Monday
October 13, 2008
The Solar Miracle
St. Edward, King,
Confessor:
St. Edward, called the Confessor,
the last but one of the Anglo-Saxon
kings of England, reigned holily and
happily for twenty-four years. On the
throne he rivaled the saints by his
untiring practice of austere virtue; his
reign was one of almost unbroken
peace; the country grew prosperous,
ruined churches rose under his hand,
the weak lived secure, and for long
ages after, man spoke of the laws of
“good King Edward”. He died January
5, 1066. The Saint's body reposes in
the shrine in Westminster Abbey,
behind what used to be the High Altar.
(Source: The New Roman Missal,
Rev. F. X. Lasance)
Saturday
October 11, 2008
The Maternity of the
Blessed Virgin
Mary:
In the first ages of the Church the
day sacred to our Blessed Lady,
under her great title of Mother of
God, was January 1. Evident traces
of this devotion remain in the liturgy
proper to the feast of the
Circumcision, which is now kept on
that day. Many churches having
petitioned for a special festival in
honor of Our Lady's divine maternity,
a day, usually in the month of
October, was granted by the Holy
See for its celebration. By a decree
of the Sacred Congregation of Rites,
April 24, 1914, the eleventh of
October was assigned. Pius IX raised
it to a double of the second class and
extended it to the Universal Church.
All Catholics believe that Mary is the
Mother of God. This does not mean
that she is not a creature of God, nor
that God did not exist before she was
created. It means that He who was
her Son was a Divine Person. In
Christ there are two natures: the
nature of God and the nature of man;
but in Him there is only one Person, a
Divine Person, the Second Person of
the Blessed Trinity. Hence all that
may be predicated of either nature
many with propriety be said of the
Savior in the concrete form, without
distinguishing the two natures. So we
may say that God was born of the
Blessed Virgin Mary. We then refer to
the Person of the Son of God. Who is
both God and Man. Christ, Who is
God, was born according to His
human nature of the Blessed Virgin.
She is, therefore, truly the Mother of
God.
(Source: The New Roman Missal,
Rev. F. X. Lasance)
St. Canicus
(Kenny), Abbot in
Ireland
The Irish Annals fix the birth of this
illustrious saint in 527, and his death
in 599. In his youth he studied some
time in Wales under a celebrated and
holy abbot named Docus, and
afterwards in Ireland under St.
Finian, to whose famous school, in
his monastery of Cluain-Irraird the
lovers of true wisdom repaired from
all sides. The zeal and labors of St.
Kenny, in propagating the practice of
Christian perfection throughout
Ireland, have ranked him among the
most glorious saints whose virtue has
been the greatest ornament of that
island. St. Kenny was intimately
connected by holy friendship with St.
Columkille, whom he sometimes
visited in the isle of Hij. He founded
himself the great monastery of
Achadbho, (or The Ox's Field,) which
grew up into a town, and was
formerly the seat of the bishops of
Ossory, who now reside at Kilkenny,
a city which takes its name from this
saint, that word signifying Cell or
Church of Kenny.
(Source: Butler's Lives of the
Saints)
Sunday
October 12, 2008
St. Ethelburga
(Edilburge), Virgin
and Abbess
This saint was an English Saxon
princess, sister to St. Erconwald,
bishop of London. To the end that
she might live entirely to herself and
God, she in her youth renounced the
world, and neither riches nor the
tempting splendor of a court could
shake her resolution; for the world
loses all its influence upon a mind
which is wholly taken up with the
great truths of faith and eternal
salvation. A soul which is truly
penetrated with them, listens to no
consideration in the choice of a state
of life but to what virtue and piety
suggest, and being supported by
those noble principles which religion
inspires, whether she is placed in the
world or in a religious state, whether
in opulence or poverty, amidst
honors or in contempt, equally
carries all her desires to their proper
mark, and studies with constancy and
perseverance, to acquit herself of
every duty of her state, and to act up
to the dignity of her heavenly
vocation. This makes saints who live
in the world the best princes, the best
subjects, the best parents, the best
neighbors, the most dutiful children,
and the most diligent and faithful
tradesmen or servants. The same
principle renders them in a cloister
the most humble, the most obedient,
the most devout, and the most
fervent and exact in every point of
monastic discipline. St. Erconwald
considered only the perfection of his
sister's virtue, not flesh and blood,
when he appointed her abbess of the
area nunnery which he had founded
at Barking, in Essex. Ethelburge, by
her example and spirit, sweetly led on
all the chaste spouses of Christ in
that numerous house in the paths of
true virtue and Christian perfection.
How entirely they were dead both to
the world and themselves, and how
perfectly divine charity reigned in
their souls, appeared by the ardor
with which they unanimously sighed
after the dissolution of their earthly
tabernacle, desiring to be clothed
with immortality; in the mean time
exerting continually their whole
strength and all their affections that
they might not be found naked when
they should appear before God.
When a raging pestilence swept off a
part of this community, in 664, all
rejoiced in their last moments, and
thought even every day and every
hour long before they went to the
possession of their God, to love and
praise whom with all their powers,
and without interruption for eternity,
was the pure and vehement desire
with which they were inflamed; and
the living envied the dying. The
comfort of those that survived was in
the divine will, and in knowing their
retardment could be but for a
moment, that they might labor
perfectly to purify their hearts before
they were united to their friends, the
saints, and swallowed up in a
glorious immortality. St. Ethelburge
survived this mortality for the support
and comfort of the rest. Having sent
before her so many saints to heaven,
she met her own death with a great
spirit, and her glory was manifested
by miraculous visions.
(Source: Butler's Lives of the
Saints)
The Solar Miracle
Saints
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