2012
Vatican Radio REP0RT- Below please find the full text
in English of Pope Benedict XVI's homily at this morning's Canonization ceremony
in St Peter's Square:
The Son of Man came to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mk 10:45)
Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear brothers and sisters!
Today the Church listens again to these words of Jesus, spoken by the Lord during his journey to Jerusalem, where he was to accomplish the mystery of his passion, death and resurrection. They are words which enshrine the meaning of Christ’s mission on earth, marked by his sacrifice, by his total self-giving. On this third Sunday of October, on which we celebrate World Mission Sunday, the Church listens to them with special attention and renews her conviction that she should always be fully dedicated to serve mankind and the Gospel, after the example of the One who gave himself up even to the sacrifice of his life.
I extend warm greetings to all of you who fill Saint Peter’s Square, especially the official delegations and the pilgrims who have come to celebrate the seven new saints. I greet with affection the Cardinals and Bishops who, during these days, are taking part in the Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization. The coincidence between this ecclesiastical meeting and World Mission Sunday is a happy one; and the word of God that we have listened to sheds light on both subjects. It shows how to be evangelizers, called to bear witness and to proclaim the Christian message, configuring ourselves to Christ and following his very path. This is true both for the mission ad Gentes and for the new evangelization in places with ancient Christian roots.
The Son of Man came to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mk 10:45)
These words were the blueprint for living of the seven Blessed men and women that the Church solemnly enrols this morning in the glorious ranks of the saints. With heroic courage they spent their lives in total consecration to the Lord and in the generous service of their brethren. They are sons and daughters of the Church who chose the path of service following the Lord. Holiness always rises up in the Church from the well-spring of the mystery of redemption, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah in the first reading: the Servant of the Lord is the righteous one who “shall make many to be accounted as righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities” (Is 53:11); he is Jesus Christ, crucified, risen and living in glory. Today’s canonization is an eloquent confirmation of this mysterious saving reality. The tenacious profession of faith of these seven generous disciples of Christ, their configuration to the Son of Man shines out brightly today in the whole Church.
Jacques Berthieu, born in 1838 in France, was passionate about Jesus Christ at an early age. During his parish ministry, he had the burning desire to save souls. Becoming a Jesuit, he wished to journey through the world for the glory of God. A tireless pastor on the island of Sainte Marie, then in Madagascar, he struggled against injustice while bringing succour to the poor and sick. The Malagasies thought of him as a priest come down from heaven, saying, You are our “father and mother!” He made himself all things to all men, drawing from prayer and his love of the sacred heart of Jesus the human and priestly force to face martyrdom in 1896. He died, saying “I prefer to die rather than renounce my faith”. Dear friends, may the life of this evangelizer be an encouragement and a model for priests that, like him, they will be men of God! May his example aid the many Christians of today persecuted for their faith! In this Year of Faith, may his intercession bring forth many fruits for Madagascar and the African Continent! May God bless the Malagasy people!
Pedro Calungsod was born around the year sixteen fifty-four, in the Visayas region of the Philippines. His love for Christ inspired him to train as a catechist with the Jesuit missionaries there. In sixteen sixty-eight, along with other young catechists, he accompanied Father Diego Luís de San Vitores to the Marianas Islands in order to evangelize the Chamorro people. Life there was hard and the missionaries also faced persecution arising from envy and slander. Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom. He died on the second of April, sixteen seventy-two. Witnesses record that Pedro could have fled for safety but chose to stay at Father Diego’s side. The priest was able to give Pedro absolution before he himself was killed. May the example and courageous witness of Pedro Calungsod inspire the dear people of the Philippines to announce the Kingdom bravely and to win souls for God!
Giovanni Battista Piamarta, priest of the Diocese of Brescia, was a great apostle of charity and of young people. He raised awareness of the need for a cultural and social presence of Catholicism in the modern world, and so he dedicated himself to the Christian, moral and professional growth of the younger generations with an enlightened input of humanity and goodness. Animated by unshakable faith in divine providence and by a profound spirit of sacrifice, he faced difficulties and fatigue to breathe life into various apostolic works, including the Artigianelli Institute, Queriniana Publishers, the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth for men, and for women the Congregation of the Humble Sister Servants of the Lord. The secret of his intense and busy life is found in the long hours he gave to prayer. When he was overburdened with work, he increased the length of his encounter, heart to heart, with the Lord. He preferred to pause before the Blessed Sacrament, meditating upon the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, to gain spiritual fortitude and return to gaining people’s hearts, especially the young, to bring them back to the sources of life with fresh pastoral initiatives.
“May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you” (Ps 32:22). With these words, the liturgy invites us to make our own this hymn to God, creator and provider, accepting his plan into our lives. María Carmelo Sallés y Barangueras, a religious born in Vic in Spain in 1848, did just so. Filled with hope in spite of many trials, she, on seeing the progress of the Congregation of the Conceptionist Missionary Sisters of Teaching, which she founded in 1892, was able to sing with the Mother of God, “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:50). Her educational work, entrusted to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, continues to bear abundant fruit among young people through the generous dedication of her daughters who, like her, entrust themselves to God for whom all is possible.
I now turn to Marianne Cope, born in eighteen thirty-eight in Heppenheim, Germany. Only one year old when taken to the United States, in eighteen sixty-two she entered the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis at Syracuse, New York. Later, as Superior General of her congregation, Mother Marianne willingly embraced a call to care for the lepers of Hawaii after many others had refused. She personally went, with six of her fellow sisters, to manage a hospital on Oahu, later founding Malulani Hospital on Maui and opening a home for girls whose parents were lepers. Five years after that she accepted the invitation to open a home for women and girls on the island of Molokai itself, bravely going there herself and effectively ending her contact with the outside world. There she looked after Father Damien, already famous for his heroic work among the lepers, nursed him as he died and took over his work among male lepers. At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved Saint Francis.
Kateri Tekakwitha was born in today’s New York state in sixteen fifty-six to a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother who gave to her a sense of the living God. She was baptized at twenty years of age and, to escape persecution, she took refuge in Saint Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal. There she worked, faithful to the traditions of her people, although renouncing their religious convictions until her death at the age of twenty-four. Leading a simple life, Kateri remained faithful to her love for Jesus, to prayer and to daily Mass. Her greatest wish was to know and to do what pleased God. She lived a life radiant with faith and purity.
Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are. Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America! May God bless the first nations!
Anna Schaeffer, from Mindelstetten, as a young woman wished to enter a missionary order. She came from a poor background so, in order to earn the dowry needed for acceptance into the cloister, she worked as a maid. One day she suffered a terrible accident and received incurable burns on her legs which forced her to be bed-ridden for the rest of her life. So her sick-bed became her cloister cell and her suffering a missionary service. She struggled for a time to accept her fate, but then understood her situation as a loving call from the crucified One to follow him. Strengthened by daily communion, she became an untiring intercessor in prayer and a mirror of God’s love for the many who sought her counsel. May her apostolate of prayer and suffering, of sacrifice and expiation, be a shining example for believers in her homeland, and may her intercession strengthen the Christian hospice movement in its beneficial activity.
Dear brothers and sisters, these new saints, different in origin, language, nationality and social condition, are united among themselves and with the whole People of God in the mystery of salvation of Christ the Redeemer. With them, we too, together with the Synod Fathers from all parts of the world, proclaim to the Lord in the words of the psalm that he “is our help and our shield” and we invoke him saying, “may your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you” (Ps 32:20.22). May the witness of these new saints, and their lives generously spent for love of Christ, speak today to the whole Church, and may their intercession strengthen and sustain her in her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world.
SHARED FROM RADIO VATICANA
The Son of Man came to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mk 10:45)
Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear brothers and sisters!
Today the Church listens again to these words of Jesus, spoken by the Lord during his journey to Jerusalem, where he was to accomplish the mystery of his passion, death and resurrection. They are words which enshrine the meaning of Christ’s mission on earth, marked by his sacrifice, by his total self-giving. On this third Sunday of October, on which we celebrate World Mission Sunday, the Church listens to them with special attention and renews her conviction that she should always be fully dedicated to serve mankind and the Gospel, after the example of the One who gave himself up even to the sacrifice of his life.
I extend warm greetings to all of you who fill Saint Peter’s Square, especially the official delegations and the pilgrims who have come to celebrate the seven new saints. I greet with affection the Cardinals and Bishops who, during these days, are taking part in the Synodal Assembly on the New Evangelization. The coincidence between this ecclesiastical meeting and World Mission Sunday is a happy one; and the word of God that we have listened to sheds light on both subjects. It shows how to be evangelizers, called to bear witness and to proclaim the Christian message, configuring ourselves to Christ and following his very path. This is true both for the mission ad Gentes and for the new evangelization in places with ancient Christian roots.
The Son of Man came to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (cf. Mk 10:45)
These words were the blueprint for living of the seven Blessed men and women that the Church solemnly enrols this morning in the glorious ranks of the saints. With heroic courage they spent their lives in total consecration to the Lord and in the generous service of their brethren. They are sons and daughters of the Church who chose the path of service following the Lord. Holiness always rises up in the Church from the well-spring of the mystery of redemption, as foretold by the prophet Isaiah in the first reading: the Servant of the Lord is the righteous one who “shall make many to be accounted as righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities” (Is 53:11); he is Jesus Christ, crucified, risen and living in glory. Today’s canonization is an eloquent confirmation of this mysterious saving reality. The tenacious profession of faith of these seven generous disciples of Christ, their configuration to the Son of Man shines out brightly today in the whole Church.
Jacques Berthieu, born in 1838 in France, was passionate about Jesus Christ at an early age. During his parish ministry, he had the burning desire to save souls. Becoming a Jesuit, he wished to journey through the world for the glory of God. A tireless pastor on the island of Sainte Marie, then in Madagascar, he struggled against injustice while bringing succour to the poor and sick. The Malagasies thought of him as a priest come down from heaven, saying, You are our “father and mother!” He made himself all things to all men, drawing from prayer and his love of the sacred heart of Jesus the human and priestly force to face martyrdom in 1896. He died, saying “I prefer to die rather than renounce my faith”. Dear friends, may the life of this evangelizer be an encouragement and a model for priests that, like him, they will be men of God! May his example aid the many Christians of today persecuted for their faith! In this Year of Faith, may his intercession bring forth many fruits for Madagascar and the African Continent! May God bless the Malagasy people!
Pedro Calungsod was born around the year sixteen fifty-four, in the Visayas region of the Philippines. His love for Christ inspired him to train as a catechist with the Jesuit missionaries there. In sixteen sixty-eight, along with other young catechists, he accompanied Father Diego Luís de San Vitores to the Marianas Islands in order to evangelize the Chamorro people. Life there was hard and the missionaries also faced persecution arising from envy and slander. Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom. He died on the second of April, sixteen seventy-two. Witnesses record that Pedro could have fled for safety but chose to stay at Father Diego’s side. The priest was able to give Pedro absolution before he himself was killed. May the example and courageous witness of Pedro Calungsod inspire the dear people of the Philippines to announce the Kingdom bravely and to win souls for God!
Giovanni Battista Piamarta, priest of the Diocese of Brescia, was a great apostle of charity and of young people. He raised awareness of the need for a cultural and social presence of Catholicism in the modern world, and so he dedicated himself to the Christian, moral and professional growth of the younger generations with an enlightened input of humanity and goodness. Animated by unshakable faith in divine providence and by a profound spirit of sacrifice, he faced difficulties and fatigue to breathe life into various apostolic works, including the Artigianelli Institute, Queriniana Publishers, the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth for men, and for women the Congregation of the Humble Sister Servants of the Lord. The secret of his intense and busy life is found in the long hours he gave to prayer. When he was overburdened with work, he increased the length of his encounter, heart to heart, with the Lord. He preferred to pause before the Blessed Sacrament, meditating upon the passion, death and resurrection of Christ, to gain spiritual fortitude and return to gaining people’s hearts, especially the young, to bring them back to the sources of life with fresh pastoral initiatives.
“May your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you” (Ps 32:22). With these words, the liturgy invites us to make our own this hymn to God, creator and provider, accepting his plan into our lives. María Carmelo Sallés y Barangueras, a religious born in Vic in Spain in 1848, did just so. Filled with hope in spite of many trials, she, on seeing the progress of the Congregation of the Conceptionist Missionary Sisters of Teaching, which she founded in 1892, was able to sing with the Mother of God, “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation” (Lk 1:50). Her educational work, entrusted to the Immaculate Virgin Mary, continues to bear abundant fruit among young people through the generous dedication of her daughters who, like her, entrust themselves to God for whom all is possible.
I now turn to Marianne Cope, born in eighteen thirty-eight in Heppenheim, Germany. Only one year old when taken to the United States, in eighteen sixty-two she entered the Third Order Regular of Saint Francis at Syracuse, New York. Later, as Superior General of her congregation, Mother Marianne willingly embraced a call to care for the lepers of Hawaii after many others had refused. She personally went, with six of her fellow sisters, to manage a hospital on Oahu, later founding Malulani Hospital on Maui and opening a home for girls whose parents were lepers. Five years after that she accepted the invitation to open a home for women and girls on the island of Molokai itself, bravely going there herself and effectively ending her contact with the outside world. There she looked after Father Damien, already famous for his heroic work among the lepers, nursed him as he died and took over his work among male lepers. At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved Saint Francis.
Kateri Tekakwitha was born in today’s New York state in sixteen fifty-six to a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother who gave to her a sense of the living God. She was baptized at twenty years of age and, to escape persecution, she took refuge in Saint Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal. There she worked, faithful to the traditions of her people, although renouncing their religious convictions until her death at the age of twenty-four. Leading a simple life, Kateri remained faithful to her love for Jesus, to prayer and to daily Mass. Her greatest wish was to know and to do what pleased God. She lived a life radiant with faith and purity.
Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life in spite of the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are. Saint Kateri, Protectress of Canada and the first native American saint, we entrust to you the renewal of the faith in the first nations and in all of North America! May God bless the first nations!
Anna Schaeffer, from Mindelstetten, as a young woman wished to enter a missionary order. She came from a poor background so, in order to earn the dowry needed for acceptance into the cloister, she worked as a maid. One day she suffered a terrible accident and received incurable burns on her legs which forced her to be bed-ridden for the rest of her life. So her sick-bed became her cloister cell and her suffering a missionary service. She struggled for a time to accept her fate, but then understood her situation as a loving call from the crucified One to follow him. Strengthened by daily communion, she became an untiring intercessor in prayer and a mirror of God’s love for the many who sought her counsel. May her apostolate of prayer and suffering, of sacrifice and expiation, be a shining example for believers in her homeland, and may her intercession strengthen the Christian hospice movement in its beneficial activity.
Dear brothers and sisters, these new saints, different in origin, language, nationality and social condition, are united among themselves and with the whole People of God in the mystery of salvation of Christ the Redeemer. With them, we too, together with the Synod Fathers from all parts of the world, proclaim to the Lord in the words of the psalm that he “is our help and our shield” and we invoke him saying, “may your love be upon us, O Lord, as we place all our hope in you” (Ps 32:20.22). May the witness of these new saints, and their lives generously spent for love of Christ, speak today to the whole Church, and may their intercession strengthen and sustain her in her mission to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world.
SHARED FROM RADIO VATICANA
NOVENA PRAYER TO ST. JUDE PATRON OF HOPELESS CASES - DAY 2
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.O glorious apostle, SAINT JUDE THADDEUS, true relative of Jesus and Mary, I salute you through the most Sacred Heart of Jesus! Through this Heart I praise and thank God for all the graces He has bestowed upon you. Humbly prostrate before you, I implore you through this Heart to look down upon me with compassion. Oh, despise not my poor prayer; let not my trust be confounded! To you God has granted the privilege of aiding mankind in the most desperate cases. Oh, come to my aid that I may praise the mercies of God! All my life I will be grateful to you and will be your faithful client until I can thank you in heaven. Amen.Priest: "Blessed Apostle, with confidence we invoke you!"
People:"Blessed Apostle, with confidence we invoke you!"
Priest: "St. Jude, help of the hopeless, aid me in my distress."
People: "St. Jude, help of the hopeless, aid me in my distress."PRAY FOR US that we before death may expiate all our sins by sincere repentance and the worthy reception of the holy Sacraments.Pray for us that we may appease the Divine Justice and obtain a favorable judgment.Pray for us that we may be admitted into the company of the blessed to rejoice in the presence of our God forever.The following prayer to be recited by both priest and people.Saint Jude, glorious apostle, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the name of the traitor has caused you to be forgotten by many. But the Church honors and invokes you universally as the patron of difficult and desperate cases. Pray for me who am so miserable. Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege accorded to you to bring visible and speedy help where help was almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need that I may receive the consolation and help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations and sufferings, particularly — (here make your request) — and that I may bless God with you and all the elect throughout all eternity.I promise you, O blessed JUDE, to be ever mindful of this great favor, and I will never cease to honor you as my special and powerful patron and do all in my power to encourage devotion to you. Amen.Saint Jude, pray for us and for all who honor you and invoke your aid.(Say the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be to the Father, 3 times.)
NEW SAINTS CANONIZED OCT. 21 - 7 HOLY PEOPLE
SUNDAY, October 21, 2012/ 7 New Saints Canonized at the Vatican, Rome. Here are
the would-be Saints:1. Bl. ANNA SCHAFFER, a lay German woman who wanted to be a missionary, but could not because of a succession of physical accidents and diseases. She accepted her infirmity as a way of sanctification. Her grave has been a pilgrimage site since her death in 1925.
2. Bl. KATERI TEKAKWITHA, daughter of a Christian Algonquin mother and a Mohawk father in upstate New York, will become the first Native American to be canonized. She was baptized by a Jesuit missionary in 1676 when she was 20, and she died in Canada four years later.
3. Bl. MARIANNE COPE of Molokai led a group of sisters from New York to the Hawaiian Islands in 1883 to establish a system of nursing care for leprosy patients;
4. Bl. CARMEN SALLES Y BARANGUERAS, the Spanish founder of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception. She worked with disadvantaged girls and prostitutes and saw that early education was essential for helping young women. She died in 1911.
5. Bl. GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIAMARTA, an Italian priest and founder of the Congregation of the Holy Family of Nazareth for men and the Humble Servants of the Lord for women. He died in 1913.
6. Bl. JACQUES BERTHIEU, Jesuit priest, who was born in Polminhac, France, and was martyred June 8, 1896, in Ambiatibe, Madagascar.
7. Bl. PEDRO CALUNGSOD, a lay catechist born in Cebu, Philippines, and martyred April 2, 1672, in Guam.
SHARED FROM FR. JORIZ CALSA
EUROPE : RUSSIA : UNIVERSITY ANNOUNCES CHAIR IN THEOLOGY
ASIA NEWS REPORT
University announces chair in theology
by Nina Achmatova
National University for Nuclear Studies launches courses in theology, while the Russian Orthodox Church prepares a document on faith and science.
Moscow (AsiaNews) - One of the most prestigious scientific schools in Russia, the National University for Nuclear Studies, also known as "Mefi" is about to open a new department dedicated to theological studies. Announced by Forbes magazine, the news has quickly spread on the internet causing some controversy. The initiative, reportedly, was undertaken by the university, but there are those who will see yet another "pitch invasion" of the Russian Orthodox Church in society, in a climate of tension in relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and civil society, after the Pussy Riot case.
The Department will be chaired by the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, Hilarion, chairman of the Synodal Department for External Relations of the Patriarchate. Archpriest Vladimir Shmaliy, Vice Chancellor of the University's postgraduate church studies, explained that the idea of a theology department belongs solely to the university and dates back to 2010, during a visit by Patriarch Kirill. In the past Mefi hosted courses for Orthodox seminarians on physics, astronomy and chemistry and now Christian scholars "reciprocate" with courses on the history of the Church, dogma and religious culture. They are, however, voluntary lessons and the university said it would not prohibit students expressing different and contrary views and religious beliefs will not be a discriminating factor for access to courses.
As reported by Izvestia, the Church is preparing a document entitled "The balance between faith and science" and the new theology department should help to provide students with a less Manichean vision of reality, "in which faith and reason are not necessarily at odds, "explained the Patriarchate.
SHARED FROM ASIA NEWS IT
University announces chair in theology
by Nina Achmatova
National University for Nuclear Studies launches courses in theology, while the Russian Orthodox Church prepares a document on faith and science.
_1019-teologia_e_scienza.jpg)
Moscow (AsiaNews) - One of the most prestigious scientific schools in Russia, the National University for Nuclear Studies, also known as "Mefi" is about to open a new department dedicated to theological studies. Announced by Forbes magazine, the news has quickly spread on the internet causing some controversy. The initiative, reportedly, was undertaken by the university, but there are those who will see yet another "pitch invasion" of the Russian Orthodox Church in society, in a climate of tension in relations between the Moscow Patriarchate and civil society, after the Pussy Riot case.
The Department will be chaired by the Metropolitan of Volokolamsk, Hilarion, chairman of the Synodal Department for External Relations of the Patriarchate. Archpriest Vladimir Shmaliy, Vice Chancellor of the University's postgraduate church studies, explained that the idea of a theology department belongs solely to the university and dates back to 2010, during a visit by Patriarch Kirill. In the past Mefi hosted courses for Orthodox seminarians on physics, astronomy and chemistry and now Christian scholars "reciprocate" with courses on the history of the Church, dogma and religious culture. They are, however, voluntary lessons and the university said it would not prohibit students expressing different and contrary views and religious beliefs will not be a discriminating factor for access to courses.
As reported by Izvestia, the Church is preparing a document entitled "The balance between faith and science" and the new theology department should help to provide students with a less Manichean vision of reality, "in which faith and reason are not necessarily at odds, "explained the Patriarchate.
SHARED FROM ASIA NEWS IT
AUSTRALIA : NEW ST. MACKILLOP CONVENT AND PARK
New Josephite Convent & Sacred Mary
MacKillop Park
Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese REPORT
18 Oct 2012
The
Sisters of St Joseph will once again don the distinctive teal blue scarves they
wore at the canonisation of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop in Rome two years ago
when they attend the blessing and opening of Penola's new Josephite convent on
Sunday, 28 October.
With the Feast day of Australia's first saint now celebrated on 8 August each year, the anniversary of Mary MacKillop's canonisation yesterday passed without any formal or special recognition. But all this will change in 10 days time when the Sisters and the entire town pull out all the stops for the blessing and opening not only of the new convent but of the Mary MacKillop Stable School Park next door which is being redeveloped as a pilgrimage centre and a sacred site of international importance.
The Most Rev Leonard Faulkner, Emeritus Archbishop of Adelaide will preside over the ceremony when he will bless and officially open the newly-completed convent and also bless the adjacent Mary MacKillop Stable School Park.
"Archbishop Leonard Faulkner has been a great supporter of the town and was instrumental in helping raise funds for the building of the Interpretive Mary MacKillop Centre in 1998," says Clare Larkin, volunteer staffer at the Centre. "He has a long association with us in Penola and been at all our special events, so we are delighted he will be here for the ceremony on Sunday, 28 October."
Also present at the ceremony will be Father Paul Gardiner, sj who for 25 years was Postulator for the Cause of Mary MacKillop and now lives in quiet retirement in Penola.
"He is our treasure and very dear to all of us here in Penola," says Clare who describes Fr Paul as "a walking encylopaedia."
"Anything we want to know about Mary MacKillop he has right there at his finger tips."
The day will start with a procession led by the young primary school students from Penola's Mary MacKillop Memorial School. Along with the staff they'll be dressed in period costume and will be followed by volunteers and the team from the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre who will also carry a pilgrim staff to symbolise the town's significance as a pilgrim site.
Also
among those in the procession will be the 36 pilgrims taking part in the Sisters
of St Joseph's annual "In the Footsteps of Mary MacKillop" pilgrimage which
begins each year from the Heritage Centre in East Melbourne near the birthplace
of St Mary of the Cross and continues through Victoria and South Australia
charting her life of holiness, selflessness, generosity and
inspiration.
Those on pilgrimage begin their journey in Melbourne on Wednesday 24 October and arrive in Penola in time for the celebration.
Sister Marion Gambin, Provincial Leader of the Josephite Congregation of South Australia will also be present along with the Sister of St Joseph's Congregational Leadership team comprising Sr Anne Derwin, Sr Sheila McCreanor, Sr Eileen Lenihan, Sr Annette Arnold and Sr Ann Gilroy, who has also written the liturgy for the ceremony.
Two other sisters who will have key roles in the ceremony are Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds who were posted to Penola last April and will be the permanent residents of Penola's brand new convent.
"Penola is a very significant site both for the Sisters of St Joseph, the whole of Penola and for the whole world because Mary MacKillop is now a Saint for the whole Catholic Church. So we decided we should have a permanent base there where we could have the sisters living comfortably," Sr Sheila McCreanor explains.
Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds have spent the past 18 months living in Penola and guiding construction of the convent, which will not only be their home but has been built with extra bedrooms and facilities to provide accommodation and hospitality to visiting Sisters of St Joseph.
"The sisters very much see their role as promoting the story of Mary MacKillop as more and more pilgrims and tourists are attracted to the town," says Sr Sheila.
Over the past 12 months more than 15,000 pilgrims from across Australia as well as overseas visited Penola to learn more about the life and work of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop and the early years when she opened her first school and gave free education to the poor, and founded Australia's first home-grown religious congregation: the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
These numbers are expected to increase each year with Penola fast becoming a major pilgrimage site for both Catholic and non Catholics.
In addition to the original
stone school house Fr Julian Tenison Woods built to replace the small wooden
stable school back in 1866 - now recreated as it would have been in 1866 with
blackboards, chalk, slates and specially recreated desks - visitors to Penola
are able to attend Mass in St Joseph Church where Fr Tenison Wood was once
parish priest and visit the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre where they can
explore the life of Australia's first saint via state of the art visual
displays, text panels as well as view videos of her canonisation in Rome.
The Centre also features a section devoted to Fr Tenison Woods who not only helped St Mary of the Cross found her first school but was instrumental in helping her establish the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph. A renowned scientist as well as a priest, the gallery also contains many of the fossils he found during his journeys into the South Australian outback.
Like the new convent, the park, located on the site of Mary MacKillop and Tenison Woods' school in the converted stable, will be part of the historic complex that includes the Interpretive Centre, the stone house school and St Joseph's Church.
"Mary MacKillop's established the first convent for Sisters of St Joseph in Adelaide but by 1868 there was also one in Penola," says Sr Ann Gilmore. "But the convent in Penola built behind the church has had a checked history. By 1871 there was no one living there, then re-established in 1875 it continued until 1885 when it was once again abandoned and did not reopen until 1936."
The Sisters of St Joseph returned to Penola that year, reopening St Joseph's School which continued under that name until the Golden Jubilee year of 1986 when in tribute to its founder, the name of the primary school was changed to the Mary MacKillop Memorial School.
The Sisters who taught at the school occupied the old Convent but in recent times, as lay teachers took over, the convent became part of the school buildings and a new convent was needed for the two sisters who were to be based permanently in Penola.
The opportunity came in the wake of the tornado that swept through
the town less than two months before Mary MacKillop's October 2010 canonisation.
In a freak storm, the tornado ripped through the town, destroying shops and
homes and tearing away part of the roof of MacKillop Tenison-Woods school house
and causing extensive water damage at the Mary MacKillop Interpretive
Centre.
With state grants to help the town rebuild, the school house and Centre were repaired in time for the influx of tourists to celebrate the canonisation of Australia's first saint. But some houses were beyond repair, and one owned by an elderly woman who had been moved to a nursing home, was completely destroyed. The woman died some months later and 12 months ago the block of land on which her home had stood came up for sale.
Coincidentally the land was right next door to the site of the old stable school and what the Sisters of St Joseph planned to develop as pilgrim centre and park for reflection and prayer.
The Order decided to buy the block and construction of the new convent began.
The completion of the convent marks stage one of the project with stage two consisting of the redevelopment of the Park with internet facilities as well as the pilgrim information centre and tranquil gardens and pathways.
A committee comprising representatives of the Sisters of St Joseph, the Wattle Range Council, the South Australian Tourism Committee, the Adelaide Archdiocese and Limestone Coast Tourism is overseeing the development of the Mary MacKillop stable school park. Fundraising for park is also continuing.
SHARED FROM ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY
Catholic Communications, Sydney Archdiocese REPORT
18 Oct 2012
St Mary of the Cross MacKillop
With the Feast day of Australia's first saint now celebrated on 8 August each year, the anniversary of Mary MacKillop's canonisation yesterday passed without any formal or special recognition. But all this will change in 10 days time when the Sisters and the entire town pull out all the stops for the blessing and opening not only of the new convent but of the Mary MacKillop Stable School Park next door which is being redeveloped as a pilgrimage centre and a sacred site of international importance.
The Most Rev Leonard Faulkner, Emeritus Archbishop of Adelaide will preside over the ceremony when he will bless and officially open the newly-completed convent and also bless the adjacent Mary MacKillop Stable School Park.
"Archbishop Leonard Faulkner has been a great supporter of the town and was instrumental in helping raise funds for the building of the Interpretive Mary MacKillop Centre in 1998," says Clare Larkin, volunteer staffer at the Centre. "He has a long association with us in Penola and been at all our special events, so we are delighted he will be here for the ceremony on Sunday, 28 October."
Also present at the ceremony will be Father Paul Gardiner, sj who for 25 years was Postulator for the Cause of Mary MacKillop and now lives in quiet retirement in Penola.
"He is our treasure and very dear to all of us here in Penola," says Clare who describes Fr Paul as "a walking encylopaedia."
"Anything we want to know about Mary MacKillop he has right there at his finger tips."
The day will start with a procession led by the young primary school students from Penola's Mary MacKillop Memorial School. Along with the staff they'll be dressed in period costume and will be followed by volunteers and the team from the Mary MacKillop Interpretive Centre who will also carry a pilgrim staff to symbolise the town's significance as a pilgrim site.
Archbishop Emeritus Leonard Faulkner will
Preside over Canonisation Anniversary Celebrations in Penola
Those on pilgrimage begin their journey in Melbourne on Wednesday 24 October and arrive in Penola in time for the celebration.
Sister Marion Gambin, Provincial Leader of the Josephite Congregation of South Australia will also be present along with the Sister of St Joseph's Congregational Leadership team comprising Sr Anne Derwin, Sr Sheila McCreanor, Sr Eileen Lenihan, Sr Annette Arnold and Sr Ann Gilroy, who has also written the liturgy for the ceremony.
Two other sisters who will have key roles in the ceremony are Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds who were posted to Penola last April and will be the permanent residents of Penola's brand new convent.
"Penola is a very significant site both for the Sisters of St Joseph, the whole of Penola and for the whole world because Mary MacKillop is now a Saint for the whole Catholic Church. So we decided we should have a permanent base there where we could have the sisters living comfortably," Sr Sheila McCreanor explains.
Sr Mary MacNamara and Sr Christine Symonds have spent the past 18 months living in Penola and guiding construction of the convent, which will not only be their home but has been built with extra bedrooms and facilities to provide accommodation and hospitality to visiting Sisters of St Joseph.
"The sisters very much see their role as promoting the story of Mary MacKillop as more and more pilgrims and tourists are attracted to the town," says Sr Sheila.
Over the past 12 months more than 15,000 pilgrims from across Australia as well as overseas visited Penola to learn more about the life and work of St Mary of the Cross MacKillop and the early years when she opened her first school and gave free education to the poor, and founded Australia's first home-grown religious congregation: the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart.
These numbers are expected to increase each year with Penola fast becoming a major pilgrimage site for both Catholic and non Catholics.
The original stable schoolhouse in Penola
founded by St Mary of the Cross MacKillop
The Centre also features a section devoted to Fr Tenison Woods who not only helped St Mary of the Cross found her first school but was instrumental in helping her establish the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph. A renowned scientist as well as a priest, the gallery also contains many of the fossils he found during his journeys into the South Australian outback.
Like the new convent, the park, located on the site of Mary MacKillop and Tenison Woods' school in the converted stable, will be part of the historic complex that includes the Interpretive Centre, the stone house school and St Joseph's Church.
"Mary MacKillop's established the first convent for Sisters of St Joseph in Adelaide but by 1868 there was also one in Penola," says Sr Ann Gilmore. "But the convent in Penola built behind the church has had a checked history. By 1871 there was no one living there, then re-established in 1875 it continued until 1885 when it was once again abandoned and did not reopen until 1936."
The Sisters of St Joseph returned to Penola that year, reopening St Joseph's School which continued under that name until the Golden Jubilee year of 1986 when in tribute to its founder, the name of the primary school was changed to the Mary MacKillop Memorial School.
The Sisters who taught at the school occupied the old Convent but in recent times, as lay teachers took over, the convent became part of the school buildings and a new convent was needed for the two sisters who were to be based permanently in Penola.
The historic schoolhouse in Penola
SA
With state grants to help the town rebuild, the school house and Centre were repaired in time for the influx of tourists to celebrate the canonisation of Australia's first saint. But some houses were beyond repair, and one owned by an elderly woman who had been moved to a nursing home, was completely destroyed. The woman died some months later and 12 months ago the block of land on which her home had stood came up for sale.
Coincidentally the land was right next door to the site of the old stable school and what the Sisters of St Joseph planned to develop as pilgrim centre and park for reflection and prayer.
The Order decided to buy the block and construction of the new convent began.
The completion of the convent marks stage one of the project with stage two consisting of the redevelopment of the Park with internet facilities as well as the pilgrim information centre and tranquil gardens and pathways.
A committee comprising representatives of the Sisters of St Joseph, the Wattle Range Council, the South Australian Tourism Committee, the Adelaide Archdiocese and Limestone Coast Tourism is overseeing the development of the Mary MacKillop stable school park. Fundraising for park is also continuing.
SHARED FROM ARCHDIOCESE OF SYDNEY
ASIA : RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN DANGER FOR CHRISTIANS
UCAN REPORT
Vatican
report paints picture of widespread gloom
A new Catholic report on minority religious freedom in
Asia said persecution of Christians continued or worsened in many countries in
Asia last year.
Issued yesterday in Rome by Aid to the Church in
Need, a Vatican foundation charged with helping Catholics in poorer countries
spread the faith, the report singled out a “terrible year” for Pakistan
following the killings of two top politicians, Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti,
who opposed strict blasphemy laws.
China saw “tremendous violations of religious freedom,” it added, while Vietnam looked to be following its northern neighbor by promoting patriotic religious groups in opposition to the Church.
Myanmar was seen as making little headway towards tolerance of minority religions despite its recent political reforms, while in North Korea religious freedom continued to be “totally denied.”
Meanwhile, India witnessed growing enforcement of anti-conversion laws which coincided with a rise in attacks against minorities, the report said.
Speaking at the Rome launch yesterday, John Dayal, secretary-general of the All India Christian Council, said the recent rapid rise of extremist Hindu groups in opposition to what they perceive as an Islamic threat was the main factor behind worsening religious persecution during 2011.
“India is in a state of denial,” he said. “It refuses to acknowledge that there is such violence taking place.”
With the lowest group in India’s now-discredited caste system now comprising 60 percent Christians, the possibility that ‘untouchables’ could unite under Christianity and pose a threat “to the politics of the upper castes” had prompted authorities to slowly strip away their right to choose a religious faith, said Dayal.
Elsewhere, attacks by Muslims on Christians continued in the southern Philippines last year, according to the Aid to the Church in Need report, while in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka intolerance between different religions was noted on numerous occasions.
Thailand was seen as one of the few bright spots as one of the first countries in Asia to make “progress in inter-religious dialogue,” it said.
SHARED FROM UCAN NEWS
China saw “tremendous violations of religious freedom,” it added, while Vietnam looked to be following its northern neighbor by promoting patriotic religious groups in opposition to the Church.
Myanmar was seen as making little headway towards tolerance of minority religions despite its recent political reforms, while in North Korea religious freedom continued to be “totally denied.”
Meanwhile, India witnessed growing enforcement of anti-conversion laws which coincided with a rise in attacks against minorities, the report said.
Speaking at the Rome launch yesterday, John Dayal, secretary-general of the All India Christian Council, said the recent rapid rise of extremist Hindu groups in opposition to what they perceive as an Islamic threat was the main factor behind worsening religious persecution during 2011.
“India is in a state of denial,” he said. “It refuses to acknowledge that there is such violence taking place.”
With the lowest group in India’s now-discredited caste system now comprising 60 percent Christians, the possibility that ‘untouchables’ could unite under Christianity and pose a threat “to the politics of the upper castes” had prompted authorities to slowly strip away their right to choose a religious faith, said Dayal.
Elsewhere, attacks by Muslims on Christians continued in the southern Philippines last year, according to the Aid to the Church in Need report, while in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka intolerance between different religions was noted on numerous occasions.
Thailand was seen as one of the few bright spots as one of the first countries in Asia to make “progress in inter-religious dialogue,” it said.
SHARED FROM UCAN NEWS
AFRICA : DEM. REP. OF CONGO : ARMED GROUPS IN EAST
Agenzia Fides REPORT – There are more than 30
armed groups operating in the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of
Congo, particularly in North Kivu. This is what is stated in a report by the UN
Mission for the Stabilization of Congo (MONUSCO). Most of these groups are made
up of a few hundred fighters, while the largest group seems to be that of the
Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR), which has about 3,000 men. These
groups, in turn, create shifting alliances with the regular Congolese army and
its current adversary, the M23, the movement made up of military deserters that
a recent UN report says is supported by the governments of Rwanda and
Uganda.
"The attention of the international community of the M23 hides the more complex reality of North Kivu" local sources tell Fides Agency, which trace back to the current instability "March 20, 1993, when Ndoto, in the Walikale territory, the Nyanga and Hunde came together to respond to the provocations of the Tutsi and Hutu: challenging the power of traditional leaders, raising of the flag of Rwanda on Congolese territory, etc.. This war spread like wildfire in the forest and saw its epicenter move to the Masisi territory. "
"The situation we face today in North Kivu, in particular in Rutshuru and Masisi, is an emanation of this war and subsequent conflicts" continue our sources. "With time and the change of circumstances, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict on the one hand, and Hunde- Nyanga on the other, gave way to other claims and the fact that good governance has never been the hallmark of power in our State, the eastern region of the DRC remains the soft underbelly of the whole Country and the soft underbelly of the entire Great Lakes region in Africa." The lack of a State authority, able to ensure the safety of all and to initiate the economic development of the region, coupled with the interference of foreign interests, therefore favored the proliferation of armed groups vying for control of the mines of the area.
"This is not about tribal wars. All segments of society are realizing, and say loudly, that there is no authority in Congo. In other words, power is on the way and when that happens, who is stronger will take it", concludes our source. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 19/10/2012)
"The attention of the international community of the M23 hides the more complex reality of North Kivu" local sources tell Fides Agency, which trace back to the current instability "March 20, 1993, when Ndoto, in the Walikale territory, the Nyanga and Hunde came together to respond to the provocations of the Tutsi and Hutu: challenging the power of traditional leaders, raising of the flag of Rwanda on Congolese territory, etc.. This war spread like wildfire in the forest and saw its epicenter move to the Masisi territory. "
"The situation we face today in North Kivu, in particular in Rutshuru and Masisi, is an emanation of this war and subsequent conflicts" continue our sources. "With time and the change of circumstances, the Hutu-Tutsi conflict on the one hand, and Hunde- Nyanga on the other, gave way to other claims and the fact that good governance has never been the hallmark of power in our State, the eastern region of the DRC remains the soft underbelly of the whole Country and the soft underbelly of the entire Great Lakes region in Africa." The lack of a State authority, able to ensure the safety of all and to initiate the economic development of the region, coupled with the interference of foreign interests, therefore favored the proliferation of armed groups vying for control of the mines of the area.
"This is not about tribal wars. All segments of society are realizing, and say loudly, that there is no authority in Congo. In other words, power is on the way and when that happens, who is stronger will take it", concludes our source. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 19/10/2012)
TODAY'S MASS ONLINE SUNDAY OCT. 21, 2012
| Isaiah
53: 10 - 11
| |
| 10 | Yet it was the will of the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when he makes himself an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand; |
| 11 | he shall see the fruit of the travail of his soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities. |
| Psalms
33: 4 - 5, 18 - 20, 22
| |
| 4 | For the word of the LORD is upright; and all his work is done in faithfulness. |
| 5 | He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the LORD. |
| 18 | Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, |
| 19 | that he may deliver their soul from death, and keep them alive in famine. |
| 20 | Our soul waits for the LORD; he is our help and shield. |
| 22 | Let thy steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in thee. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Hebrews
4: 14 - 16
| |
| 14 | Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. |
| 15 | For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. |
| 16 | Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. |
| Mark
10: 35 - 45
| |
| 35 | And James and John, the sons of Zeb'edee, came forward to him, and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you." |
| 36 | And he said to them, "What do you want me to do for you?" |
| 37 | And they said to him, "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." |
| 38 | But Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or to be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?" |
| 39 | And they said to him, "We are able." And Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; |
| 40 | but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." |
| 41 | And when the ten heard it, they began to be indignant at James and John. |
| 42 | And Jesus called them to him and said to them, "You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. |
| 43 | But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, |
| 44 | and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. |
| 45 | For the Son of man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." |
Oct 21, 2012 - 29th Sun Ordinary Time
2012
St. Hilarion
TODAY'S SAINT: OCT. 21: ST. HILARION
St. Hilarion
ABBOT
Feast: October 21
Information:
Feast Day:
October 21
Born:
291 at Gaza, Palestine
Died:
371 at Cyprus
Hilarion was born in a little town called Tabatha, five miles to the south of Gaza; he sprang like a rose out of thorns, his parents being idolaters. He was sent by them very young to Alexandria to study grammar, when, by his progress in learning, he gave great proofs of his wit, for which, and his good temper and dispositions, he was exceedingly beloved by all that knew him. Being brought to the knowledge of the Christian faith, he was baptized and became immediately a new man, renouncing all the mad sports of the circus and the entertainments of the theatre, and taking no delight but in the churches and assemblies of the faithful. Having heard of St. Antony, whose name was famous in Egypt, he went into the desert to see him. Moved by the example of his virtue he changed his habit and stayed with him two months, observing his manner of life, his fervour in prayer, his humility in receiving the brethren, his severity in reproving them, his earnestness in exhorting them, and his perseverance in austerities. But not being able to bear the frequent concourse of those who resorted to St. Antony to be healed of diseases or delivered from devils, and being desirous to begin to serve God like St. Antony in perfect solitude, he returned with certain monks into his own country. Upon his arrival there, finding his father and mother both dead, he gave part of his goods to his brethren and the rest to the poor, reserving nothing for himself.
He was then but fifteen years of age, this happening about the year 307. He retired into a desert seven miles from Majuma, toward Egypt, between the seashore on one side and certain fens on the other. His friends forewarned him that the place was notorious for murders and robberies, but his answer was that he feared nothing but eternal death. Everybody admired his fervour and extraordinary manner of life. In the beginning of his retirement certain robbers who lurked in those deserts asked him what he would do if thieves and assassins came to him? He answered, "The poor and naked fear no thieves." "But they may kill you," said they. "It is true," said the holy man, "and for this very reason I am not afraid of them, because it is my endeavour to be always prepared for death." So great fervour and resolution in one so young and so tender as our saint was both surprising and edifying to all who knew him. His constitution was so weak and delicate that the least excess of heat or cold affected him very sensibly; yet his whole clothing consisted only of a piece of sackcloth, a leather coat, which St. Antony gave him, and an ordinary short cloak. Living in solitude, he thought himself at liberty to practice certain mortifications which the respect we owe to our neighbour makes unseasonable in the world. He cut his hair only once a year, against Easter; never changed any coat till it was worn out, and never washed the sackcloth which he had once put on, saying, "It is idle to look for neatness in a hair shirt."
At his first entering on this penitential life he renounced the use of bread; and for six years together his whole diet was fifteen figs a day, which he never took till sunset. When he felt the attacks of any temptation of the flesh, being angry with himself and beating his breast, he would say to his body, "I will take order, thou little ass, that thou shalt not kick; I will feed thee with straw instead of corn; and will load and weary thee, that so thou mayest think rather how to get a little bit to eat than of pleasure." He then retrenched part of his scanty meal, and sometimes fasted three or four days without eating; and when after this he was fainting, he sustained his body only with a few dried figs and the juice of herbs. At the same time, praying and singing, he would be breaking the ground with a rake, that his labour might add to the trouble of his fasting. His employment was digging or tilling the earth, or, in imitation of the Egyptian monks, weaving small twigs together with great rushes in making baskets whereby he provided himself with the frugal necessaries of life. During the first four years of his penance he had no other shelter from the inclemencies of the weather than a little hovel or arbour which he made himself of reeds and rushes which he found in a neighbouring marsh, and which he had woven together. Afterwards he built himself a little cell, which was still to be seen in St. Jerome's time; it was but four feet broad and five feet in height, and was a little longer than the extent of his body, so that a person would have rather taken it for a grave than a house. During the course of his penance he made some alteration in his diet, but never in favour of his appetites. From the age of twenty-one he for three years lived on a measure which was little more than half a pint of pulse steeped in cold water a-day; and for the next three years his whole food was dry bread with salt and water. From his twenty-seventh year to his thirty-first he ate only wild herbs and raw roots; and from thirty-one to thirty-five he took for his daily food six ounces of barley bread a day, to which he added a few kitchen herbs, but half boiled and without oil. But perceiving his sight to grow dim and his body to be subject to an itching with an unnatural kind of scurf and roughness, he added a little oil to this diet. Thus he went on till his sixty-fourth year when, conceiving by the decay of his strength that his death was drawing near, he retrenched even his bread, and from that time to his eightieth year his whole meal never exceeded five ounces. When he was fourscore years of age there were made for him little weak broths or gruels of flour and herbs, the whole quantity of his meat and drink scarce amounting to the weight of four ounces. Thus he passed his whole life; and he never broke his fast till sunset, not even upon the highest feasts or in his greatest sickness.
Anyone who considers the condition of man in this state of trial and the malice of the enemy of our salvation will easily conceive that our saint did not pass all these years, nor arrive at so eminent a degree of virtue and sanctity, without violent temptations and assaults from the infernal spirit; in all which he was victorious by the assistance of omnipotent grace. Sometimes his soul was covered with a dark cloud, and his heart was dry and oppressed with bitter anguish; but the deafer heaven seemed to his cries on such occasions, the louder and the more earnestly he persevered knocking. To have dropped the shield of prayer under these temptations would have been to perish. At other times his mind was haunted and his imagination filled with impure images, or with the vanities of the theatre and circus. The phantoms of the enemy St. Hilarion dissipated by casting himself upon his knees and signing his forehead with the cross of Christ; and, being enlightened and strengthened by a supernatural grace, he discovered his snares, and never suffered himself to be imposed upon by the artifices by which that subtle fiend strove to withdraw him from holy prayer, in which the saint spent the days and great part of the nights.
St. Hilarion had spent above twenty years in his desert when he wrought his first miracle. A certain married woman of Eleutheropolis, who was the scorn of her husband for her barrenness, sought him out in his solitude, and by her tears and importunities prevailed upon him to pray that God would bless her with fruitfulness; and before the year's end she brought forth a son, A second miracle much enhanced the saint's reputation. Elpidius, who was afterwards prefect of the praetorium, and his wife Aristeneta, returning from a visit of devotion they had made to St. Antony to receive his blessing and instructions, arrived at Gaza, where their three children fell sick, and their fever proving superior to the power of medicines they were brought to the last extremity, and their recovery despaired of by the physicians. The mother, like one distracted, addressed herself to Hilarion, who, moved by her tears, went to Gaza to visit them. Upon his invoking the holy name of Jesus by their bedside, the children fell into a violent sweat, by which they were so refreshed as to be able to eat, to know their mother, and kiss the saint's hand. Upon the report of this miracle many flocked to the saint, desiring to embrace a monastic life under his direction. Till that time neither Syria nor Palestine were acquainted with that penitential state; so that St. Hilarion was the first founder of it in those countries, as Antony had been in Egypt. Among other miraculous cures, several persons possessed by devils were delivered by our saint. The most remarkable were Marisitas, a young man of the territory about Jerusalem, so strong that he boasted he could carry seven bushels of corn; and Orion, a rich man of the city of Aila, who, after his cure, pressed the saint to accept many great presents, at least for the poor. But the holy hermit persisted obstinately to refuse touching any of them, bidding him bestow them himself. St. Hilarion restored sight to a woman of Facidia, a town near Rinocorura, in Egypt, who had been blind ten years. A citizen of Majuma, called Italicus, who was a Christian, kept horses to run in the circus against a Duumvir of Gaza, who adored Mamas, which was the great idol of Gaza, that word signifying in Syriac, Lord of men. Italicus, knowing that his adversary had recourse to spells to stop his horses, came to St. Hilarion, by whose blessing his horses seemed to fly while the others seemed fettered; upon seeing which the people cried out that Mamas was vanquished by Christ. From the model which our saint set, a great number of monasteries were founded all over Palestine. St. Hilarion visited them all on certain days before the vintage.
St. Hilarion was informed by revelation in Palestine, where he then was, of the death of St. Antony. He was then about sixty-five years old, and had been for two years much afflicted at the great number of bishops, priests, and people that were continually resorting to him, by which his contemplation was interrupted. At length, regretting the loss of that sweet solitude and obscurity which he formerly enjoyed, he resolved to leave that country, to prevent which the people assembled to the number of ten thousand to watch him. He told them he would neither eat nor drink till they let him go; and seeing him pass seven days without taking anything they left him. He then chose forty monks who were able to walk without breaking their fast (that is, without eating till after sunset), and with them he travelled into Egypt. On the fifth day he arrived at Peleusium; and in six days more at Babylon, in Egypt. Two days after he came to the city of Aphroditon, where he applied himself to the deacon Baisanes, who used to let dromedaries to those who had desired to visit St. Antony, for carrying water which they had occasion for in that desert. The saint desired to celebrate the anniversary of St. Antony's death by watching all night in the place where he died. After travelling three days in a horrible desert they came to St. Antony's mountain, where they found two monks, Isaac and Pelusius, who had been his disciples, and the first his interpreter. It was a very high steep rock of a mile in circuit, at the foot of which was a rivulet, with abundance of palm-trees on the borders. St. Hilarion walked all over the place with the disciples of St. Antony. Here it was, said they, that he sang, here he prayed; there he laboured, and there he reposed himself when he was weary. He himself planted these vines and these little trees; he tilled this piece of ground with his own hands; he dug this basin with abundance of labour, to water his garden, and he used this hoe to work with several years together. St. Hilarion laid himself upon his bed and kissed it as if it had been still warm. The cell contained no more space in length and breadth than what was necessary for a man to stretch himself in to sleep. On the top of the mountain (to which the ascent was very difficult, turning like a vine) they found two cells of the same size, to which he often retired to avoid a number of visitors and even the conversation of his own disciples: they were hewn in a rock, nothing but doors being added to them. When they came to the garden, "Do you see," said Isaac, "this little garden planted with trees and pot-herbs? About three years since a herd of wild asses coming to destroy it, he stopped one of the first of them and, striking him on the sides with his staff, said, 'Why do you eat what you did not sow?' From that time forward they only came hither to drink, without meddling with the trees or herbs." St. Hilarion asked to see the place where he was buried. They carried him to a bye place; but it is uncertain whether they showed it him or no; for they showed no grave, and only said that St. Antony had given the strictest charge that his grave should be concealed, fearing lest Pergamius, who was a very rich man in that country, should carry the body home and cause a church to be built for it.
St. Hilarion returned from this place to Aphroditon, and, retiring with only two disciples into a neighbouring desert, exercised himself with more earnestness than ever in abstinence and silence; saying, according to his custom, that he then only began to serve Jesus Christ. It had not rained in the country for three years, that is, ever since the death of St. Antony, when the people in deep affliction and misery addressed themselves to St. Hilarion, whom they looked upon as St. Antony's successor, imploring his compassion and prayers. The saint, sensibly affected with their distress, lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, and immediately obtained a plentiful rain. Also many labourers and herdsmen who were stung by serpents and venomous beasts were perfectly cured by anointing their wounds with oil which he had blessed and given them. Though oil be the natural and sovereign antidote against poison, these cures by his blessing were esteemed miraculous. The saint, seeing the extraordinary honours which were paid him in that place, departed privately towards Alexandria, in order to proceed to the desert of Oasis. It not being his custom to stop in great cities, he turned from Alexandria into Brutium, a remote suburb of that city, where several monks dwelt. He left this place the same evening, and when these monks very importunately pressed his stay he told them that it was necessary for their security that he should leave them. The sequel showed that he had the spirit of prophecy; for that very night armed men arrived there in pursuit of him, with an order to put him to death. When Julian the Apostate ascended the throne, the pagans of Gaza obtained an order from that prince to kill him, in revenge of the affront he had put upon their god Mamas, and of the many conversions he had made; and they had sent this party into Egypt to execute the sentence. The soldiers, finding themselves disappointed at Brutium, said he well deserved the character of a magician which he had at Gaza. The saint spent about a year in the desert of Oasis, and, finding that he was too well known in that country ever to lie concealed there, determined to seek shelter in some remote island, and, going to Paretonium in Lybia, embarked there with one companion for Sicily. He landed at Pachynus, a famous promontory on the eastern side of the island, now called Capo di Passaro. Upon landing he offered to pay for his passage and that of his companion with a copy of the gospels which he had written in his youth with his own hand; but the master, seeing their whole stock consisted in that manuscript and the clothes on their backs, would not accept of it; he even esteemed himself indebted to this passenger, who by his prayers had delivered his son, who was possessed by a devil, on board the vessel. St. Hilarion, fearing lest he should be discovered by some oriental merchants if he settled near the coast, travelled twenty miles up the country and stopped in an unfrequented wild place; where, by gathering sticks, he made every day a fagot, which he sent his disciple, whose name was Zanan, to sell at the next village, in order to buy a little bread. Hesychius, the saint's beloved disciple, had sought him in the East and through Greece when, at Methone, now called Modon, in Peloponnesus, he heard that a prophet had appeared in Sicily who wrought many miracles. He embarked and arrived at Pachynus; and inquiring for the holy man at the first village, found that everybody knew him; he was not more distinguished by his miracles than by his disinterestedness; for he could never be prevailed upon to take anything, not so much as a morsel of bread, from anyone.
St. Hilarion was desirous to go into some strange country, where not even his language should be understood. Hesychius therefore carried him to Epidaurus in Dalmatia, now Old Ragusa, the ruins of which city are seen near the present capital of the republic of that name. Miracles here again defeated the saint's design of living unknown. St. Hilarion, seeing it impossible to live there unknown, fled away in the night in a small vessel to the island of Cyprus. Being arrived there, he retired to a place two miles from Paphos. He had not been there three weeks when such as were possessed with devils in any part of the island began to cry out that Hilarion, the servant of Jesus Christ, was come. He expelled the evil spirits, but, sighing after the tranquillity of closer retirement, considered how he could make his escape to some other country; but the inhabitants watched him that he might not leave them. After two years Hesychius persuaded him to lay aside that design and retire to a solitary place which he had found twelve miles from the shore, not unpleasantly situated among very rough and craggy mountains, where there was water with fruit-trees, which advice the saint followed, but he never tasted the fruit. St. Jerome mentions that though he lived so many years in Palestine, he never went up to visit the holy places at Jerusalem but once; and then stayed only one day in that city. He went once that he might not seem to despise that devotion; but did not go oftener, lest he should seem persuaded that God or his religious worship is confined to any particular place. His chief reason, doubtless, was to shun the distractions of populous places that as much as possible nothing might interrupt the close union of his soul to God. The saint, in the eightieth year of his age, whilst Hesychius was absent, wrote him a short letter with his own hand in the nature of a last will and testament, in which he bequeathed to him all his riches, namely, his book of the gospels, his sackcloth, hood, and little cloak. Many pious persons came from Paphos to see him in his last sickness, hearing he had foretold that he was to go to our Lord. With them there came a holy woman named Constantia, whose son-in-law and daughter he had freed from death by anointing them with oil. He caused them to swear that as soon as he should have expired, they would immediately commit his corpse to the earth, apparelled as he was, with his hair-cloth, hood, and cloak. His distemper increasing upon him, very little heat appeared to remain in his body, nor did anything seem to remain in him of a living man besides his understanding, only his eyes were still open. He expressed his sense of the divine judgments, but encouraged his soul to an humble confidence in the mercy of his Judge and Redeemer, saying to himself, "Go forth, what cost thou fear? go forth, my soul, what cost thou apprehend? Behold, it is now threescore and ten years that thou hast served Christ; and art thou afraid of death?" He had scarcely spoken these words but he gave up the ghost, and was immediately buried as he had ordered.
St. Hilarion died in 371, or the following year, being about eighty years of age; for he was sixty-five years old at the death of St. Antony. Hesychius, who was in Palestine, made haste to Cyprus upon hearing this news and, pretending to take up his dwelling in the same garden, after ten months found an opportunity of secretly carrying off the saint's body into Palestine, where he interred it in his monastery, near Majuma. It was as entire as it was when alive, and the cloths were untouched. Many miracles were wrought, both in Cyprus and Palestine, through his intercession, as St. Jerome assures us. Sozomen mentions his festival to have been kept with great solemnity in the fifth age. See his life written by St. Jerome before the year 392.
If this saint trembled after an innocent, penitential, and holy life, because he considered how perfect the purity and sanctity of a soul must be to stand before him who is infinite purity and infinite justice, how much ought tepid, slothful, and sinful Christians to fear? Whilst love inflames the saints with an ardent desire of being united to their God in the kingdom of pure love and security, a holy fear of his justice checks and humbles in them all presumption. This fear must never sink into despondency, abjection, or despair; but quicken our sloth, animate our fervour, and raise our courage; it must be solicitous, not anxious. Love and hope must fill our souls with sweet peace and joy, and with an entire confidence in the infinite mercy and goodness of God, and the merits of our divine Redeemer. SOURCEhttp://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/H/sthilarion.asp
Feast: October 21
Information:
Feast Day:
October 21
Born:
291 at Gaza, Palestine
Died:
371 at Cyprus
Hilarion was born in a little town called Tabatha, five miles to the south of Gaza; he sprang like a rose out of thorns, his parents being idolaters. He was sent by them very young to Alexandria to study grammar, when, by his progress in learning, he gave great proofs of his wit, for which, and his good temper and dispositions, he was exceedingly beloved by all that knew him. Being brought to the knowledge of the Christian faith, he was baptized and became immediately a new man, renouncing all the mad sports of the circus and the entertainments of the theatre, and taking no delight but in the churches and assemblies of the faithful. Having heard of St. Antony, whose name was famous in Egypt, he went into the desert to see him. Moved by the example of his virtue he changed his habit and stayed with him two months, observing his manner of life, his fervour in prayer, his humility in receiving the brethren, his severity in reproving them, his earnestness in exhorting them, and his perseverance in austerities. But not being able to bear the frequent concourse of those who resorted to St. Antony to be healed of diseases or delivered from devils, and being desirous to begin to serve God like St. Antony in perfect solitude, he returned with certain monks into his own country. Upon his arrival there, finding his father and mother both dead, he gave part of his goods to his brethren and the rest to the poor, reserving nothing for himself.
He was then but fifteen years of age, this happening about the year 307. He retired into a desert seven miles from Majuma, toward Egypt, between the seashore on one side and certain fens on the other. His friends forewarned him that the place was notorious for murders and robberies, but his answer was that he feared nothing but eternal death. Everybody admired his fervour and extraordinary manner of life. In the beginning of his retirement certain robbers who lurked in those deserts asked him what he would do if thieves and assassins came to him? He answered, "The poor and naked fear no thieves." "But they may kill you," said they. "It is true," said the holy man, "and for this very reason I am not afraid of them, because it is my endeavour to be always prepared for death." So great fervour and resolution in one so young and so tender as our saint was both surprising and edifying to all who knew him. His constitution was so weak and delicate that the least excess of heat or cold affected him very sensibly; yet his whole clothing consisted only of a piece of sackcloth, a leather coat, which St. Antony gave him, and an ordinary short cloak. Living in solitude, he thought himself at liberty to practice certain mortifications which the respect we owe to our neighbour makes unseasonable in the world. He cut his hair only once a year, against Easter; never changed any coat till it was worn out, and never washed the sackcloth which he had once put on, saying, "It is idle to look for neatness in a hair shirt."
At his first entering on this penitential life he renounced the use of bread; and for six years together his whole diet was fifteen figs a day, which he never took till sunset. When he felt the attacks of any temptation of the flesh, being angry with himself and beating his breast, he would say to his body, "I will take order, thou little ass, that thou shalt not kick; I will feed thee with straw instead of corn; and will load and weary thee, that so thou mayest think rather how to get a little bit to eat than of pleasure." He then retrenched part of his scanty meal, and sometimes fasted three or four days without eating; and when after this he was fainting, he sustained his body only with a few dried figs and the juice of herbs. At the same time, praying and singing, he would be breaking the ground with a rake, that his labour might add to the trouble of his fasting. His employment was digging or tilling the earth, or, in imitation of the Egyptian monks, weaving small twigs together with great rushes in making baskets whereby he provided himself with the frugal necessaries of life. During the first four years of his penance he had no other shelter from the inclemencies of the weather than a little hovel or arbour which he made himself of reeds and rushes which he found in a neighbouring marsh, and which he had woven together. Afterwards he built himself a little cell, which was still to be seen in St. Jerome's time; it was but four feet broad and five feet in height, and was a little longer than the extent of his body, so that a person would have rather taken it for a grave than a house. During the course of his penance he made some alteration in his diet, but never in favour of his appetites. From the age of twenty-one he for three years lived on a measure which was little more than half a pint of pulse steeped in cold water a-day; and for the next three years his whole food was dry bread with salt and water. From his twenty-seventh year to his thirty-first he ate only wild herbs and raw roots; and from thirty-one to thirty-five he took for his daily food six ounces of barley bread a day, to which he added a few kitchen herbs, but half boiled and without oil. But perceiving his sight to grow dim and his body to be subject to an itching with an unnatural kind of scurf and roughness, he added a little oil to this diet. Thus he went on till his sixty-fourth year when, conceiving by the decay of his strength that his death was drawing near, he retrenched even his bread, and from that time to his eightieth year his whole meal never exceeded five ounces. When he was fourscore years of age there were made for him little weak broths or gruels of flour and herbs, the whole quantity of his meat and drink scarce amounting to the weight of four ounces. Thus he passed his whole life; and he never broke his fast till sunset, not even upon the highest feasts or in his greatest sickness.
Anyone who considers the condition of man in this state of trial and the malice of the enemy of our salvation will easily conceive that our saint did not pass all these years, nor arrive at so eminent a degree of virtue and sanctity, without violent temptations and assaults from the infernal spirit; in all which he was victorious by the assistance of omnipotent grace. Sometimes his soul was covered with a dark cloud, and his heart was dry and oppressed with bitter anguish; but the deafer heaven seemed to his cries on such occasions, the louder and the more earnestly he persevered knocking. To have dropped the shield of prayer under these temptations would have been to perish. At other times his mind was haunted and his imagination filled with impure images, or with the vanities of the theatre and circus. The phantoms of the enemy St. Hilarion dissipated by casting himself upon his knees and signing his forehead with the cross of Christ; and, being enlightened and strengthened by a supernatural grace, he discovered his snares, and never suffered himself to be imposed upon by the artifices by which that subtle fiend strove to withdraw him from holy prayer, in which the saint spent the days and great part of the nights.
St. Hilarion had spent above twenty years in his desert when he wrought his first miracle. A certain married woman of Eleutheropolis, who was the scorn of her husband for her barrenness, sought him out in his solitude, and by her tears and importunities prevailed upon him to pray that God would bless her with fruitfulness; and before the year's end she brought forth a son, A second miracle much enhanced the saint's reputation. Elpidius, who was afterwards prefect of the praetorium, and his wife Aristeneta, returning from a visit of devotion they had made to St. Antony to receive his blessing and instructions, arrived at Gaza, where their three children fell sick, and their fever proving superior to the power of medicines they were brought to the last extremity, and their recovery despaired of by the physicians. The mother, like one distracted, addressed herself to Hilarion, who, moved by her tears, went to Gaza to visit them. Upon his invoking the holy name of Jesus by their bedside, the children fell into a violent sweat, by which they were so refreshed as to be able to eat, to know their mother, and kiss the saint's hand. Upon the report of this miracle many flocked to the saint, desiring to embrace a monastic life under his direction. Till that time neither Syria nor Palestine were acquainted with that penitential state; so that St. Hilarion was the first founder of it in those countries, as Antony had been in Egypt. Among other miraculous cures, several persons possessed by devils were delivered by our saint. The most remarkable were Marisitas, a young man of the territory about Jerusalem, so strong that he boasted he could carry seven bushels of corn; and Orion, a rich man of the city of Aila, who, after his cure, pressed the saint to accept many great presents, at least for the poor. But the holy hermit persisted obstinately to refuse touching any of them, bidding him bestow them himself. St. Hilarion restored sight to a woman of Facidia, a town near Rinocorura, in Egypt, who had been blind ten years. A citizen of Majuma, called Italicus, who was a Christian, kept horses to run in the circus against a Duumvir of Gaza, who adored Mamas, which was the great idol of Gaza, that word signifying in Syriac, Lord of men. Italicus, knowing that his adversary had recourse to spells to stop his horses, came to St. Hilarion, by whose blessing his horses seemed to fly while the others seemed fettered; upon seeing which the people cried out that Mamas was vanquished by Christ. From the model which our saint set, a great number of monasteries were founded all over Palestine. St. Hilarion visited them all on certain days before the vintage.
St. Hilarion was informed by revelation in Palestine, where he then was, of the death of St. Antony. He was then about sixty-five years old, and had been for two years much afflicted at the great number of bishops, priests, and people that were continually resorting to him, by which his contemplation was interrupted. At length, regretting the loss of that sweet solitude and obscurity which he formerly enjoyed, he resolved to leave that country, to prevent which the people assembled to the number of ten thousand to watch him. He told them he would neither eat nor drink till they let him go; and seeing him pass seven days without taking anything they left him. He then chose forty monks who were able to walk without breaking their fast (that is, without eating till after sunset), and with them he travelled into Egypt. On the fifth day he arrived at Peleusium; and in six days more at Babylon, in Egypt. Two days after he came to the city of Aphroditon, where he applied himself to the deacon Baisanes, who used to let dromedaries to those who had desired to visit St. Antony, for carrying water which they had occasion for in that desert. The saint desired to celebrate the anniversary of St. Antony's death by watching all night in the place where he died. After travelling three days in a horrible desert they came to St. Antony's mountain, where they found two monks, Isaac and Pelusius, who had been his disciples, and the first his interpreter. It was a very high steep rock of a mile in circuit, at the foot of which was a rivulet, with abundance of palm-trees on the borders. St. Hilarion walked all over the place with the disciples of St. Antony. Here it was, said they, that he sang, here he prayed; there he laboured, and there he reposed himself when he was weary. He himself planted these vines and these little trees; he tilled this piece of ground with his own hands; he dug this basin with abundance of labour, to water his garden, and he used this hoe to work with several years together. St. Hilarion laid himself upon his bed and kissed it as if it had been still warm. The cell contained no more space in length and breadth than what was necessary for a man to stretch himself in to sleep. On the top of the mountain (to which the ascent was very difficult, turning like a vine) they found two cells of the same size, to which he often retired to avoid a number of visitors and even the conversation of his own disciples: they were hewn in a rock, nothing but doors being added to them. When they came to the garden, "Do you see," said Isaac, "this little garden planted with trees and pot-herbs? About three years since a herd of wild asses coming to destroy it, he stopped one of the first of them and, striking him on the sides with his staff, said, 'Why do you eat what you did not sow?' From that time forward they only came hither to drink, without meddling with the trees or herbs." St. Hilarion asked to see the place where he was buried. They carried him to a bye place; but it is uncertain whether they showed it him or no; for they showed no grave, and only said that St. Antony had given the strictest charge that his grave should be concealed, fearing lest Pergamius, who was a very rich man in that country, should carry the body home and cause a church to be built for it.
St. Hilarion returned from this place to Aphroditon, and, retiring with only two disciples into a neighbouring desert, exercised himself with more earnestness than ever in abstinence and silence; saying, according to his custom, that he then only began to serve Jesus Christ. It had not rained in the country for three years, that is, ever since the death of St. Antony, when the people in deep affliction and misery addressed themselves to St. Hilarion, whom they looked upon as St. Antony's successor, imploring his compassion and prayers. The saint, sensibly affected with their distress, lifted up his hands and eyes to heaven, and immediately obtained a plentiful rain. Also many labourers and herdsmen who were stung by serpents and venomous beasts were perfectly cured by anointing their wounds with oil which he had blessed and given them. Though oil be the natural and sovereign antidote against poison, these cures by his blessing were esteemed miraculous. The saint, seeing the extraordinary honours which were paid him in that place, departed privately towards Alexandria, in order to proceed to the desert of Oasis. It not being his custom to stop in great cities, he turned from Alexandria into Brutium, a remote suburb of that city, where several monks dwelt. He left this place the same evening, and when these monks very importunately pressed his stay he told them that it was necessary for their security that he should leave them. The sequel showed that he had the spirit of prophecy; for that very night armed men arrived there in pursuit of him, with an order to put him to death. When Julian the Apostate ascended the throne, the pagans of Gaza obtained an order from that prince to kill him, in revenge of the affront he had put upon their god Mamas, and of the many conversions he had made; and they had sent this party into Egypt to execute the sentence. The soldiers, finding themselves disappointed at Brutium, said he well deserved the character of a magician which he had at Gaza. The saint spent about a year in the desert of Oasis, and, finding that he was too well known in that country ever to lie concealed there, determined to seek shelter in some remote island, and, going to Paretonium in Lybia, embarked there with one companion for Sicily. He landed at Pachynus, a famous promontory on the eastern side of the island, now called Capo di Passaro. Upon landing he offered to pay for his passage and that of his companion with a copy of the gospels which he had written in his youth with his own hand; but the master, seeing their whole stock consisted in that manuscript and the clothes on their backs, would not accept of it; he even esteemed himself indebted to this passenger, who by his prayers had delivered his son, who was possessed by a devil, on board the vessel. St. Hilarion, fearing lest he should be discovered by some oriental merchants if he settled near the coast, travelled twenty miles up the country and stopped in an unfrequented wild place; where, by gathering sticks, he made every day a fagot, which he sent his disciple, whose name was Zanan, to sell at the next village, in order to buy a little bread. Hesychius, the saint's beloved disciple, had sought him in the East and through Greece when, at Methone, now called Modon, in Peloponnesus, he heard that a prophet had appeared in Sicily who wrought many miracles. He embarked and arrived at Pachynus; and inquiring for the holy man at the first village, found that everybody knew him; he was not more distinguished by his miracles than by his disinterestedness; for he could never be prevailed upon to take anything, not so much as a morsel of bread, from anyone.
St. Hilarion was desirous to go into some strange country, where not even his language should be understood. Hesychius therefore carried him to Epidaurus in Dalmatia, now Old Ragusa, the ruins of which city are seen near the present capital of the republic of that name. Miracles here again defeated the saint's design of living unknown. St. Hilarion, seeing it impossible to live there unknown, fled away in the night in a small vessel to the island of Cyprus. Being arrived there, he retired to a place two miles from Paphos. He had not been there three weeks when such as were possessed with devils in any part of the island began to cry out that Hilarion, the servant of Jesus Christ, was come. He expelled the evil spirits, but, sighing after the tranquillity of closer retirement, considered how he could make his escape to some other country; but the inhabitants watched him that he might not leave them. After two years Hesychius persuaded him to lay aside that design and retire to a solitary place which he had found twelve miles from the shore, not unpleasantly situated among very rough and craggy mountains, where there was water with fruit-trees, which advice the saint followed, but he never tasted the fruit. St. Jerome mentions that though he lived so many years in Palestine, he never went up to visit the holy places at Jerusalem but once; and then stayed only one day in that city. He went once that he might not seem to despise that devotion; but did not go oftener, lest he should seem persuaded that God or his religious worship is confined to any particular place. His chief reason, doubtless, was to shun the distractions of populous places that as much as possible nothing might interrupt the close union of his soul to God. The saint, in the eightieth year of his age, whilst Hesychius was absent, wrote him a short letter with his own hand in the nature of a last will and testament, in which he bequeathed to him all his riches, namely, his book of the gospels, his sackcloth, hood, and little cloak. Many pious persons came from Paphos to see him in his last sickness, hearing he had foretold that he was to go to our Lord. With them there came a holy woman named Constantia, whose son-in-law and daughter he had freed from death by anointing them with oil. He caused them to swear that as soon as he should have expired, they would immediately commit his corpse to the earth, apparelled as he was, with his hair-cloth, hood, and cloak. His distemper increasing upon him, very little heat appeared to remain in his body, nor did anything seem to remain in him of a living man besides his understanding, only his eyes were still open. He expressed his sense of the divine judgments, but encouraged his soul to an humble confidence in the mercy of his Judge and Redeemer, saying to himself, "Go forth, what cost thou fear? go forth, my soul, what cost thou apprehend? Behold, it is now threescore and ten years that thou hast served Christ; and art thou afraid of death?" He had scarcely spoken these words but he gave up the ghost, and was immediately buried as he had ordered.
St. Hilarion died in 371, or the following year, being about eighty years of age; for he was sixty-five years old at the death of St. Antony. Hesychius, who was in Palestine, made haste to Cyprus upon hearing this news and, pretending to take up his dwelling in the same garden, after ten months found an opportunity of secretly carrying off the saint's body into Palestine, where he interred it in his monastery, near Majuma. It was as entire as it was when alive, and the cloths were untouched. Many miracles were wrought, both in Cyprus and Palestine, through his intercession, as St. Jerome assures us. Sozomen mentions his festival to have been kept with great solemnity in the fifth age. See his life written by St. Jerome before the year 392.
If this saint trembled after an innocent, penitential, and holy life, because he considered how perfect the purity and sanctity of a soul must be to stand before him who is infinite purity and infinite justice, how much ought tepid, slothful, and sinful Christians to fear? Whilst love inflames the saints with an ardent desire of being united to their God in the kingdom of pure love and security, a holy fear of his justice checks and humbles in them all presumption. This fear must never sink into despondency, abjection, or despair; but quicken our sloth, animate our fervour, and raise our courage; it must be solicitous, not anxious. Love and hope must fill our souls with sweet peace and joy, and with an entire confidence in the infinite mercy and goodness of God, and the merits of our divine Redeemer. SOURCEhttp://www.ewtn.com/saintsHoly/saints/H/sthilarion.asp
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