Stigmata of Saint Francis Sep 17--uploaded by irapuato. bresk1 Stigmata of Saint Francis Sep 17More
Stigmata of Saint Francis Sep 17--uploaded by irapuato.
bresk1 Stigmata of Saint Francis Sep 17
bresk1 Stigmata of Saint Francis Sep 17
The STIGMATA
of SAINT FRANCIS
(†1224)
Saint Bonaventure, biographer of Saint Francis of Assisi, wrote that two years before his holy death he had been praying on Mount Alverno in a solitary retreat, where he had gone to fast for forty days in honor of the Archangel Michael. No one ever meditated more than Francis on the Passion of his Lord. During his retreat he beheld in vision a six-winged Seraph …More
The STIGMATA
of SAINT FRANCIS
(†1224)
Saint Bonaventure, biographer of Saint Francis of Assisi, wrote that two years before his holy death he had been praying on Mount Alverno in a solitary retreat, where he had gone to fast for forty days in honor of the Archangel Michael. No one ever meditated more than Francis on the Passion of his Lord. During his retreat he beheld in vision a six-winged Seraph attached to a cross, and received at the same time a painful wound of the heart, which seemed to transpierce it. When the vision ended his own hands and feet bore the marks of the angelic crucifixion which he had seen in the vision. He understood by his vision that the soul must come to resemble Christ by the ardors of its interior fire, rather than by any physical, exterior means. We reproduce here a meditation of the saintly 19th century Abbot, Dom Guéranger of Solemnes in France:
“The Feast of the Stigmata of Saint Francis, whom we will soon honor again on his feast of October 4th, is not only to glorify a Saint; it commemorates and signifies something which goes beyond the life of any single man, even one of the greatest of the Church. The God-Man never ceases to live on in His Church, and the reproduction of His own mysteries in this Spouse whom He wants to be similar to Himself, is the explanation of history.
“In the thirteenth century it seemed that charity, whose divine precept many no longer heeded, concentrated in a few souls the fires which had once sufficed to inflame multitudes. Sanctity shone as brilliantly as ever, but the hour for the cooling of the brazier had struck for the peoples. The Church itself says so today in its liturgy, at the Collect: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, when the world was growing cold, You reproduced the sacred marks of Your passion in the body of the most blessed Francis, in order that Your love might also set our hearts afire.’ The Spouse of Christ had already begun to experience the long series of social defections among the nations, with their denials, treasons, derision, slaps, spittings in the very praetorium, all of which conclude in the legalized separation of society from its Author. The era of the Passion is advanced; the exaltation of the Holy Cross, which for centuries was triumphant in the eyes of the nations, acquires in the sight of heaven, as the Angels look down upon it, the aspect of an ever closer resemblance with the Spouse to the sufferings of her crucified Beloved.
“Saint Francis, loved today by all who know of him — and few there are who do not — was like precious marble placed before an expert sculptor. The Holy Spirit chose the flesh of the seraph of Assisi to express His divine thought, thus manifesting to the world the very specific direction He intends to give to souls thereafter. This stigmatization offers a first example, a complete image, of the new labor the divine Spirit is meditating — total union, on the very Cross of Christ itself, of the mystical Body with the divine Head. Francis is the one honored by this primacy of choice; but after him the sacred sign will be received by others, who also personify the Church. From this time on, the Stigmata of the Lord Jesus will be at all times visible, here and there on this earth.”
Source: L’Année liturgique, by Dom Prosper Guéranger (Mame et Fils: Tours, 1919), “The Time after Pentecost V”, Vol. 14, translation O.D.M.
SAINT LAMBERT
Bishop of Maestricht, Martyr
(640-705)
Saint Lambert, born about 640, was a native of Maestricht, the son of illustrious Christians; his noble father entrusted his education to the holy Bishop Saint Theodard. As a young man he wrought miracles, one day bringing forth a spring to quench the thirst of some workers building a church, and in this way he became known to all the city. When Saint Theodard was assassinated in the defense of the possessions of the church, Lambert was chosen by the people, at the age of only 21 years, to be his successor. He taught his flock the maxims of the Gospel and reproved vice with an apostolic liberty. His soul was perfectly nourished by grace and was totally dead to all earthly pleasures; his hands were open to distribute alms, his arms to receive those who were suffering, and his heart to take pity on the afflicted.
A revolution broke out a few years later and overturned the kingdom of Austrasia; our Saint was banished from his see because of his devotion to the former sovereign. He retired to the monastery of Stavelo, where the observance was very regular, and there he obeyed the rule as strictly as the youngest novice.
One incident will suffice to show with how perfect a sacrifice of himself he devoted his heart to serving God. As he was rising one night in winter to attend to his private devotions, he happened to let fall a wooden sandal. The Abbot, without asking who had caused the noise, gave orders that the offender go and pray before the cross which stood before the church door. Lambert, without any answer, went out into the court as he was, barefooted and covered only with his hair shirt; and in this condition he prayed for several hours, forgotten as he knelt before the cross. Finally, when they noticed the holy bishop there, covered with snow, the Abbot and the monks fell to their knees, and asked his pardon. “God forgive you,” he said, “for thinking you stand in need of pardon for this action. As for myself, is it not in cold and nakedness that, according to Saint Paul, I am to discipline my flesh and serve God?”
After seven years in the monastery he was recalled to his see. Although Saint Lambert had been personally enriched in the peace of his holy retirement, he had wept and continued to weep at seeing the majority of the churches of France laid waste. His zeal in denouncing the manifold and notorious disorders existing in his diocese, led to his assassination, brought about like that of Saint John the Baptist, by an unfortunate woman. She had led the king to repudiate his wife and enter publicly upon a scandalous life. Saint Lambert was slain by the sword in his house, on the 17th of December, 705.
magnificat.ca/cal/engl/09-17.htm
of SAINT FRANCIS
(†1224)
Saint Bonaventure, biographer of Saint Francis of Assisi, wrote that two years before his holy death he had been praying on Mount Alverno in a solitary retreat, where he had gone to fast for forty days in honor of the Archangel Michael. No one ever meditated more than Francis on the Passion of his Lord. During his retreat he beheld in vision a six-winged Seraph attached to a cross, and received at the same time a painful wound of the heart, which seemed to transpierce it. When the vision ended his own hands and feet bore the marks of the angelic crucifixion which he had seen in the vision. He understood by his vision that the soul must come to resemble Christ by the ardors of its interior fire, rather than by any physical, exterior means. We reproduce here a meditation of the saintly 19th century Abbot, Dom Guéranger of Solemnes in France:
“The Feast of the Stigmata of Saint Francis, whom we will soon honor again on his feast of October 4th, is not only to glorify a Saint; it commemorates and signifies something which goes beyond the life of any single man, even one of the greatest of the Church. The God-Man never ceases to live on in His Church, and the reproduction of His own mysteries in this Spouse whom He wants to be similar to Himself, is the explanation of history.
“In the thirteenth century it seemed that charity, whose divine precept many no longer heeded, concentrated in a few souls the fires which had once sufficed to inflame multitudes. Sanctity shone as brilliantly as ever, but the hour for the cooling of the brazier had struck for the peoples. The Church itself says so today in its liturgy, at the Collect: ‘Lord Jesus Christ, when the world was growing cold, You reproduced the sacred marks of Your passion in the body of the most blessed Francis, in order that Your love might also set our hearts afire.’ The Spouse of Christ had already begun to experience the long series of social defections among the nations, with their denials, treasons, derision, slaps, spittings in the very praetorium, all of which conclude in the legalized separation of society from its Author. The era of the Passion is advanced; the exaltation of the Holy Cross, which for centuries was triumphant in the eyes of the nations, acquires in the sight of heaven, as the Angels look down upon it, the aspect of an ever closer resemblance with the Spouse to the sufferings of her crucified Beloved.
“Saint Francis, loved today by all who know of him — and few there are who do not — was like precious marble placed before an expert sculptor. The Holy Spirit chose the flesh of the seraph of Assisi to express His divine thought, thus manifesting to the world the very specific direction He intends to give to souls thereafter. This stigmatization offers a first example, a complete image, of the new labor the divine Spirit is meditating — total union, on the very Cross of Christ itself, of the mystical Body with the divine Head. Francis is the one honored by this primacy of choice; but after him the sacred sign will be received by others, who also personify the Church. From this time on, the Stigmata of the Lord Jesus will be at all times visible, here and there on this earth.”
Source: L’Année liturgique, by Dom Prosper Guéranger (Mame et Fils: Tours, 1919), “The Time after Pentecost V”, Vol. 14, translation O.D.M.
SAINT LAMBERT
Bishop of Maestricht, Martyr
(640-705)
Saint Lambert, born about 640, was a native of Maestricht, the son of illustrious Christians; his noble father entrusted his education to the holy Bishop Saint Theodard. As a young man he wrought miracles, one day bringing forth a spring to quench the thirst of some workers building a church, and in this way he became known to all the city. When Saint Theodard was assassinated in the defense of the possessions of the church, Lambert was chosen by the people, at the age of only 21 years, to be his successor. He taught his flock the maxims of the Gospel and reproved vice with an apostolic liberty. His soul was perfectly nourished by grace and was totally dead to all earthly pleasures; his hands were open to distribute alms, his arms to receive those who were suffering, and his heart to take pity on the afflicted.
A revolution broke out a few years later and overturned the kingdom of Austrasia; our Saint was banished from his see because of his devotion to the former sovereign. He retired to the monastery of Stavelo, where the observance was very regular, and there he obeyed the rule as strictly as the youngest novice.
One incident will suffice to show with how perfect a sacrifice of himself he devoted his heart to serving God. As he was rising one night in winter to attend to his private devotions, he happened to let fall a wooden sandal. The Abbot, without asking who had caused the noise, gave orders that the offender go and pray before the cross which stood before the church door. Lambert, without any answer, went out into the court as he was, barefooted and covered only with his hair shirt; and in this condition he prayed for several hours, forgotten as he knelt before the cross. Finally, when they noticed the holy bishop there, covered with snow, the Abbot and the monks fell to their knees, and asked his pardon. “God forgive you,” he said, “for thinking you stand in need of pardon for this action. As for myself, is it not in cold and nakedness that, according to Saint Paul, I am to discipline my flesh and serve God?”
After seven years in the monastery he was recalled to his see. Although Saint Lambert had been personally enriched in the peace of his holy retirement, he had wept and continued to weep at seeing the majority of the churches of France laid waste. His zeal in denouncing the manifold and notorious disorders existing in his diocese, led to his assassination, brought about like that of Saint John the Baptist, by an unfortunate woman. She had led the king to repudiate his wife and enter publicly upon a scandalous life. Saint Lambert was slain by the sword in his house, on the 17th of December, 705.
magnificat.ca/cal/engl/09-17.htm