February 13, 2014
Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time
When Solomon was old his wives had turned his heart to strange gods,
and his heart was not entirely with the LORD, his God,
as the heart of his father David had been.
By adoring Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians,
and Milcom, the idol of the Ammonites,
Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD;
he did not follow him unreservedly as his father David had done.
Solomon then built a high place to Chemosh, the idol of Moab,
and to Molech, the idol of the Ammonites,
on the hill opposite Jerusalem.
He did the same for all his foreign wives
who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
The LORD, therefore, became angry with Solomon,
because his heart was turned away from the LORD, the God of Israel,
who had appeared to him twice
(for though the LORD had forbidden him
this very act of following strange gods,
Solomon had not obeyed him).
So the LORD said to Solomon: “Since this is what you want,
and you have not kept my covenant and my statutes
which I enjoined on you,
I will deprive you of the kingdom and give it to your servant.
I will not do this during your lifetime, however,
for the sake of your father David;
it is your son whom I will deprive.
Nor will I take away the whole kingdom.
I will leave your son one tribe for the sake of my servant David
and of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”
R. (4a) Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Blessed are they who observe what is right,
who do always what is just.
Remember us, O LORD, as you favor your people;
visit us with your saving help.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
But they mingled with the nations
and learned their works.
They served their idols,
which became a snare for them.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
They sacrificed their sons
and their daughters to demons.
And the LORD grew angry with his people,
and abhorred his inheritance.
R. Remember us, O Lord, as you favor your people.
Jesus went to the district of Tyre.
He entered a house and wanted no one to know about it,
but he could not escape notice.
Soon a woman whose daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him.
She came and fell at his feet.
The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth,
and she begged him to drive the demon out of her daughter.
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first.
For it is not right to take the food of the children
and throw it to the dogs.”
She replied and said to him,
“Lord, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s scraps.”
Then he said to her, “For saying this, you may go.
The demon has gone out of your daughter.”
When the woman went home, she found the child lying in bed
and the demon gone.
Catholic Culture
Collect: Keep your family safe, O Lord, with unfailing care, that, relying solely on the hope of heavenly grace, they may be defended always by your protection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.
o Scalloped Ham and Potatoes
o Habits of Prayer in the Family
o The Canticle of the Passion
o A Parent's Blueprint for Making Youth Holy | Rev. Daniel Egan S.A.
o Women as Guardians of Purity | Alice von Hildebrand
· Ordinary Time: February 13th
· Thursday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time
Old Calendar: St. Catherine de Ricci, virgin (Hist)
Historically today is the feast of St. Catherine de Ricci a native of Florence, Italy, who became a Dominican tertiary in 1535 and eventually filled the offices of novice-mistress and prioress. She was famous for her ecstasies in which she beheld and enacted the scenes of our Lord's passion. It is said that she met St. Philip Neri, in a vision who was still alive in Rome. Three future popes were among the thousands who flocked to her convent to ask her prayers.
St. Catherine de Ricci
The early testimony to St. Catherine's sanctity is quite striking. Her biography was written by F. Seraphin Razzi, a Dominican friar, who knew her, and who was fifty-eight years old when she died. The nuns of her monastery gave an ample testimony that this account was conformable partly to what they knew of her, and partly to manuscript memorials left by her confessor and others concerning her. Printed in Lucca in 1594, it is therefore considered highly reliable. Her life was again compiled by F. Philip Guidi, confessor to the saint and to the Duchess of Urbino, and printed at Florence in 1622. Fathers Michael Pio and John Lopez, of the same order, have given abstracts of her life. Since St. Catherine died in 1589, we can see how quickly the story of her life was told.
The Ricci are an ancient family, which still subsists in a flourishing condition in Tuscany. Peter de Ricci, the father of our saint, was married to Catherine Bonza, a lady of suitable birth. The saint was born at Florence in 1522, and called at her baptism Alexandrina, but she took the name of Catherine at her religious profession. Having lost her mother in her infancy, she was formed to virtue by a very pious godmother, and whenever she was missing she was always to be found on her knees in some secret part of the house.
When she was between six and seven years old, her father placed her in the Convent of Monticelli, near the gates of Florence, where her aunt, Louisa de Ricci, was a nun. This place was to her a paradise: at a distance from the noise and tumult of the world, she served God without impediment or distraction
After some years her father took her home. She continued her usual exercises in the world as much as she was able; but the interruptions and dissipation, inseparable from her station, gave her so much uneasiness that, with the consent of her father, which she obtained, though with great difficulty, in the year 1535, the fourteenth of her age, she received the religious veil in the convent of Dominicanesses at Prat, in Tuscany, to which her uncle, F. Timothy de Ricci, was director.
God, in the merciful design to make her the spouse of his crucified Son, and to imprint in her soul dispositions conformable to His, was pleased to exercise her patience by rigorous trials. For two years she suffered inexpressible pains under a complication of violent distempers, which remedies themselves served only to increase. These sufferings she sanctified by the interior dispositions with which she bore them, and which she nourished principally by assiduous meditation on the passion of Christ, in which she found an incredible relish and a solid comfort and joy. After the recovery of her health, which seemed miraculous, she studied more perfectly to die to her senses, and to advance in a penitential life and spirit, in which God had begun to conduct her, by practicing the greatest austerities which were compatible with the obedience she had professed; she fasted two or three days a week on bread and water, and sometimes passed the whole day without taking any nourishment, and chastised her body with disciplines and a sharp iron chain which she wore next her skin.
Her obedience, humility, and meekness were still more admirable than her spirit of penance. The least shadow of distinction or commendation gave her inexpressible uneasiness and confusion, and she would have rejoiced to be able to lie hid in the center of the earth, in order to be entirely unknown to and blotted out of the hearts of all mankind, such were the sentiments of annihilation and contempt of herself in which she constantly lived. It was by profound humility and perfect interior self-denial that she learned to vanquish in her heart the sentiments or life of the first Adam—that is, of corruption, sin, and inordinate self-love. But this victory over herself, and purgation of her affections, was completed by a perfect spirit of prayer; for by the union of her soul with God, and the establishment of the absolute reign of his love in her heart, she was dead to and disengaged from all earthly things. And in one act of sublime prayer she advanced more than by a hundred exterior practices in the purity and ardor of her desire to do constantly what was most agreeable to God, to lose no occasion of practicing every heroic virtue, and of vigorously resisting all that was evil. Prayer, holy meditation, and contemplation were the means by which God imprinted in her soul sublime ideas of his heavenly truths, the strongest and most tender sentiments of all virtues, and the most burning desire to give all to God, with an incredible relish and affection for suffering contempt and poverty for Christ. What she chiefly labored to obtain, by meditating on his life and sufferings, and what she most earnestly asked of him, was that he would be pleased, in his mercy, to purge her affections of all poison of the inordinate love of creatures, and engrave in her his most holy and divine image, both exterior and interior–that is to say, both in her conversation and her affections, that so she might be animated, and might think, speak, and act by his most Holy Spirit.
The saint was chosen, very young, first, mistress of the novices, then sub-prioress, and, in the twenty-fifth year of her age, was appointed perpetual prioress. The reputation of her extraordinary sanctity and prudence drew her many visits from a great number of bishops, princes, and cardinals-among others, of Cervini, Alexander of Medicis, and Aldobrandini, who all three were afterwards raised to St. Peter's chair, under the names of Marcellus II, Clement VIII, and Leo XI.
Something like what St. Austin relates of St. John of Egypt happened to St. Philip Neri and St. Catherine of Ricci. For having some time entertained together a commerce of letters, to satisfy their mutual desire of seeing each other, whilst he was detained at Rome she appeared to him in a vision, and they conversed together a considerable time, each doubtless being in a rapture. This St. Philip Neri, though most circumspect in giving credit to or in publishing visions, declared, saying that Catherine de Ricci, whilst living, had appeared to him in vision, as his disciple Galloni assures us in his life.1 And the continuators of Bollandus inform us that this was confirmed by the oaths of five witnesses.2 Bacci, in his life of St. Philip, mentions the same thing, and Pope Gregory XV, in his bull for the canonization of St. Philip Neri, affirms that whilst this saint lived at Rome he conversed a considerable time with Catherine of Ricci, a nun, who was then at Prat, in Tuscany.3
Most wonderful were the raptures of St. Catherine in meditating on the passion of Christ, which was her daily exercise, but to which she totally devoted herself every week from Thursday noon to three o'clock in the afternoon on Friday. After a long illness she passed from this mortal life to everlasting bliss and the possession of the object of all her desires, on the feast of the Purification of our Lady, on the 2nd of February, in 1589, the sixty-seventh year of her age. The ceremony of her beatification was performed by Clement XII in 1732, and that of her canonization by Benedict XIV in 1746. Her festival is deferred to the 13th of February.
1 Gallon. apud Contin Bolland. Acta Sanctorum, Maii, t. 6, p. 503, col. 2, n. 146.
2 Ibid. p. 504, col. 2.
3 In Bullar. Cherubini, t. 4, p. 8.
— Excerpted from Vol. II of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, & Company
Patron: Against illness; sick people
Things to Do:
24. And from thence he arose, and sent into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid.
25. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet:
26. The woman was a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.
27. But Jesus said to her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.
28. And she answered and said to him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.
29. And he said unto her, For this saying go your way; the devil is gone out of your daughter.
30. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.
THEOPHYL. After that the Lord had finished His teaching concerning food, seeing that the Jews wore incredulous, He enters into the country of the Gentiles, for the Jews being unfaithful, salvation turns itself to the Gentiles; wherefore it is said, And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon.
PSEUD-CHRYS. Tyre and Sidon were places of the Canaanites, therefore the Lord comes to them, not as to His own, but as to men, who had nothing in common with the fathers to whom the promise was made. And therefore He comes in such a way, that His coming should not be known to the Tyrians and Sidonians. Wherefore it continues: And entered into a house, and would have no man know it. For the time had not come for His dwelling with the Gentiles and bringing them to the faith, for this was not to be, till after His cross and resurrection.
THEOPHYL. Or else His reason for coming in secret was that the Jews should not find occasion of blame against Him, as if He bad passed over to the unclean Gentiles. It goes on, But he could not be hid.
PSEUDO-AUG. But if He wished to do so and could not, it appears as if His will was impotent; it is not possible however that our Savior's will should not be fulfilled, nor can He will a thing, which He knows ought not be. Therefore when a thing has taken place, it may be asserted that He has willed it. But we should observe that this happened amongst the Gentiles, to whom it was not time to preach; nevertheless not to receive them, when they came to the faith of their own accord, would have been to grudge them the faith. So then it came to pass that the Lord was not made known by His disciples; others, however, who had seen Him entering the house, recognized Him, and it began to be known that He was there. His will therefore was that He should not be proclaimed by His own disciples, but that others should come to seek Him, and so it took place.
BEDE; Having entered also into the house, He commanded His disciples not to betray who He was to any one in this unknown region, that they, on whom He had bestowed the grace of healing, might learn by His example, as far as they could, to shrink from the glory of human praise in the showing forth of their miracles; yet they were not to cease from the pious work of virtue, when either the faith of the good justly deserved that miracles should be done, or the unfaithfulness of the wicked might necessarily compel them. For He Himself made known His entry into that place to the Gentile woman, and to whomsoever lie would.
PSEUDO-AUG. Lastly, the Canaanitish woman came in to Him, on hearing of Him; if she had not first submitted herself to the God of the Jews, she would not have obtained their benefit. Concerning her it continues: For a woman , whose daughter had an unclean spirit, as soon as she had heard of him, came in and fell at his feet.
PSEUD-CHRYS. Now by this the Lord wished to show His disciples that He opened the door of faith even to the Gentiles, wherefore also the nation of the woman is described when it is added, The woman was a Gentile, a Syrophenician by nation, that is, from Syria of Phaenice. It goes on: And she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter.
AUG. It appears however, that some question about a discrepancy may be raised, because it is said that the Lord was in the house when the woman came to her, asking about her daughter. When, however, Matthew says that His disciples had suggested to Him, Send her away, for she cries after us, he appears to imply nothing less than that the woman uttered supplicating cries after the Lord, as He walked. How then do we infer that she was in the house, except by gathering it from Mark, who says that she came in to Jesus, after having before said that He was in the house? But Matthew in that he says, He answered her not a word, gave its to understand that He went out, during that silence, from the house; thus too the other events are connected together, so that they now in no way disagree.
It continues; But He said unto her, Let the children be first filled.
BEDE; The time will come when even you who are Gentiles will obtain salvation; but it is right that first the Jews who deservedly are wont to he called by the name of children of God's ancient election, should be refreshed with heavenly bread, and that so at length, the food of life should be ministered to the Gentiles. There follows: For it is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to the dogs.
PSEUD-CHRYS. These words He uttered not that there is in Him a deficiency of virtue, to prevent His ministering to all, but because His benefit, if ministered to both Jews and Gentiles who had no communication with each other, might he a cause of jealousy.
THEOPHYL. He calls the Gentiles dogs, as being thought wicked by the Jews; and He means by bread the benefit which the Lord promised to the children, that is, to the Jews. The sense therefore is, that it is not right for the Gentiles first to be partakers of the benefit, promised principally to the Jews. The reason, therefore, why the Lord does not immediately hear, but delays His grace, is, that He may also show that the faith of the woman was firm, and that we may learn not at once to grow weary in prayer, but to continue earnest till we obtain.
PSEUD-CHRYS. In like manner also to show the Jews that He did not confer healing on foreigners in the same degree as to them, and that by the discovery of the woman's faith, the faithfulness of the Jews might be the more laid bare. For the woman did not take it in, but with much reverence assented to what the Lord had said. Wherefore it goes on, And she answered and said unto him, Truth, Lord, but the dogs under the table eat of the children's crumbs.
THEOPHYL. As if she had said, The Jews have the whole of that bread which comes down from heaven, and you benefit also; I ask for the crumbs, that is, a small portion of the benefit.
PSEUD-CHRYS. Her placing herself therefore in the rank of dogs is a mark of her reverence; as if she said, I hold it as a favor to be even in the position of a dog, and to eat not from another table but from that of the Master himself.
THEOPHYL. Because therefore the woman answered with much wisdom, she obtained what she wanted; wherefore there follows, And he said unto her, &c. He said not, My virtue has made you whole, but for this saying, that is, for your faith, which is shown by this saying, go your way, the devil is gone out of your daughter.
It goes on, And when she was come into her house, she found her daughter laid upon the bed, and the devil gone out.
BEDE; On account then of the humble and faithful saying of her mother, the devil left the daughter; here is given a precedent for catechizing and baptizing infants, seeing that by the faith and the confession of the parents, infants are freed in baptism from the devil, though they can neither have knowledge in themselves, or do either good or evil.
PSEUDO-JEROME; Mystically however the Gentile woman, who prays for her daughter, is our mother the Church of Rome. Her daughter afflicted with a devil, is the barbarian western race, which by faith has been turned from a dog into a sheep. She desires to take the crumbs of spiritual understanding, not the unbroken bread of the letter.
THEOPHYL. The soul of each of us also, when he falls into sin, becomes a woman; and this soul has a daughter who is sick, that is, evil actions; this daughter again has a devil, for evil actions arise from devils. Again, sinners are called dogs, being filled with uncleanness. For which reason we are not worthy to receive the bread of God, or to be made partakers of the immaculate mysteries of God; if however in humility, knowing ourselves to be dogs, we confess our sins, then the daughter, that is, our evil life, shall be healed.
Catena Aurea Mark 7
