The Seven Joys of our blessed Lady. Joy 4-p. 256. Rejoice, O most glorious Virgin! Such is thy favour with God, such the power of thy intercession, that the whole treasury of heaven is open to thee and at thy disposal. When thou art pleased to interpose in favour of the sinner, his case is in sure hands: there is no danger of refusal on the part of heaven, when thy mediation appears in his behalf. An Angelical Exercise. Thursday. I am the empress of the universe, says the glorious mother of God. Will you, my dear child, every day, both morning and evening, make a firm purpose rather to endure any loss, wrong or death whatsoever, than once sin mortally. Yes, my most dear mother! I do here firmly purpose, by the grace of God, before your blessed Son Jesus, my sweet Redeemer, rather to die a thousand deaths, than once to offend God mortally. And I do reverence you, O sacred Virgin Mary! Queen of heaven and earth; and together with the burning seraphim bless and praise you infinitely, whom I love more than my own soul, for that both heaven, earth and hell, by your dear Son's commandment, do obey your beck. Hail, Mary! Friday. I reverence you, O sacred Virgin Mary, the holy ark of the covenant; and together with all the good thoughts of all good men upon earth, and all the blessed spirits in heaven, do bless and praise you infinitely, for that you are the great mediatrix between God and man, obtaining for sinners all they can ask and demand of the blessed Trinity. Hail, Mary! The title of the above work is as follows: : The Devotion and Office of the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, with its Nature, Origin, Progress, &c., including the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Mary, &c. &c., and the Recommendatory Pastoral Letter of the Bishop of Boulogne to the Faithful in his Diocese. TWELFTH EDITION. With an Appendix on the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus ; Prayers for the Exercise of that Devotion; and the Indult of his Holiness Pope Pius in favour of it. For the Use of the Midland District. London: Printed and sold by Keating and Brown, 38, Duke Street. 1821. * After the missal, there is no book of devotion of such authority among English Ro manists as the Office of the Sacred Heart. Collect. Deus, qui.-O God, who hast translated the Bishop Dunstan, thy high priest, to thy heavenly kingdom, grant that we, by his glorious merits, may pass from hence to never-ending joys. Through the Lord.† The translation is taken from "the Missal for the use of the Laity." + It should seem that this prayer, which is only in the English Missal, is designed for the use only of English Romanists, in the Latin Missal the prayer for this day is to Pope Celestine. On the 18th of May. On the Feast of St. Venantius the Martyr. O God, who hast consecrated this day to the triumph of the blessed Venantius thy martyr : hear the prayers of thy people, and grant that we who venerate his merits, may imitate the constancy of his faith. Through the Lord. Grant, O Almighty God, that the merits of blessed Venantius may render this oblation accept able to thee that we being assisted by his prayers, may become partakers of his glory. Through the Lord. Having received, O Lord, the sacrament of eternal life, we humbly beseech thee, that by the intercession of blessed Venantius, thy martyr, it may procure for us pardon and grace. Through the Lord. Die 18 Mai. In Festo S. Venantii Martyris. Deus, qui hunc diem beati Venantii martyris tui triumpho consecrasti: exaudi preces populi tui, et præsta, ut qui ejus merita veneramur, fidei constantiam imitemur. Per Dominum. Hanc oblationem, omnipotens Deus, beati Venantii merita tibi reddant acceptam: ut ipsius subsidiis adjuti, gloriæ ejus consortes efficiamur. Per Dominum. Post Communio. Sumpsimus, Domine, æternæ vitæ sacramenta, te humiliter deprecantes, ut beato Venantio martyre tuo pro nobis deprecante, veniam nobis concilient et gratiam. Per Dominum.-Missale Romanum. Dublinii, typis Patritii Cogan, cum superiorum permissu et approbatione, 1795. The austerities of Santa Rosa, who was canonized by Clement 10. an. Dom. 1673.-Extracted from the collection of the Constitutions published by the Popes at the solemn canonization of Saints from John 15 to Benedict 14, that is, from the year of our Lord 993 to the year 1729. Superintended by Justus Fontaninus, Archbishop of Ancyra.Printed at Rome 1729, at the press of the Rev. Apostolic Chamber.-(From the Bull of Canonization.) She changed the stones and crosses, with which when going to prayer in her childhood, and as yet ignorant of the use of whips, she was loaded by her maid Marianne, who was almost the only person conscious of her mortifications,-into iron chains, which she prepared as scourges, with which after the example of St. Dominick every night she offered herself a bloody victim to God to avert his just anger, even to the copious effusion of streams of blood, either for the sorrows of the holy church, or for the necessities of the endangered kingdom or of the city of Lima, or for compensating the wrongs of sinners, or for making an expiation for the souls of the dead, or for obtaining divine aid for those who were in their last agonies; the servants being sometimes horror-struck at such dreadful blows of the chains; and when the use of these was forbidden to her, she privately encircled her waist with one of them bound thrice round her, so that it never was apparent that she wore it, except when she was under the tortures of the sciatica, which chain was afterwards Santa Rosa. Clement X. Codex constitutionum, quas summi pontifices ediderunt in solemni. canonizatione Sanctorum a Johanne 15, ad Benedictum 13, sive ab an. Dom. 993 usque ad A. D. 1729. Accurante Justo Fontanino, Archiepiscopo Ancyrano. Roma, 1729. Ex typographia Reverendæ Camera Apostolica. Saxa enim et cruces, quibus parvula, usus flagellorum ignara, a Mariana ancilla, suarum mortificationum ferè sola conscia, ad orationem vel ad hortum pergens onerabatur, in ferreas catenas commutavit, quas aptavit in flagra, quibus ad Sancti Dominici exemplum singulis noctibus usque ad rivulorum sanguinis copiosam effusionem, vel pro ærumnis sanctæ ecclesiæ, vel pro periclitantis regni, aut urbis Limensis necessitatibus, vel pro compensandis peccatorum injuriis, vel pro expiandis defunctorum animabus, vel ad impetranda divina subsidia in extremo agone constitutis, cruentam se Deo victimam ad ejus justam iram avertendam offerebat, horrescentibus quandoque domesticis ad tam diros catenarum ictus, quarum usu interdicto, earum una sic triplici, ductu lumbos latenter diu præcinxit, ut nunquam, nisi maximorum cruciatuum ischiadis vi apparere potuerit, quæ posted nonnisi interveniente miraculo soluta fuit, cujus annulos post Virginis obitum miram et peregrinam suaveolentiam spirare compertum est. Ne qua vero pars innocentis corpusculi vaca loosened only by a miracle, and its links after the Virgin's death were found to emit a wondrous and indescribably sweet odour. Lest any part of her innocent body should be free from suffering, she tortured her arms and limbs with penal chains, and stuffed her breast and sides with handfuls of nettles and small briars. She afterwards increased the sharpness of the haircloth which reached from her neck beneath her knees, by needles mixed up with it, which she used for many years, until she was ordered to put it off on account of the frequent vomiting of blood. When she laid aside this punishment, she substituted another garment less injurious to her health, but not less troublesome. For beneath it every movement was painful to her. Her feet only were free from these sufferings, which either by hitting them with stones or by the burning of an oven, she did not suffer to be free from torture. She fixed upon her head a tin crown with sharp little nails in it, and for some years never put it without receiving wounds; when she grew older, this was replaced by one which was armed with ninety-nine points.* She desired the hardness of her bed to be such that it should rather drive away than invite sleep, so that when about to sleep, the same should be both a bed to her and an instrument of torture. Her pillow was either an unpolished trunk, or stones concealed for this purpose, which bed she afterwards so filled with *sharp pieces of tiles and trian reta supplicio, pœnalibus vinculis brachia et lacertos torquebat, urticarumque manipulis ac minutulis sentibus pectus, axillas, ac latera arctabat. Cilicii postea a collo infra genua protendentis asperitatem acubus permixtis auxit, quo compluribus annis usa est, donec ob frequentem sanguinis vomitum exuere jussa fuit, cujus supplicii jacturam alia veste minori valetudinis damno, sed non leviori molestia compensavit. Sub ea enim pœna erat ei quicumque motus; solæ plantæ ab his doloribus vacabant, quos tamen aut saxorum collisione, aut fornacis adustione a cruciatibus immunes esse non sinebat. * Strati sui duritiem eam esse voluit, quæ somnum magis abigeret, quam conciliaret, ita ut dormituræ idem esset lectulus et equuleus. Cervical aut impolitus truncus, aut lapides in hunc usum absconditi, quod cubile præacutis postea tegularum frag mentis, testarumque fractarum triquetris sic implevit, ut singularum pars mucronata obvertere • A great portion of these austerities is narrated in the Roman Breviary. |