Saint for the Day

• July 10—The Seven Brothers, Martyrs, and St. Felicitas, their Mother.

  

  The illustrious martyrdom of these Saints happened at Rome, under the Emperor Antoninus. The seven brothers were the sons of St. Felicitas, a noble, pious, Christian widow in Rome, who, after the death of her husband, served God in a state of continency and employed herself wholly in prayer, fasting, and works of charity. By the public and edifying example of this lady and her whole family many idolaters were moved to renounce the worship of their false gods, and to embrace the Faith of Christ. This excited the anger of the heathen priests, who complained to the emperor that the boldness with which Felicitas publicly practised the Christian religion drew many from the worship of the immortal gods, who were the guardians and protectors of the empire, and that, in order to appease these false gods, it was necessary to compel this lady and her children to sacrifice to them. Publius, the prefect of Rome, caused the mother and her sons to be apprehended and brought before him, and, addressing her, said, “Take pity on your children, Felicitas; they are in the bloom of youth, and may aspire to the greatest honors and preferments.” The holy mother answered, “Your pity is really impiety, and the compassion to which you exhort me would make me the most cruel of mothers.” Then turning herself towards her children, she said to them, “My sons, look up to heaven, where Jesus Christ with His Saints expects you. Be faithful in His love, and fight courageously for your souls.” Publius, being exasperated at this behavior, commanded her to be cruelly buffeted; he then called the children to him one after another, and used many artful speeches, mingling promises with threats to induce them to adore the gods. His arguments and threats were equally in vain, and the brothers were condemned to be scourged. After being whipped, they were remanded to prison, and the prefect, despairing to overcome their resolution, laid the whole process before the emperor. Antoninus gave an order that they should be sent to different judges, and be condemned to different deaths. Januarius was scourged to death with whips loaded with plummets of lead. The two next, Felix and Philip, were beaten with clubs till they expired. Sylvanus, the fourth, was thrown headlong down a steep precipice. The three youngest, Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were beheaded, and the same sentence was executed upon the mother four months after. Reflection.—What afflictions do parents daily meet with from the disorders into which their children fall through their own bad example or neglect! Let them imitate the earnestness of St. Felicitas in forming to perfect virtue the tender souls which God hath committed to their charge, and with this Saint they will have the greatest of all comforts in them, and will by His grace count as many Saints in their family as they are blessed with children.

Sunday Sermon

• 6th Sunday after Pentecost

  

  Know you not that all we who are baptized in Christ Jesus are baptized in his death. ^{~Romans vi. 3.}

  These are strong words, brethren, too strong, I fear, to be accepted in their full meaning by many of us; for we are quite too apt to mitigate the strong doctrine of Christ. Those great maxims of penance, of poverty, of obedience, of perfection, which the saints understood in their plain reality, we are very anxious to understand in a figurative sense, or to apply to somebody else besides our guilty selves. But let us look fairly and frankly at these strong words of St. Paul. How are we baptized in Christ’s death? By being guilty of the sins which delivered him up to his enemies. Did he not die on account of mortal sins, and have we not committed mortal sins—violated God’s most sacred commandments, and done it often—and wilfully, and knowingly, and habitually done it? Then the innocent blood of the Lamb of God is upon our hands, and nothing but penance can ever wash it off. And what sort of a penance? So thorough, so heartfelt, so practical that the apostle says it must condemn and put us to death with Christ; a penance so thorough that our Lord himself tells us that it must produce a new being in us: “Unless a man be born again he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.” So you see that St. Paul, in the words of our text, has given us the very charter of Christian penance; just as he explains it a little further on: “Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Christ, that the body of sin may be destroyed.”

  Behold, therefore, brethren, the plain statement of the greatest of all the practical duties of the Christian; to make reparation to God for his sins in union with the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ. They tell us that our only hope of restored innocence is in participation in the crucifixion—its shame, its agony, and its death.

  Oh! that we could fully realize the necessity of penance. Oh! that the terrible form of Christ upon the cross could be ever in our eyes as it is ever above our altars. Oh! that the awful cries of Jesus’ death agony could be ever sounding in our ears. Then we should be Christians indeed. Then the profound hatred of sin, the Christian duties of fasting and prayer, the holy offices of helping the poor and instructing the ignorant, the devout reception of God’s grace in the sacraments; in a word, all the yearly round of a good Catholic life would have its true meaning. If we appreciated that Christ died for our sins, we should not have to drag ourselves so reluctantly to confession, we should not grumble at the fast of Lent, we should not strive to creep out of the duty of paying our debt of penance to God by this or that all too ready excuse, but we should take Christ for our example and his cross for our standard, and long for stripes and even death as the wages of sin. We should appreciate the wisdom of what the old monk of the desert said to the novice when asked for a motto: “Wherever you are, or whatever you are doing, say often to yourself: I am a pilgrim.” Yes, a pilgrim; a banished son wearily waiting till his Father shall call him home; a convicted traitor working out the years of his banishment. I know, brethren, that this sounds like a melancholy doctrine. Yet is it not true? And to know the truth is the first beginning of peace in the heart. And listen to the joyful side. Hear it stated by the apostle in this very epistle: “For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, in like manner we shall be of his resurrection.” Yes; if we die to our old selves and to sin, we shall rise with our Lord Jesus Christ to everlasting glory. He sprang forth from the grave filled with joy, triumphing over sin; and so shall we rise if we are buried with him in penance. And what is the world’s joy compared to the joy of paradise? What care we for a few years of labor and waiting here, when we think of the countless ages of the kingdom of heaven! You have heard, brethren, that St. Peter of Alcantara led a very penitential life; well, shortly after death he appeared to one of his friends surrounded with heavenly light and his face beaming with joy, and he exclaimed: “Oh! happy penance which has gained for me so great a reward.” Brethren, let us do penance while we can, and leave it to a good God to provide us with happiness, and he will give us joys which will never fade.

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  Five Minute Sermons for Low Masses on All Sundays of the Year 
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