A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Benedict

Saint Benedict, blessed by grace as his prophetic name seemed to foretell, was born of a noble Italianfamily in Umbria, in the year 480. As a boy he showed great inclination for virtue, and maturity inhis actions. He was sent to Rome at the age of seven, to be placed in the public schools. At theage of fourteen, alarmed by the licentiousness of the Roman youth, he fled to the desert mountainsof Subiaco, forty miles from Rome, and was directed by the Holy Spirit into a deep, craggy, andalmost inaccessible cave, since known as the Holy Grotto. He lived there for three years, unknownto anyone save a holy monk named Romanus, who clothed him with the monastic habit and broughthim food.

He was eventually discovered, when, one Easter day, God advised a priest who lived about fourmiles from there, to take food to His servant, who was starving. The priest searched in the hills andfinally found the solitary, and they took their meal together. Some shepherds also knew of hisretreat, and soon the fame of this hermit’s sanctity began to spread. The demon persecuted him, butto no avail; when a temptation of the flesh assailed him, he rolled in a clump of thorns and nettles,and came out of it covered with blood but sound in spirit.

Disciples came to him, and under his direction, numerous monasteries were founded. The rigor ofthe rule he drew up, however, brought upon him the hatred of some of the monks, and one of themmixed poison with the Abbot’s drink. When the Saint made the sign of the cross on the poisonedbowl, it broke and fell in pieces to the ground.

Saint Benedict resurrected a boy whose father pleaded for that miracle, saying “Give me back myson!” He replied, “Such miracles are not for us to work, but for the blessed apostles! Why will youlay upon me a burden which my weakness cannot bear?” But finally, moved by compassion, heprostrated himself upon the body of the child, and prayed: “Behold not, O Lord, my sins, but thefaith of this man, and restore the soul which Thou hast taken away!” And the child rose up, andwalked to the waiting arms of his father. When a monk lost the iron head of his axe in a river, theAbbot told him to throw the handle in after it, and it rose from the river bed to resume its formerplace.

Six days before his death, Saint Benedict ordered his grave to be prepared, then fell ill of a fever. On the sixth day he asked to be carried to the chapel, and, having received the sacred Body andBlood of Christ, with hands uplifted and leaning on one of his disciples, he calmly expired in prayer,on the 21^st of March, 543.

St. Catherine of Sweden

Saint Catherine was the daughter of Saint Bridget of Sweden and of Ulpho, Prince of Nericia, aregion of the same land. The love of God seemed to hasten in her the use of her reason, and atseven years of age she was placed in the convent of Risburgh, to be educated in piety under the careof the holy abbess of that house. Being very beautiful, she was promised by her father in marriageto a young nobleman of great virtue; but the virgin persuaded her suitor to join with her in making amutual vow of perpetual chastity. Listening to her discourses, the young man became desirous onlyfor heavenly graces, and, to draw them down upon his soul in greater abundance, he readilyacquiesced to the proposal. The happy couple, having but one heart and one desire, by a holyemulation encouraged each other to prayer, mortification, and works of charity.

After the death of her father, Saint Catherine, out of devotion to the Passion of Christ and to therelics of the martyrs, obtained her spouse’s permission to join her mother in her well-knownpilgrimages and practices of devotion and penance in Rome. She went to her there and they visitedthe tombs of the martyrs and the churches, and together practiced mortification and works of piety,caring for the sick in the hospitals. Not long afterward, Catherine’s royal spouse died piously andthen she found herself obliged to refuse numerous requests for her hand in marriage. When hermother died in 1373, she returned to Sweden, taking the mortal remains of Saint Bridget with her forburial. Catherine entered a monastery at Vatzan, where after a life of severe penance, she died onthe 24^th of March in 1381. For the last twenty-five years of her life Saint Catherine had purified hersoul daily by the sacramental confession of her sins.

St. Victorian and his Companions

Huneric, the Arian king of the Vandals in Africa, succeeded his father Genseric in 477. He acted atfirst with moderation towards the Catholics of Carthage, but in 480 began a grievous persecution ofthe clergy and holy virgins, which in 484 became general. Vast numbers of Catholics were put todeath.

Saint Victorian, at that time one of the principal lords of the kingdom, had been made governor ofCarthage with the Roman title of Proconsul. He was the wealthiest subject of Huneric, who placedgreat confidence in him, and Victorian always behaved with inviolable fidelity. Now, however, whenthe king, after publishing his cruel edicts, sent him a message in which he promised, if Victorianwould conform to his religion, to heap on him the greatest wealth and the highest honors which itwas in the power of a prince to bestow, Victorian could not grant that request.

The Saint, who amid the glittering pomps of the world perfectly understood its emptiness, made thisgenerous answer to the messenger: “Tell the king that I trust in Christ. His Majesty may condemnme to any torments, but I shall never consent to renounce the Catholic Church, in which I have beenbaptized. Even if there were no life after this, I would never be ungrateful and perfidious to God,who has granted me the happiness of knowing Him, and bestowed on me His most precious graces.” The tyrant became furious at this answer, and the tortures which he caused the Saint to endurecannot be imagined. Saint Victorian suffered them with joy, and amid them completed his gloriousmartyrdom.

The Roman Martyrology for this day joins with him four others who were crowned in the samepersecution. Two of those who were apprehended for the faith were brothers who had promisedeach other to die together, if possible; and they begged of God, as a favor, that they might bothsuffer the same torments. The persecutors suspended them in the air with great weights at their feet. One of them, under the excess of pain, begged to be taken down for a little ease. His brother,fearing that this might move him to deny his faith, cried out from the rack, “God forbid, dearbrother, that you should ask such a thing. Is this what we promised to Jesus Christ?” The otherwas so wonderfully encouraged that he cried out, “No, no; I ask not to be released; increase mytortures, exert all your cruelties till they are exhausted upon me.” They were then burned with red-hot iron plates, and tormented so long that the executioners finally left them, saying, “Everyonefollows their example; no one embraces our religion now.” This they said seeing that although thesetwo had been so long and so grievously tormented, there were no scars or bruises visible upon them.

Among many glorious confessors at that time, one Liberatus, an eminent physician, was sent intobanishment with his wife. He only grieved to see his infant children torn from him. His wifechecked his tears by these words: “Think no more of them; Jesus Christ Himself will take care ofthem and protect their souls.” In prison she was told that her husband had conformed, and when shemet him at the bar before the judge, she reproached him in the court for having abandoned God. She learned from his answer, however, that a base lie had attempted to separate her from her holyfaith and from eternal life.

Two merchants of Carthage, who both bore the name of Frumentius, suffered martyrdom about thesame time. Twelve young children were dragged away by the persecutors, and cruelly scourgedevery day for many days; yet by God’s grace every one of them persevered to the end of thepersecution, firm in the faith.

St. Gabriel Archangel

The day before the great feast of the Annunciation, the Church celebrates the feast of the Archangelwho brought to earth the glad tidings that Mary was chosen to be the Mother of the Incarnate God.

This angelic Messenger appears several times in the history of God’s chosen people. He came toDaniel the prophet after he had a vision of the future Persian and Greek empires, to explain thevision to him, as Daniel narrates in the eighth chapter of his book. So great was the Archangel’smajesty that the prophet fell on his face trembling.

The Angel of the Incarnation again appeared to the prophet to answer his prayer at the end of theexile, and advise him of the exact date of the future Redemption by the long-awaited Messiah.

When the fullness of time had come, Gabriel was sent several times as the harbinger of theIncarnation of the Most High God. First, to the Temple of Jerusalem, while Zachary stood at thealtar of incense, to tell him that his wife Elizabeth would bring forth a son to be called John, whowould prepare the way of the Lord. (Luke 1:17) Six months later the great Archangel againappeared, bearing the greatest message God ever sent to earth. Standing before the Blessed VirginMary, this great Archangel of God trembled with reverence as he offered Her the ineffable honor ofbecoming Mother of the Eternal Word. Upon Her consent, “the Word was made flesh and dweltamong us.” It was he, we can readily believe, who also fortified Saint Joseph for his mission asvirginal father of the Saviour.

Gabriel rightly bears the beautiful name, the strength of God, manifesting in every apparition thepower and glory of the Eternal. According to some of the Fathers of the Church, it was SaintGabriel, Angel of the Incarnation, who invited the shepherds of Bethlehem to come to the Crib toadore the newborn God. He was with Jesus in His Agony, no less ready to be the strength of Godin the Garden than at Nazareth and Bethlehem. Throughout Christian tradition he is the Angel ofthe Incarnation, the Angel of consolation, the Angel of mercy.

The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

This great festival takes its name from the happy tidings brought by the Archangel Gabriel to theBlessed Virgin, announcing the Incarnation of the Son of God. It commemorates the most importantembassy that was ever known, an embassy sent by the King of kings, and performed by one of thechief princes of His heavenly court, and directed, not to the great ones of this earth, but to a poor,unknown virgin who, being endowed with angelic purity of soul and body, and perfect humility andsubmission to God, was greater in His eyes than the mightiest monarch in the world.

When the Son of God became man, He could have taken our nature without the cooperation of anycreature; but He was pleased to be born of a woman, the One announced in the third chapter ofGenesis. In choosing Her whom He raised to this most sublime of all dignities, He was turning tothe one maiden who, by the riches of His grace and virtues, was of all others the most holy and themost perfect. The purpose of this embassy of the Archangel was to give a Saviour to the world, avictim of propitiation to the sinner, a model to the just, a son to this Virgin who would remain avirgin, and a new nature to the Son of God — the nature of man, capable of suffering pain andanguish in order to satisfy God’s justice for our transgressions.

When the Angel appeared to Mary and addressed Her, the Blessed Virgin was troubled; not at hiscoming, says Saint Ambrose, for heavenly visions and conversation with the blessed spirits had beenfamiliar to Her, but what alarmed Her, he says, was the Angel’s appearing in human form, in theshape of a young man. What added to her alarm on this occasion was his words of praise. Mary,guarded by her modesty, was in confusion before expressions of this sort, and dreaded even theshadow of deluding flattery. Such high commendations made her cautious, until in silence She hadmore fully considered the matter: “She deliberated in her mind,” says Saint Luke, “what manner ofsalutation this could be.”

The Angel, to calm her, said: “Fear not, Mary, for Thou hast found favor before God.” He theninformed Her that She was to conceive a Son whose name would be Jesus, who would be great andthe Son of the Most High, and possessed of the throne of David, Her illustrious ancestor. Mary, outof a just concern to know how she may comply with the will of God without prejudice to Her vowof virginity, inquired, “How shall this be?” Nor did She give Her consent until the heavenlymessenger informed Her that it was to be a work of the Holy Spirit, who, in making Her fruitful,would not alter in the slightest Her virginal purity. In submission to God’s will, without any furtherinquiries, She expressed Her assent in these humble but powerful words: “Behold the handmaid ofthe Lord; be it done unto Me according to thy word.” What faith and confidence Her answerexpressed! What profound humility and perfect obedience!

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