The Feasts of St Lawrence

Since the earliest times, St Lawrence has been venerated as a patron Saint of the city of Rome, along with Ss Peter and Paul, and his feast day has always been one of the most important in the ecclesiastical year. A remarkable number of Roman churches are dedicated to him, several more, in fact, than are dedicated to either of the Apostolic founders of the Church in the Eternal City. Among them are the Patriarchal Basilica of St Lawrence outside-the-Walls, where he is buried, and three of the most ancient parishes in the historical center of the city: San Lorenzo in Panisperna, (the reputed site of his martyrdom), San Lorenzo in Lucina, and San Lorenzo in Damaso. These four churches are frequently found on the list of station churches from Septuagesima Sunday to Low Sunday, in proximity to stational observances in honor of Ss Peter and Paul. San Lorenzo in Miranda was one of the first major churches to be built in the heart of the ancient city’s political and religious life, the Roman Forum; it sits within the portico of the temple of the divinized Emperor Antoninus Pius and his wife Faustina, on the steps of which the great martyr was said to have been tried and condemned.

The Basilica of Saint Lawrence outside-the-Walls, in an eighteenth century engraving by Giuseppe Vasi.

Two private chapels of the popes are also dedicated to him, San Lorenzo ‘in Palatio’ at the Lateran, and the Niccoline Chapel at the Vatican. The former was built in the mid-8th century, and after various restorations and embellishments, became a papal chapel about three centuries later; rebuilt by Nicholas III (1277-80), it now survives only in part within a building known as the Scala Sancta, across the street from the pope’s cathedral. The chapel’s nickname ‘Sancta Sanctorum – the Holy of Holies’, does not come from its status as a papal chapel, but from the amazing collection of relics formerly kept therein: among them, a piece of the grill on which St Lawrence was roasted alive, and some parts of his body.

In the 330-year period from 1048 to 1378, the popes spent roughly 250 years outside of Rome; after so long a period of neglect and partial abandonment, and two massive fires in the 14th century, most of the vast complex of buildings around the Lateran was in no state to be lived in. The popes therefore took up residence at the Vatican, and have been there ever since. In 1447, Nicholas V built a new chapel within the Vatican, and commissioned the Dominican painter Fra Angelico to paint the walls with stories of the two deacon martyrs, St Stephen and St Lawrence, to whom the chapel is jointly dedicated.

The Martyrdom of Saint Stephen, on the left wall of the Chapel of Nicholas V, by Fra Angelico. The martyrdom of Saint Lawrence is directly beneath it, but the part that shows Lawrence on the grill in the lower right hand corner is ruined.

The association of Ss Stephen and Lawrence, naturally suggested by the parallels between their lives and deaths, figures prominently in art and liturgy in Rome. Both were deacons under the authority of the pope in their respective cities, Stephen in Jerusalem under St Peter, and Lawrence in Rome under St Sixtus II, the most venerated of the early popes martyred after Peter. Both were put in charge of the Church’s charitable activities by the popes whom they served, and both were eloquent preachers of the Christian faith. Both suffered terrible martyrdoms, Stephen by stoning, as recounted in the Acts of the Apostles, while Lawrence was roasted alive.

In the office of St Stephen, the third antiphon of Lauds (partially quoting Psalm 62, with which it is sung), reads “Adhaesit anima mea post te, quia caro mea lapidata est pro te, Deus meus. – My soul hath stuck close to Thee, because my flesh was stoned for Thy sake, my God.” In the office of St Lawrence, this same antiphon is changed to “Adhaesit anima mea post te, quia caro mea igne cremata est pro te, Deus meus. – My soul hath stuck close to Thee, because my flesh was burnt for Thy sake, my God.” The artistic pairing of the two done so beautifully by Fra Angelico is also found twice in the Sancta Sanctorum which the Niccoline Chapel replaced, in the mosaics over the altar and in the frescoes that adorn its walls.

St Lawrence in the 11th century mosaics over the altar of the Sancta Sanctorum. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

The martyrdom of St Lawrence in the late 13th-century frescoes on the walls of the Sancta Sanctorum. The Emperor Decius appears on the left; the medieval accounts of St. Lawrence usually place his death in the persecution of Decius in 250-51, rather than that of Valerian in 257-58.

On August 3rd, a two-week long cycle of feasts associated with St Lawrence begins with the Finding of St Stephen, a feast of the universal calendar of the Roman Rite until 1960. The body of St Stephen was discovered in the year 415, along with those of Gamaliel, his son Abibas, and Nicodemus, when Gamaliel appeared to Lucian, a priest of Jerusalem, and revealed the place of their collective burial. Relics of Stephen were brought to many places throughout the world; in the final book of The City of God, St Augustine describes a number of miracles that took place when a part of them came to Africa, including the raising from the dead of six people. Another portion of them was brought to Rome in the reign of Pope Pelagius II (579-90), who placed them in the basilica of St Lawrence outside-the-Walls; the Golden Legend tells the story that when the pope went to lay them in Lawrence’s tomb, the Roman martyr moved to one side to make room for his fellow Levite. The early 13th-century porch still has extensive remains of original frescoes of that period, illustrating the history of the two great deacon martyrs; sadly, these were already in poor condition when the church was hit with a bomb during World War II, damaging them further.

The relics of St Stephen being laid to rest in the tomb of St Lawrence, by Lorenzo di Niccolò, ca. 1412.; from the Brooklyn Museum.

On August 6th occurs the feast of St Sixtus II, who was martyred at the catacomb of Callixtus, along with six of the seven deacons of the church of Rome, the seventh being Lawrence. When the edict of persecution was issued by the Emperor Valerian in the year 257, the holy Pope ordered Lawrence to distribute all of the wealth of the church to the poor of the city. Having done so, Lawrence then saw Sixtus being led to martyrdom and, as told by St Ambrose, addressed him thus: “Whither goest thou without thy son, father? Whither, holy priest, dost thou hasten without thy deacon? Never wast thou want to offer sacrifice without thy minister. What then hath displeased thee in me, father? Hast thou found me ignoble? Make proof surely whether thou didst choose a worthy minister. Dost thou deny a share in thy blood to one to whom thou didst entrust the consecration of the Lord’s blood, and a share in the celebration of the sacraments?... Abraham offered his son, Peter sent Stephen before him…” To this Sixtus replied, “I do not leave or abandon thee, son, but greater contests await thee. We, as elder men, receive the way of an easier combat; a more glorious triumph against the tyrant awaiteth thee as a younger man. Soon shalt thou come after, cease weeping; after three days shalt thou follow me, as levite followeth priest.” (These words from the 39th chapter of St. Ambrose’s De Officiis form the basis of several antiphons and responsories in the office of Saint Lawrence.) Sixtus and his deacons were then beheaded by Roman soldiers.

The martyrdom of St. Sixtus and his deacons, from a 14th century manuscript of the lives of the saints.

St Sixtus is named in the traditional canon of the Mass, immediately after the first three successors of St Peter, followed by two contemporary bishops also martyred under Valerian, Pope Cornelius and St Cyprian of Carthage; St Lawrence is then named first among the non-bishops. A Roman station church near the Lateran is named for Sixtus; it was entrusted to Dominican nuns within the lifetime of St Dominic, who died on his feast day. (The church attached to the Dominicans’ Roman University of St Thomas, also called the Angelicum, is dedicated to both Sixtus and Dominic.) After their founder was canonized in 1234, the Order of Preachers kept his feast on the 5th of August, rather than the day of his death, in deference to the much older feast; this remained their custom until the reforms of the later 16th century, when he was moved back a day to make way for Our Lady of the Snows. Likewise, when Pope Callixtus III instituted the feast of the Transfiguration in 1456, assigning it to the sixth of August, many churches simply ignored it because the day was already occupied by St Sixtus.

The Madonna and Child with Ss Sixtus II and Barbara, generally known as “the Sistine Madonna”, by Raphael Sanzio, 1513-14; commissioned for the monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza, which had relics of both Saints.

The ninth of August, the vigil of St Lawrence, was formerly also kept as the feast of St Romanus, which was reduced to a commemoration in the Tridentine reform. He was said to have been a soldier converted to Christ by the preaching of Lawrence, who baptized him while in jail awaiting execution; Romanus was beheaded at the orders of the Emperor the day before Lawrence was killed.

The tenth is the feast of Lawrence himself, the day of his martyrdom by being roasted alive on a grill; the Byzantine tradition, which devoted the sixth of August to the Transfiguration centuries before the Latin church, commemorates Sixtus, his deacons, and Romanus all together along with Lawrence himself on this day. The story of his martyrdom is told thus in the Roman Breviary of 1529. (Valerian appears as an official under the previous persecuting emperor, Decius.)

And Decius said to the blessed Lawrence: Sacrifice to the gods. And he answered, “I offer myself as a sacrifice to God, unto the odor of sweetness, for a contrite spirit is a sacrifice to God.” But the executioners pressed on in adding the coals, and placing them under the grill… . The blessed Lawrence said, “Learn, wretched Valerian, how great is the might of my Lord, for thy coals bring me refreshment, but to thee eternal torment; for he knows that I denied not his holy name when accused, I confessed Christ when asked, I gave thanks while being roasted.” … And all those present began to marvel, since Decius had commanded him to be roasted alive. But with a most comely countenance he said, “I give thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, who hast deigned to strengthen me.” And lifting up his eyes to Valerian, he said, “Behold wretched man, thou hast roasted one side; turn me over, and eat.” Then giving thanks to the Lord, he said, “I give thee thanks, Lord Jesus Christ, because I have merited to enter thy gates.” And saying this he gave up his spirit.

Saint Lawrence, in the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia at Ravenna, ca. 450. The armoire on the left contains four books labelled with the names of the four Evangelists, a reference to the custom of keeping liturgical books locked in the sacristy in an era when any book was an expensive rarity. The deacon would process to the sacristy when it was time for the Gospel, receive the book from a porter, and process it out, a custom still found in the traditional Ambrosian liturgy.

The thirteenth of August is the feast of St Hippolytus, an officer of the guards in the prison where St Lawrence was held, and also converted by him to Christianity. In the Breviary of 1529, he is said to have taken the body of Lawrence for burial; reproved for this by the Emperor, and threatened with torture and death, he answered “May I merit to be a likeness of the blessed martyr Lawrence, whom you have dared to name with your polluted mouth.” After torture, he was killed by being torn apart by wild horses. The story is normally dismissed as a fabrication by modern scholars on the grounds that this manner of death, reported by the poet Prudentius, is the same as that of the Greek mythological character Hippolytus, the son of Theseus who was dragged to death by the horses of his chariot. It seems not to have occurred to any of the modern skeptics that the persecutors might have been inspired by his name to choose this manner of killing him in imitation of the mythological story.

It is certainly true, however, that there is much confusion about Hippolytus’ history; when Pope St Damasus I (366-84) placed an epitaph upon his tomb recounting his martyrdom, he stated that he himself “relied on purely oral tradition, which he does not guarantee: ‘Damasus tells these things which he has heard; it is Christ who maketh proof of them.’ ” (Loeb Classical Library, The Poems of Prudentius, p. 304, footnote) Prudentius also attests that he personally was healed of various ailments more than once while praying at Hippolytus’ tomb. In the Communicantes of the traditional Ambrosian canon, Sixtus, Lawrence and Hippolytus are named (in that order) immediately after the twelve Apostles, indicating how great the devotion to them was in the see of Milan in antiquity.

The Saint Hippolytus triptych by Dietric Bouts the Elder, ca. 1470.

Like all of the most important feasts, that of St Lawrence was traditionally celebrated with an octave; the octave day has a proper Mass, like the octave of Ss Peter and Paul, sharing only the Epistle and Gospel with the feast day. The introit of this Mass is taken from Psalm 16, which is also said at Matins of St Lawrence: “Thou hast proved my heart, and visited it by night, thou hast tried me by fire: and iniquity hath not been found in me.” The words “visited (my heart) by night” refer to the Emperor’s threat to torture Lawrence for the length of the night, to which the great Levite answered, “My night hath no darkness, but in it all things shine brightly in the light.”

The Vigil of St Lawrence

In the Roman Rite, the term “vigilia – vigil” traditionally means a penitential day of preparation for a major feast. The Mass of a Saint’s vigil is celebrated after None, as are the Masses of the ferias of Lent or the Ember Days, and in violet vestments; however, the deacon and subdeacon do not wear folded chasubles, as they do in Lent, but the dalmatic and tunicle. The Mass has neither the Gloria nor the Creed, the Alleluja is simply omitted before the Gospel, not replaced with a Tract, and Benedicamus Domino is said at the end in place of Ite, missa est.

Folio 100r of the Gellone Sacramentary, a sacramentary of the mixed Gelasian type written in 780-800 AD. The Mass of the vigil of St Lawrence begins with the large A in the middle of the page; the preface cited below begins with the decorated VD second from the bottom. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048)

Before the Tridentine reform, the vigil of a Saint consisted solely of the Mass, and had no presence in either the Roman version of the Divine Office, or in that of most other Uses. A minority custom, which seems to have been predominantly German, gave an Office to the vigils of Saints, which consisted of a homily at Matins, and the use of the collect of the vigil as the principal collect of the day; the rest of the Office was that of the feria. The Breviary of St Pius V adopted this latter custom for the vigils of Saints, a rare example of change in an otherwise extremely conservative reform; but even for the Roman Rite, this was not an absolute novelty. Historically, the vigils of the major feasts of the Lord (Christmas, Epiphany etc.) did include the Office, and the change in 1568 simply extended the scope of a well-established custom.

Writing at the end of the 13th century, the liturgical commentator William Durandus notes as one of the special privileges of St Lawrence that he is the only martyr whose feast has a vigil, a custom which he shares with the Virgin Mary and the Apostles. More anciently this was not the case; the Gelasian Sacramentary also included vigils of the martyrs Gervasius and Protasius on June 17th, and of Ss John and Paul on June 25th. However, these had already disappeared from the Gregorian Sacramentary by the mid-9th century, and the fact that St Lawrence’s vigil was retained certainly indicates the universality and importance of devotion to him. The same ancient sacramentaries have vigils for the Assumption, the birth of St John the Baptist, Ss Peter and Paul, and St Andrew; they were later given to the other Apostles whose feasts occur outside Eastertide, and to the feast of All Saints.

St Lawrence Distributing Alms to the Poor; fresco by the Blessed Angelico from the Chapel of Pope Nicholas V, 1447-49, now in the Vatican Museums.

The story is well known that during the persecution of the Emperor Valerian in the mid-3rd century, St Lawrence was the deacon in Rome in charge of the Church’s charities. When he was arrested and told to hand the riches of the Church over to the Romans, he distributed all the money to the poor, whom he then brought to the residence of the prefect of Rome, and showing them to him, said, “These are the riches of the Church.” The liturgy refers to this by using Psalm 111, 9, “He hath distributed, he hath given to the poor: his justice remaineth for ever and ever” as both the Introit and Gradual of the vigil of St Lawrence; the same text is cited by St Paul in the Epistle of the feast day, 2 Corinthians 9, 6-10. St Maximus of Turin also cites this verse in a sermon on St Lawrence: “How profound and how heavenly was the counsel of this man of the spirit, that he should take care of the needy; and since the crowd was using up what he had given them, nothing could be found for the persecutor to take; for indeed he followed the saying ‘He hath distributed etc.’ ” (Homilia 74 in natali S. Laurentii; PL LVII 401A)

The Epistle of the vigil, Sirach 51, 1-8 and 12, appears in the Wurzburg lectionary, the very oldest of the Roman Rite, around 650 AD; it was clearly chosen for the reference to St Lawrence’s martyrdom by being roasted alive on a grill. “Thou hast delivered me, according to the multitude of the mercy of thy name, from them that did roar, prepared to devour. Out of the hands of them that sought my life, and from the gates of afflictions, which compassed me about. From the oppression of the flame which surrounded me, and in the midst of the fire I was not burnt. From the depth of the belly of hell, and from an unclean tongue, and from lying words, from an unjust king, and from a slanderous tongue.” The “unjust king” is, of course, the Emperor Valerian, in contrast to whom St Lawrence’s “justice remaineth for ever and ever.”

The Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, by Titian, 1567, from the Spanish Royal Monastery of the Escorial.

The Gospel, Matthew 16, 24-27, appears in the same lectionary only on the vigil of St Lawrence, but was later extended to the Common of a Single Martyr. (Commons of the Saints had not yet been created as a feature of Roman liturgical books when the Wurzburg lectionary was written.) The first line, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”, may have been chosen in reference to the story of St Lawrence’s martyrdom, as told by St Ambrose.

When Lawrence saw Pope St Sixtus II being led to martyrdom, he addressed him thus: “Whither goest thou without thy son, father? Whither, holy priest, dost thou hasten without thy deacon? Never wast thou want to offer sacrifice without thy minister. What then hath displeased thee in me, father? Hast thou found me ignoble? Make proof surely whether thou didst choose a worthy minister. Dost thou deny a share in thy blood to one to whom thou didst entrust the consecration of the Lord’s blood, and a share in the celebration of the sacraments?... Abraham offered his son, Peter sent Stephen before him…” To this Sixtus replied, “I do not leave or abandon thee, son, but greater contests await thee. We, as elder men, receive the way of an easier combat; a more glorious triumph against the tyrant awaiteth thee as a younger man. Soon shalt thou come after, cease weeping; after three days shalt thou follow me, as levite followeth priest.” (These words from the 39th chapter of St. Ambrose’s De Officiis form the basis of several antiphons and responsories in the office of St Lawrence.)

Ss Benedict, Sixtus II, and the Martyr Proculus by Simone di FIlippo, ca. 1380. (Image from Wikipedia by SilviaZamb, CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Offertory is beautifully selected from the book of Job, who, like Lawrence, is honored by the Church as one who showed great patience in suffering. “My prayer is pure, and therefore I ask that a place be given in heaven to my voice; for there is my judge, and He that knoweth me is on high; let my plea arise to the Lord.” (from the end of Job 16) The text is loosely cited from the Old Latin version, not the Vulgate of St Jerome, which indicates that it is a piece of great antiquity. One of Durandus’ predecessors in the field of liturgical commentary, the Benedictine abbot Rupert of Deutz (ca. 1075-1130), wrote a book about the terrible fire which destroyed the town of Deutz, in which he refers frequently to both Job and St Lawrence, and cites this offertory. “Thou, o blessed Martyr, … were the Job of thy times, and now, and until the end of the world, Christ and His Church hear thy cry, the great cry of thy passion, … She (the Church) first heard thy cry, and first joined thee in it, and taught us to cry out with Her in these words, which first were the words of Job… but nevertheless are the words of the Holy Church in her afflictions, and are mostly perfectly suitable to Thee, ‘My prayer is pure etc.’ ” (De incendio oppidi Tuitii sua aetate viso liber aureus, cap. 21; P.L. 170 354B)

The Gelasian Sacramentary also contained a Preface for both the vigil and feast of St Lawrence, of which the former reads as follows, a lovely exposition of the reason for celebrating the feasts of the Saints every year.

Truly it is worth and just, meet and profitable to salvation, that we should give Thee thanks always and everywhere, o Lord, holy Father, almighty and everlasting God, by anticipating the blessed struggles of the glorious martyr Lawrence, whose honorable solemnity in its annual recurrence is everlasting and ever new; for precious death of Thy just ones remaineth in the sight of Thy majesty, and the increase of joy is renewed, when we recall the beginning of their eternal happiness. And therefore with the Angels…

Part of the mosaic in the apse of Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome. St Lawrence, in the middle; on the left, Pope Innocent II (1130-43), who built the church, presents to Christ; on the right, Pope St Callixtus I (ca. 218-22), who was martyred in the neighborhood of this church, and whose relics are kept in it.

The 1960 reform of the Breviary added to the vigil of St Lawrence a completely anomalous feature, something which had never existed before, and does not exist anywhere else; it is the only vigil that has Vespers. [1] A vigil is a separate liturgical observance from its feast, and traditionally, all feasts began with First Vespers, and so a vigil by definition ended once None and the Mass were celebrated. In 1960, however, all the feasts of St Lawrence’s rank lost their first Vespers. [2] His vigil somehow managed to survive the massacres of 1955 and 1960, but as the only vigil attached to a feast with no First Vespers. In order to cover the gap between the vigil and the feast, which now begins with Matins, the vigil was extended to include Vespers; these consist of the regular Office of the feria, but with the Collect of the vigil. For no discernible reason, the series of versicles known as the ferial preces, which are characteristic of penitential days, are omitted from all the vigils in 1960.

[1] The vigil of the Epiphany, which as part of the Christmas season is not a penitential day, is celebrated in a different manner from the vigils of the Saints. It traditionally had First Vespers, on the evening of January 4th, but ended like the other vigils after None. Many medieval Uses extended this custom to the vigil of Christmas as well, but this was not done in the Roman Use.

[2] By 1981, when the Ambrosian Liturgy of the Hours was promulgated, this change was recognized to be a mistake; the modern Ambrosian Office has First Vespers for all feasts, and celebrates Solemnities with Second Vespers.

The Doctors of the Church in the Liturgy

Last week, it was announced that Pope Leo will soon declare St John Henry Newman to be a Doctor of the Church, raising the total number of Doctors to thirty-eight. St John Henry is the first Oratorian to be granted the title, the second Englishman, after the Venerable Bede, and the third cardinal, after Ss Bonaventure and Robert Bellarmine. (St Anselm, the eleventh Doctor, is often called “of Canterbury” because of the episcopal see he held, but he was Italian by birth, from the northern region of the Val d’Aosta.) He is also the first Doctor of the Church who converted from Protestantism.

A banner with an image of St Hildegard of Bingen, here called a prophetess, suspended from the façade of St Peter’s for the ceremony in which she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.

It is often stated that the first four Doctors of the Church, Saints Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, and Gregory the Great, were proclaimed as such by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298. It would be more accurate to say that the Pope formalized a long-established custom by ordering that their feasts be celebrated throughout the Latin Church with the same liturgical rank as those of the Apostles and Evangelists. Already in the 8th century, the Venerable Bede cites the four of them as “most outstanding” among the Fathers of the Church, and the “most worthy” sources for his commentary on the Gospel of St Luke, an assessment shared by many other writers in the following centuries. In art they are often associated with the four Evangelists; the medieval fondness for numerical symbolism in theology also tended to designate each one of them as the principal expounder of one of the four senses of the Sacred Scriptures. (See the introduction to the first volume of Henri Card. De Lubac’s Medieval Exegesis, pp. 4-7.)

In the liturgical tradition of the Roman Rite, the four Doctors are also associated with the four Evangelists in the collections of homilies read at Matins, in which each appears as the principal (but by no means sole) commentator on one of the four Gospels. Broadly speaking, St Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, St Ambrose’s Exposition of the Gospel according to Luke, and St Augustine’s Treatises on the Gospel of John are commonly read in all Uses of the Divine Office. St Mark rarely appears in the traditional Mass lectionary of the Roman Rite, but does provide the Gospel on the greatest feast of the year, Easter, and on the Ascension; on both of these days, the homily at Matins in most Uses is taken from St Gregory. Therefore, the first sense in which a Father might be called a Doctor was the frequent use of his writings in the Church’s public worship.

St Mark the Evangelist, with his traditional symbol, a winged lion, on the left, and on the right, St Gregory the Great and a book of his sermons. From the ceiling of the church of Sant’Agostino in Cremona, Italy, by Bonfazio Bembo, 1452.

Of course, many other Fathers are frequently read in the Office; outside the Use of Rome, St Bede is foremost among them in the medieval breviaries. As he himself notes in the prologue to the commentary mentioned above, he often borrows from the earlier Doctors; his gathering of the best passages from earlier writers makes his commentaries ideal for use in prayer services. So much of Bede’s writing is taken almost word for word from other works that the medieval copyists of liturgical manuscripts often confused his writings with his sources, and accidentally added passages from the latter back into his texts.

Also prominent in the public prayer of the Church are the writings of Saints Leo the Great, Hilary of Poitier (especially in France), and Maximus of Turin. Bede, Leo and Hilary have all subsequently been made Doctors themselves; St Maximus, on the other hand, has been the object of almost no liturgical devotion, although he is noted in the Martyrology as a man “most celebrated for his learning and sanctity.” Indeed, his writings often appear in breviaries under the name of some other saint, usually Augustine. In the 13th century, many of the writings of St John Chrysostom were translated into Latin, and began to find their way into the Office; in the Roman Breviary of 1529, sermons by him are read on three of the four Sundays of Lent.

The Four Doctors of the Church, by Pier Francesco Sacchi, ca. 1516. Note that each is accompanied by a symbol of one of the four Evangelists.

The terms of Pope Boniface’s decree were carried over into the liturgical books of the Tridentine reform, which also added five other Doctors. Four of these were early Fathers of the Eastern church: Ss Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Basil the Great, and Gregory of Nazianzus. (The third Cappadocian Father, Basil’s brother Gregory of Nyssa, has never been venerated liturgically by the Latin Church.) All of them appear in various pre-Tridentine liturgical books, but the feasts of Basil and Gregory are extremely rare. In the Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church was greatly concerned to assert that its teachings were those held “always, everywhere and by all”, and not medieval corruptions introduced by the “Romish Church”; the pairing of four Eastern Doctors with the traditional four Western Doctors therefore asserts the universality of the teachings held by Rome and defended by the Council of Trent. Three of them also have special connections to Rome and the Papacy. During the second of his five exiles, St Athanasius was a guest of Pope St Julius I, who defended him against the Arian heretics; relics of Ss John Chrysostom and Gregory of Nazianzus were saved from the iconoclasts in the 8th century and brought to Rome, later to be placed in St Peter’s Basilica.

The Chair of St Peter in the Vatican Basilica, by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1655-61. The Doctors standing further from the chair and wearing mitres are Saints Ambrose and Augustine, those closer but without mitres are Saints Athanasius and John Chrysostom.

To this group, the Dominican Pope St Pius V added a new Doctor, his confrere St Thomas Aquinas. Like many great theologians of the medieval period, Thomas was frequently referred to as a Doctor both in liturgical contexts and elsewhere; thus we find the calendar of a 1477 Dominican Missal noting his feast day, “Thomas, Confessor and Doctor, of the Order of Preachers.” A famous story is told that during the process of his canonization, the devil’s advocate objected that he had worked no miracles, to which a cardinal replied “Tot miracula quot articula – there are as many miracles as there are articles (in the two Summas).” During the Council of Trent, his Summa Theologica was placed on the altar of the church alongside the Bible and the Decretals (the medieval canon law code, a copy of which was also burnt by Luther, along with his bull of excommunication.) Thus did the Council assert that its teachings, and those of the medieval tradition of both law and theology, were indeed in harmony with the teachings of Christ in the Gospel.

In 1588, Pope Sixtus V, a Franciscan and former vicar apostolic of his order, declared his confrere St Bonaventure, the contemporary of St Thomas, the tenth Doctor of the Church. Although another Franciscan, Duns Scotus, generally known as the “Subtle Doctor”, was far more influential at Trent, he had not been canonized; this emphasizes the fact that a Doctor of the Church in the formal sense must be recognized not only for his learning, but also for the sanctity of his life. Bonaventure had been canonized in 1472 by an earlier Franciscan Pope, Sixtus IV (more famously the builder of the Sistine Chapel), in whose honor Sixtus V had chosen his papal name. (Scotus was declared a Blessed in 1993.)

St Bonaventure shows the Saints to Dante, from Canto 12 of the Paradise of the Divine Comedy. The majority of figures pointed out in this passage are famous theologians: St Augustine, Hugh of St Victor, Peter Comestor, Chrysostom, Anselm, and Rabanus Maurus. (Manuscript illumination by Giovanni di Paolo, 1450)

In 1720, Pope Clement XI added a new Doctor of the Church, St Anselm of Canterbury. This may seem a strange choice, given the many more prominent Fathers of the Church such as Leo and Bede who had not yet received the title. The Catholic Encyclopedia points out that Anselm’s contribution to Scholastic theology is like the foundation of a building: hidden but necessary, and present to every part. It seems, however, that at the time, the creation of the first new Doctor in 140 years was not seen as a matter of any particular importance; it is not even mentioned in the official collection of Pope Clement’s acts, spanning a reign of over 20 years.

St Anselm was quickly followed by two other new Doctors; St Isidore of Seville, the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages, was given the title in 1722 by Innocent XIII, and St Peter Chrysologus by Benedict XIII in 1729. After a break of 25 years, Benedict XIV, one of the Church’s greatest scholars of hagiography, bestowed the title on St Leo the Great, to whom more than any other of the Latin Fathers the honor was long overdue.

There then followed a pause of more than 70 years, until St Peter Damian was given the title in 1828 by Pope Leo XII; subsequently, almost every Pope has declared at least one Doctor. (The exceptions are Gregory XVI, St Pius X and the short-lived John Paul I.) Blessed Pius IX actually made three, including the first “modern”, St Alphonse Liguori (1696-1787), but the record is four each by Leo XIII and Pius XI. The former’s Doctors are all of the Patristic era (including another long overdue honor, to St Bede), while the latter recognized the fruits of the Counter-Reformation in two Jesuits, Ss Robert Bellarmine and Peter Canisius, balanced with a Dominican, St Albert the Great, the teacher of St Thomas.

Dante meets Ss Thomas Aquinas and Albert the Great in Canto 10 of the Paradise, among the lovers of divine wisdom. Beneath them are Boethius, St Denis the Areopagite, Gratian, Peter Lombard, Paul Orosius, Solomon, St Isidore of Seville, the Venerable Bede, Richard of St Victor and Siger of Brabant. (Giovanni di Paolo, 1450. Note that Siger, the last figure on the right, who was regarded by many as a heretic, has been partly scratched out.)

The traditional Office of a Doctor is that of a Confessor Bishop or a simple Confessor, with a few proper features; namely, the readings of Matins, the responsory In medio Ecclesiae (borrowed from the Office of St John the Evangelist), and the antiphon of the Magnificat at both Vespers, O Doctor optime. The Missal of St Pius V contains a single Mass for Doctors, also called In medio Ecclesiae from its introit; but several of their feasts have their own propers or borrow them from other Masses. Many Saints have been informally recognized as Doctors within a particular place or religious order by the use of these texts on their feast days; In medio was sung by the Cistercians as the introit of St Bernard long before he was formally declared a Doctor in 1830, and several parts of the same Mass are used by the Dominicans on the feasts of St Dominic and the great canon lawyer St Raymond of Penyafort.

Over the last century, the title of Doctor has been devalued by overuse, as it has been extended to several Saints whose writings have little or no relevance to the theological or liturgical tradition of the Roman church which has granted them the title, and do not acquire such relevance from the granting of it. A perfect recent example of this is St Gregory of Narek, a figure of the highest importance to the church of his native Armenia, but almost totally unknown in the West. Obviously, this is not the case with St John Henry, and I strongly commend to our readers’ attention some recent articles on Dr Kwasniewski’s Substack, in which he explains that the newest Doctor’s writings are in many ways a guide out of the terrible theological crisis that has beset the Church since the beginning of the New Pentecost™. Sancte Joannes Henrice, ora pro nobis, et doce nos!

The famous portrait of Cardinal Newman made in 1881 by Sir John Everett Millais. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons)

The Memento, Domine

Lost in Translation #135

The next sentence of the Roman Canon is:

Memento, Dómine, famulórum famularumque tuárum N., et N., et omnium circumstantium, quorum tibi fides cógnita est et nota devotio, pro quibus tibi offérimus: vel qui tibi ófferunt hoc sacrificium laudis, pro se suisque ómnibus: pro redemptióne animárum suárum, pro spe salútis et incolumitátis suæ: tibíque reddunt vota sua aeterno Deo, vivo et vero.

Which the 2011 ICEL edition translates as:

Remember, Lord, your servants N. and N. and all gathered here, whose faith and devotion are known to you. For them, we offer you this sacrifice of praise or they offer it for themselves and all who are dear to them: for the redemption of their souls, in hope of health and well-being, and paying their homage to you, the eternal God, living and true. [1]

And which I translate as:

Be mindful, O Lord, of Thy servants and handmaidens, N. et N. and of all those standing around, whose faith is known to You and whose devotion is recognized by You, for whom we offer, or who offer up to You, this sacrifice of praise for themselves and for all their own, for the redemption of their souls, in hope of salvation and health; and who now pay their vows to Thee, the everlasting, living and true God.

It is sentences like these that justifies a series like this, for it contains several words with nuances that can get lost in translation. To wit:

Memento can indeed be translated as “remember,” but it is etymologically related to the Latin mens (mind). “Be mindful” captures this connotation and conjures up the image of making God’s servants present to His mind. They who are present to the altar wish to be present to God.

Famuli. In Latin, a servus is a generic slave but a famulus is a domestic servant and therefore closer to the family. The prayer could have referred to all of God’s servants, male and female, with the generic male noun famuli, but instead it uses a noun for the males (famuli) and a noun for the females (famulae). This convention is also followed in the Roman Orations. There is a pleasing meter to this expanded version, almost as if it were a cursus velox.

Roman famuli

Circumstantes. In the post-Conciliar era, there has been a peculiar fixation with the concept of the Church as a gathered assembly (think The Gather Hymnal and Marty Haugen’s hymn “Gather Us In”), a fixation that may have influenced the decision to translate circumstantes as “those gathered here.” The Latin, however, literally means “those standing around” and probably refers to the early Christian practice of standing during the liturgy rather than kneeling. A less literal translation is “those here present.”

Cognita est, etc. The ICEL translation renders quorum tibi fides cognita est et nota devotio as “whose faith and devotion are known to you,” and understandably so, since the original is clunkier and seemingly redundant, adding an extra verb that does not add much to the meaning. Nevertheless, the Latin is more faithfully represented as “whose faith is known to You and whose devotion is recognized by You”, because nota is a second participle in reference to devotio. Such additions I file under the category of “virtually necessary ornamentation.” And whereas famulorum famularumque rolls off the tongue, cognita est et nota devotio is a cursus tardus that forces the speaker to slow down.

Pro quibus tibi offerimus, etc. This clause presents more theological challenges than linguistic. The “we offer” is most likely a reference to the priest, deacon, and subdeacon at a solemn high Mass, but who are those who offer it up themselves: the rest of the liturgical ministers in the sanctuary or, as is more likely, the laity in the pews? If the latter, it is a confirmation of the Orate, fratres, that both priest and laity offer up the Mass, albeit in significantly different ways.

Suisque omnibus. Whoever the offerers are, they offer up the Mass for themselves and for all their own, which the ICEL translation eloquently renders “all who are dear to them.” I retain the more awkward “all their own” because of its enormous philosophical significance. In Plato’s Republic, “loyalty to one’s own” is singled out as the greatest cause of political mischief. It is because we remain loyal to our own (our own family, our own friends, our own gild, class, race, sex, etc.) that we short shrift the common good, the good of the whole, and pursue policies that benefit “our people” to the detriment of others. Christianity seemingly sides with Socrates in commending a religion in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, male nor female, (see Gal. 3, 28) and which enjoins its believers to hate their father and mother and wife and children and brethren and sisters. (see Lk. 14, 26) But this sentence of the Canon subtly acknowledges that life is more complicated than that, that even after accepting the Church as one’s true family, one still has one’s own to look after—certainly not with the same blind prejudice as before, but they are still there nonetheless, often looking to you for help and depending on you for support. It is for these that we also offer up the Mass.

One’s own

Sacrificium laudis. To refer to the Sacrifice of the Mass as the sacrifice of praise is potentially confusing, since the latter phrase is often used to refer to the Divine Office as opposed to the Eucharistic liturgy. But it could be a reminder that the Mass is the nonbloody re-presencing of the bloody Paschal Mystery. And together with the last line of the sentence, it is possibly also an allusion to Psalm 49, 13-14:

Shall I eat the flesh of bullocks? Or shall I drink the blood of goats?

Offer to God the sacrifice of praise: and pay thy vows to the most High.

Incolumitas, which I have translated as “health,” also means “good condition” or “soundness.” [2] The adjective incolumis was sometimes paired with salvus to express the concept of something being safe and sound (salvus atque incolumis). [3] Here, the noun incolumitas is paired with the noun salus. Salus also means “health,” but in Christian parlance it more commonly designates salvation. Incolumitas, by contrast, seems to have retained its more natural meaning in the Patristic and medieval eras. I therefore suspect that this prayer is asking for both eternal salvation and bodily health. ICEL, on the other hand, seems to have in mind a more natural explanation for both words, translating the phrase as “health and well-being,” which is also a valid interpretation.

Notes

[1] 2011 Roman Missal, p. 636.

[2] “Incŏlŭmĭtas, ātis, f.” Lewis and Short Latin Dictionary.

[3] See Julius Caesar, De Bello Civili 2.32.12; cf. 1.72.3.

St Donatus of Arezzo

When St Cajetan, the founder of the Theatine Order, and one of the great inspirations of the Counter-Reformation, was canonized in 1671, his feast was assigned to the date on which he died in 1547, August 7th. Until then, that day had been kept principally as the feast of a Saint called Donatus, a 4th century bishop of the Tuscan city of Arezzo; he had been added to the calendar at Rome about 500 years earlier, and was celebrated in dozens of other medieval Uses all over Western Europe.

The Tarlati Polyptych, 1320, by the Sienese painter Pietro Lorenzetti (1280 ca. - 1348), commissioned by Guido Tarlati, bishop of Arezzo, for the parish church of St Mary, which still houses it to this day. St Donatus is the bishop at the lower left, followed by Ss John the Evangelist, John the Baptist and Matthew; in the second register, the martyrs John and Paul (also killed by Julian the Apostate), Vincent, Luke, the two Jameses, Marcellinus and Augustine; in the cuspids, a virgin martyr named Reparata, (the titular Saint of the old cathedral of Florence), Catherine, Ursula and Agatha. In the central section, the Virgin and Child, the Annunciation, and the Coronation of the Virgin.

In the last pre-Tridentine editions of the Roman breviary, (the breviary which St Cajetan would have used), his office has six hagiographical lessons, mostly taken from Bl. Jacopo da Voragine’s Golden Legend. The entry in the latter is based on a Passion attributed to Donatus’ successor as bishop, Severinus, which is indeed old enough that St Gregory the Great cites an episode from it in passing in the Dialogues. In the breviary of St Pius V, however, he is reduced to a single lesson of just over 70 words, which removes the many obviously dubious historical details; he also retains the title of a martyr, even though the oldest record of him in a martyrology calls him a confessor.

The legend tells that he was educated in Rome by a priest called Pigmenius, alongside Julian, the nephew of the emperor Constantine, who is known to history with the epithet “the Apostate.” (In reality, Julian was raised in Asia Minor, and spent almost none of his life in Italy.) When the latter became emperor, he killed Donatus’ parents and Pigmenius, at which Donatus himself fled to Arezzo, where he lived with a holy monk named Hilarinus. He performed several miracles, and was eventually chosen as bishop. As he was celebrating Mass one day, the church was invaded by pagans, who broke the glass chalice as the deacon proffered it to the people. Donatus gathered up the fragments and restored the chalice by his prayers, but the devil managed to hide one of the pieces of the cup. Nevertheless, the Saint poured wine into it, which did not run out of the hole, a miracle which converted many of the pagans.

The Miracle of St Donatus, 1652, by the Spanish artist Jusepe de Ribera.

The Golden Legend continues with various other miracles, most notably the healing of the waters of a poisonous fountain, from which a dragon emerged at Donatus’ prayer, which he then killed. It also puts his martyrdom in roughly the year 380, “when the Goths were laying waste to Italy”, an event which did not actually happen until over 20 years later. But the pre-Tridentine Roman breviary says nothing about the dragon or any of the other, later miracles, stating simply that after “God glorified his Saint with many signs”, Donatus was martyred along with Hilarinus by Julian. (The later died in 363.)

The cathedral of Arezzo was originally built on a hill outside the city, over the site of Donatus’ burial, but in the later 13th century, replaced by a new structure within the city walls. In the mid-14th century, a large tomb for the Saint was built directly behind the main altar; much like that of St Peter Martyr and some others, it was designed so that pilgrims could walk through the structure and venerate the tomb above their heads. (People were of course rather shorter in the Middle Ages than they generally are now.) The front of the tomb is decorated with images of the life of Christ and the Virgin, and various Saints, including Donatus and Bl. Pope Gregory X, who died in Arezzo in 1276, and is buried in the cathedral. (The construction of the new church was financed in part by a large donation which he left for that purpose in his will.) The other side is decorated with scenes from the life of Donatus. (Both images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0.)

St Donatus’ skull is kept in this 14th century reliquary, in the church of St Mary which also houses the polyptych shown above. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Bishop Peter Elliott, RIP

Yesterday, Bishop Peter Elliott, Auxiliary Emeritus of Melbourne, Australia, passed away at the age of 81. His Excellency was a strong supporter of the traditional liturgy, and wrote a well-regarded manual for the new rite, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite; his scholarly work covered a great many other topics as well, on Church history, marriage and family, and religious education. He was also very much involved with the establishment of the Anglican Ordinariate in Australia.

Bishop Elliott was born in 1943, the oldest son of an Anglican priest, and converted to Catholicism while studying at Oxford University in the 1960s. He was ordained to the priesthood for the archdiocese of Melbourne in 1973, and after serving there for several years, did a doctorate at the Lateran University in Rome, specializing in the theology of marriage. He then served as a representative of the Holy See at various international conferences, including the United Nations population conferences in Cairo and Beijing; he was also a consultor to the Congregation for Divine Worship. In 2007, he was made an auxiliary bishop of his native diocese by Pope Benedict XVI, and retiring from that position in 2018.

I had the pleasure of meeting Bishop Elliott in 2016, when I was invited to speak for the first time at the Fota Liturgical Conference in Cork, Ireland, an event which His Excellency attended several times. When I asked a question after his talk, the first of the day, he was so kind as to say, “Congratulations to NLM - whenever we’re feeling a bit down, we know we can always take a look at NLM and find something to feel good about.”

Deus, qui inter Apostolicos sacerdotes famulum tuum Petrum pontificali fecisti dignitate vigere: praesta quaesumus; ut eorum quoque perpetuo aggregetur consortio. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen.

God, who didst raise Thy servant Peter to the dignity of bishop in the apostolic priesthood, grant, we beseech Thee, that he may be joined to the everlasting fellowship of the Apostles. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Feast of the Transfiguration 2025

Truly it is worthy and just, right and profitable to salvation that we should give Thee thanks always, here and everywhere, o Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ, our Lord. Who on this day of great solemnity was transfigured upon the high mountain, appearing to the disciples whom He had taken up (with Him), shining with the bright splendor of the sun, that He might draw our weak human minds, caught up in slumber, to contemplate, desire and obtain with all their efforts that true enjoyment of the everlasting light. For indeed the disciples, even though they were bound in the human body, beheld such great splendor and light that Peter already desired to be there, and build three tabernacles in that place; and from such wonderful brightness, they were drawn with intense desires to long all the more for the glory on high, which eye hath not seen, nor hath entered into the heart of man. Therefore with worthy praises let us celebrate, devoutly contemplating our Redeemer on high, as He shone forth with such great splendor of light upon the top of the mountain, that we may be delivered from the prison of the present life, and be transferred forever to Thee, the true light and unfailing brightness, and lifting up our eyes, see none other but Jesus the only Redeemer. Whom together with Thee, almighty Father, and the Holy Spirit, the Angels praise, the Archangels venerate, the Thrones, Dominations, Virtues, Principalities and Powers adore; whom the Cherubim and Seraphim with shared rejoicing praise. And we pray that Thou may command our voices to be brought in among them, saying with humble confession: Holy, Holy, Holy… (The extremely long and rhetorically effusive Ambrosian preface for the feast of the Transfiguration.)

The Transfiguration, by Perugino, in the Collegio del Cambio in Perugia, 1497-1500

Vere quia dignum et justum est, aequum et salutare, nos tibi semper hic et ubique gratias agere, Domine, sancte Pater, omnipotens aeterne Deus, per Christum Dominum nostrum. Qui hac magnae solemnitatis die in monte transfiguratus est excelso, apparens discipulis quos assumpserat, lucido solis splendore coruscans: ut infirmitatis humanae mentes, torpore involutas, ad veram illam lucis perpetuae amoenitatem alliceret contemplandam, desiderandam, et totis nixibus consequendam. Discipuli namque in humanitatis corpore obvoluti, tantum splendorem tantamque lucem conspexerunt, ut Petrus ibi jam et desideraret esse, triaque tabernacula facere. Allecti enim fuerant discipuli ex tam mirabili claritate amplius supernam gloriam intensis desideriis peroptare, quam nec oculus vidit, nec in cor hominis ascendit. Celebremus igitur dignis laudibus, piis obtutibus speculantes supernum Redemptorem nostrum in montis cacumine tantae lucis splendore rutilasse: ut praesentis vitae ergastulo liberati, ad te verum lumen, et indeficientem claritatem in perpetuum transferamur: levantesque oculos nostros neminem videamus, nisi solum Jesum Redemptorem. Quem una tecum, omnipotens Pater, et cum Spiritu Sancto laudant Angeli, venerantur Archangeli; Throni, Dominationes, Virtutes, Principatus et Potestates adorant. Quem Cherubim et Seraphim socia exsultatione concelebrant. Cum quibus et nostras voces, ut admitti jubeas, deprecamur, supplici confessione dicentes: Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus…

150th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of Gabriel García Moreno, President of Ecuador, Daily Massgoer

Exactly 150 years ago, on August 6, 1875, the great Ecuadorean president Gabriel García Moreno, quite possibly the greatest modern Catholic politician and the one who bore the most perfect witness to the social kingship of Jesus Christ, was assassinated on the steps of the cathedral of Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. In spite of many “liberalizing” reforms for his country, his counterrevolutionary conservatism was a constant irritant to the anticlerical and freemasonic elements that plotted his death.

The best account of García Moreno’s life online is that written by Gary Potter, which can be found in a number of places, such as FishEaters. Here is Potter’s account, drawing on the classic biography by Fr. Berthe. That the president was a saintly Catholic is difficult to dispute. In particular, one should note the centrality of the Holy Mass to his life.

According to Fr. Berthe: “Not only did he not fear death, but like the martyrs he desired it for the love of God. How often did he write and utter these words: ‘What a happiness and glory for me if I should be called upon to shed my blood for Jesus Christ and His Church.’”

Did he mean that? Had he been truly transformed, truly converted, when he abandoned the ways of his young manhood and returned to religion? We have heard here about some of the laws he saw enacted in favor of the Church, in favor of the Faith. Let us add to the picture that he attended Mass every day, that he recited the Rosary every day, that he spent a half-hour every day in meditation. Was he sincere in all this, or was all of it a pose, a kind of public-relations campaign in days before PR existed? If he was seen at Mass every morning, was that simply an 1870’s version of the photo-op? […]

Fr. Berthe does quote him talking about hypocrisy as such. This was when he was accused of it on account of letting himself be seen practicing the Faith publicly. “Hypocrisy,” he said, “consists in acting differently from what one believes. Real hypocrites, therefore, are men who have the Faith, but who, from respect, do not dare to show it in their practice.”

If that were not all the answer needed as to whether García Moreno was a hypocrite, it can be demonstrated in various ways that the private man and public one corresponded perfectly. No demonstration could be clearer, however, than citing the rule for himself that he wrote down in his copy of the Imitation of Christ. It was mentioned earlier. Bearing in mind that he did not know death awaited him outside the cathedral on August 6, 1875, that he did not know the Imitation would be found in his pocket that day, and that therefore the rule would ever be read by anyone else, here it is in its entirety:

“Every morning when saying my prayers I will ask specially for the virtue of humility.

“Every day I will hear Mass, say the Rosary, and read, besides a chapter of the Imitation, this rule and the annexed instructions.

“I will take care to keep myself as much as possible in the presence of God, especially in conversation, so as not to speak useless words. I will constantly offer my heart to God, and principally before beginning any action.

“I will say to myself continually: I am worse than a demon and deserve that Hell should be my dwelling-place. When I am tempted, I will add: What shall I think of this in the hour of my last agony?

“In my room, never to pray sitting when I can do so on my knees or standing. Practice daily little acts of humility, like kissing the ground, for example. Desire all kinds of humiliations, while taking care at the same time not to deserve them. To rejoice when my actions or my person are abused and censured.

“Never to speak of myself, unless it be to own my defects or faults.

“To make every effort, by the thought of Jesus and Mary, to restrain my impatience and contradict my natural inclinations. To be patient and amiable even with people who bore me; never to speak evil of my enemies.

“Every morning, before beginning my work, I will write down what I have to do, being very careful to distribute my time well, to give myself only to useful and necessary business and to continue it with zeal and perseverance. I will scrupulously observe the laws of justice and truth, and have no intention in all my actions save the greater glory of God.

“I will make a particular examination twice a day on my exercise of different virtues, and a general examination every evening. I will go to confession every week.

“I will avoid all familiarities, even the most innocent, as prudence requires. I will never pass more than an hour in any amusement, and in general, never before eight o’clock in the evening.”

A statue in honor of Garcia Moreno at the Basílica del Voto Nacional del Ecuador

Another writer, Joseph Sladky, offers more details about his daily horarium, which would put to shame some modern active and contemplative religious orders:

His Rule of Life [as president] also demonstrates the discipline of his daily life. His day was ordered and regular. He arose at 5:00 A.M., proceeded to church at 6:00 A.M., hearing Mass and making his meditation. At 7:00 A.M. he visited the sick in the hospital, after which he worked in his room until 10:00 A.M. After a frugal breakfast, he worked with his ministers until 3:00 P.M. After dinner at 4:00 P.M., he made necessary visits and settled disputes.  At 6:00 P.M. he returned home to spend time with his family until 9:00 P.M.  When others took rest or went to their amusements, he returned to his office, working until 11:00 P.M. or midnight.

Potter resumes with details about the president’s death:

The medical examination of García Moreno after he was killed showed he was shot six times and struck by a machete fourteen. One of the machete blows sliced into his brain.

Incredibly, he did not die immediately. When cathedral priests reached him, he was still breathing. He was carried back inside and laid at the foot of a statue of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows. A doctor was called, but could do nothing. One of the priests urged him to forgive his killers. He could not speak, but his eyes answered that he had already done so. Extreme Unction was administered. Fifteen minutes later he was dead, there in the cathedral.

The exact place where Garcia Moreno gave up his spirit to God, marked in the cathedral of Quito

Sladky notes that the uprising expected by the anarchists never materialized; the president was too beloved.

After the assassination of García Moreno, the whole town of Quito went into mourning, with the bells tolling continuously. The conspirators thought that the assassination would break into a revolution. They were to be disappointed. For three days, while his body lay in State in the cathedral, thousands of sobbing people came to pay their respects to the man who had done so much for their country. In the session of 16 September 1875 the Ecuadorian Congress issued a decree in which they paid homage to García Moreno as “The Regenerator of his country, and the Martyr of Catholic Civilization.”

The president’s tomb in the cathedral

In 1921, the centennial of García Moreno’s birth, a poet penned these accurate words:

The eternal passage of time
Has not dimmed the greatness that is thine,
And never will, in all surety,
Leave in darkened obscurity
The brilliant glory of your life sublime!

Sadly, I think it is fair to say even if García Moreno is fully suitable for beatification (as I believe he is, on the basis of an objective evaluation of his life), he would currently be seen as too “off-message” from Vatican II’s Dignitatis Humane, Gaudium et Spes, and so forth. He is a president of Immortale Dei and Quas Primas, documents out of fashion. But perhaps this too will change someday.

After all, García Moreno’s last words were, “God does not die.” And neither does the truth about the primacy of the spiritual and the supernatural over the temporal and the natural, without which the latter withers and dies.

The dead Garcia Moreno