JUNE 25 – ST. PROSPER OF AQUITAINE – ST. WILLIAM OF MONTE-VERGINE.
ST. PROSPER was born at Aquitaine, in the year 403. His works show that in his youth he had happily applied himself to all the branches both of polite and sacred learning. On account of the purity and sanctity of his manners, he is called by those of his age a holy and venerable man. Our Saint does not appear to have been any more than a layman; but being of great virtue, and of extraordinary talents and learning, he wrote several works in which he ably refuted the errors of heresy. St. Leo the Great, being chosen Pope in 410, invited St. Prosper to Rome, made him his secretary, and employed him in the most important affairs of the Church. Our Saint crushed the Pelagian heresy which began again to raise its head in that capital, and its final overthrow is said to be due to his zeal, learning, and unwearied endeavors. The date of his death is uncertain, but he was still living in 463.
St. WILLIAM, having lost his father and mother in his infancy, was brought up by his friends in great sentiments of piety; and at fifteen years of age, out of an earnest desire to lead a penitential life, he left Piedmont, his native country, made an austere pilgrimage to St. James’s in Galicia, and afterward retired into the kingdom of Naples, where he chose for his abode a desert mountain, and lived in perpetual contemplation and the exercises of most rigorous penitential austerities. Finding himself discovered and his contemplation interrupted, he changed his habitation and settled in a place called Monte-Vergine, situated between Nola and Benevento, in the same kingdom; but his reputation followed him, and he was obliged by two neighboring priests to permit certain fervent persons to live with him and to imitate his ascetic practices. Thus, in 1119, was laid the foundation of the religious congregation called de Monte-Vergine. The Saint died on the 25th of June, 1142.
WORD OF THE DAY
CONGREGATIO DE AUXILIIS. A commission to settle the theological controversy on grace and free will, established by Pope Clement VIII and continued by Pope Paul V. The Dominicans and Jesuits were parties to the dispute. After nine years of ineffective discussion Pope Paul V in 1607 dissolved the commission and reserved the decision to the Holy See. A decision has never been promulgated.
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!)
This article, JUNE 25 – ST. PROSPER OF AQUITAINE – ST. WILLIAM OF MONTE-VERGINE. is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/june-25-st-prosper-of-aquitaine-st-william-of-monte-vergine/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.
‘Our Saint does not appear to have been any more than a layman;’
What an appallingly clericalist thing to say.
Have you ever heard of St Francis de Sales, or for that matter the magisterium of Pope Pius XII and the Second Vatican Council?
BTW do you think that girls and women should be allowed to learn how to read and write?
I think you may want to read the entry again and reconsider what layman refers to in this passage. It meant that he was not trained in theology as a cleric might have been; was not a military officer; not a doctor or lawyer, etc. that’s the shocker of St Prosper – despite having none of the training, he destroyed heresies and became Papal secretary.
Really, look at it again and don’t stop or cut off at that trigger word “layman” but read the rest of the passage and see.
If I wanted to be feisty, I’d say interpreting “layman” to mean narrowly that he wasn’t a cleric to be a clericalist reading of it. Instead it means he had no office or profession of any kind. A layman.