St Jerome - Doctor of the Church and Patron of Libraries: Feast day 30 September
Born around the year 342, at Stridonius, a small town at the head of the Adriatic, St Jerome was the most learned of the Fathers of the Western Church. His Christian father taught him at home before sending him to Rome ,where he was taught by a famous pagan grammarian and a Christian rhetorician. Here he learned Latin and Greek and read the literature of these languages.
Depite his Christian upbringing, Jerome found it hard to resist worldly pleasures, but in the year 360 he was baptized by Pope Liberius. After three years in Rome, he decided to broaden his horizons and began travelling with some friends.He went to Aquileia to a monastry, where he renounced all secular pursuits to dedicate himself to God.
While in Aquileia, Jerome copied many books to build up his own religious library. He then travelled again with friends to the East, towards Syria. They arrived in Antioch in the year 373. After attending lectures there, Jerome and his friends left for the desert of Chalcis. Two of his friends died there and one returned to the West, but Jerome remained there for four years. He sufferd bouts if illness and temptaion. This bothered him and he wrote to a friend later that he had thrown himself in spirit at the feet of Jesus and had fasted for whole weeks to tame his flesh. He even studied Hebrew in an attempt to suppress in his words his “wicked thoughts”.
Jerome was ordained a priest but he truly wished to be a monk and a recluse.
About 380, Jerome went to Constantinople for two years to study the scriptures. He then returned to Rome where he became secretary to Pope Damasus, who was impressed with Jerome’s work. But when Pope Damasus died his successor was less impressed and he became unpopular with many because of his outspoken intolerance of unchristian behaviour. Although justified in his thoughts, his manner aroused resentment and many began to criticize him and to spread unfounded gossip about him. Jerome could not stand this and decided to return to the East.
With the help of his friend Paula, Jerome built a monastry for men, near the basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, plus houses for three communities of women. Jerome himself lived and worked in a large cave nearby and opened a free school and a hospice for pilgrims. He now began to enjoy some years of peaceful activity.
Later when the Christion faith was threatened, Jerome stood up for Christianity.
Jerome is most famous for his critical work on the scriptures. He is regarded by the Church as the greatest of all the doctors in clarifying the divine word. He was a man of prayer and pure of heart,spending most of his life in study, penance and contemplation. While in Rome he revised the current Latin New Testament and the Psalms and he later went on to translate the Old Testament directly from the Hebrew.
In the sixteenth century the great council of Trent pronounced Jerome’s Vulgate the authentic and authoritative text of the Catholic Church.
The death of his friend Paula hit him badly, as did the death of Paula’s
daughter the following year. Jerome, now an old man himself fell ill. He was
worn with penance and excessive work,his sight and voice almost gone,his body
fading, he died on 30 September 420. His body was buried under the church
of the nativity in Bethlehem.
In the thirteenth century his body was translated and now lies somewhere in
the Sistene Chapel of the basilica of Santa Maggiore in Rome.
Saint Sergius of Radonezh Feast Day: September 25
Contributor: Branwen Jones
Sergius was born Bartholomew in 1315 at Rostov, into a high-ranking Russian family, some 100 years after the Tartar invasion. When he was just 15 years old the civil war between Moscow and Rostov forced his family to flee for their lives. Reduced in means they lived as humble peasants at Radonezh, fifty miles north of Moscow.
Five years later, when their parents were dead, Sergius and his brother, Stephen, decided to live as hermits in the forests near Radonezh where they restored the Church of the Holy Trinity. Here others joined them to form a small Christian community. It was only when a local abbot professed Bartholomew as a monk that he took the name of Sergius and his followers chose him as their superior.
The aftermath of the Tartar invasion had left the Russian Church decimated and Sergius’ monastery with its humble wooden cells and refectory grouped around a stone church was instrumental in re-establishing Russian religious tradition. Sergius’ influence extended far beyond his monastic community and he was highly regarded as a peacemaker and mediator in political matters. In 1380 Prince Dmitri came to ask the wise man’s advice and intercession before entering into battle with the Tartars. The Prince’s great military success in defeating the Tartars and re-affirming Russia’s Christian status was attributed in part to the saint’s prayers.
For the remainder of his lifetime Sergius lived a life of asceticism, establishing about forty further monasteries. He also devoted himself to reconciling rival factions in Russia and to establishing peace and order. He refused to be consecrated Patriarch of Moscow saying ‘Since the days of my youth I have never worn gold. Now that I am an old man, more than ever I adhere to my poverty’.
Sergius died peacefully in 1392 and was canonized before 1449. He became Patron of Moscow and later of all Russia.
Saint Cornelius: Feast Day: 16 September
It is believed that St. Cornelius was born in Rome and was active in the 3rd century. He succeeded Fabian at a time of political unrest, which delayed his election by 14 months. Disruption had been caused through the persecution of Christians by Decius and his supporters. Cornelius made it his principal task to welcome back those who had rejected their faith under such pressure.
He disputed the hard line attitude of some Church factions who wanted to close the door on all who had apostasized, and declared that the Church had the power and authority to re-admit the lapsed Christians. A synod of western Bishops in Rome in October 251 supported Cornelius but all was not settled. Two years later further persecution of the lapsed Christians arose under the Emperor Gallus, and Pope Cornelius was sent into exile at Centum Cellae where he is reported to have been martyred as a result of the deprivations he endured.
St John Chrystosom (349 – 407 A.D.): Feast Day 13th September
Contributor: Bill Smith
“Chrysostom” means “golden mouthed” and St. John was given this nickname because of his eloquent oratory. He is one of the early Doctors of the church and has the distinction of being considered among the greatest preachers ever. Many of his homilies are recorded and the nineteenth, on the Lords Prayer, is of special interest.
After ordination to the priesthood his reputation for preaching developed. This was a time when there was a need for reform in the church. By his personal life of austerity and in his preaching he sought to improve the morals of both the laity and the clergy. He was later to become bishop of Constantinople. He was twice exiled because he fell foul of the Royal Court.
He is also remembered for his revision of Greek Liturgy. Much of his work is to be found in the liturgies still used in the Orthodox Churches for whom also he is therefore a most important saint.
Saint Peter Claver: Feast Day: 9 September
Contributor: Andrew Jones
Bearing in mind the dates concerned, the Christian service of Saint Peter Claver is most enlightening. He was born in 1580 in Verdu, Catalonia, near Barcelona, into the impoverished remnant of a once affluent and noble family. In 1602 he entered the Jesuit Novitiate in Tarragona, taking his final vows in August 1604. He then sailed for Majorca where he studied philosophy under the guidance of Saint Alphonsus Rodriguez. There he felt called to ‘go to the Indies and save millions of perishing souls.’
In 1610 he arrived at Cartagena, Colombia in South America, one of the largest slave centres of the time, where it is believed that some 1,000 African slaves were landed every week. In 1616 he was ordained to the priesthood and became Priest to the slaves.
He would meet the ships as they docked in Cartagena and enter the hold to bring food and spiritual support to the bewildered and demoralised human cargo. With love and deep compassion, he would instruct the slaves through the assistance of African catechists and gave particular care to the sick and dying. To the fit he offered the living Gospel and even followed them to the plantations to minister to them. It is believed that he brought some 300,000 African slaves to faith. As a result his name was one of the first and most prominent amongst abolitionists.
Saint Pius X: 21 August
Contributor: Bill Smith
Pius the Tenth was a pope of the 20th century and the first modern pope to be canonized (by Pius XXII In 1954). After the death of Leo XIII the conclave of 1903 elected Cardinal Sarto (then Patriarch of Venice) pope despite his own hesitancy to accept the office of Vicar of Christ. He died just after the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
He was born Guiseppe Sarto to a poor Italian parents in 1835. His rise to eminence in the church is said to have been because of his pastoral and organisational ability and not by any political motivation. Pius took as his motto the passage from Paul, "To restore all things in Christ, that Christ might be all and in all" which he saw as important during that time of change in the modern world. He was seen as the champion of the ordinary Catholic in the pew and more in tune with the traditional ways of the church rather than adapting to the changing times around it. He was worried by the doctrines of Modernism.
He was responsible for lowering the age to seven years at which children first received the sacrament of Holy Communion and encouraged all in frequent reception of the Eucharist. “Holy Communion is the shortest and safest way to Heaven,” he wrote. He is sometimes called the “Pope of the Blessed Sacrament”. He set in motion the beginnings of liturgical reform and restored the use of Gregorian chant.
In his last will and testament he declared: "I was born poor, I have lived in poverty, and I wish to die poor."
(A commentary on Pius X would be incomplete without reference to the Society of Pius X founded by Archbishop Lefevre which rejects the current liturgy of the church and insists in following the Tridentine rite. Although the Society declares allegiance to the Pope it is in obvious conflict with the hierarchy).
Saint Maximilian Kolbe (1894-1941): Feast Day: 14 August
Contributor: Kate Plowman
Saint Maximilian is a hero for our times: he gave his life for others in the infamous concentration camp Auschwitz, in his native Poland.
He was born in 1894 in Russian-occupied Poland. His baptismal name was the curiously Western-sounding name of Raymond; as a very young child he had a vision of Mary, in which she offered him two crowns: one the white crown of purity; the other the red one of martyrdom. He accepted both. In 1907, he entered a junior Franciscan seminary, where he excelled in mathematics and physics. He went to the Pontifical Gregorian University, where he gained doctorates in Philosophy and Theology; he was ordained priest in 1918.
In 1917, he had founded the Militia of the Immaculate, the purpose of which was the conversion and sanctification of non-Catholics, especially those hostile to the Church. He founded a magazine for the Militia in 1919, which was an immediate success, soon running to 45,000 copies a month. This led to the first city (Niepokalanow) being founded in order to be dedicated to the Virgin Mary – via the efforts of a friary of Franciscan monks who used modern technology to promote the Militia throughout the land. In 1930, Kolbe went as a missionary to Japan; but on the outbreak of war in 1939 he was back in Niepokalanow.
When the Germans invaded Poland, the friars dispersed; about 40 of them, including Kolbe, were taken to holding camps in Germany and Poland, but were released on 8 December of that year. During a period when the Pope and the Vatican are accused of ignoring the plight of Jewish people during World War 2, it is good to be able to record that the friars took care of 5,000 Jewish refugees during the war. Maximilian remarked, "We must do everything in our power to help these unfortunate people who have been driven from their homes and deprived of even the most basic necessities. Our mission is among them in the days that lie ahead." However, in February 1941, Kolbe was arrested and imprisoned in Pawiak Prison, Warsaw, a grim building where 100,000 were imprisoned during World War Two – 35,000 being executed and 60,000 to the extermination camps.
He was later removed to Auschwitz – whose cynical legend above the camps read: ‘Work makes you free.’ Several million Jews were massacred here and several million Catholics, as well. Kolbe was a towering Christian example here, speaking ceaselessly of the love of God – despite terrible physical suffering from tuberculosis, and the generally inhuman treatment which all received from the camp guards – and directing everyone to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
On the night of 3 August 1941 a prisoner successfully escaped from Auschwitz; the Germans selected ten prisoners, at random, to be killed as a reprisal. Kolbe heard one, a sergeant, lamenting the fact that he would never see his wife and children again. Kolbe offered his own life in exchange for his. On 14 August 1941 he was given a lethal injection of carbonic acid, having led the other condemned prisoners in prayers and hymns.
He was beatified by Pope Paul VI on 17 October 1941, 30 years after he died; and canonized on10 October 1982 by his fellow countryman, Pope John Paul 11. His Feast Day is 14 August – the Day before the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – the Mother of God whom he loved so much throughout his life.
Edith Stein (1891-1942): Feast Day: 9 August
Contributor: Kate Plowman
Edith Stein was unpromising material for canonisation: born a Jew, precociously intellectual, who lost her Jewish faith at a young age. She died at Auschwitz as a Roman Catholic nun who had taken the name Teresa Benedicta.
She was born the youngest of a large Jewish family in Breslau, Germany. After World War One she had studied philosophy, becoming a University professor’s assistant; but she had been very moved by the faith of the widow of a friend, Professor Adolph Reinach who had been killed during the Great War. The final step on her journey to the Catholic faith was the reading of Teresa of Avila’s autobiography. ‘This is the truth!’ she said. She was baptized in 1922.
She delayed becoming a Carmelite – like the 16th century Teresa – since here mere conversion had so distressed her mother. During this time she undertook the first German translation of Thomas Aquinas’s The Truth. It was the Nazis, of all people, who were responsible for her final entry into Carmel, by blocking her as a racial Jew from her teaching career.
In 1938, as life became dangerous for Jews in Germany, Edith fled to Carmel in Holland. However, after the Catholic bishops spoke out against Nazi treatment of Jews, all Jewish converts to Catholicism were rounded up and sent to Poland. She was killed at Auschwitz on 9 August 1942 – together with her sister Rosa, also a convert and who had remained close to her.
Saint Martha: Feast Day: 29 July
Contributor: Branwen and Andrew Jones
Martha is mentioned in the Gospels on three occasions and is identified as one of a family circle, which included a sister Mary and a brother Lazarus. Clearly Jesus knew them well because their conversations were quite bold and familiar. She is named in the Gospels of both Luke and John. At least one commentator refers to Jesus as ‘a frequent guest’. This is a curious assumption as Our Lord conducted much of his ministry in Galilee, in the north of Israel, and Bethany, where Martha lived, was just outside Jerusalem - a considerable distance away.
Luke 10: 38-42 relates the best-known tale of Martha, on what appears to be the first visit Jesus made to her family home. Martha is preoccupied with her housework, presumably providing hospitality for their guests, and is frustrated that her sister Mary is not helping her. She implores Jesus to intervene but he gently rebukes Martha, telling her ‘Mary has chosen the best part of all’. In other words one can clean and cook at any time but at that very moment the opportunity to be at Jesus’s feet was unique.
Martha certainly learned from the experience, for when in John 11: 20 Jesus again approached their home, in response to the family’s plea to cure Lazarus from a serious illness, she was distressed that Our Lord had not arrived as quickly as expected. ‘If thou hadst been here, my brother would not have died,’ she said quite bluntly. Jesus knew that he was about to perform the miracle of raising Lazarus from the tomb and simply assured her ‘Your brother will rise again’. Martha immediately demonstrated her faith by responding that she knew he would be raised ‘on the last day’. Jesus replied ‘I am the Resurrection and the Life’, adding that no-one ‘who is alive and has faith shall ever die’, to which Mary firmly stated her belief that Jesus is the Messiah.
Martha is the patron saint of servants and cooks.
Saint Bridget of Sweden: Feast Day 23 July
Saint Bridget was daughter to Birger (the royal Prince of Sweden) and Ingeburdis (a descendant of the Gothic Kings). Her parents had a great love for the Passion of Our Lord, which Bridget inherited and even as a child, she loved to meditate on the Passion of Christ.
At the age of fourteen, at her father’s command, she married Ulfo (Prince of Nercicia in Sweden). They had eight children, the youngest Catherine became a Saint herself. Bridget and Ulfo later took a vow of chastity and made a pilgrimage to Compostela in Galicia. On their return Bridget agreed to Ulfo’s wish to join a Cistercian monastery, but he died soon after.
Saint Bridget then renounced her rank as Princess and in 1344 she built the great monastery of Wastein. This became the home to a new order to be known as the Brigittines. She travelled to Rome and Palestine to satisfy her devotion at the Holy Places, before returning to Rome. Here she sufferd with terrible illness. Her children Birger and Catherine were with her when she died in 1373, having received the Last Sacraments.
St Henry (972-1024): Feast Day: 13 July
Contributor: Kate Plowman
St Henry is the Patron Saint of the childless, of Dukes, the handicapped and those rejected by Religious Orders; he is believed to be the only king-emperor to be canonised.
He succeeded his father as Duke of Bavaria and, in 1002, succeeded his cousin as Emperor. Despite this, his first desire was the welfare of the Church: he was unusual in this time in seeking to uphold the powers of the Bishops. When crowned Emperor by the Pope, he confirmed the gift of the bishopric of Ravenna and the sovereignty of Rome to the Pope. He did much to restore the power of the monarchy in Germany, and to unify and reform the church in his realm; in particular the Cluniac reforms of the Benedictine monks. He also supported St Stephen in his mission to evangelise Hungary.Pope Eugene III canonised him in 1146.
St Benedict: Feast Day: 11 July
Contributor: Mary Heady
Throwing oneself into a bed of nettles is certainly one way of dealing with physical temptation! It was a method used by St Benedict when he lived as a hermit in a cave in Subiaco in Italy. He had been born in the year 480 to prosperous but devout parents who insisted on a good education for Benedict and his sister Scholastica.
As a youth in Rome, he saw so much turmoil in the Church that he decided to live in Subiaco, an area well known for its hermits. People brought him food and asked for his spiritual advice. Eventually he was invited to be Abbot of a nearby monastery, but he was so successful that other clerics tried to kill him. Legend has it that one gave him a glass of poisoned wine which shattered when Benedict blessed it.
After this he went on to found many other monasteries in Subiaco. These were small groups of ten or twelve monks and were called ‘decania’, which is where we get our word ‘deanery’. Everything flourished until a local priest, full of envy, again tried to get rid of Benedict. He was given poisoned bread, which was removed by obliging ravens. Later, ‘wanton girls’ were sent to dance before the monastery to distract the monks! So Benedict decided to take some of his flock to found another Abbey in Monte Cassino. The envious cleric gloated on his balcony to see the saint leave, but this collapsed and killed him. The Monte Cassino Abbey became famous for its generosity to the poor and persecuted at a time of famine and massacre.
Benedict was busy drawing up his Rule of Life for the monks, a mixture of spiritual activity, manual labour and care of the poor. This Rule became the pattern for all monastic groups and Benedict became famous for his holiness. Stories abound about the miracles he performed until he died in 547 and monasteries following his Rule spread across the world.
In 1944 the Abbey of Monte Cassino was totally destroyed by the Allied Air Forces, and four hundred civilians sheltering inside were killed. It was rebuilt in the fifties and monks returned to glorify God through the Rule of St Benedict.
St Sexburga, Widow, Abbess of Ely (Died 699): Feast Day: 6 July
Contributor: Jim Fillery
St Sexburga was the daughter of Anna, Queen of the East Angles, sister of Saints Etheldreda, Ethelburga and Withburga, and half-sister of Saint Sethrida. She was given in marriage to Erconbert, King of Kent, a marriage she contributed to for the next 24 years with good counsel, devotion and humility. Her goodness and charity gained her the love, admiration and devotion of all who knew her. She was mother to two princes and two saints, Ercongota and Ermenilda. She had a longing to consecrate herself wholly to God in religious retirement, and so that others might attend divine service without impediment, she began, in her husband’s lifetime, to found a monastery at Minster in the Isle of Sheppey, which she finished after his death in 664.
Here she assembled 74 nuns, herself among them, and after some years appointed her daughter Ermenilda to rule the house. Wishing to live in greater obscurity, and to be more at liberty to employ her thoughts on Heaven, she left Kent and went to the abbey of Ely, where she was chosen to succeed her sister St Etheldreda. 16 years later she caused the body of that Saint to be taken up, when it was found to be incorrupt. It was then enshrined in a white marble coffin at Cambridge. Sexberga herself passed to bliss in a good old age on 6 July at the end of the seventh century.
Her monastery of Minster-in-Sheppey was destroyed by the Danes, but rebuilt in 1130, and consecrated in honour of Our Lady and St Sexburga, continuing to be occupied by Benedictine monks until the dissolution. She was also honoured in Sweden.
St Cyril of Alexandria: Feast Day: 27 June (in the West; in the East it is 9 June)
Cyril succeeded his uncle as patriarch of Alexandria. He is known today as a theologian of the Early Church – and indeed was named in 1882 as a Doctor of the Church. He was forthright in attacking religious opponents, especially one called Nestorius, who declared that Christ was God only and not man, and thus denying Mary the title ‘Mother of God’. Cyril insisted on Christ’s dual nature as both God and Man. Both men applied to Pope Celestine I to convene a Synod to adjudicate on the matter. It found in Cyril’s favour (before supporters of Nestorius could arrive) and Nestorius was ordered to retract or be excommunicated.
Cyril was responsible for clarifying the early Church’s doctrine on the nature of the Trinity; and also wrote, among other things, commentaries on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament) and the Gospels of Luke and John; and on the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. He can be regarded as helping to lay the foundations of the Church’s doctrine.
St Richard of Chichester: Feast Day: 16 June
Contributor: Mary Heady
Not many saints have left us prayerful words which have been incorporated into a pop song! This can give us an added interest in the life of Richard, born at Droitwich in 1197. He was apparently very academically inclined and studed at Oxford and various continental universities. He became Chancellor to St Edmund at Canterbury and went into exile with him. Richard was later ordained priest and, returning to England, was elected Bishop of Chichester, an appointment opposed by King Henry III. It took two years before he was allowed to take up the post, but he became renowned for the simplicity of his personal life, for his generosity and love of the poor. He was strict with his clergy and intolerant of any religious abuses. He died at the age of fifty-six, leaving us this beautiful prayer:
‘Thanks be to thee, O Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which thou has given us, for all the pains and insults which thou has borne for us.
‘O most merciful redeemer, friend and brother, may we know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly, for thine own sake.’
Anyone familiar with the musical Godspel may recognise the second half of this prayer in the song ‘Day by Day’.
St Richard of Chichester, pray for us.
St Boniface 672-755: Feast Day: 5 June
Contributor: Kate Plowman
St Boniface is the patron saint of brewers, tailors, file-cutters and various cities in Germany.
He was born in England named Winfrid and entered the religious life despite family objections, spending his first few years in the Benedictine Order in the south-west of England. Although his scholarly reputation was widespread, he declined the position of abbot in order to carry out a ministry of evangelization on the continent, especially Germany.
He was to lead a peripatetic existence and went first to Friesland, where (under God) he converted thousands, many of these coming under the Rule of Benedict. He then travelled to Thuringia and Hessia, where again many were brought to Christ. He was concerned for the long-term spiritual direction of the clergy, establishing a monastic cell at Amöneburg at the River Ohm as a missionary centre in which native clergy could be educated. The Pope consecrated him a regional bishop, and it was here that he became known as Boniface – which may be an approximate Latinization of Wyn-frith.
He then travelled to Upper and Lower Hessia. To show the heathens the power of the one true God, he felled the oak sacred to the thunder-god Thor and dedicated the chapel built out of its wood to the prince of the Apostles. His audience was astonished that no thunderbolt from the hand of Thor destroyed him, and many came to believe.
He then returned to Thuringia where heresy had attacked the Faith. Some missionaries had never been properly ordained and several basic doctrines were at variance with the teaching of the Church. Many clergy were scarcely able to read or write, and were ready to offer sacrifices to idols. However, the number of the faithful increased under Boniface’s influence, including many of the nobility and the educated of the country. These helped in the building of churches and chapels. Boniface was keen to have institutions in which religious life could be fostered. He then reorganized the Bavarian Church, especially its clerical life, deposing the obstinate and reordaining those whose ordination he found invalid - provided they had erred through ignorance and were willing to submit to authority; he appointed bishops for vacant sees and formed new dioceses.
Boniface chaired the first German synod; its most noteworthy decrees are those ordaining the submission of clergy to the bishop and forbidding them to take any active part in wars, to carry arms, or to hunt. Laws were also enacted concerning marriage within the forbidden degrees of kindred. Very strict regulations were made against carnal sins on the part of priests and religious, the Rule of St. Benedict being made the norm for religious.
Boniface then became Archbishop of Mainz and Primate of Germany. After a few years he was able to reconcile his enemies with the Holy See, so that the supremacy of the pope was acknowledged in Great Britain, Germany, and Gaul, as well as in Italy.
In 754, he resigned the Archbishopric of Mainz and took up the work he had dreamed of in early manhood – the conversion of the Frisians. This was to lead to his martyrdom. In 755, he had gathered with new candidates for confirmation at Dorkum on the River Borne, when they were ambushed by heathens. Boniface and many companions were murdered. When the Christians returned, they found the body of the martyr and beside him the bloodstained copy of one of St. Ambrose’s writings, Advantage of Death. Boniface’s body was taken to his beloved Abbey of Fulda, and portions of his relics are at Louvain, Mechlin, Prague, Bruges and Erfurt. England is said to have been the first place where his martyrdom was celebrated on a fixed day. On 11 June, 1874 Pope Pius X extended thi celebration to the entire world.
St Boniface 672-755: Feast Day: 5 June
Contributor: Kate Plowman
St Boniface is the patron saint of brewers, tailors, file-cutters and various cities in Germany.
He was born in England named Winfrid and entered the religious life despite family objections, spending his first few years in the Benedictine Order in the south-west of England. Although his scholarly reputation was widespread, he declined the position of abbot in order to carry out a ministry of evangelization on the continent, especially Germany.
He was to lead a peripatetic existence and went first to Friesland, where (under God) he converted thousands, many of these coming under the Rule of Benedict. He then travelled to Thuringia and Hessia, where again many were brought to Christ. He was concerned for the long-term spiritual direction of the clergy, establishing a monastic cell at Amöneburg at the River Ohm as a missionary centre in which native clergy could be educated. The Pope consecrated him a regional bishop, and it was here that he became known as Boniface – which may be an approximate Latinization of Wyn-frith.
He then travelled to Upper and Lower Hessia. To show the heathens the power of the one true God, he felled the oak sacred to the thunder-god Thor and dedicated the chapel built out of its wood to the prince of the Apostles. His audience was astonished that no thunderbolt from the hand of Thor destroyed him, and many came to believe.
He then returned to Thuringia where heresy had attacked the Faith. Some missionaries had never been properly ordained and several basic doctrines were at variance with the teaching of the Church. Many clergy were scarcely able to read or write, and were ready to offer sacrifices to idols. However, the number of the faithful increased under Boniface’s influence, including many of the nobility and the educated of the country. These helped in the building of churches and chapels. Boniface was keen to have institutions in which religious life could be fostered. He then reorganized the Bavarian Church, especially its clerical life, deposing the obstinate and reordaining those whose ordination he found invalid - provided they had erred through ignorance and were willing to submit to authority; he appointed bishops for vacant sees and formed new dioceses.
Boniface chaired the first German synod; its most noteworthy decrees are those ordaining the submission of clergy to the bishop and forbidding them to take any active part in wars, to carry arms, or to hunt. Laws were also enacted concerning marriage within the forbidden degrees of kindred. Very strict regulations were made against carnal sins on the part of priests and religious, the Rule of St. Benedict being made the norm for religious.
Boniface then became Archbishop of Mainz and Primate of Germany. After a few years he was able to reconcile his enemies with the Holy See, so that the supremacy of the pope was acknowledged in Great Britain, Germany, and Gaul, as well as in Italy.
In 754, he resigned the Archbishopric of Mainz and took up the work he had dreamed of in early manhood – the conversion of the Frisians. This was to lead to his martyrdom. In 755, he had gathered with new candidates for confirmation at Dorkum on the River Borne, when they were ambushed by heathens. Boniface and many companions were murdered. When the Christians returned, they found the body of the martyr and beside him the bloodstained copy of one of St. Ambrose’s writings, Advantage of Death. Boniface’s body was taken to his beloved Abbey of Fulda, and portions of his relics are at Louvain, Mechlin, Prague, Bruges and Erfurt. England is said to have been the first place where his martyrdom was celebrated on a fixed day. On 11 June, 1874 Pope Pius X extended this celebration to the entire world.
St Philip Neri (1515-1595)
Feast Day: 26 May
This week’s saint, Philip Neri, is the patron Saint of Rome.
He was sent, at 18, to the home of a cousin who was successful in business. However, Philip felt a call to prayer; a favourite place to pray was a chapel built in the fissure of a mountain. He decided after long hours in prayer to dedicate his life to God, and in 1533 he went to Rome, where he worked as tutor to the sons of a fellow Florentine. After this he lived as a hermit, after feeling that the study of philosophy and theology interfered with his prayer life.
His favourite place to pray in Rome were the catacombs of St Sebastiano. He prayed at night; during his prayer at one time he felt a globe of light enter his mouth and sink into his heart. This gave him an overwhelming urge to preach the Word of God – to everyone. He formed a confraternity with other laymen in 1548, to minister to pilgrims who came to Rome but who were without food or shelter. It was the spiritual director of this fraternity who persuaded him to become an ordained priest, which he did in 1551.
He found his ministry was in the confessional, and he asked those who sought his guidance to gather with him in the early afternoon, to study the Bible and spiritual readings, and to stay for prayer in the evening. He made himself available to his followers at any hour. The numbers grew rapidly, and Philip and a fellow priest built a room (which they called the Oratory) to gather in. He tried to give the young people something to put in place of what he was trying to persuade them not to do – such as a picnic and a pilgrimage to the Seven Churches, accompanied by music, instead of the Carnival and its exceses.
Some complained about his availability – but he claimed that often those who came at night were the most devout. ‘The can chop wood on my back so long as they do not sin.’ However, when the Pope’s Vicar complained of his ‘introducing novelties’, he was ordered to stop. He was grief-stricken, but completely obedient. However, on the sudden death of his accuser, the Pope agreed to let him start up his Oratory again. After some less than happy experiences with other churches, he started up his own Order, the Congregation of the Oratory.
He continued his ministry of the confessional and spiritual direction. He was a humorous man, and preferred people to display spiritual rather than physical humility. However, his first love remained evangelization, and he remarked that he would turn aside from Heaven itself if one sinner approached him demanding absolution.
St Bernardine of Siena (1380-1444): Feast Day: 20 May
Contributor: Kate Plowman
At this time of fear over SARS, I thought it would be appropriate to look at the example of St Bernardine, who emerged from the student life to organise a vigorous response to an outbreak of plague in Siena.
20 people were dying daily in the hospital of Santa Maria della Scala alone. He persuaded some other young men to help him; and, anticipating Florence Nightingale’s work in the Crimea by about four centuries, saw not only to the nursing of patients but also to the cleaning of the hospital. Unlike some of his friends and colleagues he survived this episode in his life, but he never fully recovered from this.
However, this was not to be his main life’s work, which was that of preacher and reformer within the Franciscan Order. A star appeared over his head after having preached on Revelation 12:1: ‘A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head’ – and he became known as the ‘Star of Tuscany’. He was so blessed in his preaching that Pope Pius II called him ‘a second Paul.’
I find him an appealing saint because, although he peached on punishment for sin, towards the end he focussed on Christ’s mercy on the penitent.
Reference: Catholic.org.
Saint Matthias the Apostle - Feast Day 14 May
Contributor: Roger Missing
One of the first things the Apostles did after the Ascension of Jesus was to replace Judas Iscariot. Twelve was an important number at that time as it represented the twelve tribes of Israel, but choosing the new Apostle created a problem. Jesus had chosen the original twelve. What criteria would apply now?
Around 120 people met for prayer and reflection. Peter often took the initiative in speaking first and he declared that the new Apostle should be chosen from amongst them. He suggested just one criterion: that the new Apostle be a disciple from the very beginning and be a witness to Jesus’ resurrection.
Two men “qualified”, Matthias and Joseph (called Barsabbas). Both were nominated and lots cast in order to discover God’s will. It was considered through this approach that Matthias was not “chosen” but “made known” as the new Apostle.
A new person joining an established group often has implications. In the context of a modern day Parish the story behind this Saint is a reminder to always welcome newcomers, to consider the Parish family incomplete without the newcomer – the newcomer chosen by God.
Sources:
www.catholic.org
www.catholic-forum.com
Recently re-published on this site from the archive:
Saint Monica (c332-387): Feast Day: 4 May
Contributor: Kate Plowman
St Monica is most famous as the mother of St Augustine – and is credited with being responsible (under God) for leading her wayward to salvation – which Augustine was deeply and movingly grateful in his Confessions.
She was born in North Africa, to a Christian family, but was married off unhappily to a pagan, Patricius. He was another of her close family who was converted to Christian faith by Monica’s prayers and example. There were two other children of the marriage apart from Augustine – Perpertua, who became a religious, and Navigius, who seems to have been an exemplary son from the first.
Monica was blessed with a vision regarding Augustine: when he returned from Carthage (where he had been pursuing his studies) full of wild, loose ways, she was deeply grieved, and at first refused to have him living with her. She was told to dry her tears, for her son was with her. Augustine’s response was that in that case she should give up her faith – the only obstacle to her remaining with him. She retorted that he was with her – not she with him. Augustine ignored God for nine long years, living with a mistress and having a son. Monica’s persistence in prayer and fasting for her son’s conversion is a very humbling lesson for us today, we who want instant solutions to everything. Like so many of us, Augustine tried to escape God by removing himself from the company of His representatives, but Monica chased him to Rome and then Milan (where both of them separately became friends of Bishop, later St, Ambrose).
On her son becoming a Christian, she seems to have sensed that God’s work for her earthly life had been accomplished, and she died serene in God’s love, for herself and Augustine.
Saint Catherine of Siena: Feast Day: 29 April
Contributor: Bill Smith
Siena is today a beautiful old city and centre for tourism in Tuscany, Northern Italy, but in the 14th Century it was at the heart of much religious and political turmoil. Saint Catherine was born there in 1347 and died there in 1380.
Remarkably, she and her twin sister had 22 older brothers and sisters, although only half of the family survived into adulthood. From early childhood she professed to seeing apparitions and vowed to lead a life of perpetual virginity.
Later she joined the Third Order of the Dominican Sisters of Penance. She continued throughout her life to experience religious apparitions and received the "stigmata" - the marks on her own body of the five wounds of Our Lord. Within the religious community she led a life of extreme frugality. At the age of 23 she heard a voice from God urging her to leave her confined cell and to go out in the world to spread his word.
With her remarkable oratory and writing she attracted large audiences of
ordinary people as well as the attention of academics and dignitaries. At
this time the Papacy was established away from Rome in Avignon but it was
largely through Catherine’s diplomatic influence and intervention that
Pope Gregory X1 settled back in Rome.
As well as her outstanding doctrinal influence she was also noted for her
great commitment to the sick and disadvantaged nursing those with quite horrible
disease.
Her saintly life was recognised by canonisation in 1461 but it was only as
recently as 1970 that she was declared a Doctor of the Church.