Saint of the Day

Here is the saint for December 11, 2019, St. Damasus.

The Saints are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many saints and reading about their lives has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061019144122/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/day1211.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], ST. DAMASUS, Pope. “ST. DAMASUS was born at Rome at the beginning of the fourth century. He was archdeacon of the Roman Church in 355, when Pope Liberius was banished to Berda, and followed him into exile, but afterward returned to Rome. On the death of Liberius our Saint was chosen to succeed him. Ursinus, a competitor for the high office, incited a revolt, but the holy Pope took only such action as was becoming to the common father of the faithful. Having freed the Church of this new schism, he turned his attention to the extirpation of Arianism in the West and of Apollinarianism in the East, and for this purpose he convened several councils.

“He rebuilt the church of St. Laurence, which to this day is known as St. Laurence in Damaso; he made many valuable presents to this church, and settled upon it houses and lands in its vicinity. He likewise drained all the springs of the Vatican, which ran over the bodies that were buried there, and decorated the sepulchres of a great number of martyrs in the cemeteries, and adorned them with epitaphs in verse. Having sat eighteen years and two months, he died on the 10th of December, in 384, being near fourscore years of age.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots380.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) St. Damasus I, (304 – December 11, 384), “To his secretary Saint Jerome, Damasus was “an incomparable person, learned in the Scriptures, a virgin doctor of the virgin Church, who loved chastity and heard its praises with pleasure.” Damasus seldom heard such unrestrained praise. Internal political struggles, doctrinal heresies, uneasy relations with his fellow bishops and those of the Eastern Church marred the peace of his pontificate.

“The son of a Roman priest, possibly of Spanish extraction, Damasus started as a deacon in his father’s church, and served as a priest in what later became the basilica of San Lorenzo in Rome. He served Pope Liberius (352-366) and followed him into exile.

“When Liberius died, Damasus was elected bishop of Rome; but a minority elected and consecrated another deacon, Ursinus, as pope. The controversy between Damasus and the antipope resulted in violent battles in two basilicas, scandalizing the bishops of Italy. At the synod that Damasus called on the occasion of his birthday, he asked them to approve his actions. The bishops’ reply was curt: “We assembled for a birthday, not to condemn a man unheard.” Supporters of the antipope even managed to get Damasus accused of a grave crime—probably sexual—as late as A.D. 378. He had to clear himself before both a civil court and a Church synod.

“As pope, his lifestyle was simple in contrast to other ecclesiastics of Rome, and he was fierce in his denunciation of Arianism and other heresies. A misunderstanding of the Trinitarian terminology used by Rome threatened amicable relations with the Eastern Church, and Damasus was only moderately successful in dealing with that challenge.

“During his pontificate, Christianity was declared the official religion of the Roman state, and Latin became the principal liturgical language as part of the pope’s reforms. His encouragement of Saint Jerome’s biblical studies led to the Vulgate, the Latin translation of Scripture which 12 centuries later the Council of Trent declared to be “authentic in public readings, disputations, preaching.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-damasus-i/

Saints of the Day

Here are the saints for December 10, 2019, and be sure to read the final one about Our Lady’s childhood house and where the Archangel Gabriel appeared to her, now in Loreto.

The Saints are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many saints and reading about their lives has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061019143054/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/day1210.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], ST. EULALIA, Virgin, Martyr. “ST. EULALIA was a native of Merida, in Spain. She was but twelve years old when the bloody edicts of Diocletian were issued. Eulalia presented herself before the cruel judge Dacianus, and reproached him for attempting to destroy souls by compelling them to renounce the only true God. The governor commanded her to be seized, and at first tried to win her over by flattery, but failing in this, he had recourse to threats, and caused the most dreadful instruments of torture to be placed before her eyes, saying to her: “All this you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and frankincense with the tip of your finger.”

“Provoked at these seducing flatteries, our Saint threw down the idol, and trampled upon the cake which was laid for the sacrifice. At the judge’s order, two executioners tore her tender sides with iron hooks, so as to leave the very bones bare. Next lighted torches were applied to her breasts and sides; under which torment, instead of groans, nothing was heard from her mouth but thanksgivings. The fire at length catching her hair, surrounded her head and face, and the Saint was stifled by the smoke and flame.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots379.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) Blessed Adolph Kolping, (December 8, 1813 – December 4, 1865), “The rise of the factory system in 19th-century Germany brought many single men into cities where they faced new challenges to their faith. Father Adolph Kolping began a ministry to them, hoping that they would not be lost to the Catholic faith, as was happening to workers elsewhere in industrialized Europe.

“Born in the village of Kerpen, Adolph became a shoemaker at an early age because of his family’s economic situation. Ordained in 1845, he ministered to young workers in Cologne, establishing a choir, which by 1849 had grown into the Young Workmen’s Society. A branch of this began in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1856. Nine years later there were over 400 Gesellenvereine—workman’s societies—around the world. Today this group has over 450,000 members in 54 countries across the globe.

“More commonly called the Kolping Society, it emphasizes the sanctification of family life and the dignity of labor. Father Kolping worked to improve conditions for workers and greatly assisted those in need. He and St. John Bosco in Turin had similar interests in working with young men in big cities. He told his followers, “The needs of the times will teach you what to do.” Father Kolping once said, “The first thing that a person finds in life and the last to which he holds out his hand, and the most precious that he possesses, even if he does not realize it, is family life.”

“Blessed Adolph Kolping and Blessed John Duns Scotus are buried in Cologne’s Minoritenkirche, originally served by the Conventual Franciscans. The Kolping Society’s international headquarters are located across from this church.

“Kolping members journeyed to Rome from Europe, America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania, for Father Kolping’s beatification in 1991, the 100th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s revolutionary encyclical “Rerum Novarum”—“On the Social Order.” Father Kolping’s personal witness and apostolate helped prepare for that encyclical.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/blessed-adolph-kolping/

From Tradition in Action, (old dating) Translation of the Holy House to Loreto, “The holy house where Our Lady lived in Nazareth was translated miraculously to the Italian city of Loreto in the province of Ancona on December 19, 1294 – more than 700 years ago.

“The house did not go straight to Loreto, but in the year 1291 it was miraculously transported from Nazareth to the town of Tersatto in Dalmatia (Croatia). The local population, filled with astonishment, did not know how to explain its sudden appearance. Their Bishop, who was gravely ill, now appeared in their midst cured. He had prayed to the Virgin Mary that he might be strong enough to see the prodigy for himself, and the Mother of God appeared to him, surrounded by Angels, saying:

“My son, you have called for me, and here I am. I came to give you succor and to reveal to you the mystery [of the translation of the Holy House] you desire to know. The holy dwelling is the very house where I was born and raised. It was there that I received the good news brought by the Archangel Gabriel and I conceived the Divine Infant by the operation of the Holy Ghost. It was there that the Word was made flesh.

“After my death, the Apostles consecrated this dwelling, illustrious for its great mysteries, and sought the honor of celebrating the August Sacrifice there. The altar is the very one that the Apostle Peter erected; the crucifix was placed there by the Apostles. The small cedar statue is an image of me made by the Evangelist Luke, who, moved by his attachment and affection for me, expressed through his art my features as perfectly as possible for a mortal.

“This beloved house, so dear to Heaven, highly honored for many centuries in Galilee but today deprived of due homage caused by the general decay of the Faith, has been transported from Nazareth to these lands. The author of this great event is God, for whom nothing is impossible.

“For you to bear witness to all that I am telling you now, you will suddenly be cured and return to full health after the long illness you have borne, so that through you all will believe in this miracle.”

“After the Moslem takeover of Albania in 1294 and the possibility of profaning the Holy House of Nazareth, it disappeared from Tersatto. According to reports of shepherds, that house miraculously appeared in a wooded area four miles from Recanati, Italy, on December 10, 1294. The news spread fast, and soon it was visited by many pilgrims.

“From there, for reasons only known to Divine Providence, the house moved twice in the same region and finally came to rest where the town of Loreto is today.

“The people of Loreto sent a group of 16 men to Tersatto and Nazareth to determine for certain the origin of the Holy House. They related that the foundations of the house were still in Nazareth and that they matched the house in Loreto, which has stood in a marvelous way for hundreds of years with no foundation.

“Over the centuries, many Pontiffs have testified to the authenticity of the Holy House and the miracles that have been attributed to it and have granted numerous indulgences to those who visit it.” https://traditioninaction.org/SOD/j255sd_Loreto_12_10.html

 

The 1619 Project

This article from City Journal puts the project in perspective; and perspective is necessary as this is an issue that will surely arise in ministry to criminals in prison or out.

An excerpt.

“There is one sense in which the 1619 Project’s attempt to rewrite U.S. history in the image of slavery is right: America’s founding was like nothing else seen in the history of human societies. But not because of slavery. Instead, it was because the American republic modeled itself on the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century by trying to find a natural order in human politics, rather than fall back upon the artificial and irrational hierarchies that governed how the ancients had understood both the physical and political universes. Our Declaration of Independence stated as a self-evident truth of nature that “all men are created equal”; our Constitution prohibited all titles of nobility and required virtually all offices to be matters of public election rather than inheritance or class. The American republic would be a theater of those who, like Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, could be “self-made men,” and the solutions to the problems of their day would be generated by a host of voluntary associations, working from the bottom up, rather than through government, from the top down.

“Yet, nature is not always kind or predictable, and neither is the path of the republic. The temptation has always existed to slide back into the comfortable abyss of hierarchy, whether it be the racial hierarchy of slaveholders in the Civil War or the newer hierarchies of bureaucracy and socialism. It is that temptation to backsliding which the 1619 Project wants to insist is the real story; but this is like taking the stage crew out from behind the curtain and insisting that they’re the real musical.

“So, let us speak of slavery. The American republic inherited slavery from the British empire, in much the same way that it inherited its fiscal poverty, its lack of manufacturing capability, and its primitive infrastructure. We expected to overcome all of these in time. And we would have dealt the same way with slavery, too. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Gouverneur Morris attacked slavery wholesale as “a nefarious institution” which had “the curse of heaven . . . where it prevailed.” But the expectation of the Founders was that slavery was a dying institution. So, the Convention turned a blind eye to slavery, even as it insisted that turning that blind eye was not meant, as James Madison said, “to admit in the Constitution the idea that there could be property in men.”

“They were, of course, wrong. The explosion of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, built on the production of cotton textiles and the invention of the cotton gin, turned slave-based cotton agriculture into a roaring inferno of profitability. Profitability first erased shame and then stimulated angry self-justifications; and instead of painlessly winking out, slavery had to be exterminated by the force of civil war before it could strangle the life of the republic itself. Even then, we botched the eradication of slavery’s racial legacy through a badly designed Reconstruction. We have paid the price for that ever since.

“This is not, however, the story told by the so-called 1619 Project. Designed largely by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones and members of the New York Times editorial staff, the 1619 Project aspires—through essays, poems, and short fiction—to rewrite entirely the narrative of American slavery, not as an unwilling inheritance of British colonialism but as the love-object of American capitalism from its very origins. It reviews slavery not as a blemish that the Founders grudgingly tolerated with the understanding that it must soon evaporate, but as the prize that the Constitution went out of its way to secure and protect. The Times presents slavery not as a regrettable chapter in the distant past, but as the living, breathing pattern upon which all American social life is based, world without end.

“The 1619 Project is not history: it is polemic, born in the imaginations of those whose primary target is capitalism itself and who hope to tarnish capitalism by associating it with slavery. Slavery made cotton profitable; but profitability is not capitalism. Profit-seeking has been around since Abraham bought the cave at Machpelah in the book of Genesis. If profitability were capitalism, then the Soviet Union’s highly profitable sales of natural gas and other commodities would surely make it one of the great success stories of capitalism – which, of course, it was not. Ask any worthwhile Marxist: capitalism is about the creation of class, and especially the bourgeoisie. And one thing the South never developed was a bourgeoisie. Which is why no single American, North or South, before 1861 ever imagined that slavery and capitalism were anything but mortal enemies. The proslavery apologist, George Fitzhugh, frankly declared that slavery was a form, not of capitalism, but feudal socialism; the antislavery president, Abraham Lincoln, explained the war on slavery as a war on behalf of free labor.

“The 1619 Project commits, moreover, the Supply Chain Fallacy—that slavery was necessary for capitalism and as a result inhabits every level of capitalism’s subsequent development. This is the same reasoning that suggests that if a scientist receives a grant from the National Science Foundation for research, the result of the research is a production of the government. As economic historian Deirdre McCloskey comments, “It’s a legal way of thinking, not economic.” And not much in the way of historical thinking, either.

“Again: the 1619 Project is not history; it is conspiracy theory. And like all conspiracy theories, the 1619 Project announces with a eureka! that it has acquired the explanation to everything, and thus gives an aggrieved audience a sense that finally it is in control, through its understanding of the real cause of its unhappiness. But historians—and most journalists—know that human experience is multivalent, contingent, and contradictory. And it bodes ill for the 1619 Project that while conspiracy theories arouse tidal waves of attention in their first unveiling, they also—like the Grassy Knoll or the Blood Libel—wear out quickly, because their ability to explain everything usually ends up explaining nothing.

“And again: the 1619 Project is not history; it is ignorance. It claims that the American Revolution was staged to protect slavery, though it never once occurs to the Project to ask, in that case, why the British West Indies (which had a far larger and infinitely more malignant slave system than the 13 American colonies) never joined us in that revolution. It claims that the Constitution’s three-fifths clause was designed by the Founders as the keystone that would keep the slave states in power, though the 1619 Project seems not to have noticed that at the time of the Constitutional Convention, all of the states were slave states (save only Massachusetts), so that the three-fifths clause could not have been intended to confer such a mysterious power on slavery unless the Founders had come to the Convention equipped with crystal balls. It behaves as though the Civil War never happened, that the slaves somehow freed themselves, and that a white president never put weapons into the hands of black men and bid them kill rebels who had taken up arms in defense of bondage. The 1619 Project forgets, in other words, that there was an 1863 Project, and that its name was emancipation.

“Finally: the 1619 Project is not history; it is evangelism, but evangelism for a gospel of disenchantment whose ultimate purpose is the hollowing out of the meaning of freedom, so that every defense of freedom drops nervously from the hands of people who have been made too ashamed to defend it. No nation can live without a history, and no free nation can flourish without a history that affirms—in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words in 1856—“that the evil eye can wither, that the heart’s blessing can heal; that love can exalt talent” and “overcome all odds.” What the 1619 Project offers instead is bitterness, fragility, and intellectual corruption—not history.”

Retrieved December 9, 2019 from https://www.city-journal.org/1619-project-conspiracy-theory

 

Saints of the Day

Here are the saints for December 9, 2019.

The Saints are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many saints and reading about their lives has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061015132834/http://www.catholic-forum.com/SAINTS/day1209.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], ST. LEOCADIA, Virgin, Martyr. “ST. LEOCADIA was a native of Toledo, and was apprehended by an order of Dacian, the cruel governor under Diocletian in 304. Hearing of the martyrdom of St. Eulalia, she prayed that God would not prolong her exile, but unite her speedily with her holy friend in His glory. Her prayer was heard, and she happily expired in prison.

“Three famous churches in Toledo bear her name, and she is honored as principal patroness of that city. In one of those churches most of the councils of Toledo were held. Her relics were kept in that church with great respect, till, in the incursions of the Moors, they were conveyed to Oviedo, and some years afterward to the abbey of St. Guislain, near Mons in Hainault. They were finally carried back to Toledo with great pomp, and placed in the great church there on the 26th of April, 1589.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots378.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) St. Juan Diego, (1474 – May 30, 1548), “Thousands of people gathered in the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe July 31, 2002, for the canonization of Juan Diego, to whom the Blessed Mother appeared in the 16th century. Pope John Paul II celebrated the ceremony at which the poor Indian peasant became the Church’s first saint indigenous to the Americas.

“The Holy Father called the new saint “a simple, humble Indian” who accepted Christianity without giving up his identity as an Indian. “In praising the Indian Juan Diego, I want to express to all of you the closeness of the Church and the pope, embracing you with love and encouraging you to overcome with hope the difficult times you are going through,” John Paul said. Among the thousands present for the event were members of Mexico’s 64 indigenous groups.

“First called Cuauhtlatohuac (“The eagle who speaks”), Juan Diego’s name is forever linked with Our Lady of Guadalupe because it was to him that she first appeared at Tepeyac hill on December 9, 1531. The most famous part of his story is told in connection with the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe on December 12. After the roses gathered in his tilma were transformed into the miraculous image of Our Lady, however, little more is said about Juan Diego.

“In time he lived near the shrine constructed at Tepeyac, revered as a holy, unselfish, and compassionate catechist, who taught by word and especially by example.

“During his 1990 pastoral visit to Mexico, Pope John Paul II confirmed the long-standing liturgical cult in honor of Juan Diego, beatifying him. Twelve years later the same pope proclaimed him a saint.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-juan-diego/

Feast of the Day

December 8, 2019 is the Feast Day of The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the post from Tradition in Action (below) captures this Feast Day most clearly.

The Feast Days of the Saints memorialize that they are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many Feast Days and reading about the lives memorialized has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061019143849/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/day1208.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], THE FEAST OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. “ON this day, so dear to every Catholic heart, we celebrate, in the first place, the moment in which Almighty God showed Mary, through the distance of ages, to our first parents as the Virgin Mother of the divine Redeemer, the woman destined to crush the head of the serpent. And as by eternal decree she was miraculously exempt from all stain of original sin, and endowed with the richest treasures of grace and sanctity, it is meet that we should honor her glorious prerogatives by this special feast of the Immaculate Conception.

“We should join in spirit with the blessed in heaven, and rejoice with our dear Mother, not only for her own sake, but for ours, her children, who are partakers of her glory and happiness. Secondly, we are called upon to celebrate that ever-memorable day, the 8th of December, 1854, which raised the Immaculate Conception of Our Blessed Lady from a pious belief to the dignity of a dogma of the Infallible Church, causing universal joy among the faithful.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots377.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, “A feast called the Conception of Mary arose in the Eastern Church in the seventh century. It came to the West in the eighth century. In the 11th century it received its present name, the Immaculate Conception. In the 18th century it became a feast of the universal Church. It is now recognized as a solemnity.

“In 1854, Pius IX solemnly proclaimed: “The most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin.”

“It took a long time for this doctrine to develop. While many Fathers and Doctors of the Church considered Mary the greatest and holiest of the saints, they often had difficulty in seeing Mary as sinless—either at her conception or throughout her life. This is one of the Church teachings that arose more from the piety of the faithful than from the insights of brilliant theologians. Even such champions of Mary as Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas could not see theological justification for this teaching.

“Two Franciscans, William of Ware and Blessed John Duns Scotus, helped develop the theology. They pointed out that Mary’s Immaculate Conception enhances Jesus’ redemptive work. Other members of the human race are cleansed from original sin after birth. In Mary, Jesus’ work was so powerful as to prevent original sin at the outset.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/solemnity-of-the-immaculate-conception/

From Tradition in Action, (old dating) The Immaculate Conception of Our Lady, “Our Lady was conceived without original sin. She had a perfect purity, with no bad inclinations. Therefore, she had a great facility to correspond entirely with the grace of God at every moment. Natural and the supernatural grandeur merged together in her soul in a profound and extraordinary harmony. Above all others creatures, she had the highest notion of the sanctity of God and His correspondent glory. She also had the clear notion of what Creation owes to that glory. She knew, and knows, how all created beings should glorify God.

“As a consequence, she also had a profound horror of the opposite of good, which is evil. She had a great intransigence to such evil, a complete rejection of it in its least forms and a strong combativeness against it. This is the reason Holy Scripture refers to Our Lady as “terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata,” as terrible as an army set in battle array. The Church also says that it is she alone who smashes all heresies. To celebrate this fact, in statues of the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady is crushing the head of the serpent.

“The feast of her Immaculate Conception is, then, in many senses, the commemoration of her purity, her intransigence, and her combativeness.

“Let us look more closely at what intransigence is. When a person has a very clear notion of what is good and an understanding of the highest expressions of this good, this person knows that the opposite is bad. It is not a theoretical knowledge, like that of a scientist who analyzes a specimen in a laboratory, but rather a knowledge that comes hand in hand with a great love for good. The person naturally recognizes the opposite of such good, which is evil, and hates evil with an intensity proportionate to the magnitude of his love for the good.

“Since he loves the highest ideals that good represents, he cannot tolerate the opposite of that good, because he clearly sees the evil that exists in it. He rejects evil not only in its ensemble, but in each of its parts. He rejects evil not only when it is very intense, but when it barely appears. This is intolerance or intransigence.

“The human spirit is constituted in such a way that when a man hates evil, he increases and perfects his love for the good. In a certain way the presence of something that he rejects reinforces his conviction of, and his love for the good. The human psychology is so established that such contrast makes a person more acutely aware of how the good is good. For instance, we love our counter-revolutionary vocation more when we can see concretely how the revolutionaries hate it. Seeing this, we receive a confirmation that we are taking the right position.

“What is combativeness? Combativeness is a consequence of intransigence. It is to make a deliberate decision to destroy the evil that opposes the glory of God. It is a calm deliberation followed by the utilization of every means one has at his disposal to achieve that goal. It is not a fleeting resolution to fight during one single episode when evil is attacking good, but it is a permanent determination applied to all aspects of evil and throughout the life of a person. The person does not rest until evil is destroyed.

“A true combativeness does not rest until evil is reduced to ashes. In Portugal there was an expression regarding evil that was applied in different ways in old Portuguese Law: Evil shall be reduced to ashes by fire. If a man committed a horrific crime, he received the sentence of capital punishment: his body was burned, and his ashes dispersed either in the air or water. This was the application of that axiom.

“Here I am not advocating this punishment be applied to this or that person in this or that present day State. I am taking it as a general principle to apply to the fight of ideas and institutions. A bad man can be killed, and he is gone. But who can kill a bad idea or destroy a revolutionary conspiracy that strives to prevent God from receiving the glory He deserves and Holy Mother Church from carrying out her mission on earth? For this fight we need a true combativeness that reduces the Revolution and its cohorts to ashes by fire. This kind of intransigence and combativeness were two attributes of Our Lady that were consequences of the privilege of her Immaculate Conception.

“What should we ask Our Lady on this feast day? We should ask for a great love of God and a high understanding of His glory, which will, as a natural consequence, give us a great intransigence and combativeness.

“I remember that St. Therese of Lisieux used to lament that she could not be a warrior and fight with a sword against the enemies of God. This is the soul of a saint. She desired to fight for God in all places and all times. This is how we should be. Let us ask Our Lady for the purity and combativeness proper to sanctity so that we might be her true sons and daughters.” https://traditioninaction.org/SOD/j105sdImmaculateConception_12-8.htm

 

Saint of the Day

Here is the saint for December 7, 2019, St. Ambrose.

The Saints are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many saints and reading about their lives has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061206195256/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/day1207.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], ST. AMBROSE, Bishop. “AMBROSE was of a noble family, and was governor of Milan in 374, when a bishop was to be chosen for that great see. As the Arian heretics were many and fierce, he was present to preserve order during the election. Though only a catechumen, it was the will of God that he should himself be chosen by acclamation; and, in spite of his utmost resistance, he was baptized and consecrated.

“He was unwearied in every duty of a pastor, full of sympathy and charity, gentle and condescending in things indifferent, but inflexible in matters of principle. He showed his fearless zeal in braving the anger of the Empress Justina, by resisting and foiling her impious attempt to give one of the churches of Milan to the Arians, and by rebuking and leading to penance the really great Emperor Theodosius, who in a moment of irritation had punished most cruelly a sedition of the inhabitants of Thessalonica. He was the friend and consoler of St. Monica in all her sorrows, and in 387 he had the joy of admitting to the Church her son, St. Augustine. St. Ambrose died in 397, full of years and of honors, and is revered by the Church of and as one of her greatest doctors.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots376.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) St. Ambrose, (337 – April 4, 397), “One of Ambrose’s biographers observed that at the Last Judgment, people would still be divided between those who admired Ambrose and those who heartily disliked him. He emerges as the man of action who cut a furrow through the lives of his contemporaries. Even royal personages were numbered among those who were to suffer crushing divine punishments for standing in Ambrose’s way.

“When the Empress Justina attempted to wrest two basilicas from Ambrose’s Catholics and give them to the Arians, he dared the eunuchs of the court to execute him. His own people rallied behind him in the face of imperial troops. In the midst of riots, he both spurred and calmed his people with bewitching new hymns set to exciting Eastern melodies.

“In his disputes with the Emperor Auxentius, he coined the principle: “The emperor is in the Church, not above the Church.” He publicly admonished Emperor Theodosius for the massacre of 7,000 innocent people. The emperor did public penance for his crime. This was Ambrose, the fighter sent to Milan as Roman governor, and chosen while yet a catechumen to be the people’s bishop.

“There is yet another side of Ambrose—one which influenced Augustine of Hippo, whom Ambrose converted. Ambrose was a passionate little man with a high forehead, a long melancholy face, and great eyes. We can picture him as a frail figure clasping the codex of sacred Scripture. This was the Ambrose of aristocratic heritage and learning.

“Augustine found the oratory of Ambrose less soothing and entertaining but far more learned than that of other contemporaries. Ambrose’s sermons were often modeled on Cicero, and his ideas betrayed the influence of contemporary thinkers and philosophers. He had no scruples in borrowing at length from pagan authors. He gloried in the pulpit in his ability to parade his spoils—“gold of the Egyptians”—taken over from the pagan philosophers.

“His sermons, his writings, and his personal life reveal him as an otherworldly man involved in the great issues of his day. Humanity for Ambrose was, above all, spirit. In order to think rightly of God and the human soul, the closest thing to God, no material reality at all was to be dwelt upon. He was an enthusiastic champion of consecrated virginity.

“The influence of Ambrose on Augustine will always be open for discussion. The Confessions reveal some manly, brusque encounters between Ambrose and Augustine, but there can be no doubt of Augustine’s profound esteem for the learned bishop.

“Neither is there any doubt that Saint Monica loved Ambrose as an angel of God who uprooted her son from his former ways and led him to his convictions about Christ. It was Ambrose, after all, who placed his hands on the shoulders of the naked Augustine as he descended into the baptismal fountain to put on Christ.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-ambrose/

From Tradition in Action, (old dating) St. Ambrose, “St. Ambrose (c. 340-397) stood up to Theodosius, Roman Emperor of the West, to defend the rights of the Church; he wrote against and combated the Arian heretics; he converted St. Augustine.” https://traditioninaction.org/SOD/j051sdAmbrose12-7.htm

Saint of the Day

Here is the saint for December 6, 2019, St. Nicholas.

The Saints are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many saints and reading about their lives has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061206194711/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/day1206.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], ST. NICHOLAS OF BARI, “ST. NICHOLAS, the patron Saint of Russia, was born toward the end of the third century. His uncle, the Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, ordained him priest, and appointed him abbot of a monastery; and on the death of the archbishop he was elected to the vacant see. Throughout his life he retained the bright and guileless manners of his early years, and showed himself the special protector of the innocent and the wronged. Nicholas once heard that a person who had fallen into poverty intended to abandon his three daughters to a life of sin. Determined, if possible, to save their innocence, the Saint went out by night, and, taking with him a bag of gold, flung it into the window of the sleeping father and hurried off.

“He, on awaking, deemed the gift a godsend, and with it dowered his eldest child. The Saint, overjoyed at his success, made like venture for the second daughter; but the third time as he stole away, the father, who was watching, overtook him and kissed his feet, saying: “Nicholas, why dost thou conceal thyself from me? Thou art my helper, and he who has delivered my soul and my daughters’ from hell.” St. Nicholas is usually represented by the side of a vessel, wherein a certain man had concealed the bodies of his three children whom he had killed, but who were restored to life by the Saint. He died in 342. His relics were translated in 1087, to Bari, Italy, and there, after fifteen centuries, “the manna of St. Nicholas” still flows from his bones and heals all kinds of sick.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots375.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) St, Nicholas, (March 15, 270 – December 6, 343), “The absence of the “hard facts” of history is not necessarily an obstacle to the popularity of saints, as the devotion to Saint Nicholas shows. Both the Eastern and Western Churches honor him, and it is claimed that after the Blessed Virgin, he is the saint most pictured by Christian artists. And yet historically, we can pinpoint only the fact that Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor.

“As with many of the saints, however, we are able to capture the relationship which Nicholas had with God through the admiration which Christians have had for him—an admiration expressed in the colorful stories which have been told and retold through the centuries.

“Perhaps the best-known story about Nicholas concerns his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age. Rather than see them forced into prostitution, Nicholas secretly tossed a bag of gold through the poor man’s window on three separate occasions, thus enabling the daughters to be married. Over the centuries, this particular legend evolved into the custom of gift-giving on the saint’s feast. In the English-speaking countries, Saint Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus—further expanding the example of generosity portrayed by this holy bishop.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-nicholas/

From Tradition in Action, (old dating) St. Nicholas, “St. Nicholas is said to have been born at Patara in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor, in the 4th century of wealthy parents. He was named Bishop of Myra, and became famous for his holiness, charity and miracles. He was imprisoned for his faith during the persecution under Diocletian. He was present at the Council of Nicaea, at which he denounced Arianism. He died at Myra in 350. In 1087 some of his relics were transferred to Bari, Italy, and many miracles were worked through his intercession, which was the cause of his extraordinary popularity in the West.” https://traditioninaction.org/SOD/j050sdNicholas12-6.htm

Star Parker, A Transformed Criminal

This woman is brilliant, read her auto biography, Pimps Whores and Welfare Brats: From Welfare Cheat to Conservative Messenger, her new book, Necessary Noise: How Donald Trump Inflames the Culture War and Why This Is Good News for America and watch this interview, https://www.theepochtimes.com/americas-culture-war-and-how-trump-exposed-it-star-parker_3150823.html

Wow, what a voice for America.

Saint of the Day

Here is the saint for December 5, 2019, St. Sabas.

The Saints are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many saints and reading about their lives has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061206194532/http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/day1205.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], ST. SABAS, Abbot. “ST. SABAS, one of the most renowned patriarchs of the monks of Palestine, was born in the year 439, near Cæsarea. In order to settle a dispute which had arisen between some of his relatives in regard to the administration of his estate, while still young he forsook the world and entered a monastery, wherein he became a model of fervor. When Sabas had been ten years in this monastery, being eighteen years old, he went to Jerusalem to visit the holy places, and attached himself to a monastery then under control of St. Euthymius; but on the death of the holy abbot our Saint sought the wilderness, where he chose his dwelling in a cave on the top of a high mountain, at the bottom of which ran the brook Cedron.

“After he had lived here five years, several came to him, desiring to serve God under his direction. He was at first unwilling to consent, but finally founded a new monastery of persons all desirous to devote themselves to praise and serve God without interruption. His great sanctity becoming known, he was ordained priest, at the age of fifty-three, by the patriarch of Jerusalem, and made Superior-General of all the anchorites of Palestine. He lived to be ninety-four, and died on the 5th of December, 532.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots374.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) St. Sabas, (439 – December 5, 532), “Born in Cappadocia, Sabas is one of the most highly regarded patriarchs among the monks of Palestine, and is considered one of the founders of Eastern monasticism.

“After an unhappy childhood in which he was abused and ran away several times, Sabas finally sought refuge in a monastery. While family members tried to persuade him to return home, the young boy felt drawn to monastic life. Although the youngest monk in the house, he excelled in virtue.

“At age 18 he traveled to Jerusalem, seeking to learn more about living in solitude. Soon he asked to be accepted as a disciple of a well-known local solitary, though initially he was regarded as too young to live completely as a hermit. Initially, Sabas lived in a monastery, where he worked during the day and spent much of the night in prayer. At the age of 30 he was given permission to spend five days each week in a nearby remote cave, engaging in prayer and manual labor in the form of weaving baskets. Following the death of his mentor, Saint Euthymius, Sabas moved farther into the desert near Jericho. There he lived for several years in a cave near the brook Cedron. A rope was his means of access. Wild herbs among the rocks were his food. Occasionally men brought him other food and items, while he had to go a distance for his water.

“Some of these men came to him desiring to join him in his solitude. At first he refused. But not long after relenting, his followers swelled to more than 150, all of them living in individual huts grouped around a church, called a laura.

“The bishop persuaded a reluctant Sabas, then in his early 50s, to prepare for the priesthood so that he could better serve his monastic community in leadership. While functioning as abbot among a large community of monks, he felt ever called to live the life of a hermit. Throughout each year—consistently in Lent—he left his monks for long periods of time, often to their distress. A group of 60 men left the monastery, settling at a nearby ruined facility. When Sabas learned of the difficulties they were facing, he generously gave them supplies and assisted in the repair of their church.

“Over the years Sabas traveled throughout Palestine, preaching the true faith and successfully bringing back many to the Church. At the age of 91, in response to a plea from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sabas undertook a journey to Constantinople in conjunction with the Samaritan revolt and its violent repression. He fell ill and soon after his return, died at the monastery at Mar Saba. Today the monastery is still inhabited by monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and Saint Sabas is regarded as one of the most noteworthy figures of early monasticism.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-sabas/

Saints of the Day

Here are the saints for December 4, 2019.

The Saints are the holy bones of the Church and their lives the true Magisterium.

The Catholic Church has many saints and reading about their lives has been a spiritual journey Catholics have been on since the publication of the Golden Legend, http://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/

From Butler’s Calendar of the Saints (which follows the old dating) listing all of the saints of today. https://web.archive.org/web/20061014210835/http://www.catholic-forum.com/Saints/day1204.htm

From Butler’s Lives of the Saints, (old dating) by Alban Butler, Benziger Bros. edition, [1894], ST. BARBARA, Virgin, Martyr. “ST. BARBARA was brought up a heathen. A tyrannical father, Dioscorus, had kept her jealously secluded in a lonely tower which he had built for the purpose. Here in her forced solitude, she gave herself to prayer and study, and contrived to receive instruction and Baptism by stealth from a Christian priest.

“Dioscorus, on discovering his daughter’s conversion, was beside himself with rage. He himself denounced her before the civil tribunal. Barbara was horribly tortured, and at last was beheaded, her own father, merciless to the last, acting as her executioner. God, however, speedily punished her persecutors. While her soul was being borne by angels to Paradise, a flash of lightning struck Dioscorus, and he was hurried before the judgment-seat of God.” https://sacred-texts.com/chr/lots/lots373.htm

From Franciscan Media, (new dating) St. John Damascene, (c. 676 -749), “John spent most of his life in the Monastery of Saint Sabas near Jerusalem, and all of his life under Muslim rule, indeed protected by it.

“He was born in Damascus, received a classical and theological education, and followed his father in a government position under the Arabs. After a few years, he resigned and went to the Monastery of Saint Sabas.

“He is famous in three areas:

“First, he is known for his writings against the iconoclasts, who opposed the veneration of images. Paradoxically, it was the Eastern Christian emperor Leo who forbade the practice, and it was because John lived in Muslim territory that his enemies could not silence him.

“Second, he is famous for his treatise, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, a summary of the Greek Fathers, of which he became the last. It is said that this book is for Eastern schools what the Summa of Aquinas became for the West.

“Third, he is known as a poet, one of the two greatest of the Eastern Church, the other being Romanus the Melodist. His devotion to the Blessed Mother and his sermons on her feasts are well known.” https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saint-john-damascene/

From Tradition in Action, (old dating) St. Peter Chrysologus, “St. Peter was born at Imola, Italy in 406. He was formed in science and sanctity there. In 433, Pope Cornelius elevated him to Bishop of Ravenna.

“He defended the Catholic Faith against the heretic Eutyches in a letter directed to the Council of Calcedonia (448). He was renowned for his eloquence and earned the title of “Chrysologus,” which means golden worded. After having ruled the Diocese of Ravenna for 18 years, he died in his native city on December 4, 450. His relics are venerated in the Basilica of Ravenna.

“This is an excerpt from a sermon by St. Peter Chrysologus on the Annunciation:

“To the one destined to be the Most Holy Virgin, God sends a winged messenger, an Angel. He is the transporter of grace, and he delivers grace to Our Lady. He states the proposal of the Spouse and receives her answer. He brings back her consent to God, conveying to God the faith of Our Lady, her acquiescence.

“The Angel’s presence is a reward for Our Lady’s high virtue. He poses the question of her virginal maternity. In swift flight, the zealous messenger descends from Heaven to the Virgin to suspend the rights of the Spouse, St. Joseph, and without releasing the Virgin from Joseph’s authority, he returns her to the Holy Ghost whose spouse she was from the first instant she was created.” https://traditioninaction.org/SOD/j205sd_PeterChrysologus_12-04.html