Butler's Lives of the Saints

by Bernard Bangley

  JUNE 20

  Alban (third or fourth century)

  Caring and sheltering

  The Venerable Bede (May 25) wrote an important history of the English church. In it, he tells the story of Alban, a prominent citizen who lived under the Roman occupation in the third century. Alban was not a Christian when he gave shelter to a priest fleeing for his life during a time of persecution. Impressed by the demeanor and behavior of his guest, Alban asked the priest to instruct and baptize him. He then decided to help the priest escape by exchanging clothes with him. The Roman soldiers arrested Alban and took him before a judge. When the judge discovered Alban was not a priest even though he was dressed like one, he became angry. “You have concealed a sacrilegious rebel rather than turn him over to my soldiers. I shall have you punished with his tortures.” Alban acknowledged that he had become a Christian and accepted the sentence. He was flogged and beheaded in public, a common practice in Roman Britain.

  JUNE 21

  Osanna of Mantua (1449–1505)

  Spiritual insight

  Osanna had a mystical experience when she was five years old. While walking beside a river, she felt herself swept up into heaven, and a voice told her “life and death consist in loving God.” This ecstatic experience influenced the rest of her life. It was the first of many. Some of her visions included traditional religious imagery, sometimes seeing Christ as a crucified child. Other mystic moments were sublime and beyond description. She attempted to keep these experiences a secret, but they would occur at unpredictable and awkward times.

  Osanna (Hosanna) was born to wealthy parents in Mantua, Italy. Like most parents, they prayed that she would find a suitable husband. They were dismayed when she announced that she would rather join the Dominicans than marry. Because of her steadfast determination, they eventually agreed.

  Continuing to live at home with her large family, Osanna acquired a reputation for holiness. She would spend hours in her room, praying silently, and was often at church. One of her relatives was the duke of Mantua. He began to turn to her for spiritual direction, and then for guidance in political matters. Her prayer life laid a foundation for an active ministry to the sick, the poor, and the afflicted. With her political connections, Osanna found ways to help many victims of injustice. Her life, given to serving others, corroborates her spiritual vision.

  JUNE 22

  Thomas More (1478–1535)

  Sacred intelligence

  Utopia is a common word in most vocabularies, but few are familiar with Thomas More’s book published in 1516. An English translation of that famous title would be: Nowhere. More’s Latin text combines religious discussion with social teaching, political commentary, jokes, puns, and literary contrivances that make it an extraordinary work. Thomas More pretends to recount a tale he heard about a happy island in the New World where people did not have the many problems of life together that plagued Europe. The familiar struggle for power and money did not exist in Utopia. Instead of using gold for currency, the Utopians made useful things with it, such as chamber pots. They had only a few simple laws and needed no lawyers. Religious tolerance accepted any creed other than atheism and the denial of human immortality. A sentence from five centuries ago seems contemporary: “No prayers are used except those anyone may speak boldly without offending any sect.”

  Thomas More grew up in a prominent judge’s home. At fifteen, Thomas attended Oxford and became engrossed in classical literature. His father pulled him out because he did not want his son to become a poorly paid scholar. He put him in London’s law school instead.

  In 1499, at the age of twenty-one, More met Erasmus, and they became close friends. Both enjoyed a fine sense of humor and a disdain for scholasticism. More said that such studies were about as valuable as milking a he-goat into a sieve. Both More and Erasmus loved the Church and wanted to see it reformed without upheaval. They did not want to see it split apart by hasty reasoning and futile disputes.

  More considered becoming a priest, but did not. For quite some time he wore a horsehair shirt next to his skin that was coarse enough to cause blood to show through his outer garments.

  Erasmus wrote the most reliable character profile of Thomas More. He reports that More was careless in dress and formality, that he was abstemious in food and drink, that he was cheerful with quick humor and a ready smile, inclined to jokes and pranks, and that his home was a place of laughter. “All the birds in Chelsea came to him to be fed.” More was twice a faithful husband, a loving father to his children, an excellent public speaker, and exceptionally generous to others. Erasmus asks, “What did Nature ever create milder, sweeter, and happier than the genius of Thomas More?”

  Thomas More was active in Parliament, eventually appointed to the council of Henry VIII. In 1529, he became Lord Chancellor of England. The authorities burned Protestants at the stake during these years, and More did not see any inconsistency between his part in this and his ideas of religious tolerance in Utopia. He vigorously opposed William Tyndale and his translation of the Bible into English. But when the king appointed himself “Protector and Supreme Head of the Church,” Thomas More considered Henry VIII the most dangerous heretic of them all, and More’s ethical and political position regarding the annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon resulted in his being sent as a prisoner to the infamous Tower of London. He remained there among vermin for fifteen months, cold, hungry, and pressured by his family to change his mind.

  Unjustly convicted of treason, Thomas More went to the scaffold in 1535. He bubbled with humor even then. The construction of the platform was rickety, and More said to an attendant, “I pray you, Mr. Lieutenant, see me safe up, and for my coming down let me shift for myself.” He then hugged the executioner, who had asked for forgiveness. After asking the spectators to pray for the Church and for the king, he recited Psalm 51 and placed his head upon the block. He moved his long gray beard out from under his chin. “It is a pity to cut anything that has not committed treason.” He was fifty-seven years old.

  JUNE 23

  Mary of Oignies (d. 1213)

  Virtuous living

  Mary lived the simplicity and austerity of a Franciscan before there were any Franciscans. She grew up in Belgium, the daughter of wealthy parents. They forced her into marriage to the son of another wealthy family when she was only fourteen. She convinced her husband to respect her virginity and persuaded him to let their home become a hospital for lepers.

  Mary’s biography comes to us from Cardinal James de Vitry, who was her confessor and disciple. He speaks highly of her virtuous life, but cautions readers that her spiritual life was bizarre. She had what used to be called “the gift of tears,” weeping uncontrollably when meditating. “Her steps might be traced in the church . . . by her tears on the pavement.” References to the crucifixion of Christ would often cause her to faint.

  Many came to visit Mary. In the final five years of her life, she sought solitude at the monastery at Oignies, where she filled her days and nights with prayer. She died at the age of thirty-eight in 1213.

  JUNE 24

  Bartholomew of Farne (d. ca. 1193)

  Prayer and work

  A simple hermit living on the Farne islands off the Northumbrian coast, Bartholomew began life with the Scandinavian name Tostig. Because his twelfth-century playmates made fun of his odd name, he began to call himself William. Searching for his ancestral roots, he traveled to Norway for an education and became a priest.

  Returning to England, he went to Durham to become a monk and received yet another name, Bartholomew. He then went to the Inner Farne Island, planning to occupy an ancient cell. Unfortunately, another hermit already called the cell home and resented Bartholomew’s arrival. The lack of welcome was palpable, and eventually the other hermit left the island. Later, as the island became “crowded,” Bartholomew himself departed occasionally in disgust because of tangles with other personalities. Bartholomew insisted on wearing clothes made of ram
skins that he never permitted anyone to wash until they became stiff with dirt and sweat. His motto: “The dirtier the body, the cleaner the soul.” The other monks at Durham commented wryly, “Bartholomew makes the island fragrant with his virtues.” He remained in the Farne Islands for forty-two years, cheerfully enjoying fishing, keeping a pet bird, and receiving guests, but mostly engaging in prayer and manual labor.

  JUNE 25

  Prosper of Aquitaine (ca. 390–456)

  Literary conversation

  We know more about Prosper’s ideas than his life. His correspondence with Augustine (August 28) led to significant treatises from both saints. Augustine published his understanding that most of us will be damned because grace through Jesus Christ is required for salvation. Prosper read Augustine’s Concerning Predestination and wrote a response he called De vocatione omnium gentium, insisting that Scripture teaches that God’s grace is a gift and that God’s mercy extends to everyone. Prosper also became involved in other religious disputes, usually taking a more moderate approach in his search for answers.

  The writings of Prosper also include poetry. De ingratis (About those Without Grace) is a lengthy poem dealing with the problem of God’s grace and human free will. In the pages of his well-known Chronicle he reviews the history of the world and theological controversies from the beginning of creation to the overrunning of Rome by Vandals in 455.

  Prosper’s death took place while he was working in Rome.

  JUNE 26

  Josemaria Escrivá de Balaguer (1902–75)

  Sacred secularity

  Josemaria was a master of Christian living who reached heights of contemplation with continuous prayer. Born in Spain, he became a priest in 1925 and began serving a rural parish. Two years later, he moved to Madrid and studied for a doctorate in civil law. In Madrid, he met people from many occupations and conceived a mission to help bring spiritual depth to ordinary secular work. People, he claimed, could follow Christ and find holiness in daily life. God’s Work (Opus Dei) began in 1928 during a personal retreat. The effort began to spread across Spain under his direction. Josemaria believed that every aspect of life could be an offering to God. If a person cultivated a deep devotional life, then that individual could discover sanctity in secular work. With enough prayer, everything can “lead us to God, feeding our constant contact with Him, from morning till night. Every kind of work can become prayer.”

  With a desire to give his idea worldwide opportunities, Josemaria Escrivá began working from Rome in 1946. Suffering diabetes, struggling to find financial backing, and facing the many difficulties of organizing the expansion of Opus Dei, he maintained a cheerful attitude, saying, “True virtue is not sad or disagreeable, but pleasantly cheerful.”

  After fifty years of priesthood, Josemaria prayed, “I am still like a faltering child. I am just beginning, beginning again, as I do each day in my interior life. And it will be so to the end of my days: always beginning again.” He died of cardiac arrest on June 26, 1975. The man who insisted that the earth is a pathway to heaven was gone, but he left an organization that continued to grow and to transfigure common life.

  JUNE 27

  Cyril of Alexandria (ca. 376–444)

  Diplomatic correction

  The nephew of the Bishop of Alexandria, Egypt, filled his uncle’s position in 412. At the time, Alexandria was a center of vitally alive Christian activity and growth. Cyril had strong opinions and became a controversial theologian who made impulsive decisions, violently defending what he considered right thinking. If a congregation seemed less than supportive, he closed it. He drove Jews out of Alexandria and confiscated their property. He quarreled with civil authorities and antagonized local religious people. He fought lingering paganism in Egypt in bloody contests. We can learn from this saint that even those with flaws and weaknesses may live a life of holiness. God can change human personality. Cyril is an answer to the question that Nicodemus asked Jesus: We can be born again.

  With time, Cyril controlled his hair-trigger temper and took a position of leadership in defeating Nestorianism. The heresy’s leader, Nestorius, became archbishop of Constantinople in 428. He taught that Christ combined two natures, human and divine, but that there was no union of the two. Jesus’ human body was merely the temple of the divine spirit. Mary gave birth to Jesus, but not to the eternally existing Word mentioned in the opening of the Gospel of John. She was Christ-bearing rather than God-bearing. Cyril of Alexandria disagreed, saying that Nestorianism made mockery of the Incarnation and destroyed the doctrine of redemption. His argument was sent to Rome where Nestorius was condemned. This ultimately led to a division with the new Nestorian Church. The issue is still a matter of debate. Was Cyril of Alexandria defending essential Christian doctrine? Would diplomacy and patience have prevented the schism?

  JUNE 28

  Irenaeus (ca. 130– ca. 200)

  Clear thinking

  Irenaeus is one of the most important thinkers in the early Christian Church. He was our first systematic theologian. We know little about his personal life other than that he was Greek. It is certain that the youthful Irenaeus met Polycarp (February 23). He wrote that he could point to the very spot where Polycarp sat when he taught. Irenaeus had heard “the accounts Polycarp gave of his conversation with John and with another who had seen the Lord.”

  Irenaeus moved on to the Roman outpost of Lyons in Gaul and then visited Rome. While he was in Rome, the church in Lyons suffered vicious persecution under emperor Marcus Aurelius, and the bishop there, Pothinus, became a martyr. Upon his return to Lyons, Irenaeus became bishop to fill the vacant position.

  Gnosticism was another of the heresies that threatened the early church. The five books Irenaeus wrote refuting the Gnostics provide our best insight into his mind. Gnosticism was an eclectic faith, combining gleanings from Greek philosophy, mythology, and pagan rites overlaid with a veneer of Christianity. The Gnostics believed that the only ones saved are those with secret religious knowledge. Only freedom from the physical world allows us to enter into the spiritual realm. Their occultism and pride were the secret to their popularity. When people become Gnostic, Irenaeus wrote, they become “puffed up with conceit and self-importance . . . with the majestic air of a cock, they go strutting about—as if they have already embraced their angel.”

  To oppose the Gnostics, Irenaeus produced the concept of apostolic succession. This traced true Christian doctrine back to the original apostles. It was important to have an authoritative check against new religious ideas, he claimed. There was nothing inherently evil about God’s creation. Human sin is the source of its corruption, he said, not as the Gnostics claimed, evil in itself. Following the publication of Irenaeus’s books, Gnosticism lost its appeal and was no longer a challenge to Christianity.

  Irenaeus remained a gentle person who honestly cared for the spiritual well-being of his opponents..

  JUNE 29

  Peter and Paul (first century)

  Leadership

  Peter was the first apostle to respond to the call of Jesus Christ. At the time, his name was Simon, and he was a commercial fisherman. The record states simply that Simon “left everything and followed him.” Our Lord named him Petros, ”Rock.” Like other working people of his day, Peter lacked formal education.

  Peter was uninhibited, impulsive, and demonstrative. He often spoke and acted before he thought. It was Peter who jumped into the Sea of Galilee that stormy night when Jesus came toward the boat he was in, walking on water. Only Peter spoke to Jesus during the Transfiguration of our Lord, offering to build booths for holy dignitaries. The Gospel excuses him by noting, “He did not know what to say.” After the Resurrection, while in a boat Peter recognized Jesus walking on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, tore off his clothes, and swam ashore to be with the risen Lord.

  A personality like Peter’s, guided more by feeling than by thought, is capable of both great ecstatic heights and great depths of despair—mood swings. When Jesus told
the apostles that he would go to Jerusalem and “suffer many things,” Peter was quick to blurt out, “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” Jesus rebuked him with the famous words, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me. You are not on the side of God, but of men.” What a downfall!

  When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples, Peter protested, “You shall never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “If I do not wash you, you have no part in me.” Peter quickly went to the opposite extreme, “Lord, not only my feet but also my hands and my head.” It was like Peter to be downcast one moment and enthusiastic the next, only to become depressed again. His bitter tears when the rooster crowed the morning of Jesus’ arrest gives us one of the most touching moments in all of Scripture.

  One thing emerges from the Gospel accounts of Simon Peter. He represented all of the disciples as their leader. He was one of three who were with Jesus at the profoundest spiritual moments. He certainly became important in the early days of the Christian Church. Significant changes happened to Peter after the resurrection of Christ. He developed strength and stability. His sermon on the day of Pentecost pulled Christianity into a new and powerful dynamic. Bold courage replaced his hiding in the shadows and denying his Lord. Peter played a vital part in fostering the growth of Christianity from an obscure Jewish sect into a worldwide religion. When he baptized Cornelius, he set a precedent that Gentiles could become Christians, and he persuaded a church council to open doors for the welcome of non-Jews. “God shows no partiality,” he said.

  There are no additional reports about Peter after that council meeting. There is a suggestion in a letter by Clement of Rome that he was in Rome at the end of his life and “suffered many outrages.”