater et Dux, Benedicte, intercede pro nostro omniumque salute

O most holy Confessor of the Lord, Benedict, father and leader of monks,intercede for the salvation of us and everyone.




The collect was:

Excita Domine, in Ecclesia tua Spiritum, cui beatus Pater noster Benedictus Abbas servivit; ut eodem nos repleti studeamus amare quod docuit.  Per Dominum...in unitate ejusdem Spiritus.

Raise up, O Lord, in thy Church, the Spirit wherewith our holy Father Benedict was animated: that, filled with the same,  we may strive to love what he loved, and to practise what he taught.

Here is a setting of the hymn from the Office for you to enjoy.




**I should note for the record that the modern Liturgy of the Hours does allow Votive Offices:

245. For a public cause or out of devotion, except on solemnities, the Sundays of the seasons of Advent, Lent, and Easter, Ash Wednesday, Holy Week, the octave of Easter, and 2 November, a votive office may be celebrated, in whole or in part: for example, on the occasion of a pilgrimage, a local feast, or the external solemnity of a saint.

Of course, if you are saying the Office according to the 1963 rubrics, this does not, strictly speaking, apply, but...

Maternity of Our Lady (EF), Oct 11

Here is an explanation of the feast, from the Catholic Encyclopedia:

"The object of this feast is to commemorate the dignity of the Mary as Mother of God. Mary is truly the Mother of Christ, who in one person unites the human and divine nature. This title was solemnly ratified by the Council of Ephesus, 22 June, 431. The hymns used in the office of the feast also allude to Mary's dignity as the spiritual mother of men. The love of Mary for all mankind was that of a mother, for she shared all the feelings of her son whose love for men led Him to die for our redemption (Hunter, Dogm.Theo. 2, 578). The feast was first granted, on the petition of King Joseph Manuel, to the dioceses of Portugal and to Brasil and Algeria, 22 January, 1751, together with the feast of the Purity of Mary, and was assigned to the first Sunday in May, dupl. maj. In the following year both feasts were extended to the province of Venice, 1778 to the kingdom of Naples, and 1807 to Tuscany."

The feast was made universal in 1931, in honour of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus.  It was shifted to January 1 in the new calendar, allegedly for ecumenical reasons (though it is not particularly obvious what these are).

In any case, for a nice meditation on what it would have been like for Our Lady to be pregnant with Our Lord, have a read of this post over at New Theological Movement (from whence cometh the icon).

St Frances Borgia (EF, Oct 10)

From the martyrology:

"At Rome, St. Francis Borgia, Superior General of the Society of Jesus, celebrated for the austerity of his life, the gift of prayer, and for the firmness with which he renounced the dignities of the world, and refused those of the Church.

St John Leonardi (EF/OF), St Denis and companions (OF) Oct 9

Today is the feast of John Leonardi in the Extraordinary Form.  From the martyrology:

"At Rome, St John Leonardi, Confessor, founder of the Congregation of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, renowned for his labours and miracles.  By his good offices the Missions for the Propagation of the Faith were established."

And also today, in the Ordinary Form, St Denis, bishop of Paris martyred around 250 AD:

"At Paris, the birthday of the holy martyrs Denis the Areopagite, bishop, Rusticus, priest, and Eleutherius, deacon. Denis was baptized by the Apostle St. Paul, and consecrated first bishop of Athens. Then going to Rome, he was sent to Gaul by the blessed Roman Pontiff Clement, to preach the Gospel. He proceeded to Paris, and after having for some years faithfully filled the office entrusted to him, he was subjected to the severest kinds of torments by the prefect Fescenninus, and at length, being beheaded with his companions, completed his martyrdom."

St Bridget (EF), Oct 8

folio 15, BL Harley MS 4640 (British Library), 1530.
Probably painted at Syon Monastery, Isleworth

St Bridget of Sweden (1303-73), mystic and foundress of the double order of Bridgettine nuns and monks after the death of her husband, is one of the patron saints of Europe.

From the martyrology:

"St. Bridget, widow, who, after visiting many holy places by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, died at Rome on the 23d of July. Her body was taken to Sweden on the 7th of this month."

Pope Benedict XVI gave a General Audience on her in 2010:

"...We are well acquainted with the events of St Bridget's life because her spiritual fathers compiled her biography in order to further the process of her canonization immediately after her death in 1373. Bridget was born 70 years earlier, in 1303, in Finster, Sweden, a Northern European nation that for three centuries had welcomed the Christian faith with the same enthusiasm as that with which the Saint had received it from her parents, very devout people who belonged to noble families closely related to the reigning house.

We can distinguished two periods in this Saint's life.

The first was characterized by her happily married state. Her husband was called Ulf and he was Governor of an important district of the Kingdom of Sweden. The marriage lasted for 28 years, until Ulf's death. Eight children were born, the second of whom, Karin (Catherine), is venerated as a Saint. This is an eloquent sign of Bridget's dedication to her children's education. Moreover, King Magnus of Sweden so appreciated her pedagogical wisdom that he summoned her to Court for a time, so that she could introduce his young wife, Blanche of Namur, to Swedish culture. Bridget, who was given spiritual guidance by a learned religious who initiated her into the study of the Scriptures, exercised a very positive influence on her family which, thanks to her presence, became a true “domestic church”. Together with her husband she adopted the Rule of the Franciscan Tertiaries. She generously practiced works of charity for the poor; she also founded a hospital. At his wife's side Ulf's character improved and he advanced in the Christian life. On their return from a long pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, which they made in 1341 with other members of the family, the couple developed a project of living in continence; but a little while later, in the tranquillity of a monastery to which he had retired, Ulf's earthly life ended. This first period of Bridget's life helps us to appreciate what today we could describe as an authentic “conjugal spirituality”: together, Christian spouses can make a journey of holiness sustained by the grace of the sacrament of Marriage. It is often the woman, as happened in the life of St Bridget and Ulf, who with her religious sensitivity, delicacy and gentleness succeeds in persuading her husband to follow a path of faith. I am thinking with gratitude of the many women who, day after day, illuminate their families with their witness of Christian life, in our time too. May the Lord's Spirit still inspire holiness in Christian spouses today, to show the world the beauty of marriage lived in accordance with the Gospel values: love, tenderness, reciprocal help, fruitfulness in begetting and in raising children, openness and solidarity to the world and participation in the life of the Church.

The second period of Bridget's life began when she was widowed. She did not consider another marriage in order to deepen her union with the Lord through prayer, penance and charitable works. Therefore Christian widows too may find in this Saint a model to follow. In fact, upon the death of her husband, after distributing her possessions to the poor — although she never became a consecrated religious — Bridget settled near the Cistercian Monastery of Alvastra. Here began the divine revelations that were to accompany her for the rest of her life. Bridget dictated them to her confessors-secretaries, who translated them from Swedish into Latin and gathered them in eight volumes entitled Revelationes (Revelations). A supplement followed these books called, precisely, Revelationes extravagantes (Supplementary revelations).

St Bridget's Revelations have a very varied content and style. At times the revelations are presented in the form of dialogues between the divine Persons, the Virgin, the Saints and even demons; they are dialogues in which Bridget also takes part. At other times, instead, a specific vision is described; and in yet others what the Virgin Mary reveals to her concerning the life and mysteries of the Son. The value of St Bridget's Revelations, sometimes the object of criticism Venerable John Paul II explained in his Letter Spes Aedificandi: “The Church, which recognized Bridget's holiness without ever pronouncing on her individual revelations, has accepted the overall authenticity of her interior experience” (n. 5). Indeed, reading these Revelations challenges us on many important topics. For example, the description of Christ's Passion, with very realistic details, frequently recurs. Bridget always had a special devotion to Christ's Passion, contemplating in it God's infinite love for human beings. She boldly places these words on the lips of the Lord who speaks to her: “O my friends, I love my sheep so tenderly that were it possible I would die many other times for each one of them that same death I suffered for the redemption of all” (Revelationes, Book I, c. 59). The sorrowful motherhood of Mary, which made her Mediatrix and Mother of Mercy, is also a subject that recurs frequently in the Revelations.

In receiving these charisms, Bridget was aware that she had been given a gift of special love on the Lord's part: “My Daughter” — we read in the First Book of Revelations — “I have chosen you for myself, love me with all your heart... more than all that exists in the world” (c. 1). Bridget, moreover, knew well and was firmly convinced that every charism is destined to build up the Church. For this very reason many of her revelations were addressed in the form of admonishments, even severe ones, to the believers of her time, including the Religious and Political Authorities, that they might live a consistent Christian life; but she always reprimanded them with an attitude of respect and of full fidelity to the Magisterium of the Church and in particular to the Successor of the Apostle Peter.

In 1349 Bridget left Sweden for good and went on pilgrimage to Rome. She was not only intending to take part in the Jubilee of the Year 1350 but also wished to obtain from the Pope approval for the Rule of a Religious Order that she was intending to found, called after the Holy Saviour and made up of monks and nuns under the authority of the Abbess. This is an element we should not find surprising: in the Middle Ages monastic foundations existed with both male and female branches, but with the practice of the same monastic Rule that provided for the Abbess' direction. In fact, in the great Christian tradition the woman is accorded special dignity and — always based on the example of Mary, Queen of Apostles — a place of her own in the Church, which, without coinciding with the ordained priesthood is equally important for the spiritual growth of the Community. Furthermore, the collaboration of consecrated men and women, always with respect for their specific vocation, is of great importance in the contemporary world. In Rome, in the company of her daughter Karin, Bridget dedicated herself to a life of intense apostolate and prayer. And from Rome she went on pilgrimage to various Italian Shrines, in particular to Assisi, the homeland of St Francis for whom Bridget had always had great devotion. Finally, in 1371, her deepest desire was crowned: to travel to the Holy Land, to which she went accompanied by her spiritual children, a group that Bridget called “the friends of God”. In those years the Pontiffs lived at Avignon, a long way from Rome: Bridget addressed a heartfelt plea to them to return to the See of Peter, in the Eternal City. She died in 1373, before Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome definitively. She was buried temporarily in the Church of San Lorenzo in Panisperna in Rome but in 1374 her children, Birger and Karin, took her body back to her homeland, to the Monastery of Vadstena, the headquarters of the Religious Order St Bridget had founded. The order immediately experienced a considerable expansion. In 1391 Pope Boniface IX solemnly canonized her. Bridget's holiness, characterized by the multiplicity of her gifts and the experiences that I have wished to recall in this brief biographical and spiritual outline, makes her an eminent figure in European history. In coming from Scandinavia, St Bridget bears witness to the way Christianity had deeply permeated the life of all the peoples of this Continent. In declaring her Co-Patroness of Europe, Pope John Paul II hoped that St Bridget — who lived in the 14th century when Western Christianity had not yet been wounded by division — may intercede effectively with God to obtain the grace of full Christian unity so deeply longed for. Let us pray, dear brothers and sisters, for this same intention, which we have very much at heart, and that Europe may always be nourished by its Christian roots, invoking the powerful intercession of St Bridget of Sweden, a faithful disciple of God and Co-Patroness of Europe."