15 October 2024

University Puts Trigger Warning on “Expressions of Christian Faith” in Chaucer

They will not rest until they have destroyed everything good, true, or beautiful! 'Trigger warnings' on a 14th-century work about a pilgrimage?


From The European Conservative

By Nick Hallett

The University of Nottingham's “content note” on The Canterbury Tales is “demeaning” and “weird,” critics say.

leading UK university has been strongly criticised for putting a trigger warning on Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales advising students that the work contains “expressions of Christian faith.”

Critics say the University of Nottingham is “demeaning education” for warning students that the Medieval collection of stories of pilgrims on their way to Canterbury Cathedral may contain Christianity.

The Mail on Sunday obtained details of the “content notice” through a request made under Freedom of Information laws. The warning, which applies to a modular course called “Chaucer and His Contemporaries,” advises students of violence, mental illness, and “expressions of Christian faith” in the works of Chaucer, along with William Langland, John Gower, and Thomas Hoccleve—all of whom lived in the late 14th and early 15th centuries.

The Canterbury Tales is one of the most famous works of Medieval English literature. It is a collection of stories about various characters on their way to the tomb of Saint Thomas Becket, then one of the most popular pilgrimage sites in Europe. The stories also contain explicit references to rape and antisemitism, neither of which the university’s warning mentions.

Evangelical campaign group Christian Concern wondered whether the university would issue a similar warning for other religions. Andrea Williams, the group’s chief executive, said: 

The Bible is foundational to understanding the history of English literature. Without an understanding of the Christian faith, there will be no way for students to access the world of Chaucer and his contemporaries. It’s ludicrous to issue such trigger warnings. From what point in history are we going to censor literary texts, given most are steeped in a Christian worldview?

Trigger warnings for Christian themes in literature are demeaning to the Christian faith and stifle the academic progress of our students. To censor expressions of the Christian faith is to erase our literary heritage. True education engages and fosters understanding, not avoidance.

Frank Furedi, director of MCC Brussels and an emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, added:

Warning students of Chaucer about Christian expressions of faith is weird. Since all characters in the stories are immersed in a Christian experience there is bound to be a lot of expressions of faith. The problem is not would-be student readers of Chaucer but virtue-signalling, ignorant academics.

Meanwhile, historian Jeremy Black, author of English Culture, said: 

It is odd that anybody living in Britain should find it challenging to read works from our literary heritage that include expressions of Christian faith. Presumably, this Nottingham nonsense is a product of the need to validate courses in accordance with tick-box criteria. It is simultaneously sad, funny, a perversion of intellectual life and a demeaning of education.

However, the University of Nottingham tried to defend itself. A spokesman said: “This content notice does not assume that all our students come from a Christian background, but even those students who are practising Christians will find aspects of the late-mediaeval worldview they will encounter in Chaucer and others alienating and strange.”

The row comes after a prestigious academic journal was heavily criticised for erasing the term “Anglo-Saxon” from its title earlier this year. 

Anglo-Saxon England, a journal published by the University of Cambridge since 1972, changed its name to Early Medieval England and Its Neighbours to represent the “international, interdisciplinary and rapidly evolving nature of research in this field,” the university claimed.

However, historian and author Dominic Sandbrook accused them of changing the title because they are “total drips” who “didn’t have the courage to say no to a handful of mad Americans.”

Pictured: woodcut from Richard Pynson's 1491/1492 edition of The Canterbury Tales

The Holy Rosary

Tuesday, the Sorrowful Mysteries, in Latin with Cardinal Burke.

King Richard II & the Wilton Diptych


This video focuses on the Wilton Diptych, a painting in the National Gallery in London. One of the finest panel paintings to survive from the fourteenth century, it was commissioned by King Richard II in the 1390s. A complex man and perhaps a failure as a king, Richard's altarpiece was comisssioned as part of an elaborate programme of image curation. Full of complex symbolism, in this video I explore the meaning of its iconography, and the function and purpose of the altarpiece.

Maritain ~ Political and Philosophical Debates in Rome: Afternoon


0:00 Moderation : Laura PETTINAROLI 
3:30 Nina VALBOUSQUET (Ecole française de Rome) : Maritain and the condemnation of antisemitism 
35:31 Philippe CHENAUX (Pontificia Università Lateranense) : The roman notebooks 
1:26:36 Felix RESCH (Collège des Bernardins, Paris) : The royalty of Christ 
2:32:53 Conclusion of the conference : Michel FOURCADE

St Teresa of Avila, a Bold Reformer Within the Church

Today is her Feast Day. 'She demonstrated both that religious reform starts from within and that reform will never happen unless good women and men speak up and take a stand.'

From Aleteia

By Theresa Civantos Barber

Her legacy of courage, strength and good humor continues to inspire today.

Reading the early life of St. Teresa of Avila is quite entertaining; the young saint was mischievous and dramatic, and most people would not have picked her for future canonization. This is also why reading about her early life is so hopeful: If she could become a saint, and one of the greatest too, there is hope for the rest of us. Watch this video to learn five things you probably didn’t know about the first St. Teresa.

Teresa was born in Avila, Spain, to a pious family. While her heart was in the right place, guided by her devout mother’s religious instruction, Teresa showed a headstrong and impulsive nature from a young age. She was 7 years old when she decided that the best option for her future was martyrdom—calling to mind what Flannery O’Connor once wrote, “She could never be a saint, but she thought she could be a martyr if they killed her quick.” She convinced her brother Rodrigo of her plan, and the two attempted to run away, but their uncle saw them outside the city walls and sent them back home.

Teresa was 11 when her mother died, which left her heartbroken but deepened her devotion to Mary as a spiritual mother. As she entered her teens, however, the pretty and well-to-do young woman naturally attracted male attention, and she entered a period of frivolity, occupying her mind with little but boys, clothes, flirting, and rebelling. Her father finally decided she was out of control and sent her, at age 16, to an Augustinian convent to be educated.

At first Teresa hated the convent, but as she grew closer to God, she began to enjoy it. Nonetheless, the decision of whether to pursue religious life or marriage was not an easy one for her. Her parents’ marriage had been difficult, so she knew marriage was no fairy tale, but she was not especially drawn to religious life either. When she finally chose religious life, it was less out of attraction to that vocation than because she worried that living in the world would offer too many temptations to someone easily swayed by sin, as she thought she was. Her discernment process again offers hope, as she did not seem like a natural fit for a religious vocation, yet became a great and inspired leader both within her order and in the Church at large.

Teresa chose to enter a Carmelite convent, but after she arrived, she was disturbed by the atmosphere she found. The sisters had become lax in their religious observance, constantly entertaining visitors and paying more attention to their appearance and social prestige than to God. Teresa herself spoke and wrote frankly about the difficulties she found in persisting in prayer: “I was more anxious for the hour of prayer to be over than I was to remain there. I don’t know what heavy penance I would not have gladly undertaken rather than practice prayer.” Nonetheless Teresa persisted in mental prayer and God rewarded her: She began to have mystical experiences in prayer, including periods of deep contemplation and even heavenly visions.

The spiritual malaise in her convent continued to bother Teresa, but it was not until she met Franciscan priest St. Peter of Alcantara, who became her spiritual director, in 1560, that she began to take decisive steps toward reform. She founded a reformed Carmelite convent, called St. Joseph’s, which aimed at correcting the laxity she had found elsewhere. The austerity and rigor of the new monastery, established in 1562, at first caused some scandal, but with the local bishop’s permission they persisted and soon earned general approval.

Teresa spent the first five years after the convent’s founding living there in pious seclusion and devoting herself to prayer and writing. The convent’s success, however, gave her confidence, as did the direction of God in prayer and of her spiritual superiors. Teresa spent the rest of her life founding dozens of Carmelite monasteries, for both men and women, throughout Spain. She faced countless trials and obstacles in this work, particularly from other Carmelites who did not appreciate her efforts to reform their way of life, yet she retained her sense of humor through it all. “May God protect me from gloomy saints!” she was known to exclaim.

The legacy of this extraordinary woman is hard to put into words. She was canonized in 1622, only 40 years after her death, and was one of the first women to be declared a Doctor of the Church. The tireless work she put into reforming her order played a key role in the Catholic Reformation, a period of renewal following the founding of Lutheranism. Her quick wit (and occasional sharp tongue) accompanied a rare courage and energy, coupled with deep love for God and compassion for others. Teresa was the last person one could call mild-mannered or meek, and her strength of character, in particular, makes her a valuable role model today: She demonstrated both that religious reform starts from within and that reform will never happen unless good women and men speak up and take a stand.

The Synod on Synodality Just Turned Into An Absolute Circus

Pope Francis Signals That He's About The Fundamentally Change The Faith


Pope Francis has been meeting with advocates of the secular distortion about the laws of the flesh and is signaling he's going to change the faith to accommodate their errors.

Today Is the Anniversary of the Death of St Teresa of Avila – Or Is It?

As with the vast majority of Saints, the Feast of St Teresa of Jesus, Foundress of the Discalced Carmelites, is kept on the date of her death, or is it? 

St Teresa died sometime in the night before the morning of 15 October 1582, but Wikipedia lists her date of death as 4 or 15 October 1582. How could that be? 

The reason takes us into one of my favourite ways of nerding out, the Calendar! The night before the morning of 15 October 1582 was 4 October, because that midnight was the break between the Julian Calendar which had been in use from the first century BC when Julius Caesar imposed it on the Empire until Pope Gregory XIII issued the Bull, Inter Gravissimas, reforming the Calendar and instituting a new Calendar which we use until this day under the name 'Gregorian Calendar'. Thus, Thursday, 4 October 1582, was followed by Friday, 15 October 1582, with ten days skipped. 

The Reform was adopted immediately by Spain and most of the Catholic world, with the rest following soon after. The protestant and Orthodox countries took longer. The British Empire, including what became these United States, dropped 11 days in September 1752. Greece became the last European country to switch, dropping the last 13 days of February in 1923.

Thus, if St Teresa died before midnight, she died on 4 October, but if after midnight, today is indeed the anniversary of her death.

At any rate, St Teresa of Jesus, pray for us!

For those who are as interested as I am in the calendar (if such people exist!) here is Pope Gregory's Bull instituting the New Calendar:

(Italicized explanatory words are not part of the text.)

Inter Gravissimas

24 February 1581/2

Bishop Gregory, servant of the servants of God:—

For the perpetual remembrance of this matter:—

Amongst the most serious tasks of our pastoral office, not the least of them is to see to it that the affairs which the holy Council of Trent reserved to the Apostolic See are conducted, with God's help, to a desirable conclusion.

When the fathers of the said Council added to their outstanding considerations the care of the breviary, they were prevented by lack of time, and indeed by decree of the same Council they referred the whole matter to the authority and judgement of the Roman Pope.

There are two principal parts in the breviary. One comprises the prayers and divine praises to be offered on feast days and ordinary days; and the other relates to the annual recurrence of Easter and the feasts that depend on it, to be measured by the movement of the sun and moon.

Pius V, our predecessor, of happy memory, completed and brought into force what had to be done about the one part.

But the other part, which requires first a legitimate restoration of the calendar, could not be completed up to now, even though that was attempted on many occasions over a long period by our pontifical predecessors. That was because previous proposals for amending the calendar, put forward by experts in celestial motions, all involved great and nearly inextricable difficulties, and they would not have been of long-lasting effect, and also would not have maintained intact the ancient rites of the Church (of which care had to be taken above all).

While we too, confident of God's dispensation, were engaged in the task and considerations thus entrusted to us (unworthy though we may be), our dear son Antonio Lilio, doctor of arts and of medicine, brought to us a book previously written by his brother Aloysius. It appeared that the latter had devised a certain new cycle of epacts, adapted to a certain rule of the golden number, and an accommodation for every length of the solar year, showing that all the things that have fallen into disarray in the calendar can be restored on a consistent basis that will be everlasting, so that the calendar will not suffer any alteration again.

A few years ago we therefore circulated this new calendar-restoration proposal, in a small book, to Christian princes and to well-known universities, so that this matter, which is of common concern, might be brought to perfection by the advice of all. When they responded with agreement, as we had greatly hoped, we were led by their agreement to invite the greatest experts in such matters to the Holy City for the amendment of the calendar; they had already long since been selected from the principal Christian nations of the world.

When these experts had applied themselves to the matter with much time, diligence and study into the night, and had searched out cycles, both ancient and modern, from all sources, and discussed them and most carefully evaluated them, they chose, by their own judgment and that of learned men who wrote about the matter, in preference to other things, this cycle of epacts, to which they have also added some things which are seen after careful circumspection to be needed for perfecting the calendar.

Therefore, considering that for the proper celebration of the feast of Easter, according to the holy fathers and Roman pontiffs of ancient time, especially Pius I and Victor I, as also that great ecumenical Council of Nicaea among others, three necessary things have to be set together and established:

  • first, correct placement of the vernal equinox;
  • next, correct placement of the fourteenth day of the moon in the first month, which [fourteenth day] either occurs on the day of the equinox itself or is the next to follow after;
  • and lastly, the first Sunday which follows that same fourteenth day of the moon;

we have arranged—

  • not only to restore the vernal equinox to its original place from which it has already receded by about ten days since the Council of Nicaea,
  • and to replace the paschal fourteenth day of the moon back into its place from which it is currently distant by four days and more,
  • but also for a method and a rule to be handed down, for preventing the equinox and the fourteenth day of the moon from ever again in future being moved away from their proper places.

Therefore, in order to restore the vernal equinox, which was placed by the fathers of the Council of Nicaea at the twelfth day before the Kalends of April [i.e. 21 March], and to return it to that same place, we direct and ordain:

  • that ten days shall be removed from the month of October of the year 1582, from the third day before the Nones [i.e. 5 October] up to the day before the Ides [i.e. 14 October], inclusive;
  • and that the day which follows the feast of St Francis (as usually celebrated on the fourth day before the Nones [i.e. 4 October]) shall be called the Ides of October [i.e. 15 October] , and on it shall be celebrated the feast of saints Dionysius, Rusticus and Eleutherius, martyrs, with commemoration of St Mark, pope and confessor, and of Saints Sergius, Bacchus, Marcellus and Apuleius, martyrs.
  • On the seventeenth day before the Kalends of November [i.e. 16 October], which shall be the day next following, there shall be celebrated the feast of St Callistus, pope and martyr.
  • Then on the sixteenth day before the Kalends of November [i.e. 17 October] , the Dominical Letter shall be changed from G to C, and the office and Mass shall be those of the 18th Sunday after Pentecost.
  • Finally, the fifteenth day before the Kalends of November [i.e. 18 October] shall be the feast of St Luke, evangelist;
  • after which, the remaining feast days shall take place successively, as they are described in the calendar.

But in order that nobody suffers prejudice by this our subtraction of ten days, in connection with any annual or monthly payments, the judges in any controversies that may arise over this, shall by reason of the said subtraction add ten days to the due date for any such payment.

Next, so that the equinox will no longer recede in future from the twelfth day before the Kalends of April [i.e. 21 March], we decree:

  • that the bissextile day every fourth year shall continue, as the custom is now, except in centurial years, although these were always bissextiles before, and we wish the year 1600 to be bissextile as well;
  • after that, however, the centurial years that follow shall not all be bissextiles, only every fourth centurial year shall be bissextile, thus the years 1700, 1800 and 1900 shall not be bissextile. But in the year 2000, the bissextile day shall be added in the usual way, with February containing 29 days;
  • and then the same order of leaving out and adding the bissextile day shall be observed in each period of 400 years ever after.

Again, so that the fourteenth day of the paschal moon may be correctly found, and that the age of the moon may be truly announced to the faithful every day from the martyrology, according to the ancient custom of the Church, we decree:

  • that the golden number is to be removed from the calendar and in its place is to be substituted a cycle of epacts, regulated (as we have said) by a certain rule of the golden number, to make sure that the new moon and the paschal fourteenth day of the moon will always retain their true places.

This is made manifestly clear in our explanation of the calendar, which also describes Paschal tables according to the ancient rite of the Church, from which the date of the most holy Pasch can more certainly and easily be found.

Finally, on account partly of the ten days removed from the month of October in the year 1582 (which ought properly to be called the year of correction) and on account partly of the three days fewer to be intercalated in each period of 400 years, it is necessary to interrupt the 28-year cycle of Dominical Letters as it has been used in the Roman Church up to now. We wish to be substituted in its place the cycle of 28 years as the same Lilio has adapted it to the rule of intercalation in centurial years and to every duration of the solar year; from which the Dominical Letter may be found in perpetuity as easily as before, with the benefit of the solar cycle as explained in the Canon that deals with this.

By this our decree, we therefore assert what is the customary right of the sovereign pontiff, and approve the calendar which has now by the immense grace of God towards his Church been corrected and completed, and we have ordered that it be printed and published at Rome in one with the martyrology.

But in order that each of them may be preserved intact and free from errors and mistakes throughout the world, we forbid all printers established in territories which are either directly or through intermediaries within our jurisdiction, and the printer to the holy Roman Church, from daring or presuming to print or publish the calendar or martyrology without our authorisation, either together or separately, or to profit from them in any way, under pain of loss of books and payment of 100 ducats of gold ipso facto to the Apostolic Chamber; and as for other printers, wherever they may be established, we prohibit them from daring or presuming to print or publish the calendar or martyrology without our licence, whether separately or together, under pain of excommunication latae sententiae and other penalties at our discretion.

On the other hand we entirely repeal and abolish the old calendar; and we wish all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and others who preside over churches, to introduce the new calendar (to which also the martyrology has been adapted) for reciting divine offices and celebrating feasts in all their churches, monasteries, convents, orders, militias and dioceses, and to use it exclusively, for themselves and for all other presbyters and clergy both secular and regular, of either sex, along with all soldiers and all Christian faithful; the use of it shall commence after the ten days have been left out of the month of October in the year 1582. But for those who inhabit regions too far away for them to have notice of these letters from us before the time prescribed, they are permitted to make the change in the same month of October of the following year 1583, or the next, that is to say, when these our letters first arrive with them, in the manner indicated above and as will be more abundantly explained in our calendar of the year of correction.

We also, by virtue of the authority given to us by the Lord, exhort and ask of our dear son in Christ, Rudolph, illustrious king of the Romans and emperor-elect, as well as other kings, princes, and republics, and we recommend to those who pressed us to complete this so excellent work, also and especially for the sake of maintenance of concord between Christian nations in the celebration of feasts, both to adopt this our calendar for themselves, and to take care that all the peoples subject to them religiously accept it and scrupulously observe it.

As it may be difficult to distribute these letters to all Christian places in the world, we ordain that they be published and affixed to the doors of the basilica of the prince of apostles and of the apostolic chancellery, and at the entrance to the Campo dei Fiori; and we order the same undoubted faith to be accorded among all peoples and in all places, also to printed copies of these letters and of the volumes of calendar and martyrology, when signed by a notary public and sealed with the seal of an ecclesiastical dignitary, as the original letters would have in their entirety.

It is therefore entirely forbidden to any man to infringe these our precepts and decrees, mandates, statutes, will, approval, prohibition, sublation, abolition, exhortation and request, or to dare to bear witness or proceed against them. If nevertheless any presume to make such an attempt, they are to know that they will incur the indignation of almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.

Given at Tusculum, in the year of the incarnation of our Lord 1581, on the sixth day before the Kalends of March [i.e. on 24 February—which makes the year correspond to 1582 in the New Style beginning 1 Jan; '1581' is expressed in the Old Style in which the year begins 25 March], and in the tenth year of our pontificate.

Christopher Columbus: America’s Saintly Founder

'Columbus was not a genocidal villain or a nationalist explorer; he was a saintly man who wanted to win souls for Christ.' His Cause was introduced in the 1890s, but it's now dead in the water, along with that of Queen Isabella the Catholic.

From Crisis

By Michael Ippolito

Columbus was not a genocidal villain or a nationalist explorer; he was a saintly man who wanted to win souls for Christ.

Christopher Columbus has become one of the most polarizing figures in American history. Our nation used to revere Columbus as one of America’s greatest heroes. Now, he’s one of the Republic’s greatest villains. 

Leftist revolutionaries depict Columbus as a power-hungry maniac who wanted to enslave and annihilate the natives. Any honor of Columbus—whether it’s a statue or a holiday—must be torn down and replaced, according to the liberal revolutionaries. 

In contrast, the Right depicts Columbus as a nationalist pioneer. The Right defends his legacy as that of a courageous pioneer whose actions led to the eventual formation of the United States of America. However, both sides miss a significant fact from Columbus’ life. 

Columbus was not a genocidal villain or a nationalist explorer; he was a saintly man who wanted to win souls for Christ. Columbus should be revered as America’s saintly founder. 

Columbus, indeed, was a man of Providence. From his landing in the Americas on the feast of Our Lady of Pillar on October 12, 1492, to the etymology of his name, Columbus’ life was guided by the hand of God. Christopher, which means Christ-bearer, and Columbus, which relates to the dove, the common symbol of the Holy Spirit, shows that his name reflected a great mission that God had bestowed on him.

Columbus did not fail to live up to his namesake. He sought to follow the command of the Great Commission and evangelize all the natives he encountered. Often, modern history books fail to discuss Columbus’ desire to evangelize, but this desire served as one of the primary factors for his mission.

An entry in his journal states, 

I gave them many beautiful and pleasing things, which I had brought with me, for no return whatever, to win their affection, and that they might become Christians and inclined to love our King and Queen and Princes and all the people of Spain; and that they might be eager to search for and gather and give to us what they abound in and we greatly need. 

Columbus—like all Catholics at that time—understood that there is no salvation outside the Catholic Church and that baptism is essential for salvation. Columbus’ first instinct was not to murder the natives but to save their souls. The pagan natives were in desperate need of a massive reordering of their culture, and Columbus provided them with the path to salvation. While many Spaniards wanted to exploit the natives, Columbus chose to defend their rights and dignity. 

Pope Leo XIII recognized this zeal, as he wrote in Quarto Abeunte Saeculo, “Columbus resolved to go before and prepare the ways for the Gospel, and, deeply absorbed in this idea, gave all his energies to it, attempting hardly anything without religion for his guide and piety for his companion.” 

In a field full of prideful men and arrogance, Columbus remained the shining light for all men to imitate. Samuel Eliot Morison wrote in Admiral of the Ocean Sea that 

Columbus was a Man with a Mission, and such men are apt to be unreasonable and disagreeable to those who cannot see the mission…He was Man alone with God against human stupidity and depravity, against greedy conquistadors, cowardly seamen, even against nature and the sea.

However, Columbus was not motivated just by a desire to evangelize. Many Americans are not informed of the sailor’s desire to obtain enough funds to retake the Holy Land. Yes, Columbus was a crusader. 

In Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem by Carol Delaney, Columbus “recorded in his diary that he hoped the Spanish Crown would ‘spend all the profits of this my enterprise on the conquest of Jerusalem.’” The Italian sailor hoped that the Holy Land could return to Christian hands, just as Spain had returned to Christian hands after the Reconquista. Columbus wished to continue the trend worldwide.

Columbus was not just a crusader for the Holy Land, but his efforts were considered an expansion of Christendom’s might. The Spanish and then the French colonies that followed the fantastic voyage brought the traditions of a unified Christian continent. Queen Isabella would even call the Spanish colonies “The Northern Rim of Christendom.” Unfortunately, the Protestant Revolution and the rise of the nation-state prevented a completely united Catholic continent. However, Columbus’ efforts and desires reflect his incredible level of magnanimity. 

It was Columbus’ brave efforts that opened the doors for the Age of Discovery to begin. Beginning with the Catholic explorers, the Americas would be settled, eventually leading to the creation and rise of the United States of America. But Columbus’ feat was so great that he was almost given sainthood. 

In 1876, Cardinal Donnet, archbishop of Bordeaux, sent a letter to Bl. Pius IX from among the episcopate to introduce Columbus’ cause for canonization. In the letter, it stated: 

The facts and documents on which the impartial historian has based his account are so numerous and so conclusive that they have carried conviction to the mind even of writers separated indeed from Catholic unity, but guided by the love of truth alone. This conviction, Holy Father, has become in a short time so strong, that a large number of the Fathers of the Vatican Council have voluntarily affixed their signatures to the petition for the introduction of the cause.

Unfortunately, this did not manifest due to the potential backlash. In “The 19th Century Movement to Canonize Columbus,” Phillip Campbell wrote, “Columbus could be a Catholic saint or a hero of America’s civic religion, but he could not be both.” Columbus, before the liberal revolutionaries started ripping down his statues, has always had a seat among America’s founding fathers. However, Columbus was more than one founding father; he was America’s founding father. His mission not only opened the doors for discovery but saved millions of souls through their conversion to Christianity. For these efforts, he is a saint. 

Catholics should look to Columbus not just as a nationalistic hero or a great man but as a saint. Pope Leo wrote, “Columbus is ours…so that for this reason also the whole human race owes not a little to the Church.” Yes, Columbus is ours, and his Catholic faith cannot be separated from his accomplishments. 

As revolutionaries attempt to tarnish Columbus’ legacy, it is important to hold fast to the truth about Columbus. He was not the evilest villain in the world, nor was he just a brave explorer. Columbus was America’s saintly founder, and he deserves nothing but praise.

St Teresa of Ávila, Virgin & Doctor of the Church

Today's Holy Mass from Sacred Heart Church, Tynong AUS. You may follow the Mass at Divinum Officium.

St Teresa of Avila, Virgin ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

St Teresa of Avila, Virgin


From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

“Although the Church triumphant in heaven, and the Church mourning here on earth appear to be completely separated,” says Bossuet on this feast, “they are nevertheless united by a sacred bond. This bond is charity, which is found in this land of exile as well as in our heavenly country; which rejoices the triumphant Saints and animates those still militant; which, descending from heaven to earth, and from Angels to men, causes earth to become a heaven, and men to become Angels. For, O holy Jerusalem, happy Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven, although the Church thy dear sister, who lives and combats here below, ventures not to compare herself with thee, she is not the less assured that a holy love unites her to thee. It is true that she is seeking, and thou possessest; that she labors, and thou art at rest; that she hopes, and thou rejoicest. But among all these differences which separate the two so far asunder, there is this at least in common: that what the blessed spirits love, the same we mortals love. Jesus is their life, Jesus is our life; and amid their songs of rapture, and our sighs of sorrow, everywhere are heard to resound these words of the sacred Psalmist: (Psalm 72:28) It is good for me to adhere to my God.” (Bossuet, Panegyric on St. Teresa)

Of this sovereign good of the Church militant and triumphant, Teresa, in a time of decadence, was commissioned to remind the world, from the height of Carmel restored by her to its pristine beauty. After the cold night of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the example of her life possessed a power of irresistible attraction, which survives in her writings, drawing predestined souls after her in the footsteps of the Divine Spouse.

It was not, however, by unknown ways, that the Holy Spirit led Teresa; neither did she, the humble Teresa, make any innovations. Long before, the Apostle had declared that the Christian’s conversation is in heaven; and we saw, a few days ago, how the Areopagite formulated the teaching of the first century. After him we might mention St. AmbroseSt. AugustineSt. Gregory the GreatSt. Gregory Nazianzen, and many other witnesses from all these churches. It has been said, and proved far more ably than we could prove it, that “no state seems to have been more fully recognized by the Fathers than that of perfect union, which is achieved in the highest contemplation; and in reading their writings, we cannot help remarking the simplicity with which they treat of it; they seem to think it frequent, and simply look upon it as the full development of the Christian life.” (Spiritual Life and Prayer according to Holy Scripture and monastic tradition, ch. xix)

In this, as in all else, Scholasticism followed the Fathers. It asserted the doctrine concerning these summits of Christian life, even at a time when the weakness of faith in the people scarcely ever left full scope to divine charity, save in the obscurity of a few unknown cloisters. In its own peculiar form, the teaching of the School was unfortunately not accessible to all; and moreover the abnormal character of that troubled epoch affected even the mystics that still remained.

It was then that the Virgin of Avila appeared in the Catholic kingdom. Wonderfully gifted by grace and by nature, she experienced the resistances of the latter, as well as the calls of God, and the purifying delays and progressive triumphs of love; the Holy Ghost, who intended her to be a mistress in the Church, led her, if one may so speak, by the classical way of the favors he reserves for the perfect. Having arrived at the mountain of God, she described the road by which she had come, without any pretension but to obey him who commanded her in the name of the Lord. (Life of the saint written by herself.) With exquisite simplicity and unconsciousness of self, she related the works accomplished for her Spouse; (Book of the Foundations) made over to her daughters the lessons of her own experiences; (The Way of Perfection) and described the many mansions of that castle of the human soul, in the center of which, he that can reach it will find the holy Trinity residing as in an anticipated heaven. (The Interior Castle) No more was needed: withdrawn from speculative abstractions and restored to her sublime simplicity, the Christian mystic again attracted every mind; light re-awakened love; the virtues flourished in the Church; and the baneful effects of heresy and its pretended reform were counteracted.

Doubtless Teresa invited no one to attempt, as presumptuously as vainly, to force an entrance into the uncommon paths. But if passive and infused union depends entirely upon God’s good pleasure, the union of effective and active conformity to the divine Will, without which the other would be an illusion, may be attained with the help of ordinary grace, by every man of good will. Those who possess it, “have obtained,” says the Saint, “what it was lawful for them to wish for. This is the union I have all my life desired, and have always asked of our Lord; it is also the easiest to understand, and the most secure.” (Interior Castle, 5th mansion)

She added however: “Beware of that excessive reserve, which certain persons have, and which they take for humility. If the king deigned to grant you a favor, would it be humility to meet him with a refusal? And when the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth deigns to honor my soul with his visit, and comes to lead me with graces, and to rejoice with me, should I prove myself humble if I would not answer him, nor keep him company, nor accept his gifts, but fled from his presence and left him all alone? A strange sort of humility is that! Look upon Jesus Christ as a Father, a Brother, a Master, or a Spouse; and treat him in one or other of these ways; he himself will teach you which is the one that best pleases him and that it behooves you to choose. And then, be not so simple as to make no use of it.” (Way of Perfection, ch. xxix)

But it is said on all sides: “This way is beset with snares: such a soul was lost in it; such a one went astray; and another, who ceased not to pray, could not escape a fall … —See the inconceivable blindness of the world. It has no anxiety of those thousands of unfortunate creatures who, entirely strangers to the path of prayer, live in the most horrible excess; but if it happens, by a misfortune deplorable no doubt but very rare, that the tempter’s artifices seduce a soul that prays, they take advantage of this to inspire others with the greatest terror, and to deter them from the holy practices of virtue. Is he not the victim of a most fatal error, who believes it necessary to abstain from doing good in order to avoid doing evil? You must rise above all these fears. Endeavor to keep your conscience always pure; strengthen yourself in humility; tread under foot all earthly things; be inflexible in the faith of our mother the holy Church; and doubt not, after that, that you are on the right road.” (Way of Perfection, ch xxii) It is too true that “when a soul finds not in herself that vigorous faith, and her transports of devotion do not strengthen her attachment to holy Church, she is in a way full of perils. The Spirit of God never inspires anything that is not conformable to Holy Scripture; if there were the slightest divergence, that, of itself alone, would suffice to prove so evidently the action of the evil spirit, that were the whole world to assure me it was the divine Spirit, I would never believe it.” (Life, ch. xxv)

But the soul may escape so great a danger by questioning those who can enlighten her. “Every Christian must, when he is able, seek out a learned guide; and the more learned the better. Such a help is still more necessary to persons given to prayer; and in the highest states, they have most need of it. I have always felt drawn to men eminent for doctrine. Some, I grant, may not have experimental knowledge of spiritual ways; but if they have not an aversion for them, they do not ignore them; and by the assistance of holy Scripture, of which they make a constant study, they always recognize the true signs of the good Spirit. The spirit of darkness has a strange dread of humble and virtuous science; he knows it will find him out, and thus his stratagems will turn to his own loss … I, an ignorant and useless creature, bless thee, O Lord, for these faithful servants of thine, who give us light. (Life, ch. xiii) I have no more knowledge than virtue; I write by snatches, and even then with difficulty; this prevents me from spinning, and I live in a poor house where I have no lack of occupations. The mere fact of being a woman and one so imperfect, is sufficient to make me lay down the pen.” (Ibid. ch. x)

As thou wilt, O Teresa: deliver thy soul; pass beyond that, and with Magdalene, at the recollection of what thou callest thine infidelities, water with thy tears the feet of our Lord, recognize thyself in St. Augustine’s Confessions! (Ibid. ch ix) Yes; in those former relations with the world, although approved by obedience; in those conversations, which were honorable and virtuous: it was a fault in thee, who wast called to something higher, to withhold from God so many hours which he was inwardly urging thee to reserve for him alone. And who knows wither thy soul might have been led, hadst thou continued longer thus to wound thy Spouse? But we, whose tepidity can see nothing in thy great sins but what would be perfection in many of us, (Bolland. in Theres. 133) have a right to appreciate, as the Church does, both thy life and thy writings; and to pray with her, on this joyful day of thy feast, that we may be nourished with thy heavenly doctrine and kindled with thy love of God. (Collect of the day.)

According to the word of the divine Canticle, in order to introduce Teresa into his most precious stores the Spouse had first to set charity in order in her soul. Having, therefore, claimed his just and sovereign rights, he at once restored her to her neighbor, more devoted and more loving than before. The Seraph’s dart did not wither nor deform her heart. At the highest summit of perfection she was destined to attain, in the very year of her blessed death, she wrote: “If you love me much, I love you equally, I assure you; and I like you to tell me the same. Oh! how true it is, that our nature inclines us to wish for return of love! It cannot be wrong, since our Lord himself exacts a return from us. It is an advantage to resemble him in something, were it only in this.”  (To Mary of St. Joseph, the Prioress of Seville, Nov. 8, 1581) And elsewhere, speaking of her endless journeys in the service of her divine Spouse, she says: “It cost me the greatest pain when I had to part from my daughters and sisters. They are detached from everything else in the world, but God has not given them to be detached from me; he has perhaps done this for my greater trial, for neither am I detached from them.” (Foundations, ch. xxvii)

No; grace never depreciates nature, which, like itself, is the Creator’s work. It consecrates it, makes it healthy, fortifies it, harmonizes it; causes the full development of its faculties to become the first and most tangible homage, publicly offered by regenerated man to Christ his Redeemer. Let anyone read that literary masterpiece, the Book of the Foundations, or the innumerable letters written by the seraphic Mother amid the devouring activity of her life; there he will see whether the heroism of faith and of all virtues, whether sanctity in its highest mystical expression, was ever prejudicial—we will not say to Teresa’s constancy, devotedness, or energy—but to that intelligence, which nothing could disconcert, swift, lively, and pleasant; to that even character, which shed its peaceful serenity on all around; to the delicate solicitude, the moderation, the exquisite tact, the amiable manners, the practical good sense, of this contemplative, whose pierced heart beat only by miracle, and whose motto was: To suffer or to die!

To the benefactor of a projected foundation she wrote: “Do not think, sir, that you will have to give only what you expect; I warn you of it. It is nothing to give money; that does not cost us much. But when we find ourselves on the point of being stoned, you and your son-in-law, and as many of us as have to do with this affair (as it nearly happened to us at the foundation of St. Joseph’s at Avila), Oh! then will be the good time!” (To Alphonso Ramirez, Feb. 19, 1569) It was on occasion of this same foundation at Toledo, which was in fact very stormy, that the Saint said: “Teresa and three ducats are nothing; but God, Teresa, and three ducats, there you have everything.”

Teresa had to experience more than mere human privations: there came a time when God himself seemed to fail her. Like Philip Benizi before her, and after her Joseph Calasanctius and Alphonsus Liguori, she saw herself, her daughters, and her sons, condemned and rejected in the name and by the authority of the Vicar of Christ. It was one of those occasions, long before prophesied, when it is given to the beast to make war with the saints and to overcome them. (Apocalypse 13:7) We have not space to relate all the sad circumstances; (See the saint’s letters: to the prior of the Charterhouse at Seville, Jan. 1579; etc.) and why should we do so? The old enemy had then one manner of acting, which he repeated in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and will always repeat. In like manner, God has but one aim in permitting the evil, viz: to lead his chosen ones to that lofty summit of crucifying union, where he, who willed to be first to taste the bitter dregs of the chalice, could say more truly and more painfully than any other: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)

The Church thus abridges the life of the reformer of Carmel.

The virgin Teresa was born at Avila in Spain, of parents illustrious for nobility and virtue. She was brought up by them in the fear of God; and while still very young, she gave admirable promise of her future sanctity. While reading the Acts of the holy martyrs, she was so enkindled with the fire of the Holy Spirit, that she ran away from home, resolved to cross over to Africa, and there to lay down her life for the glory of Jesus Christ and the salvation of souls. She was brought back by her uncle; but her heart still burned with the desire of martyrdom, which she endeavored to satisfy by alms-deeds and other works of piety, weeping continually to see herself deprived of that happy lot. On the death of her mother she begged the Blessed Virgin to be a Mother to her; and she gained her request, for, ever afterwards the Mother of God cherished her as a daughter. In the twentieth year of her age she joined the Nuns of St. Mary of Mount Carmel; and spend eighteen years in that monastery, enduring severe illnesses and many trials. While she was thus courageously battling in the ranks of Christian penance, she was deprived of the support of heavenly consolations, in which the saints usually abound, even on this earth.

She was adorned with angelic virtues; and her charity made her solicitous not for her own salvation alone, but for that of all mankind. Inspired by God, and with the approbation of Pius IV she restored the Carmelite rule to its primitive severity, and caused it to be thus observed first by the women and then by the men. The all-powerful blessing of our merciful God was evident in this work; for, though destitute of all human aid, and moreover opposed by many of the great ones of the world, the virgin was able, in her poverty, to build thirty-two monasteries. She wept continually over the blindness of infidels and heretics, and offered to God the voluntary maceration of her body to appease the divine anger, on their behalf. Her heart burned like a furnace of divine love; so that once she saw an Angel piercing it with a fiery darts, and heard Christ say to her, taking her hand in his: Henceforward, as my true bride, thou shalt be zealous for mine honor. By our Lord’s advice, she made the exceedingly difficult vow, always to do what she conceived to be most perfect. She wrote many works, full of divine wisdom, which arouse in the minds of the faithful the desire of their heavenly country.

Where Teresa was a pattern of every virtue, her desire of bodily mortification was most ardent; and in spite of the various maladies which afflicted her, she chastised her body with hairshirts and iron chains, scourged herself with sharp disciplines or with bundles of nettles, and sometimes would often speak thus to God: O Lord, let me either suffer or die; for she considered that as long as she was absent from the fountain of life, she was dying daily and most miserably. She was remarkable for her gift of prophecy, and was enriched to such a degree by our Lord with his divine favors, that she would often beg him to set bounds to his gifts, and not to blot out the memory of her sins so speedily. Consumed by the irresistible fire of divine love rather than by disease, after receiving the last Sacraments, and exhorting her children to peace, charity, and religious observance, she expired at Alba, on the day she had foretold; and her most pure soul was seen ascending to God in the form of a dove. She died at the age of sixty-seven, in the year 1582, on the Ides of October according to the corrected Roman Calendar.* Jesus Christ was seen present at her deathbed, surrounded by Angels; and a withered tree near her cell suddenly burst into blossom. Her body has remained incorrupt to the present day, distilling a fragrant liquor; and is honored with pious veneration. She was made illustrious by miracles both before and after her death; and Gregory XV enrolled her among the Saints.

* In order to effect this correction, Gregory XIII had ordered that ten days of the year 1582 should be suppressed, and that the morrow of October 4 should be called the 15th of that month. It was during that historic night, between the 4th and the 15th, that St. Teresa died.

The Beloved, who revealed himself to thee, O Teresa, at death, thou hadst already found in the sufferings of this life. If anything could bring thee back to earth, it would be the desire of suffering yet more. (Apparition to Father Gratian) “I am not surprised,” says Bossuet speaking in thy honor on thy feast, “that Jesus willed to die: he owed that sacrifice to his Father. But why was it necessary that he should spend his days, and finally close them, in the midst of such great pains? It is because, being the Man of sorrows, as the Prophet calls him, he would live only to endure; or, to express it more forcibly by a beautiful word of Tertullian’s: he wished to be satiated, before dying, with the luxury of suffering: Saginari voluptate patientiæ discessurus colebat. (Tertullian. De patientia, 3) What a strange expression! One would think, according to this Father, that the whole life of our Savior was a banquet, where all the dishes consisted of torments. A strange banquet in the eyes of men, but which Jesus found to his taste! His death was sufficient for our salvation; but death was not enough to satisfy his wonderful appetite for suffering for us. It was needful to add the scourges, and that blood-stained crown that pierced his head, and all the cruel apparatus of terrible tortures; and wherefore? Living only to endure, He wished to be satiated, before dying, with the luxury of suffering for us. Insofar that upon his Cross, seeing in the eternal decrees that there was nothing more for him to suffer, ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘it is done, all is consummated; let us go forth, for there is nothing more to do in this world;’ and immediately he gave up his soul to his Father.” (Bousset, Panegyric on St. Teresa.)

If such is the mind of Jesus our Savior, must it not also be that of his bride, Teresa of Jesus? “She too wished to suffer or to die; and her love could not endure that any other cause should retard her death, save that which deferred the death of our Savior.” (Ibid.) Let us warm our hearts at the sight of this great example. “If we are true Christians, we must desire to be ever with Jesus Christ. Now, where are we to find this loving Savior of our souls? In what place may we embrace him? He is found in two places: in his glory and in his sufferings; on his throne and on his cross. We must, then, in order to be with him, either embrace him on his throne, which death enables us to do; or else share in his cross, and this we do by suffering; hence we must either suffer or die, if we would never be separated from our Lord. Let us suffer then, O Christians; let us suffer what it pleases God to send us: afflictions, sickness, the miseries of poverty, injuries, calumnies; let us try to carry, with steadfast courage, that portion of his cross with which he is pleased to honor us.” (Ibid.)

O thou, whom the Church proposes to her children as a mistress and mother in the paths of the spiritual life, teach us this strong and true Christianity. Perfection, doubtless, cannot be acquired in a day; and thou didst say: “We should be much to be pitied if we could not seek and find God till we were dead to the world. God deliver us from those extremely spiritual people who, without examination or discretion, would refer everything to perfect contemplation!” (To the Bishop of Avila, March 1577, one of the saint’s most graceful letters.) But God deliver us also from those mistaken devotions which thou didst call puerile and foolish, and which were so repugnant to the uprightness and dignity of thy generous soul! (Life, xiii) Thou desirest no other prayer than that which would make thee grow in virtue. Convince us of the great principle in these matters, that “the prayer best made and most pleasing to God is that which leaves behind it the best results, proved by works; and not those sweetnesses which end in nothing but our own satisfaction.” (To Father Gratian, Oct. 23, 1577) He alone will be saved who has kept the commandments and fulfilled the law, and heaven, thy heaven, O Teresa, is the reward of the virtues thou didst practice, not of the revelations and ecstasies wherewith thou wast favored. (Apparition to the Prioress of Veas)

From the blessed abode where thy love feeds upon infinite happiness, as it was nourished on earth by sufferings, obtain that thy native Spain may carefully cherish, in these days of decadence, her beautiful title of the Catholic Kingdom. Remember the part taken by France in determining thee to undertake the reform of Carmel. (Way of Perfection, i) May thy sons be blessed with increase in members, in merit, and in holiness! In all the lands where the Holy Ghost has multiplied thy daughters, may their hallowed homes recall those “first dovecotes of the Blessed Virgin, where the Spouse delighted to show forth the miracles of his grace.” (Foundations, iv) To the triumph of the faith and the support of its defenders, thou didst direct their prayers and fasts; (Way of Perfection, i. 3) what an immense field now lies open to their zeal! With them and with thee, we ask of God “two things: first, that among so many men and so many religious, some may be found having the necessary qualities for usefully serving the cause of the Church, on the understanding that one perfect man can render more services than a great many who are not perfect. Secondly, that in the conflict our Lord may uphold them with his hand, enabling them to escape all dangers, and to close their ears to the songs of sirens … O God, have pity on so many perishing souls; stay the course of so many evils which afflict Christendom; and without further delay, cause thy light to shine in the midst of this darkness!” (Ibid.)