NOVEMBER 4 – ST. CHARLES BORROMEO.
ABOUT fifty years after the Protestant heresy had broken out, our Lord raised up a mere youth to renew the face of His Church. In 1560 Charles Borromeo, then twenty-two years of age, was created cardinal, and by the side of his uncle, Pius IV, administered the affairs of the Holy See. His first care was the direction of the Council of Trent. He urged forward its sessions, guided its deliberations by continual correspondence from Rome, and by his firmness carried it to its conclusion. Then he entered upon a still more arduous work—the execution of its decrees. As Archbishop of Milan, he enforced their observance, and thoroughly restored the discipline of his sec. He founded schools for the poor, seminaries for the clerics, and by his community of Oblates trained his priests to perfection. Inflexible in maintaining discipline, to his flock he was a most tender father. He would sit by the road-side to teach a poor man the Pater and Ave, and would enter hovels the stench of which drove his attendants from the door, During the great plague, he refused to leave Milan, and was ever by the sick and dying, and sold even his bed for their support. So he lived, and so he died, a faithful image of the Good Shepherd, up to his last hour giving his life for his sheep.
REFLECTION: Daily resolutions to fulfill, at all cost, every duty demanded by God, is the lesson taught by St. Charles; and a lesson we must learn if we would overcome our corrupt nature and reform our lives.
WORD OF THE DAY
MODERNISM. A theory about the origin and nature of Christianity, first developed into a system by George Tyrrell (1861-1909), Lucien Laberthonnière (1860-1932), and Alfred Loisy (1857-1940). According to Modernism, religion is essentially a matter of experience, personal and collective. There is no objective revelation from God to the human race, on which Christianity is finally based, nor any reasonable grounds for credibility in the Christian faith, based on miracles or the testimony of history. Faith, therefore, is uniquely from within. In fact it is part of human nature, “a kind of motion of the heart,” hidden and unconscious. It is, in Modernist terms, a natural instinct belonging to the emotions, a “feeling for the divine” that cannot be expressed in words or doctrinal propositions, an attitude of spirit that all people have naturally but that some are more aware of having. Modernism was condemned by Pope St. Pius X in two formal documents, Lamentabili and Pascendi, both published in 1907. (Etym. Latin modernus, belonging to the present fashion.)
This article, NOVEMBER 4 – ST. CHARLES BORROMEO. is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/november-4-st-charles-borromeo/
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