Saint of the Day - St. Aristides

St. Aristides was a convert to Catholicism living in Athens during the reign of Emperor Hadrian. He is best known as an apologist and philosopher who composed a treatise in defense of Christianity.

Persecution had once again raised its head in the Roman empire following the emperor's initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries. This act had caused a flare up of pagan zeal leading to persecution of Christians. In response to this, Aristides composed his apologetic treatise and delivered it to the emperor while he was staying in Athens in 126 a.d.

Aristides is believed to have passed away between 133 and 134 a.d.

Saint of the Day - St. Pammachius

Pammachius was born into the Furii family in the fourth century. As a young man Pammachius attended the schools of rhetoric where he first met his lifelong friend, St. Jerome. In 385 he married the second daughter of St. Paula, Paulina.

Pammachius was one of several people who denounced Jovinian, who was later condemned at a synod in Rome, to Pope St. Siricius. This denunciation caused St. Jerome to write his own criticism of Jovinian's teachings, however, Pammachius criticized this work "for prudential reasons." This led to a correspondence between the friends, in which Jerome thanked his friend but defended his work.

After Paulina's death in 397, Pammachius devoted his life to prayer and works of charity. With the help of St. Fabiola, Pammachius built a hospice for the poor at Porto.

He continued his correspondence with St. Jerome, urging him to translate Origen's "De Principiis." Pammachius also condemned the Donatist heresy and exhorted the people of Numidia to abandon it, for which action he received a letter of thanks from St. Augustine.

Pammachius died in Rome in the year 409.

Saint of the Day - St. Medericus

St. Medericus, or Merry, was born in Autun, France. Little is known of his life until, at 13, he entered a Benedictine monastery at St. Martin's in Autun. The 54 monks in this community lived lives of prayer and penance.

Merry was eventually chosen abbot of the monastery, much against his will. As abbot he preached by example and the reputation of his sanctity spread throughout the country. He was always aware of the temptation to become prideful due to his position so when he found himself becoming quite popular amongst the monks and lay people he fled to a forest four miles from Autun. He lived here for several years, living by the work of his hands.

His hideout was discovered at the same time that he fell ill, forcing him to return to the monastery. In his old age, Merry led the monks on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Germanus in Paris. He lived in Paris for some time with St. Frou (Frodulf) in a cell next to a chapel dedicated to St. Peter. It was in this cell that he suffered for 3 years from a painful illness before passing away peacefully in 700 a.d.

Saint of the Day - St. Augustine

Augustine was born on November 13, 354 in Tagaste, Numidia, North Africa, the son of Patricius and St. Monica. Though his mother did her best to raise the boy as a Christian, his studies in Carthage were determined to pull him in the opposite direction.

Away from the influence of his mother, Augustine began to live recklessly. He began drinking and carousing and fathered a son, Adeotadus, out of wedlock. He fell in with the Manicheaen sect, and remained in this moral state for eleven years.

When Augustine returned to his mother in this state she became alarmed and began to pray fervently for her son's conversion. After nine years of anguish, Monica's prayers were answered and her son turned to the faith and was baptised by St. Ambrose. His mother passed away shortly thereafter.

Augustine had long been noted as a scholar and orator and he now used these talents on behalf of the Gospel. After returning home and dividing his property amongst the poor he entered a monastery and began to write treatises culminating in his Confessions, a powerful autobiography, City of God, and Retractiones. He was eventually ordained a priest and, in 396, Bishop of Hippo. As bishop he fought heresies, including Manichaeism and founded religious communities.

He perished during the siege on the Roman empire by the vandals on August 28, 430. He has since been declared a Doctor of the Church.

St. Augustine is the patron saint: against sore eyes; of brewers; of the diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut; of Cagayan de Oro, Philippines; the diocese of Ida, Philippines; of the Isleta Indian Pueblo; of the diocese of Kalamazoo, Michigan; of Ponte Nizza, Italy; of printers; of the city and diocese of St. Augustine, Florida; of the diocese of Superior, Wisconsin; of theologians; of the diocese of Tucson, Arizona; and of Valletta, Malta.

Saint of the Day - St. Monica

Monica was born, to a Christian family, in 333 A.D. at Tagaste, North Africa. She had a pious upbringing, but, at a young age, was married to a pagan official named Patricius. Monica's prayers and endurance allowed them to have a peaceful marriage in spite of his bad-temper and adultery. Together, they had three children, Augustine, Navigius, and Perpetua.

Monica's constant prayers for her husband led to his deathbed conversion, giving his wife much consolation. However, her prayers were immediately turned to her eldest son, Augustine. He confesses in his writings to having been a lazy and troublesome youth. Throughout the time he spent in school, first in Madaura and then in Carthage, his mother was concerned for the state of his soul. When he returned to her, at the age of 19, as a heretic, having entered the Manichaean sect, she became greatly alarmed and increased in her efforts for his salvation.

Augustine records in his Confessions a dream which Monica received around this time. "In her dream she saw herself standing on a sort of wooden rule, and saw a bright youth approaching her, joyous and smiling at her, while she was grieving and bowed down with sorrow. But when he inquired of her the cause of her sorrow and daily weeping (not to learn from her, but to teach her, as is customary in visions), and when she answered that it was my soul's doom she was lamenting, he bade her rest content and told her to look and see that where she was there I was also. And when she looked she saw me standing near her on the same rule."

Not long after receiving this dream, Monica approached a bishop who had also been a Manichaean before entering the Church. She pleaded with him to intercede with her son but he saw that, at this time, anything he might say would only make the situation worse, since Augustine was not yet open to hearing the truth. However, this bishop assured Monica that "the child of those tears shall never perish."

Monica spent 9 years in anguished prayer for her son, even following him to Rome and Milan. While in Milan, she encountered Bishop Ambrose who assisted in her efforts to bring Augustine to the faith.

The two eventually succeeded and, a few months after Augustine's conversion, Monica passed away in the ancient port city of Ostia where she was buried. Augustine recounted her in his Confessions: "I will not speak of her gifts, but of Thy gift in her; for she neither made herself nor trained herself. Thou didst create her, and neither her father nor mother knew what kind of being was to come forth from them. And it was the rod of Thy Christ, the discipline of Thy only Son, that trained her in Thy fear, in the house of one of Thy faithful ones who was a sound member of Thy Church."

St. Monica is the patroness of: abuse victims; alcoholics; the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers; Bevilacqua, Italy; difficult marriages; disappointing children; homemakers; housewives; Mabini, Bohol, Philippines; married women; mothers; victims of adultery; victims of unfaithfulness; victims of verbal abuse; widows; and wives.

100 Books Every Woman Should Read - Doctor Zhivago***

"This tale of revolutionary Russia is rich with detail and the character of Lara is almost more fascinating than that of Zhivago himself."

Well . . . I love the Russian writing style! This is only the second Russian novel I've read but they both shared a uniquely Russian style that I really appreciated. This does include some jumping around which can be confusing at first but it all comes together eventually. I also love all the beautiful Russian names, which also can be confusing but the main characters are the ones that keep turning up and the others don't matter as much so don't worry about them.

Now, in terms of the actual story. It literally took me until the last page of the epilogue to decide whether or not I liked the book. In the end I definitely liked it. The book is really more about how people's lives intertwine than about Zhivago or Lara specifically. There is one passage from the book that really illustrates this: "The man who had just died was Private Gimazetdin; the excited officer who had been shouting in the wood was his son, Lieutenant Galiullin; the nurse was Lara. Gordon and Zhivago were the witnesses. All these people were together, in one place. But some of them had never known each other, while others failed to recognize each other now. And there were things about them which were never to be known for certain, while others were not to be revealed until a future time, a later meeting."

On the last page of the epilogue the idea is also put forth that main character of the book is not actually Zhivago but, rather, the city of Moscow. "But Moscow, right below them and stretching into the distance, the author's native city, in which he had spent half his life - Moscow now struck them not as the stage of the events connected with him but as the main protagonist of a long story, the end of which they had reached that evening, book in hand." As a matter of fact, Zhivago, himself, is not a particularly likeable character. Even Lara is not nearly as good as she's painted. By far the best character in the book is Tonia. And poor Pasha is just pitiable.

I think I would have discovered that I enjoyed the book much earlier had I had those two ideas, that the book was about the intertwining of people's lives and that Moscow was the main character, in mind. In fact, I would like to re-read the book and see if I enjoy it any better now that I understand that.

Some great quotes:

• "She must stop all this nonsense. Once and for all. Stop playing at being shy, simpering and lowering her eyes - or it would end in disaster. There loomed an imperceptible, a terrifying borderline. One step and you would be hurtled into an abyss."


• "and she merely wondered: 'Does one always humiliate those one loves?'


• "The intended revolver shot had already gone off in her heart - and it was a matter of complete indifference whom the shot was aimed at. This shot was the only thing that she was conscious of. She heard it all the way to Petrovka Street, and it was aimed at Komarovsky, at herself, at her own fate, and at the wooden target on the Duplyanka oak tree."


• "I don't know a movement more self-centered and further removed from the facts than Marxism. Everyone is only worried about proving himself in practical matters, and as for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of their infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore the truth."


• "People must be drawn to good by goodness."
  
• "There are limits to everything. In all this time something definite should have been achieved. But it turns out that those who inspired the revolution aren't at home in anything except change and turmoil, they aren't happy with anything that's on less than a world scale. For them, transitional periods, worlds in the making, are an end in themselves."

Crazy Time

So it's getting to that crazy time of year known as back-to-school. Due to this I am rather behind in my posting. I will catch up on all the amazing saints and feasts I've missed this weekend but it may not be until next week when I'm settled in Steubenville. Actually, don't hold your breath for posts this week either. I'm a little overwhelmed with packing and other such things that need to get done before next Sunday. So I'll try to catch up and keep up but don't count on it. In the meantime, God Bless!