The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints

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* * * * *

We belong to God by numberless essential titles of interest, gratitude,
and justice, and are bound to be altogether his, and every moment to
live to him alone, with all our powers and all our strength: whatever it
may cost us to make this sacrifice perfect and complete, if we truly
love him, we shall embrace it with joy and inexpressible ardor. In these
sentiments we ought, by frequent express acts, and by the uninterrupted
habitual disposition of our souls, to give all we are and have to God,
all the powers of our souls, all the senses and organs of our bodies,
all our actions, thoughts, and affections. This oblation we may
excellently comprise in any of the first petitions of our Lord's prayer:
the following is a form of an oblation to our divine Redeemer, which St.
Ignatius of Loyola drew up and used to repeat: "O sovereign king, and
absolute Lord of all things, though I am most unworthy to serve you,
nevertheless, relying on your grace and boundless mercy, I offer myself
up entire to you, and subject whatever belongs to me to your most holy
will; and I protest, in presence of your infinite goodness, and in
presence of the glorious Virgin your mother, and your whole heavenly
court, that it is my most earnest desire, and unshaken resolution, to
follow and imitate you the nearest I am able, in bearing all injuries
and crosses with meekness and patience, and in laboring to die to the
world and myself in a perfect spirit of humility and poverty, that I may
be wholly yours and you may reign in me in time and eternity."

{131}

SAINT BENEDICT BISCOP,

COMMONLY CALLED BENNET.

HE was nobly descended, and one of the great officers of the court of
Oswi, the religious king of the Northumbers: he was very dear to his
prince, and was beholden to his bounty for many fair estates, and great
honors; but neither the favors of so good and gracious a king, nor the
allurements of power, riches, and pleasures, were of force to captivate
his heart, who could see nothing in them but dangers, and snares so much
the more to be dreaded, as fraught with the power of charming. At the
age therefore of twenty-five, an age that affords the greatest relish
for pleasure, he bid adieu to the world, made a journey of devotion to
Rome, and at his return devoted him wholly to the studies of the
scriptures and other holy exercises. Some time after his return to
England, Alcfrid, son of king Oswi, being desirous to make a pilgrimage
to the shrines of the apostles, engaged Biscop to bear him company to
Rome. The king prevented his son's journey; nevertheless our saint
travelled thither a second time, burning with an earnest desire of
improving himself in the knowledge of divine things, and in the love of
God. From Rome he went to the great monastery of Lerins, then renowned
for its regular discipline; there he took the monastic habit, and spent
two years in the most exact observance of the rule, and penetrated in
every exercise with its true spirit: after this he returned to Rome,
where he received an order of pope Vitalian to accompany St. Theodorus,
archbishop of Canterbury, and St. Adrian, to England. When he arrived at
Canterbury, St. Theodorus committed to him the care of the monastery of
SS. Peter and Paul, near that city, which abbacy he resigned to St.
Adrian upon his arrival in England. St. Bennet stayed about two years in
Kent, giving himself up to religious exercises and sacred studies, under
the discipline of those two excellent persons. Then he took a fourth
journey to Rome, with a view of perfecting himself in ecclesiastical
discipline, and the rules and practice of a monastic life; for which
purpose he made a considerable stay at Rome and other places: he brought
home with him a choice library, relics and pictures of Christ, the
Blessed Virgin, and other saints. When he returned to Northumberland,
king Egfrid (in whose father's court St. Bennet had formerly lived)
bestowed on him seventy ploughs or families of land for building a
monastery;[1] this the saint founded on the mouth of the river Were,
whence it was called Weremouth. When the monastery was built, St. Bennet
went over to France, and brought back with him skilful masons, who built
the church for this monastery of stone, and after the Roman fashion; for
till that time stone buildings were very rare in Britain, even the
church of Lindisfarne was of wood, and covered over with a thatch of
straw and reeds, till bishop Eadbert procured both the roof and the
walls to be covered with sheets of lead, as Bede mentions.[2] St. Bennet
also brought over glaziers from France, for the art of making glass was
then unknown in Britain. In a fifth journey to Rome, St. Bennet
furnished himself with a larger stock of good books, especially the
writings of the fathers, also of relics and holy pictures, with which he
enriched his own country.

His first monastery of Weremouth was entitled from Saint Peter, prince
of the apostles; and such was the edification which it gave, that the
same {132} king added to the saint a second donation of lands,
consisting of forty ploughs; on which Biscop built another monastery, at
a place called Girwy, now Jarrow, on the Tine, six miles distant from
the former, and this latter was called St. Paul's; these two monasteries
were almost looked upon as one; and St. Bennet governed them both,
though he placed in each a superior or abbot, who continued subject to
him, his long journey to Rome and other avocations making this
substitution necessary.[3] In the church of St. Peter at Weremouth he
placed the pictures of the Blessed Virgin, the twelve apostles, the
history of the gospel, and the visions in the revelation of St. John:
that of St. Paul's at Jarrow, he adorned with other pictures, disposed
in such manner as to represent the harmony between the Old and New
Testament, and the conformity of the figures in one to the reality in
the other. Thus Isaac carrying the wood which was to be employed in the
sacrifice of himself, was explained by Jesus Christ carrying his cross,
on which he was to finish his sacrifice; and the brazen serpent was
illustrated by our Saviour's crucifixion. With these pictures, and many
books and relics, St. Bennet brought from Rome in his last voyage, John,
abbot of St. Martin's, precentor in St. Peter's church, whom he
prevailed with pope Agatho to send with him, and whom he placed at
Weremouth to instruct perfectly his monks in the Gregorian notes, and
Roman ceremonies for singing the divine office. Easterwin, a kinsman of
St. Bennet, and formerly an officer in the king's court, before he
became a monk, was chosen abbot before our saint set out for Rome, and
in that station behaved always as the meanest person in the house; for
though he was eminently adorned with all virtues, humility, mildness,
and devotion seemed always the most eminent part of his character. This
holy man died on the 6th of March, when he was but thirty-six years old,
and had been four years abbot, while St. Bennet was absent in the last
journey to Rome. The monks chose in his place St. Sigfrid, a deacon, a
man of equal gravity and meekness, who soon after fell into a lingering
decay, under which he suffered violent pains in his lungs and bowels. He
died four months before our saint. With his advice, two months before
his death, St. Bennet appointed St. Ceolfrid abbot of both his
monasteries, being himself struck with a dead palsy, by which all the
lower parts of his body were without life; he lay sick of this distemper
three years, and for a considerable time was entirely confined to his
bed. During this long illness, not being able to raise his voice to the
usual course of singing the divine office, at every canonical hour he
sent for some of his monks and while they, being divided into two
choirs, sung the psalms proper for the hour of the day or night, he
endeavored as well as he could to join not only his heart, but also his
voice, with theirs. His attention to God he seemed never to relax, and
frequently and earnestly exhorted his monks to a constant observance of
the rule he had given them. "You must not think," said he, "that the
constitutions which you have received from me were my own invention,
for, having in my frequent journeys visited seventeen well-ordered
monasteries, I informed myself of all their laws and rules, and picking
out the best among them, these I have recommended to you." The saint
expired soon after, having received the viaticum on the 12th of January,
in 690. His relics, according to Malmesbury,[4] were translated to
Thorney abbey, in 970, but the monks of Glastenbury thought themselves
possessed at least of part of that treasure.[5] The true name of our
saint was Biscop {133} Baducing, as appears from Eddius-Stephen, in his
life of St. Wilfrid. The English Benedictins honor him as one of the
patrons of their congregation, and he is mentioned in the Roman
Martyrology on this day. See his life in Bede's history of the first
abbots of Weremouth, published by Sir James Ware, at Dublin, in 1664.

Footnotes:
1. A plough, or family of land, was as much as one plough, or one yoke
of oxen could throw up in a year, or as sufficed for the maintenance
of a family.
2. Hist. l. 3, c. 25.
3. The abbeys of Weremouth and Jarrow were destroyed by the Danes. Both
were rebuilt in part, and from the year 1083 were small priories or
cells dependent on the abbey of Durham, till their dissolution {}th
of Henry VIII.
4. Malmes. l. 4, de Pontif.
5. See Monast. Ang. t. 1, p. 4, and John of Glastenbury, Hist. Glasten.

TYGRIUS, A PRIEST,

WHO was scourged, tormented with the disjointing of his bones, stripped
of all his goods, and sent into banishment; and EUTROPIUS, lector, and
precentor of the church of Constantinople, who died in prison of his
torments, having been scourged, his cheeks torn with iron hooks, and his
sides burnt with torches; are honored in the Roman Martyrology with the
title of martyrs on the 12th of January.

ST. AELRED,

ABBOT OF RIEVAL, OR RIDAL, IN YORKSHIRE.

HE was of noble descent, and was born in the north of England, in 1109.
Being educated in learning and piety, he was invited by David, the pious
king of Scotland, to his court, made master of his household, and highly
esteemed both by him and the courtiers. His virtue shone with bright
lustre in the world, particularly his meekness, which Christ declared to
be his favorite virtue, and the distinguishing mark of his true
disciples. The following is a memorable instance to what a degree he
possessed this virtue: a certain person of quality having insulted and
reproached him in the presence of the king, Aelred heard him out with
patience, and thanked him for his charity and sincerity, in telling him
his faults. This behavior had such an influence on his adversary as made
him ask his pardon on the spot. Another time, while he was speaking on a
certain matter, one interrupted him with very harsh, reviling
expressions: the servant of God heard him with tranquillity, and
afterwards resumed his discourse with the same calmness and presence of
mind as before. His desires were ardent to devote himself entirely to
God, by forsaking the world; but the charms of friendship detained him
some time longer in it, and were fetters to his soul; reflecting,
notwithstanding, that he must sooner or later be separated by death from
those he loved most, he condemned his own cowardice, and broke at once
those bands of friendship, which were more agreeable to him than all
other sweets of life. He describes the situation of his soul under this
struggle, and says, "Those who saw me, judging by the gaudy show which
surrounded me, and not knowing what passed within my soul, said,
speaking of me: Oh, how well is it with him! how happy is he! But they
knew not the anguish of my mind; for the deep wound in my heart gave me
a thousand tortures, and I was not able to bear the intolerable stench
of my sins." But after he had taken his resolution, he says, "I began
then to know, by a little experience, what immense pleasure is found in
thy service, and how sweet that peace is, which is its inseparable
companion."[1] To relinquish entirely all his worldly engagements, he
left Scotland, and embraced the austere Cistercian order, at Rieval, in
a valley upon the hanks of the Rie, in Yorkshire, where a noble lord,
called Walter {134} Especke, had founded a monastery in 1122. At the age
of twenty-four, in 1133, he became a monk under the first abbot,
William, a disciple of St. Bernard. Fervor adding strength to his tender
delicate body, he set himself cheerfully about practising the greatest
austerities, and employed much of his time in prayer and the reading of
pious books. He converted his heart with great ardor to the love of God,
and by this means finding all his mortifications sweet and light, he
cried out,[2] "That yoke doth not oppress, but raiseth the soul; that
burden hath-wings, not weight." He speaks of divine charity always in
raptures, and by his frequent ejaculations on the subject, it seems to
have been the most agreeable occupation of his soul. "May thy voice
(says he) sound in my ears, O good Jesus, that my heart may learn how to
love thee, that my mind may love thee, that the interior powers, and, as
it were, bowels of my soul, and very marrow of my heart, may love thee,
and that my affections may embrace thee, my only true good, my sweet and
delightful joy! What is love? my God! If I mistake not, it is the
wonderful delight of the soul, so much the more sweet as more pure, so
much the more overflowing and inebriating as more ardent. He who loves
thee, possesses thee; and he possesses thee in proportion as he loves,
because thou art love. This is that abundance with which thy beloved are
inebriated, melting away from themselves, that they may pass into thee,
by loving thee."[3] He had been much delighted in his youth with reading
Tully; but after his conversion, found that author, and all other
reading, tedious and bitter, which was not sweetened with the honey of
the holy name of Jesus, and seasoned with the word of God, as he says in
the preface to his book, _On spiritual friendship_. He was much edified
with the very looks of a holy monk, called Simon, who had despised high
birth, an ample fortune, and all the advantages of mind and body, to
serve God in that penitential state. This monk went and came as one deaf
and dumb, always recollected in God; and was such a lover of silence,
that he would scarce speak a few words to the prior on necessary
occasions. His silence, however, was sweet, agreeable, and full of
edification. Our saint says of him, "The very sight of his humility
stifled my pride, and made me blush at the immortification of my looks.
The law of silence practised among us, prevented my ever speaking to him
deliberately; but, one day, on my speaking a word to him inadvertently,
his displeasure appeared in his looks for my infraction of the rule of
silence; and he suffered me to lie some time prostrate before him to
expiate my fault; for which I grieved bitterly, and which I never could
forgive myself."[4] This holy monk, having served God eight years in
perfect fidelity, died in 1142, in wonderful peace, repeating with his
last breath, "I will sing eternally, O Lord, thy mercy, thy mercy, thy
mercy!"

St. Aelred, much against his inclination, was made abbot of a new
monastery of his order, founded by William, Earl of Lincoln, at Revesby,
in Lincolnshire, in 1142, and of Rieval, over three hundred monks, in
1143. Describing their life, he says, that they drank nothing but water;
ate little, and that coarse; labored hard, slept little, and on hard
boards; never spoke, except to their superiors on necessary occasions;
carried the burdens that were laid on them without refusing any; went
wherever they were led; had not a moment for sloth, or amusements of any
kind, and never had any lawsuit or dispute.[5] St. Aelred also mentions
their mutual charity and peace in the most affecting manner, and is not
able to find words to express the joy he felt at the sight of every one
of them. His humility and love of solitude made him constantly refuse
many bishoprics which were pressed {135} upon him. Pious reading and
prayer were his delight. Even in times of spiritual dryness, if he
opened the divine books, he suddenly found his soul pierced with the
light of the Holy Ghost. His eyes, though before as dry as marble,
flowed with tears, and his heart abandoned itself to sighs accompanied
with a heavenly pleasure, by which he was ravished in God. He died in
1166, and the fifty-seventh of his age, having been twenty-two years
abbot. See his works published at Douay in 1625, and in Bibl. Cisterc.
t. 5, particularly his _Mirrour of Charity_; Hearne's Notes on Gulielmus
Neubrigensis, who dedicated to our saint the first book of his history,
t. 3, p. 1: likewise his life in Capgrave, and the annals of his order.
The general chapter held at Citeaux in 1250, declared him to be ranked
among the saints of their order; as Henriquez and the additions to the
Cistercian Martyrology testify. In the new Martyrology published by
Benedict XIV. for the use of this order, the feast of St. Aelred is
marked on the 2d of March,[6] with a great eulogium of his learning,
innocence of life, wonderful humility, patience, heavenly conversation,
gift of prophecy, and miracles.

Footnotes:
1. Spec. {} 1, c. 28.
2. Spec. l. 1, c. 5.
3. Ibid. l. 1, c. 1.
4. Ibid. l. 1, c. ult.
5. L. 2, c. 2.
6. P. 304

JANUARY XIII.

ST. VERONICA, OF MILAN.

From her life, in Bollandus, t. 1, p. 890.

A.D. 1497.

ALL states furnish abundant means for attaining to sanctity and
Christian perfection, and it is only, owing to our sloth and tepidity
that we neglect to make use of them. This saint could boast of no
worldly advantages either by birth or fortune.[1] Her parents maintained
their family by hard labor in a village near Milan, and were both very
pious; her father never sold a horse, or any thing else he dealt in,
without being more careful to acquaint the purchaser with all that was
secretly faulty in it, than to recommend its good qualities. His narrow
circumstances prevented his giving his daughter any schooling, so that
she never learned to read; but his own, and his devout wife's example,
and fervent though simple instructions, filled her tender heart from the
cradle with lively sentiments of virtue. The pious {136} maid from her
infancy applied herself to continual prayer, was very attentive to the
instructions given in the catechism; and the uninterrupted consideration
of the holy mysteries, and the important truths of religion, engrossed
her whole soul to themselves. She was, notwithstanding, of all others,
the most diligent and indefatigable in labor; and so obedient to her
parents and masters, even in the smallest trifles, so humble and
submissive to her equals, that she seemed to have no will of her own.
Her food was coarse and very sparing, and her drink the same which the
poorer sort of people used in that country, water, except sometimes
whey, or a little milk. At her work she continually conversed in her
heart with God; insomuch that in company she seemed deaf to their
discourses, mirth, and music. When she was weeding, reaping, or at any
other labor in the fields, she strove to work at a distance from her
companions, to entertain herself the more freely with her heavenly
spouse. The rest admired her love of solitude, and on coming to her,
always found her countenance cheerful, yet often bathed in tears, which
they sometimes perceived to flow in great abundance; though they did not
know the source to be devotion: so carefully did Veronica conceal what
passed in her soul between her and God.

Through a divine call to a religious and conventual state of life, she
conceived a great desire to become a nun, in the poor, austere, and
edifying convent of St. Martha, of the order of St. Austin in Milan. To
qualify herself for this state, being busied the whole day at work, she
sat up at night to learn to read and write, which the want of an
instructor made a great fatigue to her. One day being in great anxiety
about her learning, the Mother of God, to whom she had always
recommended herself, in a comfortable vision bade her banish that
anxiety; for it was enough if she knew three letters: The first, purity
of the affections, by placing her whole heart on God alone, loving no
creature, but in him and for him; the second, never to murmur, or be
impatient at the sins, or any behavior of others, but to bear them with
interior peace and patience, and humbly to pray for them; the third, to
set apart some time every day to meditate on the passion of Christ.
After three years' preparation, she was admitted to the religious habit
in St. Martha's. Her life was entirely uniform, perfect, and fervent in
every action, no other than a living copy of her rule, which consisted
in the practice of evangelical perfection reduced to certain holy
exercises. Every moment of her life she studied to accomplish it to the
least tittle, and was no less exact in obeying the order or direction of
any superior's will. When she could not obtain leave to watch in the
church so long as she desired, by readily complying, she deserved to
hear from Christ, that obedience was a sacrifice the most dear to him,
who, to obey his Father's will, came down from heaven, _becoming
obedient even unto death_.[2]

She lay three years under a lingering illness, all which time she would
never be exempted from any duty of the house, or part of her work, or
make use of the least indulgence, though she had leave; her answer
always was, "I must work while I can, while I have time." It was her
delight to help and serve every one. She always sought with admirable
humility the last place, and the greatest drudgery. It was her desire to
live always on bread and water. Her silence was a sign of her
recollection and continual prayer, in which her gift of abundant and
almost continual tears was most wonderful. She nourished them by
constant meditation on her own miseries, on the love of God, the joys of
heaven, and the sacred passion of Christ. She always spoke of her own
sinful life, as she called it, though it was most innocent, with the
most feeling sentiments of compunction. She was favored by God with many
extraordinary visits and {137} comforts. By moving exhortations to
virtue, she softened and converted several obdurate sinners. She died at
the hour which she had foretold, in the year 1497, and the fifty-second
of her age. Her sanctity was confirmed by miracles. Pope Leo X., by a
bull in 1517, permitted her to be honored in her monastery in the same
manner as if she had been beatified according to the usual form. The
bull may be seen in Bollandus.[3] Her name is inserted on this day in
the Roman Martyrology, published by Benedict XIV., in the year 1749; but
on the 28th of this month, in that of the Austin friars, approved by the
same pope.

* * * * *

Christian perfection consists very much in the performance of our
ordinary actions, and the particular duties of our respective stations.
God, as the good father and great master of the family of the world,
allots to every one his proper place and office in it; and it is in this
variety of states by which it subsists; and in their mutual dependence
upon each other, that its good order and beauty consist. It is the most
holy and wise appointment of providence and the order of nature, that
the different stations in the world be filled. Kings and subjects, rich
and poor, reciprocally depend upon each other; and it is the command of
God that every one perform well the part which is assigned him. It is,
then, by the constant attendance on all the duties of his state, that a
person is to be sanctified. By this all his ordinary actions will be
agreeable sacrifices to God, and his whole life a continued chain of
good works. It is not only in great actions, or by fits and starts, but
in all that we do, and in every moment, that we are bound to live to
God. The regulation of this point is of essential importance in a
virtuous life, that every action may be performed with regularity,
exactitude in all its circumstances, and the utmost fervor, and by the
most pure motive, referred solely to divine honor, in union with the
most holy actions and infinite merits of Christ. Hence St. Hilary
says,[4] "When the just man performs all his actions, with a pure and
simple view to the divine honor and glory, as the apostle admonishes us,[5]
his whole life becomes an uninterrupted prayer; and as he passes his
days and nights in the accomplishment of the divine will, it is true to
say, that the whole course of a holy life is a constant meditation on
the law of God." Nevertheless this axiom, that the best devotion is the
constant practice of a person's ordinary duties, is abused by some, to
excuse a life of dissipation. Every one is bound to live to himself in
the first place, and to reserve leisure for frequent exercises of
devotion; and it is only by a spirit of perfect self-denial, humility,
compunction, and prayer, and by an assiduous attention of the soul to
God, that our exterior ordinary actions will be animated by the motives
of divine faith and charity, and the spirit of true piety nourished in
our breasts; in this consists the secret of a Christian life in all
states.