November 24
St. John of the
Cross
Religious founder, priest and Doctor of the
Church
In 1542, was born at Fontiveros, a hamlet of old Castile, St. John of
the Cross, renowned through the entire Christian world, as the restorer of the
Carmelite Order. His mother, after his father's early death, went to Medina del
Campo, where John commenced his studies, and continued them until he entered
the order of the Blessed Virgin of Mount Carmel. From his early youth he had
entertained a child-like devotion to the Blessed Virgin, who more than once
saved him most miraculously from death. One day, when playing with some other
lads around a deep pond, he fell into it. In this danger, the Divine Mother
appeared to him in a most beautiful form, and offered him her hand, to draw him
out of the water. But as his hands were much soiled, he hesitated to take those
of so brilliant a lady; whereupon his Guardian Angel, or some other inhabitant
of heaven, held out to him from the edge of the pond, a long pole, by the aid
of which he was happily saved. At another time he fell into a well, and when
all feared that he was drowned, they saw him sitting quietly upon the water.
When they drew him out, he said that the Queen of Heaven had caught him in her
cloak, and thus prevented his sinking. Before he was nine years old, he showed
a wonderful zeal in mortifying his body, chastising himself by taking only a
short rest on a hard bed, and by voluntary fasts. While yet a student, he
nursed, with great solicitude and charity, the sick in the hospitals. After he
had taken the Carmelite habit, he was not satisfied with the penances then practiced in the convent, but endeavored to regulate his life in accordance
with the first rules and ancient austerity of the Or der. When he prepared
himself to say his first holy Mass, he searched his conscience very carefully,
but found no grievous fault.
He then gave humble thanks to the Almighty, and
during his Mass, begged for the grace to be kept in future free from all mortal
sin. His prayer was accepted, and he heard the words: “I grant thee thy
wish." From that time St. John never offended the Lord by a mortal sin,
nor voluntarily by a venial one. St. Teresa, who lived at that period, said of
him that he was a Saint, and had been one all his life. This renowned and holy
virgin met St. John at Medina, and conferred with him about her desire to found
houses for religious, who would live according to the original strict
regulations of the Carmelites. John, who, in his eagerness to live in greater
austerity, had thought of joining the Carthusian monks, asked St. Teresa's
advice. She told him that it would be more agreeable to God, if he remained in
his Order, and restored among the men the same primitive rigor which she was
endeavoring to restore among the women. She added, that God had called him to
this work. John took counsel with God and his confessor, and then resolved to
follow St. Teresa's advice. He erected his first monastery on a farm which had
been presented to him for this purpose; and God so visibly blest his
undertaking, that he not only filled his house, in a short time, with zealous
men, but was enabled also to found several other convents. In these religious
houses, all the inmates lived so holy and so austere a life, that many thought
it was more to be admired than imitated. The Saint was an example to all, and
one could hardly imagine a penance which he did not practise. He gave no ear to
those who told him to moderate his severities, but said: “The narrow path
leading to heaven cannot be travelled by me in a manner less austere." The
hardships he endured in founding his monasteries, and in restoring the severe
regulations of the Order; the persecutions and wrongs he suffered, cannot be
described in the short space allotted to us; yet in all these trials he was
never despondent. The love of God possessed his heart so entirely, that he
desired nothing but to labor and to suffer for His honor. The Lord asked him
one day what recompense he desired for all his trouble and labor. “Nothing
else, O Lord, but to suffer and to be despised for Thy sake," was his
answer. Three things he used to ask of the Almighty: — first, much work and
much suffering; secondly, not to depart this life as a superior; thirdly, that
he might live and die despised. So unusual a' desire to suffer and to be
despised, was the result of his meditation on the Passion of Jesus Christ, and
of his great love to God. This love was so intense, that his countenance was
frequently seen radiant with a heavenly light, especially when he spoke of
divine things. At the time of prayer, as well as during holy Mass, he often
fell into ecstasy and was dissolved in tears. Our Lord once appeared to him in
the same form as when He died for us on the Cross. This picture remained so
indelibly imprinted on the Saint's memory, that it almost daily drew tears from
his eyes. Into all those over whom he had the slightest influence he endeavored
to instill a tender devotion to our crucified Lord, as well as to the Most Holy
Trinity and to the Blessed Eucharist. His language to sinners was so forcible,
that he converted even the most hardened. He was much aided in this by the gift
which the Almighty had bestowed upon him, of reading the thoughts of the heart.
Many who came to him were reproached with their secret sins, and admonished to
reform their lives. He possessed also the gifts of prophecy, of driving out
devils, and curing all kinds of diseases. Besides this, he had many visions of
the Blessed Virgin, St. Joseph, St. John, and Christ the Lord. Especially remarkable
were the heavenly favors with which this great servant of the Almighty was comforted
during an imprisonment of nine months, to which he was unjustly condemned.
Christ appeared to him and said: “Behold! John, I am here! Fear not. I will
rescue thee!" The Blessed Virgin, accompanied by a great many Saints,
appeared to him, and said: "My son, be patient and endure; for your trials
will soon give way to joy." In another vision, she admonished him to
escape from the prison, promising him her assistance; a promise which she also
kept. St. Teresa, who, during her life, had been closely united with" him,
appeared also to him after her death, speaking to him most kindly. In his
adversity she comforted him, and encouraged him to new labors for the honor of
God. The reward of all the work which the holy man had accomplished, as also of
the trials and tribulations he had suffered, was at length bestowed upon him,
in the year 1591, when he was in the forty-ninth year of his age. He was seized
with fever, in the hermitage of Pegnuela, and was brought from there to Ubeda,
according to his wish. He had an ulcer on that part of his right foot where the
holy feet of our Lord were pierced with nails. To open it, the surgeon was
obliged to make a deep incision. The pain thus caused was very great; but
greater still was the patience of the Saint, who even rejoiced at bearing, in
some manner, the image of the sufferings of Christ, and at having five wounds
on one foot.
Christ of St John of the Cross
God had already, some time previously, revealed to him the hour of
his death; and the Blessed Virgin, whom the Saint had always especially
honored, appeared to him on the eve of the Immaculate Conception, saying that
she would come for him on the Sunday after the festival. When the physicians
told him that his end was not far distant, he said, in the words of the
Psalmist: "I was glad when they said unto me, We shall go up into the house
of the Lord." Half an hour before his death, he called all his religious
to him, exhorted them to persevere in their zeal, and said: "My parting
hour draws near." After the usual prayers of the Church, he heard the
bells ring for the midnight Matins. "I shall sing the Matins in
Heaven," said he; after which, taking the Crucifix, he kissed it most
devoutly, and calmly ended his holy life, saying: “Into Thy hands, O Lord, I
commend my soul." A large ball, as of fire, was seen above the dying Saint.
After his death, his countenance beamed with a heavenly brightness, and was so
beautiful that none grew weary of looking at him; while at the same time such
delicious odor emanated from him, that the whole monastery was filled with it.
The Almighty has carefully preserved his body incorrupt until this hour.
St. John of the Cross
THE ROMAN BREVIARY
LESSONS 4, 5, 6
John of the Cross was born of godly parents at Fontibere, near Avila, in
Spain, in the year of our Lord 1542. It began soon to appear that he was
foreordained to be an acceptable servant unto the Virgin Mother of God. At five
years of age he fell into a well, but the hand of the Mother of God took him
up, and saved him from all hurt. So burning was his desire to suffer that when
he was nine years old he gave up any softer bed, and used to lie on potsherds.
In his youth he devoted himself as a servant in the hospital for the sick poor
at Medina del Campo, and embraced with eager charity the meanest offices there,
his readiness likewise exciting others to imitate him. (In 1563) he obeyed the
call to higher things, and entered the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of
Mount Carmel, wherein, by command of his Superiors, he received Priest's
Orders. By their leave and his own strong desire for the sternest discipline
and the strictest life, he adopted the primitive Rule. Full of the memory of
what our Lord suffered, he declared war against himself as his own worst enemy,
and carried it on by depriving himself of sleep and food, by iron chains, by
whips, and by every kind of self-torture. And in a little while he had
crucified the flesh, with the affections and lusts thereof. He was indeed
worthy that holy Theresa should say of him that he was one of the purest and
holiest souls by whom God was then enlightening His Church.
The strange hardness of his life, and the might of his graces, joined to
the unceasing concentration of his mind on God, had the effect of oftentimes
subjecting him to daily and extraordinary trances. So burning was his love of
God that the fire sometimes could not be kept bound within, and brake forth, so
that his face shone. The salvation of his neighbours was one of his dearest
longings, and he was unwearied in preaching the Word of God, and in administering
the Sacraments. As strong in so many good works, and glowing with zeal to make
discipline harder, he was given by God to be an helpmeet to holy Theresa, and
he aided her to set up again the primitive observance among the brethren of the
Order of Mount Carmel, as she had already done among the sisters. In doing
God's work, he and God's handmaid together went through toils that cannot be
numbered. No discomforts or dangers held him back from going throughout all
Spain to visit all and each of the convents which the care of that holy Virgin
had founded, and in them, and in very many others erected by her means for
spreading the renewed observance, he strengthened it by his word and example.
He is indeed worthy to be reckoned second only to the holy Theresa as a
professor and founder of the Order of bare-footed Carmelites.
He remained throughout all his life a clean maid, and when some
shameless women tried to beguile his modesty, he not only foiled them, but
gained them for Christ. In the judgment of the Apostolic See he was as much
taught of God as was holy Theresa, for explaining God's hidden mysteries, and
he wrote books of mystical theology filled with heavenly wisdom. Christ once
asked him what reward he would have for so much work; whereto he answered Lord,
that I may suffer, and be disesteemed for thy sake. He was very famous for his
power over devils, whom he oftentimes scared out of men's bodies, for
discerning of spirits, for the gift of prophecy, and for eminent miracles. He
was extraordinarily lowly, and oftentimes entreated of the Lord that he might
die in some place where he was unknown. In accordance with his prayer, (he was
sent) to Ubeda, (where for three months the Prior imprisoned and cruelly
ill-used him during his last sickness.) To crown his love of suffering, he bore
uncomplainingly five open sores in his leg, running with water. (At last, upon
the 14th day of December,) in the year 1591, being the day, and at the hour
foretold by himself, after having in godly and holy wise received the Sacraments
of the Church, hugging (the image of) that crucified Saviour of Whom his heart
and his mouth had been used to be full, he uttered the words Into thy hands I
commend my spirit, and fell asleep in the Lord. As his soul passed away it was
received into a glorious cloud of fire. His body yielded a right sweet savour,
and is still uncorrupt where it lieth, held in great honour, at Segovia. He was
famous for very many miracles both before and since his death, and Pope
Benedict XIII, numbered his name among those of the Saints.
St. Chrysogonus, Martyr
Chrysogonus was martyred at Aquileia, probably
during the Persecution of Diocletian, was buried there, and publicly venerated
by the faithful of that region. He is the patron saint of Zadar. His name is
found in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum on two different days, 31 May and 24
November.
About the 6th century arose a legend of the martyr that made him a Roman
and brought him into relation with Saint Anastasia, evidently to explain the
veneration of Chrysogonus in the Roman church that bears his name. According to
this legend, Chrysogonus, at first a functionary of the vicarius Urbis, was the
Christian teacher of Anastasia, the daughter of the noble Roman Praetextatus.
Being thrown into prison during the persecution of Diocletian, he comforted by
his letters the severely afflicted Anastasia. By order of Diocletian,
Chrysogonus was brought before the emperor at Aquileia, condemned to death, and
beheaded. His corpse, thrown into the sea, was washed ashore and buried by the
aged priest Zoilus who is also the patron saint of Zadar.
ST JOHN OF THE CROSS, CONFESSOR AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH
Double/White Vestments
Missa - ‘In Medio’
INTROIT - Ecclesiasticus 15: 5; Psalm 91: 2
In medio Ecclesiae aperuit os ejus: et implevit eum Dominus spiritu
sapientiæ, et intellectus: stolam gloriae induit eum. Ps. Bonum est confiteri
Domino: et psallere nomini tuo, Altissime. Gloria Patri.
In the midst of the Church the Lord opened his mouth: and filled him
with the spirit of wisdom and understanding: He clothed him with a robe of
glory. Ps. It is good to give praise to the Lord: and to sing to Thy Name, O
Most High. Glory be to the Father.
COLLECT
O God, Who didst make Thy holy Confessor and Doctor, John, a man of
perfect self-denial and an eminent lover of the cross, grant that, continually
applying ourselves to imitating him, we may attain unto everlasting glory.
Through our Lord.
COMMEMORATION of St Chrysogonus, Martyr
Give ear, O Lord, to our supplications, that we, who know ourselves to
be guilty by reason of our own iniquity, may be delivered by the intercession
of blessed Chrysogonus, Thy Martyr. Through our Lord.
EPISTLE - II Timothy 4: 1-8
Dearly beloved, I charge thee before God and Jesus Christ, Who shall
judge the living and the dead, by His coming, and His Kingdom. Preach the word:
be instant in season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience, and doctrine.
For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but
according to their own desires they will heap to themselves teachers, having
itching ears, and will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will
be turned unto fables. But be thou vigilant, labor in all things, do the work
of an evangelist, fulfill thy ministry. Be sober. For I am even now ready to be
sacrificed; and the time of my dissolution is at hand. I have fought a good
fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the Faith. As to the rest, there
is laid up for me a crown of justice, which the Lord, the just Judge, will
render to me in that day; and not only to me, but to them also that love His
coming.
GRADUAL - Psalm 36: 30-31
The mouth of the just shall meditate wisdom, and his tongue shall speak
judgment. The law of His God is in his heart: and his steps shall not be
supplanted.
ALLELUIA - Ecclus. 45: 1, 9
Alleluia, alleluia. The Lord loved him and adorned him: He clothed him
with a robe of glory. Alleluia.
GOSPEL - Matthew 5: 13-19
At that time, Jesus said to His disciples: You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt lose its savour,
wherewith shall it be salted? It is good for nothing any more but to be cast
out, and be trodden on by men. You are the light of the world. A city seated on
a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a
bushel but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are before men
that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, Who is in heaven.
Do not think that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets: I am not come
to destroy, but to fulfil. For amen I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass,
one jot or one tittle shall not pass of the law, till all be fulfilled. He
therefore that shall break one of these least commandments, and so shall teach
men, shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but he that shall do
and teach, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
OFFERTORY Psalm 91: 13
The just shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow up like the
cedar of Libanus.
SECRET
May the holy prayer of John, Thy Confessor and Doctor, fail us not, O
Lord: may it render our offerings acceptable, and ever obtain for us Thy
pardon. Through our Lord.
COMMEMORATION of St Chrysogonus
Be appeased, O Lord, with the gifts offered Thee, and, by the
intercession of blessed Chrysogonus, Thy Martyr, defend us from all dangers.
Through our Lord.
COMMON PREFACE
It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation that we should at
all times and in all places, give thanks unto Thee, O holy Lord, Father
almighty, eternal God: through Christ our Lord. through Whom the Angels praise
Thy Majesty, Dominations worship, Powers stand in awe. The Heavens and the
Heavenly hosts together with the blessed Seraphim in triumphant chorus unite to
celebrate it. Together with them we entreat Thee, that Thou mayest bid our
voices also to be admitted, while we say in lowly praise…
COMMUNION - Luke 12: 42
The faithful and wise servant, whom his lord setteth over his family: to
give them their measure of wheat in due season.
POSTCOMMUNION
That Thy sacrifices may give us health, O Lord, may blessed John, Thy
Confessor and illustrious Doctor, we beseech Thee, act as our intercessor.
Through our Lord.
Church of St. Chrysogonus, Croatia
COMMEMORATION of St Chrysogonus
By the participation of Thy sacrament, O Lord, may we be cleansed from
our hidden sins and delivered from the snares of our enemies. Through our Lord.
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