01 August 2026
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book II: XL That Matter Is Not the First Cause of the Distinction of Things
From Contemplating History
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225 – 7 March 1274), was a Doctor of the Church, Philosopher, Theologian, Jurist, Dominican Friar, and Priest. Known as Doctor Angelicus "Angelic Doctor," and the Doctor Communis "Universal Doctor" his writings serve as a defense and proof of the validity of Christ's authority over all. The Summa contra Gentiles (also known as Liber de veritate catholicae fidei contra errores infidelium, "Book on the truth of the Catholic faith against the errors of the unbelievers"). The Summa contra Gentiles consists of four books. The structure of Saint Thomas's work is designed to proceed from general philosophical arguments for monotheism, to which Muslims and Jews are likely to consent even within their own respective religious traditions, before progressing to the discussion of specifically Christian doctrine.
Book II is dedicated to the Creation (in other words, the physical universe, everything which exists).
Whether you are a history enthusiast, a student of religion, or simply curious about the impact of the Roman Catholic Church on the world, this playlist is designed to provide an informative and engaging journey through its captivating past. Subscribe to the Contemplating History channel for more educational content and immerse yourself in the rich tapestry of history.
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The Life of Jane Seymour | Third Wife of Henry VIII
From History Calling
The life of JANE SEYMOUR took her from relative obscurity at her family’s home at Wolf Hall, to lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, to the Queen of England as the third wife of Henry VIII, the mother of Edward VI and then a place as one of the most famous women in history. What do we know about the real Jane Seymour though?
In this six wives documentary from History Calling we look at this Tudor Queen who is remembered as the meek and mild one and as a rather plain, comparatively uneducated woman who displaced Anne Boleyn in Henry’s affections, gave him his longed for male heir, then died tragically from childbirth complications just twelve days later at Hampton Court Palace. She is also the only one of Henry VIII’s wives to be buried with him at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, cementing her reputation with some as the favourite wife of Henry VIII. She chose the phrase ‘bound to serve and obey’ as her motto, but was Jane really as simple or as nice as some historians and TV shows would have you believe, or was she a calculating, home wrecker Queen who helped to destroy Henry and Anne’s marriage and send Anne to the scaffold? What was she like as a Queen as well and how successful was her marriage to Henry VIII? I’ll answer these questions as well as looking at how Jane was remembered by Henry after death through her inclusion in the famous Whitehall Mural and The Family of Henry VIII portrait. I’ll also look at her Hans Holbein portrait to see what the real Jane Seymour looked like.
The Chains of St. Peter: A “Double Relic”
Until Bugnini raped the Liturgy in 1960, today was the Feast of St Peter in Chains, with only a Commemoration of the Holy Machabees.
From Aleteia
By Daniel Esparza
Tradition claims the chains of St. Peter, kept in Rome's San Pietro in Vincoli, correspond to two sets of chains used to imprison Peter on two different occasions.
he Roman minor Basilica of San Pietro in Vincoli (literally, “St. Peter in Chains”) is well known for being the home of Michelangelo’s Moses. But this church also houses a very special, often overlooked relic.
Also known as the Basilica Eudossiana, this church is an ancient one. It was rebuilt from an older foundation as early as in 432, to keep the chains that, according to tradition, were used to bind St. Peter when he was imprisoned in Jerusalem — hence its name, in Vincoli.
The feast associated with St. Peter in Chains is August 1.
Empress Licinia Eudoxia, the wife of Emperor Valentinian III and daughter of Theodosius II, had received these chains (some sources claim just a few links) as a gift from her mother, Aelia Eudocia (an exceptionally gifted poet considered a saint by both Eastern and Western churches). Aelia Eudocia, in turn, got them from St. Iuvenalis, who was then bishop of Jerusalem, where the chains were already being venerated by pilgrims. These chains were supposed to be the ones mentioned in the passage known as The Liberation of Peter, in chapter 12 of the Book of Acts. The text is relatively short. It reads:
The very night before Herod was going to bring him out, Peter, bound with two chains, was sleeping between two soldiers, while guards in front of the door were keeping watch over the prison. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him, saying, ‘Get up quickly.’ And the chains fell off his wrists. The angel said to him, ‘Fasten your belt and put on your sandals.’ He did so. Then he said to him, ‘Wrap your cloak around you and follow me.’ Peter went out and followed him; he did not realize that what was happening with the angel’s help was real; he thought he was seeing a vision. After they had passed the first and the second guard, they came before the iron gate leading into the city. It opened for them of its own accord, and they went outside and walked along a lane, when suddenly the angel left him. Then Peter came to himself and said, ‘Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hands of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.’
Licinia Eudoxia then presented the chains to Pope Leo I — a doctor of the Church better known for meeting with Attila the Hun and persuading him not to invade Italy. Legend claims that when the pope compared Eudoxia’s chains to those used to incarcerate Peter before his martyrdom (most likely in the Mamertine Prison, where Paul was also imprisoned), the two miraculously fused together.
These chains are now kept in a reliquary under the main altar in San Pietro in Vincoli — but a link can be venerated in St. Peter’s Church in Rutland, Vermont. The basilica, although consecrated in 439 by Sixtus III, has undergone several restorations throughout history, most notably under Pope Julius II (one of the main figures of the High Renaissance) during the Italian Cinquecento.
In collaboration with the Office for Social Communications of the Vicariate of Rome, you can see a slideshow of the basilica here:
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7 Medieval Crops You’ll Regret Not Planting Now!
From Medieval Way
Medieval Way explores the survival strategies of historic households, examining seven essential crops that built a resilient agricultural cycle. By balancing nutrition and soil health, these farmers diversified their planting to withstand unpredictable weather and prevent total harvest failure during harsh seasonal gaps.
It is early spring, and the grain barrel is nearly empty. A medieval family is staring at the bottom of the one thing that stands between them and starvation. The harvest was fine. Nobody was lazy, and nobody wasted a handful. The killer was the calendar, the gap between the day the old food runs low and the day the new crop comes in, and in a bad year that gap killed more people than any war or plague. These are the seven crops a medieval family quietly bet their lives on, in the order they came to the rescue. And keep one eye on the last two, because they decided whether a family came through the winter merely alive or actually healthy.
Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | August
Traditional Catholic morning prayers to help start your day in a godly way! The month of August is dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I hope these prayers increase your devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary this month and draw you closer to her Divine Son, Jesus Christ. Begin each day with morning prayer! This video is a compilation of many traditional evening prayers Catholics say, and should not be considered a replacement for those who have an obligation to pray the Divine Office evening prayers.
7 Things Catholics Do at Funerals That the Church Actually Forbids
From Totus Catholica
There is a moment at almost every Catholic funeral you have ever attended where something happens that the Church's own funeral book says should not happen. Not a matter of taste. A written instruction printed in the official rite and quietly ignored in the room. And here is what makes it difficult: nobody in that room is rebelling. The priest is not being lazy, the family is not being disrespectful. Every one of these things is done out of love. They are just being done inside the wrong ceremony. In this video I show you seven of them with the exact document and the exact paragraph, so you can check every word for yourself.
All seven come from a single misunderstanding.
In this video:
• Why the Church removes the flag, jersey, and medals from the coffin, and what the pall actually means
• The eulogy rule almost everyone online gets wrong, and where you ARE allowed to speak
• Why his favourite recorded song cannot be played at the Mass, but belongs at the wake
• What the Vatican actually permits with cremation ashes, including the 2023 mercy nobody quotes
• Three things you were told are forbidden that are completely allowed, including a Catholic funeral after suicide
⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 The Rule Every Catholic Funeral Quietly Breaks
1:22 Is a Funeral a Tribute or a Rescue
2:19 Jewish Roots: Deuteronomy, Tobit and 2 Maccabees
5:10 The Flag on the Coffin and the Baptismal Pall
6:14 The Eulogy at a Funeral Mass
8:45 Cremation Ashes: What the Vatican Forbids
10:32 Three Things You Were Told Are Banned
📖 SCRIPTURE REFERENCED
• Deuteronomy 21:23
• Tobit 1:17
• 2 Maccabees 12:43-46
⛪ FROM THE CHURCH FATHERS & THE CATECHISM
• Tertullian (2nd to 3rd century)
• Minucius Felix, Octavius (2nd to 3rd century)
• The martyrs of Lyons (year 177)
• St. Augustine (around 420), On the Care of the Dead
• CCC 1030 to 1032
• CCC 2111
📜 SOURCES & FURTHER READING
• Order of Christian Funerals 38: only Christian symbols may rest on or be placed near the coffin during the funeral liturgy.
• Order of Christian Funerals 132: national flags and insignia of associations are removed at the entrance of the church.
• Order of Christian Funerals 30 and 31: the music must express the Paschal Mystery, which rules out music chosen to memorialize the man rather than to praise God.
• Order of Christian Funerals 170: a member or friend of the family may speak in remembrance of the deceased, briefly, before the final commendation. Paragraph numbers follow the English edition used in the United States and may shift slightly in other editions.
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal 382: a short homily is permitted, to the exclusion of a funeral eulogy of any kind.
• General Instruction of the Roman Missal 57: the readings are always taken from Sacred Scripture, and it is not lawful to substitute other texts for them.
• Sing to the Lord 93 (bishops of the United States): recorded music lacks the authenticity provided by the living liturgical assembly. A national norm rather than universal law.
• Canon 1176: the Church earnestly recommends burial but does not forbid cremation, unless it is chosen for reasons contrary to Christian teaching. Cremation has been permitted since 1963.
• Ad Resurgendum cum Christo (Vatican, 2016): ashes are not to be scattered, not to be preserved in jewellery or mementos, and not to be divided among family members. They are to be kept in a sacred place, with the bishop able to permit keeping them at home in grave and exceptional cases.
• Vatican clarification (December 2023): a minimal portion of ashes may be kept somewhere significant to the deceased, with the consent of Church authority.
• Canon 1184: the narrow grounds for denying a funeral, concerning notorious apostasy, heresy, schism, and public scandal. A Catholic funeral is not automatically denied to someone who died by suicide, who stopped practising, or who was divorced and remarried.
• Black vestments are not forbidden. The funeral rite permits white, violet, or black.
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Relics From the Biblical Maccabees Are Housed in Cologne Church
Today is the Feast of the Seven Holy Machabee Brothers and their Mother, Solomonia, martyred together with their teacher, Eleazar.
From Aleteia
By Stephen Beale
The 2nd-century relics traveled from Antioch, to Constantinople, then on to Rome and finally to Cologne in 1164.
The 2nd-century relics traveled from Antioch, to Constantinople, then on to Rome and finally to Cologne in 1164.The fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame revealed something many people might not have known—European churches contain very ancient relics, even by European standards.
In the case of Notre Dame it was Crown of Thorns.
One church in Cologne, Germany, has something even older: a reliquary containing relics of the Maccabean brothers. According to the account in 2 Maccabees, the brothers resisted the efforts of the Hellenistic tyrant Antiochus to exterminate faith in God from the Jewish nation in the 2nd century BC.
The tyrant’s men cut off the tongue, hands, and feet of one brother before throwing him in a large pan to be boiled alive. He died as the other six and their mother looked on.
The next brother likewise refused to relinquish his faith and was tortured and killed. “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to live again forever, because we are dying for his laws,” he said before breathing his last (2 Maccabees 7:9)
One after another each was slaughtered, followed finally by the mother.
Their relics were apparently kept in a Jewish synagogue in Antioch, which eventually came under Christian control, according to a German article on the Archdiocese of Cologne website. The relics were later transferred to Constantinople and Rome and from there to Cologne in 1164. The relics resided in a Benedictine monastery for nuns until 1808 when it was abolished and the reliquary was moved to St. Andrew’s Church, according to the archdiocese.
The reliquary is a magnificent gilded copper box that looks like a miniature church. A total of 40 relief scenes coat the box, telling the story of the Maccabees along with parallel scenes from the life of Christ and Mary. For example, Christ was whipped as were Maccabean brothers, and His crowning with thorns recalls their scalping. (The German site has a complete list of all 40 reliefs.)
On the south side of the box is a Latin inscription: “Archbishop Reginald brought to this … field in 1164 the seven bodies of the Machabeans who indicate the suffering of our Savior, as well as their magnificent Mother Salome, who anticipated the pains of Saint Mary.”
According to one source, the box contains the skulls of all seven brothers. Although the relics are more than 2,000 years old, the reliquary itself dates back to the 1520s, when it was crafted by Peter Hanemann. The reliquary is available for public viewing in a shrine in the church.
Lord, All the Scholars Cannot Agree!! How do I Find Your True Church?!?!
From Erick Ybarra
So many people who have embarked upon the journey of finding the "True Church" from scripture, tradition, history, philosophy, and reason realize that they can be overwhelmed with all the options. Catholics say this, Orthodox say that, Protestants say this other thing, and so on and so forth. Many times, if we are trying to be brutally honest and rigorously accurate, we can observe that the case for 1 side over the other isn't necessarily clear-cut and obvious. Often enough, more and more research leads one to go insane because they keep seeing good punches and uppercuts coming from both sides.
A 9th-century Arabic Catholic, Theodore abu Qurrah (+,825), a mighty defender of the orthodox and catholic faith, wrote treatises on how the farmer, rather than the scholar, can know where the true Church is. That is, someone who can't possibly dive deep into the history, the exegesis of Scripture, the canons, philosophy, and all the other varied sources. Theodore refers to these as the farmers and merchants. How are they to find the truth if they aren't scholars? Heck, even scholars disagree amongst themselves.
Theodore, all the way back in the 9th century (long before the Greek and Latin schism formed), already realized this problem because of the scholarly defenses of the Oriental Orthodox against the Orthodox (i.e., the non-Chalcedonians versus the Chalcedonians). Moreover, you had the Persian Church of the East (which followed the legacy of Nestorius). And so, you have the Orthodox-Catholic Church, the Oriental Orthodox Church, and the Nestorian Church. All three of these, in Theodore's day, claimed Apostolic Succession, the proper reading of Scripture, faithfulness to the Apostolic Tradition per the rule of St. Vincent de Lerins, etc. etc..
So, how do you tell which one is right if you are just a farmer and can't dive into the weeds of this very difficult debate? Or better yet, if you are a regular Joe Smith in the pew today whose hands are dirty from fixing cars all week long, how can you have hope to know what God's single truth is amidst all the scholarly debates over who is right? It can be agonizing, right?
Theodore gives the answer to his readers, and I think many here will enjoy listening to this lecture. He takes the reader through the Bible and Christian tradition and points the reader to the OBVIOUS rules that God has CLEARLY laid down.
St Peter's Chains and the Holy Machabees (Lammas)
From FishEaters
On August 1 we recall two different things: the liberation of St. Peter from his imprisonment in Jerusalem, and the Seven Holy Machabees.
Today's feast is known in Latin as “Sancti Petri ad Vincula," and in English as both "St. Peter's Chains" and as "Lammas." On this day, we commemorate the escape of St. Peter from the chains that imprisoned him after he was arrested by Herod Agrippa I, son of Aristobulus IV, and nephew of Herod Antipas, who had St. John the Baptist put to death. We read in Acts 12 that Herod Agrippa had murdered St. James, the brother of St. John the Evangelist, then:
The chains that bound St. Peter were given to the Emperor Valentinian III's mother-in-law, by Iuvenalis, the Bishop of Jerusalem. The mother-in-law gave them to her daughter, who gave them to Pope St. Leo the Great. When Pope Leo brought the Jerusalem chains together with the chains St. Peter was bound with in Rome, by Nero, before his martyrdom, it's said that the two chains miraculously bound themselves together.
Many other miracles involving St. Peter's Chains are recounted throughout history, and we shouldn't wonder at their power: in Acts 5, we're told of the power of even St. Peter's shadow --
-- about which the Roman Breviary says “if the shadow of [St. Peter’s] body could then bring help, how much more now the fullness of power?...Rightly is that iron of the chains of punishment considered to be more precious than gold throughout the churches of Christ.”
Pope St. Leo built a church to house these chains, a church known in Rome as San Pietro in Vincoli. Consecrated in A.D. 439 by Pope Sixtus III, it was the building of this basilica that inspired the Feast celebrated today. But there are many reasons to keep this feast and recall St. Peter's liberation; the Golden Legend lists a few, and among them is this:
One of the antiphons of today's Divine Office recounts what is said to have happened when St. Peter escaped his imprisonment in Rome: he was liberated by St. Processus and St. Martinian, and was told to leave before he could be recaptured and killed. On his route down the Appian Way to the port of Brindisi, where he wanted to get on a ship and head back to the Middle East, he met Christ. Shocked, he asked Him, "Domine, quo vadis?" ("Lord, where are you going?"). Jesus replied to him, "Venio Romam iterum crucifigi. ("I'm going to Rome to be crucified again.") At those words, St. Peter returned to Rome and embraced his martyrdom.
The Seven Machabees
The day is also focused on the seven Holy Machabees, members of a family whose story is recounted in the two Books of Machabees, which cover the years between 175 and 135 B.C. The Machabees were a priestly family that led Israel to keep the faith while under the yoke of Seleucid Empire. They were a family of fighters -- their name, which you'll also see spelled as "Maccabees," means "Hammer" -- and the aspect of their story that's relevant to today's feast is the martyrdom of seven particular Machabees -- the seven brothers and their mother.
The story begins when an old scribe named Eleazar was told he must eat pork, in violation of the law. He refused. And those who stood by, watching, took some pity on him and, so, tried to get him to merely feign obedience to the king by eating meat that just looked like pork. But Eleazar, as II Machabees 6:23-26 tells us,
For his disobedience, Eleazar was put to death.
In the next chapter of II Machabees, we're told that King Antiochus IV Epiphanes had a woman and her seven sons arrested and tried to get them, too, to eat pork. Tortured by whips and scourges, the oldest boy said, "What wouldst thou ask, or learn of us? we are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God, received from our fathers."
This only brought on more torture -- and stunning martrydom:
One after the other, six of the sons were slaughtered. And their mother?
Antiochus then came up with the idea of promising the last boy that he'd make him rich and happy if he'd just turn away from the laws of his fathers. The King told this to the mother as well, telling her to counsel her last remaining son to take him up on his offer. But the mother leaned over to her boy and said,
He, too, refused, and he was martyred along with his mother. Some of their relics can be venerated today in the same basilica that holds St. Peter's chains -- San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome.
At a time when Christians are being persecuted all over the world, the story of the Machabees is a deeply important one. Remember them always.
One of the most important things you can do today is to think deeply about the qualities of virtue you possess -- or don't possess -- and become very conscious of and purposeful about acquiring the virtues the Machabees so valiantly displayed.
Prayer for the day includes the Responsory of St. Peter, as found in the Raccolta. The custom is to visit an altar dedicated to St. Peter and to pray the following:
As to more folksy customs, you must know that the second English name for this day -- Lammas -- stems from the Old English hlaf, meaning "loaf," and mæsse, meaning "Mass." Breads were made and blessed on this day (a 9th c. martyrology refers to August 1 as hlafsenunga, or "'blessing of bread"), with some of them being destined for the altar. Gratitude to God for the harvest of "first fruits" -- the wheat needed for bread-making, the blueberries and blackberries that begin to ripen at ths time, etc., is one of the popular focuses of the day.
So, the baking of bread and having it blessed -- or, at least, marking it with a Cross before eating it -- would be a lovely thing to do. A no-knead recipe you can try:
Serve with a vegetable-filled soup, and finish with a dessert of blueberries topped with honey-vanilla Greek yogurt, with cinnamon-raisin granola on top.
-- and save a small piece of that loaf you make: you can use some of its crumbs and two pieces of wood to keep mice away -- at least you can according to the words of an 11th c. psalter found in a Winchester monastery 1:
Given the theme of first fruits, a fun activity for your children is the making of cornhusk dolls from corn husks ("corn" here refers to maize. Sweet corn is ready for picking now, but these dolls are also popular around Thanksgiving time, when field corn -- "dent corn," i.e., corn that is used to feed animals -- comes into season). If you start a week ahead of time, you can dye some of the corn husks using fabric dye, such as Rit Dye, letting the husks dry out and then proceeding per the instructions linked to above. This will allow your corn husk dolls to wear brightly-colored clothing and make them more like the ones American pioneers used to make. Corn silk could also be added for hair, etc. And now for a native American story to tell your children while making cornhusk dolls, one claimed by various Indian nations. It's a lesson in humility, and explains why cornhusk dolls made in the Indian style don't have faces (you can, of course, paint faces on yours if you like):
A few tid-bits: rain on Lammas is considered to be good luck. An old proverb relates that
Lammas Eve -- that is, July 31 -- is the birthday of Juliet Capulet, the girl who was foolishly in love with Romeo in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Act I, Scene III of the play includes a discussion between Lady Capulet (Juliet's mother) and the Nurse that gives away that fact:
Finally, you should know that there are many churches and chapels built in honor of St. Peter's chains. There is the already mentioned minor basilica in Rome -- San Pietro in Vincoli -- which houses St. Peter's actual chains (and Michelangelo's statue of Moses), of course, but among the most famous of these is the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Not only are St. Thomas More2 and St. John Fisher interred there, but so are many others who were executed -- usually by beheading -- at the Tower, including Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, and Thomas Cromwell. Apropos of nothing other than the fact that the play takes place in the Tower's St. Peter ad Vincula chapel, I present an episode of the old "Dark Fantasy" radio show: "The Headless Dead" (note: the show mistakenly says that Sir Walter Raleigh is buried in the chapel; he is not). It's very silly, but -- here it is anyway:
Rome, making a god out of the man who had subjugated her, consecrated the month of August to Caesar Augustus. When Christ had delivered her, she placed at the head of this same month, as a trophy of her regained liberty, the Feast of the chains wherewith, in order to break hers, St. Peter the Vicar of Christ had once been bound. O Divine Wisdom, Who hast a better claim to reign over this month than had the adopted son of Caesar, Thou couldst not have more authentically inaugurated Thy Empire. Strength and sweetness are the attributes of Thy works, and it is in the weakness of Thy chosen ones that Thou dost triumph over the powerful. Thou Thyself, in order to give us life, didst swallow death; Simon, son of John, became a captive, to set free the world entrusted to him. First Herod, and then Nero, showed him the cost of the promise he had once received, of binding and loosing on earth as in Heaven: he had to share the love of the Supreme Shepherd, even to allowing himself, like Him, to be bound with chains for the sake of the flock, and be led "where he would not."
St. Peter in ChainsGlorious chains! never will you make St. Peter's successors tremble any more than St. Peter himself; before the Herods and Neros and Caesars of all ages you will be the guarantee of the liberty of souls. With what veneration have the Christian people honored you, ever since the earliest times! One may truly say of the present Feast that its origin is lost in the darkness of ages. According to ancient monuments, St. Peter himself first consecrated on this date the basilica on the highest of the seven hills, known today as St. Peter in Chains. The name Title of Eudoxia, by which the venerable Church is often designated, seems to have arisen from certain restorations made on occasion of the events mentioned in the Breviary Lessons. As to the sacred chains which are its treasure, the earliest mention now extant of honor being paid to them occurs in the beginning of the 2nd century. Balbina, daughter of the tribune Quirinus, keeper of the prisons, had been cured by touching the chains of the holy Pope Alexander; she could not cease kissing the hands which had healed her. "Find the chains of St. Peter, and kiss them rather than these," said the Pontiff. Balbina, therefore, having fortunately found the Apostle's chains, lavished her pious veneration upon them, and afterwards gave them to the noble Theodora, sister of the Martyr, St. Hermes (Feast—August 28).
The irons which had bound the arms of the Doctor of the Gentiles, without being able to bind the word of God, were also after his martyrdom treasured more than jewels and gold. From Antioch in Syria, St. John Chrysostom, thinking with holy envy of the lands enriched by these trophies of triumphant bondage, cried out in a sublime transport: "What more magnificent than these chains? Prisoner for Christ is a more beautiful name than that of Apostle, Evangelist, or Doctor. To be bound for Christ's sake is better than to dwell in the heavens; to sit upon the twelve thrones is not so great an honor. He that loves can understand me; but who can better understand these things than the holy choir of Apostles? As for me, if I were offered my choice between these chains and the whole of Heaven, I should not hesitate; for in them is happiness. Would that I were now in those places, where it is said the chains of these admirable men are still kept! If it were given me to be set free from the care of this church, and if I had a little health, I should not hesitate to undertake such a voyage only to see St. Paul's chains. If they said to me: which would you prefer—to be the angel who delivered St. Peter or St. Peter himself in chains? I would rather be St. Peter, because of his chains."
Though always venerated in the great Basilica which enshrines his tomb, St. Paul's chain has never been made, like those of St. Peter, the object of a special Feast in the Church. This distinction was made due to the preeminence of him who alone received the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to communicate them to others, and who alone continues, in his successors, to bind and loose with sovereign power throughout the whole world. The collection of letters of St. Gregory the Great proves how universally, in the 6th century, was spread the devotion to these holy chains, a few filings of which enclosed in gold or silver keys was the richest present the Sovereign Pontiffs were wont to offer to the principal churches, or to princes whom they wished to honor. Constantinople, at some period not clearly determined, received a portion of these precious chains; she appointed a Feast on January 16, honoring on that day the Apostle Peter, as the occupant of the first See, the foundation of the faith, the immovable basis of dogma.
The following are the lessons of the Feast in the Roman Breviary:
During the reign of Theodosius the younger, Eudocia, his wife, went to Jerusalem to fulfill a vow, and while there she was honored with many gifts, the greatest of which was an iron chain adorned with gold and precious stones, and affirmed to be that wherewith the Apostle Peter had been bound by Herod. Eudocia piously venerated this chain, and then sent it to Rome to her daughter Eudoxia. The latter took it to the Sovereign Pontiff, who in his turn showed her another chain, which had bound the same Apostle, under Nero.
When the Pontiff thus brought together the Roman chain and that which had come from Jerusalem, they joined together in such a manner that they seemed no longer two chains, but a single one, made by one same workman. On account of this miracle the holy chains began to be held in so great honor that a church at the title of Eudoxia on the Esquiline was dedicated under the name of Saint Peter ad Vincula, and the memory of its dedication was celebrated by a Feast on the Kalends of August.
St. Peter's ChainsFrom that time Saint Peter's chains began to receive the honors of this day, instead of a pagan festival which it had been customary to celebrate. Contact with them healed the sick, and put the demons to flight. Thus in the year of salvation 969, a certain count, who was very intimate with the Emperor Otto, was taken possession of by an unclean spirit, so that he tore his flesh with his own teeth. By command of the Emperor he was taken to the Pontiff John, who had no sooner touched the count's neck with the holy chain than the wicked spirit was driven away, leaving the man entirely free. On this account devotion to the holy chains was spread throughout Rome.
Put thy feet into the fetters of Wisdom, and thy neck into her chains, said the Holy Ghost under the ancient alliance… and be not grieved with her bands… For in the latter end thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned to thy joy. Then shall her fetters be a strong defence for thee… and her bands are a healthful binding. Thou shalt put her on as a robe of glory (Eccli. 6:25-32). Incarnate Wisdom, applying the prophecy to the Prince of the Apostles, declared that in testimony of his love, the day would come when he should suffer constraint and bondage. The trial of St. Peter was a convincing one for eternal Wisdom, who proportions her requirements to the measure of her own love. But St. Peter, too, found her faithful; in the days of the formidable combat, wherein she wished to show her power in his weakness, she did not leave him in bands; in her arms he slept so calm a sleep in Herod's prison; and, going down with him into the pit of Nero, she faithfully kept him company up to the hour when, subjecting the persecutors to the persecuted, she placed the scepter in his hands, and on his brow the triple crown.
From the throne where thou, St. Peter, reignest with the Man-God in Heaven, as thou didst follow Him on earth in trials and anguish, loosen our bands, which—alas—are not glorious ones such as thine; break these fetters of sin which bind us to Satan, these ties of all the passions which prevent us from soaring towards God. The world, more than ever enslaved in the infatuation of its false liberties which make it forget the only true freedom, demands more "rights" now than in the times of pagan Caesars: be once more its deliverer, now that thou art more powerful than ever. May Rome, especially, now fallen the lower because precipitated from a greater height, learn again the emancipating power which lies in thy chains; they had become a rallying standard for her faithful children not long ago (Archconfraternity of St. Peter's Chains, erected June 18, 1867). Make good the word once uttered by her poets, that "encircled with these chains, she will ever be free" (Arator. De Act. Apost., L. 1, v. 1070-1076).
Feast of the Holy Machabees
From "The Liturgical Year"
By Dom Prosper Gueranger
The August heavens glitter with the brightest constellations of the sacred cycle. Even in the 6th century, the Second Council of Tours remarked that this month was filled with the Feasts of Saints. My delights are to be with the children of men, says Wisdom; and in the month which echoes with her teachings, she seems to have made it her glory to be surrounded with blessed ones, who, walking with her in the midst of the paths of judgment, have in finding her found life and salvation from the Lord. This noble court is presided over by the Queen of all grace, whose triumph consecrates this month and makes it the delight of that Wisdom of the Father, Who, once enthroned in Mary, never quitted Her. What a wealth of divine favors do the coming days promise to our souls! Never were our Father's barns so well filled as at this season, when the earthly as well as the heavenly harvests are ripe.
Shrine of MachabeesWhile the Church on earth inaugurates these days by adorning Herself with St. Peter's chains as with a precious jewel, a constellation of seven stars appears for the third time in the heavens. The seven brothers Machabees preceded the seven sons of St. Symphorosa and the seven sons of St. Felicitas in the bloodstained arena; they followed Divine Wisdom even before she had manifested her beauty in the flesh. The sacred cause of which they were the champions, their strength of soul under the tortures, their sublime answers to the executioners were so evidently the type reproduced by the later martyrs, that the Fathers of the first centuries with one accord claimed for the Christian Church these heroes of the synagogue, who could have gained such courage from no other source than their faith in the Christ to come. For this reason they alone of all the holy personages of the Old Covenant have found a place on the Christian cycle of Saints; all the martyrologies and calendars of East and West attest the universality of their cultus, while its antiquity is such as to rival that of St. Peter's Chains in that same basilica of Eudoxia, where their precious relics lie.
At the time when in the hope of a better resurrection they refused under cruel torments to redeem their lives, other heroes of the same blood, inspired by the same faith, flew to arms and delivered their country from a terrible crisis. Several children of Israel, forgetting the traditions of their nation, had wished it to follow the customs of strange peoples; and the Lord, in punishment, had allowed Judea to feel the whole weight of a profane rule to which it had guiltily submitted. But when King Antiochus, taking advantage of the treason of a few and the carelessness of the majority, endeavored by his ordinances to blot out the divine law which alone gives power to man over man, Israel, suddenly awakened, met the tyrant with the double opposition of revolt and martyrdom. Judas Machabeus in immortal battles reclaimed for God the land of his inheritance, while by the virtue of their generous confession, the seven brothers also, his rivals in glory, recovered, as the Scripture says, the law out of the hands of the nations, and out of the hands of the kings (1 Mach. 2:48). Soon afterwards, craving mercy under the hand of God and not finding it, Antiochus died, devoured by worms, just as later on were to die the first and last persecutors of the Christians, Herod Agrippa and Galerius Maximian.
Persecuted JewsThe Holy Ghost, who would Himself hand down to posterity the acts of the protomartyr of the New Law, did the same with regard to the passion of Stephen's glorious predecessors in the ages of expectation. Indeed, it was he who then, as under the law of love, inspired with both words and courage these valiant brothers, and their still more admirable mother, who, seeing her seven sons one after the other suffering the most horrible tortures, uttered nothing but burning exhortations to die. Surrounded by their mutilated bodies, she mocked the tyrant who, in false pity, wished her to persuade at least the youngest to save his life; she bent over the last child of her tender love and said to him: My son, have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. I beseech thee, my son, look upon Heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also: so thou shalt not fear this tormentor, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren (2 Mach. 7:27, 28, 29). And the intrepid youth ran in his innocence to the tortures; and the incomparable mother followed her sons.
The Breviary Lesson is taken from a sermon of St. Gregory Nazianzen:
What [shall I say] of the Machabees? For this festal day is celebrated in their name by this present congregation. Although by many they are not held in honor, because they did not enter on the conflict after Christ, yet they are worthy to be honored by all, because they showed courage and constancy in defense of the laws and institutions of their fathers. For if they suffered martyrdom before the Passion of Christ, what would they have done, if they had suffered persecution after Christ, and if they had had, as a model to be imitated, His death, which He accepted for our salvation? For, if they showed such and so great a courage, when they had no example before them, would they not have been even more courageous in the battle, if they had had that example before their eyes? There is even a certain mystical and hidden reason, which seems highly probable to me, and to all who love God, that none of those who suffered martyrdom before the coming of Christ could have attained to it without faith in Christ.
Notes:
1 Quote from Karen Louise Jolly, "The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England," ed. Catherine E. Karkov, Sarah Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press), p. 79; via a translation made by the author of the blog "A Clerk of Oxford," URL: https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com
2 St. Thomas More's body is buried there; his head is interred at St. Dunstan's Church in Canterbury.
Today's feast is known in Latin as “Sancti Petri ad Vincula," and in English as both "St. Peter's Chains" and as "Lammas." On this day, we commemorate the escape of St. Peter from the chains that imprisoned him after he was arrested by Herod Agrippa I, son of Aristobulus IV, and nephew of Herod Antipas, who had St. John the Baptist put to death. We read in Acts 12 that Herod Agrippa had murdered St. James, the brother of St. John the Evangelist, then:
seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also. Now it was in the days of the Azymes. And when he had apprehended him, he cast him into prison, delivering him to four files of soldiers to be kept, intending, after the pasch, to bring him forth to the people.
Peter therefore was kept in prison. But prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
And behold an angel of the Lord stood by him: and a light shined in the room: and he striking Peter on the side, raised him up, saying: Arise quickly. And the chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said to him: Gird thyself, and put on thy sandals. And he did so. And he said to him: Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me.
Peter therefore was kept in prison. But prayer was made without ceasing by the church unto God for him. And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.
And behold an angel of the Lord stood by him: and a light shined in the room: and he striking Peter on the side, raised him up, saying: Arise quickly. And the chains fell off from his hands. And the angel said to him: Gird thyself, and put on thy sandals. And he did so. And he said to him: Cast thy garment about thee, and follow me.
The chains that bound St. Peter were given to the Emperor Valentinian III's mother-in-law, by Iuvenalis, the Bishop of Jerusalem. The mother-in-law gave them to her daughter, who gave them to Pope St. Leo the Great. When Pope Leo brought the Jerusalem chains together with the chains St. Peter was bound with in Rome, by Nero, before his martyrdom, it's said that the two chains miraculously bound themselves together.
Many other miracles involving St. Peter's Chains are recounted throughout history, and we shouldn't wonder at their power: in Acts 5, we're told of the power of even St. Peter's shadow --
And the multitude of men and women who believed in the Lord, was more increased: Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that when Peter came, his shadow at the least, might overshadow any of them, and they might be delivered from their infirmities.
-- about which the Roman Breviary says “if the shadow of [St. Peter’s] body could then bring help, how much more now the fullness of power?...Rightly is that iron of the chains of punishment considered to be more precious than gold throughout the churches of Christ.”
Pope St. Leo built a church to house these chains, a church known in Rome as San Pietro in Vincoli. Consecrated in A.D. 439 by Pope Sixtus III, it was the building of this basilica that inspired the Feast celebrated today. But there are many reasons to keep this feast and recall St. Peter's liberation; the Golden Legend lists a few, and among them is this:
The fourth cause of the institution of this feast may be assigned here in this wise. For our Lord delivered S. Peter out of his chains by miracle, and gave him power to bind and to unbind. For we be holden and bounden unto the bond of sin and have need to be assoiled. Therefore we worship the solemnity of the chains aforesaid. For as he deserved to be unbound of the bonds of his chains, so received he power of our Lord Jesu Christ to assoil us.
One of the antiphons of today's Divine Office recounts what is said to have happened when St. Peter escaped his imprisonment in Rome: he was liberated by St. Processus and St. Martinian, and was told to leave before he could be recaptured and killed. On his route down the Appian Way to the port of Brindisi, where he wanted to get on a ship and head back to the Middle East, he met Christ. Shocked, he asked Him, "Domine, quo vadis?" ("Lord, where are you going?"). Jesus replied to him, "Venio Romam iterum crucifigi. ("I'm going to Rome to be crucified again.") At those words, St. Peter returned to Rome and embraced his martyrdom.
The Seven Machabees
The day is also focused on the seven Holy Machabees, members of a family whose story is recounted in the two Books of Machabees, which cover the years between 175 and 135 B.C. The Machabees were a priestly family that led Israel to keep the faith while under the yoke of Seleucid Empire. They were a family of fighters -- their name, which you'll also see spelled as "Maccabees," means "Hammer" -- and the aspect of their story that's relevant to today's feast is the martyrdom of seven particular Machabees -- the seven brothers and their mother.
The story begins when an old scribe named Eleazar was told he must eat pork, in violation of the law. He refused. And those who stood by, watching, took some pity on him and, so, tried to get him to merely feign obedience to the king by eating meat that just looked like pork. But Eleazar, as II Machabees 6:23-26 tells us,
began to consider the dignity of his age, and his ancient years, and the inbred honour of his grey head, and his good life and conversation from a child: and he answered without delay, according to the ordinances of the holy law made by God, saying, that he would rather be sent into the other world. For it doth not become our age, said he, to dissemble: whereby many young persons might think that Eleazar, at the age of fourscore and ten years, was gone over to the life of the heathens. And so they, through my dissimulation, and for a little time of a corruptible life, should be deceived, and hereby I should bring a stain and a curse upon my old age. For though, for the present time, I should be delivered from the punishments of men, yet should I not escape the hand of the Almighty neither alive nor dead.
For his disobedience, Eleazar was put to death.
In the next chapter of II Machabees, we're told that King Antiochus IV Epiphanes had a woman and her seven sons arrested and tried to get them, too, to eat pork. Tortured by whips and scourges, the oldest boy said, "What wouldst thou ask, or learn of us? we are ready to die rather than to transgress the laws of God, received from our fathers."
This only brought on more torture -- and stunning martrydom:
Then the king being angry commanded fryingpans, and brazen caldrons to be made hot: which forthwith being heated, He commanded to cut out the tongue of him that had spoken first: and the skin of his head being drawn off, to chop off also the extremities of his hands and feet, the rest of his brethren, and his mother, looking on.
And when he was now maimed in all parts, he commanded him, being yet alive, to be brought to the fire, and to be fried in the fryingpan: and while he was suffering therein long torments, the rest, together with the mother, exhorted one another to die manfully...
And when he was now maimed in all parts, he commanded him, being yet alive, to be brought to the fire, and to be fried in the fryingpan: and while he was suffering therein long torments, the rest, together with the mother, exhorted one another to die manfully...
One after the other, six of the sons were slaughtered. And their mother?
Now the mother was to be admired above measure, and worthy to be remembered by good men, who beheld seven sons slain in the space of one day, and bore it with a good courage, for the hope that she had in God: And she bravely exhorted every one of them in her own language, being filled with wisdom: and joining a man's heart to a woman's thought, She said to them: I know not how you were formed in my womb: for I neither gave you breath, nor soul, nor life, neither did I frame the limbs of every one of you. But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all, He will restore to you again in His mercy, both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of His laws.
Antiochus then came up with the idea of promising the last boy that he'd make him rich and happy if he'd just turn away from the laws of his fathers. The King told this to the mother as well, telling her to counsel her last remaining son to take him up on his offer. But the mother leaned over to her boy and said,
My son, have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also: So thou shalt not fear this tormentor, but being made a worthy partner with thy brethren, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren.
He, too, refused, and he was martyred along with his mother. Some of their relics can be venerated today in the same basilica that holds St. Peter's chains -- San Pietro in Vincoli, in Rome.
At a time when Christians are being persecuted all over the world, the story of the Machabees is a deeply important one. Remember them always.
Customs
One of the most important things you can do today is to think deeply about the qualities of virtue you possess -- or don't possess -- and become very conscious of and purposeful about acquiring the virtues the Machabees so valiantly displayed.
Prayer for the day includes the Responsory of St. Peter, as found in the Raccolta. The custom is to visit an altar dedicated to St. Peter and to pray the following:
Seek ye a patron to defend your cause? Then, one and all, Without delay upon the Prince Of the Apostles call. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. By penitential tears thou didst The path of life regain ; Teach us with thee to weep our sins, And wash away their stain. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. The angel touch’d thee, and forthwith Thy chains from off thee fell; Oh, loose us from the subtle coils That bind us fast to hell. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. Firm rock, whereon the Church is based, Pillar that cannot bend, With strength endue us; and the faith from heresy defend. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. Save Rome, which from the days of old Thy blood hath sanctified; And help the nations of the earth That in thy help confide. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. Oh, worshipp’d by all Christendom, Her realms in peace maintain; Let no contagion sap her strength, No discord rend in twain. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. The weapons which our ancient foe Against us doth prepare, Crush thou; nor suffer us to fall Into his deadly snare. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. Guard us through life; and in that hour When our last flight draws nigh, O’er death, o’er hell, o’er Satans power, Gain us the victory. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost. Blest holder of the heavenly keys, Thy prayers we all implore; Unlock to us the sacred bars Of heaven’s eternal door. Ant. Thou art the Shepherd of the sheep, Prince of the Apostles; to thee were given the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. V/. Thou art Peter R/. And upon this rock will I build my Church. Let us pray. O Lord, we beseech thee, raise us up by the Apostolic might of blessed Peter, thy Apostle; that, the weaker we are in ourselves, the more powerful may be the assistance whereby we are strengthened through his intercession; that thus, ever fortified by the protection of thy Apostle, we may neither yield to sin nor be overwhelmed by adversity. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. |
As to more folksy customs, you must know that the second English name for this day -- Lammas -- stems from the Old English hlaf, meaning "loaf," and mæsse, meaning "Mass." Breads were made and blessed on this day (a 9th c. martyrology refers to August 1 as hlafsenunga, or "'blessing of bread"), with some of them being destined for the altar. Gratitude to God for the harvest of "first fruits" -- the wheat needed for bread-making, the blueberries and blackberries that begin to ripen at ths time, etc., is one of the popular focuses of the day.
So, the baking of bread and having it blessed -- or, at least, marking it with a Cross before eating it -- would be a lovely thing to do. A no-knead recipe you can try:
No-Knead Bread
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour (+ a bit extra for later), aerated before measuring (just stir so air is incorporated)
1/4 teaspoon yeast (active dry or instant)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups hot water, at about 125° F (no hotter than 140°!)
Mix well together flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for at least 3 hours.
After at least 3 hours, when dough is dotted with bubbles, transfer it to a well-floured surface and sprinkle with a little flour. Fold dough over 10-12 times & shape into a rough ball, using a scraper to include all the dough. Place in a parchment paper-lined bowl, cover with a towel, and let stand for about 35 minutes.
Put a Dutch oven (one that's somewhere between 3 1/2 qt to 5 1/2 qt size should do) with an oven-safe lid in a cold oven and preheat to 450° F. When the oven and Dutch oven are both hot, carefully remove lid from the latter and place the dough inside along with the parchment paper it's sitting on. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove lid and parchment, return uncovered to the oven, and bake 10 to 15 minutes more. Cool and eat.
3 cups all-purpose or bread flour (+ a bit extra for later), aerated before measuring (just stir so air is incorporated)
1/4 teaspoon yeast (active dry or instant)
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups hot water, at about 125° F (no hotter than 140°!)
Mix well together flour, yeast and salt in a large bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature for at least 3 hours.
After at least 3 hours, when dough is dotted with bubbles, transfer it to a well-floured surface and sprinkle with a little flour. Fold dough over 10-12 times & shape into a rough ball, using a scraper to include all the dough. Place in a parchment paper-lined bowl, cover with a towel, and let stand for about 35 minutes.
Put a Dutch oven (one that's somewhere between 3 1/2 qt to 5 1/2 qt size should do) with an oven-safe lid in a cold oven and preheat to 450° F. When the oven and Dutch oven are both hot, carefully remove lid from the latter and place the dough inside along with the parchment paper it's sitting on. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, remove lid and parchment, return uncovered to the oven, and bake 10 to 15 minutes more. Cool and eat.
Serve with a vegetable-filled soup, and finish with a dessert of blueberries topped with honey-vanilla Greek yogurt, with cinnamon-raisin granola on top.
-- and save a small piece of that loaf you make: you can use some of its crumbs and two pieces of wood to keep mice away -- at least you can according to the words of an 11th c. psalter found in a Winchester monastery 1:
[Take two] long pieces of four-edged wood, and on each piece write a Pater Noster, on each side down to the end. Lay one on the floor of the barn, and lay the other across it, so that they form the sign of the cross. And take four pieces of the hallowed bread which is blessed on Lammas day, and crumble them at the four corners of the barn. This is the blessing for that; so that mice do not harm these sheaves, say prayers over the sheaves and do not cease from saying them. 'City of Jerusalem, where mice do not live they cannot have power, and cannot gather the grain, nor rejoice with the harvest.' This is the second blessing: 'Lord God Almighty, Who made heaven and earth, bless these fruits in the Name of the Father and the Holy Spirit.' Amen. And [then say] a Pater Noster.
Given the theme of first fruits, a fun activity for your children is the making of cornhusk dolls from corn husks ("corn" here refers to maize. Sweet corn is ready for picking now, but these dolls are also popular around Thanksgiving time, when field corn -- "dent corn," i.e., corn that is used to feed animals -- comes into season). If you start a week ahead of time, you can dye some of the corn husks using fabric dye, such as Rit Dye, letting the husks dry out and then proceeding per the instructions linked to above. This will allow your corn husk dolls to wear brightly-colored clothing and make them more like the ones American pioneers used to make. Corn silk could also be added for hair, etc. And now for a native American story to tell your children while making cornhusk dolls, one claimed by various Indian nations. It's a lesson in humility, and explains why cornhusk dolls made in the Indian style don't have faces (you can, of course, paint faces on yours if you like):
The three sisters -- Corn, Beans, and Squash -- did such a great job sustaining the people, and God was very pleased with them. Corn, especially, did well, so God asked her what she would like. She told Him that she would love for a doll to be made of her husks -- a doll that would bring joy to little girls and boys. So God let Corn make Cornhusk Doll.
Cornhusk Doll was a beautiful thing, and as she went about the world, people would praise her. "Oh, Cornhusk Doll, you are so gorgeous!" They would say to each other, "Have you ever seen a more beautiful doll than Cornhusk Doll?" And no one had.
The more she heard this, the more conceited she became. She would brag, and she would spend hours at the lake, gazing into the waters so she could marvel at her lovely reflection. God became angry at Cornhusk Doll, and told her she'd better cut it out and get some humility or she would be punished.
But Cornhusk Doll didn't listen. On and on she went, admiring herself, and acting all uppity. So once more, God warned her. "Cornhusk Doll, if you don't behave, you will be punished!" But did Cornhusk Doll listen? No. Cornhusk Doll did what she wanted.
After a few years of this, God finally told Cornhusk Doll that it was time for her to be punished. So what do you think happened to Cornhusk Doll? No, she wasn't struck by lightning. No, she didn't get a case of the boils. And no, fire didn't come from the sky and burn her up. In fact, she felt nothing at all. So she went on her way, thinking all was well, carrying on as she usually did -- like she was the queen of the world. Then she came to her favorite spot: the lake. But when she looked into the waters to see her beautiful face, she saw that she had no face at all.
Cornhusk Doll was a beautiful thing, and as she went about the world, people would praise her. "Oh, Cornhusk Doll, you are so gorgeous!" They would say to each other, "Have you ever seen a more beautiful doll than Cornhusk Doll?" And no one had.
The more she heard this, the more conceited she became. She would brag, and she would spend hours at the lake, gazing into the waters so she could marvel at her lovely reflection. God became angry at Cornhusk Doll, and told her she'd better cut it out and get some humility or she would be punished.
But Cornhusk Doll didn't listen. On and on she went, admiring herself, and acting all uppity. So once more, God warned her. "Cornhusk Doll, if you don't behave, you will be punished!" But did Cornhusk Doll listen? No. Cornhusk Doll did what she wanted.
After a few years of this, God finally told Cornhusk Doll that it was time for her to be punished. So what do you think happened to Cornhusk Doll? No, she wasn't struck by lightning. No, she didn't get a case of the boils. And no, fire didn't come from the sky and burn her up. In fact, she felt nothing at all. So she went on her way, thinking all was well, carrying on as she usually did -- like she was the queen of the world. Then she came to her favorite spot: the lake. But when she looked into the waters to see her beautiful face, she saw that she had no face at all.
A few tid-bits: rain on Lammas is considered to be good luck. An old proverb relates that
A frosty winter and a dusty March, and a rain about April;
And another about Lammas time, when the corn begins to fill;
Is worth a plough of gold and all her pins theretil.
And another about Lammas time, when the corn begins to fill;
Is worth a plough of gold and all her pins theretil.
Lammas Eve -- that is, July 31 -- is the birthday of Juliet Capulet, the girl who was foolishly in love with Romeo in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." Act I, Scene III of the play includes a discussion between Lady Capulet (Juliet's mother) and the Nurse that gives away that fact:
| Lady Capulet: | ...Thou know'st my daughter's of a pretty age. |
| Nurse: | Faith, I can tell her age unto an hour. |
| Lady Capulet: | She's not fourteen. |
| Nurse: | I'll lay fourteen of my teeth,-- And yet, to my teeth be it spoken, I have but four-- She is not fourteen. How long is it now To Lammas-tide? |
| Lady Capulet: | A fortnight and odd days. |
| Nurse: | Even or odd, of all days in the year, Come Lammas-eve at night shall she be fourteen. |
Finally, you should know that there are many churches and chapels built in honor of St. Peter's chains. There is the already mentioned minor basilica in Rome -- San Pietro in Vincoli -- which houses St. Peter's actual chains (and Michelangelo's statue of Moses), of course, but among the most famous of these is the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London. Not only are St. Thomas More2 and St. John Fisher interred there, but so are many others who were executed -- usually by beheading -- at the Tower, including Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard, Lady Jane Grey, and Thomas Cromwell. Apropos of nothing other than the fact that the play takes place in the Tower's St. Peter ad Vincula chapel, I present an episode of the old "Dark Fantasy" radio show: "The Headless Dead" (note: the show mistakenly says that Sir Walter Raleigh is buried in the chapel; he is not). It's very silly, but -- here it is anyway:
Readings
Feast of St. Peter's Chains
From "The Liturgical Year"
By Dom Prosper Gueranger
From "The Liturgical Year"
By Dom Prosper Gueranger
Rome, making a god out of the man who had subjugated her, consecrated the month of August to Caesar Augustus. When Christ had delivered her, she placed at the head of this same month, as a trophy of her regained liberty, the Feast of the chains wherewith, in order to break hers, St. Peter the Vicar of Christ had once been bound. O Divine Wisdom, Who hast a better claim to reign over this month than had the adopted son of Caesar, Thou couldst not have more authentically inaugurated Thy Empire. Strength and sweetness are the attributes of Thy works, and it is in the weakness of Thy chosen ones that Thou dost triumph over the powerful. Thou Thyself, in order to give us life, didst swallow death; Simon, son of John, became a captive, to set free the world entrusted to him. First Herod, and then Nero, showed him the cost of the promise he had once received, of binding and loosing on earth as in Heaven: he had to share the love of the Supreme Shepherd, even to allowing himself, like Him, to be bound with chains for the sake of the flock, and be led "where he would not."
St. Peter in ChainsGlorious chains! never will you make St. Peter's successors tremble any more than St. Peter himself; before the Herods and Neros and Caesars of all ages you will be the guarantee of the liberty of souls. With what veneration have the Christian people honored you, ever since the earliest times! One may truly say of the present Feast that its origin is lost in the darkness of ages. According to ancient monuments, St. Peter himself first consecrated on this date the basilica on the highest of the seven hills, known today as St. Peter in Chains. The name Title of Eudoxia, by which the venerable Church is often designated, seems to have arisen from certain restorations made on occasion of the events mentioned in the Breviary Lessons. As to the sacred chains which are its treasure, the earliest mention now extant of honor being paid to them occurs in the beginning of the 2nd century. Balbina, daughter of the tribune Quirinus, keeper of the prisons, had been cured by touching the chains of the holy Pope Alexander; she could not cease kissing the hands which had healed her. "Find the chains of St. Peter, and kiss them rather than these," said the Pontiff. Balbina, therefore, having fortunately found the Apostle's chains, lavished her pious veneration upon them, and afterwards gave them to the noble Theodora, sister of the Martyr, St. Hermes (Feast—August 28).
The irons which had bound the arms of the Doctor of the Gentiles, without being able to bind the word of God, were also after his martyrdom treasured more than jewels and gold. From Antioch in Syria, St. John Chrysostom, thinking with holy envy of the lands enriched by these trophies of triumphant bondage, cried out in a sublime transport: "What more magnificent than these chains? Prisoner for Christ is a more beautiful name than that of Apostle, Evangelist, or Doctor. To be bound for Christ's sake is better than to dwell in the heavens; to sit upon the twelve thrones is not so great an honor. He that loves can understand me; but who can better understand these things than the holy choir of Apostles? As for me, if I were offered my choice between these chains and the whole of Heaven, I should not hesitate; for in them is happiness. Would that I were now in those places, where it is said the chains of these admirable men are still kept! If it were given me to be set free from the care of this church, and if I had a little health, I should not hesitate to undertake such a voyage only to see St. Paul's chains. If they said to me: which would you prefer—to be the angel who delivered St. Peter or St. Peter himself in chains? I would rather be St. Peter, because of his chains."
Though always venerated in the great Basilica which enshrines his tomb, St. Paul's chain has never been made, like those of St. Peter, the object of a special Feast in the Church. This distinction was made due to the preeminence of him who alone received the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven to communicate them to others, and who alone continues, in his successors, to bind and loose with sovereign power throughout the whole world. The collection of letters of St. Gregory the Great proves how universally, in the 6th century, was spread the devotion to these holy chains, a few filings of which enclosed in gold or silver keys was the richest present the Sovereign Pontiffs were wont to offer to the principal churches, or to princes whom they wished to honor. Constantinople, at some period not clearly determined, received a portion of these precious chains; she appointed a Feast on January 16, honoring on that day the Apostle Peter, as the occupant of the first See, the foundation of the faith, the immovable basis of dogma.
The following are the lessons of the Feast in the Roman Breviary:
During the reign of Theodosius the younger, Eudocia, his wife, went to Jerusalem to fulfill a vow, and while there she was honored with many gifts, the greatest of which was an iron chain adorned with gold and precious stones, and affirmed to be that wherewith the Apostle Peter had been bound by Herod. Eudocia piously venerated this chain, and then sent it to Rome to her daughter Eudoxia. The latter took it to the Sovereign Pontiff, who in his turn showed her another chain, which had bound the same Apostle, under Nero.
When the Pontiff thus brought together the Roman chain and that which had come from Jerusalem, they joined together in such a manner that they seemed no longer two chains, but a single one, made by one same workman. On account of this miracle the holy chains began to be held in so great honor that a church at the title of Eudoxia on the Esquiline was dedicated under the name of Saint Peter ad Vincula, and the memory of its dedication was celebrated by a Feast on the Kalends of August.
St. Peter's ChainsFrom that time Saint Peter's chains began to receive the honors of this day, instead of a pagan festival which it had been customary to celebrate. Contact with them healed the sick, and put the demons to flight. Thus in the year of salvation 969, a certain count, who was very intimate with the Emperor Otto, was taken possession of by an unclean spirit, so that he tore his flesh with his own teeth. By command of the Emperor he was taken to the Pontiff John, who had no sooner touched the count's neck with the holy chain than the wicked spirit was driven away, leaving the man entirely free. On this account devotion to the holy chains was spread throughout Rome.
Put thy feet into the fetters of Wisdom, and thy neck into her chains, said the Holy Ghost under the ancient alliance… and be not grieved with her bands… For in the latter end thou shalt find rest in her, and she shall be turned to thy joy. Then shall her fetters be a strong defence for thee… and her bands are a healthful binding. Thou shalt put her on as a robe of glory (Eccli. 6:25-32). Incarnate Wisdom, applying the prophecy to the Prince of the Apostles, declared that in testimony of his love, the day would come when he should suffer constraint and bondage. The trial of St. Peter was a convincing one for eternal Wisdom, who proportions her requirements to the measure of her own love. But St. Peter, too, found her faithful; in the days of the formidable combat, wherein she wished to show her power in his weakness, she did not leave him in bands; in her arms he slept so calm a sleep in Herod's prison; and, going down with him into the pit of Nero, she faithfully kept him company up to the hour when, subjecting the persecutors to the persecuted, she placed the scepter in his hands, and on his brow the triple crown.
From the throne where thou, St. Peter, reignest with the Man-God in Heaven, as thou didst follow Him on earth in trials and anguish, loosen our bands, which—alas—are not glorious ones such as thine; break these fetters of sin which bind us to Satan, these ties of all the passions which prevent us from soaring towards God. The world, more than ever enslaved in the infatuation of its false liberties which make it forget the only true freedom, demands more "rights" now than in the times of pagan Caesars: be once more its deliverer, now that thou art more powerful than ever. May Rome, especially, now fallen the lower because precipitated from a greater height, learn again the emancipating power which lies in thy chains; they had become a rallying standard for her faithful children not long ago (Archconfraternity of St. Peter's Chains, erected June 18, 1867). Make good the word once uttered by her poets, that "encircled with these chains, she will ever be free" (Arator. De Act. Apost., L. 1, v. 1070-1076).
Feast of the Holy Machabees
From "The Liturgical Year"
By Dom Prosper Gueranger
The August heavens glitter with the brightest constellations of the sacred cycle. Even in the 6th century, the Second Council of Tours remarked that this month was filled with the Feasts of Saints. My delights are to be with the children of men, says Wisdom; and in the month which echoes with her teachings, she seems to have made it her glory to be surrounded with blessed ones, who, walking with her in the midst of the paths of judgment, have in finding her found life and salvation from the Lord. This noble court is presided over by the Queen of all grace, whose triumph consecrates this month and makes it the delight of that Wisdom of the Father, Who, once enthroned in Mary, never quitted Her. What a wealth of divine favors do the coming days promise to our souls! Never were our Father's barns so well filled as at this season, when the earthly as well as the heavenly harvests are ripe.
Shrine of MachabeesWhile the Church on earth inaugurates these days by adorning Herself with St. Peter's chains as with a precious jewel, a constellation of seven stars appears for the third time in the heavens. The seven brothers Machabees preceded the seven sons of St. Symphorosa and the seven sons of St. Felicitas in the bloodstained arena; they followed Divine Wisdom even before she had manifested her beauty in the flesh. The sacred cause of which they were the champions, their strength of soul under the tortures, their sublime answers to the executioners were so evidently the type reproduced by the later martyrs, that the Fathers of the first centuries with one accord claimed for the Christian Church these heroes of the synagogue, who could have gained such courage from no other source than their faith in the Christ to come. For this reason they alone of all the holy personages of the Old Covenant have found a place on the Christian cycle of Saints; all the martyrologies and calendars of East and West attest the universality of their cultus, while its antiquity is such as to rival that of St. Peter's Chains in that same basilica of Eudoxia, where their precious relics lie.
At the time when in the hope of a better resurrection they refused under cruel torments to redeem their lives, other heroes of the same blood, inspired by the same faith, flew to arms and delivered their country from a terrible crisis. Several children of Israel, forgetting the traditions of their nation, had wished it to follow the customs of strange peoples; and the Lord, in punishment, had allowed Judea to feel the whole weight of a profane rule to which it had guiltily submitted. But when King Antiochus, taking advantage of the treason of a few and the carelessness of the majority, endeavored by his ordinances to blot out the divine law which alone gives power to man over man, Israel, suddenly awakened, met the tyrant with the double opposition of revolt and martyrdom. Judas Machabeus in immortal battles reclaimed for God the land of his inheritance, while by the virtue of their generous confession, the seven brothers also, his rivals in glory, recovered, as the Scripture says, the law out of the hands of the nations, and out of the hands of the kings (1 Mach. 2:48). Soon afterwards, craving mercy under the hand of God and not finding it, Antiochus died, devoured by worms, just as later on were to die the first and last persecutors of the Christians, Herod Agrippa and Galerius Maximian.
Persecuted JewsThe Holy Ghost, who would Himself hand down to posterity the acts of the protomartyr of the New Law, did the same with regard to the passion of Stephen's glorious predecessors in the ages of expectation. Indeed, it was he who then, as under the law of love, inspired with both words and courage these valiant brothers, and their still more admirable mother, who, seeing her seven sons one after the other suffering the most horrible tortures, uttered nothing but burning exhortations to die. Surrounded by their mutilated bodies, she mocked the tyrant who, in false pity, wished her to persuade at least the youngest to save his life; she bent over the last child of her tender love and said to him: My son, have pity upon me, that bore thee nine months in my womb, and gave thee suck three years, and nourished thee, and brought thee up unto this age. I beseech thee, my son, look upon Heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also: so thou shalt not fear this tormentor, receive death, that in that mercy I may receive thee again with thy brethren (2 Mach. 7:27, 28, 29). And the intrepid youth ran in his innocence to the tortures; and the incomparable mother followed her sons.
The Breviary Lesson is taken from a sermon of St. Gregory Nazianzen:
What [shall I say] of the Machabees? For this festal day is celebrated in their name by this present congregation. Although by many they are not held in honor, because they did not enter on the conflict after Christ, yet they are worthy to be honored by all, because they showed courage and constancy in defense of the laws and institutions of their fathers. For if they suffered martyrdom before the Passion of Christ, what would they have done, if they had suffered persecution after Christ, and if they had had, as a model to be imitated, His death, which He accepted for our salvation? For, if they showed such and so great a courage, when they had no example before them, would they not have been even more courageous in the battle, if they had had that example before their eyes? There is even a certain mystical and hidden reason, which seems highly probable to me, and to all who love God, that none of those who suffered martyrdom before the coming of Christ could have attained to it without faith in Christ.
Notes:
1 Quote from Karen Louise Jolly, "The Place of the Cross in Anglo-Saxon England," ed. Catherine E. Karkov, Sarah Larratt Keefer, and Karen Louise Jolly (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press), p. 79; via a translation made by the author of the blog "A Clerk of Oxford," URL: https://aclerkofoxford.blogspot.com
2 St. Thomas More's body is buried there; his head is interred at St. Dunstan's Church in Canterbury.
St Peter in Chains
HERE FOLLOWETH THE FEAST OF ST. PETER AD VINCULA, AT LAMMAS
The feast of St. Peter the apostle that is called ad Vincula was established for four causes. That is to wit, in remembrance of the deliverance of St. Peter, and in mind of deliverance of Alexander, for to destroy the customs of the paynims, and for to get absolution of spiritual bonds.
THE DELIVERANCE OF ST. PETER
And the first cause which is in remembrance of St. Peter. For as it is said in the History Scholastic that Herod Agrippa went to Rome, and was right familiar with Gaius, nephew of Tiberius emperor. And on a day as Herod was in a chariot brought with Gaius, he lifted up his hands unto heaven and said: I would gladly see the death of this old fellow Peter, and the Lord of all the world.And the chariot man heard this word said of Herod, and anon told it to Tiberius. Wherefore Tiberius set Herod in prison. And as he was there he beheld on a day by him a tree, and saw upon the branches of this tree an owl which sat thereon, and another prisoner which was with him, that understood well divinations, said to him: Thou shalt be anon delivered, and shalt be enhanced to be a king, in such wise that thy friends shall have envy at thee, and thou die in that prosperity. And know thou for truth, that when thou shalt see the owl over thee, at the end of five days after thou shalt die for certain.
And anon after Tiberius died, and Gaius was emperor. Which delivered Herod out of prison and enhanced him gloriously, and sent him as king into Judea, and anon as he came he sent his puissance, and set hand to for to put some of the church to affliction, and did do slay James, brother of St. John the Evangelist, with a sword, before the day of Easter. And because it was a thing agreeable, and pleased the Jews, he took Peter on Easter-day, and enclosed him fast in prison, and would after Easter bring him forth and show him to the people and slay him, but the angel came marvellously, and unbound him and loosed his chains, and sent him forth all quit to the service of preaching the Word of God.
And the felony of this king suffered not to abide any dilation of vengeance, for the next day following, he made to come the keepers for to begin to torment them with divers pains for the fleeing of Peter, but he was let to do that, that the deliverance grieved them not. For he went hastily to Cæsarea and there was smitten of an angel and died. Thus rehearseth Josephus in the Book of Antiquity. For when he came into Cæsarea, all the men and women of that province came to him, and when the day came that he should go in judgment and take possession of the country, he went and clad him with a vestment of tissue marvellously shining of gold and silver, and when the sun smote and shone on it, it was more shining than the sun. For it was so bright that no man might behold it, and the brightness was like red metal, and gave fear and dread to them that looked thereon, and therefore the pride of him was so great that, he better seemed a man made by craft than by nature human.
And then the people began to cry and say: We have seen thee till now like a man, but now we confess that thou art above nature human.
And thus as he was flattered with honours, and refused not divine worship, he being there set, he saw above his head an owl sitting, which was messenger of his hasty death. And when he had apperceived the owl, and beheld the people that were there assembled and come at his commandment, he said to them: Certainly, I that am your lord shall die within five days.
For he knew it well, because the diviner had told him that he should die within five days that he had seen the owl sitting above him. And incontinent, after this thing thus accomplished, he was smitten suddenly in such wise that worms ate his bowels, and on the fifth day he died. And this saith Josephus.
And because then in remembrance of the deliverance of St. Peter prince of the apostles from the cruel vengeance of the cruel tyrant, which as soon as he was enhanced to be king went to pursue and destroy the church, therefore the church halloweth the feast of St. Peter ad vincula. And the epistle is sung in the mass in which this deliverance is witnessed here to be done.
THE DELIVERANCE OF ALEXANDER
The second cause of the establishing of this feast was because Alexander the pope, which was the sixth after Peter, and Hermes, provost of Rome, which was converted to the faith by the same Alexander, were holden in divers places in the prison of Quirinus the judge. Which judge said to Hermes the provost: I marvel of thee that art so wise a man, that thou wilt leave the great worldly honours that thou hast, and the great riches that thou receivest of thy provostry, and wilt thou leave all these things for dreaming of another life.To whom Hermes said: Tofore this time I despised and scorned, and weened there had been none other life than this.
Quirinus answered: Make proof to me that there is another life, and anon I shall apply me to thy faith.
To whom Hermes said: Alexander, whom thou holdest in thy prison, shall inform thee better than I.
Then Quirinus cursed Alexander, and said to him: I will that thou shalt make proof of this thing to me, and thou sendest me to Alexander, whom I hold bounden in chains for his evil deeds. Truly I shall double the prison upon thee and Alexander, and I shall set watch upon you. And if I find thee with him or him with thee, I shall verily give faith to thine and his words.
And then he doubled their keepers and showed this to Alexander, and then Alexander prayed to God, and an angel came to him and brought him into the prison to Hermes. And when Quirinus came to the prison he found them both together, whereof he was much amarvelled. And then Hermes recounted to Quirinus how Alexander had healed his son and raised him from death. And Quirinus then said to Alexander: I have a daughter named Balbina which is sick of the gout, if thou mayst heal her, I promise thee that I shall receive thy faith if thou mayst get for her health.
To whom Alexander said: Go anon, and bring her to me into my prison.
And Quirinus said to him: How may I find thee in thy prison and art here?
And Alexander said: Go thy way anon, for he that brought me hither shall soon bring me thither.
And Quirinus went then and fetched his daughter, and brought her into the prison where Alexander was and found him there, and then kneeled down to his feet. And his daughter began to kiss the chains with which St. Alexander was bounden, hoping thereby to receive her health. And St. Alexander said to her: Daughter, kiss not my chains, but seek the chains of St. Peter and kiss them with devotion, and thou shalt receive thy health.
And anon, Quirinus did do seek the chains of Peter and they were found. And Alexander did the daughter do kiss them, and anon as she had kissed them she received her health and was all whole. Then Quirinus demanded pardon and forgiveness, and delivered Alexander out of prison, and received the holy baptism, he and all his meiny and many others.
Then Alexander established this feast to be hallowed alway the first day of August, and did do make a church in the honour of St. Peter, whereas he set the chains and named it St. Peter ad vincula. And to that church come much people at that solemnity, and the people kiss there the bonds and chains of St. Peter.
FOR TO DESTROY THE CUSTOMS OF THE PAYNIMS
The third cause of this establishment, after Bede, is this: Antony and Octavius were so conjoined together by affinity, that they departed between them two the empire of the world. Octavius had in the occident Italy, France, and Spain, and Antony had in the east, Asia, Pontus, and Africa. Antony was wild, jolly, and ribald, and had the sister of Octavius to his wife, and left her, and took Cleopatra, which was Queen of Egypt; and for this cause Octavius had him in great despite, and went with force of arms against Antony in Asia, and overcame him in all things.Then Antony and Cleopatra fled as vanquished, and slew themselves by great sorrow, and Octavius destroyed entirely the realm of Egypt, and made it to be under the Romans. And from thence he went in all the haste he might into Alexandria, and despoiled it of all riches and brought them to Rome, and increased so the common profit of Rome that there was given for one penny that which tofore was sold for four. And because the battles of the people had wasted and destroyed the city of Rome, he renewed it, saying: I found it covered with tiles, and I shall leave it now covered with marble.
And for these causes he was made emperor, and the first that ever was called Augustus. And of him been all other that come after him called Augustus. Like as after his uncle Julius Cæsar they be called Cæsarians. Also this month of August which tofore was called Sextilis, the people entitled it to his name and called it Augustus, in the honour and remembrance of the victory of the emperor that he had the first day of this month. In so much that all the Romans made that day great solemnity unto the time of Theodosius the emperor, which began to reign the year of our Lord four hundred and twenty-six.
Then Eudosia, daughter of the said Theodosius the emperor, and wife of Valens, went by a vow to Jerusalem, and there a Jew gave to her for great love a great gift. And they were the bonds, that is to wit the two chains, with which St. Peter under Herod was bounden with. Whereof she was much joyous.
And when she returned to Rome she saw that the Romans hallowed the first day of August in the honour of an emperor paynim which was dead. Then was she much sorrowful because they did so much honour to a man damned, and thought that they might not lightly be withdrawn from this custom. But if she might so much do, she would not leave it thus, but that it should be made in the honour of St. Peter, and that all the people should name that day the day of St. Peter ad vincula.
And hereof she had collation with St. Pelagius the pope, and brought them with fair words to that, that the remembrance of the prince of paynims was forgotten, and the memory of the prince of the apostles was hallowed. And it pleased right well to all the people. Then she brought forth the chains which she had brought from Jerusalem, and showed them to all the people.
And the pope brought forth the chain with which he had been bound under Nero, and as soon as that chain touched that other, all three by miracle were but one, like as they had been never but one.
Then the pope and the queen established that the foolish religion of the people, making solemnity of a paynim, were changed into better, and was made of St. Peter, prince of the apostles. And the pope and the queen set the chains in the church of St. Peter ad vincula. And were given of the queen to the said church right great gifts and right fair privileges, and it was established that day to be hallowed over all. And this is that Bede saith, and Sigbert also saith the same of this thing.
Miracles of St. Peter’s Chains
And of what great virtue this chain is, it appeareth well in the year of our Lord four hundred and fortyfour: There was an earl which was nigh to the emperor Otto, that was so cruelly vexed and tormented with the devil tofore all the people that, with his own teeth he bit and tare himself. And by the commandment of the emperor he was led to pope John, for to put the chain about his neck, and there was another put about the neck of this wood man and demoniac. And it did him none allegement because it had no virtue. And at last the very chain of St. Peter was brought and put about the neck of the said man demoniac. But it was of such virtue that the devil might not bear it, but departed and went out crying, tofore them all.Then Theodoric, bishop of Metz, took that chain, and said he would not depart from it in no manner but if his hand were cut off, and for this cause was great discord between the pope and the bishop and the other clerks. And at the last the emperor appeased the noise and gat of the pope that he had a link of the chain. And he kept it much worthily in great devotion.
Miletus also recounteth in his chronicle, and it is written in the History Tripartite, that in that time there was a great horrible dragon which appeared at Epirus. And the bishop Donatus spit in his mouth and killed him forthwith. But that bishop made tofore the sign of the cross with his fingers upon the dragon, for he was so great that there behoved seven couple oxen to draw him thence out of the town in to a place where he was burnt, for because the stench of him should not corrupt the air.
Yet saith the same Miletus, and also it is said in the History Tripartite, that the devil appeared in a town named Crete in the semblance of Moses, and this Crete is nigh to a mountain which is nigh to the sea, and assembled a great multitude of Jews of all places and brought them to the top and highest of all the mountain, and promised them to lead them and to go dry foot with them upon the sea in to the land of promise. And there he assembled people without number.
And some believe that the devil had despite of the Jew that had given this chain to the queen by which the feast of Octavius ceased to be made. And when the devil saw that he had there of the Jews without number, about that great mountain, he made many fall down from the top to the ground beneath, and made of them without number to be drowned in the sea; and thus the devil avenged him on them.
And many of them that escaped became Christian. For when they would have gone up on the mountain with the others, they might not go up so sharp rocks, in such wise that they that went up were all tocut with the stones, and the others were drowned in the sea, and were all dead. And when the others would have done the same, and tarried because they wist not what was happed of the others, certain fishers going by them told what was fallen of the others, and thus they that might escape returned, and went not after the others. And all these things be contained in the said History.
FOR TO GET ABSOLUTION OF SPIRITUAL BONDS
The fourth cause of the institution of this feast may be assigned here in this wise. For our Lord delivered St. Peter out of his chains by miracle, and gave him power to bind and to unbind. For we be holden and bounden unto the bond of sin and have need to be assoiled. Therefore we worship the solemnity of the chains aforesaid. For as he deserved to be unbound of the bonds of his chains, so received he power of our Lord Jesu Christ to assoil us.And this last reason may be lightly apperceived, for thou seest that the epistle accordeth the absolution and loosing of the chains made to the apostle. And the gospel recordeth the power that was given to him for to assoil. And the orison of the death requireth that absolution be made to us, and this, that sometime he giveth absolution, and assoileth the damned otherwhile, by the power of the keys which he received; it appeareth in a miracle of the blessed Virgin Mary:
On a time there was a monk, a scholar, which was in the city of Cologne in the monastery of St. Peter, which monk was sinful; and when this monk was surprised with sudden death, the devils accused him and cried on him that he had done all manner sins.
That one said: I am Covetise, which so oft thou hast coveted against the commandment of God.
And another said: I am Vain Glory, of which thou hast enjoyed thee, in making a vaunt among men.
And another said: I am thy Leasing, in which thou oft sinnedst in lying, and other in like wise.
And contrary to them, some good works that he had done excused him, saying: I am Obedience, which thou didst to thine elders and sovereigns.
Another said: I am the Song of Psalms, which thou hast sung to God much ardently.
And St. Peter, to whom he was a monk, went to God for to pray for him. And our Lord answered to him: Hath not the prophet said, by my inspiration, “Domine, quis habitabit in tabernaculo tuo? Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle, or who shall rest in thy holy mountain? He that shall be without spot of sin.” How may this man then be saved which is not entered without spot, ne hath done no righteousness?
And yet Peter prayed for him with the blessed Virgin, mother of God. Then our Lord gave upon him this sentence: that the soul should return again to the body and that he should do penance. And then St. Peter, with the key that he held in his hand, feared the devils and made them to flee, and after delivered the soul to a monk of the same monastery, and commanded him that he should bring it to the body.
And he bare it to him and required of him for his reward that he had brought it again, that he should say every day for him the psalm Miserere mei deus [“Have mercy on me, O Lord”], and that he should oft sweep his sepulture and keep it clean. And thus he revived from the death and came again to the world, and did his penance, and recounted to all the people this that had happed to him.
Then let us pray this glorious apostle St. Peter to be our advocate to our Lord Jesu Christ, that we may by the power of the keys given to him have very absolution of our sins, that after the accomplishment of this short and transitory life we may come to everlasting life in heaven. Amen.
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