- St. Felix of Nola (260). Martyr, Priest. (Traditional)
- St. Hilary Poitiers (368). Bishop, Doctor of the Church. (Traditional)
- St. Sava (1235). Bishop, Patron or Patroness. Patron of Serbia and Serbians. (Historical)
ST. HILARY was a native of Poitiers, in Aquitaine. Born and educated a pagan, it was not till near middle age that he embraced Christianity, moved thereto mainly by the idea of God presented to him in the Holy Scriptures. He soon converted his wife and daughter, and separated himself rigidly from all un Catholic company. In the beginning of his conversion, St. Hilary would not eat with Jews, or heretics, nor salute them by the way. But afterwards, for their sake, he relaxed this severity. He entered Holy Orders, and in 353 was chosen bishop of his native city. Arianism, under the protection of the Emperor Constantius, was just then in the height of its power, and St. Hilary found himself called upon to support the orthodox cause in several Gallic councils, in which Arian bishops formed an overwhelming majority. He was in consequence accused to the emperor, who banished him to Phrygia.
He spent his three years and more of exile in composing his great works on the Trinity. In 359 he attended the Council of Seleucia, in which Arians, semi-Arians, and Catholics contended for the mastery. With the deputies of the council he proceeded to Constantinople, and there so dismayed the heads of the Arian party, that they prevailed upon the emperor to let him return to Gaul. He traversed Gaul, Italy, and Illyria, wherever he came discomfiting the heretics, and procuring the triumph of orthodoxy. After seven or eight years of missionary travel he returned to Poitiers, where he died in peace in 368.
REFLECTION: Like St. Hilary, we, too, are called to a life-long contest with heretics; we shall succeed in proportion as we combine hatred of heresy with compassion for its victims.
WORD OF THE DAY
HATRED. A voluntary act by which someone or something is regarded with bitter aversion. On the first level hatred is directed against either God or some rational being; on the second level it is directed against some quality in another but without hatred of the individual personality.
Personal hatred of God may take the form of disgust, when a person detests God because he punishes sinners. It is a grave sin because it is contrary to the justice of God. Another form is the hatred of enmity, when a person actually wished evil to God. Such hatred is of its nature diabolical, and is the most grievous of all sins, since it approximates the enmity that the devils have against God.
Personal hatred of a human being is the direct opposite of the virtue of love. Where love inspires a person to wish well to another, hatred arouses the desire to do harm or have harm befall the one hated, not as a source of possible good, but precisely as evil. The gravity of such sins of personal hatred depends on how serious the harm wished or intended, and on how deliberately the malicious desires are harbored.
Hatred or a quality in someone may be either sinful or not. If the hatred is directed only toward some evil quality that a person has, but does not touch that person, it is not sinful. It becomes sinful only if the hatred extends to the person who has some admittedly evil trait or sinful habit. Moreover, it becomes specially sinful when the hatred is directed at some virtue that a person possesses, even when the enmity does not extend to the individual personally.
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!)
Christmastide Meditations
Daily devotional meditations on the Birth of Our Savior and Christmastide: Their Gifts: (3) Myrrh – Christmas Meditation Day 21 (Jan 14)
This article, JANUARY 14, 2025 – ST. HILARY OF POITIERS. is a post from The Bellarmine Forum.
https://bellarmineforum.org/january-14-2025-st-hilary-of-poitiers/
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