June 25 Saint William of Vercelli, Abbot, Founder

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2 910Jun 25, 2015

June 25 Saint William of Vercelli, Abbot, Founder.

(† 1142) Saint William of Monte Vergine, born in Vercelli, a city of Lombardy, lost his father and mother in his infancy and was brought up by a relative in great sentiments of piety. At fifteen years of age, having an earnest desire to lead a penitential life, he left his native region and made a long and austere pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin founded by Saint James at Saragossa. He would have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but God made known to him that he was calling him to a solitary life, and he retired into the kingdom of Naples. There he chose for his abode an uninhabited mountain, and lived in perpetual contemplation and the exercises of rigorous penitential austerities.
After a miracle of healing wrought by his prayers, he was discovered and his contemplation interrupted, so he decided to move to another mountain, where he built a very beautiful church in honor of Our Lady. With several former secular priests who joined him there, in 1119 he began the establishment of the Congregation of Monte Vergine, or Mount of the Virgin. This site is between Nola and Benevento in the same kingdom of Naples. These sons of Our Lady lived in great austerity. Seeing the progress in holiness of the good religious being formed there, the devil sowed division and criticism; but God drew good from the evil when Saint William went elsewhere and founded several more monasteries, both for men and women, in various places in the kingdom of Naples. He assisted the king of Naples, who greatly venerated him, to practice all the Christian virtues of a worthy sovereign, and the king in gratitude had a house of the Order built at Salerno opposite his palace, to have him near him more often.
When Saint William died on the 25th of June, 1142, he had not yet written a Rule for his religious; his second successor, Robert, fearing the dissolution of a community without constitutions, placed them under that of Saint Benedict, and is regarded as the first abbot of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte-Vergine. A portrait of the Virgin venerated there has been an unfailing source of holy compunction; pilgrims continue to visit it.

Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 7; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler's Lives of the Saints, and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).

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Irapuato

Jun 25, 2015

Other Saints of the Day:
Our Lady of Grace
—
Adalbert of Egmond
Amand of Coly
Domingo Henares de Zafra Cubero
Dorothy of Montau
Eurosia of Jaca
Febronia of Nisibis
Gallicanus of Embrun
Gallicanus of Ostia
Guy Maramaldi
Henry Zdick
John the Spaniard
Luceias and Companions
Marie Lhuilier
Maximus of Turin
Moloc of Mortlach
Molonachus of Lismore
Phanxicô Ðo Van Chieu
Prosper of Reggio
Selyf of …More

Irapuato

Jun 25, 2015

Thursday of the Twelfth week in Ordinary Time

Book of Genesis 16:1-12.15-16.
Abram's wife Sarai had borne him no children. She had, however, an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar.
Sarai said to Abram: "The LORD has kept me from bearing children. Have intercourse, then, with my maid; perhaps I shall have sons through her." Abram heeded Sarai's request.
Thus, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, his wife Sarai took her maid, Hagar the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his concubine.
He had intercourse with her, and she became pregnant. When she became aware of her pregnancy, she looked on her mistress with disdain.
So Sarai said to Abram: "You are responsible for this outrage against me. I myself gave my maid to your embrace; but ever since she became aware of her pregnancy, she has been looking on me with disdain. May the LORD decide between you and me!"
Abram told Sarai: "Your maid is in your power. Do to her whatever you please." Sarai then abused her so much that Hagar ran away from her.
The LORD'S messenger found her by a spring in the wilderness, the spring on the road to Shur,
and he asked, "Hagar, maid of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She answered, "I am running away from my mistress, Sarai."
But the LORD'S messenger told her: "Go back to your mistress and submit to her abusive treatment.
I will make your descendants so numerous," added the LORD'S messenger, "that they will be too many to count.
Besides," the LORD'S messenger said to her: "You are now pregnant and shall bear a son; you shall name him Ishmael, For the LORD has heard you, God has answered you.
He shall be a wild ass of a man, his hand against everyone, and everyone's hand against him; In opposition to all his kin shall he encamp."
Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram named the son whom Hagar bore him Ishmael.
Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael.

Psalms 106(105):1-2.3-4a.4b-5.
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Who can tell the mighty deeds of the LORD,
or proclaim all his praises?

Blessed are they who observe what is right,
who do always what is just.
Remember us, O LORD, as you favor your people.

Visit me with your saving help,
that I may see the prosperity of your chosen ones,
rejoice in the joy of your people,
and glory with your inheritance.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 7:21-29.
Jesus said to his disciples: "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not drive out demons in your name? Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?'
Then I will declare to them solemnly, 'I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.'
Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock.
And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined."
When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching,
for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes."

Commentary of the day : Philoxenes of Mabbug
“Awake, O sleeper!” (Eph 5:14)

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