Novena to St. Nicholas the Wonder-worker

Let us pray the novena to St. Nicholas of Myra, the patron saint of children, mariners, prisoners, miners and brides. Our children especially need his prayers to protect their innocence. As the charity of St. Nicholas once saved three young girls from a life of prostitution, so let us pray for his intercession for all those in sexual slavery, as well as for those who choose to live in a state of concubinage. And may he help all women and girls who seek an honorable marriage with a Christian husband. And deliver all those tormented by evil spirits. From the St. Nicholas Center:

St. Nicholas, Glorious Confessor of Christ,
assist us in thy loving kindness.

Glorious St. Nicholas,
my special Patron from thy throne in glory,
thou dost enjoy the presence of God,
turn thine eyes in pity upon me
and attain for me from our Lord
the graces and help that I need
in my spiritual and temporal necessities (and especially this favor provided that it be profitable to my salvation).
Be mindful likewise,
O Glorious and Saintly Bishop,
of our Sovereign Pontiff of our Holy Church
and of all Christian people.
Bring back to the right way of salvation all those who are living steeped in sin,
blinded by darkness of ignorance, error and heresy.
Comfort the afflicted,
provide for the needy.
Strengthen the fearful,
defend the oppressed,
give health to the infirm.
Cause all [people] to experience the effects
of thy powerful intercession
with the supreme giver
of every good and perfect gift. Amen.

Say one Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be to the Father.

Pray for us, O Blessed Nicholas,
that we may be worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us Pray.

O God who has glorified Blessed St. Nicholas,
thine illustrious Confessor and Bishop,
by means of countless signs and wonders,
and who does not cease daily so to glorify him ,
grant we beseech thee,
that we, being assisted by his merits and prayers,
be delivered from the fires of hell
and from all dangers through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Newman's Dialogues on "Doctrinal Corruption"

 From Stephanie Mann:

Matthew Levering's Newman on Doctrinal Corruption could be considered an alternative interpretation of Newman's Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. By exploring Newman's dialogues with the (deceased) historian Edward Gibbon, his friend Richard Hurrell Froude, his own younger brother Francis Newman, his erstwhile Tractarian friend E.B. Pusey, and his German contemporary Ignaz von Döllinger, Levering helps readers understand Newman's search for religious Truth and the moral certainty that he was living in the "one True fold of Christ" (as he wrote on October 8, 1845 before Blessed Dominic Barberi received him in to the Catholic Church the next day).

As the publisher, Word on Fire Academic, describes the book:

Newman on Doctrinal Corruption examines John Henry Newman’s understanding of history and doctrine in his own context, first as an Oxford student and professor reading Edward Gibbon and influenced by his close friend Hurrell Froude, then as a new Catholic convert in dialogue with his brother Francis, and finally as an eminent Catholic during the controversies over the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception (in dialogue with Edward Pusey) and papal infallibility (in dialogue with Ignaz von Döllinger).

Author Matthew Levering argues that Newman’s career is shaped in large part by concerns about doctrinal corruption. Newman’s understanding of doctrinal development can only be understood when we come to share his concerns about the danger of doctrinal corruption—concerns that explain why Newman vigorously opposed religious liberalism. Particularly significant is Newman’s debate with the great German Church historian Döllinger since, in this final debate, Newman brings to bear all that he has learned about the nature of history, the formation of Church doctrine, the problem with private judgment, and the role of historical research.

As Levering notes states in the Introduction, "Whenever Newman thinks about doctrinal development, he always has the threat of doctrinal corruption in view" (p. 5). Furthermore, "one of the Essay's [The Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine] major subplots has to do with religious liberalism's impact upon all Christian churches and traditions" (pp. 6-7) because by embracing doctrinal corruption--denying the necessity and the fact of authentic doctrinal development--"religious liberalism ultimately leaves little in Christianity worth retaining" (p. 34). So Newman's concern that he find and defend the Church that has through the centuries retained, with true development, the Deposit of the Faith, is essential to all of the following chapters in Levering's book. 

The book fulfills all the claims of the blurb: Levering does justice to each of Newman's correspondents, exploring their own efforts to understand Christian history as they sought to know how to love, worship, and serve God (except perhaps Gibbon, who imposed on his own view on history of Christians in the The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as being the source of the corruption of the that fine, humane, and tolerant culture and civilization, with Nero burning Christians like torches in the Colosseum). (Read more.)

St. Raphael Kalinowski

Today on the Carmelite calendar is commemorated a saint who worked for true ecumenism, without compromising his convictions. His motto was: "Mary, always and in everything." From the Discalced Friars website:

St. Raphael of St. Joseph was born as Joseph Kalinowski on September 1, 1835. In spite of losing his mother early on, Joseph was a happy child and grew up in a very warm and affectionate Christian home. The phrase, “To be a Catholic and to be a Pole,” summed up his youth. 

Because of his many intellectual gifts, Joseph left home to study agronomy in St. Petersburg at the age of sixteen. All around him the spirit of irreligion reigned, so Joseph himself stopped attending Mass and receiving the sacraments. After graduation he joined the Czarist army as an engineering officer. Joseph struggled with poor health and was sent to Warsaw to be treated at a sanitarium. There he became friends with a young woman who was on fire with her faith. Their conversations were so powerful that a process of conversion began in him. In Warsaw, he discovered the terrible plight of his countrymen under Imperialist Russia. When a patriotic cousin was going to be sent into exile in Siberia, Joseph sought to procure a crucifix for him from his sister. She agreed to give it to him on one condition: he must go to confession! He sheepishly agreed, bringing about the final push in his conversion. Afterward, he simply said: “It was an exhilarating experience.” 

Around this time, Joseph was asked to join the secret Polish government behind a plot of insurrection. He knew this was futile and would lead to much bloodshed, but he also saw that it was necessary to make this sacrifice for the sake of his fellow Poles. In very little time he was discovered, arrested, and sentenced to ten years of labor in the salt mines of Siberia. In the camp, 100-200 prisoners shared a barracks with only wooden planks for beds in the freezing cold. He took care of his fellow prisoners, giving money and food to those who needed it, often going hungry himself. He loved to take time alone for quiet prayer and also helped organize prayer services for the men. He said in a letter: “God empties my heart of all natural attachment, probably to fill it with things more pure, of which nothing surpasses the desire to do good to my neighbor.” In Siberia, he also felt a strong attraction toward religious life. 

After serving his sentence, Joseph was released and returned home a changed man. He was hired to tutor a young Polish nobleman, Prince Auguste Czartoryski. In Krakow, he met a cousin of the young prince who had become a Carmelite nun. She gave Joseph a book on the spirituality of St. Teresa of Jesus and St. John of the Cross. Through his reading, he also discovered that Carmel was placed under Mary’s patronage in a unique way. His newfound love for Carmelite spirituality and deep devotion to Our Lady sealed the deal; he knew God was calling him to become a Carmelite. 

While the young Prince Auguste was saddened to be without his tutor, he also went on to religious life. Eventually, he entered the Salesians, receiving the habit from the hands of St. John Bosco. Father Auguste would help bring the Salesians to Poland and was himself beatified by Pope John Paul II in 2004. Joseph entered the Discalced Carmelite Friars on November 26, 1877, at the age of forty-two and took the name Raphael of St. Joseph. He made solemn profession and was ordained a priest on January 15, 1882, in Czerna, Poland. (Read more.)

More HERE.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary

On November 17 the Church gives us the feast of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (1207-1231) who in her twenty-four years on earth embodied virtues which in today's world have almost ceased to exist: honesty, modesty, courage, chastity, self-denial and fidelity. She was not queen of Hungary, as many people think, but a princess. Her parents were the king and queen. Being royal in those days meant that your life was not your own. Marriages between two ruling families would form an alliance between countries and keep two countries from going to war. So from her infancy, Elizabeth was a living pledge of peace, since she was promised in marriage to the heir of Thuringia.

Elizabeth was sent to Germany at the age of four to be raised in the household of her betrothed, Louis of Thuringia, as was the practice of the time. It was heartbreaking for her parents to separate from their lively, dark-haired little girl, but they commended her to God and Our Lady. Louis' family disliked her, as was often the case with foreign royal brides, but he always cherished and protected his little fiancée. Elizabeth, although far from home, was a Magyar princess, and there was an intensity in her commitment to God and her husband which was repugnant to the placid Thuringians. They were married when Elizabeth was fourteen and Louis was about seventeen; he had inherited the dukedom of Thuringia from his father by then. Thuringia is roughly where Hesse-Darmstadt is now. In the thirteenth century it was a prosperous and powerful territory, although Louis was a duke, not a king.

Elizabeth had always shown a strong inclination toward piety as well as a great love of helping the needy and downtrodden. She opened a hospital for the poor in one of her castles and ran a soup kitchen. She was passionately in love with her husband, which is one of her most appealing aspects - she was a saint but she was also very much a woman. Louis truly loved his wife and sought for a fervent priest to guide her spiritual life. Unfortunately, her later confessor, the overzealous Conrad of Marburg, was excessively harsh with Elizabeth.

As Duchess, she established the Franciscan order in Thuringia and became herself a tertiary (with St. Louis of France, she is the patroness of tertiaries.) . Louis and Elizabeth had three children.

When Elizabeth was twenty, her husband died while on crusade. She ran shrieking through the castle, as if she had lost her mind. Her brother-in-law coveted the inheritance; he evicted Elizabeth and her three small children from their home. He forbade everyone in Thuringia to give them shelter. The little family had to hide in a pig pen from the rain. Poverty, loss and persecution did not embitter Elizabeth, as it would have embittered others, especially when it involved the suffering of her small children. She accepted everything from the hand of God.

Finally, someone got word to Elizabeth's father the King of Hungary, and he prevailed upon the Holy Roman Emperor to intervene. Elizabeth's lands were restored to her but she voluntarily chose holy poverty. After securing her children's welfare, she lived in a small room in the hospital she had founded and cared for the sick and the lepers. That would be like someone going to live with AIDS patients today.

Emperor Frederick begged for Elizabeth's hand in marriage but she refused. She died at the age of twenty-four and as she passed from this world a great light filled the room. Many miraculous cures were reported at her grave site. She was buried wearing the imperial crown which she had refused in life.

Thinking of St Elizabeth can help us when ever we feel afraid of poverty, or of being alone. Her spirit of humility and the renunciation of worldly honors can be imitated by all.

The Powerful Friendship of the Holy Souls

 From Catholic Exchange:

It’s an unusual place for friendship, the cemetery. In life, we usually make friends who were born a few years, or maybe a few decades, apart from us. In this cemetery, built in the 1800s, people born in different centuries, who never could have known one another on earth, are buried side by side. Nowhere in society is there a greater variety of people spanning all walks of life than in the cemetery.

Coming here is not only a reminder of death; it is a reminder of life. For these people, though dead, once lived. Their headstones are a testament to their births as well as their deaths. They were babies once; then children, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, grandparents, friends. They woke in the morning and read the paper over breakfast; they agonized over bills and rejoiced over homecomings and sat with coffee mugs at the kitchen table and opened their front doors to friends. And in their dying, they entered a new phase of living; for just as I entered the stone gate to this long driveway lined with trees and graves, so these souls entered the celestial gate after a long journey on earth, and their eternal life lay before them.

Were they ready? Were they prepared to meet the Lord when they died? I don’t know, and so I walk, and read the headstones, and pray.

No, these souls don’t live here. Their eternity is elsewhere, but this hallowed ground is a place to honor their memories, and I can’t think of a better way of doing that than praying for them. Our faith assures us that our prayers for the dead can help their souls reach heaven sooner; and not only can we help free souls from Purgatory, but we can also help them at the moment of their death. For, as Padre Pio said, “For God, everything is an eternal present, …so that even now, I can pray for the happy death of my great-grandfather!” (Read more.)

St. Leo the Great

From Nobility:

Leo’s pontificate, next to that of St. Gregory I, is the most significant and important in Christian antiquity. At a time when the Church was experiencing the greatest obstacles to her progress in consequence of the hastening disintegration of the Western Empire, while the Orient was profoundly agitated over dogmatic controversies, this great pope, with far-seeing sagacity and powerful hand, guided the destiny of the Roman and Universal Church.

Leo was descended of a noble Tuscan family, but born at Rome. His father’s name was Quintianus. Our earliest certain historical information about Leo reveals him a deacon of the Roman Church under Pope Celestine I (422-32). Even during this period he was known outside of Rome, and had some relations with Gaul, since Cassianus in 430 or 431 wrote at Leo’s suggestion his work “De Incarnatione Domini contra Nestorium” (Migne, P.L., L, 9 sqq.), prefacing it with a letter of dedication to Leo.

During the pontificate of Sixtus III (422-40), Leo was sent to Gaul by Emperor Valentinian III to settle a dispute and bring about a reconciliation between Aëtius, the chief military commander of the province, and the chief magistrate, Albinus. This commission is a proof of the great confidence placed in the clever and able deacon by the Imperial Court. Sixtus III died on 19 August, 440, while Leo was in Gaul, and the latter was chosen his successor. Returning to Rome, Leo was consecrated on 29 September of the same year, and governed the Roman Church for the next twenty-one years.

Whilst the Eastern empire was distracted by heretical factions, the Western was harassed by barbarians. Attila the Hun, enriched with the plunder of many nations and cities, marched against Rome. The Huns, a savage nation from that part of Scythia which now lies in Muscovy, had passed the Palus Mæotis, in 276, and made their first inroads upon the coasts of the Caspian Sea, and as far as Mount Taurus in the East. Almost two hundred years after this, Attila, the most powerful and barbarous of all the kings of that nation, in 433, had marched first into the East, then subject to Theodosius the Younger, and having amassed a vast booty in Asia, returned into Pannonia, where he was already master of a large territory. (Read entire article.)

Saint Nuno

The great champion of Portugal and devoted servant of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is a canonized saint of the Order. According to the late Pope Benedict XVI:

The seventy years of his life take place in the second half of the 14th Century, and the first half of the 15th Century, which saw that nation solidify its independence from Castille and extend through the Oceans - not without a particular design by God -, opening new routes which would lead to the arrival of the Gospel of Christ unto the ends of the Earth.

Saint Nuno considers himself an instrument of this higher design, and engages himself in the militia Christi, that is, in the service of testimony that every Christian is called to give to the world. His characteristics are an intense life of prayer, and an absolute trust in Divine help.

Even though he was a superlative soldier and a great leader, he never let his personal gifts be placed above the supreme action which comes from God. Saint Nuno made an effort not to place obstacles to the action of God in his life, imitating Our Lady, to Whom he was most devoted, and to Whom he publicly ascribed his victories. At the end of his life, he retired to the convent of the Carmel [Lisbon], which he had ordered to be built.

HERE is a biographical account. More HERE.

Of the Consecration of Churches

 
From Liturgical Arts Journal:

The tradition of consecrating churches is thought to date back to the first century, and the antiquity of the specific ceremony we are treating today is already attested to already by the time of St. Gregory the Great.

The Catholic Encyclopedia comments:

Before the time of Constantine the consecration of churches was, on account of the persecutions, necessarily private, but after the conversion of that emperor it became a solemn public rite, as appears from Eusebius of Cæsarea (Church History X): "After these things a spectacle earnestly prayed for and much desired by us all appeared, viz. the solemnization of the festival of the dedication of churches throughout every city, and the consecration of newly-built oratories." The passage clearly indicates that churches were consecrated before, and that accordingly the anniversaries of the dedication might now be publicly celebrated.

Of course, what the precise form of this consecration was is not entirely clear, but "we find occasional notices of the vigil kept before the consecration, of the translation of the relics, and of the tracing of the Greek and the Latin alphabet on the pavement of the church... Often only the Greek alphabet or the Latin was written twice; and sometimes to the Greek and Latin the Hebrew alphabet was added (Martène, De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus, II)." (Source: Catholic Encyclopedia)

In short, there was some variety in this regard, but also a remarkable unity and continuity that was preserved down the ages.

The particular form of this ceremony sees some other minor variations as well, at least in the modern age. In some instances a smaller cross is laid out before the sanctuary in the nave as follows: (Read more.)