June 12th - Sts. Leo III, John of Facundo, & Basilides and Comp.

[Stone]

June 12 – St. Leo the Third, Pope and Confessor

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Guéranger  (1841-1875)

The fragrance of Christmas is suddenly wafted around us, while basking in the Pentecostal ray! Leo III, as he speeds his flight from earth, sheds upon us the perfumed memory of that day whereon the Infant God was pleased to manifest, by his means, the plenitude of his principality over all nations. Christmas Day of the year 800 witnessed the proclamation of the Holy Empire. The obscurity and poverty which had eight centuries previously ushered in the Birth of the Son of God, had for its object the drawing of men’s hearts; but this feebleness, redolent as it was with tenderness and condescension, was far from expressing the fullness of the mystery of the Word made Flesh. The Church tells us so, every year (in the Office of Matins, Christmas Day), as this blessed night of love comes round: “A Child is born to us, and upon his shoulder is the sign of Principality; his name shall be called the Wonderful, the Mighty, the Father of the world to come, the Prince of Peace.” Yea, Peace, this day, once more shines upon the Cycle,—the Peace of Christ, indisputably Victor and King! More even in one respect than our St. John of today does Leo III deserve the united gratitude of the Faithful. Here he stands like a new Sylvester, in presence of a new Constantine; by him alone is the complete victory of the Word Incarnate absolutely revealed.

Christ had successively triumphed over the false gods, over Byzantine Cæsarism, and over barbarian hordes. A new society had sprung up, governed by princes who confessed to hold their crowns of the Man-God alone. To the old Roman empire founded on might, to Cæsarism coiled around the world,—rather bruising it with the iron teeth of its domination, than together,—was to succeed that confederation of baptized nations, which was to be called Christendom. But whence the united needed for so vast a body? Who the chief amongst such a multitude of princes equal in birth and in rights? On what basis can the primacy of such a chieftain stand? Who may summon him? who point out the chosen of the Lord and anoint him with so potent an anointing, that his right to the first place in the councils of kings, be undisputed by the strongest amongst them? The Holy Ghost, brooding over the chaos of peoples, as in the beginning over the dark waters, had long been elaborating this new creation, which must declare the glory of our Emmanuel: the new Empire thus prepared would, as it were of itself, spring forth unto light, out of circumstances preordained strongly and sweetly by Eternal Wisdom.

Up to this period, the uncontested primacy of the spiritual power had stood majestic and alone, amidst Christian kingdoms. Though weakest of them all, ever did Peter’s successor behold earth prostrate at his feet; the city of the Cæsars had become his; Rome, by his voice, commanded all nations. Nevertheless, his authority, unarmed and defenseless, must needs at times repel assaults of violence too often possible, and which had already more than once imperiled the sacred patrimony consecrated by ages, to securing the independence of Christ’s Vicar. For the spiritual power, when once able to appear in sublime magnificence, became itself the object of sacrilegious ambition, the coveted prey of blackest perfidy. Leo III himself had lately experienced this, in his own sacred person. A powerful lord, in conjunction with certain unworthy clerics, banded together by one common greed for gain, had beguiled the Pontiff into an ambush; his body had been mutilated, his eyes and tongue torn out, and his life preserved only by miracle; more wondrous still, his sight and speech had been afterwards restored, by divine intervention. All Rome, witnessing this prodigy, was loud in heartfelt thanksgiving. God had indeed delivered his anointed; but the assassins had remained, nevertheless, masters of the city until the victorious troops of the Frankish king brought back the illustrious victim and reinstated him in his place. Still this noble triumph was of itself no guarantee against future peril; for it had been preceded by other such victories, likewise due to the ever ready arm of the eldest daughter of the Roman Church. Her protecting sword once again withdrawn, leaving the work of restoration scarce accomplished, new plots within or outside of Rome, would soon be again set in motion for the usurpation of either the spiritual or of the temporal power of the Papacy. From the coast of the Bosphorus too, the depraved successors of Constantine only applauded such intrigues, even keeping conspirators and traitors in secret pay.

Such a state of things could no longer continue. The Sovereign Pontiff must necessarily look around to find some security less precarious, for the great interests confided to his keeping; the peace of the whole Christian world, the peace of souls as well as of nations, demanded that the highest authority upon earth should not be left at the mercy of ceaseless cabals. It was by no means sufficient that at the hour of peril, the Vicar of Jesus Christ should be able to depend upon the fidelity of one nation, or of one prince. Some permanent institution was needed not only to repair, but to ward off every blow aimed by violence or by perfidy against Rome. Christian society was, by this time, advanced enough to furnish materials for the carrying out of such a noble conception. Already indeed, Pepin le Bref, by abandoning his Italian conquests into the hands of the Apostolic See, had unreservedly constituted the temporal sovereignty of the Roman Pontiffs. But though the use of the sword in self defense belongs to the Pope by right, yet even when absolutely unable to act otherwise, personal use of armed force must ever be distasteful to the successor of him whom the Man-God appointed, here below, as the Vicar of His Love. On the other hand, he well knows that he must maintain those sacred rights for which he has to answer unto both God and man. Monarch as he is, Peter’s successor would be at liberty to choose from amongst the kings of the West (all of whom gloried in being his sons), one prince to whom he might confide the office of protector and defender of Holy Church. Head as he is of the whole spiritual army of the elect, Porter of heaven’s gates, Depository of grace and of infallible truth, he could invite the said prince to the honor of his allegiance. Sublime indeed would such an alliance be, the legitimacy whereof bears the palm over that of all treaties ever concluded between potentates. Such an alliance, inasmuch as it is intended to guarantee the rights of the King of kings, in the person of His representative, would entail solemn obligations, it is true, on the recipient; but at the same time, it would single him out to lofty privileges. Intrinsically vain and powerless are nobility of race, vastness of territory, glory of arms, and brilliancy of genius, to exalt a prince above his peers; such a greatness merely springs from earth and outstrips not man’s limits. But the ally of Pontiffs would possess a dignity touching upon the heavenly; for such are the sacred interests whereof he would assume the filial guardianship. Without in the least encroaching on the domain of other kings, his compeers in other respects, or derogating from their independence, he must hold it his right, as accredited protector of his mother, the Church, to carry the sword, whithersoever the spiritual authority is aggrieved or requires his concurrence, in the accomplishment of the divine mission of teaching and saving souls. In this sense, his power must be universal, because the mission of Holy Church is universal. so real this power, so distinct from every other, that to express it a new diadem must needs be added to the regal crown already his by inheritance; and a fresh anointing, different from the usual royal unction, must manifest in his person, superiority over all other kings, chieftainship of the Holy Empire, of the Roman Empire renewed, ennobled and limitless, as the earthly dominion assigned to Jesus Christ by the Eternal Father.

Verily this magnificent conception unveils before us the boundless Empire of the Word Incarnate, in all its wondrous plenitude! He alone possesses fully, by right of birth, by right of conquest, the universality of nations; He alone can delegate, for and by his Church, such power to kings. Who then may tell the splendor of that Christmas festival whereon Charlemagne the greatest of princes, prostrate before the Infant God, beheld his anterior glories eclipsed by the pomp of that unexpected title, whereby he was officially appointed lieutenant of the divine Child couched in the humble crib! Beside the tomb of the first of Popes, of him that was crucified by the orders of a Cæsar, Leo III in the plenitude of his sole authority, reconstituted the Empire; in Peter’s name, on Peter’s tomb, he linked once more the broken chain of the Cæsars. Henceforth, before the eyes of all nations, the Pope and the Emperor (to use the language of the papal bulls) will appear as two luminaries directing earth’s movements; the Pope, as the faithful image of the Sun of Justice; the Emperor, as deriving his light from the radiance cast on him by the Supreme Pontiff.

Too often, indeed, will parricides stand up in revolt and turn against the Church the sword that should be brandished only in her defense. But even these will only serve to demonstrate more clearly that the Papacy is verily the one source of empire. True, the day may come when German tyrants, rejected as unworthy by the Roman Pontiffs, will lay violent hands on the Eternal City, creating antipopes, with a view to the aggrandizement of their own power. But by the very fact of carrying their insolence so far as to get themselves crowned champions of Saint Peter, by these pseudo-vicars of Christ, on the very tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, will they prove that society in those days could acknowledge no title to greatness, save such as either came, or seemed to come, from the Apostolic See. The abuses and crimes, everywhere to be met with on history’s page, must not allow us Christians to forget that the value of an epoch or of an institution must, as regards God and his Church, be measured only by the progress derived thence by truth. Even though the Church do suffer from the violence of rightful or of intruded emperors, she nevertheless rejoices much to see her Spouse glorified, by the faith of nations, still recognizing how, through Christ, all power resides in her alone. Children of the Church, let us judge of the Holy Empire, as the Church, our Mother, judges of it: it was the highest expression ever given to the influence and power of the Popes. To this glorification of Christ in his Vicar did Christendom owe its thousand years of existence.

Space fails us, or gladly would we here describe in detail the gorgeous liturgical function used during the Middle Ages, in the Ordination of an Emperor. The Ordo Romanus wherein these rites are handed down to us, is full of the richest teachings clearly revealing the whole thought of the Church. The future lieutenant of Christ, kissing the feet of the Vicar of the Man-God, first made his profession in due form: he “guaranteed, promised, and swore fidelity to God and blessed Peter, pledging himself on the holy Gospels, for the rest of his life, to protect and defend, according to his skill and ability, without fraud or ill intent, the Roman Church and her Ruler, in all necessities or interests affecting the same.” Then followed the solemn examination of the faith and morals of the elect, almost word for word the same as that marked in the Pontifical at the Consecration of a Bishop. Not until the Church had thus taken sureties regarding him who was to become in her eyes, as it were, an extern bishop, was she content to proceed to the Imperial ordination. While the Apostolic Suzerain, the Pope, was being vested in pontifical attire for the celebration of the sacred Mysteries, two cardinals clad the emperor elect in amice and alb; then they presented him to the Pontiff, who made him a Clerk, and conceded to him, for the ceremony of his coronation, the use of the tunic, dalmatic, and cope, together with the pontifical shoes and the mitre. The anointing of the prince was reserved to the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, the official consecrator of popes and emperors. But the Vicar of Jesus Christ himself gave to the new emperor the infrangible seal of his faith, namely the ring; the sword, representing that of the Lord of armies, the Most Potent One chanted in the Psalm; the globe and sceptre, images of the universal empire and of the inflexible justice of the King of kings; lastly, the crown, a sign of the glory reserved in endless ages as a reward for his fidelity, by this same Lord Jesus Christ, whose figure he had just been made. The giving of these august symbols took place during the holy Sacrifice. At the Offertory, the emperor laid aside the cope and the ensigns of his new dignity; then, clad simply in the dalmatic, he approached the altar and there fulfilled, at the Pontiff’s side, the office of Subdeacon, the Servitor, as it were, of holy Church and the official representative of the Christian people. Later on, even the stole was given him: as recently as 1530, Charles V on the day of his coronation, assisted Clement VII in quality of deacon, presenting to the Pope the paten and the Host, and offering the chalice together with him.

The Christmas Day of the year 800 witnessed not indeed the display of all this sacred pageantry; for these splendid rites reached full development only in course of centuries. Up to the last moment, Leo III had kept wholly secret the grand project conceived in his heart. But none the less solemn was this marvelous historic fact, when Rome, at the sight of the golden crown placed by the Pontiff’s hand on the brow of the new Cæsar, re-echoed the cry: “To Charles, the most pious, the ever august, the Monarch crowned by God, to the great and pacific Emperor of the Romans, life and victory!” This creation of an empire by the sole power and will of the Supreme Pontiff on such a day, and for the sole service of the interests of our Emmanuel, verily puts the finishing stroke to that which the Birth of the son of God was meant to achieve. As year by year this august Christmas festival returns, let us remember Leo the Third’s work, and so enter more and more fully into the touching antiphons of that day: “The King of Peace whom the whole earth desireth to see, hath shown his greatness. He is magnified above all the kings of the earth.”

The account of this holy Pope’s life, we here borrow from the “Proper of the city of Rome.”

Leo, the third of this name, was a Roman, having Asuppius for his father. He was brought up from infancy in the dependencies of the patriarchal Church of Lateran, and formed to all divine and ecclesiastical sciences. Becoming a monk of St. Benedict, then Cardinal Priest, he was at last, with common consent, created Sovereign Pontiff, on the very day of the death of Adrian, in the year seven hundred and ninety-five. He occupied the venerable chair of St. Peter twenty years, five months, and seventeen days.

He was in the pontifical state, just what he was before his elevation, full of benignity and of sweetness, singularly devoted to God’s holy worship, charitable to his neighbor, prudent in affairs. he was the father of the poor and of the sick, the defender of the Church, the promoter of divine worship. His zeal undertook the greatest things for Jesus Christ and the Church, patiently bearing all trials for their cause.

Being left half dead by certain impious men, his eyes plucked out and himself all covered with wounds, he was found by a remarkable miracle, perfectly cured, the next day; by his intervention the life of these parricides was spared. He conferred the Roman empire upon Charlemagne king of the Franks. He built a large hospital for pilgrims, and consecrated all his patrimony and other goods to the benefit of the poor. It is hardly credible to what a degree he lavished precious riches on the basilicas of Rome, specially that of Lateran, in the palace of which he built the celebrated triclinium that surpasses all others. At last he crowned his most holy life with a most pious death, on the day preceding the Ides of June, in the year of our Lord, eight hundred and sixteen; he was buried in the Vatican.

Commissioned by the Lion of Juda to complete his own victory, thou, O Leo, didst constitute his Kingdom and proclaim his Empire. Apostles had preached, martyrs had shed their blood, confessors had toiled and suffered, to win that great day whereon thou didst crown the labor of eight centuries; by thee, the Man-God could then rule supreme, over the social edifice, not only as Pontiff in the person of his vicar, but as Lord-paramount and King, in the person of his lieutenant, the armed defender of Holy Church, the civil head of all Christendom. Thy work lasted as long as the Eternal Father permitted the glory of his Son to shine in full splendor over the world. After a thousand years, when the divine light became too strong for their weakened and diseased eyes, men turned away from Holy Church and renounced her mighty works. They replaced God by self; the power of Christ by the sovereignty of the people; institutions sprung from centuries of toil, by instability of ephemeral chartas; bygone union, by isolation of nationalities, and within each of these, anarchy. In this dark age, every utopia of man’s wild brain is called light, and every step towards nonentity is called progress! Thus the Holy Empire is no more; like Christendom itself, it can henceforth be but a name in history: and history too must soon cease to be, for the world is verging on the final term of its destinies.

Great forever shall thy glory be, in endless ages, O thou, by whom Eternal Wisdom hath manifested the grandeur of his wondrous ways. A docile instrument in the hand of the Holy Ghost for the glorification of our Emmanuel, thy firmness was equaled only by thy gentleness; and this humble sweetness of thine attracted the eyes of the Lamb, the Ruler of the earth. Praying like him, under the stroke of treason for thy murderers, thou hadst to pass through thy day of humiliation, through a day of crushing anguish and of death agony; but therefore, was it given thee, to distribute the spoils of the strong and then for centuries, the will of the Lord to be prosperous in thy hand, according to the plan which thou didst trace.

Even in these unhappy times, so unworthy of thee, vouchsafe to bless our earth. Strengthen those whom universal apostasy has left unshaken as yet. Make them by faith cling loyally to Christ; hold them ever aloof from Liberalism, that fatal error whereby men would fain remain Christians, while actually refusing to acknowledge Christ’s kingship over all creation. What an insult to the Eternal Father is such a wild notion as this; what a misconception of the mystery of the Incarnation! O holy Pontiff, make it to be clearly understood that safety is not to be sought at the hands of lying compromise with rebels, that the time is nigh when God’s kingdom will assert itself, when the upheaving of nations against the Lord and against his Christ will ebb away into empty froth, mocked by him who dwelleth in the heavens. On that day, none may contest the origin of all power. On that day of wrathful vengeance, happy he who hath kept the oath of allegiance sworn to his King in baptism! Like the prophet of Patmos, the Faithful will easily recognize him when the heavens opening out a way before his feet, he shall come to crush the nations; for all the crowns of the whole earth shall rest upon his head, and he shall bear written upon the vesture of his Human Nature: King of kings, and Lord of Lords.