• November 11th - St. Bartholomew of Grottaferrata, Abbot

    From rich@1:396/4 to All on Wed Nov 11 09:05:45 2020
    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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