The parting words
Weedy
My friends, you have Christian hearts. Think, then; if the words of
one who is on the way to the grave are so sweet, so precious, so
important to his heirs, what must the last words of Christ mean to his
heirs as he departs, not for the grave but for heaven!
When a person has lived and died his soul is borne away to another
place while his body is laid in the ground. Whether his last request
is carried out or not, it matters little to him now. He has other
things to do or suffer. His corpse lies in the grave, feeling nothing.
And yet his dying wishes are carefully obeyed! If that is so, what
will be the lot of those who fail to observe the parting words of the
one who is seated in heaven and who looks down to see whether they are
flouted or not
--Augustine of Hippo
<<>><<>><<>>
June 30th - St. Martial, Bishop of Limoges
ALL that is actually known about St. Martial is that he was a bishop
of Limoges and that he has been venerated from a very early date as
the apostle of the Limousin and the founder of the see which he
occupied. In all probability he flourished about A.D. 250. According
to the tradition current in the sixth century, and recorded by St.
Gregory of Tours, he was one of seven missionaries sent from Rome to
Gaul shortly before 250. St. Gatian went to Tours, St. Trophimus to
Arles, St. Paul to Narbonne, St. Martial to Limoges, St. Dionysius
(Denis) to Paris, St. Saturninus to Toulouse and St. Austremonius to
the Auvergne. Each one evangelized the district he had selected and
became its first bishop. In the early litanies of Limoges, St.
Martial's name appears as a confessor, but after a time the monks of
the local abbey of St. Martial (who possessed his relics) began to
contend that he must be honoured as an apostle. His legend had by now
developed considerably, and he was being represented not only as the
apostle of Aquitaine, but as one of our Lord's immediate followers,
the boy with the barley loaves and fishes, and one of the seventy-two
disciples. The question of his title was considered important enough
to be brought before several synods. In the eleventh century St.
Martial's cultus received a great impetus in consequence of the
rebuilding of the abbey dedicated under his name, the enshrining of
his body, and the dissemination of a fantastic narrative embodying and
expanding the various current legends, but purporting to be the
saint's original authentic acts as compiled by his immediate successor
in the bishopric of Limoges, St. Aurelian.
That this extravagant forgery, bristling with anachronisms and
improbabilities, should have imposed upon an uncritical age is perhaps
not to be wondered at: but it is surprising to find its genuineness
still upheld in certain quarters at this present day. Martial, we are
told, was converted at the age of fifteen by our Lord's preaching; he
was baptized by his kinsman, St. Peter; he was present at the raising
of Lazarus: he waited on our Lord at the Last Supper, and he received
the Holy Ghost with the other disciples at Pentecost. St. Peter, whom
he accompanied first to Antioch and then to Rome, sent him to preach
the gospel in Gaul. With St. Peter's staff he raised to life his
companion, St. Austriclinian, who had died on the journey. After their
arrival at Tulle, he delivered his host's daughter from an evil
spirit, and resuscitated the son of the Roman governor who had been
strangled by a demon. These miracles led to the conversion and baptism
of 3600 persons. Pagan priests who ventured to attack him were smitten
with blindness, until the saint by his prayers restored the use of
their eyes. Others who beat and imprisoned him at Limoges were killed
by a thunderbolt, but were brought back to life by him in response to
the entreaties of the citizens. One of the priests thus resuscitated
was Aurelian, the reputed author of these so-called "acts". Mass
conversions followed these miracles also. Amongst St. Martial's
penitents was a noble damsel called Valeria. She determined to
consecrate her virginity to our Lord, and was beheaded by order of
Duke Stephen to whom she had previously been betrothed. After the
execution she carried her head in her hands to the church where St.
Martial was. Duke Stephen himself was subsequently converted, made a
pilgrimage to Rome, where he found St. Peter engaged in giving
instruction to the people at a place called the Vatican. The duke was
able to give him the latest news of St. Martial and made a favourable
report of the progress of the missions in Gaul. In the fortieth year
after the Resurrection--the seventy-fourth of our era--St. Martial
was warned in a vision of his impending death, and fifteen days later
he breathed his last, surrounded by his brethren.
It is stated that Pope John XIX gave permission for the term "apostle"
to be applied to St. Martial, but the Congregation of Rites in 1854
refused to ratify this, deciding that he was to be venerated in the
Mass, the litanies, and office as an ordinary bishop and confessor. It
would seem, however, that the bishop of Limoges, in answer to a
remonstrance and appeal addressed to Pius IX in the same year, was
gratified with a favourable answer permitting that in that diocese St.
Martial should enjoy the style and precedence of an apostle.
We have three ancient accounts of the life of St. Martial. The first
is the very short notice, followed by a few miracles, which we find in
the De gloria confessorum (cap. xxvii-xxix, and cf. Hist. Francorum,
i, 28) of St. Gregory of Tours. It fixes the coming of St. Martial at
about A.D. 250. The second is considerably longer, and was written
probably in the ninth century. In this, St. Martial is said to have
been sent to Limoges by St. Peter, but his missionary efforts, though
crowned with instantaneous success and accompanied with marvels, are
limited to the diocese of Limoges. The best text of this was edited by
C. F. Bellet, in his book, L'ancienne vie de St. Martial et la prose
rythmée (1897). The third and most extravagant life claims to be
written by the saint's successor Aurelian, but borrows much from the
Historia apostolica, an apocryphal document which was first printed
under the name of Abdias. Here, as stated above, St. Martial is
represented as preaching all over the south of France, with the
support of Duke Stephen. There is some reason to think that the story
was fabricated by Adhemar de Chabannes, with the object of enhancing
the glory of the abbey of Saint-Martial of Limoges, in which he had
been brought up. It seems certain that it was Adhemar who forged the
supposed bull of Pope John XIX, which authorized the cult of St.
Martial with all the marks of honour belonging to the twelve authentic
Apostles, and he is also gravely suspected of producing other spurious
documents of the same kind. All this matter has been very fully
investigated by Louis Saltet, in the Bulletin de littérature ecclés.
(Toulouse, 1925), pp. 161-186, and 279-302; 1926, pp. 117-139, and
145-160; and 1931, pp. 149-165. See also Duchesne, in the Annales du
Midi, vol. iv (1892), pp. 289-339; as well as his Fastes Épiscopaux,
vol. ii, pp. 104-117; and, finally, a very long article by H. Leclercq
in DAC., vol. ix, cc. 1063-1167, which is equipped with a vast and
almost bewildering bibliography. The statements made in this article,
however, as Saltet has pointed out (L.c. 1931, pp. 163-165), are in
some respects open to criticism. The saint is referred to as "apostle"
in a Winchester litany of the eleventh century (Arundel MS. 60). See
Analecta Bollandiana, vol. lxiv (1946), pp. 84-86; and cf. H. M.
Colvin, The White Canons in England (1951), pp. 51-52.
Saint Quote:
Bear the cross and do not make the cross bear you.
--Saint Philip Neri
Bible Quote:
Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.
Sufficient for a day is its own evil. (Matt. 6:34)
<><><><>
DEAR JESUS, help me to spread Thy fragrance everywhere I
go. Flood my soul with Thy spirit and love. Penetrate and
possess my whole being so utterly that all my life may only
be a radiance of Thine. Shine through me and be so in me
that every soul I come in contact with may feel Thy presence
in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me but only
Jesus. Stay with me and then I shall begin to shine as you
shine, so to shine as to be a light to others.