JUNE 15, 2025 – SS. VITUS, CRESCENTIA, AND MODESTUS, MARTYRS.

• St. Germaine Cousin (1601). Virgin. Patron of Victims of child abuse. (Historical)
• St. Vitus (295). Martyr, Patron or Patroness. Patron of Dancers, actors, against storms, nervous diseases, and epilepsy. (Traditional)
• Sts. Modestus and Crescentia (295). Martyr. (Traditional)

TRINITY SUNDAY.

THE Holy Trinity is one only God in three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, equal in all things and co-eternal. The Father gives being to the Son, and the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father and the Son: the most adorable, truly, of all mysteries, and likewise the most impenetrable! St. Anselm has endeavored to explain it from a single point of view only, and has accomplished this in a masterly yet necessarily insufficient manner.

The Father, he says, cannot exist a single instant without knowing Himself, because, in God, to know is to exist, even as to will is to act. This knowledge, personified, is “the Word,” His Son. The Son is, then, co-eternal with the Father. The Father and the Son cannot exist a single instant without loving each other; their mutual love is again personified, because in God to love is still to exist, God being love itself. This third Person, thus co-eternal with the other two Persons, is the Holy Ghost. But the inhabitants with God can alone understand these wonders, and they understand because they see them.

The free-thinker, surrounded by the mysteries of nature, and who is to himself a complete mystery, is not willing to admit of any in religion. “I only wish to believe,” he says, “what I understand!” The poor fool would not believe much were he taken at his word. He would neither believe in the food he takes, seeing that he could not explain how it imparts nourishment, nor in the light of the sun, since he does not apprehend how it brings him into relation with distant objects, nor even in his own arguments, since he does not comprehend how his mind evokes and gives them shape. 

Literally speaking, there exist no mysteries, there are only truths; but truth becomes a mystery to him who does not understand it. Writing is a mystery to one who knows not how to read; it ceases to be so to any one who has received instruction. According as we educate the soul and widen the measure of knowledge, mysteries begin to disappear in proportion; therefore is it that there are no mysteries in heaven, because the angels and the blessed behold with open gaze the objects whereof we now possess but the mysterious definition. To deserve to behold them one day in their heavenly company, one condition is requisite, namely, to adore them meanwhile with steadfast and perfect faith in the Word of God, which proposes them for our belief. In the realms of nature, a mystery is a truth not understood, which one believes withal because one sees it. In the sphere of religion, a mystery is a truth not understood, which one believes because God has revealed it.

REFLECTION: Wherefore rebel against the word of God? Is it not “as if the clay should rebel against the potter, and the work should say to the worker thereof, Thou understandest not?”

SS. VITUS, CRESCENTIA, AND MODESTUS, MARTYRS.

VITUS was a child nobly born, who had the happiness to be instructed in the faith, and inspired with the most perfect sentiments of his religion, by his Christian nurse, named Crescentia, and her faithful husband, Modestus. His father, Hylas, was extremely incensed when he discovered the child’s invincible aversion to idolatry; and finding him not to be overcome by stripes and such like chastisements, he delivered him up to Valerian, the governor, who in vain tried all his arts to work him into compliance with his father’s will and the emperor’s edicts. He escaped out of their hands, and, together with Crescentia and Modestus, fled into Italy. They there met with the crown of martyrdom in Lucania, in the persecution of Diocletian. The heroic spirit of martyrdom which we admire in St. Vitus was owing to the early impressions of piety which he received from the lessons and example of a virtuous nurse. Of such infinite importance is the choice of virtuous preceptors, nurses, and servants about children.

REFLECTION: What happiness for an infant to be formed naturally to all virtue, and for the spirit of simplicity, meekness, goodness, and piety to be moulded in its tender frame! Such a foundation being well laid, further graces are abundantly communicated, and a soul improves daily these seeds, and rises to the height of Christian virtue often without experiencing severe conflicts of the passions.

WORD OF THE DAY

CHARISMS OF KNOWLEDGE. Extraordinary supernatural gifts for the mind to instruct others in the Christian faith. In the writings of St. Paul six classes of persons are distinguished as specially endowed to communicate the Gospel. These gifts were not limited to the original twelve Apostles and St. Paul, but refer to anyone who is sent out to proclaim the Good News: 1. prophet (I Corinthians 12:28), one who speaks for God and with his authorization. Among the revelations that prophets received were sometimes the prediction of future events (Acts 11:27-30, 21:10-14). They exhorted and strengthened the faithful (Acts 15:32), they edified, encouraged, and consoled (I Corinthians 14:3), and they could read men’s hearts (I Corinthians 14:24-25). This gift was shared also by women (I Corinthians 11:5; Acts 21:9); 2. evangelist (Acts 21:8; II Timothy 4:5), not to be confused with the inspired writers of the Gospels, an evangelist was probably one appointed to strengthen new churches but not to found them; 3. teacher (Romans 12:7); Ephesians 4:11; I Timothy 4:13, 16), an inspired catechist who was able to bring home to his listeners the inner meaning of the Gospel; 4. exhorter (Romans 12:8; I Timothy 4:13; Acts 4:36), a preacher with a special gift to persuade the faithful to put the teachings of Christ into generous practice; 5. proclaimer of wisdom (I Corinthians 12:8), one who could explain the highest reaches of divine revelation; 6. proclaimer of knowledge (I Corinthians 12:8), one who could explain revealed truths by comparison with human knowledge. Most probably the last two gifts were possessed in varying degrees by all the preceding.

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!)

June, Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

The Sacred Heart of Jesus – Short Meditations for June. June 15 — The Excellence of the Sacred Heart.

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