BELLUM CONTRA HÆRÉTICOS

His body was buried with respectful honor in the same Church of San Tommaso in Formis on the Celio, but in 1665 he was transferred to Madrid by two Trinitarian friars. John of Matha was canonized by Pope Alexander VII on thw 21st of October 1666.

Shining of science and piety, the Bishop of Paris conferred him, despite his humble resistance, the sacred order of priesthood, so that, during his stay in such city, his wisdom and conduct would enlighten the young students. In offering for the first time to God the Holy Sacrifice of Mass (28th of February 1193) in the Bishop’s chapel, where he assisted with other people, was relieved by a celestial grace, It appeared to him exactly an Angel with a radiant face, clad with a habit of a wonderful whiteness, he had attached a red and light blue cross on his chest; his arms were crossed and placed on two slaves with chains at the feet placed at the sides, one pale and gaunt (Christian) and the other black and deformed (Mauritanian). By which vision he was captured in ecstasy, the man of God immediately understood that he was destined to ransom those Christians made captives from the hands of the Saracens (Oratio). But to proceed with more maturity in such thing of great importance, he retired in solituted in the locality Cerfroid in Brumetz in Upper France. There it happened, by divine will, that he met St. Felix of Valois, who had been living in the hermitage for many years: to which he joined, living togeteher for three years in prayer and contemplation, and exercising in the practice of all virtues (Introitus). There happened, that, while reaasoning together of divine things near a fount, a deer approached them carrying a red and blue cross between its horns. And as Felix was amazed at the novelty of the thing, John told him the vision he had in the first Mass; then they applied themselves with renewed fervor to prayer and, warned three times in a dream, they resolved to leave for Rome, to implore the Supreme Pontiff to institute a new order for the ransom of slaves. In the meanwhile Innocent III had been elected Supreme Pontiff; he received them with kindness, and while he was deliberating on their proposal, on the feast of St. Agnes for the second time, in the Lateran, during the elevation of the Host of the solemn Mass, a white-robed Angel appeared to him, with a two-colored cross, in the guise of a man who redeemed slaves. Behind which vision, the Supreme Pontiff approved the institute and its rule on the 17th of December 1198 with the bull Operante divine dispositionis, and wanted the new religious family to be called Order of the Most Holy Trinity for the redemption of captives, ordering its professed to wear white dress with a red and blue cross. Thus instituted the Order, the holy founders returned to France, and, having founded the first monastery at Cerfroid in the diocese of Meaux (since 1801 in the diocese of Soissons), Felix remained there to govern it; while John with some companions returned to Rome, where Pope Innocent III gave them the house, the abbey church and the hospital of San Tommaso in Formis on the Celio hill with many revenues and properties. He also gave them letters for the Miramolin (from the Arabic amīr al-mu'minīn "chief emir of believers") king of Morocco, and so the ransom work began under happy auspices. Then John left for Spain, largely oppressed by the yoke of the Saracens, and excited the hearts of kings, princes and other faithful to compassion for the slaves and the poor. Thanks to the numerous alms (Epistola) obtained from kings and princes of France and Spain, he was able to free a large number of Christians who had fallen into the hands of the infidels. He built monasteries, erected hospitals, and redeemed many slaves with great profit for souls. Finally returned to Rome, he devoted himself to holy works and lived many years in the service of Pope Gregory IX, as a Pontifical Chaplain. Overwhelmed by constant fatigue and exhausted by illness, burning with the most ardent love for God and neighbor, he was reduced to extremes. Whence the brothers gathered and exhorted them effectively to the work of the ransom indicated to him by heaven, he fell asleep in the Lord on December 17 in the year of our salvation 1213.

SAINT JOHN OF MATHA, CONFESSOR John of Matha was born in Faucon-de-Barcelonnette in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (France), the 23th of June 1154, from parents distinguished by piety and nobility. Educated with every care, from his childhood he showed such talents of ingenuity, seriousness and a heart so sensitive to the miseries of others, as to portend in him the future comforting angel of the afflicted. By his parent’s will he frequented for reasons of studies at first at the school of Aix-en-Provence, then he was sent at the Accademy of Paris, where he terminated the theological course and followed by the doctoral degree.

Sancte Romualde, ora pro nobis!

THE PRECIOUS TRANSIT OF POPE PIUS IX Pius IX in his gaze showed the tranquility of his spirit. At 11:30 his hands, now livid, still had so much strength to draw the crucifix from under the bedside and bless the bystanders, then kiss it with unspeakable emotion. Towards the bell ring, one hour after noon, Cardinal Bilio began to recite the prayers of the recommendation of the soul, and the Holy Pontiff, although with great difficulty, repeated them. Then he said in domum Domini ibimus; and Cardinal Bilio having paused before beginning the proficiscere, the dying man said: Yes, yes, proficiscere ... such was the clarity of his mind! At about 3.30, Pius IX went into agony, unconscious and with a veiled eye. At 5 and 40 minutes in the afternoon, the great Pontiff took his last breath.

There he met the abbot Guarinus, who convinced the young hermit, still not thirty years old, to follow him in the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Michel-De-Cuxa (in Catalan Saint Miquel de Cuixà), in Catalonia (actually in Languedoc-Roussillon, France), where Romuald stayed there for ten years and completed his training. Returned in Italy, he dedicated his hermit life in the hermitage of Pereo, on the so-called Rose Island, near Ravenna. He renounced then to the dignity of Abbot and, moving into the territory of Mount Fumaiolo (in the current municipality of Verghereto, in the in the Tuscan-Romagna Apennines), he founded a monastery in honour of St. Michael the Archangel. Due to his constant disciplinary and moral appeals to the monks, he was hunted with fury with rod blows along with his disciples. Around the year 1001 the young emperor Otto III convinced the hermit Romuald to become the Abbot of St. Apollinaris in Classe; but called by God to solituted and to the renewal of the hermit life, after just a year, renounced the nomination, and he went at Montecassino. Assaulted by Satan, who tended him many deceptions, he always knew how to inspire terror in him (Epistola); and fought by the envy of men, he practiced all the more humbly and assiduously in fasting and prayer, and devoted himself to meditating on heavenly things, shedding copious tears: and yet he was always so jovial, as to make those who looked at him happy. He was in great honor to princes and kings (Epistola). Illustrious for miracles in life and after death, he also had the spirit of prophecy. Like the Patriarch Jacob, he saw in vision a stairway that rose from earth to heaven and by which white-cladded men ascended and descended; in which marvelous vision he recognized the monks of the Camaldolese Congregation of the Order of St. Benedict designated, known as Camaldolese Monks, of which he was the institutor (Communio). In 1012, in fact, he bought from the landowner named Maldoli the place where the vision took place, situated in the Casentino Apennines (Arezzo, in Tuscany), and build there the monastery, of which gave the name of Camaldoli (Camp of Maldoli) with which name his Order is still designated today. Finally after having lived 120 years and having served God for a century with a very austere life, he passed to eternal glory in the Abbey of San Salvatore in Valdicastro (Fabriano, Marche), on June 19 in the year of our salvation 1027. His body found intact five years after his burial, was placed with honor in the Camaldolese church of San Biagio in Fabriano; however, it was stolen in 1480 by two monks from Sant'Apollinare in Classe who took it to Jesi and, after a year, on 7 February 1481, it was definitively moved to the church of Fabriano, where it had initially been deposed. Romualdo was canonized by Pope Clement VIII in 1595.

SAINT ROMUALD The life of St. Romuald, whose feast the Holy Church celebrates today, is told by San Pier Damiani, a Camaldolese, in his Vita sancti Romualdi. Romuald, born in Ravenna in the X century, came from a noble family: his father was Duke Sergio degli Onesti of Ravenna and his mother Traversara Traversari. Following a bloody confrontation where his family was involved, the young Romuald, of 20 years old, retired in the near and ancient monastery of St. Apollinaris, became a monk, according to the prediction made by the servant of God for him. Very soon he went to the borders of the Veneto to meet the hermit Marinus, famous at that time for the sanctity of life and the austerity of his discipline, to have him as a teacher and as guide in the narrow and sublime path of perfection.

FRANCE Priest blesses farmers in tractors taking part in large scale protests as they travel through Bergerac @catholicarena