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White Double THE SCHOOL WHICH IS FOUNDED upon the rule of the great Patriarch of the Monks of the West began with St. Gregory the Great. Such was the independent action of the Holy Spirit who guided it that in it women have prophesied as well as men. It is enough to mention St. Hildegarde and St. Gertrude, with whom we may fitly associate St. Mechtilde and St. Frances of Rome. Anyone who has tried modern methods will find, on making acquaintance with these ancient writers, that he is breathing another atmosphere, and is urged onward by a gentle...

Red Double JOSAPHAT KUNCEWICZ, contemporary with St. Francis de Sales and St. Vincent de Paul, might have been taken for a Greek monk of the eleventh century, or an ascetic of the Thebaid. A stranger to the intellectual culture of the West, he knew only the liturgical books and sacred texts used in his own church; as a priest, an archimandrite, a reformer of his order of St. Basil, and lastly as Archbishop, he combated all his life against the consequences of the schism of Photius, and closed the struggle by culling the palm of martyrdom. Yet all this...

White Semidouble A HUMBLE LAY BROTHER, Didacus of St. Nicholas is welcomed today by his father St. Francis into the company of Bernardine of Siena and John Capistran, who preceded him by a few years to heaven. The two latter left Italy and the whole of Europe still echoing with their voices, the one making peace between cities in the name of the Lord Jesus, the other urging on the Christian hosts to battle with the victorious Crescent. The age which they contributed so powerfully to save from the results of the great schism and to restore to its...

Red Demidouble WHILE THE CONCOURSE OF PILGRIMS to the sepulchre of the Bishop of Tours induced his third successor Perpetuus to raise over his precious remains the basilicas, in which so many prodigies were to be wrought all through the middle ages, Rome herself was dedicating to St. Martin one of her noblest churches, uniting with him as joint titular her own illustrious Pontiff and Confessor Sylvester. Adorned with this twofold glory, St. Martin-on-the-hill worthily inaugurated in the eternal City the cultus of Confessors side by side with that of the Martyrs. But another honor awaited the venerable sanctuary....

NOVENA IN HONOR OF THE PRESENTATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (Beginning November 12)(i. 300 Days each day. ii. Plenary on the Feast or during the Octave. I, II, IV.) (See Instructions, p. 1., 1910 Raccolta.) 1st, 4th, and 7th Days—November 12, 15, and 18 Mary, Mother of GOD, tradition tells us that when you were three years of age, your parents, Joachim and Anne, took you to the Temple in Jerusalem to fulfill their vow. The holy couple offered you to GOD by the ministry of the priest in charge, who invoked the blessing of GOD upon you...

White Double THREE THOUSAND SIX HUNDRED AND SIXTY CHURCHES dedicated to St. Martin in France alone, and well nigh as many in the rest of the world, bear witness to the immense popularity of the great thaumaturgus. In the country, on the mountains, and in the depth of forests, trees, rocks, and fountains, objects of superstitious worship to our pagan ancestors, received, and in many places still retain, the name of him who snatched them from the dominion of the powers of darkness to restore them to the true God. For the vanquished idols, Roman, Celtic or German, Christ...

White Double IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY, in reply to the reproach of exhaustion hurled against the Church, the Holy Ghost raised from her soil an abundant harvest of sanctity. Andrew was one of his most worthy cooperators in the work of holy reformation and supernatural renaissance, which then took place. Eternal Wisdom had as usual suffered Satan to go before, for his own greater shame, cloaking his evil works under the grand names of renaissance and reform. It was nine years since St. Cajetan had departed this world, leaving it strengthened by his labors and all embalmed with the...

White Double of the Second Class IN THE FOURTH CENTURY OF OUR ERA, the cessation of persecution seemed to give the world a foretaste of its future entrance into eternal peace. “Glory to the Almighty! Glory to the Redeemer of our souls!” wrote Eusebius at the opening of the tenth and last book of his History. Himself a witness of the triumph, he describes the admirable spectacle everywhere displayed by the dedication of the new sanctuaries. In city after city the Bishops assembled, and crowds flocked together. From nation to nation, the goodwill of mutual charity, of common faith,...

White Greater Double How could we more appropriately conclude the teachings of this Octave, than by quoting the words used by the Church herself in today’s Liturgy? “Strangers as we are and pilgrims on the earth, let us fix our hearts and our thoughts on the day which will give to each of us a home, and restore us to Paradise. Who, that is on a voyage, would not hasten to return to his country! Who, that is on the way home, would not eagerly desire a favorable wind, that he might the sooner embrace his dear ones! Parents,...

“A great mystery,” says St. John Chrysostom, “is accomplished in our dead. A mystery of praise and of joy, when, summoned by the King of kings, the soul goes to meet her Lord, accompanied by Angels sent from heaven for the purpose! And thou—dost thou lament? When the bridegroom, to whom thou hast given thy daughter, carries her to a far country, thou dost not complain, provided he makes her happy; although her absence is a grief to thee, the sadness is tempered. And now, because it is not a man, a fellow slave, but the Lord himself that...

Thou art my portion, O Lord, Alleluia, in the land of the living, Alleluia, Alleluia.—Bring forth my soul out of prison, to confess to thy Name; in the land of the living, Alleluia, Alleluia.—Glory and honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, world without end, Amen: in the land of the living, Alleluia, Alleluia. Such is the opening chant for the departed, in the Mozarabic Missal. With the Greeks, in like manner, no word is of more frequent recurrence in the Office of the Dead, than the Alleluia. Moreover, both Greece and...

And the spirit and the Bride say: Come! And he that heareth, let him say: Come! —Surely I come quickly: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. While we honor the Church triumphant with our chants, and succor the Church suffering with our prayers, let us also turn our thoughts to the Church militant, during these days when the closing cycle presents her to us as about to complete her work on earth. Now the Church is our model; but especially at the close of our pilgrimage ought we to made her attitude our own. The above-cited dialogue, which will terminate the...

Green Semidouble MASS.—is that of the Sixth Sunday After Epiphany, with the exception of the Collect, Secret, and Postcommunion, which are those of the Third Sunday After Epiphany. INTROIT Adorate Deum omnes angeli ejus: audivit et lætata est Sion: et exsultaverunt filiæ Judæ Adore God, all ye his angels: Sion heard and was glad, and the daughters of Juda rejoiced. Ps. Dominus regnavit: exsultet terra, lætentur insulæ multæ. ℣. Gloria Patri. Adorate. Ps. The Lord hath reigned: let the earth rejoice, let many islands be glad. ℣. Glory, etc. Adore. COLLECT Præsta quæsumus omnipotens Deus: ut semper rationabilia meditantes,...

White Double HUMILITAS. This word already stood, crowned with gold, upon his family escutcheon, when Charles was born at the castle of Arona. It had been said of the Borromeos that they knew nothing of humility, except to bear it on their coat of arms: but the time had now come, when the mysterious device was to be justified by the most illustrious scion of that noble family; and when, at the zenith of his greatness, a Borromeo would learn to void his heart of self, in order that God might fill it. Far, however, from abjuring the high-mindedness...

HAD WE ANGELS’ EYES, we should see the earth as a vast field sown with seed for the resurrection. The death of Abel opened the first furrow, and ever since, the sowing has gone on unceasingly the wide world over. This land of labor and of suffering, what treasures it already holds laid up in its bosom! And what a harvest for heaven, when the Sun of Justice, suddenly darting forth his rays, shall cause to spring up as suddenly from the soil the elect ears ripe for glory! No wonder that the Church herself blesses and superintends the...

Black Double We will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope. The Church today has the same desire as the Apostle thus expressed to the first Christians. The truth concerning the dead not only proves admirably the union between God’s justice and his goodness; it also inspires a charitable pity which the hardest heart cannot resist, and at the same time offers to the mourners the sweetest consolation. If faith teaches us the existence of a purgatory, where our loved ones may be detained...

White Double of the First Class (with Octave) I SAW A GREAT MULTITUDE which no man could number, of all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne, and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands: and they cried with a loud voice, saying: Salvation to our God! Time is no more; it is the human race eternally saved, that is thus presented in vision to the prophet of Patmos. Our life of struggle and suffering on earth is, then, to have an end. Our long lost race is...

Violet   LET US PREPARE OUR SOULS for the graces heaven is about to shower upon the earth in return for its homage. Tomorrow the Church will be so overflowing with joy that she will seem to be already in possession of eternal happiness; but today she appears in the garb of penance, confessing that she is still an exile. Let us fast and pray with her; for are not we too pilgrims and strangers in this world, where all things are fleeting and hurry on to death? Year by year, as the great solemnity comes round, it has...

Red Double of the Second Class [Transferred from Sunday, 28 October.] INSTEAD OF THY FATHERS, sons are born to thee. Thus does the Church, disowned by Israel, extol in her chants the apostolic fruitfulness which resides in her till the end of time. Yesterday she was already filled with that loving hope which is never deceived, that the holy Apostles Simon and Jude would anticipate their solemnity by shedding blessings upon her. Such is the condition of her existence on earth, that she can remain here only as long as she continues to give children to our Lord; and...

White Double of the First Class THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN—Holy Church—is seen bringing forth out of her treasure “things new and old.” Although she can never add new dogmas to the deposit of Faith entrusted to her, as the ages go by she is seen understanding more perfectly and explaining more fully those treasures in her keeping. She is a living body, not a statue, and she can develop, though she can never change her nature. Hence, guided by the Holy Spirit of him who has promised to be with her not merely for a few centuries but unto...