SAINT FLAVIAN
Bishop and Martyr
(+ 449)

FLAVIAN was elected Patriarch of Constantinople in 447. His short episcopate of two years was a time of conflict and persecution from the first. Chrysaphius, the emperor's favorite, tried to extort a large sum of money from him on the occasion of his consecration. His fidelity in refusing this simoniacal betrayal of his trust brought on him the enmity of the most powerful man in the empire.

A graver trouble soon arose. In 448 Flavian had to condemn the rising heresy of the monk Eutyches, who obstinately denied that Our Lord was in two perfect natures after His Incarnation. Eutyches drew to his cause all the bad elements which so early gathered about the Byzantine court. His intrigues were long baffled by the vigilance of Flavian; but at last he obtained from the emperor the assembly of a council at Ephesus, in August 449, presided over by his friend Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria. Into this "robber council," as it is called, Eutyches entered, surrounded by soldiers. The Roman legates could not even read the Pope's letters; and at the first sign of resistance to the condemnation of Flavian, fresh troops entered with drawn swords, and, in spite of the protests of the legates, terrified most of the bishops into acquiescence.

The fury of Dioscorus reached its height when Flavian appealed to the Holy See. Then it was that he so forgot his apostolic office as to lay violent hands on his adversary. St. Flavian was set upon by Dioscorus and others, thrown down, beaten, kicked, and finally carried into banishment. Let us contrast their ends. Flavian clung to the teaching of the Roman Pontiff, and sealed his faith with his blood. Dioscorus excommunicated the Vicar of Christ, and died obstinate and impenitent in the heresy of Eutyches.

Other Saints of the Day:

• St. Simon
• St. Agatha Lin
• St. Angilbert
• Bl. William Harrington
• St. Theotonius
• St. Charalampias
• St. Colman of Lindisfarne
• St. Flavian of Constantinople
• Bl. John Pibush
• St. Leo & Paregorius
• St. Lucius
• Bl. Martin
• St. Maximus

OUR LADY OF LOURDES
(1858)

In the fourth year after the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, when a certain girl named Bernadette asserted that she had seen the Immaculate Mother of God many times in a rock cavern, on the banks of the river Gave, near the town of Lourdes, in the diocese of Tarbes, in France, so many and great wonders took place that every prudent and devoted follower of Christ could easily know that the finger of God was there. The most famous among these is that sick people who took the water from a spring that had miraculously originated in the grotto were ever so often restored to health.

Reports of the favors which the faithful were said to have received in the sacred grotto had become very widespread, and with the gathering of people increasing daily, the Bishop of Tarbes, after a juridical inquiry into the facts, permitted the religious veneration of this Immaculate Virgin to be held in the grotto itself.

Before long a church was built, and innumerable crowds of the faithful have come there every year, and in time the name of the Immaculate Mother of God has become renowned everywhere in the world; the more so each year, as the procession of the most blessed Sacrament takes place, during which some of the sick who are brought there from all parts of the world seeking health from God through the intercession of his Immaculate Mother, grow well.

Because of all this, Pope Pius X officially extended to the Universal Church this feast which Leo XIII had permitted to be celebrated only in certain places.

Other Saints of the Day:

• St. Severinus
• St. Paschal
• St. Adolf of Osnabruck
• St. Ardanus
• St. Calocerus
• St. Desiderius
• St. Jonas
• St. Lucius