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Post by Elizabeth on Oct 6, 2019 2:02:01 GMT
Saint Placid
Martyr
(515-541)
Saint Placid was born in Rome, in the year 515, of a patrician family, and at seven years of age was taken by his father to the Benedictine monastery of Subiaco, recently founded, to be educated. At thirteen years of age he followed Saint Benedict to a new foundation at Monte Cassino, where he grew up in the practices of a wonderful austerity and innocence of life. He had scarcely completed his twenty-first year when he was chosen to found a monastery at Messina, in Sicily, upon some estates which had been given by his father to Saint Benedict. He spent four years in building that monastery. There miracles made him known, and it was said that his humility was so perfect and had such charm, that it earned for him the affection of all. He could not see a poor man without hastening to aid him. One day he cured all the sick of the island at the same time, when they were brought and assembled before him for his benediction. The fifth year spent by the monks in Messina had not yet ended when a band of Saracen pirates who had already killed a great many persons, burnt everything to the ground in 541. They then put to a lingering death not only Placid and thirty monks who had joined him, but also his two brothers, Eutychius and Victorinus, and his holy sister Flavia, who had come to visit him. The entire flotilla of the invaders perished when these barbarians left the island, amid a sudden storm; although they had a hundred ships and were 16,800 in number, not one ship or passenger survived. A religious who had escaped notice wrote to Saint Benedict an account of the massacre, after burying the martyrs. Saint Placid was the first Benedictine martyr, and the monastery of Messina, which was rebuilt not long afterwards, was henceforth known by his name. |
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Post by Admin on Oct 5, 2020 11:04:09 GMT
October 5 – St. Placid and His Companions, Martyrs
 The protomartyr of the Benedictine Order stands before us today in his strength and his beauty. The empire had fallen, and the yoke of the Arian Goths lay heavy upon Italy. Rome was no longer in the hands of the glorious races, which had made her greatness; these, nevertheless, kept up their honorable traditions. They offered a great lesson for future times of revolution to other descendants of not less noble families: in lieu of the ensign of civic honor once committed to their fathers, the survivors of the old patrician ranks made it their duty to raise still higher the standard of true heroism, of those virtues which alone are everlasting. Thus Benedict of Nursia, fleeing into the desert, had rendered greater service than any mighty conqueror to Rome and her immortal destinies. The world soon discovered this fact; and then began, as St. Gregory tells us, the concourse of Roman nobles, bringing their children to the Patriarch of monks, to be educated by him for Almighty God. Placid was the eldest son of the patrician Tertullus. The excellent qualities early discovered in the child led his worthy father to offer to God, without delay, this dear first-fruit of his paternity. In those days, parents loved their children not for this passing world, but for eternity; not for themselves, but for our Lord. The faith of Tertullus was well rewarded when, twenty years later, not only his first-born, but also his two other sons and their sister, were crowned with martyrdom. This was not the first holocaust of the kind in that heroic family, if it be true that they were relatives by blood and heirs of the goods as well as the virtues, of the holy Eustace, who had been immolated four centuries earlier with his wife and sons.
 Among the children of promise enlisted by the vanquished nobles of the ancient empire in the new militia of the holy Valley, Equitus brought to Subiaco his son Maurus, a boy some years older than Placid. Henceforth the names of Maurus and Placid became inseparable from that of Benedict; and the Patriarch acquired a new glory from his two sons, so united and yet so different. Equal in their love of their master and father, and themselves equally loved by him for their equal fidelity in good works, they experienced to the full that delight in virtue which makes its practice a second nature. However similar their zeal in using “the most strong and bright armor of obedience” in the service of Christ the King, it was wonderful to see the master accommodating himself to the age of his disciples; so adapting himself to their differences of character that there was nothing precipitate, nothing forced, in his education. It disciplined nature without crushing it, and followed the Holy Ghost without endeavoring to take the lead. In Maurus was especially reproduced Benedict’s austere gravity; in Placid his simplicity and sweetness. Benedict took Maurus to witness the chastisement inflicted on the wandering monk, who could not stay at prayer; but Placid accompanied him to the mountain-top, where his prayer obtained a spring of water to deliver from danger and fatigue the brethren dwelling on the rocks above the Anio. But when, walking along the riverside, holding Placid by the hand and leaning upon Maurus, the legislator of monks explained to them the code of perfection they were afterwards to propagate, the Angels knew not which most to admire: the candor of the one, winning the father’s tenderest affection, or the precocious maturity of the other, meriting the holy patriarch’s confidence, and already sharing his burden. Who does not recollect the admirable scene of Maurus walking on the water and saving Placid from drowning? Monastic traditions never weary of extolling the obedience of Maurus, Benedict’s humility, and the sagacious simplicity of the child pronouncing sentence as judge of the prodigy. Of such children the Master could say from experience: “The Lord oftentimes revealeth that which is best, to him that is the younger.” And we may well believe that the recollections of the holy Valley prompted him, later on, to lay down in his Rule this prescription: “In all places whatsoever, let not age be taken into account as regardeth order, neither let it be to the prejudice of anyone; for Samuel and David, while yet children, were judges over the elders.”
 The following Lessons, taken from the Monastic Breviary, will complete the account of Placid’s life, and relate the manner of his death. In 1588, the discovery of the Martyr’s relics at Messina confirmed the truth of their Acts. On this occasion, Pope Sixtus V extended the celebration of their Feast under the rite of a simple, to the universal Church. Deign, O Placid, my beloved son, why should I weep for thee? Thou art taken from me, only that thou mayest belong to all men. I will give thanks for this sacrifice of the fruit of my heart, offered to Almighty God.” Thus, on hearing of this day’s triumph, spoke Benedict, thy spiritual father, mingling tears with his joy. He did not survive thee long; yet long enough to complete, of his own accord, the sacrifice of separations, by sending into far-off France the companion of thy childhood, Maurus, who was destined not to rejoin thee in heaven for so many long years. Charity seeketh not her own interests; she finds them by forgetting self, and losing self in God. Placid had disappeared; Maurus had been sent away; Benedict was about to die; human prudence would have believed the holy Patriarch’s work in danger of perishing; whereas at this critical moment, it strengthened its roots and extended its branches over the whole world. Unless the grain of wheat falling into the ground die, itself remaineth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. As heretofore the blood of martyrs was the seed of Christians, it now produced a rich harvest of monks. Blessed be thou, O Placid, far beyond thy native Italy, and Sicily the scene of thy combat. Blessed be thou for the numberless ears of corn, for the abundant harvest sprung from the choice grain that fell to the earth on this day: faith bids us see in thy immolation the secret of the success granted to the monastic mission of Maurus. Thus, despite the great diversity and the unequal length of your paths in life, you are ever united in the heart of your master and father. At the appointed hour, he did not hesitate before the holocaust our Lord required of him; wherefore, he now in heaven beholds the fulfillment of the hopes he had centered in his two beloved sons.
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