An Old Peace Plan for the Holy Land

Mr Coulombe presents a plan for the Holy Land that I have considered for years: restore the Crusader States in a modern form.

From One Peter Five

By Charles Coulombe, KC*SS, STM

The sacred armies, and the godly knight,
That the great sepulchre of Christ did free,
I sing; much wrought his valor and foresight,
And in that glorious war much suffered he;
In vain ’gainst him did Hell oppose her might,
In vain the Turks and Morians armed be:
His soldiers wild, to brawls and mutinies prest,
Reduced he to peace, so Heaven him blest.
—Torquato Tasso, “Jerusalem Delivered.”

Since 1948 and the British withdrawal from their erstwhile Mandate over Palestine, the rest of the world has been forced to watch the Israelis and Palestinians do their best to wreak havoc on one another – while the local Christians and the Holy Places are held hostage, as it were, with the former constantly diminishing in numbers, influence, and safety.  Now, given the atrocities committed at different times by the two parties upon each other, one can understand why each feel justified in committing more in retaliation for the last round.  Forgiveness is not a major feature in either of the two religions whose votaries are locked into this grinding position.  For the Palestinians, the Israelis are invaders who have seized their ancestral lands; for the Israelis, the Palestinians are latecomers who are interfering with their complete occupation of what they too consider their ancestral homeland.  Is there an end, can there be an end, to this relentless round of bloodshed and pain without the murderous annihilation of one side or the other?  After all, it seems obvious that neither side can expect much mercy from the other; supporting one side or the other seems to be giving them carte blanche for whatever cruelties they wish to visit on their foes.  Where do a believing Catholic’s loyalties lie?

The obvious answer, of course, is firstly to the area’s Christians and to the Holy Places; it is a measure of how un-Christian the governments of the planet are that these mean nothing to them.  For us, however, the well-being of our co-religionists, not only in Israel-Palestine, but Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan (where they are arguably in the best position), Egypt, and the rest of the Near East ought to be one of our major concerns – and one we force our elected (alleged) representatives to look after, even in reference to cheap oil.

A few historical realities must be faced.  Historically, the mixed religious nature of the Holy Land’s peoples has always been a guarantee of instability.  Peace, when it has come, has always been from some outside source – a more or less neutral source with sufficient will and power to knock heads together, and say the equivalent of “play nice, children!”  The last to do so were the British, who were unable to continue the battle thanks to World War II and the loss of their Empire.  Of course, the vision of  Sir Keir Starmer – master of cancel culture and two tier policing – trying to make sense of the Holy Land can only provoke laughter.  One who is so willfully incompetent in running his own country cannot be expected to sort out another – even if he had the means to do so.

Of course, the current problems predate the British – who, however, exacerbated them during World War I, by promising the Jews a national homeland in Palestine.  From the conversion of the Roman Empire, the Holy Land became primarily Christian, with its Holy Places attracting Catholics of all Rites, from Britain to Ethiopia and India – many of whom stayed.  Most of the Jewish population converted.  So things stood, as the Eastern Roman Empire made the seamless transition into the Byzantine.  But the nascent Muslim Caliphate conquered Palestine and Syria from 634 to 638 AD.  As was their custom, the Muslims reduced the Christian majority and remaining Jewish population todhimmitude, and over time a large number converted.  Nevertheless it is sadly axiomatic that modern Christian and Muslim Palestinians and Jews share a great deal of DNA, despite their religious, cultural, and political difference.  The modern Palestinian’s are genetically as much Jews as those who self-identify with the religion. Truly, there are no wars as savage as civil wars.

In any case, at first – other than the obligatory dhimmitude – the new masters did not disturb the Holy Places very much.  The Byzantine Emperor continued in the beginning as their protector.  But the continuing struggle between the two often made this position tenuous; in 800, the then-Caliph made the new Holy Roman Emperor (and protector of the Holy See as well), Charlemagne, protector of the Holy Places.  This would have long-term consequences, as both Eastern and Western Emperors now had a stake in the Holy Land – as did the Pope, for all that considerations closer to home often made this oversight nominal.

Underlying all of this was the idea that Christendom – Pope, Patriarchs, Primates, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, and Religious on the one hand, and the two Emperors, Kings, Nobility, and Commoners on the other – all formed two facets of one Christian body, one Res Publica Christiana; I have written about this in detail elsewhere.  When, from 1009 to 1014, the Caliph Al-Hakim began the systemic persecution of native Christians, harassment of pilgrims, and destruction of the Holy Places – including the Holy Sepulchre, although the native stone of Christ’s tomb itself rendered it impervious to destruction –  Pope Sergius IV called for a Holy War at the time, but internecine wars around Europe made it impossible.  Al-Hakim’s son allowed the particle reconstruction of the Holy Sepulchre, but even so it was a powerful reminder that Christian security in the Holy Land could not be entrusted to non-Christians.  Then came the defeat of the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert in 1072; the Muslims swarmed over Asia Minor, and a land as Christian as Italy was subjected to the same treatment as Syria and Egypt.  The Byzantine Emperor, despite the Schism between East and West a few decades earlier, called for help to his Western brethren.  Once again, internal issues prevented the West from heeding the call.

Almost a quarter century would pass before things settled down sufficiently that Bl. Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont was able at last to issue a call for a Crusade to liberate the Holy Land.  The call was heard, and, led by the virtuous and heroic Godefroy de Bouillon, the First Crusade, the first actual corporate action of a United Christendom, set off to war.  There were dissensions, mistakes, and all the evils to which any action by fallen mankind is given.  But for the most part, it went well – and featured also the sincerest cooperation between Byzantine East and Latin West that would be seen for the next few centuries.  Not surprisingly, this led to the most successful outcome.  The Crusader States of Edessa, Antioch, Tripoli, and most importantly, the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem were created.  Having refused “a crown of gold, where my Saviour wore a crown of thorns,” Godefroy accepted the title “Protector of the Holy Sepulchre.”  He died a year later but was immortalised in the European imagination as the hero of the Crusade Cycle, which joined the Arthurian Matter of Britain, Charlemagne’s Matter of France, and Alexander the Great’s and Caesar’s Matter of Rome as one of the four pillars of medieval literature.  His name was inscribed alongside those heroes with Hector, Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabeus as one of the “Nine Worthies.”

While the Kingdom lasted, as Donald Attwater observes, “…its government seems on the whole to have been a good example of Christian administration, wise, just, and moderate.”  The Latin bishops were introduced without any concern for the Greek; this was a mistake that would have grievous results later; there were now Latin-Rite Patriarchs of Antioch and Jerusalem.  But by and large, it was a well-run country.  Certainly, the Holy Land has never seen better since.  Under its aegis, the Knightly orders of Malta, the Holy Sepulchre, and the Teutonic Order were founded, as well as the Carmelites.  The Latin-Rite churches of the Kingdom had a liturgical rite peculiar to themselves – the Rite of the Holy Sepulchre.

But in the end, the Crusader States were undone by two factors – firstly internecine Christian strife, which found its nadir first in the 1182 Massacre of the Latins in Constantinople, the memory of which then led to the horrific Fourth Crusade, in which renegade crusaders overthrew the Byzantine Emperor, looted the Imperial City, and established the short-lived Latin Empire of Constantinople.  This has led to all sorts of bitterness since, including the 19th century desecration of the tombs of the Kings of Jerusalem by the Greek Orthodox authorities at the Holy Sepulchre.  One horrible act on the one side led to an equally horrible reprisal, in a manner worthy of modern Israelis and Palestinians – with the difference that both sides in this fight claimed to follow a God Who requires forgiveness of one enemies.

The second factor that doomed the Crusaders States were the civil and other wars that plagued Western Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries.  Without constant outside support, the Crusader States were doomed in the long run – and after the horrible massacres of Christians at Tiberias and Acre, the last of them were snuffed out in 1291.  Crusades continued, in the Mediterranean Sea, Spain, and against Baltic pagans, and the Albigenses and Hussites.  Popes arranged various Leagues and Alliances called “Holy” or “Catholic” against the Turks and other enemies.  But never again would there be the full-fledged support by all Christian countries that once there had been.  Nevertheless, the Pope set the Franciscans to guard the Holy Places in the 1330s, and the Missa devota ad recuperandam Terram Sanctam continued to be offered; to this day the Carthusians pray for the recovery of the Holy Land.  Moreover, for dynastic reasons, the Austrian Habsburgs, Spanish and Neapolitan Bourbons, and the House of Savoy each claim the title of King of Jerusalem.

Starting in the 1500s, the fact that both the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of France were considered to be the heirs of Charlemagne played a role in the increasingly bitter relationship between the two – especially after the Habsburg Charles V beat the French King Francis I in the Imperial election of 1517.  For the next two centuries the French would support the nascent Protestants and Turks against the Habsburgs.  This had many deleterious effects, but it did allow the French to guarantee the safety of the Franciscans and their areas in the Holy Land under the so-called “Status Quo,” through which the various Catholic, Greek, Armenian, Syrian, Coptic, and Ethiopian churches administered parts of the Holy Places under Ottoman supervision.  It has survived intact under the successive British, Jordanian, and Israeli authorities.

After the French Revolution, the French Protectorate was resumed; but given their respective Sovereigns’ claim to the Kingship of Jerusalem, the Austrian, Spanish, Sardinian, and Neapolitan governments (the efforts of the latter two united as Italian in 1860) all funded various orders and churches in the Holy Land over the course of the 19th century.  The Russian Tsar emerged as defender of the Orthodox, while both Great Britain and Prussia set up Protestant foundations (after 1870, the Kaiser of united Germany also supported German Catholic efforts in the Holy Land).  The Pope re-established the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

After World War I, the defeat of the Ottomans, Germans, and Austrians, Belgium joined the ranks of Consular powers protecting Catholics, while the Russian colony split between anti- and pro-Communist factions.  As we have seen, when the British mandate ended, the Holy Land and the World were thrust into the position we are in to-day.  What is the Catholic to do, not least when even the Catholic hierarchy have abandoned the theological position under which a United Christendom supporting the Holy Land was even conceivable?  Two answers: financial support and prayer.

As for the first, there is Nasorean.org, which advocates for Christians across the Middle East.  There are the various institutions of the Church in and out of the Holy Land: the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and its various national Commissariats; the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem; the Order of the Holy Sepulchre; the Sovereign Order of Malta; the Teutonic Order; the Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land; and Protecting Holy Land Christians, to name a few.  All of these can use our help.  As far as prayer goes, of course, we must certainly do that.  We can join the Orders of Malta, the Holy Sepulchre, and the Teutonic Knights in celebrating their respective feasts.

To be sure, a revival of the Latin Kingdom would be the best outcome.  But like the semi-united Christendom whose support was essential for its continued existence, that Realm is absent even from the minds of the Church hierarchy.  Yet its shadow remains in certain places and ways, as does the former interest on defending the Church and Holy Places on the part of once Christian, now secular and even anti-Christian governments.  France is first among these; its Consulate General is proud of its history, its Consul-General’s religious and liturgical privileges (descending from those of the King of France), and its religious properties under French ownership.  The Spanish Consul General manages the Obra Pia de los Santos Lugares (“The Pious Work of the Holy Places”).  Italy and Belgium also have their Consulates, and all four – as nominal guarantors of the Christians of Jerusalem – are the beneficiaries of the Consular Masses offered by the Franciscans on the Consuls Generals’ respective national days.  Although Austria and Germany lost their positions in the Holy Land because of World War I, the Austrian Hospice and the Protestant and Catholic German Foundations created by Kaiser Wilhelm survive.  As noticed before, Imperial Russia founded the Russian Orthodox Ecclesiastical Mission in Jerusalem, which divided into Moscow Patriarchate and ROCOR directed halves – which now cooperate.  Certainly letters and e-mails on behalf of the Holy Land’s Christians to the foreign offices of these countries wouldn’t hurt.

Of course, for those fortunate to attend or to offer the Traditional Latin Mass, it might be remembered that prior to 1955 the rubrics allowed for multiple collects, secrets, and post-communions – some dictated by the calendar, others chosen at the discretion of the celebrant according to need.  The following set, from the Franciscan Mass for the Recovery of the Holy Land are – if not actually used – good matter for meditation upon the real situation in the Holy Land – and what is really needed, rather than what the media and politicians tell us.

Collect

Deus, qui amirabili providentia cuncta disponis, te suppliciter exoramus, ut terram quam unigenitus filius tuus proprio sanguine consecravit, de manibus inimicorum  crucis potenter eripiens restituas cultui christiano, vota fidelium ad eius liberationem instantium misericorditer dirigendo in viam salutis aeterne. Per eum.

God, who, through wonderful foresight, ordain all, we pray you humbly that, taking the land consecrated through the very blood of your only-begotten Son from the hands of the enemies of the cross, restore it to Christian worship, leading the sacrifices of the faithful to its rapid deliverance, on the way of eternal life. Through him.

Secreta

Deus, qui in singulari corporis tui hostia totius mundi solvisti delicta, in hac oblatione placatus, terram  pretiosi sanguinis tui aspersione sacratam, expulsa omni sevitia potestatis adverse, catholice restituas libertati. Per Dominum.

O God, who through the unique sacrifice of your body, have absolved the sins of the entire world, placated by this offering, chase out from the land sanctified by the shedding of your precious blood the savageness of the enemy power, and restore it to universal freedom. Through the Lord.

Postcommunion

Sacris repleti muneribus quesumus, Domine Deus noster, ut terram presentie tue dicatam ab hostium tuorum eripias servitute, ut ea redita te propitiante cultui tuo, obsequia tibi grata populus tuus in ea devotus impendat. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium Tuum, qui vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

After we have received the sacred gifts, we ask you, Lord  our God, to deliver from the slavery of your enemies the land that is called yours, so that, through your grace, it is restored to your worship and your devout people serve you in it with gratitude. Through our Lord, Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen

Lenten Feria ~ Commemoration of St Isidore of Seville, Bishop, Confessor, & Doctor of the Church

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

St Isidore, Bishop and Doctor of the Church ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent ~ Dom Prosper Guéranger

St Isidore, Bishop & Doctor of the Church

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

The Church presents to us, today, for our devout admiration, the memory of one of the holiest of her bishops — Isidore, the Bishop of Seville, the most learned man of his age, and, what is a still greater praise, the most zealous patriot and friend of his noble country. Let us study his virtues and confide in his patronage: both will help us to fervor during this holy Season.

Among Christian lands, there is one that has gained for herself the glorious name of the Catholic Kingdom. Towards the close of the 7th century, Divine Providence subjected her to a most severe trial by permitting the Saracen hordes to invade her: so that her heroic children had to struggle for 800 years for the recovery of their country. Cotemporaneously with Spain, Asia, also, and Africa fell under the Mussulman (Muslim) yoke, and have continued in their slavery up to the present day. Whence comes it, that Spain has triumphed over her oppressors, and that tyranny has never been able to make her children degenerate? The answer is easily given: Spain, at the period of her invasion, was Catholic, and Catholicity was the very spirit of the land: whereas those other nations, that yielded themselves slaves to the Saracens, were already separated from the Christian Church by heresy or schism. God abandoned them, because they had rejected both the truth of Faith, and unity with the Church; they fell an easy prey to the infidel conqueror.

Nevertheless, Spain had incurred an immense risk. The race of the Goths, by their long invasion of her territory, had sowed the seeds of heresy: Arianism had set up its sacrilegious altars in Iberia. But God did not permit this privileged country to be long under the yoke of error. Before the Saracens came upon her, she had been reconciled to the Church; and God had chosen one family to be the glorious instrument in the completion of this great work. Even to this day, the traveler through Andalusia will find the squares of its cities adorned with four statues: they are those of three brothers and a sister: St. Leander, Bishop of Seville; St. Isidore, whose feast we are keeping today; St. Fulgentius, Bishop of Carthagena; and their sister, St. Florentina, a Nun. It was by the zeal and eloquence of St. Leander that King Reccared and his Goths were converted from Arianism to the Catholic Faith, in the year 589; the learning and piety of our glorious Isidore consolidated the great work; Fulgentius gave it stability by his virtues and erudition; and Florentina co-operated in it by her life of sacrifice and prayer.

Let us unite with the Catholic Kingdom in honoring this family of Saints; and today, in a special manner, let us pay the tribute of our devotion to St. Isidore. The holy Liturgy thus speaks of him:

Isidore, by birth, a Spaniard, was an illustrious Doctor of the Church. He was born at Carthagena, and his father, whose name was Severianus, was governor of that part of the country. He was solidly trained to piety and learning by his two brothers, Leander, Bishop of Seville, and Fulgentius, Bishop of Carthagena. He was taught Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; he was put through a course of canon and civil law; and there was no science or virtue in which he did not excel. Whilst yet a youth, be so courageously combated the Arian heresy, which had long before infested the Goths, who had entered Spain, that he with difficulty escaped being put to death by the heretics. After the death of Leander, he was, in spite of himself, raised to the episcopal See of Seville, by the influence of King Reccared, and with unanimous consent of both clergy and people. His election was not only confirmed by Apostolic authority, but St. Gregory the Great, when sending him, as usual, the Pallium, is said to have appointed him bis own vicar, and that of the Apostolic See throughout all Spain.

It would be impossible to describe the virtues of Isidore as Bishop: how firm, humble, patient, and merciful; how zealously he labored for the restoration of Christian morals and ecclesiastical discipline, and how untiring he was in his efforts, both by word and writing, to establish them among his people; and, finally, how he excelled in every virtue. He was a fervent promoter of the Monastic Life in Spain, and built several Monasteries. He also built Colleges, in which he himself applied himself to the teaching the sacred sciences to the many disciples that flocked to him; among whom may be mentioned those two glorious Pontiffs, Ildephonsus, Bishop of Toledo, and Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa. In a Council held at Seville, he spoke with such power and eloquence, that he may be said to have destroyed the heresy of the Acephali, who were threatening to destroy the true faith in Spain. So great, indeed, was the universal reputation he had gained for piety and learning, that he had scarcely been dead sixteen years, when, in a Council held at Toledo, and at which fifty-two Bishops were present, St. Ildephonsus himself among them, he was called the Illustrious Doctor, the new Glory of the Catholic Church, the most learned man who had been seen in those ages, and one whose name should never be mentioned but with great respect. St. Braulio not only compared him to St. Gregory the Great, but said that he looked on him as having been sent by heaven, as a second St. James the Apostle, to instruct the people of Spain.

Isidore wrote a book On Etymologies, and another On Ecclesiastical Offices, and several others, of such importance to Christian and ecclesiastical discipline, that Pope St. Leo IV hesitated not to say, in a letter addressed to the Bishops of Britain, that one ought to adhere to the words of Isidore with that same respect as is shown to those of Jerome and Augustine, as often as a difficult case should arise, which could not be settled by Canon Law. Several sentences of his works have been inserted into the body of the Canon Law. He presided over the Fourth Council of Toledo, which is the most celebrated of all those that have been held in Spain. At length, after having driven the Arian heresy out of Spain, he publicly foretold the day of his death, and the devastation of the country by the Saracens; and having governed his See for about forty years, he died at Seville, in the year 636. His body was first buried, as himself had requested, between those of his brother and sister, Leander and Florentina. Afterwards, Ferdinand the 1st, King of Castille and Leon, purchased it, for a large sum of money, from Enetus, the Saracen governor of Seville, and had it translated to Leon. Here, a Church was built in his honor, and the miracles that are wrought by his intercession, have led the people to honor him with great devotion.

Faithful Pastor! the Christian people honor thy virtues and thy services; they rejoice in the recompense wherewith God has crowned thy merits; hear the prayers that are offered to thee during these the days of salvation. When on earth, thy vigilance over the flock entrusted to thy care was untiring consider us as a part of it, and defend us from the ravenous wolves that cease not to seek our destruction. May thy prayers obtain for us that fullness of graces needed for our worthily completing the holy Season, which is so near its close. Keep up our courage; incite us to fervor; prepare us for the great Mysteries we are about to celebrate. We have bewailed our sins, and, though feebly, we have done penance for them; the work of our conversion has, therefore, made progress; and, now, we must perfect it by the contemplation of the Passion and death of our Redeemer. Assist us, O thou His faithful and loving Servant! Do thou, whose life was ever pure, take Sinners under thy care, and hear the prayers offered to thee on this day by the Church. Look down from heaven on thy beloved Spain, which honors thee with such earnest devotion. Revive her ancient ardor of Faith; restore to her the vigor of Christian morality; remove from her the tares that have sprung up among the good seed. The whole Church reveres thy noble Country for her staunch adhesion to the truths of faith; — pray for her, that she may come unhurt from the ordeal she is now being put through, and ever prove herself worthy of that glorious title of The Catholic Kingdom, which thou didst help her to gain.

Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

From Dom Prosper Guéranger's Liturgical Year:

The Station is in the Church of Saint Eusebius, Priest of Rome, who suffered for the faith, in the Arian persecution, under the Emperor Constantius.

COLLECT

O God, who by thy ineffable mysteries givest new life to the world; grant, we beseech thee, that thy Church may advance in the observance of thy eternal precepts, and never be destitute of thy temporal assistance. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

EPISTLE

Lesson from the Book of Kings 17:17-24

In those days: the son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick, and the sickness was very grievous, so that there was no breath left in him. And she said to Elias: What have I to do with thee, thou man of God? Art thou come to me, that my iniquities should be remembered, and that thou shouldst kill my son? And Elias said to her: Give me thy son. And he took him out of her bosom, and carried him into the upper chamber where he abode, and laid him upon his own bed. And he cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord my God, hast thou afflicted also the widow, with whom I am after a sort maintained, so as to kill her son? And he stretched, and measured himself upon the child three times, and cried to the Lord, and said: O Lord, my God, let the soul of this child, I beseech thee, return into his body. And the Lord heard the voice of Elias; and the soul of the child returned unto him, and he revived. And Elias took the child, and brought him down from the upper chamber to the house below, and delivered him to his mother, and said to her: Behold thy son liveth. And the woman said to Elias: Now, by this, I know thou art a man of God, and the word of the Lord in thy mouth is true.

Again, it is a mother, that comes, with tears in her eyes, praying for the resurrection of her child. This mother is the Widow of Sarephta, whom we have already had as the type of the Gentile Church. She was once a sinner, and an idolatress, and the remembrance of the past afflicts her soul; but the God that has cleansed her from her sins, and called her to be His bride, comforts her by restoring her child to life. The charity of Elias is a figure of that of the Son of God. Observe how this great Prophet stretches himself upon the body of the boy, fitting himself to his littleness, as did also Eliseus. Here again, we recognize the divine mystery of the Incarnation. Elias thrice touches the corpse; thrice, also, will our catechumens be immersed in the baptismal font, whilst the minister of God invokes the Three Persons of the adorable Trinity. On the solemn night of Easter. Jesus, too, will say to the Church, his bride: Behold thy son liveth; and she, transported with joy, will acknowledge the truth of God’s promises. Nay, the very pagans bore witness to this truth; for when they saw the virtuous lives of this new people, which came forth regenerated from the waters of Baptism, they acknowledged that God alone could produce such virtue in man. There suddenly arose from the midst of the Roman Empire, demoralized and corrupt beyond imagination, a race of men of angelic purity and these very men had, but a short time before their Baptism, wallowed in all the abominations of paganism. Whence had they derived this sublime virtue? From the Christian teaching, and from the supernatural remedies it provides for man’s spiritual miseries. Then it was, that unbelievers sought for the true faith, though they knew it was at the risk of martyrdom; they ran to the Church, asking her to become their mother, and saying to her: We know that thou art of God, and the word of the Lord in thy mouth is true.

GOSPEL

Sequel of the holy Gospel according to John 11:1-45

At that time: There was a certain man sick named Lazarus of Bethania, of the town of Mary, and of Martha her sister. And Mary was she that anointed the Lord with ointment, and wiped his feet with her hair, whose brother Lazarus was sick. His sisters therefore sent to him, saying: Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick. And Jesus hearing it, said to them: This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it. Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister Mary, and Lazarus. When he had heard therefore that he was sick, he still remained in the same place two days. Then after that he said to his disciples: Let us go into Judea again. The disciples say to him: Rabbi, the Jews but now sought to stone thee, and goest thou thither again? Jesus answered: Are there not twelve hours of the day? If a man walk in the day, he stumbleth not, because he seeth the light of this world; but if he walk in the night he stumbleth, because the light is not in him. These things he said, and after that he said to them: Lazarus our friend sleepeth: but I go that I may awake him out of his sleep. His disciples therefore said: Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. But Jesus spoke of his death; and they thought that he spoke of the repose of sleep. Then therefore Jesus said to them plainly: Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes, that I was not there, that you may believe; but let us go to him. Thomas therefore, who is called Didymus, said to his fellow disciples: Let us also go, that we may die with him. Jesus therefore came, and found that he had been four days already in the grave (Now Bethania was near Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off). And many of the Jews were come to Martha and Mary, to comfort them concerning their brother. Martha, therefore, as soon as she heard that Jesus was come, went to meet him; but Mary sat at home. Martha therefore said to Jesus: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died; but now also I know, that whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God will give it thee. Jesus saith to her: Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith to him: I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live, and every one that liveth, and believeth in me, shall not die for ever. Believest thou this? She saith to him: Yea, Lord, I have believed that thou art Christ, the Son of the living God, who art come into this world. And when she had said these things, she went, and called her sister Mary secretly, saying: The Master is come, and calleth for thee. She, as soon as she heard this, riseth quickly, and cometh to him; for Jesus was not yet come into the town, but he was still in that place where Martha had met him. The Jews, therefore, who were with her in the house, and comforted her, when they saw Mary that she rose up speedily, and went out, followed her saying: She goeth to the grave, to weep there. When Mary therefore was come where Jesus was, seeing him, she fell down at his feet, and saith to him: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. Jesus therefore, when he saw her weeping, and the Jews, that were come with her, weeping, he groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself, and said: Where have you laid him? They say to him: Lord, come and see. And Jesus wept. The Jews therefore said: Behold how he loved him! But some of them said: Could not he, that opened the eyes of the man born blind, have caused that this man should not die? Jesus therefore again groaning in himself, cometh to the sepulcher; now it was a cave, and a stone was laid over it. Jesus saith: Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith to him: Lord, by this time he stinketh, for it is now the fourth day. Jesus saith to her: Did not I say to thee, that if thou believe, thou shalt see the glory of God? They took therefore the stone away; and Jesus lifting up his eyes, said: Father, I give thee thanks that thou hast heard me; and I know that thou hearest me always, but because of the people who stand about have I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. When he had said these things, he cried with a loud voice: Lazarus, come forth! And presently he that had been dead came forth, bound feet and hands with winding bands, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus said to them: Loose him, and let him go. Many therefore of the Jews, who were come to Mary and Martha, and had seen the things that Jesus did, believed in him.

Let us meditate upon this admirable history; and as we meditate, let us hope; for it not only shows us what Jesus does for the souls of others, but what he has done for ours. Let us also renew our prayers for the Penitents, who now, throughout the world are preparing for the great reconciliation. It is not a mother that is here represented as praying for the resurrection of her child; it is two sisters asking this grace for a brother. The example must not be lost on us—we must pray for one another. But let us take our Gospel in the order of its truths.

First, Lazarus was sick; and then, he died. The sinner begins by being tepid and careless; and then he receives the mortal wound. Jesus could have cured Lazarus of his sickness; but he permitted it to be fatal. He intends to work such a miracle, and that within sight of Jerusalem, that his enemies shall have no excuse for refusing to receive him as the Messias. He would also prove that he is the sovereign Master of life, in order that he might hereby teach his Apostles and Disciples not to be scandalized at the death he himself was soon to suffer. In the moral sense, God, in his wisdom, sometimes leaves an ungrateful soul to itself, although he foresees that it will fall into sin. It will rise again; and the confusion it will feel for having sinned will lead it to that great preservative against a future fall—humility.

The two sisters, Martha and Mary, are full of grief, yet full of confidence in Jesus. Let us observe how their two distinct characters are shown on this occasion. Jesus tells Martha that he is the Resurrection and the Life, and that they who believe in him shall not die, that is, shall not die the death of sin. But when Mary came to him, and he saw her weeping, he groaned in the spirit, and troubled himself, because he knew the greatness of her love. His divine Heart was touched with compassion as he beheld those who were so dear to him, smarting under that chastisement of death, which sin had brought into the world. Having reached the sepulcher where Lazarus was buried, he wept, for he loved Lazarus. Thus did our Redeemer by his own weeping sanctify the tears which Christian affection sheds over the grave of a relative or friend. Lazarus has been in the sepulcher four days: it is the image of the sinner buried in his sin. To see him now is what even his sister shudders at: but Jesus rebukes her, and bids them take away the stone. Then, with that voice which commands all nature and makes hell tremble, he cried out Lazarus, come forth! He that had been dead rises up in the sepulcher; but his feet and hands are tied, his face is covered with a napkin; he lives, but he can neither walk nor see. Jesus orders him to be set free; and then, by the hands of the men that are present, he receives the use of his limbs and eyes. So is it with the sinner that receives pardon. There is no voice but that of Jesus which can call him to conversion, and touch his heart, and bring him to confess his sins; but Jesus has put into the hands of Priests the power to loosen, enlighten, and give movement. This miracle, which was wrought by our Savior at this very season of the year, filled up the measure of his enemies’ rage, and set them thinking how they could soonest put him to death. The few days he has still to live are all to be spent at Bethania, where the miracle has taken place, and which is but a short distance from Jerusalem. In nine days from this, he will make his triumphant entry into the faithless city, after which he will return to Bethania, and after three or four days, will once more enter Jerusalem, there to consummate the Sacrifice, whose infinite merits are to purchase resurrection for sinners.

The early Christians loved to see this history of our Lord’s raising Lazarus to life painted in the walls of the Catacombs. We also find it carved on the Sarcophagi of the fourth and fifth centuries; and later on, it was not unfrequently chosen as a subject for the painted windows of our Cathedrals. This symbol of spiritual resurrection was formerly honored by a most solemn ceremony in the great Monastery of Holy Trinity at Vendôme, in France. Every year, on this day, a criminal who had been sentenced to death was led to the Church of the Monastery. He had a rope round his neck, and held in his hand a torch weighing thirty-three pounds, in memory of the years spent on earth by our Savior. The Monks made a procession in which the criminal joined; after which a sermon was preached, at which he also assisted. He was then taken to the foot of the Altar, where the Abbot, after exhorting him to repentance, imposed on him, as a penance, the pilgrimage to Saint Martin’s Church at Tours. The Abbot loosened the rope from his neck and declared him to be free. The origin of this ceremony was that when Louis of Bourbon, Count of Vendôme, was prisoner in England, in the year 1426, he made a vow that if God restored him to liberty, he would establish this custom in the Church of Holy Trinity as a return of gratitude and as an homage to Christ, who raised up Lazarus from the tomb. God accepted the vow, and the Prince soon recovered his freedom.

Bow down your heads to God.

Grant, we beseech thee, O Almighty God, that we, who are sensible of our own weakness, and confide in thy power, may always rejoice in the elects of thy goodness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Let us pray today for the conversion of sinners, using this devout formula given by the Roman Pontifical in the Reconciliation of Penitents.

PRAYER

O God, the most loving Creator, and most merciful Redeemer of mankind! who, when man, through the devil’s malice, forfeited eternal life, didst redeem him by the Blood of thine Only Son; restore to life these thy servants, whom thou willest not should be dead to thee. Thou abandonest not them that go astray; receive these that have returned to the right path. We beseech thee, O Lord, let thy mercy be moved by the tears and sighs of these thy servants; heal their wounds; stretch forth thy saving hand; and raise them up: lest thy Church be robbed of a part of her body; lest thy flock should suffer loss; lest the enemy should rejoice in the perdition of them that are of thy family; lest the second death should seize them that were regenerated in the waters of salvation. To thee, therefore, O Lord, do we thy suppliants pour forth our prayers, to thee the weeping of our heart. Spare them that trust in thee, and, in thy mercy, suffer them not to fall under the sentence of thy judgment to come, whereby they would be condemned to punishment. Let not the horrors of darkness, or the scorching of flames come nigh to them. They have returned from the way of error to the path of justice; let them not be again wounded. What thy grace hath reformed, let it remain in them whole and for ever. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

St Isidore of Seville: Do Your Duty & Extraordinary Things Will Happen

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

St Plato, Abbot & Confessor

St Isidore of Seville: Butler's Lives of the Saints

St Plato, Abbot

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

HE was born about the year 734. A pestilence that raged at Constantinople depriving him of his parents when he was no more than thirteen years of age, the care of his education devolved upon an uncle, who was high treasurer. Plato, while yet young, dispatched the business of that high office for his uncle with surprising readiness and assiduity. His remarkable dexterity in writing shorthand, may be reckoned among his inferior accomplishments, seeing by the daily progress he made in the more sublime parts of knowledge and religion, he far outstripped all his equals in age, and went beyond the greatest expectation of his masters. These eminent qualifications, joined to his elevated birth, extensive wealth, and unblemished probity, introduced him to the notice of the great, and opened to him the highest preferments in the state. Persons in the highest stations at court wished to make him their son-in-law: but his whole heart being attached to heavenly things, he looked with contempt on the pomps and vanities of this world. Prayer and retirement were the chief objects of his delight, nor was he fond of paying any visits except to churches and monasteries. He prevailed on his three brothers to devote themselves to God, and live in a state of celibacy: he made all his slaves free, and having sold his large estates, he portioned his two sisters, who, marrying, became the mothers of saints: the remainder of the purchase-money he distributed among the poor. Being thus disengaged, he bid adieu to his friends and country at twenty-four years of age. He took with him one servant as far as Bithynia, but there sent him also back, having given him all his clothes, except one coarse black suit; and in this manner he walked alone to the monastery of Symboleon, upon mount Olympus, in that country. From the moment he was admitted into that house, no one was more humble, more devout, more exact in every duty, or more obedient and mortified. The holy abbot Theoctistus, to furnish him with opportunities of heroic acts of virtue, often reproved and punished him for faults of which he was not guilty: which treatment St. Plato received with silence and joy, in patience and humility. Prayer and pious reading were the delight of his soul. In the hours allotted to labor he rejoiced to see the meanest employments assigned to him, as to make bread water the ground, and carry dung, though his most usual province was to copy books of piety. Theoctistus dying in 770, St. Plato was chosen abbot of Symboleon, being only thirty-six years old. He had opposed his exaltation to the utmost of his power, but seeing himself compelled to take upon him that burden, he became the more humble and the more austere penitent. He never drank any thing but water; and this sometimes only once in two days: his diet was bread, beans, or herbs without oil: and this refection he never took even on Sundays before None. He would never eat or wear any thing which was not purchased by the labor of his own hands; by which he also maintained several poor. His retreat protected him from the persecution of Constantine Copronymus. The year after the death of that tyrant, in 775, St. Plato took a journey to Constantinople on business, where it is incredible with what esteem he was received, and how much he promoted piety in all ranks, states, and conditions; how successful he was in banishing habits of swearing and other vices, and inspiring both the rich and poor with the love of virtue. The patriarch, not Tarasius, as Fleury mistakes, but his predecessor, Paul, endeavored to make him bishop of Nicomedia; but such was the saint’s humility, that he made all haste back to his desert of Symboleon. He would never take holy orders; and indeed at that time the generality of monks were laymen. The whole family of his sister Theoctista, embracing a religious state, and founding the monastery of Saccudion, near Constantinople, St. Plato was with difficulty prevailed upon to leave Symboleon, and to take upon him the direction of this new abbey, in 782; but when he had governed it twelve years, he resigned the same to his nephew, St. Theodorus. The emperor Constantine repudiated his empress, Mary, and took to his bed Theodota, a relation of St. Plato. The patriarch, St. Tarasius, endeavored to reclaim him by exhortations and threats; but SS. Plato and Theodorus proceeded to publish among the monks a kind of sentence of excommunication against him. Joseph, the treasurer of the church, and several other mercenary priests and monks, endeavored to draw over St. Plato to approve the emperor’s divorce; but he resisted their solicitations, and the emperor himself to his face, and courageously suffered imprisonment and other hardships till the death of that unhappy prince, in 797. The Saracens making excursions as far as the walls of Constantinople, the monks of Saccudion abandoned their settlement, and chose that of Studius, which abbey had been almost destroyed by the persecution of Constantine Copronymus. There St. Plato vowed obedience to his nephew Theodorus, living himself a recluse in a narrow cell, in perpetual prayer and manual labor, having one foot fastened to the ground with a heavy iron chain, which he carefully hid with his cloak when any one came to see him. In 806, St. Nicephorus, a layman, though a person of great virtue, was preferred to the patriarchal dignity by the emperor of the same name. St. Plato judged the election of a neophyte irregular, and on that account opposed it. In 807 he fell under a new persecution. Joseph, the priest who had married the adulteress to the emperor Constantine, was restored to his functions and dignity of treasurer of the church, by an order of the emperor Nicephorus. St. Plato considered this indulgence as a scandalous enervation of the discipline of the church, and a seeming connivance at his past crimes; and loudly condemned it. The emperor, provoked at his zeal, caused him to be guarded a whole year by a troop of insolent soldiers and false monks; after which he obliged him to appear before a council of court bishops, by which he was unjustly condemned, and treated with many indignities, and at length, with the most flagrant injustice, pronounced guilty of the fictitious crimes laid to his charge; in consequence of which sentence the emperor banished him, and commanded that he should be ignominiously conducted from place to place in the isles of Bosphorus for the space of four years. Notwithstanding he was at the same time afflicted with many distempers, the saint endured the fatigues of his exile with an extraordinary degree of constancy and courage which had such an effect on Nicephorus, that he had resolved to recall him with honor, and pay him the respect such distinguished piety merited, but, unhappily, the emperor’s being surprised and murdered by the Bulgarians, in 811, frustrated those good intentions. But his successor, Michael I., a lover of justice and virtue, immediately gave orders that St. Plato should be honorably discharged. The saint was received at Constantinople with all possible marks of respect and distinction: but privately retired to his cell. After some time, perceiving himself near his end, he directed his grave to be dug, and himself to be carried to it and laid down by it. Here he was visited by the chief persons of the city, especially by the holy patriarch, St Nicephorus, who had satisfied him as to his conduct in receiving the priest Joseph, and who came to recommend himself to his prayers. St. Plato happily expired on the 19th of March, in 813, near the close of the seventy-ninth year of his age. His funeral obsequies were performed by the patriarch St. Nicephorus. His memory is honored both by the Latins and Greeks on the 4th of April. Fortitude in suffering for the sake of justice, is the true test of virtue and courage; and the persecution of the saints is the glorious triumph of the cross of Christ. Humility, patience, and constancy, shine principally on such occasions. Their distresses are like the shades in a fine picture, which throw a graceful light on the brighter parts of the piece, and heighten its beauties. See the life of St. Plato, by his nephew St. Theodorus the Studite. Also the Commentary and Notes of Papebroke, t. 1. Apr. p. 364; Fleury,1. 45.

St Isidore, Bishop of Seville

From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:

From his works and those of SS. Braulio and Ildefonse, his disciples. His life, compiled by Luke, bishop of Tuy, in Galicia, in 1236, extant in Mabillon, Sæc. Ben. 2, shows not that accuracy and judgment which we admire in the books of that author against the Albigenses: nor is it here made use of.

A. D. 606.

ST. ISIDORE is honored in Spain as the most illustrious doctor of that church, in which God raised him, says St. Brauli0,1 to stem the torrent of barbarism and ferocity which everywhere followed the arms of the Goths, who had settled themselves in that kingdom, in 412. The eighth great council of Toledo, fourteen years after his death, styles him “the excellent doctor, the late ornament of the Catholic church, the most learned man, given to enlighten the latter ages, always to be named with reverence.” The city Carthagena was the place of his birth, which his parents, Severian and Theodora, persons of the first quality in the kingdom, edified by the example of their extraordinary piety. His two brothers, Leander and Fulgentius, bishops,* and his sister Florentina, are also honored among the saints. Isidore having qualified himself in his youth for the service of the church by an uncommon stock of virtue and learning, assisted his brother Leander, archbishop of Seville, in the conversion of the Visigoths from the Arian heresy. This great work he had the happiness to see perfectly accomplished by his indefatigable zeal and labors, which he continued during the successive reigns of the kings Reccared, Liuba, Witeric, Gundemar, Sisebut, and Sisemund. Upon the decease of St. Leander, in 600, or 601, he succeeded him in the see of Seville.† He restored and settled the discipline of the church of Spain in several councils, of all which he was the oracle and the soul. The purity of their doctrine, and the severity of the canons enacted in them, drawn up chiefly by him, are incontestable monuments of his great learning and zeal.‡ In the council of Seville, in 619, in which he presided, he, in a public disputation, convinced Gregory (a bishop of the Acephali) of his error, who was come over from Syria; and so evidently did he confute the Eutychian heresy, that Gregory, upon the spot, embraced the Catholic faith. In 610, the bishops of Spain, in a council held at Toledo, agreed to declare the archbishop of that city primate of all Spain, as they say, he had always been acknowledged; which decree king Gundemar confirmed by a law the same year; and St. Isidore subscribed the same Yet we find that in the fourth council of Toledo, in 633, the most famous of all the synods of Spain, though Justus, the archbishop of Toledo, was present, St. Isidore presided, not by the privilege of his see, but on the bare consideration of his extraordinary merit; for he was regarded as the eminent doctor of the churches of Spain. The city of Toledo was honored with the residence of the Visigoth kings.

St. Isidore, to extend to posterity the advantages which his labors had procured to the church, compiled many useful works: in which he takes in the whole circle of the sciences, and discovers a most extensive reading, and a general acquaintance with the ancient writers, both sacred and profane. In the moral parts his style is pathetic and moving, being the language of a heart overflowing with sentiments of religion and piety: and though elegance and politeness of style were not the advantage of that age, the diction of this father is agreeable and clear.* The saint was well versed in the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages.

St. Ildefonse says, that this saint governed his church near forty years, but cannot mean above thirty-six or thirty-seven. When he was almost fourscore years old, though age and fatigues had undermined and broken into his health, he never interrupted his usual exercises and labors. During the last six months of his life, he increased his charities with such profusion, that the poor of the whole country crowded his house from morning till night. Perceiving his end to draw near, he entreated two bishops to come to see him. With them he went to the church, where one of them covered him with sackcloth, the other put ashes on his head. Clothed with the habit of penance, he stretched his hands towards heaven, prayed with great earnestness, and begged aloud the pardon of his sins. He then received from the hands of the bishops the body and blood of our Lord, recommended himself to the prayers of all that were present, remitted the bonds of all his debtors, exhorted the people to charity, and caused all the money which he had not as yet disposed of to be distributed among the poor. This done, he returned to his own house, and calmly departed this life on the fourth day after, which was the 4th of April, in the year 636, as is expressly testified by Ædemptus, his disciple, who was present at his death. His body was interred in his cathedral, between those of his brother, St. Leander, and his sister, St. Florentina. Ferdinand, king of Castile and Leon, recovered his relics from the Moors, and placed them in the church of St. John Baptist, at Leon, where they still remain.

All who are employed in the functions of Martha, or of an exterior active life, must always remember that action and contemplation ought to be so constantly intermingled, that the former be always animated and directed by the latter, and amid the exterior labors of the active life, we constantly enjoy the interior repose of the contemplative, and that no employments entirely interrupt the union of our souls to God; but those that are most distracting serve to make us more closely, more eagerly, and more amorously, plunge our hearts in Him, embracing him in himself by contemplation, and in our neighbor by our actions.