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THE SAINTS OF THE MASS COMPILED BY MOTHER PHILIPPA OP ST MARY'S COSVB.NT, VORK LONDON CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY 69 SouTHWARK BRIDGE RoAD, S.E. 1911 CONTENTS TNTilODUCTION PAG&: 5 I. THE SAINTS BEFORE THE ELEVATION- Saints Peter and Paul 7 " Read the lives of the saints, and you will find St. Andrew the Apostle IO that you are gradually creatinl?' a society about !ou to St. James the Great, Apostle 13 which in some measure you will be forced to ra1se the St. John, Apostle and Evangelist 16 St. Thomas, Apostle standard of your daily life." 20 Rev. H. S. BOWDEN. St.. James the Less, Apostle 23 St. Philip, Apostle 26 St. Bartholomew, Apostle 29 St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist 30 St. Simon, Apostle • 32 St. Jude, or Thaddeus, Apostle St. Linus, Pope 33 35 St. Cletus, Pope 36 St. Clement, Pope 37 St. Sixtus II., Pope . 39 St. Cornelius, Pope . 42 St. Cyprian, Bishop . 44 St. Laurence, Martyr 48 St. Chrysogonus, Martyr . sr Saints John and Paul, Martyrs . 56 Saints Cosmas and Damian, Martyrs 59 3 Contents PAGE II. THE SAINTS AFTER THE ELEVATION- St. John Baptist 6z St. Stephen, Martyr . 64 St. Matthias, Apostle 65 St. Barnabas, Apostle 67 St. Ignatius, Martyr . 69 St. Alexander, Pope 73 THE SAINTS OF Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Martyrs 76 Saints Perpetua, Felicitas, and Com· THE MASS panions, Martyrs • 78 St. Agatha, Virgin and Martyr . 82 St. Lucy, Virgin and Martyr 85 INTRODUCTION St. Agnes, Virgin and Martyr 87 St. Cecily, Virgin and :Martyr 90 THE title of this book and the use of the Missal St. Anastasia . 94 may naturally suggest the question : \Vhy have these particular Saints obtained such honourable notice in the Church's Liturgy? It is obvious that the Mother of God, Queen and Mother of all the children of the Church, should have a place with the twelve Apostles, and St. Paul, whose name is always coupled with St. Peter's. But what principle of selection has opened the door to those that follow-St. Peter's three immediate successors, and a few of the martyr-host out of the great multitude which no man can number? The answer is that, in the earliest age of the Church, martyrs alone among her saints received public veneration. Mass was celebrated on their tombs in the catacombs, and their names, 4 s The Saints of the Mass especially on the anniversary of their martyrdom, came to receive honourable mention in the Mass. But among the martyrs themselves a few only I could be thus remembered, and so we find mention only of the more noticeable among the THE SAINTS BEFORE THE multitudes who shed their blood for Christ. ELEVATION The whole portion of the Mass called the Canon is thirteen or fourteen hundred years old, and Pope Vigil ius, before the time of St. Gregory Saints Peter and Paul. the Great, testified that it had been received JuNE 29 and 30. from Apostolic tradition. No additions have been made to it since St. Gregory's time ; to ST. BERNARD, in one of his sermons for this him we are indebted for the mention of the day, reminds us that the " commemoration here Saints Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, Cecilia, and made of the holy Apostles is not of their birth, Anastasia. as of St. John Daptist's (June 24), or of any great It is hardly necessary to say that the matter event of their lives, as of St. Paul's Conversion of this little book does not pretend to be critical; (January 25), or of St. Peter's liberation from it embodies with ascertained facts the more prison by an angel, but of their death, the thing noteworthy of the legends associated with the we most dread, and their martyrdom. Holy Ones of whom it treats. "On this day St. Peter was crucified and St. Paul was beheaded. It is therefore a glorious day, consecrated by the heroic deaths of the two July, 19II. noble martyrs, the leaders of the martyr-band, the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, the two great luminaries whom God has placed as two eyes in the body of His Church. They have been made over to me," he says, "for my masters and mediators, to whom I may securely commit my cause, for they have made known to me the way of life. By their intercession I shall be able 6 7 The Saints of the Mass Saints Peter and Paul to ascend to the great Mediator, who came to he at length yielded through compassion for his reconcile by His blood all that are in heaven children, though he vehemently longed to shed and on earth. his blood for his beloved Master. On his way "What could be sweeter than Peter's way of our blessed Lord appeared to him. The Apostle ca!Jing sinners, as we read in the Acts of the recognized his dear Master, and asked, "Where Apostles and in his Epistles? Willingly, too, do art Thou going, Lord ? " " I am going to Rome," I follow Paul, who, with exceeding gentleness and was the answer, " to be crucified anew." St affection, weeps over those who have sinned and Peter understood the meaning of those words have not done penance, and who drew his and returned to Rome and to prison that he wisdom and unction, not from the first or second might complete the likeness between Christ's but from the third heaven." ' Vicar and Christ. With their lives and glorious labours for the When the two Apostles were led out to execu· faith we are all familiar ; let us then consider tion, they embraced and kissed each other, after their deaths and the great devotion borne to which they were separated and led to the destined them in the early Church. sites-St. Peter to an elevated spot on the Vatican The cruel emperor, Nero, enraged at the hill, St. Paul to the Ostian way. St. Peter in spread of Christianity through the Apostles' humility begged to have his cross reversed, for preaching and miracles, ordered them to be he judged it too great an honour to die in the seized and put into prison. Yet here, too, they same position as his Divine Master. made many converts-their keepers and others. A portion of the body of each Apostle is God co-operated with them, for, when water was preserved at St. Paul's Church outside-the-walls, wanting for baptism, it is said that a fountain and the remainder at the Vatican Basilica, St. sprang up in their prison-the Mamertine­ Peter's. where it is to be seen at the present day. The devotion of the faithful towards these Another legend tells how, when the term fixed Princes of the Church has been great in every for their imprisonment was ncar at hand, all the age. Churches have been erected in their Christians, in distress at the thought oflosing their honour, where no expense has been spared, and dear shepherd and father, entreated St. Peter where the noblest works of art and genius to make hi!? escape and preserve his life for the have been bestowed on their embellishment. sake of the infant Church. After long refusing, The precious relics of these martyrs, the 8 9 The Saints of the Mass St. Andrew memorials of their sufferings, have been care· fervent follower of St. John the Baptist and had fully treasured. In the church of Santa Maria learned from him to prepare himself for the Transpontina are seen the pillars at which they "Desired of all Nations." When therefore he were scourged before execution. St. Peter's heard St. John exclaim, as Jesus passe~ by, chains hang in the Mamertine, and on the wall "Behold the Lamb of God I" (St John 1. 36), nearest the well may be seen, carefully shielded he immediately understood of whom he spoke, by a grating, the profile of the first Vicar of and without delay hastened with another of Christ. St. Paul's chains, too, are venerated in St. John's disciples to follow Jesus. Rome, and a legend states that when the head We all know the Divine Master's gentle was struck off it leapt three times, and three welcome "\Vhat seek ye?" and His invitation fountains sprang up to mark the spots. to" com~ and see " where He dwelt. With St. The devotion of our forefathers in England to Augustine we may lovingly imagine what l1appy the~e Apostles is a matter of history, and is hours those disciples spent in His company "the test1fied by the letters of English kings to the rest of that day" and the whole of the following Popes, and theirs to the kings ; by the writings night, listening to the sacred words which fiowed also of the Cardinals Baroni us and Bellarmine.