Part 34

SS. SIMPLICIUS AND FAUSTINUS, BROTHERS, AND BEATRICE, THEIR SISTER, MM.

The two brothers were cruelly tormented, and at length beheaded at Rome in the persecution of Diocletian, in the year 303. Their sister Beatrice took up their bodies out of the Tiber, and gave them burial. She lay herself concealed seven months in the house of a virtuous widow called Lucina, with whom she spent her time, night and day, in fervent prayer, and in the exercise of other good works. She was discovered and impeached by a pagan kinsman, who designed to possess himself of her estate, which was contiguous to his own; she resolutely protested to the judge that she would never adore gods of wood and stone, and was strangled by his order in prison the night following. Lucina buried her body near her brothers on the side of the highway to Porto, in the cemetery called Ad Ursum Pileatum. Pope Leo translated their relics into a church which he built to their honor in the city: they now lie in that of St. Mary Major.

With them is commemorated St. Felix, pope and martyr, whose name is found in the Martyrologies on this day.

ST. WILLIAM, BISHOP OF S. BRIEUC IN BRITTANY, C.

St. William Pinchon, of an illustrious family in Brittany, was, by the innocence of his manners, his admirable meekness, humility, chastity, mortification, charity, and devotion, an accomplished model of all virtues. He received the tonsure, and some years after the holy orders of deacon and priest, at the hands of Josselin, bishop of S. Brieuc, served that church under his two successors, Peter and Sylvester, and succeeded the latter in the episcopal dignity about the year 1220. The poor were his treasurers, and not content to exhaust on them whatever he possessed, he often borrowed great stores of corn and other necessary provisions for their relief. The bare boards were usually his bed; for his domestics discovered that he never made use of the soft bed which they prepared for him. The assiduous application to all the functions of his charge was no hindrance to his nourishing within himself the spirit of recollection and holy prayer. He died about the year 1234, on the 29th of July, on which his name occurs in the Roman Martyrology. His body was deposited in his cathedral, and taken up incorrupt in 1248. He was canonized by Innocent IV. in 1253, according to Baronius. See Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 235.

ST. OLAUS OR OLAVE, KING OF NORWAY, M.

He was son of Herald Grenscius, prince of Westfold in Norway, by his wife Asta, daughter of Gulbrand Kuta, governor of Gulbrand’s Dale or Valley. He delivered his country from the tyranny under which the Swedes and Danes had for some time held it, whilst Norway was divided between Sweno, king of Denmark, Olave Scot-Konung, son of Eric, king of Sweden, and Eric, son of Hacon earl of Norway. In 1013, he sailed to England, and successfully assisted king Ethelred against the Danes after the death of Sueno or Swayn their king. He afterward waged war against Olaus Scot-Konung, king of Sweden, till, making an advantageous peace, he took to wife the daughter of that king.[340] These two princes about that time introduced the Romescot, a small annual tribute yearly to be paid to the apostolic see.[341] St. Olave brought over from England several pious and learned priests and monks, one of whom, named Grimkele, was chosen bishop of Drontheim, his capital. The holy king did nothing without the advice of this prelate, and by his counsels published many wholesome laws, and abolished such ancient laws and customs as were contrary to the Gospel; which he did not only in Norway, but also in the isles of Orkney and of Iceland; though the entire conquest of Orkney was reserved to his son Magnus, who also subdued the isle of Man, as Camden relates from the ancient Chronicle of Man.

Our religious king having settled his dominions in peace, set himself to extirpate out of them the abominable superstitions of idolatry. He travelled in person from town to town, exhorting his subjects to open the eyes of their souls to the bright light of faith. A company of zealous preachers attended him, and he demolished in many places the idolatrous temples. The heathens rebelled, and with the assistance of Canutus the Great, defeated and expelled him. St. Olave fled into Russia, whence he soon after returned, and raised an army in order to recover his kingdom, but was slain by his rebellious and infidel subjects in a battle fought at Stichstadt, north of Drontheim, on the 29th of July, 1030, having reigned sixteen years. These rebels seem to have been in the interest of Canute the Great, who arrived from England in Norway, took possession of that kingdom, and left his nephew Hackin viceroy, but he being soon after drowned at sea, Canute made his son Sweno viceroy of Norway. Saint Olave’s body was honorably buried at Drontheim, and the year following bishop Grimkele commanded him to be honored in that church among the saints with the title of martyr. His son Magnus was called home from Russia in 1035, and restored to the throne. Sweno, who saw himself entirely abandoned, fled into Sweden. Magnus exceedingly promoted the devotion of the people to the memory of his father, the martyr, who was chosen titular saint of the cathedral of Drontheim. This church was rebuilt with such splendor and magnificence, as to have been the glory and pride of all the North. Munster has given us a minute description of it, after Lutheranism was introduced; but it was soon after burnt by lightning. The body of St. Olave was found incorrupt in 1098; and again when the Lutherans, in 1541, plundered the shrine, which was adorned with gold and jewels of an immense value, a treasure nowhere equalled in the North. The ship which carried the greatest part of this sacrilegious booty perished at sea in the road to Denmark; the rest was robbed at land, so that nothing of it came into the king of Denmark’s hands. The Lutherans treated the saint’s body with respect, and left it in the same place where the shrine had stood, in the inner wooden case, till in 1568 they decently buried it in the same cathedral. A shirt or inner garment of St. Olave’s is shown at St. Victor’s in Paris. His shrine became famous by many miracles, and he was honored with extraordinary devotion throughout all the northern kingdoms, and was titular saint of several churches in England and Scotland. He was called by our ancestors St. Olave, and more frequently St. Tooley; but in the Norway Chronicles Olaf Haraldson, and Olaf Helge or the Holy. See Saxo-Grammaticus, Hist. Dan. l. 10, fol. 94, 95, 96. Adam Brem, Hist. Eccl. l. 2, c. 43. And the Iceland historians whom Mallet regards as far more accurate, especially Torfæus, in the last century, in his Series regum Daniæ; Snorro Sturleson, &c. See also Bosch the Bollandist, t. 7, Jul. p. 87. Mallet, Hist. de Dannemarc, &c.

ST. OLAUS, KING OF SWEDEN.

Was converted to the faith by St. Anscharius, and for his zeal in propagating the same, and because in the time of a great famine he could not be compelled to offer sacrifice to the idols of Upsal, was sacrificed to them by the rebellious inhabitants of Birca, at that time the usual residence of the kings of Sweden. From the ruins of Birca, Stockholm took its rise, though built at a considerable distance from it. See Puffendorf’s History of Sweden, t. 1, p. 70.

JULY XXX.

SS. ABDON AND SENNEN, MM.

They were Persians, but coming to Rome, courageously confessed the faith of Christ in the persecution of Decius in 250. They were cruelly tormented, but the more their bodies were mangled and covered with ghastly wounds, the more were their souls adorned and beautified with divine grace, and rendered glorious in the sight of heaven. The Christians at Rome did not treat them as strangers, but as brethren united to them in the hope of the same blessed country; and after their death carefully deposited their bodies in the house of a subdeacon called Quirinus. In the reign of Constantine the Great, their relics were removed into the ancient burying place of Pontian, so called from some rich man who built it: called also, from some sign, Ad Ursum Pileatum. It afterward received its name from SS. Abdon and Sennen. It was situated near the Tiber, on the road to Porto near the gates of Rome. The images of these martyrs with Persian bonnets and crowns on their heads, and their names, are to be seen there at this day in ancient sculpture.[342] SS. Abdon and Sennen are mentioned in the ancient Liberian Calendar, and in other Martyrologies; though their modern acts deserve no notice, as cardinal Noris has demonstrated.[343]

The martyrs preferred torments and death to sin, because the love of God above all things reigned in their breasts. “We say we are Christians,” says Tertullian;[344] “we proclaim it to the whole world, even under the hands of the executioner, and in the midst of all the torments you inflict upon us to compel us to unsay it. Torn and mangled, and weltering in our blood, we cry out as loud as we are able to cry, That we are worshippers of God through Christ.” Upon which Mr. Reeves observes, that no other religion ever produced any considerable number of martyrs except the true one. Do we ever read of any generation of men so greedy of martyrdom, who thought it long till they were upon the rack, and were so patient, so cheerful and steadfast under the most intolerable torments? Socrates was the only philosopher that can be said to have died for his doctrine; and what a restless posture of mind does he betray, who was esteemed the best and the wisest of the heathens! With what misgivings, and fits of hope and fear, does he deliver himself in that most famous discourse, supposed to have been made by him a little before his death, about a future state![345] And neither Phædo, Cebes, Crito, Simmias, nor any other of his greatest friends who were present at his death, durst maintain either his innocence, or that doctrine for which he died, in the Areopagus. With what reserve did Plato himself dogmatize concerning the gods whom he worshipped in public, but denied in private! How did he dodge about, disguise himself, and say and unsay the same excellent truths! Only the Christians suffered at this rate, and they held on suffering for several hundred years together, till they had subdued the world by dying for their religion. What could engage such a number of men in such a religion, and support them in it, in defiance of death in the most shocking forms, but evident truth, and a superior grace and strength from above?

ST. JULITTA, M.

The emperor Dioclesian, by the first edicts which he issued out against the Christians in 303, declared them infamous, and debarred from all protection of the laws, and from all the privileges of citizens. By thus putting arms into the hands of every one against them, the tyrant hoped to see their very name extinguished; but he was not sensible that this divine religion then triumphs when its professors seem to be overcome by death, and that by it human weakness is made victorious over the power of the world and hell. Of this St. Julitta is an instance. She was a rich lady of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, and was possessed of many farms, cattles, goods, and slaves. A powerful man of the town, by open violence, got possession of a considerable part of her estate; and when he could not otherwise maintain his suit before the pretor, charged her with being a Christian. The judge caused fire and incense to be immediately brought into the court, and commanded her to offer sacrifice to the idols; but she courageously made him this answer, “May my estates perish, or be disposed of to strangers; may I also lose my life, and may this my body be cut in pieces rather than that by the least impious word I should offend God that made me. If you take from me a little portion of this earth, I shall gain heaven for it.” The judge was extremely exasperated at the undaunted resolution with which she spoke, and without more ado confirmed to the usurper the estates to which he unjustly laid claim, and condemned the servant of Christ to the flames. Upon hearing this sentence, a kind of heavenly joy and most amiable cheerfulness flushed her countenance, which she could not refrain from expressing by continual thanksgiving to God to her last breath. She exhorted the Christians in the most moving manner to constancy and fervor. The Pagans were amazed to see a lady of her rank, age, and fortune, possessed of all the advantages necessary to please the world, and yet in a condition to enjoy all that is in it most flattering, to contemn all this, and life itself with such an heroic constancy.

When all things were ready for the execution, Julitta laid herself cheerfully upon the pile, and there expired, being, as it seems, stifled by the smoke; for the flame, rising in an arched vault round her body, did not touch it, and the Christians took it up entire. It was afterward interred in the porch of the principal church in the city; and St. Basil, speaking of this treasure about the year 375, wrote as follows: “It enriches with blessings both the place and those who come to it.” He assures us that “the earth which received the body of this blessed woman sent forth a spring of most pleasant water, whereas all the neighboring waters are brackish and salt. This water preserves health, and relieves the sick.” Both the Greeks and Latins honor St. Julitta on this day. See St. Basil’s homily on St. Julitta, t. 2, p. 33, hom. 5: also in Ruinart’s collection, p. 515.

JULY XXXI.

ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA, C.

FOUNDER OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS.

His life was written by F. Lewis Gonzales or Gonzalvo, who was a long time the saint’s confessor, and died at Lisbon in 1575; and again by Ribadeneira, who had intimately conversed with the saint, and died at Madrid in 1611. It is elegantly compiled in Latin by Maffei, who died at Tivoli in 1603; in Italian by Bartoli, at Rome about 1650; and in French by Bouhours, one of the ablest and most judicious of the modern French critics in polite literature, who died at Paris in 1704. Pinius the Bollandist gives the original lives, Julij, t. 7, p. 409, and adds the history of many miracles wrought by the intercession of this saint; also, Baillet.

A. D. 1556.

The conversion of many barbarous nations, several heretofore unknown to us, both in the most remote eastern and western hemisphere; the education of youth in learning and piety, the instruction of the ignorant, the improvement of all the sciences, and the reformation of the manners of a great part of Christendom, is the wonderful fruit of the zeal with which this glorious saint devoted himself to labor in exalting the glory of God, and in spreading over the whole world that fire which Christ himself came to kindle on earth. St. Ignatius was born in 1491, in the castle of Loyola, in Guipuscoa, a part of Biscay that reaches to the Pyrenean mountains. His father, Don Bertram, was lord of Ognez and Loyola, head of one of the most ancient and noble families of that country. His mother, Mary Saez de Balde, was not less illustrious by her extraction. They had three daughters and eight sons. The youngest of all these was Inigo or Ignatius; he was well shaped, and in his childhood gave proofs of a pregnant wit and discretion above his years; was affable and obliging, but of a warm or choleric disposition, and had an ardent passion for glory. He was bred in the court of Ferdinand V. in quality of page to the king, under the care and protection of Antony Manriquez, duke of Najara, grandee of Spain, who was his kinsman and patron; and who, perceiving his inclinations, led him to the army, took care to have him taught all the exercises proper to make him an accomplished officer. The love of glory and the example of his elder brothers who had signalized themselves in the wars of Naples, made him impatient till he entered the service. He behaved with great valor and conduct in the army, especially at the taking of Najara, a small town on the frontiers of Biscay; yet he generously declined taking any part of the booty in which he might have challenged the greatest share. He hated gaming as an offspring of avarice, and a source of quarrels and other evils; was dexterous in the management of affairs, and had an excellent talent in making up differences among the soldiers. He was generous, even towards enemies, but addicted to gallantry, and full of the maxims of worldly honor, vanity, and pleasures. Though he had no tincture of learning, he made tolerably good verses in Spanish, having a natural genius for poetry. A poem which he composed in praise of St. Peter was much commended.

Charles V., who had succeeded king Ferdinand, was chosen emperor, and obliged to go into Germany. Francis I., king of France, a martial prince, having been his competitor for the empire, resented his disappointment, and became an implacable enemy to the emperor and the house of Austria. He declared war against Charles, with a view to recover Navarre, of which Ferdinand had lately dispossessed John of Albert, and which Charles still held, contrary to the treaty of Noyon, by which he was obliged to restore it in six months. Francis, therefore, in 1521, sent a great army into Spain, under the command of Andrew de Foix, younger brother of the famous Lautrec, who, passing the Pyrenees, laid siege to Pampeluna, the capital of Navarre. Ignatius had been left there by the viceroy, not to command, but to encourage the garrison. He did all that lay in his power to persuade them to defend the city, but in vain. However, when he saw them open the gates to the enemy, to save his own honor, he retired into the citadel with one only soldier who had the heart to follow him. The garrison of this fortress deliberated likewise whether they should surrender, but Ignatius encouraged them to stand their ground. The French attacked the place with great fury, and with their artillery made a wide breach in the wall, and attempted to take it by assault. Ignatius appeared upon the breach, at the head of the bravest part of the garrison, and, with his sword in his hand, endeavored to drive back the enemy; but, in the heat of the combat, a shot from a cannon broke from the wall a bit of stone, which struck and bruised his left leg; and the ball itself in the rebound broke and shivered his right leg. The garrison seeing him fall, surrendered at discretion.

The French used their victory with moderation, and treated the prisoners well, especially Ignatius, in consideration of his quality and valor. They carried him to the general’s quarters, and soon after sent him, in a litter carried by two men, to the castle of Loyola, which was not far from Pampeluna. Being arrived there he felt great pain; for the bones had been ill set, as is often the case in the hurry after a battle. The surgeons therefore judged it necessary to break his leg again, which he suffered without any concern. But a violent fever followed the second setting, which was attended with dangerous symptoms, and reduced him to an extreme degree of weakness, so that the physicians declared that he could not live many days. He received the sacraments on the eve of the feast of SS. Peter and Paul, and it was believed he could not hold out till the next morning. Nevertheless God, who had great designs of mercy upon him, was pleased to restore him to his health in the following manner: Ignatius always had a singular devotion to St. Peter, and implored his intercession in his present distress with great confidence. In the night, he thought he saw in a dream that apostle touch him, and cure him. When he awaked he found himself out of danger; his pains left him, and his strength began to return, so that he ever after looked upon this recovery as miraculous; yet he still retained the spirit of the world. After the second setting of his leg, the end of a bone stuck out under his knee, which was a visible deformity. Though the surgeons told him the operation would be very painful, this protuberance he caused to be cut off, merely that his boot and stockings might sit handsomely; and he would neither be bound nor held, and scarce ever changed countenance whilst the bone was partly sawed and partly cut off, though the pain must have been excessive. Because his right leg remained shorter than the left, he would be for many days together put upon a kind of rack, and with an iron engine he violently stretched and drew out that leg; but all to little purpose, for he remained lame his whole life after.

During the cure of his knee he was confined to his bed, though otherwise in perfect health, and finding the time tedious, he called for some book of romances, for he had been always much delighted with fabulous histories of knight-errantry. None such being then found in the castle of Loyola, a book of the lives of our Saviour, and of the saints, was brought him. He read them first, only to pass away the time, but afterward began to relish them and to spend whole days in reading them. He chiefly admired in the saints their love of solitude and of the cross. He considered among the anchorets many persons of quality who buried themselves alive in caves and dens, pale with fasting, and covered with haircloth; and he said to himself, “These men were of the same frame I am of; why then should not I do what they have done?” In the fervor of his good resolutions he thought of visiting the Holy Land, and becoming a hermit. But these pious notions soon vanished; and his passion for glory, and a secret inclination for a rich lady in Castile, with a view to marriage, again filled his mind with thoughts of the world; till returning to the lives of the saints, he perceived in his own heart the emptiness of all worldly glory, and that only God could content the soul. This vicissitude and fluctuation of mind continued some time; but he observed this difference, that the thoughts which were from God filled his soul with consolation, peace, and tranquillity; whereas the others brought indeed some sensible delight, but left a certain bitterness and heaviness in the heart. This mark he lays down in his book of Spiritual Exercises, as the ground of the rules for the discernment of the Spirit of God and the world in all the motions of the soul; as does cardinal Bona, and all other writers who treat of the discernment of spirits in the interior life. Taking at last a firm resolution to imitate the saints in their heroic practice of virtue, he began to treat his body with all the rigor it was able to bear; he rose at midnight, and spent his retired hours in weeping for his sins.