- Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 -
I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.
Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net,
or birds are taken in a snare,
so men are trapped by evil times
that fall unexpectedly upon them.
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January 10th - Saint William, Archbishop of Bourges
(d. 1209)
William Berruyer, of the illustrious family of the ancient Counts of
Nevers,
was educated by Peter the Hermit, Archdeacon of Soissons, his maternal
uncle. From his early childhood Saint William learned to despise the folly
and emptiness of the world, to abhor its pleasures, and to tremble at its
dangers. His only delight was in exercises of piety and his studies, with
which he employed his whole time in an untiring application.
Saint William was made a canon, an ecclesiastic attached to a cathedral
church, first at Soissons and afterwards in Paris; but he soon resolved to
abandon the world and retired into the solitude of Grandmont, where he
lived
with great regularity in that austere Order. Finally he joined the
Cistercians, flouri****ng with sanctity at the time, and later was chosen
to
be Prior of the Abbey of Pontigny, then made Abbot of Challis.
On the death of Henri de Sully, Archbishop of Bourges, William was chosen
to
succeed him. The announcement of this new dignity which had fallen on him
overwhelmed him with grief, and he would not have accepted the office had
not the Pope and his own Cistercian General, the Abbot of Citeaux,
commanded
him to do so. His first care in his new position was to conform his life
to
the most perfect rules of sanctity. He redoubled all his austerities,
saying
it was incumbent on him now to do penance for others as well as for
himself.
He always wore a hair ****rt under his religious habit, and never added to
his clothing in winter or diminished it in summer; he never ate any flesh
meat, though he had it at his table for guests.
When he drew near his end, he was, at his request, laid on ashes in his
hair
cloth, and in this posture expired on the 10th of January, 1209. While
this
holy bishop was laid out for veneration, an infirm young boy who wanted to
venerate him, but had to be carried to the church by his mother, was
completely cured of his infirmities, and ran about proclaiming the
miracle.
The stone of his tomb in the Cathedral Church of Bourges cured mortal
wounds
and illnesses and delivered possessed persons; the deaf and dumb, the
blind,
the mentally ill became sound. So many miracles occurred there that the
monks could not record them all, and he was canonized nine years after his
death, in 1218, by Pope Honorius III.
Reflection. The champions of faith prove the truth of their teaching no
less
forcefully by the holiness of their lives than by the power of their
arguments. Never forget that to convert others we must first see to our
own
soul.
Sources: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on
Butler's Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea
(Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894); Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des
Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 1.
Saint Quote:
"We believe in one only Catholic Church, the apostolical, which cannot be
destroyed even though all the world were to take counsel to fight against
it, and which gains the victory over all the impious attacks of the
heterodox; for we are emboldened by the words of its Master, 'Be of good
cheer, I have overcome the world' ."
-Alexandria of Alexander,on the Arian heresy,(A.D. 328)
Bible Quote
23 I know, O Lord, that the way of a man is not his: neither is it in a
man
to walk, and to direct his steps. (Jeremias 10:23)
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HAIL THOU STAR OF OCEAN
Hail thou star of ocean ****tal of the sky
Ever virgin Mother Of the Lord Most High
O! by Gabriel's Ave Uttered long ago,
Eva's name reversing, Established peace below
Break the captives' fetters, Light on blindness pour,
All our ills expelling, Every bliss implore
Show thyself a Mother, Offer Him our sighs,
Who for us incarnate Did not thee despise
Virgin of all virgins To thy shelter take us,
Gentlest of the gentle Chaste and gentle make us
Still, as on we journey, Help our weak endeavor,
Till with thee and Jesus We rejoice forever
Through the highest heaven, To the almighty Three
Father, Son, and Spirit, One same glory be. Amen.
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