The Holy Rosary

Monday, the Joyful Mysteries, in Latin with Cardinal Burke.

Meet The Murderous Viking Queen Who Became A Saint

A queen, a saint, a revolutionary of Viking blood – Olga of Kyiv is one of medieval history’s grandest tales. Her path was not simple and full of danger at every turn. Welcome to bizarre history, today we look at Olga of Kyiv, how a murderous Viking beginnings led to a Queen and a Saint.

First, they killed my husband Born in Pskov at the turn of the 10th century, most of Olga’s history is documented through her marriage to Igor of Kyiv. Her Viking heritage is considered through her likely heritage as a Varangian. The Varangians were a subset of people located around the Volga River who would have come from Viking and Scandinavian lineage. Though her Viking origins are of fascination to many, Olga of Kyiv’s story is essential entwined with her marriage to the Igor of Kyiv, the powerful leader of Kyivan Rus. Their marriage is believed to have taken place in 903CE. At this time, Kyivan Rus had been taken from a patchwork of differing tribes, often at war with one another, into a potent principality. The growth of Kievan Rus was predominantly down to Igor’s father Rurik, who is understood to have built the area and brought together tribes into a cohesive whole. Once the tribes were on the same page, Kyivan Rus only grew in power and wealth over what was a relatively small timeframe.

A Brief History of the Immaculate Conception

With Joshua Benson, PhD, Associate Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Catholic University of America.

St Cyprian’s Guide to the Reception of Holy Communion

Today is his Feast Day. Here he explains a fact, forgotten by many, that we may not approach the Sacrament if we are in a state of mortal sin.

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

St. Cyprian, a 3rd-century bishop, briefly explained who should approach the altar for Holy Communion.

In a Treatise on the Lord’s Prayer, the 3rd-century bishop St. Cyprian briefly explains who should receive Holy Communion.

He explains, "Now, we who live in Christ and receive his eucharist, the food of salvation, ask for this bread to be given us every day. Otherwise we may be forced to abstain from this communion because of some serious sin."

St. Cyprian teaches a fundamental truth about the reception of Holy Communion. For him, it is a sacrament to be given to those "who live in Christ" and who have not committed a "serious sin."

He adds that, "Clearly they possess life who approach his body and share in the Eucharistic communion."

What's interesting is the way St. Cyprian adds, "For this reason we should be apprehensive and pray that no one has to abstain from this communion, lest he be separated from the body of Christ and be far from salvation."

As Christians, we should desire that everyone can participate in Holy Communion and actively pray that any obstacles to Communion be removed.

However, the truth remains that serious sin can prevent us from Holy Communion and the way to remove that sin is through the sacrament of confession.

May we look at ourselves and any sin that may prevent us from receiving the Eucharist and pray that everyone else will similarly be able to share at the Table of the Lord.

HM King Louis XVIII (R+I+P)

Today is the 200th anniversary of the death of Louis XVIII by the grace of God, King of France and Navarre (1755-1824, reigned 1814-1824)). The younger brother of the murdered Louis XVI (1754-1793), uncle of the titular Louis XVII (1785-1795), restored (twice) to the throne after the Napoleonic wars, he was the last French monarch to die whilst still on the Throne and the penultimate Catholic Monarch, since Louis-Phillipe, 'King of the French', who usurped the Throne in 1830, was a Freemason.

The solemn entrance of HM Louis XVIII into
Paris by Porte Saint-Denis on 3 May 1814

Heretics PANIC Because Future Priests Are CATHOLIC

Canceled Nuns Take EXTRAORDINARY STEP To Preserve The Faith And Their Convent

The Post-Vatican II Pseudo-Spiritual Movement

'The misinterpretation of “discernment” is still being used to deceive the faithful—not just at ground level but at the highest level in the Church, as we have already witnessed in Rome.'

From Crisis

By David Torkington

With the demise of the traditional, God-centered spirituality that once thrived in the Church, new secular missionaries rushed in to introduce their man-centered sociopsychological therapies of one form or another.

After the Second Vatican Council, having received no help to inspire a new spiritual revival and reluctant to reintroduce the old moral spirituality that had failed before, there was a new “pseudo-spiritual movement,” seen most clearly in religious life. This new “movement” was to do what the old moral spirituality had failed to do.

While Marxism was developed into Liberation Theology in South America and was seen as the way to change the world, it was Depth Psychology that was developed in Europe, which was seen as the way to change oneself. In both cases, returning to authentic, traditional, Catholic, God-given wisdom was rejected in favor of the latest wisdom of the world. 

St. Augustine would turn in his grave, for the Pelagianism that he had spent his lifetime trying to destroy was alive and well and taking over the helm on the Barque of Peter. The slow and gradual spiritual deterioration that had set in since Quietism was now to gather a pace after the Second Vatican Council. For, if nothing else, the strong atmosphere of authoritarianism that had held the Church together before was suddenly lifted. The same sort of libertarianism that prevailed in the “swinging sixties” began to seep into the members of the Church, who soon began to vote with their feet.

The gap that was left when no document—nor any teaching—on the spiritual life was given at the Second Vatican Council was filled by the teaching of Depth Psychology, mainly implemented by ungifted amateurs. With the demise of the traditional, God-centered spirituality that once thrived in the Church, new secular missionaries rushed in to introduce their man-centered sociopsychological therapies of one form or another. All methods, all ways, and all courses, no matter how bizarre, that promised greater personal psychological well-being and maturity were in, while all courses that offered traditional spiritual growth in Christ were out. 

My knowledge of these divisive times comes not from sifting through contemporary documents but from experiencing these horrors for myself, although it has to be said that they mainly affected those living in religious life. The laity continued with the same sort of moral spirituality as before, although the quality of a person’s religious identity tended to be assessed by their liturgical preferences, by which other Catholics judged them.

From 1969-1981, I was the director of a diocesan retreat and conference center in London, so I was well positioned to see what other such centers were doing in the United Kingdom and in Ireland. The center that I was running belonged to the Dominican Sisters of Oakford in South Africa. The Dominican General, finding no clear spiritual guidance from the Vatican Council, sent her sisters to seek it elsewhere. On the advice of the Dominican Fathers in Rome, Sr. Margaret Mary Sexton sent sisters to a yearlong course on Dominican spirituality in Rome. Acting on the advice of a Dominican sister who had studied Depth Psychology in Rome under Professor Rulla, S.J., another group was sent to study psychological renewal in Denver, Colorado, under the Jesuits in the United States. 

Each year, different groups were sent to both Rome and Denver. The inevitable clash took place under a new General, Sr. Dolores, who sympathized with the sisters who were sent to Denver, Colorado, where professor Rulla’s teaching was disseminated and put into the hands of ungifted and ill-prepared amateurs. As Professor Rulla was a Jesuit, he had himself experienced the failure of that old moral spirituality in his own formation and in the formation of so many of his peers. He became convinced that a person’s “actual self” could only be transformed into their “ideal self” not by traditional methods of formation, which had been tried and found wanting, but by Depth Psychology.

Since I lectured in Mystical Theology at the Dominican renewal course in Rome, and as I was the director of the Dominican conference and retreat center in London, I was seen as the opposition. So, I was immediately sacked. Half of the community in the convent next to the retreat center, including the prioress and the novice mistress, moved from the convent into stables that I had renovated at the rear of the conference center. Here they awaited the approval of Rome for the new congregation that now thrives in New Forest. 

Fortunately, a young American Dominican priest, late of the Angelicum, Fr. Gabriel O’Donnell, had been staying with the sisters while completing his doctorate on Anglican Orders. He not only supported them at the time, but he has been supporting them ever since. He surprised me by telling me what was happening on our side of the Atlantic had been happening in the U.S. for years. While the small group of Dominican Sisters who originally sought to return to the “Classical Dominican Tradition” are still thriving, their one-time adversaries have long since been lost in oblivion. What has happened to them has happened to myriad other congregations when they stopped seeking Divine Wisdom and sought, instead, the human wisdom that destroyed them. 

Their nemesis came when clerical fraudsters masquerading as traditional retreat masters came to visit congregations under the pretext of helping them to “discern” their charisms only to convert them to their own instead. They devalued and desacralized the words charism and discernment so that they could lead the unwary away from the Wisdom of God in order to introduce them to their problematic version of the wisdom of the world. The misinterpretation of “discernment” is still being used to deceive the faithful—not just at ground level but at the highest level in the Church, as we have already witnessed in Rome.

When this happened, the whole emphasis that had once prevailed in religious life was reversed. Originally, the vows not only set priests and religious apart but gave them the space and time in which to be totally available to God. Then, as ordinary prayer led them into contemplative loving, they received God’s love in return, enabling them to receive all the infused virtues and gifts of the Holy Spirit contained within that love. This made them into the perfect apostles to transform the world in the name of Christ, who now lived in and worked through them. 

However, the new brand of “converted” religious saw that the availability given to them by the vows gave them a new freedom that enabled them to be radically open not to God but to the world, which they would change with the human wisdom that they believed had changed themselves. They had forgotten the words of Christ: “Without me you have no power to do anything.” Pride led them to their own destruction, and in such a short time. 

Far from renewing them, the new man-centered psychological spiritualities that prevailed after the Vatican Council destroyed them, and on an industrial scale. They asked for bread and the Council without a soul gave them a stone instead, so they turned to the world for the wisdom that would destroy them. 

Before leaving this subject, I must mention that psychology was used as a weapon with which to destroy those who opposed the new psychotherapeutic ideology. Many of those who still tried to championed traditional Catholic spirituality were ridiculed and, if they persisted, psychologically broken into little pieces. I have seen this for myself—not just pride at work but devilry. With even a smattering of psychology, it is easy to break a person; but rebuilding them is the work of half a lifetime if not longer. Yes, I have seen devilry at work many times over as the purveyors of this new heresy were prepared to stop at nothing to achieve their satanic objectives.

Fortunately, this new psychotherapeutic spirituality was not disseminated in general among the laity, who continued with the old moral spirituality and the self-chosen devotional practices that would never be sufficient to change them. However, the purveyors of the new secular wisdom and their mentors in Rome have abandoned every semblance of tradition for a new tradition that they seem to make up on the hoof to suit their own wills, not the will of God.

The myriad congregations of women that I remember during my upbringing in the 1940s and ’50s have simply disappeared, and the personnel of male religious orders slowly followed suit. The graces of Mass and the sacraments of the Church have not disappeared, but the spirituality that teaches believers how best to receive them has been denied them thanks to Quietism. Sadly, it was this moral spirituality that formed generation after generation after Quietism and then, finally, the bishops and their theological advisors who ran the Second Vatican Council.

The strange anomaly is that although Quietism was condemned for leading people back into Protestantism, it was, in fact, the Catholic reaction to Quietism that leads people back into Protestantism, at least in practice. By that I mean in the practice of the new moral spirituality that they share in common with Protestants. Needless to say, the main differences still lie in the Sacrifice of the Mass. However, without a Mystical Theology that teaches believers how to practice the divine, sacrificial, and redemptive loving learned in the prayer that Christ Himself practiced, they are ill prepared to access fully the fruits of our redemption. 
Modern Catholics, therefore, are only a hair’s breadth away from Protestantism. It is only the profound contemplative loving, as practiced by their first Christian forebears in imitation of Christ, that can give us the same access to the graces poured out in the Mass. That is why the present regime in Rome, for whom Mystical Theology has no meaning at all, see no barrier to the Christian unity that is just another step on the way to the New Globalism to which they aspire. The Mass is no problem for them anyway because it is little more than a memorial meal. 

The Second Vatican Council may well have produced a conciliar document that was trying to bring back the way the Early Church expressed its profound spirituality in liturgy, but it did so without any serious attempts to detail that spirituality for the faithful who were—and still are—lost without it. And that means without the profound sacrificial, redemptive, and contemplative spirituality that have long since been lost to view after the condemnation of Quietism. 

Contemporary liturgists, both professional and amateur, still fight to maintain the sacrificial character of the Mass. But they seem far less concerned about the way we practice the sacrificial and contemplative spirituality in our daily lives than in celebrating it in liturgy. It is not their fault but the fault of a prolonged exposure to a moralistic spirituality that must be overturned in favor of the Christ-given spirituality that once transformed a pagan world into a Christian world in such a short time that it still baffles secular historians.

********

If you want to study and make this profound spirituality your own, please go to Essentialistpress.com, where I have summarized it in fifteen free lectures on video. I have also been collaborating with Ryan Moreau, the editor at Essentialist Press, in devising and encouraging parish priests to introduce this sublime, God-given spirituality into their parishes so that once again it can be lived by the laity who were the first to practice it years before monasticism was even thought of. 

St Euphemia ~ A Bi-Ritual Saint

St Euphemia was martyred in the Diocletianic Persecution. She is honoured in both East and West on 16 September. Here is her story from both Traditions:

From the East:

The Holy Great Martyr Euphēmia (Ευφημία) was the daughter of Christian parents, the senator Philophronos and his wife Theodosia. She suffered for Christ in the year 304 in the city of Chalcedon, on the Bosphorus opposite Constantinople, the Queen of Cities.

Priscus, the Proconsul of Chalcedon, issued a decree which required all the inhabitants of Chalcedon and the surrounding area to attend a pagan festival, in order to worship and offer sacrifice to the idol of Ares. He threatened grave torments for anyone who failed to appear. During this impious festival, 49 Christians were hidden in one house, where they worshipped the true God in secret. The young virgin Euphēmia was among those who prayed there.

Soon their hiding place was discovered, and they were brought before Priscus to answer the charges against them. For nineteen days the martyrs were subjected to various torments, but none of them wavered in their faith, nor did they consent to offer sacrifice to the idol. The governor, beside himself with rage and not knowing any other way of forcing the Christians to abandon their faith, sent them to Emperor Diocletian for trial. He kept the youngest, the virgin Euphēmia, hoping that she would not persevere if she were left all alone.

Separated from her fellow Christians, Saint Euphēmia fervently prayed that the Lord Jesus Christ would strengthen her for her impending ordeal. Priscus urged the Saint to offer sacrifice to the idol, promising her many rewards. When she refused, he ordered that she be tortured.

The martyr was tied to a wheel with sharp knives attached to it, which slashed her body. The Saint prayed aloud, and miraculously, the wheel stopped by itself and would not move despite all the efforts of the executioners. An angel of the Lord, came down from Heaven, removed Euphēmia from the wheel, and healed her of her wounds, and the Saint gave thanks to God.

Priscus did not notice the miracle which had taken place, so he ordered the soldiers Victor and Sosthenes to take the Saint to a red-hot furnace. But the soldiers, seeing two Angels in the midst of the flames, refused to carry out the Proconsul's order and declared that they believed in the God Whom Euphēmia worshipped. Boldly proclaiming that they were Christians, Victor and Sosthenes awaited punishment. They were sentenced to be devoured by wild beasts. In the arena, they begged God to forgive the sins they had committed, asking the Lord to receive them into the Heavenly Kingdom. A Divine voice was heard, and the two soldiers entered into eternal life. The beasts, however, did not harm their bodies.

Saint Euphēmia, cast into the fire by other soldiers, did not suffer. With God's help she emerged unscathed after many other torments. Ascribing these things to sorcery, Priscus ordered a pit to be dug. Filling it with knives, he had it covered over with earth and grass, so that the martyr would not notice this trap.

Once again, Saint Euphēmia remained safe, walking over the pit. Finally, she was sentenced to be devoured by wild beasts in the arena. Before her execution, the Saint prayed that the Lord would deem her worthy of martyrdom. But none of the bears or lions attacked her, but only licked her feet. Finally, one she-bear wounded her foot, which bled slightly, and the Holy Great Martyr Euphēmia died right away. As her soul departed, there was an earthquake. The city was shaken, the walls fell down, and the pagan temples crumbled. As Saint Euphēmia lay dead in the sand, the guards and spectators fled in terror, so that the Saint's parents were able to take her body and bury it near Chalcedon.

Later, a majestic church was built over the grave of the Great Martyr Euphēmia. The sessions of the Fourth Ecumenical Council took place there in the year 451. At that time, the Holy Great Martyr Euphēmia confirmed the Catholic confession of faith in a miraculous way, exposing the Monophysite heresy. That miracle is commemorated on July 11.

When the Persians captured Chalcedon in the year 617, the relics of the holy Great Martyr Euphēmia were transferred to Constantinople (around the year 620). During the Iconoclast heresy, the reliquary containing Saint Euphēmia's relics seems to have been thrown into the sea, but pious sailors recovered them. They were brought to the island of Lemnos, and they were returned to Constantinople in 796.

The incorrupt body of Saint Euphēmia is in the Patriarchal Church of Saint George at the Phanar in Constantinople. Portions of her relics are to be found in Kykkos Monastery on Cyprus, and in the Saint Alexander Nevsky Lavra at Saint Petersburg.

Troparion — Tone 4

Your lamb Euphēmia calls out to You, O Jesus, in a loud voice: / “I love You, my Bridegroom, and in seeking You I endure suffering. / In Baptism I was crucified so that I might reign in You, / and I died so that I might live with You. / Accept me as a pure sacrifice, / for I have offered myself in love.” / Through her prayers, save our souls, since You are merciful.

Troparion — Tone 4

(Slavic usage)
You loved your Bridegroom Christ, / and your lamp was well trimmed1 shining with virtue, O All-praised Euphēmia, / and so you went in with Him to the wedding feast,2 / receiving from Him a crown of martyrdom. / Deliver us from misfortune, who revere your memory with faith.1 Matthew 25:7 2 Matthew 25:10

Kontakion — Tone 4

(Podoben: “As You were voluntarily raised...”)
In your struggle you contested well, Euphēmia; / even after death you make us holy by gushing forth miracles, O All-praised one. / Therefore, we honour your holy repose, standing by your august relics with faith, / in order to be delivered from spiritual afflictions, / and that we may draw forth the grace of your miracles.

From the West:

From The Golden Legend of Blessed Jacobus Voragine, translated by William Caxton in 1483.

HERE FOLLOWETH THE LIFE OF S. EUFEMIA

Eufemia was daughter of a senator, and saw christian men in the time of Diocletian so sore tormented and all to-rent by divers torments, that she came to the judge and confessed her to be christian. And she comforted by example the courages of other men, and by her constancy. And when the judge slew the christian men, the one tofore another, and made others to be present because they should be afeard of that they saw the others so cruelly tormented and broken, and that they should sacrifice for dread and fear, and when Eufemia saw even thus tofore her the holy saints, she was the more constant by the steadfastness of the martyrs, and spoke to the judge, and said that she suffered wrong of him.

Then the judge was glad, weening that she would have consented to do sacrifice, and when he demanded of her what wrong he had done to her, she said to him: For sith I am of noble lineage, why puttest thou tofore me the strangers and unknown, and makest them go to Christ tofore me? For it were my pleasure to go thither by martyrdom tofore them. And the judge said to her: I had supposed thou wouldst have returned in thy thought, and I was glad that thou haddest remembered thy noblesse.

HER PASSION

And then she was inclosed in the prison, and the day following, without bonds, was brought tofore the judge. And then she complained right grievously why against the laws of the emperors she was alone spared for to be out of bonds. And then she was long beaten with fists, and after, sent again to prison, and the judge followed her, and would have taken her by force for to have accomplished his foul lust, but she defended her forcibly, and the virtue divine made the hands of the Judge to be lame.

And then the judge weened to have been enchanted, and sent to her the provost of his house for to promise to her many things for to make her consent to him, but he might never open the prison which was shut, neither with key ne with axes, till he was ravished with a devil, crying and treating himself, that unnethe he escaped.

And then she was drawn out and set upon a wheel full of burning coals. And the artillour, that was master of the torment, had given a token to them to turn it, that when he should make a sound, that they all should turn it, and the fire should spring out and all to-break and rend the body of the virgin; but by the ordinance of God the iron that the artillour and master had in his hand, fell to the earth, and made the sound. And they turned hastily so that the wheel burnt the master of the work and kept Eufemia without hurt, sitting upon the wheel. And the parents of the artillour wept and put the fire under the wheel and would have burnt Eufemia with the wheel, but the wheel was burnt, and Eufemia was unbounden by the angel of God, and was seen to stand all whole, unhurt, in a high place.

And then Apulius said to the judge: The virtue of christian people may not be overcome but by iron, therefore I counsel thee to do smite off her head. Then they set up ladders, and as one would have set hand on her, he was anon smitten with a palsy, and was borne thence half dead. And another named Sosthenes went up on high, but anon he was changed in his courage and repented him and required her humbly pardon, and when he had his sword drawn he cried to the judge that he had liefer slay himself than touch her whom the angels defended.

At the last, when she was taken thence, the judge said to his chancellor that he should send to her all the young men that were jolly, for to enforce and to make her do their will till she should fail and die. And then he entered in and saw with her many fair virgins praying with her, and she made him to be christened with her admonishments.

And then the provost did do take the virgin by the hair and hung her thereby, and she ever abode constant and immovable. And then he did do shut her in prison without meat seven days, and pressed her there between four great stones as who should press olives, but she was every day fed with an angel. And when she was between those two hard stones she made her prayers, and the stones were converted into right soft ashes.

Then the provost was ashamed for to be vanquished of a maid; and then he made her to be thrown into a pit whereas cruel beasts were, which devoured every man that came therein and swallowed them in. And anon they ran to this holy virgin in fawning her, and joined their tails together, and made of them a chair for her to sit on. And when the judge saw that, he was much confounded, so that almost he died for anguish and sorrow.

Then the butcher came for to avenge the injury of his lord and smote his sword into her side, and all to-hewed her and made her there the martyr of Jesu Christ our Lord. And the judge clad him with clothes of silk, and hung on him ouches and brooches of gold, but when he should have issued out of the pit, he was ravished of the beasts, and all devoured anon. And then his people sought him long, and unnethe found they a little of his bones with his clothes of silk and his ouches of gold. And then the judge ate himself for madness, and so was found dead wretchedly.

CONCLUSION

And Eufemia was buried in Chalcedonia, and by her merits all the Jews and paynims of Chalcedonia believed in Jesu Christ. And she suffered death about the year of our Lord two hundred and eighty. And S. Ambrose saith of this virgin thus:

The holy virgin, triumphant in virginity, retaining the mitre, deserved to be clad with the crown, by whose merits the wicked enemy is vanquished, and Priscus, her adversary and judge, is overcome. The virgin is saved from the furnace of fire, hard stones be converted into powder, wild beasts be made meek and tame, and incline down their necks, and all manner of pains and torments by her orations and prayers be overcome. And at the last, smitten with a sword, she left the cloister of her flesh, and is joined to the celestial company, glad and joyous. And, blessed Lord, this blessed virgin commendeth to thee thy church, and, good Lord, let her pray to thee for us sinners, and this virgin, without corruption flourishing, get unto us that our desires may be granted of thee.

St Cornelius, Pope & Martyr & St Cyprian, Bishop & Martyr

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

St Cornelius, Pope & Martyr and St Cyprian, Bishop & Martyr ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

St Cornelius, Pope & Martyr and St Cyprian, Bishop & Martyr

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

There is a peculiar beauty in the meeting of these two Saints upon the sacred Cycle. Cyprian, in a famous dispute, (On the question of the validity of Baptism conferred by heretics.) was once opposed to the Apostolic See: Eternal Wisdom now offers to the homage of the world, in company with one of the most illustrious successors of St. Peter.

Cornelius was, by birth, of the highest nobility; witness his tomb, lately discovered in the family crypt, surrounded by the most honorable names in the patrician ranks. The elevation of a descendant of the Scipios to the sovereign Pontificate linked the past grandeurs of Rome to her future greatness. Decius, who “would more easily have suffered a competitor in his empire than a Bishop in Rome,” (Cyprian, Epist. x. ad Antonianum, ix.) had just issued the edict for the seventh general persecution. But the Cæsar bestowed upon the world’s capital by a village of Pannonia, could not stay the destinies of the Eternal City. Beside this blood-thirsty emperor, and others like him whose fathers were known in the city only as slaves or conquered enemies, the true Roman, the descendant of the Cornelii, might be recognized by his native simplicity, by the calmness of his strength of soul, by the intrepid firmness belonging to his race and wherewith he first triumphed over the usurper, who was soon to surrender to the Goths on the borders of the Danube. (Cyprian, Epist. 10: ad Antonianum viii, ix) And yet, O holy Pontiff, thou art even greater by the humility which Cyprian, thy illustrious friend, admired in thee, and by that purity of thy virginal soul, through which, according to him, thou didst become the elect of God and of his Christ. (Ibid. viii)

At thy side, how great is Cyprian himself! What a path of light is traced across the heavens of holy Church by this convert of the priest Cœcilius! In the generosity of his soul, when once conquered to Christ, he relinquished honors and riches, his family inheritance, and the glory acquired in the field of eloquence. All marveled to see in him, as his historian says, the harvest gathered before the seed was sown. (Pontius, Diac., de vita et pass. Cyprian ii) By a justifiable exception, he became a pontiff while yet a neophyte. During the ten years of his episcopate, all men, not only in Carthage and Africa, but in the whole world, had their eyes fixed upon him; the pagans crying: Cyprian to the lions! the Christians only awaiting his word of command in order to obey. Those ten years represent one of the most troubled periods of history. In the empire, anarchy was rife; the frontiers were the scene of repeated invasions; pestilence was raging everywhere: in the Church, a long peace, which had lulled men’s souls to sleep, was followed by the persecutions of Decius, Gallus, and Valerian. The first of these, suddenly bursting like a thunderstorm, caused the fall of many; which evil, in its turn, led to schisms, on account of the too great indulgence of some, and the excessive rigor of others, towards the lapsed.

Who, then, was to teach repentance to the fallen, (Cyprian, de lapsis.) the truth to the heretics, unity to the schismatics, (Cyprian, De unitate ecclesiæ) and to the sons of God prayer and peace? (Cyprian, De oratione Dominica) Who was to bring back the virgins to the rules of a holy life? (Cyprian, De habitu virginis) Who was to turn back against the Gentiles their blasphemous sophisms? (Cyprian, Lib. ad Dementrianum and De idolorum vanitate) Under the sword of death, who would speak of future happiness, and bring consolation to souls? (Cyprian, De mortalitate) Who would teach them mercy, (Cyprian, De opere et eleemosynis) patience, (Cyprian, De bono patientiæ) and the secret of changing the venom of envy into the sweetness of salvation? (Cyprian, zelo et livore) Who would assist the martyrs to rise to the height of their divine vocation? Who would uphold the confessors under torture, in prison, in exile? Who would preserve the survivors of martyrdom from the dangers of their regained liberty. (Cyprian, De exhortatione martyrii and Epist. ad confessores)

Cyprian, ever ready, seemed in his incomparable calmness to defy the powers of earth and of hell. Never had a flock a surer hand to defend it under a sudden attack, and to put to flight the wild boar of the forest. And how proud the shepherd was of the dignity of that Christian family which God had entrusted to his guidance and protection! Love for the Church was, so to say, the distinguishing feature of the Bishop of Carthage. In his immortal letters to his most brave and most happy brethren, confessors of Christ, and the honor of the Church, he exclaims: Oh! truly blessed is our mother the Church, whom the divine condescension has so honored, who is made illustrious in our days by the glorious blood of the triumphant martyrs; formerly white by the good works of our brethren, she is now adorned with purple from the veins of her heroes; among her flowers, neither roses nor lilies are wanting.” (Cyprian, Epist viii. Ad martyres et confessores)

Unfortunately, this very love, this legitimate, though falsely applied, jealousy for the noble Bride of our Savior, led Cyprian to err on the serious question of the validity of heretical baptism. “The only one,” he said, “alone possesses the keys, the power of the Spouse; we are defending her honor, when we repudiate the polluted water of the heretics.” (Epist. to Jubaianum, i. xi.) He was forgetting that, although through our Lord’s merciful liberality, the most indispensable of the Sacraments does not lose its virtue when administered by a stranger, or even by an enemy of the Church; nevertheless, it derives its fecundity, even then, from and through the Bride; being valid only through union with what she herself does. How true it is that neither holiness nor learning confers upon man that gift of infallibility, which was promised by our Lord to none but the successor of St. Peter. It was, perhaps, as a demonstration of this truth that God suffered this passing cloud to darken so lofty an intellect as Cyprian’s. The danger could not be serious, nor the error lasting, in one whose ruling thought is expressed in these words: “He that keeps not the unity of the Church, does he think to keep the faith? He that abandons the See of Peter whereon the Church is founded, can he flatter himself that he is still in the Church?” (De unitate Ecclesiæ, iv)

Great in his life, Cyprian was still greater in death. Valerian had given orders for the extermination of the principal clergy; and in Rome, Sixtus II, followed by Laurence, had led the way to martyrdom. Galerius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, was then holding his assizes at Utica, and commanded Thascius Cyprian to be brought before him. But the bishop would not allow the “honor of his Church to be mutilated” by dying at a distance form his episcopal city. (Epist. ultima, lxxxiii. Ad clerum et plebem) He therefore waited till the proconsul had returned to Carthage, and then delivered himself up by making a public entrance into the town.

In the house which served for a few hours as his prison, Cyprian, calm and unmoved, gathered his friends and family for the last time round his table. The Christians hastened from all parts to spend the night with their pastor and father. Thus, while he yet lived, they kept the first vigil of his future feast. When, in the morning, he was led before the proconsul, they offered him an arm-chair draped like a bishop’s seat. It was indeed the beginning of an episcopal function, the pontiff’s own peculiar office being to give his life for the Church, in union with the eternal High Priest. The interrogatory was short, for there was no hope of shaking his constancy; and the judge pronounced sentence that Thascius Cyprian must die by the sword. On the way to the place of execution, the soldiers formed a guard of honor to the bishop, who advanced calmly, surrounded by his clergy as on days of solemnity. Deep emotion stirred the immense crowd of friends and enemies who had assembled to assist at the sacrifice. The hour had come. The pontiff prayed prostrate upon the ground; then rising, he ordered twenty-five gold pieces to be given to the execution, and, taking off his tunic, handed it to the deacons. He himself tied the bandage over his eyes; a priest, assisted by a subdeacon, bound his hands; while the people spread linen cloths around him to receive his blood. Not until the bishop himself had given the word of command did the trembling executioner lower his sword. In the evening, the faithful came with torches and with hymns to bury Cyprian. It was the 14th of September, in the year 258.

Let us read first the lines consecrated by the holy Liturgy to the Bishop of Rome.

Cornelius, a Roman by birth, was Sovereign Pontiff during the reign of the Emperors Gallus and Volusianus. In concert with a holy lady named Lucina, he translated the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul from the catacombs to a more honorable resting place. St. Paul’s body was entombed by Lucina on an estate of hers on the Ostian Way, close to the spot where he had been beheaded, while Cornelius laid the body of the Prince of the Apostles near the place of his crucifixion. When this became known to the emperors, and they were moreover informed that, by the advice of the Pontiff, many became Christians, Cornelius was exiled to Centumcellæ where Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, wrote to him to console him.

The frequency of this Christian and charitable intercourse between the two Saints gave great displeasure to the emperors; and accordingly, Cornelius was summoned to Rome, where, as if guilty of treason, he was beaten with scourges tipped with lead. He was next dragged before an image of Mars, and commanded to sacrifice to it; but, indignantly refusing to commit such an act of impiety, he was beheaded on the eighteenth of the Calends of October. The blessed Lucina, aided by some clerics, buried his body in a sandpit on her estate, near to the cemetery of Callixtus. His pontificate lasted about two years.

The Church borrows from St. Jerome her eulogy on St. Cyprian.

From the book of St. Jerome, priest, on Ecclesiastical writers.

Cyprian was a native of Africa, and at first taught rhetoric there with great applause. The priest Cæcilius, from whom he adopted his surname, having persuaded him to become a Christian, he thereupon distributed all his goods among the poor. Not long afterwards, having been made priest, he was chosen Bishop of Carthage. It would be useless to enlarge upon his genius, since his works outshine the sun. He suffered under the emperors Valerian and Gallienus, in the eighth persecution, on the same day as Cornelius was martyred at Rome, but not in the same year.

Holy Pontiffs, united now in glory as you once were by friendship and in martyrdom preserve within us the fruit of your example and doctrine. Your life teaches us to despise honors and fortune for Christ’s sake, and to give to the Church all our devotedness, of which the world is unworthy. May this be understood by those countless descendants of noble races, who are led astray by a misguided society. May they learn form you gloriously to confound the impious conspiracy that seeks to exterminate them in shameful oblivion and enforced idleness. If their fathers deserved well of mankind, they themselves may now enter upon a higher career of usefulness, where decadence is unknown, and the fruit once produced is everlasting. Remind the lowly as well as the great in the city of God, that peace and war alike have flowers to crown the soldier of Christ: the white wreath of good works is offered to those who cannot aspire to the rosy diadem of martyrdom. (Cyprian, Epist viii. Ad martyres et confessores)

Watch, O Cyprian, over thy church of Carthage, now at length renewing her youth. And do thou, O Cornelius, restore to Rome her glorious past. Put down the foreigner from her throne; for the mistress of the world must obey no ruler by the Vicar of the King of kings. May her speedy deliverance be the signal to her people for a complete renovation, which cannot now be far distant, unless the end of the world be approaching.

The fourth Œcumenical Council was held at Chalcedon in the church of St. Euphemia; beside the tomb of this holy Virgin, the impious Eutyches was condemned, and the twofold nature of the God-Man was vindicated. The great martyr seems to have shown a predilection for the study of sacred doctrine: the faculty of theology in Paris chose her for its special patroness, and the ancient Sorbonne treasured with singular veneration a notable portion of her blessed relics. Let us recommend ourselves to her prayers, and to those of the holy widow Lucy and the noble Geminian, whom the Church associates with her.

PRAYER

Grant, O Lord, a joyful issue to our prayers, that we may imitate the constancy in faith of the holy martyrs Euphemia, Lucy, and Geminian, the day of whose sufferings we commemorate with annual devotion. Through.