August 17

Spiritual Bouquet: Not for the world do I pray, but for those whom Thou, Father, hast given Me, because they are Thine. St. John 17:9

SAINT HYACINTH
Missionary Preacher and Thaumaturge
(†1257)

Saint Hyacinth, named the glorious Apostle of the North, was born of noble parents in Poland, about the year 1185. In 1218, as a Canon of Cracow he accompanied the bishop of that region to Rome. There he met Saint Dominic and soon afterward was one of the first to receive the habit of the Friar Preachers, in a group clothed by the patriarch himself. He became a living copy of his dear master. The church was his only chamber, and the ground his only bed. So wonderful was his progress in virtue that within a year Dominic sent him with a small group to preach and plant the Order in Poland, where he founded two houses.

His apostolic journeys extended over numerous and vast regions. Austria, Bohemia, Livonia, the shores of the Black Sea, Tartary, Northern China in the east, Sweden, Norway and Denmark to the west, were evangelized by him, and he is said to have visited Scotland. Everywhere he traveled unarmed, without a horse, with no money, no interpreters, no furs in the severe winters, and often without a guide, abandoning to Divine Providence his mission in its entirety. Everywhere multitudes were converted, churches and convents were built; one hundred and twenty thousand pagans and infidels were baptized by his hands. He worked many miracles; at Cracow he raised a dead youth to life. He had inherited from Saint Dominic a perfect filial confidence in the Mother of God; to Her he ascribed his success, and to Her aid he looked for his own salvation. It was at the request of this indefatigable missionary that Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote his famous philosophical Summa contra Gentiles, proving the reasonableness of the Faith on behalf of those unfamiliar with doctrine.

While Saint Hyacinth was at Kiev the Tartars sacked the town, but it was only as he finished Mass that the Saint heard of the danger. Without waiting to unvest, he took the ciborium in his hands, and was leaving the church. Then occurred the most famous of his countless prodigies. As he passed by a statue of Mary a voice said: “Hyacinth, My son, why do you leave Me behind? Take Me with you...” The statue was of heavy alabaster, but when Hyacinth took it in his arms it was light as a reed. With the Blessed Sacrament and the statue he walked to the Dnieper river, and crossed dry-shod over the surface of the waters to the far bank.

On the eve of the Assumption, 1257, he was advised of his coming death. In spite of an unrelenting fever, he celebrated Mass on the feast day and communicated as a dying man. He was anointed at the foot of altar, and died on the great Feast of Our Lady.

Reflection: Saint Hyacinth teaches us to spare no effort in the service of God, but to rely for success not on our industry but on the assistance and prayer of His Immaculate Mother.

Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).

SAINT LIBERATUS
Abbot
and HIS COMPANIONS
Martyrs
(†483)

The Arian Vandal king Huneric, in the seventh year of his reign in Africa, published new edicts against the Catholics, and ordered that all their monasteries be demolished. The abbot Liberatus and six monks, Boniface, Servus, Rusticus, Rogatus, Septimus, and Maximus, who were living in a monastery near Capsa, were at that time summoned to Carthage. They were first tempted with great promises, but as they remained constant in their confession of the Trinity and of one Baptism, they were charged with irons and thrown into a dark dungeon.

The faithful by bribing the guards were able to visit the Saints, and did so day and night to be instructed by them. All mutually encouraged one another to suffer for the faith of Christ. The king, learning of this, commanded them to be more closely confined, loaded with heavier irons, and tortured with a cruelty never heard of before that time. Soon after, he condemned them to be put into an old ship and burnt with it at sea. The martyrs walked cheerfully to the shore, indifferent to the insults of the Arians as they passed by. Particular endeavors were used by the persecutors to gain the young monk Maximus; but God, who makes the tongues of children eloquent in His praises, gave him strength to withstand all their efforts. He boldly told them that they would never be able to separate him from his holy Abbot and his brethren, with whom he had borne the labors of a penitential life for the sake of everlasting glory.

An old vessel was filled with dry branches, and the seven martyrs were placed on board and bound tightly to the wood. Fire was put to it several times but went out immediately, and all endeavors to kindle it were vain. The tyrant, in rage and confusion, gave orders that the martyrs’ brains should be dashed out with oars, which was done, and their bodies cast into the sea, whose waves carried them all to the shore. The Catholics interred them honorably in a monastery at Bigua. They suffered in the year 483.

Reflection: Saint Peter wrote: “Let it not be as a murderer or a thief, a malefactor or a coveter of other men’s goods that any of you suffer; but if it is for the name of Christian, let him be not ashamed, but glorify God in that name.” (First Epistle 4:15-16)

Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).