San Josemaria

Saint Jose Maria Escriva

Oremus:

O God our Father, you chose St. Josemaría to proclaim the universal call to sanctity
and apostolate in the Church.
By his example and prayers, grant
that in faithfully carrying out our daily work
in the Spirit of Christ, we may be formed in the likeness of your Son,
and together with the most Blessed Virgin Mary,
serve the work of redemption with an ardent love.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ
your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Protestant Iconoclastic riot.
desecration of an image of the
Mother of God.

St. Derfel Gadarn :

5th or 6th century. According to legend, Saint Derfel was a great Welsh soldier
who fought at the Battle of Camlan (537), where King Arthur was killed. He may
have been a monk and abbot at Bardsey and later a solitary at Llanderfel,
Merionethshire, Wales, thus becoming its founder and patron. A wooden statue of
him mounted on a horse and holding a staff was greatly venerated in the church
at Llanderfel until it was used for firewood in the burning of Blessed John
Forest, Queen Catherine of Aragon's confessor, at Smithfield, England.

In 1538, Dr. Ellis Price, Cromwell's agent for the diocese of Saint Asaph, wrote
to Cromwell about Derfel's statue. He wanted to know how he should dispose of
it, because "the people have so much trust in him that they come daily on
pilgrimage to him with cows or horses or money, to the number of five or six
hundred on April 5. The common saying was that whoever offered anything to this
saint would be delivered out of hell by him." (We know that only Jesus Christ
can save us from hell, but this testimony is an indication of the power of
Derfel's prayers.)

Cromwell ordered him to send it to London. The local people of Llanderfel paid
Price a 40 pound bribe, but the statue was still removed. On May 22, 1438, John
Forest of Greenwich was to be burnt for refusing the Oath of Supremacy. Just
before his execution, Derfel's "huge and great image" was brought to the
gallows. A centuries-old Welsh prophecy had predicted that "this image should
set a whole forest afire; which prophecy now took effect, for he set this friar
Forest on fire and consumed him to nothing." The remains of Derfel's staff and
horse can be seen in Llanderfel

(Attwater2, Benedictines, Delaney, Farmer).

The Blessed John Forest

June 24th

Blessed John Forest, confessors to Catherine of Aragon, after several years of imprisonment, was tried for denying the Oath of Supremacy and condemned to death. On 22 May 1538 he was brought to Smithfield. A large crowd gathered, including the bishop of London, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk and the Lord Mayor. Forest made a brave confession of faith; according to one bystander:

"That if an angel should come down from Heaven and show him any other thing than he had believed all his lifetime past he would not believe him, and that if his body should be cut joint after joint or member after member, burnt, hanged, or what pain soever might be done to his body, he would never turn from his old sect of this Bishop of Rome."

They hanged him from the gibbet, with a chain placed around his waist. They then lit a fire and placed on it a statue of a Welsh saint, Derfel Gadarn. Curiously, according to tradition, it had been predicted that this venerated statue would one day ‘set a Forest on fire'. ‘The holy man', we read, ‘beat his breast with his right hand, and then raised both his hands to Heaven and said many prayers in Latin, his last spoken words being, Domine, miserere mei: and when the fire reached his breast he spoke no more and gave up his soul to God'.

(Roman Miscellany: June 24, 2007)

Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

"Do not be afraid, Zechariah,
for your prayer is heard,
and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,
and you shall call his name John."

June 24

"He was indeed a man endued with all virtue, who exhorted the Jews to the practice of justice towards men and piety towards God; and also to baptism, preaching that they would become acceptable to God if they renounced their sins, and to the cleanness of their bodies’ added purity of soul."
__Josephus

Whitsunday

May 27

Creator Spirit, by whose aid
The world's foundations first were laid,
Come visit every pious mind,
Come pour Thy joys on human kind;
From sin and sorrow set us free,
And make Thy temples worthy Thee.

The Ascension of the Lord

I will not leave you orphans;
I go and I come to you,
and your heart shall rejoice.
Alleluia.

Jesus said, Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: and were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.

____St. Luke xxiv. 49.

St. Venantius

May 18

St. Venantius.

Feast: May 18th

When still a boy of fifteen, Venantius was martyred for his faith in his native city under the Emperor Decius (249-251). With heroic steadfastness he endured many and unspeakably cruel tortures. According to legend, he was scourged, burned with torches and hung headfirst over a smoking fire. He was then thrown to the lions; while they lay like lambs at his feet, he preached the Gospel to the people. This induced many pagans to accept the faith. Finally he was beheaded.

_____[from The Church's Year of Grace, Pius Parsch.]