20 July 2026
US Bishops Make Absurd Accusation About the SSPX
The USCCB repeats an old lie while an American bishop claims those who hold to the same Catholic Faith, practised for centuries, are now practising Protestantism. Welcome to the New Synodal Church.
The Medieval Pot That Never Stopped Cooking — One Stew, Fed a Family for Weeks
Traditional Catholic Morning Prayers in English | July
Former Protestant Pastor Tells How He Got Over His Objections to Mary
Many Protestants can't understand how Catholics believe what they believe about Mary. Over and over again, the Marian beliefs taught in Roman Catholicism are challenged and ridiculed as "unbiblical" "idolatrous", and "heretical". How do converts overcome these objections? In this video, former Protestant Pastor Keith Nester explains how he overcame his problems with what Catholics believe about Mary.
The Pope Who “Disappeared” 10 Calendar Days
I've written at length about this in my post here because of the confusion it caused regarding St Teresa of Avila's Feast Day.
From Aleteia
By Daniel Esparza
Gregory XIII decided to amend, as much as possible, certain discomforts the Julian calendar had introduced into the celebration of the holy days.
The Julian calendar (which Julius Caesar established in the Roman Empire in 46 BC, hence its name) sought to adjust chronological time to cosmological time, so that certain festivities could coincide with certain astronomical moments (mainly equinoxes and solstices), thus recovering the Egyptian tradition that divided the year into 12 months.
According to the Julian calendar, one year comprised 365 days and six hours (which is the time it takes for the planet to complete its translational movement orbiting the sun).
But a failure in the calculation of the decimals led to a mismatch of 11 minutes, which required the addition of a leap year every four years, adding an extra day between February 24 and 25 in the years divisible by four. (If it sounds complicated, that’s because it is.) And precisely because of such complications, Pope Gregory XIII introduced a series of modifications in 1582.
In a nutshell, the problem of the Julian calendar lay basically in the fact that it lagged the seasons of the year, and consequently the liturgical festivities were always celebrated later and later each year. Attempts to fix liturgical celebrations with a certain time of the year had already been set in the Council of Nicaea, which had the astronomical event the celebration of Easter (for example) should be matched.
Thus, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a scientific commission, which included the Italian chronologist Luis Lilio, the Jesuit Christophorus Clavius, the cosmographer Ignazio Danti and the Spanish mathematician Pedro Chacón, to create the calendar that we use today and which, for obvious reasons, we call Gregorian. The aim was to fix the Spring Equinox of the Northern Hemisphere on March 21 rather than on March 11, as was occurring according to the Julian calendar by the beginning of the 16th century.
The commission thus modified the Julian calendar, maintaining the leap years whose last two figures were divisible by four, but at the same time eliminating those that coincided with each centennial, and also those that could be divided by 400. Indeed, it isn’t any less complex than the Julian calendar but, in short, the Gregorian sets 97 leap years out of 400, while that of Julius Caesar included 100.
As soon as the calendar changed, October 4, 1582 became October 15, 1582 on the very same day, and 10 days suddenly disappeared. Countries that adopted the calendar passed from October 4 to October 15 in a single night. This explains, for example, why St. Teresa of Avila, who died in Alba de Tormes on October 4 of that same year, was buried on October 15 — now her feast day. Just 24 hours after her death, we shifted from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
Not everyone adopted the Gregorian calendar right away. In its Alexandrian form, for example, it is still the official civil calendar of Ethiopia. Most Eastern Orthodox Churches still follow the Julian calendar for the purpose of calculating the date of Easter and its related movable feasts. Among the religious or state calendars that do not count years from the birth of Christ are the Byzantine Church (both Catholic and Orthodox), Jewish, Muslim, Chinese, and Vietnamese calendars.
The Latin Mass Keeps Growing Despite Restrictions, Says Archbishop Aguer!
St Elias, Prophet & Founder of Carmel ~ A Bi-Ritual Saint
✠✠✠✠✠
The Holy Prophet Elias is one of the greatest of the prophets and the first dedicated to virginity in the Old Testament. He was born in Thesbe of Gilead into the Levite tribe 900 years before the Incarnation of the Word of God.
Saint Epiphanius of Cyprus gives the following account about the birth of the Prophet Elias: “When Elias was born, his father Sobach saw in a vision angels of God around him. They swaddled him with fire and fed him with flames.” The name Elias (the Lord’s strength) given to the infant defined his whole life. From the years of his youth, he dedicated himself to the One God, settled in the wilderness and spent his whole life in strict fasting, meditation and prayer. Called to prophetic service, which put him in conflict with the Israelite king Ahab, the prophet became a fiery zealot of true faith and piety.
During this time the Israelite nation had fallen away from the faith of their Fathers, they abandoned the One God and worshipped pagan idols, the worship of which was introduced by the impious King Jereboam. Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab, was devoted to idol worship. She persuaded her husband to build a temple to the pagan god Baal, which led many Israelites away from the worship of the true God. Beholding the ruin of his nation, the Prophet Elias began to denounce King Ahab for impiety and exhorted him to repent and turn to the God of Israel. The king would not listen to him. The Prophet Elias then declared to him, that as punishment there would be neither rain nor dew upon the ground, and the drought would cease only by his prayer. Indeed, the word of Elias was a torch (Eccles. 48: 1). The heavens were closed for three and a half years, and there was drought and famine throughout all the land.
During this time of tribulation, the Lord sent him to a cave beyond the Jordan. There he was miraculously fed by ravens. When the stream Horath dried up, the Lord sent the Prophet Elias to Sarephta to a poor widow, a Sidonian Gentile who suffered together with her children, awaiting death by starvation. At the request of the prophet, she prepared him bread with the last measure of flour and the remainder of the oil. Through the prayer of the Prophet Elias, flour and oil were not depleted in the home of the widow for the duration of the famine. By the power of his prayer the prophet also performed another miracle: he raised the dead son of the widow.
After the end of three years of drought, the Merciful Lord sent the prophet to appear before King Ahab and promised to send rain upon the earth. The Prophet Elias told the king to order all of Israel to gather upon Mount Carmel, and also the priests of Baal. When the nation had gathered, the Prophet Elias proposed that two sacrificial altars be built: one for the priests of Baal, and the other for the Prophet Elias who served the True God.
The Prophet Elias told them to call on their gods to consume the sacrificial animals with fire, and he would call on his. Whichever was first to send fire on the sacrifice would be acknowledged as the true God. The prophets of Baal called out to their idol from morning till evening, but the heavens were silent. Towards evening the holy Prophet Elias built his sacrificial altar from twelve stones, the number of the tribes of Israel. He placed the sacrifice upon the wood, gave orders to dig a ditch around the altar and commanded that the sacrifice and the wood be soaked with water. When the ditch had filled with water, the prophet turned to God in prayer. Through the prayer of the prophet, fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice, the wood, and even the water. The people fell down to the ground, crying out: “Truly, the Lord is God!” Then the Prophet Elias had all the pagan priests of Baal put to death, and he began to pray for rain. Through his prayer, the heavens opened and an abundant rain fell, soaking the parched earth.
King Ahab acknowledged his error and repented of his sins, but his wife Jezebel threatened to kill the prophet of God. The Prophet Elias fled into the Kingdom of Judea and, grieving over his failure to eradicate idol worship, he asked God to let him die. An angel of the Lord came before him, strengthened him with food and commanded him to go upon a long journey. The Prophet Elias traveled for forty days and nights and, having arrived at Mount Horeb, he settled in a cave.
The Lord told him that the next day Elias would stand in His presence. There was a strong wind that crushed the rocks of the mountain, then an earthquake, and a fire, but the Lord was not in them. The Lord was in “a gentle breeze” (3 Kings 19:12). He revealed to the prophet, that He would preserve seven thousand faithful servants who had not worshipped Baal.
Later, the Lord commanded Elias to anoint Eliseus into prophetic service. Because of his fiery zeal for the Glory of God, the Prophet Elias was taken up alive into Heaven in a fiery chariot. The Prophet Eliseus received Elias's mantle and a double portion of his prophetic spirit.
According to the Tradition of Holy Church, the Prophet Elias will be the Forerunner of the Dread Second Coming of Christ. He will proclaim the truth of Christ, urge all to repentance, and will be slain by the Antichrist. This will be a sign of the end of the world.
The life of the Holy Prophet Elias is recorded in the Old Testament books (3 Kings; 4 Kings; Sirach/Ecclesiasticus 48:1-15;1 Maccabees 2:58). At the time of the Transfiguration, the Prophet Elias conversed with the Saviour upon Mount Thabor (Mt. 17:3; Mark 9:4; Luke. 9:30).
Eastern Catholics of all times, and in all places, have venerated the Prophet Elias for centuries. The first church in Russia, built at Kyiv under Prince Ihor, was named for the Prophet Elias. After her Baptism Saint Olha (July 11) built a temple of the Holy Prophet Elias in her native region, at the village of Vibuta.
In iconography the Prophet Elias is depicted ascending to Heaven in a fiery chariot, surrounded by flames, and harnessed to four winged horses. We pray to him for deliverance from drought and ask for seasonable weather.
Troparion — Tone 4
An angel in the flesh and the cornerstone of the prophets, / the second forerunner of the coming of Christ, / glorious Elias sent grace from on high to Eliseus, / to dispel diseases and to cleanse lepers. / Therefore, he pours forth healings on those who honour him.
Kontakion — Tone 2
Prophet Elias of great renown, / seer of the mighty mighty works of God, / by your command you held back the rain! / Pray for us to the only Lover of mankind!
"I have been most zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. But the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to the sword. I alone am left, and they seek to take my life.” (1 Kings 19:14)
The prophet Elijah is considered to be the greatest of the Old Testament prophets, as well as the Father of the Carmelite Order. Not much is known of his background. All that is known from scripture is that he was a Tishbite (or Thesbite), although scholars disagree on what the term refers to. He lived sometime around the year 90 BC. Some Jewish traditions maintain that he was of priestly descent. Otherwise, Elijah's life before he is called by God in the First Book of Kings is a mystery. Elijah was described as a wild and hairy man; "as a fire, and his word burnt like a torch." He lived a very ascetic life, living in a cave and wearing clothes made of camel hair. His entire known life was a protest against the immorality of his time. Pagan worship had corrupted the land, and King Ahab and Queen Jezebel had erected a shrine to the false god Baal. Elijah informed Ahab that if they did not repent of the evils they had committed, God would scourge the land with a drought to punish them for their apostasy. After delivering God's message, Elijah quickly disappeared, led by Yahweh to the land east of the Jordan, where he was fed by ravens.
Ahab ignored Elijah's warning, and for three years, not a drop of rain fell upon the land. Furious, Ahab devastated the land in search of Elijah, but his efforts were futile. After three years, Elijah returned and confronted the King. Ahab fiercely accused Elijah of bringing the curse upon the land, but Elijah flung the accusation back at Ahab, pointing out that the drought was caused by his own stubbornness and sinfulness. Next came the episode for which Elijah is most famous. He challenged the priests of Baal to a contest. Atop Mount Carmel, Elijah and the priests would each set up an altar and provide a sacrifice upon their altar. They would then pray to their respective deities, the priests to Baal and Elijah to Yahweh, and whichever deity sent fire down from the sky to consume the sacrifice would be the true God. The priests of Baal went first, and for hours and hours they chanted and danced and cut themselves, to no avail. Finally, laughing at their failure, Elijah approached his altar. He set twelve stones around the altar, for the twelve tribes of Israel, and poured water all over the sacrifice. Then Elijah prayed to God, and suddenly a fire came down from heaven and consumed the sacrifice. Elijah then killed all the priests of Baal, and the people once again believed in the true God. That very evening, torrential rains fell upon the land, thereby ending the three year drought.
Elijah went on to prophesy and perform many more wonders which can be found in the First Book of Kings. He is considered to be the Father of Carmelites, as the Carmelite way of life embodies the Elijahan tradition. Father Elijah's spirit of prayer, penance, contemplation, and zeal for the Lord is to this day the very spirit of the Carmelites. During his ministry, Elijah went up to Mount Carmel in Palestine to live and to pray. It was there that he taught and trained his followers, who are considered by some to be the first monks. From that time onward, Mount Carmel has always been inhabited by men seeking union with God. It is also believed that Elijah and the monks living on Mt. Carmel had a devotion to the woman who would be the mother of the Messiah, the Blessed Virgin Mary, long before she was born.
Elijah's end was as quick and mysterious as his beginning. One day as he was speaking with his successor Elisha, "a fiery chariot, and fiery horses parted them both asunder, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven" (2 Kings:11) Elijah appeared along with Moses at the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor. His feast is celebrated on July 20.
Decadence, Conversion, and Tradition
Some of the most dissolute and decadent artists have ended up converting or reconciling to the Church before they died. Mr Pearce discusses why.
From Crisis
By Joseph Pearce
There is a surprising connection between decadence, conversion, and traditional Catholicism which some people might find a little shocking or, even, a cause for scandal.
There is a surprising connection between decadence, conversion, and traditional Catholicism which some people might find a little shocking or, even, a cause for scandal. Others, however, understanding the relationship between decadence and conversion, will simply rejoice that so many leading figures of the Decadent movement became Catholics.
Before looking a little closer at the place of the Decadent movement in the Catholic cultural revival, it might be helpful to survey the whole revival from a panoramic perspective. Broadly speaking, the revival can be said to have had five distinct periods: the neo-medieval period from 1798 to 1845; the Newman period from 1845 to 1890; the Decadent period from 1890 to 1900; the Chesterbelloc period from 1900 to 1936; and the Inklings period from 1937 to 1973.
The neo-medieval period was marked by the morphing of Romanticism into various neo-medievalist movements, such as the Gothic Revival, the Oxford Movement, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood; the Newman period was the period from Newman’s conversion until his death; the Decadent period was marked by the conversion of several Decadent writers and artists to Catholicism in the decade of decadence sometimes called the “naughty nineties”; the Chesterbelloc period takes its name from the dynamic duo of G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, whose indomitable presence in the first four decades of the 20th century served as a catalyst for the conversion of thousands of souls to the Faith; and, finally, the Inklings period takes its name from the group of friends, led by C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, whose great work continues to evangelize the culture with Christian truth.
The importance of Newman, Chesterton, Belloc, Tolkien, and Lewis to the Catholic revival is not in question. (Irrespective of the fact that Lewis never became a Catholic himself, there is little doubt that his work has ushered many into the Church.) But what about the writers of the Decadence in the 1890s?
What about poets Lionel Johnson and Ernest Dowson, or the artist Aubrey Beardsley, all of whom lived dissolute and desolate lives of moral dissipation—and all of whom were received into the Church? And what of Oscar Wilde, whose private life and literary work were a cause for scandal but who was received into the Church on his deathbed? Can we be comfortable with such bedfellows?
In order to confront these questions, especially if we are affronted by them, we need to go a little further back in time; and we need to cross the sea to France. Oscar Wilde was greatly influenced by the French Decadence, the leading figures of which were at least as decadent as he would become. Charles Baudelaire outraged the moral sensibilities of his contemporaries with his poems, his fleurs du mal, his sick and evil flowers; but he repented of his vices and was reconciled to the Church on his deathbed. Paul Verlaine, another Decadent poet, converted to the Faith while serving a prison sentence for shooting his homosexual “friend.”
And then there’s the great Decadent novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, whose novel À rebours (Against Nature) described the decadent lifestyle with shocking candor. Oscar Wilde read this novel on his honeymoon in Paris and considered himself to have been “poisoned” by it. Huysmans recoiled in horror from the decadence he depicted in his novel and converted to the Faith. His spiritual journey is fictionalized in a series of later novels in which the protagonist descends into the hell of satanism, emerges into the purgatorial light of religious truth, and is then received into the Church.
These three novels, Là-bas, En route, and La Cathédrale, parallel Dante’s Divine Comedy in describing the protagonist’s infernal descent, purgatorial ascent (and assent), and, finally, his reception into the Mystical Body of Christ. They also parallel Huysmans own journey from decadence to conversion. In a fourth novel in the series, L’Oblat (The Oblate), the protagonist becomes an oblate in a monastery, as Huysmans himself had become in the Benedictine Abbey at Ligugé, near Poitiers.
It is Huysmans, the Benedictine oblate, who appears somewhat surprisingly in the Little Liturgical Catechism, recently published in a new edition by Os Justi Press. Huysmans wrote a foreword to the 1896 edition of this delightful guide to the Traditional Mass, which is included in the Os Justi edition. More than that, he was responsible for rediscovering it after the original edition, which had been published in 1860, had been largely forgotten and had fallen out of print. Huysmans discovered it in a second-hand bookshop and oversaw the publication of the new edition as a much-needed remedy for the “ignorance of the Sacred Liturgy” that he had observed among the faithful. Needless to say, the book is as needed today as it was then—and for the same reason.
As for Huysman’s tour de force of a foreword, it illustrates the decadent convert’s love of tradition:
Truly, those who, for want of the slightest effort, remain ignorant of the science of prayer and rite can scarce imagine the enduring enchantment, the deep and lasting emotion they would experience were they but to follow, day by day, the admirable year of the Church. For they must be told: there is no monotony in the workings of our Mother. All in her worship is full of meaning; nothing is left to hazard; no detail, however minute, is without purpose. Ah, the Church! She has known how to condense whole symbolic systems into a single sign, and also how to unfold in vast cadences, in the most eloquent proses, the least gesture of the Son preserved to us by the Gospels. She is unchanging and yet ever varied! Behold her Proper of Time, the marvelous diversity of her sequences and hymns, and consider what she offers us, if only we understand: the ability to live, minute by minute, the very life of Christ, to walk beside Him, and, however unworthy we be, to become the diligent companions of God!
And is not the admirable Liturgy the very soul of consecrated buildings, which without her would be lifeless bodies of stone? Is she not, further, the melodic incense and vocal perfume of the Church herself? Is she not, finally, the echo of Our Lord’s own voice?
Seldom have words so beautiful been offered in homage to the sacred liturgy of the Church. Seldom has the ageless Mass of the ages been praised with such lucid eloquence. In the light of such beautiful poetic prose, can anyone be unthankful for the Decadent converts who have graced the Church with their defense of tradition? Should such ingrates and curmudgeons exist, should they still prefer not to dine with publicans and sinners, let them be likened to the scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites who condemn the splinter in their brother’s eye while ignoring the plank in their own.
Let them be reminded that the Lord does not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. He came to call Decadents like Baudelaire, Verlaine, Huysmans, and Wilde to repentance. They answered His call. May God be praised in the words that they wrote in praise of Him!
Pictured: Joris-Karl Huysmans
Carmelite Rite Solemn High Mass (Rite of the Holy Sepulchre) for the Feast of St. Elias
St Jerome Æmilian, Confessor
Sprung from the powerful aristocracy which won for Venice twelve centuries of splendor, Jerome came into the world when that city had reached the height of its glory. At fifteen years of age he became a soldier; and was one of the heroes in that formidable struggle wherein his country withstood the united powers of almost all Europe in the League of Cambrai. The golden city, crushed for a moment, but soon restored to her former condition, offered her honors to the defender of Castelnovo, who like herself had fallen bravely and risen again. But our Lady of Tarviso had delivered him from his German prison, only to make him her own captive; she brought him back to the city of St. Mark, there to fulfill a higher mission than the proud Republic could have entrusted to him. The descendant of the Æmiliani (Emiliani), captivated, as was Lawrence Justinian a century before, by Eternal Beauty, would now live only for the humility which leads to heaven, and for the lofty deeds of charity. His title of nobility will be derived from the obscure village of Somascha, where he will gather his newly recruited army; and his conquests will be the bringing of little children to God. He will no more frequent the palaces of his patrician friends, for he now belongs to a higher rank: they serve the world, he serves heaven; his rivals are the Angels, whose ambition, like his own, is to preserve unsullied for the Father the service of those innocent souls whom the greatest in heaven must resemble.
“The soul of the child,” as the Church tells us today by the golden mouth of St. John Chrysostom, “is free from all passions. He bears no ill will towards them that have done him harm, but goes to them as friends just as if they had done nothing. And though he be often beaten by his mother, yet he always seeks her and loves her more than anyone else. If you show him a queen in her royal crown, he prefers his mother clad in rags, and would rather see her unadorned than the queen in magnificent attire; for he does not appreciate according to riches or poverty, but by love. He seeks not for more than is necessary, and as soon as he has had sufficient milk he quits the breast. He is not oppressed with the same sorrows as we, nor troubled with care for money and the like; neither is he rejoiced by our transitory pleasures, nor affected by corporal beauty. Therefore our Lord said, Of such is the kingdom of heaven, wishing us to do of our own free will what children do by nature.” (Chrysostom, in Matthew Homily lxii. al. lxiii)
Their Guardian Angels, as our Lord himself said, gazing into those pure souls, are not distracted from the contemplation of their heavenly Father: for he rests in them as on the wings of Cherubim, since baptism has made them his children. Happy was our Saint to have been chosen by God to share the loving cares of the Angels here below, before partaking of their bliss in heaven. The following detailed account is given by Holy Church:
Jerome was born at Venice, of the patrician family of the Æmiliani, and from his boyhood embraced a military life. At a time when the Republic was in great difficulty, he was placed in command of Castelnovo, in the territory of Quero, in the mountains of Tarviso. The fortress was taken by the enemy, and Jerome was thrown, bound hand and foot, into a horrible dungeon. When he found himself thus destitute of all human aid, he prayed most earnestly to the Blessed Virgin, who mercifully came to his assistance. She loosed his bonds, and led him safely through the midst of his enemies, who had possession of every road, till he was within sight of Tarviso. He entered the town; and, in testimony of the favor he had received, he hung up at the altar of our Lady, to whose service he had vowed himself, the manacles, shackles, and chains which he had brought with him. On his return to Venice he gave himself with the utmost zeal to exercises of piety. His charity towards the poor was wonderful; but he was particularly moved to pity for the orphan children who wandered poor and dirty about the town; he received them into houses which he hired, where he fed them at his own expense and trained them to lead Christian lives.
At this time Blessed Cajetan and Peter Caraffa, who was afterwards Paul IV, disembarked at Venice. They commended Jerome’s spirit and his new institution for gathering orphans together. They also introduced him into the hospital for incurables, where he would be able to devote himself with equal charity to the education of orphans, and to the service of the sick. Soon, at their suggestion, he crossed over to the Continent and founded orphanages, first at Brescia, then at Bergamo and Como. At Bergamo his zeal was especially prolific, for there, besides two orphanages, one for boys and one for girls, he opened a house, an unprecedented thing in those parts, for the reception of fallen women who had been converted. Finally he took up his abode at Somascha, a small village in the territory of Bergamo, near to the Venetian border, and this he made his headquarters; here, too, he definitely established his Congregation, which for this reason received the name of Somasques. In course of time it spread and increased, and for the greater benefit of the Christian republic it undertook, besides the ruling and guiding of orphans and the taking care of sacred buildings, the education both liberal and moral of young men in colleges, academies, and seminaries. Pius V enrolled it among religious Orders, and other Roman Pontiffs have honored it with privileges.
Entirely devoted to his work of rescuing orphans, Jerome journeyed to Milan and Pavia, and in both cities he collected numbers of children and provided them, through the assistance given him by noble personages, with a home, food, clothing, and education. He returned to Somascha, and, making himself all to all, he refused no labour which he saw might turn to the good of his neighbor. He associated himself with the peasants scattered over the fields, and while helping them with their work of harvesting, he would explain to them the mysteries of faith. He used to take care of children with the greatest patience, even going to far as to cleanse their heads, and he dressed the corrupt wounds of the village folk with such success that it was thought he had received the gift of healing. On the mountain which overhangs Somascha he found a cave in which he hid himself, and there scourging himself, spending whole days fasting, passing the greater part of the night in prayer, and snatching only a short sleep on the bare rock, he expiated his own sins and those of others. In the interior of this grotto, water trickles from the dry rock, obtained, as constant tradition says, by the prayers of the servant of God. It still flows, even to the present day, and being taken into different countries, it often gives health to the sick. At length, when a contagious distemper was spreading over the whole valley, and he was serving the sick and carrying the dead to the grave on his own shoulders, he caught the infection, and died at the age of fifty-six. His precious death, which he had foretold a short time before, occurred in the year 1537. He was illustrious both in life and death for many miracles. Benedict XIV enrolled him among the Blessed, and Clement XIII solemnly inscribed his name on the catalogue of the Saints.
With Vincent de Paul and Camillus of Lellis, thou, O Jerome Æmilian, completest the triumvirate of charity. Thus does the Holy Spirit mark his reign with traces of the Blessed Trinity; moreover, he would show that the love of God, which he kindles on earth, can never be without the love of our neighbor. At the very time when he gave thee to the world as a demonstration of this truth, the spirit of evil made it evident that true love of our neighbor cannot exist without love of God and that this latter soon disappears in its turn when faith is extinct. Thus, between the ruins of the pretended reform and the ever-new fecundity of the Spirit of holiness, mankind was free to choose. The choice made was, alas! far from being always conformable to man’s interest, either temporal or eternal. With what good reason may we repeat the prayer thou didst teach thy little orphans: “Lord Jesus Christ, our loving Father, we beseech Thee, by Thine infinite goodness, raise up Christendom once more, and bring it back to that upright holiness which flourished in the Apostolic age.”
St Margaret, Virgin & Martyr
This same day brings before us a rival of the warrior martyr, St. George: Margaret, like him victorious over the dragon, and like him called in the Menæa of the Greeks, the Great Martyr. The cross was her weapon; and like the soldier, the virgin, too, consummated her trial in her blood. They were equally renowned also in those chivalrous times when valor and faith fought hand in hand for Christ beneath the standard of the Saints. So early as the seventh century England rivaled the East in honoring the pearl drawn from the abyss of infidelity. Before the disastrous schism brought about by Henry VIII, the Island of Saints celebrated this feast as a double of the Second Class; women alone were obliged to rest from servile work, in gratitude for the protection afforded them by St. Margaret at the moment of childbirth—a favor which ranked her among the Saints called in the Middle Ages auxiliatores or helpers. But it was not in England alone that Margaret was invoked, as history proves by the many and illustrious persons of all countries who have borne her blessed name. In heaven, too, there is great festivity around the throne of Margaret; we learn this from such trustworthy witnesses as St. Gertrude the Great (Legatus divinæ pietatis iv, xlv) and St. Frances of Rome, (Visio xxxvi) who, though divided by a century of time, were both, by a special favor of their Divine Spouse, allowed, while still on earth, to assist at this heavenly spectacle.
The ancient legend in the Roman Breviary was suppressed in the sixteenth century by St. Pius V as not being sufficiently authentic. We therefore give instead some Responsories and Antiphons and a Collect, taken from what appears to be the very Office said by St. Gertrude; for in the vision mentioned above, allusion is made to one of these Responsories, Virgo veneranda. (Breviarium Constantiense, Augustæ Vindelicorum, MCCCXCIX)
Blessed Margaret, though born of pagan blood: * Receiving the faith by the Holy Spirit, preserved it free from stain.
℣. She went from virtue to virtue, ardently desiring the salvation of her soul. * Receiving the faith.
℟. Knowing no evil, she blossomed in purity, being prevented by the grace of our Savior. * She tended the sheep for her foster-mother.
℣. Simple as the dove and prudent as the serpent. * She tended.
℟. Odibrius, hateful to God and men, passing one day, cast his glance upon her. * And he burned with desire of her.
℣. For she was exceeding lovely; her face like a beautiful rose. * And he burned.
℟. Forthwith he sent his men to in quire as to her parentage, * For that if she were of gentle blood, he fain would take her to wife.
℣. But Jesus Christ whose bride she was, had otherwise ordained. * For that she were.
℟. When the tyrant heard that the virgin despised him, * Enraged he caused her to be brought to his tribunal.
℣. For he hoped that, as maidens are wont, she would yield through fear of his threats. * Enraged.
℟. The worshipful virgin stood firm in her constancy, setting at nought the words of the judge. * For she thought not of vile pleasures.
℣. Rejoicing in the hope of a heavenly reward, she was patient under the trial. * For she thought not.
℟. The beloved of Christ, after enduring the horrors of a dungeon, and the torturing of her flesh, * Is closed once more in a darksome prison.
℣. She ceases not to praise and glorify the name of the Lord. * Is closed.
℟. While the holy martyr was instant in prayer, a foul dragon appeared; * And rushing upon her, he devoured her.
℣. With the sign of the cross she rent him asunder, and came forth again unhurt. * And rushing.
The executioners burn the limbs of the tender maiden: but making her prayer she feels nought of the flame.
A great vessel full of water is brought by the judge’s command: and the virgin is cast in bound.
The Lord, who is worthy of praise in his mighty deeds, loosened the fetters of his handmaid, and delivered her from death.
At the sight of these wonders five thousand are baptized: the prefect in anger commands them all to be beheaded, and after them the unconquerable witness of Christ, blessing the God of gods forever and ever.
O God, who didst lead thy blessed virgin Margaret to heaven, with the palm of martyrdom, grant, we beseech thee, that by following her example, we may merit to come even unto thee. Through our Lord.