13 September 2026
Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost
The resuscitation of the son of the widow of Naim, on which our thoughts were fixed last Sunday, has reanimated the confidence of our beloved Mother the Church; her prayer goes up all the more earnestly to her Spouse, who leaves her on earth, for a time, that she may grow dearer to him, by sufferings and tears. Let us, of course, enter into these her sentiments, which guided her in the choice of today’s Introit.
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I have cried unto thee all the day; for thou, O Lord, art sweet and mild, and plenteous in mercy to all that call upon thee.
Ps. Incline thine ear unto me, O Lord, and hear me: for I am needy and poor. Glory, etc. Have mercy.
Such is our inability in the work of salvation that, unless Grace prevent, that is, anticipate us, we cannot have so much as the thought of doing what is holy; and again, unless is follow up the inspirations it has given us, and lead them to a happy termination, we shall never be able to pass from the simple thought to the act of any virtue whatsoever. If, on the other hand, we be faithful to Grace, our life will be one uninterrupted tissue of good works. Let us, in our Collect, ask both for ourselves and for all our neighbors, the persevering continuity of this most precious aid.
COLLECT
May thy grace, we beseech thee, O Lord, ever go before us, and follow us; and may it ever make us intent upon good works. Through, etc.
The other Collects, as in the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
EPISTLE
Lesson of the Epistle of Saint Paul, the Apostle, to the Ephesians 3:13-21
Brethren: I pray you not to faint at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this cause I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named, All paternity: Or, the whole family. God is the Father, both of angels and men; whosoever besides is named father, is so named with subordination to him. That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened by his Spirit with might unto the inward man, That Christ may dwell by faith in your hearts; that being rooted and founded in charity, You may be able to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth, and length, and height, and depth: To know also the charity of Christ, which surpasseth all knowledge, that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do all things more abundantly than we desire or understand, according to the power that worketh in us; To him be glory in the church, and in Christ Jesus unto all generations, world without end. Amen.
My heart hath uttered a good word! I speak my works to my King! (Psalm 44:2) The enthusiasm of the royal Psalmist, when singing the glorious Nuptial Song, has taken possession of our Apostle’s whole soul, and inspires him with this marvelous Epistle, which seems to put into music, into a song of love, the sublime teachings of all his other Letters. When he wrote this to his Ephesians, he was Nero’s prisoner; (2 Timothy 2:9) but it shows that the word of God is anything but hampered by the chains that make an Apostle a captive.
Although the Epistle to the Ephesians is is far from being the longest of his Letters, yet it is from it that the Church borrows most, during these Sundays after Pentecost; and we may argue from such choice that it gives, more than any other of St. Paul’s Epistles, that leading subject, upon which the Church is particularly anxious to direct her children’s thoughts, during this season of the Liturgical Year. Let us, therefore, thoroughly master the mystery of the Gospel, (Ephesians 6:19) by hearkening to the herald who received it, as his special mission, to make known to the Gentiles the treasure that had been hidden from eternity in God. (Ephesians 3:8-9) It is as Ambassador that he comes to us; (Ephesians 6:20) and the chains which bind him, far from weakening the authority of his message, are but the glorious badge which accredit him with the disciples of the Christ, who died on Calvary.
For God alone, as he tells us in the music we have just heard, can strengthen in us the inward man enough to make us understand, as the Saints do, the “dimensions,” (breadth, length, height, and depth) of the great mystery of Christ dwelling in man, and dwelling in him for the purpose of filling him with the plenitude of God. Therefore is it that, falling on his knees before Him from Whom flows every perfect gift, and who has begotten us in the truth by his love, (James 1:17) he, Paul, our Apostle, asks this God to open, by faith and charity, the eyes of our heart, that so we may be able to understand the splendid riches of the inheritance he reserves to his children, and the exceeding greatness of the divine power used in our favor, even in this life. (Ephesians 1:18-19)
But if holiness is requisite in order to obtain the full development of the divine life spoken of by the Apostle—let us also take notice how the desire and the prayer of St. Paul are for all men; and how, therefore, no one is excluded from that divine vocation. Indeed, as St. John Chrysostom observes, (On Ephesians, Homily I) the Christians, to whom he sends his Epistle, are people living in the world, married, having children and servants, for he gives them rules of conduct with regard to each point. (Ephesians 5:22, 6:1, 5) The Saints of Ephesus, as of all other places, are no others than the Faithful of Christ Jesus, (Ephesians 1:1) that is to say, they are those who faithfully follow the diving precepts, in the condition of life proper to each. Now, it depends on us to follow God’s grace; nothing else but our own resistance prevents the Holy Ghost from making Saints of us. Those sublime heights, to which the progressive movement of the sacred Liturgy has, since Pentecost, been leading the Church, are open to all of us. If the new order of ideas introduced by this movement strike us, at times, as being beyond our practical attainment, the probable reason of such cowardice is, and a short examination of conscience will bear witness against us—that we neglected, ever since Advent and Christmas, to profit, as we should have done, of the teachings and graces of every kind, which were given us as means for advancing in light and Christian virtue. The Church, at the commencement of the Cycle, offered her aid to every one of us, and that aid she adapted to each one’s capabilities; but she could never remain stationary, because some of us were too lazy to move onwards; she could never consent, out of a regard for our laggings and sluggishness, to neglect leading men of good will to that divine Union which, they were told, crowns both the Year of the Church, and the faithful soul that has spent the Year under the Church’s guidance. (Gueranger, Christmas) But on no account must we lose courage. The Cycle of the Liturgy runs its full course in the heavens of the Church each Year. It will soon be starting afresh, again adapting the power of its graces to each one’s necessities and weaknesses. If, with that new Year of Grace, we learn a lesson from our past deficiencies; if we do not content ourselves with a mere theoretical admiration of the exquisite poetry, and loveliness, and charms, of its opening seasons; if we seriously set ourselves to grow with the growth of that light which is no other than Christ himself, (John 1:5) —if that is, we profit of the graces of progress which that Light will again infuse into our souls—then the work of sanctification having been this time prepared, has a cheering and “a new chance of receiving that completeness, which had been retarded by the weakness of human nature.” (Gueranger, Practice for the Time after Pentecost)
Even now, though our dispositions may not be all they should be, yet the Holy Ghost, that Spirit of loving mercy who reigns over this portion of the Cycle, will not refuse the humble prayer we make to Him, and will supply, at least in some measure, our sad shortcomings. Great, after all, has been our gain in this, that the eye of our faith has had new supernatural horizons opened out to it, and that it has reached those peaceful regions which the dull vision of the animal man (1 Corinthians 2:14) fails to discover. It is there that divine Wisdom reveals to the perfect that great secret of love, which is not known by the wise and the princes of this world—secret, which the eye had not before seen, nor the ear heard, nor the heart even suspected as possible. (1 Corinthians 2:6-9) From this time forward, we shall the better understand the divine realities, which fill up the life of the servants of God; they will seem to us, as they truly are, a thousand times preferable, both in importance and greatness, to those vain frivolities and occupations, in the midst of which is spent the existence of so-called practical men. Let us take delight in thinking upon that divine choice which, before time was, selected us for the fullness of all spiritual benedictions, (Ephesians 1:3) of which the temporal blessings of the people of old (Deuteronomy 28:1-14) were but a shadow. The world was not as yet existing, and already God saw us in his Word; (Ephesians 1:4) to each one among us he assigned the place he was to hold in the Body of his Christ; (1 Corinthians 12:12-31, Ephesians 4:12-16) already his fatherly eye beheld us clad with that grace, which made him well pleased with the Man-God; and he predestinated us, (Ephesians 1:4-5) as being members of this his beloved Son, to sit with him, on his right hand, in the highest heavens. (Ephesians 1:20-23, 2:6)
Oh! how immense are our obligations to the Eternal Father, whose good pleasure (Ephesians 1:9) has decreed to grant such wondrous gifts to our earth! His will is his counsel; (Ephesians 1:11) it is the one rule of all his acts; and his will is all love. It is from the voluntary and culpable death of sin (Ephesians 1:7, 2:1-5) that he calls us to that Life which is his own Life. It is from the deep disgrace of every vice that, after having cleansed us in the Blood of his Son, (Ephesians 1:7) he has exalted us to a glory which is the astonishment of the Angels and makes them tremble with adoring admiration. (Roman Breviary, Hymn for the Ascension) Let us then be holy for the sake of giving praise to the glory of such grace. (Ephesians 1:4, 6) Christ, in its divinity, is the substantial brightness and eternal eternal glory of his Father; (Hebrews 1:3) if he has taken to himself a Body, if he has made himself our Head, it was for no other purpose than that he might sing the heavenly canticle in a new way. Not satisfied with presenting, in his sacred Humanity, a sight most pleasing to his Father—that is, the sight of the created reflex of divine, and therefore infinite, perfections—he wished, moreover, that the whole of creation should give back to the adorable Trinity an echo of the divine harmonies. It was on this account that he, in his own Flesh, broke down the old enmities existing between Gentile and Jew; (Ephesians 2:14-18) and then, bringing together these that were once enemies, he made of them all one spirit, and one body, so that their countless human voices might, through Him, blend in unison of love with the angelic choirs, and thus, standing around God’s throne, might attune the one universal song of their praise to that of the infinite Word Himself. Thus shall we become forever to God, like this divine Word, the praise of his glory, as the Apostle thrice loves to express himself in the beginning of this his Epistle to the Ephesians. (Ephesians 1:6, 12, 14) Thus, too, is to be wrought that mystery which, from all eternity, was the object of God’s eternal designs, mystery, that is, of divine union, realized by our Lord Jesus uniting, in his own one Person, an infinite love, both earth and heaven. (Ephesians 1:9-10)
The Church, which is showing herself in the midst of the Gentiles, bears on herself the mark of her divine Architect; God shows himself, in her, in all majesty; and by her, his fear is made to be felt by the kings of the earth.
The Gentiles, O Lord, shall fear thy name, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.
℣. For, the Lord hath built up Sion; and he shall be seen in his glory.
Alleluia, alleluia.
℣. Sing to the Lord a new canticle: for the Lord hath done wonderful things. Alleluia.
GOSPEL
Sequel of the holy Gospel according to St. Luke 14:1-11
At that time: When Jesus went into the house of one of the chief of the Pharisees, on the sabbath day, to eat bread, that they watched him. And behold, there was a certain man before him that had the dropsy. And Jesus answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying: Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? But they held their peace. But he taking him, healed him, and sent him away. And answering them, he said: Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fall into a pit, and will not immediately draw him out, on the sabbath day? And they could not answer him to these things. And he spoke a parable also to them that were invited, marking how they chose the first seats at the table, saying to them: When thou art invited to a wedding, sit not down in the first place, lest perhaps one more honorable than thou be invited by him: And he that invited thee and him, come and say to thee, Give this man place: and then thou begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when thou art invited, go, sit down in the lowest place; that when he who invited thee, cometh, he may say to thee: Friend, go up higher. Then shalt thou have glory before them that sit at table with thee. Because everyone that exalteth himself, shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself, shall be exalted.
Holy Church here tells us, and in a most unmistakable way, what has been her chief aim for her children ever since the Feast of Pentecost. The Wedding spoken of in today’s Gospel is that of heaven, and of which there is a prelude given here below, by the Union effected in the sacred banquet of Holy Communion. The divine invitation is made to all; and the invitation is not like that which is given on occasion of earthly weddings, to which the Bridegroom and Bride invite their friends and relatives as simple witnesses to the union contracted between two individuals. In the Gospel Wedding, Christ is the Bridegroom, and the Church is the Bride. (John 19:7) These nuptials are ours, inasmuch as we are members of the Church; and the banquet hall, in this case, is something far superior that that of a common-place marriage.
But that this Union be as fruitful as it ought to be, the soul, in the sanctuary of her own conscience, must bring alone with her a fidelity which is to be an enduring one—a love which is to be active, even when the feast of the sacred mysteries is past. Divine Union, when it is genuine, masters one’s entire being. It fixes one in the untiring contemplation of the Beloved Object, in the earnest looking after His interests, in the continual aspiration of the heart towards Him, even when He seems to have absented Himself from the soul. The Bride of the divine Nuptials—could she be less intent on her God, than those of earth are on their earthly Spouse? (1 Corinthians 7:34) It is on this condition alone that the Christian soul can be said to have entered on the Unitive Life or can show its precious fruits.
But for the attaining all this—that is, that our Lord Jesus Christ may have that full control over the soul and its powers, which makes her to be truly His, and subjects her to Him as the Bride is to her Spouse (1 Corinthians 11:8-10) —it is necessary that all alien competition be entirely and definitively put aside. Now, there is one sad fact, which everyone knows: the divinely noble Son of the Eternal Father, (Wisdom 8:3) the Incarnate Word whose beauty enraptures the heavenly citizens, (Life of St Agnes) the Immortal King, whose exploits and power and riches are beyond all that the children of men can imagine (Psalm 44) —yes, He has rivals, human rivals, who pretend to have stronger claims than He to creatures whom he has redeemed from slavery and, that done, has invited them to share with Him the honors of his throne. Even in the case of those whom his loving mercy succeeds in winning over wholly to Himself, is it not almost always the way, that He is kept waiting, for perhaps years, before they can make up their minds to be wise enough to take Him? During that long period of unworthy wavering, he loses not his patience, he does not turn elsewhere as he might in all justice do, but he keeps on asking them to be wholly His, mercifully waiting for some secret touch of one of his graces, joined with the unwearied labor of the Holy Ghost, to get the better of all this inconceivable resistance.
Let us not be surprised at the Church’s bringing the whole influence of her Liturgy to bear on the winning souls over to Christ, for every such conquest she makes for Him is a fresh and closer bond of union between herself and her Lord. This explains how, in some of these previous Sundays, she has given us such admirable instructions regarding the efforts of the triple concupiscence. Earthly pleasures, pride, and covetousness, are really the treacherous advisers, who excite within us, against God’s claims, those impertinent rivals of whom we were just now speaking. Having now reached the sixteenth week of this Season of the reign of the Holy Ghost, and taking it for granted that her Sons and Daughters are in right good earnest about their Christian perfection—the Church hopes that they have fairly unmasked the enemy. She comes, therefore, to us today hoping that her teaching will not fail to impress us, and that we shall no longer put off that most loving Jesus of ours, whose great mystery of love is preached to us in the allegory of our Gospel, and of which he himself said: The Kingdom of heaven is likened to a King, who made a marriage for his Son. (Matthew 22:2)
But after all, her anxiety as Mother and Bride never allows her to make quite sure of even her best and dearest children, so long as they are in this world. In order to keep them on their guard against falling into sin, she bids them listen to St. Ambrose, whom she has selected as her homilist for this Sunday. He addresses himself to the Christian who has become a veteran in the spiritual combat, and tell even him that Concupiscence has snares without end, even for him! Alas! yes, he may trip any day; he has got far, perhaps very far, on the road to the Kingdom of God, but even so, he might go wrong and be forever shut out from the Marriage Feast, together with heretics, pagans, and Jews. Let him be on the watch, then, or he may get tainted with those sins from which, hitherto, he has kept clear, thanks to God’s grace. Let him take heed, or he might become like the man mentioned in today’s Gospel, who had the dropsy; and dropsy, says our saintly preacher of Milan, is a morbid exuberance of humors, which stupify the soul and induce total extinction of spiritual ardor. And yet, even so, that is, even if her were to get such a fall as that, let him not forget that the heavenly physician is ever ready to cure him. The Saint, in this short Homily, condenses the whole of St. Luke’s 14th chapter, of which we have been reading but a portion; and he shows, a little further on, that attachment to the goods of this life is no less opposed to the ardor which should carry us on the wings of the spirit, towards the heaven where lives and reigns our loved One.” (St Ambrose, Book 7, On Luke 14)
But above all, it is the constant attitude and exercise of Humility, to which he must especially direct his attention, who would secure a prominent place in the divine Feast of the Nuptials. All Saints are ambitious for future glory of this best kind; but they were well aware that in order to win it, they must go low down during the present life into their own nothingness; the higher in the world to come, the lower in this. Until the great day dawn, when each one is to receive according to his works, (Matthew 16:27) we shall lose nothing by putting ourselves, meanwhile, below everybody. The position reserved for us in the kingdom of heaven depends not in the least either upon our own thoughts about ourselves, or upon the judgment passed on us by other people; it depends solely on the will of that God who exalteth the humble, and bringeth down the mighty from their seat. (Luke 1:52) Let us hearken to Ecclesiasticus. The greater thou art, the more humble thyself in all things, and thou shalt find grace before God; for great is the power of God alone, and he is honored by the humble. (Ecclesiasticus 3:20-21) Were it only a motive, then, from a motive of self-interest, let us follow the advice of the Gospel and, in all things, claim, as our own, the last place. Humility is not sterling, and cannot please God unless, to the lowly estimation we have of ourselves, we join an esteem for others, preventing everyone with honor, (Romans 12:10) gladly yielding to all in matters which do not affect our conscience; and all this from a deep-rooted conviction of our own misery and worthlessness in the sight of Him who searches the reins and heart. (Apocalypse 2:23) The surest test of our Humility before God is that practical charity for our neighbor, which in the several circumstances of everyday life, induces us, and without affectation, to give him the precedence to ourselves.
On the contrary, one of the most unequivocal proofs of the falseness of certain so-called spiritual ways, into which the enemy sometimes leads incautious souls, is the lurking contempt wherewith he inspires them for one or more of their acquaintance; dormant, perhaps, habitually—but which, when occasion offers, and it frequently offers, they allow it to influence their thoughts and words and actions. To a greater or less extent, and it may be with more or less unconsciousness, self-esteem is the basis of the structure of their virtues; but as for the illuminations and mystical sweetnesses, which these people sometimes tell their intimate friends they enjoy, they may be quite sure that such favors do not come to them from the Holy Spirit. When the substantial light of the Sun of Justice shall appear in the valley of the Judgment, all counterfeits of this kind will be made evident, (1 Corinthians 4:5) and they who trusted to them and spent their lives in petting such phantoms will find them all vanishing in smoke. The having then to take a much lower place than the one they dreamt of may have this one solace, that some place may be still given them in the divine banquet. They will have to thank God that their chastisement goes no further than the one of seeing, with shame, those very people passing high up in honor above them for whom, during life, they had such utter contempt.
The greater the conquests made by the Church, the greater are the efforts of hell to destroy the souls of her dear children. This fearful danger calls for her fervent prayers; and our Offertory-Anthem is one of these.
Look down, O Lord, to help me: let them be put to confusion and shame, that seek after my soul, to take it away: look down, O Lord, to help me.
The Secret reminds us how the Sacrifice, at which we are present, and which is to be consummated in a few moments by the words of Consecration, is the most direct and efficacious of all the immediate preparations that we can make for the Communion of the Body and Blood which that Sacrifice produces on the Altar.
SECRET
Cleanse us, O Lord, we beseech thee, by the efficacy of this present Sacrifice: and, by thy mercy, make us worthy to partake thereof. Through, etc.
The other Secrets, as in the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
Now that the Church is filled, by the holy Communion just received, with the true substantial Wisdom of the Father, she promises God, as her thank-offering in the Communion Antiphon, that she will keep his justice, which is his law, and that she will labor to make his divine teaching produce its fruits.
I will remember thy justice alone, O Lord: O God, thou hast instructed me from my youth, and unto old age and gray hairs: O God, forsake me not.
In the Postcommunion, let us pray, with the Church, that we may be renewed by the purity, which these heavenly Mysteries bring to us, who are well prepared for the gift: the effect of such a gift tells upon our bodies, both in this and the next life.
POSTCOMMUNION
Mercifully, O Lord, we beseech thee, purify our souls, and renew them by these heavenly mysteries; that we may receive help thereby, both while we are in these mortal bodies, and hereafter. Through, etc.
The other Postcommunions, as in the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost.
VESPERS
The psalms, capitulum, hymn, and versicle, as above.
ANTIPHON OF THE MAGNIFICAT
When thou art invited to a wedding, sit down in the lowest place, that he who invited thee may say unto thee: Friend! go up higher: and thou shalt have glory before them that sit at table with thee. Alleluia.
LET US PRAY
May thy grace, we beseech thee, O Lord, ever go before us, and follow us; and may it ever make us intent upon good works. Through, etc.
16th Sunday after Pentecost – On Impurity ~ St Alphonsus
St Amatus, Bishop
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Amatus, formed by these maxims to virtue, seemed in his youth to have already attained to perfection; but this consists in more and more strenuous endeavors always to advance higher. He some time deliberated with himself what course of life to steer, in which every desire of his soul, every action of his life, might be a step advancing in a direct line towards that happiness for which he was created by God; and him he consulted, by earnest and humble prayer, upon this important and critical choice. The issue of his deliberation was, that with the consent and advice of those to whom prudence or duty obliged him to listen, he embraced an ecclesiastical state. No sooner had he from the bottom of his heart said to God, that he was his portion and his inheritance for ever, but prayer, sacred studies, and exercises of charity and other virtues, became his whole employment. It was his great comfort and joy that the very habit which he wore freed him from many dangers and importunities of the world, and exempted him from visits, amusements, and idle employments, which in other states various circumstances make sometimes necessary, and which though they may be sanctified by a good intention yet are often dangerous, and always great consumers of the little time we have here, to purge our affections, to strengthen our souls in habits of virtue, and to lay in a due provision for eternity by actions which are the most conducive to those great purposes. Such being his inclinations and views, there was no danger of his entertaining any superfluous commerce with the world by frequenting its company or amusements: a commerce always pernicious and contrary to the spirit of ecclesiastics, and which the world itself is just enough to condemn, even though by allurements it invited them into the snare. The closest retirement afforded our saint leisure and means for all those exercises of compunction, devotion, and heavenly contemplation, and for laying in a good store of sacred learning and practical knowledge, by which he qualified himself for the high functions of the ministry to which he aspired. He prepared himself afresh for every new step in holy orders by the fervent practice of virtue, and by all suitable dispositions, that when he was raised to the priesthood he might receive the plenitude of its graces. Out of a desire of greater perfection he took the monastic habit at Agaunum, a monastery at that time famous both for regular discipline, and the sacred studies. St. Amatus, with the leave of the abbot, dwelt in a little cell cut in a rock, with an oratory adjoining which is now called our Lady’s in the rock.
Some time after, Amatus was chosen bishop of Sion in the Valais,* about the year 669. In this exalted station the example of his virtue shone forth with new lustre, and greater authority; he was enabled to deal his alms more plentifully among the poor, and was furnished with the means of everyway exerting his zeal more powerfully in advancing the divine honor, and the spiritual good of souls. He preached, instructed, comforted, and relieved all persons according to their particular necessities. In a word, he was an accomplished pastor, sanctifying both himself and those that were committed to his charge. He had governed his diocess almost five years, when the devil, jealous of the victories which the holy pastor daily gained over his empire, stirred up against him certain wicked instruments, who could not bear in others that virtue which they had not courage to practise themselves.
Theodoric III. son of Clovis II. king, first of Austrasia, afterwards of all France, was for several years abandoned to vice and evil counsellors, and is the first of those who, governing by the mayors of his palace, are called by some historians the Idle Kings. Ebroin, mayor of his palace, was one of the wickedest tyrants that ever had any share in the administration of the French kingdom; the murder of St. Leodegarius, and other holy bishops and saints, of which he was the author, are instances of his injustice, cruelty, and irreligion. The enemies of St. Amatus found it an easy matter to accuse him before such a king and such a minister, of crimes which had not the least foundation in truth; some say, of accusing Ebroin of tyrany. Theodoric, without further examination, or so much as allowing the holy man a hearing, banished him to St. Fursey’s monastery at Peronne, where St. Ultan, the abbot, treated him with all imaginable respect and veneration. The holy exile rejoiced in his disgrace to find the tranquillity of holy retirement, in which he enjoyed a sweet calm, with the happy means of living to himself and God, conversing always in heaven, and giving free scope to his zeal in the practice of the most rigorous and penitential austerities. The flagrant injustice that was done him never drew from him the least complaint, though no synod had been assembled to hear him, no sentence of deposition issued out, no crime so much as laid to his charge in a juridical manner. The only circumstance which afflicted him was to see a wolf intruded by the king into his see, not to feed, but to devour his flock.
After the death of St. Ultan, St. Mauront was charged with the custody of St. Amatus, and took him first to the monastery of Hamaye; but soon after built a new abbey upon an estate of his own, at a place called Breüil or Broile, now Merville (that is, Little Town), upon the Lis in Flanders. St. Amatus removed with him to Breüil. St. Mauront rejoiced to be possessed of such a guest, and resigned to him the government of that abbey. St. Amatus, both by words and example, excited the monks to fervor and humility, and having settled the house in excellent order, shut himself up in a little cell near the church, in which he occupied his soul with so much ardor in heavenly contemplation, as scarce to seem to be any longer an inhabitant of the earth. Thus he lived five years with these monks, and only left them to become an intercessor with Christ in his glory for them, about the year 690. Ebroin, who had sacrificed many innocent bishops and noblemen to his cruel Policy, was himself massacred in 679. King Theodoric died in 691, but entering into himself some time before his death, had severely condemned himself for having unjustly persecuted St. Amatus, and in satisfaction made several donations to the abbey of Breüil. Gramaye takes this house to have been a community of secular priests; but that they were monks is evident, since the Capuchin friars, in digging up the ground, found remains of their bodies buried in the monastic habit, as Castilian remarks.1 In the incursions of the Normans these monks retired with the relics of St. Amatus first to Soissons, but soon after to Douay.* This translation was made on the 1st of May, in 870, by Eruannicus, abbot of Breüil, and St. Bainus, fifth bishop of Tarvanne,2 when these relics were deposited in the chapel which St. Mauront had built in honor of St. Amatus, soon after his death, in the church of our Lady, which, four years after, began to be called St. Amatus’s or St. Amé’s, when these monks obtained of John, bishop of Arras and Cambray, king Charles the Bald, and Baldwin I., surnamed the Iron-armed (who had been made by that prince sovereign count of Flanders and Artois or the Morini), proper authority to remove from Breüil, and fix their residence at this church in Douay. The monastery thus settled at Douay, was secularized, and converted into a college of canons in 940. A priory and a holy chapel subsisted long after this at Breüil, on the spot where St. Mauront received St. Amatus, and where both led an anachoretical life. The land to this day belongs to this church of St. Amatus or Amé, in Douay. The relics of St. Mauront were translated to St. Amé’s in Douay, from Marchiennes, in 1485. See the life of St. Amatus, written before the translation of his relics, or the destruction of the monastery of Breüil, or Merinville, or Merville. Also Bulteau,1. 3, c. 36; Gramaye, Antiqu. Duac. p. 202; Castillion, Chronol. Eccl. Belgic. seu Episc. Belgic. in Duaco, p. 38, 39; and D. Henry and D. Tachereau in the last part of Gallia Christiana, and the Bollandists, p. 120–133.
St Eulogius, Confessor, Patriarch of Alexandria
From Nicephorus’s Chronicle, the Paschal Chronicle, Photius, Bibl. Cod. 181, 208, 220, 230, &c.
a.d. 608.
ST. EULOGIUS was a Syrian by birth, and embraced young the monastic state in that country. The Eutychian heresy was then split into various sects, as it usually happens among such as have left the centre of union These, by their tyranny and the fury of their contests, had thrown the churches of Syria and Egypt into much confusion, and a great part of the monks of Syria were at that time become remarkable for their loose morals and errors against faith. Eulogius learned from the fall of others to stand more watchfully and firmly upon his guard, and was not less distinguished by the innocence and sanctity of his manners than by the purity of his doctrine. Having, by an enlarged pursuit of learning, attained to a great variety of useful knowledge in the different branches of literature, he set himself to the study of divinity in the sacred sources of that science, which are the holy scriptures, and the tradition of the Church explained in its councils, and the approved writings of its eminent pastors. From the time of his retreat he made this his chief study, to which he directed everything else; and, as his industry was indefatigable, his parts quick, his apprehensions lively, and his judgment solid, his progress was such as to qualify him to be an illustrious champion for the truth, worthy to be ranked with St. Gregory the Great and St. Eutychius as one of the greatest lights of the Church in the age wherein he lived. His character received still a brighter lustre from his sincere humility and spirit of holy compunction and prayer. In the great dangers and necessities of the Church he was drawn out of his solitude, and made priest of Antioch by the patriarch St. Anastasius, who was promoted to that dignity in 561, and, dying in 598, was succeeded by Anastasius the Younger. Saint Eulogius, whilst he lived at Antioch, entered into the strictest connexions with St. Eutychius, patriarch of Constantinople, and joined his forces with that holy prelate against the enemies of the truth.
The emperor Justinian and his nephew and successor, Justin the Younger, had been the plunderers of their empire, and the grievous oppressors of their subjects; the former to support his extravagance and vanity, the latter to gratify his insatiable avarice and scandalous lusts. Justin II, dying in 576, after a reign of ten years and ten months, Tiberius Constantine, a Thracian, and a virtuous prince, was raised to the throne. He applied himself to heal the wounds caused during the former reigns, both in the Church and State. His charities in all parts of the empire were boundless, and all his treasuries were open to the poor. Amongst the evils with which the Church was then afflicted, the disorders and confusion into which the tyranny of the Eutychians had thrown the church of Alexandria, called aloud for a powerful remedy, and an able and zealous pastor, endued with prudence and vigor to apply them. Upon the death of the patriarch John, St. Eulogius was raised to that patriarchal dignity toward the close of the year 583, at the earnest desire of the emperor, who, having reigned only six years and ten months, died the same year, leaving his son-in-law, Mauritius, his successor in the imperial throne. Our saint was obliged to make a journey to Constantinople, about two years after his promotion, in order to concert measures concerning certain affairs of his church. He met at court Saint Gregory the Great, and contracted with him a holy friendship, so that, from that time, they seemed to be one heart and one soul. Among the letters of St. Gregory, we have several extant which he wrote to our saint. St. Eulogius composed many excellent works against the Acephali, and other sects of Eutychians. Photius has preserved us valuable fragments of some of these treatises; also of eleven discourses of our saint, the ninth of which is a commendation of a monastic life; likewise of his six books against the Novatians of Alexandria, in the fifth of which he expressly sets himself to prove that the Martyrs are to be honored.1 Photius makes no mention of the treatise of St. Eulogius against the Agnoëtæ, a sect of Eutychians, who ascribed to Christ, as man, ignorance of the day of judgment, and many other things. St. Gregory the Great, to whose censure the author submitted it, sent him his approbation with high commendations, saying, “I have not found anything but what is admirable in your writings, &c.”2 St. Eulogius did not long survive St. Gregory, for he died in the year 606, or, according to others, in 608.
We admire the great actions and the glorious triumphs of the saints; yet it is not so much in these that their sanctity consisted, as in the constant habitual heroic disposition of their souls. There is no one who does not sometimes do good actions; but he can never be called virtuous who does well only by humor, or by fits and starts, not by steady habits. It is an habitual poverty of spirit, humility, meekness, patience, purity, piety, and charity, which our Divine Master recommends to us. We must take due pains to plant the seeds of virtue in our souls, must watch and labor continually to improve and strengthen them, that they may be converted into nature, and be the principle by which all the affections of our souls, and all the actions of our lives are governed. If these pure heroic sentiments perfectly possess and fill our hearts, the whole tenor of our conduct, whether in private or in public life, will be an uniform train of virtuous actions, which will derive their perfection from the degree of fervor and purity from which they spring, and which, according to the essential property of virtue, is always improving and always improveable.
Collect of St Amatus of Remiremont, Bishop & Confessor ~ Indulgenced on the Saint's Feast (See Note)
V. O Lord, hear my prayer.
Let us pray.
Collect of St Eulogius of Alexandria, Bishop & Confessor ~ Indulgenced on the Saint's Feast (See Note)
V. O Lord, hear my prayer.
Let us pray.
12 September 2026
Assisted Suicide and The Despair of Our Time
At the same time that the transhumanists are chasing the goal of immortality, more and more states are legalising what in Canada is called MAiD (medical assistance in dying).
From Rorate Cæli
By Roberto de Mattei
The Despair of Our Time
In recent days, news has surfaced of the approval in Veneto of a regional law regulating assisted suicide. Veneto is the fourth region to pass such legislation, but the first governed by a center-right administration. The fact therefore carries a political and cultural significance that extends well beyond regional borders: it shows how the principle of absolute self-determination has now penetrated coalitions that, at least nominally, are supposed to be committed to the defense of life, the family, and the natural order.
Assisted suicide consists in the deliberate pursuit of death on the part of someone who, believing he no longer has reasons to live, asks public institutions to help him end his own existence. The question therefore does not concern a purely private decision. The moment the law intervenes, suicide ceases to be regarded as a tragedy to be prevented and becomes a recognized and institutionally organized possibility. This choice is presented by the media as the exercise of a right and a noble act of self-determination — one that the law should not prohibit and moral judgment should not censure. One hears of "freedom," "dignity," "informed choice," and "rights," while carefully avoiding any reminder that every request for suicide contains, prior even to a will to die, a desperate cry of pain.
When voluntary death is described as a courageous and dignified choice, the message that reaches the public is devastating. The elderly person who feels burdensome, the sick person who fears being abandoned, the disabled person who senses the economic and psychological cost of care may convince themselves that dying is an act of generosity toward their family, or the most honorable solution to their condition.
A profound contradiction manifests itself here. When a desperate person attempts to take his own life, society mobilizes doctors, psychologists, and law enforcement to save him. When that same will is expressed under certain clinical conditions and translated into a legal procedure, it is celebrated as a manifestation of freedom. In the one case, it is affirmed that life must be defended against the despair of the moment; in the other, that very despair is accepted as the foundation of a right.
In the same days in which the regional law on assisted suicide was passed, the front pages of newspapers reported on heinous crimes committed above all within the family unit: fathers who annihilate their loved ones, mothers who kill their children, men who murder their wives or partners and then take their own lives. There is certainly a moral and juridical difference between one who kills members of his family and one who asks to be helped to die. Yet at the origin of both phenomena one can recognize the same sentiment of despair.
Despair is the absence of all hope. It is one of the most profound consequences of the materialism that dominates contemporary society. Materialism does not consist merely in an attachment to money or material goods. It is, more radically, a conception of reality that reduces the human person to his biological, economic, and psychological dimensions. Within this framework, the value of life depends on the pleasure it yields, the autonomy it permits, the health one enjoys, and the success one achieves. When these conditions disappear, so too does the very reason for living. In the most terrible cases, those who have lost all hope do not merely take their own lives but seek to drag down with them those whom they consider part of their fate. The family — which ought to be the place of protection and love — becomes the theater of an ultimate will to domination: "If my life no longer has meaning, neither shall yours continue." This is the diabolical inversion of love, which no longer seeks the good of the other but wishes to possess him to the point of annihilating him.
Contemporary society promises happiness through well-being, pleasure, success, and the absence of all limits. But it is precisely this false promise that prepares despair. Those who have been educated to believe that happiness coincides with the satisfaction of their desires are not prepared to face illness, loss, abandonment, or failure. If a person regards material reality as the sole horizon of his existence, he is no longer capable of giving meaning to his own life. A civilization that has promised autonomy and the fulfillment of every desire, but has taken away God and the hope of eternal life, leaves the human person defenseless before pain and death. Despair is therefore far more than an individual psychological state: it is the spiritual and social sickness of our time. This deep evil is not healed by juridical or political instruments. What must first be restored to the human person is true hope — the supernatural hope that has never deceived anyone. But to restore hope, one must first restore to the human person the faith that is hope's foundation and presupposition.
And what faith, if not faith in God, Creator and Lord of history; in Jesus Christ, Redeemer and Savior of humanity; in his Cross, which has conquered sin; in his Resurrection, which has defeated death?
Those who embrace the immense and consoling vision of faith understand that they are not the product of chance, nor beings destined for nothingness, but creatures loved by God and called to eternal life. Hope, born of faith, is the certainty that life does not conclude within the narrow confines of earthly existence, and that the human person is called to possess eternal goods — even when everything around him seems to collapse.
Christian hope does not diminish the gravity of trials. It teaches, however, that no suffering accepted and offered is in vain, that no tear escapes the gaze of God, and that even from the deepest darkness Providence can draw a greater good. When all seems lost on the human plane, the horizon of eternity remains open. It is this horizon that prevents despair from having the last word.