Aug. 11th, Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, Virgin and Martyrs.

Aug. 11^th, Saints Tiburtius and Susanna, Virgin and Martyrs.

This Tiburtius is celebrated in the inscription which Pope Saint Damasus placed at the traditional site of his death and burial, which same is usually set as the year 288, on the Lavican Way, to wit : when the sword of persecution pierced the bosom of our Mother the church, this noble Martyr, despising the command of the temporal prince, blissfully followed Christ to the heavenly kingdom ; which that merited for thee, O gracious Martyr, beloved of God, the honours of the sacred liturgy, and undying praise. And old story hath it that he was converted to Christianity by the soldier Sebastian, and for his boldness in proclaiming Christ was smitten with the sword at the Third Milestone on the Lavican Road, where he was buried by the Christians. On the same day is commemorated the noble maiden Susanna who, according to the Martyrology of saint Jerome, was beheaded for Christ about the year 295. The story told of her in later days was that she refused the offer of marriage of Galerius Maximianus, son to the Emperor Diocletian, because she had made a vow of her virginity to God, and after divers torments wherewith her holy resolution was tried, was smitten with the sword, in her own house, by order of the Emperor, and so passed to heaven to receive the double reward of virginity and martyrdom.

Collect:

O Lord, whomever failest to look down in mercy on them on whom thou bestowest the succour of thy Saints : grant, we pray thee, that the intercession of thy holy Martyrs, Tiburtius and Susanna, may evermore avail to comfort and defend us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Aug. 10th, Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr.

Aug. 10^th, Saint Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr.
No Martyr of the Church hath a name more famous than Lawrence, in whose praise the most illustrious of the Latin Fathers have written, and in whose triumph the universal Church hath ever delighted to join. Spain hath claimed him as he son. He was one of the seven Deacons of the Church in Rome during the Popedom of Saint Sixtus II. These Levites bore an important office, namely, to car for the sacred vessels and church-property ; to succour, with the alms entrusted to them, all the Christian poor and needy, of whom there were very many ; and to assist the Pope in the administration of the Sacraments, and in offering the holy Sacrifice. In 257 the Emperor Valerian published an edict which decreed that all Christian leaders, the clergy in particular, should be put to death, so that the flock might be scattered through the destruction of its shepherds. In the following year, on August 6^th, holy Sixtus was martyred, and four days thereafter the Archdeacon Lawrence followed his spiritual father in martyrdom. And the names of them both have had, for centuries, grateful mention the Gregorian Canon. The poet Prudentius, Bishop Saint Ambr9se, Pope Saint Damasus , and other early writers, who made use of the oral traditions of their days, wrote of the holy Archdeacon in such wise as to give the form to his liturgical Office which it still hath. According to Prudentius, the blessed Martyr in his death agony offered the sacrifice of himself to God in impetration for the triumph of Christianity in pagan Rome. And when this became an accomplished fact, it was regarded as a victory which Lawrence had won for Christ ; and his day therefore was the chief Saint’s Day after that of Saints Peter and Paul. Hence, in the Lateran palace, since early times, the Pontifical Chapel hath been nemed for holy Lawrence ; and there, every day after Mass the Thanksgiving, now to be found in the Missal, was recited with the Collect of Saint Lawrence as a memorial to him.

COLLECT.

O LORD, who knowest us to be sore beset by reason of our sins: mercifully grant that, like as thou didst enable thy blessed servant Lawrence to overcome the fires of his torments; so we may by thy grace assuage the flames of our temptations. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

August 5th, Our Lady of the Snows

Our Lady of the Snows

This feast is in commemoration of the first church to be dedicated in Rome under the invocation of our Lady, and the third of those Christian temples in the City known as Patriarchal Basilicas. The origin of this building, according to an old story, popular in ancient times, was as followeth. In the middle of the fourth century, during the pontificate of Pope Liberius, there lived at Rome a certain nobleman named John, and a noble lady his wife, who had no children to whom to leave their substance, and who vowed that they would make the holy Virgin Mother of God their heiress. And earnestly they besought her in some way to make known to them upon what godly work she would have their money spent. And thereupon (so saith the story) the blessed Virgin graciously listened to the heart-felt earnestness of their prayers, and by a wondrous sign assured them of her will.


On the fifth day of August, which is the time when the heat of summer waxeth greatest in Rome, a part of the Esquiline Hill was covered at night with snow. And some scholars think that such a strange and unseasonable fall of snow did take place, and so gave rise to the old tale, which goeth on to say on this same night the Mother of God appeared in a dream to John and his wife separately, and told them that on that spot, which in the morning they could see clad in snow, they should build a church, to be dedicated under the name of the Virgin Mary, for that this was the way in which she chose that they should make her their heiress. Then John went and told it to Pope Liberius, who declared that he also had been visited by a like dream.

Therefore Pope Liberius went in a solemn procession of clergy and people to the snow-clad hill, and traced upon that spot the plan of the church, which same was afterwards built with the money of John and his wife. And later it was rebuilt by Saint Pope Sixtus III. At the beginning it was called by divers names, sometimes the Liberian Basilica, sometimes the Church of Saint Mary-at-the-Manger (because of the presence there of a relick revered as the Manger in which our infant Lord lay), and so on. Howbeit, since there are in Rome many churches called after the holy Virgin Mary, and this church, both in age and dignity, doth excel them all, it is commonly called St. Mary Major. And the memory of the dedication there of is kept every year by this feast-day that taketh name from the strange fall of snow which is said to have taken place on this day.


Collect
O Lord God Almighty, we beseech thee to keep us thy servants both outwardly in our bodies and inwardly in our souls : that by the glorious intercession of blessed Mary Ever-Virgin, we may be defended from our present heaviness and attain in the end to everlasting gladness. Through Jesus Christ, thy Son our Lord, who livest and reignest with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.