Santos da Junho 21

 Junho 21, 2021

O Caminho dos Santos: Os Santos e festas da Dia 21 de Junho

Boa festa da Nossa Senhora de Matarieh e de Alcamo, São Aloisio Gonzaga, São Albano de Mainz, Santo Eusébio de Samosata e São Lázaro! Happy feast of Our Lady of Matarieh, and of Alcamo, St Aloysius Gonzaga, St Albanus of Mainz, St Eusebius of Samosata and St Lazarus!

✓June 21: Our Lady of Matarieh (Matariya or Matarea)

In Greater Cairo in Egypt is seen a miraculous fountain which Our Lady obtained by her prayers when she fled to Egypt with Saint Joseph, her spouse, and the Divine Child, to escape Herod's wicked designs. St Peter Chrysologus tells us that "this journey was so arduous that the very angels were struck with wonder when they beheld the Savior required to make it."

It is held by tradition that at Matarieh the Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Matarieh, washed the swaddling clothes of the Infant Jesus and bathed him. It still displays miraculous powers. Matarieh is five miles Northeast of Cairo; here grew also the famous balsam trees, the oil of which was used in Baptism. The city is by some called the "City of the Fountain" in remembrance of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who used it as a bath. The spring had been famous among the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the Sun-god, Ra, bathed his face there when he rose for the first time. People still call it the Holy Fountain, and at the Feast of the Epiphany a vast number of people are said to flock there from all nations to wash themselves in its water.

Mary of Agreda wrote: "There is to this day a traditional fountain near Cairo from which the heavenly Lady drew water for Herself and the Child, and for washing clothes; all this rests on the truth and the veneration for these wonders and these places still lives, not only among the faithful who visit the holy places, but also among the infidels, who there occasionally obtain temporal benefits from the hands of the Lord. For also the infidels sometimes obtain certain favors, in order that the Lord may be justified before them, or in order that the memory of his wonders may be preserved."

In his book, The Secret For True Crusaders, Marino Sanuto reported: "Near Cairo is an exceeding ancient palm-tree, which bowed itself to the Blessed Virgin Mary that she might gather dates from it, and then raised itself up again. When the heathens saw this they cut it down, but it joined itself together again in the following night and stood upright again. The marks of the cutting may be seen to this day. Round about this city there are many excellent orchards; one mile away from it is the Garden of Balsam, of the size of half a mansus (measurement of a place that can sustain one family). The bushes therein are of the size of a three-year-old vine-stock; the leaf is like that of small trefoil, or rue, but of a whiter color. When it is ripe, which is about the month of May, the bark of the wood bursts, and the liquor is collected in glass vessels. It is then laid in doves’ dung and dried, and thus right balsam is made. They say that there is yet another way of gathering it, which is to pluck a leaf on the side toward the sun; for the leaf joins the stem, and, albeit many stand on one plot of ground, they have only one stem. When the leaf is torn away, there straightway flows forth an exceeding transparent and sweet-scented drop. This garden can only be watered from one single fount, wherein the Blessed Virgin is said to have washed the boy Jesus' swaddling clothes. At the season of Epiphany both Christians and Saracens assemble at this fount, and wash themselves therein out of devotion. Another miracle there is that the oxen that draw the aforesaid water would not draw any between mid-day on Saturday until the same hour on Sunday, not though you were to skin them alive."

An interesting detail reported by Sanuto is that he claimed to have seen a sacred palm tree at the site, and in fact the specie of the Tree of Matariya never settled down among the pilgrims. Originally the Arabic Infancy Gospel (9th to 11th century) identifies the tree as a sycamore, however the Arabic and Ethiopian Synaxaria (1175-1250) indicates that the tree is a balsam. And a later Dominican monk Felix Fabri claims that he has seen a fig tree with a hollow trunk near the gate of the enclosure. He also gives a different explanation for the origin of the balsam tree at Matariya. According to him, the balsam was originally a gift from the Queen Sheba to King Solomon; it was later transplanted to Egypt by Caesar Augustus, but it did not flourish until the arrival of the Holy Family.

Mary of Agreda also wrote: "If what Jesus and Mary did for the salvation of us men does seem great to us, it is because we do not understand the immensity of their love, and because we understand just as little how to make a proper return for such great love." When Mary of Agreda marveled at the labors and hardships the Holy Family suffered on their trek into Egypt, Our Lady told her: "Do not wonder that my most holy Son and I journeyed so far in order to gain souls. For the sake of even one soul, if possible, and if there would be no other way, We would willingly traverse the whole world."

✓Our Lady of Alcamo or Our Lady of Miracles

The Apparition of Our Lady with Baby Jesus at Alcamo in Sicily, to some women washing clothes in a stream, June 21, 1547. 

The local authorities investigated on the spot, cut down the grove and found the ruins of a "cuba," an old arch of a mill that nobody remembered any longer, and inside there was a fresco on a stone made by an anonymous painter of the 13th century representing Our Lady with the Child Jesus, which at first the believers called "Madonna Fons Misericordiae" (that is "Our Lady Fountain of Mercy").

After this discovery all the people started praying before the rediscovered image and in the following days there were several miracles.

Then since 1547, Our Lady of Miracles became the patron saint of Alcamo, in substitution of the Holy Crucified, who was the patron saint of Alcamo and other nearby small towns (among which Calatafimi and Salemi). 

In 1583 the name was changed into "Our Lady of Miracles" due to the numerous miracles. 

Further to these events, Don Fernando Vega, Alcamo's governor and judge, ordered the construction of the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Miracles, which hosts the Madonna's image. Inside the Church there is a white marble sarcophagus containing the mortal remains of the Don Fernando Vega, according to his will.

ROMAN MARTYROLOGY

• The Holy Martyrs of the Roman Province of Africa, now Tunisia, Saints Cyriacus and Apollinaris.

• The Holy Martyrs of Syracuse in Sicily Saints Rufinus and Martia.

• St Albanus or Alban, martyr at Mainz, who was made worthy of the crown of life, after long labors and severe combats. Cephalophore.

• St Aloysius Gonzaga, at Rome, he was born of a princely family, which he put away to become a Jesuit.

• St Demetria, virgin, martyred at Rome under Julian the Apostate.

• St Eusebius, bishop of Samosata, who, in the time of the Arian emperor Constantius, disguised himself under a military dress and visited the churches of God, to confirm them in the faith. By Valens he was banished into Thrace, but when peace was  restored to the Church in the reign of Theodosius, he was recalled. As he again visited the churches, an Arian woman struck him with a tile, which fractured his skull and made him a martyr.

• St Leutfrid or Leufred, abbot in the diocese of Evreux, France.

• St Martin, bishop of Tongres.

• St Terentius or Terrence, bishop of Iconium in Lycaonia, martyr.

• St Urciscenus, bishop of Pavia, confessor.

OTHER SOURCES

• The Holy Martyrs of Taw in Egypt, Saints Paphnutius of Bendura, Moses of Balkin, a 12 year old boy named Thomas, and Companions, their history is lost.

• The Holy Martyrs of Zapotlanejo in  Jalisco, Mexico St Joseph Isabel Flores Varela, martyred along with a soldier who had been baptized by him, for refusing to torture him, by the Traitors, Satanists, Apostates and Infidels of Mexico, lackeys of the Synagogue of Satan, for refusing to accept that the Robber "Government" is God. Not yet canonized by a Catholic Pope.

•  St Aaron, abbot of a monastery on an island called St Aaron near the former city of Aleth, that island is now the city of St Malo in Brittany. 

• St Agofred, brother of St Leutfrid or Leufred. 

• St Colagia «Originally from Barcelona, ​​she received the Mercedarian habit from the hands of St Bernard of Corsara, and joined the first young women who had followed St Mary of Cervellon, forming the first female community of the Mercedary Order. She was a great spiritual teacher and a prudent virgin leading a life of mortification and prayer and after having performed many miracles and wonders, she reached eternal happiness in the year 1295 in the convent of Barcelona»

• St Conard Meen or Meven or Mewan, Briton (Welshman), wonderworker, related, onhis mother's side with Saints Magloire & Samson, godfater of StAustell, abbot of the monastery of St John the Baptist at Gael, Brittany, and St Meen's, in the diocese of St Malo, about 43 km. from Rennes in Brittany.

• St Cormac or Corbmac, bishop, missionary inthe Orkney Islands, abbot of Durrow, the most famous of the monasteries of St Colomba Columcille in Ireland.

• St Dominic, a monk at Comacchio near Venice, Italy.

• St Engelmund, an Englishman, monk, priest, and abbot. He migrated to Friesland, where he was a successful evangelist with St Willibrord, at Velsen near Haarlem. In art, Saint Engelmund is depicted as a pilgrim abbot with a fountain springing under his staff. He is venerated in Friesland and invoked against toothache.

• St James Morelle Dupas, priest of the diocese of Poitiers, imprisoned amongst thousands of other priests on rotting and unhygienic ships at Rochefort by the Traitors, Satanists, Apostates and Infidels of France, lackeys of the Synagogue of Satan, illegally usurping the government of France. Not yet canonized by a Catholic Pope. 

• St John of Jesus, Mercedarian friar at the convent of St Eulalia in Seville, Spain.

• St John Rigby, martyred at Southwark, by the Traitors, Satanists, Apostates and Infidels of England, lackeys of the Synagogue of Satan, for refusing to accept the illegitimate "Queen Elizabeth I" as "Pope of England." Not yet canonized by a Catholic Pope. 

• St Lazarus, in Hebrew, Eleazar, mentiined in a parable but our Lord Jesus Christ. "Rationalists" mock the faithful for honouring this St Lazarus as a Saint, affirming him to be a fictional character, yet, while Jesus Christ did not openly pronounce on it, a careful consideration of the narrative reveals that like Abraham and Hell, Dives and Lazarus were and are real persons, the one Eternally Damned in Hell, the other gloriously reigning in Heaven, in the bosom of Abraham. «There was a rich man who dressed in purple and fine linen and every day made splendid banquets. A beggar named Lazarus lay at his door, covered with sores, eager to feed himself with what fell from the rich man's table and no one gave him any; even the dogs came to lick his sores. Now it happened that poor Lazarus died and was carried by angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. Standing in hell amidst torments, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus beside him. Then shouting he said: "Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and wet my tongue, because this flame tortures me." But Abraham replied: "Son, remember that you received your goods during your life and Lazarus likewise his evils; but now he is consoled, while you are tormented and moreover a great abyss has been fixed forever between us and you, so that those who would pass here and come to you cannot, nor can you cross from there to to us." Then he added: "I beg you then, father, to send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers; warn them so that they too do not come to this place of torments." But Abraham replied: "They have Moses and the Prophets, listen to them," but he insisted: "No, Father Abraham, but if any of the dead go to them, they will repent." Abraham replied: "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not believe even if anyone rises from the dead."» (Luke xvi, 19-31).

• St Melchior of the Peace of Christ, Mercedarian preacher and ransomner.

• St Nicholas Plutzer, penitent, Premonstratensian preacher. 

• St Radulf or Ralph, of the French royal family, monk, made bishop of Bourges, Confessor.

• St Raymond II William, Augustinian, bishop of Roda & Barbastro in Aragon. Canonised by Pope Innocent II in 1136.

• St Siollán, Sillen or Sinell, also Senilis, preceptor of St Columbanus.

• St Suibhne the Wise, bishop of Armagh.

• St Ursus, companion in exile of St Albanus, sent forward by St Ambrose to Cisalpine and Transalpine Gaul, Ursus died at Aosta in north west Italy, today, Burano in Venetia claims to celebrate Saints Albanus, Ursus and a St Dominic, another companion, whose stone sarcophagi came miraculously floating to Burano.

ALSO

• Marie-Joseph Angélique, burned at Montreal, June 21, 1734. 

OREMUS

Holy Mary, Mother of God, and our Mother, and all you Saints, Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, Sisters, Popes, Archbishops, Bishops, Hermits, Monks, Martyrs, Virgins, Champions and Heroes of Jesus Christ, whose feasts is today, named and unnamed, we pray to you for your intercession and guidance, lead us away from error and evil and into the Grace and Love of God, that with your assistance, we may join you in Eternity with the Living God, we make this prayer through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Who Lives and Reigns, in the Unity of the Godhead, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, forever and ever, Amen.

Lúcío Mascarenhas.