November 26th

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Saint Peter of Alexandria
Patriarch and Martyr
(† 310)

The Church of Alexandria, founded by the Evangelist Saint Mark in the name of the Apostle Saint Peter, was the head of the churches of Egypt and of several other provinces; it had lost its Metropolitan when Saint Thomas of Alexandria died at the end of the third century. Saint Peter, a priest of that city, replaced him, and soon was governing the church amid the terrors of the persecution by Diocletian and Maximian. Two bishops and more than six hundred Christians were in irons and on the verge of torture; he sent to them pastoral letters to animate them to fervor and perseverance, and rejoiced to learn that a number of them had won the grace of martyrdom.

Many, however, had preferred apostasy to a cruel death. Saint Peter was obliged to instigate penances in order for them to return to the communion of the faithful. When he deposed a bishop who had incensed an idol during the persecution, his act of justice acquired for him the hostility of a certain Arius, the bishop's favorite, who became thereafter the author of a schism and an instrument of the cruel emperor Maximian who persecuted the Christians. He in fact animated this tyrant against Saint Peter. The sentence of excommunication which Saint Peter was the first to pronounce against the two schismatics, Arius and Melitius, and which he strenuously upheld despite the united efforts of powerful members of their parties, is proof that he possessed firmness as well as sagacity and zeal.

The Patriarch was soon seized and thrown into prison. There he encouraged the confessors imprisoned with him to sing the praises of God and pray to their Saviour in their hearts, without ceasing. Saint Peter never ceased repeating to the faithful that, in order not to fear death, it is necessary to begin by dying to oneself, renouncing our self-will and detaching ourselves from all things. He was soon to give proof of his own perfect detachment in his glorious martyrdom.

While in prison he was advised in an apparition as to his successors in the Alexandrian church, and he recognized that the day of his eternal liberation was at hand. He informed these two faithful sons that his martyrdom was imminent. In effect, the emperor passed sentence of death on him, despite the fact that a crowd of persons had come to the prison with the intention of preventing by force the martyrdom of their patriarch; they remained all night for fear he might be executed in secret. But Saint Peter delivered himself up to his executioners, and died by the sword on November 26, 310. His appearance on the scaffold was so majestic that none of them dared to touch him; it was necessary to pay one of them in gold to strike the fatal blow.

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Saint John Berchmans
Jesuit Seminarian
(1599-1621)

Patron of altar boys

Born in 1599 in Diest, a town of northern Belgium near Brussels and Louvain, this angelic young Saint was the oldest of five children. Two of his three brothers became priests, and his father, after the death of John's mother when he was eleven years old, entered religion and became a Canon of Saint Sulpice.

John was a brilliant student from his most tender years, manifesting also a piety which far exceeded the ordinary. Beginning at the age of seven, he studied for three years at the local communal school with an excellent professor. And then his father, wanting to protect the sacerdotal vocation already evident in his son, confided him to a Canon of Diest who lodged students aspiring to the ecclesiastical vocation. After three years in that residence, the family's financial situation had declined owing to the long illness of the mother, and John was told he would have to return and learn a trade. He pleaded to be allowed to continue his studies. And his aunts, who were nuns, found a solution through their chaplain; he proposed to take John into his service and lodge him.

Saint John was ordinarily first in his classes at the large school, a sort of minor seminary, even when he had to double his efforts in order to rejoin his fellow students, all of excellent talent, who sometimes had preceded him for a year or more in an assigned discipline. He often questioned his Superiors as to what was the most perfect thing to say or do in the various circumstances in which he found himself. Such was the humility which caused the young to advance without ceasing on the road to heaven. Later he continued his studies at Malines, also not distant from Diest, under the tutelage of another ecclesiastic, who assigned to him the supervision of three young boys of a noble family. In all that John did he sought perfection, and he never encountered anything but the highest favor for his services, wherever he was placed.

He found his vocation through his acquaintance with the Jesuits of that city, and manifested his determination to pursue his course, although his father and family opposed it for a time. It had been decided that he would continue his studies at the Jesuit novitiate of Malines, with about 70 other novices. With another young aspirant, he was waiting in the parlor to be introduced, when he saw in the garden a coadjutor Brother turning over the ground in the garden. He proposed to his companion to go and help him, saying: Could we begin our religious life better than with an act of humility and charity? And with no hesitation, both went to offer their assistance. How many young persons in that situation would have thought of such an offer? This incident reveals the profound charity and interior peace which characterized this young religious at all times.

As a novice he taught catechism to the children in the regions around Malines. He made his instructions so lively and interesting that the country folk preferred his lessons to the ordinary sermons. The children became attached to him, and in a troop would conduct him back to the novitiate, where he distributed holy pictures, medals and rosaries to them. At the end of his novitiate in 1619 he was destined to go to Rome to begin serious application to philosophy, but his superiors decided to send him home for a few days first. A shock awaited him at the train station of Malines, where he was expecting to meet his father; he had died a week earlier. John was given time to take the dispositions necessary to provide for the younger brothers and sister. When he departed, it was apparently with a premonition that he would perhaps never see them again, for he said in a letter to the Canon of Diest with whom he had dwelt, to tell the younger ones for him: Increase in piety, in fear of God and in knowledge. Adieu.

With a fellow novice he began the two months' journey on foot to Rome, by way of Paris, Lyons and Loreto, where the two assisted at the Christmas Midnight Mass. Both of these two young Jesuits would die within three years' time, his companion in a matter of several months. John had time during these three years to give unceasing proofs of his already perfected sanctity; nothing that he did was left to chance, but entrusted to the intercession of his Heavenly Mother, to whom his devotion continued to increase day by day. He made an extraordinary effort during an intense heat wave in the summer of 1621, participating splendidly in a debate, which took place at a certain distance from the Jesuit residence, despite the fact he did not feel well. Two days later he was felled by a fever, which continued implacably to mine his already slight resistance, and he died in August of that year, after one week of illness. The story of his last days is touching indeed; in a residence of several hundred priests and students, there was none who did not follow with anxiety and compassion the progress of his illness. When the infirmarian told his patient that he should probably receive Communion the next morning — an exception to the rule prescribing it for Sundays only, in those times — John said, In Viaticum? and received a sad affirmative answer. He himself was transported with joy and embraced the Brother; the latter broke into tears. A priest who knew John well went to him the next morning and asked him if there was anything troubling or saddening him, and John replied, Absolutely nothing.

He asked that his mattress be placed on the floor, and knelt to receive his Lord; when the Father Rector pronounced the words of the Ritual: Receive, Brother, in viaticum, the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ, all in attendance wept. Their angelic, ever joyous and affectionate young novice was called to leave them; no clearer tribute than their tears could have been offered to the reality of his sanctity, his participation in the effusive goodness of the divine nature. Devotion to his memory spread rapidly in Belgium; already in 1624 twelve engraving establishments of Anvers had published his portrait. He was canonized in 1888 by Pope Leo XIII, at the same time as two other Jesuits who lived during the first century of that Society's existence, so fruitful in sanctity — Peter Claver and Alphonsus Rodriguez.

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November 26 – St Sylvester, Abbot

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)

God often brings the world to those who flee from it, as Sylvester Gozzolini among others experienced. In the thirteenth century, the world, all in admiration at the sanctity and the eloquence of the new Orders, seemed to have forgotten the monks and the desert. God, who never forgets, led his elect silently into solitude, and the wilderness began again to rejoice and flourish like the lily; strength was restored to the weak hands and feeble knees (Isaiah 35:1-3) of the sons of the cloister. The austerities of olden days and the fervor of prolonged prayer were revived at Monte Fano, and extended into sixty other monasteries; the new religious family of the Sylvestrians was approved by Innocent IV in 1247. Though originated seven centuries after St. Benedict, and distinguished from the elder families by its blue habit, it claims the Patriarch of Cassino for its legislator and father.

Let us read the life of St. Sylvester which was inserted in the Breviary by Pope Leo XIII.
Sylvester was born of a noble family at Osimo in the Marches of Ancona, and in his boyhood was remarkable for his love of study and his good conduct. As a youth he was sent by his father to Bologna to study jurisprudence, but was admonished by God to devote himself to sacred learning. This incited his father to anger, which Sylvester patiently endured for ten years. On account of his remarkable virtue, the Canons of Osimo elected him an honorary member of their chapter, in which position he benefited the people by his prayers, his example, and his sermons.

While assisting at the funeral of a nobleman, his relative, who had been remarkably handsome, he looked into the open coffin, and seeing the corpse all deformed, said to himself: What this man was, I am now; what he is now, I shall be hereafter. As soon as the funeral was over, reading these words of our Lord: If any one will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me, he retired into solitude in order to attain greater perfection; there he gave himself up to watching, prayer and fasting, often eating nothing but raw herbs. The better to conceal himself from men he frequently changed his place of abode; and at length settled at Monte Fano, which, though near to Fabriano, was at that time a desert. There he built a church in honor of the most holy father Benedict, and founded the Congregation of Sylvestrians, under the rule and habit shown him by St. Benedict in vision.

Satan, roused to envy, strove in many ways to terrify his monks, making assaults by night at the monastery gates. But the man of God repressed the enemy’s attacks with such vigor, that the monks, recognizing their father’s sanctity, were more and more confirmed in their holy purpose. Sylvester was remarkable for the spirit of prophecy and other gifts, which he guarded by deep humility. This so stirred up the devil’s envy that he cast the saint headlong down the oratory stairs and well nigh killed him, but the blessed Virgin at once graciously restored him to health. In gratitude for this benefit, Sylvester showed her the tenderest unfailing piety to the end of his life. He died at the age of about ninety years, renowned for sanctity and miracles, on the sixth of the Kalends of December, in the year of salvation 1267. The Sovereign Pontiff Leo XIII extended his Office and Mass to the universal Church.

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Peter, successor of St. Theonas in the See of Alexandria, was by his learning and holiness the glory of Egypt, and the light of the whole Church of God. Such was his courage under the terrible persecution raised by Maximian Galerius, that the example of his admirable patience strengthened a great many in Christian virtue. He was the first to cut off from the communion of the faithful, Arius, deacon of Alexandria, for favoring the schism of the Meletians. When Peter had been condemned to death by Maximian, the priests Achillas and Alexander came to him in prison to intercede for Arius; but the bishop answered that during the night Jesus had appeared to him with his garment torn, and on his asking the cause, had replied: “Arius has rent my garment, which is the Church.” He then foretold that they two would succeed him in turn in the episcopate, and forbade them ever to receive Arius to communion, for he knew that he was dead to God. The truth of this prophecy was soon proved by the event. Peter was beheaded, and thus went to receive the crown of martyrdom on the sixth of the Kalends of December, in the twelfth year of his episcopate.

Let us offer our homage and prayers to the great bishop whom the Church thus commemorates today. For a long time he went by the name of Peter the Martyr, until in the thirteenth century another Peter martyr, himself illustrious among all, came to claim the title, leaving his glorious brother to be known as St. Peter of Alexandria.

Ant. Iste sanctus pro lege Dei sui certavit usque ad mortem, et a verbis impiorum non timuit: fundatus enim erat supra firmam petram.
Ant. This Saint fought even to death for the law of his God, and feared not the words of the wicked; for he was founded upon a firm rock.

℣. Gloria et honore coronasti eum Domine.
℣. Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, O Lord.

℟. Et constituisti eum super opera manuum tuarum.
℟. And hast set him over the works of thy hands.

Prayer

Infirmatatem nostram respice, omnipotens Deus: et quia pondus propriæ actionis gravat, beati Petri Martyris tui atque Pontificis, intercessio gloriosa nos protegat. Per Dominum.

Have regard to our weakness, O Almighty God: and since the weight of our own deeds is grievous to us, may the glorious intercession of blessed Peter, thy Martyr and Bishop, protect us. Through.