Meditation for troubled times:

[Rich]

Meditation for troubled times:

Persevere in all that God's guidance moves you to do. The persistent
carrying out of what seems right and good will bring you to that place
where you would be. If you look back over God's guidance, you will see
that His leading has been very gradual and that only as you have
carried out His wishes, as far as you can understand them, has God
been able to give you more clear and definite leading. You are led by
God's touch on a quickened, responsive mind.
--From Twenty-Four Hours a Day

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May 26th - St. Eleutherius, Pope and Martyr

HE was by birth a Grecian, and deacon of the church of Rome under Pope
Anicetus. He succeeded St. Soter in the pontificate in 176, and
governed the church whilst it was beaten with violent storms.
Montanus, an ambitious vain man of Mœsia on the confines of Phrygia,
sought to raise himself among men by pretending that the Holy Ghost
spoke by his mouth, and published forged revelations. His followers
afterwards advanced that he was himself the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete
Spirit sent by Christ according to his promises to perfect his law.
They seem at first only to have been schismatics and enthusiasts; but
soon after added heresy and blasphemy, calling Montanus the Holy Ghost
in the same manner that Christ is God the Son. They affected an
excessive rigour, had many fasts, kept 3 Lents in the year, refused
the communion and absolution to persons who had fallen into any sin of
impurity, condemned 2nd marriages as adulteries, and taught that it is
unlawful to flee from persecution. Priscilla and Maximilla, two women
of the town of Pepuza in Phrygia, vaunted their pretended prophecies,
and were the oracles of their deluded votaries. The devil uses all
sorts of baits to destroy souls. If many perish by those of pleasure,
others fall by pride, which is gratified by a love of singularity, and
by an affected austerity. Some who braved the racks and gridirons of
the persecutors, and despised the allurements of pleasure, had the
misfortune to become the dupes of this wretched enthusiast, and
martyrs of the devil. False prophets wear every face except that of a
sincere and docile humility, though their austerity towards themselves
usually ends in a short time in some shameful libertinism, when
vanity, the main-spring of their passions, is either cloyed or finds
nothing to gratify it. In this we see the false rigorists of our times
resemble those of former ages. Pharisee-like they please themselves,
and gratify their own pride in an affected severity; by it they also
seek to establish themselves in the opinion of others. But humility
and obedience are a touchstone which discovers their spirit. Montanus
succeeded to the destruction of many souls who by pride or the like
passions sought the snare; among others the great Tertullian fell, and
not only regarded Montanus as the paraclete, but so much lost his
faith and his reason as to honour the ground on which his two
pretended prophetesses had trod; and to publish in his writings their
illusions and dreams concerning the colour of a human soul, and the
like absurdities and inconsistencies as oracles of the eternal truth.

The Montanists of Asia, otherwise called Cataphyrges and Pepuzenians,
sought in the beginning the communion and approbation of the bishop of
Rome, to whom they sent letters and presents. A certain pope was
prevailed upon, by the good accounts he had received of their severe
morals and virtue, to send them letters of communion. But Praxeas, one
who had confessed his faith before the persecutors, arriving at Rome,
gave him such informations concerning the Pepuzenians and their
prophecies, showing him that he could not admit them without
condemning the judgment of his predecessors, that he revoked the
letters of peace which he had determined to send, and refused their
presents. This is the account which Tertullian, himself a Montanist,
gives of the matter. [1] Dr. Cave and some others think this pope was
Eleutherius, and that he approved the very doctrine of the Montanists;
which is certainly a mistake. For the pope received from Praxeas only
information as to matters of fact. He was only undeceived by him as to
persons and facts, and this before any sentence was given. Nay, it
seems that the Montanists had not then openly broached their errors in
faith, which they for some time artfully disguised. It seems also,
from the circumstances of the time, that the pope whom Praxeas
undeceived was Victor the successor of Eleutherius, and that
Eleutherius himself had before rejected the pretended prophets.[2]

This good pope had the affliction to see great havoc made in his
flock by the persecution, especially at Lyons and Vienne, under Marcus
Aurelius. But he had, on the other side, the comfort to find the
losses richly repaired by the acquisition of new countries to the
faith. The light of the gospel had, in the very times of the apostles,
crossed the sea into the island of Great Britain; but seems to have
been almost choked by the tares of the reigning superstitions, or
oppressed by the tumults of wars in the reduction of that valiant
people under the Roman yoke, till God,[3] who chose poor fishermen to
convert the world, here taught a king to esteem it a greater happiness
to become an apostle, and to extend his faith in this remote corner of
the world, than to wear a crown. This was Lucius, a petty king who
reigned in a part of the island. His Roman name shows that he was one
of those kings whom the Romans honoured with that dignity in remote
conquered countries to be their instruments in holding them in
subjection. Lucius sent a solemn embassy to Rome to beg some zealous
clergymen of Pope Eleutherius who might instruct his subjects and
celebrate and administer to them the divine mysteries. Our saint
received the message with joy, and sent apostolical men who preached
Christ in this island with such fruit, that the faith in a very short
time passed out of the provinces which obeyed the Romans into those
northern parts which were inaccessible to their eagles, as Tertullian
wrote soon after. [4]

Fugatius and Damianus are said to have been the two principal of
these Roman missionaries: the old Welsh Chronicle, quoted by Usher,
calls them Dwywan and Fagan. They died in or near the diocese of
Landaff; and Harpsfield [5] says, there stood in Wales a church
dedicated to God under their invocation. Stow in his Annals says that
in Somersetshire there remaineth a parish church bearing the name of
St. Deruvion. From this time the faith became very flourishing in
Britain, as is mentioned by Origen, Eusebius, St. Chrysostom,
Theodoret, Gildas, &c. quoted by Usher, Alfred, &c. [6] Florinus, who
taught that God was the author of evil, and Blastus, who pretended
that the custom of celebrating Easter on the 14th day of the moon,
which was tolerated in the Orientals, ought to be followed at Rome,
were condemned by St. Eleutherius, who governed the church 15 years,
and died soon after the Emperor Commodus in 192. He was buried on the
Salarian road; but his remains have been translated to the Vatican
church.

See St. Irenæus, l. 3, c. 3. Eusebius, l. 4, c. 22, l. 5, c. 3, 4, 14.
Tillemont, t. 3, p. 60.

Note 1. L. contra Prax. c. 1.
Note 2. See Tillemont, Ceillier on Victor.
Note 3. See Bede, l. 1, ch. 4.
Note 4. L. contra Judæos.
Note 5. Hist. l. 1, c. 3.
Note 6. Some late Protestant writers have endeavoured to persuade us,
that the Britons received the faith from the Orientals, not from Rome.
The matter is no otherwise of importance than as an historical fact.
But the testimony of all our ancient historians and monuments shows,
that as the provinces of the West in general received the faith
principally from the preaching of SS. Peter and Paul and their
disciples, so Britain in particular was indebted to the bishops of
Rome on that score, and at first kept the feast of Easter according to
the tradition of that church. The council of Arles, in 314, confirmed
the Roman custom of celebrating Easter; in which synod were present 3
British bishops, viz., those of London, Colchester, and York,
witnesses of the practice of this whole church. The same point of
discipline was ordained by the council of Nice in 325, and that same
year Constantine reckoned the Britains among those who agreed with
Rome in the keeping of Easter. After this time, whether by ignorance
or by what other means is uncertain, the Britons, Scots, and Irish
admitted an erroneous rule in this point of discipline, by which once
in several years they kept Easter on the same day with the Jews; yet
did not fall in with the Asiatics, who celebrated that feast always
with the Jews on the 14th day of the first lunar month, after the
vernal equinox, on whatever day of the week it fell, as Eusebius (b.
5, ch. 22,) and others testify. Those who did this upon the false and
heretical principle, that the Jewish ceremonial laws bound Christians,
and were not abolished when fulfilled by the coming of Christ, were
heretics: the rest on account of their separation from the church, and
obstinately refusing submission to its decrees and censures, were,
after the councils of Arles and Nice, schismatics, and were called
Quartodecimans. But the erroneous practice of the Britons differed
widely from this of the Orientals, as St. Wilfrid demonstrated before
Oswi, king of the Northumbrians, as is related by Bede. (Hist. b. 3,
c. 25.) For they celebrated Easter always on a Sunday, and on that
which fell on or after the 14th day; whereas Catholics, with the
council of Nice, to recede further from the appearance of observing
the legal rites, never kept it on the 14th day; but when that happened
to be a Sunday, deferred the celebration of this festival to the
Sunday following; to which practice the Scots and Britons at length
acceded, as we shall see in the lives of SS. Wilfrid and Cummianus: in
the meantime they lay under no censure, differing from the
Quartodecimans, who kept Easter always with the Jews, on the 14th day.


Bible Quote:
"Let us keep firm in the hope we profess, because the one who made the
promise is trustworthy. Let us be concerned for each other, to stir a
response in love and good works." [Hebrews 10:23-24]


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A Prayer for Zeal
by St. Augustine

O Lord, our God, we believe in Thee, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. As
far as I have been able, as much as Thou hast given me the power to do
so, I have sought for Thee. I have desired to see that in which I
believe; much have I striven and labored.

Lord, my God, my only hope, let me never tire of seeking Thee, but
make me seek Thy face with constant ardor. Give me the strength to
seek after Thee--Thou Who hast made me find Thee, Who hast given me
more and more the hope of finding Thee.

Thou seest my strength and my weakness; do Thou sustain the one and
heal the other; Thou seest my strength and my ignorance. Where Thou
hast opened to me, come make me welcome; where Thou hast opened to me,
come make me welcome; where Thou hast closed to me, open to my plea.
Give me to remember, understand, and love Thee.