Daily Reflection for December 1, 2014 December 1, 2014 ------------------------------------------------------- Monday of the First Week of Advent Go forth in peace, for you have followed the good road. Go forth without fear, for he who created you has made you holy, has always protected you, and loves you as a mother. Blessed be you, my God, for having created me. -- St. Clare of Assisi A SAINT A DAY ------------------------------ ST. EDMUND CAMPION & COMPANIONS English Jesuit Martyr Information: Feast Day: December 1 Born: January 24, 1540, London Died: December 1, 1581, Tyburn, England Canonized: October 25, 1970 by Pope Paul VI English Jesuit and martyr; he was the son and namesake of a Catholic bookseller, and was born in London, 25 Jan., 1540; executed at Tyburn, 1 Dec., 1581. A city company sent the promising child to a grammar school and to Christ Church Hospital. When Mary Tudor entered London in state as queen, he was the schoolboy chosen to give the Latin salutatory to her majesty. Sir Thomas White, lord mayor, who built and endowed St. Johns College at Oxford, accepted Campion as one of his first scholars, appointed him junior fellow at seventeen, and, dying, gave him his last messages for his academic family. Campion shone at Oxford in 1560, when he delivered one oration at the reburial of Amy Robsart, and another at the funeral of the founder of his own college; and for twelve years he was to be followed and imitated as no man ever was in an English university except himself and Newman. He took both his degrees, and became a celebrated tutor, and, by 1568, junior proctor. Queen Elizabeth had visited Oxford two years before; she and Dudley, then chancellor, won by Campions bearing, beauty, and wit, bade him ask for what he would. Successes, local responsibilities, and allurements, his natural ease of disposition, the representations, above all, of his friend Bishop Cheyney of Gloucester, blinded Campion in regard to his course as a Catholic: he took the Oath of Supremacy, and deacons orders according to the new rite. Afterthoughts developing into scruples, scruples into anguish, he broke off his happy Oxford life when his proctorship ended, and betook himself to Ireland, to await the reopening of Dublin University, an ancient papal foundation temporarily extinct. Sir Henry Sidney, the lord deputy, was interested in Campions future as well as in the revival which, however, fell through. With Philip Sidney, then a boy, Campion was to have a touching interview in 1577. As too Catholic minded an Anglican, Campion was suspected, and exposed to danger. Hidden in friendly houses, he composed his treatise called A History of Ireland Written from an English standpoint it gave much offence to the native Irish, and was severely criticized, in the next century, by Geoffrey Keating In his Irish history of Ireland. Urged to further effort by the zeal of Gregory Martin, he crossed to England in disguise and under an assumed name, reaching London in time to witness the trial of one of the earliest Oxonian martyrs, Dr. John Storey. Campion now recognized his vocation and hastened to the seminary at Douai. Cecil lamented to Richard Stanihurst the expatriation of one of the diamonds of England At Douai Campion remained for his theological course and its lesser degree, but then set out as a barefoot pilgrim to Rome, arriving there just before the death of St. Francis Borgia; for I meant, as he said at his examination, to enter into the Society of Jesus, thereof to vow and to be professed. This he accomplished promptly in April (1573), being the first novice received by Mercurianus, the fourth general. As the English province was as yet non-existent, he was allotted to that of Bohemia, entering on his noviceship at Prague and passing his probation year at Brunn in Moravia. Returning to Prague, he taught in the college and wrote a couple of sacred dramas; and there he was ordained in 1578. Meanwhile, Dr. Allen was organizing the apostolic work of the English Mission, and rejoiced to secure Fathers Robert Parsons and Edmund Campion as his first Jesuit helpers. In the garden at Brunn, Campion had had a vision, in which Our Lady foretold to him his martyrdom. Comrades at Prague were moved to make a scroll for P. Edmundus Campianus Martyr, and to paint a prophetic garland of roses within his cell. Parsons and Campion set out from Rome, had many adventures, and called upon St. Charles Borromeo in Milan, and upon Beza in Geneva. Campion was met in London, and fitly clothed, armed, and mounted by a devoted young convert friend. His office was chiefly to reclaim Catholics who were wavering or temporizing under the pressure of governmental tyranny; but his zeal to win Protestants, his preaching, his whole saintly and soldierly personality, made a general and profound impression. An alarm was raised and he fled to the North, where he fell again to writing and produced his famous tract, the Decem Rationes. He returned to London, only to withdraw again, this time towards Norfolk. A spy, a former steward of the Roper family, one George Eliot, was hot upon his track, and ran him and others down at Lyford Grange near Wantage in Berkshire on 17 July, 1581. Amid scenes of violent excitement, Campion was derisively paraded through the streets of his native city, bound hand and foot, riding backwards, with a paper stuck in his hat to denote the seditious Jesuit. First thrown into Little Ease at the Tower, he was carried privately to the house of his old patron, the Earl of Leicester; there he encountered the queen herself, and received earnest proffers of liberty and preferments would he but forsake his papistry. Hopton having tried in vain the same blandishments, on Campions return to the Tower, the priest was then examined under torture, and was reported to have betrayed those who had harboured him. Several arrests were made on the strength of the lie. He had asked for a public disputation. But when it came off in the Norman chapel of the Tower, before the Dean of St. Pauls and other divines, Campion had been denied opportunity to prepare his debate, and had been severely racked. Thus weakened, he stood through the four long conferences, without chair, table, or notes, and stood undefeated. Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who was looking on in the flush of worldly pride, became thereby inspired to return to Gods service. The privy council, at its wits end over so purely spiritual a traitor, hatched a plot to impeach Campions loyalty, and called in the hirelings Eliot and Munday as accusers. A ridiculous trial ensued in Westminster Hall, 20 Nov., 1581. Campion, pleading not guilty, was quite unable to hold up his often-wrenched right arm, seeing which, a fellow prisoner, first kissing it, raised it for him. He made a magnificent defence. But the sentence was death, by hanging, drawing, and quartering: a sentence received by the martyrs with a joyful shout of Haec dies and Te Deum. Campion, with Sherwin and Briant, who were on a separate hurdle, was dragged to Tyburn on 1 December. Passing Newgate arch, he lifted himself as best he could to salute the statue of Our Lady still in situ. On the scaffold, when interrupted and taunted to express his mind concerning the Bull of Plus V excommunicating Elizabeth, he answered only by a prayer for her, your Queen and my Queen. He was a Catholic Englishman with political opinions which were not Allens, though he died, as much as ever Felton did, for the primacy of the Holy See. The people loudly lamented his fate; and another great harvest of conversions began. A wild, generous-hearted youth, Henry Walpole, standing by, got his white doublet stained with Campions blood; the incident made him, too, in time, a Jesuit and a martyr. Historians of all schools are agreed that the charges against Campion were wholesale sham. They praise his high intelligence, his beautiful gaiety, his fiery energy, his most chivalrous gentleness. He had renounced all opportunity for a dazzling career in a world of master men. Every tradition of Edmund Campion, every remnant of his written words, and not least his unstudied golden letters, show us that he was nothing less than a man of genius; truly one of the great Elizabethans, but holy as none other of them all. He was beatified by Pope Leo XIII on 9 December, 1886, and canonized by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Relics of him are preserved in Rome and Prague, in London, Oxford, Stonyhurst, and Roehampton. A not very convincing portrait was made soon after his death for the Gesù in Rome under the supervision of many who had known him. Of this there is a copy in oils at Stonyhurst, and a brilliantly engraved print in Hazarts Kerckelycke Historie (Antwerp, 1669), Vol. III (Enghelandt, etc.), though not in every copy of that now scarce work. ST. NAHUM THE PROPHET Minor Prophet Information: Feast Day: December 1 Around 612 BC, the minor prophet Nahum prophesied against Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. Assyria had conquered and cruelly ruled much of the Middle East for 300 years, and in 622 conquered the northern Kingdom of Israel and deported its people. The Book of Nahum contains prophecies of God’s judgment on Nineveh, which fell to the Medes and Babylonians shortly after they were uttered. N.B. The Martyrologium Romanum (Vatican Press, 2004), the Church’s official list of holy men and women, lists the saints of the Old Law alongside those of the New. FAVOURITE QUOTES FOR DADS ------------------------------ Bricks and mortar make a house, but the laughter of children makes a home. -- Irish Proverb FAVOURITE QUOTES FOR MOMS ------------------------------ Her dignity consists in being unknown to the world; her glory is in the esteem of her husband; her pleasures in the happiness of her family. -- Jean Rousseau 1ST READING (Isaiah 2:1-5) ------------------------------ We live in a world with much violence, inequality, injustice and many other unappealing realities. Is this what we want for ourselves or for our children? One of the staple foods of the spiritual life is the promise that suffering will eventually come to an end and in this sense Judaeo- Christianity is no different. However, none of the promises of future peace make any sense without seeking their application now by trying to live a moral life. How can one expect such a promise of eternal bliss without committing to it by choice when we have an opportunity? GOSPEL ACCLAMATION ------------------------------ Come and save us, Lord our God; let your face shine upon us, that we may be saved. GOSPEL (Matthew 8:5-11) ------------------------------ By this time, the English-speaking portions of the Catholic Church will probably have become used to the third typical translation of the Roman Missal. One of the changes is the Gospel text recited before receiving Holy Communion. The inclusion of the phrase “under my roof” is an idiom that indicates the faith of the centurion which does not require the actual presence of Jesus for the miracle to occur. The mere spoken words of Jesus are sufficient for him. This profession of faith in the authority of Jesus’ words should be the focus of our reflection as well. -------------------------------------------------------- Lectionary for Mass, Copyright ¬© 1970, 1986, 1992, 1998, 2001 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain ¬®¬© 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. -------------------------------------------------------- REFLECTION ------------------------------ Monday (December 1) : Many will sit at table in the kingdom of God Meditation: Are you ready to feast at the Lords banquet table? God’s gracious invitation extends to all - Jew and Gentile alike - who will turn to him with faith and obedience. Jesus used many images or pictures to convey what the kingdom of God is like. One such image is a great banquet feast given at the Kings table (Matthew 8:11 and Luke 13:29). Jesus promised that everyone who believed in him would come and feast at the heavenly banquet table of his Father. Jesus told this parable in response to the dramatic request made by a Roman centurion, a person despised by many because he was an outsider, not one of the chosen ones of Israel. In Jesus time the Jews hated the Romans because they represented everything they stood against - including foreign domination and pagan beliefs and practices. The power to command with trust and respect Why did Jesus not only warmly receive a Roman centurion but praise him as a model of faith and confidence in God? In the Roman world the position of centurion was very important. He was an officer in charge of a hundred soldiers. In a certain sense, he was the backbone of the Roman army, the cement which held the army together. Polybius, an ancient write, describes what a centurion should be: They must not be so much venturesome seekers after danger as men who can command, steady in action, and reliable; they ought not to be over-anxious to rush into the fight, but when hard pressed, they must be ready to hold their ground, and die at their posts. Faith in Jesus authority and power to heal The centurion who approached Jesus was not only courageous, but faith-filled as well. He risked the ridicule of his cronies as well as mockery from the Jews by seeking help from an itinerant preacher from Galilee. Nonetheless, the centurion approached Jesus with great confidence and humility. He was an extraordinary man because he loved his slave. In the Roman world slaves were treated like animals - something to be used for work and pleasure and for bartering and trade. This centurion was a man of great compassion and extraordinary faith. He wanted Jesus to heal his beloved slave. Jesus commends him for his faith and immediately grants him his request. Are you willing to suffer ridicule in the practice of your faith? And when you need help, do you approach the Lord Jesus with expectant faith? Christ comes to establish Gods kingdom of peace where all peoples can feast at his table. The prophet Isaiah foretold a time of restoration for the holy city Jerusalem and for its remnants (see Isaiah 4:2-6) and also a time of universal peace when all nations would come to Jerusalem to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob and beat their swords into plowshares (Isaiah 2:2-4). Jesus fulfills this prophecy first by restoring both Jew and Gentile to fellowship with God through the victory he won for us on the cross. When he comes again he will fully establish his universal rule of peace and righteousness and unite all things in himself (Ephesians 1:10). His promise extends to all generations who believe in him that we, too, might feast at the heavenly banquet table with the patriarchs of the Old Covenant who believed but did not see the promised Messiah. Do you believe in Gods promises and do you seek his kingdom first in your life? The season of Advent reminds us that the Lord Jesus wants us to actively seek him and the coming of his kingdom in our lives. The Lord will surely reward those who seek his will for their lives. We can approach the Lord Jesus with expectant faith, like the centurion in todays gospel reading, knowing that he will show us his mercy and give us his help. PRAYER ------------------------------ Lord Jesus, you feed us daily with your life-giving word and you sustain us on our journey to our true homeland with you and the Father in heaven. May I never lose hope in your promises nor lag in zeal for your kingdom of righteousness and peace. -------------------------------------------------------- Lectionary for Mass is from the USCCB website located at: usccb.org/bible/readings/ -------------------------------------------------------- This reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager, whose website is located at: rc.net/wcc/readings/ -------------------------------------------------------- You can also visit mobilegabriel/ for the complete readings and reflections for the whole month. -------------------------------------------------------- A Saint A Day courtesy of EWTN Global Catholic Network at: ewtn/saintsHoly/ -------------------------------------------------------- Inspirational message courtesy of EWTN Global Catholic Network at: ewtn/Devotionals/ Daily Readings Daily Readings USCCB.ORG
Posted on: Mon, 01 Dec 2014 10:38:33 +0000
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