Catholic Culture
Collect: O God, who teach us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
o Legume Soup
o On how our Work is Love, and how we can work with Christ to save Souls with our Love
o Ordinary Time, Pre-Lent: Table Blessing 1
o Be Merciful, O Lord, for We Have Sinned | Pope John Paul II
Ordinary Time: February 19th
Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
Old Calendar: St. Conrad of Piacenza (Hist), St. Gabinus (Hist) ; Other Titles: President's Day
Historically today is the feast of St. Conrad of Piacenza, a friar and hermit celebrated for piety and miraculous cures at Noto in Sicily and St. Gabinus, brother of Pope St. Caius, father of St. Susanna, who was ordained in his old age.
St. Conrad of Piacenza
St. Conrad was a Franciscan tertiary and hermit. He was a noble, born at Piacenza, Italy. While hunting, Conrad made a fire that quickly engulfed a neighboring cornfield. A poor man was arrested as an arsonist and condemned to death, but Conrad stepped forward to admit his guilt in the matter. As a result, he had to sell his possessions to pay for the damages. Conrad and his wife decided to enter the religious life. She became a Poor Clare, and he entered the Franciscan Third Order as a hermit. Conrad went to Noto, on Sicily, where he lived the next three decades at St. Martin's Hospital and in a hermitage built by a wealthy friend. During his last years, he lived and prayed in the grotto of Pizzone outside of Noto. His cult was approved by Pope Paul III.
Excerpted from Our Sunday Visitor's Encyclopedia of Saints
St. Gabinus
St. Gabinus was the father of St. Susanna. In the Spring of 293 AD, Diocletian announced the engagement of Maxentius Galerius to Susanna. Susanna refused the marriage proposal. Her father Gabinus and her uncle Caius supported this decision and encouraged her to keep her commitment to Christ. Her non-Christian uncles, Claudius and Maximus tried to persuade Susanna to marry Maxentius, after all this would make her Empress one day. In a conversation between the four brothers, Claudius and Maximus were converted to Christianity. The General Maxentius then came to the house, believing he could persuade Susanna to marry him. Susanna’s refusal soon led to the suspicion that she and other members of her family might be Christians. The Roman Consul Macedonius then called Susanna to Roman Forum and asked her to prove her loyalty to the state by performing an act of worship before the God Jupiter. She refused, confirming the fact that both she and other members of her family might well be Christian, There was no attempt to arrest her however, as she was a member of the Emperor’s family.
Susanna refused the marriage proposal, not only because she was a Christian but in addition, she had taken a vow of virginity. When Diocletian on the eastern frontier learned of his cousin’s refusal and the reasons why, he was deeply angered, and ordered her execution. A cohort of soldiers arrived at the house and beheaded her. Her father Gabinus was arrested and starved to death in prison. Maximus and Claudius, together with Claudius’s wife Prepedigna and their children, Alexander and Cuzia are all martyred. Ironically the only survivor was Pope Caius, who had escaped and hid in the catacombs. These murders within Diocletian’s own family would foreshadow the last great persecution against the Christian church which the Emperor began in 303 AD. Diocletian’s daughter Valeria was divorced, and in June 293 AD married Maxentius who would succeed Diocletian in 305 AD.
In the year 330 AD, a basilica was built over the site of the house of Susanna. It was first named San Caius in honor of the pope who had lived here. The bodies of Susanna and Gabinus were brought back from the catacombs and buried in the church.
Excerpted from The Church of Santa Susanna
Vultus Christi
Wednesday, 19 February 2014 19:48
The Mectildian Jubilee Year (1614–2014) continues to provide me with an opportunity to share something of the immense treasure of her spiritual doctrine with the readers of Vultus Christi. I came, this evening, upon a non–dated text of Mother Mectilde de Bar, edited by Mère Marie–Véronique Andral in Catherine de Bar, Itinéraire spirituel. The text, entitled Un écrit sur l’oraison [Writing on Prayer] reveals Mother Mectilde’s own experience of prayer. She speaks of three annihilations through which the soul must pass before entering into the sacred silence and sweet repose of God.
In the first annihilation the soul is stripped of the desire to feel anything in prayer. Inexorably, this comes through suffering. Mother Mectilde says that if one knew what awaited the soul at this crossroads, one wouldn’t have the courage even to set out towards it. Mother Mectilde then speaks of a second annihilation in which one is stripped of inward thoughts and feelings. Whereas formerly one could, at least, think about God, in this state all such thoughts vanish and the mere formulation of a prayer seems to require an impossible effort. The third annihilation is the stripping away of every delight, consolation, and support. One finds oneself in complete darkness without even being able to feel the faintest Godward movement of the soul. One is tempted to stop praying altogether. Prayer seems a waste of time, an utterly fruitless exercise, a delusion. One feels nothing, grasps nothing, and begins to wonder if anything of one’s prayer has ever been real.
After these three strippings away, Mother Mectilde assures us that the soul enters into God’s own sacred silence. Although the way into the silence of God is fraught with interior sufferings and bitterness of spirit, God allows the soul to experience, ever so faintly, the occasional taste of His sweetness, lest one be overwhelmed by the darkness. Mother Mectilde writes from the perspective of one who, having lived through (and died through) these successive strippings away, has entered into the silence of God. Here, then, is her text as I translated it:
Not in Feelings
It seems to me, according to my little knowledge and experience, that a soul whom God wishes to lead into interior silence must pass through three ways. . . . As I see it, the soul must enter first into the annihilation of the outward sensibility and be in a state of having no relish for feeling anything. Without this, one will taste [only] very imperfectly the sacred repose and silence of the soul in the course of which God acts. To arrive at this, experience teaches us how fitting it is that one should suffer. So true is this that I doubt that this one or that one who talks about the sweet and sacred repose of the soul in God, would, if he knew [what he is talking about] have courage enough to set out in pursuit of it.
Nor in Thoughts
But entrance into the second degree, which is the annihilation of the views and sentiments of the interior sensibility, requires suffering of quite another sort.
Nor in Any Delight or Support of the Soul
In the third degree, or annihilation, into which the soul must enter, if God were not to take away from the soul all the delights and all the support that one derives from one’s own lights and from the affections of the will [to love, according to Saint Thomas, is to will the good] and other dispositions, I do not know how the soul would ever get through it. Temptations in this regard are extreme, and there are strange difficulties concerning apprehensions over losing the time by which one enters into a state that is so dark to the spirit.
A Certain Fleeting Sweetness
The soul, then, having arrived at these strippings away, and being, as it were, all annihilated in God, enters into this sacred silence, the beginnings of which, though they be arduous, are mingled with the sweetnesses of a certain felt experience of the presence of God in the soul.
22. And he comes to Bethsaida; and they bring a blind man to him, and besought him to touch him.
23. And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town; and when he had spit on his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.
24. And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees, walking.
25. After that he put his hands again upon his eyes, and made him look up: and he was restored, and saw every man clearly.
26. And he sent him away to his house, saying, Neither go into the town, nor tell it to any in the town.
GLOSS. After the feeding of the multitude, the Evangelist proceeds to the giving sight to the blind, saying, And they come to Bethsaida, and they bring a blind man to him, and besought him to touch him.
BEDE; Knowing that the touch of the Lord could give sight to a blind man as well as cleanse a leper. It goes on, And he took the blind man by the hand, and led him out of the town.
THEOPHYL. For Bethsaida appears to have been infected with much infidelity, wherefore the Lord reproaches it, Woe to you, Bethsaida, for if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. He then takes out of the town the blind man, who had been brought to Him, for the faith of those who brought him was not true faith. It goes on; And when he had spit in his eyes, and put his hands upon him, he asked him if he saw ought.
PSEUD-CHRYS. He spat indeed, and put His hand upon the blind man, because He wished to show that wonderful are the effects of the Divine word added to action; for the hand is the symbol of working, but the spittle, of the word proceeding out of the mouth. Again He asked him whether he could see any thing, which he had not done in the case of any whom He had healed, thus showing that by the weak faith of those who brought him, and of the blind man himself, his eyes could not altogether be opened.
Wherefore there follows: And he looked up, and said, I see men as trees walking; because he was still under the influence of unfaithfulness, he said that he saw men obscurely.
BEDE; Seeing indeed the shapes of bodies amongst the shadows, but unable to distinguish the outlines of the limbs, from the continued darkness of his sight; just as trees standing thick together are wont to appear to men who see them from afar, or by the dim light of the night, so that it cannot easily he known whether they be trees or men.
THEOPHYL. But the reason why he did not see at once perfectly, but in part, was, that he had not perfect faith; for healing is bestowed in proportion to faith.
PSEUDO-CHRYS. From the commencement, however, of the return of his senses, he leads him to apprehend things by faith, and thus makes him see perfectly; wherefore it goes on, After that, he put his hands again upon his eyes, and he began to see, and afterwards he adds, And he was restored, and saw all things clearly; that is, being perfectly healed in his senses and his intellect.
It goes on: And he sent him away to his house, saying, Go in to your home, and if you enter in to the town, tell it not to anyone.
THEOPHYL. These precepts he gave him, because they were unfaithful, as has been said, lest perchance he should receive hurt in his soul from them, and they by their unbelief should run into a more grievous crime.
BEDE; Or else, he leaves an example to His disciples that they should not seek for popular favor by the miracles which they did. Mystically, however, Bethsaida is interpreted 'the house of time valley,' that is, the world, which is the vale of tears. Again, they bring to the Lord a blind man, that is, one who neither sees what he has been, what he is, nor what he is to be. They ask Him to touch him, for what is being touched, but feeling compunction?
BEDE; For the Lord touches us, when He enlightens our minds with the breath of His Spirit, and he stirs us up that we may recognize our own infirmity, and be diligent in good actions. He takes the hand of the blind man, that He may strengthen him to the practice of good works.
PSEUDO-JEROME; And He brings him out of the town, that is, out of the neighborhood of the wicked; and lie puts spittle into his eyes, that he may see the will of God, by the breath of the Holy Ghost; and putting His hands upon him, He asked him if he could see, because by the works of the Lord His majesty is seen.
BEDE; Or else, putting spittle into the eyes of the blind man, he hays His hands upon him that he may see, because He has wiped away the blindness of the human race both by invisible gifts, and by the Sacrament of His assumed humanity; for the spittle, proceeding from the Head, points out the grace of the Holy Ghost. But though by one word He could cure the man wholly and all at once, still He cures him by degrees, that He may show the greatness of the blindness of man, which can hardly, and only as it were step by step, be restored to light; and He exhibits to us His grace, by which He furthers each step towards perfection. Again, whoever is weighed down by a blindness of such long continuance, that he is unable to distinguish between good and evil, sees as it were men like trees walking, because he sees the deeds of the multitude without the light of discretion.
PSEUDO-JEROME; Or else, he sees men as trees, because he thinks all men higher than himself. But He put His hands again upon his eyes, that he might see all things clearly, that is, understand invisible things by visible, and with the eye of a pure mind contemplate, what the eye has not seen, the glorious state of his own soul after the rust of sin. He sent him to his home, that is, to his heart; that he might see in himself things which he had not seen before; for a man despairing of salvation does not think that he can do at all what, when enlightened, he can easily accomplish.
THEOPHYL. Or else, after He has healed him He sends him to his home; for the home of every one of us heaven, and the mansions which are there.
PSEUDO-JEROME. And He says to him, If thou enter into the town, tell it not to any one, that is, relate continually to your neighbors your blindness, but never tell them of your virtue.
Catena Aurea Mark 8
