BELLUM CONTRA HÆRÉTICOS

According what pope St. Gregory the Great has handed down (he was also part of the gens Anicia) in the second book of the Dialogues, at the age of 12 years old was sent to Rome with her brother to carry out the classical studies, but both were profoundly disturbed by the dissolute life that was lead there. Retired Benedict in hermitage, Scholastica remained the only heir to the familiar possessions; but, refusing all earthly attachments, asked her father to be consecrated to the Lord in a monastery near Norcia. The father, although suffered from the detachment from the daughter, remembered of the given vow and accepted her decision. Consecrated to the Lord since her youth, few years later followed the brother to Subiaco and, when St. Benedict found the abbey of Montecassino, she wanted to reach him and at the foot of Montecassino she found the monastery of Piuarola (in the current territory of Villa Santa Lucia, Frosinone), where, living a common life with a group of consecrated women and following the Rule of St. Benedict, gave origins to the female branch of the Benedictine Order. Scholar, as her name indicated, she always dedicated to the school of her virtues (cf. Prologue of the Rule of Saint Benedict: “Ausculta, o fili, praecepta Magistri”), that she followed, it was none other than the echo of Jesus during His public life, thus the whole life of the Saint is summed up in these words: “love justice, and hate iniquity” (Introitus). The divine spouse, when he was going to get her, granted with a miracle the prayers of His beloved. Scholastica, recounts St. Gregory the Great (Dialogues, II Book, chapter 33), had the habit of going to visit the brother once a year; and the man of God descended to receive her in a property of the monastery not too distant from her residence. When she had gone according to habit, her venerable brother came down to her with a few disciples; and after having spent the whole day in the praises of God and in holy talks, as the darkness of the night fell, they took the meal together. When they were still seated at the table and the hour in the holy speeches had extended, the same holy woman his sister begged him by saying: "Please do not abandon me this night, so that we may speak until morning about the joys of heavenly life". But he answered her: «What are you saying, oh sister? At no cost I can stay outside the monastery". The sky was then so clear that no clouds appeared in the sky. The holy woman, hearing the negative answer of her brother, placed her hands with her fingers folded on the table, bent her head in her palms and prayed to the almighty Lord. As she raised her head from the table, such violence of lightning and thunder broke out, and such a deluge of rain, that neither the venerable Benedict, nor the monks who were with him were able to set foot outside the threshold of the place where they were. The holy woman, bending her head in her hands, had poured a torrent of tears on the table, from which she had made the rain succeed to the serenity of the air. Nor did the flood follow long after the prayer; but the simultaneity between prayer and the flood was so great that when she raised her head from the table, thunders were already breaking out; so that both the raising of the head and the falling of the rain were one and the same moment. Then the man of God seeing that the lightning and thunder and the downpour of torrential rain did not allow him to return to the monastery, saddened, began to grieve, saying: "Almighty God forgive you, sister: what have you ever done?" And she answered him: “Behold, I have begged you, and you did not want to listen to me; I prayed to my God, and He listened to me. Now go out if you can; and, leave me, go back to the monastery”. But he could not leave the house, while at first he did not want to stay there spontaneously, then he remained there in spite of himself. And so it happened, they spent the whole night in holy talks of spiritual life, they were satisfied in the reciprocal exchange of their feelings.

SAINT SCHOLASTICA, VIRGIN Scholastica, twin sister of the venerable Father St. Benedict, was born in Norcia in Italy, around 480. Her father, Eutropius Anicius, descendant of the old senatorial roman gens of the Anicii, he was the General Captain of the Romans in the Norcia region, while the mother, Claudia Abondantia Reguardati, countess of Norcia, died right after giving birth the twins. The father, dedicated great cures to the two children, made vow to destine her to the monastic life.

Sancte Cyrille Episcope Confessor, Ecclesiæ Doctor, ora pro nobis!

Sancta Apollonia, ora pro nobis!

Between 248 and 249, a popular uprising against the Christians broke out in Alexandria of Egypt, incited by an Alexandrian pagan fortune teller; on that occasion many Christians were scourged and stoned, and also suffered looting in their homes. During this bloody fury, at the time of the emperor Decius (autumn 249), it happened that the persecutors took possession of Apollonia, the most honored virgin of Alexandria, already advanced in age. Apollonia was brought before the idols, to make a sign to venerate them; but instead despising them, he highly declared that only the true God Jesus Christ was to be worshiped. Therefore all her teeth were beaten and pulled out; and wicked executioners, having lit a stake, threatened that they would burn her alive, if she had not detested Christ and had worshiped the gods. To them the virgin replied that she was ready to suffer any death for the faith of Jesus Christ. Therefore taken to be burned and stopped somewhat as to deliberate on what to do, she suddenly freed herself from their hands, and, internally lit by greater ardor of the Holy Spirit, joyfully threw herself into the fire prepared for them. Whence in a short time the body was consumed, the most pure spirit flew to Heaven to receive the immortal crown of martyrdom. The perpetrators of that cruelty themselves were astonished, as if a woman had found themselves more ready to die than the persecutor to punishment.

COMMEMORATION OF SAINT APOLLONIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR The martyrdom of the virgin St. Apollonia is narrated to us by the historian Eusebius of Caesarea, who, in his Historia Ecclesiastica written in the III century, reports a passage from the letter of St. Dionysius the Great of Alexandria, addressed to Fabio d'Antiochia, in which narrate some episodes he had witnessed (Historia Ecclesiatica, Book VI, chap. XLI, n. 7).

Fact: it was because of Catholic protest that movies had warnings for lewd content and place a moral code

Returned to Alexandria, and being dead the uncle Theophilus, the still young Cyril was elected bishop of that patriarcal see in 412: in which office he always showed so well in himself the type of the perfect shepherd outlined by the Apostle, that he rightfully acquired the reputation of most holy prelate. Enflamed by the zeal for the salvation of souls, he put all cares on maintaining in integrity the faith and costumes of the given flock and to preserve them from the poisoned pastures of the infidels and of the heretics. Hence he endeavored to expel the followers of Novatus from the city and to punish, according to the law, the Jews who, in their frenzy, had conspired to massacre the Christians. But, since 428, the zeal of Cyril for the integrity of the Catholic faith showed itself especially against Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, who, rejecting the divinity of the maternity of Holy Mary, with this he came to undermine the domain of the hypostatic union of the divine Word with human nature taken from the Holy Virgin; in fact, the heretic Nestorius pretended that Jesus Christ born from the Virgin Mary was only man and not God, and that the divinity was given accorded by the virtue of his merits. After trying in vain to reduce him to resipiscence, Cyril denounced him to the supreme Pontiff St. Celestine I. By the delegation of pope St. Celestine I, he presided at the Council of Ephesus (431), when the Nestorian heresy was entirely outlawed, Nestorius condemned and deposed from his See, and the Catholic dogma of only one and divine person in Christ, and the maternal divinity of the glorious Virgin Mary was proclaimed. Informed by the result of the Council and the victory of Orthodoxy, the entire people, to manifest the unstoppable joy, accompanied the bishops with lit torches. But, caused by all this, Cyril had in fact to suffer slanders, insults and many persecutions from Nestorius and his supporters; he bore them with the utmost patience, so that, solicitous only by faith, he considered everything the heretics said and engineered against him to be nothing. Finally, after supporting for the Church of God the greatest labors, and having been published many writings both in refutation of pagans and heretics and in explanation of the Holy Scriptures and of the Catholic dogma, he ended his earthly life in a holy way and passed to the glory of the Saints, in Alexandria of Egypt on the 27th of June in the year 444, in the thirtieth according to his episcopacy. The Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church on the 28th of July 1882, extending the Office and Holy Mass of this most illustrious champion of the Catholic faith and luminary of the Eastern Church to the whole Church, and at the same time ordering that throughout the world Catholic if the feast were celebrated on February 9th.

SAINT CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA BISHOP, CONFESSOR AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH The Holy Church celebrates today St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, whose praise is not based only on the testimony of few, but is also celebrated in the acts of the ecumenical councils of Ephesus (431) and of Chalcedon (451). Cyril was born in Theodosia of Egypt (today el-Mahalla el-Kubra, in the Nile delta) by illustrious parents around 370. He was nephew of Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria of Egypt, and since his youh gave clear signs of superior intelligence. Perfectly instructed in in literature and sciences, he went to John, bishop of Jerusalem, to perfect himself in the Christian faith.

Sancte Johannes de Matha, ora pro nobis!

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