A Community of Love, Unity and Service

St. Edmund of Canterbury

Saint Edmund, Edmundus, or Edme, was born at Abingdon in England towards the end of the twelfth century, the son of very virtuous Christians. His father withdrew from the worldbefore many years passed, and entered a monastery, where he later died; and his pious spouseraised her children in the love and fear of God, accustoming them to an austere life, and bymeans of little presents, encouraging them to practice mortification and penance.

Edmund, the oldest, with his brother Robert, left his home at Abingdon as a boy of twelve tostudy in Paris. There he protected himself against many grievous temptations by a vow ofchastity, and by consecrating himself to the Blessed Virgin Mary for life. While he was still aschoolboy there, he one day saw the Child Jesus, who told him He was always at his side inschool, and accompanied him everywhere he went. He said he should inscribe His Namedeeply in his heart, and at night print it on his forehead, and it would preserve him and all whowould do likewise, from a sudden death.

His mother fell seriously ill while he was still studying in Paris; he returned home for her finalbenediction, and she recommended that he provide for his brother and his sisters. When thelatter were all received by the Superior of a nearby convent, Edmund was able to return toParis to complete his studies. He began to profess the liberal arts there and acquired anexcellent reputation, striving also to teach virtue to his students and to aid them in all theirdifficulties. After six years, he was advised by his mother in a dream to abandon the teachingof secular disciplines, and devote himself to learning to know God better. He then became aDoctor of sacred learning, and many who heard him teach left their former occupations toembrace religious life. When ordained a priest, he was the treasurer of the Church of thediocese of Salisbury. There he manifested such charity to the poor that the dean said he wasrather the treasure than the treasurer of their church.

The Pope, having heard of his sanctity and his zeal, charged him to preach the Crusade againstthe Saracens. He was raised in 1234 to the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury. There hefearlessly defended the rights of Church and State against the avarice and greed of Henry III. The complacent ecclesiastics and lords persecuted him in various ways, but could not alter hispatience. Finding himself unable, however, to force the monarch to relinquish the beneficeswhich he kept vacant on behalf of the royal coffers, Edmund retired into exile at the Cistercianmonastery of Pontigny, rather than appear as an accomplice to so flagrant a wrong. After twoyears spent in solitude and prayer, he went to his reward. The miracles wrought at his tomb atPontigny were so numerous that he was canonized in 1247, only a few years after his death. His body was found incorrupt in that year, when it was translated in the presence of SaintLouis IX and his court to Pontigny, from its former resting place in the church of Soisy.

St. Gertrude of Eisleben

Saint Gertrude of Eisleben is the most celebrated of several Saints of the same name, and for this reason the ancient authors named her Gertrude the Great. She was born in the year 1264 of a noble Saxon family, and placed at the age of five for education with the Benedictines of Helfta. She dwelt there as a simple religious, very mistrustful of herself, under the direction of an Abbess having the same name as herself. The Abbess’ sister was Saint Mechtilde of Hackeborn; and she was the mistress and friend of the young Saint Gertrude, who consulted her excellent teacher whenever she was tempted by vain and useless thoughts, or troubled by doubts suggested by the ancient enemy.

Saint Gertrude learned Latin in her youth, as in those days was customary for persons of hersex who consecrated themselves to God, and she wrote Latin with unusual elegance and force. She also had an uncommon knowledge of Holy Scripture and of all the branches of learninghaving religion as their object; but one day Our Lord reproached her with having too great ataste for her studies. Afterwards she could find in them nothing but bitterness; but soon OurLord came to instruct her Himself. For many years she never lost His amiable Presence, savefor eleven days when He decided to test her fidelity. Prayer and contemplation were herprincipal exercise, and to those she consecrated the greater part of her time.

Zeal for the salvation of souls was ardent in the heart of Gertrude. Thinking of the souls of sinners, she would shed torrents of tears at the foot of the cross and before the Blessed Sacrament. She especially loved to meditate on the Passion and the Eucharist, and at those times, too, could not restrain the tears that flowed in abundance from her eyes. When shespoke of Jesus Christ and His mysteries, she ravished those who heard her. One day while inchurch the Sisters were singing, I have seen the Lord face to face, Saint Gertrude beheld what appeared to be the divine Face, brilliant in beauty; His eyes pierced her heart and filled her soul and flesh with inexpressible delights. Divine love, ever the unique principle of her affections and her actions, was the principle by which she was crucified to the world and all its vanities.

She was the object of a great number of extraordinary graces; Jesus Christ engraved His wounds in the heart of His holy spouse, placed rings on her fingers, presented Himself to her in the company of His Mother, and in her spirit acted as though He had exchanged hearts with her. All these astonishing graces only developed her love for suffering. It was impossible for her to live without some kind of pain; the time she spent without suffering seemed to her to be wasted.

During the long illness of five months from which she would die, she gave not the slightest sign of impatience or sadness; her joy, on the contrary, increased with her pains. When the day of her death arrived in 1334, she saw the Most Blessed Virgin descend from heaven toassist her, and one of her Sisters perceived her soul going straight to the Heart of Jesus, whichopened to receive it. Saint Gertrude is one of the great mystics of the Church; the book of herRevelations, recorded out of obedience, remains celebrated. In it she traces in words ofindescribable beauty the intimate converse of her soul with Jesus and Mary. She was gentle toall, most gentle to sinners; filled with devotion to the Saints of God, to the souls in purgatory,and above all to the Passion of Our Lord and to His Sacred Heart.

St. Gregory the Miracle Worker

Saint Gregory was born in the Pont, of distinguished parents who were still engaged in the superstitions of paganism. He lost his father at the age of fourteen, and began to reflect on the folly of idolatry’s fables. He recognized the unity of God and was becoming disposed to accept the truths of Christianity. His father had destined him for the legal profession, in which the art of oratory is very necessary, and in this pursuit he was succeeding very well, having learned Latin. He was counseled to apply himself to Roman law.

Gregory and his brother Athenodorus, later to be a bishop like himself, had a sister living in Palestine at Caesarea. Not far from that city was a school of law, and in Caesarea itself, another which the famous Origen had opened in the year 231 and in which he was teaching philosophy. The two brothers heard Origen there, and that master discovered in them aremarkable capacity for knowledge, and more important still, rare dispositions for virtue. Hestrove to inspire love for truth in them and an ardent desire to attain greater knowledge andthe possession of the Supreme Good; and the two brothers soon put aside their intentions tostudy law. Gregory studied also in Alexandria for three years, after a persecution drove hismaster, Origen, from Palestine, but returned there with the famous exegete in 238. He wasthen baptized, and in the presence of a large audience delivered a speech in which he testifiedto his gratitude towards his teacher, praising his methods, and thanking God for so excellent aprofessor.

When he returned to his native city of Neocaesarea in the Pont, his friends urged him to seekhigh positions, but Gregory desired to retire into solitude and devote himself to prayer. For atime he did so, often changing his habitation, because the archbishop of the region desired tomake him Bishop of Neocaesarea. Eventually he was obliged to consent. That city was veryprosperous, and the inhabitants were corrupted by paganism. Saint Gregory, with Christianzeal and charity, and with the aid of the gift of miracles which he had received, began toattempt every means to bring them to the light of Christ. As he lay awake one night an elderlyman entered his room, and pointed to a Lady of superhuman beauty who accompanied him,radiant with heavenly light. This elderly man was Saint John the Evangelist, and the Lady ofLight was the Mother of God. She told Saint John to give Gregory the instruction he desired;thereupon he gave Saint Gregory a creed which contained in all its plenitude the doctrine ofthe Trinity. Saint Gregory consigned it to writing, directed all his preaching by it, and handedit down to his successors. This creed later preserved his flock from the Arian heresy.

He converted a pagan priest one day, when the latter requested a miracle, and a very large rock moved to another location at his command. The pagan priest abandoned all things to follow Christ afterwards. One day the bishop planted his staff beside the river which passedalongside the city and often ravaged it by floods. He commanded it never again to pass thelimit marked by his staff, and in the time of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, who wrote of his miraclesnearly a hundred years later, it had never done so. The bishop settled a conflict which wasabout to cause bloodshed between two brothers, when he prayed all night beside the lakewhose possession they were disputing. It dried up and the miracle ended the difficulty.

When the persecution of Decius began in 250, the bishop counseled his faithful to depart and not expose themselves to trials perhaps too severe for their faith; and none fell into apostasy. He himself retired to a desert, and when he was pursued was not seen by the soldiers. On a second attempt they found him praying with his companion, the converted pagan priest, now adeacon; they had mistaken them the first time for trees. The captain of the soldiers wasconvinced this had been a miracle, and became a Christian to join him. Some of his Christianswere captured, among them Saint Troadus the martyr, who merited the grace of dying for theFaith. The persecution ended at the death of the emperor in 251.

It is believed that Saint Gregory died in the year 270, on the 17^th of November. Before his death he asked how many pagans still remained in the city, and was told there were only seventeen. He thanked God for the graces He had bestowed on the population, for when he arrived, there had been only seventeen Christians.

St. Peter and St. Paul, Dedication of the Basilicas of

The ancient basilica of Saint Peter stood, like the present one, on the hill of Rome called in Latin Mons Vaticanus, at the northwestern extremity of the city, on the right bank of the Tiber. What we call the Vatican is a Roman palace, the ordinary dwelling of the Pope. Near the Lateran palace where the early Popes dwelt, which was itself built by Constantine the Great or Saint Liberius, Constantine built on the same hill, over the tomb of Saint Peter called the Confession, the Church of the first Vicar of Christ, where once a Roman circus had stood. This first Christian emperor placed there a plaque to honor Saint Peter, on which he had inscribed:

Because the world under your guidance has risen triumphant to the very heavens, Constantine, victorious, has built this temple to your glory.

The Divine Office for this day narrates its origins as follows:

“The Emperor Constantine the Great, on the eighth day after his baptism, after deposing the diadem and prostrating himself, shed a great many tears; then taking up apick and a shovel, he dug into the soil and drew out twelve loads of earth in honor ofthe twelve Apostles, thereby designating the site of the basilica he desired to build tohonor their Prince. This basilica was dedicated by Pope Saint Sylvester on thefourteenth day of the calendes of December, just as on the fifth of the ides ofNovember he had consecrated the Church of the Lateran, but here he did so by raising a stone altar which he anointed with sacred chrism... When the old Vatican basilica became decrepit, it was rebuilt, through the piety of several Pontiffs, on the same foundations but larger and more magnificent. And in the year 1626, on this same day, Urban VII solemnly consecrated it.”

As during the earliest centuries, still today from all corners of the world Christians go to venerate the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles.

The tomb of Saint Paul is on the Ostian Way, at the southern extremity of the city. The characters indicating the Apostle buried there, which clearly date from the epoch ofConstantine, are engraved in the marble which closes the sarcophagus: PAULO APOSTOLOET MARTYRI.

“On the same day, Saint Sylvester dedicated the Basilica of Saint Paul the Apostle which the emperor Constantine had also built with magnificence on the Ostian Way,enriching this one, too, with revenues, ornaments and valuable gifts. In the year 1823,a violent fire totally consumed this Basilica, but it was raised again, more beautiful thanbefore, by the persevering zeal of four Pontiffs, who recovered it from its ruins. PiusIX chose for the time of its consecration the blessed occasion of the definition of theImmaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which he had just proclaimed, andwhich had drawn to Rome from the farthest places of the Catholic world, a number ofBishops and Cardinals. It was on the 10^th day of December in 1854, that amid thisbeautiful crown of prelates and princes of the Church, he carried out the solemndedication, and fixed its annual commemoration for the present day.” (November 18)

Thus the city is laid out between the two pillars of the Church, the two Apostles who from Rome made the Word of God resound throughout the entire world.

St. Odon of Cluny

On Christmas Eve of the year 877, a pious but childless Christian nobleman of Aquitaine implored Our Lord, by the fecundity of His Holy Mother and His Incarnation, to grant him a son. His prayer was heard; Odon was born, and his grateful father, in a prayer offered him — still an infant in his arms — to Saint Martin of Tours (†400) to be his spiritual son. Odon was later taught by a wise priest, then was placed in the court of the Count of Anjou and that of the Duke of Aquitaine. There he was influenced by the passions which reign in courts, and neglected his prayers to think only of games, hunting, and military pursuits. But God did not abandon him, and he was haunted in his dreams by the dangers of a disordered life. He prayed to the Blessed Virgin and begged Her one Christmas Eve to lead him on the narrow path ofsanctity.

He was then sixteen years old, and the next day he fell ill with a sickness which increased andfor three years kept him on the verge of death. When his father told him he had consecratedhim to Saint Martin, Odon renewed this consecration and promised to enter into his service;suddenly then his headaches left him and he recovered from his illness.

He went to Tours to serve in the church of Saint Martin for a time. But when a hermitage was built nearby he retired there to devote himself to prayer and study, while continuing to visit the tomb of Saint Martin every night. He began to study the Scriptures and abandoned all pagan readings. Later he was inspired to enter the monastery of Baume in the diocese of Besançon, and there he received the habit from Saint Bernon, the abbot, in the year 909. He was charged with the instruction of novices and boarding students. When later he returned home on a visit to his parents, they were so touched by his words that despite their age they renounced the world and entered a monastery. When Odon returned to Baume he wasordained a priest.

When Saint Bernon, who had governed six monasteries, died, three of those were entrusted toSaint Odon; these were Cluny, newly founded in 910, Massay, and Deols. He resided inCluny, of which he is often titled the Founder, because he organized and enlarged this newhouse. His reputation attracted a large number of vocations. His special care was for children;at that period the schools had taken refuge in the cathedrals and monasteries. He watchedwith gentleness over the habits, studies, and repose of these dear children. He personallytaught them as well as the monks. The Rule of Saint Benedict, providing for the education ofchildren as well as the formation of monks, was followed zealously. Many alms were given tothe poor, without concern for the morrow. The charity of Cluny was so abundant that in oneyear food was distributed to more than seven thousand indigent persons.

Saint Odon visited Rome three times; there he reformed a monastery, and later in France he submitted several abbeys to the discipline of Cluny. These were organized into a federation under the sole abbot of Cluny, with great unity of statutes and regime. It was said that “from Benevent to the Atlantic Ocean, the most important monasteries of Italy and Gaul rejoiced in being under his commandment.” After celebrating the feast of Saint Martin at Tours in 942, Saint Odon fell ill; and having exhorted all the religious who had come there to see him and learn how to be regular in their observance, he blessed them and gave up his soul to God. He was buried at Tours in the church of Saint Julian.

Daily Mass