A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Elizabeth was the daughter of the just and pious Andrew II, king of Hungary, the niece of Saint Hedwig, and the sister of the virtuous Bela IV, king of Hungary, who became the father of Saint Cunegundes and of Saint Margaret of Hungary, a Dominican nun. Another of herbrothers was Coloman, King of Galicia and prince of Russia, who led an angelic life amid themultiple affairs of the world and the troubles of war.

She was betrothed in infancy to Louis, Landgrave of Thuringia, and brought up from the age of four in his father’s court. Never could she bear to adopt the ornaments of the court for her own usage, and she took pleasure only in prayer. She would remove her royal crown when she entered the church, saying she was in the presence of the Saviour who wore a crown of thorns. As she grew older, she employed the jewels offered her for the benefit of the poor. Not content with receiving numbers of them daily in her palace, and relieving all in distress,she built several hospitals, where she herself served the sick, bathing them, feeding them,dressing their wounds and ulcers. The relatives of her fiancé tried to prevent the marriage, saying she was fit only for a cloister; but the young prince said he would not accept gold in the quantity of a nearby mountain, if it were offered him to abandon his resolution to marry Elizabeth.

Once as she was carrying in the folds of her mantle some provisions for the poor, she met herhusband returning from the hunt. Astonished to see her bending under the weight of herburden, he opened the mantle and found in it nothing but beautiful red and white roses, thoughit was not the season for flowers. He told her to continue on her way, and took one of themarvelous roses, which he conserved all his life. She never ceased to edify him in all of herworks. One of her twelve excellent Christian maxims, by which she regulated all her conductwas, “Often recall that you are the work of the hands of God and act accordingly, in such away as to be eternally with Him.”

When her pious young husband died in Sicily on his way to a Crusade with the EmperorFrederick, she was cruelly driven from her palace by her brother-in-law. Those whom she hadaided showed nothing but coldness for her; God was to purify His Saint by harsh tribulations. She was forced to wander through the streets with her little children, a prey to hunger andcold. The bishop of Bamberg, her maternal uncle, finally forced the cruel prince to ask pardonfor his ill treatment of her, but she voluntarily renounced the grandeurs of the world, and wentto live in a small house she had prepared in the city of Marburgh. There she practiced thegreatest austerities. She welcomed all her sufferings, and continued to be the mother of thepoor, distributing all of the heritage eventually conceded to her, and converting many by herholy life. She died in 1231, at the age of twenty-four.

St. Felix of Valois

Saint Felix was the son of the Count of Valois. His mother carried him to Saint Bernard at hismonastery of Clairvaux, to offer him there to God, when he was three years old; she kept him,however, under her own care and took particular care of him, permitting him, still young, todistribute the alms she was pleased to give to the poor. When the exiled Pope Innocent IIsought refuge in France, the Count of Valois, father of Felix, offered his castle of Crepy to thePontiff, who often blessed the young child whom he saw being trained in virtue. One daywhen Felix gave away his own habits to a poor beggar, he found them that evening neatly laidon his bed; and he thanked God for this sign of His divine goodness, proving that one losesnothing when one gives to the poor.

When he was ten years old he obtained grace for a prisoner condemned to death, by means ofhis prayer and his pleadings with his uncle, a lord of whom the man was the subject. Felix hada presentiment that this man would become a saint; and in fact, he retired into a deep solitudewhere he undertook severe penance and died the death of the just.

The unfortunate divorce of the parents of Felix, and the excommunication of his father, whohad remarried and whose condemnation raised serious troubles on his domains, caused tomature in the young man a long-formed resolution to leave the world. Confiding his mother toher pious brother, Thibault, Count of Champagne, Felix took the Cistercian habit at Clairvaux. His rare virtues drew on him an admiration such that, with Saint Bernard’s consent, he fledfrom it to Italy, where he began to live an austere life with an aged hermit in the Alps. Forthis purpose he had departed secretly, and the servants his uncle sent believed him dead, beingunable to trace him; they published the rumor of his death. About this time the old hermitprocured the ordination of his disciple as a priest.

After his elderly counselor died in his arms, Saint Felix returned to France. He built a cell in the diocese of Meaux in an uninhabited forest; this place was later named Cerfroid. Amid savage beasts he led an angelic life of perpetual fasting. Here God inspired him with the desire of founding an Order for the redemption of Christian captives. The Lord also moved Saint John of Matha, a young nobleman of Provence, to seek out the hermit and join him. The two applied themselves to the practice of all virtues. It was John who overtly proposed to Saint Felix the project of an Order for the redemption of captives, when his preceptor was already seventy years old. The latter gladly offered himself to God for that purpose, and after prayingfor three days the two solitaries made a pilgrimage to Rome in the middle of winter. Theywere kindly received by the Pope, after he read the recommendation which the Bishop of Parishad given them. He too prayed and became convinced that the two Saints were inspired bythe Holy Spirit, and he gave his approbation to the Trinitarian Order

Within forty years the Order would have six hundred monasteries. Saint John, who was Superior General, left to Saint Felix the direction of the convents in France, exercised from the monastery which the founders had built at Cerfroid. There Saint Felix died in November of1212, at the age of eighty-five, only about six weeks before his younger co-founder. It is aconstant tradition in the Trinitarian Order that Saint Felix and Saint John were canonized byUrban IV in 1260, though no bull has ever been found. In 1219 already the feast of SaintFelix was kept in the entire diocese of Meaux. In 1666 Alexander VI declared that venerationof the servant of God was “immemorial”.

The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin

Religious parents never fail by devout prayer to consecrate their children to God, His divine service and love, both before and after their birth. Some among the Jews, not content with this general consecration of their children, offered them to God in their infancy, by the hands of the priests in the Temple, to be brought up in quarters attached to the Temple, attending the priests and Levites in their sacred ministry. There were special divisions in these lodgings for the women and children dedicated to the divine service. (III Kings 6:5-9) We have examples of this special consecration of children in the person of Samuel, for example. Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Temple of Jerusalem. It is very probable that the holy prophet Simeon and the prophetess Anna, who witnessed the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple, as we read in the second chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke (verses 25 ff.) had known His Mother as a little girl in the Temple and observed her truly unique sanctity.

It is an ancient and very trustworthy tradition that the Blessed Virgin was thus solemnly offered in the Temple to God at the age of three by Her parents, Saint Anne and SaintJoachim. The Gospel tells us nothing of the childhood of Mary; Her title Mother of God,eclipses all the rest. Where, better than in the Temple, could Mary be prepared for Hermission? Twelve years of recollection and prayer, contemplation and sufferings, were thepreparation of the chosen one of God. The tender soul of Mary was adorned with the mostprecious graces and became an object of astonishment and praise for the holy Angels, as wellas of the highest complacency for the adorable Trinity. The Father looked upon Her as Hisbeloved Daughter, the Son as One set apart and prepared to become His Mother, and the HolyGhost as His undefiled Spouse.

Here is how Mary’s day in the Temple was apportioned, according to Saint Jerome. Fromdawn until nine in the morning, She prayed; from 9:00 until 3:00 She applied Herself to manualwork; then She turned again to prayer. She was always the first to undertake night watches,the One most applied to study, the most fervent in the chanting of Psalms, the most zealous inworks of charity, the purest among the virgins, Her companions, the most perfect in thepractice of every virtue. On this day She appears as the standard-bearer for Christian virginity: after Her will come countless legions of virgins consecrated to the Lord, both in the shadow ofthe altars or engaged in the charitable occupations of the Church in the world. Mary will betheir eternal Model, their dedicated Patroness, their sure guide on the paths of perfection.

St. Cecilia

It is under the emperor Alexander Severus that this young Saint, one of the most fragrant flowers of Christian virginity and martyrdom, suffered for the Faith she had chosen; to choose it was at that moment as certain an end to earthly felicity as it is a guarantee, at every epoch, of the eternal felicity of those who remain faithful to it. Cecilia was the daughter of anillustrious patrician, and was the only Christian of her family; she was permitted to attend thereunions held in the catacombs by the Christians, either through her parents’ condescension or out of indifference. She continually kept a copy of the holy Gospel hidden under her clothingover her heart. Her parents obliged her, however, despite her vow of virginity, which mostprobably they knew nothing of, to marry the young Valerian, whom she esteemed as noble andgood, but who was still pagan.

During the evening of the wedding day, with the music of the nuptial feast still in the air,Cecilia, this intelligent, beautiful, and noble Roman maiden, renewed her vow. When the newspouses found themselves alone, she gently said to Valerian, “Dear friend, I have a secret to confide to you, but will you promise me to keep it?” He promised her solemnly that nothing would ever make him reveal it, and she continued, “Listen: an Angel of God watches over me, for I belong to God. If he sees that you would approach me under the influence of a sensual love, his anger will be inflamed, and you will succumb to the blows of his vengeance. But if you love me with a perfect love and conserve my virginity inviolable, he will love you as heloves me, and will lavish on you, too, his favors.” Valerian replied that if he might see this Angel, he would certainly correspond to her wishes, and Cecilia answered, “Valerian, if you consent to be purified in the fountain which wells up eternally; if you will believe in the unique, living and true God who reigns in heaven, you will be able to see the Angel.” And to his questions concerning this water and who might bestow it, she directed him to a certain holyold man named Urban.

That holy Pontiff rejoiced exceedingly when Valerian came to him the same night, to be instructed and baptized; his long prayer touched the young man greatly, and he too rejoicedwith an entirely new joy in his new-found and veritable faith, so far above the religion of thepagans. He returned to his house, and on entering the room where Cecilia had continued topray for the remainder of the night, he saw the Angel waiting, with two crowns of roses andlilies, which he would place on the head of each of them. Cecilia understood at once that ifthe lilies symbolized their virginity, the roses foretold for them both the grace of martyrdom. Valerian was told he might ask any grace at all of God, who was very pleased with him; andhe requested that his brother Tiburtius might also receive the grace he had obtained; and theconversion of Tiburtius soon afterwards became a reality.

The two brothers, who were very wealthy, began to aid the families which had lost their support through the martyrdom of the fathers, spouses, and sons; they saw to the burial of the Christians, and continually braved the same fate as these victims. In effect they were sooncaptured, and their testimony was such as to convert a young officer chosen to conduct themto the site of their martyrdom. He succeeded in delaying it for a day, and took them to hishouse, where before the day was ended he had decided to receive Baptism with his entirefamily and household. The two brothers offered their heads to the sword; and soon afterwardthe officer they had won for Christ followed them to the eternal divine kingdom. It wasCecilia who saw to the burial of all three martyrs. She then distributed to the poor all thevaluable objects of her house, in order that the property of Valerian might not be confiscatedaccording to current Roman law, and knowing that her own time was close at hand.

She was soon arrested and arraigned, but having asked a delay after her interrogation, sheassembled those who had heard her with admiration and instructed them in the faith; thePontiff Urban baptized a large number of them. The death appointed for her was suffocationby steam. Saint Cecilia remained unharmed and calm, for a day and a night, in the calderium, or place of hot baths, in her own palace, despite a fire heated to seven times its ordinary violence. Finally, an executioner was sent to dispatch her by the sword; he struck with trembling hand the three blows which the law allowed, and left her still alive. For two daysand nights Cecilia would lie with her head half severed, on the pavement of her bath, fullysensible and joyfully awaiting her crown. When her neophytes came to bury her after thedeparture of the executioner, they found her alive and smiling. They surrounded her there, notdaring to touch her, for three days, having collected the precious blood from her wounds. Onthe third day, after the holy Pontiff Urban had come to bless her, the agony ended, and in theyear 177 the virgin Saint gave back her glorious soul to Christ. It was the Supreme Pontiffwho presided at her funeral; she was placed in a coffin in the position in which she had lain, aswe often see her pictured, and interred in the vault prepared by Saint Callixtus for the Church’spontiffs. The authentic acts of her life and martyrdom were prepared by Pope Anteros in theyear 235. When the tomb was opened in 1599 her body was entirely intact still.

St. Clement I of Rome

Saint Clement is a Roman of noble birth, the son of the Senator Faustinian. Saint Paul speaks of him in his Epistle to the Philippians, chapter 4, assuring that Clement had worked with him in the ministry of the Gospel, and that his name was written in the Book of Life. Later Saint Clement was consecrated bishop by Saint Peter himself. He succeeded in the supreme office to Saint Linus, the immediate successor to Saint Peter, and the Liber Pontificalis says that “he reigned nine years, two months and ten days, from 67 to 76, ...until the reign of Vespasian and Titus.”

It was, we may say, with the words of the Apostles still resounding in his ears that he began torule the Church of God; he was among the first, as he was among the most illustrious, in thelong line of those who have held the place and power of Peter. Living at the same time and inthe same city with Domitian, persecutor of the Church, and having to face not only externalfoes but to contend with schism and rebellion from within, his days were not tranquil. TheCorinthian Church was torn by intestine strife, and its members were defying the authority oftheir clergy. It was then that Saint Clement intervened in the plenitude of his apostolicauthority, and sent his famous Epistle to the Corinthians. He reminded them of the duties of charity, and above all of submission to the clergy. He did not speak in vain; peace and orderwere restored. Saint Clement had done his work on earth, and shortly after sealed with hisblood the Faith which he had learned from Peter and taught to the nations.

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