April 18th - Blessed Mary of the Incarnation and St. Apollonius

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Saints Honored on This Day - April 19th

Taken from Butler's Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints

ST. LEO IX., POPE, C.

From the councils, and his life written with great accuracy by Wibert his archdeacon, at Toul, published by F. Sirmond at Paris, in 1615, by Henschenius, 19 Apr. Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 9, et Muratori Script Ital. t. 3, p. 278, ad p. 299: another life by the cardinal of Aragon, who flourished in 1356, apud Muratori, ib. p. 276. Also from a history of his death by an anonymous contemporary writer, ib., and from the history of the dedication of the church of St. Remigius at Rheims, by Anselm, a monk of that house, entitled, Itinerarium Leonis IX. in Mabillon. t. 8. See Hist. Littér. Fr. t. 7, p. 458; Mabillon, Anna1.1. 59, n. 61, 62; Calmet, Hist. de Lorr. t. 4, p. 176.

A. D. 1054.

THIS great pope received in baptism the name of Bruno. He was born in Alsace, in 1002, with his body marked all over with little red crosses: which was attributed to the intense meditation of his pious mother on the passion of Christ.* He was of the illustrious house of Dapsbourgh, or Asbourgh, in that province, being the son of Hugh, cousin-german to the mother of the pious emperor Conrad the Salic. He had his education under Berthold, the virtuous and learned bishop of Toul; and, after his first studies, was made a canon in that cathedra1.1 His time was principally divided betwixt prayer, pious reading, and his studies: and the hours of recreation he employed in visiting the hospitals and instructing the poor When he was deacon, he was called to the court of the emperor Conrad, and was much honored by that prince. The young clergyman displayed an extraordinary talent for business; but never omitted his long exercises of devotion, or his usual fasts and other austere mortifications. In 1026, he was chosen bishop of Toul. The emperor endeavored to persuade him to defer his consecration till the year following: but the saint hastened to the care of the church, of which he was to give an account to God, and was consecrated by his metropolitan, the archbishop of Triers; but refused to take an unjust and dangerous oath which he exacted of his suffragans, that they would do nothing but by his advice. Bruno began to discharge his pastoral office by the reformation of the clergy and monks, whom he considered as the most illustrious portion of the flock of Christ, and the salt of the earth. By his care the monastic discipline and spirit were revived in the great monasteries of Senones, Jointures, Estival, Bodonminster, Middle-Moutier, and St. Mansu, or Mansuet. He reformed the manner of celebrating the divine office, and performing the church music, in which he took great delight. A soul that truly loves God, makes the divine praises the comfort of her present exile. The saint was indefatigable in his labors to advance the service of God and the salvation of souls. Amidst his great actions, it was most admirable to see how little he was in his own eyes. He every day served and washed the feet of several poor persons. His life was an uninterrupted severe course of penance, by the practice of secre austerities, and a constant spirit of compunction. Patience and meekness were the arms by which he triumphed over envy and resentment, when many strove to bring him into disgrace with the emperor and others. On of devotion to St. Peter, he visited once a year the tombs of the apostles at Rome. After the death of pope Damasus II., in 1048, in a diet of prelates and noblemen, with legates and deputies of the church of Rome, held at Worms, and honored with the presence of the pious emperor, Henry III., surnamed the Black, Bruno, who had then governed the see of Toul twenty two years, was pitched upon as the most worthy person to be exalted to the papacy. He being present, used all his endeavors to avert the storm from falling on his head; and at length begged three days to deliberate upon the matter. This term he spent in tears and prayers, and in so rigorous a fast, that he neither ate nor drank during all that time. The term being expired, he returned to the assembly, and, hoping to convince his electors of his unworthiness, made a public general confession before them of the sins of his whole life, with abundance of tears, which drew also tears from all that were present: yet no man changed his opinion. He yielded at last only on condition that the whole clergy and people of Rome should agree to his promotion. After this declaration, he returned to Toul, and soon after Easter set out for Rome in the habit of a pilgrim; and alighting from his horse, some miles before he arrived at the city, walked to it, and entered it barefoot. He was received with universal acclamations, and his election ratified. He took possession of the see on the 12th of February, 1049, under the name of Leo IX., being about forty-seven years old. He held it only five years, but they were filled with good works. He labored strenuously in extirpating simony, and the incestuous marriages which many noblemen had presumed to contract. In a journey which he made into Germany, he signalized all his steps with religious actions, held a council to Rheims, and consecrated the new church of St. Remigius, belonging to the abbey, in 1049: and returned from Mentz, by mount Vosge and Ricbenow, to Rome. In 1050, in a council at Rome,2 he condemned the new heresy of Berengarius, archdeacon of Angers, a man full of self-conceit and a lover of novelty, who preached against the mystery of transubstantiation in the holy eucharist.*

St Leo held another council at Vercelli the same year, composed of prelates from several countries, who unanimously confirmed the censure passed at Rome on Berengarius and his tenets, and condemned a book of John Scotus Erigena to be cast into the fire.3 In 1051 the pope made a second visit to his ancient see of Toul, and favored the abbey of St. Mansu with great presents and exemptions. In 1052 he went again into Germany to reconcile the emperor Henry III. and Andrew, king of Hungary. In 1053 Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, began to renew the schism of the Greek church, which had been formerly commenced by Photius, but again healed. Cerularius and Leo, bishop of Acrida, wrote a joint letter to John bishop of Trani, in Apulia, in which they objected to the Latins, that they celebrated the holy eucharist in unleavened bread, fasted on the Saturdays in Lent, refrained not from eating blood, omitted to sing halleluia in Lent, and other such like points of discipline.4 Malice must be to the last degree extravagant, which could pretend to ground a schism upon such exceptions. St. Leo answered him by an exhortation to peace, alleging for these practices of discipline the ancient law and tradition from St. Peter, especially for the use of unleavened bread in the holy eucharist. He sent cardinal Humbert, his legate, to Constantinople, to vindicate the Latin church against the exceptions of the Greeks, and preserve them in union with the Latins. He composed a learned and ample apology for this purpose;5 but was not able to overcome the obstinacy of Cerularius, whose artifices drew the greater part of the Oriental churches into his schism By his factious spirit he also embroiled the state: for which Isaac Comnenus himself, whom he had raised to the throne the year before, was preparing to chastise him, when his death prevented his punishment, in. 1058.6

The Normans, in the eleventh century, expelled the Saracens and Greeks out of the kingdom of Naples, but became themselves troublesome and enterprising neighbors to the holy see. Pope Leo implored against them the succors of the emperor Henry III., to whom he made over Fuld, Bamberg, and other lands, which the popes then possessed in Germany, receiving in exchange Benevento and its territory in Italy. With these succors his Holiness hoped to check the Normans, but his army was defeated by them, and himself taken prisoner in a certain village, and detained near a year, though always treated with great honor and respect. He spent his time in fasting and prayer, wore a hair-cloth next his skin, lay on a mat on the floor with a stone for his pillow, slept little, and gave large alms. Falling sick, he was honorably sent back to Rome, as he desired. Perceiving his end to draw nigh, he made moving exhortations to his prelates; then caused himself to be carried into the Vatican church, where he prayed long, and discoursed on the resurrection on the side of his grave. Having received extreme unction, he desired to be carried to the altar of St. Peter and set down before it; where he prayed an hour prostrate: then being lifted up again upon his couch he heard mass, received the Viaticum, and soon after calmly expired, on the 19th of April, 1054, being fifty years old, and having held the pontificate five years and two months.* Miracles which followed his death, proclaimed his glory with God. His name is inserted in the Roman Martyrology.

The devil has ever labored with so much the greater fury to rob the church and each particular Christian soul of the most holy sacrament of the altar, or at least of its fruits, as in this adorable mystery Christ has displayed in our favor all the riches of his mercy and love, and has bestowed on us the most powerful means of grace and spiritual strength. It therefore behooves every Christian to exert his zeal in maintaining the honor of this divine sacrament, and ensuring to himself and others such incomparable advantages. Besides the general sacred deposite of faith, here love and gratitude lay us under a particular obligation. St. John, the disciple of love, lays open the true characteristics of this adorable mystery of love by a short introduction to his account of the last supper, soaring above the other Evangelists, and penetrating into the divine sanctuary of our Lord’s breast to discover the infinite charity with which he was inflamed for us, and which prompted him to invent and institute it, saying, that Jesus, knowing the moment was come for his leaving us and returning to his Father, out of that love which he always bore us, and which he continued to bear us to the end, when it exerted itself in such a wonderful manner as to seem to cast forth all its flames, he bequeathed us this truly divine legacy. Love called him to heaven for our sake, that he might prepare us places there, and send us the holy Paraclete to perfect the great work of our sanctification. And the same boundless love engaged him to exhaust, as it were, his infinite wisdom and power to remain always corporally among us, and most intimately unite himself with us, to be our comfort and strength, and that we may most perfectly be animated by his spirit, and live by him. Shall we receive such a present with coldness and indifference? Shall we be so basely ungrateful to such a lover, as not to burn with zeal for the honor of this mystery of his love and grace, and unite ourselves to him in it by the most devout and frequent communion; and by our continual desire, and most frequent daily adoration of Jesus in this holy sacrament, endeavor to make him all the amends we are able for the insults he receives in it, and to appropriate to ourselves a greater share of its treasures, by a perpetual communion as it were with his Holy Spirit, and a participation of all his merits, graces, treasures, satisfaction, love, and other virtues?

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ST. ELPHEGE, M. ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY

From his genuine life, written by Osbern, a monk of Canterbury, in 1070, but finished by Eadmer, as Mr. Wharton discovered, who has given us a more ample and correct edition of it than either the Bollandists or Mabillon had been able to furnish. See a short history of his martyrdom in a chronicle written in the reign of Henry I., in the Cottonian library. Vitellius, c. v. viii. Leland, Collect. t. 1, p. 22, and the history of the translation of his body from London to Canterbury, among the MSS. In the Harielan library, Cod. 624, fol. 136, in the British Museum.1

A. D. 1012.

ST. ELPHEGE was born of noble and virtuous parents, who gave him a good education. Fearing the snares of riches, he renounced the world while he was yet very young; and though most dutiful to his parents in all other things, he in this courageously overcame the tears of his tender mother. He served God first in the monastery of Derherste in Gloucestershire. His desire of greater perfection taught him always to think that he had not yet begun to live to God. After some years he left Derherste, and built himself a cell in a desert place of the abbey of Bath, where he shut himself up, unknown to men, but well known to God, for whose love he made himself a voluntary martyr of penance. His virtue, after some time, shone to men the brighter through the veils of his humility, and many noblemen and others addressed themselves to him for instructions in the paths of perfection, and he was at length obliged to take upon him the direction of the great abbey of Bath. Perfection is more difficultly maintained in numerous houses. St. Elphege lamented bitterly the irregularities of the tepid among the brethren, especially little junketings, from which he in a short time reclaimed them; and God, by the sudden death of one, opened the eyes of all the rest. The good abbot would not tolerate the least relaxation in his communion, being sensible how small a breach may totally destroy the regularity of a house. He used to say, that it would have been much better for a man to have stayed in the world, than to be an imperfect monk; and that to wear the habit of a saint, without having the spirit, was a perpetual lie, and an hypocrisy which insults, but can never impose upon Al mighty God. St. Ethelwold, bishop of Winchester, dying in 984, St. Dunstan being admonished by St. Andrew, in a vision, obliged our holy abbot to quit his solitude, and accept of episcopal consecration. The virtues of Elphege became more conspicuous in this high station, though he was no more than thirty years of age when he was first placed in it. In winter, how cold soever it was, he always rose at midnight, went out, and prayed a long time barefoot, and without his upper garment. He never ate flesh unless on extraordinary occasions. He was no less remarkable for charity to his neighbor, than severity to himself. He accordingly provided so liberally for the indigences of the poor, that during his time there were no beggars in the whole diocese of Winchester. The holy prelate had governed the see of Winchester twenty-two years with great edification, when, after the death of archbishop Alfric, in 1006, he was translated to that of Canterbury, being fifty-two years of age. He who trembled under his former burden, was much more terrified at the thought of the latter: but was compelled to acquiesce. Having been at Rome to receive his pall, he held at his return a great national council at Oenham, in 1009, in which thirty-two canons were published for the reformation of errors and abuses, and the establishment of discipline; and, among other things, the then ancient law, commanding the fast on Friday, was confirmed.

The Danes at that time made the most dreadful havoc in England. They landed where they pleased, and not only plundered the country, but committed excessive barbarities on the natives, with little or no opposition from the weak king Ethelred. Their army being joined by the traitorous earl Edric, they marched out of the West into Kent, and sat down before Canterbury. But before it was invested, the English nobility, perceiving the danger the place was in, desired the archbishop, then in the city, to provide for his security by flight, which he refused to do, saying, that it was the part only of a hireling to abandon his flock in the time of danger. During the siege, he often sent out to the enemies to desire them to spare his innocent sheep, whom he endeavored to animate against the worst that could happen. And having prepared them, by his zealous exhortations, rather to suffer the utmost than renounce their faith, he gave them the blessed eucharist, and recommended them to the divine protection. While he was thus employed in assisting and encouraging his people, Canterbury was taken by storm. The infidels on entering the city made a dreadful slaughter of all that came in their way, without distinction of sex or age. The holy prelate was no sooner apprized of the barbarity of the enemy, but breaking from the monks, who would have detained him in the church, where they thought he might be safe, he pressed through the Danish troops, and made his way to the place of slaughter. Then turning to the enemy, he desired them to forbear the massacre of his people, and rather discharge their fury upon him, crying out to the murderers: “Spare these innocent persons. There is no glory in spilling their blood. Turn your indignation rather against me. I have reproached you for your cruelties: I have fed, clothed, and ransomed these your captives.”

The archbishop, talking with this freedom, was immediately seized, and used by the Danes with all manner of barbarity. Not content with making him the spectator of the burning of his cathedral, and the decimation of his monks, and of the citizens, having torn his face, beat and kicked him unmercifully, they laid him in irons, and confined him several months in a filthy dungeon. But being afflicted with an epidemical mortal colic in their army, and attributing this scourge to their cruel usage of the saint, they drew him out of prison. He prayed for them, and gave to their sick bread which he had blessed; by eating this their sick recovered, and the calamity ceased. Their chiefs returned thanks to the servant of God, and deliberated about setting him at liberty, but covetousness prevailing in their council, they exacted for his ransom three thousand marks of gold. He said that the country was all laid waste; moreover, that the patrimony of the poor was not to be squandered away. He therefore was bound again, and on Easter Sunday was brought before the commanders of their fleet, which then lay at Greenwich, and threatened with torments and death unless he paid the ransom demanded. He answered, that he had no other gold to offer them than that of true wisdom, which consists in the knowledge and worship of the living God: which if they refused to listen to, they would one day fare worse than Sodom; adding, that their empire would not long subsist in England. The barbarians, enraged at this answer, knocked him down with the backs of their battle-axes, and then stoned him. The saint, like St. Stephen, prayed our Lord to forgive them, and to receive his soul. In the end, raising himself up a little, he said, “O good Shepherd! O incomparable Shepherd! look with compassion on the children of thy church, which1, dying, recommend to thee.” And here a Dane, that had been lately baptized by the saint, perceiving him agonizing and under torture, grieved to see him suffer in so slow and painful a manner, to put an end to his pain, clove his head with his battle-axe, and gave the finishing stroke to his martyrdom.

Thus died St. Elphege, on the 19th of April, 1012, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. He was solemnly interred in the cathedral of St. Paul’s, in London. In 1023, his body was found entire, and translated with honor to Canterbury: Knut, the Danish king, and Agelnoth, the archbishop, went with it from St. Paul’s to the river: it was carried by monks down a narrow street to the water side, and put on board a vessel; the king held the stern. Queen Emma also attended with great presents, and an incredible multitude of people followed the procession from London. The church of Canterbury, on the occasion, was most magnificently adorned. This translation was made on the 8th of June, on which it was annually commemorated. His relics lay near the high altar till the dispersion of relics under Henry VIII. Hacon, Turkill, and the other Danish commanders, perished miserably soon after, and their numerous fleet of above two hundred sail was almost all lost in violent storms. St. Elphege is named in the Roman Martyrology.

Our English Martyrology commemorates on the 1st of September another St. Elphege, surnamed the Bald, bishop of Winchester, which see he governed from the death of St. Brynstan, in 935 to 953. He is celebrated for his sanctity, and a singular spirit of prophecy, of which Malmesbury gives some instances.

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ST. URSMAR, BISHOP AND ABBOT OF LAUBES, OR LOBES

HE was born near Avesne, in Haynault, and grew up from his cradle a model of all virtues, in which he made a continual progress by a life of humility, patience, and penance, and by an assiduous application to prayer, in which he usually shed abundance of tears. What he most earnestly asked of God was the gift of an ardent charity, that all his thoughts and actions, and those of all men, might, with the most pure and fervent intention, and in the most perfect manner, be directed in all things to fulfil his holy and adorable will. In his conversation it was his earnest desire and drift to induce persons of a secular life to fix their thoughts, as much as the condition of their state would allow, on heavenly things; and to accompany even their worldly business with such aspirations and thoughts, and to study to withdraw their hearts from all attachment to creatures. St. Landelin had then lately founded the abbey of Lobes, on the Sambre, in a territory which is now subject to the prince of Liege, though in the diocese of Cambray. Ursmar here put on the monastic habit. When St. Landelin retired into a closer solitude, where he soon after built the monastery of Crespin, he left Ursmar abbot of Lobes, in 686. Our saint redoubled his fervor in all the exercises of penance in this dignity. He never tasted any flesh-meat or fish, and for ten years never once touched bread, not even in a dangerous sickness. He finished the building of his abbey and church, and founded Aune and several other monasteries. He often left his dear cell to preach the faith to idolaters and sinners. He became the apostle of several districts in the dioceses of Cambray, Arras, Tournay, Noyon, Terouanne, Laon, Metz, Triers, Cologne, and Maestricht. By virtue of a commission from the holy see, he exercised the functions of a bishop: his predecessor, St. Landelin, and his two successors, SS. Ermin and Theodulph, were invested with the same character. In his old age he resigned his abbacy to St. Ermin, and died in retirement in 713, being almost sixty-nine years old, on the 18th day of April, on which he is honored as principal patron at Binche, Lobes, and Luxembourg; but is named on the 19th, which was the day of his burial, in the Roman and several other Martyrologies. His relics are venerated at Binche, four leagues from Mons. See his original life by a disciple, with the notes of Henschenius: also Folcuin, abbot of Laubes, in 980, in his accurate history of The Gests of the Abbots of Laubes, published by D’Achery, Spicileg. t. 6, p. 541. See also Folcuin’s appendix on the miracles wrought at the shrine of St. Ursmar, under the author’s own eyes, ib., and in the Bollandists, 18 Apr. p. 564, and another life of this saint composed in heroic verse by Heriger, abbot of Laubes, in the year 1000.