Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 46, 12 November 1903, Page 31

Friends at Court

♦- GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR November 15, Sunday .—Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Gertrude, Virgin. 16, Monday .—St. Stanislaus Kostka, Confessor. 17, Tuesday.— St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, Bishop and Confessor. 18, Wednesday.— Feast of the Dehioation of the Basilicas of St. Peter and St. Paul. „ 19, Thursday.— St. Pontianus, Pope and Martyr. 20, Friday.— St. Felix, of Valois, Confessor. 21, Saturday.— Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

St. Gertrufle, Virgin. St. Gertrude, who was a religious of the Order of St Benedict, was born at Eisleben, Saxony, in 1264. She was a sister of St. Mechtilda. She wrote in Latin a book called ' Revelations, ' in which she relates her communications with God. St. Stanislaus Kostka, Confessor, St. Stanislaus Kostka, who belonged to one of the noblest families in Poland, was born in the middle of the 16th century. His early studies were made at Rome, but at the age of 14 he was sent, with his elder brother Paul, to the Jesuit College at Vienna. At the age of 17 he set out for Rome, where he entered the Jesuit novitiate. At the beginning of August, 1668, Stanislaus foretold to several of his companions that the end of his exilo was drawing near, and that he hoped, to keep the great Feast of the Assumption in heaven. As he was then in good health, little attention was paid to his prediction ; but on August 10 he was attacked with a fever, which soon "reduced him to such a weak state that it was found necessary to give him the last rites of the Church. As soon as the hour of midnight sounded, ushering in the Feast of the Assumption, he bade a last farewell to those around him, and after exclaiming that he beheld the Blessed Virgin approaching, accompanied by a hand of angels, he calmly expired at the first dawn of day in the 18th year of his age and the 10th month of his entrance into religion. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus. St Gregory, a Father of the Church, wasi, from hjis extraordinary miracles surnamed Thaumaturgus (wonderworker). He was born in Neo-Caesarea in Pontus about 270, and was educated as a pagan until he came to Caesarea, Palestine, where he and his brother Athen'odorus were converted to the faith by Origon. He passed five years in the school of Origen and three at Alexandria, during; the persecution of Maximian. By Phaedimus, the Metropolitan of Pontus, Gregory was made Bishop of his native city, which then numbered only 17 Christians ; but at his death only 17 pagans remained. The works of Gregory contain ' A Panegyrical Oration cm Origen, a ' Symhohim ' or '.Exposition of the Faith,' especially on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity a paraphrase on the Book of Ecclesiastes and a Canonical Epistle, containing the penances to be enjoined on penitents. St. Pontianjis, Pope and Martyr. St. Pontianus was Pope from 230 to 235. He was exiled by Alexander Severus, upon the island of Tavolato, on the eastern coast of Sardinia, where he was put to death by order of Maximinus. St. Felix of Valois, Confessor. St Felix was born in Valois, France in 1127, afind founded, with St. John, of Matha, the Order of Trinitarians for the redemption of captives. The Order was approved of by Innocent 111., and counted in the 15th century more than 800 houses' spread all over Christendom. The religious wore a white habit with a red and blue cross on the breast. After haying established lihemselves in Paris, in 1228, in the ancient Benedictine Abbey dedicated to St. Mathurin, they took the name of Mathurins. The Order was driven from Germany by the Reformation and counted 94 houses in France when it was supressed in 1789.