Sunday, October 19, 2014
Peter of Alcantara, Confessor
White Double “O happy penance, which has won me such glory!” said the Saint of today at the threshold of heaven. And on earth, Teresa of Jesus wrote of him “Oh! what a perfect imitator of Jesus Christ God has just taken from us, by calling to his glory that blessed religious Brother Peter of […]
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Saturday, October 18, 2014
Saint Luke, Evangelist
Red Double of the Second Class The goodness and kindness of God our Savior hath appeared to all men. It would seem that the third Evangelist, a disciple of St. Paul, had purposed setting forth this word of the Doctor of the Gentiles; or may we not rather say, the Apostle himself characterizes in this […]
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Friday, October 17, 2014
Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque, Virgin
White Double “Among the most striking proofs of the infinite love of our Redeemer is this, that, at a moment in which the love of the faithful was growing cold, the Divine Love proposed himself as the object of special veneration and worship, and the precious treasure of the Church was opened to enrich with […]
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Thursday, October 16, 2014
Saint Hedwige, Widow
White Semi-Double At the beginning of the thirteenth century, the plateau of Upper Asia poured down a fresh torrent of barbarians, more terrible than all their predecessors. The one fragile barrier, which the Græco-Slavonian civilization could oppose to the Mongols had been swept away by the first wave of the invasion; not one of the […]
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Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Saint Teresa of Avila, Virgin
White Double “Although the Church triumphant in heaven, and the Church mourning here on earth appear to be completely separated,” says Bossuet on this feast, “they are nevertheless united by a sacred bond. This bond is charity, which is found in this land of exile as well as in our heavenly country; which rejoices the […]
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Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Saint Callixtus I, Pope and Martyr
Red Double He was a sign of contradiction in Israel. In his own time, Christians were ranged either around him or against him. The trouble excited by his mere name sixteen hundred years ago was renewed in the middle of the nineteenth century by the discovery of a famous book, which gave an occasion to […]
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Monday, October 13, 2014
Saint Edward the Confessor, King of England
White Simple This glorious saint was like a beautiful lily, crowning the ancient branch of the kings of Wessex. The times had progressed since that sixth century, when the pagan Cerdic and other pirate chiefs from the North Sea scattered with ruins the island of saints. Having accomplished their mission of wrath, the Anglo-Saxons became […]
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Sunday, October 12, 2014
The Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
Green Double The Paralytic carrying his bed is the subject of this day’s Gospel, and gives the eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost its title. It has been thought, by some, that its having the number it bears has caused it to be inserted in the Missal immediately after the Ember Days of autumn. We will not, […]
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Saturday, October 11, 2014
The Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary
White Double of the Second Class In the sixteenth century, even amidst their many divergences, the so-called Reformers agreed in utterly rejecting all the honors paid by the Catholic Church to the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the grounds that such veneration of the Mother detracted from the supreme worship due to her Divine Son. Four […]
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Friday, October 10, 2014
Saint Francis Borgia, Confessor
White Simple Vanity of vanities and all is vanity. No argument was needed to impress this truth upon the Saint of today, when the coffin was opened which contained all that Spain had admired of youth and loveliness, and death suddenly revealed to him its awful reality. O ye beauties of all times, death alone […]
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