Anthony was born at Coma, near Heracleopolis Magna in Fayum, about the middle of the third century. He was the son of well-to-do parents, and on their death, in his twentieth year, he inherited their possessions. He had a desire to imitate the life of the Apostles and the early Christians, and one day, on hearing in the church the Gospel words, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell all thou hast", he received them as spoken to himself, disposed of all his property and goods, and devoted himself exclusively to religious exercises. Long before this it had been usual for Christians to practice asceticism, abstain from marriage and exercising themselves in self-denial, fasting, prayer, and works of piety; but this they had done in the midst of their families, and without leaving house or home. Later on, in Egypt such ascetics lived in huts, in the outskirts of the towns and villages, and this was the common practice about 270, when Anthony withdrew from the world. He began his career by practising the ascetical life in this fashion without leaving his native place. He used to visit the various ascetics, study their lives, and try to learn from each of them the virtue in which he seemed to excel. Then he took up his abode in one of the tombs, near his native village, and there it was that the Life records those strange conflicts with demons in the shape of wild beasts, who inflicted blows upon him, and sometimes left him nearly dead. After fifteen years of this life, at the age of thirty-five, Anthony determined to withdraw from the habitations of men and retire in absolute solitude. He crossed the Nile, and on a mountain near the east bank, then called Pispir, now Der el Memum, he found an old fort into which he shut himself, and lived there for twenty years without seeing the face of man, food being thrown to him over the wall. He was at times visited by pilgrims, whom he refused to see; but gradually a number of would-be disciples established themselves in caves and in huts around the mountain. Thus a colony of ascetics was formed, who begged Anthony to come forth and be their guide in the spiritual life. At length, about the year 305, he yielded to their importunities and emerged from his retreat, and, to the surprise of all, he appeared to be as when he had gone in, not emaciated, but vigorous in body and mind. For five or six years he devoted himself to the instruction and organization of the great body of monks that had grown up around him; but then he once again withdrew into the inner desert that lay between the Nile and the Red Sea, near the shore of which he fixed his abode on a mountain where still stands the monastery that bears his name, Der Mar Antonios. Here he spent the last forty-five years of his life, in a seclusion, not so strict as Pispir, for he freely saw those who came to visit him, and he used to cross the desert to Pispir with considerable frequency. The Life says that on two occasions he went to Alexandria, once after he came forth from the fort at Pispir, to strengthen the Christian martyrs in the persecution of 311, and once at the close of his life (c. 350), to preach against the Arians. The Life says he dies at the age of a hundred and five, and St. Jerome places his death in 356-357. All the chronology is based on the hypothesis that this date and the figures in the Life are correct. At his own request his grave was kept secret by the two disciples who buried him, lest his body should become an object of reverence....

SAINT ATHANASIUS
Bishop &  Doctor - AD 3 73 (May 2)

St. Athanasius, known as the "champion of orthodoxy," was born about the year 297, in Alexandria. There is a tradition, related by Rufinus,[1] that he first attracted the notice of Patriarch Alexander as he was playing at baptism on the seashore with other small boys. After watching young Athanasius perform the rite, the prelate called the boys to him and by questioning satisfied himself that the baptisms were valid. He then undertook to have these boys trained for the priesthood. Athanasius received an excellent education, not only in Christian doctrine, but also in Greek literature and philosophy, rhetoric, and jurisprudence. He knew the Scriptures thoroughly, and learned theology from teachers who had been confessors[2] during the terrible persecutions under Maximian.[3] In youth he appears to have formed friendships with several hermits of the desert, especially with the great Antony, whose biography he was to write. He was reader to the patriarch, and in 318 became his secretary. During this period he wrote a discourse, Against the Gentiles,[4] in which he attempted an explanation of the Incarnation and the doctrine of the Trinity.

In Egypt two strong and often divergent forces had early appeared in the Christian Church: the conservative hierarchy in Alexandria, represented by the patriarch or bishop, and the theologians of the schools, who cared little for tradition and stood for free reasoning on theological subjects. The leaders of the latter party had sometimes been obliged, like the famous Origen,[5] to go into exile. There were also schisms over the distribution of authority in the Church and over doctrinal questions. It was probably about the year 323 that one Arius,[6] a priest of the church of Baucalis, began to teach that Jesus, though more than man, was not eternal God, that he was created in time by the Eternal Father, and could therefore be described only figuratively as the Son of God. The patriarch demanded a written statement of these doctrines. With only two dissenting voices the bishops condemned them as heresy, and deposed Arius, together with eleven priests and deacons of Alexandria. Arius retired to Caesarea, where he continued to propagate his ideas, enlisting the support of Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia and other Syrian prelates. In Egypt he had already won over many of the metaphysicians, as well as Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, and leader of a dissident group. Theology being the topic which most deeply engaged men's minds, the Arian controversy interested all classes of the population. The heretical propositions were publicized in the form of songs set to popular tunes, and these were chanted in the forums and carried by sailors from port to port.

Athanasius, as the patriarch's secretary, took a prominent part in this great Church struggle. It is probable that he even composed the encyclical letter announcing the condemnation of Arius. We know that he was present, as an attendant on Alexander, at the famous Council of Nicaea [7], summoned by the Emperor Constantine to determine matters of dogma. There the sentence against Arius was confirmed, and the confession of faith known as the Nicene Creed promulgated and subscribed. This gathering of churchmen influenced Athanasius deeply, and, as a modern writer has said, the rest of his life was a testimony to the divinity of the Saviour.

Shortly after this Alexander died, and Athanasius succeeded him, although he was not yet thirty. One of his first acts was a tour of his enormous diocese, which included the great monastic settlements, especially the Thebaid.[8] He ordained a bishop for Abyssinia, where the Christian faith had recently been established. Yet in spite of his best efforts, there was strong opposition. The Meletians [moral rigorists who thought conditions for return of those who lapsed under persecution were too lenient] made common cause with the Arians, and the movement, temporarily discredited by the Council of Nicaea, was soon again rampant in Asia Minor and Egypt.

In 330 the Arian bishop of Nicomedia, Eusebius, returned from his exile and before long had persuaded the aging Constantine to write to Athanasius, bidding him readmit Arius into communion, in the interests of unity. Eusebius sent an ingratiating letter in defense of Arius, but Athanasius held to his conviction that the Church could have no communion with heretics who attacked the divinity of Christ. Then Eusebius wrote the Egyptian Meletians urging them to impeach Athanasius for personal misconduct. They brought charges that he had levied a general tribute of linen for use in his own church, and made other petty accusations. At his trial before the emperor, Athanasius cleared himself and returned in triumph to Alexandria, bearing with him a letter of approval from Constantinople.

His enemies now accused him of having murdered a Meletian bishop named Arsenius, and summoned him to attend a council at Caesarea. Knowing that his supposed victim was in hiding, Athanasius ignored the summons. In 335 an order came from Constantinople to appear before another assembly at Tyre, packed by his opponents and presided over by an Arian who had seized the see of Antioch. Realizing that his condemnation had been decided on, Athanasius abruptly left the council and took ship for Constantinople. There he accosted the emperor as a suppliant in the street and obtained an interview. So completely did he vindicate himself that Constantine summoned the bishops to Constantinople for a retrial of the case. Then, for some unexplained reason, he suddenly changed his mind. Before the first letter arrived, a second was sent, confirming the sentence and banishing Athanasius to Treves. During this first exile, Athanasius kept in touch with his flock by letter.

In 337 Constantine died, shortly after his baptism by Eusebius of Nicomedia, and his empire was divided among his three sons, Constantine II, Constantius, and Constans. Many of the exiled prelates were now recalled. One of the first acts of Constantine II, who had sovereignty over Britain, Spain, and Gaul, was to allow Athanasius to return to his see. Two years later Constantine II was to be killed in battle in Aquileia. The patriarch reentered Alexandria in seeming triumph, but his enemies were as relentless as ever, and Eusebius of Nicomedia had completely won over the Emperor Constantius, within whose portion of the empire Alexandria was situated. New scandals were invented and Athanasius was now accused of raising sedition, promoting bloodshed, and keeping for himself corn intended for the poor. A Church council which met at Antioch again deposed him, and ratified an Arian bishop for Alexandria.

In the midst of all this confusion a Cappadocian priest named Gregory was forcibly installed as patriarch of Alexandria by the city prefect, pagans and Arians having now joined forces against the Catholics. Confronted unceasingly by acts of violence and sacrilege, Athanasius betook himself to Rome to await the hearing of his case by the Pope. A synod was summoned, but the Eusebians who had proposed it failed to appear. The result was a complete vindication of Athanasius, a verdict afterwards endorsed by the Council of Sardica.[9] Nevertheless he found it impossible to return to Alexandria until after the death of Gregory, and then only because Emperor Constantius, on the eve of a war with Persia, thought it politic to propitiate his brother Constans by restoring Athanasius to his see.

After an absence then of eight years, Athanasius was welcomed back to Alexandria in 346, and for three or four years there was comparative peace. But the murder of Constans in 350 removed the most powerful support of orthodoxy, and Constantius, once he found himself ruler of both West and East, set himself to crush the man he now regarded as a personal enemy. At Arles in 353 he obtained the condemnation of Athanasius from a council of Gallic bishops, who seem to have been kept in ignorance of the importance of the issues. Two years later at Milan he met with more opposition from the Italian bishops, but when with his hand on his sword he gave them their choice between condemnation of Athanasius and exile, by far the greater number yielded. The few stubborn bishops were exiled, including the new Pope Liberius. He was sent into isolation in Thrace until, broken in body and spirit, he too gave his consent to the Arian decrees. Athanasius held on for another year with the support of his own clergy and people. Then one night, as he was celebrating a vigil in the church of St. Thomas, soldiers broke in. Athanasius was instantly surrounded by his people, who swept him out into the safety of darkness; but for six years thereafter he had to live in hiding. His abounding energy now expressed itself in literary composition, and to this period are ascribed his chief writings, including a History of the Arians, three letters to Serapion, a defense of his position to Constantius, and a treatise on the synods of Rimini and Seleucia.

The death of Constantius in 361 was followed by another shift in the situation. The new emperor, Julian,[10] a pagan, revoked the sentences of banishment enacted by his predecessors, and Athanasius returned once again to his own city. But it was only for a few months. Julian's plans for a reconquest of the Christian world could make little headway as long as the champion of the Catholic faith ruled in Egypt; he also considered it necessary to banish Athanasius from Alexandria as "a disturber of the peace and an enemy of the gods." During this fourth exile, he seems to have explored the entire Thebaid. He was in Antinopolis when two hermits informed him of the death of Julian, who, it was later ascertained, at that moment was expiring in distant Persia, slain by an enemy's arrow.

The new emperor, Jovian, a soldier of Catholic sympathies, revoked the sentence of banishment and invited Athanasius to Antioch, to expound the doctrine of the Trinity. Jovian's reign lasted only a year, and his successor in the East, Valens, succumbed to Arian pressure in Constantinople and in May, 365, issued an order banishing again all orthodox bishops who had been exiled by Constantius and restored by his successors. Once more the worn and aged prelate was forced to flee. The ecclesiastical historian, Socrates, tells us that Athanasius hid himself this time in his father's tomb, but a better- informed writer says that he spent the months in a villa in a suburb of Alexandria. Four months later Valens revoked his edict, fearing possibly a rising of the Egyptians, who were determined to accept no other man as bishop. Joyfully they escorted him back. Athanasius had spent seventeen years in exile, but his last years were peaceful. He died in Alexandria on May 2, 373. His body was twice removed, first to Constantinople, and then to Venice.

While the theological controversies which marked this period may seem both complex and remote, they were an important milestone in the history of the Church, Athanasius rendering an outstanding service. The statement of Christian doctrine known as the Athanasian Creed was probably composed during his life, but not actually by him. In his works there is deep spiritual feeling and understanding, and as Cardinal Newman said, he stands as "a principal instrument after the Apostles by which the sacred truths of Christianity have been conveyed and secured to the world."

End Notes:

1 Rufinus was a famous theological and controversial writer of the late fourth century. Born in Aquileia, he became interested in the monastic movement in Egypt, and later went to Palestine.

2 As used here and throughout, confessor means one who suffers ill-treatment for the faith, or who confesses or professes Christ in a public or notable manner.

3 Emperor Maximian was the father of Maxentius, who is mentioned in St. Catherine of Alexandria, n. 3.

4 At this time, in Christian usage, the word "Gentiles" meant pagans-persons who were neither Christians nor Jews.

5 Origen (I85-254) had been the head of the catechetical school of Alexandria and later, when forced to leave Alexandria, of the school of Caesarea. He tried to formulate a complete Christian philosophy of his own, based on the Scriptures, but developed along Platonic lines. His views always involved him in bitter controversy and afterwards the Church held several of his conclusions to be heretical.

6 Arius and his followers, as opposed to the Docetists and the Gnostics, analyzed the problem of the nature of Christ not by denying His humanity but by diminishing His divinity. They concluded that to call Him eternal, uncreated God, of the same ineffable ever-living substance as God the Creator, was to set up two Gods. Christ was divine, He had come as God's immortal Word to men, but He had been first created in time and was not the equal of His Creator. The New Testament, they said, showed His continual dependence upon the superior power of His Father. The orthodox doctrine of the Trinity was, therefore, untenable.

7 Nicaea was a city in Bithynia, now northwestern Turkey, a short distance south of Constantinople. The Council of Nicaea, in 325, was the first ecumenical church council, and was called by the Emperor Constantine to bring about agreement on matters of creed.

8 The Thebaid was the term given to the region settled by Christian anchorites in the Egyptian desert, especially in the vicinity of Thebes. It lay on the east bank of the Nile, near the site of the modern village of Karnak.

9 This council, held at modern Sofia in 343, was chiefly notable for its provisions creating a right of appeal to the see of Rome by any deposed bishop.

10 Julian, known as the Apostate because he renounced Christianity for a form of philosophic paganism, was a nephew of Constantine the Great, and on Constantius' death was declared emperor. His effort to turn the world back to paganism was seen to be a failure even before his death, and there is a tradition that his dying words were, "Thou hast conquered, O Galilean."

Pope Leo I, during whose pontificate Augustine was canonized, ordered that the feast of this saint should be observed with the same honors as that of an Apostle. In every succeeding age his memory has been held in the highest veneration and his writings have been an inspiration to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Augustine was born on November 13, 354, at Tagaste, a small town of Numidia, North Africa, not far from the episcopal city of Hippo. His parents were citizens of good standing, though not wealthy. The father was one Patricius, a hot-tempered man and a pagan, who, under the influence of his Christian wife, the saintly Monica, learned patience and humility and was baptized shortly before his death. Of this union there were three children: Augustine, another son, Navigius, and a daughter, Perpetua, who became an abbess. Augustine's youth and manhood, up to and including his conversion and the death of his mother, is described fully in his great spiritual autobiography, the Confessions. He wrote the book, he says, for "a people curious to know the lives of others, but careless to amend their own," to demonstrate God's mercy as shown in the life of one sinner, and to make sure that no one should think him any better than he really was. With the utmost candor Augustine divulges the sins and follies of his youth, and at the end enumerates the weaknesses which still beset him. With a copy of the book which he sent to a friend, he wrote: "See now what I am from this book; believe me who bear testimony against myself, and regard not what others say of me."

In infancy Augustine was marked with the sign of the cross and enrolled among the catechumens, and later instructed in the tenets of the Christian religion. Once, when ill, the boy asked for baptism, but he suddenly got well and the rite was postponed. At this time it was a common practice for Christians to defer baptism until they were well on in years, for fear of the greater guilt they would incur by sinning after baptism. Augustine himself later condemned this custom, and the Church has long since forbidden it. When he was barely twelve years old Augustine was sent to a grammar school at Madaura. He writes of this traditionally Roman school: "I had to learn things from which, poor boy, I derived no profit, and yet if I was negligent in learning I was whipped, for this was the method approved by my elders, and the many who had trod that life before us had chalked out for us these wearisome ways." Though the teachers had no other end in view than that their pupils should become military officers or rich merchants, divine Providence, Augustine admits, made good use of their misguided aim; for they forced him to learn, to his later profit and advantage. He accuses himself of avoiding study not for want of aptitude, but out of sheer love of mischief. "We were punished for our play by persons who were doing nothing better than we were, but the boys' play of grown men is called 'business.'" And here is another astute criticism of a teacher, who, "if defeated in some petty argument by a fellow teacher, was more jealous and angry than a boy ever was when beaten by a playmate at a game of ball." Augustine liked Latin very much, for he had learned it in childhood from nurses. Greek was difficult for him and he did not progress far. At sixteen Augustine returned to Tagaste, where he soon fell into loose company. Patricius wanted his son to be a man of culture, but cared little about the formation of his character. Monica, on the other hand, pleaded with her son to govern his passions. Her words, he writes, "seemed to me but the admonitions of a woman, which I was ashamed to obey, whereas they were Thy admonitions, O God, and I knew it not. Through her Thou didst speak to me, and I despised Thee in her." Patricius died at about this time and a rich man of the town paid Augustine's expenses to study in the great city of Carthage. Now applying himself in earnest, the young man soon advanced to the first place in the school of rhetoric. His mind was awake and developing rapidly; yet, in retrospect, he writes that his motives for study were the unworthy ones of vanity and ambition. At Carthage he entered into a relationship with a woman whom he kept at his side for more than thirteen years. Before the age of twenty he was the father of a boy who bore the pious name of Adeodatus (Given by God). He read the best of the Latin writers—Vergil, Varro, and Cicero—but in time he grew dissatisfied with them and started to study the Scriptures. At this point, much troubled by the problem of evil, he came under the influence of the Manichees,[1] according to whom there were two eternal, warring principles, spirit and light, the cause of all good, and matter and darkness, the cause of all evil. These subtle heretics claimed to put everything to the test of reason, and scoffed at those who deferred to the authority of the Church. Writing later to a friend, Augustine said: "You know, my dear Honoratus, that we believed in these men on no other grounds. What else made me reject for almost nine years the religion instilled into me in my childhood, and become their follower and diligent pupil, but their saying that we were overawed by superstition and that faith was imposed on us without reason, whereas they expected no one to believe, except after first examining and clearly seeing the truth? Who would not have been inveigled by such promises? Especially a young man hungry for truth and already proud and talkative, with a reputation among learned men in the schools. They derided the simplicity of the Catholic faith, which commanded men to believe before they were taught by plain reasoning what was the truth." Augustine met Faustus, the Manichees' leading exponent, and was disappointed in him. For nine years he conducted schools of rhetoric and grammar at Tagaste and Carthage. His mother, encouraged by the assurance of the bishop that "the son of so many tears could not perish," never ceased by prayer and exhortation to try to make a Christian of him. In 383 Augustine set out for Rome with his little family, leaving secretly lest his mother should try to prevent him or wish to accompany him. At Rome he opened a school of rhetoric, but the enterprise was not a financial success. It now happened that orders came to Symmachus, prefect of Rome, from the imperial capital at Milan, to send up a teacher of rhetoric. Augustine applied for the post, gave proof of his ability, and received the appointment. The brilliant young teacher was well received at Milan and soon made the acquaintance of the learned and powerful Bishop Ambrose. Augustine enjoyed the bishop's sermons and little by little the arguments persuaded him. At the same time he was reading the older Greek philosophers, Plato and Plotinus. "Plato," he wrote, "gave me knowledge of the true God, but Jesus showed me the way." Monica traveled to Milan, for she still had not given up hope of seeing her son a Christian; moreover, she wished to see him properly married to a girl of his own station in life. She persuaded him to send the mother of Adeodatus back to Africa, where, it is supposed, she entered a convent. Augustine's struggle, moral and spiritual, went on. The writings of the Platonic philosophers, he tells us, bred pride and false confidence, instead of teaching him to bewail his condition. Finally turning to the New Testament, especially to the writings of St. Paul, he found the prophecies of the Old Testament fulfilled, the glory of Heaven revealed, and the way thither clearly pointed out. He learned what he had long felt to be true, that the law of his members warred against the law of his mind; and that nothing could free him of the conflict but the grace of Jesus Christ. Although he had now become convinced of the truth of the Catholic faith, he could not surrender. "I sighed and longed," he writes, "to be delivered, but was kept fast bound, not with exterior chains but with my own iron will. The Enemy held my will, and of it he made a chain with which he fettered me fast. Out of a perverse will he created wicked desire or lust, my yielding to lust created habit, and habit unresisted created a kind of necessity, by which, as by links fastened to one another, I was kept close shackled in cruel slavery. I had not the excuse I claimed earlier to have, when I delayed serving Thee because I had not yet certainly discovered Thy truth. Now I knew it, yet I was still fettered." One day an African Christian employed at court, one Pontitian, came to see Augustine and his friend Alipius. He took occasion to speak of the Life of St. Antony, and was astonished that the young men did not even know Antony's name. They listened eagerly to the story of his holy life. The visit affected Augustine deeply; his weakness and vacillation were revealed to him. In his previous state of half wishing for conversion he had begged God for the grace of continence, but at the same time had been a little afraid of being heard too soon. "In the first dawning of my youth," he writes, "I begged of Thee chastity, but by halves, miserable wretch that I am; I said, 'Give me chastity, but not yet,' afraid that Thou mightest hear me too soon, and heal me of the disease which I wished to have satisfied rather than cured." When Pontitian had departed, Augustine turned to Alipius with the words: "What are we doing to let the unlearned start up and seize Heaven by force, while we, with all our knowledge, linger behind, cowardly and callous, wallowing in our sins? Because they have outstripped us and gone on before, are we ashamed to follow them? Is it not more shameful not to follow them?" He went out into the garden, Alipius following, and they sat down at some distance from the house. Augustine was in the throes of his conflict, torn between the promptings of the Holy Spirit calling him to chastity and the seductive memory of his sins. Advancing farther into the garden alone, he threw himself under a fig-tree, crying out, "How long, O Lord? Wilt Thou be angry forever? Remember not my past iniquities! " As he lay there despairing, suddenly he heard a childlike voice repeating, "Tolle lege! Tolle lege!" (Take, read! Take, read! ) He wondered if there was a game in which children said these words, and could not remember that he had ever heard of one. Interpreting the voice as of divine origin, he returned to where Alipius was sitting, opened St. Paul's Epistles at random, and cast his eyes on the words: "Not in revelry and drunkenness, not in debauchery and wantonness, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and as for the flesh, take no thought for its lusts." Augustine felt an immediate sense of release, as if his long struggle was ended. He pointed out the passage to Alipius, who read on, "But him who is weak in faith, receive without disputes about opinions." They then went to relate these happenings to Monica, who rejoiced and praised God, "who is able to do all things more abundantly than we ask or understand." The story of Augustine's conversion has been repeated in some detail here because of its abiding spiritual and psychological interest. It occurred in September, 386, when Augustine was thirty-two. He gave up his school and retired to spend the winter in a country house near Milan which a friend lent to him. Monica, Navigius, Adeodatus, Alipius, two cousins, and several friends were with him there. Augustine gave himself up to prayer, study, and conversation. He strove to get firm control over his passions and to prepare himself for a new life. From daily discussions with his companions he got ideas for the three Dialogues written at this time—Against the Academicians, On the Happy Life, and On Order. Returning to Milan, Augustine was baptized by Bishop Ambrose on Easter Eve, 387, with Alipius and the much-loved Adeodatus. Resolving to re-establish himself in Africa, he traveled to the port of Ostia, accompanied by his mother, brother, son, and friends. Monica was taken ill at Ostia and soon died. To her life and final days Augustine devoted some of the most moving chapters of the Confessions. He now went back to Rome to speak publicly against the Manichaeans, and a year passed before he took ship for Africa. It was during this period that he wrote his two unfinished books of Soliloquies. At Tagaste he settled with friends in his old home, and stayed there for nearly three years, cut off from temporal concerns, serving God by prayer, fasting, and good works. All things in the house were held in common; Augustine even gave up title to the family property. Soon his life was again made desolate by the death of Adeodatus, a brilliant boy of seventeen. Augustine did not wish to become a priest, but was aware that an attempt might be made to give him a bishopric; by this time he was even more famed for his saintliness than for his learning. He therefore avoided visiting any cities in which sees were vacant. In 391 he was in the city of Hippo, whose bishop, Valerius, had spoken to the people of his need for a priest to assist him. So when Augustine appeared in church, the congregation swept him forward to Valerius, entreating the bishop to ordain him priest. Augustine yielded and was ordained; Valerius gave him some months to prepare for his ministry. When Augustine moved to Hippo, he established a small community in a house adjoining the church, similar to the monastic household at Tagaste. Valerius, who had an impediment in his speech, appointed Augustine to deliver his sermons for him. Augustine also preached his own sermons. He felt that preaching was his most important duty, and this activity continued up to the very end of life. Nearly a hundred of his sermons are extant, many of them not written out by him but taken down in shorthand as he delivered them.

In his sermons Augustine urges meditation on "the last things"; for "even if the Lord's day, the last judgment, be some distance away, is your day of death far off?" He insists on the necessity of penance, "For sin must be punished either by the penitent sinner or by God, his judge; and God, who has promised pardon to the penitent sinner, has nowhere promised to one who delays his conversion a morrow to do penance in." He has much to say of almsgiving, and declares that failure in this duty was the cause of the destruction of most of those who perish, since it is the only sin Christ mentions in the last judgment. (Matthew xxv, 31-46.) He speaks often of Purgatory, and recommends prayer and the Holy Sacrifice for the repose of the faithful departed. He emphasizes the respect due to holy images and to the sign of the cross, telling of miracles wrought by it, and by martyrs' relics. There are sixty-nine sermons on saints; he refers often to the honor due to martyrs, but says that sacrifices are offered to God alone, not to martyrs, though those "who are with Christ intercede for us." He preached in Latin, but he tried to furnish the rural parts of the diocese, where the Punic tongue was spoken, with priests who could speak this language. In 395 Augustine was consecrated bishop and coadjutor to Valerius, and on Valerius' death soon after he succeeded him. He now established a regular common life in the episcopal residence, and required all priests, deacons, and sub-deacons who lived with him to renounce their property and accept the rule he set up there. Only those who would bind themselves to such a life were accepted for Holy Orders. His biographer, Possidius, tells us that the furnishings of the house were extremely plain. He would have no silver utensils except spoons; the dishes were of earthenware, wood, and stone; the fare was frugal, and while wine was supplied to guests, the quantity was strictly limited. At meals Augustine preferred reading or literary conversation to secular talk. All clerics who lived with him ate at the same table. Thus, the mode of life instituted by the Apostles and carried out in the early history of the Church was adopted by the good bishop of Hippo. He also founded a community of religious women over whom his sister Perpetua was abbess. Augustine wrote the nuns a letter in which he laid down the broad, ascetic principles of the religious life. This letter, along with two sermons he preached on the subject, comprises the so-called Rule of St. Augustine, which has been the basis for the constitutions of many orders of canons regular, friars, and nuns.[2] To overseers among his clergy Augustine committed the entire care of temporal matters, receiving their accounts at the end of the year. To others he entrusted the building and management of hospitals and churches. He would never accept for the poor any estate or gift when the donation seemed unfair to an heir. But the revenues of his church were freely spent, and Possidius says that sometimes sacred vessels were melted down to raise funds for redeeming captives, an act for which he had the precedent set by Ambrose. He persuaded his people to provide clothing for all the poor of each parish once a year. In times of hardship he was not afraid to contract heavy debts to aid the distressed. His concern for the spiritual welfare of his people was boundless. "I do not wish to be saved without you," he told them. "Why am I in the world? Not only to live in Jesus Christ; but to live in Him with you. This is my passion, my honor, my glory, my joy, and my riches." Few men have been endowed with a more generous and affectionate nature than Augustine. He talked freely with unbelievers, and often invited them to his table, although he sometimes declined to eat with Christians whose conduct was evil. He was rigorous in subjecting such offenders to canonical penance and the censures of the Church; but in his opposition to wrong-doing he never forgot the precepts of charity, humility, and good manners. He followed Ambrose's example in refusing to persuade men to become soldiers and he took no part in match-making. St. Augustine's letters show an astonishing breadth of interests. Some are learned treatises on points of Christian doctrine and conduct, others are full of practical counsel. In his letter to Ecdicia he explains the duties of a wife, telling her she ought not wear black clothes, since her husband disliked them; she might be humble in spirit while rich and gay in dress. In all things reasonable, he tells her, she should agree with her husband as to the method of educating their son, and leave the chief care of it to him; he reproves her for having given goods and money to the poor without his consent, and tells her to ask his pardon for it. In like manner, he always impressed on husbands the respect, tender affection, and consideration which they owed their wives. Augustine's own modesty and restraint is revealed in his exchange with Jerome over the interpretation of a text of Galatians. A private letter from Jerome to him had miscarried, and Jerome, a hot-tempered man, thought himself insulted and retorted angrily. Augustine wrote to him in all gentleness, "I entreat you again and again to correct me firmly when you see me standing in need of it; for though the office of bishop is greater than that of priest, yet in many respects Augustine is inferior to Jerome." He was grieved by the bitterness of the quarrel between Jerome and Rufinus; he saw an element of vanity in such disputes, in which men love their own opinion, he says, "not because it is true, but because it is their own; and they dispute, not for the truth, but for victory." Throughout his thirty-five years as bishop of Hippo Augustine was continually defending the faith against heresies or paganism. In 404 he debated publicly with a famous Manichaean leader called Felix. The debate ended dramatically, with Felix confessing the Catholic faith and pronouncing an anathema on Manes and his blasphemies. The Priscillianist heresy was similar in some respects to the Manichaean, and had spread through several parts of Spain. Paul Orosius, a Spanish priest, made the voyage to Africa in 415 in order to see Augustine, and was the instigator of the latter's book, Against the Priscillianists and the Origenists. In it he condemns the doctrine that the human soul, divine by nature, was imprisoned in the material body as punishment for previous transgressions In a treatise meant for Jews he maintains that the Mosaic law, good in its time, was destined to come to an end and be replaced by the new law of Christ.

The neighboring town of Madaura, where Augustine had gone to school, had been settled mainly by Roman veterans, many of whom were pagans, and he won their good will by rendering them important public services. Numbers of them became Christians. When Rome was taken and plundered in 410 by Alaric the Goth, there was a new outbreak against the Christian population, the pagans saying that the city's calamities came because the ancient gods had been forsaken. Partially to answer these accusations, Augustine began in 413 his greatest book, The City of God, a survey of human history and justification of Christian philosophy. This work was not finished until 426. There was also trouble with the Donatists, a faction led by Donatus, bishop of Carthage. They maintained that the Catholic Church, by readmitting to communion penitents who had once apostatized under stress of persecution, and by recognizing the efficacy of sacraments administered by penitent priests, had ceased to be the true Church, and that they were the only true Christians. In Africa, after the cessation of persecution, the feeling against weaklings who had denied Christ ran high. The Donatists had five hundred bishops, and even in Hippo the Catholics were in the minority. In some places the Donatists attacked and murdered Catholics. Augustine's reputation and zeal won followers, but a few Donatists were so exasperated by him as to preach that to kill him would be a great service to their religion and meritorious before God. In 405 he was obliged to invoke the civil power to restrain the Donatist party around Hippo, and the Catholic Emperor Honorius issued severe edicts against it. Augustine himself never countenanced the death penalty for heresy. A conference of Catholics and Donatists at Carthage in 411 marked the beginning of the return of the Donatists to the Church. Now a new heresy arose, that known as Pelagianism. Pelagius is usually referred to as a Briton; Jerome scornfully called him "a big fat fellow, bloated with Scots porridge." Rejecting the doctrine of original sin, he taught that men had the power of choice and could live good lives of their own free will and win salvation by their own efforts; baptism was simply a sign of their previous admission to God's kingdom. In 411 Pelagius came to Africa from Rome, and the next year his doctrines were condemned by a synod at Carthage. Augustine combatted Pelagianism in treatises, sermons, and letters. Yet when he found it necessary to name Pelagius, it was to speak well of him: "As I hear, he is a holy man, well exercised in Christian virtue, a good man and worthy of praise." He had a loving tolerance for the man, while disliking his ideas. Against a modified doctrine called semi-Pelagianism, Augustine wrote two books, On the Predestination of Saints and On the Gift of Perseverance, to show that the authors of this doctrine had not retreated from the position of Pelagius. To Augustine, more than to any other man, the Church throughout this troubled period owes the preservation of its doctrine of the dependence of man on God for deliverance and salvation. In his Confessions, as we have said, Augustine retraced his youth and laid bare his sins; in his seventy-second year he did the same for past errors of judgment, and these are summarized in his Retractations, which reviews the great body of his writings, and corrects mistakes with candor and severity. The bishop now desired more leisure for writing, and accordingly proposed to his clergy and people that they accept Heraclius, the youngest of his deacons, a man of wisdom and piety, as coadjutor. The bishop's last years were full of the turmoil brought by the Vandal invasion of North Africa. Count Boniface, formerly imperial general in Africa, had incited Genseric, King of the Vandals, to invade the rich African provinces. Augustine wrote to Boniface, recalling him to his duty, but it was too late to stop the invasion. The Vandals landed in Africa in May, 428, and every contemporary account tells of the horror and desolation they spread as they advanced inland. Flourishing cities were left in ruins and country houses razed, the inhabitants either dead or in flight or seized as slaves. Worship ceased in the churches, most of which were burned. The greater number of clergy who escaped death were stripped and reduced to beggary. Of all the churches in North Africa, there were left hardly more than those in Carthage, Hippo, and Cirta, cities which were too strong for the Vandals to take at first. In this dire situation another bishop asked Augustine if it was lawful or right for the clergy to flee at the approach of the barbarians. Augustine's prudent reply is deserving of quotation: it was lawful for a bishop or priest to flee and leave his flock when he alone was the object of the attack; or, again, when the people had all fled, and the pastor had no one left; or, yet again, when the ministry might be better performed by others who had no need to flee. Under all other circumstances, he said, pastors were obliged to stay and watch over their flocks, committed to them by Christ. Augustine grieved deeply over the outward calamities of his people, but even more over the damage to souls, for the ruthless Vandals, so far as they professed any religion, were Arians. Towards the end of May, 430, the Vandals appeared before Hippo, the most strongly fortified city in this region, and settled down for a siege of fourteen months. That first summer Augustine fell ill of a fever, which he felt would be fatal. Death had long been a subject of his meditations, and he now talked of it with serene confidence in God's mercy. He asked for the penitential psalms of David to be written out and hung on the wall by his bed. His mind was sound to the end, and on August 28, 430, at the age of seventy-six, he calmly resigned his spirit to God. This man of tremendous gifts and vital personality, who had piloted the African Church through some of the world's darkest years, never doubted the ultimate victory of that "most glorious City of God." 

1. The Manichees, or Manichaeans, were the successors of the earlier Gnostics, and pushed the principle of dualism to further extremes. The cult had been founded by Manes, a Persian.

2. Augustine never drew up a detailed rule, but simply laid down a few general precepts, including poverty, unity, charity, and prayer in common.

From the tenth century onwards veneration for St. Catherine of Alexandria[1] has been widespread in the Church of the East, and from the time of the Crusades this saint has been popular in the West, where many churches have been dedicated to her and her feast day kept with great solemnity, sometimes as a holy-day of obligation. She is listed as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers of mankind among the saints in Heaven; she is the patroness of young women, philosophers, preachers, theologians, wheelwrights, millers, and other workingmen. She was said to have appeared with Our Lady to St. Dominic and to Blessed Reginald of Orleans; the Dominicans adopted her as their special protectress. Hers was one of the heavenly voices heard by St. Joan of Arc. Artists have painted her with her chief emblem, the wheel, on which by tradition she was tortured; other emblems are a lamb and a sword. Her name continues to be cherished today by the young unmarried women of Paris. Yet in spite of this veneration, we have few facts that can be relied on concerning Catherine's life. Eusebius,[2] "father of Church history," writing around the year 320, had heard of a noble young Christian woman of Alexandria whom the Emperor ordered to come to his palace, presumably to become his mistress, and who, on refusing, was punished by banishment and the confiscation of her estates. The story of St. Catherine may have sprung from some brief record such as this, which Christians writing at a later date expanded. The last persecutions of Christians, though short, were severe, and those living in the peace which followed seem to have had a tendency to embellish the traditions of their martyrs that they might not be forgotten. According to the popular tradition, Catherine was born of a patrician family of Alexandria and from childhood had devoted herself to study. Through her reading she had learned much of Christianity and had been converted by a vision of Our Lady and the Holy Child. When Maxentius[3] began his persecution, Catherine, then a beautiful young girl, went to him and rebuked him boldly for his cruelty. He could not answer her arguments against his pagan gods, and summoned fifty philosophers to confute her. They all confessed themselves won over by her reasoning, and were thereupon burned to death by the enraged Emperor. He then tried to seduce Catherine with an offer of a consort's crown, and when she indignantly refused him, he had her beaten and imprisoned. The Emperor went off to inspect his military forces, and when he got back he discovered that his wife Faustina and a high official, one Porphyrius, had been visiting Catherine and had been converted, along with the soldiers of the guard. They too were put to death, and Catherine was sentenced to be killed on a spiked wheel. When she was fastened to the wheel, her bonds were miraculously loosed and the wheel itself broke, its spikes flying off and killing some of the onlookers. She was then beheaded. The modern catherine-wheel, from which sparks fly off in all directions, took its name from the saint's wheel of martyrdom. The text of the Acts of this illustrious saint states that her body was carried by angels to Mount Sinai, where a church and monastery were afterwards built in her honor. This legend was, however, unknown to the earliest pilgrims to the mountain. In 527 the Emperor Justinian built a fortified monastery for hermits in that region, and two or three centuries later the story of St. Catherine and the angels began to be circulated. 

End Notes:

1 Alexandria, the great Egyptian city at the mouth of the Nile, was at this time a center of both pagan and Christian learning. Its Christian activities centered around the great church founded, according to tradition, by the Apostle Mark, with its catechetical school, the first of its kind in Christendom. 

2 Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, who lived through all the vicissitudes of the years before and succeeding the Edict of Toleration and died about 340, wrote the first history of the Church.

3 Maxentius was one of several rival emperors who struggled for mastery during the first dozen years of the fourth century. Like the others, he tried to crush what he considered the dangerous institution of the Catholic Church. Some historians are of the opinion that Catherine suffered under his father, Maximian.

SS. CHARLES LWANGA, JOSEPH MKASA, AND THEIR COMPANIONS
Martyrs of Uganda - AD 1886 (June 3)

In the interior of central Africa the first Catholic missions were established by Cardinal Lavigerie's White Fathers in 1879. In Uganda some progress was made under the not unfriendly local ruler, Mtesa; but his successor, Mwanga, determined to root out Christianity among his people, especially after a Catholic subject, St. Joseph Mkasa, reproached him for his debauchery and for his massacre of the Protestant missionary James Hannington and his caravan. Mwanga was addicted to unnatural vice and his anger against Christianity, already kindled by ambitious officers who played on his fears, was kept alight by the refusal of Christian boys in his service to minister to his wickedness.

Joseph Mkasa himself was the first victim: Mwanga. seized on a trifling pretext and on November 15, 1885, had him beheaded. To the chieftain's astonishment the Christians were not cowed by this sudden outrage, and in May of the following year the storm burst. When he called for a young 'page' called Mwafu, Mwanga learned that he had been receiving religious instruction from another page, St. Denis Sebuggwawo; Denis was sent for, and the king thrust a spear through his throat. That night guards were posted round the royal residence to prevent anyone from escaping.

St. Charles Lwanga, who had succeeded Joseph Mkasa in charge of the 'pages', secretly baptized four of them who were catechumens; among them St Kizito, a boy of thirteen whom Lwanga had repeatedly saved from the designs of the king. Next morning the pages were all drawn up before Mwanga, and Christians were ordered to separate themselves from the rest: led by Lwanga and Kizito, the oldest and youngest, they did so—fifteen young men, all under twenty-five years of age. They were joined by two others already under arrest and by two soldiers. Mwanga asked them if they intended to remain Christians. "Till death!" came the response. "Then put them to death!"

The appointed place of execution, Namugongo, was thirty-seven miles away, and the convoy set out at once. Three of the youths were killed on the road; the others underwent a cruel imprisonment of seven days at Namugongo while a huge pyre was prepared. Then on Ascension day, June 3, 1886, they were brought out, stripped of their clothing, bound, and each wrapped in a mat of reed: the living faggots were laid on the pyre (one boy, St Mbaga, was first killed by a blow on the neck by order of his father who was the chief executioner), and it was set alight. The persecution spread and Protestants as well as Catholics gave their lives rather than deny Christ. A leader among the confessors was St Matthias Murumba, who was put to death with revolting cruelty; he was a middle-aged man, assistant judge to the provincial chief, who first heard of Jesus Christ from Protestant missionaries and later was baptized by Father Livinhac, W.F. Another older victim, who was beheaded, was St Andrew Kagwa, chief of Kigowa, who had been the instrument of his wife's conversion and had gathered a large body of catechumens round him. This Andrew together with Charles Lwanga and Matthias Murumba and nineteen others (seventeen of the total being young royal servants) were solemnly beatified in 1920. They were canonized in 1964.

When the White Fathers were expelled from the country, the new Christians carried on their work, translating and printing the catechism into their nativel language and giving secret instruction on the faith. Without priests, liturgy, and sacraments their faith, intelligence, courage, and wisdom kept the Catholic Church alive and growing in Uganda. When the White Fathers returned after King Mwanga's death, they found five hundred Christians and one thousand catchumens waiting for them.

CAECILIUS CYPRIANUS, popularly known as Thascius, was born about the year 200, probably at Carthage; certainly he was, according to St Jerome, a native of Proconsular Africa. Very little is known of his pre-Christian life; he was a public orator, teacher of rhetoric, and pleader in the courts, and engaged to the full in the life of Carthage, both public and social. God's instrument of his conversion, somewhere about middle age, was an old priest, Caedhan, and Cyprian ever after reverenced him as his father and guardian angel. Caecilian, in turn, had the greatest confidence in his virtue and on his death-bed recommended his wife and children to Cyprian's care and protection. A complete change came over Cyprian's life. Before his baptism he made a vow of perfect chastity, which greatly astonished the Carthaginians and drew even from his biographer St Pontius the exclamation, 'Who ever saw such a miracle!' 

With the study of the Holy Scriptures St Cyprian joined that of their best expositors, and in a short time became acquainted with the works of the greatest religious writers: he particularly delighted in the writings of his countryman Tertullian. Cyprian was soon made priest, and in 248 he was designated for the bishopric of Carthage. At first he refused and sought to fly, but finding it in vain he yielded and was consecrated. 

The Church continued to enjoy peace for about a year after St Cyprian's promotion to the see of Carthage, till the Emperor Decius began his reign by raising a persecution. Years of quietness and prosperity had had a weakening effect among the Christians, and when the edict reached Carthage there was a stampede to the capitol to register apostasies with the magistrates, amid cries of 'Cyprian to the lions!' from the pagan mob. The bishop was proscribed, and his goods ordered to be forfeited, but Cyprian had already retired to a hiding-place, a proceeding which brought upon him much adverse criticism both from Rome and in Africa. He felt put on his defence, and set out justifying reasons for his action in several letters to the clergy. 

During the absence of St Cyprian a priest who had opposed his episcopal election, named Novatus, went into open schism. Some among the lapsed, and confessors who were displeased at St Cyprian's discipline towards the former, adhered to him, for Novatus received, without any canonical penance, all apostates who desired to return to the communion of the Church. St Cyprian denounced Novatus, and at a council convened at Carthage when the persecution slackened he read a treatise on the unity of the Church. 

The leaders of the schismatics were excommunicated, and Novatus departed to Rome to help stir up trouble there, where Novatian had set himself up as antipope. Cyprian recognized Cornelius as the true pope and was active in his support both in Italy and Africa during the ensuing schism; with St Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, he rallied the bishops of the East to Cornelius, making it clear to them that to adhere to a false bishop of Rome was to be out of communion with the Church. In connexion with these disturbances he added to his treatise on Unity one on the question of the Lapsed. 

St Cyprian complains in many parts of his works that the peace which the Church had enjoyed enervated in some Christians the watchfulness and spirit of their profession, and had opened a door to many converts who had no true spirit of faith, and many lacked courage to stand the trial. These, whether apostates who had sacrificed to idols or libellaticii who, without sacrificing, had purchased for money certificates that they had offered sacrifice, were the lapsed (lapsi), concerning the treatment of whom so great a controversy raged during and after the Decian persecution: on the side of excessive lenience Novatus went into schism, while Novatian's severity crystallized into the heresy that the Church cannot absolve an apostate at all. At this time those guilty of less heinous sins than apostasy were not admitted to assist at the holy Mysteries before they had gone through a rigorous course of public penance, consisting of four degrees and of several years' continuance. Relaxations of these penances were granted on certain extraordinary occasions, and it was also customary to grant 'indulgences' to penitents who received a recommendation from some martyr going to execution, or from some confessor in prison for the faith, containing a request on their behalf, which the bishop and his clergy examined and often ratified. In St Cyprian's time this custom degenerated in Africa into an abuse, by the number of such libelli martyrum, and their often being given in too vague or peremptory terms, and without examination or discernment.

Cyprian condemned these abuses severely, but though it would appear that he himself tended to severity he in fact pursued a middle way, and in practice was considerate and lenient. After he had consulted the Roman clergy he insisted that his episcopal rulings must be followed without question until the whole matter could be brought up for discussion by all the African bishops and priests. This was eventually done in 251, at the council at Carthage mentioned above, and it was decided that, whereas libellaticii might be restored after terms of penance varying in length according to the case, sacrificati could receive communion only at death. But in the following year the persecution of Gallus and Volusian began, and another African council decreed that 'all the penitents who professed themselves ready to enter the list afresh, there to abide the utmost heat of battle and manfully to fight for the name of the Lord and for their own salvation, should receive the peace of the Church'. 

Between the years 252 and 254 Carthage was visited by a terrible plague, of the ravages of which St Pontius has left a vivid description. Cyprian organized the Christians of the city and spoke to them strongly on the duty of mercy and charity, teaching them that they ought to extend their care not only to their own people, but also to their enemies and persecutors. To comfort and fortify his flock during the plague, Cyprian wrote his treatise De mortalitate. 

Whereas St Cyprian so strongly supported Pope St Cornelius, in the closing years of his life he was moved to oppose Pope St Stephen I in the matter of baptism conferred by heretics and schismatics—he and the other African bishops refused to recognize its validity. Though Cyprian published a treatise on the goodness of patience, he displayed considerable warmth during this controversy, an excess for which, as St Augustine says, he atoned by his glorious martyrdom. For in August 257 was promulgated the first edict of Valerian's persecution, which forbade all assemblies of Christians and which required bishops, priests and deacons to take part in official worship under pain of exile, and on August 30 the bishop of Carthage was brought before the proconsul. Paternus ordered him into exile, but when Galerius replaced him as proconsul Cyprian was recalled from exile and again put on trial. Once more, however, he refused to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods, and on this occasion he was sentenced to -death by beheading. The sentence was carried out immediately. It was September 14, A.D. 258.

BLESSED CYPRIAN MICHAEL IWENE TANSI
Priest - AD 1964

Bl. Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi was born in 1903 in Igboezunu, at the edge of: the forest near the ancient city of Aguleri in southern Nigeria. His parents, Tabansi and Ejikwevi, were Igbo farmers who practised the "traditional religion" and gave him the name Iwene at birth. In 1909 he was sent to the Christian village of Nduka, where he was baptized three years later by Irish missionaries and given the name Michael. His peers described him as studious and very demanding with himself, with a precocious personality and deep piety. At the age of 16 he received his first school leaving certificate, which qualified him for teaching. He taught at Holy Trinity Primary School in Onitsha for three years and served for a year as headmaster at St Joseph School in Aguleri. In 1925, against the wishes of his family, he entered St Paul's Seminary in Igbariam. After finishing his philosophical and theological studies, he was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Onitsha on 19 December 1937 by the missionary Bishop Charles Heerey. The second indigenous priest of Onitsha and the first in the Aguleri region, he began his pastoral ministry in the parish of Nnewi. In 1939 he was appointed parish priest of Dunukofia (Umudioka region), where he courageously tackled immoral customs and destroyed the harmful myth of the "cursed forest", which weighed heavily on the peace of consciences and families. To combat premarital cohabitation, he set up marriage preparation centres where girls and young women could be sheltered and receive Christian formation. For the moral education of young people he also established the League of Mary, with remarkable success. On foot or bicycle, Fr Tansi went from village to village preaching, catechizing and setting up prayer centres that eventually became parishes. He spent hours and hours hearing confessions, even until late at night. His zeal, shining example and life of prayer and penance transformed the people into a true Christian community resulting in so many vocations to the priesthood and religious life that his parish held the diocesan record. The same energy characterized his years as parish priest of Akpu, where he served from 1945 until his transfer to Aguleri in 1949. On an unspecified date between 1949 and 1950, during a priests' day of recollection, Bishop Heerey expressed the desire that one of his priests would embrace the monastic life so that he could later establish a contemplative monastery in his Diocese. Fr Tansi immediately said he was willing. Bishop Heerey contacted the Trappist Abbey of Mount St Bernard in Leicestershire, England, which was willing to receive him for a trial period as an oblate. In the summer of 1950 he led his parishioners on a pilgrimage to Rome for the Holy Year and left from there for Mount St Bernard. After two and a half years as an oblate, he was admitted to the novitiate on the vigil of the Immaculate Conception, taking the name Cyprian. One year later he took his simple vows and was solemnly professed on 8 December 1956. For the next seven years he lived a hidden life of prayer and work, humility and obedience, in faithful and generous observance of the Cistercian rule. In 1963, after 13 years of valuable experience as a Trappist, the time now seemed ripe for establishing a monastery in Nigeria. However, political tensions led his superiors to choose neighbouring Cameroon for the foundation instead. This was a hard blow for Fr Cyprian, who had been appointed novice master for the African monastery. It was the only time in 13 years of monastic life that he ever lost his temper, but he quickly regained control and accepted God's will with supernatural heroism. In January 1964 he began experiencing intense pain in one of his legs. Diagnosed as having thrombosis, the following morning he was found unconscious and was taken to the Royal Infirmary of Leicester, where examination revealed an aortic aneurysm. He died the following morning, 20 January 1964. He was buried at Mount St Bernard on 22 January. Present for the funeral liturgy were several Nigerian priests living in London, including his spiritual son, Fr Francis Arinze, the future Archbishop of Onitsha, Cardinal and President of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue. His body was exhumed in 1988 and reburied in the priests' cemetery near the cathedral of Onitsha, where he had been ordained a priest 51 years earlier. After the beatification ceremonies, his remains will be buried in the parish church of his native village, Aguieri.

SAINT CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA
Bishop & Doctor - AD 444 (June 27)

Cyril was born at Alexandria, Egypt. He was nephew of the patriarch of that city, Theophilus. Cyril received a classical and theological education at Alexandria and was ordained by his uncle. He accompanied Theophilus to Constantinople in 403 and was present at the Synod of the Oak that deposed John Chrysostom, whom he believed guilty of the charges against him. He succeeded his uncle Theophilus as patriarch of Alexandria on Theophilus' death in 412, but only after a riot between Cyril's supporters and the followers of his rival Timotheus. Cyril at once began a series of attacks against the Novatians, whose churches he closed; the Jews, whom he drove from the city; and governor Orestes, with whom he disagreed about some of his actions. In 430 Cyril became embroiled with Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople, who was preaching that Mary was not the Mother of God (theotokos), but of Jesus the man only, making Christ two persons. Cyril persuaded Pope Celestine I to convoke a synod at Rome, which condemned Nestorius, and then did the same at his own synod in Alexandria. Celestine directed Cyril to depose Nestorius, and in 431, Cyril presided over the third General Council at Ephesus, attended by some two hundred bishops, which condemned all the tenets of Nestorius and his followers before the arrival of Archbishop John of Antioch and forty-two followers who believed Nestorius was innocent. When they found what had been done, they held a council of their own and deposed Cyril. Emperor Theodosius II arrested both Cyril and Nestorius but released Cyril on the arrival of Papal Legates who confirmed the council's actions against Nestorius and declared Cyril innocent of all charges. Two years later, Archbishop John, representing the moderate Antiochene bishops, and Cyril reached an agreement and joined in the condemnation, and Nestorius was forced into exile. During the rest of his life, Cyril wrote treatises that clarified the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation and that helped prevent Nestorianism and Pelagianism from taking long-term deep root in the Christian community. He was the most brilliant theologian of the Alexandrian tradition. His writings are characterized by accurate thinking, precise exposition, and great reasoning skills. Among his writings are commentaries on John, Luke, and the Pentateuch, treatises on dogmatic theology, and Apologia against Julian the Apostate, and letters and sermons. He was declared a doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1882.

Saint Euphrasia (Eupraxia)
Virgin - c. AD 420 (March 13)

Virgin, b. in 380; d. after 410. She was the daughter of Antigonus, a senator of
Constantinople, and a relation of Emperor Theodosius. Her father died shortly after her birth, and her mother, also Euphrasia, devoted her life thenceforth exclusively to the service of God.

To carry out this ideal she abandoned the capital, and, with her seven-year-old daughter, repaired to Egypt, where she dwelt on one of her estates, near a convent, and adopted the nuns' austere mode of life. This example aroused in her daughter the desire to enter the convent, and her mother gave her into the care of the superior, that she might be trained in the ascetic life. 

After her mother's death she declined an offer of marriage made, by the Emperor
Theodosius, on behalf of a senator's son, transferred to the emperor her entire fortune, to be used for charitable purposes, and took up, with a holy ardour, the rigorous practices of Christian perfection. She was about thirty when she died. Her feast is celebrated in the Greek Church on 25 July, and in the Latin Church on 13 March. She is mentioned by St. John Damascene, in his third "Oratio de imaginibus". 

Somewhere about the year 330 a philosopher of Tyre, named Meropius, undertook a voyage to the coasts of Arabia. He took with him two young men, Frumentius and Aedesius, with whose education he was entrusted. In the course of their voyage homeward the vessel touched at a certain port of Ethiopia. The natives fell out with some of the sailors, attacked them, and put the whole crew and all the passengers to the sword, except the two boys, who were studying their lessons under a tree at some distance. When they were found they were carried to the king, who resided at Aksum in Tigre country. He was attracted by the bearing and knowledge of the young Christians, and not long after made Aedesius his cupbearer and Frumentius, who was the elder, his secretary. This prince on his death-bed thanked them for their services and, in recompense, gave them their liberty. The queen, who was left regent for her eldest son, entreated them to remain and assist her, which they did. Frumentius had the principal management of affairs and induced several Christian merchants who traded there to settle in the country. He procured them privileges and all conveniences for religious worship. When the young king came of age and, with his brother, took the reins of government into his own hands, the Tyrians resigned their posts, though he urged them to stay. Aedesius went back to Tyre, where he was ordained priest and told his adventures to Rufinus, who incorporated them in his Church History. But Frumentius, having nothing so much at heart as the conversion of the whole nation, took the route to Alexandria, and entreated the bishop, St Athanasius, to send some pastor to that country. Whereupon Athanasius ordained Frumentius himself bishop of the Ethiopians, judging no one more proper to finish the work which he had begun. The consecration of St Frumentius took place probably just before the year 340 or just after 346 (or perhaps c. 355-356). He went back to Aksum and gained numbers to the faith by his preaching and miracles; the two royal brothers are said to have themselves received baptism. But the conversion even of the Aksumite kingdom was far from completed during the lifetime of St Frumentius. After his death he was called Abuna, 'Our father', and Aba salama, 'Father of peace', and abuna is still the title of the primate of the Church of Ethiopia.

Articles taken from Catholic Encyclopedia, Butler's Lives of the Saints, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Church and L'Osservatore Romano.

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