FEBRUARY 27 – ST. LEANDER, BISHOP.

• St. Leander, Bishop. (Historical)
• St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows, Patron of clerics, Patron or Patroness, Religious. (Traditional)

ST. LEANDER was born of an illustrious family at Carthagena, in Spain. He was the eldest of five brothers, several of whom are numbered among the Saints. He entered into a monastery very young, where he lived many years and attained to an eminent degree of virtue and sacred learning. These qualities occasioned his being promoted to the see of Seville; but his change of condition made little or no alteration in his method of life, though it brought on him a great increase of care and solicitude. Spain at that time was in possession of the Visigoths. These Goths being infected with Arianism, established this heresy wherever they came; so that when St. Leander was made bishop, it had reigned in Spain a hundred years. This was his great affliction; however, by his prayers to God, and by his most zealous and unwearied endeavors, he became the happy instrument of the conversion of that nation to the Catholic faith. Having converted, among others, Hermenegild, the king’s eldest son and heir apparent, Leander was banished by King Leovigild. This pious prince was put to death by his unnatural father, the year following, for refusing to receive communion from the hands of an Arian bishop. But, touched with remorse not long after, the king recalled our Saint; and falling sick and finding himself past hopes of recovery, he sent for St. Leander, and recommended to him his son Recared. This son, by listening to St. Leander, soon became a Catholic, and finally converted the whole nation of the Visigoths. He was no less successful with respect to the Suevi, a people of Spain, whom his father Leovigild had perverted. 

St. Leander was no less zealous in the reformation of manners than in restoring the purity of faith; and he planted the seeds of that zeal and fervor which afterward produced so many Martyrs and Saints. This holy doctor of Spain died about the year 596, on the 27th of February, as Mabillon proves from his epitaph. The Church of Seville has been a metropolitan see ever since the third century. The cathedral is the most magnificent, both as to structure and ornament, of any in all Spain.

WORD OF THE DAY

SELF-DEFENSE. The right to use force against an unjust aggressor. The moral premises on which justifiable self-defense is based are the fact that the possession of life includes the right to use the means necessary to protect one’s life, provided such means do not violate the rights of others. In the case of unjust aggression, the use of force and even a deathblow may be the only means of saving one’s life. The rights of others are not thereby violated, for the assailant’s right to live is suspended during the unjust attack. Moreover, the attacker can easily protect his or her life by merely ceasing from the attack.

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, FEBRUARY 27 – ST. LEANDER, BISHOP. is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/february-27-st-leander-bishop/
Do not repost the entire article without written permission. Reasonable excerpts may be reposted so long as it is linked to this page.