Guercino  (1591–1666): St. Paul the Hermit Fed by the Raven

"To escape the persecution of Decius and Valerian, he went into the desert at the age of fifteen. Pray for the light of heaven, that you may seriously consider the persecution you are under. Ill company is a persecution; evil habits are a persecution; pride, vanity, the love of yourself and the world, are a persecution; all your violent passions and perverse inclinations are a persecution. Compare these with your ordinary weakness; and see whether you have not reason to think yourself in danger. Why not then resolve to withdraw, for your own security? There is no need of finding a desert, the world may be a solitude to you, if you are but resolute enough to separate yourself from the unnecessary dangers of it. These you too often create to yourself, in favor of your sensuality, pride and self-love. Pray for grace truly to discern, and then to overcome them.

Saint Hilaire, peint par Pierre-Floréal Crémière

• The Church is the Ship outside which it is impossible to understand the Divine Word, for Jesus spoke from the boat to the people gathered on the shore.
• The utter folly of our time is lamentable, that men should think to assist God with human help and to protect the Church of Christ by worldly ambition.

"He was of a most illustrious family in Gaul, and brought up in idolatry. But by the divine grace he was happily converted to the Christian faith; and from his baptism led a life of eminent zeal and piety. He had lived with so much regularity in a conjugal state, that for his extraordinary virtues he was made choice of to be bishop of the diocese wherein he lived. Pray for all who have the care of families: they have the charge of them under God, being his vicegerents, and must give an account of all the disorders, whether in children or servants, which are occasioned by their ill example or neglect. How few families are to be found, in which Christian discipline and order are observed! Those who should give the example, are irregular themselves; and then what becomes of those who are under their charge? Spare not your prayers on a subject which demands your tears; and if you have any part in this duty, pray that you may be faithful in it. Beg pardon for past errors, and take effectual care to amend. Think not your charge small: weigh it in all its particulars, and you will find it very great.

St. Hilary, being made bishop, applied himself wholly to the discharge of his duty. He stood resolutely against the enemies of the Christian faith, by preaching, writing, and disputing, and opposed the then prevailing errors of the Arians. Pray for the extirpation of all errors, especially that of the Arians. Pray for all the bishops of Christ's Church; that in their piety, vigilance, and zeal, they may follow the example of this saint in reforming all abuses destructive of faith and a good life. Do your part in being an advocate for truth by your good example.

St. Hilary died in the year 368. He is styled by St. Augustin, "the illustrious doctor of the Churches :" and St. Jerome says that he was a "most eloquent man, and the trumpet of the Latins against the Arians." Recommend yourself and all belonging to you on this his festival to his holy intercession." The Catholic Year by Rev. Fr. John Gother

DEATH RATHER THAN SIN.--The emperors Valerian and Gallianus raised against the Church a persecution so violent that the Christians for a time deemed that the reign of Antichrist had come. The persecution began in the year 259, and lasted three years and a half; it is reckoned as the eighth general persecution. The number of persons of every age and condition who preferred death to apostasy cannot be computed: the East, the West, Africa, and the world at large, were deluged with Christian blood; there were isolated slaughterings, as well as general massacres. The Martyrology mentions, on the 13th of January, the forty soldiers who suffered death on the same day, in these terms:-"At Rome, the triumph of the forty blessed soldiers who deserved to bear off the crown of martyrdom for their profession of faith, in the Lavinian Way, under the reign of Gallianus."

MORAL REFLECTION.-The abject spirits that have apostatized in order to save their lives are sighing away in utter darkness. The generous Christian souls that preferred death are dwelling with God in His glory. "For he that will save his life shall lose it, and he that shall lose his life for my sake, shall find it," saith Jesus Christ. -(Matt. xvi. 25.)

 

Saint Arcadius

FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES.-At the time of Valerian's persecution, about the year 257, a Christian of Cæsarea, named Arcadius, illustrious for his birth and riches, had betaken himself to flight, so as to avoid the risk of suffering; but on learning that one of his relatives had offered himself in his stead, he was deeply touched by such unwonted generosity, reproached himself as a coward, and returned to surrender himself to the judge who was to consign him to death. Unable to induce him by the most enticing promises or the most terrible threats to apostatize from the Christian religion, the judge condemned him to have his limbs amputated one after the other until death should put a term to his sufferings. Arcadius endured this protracted martyrdom with a constancy so marvellous, that the judge, tired out at last, ordered the executioners to end their cruelty by disembowelling the victim. Arcadius continued to pray for his tormentors: "My God, forgive them, they know not what they do!"

MORAL REFLECTION. -This is the example given by Jesus Christ upon the cross, and by St. Stephen while he was being stoned. Let us not lose sight of this injunction of the Divine Master: "Pray for those that hate you and persecute you." "Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven."-(Matt. v. 44. Luke vi. 37.)

Saint Theodosius

BE MINDFUL OF DEATH.-Theodosius was born in Cappadocia towards the year 423, and was brought up in sentiments of tender piety. He first devoted himself to the priestly state; but feeling afterwards called to contemplation and retirement, he adopted the life of a cœnobite. His humility failed to hide from the eyes of the world at large the splendour of his sanctity; and a great throng of persons of every age having assembled round his cell, he withdrew into a solitude more retired still, with the intent to remain unknown to men. A few companions went to join him, and subsequently numerous disciples followed; so that he saw himself obliged to found a new monastery; for his charity exceeded all bounds. He never refused to receive any one, nor denied anything to any one. He often expended the last resources of the monastery in favour of strangers, pilgrims, and the poor. The thought ever-present to his mind was that of death; the first advice which he offered to his disciples was to prepare to die. Despite his great austerities and labours, his life was prolonged to the age of 106.

MORAL REFLECTION.-The Holy Spirit has told us by the lips of the Wise Man, "Have ever before thy eyes the remembrance of thy last end, and thou shalt never sin."-(Eccles. vii. 40.) (Pictorial half hours with the saints, by Abbe Auguste François Lecanu)

Saint Guillaume de Bourges

DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. St. William, archbishop of Bourges, is chiefly remarkable for his fervent devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. The tender piety which he practised from early youth led him to renounce the great wealth and rank which he might have enjoyed in the world. Having embraced the ecclesiastical state, he was made a canon of Soissons and, subsequently, of Paris. He afterwards entered the order of Grammont, and eventually that of Citeaux, whence he was drawn, against his will, to be raised to the archiepiscopal see of Bourges. His elevation to this high position caused his piety to shine forth more strikingly, and at the same time enabled him to display the treasure of zeal and charity that filled his soul, for the solacing of the unfortunate and the conversion of sinners. He was wont to style the poor "his creditors," and never deemed himself out of debt to them till he had not the wherewithal to give. St. William died on the 10th of January, 1209, after having addressed his flock from the pulpit, prophetic words of farewell.

MORAL REFLECTION. -Devotion to the Blessed Sacrament is the virtue of the predestined. "He who shall eat of this bread, shall live for ever," saith Jesus Christ.-(John vi. 59.) (Pictorial half hours with the saints By Abbe Auguste François Lecanu)

Saint Julian the Hospitaller with Christ the Redeemer (1451) by Andrea del Castagno

ALMSGIVING.--St. Julian had dedicated himself to God; but being compelled to marry in order to content his family, he was careful to inspire his young spouse, Basilissa, with an esteem for the virtue of continence equal to that which possessed his own soul, and on the day of their union they both pronounced the vow of which Mary and Joseph had given the example. They superadded a vow to devote both their life and property to the comforting of pilgrims, of the poor and the sick, and turned their abode into a hospital, becoming the first ministering servants thereof. Such great charity and devotion could not fail to attract the attention of the persecutors of the Christian faith. Basilissa was the first who had to encounter the ordeal; but she outlived the trial, and died peacefully in the midst of her good works. Julian, being denounced in his turn, underwent martyrdom some years afterwards, at Antioch, with many confessors of the faith, on the 9th day of January, 313. A miraculous cure effected by him at the very moment when he was to suffer failed to bend the minds of his judges, and he was beheaded.

MORAL REFLECTION.-In imitation of the holy martyr, we should know how to put in practice the injunction of the prophet Daniel, "Redeem your sins by almsgiving, and your iniquities by mercy to the poor."-(Dan. iv. 24.) (Pictorial half hours with the saints. by abbe Auguste François Lecanu)

  

Severin von Noricum, 1470

DO PENANCE. -St. Severinus quitted the solitudes of the East, where he had been devoting himself to the exercises of the cœnobitic life, in order to evangelize the population of Norica, a province which comprised the greater part of Austria and the Tyrol. He at first encountered great resistance, but soon effected wonders of conversion, as well by reason of his humble and mortified life, as because he announced to his hearers the calamities wherewith the rebellious nations would be afflicted. "Do penance," exclaimed he: "sin is the cause of all the woes that God scatters upon the earth!" Before consenting to pray for those who were afflicted, and before releasing them from their infirmities, he required that they should do penance. His own life showed forth the constant example thereof. He foretold to Odoacer, king of the Herules, that he was to lay waste Italy, by way of punishment for its crimes; and the prophecy was amply verified. Hence kings and nations and rulers ended by holding him in singular veneration, regarding him as the envoy of Heaven. He yielded up his spirit on the 8th January, 482.

MORAL REFLECTION. -If not out of tenderness towards God, let us, at least from charity for ourselves, repair our past guilt, and avoid committing fresh offences; for, "As by one man sin entered into the world, so death passes by sin."-(Rom. v. 12.)

THE STUDY OF THE SACRED SCRIPTURES . -St. Lucian, who suffered martyrdom at Nicomedia, in 312, was a native of Samosata. Having been invested from early youth with full power of disposing of his worldly goods, he distributed them to the poor, and withdrew to Edessa, to live near a holy man, called Macarius, who imbued his mind with a knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, and led him to the practice of the Christian virtues. Having become a priest, his time was divided between the external duties of his holy state, the performance of works of charity, and the study of sacred literature. He revised the books of the Old and New Testament, expunging the errors which, through the negligence of copyists or the malice of heretics, had been insinuated into the text; thus preparing the way for the learned St. Jerome, who shortly after was to give to the world that Latin translation known as "The Vulgate." Having been denounced as a Christian, Lucian was put in chains and condemned to the torture, which was protracted for twelve whole days. Having been visited by Christians while in prison on the day of the Epiphany, he had bread and wine brought to him, consecrated the elements, communicated, and with his dying lips pronounced the words, "I am a Christian!"

MORAL REFLECTION.-Let us strengthen ourselves by "reading" and meditating upon the Holy Scriptures, conformably with the counsel of the great Apostle.-(1 Tim. iv. 13.)" Pictorial Half Hour Saints by Abbe Auguste Lecanu