To Avoid Dissensions

[Rich]

To Avoid Dissensions

To avoid dissensions we should be ever on our guard, more especially
with those who drive us to argue with them, with those who vex and
irritate us, and who say things likely to excite us to anger. When we
find ourselves in company with quarrelsome, eccentric individuals,
people who openly and unblushingly say the most shocking things,
difficult to put up with, we should take refuge in silence, and the
wisest plan is not to reply to people whose behavior is so
preposterous. Those who insult us and treat us contumeliously are
anxious for a spiteful and sarcastic reply: the silence we then affect
disheartens them, and they cannot avoid showing their vexation; they
do all they can to provoke us and to elicit a reply, but the best way
to baffle them is to say nothing, refuse to argue with them, and to
leave them to chew the cud of their hasty anger. This method of
bringing down their pride disarms them, and shows them plainly that we
slight and despise them.
-- Saint Ambrose of Milan

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June 4th - St. Quirinus, Bishop of Siscia, Martyr
d 308

OF the many martyrs who suffered in the Danubian provinces during the
reign of Diocletian, one of the most celebrated was Quirinus whose
praises have been sounded--by St. Jerome, by Prudentius and by
Fortunatus. The “acts" which record his trial, sufferings and death
are substantially genuine. Luckily, in some cases the trial records
have been preserved--even from ancient Roman days. Thus, the records
of the trial of St. Quirinus, Martyr, permit us to size up this
outstanding hero of the last great Roman persecution.

Diocletian was emperor of Rome in the first decade of the 4th century.
Many of his predecessors had struck at the Christians, but not
systematically. Diocletian was a bureaucrat, so he launched a
full-fledged war on the followers of Christ, intending it to be a
“final solution”. To this end he issued several edicts, beginning in
303. The second edict ordered that all Christian clergy be jailed
until they consented to offer sacrifice to the Roman gods.

Quirinus, an old man, was bishop of the present Sisak in northern
Yugoslavia. When he heard that orders had been issued for his arrest,
he tried to escape. The constabulary caught up with him, however, and
haled him before Maximus, the local magistrate.

The first thing that Maximus asked was why the bishop had taken
flight. Quirinus replied that he was simply obeying Jesus, the true
God, who had instructed his followers not to seek martyrdom: “When
they persecute you in one town, fly to the next.” (Matt. 10:23)

Well, said the magistrate, the emperor would have caught you anyhow;
and now that you are a captive, your God cannot help you.

Quirinus disagreed. “God is always with us and can help us. He was
with me when I was taken and He is with me now. He it is who
strengthens me and speaks through my lips.”

“You talk a great deal,” Maximus grunted. “Let’s get to the point,” he
said. “The emperor has ordered you to sacrifice to the gods. Do so!”

“I cannot,” said the bishop: “It would be a sacrilege. The gods whom
you serve are nothing. My God, whom I serve, is in heaven and earth,
and in the seas and everywhere; but He is higher than all because He
contains all things in Himself; all things were created by Him, and by
Him alone do they subsist.”

“You must be in your second childhood to believe such fables,” said
the judge to the old prelate. “Sacrifice and you shall be rewarded;
refuse and you will be tortured and put to a horrible death.”

Quirinus rejoined that torture would be to him more a glory than a
grief. So Maximus had him beaten. Even as the torturers were plying
their whips, they kept promising him a position as a priest of Jupiter
if he complied.

Quirinus countered: “I am exercising my priesthood here and now by
offering myself up to God.” He would gladly bear even more torture, he
said, so as to encourage other Christians to take this “short road to
eternal life.”

Maximus did not have the authority to impose the death sentence, so he
sent his aged prisoner on a long journey to Governor Amantius, who
lived in what is now Hungary.

When the bishop was brought before the governor, Amantius had the
clerks send the record of the earlier trial. “Is this account
correct?” he asked Quirinus. The prisoner said that it was: “I have
confessed the true God at Siscia, I have never worshipped any other.
Him I carry in my heart and no man shall succeed in separating me from
Him.”

Because of the bishop’s age, Amantius, not an unkindly man, was
unwilling to torture him further. He simply ordered death by drowning.
St. Quirinus was thrown into the river Raab with a stone around his
neck. The bishop did not sink at once; but those who watched him swept
downstream heard him still praying and crying encouragement to his
followers.

Like other martyrs, Quirinus had not sought martyrdom. Once condemned,
however, he had depended on Christ’s promise that “the Holy Spirit
will teach you at that moment all that should be said.” (Lk.
12:11-12). The Holy Spirit did not fail the old bishop. Nor will He
ever fail us, if we trust in Him.

The text of the passio is printed by Ruinart, and in the Acta
Sanctorum, June, vol. i. Much interest has been taken in this St.
Quirinus since the researches of Mgr de Waal in the Platonia and its
surroundings revealed the existence of a fragment of a great
inscription engraved there in honour of the saint. See de Waal's
monograph, Die Apostelgruft "ad Catacumbas", printed as a
"Supplementheft" to the Römische Quartalschrift (1894); and also
Duchesne, "La Memoria Apostolorum de la Via Appia", in Memorie della
pontificia Accademia romana di Archeol., vol. i (1923), pp. 8-10; with
CMH., p. 303.
–Father Robert F. McNamara


Saint Quote:
The crosses with which our path through life is strewn associate us
with Jesus in the mystery of His crucifixion.
--St. John Eudes

Bible Quote:
So we also, when we were children, were serving under the elements of
the world. But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent his
Son, made of a woman, made under the law: That he might redeem them
who were under the law: that we might receive the adoption of sons.
And because you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit of his Son into
your hearts, crying: Abba, Father. Therefore, now he is not a
servant, but a son. And if a son, an heir also through God.
[Galatians 4:3-7] DRB


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Seek to grow spiritually

The world doesn't need super men or women, but supernatural people.
People who will turn the self out of their lives and let Divine Power
work through them. Let inspiration take the place of aspiration. Seek
to grow spiritually, rather than to acquire fame and riches. Our chief
ambition should be to be used by God. The Divine Force is sufficient
for all the spiritual work in the world. God only needs the
instruments for His use. His instruments can remake the world.