Carcasonne.
LaGrasse.
Blessed Pope Eugene III (source).The unassuming but astute pupil of St. Bernard had always continued to wear the coarse habit of Clairvaux beneath the purple; the stoic virtues of monasticism accompanied him through his stormy career, and invested him with that power of passive resistance which has always remained the most effectual weapon of the popes.
Today is the memorial of Blessed Eugene III, Cistercian, disciple of St. Bernard, and reformer. I thought his story bore a little more mention.
Here's what the Catholic Encyclopedia (courtesy of New Advent) has to say:
Bernardo Pignatelli, born in the neighbourhood of Pisa, elected 15 Feb., 1145; d. at Tivoli, 8 July, 1153. On the very day that Pope Lucius II succumbed, either to illness or wounds, the Sacred College, foreseeing that the Roman populace would make a determined effort to force the new pontiff to abdicate his temporal power and swear allegiance to the Senatus Populusque Romanus, hastily buried the deceased pope in the Lateran and withdrew to the remote cloister of St. Cæsarius on the Appian Way. Here, for reasons unascertained, they sought a candidate outside their body, and unanimously chose the Cistercian monk, Bernard of Pisa, abbot of the monastery of Tre Fontane, on the site of St. Paul's martyrdom. He was enthroned as Eugene III without delay in St. John Lateran, and since residence in the rebellious city was impossible, the pope and his cardinals fled to the country. Their rendezvous was the monastery of Farfa, where Eugene received the episcopal consecration. The city of Viterbo, the hospitable refuge of so many of the afflicted medieval popes, opened its gates to welcome him; and thither he proceeded to await developments. Though powerless in face of the Roman mob, he was assured by embassies from all the European powers that he possessed the sympathy and affectionate homage of the entire Christian world.
Concerning the parentage, birth-place, and even the original name of Eugene, each of his biographers has advanced a different opinion. All that can be affirmed as certain is that he was of the noble family of Pignatelli, and whether he received the name of Bernardo in baptism or only upon entering religion, must remain uncertain. He was educated in Pisa, and after his ordination was made a canon of the cathedral. Later he held the office of vice-dominus or steward of the temporalities of the diocese. In 1130 he came under the magnetic influence of St. Bernard of Clairvaux; five years later when the saint returned home from the Synod of Pisa, the vice dominus accompanied him as a novice. In course of time he was employed by his order on several important affiars; and lastly was sent with a colony of monks to repeople the ancient Abbey of Farfa; but Innocent II placed them instead at the Tre Fontane.
St. Bernard received the intelligence of the elevation of his disciple with astonishment and pleasure, and gave expression to his feelings in a paternal letter addressed to the new pope, in which occurs the famous passage so often quoted by reformers, true and false: "Who will grant me to see, before I die, the Church of God as in the days of old when the Apostles let down their nets for a draught, not of silver and gold, but of souls?" The saint, moreover, proceeded to compose in his few moments of leisure that admirable handbook for popes called "De Consideratione". Whilst Eugene sojourned at Viterbo, Arnold of Brescia, who had been condemned by the Council of 1139 to exile from Italy, ventured to return at the beginning of the new pontificate and threw himself on the clemency of the pope. Believing in the sincerity of his repentance, Eugene absolved him and enjoined on him as penance fasting and a visit to the tombs of the Apostles. If the veteran demagogue entered Rome in a penitential mood, the sight of democracy based on his own principles soon caused him to revert to his former self. He placed himself at the head of the movement, and his incendiary philippics against the bishops, cardinals, and even the ascetic pontiff who treated him with extreme lenity, worked his hearers into such fury that Rome resembled a city captured by barbarians. The palaces of the cardinals and of such of the nobility as held with the pope were razed to the ground; churches and monasteries were pillaged; St. Peter's church was turned into an arsenal; and pious pilgrims were plundered and maltreated.
But the storm was too violent to last. Only an idiot could fail to understand that medieval Rome without he pope had no means of subsistence. A strong party was formed in Rome and the vicinity consisting of the principal families and their adherents, in the interests of order and the papacy, and the democrats were induced to listen to words of moderation. A treaty was entered into with Eugene by which the Senate was preserved but subject to the papal sovereignty and swearing allegiance to the supreme pontiff. The senators were to be chosen annually by popular election and in a committee of their body the executive power was lodged. The pope and the senate should have separate courts, and an appeal could be made from the decisions of either court to the other. By virtue of this treaty Eugene made a solemn entry into Rome a few days before Christmas, and was greeted by the fickle populace with boundless enthusiasm. But the dual system of government proved unworkable. The Romans demanded the destruction of Tivoli. This town had been faithful to Eugene during the rebellion of the Romans and merited his protection. He therefore refused to permit it to be destroyed. The Romans growing more and more turbulent, he retired to Castel S. Angelo, thence to Viterbo, and finally crossed the Alps, early in 1146.
Problems lay before the pope of vastly greater importance than the maintenance of order in Rome. The Christian principalities in Palestine and Syria were threatened with extinction. The fall of Edessa (1144) had aroused consternation throughout the West, and already from Viterbo Eugene had addressed a stirring appeal to the chivalry of Europe to hasten to the defence of the Holy Places. St. Bernard was commissioned to preach the Second Crusade, and he acquitted himself of the task with such success that within a couple of years two magnificent armies, commanded by the King of theRomans and the King of France, were on their way to Palestine. That the Second Crusade was a wretched failure cannot be ascribed to the saint or the pope; but it is one of those phenomena so frequently met with in the history of the papacy, that a pope who was made to subdue a handful of rebellious subjects could hurl all Europe against the Saracens. Eugene spent three busy and fruitful years in France, intent on the propagation of the Faith, the correction of errors and abuses, and the maintenance of discipline. He sent Cardinal Breakspear (afterwards Adrian IV) as legate to Scandinavia; he entered into relations with the Orientals with a view to reunion; he proceeded with vigour against the nascent Manichean heresies. In several synods (Paris, 1147, Trier, 1148), notably in the great Synod of Reims (1148), canons were enacted regarding the dress and conduct of the clergy. To ensure the strict execution of these canons, the bishops who should neglect to enforce them were threatened with suspension. Eugene was inexorable in punishing the unworthy. He deposed the metropolitans of York and Mainz, and he for a cause which St. Bernard thought not sufficiently grave, he withdrew the pallium from the Archbishop of Reims. But if the saintly pontiff could at times be severe, this was not his natural disposition.
"Never", wrote Ven. Peter of Cluny to St. Bernard, "have I found a truer friend, a sincerer brother, a purer father. His ear is ever ready to hear, his tongue is swift and mighty to advise. Nor does he comport himself as one's superior, but rather as an equal or an inferior… I have never made him a request which he has not either granted, or so refused that I could not reasonably complain." On the occasion of a visit which he paid toClairvaux, his former companions discovered to their joy that "he who externally shone in the pontifical robes remained in his heart an observant monk".
The prolonged sojourn of the pope in France was of great advantage to the French Church in many ways and enhanced the prestige of the papacy. Eugene also encouraged the new intellectual movement to which Peter Lombard had given a strong impulse. With the aid of Cardinal Pullus, his chancellor, who had established the University of Oxford on a lasting basis, he reduced the schools of theology and philosophy to better form. He encouraged Gratian in his herculean task of arranging the Decretals, and we owe to him various useful regulations bearing on academic degrees. In the spring of 1148, the pope returned by easy stages to Italy. On 7 July, he met the Italian bishops at Cremona, promulgated the canons of Reims for Italy, and solemnly excommunicated Arnold of Brescia, who still reigned over the Roman mob. Eugene, having brought with him considerable financial aid, began to gather his vassals and advanced to Viterbo and thence to Tusculum. Here he was visited by King Louis of France, whom he reconciled to his queen, Eleanor. With the assistance of Roger of Sicily, he forced his way into Rome (1149), and celebrated Christmas in the Lateran. His stay was not of long duration. During the next three years the Roman court wandered in exile through the Campagna while both sides looked for the intervention of Conrad of Germany, offering him the imperial crown. Aroused by the earnest exhortations of St. Bernard, Conrad finally decided to descend into Italy and put an end to the anarchy in Rome. Death overtook him in the midst of his preparations on 15 Feb., 1152, leaving the task to his more energetic nephew, Frederick Barbarossa. The envoys of Eugene having concluded with Frederick at Constance, in the spring of 1153, a treaty favourable to the interests of the Church and the empire, the more moderate of the Romans, seeing that the days of democracy were numbered, joined with the nobles in putting down the Arnoldists, and the pontiff was enabled to spend his concluding days in peace.
Eugene is said to have gained the affection of the people by his affability and generosity. He died at Tivoli, whither he had gone to avoid the summer heats, and was buried in front of the high altar in St. Peters, Rome. St. Bernard followed him to the grave (20 Aug.). "The unassuming but astute pupil of St. Bernard", says Gregorovius, "had always continued to wear the coarse habit of Clairvaux beneath the purple; the stoic virtues of monasticism accompanied him through his stormy career, and invested him with that power of passive resistance which has always remained the most effectual weapon of the popes." St. Antoninus pronounces Eugene III "one of the greatest and most afflicted of the popes". Pius IX by a decreed of 28 Dec., 1872, approved the cult which from time immemorial the Pisans have rendered to their countryman, and ordered him to be honoured with Mass and Office ritu duplici on the anniversary of his death.
Eugene III, Pope, Confessor and Cistercian (Image source).In the territory of Paris, S.Theobald, Abbot of the Cistercian Monastery ofVaux de Cernay, whose holy relics were translated from the chapter house to a chapel and then to the nave of the Church, where they were venerated by a great concourse of the faithful.
At Rome, the holy martyrs Nicostratus, Claudius, Castor, Victorinus and Symphronian whom the judge Fabian tried to move from their faith for ten days by both threats and blandishments. When they proved resolute, he ordered them tortured for three days and then cast them into the sea.
At Alexandria, the birthday of S.Pantaenus, an apostolic man and adorned with all wisdom. He had such great zeal and love for the Word of God that, burning with the fire of Faith and devotion, he went to preach Christ's Gospel to the nations in the farthest reaches of the East.
At Canterbury in England, the translation of the body of the holy martyr Thomas Becket, Archbishop of that city, who after an exile among the monks of Pontigny suffered death at the hands of wicked men in defense of the librerty of the Church. His relics were brought from the chapel of S. Mary Undercroft in the crypt of the Cathedral to a shrine in the Choir by Archbishop Stephen Langton in the presence of King Henry III and a great number of prelates and noblemen.
In the countryside of Namur, the Dedication of the Church of blessed Mary of Boneffa.
Et alibi aliorum plurimorum sanctorum martyrum/et confessorum*atque sanctarum virginum.+
-Martyrology for July 7
At Rome, the death of blessed Eugene III, Pope and confessor, of Our Order, who, having been Abbot of the monastery of SS.Vincent and Anastasius at the Salvian Waters, was elected as Supreme Pontiff and ruled the Church with wonderful wisdom and holiness.
In Asia Minor, SS.Aquila and Priscilla, his wife, of whom mention is made in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles.
In Palestine, the birthday of blessed Procopius, martyr, who was brought from Scythopolis to Caesarea, and at the firmness of his first confession was beheaded by order of Fabian the judge.
On the same day, S.Chilian, martyr.
Et alibi aliorum plurimorum sanctorum martyrum/et confessorum*atque sanctarum virginum.+
- Martyrology for July 8
I sing a song of the saints of God,
Patient and brave and true,
Who toiled and fought and lived and died
For the Lord they loved and knew.
And one was a doctor, and one was a queen,
And one was a shepherdess on the green:
They were all of them saints of God--and I mean,
God helping, to be one too.
They loved their Lord so dear, so dear,
And his love made them strong;
And they followed the right, for Jesus' sake,
The whole of their good lives long.
And one was a soldier, and one was a priest,
And one was slain by a fierce wild beast:
And there's not any reason, no, not the least
Why I shouldn't be one too.
They lived not only in ages past,
There are hundreds of thousands still;
The world is bright with the joyous saints
Who love to do Jesus' will.
You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea,
In church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea;
For the saints of God are just folk like me,
And I mean to be one too.
(Here’s a link to the tune if you don't know it. It could stand to be faster.)
A village in the French Pyrenees.
The village church in Argeles-sur-Mer where the wedding will be held.
The Boardwalk in Argeles, complete with cotton candy.
Fr Joseph reads the martyrology.
Sermon for the 14th Sunday of the Year (MP3)
St. Gabriel's Church, Nazareth.
Greek Cathedral, Nazareth.
St. Joseph's Church, built on the traditional site of the house of the Holy Family.
Mikvah in the beneathe the crypt level of St. Joseph's church.
St. Elizabeth of Portugal (Image source.)Father of peace and love, you gave Saint Elizabeth the gift of reconciling enemies. By the help of her prayers, give us the courage to work for peace among men, that we may be called the sons of God. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (source)
