SAINTS OF THE DAY: FEAST DAY ~ JANUARY 12TH

MEMORIAL OF SAINT BENEDICT BISCOP, ABBOT AND SAINT MARGUERITE, BOURGEOYS, RELIGIOUS AND FOUNDRESS – FEAST DAY ~ JANUARY 12TH Today, on this special feast of the Baptism of our Lord, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Benedict Biscop, Abbot and Saint Marguerite Bourgeoys, Religious and Foundress.

SAINT BENEDICT BISCOP, ABBOT: St. Benedict (628-690), sometimes referred to as Bennet or Biscop Baducing, lived in the seventh century. He descended from a noble family and was an officer of the court of Oswi, the religious king of the Northumbers. At the age of 25 (c. 653) St. Benedict made the first of his five trips to Rome on a pilgrimage. He returned filled with a zeal and hunger for learning Holy Scripture and to living his faith. Soon after his return to England, Prince Alefrid, son of King Oswi, also wanted to make a pilgrimage to some shrines of the Apostles and asked Bennet to accompany him. However, the king would not allow his son to make the journey, so Bennet made a second trip to Rome. He was so filled with the Holy Spirit and the desire to grow in holiness that he yearned to learn as much as he could about divine things. So he went to the great monastery of Lerins which was famous for its discipline and there took the monastic habit, spending two years in observance of the rule.

When he returned to Rome again, he received an order from Pope Vitalian to accompany St. Theodorus, Archbishop of Canterbury, and St. Adrian to England. Upon his arrival at Canterbury, St. Theodorus put St. Benedict in charge of the monastery of Sts. Peter and Paul. He stayed two years in Kent, studying Scripture and living the monastic life. When he returned to Northumberland, King Egfrid gave him 70 ploughs of land for building a monastery. After the monastery was built, St. Benedict went to France and brought back skillful masons to build a stone church for the monastery. Stone buildings at that time were rare in Britain and most churches were made of wood. He also brought over glaziers from France, for the art of making glass was also unknown in Britain at that time. In yet a fifth trip to Rome, St. Benedict gathered a great stock of books, especially the writings of the Fathers, along with relics and holy pictures. St. Benedict continued to enrich the church with holy relics, pictures and books. In his zeal to make his monastery as close to the Roman models as possible, St. Benedict prevailed upon Pope Agatho to let him take back to England John, abbot of St. Martin’s and preceptor in St. Peter’s Church in Rome, and placed him in the monastery to teach the monks Gregorian chants and Roman ceremonies for singing the divine office. He also built another monastery six miles away at Jarrow, and ruled both since they were regarded as one. St. Benedict suffered from severe illness for three years and two months before his death, he appointed St. Ceolfrid abbot of his monastery. St. Benedict, holy and zealous worker of God died on January 12, 690.

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. Benedict the Abbot. Amen🙏
 
SAINT MARGUERITE, BOURGEOYS, RELIGIOUS AND FOUNDRESS: Saint Marguerite (1620-1700) was a French nun and founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame of Montreal in the colony of New France, now part of Québec, Canada and was also instrumental in establishing the Canadian city of Montreal. She was devoted to the needs of the poor and uneducated, from whom people of both European as well as Native-American descent in 17th century Canada benefited from her great zeal and unshakable trust in God’s Providence. St. Marguerite Bourgeoys was born on on Good Friday, April 17, 1620 in Troyes, France to a devout parents from a middle-class family, Abraham Bourgeoys, a candle-maker and Guillemette Garnier, she was the seventh of their thirteen children. When she was nineteen years old, her mother died. The following year she was inspired to consecrate herself to serving God. She joined a lay group of young women dedicated to teaching poor children. The governor of Montreal, Canada, was in France looking for teachers for the New World. He invited Marguerite to come to Montreal to teach school and religion classes. She agreed and, upon her arrival in 1653, she began to teach the local French and Indian children. Life in the colony was physically very difficult. Marguerite discovered that many children, due to disease or malnutrition, were not likely to survive to an age suitable for attending school. Nevertheless, she began to work with the nurse in charge of Montreal’s hospital and eventually established her first school in a stable.

Marguerite made three trips across the Atlantic, returning to France to recruit more teachers for her mission and fledgling Order, which was named the Congregation of Notre Dame (Our Lady). It was a unique Order in that the sisters were teachers and were not cloistered (living together in prayer). Mother Marguerite, as she was now known, fought to keep her mission independent from other Orders and to convince the bishop to let her sisters travel as teachers in the wild ranges of the Canadian wilderness. Though the teaching sisters often lived in huts and suffered other hardships, the Order grew. They did not dedicate themselves to teaching solely children, but also set up schools wherein they taught new immigrants how to survive in their new environment. As the Order expanded, which was formally approved by the Church in 1698, Mother Marguerite passed leadership on to one of the other sisters, and spent her last few years praying and writing her autobiography. On the last day of 1699, one of the young members of her congregation lay dying. Mother Marguerite asked the Lord to take her own life in exchange. By the morning of January 1, 1700, the young sister had recovered and Mother Marguerite had a raging fever. She suffered for 12 days and on January 12, 1700, after 60 years of blessed labor for our Lord teaching and reaching out to the poor, God called her home. St. Marguerite was beatified on November 12, 1950 by Pope Pius XII and was canonized a Saint on October 31, 1982 by Pope John Paul II and she became Canada’s first female Saint. She’s the Patron Saint against poverty; impoverishment; loss of parents; people rejected by religious orders; poverty.

PRAYER: “O Mother Bourgeoys, you, whose compassionate power is ever increasing, show us your way of Truth, Faith and Holiness. Make us humble enough to abandon ourselves to the Will of God, generous enough to find in the Cross the joy of the Loving Giver. May your fidelity to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament lead us ever nearer to this source of light and peace. May your spirit of openness help us to be concerned for our brothers and sisters throughout the world. Finally, may Our Lady of the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, bring us to this unity of eternal grace to which God has called you for all eternity. Amen”🙏