iacobusm Faith and Culture, The Liturgical Year

The Lorica of St. Patrick Is As Timely As Ever

The Lorica of St. Patrick

St. Patrick Window
                    Window in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

As Timely As Ever:

Pious Tradition v. The “Experts”


   Pious tradition attributes authorship of the prayer above, known as “The Lorica (or “Breastplate”) of St. Patrick”, to the Apostle of Ireland himself.  As is the case with the beloved “Prayer of St. Francis”, experts tell us the eponymous Saint is most likely not the real author.  I myself trust Pious Tradition more than The Experts any day, but for our purposes here we’ll just say that it could have been written by St. Patrick.  In any case, while the prayer as you see it above is the most well-known version, it is really only a part of a much longer composition (I’ve put the full text at the bottom of this post).  At one time this magnificent prayer, in its complete form, was a part of my morning devotions every day.
     “The Breastplate of St. Patrick” is, in fact, written as a morning prayer, and more: it is a statement of faith, a brief but comprehensive catechesis, and a call for Divine help against the dangers that beset us from both earthly and spiritual sources.  Those things are as necessary today as they were in 5th century Ireland, and St. Patrick’s prayer is a powerful and inspiring way to start our daily journey.

“I Arise Today . . .”

     The complete “Breastplate” opens with “I arise today/Through a mighty strength, the invocation of Trinity . . .” St. Patrick is famous for his emphasis on the Trinity, reportedly using the tree-leafed shamrock to illustrate the doctrine (as memorialized in the present-day stained glass window from the cathedral in Armagh, his primatial see).  Here, he also emphasizes “the Oneness of the Creator of creation.”  In converting a pagan people, Patrick needed to impress upon them that there was indeed only one God, as distinct from their pagan pantheon, although expressed in three Persons.  The Triune God is also unlike their familiar gods in that He alone is the universal Creator, as opposed to pagan deities who were more powerful than mortal men, but still finite and fallible beings. In our own day we also need to be reminded that God is Love (1 John 4:8), and Love reaches its perfection in a union of persons, but also that God the Creator is master of all the blind forces of nature with which we wrestle.

                    St. Patrick Lighting the Paschal Fire on the Hill of Slane, 433, by Vincenzo Waldre, 1792


     The next “I arise today . . .” is followed by a brief Christology: incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection and descent to the Dead. We, no less than our newly-christened forefathers did, need to understand exactly Who and What is the God that we follow.
     A third “I arise today . . . .” is followed by a litany of various Angels, Patriarchs, Prophets, and Saints, which re-establishes for us that our devotion to the Person of Jesus Christ also connects us to all the lesser persons, living and dead, in the Communion of Saints.
     Next, “I arise today/Through strength of heaven,/the light of the sun . . .” and so on, through a list of natural forces which, St. Patrick here reminds us, come below us in the order of creation, and are so much the more under God’s power (how often we moderns forget both of these truths!).

God’s Providential Care


     After a fifth “I arise today . . .” we see a litany of the various manifestations of God’s Providential care:

     God’s strength to pilot me,
     God’s might to uphold me,
     God’s wisdom to guide me . . .

And so on. At the end of this section we shift our focus to the various evils that beset us:

     God’s host to save me
     From snares of devils,
     From temptation of vices,
     From everyone who shall wish me ill,
     Afar and near.

    In the next section we call for God’s help against these evils, which are laid out in more detail:

     I summon today
     All these powers between me and those evils,
     Against every cruel and merciless power
     That may oppose my body and soul,
     Against incantations of false prophets,
     Against black laws of pagandom,
     Against false laws of heretics,
     Against craft of idolatry,
     Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
     Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.
     Christ shield me today
     Against poison, against burning,
     Against drowning, against wounding,
     So that there may come to me
     an abundance of reward.

Notice the priority given to spiritual evils, which Christians have traditionally understood to be far more serious dangers than the physical hazards at the end of the passage. Today we often ignore or even deride these deadly perils (as I discuss in my post “For Such a Time as This: Powers, Principalities & The Culture Wars“).

The Lorica


     At this point we come to the famous passage quoted at the top of this post (Christ with me,Christ before me, Christ behind me . . .), from which the prayer takes its name. Here we call upon Christ to surround us, to “armor” us, with his protection.
     Finally, the prayer ends by repeating the invocation with which it starts:

     I arise today,
     Through a mighty strength,
     The invocation of the Trinity,
     Through belief in the Threeness,
     Through confession of the Oneness
     Of the Creator of creation.


     As I read through this prayer, which was composed for ancient pagans who knew nothing of Christianity, I am struck by how well it is suited to our current post-Christian, neo-pagan culture. We shouldn’t kid ourselves.  Even with all the amazing gadgetry that we’ve concocted for ourselves over the centuries, we’re still subject to the same basic temptations and hazards that have always haunted humanity. We still could use the breastplate of Christ.

(See also “St. Patrick, Julius Caesar, and Slavery to Sin“)

Here’s a beautiful setting for St. Patrick’s prayer by contemporary composer Ola Gjeilo:

The Breastplate of St. Patrick:

I arise today

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

I arise today
Through the strength of Christ’s birth with His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In the obedience of angels, In the service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In the predictions of prophets,
In the preaching of apostles, In the faith of confessors,
In the innocence of holy virgins,
In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today through
The strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The speed of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of the sea,
The stability of the earth,
The firmness of rock.

I arise today through
God’s strength to pilot me,
God’s might to uphold me,
God’s wisdom to guide me,
God’s eye to look before me,
God’s ear to hear me,
God’s word to speak for me,
God’s hand to guard me,
God’s shield to protect me,
God’s host to save me
From snares of devils,
From temptation of vices,
From everyone who shall wish me ill,
afar and near.

God’s Providence

I summon today
All these powers between me and those evils,
Against every cruel and merciless power
that may oppose my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man’s body and soul.

The Lorica

Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that there may come to me
an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
of the Creator of creation.

St. Patrick baptizing Irish king
iacobusm Christmas and Advent

3rd Day of Christmas: St. John the Evangelist, Love at the Foot of the Cross

So the soldiers did this. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. (John 19:25-27)

May God bless you on this 3rd Day of Christmas!  Today we observe the Feast of St. John the Evangelist, author not only of one of the Gospels, but (possibly) also three New Testament letters and the Book of Revelation. St. John has traditionally been represented by an eagle because he “soars” to greater heights, theologically speaking, than the other Evangelists.  He is also known as “The Beloved Disciple” because in his Gospel he often refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved”.

Beloved Disciple: St. John is to the right of Jesus (The Last Supper, by Juan de Juanes, 1562)


   Many people have wondered over the centuries why John makes such a point of depicting himself as The Beloved Disciple.  On one level, of course, it must reflect his lived experience: John the Apostle must have had an especially close relationship to Jesus during his time on Earth.  As always, however, it goes deeper.  John is beloved because he is a disciple who himself loves much – so much that he alone of the Apostles follows Christ all the way to Calvary and stands with the Blessed Mother and Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross.  He is our model in loving discipleship.     

     I want to focus on this last point, because so many people are suffering in various ways – in my home right now we are praying for a number of families who are experiencing illness, employment problems, divorce, and other hardships. Modern mental health professionals confirm the words that Charles Dickens put in the mouth of one of his characters in A Christmas Carol more than a century and a half ago: “it is at Christmastime that want is most keenly felt.”  This is always a very hard time of year for our brothers and sisters who are in distress, aggravated for almost two years now by the seemingly endless Covid crisis: many people, especially the elderly, are suffering from the effects of isolation and loneliness on top of whatever other ailments they might have.  I think the passage from John’s Gospel at the top of this post has a special import for those who find themselves standing at the Foot of The Cross in the midst of this festive season: all who join their suffering to His are his Beloved Disciples; the Mother of Jesus is your mother, and Christ your Brother suffers with you.  
May you experience all the joys of Christmas on this 3rd day of the blessed season!

Featured image: The Crucifixion, attributed to Gillis Congnet, 16th century

Music for Christmas

Among its other blessings, the Christmas season is a time when we hear many old and beautiful musical expressions of the Christian faith. “O Holy Night” is one of my favorites. The original French lyrics were written by Placide Cappeau in 1843, and set to music by composer Adolphe Adam.  The song was first performed in 1847.  Unitarian minister John Sullivan Dwight translated Cappeau’s words into English in 1855. The lovely rendition of “O Holy Night” below is sung by Kalean Ung Breen, with Dave Beukers playing accompaniment on the piano.

iacobusm Faith and Culture

A Prayer for Sufferers of Mental Illness on the Feast of St. Dymphna

    During the summer when school is not in session I used to work in the garden center of a local retail store, which was a pleasant break from the rigors and stresses of the academic year.  
     One afternoon I cashed out a very friendly older woman, but when I wished her a “good evening” she shook her head and, still smiling, said “I never have good evenings these days.”  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I replied “why don’t you have good evenings?”  “Because my husband has Alzheimer’s.”  All I could think to say was “I’m so sorry.”  It was only after she left that it occurred to me I should have said, “I’ll pray for you.”

St. Dymphna holy card

     As it happens, I did pray for her and her husband at the time, and again that night with my family during prayer time.  I have often remembered this incident over the intervening years.  I mention it today because this is the feast day of St. Dymphna, patron saint of sufferers of mental illness (including Alzheimer’s) and their families.  

I invite all of you to say a prayer along with us for this couple, and for all who are afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease or other mental illnesses and their families, asking for the intercession of St. Dymphna:

Lord, our God, you graciously chose St. Dymphna as patroness of those afflicted with mental and nervous disorders and Spiritual afflictions. She is thus an inspiration and a symbol of charity to the thousands who ask her intercession.

Please grant, Lord, through the prayers of this pure youthful martyr, relief and consolation to all suffering such trials, and especially those for whom we pray: Sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease and their families.

We beg you, Lord, to hear the prayers of St. Dymphna on our behalf. Grant all those for whom we pray patience in their sufferings and resignation to your divine will. Please fill them with hope, and grant them the relief and cure they so much desire.
We ask this through Christ our Lord who suffered agony in the garden. Amen.

You can read more about St. Dymphna HERE at catholic.org.

Featured image top of page: Martyrdom of St Dymphna and St Gerebernus by Jacques de l’Ange (Attr.) or Gerard Seghers (Attr.), early 1600’s

iacobusm Uncategorized

We Are More Than What We Do: St. Joseph the Worker

They say that necessity is the mother of invention but, as today’s feast of St. Joseph the Worker shows us, sometimes measures taken for practical purposes can point to deeper truths.

Pope Pius XII

   The memorial of St. Joseph the Worker is a very recent addition to the liturgical calendar. Pope Pius XII, who wanted to present a Catholic alternative to the Communist celebration of May Day, instituted this feast day in 1955.  Who better to counter the self-proclaimed “vanguard of the workers” than a great Saint who was also a laborer, a man known for his patience and perseverance, but also his piety?  As such, St. Joseph is also the ideal embodiment of the Dignity of Work.  He shows us that work is not simply something we do to survive, or that connects us to a certain economic class, but is an essential part of our humanity, a way in which we act, at least in a small way, as co-creators with God (see St. John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens).
     At the same time, we can see that while a worker may be honored for his work, he is not defined by it.  Here the Catholic view stands in sharp contrast to the outlook of Marxism, where a working person’s primary identification is with his class, and he finds meaning by working toward the “workers’ paradise” of a fully communist society. Since the realization of the workers’ aspirations is the Greatest Good in this worldview, those who are seen as obstacles (such as members of the Capitalist Class) deserve to be extirpated.  Western market-driven societies have their own false anthropology in the phenomenon of the workaholic, whose whole life centers on his career, and who sees no meaning beyond it.  

“St. Joseph, Carpenter” by Georges de La Tour (1642)

     As Christians, however, we see our primary identification as adopted sons and daughters of God: equal in dignity (regardless of externals such as class, sex, race, etc.), called to love, and all of us members of the One Body of Christ who are made in the image and likeness of God the Creator. What we do is an expression of what we already are, particularly when, as Christians, we dedicate our work to the Greater Glory of God: Ad Maiorem Dei Gratiam, as St. Ignatius Loyola put it.
     Now look at St. Joseph.  There have probably been carpenters more skillful than Joseph, or more productive, but none of them have feast days. We honor him today in his role of Worker, but that’s not why he is a Saint.  He’s a Saint, and a great Saint, because he cooperated in God’s great work of salvation.  Today’s feast reminds us that we can all aspire to sanctity, even humble laborers, and that whoever we are, and whatever we do in this world, what we do for the Kingdom of God and who we are in the eyes of the Father is what matters in the end.

iacobusm Uncategorized

Catching Flies With Honey: St. Mellitus of Canterbury

There’s an old saying that you catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than you do with a vat of vinegar. That old saw is well illustrated when considering the life of a Saint whom we remember this weekend, St. Mellitus of Canterbury (died April 24th, A.D. 624).  His name, in fact, means “honeyed”.  In his mission to convert the Saxon conquerers of Britain in the 7th century (he was sent by Pope Gregory the Great to assist St. Augustine of Canterbury) we find an example of the Church explicitly choosing to put the “Honey Strategy” into practice.

St. Mellitus of Canterbury

    But first, we need a little background on Saint Mellitus.  Despite being little-known today, he was in fact a very consequential saint. Mellitus first arrived in Britain in the year A.D. 601, bringing with him books and other things considered necessary for Christian instruction and worship.  St. Augustine of Canterbury (the Apostle to the English, not to be confused with Doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo) consecrated him Bishop of London, which at that time was the capital of the East Saxon kingdom.  Somewhere around the years 616-618 the Christian East Saxon king died, after which the new king drove Mellitus from his episcopal see in London.  Shortly thereafter the Christian king of Kent died as well, and Mellitus was forced to flee from Britain all together. He was able to return a few years later after Laurence, Augustine’s successor as Archbishop of Canterbury, had converted the new Kentish king.  Mellitus never returned to London, which would not see a Bishop again until 654, thirty years after the Saint’s death.  St. Mellitus himself became Archbishop of Canterbury at the Death of Laurence in 619, and occupied the see until his own passing five years later.  He is credited with miraculously saving his church from a fire shortly before his death.

     St. Mellitus played an important part in the conversion of the English ; in this capacity he received instructions in the form of a letter from the Pope, called the Epistola ad Mellitum. In this letter St. Gregory urges Mellitus and Augustine to rely on persuasion in converting the pagan English, destroying idols but consecrating the temples that housed the idols for use as churches, and adopting familiar things to Christian uses so that the English nation might “set aside error from her heart, and, acknowledging and adoring the True God, might assemble more familiarly at the places which she was was accustomed (to use).”  This letter is a particularly explicit statement of an approach that has been more or less the rule (albeit with some notable exceptions) for most of the history of the Church.  And it fits well with the way our Lord works: God breathed life into the mud of the earth to create Adam, and through baptism he makes former non-believers into his adopted sons and daughters; why can’t his Church in the same way “baptize” what is good in pagan societies and consecrate it for use in His service?

St. Mellitus wasn’t successful at first (expelled not just by one but by two kings, from two kingdoms), but in the end love and persistence paid off.


     The story of St. Mellitus and his “honeyed” approach has a lesson for us today as we go about our own mission of evangelization.  We can become frustrated when it seems that nobody is listening; we may find ourselves brimming over with vinegar, as it were.  Perhaps if we stay calm, listen patiently, and try to focus on the love of Jesus (in other words, spread a little honey), we’re more likely to have a fruitful exchange. Notice that St. Mellitus wasn’t successful at first (expelled not just by one but by two kings, from two kingdoms), but in the end love and persistence paid off.  St. Mellitus, pray for us, that we might avoid the bitterness of our own pride, and to speak with the sweetness of Divine Love. Amen.

iacobusm Faith and Culture

The Crisis of Fatherhood and the Litany of St. Joseph

     How odd St. Joseph, the human father of Jesus, must look to so many of us today.  We live in an age that distrusts the traditional features of fatherhood, and even denigrates them as “toxic masculinity.”  Small wonder that fatherhood itself is in steep decline.  According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, “19.7 million children in America—more than one in four—live without their biological dad in the home.” (“The Father Absence Crisis in America“)  That unprecedented figure is growing all the time, in spite of the fact that the decline of fatherhood has such devastating and clearly documented consequences: a four times greater likelihood of living in poverty; a greater likelihood of emotional and behavioral problems, infant mortality, crime and imprisonment, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, obesity, dropping out of school, and all the other problems that flow from those circumstances (see the article linked above for citations).

      As horrific as those consequences are, Christians know that there’s something even worse. The Church has always taught us that human fatherhood is merely a reflection: as Jesus himself puts it, “call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9) Human fathers are merely stewards, and our authority is not our own, nor do we exercise if for our own sake.  Granted, many of us abuse the authority God has entrusted to us, and none of us exercise it perfectly, but to reject fatherhood itself is to reject God.  It should come as no surprise that the decline of fatherhood has gone hand-in-hand with a decline in faith.  It’s hard to overstate the gravity of this last point. After all, as tragic as all the problems cited above are, they are temporary, we don’t take them with us when we leave this world.  If we lose our connection to God, however, the loss can be eternal.

“. . . call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven.” (Matthew 23:9)

“The Vision of Ezekial” by Raphael, (1518)*

   

  The Crisis of Fatherhood points us in the direction of St. Joseph, the pinnacle of human fatherhood.   We can certainly use his help, now more than ever. One of the best ways to build our relationship with him is by praying the Litany of St. Joseph, a prayer given formal approval by Pope Pius X at the dawning of the twentieth century. It’s a prayer particularly suited to the strange and troubling times in which we live.

     Something St. Joseph’s Litany has in common with other especially powerful prayers such as the Our Father is that God uses the very words that we’re addressing to him to speak to us in return. Let’s look at how that works in the Our Father, the prayer Jesus taught his Apostles when they asked him how they should pray (Matthew 6:9-15 & Luke 11:2-4). In the first part, from “Our Father ” through “as it is in Heaven,” the words tell us something of the nature of our relationship to God: he is our Father, but at the same time above and beyond us, the final authority both in the eternal world and in this one.  Next, as we pray for our sustenance and the forgiveness of our sins, our words remind us that we are obligated to show the same mercy to others in turn: “as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  Finally, we acknowledge our attachment to sin (“lead us not into temptation”), and our reliance on God’s Grace in resisting it (“deliver us from evil”).

     We see something similar at work in the Litany of St. Joseph (I’ve posted the prayer in its entirety below if you want to refer to it).  We honor Joseph as the human father of God, but the litany that bears his name begins instead with an invocation to the Trinitarian God:

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ,

graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Ghost,

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

    The fact that the prayer starts with our reliance on God and not with St. Joseph himself is a reminder that Joseph’s paternal authority, as we noted above, belongs not to himself but to Our Father in Heaven.

     The next invocation is, again, directed toward someone other than St. Joseph:  “Holy Mary, pray for us.” Joseph’s wife also takes precedence! This brings to mind the following passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25).  The purpose of our fatherhood is not to please ourselves, but to “give ourselves up” to our wives and families, as Jesus does for the Church, and just as Joseph did for Mary and Jesus.

     It’s only at this point that we address Joseph himself, first recalling his lineage (“Scion of David”), his role in Salvation History (“Spouse of the Mother of God . . . Foster-father of the Son of God”) and a long list of his virtues and attributes, all of which are given to him very explicitly for the purpose of protecting and serving (Head of the Holy Family . . . Most Chaste . . . Pillar of Families . . . Terror of Demons . . .).

        Then, after asking St. Joseph to pray for us, we turn our attention back to Christ under a title that highlights his sacrificial role, “Lamb of God”:

     Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.

     Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.

     Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

     Here the prayer reminds us that, as Christ sacrificed himself for us, and St. Joseph sacrificed himself for his wife and child, we fathers are also called to sacrifice ourselves on behalf of our own families.

“The Flight into Egypt” by Jacopo Bassano (1544)

     The last thing we see before the closing prayer of the litany is this verse and response:

     V. He made him lord over his house,

     R. And the ruler of all his possessions.

     This is an exact quote from Psalm 105:21, which itself refers back to Genesis 39:5: “So Joseph found favor in his sight and attended him, and he made him overseer of his house and put him in charge of all that he had.” This is not a reference to St. Joseph father of Jesus, who would not be born until centuries after these verses were written. These verses refer to Joseph son of Jacob, who was brought as a slave to Egypt. As it happens, there are many compelling connections between the two Josephs; the earlier Joseph is in fact what we call a type, a precursor of the Father of Jesus. The connection that most concerns us here is that Joseph the foreign-born slave is granted authority by the King of Egypt over his royal household, just as centuries later Joseph of Bethlehem is granted authority by the King of All Creation over his Holy Family.

     Our role as fathers today (and this includes all men, because all men are called to exercise Fatherhood in some way, even if we don’t preside over a household with children) follows the same pattern. Our family here on Earth is not really our own, it has been put temporarily under our care by the King of Kings (needless to say, we will be answerable to him for how we carry out the charge). As Catholic men we are also responsible (as is St. Joseph) for the protection of his larger family, the Church.

     It has become increasingly difficult to be just, chaste, prudent, etc., in a world where fatherhood has become more and more debased, and men are encouraged to behave like overgrown adolescents, or randy satyrs. Our society simply does not support fathers, and in fact seeks to undermine fatherhood itself. That’s why the closing prayer of the Litany of St. Joseph is so urgently suited to the needs of our times:

O God, who in Thine ineffable providence didst vouchsafe to choose blessed Joseph to be the spouse

of Thy most holy Mother: grant, we beseech Thee, that we may have him for an intercessor in heaven,

whom we venerate as our protector on earth. Who livest and reignest world without end, Amen.

I don’t post country music clips very often, but the song below by Randy Travis very powerfully connects the story of Joseph to the modern crisis of fatherhood. The Litany of St. Joseph is posted beneath the clip.

Litany of St. Joseph

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us. Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ,

graciously hear us.

God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.

God, the Holy Ghost,

Holy Trinity, One God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, pray for us.

Saint Joseph,

Illustrious Scion of David,

Light of Patriarchs,

Spouse of the Mother of God,

Chaste guardian of the Virgin,

Foster-father of the Son of God,

Watchful defender of Christ,

Head of the Holy Family,

Joseph most just,

Joseph most chaste,

Joseph most prudent,

Joseph most valiant,

Joseph most obedient,

Joseph most faithful,

Mirror of patience,

Lover of poverty,

Model of workmen,

Glory of home life,

Guardian of virgins,

Pillar of families,

Solace of the afflicted,

Hope of the sick,

Patron of the dying,

Terror of demons,

Protector of Holy Church, pray for us.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

V. He made him lord over his house,

R. And the ruler of all his possessions.

Let us pray.

O God, who in Thine ineffable providence didst vouchsafe to choose blessed Joseph to be the spouse

of Thy most holy Mother: grant, we beseech Thee, that we may have him for an intercessor in heaven,

whom we venerate as our protector on earth. Who livest and reignest world without end, Amen.

*By Raphael – Own work, J1m1mayers, 1 January 1518, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63865341

iacobusm Faith and Sin

St. Patrick, Julius Caesar, and Slavery to Sin

“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today” (Deuteronomy 15:14-15)

     St. Patrick is, of course, the Patron Saint of Ireland, but he wasn’t originally Irish.   He was Romano-British, probably born in what is now southern Scotland, or possibly Wales.  His first introduction to the Emerald Isle was as a slave, after he had been kidnapped as a youth by Irish raiders.  In his difficulties he came increasingly to rely on God, and he believed that God was calling him out of captivity.  He escaped and found his way home.  His faith life deepened, and after a time he concluded that he was being called back to save those who had enslaved him.  After ordination as a priest he returned to Ireland, where he successfully evangelized his former captors, and eventually became known as the Apostle of Ireland.

“Julius Caesar” by Nicholas Coustou

     There is something profoundly Christian about St. Patrick’s story.  Consider just how different is the story about Julius Caesar, as told by the Roman historian Suetonius.  When he was a young man, Caesar was kidnapped by pirates, who held him for ransom.  The buccaneers were charmed by the Roman aristocrat’s magnetic personality, and soon he was a participant, even a leader, in all their feasting and horseplay.  Suetonius relates that Caesar often smiled as he told the pirates that, when he was ransomed, he would come back and crucify all of them, which apparently amused them quite a bit. As it turned out, Caesar wasn’t joking: after he was ransomed, he did return, and brutally avenged himself on his abductors.

     St. Patrick came back as well, but in a spirit of love, not of vengeance, heeding the words of Jesus Christ: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  He shows us in a very concrete way how the Wisdom of God is indeed different from the “wisdom” of the world (see 1 Corinthians 3:19).

St. Patrick came back as well, but in a spirit of love, not of vengeance, heeding the words of Jesus Christ: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). 

   

   We don’t need to be kidnapped or enslaved in a literal sense to see how the lesson of St. Patrick applies to ourselves.  Jesus Christ came to save us from slavery to sin.  Many people who are now serious Catholics previously spent a significant part of their life separated from Christ, living in that state of servitude.  Like St. Patrick, we are called to respond to that experience in love, and to try to bring others, even those who have wronged us, into the freedom of Christ.   That, rather than funny hats and green beer, is the true Spirit of St. Patrick’s Day.

(Pictured above: “St. Patrick Baptizes the King of Munster”. Stained glass window from St. Patrick’s Church, Columbus, OH; photo Wikipedia Commons)

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St. Philemon the Actor: Martyr and Anti-Hypocrite

   Every day of the year the Liturgical Calendar offers us the stories of a number of inspiring and fascinating saints.  Today, March 8th, the primary saint is St. John of God, a man who led an amazingly varied life: he was, in turn, a shepherd, soldier, servant, laborer, book seller, and the founder of a hospital.  Under the many “identities” he took on over his lifetime, however, there was always the same loving soul who was always ready to sacrifice himself for the good of others.  He died as a result of trying to save a boy from drowning.

     One of the lesser-known of today’s saints, the intriguingly named St. Philemon the Actor, also followed an occupation that might not at first make us think of sanctity.   Philemon lived in Egypt at the beginning of the fourth century and, as his name suggests, he was an actor and performer.  One of his fellow performers was a Christian named Apollonius, who, according to some reports, was also a deacon. During the reign of the Emperor Diocletian, one of the Romans’ favorite methods of flushing out Christians was to force them to sacrifice to the pagan gods, and receive a legal document to that effect; the idea was either to force followers of Christ into apostasy, or to compel them to reveal themselves to the authorities who could then put them to death.  Apollonius seems to have lost his nerve when put to this test, and asked Philemon to obtain a certificate saying that both of them had sacrificed to the pagan gods.  Philemon instead professed his Christian faith and was executed.  Apollonius, shamed by his friend’s bold faith, also accepted the death of a martyr, and became known as St. Apollonius.

Actor’s masks, from a mosaic in the villa of the Roman Emperor Hadrian

     St. Philemon’s story has some uniquely ironic twists.  Apollonius expected the actor to put on a show on his behalf, but Philemon took off his mask when what was needed was the truth.  Also, our word “hypocrite” comes from the Greek word ὑποκριτής, which means “actor”.  It was because Philemon refused to play the actor that he revealed to Apollonius his own hypocrisy, and so saved both his own soul and that of his friend; as Jesus says, “the Truth will set you free” (John 8:32). St. Philemon has something to teach us as well, if we see in his story a reminder that we won’t be saved in the end by relying on our own talents or cleverness, but by putting our hope in Christ.

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St. Agnes of Bohemia – Bride of The King

We mortal men and women need stories.  I don’t mean “stories” in the sense of things that are untrue or simply made up. I mean that we learn and understand some things best, even perfectly true things, when we encounter them in story form.  We need the arc of narrative to capture and hold our imagination.  In order to really absorb concepts we need to see them embodied, literally, in people like ourselves and in the things that people do.

     That is part of the purpose of the cult of the saints.  Through intercessory prayer they advocate for us before the throne of God, but they are also examples for us: through the stories of their lives, they show us in a way we can’t fail to understand what it is to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

     One of those things that they show us is how important each one of us is to God: “the wisdom of this world is folly with God.” (1 Corinthians 3:19) One of today’s saints, St. Agnes of Bohemia (also known as St. Agnes of Prague) provides a good example of just how foolish the “wisdom” of the world can be.  

Frederick II, from his book The Art of Hunting with Birds

     Agnes was born in the year 1211 into a high place in the society of her day: daughter of King Ottokar I of Bohemia, niece of King Andrew II of Hungary. While her place was significant, Agnes herself seems to have been significant mostly as a political commodity.  She was engaged at the age of eight to the ten-year-old Henry, King of Germany, who was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II.  

Her guardian Leopold VI of Babenberg wanted his own daughter to marry the young king, and contrived to cancel Henry’s engagement to Agnes.  Agnes’ father Ottokar thereupon declared war on Leopold, and tried to arrange the engagement of his daughter to Henry III of England. The Emperor Frederick prevented this second engagement, however, apparently concluding that he might as well marry Agnes himself.

     At this point Agnes had enough of being a token in the game of dynastic politics.  Besides, she had set her sights on another husband: Jesus Christ Himself.  She enlisted Pope Gregory IX to support her in her desire to live a life devoted to prayer and good works.  Frederick II supposedly remarked that he would have brought the sword (much as her father had done) against any mere man who had taken Agnes from him, but that he could not object to being passed over for the King of Heaven.

     Agnes spent the rest of her life using her worldly position to further the Kingdom of Heaven.  She founded hospitals and convents; she helped settle the recently founded Franciscans and Poor Clares in her kingdom (and established a deep long-distance friendship with St. Clare herself); she established a male military order, the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, whose primary mission was nursing; she joined the Poor Clares herself, and eventually became abbess.  

St. Agnes of Bohemia Tending the Sick
by Bohemian Master of the year 1482

     In spite of her noble birth and high rank as abbess, she was known for preparing food and clothes for the poor with her own hands, and for personally tending to the sick and dying. Because of her life of Christian virtue and the continuing impact of her example over eight centuries she was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1874, and canonized by Pope St. John Paul II in 1989.  Just ten years ago, 800 years after her birth, St. Agnes has honored under the title of the Saint of the Overthrow of Communism in the Czech Republic (the modern successor to the Kingdom of Bohemia), and Czech Catholics dedicated a year in her honor.

     It’s noteworthy that few people aside from professional historians recognize the names of Frederick II or Ottokar I, who were considered to be among the most important people of their time.  If Agnes had been married to one of the kings of the day, her name would be almost completely forgotten as well.  But by rejecting political influence and the trappings of power, she gained much more: not merely fame but devotion that has lasted almost a millennium.  What a magnificent reminder of the words of the Psalmist:

Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no help. When his breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans perish. Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God. (Psalm 146:3-5)

Of course, saints such as St. Agnes don’t seek fame for themselves, like mortal kings do. God raises his saints to prominence so that the rest of us will continue to learn from their example, and continue to ask for their prayers.  And who better to plead on our behalf than a bride of the King of Heaven?

Featured image top of page: St. Agnes of Bohemia. I’ve tried to make a practice of always identifying works of art by title and artist, if known. I’ve found this beautiful painting of St. Agnes of Bohemia on numerous websites, but none of them identify it. If anyone out there has the information, please let me know.

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St. Valentine, Patron of Agape

A Cloud of Witnesses


The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that we live out our life of faith here on earth in view of a “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1), which is to say our holy predecessors. They watch over us from before the Throne of God, where they cheer us on and intercede on our behalf.  At the time the letter was written, all these witnesses were holy men and women from Old Testament times, but that cloud has been expanding constantly over the centuries since to include countless Christian Saints. They are truly our witnesses before God, and also our examples, heroes who show us the path to follow.

Communion of Saints
(Baptistry, Padua, by Jose Ruiz Ribeiro)

Speaking for myself, one of the unintended rewards of dabbling in bloggery over the past few years is that, in researching and writing blog posts on many of these saints, I’ve come to know them so much better. I’ve come to a deeper appreciation of famous heroes of the faith whom I thought I already knew, such as St. Joseph and St. Therese of Lisieux. I’ve also come to know many more obscure saints, some of whom I had never heard of before: St. Peregrinus and St. Mellitus are just two examples. Today, however, we have the curious case of a saint who somehow manages to fall into both of these categories. He is universally “known”, at least insofar as his name is a household word, even among non-Catholics, and in fact among non-Christians.  At the same time, a great many people don’t even know they’re speaking the name of a Christian saint, and those who do know it know almost nothing about the man himself, or even whether he was one man, or two.

A Shadowy Saint

     I am speaking, of course, of St. Valentine, whose traditional feast day is February 14th.  There can be no doubt that such a saint existed: the archaeological evidence includes a church dedicated to him at a very early date, and Pope St. Gelasius I added him to the liturgical calendar as a martyr in the year 496.  His celebration was removed, however, in the reform of the General Roman Calendar in 1969 (although he is still acknowledged as a legitimate saint) because there is very little trustworthy information about him beyond the bare fact that he gave his life as a martyr for the faith in the time of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus, most likely in the year 269 A.D.

St. Valentine Baptizing St. Lucilla
by Jacopo Bassano

     The legends attached to his name are indeed inconsistent, but there are some common threads among them. Some stories involve Valentine miraculously curing a young girl of blindness.  The girl is either the daughter of a Roman judge named Asterius, who consequently converts to Christianity with his whole 44-person household, or of the jailer who is holding Valentine; here, the saint closes his final letter to the young lady he cured in a way that has become familiar to the recipients of countless Valentine’s cards over the years: “Your Valentine.” Other stories depict Valentine as a bishop who secretly performs Christian weddings, a crime at the time, for which he is arrested.  All accounts agree that he refused to renounce Christianity, and died a martyr for the Faith.

True Love

    We can see in St. Valentine’s affectionate farewell to the girl he cured, and in his connection to marriage, the germ of his later reputation as a “saint of love”.  It has been suggested that his feast day was offered by the Church as a chaste alternative to the Lupercalia, an old pagan fertility feast that took place on February 15th.  It is true that Pope Gelasius I, the same pontiff who instituted St. Valentine’s day, also harshly criticized Christians who still observed Lupercalia, and formally abolished its observance.  While the circumstances suggest a connection between the two acts, there is no documentary evidence that he specifically intended to replace the pagan feast on the 15th with the saint’s day on the 14th. Another boost to St. Valentine’s reputation seems to have come in the Middle Ages, when it was a commonly held belief that birds paired up in mid February, around the time of his feast day.

Pope St. Gelasius elevated Feast of St. Valentine, suppressed Lupercalia.

     Whatever its origins, we can see that his reputation has grown over the centuries to such an extent that it has take on a life of its own, with increasingly less overt connection to the saint himself.  Stroll through the seasonal section of any retailer at this time of year and you will be assaulted by a wave of pink, emblazoned with messages about “Valentines Day” – most of which have long since lost the prefix “Saint”.  The celebrations aimed at schoolchildren, at least, tend to be mostly innocent, albeit desanctified. The pop-cultural messages directed at those beyond grade school, however, have strayed far from anything St. Valentine would have understood as “love”, to something he would have recognized as an almost Lupercalian eros. Adults are invited to see “Valentines” Day as a time to celebrate sexual love, with very little mention of marriage. In recent years we have also seen the phenomenon known as “V Day” (here even the saint’s name is gone), which curiously employs a perverse and degrading theatrical performance (modesty prevents me from going into detail) toward the otherwise laudable goal of ending violence against girls and women.

Agape vs. Eros

     The state of our society today is every bit as bad as what Pope Gelasius faced in the 5th century, perhaps worse.  We would do well to look back the original stories of St. Valentine, whether or not they meet the exacting standards of modern historians,  to see what they tell us about love and marriage.  St. Valentine was a champion of Christian marriage, to the point of giving up his life for it.  Not only that, his fond farewell to the young woman he had cured was an expression of respect, affection, and of concern for another, an act of self-giving, not the self-directed taking of lust.  St. Valentine is a patron saint of transcendent love, of agape, not eros.

     That, I think, is the Christian take on this wonderful saint.  I started out by talking about the saints as both intercessors and heroes. Here is a saint who gave his life to bring men and women together in the loving bond of Christian marriage, and whose last thought as he faced his own death was directed toward comforting another.  What better image to offer in response to the self-indulgent, dehumanizing sexuality that is so prevalent today? In an age that so thoroughly and tragically misunderstands the meaning of love and marriage, we should put the “Saint” back in front of Valentine and hold him up as an Icon of True Love, the Patron of Agape.