October 9

Spiritual Bouquet: Being rich, our Lord Jesus Christ became poor for your sakes, that by His poverty you might become rich. II Cor. 8:9

SAINT LOUIS BERTRAND
Dominican Missionary and Preacher
(1526-1581)

Saint Louis Bertrand was born in the year 1526, the oldest of the eight children of his good Christian parents, at Valencia in Spain. He was in every way a model of modesty and obedience, and it was foreseen that God had some particular role for him. He devoted himself to the sick in the hospitals. He desired to enter the Order of Saint Dominic, but for some time could not obtain his parents’ permission. Finally, in 1545, he became professed in the Dominican Order, then was ordained a priest in 1547 when he was only 21 years old, according to the desire of his Superiors. In 1551, at the age of twenty-five, he was made master of novices, and in this post he formed many great servants of God. It is said that despite his strictness, he was so gentle that his chastisements were more agreeable to his novices than the favors of their best friends.

In 1560, when the plague broke out in Valencia, his Superiors, not wanting to lose him, sent him elsewhere for a time; he preached with great success and was endowed with the spirit of prophecy. He continued his preaching when recalled to Valencia. In 1562 he obtained leave to embark for Carthagena in the American mission, and there converted vast multitudes to the Faith. He hoped to obtain the grace of martyrdom there, but God conserved his life. He was favored with the gift of miracles, and, after praying for the gift to be understood without an interpreter, since one of those had disappointed him seriously, he preached in his mother tongue, Spanish, but was understood by all the natives of various tribes.

In his mission at Tubera he himself baptized 10,500 Indians, without counting those his companions baptized, and obliged them to burn their idols and the sites of their detestable sacrifices. Often his gentleness charmed his worst enemies. He preached also at Capicoa and Paluato, having established missions there. He refused all remuneration; he brought down rain after a drought. He was poisoned by some pagans who had suffered a reproach, but the poison did not harm him, and the barbarians were converted by the miracle. He went to many other places, preaching and healing the sick; again he was poisoned without effect. There was no one who did not consider him a Saint, sent for the benefit of the new continent.

After seven years he returned to Spain to plead the cause of the Indians, oppressed and given bad example by his own countrymen. He was not permitted, however, to return and labor among them. He spent his remaining days preaching, laboring for the conversion of different cities, and again forming the novices of the Order at Valencia. He was elected Prior of that convent, and never had a more charitable or more zealous Superior been seen there. At length, after suffering from a long and painful illness, he was carried from the pulpit in the Cathedral at Valencia to the bed from which he never rose. He died on the day he had foretold, October 9, 1581, at the age of 55 years.

Reflection: The Saints fasted, toiled, and wept, not only for love of God, but in fear of damnation. How shall we, with our self-indulgent lives and unexamined consciences, face the judgment-seat of Christ?

Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12; 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 DIONYSIUS the AREOPAGITE
First Bishop of Athens and of Paris
and his Companions
Martyrs
(† ca. 117)

Of all the Roman missionaries sent into Gaul, Saint Dionysius or Denys the Areopagite, converted by Saint Paul in Athens, carried the Faith farthest into the west, fixing his see at Paris. France claims him as one of her greatest glories.

He was a highly educated philosopher of Greece, and one of the nine archontes or leaders of the city of Athens, a counselor, as some say, if not the Head of the Athenian senate. He was born in the year 9 of the Christian era, and had traveled to Heliopolis in Egypt to learn mathematics and astrology. There he saw for himself, in his early twenties, the eclipse of the sun contrary to all the laws of nature, which occurred at the death of the Son of God. His teachers could not explain it to him otherwise than as a sign of changes in divine matters. In his letters to Saint Polycarp he says himself that the astrologer he questioned had answered him rather by divine inspiration than by any natural knowledge. And he himself had cried out: “Either the God of nature is suffering, or the entire mechanism of the world is going to be destroyed to return to its ancient state of chaos!” Already he was being prepared for his conversion twenty years later, which is related by Saint Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter seven.

Through Saint Paul, the see of Athens was established with Saint Denys as its first bishop, and this flock, which he extended through the entire region, became one of the most considerable of Greece. He made a number of journeys outside Greece and was present when the Apostles were assembled at the Dormition and glorious Assumption of the Mother of God. He wrote of Her, and he became a friend of Saint John, Her guardian. He corresponded with Saint Timothy, Saint Titus, Saint Polycarp and others of the Apostles’ successors. It appears that it was after a conversation with Saint John the Apostle that Saint Denys, already in his late sixties, determined to go to the Occident to preach to the idolaters of that region. He left Saint Publius as his successor in Athens, and departed for Rome with Eleutherius and Rusticus. Pope Saint Clement of Rome confirmed this enterprise, and added to the group at least ten more priests, all of whom are now listed among the Saints. The authors of the oriental church are steadfast in asserting, with Roman tradition, that it was Saint Denys the Areopagite, converted by Saint Paul, who was sent to Gaul. Others have thought Saint Denys was a fourth century missionary, but this theory cannot be credited, as the Bollandists explain at length.*

Through him and his disciples, whom he sent to evangelize various districts, the sees of Rouen, Chartres, Evreux, Verdun, and Beauvais were established. With his two original companions, Eleutherius and Rusticus, Saint Denis went to Paris, where he built four oratories. The first baptized Christian, who received them into his house, was decapitated, denounced to a Roman official by his own pagan wife, as an accomplice of their three guests. The three missionaries were imprisoned and chained in such a way as to suffer torture, then flogged while they blessed God. Other torments were devised, but God preserved the bishop, at this time nearly 100 years old. They were finally beheaded on Montmartre; a large group of Christians, who wept on this occasion, as well as others of the city and the entire region, were also massacred. The wife of the first Parisian Christian and martyr was converted and died with the others. Their joint martyrdom occurred about the year 117.

*In a dissertation, Vol. 14.

Source: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 12.