Tobias 6, 16 and 17: Then the angel Raphael said to him: Hear me, and I will show thee who they are, over whom the devil can prevail. For they who in such manner receive matrimony as to shut out God from themselves, and from their mind, and to give themselves to their lust, as the horse and mule, which have not understanding, over them the devil hath power. ↩
Genesis 20. ↩
Born at Böckelheim on the Nahe, 1098; died on the Rupertsberg near Bingen, 1179. This great Benedictine seeress and prophetess has been called the Sibyl of the Rhine. From her earliest years she was favoured with visions, and when she was aged about forty she received a Divine command to publish to the world what she had seen and heard. After much hesitation owing to her humility she obeyed, and in 1141 she commenced her profound treatise Scivias (“scire uias Domini”), which occupied her for ten years. It is ecstatic and prophetic throughout, and demands profoundest study. Herwegen, Kirchliches Handlexikon (1908), remarks that in order fully to appreciate this marvellous writer a new and critical edition of her writings must be prepared, a task entailing immense labour and research. No formal canonization of S. Hildegard has taken place, but many miracles were wrought at her intercession, and her name is in the Roman Martyrology. The feast is celebrated on 17 September in the dioceses of Speyer, Mainz, Trier and Limburg, and by the Solesmes monks on 18 September with a proper Office. The Relics of the Saint are at Eibingen, of which town she is patron. The convent of S. Hildegard there was formally constituted on 17 September, 1904. ↩
The famous shrine of Our Lady of the Hermits, at the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln, in the Canton of Schwyz, Switzerland. S. Meinrad, who was assassinated by bandits in 861, had embraced the solitary life and established his hermitage on the slopes of Mount Etzel, when he built a small oratory for the wonder-working statue of Our Lady which had been given him by Abbess Hildegard of Zurich. Several anchorites succeeded him, and one of these, by name Eberhard, erected a monastery and church there. This fane was miraculously consecrated in 948 by Christ Himself, assisted by the Four Evangelists, S. Peter and S. Gregory the Great. Even the rationalistic Father Thurston, S.J., will be unable to impugn this holy marvel, as it was investigated and confirmed by Pope Leo VIII, and subsequently ratified by many a Pontiff, the last being Pius VI, who in 1793 confirmed the acts of all his predecessors. The miraculous statue is enthroned in a little chapel which stands within the great abbey church in much the same way as the Holy House at Loreto, encased in marbles and elaborate woodwork, the goal of ten thousand pilgrimages. The two chief days are the fourteenth of September and the thirteenth of October, the first being the anniversary of the Divine consecration of Eberhard’s basilica, the second that of the translation of the Relics of S. Meinrad from Reichenau to Einsiedeln in 1039. ↩
One of the most famous of the miracles of S. Antony of Padua, wrought for the conversion of heretics, was that of a mule, belonging to one Bovidilla, a blasphemer of the Sacrament. The animal, although it had been, as agreed, kept fasting for three days, refused to turn to a sieve of oats held out by its master, but fell down upon its knees and adored the Host which the Saint was carrying in the ostensory. Some narratives of the fourteenth century say this happened at Toulouse, and some name Bruges, but the actual place was Rimini. In the basilica Il Santo, at Padua, this miracle is depicted more than once. There is a bronze bas-relief by Donatello in the Chapel of the Sacrament, and a fresco by Campagnola. The same subject was painted by Van Dyck for the Recollects at Malines.
Animals have been known to distinguish Our Lord’s Body in the Host, a fact which, when one considers their sense and intelligence, is not at all surprising.
At the trial of the Satanist Louis Gaufridi it was proved that upon one occasion during their accursed rites a dog was led in to devour the consecrated Species, but he stretched out his paws in adoration before the Body of Christ and bowed down his head, nor could kicks nor blows compel him to stir. Several of the devotees broke down into tears and began loudly to bewail their sins, after which it was decreed in future that the Host should be defiled, but that no animals must be admitted. See my Geography of Witchcraft, pp. 410–411.
S. Optatus tells us that certain Donatists once threw the Host to some hungry dogs, who suddenly turned on the heretics and tore them to pieces. ↩
Since the Sacrament is “medicina animae.” In En Route, Chap. V, the Abbé Gévresin says: “Je comprends très bien le système du père Milleriot qui forçait à communier des gens qu’il appréhendait de voir retomber dans leur péchés, aprè. Pour toute pénitence, il les obligeait à recommunier encore et il finissait par les épurer avec les Saintes Espèces prises à de hautes doses. C’est une doctrine tout à la fois réaliste et surélevée.” Père Milleriot, S.J., was largely concerned in the conversion (1879–80) of Paul-Maximilien-Emile Littré, who died at Paris, 2 June, 1881. ↩
The earliest Council of Carthage of which we know was held about AD 198, when seventy bishops, presided over by the Bishop of Carthage, Agrippinus, were present.
