BELLUM CONTRA HÆRÉTICOS

SAINT VALENTINE, PRIEST AND MARTYR The Holy Church honours today St. Valentine: he consacrated himself on following the Redeemer “bringing the cross behind Him” (Evangelium); “having sacrificed his life for Him, he found it” (Introitus), because he was “victorious in the terrible fights” (Epistola), God “has crowned him with glory and honour” (Offertorium). Valentine, lived in the III century, he was a Roman priest of great reputation, wisdom and holiness, admired for his gifts not only by the Christian faithful, but also by the pagans themselves. His charity made him acclaimed as the "father of the poor"; his zeal for religion was all the more effective the purer and more selfless it was. His humility, his meekness, his firmness of thought and an aura of sanctity in every action kidnapped the souls of anyone who had anything to do with him, earning him sincere esteem and respect.

FASTING AND ABSTINENCE IN LENT These are the current fasting and abstinence rules for Lent, as they've stood since the reign of Pope Pius XII: Fasting obliges those between the ages of 21 and 59. Fasting means: ~ Only one full meal is allowed in the day, and that after noon ~ That meal may contain meat, unless it's also an abstinence day ~ Further, two small meatless snacks, called collations, are allowed each day: when added together they must not exceed the size of a full meal ~ Snacking between these is not permitted ~ No liquid breaks the fast, including milk ~ Things that we may call liquid, but are made of solid matter, such as soup and fruit or vegetable smoothies, do break the fast ~ each fasting day is midnight to midnight All the forty days of Lent (that is, excluding Sundays) are fasting days, ending at midday on Holy Saturday. Abstinence obliges all those who are 7 or older. Abstinence means no meat or soup made from meat. Other foods, including those using meat juices, are allowed. In the universal law of the Church, the abstinence days in Lent are all Fridays and all Saturdays, with the addition of Ash Wednesday and the Ember Wednesday. Ireland follows these rules. In England, the Saturdays are swapped for the Wednesdays, so the abstinence days are all Wednesdays and all Fridays with the Ember Saturday. In the USA, the abstinence days are all Fridays and Ash Wednesday only. The Ember Wednesday and Saturday are days of "partial abstinence", which means one may only eat meat once at one's main meal. In Scotland, St. Joseph's Day is a Holy Day of Obligation and the obligation to fast is overturned. In Ireland that is true of St. Patrick's Day.

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Tota pulchra es, Maria. Et macula originalis non est in Te. Tu gloria Ierusalem. Tu laetitia Israel. Tu honorificentia populi nostri. Tu advocata peccatorum. O Maria, O Maria. Virgo prudentissima. Mater clementissima. Ora pro nobis. Intercede pro nobis. Ad Dominum Iesum Christum.

The Supreme Pontiff Pius IX honored it with holy indulgences, the privilege of an archconfraternity and the title of minor basilica (since 1874); and he wanted the statue of the Mother of God, which is venerated there, to be crowned with a solemn rite by his apostolic nuncio to France. The Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII then conferred on her innumerable benefits, granted the indulgence in the form of a jubilee on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Apparition and encouraged pilgrimages with his authority and word. Under his pontificate, in 1883, work began for the construction of a new Basilica under the title of Our Lady of the Rosary (current Lower Basilica), the work of the architect Léopold Amédée Hardy, which was completed on 7 August 1889 and solemnly consecrated by Card. Benoît-Marie Langénieux, Archbishop of Reims, in the name of the Supreme Pontiff, on the 6th of October 1901. Furthermore, the Supreme Pontiff himself crowned the multiplicity of these privileges by graciously granting, at the request of many bishops, to celebrate a solemn feast under the title of the Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary Immaculate with its own Office and its own Holy Mass. Finally, the Supreme Pontiff St. Pius X in his piety towards the Mother of God, and to comply with the vows of many bishops, extended the same feast to the universal Church.

The first day of the apparition, that was the 11th of February of the year 1858, the Blessed Virgin Mary taught to the young girl to properly do with piety the sign of the cross and, by sliding the crown that previously hung from her arm into her hand, she excited her, with her example, to the recitation of the Holy Rosary: something that she also repeated in the other apparitions. But the second day of the apparition (14th of February 1858), the young girl, fearing, in the simplicity of her heart, a diabolical snare, she threw blessed water on the Virgin; but the Blessed Virgin, smiling gently, showed her an even more benevolent face. In the third apparition (18th of February 1858), she invited the young girl to the cave for 15 days. Since then she talked to her more often, and exorted her to pray with the sinners, to kiss the ground and to do penance; then she ordained her to tell the priests to edify there a chapel, and that people come there in the same way with solemn processions. Furthermore, she ordered her to drink the water from the spring, which was still hidden under the sand but would soon flow out, and to wash herself with it. Finally on the feast of the Annunciation, during the sixteenth apparition (25th of March 1858), asking the girl for her name, who had deigned to appear to her so many times, the Virgin, putting her hands on her chest and raised her eyes to Heaven, she replied in Gascon dialect: "Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou", in English: "I am the Immaculate Conception”. As the fame of the benefits grew, which was claimed the faithful received in the sacred cave, the number of men attracted to the cave by the veneration of the place increased more and more every day. Hence the bishop of Tarbes, Msgr. Bertrand-Sévère Mascarou-Laurence, moved by the fame of the prodigies and the candor of the girl, four years after the things narrated, on January 18, 1862, after the juridical inquisition of the facts, recognized with his sentence, that the characters of the apparition were supernatural, and allowed the cult of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin in the same cave. On the 4th of August 1864, the bishop of Tarbes himself took part in the first solemn procession to the Massabielle cave, where he blessed a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary (by the sculptor Joseph-Hugues Fabisch) which was placed in the niche of the apparitions. Immediately a primitive chapel (current Crypt) was built there, which was inaugurated on May 19, 1866; in the same year, works were started for the construction of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception (now the Upper Basilica). This basilica, in thirteenth-century Gothic style, built on the rocky precipice overlooking the cave of the apparitions, was blessed on August 15, 1871 and consecrated on July 2, 1876. Since that day, the crowds of faithful who flock there every year are almost countless from France, Belgium, Italy, Spain and other regions of Europe and even the distant Americas, and the name of the Immaculate Conception of Lourdes became famous throughout the whole universe. The water from the fountain, brought to all parts of the world, gives health to the sick. And the Catholic world, truly grateful for so many benefits, has erected marvelous sacred monuments around it. It is known to all how these pilgrimages have revived the faith in this century that was full of coldness, have encouraged the professing of Christian law, and have admirably increased the cult of the Immaculate Virgin. In this marvelous manifestation of faith the Christian people have as their leader the priests, who lead their people there. The bishops themselves often go to this sanctuary, preside over pilgrimages, and attend the most solemn feasts. Nor is it too rare to see the same princes of the Roman Church dressed in purple flock there as humble pilgrims. In turn, the Roman Pontiffs, in their devotion to the Immaculate Conception of Lourdes, enriched the sacred temple with the most distinguished favors.

APPARITION OF THE IMMACULATE VIRGIN MARY IN LOURDES Four years later the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, on the banks of the Gave de Pau River, in the diocese of Tarbes in France, the same Virgin showed herself eighteen times, from the 11th of February to the 16th of July 1858, in an inlet of a rock in the cove of Massabielle to a 14 years old girl commonly named Bernadette ( of the Soubirous family), very poor but ingenuous and pious. The Immaculate Virgin appeared young and benevolent of appearance, covered with a snow-white robe and veil, and girded with a celestial band; a golden rose adorned her bare feet.

Sancta Scholastica, ora pro nobis!

The next day the venerable virgin returned to her cloister, and the man of God to his monastery. Three days later, he being in his cell intent on reciting the Divine Office and having raised his eyes to heaven, he saw the soul of his sister coming out of the body penetrate in the form of a dove the mysterious heights of the sky (10 February 547). Enraptured with joy for her glory, he gave thanks to Almighty God with canticles and praises, and announced her death to his brothers. And he immediately sent them to take his body, to take it to the monastery, and to bury it in the tomb which he had prepared for himself and in which he himself was laid a few weeks later. Thus it happened that, just as their souls had always been united in God, so also their bodies brought them together in one and the same tomb. Let’s pray God, who made fly up to heaven, in the likeness of a dove, the soul of the blessed Virgin Scholastica, to grant us, through her merits and prayers, to live innocently so that we may be found worthy to reach everlasting joys (Oratio).