Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 17 June 1920, Page 3

Friends at Court

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK’S CALENDAR. June 20, Sunday.—Fourth Sunday after Pentecost. ” 21, Monday. St. Aloysius Gonzaga, Confessor. ” 22, Tuesday. —St. Paußnus, Bishop and Confessor. ” 23, Wednesday. —Vigil of St. John the Baptist. ” 24, Thursday —Nativity of St. John the Baptist. ” 25, Friday.—St. William, Abbot. ” 26, Saturday.SS John and Paul, Martyrs. St. Aloysius Gonzaga. St. Aloysius Gonzaga was born in the Castle of Castiglione on March' 9, 1568, and died on June 21, 1591. At Brescia, when he was 12, he came under the spiritual guidance of St. Charles Borromeo, and from him received First Communion. In 1581 he went with his father to Spain, and he and his brother were made pages to James, the son of Philip 11. While there he formed the resolution of becoming a Jesuit, though he first thought of joining the Discalced Carmelites. In 1591, when in his fourth year of theology, a famine and pestilence broke out in Italy. Though in delicate health, he devoted himself to the. care of the sick, but fell ill and died. He was beatified by Gregory XV, in 1621 and canonised by Benedict XIII. in 1726. St. Paulinus, Bishop and Confessor. St. Paulinus was born in the year 353 at Bordeaux, of a wealthy and ancient senatorial family. His acquaintance with SS. Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome, induced him to give up all his dignities and retire from the world. In 409 he became Bishop of Nola, in Campania. Many of the works of this distinguished Father are lost. Letters written to friends such as Sulpicius Severus, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and other distinguished contemporaries, together with poems, alone remain. He died in the year 431.

GRAINS OF GOLD INVOCATION. [The following poem was written by Eamon de Valera, Commandant, Irish Republican Army, commanding the Boland’s Mill area, on Sunday, May 28, 1916, after hearing Mass in the barrack square, Richmond Barracks. Commandant de Valera was the only Dublin Commandant who was not executed.] O Sacred Heart ! our hearts are wholly Thine, Although we come not now before Thy shrine. Here Under Heaven’s blue vault we kneel and pray, From kindred, home, and friendship far away. Thou, Sacred Heart, hast known the prison cell, The pangs of hunger Thou hast felt as well. The soldiers’ rude assault has torn Thy frame, Their . ribald speech blasphemed Thy hold name, The judges’ sentence has, been Thine like ours— The wanton exercise of brutal powers— The doom of death has passed upon Thy heart, A Mother’s tears were shed, as ye did part. O, Mother, for the love of thy dear Son, Be with us till our day of life is done; Bring us in love and mercy to His feet, To sing his praise and thine in accents sweet. O Sacred Heart, grant us Thy pains to share, By penance for our sins to make repair ; Help us in patience to embrace Thy will, And follow in Thy footsteps to the Hill.—Amen.

We cannot add to God’s brightness, but we may act _as reflectors, which though they have no light of their own, yet when the sun shines upon them reflect His beams.