St Peter Chrysologus

To-day also marks the feast - in the traditional Calendar - of Peter of Golden Eloquence (406-450), sometime Archbishop of Ravenna. I am fond of him by reason of the example of his devotion to his patron saint, St Cassian of Imola, Peter's native town's great martyr, to whose shrine he returned when at death's dark door, to commend his soul to God by his intercession.

Apparently, until 1729 to-day was St Barbara's day, but then, when Peter was declared a Doctor of the Church, his feast was brought in throughout the whole orb of the world and trumped the Martyress. The Collect of St Peter Chrysologus, B. C. D. (Bishop - Confessor - Doctor), is somewhat odd, in that Doctorem is repeated twice, and the second half is a straight quotation from the Common Collect for Doctors: is this a cut-and-paste pastiche? See how it reads:

Deus, qui beatum Petrum Chrysologum Doctorem egregium, divinitus præmonstratum, ad regendam et instruendam Ecclesiam tuam eligi voluisti: præsta, quæsumus, ut, quem Doctorem vitæ habuimus in terris, intercessorem habere mereamur in cælis. Per...

God, Who didst will the excellent Doctor blessed Peter Chrysologus, divinely foreshown*, to be chosen for to rule and instruct Thy Church: grant, we beg, that he whom we have as a Doctor of life on earth, we may deserve to have as intercessor in heaven. Through...

[* The Apostle St Peter appeared to Pope Sixtus III,

advising him to select Chrysologus as Archbishop.]

Remember this great Archbishop's rebuke to those who wilfully played games, diced and laughed rather than come to hear God's word preached: "Who shall have joked with the devil, shall not be able to rejoice with Christ" (Qui jocari voluerit cum diabolo, non poterit gaudere cum Christo).

St Barbara - II

Having just risen from my prie-dieu, I thought I should note that to-day is the commemoration of St Barbara, and therefore my mother's name day (I reminded her this morning, to her surprise, and her chagrin when I further explained that the name means "female barbarian"!), who, as the modern Martyrology puts it, 'tis said to have been (fuisse traditur) a Virgin and Martyr at Nicomedia. The 1962 Martyrology adds the affecting details that she suffered under Maximian, her martyrdom being completed by the sword, after the dire maceration of prison, burning with lamps, the severing of her breasts (there are some truly horrible, and quite improper, paintings of this) and other torments.

The Easterners, not to be outdone, style her a Great Martyr...

The later legends about her being imprisoned by a jealous father in a tower in which she inveigled to have three windows, in honour of the Trinity, or yet more bizarrely improbably, that she was swallowed by a dragon, but escaped by making the sign of the Cross within its belly, whereupon the monster burst asunder to allow her egress, making her patroness of artillerymen (?) and of childbirth by Cæsarean section (!), may be considered rather obviously apocryphal and even silly, I think.

In any case, to this holy Martyr (whose sainthood I must own to have once questioned to my sorrow, because I was deceived by modern sceptics before I consulted the Church's own approved books) I entrust my mother, a very dear lady!

St Barbara

I caught the end of Mass to-day (after my doctor's appointment), arriving at the Supplices te rogamus; and was moved to check, once I returned home after lunch - having very unexpectedly met up with a dear religious I hadn't seen in years - on the status, shall we say, of St Barbara, who was commemorated (after the feria) on this, the feast of St Peter Chrysologus.

To my delight, St Barbara is included even in the modern Martyrology, as one said to have been a virgin and martyr at Nicomedia - and this recognition of her especially pleases me as Barbara is my Mum's name, and I'm glad she has such a celestial namesake and patron.