From: rich <
richarra@gmail.com>
November 11th - St. Bartholomew of Grottaferrata, Abbot
THE founder of the Greek abbey of Grottaferrata in the Tuscan plain,
St. Nilus, died in the year 1004, and was succeeded as abbot in quick succession by Paul, Cyril and Bartholomew.=C2 They were all personal
disciples of Nilus, the last named being venerated as the lesser
founder of the monastery for St. Nilus and his first two successors
were able only to clear the land and begin building, while St.
Bartholomew carried the work to its conclusion and firmly established
his monks, who had been driven from southern Italy and Sicily by
Saracen invasions. He made his monastery a centre for learned studies
and the copying of manuscripts, himself being skilled in the art of calligraphy, and he composed a number of liturgical hymns.
=C2 A canon in the liturgical office of St. Bartholomew contains these
words: "When, 0 father, thou didst see the Roman Pontiff rejected,
thou didst persuade him by wise words to give up his throne and to end
his days in the happy life of a monk."
This refers to the Grottaferrata tradition--perhaps a true
one--concerning the last years of Pope Benedict IX, whose grandfather,
Count Gregory of Tusculum, had given the land on which the abbey is
built.=C2 When Benedict, after a stormy and scandalous reign of twelve
years, having first resigned the papacy for a money payment and then
tried to regain it, was finally driven from Rome in 1048, he came to Grottaferrata in a state of remorse.=C2 Abbot Bartholomew was quite
definite as to what was Benedict's duty: by his disorders he had made
himself unfit to be a priest, much less a pope.=C2 He must definitely
resign all claim to that dignity and fulfil the rest of his life in
penance (he was still only about 36 years old).
The influence of the abbot gradually changed Benedict's remorse into
true penitence;=C2 he remained at Grottaferrata as a simple monk and
died there.=C2 This account of the saint's part in the career of
Benedict IX is first found in the Life of St. Bartholomew, perhaps
written by his third successor, Abbot Luke I, and is supported by
monuments at the abbey; but it appears that in 1055, the year of his
death, Benedict was still calling himself pope.=C2 The vigorous
government of St. Bartholomew was responsible for raising his
monastery to that position of importance from which it played a part
in the history of the medieval papal states, a position which
ultimately led to its decline as a religious house until its
restoration in the 19th century.
=C2 Two Greek texts giving some account of St. Bartholomew will be found printed in Migne, PG., vol. CXXVII, CC. 476-516. Some of the
manuscripts copied by his band are believed still to survive in the
library of Grottaferrata and an ancient mosaic representing SS. Nilus
and Bartholomew is still visible in the sanctuary of the abbey church.
The resignation of Pope Benedict IX is discussed in Mgr Mann's Lives
of the Popes, vol. v, p. 292.=C2 See also S. C. Mercati in Enciclopedia italiana, Vol. vi, p. 254; L. Brehier in DHG., vol. vs, CC. 1006-1007;
and F. Flalkin in Analecta Bolandiana, vol. lxi (1943), pp. 202-210,
who points out that, of the two Greek texts just referred to, one, the Encomium, refers to another St. Bartholomew.
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This is the first and greatest commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with thy whole heart, but the second is like unto it: Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.--Matt. 22:38
7. It should be observed that perfect love of God consists not in
those delights, tears, and sentiments of devotion that we generally
seek, but in a strong determination and keen desire to please God in
all things, and to take care, as far as possible, not to offend Him,
and to promote His glory.
--St. Teresa
St. Jane Frances de Chantal showed how well she understood this great
truth, by a letter she sent to the Superior of a Religious who was
looked upon as a soul filled with the love of God, because she enjoyed extraordinary consolations. "This good girl:' she wrote, "greatly
needs to be undeceived. She believes herself highly elevated in the
love of God, yet she is not much advanced in virtue. I believe that
these fervors and exaltations which she feels are the work of nature
and self-love. Therefore, she should be shown that the real strength
of love consists not in enjoying the Divine sweetness, but rather in
exact observance of the Rules, and the faithful practice of solid
virtue--that is, in humility, the love of contempt, patient endurance
of insults and adversities, self-forgetfulness, and a love that seeks
not to be known except by God. This alone is true love, and these are
its unerring tokens. May God preserve us from that sensible love which
allows us to live in ourselves, while the true leads us to die to
ourselves."
Such was the love of St. Thomas Aquinas, of whom it is recorded that
he kept his soul always as pure and true as that of a child five years
old.
(Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints".=C2 November: Charity)
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Strong Heart of Jesus,
my God and my Friend,
In life and in death,
on Thee I depend.
[Rev. James O'Brien, S. J.]
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