- St. Henry II (1024). Patron of Childless & the handicapped. (Current) Emperor and St. Cunegunda’s husband
- St. Mildred (700). (Historical)
THE episcopal see of Carthage had remained vacant twenty-four years, when, in 481, Huneric permitted the Catholics on certain conditions to choose one who should fill it. The people, impatient to enjoy the comfort of a pastor, pitched upon Eugenius, a citizen of Carthage, eminent for his learning, zeal, piety, and prudence. His charities to the distressed were excessive, and he refused himself every thing that he might give all to the poor. His virtue gained him the respect and esteem even of the Arians; but at length envy and blind zeal got the ascendant in their breasts, and the king sent him an order never to sit on the episcopal throne, preach to the people, or admit into his chapel any Vandals, among whom several were Catholics. The Saint boldly answered that the laws of God commanded him not to shut the door of His church to any that desired to serve Him in it. Huneric, enraged at this answer, persecuted the Catholics in various ways. Many nuns were so cruelly tortured that they died on the rack. Great numbers of bishops, priests, deacons, and eminent Catholic laymen were banished to a desert, filled with scorpions and venomous serpents. The people followed their bishops and priests with lighted tapers in their hands, and mothers carried their little babes in their arms and laid them at the feet of the confessors, all crying out with tears, “Going yourselves to your crowns, to whom do you leave us? Who will baptize our children? Who will impart to us the benefit of penance, and discharge us from the bonds of sin by the favor of reconciliation and pardon? Who will bury us with solemn supplications at our death? By whom will the Divine Sacrifice be made?” The Bishop Eugenius was spared in the first storm, but afterwards was carried into the uninhabited desert country in the province of Tripolis, and committed to the guard of Antony, an inhuman Arian bishop, who treated him with the utmost barbarity. Gontamund, who succeeded Huneric, recalled our Saint to Carthage, opened the Catholic churches, and allowed all the exiled priests to return. After reigning twelve years, Gontamund died, and his brother Thrasimund was called to the crown. Under this prince, St Eugenius was again banished, and died in exile, on the 13th of July, 505, in a monastery which he built and governed, near Albi.
REFLECTION: “Alms shall be a great confidence before the Most High God to them that give it. Water quencheth a flaming fire, and alms resisteth sin.”
WORD OF THE DAY
CHINESE RITES. Ancient Catholic rites practiced by the Chinese whom the Jesuits converted to Christianity in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These rites allowed the honoring of ancestors and the paying of token respect to Confucious. The Jesuit missionaries, notably Matteo Ricci, S.J. (1552-1610), considered these rites essentially cultural and not religious and consequently not compromising to the purity of the Christian religion. It was also believed that their practice would make the people more tolerant of Christianity. Other missionaries objected and much misunderstanding developed. In the Apostolic Constitution Ex illa die, Pope Clement XI in 1715 and Pope Benedict XIV in 1742 forbade these rites to be continued among the converts on the ground that they had a basis of superstition that could not be overlooked. The Holy See, feeling that Ricci’s error was one of judgment and not of faith or morals, forbade anyone from saying that the good missionary had approved idolatry.
Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept an abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)
July, Month of the Precious Blood
The Precious BIood of Jesus – Short Meditations for July. July 13th — The Conquests of the Precious Blood.
