31 May 2024
Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Today's Holy Mass from Corpus Christi Church, Tynong, VIC, Australia. You may follow the Mass at Divinum Officium.
St Petronilla, Virgin
From Dom Prosper Guéranger's The Liturgical Year
Though the Church makes but a simple commemoration of this illustrious Virgin in the office of this day, we will not fail to offer her the homage of our devout veneration. On the twelfth of this month, we kept the feast of the noble Virgin and Martyr, Flavia Domitilla; it is probable that Aurelia Petronilla was also of the imperial family of the Flavians. The early traditions of the Church speak of her as being the spiritual daughter of the Prince of the Apostles; and though she did not, like Domitilla, lay down her life for the Faith, yet she offered to Jesus that next richest gift—her Virginity. The same venerable authorities tell us, also, that a Roman Patrician, by name Flaccus, having asked her in marriage, she requested three days for consideration, during which she confidently besought the aid of her Divine Spouse. Flaccus presented himself on the third day, but found the palace in mourning, and her family busy in preparing the funeral obsequies of the young Virgin, who had taken her flight to heaven, as a dove that is startled by an intruder’s approach.
In the 8th Century, the holy Pope Paul I had the body of Petronilla taken from the Cemetery of Domitilla, on the Ardeatine Way. Her relics were found in a marble sarcophagus, the lid of which was adorned, at each corner, with a dolphin. The Pope had them enshrined in a little Church, which he built near the south side of the Vatican Basilica. This Church was destroyed in the 16th Century, in consequence of the alterations needed for the building of the new Basilica of Saint Peter; and the Relics of St. Petronilla were translated to one of its Altars on the west side. It was but just that she should await her glorious Resurrection under the shadow of the great Apostle who had initiated her in the Faith and prepared her for her eternal nuptials for the Lamb.
Thy triumph, O Petronilla, is one of our Easter joys! We lovingly venerate thy blessed memory. Thou disdainedst the pleasures and honors of the world, and thy virginal name is one of the first on the list of the Church of Rome, which was thy mother. Aid her, now, by thy prayers. Protect those who seek thine intercession, and teach us how to celebrate, with holy enthusiasm, the Solemnities that are soon to gladden us.
Friday Within the Octave of Corpus Christi
From Dom Prosper Guéranger's The Liturgical Year
Let us adore Christ, the King, who ruleth the nations; who giveth fatness of spirit to them that eat him.
God has satisfied the intense desires of man’s heart. The house of the marriage-feast, built by divine Wisdom on the top of mountains, has had flowing unto it all the nations of earth! (Isaiah 2:2) Yesterday, the whole Catholic world was animated with sentiments of love towards the adorable Sacrament; and the people said to each other in a holy transport of gratitude: Come! let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob. Yesterday, the bud of the Lord was seen by us all in magnificence and glory; (Isaiah 4:2) this divine Bud, this rich ear of corn that has sprung up from our earth, was carried in triumph, and excited the enthusiasm of the Faithful, making them rejoice before It, as they that rejoice in the harvest. (Isaiah 9:3) It was a heavenly harvest that had been the expectation of nations. It was the precious ear of corn, despised indeed by Israel, but gleaned by Ruth the stranger in the field of the true Booz, in Bethlehem.
It was for this day of the great meeting of nations, foretold by Isaias, that the Lord had kept reserved on the mountain the feast on a victim such as had never been seen before, a feast of wine, the richest and purest. (Isaiah 25:6) The poor have eaten at this banquet, and they have given fervent praise to their God; the rich have eaten, and have fallen down in adoration; and all the ends of the earth, prostrate in his sacred Presence, have recognized that he who thus gave them to feast, was Christ their King. (Psalms 21:27-30) This, they said, is our God, we have waited for him; we have patiently waited for him; (Isaiah 25:9) he was the desire of our soul; we desired him in the night, and in the morning early, our first thoughts were upon him; he is the Lord, and his remembrance could not be effaced, not even through the long ages of expectation. (Isaiah 26:8-9) Thou, O Lord, art my God, I will exalt thee, and give glory to thy name, for thou hast done wonderful things; thy designs of old, faithful! faithfully hast thou fulfilled thy eternal decrees. (Isaiah 25:1)
These expressions of love on the part of the human race were but a feeble echo to the infinite love which God vouchsafed to have for his creature man. The divine Spirit, who has achieved the wonderful union between the children of Adam and eternal Wisdom, shows us, everywhere in the Scriptures, that this Wisdom was impatient of delay, that he was taking each obstacle as it came, and removing it, and was preparing in countless ways, for the Marriage Feast so much longed for.
We will devote these first two days of the Octave to the considering the leading features in the history of this eucharistic preparation; we shall be well repaid by the additional light which these truths will reflect upon the dogma itself. We are going to review the loving ways whereby eternal Wisdom sought, for so many long ages, to bring about his own Union with ourselves. As a matter of course, we clothe these truths in Scripture language, for the Scriptures are our guide in this research; it is they that tell us the workings of the divine intentions in our regard. How, then, do the Scriptures speak of these, before the mystery of the Incarnation was actually accomplished?
The second Person of the adorable Trinity is there brought before us under the name of Wisdom; until such time as her union with man being accomplished in the most perfect degree possible, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ; this is the name under which he passes in the Scriptures, a name which gives him the appearance of a Bride. But once the mystery of perfect union achieved, another name is given him, the name of Spouse or Bridegroom. His other name of Wisdom seems almost forgotten; and yet, in the ages of lively faith, it was not so; the people of those days were too full of the Scriptures to forget it. Thus we find the first Christian Emperor dedicating, to this ruler and center of his every thought, the trophy of his victory over paganism, and that of the triumph of the Martyrs: all burning with love for the Wisdom of God, says Eusebius, Constantine consecrated the ancient Byzantium, which he called by his own name, to the God of the Martyrs; (De Vita Constant. lib. iii. cap. 48) and dedicated to Eternal Wisdom the grandest structure of this new Rome, Saint Sophia, which, for many ages, was the finest Christian Church in the world. Like our forefathers in the faith, let us too honor divine Wisdom, and gratefully think upon the love which urged him, from all eternity, to unite himself to man!
It is this love that explains that mysterious joy, which, as the Scripture tells us, he had at the beginning of Time, when this world of ours was being gradually developed in all the beauty of its fresh creation; for sin had not then come in to break the harmony of this work of the Most High. At each additional manifestation of creative power, Wisdom takes delight, and by his delight, adds a new charm to this the future scene of the divine marvels, planned as those had been by his love. This Wisdom is delighted at the omnipotence which produces Creation; he plays every day, as the Creation goes on, yes, he plays in this world, for, each progress in its formation brings Man nearer, —Man, whose palace it is; and his delights are to be with the children of men. (Proverbs 8:30-31)
Incomprehensible love! It precedes, though it foresees, sin; and though foreseeing it, loves not the less! It has its divine delights to be with us, and we have attractions for it, in spite of all the bitterness caused by the sight of our future black ingratitude! The fall of man will, as one of its terrific consequences, modify, much and cruelly, the earthly existence which Wisdom is to have upon our earth. But in order that we may the more easily understand and more fully appreciate how immense must that love be which could be proof against such obstacles, let us turn our thoughts today to the course that these loving intentions would have taken, had man persevered in the state of innocence. Although the Sacred Scriptures, written as they have been for the benefit of fallen man, suppose that state, and are ever telling us of the mystery of the restoration of the sinful world, —yet do they make frequent allusions to God’s original intention; and with these to guide us, it is not difficult to mark out the leading features of the primitive plan.
Wisdom, speaking of herself, says: The Lord possessed me, in the beginning of his ways. (Proverbs 8:22) Is she not the first of all creatures? (Ecclesiasticus 1:4) not, of course, as to that divine form of which the Apostle speaks, and by which Wisdom is equal to God, (Philippians 2:6) but in that human existence, which she has selected, in preference to all other possible natures, for the one whereby to unite herself with finite being. That selection was one of an unlimited and most gratuitous love; it made the type and law of entire creation to be One who would be so closely resembling us human beings, —and what an honor! We are told in holy Writ that the most high and almighty Creator created Wisdom before all things, and created her in the Holy Ghost; and that, taking her as his type, and number, and measure, he poured her out upon all his works, and upon all flesh. (Ecclesiasticus 1:4, 8-10)
When the fullness of the appointed time came, this Wisdom herself was to come, giving to all creation of which she was the head and center, its purpose and meaning: she was to blend and unite with the infinite homage, which resulted from her own divine personality, the homage of every existing creature; and thus give perfection to the external glory of the Father by her own adoration, which was to be eternal and infinite. Once this happy time is come, and there will appear that human nature, chosen by divine Wisdom from the beginning to be his created form, —to be the instrument of that homage to the Father, which as we were just saying, will be perfect and divine because of the personal union of this created nature with the Nature of God the Son. Eternal Wisdom will thus be one with the Son of the purest of Virgins; the nuptial song will be taken up by all creatures, both in earth and heaven; and through this Son of Man, who will then be called the Spouse, Wisdom will continue, to the end of time, in the soul of every individual of the human race (that is, of every soul that does not refuse the honor), the ineffable mystery of his divine marriage with our nature.
He wishes, then, to unite himself with each one of us; but what means will he adopt for this deifying union? Of all the Sacraments, which our Lord might have instituted after his Incarnation, in the supposition of man’s not forfeiting his state of innocence,—there is not one, says Suarez, which has so many probabilities on its side as the Eucharist; there is not one which, in itself, is so desirable and is more independent on sin; for the notion of expiation, which in our present state lingers about It, as the memorial of our Jesus’ Passion, may be prescinded from, without affecting the essence of the Sacrament,—that essence being, the Real Presence of our Lord, and the close union whereby he unites us to himself. (De Sacr. Diap. iii sect. 3) It is the same with the Eucharist as a Sacrifice: the primary notion of Sacrifice, as we shall see further on, does not absolutely include the idea of sin. So that, when Christ, as the head of the human family, comes into this world to offer up a Sacrifice, in the name of us all, that Sacrifice will be one which is worthy of his Father and himself. Spouse as he is, and by virtue of the divine unction, Priest, too; it is by the Eucharist as a Sacrifice that he will act in this twofold character, for by that Sacrifice, he brings the human race into union with himself by the embrace of the sacred Mysteries; and when he has divinized it by union with himself, making it one body with himself, of which he is the Head, he offers it to his Eternal Father.
But for the coming of the Spouse, the Bridegroom, there must be a numerous retinue to do him honor and tell his praises, when the day arrives for his entrance into the banquet hall; and from now till the time, when earth, being peopled enough, shall have ready for her King-Priest a court that is worthy of him, so many ages are to intervene! What will he, —that is, what will Wisdom be doing in the interval? We have already seen how, in the early days of creation, he played before his Father, and was all transported with delight. But when the work was done, the Creator withdrew into the repose and rest of the seventh day. Seated on his Father’s right hand, in the splendors of the Saints, will Wisdom wait inactive for that day to come, when he who has begotten him before the day-star, and has betrothed him to human nature, shall send him down to this earth, there to consummate the alliance for which he has been eternally longing? The sacred Scriptures give a very different description of him during the time preceding his actual coming. They tell us that Wisdom is so active, though so gentle, that He is more active than all active things, and was everywhere, and put himself in every place, and in the Prophets, so that he was easily found by them that wanted to find him; he even anticipated their research, and was more ready to show himself than they could possibly be to find him. If any soul was intent, like some early riser, to find him, he soon met such a seeker; nay, himself went about seeking for such as were worthy of him, and when he met them in the ways here or there in this wide world, this beautiful Wisdom would show himself to them, with all the cheerfulness of earnestness. Thus do the Scriptures describe Wisdom as engaged during the ages preceding his Incarnation; he does not, as yet, quit the throne of glory on which he sitteth, lighting up all heaven with his beauty,—but he is preparing the day of his Marriage, and that by impressing it on man’s mind and notice in every possible way; he meets him at every turn, to speak of it, to tell him of how he, Wisdom, loves him; he selects certain symbols whereby to show the generations then living a picture of the wondrous mysteries he intended to achieve when the time came. Let us take one of these symbols for our lesson today, that we too may lose not a particle of what our Jesus has ever done to make himself known. But before we go further, let us listen to the Scripture character drawn of this beautiful Wisdom: He is the brightness of eternal light, and the unspotted mirror of God’s majesty, and the image of his goodness; holy, one, manifold, subtle, eloquent, active, undefiled, sure, sweet, loving that which is good, quick, which nothing hindereth, beneficent, gentle, kind, steadfast, assured, secure, having all power, overseeing all things, and containing all spirits, intelligible, pure, subtle! (Wisdom 7:22-26. 6:13-17, 9:4, 10) And now to a choice symbol, chosen by our Jesus, whereby he spoke of himself before he came to the Nuptials.
The Lord God, says Scripture, had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning, wherein he intended to place Man, whom he was not to create till the sixth day. In the midst of this paradise, there grew a tree of singular beauty; it was a tree to which God had attached a great mystery, and its name was the Tree of Life. A river with four streams watered this garden of delights, (Genesis 2:8-10) and this river was shown, later on, to St. John, as a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and the Lamb. (Apocalypse 22:1) This twofold symbol of the Tree and the River bear no allusion to future sin; they had been put in Paradise, the abode of innocence, before man himself; and therefore are portions of the primitive plan of God; and therefore, in themselves, signify nothing and symbolize nothing, but what has reference first and foremost to the state of innocence. Now, an ancient writer, published under the name of St. Ambrose, says, “the Tree of Life in the midst of Paradise is Christ in the midst of his Church.” (Appen. Ambrose, In Apocalypse c. ii. v. 7) “So then,” says St. Augustine, “Christ was the Tree of Life; neither would God have man to live in Paradise, without his having mysteries of things spiritual presented to him under corporal forms. In the other trees, therefore, he had food; but in that one (of Life) he had a sacred symbol (sacramentum). And what was it that is symbolized but Wisdom? of which it is said, She is a Tree of Life to them that lay hold on her (Proverbs 3:18) … For it is right to give to Christ, the name of a thing which had been previously made, that it should signify him.” (De Genes. ad Litt. lib 8) St. Hilary, too, bears testimony to this same traditional interpretation. After quoting the same text from Proverbs, he says: “Wisdom, which is Christ, is called the Tree of Life, because, as we are taught by the authority of the Prophets, on account of its being a symbol (sacramentum) of his future Incarnation and Passion … Our Lord compared himself to a Tree, when he said … A Tree is known by its fruit … This Tree, then, is living; yea, not living only, but rational also, for it gives its fruit when it wills (and as the Psalm says), in its own time … And what is that time? That of which the Apostle speaks, when he says, that God might make known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he had purposed in him, in the dispensation of the fullness of times: … the dispensation of the fruit, then, is reserved for the fullness of times.” (Tract in Psalm. 1, 9, 10) But what is to be the Fruit of this Tree, —the leaves of which fall not off, (Psalm 1:3) and’ are for the healing of the nations, (Apocalypse 22:2) —what is to be the Fruit but divine Wisdom, in his own very self and substance? In his divine form, he is the food of the Angels too; but he is to be that of man in his two Natures, that thus, by his Flesh, reaching man’s soul, he may fill that soul with his divinity, as it was beautifully expressed in the Office composed by Blessed Juliana.
Thus, therefore, divine Wisdom, our Jesus, had preceded man in Paradise: Adam was not yet there, but Wisdom was; for his love made him hasten thither and take up his abode there, ready to receive man on his arrival,—receive him in that Tree of Life which, together with the Most High, he, as the Wisdom wherein the Creator formed all his works, had planted in the garden of delights. (Wisdom 8:4) Speaking of this Tree, the Bride of the Canticle said: As the apple-tree among the barren trees of the woods, so is my Beloved among the sons of the rest of men; I sat down under his shadow whom I desired, and his fruit was sweet to my palate. (Song of Solomon 2:3) This sweet Fruit of the Tree of Life was a figure of the Eucharist.
But how is this? we were yesterday invited by Wisdom to eat Bread in his house, and not Fruit in his garden. What means this change of language? It is because man has brought about an immense change of purpose: in his pride, he has eaten of a fruit which was not good; a fruit which was forbidden, and has ruined him for his taking it; he has been driven from the garden of delights; Cherubim and a flaming sword have been placed, to keep the way of the Tree of Life. Instead of fruits of Paradise, the food of man is henceforth to be bread, bread which costs toil and sweat, bread which means grinding under a millstone and burning in fire. Such is the sentence passed on man by a justly angered God. (Genesis 3:19) But, alas! this most just condemnation is to go far beyond the guilty one; it will strike man, but it will strike divine Wisdom, too, —Wisdom who has given himself to man to be his food and companion. In the immensity of his love, Wisdom will not abandon this fallen nature of man; he will, that he may save it, take upon himself all the consequences of the Fall, and, like fallen man, become passible and mortal. The marriage-feast is not to be in Eden, as was first intended. Poor Eden! she had been so exquisitely prepared for that feast; she had her fragrant fields of loveliest emerald, and her fruit which was so fair to behold, and so pleasant to eat of, (Genesis 2:9) and so immortalizing with a youth that was to last forever! To reach man, now that he is fallen, eternal Wisdom must make his way through the briars and thickets of his new abode. The Marriage Feast will be kept in a house, which it has cost him infinite pains to build to himself, as a cover against the miseries of the land of exile. And as to the food served for the banquet, it is not to be the fruit spontaneously yielded by the Tree of Life; it is to be the divine Wheat, ground by suffering, and baked on the altar of the Cross.
All history culminates in the Sacrifice of our Lord, and all creation converges to it, as to its center. The reason of this is that, in the creation and government of the world, God seeks his own glory, as the last end for which he does all his works. Now, the Sacrifice offered by the Incarnate Word alone gives to God the infinite glory due to his sovereign majesty. The Christians of the first ages of the Church thoroughly understood all this. It was the idea on which was composed the fine Preface given in the Liturgy under the name of St. James’, in the 8th Book of the Apostolic Constitutions. We wish we could give our readers the whole of this Liturgy: we intend, however, to quote, during the days of this Octave, some of the most striking passages.
It is truly right and just, that, before all things, we should give praise to thee, who art true God, from whom all paternity and heaven and earth is named, who art the only unbegotten, the giver of every good thing. For thou art first by nature, and the law of existence, and surpassing all number.
Thou it was that broughtest all things, out of nothing, into the nature of things, by thine Only Begotten Son: but Him thou begottest before all ages, without an instrument, God the Word, living Wisdom, the first-born of every creature, the Angel of thy great counsel, thy Priest, the King, also, and Lord of every nature that can be understood or felt. For thou, eternal God! createdst all things by him, and, by him, thou vouchsafest a suitable providence to all things; for, by whom thou gavest things to be, by the same thou gavest them well-being.
O God and Father of thy Only Begotten Son! by Him, thou madest, before all things, the cherubim and seraphim, the hosts, the virtues and powers, the principalities and thrones, the archangels and angels.
And, after all these, thou madest, by him, this visible world, and all that is in it. For thou art He that stretchedst out the heavens as a tent, and settedst the earth upon nothing, by thine only will; that madest night and day; that, in the heavens, placedst the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night, and inscribedst a choir of stars in heaven unto the praise of thy magnificence; thou dividest the great sea from the land, replenishing the one with animals little and great, and filling the other with creatures, both tame and wild, crowning it with herbs, beautifying it with flowers, enriching it with seeds.
Neither only createdst thou the world by Christ, but in him, also, thou madest man citizen of the world, appointing him the world of the world, or the ornament of the ornament. For thou saidst unto thy Wisdom: “Let us make man to our image and likeness; and let them have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air.” Wherefore, also, thou madest him of an immortal soul and a body liable to dissolution; and thou gavest him, in his soul, rational judgment, and discernment between right and wrong; and in his body, five senses, and progressive motion.
For thou, O almighty God, plantedst, by Christ, in Eden, at the East, a paradise, adorned with every sort of plant fit for food, and, into it, as a well provisioned house, thou didst lead man, to whom, when thou createdst him, thou gavest a natural and innate law, to the end that he might have within and of himself the seeds of the knowledge of God. And when introducing him into the paradise of delights, thou grantedst him leave to partake of all things save one, whereof, to give him the hope of better things, thou forbadest him to taste, that, if he kept that commandment, he might receive immortality, as the recompense of his observance.
But when he neglected the commandment, and, by the serpent’s guile, and the woman’s counsel, tasted the forbidden fruit, thou drovest him from paradise, justly indeed, yet, in thy goodness, thou despisedst him not, though utterly ruined; but, having previously subjected creation unto him, thou grantedst him to procure food by his own sweat and labor, though it was thou by whom all things are produced, increase and ripen. And when he had slept the short sleep (of death), thou by an oath, calledst him to a new birth; and, loosening the decree of death, thou promisedst him life, after the resurrection.
We will close this day with the several Hymns, composed under the direction of Blessed Juliana; they were used for each of the Little Hours of the Office, which preceded that of St. Thomas. It was a custom of the Church of Liège to vary the Hymns, at these Hours, according to the different Seasons and Feasts.
AT PRIME
Great God of mercy! who, for the salvation of souls, grantedst us the remedy of a food that comes from heaven.
Direct thou our manners, and life, and works; and give us speedily to spend our life with the blessed citizens of heaven.
AT TIERCE
Shrouded with a sacred veil, the mystery of love feeds our souls with a sweetness, which contents even them that are in heaven.
With the blessed in heaven, then let us have one same joy,—for, to them he gave himself, and us he did not leave.
AT SEXT
O brightness of supernal light. O Sacrifice of praise! grant us the banquet of thy divinity, after this of thy Flesh.
It was for this, that, filled with reproach, thou wast nailed to the cross, and derided with scoffs, wast made to suffer a cruel death.
AT NONE
O thou, that art the eternal glory of heaven, the blessed light of believers, the victim of redemption, and the pasture of thy sheep!
By our worship of this memorial of thy cruel death, lead us from the abyss of misery, O thou that criest: I thirst.
Grant, O Father, through thy Son, grant through the Spirit of love, that we, to whom thou givest such nourishment as this, may be brought by thee to a prosperous end.
Amen.
Ss Cantius & Cantianus, Brothers, & Cantianilla Their Sister, Martyrs
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From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:
IF riches are loaded with the curses of the gospel, because to many they prove dangerous, and afford the strongest incentives to the passions, the greater is their crown who make them the means of their sanctification. This circumstance enhances the glory of these holy martyrs. They were of the most illustrious family of the Anicii in Rome, and near relations to the emperor Carinus, who was himself a favorer of the Christians in Gaul They were brought up together in their own palace in Rome, under the care of a pious Christian preceptor named Protus, who instructed them in the faith, and in the most perfect maxims of our divine religion. When the persecution of Dioclesian began to fill Rome with terror, they sold their possessions in that city, and retired to Aquileia, where they had a good estate. The bloody edicts had also reached that country, and Sisinnius, general of the forces, and Dulcidius, the governor of the province, were busied night and day in making the strictest search after Christians, and in filling the prisons with crowds of confessors. No sooner were they informed of the arrival of our saints, but they summoned them to appear and offer sacrifice, and at the same time by a messenger acquainted the emperor with what they had done, begging his instructions how they ought to proceed with regard to persons of their rank. Dioclesian sent an order that they should be beheaded in case they refused to worship the gods. The martyrs had left Aquileia in a chariot drawn by mules, but were stopped by an accident four miles out of the town, at Aquæ-Gradatæ. Hither Sisinnius pursued them, carrying with him the order of the emperor. He entreated and conjured them to comply; but they answered, that nothing should make them unfaithful to God, declaring that all who should worship idols would be punished with everlasting fire. Wherefore they were all beheaded, together with Protus their preceptor, in the year 304. Zœlus, a priest, honorably embalmed and buried their bodies in the same monument. The place hath since changed its name of Aquæ-Gradatæ for that of San-Cantiano. See their acts published genuine by Mabillon, in an appendix to his Gallican Liturgy, p. 467, and a panegyric, probably of St. Maximus of Turin, extant among the sermons of St. Ambrose, t. 2, Append, col. 458.
St Petronilla
From Fr Alban Butler's Lives of the Saints:
AMONG the disciples of the apostles in the primitive age of saints, this holy virgin shone as a bright star in the church. She lived when Christians were more solicitous to live well than to write much: they knew how to die for Christ; but did not compile long books or disputations,* in which vanity has often a greater share than charity. Hence no particular account of her actions hath been transmitted down to us. But how eminent her sanctity was we may judge from the lustre by which it was distinguished among apostles, prophets, and martyrs. Her name is the feminine and diminutive of Peter, and she is said to have been a daughter of the apostle St. Peter, which tradition is confirmed by certain writings quoted by the Manichees in the time of St. Austin,1 which affirm that St. Peter had a daughter whom he cured of a palsy. That St. Peter was married before his vocation to the apostleship we learn from the gospel; though St. Jerom and other ancient fathers testify that he lived in continency after his call. St. Clement of Alexandria assures us,2 that his wife attained to the glory of martyrdom; at which that apostle himself encouraged her, bidding her to remember our Lord. But it seems not certain whether St. Petronilla was more than the spiritual daughter of that apostle. She flourished at Rome, and was buried on the way to Ardea, where anciently a cemetery and a church bore her name; so famous, that in it a station or place for the assembly of the city in public prayer, was established by Gregory III. She is commemorated in the true Martyrology of Bede, in those which bear the name of St. Jerom, &c.
The saints, whether in sickness or in health, in public or in private life, devoted all their thoughts and actions to God, and thus sanctified all their employments. The great end for which they lived was always present to their minds, and they thought every moment lost in which they did not make some advances towards eternal bliss. How will their example condemn at the last day the trifling fooleries, and the greatest part of the conversation and employments of the world, which aim at nothing but present amusements, as if it were the business of a rational creature to divert his mind from thought and reflection, and forget the only affair.—the business of eternity.
Collect of Ss Cantius, Cantianus, & Cantianilla, Martyrs ~ Indulgenced on the Saints' Feast (See Note)
According to the Apostolic Penitentiary, a partial indulgence is granted to those who, on the feast of any Saint, recite in his honour the oration of the Missal or any other approved by legitimate Authority.
V. O Lord, hear my prayer.
R. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
Let us pray.
O God, who dost permit us to celebrate the anniversary of the death of Thine holy martyrs, Cantius, Cantianus, & Cantianilla, grant that we mayest enjoy their companionship in everlasting happiness.
Through Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
R. Amen.
Collect of St Petronilla, Virgin ~ Indulgenced On the Saint's Feast
According to the Apostolic Penitentiary, a partial indulgence is granted to those who on the feast of any Saint recite in his honour the oration of the Missal or any other approved by legitimate Authority.
℣. O Lord, hear my prayer.
℟. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
Hear us, O God, our saviour, that we who are gladdened by the Festival of blessed Virgin Petronilla may learn from it piety and devotion.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
℟. Amen.
℟. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
Hear us, O God, our saviour, that we who are gladdened by the Festival of blessed Virgin Petronilla may learn from it piety and devotion.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
℟. Amen.
Collect of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen ~ Indulgenced on the Feast
According to the Apostolic Penitentiary, a partial indulgence is granted to those who on the feast of any Saint recite in his honour the oration of the Missal or any other approved by legitimate Authority.
℣. O Lord, hear my prayer.
℟. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, to those who are celebrating this solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary our Queen: that safe in her protection we may deserve to enjoy present peace and future glory.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
℟. Amen.
℟. And let my cry come unto thee.
Let us pray.
Grant, O Lord, we beseech Thee, to those who are celebrating this solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary our Queen: that safe in her protection we may deserve to enjoy present peace and future glory.
Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.
℟. Amen.
30 May 2024
Americans Need to Appeal to Heaven
'The very phrase “appeal to heaven” hardly comes from some right-wing sloganeer. Its origin is John Locke.
'Now, not being a partisan of John Locke, I nevertheless do share that insight because it long predates that Englishman. Indeed, as St. Thomas Aquinas makes clear, a “law” that violates human rights is simply organized violence and unjust.'
By John M. Grondelski, PhD
“An appeal to heaven” seems exactly what the American founding notion of law was, a notion that protects Americans against the abuse of their rights in the name of “law.”
The callowness into which American discourse has descended might be evidenced by The New York Times’ alarmist headlines over what flag flies outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house. After an initial brouhaha over whether Old Glory was flown upside down—a sign once universally recognized as distress (which might accurately describe our national situation) but now assigned to be a “code word for insurrection”—the most recent dustup has been over the appearance of the Pine Tree Flag over Alito’s New Jersey beach house. (Is there really somebody so lacking a life as to monitor Justice Alito’s flags?)
The Pine Tree Flag (a green pine tree on a field of white with the motto, “An Appeal to Heaven”) originated in Massachusetts and appears initially to have been used by the Continental “Navy” (i.e., the six schooners to our credit). Some suggest the flag might have been used at the Battle of Bunker Hill.
I’d been planning to write about the “Appeal to Heaven” flag for a while. I’d seen it as a kid in a little booklet of Revolutionary Era flags, but my recent exposure to it was three years ago. I’d decided to spend Veterans Day weekend in Pennsylvania and used one of the days to see what there was to see in Harrisburg, including the Pennsylvania Statehouse.
Several legislators had “Appeal to Heaven” flags on their doors, but one had attached an explanation. As that legislator saw it, the flag was a reminder of the founding principles of this nation: that we are “one nation, under God”; that rights come from a Creator, not a legislator; that abridgment of those unalienable rights by men entitles Americans—indeed, all men—to an “appeal to heaven.”
The very phrase “appeal to heaven” hardly comes from some right-wing sloganeer. Its origin is John Locke, who invokes an “appeal to heaven” to ground his claim that men have a right to resist unjust laws—a principle without which the Declaration of Independence would itself be an “insurrectionist document.”
Now, not being a partisan of John Locke, I nevertheless do share that insight because it long predates that Englishman. Indeed, as St. Thomas Aquinas makes clear, a “law” that violates human rights is simply organized violence and unjust.
For various reasons, modern American thought has succumbed to a belief in a positivistic view of law—that is, that law is whatever a legislator says. That is not the Judeo-Christian tradition, which recognizes that man cannot make just anything a “law” simply by getting a majority vote.
It’s also something Americans recognized, at least not that very long ago. Roughly 80 years ago, the United States was part of the Nuremberg Trials, holding German criminals to account and punishing them for crimes against humanity, even though what they did was allowed, even demanded, by German law.
Some on the Left engage in their own version of McCarthyite “guilt by association” by claiming “Christian nationalists” have sometimes used the Pine Tree Flag. Two observations: (1) For some of those Leftist folks, “Christian nationalism” means refusing to acquiesce in their caricature of the First Amendment as requiring not freedom of religion but freedom from religion, making those “retrograde Christians” who will not pledge allegiance to a naked public square and pretend that is Constitutionally mandated “extremists.” (2) For some of those genuine extremists who did use that flag, there’s an old axiom governing such questions: abusus non tollit usum.
To reduce that whole revolutionary tradition to a “banner of insurrection” because of how some people abused it at some moments in history is either intellectual dishonesty and/or partisan chicanery. That banner has far too proud a significance in American history to be reduced to that.
But I have to say, I’m not surprised. I’m not surprised not just because I think various people have it in for Samuel Alito, as author of the decision that consigned Roe v. Wade to its rightful place, alongside Dred Scott v. Sandford, in the trash can of Constitutional error.
I’m not surprised because the roots of this attack can be found back in 1991. That’s when, during hearings on his nomination to the United States Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas was excoriated by some politicians for his invocation of “natural law.” Then, like now, solicitude of defense for abortion-on-demand-through-birth meant that natural law was redefined as some extremist idea clung to by partisan ideologues like Clarence Thomas…and Thomas Aquinas…and Aristotle. Natural law is, of course, the counterpoint to a positivistic view of law. It was the basis on which Jefferson, appealing to “Nature and Nature’s God” defined the inalienability of rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
“An appeal to heaven” seems exactly what the American founding notion of law was, a notion that protects Americans against the abuse of their rights in the name of “law.” It is a banner whose vision has been sanctioned by almost 250 years of history that cannot be stripped from it because of a few people who carried it three years ago, some pundits’ historical myopia notwithstanding. Same with the Moultrie Flag (the blue field with “LIBERTY” on it). Same with the Gadsden Flag (yellow field with the snake and “DON’T TREAD ON ME”). Was the U.S. Post Office the haunt of “proto-insurrectionists” when it put the Appeal to Heaven Flag on a 1968 stamp?
If that makes the banner suspect, so be it. As we will soon see throughout June, other banners promoting ideological agendas will be redefined as symbols of progress. Take a walk through Congressional office buildings and note what banners are outside whose offices—and then ask whether Justice Alito is the ideologue here.
“Age of Revolutions”: An Exercise in Reading History Backward
Mr Horvat reviews yet another desperate attempt to justify the liberalism of moral indifference, maximized freedom, and unending progress.
By John Horvat
Fareed Zakaria’s book is a defense of liberalism in the European sense of a regime of limited government, free markets, rule of law, moral indifference, maximized freedom, and unending progress. He turns all those who support the conservative cause into resentful, racist individuals left behind by progress.
Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 to the Present, by Fareed Zakaria (400 pages, W.W. Norton & Company, 2024)
Some books can give the impression that everything is backward. The author holds as true all the theses that you affirm as false. The course of events that the author finds positive, you read negative.
Fareed Zakaria’s Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 to the Present is one such book. To anyone linked to tradition, it reads wrong from beginning to end. There is no other way to describe it.
The book is a defense of liberalism in the European sense of a regime of limited government, free markets, rule of law, moral indifference, maximized freedom, and unending progress. The author, a Washington Post columnist, tries to explain how this great Enlightenment experiment has gone awry and what is needed to keep it afloat.
Keeping Score
His take on the present crisis is that everything has gone just fine up to this point. The problem is the various backlashes, especially the present one, which ruin everything. He blames fearful and over-nostalgic conservatives throughout history for their inability to adapt to changing times.
He also blames liberals who want to take the process of Revolution too far, too fast. They should tone down the rhetoric but not change their goals.
For anyone who is keeping score, the left ends up winning. The right is supposed to be content to be good losers by following not “the science” but “the history.”
Following “The History”
Mr. Zakaria’s book is “the history,” a scholarly and even compelling collection of facts that support his simplistic and rather standard reading of modern history.
Indeed, he presents “two competing plotlines: liberalism, meaning progress, growth, disruption, revolution in the sense of radical advance, and illiberalism, standing for regression, restriction, nostalgia, revolution in the sense of returning to the past.”
That’s it. There is nothing else. There’s no going back, only forward. There are no principles to defend, no restraining traditions to uphold. The only matter to be decided is the level of violence of the coming disruption.
To illustrate his point, Mr. Zakaria outlines a reoccurring cycle of these two competing plotlines applied to historical events—“the history.” He divides modern history into four main revolutions: the Dutch Commercial Revolution (1588), the English Glorious Revolution (1688), the bloody French Revolution (1789) and the Industrial Revolution. Each Revolution had its radical advances and significant backlashes, but, save for the French Revolution, things ended up well, all things considered.
Thus, he puts the present troubles in the context of this cycle, which should also end well if conservatives behave and lose graciously.
Simplistic and Fatalistic
There are three things wrong with the author’s reading of history.
The first is that it is simplistic and fatalistic. Like many modern authors, Mr. Zakaria has a Hegelian fatalism that rules his historical processes, calling for unending progress through struggle.
For him, progress represents ever-greater states of what he believes to be freedom and equality. Thus, backlash is opposing abortion or the LGBTQ agenda. It is promoting the traditional family and marriage. These are inconvenient disruptions that must be overcome with time. They must be suppressed not because they are right or wrong but because the process demands it.
Thus, his explanation for the present crisis must follow the narratives he has constructed. The author deconstructs any other narratives to fit this skewed framework. He ignores, for example, valid appraisals of the advances of Christendom and the West. There is no attempt to insert moral or other considerations into the equation, as everything in the final analysis is about the manipulation of power.
The Prism of Power and Money
A second problem with the book is that it presents history as a manifestation of power and money. This demonstrates a misunderstanding of what motivates individuals. The Marxist understanding of reality is through the prism of economics. Thus, Mr. Zakaria follows the Marxist playbook in his analysis. He tends to minimize factors like religion in history. God is omitted from history, save as a human construct supporting power structures.
Everything is reduced to naked self-interest. For those motivated by higher causes like religion, this perspective is what makes the book read so backward. The spiritual side of the soul is ignored—and it is the higher side from which all that is good, true and beautiful springs.
A Forced Narrative
One benefit of the book is that it clearly demonstrates what the liberal left thinks about the right. The left has created its own narrative of the right that Mr. Zakaria reproduces with almost textbook precision.
He turns all those who support the conservative cause into resentful, racist individuals left behind by progress. They no longer belong to a racial class that once held so many privileges and now fight back against progress. Thus, they cling to the remnants of power found in their “deplorable” identities as expressed in religion, old morals, populism and guns.
His distorted portrayal is almost convincing to anyone other than the countless conservatives who refuse to fit this straitjacket narrative. These Americans fighting for moral principles are offended by seeing their selfless defense of family values and love of God reduced to a construct in this crude, class-struggle portrayal.
Liberalism in Crisis
Perhaps one of the best merits of the book is that it admits that liberalism is in grave crisis. It is experiencing one of the greatest backlashes in its history, caused by an unexpected reaction to the aggressive, woke absurdities of today’s cultural wars. The left fears those who resist.
His aim is to tranquilize his public by affirming that these revolutions have weathered other storms in the past. Like all liberals, he recommends more liberalism, albeit moderately applied, as a solution. In the end, the process will win, he assures the reader, as it always has, if liberals stay the course and act with moderation.
However, beneath the surface, Mr. Zakaria harbors some doubts about the liberal cause. He admits that “the rational project of liberalism is seen by many as a poor substitute for the awesome faith in God that once moved human beings to build cathedrals and write symphonies.”
Liberalism leaves a vacuum of community, loyalty and meaning that it cannot fill. But, Mr. Zakaria quickly points out, populism and illiberalism will not fill it either.
Indeed, he is right. These postmodern substitutes will fail because they are the fruits of liberalism, not its opposite. They suffer from the same lack of substance.
An Appeal to Permanent Things
What is needed is something that appeals to a supreme power, higher laws and transcendent values that liberalism officially denies. It is a system of values that resides outside the sterile liberal universe and catapults souls to more marvelous regions.
Indeed, there exist what Russell Kirk referred to as the “permanent things,” those norms of courage, duty, courtesy, justice and charity that owe their existence and authority to a power higher than the markets—indeed, to a transcendent God. These permanent things and so many others, once embedded in Christian civilization, will ultimately prevail.
The featured image is “Episode La révolution de 1830” (1830) by Adele Kindt, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
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