Monks, Popes, and their Political IntriguesAlberger, John
History
Monks, Popes, and their Political Intrigues
Alberger, John
Catholic Church; Catholic Church -- United States; Church and state
The miraculous feat of this saint in inventing music, a long time after
all nations had acquired some proficiency, at least, in its principles,
has often been the theme of pious historians, orators and poets. St.
George slew a dragon ( a lizard ), which was about to swallow a king's
daughter. St. Dennis walked two miles after his head had been cut off.
St. John of God displayed so much whimsical zeal that he was supposed
to be demented, and was placed in a lunatic asylum. St. Hubert went on
a hunting excursion, and seeing a stag with a cross between its antlers,
became converted by the vision into a bishop. He received a key from St.
Peter, which is still preserved in St. Hubert's monastery, at Ardennes,
and is regarded as an infallible remedy for the hydrophobia.
St. Patrick found a lost boy, whom the hogs had nearly devoured. On
touching the mutilated frame with his holy hand, it recovered the lost
flesh which had been digested by the swine, and stood before the saint
perfectly proportioned in all its parts, and without a wound. This
charitable saint once fed 1,400 persons on one cow, two stags, and two
wild boars. Respecting, however, the rights of property, and perceiving
that to be benevolent at another's expense was a suspicious species of
morality, he so adroitly contrived the management of his miracle that
the cow which had been eaten up by the people, and which belonged to a
poor widow, was seen the next day well and hearty, and as comfortably
grazing in her usual pastures as if nothing had happened. St. Xavier,
while traversing the ocean, lost overboard a crucifix. On landing, a
crab brought it in his claw, and reverently laid it at his feet. The
Devil, assuming the shape of a charming woman, once made indelicate
proposals to him. This piece of impudence so enraged the saint that
he spit into His Satanic Majesty's angelic face. The Devil, being a
gentleman, was so disgusted at this coarse vulgarity, that he ever
afterward shunned Xavier's society. St. Anthony of Padua, after
exhausting the strength of the Catholic arguments in favor of
consubstantiation, in a debate with a heretic, finally converted his
antagonist by an appeal to the understanding of a horse. Holding up the
host before the animal, he addressed it thus: "In virtue and in the name
of thy creator, I command thee, O horse to come, and with humility adore
thy God." The horse, at the request of the saint, instantly left the
corn which it was eating, advanced to the host and fell upon its knees
before it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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