The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March. Baring-Gould Sabine
1203, he was again obliged to resume his labours as legate, together with Brother Raoul, his colleague, a Cistercian monk like himself. He visited Toulouse, where his efforts to repress heresy met with indifferent success. In 1204, he met the leaders of the Albigenses in conference at Carcassonne.
Hopeless of effecting any good result, Peter of Castelnau implored the Holy Father to relieve him of the burden laid on him, which, he said, was more than he could bear. But the Pope refused to permit him to resign his office, and Peter was obliged to revisit Toulouse in 1205, and exact of the Count of Toulouse an oath that he would suppress by fire and sword the heresy that pervaded his domains. He was ordered on pain of excommunication to become the inquisitor and executioner of his own subjects.
At the same time Peter deposed Raymond, bishop of Toulouse, and thus prepared the way for the election of his friend Foulques, a fierce and bloodthirsty, if zealous soul.24 Then the legate turned to the Rhone, and traversed the provinces of Arles and Vienne. In 1206, he was at Montpellier, deploring with his colleague, Raoul, the sterility of their united efforts. At this time of disappointment, God, who, to use the words of William de Puylaurens, "knows always how to hold in reserve His arrows in the quiver of His Providence," sent them out of Spain two holy and valiant athletes. In July, 1206, the venerable Diego di Azebes, bishop of Osma, accompanied by the sub-prior of his church, tapped at their door with his pilgrim's staff. They opened, and admitted with the bishop that sub-prior, who was S. Dominic.
The legates opened their hearts to the bishop, and told him of their despair. The bishop gently reproved them, and bade them have a good courage, and preach the Word in season and out of season, and be careful to set a holy example. Let them go forth with neither scrip nor purse, like the apostles; and the success which had not attended two legates ambling over the country on their mules, would attend two apostles going barefoot. The advice of the bishop was approved; the legates only asked of him to accompany them with his sub-prior. The bishop consented, and the four set forth one morning out of Montpellier, without shoes on their feet, and no money in their pouch. At once the difficulties melted away, and numerous conversions were made. At Beziers and Carcassonne, they met with great success. The whole town of Caraman, on the Lauraguais, abjured heresy. But their success was not lasting: Peter saw that the only way in which he could hope to extinguish heresy was by a more persuasive weapon than the tongue.
However, he returned into the heat of the battle shortly after, to attend the conference with the heretics, held at Montreal. After this the four apostles separated to preach in different parts. Peter, finding that Raymond, Count of Toulouse, hung back from using the sword to constrain his people to abjure their heresy, excommunicated him, and the Count at once swore, as he had done before, that he would put down the errors of Albigensianism. Peter of Castelnau felt that, to use his own words, "The cause of Jesus Christ will not succeed in these lands, till one of us who preach in His name shall die in defence of the faith; may it please God that I shall be the first to feel the sword of the persecutor."
The Count met the legate at S. Gilles, on the banks of the Rhone, for conference, which led to nothing. On January 15th, 1209, Peter had said Mass, and was preparing to cross the river, when two men ran up, and one of them pierced him through the sides with a lance. Peter fell down, exclaiming, "Lord, pardon him, as I forgive him!" then he said a few words to his fellows, and died, praying fervently. The Count seems to have been guiltless of ordering or approving the murder.
[Roman Martyrology. Authority: – His Life by the P. Diodati, published at Naples, in 1794. He was inscribed by Pius VI. among the number of the Beatified on May 15th, 1789; and he was canonized by Gregory XVI. on May 26th, 1839.]
S. John-Joseph of the Cross, who must not be confounded with S. John of the Cross (Nov. 16th), was born in the island of Ischia, on the Feast of the Assumption, in the year 1654, of respectable parents, Joseph Calosirto and Laura Garguito, and was baptized under the name of Charles Cajetan, The family must have been one of singular piety, for five of his brothers entered religion. The subject of our memoir, as a child, exhibited a precocious piety. He chose as his room a small chamber in the most retired portion of the house, where he erected a little altar to Our Lady, on whose great festival he had been born, and towards whom, through life, he manifested a filial devotion. From the earliest age also he manifested a great repugnance from sin. His pure childish soul shivered and shrank from the breath of evil, as a young spring flower from a frozen blast.
The knowledge of evil without bringing guilt to the soul, unless voluntarily received and harboured with delight, leaves on it a mark, so that the soul knowing evil cannot have the freshness of a guiltless and ignorant soul. The little saintly boy, taught of God, seems unconsciously to have felt this, and he manifested none of that curiosity after evil which is one of the tokens of our fallen nature, and which leads the young mind first to the knowledge of evil, and then, it may be, to the perpetration of it.
Feeling a great desire for the religious life, he entered the order of S. Francis, as reformed by S. Peter of Alcantara, in Naples, and assumed the habit at the age of sixteen, taking at the same time the name of John-Joseph of the Cross. This was in 1671. His noviciate lasted three years; and at the age of nineteen, his superior found him sufficiently perfect to be entrusted with the direction of the building of a convent at Piedimonte di Agila, and the organizing of discipline therein.
On arriving at the proper age, he was ordained priest, and soon after retired into a forest, where he built himself a cell, and resided as a hermit. Soon five little hermitages clustered around his cell, and a church was built for the accommodation of the anchorites. But his superiors recalled him to the monastery to undertake the charge of the novices, and somewhat later he was appointed superior of the house at Piedimonte di Agila, which had risen under his care. He suffered about this time from extreme dryness. It was to him as though the face of God were turned away from him, and he felt agonies of fear, thinking that through want of judgment or unbecoming example, he might have retarded the advance, and perhaps lost some, of the souls of the novices who had been entrusted to his care. But one of the brethren who had lately died appeared to him in a vision, and comforted him, assuring him that his novices were all leading an edifying life.
He was afterwards appointed Superior of the convent, an office in which he displayed great judgment, but which withdrew him too much from spiritual meditation and reading to be congenial with his tastes.
At his request he was relieved of the office of Superior, and was again made director of the novices, and fulfilled the duties of this office for four years.
He died on March 5th, 1734, in the convent of S. Lucia, at Naples.
March 6
S. Marcian, B.M. at Tortona, circ. A.D. 120.
SS. Victor, Victorinus, Claudian and Bassa, MM. at Nicemedia and Apamea, 3rd cent.
S. Quiriacus, P.C. at Treves, 4th cent.
S. Evagrius, Patr. of Constantinople, end of 4th cent.
S. Sezin, Ab. in Brittany, 6th cent.
S. Fridolin, Ab. of Sickingen, end of 7th cent.
SS. Kyneburga, Kyneswitha and Tibba, VV. at Peterborough, end of 7th cent.
SS. Balther and Bilfred, HH. at Lindisfarne, circ. A.D. 756.
S. Chrodegang, B. of Metz, A.D. 766.
SS. Forty-two Martyrs, under the Saracens, in Syria, circ. A.D. 841
S. Cadroe, Ab. at Metz, A.D. 988.
B. Oldegar, B. of Barcelona, and Archb. of Tarragona, A.D. 1137.
S. Colette, V. at Ghent, A.D. 1447.
[Venerated in Brittany, patron of the parish of Guic-Sezni, in the diocese of S. Pol-de-Léon.]
Of this abbot nothing certain is known. Colgan attempted to identify him with S. Isserninus, the companion of S. Patrick. According to Albert le Grand, S. Sezin was born in Ulster, in 402, studied
Foulques was famous as a troubadour for his licentious poetry. His biography is given December 25: by an irony of fate, the commemoration of this firebrand is on Christmas Day, when "Peace on earth" was sung by angels.