The Daily Pilgrimage

Today in the Roman year

Pentecost teaches that the Holy Ghost does not create private religious enthusiasm detached from doctrine, worship, and authority. He gathers, sends, teaches, and strengthens the visible Church. The remnant must therefore seek fire without disorder and zeal without novelty.

Pause at midday for a brief act of faith, hope, charity, and contrition.

Roman Martyrology

July 19

T. VINCENT DE PAUL, confessor, who slept in the Lord on the 27th of September. Leo XIII. declared him heavenly patron before the throne of God of all charitable organizations throughout the Catholic world owing in any manner their origin to him. — The same day, the birthday of St. Epaphras, whom the apostle St. Paul calls his fellow-prisoner. By the same apostle he was consecrated bishop of Colossse, where becoming renowned for his virtues, he received the palm of martyrdom for defending courageously the flock committed to his charge. His body lies at Rome in the basilica of St. Mary the Greater. — At Seville, in Spain, the martyrdom of the holy virgins Justa and Kufina. Arrested by the governor Diogenian, they were stretched on the rack and lacerated with iron claws, then imprisoned, and subjected to starvation and various tortures. Lastly Justa breathed her last in prison, and Kufina had her neck broken while confessing Christ. — At Cordova, St. Aurea, virgin, who repented of a fault she had committed, and in a second combat overcame the enemy by the shedding of her blood. — At Treves, St. Martin, bishop and martyr. — At Rome, pope St. Symmachus, who for a long time had much to bear from a faction of schismatics. At last, distinguished by holiness, he went to God. — At Verona, St. Felix, bishop. — At Scete, a mountain in Egypt, St. Arsenius, a deacon of the Koman church. In the time of Theodosius, he retired into a wilderness, where, endowed with every virtue and shedding continual tears, he yielded his soul to God. — In Cappadocia, the holy virgin Marcina, sister of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa.

Gospel of the Day

Make unto you friends of the mammon of iniquity.

8th Sunday after Pentecost - Luke 16:1-9

“The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light.”

Be practical about heaven. The smallest possession can become charity when the heart stops treating it as an idol.

Highlighted saint

St. Vincent de Paul

Confessor and father of ordered charity.

St. Vincent de Paul served Christ in the poor, the sick, abandoned children, prisoners, and country souls needing instruction. His charity was practical, priestly, and organized.

He founded works that joined mercy to doctrine, including missions for souls and stable service for the needy. His witness teaches that love of the poor is not sentiment detached from truth, but service under Christ.

Let charity become concrete today. St. Vincent teaches that love of neighbor should take form in real works governed by Catholic truth.

Breviary Witness

Charity organized for Christ's poor.

Matins - St. Vincent de Paul

• The Breviary honors St. Vincent de Paul as a priest of apostolic charity, missions for souls, care for the poor, and stable works of mercy.
• His witness refuses the false choice between doctrine and mercy: Catholic charity serves bodies because souls are made for God.

Let compassion become disciplined service. The poor need more than sentiment; they need Catholic works ordered to salvation.

From Matins

Apostolic charity ordered for the poor and the clergy.

Matins - Second Nocturn - St. Vincent de Paul, Confessor

Roman Breviary, Proper lessons for St. Vincent de Paul

“There was no kind of misery which he did not strive with fatherly tenderness to relieve.”

• The Breviary honors St. Vincent de Paul as a French priest whose early charity toward the poor ripened into missions, clerical reform, and organized works of mercy.
• After captivity among Mohammedan pirates, he converted his apostate owner, escaped under Our Lady's protection, served parishes, cared for galley convicts, and governed the Visitation nuns with wisdom praised by St. Francis de Sales.
• His labors for seminaries, missions, retreats, worthy appointments, obedience to the Apostolic See, relief of captives, foundlings, the sick, the poor, and devastated provinces show charity as ordered, priestly, and doctrinally guarded.

Let charity become stable, Catholic, and practical. St. Vincent teaches that mercy for bodies and souls must be fatherly, organized, obedient to truth, and free from self-display.

Truth of the Faith

Revelation Was Entrusted to the Church

Sacred Scripture and Apostolic Tradition are received within the Church, whose divinely assisted teaching office guards the deposit of faith.

Prayer

O Lord, recollect my scattered thoughts, govern my words, and teach me to return to Thee before the noise of the day rules my soul.