Saturday Saints- #99

The letter “R” graces this series once more. Our saint is therefore Saint Romuald:

Romuald (c. 951 – traditionally 19 June, c. 1025/27) was the founder of the Camaldolese order and a major figure in the eleventh-century “Renaissance of eremitical asceticism”.

A sampling from his bio:

According to the vita by Peter Damian, written about fifteen years after Romuald’s death, Romuald was born in Ravenna, in northeastern Italy, to the aristocratic Onesti family. His father was Sergius degli Onesti and his mother was Traversara Traversari. As a youth, according to early accounts, Romuald indulged in the pleasures and sins of the world common to a tenth-century nobleman. At the age of twenty he served as second to his father, who killed a relative in a duel over property. Romuald was devastated, and went to the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe to do 40 days of penance. After some indecision, Romuald became a monk there. San Apollinare had recently been reformed by St. Maieul of Cluny Abbey, but still was not strict enough in its observance to satisfy Romuald. His injudicious correction of the less zealous aroused such enmity against him that he applied for, and was readily granted, permission to retire to Venice, where he placed himself under the direction of a hermit named Marinus and lived a life of extraordinary severity.

You can read more about this saint at his wiki, located here.

St. Romuald

Saturday Saints- #98

The letter Q has always been a difficult letter to find for a saint. Fortunately, I found one that I haven’t covered already. This brings us today’s saint, St. Quodvultdeus:

Quodvultdeus (Latin for “what God wills”, died c. 450 AD) was a fifth-century church father and bishop of Carthage who was exiled to Naples. He was known to have been living in Carthage around 407 and became a deacon in 421 AD. He corresponded with Augustine of Hippo, who served as Quodvultdeus’ spiritual teacher. Augustine also dedicated some of his writings to Quodvultdeus.

Quodvultdeus was exiled when Carthage was captured by the Vandals led by King Genseric, who followed Arianism. Tradition states that he and other churchmen (such as Gaudiosus of Naples) were loaded onto leaky ships that landed at Naples around 439 AD and Quodvultdeus established himself in Italy. He would go on to convert dozens of Arian Goths to Orthodoxy in his lifetime.

(Source)

 

Saturday Saints- #97

The time has come for the letter “P” to be featured once more. This gives us our saint for today, Saint and Pope Pius I:

Pope Saint Pius I (died c. 155) is said to have been the Bishop of Rome from c. 140 to his death c. 154, according to the Annuario Pontificio. His dates are listed as 142 or 146 to 157 or 161, respectively.

…

Pius is believed to have been born at Aquileia, in Northern Italy, during the late 1st century. His father was called “Rufinus”, who was also said to be of Aquileia according to the Liber Pontificalis. Pius was of Illyrian origin.

According to the 2nd century Muratorian Canon and the Liberian Catalogue, that he was the brother of Hermas, author of the text known as The Shepherd of Hermas.

…

According to Catholic tradition, St Pius I governed the Church in the middle of the 2nd century during the reigns of the Emperors Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is held to be the ninth successor of Saint Peter, who decreed that Easter should only be kept on a Sunday. Although credited with ordering the publication of the Liber Pontificalis, compilation of that document was not started before the beginning of the 6th century. He is also said to have built one of the oldest churches in Rome, Santa Pudenziana.

More can be found out about this pope at his wiki, located here.

Saturday Saints- #96

The Letter “O” gets its turn in the ongoing series about the saints. Today’s saint is one who lived an interesting life, to say the least, Olga of Kiev:

Saint Olga (Old Church Slavonic: Ольга, born c. 890 died 11 July 969, Kiev) was a ruler of Kievan Rus’ as regent (945–c. 963) for her son, Svyatoslav.

A few quick facts about her:

• She was born and raised a pagan, and converted decades into her life.
• Marriage proposals to Olga could be a risky business, both for oneself and one’s people.
• She is the grandmother of Vladimir the Great, who Christianized the kingdom of Rus.

I would encourage my readers to learn more about her at her wiki, located here.

St. Olga of Kiev

Saturday Saints- #95

This Saturday the letter “N” is the starting point for our saint. Thus, today’s saint is St. Nilus the Younger:

Saint Nilus the Younger, (Italian: San Nilo di Rossano, Greek: Όσιος Νείλος, ο εκ Καλαβρίας), (910 – December 27, 1005), was a monk, abbot, and founder of Italo-Greek monasticism in southern Italy. He is venerated as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, and his feast day is celebrated on September 26 in both the Byzantine Calendar and the Roman Martyrology.

You can learn more about him at his wiki, located here.

Saturday Saints- #93

Today’s post belongs to the letter M. This leads to our saint for today, Moninne:

Saint Moninne of Killeavy was one of Ireland’s early female saints. After instruction in the religious life, she founded a community, initially consisting of eight virgins and a widow with a baby, at Slieve Gullion, in what became County Armagh. They lived an eremitical life, based on that of Elijah and Saint John the Baptist. Moninne died in 517. Her feast day is July 6.

More can be found out about her at her wiki, here.

Saturday Saints- #92

This day belongs to the letter “L.” Therefore our saint for today is Saint Livinius of Ghent:

Saint Livinus (c. 580 – 12 November 657), also Livinus of Ghent, was an apostle in Flanders and Brabant, venerated as a saint and martyr in Catholic tradition and more especially at the Saint Bavo Chapel, Ghent. His feast day is 12 November.

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The legend goes that Livinus was born from Irish nobility. Upon studies in England, where he visited Saint Augustine of Canterbury, he returned to Ireland. He later went on a peregrinatio Domini and left Ireland for Ghent (Belgium) and Sealand (Netherlands) where he preached. During one of his sermons, Livinus was attacked in the village of Esse, near Geraardsbergen by a group of pagans who cut out his tongue and severed his head.

The villages of Sint-Lievens-Esse, where he was murdered, and Sint-Lievens-Houtem, where he was buried, were named after him.

Source: His wiki, located here.

 

Selected Sunday Scriptures- #98

Today’s post is going to focus on the Holy Spirit. This owes itself to the post that will go live Monday, which focuses on a Christian’s spiritual life. I was unable to finish it the previous week, or rather, I was unhappy with it, so I held off until now. Hopefully it will prove to be worth the extra effort. We begin with St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans:

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ² For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵ For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. ⁶ To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷ For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, indeed it cannot; ⁸ and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹ But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God really dwells in you. Any one who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. ¹⁰ But if Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness. ¹¹ If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.

¹² So then, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— ¹³ for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live. ¹⁴ For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵ For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” ¹⁶ it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷ and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

(Romans 8:1-17)

St. Paul tells us that living a Spiritual Life is essential to gaining Eternal Life with God. Anything that gets in the way of our Spiritual life must be excised, lest it carry us off to death.

This brings us to St. Paul’s First Letter to Timothy:

Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, ² through the pretensions of liars whose consciences are seared, ³ who forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. ⁴ For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving; ⁵ for then it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.

(1 Tim 4:1-5)

We were warned from the beginning about false doctrines. Sadly, such warnings have largely fallen on deaf ears.

Finally, we conclude with St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians:

⁶ Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. ⁷ But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification. ⁸ None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. ⁹ But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him,”

¹⁰ God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. ¹¹ For what person knows a man’s thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. ¹² Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. ¹³ And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.

¹⁴ The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. ¹⁵ The spiritual man judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. ¹⁶ “For who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

(1 Cor 2:6-16)

To be a Spiritual person is to be able to perceive the things of God, and to know only what God knows. It allows us to transcend our human limitations, and achieve trust wisdom and understanding. The greatest of the pagan philosophers could never achieve the understanding that was gained by the lowliest of those who lived Spiritual lives as servants of the Lord.

Saturday Saints- #91

Our letter for today’s saint is the letter “K.” This letter, being less common, leads to today’s saint, who lived in Poland, Saint Kinga:

Saint Kinga of Poland (also known as Cunegunda; Polish: Święta Kinga, Hungarian: Szent Kinga) (5 March 1224 – 24 July 1292) is a saint in the Catholic Church and patroness of Poland and Lithuania.

She was a fascinating woman. A few facts about her:

• She was born a Princess- her father was the King of Hungary
• Both of her sisters were saints as well
• She took part in a Josephite marriage with Prince Bolislaw the Chaste
• After her husband’s death she became a contemplative and wouldn’t let anyone refer to her past station in life as a Princess

This and more can be found at her wiki, located here.

St. Kinga

 

Saturday Saints- #90

Today’s letter for a Saint is the letter “J.” Given that letter, and given what has happened recently in France, it seems appropriate that today’s Saint is Joan of Arc:

Joan of Arc (French: Jeanne d’Arc, IPA: [ʒan daʁk]; 6 January c. 1412 – 30 May 1431), nicknamed “The Maid of Orléans” (French: La Pucelle d’Orléans) is considered a heroine of France for her role during the Lancastrian phase of the Hundred Years’ War, and was canonized as a Roman Catholic saint. Joan of Arc was born to Jacques d’Arc and Isabelle, a peasant family, at Domrémy in north-east France. Joan said she received visions of the Archangel Michael, Saint Margaret, and Saint Catherine instructing her to support Charles VII and recover France from English domination late in the Hundred Years’ War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent Joan to the siege of Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence after the siege was lifted in only nine days. Several additional swift victories led to Charles VII’s coronation at Reims. This long-awaited event boosted French morale and paved the way for the final French victory.

On 23 May 1430, she was captured at Compiègne by the Burgundian faction which was allied with the English. She was later handed over to the English, and then put on trial by the pro-English Bishop of Beauvais Pierre Cauchon on a variety of charges. After Cauchon declared her guilty she was burned at the stake on 30 May 1431, dying at about nineteen years of age.

Twenty-five years after her execution, an inquisitorial court authorized by Pope Callixtus III examined the trial, debunked the charges against her, pronounced her innocent, and declared her a martyr. In the 16th century she became a symbol of the Catholic League, and in 1803 she was declared a national symbol of France by the decision of Napoleon Bonaparte. She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920. Joan of Arc is one of the nine secondary patron saints of France, along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis, St. Michael, St. Remi, St. Petronilla, St. Radegund and St. Thérèse of Lisieux.

More can be found out about her at her wiki, located here.