• Bl. Gisele (1090). Widow. (Historical)
• St. Stanisluas of Krakow (1079). Bishop, Martyr. Patron of Poland. (Traditional) rose a man from the dead to testify to the king’s promise to provide land for the cathedral

STANISLAS was born in answer to prayer when his parents were advanced in age. Out of gratitude they educated him for the Church, and from a holy priest he became in time Bishop of Cracow. Boleslas II was then King of Poland-a prince of good disposition, but spoilt by a long course of victory and success. After many acts of lust and cructy, he outraged the whole kingdom by carrying off the wife of one of his nobles. Against this public scandal, the chaste and gentle bishop alone raised his voice. Having commended the matter to God, he went down to the palace and openly rebuked the king for his crime against God and his subjects, and threatened to excommunicate him if he persisted in his sin. To slander the Saint’s character, Boleslas suborned the nephews of one Paul, lately dead, to swear that their uncle had never been paid for land bought by the bishop for the Church. The Saint stood fearlessly before the king’s tribunal, though all his witnesses forsook him, and guaranteed to bring the dead man to witness for him within three days. On the third day, after many prayers and tears, he raised Paul to life, and led him in his grave-clothes before the king. Boleslas made a show for a while of a better life. Soon, however, he relapsed into the most scandalous excesses, and the bishop, finding all remonstrance useless, pronounced the sentence of excommunication. In defiance of the censure, on May 8th, 1079, the king went down to a chapel where the bishop himself was saying Mass, and sent in three companies of soldiers to dispatch him at the altar. Each in turn came out saying they had been scared by a light from heaven. Then the king rushed in and slew the Saint at the altar with his own hand.

REFLECTION: The safest correction of vice is a blameless life. Yet there are times when silence would make us answerable for the sins of others. At such times, let us, in the name of God, rebuke the offender without fear.

WORD OF THE DAY

GALLICANISM. A cluster of doctrines, favored by the French Church, that tended to limit the authority of the Pope in relation to the bishops, and to subordinate the rights of the Church to the power of the State. The first exponents of Gallicanism were the Franciscans William of Ockham, John of Jandun, and Marsilius of Padua in the fourteenth century, who denied the divine origin of the papal primacy and would subject its exercise to the will of civil authority. Gallicanism became Conciliarism after the Great Western Schism, claiming the superiority of council over the Pope, and promoted by John Gerson (1363-1429) and Peter d’Ailly (1350-1420). The French Revolution drove the bishops into the arms of the Pope and dealt a mortal blow to Gallicanism, but the basic idea was still alive until the First Vatican Council formally condemned it in 1870.

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!)

EASTER MEDITATIONS

Enjoy daily meditations this Easter from Fr. Richard Clarke, SJ. Short and powerful, written in 1880 for busy lay people to reap rewards through Eastertide: 33 —The Apostolic Commission.

May, Month of the Immaculate Heart

Maria Magnificata. Short Meditations for May, the Month on Our Lady’s Life. 7th Day — Mary’s Life in the Temple.