DOCSLIB.ORG

An Archival Reading of the Venerable Bede

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
An Archival Reading of the Venerable Bede THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST "Commendatory Letters": An Archival Reading of the Venerable Bede Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/61/2/266/2749128/aarc_61_2_f7455003g0277314.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 James M. O'Toole Abstract This essay explores the role of writing, records, and documents as depicted in the Eccle- siastical History of the English People, a landmark of western historiography completed by the Venerable Bede in the year 731. Bede's purpose was to narrate the early history of Chris- tianity in Britain, but he also made numerous references to writing and the role of doc- uments in human affairs. Because he was preparing his history at a time when writing itself was a relatively unusual phenomenon, Bede offers a singular view of such larger questions as the uses of literacy and documentation, the shifting dynamics among different forms of communication, and the larger cultural meanings in records beyond die infor- mation they contain. A study of these forces at work in Bede's time gives contemporary archivists a perspective on the revolutionary changes in the technology and the uses of records in our own age. t was a terrifying scene. A horde of evil spirits "with horrible faces" visited a dying man, surrounding his entire house. The man, originally a soldier, Iwas a public official who had pleased the king by his devotion to duty, but morally he was rather lax. He also had a reputation for seeing visions which benefitted many people but not, the teller of his story remarked, the man himself. In this particular vision, the chief of the devils came forward to the deathbed, carrying a truly frightening object: a book, one "of enormous size and almost unbearable weight, horrible to behold." Another demon pre- sented it to the man and ordered him to read. On doing so, the visionary was shocked at what he found on its pages: "all my sins written down very clearly but in hideous handwriting: not only my sins of word and deed but This article was written as a product of the author's participation in the 1997 Research Fellowship Program for the Study of Modem Archives, administered by the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the University of Michigan. 266 The American Archivist, Vol. 61 (Fall 1998) : 266-286 AN ARCHIVAL READING OF THE VENERABLE BEDE even my slightest thoughts." While the devils chortled over the reader's an- guish, the man saw two handsome youths standing off to one side. They too were holding a book, but this one, though beautiful, was "exceedingly small," for in it were recorded all the good deeds the man had ever done—and these were "very few and trifling." The prince of the demons demanded of the Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/61/2/266/2749128/aarc_61_2_f7455003g0277314.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 two angels, "Why do you sit here since you know that this man is certainly ours?" They concurred, saying, "You speak the truth; take him away to help make up the number of the damned."1 Thereupon, the wretched man died and went off to his unhappy eternal fate. The narrator of this morality tale was the Venerable Bede, an English monk of the early eighth century, whose Ecclesiastical History of the English People, from which the story came, has become a landmark in western histo- riography. Scholars and students have studied Bede for centuries, mining his text for information about the early Christian church and about England in the centuries before the Norman Conquest. Archivists too will find in Bede much that is relevant to their professional concerns. Records, documents, books, and writing all figure prominently in his history, and his work thus presents an opportunity to reflect on the nature and purposes of the everyday stuff of archives. What might be called an archival reading of Bede shows that he was working in a time that is very much like our own. That seems a curious thing to say. The restricted physical and mental world of eighth- century Britain was very different from our own expansive global culture at the dawn of the twenty-first century. He was compiling and composing his history at a time when writing and recordkeeping were still relatively unusual phenomena. Literacy was not widely distributed through society, and there were few mechanisms for systematic instruction in the abilities to read and write. His world was one which still relied extensively on the oral transmission of information. His society was adapting slowly and imperfectly to a new way of capturing and using information. Today, literacy is much more widely diffused and highly valued. Even those who cannot read and write themselves—or who do so imperfectly— usually think literacy a skill they should want to master themselves and to pass on to their children. But just as Bede and his contemporaries were com- ing to terms with the new information technology that was writing, so we are trying to come to terms with new information technologies. He lived in a 1 Unless otherwise noted, all quotations will be from the standard modern translation of Bede's Eccle- siastical History of the English People, Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969). This edition, hereafter cited as "Colgrave and Mynors," provides the Latin and English texts on facing pages. It was reprinted in 1991 to coincide with the appearance of J. M. Wallace- Hadrill, Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People: A Historical Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), hereafter cited as "Wallace-Hadrill." For comparative purposes, readers should also consult the older translation, A History of the English Church and People, translated by Leo Sherley- Price (Hammondsworth: Penguin, 1955). All citations to Bede will be identified by book and chapter number, and the citation will be given in parentheses in the text. The story of the man confronted with the two books is in 5.13. 267 THE AMERICAN ARCHIVIST world in which animal skins and handmade inks were the latest innovations for the acquisition and transmission of information; we live in a world in which electronic hardware and software are the rising technologies. What we have in common with him is the fact of change in the means by which in- formation is captured, stored, used, and preserved. Just as the new technol- Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/61/2/266/2749128/aarc_61_2_f7455003g0277314.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 ogies were spread unevenly through his society, so they are unevenly accessible in ours, with only about a third of American households currently owning a computer and even lower percentages elsewhere in the world. A study of the transition Bede's society was experiencing may therefore give us an important perspective on the transitions we face. With him, archivists can explore several relevant aspects of the role of writing, records, and informa- tion in human affairs. Bede's Life and Work Our knowledge of Bede is confined largely to what he wrote about him- self, and the scanty evidence suggests that he lived the uneventful life of a scholar. His birth date is generally given as 673. Perhaps orphaned as a child, he was placed at the age of seven in the monastery at Wearmouth and Jarrow in Northumbria, where his later status as a priest entitled him to the epithet by which he is commonly known—"Venerable"—and which was accorded to churchmen generally at the time. "From then on," he wrote at the end of the Ecclesiastical History, "I have spent all my life in this monastery, applying myself entirely to the study of the Scriptures; and, amid the observance of the discipline of the Rule and the daily task of singing in the church, it has always been my delight to learn or to teach or to write." His work included copying a wide range of texts from the Bible and the church fathers, "for my own benefit and that of my brothers." His original compositions were no less impressive. These included works of scriptural exegesis and commentar- ies on biblical texts, together with commentaries on the commentaries of others. He also produced two books of sermons on the gospels, and he en- thusiastically contributed to that most popular of medieval literary genres, the lives of the saints. He produced poems, hymns, and epigrams, some of them in "heroic and elegiac metre," and he compiled studies of natural science and the rules of grammar. He taught other monks at Jarrow how to write, and he even participated in the scholarly disputes of his day, mention- ing in particular that he reissued "a book on the life and passion of St. Anastasius which was badly translated from the Greek by some ignorant per- son, which I have corrected as best I could." (5.24) By the time of his death in 735, he had left his mark as one of the earliest and greatest English writers.2 2 The secondary literature on Bede is, of course, enormous. For useful overviews, see Bertram Col- grave's "Historical Introduction," in Colgrave and Mynors, xvii-xxxviii; George Hardin Brown, Bede 268 AN ARCHIVAL READING OF THE VENERABLE BEDE Apparently renowned in his own day for his theological works, Bede has since been remembered primarily as a historian. His greatest achievement may be his least recognized: though the idea was not original to him, he is credited with systematizing the conflicting methods for establishing chronol- ogy into the custom of dating history from the birth of Christ, the basis for Downloaded from http://meridian.allenpress.com/american-archivist/article-pdf/61/2/266/2749128/aarc_61_2_f7455003g0277314.pdf by guest on 27 September 2021 the current usage of the Common Era.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2018
    Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2018 Conforming to General Convention 2018 1 Preface Christians have since ancient times honored men and women whose lives represent heroic commitment to Christ and who have borne witness to their faith even at the cost of their lives. Such witnesses, by the grace of God, live in every age. The criteria used in the selection of those to be commemorated in the Episcopal Church are set out below and represent a growing consensus among provinces of the Anglican Communion also engaged in enriching their calendars. What we celebrate in the lives of the saints is the presence of Christ expressing itself in and through particular lives lived in the midst of specific historical circumstances. In the saints we are not dealing primarily with absolutes of perfection but human lives, in all their diversity, open to the motions of the Holy Spirit. Many a holy life, when carefully examined, will reveal flaws or the bias of a particular moment in history or ecclesial perspective. It should encourage us to realize that the saints, like us, are first and foremost redeemed sinners in whom the risen Christ’s words to St. Paul come to fulfillment, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” The “lesser feasts” provide opportunities for optional observance. They are not intended to replace the fundamental celebration of Sunday and major Holy Days. As the Standing Liturgical Commission and the General Convention add or delete names from the calendar, successive editions of this volume will be published, each edition bearing in the title the date of the General Convention to which it is a response.
    [Show full text]
  • Prayer in the Life of Saint Francis by Thomas of Celano
    PRAYER IN THE LIFE OF SAINT FRANCIS BY THOMAS OF CELANO J.A. Wayne Hellmann Brother Thomas of Celano,1 upon the request of Pope Gregory IX,2 shortly after the 1228 canonization of Francis of Assisi, wrote The Life of St. Francis.3 In the opening lines, Thomas describes the begin- nings of Francis’s conversion. Thomas writes that Francis, secluded in a cave, prayed that “God guide his way.”4 In the closing lines at the end of The Life, Thomas accents the public prayer of the church in the person of pope. After the canonization Pope Gregory went to Francis’s tomb to pray: “by the lower steps he enters the sanc- tuary to offer prayers and sacrifices.”5 From beginning to end, through- out the text of The Life of St. Francis, the author, Brother Thomas, weaves Francis’s life together through an integrative theology of prayer. To shape his vision of Francis, Thomas, as a hagiographer, moves with multiple theological and literary currents, old and new. At the core of his vision, however, Thomas presents the life of a saint that developed from beginning to end in prayer. To do this, he employs 1 Brother Thomas of Celano was born into the noble family of the Conti dei Marsi sometime between the years of 1185–1190. Celano, the place of his birth, is a small city in the Abruzzi region southeast of Aquila. Thomas may have included himself a reference in number 56 of his text that “some literary men and nobles gladly joined” Francis after his return from Spain in 1215.
    [Show full text]
  • First-Century Biblical Canonization
    Eruditio Ardescens The Journal of Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary Volume 2 Issue 1 Article 7 4-2015 First-Century Biblical Canonization James B. Joseph Liberty University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/jlbts Part of the Christianity Commons, History of Christianity Commons, and the History of Religions of Western Origin Commons Recommended Citation Joseph, James B. (2015) "First-Century Biblical Canonization," Eruditio Ardescens: Vol. 2 : Iss. 1 , Article 7. Available at: https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/jlbts/vol2/iss1/7 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Crossing. It has been accepted for inclusion in Eruditio Ardescens by an authorized editor of Scholars Crossing. For more information, please contact [email protected]. First-Century Biblical Canonization Parts of this article were originally published in Faith & Mission Volume 18, Number 3 (Summer 2001) under the title “Second-Century Heresy Did Not Force the Church into an Early Canonization” Dr. James B. Joseph Tobaccoville, NC April 7, 2015 Introduction In our twenty-first century world, it is clear for those who listen to God that Satan is hard at work trying to discredit the authority of God’s Written Word, the Bible. Led by Satan, there are many today who would like everyone to believe that God’s Word is like all other literature, a work of man that is not inspired by a loving Creator who wants the best for His creation. If one accepts this deception, then God’s Word becomes open for individual interpretation allowing personal desires and rationalization to control meaning.
    [Show full text]
  • San Antonio People of Faith Historical Museum Cyprian Plague and The
    San Antonio People of Faith Historical Museum Cyprian Plague and the Emergence of a Saint Pandemic: Worldwide spread of a new disease. --World Health Organization Throughout recorded history, as humans spread throughout the world, so too did infectious diseases. The greater the global growth of large cities and the establishment of more accessible trade routes, as well as the resulting disruption of ecosystems, the greater the likelihood of pandemics. From the first of upwards of 20 major pandemics recorded--the Antonine Plague (165-180 A.D.)--to the current COVID-19 Pandemic, world religions have been deeply impacted and altered by each. For Christians, these effects vary from amazing growth to the near extinction of the faith, with some religious leaders during each episode being vilified, others sanctified. To many, Christianity and the Church have survived because of the faithful who throughout these pandemics served their communities by living their faith from love rather than fear. This was evident during the second recorded pandemic known as the Cyprian Plague, which not only saw a sharp rise in conversions to Christianity, but also would result in the emergence of a saint. Thasius Cyprianus (circa 200 A.D.-258 A.D.) was born to an affluent, pagan family in Carthage, North Africa, a thriving region of the polytheistic Roman Empire. His father was a senator who ensured that his son received the best education. While history does not record a great deal of Cyprian’s childhood, it does show that as a young man he was a powerful orator, a lawyer, and a teacher of rhetoric and philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Saint Thomas Aquinas: the Non-Recluse Julie Stanoch
    The Histories Volume 2 | Issue 2 Article 4 Saint Thomas Aquinas: The on-RN ecluse Julie Stanoch La Salle University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/the_histories Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Stanoch, Julie () "Saint Thomas Aquinas: The on-RN ecluse," The Histories: Vol. 2 : Iss. 2 , Article 4. Available at: https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/the_histories/vol2/iss2/4 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Scholarship at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The iH stories by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Histories, Vol. 2. No. 2 Page 8 Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Non-Recluse Julie Stanoch Although Saint Thomas Aquinas is mostly known for his religious, political, and philosophical documents such as Summa Theologica, there is more to the man than his writing and the events of his life. What of the man himself? He is often considered a man who was withdrawn from society and is thought to have merely sat alone in his cell, writing famous religious works. However, this is not the case. The events in his life, the activities in which he partook, and the character o f the man himself would not allow for Aquinas to be a man of reclusion. Therefore, the objective of this paper is to prove that Thomas Aquinas was not a recluse. To begin, let us first recognize where most of our information on Thomas Aquinas derives from.
    [Show full text]
  • Fact Sheet: Sainthood and Father Junipero Serra
    Fact Sheet: Sainthood and Father Junipero Serra During his visit to the United States, Pope Francis is scheduled to canonize Father Junipero Serra, who would be America’s first Latino saint. This will mark the first time that a canonization ceremony has be held on American soil. Who can become a saint? Anyone can become a saint, although the church doesn’t technically make saints. Instead, the church recognizes someone who is in Heaven and whose life is worth imitating. How to Become a Saint: For centuries, the general public chose saints. During the 10th century, however, Pope John Paul XV created an official canonization process. The original version of the canonization process involved a “devil’s advocate,” meaning one who argued in opposition to the candidate in hopes of exposing any flaws. However, Pope John Paul II removed the role of “devil’s advocate” from the process in 1983. The current canonization process is as follows: ! Five years postmortem (unless waived by the Pope), a person can be considered for sainthood. Typically, that person’s priest will submit their case to their bishop. Once someone is officially accepted for sainthood consideration, they become known as a Servant of God. ! The person’s bishop then investigates their life, looking for evidence of heroic virtue in both their personal writings and in witnesses. If the Bishop finds the person to be worthy, they are then submitted to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. ! The Congregation for the Causes of Saints begins its own investigation of the considered, and if it chooses to approve the person it declares that said person lived a heroic and Catholically virtuous life, making them Venerable.
    [Show full text]
  • This Week at Saint Bede
    Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time | July 25, 2021 This Week at Saint Bede Sunday Mass Times 8:30 am, 11:00 am, 2:00 pm (Spanish), & 5:00 pm Saturday Vigil 5:30 pm Daily Mass Times Monday-Saturday 9:00 am Wednesday 6:00 pm (Spanish) Holy Hour Monday & Friday after Daily Mass www.BedeVA.org | 757.229.3631 | Wednesday evenings 7-8pm Announcements Monsignor Joe's Weekly Update Adult Faith Formation Blessings to you and yours, and especially to you - our grandparents and older members on this first World Day of TUESDAY, JULY 27 Prayer for you. We and all the Church, give thanks for you: for 10 am – 11 am your faith, steadfast witness, perseverance in prayer. This Tuesday, from 10-11 am, is the July edition of “An Hour with Today we assure you of gratitude and prayers. Why this day? the Saints” Because it is the closest Sunday to the feast of Saints Joachim Please join Seminarian Andrew Clark in the Walsh Room or on and Anne (on Monday, July 26), the parents of the Blessed Zoom as he discusses: Virginia Mary and the mother of Jesus. You are in good company. “For All The Saints….in Virginia”. Did you know that our humble diocese can boast nine servants of God? Andrew will talk about Speaking of the saints, don’t forget to come (or tune in via Zoom) the Spanish Jesuit Martyrs who were the first to bring the light to Seminarian Andrew’s talk for July’s “An Hour with the Saints” of the Faith to Virginia and were martyred right here in series.
    [Show full text]
  • USCCB | How the Church Recognizes Saints
    How the Church Recognizes Saints By Jeannine Marino The process of declaring one a saint in the Catholic Church is called canonization. The canonization process is a canonical (Church law) procedure by which the Church through the Pope solemnly declares a Catholic to be united with God in heaven, an intercessory to God on behalf of the living, and worthy of public and universal veneration. A cause of canonization examines a person’s life and death to determine if they were either martyred or lived a virtuous life. Every cause of canonization has two phases: the diocesan and Roman phase. The diocese responsible for opening a cause is the diocese in which the person died/was martyred. The diocese, religious order, association or lay person(s) requesting (petitioning) for the cause asks the diocesan bishop, through a person known as the postulator to open an investigation into the martyrdom or life of the person. The diocesan bishop investigates how the person lived a heroic virtuous life, exemplifying the virtues of faith, hope and love through the calling of witnesses and the theological examination of the candidates’ writings. If the cause is based on martyrdom, the diocesan bishop investigates the circumstances surrounding the alleged martyrdom, which is also done through the calling of witnesses to the martyrdom and the examination of the candidates’ life. Once the diocesan investigation is complete, the documentation (evidence) that has been collected is sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints and the Roman phase begins. The first step in the Roman phase is the examination of the diocesan documentation.
    [Show full text]
  • St. Ambrose and the Architecture of the Churches of Northern Italy : Ecclesiastical Architecture As a Function of Liturgy
    University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations 12-2008 St. Ambrose and the architecture of the churches of northern Italy : ecclesiastical architecture as a function of liturgy. Sylvia Crenshaw Schneider 1948- University of Louisville Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/etd Recommended Citation Schneider, Sylvia Crenshaw 1948-, "St. Ambrose and the architecture of the churches of northern Italy : ecclesiastical architecture as a function of liturgy." (2008). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 1275. https://doi.org/10.18297/etd/1275 This Master's Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. This title appears here courtesy of the author, who has retained all other copyrights. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ST. AMBROSE AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CHURCHES OF NORTHERN ITALY: ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE AS A FUNCTION OF LITURGY By Sylvia Crenshaw Schneider B.A., University of Missouri, 1970 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Louisville in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts Department of Art History University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky December 2008 Copyright 2008 by Sylvia A. Schneider All rights reserved ST. AMBROSE AND THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE CHURCHES OF NORTHERN ITALY: ECCLESIASTICAL ARCHITECTURE AS A FUNCTION OF LITURGY By Sylvia Crenshaw Schneider B. A., University of Missouri, 1970 A Thesis Approved on November 22, 2008 By the following Thesis Committee: ____________________________________________ Dr.
    [Show full text]
  • The Divine Liturgy John Chrysostom
    The Divine Liturgy of our Father among the Saints John Chrysostom (With Commentary and Notes) The Divine Liturgy 2 The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is today the primary worship service of over 300 million Orthodox Christians around the world, from Greece to Finland, from Russia to Tanzania, from Japan to Kenya, Bulgaria to Australia. It is celebrated in dozens of languages, from the original Greek it was written in to English and French, Slavonic and Swahili, Korean and Arabic. What does the word Liturgy mean? Liturgy is a Greek word that in classical times referred to the performance of a public duty; in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament made some 300 years before the coming of Christ and still used by the Church today, it referred to worship in the Temple in Jerusalem; and for Orthodox Christians it has come to mean the public worship of the Church. Because Liturgy is always a corporate, communal action, it is often translated as ―the work of the people‖ and because it is prefaced by the word ―Divine‖ it is specifically the work of God‘s people and an experience of God‘s coming Kingdom here and now by those who gather to worship Him. This means that the Liturgy is not something that the clergy "performs" for the laity. The Liturgy was never meant to be a performance or a spectacle merely to be witnessed by onlookers. All who are present for worship must be willing, conscious and active participants and not merely passive spectators. The laity con-celebrate with the officiating clergy as baptized believers and members of the "royal priesthood…a people belonging to God" (1 Peter 2:9).
    [Show full text]
  • Journey to Canonization Below Is an Outline of the Canonization Process
    Path to Canonization Saint Katharine’s In the Catholic faith before someone is named a saint, there is a process that must be followed. Journey to Canonization Below is an outline of the canonization process. 1858 Katharine Drexel was born Major Stages 1. Servant of God (Venerable) requires that a candidate 1964 lived a life of faith and morals. Cause introduced in Rome 2. Beatification (Blessed) requires an extraordinary by John Cardinal Krol event that is recognizes as miraculous by the Church. 1987 3. Canonization (Saint) requires a second extraordinary event that is recognized by the Church. Declared Venerable on January 26 1988 Steps to Beatification Declared Blessed on November 20 Beatification requires recognition by the Church of an extraordinary event, i.e., one that cannot be explained The “Decree” on the heroicity of the virtues exercised according to the laws of human science and is attributed by the servant of God during her earthly life required to a Divine intervention through the mediation of the Servant of God who has been invoked by the faithful. extensive historical and theological study of her life. Such recognition by the Church has to go through It included sworn testimony of witnesses who knew several successive stages: her and an examination of her complete writings. These passed through a Board of Theologians and a a. The gathering of all the evidence; historical, clinical, documentation, and deposition of witnesses. meeting of the Members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. b. Critical study of all evidence and writing of the “Positio” (position paper) by the Postulator (person 2000 who oversees the Cause) proving the extraordinary nature of the event.
    [Show full text]
  • Canonization, 1935
    1 HOMILY AT THE CANONIZATION OF ST. THOMAS MORE Two New Saints On the occasion of the Papal Mass in St. Peter’s, for the canonization, the Holy Father delivered a homily on St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, of which the following is a translation: As Jesus Christ, according to the words of St. Paul, is eternal and immutable, “yesterday and today, and the same forever,” so the Church founded by Him is destined never to perish. Generations follow and succeed each other with their perennial vicissitudes. But whereas human institutions give way and disappear before the levelling tide of time, and human sciences, reflecting inconstant light, undergo repeated transformations, the Cross of Christ, reared steadfast above the engulfing billows, never ceases to illumine mankind with the beneficent splendour of Eternal Truth. From time to time new heresies make their appearance and, under the guise of truth, gain strength and popularity; but the seamless garment of Christ can never be rent in twain. Unbelievers and enemies of the Catholic faith, blinded by presumption, may indeed constantly renew their violent attacks against the Christian name, but in wresting from the bosom of the militant Church those whom they put to death, they become the instruments of their martyrdom and of their heavenly glory. No less beautiful than true are the words of St. Leo the Great: “The religion of Christ, founded on the mystery of the Cross, cannot be destroyed by any sort of cruelty; persecutions do not weaken, they strengthen the Church. The field of the Lord is ever ripening with new harvests, while the grains shaken loose by the tempest take root and are multiplied.” These thoughts, full of hope and comfort, spring up in Our mind as We, in this majestic Vatican Basilica, are about to proclaim briefly the praises of our two new Saints after having raised them to the honours of the altar.
    [Show full text]