JUNE 27 – ST. LADISLAS, KING.

LADISLAS the First, son of Bela, King of Hungary, was born in 1041. By the pertinacious importunity of the people he was compelled, much against his own inclination, to ascend the throne, in 1080. He restored the good laws and discipline which St. Stephen had established, and which seem to have been obliterated by the confusion of the times. Chastity, meekness, gravity, charity, and piety were from his infancy the distinguishing parts of his character; avarice and ambition were his sovereign aversion, so perfectly had the maxims of the Gospel extinguished in him all propensity to those base passions. His life in the palace was most austere; he was frugal and abstemious, but most liberal to the Church and the poor. Vanity, pleasure, or idle amusements had no share in his actions or time, because all his moments were consecrated to the exercises of religion and the duties of his station, in which he had only the divine will in view, and sought only God’s greater honor. He watched over a strict and impartial administration of justice, was generous and merciful to his enemies, and vigorous in the defense of his country and the Church. He drove the Huns out of his territories, and vanquished the Poles, Russians, and Tartars. He was preparing to command, as general-in-chief, the great expedition of the Christians against the Saracens for the recovery of the Holy Land, when God called him to Himself, on the 30th of July, 1095.

REFLECTION: The Saints filled all their moments with good works and great actions; and, whilst they labored for an immortal crown, the greatest share of worldly happiness of which this life is capable fell in their way without being even looked for by them. In their afflictions themselves, virtue afforded them the most solid comfort, pointed out the remedy, and converted their tribulations into the greatest advantages.

WORD OF THE DAY

PAULICIANS. A dualistic sect that flourished from the seventh to the eleventh centuries in the Byzantine Empire. The origin of the name is uncertain, but was probably derived from the affinity to Paul of Samosata, the third-century heretical Bishop of Antioch. They held that there are two ultimate sources of creation, a good deity who is Ruler of heaven and made human souls, and an evil god who rules the material world and human bodies. Holding all matter evil, they rejected the Church’s redemption through Christ’s bodily death on the Cross, opposed images of Christ crucified, and substituted instead the book of the Gospels. Their dualistic doctrine led to grave moral disorders because whatever evil was committed by the body was attributed to the evil deity whose power was irresistible. Begun by Mananali in A.D. 657, the movement persisted until about 1050. Many of its ideas entered other religious groups, notably the Albigensians. In politics they were more favorable to the Saracens than loyal to Rome, and contributed to the spread of Islam.

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!)

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