05 October 2026
Traditional Catholic Evening Prayers in English | October
Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III: III That Every Agent Acts for a Good
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 III discusses providence and the human condition, that is good and evil acts, human fate and intellect and the relation of created beings to the creator.
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.
Derek Turner, PhD - Philosophy of Transhumanism & Artificial Intelligence (AI)
From Closer to Truth, a secular source.
Humanity’s future is now framed by artificial intelligence (AI) and increasing interventions in the human body to cure and to enhance, i.e., transhumanism. Considering the stakes and the dangers, a philosophical perspective is imperative. Derek Turner regularly teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Logic, Bioethics, Environmental Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Biology, The Science and Ethics of Extinction, and Darwin. He also enjoys teaching courses on the history of philosophy. In the fall of 2016, he taught a new ConnCourse on The Meaning of Dinosaurs.
Humanity’s future is now framed by artificial intelligence (AI) and increasing interventions in the human body to cure and to enhance, i.e., transhumanism. Considering the stakes and the dangers, a philosophical perspective is imperative. Derek Turner regularly teaches Introduction to Philosophy, Logic, Bioethics, Environmental Philosophy, Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Biology, The Science and Ethics of Extinction, and Darwin. He also enjoys teaching courses on the history of philosophy. In the fall of 2016, he taught a new ConnCourse on The Meaning of Dinosaurs.
The Maple Leaf Forever Canada's Greatest Anthem God Save our King
The Monarchy is the only reason Canada exists as an independent country.
The entire reason for the existence of Canada as a distinct and finally sovereign nation is because during the American revolution, rather than choosing to follow the example of the rebel colonists and commit treachery against their sovereign, the future peoples of Canada chose to remain loyal and stay within the British Empire. Thank God they did, because otherwise Canada would not even exist today and we would be nothing more than a frosty, underpopulated collection of states and territories within the American union.
This loyalty was true of both the English-speaking loyalists in the 13 colonies, and the French loyalists in Quebec. In fact, the upper echelons of society in Quebec (both the aristocrats and the clerics) had been so won over by the benevolent treatment of the British after the French and Indian war that that when the American Revolutionary War broke out the leadership in Quebec was explicit in denouncing it. Bishop Jean-Olivier Briand threatened to cut off from the sacraments anyone who supported the republican rebels and excommunicated the famous Father John Carroll of Baltimore, Maryland for his support of the revolution. Yes, believe it or not, originally, Quebec was not only loyal to the Crown but VERY loyal, and it was the Church that was most loyal.
Additionally, the United Empire loyalists from the 13 Colonies, along with many of the American Indians, and slaves who were offered freedom by the British (a story told in the recently published ‘Book of Negroes), fought loyally for the British and when it became apparent that the rebel colonists would win, escaped to Upper Canada (what would become Ontario) and settled there, laying the foundation for English-speaking Canada.
The War of 1812 is often overlooked when it comes to Canada’s identity, but Canadians today should remember just what it was their forefathers were fighting for and what they were fighting against. Remember, this was not so simple as a foreign invasion as we would see it today since, for most of those involved, it was the same sort of people on each side. Much of the population of Canada was ‘American’ in the sense that they had been born in what became the United States of America, and the ones we would call ‘Americans’ were just English, Scottish, and Irish colonists who had rebelled and no longer saw themselves as subject to the crown.
The biggest difference between the opposing forces was their form of government, monarchy versus republic, and the different values the two represented. This was something not lost on the participants at the time. Americans, for example, so believed that republicanism meant liberty and monarchy meant tyranny that their whole invasion of Canada was based on the belief that the oppressed, downtrodden Canadians would welcome them with open arms and rejoice at being delivered by the benevolent republic to the south.
On the other side, Major General Sir Isaac Brock, who gave his life defeating the U.S. attack told his relatively small army that, “We may teach the enemy this lesson: A country defended by free men devoted to the cause of their king and constitution can never be conquered…” Make no mistake about it, the people of Canada at the time knew they were in a fight of monarchy against republicanism and had no doubt that their constitutional monarchy was greatly preferable to the republicanism of the States.
This foundational identity of being loyalists against the spread of republicanism was so important that in our original anthem The Maple Leaf Forever, it spoke of this, saying, “At Queenston heights and Lundy’s Lane, our brave fathers’ side by side, for freedoms homes and loved ones dear, firmly stood and nobly died, and so their rights which they maintained, we swear to yield them never, our watchword evermore shall be, the Maple Leaf Forever.”
Canadian republicans who so detest the United States should keep in mind this part of the founding of our country and remember that remaining loyal to King and Country was the first and most paramount aspect that distinguished us from the United States. To reject this foundational aspect is tantamount to admitting that the Americans were right along. If these people had their way the Dominion of Canada would basically be betraying our entire history in order to become the United States of Northern North America. We might as well petition to become the 51st state. Instead, I say, let us fight on for God, King, and Country, just as our forefathers did in every war Canada has ever fought.
The Maple leaf Forever; Canada's Greatest and most representative anthem, combined with the Canadian Red Ensign, Canada's Greatest and most representative flag.
Does Science Explain Everything?
With Fr James Brent, OP, PhD, STL, Asst Professor of Philosophy, Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, Washington DC.
‘Adore Him’ Hit Theaters October 4
Bld Fulton Sheen spent an hour every day in Eucharistic Adoration and credited with his success on his TV show "Life Is Worth Living".
From Aleteia
By David Ives
Is participating in Eucharistic Adoration really that transformative? Watch the film and see for yourself.
"What does God need with a starship?" That’s the question a skeptical Captain Kirk poses in the movie Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when a disembodied voice claiming to be the Almighty demands passage on the USS Enterprise. Kirk’s query is a simple and honest one; why would an omnipresent being have any need for a physical vessel to travel through space? Well, there are no starships in the new docudrama Adore Him, but the film does posit somewhat similar musings.
Adore Him is the latest feature from the producers of Jesus Thirsts: The Miracle of the Eucharist. While that movie explored the biblical origins of the Eucharist and its importance to Christians, Adore Him narrows its focus to Eucharistic Adoration, the practice of spending time in prayer or contemplation before a consecrated host as it sits within a monstrance. Now, to someone not familiar with the custom, the very description of Adoration likely raises some questions, including one that may sound a bit familiar to fans of Captain Kirk: What does a God whom you can pray to anywhere or anytime need with a physical vessel like a monstrance?
The short answer is that God doesn’t need such a thing because God lacks nothing, but He does sometimes make use of things anyway. (Things like a monstrance, that is, not a spaceship. Not yet, anyway.) To illustrate why this is, the movie features numerous vignettes based on incidents in Scripture in which people encounter God in tangible ways, most notably through the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy of Holies. What makes the Ark and the Holy of Holies of particular interest, the film points out, is that God specifically commanded they be constructed so His presence could reside within them. He didn’t need them, but He insisted on them. Why?
Well, for our benefit, of course. As the film explains, God, who is not material, chooses to deal with us material creatures through signs we can see and approach. In part, it’s a way to show us that He is not some distant deity, but one who is right here with us. And if that was true for the Ark and the Holy of Holies, how much more true is it with a consecrated host, the Sacramental body of Christ itself, within a monstrance?
Adore Him film
Once it gets that initial question out of the way, Adore Him is then free to explore the primary reason the film was made, that is the supposition that time spent before the Blessed Sacrament changes everything, from our personal lives to the life of a parish. Through testimonials and interviews with clergy and laymen from around the world, the filmmakers do their best to illustrate that even a few moments each week spent in Adoration can have positive life-altering results. That should come as no surprise, though, as one would expect sitting in the presence of God to do that very thing.
Of special interest given Blessed Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s recent beatification is the interview with his cousin, Rosemarie Holliger Costello, in which she discusses Sheen’s intense belief in the power of keeping a Holy Hour with the Eucharist. As Deacon Steve Greco, one of the film’s producers, notes, "Many have said that Sheen will be the ‘patron saint’ of the Holy Hour, and we believe that our movie underscores his personal devotion and what the Church has always invited us to partake in as a way to grow closer to Jesus truly present in the Blessed Sacrament. Like Sheen, we pray many will take up this devotion and see their lives transform!"
Is participating in Eucharistic Adoration really that transformative? You can let all those who participated in Adore Him make their case when Fathom Events presents the film in theaters between October 4 and October 8. Get tickets here.
Leo Summons the Most Important Bishops to Rome To Celebrate Heresy
Medieval Weirdness: Clever King Cnut, Giving Land to Monks, (and Odd Medieval Measurements!)
From Modern History TV
Modern History TV, with Jason Kingsley, CBE, explores the unusual land grant made by King Cnut to the monks of Canterbury in 1023. By testing the distance a historical axe can be thrown, the video demonstrates how lack of standardization led to poetic yet imprecise measurements in medieval legal documents.
King Cnut and his strange legal definitions for measurements from medieval documents. Just how far was it? How do we know?
Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | October
7 Confession Rules the Vatican Changed (That Most Catholics Don’t Know)
From Totus Catholica
The way Catholics go to confession has changed again and again, and that fact stops people cold. The private booth, the screen, the words the priest speaks over you, even how often you are required to go: for most of Christian history, almost none of it looked the way it looks today. The world hears that and assumes it has finally caught the Church in something. Here is the part the critics always miss: not one of those changes ever touched the heart of the sacrament. Here are seven things the Vatican quietly changed about confession, and the one thing it has never had the power to change.
The roots reach back past Easter evening, when Christ breathed on his apostles, into Israel itself. The Hebrew word hitvada means to confess, to name a sin aloud, and it is the word of the Day of Atonement, when the high priest confessed the sins of Israel over the goat. David confessed to Nathan and heard mercy through a man God appointed. The Dead Sea Scrolls show a whole community praying, we have sinned, we and our fathers before us, before Christ was born. Sin was never meant to stay silent and hidden. So examine your conscience tonight, then go. Do not wait for a deathbed the way the ancient world once did. The door was thrown wide open for you a long time ago, and Christ himself is still speaking through his priest: I absolve you.
In this video:
• Why private confession is a gift from 7th century Irish monasteries
• The booth with the screen is only about 450 years old, and the bishop who built it
• 1215: the yearly confession rule came from a council, not straight from heaven
• The words changed in 1973, but I absolve you never moved an inch
• The 2016 change that made one specific mercy easier to reach, not harder
⏱ CHAPTERS
0:00 The Church That Never Changes, Changed
2:01 Easter Evening: Where Confession Begins
4:22 From Public Penance to the Irish Monks
5:54 The Yearly Rule Came From a Council
6:38 The Confessional Box Is Only 450 Years Old
7:35 The New Words of 1973
8:52 The 2016 Change Made for Mercy
📖 SCRIPTURE REFERENCED
• John 20:22,23: the risen Christ breathes on his apostles. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven; whose sins you retain are retained.
• Leviticus 16: on the Day of Atonement, the high priest confesses the sins of Israel aloud over the goat.
• 2 Samuel 12: David confesses, and Nathan answers that the Lord has put away his sin.
• Matthew 16: whatever you bind on earth, whatever you loose on earth, the authority behind every changeable discipline.
⛪ FROM THE CHURCH FATHERS & THE CATECHISM
• Tertullian (around 200), On Repentance: public repentance, exomologesis, the open acknowledgment of sin.
• CCC 1448: beneath all the changes in discipline and celebration across the centuries, the same fundamental structure is still to be discerned.
• The Catechism on the Irish shift: from the 7th century on, the sacrament has been performed in secret between the penitent and the priest.
📜 SOURCES & FURTHER READING
• The order of penitents: public penance for serious public sin, sometimes for months or years, and reconciliation by the bishop alone.
• The Irish monks (7th century): private confession to a single priest, repeatable as often as the soul needed it, the practice that ended deathbed-only confession.
• The Fourth Lateran Council (1215): every Catholic past the age of reason confesses to their own priest at least once a year.
• St. Charles Borromeo (1500s): popularized the enclosed confessional with a screen, to protect both people and guard the seal.
• The 1973 Rite of Penance after Vatican II: a new absolution prayer, the name sacrament of reconciliation, and the choice of face-to-face or the screen.
• 2016: Pope Francis granted every priest the permanent faculty to absolve the sin of abortion, once reserved to the bishop in many places.
🔗 EXPLORE MORE
🌍 Website: https://totuscatholica.org/
Rosary Guide: https://totuscatholica.org/rosary
✉️ Contact: https://totuscatholica.org/contact
🔍 Examination of Conscience: https://catholicexaminationofconscien...
📚 Free eBooks: https://buymeacoffee.com/totuscatholi...
👥 Become a Totus Insider: https://buymeacoffee.com/totuscatholi...
800 Years Ago St Francis Died on a Saturday Evening
Another Saint whose Feast is not on the date of their death. Yesterday was his Feast, but he actually died on 3 October. Mr Kosloski explains.
From Aleteia
By Philip Kosloski
October 3 marks the "transitus" of St. Francis of Assisi, the day when he passed from this life to the next.
While most are familiar with the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4, few know that he technically died the day before, on the evening of October 3.
In St. Bonaventure's Life of St. Francis of Assisi, he writes, "Now the holy Father departed from the shipwreck of this world in the year 1226 of the Lord’s Incarnation ... at late even of a Saturday, and on the Sunday he was buried."
When you look at a calendar of 1226, October 3 is a Saturday and October 4 is a Sunday. If St. Francis died on Saturday evening, then he technically died on October 3.
For this reason members of the Franciscan Order continue to recollect his last hours with a service called the Transitus of St. Francis. The Latin word transitus simply means "passing over," and so it marks the passing over of St. Francis of Assisi into eternal life.
St. Francis' final hours
Thomas Celano provides a glimpse in his early biography how St. Francis spent his final days on this earth:
St. Francis spent the last few days before his death in praising the Lord and teaching his companions whom he loved so much to praise Christ with him. He himself, in as far as he was able, broke out with the Psalm: I cry to the Lord with my voice; to the Lord I make loud supplication. He likewise invited all creatures to praise God and, with the words he had composed earlier, he exhorted them to love God. Even death itself, considered by all to be so terrible and hateful, was exhorted to give praise, while he himself, going joyfully to meet it, invited it to make its abode with him. “Welcome,” he said, “my sister death.”
He exhorted his brothers to remain steadfast in their faith and to be faithful to the Church.
St. Bonaventure reports in his biography that St. Francis said on the day of his death, "Farewell, my children, abide in the fear of the Lord, and ever persevere therein. And when any temptation or trouble approaches you say: Blessed are they who persevere in those things which they have begun. And now I go to God, to whose grace I commend you all."
St. Francis then asked that the Gospel of John be read to him and then Psalm 141.
Afterwards he finally breathed his last, and according to St. Bonaventure, some around him saw his soul rising to Heaven:
One of his brethren and disciples saw that blessed soul under the appearance of a glorious star, borne upwards by a white cloud, and so carried as upon many waters, straight to Heaven; and that glorious cloud betokened the sublime purity of sanctity and the fulness of heavenly wisdom and abundant grace.
His body was carried through the city of Assisi the next day, and stopped at St. Clare's convent so that she could pay her final respects.
When St. Francis was later canonized, his feast was fixed to October 4, though he technically died on October 3.
04 October 2026
The Celebrity Priest Who Couldn't Be Bought
From Truthly
Fulton Sheen was beatified on September 24, 2026.
He created the most popular religious broadcast in television history. . . and vanished. This is the untold story.
Made by Truthly in partnership with the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, the official promoter of the cause for the canonization of Fulton Sheen.
Learn more about the cause for Fulton Sheen’s canonization.
https://www.celebratesheen.com
Stories From the Silver Screen: Close Encounters of the Third Kind
"While Close Encounters could not be called a Christian-themed film, it draws on and out a childlike wonder found in a light that is not of this world."
_theatrical_poster.jpg)
From Crisis
By Regis Martin, STD
While Close Encounters of the Third Kind could not be called a Christian-themed film, it draws on and out a childlike wonder found in a light that is not of this world.
This should scarcely come as a surprise to anyone, but between Steven Spielberg and myself there is very little in common. Save for the fact that we both happened to have been born in the same year (1946), I cannot think of a single kindred connection. Certainly not in the area of cash, of which I have very little; as for Mr. Spielberg, at seven plus billion he’s practically in the same neighborhood as Elon Musk.
And then there are all those movies he’s made, 35 and counting, of which I’ve managed to see a few, some quite unforgettable. Jaws, for instance, which came out 50 years ago last summer and so terrified audiences that whole stretches of New Jersey shoreline suddenly became empty. Or Saving Private Ryan (1998), with its bookends of heartbreak—i.e., the scene at Omaha Beach at the beginning, where mayhem and misery mark the landing of thousands of frightened young soldiers, followed by, at the very end, the scene at the American Cemetery where so many lay dead while, close by, an old man in tears remembers the sacrifice they made to save him.
And while I may have turned out a few books of my own, mostly unread, I’ve yet to make a single movie. In fact, I don’t even own a camera, much less know how to operate one.
But I love watching movies, especially if they remind me of the world I once knew as a child, a world suffused with a sense of mystery and, yes, even menace—but not terminally dangerous because, in the end, the lights in the theater turn on again and the darkness will have been banished. A world, come to think of it, not so very different from the one Steven Spielberg grew up in, where, at any moment, an attack from an alien planet might take place, in which sinister pod people are sent out in search of the souls of innocent earthlings to corrupt and destroy—but who ultimately are defeated, thus restoring the contours of a good and gentle universe.
Welcome to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, in other words, a mid-’50s sci-fi classic before which, I suspect, a young Steven Spielberg sat spellbound. I know I did.
And when he grew up and started making movies of his own, one in particular would stand out and, for me at least, prove especially enchanting. That would be Close Encounters of the Third Kind. When it came out in 1977, Spielberg was just 30 years of age, an astonishing achievement.
So, what’s the big deal, why this movie? Because it plunges the viewer into the numinous depths of another world, a world both fearful and fascinating, both terrible and tame; it is a world only the very young and the childlike are qualified to enter and, in the end, survive triumphant. “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” says Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel, “the reign of God is theirs” (5:3). And who are the poor but those little ones whose eyes remain ever open, eager to take in everything, who, not having anything of their own to defend, desire only what is true, avid in their search for it.
Like the little boy at the center of the story Spielberg tells, who, suddenly awash in a light not of this world, leaves his little bed at night in order to find the source of its brightness, its beckoning warmth. It will draw both he and his mother far beyond the things of this world, to a place they cannot know yet strangely intuit must be more real than anything they already do know. Or the character played by Richard Dreyfuss, an ordinary fellow from Muncie, Indiana, whose life will be completely upended by that same light, the radiant source of which he, too, will give up everything in order to possess.
It may not be “the pearl of great price,” of which the Gospels speak; to think otherwise is to risk falling into idolatry. But it is an intimation, a hint, of something more; a bit like the universe St. Bonaventure speaks of, which is but “a ladder we ascend to God.” Or the insight lifted from one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poems: “Earth’s crammed with heaven / And every common bush afire with God: / But only he who sees, takes off his shoes, / The rest sit round, and pluck blackberries.”
There are no blackberries waiting to be plucked in this movie, and if they wear shoes it is only in order to speed them along their way to the Great Rendezvous in Wyoming, the staging area for the promised flight into Deep Space. It is not fear, by the way, that drives them to seek out and climb up the ladder into the realm of the numinous. They are not in flight from an imagined terror cast by some Unknown Other, from which, at all costs, they must flee. Spielberg is not spinning tales of horror here.
It is the attraction rather, the intense longing itself, that draws them on—a sense of primal awe, awakened by the discovery of something beyond anything they’ve ever known before. It is the undeniable sensation of what they had both seen and heard—this mysterious light which, while dazzling to the senses, is yet a source of some dread to the spirit. In short, it is more spectral than physical. Indeed, it is transporting, carrying them completely outside the space/time continuum, even as the encounter itself, what Spielberg calls a “close encounter,” will necessarily transpire from within the sensate world. If we are not finally alone in this world, destined therefore to leave behind all that is banal and boring, then the search for it will have to begin amid the things of this material world.
The figures in the film, transfixed by the light, are not entirely unlike the prophet Ezekiel, the “rings” of whose Theophany, he tells us, “were so high that they were dreadful” (1:18). Or the prophet Jacob who, upon rising from a deep sleep during which he wrestled with the very Angel of God, declares: “How dreadful is this place!” (Genesis 28:17). Who will not desist, by the way, will not cease to press on with his quest, until, having extracted a blessing—which is the name Israel, meaning one who contends with God himself—an entirely new life opens up before him.
This is the mission they have been given, to follow the light as best they can, athwart every obstacle thrown in their way. Do they make it? That is for the film to reveal, not the reviewer. At least not this reviewer, whose only task is to try and entice as many readers as possible to go out and watch it—and then decide.
St Placid & His Companions, Martyrs
.jpg)
The protomartyr of the Benedictine Order stands before us today in his strength and his beauty. The empire had fallen, and the yoke of the Arian Goths lay heavy upon Italy. Rome was no longer in the hands of the glorious races, which had made her greatness; these, nevertheless, kept up their honorable traditions. They offered a great lesson for future times of revolution to other descendants of not less noble families: in lieu of the ensign of civic honor once committed to their fathers, the survivors of the old patrician ranks made it their duty to raise still higher the standard of true heroism, of those virtues which alone are everlasting. Thus Benedict of Nursia, fleeing into the desert, had rendered greater service than any mighty conqueror to Rome and her immortal destinies. The world soon discovered this fact; and then began, as St. Gregory tells us, the concourse of Roman nobles, bringing their children to the Patriarch of monks, to be educated by him for Almighty God. (Gregor. Dialog. lib. ii. cap. 3)
Placid was the eldest son of the patrician Tertullus. The excellent qualities early discovered in the child led his worthy father to offer to God, without delay, this dear first-fruit of his paternity. In those days, parents loved their children not for this passing world, but for eternity; not for themselves, but for our Lord. The faith of Tertullus was well rewarded when, twenty years later, not only his first-born, but also his two other sons and their sister, were crowned with martyrdom. This was not the first holocaust of the kind in that heroic family, if it be true that they were relatives by blood and heirs of the goods as well as the virtues, of the holy Eustace, who had been immolated four centuries earlier with his wife and sons. (Gueranger, vol. xiv)
Among the children of promise enlisted by the vanquished nobles of the ancient empire in the new militia of the holy Valley, Equitus brought to Subiaco his son Maurus, a boy some years older than Placid. Henceforth the names of Maurus and Placid became inseparable from that of Benedict; and the Patriarch acquired a new glory from his two sons, so united and yet so different.
Equal in their love of their master and father, and themselves equally loved by him for their equal fidelity in good works, they experienced to the full that delight in virtue which makes its practice a second nature. However similar their zeal in using “the most strong and bright armor of obedience” in the service of Christ the King, it was wonderful to see the master accommodating himself to the age of his disciples; so, adapting himself to their differences of character that there was nothing precipitate, nothing forced, in his education. It disciplined nature without crushing it and followed the Holy Ghost without endeavoring to take the lead. In Maurus was especially reproduced Benedict’s austere gravity; in Placid his simplicity and sweetness. Benedict took Maurus to witness the chastisement inflicted on the wandering monk, who could not stay at prayer; but Placid accompanied him to the mountain-top, where his prayer obtained a spring of water to deliver from danger and fatigue the brethren dwelling on the rocks above the Anio. But when, walking along the riverside, holding Placid by the hand and leaning upon Maurus, the legislator of monks explained to them the code of perfection they were afterwards to propagate, the Angels knew not which most to admire: the candor of the one, winning the father’s tenderest affection, or the precocious maturity of the other, meriting the holy patriarch’s confidence, and already sharing his burden.
Who does not recollect the admirable scene of Maurus walking on the water and saving Placid from drowning? Monastic traditions never weary of extolling the obedience of Maurus, Benedict’s humility, and the sagacious simplicity of the child pronouncing sentence as judge of the prodigy. (Gregor. Dialog. lib. ii.) Of such children the Master could say from experience: “The Lord oftentimes revealeth that which is best, to him that is the younger.” (St. Benedict. Reg. cap. iii) And we may well believe that the recollections of the holy Valley prompted him, later on, to lay down in his Rule this prescription: “In all places whatsoever, let not age be taken into account as regardeth order, neither let it be to the prejudice of anyone; for Samuel and David, while yet children, were judges over the elders.” (St. Benedict. Reg. cap. lxiii)
The following Lessons, taken from the Monastic Breviary, will complete the account of Placid’s life, and relate the manner of his death. In 1588, the discovery of the Martyr’s relics at Messina confirmed the truth of their Acts. On this occasion, Pope Sixtus V extended the celebration of their Feast under the rite of a simple, to the universal Church.
Placid, a Roman by birth and son of Tertullus, belonged to the noble family of the Anicii. Offered to God while still a child, he was entrusted to St. Benedict, and made such progress in sanctity and in the monastic life, as to become one of his principal disciples. He was present when the Holy Father obtained from God by prayer a fountain of water in the solitude of Subiaco. While still a boy, being sent one day to draw water, he fell into the lake, but was miraculously saved by the monk Maurus, who at the command of the Holy Father ran dry-shod over the water. Later on, he accompanied St. Benedict to Monte Cassino. At the age of twenty-one, he was sent into Sicily, to defend, against certain covetous persons, the goods and lands which his father had given to Monte Cassino. On the way he performed so many great miracles, that he arrived at Messina with a reputation for sanctity. He built a monastery on his paternal estate, not far from the harbor, and gathered together thirty monks; being thus the first to introduce the monastic life into the island.
Nothing could be more placid or more humble than his behavior; while he surpassed everyone in prudence, gravity, kindness, and unruffled tranquility of mind. He often spent whole nights in the contemplation of heavenly things, only sitting down for a short time when overpowered by the necessity of sleep. He was most zealous in observing silence; and when it was necessary to speak, the subjects of his conversation were the contempt of the world and the imitation of Christ. His fasts were most severe, and he abstained all the year round from flesh and every kind of milk-meat. In Lent he took only bread and water on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays; the rest of the week he passed without any food. He never drank wine, and always wore a hairshirt. So numerous and so remarkable were the miracles he worked, that the sick came to him in crowds to be cured, not only from the neighborhood, but also Etruria and Africa. But Placid, in his great humility, worked all his miracles in the name of St. Benedict, attributing them to his merits.
His holy example and the wonders he wrought caused the Christian faith to spread rapidly. In the fifth year after his arrival in Sicily, the Saracens made a sudden incursion, and seized upon Placid and his thirty monks while they were singing the Night Office in the church. At the same time were taken Eutychius and Victorinus, Placid’s brothers, and his sister the virgin Favia, who had all come from Rome to visit him; and also Donatus, Fanstus, and the deacon Firmatus. Donatus was beheaded on the spot. The rest were taken before Manucha, the chief of the pirates; and as they firmly refused to adore his idols, they were beaten with rods and cast, bound hand and foot, into prison, without food. Every day they were beaten afresh, but God supported them. After many days, they were again led before the tyrant; and as they still stood firm in the faith, they were again repeatedly beaten, then stripped of their clothes and hung, head downwards, over thick smoke to suffocate. They were left for dead, but the next day were found alive, and miraculously healed of their wounds.
The tyrant then addressed himself to the virgin Flavia apart. But finding he could gain nothing by threats or promises, he ordered her to be stripped, and hung by the feet from a high beam, insulting her meanwhile upon her nakedness. But the virgin answered: Man and woman have the same Author and Creator, God; hence neither my sex, nor this nakedness which I endure for love of him, will be any disadvantage to me in his eyes, who for my sake chose not only to be stripped, but also to be nailed to a cross. Manucha enraged at this reply ordered her to be beaten, and tortured with the smoke, and then handed her over to be dishonored. At the virgin’s prayer, God struck all who attempted to approach her, with sudden stiffness and pain in all their limbs. The tyrant next attacked Placis, the virgin’s brother, who tried to convince him of the vanity of his idols; Manucha thereupon commanded his mouth and teeth to be broken with stones, and his tongue to be cut out by the root; but the martyr spoke as clearly and easily as before. The barbarian grew more furious at this miracle, and commanded that Placis, with his sister and brethren should be crushed under an enormous weight of anchors and millstones; but even this torture was powerless to hurt them. Finally, thirty-six of Placid’s family, with their leader, and several others, were beheaded on the shore near Messina, and gained the palm of martyrdom on the third of the Nones of October, in the year of salvation five hundred and thirty-nine. Gordian, a monk of that monastery, who had escaped by flight, found all their bodies entire after several days, and buried them with tears. Not long afterwards the barbarians, in punishment of their crime, were swallowed up by the avenging waves of the sea.
“Placid, my beloved son, why should I weep for thee? Thou art taken from me, only that thou mayest belong to all men. I will give thanks for this sacrifice of the fruit of my heart, offered to Almighty God.” (Acta S. Placidi et soc. cap. vii) Thus, on hearing of this day’s triumph, spoke Benedict, thy spiritual father, mingling tears with his joy. He did not survive thee long; yet long enough to complete, of his own accord, the sacrifice of separations, by sending into far-off France the companion of thy childhood, Maurus, who was destined not to rejoin thee in heaven for so many long years. Charity seeketh not her own interests; she finds them by forgetting self and losing self in God. Placid had disappeared; Maurus had been sent away; Benedict was about to die; human prudence would have believed the holy Patriarch’s work in danger of perishing; whereas at this critical moment, it strengthened its roots and extended its branches over the whole world. Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. (John 12:24-25) As heretofore the blood of martyrs was the seed of Christians, it now produced a rich harvest of monks.
Blessed be thou, O Placid, far beyond thy native Italy, and Sicily the scene of thy combat. Blessed be thou for the numberless ears of corn, for the abundant harvest sprung from the choice grain that fell to the earth on this day: faith bids us see in thy immolation the secret of the success granted to the monastic mission of Maurus. Thus, despite the great diversity and the unequal length of your paths in life, you are ever united in the heart of your master and father. At the appointed hour, he did not hesitate before the holocaust our Lord required of him; wherefore, he now in heaven beholds the fulfillment of the hopes he had centered in his two beloved sons.
Deign, O Placid, to continue thy interest in the extension of Christ’s reign upon earth, in the progress of the perfect life in the Church, in the diffusion throughout the world of the monastic family, whereof thou art the glory. Noviciates especially are confided to thee: remembering the blessed education thou wast privileged to receive, watch over the aspirants to the ‘better part’. To them above all is applied the Gospel saying: Unless you become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven, (Matthew 18:3) that kingdom of heaven, which consist in the anticipated possession of God here on earth, in the life of union attained by the way of the counsels. May they reproduce before the angels thy humble and sweet simplicity; and show their gratitude for the maternal solicitude of their holy Order by the same filial docility wherewith thou didst respond to the holy legislator’s special tenderness. May they, in spite of the world’s opposition, increase in numbers and in merit, for the honor of God!
The trials of the present must prepare the monastic Order, and indeed the whole religious state, for the trials of the future. It is around the monks that the martyrs of the last days will gather, as around thee assembled the Christians of Messina, and thy two brothers and the heroic Flavia, so truly worthy to be doubly thy sister. May the chosen flock increase and be ever united; so as to be able to say with one voice to the persecutors both present and future: “Do what you mean to do; for we all of one mind, one faith, one manner of life.” (Acta S. Placidi et soc. cap. v)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)