the Almighty and merciful Lord did in- death she had a vision of Christ Jesus deed rest most evidently upon this de- surrounded by Angels. A dead tree hard sign. This penniless virgin, helped by by the cell instantly broke into foliage. no man, and in the teeth of many that Her body is untouched by corruption were great in this world, was enabled even unto this day, and lieth in a sort to build two-and-thirty houses. The of perfumed oil, regarded with godly darkness of unbelievers and misbelievers reverence. She was famous for miradrew from her unceasing tears, and she cles both before and after her death, and willingly gave up her own body to God was numbered by Gregory XV. among to be tortured, to soften the

fury of His the Saints. indignation against them. His own love so blazed in her heart that she attained

THIRD NOCTURN. to see an Angel run her through with a

Lessons from Matth. xxv. 1, with fiery spear, and Christ Himself take her by the hand, and to hear Him say:

the Homily of St. Gregory, (p. 878.) "Henceforth thou shalt love Mine ho- At Lauds and Second Vespers, Hymn nour as a wife indeed.” At His inspira- as at First Vespers. tion she took the extremely difficult vow to do always that which should seem

OCTOBER 17. to her to be most perfect. She wrote much, full of heavenly wisdom, whereby St. kadwiga, [Grand Princess the minds of the faithful are enkindled to long for the Fatherland above.

of Poland,) Widow.

Semi-double.
Sixth Lesson.

All from the Common Office for an E ARNEST as were the ensamples of graces which had

Holy Woman neither Virgin nor Margrievous as was the state of her body,

tyr, (p. 886,) except the following. afficted by disease, she still burnt with the desire of tormenting it. She tor

Prayer throughout the Office. tured it with sack-cloth, chains of spikes, 0

GOD, Who didst teach Thy blessed handfuls of nettles, and heavy scourg

band-maid ladwiga to turn away ing. She rolled herself sometimes from the glory of the world, and with among thorns, and was used to cry all her heart to take up her Cross and to God: “Lord! to suffer-or to die." follow Thee, teach us, for her sake and As long as she remained exiled from after her ensample to hold light the the heavenly Fountain of eternal life, perishing pleasures of this present world, her life was to her a lingering death. and cleaving ever unto Thy Cross to She was eminent for the gift of pro

rest in the end more than conquerors phecy, and God did indeed so pour over all things that would hurt us. forth His bounties upon her, that she Who livest and reignest with God the often cried to Him in entreaty not to Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, bless her so as to make her forget her one God, world without end. Amen. sins. It was worn out rather by the fever of her love than by the wasting of

MATTINS. disease that she sank upon her death

FIRST NOCTURN. bed at Alva. She foretold the day of her own death, received the Sacraments Lessons from Scripture according to of the Church, and exhorted her dis- the Season. ciples to peace, love, and strictness in observing the Rule, and then her soul,

SECOND NOCTURN. like a pure dove, winged its flight to

Fourth Lesson. rest with God, on the 15th day of October in the year 1582, New Style, JADWIGA, a Princess, in whom the being then 67 years of age. At her splendour of her family was out

I She died in the year and at the day in which the Kalendar was changed, about 9 p.m. on the evening of the 4th Oct., as we generally reckon, but the First Vespers of the next day, counted the 15th, being passed, that day is the one to which her death belongs ac. cording to the Church reckoning.

THE PROPER OFFICE OF THE SAINTS.

shone by the radiant innocency of her having such command over herself as
life, was the daughter of Bertold and not to recoil from their sores oozing
Agnes, Marquess and Marchioness of with matter.
Moravia,' and sister to Gertrude, wife of
Andrew, King
of Hungary, and mother

Sixth Lesson.
of the holy Elizabeth of Thuringia.
From her earliest childhood she was a

HEI
ER long-suffering and endurance

were very marvellous, especially very grave child, and had already done

when her son Henry, Duke of Silesia, with childish things when, at twelve to whom she bore a mother's love, was years of age, she was given in marriage by her father and mother to Henry,

killed by the Tartars [in 1241.) His

death drew from her rather thanksGrand Prince of Poland. In marriage she kept the bed in all holiness unde

giving to God than tears for him. She

died upon the 15th day of October, in filed, and brought up in the fear of God the children that were therein begotten

the year 1243.] She was famous for

miracles. One while, being called on, of her. [After the birth of her sixth

she restored to life a boy who had fallen child,] she was fain to give herself more

into the water, been dashed against continually to God, and induced her

the wheels of a mill, and wholly husband to agree to a mutual vow of

crushed. This and the like being duly separation of bed-fellowship. After his

proved, Clement IV. numbered her death [in 1238,] by the inspiration of God, whom she besought in unceasing

name among those of the Saints, and

allowed her Feast-day to be kept in prayer, she clad herself for godliness'

Poland, in which country, being Pasake in the habit of a Cistercian nun in

troness, she hath most honour, upon the the monastery [which had been finished]

15th of October; which permission was at Trebnitz (in 1219.] She continued

given to the whole Church by Innocent
absorbed in God. She remained en-

XI. for the 17th day of the same month.
gaged in the Divine Office and hearing
Masses from sunrise till noon, and trod

THIRD NOCTURN.
mightily under foot the old enemy of

Lessons from Matth. xiii. 44, with the
Fifth Lesson.

Homily of St. Gregory, (p. 889.)
SHE could not bear to hear talk of Vespers are of St. Luke, without any

worldly things, unless they had to Commemoration of St. Iadwiga.
do with the things of God or the saving
of souls. She was very wise in busi-

OCTOBER 18. ness, not doing too much, nor unseasonably, and withal courteous and gentle St. Luke, Evangelist. toward all men. She got a great victory over herself by maltreating her Double of the Second Class. flesh with fasting, watching, and rough clothing. She was an ensample of the

All from the Common Office for higher Christian graces and of a godly

Apostles, (p. 805,) except the folnun, by the wisdom of her counsels,

lowing. and the straightforwardness and peacefulness of her mind. It was her use to

Prayer throughout the Office. rank herself after all others, and cheerfully to undertake lower offices than 0 LORD, we beseech Thee, that there

may plead for us Thine holy Evanthose of the other nuns. She ministered gelist Luke, who, for Thy Name's sake, to the poor even upon her knees, and bore about always in his body the death washed and kissed the feet of lepers, of the Cross.' Through our Lord Je

1 Alban Butler says this is a mere mistake of copyists for Meran.

2 He was Duke of Silesia at the time of the marriage, and only became Grand Prince of Poland in 1233.

3 It was begun in 1203. The Saint never took monastic vows. * Cf. 2 Cor. iv. 10. The meaning in the text is obscure. What became of the Evangelist after the martyrdom of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul is quite uncertain. (See Alban Butler.) The Martyrology says: "He suffered many things for Christ's dame's sake, and died in Bithynia, full of the Holy Ghost,” which phrases would seem to imply a denial of

man.

sus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and compose them through his admiration reigneth with Thee, in the unity of for Paul, and that he was deposed in the Holy Ghost, one God, world with- consequence. There are some persons out end. Amen.

who suspect that when Paul in his

Epistles, useth the phrase, “ According MATTINS,

to my Gospel” (Rom. ii. 16, 2 Tim. ii. 8,)

he meaneth the Gospel written by Luke. FIRST NOCTURN. Lessons from Ezek. i. 1 (p. 815.)

Sixth Lesson.

HoWBEIT, Luke learned his Gospel SECOND NOCTURN.

not from the Apostle Paul only, Fourth Lesson.

who had not companied with the Lord

in the flesh, but also from other Apostles, The Lesson is taken from the Book on

as himself declareth at the beginning of Ecclesiastical Writers, written by S. his work, where he saith : “ They de

Jerome, Priest (at Bethlehem.] livered them unto us, which from the LUKE. was a physician of Antioch, beginning were eye-witnesses and minwho,

isters of the word.” (i. 2.) According
ings, knew the Greek language. He to what he had heard, therefore, did he
was a follower of the Apostle Paul, and write his Gospel. As to the “Acts of
his fellow-traveller in all his wander- the Apostles," he composed them from
ings. He wrote a Gospel, whereof the his own personal knowledge. He was
same Paul saith : “ We have sent with never married. He lived eighty-four
him the brother, whose praise is in the years. He is buried at Constantinople,
Gospel throughout all the Churches” whither his bones were brought from
(2 Cor. viii. 18.) Of him, he writeth Achaia in the twentieth year of Con-
unto the Colossians, (iv. 14): “Luke, stantine, together with the reliques of
the beloved physician, greeteth you.” the Apostle Andrew.
And again, unto Timothy, (II. iv. 11):
“Only Luke is with me.' He also

THIRD NOCTURN.
published another excellent book in-
tituled “The Acts of the Apostles,”

Lessons from Luke x. 1, with the wherein the history is brought down to

Homily of St. Gregory, (p. 816.)
Paul's two-years sojourn at Rome, that At Second Vespers a Commemoration
is to say, until the fourth year of Nero, is made of the following. Prayer from
from which we gather that it was at Rome Lauds.
that the said book was composed.

OCTOBER 19.
Fifth Lesson.

St. Peter of Alcántara, Cons
TA silence of Luke is one of the
reasons why we reckon among Apo-

fessor.
cryphal books * The Acts of Paul and

Double.
Thekla," and the whole story about the
baptism of Leo. For why should the

All from the Common Office for a fellow-traveller of the Apostle, who

Confessor not a Bishop, (p. 855,) except knew other things, be ignorant only of

the following.
this? At the same time there is against

MATTINS.
these documents the statement of Ter-
tullian, almost a contemporary writer,

The first verse of the Hymn is althat the Apostle John convicted a cer

tered. tain Priest in Asia, who was a great ad

FIRST NOCTURN. mirer of the Apostle Paul, of having written them, and that the said Priest Lessons from Scripture according to owned that he had been induced to the Season: the statement of St. Hippolytus that he was crucified at Elæa in the Peloponnesus. Perhaps the collect means to say that though it is not true that he suffered such a martyrdom physically, yet he suffered a life-long martyrdom in intention and in endurance of hard. ships, making true of him what St. Paul says of himself in 2 Cor. iv. 10.