May Saints and Feasts

Feastday: May 1

It has been rightly said that a special quality of Joseph is his hiddenness. He remains often in the background. We have no words from him recorded in the Gospels, even as he obediently responds to the dream about Mary’s divine conception of Christ. He is not even mentioned after the Finding in the Temple. It is possible that the public ministry of Jesus began after his death. We do not know when or where he died, nor where he is buried. Yet he has recently been emphasized in our Eucharistic prayer, and devotion to him remains strong. The feast of Joseph the Worker was instituted by Pope Pius XII in 1955, to focus workers on the meaning of work proper to the Christian faith.

Linocut by Ade Bethune, oblate

Feastday: May 2

Athanasius is one of the most influential theologians in the history of the church. He played a significant role at Council of Nicea in 325AD, a council critical in formulating an orthodox Christology, refuting Arianism. Athanasius thus has placed his stamp on one of our most central statements of faith, the Nicene Creed, which we still profess at Mass. He stood in opposition to widespread Arianism, which did not fully recognize divinity of Christ – the  “consubstantial” Son of God. The saint had extended contact with monastic life, particularly in the various exiles imposed on him due to Arian persecutions. He also was the author of the highly popular and influential biography of Anthony the Great.

Feastday: May 4

Many of the faithful of England and Wales, particularly clergy and including many Benedictine monks, were persecuted and martyred for their faith, particularly from 1535-1679. Among the Benedictines is John Roberts, a Welshman who was the first prior of the monastery at Douai in France, which subsequently formed the basis of the community at Downside. Another was Ambrose Edward Barlow, canonized in 1970 by Paul VI with a group of Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.  Among this number is also found Saint John Houghton, the first martyr of the persecution under Henry VIII, and the first martyr of the Carthusian order.

Feastday: May 8

The abbeys of Portsmouth and Saint Louis share an important present and long-standing relationship. They also share a patroness in Our Lady, though under different titles. While Portsmouth appeals to Mary as "Queen of Peace," Saint Louis has chosen her patronage as "Mother and Mediatrix of Grace."  May 8 marks this patronal feast for Saint Louis Abbey, and so this week we think of her in this light. In 2009, Abbot Thomas Frerking offered a beautiful homily at the School Mass celebrating the feast, addressing the meaning of this title for Mary: "Grace is the divine life in our souls. In this life, it elevates us infinitely above our natural human life and in fact recreates us and makes us truly sons and daughters of God the Father, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus, temples of the Holy Spirit; in the next life, it flowers into the life of glory, when we shall see God and live forever with God and our brothers and sisters in God in heaven… the grace, the divine life, in our souls, since it is the grace, the divine life of Jesus himself, once existed in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was brought forth by her. She is, then, the Mother of Grace, and the mother of grace within us…  By constantly interceding with, praying to, her Son Jesus for us, constantly asking him to give us more graces, greater shares in the divine life... she is the Mediatrix of Grace, that is, the one who constantly prays to her Son, intercedes with him, on our behalf that he might give us more grace, more gifts of salvation." He directed that, "…then, always, constantly, we should contemplate Our Mother Mary in all her radiant beauty, in all her mercy and fairest love. For, as the highest of all creatures, she of all creatures most manifests who her Son is." We pray for the communities of Saint Louis and Portsmouth, in gratitude for this shared fellowship and center of intercession – Mediatrix of Peace! Queen of Grace! – that she may continue to lead us to the life of her Son.

(You can find Abbot Thomas' full homily below)

Statue of Mary and Infant Jesus,
Saint Louis Abbey
(image: Paul Zalonski)

Feastday: May 11

Odo, Maeiul, Odilo, Hugh, and Peter the Venerable

The abbey of Cluny in France (northwest of Lyons) became a center for the monastic reform and spiritual renewal in the 10th and 11th centuries. It was known for a more strict and fervent adherence to the Rule of Saint Benedict. It was strengthened in its piety and its influence by a series of abbots known for their sanctity, producing an extraordinary and sutained flourishing of Bendictine life.

Feastday: May 14

Matthias is unique among the twelve apostles, in being selected in the physical absence of our Lord, but selected by the Church under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He replaced Judas Iscariot, to complete the number of the apostles at twelve. We know little more of Matthias, who is not mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament - though to have been so selected, he must have been close to the first believers, and probably to our Lord himself,  from the earliest days.

Feastday: May 15

Pachomius is considered the founder of cenobitic monasticism, establishing a rule for the community life of monks. He in fact lived also as a hermit for many years, later developing a community life: "His great accomplishment was to reconcile this desire for austere perfection with an openness to fulfilling the mundane requirements of community life as an expression of Christian love and service." (Catholic News Agency). His status and importance in monastic history has led him to be entitled, "Pachomius the Great."

Feastday: May 19

Dunstan served as Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London, and Archbishop of Canterbury. Ethelwold went from Glastonbury Abbey to become abbot of Abingdon Abbey, and then serve as Bishop of Winchester. Oswald was a Dane whose uncle had been Archbishop of Canterbury. He came to England in his youth. Oswald established and was involved in the reform of several abbeys, and became Bishop of Worcester, adding later the Archbishopric of York. The three were significant and highly influential reformers of Benedictine houses and of the Christian faith in England in the 10th century.

Remains of Ramsey Abbey Gatehouse, Cambridgeshire. Ramsey Abbey was founded by St. Oswald in 969.

Thursday, 6th Week of Easter

From Pope Saint John Paul II

(3) We pause before the glorious Christ of the Ascension to contemplate the presence of the whole Trinity. We know that Christian art, in the so-called Trinitas in cruce, has often depicted the crucified Christ with the Father leaning over him as if in an embrace, while the dove of the Holy Spirit hovers between them (for example, Masaccio in the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence). In this way the Cross is a unifying symbol that joins humanity and divinity, death and life, suffering and glory. In a similar way we can glimpse the presence of the three divine Persons in the Ascension scene. Luke, on the last page of his Gospel, before presenting the Risen One who, as the priest of the New Covenant, blesses his disciples and is lifted up from the earth to be taken into heavenly glory (cf. Lk 24:50-52), recalls his farewell discourse to the Apostles. In it we see above all the saving plan of the Father, who in the Scriptures had foretold the Death and Resurrection of the Son, the source of forgiveness and liberation (cf. Lk 24:45-47). (4) But in those same words of the Risen One we also glimpse the Holy Spirit, whose presence will be the source of strength and apostolic witness: "I send the promise of my Father upon you; but stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high" (Lk 24:49). If in John's Gospel the Paraclete is promised by Christ, for Luke the gift of the Spirit is also part of a promise made by the Father himself. The whole Trinity is therefore present at the moment when the time of the Church begins. This is what Luke emphasizes in the second account of Christ's Ascension, in the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus, in fact, exhorts his disciples "to wait for the promise of the Father", that is, to "be baptized with the Holy Spirit", at Pentecost which is now imminent (cf. Acts 1:4-5). (5) The Ascension, then, is a Trinitarian epiphany which indicates the goal to which personal and universal history is hastening. Even if our mortal body dissolves into the dust of the earth, our whole redeemed self is directed on high to God, following Christ as our guide.

Feastday: May 27

Augustine of Canterbury is known as the "Apostle of Britain," and Canterbury remains the center of the Anglican church. A member of the monastic community of Gregory the Great, the pontiff called on him to lead a missionary venture to the Angles, of whom he is said to have quipped that their youth appeared to be "non angli, sed angeli" (not Angles, but angels!) Despite an initial false start in the venture, with Augustine returning to Rome due to fear of violence, the group was reassured by Gregory, and the mission proceeded in 596, ultimately to great success. Augustine founded a monastery of Peter and Paul, later know as Saint Augustine's Abbey, in Canterbury. Augustine died in 604, just eight years after beginning his mission, having greatly influenced the establishment of Christianity in England.