MEMORIAL OF SAINT MAXIMIN OF MESMIN, ABBOT; SAINT VIRGINIA CENTURIONE BRACELLI, RELIGIOUS AND BLESSED JOHN THE DISCALCED, FRANCISCAN FRIAR – FEAST DAY ~ DECEMBER 15TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Maximin of Mesmin, Abbot; Saint. Virginia Centurione Bracelli, Religious and Blessed John the Discalced, Franciscan Friar. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints, we humbly pray for God’s grace and mercy as we prepare for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ during this season of Advent. Praying for hope, faith, love, joy and peace in our world today, as we face these incredibly challenging times. We pray for God’s deliverance from impossible causes or situations. We pray for the safety and well-being of all those traveling during this season of Christmas. We pray for the sick and dying, especially sick children, those who are mentally and physically ill, those with strokes, heart diseases, those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the souls in Purgatory and the repose of the souls of the faithful departed and we pray for all widows and widowers. We pray for torture victims, the poor, the needy and the most vulnerable in our communities and around the world. We pray for all parents and children, for peace, love, justice and unity in our marriages, our families and our world. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, the Bishops, the Clergy, for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, for the Church, for persecuted Christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world… Amen🙏
SAINT MAXIMIN OF MESMIN, ABBOT: Saint Maximin was a native of Verdun, Abbot of Micy. A priest named Euspicius, uncle of Maximin, brought about a reconciliation between the French monarch Clovis and his subjects of that city, after the latter had engaged in a revolt. Clovis, appreciating the virtues of the good priest, persuaded Euspicius to take up his residence at the court in Orleans; and the servant of God took Saint Maximin, his nephew, with him. Maximin was ordained a deacon by the bishop of Orleans, and then a priest. A site about two leagues from the city was given by Clovis to Euspicius for a monastery. He with Maximin and several disciples built there the large monastery, of which he then took charge. His young assistant knew well how to attract many young men of admirable piety and fervor to the religious state.
At the death of the Abbot two years later, the young priest was appointed to replace him. Solitaries left their cells to come and place themselves under his direction, and soon the gift of miracles was bestowed upon the abbot. He multiplied wine and grain during a famine, to assist the afflicted people; he delivered a possessed man and cured two blind men, though he knew one of them had become blind only after he maliciously cut down a tree belonging to the monastery. Through his prayers he brought about so many other prodigies that he was called the thaumaturge of his century. His soul was soon ripe for the beatitude he had earned, and after having governed his monastery for ten years, he died as he had lived, in the odor of sanctity, and in the arms of his spiritual sons, on the 15th of December in about the year 520.
PRAYER: Lord, amid the things of this world, let us be wholeheartedly committed to heavenly things in imitation of the example of evangelical perfection You have given us in St. Maximin the Abbot. Amen 🙏
SAINT VIRGINIA CENTURIONE BRACELLI, RELIGIOUS: St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli (1587-1651) was born in Genoa Italy on April 2, 1587. Virginia was raised in an aristocratic family which was nonetheless pious, and from a young age she longed to consecrate herself to God in the religious life. However, she was pressured into an arranged marriage in 1602 at the age of 15 on account of her social status, and had two daughters. Her husband, a wealthy and illustrious man, lived dissolutely as a drinker and a gambler despite Virginia’s good example. He died after only five years of marriage in 1607 and Virginia was widowed at the age of 20. She refused another arranged marriage and took up a vow of celibacy and chastity, while she dedicated her time to raising her children, prayer and works of charity, which she devoted herself to entirely once her children had grown up, caring for the sick, elderly, the poor and abandoned.
Once her daughters were grown, St. Virginia used her wealth to found a refuge center for the suffering in Genoa in 1625, which soon became overrun with the needy, and she rented an empty convent in 1631 where she cared for the sick with the help of other women, and she instructed the women in the faith in addition to their work. The center grew into a large hospital. She constructed a church dedicated to Our Lady of Refuge, and soon the women who worked with her in the hospital were formed into two congregations: the Sisters of Our Lady of Refuge in Mount Calvary, and the Daughters of Our Lady on Mount Calvary. St. Virginia was committed not only to serving the poor and destitute, even to the point of seeking them out in the streets, she was also committed to training the underprivileged with skills so that they could attain a better way of life. She also worked as a peacemaker to help settle the frequent bloody rivalries which rose up between noble families. She began to receive visions and locutions in the later years of her life. She died in Genoa on December 15, 1651 at the age of 64 and was canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 18, 2003. St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli’s feast day is December 15.
Saint Virginia Centurione Bracelli, Religious ~ Pray for us 🙏
BLESSED JOHN THE DISCALCED, FRANCISCAN FRIAR: Blessed John the Discalced (1280-1349 was born near Quimper in France. In his youth he was a laborer; he made and erected crosses, built bridges and arches. Works useful for the glory of God or the welfare of his neighbor were the ones most agreeable to him. However, God was calling him higher, and by perseverance he succeeded in studying to receive the priesthood, despite the opposition and mockery of an artisan from whom he had learned his trade, one of his relatives. From that moment on his life was very austere; he fasted three times a week on bread and water, visited the poor and the sick, and became the object of universal veneration. For thirteen years he served as a parish priest in his diocese, and never did he take a horse for his parish visits, but walked barefoot; hence his name, the Discalced or unshod. His very frugal life might have permitted him to set money aside, but the indigent received all that was not strictly necessary for him, and sometimes that as well.
The holy priest then entered the Order of Saint Francis. In the monastery at Quimper, Brother John was soon recognized to be the most humble and most mortified of all. The spirit of poverty made him choose the most worn habits, which he repaired himself. Since he had nothing to give away, he begged from the wealthy and thus assisted the miserable. He rose every night before the others, and very often spent entire nights in the charms of mental prayer. The devil sometimes waged a fierce war on him, but the holy religious, trusting in God, manifested his contempt for the tempter, calling him dog, and driving him away by words of distress and supplication from the Psalms. His mortification was extreme; he fasted unceasingly on bread and water save for forty days during the year, and for sixteen years touched no meat or wine. He had the gift of tears in his ministry of confession, and the spirit of prophecy which revealed to him future public chastisements. He foresaw and announced the siege and capture of Quimper before the intention had been formed in the mind of the assailants. Great cruelties accompanied it, and a famine followed. He also foresaw the pestilence which would afflict it in 1349, and wept. When the other religious asked him what was wrong, he told them only that the city would be afflicted again with a new calamity. He devoted himself to serving the plague-stricken, offered his life to God in sacrifice, and died of the terrible scourge in that year, at the age of sixty-nine. The city remains devoted to his memory, and his statue is in its cathedral.
Blessed John the Discalced, Franciscan Friar ~ Pray for us 🙏