Monday, February 21, Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
ST. PIER DAMIANI (Peter Damian) (Italy, 1007-1072)
Professor, Benedictine monk, Abbot, Papal Legate, Cardinal, Doctor of the Church
Benedict XVI dedicated a catechesis to the saint on September 9, 2009.
benedettoxviforum.freeforumzone.leonardo.it/discussione.aspx?idd=8527...
Born to an impoverished noble family in Ravenna, his brother Damian (from whom he takes his second name) put him through school where he excelled in languages and the law. A renowned professor in Parma and Ravenna by age 24, he decided to join the Benedictine monastery founded by St. Romuald in Fonte Avellana. Always an ascetic himself, he championed a return to the rules of early monasticism, and all his life, would champion reforms in the Church promulgated by the Popes of his time. Although he considered a hermit's life as 'the peak of Christian existence', he found himself being assigned to arbitrate local disputes and other missions from the Vatican, in addition to being a prolific writer (he is considered one of the greatest of medieval Latin writers). He became abbot at Fonte Avellana and founded five other monasteries. In 1057, he reluctantly accepted a papal appointment as Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, where he served for ten years, then obtained papal dispensation to return to Fonte Avellana. He carried out more missions for the Pope, and was returning from one when he fell ill and died. In the Divine Comedy, Dante called him the precursor of St. Francis. He was never formally canonized, but in 1878, Pope Leo XII made him a Doctor of the Church (Doctor of Reform and Renewal), the last of the Early Church Doctors.
Readings for today's Mass:
www.usccb.org/nab/readings/022111.shtml
No OR today.
PAPAL EVENTS TODAY
At noon today, after celebration of the Midday prayers of the Divine Office, the Holy Father presided at an ordinary public consistory for the canonization of the following Blesseds:
- Guido Maria Conforti, Italian (1865-1931), Archbishop of Parma, Founder of the Pia Società di San Francesco Saverio
(Pious Society of St. Francis Xavier) for foreign missions, better known as the Xavierian missionaries.
- Luigi Guanella, Italian (1842-1915), Priest, Founder of the Congregations Servants of Charity and Daughters of St. Mary of Providence.
- Bonifacia Rodríguez de Castro, Spaniard (1837-1905), Virgin, Founder of the Congregation of the Servants of St. Joseph.
The Holy Father decreed their canonization on Sunday, October 23, 2011.