A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Didacus or Diego

Saint Didacus was born in Andalusia in Spain, towards the beginning of the fifteenth century. He was remarkable from childhood for his love of solitude, and for conversations concerningholy things. When still young he retired to live with a hermit not far from his village, where hespent several years in vigils, fasting, and manual work. Like the Fathers of the desert, he madebaskets and other objects with willow branches and gave them to those who brought alms tothe two hermits.

God inspired him to enter into the Order of the seraphic Saint Francis; he did so at the conventof Arrizafa, not far from Cordova. He did not aspire to ecclesiastical honors, but to theperfection and inviolable observance of his Rule — an admirable ideal, the practice of which,according to Saint Thomas Aquinas, is equivalent to martyrdom in merit. He made himself theservant of all his brethren. Any occupation was his choice. All his possessions were a tunic, acrucifix, a rosary, a prayer book and a book of meditations; and these he did not consider ashis own and wanted them to be the most worn of all that were in the house. He found waysto nourish the poor who came to the convent, depriving himself of bread and other food givenhim, and if unable to do so consoled them with such gentle words that they left with profitnonetheless.

At one time he was sent by his superiors to the Canary Islands, and went there joyfully, hopingto win the crown of martyrdom. Such, however, was not God’s Will. After making manyconversions by his example and holy words, he was recalled to Spain. He was assigned to thecare of the sick and when he went to Rome for the Jubilee year of 1450, with 3,800 otherreligious of his Order, most of whom fell ill there, he undertook to care for them, succeedingin procuring for them all they needed even in that time of scarcity.

Saint Didacus one day heard a poor woman lamenting, and learned that she had not knownthat her seven-year-old son had gone to sleep in her large oven; she had lighted a fire, and losther senses when she heard his cries. He sent her to the altar of the Blessed Virgin to pray andwent with a large group of persons to the oven; although all the wood was burnt, the childwas taken from it without so much as a trace of burns. The miracle was so evident that theneighbors took the child in triumph to the church where his mother was praying, and theCanons of the Church dressed him in white in honor of the Blessed Virgin. Since then, manyafflicted persons have invoked the Mother of Heaven there.

After a long and painful illness, Saint Didacus ended his days in 1463, embracing the crosswhich he had so dearly loved during his entire life. He died having on his lips the words ofthe hymn, Dulce lignum [Sweet wood - a chant of Good Friday]. His body remained incorruptfor several months, exposed to the devotion of the faithful, ever exhaling a marvelousfragrance. He was canonized in 1588; Philip II, king of Spain, had labored to obtain that graceafter his own son was miraculously cured in 1562 by the relics of the Saint, when he had fallenfrom a ladder and incurred a mortal wound on his head.

St. Stanislaus Kostka

Saint Stanislaus Kostka was born in Poland in 1550, of a noble Polish family. At the age offourteen he was sent with his older brother Paul to study at the Jesuit College in Vienna. Twice a day he would pray at length in the chapel, and he never failed to recite a crown of theRosary. He avoided the company of students too free in their speech and behavior, and oftenfasted and inflicted on himself a rude discipline. His love for God did not cease to augmentwith these practices, and he decided to make a vow to enter the Company of Jesus. He toldhis confessor of it only six months later, as he wanted it to remain unknown until he would bein a position to carry it out.

He fell ill, and the demon appeared in his room under the form of a black dog which lunged athis throat. The young Saint drove him away with the sign of the Cross; but his illness wasgrowing worse. He was lodged in the residence of a Protestant who would not permit theBlessed Sacrament to be brought to him. Saint Stanislaus remembered having read that thosewho invoked Saint Barbara never died without the Sacraments, and he begged that she wouldassist him in his danger and not permit that he die without the Viaticum. His prayer wasanswered; one night, when his life was despaired of, he saw this beautiful virgin-martyr,accompanied by two Angels, enter his room with the Blessed Sacrament. He was greatlyconsoled by this favor and another which immediately followed it; the Blessed Virgin alsoappeared and assured him that God wanted him to enter the Jesuit Society. Soon he felt betterand was restored to complete health.

He was still too young to enter the Order in Vienna without his parents’ permission; hetherefore determined to go to another province where it might be possible. Stanislaus hadalways been gentle and cheerful, and his sanctity was felt as a reproach by his brother Paul,who had been surveying him constantly and often spoke rudely to him, even going so far as tostrike him. Stanislaus nonetheless succeeded in evading him when he left for Augsbourg,dressed as a beggar, to go to Father Peter Canisius, Provincial of Upper Germany, with lettersof recommendation he had received from a Father of the Company. His brother, when herealized he had left, pursued him, but even though Stanislaus was on foot, passed him bywithout recognizing him. A little farther on, Paul’s horses refused to advance and he wasobliged to return to Vienna.

Saint Peter sent Stanislaus to Rome, a very long distance in those days, over a rugged anddangerous road, where rocks, mountains and rivers made the journey very difficult. SaintFrancis of Borgia received him in Rome as a treasure sent by God, and he was clothed in theJesuit habit in October 1567. His father was very irritated, but the son answered his letterswith modesty and firmness, and continued to apply himself to every practice that might leadhim closer to God and religious perfection. In ten months it is said that he advanced morethan many do over a period of fifty or sixty years. During those ten short months he alwayshad Our Lady in his mind, in his heart and on his lips. A custom was introduced for thenovices during his sojourn in Rome; they would turn toward Her church of Saint Mary Majorand ask, kneeling, for Her benediction; this practice has been conserved in the Roman novitiateever since that time.

The fervent novice ardently desired to be in heaven on the feast of Her Assumption; he fell illof a fever on the 9^th of August, and it was revealed to him that his desire would be fulfilled. In effect, his holy soul departed to rejoin His Heavenly Mother, when She came to claim himat a little after 3 o’clock on the morning of the 15^th of August, 1568. He was eighteen yearsold. We often see him with the Infant Jesus in his arms, because when Our Lady came to curehim in Vienna with Her Divine Treasure in Her arms, She had placed the Infant Saviour on hisbed. Many illnesses were cured at his tomb, and his body was found incorrupt three yearsafter his death. He was soon considered as a Saint in Italy and Poland; in 1604 he wasdeclared Blessed and was canonized in 1726. Paul Kostka wept for long years over hismistreatment of his younger brother, and was about to enter the Society of Jesus himself in1607, when he died suddenly on November 13^th, anniversary of the discovery of the incorrupt remains of Saint Stanislaus.

St. Josaphat

Born in 1584 in Vladimir, a city of ancient Poland, Saint Josaphat was the son of Gabriel Kuncewicz. His was a family of honorable Christians of the Greco-Slavic rite, in use among the Russians. His mother took care to raise him in the fear of God, and in his tender heartformed the first longings for virtue. He was never in any way lightheaded, but separatedwillingly from the games of his companions to pray. He made excellent progress in his studies,always preferring the sacred branches to the profane, and for thirty years he recited each day,without ever failing even once to do so, a large section of the Divine Office which he learnedby heart.

At twenty years of age Josaphat deplored the situation of religion in Poland. In 1596, the Ruthenian Church was divided into two contending parties — the Unionates and those who persevered in schism. He saw divisions growing in the Church, and that few were remainingfaithful to the Holy See, to safeguard the true orthodoxy and their eastern rites. He studiedphilosophy and theology under two famous Jesuits, and decided to enter religious life. Whenhis employer, who was childless and wished to keep him, offered him his commerce as hisadopted son, he declined that offer without hesitating, and entered the Convent of the Trinityat Vilna, where Basilian religious submissive to the Holy See were residing. He received thereligious habit and was professed in 1604.

Saint Josaphat was ordained a priest and began to preach in various churches of the city, bringing back many dissidents to the Union. He was invited also to preach and govern invarious regions of the land; he accepted to become head of a monastery at Bytene. Herestored there celebrated sanctuaries, built a convent, and converted, among others, one of themost zealous of the dissidents. In 1614 Josaphat’s friend Joseph Routski became Archbishopof the city of Vilna, and recalled his holy former companion to that city, confiding themonastery of the Trinity to him. Saint Josaphat never made harsh reproaches, but correctionswarmed by a wholly paternal affection. The conversion of the separated brethren continuedthrough the preaching of the one called by the Uniates The Scourge of the Schismatics,whereas the latter called him The Ravisher of Souls.

He became the Archbishop of Polotsk in 1617 at the age of thirty-eight, on the very day when, six years later, he would earn the consecration of blood, November 12^th. He restored five major cathedrals and several lesser ones; he aided the poor, stripping himself often of the most necessary objects or funds. He maintained total frugality in his residence; he recovered certain properties retained unjustly by powerful lords of the region, through his mildness of language in the lawcourts, to which he had recourse for that purpose. But he was soon to acquire, in a certain Melece Smotritski, a formidable enemy, who had himself consecrated, in Russia, Archbishop of the same city as Josaphat, with other aspirants to like authority. Despite the opposition of King Sigismond of Poland, who forbade all his subjects to have anycommunication with the usurper, the latter won adherents. The people of the city of Vitebsk,a little like those of Jerusalem, who in one week’s time changed their hosanna’s into tolle’s, turned toward the newcomers in large numbers, and in an uprising succeeded in giving eighteen wounds to the head of the Archdeacon of the church, and leaving for dead another official, bathed in his blood.

When their Archbishop went there to calm the tumult in 1623, knowing well that his hour had come, in effect he was most cruelly assassinated and his body profaned; he was in his forty-fourth year. His mortal remains were recovered after five days from the waters of a river, and exposed for nine days, constantly emitting a fragrance of roses and lilies. A councillor ofPolotsk, where the body was returned, abandoned the schism merely at the sight of thearchbishop’s beautiful countenance. Many of the parricides struck their breasts, and didlikewise. The Archbishop had gone gladly to his death, offering his life that the schism mightend; he had said as much beforehand. Four years after his death the author of the troubles,Smotritski, the false archbishop, after many combats made a decisive step and consecrated hislife to penance, prayer and the defense of the Union. Such changes of heart are indeed thegreatest of miracles, won by the sanctity of the true servants of God.

About five years after Saint Josaphat’s martyrdom his body was found intact, though the clothing had rotted away. Again in 1637 it was still white and supple. A beautiful silver reliquary was made for it, with a life-size image of the reclining Saint surmounting it. The body was again exposed intact in 1767. It was eventually taken to the Basilica of Saint Peter in Rome. Pope Leo XIII canonized Saint Josaphat in 1867.

St. Laurence O'Toole

Saint Laurence was the son of the king of Leinster in Ireland, born about the year 1125. His birth caused such great joy to his father, that in thanksgiving, to honor Christ, he pardoned a vassal who was an enemy and even chose him for sponsor of the child. They were stopped on the way to church by a man who was regarded as a prophet, and who told them in verse that the child would be magnificent on earth and glorious in heaven, and that his name must beLaurence. Though the king had decided otherwise, the infant was indeed given that name ofpredilection.

When only ten years old, his father delivered him up as a hostage to a rival prince who required this gage of his sincerity when there was a question of a treaty of peace, but who treated the child with great inhumanity, leaving him to suffer hunger and cold and otherincommodities until his health was nearly ruined. His father, hearing of this, by menacesobliged the tyrant to put him temporarily in the hands of the Bishop of Glendenoch in thecounty of Wicklow. The holy youth was soon cured and, by his fidelity in corresponding withthe divine grace, he grew to be a model of virtues. When his father came for him, he declaredhe desired to enter into the service of the Church and remain with the good bishop. To thishis father willingly agreed.

On the death of the bishop, who was also Abbot of a monastery of the same city, Saint Laurence was chosen Abbot in 1150, though only twenty years old, and doubting hiscompetence. Nonetheless he governed with a paternal spirit, employing all his revenues duringa famine in the province, to procure food for the needy, remedies for the sick, and aid of allkinds for the unfortunate. Never did he use his revenues, even when prosperity returned, foranything but care of the poor, repairs for ruined or decrepit churches or the construction ofnew ones, and the foundation of hospitals. When the see of Glendenoch became vacant oncemore in 1161, it was Saint Laurence who was chosen to fill it; and although he could notresolve to accept that new dignity, he was obliged soon afterwards to become Archbishop ofDublin, and he was told that to refuse would be to resist the Will of God.

He established a regular life for the Canons of his cathedral, according to the example of Saint Augustine, and he himself followed all the rules with exactitude, sharing their table, their prayer and their silence. Each year he made a retreat of forty days in a cavern a few miles from the city, fasting on bread, water and vegetables. When he came forth afterwards he preached with so much zeal against the disorders of the province, that even hardened hearts could not resist the force of his words.

About the year 1171 Saint Laurence was obliged, for the affairs of his diocese, to go to England to see the king, Henry II, who was then at Canterbury. He was received by theBenedictine monks of Christ Church with the greatest honor and respect. On the followingday, as the holy Archbishop was advancing to the altar to officiate, a maniac, who had heardmuch of his sanctity and who thought it would be a gift to the Church to make of him anothermartyr in the likeness of Saint Thomas Becket, struck him a violent blow on the head. Allpresent concluded that he was mortally wounded; but the Saint recovered his senses and askedfor some water, which he blessed. He then requested that the wound be washed with it, andthe blood was immediately stanched; and the archbishop celebrated Mass. He obtained theoffender’s pardon from the king. His prayers brought about many miracles, including thereturn to their senses for those who had become alienated, a miracle rare in the history ofreligion. After he attended a General Council in Rome in 1179, the Pope made him his legatefor all of Ireland, and he visited all its provinces to re-establish ecclesiastical disciplineeverywhere.

In 1175 Henry II of England became offended with Roderick, the monarch of Ireland, and Saint Laurence undertook another journey to England to negotiate a reconciliation between them. Henry was so moved by his piety, charity and prudence that he granted him everything he asked, and left the whole negotiation to his discretion. Saint Laurence died while still in France, in the city of Eu on the border of Normandy and Picardy. He was unable to make atestament, as this perfect Archbishop had given all he had, and literally had nothing to leave toothers. He ended his journey here below on the 14^th of November, 1180, and was buried in the church of the abbey at Eu.

St. Albert the Great

Saint Albert the Great was born in the region of Ausgbourg, of parents rich in the goods of fortune. From the time he was a child, he manifested in his studies an unusual aptitude for the exact sciences. While he was still a boy, he had himself let down the side of a cliff to examine at close range an eagle’s nest which interested him. At the age of fifteen he was already a student of the natural sciences and the humanities at Bologna; Saint Dominic had died in that city the preceding year, 1221, and was buried in the Dominican Convent. Their house, in a suburban area of Bologna, was closely associated with the activities at the University, andstudents in large numbers were requesting admission to the Order.

Blessed Reginald of Orleans, Dominican, a former professor in Paris, came to preach there in the streets. The second Dominican General, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, a compatriot of Albert and a very eloquent preacher, was in Padua, and when the students of Bologna weretransferred there Albert heard him at the Padua Dominican Church. He had already desired toenter the Order, but his uncle opposed to that plan a very vigorous opposition, and Albert wasstill very young. He dreamed one night that he had become a Dominican but left the Ordersoon afterwards. The same day he heard Master Jordan preach, and the Dominican Generalspoke of how the demon attempts to turn aside those who want to enter into religion, knowingthat he will suffer great losses from their career in the Church; he persuades them in dreamsthat they will leave it, or else they see themselves on horseback, or clothed in purple, or assolitaries in the desert, or surrounded by cordial friends; thus he makes them fear enteringbecause they would not be able to persevere. This was precisely Albert’s great concern, faced as he was with his uncle’s opposition. Afterwards the young student, amazed, went to Blessed Jordan, saying: “Master, who revealed my heart to you?” And he lost no time then in entering the Order at the age of sixteen, in 1223, having heard the same preacher remark to him personally that he should consider what a pity it would be if his excellent youthful qualities became the prey of eternal fires.

When he had earned the title of Doctor in theology, he was sent to Cologne, where for a longtime his reputation attracted many illustrious disciples. The humble Albert, filled with the loveof God, taught also in Padua and Bologna, in Saxony, at Fribourg, Ratisbonne and Strasbourg,and when Blessed Jordan of Saxony died in 1237, he occupied his place and fulfilled hisfunctions until 1238, when the election of his successor was held. He returned then toCologne, where he would encounter a disciple who alone among all of them would suffice forhis glory — Saint Thomas Aquinas. This young religious, already steeped in the highesttheological studies, was silent among the others, to the point of being called by his fellowstudents “the Mute Ox of Sicily.” But Albert silenced them, saying, “The bellowings of this ox will resound throughout the entire world.”

From Cologne, Saint Albert was called to the University of Paris, with his dear disciple. There his genius appeared in all its brilliance, and there he composed a large number of his writings. Later, obedience took him back to Germany as Provincial of his Order. Without a murmur, he said farewell to his cell, his books, and his numerous disciples, and as Provincial thereafter journeyed with no money, always on foot, visiting the numerous monasteries under hisjurisdiction, throughout an immense territory in which were included Austria, Bavaria, Saxony,and other regions even to Holland.

He was no longer young when he had to submit to the formal order of the Pope and accept, in difficult circumstances, the episcopal see of Ratisbonne; there his indefatigable zeal was rewarded only by harsh trials, in the midst of which his virtue was perfected. When, inresponse to his persevering requests to be relieved of the responsibilities of a large see, PopeUrban IV restored to him the conventual peace of his Order, he was nonetheless obliged totake up his apostolic journeyings again. Finally he could enter into a definitive retreat, toprepare for death. One is astonished that amid so many labors, journeys and works of zeal,Albert could find the time to write on the natural sciences, on philosophy and theology, workswhich form from twenty-one to thirty-eight volumes, depending on the edition — and one mayask in which of his titles he most excelled, that of scholar, of Saint, or of Apostle.

He died, apparently of fatigue, at the age of seventy-three, on November 15, 1280, and his body was buried in Cologne in the Dominican church. He had to wait until December 16, 1931 for the honors of canonization and the extension of his cult to the universal Church. Proclaiming his holiness, Pope Pius XI added the glorious title, so well merited, of Doctor ofthe Church. From time immemorial, he has been known as Albert the Great.

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