SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: MAY 25TH

MEMORIAL OF SAINT BEDE THE VENERABLE, PRIEST AND DOCTOR; SAINT GREGORY VII, POPE, RELIGIOUS; SAINT MARY MAGDALENE DE PAZZI, VIRGIN ~ FEAST DAY: MAY 25TH Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Bede the Venerable, Priest and Doctor; Saint Gregory VII, Pope, Religious and Saint Mary Magdalene de Pazzi, Virgin. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the sick, especially those suffering from terminal diseases. We pray for Scholars, Writers and Historians. We also pray for peace, love and unity in our families and our world and for the poor and needy. And we continue to pray for the Church, the Clergy, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world. 🙏🏽

SAINT BEDE THE VENERABLE, PRIEST AND DOCTOR: St. Bede (672–735 A.D.), was an English priest, monk, and scholar and sometimes known as “the Venerable Bede” for his combination of personal holiness and intellectual brilliance. St. Bede was born during 673 near the English town of Jarrow to a wealthy family. His parents sent him at a young age, at the age of seven to the Benedictine monastery to be  educated by the monks. He studied at the monastery founded by a Benedictine abbot who would later be canonized in his own right as St. Benedict Biscop. The abbot’s extensive library may have sparked an early curiosity in the boy, who would grow up to be a voracious reader and prolific writer. Later, St. Bede returned to Jarrow and continued his studies with an abbot named Ceolfrid, who was a companion of St. Benedict Biscop. The abbot and a group of other monks instructed St. Bede not only in scripture and theology, but also in sacred music, poetry and the Greek language. St. Bede’s tutors could see that his life demonstrated a remarkable devotion to prayer and study, and Ceolfrid made the decision to have him ordained a deacon when he was 19. Another Benedictine monk and future saint, the bishop John of Beverley, ordained St. Bede in 691. He studied for 11 more years before entering the priesthood at the age of 30, around the beginning of the eighth century. Afterward, St. Bede took on the responsibility of celebrating daily Mass for the members of his Benedictine community, while also working on farming, baking, and other works of the monastery.

As a monk, St. Bede gave absolute priority to prayer, fasting and charitable hospitality. He regarded all other works as valueless without the love of God and one’s neighbor. However, St. Bede also possessed astounding intellectual gifts, which he used to survey and master a wide range of subjects according to an all-encompassing vision of Christian scholarship. St. Bede declined a request to become abbot of his monastery. Instead, he concentrated on writing, and produced more than 45 books –  primarily about theology and the Bible, but also on science, literature, and history. He also taught hundreds of students at the monastery and its school, which became renowned throughout Britain. During St. Bede’s own lifetime, his spiritual and intellectual gifts garnered wide recognition. His writings on scripture were considered so authoritative that a Church council ordered them to be publicly read in English churches. Some of the most illustrious members of English society made pilgrimages to his monastery to seek his guidance, and he was personally invited to Rome by Pope Sergius. St. Bede, however, was unfazed by these honors. Perhaps inspired by the Benedictine monastic ethos, which emphasizes one’s absolute commitment to the monastic community, he chose not to visit Rome, or to travel any significant distance beyond the Monastery of Sts. Peter and Paul in Jarrow, during his entire adult life.

Instead, the world came to him – through the visitors he received, according to the Benedictine tradition of hospitality, and through his voluminous reading. And Bede, in turn, reached the world without leaving his monastery, writing books that were copied with reverence for centuries and still read today. He is one of the last Western Christian writers to be numbered among the Church Fathers. But St. Bede understood that love, rather than learning, was his life’s purpose. “It is better,” he famously said, “to be a stupid and uneducated brother who, working at the good things he knows, merits life in heaven, than to be one who –  though being distinguished for his learning in the Scriptures, or even holding the place of a teacher – lacks the bread of love.” St. Bede died at Jarrow,  England on the vigil of the feast of the Ascension of Christ in 735, shortly after finishing an Anglo-Saxon translation of the Gospel of John. He wrote commentaries on Holy Scripture and treatises on theology and history. He is well known as an author, teacher (Alcuin was a student of one of his pupils), and scholar, and his most famous work, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, gained him the title “The Father of English History”. He’s the Patron Saint of Scholars, English writers and historians; Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, England, San Beda University, San Beda College Alabang.

PRAYER: O God, who bring light to your Church through the learning of the Priest Saint Bede, mercifully grant that your servants may always be enlightened by his wisdom and helped by his merits. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever… Amen 🙏🏽

SAINT GREGORY VII, POPE, RELIGIOUS: Pope St. Gregory VII sought to reform the Church and secure its freedom against the intrusion of civil rulers during his 11th century pontificate. He was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 22 April 1073 to his death in 1085. He was a monk of Cluny. Before ascending to the papacy, he fought against the abuse of lay investiture, the source of the evils from which the Church was suffering. His energetic stance as Pope Gregory VII earned for him the enmity of Emperor Henry IV. He was exiled to Salerno where he died. The future Pope St. Gregory VII was born Hildebrand of Sovana, in the Italian region of Tuscany sometime between 1020 and 1025. His father Bonzio is thought to have been a carpenter or peasant farmer, while his mother’s name is unknown. His uncle Laurentius was abbot of a monastery in Rome. Sent to the school run by his uncle’s monastery, Hildebrand entered a world of discipline and fervent devotion. After his primary education, he entered religious life as a monk. Hildebrand served as chaplain to his mentor John Gratian who had a brief and turbulent reign as Pope Gregory VI. In 1046 Hildebrand left Rome for Cologne along with Gratian, who was forced to leave Rome and resign from the Papacy. After the former Pope’s death in 1047, Hildebrand left for France and spent more than a year in the monastery at Cluny. During 1049 he made the acquaintance of Bruno of Toul, who would soon become Pope Leo IX. Under his reign, Hildebrand was put in charge of a historic monastery, which he rescued from structural and administrative ruin through a series of reforms. Hildebrand served Leo IX as an adviser and legate until the Pope’s death in 1054. While others considered him a possible successor to Leo, Hildebrand did not wish to be elected, though he continued his work as an influential and respected cardinal during several subsequent pontificates.

In April 1073, Hildebrand was finally elected as Pope Gregory VII. Though he still did not want the office, his electors praised him as “a devout man … mighty in human and divine knowledge, a distinguished lover of equity and justice, a man firm in adversity and temperate in prosperity.” Overwhelming challenges confronted the new Pope – including scandalous corruption among the clergy, a hardening schism between the churches of Rome and Constantinople, and a struggle against civil rulers who claimed a right to choose the Church’s clergy and control its properties. In March of 1074 Gregory promulgated a sweeping set of reforming decrees. These met with widespread opposition, but the Pope stood his ground. The resulting standoff pitted him against the German Emperor Henry IV, who sought to depose the Pope when threatened with excommunication. The Pope carried out his threat and declared that the emperor’s subjects were no longer bound to obey him as their ruler. The emperor was forced, in 1077, to come before the Pope as a penitent, spending three days waiting in the snow before he was received and given the conditions of his reconciliation. Though temporarily reconciled, Henry was excommunicated for later attacks, which included supporting a rival Pope and invading Rome. Pope St. Gregory never gave up his pontificate, but was forced to flee the city in 1084. “I have loved justice and hated iniquity, therefore I die in exile,” he proclaimed, just before his death in Salerno on May 25, 1085. Remembered as a champion of the Church’s freedom against state intrusion, St. Gregory VII was canonized by Benedict XIII in 1728. He’s the Patron Saint of Diocese of Sovana.

Pope Gregory VII Quote: “It is the custom of the Roman Church which I unworthily serve with the help of God, to tolerate some things, to turn a blind eye to some, following the spirit of discretion rather than the rigid letter of the law.”

PRAYER: Give to your Church, we pray, O Lord, that spirit of fortitude and zeal for justice which you made to shine forth in Pope Saint Gregory the Seventh, so that, rejecting evil, she may be free to carry out in charity whatever is right. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever… Amen  🙏🏽
 
SAINT MARY MAGDALENE DE PAZZI,  VIRGIN: St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi (1566-1607) was an Italian noblewoman, Carmelite nun and mystic of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries who became a Carmelite nun distinguished for her intense prayer life and devotion to frequent Holy Communion. St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi was born in Florence on April 2, 1566 to a noble Florentine family. The future “Mary Magdalene” was given the name of Caterina at the time of her birth. She was the only daughter of her parents, who both came from prominent families. Caterina was drawn to the Holy Eucharist from a young age, and she resolved to serve God as a consecrated virgin shortly after receiving her First Communion at age 10. Late in the year 1582 she entered a strictly traditional Carmelite monastery, where Holy Communion was – unusually for the time period – administered daily. Receiving her religious habit the next year, she took the name of Mary Magdalene. From March to May of 1584, St. Mary became seriously ill and was thought to be in danger of death. On May 27 of that year she made her religious vows while lying sick upon a pallet. Her recovery marked the start of an extended mystical experience, which lasted 40 days and involved extraordinary experiences taken down by her religious sisters in a set of manuscripts. St. Mary served the monastery in a series of teaching and supervisory positions, while also contributing to her community through manual work. Her fellow Carmelites respected her strict sense of discipline, which was accompanied by profound charity and practical wisdom. Her experiences of suffering and temptation helped her to guide and inspire others.

Extraordinary spiritual occurrences were a frequent feature of this Carmelite nun’s life, to a much greater degree than is typical in the tradition of Catholic mysticism. Many of her experiences of God were documented by others in her community, although St. Mary herself disliked the attention and would seemingly have preferred for these events to remain private. She did wish, however, to call attention to God’s love, which she saw as tragically underappreciated and unreciprocated by mankind. St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi is remembered for making dramatic gestures – running through the halls of her monastery, or ringing its bells at night – while proclaiming the urgent need for all people to awaken to God’s love, and respond in kind. The last three years of Mary’s life were characterized by intense bodily and mental suffering, yet she prayed to suffer more, so great was her love for Jesus Christ Crucified. Her earthly life came to an end on May 25, 1607, after the excruciating illness, shortly after Pope Leo XI, whose elevation to the papacy and subsequent death she had foretold. St. Mary Magdalene de’ Pazzi was Beatified in 1626, Rome, Papal States, by Pope Urban VIII and was canonized in 1669 by Pope Clement IX. She’s the Patron Saint against bodily ills; against sexual temptation; against sickness; sick people; Naples (co-patron).

In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI marked the 400th anniversary of St. Mary Magdalene de Pazzi’s death in a letter to the Archbishop of Florence, her birthplace. He described her as “a symbolic figure of a living love that recalls the essential mystical dimension of every Christian life.” “May the great mystic,” the Pope wrote, “still make her voice heard in all the Church, spreading to every human creature the proclamation to love God.”

PRAYER: God, the lover of virginity, You conferred heavenly gifts on St. Mary the Virgin who was inflamed with love for You. Help us to imitate the example of purity and love given us by the one whom we honor this day. Amen 🙏🏽