The Revelations of Divine Love is the first book written by a woman in English. It is one of the great treasures of classical spiritual literature.
God placed high spiritual delight in my soul. I was completely filled with confidence, and resolutely sustained. I dreaded nothing. It was such a happy spiritual feeling that I was totally at peace. Nothing on earth could have disturbed me.
This lasted only a short time. Returning to myself, I became depressed and was weary of my life. I almost lacked the patience to go on living.
Julian of Norwich lived in dreadful times. Britain and the rest of Europe struggled through the fourteenth century with its wars, outbreaks of plague, religious schisms, and political intrigue. A new expression of spirituality grew among the lay people as they attempted to live a Christian life outside of formal religious communities. While the monasteries struggled with laxity among their members and a continual need for reform, individual Christians nurtured close personal relationships with God.
Julian of Norwich, who probably received the name of the church of St. Julian in Norwich, England, became a lay anchoress. She lived in a cell, built onto the exterior wall of the church, that had a window open to the public and another opening that allowed her to see inside the sanctuary. Julian actually shut herself inside this cell, receiving visitors and food through the public window, and participating in worship through the sanctuary window. With a small cottage garden and the companionship of a cat, Julian devoted her life to meditation and prayer.
Julian’s books, Showings and The Revelations of Divine Love, are among the best of a number of English mystical writings that emerged from the fourteenth century. Her autobiographical references tell us that she was born in 1342 and became seriously ill when she was thirty. Everyone was convinced she would die, but instead, she had a series of visions regarding the passion of Christ and lived to write about them.
He showed me a little thing about the size of a hazelnut. As I wondered what it could be, the answer came, “It is all that is created.” It was so small I wondered how it could survive. In my mind, I heard, “It lasts because God loves it.”
In this tiny object, I saw three truths: God made it, God loves it, and God takes care of it.
Who is this maker, lover, and sustainer God? I do not have the words to express it. Until I am united with God, I can never have true rest or peace. I can never know until I am held so close to God that there is nothing between us.
Julian confidently assures us of the feminine aspect of God.
As certainly as God is our father, just as certainly is he our mother. In our father, we have our being; in our mother, we are remade and restored, our fragmented lives are knit together and made perfect. I am the strength and goodness of fatherhood. I am the wisdom of motherhood. I am the light and grace of holy love. I am the Trinity. I am the unity. I teach you to love. I teach you to desire. I am the reward of all true desire.
This woman, whose actual name is lost forever, makes no reference to the political and ecclesiastical turmoil of her time and place. She is totally occupied with God, and it is with confidence in the love of God that she makes her most famous comment: “All shall be well.”
MAY 14
Mary-Dominica Mazzarello (1837–81)
Accomplishment in spite of handicap
Mary grew up on a farm near Mornese, Italy, in the middle of the nineteenth century. She labored hard in her large family’s field and vineyard until she was twenty-three. She then contracted typhoid fever and the illness left her feeble, making heavy outdoor work impossible. She turned to dressmaking and did so well at it that she hired others to help her. All this time, her spiritual life was actively growing.
In 1864, John Bosco (January 31) visited Mornese with plans to start a school for boys. This did not work out, but he knew there was also a need for a school for girls. He enlisted Mary-Dominica Mazzarello to found and lead the Salesian Sisters. Today, fifty-four countries have Salesian Sister Schools.
Never fully well after her bout with typhoid fever, she died in 1881 at the age of forty-four. Her grave lies beside Bosco’s in Turin.
MAY 15
Isidore the Farmer (1070–1130)
The glory of the commonplace
Isidore cultivated the earth, spread manure, planted seeds, chopped weeds, and harvested crops. He did not build monasteries, found religious orders, write books, attract followers, or influence political leaders. Born in Madrid, Spain, Isidore labored in the soil all his life for a wealthy landowner, John de Vergas. Isidore and his wife, Maria, had one child, a son who died at an early age.
Isidore began most mornings in church. He prayed as he worked the farm, and one report says angels could be seen helping him. He was known to be an extremely generous person, sharing his meals with people poorer than himself. He loved animals, and insisted that they be cared for properly. The tale is told that one winter he and another farmhand were taking corn to the mill. Isidore noticed a flock of birds perched in the trees, cold and hungry. While his companion protested and laughed, Isidore opened his sack and poured about half of the grain on the ground for the birds. When they got to the mill, his bag was still full.
In spite of the miraculous stories circulated about Isidore the farmer, the most significant thing about this saint is the extraordinary ordinariness of his life.
Isidore, who died in 1130, is the patron saint of Madrid.
MAY 16
Brendan the Navigator (? 486–578)
Spiritual exploration
Brendan founded numerous monasteries, becoming abbot of Clonfert, Ireland, around 559. Several locations in western Ireland still bear his name. He is famous for his voyage to the “Isles of the Blessed” that may indicate he was one of the earliest arrivals in America. A popular book, Navigation of Saint Brendan, began to circulate in the eighth and ninth centuries. While it is almost certainly a romantic novel of a mythical sailor, early copyists loved it and spread its circulation. Today more than a hundred original copies and translations of this Medieval Latin text in many languages remain in existence.
MAY 17
Paschal Baylon (1540–92)
Simplicity
Paschal Baylon, a Spanish peasant shepherd, became a Franciscan lay brother at twenty-one. In this capacity, Paschal functioned as a cook and doorkeeper in several friaries. With a cheerful personality, Paschal took care of the poor and the sick. He had an unusually profound interest in the sacramental elements of communion, and Mass was a central focus of his day.
Paschal went to France as a courier of important ecclesiastical messages. Here, he had an opportunity to argue convincingly with a Protestant minister who did not support the Real Presence in the Eucharist. This was Paschal’s favorite doctrinal topic and the source of his deepest personal devotion. Huguenots interrupted his trip on two occasions by harassing and throwing rocks at him. His injuries were a source of discomfort for the remainder of his life.
The return trip to Loreto was uneventful, but he died soon after at the age of fifty-two, leaving behind an indelible reputation for sanctity and simple honesty.
MAY 18
John I (d. 526)
Faith in crisis
From the Italian province of Tuscany, John became bishop of Rome, or pope, in 523. By now, the structure of politics around the Mediterranean had divided the Empire into East and West, with one emperor in Rome and another emperor in Constantinople. The Church was still united geographically, but doctrinal heresies threatened to fragment its membership.
Religious issues in the context of that time had strong political implications. Kings and emperors tinkered with theology. Theodoric the Goth, a German leader, sent John I on a political mission to Justin, the emperor of the East, in an attempt to settle a question of religious doctrine regarding the divinity of Christ. When John and Justin seemed to get along amiably, Theodoric became concerned that they might be scheming against him. Police were waiting for him when John returned home in 526.
MAY 19
Dunstan (909–88)
Recovery and restoration
By 909, when Dunstan was born in Baltonsborough, England, the Danish invasions had destroyed most of the English monasteries. The one at Glastonbury was still limping along, and monks there provided the best education they could for him. Dunstan began his adult life as a royal courtier, but soon returned to Glastonbury and began a private monastic life. He developed skills in metalwork, painting, manuscript illumination, and embroidery.
King Edmund appointed Dunstan abbot of Glastonbury in 943 and gave a generous financial endowment to the monastery. Dunstan began the difficult work of monastic renewal, championing the Benedictine Rule. Working together with Sts. Ethelwold and Oswald, he restored other English monasteries. He became bishop of Worcester in 957 and archbishop of Canterbury in 960.
Dunstan lived an active life until his death in his late seventies. On Ascension Day in 988, he delivered three sermons. He died two days later, having contributed much to England’s development in the tenth century.
MAY 20
Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444)
Holy name
Bernardino degl’ Albizzeschi and some friends kept the Siena hospital functioning in 1400 when the plague killed most of the hospital staff. Bernardino had been reared by his aunt. When the epidemic had passed, he cared for this aunt until her death. He heard her repeating the name of Jesus with intense devotion. In later years, the name of Jesus became the central theme of his life. He receives the credit for devising the familiar symbol of the first three Greek letters of Christ’s name: IHS.
Bernardino became a Franciscan at the age of twenty-two and was Italy’s leading fifteenth-century preaching missionary. He traveled widely on foot in Italy, preaching lengthy sermons to large and eager crowds in the open air. When he began this career his voice was thin and weak, but with continued effort it became resonant and powerful. His subject matter involved practical Christian living and moral choices. He illustrated his sermons with anecdotes and delivered them with forceful and sometimes clownish antics. His audiences were moved to both laughter and tears.
By the time Bernardino turned sixty, his health was failing and he had to travel on a donkey rather than on foot. He made what he felt would be his last visit home to Massas Marittima in 1444. Here he delivered a series of fifty sermons in fifty days. From this small town, he pushed on toward Naples, preaching at every community along the way. He never finished his journey, dying in Aquila on May 20, 1444. Many artistic representations of Bernardino of Siena show him holding up the tablet he used at the conclusion of his sermons inscribed with the letters, IHS.
MAY 21
Andrew Bobola (1592–1657)
Hazards of faith
Andrew Bobola was a Polish aristocrat who became a Jesuit at Vilnius, Lithuania, in 1611, the year of the publication of the King James Version of the Bible. Near the border between the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome and Constantinople, he converted entire communities of Eastern Orthodox Christians to Roman Catholicism. This resulted in opposition and persecution. Children were organized into groups to hound him as he moved around, and they tried to drown out his voice with their cries.
A group of Cossacks finally stopped Andrew’s mission. They chased Jesuits from their churches and classrooms. Seizing Bobola, they gave him an opportunity to denounce his faith in 1657. When he did not, the angry and frustrated Cossacks burned, beat, mutilated, and beheaded him. After being transferred to several cities, his remains today are kept in the Jesuit church in Warsaw, Poland.
MAY 22
Rita of Cascia (1381–1457)
Secular and sacred
Rita’s parents, following the social custom of Italy in the fourteenth century, selected a man for her to marry. The husband they chose turned out to be brutally violent. Rita endured the misery of eighteen years of unhappy marriage with a man who was unfaithful to her, and she mothered two sons. Her husband’s wild life away from home resulted in his murder.
About 1407, Rita became an Augustinian nun at St. Maria Maddalena at Cascia. An ulcer that appeared in her forehead at Cascia symbolized a mark from the crown of thorns and was attributed to her intense meditation on the Passion of Christ. The open wound did not heal, and her mystical experiences continued for fifteen years. During this time, Rita worked quietly, caring for sick nuns.
She died of tuberculosis.
MAY 23
Petroc (d. ca. 594)
Quietly active
Sources of information vary regarding this famous sixth-century saint from Cornwall. He was born in South Wales and became a founder of monasteries. For a while, he lived as a hermit on Bodmin Moor, building a cell for himself by the river, as well as accommodations for a dozen followers up the hill. Legend holds that animals accepted his presence in the forest without fear.
Petroc’s remains were subjected to theft and intrigue. King Henry II settled the dispute regarding the resting place of his bones, most of which were returned to Bodmin. His skull is kept in an exquisitely crafted ivory reliquary that was hidden during the upheaval of the Reformation and rediscovered in the nineteenth century. It remains on display in Bodmin today, and many consider it to be the finest example of its kind in England.
MAY 24
David of Scotland (? 1085–1153)
Primary goals
Recognized as Scotland’s greatest king, David was the sixth and youngest son of Malcolm III and Margaret. David became king in 1124, the beginning of more than a decade of atrocious civil wars among various earldoms. Instead of becoming distracted by territorial disputes, David gave his attention to improving Scotland. He replaced Celtic tribal boundaries with a feudal system, invited Normans to set up colonies, established a court system, and developed Edinburgh, Berwick, Perth, and other communities into commercial centers without regard for race and clan. Most important, David reorganized the Christian Church in Scotland, establishing firm ties with Rome.
Contemporaries respected David for his personal piety and exemplary moral standards.
MAY 25
Venerable Bede (673–735)
Sacred scholarship
“I have taken delight always either to study, to teach, or to write,” Bede admitted. His long life had no dramatic, history-changing events. His biographers attribute to him none of the miracles, mystical visions, and acts of self-denial that are commonplace among the lives of saints. The example of Bede teaches us that scholarship is also a path to holiness. William of Malmesbury declared that Bede was one of the “most learned and least proud” monks in England.
As a child, Bede lived a quiet, protected monastic life. His parents asked a local abbot to care for his education and development when Bede was seven years old. His home for nearly sixty years was the monastery at Jarrow. He rarely left its confinement and probably never traveled outside of Northumbria, but because of his skillful and protracted research, he garnered a view of the world that few others of his generation could realize.
Bede wrote many books, all of them in Latin, the most popular of which is the Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People). Bede attempted to present history in the form of a readable narrative, showing how Christianity pulled diverse cultures together into a unified nation. While other monastic histories from his time are dry chronicles with little more than lists of names and dates, Bede’s history tells us about some interesting personalities and human interactions.
Bede wrote a stirring passage about the beginning of Christianity in his native Northumbria. King Edwin brought his best advisors together to consider the new religion. One advisor compared human life to the “brief flight of a sparrow through a banquet hall.” Under its roof, he said, the bird is safe from the storms outside, but then it flies into the dark
ness and danger of the unknown outside. We do not know our source, he continued, and we are not confident about our destiny. If Christianity can illumine eternity, then it makes sense to follow it. Each advisor, in turn, agreed that Northumbria should officially recognize Christianity.
Bede became seriously ill in 735, but he kept working at his projects-in-progress, including an Old English translation of the Gospel of John. He dictated the closing verses before he died, singing the Gloria Patri. Boniface (June 5) said, “The candle of the Church, lit by the Holy Spirit, has been extinguished.”
MAY 26
Philip Neri (1515–95)
Keeping faith alive
The remarkable thing about this saint is his glowing, joyful spirit. Philip Neri influenced others without writing books or founding an order. He laughed and he prayed.
Beginning life in Florence, Italy, Philip experienced a dramatic conversion to Christ as a young man, and began to wander toward Rome. Once there, he tutored a few students in order to support a simple life. He knew he was getting ready for some service to God, which had not yet come into focus.
Sixteenth-century Rome was a disorderly mess. Even the top church leaders were spiritually fragmented. Living among the Romans, Philip conceived his vocation. He would wake the Church in Rome, and he would start immediately.
Philip Neri began with impromptu conversations on street corners. With a natural gift for making friends, he would visit banks and markets talking with strangers, always getting the conversation around to religion. People in the neighborhood began to recognize him and welcome him as he gathered more and more friendly acquaintances. He would converse warmly with people as they walked the streets of Rome.
Philip was ordained in 1550 when he turned thirty-five, and he became one of the most popular priests in the city. He began to lead walking tours of the great basilicas of Rome, tours that attracted hundreds of people. During the tours, he would lead prayers and hymns as well as sing a few popular songs. At lunch, the tour members would picnic.
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