<![CDATA[The Catacombs - The Saints]]> https://thecatacombs.org/ Fri, 01 May 2026 12:48:27 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[St. Bernard of Clairvaux: ‘Mary Is the Aqueduct’]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8078 Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:52:37 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8078 ‘Mary Is the Aqueduct’
In Nat. BVM. Sermo de Aquaeductu
by St. Bernard of Clairvaux

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginal...cbd83b8a97]

TIA | March 14, 2026

In a sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Bernard (1090 - 1153) calls her the Aqueduct because she is the channel of all the graces Christ has gained for us as the Fountain of Life. St. Bernard of Clairvaux was a co-founder of the Cistercian Order and the Knights Templar.


Who is the Fountain of life, if not Christ the Lord? When Christ your life appears, Paul says, then you too will appear with Him in glory (Col 3:4). Surely, Fullness Itself has emptied Itself, so that righteousness might be accomplished for you, and sanctification, and forgiveness – a life not yet appearing, a glory, a joy.

The Fountain has been channeled all the way down to us, its waters have been channeled down among our streets – though the stranger may not drink of them (Prov 5: 16, 17). That heavenly stream of grace comes down through an Aqueduct, not yet displaying the abundance of its source, but spilling drops of grace on our parched hearts – more indeed to some, to others less. Full indeed is the Aqueduct, so that all may receive from its fullness, but it is not fullness itself.

You have already guessed, I think, whom I wish to call an Aqueduct. It is she who, receiving from the heart of the Father the fullness of the Fountain Itself, gave Him to us, if not as He is, at least according to our capacity. You know to whom it was said, Hail, full of grace! Or do we wonder that such an Aqueduct could have been found, whose top – truly like unto that ladder which the Patriarch Jacob saw – touches the Heavens (Gen 28:12), nay, climbs over the Heavens to tap that most lively Spring of the waters above the Heavens. …

Gaze, O man, on the purpose of God, see the counsel of His wisdom, the design of His mercy. To water the ground with dew from Heaven, He first drenched a fleece through and through. To redeem humankind, he lavished on Mary the ransom of all.

Gaze therefore more deeply, with as great a passion of devotion as He wanted her to win – He who set the fullness of all good in Mary, so that, if there is any hope in us, any grace, any salvation, we should know that it spills over from her who scales upward with down-flowing channels.

Surely, a garden of delights which that divine South Wind not only breathed on in passing, but brooding over breathed through and through, so that its sweet smells might flow and overflow – the gifts, that is, of her graces. Take away the sun that lights the world – and where is day? Take away Mary, this star of the sea, yes, of a wide and open sea – and what is left but a blanket of gloom, the shade of death, and thickest darkness? …

From our heart's core, then, with all our heart's affections, with all our prayers, let us revere this Mary; since such is His will, Who willed to possess us entirely through Mary. …

Whatever you are preparing to offer, remember to entrust it to Mary, so that – by that same Channel from which it flowed – grace may return to grace's Lavisher. God indeed was not impotent; therefore, you too allow grace to flow from this Aqueduct over you, according to the measure He wills for you; for He willed to provide this means of conveyance to you.]]> ‘Mary Is the Aqueduct’
In Nat. BVM. Sermo de Aquaeductu
by St. Bernard of Clairvaux

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginal...cbd83b8a97]

TIA | March 14, 2026

In a sermon on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Bernard (1090 - 1153) calls her the Aqueduct because she is the channel of all the graces Christ has gained for us as the Fountain of Life. St. Bernard of Clairvaux was a co-founder of the Cistercian Order and the Knights Templar.


Who is the Fountain of life, if not Christ the Lord? When Christ your life appears, Paul says, then you too will appear with Him in glory (Col 3:4). Surely, Fullness Itself has emptied Itself, so that righteousness might be accomplished for you, and sanctification, and forgiveness – a life not yet appearing, a glory, a joy.

The Fountain has been channeled all the way down to us, its waters have been channeled down among our streets – though the stranger may not drink of them (Prov 5: 16, 17). That heavenly stream of grace comes down through an Aqueduct, not yet displaying the abundance of its source, but spilling drops of grace on our parched hearts – more indeed to some, to others less. Full indeed is the Aqueduct, so that all may receive from its fullness, but it is not fullness itself.

You have already guessed, I think, whom I wish to call an Aqueduct. It is she who, receiving from the heart of the Father the fullness of the Fountain Itself, gave Him to us, if not as He is, at least according to our capacity. You know to whom it was said, Hail, full of grace! Or do we wonder that such an Aqueduct could have been found, whose top – truly like unto that ladder which the Patriarch Jacob saw – touches the Heavens (Gen 28:12), nay, climbs over the Heavens to tap that most lively Spring of the waters above the Heavens. …

Gaze, O man, on the purpose of God, see the counsel of His wisdom, the design of His mercy. To water the ground with dew from Heaven, He first drenched a fleece through and through. To redeem humankind, he lavished on Mary the ransom of all.

Gaze therefore more deeply, with as great a passion of devotion as He wanted her to win – He who set the fullness of all good in Mary, so that, if there is any hope in us, any grace, any salvation, we should know that it spills over from her who scales upward with down-flowing channels.

Surely, a garden of delights which that divine South Wind not only breathed on in passing, but brooding over breathed through and through, so that its sweet smells might flow and overflow – the gifts, that is, of her graces. Take away the sun that lights the world – and where is day? Take away Mary, this star of the sea, yes, of a wide and open sea – and what is left but a blanket of gloom, the shade of death, and thickest darkness? …

From our heart's core, then, with all our heart's affections, with all our prayers, let us revere this Mary; since such is His will, Who willed to possess us entirely through Mary. …

Whatever you are preparing to offer, remember to entrust it to Mary, so that – by that same Channel from which it flowed – grace may return to grace's Lavisher. God indeed was not impotent; therefore, you too allow grace to flow from this Aqueduct over you, according to the measure He wills for you; for He willed to provide this means of conveyance to you.]]> <![CDATA[St. Catherine of Siena: Dialogue about Perfection]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8039 Sun, 01 Mar 2026 13:43:50 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8039 Dialogue About Perfection
by Saint Catherine of Siena
 
Excerpt by Dominicans of Avrillé  | November 30, 2024

The Honor of God; The Misery and Fragility of Man;
The Need to Strive for Perfection

The Author of the light communicated to a soul1. He made her understand her fragility and misery, ignorance and natural inclination to evil; at the same time, He gave her some glimpses of the greatness of God, His wisdom, power, goodness, and the other attributes of His majesty.

Thus enlightened, this soul saw how just and necessary it is to render perfect and holy worship to God. It is just, because He is the universal Lord Who created all things to praise His name and obtain His glory. Do not propriety and justice require that, respectful of his master, the servant give him service and loyalty? It is necessary, because man, composed of body and soul, was created in such a condition that he will only attain eternal life by voluntarily rendering faithful service to God up to the point of death; otherwise, he will never obtain the felicity that accumulates all honors.

However, there are few who render this service and, consequently, few who are saved, because almost all have their own interests in mind and not those of God.

This soul also saw that the days of man are short, that the day is uncertain when the fleeting time to merit will end, that no redemption is possible in hell, and that in the future life, He will justly pronounce an immutable and inevitable sentence on each, the reward or punishment that his way of living deserved.

This soul again considered that, on the one hand, we often talk too much and preach abundantly and variously on the virtues which render this worship and faithful service to God; and that, on the other hand, because of his lack of aptitude, obtuse intelligence, and feeble memory, man cannot understand many things nor faithfully retain what he learned. Also, while many are in a perpetual quest to learn something new, very few apply themselves to attaining perfection and serving God as is right and necessary for Him; but nearly all, preoccupied and given over to the agitations and fluctuations of the mind, habitually live in extreme peril.

The Desire for Perfection
This soul, therefore, seeing all this, rose up before the Lord, moved by a burning desire and violent love, and asked the Divine Majesty to be good enough to give her some short and clear precepts to regulate our life now and to lead it to its perfection; precepts whose formulas would embrace the teaching of the Church and Holy Scripture, and whose observance would render the necessary honor to God and lead us from this brief and miserable life to the beatitude that He intends for us.

God inspires holy desires and never arouses them in a heart without satisfying them 2. So he immediately manifested Himself to this soul ravished in ecstasy and replied:

In What Does Complete Perfection Consist?
“My beloved, your desires delight Me; I like them so much that I am much more eager to satisfy them than you can, and eager to see them satisfied. My desire is immense to give you, when you want it, the useful and necessary benefits for your salvation. So I am ready to do whatever you want.

Listen carefully to what I am going to tell you, I, the ineffable and infallible truth. To answer your request, I am going to explain to you in a few words the practice which contains complete perfection, along with all the virtues, the summary of Scriptures and many discourses. If you conform your life to it and observe it, you will accomplish all that is clear and mysterious in the divine teachings, and you will enjoy perpetual joy and peace.

Doing God’s Will Alone, Following Christ’s Example
“Thus, know that the salvation and the perfection of My servants consist in one thing: to do only My will, to strive with a sovereign diligence always to accomplish it; to work at all hours to serve only Me, to honor only Me, to seek only Me. The more diligence My servants bring to it, the more they approach perfection, because they more closely adhere and are united to Me, Who am sovereign perfection.

To better understand the truth contained in these few words, look at my Christ in whom I am very pleased 3. He annihilated himself in the form of a slave; He took on the likeness of sin because, plunged into thick darkness and straying from the path of truth, He wanted to enlighten you with the splendors of His light and bring you back to the straight way by His word and example4. He was obedient unto death to teach you through His persevering obedience that your salvation depends on a firm resolution to do My will alone. Anyone who wishes to meditate diligently on His life and His doctrine realizes, without a doubt, that the justice and perfection of men rests solely on generous, perpetual, and faithful obedience to My will.

Your leader, Christ, has taught it many times: “Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father” (Mt. 7:21).

And notice that it is not without reason that He repeats twice: “Lord, Lord”; the states of this world being reduced to two principal ones, the religious state and the secular state. He means that no one, in any state whatsoever, can attain eternal glory, even by giving Him all external honors, if he does not do God’s will.

My Son said again: “I came down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him that sent Me5. (…) My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me6. (…) Father … not My will, but Thine be done7. (…) as the Father hath given Me commandments, so do I8.”

So if you want, like your Savior, to do My will, which contains your happiness, it is necessary that in all things you despise your own will, that you renounce it, that you destroy it9. The more you purify yourself of what is yours, the more I will give you what is mine.


To be continued


1. It is the soul of Saint Catherine.

2. On another occasion, the Eternal Father said to St. Catherine: “I do not despise the desire of my servants, yet I give to him who asks and invite you to ask. (…) sometimes, to test your desires and perseverance, I pretend not to hear you, but I hear you and give you what you need, because I give you hunger and the voice with which you cry out to me, and seeing your constancy, I fulfill your desires when they are ordered and directed toward me.” (Dialogue ch. 107)

3. St. Catherine wrote: “Christ is on the cross as our rule, like a written book which anyone, even the ignorant and blind, can read. The first line of this book is hatred and love: love of the honor of the Father, hatred of sin.” (Letter to Br. Lazzani)

4. The Eternal Father had already said to Catherine: “What caused the great obedience of the Word? The love which He had for My honor and your salvation. Whence proceeded this love? From the clear vision with which His soul saw the divine essence and the eternal Trinity, thus always looking on Me, the eternal God. His fidelity obtained this vision most perfectly for Him, which vision you imperfectly enjoy by the light of holy faith. He was faithful to Me, His eternal Father, and therefore hastened as one enamored along the road of obedience” (Dialogue 154 ; THOROLD Ed., Treatise of Obedience, §1).

5. John 6:38

6. John 4:34

7. Luke 22:42

8. John 22:42

9. Self-will is that which, being inspired neither by the glory of God nor the salvation of souls, proposes only its personal satisfaction. It is directly contrary to charity. Nothing is more essential than its destruction.]]> Dialogue About Perfection
by Saint Catherine of Siena
 
Excerpt by Dominicans of Avrillé  | November 30, 2024

The Honor of God; The Misery and Fragility of Man;
The Need to Strive for Perfection

The Author of the light communicated to a soul1. He made her understand her fragility and misery, ignorance and natural inclination to evil; at the same time, He gave her some glimpses of the greatness of God, His wisdom, power, goodness, and the other attributes of His majesty.

Thus enlightened, this soul saw how just and necessary it is to render perfect and holy worship to God. It is just, because He is the universal Lord Who created all things to praise His name and obtain His glory. Do not propriety and justice require that, respectful of his master, the servant give him service and loyalty? It is necessary, because man, composed of body and soul, was created in such a condition that he will only attain eternal life by voluntarily rendering faithful service to God up to the point of death; otherwise, he will never obtain the felicity that accumulates all honors.

However, there are few who render this service and, consequently, few who are saved, because almost all have their own interests in mind and not those of God.

This soul also saw that the days of man are short, that the day is uncertain when the fleeting time to merit will end, that no redemption is possible in hell, and that in the future life, He will justly pronounce an immutable and inevitable sentence on each, the reward or punishment that his way of living deserved.

This soul again considered that, on the one hand, we often talk too much and preach abundantly and variously on the virtues which render this worship and faithful service to God; and that, on the other hand, because of his lack of aptitude, obtuse intelligence, and feeble memory, man cannot understand many things nor faithfully retain what he learned. Also, while many are in a perpetual quest to learn something new, very few apply themselves to attaining perfection and serving God as is right and necessary for Him; but nearly all, preoccupied and given over to the agitations and fluctuations of the mind, habitually live in extreme peril.

The Desire for Perfection
This soul, therefore, seeing all this, rose up before the Lord, moved by a burning desire and violent love, and asked the Divine Majesty to be good enough to give her some short and clear precepts to regulate our life now and to lead it to its perfection; precepts whose formulas would embrace the teaching of the Church and Holy Scripture, and whose observance would render the necessary honor to God and lead us from this brief and miserable life to the beatitude that He intends for us.

God inspires holy desires and never arouses them in a heart without satisfying them 2. So he immediately manifested Himself to this soul ravished in ecstasy and replied:

In What Does Complete Perfection Consist?
“My beloved, your desires delight Me; I like them so much that I am much more eager to satisfy them than you can, and eager to see them satisfied. My desire is immense to give you, when you want it, the useful and necessary benefits for your salvation. So I am ready to do whatever you want.

Listen carefully to what I am going to tell you, I, the ineffable and infallible truth. To answer your request, I am going to explain to you in a few words the practice which contains complete perfection, along with all the virtues, the summary of Scriptures and many discourses. If you conform your life to it and observe it, you will accomplish all that is clear and mysterious in the divine teachings, and you will enjoy perpetual joy and peace.

Doing God’s Will Alone, Following Christ’s Example
“Thus, know that the salvation and the perfection of My servants consist in one thing: to do only My will, to strive with a sovereign diligence always to accomplish it; to work at all hours to serve only Me, to honor only Me, to seek only Me. The more diligence My servants bring to it, the more they approach perfection, because they more closely adhere and are united to Me, Who am sovereign perfection.

To better understand the truth contained in these few words, look at my Christ in whom I am very pleased 3. He annihilated himself in the form of a slave; He took on the likeness of sin because, plunged into thick darkness and straying from the path of truth, He wanted to enlighten you with the splendors of His light and bring you back to the straight way by His word and example4. He was obedient unto death to teach you through His persevering obedience that your salvation depends on a firm resolution to do My will alone. Anyone who wishes to meditate diligently on His life and His doctrine realizes, without a doubt, that the justice and perfection of men rests solely on generous, perpetual, and faithful obedience to My will.

Your leader, Christ, has taught it many times: “Not everyone that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father” (Mt. 7:21).

And notice that it is not without reason that He repeats twice: “Lord, Lord”; the states of this world being reduced to two principal ones, the religious state and the secular state. He means that no one, in any state whatsoever, can attain eternal glory, even by giving Him all external honors, if he does not do God’s will.

My Son said again: “I came down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him that sent Me5. (…) My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me6. (…) Father … not My will, but Thine be done7. (…) as the Father hath given Me commandments, so do I8.”

So if you want, like your Savior, to do My will, which contains your happiness, it is necessary that in all things you despise your own will, that you renounce it, that you destroy it9. The more you purify yourself of what is yours, the more I will give you what is mine.


To be continued


1. It is the soul of Saint Catherine.

2. On another occasion, the Eternal Father said to St. Catherine: “I do not despise the desire of my servants, yet I give to him who asks and invite you to ask. (…) sometimes, to test your desires and perseverance, I pretend not to hear you, but I hear you and give you what you need, because I give you hunger and the voice with which you cry out to me, and seeing your constancy, I fulfill your desires when they are ordered and directed toward me.” (Dialogue ch. 107)

3. St. Catherine wrote: “Christ is on the cross as our rule, like a written book which anyone, even the ignorant and blind, can read. The first line of this book is hatred and love: love of the honor of the Father, hatred of sin.” (Letter to Br. Lazzani)

4. The Eternal Father had already said to Catherine: “What caused the great obedience of the Word? The love which He had for My honor and your salvation. Whence proceeded this love? From the clear vision with which His soul saw the divine essence and the eternal Trinity, thus always looking on Me, the eternal God. His fidelity obtained this vision most perfectly for Him, which vision you imperfectly enjoy by the light of holy faith. He was faithful to Me, His eternal Father, and therefore hastened as one enamored along the road of obedience” (Dialogue 154 ; THOROLD Ed., Treatise of Obedience, §1).

5. John 6:38

6. John 4:34

7. Luke 22:42

8. John 22:42

9. Self-will is that which, being inspired neither by the glory of God nor the salvation of souls, proposes only its personal satisfaction. It is directly contrary to charity. Nothing is more essential than its destruction.]]> <![CDATA[St. Catherine of Siena: From Sadness to Cheerfulness]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8030 Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:05:46 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=8030 From Sadness to Cheerfulness
According to the “Dialogue” of St Catherine of Siena
From the book of Rev. Father de Paillerets O.P., The Cross and Joy, 1932

Meditation for a Time of Trials

Dominicans of Avrillé | May 1, 2025

Resignation

St Catherine is not surprised that sufferings, of any kind, cause tears to flow. But she doesn’t want them to be evil tears, purely human tears, that show our excessive attachments to the good things of this world, and even if those good things can have us in chains.

If a trial is sent to us, it has this precise purpose: to detach us from the world and from ourselves, so that we put ourselves entirely in the hands of Divine Providence.

The soul does not learn how to suffer the first time around. In the beginning, even if the tears are good, they are still mixed with a lot of self-love. And so, crying over herself “tears of tenderness and compassion“, — even if she accepts the sufferings in expiation for her sins — the soul has not yet, for all that, yet “thrown underfoot and entirely renounced her own will“.

God [who spoke to Catherine] says that she must learn “to despise herself and to hate herself perfectly, at the same time as she arrives from there, at a knowledge and familiarity with My goodness, which will turn her love into a fire. She begins from that moment to unite and conform her will to Mine, and to find and see in herself an entirely new joy and compassion. The joy that she feels in herself is from loving Me and the compassion that moves her is for the neighbor closest her [herself]“. So self-love has disappeared. “She doesn’t regret her own suffering, the damage to herself.” (89)

It is entirely necessary that we aim and move toward total acceptance and patient resignation to the things God wills. This is because, since we have categorically refused to align ourselves with the rebels against God, we don’t have any other path to pursue than the hatred of ourselves.

“The thorns and tribulations” of this earth couldn’t even begin to make us turn back. Again, with the light of reason and of the holy faith, we must clearly see the love of God, which cannot will anything but what is good for us.


Respect for the Will of God

My servants “know that it is for their good and not out of hatred for them, but out of love, that I send trials to them.”

“…they purify themselves from their sins, by contrition of heart, they acquire merits from their perfect patience, and their trials will be rewarded by an infinite Good. They know that every suffering in this life lasts only a short while, like [earthly] time itself. Time is like the balancing point of a scale, nothing more! When time runs out, it is the end of suffering. It’s not very much!

With respect, they put up with everything that happens to them, judging it a grace to be tested and tried by me, and willing nothing other than what I will.

That’s how my servants bear their present trials, they go with patience through the thorns, which do not injure the heart. Their heart was not taken away from them by self-love involving the feelings!” (45)

For sure, self-love does not easily let go of its place without resistance. Beneath the deliberate acceptance of the will, self-love makes feelings of sadness, but we must not let it take the fort. What do these suffering feels count for compared to the essential peace to be found in the will? It’s in that sense that we read these words:

“Whoever is born into this life is subject to pains, be they bodily or spiritual. My servants have bodily pains, but their spirits are always free; I mean that these bodily pains do not cause any sadness, because their will is in accord with Mine. However, it is in the will that man really suffers.”


Joyful Acceptance

Joy calls us so much, the joy of love. And this joy must invade us. God doesn’t want us to be satisfied with mere resignation. Or, even more, it is His love which brings joy to birth in the soul which suffers in accord with His will.

That’s what the soul has met in the teaching and example of the Lamb without stain. And so, passing by way this Word, she puts up with and takes “with a true and sweet patience all the pains and all the afflictions that I send to her for her salvation. She receives them with the strength of a courageous man, without choosing which one she prefers. She is not satisfied with accepting things patiently with mere resignation, but she cheerfully accepts them. As long as she has something to suffer she is happy! The soul is invaded with such a great joy, such a perfect tranquility of spirit, no tongue would know how to express it.” (89)

The cheerful joy of the strong, the patient, the loving: it’s not too high, to great for us. I want to say that Christ calls us all, and that we should not fear to desire this and to arrive at it. It might be that this will require long and painful efforts to conquer and to follow the Lamb. The Lord gives to some a rapid route that he doesn’t give to others. That doesn’t matter, as long as we welcome his designs with a trusting respect.]]> From Sadness to Cheerfulness
According to the “Dialogue” of St Catherine of Siena
From the book of Rev. Father de Paillerets O.P., The Cross and Joy, 1932

Meditation for a Time of Trials

Dominicans of Avrillé | May 1, 2025

Resignation

St Catherine is not surprised that sufferings, of any kind, cause tears to flow. But she doesn’t want them to be evil tears, purely human tears, that show our excessive attachments to the good things of this world, and even if those good things can have us in chains.

If a trial is sent to us, it has this precise purpose: to detach us from the world and from ourselves, so that we put ourselves entirely in the hands of Divine Providence.

The soul does not learn how to suffer the first time around. In the beginning, even if the tears are good, they are still mixed with a lot of self-love. And so, crying over herself “tears of tenderness and compassion“, — even if she accepts the sufferings in expiation for her sins — the soul has not yet, for all that, yet “thrown underfoot and entirely renounced her own will“.

God [who spoke to Catherine] says that she must learn “to despise herself and to hate herself perfectly, at the same time as she arrives from there, at a knowledge and familiarity with My goodness, which will turn her love into a fire. She begins from that moment to unite and conform her will to Mine, and to find and see in herself an entirely new joy and compassion. The joy that she feels in herself is from loving Me and the compassion that moves her is for the neighbor closest her [herself]“. So self-love has disappeared. “She doesn’t regret her own suffering, the damage to herself.” (89)

It is entirely necessary that we aim and move toward total acceptance and patient resignation to the things God wills. This is because, since we have categorically refused to align ourselves with the rebels against God, we don’t have any other path to pursue than the hatred of ourselves.

“The thorns and tribulations” of this earth couldn’t even begin to make us turn back. Again, with the light of reason and of the holy faith, we must clearly see the love of God, which cannot will anything but what is good for us.


Respect for the Will of God

My servants “know that it is for their good and not out of hatred for them, but out of love, that I send trials to them.”

“…they purify themselves from their sins, by contrition of heart, they acquire merits from their perfect patience, and their trials will be rewarded by an infinite Good. They know that every suffering in this life lasts only a short while, like [earthly] time itself. Time is like the balancing point of a scale, nothing more! When time runs out, it is the end of suffering. It’s not very much!

With respect, they put up with everything that happens to them, judging it a grace to be tested and tried by me, and willing nothing other than what I will.

That’s how my servants bear their present trials, they go with patience through the thorns, which do not injure the heart. Their heart was not taken away from them by self-love involving the feelings!” (45)

For sure, self-love does not easily let go of its place without resistance. Beneath the deliberate acceptance of the will, self-love makes feelings of sadness, but we must not let it take the fort. What do these suffering feels count for compared to the essential peace to be found in the will? It’s in that sense that we read these words:

“Whoever is born into this life is subject to pains, be they bodily or spiritual. My servants have bodily pains, but their spirits are always free; I mean that these bodily pains do not cause any sadness, because their will is in accord with Mine. However, it is in the will that man really suffers.”


Joyful Acceptance

Joy calls us so much, the joy of love. And this joy must invade us. God doesn’t want us to be satisfied with mere resignation. Or, even more, it is His love which brings joy to birth in the soul which suffers in accord with His will.

That’s what the soul has met in the teaching and example of the Lamb without stain. And so, passing by way this Word, she puts up with and takes “with a true and sweet patience all the pains and all the afflictions that I send to her for her salvation. She receives them with the strength of a courageous man, without choosing which one she prefers. She is not satisfied with accepting things patiently with mere resignation, but she cheerfully accepts them. As long as she has something to suffer she is happy! The soul is invaded with such a great joy, such a perfect tranquility of spirit, no tongue would know how to express it.” (89)

The cheerful joy of the strong, the patient, the loving: it’s not too high, to great for us. I want to say that Christ calls us all, and that we should not fear to desire this and to arrive at it. It might be that this will require long and painful efforts to conquer and to follow the Lamb. The Lord gives to some a rapid route that he doesn’t give to others. That doesn’t matter, as long as we welcome his designs with a trusting respect.]]> <![CDATA[The Example of the Angers Martyrs]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7981 Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:49:42 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7981 The Example of the Angers Martyrs - On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom
by Etienne Muret

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.diocese49.org%2Fwp-...715ba3bbf1]

Dominicans of Avrillé from Le Sel de la terre 127, Winter 2023-2024 [adapted]

THE YEAR 2024 is the 230th anniversary of the Champ-des-martyrs shootings in Avrillé. Around two thousand people were shot in this enclosure[1], both men and women. Even if, in many cases, history has only preserved the names of these victims of the Terror[2], we can affirm without fear of error that it was in hatred of the Catholic faith that all these people were massacred. For whenever the revolutionary clerk noted the reasons for condemnation – or the sham that took the place of it – behind the qualifiers of “fanaticism” or “complicity with brigands”, what was always targeted was attachment and fidelity to traditional religion. The monsters who judged these unfortunate people sometimes tried to hide their hatred of true religion under political motives, but there’s no mistaking it. The arsenal of defamatory invectives and the outrageousness of the words used failed to disguise the real motive behind the condemnations.

This anniversary is therefore an opportunity to recall these glorious events, and to draw from them lessons of faith, strength and fidelity for our struggles today. For the story of the martyrs of Angers and Avrillé offers many analogies with the present situation, and is in some ways a model for the battles we must wage today to preserve the Christian faith and spirit in the midst of general apostasy.

What’s more, this story took place just a stone’s throw from the Haye-aux-Bonshommes site: the ground we walk on was sprinkled with the blood of these martyrs.

It’s part of our heritage. We don’t have the right to ignore it or let it be forgotten.

✵

On nine occasions[3] from January 12 to April 16, 1794, columns of victims took to the road leading to the Champ-des-martyrs, a field that was then part of the Cloux farm estate, one of the farms that depended, until the Revolution, on the Grandmontain priory of La Haye-aux-Bonshommes[4]. At the time of the sale of national property, this estate was bought by one of Angers’ revolutionaries, Sieur Desvallois, who himself offered his field for shooting: “It will make manure!” he cynically declared.

Among these victims, the Church retained eighty-four, those for whom there was enough information to be able to affirm the religious character of their condemnation and initiate a beatification process. The vast majority were common women – wives, mothers and daughters of peasants, craftsmen, workers and merchants – with a few squires and two nuns. Only four men appear in this list, although a large number of others fell under the bullets at the Champ-des-martyrs. But these men had almost all served in the Catholic army and, as former Vendée soldiers, their condemnation could appear to have been inspired by political rather than religious motives. This is why the prudent diocesan tribunal in charge of the ordinary trial (in 1905-1919) thought it was right not to consider them as genuine martyrs, even if, in this context of religious persecution, the accusation of sympathy for the “brigands” – who were fighting for God and the King – could be qualified as a religious motive. This was also the case in the trials of the Laval and Noël Pinot martyrs.

To these eighty-four martyrs by shooting, we must add fifteen or sixteen who were guillotined in Angers, Place du Ralliement, including thirteen priests (counting Blessed Noël Pinot who was beatified before the others, under Pius XI), one nun and two women.[5]

The deeds of these one hundred martyrs constitute one of the most beautiful pages in the religious history of Anjou, a page worthy of the martyrdom accounts of the Christians of the early Church.

✵

As everyone knows, the Revolutionary Terror used the most atrocious means in its war against the Catholic populations of the West. 1794 was the year of the infernal columns and the great massacres of the Vendéens. Arrests multiplied, and prisons overflowed with inmates. And yet, these prisons were very numerous. In Angers, prisoners were incarcerated not only in the National Prison (Place des Halles, now Place Louis-Imbach) and the Château, but also in convents and churches that had been converted into prisons: Le Calvaire, Le Bon-Pasteur, Les Pénitentes, Le Carmel, Saint-Aubin, Les Petits-Pères (Lazaristes) in the Cathedral, Saint-Aubin, the two seminaries, La Rossignolerie (school of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine) and many other places.

But what can be done? There are too many prisoners, and the guillotine is no longer enough[6]. The guillotine is a spectacular punishment, particularly appreciated by revolutionaries, with its theatrical staging to impress the spirits, but it’s too slow and too expensive. Each execution cost the nation fifty-nine pounds.

The lack of hygiene and food, coupled with the cold – the thermometer fell to 17° below zero that winter – did cause deadly epidemics, and in less than a year, a good thousand prisoners died on their rotting straw beds[7]. But even that couldn’t empty the prisons.

In Nantes, prisoners were drowned in the Loire; in Angers, they were shot en masse. The shootings began in December 1793, on the banks of the Maine, at Port-de-1’Ancre, then at Sainte-Gemmes and Les Ponts-de-Cé. The bodies were thrown into the river Maine, but this soon gave rise to hygiene problems. Another location had to be found.

This is why the most massive shootings finally took place at the Champ-des-martyrs, in Avrillé. To speed things up, the judges from the military commission visited the prisons. Put in the presence of the suspects, they proceeded to a semblance of interrogation, which the clerk noted down in a few words: “… Did you go to the masses of the refractory priests? – Why didn’t you go to the masses of the sworn priests? …”. The minutes take up one or two lines, almost always punctuated by the word “fanatic”, “pronounced fanatic”, “superlative fanatic”, “invincible fanatic” or “fieffé aristocrate”, which, in revolutionary parlance, means: faithful Catholic, irredeemable, attached to traditional religion and the old order. In the margin, the clerk added “F”: to be shot, or, more rarely, “G”: to be guillotined.

Terrorists surrounded executions with sinister ceremony. The military commission – the most ferocious of the two revolutionary tribunals, and a major purveyor of guillotines and shootings – was based in the former Dominican convent, next to the cathedral, while the revolutionary committee was housed in the bishop’s palace. This is where the chain of victims was formed, tied up two by two. Those unable to walk were thrown into a cart, and the column moved off, flanked by a double row of gendarmes. Crossing the main branch of the Maine at what is now the Pont de Verdun, they crossed the Doutre district, and the chain lengthened as they stoped in front of each “prison”. Then they took the path that climbs towards Avrillé, “the path of silence”, as it was known in those days. The contrast between the prisoners – mostly common men and women, with a few nobles and bourgeois, admirable Christians calmly walking to their deaths, murmuring the rosary or singing hymns to the Virgin – and the vociferous troupe of “sans-culottes”, flanked by shrews reeking of alcohol and vice, hurled insults at the condemned. The judges, girded in their tricolor scarves and swaddling in their robes, followed the procession, with the military band alternating between the revolutionary songs “Ça ira” and the “Marseillaise” (now national anthem of France!)

Arriving at the Champ-des-martyrs, the chain was undone and the condemned lined up in front of the prepared pits. The gendarmes fired a salvo, the bodies fell. The wounded and dying were “finished” off with sabers and bayonets. A little earth was thrown in, and the pit was ready for the next batch.


Love of Truth and Hatred of Lies

It would take hours to recount in detail the marvels contained in the deeds of all these martyrs. Let’s just pick a few pearls from this treasure trove and try to apply their lessons.

One of the first testimonies these martyrs give us is their refusal to lie or make shameful compromises. Even to save their own lives, our martyrs refused to compromise. Preserved accounts provide us with several examples. Here are three of them.

The first is that of Perrine-Renée Potier, wife Turpault, mother of five children. Arrested in Les Aubiers, she was taken to Cholet “kicked and sabered”, and three days later gave birth to a son who died immediately after his baptism. Taken to Angers on January 16, 1794, she appeared before the military commission on the 24th, and let it be known that she was still pregnant. Thanks to this, she avoided being shot. Full of remorse for what she called her “fault”, she was interrogated again on February 9 and April 2 in the Calvaire prison.

“But you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” One of the judges asked.
“No, I’m not, and you can judge me”, she replied.
Back in her cell, her companions asked her:

“But why didn’t you say yes? You were saved!”
“I know that”, she replied, “but I’d rather die than tell a lie.”
And she prepared herself for death with constant prayer. She was shot on Holy Wednesday, April 16, 1794.[8]

The other example is that of Sister Marie-Anne, one of the two Daughters of Charity (Congregation founded by saint Vincent-de-Paul) who were shot on February 1st, 1794 along with four hundred other victims, because they had refused the oath of “Liberté, Égalité” (Freedom and Equality). Entering the Champ-des-martyrs enclosure, Sister Marie-Anne intones the litanies of the Blessed Virgin; all the condemned women respond: “Ora pro nobis”. The chain was transformed into a Marian procession. One of the soldiers was distraught at the sight: “It hurts to see such women die!” The commander was also moved and wanted to save the two nuns:
Quote:Citizens, there is still time to escape the death that threatens you. You have rendered services to humanity. Why, for the sake of an oath asked of you, would you give up your life and discontinue the good works you have always done? Let it not be so, return to your home, continue to render the services you have always rendered. Do not take the oath, for it is repugnant and upsetting to you. I take it upon myself to say that you have taken it, and I give you my word that nothing will be done to you or your companions.

Sister Marie-Anne’s response is admirable:
Quote:Citizen, not only do we not want to take the oath you’re talking about, we don’t even want to be seen to have taken it. Do not believe us cowardly enough and attached enough to a miserable life to believe us capable of soiling our soul and sacrificing it for an oath we have always hated and still hate. God will not ask us to account for the services we could render to our fellow human beings only by taking an oath that He hates and condemns, and if we can only preserve our lives on this condition, we declare to you that we would rather die than do anything contrary to the love we have sworn to our God.[9]

In the same vein, we should mention the heroic attitude of Abbé Laigneau de Langellerie. He was chaplain to the Angers Carmelite convent. Interned at the major seminary in 1792, condemned to deportation, but detained in Nantes due to his state of health, he escaped from prison, disguised as a peasant, on July 27, 1793, and returned clandestinely to Angers. Arrested on October 11, 1794 as he was about to perform extreme unction on a sick woman, he was taken amidst boos to the bishop’s palace, where the revolutionary committee was sitting. During his interrogation, the judge told him that if he stopped opposing the oath and rallied to the Republic, he would be in a better position:
Quote:You know that there are many priests who are now in society and who live there peacefully, that the Republic gives them protection. Because they are subject to the law, they have taken the required oath. They are not hiding. So you must have conspired against the Republic?

But in the face of this tempting offer, Abbé de Langellerie remained imperturbable and faithful to his duty.

My conscience and my science have never allowed me to take the required oath.

What did you find in the oath that could hurt your conscience?

It was to approve by an oath your French Republic, which has destroyed the religion of Jesus Christ who is the God of my heart, Deus cordis mei. […]

So you’re convinced that the Republic can’t survive and that the Catholic religion must be re-established?

With regard to the French Republic, I think that it is an enemy of the religion of Jesus Christ, but that a republican government must protect the Christian religion. […] I stand by my answers, which contain the truth, but I do not wish to sign, […as] I generally refuse my signature in matters of the Republic.[10]

Transferred to the Angers criminal court[11] (by this date, the military commission no longer existed), Abbé de Langellerie was condemned as a refractory priest and enemy of the Republic. He was guillotined on October 14, 1794, during the first vespers of Saint Teresa of Avila, founder of the Carmelite nuns of which he was chaplain. He was the last victim of the guillotine in Anjou.


Defending Faith and True Religion

Another witness given by these exemplary Christians is their faith and their spirit of faith.

This is particularly true of priests.

Abbé Ledoyen, vicar of Contigné, remained in his parish to exercise his ministry. Taking refuge with Mme Déan de Luigné, who was hiding refractory priests in her château de la Bossivière, he was discovered and arrested with his benefactress and her three daughters[12] on December 17, 1793. Taken to Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe, he was interrogated at length on December 23. The last words of his interrogation were a resounding profession of faith. To his judges, who accused him of having “abused the weakness and simplicity of country folk to lead them into the cruellest errors”, he replied:

That he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, that he tried to prevent them from falling into the errors of the innovators

That he sincerely professed such maxims.

That he had always urged them to follow the apostolic and Roman Catholic religion, outside of which there is no salvation, and that they should always be firm and faithful to it.

Similarly, Guillaume Repin, parish priest of Martigné-Briand – then a venerable old man of eighty-four – was accused by the municipal officers of Martigné of having “gangrened his parish”. Arrested and imprisoned on December 24, 1793, he told the judges who questioned him on Christmas Day that he had not taken the oath because “he had his faith and religion to preserve“. Sentenced to death, he was guillotined on January 2, 1794.[13]

But faithfulness to the faith of their baptism is also a matter for the laity.

Charlotte Lucas, a schoolteacher and, as such, subject to the oath of “Liberté, Égalité”, did not want to take it. She “believes that something has changed in religion, which prevented her from doing so”, she explained to the Chalonnes Justice of the Peace on January 4, 1794. Taken to Angers and detained at Le Calvaire, she first appeared before the Revolutionary Committee. Then, on January 18, the military commission sent her to her death, without even questioning her, because she looked like a “God-eater”.[14]

Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont, was a good Catholic woman who defended her faith valiantly. Her convictions, which she made no secret of, attracted the attention of patriots. To those who urged her to be more cautious, she replied: “Why shouldn’t there be martyrs today as there were in the past?”

Arrested in Angers, she was interned at the château. When she appeared in court on March 18, 1794, the judges of the Revolutionary Committee accused her of having shouted “Long live religion and long live the King” when the Vendéens had occupied Angers the previous June. In her defense, she simply proclaimed that she “would rather die than renounce her religion“. She admitted to having met refractory priests, attended their Mass and spoken with them, “particularly about religion“. In the sentence drawn up by the military commission, she was accused of having “encouraged the fanaticism of the rebellious priests […] and taken sacred vases and ornaments from the Republic, which she had taken to hidden places where these scoundrels of priests celebrated their bloodthirsty and murderous cult”. She was guillotined on March 28, in Place du Ralliement.[15]

Antoine Fournier, father of a refractory priest and former soldier in the Vendée army, was one of the one hundred and five victims of the first shoot-out on January 12, 1794. He defended the clandestine priests and declared that he blamed the conduct of those who attacked the Catholic religion.

“Do you disapprove of the monstrous priests who slit our brothers’ throats?” The judge asked.

“I don’t think priests were capable of giving bad advice.”

“You are accused of having criticized the conduct of the Republicans, saying that they were profaning holy sacred vessels, destroying mission crosses,” etc., etc., etc.

“Yes, I have blamed and continue to blame the conduct of those who throw away mission crosses and desecrate sacred vessels.”

“So you would suffer death to defend your religion?”

“Yes.”[16]

He was condemned as “father of a refractory priest and worthy of being one, an outraged fanatic.”


To be continued.


1. The exact number of victims is difficult to establish. Abbé Houdebine estimates the total number of victims of the Terror in Angers at around 3,000, and the number shot at the Champ-des-martyrs at around 2,000 (Dictionnaire de Maine-et-Loire [Célestin PORT], 1.1, new ed. 1965, p. 39a). See also N. DELAHAYE and P.-M. GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, and J.-F. COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur, 1793-1794. For full bibliographical references, see the bibliography at the end of this article. ↑
2. Sometimes names are even missing, as revolutionaries didn’t always take the trouble to note the names of victims and keep up-to-date registers. ↑
3. Here are the dates of the nine shootings at the Champ-des-Martyrs: January 12, 1794 (105 men shot); January 15 (300 victims); January 18 (250 people); January 20 (408 victims – this was when Turreau’s infernal columns began to operate); January 21 (70 men and 80 women); January 22 (80 women); February 1 (400 people); February 10 (200 people); April 16 (99 people). The eighty-four “martyrs of Angers” shot belonged to the five shootings of January 12 and 18, February 1 and 10 and April 16. ↑
4. “It was a deserted field, located in the enclosure of the former Haye-aux-Bonshommes.Bonshommes, west of Angers, two kilometers from the city walls.” (Positio, p. 164.) ↑
5. They are Sister Rosalie de la Sorinière (a Calvary nun), Marie de la Dive, wife of Henri de la Sorinière and sister-in-law of the former, and Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont. ↑
6. In Angers, the guillotine was erected from late October 1793 to mid-October 1794 on Place du Ralliement (then known as Place de la Guillotine), a square created in 1791 after the demolition of three churches. The death machine had been erected on the site of the high altar of the former Saint-Pierre church. The guillotine claimed 285 victims, including 31 clergymen. ↑
7. On February 18, 1794, the doctors on duty at the Calvaire prison wrote to the Revolutionary Committee: “Pregnant women and nursing mothers are exposed to terrible misery, their children dying at birth or languishing perched between the emaciated arms of those who gave birth to them. Some mothers have seen five or six of their children perish in their arms, without being able to provide the slightest relief. There’s not a day goes by when six or eight unfortunates die on Calvary alone. If we don’t remedy the abuses a little, we’ll see diseases spread from one to the next, and into the very heart of the city.” ↑
8. See Positio, pp. 364-371 and Yves DAOUD AL, Guillaume Repin…, p. 103-104. The eldest son of Perrine Turpault, François-Joseph-Paul, later wrote to the mayor of Cholet: “As the son of a mother who bore the greatest testimony to the truth, since she preferred death to the most innocent lie under the reign of terror, this lesson has always been engraved in my memory.” (Positio, p. 587). ↑
9. Abbé GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 31-32. Quoted in the Positio, p. 402-403. Abbé Gruget concludes his account as follows: “[The commander] might have wanted to save them, but that would have meant compromising himself with the revolutionary court. 10. He preferred, like Pilate, to act and pronounce against his conscience. He gave the order to shoot…”. ↑
11. Positio, p. 152-154. ↑
12. In the transfer note sent by the Revolutionary Committee to the President of the Criminal Court, the signatories write: “We are sending you, brother and friend, an interrogation of Langellerie, an ex-refractory priest. We are counting on your zeal to speed up his trial. Bread is scarce. Greetings and brotherhood.” (Positio, p. 155.) ↑
13. They were arrested on the denunciation of a certain Maillard, whom Mme de Luigné had once charitably raised. Imprisoned at Calvaire, Mme de Luigné and her daughter Louise-Aimée were shot at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794, but Catherine and Françoise, although condemned to death, were spared and settled after the Revolution in Abbé Gruget’s parish (La Trinité d’Angers). 14. See Positio, p. 246 ff. ↑
15. Positio, p. 29 ff. ↑
16. Positio, p. 177-178. ↑
17. Positio, pp. 322-333. ↑
18. Interrogation of A Fournier by the Cholet revolutionary committee, December 29, 1793 (Positio, p. 168-169). ↑]]> The Example of the Angers Martyrs - On the Anniversary of Their Martyrdom
by Etienne Muret

[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.diocese49.org%2Fwp-...715ba3bbf1]

Dominicans of Avrillé from Le Sel de la terre 127, Winter 2023-2024 [adapted]

THE YEAR 2024 is the 230th anniversary of the Champ-des-martyrs shootings in Avrillé. Around two thousand people were shot in this enclosure[1], both men and women. Even if, in many cases, history has only preserved the names of these victims of the Terror[2], we can affirm without fear of error that it was in hatred of the Catholic faith that all these people were massacred. For whenever the revolutionary clerk noted the reasons for condemnation – or the sham that took the place of it – behind the qualifiers of “fanaticism” or “complicity with brigands”, what was always targeted was attachment and fidelity to traditional religion. The monsters who judged these unfortunate people sometimes tried to hide their hatred of true religion under political motives, but there’s no mistaking it. The arsenal of defamatory invectives and the outrageousness of the words used failed to disguise the real motive behind the condemnations.

This anniversary is therefore an opportunity to recall these glorious events, and to draw from them lessons of faith, strength and fidelity for our struggles today. For the story of the martyrs of Angers and Avrillé offers many analogies with the present situation, and is in some ways a model for the battles we must wage today to preserve the Christian faith and spirit in the midst of general apostasy.

What’s more, this story took place just a stone’s throw from the Haye-aux-Bonshommes site: the ground we walk on was sprinkled with the blood of these martyrs.

It’s part of our heritage. We don’t have the right to ignore it or let it be forgotten.

✵

On nine occasions[3] from January 12 to April 16, 1794, columns of victims took to the road leading to the Champ-des-martyrs, a field that was then part of the Cloux farm estate, one of the farms that depended, until the Revolution, on the Grandmontain priory of La Haye-aux-Bonshommes[4]. At the time of the sale of national property, this estate was bought by one of Angers’ revolutionaries, Sieur Desvallois, who himself offered his field for shooting: “It will make manure!” he cynically declared.

Among these victims, the Church retained eighty-four, those for whom there was enough information to be able to affirm the religious character of their condemnation and initiate a beatification process. The vast majority were common women – wives, mothers and daughters of peasants, craftsmen, workers and merchants – with a few squires and two nuns. Only four men appear in this list, although a large number of others fell under the bullets at the Champ-des-martyrs. But these men had almost all served in the Catholic army and, as former Vendée soldiers, their condemnation could appear to have been inspired by political rather than religious motives. This is why the prudent diocesan tribunal in charge of the ordinary trial (in 1905-1919) thought it was right not to consider them as genuine martyrs, even if, in this context of religious persecution, the accusation of sympathy for the “brigands” – who were fighting for God and the King – could be qualified as a religious motive. This was also the case in the trials of the Laval and Noël Pinot martyrs.

To these eighty-four martyrs by shooting, we must add fifteen or sixteen who were guillotined in Angers, Place du Ralliement, including thirteen priests (counting Blessed Noël Pinot who was beatified before the others, under Pius XI), one nun and two women.[5]

The deeds of these one hundred martyrs constitute one of the most beautiful pages in the religious history of Anjou, a page worthy of the martyrdom accounts of the Christians of the early Church.

✵

As everyone knows, the Revolutionary Terror used the most atrocious means in its war against the Catholic populations of the West. 1794 was the year of the infernal columns and the great massacres of the Vendéens. Arrests multiplied, and prisons overflowed with inmates. And yet, these prisons were very numerous. In Angers, prisoners were incarcerated not only in the National Prison (Place des Halles, now Place Louis-Imbach) and the Château, but also in convents and churches that had been converted into prisons: Le Calvaire, Le Bon-Pasteur, Les Pénitentes, Le Carmel, Saint-Aubin, Les Petits-Pères (Lazaristes) in the Cathedral, Saint-Aubin, the two seminaries, La Rossignolerie (school of the Brothers of Christian Doctrine) and many other places.

But what can be done? There are too many prisoners, and the guillotine is no longer enough[6]. The guillotine is a spectacular punishment, particularly appreciated by revolutionaries, with its theatrical staging to impress the spirits, but it’s too slow and too expensive. Each execution cost the nation fifty-nine pounds.

The lack of hygiene and food, coupled with the cold – the thermometer fell to 17° below zero that winter – did cause deadly epidemics, and in less than a year, a good thousand prisoners died on their rotting straw beds[7]. But even that couldn’t empty the prisons.

In Nantes, prisoners were drowned in the Loire; in Angers, they were shot en masse. The shootings began in December 1793, on the banks of the Maine, at Port-de-1’Ancre, then at Sainte-Gemmes and Les Ponts-de-Cé. The bodies were thrown into the river Maine, but this soon gave rise to hygiene problems. Another location had to be found.

This is why the most massive shootings finally took place at the Champ-des-martyrs, in Avrillé. To speed things up, the judges from the military commission visited the prisons. Put in the presence of the suspects, they proceeded to a semblance of interrogation, which the clerk noted down in a few words: “… Did you go to the masses of the refractory priests? – Why didn’t you go to the masses of the sworn priests? …”. The minutes take up one or two lines, almost always punctuated by the word “fanatic”, “pronounced fanatic”, “superlative fanatic”, “invincible fanatic” or “fieffé aristocrate”, which, in revolutionary parlance, means: faithful Catholic, irredeemable, attached to traditional religion and the old order. In the margin, the clerk added “F”: to be shot, or, more rarely, “G”: to be guillotined.

Terrorists surrounded executions with sinister ceremony. The military commission – the most ferocious of the two revolutionary tribunals, and a major purveyor of guillotines and shootings – was based in the former Dominican convent, next to the cathedral, while the revolutionary committee was housed in the bishop’s palace. This is where the chain of victims was formed, tied up two by two. Those unable to walk were thrown into a cart, and the column moved off, flanked by a double row of gendarmes. Crossing the main branch of the Maine at what is now the Pont de Verdun, they crossed the Doutre district, and the chain lengthened as they stoped in front of each “prison”. Then they took the path that climbs towards Avrillé, “the path of silence”, as it was known in those days. The contrast between the prisoners – mostly common men and women, with a few nobles and bourgeois, admirable Christians calmly walking to their deaths, murmuring the rosary or singing hymns to the Virgin – and the vociferous troupe of “sans-culottes”, flanked by shrews reeking of alcohol and vice, hurled insults at the condemned. The judges, girded in their tricolor scarves and swaddling in their robes, followed the procession, with the military band alternating between the revolutionary songs “Ça ira” and the “Marseillaise” (now national anthem of France!)

Arriving at the Champ-des-martyrs, the chain was undone and the condemned lined up in front of the prepared pits. The gendarmes fired a salvo, the bodies fell. The wounded and dying were “finished” off with sabers and bayonets. A little earth was thrown in, and the pit was ready for the next batch.


Love of Truth and Hatred of Lies

It would take hours to recount in detail the marvels contained in the deeds of all these martyrs. Let’s just pick a few pearls from this treasure trove and try to apply their lessons.

One of the first testimonies these martyrs give us is their refusal to lie or make shameful compromises. Even to save their own lives, our martyrs refused to compromise. Preserved accounts provide us with several examples. Here are three of them.

The first is that of Perrine-Renée Potier, wife Turpault, mother of five children. Arrested in Les Aubiers, she was taken to Cholet “kicked and sabered”, and three days later gave birth to a son who died immediately after his baptism. Taken to Angers on January 16, 1794, she appeared before the military commission on the 24th, and let it be known that she was still pregnant. Thanks to this, she avoided being shot. Full of remorse for what she called her “fault”, she was interrogated again on February 9 and April 2 in the Calvaire prison.

“But you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” One of the judges asked.
“No, I’m not, and you can judge me”, she replied.
Back in her cell, her companions asked her:

“But why didn’t you say yes? You were saved!”
“I know that”, she replied, “but I’d rather die than tell a lie.”
And she prepared herself for death with constant prayer. She was shot on Holy Wednesday, April 16, 1794.[8]

The other example is that of Sister Marie-Anne, one of the two Daughters of Charity (Congregation founded by saint Vincent-de-Paul) who were shot on February 1st, 1794 along with four hundred other victims, because they had refused the oath of “Liberté, Égalité” (Freedom and Equality). Entering the Champ-des-martyrs enclosure, Sister Marie-Anne intones the litanies of the Blessed Virgin; all the condemned women respond: “Ora pro nobis”. The chain was transformed into a Marian procession. One of the soldiers was distraught at the sight: “It hurts to see such women die!” The commander was also moved and wanted to save the two nuns:
Quote:Citizens, there is still time to escape the death that threatens you. You have rendered services to humanity. Why, for the sake of an oath asked of you, would you give up your life and discontinue the good works you have always done? Let it not be so, return to your home, continue to render the services you have always rendered. Do not take the oath, for it is repugnant and upsetting to you. I take it upon myself to say that you have taken it, and I give you my word that nothing will be done to you or your companions.

Sister Marie-Anne’s response is admirable:
Quote:Citizen, not only do we not want to take the oath you’re talking about, we don’t even want to be seen to have taken it. Do not believe us cowardly enough and attached enough to a miserable life to believe us capable of soiling our soul and sacrificing it for an oath we have always hated and still hate. God will not ask us to account for the services we could render to our fellow human beings only by taking an oath that He hates and condemns, and if we can only preserve our lives on this condition, we declare to you that we would rather die than do anything contrary to the love we have sworn to our God.[9]

In the same vein, we should mention the heroic attitude of Abbé Laigneau de Langellerie. He was chaplain to the Angers Carmelite convent. Interned at the major seminary in 1792, condemned to deportation, but detained in Nantes due to his state of health, he escaped from prison, disguised as a peasant, on July 27, 1793, and returned clandestinely to Angers. Arrested on October 11, 1794 as he was about to perform extreme unction on a sick woman, he was taken amidst boos to the bishop’s palace, where the revolutionary committee was sitting. During his interrogation, the judge told him that if he stopped opposing the oath and rallied to the Republic, he would be in a better position:
Quote:You know that there are many priests who are now in society and who live there peacefully, that the Republic gives them protection. Because they are subject to the law, they have taken the required oath. They are not hiding. So you must have conspired against the Republic?

But in the face of this tempting offer, Abbé de Langellerie remained imperturbable and faithful to his duty.

My conscience and my science have never allowed me to take the required oath.

What did you find in the oath that could hurt your conscience?

It was to approve by an oath your French Republic, which has destroyed the religion of Jesus Christ who is the God of my heart, Deus cordis mei. […]

So you’re convinced that the Republic can’t survive and that the Catholic religion must be re-established?

With regard to the French Republic, I think that it is an enemy of the religion of Jesus Christ, but that a republican government must protect the Christian religion. […] I stand by my answers, which contain the truth, but I do not wish to sign, […as] I generally refuse my signature in matters of the Republic.[10]

Transferred to the Angers criminal court[11] (by this date, the military commission no longer existed), Abbé de Langellerie was condemned as a refractory priest and enemy of the Republic. He was guillotined on October 14, 1794, during the first vespers of Saint Teresa of Avila, founder of the Carmelite nuns of which he was chaplain. He was the last victim of the guillotine in Anjou.


Defending Faith and True Religion

Another witness given by these exemplary Christians is their faith and their spirit of faith.

This is particularly true of priests.

Abbé Ledoyen, vicar of Contigné, remained in his parish to exercise his ministry. Taking refuge with Mme Déan de Luigné, who was hiding refractory priests in her château de la Bossivière, he was discovered and arrested with his benefactress and her three daughters[12] on December 17, 1793. Taken to Chateauneuf-sur-Sarthe, he was interrogated at length on December 23. The last words of his interrogation were a resounding profession of faith. To his judges, who accused him of having “abused the weakness and simplicity of country folk to lead them into the cruellest errors”, he replied:

That he preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, that he tried to prevent them from falling into the errors of the innovators

That he sincerely professed such maxims.

That he had always urged them to follow the apostolic and Roman Catholic religion, outside of which there is no salvation, and that they should always be firm and faithful to it.

Similarly, Guillaume Repin, parish priest of Martigné-Briand – then a venerable old man of eighty-four – was accused by the municipal officers of Martigné of having “gangrened his parish”. Arrested and imprisoned on December 24, 1793, he told the judges who questioned him on Christmas Day that he had not taken the oath because “he had his faith and religion to preserve“. Sentenced to death, he was guillotined on January 2, 1794.[13]

But faithfulness to the faith of their baptism is also a matter for the laity.

Charlotte Lucas, a schoolteacher and, as such, subject to the oath of “Liberté, Égalité”, did not want to take it. She “believes that something has changed in religion, which prevented her from doing so”, she explained to the Chalonnes Justice of the Peace on January 4, 1794. Taken to Angers and detained at Le Calvaire, she first appeared before the Revolutionary Committee. Then, on January 18, the military commission sent her to her death, without even questioning her, because she looked like a “God-eater”.[14]

Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont, was a good Catholic woman who defended her faith valiantly. Her convictions, which she made no secret of, attracted the attention of patriots. To those who urged her to be more cautious, she replied: “Why shouldn’t there be martyrs today as there were in the past?”

Arrested in Angers, she was interned at the château. When she appeared in court on March 18, 1794, the judges of the Revolutionary Committee accused her of having shouted “Long live religion and long live the King” when the Vendéens had occupied Angers the previous June. In her defense, she simply proclaimed that she “would rather die than renounce her religion“. She admitted to having met refractory priests, attended their Mass and spoken with them, “particularly about religion“. In the sentence drawn up by the military commission, she was accused of having “encouraged the fanaticism of the rebellious priests […] and taken sacred vases and ornaments from the Republic, which she had taken to hidden places where these scoundrels of priests celebrated their bloodthirsty and murderous cult”. She was guillotined on March 28, in Place du Ralliement.[15]

Antoine Fournier, father of a refractory priest and former soldier in the Vendée army, was one of the one hundred and five victims of the first shoot-out on January 12, 1794. He defended the clandestine priests and declared that he blamed the conduct of those who attacked the Catholic religion.

“Do you disapprove of the monstrous priests who slit our brothers’ throats?” The judge asked.

“I don’t think priests were capable of giving bad advice.”

“You are accused of having criticized the conduct of the Republicans, saying that they were profaning holy sacred vessels, destroying mission crosses,” etc., etc., etc.

“Yes, I have blamed and continue to blame the conduct of those who throw away mission crosses and desecrate sacred vessels.”

“So you would suffer death to defend your religion?”

“Yes.”[16]

He was condemned as “father of a refractory priest and worthy of being one, an outraged fanatic.”


To be continued.


1. The exact number of victims is difficult to establish. Abbé Houdebine estimates the total number of victims of the Terror in Angers at around 3,000, and the number shot at the Champ-des-martyrs at around 2,000 (Dictionnaire de Maine-et-Loire [Célestin PORT], 1.1, new ed. 1965, p. 39a). See also N. DELAHAYE and P.-M. GABORIT, Les Douze colonnes infernales de Turreau, and J.-F. COUET, Dans les prisons d’Angers sous la Terreur, 1793-1794. For full bibliographical references, see the bibliography at the end of this article. ↑
2. Sometimes names are even missing, as revolutionaries didn’t always take the trouble to note the names of victims and keep up-to-date registers. ↑
3. Here are the dates of the nine shootings at the Champ-des-Martyrs: January 12, 1794 (105 men shot); January 15 (300 victims); January 18 (250 people); January 20 (408 victims – this was when Turreau’s infernal columns began to operate); January 21 (70 men and 80 women); January 22 (80 women); February 1 (400 people); February 10 (200 people); April 16 (99 people). The eighty-four “martyrs of Angers” shot belonged to the five shootings of January 12 and 18, February 1 and 10 and April 16. ↑
4. “It was a deserted field, located in the enclosure of the former Haye-aux-Bonshommes.Bonshommes, west of Angers, two kilometers from the city walls.” (Positio, p. 164.) ↑
5. They are Sister Rosalie de la Sorinière (a Calvary nun), Marie de la Dive, wife of Henri de la Sorinière and sister-in-law of the former, and Renée-Marie Feillatreau, widow of Dumont. ↑
6. In Angers, the guillotine was erected from late October 1793 to mid-October 1794 on Place du Ralliement (then known as Place de la Guillotine), a square created in 1791 after the demolition of three churches. The death machine had been erected on the site of the high altar of the former Saint-Pierre church. The guillotine claimed 285 victims, including 31 clergymen. ↑
7. On February 18, 1794, the doctors on duty at the Calvaire prison wrote to the Revolutionary Committee: “Pregnant women and nursing mothers are exposed to terrible misery, their children dying at birth or languishing perched between the emaciated arms of those who gave birth to them. Some mothers have seen five or six of their children perish in their arms, without being able to provide the slightest relief. There’s not a day goes by when six or eight unfortunates die on Calvary alone. If we don’t remedy the abuses a little, we’ll see diseases spread from one to the next, and into the very heart of the city.” ↑
8. See Positio, pp. 364-371 and Yves DAOUD AL, Guillaume Repin…, p. 103-104. The eldest son of Perrine Turpault, François-Joseph-Paul, later wrote to the mayor of Cholet: “As the son of a mother who bore the greatest testimony to the truth, since she preferred death to the most innocent lie under the reign of terror, this lesson has always been engraved in my memory.” (Positio, p. 587). ↑
9. Abbé GRUGET, Les Fusillades du Champ-des-martyrs, p. 31-32. Quoted in the Positio, p. 402-403. Abbé Gruget concludes his account as follows: “[The commander] might have wanted to save them, but that would have meant compromising himself with the revolutionary court. 10. He preferred, like Pilate, to act and pronounce against his conscience. He gave the order to shoot…”. ↑
11. Positio, p. 152-154. ↑
12. In the transfer note sent by the Revolutionary Committee to the President of the Criminal Court, the signatories write: “We are sending you, brother and friend, an interrogation of Langellerie, an ex-refractory priest. We are counting on your zeal to speed up his trial. Bread is scarce. Greetings and brotherhood.” (Positio, p. 155.) ↑
13. They were arrested on the denunciation of a certain Maillard, whom Mme de Luigné had once charitably raised. Imprisoned at Calvaire, Mme de Luigné and her daughter Louise-Aimée were shot at the Champ-des-martyrs on February 1, 1794, but Catherine and Françoise, although condemned to death, were spared and settled after the Revolution in Abbé Gruget’s parish (La Trinité d’Angers). 14. See Positio, p. 246 ff. ↑
15. Positio, p. 29 ff. ↑
16. Positio, p. 177-178. ↑
17. Positio, pp. 322-333. ↑
18. Interrogation of A Fournier by the Cholet revolutionary committee, December 29, 1793 (Positio, p. 168-169). ↑]]> <![CDATA[France’s Forgotten Concentration Camp: The Martyred Priests of Île-Madame]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7970 Mon, 09 Feb 2026 17:08:21 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7970 France’s Forgotten Concentration Camp: The Martyred Priests of Île-Madame

[Image: f4dd5c1a7bbb150619bc2bac1c3d9648_L.jpg]

The Remnant | February 7, 2026

Long before the Nazi camps, revolutionary France created a system designed to make priests die “without noise.” This is the suppressed history of the prison-ship martyrs of Île-Madame—and the faith that endured the Terror. Why were hundreds of priests made to die in silence during the French Revolution—and why was their story erased? This account of the prison-ship martyrs reveals a lineage of fidelity that echoes into the Church’s modern struggles.

Scrolling through search engine results for a “death camp” or “extermination camp,” one might be tempted to imagine that malicious, death-inducing internment was confined to Nazi camps or to the Soviet gulag. Although it would be naive to assume that the twentieth century had a monopoly on evil, it is nonetheless startling to realise the world’s very first concentration camp was located, not at Dachau, nor even in 19th-century Cuba, but in 18th-century France. There, near La Rochelle on the western coast, near a small island called Île-Madame, 829 priests were starved and tortured aboard prison ships designed for the slave trade,[1] and transformed by the Reign of Terror into efficient murder weapons. Over five hundred of them perished.

It was not by accident that this story escaped the world’s attention and our history books.  The history of these priests was so carefully and entirely suppressed that it even disappeared for decades from the collective memory.[2]  In the words of their torturer, the brutal and callous Capitaine Laly, “These men were torn from the book of the Republic.  I was told to make them die without noise. ”[3]

Why should they have died without noise, these 829 priests herded with indignity through the towns and streets of France, beaten and stripped before being consigned to two prison ships bound for French Guiana – a place deliberately chosen for its murderous climate[4]? As a reminder of the historic allegiance of France to the Holy See, they were an embarrassment to the Republic; because they functioned as a stimulus to the faith of many, they were undesirables to be eliminated.  Most of them had refused from the outset the route the Republic considered patriotic: the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which removed the priest from his fidelity to the Pope and rendered him a schismatic civil servant of the government.  Others among them, confronted with the fidelity of their brethren, would later retract that same oath.

[Image: Priest-prison-ship-walk.png]

It is to the credit of the French hierarchy that all but four of the bishops of France, along with over half of the clergy, refused the oath.  Even the Terror regime was afraid to execute them all outright.  Instead, it would bury all of them in opprobrium, chase many of them into exile, and murder the remaining unfortunates by inches on the prison ships which, due to their condition and the British blockade of the oceans, would never make it to French Guiana.

The deportation of the prisoners reads like an episode from a surrealist nightmare.  Humiliating strip searches, insults and booing from the mob, inclement weather, accommodation with malefactors or in profaned churches were not the only sufferings endured on the long Calvary.  On the march through Limoges, goats and donkeys arrayed in priestly garments were added to the procession of clergy, and a deacon was ritually guillotined[5]. At Cognac, they were taunted by an official, “If you were animals, we might have pity on you, but being monsters, you don’t deserve any compassion.[6]”  Once arrived at their destination, the already demoralised and exhausted priests were welcomed on board the ships by being denuded of their last possessions.  Not even a breviary was allowed.

On board they would learn an entirely different code of justice, the code of false accusations and rapid executions. Everything was punishable: to whisper in Latin was the sign of a conspirator[7]. Those subjected to a quick execution by gunfire were the fortunate ones; those left to rot on the ships had the crueller fate. From eight at night to eight in the morning, they were crammed into a space smaller than a coffin[8] for each one, without light, without air. As there were insufficient buckets for natural necessities and given the brutal necessity of climbing over bodies to reach those buckets, the air was soon filled with a terrible stench. To this suffering was added the freezing cold on deck during the day, and below deck, the horror of fumigations which were produced by plunging a red-hot cannonball into tar[9]. These fumigations made some of the priests spit blood; they produced a racking cough. The food, unsatisfying as it was, was infested with worms, infected with mould, or even more putrid matter. Forced to labour, deprived of the least intellectual enjoyment or companionship, the priests were put to a test of fidelity which is astonishing to contemplate.

All these outward tortures- to which the predictable dysentery and typhoid would soon be added- pale, however, in comparison to the spiritual sufferings, for if the physical sufferings were a purgatory, the behaviour of the crew was reminiscent of the demons in hell. One Abbe Maugras recorded of the crew’s behaviour “I doubt if the demons in hell could utter as many blasphemies against God and His Saints.”[10]  Every prayer they uttered was greeted with a blasphemy so terrible that many resolved to keep silent. Nonetheless, by unanimous consent the entire body of priests resolved, in the face of death, to continue the Benedicite and to make the sign of the Cross before meals. Before their resolve, the crew was silenced. It was one of the priests’ rare victories.[11]

Providence, meanwhile, was not asleep. Somehow, the Blessed Sacrament and the holy oils remained undiscovered on one of the ships, the Deux-Associes, so that all of of the priests were able to receive Extreme Unction (and nearly all Holy Viaticum) before death, a death endured with sentiments of confidence and resignation so great that it comforted their voluntary nurses.  “I have seen some of them after death whose faces were so beautiful that we could not stop looking at them,” recorded one of these helpers later.[12]  And what hours of tender adoration were made by these priest-victims beside the Divine Host, which transformed the hell of the prison ships into a paradise of virtue, peace, and love of God!  “We suffer not only with peace, but with sweetness, and we die with delight,” wrote one of them.[13]

The gentle hand of Our Lady was also to be seen in some of the reliefs given to the victims on her feast days. For instance, it was on the feast of her Assumption[14] that the priests received the welcome news of their disembarkation onto the island of Île -Madame, where they might nurse the sick and bury their dead. They hastened to consecrate their makeshift hospital and the island to Our Lady under the title of her Assumption, changing the name to Ile-Notre-Dame.

It was possibly there that one of the priest-nurses, whilst tending to his brethren, sculpted the relic and icon of their trial, the famous Prison Ship Cross which doubtless received the last pleading glance of the dying priests. The Corpus, worn with the devotion of over two centuries, is without arms, without hands. The armless Christ is seen as a symbol of the priesthood deprived of the liberty to offer Mass yet exercising their priesthood through suffering and interior prayer.[15]

[Image: priest-prison-ship-several.png]

Perhaps the most beautiful jewel to emerge from the bitter trial was the mutual support of the clergy. A group banded together and made nine serious resolutions for their spiritual lives: to avoid repining on account of the loss of their possessions; to live modestly and soberly if ever they were released; to avoid ever making public the story of what they had endured; to avoid useless longings for release from their fate; to spend the time of their imprisonment reflecting on their past and making serious resolutions for the future.  Most touching is the promise to cover for posterity and to screen from a curious public any faults or weaknesses which their brethren, under tyranny, might happen to commit[16].

This magnanimity which grew under persecution was no weak flame, sputtering and dying after its first burst of radiance. Years later, a visitor called at Captain Laly’s house, where the man lived, now impoverished and far from the consolations of religion, as he only too well deserved. A visitor entered; Laly regarded him with horror, recognising in him one of the priests he had tortured. The priest left a bag of money on the table. “That is how a priest forgives,” he remarked.[17]

The terrible Laly later died repentant and converted - a conversion surely won by the magnanimity of his victims.

But if, as Commandant Laly desired, the ocean guarded her secrets, the soil of Île -Madame did not. The local peasantry transmitted the story of the holy priests and their cruel murder. Decades later, in 1863, a clergyman asked a praying peasant why he doffed his hat to pray in a field without church or shrine. Astonished, the peasant asked, “But Sir, is it possible that you do not know that the saints are buried here?”[18] Devotion grew and, in the nineteenth century, God was pleased to honour the sacrifice of His servants by a miracle:  the path which connects the island to the mainland, and which had become dangerous, was renewed miraculously overnight[19].  It endures beneath the tread of countless annual pilgrims. There on Île -Madame lie buried (and honoured by a cross of simple galets or flat stones brought by generations of pilgrims) the bodies of some 254 priests, buried by their exhausted fellow-sufferers, who were forced to dig the burial places of their comrades but prevented from offering the briefest of funeral obsequies.  They were buried in silence- but the stones still cry out.

For an intimate tie exists binding Catholics to those priests who died in witness to the spiritual independence of Christ’s kingdom on earth. If we can attend the Mass of Ages, it is due in no small part to the valiant efforts and rapid organisation of some French clergy and laity after the Second Vatican Council. It is likewise indisputable that the heroes of the ecclesiastical Revolution, slandered and reduced to penury, saying Mass in forests and in basements, are the spiritual heirs of the martyrs of the French Revolution. Across the centuries we hear the clarion call: “If we are the most unfortunate of men, we are also the happiest of Christians.”[20]  It is our motto too.


[1]  Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 34

[2] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[3] Un peu plus d’Histoire - PRÊTRES DÉPORTÉS sur les PONTONS :  Diocèse de La Rochelle & Saintes:  This quotation is also found generally, in the public domain, such as Les martyrs des Pontons de Rochefort (1794-1795) - Christ Roi and Les mouroirs flottants de Rochefort

[4]  Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 20

[5] Ibid, pg. 28

[6] Ibid, pg 27

[7] Les mouroirs flottants de Rochefort, https://fr.aleteia.org/

[8] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[9] Chevreau, Guy, Les Pontons de Rochefort, 1974 :  Kindle edition

[10] Chevreau,  ibid.

[11]ibid.

[12]ibid.

[13] Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 58

[14]  Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 66

[15] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[16] An entire list of the nine resolutions is given at the website of the Diocese of Saintes at 9 Résolutions - PRÊTRES DÉPORTÉS sur les PONTONS.    The resolutions are in the public domain and included in, for example, the present liturgical books of the Carmelite Order.

[17] Reportage du pèlerinage 2022 à l'Ile Madame • La Porte Latine

[18] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[19] This is an oral tradition for which historical data are difficult to find, but the fact is maintained by local clergy and religious in France. See an example at Reportage du pèlerinage 2022 à l'Ile Madame • LPL

[20]  La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023]]> France’s Forgotten Concentration Camp: The Martyred Priests of Île-Madame

[Image: f4dd5c1a7bbb150619bc2bac1c3d9648_L.jpg]

The Remnant | February 7, 2026

Long before the Nazi camps, revolutionary France created a system designed to make priests die “without noise.” This is the suppressed history of the prison-ship martyrs of Île-Madame—and the faith that endured the Terror. Why were hundreds of priests made to die in silence during the French Revolution—and why was their story erased? This account of the prison-ship martyrs reveals a lineage of fidelity that echoes into the Church’s modern struggles.

Scrolling through search engine results for a “death camp” or “extermination camp,” one might be tempted to imagine that malicious, death-inducing internment was confined to Nazi camps or to the Soviet gulag. Although it would be naive to assume that the twentieth century had a monopoly on evil, it is nonetheless startling to realise the world’s very first concentration camp was located, not at Dachau, nor even in 19th-century Cuba, but in 18th-century France. There, near La Rochelle on the western coast, near a small island called Île-Madame, 829 priests were starved and tortured aboard prison ships designed for the slave trade,[1] and transformed by the Reign of Terror into efficient murder weapons. Over five hundred of them perished.

It was not by accident that this story escaped the world’s attention and our history books.  The history of these priests was so carefully and entirely suppressed that it even disappeared for decades from the collective memory.[2]  In the words of their torturer, the brutal and callous Capitaine Laly, “These men were torn from the book of the Republic.  I was told to make them die without noise. ”[3]

Why should they have died without noise, these 829 priests herded with indignity through the towns and streets of France, beaten and stripped before being consigned to two prison ships bound for French Guiana – a place deliberately chosen for its murderous climate[4]? As a reminder of the historic allegiance of France to the Holy See, they were an embarrassment to the Republic; because they functioned as a stimulus to the faith of many, they were undesirables to be eliminated.  Most of them had refused from the outset the route the Republic considered patriotic: the oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which removed the priest from his fidelity to the Pope and rendered him a schismatic civil servant of the government.  Others among them, confronted with the fidelity of their brethren, would later retract that same oath.

[Image: Priest-prison-ship-walk.png]

It is to the credit of the French hierarchy that all but four of the bishops of France, along with over half of the clergy, refused the oath.  Even the Terror regime was afraid to execute them all outright.  Instead, it would bury all of them in opprobrium, chase many of them into exile, and murder the remaining unfortunates by inches on the prison ships which, due to their condition and the British blockade of the oceans, would never make it to French Guiana.

The deportation of the prisoners reads like an episode from a surrealist nightmare.  Humiliating strip searches, insults and booing from the mob, inclement weather, accommodation with malefactors or in profaned churches were not the only sufferings endured on the long Calvary.  On the march through Limoges, goats and donkeys arrayed in priestly garments were added to the procession of clergy, and a deacon was ritually guillotined[5]. At Cognac, they were taunted by an official, “If you were animals, we might have pity on you, but being monsters, you don’t deserve any compassion.[6]”  Once arrived at their destination, the already demoralised and exhausted priests were welcomed on board the ships by being denuded of their last possessions.  Not even a breviary was allowed.

On board they would learn an entirely different code of justice, the code of false accusations and rapid executions. Everything was punishable: to whisper in Latin was the sign of a conspirator[7]. Those subjected to a quick execution by gunfire were the fortunate ones; those left to rot on the ships had the crueller fate. From eight at night to eight in the morning, they were crammed into a space smaller than a coffin[8] for each one, without light, without air. As there were insufficient buckets for natural necessities and given the brutal necessity of climbing over bodies to reach those buckets, the air was soon filled with a terrible stench. To this suffering was added the freezing cold on deck during the day, and below deck, the horror of fumigations which were produced by plunging a red-hot cannonball into tar[9]. These fumigations made some of the priests spit blood; they produced a racking cough. The food, unsatisfying as it was, was infested with worms, infected with mould, or even more putrid matter. Forced to labour, deprived of the least intellectual enjoyment or companionship, the priests were put to a test of fidelity which is astonishing to contemplate.

All these outward tortures- to which the predictable dysentery and typhoid would soon be added- pale, however, in comparison to the spiritual sufferings, for if the physical sufferings were a purgatory, the behaviour of the crew was reminiscent of the demons in hell. One Abbe Maugras recorded of the crew’s behaviour “I doubt if the demons in hell could utter as many blasphemies against God and His Saints.”[10]  Every prayer they uttered was greeted with a blasphemy so terrible that many resolved to keep silent. Nonetheless, by unanimous consent the entire body of priests resolved, in the face of death, to continue the Benedicite and to make the sign of the Cross before meals. Before their resolve, the crew was silenced. It was one of the priests’ rare victories.[11]

Providence, meanwhile, was not asleep. Somehow, the Blessed Sacrament and the holy oils remained undiscovered on one of the ships, the Deux-Associes, so that all of of the priests were able to receive Extreme Unction (and nearly all Holy Viaticum) before death, a death endured with sentiments of confidence and resignation so great that it comforted their voluntary nurses.  “I have seen some of them after death whose faces were so beautiful that we could not stop looking at them,” recorded one of these helpers later.[12]  And what hours of tender adoration were made by these priest-victims beside the Divine Host, which transformed the hell of the prison ships into a paradise of virtue, peace, and love of God!  “We suffer not only with peace, but with sweetness, and we die with delight,” wrote one of them.[13]

The gentle hand of Our Lady was also to be seen in some of the reliefs given to the victims on her feast days. For instance, it was on the feast of her Assumption[14] that the priests received the welcome news of their disembarkation onto the island of Île -Madame, where they might nurse the sick and bury their dead. They hastened to consecrate their makeshift hospital and the island to Our Lady under the title of her Assumption, changing the name to Ile-Notre-Dame.

It was possibly there that one of the priest-nurses, whilst tending to his brethren, sculpted the relic and icon of their trial, the famous Prison Ship Cross which doubtless received the last pleading glance of the dying priests. The Corpus, worn with the devotion of over two centuries, is without arms, without hands. The armless Christ is seen as a symbol of the priesthood deprived of the liberty to offer Mass yet exercising their priesthood through suffering and interior prayer.[15]

[Image: priest-prison-ship-several.png]

Perhaps the most beautiful jewel to emerge from the bitter trial was the mutual support of the clergy. A group banded together and made nine serious resolutions for their spiritual lives: to avoid repining on account of the loss of their possessions; to live modestly and soberly if ever they were released; to avoid ever making public the story of what they had endured; to avoid useless longings for release from their fate; to spend the time of their imprisonment reflecting on their past and making serious resolutions for the future.  Most touching is the promise to cover for posterity and to screen from a curious public any faults or weaknesses which their brethren, under tyranny, might happen to commit[16].

This magnanimity which grew under persecution was no weak flame, sputtering and dying after its first burst of radiance. Years later, a visitor called at Captain Laly’s house, where the man lived, now impoverished and far from the consolations of religion, as he only too well deserved. A visitor entered; Laly regarded him with horror, recognising in him one of the priests he had tortured. The priest left a bag of money on the table. “That is how a priest forgives,” he remarked.[17]

The terrible Laly later died repentant and converted - a conversion surely won by the magnanimity of his victims.

But if, as Commandant Laly desired, the ocean guarded her secrets, the soil of Île -Madame did not. The local peasantry transmitted the story of the holy priests and their cruel murder. Decades later, in 1863, a clergyman asked a praying peasant why he doffed his hat to pray in a field without church or shrine. Astonished, the peasant asked, “But Sir, is it possible that you do not know that the saints are buried here?”[18] Devotion grew and, in the nineteenth century, God was pleased to honour the sacrifice of His servants by a miracle:  the path which connects the island to the mainland, and which had become dangerous, was renewed miraculously overnight[19].  It endures beneath the tread of countless annual pilgrims. There on Île -Madame lie buried (and honoured by a cross of simple galets or flat stones brought by generations of pilgrims) the bodies of some 254 priests, buried by their exhausted fellow-sufferers, who were forced to dig the burial places of their comrades but prevented from offering the briefest of funeral obsequies.  They were buried in silence- but the stones still cry out.

For an intimate tie exists binding Catholics to those priests who died in witness to the spiritual independence of Christ’s kingdom on earth. If we can attend the Mass of Ages, it is due in no small part to the valiant efforts and rapid organisation of some French clergy and laity after the Second Vatican Council. It is likewise indisputable that the heroes of the ecclesiastical Revolution, slandered and reduced to penury, saying Mass in forests and in basements, are the spiritual heirs of the martyrs of the French Revolution. Across the centuries we hear the clarion call: “If we are the most unfortunate of men, we are also the happiest of Christians.”[20]  It is our motto too.


[1]  Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 34

[2] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[3] Un peu plus d’Histoire - PRÊTRES DÉPORTÉS sur les PONTONS :  Diocèse de La Rochelle & Saintes:  This quotation is also found generally, in the public domain, such as Les martyrs des Pontons de Rochefort (1794-1795) - Christ Roi and Les mouroirs flottants de Rochefort

[4]  Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 20

[5] Ibid, pg. 28

[6] Ibid, pg 27

[7] Les mouroirs flottants de Rochefort, https://fr.aleteia.org/

[8] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[9] Chevreau, Guy, Les Pontons de Rochefort, 1974 :  Kindle edition

[10] Chevreau,  ibid.

[11]ibid.

[12]ibid.

[13] Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 58

[14]  Poivert, L. (Chanoine): Les Martyrs des Pontons, pg 66

[15] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[16] An entire list of the nine resolutions is given at the website of the Diocese of Saintes at 9 Résolutions - PRÊTRES DÉPORTÉS sur les PONTONS.    The resolutions are in the public domain and included in, for example, the present liturgical books of the Carmelite Order.

[17] Reportage du pèlerinage 2022 à l'Ile Madame • La Porte Latine

[18] La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023

[19] This is an oral tradition for which historical data are difficult to find, but the fact is maintained by local clergy and religious in France. See an example at Reportage du pèlerinage 2022 à l'Ile Madame • LPL

[20]  La croix des pontons de Rochefort et Le Pelerinage a L’Ile-Madame, Documentary, Culture-Bible et Studio 4, 2023]]> <![CDATA[The Prophetic Saint Who Foretold What the End of the World Will Be Like]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7879 Fri, 16 Jan 2026 17:10:23 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7879 The Prophetic Saint Who Foretold What the End of the World Will Be Like
When the Pope used the term ‘Angel of the Apocalypse’ in the Middle Ages, people knew he was talking about St. Vincent Ferrer

[Image: 20200826190820_5f4699eec2bf74d8ccd7a260jpeg.webp]

Alonso Cano, “St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching,” c. 1645 (photo: Public Domain)
NCR | April 5, 2019

St. Vincent Ferrer earned the title preaching the Gospel powerfully and persuasively, often on the Final Judgment and the coming of the Antichrist. Even Pius II’s Bull of Canonization called St. Vincent Ferrer “the Angel of the Apocalypse, flying through the heavens to announce the day of the Last Judgment, to evangelize the inhabitants of the earth.”

St. Vincent died on April 5, 1419, yet his words remain as powerful and necessary as ever. Before looking at his preaching on the Last Judgment, the Antichrist and the End of the World, let’s understand how powerful a preacher he was all over Europe, beginning in his native Spain, by looking at a mere speck of who he reached and the miracles he performed.

As a Dominican priest, Vincent Ferrer preached in his own native language or Latin, yet wherever he went, everyone miraculously understood his every word as if he were preaching in their language. Sinners by the thousands, even the most hardened, repented. When the curious Moorish king sent for him, after Vincent Ferrer gave just three sermons, 8,000 Moors converted and wanted to be baptized. Modest estimates put his conversion of Jews in city after city in Spain at 25,000.

At one major church conference, Vincent’s preaching saw 14 of 16 rabbis converted on the spot. In Toledo as Jews became Christians they turned their synagogue into a church under the Blessed Mother.

Like Jesus raising the widow of Naim’s son, thorough the power of Christ St. Vincent stopped a funeral procession and commanded the corpse to rise, restoring the dead man to life. In all, he restored 28 dead people back to life. Even after he died, two dead people placed on his tomb came back to life.

He cured countless physical infirmities, working wonders through the name of Jesus and the Sign of the Cross. In one, he restored the use of the limbs of an incurably crippled boy who eventually became the Bishop of Barcelona.

In confession, he could read souls. He shared heavenly previews of future events, such as telling a mother her little son would become pope and canonize him — which happened as the boy became Callixtus III. (At the canonization Vincent Ferrer’s body was found incorrupt.) Earlier, during a Barcelona famine, he announced two ships were coming loaded with corn. Nobody believed. That same day, as predicted, the ships arrived.

Highly devoted to the Blessed Mother, he preached and demonstrated the power of the Rosary through immediate conversion obtained through praying it.


Preaching the Last Judgement

Jesus will come not like His first coming in humility and poverty, but “in such majesty and power that the whole world will tremble,” began Angel of the Apocalypse in a sermon. When he powerfully detailed the glory and the horror of separating the sheep and goats described in Matthew 25, record has it sinners were frightened and cried. He wanted them to do so because he himself was fearful of that day and fearful for all those he preached to.

Vincent told the throngs:
Quote:People will say ‘to the mountains and the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb’ (Revelation 6:16). Yet Jesus said, ‘But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads,’ ‘because your redemption is at hand’ (Luke 21:28).The Blessed Mother shall sit with him. Jesus will separate the peoples of the nations as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.

St. Vincent cautioned, “On that day it will be better to be a sheep of Jesus Christ that to have been a pope, or king, or emperor.”

Vincent powerfully detailed five virtues revealed in Scripture that distinguishes the sheep: “simple innocence, ample mercy, steadfast patience, true obedience, and worthy penance.”

First, simple innocence is when a person “lives simply, nor hurts anyone in his heart, by hating, nor by defaming in speech, nor striking with hands, nor by stealing. Such a life “is called simple innocence, which makes a man a sheep of Christ.”

In each case, St. Vincent next colorfully details reasons why. A sheep doesn’t attack with horns like a bull...
Quote: ...nor bite with its teeth like a wolf, nor strike with hooves like a horse… if you wish to be a sheep of Christ, you should strike no one with horns of knowledge or of power, for lawyers strike by the horns of knowledge, jurists, advocates, or men who have great knowledge. Merchants by deceiving others. Lords and bullies strike with the horns of power, plundering or injuring, and extorting, using calumnies and threats, and the like. Listen to what the Lord says by the mouth of David: ‘And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted’ (Psalm 74:11).

“Biting” is to defame your neighbor’s reputation, and devour by saying “nothing good praising someone, but only the bad,” so “defamers are not the sheep of Christ, but wolves of hell.”

Kicking like horses means to despise. Therefore, he warns, “children, do not hate your parents; nor parents, children; nor young people, old folks; nor the healthy, the sick; nor rich, the poor; nor masters, their servants; nor prelates, their clergy; and vice versa. It is clear what is simple innocence.”

Second, ample mercy means distributing your God-given temporal and spiritual gifts to the needy. “Because,” Vincent illustrates, “among all the animals a sheep is the most beneficial of animals.  For the sheep by growing wool, shows us mercy and benefits of mercy, because how many poor people does a sheep clothe?” Sheep give milk and food to eat to. We imitate and give love this way: our wool is “external and temporal goods, bread and wine, money and clothes and the like.” The milk is “interior and spiritual goods, by giving good teaching to the ignorant… If you have the milk of knowledge, of devotion, or of eloquence, you should give to those not having them.” Vincent reminds of Jesus telling the sheep, “For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink... naked, and you covered me” (Matthew 25:35-36).

Third, steadfast patience takes different forms, such as when someone “suffering from injuries inflicted or spoken to him does not want to concern himself with taking revenge. Rather he loves everyone in general, and prays for them all.” The analogy? The “sheep is a most patient animal, for if harassed while eating, or if struck, it does not defend itself, but goes elsewhere, nor does it avenge itself like a dog or a goat would do, but humbly yields.  O blessed is the person, man or woman, who has such patience, and takes no vengeance for injuries, but forgives, as God forgives him.”

Fourth, true obedience means ordering all thoughts, words and actions according to God’s will, not ours, just as sheep are so obedient that a child with a staff easily “can easily guide 30 or 40 sheep.” Remember Psalm 23? Remember Jesus illustrating the shepherd was able to leave 99 safely alone as he searched for the lost sheep?

Vincent Ferrer’s simple summary for the shepherd’s commands includes these: “First that we live humbly” because Jesus said “learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29). Those with pride aren’t Christ’s sheep but the devil’s goat. Second, give with mercy and generosity. Who “disobediently goes by the way of avarice by committing usury, robbery, theft, etc., is not a sheep of Christ, but a goat of the devil.” Next, we must “walk by the way of cleanness, of chastity, etc.” Matthew 19:12). “Whoever therefore goes by the way of uncleanness and the filthiness of lust and carnality, such is not a sheep of Christ but a goat of the devil.”

Fifth, worthy penance must be performed for sins we’ve committed. The Angel of the Apocalypse emphasizes no one is exempt from sin, As Ecclesiastes (7:21) noted, “For there is no just man upon earth that does good, and sins not.”

“Therefore worthy penance is necessary, by sorrowing for sins and proposing not to relapse, confessing, and making satisfaction. And in this way penance makes a man a sheep of Christ.” To make the analogy, he explains in detail how a sheep is modest, but concludes a goat reflects “the notoriously shameless person, because everyone knows his wicked life and sins, like wicked clergy, and other notorious cohabiters, nor do they wish to cover it up with the tail of penitence; they are impenitent.”


The End of World and the Antichrist

St. Vincent Ferrer not only preached about these in detail but explained them in a letter to Pope Benedict XIII in 1412. Because his sermon is very long, encompassing explanations that focus on Luke 21:25-28, we’ll touch only on the highlights.

Jesus “warns us of the great evils and tribulations which are to come at the end of the world, and tells us of the signs which will precede His coming in judgment,” the Angel of the Apocalypse begins. He knew the Bible by heart and connected everything to Scripture.

God doesn’t leave us clueless. In his mercy, he often sends signs, “so that people forewarned of impending tribulation by means of these signs, through prayer and good works, may obtain in the tribunal of mercy a reversal of the sentence passed against them by God the judge in the heavenly courts; or at least by penance and amendment of life, may prepare themselves against the impending affliction.” Remember Noah, and Jonah?

Three of the “greatest and most terrible” afflictions will be “Antichrist, a man but a diabolical one; second, the destruction by fire of the terrestrial world; third, the universal judgment. And with these tribulations the world will come to an end.” Providence will give us warning signs in the heavens — sun, moon and stars.

The first is “Antichrist, a diabolical man, who will bring distress on the whole world.” He will deceive Christians in four ways.

First, in the sign of the sun (Luke 21:25).Vincent Ferrer explains, “In Holy Scripture Christ is called the Sun. … Taking the word etymologically, we have: super omnia lucens – ‘shining above all things’… God the Father sent Him into the world, saying: ‘But unto you who fear my name the Sun of justice shall arise’ (Malachi 4:2).” So what’s the sign given by the sun for arrival of the enemy?

St. Vincent reveals St. Matthew gives it precisely: “The sun will not give its light.” How’s that? Vincent explains the sun will and cannot be darkened in itself, but only when clouds obscure it:
Quote:In the same way, in the time of Antichrist, the Sun of justice will be obscured by the interposition of temporal goods and the wealth which Antichrist will bestow on the world, inasmuch as the brightness of faith in Jesus Christ and the glow of good lives will no longer shine among Christians. For, lest they should lose their dominion, temporal rulers, kings and princes will range themselves on the side of Antichrist. In like manner, prelates for fear of losing their dignities, and religious and priests to gain honors and riches, will forsake the Faith of Christ and adhere to Antichrist. Now he will be a veritable man, but so proud that, not only will he desire to have universal dominion in the whole world, but will even demand to be called a god, and will insist on receiving divine worship.

The evil one will be able to accomplish because Daniel (11:43) prophesies — ‘He shall control the riches of gold and silver and all the treasures of Egypt.’ “With this wealth he will gather together in arms all the nations of the world, to fight against those who oppose him — (Revelation 20:7)” and “seduce the nations” and “peoples, that is, with gold and silver and honors.”

St. Vincent continues, “There will indeed be signs in the Sun of justice, for then it will be obscured in the hearts of Christians, since from those hearts it will not give forth the light of Faith; all preaching of a better life will cease, owing to the interposition of… clouds of temporal goods.”


Materialism Takes Over

St. Vincent tells us in every case why God all-powerful would permit this error the answer is the same — Wisdom 11:17: “By what things a man sinneth, by the same also is he tormented.”

“If therefore you do not wish to be deceived, now with all your hearts contemn and despise all earthly goods, and long for those of heaven, considering that the goods of this world are transitory and empty, while heavenly and celestial goods are eternal. In this way you will be strong.”

Next, signs in the moon. “In the Holy Scripture the moon signifies our holy Mother the Universal Church, which implies the worldwide union of Christians.” Reflecting the moon’s phases, the Church in the last phase “no longer in the state in which Christ founded it,” but “turned round to pride, pomp and vanity... mercy and liberality are changed into simony, usury and rapine; chastity becomes licentiousness, uncleanness and corruption; the brightness of virtue is changed into envy and malignity; temperance has become gluttony and voracity; patience has given place to anger, war and divisions among the peoples; diligence is superseded by negligence.”

Christ warned us: “There will arise false christs and false prophets. And they will show great signs and wonders in so much to deceive, if possible, even the elect” Matthew (24:24). Fooled with false “miracles.” “Since the people of the world sin against God by having recourse to the works of the devil, such as divination and fortunetelling… instead of laying their needs before the omnipotent God.” Think of all the occult around today.

Don’t be deceived but “place the whole of your faith and confidence in the name of Jesus Christ., and refuse to acknowledge any miracle unless it is worked in that same name; and so you will be strong against seduction.”

Third, “Stars shall fall from heaven,” Christ said (Matthew 24:29). Looking to Daniel (12:3), Vincent proves that refers to the masters, doctors, and licentiates in theology, some of whom “will fall from heaven, that is from the heights of the Faith (Daniel 11:36). Christ also permits this “because of the scandalous and wicked lives and the many sins” of some.

Christ warns us (24:21): “For there shall then be great tribulation such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.”

The Antichrist will reign for three and a half years, 1,290 days. When he is slain “by lightning on Mount Olivet and his death has been made widely known throughout the world, this our earth will exist for 45 more days; I do not say years, but days” (Daniel 12:11-12). The Doctors said “these 45 days will be given by God for the conversion of those who have been seduced by Antichrist, but Antichrist will have left behind him so great riches and pleasure that hardly any of the nations will be converted to the Faith of Christ. For there is no savior but Christ, and yet they will not be converted.” In Luke 17 Christ warns us it will be like in the days of Noah and Lot when people went about as usual.

Then “a certain dreadful expectation of the judgment and the rage of a fire shall consume the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27). As David says (Psalm 96:3): “A fire shall go before him and shall burn his enemies round about. His lightnings have shone forth to the world; the earth saw and trembled. The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord; at the presence of the Lord of all the earth.”

“Therefore,” Vincent Ferrer warns, “do penance now, forgive injuries, make restitution of any ill-gotten goods, live up to and confess your religion; If it were certain that in a short time this town was going to be destroyed by fire, would you not exchange all your immovable goods for something that you could take away with you?”

Only the treasure piled up already in heaven.]]> The Prophetic Saint Who Foretold What the End of the World Will Be Like
When the Pope used the term ‘Angel of the Apocalypse’ in the Middle Ages, people knew he was talking about St. Vincent Ferrer

[Image: 20200826190820_5f4699eec2bf74d8ccd7a260jpeg.webp]

Alonso Cano, “St. Vincent Ferrer Preaching,” c. 1645 (photo: Public Domain)
NCR | April 5, 2019

St. Vincent Ferrer earned the title preaching the Gospel powerfully and persuasively, often on the Final Judgment and the coming of the Antichrist. Even Pius II’s Bull of Canonization called St. Vincent Ferrer “the Angel of the Apocalypse, flying through the heavens to announce the day of the Last Judgment, to evangelize the inhabitants of the earth.”

St. Vincent died on April 5, 1419, yet his words remain as powerful and necessary as ever. Before looking at his preaching on the Last Judgment, the Antichrist and the End of the World, let’s understand how powerful a preacher he was all over Europe, beginning in his native Spain, by looking at a mere speck of who he reached and the miracles he performed.

As a Dominican priest, Vincent Ferrer preached in his own native language or Latin, yet wherever he went, everyone miraculously understood his every word as if he were preaching in their language. Sinners by the thousands, even the most hardened, repented. When the curious Moorish king sent for him, after Vincent Ferrer gave just three sermons, 8,000 Moors converted and wanted to be baptized. Modest estimates put his conversion of Jews in city after city in Spain at 25,000.

At one major church conference, Vincent’s preaching saw 14 of 16 rabbis converted on the spot. In Toledo as Jews became Christians they turned their synagogue into a church under the Blessed Mother.

Like Jesus raising the widow of Naim’s son, thorough the power of Christ St. Vincent stopped a funeral procession and commanded the corpse to rise, restoring the dead man to life. In all, he restored 28 dead people back to life. Even after he died, two dead people placed on his tomb came back to life.

He cured countless physical infirmities, working wonders through the name of Jesus and the Sign of the Cross. In one, he restored the use of the limbs of an incurably crippled boy who eventually became the Bishop of Barcelona.

In confession, he could read souls. He shared heavenly previews of future events, such as telling a mother her little son would become pope and canonize him — which happened as the boy became Callixtus III. (At the canonization Vincent Ferrer’s body was found incorrupt.) Earlier, during a Barcelona famine, he announced two ships were coming loaded with corn. Nobody believed. That same day, as predicted, the ships arrived.

Highly devoted to the Blessed Mother, he preached and demonstrated the power of the Rosary through immediate conversion obtained through praying it.


Preaching the Last Judgement

Jesus will come not like His first coming in humility and poverty, but “in such majesty and power that the whole world will tremble,” began Angel of the Apocalypse in a sermon. When he powerfully detailed the glory and the horror of separating the sheep and goats described in Matthew 25, record has it sinners were frightened and cried. He wanted them to do so because he himself was fearful of that day and fearful for all those he preached to.

Vincent told the throngs:
Quote:People will say ‘to the mountains and the rocks: Fall upon us, and hide us from the face of him who sits upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb’ (Revelation 6:16). Yet Jesus said, ‘But when these things begin to come to pass, look up, and lift up your heads,’ ‘because your redemption is at hand’ (Luke 21:28).The Blessed Mother shall sit with him. Jesus will separate the peoples of the nations as a shepherd separates sheep from goats.

St. Vincent cautioned, “On that day it will be better to be a sheep of Jesus Christ that to have been a pope, or king, or emperor.”

Vincent powerfully detailed five virtues revealed in Scripture that distinguishes the sheep: “simple innocence, ample mercy, steadfast patience, true obedience, and worthy penance.”

First, simple innocence is when a person “lives simply, nor hurts anyone in his heart, by hating, nor by defaming in speech, nor striking with hands, nor by stealing. Such a life “is called simple innocence, which makes a man a sheep of Christ.”

In each case, St. Vincent next colorfully details reasons why. A sheep doesn’t attack with horns like a bull...
Quote: ...nor bite with its teeth like a wolf, nor strike with hooves like a horse… if you wish to be a sheep of Christ, you should strike no one with horns of knowledge or of power, for lawyers strike by the horns of knowledge, jurists, advocates, or men who have great knowledge. Merchants by deceiving others. Lords and bullies strike with the horns of power, plundering or injuring, and extorting, using calumnies and threats, and the like. Listen to what the Lord says by the mouth of David: ‘And I will break all the horns of sinners: but the horns of the just shall be exalted’ (Psalm 74:11).

“Biting” is to defame your neighbor’s reputation, and devour by saying “nothing good praising someone, but only the bad,” so “defamers are not the sheep of Christ, but wolves of hell.”

Kicking like horses means to despise. Therefore, he warns, “children, do not hate your parents; nor parents, children; nor young people, old folks; nor the healthy, the sick; nor rich, the poor; nor masters, their servants; nor prelates, their clergy; and vice versa. It is clear what is simple innocence.”

Second, ample mercy means distributing your God-given temporal and spiritual gifts to the needy. “Because,” Vincent illustrates, “among all the animals a sheep is the most beneficial of animals.  For the sheep by growing wool, shows us mercy and benefits of mercy, because how many poor people does a sheep clothe?” Sheep give milk and food to eat to. We imitate and give love this way: our wool is “external and temporal goods, bread and wine, money and clothes and the like.” The milk is “interior and spiritual goods, by giving good teaching to the ignorant… If you have the milk of knowledge, of devotion, or of eloquence, you should give to those not having them.” Vincent reminds of Jesus telling the sheep, “For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink... naked, and you covered me” (Matthew 25:35-36).

Third, steadfast patience takes different forms, such as when someone “suffering from injuries inflicted or spoken to him does not want to concern himself with taking revenge. Rather he loves everyone in general, and prays for them all.” The analogy? The “sheep is a most patient animal, for if harassed while eating, or if struck, it does not defend itself, but goes elsewhere, nor does it avenge itself like a dog or a goat would do, but humbly yields.  O blessed is the person, man or woman, who has such patience, and takes no vengeance for injuries, but forgives, as God forgives him.”

Fourth, true obedience means ordering all thoughts, words and actions according to God’s will, not ours, just as sheep are so obedient that a child with a staff easily “can easily guide 30 or 40 sheep.” Remember Psalm 23? Remember Jesus illustrating the shepherd was able to leave 99 safely alone as he searched for the lost sheep?

Vincent Ferrer’s simple summary for the shepherd’s commands includes these: “First that we live humbly” because Jesus said “learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart” (Matthew 11:29). Those with pride aren’t Christ’s sheep but the devil’s goat. Second, give with mercy and generosity. Who “disobediently goes by the way of avarice by committing usury, robbery, theft, etc., is not a sheep of Christ, but a goat of the devil.” Next, we must “walk by the way of cleanness, of chastity, etc.” Matthew 19:12). “Whoever therefore goes by the way of uncleanness and the filthiness of lust and carnality, such is not a sheep of Christ but a goat of the devil.”

Fifth, worthy penance must be performed for sins we’ve committed. The Angel of the Apocalypse emphasizes no one is exempt from sin, As Ecclesiastes (7:21) noted, “For there is no just man upon earth that does good, and sins not.”

“Therefore worthy penance is necessary, by sorrowing for sins and proposing not to relapse, confessing, and making satisfaction. And in this way penance makes a man a sheep of Christ.” To make the analogy, he explains in detail how a sheep is modest, but concludes a goat reflects “the notoriously shameless person, because everyone knows his wicked life and sins, like wicked clergy, and other notorious cohabiters, nor do they wish to cover it up with the tail of penitence; they are impenitent.”


The End of World and the Antichrist

St. Vincent Ferrer not only preached about these in detail but explained them in a letter to Pope Benedict XIII in 1412. Because his sermon is very long, encompassing explanations that focus on Luke 21:25-28, we’ll touch only on the highlights.

Jesus “warns us of the great evils and tribulations which are to come at the end of the world, and tells us of the signs which will precede His coming in judgment,” the Angel of the Apocalypse begins. He knew the Bible by heart and connected everything to Scripture.

God doesn’t leave us clueless. In his mercy, he often sends signs, “so that people forewarned of impending tribulation by means of these signs, through prayer and good works, may obtain in the tribunal of mercy a reversal of the sentence passed against them by God the judge in the heavenly courts; or at least by penance and amendment of life, may prepare themselves against the impending affliction.” Remember Noah, and Jonah?

Three of the “greatest and most terrible” afflictions will be “Antichrist, a man but a diabolical one; second, the destruction by fire of the terrestrial world; third, the universal judgment. And with these tribulations the world will come to an end.” Providence will give us warning signs in the heavens — sun, moon and stars.

The first is “Antichrist, a diabolical man, who will bring distress on the whole world.” He will deceive Christians in four ways.

First, in the sign of the sun (Luke 21:25).Vincent Ferrer explains, “In Holy Scripture Christ is called the Sun. … Taking the word etymologically, we have: super omnia lucens – ‘shining above all things’… God the Father sent Him into the world, saying: ‘But unto you who fear my name the Sun of justice shall arise’ (Malachi 4:2).” So what’s the sign given by the sun for arrival of the enemy?

St. Vincent reveals St. Matthew gives it precisely: “The sun will not give its light.” How’s that? Vincent explains the sun will and cannot be darkened in itself, but only when clouds obscure it:
Quote:In the same way, in the time of Antichrist, the Sun of justice will be obscured by the interposition of temporal goods and the wealth which Antichrist will bestow on the world, inasmuch as the brightness of faith in Jesus Christ and the glow of good lives will no longer shine among Christians. For, lest they should lose their dominion, temporal rulers, kings and princes will range themselves on the side of Antichrist. In like manner, prelates for fear of losing their dignities, and religious and priests to gain honors and riches, will forsake the Faith of Christ and adhere to Antichrist. Now he will be a veritable man, but so proud that, not only will he desire to have universal dominion in the whole world, but will even demand to be called a god, and will insist on receiving divine worship.

The evil one will be able to accomplish because Daniel (11:43) prophesies — ‘He shall control the riches of gold and silver and all the treasures of Egypt.’ “With this wealth he will gather together in arms all the nations of the world, to fight against those who oppose him — (Revelation 20:7)” and “seduce the nations” and “peoples, that is, with gold and silver and honors.”

St. Vincent continues, “There will indeed be signs in the Sun of justice, for then it will be obscured in the hearts of Christians, since from those hearts it will not give forth the light of Faith; all preaching of a better life will cease, owing to the interposition of… clouds of temporal goods.”


Materialism Takes Over

St. Vincent tells us in every case why God all-powerful would permit this error the answer is the same — Wisdom 11:17: “By what things a man sinneth, by the same also is he tormented.”

“If therefore you do not wish to be deceived, now with all your hearts contemn and despise all earthly goods, and long for those of heaven, considering that the goods of this world are transitory and empty, while heavenly and celestial goods are eternal. In this way you will be strong.”

Next, signs in the moon. “In the Holy Scripture the moon signifies our holy Mother the Universal Church, which implies the worldwide union of Christians.” Reflecting the moon’s phases, the Church in the last phase “no longer in the state in which Christ founded it,” but “turned round to pride, pomp and vanity... mercy and liberality are changed into simony, usury and rapine; chastity becomes licentiousness, uncleanness and corruption; the brightness of virtue is changed into envy and malignity; temperance has become gluttony and voracity; patience has given place to anger, war and divisions among the peoples; diligence is superseded by negligence.”

Christ warned us: “There will arise false christs and false prophets. And they will show great signs and wonders in so much to deceive, if possible, even the elect” Matthew (24:24). Fooled with false “miracles.” “Since the people of the world sin against God by having recourse to the works of the devil, such as divination and fortunetelling… instead of laying their needs before the omnipotent God.” Think of all the occult around today.

Don’t be deceived but “place the whole of your faith and confidence in the name of Jesus Christ., and refuse to acknowledge any miracle unless it is worked in that same name; and so you will be strong against seduction.”

Third, “Stars shall fall from heaven,” Christ said (Matthew 24:29). Looking to Daniel (12:3), Vincent proves that refers to the masters, doctors, and licentiates in theology, some of whom “will fall from heaven, that is from the heights of the Faith (Daniel 11:36). Christ also permits this “because of the scandalous and wicked lives and the many sins” of some.

Christ warns us (24:21): “For there shall then be great tribulation such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved; but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.”

The Antichrist will reign for three and a half years, 1,290 days. When he is slain “by lightning on Mount Olivet and his death has been made widely known throughout the world, this our earth will exist for 45 more days; I do not say years, but days” (Daniel 12:11-12). The Doctors said “these 45 days will be given by God for the conversion of those who have been seduced by Antichrist, but Antichrist will have left behind him so great riches and pleasure that hardly any of the nations will be converted to the Faith of Christ. For there is no savior but Christ, and yet they will not be converted.” In Luke 17 Christ warns us it will be like in the days of Noah and Lot when people went about as usual.

Then “a certain dreadful expectation of the judgment and the rage of a fire shall consume the adversaries” (Hebrews 10:27). As David says (Psalm 96:3): “A fire shall go before him and shall burn his enemies round about. His lightnings have shone forth to the world; the earth saw and trembled. The mountains melted like wax at the presence of the Lord; at the presence of the Lord of all the earth.”

“Therefore,” Vincent Ferrer warns, “do penance now, forgive injuries, make restitution of any ill-gotten goods, live up to and confess your religion; If it were certain that in a short time this town was going to be destroyed by fire, would you not exchange all your immovable goods for something that you could take away with you?”

Only the treasure piled up already in heaven.]]> <![CDATA[England’s First Martyr St. Alban Converts His Executioner]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7290 Sun, 29 Jun 2025 12:13:33 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7290 England’s First Martyr St. Alban Converts His Executioner
Adapted from Bede's Ecclesiastical History, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1907)


Hugh O'Reilly, TIA | June 37, 2025

St. Alban was a Roman citizen living in Verulanium in Britain (today, in Hertfordshire, England). He converted to Christianity around 300 A.D. and became the first-recorded British Christian Martyr. St. Bede's Ecclesiastical History gives an account of Alban being beheaded on a hill outside the city, which has been adapted for our readers below.


Now then, this Alban, being yet a pagan at the time when all manner of cruelties was being practiced against the Christians, gave refuge in his house to a certain priest Amphibalus, who was fleeing from his persecutors. Alban observed this cleric to be engaged in continual prayer and watching day and night and became impressed with his faith and teaching.

[Image: H280_Bap.jpg]

The priest Amphibalus baptizing & teaching the people

Thus, following the inspirations of divine grace that was shining on him, he began to imitate the example of faith and piety that was set before him. Thus Alban determined to cast off the darkness of idolatry, and he became a Christian in all sincerity of heart.

After Amphibalus had been sheltered some days at that dwelling, it came to the ears of an impious prince that that a confessor of Christ was being concealed at Alban's house. Whereupon he sent some soldiers to make a strict search after him.

When they came to seize the priest, St. Alban himself, wearing the priest’s cloak and habit, came forth to the soldiers and presented himself to the soldiers in place of his guest. He was swiftly bound and led before the judge.

It happened that the judge, at the time when Alban was brought before him, was standing at the altar and offering sacrifice to devils. When the judge heard that Alban had offered himself up in place of the priest, he became enraged that Alban would shelter a person who despised and blasphemed the gods. Thus he ordered that Alban should endure all the punishments that were to be inflicted upon the priest unless he would comply with the pagan rites of their religion.

[Image: H280_crow.jpg]

Crowds of people witnessed the miracles & beheading of St. Alban

But St. Alban was not at all daunted by the judge's threats, but putting on the armor of spiritual warfare, publicly declared that he would not obey his command to sacrifice to idols because, he affirmed: "I worship and adore the true and living God who created all things."

Then the judge, filled with anger, said: “If you would enjoy the happiness of eternal life, do not delay to offer sacrifice to the great gods.”

Alban rejoined: “These sacrifices, which by you are offered to devils, neither can avail the worshippers nor fulfill the desires and petitions of the suppliants. Rather, whosoever shall offer sacrifice to these images shall receive the everlasting pains of Hell for his reward.”

The judge, hearing these words ordered that Alban be scourged by the executioners, believing that he might by stripes shake that constancy of heart, on which he could not prevail by words. But Alban, being most cruelly tortured, bore all with patience and even more, with joyful countenance for Our Lord's sake.

When the judge perceived that he was not to be overcome by tortures to put aside the practice of the Christian Religion, he ordered him to be put to death.

[Image: H280al2.jpg]

The executioner is converted to see the river dry up on St. Alban’s request

On the way to the site of execution outside the town, he came to a fast flowing river that could not be crossed. There was a bridge but the multitude of persons who had been moved by divine inspiration to come witness the martyrdom of Alban made it impossible for him to pass over it.

St. Alban, therefore, urged by an ardent and devout wish to attain martyrdom sooner, drew near to the waters and lifted up his eyes to Heaven. Whereupon the river immediately dried up, thus making a way for him to pass.

The astonished executioner who was assigned to put him to death observed this, and moved doubtless by divine grace, cast down his sword which he had carried ready drawn. Falling at the feet of St. Alban, he prayed earnestly that he might rather be accounted worthy to suffer with the martyr whom he was ordered to execute or, if possible, in place of him.

The other executioners rightly hesitated to take up the sword lying on the ground. Meanwhile, the Holy Confessor, accompanied by the multitude, ascended a hill, which was adorned with flowers of many colors as a fittingly beautiful place to be consecrated by a martyr’s blood.

Reaching the summit of this hill, St. Alban began to thirst, and prayed that God would give him water. Immediately a spring sprang up at his feet. It was here that the head of the undaunted Martyr was struck off and here that he received the crown of life, which God has promised to them who love Him.

[Image: H280_Eye.jpg]

The eyes of the executioner pop out his head

But the second executioner who delivered the fatal stroke was not permitted to rejoice over Alban’s dead body, for his eyes popped out of his head and dropped to the ground at the same moment as the Blessed Martyr's head fell.

Immediately afterward, the first executioner who had refused to strike Alban and prayed to join him was also beheaded. Of whom it is apparent that though he was not purified by the waters of Baptism, yet he was cleansed by the washing of his own blood, and rendered worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Then the judge, astonished at the unwonted sight of so many heavenly miracles, ordered the persecution of the Christians to cease immediately, and began to honor the death of the saints.

The Blessed Alban suffered death on the 22nd day of June outside the city of Verulam, which is now by the English nation called Verulanium.]]> England’s First Martyr St. Alban Converts His Executioner
Adapted from Bede's Ecclesiastical History, (London: George Bell and Sons, 1907)


Hugh O'Reilly, TIA | June 37, 2025

St. Alban was a Roman citizen living in Verulanium in Britain (today, in Hertfordshire, England). He converted to Christianity around 300 A.D. and became the first-recorded British Christian Martyr. St. Bede's Ecclesiastical History gives an account of Alban being beheaded on a hill outside the city, which has been adapted for our readers below.


Now then, this Alban, being yet a pagan at the time when all manner of cruelties was being practiced against the Christians, gave refuge in his house to a certain priest Amphibalus, who was fleeing from his persecutors. Alban observed this cleric to be engaged in continual prayer and watching day and night and became impressed with his faith and teaching.

[Image: H280_Bap.jpg]

The priest Amphibalus baptizing & teaching the people

Thus, following the inspirations of divine grace that was shining on him, he began to imitate the example of faith and piety that was set before him. Thus Alban determined to cast off the darkness of idolatry, and he became a Christian in all sincerity of heart.

After Amphibalus had been sheltered some days at that dwelling, it came to the ears of an impious prince that that a confessor of Christ was being concealed at Alban's house. Whereupon he sent some soldiers to make a strict search after him.

When they came to seize the priest, St. Alban himself, wearing the priest’s cloak and habit, came forth to the soldiers and presented himself to the soldiers in place of his guest. He was swiftly bound and led before the judge.

It happened that the judge, at the time when Alban was brought before him, was standing at the altar and offering sacrifice to devils. When the judge heard that Alban had offered himself up in place of the priest, he became enraged that Alban would shelter a person who despised and blasphemed the gods. Thus he ordered that Alban should endure all the punishments that were to be inflicted upon the priest unless he would comply with the pagan rites of their religion.

[Image: H280_crow.jpg]

Crowds of people witnessed the miracles & beheading of St. Alban

But St. Alban was not at all daunted by the judge's threats, but putting on the armor of spiritual warfare, publicly declared that he would not obey his command to sacrifice to idols because, he affirmed: "I worship and adore the true and living God who created all things."

Then the judge, filled with anger, said: “If you would enjoy the happiness of eternal life, do not delay to offer sacrifice to the great gods.”

Alban rejoined: “These sacrifices, which by you are offered to devils, neither can avail the worshippers nor fulfill the desires and petitions of the suppliants. Rather, whosoever shall offer sacrifice to these images shall receive the everlasting pains of Hell for his reward.”

The judge, hearing these words ordered that Alban be scourged by the executioners, believing that he might by stripes shake that constancy of heart, on which he could not prevail by words. But Alban, being most cruelly tortured, bore all with patience and even more, with joyful countenance for Our Lord's sake.

When the judge perceived that he was not to be overcome by tortures to put aside the practice of the Christian Religion, he ordered him to be put to death.

[Image: H280al2.jpg]

The executioner is converted to see the river dry up on St. Alban’s request

On the way to the site of execution outside the town, he came to a fast flowing river that could not be crossed. There was a bridge but the multitude of persons who had been moved by divine inspiration to come witness the martyrdom of Alban made it impossible for him to pass over it.

St. Alban, therefore, urged by an ardent and devout wish to attain martyrdom sooner, drew near to the waters and lifted up his eyes to Heaven. Whereupon the river immediately dried up, thus making a way for him to pass.

The astonished executioner who was assigned to put him to death observed this, and moved doubtless by divine grace, cast down his sword which he had carried ready drawn. Falling at the feet of St. Alban, he prayed earnestly that he might rather be accounted worthy to suffer with the martyr whom he was ordered to execute or, if possible, in place of him.

The other executioners rightly hesitated to take up the sword lying on the ground. Meanwhile, the Holy Confessor, accompanied by the multitude, ascended a hill, which was adorned with flowers of many colors as a fittingly beautiful place to be consecrated by a martyr’s blood.

Reaching the summit of this hill, St. Alban began to thirst, and prayed that God would give him water. Immediately a spring sprang up at his feet. It was here that the head of the undaunted Martyr was struck off and here that he received the crown of life, which God has promised to them who love Him.

[Image: H280_Eye.jpg]

The eyes of the executioner pop out his head

But the second executioner who delivered the fatal stroke was not permitted to rejoice over Alban’s dead body, for his eyes popped out of his head and dropped to the ground at the same moment as the Blessed Martyr's head fell.

Immediately afterward, the first executioner who had refused to strike Alban and prayed to join him was also beheaded. Of whom it is apparent that though he was not purified by the waters of Baptism, yet he was cleansed by the washing of his own blood, and rendered worthy to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Then the judge, astonished at the unwonted sight of so many heavenly miracles, ordered the persecution of the Christians to cease immediately, and began to honor the death of the saints.

The Blessed Alban suffered death on the 22nd day of June outside the city of Verulam, which is now by the English nation called Verulanium.]]> <![CDATA[St. Philip Neri Resurrects a Noble Youth]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7211 Sun, 01 Jun 2025 09:17:50 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7211 St. Philip Neri Resurrects a Noble Youth
Adapted from the Life of St. Philip Neri
by Fr. PIetro Giacomo
TIA | May 31, 2025

The very presence of St. Philip of Neri spread about him an atmosphere of sunshine and gladness.. “When I met him in the street,” relates Don Pellegrino, “he would pat my cheek and say, ‘Well, how is Don Pellegrino?’ and leave me so full of joy that I could not tell which way I was going.”

[Image: H279_Joy.jpg]

The very presence of St. Philip Neri dispelled sadness and perplexity

When Don Fabrizio di Massimi, head of one of the oldest patrician families in Rome, was in sadness or perplexity, he would go and stand at Philip's door in the Oratory. He said it was enough to see the priest or to be near him to find his heart lightened and gladdened.

When Don Fabrizio and his pious wife Lavinia de’ Rustici, who had five daughters, learned that Livinia was expecting another child, they asked their revered friend to pray for a successful pregnancy, and St. Philip assured them that he would.

When the labor pains had begun, Fabrizio went to the Oratory to ask St. Philip for prayers for a successful partuition. The Saint reflected a moment and then said, “This time your wife will have a son but I wish you to give him the name I shall choose. Do you agree to this?”

Fabrizio answered, “Yes.”
“Then,” replied Philip, “I will give him the name of Paolo.”

[Image: H279_Pal.jpg]

The Palazzo Massimo has been the family home of the Italian patrician family for centuries

Lavinia died when the boy was still young, which caused the child great grief, for he had a great love for his mother. When the youth was about 14 years old, on the 10th of January, 1583, he fell sick of a fever, which lasted 65 days.

St. Philip Neri went to see Paolo every day, for he loved him tenderly and had heard his confessions ever since he was a child. Paolo was so pious a boy that when a friend Germanico Fedeli, wondering at his patience through so long and painful a malady, asked him if he would like to change his present illness for Germanico’s health, the youth replied that he would not barter it for the health of anyone, as he was quite content with his sickness.

On the 16th of March the poor boy was reduced to the last extremities. As St. Philip had desired to be informed when Paolo was close to death, they sent a messenger to tell him that the youth was asking insistently for him, and that if he wished to see him alive he must come as quickly as possible, as matters were now at the worst.

[Image: H279_Res.jpg]

St. Philip sprinkled holy water on the dead boy & his eyes opened normally

The messenger arriving at San Girolamo found that Philip was saying mass, so that he could not speak to him. Meanwhile the boy expired; his father closed his eyes, and Camillo, the curate of the parish who had given him Extreme Unction and made the commendation of his soul, had already left. The servants were preparing to wash the body and wrap it in linen cloths.

As soon as the Mass was concluded, St. Philip left to attend to Paolo. Don Fabrizio, weeping, met him at the top of the stairs and said to him, “You are too late. Paolo is dead.”

St. Philip replied, “And why did you not send someone to call me sooner?”

“We did,” rejoined Fabrizio, “but Your Reverence was saying Mass.”

Philip then entered the room where the dead body of the youth lay. Setting himself at the edge of the bed, he prayed for seven or eight minutes with the usual palpitation of his heart and trembling of his body. He then took some holy water and sprinkled the boy’s face, and put a little in his mouth. After this he breathed in his face, laid his hand upon his forehead, and called him twice with a loud and sonorous voice, “Paolo, Paolo!”

TThe youth immediately awoke as from a deep sleep, opened his eyes and said, as in reply to Philip’s call, “Father! I wanted to see you. I forgot to mention a sin, and I should like to go to confession.”

The holy priest ordered those who were round the bed to retire for awhile, and putting a crucifix into Paolo’s hand he heard his confession and gave him absolution.

[Image: H279_Mas.jpg]

Masses are said every year on March 16 in the Palazzo Massimo to commemorate the miracle

WWhen the others returned to the room, Philip began to talk with the youth about his sister and mother, who were both dead, and this conversation lasted about half an hour. The youth conversed naturally with a clear distinct voice, as if he were in perfect health. The color had returned to his countenance, and to all who looked at him it seemed as if he had no ill heath at all.

At last St. Philip asked him before his father and all the others in the room if he would die willingly; he replied yes. A second time Philip asked him me if he could die willingly. He replied, “Yes, most willingly; especially so that I may go and see my mother and my sister in Paradise.”

Philip then gave him his blessing, saying, “Go, be blessed, and pray to God for me.“

Immediately with a placid countenance and without the least movement, Paolo expired in Philip’s arms.

Witnessing all this were Fabrizio with two of his daughters who were nuns in Santa Marta, his second wife Violante Santacroce, the servant Francesca who assisted Paolo in his illness, and several others.

In commemoration of this miracle, a special feast is celebrated each year on March 16 in the chapel of the Palazzo Massimo, which is still the home of the same family. The Palace is open to the public on this day from 7 am for consecutive Masses commemorating the miracle.

The chapel also has its own Votive Mass for the occasion, granted by Blessed Pius IX in 1855, at the behest of Francesco Saverio Cardinal Massimo, a member of the family. Through a time-honored indult, the family has special permission to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel’s tabernacle.

[Image: H279_Visi.png]

One day a year the Massimo family opens their palace & splendid chapel to the public
]]> St. Philip Neri Resurrects a Noble Youth
Adapted from the Life of St. Philip Neri
by Fr. PIetro Giacomo
TIA | May 31, 2025

The very presence of St. Philip of Neri spread about him an atmosphere of sunshine and gladness.. “When I met him in the street,” relates Don Pellegrino, “he would pat my cheek and say, ‘Well, how is Don Pellegrino?’ and leave me so full of joy that I could not tell which way I was going.”

[Image: H279_Joy.jpg]

The very presence of St. Philip Neri dispelled sadness and perplexity

When Don Fabrizio di Massimi, head of one of the oldest patrician families in Rome, was in sadness or perplexity, he would go and stand at Philip's door in the Oratory. He said it was enough to see the priest or to be near him to find his heart lightened and gladdened.

When Don Fabrizio and his pious wife Lavinia de’ Rustici, who had five daughters, learned that Livinia was expecting another child, they asked their revered friend to pray for a successful pregnancy, and St. Philip assured them that he would.

When the labor pains had begun, Fabrizio went to the Oratory to ask St. Philip for prayers for a successful partuition. The Saint reflected a moment and then said, “This time your wife will have a son but I wish you to give him the name I shall choose. Do you agree to this?”

Fabrizio answered, “Yes.”
“Then,” replied Philip, “I will give him the name of Paolo.”

[Image: H279_Pal.jpg]

The Palazzo Massimo has been the family home of the Italian patrician family for centuries

Lavinia died when the boy was still young, which caused the child great grief, for he had a great love for his mother. When the youth was about 14 years old, on the 10th of January, 1583, he fell sick of a fever, which lasted 65 days.

St. Philip Neri went to see Paolo every day, for he loved him tenderly and had heard his confessions ever since he was a child. Paolo was so pious a boy that when a friend Germanico Fedeli, wondering at his patience through so long and painful a malady, asked him if he would like to change his present illness for Germanico’s health, the youth replied that he would not barter it for the health of anyone, as he was quite content with his sickness.

On the 16th of March the poor boy was reduced to the last extremities. As St. Philip had desired to be informed when Paolo was close to death, they sent a messenger to tell him that the youth was asking insistently for him, and that if he wished to see him alive he must come as quickly as possible, as matters were now at the worst.

[Image: H279_Res.jpg]

St. Philip sprinkled holy water on the dead boy & his eyes opened normally

The messenger arriving at San Girolamo found that Philip was saying mass, so that he could not speak to him. Meanwhile the boy expired; his father closed his eyes, and Camillo, the curate of the parish who had given him Extreme Unction and made the commendation of his soul, had already left. The servants were preparing to wash the body and wrap it in linen cloths.

As soon as the Mass was concluded, St. Philip left to attend to Paolo. Don Fabrizio, weeping, met him at the top of the stairs and said to him, “You are too late. Paolo is dead.”

St. Philip replied, “And why did you not send someone to call me sooner?”

“We did,” rejoined Fabrizio, “but Your Reverence was saying Mass.”

Philip then entered the room where the dead body of the youth lay. Setting himself at the edge of the bed, he prayed for seven or eight minutes with the usual palpitation of his heart and trembling of his body. He then took some holy water and sprinkled the boy’s face, and put a little in his mouth. After this he breathed in his face, laid his hand upon his forehead, and called him twice with a loud and sonorous voice, “Paolo, Paolo!”

TThe youth immediately awoke as from a deep sleep, opened his eyes and said, as in reply to Philip’s call, “Father! I wanted to see you. I forgot to mention a sin, and I should like to go to confession.”

The holy priest ordered those who were round the bed to retire for awhile, and putting a crucifix into Paolo’s hand he heard his confession and gave him absolution.

[Image: H279_Mas.jpg]

Masses are said every year on March 16 in the Palazzo Massimo to commemorate the miracle

WWhen the others returned to the room, Philip began to talk with the youth about his sister and mother, who were both dead, and this conversation lasted about half an hour. The youth conversed naturally with a clear distinct voice, as if he were in perfect health. The color had returned to his countenance, and to all who looked at him it seemed as if he had no ill heath at all.

At last St. Philip asked him before his father and all the others in the room if he would die willingly; he replied yes. A second time Philip asked him me if he could die willingly. He replied, “Yes, most willingly; especially so that I may go and see my mother and my sister in Paradise.”

Philip then gave him his blessing, saying, “Go, be blessed, and pray to God for me.“

Immediately with a placid countenance and without the least movement, Paolo expired in Philip’s arms.

Witnessing all this were Fabrizio with two of his daughters who were nuns in Santa Marta, his second wife Violante Santacroce, the servant Francesca who assisted Paolo in his illness, and several others.

In commemoration of this miracle, a special feast is celebrated each year on March 16 in the chapel of the Palazzo Massimo, which is still the home of the same family. The Palace is open to the public on this day from 7 am for consecutive Masses commemorating the miracle.

The chapel also has its own Votive Mass for the occasion, granted by Blessed Pius IX in 1855, at the behest of Francesco Saverio Cardinal Massimo, a member of the family. Through a time-honored indult, the family has special permission to reserve the Blessed Sacrament in the chapel’s tabernacle.

[Image: H279_Visi.png]

One day a year the Massimo family opens their palace & splendid chapel to the public
]]> <![CDATA[The Pretended Reformers Have Violated Holy Scripture]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7123 Fri, 02 May 2025 12:03:05 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7123 The Pretended Reformers Have Violated Holy Scripture
by St. Francis de Sales
Source: The Catholic Controversy

[Image: main_hu13050926502138295171.jpg]

The Scripture is a True Rule of Christian Faith

I well know, thank God, that Tradition was before all Scripture, since a good part of Scripture itself is only Tradition reduced to writing, with an infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit. But, since the authority of Scripture is more easily received by the reformers than that of Tradition, I begin with the former in order to get a better entrance for my argument.

Holy Scripture is in such sort the rule of the Christian faith that we are obliged by every kind of obligation to believe most exactly all that it contains, and not to believe anything which may be ever so little contrary to it: for if Our Lord Himself has sent the Jews1 to it to strengthen their faith, it must be a most safe standard.

The Sadducees erred because they did not understand the Scriptures2; they would have done better to attend to them, as to a light shining in a dark place, according to the advice of St. Peter3, who having himself heard the voice of the Father in the Transfiguration of the Son, bases himself more firmly on the testimony of the Prophets than on this experience.

When God says to Josue: Let not the book of this law depart from thy mouth4, He shows clearly that He willed him to have it always in his mind, and to let no persuasion enter which should be contrary to it.

But I am losing time; this disputation would be needed against free-thinkers (les Libertins), we are agreed on this point, and those who are so mad as to contradict it can only rest their contradiction on the Scripture itself, contradicting themselves before contradicting the Scripture, using it in the very protestation which they make that they will not use it.


How Jealous We Should Be of Its Integrity

On this point, again, I will scarcely delay. The Holy Scripture is called the Book of the Old and of the New Testament. When a notary has drawn a contract or other deed, when a testament is confirmed by the death of the testator, there must not be added, withdrawn, or altered, one single word under penalty of falsification.

Are not the Holy Scriptures the true testament of the eternal God, drawn by the notaries deputed for this purpose, duly sealed and signed with his blood, confirmed by death? Being such, how can we alter even the smallest point without impiety?

“A testament,” says the great Ulpian, “is a just expression of our will as to what we would have done after our death.”5 Our Lord by the Holy Scriptures shows us what we must believe, hope for, love, and do, and this by a true expression of His will; if we add, take away, or change, it will no longer be the true expression of God’s will. For Our Lord having duly expressed in Scripture His will, if we add anything of our own we shall make the statement go beyond the will of our testator, if we take anything away we shall make it fall short, if we make changes in it we shall set it awry, and it will no longer correspond to the will of the author, nor be a correct statement.

When two things exactly correspond, he who changes the one destroys the equality and the correspondence between them. If it be a true statement, whatever right have we to alter it? Our Lord puts a value on the iotas, yea, the mere little points and accents of His Holy words. How jealous then is he of their integrity, and what punishment shall they not deserve who violate this integrity! Brethren, says S. Paul, 6 (I speak after the manner of man), yet a man’s testament, if it be confirmed, no man despiseth, nor addeth to it. And to show how important it is to learn the Scripture in its exactness he gives an example. To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He says not and to his seeds as of many, but as of one; and to thy seed, who is Christ. See, I beg you, how the change from singular to plural would have spoilt the mysterious meaning of this word.

The Ephrathites [Ephraimites] said Sibboleth, not forgetting a single letter, but because they did not pronounce it thickly enough, the Galaadites slew them at the fords of the Jordan7. The simple difference of pronunciation in speaking, and in writing the mere transposition of one single point on the letter scin caused the ambiguity, and changing the janin into semol, instead of an ear of wheat expressed a weight or a burden. Whosoever alters or adds the slightest accent in the Scripture is a sacrilegious man, and deserves the death of him who dares to mingle the profane with the sacred.

The Arians, as S. Augustine tells us8, corrupted this sentence of S. John i.1: In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum: by simply changing a point. For they read it thus: Et verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat. Verbum hoc, &c.: instead of: Deus erat verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum: They placed the full stop after the erat, instead of after the verbum. They so acted for fear of having to grant that the Word was God; so little is required to change the sense of God’s Word. When one is handling glass beads, if two or three are lost, it is a small matter, but if they were oriental pearls the loss would be great. The better the wine the more it suffers from the mixture of a foreign flavour, and the exquisite symmetry of a great picture will not bear the admixture of new colours. Such is the conscientiousness with which we ought to regard and handle the sacred deposit of the Scriptures.


What Are the Sacred Books of the Word of God

The Council of Trent gives these books as sacred, divine and canonical: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, the four Books of Kings, two of the Paralipomenon, two of Esdras (a first, and a second, which is called of Nehemias), Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, one hundred and fifty Psalms of David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias with Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharius, Malachy, two of Machabees, first and second: of the New Testament, four Gospels,—S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke, S. John—the Acts of the Apostles by S. Luke, fourteen Epistles of S. Paul—to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews—two of S. Peter, three of S. John, one of S. James, one of S. Jude, and the Apocalypse. The same books were received at the Council of Florence, and long before that at the third Council of Carthage about twelve hundred years ago.

These books are divided into two ranks. For of some, both of the Old and of the New Testament, it was never doubted but that they were sacred and canonical: others there are about whose authority the ancient Fathers doubted for a time, but afterwards they were placed with those of the first rank.

Those of the first rank in the Old Testament are the five of Moses, Josue, Judges, Ruth, four of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, two of Esdras and Nehemias, Job, one hundred and fifty Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, the four greater Prophets, the twelve lesser Prophets. These were formed into the canon by the great synod at which Esdras was present. and to which he was scribe; and no one ever doubted of their authority without being at once considered a heretic, as our learned Genebrard, fully proves in his Chronolog9.

The second rank contains the following Esther, Baruch, a part of Daniel (the history of Susanna, the Canticle of the Three Children, and the history of the death of the dragon in the fourteenth chapter), Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees 1 and 2. And as to these there is a great probability in the opinion of the same Doctor Genebrard10 that in the meeting which was held at Jerusalem to send the seventy-two interpreters into Egypt, these books, which were not in existence when Esdras made the first canon, were placed on the canon, at least tacitly, because they were sent with the others to be translated, except the Machabees, which were received in another meeting afterwards, wherein the preceding were again approved. But however the case may be, as the second canon was not made so authentically as the first, this placing on the canon could not procure them an entire and unquestionable authority among the Jews, nor make them equal with the books of the first rank.

Coming to the books of the New Testament I say that in the same way there are some of the first rank, which have always been acknowledged and received as sacred and canonical. These are the four Gospels, S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke, S. John, all the Epistles of S. Paul except that to the Hebrews, one of S. Peter, one of S. John. Those of the second rank are the Epistle to the Hebrews, that of S. James, the second of S. Peter, the second and third of S. John, that of S. Jude, the 16th chapter of S. Mark, as S. Jerome says, and S. Luke’s history of the bloody sweat of Our Lord in the garden of Olives, according to the same S. Jerome; in the eighth chapter of S. John there has been a doubt concerning the history of the woman taken in adultery, or at least some suspect that it has been doubted, and concerning verse seven of the last chapter of S. John’s First Epistle.

These are, as far as we know, the books and parts of books concerning which it appears there was anciently some doubt. And these were not of undoubted authority in the Church at first, but as time went on they were at length recognised as the sacred work of the Holy Spirit, and not all at once but at different times. And first besides those of the first rank, whether of the New or of the Old Testament, about the year 364 they were received at the Council of Laodicea11, (which was afterwards approved in the sixth general Council12), the book of Esther, the Epistle of S. James the Second of S. Peter, the Second and Third of S. John, that of Jude, and the Epistle to the Hebrews as the fourteenth of S. Paul.

Then some time afterwards at the third Council of Carthage ( i.e. in Canon xxxvi. of the Council of Hippo, approved in third Council of Carthage13 (at which S. Augustine assisted, and which was confirmed in the sixth general Council in Trullo), besides those of the second rank just mentioned, there were received into the canon, as of full authority, Tobias, Judith, First and Second Machabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Apocalypse. But of all those of the second rank, the book of Judith was first received and acknowledged as divine, in the first General Council of Nice, as S. Jerome witnesses in his preface to this book. Such is the way in which the two ranks were brought together into one, and ever made of equal authority in the Church of God, but progressively and with succession, as a beautiful morning rising, which little by little lights up our hemisphere.

Thus was drawn up in the Council of Carthage, that same ancient list of the canonical books which has ever since been in the Catholic Church and which was confirmed in the sixth general Council, at the great Council of Florence 160 years ago for the union of the Armenians by the whole Church both Greek and Latin, in our age by the Council of Trent, and which was followed by S. Augustine14. Before the Council of Carthage they were not all received as canonical by any decree of the general Church.

I had almost forgotten to say that you must not therefore make a difficulty against what I have just laid down because Baruch is not quoted by name in the Council of Carthage. For since Baruch was secretary of Jeremias, the book of Baruch was reckoned by the ancients as an accessory or appendix of Jeremias, being comprised under this; as that excellent theologian Bellarmine proves in his Controversies. But it is enough for me to have said thus: my brief outline is not obliged to dwell on every particular. In a word, all these books, whether of first or second rank, with all the parts, are equally certain, sacred and canonical, and are received in the Catholic Church.


First Violation of the Holy Scripture Made By the Reformers: By Cutting Off Some of Its Parts

Such are the sacred and canonical books which the Church has unanimously received and acknowledged during twelve hundred years. And by what authority have these new reformers dared to wipe out at one stroke so many noble parts of the Bible? They have erased a part of Esther, and Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees. Who has told them that these books are not legitimate, and not to be received? Why do they thus dismember the sacred body of the Scriptures?

Here are the principal reasons, as far as I have been able to gather from the old preface to the books which they pretend to be apocryphal, printed at Neufchastel, in the translation of Peter Robert, otherwise Olivetanus, a relation and friend of Calvin, and again from the newer preface placed to the same books by the professors and pretended pastors of the Church of Geneva, 1588.

  1. They are not found either in Hebrew or Chaldaic, in which languages they (except perhaps the Book of Wisdom) were originally written: therefore it would be very difficult to restore them.
  2. They are not received as legitimate by the Jews.
  3. Nor by the whole Church.
  4. S. Jerome says they are not considered proper for corroborating the authority of Ecclesiastical doctrines.
  5. Canon Law condemns them;
  6. as does also the Gloss, which says they are read, but not generally, as if to say that they are not approved generally everywhere.
  7. They have been corrupted and falsified, as Eusebius says15;
  8. notably the Machabees,
  9. and particularly the Second of Machabees, which S. Jerome says he did not find in Hebrew. Such are the reasons of Olivetanus.
  10. “There are in them many false things,” says the new preface.
Let us now see what these fine researches are worth.

1. And as to the first, are you unwilling to receive these books because they are not in Hebrew or Chaldaic? Receive Tobias then, for S. Jerome attests that he translates it from Chaldaic into Latin, in the Epistle which you yourselves quote16, which makes me think you are hardly in good faith.

And why not Judith, which was also written in Chaldaic, as the same S. Jerome says in the prologue? And if S. Jerome says he was not able to find the Second of Machabees in the Hebrew, what has that to do with the first? This then receive as it deserves; we will treat of the second afterwards. I say the same to you about Ecclesiasticus, which S. Jerome had and found in Hebrew, as he says in his preface on the books of Solomon.

Since, then, you reject these books written in Hebrew or Chaldaic equally with the others which are not written in one of these languages, you will have to find another pretext than that which you have alleged for striking out thee books from the canon. When you say that you reject them because they are not written in Hebrew or Chaldaic, this is not your real reason; for you would not reject on this ground Tobias, Judith, the first of Machabees, Ecclesiasticus, which are written either in Hebrew or Chaldaic.

But let us now speak in defence of the other books, which are written in a language other than that which you would have. Where do you find that the rule for rightly receiving the Holy Scriptures is that they should be written in these languages rather than in Greek or Latin?

You say that nothing must be received in matter of religion but what is written; and you bring forward in your grand preface the saying of jurisconsults: “We blush to speak without a law.” Do you not consider that the controversy about the validity or invalidity of the Scriptures is one of the most important in the sphere of religion? Well then, either remain confounded, or else produce the Holy Scripture for the negative which you maintain. The Holy Spirit certainly declares Himself as well in Greek as in Chaldaic. There would be, you say, great difficulty in restoring them, since we do not possess them in their original language, and it is this which troubles you.

But, for God’s sake, tell me who told you that they were lost, corrupted or altered, so as to need restoration? You take for granted, perhaps, that those who have translated them from the originals have translated badly, and you would have the original to compare them and judge them. Make your meaning clear then, and say that they are therefore apocryphal because you cannot yourselves be the translators of them from the original, and cannot trust the judgment of the translator. So there is to be nothing certain except what you have had the control of. Show me this rule of certitude in the Scripture.

Further, are you fully assured that you have the Hebrew texts of the books of the first rank, as pure and exact as they were in the time of the Apostles and of the Seventy? Beware of errors. You certainly do not aways follow then, and you could not, with good conscience. Show me this again in the Holy Scripture.

Here, therefore, is your first reason most wanting in reason.

2. As to your saying that these books which you call apocryphal are not received by the Jews, you say nothing new or important. S. Augustine loudly exclaims: “It is the Catholic Church which holds the Books of Machabees as canonical, not the Jews.”17 Show me from Scripture that the Christian Church has not as much power to give authority to the sacred books as the Mosaic may have had. There is not in this either Scripture or reason to show for it.

3. Yes, but the whole of the Church does not receive them, you say. Of what Church are you speaking? Unquestionably the Catholic, which is the true Church, receives them, as S. Augustine has just now borne witness to you, and he repeats it, citing the Council of Carthage18. The Council in Trullo the 6th General, that of Florence, and a hundred ancient authors are [witnesses] thereto. I name S. Jerome, who witnesses for the book of Judith that it was received in the first Council [of Nice].

Perhaps you would say that of old time some Catholics doubted of their authority. This is clear from the division which I have made above. But does their doubt then make it impossible for their successors to come to a conclusion? Are we to say that if one cannot decide at the very first glance one must always remain wavering, uncertain, and irresolute?

Was there not for some time an uncertainty about the Apocalypse and Esther? You would not dare to deny it: my witnesses for Esther are too sound, S. Athanasius19 and S. Gregory Nazainzen20: for the Apocalypse, the Council of Laodicea: and yet you receive them. Either receive them all, since they are in equal position, or receive none, on the same ground.

But in God’s name what humour takes you that you here bring forward the Church, whose authority you hold to be a hundred times more uncertain than these books themselves, and which you say to have been erring, inconstant,—yea apocryphal, if apocryphal means hidden? You only prize it to despise it, and to make it appear inconstant, now recognizing, now rejecting these books.

But there is a great difference between doubting whether a thing is to be accepted and rejecting it. Doubt does not hinder a subsequent resolution, indeed it is its preliminary stage. To reject presupposes a decision. Inconstancy does not consist in changing a doubt into resolution, but in changing from resolution to doubt. It is not instability to become settled after wavering, but to waver after being settled.

The Church then, having for a time left these books in doubt, at length has received them with authentic decision, and you wish that from this resolution she should return into doubt. It belongs to heresy and not to the Church thus to advance from bad to worse. But of this elsewhere.

4. As for S. Jerome whom you allege, this is not to the purpose, since in his time the Church had not yet come to the resolution which she has come to since, as to the placing of these books on the canon, except that of Judith.

5. And the canon Sancta Romana, which is of Gelasius I.—I think you have taken it by guess, for it is entirely against you; because, while censuring the apocryphal books, it does not name one of these which we receive, but on the contrary witnesses that Tobias and the Macchabees were publicly received in the Church.

6. And the poor Gloss does not deserve to be thus glossed, since it clearly says that these books are read, though not perhaps generally. This “perhaps” guards it from stating what is false, and you have forgotten it. And if it reckons the books in question as apocryphal, this is because it considered that apocryphal meant the having no certain author, and therefore it includes as apocryphal the Book of Judges: and their statements are not so authentic that they must pass as decisive judgment; after all it is but a Gloss.

7. And these falsifications which you allege are not in any way sufficient to abolish the authority of these books, because they have been justified and have been purified from all corruption before the Church received them. Truly, all the books of Holy Scripture have been corrupted by the ancient enemies of the Church, but by the providence of God they have remained free and pure in the Church’s hands, as a sacred deposit; and they have never been able to spoil so many copies as that there should not remain enough to restore the others.

8. But you would have the Machabees, at any rate, fall from our hands, when you say that they have been corrupted; but since you only advance a simple assertion I will return your pass by a simple negation.

9. S. Jerome, you say, could not find the Second in Hebrew; and although it is true that it is only as it were a letter which Israel sent to their Jewish brethen who were then out of Judea, and although it is written in the best known and most general language of those times, does it thence follow that it is not worthy to be received? The Egyptians used the Greek language much more than the Hebrew, as Ptolemy clearly showed when he procured the version of the Seventy. This is why this Second book of Machabees, which was like an epistle or commentary sent for the consolation of the Jews who were in Egypt, was written in Greek rather than in Hebrew.

10. It remains for the new preachers to point out those falsehoods of which they accuse these books; which they will in truth never do. But I see them coming, bringing forward the intercession of Saints, prayer for the dead, free-will, the honouring of relics, and similar points, which are expressly confirmed in the Books of Machabees, in Ecclesiasticus, and in other books which they pretend to be apocryphal.

For God’s sake take care that your judgment does not deceive you. Why, I pray you, do you call false, things which the whole of antiquity has held as articles of faith? Why do you not rather censure your fancies which will not embrace the doctrine of these books, than censure these books which have been received for so long a time because they do not jump with your humour? Because you will not believe what the books teach, you condemn it; why do you not rather condemn your presumption which is incredulous to their teaching?

Here now, I think, are all your reasons scattered to the winds, and you can bring no more. But we may well say: if it be thus lawful indifferently to reject or make doubtful the authority of those Scriptures, about which there was formerly a doubt, though the Church has now decided, it will be necessary to reject or to doubt of a great part of the Old and the New Testament. It is then no little gain to the enemy of Christianity, to have at one stroke scratched out of the Holy Scripture so many noble parts. Let us proceed.


Second Violation of the Scriptures: By the Rule Which These Reformers Bring Forward to Distinguish the Sacred Books From the Others, and of Some Smaller Parts They Cut Off From Them According to This Rule

The crafty merchant keeps out the worst articles of his stock to offer first to buyers, to try if he can get rid of them and sell them to some simpleton. The reasons which these reformers have advanced in the preceding chapter are but tricks, as we have seen, which are used only as it were for amusement, to try whether some simple and weak brain will be content with them; and, in reality, when one comes to the grapple, they confess that not the authority of the Church, nor of S. Jerome, nor of the Gloss, nor of the Hebrew, is cause sufficient to receive or reject any Scripture.

The following is their protestation of faith presented to the King of France by the French pretended reformers. After having placed on the list, in the third article, the books they are willing to receive, they write thus in the fourth article: “We know these books to be canonical and a most safe rule of our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the Church, as by the testimony and interior persuasion of the Holy Spirit, which gives us to discern them from the other ecclesiastical books.” Quitting then the field of the reasons preceding, and making for cover, they throw themselves into the interior, secret, and invisible persuasion which they consider to be produced in them by the Holy Spirit.

Now in truth it is judicious in them not to chose to rely in this point on the common accord and consent of the Church; for this common accord has placed on the canon Ecclesiasticus and the Machabees, as much as and as early as the Apocalypse, and yet they choose to receive this and to reject those. Judith, made authoritative by the grand and irreproachable Council of Nice, is blotted out by these reformers. They have reason then to confess that in the reception of canonical books, they do not accept the accord and consent of the Church, which was never greater or more solemn than in that first Council.

But, for God’s sake notice the trick. “We know,” say they, “these books to be canonical, not so much by the common consent and accord of the Church.” To hear them speak, would you not say that at least to some extent they let themselves be guided by the Church? Their speech is not sincere: it seems as if they did not altogether refuse credit to the common accord of Christians, but only did not receive it as on the same level with their interior persuasion:—in all reality however, they hold it in no account at all: they are thus cautious in their language in order not to appear altogether arrogant and unreasonable. For, I ask you, if they deferred as little as you please to ecclesiastical authority, why would they receive the Apocalypse rather than Judith or the Machabees?

S. Augustine and S. Jerome are faithful witnesses to us that these have been unanimously received by the whole Catholic Church; and the Councils of Carthage, in Trullo, Florence, assure us thereof. Why then do they say that they do receive these sacred books not so much by the common accord of the Church or by interior persuasion, since the common accord of the Church has neither value nor place in the matter? It is their custom when they would bring forward some strange opinion not to speak clearly and frankly, in order to give the reader a better impression.

And now let us look at the rule they have for distinguishing the canonical books from the other ecclesiastical ones. “The testimony,” they say, “and interior persuasion of the Holy Spirit.” Good heavens! What obscurity, what dense fog, what shades of night! Are we not now fully enlightened in so important and grave a difference! The question is how one can tell these canonical books; we wish to have some rule to distinguish them; – and they offer us something that passes in the interior of the soul, which no one sees, nobody knows save the soul itself and its Creator!

1. Show me clearly that when you tell me that such and such an inspiration exists in your conscience, you are not telling a lie. You say that you feel this persuasion within you. But why am I bound to believe you? Is your word so powerful that I am forced under its authority to believe that you think and feel what you say. I am willing to hold you as good people enough, but when there is question of the foundations of my faith, as of receiving or rejecting the Ecclesiastical Scriptures, I find neither your ideas nor your words steady enough to serve me as a base.

2. Show me clearly that these inspirations and persuasions that you pretend to have are of the Holy Spirit. Who knows not that the spirit of darkness very often appears in clothing of light?

3. Does this spirit grant his persuasions indifferently to everyone. Or only to some particular persons? If to every one, how does it happen that so many millions of Catholics have never perceived them, nor so many women, working-people, and others among yourselves? If it is to some in particular, show them me, I beg, you,—and why to these rather than to others? What mark will you give me to know them and to pick them out from the crowd of the rest of men? Must I believe in the first who shall say: here you are? This would be to put ourselves too much at a venture and at the mercy of deceivers. Show me then some infallible rule to recognise these inspired ones, these persuaded ones, or else permit me to credit none of them.

4. But, in conscience, do you think that the interior persuasion is a sufficient means to distinguish the Holy Scriptures, and put the nations out of doubt? How comes it then that Luther throws off the Epistle of S. James, which Calvin receives? Try to harmonise, I pray you, this spirit and his persuasions, who persuades the one to reject what he persuades the other to receive. You will say, perhaps, that Luther is mistaken. He will say as much of you. Which is to be believed? Luther ridicules Ecclesiastes, he considers Job a fable. Will you oppose him your persuasion? He will oppose you his. So this spirit, divided against himself, will leave you no other conclusion except to grow thoroughly obstinate, each in his own opinion.

5. Then what reason is there that the Holy Spirit should give inspirations as to what every one must believe to nobodies, to Luther, to Calvin, they having abandoned without any such inspiration the Councils and the entire Church. We do not deny, to speak clearly, but that the knowledge of the true sacred books is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but we say that the Holy Spirit gives it to private individuals through the medium of the Church. Indeed if God had a thousand times revealed a thing to a private person we should not be obliged to believe it unless he stamped it so clearly that we could no longer call its validity in question. But we see nothing of this among your reformers. In a word, it is to the Church General that the Holy Spirit immediately addresses his inspirations and persuasions, then, by the preaching of the Church, he communicates them to private persons. It is the Spouse in whom the milk is produced, then the children suck it from her breasts. But you would have it, on the contrary, that God inspires private persons, and by these means the Church, that the children receive the milk and the mother is nourished at their breasts; an absurdity.

Now if the Scripture is not violated and its majesty offended by the setting up of these interior and private inspirations, it never was nor will be violated. For by this means the door is open to every one to receive or reject of the Scriptures what shall seem good to him. Why shall one allow Calvin to cut off Wisdom or the Machabees, and not Luther to remove the Epistle of S. James or the Apocalypse, or Castalio the Canticle of Canticles, or the Anabaptists the Gospel of S. Mark, or another person Genesis and Exodus? If all protest that they have interior revelation why shall we believe one rather than another, so that this rule supposed to be sacred on account of the Holy Spirit, will be violated by the audacity of every deceiver.

Recognise, I pray you, the stratagem. They have taken away all authority from Tradition, the Church, the Councils, what more remains? The Scripture. The enemy is crafty: if he would take all away at one stroke he would cause alarm. He starts a certain and infallible method of getting rid of it bit by bit, and very gradually: that is, this idea of interior inspiration, by which everybody can receive or reject what seems good to him.

And in fact consider a little how the process works itself out. Calvin removes and erases from the canon Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees; Luther takes away the Epistle of S. James, of S. Jude, the Second of S. Peter, the Second and Third of S. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews; he ridicules Ecclesiastes, and holds Job a fable. In Daniel, Calvin has erased the Canticle of the Three Children, the history of Susanna and that of the dragon of Bel; also a great part of Esther. In Exodus, at Geneva and elsewhere among these reformers, they have cut out the twenty-second verse of the second chapter, which is of such weight that neither the Seventy nor the other translators would ever have written it if it had not been in the original. Beza casts a doubt over the history of the adulteress in the Gospel of S. John (S. Augustine warns us that already the enemies of Christianity had erased it from their books; but not from all, as S. Jerome says).

In the mysterious words of the Eucharist, do they not try to overthrow the authority of those words: Which shall be shed for you, because the Greek text21 clearly shows that what was in the chalice was not wine, but the blood of Our Saviour? As if one were to say in French: Ceci est la coupe du nouveau Testament en mon sang, laquelle sera respandue pour vous. For in this way of speaking that which is in the cup must be the true blood, not the wine; since the wine has not been shed for us but the blood, and the cup cannot be poured out except by reason of what it contains.

What is the knife with which one has made so many amputations? This tenet of private inspiration. What is it that makes you reformers so bold to cut away one this piece, another that, and the other something else? The pretext of these interior persuasions of the Spirit, which makes them supreme each in his own idea, in judging as to the validity or invalidity of the Scriptures.

On the contrary, gentlemen, S. Augustine protests"For my part, I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me thereto."22] And elsewhere: “We receive the New and the Old Testament in that number of books which the authority of the Catholic Church determines.”23 The Holy Spirit can give his inspirations as he likes, but as to the establishment of the public and general belief of the faithful, he only directs us to the Church. It is hers to propose which are the true Scriptures and which are not.


Answer To an Objection

But here is the difficulty. If these books were not from the beginning of undoubted authority in the Church, who can give them this authority? In truth the Church cannot give truth or certitude to the Scripture, or make a book canonical if it were not so, but the Church can make a book known as canonical, and make us certain of its certitude, and is fully able to declare that a book is canonical which is not held as such by every one, and thus to give it credit in Christendom; not changing the substance of the book which of itself was canonical, but changing the persuasion of Christians, making it quite assured where previously it had not been so.

But how can the Church herself define that a book is canonical? For she is no longer guided by new revelations but by the old Apostolic ones, of which she has infallibility of interpretation. And if the Ancients have not had the revelation of the authority of a book, how then can she know it?

She considers the testimony of antiquity, the conformity which this book has with the others which are received, and the general relish which the Christian people find in it. For as we can know what is a proper and wholesome food for animals when we see them fond of it and feed on it with advantage, so, when the Church sees that the Christian people heartily relishes a book as canonical and gains good from it, she may know that it is a fit and wholesome meat for Christian souls; and as when we would know whether one wine is of the same vintage as another we compare them, observing whether the colour, the smell and the taste are alike in the two, so when the Church has properly decided that a book has a taste, colour and smell and holiness of style, doctrine and mysteries—like to the other canonical books, and besides has the testimony of many good and irreproachable witnesses of antiquity, she can declare the book to be true brother of the other canonical ones.

And we must not doubt that the Holy Spirit assists the Church in this judgment: for your ministers themselves confess that God has given the Holy Scriptures into her charge, and say that it is on this account S. Paul calls her the pillar and ground of the truth.24 And how would she guard them if she could not know and separate them from the mixture of other books? And how important is it for the Church that she should be able to know in proper time and season which Scriptures is holy and which not: for if she received such and such Scripture as holy and it was not, she would lead us into superstition; and if she refused the honour and belief which befit God’s Word to a holy Scripture, it would be an impiety.

If ever then Our Lord defends his Church against the gates of hell, if the Holy Spirit assisted her so closely that she could say: It hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,25 —we must firmly believe that he inspires her on occasion of such great consequences as these; for it would indeed be to abandon her at her need if he left her at this juncture, on which depends not only an article or two of our faith, but the substance of our religion.

When, therefore, the Church has declared that a book is canonical, we must never doubt but that it is so. We [are] here in the same position. For Calvin and the very bibles of Geneva, and the Lutherans, receive several books as holy, sacred, and canonical which have not been acknowledged by all the Ancients as such, and about which there has been a doubt. If there has been a doubt formerly, what reason can they have to make them assured and certain nowadays, except that which S. Augustine had [as we said above]: “I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me;” and “We receive the New and the Old Testament in that number of books which the authority of the Holy Catholic Church determines.”

Truly we should be very ill assured if we were to rest our faith on these particular interior inspirations, of which we only know that they exist or ever did exist, by the testimony of some private persons. And granted that they are or have been, we do not know whether they are from the false or of the true spirit; and supposing they are of the true spirit, we do not know whether they who relate them, relate them faithfully or not, since they have no mark of infallibility whatever. We should deserve to be wrecked if we were to cast ourselves out of the ship of the public judgment of the Church, to sail in the miserable skiff of these new discordant private inspirations. Our faith would not be Catholic, but private.

But before I quit this subject, I pray you, reformers tell me whence you have taken the canon of the Scriptures which you follow? You have not taken it from the Jews, for the books of the Gospels would not be there, nor from the Council of Laodicea, for the Apocalypse would not be in it; or from the Councils of Carthage or of Florence, for Ecclesiasticus and the Machabees would be there. Whence, then, have you taken it?

In good sooth, like canon was never spoken of before your time. The Church never saw canon of the Scriptures in which there was not either more or less than in yours. What likelihood is there that the Holy Spirit has hidden himself from all antiquity, and that after 1500 years he has disclosed to certain private persons the list of the true Scriptures?

For our part we follow exactly the list of the Council of Laodicea with the addition made at the Councils of Carthage and Florence. Never will a man of judgment leave these Councils to follow the persuasions of private individuals. Here, then, is the fountain and source of all the violations which have been made of this holy rule; namely, when people have taken up the fancy of not receiving it save by the measure and rule of the inspirations which each one believes and thinks he feels.


How Greatly the Reformers Have Violated the Integrity of the Scriptures

Now, how can an honest soul refrain from giving the rein to the ardour of a holy zeal, and from entering into a Christian anger, without sin, considering with what presumption those who do nothing but cry, Scripture, Scripture, have despised, degraded, and profaned this divine Testament of the eternal Father, as they have falsified this sacred contract of so glorious an alliance!

O ministers of Calvinism, how do you dare to cut away so many noble parts of the sacred body of the Bibles? You take away Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the Machabees: why do you thus dismember the Holy Scripture? Who has told you that they are not sacred? There was some doubt about them in the ancient Church; but was there not doubt in the ancient Church about Esther, the Epistle to the Hebrews, those of S. James and S. Jude, the Second of S. Peter, the two last of S. John, and especially of the Apocalypse? Why do you not also erase these as you have done those? Acknowledge honestly that what you have done in this has only been in order to contradict the Church.

You were angry at seeing in the Machabees the intercession of Saints and prayers for the departed: Ecclesasticus stung you in that it bore witness to free-will and the honour of relics. Rather than do violence to your notions, adjusting them to the Scriptures you have violated the Scriptures to accommodate them to your notions: you have cut off the holy Word to avoid cutting off your fancies: how will you ever cleanse yourselves from this sacrilege?

Have you degraded the Machabees, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, and the rest, because some of the Ancients have doubted of their authority? Why then do you receive the other books, about which there has been as much doubt as about these? What can you oppose to them except that their doctrine is hard for you to accept?

Open your heart to faith, and you will easily receive that which your unbelief shuts out from you. Because you do not will to believe what they teach, you condemn them: rather condemn your presumption, and receive the Scripture.

I would chiefly lay stress on the authority of those books which exercise you the most. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. v. 5, &c.), Cyprian (Ep. lxv.), Ambrose (de fide iv.), Augustine (Ep. ad Oros. contra Prise.), and the rest of the Fathers consider Ecclesiasticus canonical. S. Cyprian (Serm. de op et Deem.), S. Ambrose (lib. de Tobid, i.), S. Basil (de avar.), honour Tobias as Holy Scripture. S. Cyprian again (de exhort. mar.), S. Gregory Nazianzen (orat. de Mach.), S. Ambrose (de Tacob et vit beat. x. xi.), believed the same of the Machabees. S. Augustine protests that: “it is the Catholic Church which holds the Books of Machabees as canonical, not the Jews.” What will you say to this? that the Jews had them not in their catalogues? S. Augustine acknowledges it; but are you Jews, or Christians? If you would be called Christians, be satisfied that the Christian Church receives them.

Is the light of the Holy Spirit extinguished with the synagogue? Had not our Lord and the Apostles as much power as the synagogue? Although the Church has not taken authority for her books from the mouth of the Scribes and Pharisees, will it not suffice that she has taken it from the testimony of the Apostles?

Now we must not think that the ancient Church and these most ancient doctors would have had the boldness to rank these books as canonical, if they had not had some direction by the tradition of the Apostles and their disciples who could know in what rank the Master himself held them; unless, to excuse our imaginations, we are to accuse of profanation, and of sacrilege, such holy and grave doctors as these, and the whole ancient Church. I say the ancient Church, because the Council of Carthage, Gelasius in the decree de libris canonicas, Innocent I in the epistle to Exuperius, and S. Augustine, lived before S. Gregory, before whose time Calvin confesses that the Church was still in its purity, and yet these bear witness that all the books which we held to be canonical when Luther appeared were already so in their time. If you would destroy the credit of those holy books, why did you not destroy that of the Apocalypse, about which there has been so much doubt, and that of the Epistle to the Hebrews?

But I return to you, gentlemen of Thonon, who have hitherto given ear to such men; I beseech you, let us say in conscience, is there any likelihood that Calvin knows better what grounds they had who anciently doubted of these books, and what grounds they who doubted not, than the Bishops and Councils of these days?

And still, all things well considered, antiquity received them; what do we allege to the contrary? Oh! If it were lawful for men, in order to raise their opinions on horseback, to use the Scripture as stirrups, to lengthen and shorten them, each one to his own size, where, I beg you, should we be?

Do you not perceive the stratagem? All authority is taken away from Tradition, the Church, the Councils, the Pastors: what further remains? The Scripture. The enemy is crafty. If he would tear it all away at once he would cause an alarm; he takes away a great part of it in the very beginning, then first one piece, then the other, at last he will have you stripped entirely, without Scripture and without Word of God.

Calvin takes away seven books of the Scripture:26 Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Machabees; Luther has removed the Epistle of S. James, that of S. Jude, the second of S. Peter, the 2nd and 3rd of S. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews; he ridicules Ecclesiastes, he holds Job as a fable.

Reconcile, I pray you this false spirit, who takes away from Luther’s brain what he puts back in that of Calvin. Does this seem to you a trifling discord between these two evangelists? You will say you do not hold Luther’s intelligence in great account; his party think no better of that of Calvin. But see the progress of your fine church, how she ever pushes on further. Calvin had removed seven books, she has further thrown out the 8th, that of Esther:27 in Daniel she cuts off the canticle of the Three Children (c. iii.), the history of Susanna (c. xiii.), and that of the dragon slain by Daniel (xiv). In the Gospel of S. John is there not doubt among you of the history of the woman taken in adultery?

S. Augustine had indeed said formerly that the enemies of the faith had erased it from their books, but not from all, as S. Jerome says. Do they not wish to take away these words of S. Luke (xxii. 20), which shall be shed for you, because the Greek text clearly shows that what was in the chalice was not wine but the true blood of our Lord? As if one were to say in French: Cecy est la coupe du Nouveau Testament, en mon sang, laquelle sera respandue pour vous: this is the chalice, the New Testament in my blood, which (chalice) shall be shed for you? For in this way of speaking one sees clearly that what is in the cup must be the blood, not wine, since the wine has not been shed for us, but the blood.

In the Epistle of S. John have they not taken away these noble words: every spirit who dissolveth Jesus is not of God (iv. 3)? What say you, gentlemen? If your church continues in this liberty of conscience, making no scruple to take away what she pleases, soon the Scripture will fail you, and you will have to be satisfied with the Institutes of Calvin, which must indeed have I know not what excellence, since they censure the Scriptures themselves!


How The Majesty of the Scriptures Has Been Violated in The Interpretations and Versions of the Heretics

Shall I say further this word? Your fine church has not contented itself with cutting off from the Scripture entire books, chapters, sentences and words, but what it has not dared to cut off altogether it has corrupted and violated by its translations. In order that the sectaries of this age may altogether pervert this first and most holy rule of our faith, they have not been satisfied with shortening it or with getting rid of so many beautiful parts, but they have turned and turned it about, each one as he chose, and instead of adjusting their ideas by this rule they have adopted it to the square of their own greater or less sufficiency.

The Church had universally received (more than a thousand years ago) the Latin version which the Catholic Church proposes; S. Jerome, that most learned man, was the author, or corrector of it; when, in our age, behold arise a thick mist created by the spirit of giddiness,28 which has so led astray these refurbishers of old opinions formerly current, that everybody has wanted to drag, one to this side, one to that, and always according to the inclination of his own judgment, this holy and sacred Scripture of God.

Herein who sees not the profanation of this sacred vase of the holy letter, in which was preserved the precious balm of the Evangelical doctrine? For would it not have been a profanation of the Ark of the Covenant to maintain that everybody might seize it, carry it home, take it all to pieces, and then give it what form he liked provided that it had some semblance of an ark?

And what but this is it to maintain that one may take the Scriptures and turn and adjust them according to one’s own sense? And in just the same way, as soon as we are assured that the ordinary edition of the church is so out of shape that it must be built up again new, and that a private man is to set his hand to it and begin the process, the door is open to presumption. For if Luther dares to do it, why not Erasmus? And if Erasmus, why not Calvin or Melancthon, why not Henricus Mercerus, Sebastian Castalio, Beza, and the rest of the world, provided that they know some verses of Pindar and four or five words of Hebrew, and have close by some good Thesaurus of the one or other language? And how can so many translations be made by brains so different, without the complete overthrow of the sincerity of the Scripture?

What say you? that the ordinary version is corrupt? We allow that transcribers and printers have let certain ambiguities of very slight importance slip in (if, however, anything in the Scripture can be called of slight importance). The Council of Trent commanded that these should be taken out, and that for the future care should be taken to print as correctly as possible. For the rest, there is nothing in it which is not most conformable to the meaning of the Holy Spirit who is its author, as has been shown by so many learned men of our Church,29 opposing the presumption of these new reformers of religion, that it would be losing time to try to speak more of it; besides that it would be folly in me to wish to speak of the correctness of translations, who never well knew how to read with the points in one of the languages necessary for this knowledge, and am hardly more learned in the other.

But how have you improved matters? Everybody has held to his own views, everybody has despised his neighbour’s; they have turned it about as they liked, but no one speaks of his comrade’s version. What is this but to overthrow the majesty of the Scripture, and to bring it into contempt with the people, who think that this diversity of editions comes rather from the uncertainty of the Scriptures than from the variety of the translators, a variety which alone ought to put us in assurance concerning the ancient translation, which, as the Council says, the Church has so long, so constantly, and so unanimously approved.

An example or two will suffice. In the Acts30, where there is: Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell (animam in inferno), they make it: Thou shalt not leave my corpse in the tomb (Cadaver in sepulchro). Whoever saw such versions? Instead of soul (and it is Our Lord who is spoken of) to say carrion, and instead of hell to say sepulchre! Peter Martyr (in def. de Euch. p. 3a, p. 392) cites I Cor. x. 3, and they all eat the same spiritual food as we (nobiscum) he inserts this nobiscum to prove his point. I have seen in several bibles in this country a very subtle falsehood, in the mysterious words of the institution of the most Holy Sacrament: instead of hoc est corpus meum, cecy est mon corps: they had put: c’est cy mon corps.31. Who does not perceive the deceit?

You see something then of the violence and profanation your ministers do and offer to the Scriptures: what think you of their ways? What will become of us if everybody takes leave, as soon as he knows two words of Greek, and the letters in Hebrew, thus to turn everything topsy turvy? I have therefore shown you what I promised, that this first rule of our faith has been and still is most sadly violated in your pretended church; and that you may know it to be a property of heresy thus to dismember the Scriptures, I will close this part of my subject with what Tertullian says,32 speaking of the sects of his time. “This heresy” [of the Gnostics] says he “does not receive some of the Scriptures” and if it receives some it does not receive them whole… and what receives in a certain sense whole it still perverts, devising various interpretations."


Of The Profanations Contained in The Versions Made Into The Vulgar Tongue

But if the case be thus with the Latin versions, how great are the contempt and profanation shown in the French, German, Polish, and other languages! And yet here is one of the most successful artifices adopted by the enemy of Christianity and of unity in our age, to attract the people. He knew the curiosity of men, and how much one esteems one’s own judgment; and therefore he has induced his sectaries to translate the Holy Scriptures, every one into the tongue of the province where he finds himself placed, and to maintain this unheard-of opinion, that every one is capable of understanding the Scriptures, that all should read them, and that the public offices should be celebrated and sung in the vulgar tongue of each district.

But who sees not the artifice? There is nothing in the world which, passing through many hands, does not change and lose it first lustre: wine which has been often poured out and poured back loses its freshness and strength, wax when handled changes its colour, coins lose their stamp. Be sure also that Holy Scripture, passing through so many translators, in so many versions and re-versions, cannot but be altered. And if in the Latin versions there is such a variety of opinion among these turners of Scripture, how much more in their vernacular and mother-tongue editions, which not every one is able to check or to criticise? It gives a very great license to translators to know that they will only be tested by those of their own province. Every district has not such clear seeing eyes as France and Germany.

“Are we sure,” says a learned profane writer,33 “that in the Basque province and in Brittany there are persons of sufficient judgment to give authority to this translation made into their tongue; the universal Church has no more arduous decision to give;” it is Satan’s plan for corrupting the integrity of this holy Testament. He well knows the result of disturbing and poisoning the source; it is at once to spoil all that comes after.

But let us be frank. Do we not know that the Apostles spoke all tongues? How is it then that their gospels and their epistles are only in Hebrew, as S. Jerome witnesses34 of the Gospel of S. Matthew; in Latin, as some think concerning that of S. Mark;35 and in Greek, as is held concerning the other Gospels? Which were the three languages chosen at Our Lord’s very cross for the preaching of the Crucified. Did they not carry the Gospel throughout the world? And in the world were there no other languages but these three? Truly there were and yet they did not judge it expedient to vary their writings in so many languages. Who then shall despise the custom of our Church, which has for its warrant the imitation of the Apostles?36

Now for this, besides the great weight it should have to put down all our curious questionings, there is a reason which I hold to be most sound: it is that these other languages are not fixed, they change between town and town; in accents, in phrases, and in words, they are altered, and vary from season to season and from age to age. Take up the Memoires of the Sire de Joinville, or of Philip de Comines, and you will see that time has entirely altered their language; and yet these historians must have been among the most polished of their age, both having been brought up at Court. If then we were to have (particularly for the public services) bibles each in our own tongue, every fifty years it would be necessary to have a revolution, and in every case with adding to, or taking away from, or altering, much of the holy exactness of the Scripture, which could not be done without a great loss. In short, it is more than reasonable that so holy a rule as is the holy Word of God should be kept in fixed languages, since it could not be maintained in this perfect integrity within bastard and unstable languages.

But I inform you that the holy Council of Trent does not reject translations in the vulgar tongue printed by the authority of the Ordinaries; only it commands37 that we should not begin to read them without leave of superiors. This is a very reasonable precaution against putting this sharp and two-edged sword38 into the hands of one who might kill himself therewith. But of this we will speak by and by.

The Church, then, does not approve that everybody who can read, without further assurance of his capacity than that which he persuades himself of in his own presumption, should handle this sacred memorial, nor truly is it right that she should so approve.

I remember to have read in an Essay of the Sieur de Montaigne’s (see above), “It is certainly wrong that there should be seen tossing about in everybody’s hands, in parlour and in kitchen, the holy book of the sacred mysteries of our belief…. It is not casually or hurriedly that we are to prosecute so serious and venerable a study; it should be a reflective and steady act, to which should always be added that preface of our office: sursum corda, and for which the body itself should be brought into a behaviour which may betoken a particular attention and reverence… and I moreover believe that liberty for everybody to translate it, and by this means to dissipate words so religious and important into all sorts of languages, has much more danger than profit.”

The Council also commands39 that the public services of the Church shall not be celebrated in the vulgar tongue, but in a fixed language, each one according to the ancient formularies approved by the Church. This decree takes its reasons from what I have already said; for if it is not expedient thus to translate, at every turn, province by province, the venerable text of the Scripture, the greatest part, and we may say all, that is in the offices being taken from the Holy Scripture, it is also not becoming to give these in French.

Indeed, is there not a greater danger in reciting the Holy Scripture in the vulgar tongue at public services, on this account that not only the old but little children, not only the wise but the foolish, not only men but women, in short both he who knows and he who knows not how to read, may all take occasion of erring, each one as he likes?

Read the passages of David where he seems to murmur against God concerning the prosperity of the wicked; you will see the unwise people justify themselves by this in their impatience. Read where he seems to demand vengeance against his enemies, and the spirit of vengeance will cloak itself under this. Let them see those heavenly and entirely divine loves in the Canticle of Canticles; from not knowing how to spiritualize them these will only profit them unto evil. And that word of Osee40: Vade et fac tibi filios fornicationes, and those acts of the ancient Patriarchs, would they not give license to fools?

But pray give us some little reason why we should have the Scriptures and Divine Services in the vulgar tongue. To learn doctrine thereby? But surely the doctrine cannot be therein found unless we open the bark of the letter, in which is contained the intelligence: I will show this directly in its place. What is useful for this purpose is not the reciting of the service but preaching, in which the Word of God is not only pronounced but expounded by the pastor. And who is he, however well furnished at all points (tant houppé soft il et ferré), who can understand without study the prophecies of Ezechiel, and others, and the Psalms? What, then, will the people do with them when they hear them except profane them and cast a doubt on them.

At any rate we who are Catholics must in no wise bring down our sacred offices into vernacular languages; but rather, as our Church is universal in time and in place, it ought also to celebrate public offices in a language which is universal in time and in place, as is Latin in the West, Greek in the East; otherwise our priests could not say Mass nor others understand them outside their own countries. The unity and the great extension of our brethren require that we should say our public prayers in a language which shall be common to all peoples. In this way our prayers are universal, by means of the number of persons who in each province can understand Latin, and it seems to me, in conscience, that this reason alone should suffice; for if we consider rightly, our prayers are heard no less in Latin than in French.

Let us divide the body of a commonwealth into three parts, according to the ancient French division, or, according to the new, into four; there are four sets of persons: the clergy, the nobility, they of the long robe, and the people or third estate. The three first understand Latin or should understand it, if they do not rather make it their own language; there remains the lowest rank, of which, again, a part understand; and truly as for the rest, if one do not speak the jargon of their country, it is only with great difficulty that they could understand the simple narrative of the Scripture.

That most excellent theologian, Robert Bellarmine41, relates, having heard it from a most trustworthy source, that a good dame in England having heard a minister read the twenty-fifth chapter of Ecclesiasticus (though they only hold it to be an ancient book, not a canonical one), because it there speaks the wickedness of women, rose up, saying: What!—is this the Word of God?—of the devil rather. He quotes from Theodoret42 an excellent and true word of S. Basil the Great. The chief of the Emperor’s kitchen wishing to play the sage, began to bring forward certain passages of the Scripture: “It is yours [said the Saint] to mind your dishes, not to cook divine dogmata” as if he had said: Occupy yourself with tasting your sauces, not with devouring the divine Word.


Of The Profanation Of The Scriptures Through The Facility They Pretend There Is In Understanding
Scripture

The imagination must have great power over Huguenot understandings, since it persuades them so absolutely of this grand absurdity, that the Scriptures are easy to everybody, and that everybody can understand them. It is true that to bring forth vulgar translations with honour it was necessary to speak in this manner; but tell me the truth, do you think that the case really runs so? Do you find them so easy, do you understand them so well? If you think you do, I admire your credulity, which goes not only beyond experience, but is contrary to what you see and feel.

If it is true that the Scripture is so easy to understand, what is the use of so many commentaries made by your ministers, what is the object of so many harmonies, what is the good of so many schools of Theology? There is need of no more, say you, than the doctrine of the pure word of God in the Church. But where is this word of God? In the Scripture? And Scripture ­— is it some secret thing? No—you say not to the faithful. Why, then, these interpreters and these preachers?

If you are faithful, you will understand the Scriptures as well as they do; send them off to unbelievers, and simply keep some deacons to give you the morsel of bread and pour out the wine of your supper. If you can feed yourselves in the field of the Scripture, what do you want with pastors? Some young innocent, some mere child who is able to read, will do just as well.

But whence comes this continual and irreconcilable discord which there is among you, brethren in Luther, over these words, This is my body, and on Justification? Certainly S. Peter is not of your thinking, who assures us in his 2nd Epistle43 that in the letters of S. Paul there are certain points hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scripture to their own Perdition.

The eunuch who was treasurer-general, of Ethiopia was certainly faithful.44 since he came to adore in the Temple of Jerusalem; he was reading Isaias; he quite understood the words, since he asked of what prophet that which he had read was to be understood; yet still he had not the understanding nor the spirit of them, as he himself confessed: How can I, unless some one shows me? Not only does he not understand, but he confesses that he has not the power unless he is taught. And we shall see some washerwoman boast of understanding the Scripture as well as S. Bernard did!

Do you not know the spirit of discord? It is necessary to convince oneself that the Scripture is easy in order that everybody may drab it about, some one way, some another, that each one may be a master in it, and that it may serve everybody’s opinions and fancies.

Certainly David held it to be far from easy when he said45: Give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.

If they have left you the Epistle of S. Jerome to Paulinus in the preface of your bibles, read it, for it treats this point expressly. S. Augustine speaks of it in a thousand places, but particularly in his Confessions. In the 119th Epistle he confesses that there is much more in the Scripture of which he is ignorant than there is of what he knows.

Origen and S. Jerome, the former in his preface on the Canticles, the latter in his on Ezechiel say that it was not permitted to the Jews before the age of thirty to read the three first chapters of Genesis, the commencement and the end of Ezechiel, or the Canticle of Canticles, on account of the depth of the difficulties therein, in which few persons can swim without being submerged. And now, everybody talks of them, everybody criticises them, everybody knows all about them.

And how great the profanation of the Scriptures is in this way nobody could sufficiently believe who had not seen it. As for me, I will say what I know, and I lie not. I have seen a person in good society who, when one objected to an expression of hers the sentence of Our Lord46—To him that striketh thee on the one cheek offer also the other,—immediately explained it in this sense: that as to encourage a child who studies well we lay our hand lightly with little pats upon his cheek to excite him to do better, so Our Lord meant to say be so grateful to one who may find you doing right and who may caress you for it that he may take occasion another time to treat you still better and to caress or fondle you on both sides. Is not that a fine meaning and a precious? But the reason was even better,—that to understand this text otherwise would be against nature, and that while we must interpret Scripture by Scripture, we find in Scripture that Our Lord did not do so when the servant struck him: this is the fruit of your translated theology.

An honest man, and one who in my opinion would not lie, has related to me that he heard a minister of this country, treating of the Nativity of Our Lord, assert that he was not born in a crib, and expound the text (which is express on the other side) figuratively, saying: Our Lord also says that he is the vine, yet for all that he is not one; in the same way, although it is said that he is born in a crib, yet born there he is not, but in some honourable place which in comparison with his greatness might be called a crib.

The character of this interpretation leads me still more to believe the man who told me, for being simple and unable to read he could hardly have made it up. It is a most curious thing to see how this pretended enlightenment causes the Holy Scripture to be profaned. Is it not doing what God says in Ezechiel47: Was it not enough for you to feed upon good pastures; but you must also tread down with your feet the residue of the pastures?


On The Profanation Of The Scriptures In The Versified Psalms Used By The Pretended Reformers

But amongst all profanations it seems to me that this comes out above the rest, that in the temples publicly, and everywhere, in the fields, in the shops, they sing the rhymes of Marot as Psalms of David. The mere incompetence of the author, who was utterly ignorant; his licentiousness, which he testifies by his writings; his most profane life, which had nothing whatever of the Christian about it, caused him to be refused the communion of the Church. And yet his name and his psalms are, as it were, sacred in your churches; they are recited among you as if they were David’s,—whereas who sees not how the sacred word is violated? The measure and restrictions of verse make it impossible that the sacred meaning of the Scripture words should be followed; he mixes in his own to make sense, and it becomes necessary for this ignorant rhymester to choose one sense in places where there might be several.

What! is it not an extreme violation and profanation to have left to such an empty-headed witling a judgment of such great consequence, and then in the public prayers to follow as closely this buffoon’s selection as one ever did formerly the interpretation of the Seventy, who were so particularly assisted by the Holy Spirit? How many words and how many sentences has he secreted therein which were never in the Scriptures? This is a very different thing from ill-pronouncing Scibboleth48.

At the same time it is well known that there is nothing which has so delighted busybodies, and above all women, as this authorisation to sing in the church and at the meetings. Certainly we forbid no one to sing devoutly, modestly, and becomingly; but it seems more proper that Ecclesiastics and their deputies should sing as a general rule, as was done in the Dedication of Solomon’s Temple. O how delightful to get one’s voice heard in the church! But do they not betray you in the songs they make you utter? I have not leisure or convenience for going into the matter further. When you shout these verses of the 8th Psalm:—Thou hast made him such that no more remains to him except to be God; but as to all else thou hast, &c.—how delighted you are to be able to chant and sing these French rhymes Marotées49. It would be much better to keep to the Latin than to blaspheme in French.

Accept this warning. When you sing this verse, whom do you suppose you speak of? You speak of Our Lord, unless, to excuse the audacity of Marot and of your church, you also erase the Epistle to the Hebrews from the holy Bible: for S. Paul clearly there (ii. 6, 7, 8) expounds this verse of Our Lord. And if you speak of Our Lord, why do you say he is such that no more now remains for him except to be God? Questionless if anything now remains to him to be God he will never be it. What say you, poor people?—that it “remains” for Jesus Christ to be God?

See how those men make you swallow the poisoned morsel of Arianism, in singing these sorry rhymes. I am no longer astonished that Calvin confessed to Valentine Gentilis, that the Name of God by excellence belongs only to the Father. Behold the splendid eversions of the Scripture with which you are well pleased; behold the blasphemies which your Church sings in a body, and which she makes you repeat so often.

And as to this fashion of having the Psalms sung indifferently in all places and during all occupations, who sees not that it is a contempt of religion? Is it not to offend His Divine Majesty to say to him words as excellent as those of the Psalms, without any reverence or attention? To say prayers after the manner of common talking, is this not a mocking of him to whom we speak? When we see at Geneva or elsewhere a shop-boy laughing during the singing of the Psalms, and breaking the thread of a most beautiful prayer, to say: What will you buy, sir? Do we not clearly see that he is making an accessory of the principal, and that it is only for pastime that he was singing this divine song, which he at the same time believes to be of the Holy Spirit?

Is it not good to hear cooks singing the penitential Psalms of David, and asking at each verse for the bacon, the capon, the partridge! “That voice,” says De Montaigne, “is too divine to have no other use than to exercise the lungs and please the ears.”50 I allow that all places are good to pray in privately, and the same holds good of every occupation which is not sin, provided that we pray in spirit, because God sees the interior wherein lies the chief and substantial part of prayer. But I consider that he who prays in public ought to make exterior demonstration of the reverence which the very words he is uttering demand: otherwise he scandalises his neighbour, who is not bound to think there is religion in the interior when he sees the contempt in the exterior.

I hold, then, that both in singing as divine Psalms what is very often an imagination of Marot’s, and in singing them irreverently and without respect, they very often sin in that reformed church of yours against that word: God is a spirit, and those who adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth.51

For besides that in these Psalms you very often attribute to the Holy Ghost the conceptions of Marot contrary to the truth, the mouth also cries in streets and kitchens: O Lord! O Lord! when the heart and the spirit are not there but in traffic and gain, as Isaias says52: You draw near God with your mouth, and with your lips glorify him, but your heart is far from him, and you have feared him according to the commandments and doctrines of men.

It is quite true that this impropriety of praying without devotion occurs very often among Catholics, but it is not with the advertence of the Church: and I am not now blaming particular members of your party, but your body in general, which by its versions and liberties bring into profane use what should be treated with the greatest reverence.53 In chapter 14 of the 1st of Corinthians, the Let women keep silence in the churches seems to be understood of hymns (cantiques) as much as of the rest: our nuns are in oratorio non in ecclesia.


Answer To Objections, and Conclusion Of The First Article

Now follows what you allege in your defence. S. Paul seems54 to want to have the service performed in a language intelligible to the Corinthians; you will see that at the same time he does not wish the service to be diversified with all sorts of languages, but only that the exhortations and hymns which were uttered by means of the gift of tongues should be interpreted, in order that the Church where any one might be should know what was said: And therefore he that speaketh by a tongue, let him pray that he may interpret.

He intends, then, that the praises which were made at Corinth should be made in Greek: for as they were made not now as ordinary services, but as the extraordinary hymns of those who had this gift, for the gladdening of the people, it was reasonable that they should be made in intelligible language, or be at once interpreted. This he seems to show when he says lower down: If, therefore, the whole church come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in unlearned persons or infidels, will they not say that you are mad? And further on: If any speak with a tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and in course, and let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him hold his peace in the church, and speak to himself and to God.

Who sees not that he is not speaking of the solemn offices in the Church, which were only performed by the pastor, but of the hymns which were made through the gift of tongues, which he wished to be understood? For in truth if they were not, it distracted the assembly, and was of no benefit. Several ancient Fathers speak of these hymns, and amongst others Tertullian, who, treating of the holiness of the agapes or love feasts of the ancients, says: “After the washing of hands and the lamps,—each one is pressed to sing publicly to God as he is able, out of the Holy Scriptures or his own heart.”55

This people glorify me with their lips, but their heart, &c.56This is meant of those who, singing and praying in any language whatever, speak of God mechanically, without reverence and devotion; not of those who speak a language unknown to them but known to the Church, and who, moreover, have their heart rapt unto God.

In the Acts of the Apostles they praised God in all tongues. So they should do; but in universal and Catholic offices there is need of a universal and Catholic language. Except for this, every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God the Father.57

In Deuteronomy58, it is said that the commandments of God are not secret or sealed up; and does not the Psalmist say: The commandment of the Lord is lightsome: thy word is a lamp to my feet? That is all very true, but it means when preached and explained, and properly understood. How shall they believe without a preacher!59 And all that the great Prophet David has said is not to be understood of everybody.

But you object to me: in any case, ought I not to seek the meat of my soul and of my salvation? Poor man, who denies it? But if everybody goes to pasture like the old ewes, what is the need of shepherds? Seek the pastures, but with your pastor. Should we not laugh at the sick man who would find his health in Hippocrates without the help of the doctor, or at him who would seek out his rights in Justinian without betaking himself to the judge? Seek, one would say to him, your health by means of doctors; seek your right and gain it, but by the hands of the magistrate.

“What man of moderately sound mind does not understand that the exposition of the Scriptures is to be sought from those who are doctors in them?” says S. Augustine60 But if no one can find his salvation except the one who can read the Scriptures, what will become of so many poor ignorant people? Surely they find and seek their salvation quite satisfactorily when they learn from the mouth of the pastor the substance of what they must believe, hope for, love, do, and ask of God.

Believe that also according to the spirit that is true which the Wise Man says: Better is the poor man walking in his simplicity than the rich in crooked ways (Prov. xxviii. 6); and elsewhere: The simplicity of the just shall guide them (xi. 3) and: He that walketh sincerely walketh confidently ( x. 9), where I do not mean to say that we must not take the trouble to understand, but only that we must not expect to find our salvation and our pasturage of ourselves, without the guidance of those whom God has appointed unto this end, according to the same Wise Man: Lean not upon thy prudence, and be not wise in thy own conceit (iii. K, 7). Which they do not practice who think that of their own wisdom they know all sorts of mysteries; not observing the order which God has established; who has made amongst us some doctors and pastors,—not all, and not each one for himself.

Indeed, S. Augustine found that S. Anthony, an unlearned man, failed not to know the way of Paradise; and he with all his doctrine was very far therefrom, at that time amid the errors of the Manichaeans.61

But I have some testimonies of antiquity, and some signal examples, which I would leave you at the end of this article as its conclusion.

S. Augustine62 “Your charity was to be admonished that confession (confessionem) is not always the voice of a sinner; for as soon as this word of the Lector sounded, there followed the sound of your striking your breast; that is, as soon as you heard that the Lord said: I confess to thee, Father, immediately the word I confess sounded, you struck your breasts; now to strike the breast, what is it but to signify what lies in the breast, and with a visible stroke to chastise an unseen sin? Why did you do this but because you heard I confess to thee, Father? You heard I confess, but you did not take notice who was confessing. Now therefore take notice.”

Do you see how the people heard the public reading of the Gospel, and did not understand it, except this word: I confess to thee, Father; which they understood by custom, because it was said just at the beginning of the Mass as we say it now. It was, no doubt, because the reading was in Latin, which was not their vulgar tongue.

But he who would see the esteem in which Catholics hold the holy Scripture, and the respect they bear it, should regard the great Cardinal Borromeo, who never studied in the Holy Scriptures save on his knees, it seeming to him that he heard God speaking in them, and that such reverence was due to so divine a hearing.

Never was a people better instructed, considering the malice of the age, than the people of Milan under the Cardinal Borromeo; but the instruction of the people does not come by force of hurrying over the holy Bible, or often reading the mere letter of this divine Scripture, nor by singing snatches of the Psalms as the fancy takes one; but by using them, by reading, hearing, singing, praying to God, with a lively apprehension of the majesty of God to whom we speak, whose Word we read, evermore with that Preface of the ancient Church: sursum corda.

That great servant of God, S. Francis, of whose glorious and most holy memory the Feast was celebrated yesterday63 throughout the whole world, showed us a beautiful example of the attention and reverence with which we ought to pray to God. This is what the holy and fervent Doctor of the Church, S. Bonaventure, tells of it.64 “The holy man was accustomed to recite the Canonical Hours not less reverently than devoutly; for although he was labouring under an infirmity of the eyes, the stomach, the spleen, and the liver, he would not lean against wall or other support while he was singing, but recited the hours always standing and bare headed, not with wandering eyes, nor with any shortening of verse or word; if sometimes he were on a journey he then made a fixed arrangement of time, not omitting this reverent and holy custom on account of pouring rain; for he used to say: If the body eats quitetly its food which, with itself, is to be food of worms, how great should the peace and tranquility with which the soul should take the food of life?”

  1. John v. 39. ↩︎
  2. Mark xii. 24. ↩︎
  3. Ep. 2, i. 19. ↩︎
  4. Jos. i. 8. ↩︎
  5. Test. i. ff. Qui test. facere possunt. ↩︎
  6. Gal. iii 15, 16 ↩︎
  7. Judges xii. 6. ↩︎
  8. De Doc Chris. iii. 2. ↩︎
  9. Ad ann. 3638 ↩︎
  10. Ib. seqq. Et ad ann. 3860. He quotes S. Epiph., de mens. et pond., and Josephus, contra App. ii. S. Epiph speaks only of Baruch. ↩︎
  11. Canon lx. ↩︎
  12. i.e. in Canon ii. of the Council in Trullo (or Quinisext), which is called by the Greeks the sixth General Council, as being a continuation or supplement of it. Such canons of this Council as were not opposed to previous decrees were approved by Rome. See Hefele Cone. Bk. xvii. The Saint’s words are well defended by Alibrandi in the processus Respons. pp. 8o, 81. [Tr.] ↩︎
  13. i.e. in Canon xxxvi. of the Council of Hippo, approved in third Council of Carthage. [Tr.] ↩︎
  14. De doc. Chr. ii.8 ↩︎
  15. Hist. Eccl. Iv. 22. ↩︎
  16. Ep. Ad Chrom. et Heliod. ↩︎
  17. De civ. Dei. xviii. 36. ↩︎
  18. The necessary references and explanations are given in notes to preceding chapter. [Tr.] ↩︎
  19. In Synopsi ↩︎
  20. In carm. de lib. sac. ↩︎
  21. Note toi in the Dative, agreeing with aimati, but toe in the Nominative, agreeing with poterion. The Saint represents this in French by the change of gender. It is not clearly expressed in the Latin, and our English translation would seem to favour the wrong meaning. Shall be poured out is more correct, but still ambiguous. [Tr.] ↩︎
  22. Conta Ep. Fund. v. ↩︎
  23. Sermo de Temp. cxci ↩︎
  24. 1 Tim. iii. 15. ↩︎
  25. Acts xv. 28. ↩︎
  26. In prologis Bib. Et horum lib. ↩︎
  27. At this time the so-called reformers did not decidedly accept the book of Esther as canonical. It is now accepted by their followers up to chap. x. v. 4. [Tr.] ↩︎
  28. Isa. xix. 14 ↩︎
  29. Genebrard in proef. Psalt.; Titelman, Toletus, in apol. Bellarminus et a1ii. ↩︎
  30. ii. 27. ↩︎
  31. Here is my body, instead of This is my body. [Tr.] ↩︎
  32. de Proescr. xvii ↩︎
  33. Montaigne. Essaies I. 56. See Preface. ↩︎
  34. Prol. in Matt. ↩︎
  35. In Pontificali Damasi. The Saint mentions the opinion, but he himself held the now universal sentiment of Doctors that S. Mark wrote in Greek.[Tr.] ↩︎
  36. Of this we have a notable trace and evidence in the Gospel: for the day Our Lord entered into Jerusalem, the crowds kept crying out Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: hosanna in the highest (Matt. xxi. 9.) And this word, hosanna, has been left in its integrity in the Greek text of S. Mark and S. John, to signify that it was the very word of the people. Now hosanna, or hosaanna (for one is the same as the other in this language, the learned tell us) is a Hebrew, not a Syriac word, taken, with the rest of that praise which was given to Our Lord, from the 117th Psalm. These people then were accustomed to recite the Psalms in Hebrew; yet the Hebrew was no longer their vulgar tongue, as one may see by several words said in the Gospel by Our Lord, which were Syriac and which the Evangelists have retained: as Abba, Haceldama, Golgotha, Pascha, and others. Learned men tell us that these were not Hebrew but Syraic, though they may be called Hebrew as being of the vernacular tongue of the Hebrews after the captivity of Babylon. ↩︎
37. Reg. iv. Indicis. ↩︎
38. Heb. iv. 12 ↩︎
39. Sess. xxii. ↩︎i.2 ↩︎
40. On this question ↩︎
41. Hist. iv. ↩︎
42. iii.16 ↩︎
43. Acts viii. ↩︎
44. Psa. cxviii. 73. ↩︎
45. Luke vi. 29. ↩︎
46. xxxiv. 18 ↩︎
47. Judges xii. 6 ↩︎
48. i.e. of Marot [Tr.] ↩︎
49. Same essay. ↩︎
50. John iv. 23. ↩︎
51. xxix. 13. ↩︎
52. The following sentence is in the autograph placed between bars, and seems meant to be amplified. [Tr.] ↩︎
53. Cor. xiv. ↩︎
54. Apol. xxxix. See the notes of Messire Aemar Ennequin, bishop of Rennes, on Book vi. c. 2 of S. Augustine’s 55. Confessions ↩︎
56. Isaiah xxix. 13. ↩︎
57. Phil. ii:11 ↩︎
58. xxx. ↩︎
59. Romans x. 14. ↩︎
60. De Moribus Eccl. ↩︎
61. Confess. viii. 8. ↩︎
62. De Verbis Domini. Serm. viii. ↩︎
63. written probably October 5, 1595 ↩︎
64. In Vita Fr. ↩︎]]> The Pretended Reformers Have Violated Holy Scripture
by St. Francis de Sales
Source: The Catholic Controversy

[Image: main_hu13050926502138295171.jpg]

The Scripture is a True Rule of Christian Faith

I well know, thank God, that Tradition was before all Scripture, since a good part of Scripture itself is only Tradition reduced to writing, with an infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit. But, since the authority of Scripture is more easily received by the reformers than that of Tradition, I begin with the former in order to get a better entrance for my argument.

Holy Scripture is in such sort the rule of the Christian faith that we are obliged by every kind of obligation to believe most exactly all that it contains, and not to believe anything which may be ever so little contrary to it: for if Our Lord Himself has sent the Jews1 to it to strengthen their faith, it must be a most safe standard.

The Sadducees erred because they did not understand the Scriptures2; they would have done better to attend to them, as to a light shining in a dark place, according to the advice of St. Peter3, who having himself heard the voice of the Father in the Transfiguration of the Son, bases himself more firmly on the testimony of the Prophets than on this experience.

When God says to Josue: Let not the book of this law depart from thy mouth4, He shows clearly that He willed him to have it always in his mind, and to let no persuasion enter which should be contrary to it.

But I am losing time; this disputation would be needed against free-thinkers (les Libertins), we are agreed on this point, and those who are so mad as to contradict it can only rest their contradiction on the Scripture itself, contradicting themselves before contradicting the Scripture, using it in the very protestation which they make that they will not use it.


How Jealous We Should Be of Its Integrity

On this point, again, I will scarcely delay. The Holy Scripture is called the Book of the Old and of the New Testament. When a notary has drawn a contract or other deed, when a testament is confirmed by the death of the testator, there must not be added, withdrawn, or altered, one single word under penalty of falsification.

Are not the Holy Scriptures the true testament of the eternal God, drawn by the notaries deputed for this purpose, duly sealed and signed with his blood, confirmed by death? Being such, how can we alter even the smallest point without impiety?

“A testament,” says the great Ulpian, “is a just expression of our will as to what we would have done after our death.”5 Our Lord by the Holy Scriptures shows us what we must believe, hope for, love, and do, and this by a true expression of His will; if we add, take away, or change, it will no longer be the true expression of God’s will. For Our Lord having duly expressed in Scripture His will, if we add anything of our own we shall make the statement go beyond the will of our testator, if we take anything away we shall make it fall short, if we make changes in it we shall set it awry, and it will no longer correspond to the will of the author, nor be a correct statement.

When two things exactly correspond, he who changes the one destroys the equality and the correspondence between them. If it be a true statement, whatever right have we to alter it? Our Lord puts a value on the iotas, yea, the mere little points and accents of His Holy words. How jealous then is he of their integrity, and what punishment shall they not deserve who violate this integrity! Brethren, says S. Paul, 6 (I speak after the manner of man), yet a man’s testament, if it be confirmed, no man despiseth, nor addeth to it. And to show how important it is to learn the Scripture in its exactness he gives an example. To Abraham were the promises made, and to his seed. He says not and to his seeds as of many, but as of one; and to thy seed, who is Christ. See, I beg you, how the change from singular to plural would have spoilt the mysterious meaning of this word.

The Ephrathites [Ephraimites] said Sibboleth, not forgetting a single letter, but because they did not pronounce it thickly enough, the Galaadites slew them at the fords of the Jordan7. The simple difference of pronunciation in speaking, and in writing the mere transposition of one single point on the letter scin caused the ambiguity, and changing the janin into semol, instead of an ear of wheat expressed a weight or a burden. Whosoever alters or adds the slightest accent in the Scripture is a sacrilegious man, and deserves the death of him who dares to mingle the profane with the sacred.

The Arians, as S. Augustine tells us8, corrupted this sentence of S. John i.1: In principio erat verbum, et verbum erat apud Deum, et Deus erat verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum: by simply changing a point. For they read it thus: Et verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat. Verbum hoc, &c.: instead of: Deus erat verbum. Hoc erat in principio apud Deum: They placed the full stop after the erat, instead of after the verbum. They so acted for fear of having to grant that the Word was God; so little is required to change the sense of God’s Word. When one is handling glass beads, if two or three are lost, it is a small matter, but if they were oriental pearls the loss would be great. The better the wine the more it suffers from the mixture of a foreign flavour, and the exquisite symmetry of a great picture will not bear the admixture of new colours. Such is the conscientiousness with which we ought to regard and handle the sacred deposit of the Scriptures.


What Are the Sacred Books of the Word of God

The Council of Trent gives these books as sacred, divine and canonical: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Josue, Judges, Ruth, the four Books of Kings, two of the Paralipomenon, two of Esdras (a first, and a second, which is called of Nehemias), Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, one hundred and fifty Psalms of David, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias with Baruch, Ezechiel, Daniel, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggeus, Zacharius, Malachy, two of Machabees, first and second: of the New Testament, four Gospels,—S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke, S. John—the Acts of the Apostles by S. Luke, fourteen Epistles of S. Paul—to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews—two of S. Peter, three of S. John, one of S. James, one of S. Jude, and the Apocalypse. The same books were received at the Council of Florence, and long before that at the third Council of Carthage about twelve hundred years ago.

These books are divided into two ranks. For of some, both of the Old and of the New Testament, it was never doubted but that they were sacred and canonical: others there are about whose authority the ancient Fathers doubted for a time, but afterwards they were placed with those of the first rank.

Those of the first rank in the Old Testament are the five of Moses, Josue, Judges, Ruth, four of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, two of Esdras and Nehemias, Job, one hundred and fifty Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Canticles, the four greater Prophets, the twelve lesser Prophets. These were formed into the canon by the great synod at which Esdras was present. and to which he was scribe; and no one ever doubted of their authority without being at once considered a heretic, as our learned Genebrard, fully proves in his Chronolog9.

The second rank contains the following Esther, Baruch, a part of Daniel (the history of Susanna, the Canticle of the Three Children, and the history of the death of the dragon in the fourteenth chapter), Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees 1 and 2. And as to these there is a great probability in the opinion of the same Doctor Genebrard10 that in the meeting which was held at Jerusalem to send the seventy-two interpreters into Egypt, these books, which were not in existence when Esdras made the first canon, were placed on the canon, at least tacitly, because they were sent with the others to be translated, except the Machabees, which were received in another meeting afterwards, wherein the preceding were again approved. But however the case may be, as the second canon was not made so authentically as the first, this placing on the canon could not procure them an entire and unquestionable authority among the Jews, nor make them equal with the books of the first rank.

Coming to the books of the New Testament I say that in the same way there are some of the first rank, which have always been acknowledged and received as sacred and canonical. These are the four Gospels, S. Matthew, S. Mark, S. Luke, S. John, all the Epistles of S. Paul except that to the Hebrews, one of S. Peter, one of S. John. Those of the second rank are the Epistle to the Hebrews, that of S. James, the second of S. Peter, the second and third of S. John, that of S. Jude, the 16th chapter of S. Mark, as S. Jerome says, and S. Luke’s history of the bloody sweat of Our Lord in the garden of Olives, according to the same S. Jerome; in the eighth chapter of S. John there has been a doubt concerning the history of the woman taken in adultery, or at least some suspect that it has been doubted, and concerning verse seven of the last chapter of S. John’s First Epistle.

These are, as far as we know, the books and parts of books concerning which it appears there was anciently some doubt. And these were not of undoubted authority in the Church at first, but as time went on they were at length recognised as the sacred work of the Holy Spirit, and not all at once but at different times. And first besides those of the first rank, whether of the New or of the Old Testament, about the year 364 they were received at the Council of Laodicea11, (which was afterwards approved in the sixth general Council12), the book of Esther, the Epistle of S. James the Second of S. Peter, the Second and Third of S. John, that of Jude, and the Epistle to the Hebrews as the fourteenth of S. Paul.

Then some time afterwards at the third Council of Carthage ( i.e. in Canon xxxvi. of the Council of Hippo, approved in third Council of Carthage13 (at which S. Augustine assisted, and which was confirmed in the sixth general Council in Trullo), besides those of the second rank just mentioned, there were received into the canon, as of full authority, Tobias, Judith, First and Second Machabees, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Apocalypse. But of all those of the second rank, the book of Judith was first received and acknowledged as divine, in the first General Council of Nice, as S. Jerome witnesses in his preface to this book. Such is the way in which the two ranks were brought together into one, and ever made of equal authority in the Church of God, but progressively and with succession, as a beautiful morning rising, which little by little lights up our hemisphere.

Thus was drawn up in the Council of Carthage, that same ancient list of the canonical books which has ever since been in the Catholic Church and which was confirmed in the sixth general Council, at the great Council of Florence 160 years ago for the union of the Armenians by the whole Church both Greek and Latin, in our age by the Council of Trent, and which was followed by S. Augustine14. Before the Council of Carthage they were not all received as canonical by any decree of the general Church.

I had almost forgotten to say that you must not therefore make a difficulty against what I have just laid down because Baruch is not quoted by name in the Council of Carthage. For since Baruch was secretary of Jeremias, the book of Baruch was reckoned by the ancients as an accessory or appendix of Jeremias, being comprised under this; as that excellent theologian Bellarmine proves in his Controversies. But it is enough for me to have said thus: my brief outline is not obliged to dwell on every particular. In a word, all these books, whether of first or second rank, with all the parts, are equally certain, sacred and canonical, and are received in the Catholic Church.


First Violation of the Holy Scripture Made By the Reformers: By Cutting Off Some of Its Parts

Such are the sacred and canonical books which the Church has unanimously received and acknowledged during twelve hundred years. And by what authority have these new reformers dared to wipe out at one stroke so many noble parts of the Bible? They have erased a part of Esther, and Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees. Who has told them that these books are not legitimate, and not to be received? Why do they thus dismember the sacred body of the Scriptures?

Here are the principal reasons, as far as I have been able to gather from the old preface to the books which they pretend to be apocryphal, printed at Neufchastel, in the translation of Peter Robert, otherwise Olivetanus, a relation and friend of Calvin, and again from the newer preface placed to the same books by the professors and pretended pastors of the Church of Geneva, 1588.

  1. They are not found either in Hebrew or Chaldaic, in which languages they (except perhaps the Book of Wisdom) were originally written: therefore it would be very difficult to restore them.
  2. They are not received as legitimate by the Jews.
  3. Nor by the whole Church.
  4. S. Jerome says they are not considered proper for corroborating the authority of Ecclesiastical doctrines.
  5. Canon Law condemns them;
  6. as does also the Gloss, which says they are read, but not generally, as if to say that they are not approved generally everywhere.
  7. They have been corrupted and falsified, as Eusebius says15;
  8. notably the Machabees,
  9. and particularly the Second of Machabees, which S. Jerome says he did not find in Hebrew. Such are the reasons of Olivetanus.
  10. “There are in them many false things,” says the new preface.
Let us now see what these fine researches are worth.

1. And as to the first, are you unwilling to receive these books because they are not in Hebrew or Chaldaic? Receive Tobias then, for S. Jerome attests that he translates it from Chaldaic into Latin, in the Epistle which you yourselves quote16, which makes me think you are hardly in good faith.

And why not Judith, which was also written in Chaldaic, as the same S. Jerome says in the prologue? And if S. Jerome says he was not able to find the Second of Machabees in the Hebrew, what has that to do with the first? This then receive as it deserves; we will treat of the second afterwards. I say the same to you about Ecclesiasticus, which S. Jerome had and found in Hebrew, as he says in his preface on the books of Solomon.

Since, then, you reject these books written in Hebrew or Chaldaic equally with the others which are not written in one of these languages, you will have to find another pretext than that which you have alleged for striking out thee books from the canon. When you say that you reject them because they are not written in Hebrew or Chaldaic, this is not your real reason; for you would not reject on this ground Tobias, Judith, the first of Machabees, Ecclesiasticus, which are written either in Hebrew or Chaldaic.

But let us now speak in defence of the other books, which are written in a language other than that which you would have. Where do you find that the rule for rightly receiving the Holy Scriptures is that they should be written in these languages rather than in Greek or Latin?

You say that nothing must be received in matter of religion but what is written; and you bring forward in your grand preface the saying of jurisconsults: “We blush to speak without a law.” Do you not consider that the controversy about the validity or invalidity of the Scriptures is one of the most important in the sphere of religion? Well then, either remain confounded, or else produce the Holy Scripture for the negative which you maintain. The Holy Spirit certainly declares Himself as well in Greek as in Chaldaic. There would be, you say, great difficulty in restoring them, since we do not possess them in their original language, and it is this which troubles you.

But, for God’s sake, tell me who told you that they were lost, corrupted or altered, so as to need restoration? You take for granted, perhaps, that those who have translated them from the originals have translated badly, and you would have the original to compare them and judge them. Make your meaning clear then, and say that they are therefore apocryphal because you cannot yourselves be the translators of them from the original, and cannot trust the judgment of the translator. So there is to be nothing certain except what you have had the control of. Show me this rule of certitude in the Scripture.

Further, are you fully assured that you have the Hebrew texts of the books of the first rank, as pure and exact as they were in the time of the Apostles and of the Seventy? Beware of errors. You certainly do not aways follow then, and you could not, with good conscience. Show me this again in the Holy Scripture.

Here, therefore, is your first reason most wanting in reason.

2. As to your saying that these books which you call apocryphal are not received by the Jews, you say nothing new or important. S. Augustine loudly exclaims: “It is the Catholic Church which holds the Books of Machabees as canonical, not the Jews.”17 Show me from Scripture that the Christian Church has not as much power to give authority to the sacred books as the Mosaic may have had. There is not in this either Scripture or reason to show for it.

3. Yes, but the whole of the Church does not receive them, you say. Of what Church are you speaking? Unquestionably the Catholic, which is the true Church, receives them, as S. Augustine has just now borne witness to you, and he repeats it, citing the Council of Carthage18. The Council in Trullo the 6th General, that of Florence, and a hundred ancient authors are [witnesses] thereto. I name S. Jerome, who witnesses for the book of Judith that it was received in the first Council [of Nice].

Perhaps you would say that of old time some Catholics doubted of their authority. This is clear from the division which I have made above. But does their doubt then make it impossible for their successors to come to a conclusion? Are we to say that if one cannot decide at the very first glance one must always remain wavering, uncertain, and irresolute?

Was there not for some time an uncertainty about the Apocalypse and Esther? You would not dare to deny it: my witnesses for Esther are too sound, S. Athanasius19 and S. Gregory Nazainzen20: for the Apocalypse, the Council of Laodicea: and yet you receive them. Either receive them all, since they are in equal position, or receive none, on the same ground.

But in God’s name what humour takes you that you here bring forward the Church, whose authority you hold to be a hundred times more uncertain than these books themselves, and which you say to have been erring, inconstant,—yea apocryphal, if apocryphal means hidden? You only prize it to despise it, and to make it appear inconstant, now recognizing, now rejecting these books.

But there is a great difference between doubting whether a thing is to be accepted and rejecting it. Doubt does not hinder a subsequent resolution, indeed it is its preliminary stage. To reject presupposes a decision. Inconstancy does not consist in changing a doubt into resolution, but in changing from resolution to doubt. It is not instability to become settled after wavering, but to waver after being settled.

The Church then, having for a time left these books in doubt, at length has received them with authentic decision, and you wish that from this resolution she should return into doubt. It belongs to heresy and not to the Church thus to advance from bad to worse. But of this elsewhere.

4. As for S. Jerome whom you allege, this is not to the purpose, since in his time the Church had not yet come to the resolution which she has come to since, as to the placing of these books on the canon, except that of Judith.

5. And the canon Sancta Romana, which is of Gelasius I.—I think you have taken it by guess, for it is entirely against you; because, while censuring the apocryphal books, it does not name one of these which we receive, but on the contrary witnesses that Tobias and the Macchabees were publicly received in the Church.

6. And the poor Gloss does not deserve to be thus glossed, since it clearly says that these books are read, though not perhaps generally. This “perhaps” guards it from stating what is false, and you have forgotten it. And if it reckons the books in question as apocryphal, this is because it considered that apocryphal meant the having no certain author, and therefore it includes as apocryphal the Book of Judges: and their statements are not so authentic that they must pass as decisive judgment; after all it is but a Gloss.

7. And these falsifications which you allege are not in any way sufficient to abolish the authority of these books, because they have been justified and have been purified from all corruption before the Church received them. Truly, all the books of Holy Scripture have been corrupted by the ancient enemies of the Church, but by the providence of God they have remained free and pure in the Church’s hands, as a sacred deposit; and they have never been able to spoil so many copies as that there should not remain enough to restore the others.

8. But you would have the Machabees, at any rate, fall from our hands, when you say that they have been corrupted; but since you only advance a simple assertion I will return your pass by a simple negation.

9. S. Jerome, you say, could not find the Second in Hebrew; and although it is true that it is only as it were a letter which Israel sent to their Jewish brethen who were then out of Judea, and although it is written in the best known and most general language of those times, does it thence follow that it is not worthy to be received? The Egyptians used the Greek language much more than the Hebrew, as Ptolemy clearly showed when he procured the version of the Seventy. This is why this Second book of Machabees, which was like an epistle or commentary sent for the consolation of the Jews who were in Egypt, was written in Greek rather than in Hebrew.

10. It remains for the new preachers to point out those falsehoods of which they accuse these books; which they will in truth never do. But I see them coming, bringing forward the intercession of Saints, prayer for the dead, free-will, the honouring of relics, and similar points, which are expressly confirmed in the Books of Machabees, in Ecclesiasticus, and in other books which they pretend to be apocryphal.

For God’s sake take care that your judgment does not deceive you. Why, I pray you, do you call false, things which the whole of antiquity has held as articles of faith? Why do you not rather censure your fancies which will not embrace the doctrine of these books, than censure these books which have been received for so long a time because they do not jump with your humour? Because you will not believe what the books teach, you condemn it; why do you not rather condemn your presumption which is incredulous to their teaching?

Here now, I think, are all your reasons scattered to the winds, and you can bring no more. But we may well say: if it be thus lawful indifferently to reject or make doubtful the authority of those Scriptures, about which there was formerly a doubt, though the Church has now decided, it will be necessary to reject or to doubt of a great part of the Old and the New Testament. It is then no little gain to the enemy of Christianity, to have at one stroke scratched out of the Holy Scripture so many noble parts. Let us proceed.


Second Violation of the Scriptures: By the Rule Which These Reformers Bring Forward to Distinguish the Sacred Books From the Others, and of Some Smaller Parts They Cut Off From Them According to This Rule

The crafty merchant keeps out the worst articles of his stock to offer first to buyers, to try if he can get rid of them and sell them to some simpleton. The reasons which these reformers have advanced in the preceding chapter are but tricks, as we have seen, which are used only as it were for amusement, to try whether some simple and weak brain will be content with them; and, in reality, when one comes to the grapple, they confess that not the authority of the Church, nor of S. Jerome, nor of the Gloss, nor of the Hebrew, is cause sufficient to receive or reject any Scripture.

The following is their protestation of faith presented to the King of France by the French pretended reformers. After having placed on the list, in the third article, the books they are willing to receive, they write thus in the fourth article: “We know these books to be canonical and a most safe rule of our faith, not so much by the common accord and consent of the Church, as by the testimony and interior persuasion of the Holy Spirit, which gives us to discern them from the other ecclesiastical books.” Quitting then the field of the reasons preceding, and making for cover, they throw themselves into the interior, secret, and invisible persuasion which they consider to be produced in them by the Holy Spirit.

Now in truth it is judicious in them not to chose to rely in this point on the common accord and consent of the Church; for this common accord has placed on the canon Ecclesiasticus and the Machabees, as much as and as early as the Apocalypse, and yet they choose to receive this and to reject those. Judith, made authoritative by the grand and irreproachable Council of Nice, is blotted out by these reformers. They have reason then to confess that in the reception of canonical books, they do not accept the accord and consent of the Church, which was never greater or more solemn than in that first Council.

But, for God’s sake notice the trick. “We know,” say they, “these books to be canonical, not so much by the common consent and accord of the Church.” To hear them speak, would you not say that at least to some extent they let themselves be guided by the Church? Their speech is not sincere: it seems as if they did not altogether refuse credit to the common accord of Christians, but only did not receive it as on the same level with their interior persuasion:—in all reality however, they hold it in no account at all: they are thus cautious in their language in order not to appear altogether arrogant and unreasonable. For, I ask you, if they deferred as little as you please to ecclesiastical authority, why would they receive the Apocalypse rather than Judith or the Machabees?

S. Augustine and S. Jerome are faithful witnesses to us that these have been unanimously received by the whole Catholic Church; and the Councils of Carthage, in Trullo, Florence, assure us thereof. Why then do they say that they do receive these sacred books not so much by the common accord of the Church or by interior persuasion, since the common accord of the Church has neither value nor place in the matter? It is their custom when they would bring forward some strange opinion not to speak clearly and frankly, in order to give the reader a better impression.

And now let us look at the rule they have for distinguishing the canonical books from the other ecclesiastical ones. “The testimony,” they say, “and interior persuasion of the Holy Spirit.” Good heavens! What obscurity, what dense fog, what shades of night! Are we not now fully enlightened in so important and grave a difference! The question is how one can tell these canonical books; we wish to have some rule to distinguish them; – and they offer us something that passes in the interior of the soul, which no one sees, nobody knows save the soul itself and its Creator!

1. Show me clearly that when you tell me that such and such an inspiration exists in your conscience, you are not telling a lie. You say that you feel this persuasion within you. But why am I bound to believe you? Is your word so powerful that I am forced under its authority to believe that you think and feel what you say. I am willing to hold you as good people enough, but when there is question of the foundations of my faith, as of receiving or rejecting the Ecclesiastical Scriptures, I find neither your ideas nor your words steady enough to serve me as a base.

2. Show me clearly that these inspirations and persuasions that you pretend to have are of the Holy Spirit. Who knows not that the spirit of darkness very often appears in clothing of light?

3. Does this spirit grant his persuasions indifferently to everyone. Or only to some particular persons? If to every one, how does it happen that so many millions of Catholics have never perceived them, nor so many women, working-people, and others among yourselves? If it is to some in particular, show them me, I beg, you,—and why to these rather than to others? What mark will you give me to know them and to pick them out from the crowd of the rest of men? Must I believe in the first who shall say: here you are? This would be to put ourselves too much at a venture and at the mercy of deceivers. Show me then some infallible rule to recognise these inspired ones, these persuaded ones, or else permit me to credit none of them.

4. But, in conscience, do you think that the interior persuasion is a sufficient means to distinguish the Holy Scriptures, and put the nations out of doubt? How comes it then that Luther throws off the Epistle of S. James, which Calvin receives? Try to harmonise, I pray you, this spirit and his persuasions, who persuades the one to reject what he persuades the other to receive. You will say, perhaps, that Luther is mistaken. He will say as much of you. Which is to be believed? Luther ridicules Ecclesiastes, he considers Job a fable. Will you oppose him your persuasion? He will oppose you his. So this spirit, divided against himself, will leave you no other conclusion except to grow thoroughly obstinate, each in his own opinion.

5. Then what reason is there that the Holy Spirit should give inspirations as to what every one must believe to nobodies, to Luther, to Calvin, they having abandoned without any such inspiration the Councils and the entire Church. We do not deny, to speak clearly, but that the knowledge of the true sacred books is a gift of the Holy Spirit, but we say that the Holy Spirit gives it to private individuals through the medium of the Church. Indeed if God had a thousand times revealed a thing to a private person we should not be obliged to believe it unless he stamped it so clearly that we could no longer call its validity in question. But we see nothing of this among your reformers. In a word, it is to the Church General that the Holy Spirit immediately addresses his inspirations and persuasions, then, by the preaching of the Church, he communicates them to private persons. It is the Spouse in whom the milk is produced, then the children suck it from her breasts. But you would have it, on the contrary, that God inspires private persons, and by these means the Church, that the children receive the milk and the mother is nourished at their breasts; an absurdity.

Now if the Scripture is not violated and its majesty offended by the setting up of these interior and private inspirations, it never was nor will be violated. For by this means the door is open to every one to receive or reject of the Scriptures what shall seem good to him. Why shall one allow Calvin to cut off Wisdom or the Machabees, and not Luther to remove the Epistle of S. James or the Apocalypse, or Castalio the Canticle of Canticles, or the Anabaptists the Gospel of S. Mark, or another person Genesis and Exodus? If all protest that they have interior revelation why shall we believe one rather than another, so that this rule supposed to be sacred on account of the Holy Spirit, will be violated by the audacity of every deceiver.

Recognise, I pray you, the stratagem. They have taken away all authority from Tradition, the Church, the Councils, what more remains? The Scripture. The enemy is crafty: if he would take all away at one stroke he would cause alarm. He starts a certain and infallible method of getting rid of it bit by bit, and very gradually: that is, this idea of interior inspiration, by which everybody can receive or reject what seems good to him.

And in fact consider a little how the process works itself out. Calvin removes and erases from the canon Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Machabees; Luther takes away the Epistle of S. James, of S. Jude, the Second of S. Peter, the Second and Third of S. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews; he ridicules Ecclesiastes, and holds Job a fable. In Daniel, Calvin has erased the Canticle of the Three Children, the history of Susanna and that of the dragon of Bel; also a great part of Esther. In Exodus, at Geneva and elsewhere among these reformers, they have cut out the twenty-second verse of the second chapter, which is of such weight that neither the Seventy nor the other translators would ever have written it if it had not been in the original. Beza casts a doubt over the history of the adulteress in the Gospel of S. John (S. Augustine warns us that already the enemies of Christianity had erased it from their books; but not from all, as S. Jerome says).

In the mysterious words of the Eucharist, do they not try to overthrow the authority of those words: Which shall be shed for you, because the Greek text21 clearly shows that what was in the chalice was not wine, but the blood of Our Saviour? As if one were to say in French: Ceci est la coupe du nouveau Testament en mon sang, laquelle sera respandue pour vous. For in this way of speaking that which is in the cup must be the true blood, not the wine; since the wine has not been shed for us but the blood, and the cup cannot be poured out except by reason of what it contains.

What is the knife with which one has made so many amputations? This tenet of private inspiration. What is it that makes you reformers so bold to cut away one this piece, another that, and the other something else? The pretext of these interior persuasions of the Spirit, which makes them supreme each in his own idea, in judging as to the validity or invalidity of the Scriptures.

On the contrary, gentlemen, S. Augustine protests"For my part, I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me thereto."22] And elsewhere: “We receive the New and the Old Testament in that number of books which the authority of the Catholic Church determines.”23 The Holy Spirit can give his inspirations as he likes, but as to the establishment of the public and general belief of the faithful, he only directs us to the Church. It is hers to propose which are the true Scriptures and which are not.


Answer To an Objection

But here is the difficulty. If these books were not from the beginning of undoubted authority in the Church, who can give them this authority? In truth the Church cannot give truth or certitude to the Scripture, or make a book canonical if it were not so, but the Church can make a book known as canonical, and make us certain of its certitude, and is fully able to declare that a book is canonical which is not held as such by every one, and thus to give it credit in Christendom; not changing the substance of the book which of itself was canonical, but changing the persuasion of Christians, making it quite assured where previously it had not been so.

But how can the Church herself define that a book is canonical? For she is no longer guided by new revelations but by the old Apostolic ones, of which she has infallibility of interpretation. And if the Ancients have not had the revelation of the authority of a book, how then can she know it?

She considers the testimony of antiquity, the conformity which this book has with the others which are received, and the general relish which the Christian people find in it. For as we can know what is a proper and wholesome food for animals when we see them fond of it and feed on it with advantage, so, when the Church sees that the Christian people heartily relishes a book as canonical and gains good from it, she may know that it is a fit and wholesome meat for Christian souls; and as when we would know whether one wine is of the same vintage as another we compare them, observing whether the colour, the smell and the taste are alike in the two, so when the Church has properly decided that a book has a taste, colour and smell and holiness of style, doctrine and mysteries—like to the other canonical books, and besides has the testimony of many good and irreproachable witnesses of antiquity, she can declare the book to be true brother of the other canonical ones.

And we must not doubt that the Holy Spirit assists the Church in this judgment: for your ministers themselves confess that God has given the Holy Scriptures into her charge, and say that it is on this account S. Paul calls her the pillar and ground of the truth.24 And how would she guard them if she could not know and separate them from the mixture of other books? And how important is it for the Church that she should be able to know in proper time and season which Scriptures is holy and which not: for if she received such and such Scripture as holy and it was not, she would lead us into superstition; and if she refused the honour and belief which befit God’s Word to a holy Scripture, it would be an impiety.

If ever then Our Lord defends his Church against the gates of hell, if the Holy Spirit assisted her so closely that she could say: It hath seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us,25 —we must firmly believe that he inspires her on occasion of such great consequences as these; for it would indeed be to abandon her at her need if he left her at this juncture, on which depends not only an article or two of our faith, but the substance of our religion.

When, therefore, the Church has declared that a book is canonical, we must never doubt but that it is so. We [are] here in the same position. For Calvin and the very bibles of Geneva, and the Lutherans, receive several books as holy, sacred, and canonical which have not been acknowledged by all the Ancients as such, and about which there has been a doubt. If there has been a doubt formerly, what reason can they have to make them assured and certain nowadays, except that which S. Augustine had [as we said above]: “I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Catholic Church moved me;” and “We receive the New and the Old Testament in that number of books which the authority of the Holy Catholic Church determines.”

Truly we should be very ill assured if we were to rest our faith on these particular interior inspirations, of which we only know that they exist or ever did exist, by the testimony of some private persons. And granted that they are or have been, we do not know whether they are from the false or of the true spirit; and supposing they are of the true spirit, we do not know whether they who relate them, relate them faithfully or not, since they have no mark of infallibility whatever. We should deserve to be wrecked if we were to cast ourselves out of the ship of the public judgment of the Church, to sail in the miserable skiff of these new discordant private inspirations. Our faith would not be Catholic, but private.

But before I quit this subject, I pray you, reformers tell me whence you have taken the canon of the Scriptures which you follow? You have not taken it from the Jews, for the books of the Gospels would not be there, nor from the Council of Laodicea, for the Apocalypse would not be in it; or from the Councils of Carthage or of Florence, for Ecclesiasticus and the Machabees would be there. Whence, then, have you taken it?

In good sooth, like canon was never spoken of before your time. The Church never saw canon of the Scriptures in which there was not either more or less than in yours. What likelihood is there that the Holy Spirit has hidden himself from all antiquity, and that after 1500 years he has disclosed to certain private persons the list of the true Scriptures?

For our part we follow exactly the list of the Council of Laodicea with the addition made at the Councils of Carthage and Florence. Never will a man of judgment leave these Councils to follow the persuasions of private individuals. Here, then, is the fountain and source of all the violations which have been made of this holy rule; namely, when people have taken up the fancy of not receiving it save by the measure and rule of the inspirations which each one believes and thinks he feels.


How Greatly the Reformers Have Violated the Integrity of the Scriptures

Now, how can an honest soul refrain from giving the rein to the ardour of a holy zeal, and from entering into a Christian anger, without sin, considering with what presumption those who do nothing but cry, Scripture, Scripture, have despised, degraded, and profaned this divine Testament of the eternal Father, as they have falsified this sacred contract of so glorious an alliance!

O ministers of Calvinism, how do you dare to cut away so many noble parts of the sacred body of the Bibles? You take away Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, the Machabees: why do you thus dismember the Holy Scripture? Who has told you that they are not sacred? There was some doubt about them in the ancient Church; but was there not doubt in the ancient Church about Esther, the Epistle to the Hebrews, those of S. James and S. Jude, the Second of S. Peter, the two last of S. John, and especially of the Apocalypse? Why do you not also erase these as you have done those? Acknowledge honestly that what you have done in this has only been in order to contradict the Church.

You were angry at seeing in the Machabees the intercession of Saints and prayers for the departed: Ecclesasticus stung you in that it bore witness to free-will and the honour of relics. Rather than do violence to your notions, adjusting them to the Scriptures you have violated the Scriptures to accommodate them to your notions: you have cut off the holy Word to avoid cutting off your fancies: how will you ever cleanse yourselves from this sacrilege?

Have you degraded the Machabees, Ecclesiasticus, Tobias, and the rest, because some of the Ancients have doubted of their authority? Why then do you receive the other books, about which there has been as much doubt as about these? What can you oppose to them except that their doctrine is hard for you to accept?

Open your heart to faith, and you will easily receive that which your unbelief shuts out from you. Because you do not will to believe what they teach, you condemn them: rather condemn your presumption, and receive the Scripture.

I would chiefly lay stress on the authority of those books which exercise you the most. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. v. 5, &c.), Cyprian (Ep. lxv.), Ambrose (de fide iv.), Augustine (Ep. ad Oros. contra Prise.), and the rest of the Fathers consider Ecclesiasticus canonical. S. Cyprian (Serm. de op et Deem.), S. Ambrose (lib. de Tobid, i.), S. Basil (de avar.), honour Tobias as Holy Scripture. S. Cyprian again (de exhort. mar.), S. Gregory Nazianzen (orat. de Mach.), S. Ambrose (de Tacob et vit beat. x. xi.), believed the same of the Machabees. S. Augustine protests that: “it is the Catholic Church which holds the Books of Machabees as canonical, not the Jews.” What will you say to this? that the Jews had them not in their catalogues? S. Augustine acknowledges it; but are you Jews, or Christians? If you would be called Christians, be satisfied that the Christian Church receives them.

Is the light of the Holy Spirit extinguished with the synagogue? Had not our Lord and the Apostles as much power as the synagogue? Although the Church has not taken authority for her books from the mouth of the Scribes and Pharisees, will it not suffice that she has taken it from the testimony of the Apostles?

Now we must not think that the ancient Church and these most ancient doctors would have had the boldness to rank these books as canonical, if they had not had some direction by the tradition of the Apostles and their disciples who could know in what rank the Master himself held them; unless, to excuse our imaginations, we are to accuse of profanation, and of sacrilege, such holy and grave doctors as these, and the whole ancient Church. I say the ancient Church, because the Council of Carthage, Gelasius in the decree de libris canonicas, Innocent I in the epistle to Exuperius, and S. Augustine, lived before S. Gregory, before whose time Calvin confesses that the Church was still in its purity, and yet these bear witness that all the books which we held to be canonical when Luther appeared were already so in their time. If you would destroy the credit of those holy books, why did you not destroy that of the Apocalypse, about which there has been so much doubt, and that of the Epistle to the Hebrews?

But I return to you, gentlemen of Thonon, who have hitherto given ear to such men; I beseech you, let us say in conscience, is there any likelihood that Calvin knows better what grounds they had who anciently doubted of these books, and what grounds they who doubted not, than the Bishops and Councils of these days?

And still, all things well considered, antiquity received them; what do we allege to the contrary? Oh! If it were lawful for men, in order to raise their opinions on horseback, to use the Scripture as stirrups, to lengthen and shorten them, each one to his own size, where, I beg you, should we be?

Do you not perceive the stratagem? All authority is taken away from Tradition, the Church, the Councils, the Pastors: what further remains? The Scripture. The enemy is crafty. If he would tear it all away at once he would cause an alarm; he takes away a great part of it in the very beginning, then first one piece, then the other, at last he will have you stripped entirely, without Scripture and without Word of God.

Calvin takes away seven books of the Scripture:26 Baruch, Tobias, Judith, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, and the Machabees; Luther has removed the Epistle of S. James, that of S. Jude, the second of S. Peter, the 2nd and 3rd of S. John, the Epistle to the Hebrews; he ridicules Ecclesiastes, he holds Job as a fable.

Reconcile, I pray you this false spirit, who takes away from Luther’s brain what he puts back in that of Calvin. Does this seem to you a trifling discord between these two evangelists? You will say you do not hold Luther’s intelligence in great account; his party think no better of that of Calvin. But see the progress of your fine church, how she ever pushes on further. Calvin had removed seven books, she has further thrown out the 8th, that of Esther:27 in Daniel she cuts off the canticle of the Three Children (c. iii.), the history of Susanna (c. xiii.), and that of the dragon slain by Daniel (xiv). In the Gospel of S. John is there not doubt among you of the history of the woman taken in adultery?

S. Augustine had indeed said formerly that the enemies of the faith had erased it from their books, but not from all, as S. Jerome says. Do they not wish to take away these words of S. Luke (xxii. 20), which shall be shed for you, because the Greek text clearly shows that what was in the chalice was not wine but the true blood of our Lord? As if one were to say in French: Cecy est la coupe du Nouveau Testament, en mon sang, laquelle sera respandue pour vous: this is the chalice, the New Testament in my blood, which (chalice) shall be shed for you? For in this way of speaking one sees clearly that what is in the cup must be the blood, not wine, since the wine has not been shed for us, but the blood.

In the Epistle of S. John have they not taken away these noble words: every spirit who dissolveth Jesus is not of God (iv. 3)? What say you, gentlemen? If your church continues in this liberty of conscience, making no scruple to take away what she pleases, soon the Scripture will fail you, and you will have to be satisfied with the Institutes of Calvin, which must indeed have I know not what excellence, since they censure the Scriptures themselves!


How The Majesty of the Scriptures Has Been Violated in The Interpretations and Versions of the Heretics

Shall I say further this word? Your fine church has not contented itself with cutting off from the Scripture entire books, chapters, sentences and words, but what it has not dared to cut off altogether it has corrupted and violated by its translations. In order that the sectaries of this age may altogether pervert this first and most holy rule of our faith, they have not been satisfied with shortening it or with getting rid of so many beautiful parts, but they have turned and turned it about, each one as he chose, and instead of adjusting their ideas by this rule they have adopted it to the square of their own greater or less sufficiency.

The Church had universally received (more than a thousand years ago) the Latin version which the Catholic Church proposes; S. Jerome, that most learned man, was the author, or corrector of it; when, in our age, behold arise a thick mist created by the spirit of giddiness,28 which has so led astray these refurbishers of old opinions formerly current, that everybody has wanted to drag, one to this side, one to that, and always according to the inclination of his own judgment, this holy and sacred Scripture of God.

Herein who sees not the profanation of this sacred vase of the holy letter, in which was preserved the precious balm of the Evangelical doctrine? For would it not have been a profanation of the Ark of the Covenant to maintain that everybody might seize it, carry it home, take it all to pieces, and then give it what form he liked provided that it had some semblance of an ark?

And what but this is it to maintain that one may take the Scriptures and turn and adjust them according to one’s own sense? And in just the same way, as soon as we are assured that the ordinary edition of the church is so out of shape that it must be built up again new, and that a private man is to set his hand to it and begin the process, the door is open to presumption. For if Luther dares to do it, why not Erasmus? And if Erasmus, why not Calvin or Melancthon, why not Henricus Mercerus, Sebastian Castalio, Beza, and the rest of the world, provided that they know some verses of Pindar and four or five words of Hebrew, and have close by some good Thesaurus of the one or other language? And how can so many translations be made by brains so different, without the complete overthrow of the sincerity of the Scripture?

What say you? that the ordinary version is corrupt? We allow that transcribers and printers have let certain ambiguities of very slight importance slip in (if, however, anything in the Scripture can be called of slight importance). The Council of Trent commanded that these should be taken out, and that for the future care should be taken to print as correctly as possible. For the rest, there is nothing in it which is not most conformable to the meaning of the Holy Spirit who is its author, as has been shown by so many learned men of our Church,29 opposing the presumption of these new reformers of religion, that it would be losing time to try to speak more of it; besides that it would be folly in me to wish to speak of the correctness of translations, who never well knew how to read with the points in one of the languages necessary for this knowledge, and am hardly more learned in the other.

But how have you improved matters? Everybody has held to his own views, everybody has despised his neighbour’s; they have turned it about as they liked, but no one speaks of his comrade’s version. What is this but to overthrow the majesty of the Scripture, and to bring it into contempt with the people, who think that this diversity of editions comes rather from the uncertainty of the Scriptures than from the variety of the translators, a variety which alone ought to put us in assurance concerning the ancient translation, which, as the Council says, the Church has so long, so constantly, and so unanimously approved.

An example or two will suffice. In the Acts30, where there is: Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell (animam in inferno), they make it: Thou shalt not leave my corpse in the tomb (Cadaver in sepulchro). Whoever saw such versions? Instead of soul (and it is Our Lord who is spoken of) to say carrion, and instead of hell to say sepulchre! Peter Martyr (in def. de Euch. p. 3a, p. 392) cites I Cor. x. 3, and they all eat the same spiritual food as we (nobiscum) he inserts this nobiscum to prove his point. I have seen in several bibles in this country a very subtle falsehood, in the mysterious words of the institution of the most Holy Sacrament: instead of hoc est corpus meum, cecy est mon corps: they had put: c’est cy mon corps.31. Who does not perceive the deceit?

You see something then of the violence and profanation your ministers do and offer to the Scriptures: what think you of their ways? What will become of us if everybody takes leave, as soon as he knows two words of Greek, and the letters in Hebrew, thus to turn everything topsy turvy? I have therefore shown you what I promised, that this first rule of our faith has been and still is most sadly violated in your pretended church; and that you may know it to be a property of heresy thus to dismember the Scriptures, I will close this part of my subject with what Tertullian says,32 speaking of the sects of his time. “This heresy” [of the Gnostics] says he “does not receive some of the Scriptures” and if it receives some it does not receive them whole… and what receives in a certain sense whole it still perverts, devising various interpretations."


Of The Profanations Contained in The Versions Made Into The Vulgar Tongue

But if the case be thus with the Latin versions, how great are the contempt and profanation shown in the French, German, Polish, and other languages! And yet here is one of the most successful artifices adopted by the enemy of Christianity and of unity in our age, to attract the people. He knew the curiosity of men, and how much one esteems one’s own judgment; and therefore he has induced his sectaries to translate the Holy Scriptures, every one into the tongue of the province where he finds himself placed, and to maintain this unheard-of opinion, that every one is capable of understanding the Scriptures, that all should read them, and that the public offices should be celebrated and sung in the vulgar tongue of each district.

But who sees not the artifice? There is nothing in the world which, passing through many hands, does not change and lose it first lustre: wine which has been often poured out and poured back loses its freshness and strength, wax when handled changes its colour, coins lose their stamp. Be sure also that Holy Scripture, passing through so many translators, in so many versions and re-versions, cannot but be altered. And if in the Latin versions there is such a variety of opinion among these turners of Scripture, how much more in their vernacular and mother-tongue editions, which not every one is able to check or to criticise? It gives a very great license to translators to know that they will only be tested by those of their own province. Every district has not such clear seeing eyes as France and Germany.

“Are we sure,” says a learned profane writer,33 “that in the Basque province and in Brittany there are persons of sufficient judgment to give authority to this translation made into their tongue; the universal Church has no more arduous decision to give;” it is Satan’s plan for corrupting the integrity of this holy Testament. He well knows the result of disturbing and poisoning the source; it is at once to spoil all that comes after.

But let us be frank. Do we not know that the Apostles spoke all tongues? How is it then that their gospels and their epistles are only in Hebrew, as S. Jerome witnesses34 of the Gospel of S. Matthew; in Latin, as some think concerning that of S. Mark;35 and in Greek, as is held concerning the other Gospels? Which were the three languages chosen at Our Lord’s very cross for the preaching of the Crucified. Did they not carry the Gospel throughout the world? And in the world were there no other languages but these three? Truly there were and yet they did not judge it expedient to vary their writings in so many languages. Who then shall despise the custom of our Church, which has for its warrant the imitation of the Apostles?36

Now for this, besides the great weight it should have to put down all our curious questionings, there is a reason which I hold to be most sound: it is that these other languages are not fixed, they change between town and town; in accents, in phrases, and in words, they are altered, and vary from season to season and from age to age. Take up the Memoires of the Sire de Joinville, or of Philip de Comines, and you will see that time has entirely altered their language; and yet these historians must have been among the most polished of their age, both having been brought up at Court. If then we were to have (particularly for the public services) bibles each in our own tongue, every fifty years it would be necessary to have a revolution, and in every case with adding to, or taking away from, or altering, much of the holy exactness of the Scripture, which could not be done without a great loss. In short, it is more than reasonable that so holy a rule as is the holy Word of God should be kept in fixed languages, since it could not be maintained in this perfect integrity within bastard and unstable languages.

But I inform you that the holy Council of Trent does not reject translations in the vulgar tongue printed by the authority of the Ordinaries; only it commands37 that we should not begin to read them without leave of superiors. This is a very reasonable precaution against putting this sharp and two-edged sword38 into the hands of one who might kill himself therewith. But of this we will speak by and by.

The Church, then, does not approve that everybody who can read, without further assurance of his capacity than that which he persuades himself of in his own presumption, should handle this sacred memorial, nor truly is it right that she should so approve.

I remember to have read in an Essay of the Sieur de Montaigne’s (see above), “It is certainly wrong that there should be seen tossing about in everybody’s hands, in parlour and in kitchen, the holy book of the sacred mysteries of our belief…. It is not casually or hurriedly that we are to prosecute so serious and venerable a study; it should be a reflective and steady act, to which should always be added that preface of our office: sursum corda, and for which the body itself should be brought into a behaviour which may betoken a particular attention and reverence… and I moreover believe that liberty for everybody to translate it, and by this means to dissipate words so religious and important into all sorts of languages, has much more danger than profit.”

The Council also commands39 that the public services of the Church shall not be celebrated in the vulgar tongue, but in a fixed language, each one according to the ancient formularies approved by the Church. This decree takes its reasons from what I have already said; for if it is not expedient thus to translate, at every turn, province by province, the venerable text of the Scripture, the greatest part, and we may say all, that is in the offices being taken from the Holy Scripture, it is also not becoming to give these in French.

Indeed, is there not a greater danger in reciting the Holy Scripture in the vulgar tongue at public services, on this account that not only the old but little children, not only the wise but the foolish, not only men but women, in short both he who knows and he who knows not how to read, may all take occasion of erring, each one as he likes?

Read the passages of David where he seems to murmur against God concerning the prosperity of the wicked; you will see the unwise people justify themselves by this in their impatience. Read where he seems to demand vengeance against his enemies, and the spirit of vengeance will cloak itself under this. Let them see those heavenly and entirely divine loves in the Canticle of Canticles; from not knowing how to spiritualize them these will only profit them unto evil. And that word of Osee40: Vade et fac tibi filios fornicationes, and those acts of the ancient Patriarchs, would they not give license to fools?

But pray give us some little reason why we should have the Scriptures and Divine Services in the vulgar tongue. To learn doctrine thereby? But surely the doctrine cannot be therein found unless we open the bark of the letter, in which is contained the intelligence: I will show this directly in its place. What is useful for this purpose is not the reciting of the service but preaching, in which the Word of God is not only pronounced but expounded by the pastor. And who is he, however well furnished at all points (tant houppé soft il et ferré), who can understand without study the prophecies of Ezechiel, and others, and the Psalms? What, then, will the people do with them when they hear them except profane them and cast a doubt on them.

At any rate we who are Catholics must in no wise bring down our sacred offices into vernacular languages; but rather, as our Church is universal in time and in place, it ought also to celebrate public offices in a language which is universal in time and in place, as is Latin in the West, Greek in the East; otherwise our priests could not say Mass nor others understand them outside their own countries. The unity and the great extension of our brethren require that we should say our public prayers in a language which shall be common to all peoples. In this way our prayers are universal, by means of the number of persons who in each province can understand Latin, and it seems to me, in conscience, that this reason alone should suffice; for if we consider rightly, our prayers are heard no less in Latin than in French.

Let us divide the body of a commonwealth into three parts, according to the ancient French division, or, according to the new, into four; there are four sets of persons: the clergy, the nobility, they of the long robe, and the people or third estate. The three first understand Latin or should understand it, if they do not rather make it their own language; there remains the lowest rank, of which, again, a part understand; and truly as for the rest, if one do not speak the jargon of their country, it is only with great difficulty that they could understand the simple narrative of the Scripture.

That most excellent theologian, Robert Bellarmine41, relates, having heard it from a most trustworthy source, that a good dame in England having heard a minister read the twenty-fifth chapter of Ecclesiasticus (though they only hold it to be an ancient book, not a canonical one), because it there speaks the wickedness of women, rose up, saying: What!—is this the Word of God?—of the devil rather. He quotes from Theodoret42 an excellent and true word of S. Basil the Great. The chief of the Emperor’s kitchen wishing to play the sage, began to bring forward certain passages of the Scripture: “It is yours [said the Saint] to mind your dishes, not to cook divine dogmata” as if he had said: Occupy yourself with tasting your sauces, not with devouring the divine Word.


Of The Profanation Of The Scriptures Through The Facility They Pretend There Is In Understanding
Scripture

The imagination must have great power over Huguenot understandings, since it persuades them so absolutely of this grand absurdity, that the Scriptures are easy to everybody, and that everybody can understand them. It is true that to bring forth vulgar translations with honour it was necessary to speak in this manner; but tell me the truth, do you think that the case really runs so? Do you find them so easy, do you understand them so well? If you think you do, I admire your credulity, which goes not only beyond experience, but is contrary to what you see and feel.

If it is true that the Scripture is so easy to understand, what is the use of so many commentaries made by your ministers, what is the object of so many harmonies, what is the good of so many schools of Theology? There is need of no more, say you, than the doctrine of the pure word of God in the Church. But where is this word of God? In the Scripture? And Scripture ­— is it some secret thing? No—you say not to the faithful. Why, then, these interpreters and these preachers?

If you are faithful, you will understand the Scriptures as well as they do; send them off to unbelievers, and simply keep some deacons to give you the morsel of bread and pour out the wine of your supper. If you can feed yourselves in the field of the Scripture, what do you want with pastors? Some young innocent, some mere child who is able to read, will do just as well.

But whence comes this continual and irreconcilable discord which there is among you, brethren in Luther, over these words, This is my body, and on Justification? Certainly S. Peter is not of your thinking, who assures us in his 2nd Epistle43 that in the letters of S. Paul there are certain points hard to be understood, which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as also the other Scripture to their own Perdition.

The eunuch who was treasurer-general, of Ethiopia was certainly faithful.44 since he came to adore in the Temple of Jerusalem; he was reading Isaias; he quite understood the words, since he asked of what prophet that which he had read was to be understood; yet still he had not the understanding nor the spirit of them, as he himself confessed: How can I, unless some one shows me? Not only does he not understand, but he confesses that he has not the power unless he is taught. And we shall see some washerwoman boast of understanding the Scripture as well as S. Bernard did!

Do you not know the spirit of discord? It is necessary to convince oneself that the Scripture is easy in order that everybody may drab it about, some one way, some another, that each one may be a master in it, and that it may serve everybody’s opinions and fancies.

Certainly David held it to be far from easy when he said45: Give me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments.

If they have left you the Epistle of S. Jerome to Paulinus in the preface of your bibles, read it, for it treats this point expressly. S. Augustine speaks of it in a thousand places, but particularly in his Confessions. In the 119th Epistle he confesses that there is much more in the Scripture of which he is ignorant than there is of what he knows.

Origen and S. Jerome, the former in his preface on the Canticles, the latter in his on Ezechiel say that it was not permitted to the Jews before the age of thirty to read the three first chapters of Genesis, the commencement and the end of Ezechiel, or the Canticle of Canticles, on account of the depth of the difficulties therein, in which few persons can swim without being submerged. And now, everybody talks of them, everybody criticises them, everybody knows all about them.

And how great the profanation of the Scriptures is in this way nobody could sufficiently believe who had not seen it. As for me, I will say what I know, and I lie not. I have seen a person in good society who, when one objected to an expression of hers the sentence of Our Lord46—To him that striketh thee on the one cheek offer also the other,—immediately explained it in this sense: that as to encourage a child who studies well we lay our hand lightly with little pats upon his cheek to excite him to do better, so Our Lord meant to say be so grateful to one who may find you doing right and who may caress you for it that he may take occasion another time to treat you still better and to caress or fondle you on both sides. Is not that a fine meaning and a precious? But the reason was even better,—that to understand this text otherwise would be against nature, and that while we must interpret Scripture by Scripture, we find in Scripture that Our Lord did not do so when the servant struck him: this is the fruit of your translated theology.

An honest man, and one who in my opinion would not lie, has related to me that he heard a minister of this country, treating of the Nativity of Our Lord, assert that he was not born in a crib, and expound the text (which is express on the other side) figuratively, saying: Our Lord also says that he is the vine, yet for all that he is not one; in the same way, although it is said that he is born in a crib, yet born there he is not, but in some honourable place which in comparison with his greatness might be called a crib.

The character of this interpretation leads me still more to believe the man who told me, for being simple and unable to read he could hardly have made it up. It is a most curious thing to see how this pretended enlightenment causes the Holy Scripture to be profaned. Is it not doing what God says in Ezechiel47: Was it not enough for you to feed upon good pastures; but you must also tread down with your feet the residue of the pastures?


On The Profanation Of The Scriptures In The Versified Psalms Used By The Pretended Reformers

But amongst all profanations it seems to me that this comes out above the rest, that in the temples publicly, and everywhere, in the fields, in the shops, they sing the rhymes of Marot as Psalms of David. The mere incompetence of the author, who was utterly ignorant; his licentiousness, which he testifies by his writings; his most profane life, which had nothing whatever of the Christian about it, caused him to be refused the communion of the Church. And yet his name and his psalms are, as it were, sacred in your churches; they are recited among you as if they were David’s,—whereas who sees not how the sacred word is violated? The measure and restrictions of verse make it impossible that the sacred meaning of the Scripture words should be followed; he mixes in his own to make sense, and it becomes necessary for this ignorant rhymester to choose one sense in places where there might be several.

What! is it not an extreme violation and profanation to have left to such an empty-headed witling a judgment of such great consequence, and then in the public prayers to follow as closely this buffoon’s selection as one ever did formerly the interpretation of the Seventy, who were so particularly assisted by the Holy Spirit? How many words and how many sentences has he secreted therein which were never in the Scriptures? This is a very different thing from ill-pronouncing Scibboleth48.

At the same time it is well known that there is nothing which has so delighted busybodies, and above all women, as this authorisation to sing in the church and at the meetings. Certainly we forbid no one to sing devoutly, modestly, and becomingly; but it seems more proper that Ecclesiastics and their deputies should sing as a general rule, as was done in the Dedication of Solomon’s Temple. O how delightful to get one’s voice heard in the church! But do they not betray you in the songs they make you utter? I have not leisure or convenience for going into the matter further. When you shout these verses of the 8th Psalm:—Thou hast made him such that no more remains to him except to be God; but as to all else thou hast, &c.—how delighted you are to be able to chant and sing these French rhymes Marotées49. It would be much better to keep to the Latin than to blaspheme in French.

Accept this warning. When you sing this verse, whom do you suppose you speak of? You speak of Our Lord, unless, to excuse the audacity of Marot and of your church, you also erase the Epistle to the Hebrews from the holy Bible: for S. Paul clearly there (ii. 6, 7, 8) expounds this verse of Our Lord. And if you speak of Our Lord, why do you say he is such that no more now remains for him except to be God? Questionless if anything now remains to him to be God he will never be it. What say you, poor people?—that it “remains” for Jesus Christ to be God?

See how those men make you swallow the poisoned morsel of Arianism, in singing these sorry rhymes. I am no longer astonished that Calvin confessed to Valentine Gentilis, that the Name of God by excellence belongs only to the Father. Behold the splendid eversions of the Scripture with which you are well pleased; behold the blasphemies which your Church sings in a body, and which she makes you repeat so often.

And as to this fashion of having the Psalms sung indifferently in all places and during all occupations, who sees not that it is a contempt of religion? Is it not to offend His Divine Majesty to say to him words as excellent as those of the Psalms, without any reverence or attention? To say prayers after the manner of common talking, is this not a mocking of him to whom we speak? When we see at Geneva or elsewhere a shop-boy laughing during the singing of the Psalms, and breaking the thread of a most beautiful prayer, to say: What will you buy, sir? Do we not clearly see that he is making an accessory of the principal, and that it is only for pastime that he was singing this divine song, which he at the same time believes to be of the Holy Spirit?

Is it not good to hear cooks singing the penitential Psalms of David, and asking at each verse for the bacon, the capon, the partridge! “That voice,” says De Montaigne, “is too divine to have no other use than to exercise the lungs and please the ears.”50 I allow that all places are good to pray in privately, and the same holds good of every occupation which is not sin, provided that we pray in spirit, because God sees the interior wherein lies the chief and substantial part of prayer. But I consider that he who prays in public ought to make exterior demonstration of the reverence which the very words he is uttering demand: otherwise he scandalises his neighbour, who is not bound to think there is religion in the interior when he sees the contempt in the exterior.

I hold, then, that both in singing as divine Psalms what is very often an imagination of Marot’s, and in singing them irreverently and without respect, they very often sin in that reformed church of yours against that word: God is a spirit, and those who adore him, must adore him in spirit and in truth.51

For besides that in these Psalms you very often attribute to the Holy Ghost the conceptions of Marot contrary to the truth, the mouth also cries in streets and kitchens: O Lord! O Lord! when the heart and the spirit are not there but in traffic and gain, as Isaias says52: You draw near God with your mouth, and with your lips glorify him, but your heart is far from him, and you have feared him according to the commandments and doctrines of men.

It is quite true that this impropriety of praying without devotion occurs very often among Catholics, but it is not with the advertence of the Church: and I am not now blaming particular members of your party, but your body in general, which by its versions and liberties bring into profane use what should be treated with the greatest reverence.53 In chapter 14 of the 1st of Corinthians, the Let women keep silence in the churches seems to be understood of hymns (cantiques) as much as of the rest: our nuns are in oratorio non in ecclesia.


Answer To Objections, and Conclusion Of The First Article

Now follows what you allege in your defence. S. Paul seems54 to want to have the service performed in a language intelligible to the Corinthians; you will see that at the same time he does not wish the service to be diversified with all sorts of languages, but only that the exhortations and hymns which were uttered by means of the gift of tongues should be interpreted, in order that the Church where any one might be should know what was said: And therefore he that speaketh by a tongue, let him pray that he may interpret.

He intends, then, that the praises which were made at Corinth should be made in Greek: for as they were made not now as ordinary services, but as the extraordinary hymns of those who had this gift, for the gladdening of the people, it was reasonable that they should be made in intelligible language, or be at once interpreted. This he seems to show when he says lower down: If, therefore, the whole church come together into one place, and all speak with tongues, and there come in unlearned persons or infidels, will they not say that you are mad? And further on: If any speak with a tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and in course, and let one interpret. But if there be no interpreter, let him hold his peace in the church, and speak to himself and to God.

Who sees not that he is not speaking of the solemn offices in the Church, which were only performed by the pastor, but of the hymns which were made through the gift of tongues, which he wished to be understood? For in truth if they were not, it distracted the assembly, and was of no benefit. Several ancient Fathers speak of these hymns, and amongst others Tertullian, who, treating of the holiness of the agapes or love feasts of the ancients, says: “After the washing of hands and the lamps,—each one is pressed to sing publicly to God as he is able, out of the Holy Scriptures or his own heart.”55

This people glorify me with their lips, but their heart, &c.56This is meant of those who, singing and praying in any language whatever, speak of God mechanically, without reverence and devotion; not of those who speak a language unknown to them but known to the Church, and who, moreover, have their heart rapt unto God.

In the Acts of the Apostles they praised God in all tongues. So they should do; but in universal and Catholic offices there is need of a universal and Catholic language. Except for this, every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is at the right hand of God the Father.57

In Deuteronomy58, it is said that the commandments of God are not secret or sealed up; and does not the Psalmist say: The commandment of the Lord is lightsome: thy word is a lamp to my feet? That is all very true, but it means when preached and explained, and properly understood. How shall they believe without a preacher!59 And all that the great Prophet David has said is not to be understood of everybody.

But you object to me: in any case, ought I not to seek the meat of my soul and of my salvation? Poor man, who denies it? But if everybody goes to pasture like the old ewes, what is the need of shepherds? Seek the pastures, but with your pastor. Should we not laugh at the sick man who would find his health in Hippocrates without the help of the doctor, or at him who would seek out his rights in Justinian without betaking himself to the judge? Seek, one would say to him, your health by means of doctors; seek your right and gain it, but by the hands of the magistrate.

“What man of moderately sound mind does not understand that the exposition of the Scriptures is to be sought from those who are doctors in them?” says S. Augustine60 But if no one can find his salvation except the one who can read the Scriptures, what will become of so many poor ignorant people? Surely they find and seek their salvation quite satisfactorily when they learn from the mouth of the pastor the substance of what they must believe, hope for, love, do, and ask of God.

Believe that also according to the spirit that is true which the Wise Man says: Better is the poor man walking in his simplicity than the rich in crooked ways (Prov. xxviii. 6); and elsewhere: The simplicity of the just shall guide them (xi. 3) and: He that walketh sincerely walketh confidently ( x. 9), where I do not mean to say that we must not take the trouble to understand, but only that we must not expect to find our salvation and our pasturage of ourselves, without the guidance of those whom God has appointed unto this end, according to the same Wise Man: Lean not upon thy prudence, and be not wise in thy own conceit (iii. K, 7). Which they do not practice who think that of their own wisdom they know all sorts of mysteries; not observing the order which God has established; who has made amongst us some doctors and pastors,—not all, and not each one for himself.

Indeed, S. Augustine found that S. Anthony, an unlearned man, failed not to know the way of Paradise; and he with all his doctrine was very far therefrom, at that time amid the errors of the Manichaeans.61

But I have some testimonies of antiquity, and some signal examples, which I would leave you at the end of this article as its conclusion.

S. Augustine62 “Your charity was to be admonished that confession (confessionem) is not always the voice of a sinner; for as soon as this word of the Lector sounded, there followed the sound of your striking your breast; that is, as soon as you heard that the Lord said: I confess to thee, Father, immediately the word I confess sounded, you struck your breasts; now to strike the breast, what is it but to signify what lies in the breast, and with a visible stroke to chastise an unseen sin? Why did you do this but because you heard I confess to thee, Father? You heard I confess, but you did not take notice who was confessing. Now therefore take notice.”

Do you see how the people heard the public reading of the Gospel, and did not understand it, except this word: I confess to thee, Father; which they understood by custom, because it was said just at the beginning of the Mass as we say it now. It was, no doubt, because the reading was in Latin, which was not their vulgar tongue.

But he who would see the esteem in which Catholics hold the holy Scripture, and the respect they bear it, should regard the great Cardinal Borromeo, who never studied in the Holy Scriptures save on his knees, it seeming to him that he heard God speaking in them, and that such reverence was due to so divine a hearing.

Never was a people better instructed, considering the malice of the age, than the people of Milan under the Cardinal Borromeo; but the instruction of the people does not come by force of hurrying over the holy Bible, or often reading the mere letter of this divine Scripture, nor by singing snatches of the Psalms as the fancy takes one; but by using them, by reading, hearing, singing, praying to God, with a lively apprehension of the majesty of God to whom we speak, whose Word we read, evermore with that Preface of the ancient Church: sursum corda.

That great servant of God, S. Francis, of whose glorious and most holy memory the Feast was celebrated yesterday63 throughout the whole world, showed us a beautiful example of the attention and reverence with which we ought to pray to God. This is what the holy and fervent Doctor of the Church, S. Bonaventure, tells of it.64 “The holy man was accustomed to recite the Canonical Hours not less reverently than devoutly; for although he was labouring under an infirmity of the eyes, the stomach, the spleen, and the liver, he would not lean against wall or other support while he was singing, but recited the hours always standing and bare headed, not with wandering eyes, nor with any shortening of verse or word; if sometimes he were on a journey he then made a fixed arrangement of time, not omitting this reverent and holy custom on account of pouring rain; for he used to say: If the body eats quitetly its food which, with itself, is to be food of worms, how great should the peace and tranquility with which the soul should take the food of life?”

  1. John v. 39. ↩︎
  2. Mark xii. 24. ↩︎
  3. Ep. 2, i. 19. ↩︎
  4. Jos. i. 8. ↩︎
  5. Test. i. ff. Qui test. facere possunt. ↩︎
  6. Gal. iii 15, 16 ↩︎
  7. Judges xii. 6. ↩︎
  8. De Doc Chris. iii. 2. ↩︎
  9. Ad ann. 3638 ↩︎
  10. Ib. seqq. Et ad ann. 3860. He quotes S. Epiph., de mens. et pond., and Josephus, contra App. ii. S. Epiph speaks only of Baruch. ↩︎
  11. Canon lx. ↩︎
  12. i.e. in Canon ii. of the Council in Trullo (or Quinisext), which is called by the Greeks the sixth General Council, as being a continuation or supplement of it. Such canons of this Council as were not opposed to previous decrees were approved by Rome. See Hefele Cone. Bk. xvii. The Saint’s words are well defended by Alibrandi in the processus Respons. pp. 8o, 81. [Tr.] ↩︎
  13. i.e. in Canon xxxvi. of the Council of Hippo, approved in third Council of Carthage. [Tr.] ↩︎
  14. De doc. Chr. ii.8 ↩︎
  15. Hist. Eccl. Iv. 22. ↩︎
  16. Ep. Ad Chrom. et Heliod. ↩︎
  17. De civ. Dei. xviii. 36. ↩︎
  18. The necessary references and explanations are given in notes to preceding chapter. [Tr.] ↩︎
  19. In Synopsi ↩︎
  20. In carm. de lib. sac. ↩︎
  21. Note toi in the Dative, agreeing with aimati, but toe in the Nominative, agreeing with poterion. The Saint represents this in French by the change of gender. It is not clearly expressed in the Latin, and our English translation would seem to favour the wrong meaning. Shall be poured out is more correct, but still ambiguous. [Tr.] ↩︎
  22. Conta Ep. Fund. v. ↩︎
  23. Sermo de Temp. cxci ↩︎
  24. 1 Tim. iii. 15. ↩︎
  25. Acts xv. 28. ↩︎
  26. In prologis Bib. Et horum lib. ↩︎
  27. At this time the so-called reformers did not decidedly accept the book of Esther as canonical. It is now accepted by their followers up to chap. x. v. 4. [Tr.] ↩︎
  28. Isa. xix. 14 ↩︎
  29. Genebrard in proef. Psalt.; Titelman, Toletus, in apol. Bellarminus et a1ii. ↩︎
  30. ii. 27. ↩︎
  31. Here is my body, instead of This is my body. [Tr.] ↩︎
  32. de Proescr. xvii ↩︎
  33. Montaigne. Essaies I. 56. See Preface. ↩︎
  34. Prol. in Matt. ↩︎
  35. In Pontificali Damasi. The Saint mentions the opinion, but he himself held the now universal sentiment of Doctors that S. Mark wrote in Greek.[Tr.] ↩︎
  36. Of this we have a notable trace and evidence in the Gospel: for the day Our Lord entered into Jerusalem, the crowds kept crying out Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: hosanna in the highest (Matt. xxi. 9.) And this word, hosanna, has been left in its integrity in the Greek text of S. Mark and S. John, to signify that it was the very word of the people. Now hosanna, or hosaanna (for one is the same as the other in this language, the learned tell us) is a Hebrew, not a Syriac word, taken, with the rest of that praise which was given to Our Lord, from the 117th Psalm. These people then were accustomed to recite the Psalms in Hebrew; yet the Hebrew was no longer their vulgar tongue, as one may see by several words said in the Gospel by Our Lord, which were Syriac and which the Evangelists have retained: as Abba, Haceldama, Golgotha, Pascha, and others. Learned men tell us that these were not Hebrew but Syraic, though they may be called Hebrew as being of the vernacular tongue of the Hebrews after the captivity of Babylon. ↩︎
37. Reg. iv. Indicis. ↩︎
38. Heb. iv. 12 ↩︎
39. Sess. xxii. ↩︎i.2 ↩︎
40. On this question ↩︎
41. Hist. iv. ↩︎
42. iii.16 ↩︎
43. Acts viii. ↩︎
44. Psa. cxviii. 73. ↩︎
45. Luke vi. 29. ↩︎
46. xxxiv. 18 ↩︎
47. Judges xii. 6 ↩︎
48. i.e. of Marot [Tr.] ↩︎
49. Same essay. ↩︎
50. John iv. 23. ↩︎
51. xxix. 13. ↩︎
52. The following sentence is in the autograph placed between bars, and seems meant to be amplified. [Tr.] ↩︎
53. Cor. xiv. ↩︎
54. Apol. xxxix. See the notes of Messire Aemar Ennequin, bishop of Rennes, on Book vi. c. 2 of S. Augustine’s 55. Confessions ↩︎
56. Isaiah xxix. 13. ↩︎
57. Phil. ii:11 ↩︎
58. xxx. ↩︎
59. Romans x. 14. ↩︎
60. De Moribus Eccl. ↩︎
61. Confess. viii. 8. ↩︎
62. De Verbis Domini. Serm. viii. ↩︎
63. written probably October 5, 1595 ↩︎
64. In Vita Fr. ↩︎]]> <![CDATA[Feast Day of St. Louis de Montfort]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7114 Mon, 28 Apr 2025 16:21:09 +0000 Our Lady of Fatima Chapel]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=7114

Today is the feast of St. Louis de Montfort, Co-Patron of our Chapel and Patron of the French Resistance.

Father Louis-Marie Grignion, a priest for just 16 years, died young at the age of 43 from the effects of being poisoned by some wretched Jansenists at his La Rochelle mission.

On today's feast, a Plenary Indulgence (under the usual conditions) is available for any of the faithful who have made the Total Consecration: To Jesus through Mary by simply renewing that act of consecration.

A Plenary Indulgence is also available to those souls on their consecration's anniversary date by the renewal of that same act of consecration. 

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us]]>

Today is the feast of St. Louis de Montfort, Co-Patron of our Chapel and Patron of the French Resistance.

Father Louis-Marie Grignion, a priest for just 16 years, died young at the age of 43 from the effects of being poisoned by some wretched Jansenists at his La Rochelle mission.

On today's feast, a Plenary Indulgence (under the usual conditions) is available for any of the faithful who have made the Total Consecration: To Jesus through Mary by simply renewing that act of consecration.

A Plenary Indulgence is also available to those souls on their consecration's anniversary date by the renewal of that same act of consecration. 

St. Louis de Montfort, pray for us]]> <![CDATA[The Ways to Perfect Religion by St. John Fisher while a Prisoner in the Tower of London]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6757 Thu, 02 Jan 2025 13:50:10 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6757 The Ways to Perfect Religion
by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, being Prisoner in the Tower of London

Taken from A Spiritual Consolation and Treatises, by Saint John Fisher, edited by D. O’Connor, 1903
imprimatur by + Bishop Edward Ilsley, Diocese of Birmingham, England, 25 April 1903

Taken from here [slightly adapted]


Sister Elizabeth, gladly I would write unto you something that might be to the health of your soul and furtherance of it in holy religion. But well I know that without some fervour in the love of Christ, religion cannot be to you savoury, nor any work of goodness can be delectable, but every virtuous deed shall seem laborious and painful. For love maketh every work appear easy and pleasant, though it be right displeasant of itself. And contrariwise right easy labour appeareth grievous and painful, when the soul of the person that doeth the deed hath no desire nor love in doing of it. This thing may well appear by the life of hunters, the which out of doubt is more laborious and painful than is the life of religious persons, and yet nothing sustaineth them in their labour and pains but the earnest love and hearty desire to find their game. Regard no less my writing, good sister, though to my purpose I use the example of hunters, for all true Christian souls be called hunters, and their office and duty is to seek and hunt for to find Christ Jesu. And, therefore. Scripture in many places exhorteth us to seek after Him, and assureth that He will be found of them that diligently seek after Him — Invenieiur ab his qui quaerunt eum. That is to say. He will be found of them that seek Him; well happy are all those that can find Him, or can have any scent of Him in this life here. For that scent, as Saint Paul saith, is the scent of the very life. And the devout souls, where they feel this scent, they run after Him apace — Curremus in odorem unguentorutn tuorum. That is to say, we shall run after the scent of Thy sweet ointments. Seeing then all devout souls may be called hunters, I will further prosecute the comparison made before between the life of the hunters and the life of the religious persons after this manner.


A Comparison between the Life of Hunters and the Life of Religious Persons

What life is more painful and laborious of itself than is the life of hunters, which most early in the morning break their sleep and rise when others do take their rest and ease? And in his labour he may use no plain highways and the soft grass, but he must tread upon the fallows, run over the hedges and creep through the thick bushes, and cry all the long day upon his dogs, and so continue without meat or drink until the very night drive him home. These labours be unto him pleasant and joyous, for the desire and love that he hath to see the poor hare chased with dogs.

Verily, verily, if he were compelled to take upon him such labours, and not for this cause, he would soon be weary of them, thinking them full tedious unto him; neither would he rise out of his bed so soon, nor fast so long, nor endure these other labours, unless he had a very love therein. For the earnest desire of his mind is so fixed upon his game that all these pains be thought to him but very pleasures. And therefore I may well say that love is the principal thing that maketh any work easy, though the work be right painful of itself, and that without love no labour can be comfortable to the doer. The love of his game delighteth him so much that he careth for no worldly honour, but is content with full simple and homely array. Also the goods of the world he seeketh not for, nor studieth how to attain them; for the love and desire of his game so greatly occupieth his mind and heart. The pleasures also of his flesh he forgetteth by weariness and wasting of his body in earnest labour. All his mind, all his soul, is busied to know where the poor hare may be found. Of that is his thought, and of that is his communication, and all his delight is to hear and speak of that matter, every other matter but this is tedious for him to give ear unto; in all other things he is dull and unlusty, in this only quick and stirring; for this also to be done, there is no office so humble, nor so vile, that he refuseth not to serve his own dogs himself, to bathe their feet and to anoint them where they be sore, yea, and to cleanse their stinking kennel, where they shall lie and rest them. Surely if religious persons had so earnest a mind and desire to the service of Christ as have these hunters to see a course at a hare, their life should be unto them a very joy and pleasure.

For what other be the pains of religion but these that I have spoken of? That is to say, much fasting, crying and coming to the choir, forsaking of worldly honours, worldly riches, fleshly pleasures and communication of the world, humble service and obedience to her sovereign, (i.e., religious superior) and charitable dealing to her sister; which pains in every point the hunter taketh and sustaineth more largely for the love that he hath to his game, than doeth many a religious person for the love of Christ. For albeit the religious person riseth at midnight, which is painful to her in very deed, yet she went before that to her bed at a convenient hour, and also cometh after to her bed again. But the hunter riseth early, and so continueth forth all the long day, no more returning to his bed until the very night, and yet peradventure he was late up the night before, and full often up all the long nights. And though the religious woman fast until it be noon, the which must be to her painful, the hunter yet taketh more pain, which fasteth until the very night, forgetting both meat and drink for the pleasure of his game. The religious woman singeth all the forenoon in the choir, and that also is laborious unto her, but yet the hunter singeth not, but he crieth, hallooeth and shouteth all the long day and hath more greater pains. The religious woman taketh much labour in coming to the choir and sitting there so long a season, but yet no doubt of it more labour taketh the hunter in running over the fallow, and leaping over the hedges, and creeping through the bushes than that can be. And would to God that in other things, that is to say, touching worldly honours, worldly riches, worldly pleasures — would to God that the religious persons many of them might profit as much in mindfulness in seeking of Christ, as the hunter doeth in seeking of his game, and yet all their comfort were to commune and speak of Christ, as the hunters have all their joy to speak of the poor hare, and of their hunting.

And furthermore, would to God the religious persons would content themselves with the humble service done to their sovereign, and with charitable behaviour unto their sisters, and with as good a heart and mind as the hunters acquit them to serve their hounds. I wot it is a thing much more reasonable to love and serve reasonable creatures made to the image of Almighty God, rather than to love and serve dogs which be unreasonable creatures. And rather our duty were to speak of Christ, and of things belonging to His honour, than of the vain worldly matters which be but very trifles indeed. And also with more attentive mind we should seek after our Saviour Christ Jesu, to know our very comfort in Him — wherein resteth the great merit of our souls — than the hunters should seek after the hare, which when they have gotten they have no great gains thereby. But as I have said, the cause why so many religious persons so diligently pursue not the ways of religion as do the hunters, is the want of the observation of their game, which is nothing else but the lack of love. For verily, as I think, the earnest love and hearty desire of game maketh all labours and pains joyous unto the hunter. And if there v/ere in religious persons as great favour and love to the service of God, as be in hunters to their game, all their life should be a very paradise and heavenly joy in this world. And contrariwise without this fervour of love it cannot be but painful, weary and tedious to them.

My purpose therefore, dear sister, is to minister unto you some common considerations which if you will often resort unto by due remembrance and so by diligent prayer call upon Almighty God for His love, you shall now by His grace attain it.


The First Consideration

The first consideration may be this: First consider by your own mind and reason that Almighty God of His own singular goodness and free will did create you and make you of naught, whereunto He was not bound by any necessity, nor drawn by any commodity that might rise upon Him by your creation. No other thing moved Him but His very goodness and special favour that He bare unto you, long or ever He did make you. This, good sister, take for a very truth and firmly believe it, for so it is in very deed; innumerable creatures, more than ever were made or ever shall be made, He might have made if it had been so pleasing unto Him. For how many, suppose you, married men and married women have been and shall be hereafter in this world, that never had nor never shall have any children, yet they full gladly would have had, and by possibility of nature might have had many, if it had so pleased Almighty God to have made and to have given unto them children. But all those be left unmade, and amongst them He might have left you also unmade, and never have put His hand to the making of you if He had so would. Nevertheless, as I said, it pleased His goodness herein to prefer you of His special favour that He bore unto you, leaving unmade others more innumerable, electing you and appointing you to be made, refusing and setting apart all them which would, peradventure, have considered His special grace and favour more lovingly than you hitherto have done, and would have studied more for His pleasure and service than ever you did; and you occupy the room and place that some of them might have occupied by like favour as Almighty God hath shewed unto you. Ah, dear sister, how much should this one consideration move you to the earnest love of this our so gracious a Lord, that thus hath appointed and chosen you to be His creature before so many others, where He might have taken any of them at His pleasure and repelled you and left you as naught without any manner of being!


The Second Consideration

The second consideration is this: Where there is many manner of beings, some creatures have a goodly being, some have an ungoodly being. It is a more goodly being margarite (i.e., a pearl) of a precious stone than of a pebble stone; of the fair bright gold than of rusty iron; of a goodly pheasant than of a venomous serpent; of a pretty fawn than of a foul toad; of a reasonable soul than of an unreasonable beast. And it is not to be doubted but Almighty God might have given to any of them what being soever He would, and might have transformed each of those into the nature and kind of any of the other at His pleasure and will. For of the stones He might make men, as in the Gospel our Saviour doth affirm: Potens est Deus de lapidibus istis suscitare filios Abrahae, Almighty God hath the power to make of these stones the children of Abraham. And contrariwise He might of men have made stones, as the wife of Lot was turned into a salt stone. And in like wise me or you or any other man or woman, He might have made a stone, or a serpent, or a toad, for His pleasure. There is no creature so foul, so horrible, or so ungodly, but He might put you in the same condition that the most loathly of them be put in, and them, in contrariwise, He might have put in the same condition that you be in. Consider now, by your reason, that if you had been made in the hkeness of an owl, or of an ape, or of a toad, how deformed you should have been, and in how wretched and miserable condition. And thank your Lord God that hath given you a more excellent nature, yea, such a nature as excelleth in nobleness, in dignity, all other bodily natures; for it is made to the very likeness and image of Almighty God, whereunto none other bodily creature doth reach near. Metals nor stones, be they never so precious, neither herbs nor trees, neither fishes nor fowls, neither any manner of beast, be they never so noble in their kind, doth attain to this high point of nobleness to have in them the image and likeness of Almighty God, but only man.

Forasmuch then as our Lord God might have given this excellent dignity to other innumerable creatures, as to beasts, to fowls, to fishes, totrees, to herbs, to metals, to stones, and hath not so done, but before all those hath elected and chosen you to bear His image and likeness and to be endued with a reasonable soul, how much should his loving dealing move you to enforce yourself with all the strength and power of your heart and mind to love Him therefore again.


The Third Consideration

The third consideration is this: That whereas, notwithstanding this great and excellent gift, you, nevertheless, by reason of original sin wherewith you were born of your mother into this world, had lost the great inheritance above in heaven and purchased everlasting imprisonment in hell, He of His great and singular goodness had provided you to be born within the precincts of Christendom, where you have been instructed in the doctrine of His taith and received the holy Sacrament of Baptism, and have been made a Christian woman, whereby you did receive again your inheritance before lost, and have escaped the most horrible danger of everlasting damnation. How many, suppose you, in all the world that be not instructed in this law and faith of Christ, nor have not received the holy Sacrament of Baptism, both noble men and women, both knights and princes, which have great wisdom and reason, and many such as, peradventure, if they were taught it, would more readily apply their minds to Christ’s faith than you do, and more heartily serve Him, honour and love Him than ever you did; and yet, lo! thus graciously hath He provided for you before all them, and hath appointed you to be a Christian woman and to be partaker of all those graces and benefits that belong unto the Christian people, which be so many and so great, that it passeth the wits of men, not only to number but also to think.

And here, good sister, do deeply consider in your soul how much this loving preferment of our Lord God should stir you to love Him again, when He suffereth so innumerable a multitude of men and women to perish and to be lost for ever, amongst whom many do pass you in all natural virtues, both of body and soul, and also would farther pass you in profiting in the law of Christ if they were received thereunto; and yet, I say, He suffereth them to perish everlastingly and perpetually to be damned; and for your safeguard hath provided of His singular goodness and mercy towards you, for the which since it is not possible of your part to recompense, why shall you not with all your power enforce yourself to love His most gracious goodness again, and after your possibility to give unto Him most humble thanks therefor?


The Fourth Consideration

The fourth consideration is this: That where, since that time of your Baptism and that you were made a Christian woman, you have many times unkindly fallen into deadly sin and broken His laws and commandments, setting at naught all those benefits which He before had given to you, following your wretched pleasure to the great displeasure and contempt of His Most High Majesty; and yet He furthermore did not strike you, nor yet revenge Himself upon you rigorously, punishing the transgressors and breakers of His law as He might and should by His righteousness have done. But, contrariwise, He did long spare you by His excellent mercy, and mercifully He did abide your return to Him again by sorrowful repentance and asking of Him mercy for your abominable offences. And where you so did with good hearty mind at any time, He received you to His grace, and by the sacrament of penance you were taken into His favour again, and so yet escape the horrible pains of hell due for your outrageous unkindness. No reason may judge the contrary but that you of good right have deserved them for your foul presumption in breaking of the laws of your Lord God, and preferring your wretched appetites before His pleasure, and following your own wilful desires before His most high commandments. Alas, what miserable condition should you now have been in if He so incontinent after your offences had stricken you by death and had sent you to the horrible pains of hell, where you should not only for a time have bidden, but for ever and without all remedy. No prayers of your friends, no almsdeeds, no such other good works should have relieved you.

Ah, sister, imprint deeply in your soul this inestimable mercy of your Lord God showed unto you through His most gracious and merciful abiding for your return to Him by true repentance and asking of His mercy. For innumerable souls of men and women, for less offences than you have done, lie now in the prison of hell, and shall there continue without end; which if they might have had as great sufferance as you have had, and so long leisure to repent them, they would have taken more sorrowful repentance than ever you took, and do now more sorrowfully repent than ever you did, but that as now cannot profit them, for that sorrow and repentance is now too late. But to my purpose, how may you think that this loving sufferance and gracious abiding of your amendment and merciful accepting of your sorrows and repentance for your great sins, Cometh not of a singular love showed unto you by your Lord God before all them? And shall not this consideration pierce your heart and move you much to love Him again?


The Fifth Consideration

The fifth consideration is this: Peradventure, after that thus by your repentance and asking mercy you were taken to this grace of your God, yet far more grievously and far more unkindly you fell again to sin, and kept not the purpose and promise that before you did make, but more without shame and dread of His highness took your liberty in your sinful ways, abusing His gentleness and presuming upon His mercy, not regarding any benefit or kindness showed by His most excellent goodness unto you before, so defiling your soul by innumerable ways, and making it filthy and more ungoodly than is the sow that waltereth herself in the foul miry puddle, and more pestilently stinketh in the sight of God than is the stinking carrion of a dead dog being rotten and lying in a ditch; yet, nevertheless, for all these misbehaviours, your Lord God of His far-passing goodness hath called you again from your sinful life and hath graciously stirred your soul to forsake your sin and to leave this wretched world and to enter the holy religion. Whereby (after the sentence of holy doctors) your soul is made as clean as it was at your baptism and restored again to the purity and cleanliness of your first innocence; and not only that, but also He hath appointed you to be of the number of them that He assigned for His best beloved spouses. And what high point of singular favour is this? How many women, far better than you, be left behind in this world, not called to this high dignity nor admitted to this most special grace? When the noble King Asuerus, as it is written in the Scripture, commanded many fair maidens to be chosen out and to be seen unto with all things that might make them fair and beautiful and pleasant to his sight, to the intent that they at all times when it should like him to appoint any of them to come to his presence and to be his spouse, they might be the more ready, this thing, no doubt of it, was to them that were thus chosen a comfort, that they were preferred before others, and also every one of them might live in hope to come to the king’s presence and have some likelihood to be accepted for his spouse, in SO much that all others but they were excluded. In like manner it is with religious women. All they, by the gracious calling of the great King of heaven, be gathered into God’s religion and dissevered from the other secular women that be of the world, there a season to abide until they be sufficiently prepared by the holy sacraments and the holy observations of religion to come to His gracious Highness’s presence, and to be brought into His secret chamber above in heaven, there to abide with Him in endless joy and bliss. Blessed is that religious woman that so doth prepare herself for this little time that here she shall tarry by prayer, by meditation, by contemplation, by tears of devotion, by hearty love and burning desire, that after that this transitory lite she may be admitted to the most excellent honour, and not with shame and rebuke be repelled therefrom when the day shall come.


The Sixth Consideration

The sixth consideration that you call well to your remembrance, who it is that doth thus exhort you for to love, verily He is that person that if either you will freely give your love, or else sell your love, He is most worthy to have it above all other. First, if ye were of that mind to give your love free, it were good yet there to bestow it that you should choose such a one, as both in goodliness of person, as also in prowess and wisdom, and good gentle manners may be worthy of your love. For if there be any deformity in him whom you would love, it is an impediment and great let for to love him; but in our Saviour Christ the Son of God is no deformity, for He is all goodly, and surmounteth all other in goodliness; and, therefore, of Him the prophet David affirmeth in this manner: Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum, that is to say, “He is goodly before the children of men.” And of truth much goodly must He needs be that hath so many goodly creatures. Behold the rose, the lily, the violet; behold the peacocks, the pheasant, the popinjay; behold all the other creatures of this world—all these were of His making, all their beauty and goodliness of Him they received it. Wherefore this goodliness describeth that He Himself must needs of necessity be very goodly and beautiful. And for that in the book of Canticles the Spouse describeth His goodliness, saying: Dilectus meus candidas et rubicundus, electus ex millibus that is to say: “He that I love is white and red, chosen out amongst thousands.” And this beauty and goodliness is not mortal, it cannot fade nor perish as doeth the goodliness of other men, which like a flower to-day is fresh and lusty, and to-morrow with a little sickness is withered and vanisheth away. And yet it is sensible to the goodliness of man’s nature, for the which also he is more naturally to be beloved of many. For likeness is the ground of love, like always doth covet like, and the nearer in likeness that any person be, the sooner they may be knit together in love. The same likeness He hath and you have, like body and like soul, touching His manhood; your soul is also like unto Him in His Godhead, for after the image and similitude of it your soul is made. Furthermore of His might and power you may be likewise a certain season. He made this world by the only commandment of His mouth, and gave to the herbs and all other creatures their virtue and might that they have; and may also by His power save and damn creatures, either to lift them up in body and soul into heaven above, or else to throw them down into ever-during pains of hell. If ye doubt of His wisdom, behold all this world, and consider how every creature is set with another, and every of them by himself, how the heavens are apparelled with stars, the air with fowls, the water with fishes, the earth with herbs, trees and beasts, how the stars be clad with Hght, the fowls with feathers, the fishes with scales, the beasts with hair, herbs and trees with leaves, and flowers with scent, wherein doth well appear a great and marvellous wisdom of Him that made them. Finally His good and gentle manner is all full of pleasure and comfort so kind, so friendly, so liberal and beneficious, so piteous and merciful, so ready in all opportunities, so mindful and circumspect, so dulcet and sweet in communication. For as Scripture saith: Non hahet amaritudinem conversatio vel taedium convictus illius, sed laetitiam et gaudium, that is to say: “His manners be so sweet and pleasant that the conversation of Him hath no bitterness; yea, His company hath no loathsomeness nor weariness in it, but all gladness and joy.” Here peradventure you will say unto me, how may I love that I see not? if I might see Him with all the conditions ye speak of, I could with all my heart love Him. Ah! good sister, that time is not come yet; you must, as I said, now for the time prepare yourself in cleanness of body and soul, against that time; so when that time Cometh you may be able and worthy to see Him, or else you shall be excluded from Him with the unwise virgins, of whom the Gospel telleth that they were shut out from His presence with great shame and confusion, because they had not sufficiently prepared themselves. Therefore, good sister, for this time be not negligent to prepare yourself with all good works, that then you may be admitted to come unto His presence, from the which to be excluded it shall be a more grievous pain than any pain of hell. For, as Chrysostom saith: Si decem mille gehennas quis dixerit, nihil tale est quale ab illa beata visione excidere, that is to say: “If one would rehearse unto me ten thousand hells, yet all that should not be so great pains as it is to be excluded from the blessed sight of the face of Christ.”


The Seventh Consideration

The seventh consideration is this: where now it appeareth unto you, that if you will give your love freely, there is none so worthy to have it as Jesus the Son of the Virgin Mary. I will further shew unto you that if you will not freely give it, but you will look peradventure to have something again, yet there is none so well worthy to have it as He is; for if another will give more for it than He, I will not be against it; take your advantage. But sure I am there is none other to whom your love is so dear, and of so great a price as it is unto Him, nor any that will come nigh unto that that He hath given or will give. If His benefits and kindness shewed towards you, whereof I spake somewhat before, were by you well pondered, they be no small benefits, and especially the love of so great a prince, and that He would thus love you, and prefer you before so many innumerable creatures of His, and that when there was in you no love, and when you could not skill of love; yea, and that, that more is, when you were enemy unto Him, yet He loved you, and so wonderfully that for your love, and to wash you from sin, and to deliver your soul from the extreme peril, He shed His most precious blood, and suffered the most shameful, the most cruel and the most painful death of the cross; His head to be pierced with thorns. His hands and feet to be through holed with nails, His side to be lanced with a spear, and all His most tender body to be torn and rent with whips and scourges. Believe this for a very truth, good sister, that for your sake He suffered all, as if there had been no more in all the world but only yourself, which I will declare more largely unto you in the next consideration following.

Believe it in the meantime certainly, for so it is indeed, and if you believe it not, you do a great injury and shew a full unkindness unto Him that thus much hath done for you.

And if this belief truly settle in your heart, it is to me a marvel if you can content your heart without the love of Him, of Him, I say, that thus dearly hath loved you, and doth love you still. For what other lover will do thus much for your love? What creature in all the world will die for your sake? What one person will part with one drop of his heart blood for your sake? When then the Son of God, the Prince of heaven, the Lord of Angels, hath done this for your sake, which thing no other creature will do, what frost could have congealed your heart that it may not relent against so great an heat of love? If He, so excellent in all nobleness, should have given you but one favourable countenance from the heavens above, it had been a more precious benefit than ever you could recompense by your love again. It were impossible for your love to recompense that one thing. But how much rather when He hath descended into this wretched world for your sake, and here hath become man, and hath endured all misery pertaining unto man, save only sin and ignorance, and finally hath suffered this great horrible death for your love, how shall you ever now recompense this by any love or service to be done for your pity? And He hath not only done all this for your sake, but also hath prepared for you after this transitory life a reward above in heaven, so great that never mortal eye saw the like, nor any tongue can express, nor yet any heart can think. Ah, sister, when your wretched soul shall hence depart, which cannot be very long here, who shall give you refreshing the space of one hour? Good therefore it is that you look unto yourself and upon Him bestow your love, the which hitherto hath done most for you and best hath deserved it beyond all other; and yet after this life He will give for it a reward so inestimable that it shall never fail you.


The Eighth Consideration

The eighth consideration is this: that albeit, there are many others which also are beloved of Christ Jesu, yet the love that He sheweth to them, nothing minisheth His love towards you, as if there were no more beloved of Him in all the kind of man. This may evidently be shewed unto you by this example following. If before any image of our Saviour were disposed and set in a long row many glasses, some great and some little, some high and some low, a convenient distance from the image, so that every one of them might receive a presentment of the image, it is no doubt but in every one of these glasses should appear the very likeness of the same image. I will not say but this likeness should be longer in the great glasses than in the less, and clearer in the better cleansed glasses, and in them that were nigh unto the image, than in the others that were not so well cleansed and much farther off. But as to the likeness itself it shall be as full and as whole in every one glass as though there were but one.

Now to my purpose, if you consider likewise that all the good souls that be scoured from deadly sin be in the manner of glasses set in an order to receive the love of our Saviour Christ Jesu, such souls as by true penance doing, by sighing, by weeping, by praying, by watching, by fasting and by other like, be the better scoured and cleansed from the spots and malice of deadly sin, they be the brighter glasses and more clearly receive this love, and such also be near unto our Saviour, for nothing putteth us far from Him but only sin. And therefore they that have more diligently scoured their souls from the rust of sin be nearer unto Him than the others that so have not done. Such souls also as of their part enforce themselves to a great love and to a more ample fervour, they do enlarge the capacity of their souls to receive a more large abundance of love; again, those that less enforce them, have a less capacity in receiving, and therefore so much the less they receive of this love, even as a man that openeth his bosom wide and enlargeth it, is more able to receive a greater thing into it than he that doeth not.

But yet, as I have said before of the glasses, every one of the souls receives as full and as whole a love of Jesu Christ as though there were no more souls in all the world but that one alone, for the love of Christ Jesus [is] infinite. And therefore when innumerable of souls have every one of them received as much the love of Christ Jesu as to every one of them is possible, yet hath He still in Himself love sufficient for infinite more, and this His love thereby is not in any point diminished nor lessened, though it be divided into many, be the number of them never so great. None of them that be beloved receive the less because of the multitude of his fellows, nor if he had no more but himself he should not thereby have any more abundance of love to his part, but according to the cleansing and capacity of his soul and nighness unto Christ, his part in love shall be the less or more. Wherefore, good sister, I pray you be diligent to scour your soul clean, and to enforce your soul on your part fervently to love your spouse Christ Jesu, and draw nigh unto Him with entire devotion, and then undoubtedly you shall be partner to the more plenteous abundance of His love, notwithstanding any other multitude which beside is beloved of Him; for He nevertheless is as studious of you and as mindful and as fervently careth for your weal as though there were no more beloved of Him but you alone in all this world.


The Ninth Consideration

The ninth consideration is this: where peradventure you would object to me again and say: “Brother, if it be thus as you say, that my Lord Jesu loveth me so much, and is so mindful of me, and so fervently intendeth my weal, what need me to care whatsoever I do? He will not cast me away; He will not forsake me nor suffer me to perish.” Good sister, without doubt as I have said, our Saviour Christ Jesu is in love towards you, and He is mindful and more loving towards you than I can express. And sure you may be that He will never cast you away, nor forsake you, if you before cast not yourself away, nor forsake yourself. But if you give any place to sin in your soul, and suffer it to enter upon you, verily then you forsake yourself and cast yourself away, and willingly destroy yourself, that is your deed and not His; for He never forsaketh any creature unless they before have forsaken themselves. And if they will forsake themselves, were they never in so great favour with Him before, they then incontinently lose His favour. The which thing well appeareth in His first spiritual creatures the noble angels, Lucifer and his company, which were created in excellent brightness, and were much in the favour of Almighty God, they presumptuously offended Him in pride; for the which not only they lost His favour, but also their marvellous brightness became incontinently horrible, foul, and were expelled out of the glorious kingdom of heaven that they were in, and thrown into perpetual darkness, into the prison of hell.

The first man Adam also, who was created in singular honour, and was put into paradise, a place full of gladness, there to live in comfort of all pleasure, the which was done to him for a singular love that Almighty God had towards him; yet anon as he fell to sin he was in like manner expelled out from that pleasure, and sent into this miserable world to endure misery and pain.

If those noble creatures which were lifted up into so great favour with Almighty God, so lightly by their misdemeanour in sin lost His gracious favour, let none other creature think but if they admit any sin to their soul, they shall be likewise excluded out of His favour. For sin is so odious unto Almighty God, that not the dearest friends that ever He had in all the world, but if there were found in their souls any deadly sin after death, they should never be received into the joy of heaven. Not the blessed Mary Magdalene for all her love towards Him, nor yet His own blessed Mother that bare Him into this world, if one deadly sin were found in their souls, they should incontinent be thrown into the dark dungeon of hell. Wherefore, good sister, say not, if His love be so much upon you, and He so desirously intendeth your profit, that you may do what you list, you need not to care what you do; but contrariwise, the more that He loveth you, the more you should take heed unto yourself and beware that you offend Him not, for so did the Blessed Mary Magdalene, of whom I spake before. She, notwithstanding the great love that both our Saviour had to her and she unto Him again, for the which also her sins were forgiven her, yet after His death she fled from the company of men, and lived in the wilderness far from any worldly comfort, in great wailing, fasting and prayer and such other painfulness of her body, and was nothing the less diligent to keep herself warily from sin, for the great love that our Lord and Saviour had to her; but for that the more studiously she did avoid and eschew everything whereby she might run into any displeasure against Him.


The Tenth Consideration

The tenth consideration is this: it were well done, and much it should further this cause if you truly esteem of how little value your love is, how vain, how light and how trifling a thing it is, and how few there be that would much regard it or set much price thereby, for few there be or none to whom it may do any profit or avail. Contrariwise, you should consider the love of your spouse, the sweet Jesu, how excellent it is, how sure, how fast, how constantly abiding, how many have much specially regarded it. Martyrs innumerable, both men and women, for His love have shed their blood and have endured every kind of martyrdom, were it never so cruel, were it never so terrible. No pain, no torment, might compel them to forsake His love; so desirous were they of His love that rather than they would forego it, they gave no force of the loss of all this world beside, and their own life also. So dear and precious was that love to them that all the honours, pleasures and possessions of this life they accounted as very trifles in comparison of that. And what be you in comparison of them, but naughty, wretched and miserable? Where then they, which be now glorious saints above in heaven, so much have valued and so greatly esteemed this most excellent love, and you may have the same love for yours, that is so naughty and so little worth, what should you do of your part? How much should you enforce yourself not only to obtain this love, but studiously to keep it, since that you have it once, and for nothing to depart therefrom! He of His goodness doth not repel any creature from His love, but permitteth them assuredly that if any draw nigh unto Him by love, He will love them again, and give His most precious love for theirs. He sayeth: Ego diligentes vie diligo; that is to say: “I love them that love Me.” And in another place: En qui venit ad me non ejiciam foras; that is to say: “What person soever cometh unto Me, I will not cast him away.” Sister, if you consider this deeply, it should move you to fall down upon your knees and with all your heart and mind say unto your Spouse in this manner:

“O my blessed Saviour Lord Jesu, Thou askest my love, Thou desirest to have my heart, and for my love Thou wilt give me Thy love again. O my sweet Lord, what is this for Thee to desire, which art so excellent? If my poor heart were of so much value as all the hearts of men and women that ever were, if they were put together in one; and if it were as precious and noble as there is price and nobleness in all the orders of angels; if furthermore it did contain in it all bodily and spiritual treasure that is within the compass of heaven or without, yet it were but a little gift to give unto so great a Lord, for His most delicate and precious love to be had of Him again: much rather my love and heart, as it is now naughty, wretched and miserable, so is it but a small gift and of little value. Nevertheless, such as it is, since it is Thy pleasure to have it and Thy goodness doth ask it of me, saying: Praebe mihi cor tuum; that is to say: ‘Give me thy heart’ — I freely give it unto Thee, and I most humbly beseech Thy goodness and mercy to accept it, and so to order me by Thy grace, that I may receive into it the love of nothing contrary to Thy pleasure, but that I always may keep the fire of Thy love, avoiding from it all other contrary love that may in any wise displease Thee.”


The Final Conclusion of All

Now then, good sister, I trust that these considerations, if you often read them with good deliberation, and truly imprint them in your remembrance, they will somewhat inflame your heart with the love of Christ Jesu, and that love once established in you all the other points and ceremonies of your religion shall be easy unto you, and no wit painful; you shall then comfortably do everything that to good religion appertaineth, without any great weariness. Nevertheless, if it so fortune that you at any time begin to feel any dulness of mind, quicken it again by the meditation of death, which I send you here before, or else by some effectual prayer earnestly calling for help and succour upon the most sweet Jesu, thinking, as it is indeed, that is your necessity and that no where else you can have any help but of Him. And if you will use these short prayers following, for every day in the week one, I think it shall be unto you profitable. For thus you may in your heart shortly pray, what company soever you be amongst.

The Prayers be these:

O blessed Jesu, make me to love Thee entirely.
O blessed Jesu, I would fain, but without Thy help I cannot.
O blessed Jesu, let me deeply consider the greatness of Thy love towards me.
O blessed Jesu, give unto me grace heartily to thank Thee for Thy benefits.
O blessed Jesu, give me good will to serve Thee, and to suffer.
O sweet Jesu, give me a natural remembrance of Thy passion.
O sweet Jesu, possess my heart, hold and keep it only to Thee.

These short prayers if you will often say, and with all the power of your soul and heart, they shall marvellously kindle in you this love, so that it shall be always fervent and quick, the which is my especial desire to know in you. For nothing may be to my comfort more than to hear of your furtherance and profiting in God and in good religion, the which our blessed Lord grant you for His great mercy. Amen.]]> The Ways to Perfect Religion
by John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, being Prisoner in the Tower of London

Taken from A Spiritual Consolation and Treatises, by Saint John Fisher, edited by D. O’Connor, 1903
imprimatur by + Bishop Edward Ilsley, Diocese of Birmingham, England, 25 April 1903

Taken from here [slightly adapted]


Sister Elizabeth, gladly I would write unto you something that might be to the health of your soul and furtherance of it in holy religion. But well I know that without some fervour in the love of Christ, religion cannot be to you savoury, nor any work of goodness can be delectable, but every virtuous deed shall seem laborious and painful. For love maketh every work appear easy and pleasant, though it be right displeasant of itself. And contrariwise right easy labour appeareth grievous and painful, when the soul of the person that doeth the deed hath no desire nor love in doing of it. This thing may well appear by the life of hunters, the which out of doubt is more laborious and painful than is the life of religious persons, and yet nothing sustaineth them in their labour and pains but the earnest love and hearty desire to find their game. Regard no less my writing, good sister, though to my purpose I use the example of hunters, for all true Christian souls be called hunters, and their office and duty is to seek and hunt for to find Christ Jesu. And, therefore. Scripture in many places exhorteth us to seek after Him, and assureth that He will be found of them that diligently seek after Him — Invenieiur ab his qui quaerunt eum. That is to say. He will be found of them that seek Him; well happy are all those that can find Him, or can have any scent of Him in this life here. For that scent, as Saint Paul saith, is the scent of the very life. And the devout souls, where they feel this scent, they run after Him apace — Curremus in odorem unguentorutn tuorum. That is to say, we shall run after the scent of Thy sweet ointments. Seeing then all devout souls may be called hunters, I will further prosecute the comparison made before between the life of the hunters and the life of the religious persons after this manner.


A Comparison between the Life of Hunters and the Life of Religious Persons

What life is more painful and laborious of itself than is the life of hunters, which most early in the morning break their sleep and rise when others do take their rest and ease? And in his labour he may use no plain highways and the soft grass, but he must tread upon the fallows, run over the hedges and creep through the thick bushes, and cry all the long day upon his dogs, and so continue without meat or drink until the very night drive him home. These labours be unto him pleasant and joyous, for the desire and love that he hath to see the poor hare chased with dogs.

Verily, verily, if he were compelled to take upon him such labours, and not for this cause, he would soon be weary of them, thinking them full tedious unto him; neither would he rise out of his bed so soon, nor fast so long, nor endure these other labours, unless he had a very love therein. For the earnest desire of his mind is so fixed upon his game that all these pains be thought to him but very pleasures. And therefore I may well say that love is the principal thing that maketh any work easy, though the work be right painful of itself, and that without love no labour can be comfortable to the doer. The love of his game delighteth him so much that he careth for no worldly honour, but is content with full simple and homely array. Also the goods of the world he seeketh not for, nor studieth how to attain them; for the love and desire of his game so greatly occupieth his mind and heart. The pleasures also of his flesh he forgetteth by weariness and wasting of his body in earnest labour. All his mind, all his soul, is busied to know where the poor hare may be found. Of that is his thought, and of that is his communication, and all his delight is to hear and speak of that matter, every other matter but this is tedious for him to give ear unto; in all other things he is dull and unlusty, in this only quick and stirring; for this also to be done, there is no office so humble, nor so vile, that he refuseth not to serve his own dogs himself, to bathe their feet and to anoint them where they be sore, yea, and to cleanse their stinking kennel, where they shall lie and rest them. Surely if religious persons had so earnest a mind and desire to the service of Christ as have these hunters to see a course at a hare, their life should be unto them a very joy and pleasure.

For what other be the pains of religion but these that I have spoken of? That is to say, much fasting, crying and coming to the choir, forsaking of worldly honours, worldly riches, fleshly pleasures and communication of the world, humble service and obedience to her sovereign, (i.e., religious superior) and charitable dealing to her sister; which pains in every point the hunter taketh and sustaineth more largely for the love that he hath to his game, than doeth many a religious person for the love of Christ. For albeit the religious person riseth at midnight, which is painful to her in very deed, yet she went before that to her bed at a convenient hour, and also cometh after to her bed again. But the hunter riseth early, and so continueth forth all the long day, no more returning to his bed until the very night, and yet peradventure he was late up the night before, and full often up all the long nights. And though the religious woman fast until it be noon, the which must be to her painful, the hunter yet taketh more pain, which fasteth until the very night, forgetting both meat and drink for the pleasure of his game. The religious woman singeth all the forenoon in the choir, and that also is laborious unto her, but yet the hunter singeth not, but he crieth, hallooeth and shouteth all the long day and hath more greater pains. The religious woman taketh much labour in coming to the choir and sitting there so long a season, but yet no doubt of it more labour taketh the hunter in running over the fallow, and leaping over the hedges, and creeping through the bushes than that can be. And would to God that in other things, that is to say, touching worldly honours, worldly riches, worldly pleasures — would to God that the religious persons many of them might profit as much in mindfulness in seeking of Christ, as the hunter doeth in seeking of his game, and yet all their comfort were to commune and speak of Christ, as the hunters have all their joy to speak of the poor hare, and of their hunting.

And furthermore, would to God the religious persons would content themselves with the humble service done to their sovereign, and with charitable behaviour unto their sisters, and with as good a heart and mind as the hunters acquit them to serve their hounds. I wot it is a thing much more reasonable to love and serve reasonable creatures made to the image of Almighty God, rather than to love and serve dogs which be unreasonable creatures. And rather our duty were to speak of Christ, and of things belonging to His honour, than of the vain worldly matters which be but very trifles indeed. And also with more attentive mind we should seek after our Saviour Christ Jesu, to know our very comfort in Him — wherein resteth the great merit of our souls — than the hunters should seek after the hare, which when they have gotten they have no great gains thereby. But as I have said, the cause why so many religious persons so diligently pursue not the ways of religion as do the hunters, is the want of the observation of their game, which is nothing else but the lack of love. For verily, as I think, the earnest love and hearty desire of game maketh all labours and pains joyous unto the hunter. And if there v/ere in religious persons as great favour and love to the service of God, as be in hunters to their game, all their life should be a very paradise and heavenly joy in this world. And contrariwise without this fervour of love it cannot be but painful, weary and tedious to them.

My purpose therefore, dear sister, is to minister unto you some common considerations which if you will often resort unto by due remembrance and so by diligent prayer call upon Almighty God for His love, you shall now by His grace attain it.


The First Consideration

The first consideration may be this: First consider by your own mind and reason that Almighty God of His own singular goodness and free will did create you and make you of naught, whereunto He was not bound by any necessity, nor drawn by any commodity that might rise upon Him by your creation. No other thing moved Him but His very goodness and special favour that He bare unto you, long or ever He did make you. This, good sister, take for a very truth and firmly believe it, for so it is in very deed; innumerable creatures, more than ever were made or ever shall be made, He might have made if it had been so pleasing unto Him. For how many, suppose you, married men and married women have been and shall be hereafter in this world, that never had nor never shall have any children, yet they full gladly would have had, and by possibility of nature might have had many, if it had so pleased Almighty God to have made and to have given unto them children. But all those be left unmade, and amongst them He might have left you also unmade, and never have put His hand to the making of you if He had so would. Nevertheless, as I said, it pleased His goodness herein to prefer you of His special favour that He bore unto you, leaving unmade others more innumerable, electing you and appointing you to be made, refusing and setting apart all them which would, peradventure, have considered His special grace and favour more lovingly than you hitherto have done, and would have studied more for His pleasure and service than ever you did; and you occupy the room and place that some of them might have occupied by like favour as Almighty God hath shewed unto you. Ah, dear sister, how much should this one consideration move you to the earnest love of this our so gracious a Lord, that thus hath appointed and chosen you to be His creature before so many others, where He might have taken any of them at His pleasure and repelled you and left you as naught without any manner of being!


The Second Consideration

The second consideration is this: Where there is many manner of beings, some creatures have a goodly being, some have an ungoodly being. It is a more goodly being margarite (i.e., a pearl) of a precious stone than of a pebble stone; of the fair bright gold than of rusty iron; of a goodly pheasant than of a venomous serpent; of a pretty fawn than of a foul toad; of a reasonable soul than of an unreasonable beast. And it is not to be doubted but Almighty God might have given to any of them what being soever He would, and might have transformed each of those into the nature and kind of any of the other at His pleasure and will. For of the stones He might make men, as in the Gospel our Saviour doth affirm: Potens est Deus de lapidibus istis suscitare filios Abrahae, Almighty God hath the power to make of these stones the children of Abraham. And contrariwise He might of men have made stones, as the wife of Lot was turned into a salt stone. And in like wise me or you or any other man or woman, He might have made a stone, or a serpent, or a toad, for His pleasure. There is no creature so foul, so horrible, or so ungodly, but He might put you in the same condition that the most loathly of them be put in, and them, in contrariwise, He might have put in the same condition that you be in. Consider now, by your reason, that if you had been made in the hkeness of an owl, or of an ape, or of a toad, how deformed you should have been, and in how wretched and miserable condition. And thank your Lord God that hath given you a more excellent nature, yea, such a nature as excelleth in nobleness, in dignity, all other bodily natures; for it is made to the very likeness and image of Almighty God, whereunto none other bodily creature doth reach near. Metals nor stones, be they never so precious, neither herbs nor trees, neither fishes nor fowls, neither any manner of beast, be they never so noble in their kind, doth attain to this high point of nobleness to have in them the image and likeness of Almighty God, but only man.

Forasmuch then as our Lord God might have given this excellent dignity to other innumerable creatures, as to beasts, to fowls, to fishes, totrees, to herbs, to metals, to stones, and hath not so done, but before all those hath elected and chosen you to bear His image and likeness and to be endued with a reasonable soul, how much should his loving dealing move you to enforce yourself with all the strength and power of your heart and mind to love Him therefore again.


The Third Consideration

The third consideration is this: That whereas, notwithstanding this great and excellent gift, you, nevertheless, by reason of original sin wherewith you were born of your mother into this world, had lost the great inheritance above in heaven and purchased everlasting imprisonment in hell, He of His great and singular goodness had provided you to be born within the precincts of Christendom, where you have been instructed in the doctrine of His taith and received the holy Sacrament of Baptism, and have been made a Christian woman, whereby you did receive again your inheritance before lost, and have escaped the most horrible danger of everlasting damnation. How many, suppose you, in all the world that be not instructed in this law and faith of Christ, nor have not received the holy Sacrament of Baptism, both noble men and women, both knights and princes, which have great wisdom and reason, and many such as, peradventure, if they were taught it, would more readily apply their minds to Christ’s faith than you do, and more heartily serve Him, honour and love Him than ever you did; and yet, lo! thus graciously hath He provided for you before all them, and hath appointed you to be a Christian woman and to be partaker of all those graces and benefits that belong unto the Christian people, which be so many and so great, that it passeth the wits of men, not only to number but also to think.

And here, good sister, do deeply consider in your soul how much this loving preferment of our Lord God should stir you to love Him again, when He suffereth so innumerable a multitude of men and women to perish and to be lost for ever, amongst whom many do pass you in all natural virtues, both of body and soul, and also would farther pass you in profiting in the law of Christ if they were received thereunto; and yet, I say, He suffereth them to perish everlastingly and perpetually to be damned; and for your safeguard hath provided of His singular goodness and mercy towards you, for the which since it is not possible of your part to recompense, why shall you not with all your power enforce yourself to love His most gracious goodness again, and after your possibility to give unto Him most humble thanks therefor?


The Fourth Consideration

The fourth consideration is this: That where, since that time of your Baptism and that you were made a Christian woman, you have many times unkindly fallen into deadly sin and broken His laws and commandments, setting at naught all those benefits which He before had given to you, following your wretched pleasure to the great displeasure and contempt of His Most High Majesty; and yet He furthermore did not strike you, nor yet revenge Himself upon you rigorously, punishing the transgressors and breakers of His law as He might and should by His righteousness have done. But, contrariwise, He did long spare you by His excellent mercy, and mercifully He did abide your return to Him again by sorrowful repentance and asking of Him mercy for your abominable offences. And where you so did with good hearty mind at any time, He received you to His grace, and by the sacrament of penance you were taken into His favour again, and so yet escape the horrible pains of hell due for your outrageous unkindness. No reason may judge the contrary but that you of good right have deserved them for your foul presumption in breaking of the laws of your Lord God, and preferring your wretched appetites before His pleasure, and following your own wilful desires before His most high commandments. Alas, what miserable condition should you now have been in if He so incontinent after your offences had stricken you by death and had sent you to the horrible pains of hell, where you should not only for a time have bidden, but for ever and without all remedy. No prayers of your friends, no almsdeeds, no such other good works should have relieved you.

Ah, sister, imprint deeply in your soul this inestimable mercy of your Lord God showed unto you through His most gracious and merciful abiding for your return to Him by true repentance and asking of His mercy. For innumerable souls of men and women, for less offences than you have done, lie now in the prison of hell, and shall there continue without end; which if they might have had as great sufferance as you have had, and so long leisure to repent them, they would have taken more sorrowful repentance than ever you took, and do now more sorrowfully repent than ever you did, but that as now cannot profit them, for that sorrow and repentance is now too late. But to my purpose, how may you think that this loving sufferance and gracious abiding of your amendment and merciful accepting of your sorrows and repentance for your great sins, Cometh not of a singular love showed unto you by your Lord God before all them? And shall not this consideration pierce your heart and move you much to love Him again?


The Fifth Consideration

The fifth consideration is this: Peradventure, after that thus by your repentance and asking mercy you were taken to this grace of your God, yet far more grievously and far more unkindly you fell again to sin, and kept not the purpose and promise that before you did make, but more without shame and dread of His highness took your liberty in your sinful ways, abusing His gentleness and presuming upon His mercy, not regarding any benefit or kindness showed by His most excellent goodness unto you before, so defiling your soul by innumerable ways, and making it filthy and more ungoodly than is the sow that waltereth herself in the foul miry puddle, and more pestilently stinketh in the sight of God than is the stinking carrion of a dead dog being rotten and lying in a ditch; yet, nevertheless, for all these misbehaviours, your Lord God of His far-passing goodness hath called you again from your sinful life and hath graciously stirred your soul to forsake your sin and to leave this wretched world and to enter the holy religion. Whereby (after the sentence of holy doctors) your soul is made as clean as it was at your baptism and restored again to the purity and cleanliness of your first innocence; and not only that, but also He hath appointed you to be of the number of them that He assigned for His best beloved spouses. And what high point of singular favour is this? How many women, far better than you, be left behind in this world, not called to this high dignity nor admitted to this most special grace? When the noble King Asuerus, as it is written in the Scripture, commanded many fair maidens to be chosen out and to be seen unto with all things that might make them fair and beautiful and pleasant to his sight, to the intent that they at all times when it should like him to appoint any of them to come to his presence and to be his spouse, they might be the more ready, this thing, no doubt of it, was to them that were thus chosen a comfort, that they were preferred before others, and also every one of them might live in hope to come to the king’s presence and have some likelihood to be accepted for his spouse, in SO much that all others but they were excluded. In like manner it is with religious women. All they, by the gracious calling of the great King of heaven, be gathered into God’s religion and dissevered from the other secular women that be of the world, there a season to abide until they be sufficiently prepared by the holy sacraments and the holy observations of religion to come to His gracious Highness’s presence, and to be brought into His secret chamber above in heaven, there to abide with Him in endless joy and bliss. Blessed is that religious woman that so doth prepare herself for this little time that here she shall tarry by prayer, by meditation, by contemplation, by tears of devotion, by hearty love and burning desire, that after that this transitory lite she may be admitted to the most excellent honour, and not with shame and rebuke be repelled therefrom when the day shall come.


The Sixth Consideration

The sixth consideration that you call well to your remembrance, who it is that doth thus exhort you for to love, verily He is that person that if either you will freely give your love, or else sell your love, He is most worthy to have it above all other. First, if ye were of that mind to give your love free, it were good yet there to bestow it that you should choose such a one, as both in goodliness of person, as also in prowess and wisdom, and good gentle manners may be worthy of your love. For if there be any deformity in him whom you would love, it is an impediment and great let for to love him; but in our Saviour Christ the Son of God is no deformity, for He is all goodly, and surmounteth all other in goodliness; and, therefore, of Him the prophet David affirmeth in this manner: Speciosus forma prae filiis hominum, that is to say, “He is goodly before the children of men.” And of truth much goodly must He needs be that hath so many goodly creatures. Behold the rose, the lily, the violet; behold the peacocks, the pheasant, the popinjay; behold all the other creatures of this world—all these were of His making, all their beauty and goodliness of Him they received it. Wherefore this goodliness describeth that He Himself must needs of necessity be very goodly and beautiful. And for that in the book of Canticles the Spouse describeth His goodliness, saying: Dilectus meus candidas et rubicundus, electus ex millibus that is to say: “He that I love is white and red, chosen out amongst thousands.” And this beauty and goodliness is not mortal, it cannot fade nor perish as doeth the goodliness of other men, which like a flower to-day is fresh and lusty, and to-morrow with a little sickness is withered and vanisheth away. And yet it is sensible to the goodliness of man’s nature, for the which also he is more naturally to be beloved of many. For likeness is the ground of love, like always doth covet like, and the nearer in likeness that any person be, the sooner they may be knit together in love. The same likeness He hath and you have, like body and like soul, touching His manhood; your soul is also like unto Him in His Godhead, for after the image and similitude of it your soul is made. Furthermore of His might and power you may be likewise a certain season. He made this world by the only commandment of His mouth, and gave to the herbs and all other creatures their virtue and might that they have; and may also by His power save and damn creatures, either to lift them up in body and soul into heaven above, or else to throw them down into ever-during pains of hell. If ye doubt of His wisdom, behold all this world, and consider how every creature is set with another, and every of them by himself, how the heavens are apparelled with stars, the air with fowls, the water with fishes, the earth with herbs, trees and beasts, how the stars be clad with Hght, the fowls with feathers, the fishes with scales, the beasts with hair, herbs and trees with leaves, and flowers with scent, wherein doth well appear a great and marvellous wisdom of Him that made them. Finally His good and gentle manner is all full of pleasure and comfort so kind, so friendly, so liberal and beneficious, so piteous and merciful, so ready in all opportunities, so mindful and circumspect, so dulcet and sweet in communication. For as Scripture saith: Non hahet amaritudinem conversatio vel taedium convictus illius, sed laetitiam et gaudium, that is to say: “His manners be so sweet and pleasant that the conversation of Him hath no bitterness; yea, His company hath no loathsomeness nor weariness in it, but all gladness and joy.” Here peradventure you will say unto me, how may I love that I see not? if I might see Him with all the conditions ye speak of, I could with all my heart love Him. Ah! good sister, that time is not come yet; you must, as I said, now for the time prepare yourself in cleanness of body and soul, against that time; so when that time Cometh you may be able and worthy to see Him, or else you shall be excluded from Him with the unwise virgins, of whom the Gospel telleth that they were shut out from His presence with great shame and confusion, because they had not sufficiently prepared themselves. Therefore, good sister, for this time be not negligent to prepare yourself with all good works, that then you may be admitted to come unto His presence, from the which to be excluded it shall be a more grievous pain than any pain of hell. For, as Chrysostom saith: Si decem mille gehennas quis dixerit, nihil tale est quale ab illa beata visione excidere, that is to say: “If one would rehearse unto me ten thousand hells, yet all that should not be so great pains as it is to be excluded from the blessed sight of the face of Christ.”


The Seventh Consideration

The seventh consideration is this: where now it appeareth unto you, that if you will give your love freely, there is none so worthy to have it as Jesus the Son of the Virgin Mary. I will further shew unto you that if you will not freely give it, but you will look peradventure to have something again, yet there is none so well worthy to have it as He is; for if another will give more for it than He, I will not be against it; take your advantage. But sure I am there is none other to whom your love is so dear, and of so great a price as it is unto Him, nor any that will come nigh unto that that He hath given or will give. If His benefits and kindness shewed towards you, whereof I spake somewhat before, were by you well pondered, they be no small benefits, and especially the love of so great a prince, and that He would thus love you, and prefer you before so many innumerable creatures of His, and that when there was in you no love, and when you could not skill of love; yea, and that, that more is, when you were enemy unto Him, yet He loved you, and so wonderfully that for your love, and to wash you from sin, and to deliver your soul from the extreme peril, He shed His most precious blood, and suffered the most shameful, the most cruel and the most painful death of the cross; His head to be pierced with thorns. His hands and feet to be through holed with nails, His side to be lanced with a spear, and all His most tender body to be torn and rent with whips and scourges. Believe this for a very truth, good sister, that for your sake He suffered all, as if there had been no more in all the world but only yourself, which I will declare more largely unto you in the next consideration following.

Believe it in the meantime certainly, for so it is indeed, and if you believe it not, you do a great injury and shew a full unkindness unto Him that thus much hath done for you.

And if this belief truly settle in your heart, it is to me a marvel if you can content your heart without the love of Him, of Him, I say, that thus dearly hath loved you, and doth love you still. For what other lover will do thus much for your love? What creature in all the world will die for your sake? What one person will part with one drop of his heart blood for your sake? When then the Son of God, the Prince of heaven, the Lord of Angels, hath done this for your sake, which thing no other creature will do, what frost could have congealed your heart that it may not relent against so great an heat of love? If He, so excellent in all nobleness, should have given you but one favourable countenance from the heavens above, it had been a more precious benefit than ever you could recompense by your love again. It were impossible for your love to recompense that one thing. But how much rather when He hath descended into this wretched world for your sake, and here hath become man, and hath endured all misery pertaining unto man, save only sin and ignorance, and finally hath suffered this great horrible death for your love, how shall you ever now recompense this by any love or service to be done for your pity? And He hath not only done all this for your sake, but also hath prepared for you after this transitory life a reward above in heaven, so great that never mortal eye saw the like, nor any tongue can express, nor yet any heart can think. Ah, sister, when your wretched soul shall hence depart, which cannot be very long here, who shall give you refreshing the space of one hour? Good therefore it is that you look unto yourself and upon Him bestow your love, the which hitherto hath done most for you and best hath deserved it beyond all other; and yet after this life He will give for it a reward so inestimable that it shall never fail you.


The Eighth Consideration

The eighth consideration is this: that albeit, there are many others which also are beloved of Christ Jesu, yet the love that He sheweth to them, nothing minisheth His love towards you, as if there were no more beloved of Him in all the kind of man. This may evidently be shewed unto you by this example following. If before any image of our Saviour were disposed and set in a long row many glasses, some great and some little, some high and some low, a convenient distance from the image, so that every one of them might receive a presentment of the image, it is no doubt but in every one of these glasses should appear the very likeness of the same image. I will not say but this likeness should be longer in the great glasses than in the less, and clearer in the better cleansed glasses, and in them that were nigh unto the image, than in the others that were not so well cleansed and much farther off. But as to the likeness itself it shall be as full and as whole in every one glass as though there were but one.

Now to my purpose, if you consider likewise that all the good souls that be scoured from deadly sin be in the manner of glasses set in an order to receive the love of our Saviour Christ Jesu, such souls as by true penance doing, by sighing, by weeping, by praying, by watching, by fasting and by other like, be the better scoured and cleansed from the spots and malice of deadly sin, they be the brighter glasses and more clearly receive this love, and such also be near unto our Saviour, for nothing putteth us far from Him but only sin. And therefore they that have more diligently scoured their souls from the rust of sin be nearer unto Him than the others that so have not done. Such souls also as of their part enforce themselves to a great love and to a more ample fervour, they do enlarge the capacity of their souls to receive a more large abundance of love; again, those that less enforce them, have a less capacity in receiving, and therefore so much the less they receive of this love, even as a man that openeth his bosom wide and enlargeth it, is more able to receive a greater thing into it than he that doeth not.

But yet, as I have said before of the glasses, every one of the souls receives as full and as whole a love of Jesu Christ as though there were no more souls in all the world but that one alone, for the love of Christ Jesus [is] infinite. And therefore when innumerable of souls have every one of them received as much the love of Christ Jesu as to every one of them is possible, yet hath He still in Himself love sufficient for infinite more, and this His love thereby is not in any point diminished nor lessened, though it be divided into many, be the number of them never so great. None of them that be beloved receive the less because of the multitude of his fellows, nor if he had no more but himself he should not thereby have any more abundance of love to his part, but according to the cleansing and capacity of his soul and nighness unto Christ, his part in love shall be the less or more. Wherefore, good sister, I pray you be diligent to scour your soul clean, and to enforce your soul on your part fervently to love your spouse Christ Jesu, and draw nigh unto Him with entire devotion, and then undoubtedly you shall be partner to the more plenteous abundance of His love, notwithstanding any other multitude which beside is beloved of Him; for He nevertheless is as studious of you and as mindful and as fervently careth for your weal as though there were no more beloved of Him but you alone in all this world.


The Ninth Consideration

The ninth consideration is this: where peradventure you would object to me again and say: “Brother, if it be thus as you say, that my Lord Jesu loveth me so much, and is so mindful of me, and so fervently intendeth my weal, what need me to care whatsoever I do? He will not cast me away; He will not forsake me nor suffer me to perish.” Good sister, without doubt as I have said, our Saviour Christ Jesu is in love towards you, and He is mindful and more loving towards you than I can express. And sure you may be that He will never cast you away, nor forsake you, if you before cast not yourself away, nor forsake yourself. But if you give any place to sin in your soul, and suffer it to enter upon you, verily then you forsake yourself and cast yourself away, and willingly destroy yourself, that is your deed and not His; for He never forsaketh any creature unless they before have forsaken themselves. And if they will forsake themselves, were they never in so great favour with Him before, they then incontinently lose His favour. The which thing well appeareth in His first spiritual creatures the noble angels, Lucifer and his company, which were created in excellent brightness, and were much in the favour of Almighty God, they presumptuously offended Him in pride; for the which not only they lost His favour, but also their marvellous brightness became incontinently horrible, foul, and were expelled out of the glorious kingdom of heaven that they were in, and thrown into perpetual darkness, into the prison of hell.

The first man Adam also, who was created in singular honour, and was put into paradise, a place full of gladness, there to live in comfort of all pleasure, the which was done to him for a singular love that Almighty God had towards him; yet anon as he fell to sin he was in like manner expelled out from that pleasure, and sent into this miserable world to endure misery and pain.

If those noble creatures which were lifted up into so great favour with Almighty God, so lightly by their misdemeanour in sin lost His gracious favour, let none other creature think but if they admit any sin to their soul, they shall be likewise excluded out of His favour. For sin is so odious unto Almighty God, that not the dearest friends that ever He had in all the world, but if there were found in their souls any deadly sin after death, they should never be received into the joy of heaven. Not the blessed Mary Magdalene for all her love towards Him, nor yet His own blessed Mother that bare Him into this world, if one deadly sin were found in their souls, they should incontinent be thrown into the dark dungeon of hell. Wherefore, good sister, say not, if His love be so much upon you, and He so desirously intendeth your profit, that you may do what you list, you need not to care what you do; but contrariwise, the more that He loveth you, the more you should take heed unto yourself and beware that you offend Him not, for so did the Blessed Mary Magdalene, of whom I spake before. She, notwithstanding the great love that both our Saviour had to her and she unto Him again, for the which also her sins were forgiven her, yet after His death she fled from the company of men, and lived in the wilderness far from any worldly comfort, in great wailing, fasting and prayer and such other painfulness of her body, and was nothing the less diligent to keep herself warily from sin, for the great love that our Lord and Saviour had to her; but for that the more studiously she did avoid and eschew everything whereby she might run into any displeasure against Him.


The Tenth Consideration

The tenth consideration is this: it were well done, and much it should further this cause if you truly esteem of how little value your love is, how vain, how light and how trifling a thing it is, and how few there be that would much regard it or set much price thereby, for few there be or none to whom it may do any profit or avail. Contrariwise, you should consider the love of your spouse, the sweet Jesu, how excellent it is, how sure, how fast, how constantly abiding, how many have much specially regarded it. Martyrs innumerable, both men and women, for His love have shed their blood and have endured every kind of martyrdom, were it never so cruel, were it never so terrible. No pain, no torment, might compel them to forsake His love; so desirous were they of His love that rather than they would forego it, they gave no force of the loss of all this world beside, and their own life also. So dear and precious was that love to them that all the honours, pleasures and possessions of this life they accounted as very trifles in comparison of that. And what be you in comparison of them, but naughty, wretched and miserable? Where then they, which be now glorious saints above in heaven, so much have valued and so greatly esteemed this most excellent love, and you may have the same love for yours, that is so naughty and so little worth, what should you do of your part? How much should you enforce yourself not only to obtain this love, but studiously to keep it, since that you have it once, and for nothing to depart therefrom! He of His goodness doth not repel any creature from His love, but permitteth them assuredly that if any draw nigh unto Him by love, He will love them again, and give His most precious love for theirs. He sayeth: Ego diligentes vie diligo; that is to say: “I love them that love Me.” And in another place: En qui venit ad me non ejiciam foras; that is to say: “What person soever cometh unto Me, I will not cast him away.” Sister, if you consider this deeply, it should move you to fall down upon your knees and with all your heart and mind say unto your Spouse in this manner:

“O my blessed Saviour Lord Jesu, Thou askest my love, Thou desirest to have my heart, and for my love Thou wilt give me Thy love again. O my sweet Lord, what is this for Thee to desire, which art so excellent? If my poor heart were of so much value as all the hearts of men and women that ever were, if they were put together in one; and if it were as precious and noble as there is price and nobleness in all the orders of angels; if furthermore it did contain in it all bodily and spiritual treasure that is within the compass of heaven or without, yet it were but a little gift to give unto so great a Lord, for His most delicate and precious love to be had of Him again: much rather my love and heart, as it is now naughty, wretched and miserable, so is it but a small gift and of little value. Nevertheless, such as it is, since it is Thy pleasure to have it and Thy goodness doth ask it of me, saying: Praebe mihi cor tuum; that is to say: ‘Give me thy heart’ — I freely give it unto Thee, and I most humbly beseech Thy goodness and mercy to accept it, and so to order me by Thy grace, that I may receive into it the love of nothing contrary to Thy pleasure, but that I always may keep the fire of Thy love, avoiding from it all other contrary love that may in any wise displease Thee.”


The Final Conclusion of All

Now then, good sister, I trust that these considerations, if you often read them with good deliberation, and truly imprint them in your remembrance, they will somewhat inflame your heart with the love of Christ Jesu, and that love once established in you all the other points and ceremonies of your religion shall be easy unto you, and no wit painful; you shall then comfortably do everything that to good religion appertaineth, without any great weariness. Nevertheless, if it so fortune that you at any time begin to feel any dulness of mind, quicken it again by the meditation of death, which I send you here before, or else by some effectual prayer earnestly calling for help and succour upon the most sweet Jesu, thinking, as it is indeed, that is your necessity and that no where else you can have any help but of Him. And if you will use these short prayers following, for every day in the week one, I think it shall be unto you profitable. For thus you may in your heart shortly pray, what company soever you be amongst.

The Prayers be these:

O blessed Jesu, make me to love Thee entirely.
O blessed Jesu, I would fain, but without Thy help I cannot.
O blessed Jesu, let me deeply consider the greatness of Thy love towards me.
O blessed Jesu, give unto me grace heartily to thank Thee for Thy benefits.
O blessed Jesu, give me good will to serve Thee, and to suffer.
O sweet Jesu, give me a natural remembrance of Thy passion.
O sweet Jesu, possess my heart, hold and keep it only to Thee.

These short prayers if you will often say, and with all the power of your soul and heart, they shall marvellously kindle in you this love, so that it shall be always fervent and quick, the which is my especial desire to know in you. For nothing may be to my comfort more than to hear of your furtherance and profiting in God and in good religion, the which our blessed Lord grant you for His great mercy. Amen.]]> <![CDATA[St. John Fisher: Prayer Written in the Tower]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6756 Thu, 02 Jan 2025 13:44:29 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6756 Prayer Written in the Tower1
by John Fisher

Reynolds, E. E. Saint John Fisher.
London: Burns & Oates, 1955. 297-299.

[Image: fisher17thc.jpg]
Help me, most loving father, help me with thy mighty grace. Succour me with thy most gracious favour. Rescue me from these manifold perils that I am in, for unless thou wilt of thy infinite goodness relieve me, I am but as a lost creature.

Thy strict commandment is that I should love thee with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my power. And thus, I know, I do not, but am full far short and wide therefrom; which think I perceive by the other loves that I have had of thy creatures heretofore. For such as I sincerely loved, I loved them so that I seldom did forget them. They were ever in my remembrance and almost continually mine heart was occupied with them and my thought ran ever upon them as well absent as present. Specially when they were absent I much desired to have their presence and to be there where they were, or else my heart were never in any rightful quiety.

But alas, my dear father, I am not in this condition towards thee. For I keep thee not in my remembrance nor bear thee in my thought nor occupy my heart with thee so often as I should, but for every trifle that cometh to my mind I let thee slip and fall out thereof. And for every fantasy that stirreth in my heart I set thee aside, shortly forget thee. I suffer many a trifling thought occupy my soul at liberty, but with thee, my dear father, I have lightly done, and forthwith turn me to, the remembrance of thy creatures and so tarry with thee but a short while, the delight in thy creatures so pulleth and draweth me hither and thither, my wretched desires so blind me. This false world so deceiveth me that I forget thee, which art my most loving father and art so desirous to have my heart and love.

What are thy creatures but creatures made by thee? Thou made me and them of naught and thou far incomparably passeth all them. And what are my desires, when they are set on thy creatures and not in an order to thee, what are they but wretched and sinful affections? And finally what is this world but a miserable exile, full of perils and evils far unlike that glorious country where thou art resident and sheweth thy most excellent Majesty in wonderful glory? There thou art clearly seen to all thy blessed angels and saints of thy most highly triumphant court. They be there ever present before thy blessed face and behold thy Majesty continually face to face.

O my dear father, here should be mine heart, here should be my desire and remembrancy. I should long to have sight of thy most blessed face, I should earnestly desire to see thy country and kingdom, I should ever wish to be there present with thee and thy most glorious court. But this, alas, I do not. And therefore I sorrow at my grievous negligence, I weep for my abominable forgetfulness, I lament my vileness, yea, my very madness, that thus for trifles and vanities forget my most dear and loving father.

Alas, woe is me! What shall I do? Wither may I turn me? To whom shall I resort for help? Where shall I seek for any remedy against the worldly and earthly waywardness of my heart? Whither should I rather go than to my father, to my most loving father, to my most merciful father, to him that of his infinite love and mercy hath given me boldness to call him father? Whose son Jesu my saviour hath taught me thus to call him, and to think verily that he is my father, yea, and a more loving father than is any natural father unto his child.

These are his words speaking unto the natural fathers of this world when ye that are infect with evil can liberally give unto your children good gifts, how much rather your heavenly father shall give a good spirit to them that ask it of him. These works, most gracious father, are the words of thy most dearly beloved son, Jesu, wherein he teaches us that thou art our very father and maketh promise on thy behalf that thou shalt give thine holy spirit unto them that ask thy son or thee studiously.

Thou willest that we should believe him and faithfully trust his words. For thou testified of him that he was thine entirely beloved son and bade us hear him and give a full faith unto his words. Wherefore we may be certain and sure of three things. The first is that thou art our father, the second that thou art a more kind and loving father unto us than are the carnal fathers of this world unto their children. The third, that thou wilt give, to such as devoutly ask it of thee, thy most holy spirit. We may be well assured that for thine inestimable goodness, and for the honour of thy name and everlasting truth thou wilt not disappoint these promises, for as much as they were made by thy most entirely beloved son Christ Jesu whom thou sent into this world to make the truth certain and to confirm the same unto us by the blood which he shed for us on his cross.

O father, then, whither shall I turn in my necessity rather than to thee which have me call thee by this name, a name of much love and tenderness, of much delight and pleasure, a name which stirreth the heart with much hope and constancy and many other delectable affections. And if nothing were told me but only this name, it might suffice to make me steadfastly trust that thou, which hast commanded me to call thee by this name father, will help me and succour me at my need when I sue unto thee; but much rather because my saviour thy son Christ Jesu hath assured me that thou art a more kind and more loving father unto me than was mine own natural father.

This assurance made by the most entirely beloved son should specially move both thee and me. First it should move me to have an hope and a confidence that thou wilt deal with me according to the same promise. Second, it should also move thee to perform this promise effectually and so to show thyself a kind and loving father in this my petition. My petition, most dear father, is agreeable to that same promise made by thy most entirely beloved son my saviour Jesu. I ask none other thing but thy good and holy spirit to be given unto me according to that same promise which he promised.

I know, most gracious father, that thou art here present with me albeit I see thee not. But thou both seest me and hearest me and no secrecy of my heart is hid from thee. Thou hearest that I now ask thine holy spirit and thou knowest that I now pray therefore and that I am very desirous to have the same. Lo! Dear father, with all the enforcement of my heart I beseech thee to give thine holy spirit unto me. Wherefore unless thou wilt disappoint the promise of thy son Jesu thou canst not but give me this holy spirit; so by this means I shall be fully relieved of that misery whereof I complained unto thy goodness at the beginning.

Thy most holy spirit he shall make me to love thee with all my heart, and with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my power, for he is the author of all good love, he is the very furnace of charity and he is the fountain of all gracious affections and godly desires. He is the spiritual fire that kindles in the heart of them where he enters all gracious love; he fills their souls in whom he is received with the abundance of charity; he makes their minds sweetly to burn in all godly desires and gives unto them strength and power courageously to follow all ghostly affections and specially towards thee.

Wherefore, dear father, when thou hast strictly commanded me thus to love thee with all my heart and thus would I right gladly do (but without thy help and without thy holy spirit I cannot perform the same), I beseech thee to shed upon my heart thy most holy spirit by whose gracious presence I may be warmed, heated and kindled with the spiritual fire of charity and with the sweetly burning love of all godly affections, that I may fastly set my heart, soul and mind upon thee and assuredly trust that thou art my very loving father and according to the same trust I may love thee with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind and all my power. Amen.



[AJ Note: 1. Included in Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. viii.]]]> Prayer Written in the Tower1
by John Fisher

Reynolds, E. E. Saint John Fisher.
London: Burns & Oates, 1955. 297-299.

[Image: fisher17thc.jpg]
Help me, most loving father, help me with thy mighty grace. Succour me with thy most gracious favour. Rescue me from these manifold perils that I am in, for unless thou wilt of thy infinite goodness relieve me, I am but as a lost creature.

Thy strict commandment is that I should love thee with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my power. And thus, I know, I do not, but am full far short and wide therefrom; which think I perceive by the other loves that I have had of thy creatures heretofore. For such as I sincerely loved, I loved them so that I seldom did forget them. They were ever in my remembrance and almost continually mine heart was occupied with them and my thought ran ever upon them as well absent as present. Specially when they were absent I much desired to have their presence and to be there where they were, or else my heart were never in any rightful quiety.

But alas, my dear father, I am not in this condition towards thee. For I keep thee not in my remembrance nor bear thee in my thought nor occupy my heart with thee so often as I should, but for every trifle that cometh to my mind I let thee slip and fall out thereof. And for every fantasy that stirreth in my heart I set thee aside, shortly forget thee. I suffer many a trifling thought occupy my soul at liberty, but with thee, my dear father, I have lightly done, and forthwith turn me to, the remembrance of thy creatures and so tarry with thee but a short while, the delight in thy creatures so pulleth and draweth me hither and thither, my wretched desires so blind me. This false world so deceiveth me that I forget thee, which art my most loving father and art so desirous to have my heart and love.

What are thy creatures but creatures made by thee? Thou made me and them of naught and thou far incomparably passeth all them. And what are my desires, when they are set on thy creatures and not in an order to thee, what are they but wretched and sinful affections? And finally what is this world but a miserable exile, full of perils and evils far unlike that glorious country where thou art resident and sheweth thy most excellent Majesty in wonderful glory? There thou art clearly seen to all thy blessed angels and saints of thy most highly triumphant court. They be there ever present before thy blessed face and behold thy Majesty continually face to face.

O my dear father, here should be mine heart, here should be my desire and remembrancy. I should long to have sight of thy most blessed face, I should earnestly desire to see thy country and kingdom, I should ever wish to be there present with thee and thy most glorious court. But this, alas, I do not. And therefore I sorrow at my grievous negligence, I weep for my abominable forgetfulness, I lament my vileness, yea, my very madness, that thus for trifles and vanities forget my most dear and loving father.

Alas, woe is me! What shall I do? Wither may I turn me? To whom shall I resort for help? Where shall I seek for any remedy against the worldly and earthly waywardness of my heart? Whither should I rather go than to my father, to my most loving father, to my most merciful father, to him that of his infinite love and mercy hath given me boldness to call him father? Whose son Jesu my saviour hath taught me thus to call him, and to think verily that he is my father, yea, and a more loving father than is any natural father unto his child.

These are his words speaking unto the natural fathers of this world when ye that are infect with evil can liberally give unto your children good gifts, how much rather your heavenly father shall give a good spirit to them that ask it of him. These works, most gracious father, are the words of thy most dearly beloved son, Jesu, wherein he teaches us that thou art our very father and maketh promise on thy behalf that thou shalt give thine holy spirit unto them that ask thy son or thee studiously.

Thou willest that we should believe him and faithfully trust his words. For thou testified of him that he was thine entirely beloved son and bade us hear him and give a full faith unto his words. Wherefore we may be certain and sure of three things. The first is that thou art our father, the second that thou art a more kind and loving father unto us than are the carnal fathers of this world unto their children. The third, that thou wilt give, to such as devoutly ask it of thee, thy most holy spirit. We may be well assured that for thine inestimable goodness, and for the honour of thy name and everlasting truth thou wilt not disappoint these promises, for as much as they were made by thy most entirely beloved son Christ Jesu whom thou sent into this world to make the truth certain and to confirm the same unto us by the blood which he shed for us on his cross.

O father, then, whither shall I turn in my necessity rather than to thee which have me call thee by this name, a name of much love and tenderness, of much delight and pleasure, a name which stirreth the heart with much hope and constancy and many other delectable affections. And if nothing were told me but only this name, it might suffice to make me steadfastly trust that thou, which hast commanded me to call thee by this name father, will help me and succour me at my need when I sue unto thee; but much rather because my saviour thy son Christ Jesu hath assured me that thou art a more kind and more loving father unto me than was mine own natural father.

This assurance made by the most entirely beloved son should specially move both thee and me. First it should move me to have an hope and a confidence that thou wilt deal with me according to the same promise. Second, it should also move thee to perform this promise effectually and so to show thyself a kind and loving father in this my petition. My petition, most dear father, is agreeable to that same promise made by thy most entirely beloved son my saviour Jesu. I ask none other thing but thy good and holy spirit to be given unto me according to that same promise which he promised.

I know, most gracious father, that thou art here present with me albeit I see thee not. But thou both seest me and hearest me and no secrecy of my heart is hid from thee. Thou hearest that I now ask thine holy spirit and thou knowest that I now pray therefore and that I am very desirous to have the same. Lo! Dear father, with all the enforcement of my heart I beseech thee to give thine holy spirit unto me. Wherefore unless thou wilt disappoint the promise of thy son Jesu thou canst not but give me this holy spirit; so by this means I shall be fully relieved of that misery whereof I complained unto thy goodness at the beginning.

Thy most holy spirit he shall make me to love thee with all my heart, and with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my power, for he is the author of all good love, he is the very furnace of charity and he is the fountain of all gracious affections and godly desires. He is the spiritual fire that kindles in the heart of them where he enters all gracious love; he fills their souls in whom he is received with the abundance of charity; he makes their minds sweetly to burn in all godly desires and gives unto them strength and power courageously to follow all ghostly affections and specially towards thee.

Wherefore, dear father, when thou hast strictly commanded me thus to love thee with all my heart and thus would I right gladly do (but without thy help and without thy holy spirit I cannot perform the same), I beseech thee to shed upon my heart thy most holy spirit by whose gracious presence I may be warmed, heated and kindled with the spiritual fire of charity and with the sweetly burning love of all godly affections, that I may fastly set my heart, soul and mind upon thee and assuredly trust that thou art my very loving father and according to the same trust I may love thee with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind and all my power. Amen.



[AJ Note: 1. Included in Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. viii.]]]> <![CDATA[St. Basil: The Catholic Must Stand Alone If Necessary to Uphold the Truth]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6634 Sun, 17 Nov 2024 10:51:58 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6634 The Catholic Must Stand Alone If Necessary to Uphold the Truth
St. Basil of Caesarea, Epistle 128

[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdioces48-previews.s3.ama...ipo=images]
TIA | June 29, 2024

Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ, was at its height in the mid 4th century. Emperor Valens put great pressure on St. Basil to remain silent and admit the heretics to communion. St. Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea, remained firm, and Valens backed down. He strove mightily to unite and rally his fellow Catholics who were crushed by tyranny and torn by internal dissension. At the end of his life, his efforts might have seemed in vain. His health was breaking, the Goths were at the door of the Byzantine Empire, Antioch was in schism, the Bishops refused to be brought together as he wished. Yet he made no compromises in doctrine to bring the heretics into communion.

St. Basil describes his apostolate succinctly: Expose error, preserve the Faith of the Fathers integrally, and help the faithful to avoid following apostates to damnation. As St. Basil tells us, he absolutely refused to remain silent to have peace. He counseled the faithful to not follow the multitude, but remain completely alone if necessary to uphold the truth.


St. Basil of Caesarea

Let the Faith of our Fathers be proposed to those who are misled but of good will, with all tenderness and charity. If they will assent thereunto, let us receive them into our midst. Should they not assent, let us dwell by ourselves alone, regardless of numbers; and let us keep aloof from equivocating souls, who are not possessed of that simplicity without guile, indispensably required in the early days of the Gospel.

The believers, as written in Scriptures, had but one heart and one soul. Let those, therefore, who would reproach us for not desiring pacification, mark well who are the real authors of the disturbance. Let them not call for reconciliation on our side anymore.

To every specious argument that would seem to counsel silence on our part, we oppose this other argument, namely, that charity counts as nothing, either her own proper interests or the difficulties of the times. Even though no man is willing to follow our example, what then? Are we for that reason alone to abandon duty? In the fiery furnace, the children of the Babylon captivity chanted their canticle to the Lord, without making any reckoning of the multitude who set truth on one side. They were quite sufficient for one another, merely three as they were! …

So, take heart! under every stroke, renew yourselves in love; let your zeal gain strength every day, knowing that in you are to be preserved the last remains of godliness which the Lord, at His return, may find upon the earth. …

Heed not what the crowd may think, for a mere breath of wind is sufficient to sway the crowd to and fro, like the rippling wave. Even though only one were to be saved, as in the case of Lot out of Sodom, it would not be lawful for him to deviate from the path of rectitude, merely because he finds that he is the only one that is right. No; he must stand alone, unmoved, holding fast his hope on Jesus Christ.”]]> The Catholic Must Stand Alone If Necessary to Uphold the Truth
St. Basil of Caesarea, Epistle 128

[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdioces48-previews.s3.ama...ipo=images]
TIA | June 29, 2024

Arianism, which denied the divinity of Christ, was at its height in the mid 4th century. Emperor Valens put great pressure on St. Basil to remain silent and admit the heretics to communion. St. Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea, remained firm, and Valens backed down. He strove mightily to unite and rally his fellow Catholics who were crushed by tyranny and torn by internal dissension. At the end of his life, his efforts might have seemed in vain. His health was breaking, the Goths were at the door of the Byzantine Empire, Antioch was in schism, the Bishops refused to be brought together as he wished. Yet he made no compromises in doctrine to bring the heretics into communion.

St. Basil describes his apostolate succinctly: Expose error, preserve the Faith of the Fathers integrally, and help the faithful to avoid following apostates to damnation. As St. Basil tells us, he absolutely refused to remain silent to have peace. He counseled the faithful to not follow the multitude, but remain completely alone if necessary to uphold the truth.


St. Basil of Caesarea

Let the Faith of our Fathers be proposed to those who are misled but of good will, with all tenderness and charity. If they will assent thereunto, let us receive them into our midst. Should they not assent, let us dwell by ourselves alone, regardless of numbers; and let us keep aloof from equivocating souls, who are not possessed of that simplicity without guile, indispensably required in the early days of the Gospel.

The believers, as written in Scriptures, had but one heart and one soul. Let those, therefore, who would reproach us for not desiring pacification, mark well who are the real authors of the disturbance. Let them not call for reconciliation on our side anymore.

To every specious argument that would seem to counsel silence on our part, we oppose this other argument, namely, that charity counts as nothing, either her own proper interests or the difficulties of the times. Even though no man is willing to follow our example, what then? Are we for that reason alone to abandon duty? In the fiery furnace, the children of the Babylon captivity chanted their canticle to the Lord, without making any reckoning of the multitude who set truth on one side. They were quite sufficient for one another, merely three as they were! …

So, take heart! under every stroke, renew yourselves in love; let your zeal gain strength every day, knowing that in you are to be preserved the last remains of godliness which the Lord, at His return, may find upon the earth. …

Heed not what the crowd may think, for a mere breath of wind is sufficient to sway the crowd to and fro, like the rippling wave. Even though only one were to be saved, as in the case of Lot out of Sodom, it would not be lawful for him to deviate from the path of rectitude, merely because he finds that he is the only one that is right. No; he must stand alone, unmoved, holding fast his hope on Jesus Christ.”]]> <![CDATA[St. Basil: War Waged against Us by Fellow Catholics Is the Hardest to Bear]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6633 Sun, 17 Nov 2024 10:47:16 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6633 War Waged against Us by Fellow Catholics Is the Hardest to Bear
St. Basil of Caesarea, Epistle 257

[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunio.stblogs.org%2FS...ipo=images]
TIA | November 16, 2024

Writing to the monks harassed by the Arians, St. Basil of Caesarea reminded them that these heretics inside the Church were more difficult to fight than the pagans of old outside the Church. He reminds them that traitors have risen among the clergy themselves, but this only increases the need to fight, having confidence God will give the victory.

Finally he tells them that he is persuaded that the reward God has for the righteous who fight the heretics inside the Church is even greater than that bestowed on the martyrs.

This bears a great similarity to the situation in which good Catholics live today...


St. Basil of Caesarea

I have thought it only right to announce to you by letter what I said to myself, when I heard of the trials brought upon you by the enemies of God, that in a time reckoned a time of peace you have won for yourselves the blessings promised to all who suffer persecution for the sake of the name of Christ.

In my judgment the war that is waged against us by our fellow countrymen is the hardest to bear, for it is easy to defend ourselves against open and declared enemies, while we are necessarily at the mercy of those who are associated with us, and are thus exposed to continual danger. This has been your case.

Our fathers were persecuted, but by idolaters their possessions were plundered and their houses were overthrown. They themselves were driven into exile by our open enemies, for Christ’s name’s sake. The persecutors who have lately appeared [the Arians inside the Church] hate us no less than these idolaters, but, to the deceiving of many, they put forward the name of Christ that the persecuted may be robbed of all comfort from its confession…

I am, therefore, persuaded that the reward in store for you from the righteous Judge is yet greater than that bestowed on those former martyrs. They indeed both had the public praise of men and received the reward of God. To you, though your good deeds are not less, no honors are given by the people. It is only fair that the requital in store for you in the world to come should be far greater.

I exhort you, therefore, not to faint in your afflictions, but to be revived by God’s love, and to add daily to your zeal, knowing that in you ought to preserve that remnant of True Religion which the Lord will find when He comes on the earth.

Even if bishops are driven from their churches, be not dismayed. If traitors have arisen from among the very clergy themselves, let not this undermine your confidence in God. We are saved not by names, but by mind and purpose, and genuine love toward our Creator.

Bethink you how in the attack against Our Lord, high priests and scribes and elders devised the plot, and how few of the people were found really receiving the word.

Remember that it is not the multitude who are being saved, but the elect of God. Be not then affrighted at the great multitude of the people who are carried here and there by winds like the waters of the sea. If but one be saved, like Lot at Sodom, he ought to abide in right judgment, keeping his hope in Christ unshaken, for the Lord will not forsake His holy ones.]]> War Waged against Us by Fellow Catholics Is the Hardest to Bear
St. Basil of Caesarea, Epistle 257

[Image: ?u=http%3A%2F%2Fcommunio.stblogs.org%2FS...ipo=images]
TIA | November 16, 2024

Writing to the monks harassed by the Arians, St. Basil of Caesarea reminded them that these heretics inside the Church were more difficult to fight than the pagans of old outside the Church. He reminds them that traitors have risen among the clergy themselves, but this only increases the need to fight, having confidence God will give the victory.

Finally he tells them that he is persuaded that the reward God has for the righteous who fight the heretics inside the Church is even greater than that bestowed on the martyrs.

This bears a great similarity to the situation in which good Catholics live today...


St. Basil of Caesarea

I have thought it only right to announce to you by letter what I said to myself, when I heard of the trials brought upon you by the enemies of God, that in a time reckoned a time of peace you have won for yourselves the blessings promised to all who suffer persecution for the sake of the name of Christ.

In my judgment the war that is waged against us by our fellow countrymen is the hardest to bear, for it is easy to defend ourselves against open and declared enemies, while we are necessarily at the mercy of those who are associated with us, and are thus exposed to continual danger. This has been your case.

Our fathers were persecuted, but by idolaters their possessions were plundered and their houses were overthrown. They themselves were driven into exile by our open enemies, for Christ’s name’s sake. The persecutors who have lately appeared [the Arians inside the Church] hate us no less than these idolaters, but, to the deceiving of many, they put forward the name of Christ that the persecuted may be robbed of all comfort from its confession…

I am, therefore, persuaded that the reward in store for you from the righteous Judge is yet greater than that bestowed on those former martyrs. They indeed both had the public praise of men and received the reward of God. To you, though your good deeds are not less, no honors are given by the people. It is only fair that the requital in store for you in the world to come should be far greater.

I exhort you, therefore, not to faint in your afflictions, but to be revived by God’s love, and to add daily to your zeal, knowing that in you ought to preserve that remnant of True Religion which the Lord will find when He comes on the earth.

Even if bishops are driven from their churches, be not dismayed. If traitors have arisen from among the very clergy themselves, let not this undermine your confidence in God. We are saved not by names, but by mind and purpose, and genuine love toward our Creator.

Bethink you how in the attack against Our Lord, high priests and scribes and elders devised the plot, and how few of the people were found really receiving the word.

Remember that it is not the multitude who are being saved, but the elect of God. Be not then affrighted at the great multitude of the people who are carried here and there by winds like the waters of the sea. If but one be saved, like Lot at Sodom, he ought to abide in right judgment, keeping his hope in Christ unshaken, for the Lord will not forsake His holy ones.]]> <![CDATA[The Sacred Heart and Our Salvation (Nov 16th St Gertrude)]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6629 Sat, 16 Nov 2024 11:35:59 +0000 Stone]]> https://thecatacombs.org/showthread.php?tid=6629 The Sacred Heart and Our Salvation (Nov 16th St Gertrude)


]]> The Sacred Heart and Our Salvation (Nov 16th St Gertrude)


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