Friends at Court.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVII, Issue 36, 7 September 1899, Page 7

Friends at Court.

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR.

(Written for the N.Z. Tablet.)

September 10, Sunday .--Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost. „ 11, Monday. — B. Charles Spinola. „ 12, Tuesday.— St. Guy. „ 13, Wednesday.— St. Azevedo. „ 14, Thursday. — The Exaltation of the Holy Cross. „ 15, Friday.— St. Thecla. „ 16, Saturday. — St. Cyprian.

THE EXALTATION OF THE HOLY CROSS.

The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross is of very ancient origin. Its first institution was in memory of the glorious apparition of the Holy Cross in the heavens to Constantine and his army when on the eve of battle, and in thanksgiving for the decisive victory gained over the forces of Maxentius by the power of that sacred sign. The finding of the true cross by St. Helen, which happened a few years later, was at first commemorated on the same day ; but afterwards a separate celebration of the ' Invention of the Holy Cross ' was appointed for May 3. But what added fresh glory and solemnity to the feast of to-day was the recovery of the precious relics of the cross in the seventh century from the hands of the Persians who, after the taking and plunder of Jerusalem, had carried them away along with the Patriarch and his clergy into their country beyond the Euphrates. The Emperor Heraclius having in several engagements defeated the armies of the Persians, which had for many years overrun and ravaged the Eastern provinces of the Empire, inflicted upon them in A.D. 627 a decisive overthrow near the ruins of ancient Nineveh. Their king Chosroes being soon after slain by his son, the latter sued for peace which was granted on condition of his releasing the Roman prisoners and restoring the captured spoils, especially the relics of the Holy Cross which for fourteen years had remained in the hands of the infidels. Being anxious to restore the sacred relics withidue solemnity to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and to return thanks to God in that venerable Banctuary for the success of his arms, the pious Emperor during the following spring undertook a journey to Jerusalem. Upon his arrival at the gates of the city, clad in his imperial robes he took upon his shoulders the preoious reliquary in order to convey it with every honour to its usual place of custody. But what was his astonishment at finding himself prevented by some secret und mysterious power from proceeding a single atep, whereupon the patriarch Zacharias, who walked by his Hide, suggested that the pomp of worldly splendour with which he was surrounded was not in accordance with the humble appearance of his Divine Lord when he carried the cross to Calvary through the streets of Jerusalem. ' You,' said the Prelate, ' walk in your gorgeous robes ;He was meanly clad. You have upon your head a rich and costly diadem ; He was crowned with a wreath of thorns. You go with your shoes upon your feet ; He walked barefoot.' Upon this the Emperor laid aside his purple robes and his imperial crown, took off his shoes, and putting on mean and humble garments, found himself now able without difficulty to accompany the procession and convey the relics to their former shrine. Upon their arrival at the church, the patriarch, finding the seals of the sacred treasure still unbroken, opened the silver case in which the relics were contained, and exposed the precious wood of the cross to the veneration of the faithful. This solemn ceremony was performed with great devotion, and was accompanied with the miraculous cure of many sick and infirm. Similar miraculous favours, both spiritual and temporal, are recorded in all ages to have accompanied the veneration or devout application of the relics of the true cross. And in truth we cannot wonder that the sacred wood, which was consecrated by the contact of the ever Blessed Limbs and Precious Blood of the Son of God, should be employed by Him as an instrument of good to those for whom He died.

BLESSED CHARLES SPINOLA.

The fame of the martyrdom of Father Rudolph Aquaviva, in 1583, on the island of Salsette reached the ears of a young Genoese nobleman, who was being educated under the care of his uncle, the Cardinal Archbishop of Nula. Rudolph was of a great Neapolitan house, and the news rang through the kingdom. Charles Spinola heard it as a call to follow, and became himself a novice in the Society of Jesus. The thirst for suffering made him invoke the martyrs of his Order that his craving might be satisfied. He implored to be sent to the Indies, and sailed from Lisbon only to be driven about on the Atlantic from Guinea to Brazil, until he was captured off the Azores by an English buccaneer, and carried to Britain. After strange adventures he got free, started for the East, and through perils by storms and pestilence reached at last the coast of Japan, where persecution had begun to rage. For twenty years he laboured there. At last he was captured and thrown into the horrid prison of Omuca — an open cage, where thirty-two Christians were packed together — and for four years exposed to heat, cold, and hunger, and tormented by loathsome stench and vermin. Then at last came the crown, on a height near the Martyr's Hill at Nagasaki. Blessed Charles, the first in the long line, was the first to fall into the slow fire which crawled up the stakes to which he and his fifty companions were attached.