Butler's Lives of the Saints

by Bernard Bangley

  Mary devoted thirty-five years of her life to leading the order. Serenity reached her toward the end of her life. From her deathbed, she said to her well-organized and skillful nuns, “Children, live together in peace and harmony.” A modern saint, she was officially canonized in 1970.

  OCTOBER 12

  Cyprian of Carthage (ca. 200–58)

  Conversion

  Christ changed a pagan Roman lawyer, Thascius Cecilianus Cyprianus, into an effective Christian preacher. The dramatic redirection of his life was declared miraculous. Discarding his library of pagan books, he used his skills as a lawyer to become an interpreter of Scripture. He devoured works by Christian writers, calling Tertullian his most important teacher. In his own writing, he never once quoted a pagan author.

  In 248, Christians in Carthage asked Cyprian to be their bishop. He accepted, but Roman persecution of the Church under the emperor Decius soon forced him into hiding. He guided his people by writing letters in which he explained basic Christianity. Here are some of his comments on prayer:

  Pray with all of your attention. Eliminate distractions. Concentrate on God. When your priest prepares you for prayer by saying, “Lift up your hearts,” you may respond, “We lift them up to the Lord.” This is a reminder to think of nothing but the Lord.

  Do not pray naked prayers. Let there be some leaves and fruit on the branches of your prayers. Petition that merely begs for something from God is barren. Action needs to accompany your words. Any tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire. Let fasting and almsgiving accompany your prayers.

  When the Roman persecution ended, Cyprian led the Church into gentle acceptance of Christians who had been frightened away. Unfortunately, persecution of the Church returned under Valerian, and Cyprian was beheaded in 258.

  OCTOBER 13

  Edward the Confessor (1003–66)

  Christian leadership

  King Edward of England was a popular saint in the Middle Ages. The basis for his reputation as a holy person was his openness to his subjects, his generosity to the poor, his simplicity, his gentleness, and the reports of his suppression of sexual desire. Charming, though possibly legendary, anecdotes recall his personality and character. Three times he caught a servant stealing and let him get away with it, commenting, “The poor fellow needs the gold more than I.” He would greet beggars and lepers at the gate to his palace, conversing with them and sometimes healing them with a touch. He enjoyed hunting and falconry for days at a time, but never failed to be present at Mass each morning. King Edward also strengthened the English Church’s relationship with Rome.

  Edward ascended to the throne in 1042 at the age of forty. He had lived in exile in Normandy for the previous twenty-seven years, because Scandinavians had seized power in England. His performance as king gets mixed reviews. Some historians believe his vacillation set up the nation for the Norman Conquest. On the other hand, he inherited a political quagmire that years of wars had not improved, and his twenty-four year reign was a time of relative peace. Under Edward, England became prosperous, people lived in security, and the nation’s churches were repaired.

  Edward played a major role in the founding of Westminster Abbey. He gave ten percent of his income, a tithe, for the project, endowing it with grants of land. The gigantic Romanesque church, the size of a football field, became the place for the coronation and burial of the kings and queens of England. Royal weddings are resplendent in such a setting. Edward was too ill to attend the consecration of Westminster Abbey. He was buried there in 1066. Nearly forty years later, workmen discovered that his body had not decayed—an indicator of saintliness in those times.

  Edward’s remains were solemnly buried again on October 13, 1163, a day of national celebration. Ailred of Rievaulx delivered the sermon and wrote a biography of the king. Henry III employed Italian craftsmen to build an elaborately decorated shrine for Edward at Westminster Abbey in 1269. This became a target for vandalism during the Reformation, but Edward’s body remained undisturbed.

  OCTOBER 14

  Callistus I (d. ca. 222)

  Following Christ

  Callistus was born a Roman slave. Courts convicted him twice for possible embezzlement and careless money handling, and for brawling with Jews in a synagogue. Callistus worked for a while as a cemetery superintendent, but ended his life as pope. Always supporting leniency and forgiveness, he became a third-century martyr. His enemies, who disapproved of his less than strict dealing with sinners, record most of what we know about Callistus. Other narratives about him are spurious legends.

  Hippolytus of Rome, an important Christian writer of his time, published a scathing attack against the laxity of Callistus called Philosophumena. This book confirms that the five years Callistus was pope were unusually controversial. Callistus took an unpopular stand recognizing marriage between slave and free, which was forbidden by Roman civil law. He allowed priests to marry and ordained some who had been divorced. Callistus never struck back at Hippolytus, not even when the latter opened shop as a rival pope. The death of Callistus in 222 occurred during a public riot and was not the result of political persecution.

  OCTOBER 15

  Teresa of Avila (1515–82)

  Action and Contemplation

  Teresa of Avila destroys every notion that there are two kinds of religious personalities: active and contemplative. The story of Mary and Martha recorded in the Gospels, so beloved by every author of spiritual literature, makes us think that the two patterns of behavior are clear opposites, mutually exclusive. The Christian is either an active Martha, busy with the dishes; or a contemplative Mary, sitting at the feet of Jesus in quiet conversation. Such a simple distinction is inaccurate. Teresa is an outstanding example of a thorough blending of both.

  At the age of twenty-one, Teresa responded to a lifelong urge and became a Carmelite nun in her hometown, Avila, Spain. As an active Christian, she reformed her order and founded fourteen monasteries. Her spirit of reform affected the male Carmelites through the cooperation of St. John of the Cross (December 14). They used the terms “calced” and “discalced” (with or without shoes) to denote the difference they had brought about. Plagued with poor health, Teresa somehow managed to attend to a multitude of administrative details. She directed the work of laborers the way a modern contractor hires and oversees employees. She dealt with royalty and “city hall” like a diplomat. She put in an exhausting day that began with worship at five in the morning and often kept her at her desk until well past midnight. A favorite quotation from her autobiography is “Rest? I don’t need rest. What I need is crosses!”

  This same busy, creative, determined administrator is also one of the greatest contemplative spirits in history. While signing contracts or confuting her critics, she had an awareness of living in the presence of God. She had a personal experience of mystical union with God through a remarkable prayer life that dominated her existence. Her prayer life was the source of her energetic activity.

  Interior Castle is her most distinctive book. In this volume she ignores the interesting details of her life and work, and concentrates exclusively on her spiritual discoveries. While she was, by nature, a rambling writer who followed her stream of consciousness before the pedagogues ever coined the term, Interior Castle possesses form and comeliness. She describes a seven-tiered spiritual awareness in a style that is unsophisticated and direct. “Our soul is like a castle created out of a single diamond or some other similarly clear crystal.”

  To read Teresa is to sit down for a chat with her. She did not read what she had written with a critical eye, scratching out this line and that, amending and shaping, correcting and refining. She simply sat down and wrote what was on her mind, often reminding the reader that she was not very good at it. But in fact, she was a wizard at wringing profound meaning from the Spanish language, delicately playing one word against another in puns so subtle that modern translators often miss them. “They figure it must be a rapture (
arrobamiento). I call it foolishness (abobamiento).”

  OCTOBER 16

  Gall (ca. 550– ca. 645)

  Solitude

  A monk who lived in Bangor, Ireland, in the sixth century, Gall traveled with Columban (November 23) to England and France, assisting in the founding of several monasteries, including the abbey at Luxeuil in Burgundy. When Columban departed for Italy, Gall began life as a hermit in Switzerland and became an early leader in the propagation of Christianity among the Swiss. The area where he camped is now the location of a fine Benedictine abbey named after him. In fact, St. Gall is the name of the town that grew up around the monastery.

  OCTOBER 17

  Ignatius of Antioch (d. ca. 107)

  Expressing faith

  The nicknames applied to saints can be revealing. Ignatius of Antioch carried the name Theophorus, which translates Bearer of God. He also had a moniker for himself: God’s Wheat.

  We have very little reliable evidence of his early life and later career as bishop of Antioch, but tradition holds that a disciple of John (December 27) converted Ignatius of Antioch to Christ. We can certainly place him in the second half of the first century, and we know that he was arrested during Trajan’s reign, carried to Rome, and thrown to the lions during a public entertainment. While he was on the way to Rome, he wrote some letters of great doctrinal interest that survive to our day.

  An important feature of this early Christian correspondence is that it demonstrates first-century faith in the divinity and resurrection of Christ. “If what our Lord did is a sham, so is my being in chains.” The letters refer to the Lord’s Supper as an instrument of unity. “We are not only to be called Christians, but to be Christians.” Ignatius is also confident that Peter and Paul (June 29) founded the church in Rome. He called the squad of Roman soldiers who were escorting him “ten leopards,” observing that their behavior “gets worse the better they are treated.”

  Of himself, he wrote, “Let me be fodder for wild beasts—that is how I can get to God. I am God’s wheat and I am being ground by the teeth of wild beasts to make a pure loaf for Christ.”

  The Romans turned two fierce lions loose on Ignatius of Antioch. His death was mercifully quick.

  OCTOBER 18

  Luke (first century)

  Forming the gospel

  The man the apostle Paul (June 29) called the beloved physician is the only non-Jewish writer in the Bible. Luke is the probable author of the Gospel that bears his name as well as the Acts of the Apostles. His background and education were Greek. Evidence points to Luke as Paul’s personal physician who traveled with him on much of his missionary work. Paul’s letters assure us that Luke stuck with him to the bitter end.

  Luke was devout, loyal, urbane, self-effacing, and happy. He wrote classical Greek, and did so in the introductory sentences of his Gospel, but preferred to communicate in the more common Greek spoken among the Jews of his day.

  Without Luke’s Gospel we would not have the beautiful narrative of the birth of Christ at Bethlehem. We would never have heard Christ’s parables of the prodigal son and the good Samaritan. Only Luke reports the moving account of the distraught woman who wept on Jesus’ feet and wiped them with her hair. Only Luke tells us about the contrasting prayers of the Pharisee and the publican at the temple. The New Testament would be much the poorer without the work of Luke, who disappears from history after the death of Paul.

  OCTOBER 19

  Peter of Alcantara (1499–1562)

  Self-denial

  When he was sixteen, Peter departed his hometown of Alcantara, Spain, and became a Franciscan Observant in 1515. Life among the Franciscans was strictly regulated, and Peter followed the rules carefully. A well-respected preacher and Christian mystic, he wrote a book on prayer that became popular.

  In his fortieth year, Peter founded the first friary of the “Strict Observance,” going beyond the austerities and asceticism he had already practiced as a Franciscan. He designed his own cell in a confined way that prevented him from ever stretching out when lying down. He ate sparingly and wore rough and basic clothing without shoes.

  Among the people he influenced were Teresa of Avila (October 15). He recognized her spirituality and encouraged her to continue her own reforms among the Carmelites. She described his austerities as “incomprehensible to the human mind,” noting that he looked “as though he were made from the roots and dried bark of trees rather than flesh.” Their meeting in 1560 made a deep impression on her. “He told me that he only sleeps about an hour and a half a day, and that he never put up his hood, regardless of sun or rain. One of his companions told me he sometimes ate nothing at all when he prayed for days at a time. I saw one of his great raptures.”

  Teresa also reported that he was a man of few words, but that he was worthy of attention because what he did say had great insight and understanding. She gave him credit for the success of her own religious work.

  Peter of Alcantara died while kneeling in prayer.

  OCTOBER 20

  Acca (ca. 660–740)

  Resourceful

  Acca was a Northumbrian who kept good company. He traveled with Wilfrid (October 12) for thirteen years, and some of the writings of the Venerable Bede (May 25) are dedicated to him. Bede’s Ecclesiastical History contains material Acca found in his personal theological library. He also suggested that Bede write a concise commentary on the Gospel of Luke because the one Ambrose (December 7) wrote was too long and complicated.

  Acca became bishop of Hexham, which is on the Tyne River in England. He had a wonderful singing voice and brought about a renewed British interest in religious vocal music. Acca died a natural death.

  OCTOBER 21

  Malchus of Khalkis (d. ca. 390)

  Religious adventure

  Jerome (September 30) wrote the life of the Syrian monk Malchus after meeting him at Khalkis near Antioch. Malchus reported his adventures as he traveled in a caravan that Bedouin raiders attacked. They carried him off beyond the Euphrates River, and he lived a nomadic life with them, tending sheep and goats while consuming dates, cheese, and milk. His captors wanted him to take one of their women for a bride. She was already married, but seemed willing to cooperate with the group’s plan. Malchus, faithful to his monastic vows, declined. He did agree to allow her to live with him, appearing to be her husband, while not sleeping with her. Later Malchus said he loved this woman as a sister, but “never quite trusted her as a sister.”

  After seven years the two of them determined to escape. She would return to her original husband and Malchus to his monastery. They packed food in goatskins that also served as inflatable life rafts to take them across the Euphrates. Traveling on foot for three days, they left a trail in the sand for their Bedouin master and a cohort to follow on camels. Upon their discovery, the lethal action of a lioness saved their lives. Seizing the camels, they raced away to a place of safety.

  The woman lived her remaining years near Malchus because she never found her husband. Malchus first went to his monastery at Khalkis and then moved on to Maronia, where he met Jerome.

  OCTOBER 22

  Salome (first century)

  Devotion to Christ

  There are two Salomes in the Gospels. One is the unsaintly daughter of Herodias who danced for King Herod and requested the head of John the Baptist as her reward. The other is a Galilean follower of Jesus who may have been Zebedee’s wife and mother of the apostles, James (July 25) and John (December 27). She was among the faithful women present at the Crucifixion and a witness to Christ’s resurrection when she went early on Easter morning to anoint the body of Jesus. It is possible to conjecture on the basis of scriptural evidence that she was Mary’s cousin.

  OCTOBER 23

  Rafqa Petronilla al-Rayes (1832–1914)

  Suffering

  Rafqa was Lebanese, like the bride in the Song of Songs. Her middle name is a feminization of Peter because she was born on his feast day, June 29, 1832. Known as the “Little F
lower of Lebanon,” this blind woman had profound spiritual vision.

  Her early years were difficult. She lost her mother when she was only six and had to work as a housemaid to support herself. As a nun, later in life, she suffered poor health. Even so, she continually practiced self-denial, eating only leftovers and working steadily at manual labor. The final seventeen years of her life, Rafqa was blind and paralytic, in constant pain. She demonstrated how one can unite personal suffering with Christ’s. No one ever heard her complain about her situation. She actually thanked God for her suffering. “I know that the sickness I have is for the good of my soul and his glory. Sickness accepted with patience and thanksgiving purifies the soul as fire purifies gold.”

  OCTOBER 24

  Antony Claret (1807–70)

  Communicating

  Antony, like his father, was a Spanish weaver. With a natural intellectual curiosity, he learned Latin and printing. He went on to attend seminary and become an ordained priest in 1835. Traveling to Rome, Antony joined the Jesuits, intending to become a foreign missionary. Poor health intervened, and he returned to Spain, realizing that much evangelizing waited for him at home. Antony devoted the next ten years of his life to presenting the gospel in the Catalonia region, founding a group that now uses his name: the Claretians.

  His sudden appointment as archbishop of Cuba brought with it enormous difficulties, challenges, and risks. Assassination attempts left him seriously wounded. An upset young man whose girlfriend had returned to a moral life under Antony’s direction inflicted the wound. In 1857 he resigned his post in Cuba and returned to Spain in order to become the confessor of Queen Isabella II. In this position, he engaged in speaking and writing. Understanding the value of the printed word, he published many religious books and pamphlets.