- Seven Holy Founders of the Order of Servites (1233). Founder or Foundress, Religious. (Traditional)
- St. Eulalia (304). Martyr, Patron or Patroness, Virgin. Patroness of Barcelona. (Historical)
BENEDICT was the son of Aigulf, Governor of Languedoc, and was born about 750. In his early youth he served as cupbearer to King Pepin and his son Charlemagne, enjoying under them great honors and possessions. Grace entered his soul at the age of twenty, and he resolved to seek the kingdom of God with his whole heart. Without relinquishing his place at court, he lived there a most mortified life for three years; then a narrow escape from drowning made him vow to quit the world, and he entered the cloister of St. Seine. In reward for his heroic austerities in the monastic state, God bestowed upon him the gift of tears, and inspired him with a knowledge of spiritual things. As procurator, he was most careful of the wants of the brethren, and most hospitable to the poor and to guests. Declining to accept the abbacy, he built himself a little hermitage on the brook Anian, and lived some years in great solitude and poverty. But the fame of his sanctity drawing many souls around him, he was obliged to build a large abbey, and within a short time governed three hundred monks. He became the great restorer of monastic discipline throughout France and Germany. First, he drew up with immense labor a code of the rules of St. Benedict, his great namesake, which he collated with those of the chief monastic founders, showing the uniformity of the exercises in each, and enforced by his “Penitential” their exact observance; secondly, he minutely regulated all matters regarding food, clothing, and every detail of life; and thirdly, by prescribing the same for all, he excluded jealousies and insured perfect charity. In a Provincial Council held in 813, under Charlemagne, at which he was present, it was declared that all monks of the West should adopt the rule of St. Benedict. He died February I1, 821.
REFLECTION: The decay of monastic discipline, and its restoration by St. Benedict, prove that none are safe from loss of fervor, but that all can regain it by fidelity to grace.
WORD OF THE DAY
THEFT. The secret taking of an object against the legitimate owner’s reasonable will for the purpose of gain. If secrecy is absent, the act is called robbery. If the lawful owner is not reasonably opposed to the act, no theft is committed. And if the purpose of gain is absent, the taking of an object is rather a matter of damage. Consequently it is not theft if the owner consents, expressly or tacitly, or if an object is taken for reasons of extreme necessity, or as occult compensation. Thus, if a wife takes from her husband, either absent or unreasonably opposed as an avaricious man, something necessary for herself, for the support and benefit of her children, for reasons of charity in keeping with the family’s financial condition or for helping parents in grave need, it is not theft.
Generally speaking, theft is a serious sin. According to St. Paul, "Thieves, usurers . . . and swindlers will never inherit the kingdom of God" (I Corinthians 6:10). But as an owner may be opposed in different ways to the loss of property belonging to him or her, so too the sin of theft admits of degrees, even to the point of constituting only a slight sin. Moreover, opposition to a loss may be based on the value or quantity of the stolen goods. Finally, theft is more or less grave according to the manner in which it is committed. A person may be more opposed to a large theft committed at one time than to a series of small thefts although amounting to the same value. Yet repeated petty thefts – venial sins if taken separately – may become a mortal sin either because of the intention or because of the conspiracy with which they are perpetrated or because the frequency of small thefts really constitutes a single large act of thievery.
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!)
