October 21st - St. Ursula & her Companions; St. Hilarion

“Monks were unknown in Syria before St. Hilarion,” says his historian St. Jerome. “He instituted the monastic life in that country, and was the master of those who embraced it. The Lord Jesus had his Anthony in Egypt and his Hilarion in Palestine, the former advanced in years, the latter still young.” Now our Lord very soon raised this young man to such glory that Anthony would say to the sick, who came to him from Syria attracted by the fame of his miracles: “Why take the trouble to come so far when you have near you my son Hilarion?” And yet Hilarion had spent only two months with Anthony, after which the patriarch had said to him (according to the Greek translation): “Persevere to the end, my son, and thy labor will win thee the delights of heaven.” Then, giving a hairshirt and a garment of skin to this boy of fifteen whom he was never to see again, he sent him back to sanctify the solitudes of his own country, while he himself retired farther into the desert.

The enemy of mankind, foreseeing a formidable adversary in this new solitary, waged a terrible war against him. Even the flesh, in spite of the young ascetic’s fasts, was Satan’s first accomplice. But without any pity for a body so frail and delicate, as his historian says, that any effort would have seemed sufficient to destroy it, Hilarion cried out indignantly: “Ass, I will see that thou kick no more; I will reduce thee by hunger, I will crush thee with burdens, I will make thee work in all weathers; thou shalt be so pinched with hunger that thou wilt think no more of pleasure.”


Then Satan determined to come in person, as he had done to Anthony; but with no better success. No trouble could disturb the serenity attained by that simple, holy soul. One day the demon entered into a camel and made it mad, so that it rushed upon the Saint with horrible cries. But he only answered: “I am not afraid of thee; thou art always the same, whether thou come as a fox or a camel.” And the huge beast fell down tamed at his feet.

There was a harder trial yet to come from the most cunning artifice of the serpent. When Hilarion sought to hide himself from the immense concourse of people who besieged his poor cell, the enemy maliciously published his fame far and wide, and brought to him overwhelming crowds from every land. In vain he quitted Syria and travelled the length and breadth of Egypt; in vain, pursued from desert to desert, he crossed the sea, and hoped to conceal himself in Sicily, in Dalmatia, in Cyprus. From the ship, which was making its way among the Cyclades, he heard, in each island, the infernal spirits calling one another from the towns and villages and running to the shores as he passed by. At Paphos, where he landed, the same concourse of demons brought to him multitudes of men; until at length God took pity on his servant, and discovered to him a place inaccessible to his fellow men, where he had no company but legions of devils, who surrounded him day and night. Far from fearing, says his biographer, he took pleasure in the neighborhood of his old antagonists whom he knew so well; and he lived there in great peace the last five years before his death.

The Church thus abridges St. Jerome’s history of Hilarion.
To be a Hilarion, and yet to fear death! If in the green wood they do these things, what shall be done in the dry? O glorious Saint, penetrate us with the apprehension of God’s judgments. Teach us that Christian fear does not banish love, but on the contrary, clears the way and leads to it, and then accompanies it through life as an attentive and faithful guardian. This holy fear was thy security at thy last hour; may it protect us also along the path of life, and at death introduce us immediately into heaven!


On the 21st day of October 451, Cologne was made equal to the most illustrious cities by a spiritual glory. Criticism, and there is no lack of it, may dispute the circumstances which brought together the legion of virgins; but the fact itself that eleven thousand chosen souls were martyred by the Huns in recompense for their fidelity is now acknowledged by true science. From the earth where so many noble victims lay concealed, they have more than once been brought to light by multitudes, bearing about them evidence of the veneration of those who had buried them; for instance, by a happy inspiration, the arrow that had set free the blessed soul, would be left, as a token of victory, fixed in the breast or forehead of the martyr.

Ad Completorum
O præclaræ vos puellæ,
Nunc implete meum velle,
Et dum mortis venit hora,
Subvenite sine mora:
In tam gravi tempestate
Me præsentes defensate
Nulla vestrum ibi desit,
Virgo Mater prima præsit,
Si quæ mihi fæx inh&aelis;sit,
Quæ me sua labe læsit,
Vestra prece procul fiat,
Vos præsentes hostis sciat,

Let us conclude with the Church’s own prayer.