Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Blessed James of Voragine

The Golden Legend – we have Bl James of Voragine, Archbishop of Genoa, to thank for it.  This good Dominican was indefatigable in compiling edifying lives of the saints, based on his own sermons, producing an enduring classic that was one of the favourite texts of mediæval times after the very Bible itself.  How good it is that this work, scorned at the Reformation, is now recognized once more for its value as a compendium of lore about the saints, an image of thirteenth century piety.

In the Dominican Breviary, he is celebrated to-day, the 13th of July, as a Memory at Lauds; the Collect is instructive about his evangelical labours as a peacemaker in the strifetorn Italy of his day:

Deus, qui beatum Jacobum, Confessorem atque Pontificem, eximium veritatis præconem et pacis conciliatorem effecisti: ejus nobis intercessione concede ut pacem et veritatem diligamus, et ad te, in quo pax summa est et pura veritas, perveniamus.  Per...
(O God, Who made blessed James, Confessor and Pontiff, an outstanding preacher of truth and a conciliator of peace: by his intercession grant unto us that we may "love peace and truth" [cf. Zach. viii, 19], and come unto thee, in Whom is supreme peace and pure truth.  Through...)

No comments: