Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | October

Traditional Catholic morning prayers to lay a strong foundation for the rest of your day! The month of October is dedicated to the Most Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I hope these prayers increase your devotion to Our Lady of the Rosary this month, to help us meditate on the events in the life of Christ and draw us 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 morning prayers.

Neuroscience Confirms: This Ancient Christian Behaviour Quickly Rewires Your Brain

From Totus Mind

You don't have a willpower problem. You have a wiring problem. Neuroscience and the ancient church agree on how to rewire your brain and renew your mind, and the monks solved it more than a thousand years before the first brain scan. After hundreds of hours buried in both the brain imaging research and the writings of the desert monks, I kept landing in the same place: they are describing the same event. By the end of this video you'll know the one daily habit that actually rebuilds a scattered, anxious, compulsive mind, and why it is not the shift you'd guess. "Renew the whole mind." (Gentle note: if you are wrestling with real anxiety, depression, or compulsion, nothing here is medical advice. Please walk it alongside a doctor, counselor, or pastor.) In this video: • Why willpower fixes the symptom, not the structural root, and keeps failing you • What the "default mode network" is, and how repeated focused attention wears a new trail • The neuroscience: 8 weeks to a measurably changed brain, and the first effects in just 5 days • How Romans, the Psalms, and the desert fathers describe neuroplasticity 16 centuries early • The five movements (withdraw, anchor, watch, return, reorder) and your simple 30 day practice ⏱ CHAPTERS 0:00 Intro: a wiring problem, not a willpower problem 1:16 Why willpower keeps failing (the structural root) 2:05 The neuroscience proof: 8 weeks and 5 days 3:22 Why knowing the science changes nothing on its own 3:46 What Scripture said first: the renewing of the mind 5:13 The ancient habit and the five movements 8:00 Your 30 day practice and why it matters 📖 SCRIPTURE REFERENCED • Romans 12:2: do not be conformed, but be transformed (metamorphoo) by the renewing of your mind, present continuous, day after day. • Psalm 46:10: "Be still (Hebrew rapha: sink down, cease striving) and know that I am God." • 1 Thessalonians 5:17: "Pray without ceasing," understood by the desert tradition as constantly returning. • 2 Corinthians 10:5: "Take every thought captive," watch it, name it, refuse to chase it. 🧠 THE SCIENCE • Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging (2011), Harvard team: 8 weeks of daily meditation in ordinary beginners grew the brain's memory center, and the biggest stress drops tracked with measurable shrinkage in the brain's fear and stress alarm. • PNAS (2007): just 5 days of focused attention practice was linked to better attention and calm than a matched relaxation group. • European Journal of Social Psychology (2010): a new behavior takes on average about 66 days to become automatic, not the 21 the internet repeats. (Note: these are studies of meditation, not Christian prayer. They capture the underlying mechanism, a brain rewiring through repeated focused attention, which is the engine prayer has run for 16 centuries.) ⛪ FROM THE CHURCH FATHERS • John Cassian (early 5th century): recorded the teaching of the desert elder Abba Isaac, to pray one short sacred sentence ceaselessly and continuously. • Abba Isaac: the anchor phrase "O God, come to my assistance," still the opening words monks pray every day. • Evagrius of Pontus (4th century): catalogued the intrusive thoughts (logismoi) that ambush a quiet mind, what neuroscience now calls metacognition. • Augustine: "My weight is my love." Whatever you keep turning toward is what your mind gets rebuilt to want.

Why Are Guardian Angels Celebrated on October 2?

Mr Kosloski explains the origins of the Feast kept today and how and why it ended up on 2 October. Holy Guardian Angels, pray for us!

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

The feast was instituted to complement the celebration of St. Michael a few days earlier.

In the Traditional liturgical calendar, there exist four feasts that honor angels. The feast of St Gabriel on 24 March, the feast of St Michael on September 29, and the feast of St Raphael on October 14.

Eventually there arose a request to have a separate feast in honor of the guardian angels, those angelic spirits who are assigned by God to guide and protect each human soul.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, October 2 was picked because it was the first "free" day in the calendar.

It is believed that the new feast was intended to be a kind of supplement to the Feast of St. Michael, since the Church honored on that day (29 September) the memory of all the angels as well as the memory of St. Michael. Among the numerous changes made in the calendar by Clement X [in the 17th century] was the elevation of the Feast of Guardian Angels to the rank of an obligatory double for the whole Church to be kept on October 2, this being the first unoccupied day after the feast of St. Michael.

At the time September 30 was the celebration of St. Jerome and October 1 was the commemoration of St. Remigius, patron saint of France. October 2 did not have any particular celebration, and so it became the feast of the Holy Guardian Angels.

Holy Guardian Angels

Today's Holy Mass from SSPX Australia. You may follow the Mass at Divinum Officium.

Holy Guardian Angels

Today's Holy Mass from SSPX Australia. You may follow the Mass at Divinum Officium.

If You Think Catholics Worship Mary, Watch This

From Matt Fradd

Gabriel (Gabi) Castillo and I discuss whether or not Catholics focus so much on Mary that it becomes worship.

Online Wills Can Get You Killed (or Worse)

An attorney points out the dangers of "living wills", which is why I recommend using a form such as this from Jeff Cassman or this from the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference.

From Crisis

By Joseph E. Cavello, Esq.

Many “Do-It-Yourself” legal platforms exclude health-care proxy appointment or advance directives—fairly nuanced and state-specific documents—which are arguably the most important elements in any estate plan.

Legal Disclaimer: The opinions expressed below are the personal views of the author and are not intended to reflect the official position of the author’s law firm, clients, or any affiliated entity. This article is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or medical advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship. Readers should consult a qualified attorney regarding their specific situation. While the case elements discussed in this article are real, names and other sensitive information have been altered to protect client privacy.

“Ithink I killed my wife.”
Minutes into our first meeting, my new client, John, broke down sobbing.
His adult daughter, Tess, tried in vain to comfort him, quietly leaning toward me. With pain in her eyes, she admitted: “I was very uncomfortable with how it all happened. That’s why we’re here.”
As an estate planning attorney, I serve clients and families through major life transitions. It is among the most rewarding aspects of my profession. Beyond the legal work, our team often shares moral support and ethical guidance as well, and we have learned that the most difficult challenge many Catholics ever face is making decisions about end-of-life medical care.
The conversation that followed Tess’ admission was not about taxes, asset transfer, Medicaid, or probate timelines. It was about the agony of yet another family that learned too late and had been caught unprepared with inadequate documents and no legal counsel rooted in Church teaching. It was about how fear and clinical pressure prevailed, leading John to “pull the plug” on his merely injured wife of 30 years who should have lived to see grandchildren play.
His wife did not die because of malice. She died a victim of misconstrued “mercy,” ignorance about the true shape of American legal and medical systems, and the cold calculus of financial expediency. Above all, she died because there was no trusted advocate with legal authority to intervene—and no valid advance directive setting moral limitations on her medical care.
Sadly, her case is increasingly common.
Over 70 percent of U.S. adults have no Will, and more than half have no estate planning documents of any kind.1 With that kind of service gap, people are being told to “just get a Will done.” That, in turn, leads to online platforms promising speed, simplicity, and low prices. This is not necessarily a bad place to begin, but in the absence of a direct relationship with a trusted attorney, these platforms can become impersonal vending machines: dispensing a false sense of security along with their templated documents, some of which are not even valid apart from attorney signature.
Over 70 percent of U.S. adults have no Will, and more than half have no estate planning documents of any kind.Tweet This
Most troubling is the fact that many “Do-It-Yourself” legal platforms exclude health-care proxy appointment or advance directives—fairly nuanced and state-specific documents—which are arguably the most important elements in any estate plan. This leaves many people convinced that a basic Will is “good enough” for the responsible Catholic. I disagree.
By only creating a Will, we address only post-death matters, leaving loved ones exposed to the stress of probate court after death and—far more seriously—dangerously unprepared for the more likely scenario: incapacity while living. In doing so, we omit our moral duty to care for the temple of our body through advance planning (see 1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Illness, accident, pregnancy, surgery, dementia, mental breakdown and other causes will render most adults unable to direct their own care at some point.2 To address this, serious Catholics should keep an updated estate plan with valid powers of attorney, HIPAA authorization, and advance medical directives that align with Church teaching.
Some assume their state’s default form will suffice or that doctors will “do the right thing” when the time comes, especially at a faith-based care facility. But default forms are not built from Catholic moral reasoning, and clinical pressures are real, no matter what name is on the building.
Recent years and “public health crises” forced many to learn this the hard way, and state-standard advance directives have led to outcomes people never imagined: withdrawal of food and water, terminal sedation, or even the quiet redefinition of death to facilitate premature organ harvesting. Moral silence here is not neutrality. These moments shape the fate of souls—of patients, their loved ones, and their medical providers.
In our age of electronic medical records, I regularly see clients who are surprised to find that they already have a problematic advance directive on file. As these forms are frequently completed at a license branch or routine doctor visit without second thought, I expect many are in this same situation.
The specter of AI in American health care introduces another concern. Few are legally prepared for the emerging techno-future in which algorithms are already starting to determine medical diagnoses, treatment, and even funding. Medicine is becoming more automated, and patients with no plan for legally protecting their data will face a time when their digital likeness survives them in an interminable and uncontrollable “digital afterlife.”
Virtual clones for AI system training, memorials, therapy, and otherwise are already on offer. “Griefbots” like Seance, Re;memory, and Versona promise users an avatar that will live forever rather than allow the dead to rest in peace. A robust estate plan should include clear legal provisions about using your image, likeness, and data after your death.
Furthermore, the Catholic tradition of ethical decision-making in health care is very precise, with key distinctions between ordinary versus extraordinary measures, legitimate pain control versus excessive sedation, and allowing death versus hastening it. These judgments are case-specific and depend on intentions, circumstances, and principles that can never be captured by checkboxes or algorithms.
This is why an attorney who shares your values will stress the importance of a Catholic health-care proxy: legally appointing someone you know and trust, who understands your care goals against the backdrop of Church teaching, and is prepared to speak for you in the medical setting. Additionally, a professional health-care advocate—someone trained in Catholic ethics and familiar with your wishes and family dynamics—can be a highly valuable support.
My client John did not lack genuine concern for his wife. He lacked preparation.
He assumed that reliable guidance would appear when the time came. That assumption is common and increasingly dangerous. It is imperative that we avoid the same mistake, recalling that Catholics have always prayed against an unprovided death. Thankfully, this is one prayer we can answer for ourselves through preparation.
Today, the choice is between responsible stewardship or presumptive omission; between leaving loved ones with clear guidance and legal counsel or leaving them alone in a time of crisis—often simply because we intended to “get to it later.” The path forward is clear: find a trusted attorney to create or review your estate plan to align with your personal and family goals and reflect your Faith.
The life—the soul—you save may be your own.

The Holy Guardian Angels ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

The Holy Guardian Angels

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

The piety of the faithful, in the latter ages, desired to have a special day consecrated to the Guardian Angels. Several churches having taken the initiative, and kept the Feast under various rites and on different days, Paul V (1608) authorized its celebration ad libitum. Clement X (1670) established it by precept as a Feast of double rite on the 2nd of October, the first free day after Michaelmas, on which it thus remains in some way dependent.

It is of faith, on the testimony of the Scriptures and of unanimous tradition, that God commits to his Angels the guardianship of men, who are called to contemplate him together with these blessed spirits in their common fatherland. Catholic theology teaches that this protection is extended to every member of the human race, without any distinction of just and sinners, infidels and baptized. To ward off dangers; to uphold man in his struggle against the demons; to awaken in him holy thoughts; to prevent him from sinning, and even, at times, to chastise him; to pray for him, and present his prayers to God; such is the office of the Guardian Angel. So special is his mission that one Angel does not undertake the guardianship of several persons simultaneously; so diligent is his care that he follows his ward from the first day to the last of his mortal existence, receiving the soul as it quits this life, and bearing it from the feet of the sovereign Judge to the place it has merited in heaven, or to its temporary sojourn in the place of expiation and purification.

It is from the lowest of the nine choirs, the nearest to ourselves, that the Guardian Angels are for the most part selected. God reserves to the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones the honor of forming his own immediate court. The Dominations, from the steps of his throne, preside over the government of the universe; the Virtues watch over the course of nature’s laws, the preservation of species, and the movements of the heavens; the Powers hold the spirits of wickedness in subjection. The human race in its entirety, as also its great social bodies, the nations and the churches, are confided to the Principalities; while the Archangels, who preside over smaller communities, seem also to have the office of transmitting to the Angels the commands of God, together with the love and light which come down even to us from the first and highest hierarchy. O the depths of the wisdom of God! Thus, then, the admirable distribution of offices among the choirs of heavenly spirits terminates in the function committed to the lowest rank, the guardianship of man, for whom the universe subsists. Such is the teaching of the School; (Suarez. De Angelis, lib. vi. cap. xviii. 5) and the Apostle, in like manner, says: Are they not all ministering spirits, sent to minister for them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?  (Hebrews 1:14)

But God, magnificent as he is towards the whole human race, honors in a special manner the princes of his people, those who are most favored by his grace, or who rule the earth in his name; the Saints testify that a supereminent perfection, or a higher mission in Church or State, ensures to the individual the assistance of a superior spirit, without the Angels, that was first deputed, being necessarily removed from his charge. Moreover, with regard to the work of salvation, the Guardian Angel has no fear of being left alone at his post; at his request, and at God’s command, the troops of his blessed companions who fill heaven and earth are ever ready to lend him their aid. These noble spirits, acting under the eye of God, whose love they desire to second by all possible means, have secret alliances between them, which sometimes induce between their clients even on earth, unions the mystery whereof will be revealed in the light of eternity.

“How profound a mystery,” says Origen, “is the apportioning of souls to the Angels destined for their guardians! It is a divine secret, part of the universal economy centered in the Man-God. Nor is it without ineffable order that the ministries of earth, the many departments of nature, are allotted to the heavenly Virtues; fountains and rivers, winds and forests, plants, living creatures of land and sea, whose various functions harmonize together, by the Angels directing them all to a common end.” (Origen. in Josue, Hom. xxiii)

Again, on these words of Jeremias: How long shall the land mourn? (Jeremiah 12:4) Origen, supported by the authority of his translator St. Jerome, continues. (Origen. in Jerem. Hom. x. juxta Hieron. viii) “It is through each one of us that the earth rejoices or mourns; and not only the earth, but water, fire, air, all the elements; by which name we must here understand not insensible matter, but the Angels who are set over all things on earth. There is an Angel of the land who, with his companions, mourns over our crimes. There is an Angel of the waters to whom are applied the words of the Psalm: The waters saw thee, and they were afraid, and the depths were troubled; great was the noise of the waters; the clouds sent out a sound, for thy arrows pass.” (Psalms 76:17-18)

How grand is nature, viewed in this light! It is thus the ancients, more truthful as well as more poetical than our generation, always considered the universe. Their error lay in adoring these mysterious powers, to the detriment of the only God, under whom they stoop that bear up the world. (Job 9:13)

“Air and earth and ocean, everything is full of Angels,” says St. Ambrose. “Eliseus, besieged by a whole army, felt no fear; for he beheld invisible cohorts assisting him. May the prophet open thine eyes also, may the enemy, be he legion, not terrify thee; thou thinkest thyself hemmed in, and thou art free: there are more with us than with them.” (2 Kings 6:16)

But let us return to our own specially-deputed Angel and meditate on this other testimony: “The noble guardian of each one of us sleeps not, nor can he be deceived. Close thy door, and make the darkness of night; but remember, thou art never alone; he has no need of daylight in order to see thy actions.” And who is it that speaks thus? Not a Father of the Church, but a pagan, the slave-philosopher Epictetus. (Ap. Arrian. Diss. I. 14)

In conclusion, let us listen to the Abbot of Clairvaux, who here gives free reign to his eloquence: “In every place show respect to thy Angel. Let gratitude for his benefits incite thee to honor his greatness. Love this thy future coheir, the guardian appointed for thee by the Father during thy childhood. For though we are sons of God, we are as yet but children, and long and dangerous is our journey. But God hath given his Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk; and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon. (Psalms 90:11-13) Yes; where the road is smooth enough for a child, they will content themselves with guiding thee, and sustaining thy footsteps, as one does for children. But if trials threaten to surpass thy strength, they will bear thee up in their hands. Oh! those hands of Angels! Thanks to them, what fearful straits we have passed through, as it were without thinking, and with no other impression left upon us than that of a nightmare suddenly dispelled!” (Bernard. in Psalm. xc. Sermon xii)

And in his commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, St. Bernard thus describes the triumph of the Angel: “One of the companions of the Spouse, sent from heaven to the chosen soul as mediator; on witnessing the mystery accomplished, how he exults, and says: I give thee thanks, O God of majesty, for having granted the desire of her heart! Now it was he that, as a persevering friend, had not ceased, on the way, to murmur into the soul’s ear: Delight in the Lord, and he will give thee the requests of thy heart; and again: Expect the Lord, and keep his way; and then: If he make any delay, wait for him, for he will surely come and will not tarry. Meanwhile he represented to our Lord the soul’s desire, saying: As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, so this soul panteth after thee, O God; have pity on her, hear her cries, and visit her in her desolation. And now the faithful paranymph, the confidant of ineffable secrets, is not jealous. He goes from the Spouse to the bride, offering desires, bringing back gifts; he incites the one, he appeases the other. Sometimes, even in this world, he brings them into each other’s presence, either by raising up the Bride in ecstasy, or by bringing down the Bridegroom; for he is one of the household, and well known in the palace; and he fears no rebuff, for every day he beholds the face of the Father.” (Bernard. in Cant. Sermon xxxi)

Let us unite with the Church and offer to our Guardian angels this hymn of today’s Vespers.

HYMN

We celebrate the angels, guardians of men, whom our heavenly Father has given us as companions, lest our weak nature should be overcome by the snares of our enemies.

For because the traitorous angel fell, and was justly cast down from the honors he has enjoyed, burning with envy he now endeavors to expel those whom God calls to heaven.

Fly hither, then, O ever-watchful guardian; ward off from the land committed to thy care as well diseases of soul, as all that threatens to disturb the peace of the inhabitants.

May loving praise be ever the holy Three, by whose eternal power is ruled this triple world, heaven and earth and the abyss; and whose glory is supreme throughout all ages. Amen.

Before the establishment of a special feast in honor of the Guardian Angels, the following sequence was sung in certain churches on September 29.

SEQUENCE

Let us invoke with our desires the paranymphs of the Most High King, the defenders of Christ’s flock: these are called mountains, encircling the throne of God by privilege all theirs.

These form the triple hierarchy of heaven, flourishing under the one divine Wisdom, and enjoying the threefold light; they perfect us, cleanse us, enlighten us, that our soul may rise from sin.

They draw ever nearer to God in contemplation; when sent to do his will, they depart not from him, for their coming and going is all within God. They keep the enemy at bay, they guide the just, they assist and protect their loving clients, and console them when afflicted.

Though themselves already blessed, yet delegated to us, they carry our prayers to God: they abandon not the saints on earth, but desire their company, that their own ranks may be completed.

O happy citizens these! who, while fulfilling their offices, lose not the joys of heaven: let us pray to them with confidence, that they may ever assist us before God. Amen.

Blessed be ye, O holy Angels, for that your charity is not wearied out by the crimes of men; among so many other benefits, we thank you for keeping the earth habitable, by deigning to dwell always therein. Solitude often weighs heavily upon the hearts of God’s children; in the great towns, and in the paths of the world, where one meets only strangers or enemies; but if the number of the just grows less, yours never diminishes. In the midst of the excited multitude, as well as in the desert, not a human being that has not beside him an Angel, the representative of universal Providence over wicked and good alike. O blessed spirits! you and we have the same fatherland, the same thought, the same love; why should the confused noises of a frivolous crowd disturb the heavenly life we may lead even now with you? Does the tumult of public places hinder you from holding your choirs there, or prevent the Most High from hearing your harmonies? We also, beholding by faith the face of our heavenly Father, which you ever delightedly contemplate, we wish to sing in every place the praises of our Lord and to unite at all times our adorations with yours. Thus, when our manners have become altogether angelic, the present life will be full of peace, and we shall be well prepared for eternity.

Guardian Angels Explained | Catholic Teaching & Church Fathers

A sermon for today. Please remember to say 3 Hail Marys for the Priest.

St Thomas, Bishop of Hereford: Butler's Lives of the Saints

The Feast of the Holy Angel Guardians: Butler's Lives of the Saints

St Thomas, Bishop of Hereford, Confessor

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

OUR island once saw the happy days when prayer and contemplation were the delight even of courts, the camp, and the shop; when Christian humility and true poverty of spirit sat on the thrones of kings, chastity flourished in palaces, and princes had no other interest of state but the glory of God, no other ambition than to dilate the kingdom, nor any greater happiness than to espouse their daughters to Christ crucified, in the rigors of solitude and severe penance. The beauty of this holy vineyard in the church excited the envy of the devil, who, like a furious wild boar, sought to lay it waste. Tepidity in the divine service and sloth opened him the door; pride, ambition, luxury, and the love of the world and of pleasure soon gained ground, and miserably changed the face of this paradise. Wars, oppression, and desolation were the scourges by which God in his mercy sought to bring back an ungrateful people to their duty before he cast them off. He still raised up many holy pastors and patterns of virtue, who labored by word and example to stem the tide of iniquity. Among these shone most eminently St. Thomas Cantelupe, some time high-chancellor of England, and bishop of Hereford. He was most nobly born, being eldest son to William lord Cantelupe, one of the greatest generals that England ever produced; who, by the total overthrow of the barons and of the French, fixed the crown on the head of king Henry III., and was lord high steward of the kingdom, which dignity, on account of the exorbitance of its power, has been since suppressed, and is now only exercised occasionally in the trials of peers. The Cantelupes were Normans, who came over with the Conqueror, and received from him great estates and honors, which they exceedingly increased, becoming, by marriages, heirs of the Strongbows, and marshals earls of Pembroke, of the Fitz-Walters earls of Hereford, and of the Breuses lords of Abergavenny. The mother of our saint was Melicenta, countess-dowager of Evreux and Gloucester, daughter of Hugh lord of Gournay, allied to the royal families of England and France. Thomas was born in Lancashire; his parents had three other sons, and as many daughters, all younger than him, who were honorably married in the world. The father’s office obliged him to reside chiefly at court to attend the king. This was a dangerous place for the education of children; which being sensible of, he was most watchful to banish all incentives of vanity from their sight, and to remove the least whisper of false pleasures from their ears; thus, in the very seat of danger and vice, he formed a school of virtue and penance. When his son Thomas was capable of learning, he placed him under the care of his near kinsman, Walter Cantelupe, bishop of Hereford, and afterwards under that of Robert Kilwarby, a learned Dominican, archbishop of Canterbury, afterwards cardinal and bishop of Porto, and founder of the Black Friars in London. This experienced tutor found no obstacle or opposition to his instructions in the heart of his pupil, who, while a child, began daily to recite the breviary, besides hearing mass and other devotions, which he performed with wonderful fervor. He studied his philosophy at Paris; during which time he happened to take a prop of a vine out of another man’s vineyard to hold up his window; of which action be conceived so great a remorse, that he condemned himself for it to seven years’ rigorous penance.

Thomas resolving to consecrate himself to God in an ecclesiastical state, learned at Orleans the civil law, which is a necessary foundation to the canon law. He visited certain friends at the general council at Lyons, and there became acquainted with the most eminent pastors and theologians of the church, by whose conversation he much improved himself. Pope Innocent IV. nominated him his chaplain; notwithstanding which, he returned to England, to pursue the study of the canon law. He proceeded doctor in laws at Oxford, and was soon after chosen chancellor of that famous university; in which office he shone in such a bright light, that king Henry shortly after appointed him high-chancellor of the kingdom. His prudence, courage, indefatigable application, scrupulous justice, and abhorrence of human respects, or the least present which could be offered him even in the most indirect manner, completed the character of an accomplished magistrate. The earl of Gloucester, Roger lord Clifford, Peter Corbet, and the king himself, experienced his inflexibility. He procured the banishment of the obstinate Jews, because by their usuries, extortions, and counterfeit base coin, they were a public nuisance to the state. St. Thomas never ceased to solicit king Henry for leave to resign his office, but in vain. However, he obtained it of his son Edward I., upon his accession to the throne; yet on condition that he should remain in his privy council; which he did till his death. The saint was then fifty-four years old; yet retired to Oxford, making books and his devotions his only pleasure. He took the degree of doctor of divinity in the church of the Dominicans, with whom he had studied, on which occasion Robert Kilwarby, his old friend and director, then archbishop of Canterbury, did not fear endangering the saint’s humility, by declaring in his public oration, on the vesperial or eve of his promotion to the degree of doctor, that the candidate had lived without reproach, and had never forfeited his baptismal innocence. In 1274 he was called by pope Gregory X. to the second general council of Lyons, assembled for the union of the Greeks, &c. In 1275 he was canonically chosen bishop of Hereford by the chapter of that church, and all his opposition having been fruitless, consecrated in Christ Church in Canterbury.*

Our saint was sensible how great a supply of virtues was necessary to qualify him worthily to discharge the duties of his exalted station in the church, and redoubled his fervor in the practice of all the means of acquiring this high perfection. A sovereign contempt of the world made him relish the sweetness of holy retirement, in which, and in the functions of his ministry, he placed all his delight. God was to him all in all; and he maintained his heart in perpetual union with him by prayer and holy meditation. He subdued his flesh with severe fasting, watching, and a rough hair-shirt which he wore till his death, notwithstanding the colics and other violent pains and sicknesses with which he was afflicted many years for the exercise of his patience. His zeal for the church seemed to have no bounds; and such was his charity, that he seemed born only for the relief of his neighbor, both spiritual and temporal. He usually called the poor his brethren, and treated them as such both at table and with his purse. No reviling language or ill-treatment could ever provoke him to anger; his enemies he always treated with respect and tenderness, and would never bear the least word which might seem to reflect on them or any others. No one could more scrupulously shun the very shadow of detraction. He defended the lands and privileges of his church with undaunted resolution, as appeared in his suits against Gilbert de Clare, the king’s son-in-law, the powerful earl of Gloucester, against Llewellin prince of Wales, Roger lord Clifford, and his primate, John Peckham, archbishop of Canterbury. That metropolitan had laid certain injunctions on the bishops subject to his jurisdiction, which were an encroachment on their rights, but no historian has recorded in what they consisted. St. Thomas, though threescore years of age, was pitched upon by his brethren to undertake a journey to Rome, to lay their grievances before pope Nicholas IV. The fame of his sanctity alone sufficed to procure him a most favorable reception. After a successful dispatch of his business, he made haste homewards, finding certain distempers with which he was afflicted to increase upon him. His love of concealment has hid from us the great proofs of virtue and wisdom which he gave in this journey, which are only mentioned in general terms, but are inregistered in heaven, with the additional lustre of his humility. His sickness stopped him on his road at Montefiascone in Tuscany. He received the last sacraments with incredible cheerfulness and devotion, and made the sufferings and death of his Redeemer the constant subject of his pious and fervent prayer, in which he calmly gave up the ghost, in the sixty-third year of his age, on the 25th of August in 1282. He was buried six days after, in the church of the monastery of St. Severus near Old Florence, and his funeral oration was spoken by a cardinal. His bones, separated from the flesh, were, with his head and heart, soon after carried to Hereford, and enshrined with great honor in the chapel of our Lady, in his cathedral. Edmund, earl of Cornwall, son of Richard, king of the Romans, who had been the greatest admirer of his sanctity during his life, procured his head, and deposited it in a costly shrine in a monastery which he founded in his honor at Ash-bridge in Buckinghamshire. In 1287 his remains at Hereford were translated with great pomp in the presence of king Edward III., and laid in a marble tomb by the east wall of the north cross-isle in the same cathedral. Innumerable manifest miracles were wrought through his merits, of which several authentic relations were recorded, some of which may be seen in Surius, others in Capgrave. In the original acts of his canonization, preserved in the Vatican library, is found an account of four hundred and twenty-nine miracles, approved by the bishops and others, deputed by his holiness’s commissioners for that purpose, and by four public notaries. These brought on his canonization, which was performed by pope John XXII. in 1310, perhaps on the 2d of October, on which day his principal festival was observed. The late author of his life ascribes the sudden ceasing of a raging pestilence at Hereford, a little before he wrote, to the intercession of this saint, implored by a private procession. Dr. Brown-Willis thinks his festival was kept at Hereford on the 9th of October, because the great fair is held there on that day, and was established in his honor; but it was on the octave-day of his festival, that the procession of the chapter, &c., was made with great pomp. The monument of St. Thomas still remains in the cathedral at Hereford; but the inscription is torn off. See the acts of his canonization, the accurate Nicholas Trevet, ad an. 1282, Mat. Paris, Capgrave, Harpsfield, his modern life collected by R. S. S. J., 1674, and Dr. Brown-Willis’s Antiquities of Hereford. His short life MS. in the king’s library in the British Museum, viii. c. vi. 20. Suysken the Bollandist, p. 539 to 705.