SAINTS OF THE DAY ~ FEAST DAY: SEPTEMBER 10TH

MEMORIAL OF SAINT NICHOLAS OF TOLENTINO (TOLENTINE), PRIEST; SAINT PULCHERIA, EMPRESS AND SAINT AMBROSE EDWARD BARLOW, PRIEST AND MARTYR ~ FEAST DAY: SEPTEMBER 10TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino (Tolentine), Priest; Saint Pulcheria, Empress and Saint Ambrose Edward Barlow, Priest and Martyr. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the sick and dying, especially those who are physically and mentally ill and 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. We pray for the poor and needy and for peace, love, and unity in our marriages, our families and our world. And we continue to pray for our Holy Father, 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 NICHOLAS OF TOLENTINO (TOLENTINE) PRIEST: St. Nicholas (1245-1305) was a simple Priest and Augustinian Friar known as the Patron of Holy Souls, particularly invoked as an advocate for the souls in Purgatory, especially during Lent and the month of November. He is an Italian Saint and Mystic who touched the lives of many. His sprit of prayer, penance, austerity of life and devotion to the Holy Souls were notable. His preaching brought many to Christ. St. Nicholas’ bread, a roll of dough with a cross in the center, has its origin in the bread he used to give to the sick to eat after he had prayed for the Virgin Mary’s healing intercession. Born Nicholas Gurutti in 1245 at Sant’Angelo, Pontano, Macerata, a town near Fermo in Italy. His family was rather poor. St. Nicholas was born in answer to his mother’s prayers. Childless and in middle age, she had made a pilgrimage with her husband to the shrine of St. Nicholas of Bari to ask for a son whom she promised to dedicate to God’s service. When her wish was granted, she named the boy Nicholas and he soon gave unusual signs of saintliness. St. Nicholas was blessed by innocence and the practice of more than ordinary virtue from his early infancy. Already at seven he would hide away in a nearby cave and pray there like the hermits whom he had observed in the mountains. As soon as he was old enough he was received into the Order of Augustinian friars. He joined the Order there shortly after the Grand Union. A sermon preached by an Augustinian friar, on the vanity of the world, persuaded him to enter religion. This was not a passing emotion, but a firm resolution, which he executed by entering the Augustinian Order at Tolentine, a small town in the Papal States. From this town, where Nicholas spent the great part of his life, he obtained his surname. He made his profession before he had completed his eighteenth year. Then he began to run the giant race of sanctity, in which he soon excelled, distinguishing himself especially by the virtues of humility and meekness. While he was still a young student, his extraordinary merit caused him to be appointed to a canonry in the Church of Our Savior, a position that was extremely pleasing to him, as it gave him opportunity of being constantly employed in God’s service. On account of his kind and gentle manner his superiors entrusted him with the daily feeding of the poor at the monastery gates, but at times he was so free with the friary’s provisions that the procurator begged the superior to check his generosity. He was sent successively to several convents of his Order, and in that of Cingole he was ordained priest at the hands of the Bishop of Osimo in 1271 and said his first Mass with exceptional fervor; thereafter, whenever he celebrated the holy Mystery he seemed aglow with the fire of his love. From that time he was employed in the works of the ministry, preaching, and hearing confessions. His preaching, instructions and work in the confessional brought about numerous conversions, and his many miracles were responsible for more, yet he was careful not to take any credit for these miracles. “Say nothing of this,” he would insist, “give thanks to God, not to me. I am only a vessel of clay, a poor sinner.”

The early years of his life as a friar were devoted to preaching in various houses of his province, but his last thirty years were spent in Tolentine, where he was engaged principally as confessor, benefactor of the poor and diligent minister to the sick. At that time in Tolentine, the Guelfs and the Ghibellines were in constant strife. St. Nicholas saw only one remedy to the violence: street preaching, and the success of this apostolic work was astounding. “He spoke of the things of heaven,” says his biographer St. Antonine. “Sweetly he preached the divine word, and the words that came from his lips fell like flames of fire. Among his hearers could be seen the tears and heard the sighs of people detesting their sins and repenting of their past lives.” St. Nicholas was a man filled with compassion and charity toward his brothers in the monastery, great hospitality to visitors and generous attention to all in need. At the same time his life of prayer and recollection, of penance and fidelity to the common life won the admiration of all. His devotion to the faithful departed and his prayers for their salvation earned him the title Patron of the Souls in Purgatory. God favored St. Nicholas with many heavenly gifts, and the time he could spare from his labors he spent in prayer and contemplation. He had also much to suffer from various painful diseases. During the last years of his life St. Nicholas was bedridden and suffered grievously. He died peacefully surrounded by his community on September 10, 1305 and his body is venerated in his Basilica in Tolentine. In 1345 a lay Brother cut off the arms of his body intending to take them to Germany as relics, and the friars then hid his body to prevent further attempts of this kind. It has not been found to this day, but the arms have been preserved. It is recorded that they have bled on several occasions, usually, it is said, before some calamity that befell the Church or the world. The remains of St. Nicholas are preserved at the Shrine of Saint Nicholas in the city of Tolentine. St. Nicholas of Tolentine was canonized by Pope Eugene IV in 1446. Saint Nicholas is the first Augustinian friar to be canonized after the Grand Union of the Order of St. Augustine in 1256 and for much of the Order’s history served as the model – par excellence – of the perfect integration of a life of contemplation with that of active ministry among God’s people. St. Nicholas of Tolentine is the Patron Saint of the souls in Purgatory; lost souls; dying people; infants; mariners; against epidemic disease and against fires and animals.

QUOTE OF SAINT NICHOLAS OF TOLENTINO:“The Heavens are not pure in the sight of Him Whom I serve; how then shall I, a sinful man, stand before Him?”

PRAYER: Almighty God, Your glory has shone upon the Church through the holiness and miracles of St. Nicholas of Tolentine. In answer to his prayers keep Your holy people in peace and unity. Amen 🙏
 
SAINT PULCHERIA, EMPRESS: St. Pulcheria (399-453), Empress of the Eastern Roman Empire, eldest daughter of the Byzantine emperor Arcadius (395-408) and Empress Aelia Eudoxia. St. Pulcheria was co-regent and adviser of her brother Theodosius the Younger (408-450). St. Pulcheria was born on January 19, 399. Her father died when she was 15. After the death of her father, Arcadius (408), her younger brother, Theodosius II, then only seven, became emperor under the guardianship of Anthimus. St. Pulcheria had matured early and had great administrative ability; she soon exerted salutary influence over the young and not very capable emperor Theodosius. On July 4, 414, she was proclaimed Augusta (empress) by the Senate, and made regent of the empire for her younger brother, Theodosius, until he was old enough to rule. St. Pulcheria took special care of her brother’s education, ensuring a strong religious background. She took a vow of chastity (virginity) and persuaded her sisters to do the same, and worked for religious reform and evangelization through the empire. The imperial palace thus becoming almost a monastery. At the same time she fulfilled all her duties as a ruler for about ten years jointly with her brother. When Theodosius took over the throne, St. Pulcheria faded for a while into court life. In 421 she arranged the marriage of Theodosius with Athenais, who assumed the name Eudocia (Eudoxia). After the marriage, the new empress sought to weaken St. Pulcheria’s influence over the emperor. Theodosius’ wife  convinced him to exile St. Pulcheria and, with the aid of some courtiers, succeeded for a time. The two women quarreled about 440, and Eudocia in 443 withdrew permanently to Jerusalem. The grand chamberlain Chrysaphius then acquired the dominant influence over Theodosius. Court intrigues obliged St. Pulcheria (446) to leave the imperial palace and retire to a suburb of Constantinople, where she led a monastic life. When this adviser fell from power shortly before Theodosius’ death (in July 450), St. Pulcheria again came into prominence, she returned to Court about 449. At the emperor Theodosius’ death (on July 28, 450) she was proclaimed empress, and then married the able general, Marcian, but with the condition that her vow of virginity should be respected. At her order Marcian was proclaimed Augustus. She selected Marcian as Theodosius’ successor and agreed to become his nominal wife in order to preserve the Theodosian dynasty.

St. Pulcheria supported Pope Leo the Great regarding the Monophysite controversy. On Oct. 25, 451, she sponsored and attended the Council of Chalcedon and supported the Church against the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies. She was loudly acclaimed by the bishops assembled there. Throughout her life she defended the Faith against various heresies. St. Pulcheria showed no less zeal in promoting other interests of the Church. She built three churches in Constantinople in honour of Mary the Mother of God; one, erected after the condemnation of the Nestorian heresy, was exceedingly beautiful. In other places also she built churches, hospitals, hospices, houses for pilgrims, and gave rich gifts to various churches and built a university in the city of Constantinople. She had the bones of Saint John Chrysostom, who had died in exile, brought back to Constantinople and buried in the church of the Apostles on January 27, 438; this led to the reconciliation with the Church of the schismatic party of the Johannines. St. Pulcheria had the relics of the forty martyrs of Sebaste, which were found near Constantinople, transferred to a church. Throughout her life St. Pulcheria remained a devout Christian. After giving away her wealth and all her possessions to the poor and to the Church, she died peacefully at the age of fifty-four in July 453 A D in Turkey of natural causes. She’s the Patron Saint against in-law problems; against the death of parents; empresses; exiles; orphans; people in exile; victims of betrayal.

Saint Pulcheria, Empress ~ Pray for us 🙏

SAINT AMBROSE EDWARD BARLOW, PRIEST AND MARTYR: St. Ambrose Edward Barlow (1585-1641) was born near Manchester, England, to a noble family. He was baptized Catholic at his birth, but was raised Protestant when Catholicism was outlawed by the reigning monarchy. His grandfather died while imprisoned for his Catholic faith, and his father had two-thirds of his estate confiscated for refusal to conform to the Church of England. Ambrose returned to Catholicism as an adult, recognized his vocation to the priesthood, and traveled to France to enter seminary. He was ordained in 1617 in the Order of St. Benedict. He returned to England to minister to underground Catholics in his native south Lancashire for 24 years, being financially supported with a pension arranged by his grandmother.

St. Ambrose said Mass daily and administered the sacraments secretly to avoid detection by the authorities. He was arrested four times during his priesthood, each time being released without charge. When the king issued a decree that all Catholic Priests should immediately flee the country or be arrested and condemned as traitors, St. Ambrose chose to stay, reasoning that he could not die a better death than to be martyred for being a Catholic Priest. On April 25, 1631, just as he ended Easter Sunday Mass at Morley Hall near Manchester, he was arrested by a 400-strong armed mob led by the local Anglican Vicar He freely admitted to the charge of being a Catholic Priest and gave a defense of the true faith before his judge. He was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, quartered, and boiled in oil on September 10, 1641. His dead body was publicly displayed on a pike as a warning to other Catholic Priests. St. Ambrose Edward Barlow is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. His feast day is September 10th.

Saint Ambrose Edward Barlow, Priest and Martyr ~ Pray for us 🙏