“Doubting Thomas,” who said he would have to poke his fingers into the hands and side of the Lord Jesus before he would believe He had risen from the grave, traveled farther than any of the Apostles proclaiming the truth of His Lord’s resurrection in India and establishing the Church there which still after all these centuries, proudly calls itself by his name—the Mar Thoma, or “Lord Thomas Church.”
Thomas, also called “Didymus” in the Gospel, carried the Good News first to Syria, then in AD 52, took ship to the coast of India in the company of a Jewish merchant. They visited Jewish trading settlements on the coast (Jewish merchants from Alexandria had established mercantile colonies there about 120 BC); to these Thomas first preached. When native Indians heard the Gospel, many sought baptism and in response Thomas founded churches up the coast of Malabar, which still exist. He was martyred in AD 70, near Madras, India, speared by orders of the local ruler whose notorious adulteries Thomas had criticized.
St Thomas is the patron of architects, skeptics and of the Mar Thoma Church in India.
The so-called Gospel of Thomas, about which much has been written since its discovery in an ancient Egyptian trash heap in 1945, is one of the heretical Gnostic gospels written long after the death of St Thomas and preserves nothing of his teaching.
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St Nicholas of Myra in Lycia—December 6
Saint Nicholas isn’t the jolly old elf who, transmogrified, appears in the mall after Thanksgiving. While he had a reputation for kindness and generosity, in his lifetime Nicholas was also known as the man who slapped someone in the presence of the Emperor Constantine during the famous Council of Nicaea!
Nicholas was born in the city of Patara in the Roman province of Asia (modern-day Turkey) about AD 270. His parents were devout Christians and his uncle was Bishop of Patara. A plague swept through the city in 278, leaving Nicholas an orphan. His uncle took him in, and saw to it that the boy had an excellent education. In his twenties Nicholas was ordained to the priesthood.
Nicholas had inherited a large estate from his parents, which he sold when he came of age. For the rest of his life, the saint would use the proceeds from the sale to help those in need. Many stories that have come down to us of Nicholas’ generosity—during his lifetime he became known as the benefactor of the poor and desperate.
The young priest was chosen as Bishop of Myra in Lycia, on the southeast coast of the province. Here Nicholas spent most of his life, serving his people and assisting them (often anonymously) in times of crisis. The stories of the help he provided—paying the dowries of young women who otherwise would be left destitute, walking the streets of Myra at night leaving coins in the shoes of the poor, and providing food for the poor when Lycia suffered through a famine: the saint purchased the entire contents of two grain ships to feed the starving.
The saint personally evangelized the sailors of Lycia, teaching them to pray in difficult times at sea, promising to pray for them during their journeys, and helping care for their families when they were away. To this day, Greek sailors, wish each other good luck with the phrase “May St Nicholas guide your till!”
During the fierce persecution of the Church under the Emperor Diocletian, the Bishop was imprisoned and tortured, but clung to his faith. After Diocletian’s death, when Nicholas and many other Christians were set free, he returned to his flock in Myra.
In AD 325, when the Emperor Constantine summoned the great Council at Nicaea, Nicholas was one of the 318 bishops who attended. While the arch-heretic Arius, who energetically denied the divinity of Christ, spoke. Nicholas fumed. He became so angry at the blasphemies of Arius that he rose from his seat, strode to the podium where Arius stood before the Emperor, and slapped his face.
Nicholas again found himself in an imperial prison, clapped in chains and sentenced to remain until he apologized to Arius. When the jailers returned the next day, they found Nicholas sitting on a bench, reading a book of the Gospels, his chains shattered to pieces. When the emperor was told, he personally restored the bishop to his place at the Council—not a good sign for Arius, as it turned out.
Saint Nicholas died on December 6, 343, in Myra of Lycia. He is patron of sailors and children.
St Nicholas Slaps the Arch-heretic Arius
St Ambrose of Milan—December 7
Aurelius Ambrosius, who we know as St Ambrose, was a Roman politican who was the son of a Roman politician. He was unexpectedly and quite unwillingly elected bishop; for the remaining 23 years of his life he would be both friend and foe to the emperors of his day, leading the Church of Milan through those difficult days, and by his powerful teaching and forceful personality making a permanent mark of the Church. Even today, he is numbered with St Augustine (who was his pupil), St Gregory the Great and St Jerome as one of the Four Latin Doctors of the Church.
The life of Ambrose is too rich to easily document. Coming from a wealthy and influential family of Roman Christians, Ambrosius was born in AD 337. His father was governor of Gaul, his mother noted for her intellect and piety. As an infant, a swarm of bees settled on his face and left behind a drop of honey on his lips. His father regarded this as a sign of future eloquence and had the boy trained by the finest rhetoriticians and lawyers of Rome. Often St Ambrose is pictured in art with either a bee or beehive, recalling this incident.
When he was 30, Ambrosius was appointed governor of a province in northern Italy, with its headquarters in Milan. He was given large farms and rich vineyards; by the time he was 33 years old, Ambrosius was one of the wealthiest men in northern Italy.
Then, things changed. In AD 374, the bishop of Milan died. The cathedral was the site of his successor’s election, but the electors failed time and again to make a choice. A riot broke out in the cathedral and Ambrosius led some soldiers there to quell the tumult. After he quieted everyone, he began lecturing them about the importance of getting along. Someone in the crowd shouted “Make Ambrose bishop!” The cry was taken up by the people present and Ambrosius was elected on the spot. Ambrosius refused. He was not even baptized, he told the people, but the shouting in his favor continued. And he led his soldiers away. The electors appealed to the emperor who, to Ambrosius’ dismay, approved their decision.
Ambrosius gave in. Over the following week, Ambrose was baptized, confirmed, made a deacon, ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop. He began studying theology under the famed St Simplician to study Scripture and theology.
His life for the next twenty-three years was tumultuous. The Church in his day was torn by the conflict between the Arians, who denied the divinity of Christ, and Catholics, who clung to the Creed of Nicaea. At the time many members of the imperial family were Arians and Ambrose often found himself in conflict with them. More than once he was arrested, but his popularity was such that he was always released.
When northern Italy was invaded and large numbers of people taken hostage by the Goths, Ambrose sold all his estates to ransom the captives. “It’s far better to save souls,” he told his clergy, “than to save treasures.”
When the Emperor Theodosius, a supporter of Ambrose, had rioters in Thessalonica put to death, Ambrose refused him communion. “Imitate David in his repentance,” he said, “as you have imitated him in his crimes.” Only after the emperor had undergone public penance for half-a-year did the saint allow him to receive the Sacraments again. The emperor and bishop became firm friends for the rest of their lives.
After a short illness, the saint died on April 4, 397, shortly after receiving the Last Rites of the Church. His feast day has long been kept on December 7, the day of his ordination and consecration.
A Mosaic Portrait of St Ambrose, made shortly after his death
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St Hilda of Whitby—November 18
Hilda (or Hild, her Anglo-Saxon name), was born in AD 614, and Hilda was reared in the court of the King of Northumbria (now Yorkshire). The King and all the members of his court, including 13 year old Hilda and her mother, were all baptized by St Paulinus of York on Easter Day in 627 (her father was poisoned by a rival when she was only 2) in a small wooden church built just for the occasion. York Minster now stands on the spot.
It is believed both Hilda and her sister were married to noblemen of the court in their youths, but by the time she was 33, she was a widow. It was the custom of the day for widows of nobility to retire to a convent; in AD 647, Hilda took the monastic vows in the presence of St Aidan of Iona. Rather than allow Hilda to retire to a small convent as she’d intended, however, St Aidan sent her to live at a large abbey under his jurisdiction at Hartlepool; it was a “double abbey,” with both men and women (living in separate buildings). Within a year he’d appointed her as abbess, with authority over both the men’s monastery as well as the women’s convent.
Hilda maintained the strict Benedictine rule at Hartlepool and the abbey under her direction gained a reputation as a center of both piety and learning. St Hilda herself was renowned for her spiritual guidance not only of monks and nuns, but noblemen and women came seeking her guidance. St Hilda served as a spiritual director for more than one bishop of the region. Five of the monks under her guidance eventually became bishops.
St Bede tells us she was a strict disciplinarian but he also says “All who knew her called her mother because of her outstanding devotion and grace."
In AD 657, Hilda was given a large piece of land on the Northumbrian coast at Whitby and ordered to build and rule a second “double monastery” there. A large and contentious church council (are there any other kinds?) was held there in AD 664. Not only did Hilda take part in the council, she soothed over and helped reconcile the angry participants. Hilda was granted the right to carry a bishop’s staff, a sign of her pastoral authority over the monasteries and convents she founded and directed.
After a lingering illness of seven years, St Hilda died in Whitby on November 17, 680, immediately after having received Holy Communion. In art, she is usually depicted as an Anglo-Saxon nun, carrying a bishop’s staff.
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St Martin of Tours-November 11
The soldier who became a bishop, St Martin of Tours used an axe as much as the Scriptures to spread the Gospel among the pagans of Gaul (central France).
Martin was a soldier’s son, born in Roman Pannonia (nowadays, Hungary) in AD 313. His father was commander of the Imperial Horse Guard and shortly after Martin’s birth, the Guard was transferred to new headquarters in northern Italy, where he grew up. He followed his father, becoming a member of the elite corps of Roman heavy cavalry; he was garrisoned with his unit in what is now Amiens, France.
Martin became a catechumen (a candidate for baptism) there. One of the most famous events of Martin’s life occurred at Amiens before his baptism. Riding out from the post, Martin one day met a beggar, shivering in the cold. He took off his heavy soldier’s cloak, cut it in half, and wrapped the poor man in part of it. That night, Martin dreamed a vision of Heaven, and saw the Lord Jesus wearing his cloak. He spoke to the angels around Him: “This is the cloak Martin, who is not yet baptized, shared with me today.” Shortly thereafter he was baptized. “That day,” says Martin’s biographer, “he who clothed Christ put on Christ.”
After Martin’s term of service ended, he traveled to Poitiers and became a student of Hilary, the famous bishop and theologian (whose book On the Trinity is still read today). The bishop had a retreat near Poitiers and Martin lived there several years, as one of the St Hilary’s disciples. Martin traveled with the bishop throughout western and central Gaul, helping to convert pagans and establish churches. When St Hilary died in AD 371, Martin was chosen to succeed him. At first, Martin refused to be nominated bishop and hid in a stable, but the geese there made such noise he was discovered and brought to the church where his nomination was confirmed (from early on, it’s been customary to serve up a fat cooked goose on St Martin’s Day).
Martin continued Bishop Hilary’s work of evangelizing the pagans—most Gauls in Martin’s day were Druids—and part of his evangelization was to convince them to destroy their ancient druidic “tree sanctuaries.” Martin always had an axe at hand for that purpose. At one of the largest druidic temples, the druids offered to cut down their great shrine if Martin would stand where they believed it would fall. His biographer and companion, Sulpicius Severus, tells how Martin asked where they wanted him to stand; there he fearlessly took his place. The pagans cut down the tree which fell to one side, leaving him unscathed but the pagans mightily impressed.
Martin established parishes throughout central Gaul as the result of is work among the Druids. He died at the old retreat he’d inherited from St Hilary in AD 397, revered by both Christians and pagans for his faith, his courage, his tireless work with the needy and a reputation for many miraculous healings attributed to his prayers.
St Martin is patron of soldiers and horseman and the US Army’s Quartermaster Corps, who’ve struck a medal in his honor!
U S Quartermaster Corp's St Martin's Medal
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St Abercius of Hieropolis-November 4
St Abercius was Bishop of Hieropolis, a town in Roman Phrygia (Hieropolis is now called Pamukkale in modern Turkey) in the middle of the second century AD. He was widely-traveled, going as far as Rome in the west and beyond the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia in the east. A disciple of Bishop Papias (who had been a disciple of St John the Apostle), he succeeded Papias as bishop, the old man consecrating him before he died. In his younger years, Abercius visited Christian communities across the Middle East, in Syria, Palestine and into Persia, where he preached the Gospel.
During the reign of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180), Abercius was imprisoned for his confession of faith, but he was freed after three years. During his imprisonment, he wrote a defense of Christianity to the Emperor. Following his release, Abercius traveled to Rome, where he was received with great honor by the Christian community there. He returned to Hieropolis, his journeys at an end, and died there about AD 190, in his 8oth year.
Ancient authors ascribe three written works Acerbius: a Letter on behalf of Christians to the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (mentioned above), a letter to the clergy of his region, exhorting them to lives of holiness, and a series of chapters written against the Gnostics. Unfortunately, none have survived.
Interestingly, though, something else Abercuis wrote has survived. After his return from Rome, the bishop had a tombstone carved for himself. It was discovered by the English archaeologist William Ramsey while excavating the rubble of an old wall in Hieropolis during his digs of 1882. The text (part of which is missing while other parts are damaged) reads:
“…a citizen of this city, this monument made while I live, that will sit over the resting-place of my body. My name is Abercius, the disciple of the holy shepherd who feeds his flocks of sheep, on mountains and across plains. His eyes see everywhere. This shepherd is worthy of faith. In his service I traveled to the land of Syria and…Nisbis and..when I passed over the Euphrates. Everywhere I found brethren. I had Paul…Faith led me forward through all my days…and provided as my food a fish of exceeding great…and perfect, which a holy virgin drew with her hands from a fountain and this she ever gives to her friends to eat, wine of great power, and sacred bread. These things I, Abercius, ordered to be written here. This is done in my seventy-second year. He who understands these things, being a fellow-believer, let him pray for Abercius…”
We celebrate his feast on November 4, and now ask his prayers for us.
St Abercuis' Epitaph, now in the Vatican Museum
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SS Crispin and Crispinian, Martyrs—October 25
Saints Crispin and Crispinian were brothers, born into a well-to-do Roman family living in a villa in northeastern France (near Soissons) about AD 255. Brought up as Christians, the two joined Bishop Quintus in preaching the Gospel to the Gauls in their homeland. Having learned the trade from a Christian leatherworker, the pair worked as shoemakers to earn their living. Eventually, they were hauled before the local magistrate, Rictus Varus, accused not only of being Christians but of converting others to their faith. Varus had a particular loathing of Christians and had the brothers tortured, but they refused to deny Christ. Frustrated by their abstinence, Varus ordered the two beheaded (their right as Roman citizens). They were martyred on October 25, 285. Speaking to Varus immediately before their execution, St Crispin said, “Your threats mean nothing to us. Christ is our life and death is our gain.” The cathedral at Soissons was built at the gravesite of the saints; Sts Crispin and Crispinian are patrons of the city, shoemakers and leatherworkers.
Were it not for the Battle of Agincourt, fought on their feast-day, most people would never have heard of Crispin and Crispinian. Shakespeare changed that. In his play, Henry V, the Bard penned the immortal speech given by the king on the day of the battle, one of the most stirring he would ever write.
St Alfred the Great, King and Confessor—October 26
Trained in his youth to be a priest, Alfred ended his life as the most battle-hardened and politically astute of England's early kings. Alfred, the only English king to bear the title “the Great,” was born near Oxford in AD 849, the son of Aethelwulf, King of Wessex, one of the small kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England. Alfred was intended for an ecclesiastical career because his older brothers were meant to succeed to his father’s throne. Alfred was trained as a scholar, and twice in his youth traveled to Rome, where he met the Pope.
Plans for Alfred’s life in the church didn’t take into account the troubled times. The Vikings constantly raided the coasts and towns of England. All three of Alfred’s brothers fell in battle. At 22 he was crowned King of Wessex.
For the better part of thirty years Alfred fought off the Vikings. During that time he succeeded in uniting western England under his reign; when he died he was recognized as the “King of Saxon England.”
Never forgetting his upbringing, Alfred was one of the leading scholars of Anglo-Saxon England. He translated six Latin works, including Pope St Gregory’s book Pastoral Care, a guide for bishops and priests in their daily life and work (he also translated a medical book for physicians and a legal book for the lawyers of his court).
Alfred restructured the army, training it to fight the Vikings, studied and planned fortifications (based on stone bridges to span rivers running through cities—this prevented the Vikings from navigating rivers like the Thames), reorganized the English legal and tax codes and built the first English navy. The first schools established in Oxford (which would blossom much later into the University) were built at his direction.
Of noted piety, the king did what he could to foster the Church, rebuilding many churches and monasteries destroyed over the previous generations by the Vikings. He was held up in his lifetime across Europe as the ideal Christian king.
SS Simon and Jude, Apostles-October 28
Jude is so named both in the Gospel of St Luke and the Book of Acts. Matthew and Mark call him Thaddeus. He is not mentioned elsewhere in the Gospels, except, of course, where all the apostles are mentioned. Scholars hold that he is not the author of the Letter of Jude. Actually, Jude had the same name as Judas Iscariot. Evidently because of the disgrace of that name, it was shortened to "Jude" in English. St Jude was the brother of St James the Just, the first Bishop of Jerusalem.
Both St Simon and St Jude are mentioned in all four of the Gospels with the other apostles. In two of the Gospels, SS Mathew and Mark, St Jude is called Thaddeus (Jude is actually “Judas” in Greek, but as the name has unhappy connotations, St Jude is distinguished from Judas by either calling him Thaddeus, or as in the case of medieval English, simply shortening his name to Jude).
St Simon is surnamed “the Zealot” in a couple of the Gospels. The Zealots were a Jewish sect representing extreme Jewish nationalism. They understood the messianic promise of the Old Testament to mean the Jews were to be a free and independent nation. God alone was their king, and any payment of taxes to the Romans—the very domination of the Romans—was a blasphemy against God. No doubt some of the Zealots were the spiritual heirs of the Maccabees, carrying on their ideals of religion and independence. But many were the counterparts of modern terrorists. They raided and killed, attacking both foreigners and "collaborating" Jews. They were chiefly responsible for the rebellion against Rome which ended with the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70.
Other than their names, nothing else is said in the Gospels about these two saints. St Paul knew St Jude, and there is a short New Testament letter attributed to him. According to early church historians, both St Jude and St Simon preached the Gospel and were martyred in what is now Iran and Iraq. This is probably the reason their names came to be commemorated together on the Church calendar. St Jude is often depicted in church art with a club (because he was beaten to death with one) and holding a pen and book, calling to mind his epistle. St Simon is usually shown holding a long saw, with which he is said to have been sawed (sawn?) in half! I think I’d have preferred the clubs, myself, but I reckon they weren’t given much of a choice in the matter (actually, given my druthers, I think I’d like to choose martyrdom by dozing; I guess my martyric symbol would then have to be an easy chair!).
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St Luke the Evangelist—October 18
St Luke, the author of two New Testament books, the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, was either a Syrian or Greek born in Antioch. A physician practicing in the city of Troas (near the ruins of Troy), he befriended St Paul the Apostle about the year AD 51 and became one of his companions, assisting him in his evangelical work. For more than ten years he traveled with the Apostle, until the end of Paul’s imprisonment in Rome (where the Apostle was beheaded at Nero’s command). After Paul’s death, St Luke settled into the Greek countryside near Thebes, where he wrote both his Gospel and told the story of the earliest decades of the Church’s life in the Book of Acts. Eusebius of Caesarea, the first historian of the Church, tells us St Luke died in Thebes about the year AD 105, at the age of 84 “full of the Holy Spirit and good works.”
St Luke is the only Gentile whose works are included in the New Testament—and given the combined lengths of his two books, its most prolific author. His style and command of Greek is the best of any New Testament writer. He tells us in the prologue to his Gospel that he spent many years gathering the materials for his work; St Luke personally interviewed many of the eyewitnesses to the events he details in his Gospel, and part of the Book of Acts is written in the first person plural, describing how Paul and Luke traveled together proclaiming the Good News. St Paul repeatedly mentions Luke in his New Testament epistles.
As a Gentile, St Luke particularly presents the Gospel in terms non-Jews can understand and relate to. From his pen come a number of the Lord Jesus’ most beloved parables: the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the story of Dives and Lazarus.
St Luke died and was buried in Thebes. In AD 357, his bones were removed and taken to the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople, where they remained for 1,100 years. In 1450, the Ottoman Sultan Murad II sold the saints bones to a Serbian prince for 30,000 pieces of gold. The prince’s granddaughter later sold them to the Republic of Venice for an undisclosed sum. The lead casket (decorated with the head of an ox, the symbol of St Luke) in which the bones had rested since first entombed in Constantinople, was later given to the Bishop of Padua, in whose cathedral they’ve rested since the 17th century. HOWEVER, St Luke wasn’t left to rest in peace. In 1992, the Greek Orthodox Bishop of Thebes requested that the Roman Catholic Bishop of Padua return a portion of the Evangelist’s bones to their first resting place back home in Thebes. He agreed. While the move was in progress, it was decided to subject the bones to DNA testing. The results confirmed the bones belonged to a male born in Syria who had died sometime between AD 75 and 300, who was over 70 years old. The bones are now back in their original tomb. May they rest there in peace until the Last Great Day—and may St Luke pray for us all.
St Frideswide of Oxford—October 19
Frideswide, the daughter of a noble Anglo-Saxon family, was born in Oxford about AD 650. Her nurse, a pious woman named Elgitha, taught her “God is all to all,” a phrase that guided the saint throughout her life. While still in her teens, Frideswide decided to embrace the life of a nun and, together with twelve others, asked her father for land on which to build a convent. To keep his daughter close, he gave them property immediately outside the city walls—he even built a convent for the young women, telling his wife, “When she tires of this, she’ll have not far to come home.”
Tales of Frideswide’s beauty (and her father’s wealth) were widespread. Within a year or two she had a suitor—Aelfgar, the Earl of Leicester and a prince of the royal family. Frideswide told him she was married to God, but the prince wasn’t impressed. After repeated attempts to woo her, her got drunk with his friends one night and said he’d have the girl one way or another. Mounting his horse, he rode off to the convent—but on the way fell from his horse and broke his neck. Other suitors took note that God seemed to think Frideswide was already married and left her alone.
The saint lived a long and holy life in the convent, drawing many women to the life of prayer. She was specially credited with miraculously curing many lepers who came to her for prayers. Frideswide greeted lepers with a holy kiss and thereby many were cured. After she died, her grave became a site for pilgrimage. Christchurch Cathedral in Oxford rests on the site of her old convent; St Frideswide’s bones rest there today.
St Frideswide's Shrine, Oxford
St Viator the Lector—October 21
St Viator was a Reader in the Church of Lyons, France, and an assistant to the saintly Bishop of Lyons, Justus. When the bishop was too old to serve, he decided to retire and end his life in seclusion and prayer with the monks of the Egyptian desert. St Viator asked permission to accompany him, wanting to assist in the bishop’s last years of solitude as he had during the bishop’s busy public life. The bishop lived ten years in his retreat, dying in AD 390. Though a much younger man, St Viator himself died shortly thereafter. He is a patron of Readers and caregivers. At the request of the people of Lyons, after St Viator’s death, both bodies were returned to France and buried in the cathedral of Lyons.
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St Wilfrid of York—October 12
Not all the saints exhibited every virtue in their lifetimes—St Jerome was grumpy and often ill-tempered; St Gregory Nazianzen became petulant whenever he was criticized; and as a prominent biographer of St Wilfrid of York said, “He didn’t win his sainthood through the virtue of humility.” Saints weren’t (and aren’t) saints because they were (or are) perfect, but, as the old adage says, “The saint is the sinner who keeps on trying.” St Wilfrid’s pride was evidently such that he had to keep trying and trying and trying…
He was born into an aristocratic family in 7th century England. His contrary disposition showed itself early: after quarreling with his mother when he was 13, Wilfrid ran away from home to the royal court, where he complained about his mother to the Queen, who took him in. She put him under the tutelage of a monk in her court, but Wifrid began to complain he needed a better teacher. The Queen sent him to Canterbury (to move him on?), where he stayed about a year. When the saintly bishop, Benedict Biscop made a pilgrimage to Rome, about AD 655, Wilfrid attached himself to the bishop’s entourage. Along with the bishop, Wilfrid met the Pope while in Rome; sometime during his journey, Wilfrid was tonsured a monk.
When Wilfrid returned to England, he was sent back to live in his native York. His cousin, a Yorkshire prince, gave him lands and monies to establish an abbey in Ripon (it being decided the only way Wilfrid would stay in one place for very long was to put him in charge of something). He proved diligent in his work and under his direction the abbey prospered. The prince was impressed with Wilfrid’s abilities and used his influence to have him elected bishop. The newly-elected bishop won no friends when he refused to be consecrated by English bishops, about which he had doubts. He went to France and sought consecration there. When he returned, Wilfrid was incensed to find another, the saintly Chad, had been appointed in his place. He angrily retired to his monastery in Ripon. When Wilfrid was reappointed to his bishopric, though he worked hard and established many churches, monasteries and convents, and converted many of those still in paganism to the Faith, Wilfrid quarreled repeatedly with the king and nobles. Over the ensuing 20 years, the Bishop Wilfrid was three times expelled from the kingdom as a result of his quarrels—he made two trips to Rome to appeal his case to the Pope, winning his appeal each time.
The last years of Wilfrid’s life were spent in peace, living quietly in at the abbey in Ripon, saying his prayers and directing the monasteries throughout his diocese, having resigned his other duties. He died in AD 709 at the ge of 75 and was buried under the high altar at Ripon.
Over his long life, Wilfrid quarreled with popes and curias, kings and dukes, abbots and monks, priests and people—from the city of Rome to the borders of Scotland. But through all his arguments, St Wilfrid was a man of strict personal life, much prayer and noted for his frequent confessions. While of course we have no account of what he said to his confessor, we can be certain “contentiousness” often topped his list. But Wilfrid of York kept trying and trying and trying—and is today a saint on the Church’s calendar. Through his prayers, may we all keep trying, too.
St Teresa of Avila—October 15
St Teresa of Avila, the granddaughter of Jews forcibly converted to Christianity, is one of only two women, in the entire history of the Church, to be given the title “Doctor of the Church,” recognizing the profound truths laid out in her theological writing. In her own day, however, Teresa was hounded by the Inquisition for what she wrote and for what she did. A woman, granddaughter of Jews, criticizing the way the Church in late medieval Spain functioned! Her understanding and teaching about the possibilities of the encounter with God in prayer, however, give Teresa a voice which is always fresh and alive. Her life with God nobody who met her could doubt—and her humility, coupled with an ever-present sense of humor, left the agents of the Inquisition scratching their heads about her. She sent them back to school.
Teresa was born in Avila, Spain, in 1515. She came from a family of well-to-do merchants; her grandfather had been forcibly converted from Judaism forty years earlier, but officers of the Inquisition later questioned the sincerity of his forced conversion. By Teresa’s time, however, the family’s piety was unquestioned.
The first tale of Teresa’s life is typically—Teresan. When she was 7 years old, stories of the glorious martyrs of the early Church fresh in her ears, she decided the fastest way to get to Heaven was to become one herself. She convinced her older brother Rodrigo to leave the high walls of Avila and find some Moors who would make martyrs of them. She filled a handkerchief with raisins and the two set out for Salamanca, which she was sure was filled with Moors. Instead, the pair met their uncle, riding into the city on horseback. He picked the two of them up and brought them home.
As a teen-ager, Teresa loved romance novels, pretty dresses and flirting. Her stern father worried about her and packed her off to a convent for a stricter upbringing. She hated it at first, but Teresa later wrote friends that the nuns were far less strict than her father! When her education was complete, Teresa had to decide between marriage and life in a convent. The nunnery didn’t hold much attraction for her, but Teresa considered the life of a married woman, every aspect of her life controlled by her husband. There was more freedom, she decided, in a convent. She became a nun as the lesser of two evils.
In Teresa’s day, many women who had nowhere else to go ended up in convents, whether they had a calling to the monastic life or not. They were encouraged to stay away from the convents for long period of time to cut down on expenses. Nuns would decorate their habits attractively and wear jewelry (remember the Prioress in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales). There were streams of visitors and parties in the parlor. What spiritual life there was often involved hysteria, weeping, exaggerated confessions, extravagant penances, nosebleeds, and self- induced visions.
Teresa’s problem was that she was too charming. Everyone liked her and she liked to be liked. The causal life in the convent, more like a boarding house than a place of prayer, allowed her to slip into a worldly life. The convent encouraged the nuns to have visitors (whose financial gifts helped the community), and Teresa got involved in flattery, vanity and gossip.
Then she got malaria and it almost killed her. Her recuperation was long and hard, and for the rest of her life she would suffer from the disease.
After she recovered, Teresa began struggling with her calling as a nun. She’d taken vows to live a life of prayer and discipline, but she’d ignored her vows. She promised God to do so no longer. She began to read about prayer, speak to priests and others about prayer, and to pray. For more than eighteen years she wrestled with the difficulties she encountered as she prayed. All the while, God was at work in Teresa. As the years passed, confessor after confessor, including the famed St Peter of Alcantara, came away with a certainty of Teresa’s deep piety and profound experiences in prayer.
Under orders from her confessor, Teresa wrote her autobiography. Only St Augustine’s Confessions equals it as it reveals the working of grace upon the soul, and how that grace manifests itself in prayer. She wrote frankly of her doubts and difficulties: “At the time of prayer I was often concerned about nothing so much as that it should be over.” “My mind is well-focused throughout the day until the time comes appointed for prayer. Then it wanders here and there, distracted as a mad man.”
Yet her understanding of prayer is invaluable to those willing to hear what she says: “Prayer is nothing but an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking the time to be alone with Him Who we know loves us, as often as we can. What matters at prayer is not that we think but that we love. But we must learn how to love from the One Who is love. Learning, like children, requires that we take small steps and so do that which stirs up His love in us. Love is not a feeling of great delight but firm desire to please God in everything."
Teresa decided to found a convent dedicated to the strict practice of prayer and the disciplines of the spiritual life. She dedicated it to St Joseph. As soon as she made her intentions known, the popular nun became quite unpopular. Who was she to criticize how things worked? If she wanted to be “religious,” let her be religious where she was. Her reputation was attacked, it was whispered she was more interested in praise than prayer, perhaps she was possessed. Yet she attracted followers, women who wanted to follow her vision. Men came, too, wanting her spiritual direction and eventually asking for monasteries like St Joseph’s. She worked closely with her friend (who would later be known as St John of the Cross) to help them. Numbers of convents and monasteries devoted to the “strict observance” grew, as did St Teresa’s fame as a teacher of prayer. Repeatedly her critics denounced her to the Inquisition; each time she answered their questions—sometimes winning their admiration, sometimes leaving them confused as they admitted her answers were too deep for them.
Throughout her busy life, she retreated to St Joseph’s to write. Her books are among the greatest classics of the Christian Church on prayer and the struggles of the spiritual life: The Way of Perfection, The Interior Castle, and her Autobiography read as fresh today as they died when she wrote them.
In 1582, at the age of 67, Teresa fell ill while traveling and died. During the last twenty years of her life, she founded 17 convents of the “strict observance” and almost as many monasteries. Her writings taught countless Christians to grow in grace and prayer. She was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1967—one of only two women (the other was St Catherine of Siena, who in many ways could have been Teresa’s sister) so honored in the history of the Church.
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St Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist — September 21
Of all the Lord’s Twelve Apostles, none had to be less welcome than Matthew, whose Hebrew name was Levi. As tax collector, he followed the most despised occupation of his day: tax collectors were seen as the ultimate collaborators, squeezing money out of their own people to support the occupying army of the Romans.
Levi was the son of Alpheus, who was also a tax collector. He lived and worked in Capernaum, a lakeside town in Galilee, part of the Roman province of Iudaea. Fishing was economic backbone of the town and in all likelihood, before Christ called him to give up his occupation, Matthew may very well have collected taxes from among the fishermen who were among our Lord’s followers. As a tax collector, Matthew would have been required to know Greek, Aramaic and Latin, making him one of the most literate of the Twelve Apostles.
When the Lord Jesus called Matthew, he let his occupation, his home and his family to follow Him. He was an eyewitness of the Lord’s Resurrection and Ascension.
While some of the other Apostles dispersed to preach the Gospel and found Churches, St Matthew stayed for 15 years or so, according to St Irenaeus, teaching the Gospel to his fellow Jews. Many believe St Matthew’s Gospel was written initially in Hebrew as part of his work to convert the Jews.
Later in life St Matthew journeyed to Greece and lived there, trying to convert Jews there. He then traveled to what is now northern Iran and preached to a community of Egyptians who’d settled there. There, the Apostle was martyred about AD 70.
St Matthew is the patron saint of accountants, bookkeepers and, not surprisingly, tax collectors—who are about as popular today as when Levi collected revenues for the Romans—and so much in need of a heavenly advocate!
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St Bartholomew the Apostle – August 24
Scripture tells us almost nothing about this Apostle. His name, Bar-tolom, means “son of a ploughman,” in Aramaic. He’s also called Nathaniel in St John’s Gospel. Only one story is told of him in Scripture. When his friend St Philip tells him he has met Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah, Bartholomew answers sarcastically “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” When he meets the Lord, however, Bartholomew does acknowledge Christ as the “Savior of Israel.” There are no more explicit references to him anywhere in the Gospels except as a member of the Apostolic band.
Christian writers of the first centuries have passed on to us the stories of St Bartholomew’s adventures. Eusebius says he traveled from Palestine across Persia to the border of India proclaiming the Gospel wherever he went. He carried an early edition of St Matthew’s Gospel, probably written in Hebrew, on his journeys. Having set up churches there, he preached his way back across Persia until he came to Armenia, where he decided to remain and build up the Church. To this day, the Armenians regard his as the founder of their Armenian Orthodox Church. He converted the king of Armenia, Polymius. But this so enraged his brother that he captured the saint and ordered him crucified—but not until he’d been flayed, having all the skin cut from his body. The famous St Bartholomew’s Monastery, built over an ancient shrine in the Vaspurakan Province of modern Armenia, is said to rest on the site of his martyrdom.
In Christian art, St Bartholomew is depicted holding the knife used to “skin” him; sometimes, as in the famous picture by Michaelangelo (see below), the saint is shown holding his skin itself! It was a popular topic of medieval saint-painting—they had a more robust sense of humor than we. In keeping with that notion, St Bartholomew is the patron saint—of tanners and taxidermists!
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St Bernard of Clairvaux—August 20
A monk who preached warfare, a man who sought a quiet life of contemplation but was repeatedly called from his cloister to settle the fiercest political and religious disputes of his day, St Bernard of Clairvaux came from the highest ranks of the French nobility and found his calling in a life of poverty.
Bernard was born into the royal family of Burgundy in AD 1090. As a young man he received the finest education, excelling in languages and poetry. Bernard was nineteen years old when his mother, who had required much of his care, died. His early schooling under the direction of the canons of Saint-Vorles left him with a great admiration for the monastic life. After her death, he joined the newly-formed Abbey of Cîteaux, near Dijon, already famous for its strict following of the old Rule of St Benedict.
In 1113, Bernard was sent from Cîteaux with a band of twelve monks to form a new house for the Order. They settled into a clearing in a valley on the banks of the Aube River in northeastern France. The “clear valley” (“clair” “vallee”) would be called Clarivaux and forever after associated with the saint. On June 15, 1115, William of Champeaux, the Bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, named Bernard as Abbot of Clarirvaux and spiritual director of the monastery. His father and all his brothers eventually became monks there. So many flocked to the Abbey that in 1118, 1119 and again in 1121, the saint found it necessary to lay the foundations for new abbeys as Clairvaux was too crowded.
Bernard wrote extensively about the monastic calling and the spiritual life: one of his “bestsellers” was On Pride and Humility (admittedly, this was before the publication of best-seller lists). The famous Suger, first minister of King Louis VI, was converted to a life of piety after reading the book; he eventually became abbot of a monastery in Paris.
In 1128, the Church in France met in a council to address the widespread corruption in the Church and settle a series of long-standing disputes. Bernard was ordered to leave Clairvaux and serve as secretary to the Council. Bernard did more than take notes. His attacks on church corruption led to investigations into the individuals involved in the corruption—and that made him enemies, especially among some of the bishops who didn’t want to see their prerogatives questioned. After the council, many complaints about the “meddlesome monk of Clairvaux” made their way to Rome. It was the beginning of a long period of turmoil in Bernard’s life, when he was repeatedly ordered away from Clairvaux to participate in either state matters (the King admired his honesty and forthright speech) or church problems (bishops liked to “sic” him on their misbehaving brothers, sometimes, Bernard observed, hoping their own bad behavior would pass unnoticed).
The First Crusade, when Bernard was a boy, captured the Holy Land from the Muslims. But the wars there continued and the Kingdom of Jerusalem faced constant threats. Sir Hugh de Payens, who’d served in the Holy War, approached Bernard with a request that he assist in the founding of a new Order of monks, who would take vows both as monks—and as knights! They would serve to pray for and protect the Holy Land and the pilgrims traveling there. Bernard embraced the notion enthusiastically. He wrote the Rule for the Order, made preaching tours on its behalf and even wrote a book about them: In Praise of the New Knights. Their Order was named “The Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon.” People came to call them the “Templars.”
Bernard’s life was a see-saw of retreats to Clairvaux and demands that he leave its walls to take part in the life of the French Church and kingdom. When two rival claimants for the Pope’s Throne threatened a schism of the Church, Bernard was again called from Clairvaux to settle the dispute and chose between the factions. After the dust cleared, the saint was offered the position of Archbishop of Milan. He refused, saying he found the swampy banks of the Aube a healthier climate than the palace of any archbishop—and the frogs of the Aube better companions than one was like to find in an episcopal court!
Bernard retired to Clairvaux in 1138, after having traveled to Rome to settle further disputes. He said he wanted to “pray, think, pray, write, and pray.” He refused to leave for several years, devoting himself to the life for which he longed.
In 1146, however, a summons came from Rome. A new Crusade against the Muslims was to be launched, and Pope Eugenius III chose St Bernard to spearhead the preaching and planning of the Crusade. Reluctantly, Bernard laid aside his books and pens and traveled throughout France and Germany raising money and men for the war. Both the King of France and the Emperor of Germany “took the Cross.”
The Crusade was a failure. Many of the nobles failed to keep their vows and in Germany the Crusaders turned on German Jews to vent their zeal; thousands were massacred and Bernard returned to Germany when he learned of the butchery to protect the Jewish communities that remained. After three years he returned to Clairvaux, blamed by many of his old foes for the failure of the Crusade.
During the last years of his life the saint found the peace of prayer and contemplation he’d so long sought. He wrote principally on the spiritual life, emphasizing the importance of a life devoted to prayer and the surrender of the soul to Jesus the Savior. His poetry and sermons about the Blessed Virgin Mary are among the most eloquent ever written in her praise.
He died in his cloister at Clairvaux on August 20, 1163 and was buried in the Abbey church. During his forty years in the Order, he’d personally founded sixty-five monasteries; at his death more than three hundred monks lived at Clairvaux.
The grace of his writing earned for him the title “The Mellifluous Doctor.” In art, St Bernard is often depicted carrying the crosier of an abbot, and a book of his writings in his hand.
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St Lawrence of Rome, Deacon and Martyr - August 10
A lot of people associate saints with stone-faced strictness, long faces and cramped piety. They don’t know the story of St Lawrence.
We don’t know that much, ourselves. Lawrence was a deacon in Rome, in charge of the charitable works of the Church there. He served as an assistant to Sixtus II, the Bishop of Rome. In AD 258, Sixtus was arrested by Roman authorities and, when he refused to renounce his faith, beheaded. Immediately thereafter, Deacon Lawrence was brought before the same magistrate.
“You Christians have great wealth,” the officer said to the deacon. “Unless you want to suffer the same fate as Sixtus, I give you three days to produce it.”
The deacon promised to reappear at the appointed time, and said he would present all the Church’s wealth to the court. Pleased, the magistrate ordered Lawrence’s release.
The saint spent three days visiting through the city, speaking to all the people who had been recipients of the charity of the Roman church during the years Lawrence served as deacon. When he returned to the court, he brought them with him—hundreds of the poor and crippled, the homeless, orphans and widows; so many they crowded the street outside the building. The officer of the court asked Lawrence for the riches of the Church.
“I have them with me,” he assured the magistrate. Spreading his arms to the sea of people with him he said; “These are the Church’s greatest treasure.”
The officer failed to see the humor and Lawrence was imprisoned. His jailers were given instructions to torture the deacon in a particularly painful way. They chained him to a large griddle and began roasting him over a fire. According to one of his torturers (who became a Christian as a result of the saint’s cool-headed courage), St Lawrence’s last words were “Turn me over, boys. I’m done on this side.”
St Lawrence is represented in Christian art wearing the dalmatic of a deacon, holding a large griddle. As well as being the patron saint of librarians, you probably guessed he is also the saint of cooks! Especially, I reckon, barbecuers.
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St Oswald of Northumbria, King - August 5
The last Roman army withdrew from England in AD 407. For the next several centuries, England was a patchwork of small “kingdoms” which sprang up to fill the vacuum left by the Romans. Most of these “kingdoms” were ruled by warlords who controlled areas ranging from a few dozen miles to, in a few instances, a hundred or so. While many of the older Celtic inhabitants (living mainly in Wales) were Christians, the Germanic tribes of Angles and Saxons who invaded the island through the fifth and sixth centuries were all pagans, worshipers of Woden.
Oswald was born, in AD 604, the son of one of these Saxon warlords, named Aethelfrid. When he was still a child, his father was killed in battle and the victor came looking for Aethelfrid’s family. Oswald’s mother, Aacha, managed to escape with her children to Scotland, where even the Saxons were afraid to go. They took refuge with the family of a Scottish nobleman who sent Aacha’s sons to be educated with his own by the monks of Iona Abbey. While there, Oswald converted to Christianity.
When Aethelfrid’s killer was himself killed, Oswald’s older brother Eanfrid returned to England to claim the family rights. While negotiating with Cadwalla, a rival king, Eanfrid was murdered. Oswald collected some Scots looking for a fight together with family retainers just on the English side of the border and went after his brother’s betrayer.
He found him near an old Roman fort that had been part of Hadrian’s Wall, a place called Hexam (afterward “Heavenfeld”). The night before the battle, Oswald told his companions, St Columba, founder of Iona Abbey, appeared in a dream and foretold Oswald’s victory and reign as a Christian king. Oswald had a large cross erected before the battle (he himself held it as his men placed it in the ground) and led his soldiers in prayer. Cadwalla was killed in the ensuing battle and his soldiers fled. It was the first of many victories by which Oswald built the first Christian kingdom among the Saxons.
Oswald sent to Iona for help. He wanted missionaries to convert his growing kingdom to Christianity. St Aidan, a monk of Iona, was consecrated and sent in response. Since Aidan couldn’t speak the language of his Saxon listeners, Oswald served as his translator, repeating the saint’s sermons. As the number of Christians increased, the king built churches across the northern part of England (Oswald’s kingdom would come to be called “Northumbria” now the part of England called Yorkshire).
The Venerable Bede, writing less than a century after the events, tells us no ruler had united so much of the country “since the times of the Caesars.” Oswald was St Bede’s ideal of a Christian king: he encouraged the growth of Christianity, fought only defensive wars, building his kingdom through peaceful alliances more than battlefield conquests, and was generous to the poor, often feeding them at his own table and distributing alms himself. Before battle, Oswald would pray with his troops, afterward, he would pray for the dead. St Bede wrote—enthusiastically, if not quite accurately—that Oswald "brought under his dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain." The king was killed in battle with the famous pagan king Penda, ruler of Mercia, on August 5, 642, after a reign of nine years.
As a monument to his victory over the Christians, Penda had St Oswald’s body dismembered and displayed on the battlefield, his head impaled on a long spear. Oswald’s brother retrieved the saint’s body and had it buried in one of the Northmbrian monasteries his brother had built. In the twelfth century, his remains—principally, his head—were moved to a place of honor in Durham Cathedral. Oswald’s head has moved much farther in death than the saint ever did in life. His head, in a golden reliquary, is now enshrined at the Cathedral of St Mary in Hildesheim, Germany. How it got there is a tale in itself.
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St Martha of Bethany—July 29
St Martha of Bethany, whose feast we celebrate on July 29th, is mentioned three times in the Gospels. Two of those incidents are memorable: once, when Martha complains to the Lord Jesus that her sister, Mary, drops whatever she’s doing when He comes to visit; the second, poignantly, when Christ comes to their home after her brother Lazarus’ death. “If you had been here, Lord,” she said, “my brother would not have died.” That’s a good, straightforward prayer. As you know, the Lord heard and answered. He brought Lazarus back from the dead. The last mention of St Martha is easy to overlook, but tells the story of her life.
A banquet was held in the home of Lazarus, Mary and Martha, with the Lord Jesus as the guest of honor. Mary caused a stir when she anointed Christ’s feet with expensive ointment and cleaned his feet with her hair (you may remember Judas Iscariot complained about what a waste it was). We’re told Lazarus hosted the banquet. St John tells us simply “Martha served.” There’s more than one good meditation in those two words!
According to ancient tradition, St Martha was one of the “myrrh-bearing women,” those who went to the Lord’s tomb early Easter morning, to anoint His body; it was to them the angel announced “He is not here. He is risen.”
After the Resurrection, the family was driven from their home in Bethany. A medieval French legend claims Sts Mary and Martha journeyed to southern France. There, by reason of St Martha's “right fecund speech, much courtesy and grace,” she converted many to the Faith of Jesus. The same source tells of her taming the local dragon (who was making a lot of trouble). The inscription on a fifteenth-century sarcophagus in Provence says St Martha's relics are entombed inside. A much older tradition relates that the family sailed from Palestine to Cyprus; there, St Lazarus served as Bishop of Larnaca, assisted in his work by his two sisters. The remains of St Martha are buried there, with those of her brother and sister, in the Church of St Lazarus.
Not surprisingly, St Martha is the patron saint of servants, butlers, maids and cooks.
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St Margaret of Antioch, Virgin & Martyr—July 20
In the first verse of the popular children’s hymn, “I Sing a Song of the Saints of God” (# 243 in the 1940 Hymnal), we sing “…one was a doctor and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green.” The shepherdess of the hymn is St Margaret of Antioch, and this is her story.
Margaret was the daughter of a prominent pagan priest in Antioch of Pisidia (a city near the west coast of what is now known as Turkey—not the same city as the famous Antioch in Syria, where Christians were first called Christians). Through friends she learned the Gospel story and sought baptism. Her father was not pleased when he learned of her new faith. He disowned her and put her out in the streets. The bishop of the city found her a home with a family of shepherds outside the city, who adopted her as their own. Margaret became “the beautiful shepherdess of the green hills.”
Alas, her bucolic life didn’t last. A city official, who knew Margaret from earlier days, learned of her conversion. He sought her out, intending a proposal of marriage, but after Margaret’s repeated refusals, he accused her of being a Christian before the Roman officials. She was arrested and tortured, but through it all, she clung to her faith. The magistrate sentenced the young woman to death; the following day she was beheaded. In Christian art, Margaret is depicted as a beautiful young woman, the sword of her beheading in her right hand. Both the Eastern and Western Churches keep her feast day in July—Anglicans and Roman Catholics on July 20, the Eastern Orthodox on the 17th.
St Mary Magdalene, Penitent—July 22
St Mary Magdalene is called “the Penitent," because prior to her meeting the Lord Jesus, she was a notorious (and successful) prostitute . Though she was born of Jewish parents, she was reared and lived in the Gentile town of Magdala, in northern Galilee, and her manners and way of life were those of a Gentile. Proud and beautiful, when she encountered Christ, He did not condemn her but rather called her to repentance. When the Lord Christ went to supper at the home of a rich Pharisee named Simon, Mary followed Him and, after He sat down at the table, she wept at His feet. With her long hair, she wiped His feet dry and anointed them with expensive perfume. Simon and his other guests expressed surprise that Jesus let such a sinner touch Him, but the Lord, knowing Mary's heart, replied: “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven her, because she has loved much." Then He said to Mary, "Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” From that day, she turned from her former life and became His devoted disciple.
St. Luke records that she was present at our Lord's Crucifixion, and with Joanna and Mary, the mother of James and Salome, went to the Lord Jesus' tomb to anoint His body after His death. When she found the tomb empty and His body gone, Mary began to weep, assuming His body had been stolen. Seeing someone whom she thought was the gardener, she asked him if he knew where the body of Jesus had been taken. But when the Gardener spoke her name she realized it was the Lord Jesus, risen from the dead. After His Resurrection, He chose to show Himself first to Mary, the repentant sinner from Magdala.
In Christian art, St Mary Magdalene is often shown wearing red (the ancient color of prostitutes), holding in her hand an Easter egg, sign of her Savior’s Resurrection.
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Saint Bonaventure—July 14
Saint Bonaventure, about whose early life nothing is known but the names of his parents and the place of his birth, was a Franciscan friar, a teacher of theology and philosophy at the University of Paris, the spiritual director of the Poor Clares, nominee for Archbishop of York—and evidently, the victim of a successful murder plot!
Bonaventure was born in a small village in Tuscany in 1221. He entered the Franciscan Order in his early twenties. His keen mind drew the attention of his superiors and he was sent to Paris a few years later to study at the university there under the famous Alexander of Hales. He received his degree as Magister regens, the medieval equivalent of a doctor of theology. His good friend, the Dominican friar Thomas Aquinas, received his degree from the same university at the same time.
In 1257, while still only 35 years old, Bonaventure was plucked from his university post after being elected head of the Franciscan Order. It was a time of some tumult because some members of the Order held to a strict following of St Francis rule, while others, called the Relaxati, wanted to ease many of the Franciscan practices, particularly regarding the poverty of the friars. By patiently working to restore peace, Bonaventure was widely regarded as saving the Order from dissolution. The Poor Clares, an Order of Franciscan sisters founded by St Francis and St Clare, asked Bonaventure to assume direction of their Order as well.
Pope Clement IV nominated Bonaventure as Archbishop of York, but the saint firmly refused the office and after two years the pope relented and chose another nominee. After Clement’s death a few years later, the cardinals assembled to choose his successor declared themselves hopelessly deadlocked—after three year’s of quarreling. Bonaventure, with his reputation as a peace-maker, was brought into the conclave and they shortly thereafter chose a new pontiff.
A year and a half later, the new pope elevated Bonaventure to the office of Cardinal and named him Bishop of Albano. When the messengers from the pope arrived bearing the titles and his cardinal’s hat, they found Bonaventure in the scullery of the monastery, doing the dishes. He told them to hang the cardinal’s hat on a nearby tree until he finished his duties.
In 1274, a great council of the Church was convened in Lyons, France. The purpose was to attempt to heal the breach between the Latin and Greek Churches, and Bonaventure was called to take a principal place in the deliberations. In the midst of them, he suddenly took grievously ill and died. Several of his biographers said he was poisoned—his corpse showed the signs of it—but who would poison a saint?
An over-zealous Greek monk? An irritated Relaxati? After 750 years, nobody this side of the Inferno is likely to be able to say.
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Our Anglican Calendar lists no Saints for this week (from July 3-10), but the following is an article from Orthodox Life, telling of a modern Russian Orthodox saint whose feast day is kept on July 3:
St John (Maximovich), Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco
This brightly-shining Saint of our own day was born in Russia in 1896. In 1921 his family fled the Russian Revolution to Serbia, where he became a monk and was ordained a priest. From the time of his entry into monastic life he adopted a strict rule of life: he never slept in a bed, sleeping only briefly in a chair or prostrated before the icons. He ate one meal a day, in the evening. Teaching seminarians in Serbia, he instructed them each day to devote six hours to divine services, six hours to prayer (not including the divine services!), six hours to good works, and six hours to rest (these six hours obviously included eating and bathing as well as sleeping). Whether his seminarians followed his counsels we do not know, but he himself not only followed but exceeded them.
In 1934 he was made Bishop of Shanghai (for the Russian Church in exile), where he served not only the Russian emigre community but a number of native Chinese Christians; at that time he learned to speak Chinese and celebrated the Divine Liturgy in that language for the native people. When the Communists took power in China, he labored tirelessly to evacuate his flock to safety, first to the Philippines, then to various western countries including the United States. He served as Bishop in Paris and Brussels, till, in 1962, was made Archbishop of San Francisco. Throughout his life as monk and bishop he was revered (and sometimes criticized) for his strictness of his spiritual disciplines and unceasing intercessions. During his life and ever since, numerous miraculous healings have been attributed to his prayers.
Once, in Shanghai, a caretaker, investigating strange noises in the cathedral after midnight, discovered Bishop John standing in the belltower, looking down on the city and praying for all its people. Years later, when he visited Holy Trinity Monastery in New York, the priest responsible for hosting him found the saint walking through the halls of the monastery, standing outside the door of each room and praying for the monk or seminarian sleeping within. When the Archbishop had prayed outside each room, he returned to the beginning of his circuit and began praying again; and so he spent the entire night.
Even as Archbishop, he lived in near-absolute poverty. His appearance was striking: His cassock was made of blue Chinese "peasant cloth," crudely decorated with crosses stitched by orphans who had been in his care in Shanghai. Even in the United States, even while celebrating the Mass (which he did every day), he went barefoot in all seasons. (after he was hospitalized with an infected foot, his Metropolitan ordered him to wear shoes; thereafter, he wore sandals). Needless to say, he was an embarrassment to those who like their bishops to make a more impressive appearance, but among his various flocks throughout the world, there were many who recognized that a saint was living among them.
Following his death in 1966, healings and other miracles continued to be reported and attributed to his intercessions, and in 1996 he was glorified as a Saint of the Church. His incorrupt relics can be venerated at the Russian cathedral in San Francisco. At St John's funeral, the preacher told the mourners: “…because Archbishop John was able to live the spirituality of the Church so fully, even in our modern, urban society, we are left with no excuse ourselves.”
From a footnote to the text: “An acquaintance of Monk John once met him on a train in Serbia. When asked his destination, Monk John replied, ‘I'm going to straighten out a mistake. I've gotten a letter meant for some other John whom they intend to make a bishop.’ The same person met him again on his return journey and asked if he had been able to resolve his problem. John answered, ‘The mistake is much worse than I thought: they made me a bishop.’ "
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St Peter the Apostle - June 29
Simon Peter (from the Greek: Pétros, “stone” or “rock"), sometimes called Simon Cephas after his name in Aramaic, was one of the Apostles of our Lord. He plays a prominent role in the New Testament and the history of the first generation of the Church. Peter was the son of Jonah or John, a fisherman from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee. His brother Andrew was also an apostle.
After working to establish the church of Antioch for seven years, serving as the city's bishop and preaching to scattered communities of believers (Jews, Hebrew Christians and the gentiles), in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia Minor and Bithynia, Peter went to Rome during the second year of the reign of the Emperor Claudius. He was put to death at the hand of Nero in AD 64. Two epistles in the NT are attributed to him, and the Gospel of Mark was probably written under his direction (St Mark was his disciple and interpreter).
He was one of the first of the Twelve Apostles. Before his calling, St Peter was a fisherman. He was given a principal place among the Apostles and was with the Lord Jesus during all the major events of His ministry, even those witnessed by only a few Apostles, such as the Transfiguration. St Peter is always mentioned first in the lists of the Twelve Apostles given in the Gospels and in the Book of Acts.
He was the first of the Lord’s Apostles to declare his belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah. He defended the Lord Jesus with his sword “on the night in which He was betrayed,” and later the same night denied that he even knew Who Jesus was. The Lord later, at the seaside in Galilee, restored his full discipleship in the dialogue recorded by St John. From that time, St Peter took the leading role among the Apostles.
After serving as Bishop of Antioch, St Peter traveled to Rome, arriving about AD 43. He lived there, acting as the first Bishop of Rome, for about 20 years, until he was arrested during the persecution of the Church under the Emperor Nero. He was ordered to be crucified, but at his insistence, was crucified upside down, deeming himself unworthy to die as did his Lord. St Peter’s symbol in Christian art is a Latin cross, turned upside-down.
The Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary - July 2
The Feast of the Visitation recounts the visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary with St Elizabeth as recorded in the Gospel of St Luke, 1:39–56. It has been celebrated on July 2nd since 1263 in the Western Church and on March 30th in Eastern Orthodox Churches. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer fixes the celebration of the feast at the customary medieval date.
The Blessed Virgin left Nazareth immediately after the Annunciation and went to Hebron, south of Jerusalem, to attend her cousin Elizabeth. When the two women met, even though he was still in his mother's womb, John became aware of the presence of his Divine Savior and, St Luke says, the unborn child leapt for joy. St Elizabeth recognized the presence of God and cried out to Mary: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. And whence is this, that the Mother of my Lord should come to me? For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord" (St Luke 1:42–45). In response to St Elizabeth’s words, the Virgin sang the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord”, Luke 1:46–55, a canticle still sung at Evensong every night.
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St Alban the Martyr - June 22
St Alban was the first Christian martyr of Britain. According to St Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Alban was a Roman soldier living at Verulamium (now St Albans, about 20 miles north of London), who converted to Christianity in AD 283. He was executed by decapitation on a hilltop above Verulamium after helping a priest hide from the Roman authorities. Alban dressed the priest in his own cloak and sent him on his way. When he was questioned, Alban claimed himself to be the one they were looking for. The magistrate asked if he was a Christian and Alban answered, “I worship and adore the true and living God Who created all things.” He was summarily executed.
Along with Sts Julius and Aaron, Alban is one of the three martyrs of Roman Britain. In art he is depicted holding his head in his hands. The saint is venerated by Anglicans, Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox on June 22 each year.
Shrine of St Alban in St Alban's Cathedral
The Feast of Corpus Christi - June 23
The Feast of Corpus Christi (Latin for “the Body of Christ”) is celebrated the Thursday after Trinity Sunday (it's a "movable feast": its date changes year by year). The feast centers on the Eucharist and is kept on Thursday since the Lord Jesus instituted the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday. Because the solemnities associated with Holy Week, don't allow sufficient focus on the importance of the Blessed Sacrament, the Church added this observance to its calendar in the mid-13th century.
St Thomas Aquinas was ordered to compose the liturgy for the feast by Pope Urban in 1263. In addition to compiling the readings for the Mass, he wrote three hymns which are sung, not only on the feast, but as Eucharistic hymns throughout the year: the Pange Lingua (Hymns #199 & 200 in the 1940 Hymnal) “Now, My Tongue, the Mystery Telling,” Adoro Devote (# 204), “Humbly I Adore Thee,” and Martyr Dei, “O Saving Victim” (# 209). In many places the Mass for the day concludes with a Procession of the Blessed Sacrament and Blessing of the city.
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St Dunstan of Canterbury, Archbishop and Confessor - May 19
St Dunstan of Canterbury was, for hundreds of years, England’s most popular saint. According to popular legend, he tweaked the devil’s nose with a pair of smithy’s tongs. He was Archbishop of Canterbury, the leading churchman of his day, and while a trusted advisor to English kings, early in life he was accused of witchcraft and driven from the royal court.
Dunstan was born in Wessex (southwest England) about AD 910, the son of a wealthy nobleman. Educated by Irish monks in Glastonbury Abbey, Dunstan received his parents’ permission to be tonsured a monk while still young. He was trained as a blacksmith and metal-worker; his skill in producing chalices for Mass won him recognition. The young monk also worked in the Scriptorium of the Abbey, copying and illuminating manuscripts. One of the books he produced still survives. Dunstan loved music and was skilled at playing the harp. For all his many skills and talents, though, Dunstan loved learning more than anything else.
He was pointed out to the Archbishop of Canterbury, who took Dunstan into his service; King Aethelstan brought him to serve in his court. He quickly became a favorite of the King, but jealous courtiers accused him of witchcraft and succeeded in having him banished from court. Dunstan left to travel to Winchester (where his uncle was bishop), but he was attacked by his enemies, beaten and left for dead in a cesspool.
Not quite dead, Dunstan made his way to Winchester. His uncle ordained him to the priesthood in 943 and gave him permission to return to Glastonbury to live as a monk. Dunstan returned to his manuscripts and metalwork.
His skill as a confessor attracted many, including the niece of the King. When she died, she left her considerable fortune to Dunstan. He used the money to repair old churches and monasteries and to build new ones. About this time he was elected Abbot of Glastonbury. Dunstan opened a number of schools for poor children and began experiments with local farmers on methods of irrigating the hilly farms near the Abbey.
Dunstan traveled through Europe to observe the monastic life there, intending to bring improvements to Glastonbury. When he returned, however, he was forced to abandon his life at the abbey. He was appointed Bishop of Worcester in 957; the next year bishop of London and finally, in 960, Archbishop of Canterbury.
For 18 years Dunstan held the archbishopric, encouraging both secular and clerical education, founding schools and monasteries across the country. He was particularly emphatic about stamping out simony (buying ordinations and clerical positions), fostering piety and discipline among both clergy and monastics. He encouraged parishes across England to train the faithful not only in their religion, but to teach trade-skills to the young.
When King Edgar was crowned in 973, Dunstan composed the Coronation service—and his work still forms the basis for the Coronation Office used for English monarchs.
Dunstan retired to Glastonbury Abbey in 977, where he lived out the final decade of his life as a goldsmith, musician, and priest. He celebrated Mass on Ascension Day (May 19), 988, blessed the monks, retired to his cell and died quietly. He was buried in Canterbury Cathedral.
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Sts Philip and James, Apostles - May 11
St Philip is one of the Lord Jesus’ Twelve Apostles. He is mentioned several times in St John’s Gospel, depicted as one who has connections and friends among the Greek-speaking communities of Palestine. According to church historians, St Philip preached the Gospel in Greece and in Syria, founding churches in both countries. He was crucified outside the city of Hieropolis. His “symbol” is a Latin cross.
Saint James the Less (the Younger), was the son of Alpheus, the brother of Saint Jude and a cousin of the Lord Jesus. He is distinguished from St James the Greater (the Older), a son of Zebedee, another of the Lord’s Twelve Apostles.
After the Resurrection, while the other Apostles went abroad to proclaim the Gospel, Saint James stayed in Palestine as Bishop of Jerusalem. He was held in high regard for his purity of life and profundity of prayer. The Jews called him “James the Just.” He served as bishop more than 30 years before he was martyred. He was arrested and beheaded by Herod.
St James is the author of the Epistle of St James in the New Testament.
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St Mark the Evangelist - May 10
St Mark was one of the seventy disciples of the Lord Jesus and according to a long-standing tradition, he was the young man mentioned in the Gospel who ran away during the arrest of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, leaving his clothes in the hands of the soldiers. Mark became an assistant and secretary to St Peter after the Resurrection, and wrote down Peter’s recollections—later to form them into his Gospel.
Mark served for many years as St Peter’s assistant and interpreter in Rome. In AD 68, both Sts Peter and Paul were martyred during Nero’s anti-Christian persecution in Rome. Following St Peter’s death, Mark traveled to Alexandria in Egypt to establish the church there. He served as the first Bishop of Alexandria and founded what is now the Coptic Orthodox Church. While preaching one day an enraged group of pagans seized St Mark, tied a rope around his neck and dragged him through the streets of Alexandria until he died.
St Mark’s Gospel, written perhaps as early as AD 50, is the first of the four Gospels and was probably used by both Sts Matthew and Luke when they wrote their Gospels twenty or thirty years later.
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St Gregory Nazianzen - May 9
St Gregory of Nazianzen, was one of the Church’s greatest theologians. He was born in Cappadocia, in what is now southeast Turkey, into a well-to-do family about AD 329. When he was a young man, his father was consecrated Bishop of Nazianzen, and after an impressive education (Gregory was ultimately trained in the best schools in Athens and impressed his teachers as one of their most exemplary students), his father convinced him to return and assist him as an assistant bishop.
Gregory was more inclined to the monastic life and lived for a year or so keeping the strict rule of a hermit, but eventually his best friend (who we know as St Basil the Great) talked him into returning to assist his father in Nazianzen.
In those days, the Church was still seething with the controversies supposedly settled by the Nicene Council. Many refused to recognize its teaching and the contests between those who held the Council’s teaching about the divinity of Christ and those who insisted that Christ was not God, “to the same degree that God Himself is God, but He is similar to God.” This controversy raged throughout the Church as Gregory began his ministry. When he would finally achieve his dream and retire to a monastery many years later, no one had done more to bring about the acceptance of the dogma of the Holy Trinity than St Gregory.
He engaged in public debates and wrote and taught the theology of the Trinity, more than once making converts to orthodox belief from the opponents who’d come to debate him.
When Gregory’s father died, he agreed to succeed him as Bishop of Nazianzen, but his increasing fame caused him to be elevated to be the Archbishop of Constantinople in 378. He found the city awash in theological controversy. He converted a villa given for his residence into a church and monastery, which he named the Anastasia, (the Greek word for resurrection. There he wrote and delivered his Five Theological Orations, definitively explaining the faith of the Nicene Creed. They remain as unsurpassed classics today (the Council of Chalcedon, meeting about 60 years after his death, conferred on him the title “the Theologian”—sometimes he is called “the Divine”—for the far-reaching implications of his teaching).
St Gregory presided over the First Council of Constantinople in 381, which augmented and re-affirmed the Nicene Creed as the expression of the Catholic Faith. He then announced his retirement and returned to Nazianzen to live a monastic existence. He died there on January 25, 390.
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St Alphege of Canterbury - April 19
St Alphege of Canterbury, the only Archbishop of Canterbury to be killed by Vikings, was born in 954 in a small village outside Bath.
When a young man he became a monk in nearby Bath Abbey and was eventually chosen its abbot. His reputation for sanctity led to his consecration as Bishop of Winchester when he was only 30 years old. Alphege encouraged learning both among the clergy and people. He loved music and directed the construction of a large organ in the cathedral, audible from over a mile away. It required more than 24 men to operate.
The Vikings raided the east coast of England throughout his life. One of the great Viking kings of the day, Olaf Tryggvason, asked to meet with Alphege, “a Christian,” he said, “who follows Christ.” As a result of their meetings, Alphege baptized and confirmed Olaf. The Vikings made peace with the English.
In 1006, Alphege was elected Archbishop of Canterbury; the next year, he journeyed to Rome to receive his pallium—symbol of his status as an archbishop—from Pope John XVIII. On his trip home, the new archbishop was beaten and robbed.
In 1011 the Vikings again raided England, and for three weeks they laid siege to Canterbury. Through the treachery of a Viking whose life Alphege once saved, the raiders succeeded in gaining entrance to the city. They pillaged the city for four days. His cathedral was plundered and burned.
Alphege refused to be ransomed and on April 19, 1012, the Saturday after Easter, he was stoned by his captors and then beaten with an axe. According to his biographer, “He sank to the ground with a prayer for his killers.”
St Alphege was the first Archbishop of Canterbury to die violently. He was buried in St Paul's Cathedral in London but in 1023 his body was moved to Canterbury, with great ceremony.
Pope Gregory VII canonized St Alphege in 1078, with a feast day of 19 April.
Lanfranc, the first Norman Archbishop of Canterbury, was dubious about some of the Saxon saints venerated at Canterbury. St Alphege and St Augustine of Canterbury were the only Anglo-Saxon archbishops retained on the Norman calendar of saints. In 1174, his remains together with those of St Dunstan were placed under the high altar of Canterbury Cathedral, at which St Thomas Becket prayed immediately before his martyrdom.
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St Leo the Great-April 11
Pope St Leo bears the title “the Great” after his name. He earned the title several times over for accomplishments in a variety of fields, ranging from writing the most important theological document of the fifth century to convincing Attila the Hun to turn aside from his intended destruction of Rome. In a tumultuous age, St Leo the Great brought stability to both Church and State.
Leo was born in Tuscany about AD 390, into a well-to-do patrician family. He was trained in the best schools of Rome, and entered the service of the Church about 415, being ordained deacon by Pope Innocent I. His skills as a diplomat came to the fore and he served as a negotiator to settle disputes between various bishops and churches both in Italy and Africa. The Emperor was impressed with his diplomatic skills and used Deacon Leo as his personal envoy to settle disputes between the Empire and the restless barbarians chipping away at its boundaries.
Deacon Leo acted as a theologian on the Pope’s behalf to address the errors of the Manicheans (who taught that all material things were evil) and the Pelagians (who taught that it was possible to be saved without Grace). In AD 440, following the death of Pope Sixtus III, the deacon was elected his successor.
In the first decade of his pontificate, a dispute arose about the nature of Christ. Eutyches, a priest in Constantinople, began teaching that Christ was fully God, but not a human being. He was, Eutyches said, “God, wrapped in human flesh.” When Eutyches ideas were condemnded by the Churches of the East, he appealed to Rome. In response, Pope Leo wrote what is now called the Tome of Leo, teaching that Christ was truly and fully God as well as truly and fully man. “Christ Jesus, could both on the one hand die and on the other be incapable of death. Thus was true God born in the undiminished and perfect nature of a true man, complete in what is His and complete in what is ours…” This was accepted at the official teaching of the Church at the Fourth Ecumenical Council, meeting in Chalcedon in AD 451. When Leo’s Tome was read, the Council Fathers exclaimed “Peter has spoken through Leo.”
Before he could pause for a refresher, the Pope faced a new crisis. Attila the Hun appeared outside Rome, ready to murder its inhabitants and collect its wealth. The Pope met Attila face to face and convinced him not only to leave Rome intact but to withdraw from Italy. Four years later another barbarian army captured Rome and Leo once again won the safety of the city.
St Leo was one of the greatest preachers of his time. A large number of his sermons survive to this day. He died in Rome on November 10, 461. He is buried under the Altar of the Chapel of St Leo at St Peter’s in Rome.
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St Isidore of Seville-April 4
Saint Isidore of Seville was Archbishop of Seville for more than three decades and is considered “the last great scholar of the ancient world." Both of his brothers, Leander and Fulgentius, were also bishops; his sister, Florentina, was abbess of the largest convent in Spain.
St Isidore, born into a prominent Spanish family in AD 560, spent much of his life as a scholar, teacher and missionary priest. In 619, he succeeded his brother as Archbishop of Seville. During the time of his episcopate, he converted the royal family of the Visigoths, a German tribe which had dominated the Spanish peninsula for almost two centuries. As things went in those days, the conversion of kings resulted in the conversion of their subjects. He was instrumental in convincing the now-Christian Visigoths to initiate the Reconquista, the wars against the Muslim invaders of Spain. The Reconquista wasn’t brought to a conclusion until 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (of Columbus’ fame), captured Granada, the last Muslim stronghold in Spain.
St Isidore compiled the Etymologiae, an encyclopedia which became one of the standard works of the Middle Ages. It reflected Isidore’s wide interests—ancient literature, grammar, law, medicine, art, music and history. Its many and lengthy quotations from a wide variety of texts from the Greek and Roman world, have preserved much which otherwise would be lost. His other writings include theological treatises on the doctrine of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, of Paradise, angels, and the nature of man.
He died in Seville on April 4, 636. In 2003, he was proposed as the Patron Saint of the Internet.
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Blessed John Keble-March 29
Blessed John Keble lived most of his life as rector of a small English parish in Hursley, where he loved the quiet life, leading the services at All Saints Church and visiting his parishioners. Most of them never knew their pastor was one of England’s best-selling authors, or the leader of the most influential movement in the Church of England in the 19th century.
John Keble was the son of a parish priest, born in 1792. He attended Corpus Christi College in Oxford, where he had a brilliant academic career, and was at his graduation elected Fellow of Oriel College where he served as instructor and examiner. He was ordained in 1815 and moved back home to assist his aging father in pastoral work.
In 1827 he anonymously published a book of poetic meditations on the Sundays and Holy Days of the Book of Common Prayer, The Christian Year. It became the most popular book of poetry published in the 19th century, with 109 editions of the work published by 1866, the year of Keble’s death. His authorship of The Christian Year was soon exposed and Keble was given the Chair of Poetry at Oxford, a position he held for 10 years.
On July 14, 1833, Keble preached a sermon at St Mary’s Church in Oxford, which he titled “National Apostasy.” The Church, he insisted, was a divine institution, founded by Christ Himself. The Church of England was part of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, not a part of the political machinery of the English government (the immediate impetus for his sermon was Parliament’s decision to do away with some dioceses in Ireland).
Keble’s sermon ignited a firestorm as churchmen began considering the sometimes-forgotten implications of the Church of England as a Catholic Church. The results of that sermon remain a powerful force within Anglicanism today. Keble became more and more in demand as a writer and speaker, but continued to serve as priest of a small parish, turning down all offers for ecclesiastical advancement. In 1835, after his father’s retirement, Keble was appointed rector of All Saints Parish in Hursley, a village of a few hundred souls in Hampshire. He served there until his death in 1866. Keble College, Oxford, was named in his honor.
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St John of Damascus-March 27
St John of Damascus was an Arab Christian who lived thirteen hundred years ago. He was a theologian whose writing was so influential it cost him his writing hand. He left an influential government post and forsook the world’s glamor for a monks’s cell in the desert.
St John was born in AD 676 into a well-to-do Christian family in Damascus, in its day, the most cosmopolitan city of the Middle East. John received the best education of his day because his father was the highest-ranking government official under the Muslim Caliph of Damascus. He was given a dual education, in Greek literature, rhetoric, philosophy and theology as well as training in “the language, books and teaching of Islam.” John was groomed for office in the caliph’s court; before he was thirty he was in the caliph’s service.
When the iconoclastic controversy broke out early in the eighth century, John wrote a series of books defending the veneration of images of Christ and the saints; his writings quickly won him a reputation as a theologian of the highest order. A few years later, John retired from public life to the famous Mar Saba monastery in the Syrian desert, where he continued his writing. His most famous work, The Font of Wisdom, was a compilation of the principal teachings of the Church. Part of The Font deals with St John’s incisive criticisms of Islam. This didn’t sit well with the caliph’s imam’s who persuaded the caliph to cut off John’s writing hand. The saint taught himself to write with his other hand, with which he wrote ten more books before dying at Mar Saba in AD 749.
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The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste-March 10
The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste were a group of Roman soldiers in the Twelfth Legion Fulminata (“Armed with Lightning”), who became martyrs for Christ in AD 320.
They were killed near Sebaste, in Armenia, victims of the persecutions of Licinius who persecuted the Christians in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. The earliest account of their martyrdom is given by Bishop Basil of Caesarea (bishop from AD 370–379), in a homily delivered on the feast of the Forty Martyrs, only fifty years after martyrdom.
According to Basil, forty soldiers who had openly confessed themselves Christians were condemned to be exposed naked upon a frozen lake near Sebaste that they might freeze to death. The Romans took the stiffened bodies of the martyrs, after their deaths, burned them and threw their ashes into the river. Local Christians collected the remains and the relics were distributed throughout many cities; in this way the veneration paid to the Forty Martyrs became widespread, and numerous churches were erected in their honor.
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St David of Wales-March 1
St David, “Dewi” in Welsh, the son of a minor Welsh king, was born about AD 490. At a time when most of Wales was still pagan, Dewi was baptized by St Ailbe and schooled by the famous monastic teacher, St Paulinus.
With that sort of upbringing, it’s no surprise the young boy inclined to a monastic life. He renounced any claim to the throne, dedicating himself to his studies and a strict monastic life. He was ordained priest about AD 520 and appointed by his bishop to travel through Wales as a preacher of the Faith. As he preached up and down Wales, he founded a number of monasteries and convents. Observers frequently reported that as the saint preached to people gathered on the hillsides of the country, white doves would descend and often rest on his shoulder.
After preaching and teaching for more than 20 years and converting many to the faith, baptizing thousands in the rivers and lakes of Wales, St David was appointed bishop and established his see at the site of the monastery at Mynyw (now called St David’s). He served as Bishop of Wales for more than 50 years, traveling constantly, still preaching to outdoor crowds, establishing churches and monasteries, and eventually converted pagan Wales to a Christian country.
The monasteries St David founded followed the strict rule he laid down: they lived on bread, water and vegetables, worked in the fields (without benefit of animals), devoting what was left of their days to prayer and their nights to study.
On March 1, 589, when the saint was 99 years old, he died, surrounded by the monks of his monastery and the nuns of a nearby convent. He preached to them a brief homily: “Be joyful, my brothers and sisters. Hold to our Faith, cherish the Creeds and Scriptures, and do the little things in life for Jesus’ sake." To this day, “Do the little things in life” (“Gwnewch y pethau bychain mewn bywyd”) remains a well-known and common phrase among the people of Wales.
St David, the patron Saint of Wales, is depicted in art with a dove resting on his shoulder while he preaches.
St Chad of Lichfield-March 2
St Chad, in Old English called Caedda, was born into a noble Anglo-Saxon family of northern England about AD 630, just a few decades after the death of St David of Wales. Caedda had three brothers, all of whom played a part in the life of the Church in Anglo-Saxon England.
In his youth, Caedda and his brother Cedd were sent to the famous Celtic abbey of Lindisfarne, to study under St Aidan. At Lindisfarne, Chad developed his love of books and study, and determined to follow a monastic life of study and reflection on the Holy Scriptures. He spent fourteen years at Lindisfarne, content in the life of study and prayer. He was sent to Ireland to learn Greek and further his studies. During his years there he was ordained to the priesthood.
Chad’s brothers Cynibil and Caelin, both ordained priests about 650, when they reached the age of thirty (it was the custom of the Anglo-Saxon church to ordain men only after they’d reached thrity years of age, the same age the Lord Jesus commenced His ministry), asked Chad to return to England and help establish a monastery at Lastingham. A wealthy relative, King Wulfhere, donated a large piece of land for the project and by 658 the monastery was built. Chad’s elder brother Cedd became the first abbot.
In 663 and 664 a plague swept England, killing many thousands. Among the dead was Abbot Cedd. The monks chose Chad to fill his place and Chad remained the Abbot of Lastingham until his own death nine years later. But the new abbot spent little time in his new post. Because of his prominent family and skills with many languages, Chad was called on to serve as a frequent envoy to settle the disputes between the petty kings who ruled the small kingdoms of Anglo-Saxon England.
Chad was nominated bishop by the King of Northumbria and became an ardent missionary through his large diocese, traveling the countryside, preaching and establishing churches.
When another bishop disputed Chad’s right to be bishop, Chad resigned his cure and returned to Lastingham. The new Archbishop of Canterbury, St Theodore of Tarsus, chose Chad to be bishop of the largest of the English kingdoms and personally elevated the old bishop, saying, “He is like the apostolic bishops of the Scriptures, caring for nothing but the welfare of the people of God.”
The plague once again swept England in 672, particularly ravaging Chad’s diocese. The bishop continually visited the sick providing them with food and medicines. He himself contracted the disease and returned to Lastingham to die. On March 2 he did, his monks reporting that the night before his death, beautiful hymns sung by an unearthly choir filled his cell. St Chad was buried in the small church which eventually became the Cathedral of Lichfield.
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St Joseph of Arimathea-February 22
St Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy and pious Jew, and during the ministry of our Lord, a secret disciple of Jesus. The Gospels tell us he was “a good and just man,” who was “looking for the Kingdom of God.” Joseph was a member of the governing Jewish council, the Sanhedrin. St John the Evangelist says Joseph kept his adherence to Jesus secret “for fear of the Jews,” but at the time of our Lord’s Crucifixion, when all his disciples went into hiding, St Joseph took courage, went openly to Pontius Pilate, and asked for the Lord’s body. Pilate granted Joseph’s request and, together with Nicodemus, another well-to-do secret disciple, and the faithful women at the Cross, prepared the Lord’s body for burial. Joseph donated his own tomb for the burial.
After the Lord’s Resurrection, is faith in Jesus no longer a secret, St Joseph was a respected and venerable member of the early Christian Church. Christian legend tells that he traveled to Gaul (France) where, in AD 63, he died after having gathered a small Christian community.
Medieval legends, unfounded but very popular, relate that St Joseph left Gaul and traveled to England, where he established one of the earliest Christian churches in Britain, at Glastonbury. The legend of the Glastonbury Thorn (a hawthorn tree said to have sprouted from St Joseph’s staff when he planted it in Glastonbury) and the medieval tales of the Holy Grail (which St Joseph reputedly brought with him to Britain) all trace to the popularity of this saint in the Middle Ages, but have no historical basis.
St Matthias the Apostle-February 24
St Matthias is mentioned only once in Holy Scripture.
After the Lord Jesus’ Ascension, 120 of His disciples, including eleven of the original Twelve (after Judas’ betrayal and suicide) gathered in the Upper Room, where the Lord had eaten with them the Last Supper.
Their number had been Twelve and they felt the necessity of keeping to that number—Twelve Apostles for the ancient Twelve Tribes of Israel—a sign of God’s gathering His people together. The Eleven were agreed that whoever was chosen to take Judas’ place must be one who had been with them from the beginning, from the baptism of John through the death and resurrection of their Lord. One who had heard Him speak, seen Him perform miracles and watched Him ascend to Heaven. The Apostles understood that an essential part of their ministry was to be “witnesses” to the acts of God in Christ. They chose two men who fit the criteria and then asked God to choose—they cast lots—“and the lot fell upon Matthias.”
That’s the last word we hear in the Bible about St Matthias.
Christian tradition, however, tells us more. St Matthias traveled to Greece and the region around the Caspian Sea, preaching the Gospel and establishing churches in those areas on the edge of the Roman world. At the Roman outpost of Apsaros the Apostle was put to death—crucified—by the local inhabitants after telling them the story of Christ’s crucifixion. Some accounts say he was beheaded, and in art, the saint is sometimes depicted with an axe. An ancient marker at the site of the old Roman fort there tells that he was martyred and buried at the site.
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St Valentine of Rome-February 14
St Valentinius was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Emperor Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned for aiding Christians and their families who were being persecuted in the Imperial City. Helping Christians in prison was a crime; Valentinius particularly married several betrothed couples who had been put into chains before their weddings had taken place. The emperor met Valentinius and took a liking to him, but Valentinus repeated efforts to convert the emperor proved an embarrassment and at the behest of members of the imperial court the priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and beheaded outside the walls of Rome near the Flaminian Gate on February 14, AD 273. In 1836 his remains, which had been buried in the catacomb of St Hippolytus, were sent to Dublin by Pope Gregory XVI, a gift to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church, where they remain till this day.
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St Cyril of Alexandria-February 9
St Cyril was the Archbishop of Alexandria and Patriarch of the Church in Egypt from AD 412 until his death in 444. He came to power when the city was at its height of influence and power within the Roman Empire. St Cyril wrote extensively and was a leading protagonist in the Christological controversies of the later 4th and 5th centuries. He was the leading figure at the Third Ecumenical Council of Ephesus in 431.
St Cyril is counted among the Church Fathers and the Doctors of the Church, and his reputation within Christendom has resulted in his titles Pillar of Faith and Seal of All the Fathers, but Theodosius II, the Roman Emperor, condemned him for behaving like a proud pharaoh, and the Nestorian bishops at the Council of Ephesus called him a heretic. St Cyril was a fascinating man during one of the most contentious periods of the Church’s history.
Cyril was born in AD 376, in the small town of Theodosios, Egypt. His uncle Theophilus was the Archbishop of Alexandria. His mother was close to her brother and under his guidance, Cyril was well educated. He received the best formal education of his day: he studied grammar from age twelve to fourteen (390-392), rhetoric, history, mathematics and philosophy from fifteen to twenty (393-397) and finally theology and biblical studies (398-402). When Theophilus died on October 15, 412, Cyril was consecrated Archbishop of Alexandria and “Pope” of Egypt three days later.
In 428, a priest in Constantinople at the behest of the Patriach of Constantinople, Nestorius, began preaching against the practice of calling the Blessed Virgin Mary the “Mother of God" (in Greek Theotokos). Since the term “Mother of God" had long been attached to her, the laity in Constantinople complained against the priest. Rather than repudiating the priest’s words, Nestorius publicly took up the argument himself. Nestorius argued that St Mary was neither “Mother of Man" nor “Mother of God" as these referred to Christ's two natures; rather, he said the Virgin was the “Mother of Christ". Christ, according to Nestorius, was the conjunction of the Godhead with his “temple" (the word Nestorius used when speaking of Christ’s human nature). The controversy centered on the issue of Christ’s suffering at the time of His crucifixion. Cyril maintained that the Son of God or the divine Word, truly suffered “in the flesh." However, Nestorius claimed that God was incapable of suffering, even in His union with is human nature. At Easter AD 429, Cyril wrote a letter to the monks of Egypt warning them of Nestorius' views. A copy of this letter reached Constantinople where Nestorius preached a sermon against it. This began a series of letters between Cyril and Nestorius which gradually became more strident in tone. Finally, Emperor Theodosius II convoked a synod in Ephesus to resolve the dispute. Cyril and his supporters started and concluded the Council of Ephesus (in 431) before Nestorius and his supporters arrived; predictably, the Council ordered the deposition and exile of Nestorius.
However, when John of Antioch and the other pro-Nestorian bishops reached Ephesus, they assembled their own Council, condemned Cyril for heresy, deposed him from his see, and labelled him as a monster, born and educated for the destruction of the church. The Emperor Theodosius annulled the verdict of both Councils and ordered the arrest of both Cyril and Nestorius, but Cyril escaped and returned to Egypt. When lay people and monks supportive of Cyril rioted near the Emperor’s palace, shouting imperial abuses, the Emperor gave in, exiled Nestorius and officially restored Cyril. It was enough controversy to last Cyril a lifetime—he devoted the rest of his life to administering his diocese, preaching and writing theology. St Cyril died in AD 444.
Cyril was a scholar of renown and a prolific writer. In the years prior to becoming Archbishop, he wrote several commentaries on Scripture and books of theology. Among these were: Commentaries on the Old Testament, Discourse Against Arians, Commentary on St. John's Gospel, and Dialogues on the Trinity. In 429, as the Christological controversies accelerated, the sheer volume of writings and the profundity of thought which they revealed was such that no opponent could adequately answer. His writings and theology have won him a place of honor among the Fathers of the Church and to this day continue to define Christological orthodoxy.
Though St Cyril is listed on the Western calendar of saints for February 9, he died on June 27, and his feast is celebrated by the Coptic Orthodox Church on that date.
St Scholastica-February 10
St Scholastica, the twin sister of St Benedict of Nursia (the founder of the Benedictine Order and father of Western Christian monasticism), was born in the Umbrian region of central Italy in AD 480. All our knowledge of the saint comes from a single source, the Dialogues of Pope St Gregory the Great, written about AD 590.
St Gregory says that from her youth, Scholastica was of a pious disposition; she asked her father to allow her to pursue a monastic life when she came to marriageable age, and he granted her wish. Scholastica lived in a convent near Rome until her brother founded the famous abbey of Monte Casino at Subiaco. Once Benedict established the new monastery, Scholastica moved with a group of nuns to nearby Plombariola and built a convent there.
The two saints met once a year and spent the day together in worship and discussing the spiritual life. Because the Rule of the monastery did not allow women on the grounds (nor did Scholastica’s convent allow men to enter), the two would meet at some conveniently located house between the two for their annual visit.
One year at the end of the day, they had supper and continued their conversation. When Benedict indicated it was time for him to leave, she protested, and begged him to stay with her for the evening so they could continue their discussions. He refused, insisting that he needed to return to his cell. At that point, Scholastica closed her hands in prayer, and after a moment, a wild storm started outside of the guest house in which they were staying. Benedict said, “God forgive you, what have you done?" to which she replied, “I asked you and you would not listen; so I asked God and he did. Now go off, if you can, and return to your monastery." The storm continued so violently that Benedict was unable to leave; they spent the night in discussion. According to St Gregory, three days later, from his cell, St Benedict saw his sister's soul leaving the earth and ascending to heaven in the form of a shining white dove.
This was in AD 543. She was buried in a grave St Benedict intended for himself; at his death his body was placed with hers in the tomb.
Her memorial is 10 February. St Scholastica is the patron saint of nuns, convulsive children, and is invoked against storms and rain.
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St Ignatius of Antioch-February 1
St Ignatius of Antioch (also known as Theophorus, Greek for “God-bearer") was born about AD 30 and holds a position of high esteem among those early Christian writers known as the “Apostolic Fathers.” St Ignatius was the third Bishop of Antioch, and was a student (along with his friend, St Polycarp, whose feast day we celebrated last week) of St John the Apostle and Evangelist. Shortly after the year AD 90, he was sentenced to death and ordered to be shipped to the Coliseum in Rome where, as he said, he was “to contend with the wild beasts.” En route to his martyrdom, Ignatius wrote a series of letters which have been preserved as an example of very early Christian theology. Important topics addressed in these letters include the nature of the Church, the sacraments, and the role of bishops.
According to early Christian historians, St Ignatius was appointed by St Peter the Apostle to be the Bishop of Antioch after the death of St Evodius in about AD 65. Ignatius was said to be one of the children the Lord Jesus took in His arms and blessed. By all accounts, St Ignatius was brought up firmly ensconced in the life of the earliest generation of Christians.
Seven letters of St Ignatius survive and are still much-read by theologians today. Some of the best-known quotations from his letters are:
“Where the bishop appears [to celebrate the Eucharist], there let the people gather; just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.”
“Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God, and with the priests in the place of the council of the apostles, and with the deacons, who are most dear to me, entrusted with the business of Jesus Christ, Who was with the Father from the beginning and in these last days has been made manifest to us.”
“Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God…They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again…”
The most famous of the saint’s quotes, though, is the one wherein he discusses his upcoming martyrdom:
“I am writing to all the Churches and I enjoin all, that I am dying willingly for God's sake, if only you do nothing to prevent it. I beg you, do not do me an untimely kindness. Allow me to be eaten by the beasts, which are my way of reaching God. I am God's wheat, and I am to be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, so that I may become the pure bread of Christ.”
St Ignatius did indeed meet the “wild beasts” and his martyrdom, at the Flavian Coliseum in Rome.
St Blaise of Sebaste—February 3
Saint Blaise was a physician, and bishop of Sebaste, Armenia (now Sivas, Turkey). According to his biography, he was martyred by being beaten, attacked with iron carding combs, and beheaded. He is known as San Biagio in Italy, San Blas in Spain and was called St Blazey in medieval England.
The following story of his martyrdom is taken from an ancient account:
“Blaise, who had studied philosophy and medicine in his youth, was a doctor in Sebaste in Armenia, the city of his birth, who exercised his art with great skill, good-will, and piety. When the bishop of the city died, he was chosen to succeed him, by the acclamation of all the people. His holiness was manifest through his care for those distressed in either body or spirit. In 311, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, having arrived in Sebaste at the order of the Emperor Licinius to eradicate the Christians, arrested the bishop. As he was being led to prison, a mother set her only son, choking to death of a fish-bone, at his feet, and the child was cured straight away. Agricola, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, had him beaten him with clubs, his flesh torn with iron combs, and finally, seeing the bishop insisted on clinging to his faith in Jesus Christ, ordered him beheaded.”
In iconography, St Blaise is often shown with the instruments of his martyrdom, steel combs. The similarity of these instruments of torture to wool combs led to his adoption as the patron saint of wool combers in particular, and the wool trade in general. He may also be depicted with crossed candles, such as are used for the blessing of throats on his feast day. St Blaise is traditionally said to intercede in cases of throat illnesses, especially for fish-bones stuck in the throat!
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St Vincent of Saragosa-January 22
Saint Vincent of Saragosa is the patron saint of Lisbon, Portugal. His feast day is 22 January in the Western Churches and 11 November in the Eastern Orthodox Churches. He was born at Huesca, Spain and was martyred under the Emperor Diocletian around AD 304.
Vincent served as the deacon of Valerius of Saragosa, the city's bishop. Imprisoned in Valencia for his faith, and tortured on a gridiron before his death, Vincent converted his jailer. Though he was offered release if he would consign the Scriptures to the fire, Vincent refused.
The earliest account of St Vincent's martyrdom is in a carmen (lyric poem) written by the Christian poet Prudentius in the fifth century. He wrote a series of these carmina, titled the Peristephanon (“Crowns of Martyrdom”), on Spanish and Roman martyrs. Prudentius says that Vincent was brought to trial along with Bishop Valerius, and since Valerius had a speech impediment, Vincent spoke for both. His outspoken fearlessness so angered the governor that Vincent was tortured and martyred, though his aged bishop was only exiled.
Christians recovered his body and buried him at a place now known as Cape St. Vincent. Within a few decades, a shrine was built over his grave, which was said to be constantly guarded by flocks of ravens. Centuries later, during the time of Muslim rule in the Iberian Peninsula, the Arab geographer Al-Idrisi noted this constant “raven-guard” over the saint’s shrine and he called the place the Church of the Ravens. St Augustine, the great Bishop of Hippo, preached a sermon in honor of St Vincent every year on the anniversary of his death. In the twelfth century the body of the saint was exhumed and transferred to the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon, where it still remains. This transfer of his relics is depicted on the coat of arms of Lisbon today. Vincent is the patron of Portugal, of vintners and (!) vinegar makers. In art he is often depicted in deacon’s vestments, holding a copy of the Bible he refused to surrender.
The Feast of the Conversion of St Paul-January 25
This feast is celebrated by Christians world-wide, in both Eastern and Western Christianity, on January 25.
The feast commemorates the miraculous conversion of St Paul which took place on the road to Damascus, about AD 36. St Paul, whose name was originally Saul, was a zealous Jew and persecutor of the earliest Christians—those Jews who acknowledged Jesus Christ as the promised Messiah.
There are numerous references in the New Testament to St Paul’s conversion: three in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 9.3-9; Acts 22.6-21; Acts 26,12-18) and several others scattered through his various epistles (First Corinthians 9.1; 15.3-8; Galatians 1.11-16). He describes how the Lord Jesus appeared to him and personally called Saul to follow Him. St Paul was to spend the rest of his life doing that very thing, preaching the Gospel and establishing churches throughout the Mediterranean world.
The saint was beheaded in Rome in AD 66, during the persecution of Nero. He is depicted in art holding a book of his epistles and a sword, the symbol of his martyrdom.
St John Chrysostom-January 27
St John Chrysostom (AD 349–407), Archbishop of Constantinople, was known for his eloquent preaching, denunciation of abuses both by Church and State and his life of stern self-discipline. His feast is celebrated by both Eastern and Western Christians on January 27.
St John was born and educated in Antioch; he attained distinction as a scholar and speaker in his secular studies, where he seemed destined for a career in the law. However, following his baptism in AD 368, he began a monastic existence and forsook the pursuits of the world. During his years as a hermit, he committed most of the Bible to memory and devoted himself to works of charity. In AD 381, he was ordained to the priesthood by the Archbishop of Antioch and served as a preacher and teacher in the cathedral church of the city. His sermons were practical expositions of Christian life and doctrine, with much emphasis laid on the necessity of an inward life of piety combined with outward works of charity. He said:
“Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not ignore Him when He is naked. Do not pay Him homage in the temple clad in silk, only then to neglect Him where He is cold and ill-clad. He Who said: "This is My body" is the same Who said: "You saw Me hungry and you gave Me no food," and "Whatever you did to the least of My brothers you did also to Me"... What good is it if the Eucharistic table is overloaded with golden chalices when your brother is dying of hunger? Start by satisfying his hunger and then with what is left you may adorn the altar.”
His straightforward understanding of the Scriptures was reflected in his sermons, which were practical explanations on how the Bible applied to everyday life. Such straightforward preaching helped Chrysostom to garner popular support for his charitable work. He founded a series of hospitals in Constantinople to care for the poor and ill.
In AD 398, St John was consecrated Archbishop of Constantinople, though he several times asked for his appointment to be rescinded. He deplored the fact that Imperial court protocol would now assign him privileges greater than the highest state officials. He longed to return to the monastic life of prayer and asceticism, but it was denied him. During his time as archbishop, St John refused to host or attend lavish social gatherings, and ordered the clergy to do the same. They were to stay in their assigned churches to celebrate and administer the sacraments, care for their flocks, and teach the Faith.
John made an enemy in Aelia Eudoxia, the wife of the Emperor, who assumed (with justification) that his denunciations of the extravagance in feminine dress, the excesses of the life at the imperial court and the greediness and corruption of public officials were aimed at her and the leading members of the imperial court.
An alliance was formed against him by the Empress and his ecclesiastical opponents. They held a synod in 403 (the Synod of the Oak) to remove John. St John was arrested but, the night of his arrest, a violent earthquake shook the imperial city and people rioted for the release of the popular archbishop. He was released but his freedom was short-lived. When the empress had a silver statue of herself erected opposite the etrance to the cathedral, the archbishop denounced it. He was arrested and exiled to Armenia. He never reached this destination: he died during the journey. St John’s last words were, “Glory be to God for all things.”
After his death he was given the Greek surname chrysostomos, meaning “golden mouthed" because of his eloquence.
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