APRIL 6, 2025 – FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT – ST. CELESTINE, POPE.
- St. Marcellinus of Carthage (413). Martyr. (Historical)
CELESTINE was a native of Rome, and upon the demise of Pope Boniface, he was chosen to succeed him, in September, 422, by the wonderful consent of the whole city. His first official act was to confirm the condemnation of an African Bishop, who had been convicted of grave crimes. He wrote also to the Bishops of the provinces of Vienne and Narbonne in Gaul, to correct several abuses, and ordered, among other things, that absolution or reconciliation should never be refused to any dying sinner, who sincerely asked it; for repentance depends not so much on time as on the heart. He assembled a synod at Rome, in 430, in which the writings of Nestorius were examined, and his blasphemies in maintaining in Christ a divine and a human person were condemned. The Pope pronounced sentence of excommunication against Nestorius, and deposed him. Being informed that Agricola, the son of a British Bishop called Severianus, who had been married before he was raised to the priesthood, had spread the seeds of the Pelagian heresy in Britain, St. Celestine sent thither St. Germanus of Auxerre, whose zeal and conduct happily prevented the threatening danger. He also sent St. Palladius, a Roman, to preach the faith to the Scots, both in North Britain and in Ireland, and many authors of the life of St. Patrick say that Apostle likewise received his commission to preach to the Irish from St. Celestine, in 431. This holy Pope died on the 1st of August, in 432, having reigned almost ten years.
REFLECTION: Vigilance is truly needful to those to whom the care of souls has been confided. “Blessed are the servants whom the Lord at His coming shall find watching.”
WORD OF THE DAY
SIMONY. A sacrilege that consists in buying and selling what is spiritual in return for what is temporal. In simony the person tries to equate material things, such as money, with spiritual things, such as divine grace, and treats the latter as though he or some other human being had full ownership of what really belongs to God. The term "simony" originated with the biblical account of Simon Magus, who sought to purchase from St. Peter the spiritual power derived from the imposition of hands and the invocation of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:18). Simony includes both agreements that are illicit by divine law and those which the law of the Church forbids as greater protection and reverence for spiritual goods. Thus to promise prayers only in exchange for a certain sum of money is simony forbidden by divine (natural) law. To confer sacred orders or obtain some position of authority in the Church in return for money or its equivalent is simony forbidden by ecclesiastical law. When simony is against the divine law, it is always a grave sin. Its gravity in other cases depends on the serious nature of what is bought or sold, and on the degree of scandal given. (Etym. Latin simonia, after Simon Magus.)
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!)
LENT MEDITATION DAY 33
Enjoy daily meditations this lent from Fr. Richard Clarke, SJ. Short and powerful, written in 1880 for busy lay people to reap rewards through lent. (includes audio): Lent Day 33: The Fifth Sunday in Lent — Jesus Sets Out on the Way to Calvary.
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