Saturday, August 31, 2013
Saint Raymond Nonnatus, Confessor
August closes as it began, with a feast of deliverance; as though that were the divine seal set by Eternal Wisdom upon this month—the month when holy Church makes the works and ways of Divine Wisdom the special object of her contemplation. Upon the fall of our first parents and their expulsion from Paradise, the […]
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Friday, August 30, 2013
St. Rose of Lima, Virgin; Comm. of Ss. Felix and Adauctus, Martyrs
The fragrance of holiness is wafted today across the dark Ocean, renewing the youth of the Old World, and winning for the New the good will of heaven and earth. A century before the birth of St. Rose, Spain, having cast out the Crescent from her own territory, received as a reward the mission of […]
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Thursday, August 29, 2013
The Decollation of Saint John the Baptist
“At that time, Herod sent and apprehended John, and bound him in prison for the sake of Herodias, the wife of Philip his brother, because he had married her. For John said to Herod, It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife. How Herodias laid snares for him, and was desirous to […]
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Wednesday, August 28, 2013
Saint Augustine of Hippo, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church
Today Augustine, the greatest and the humblest of the Doctors, is hailed by heaven, where his conversion caused greater joy than that of any other sinner; and celebrated by the Church, who is enlightened by his writings as to the power, the value, and the gratuitousness of divine grace. Since that wonderful, heavenly conversation at […]
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Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Saint Joseph Calasanctius, Confessor
To thee is the poor man left: thou wilt be a helper to the orphan. Proud Venice has already seen these words realized in her noble son Jerome Æmilian: today they indicate the sanctity of another illustrious person, descended from the first princes of Navarre, but of still higher rank in the kingdom of charity. […]
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Monday, August 26, 2013
Saint Zephyrinus, Pope and Martyr
Zephyrinus was the first Pontiff to be buried in the celebrated crypt where the Popes of the third century came after their combat to sleep their last sleep. The catacomb which thus succeeded the Vatican cemetery in the honor of sheltering the Vicars of Christ had been opened thirty years before by the virgin martyr […]
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Sunday, August 25, 2013
Fourteenth Sunday After Pentecost
In the Western Church, this Sunday is called that of the two masters, because of the Gospel which is read upon it. The Greeks give it the name of the Sunday of the Invited to the Marriage-feast, or the fourteenth of Saint Matthew, unless the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross happen to […]
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Saturday, August 24, 2013
Saint Bartholomew, Apostle and Martyr
A witness of the Son of God, one of the princes who announced his glory to the nations, lights up this day with his apostolic flame. While his brethren of the sacred College followed the human race into all the lands whither the migration of nations had led it, Bartholomew appeared as the herald of […]
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Friday, August 23, 2013
St. Philip Benizi, Confessor
Our Lady is now reigning in heaven. Her triumph over death cost her no labor; and yet it was through suffering that she like Jesus entered into her glory. We too cannot attain eternal happiness otherwise than did the Son and the Mother. Let us keep in mind the sweet joys we have been tasting […]
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Thursday, August 22, 2013
The Octave of the Assumption; Comm. of Saints Timothy, Hippolytus, and Symphorian, Martyrs
He alone who could understand Mary’s holiness could appreciate her glory. But Wisdom, who presided over the formation of the abyss, has not revealed to us the depth of that ocean, beside which all the virtues of the just and all the graces lavished upon them are but streamlets. Nevertheless, the immensity of grace and […]
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