Day: December 16, 2017

MY CATHOLIC FAITH

LXV. Services of the Church to the State

Of what benefit is the Church to the State? –The Church is essential for the welfare of the State, for it upholds the government, directs its members to obey just laws, prevents crimes, incites to the practice of civic virtues, encourages to noble endeavour, and unites different nations in one brotherhood.

There is no better citizen than a good Catholic. He obeys the State because his religion teaches him that all lawful authority comes from God.

Who can be a more law-abiding citizen than one who looks upon civil officials as superiors that God Himself bids him obey? Plutarch says that religion is a better protection for a city than its walls.

The Church teaches its children to make sacrifices for the common good. Thus it trains unselfish, thrifty, and industrious members of the State. A man with no religion seldom, makes, a good citizen. He is liable to try always to get as much as he can even at the expense of others. A man without religion generally ends without any morality whatever.

The prisons are in general peopled, not by practicing members of the Church, but by people who neglected religion. Only God knows the number of those who have been turned from the paths of sin and crime on account of their connection with the Church. Continue reading →

St. Eusebius, Martyr
from The Golden Legend (Lives of the Saints), 1275

Here next followeth the Life of S. Eusebius, and first of his name. Eusebius is said of eu, which is as much to say as good, and sebe, that is, eloquence or station. Or Eusebius is as much to say as worship; he had bounty in sanctification, eloquence in defence of the faith, station in the steadfastness of martyrdom, and good worshipping in the reverence of God.

Of St. Eusebius

Eusebius was always a virgin, and whilst he was yet young in the faith he received baptism and name of Eusebius the pope, in which baptism the hands of angels were seen that lifted him out of the font. On a day a certain lady was esprised of his beauty, and would have gone to his chamber, and the angels kept the door in such wise that she might not enter, and on the morn she went to him and kneeled down at his feet, and required of him mercy and forgiveness of that she had been in will to have made him sin, and he pardoned her debonairly. And when he was ordained to be a priest, he shone in so great holiness, that when he sang the solemnities of the masses the angels served him.  Continue reading →