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April 26
Spiritual Bouquet: Unless you turn and become like little children, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. St. Matthew 18:3
OUR LADY of GOOD COUNSEL
(1467)
The apparition of Our Lady of Good Counsel is so celebrated, Her picture so well known and so honored in the Church, that it is very fitting to allot a place to this devotion. The little city of Gennazano, situated on the mountains of the former Sabina province, about ten leagues from Rome, for a thousand years already had honored the Blessed Virgin as Our Lady of Good Counsel. In the 15th century, the church of that city was dilapidated and about to collapse. A pious woman of advanced age named Petruccia desired to provide for its reconstruction, but the gift of her entire fortune, which she made for this purpose, proved insufficient. Petruccia foretold that the Blessed Virgin would Herself finish the work.
Then on April 25, 1467, at the hour of Vespers, a celestial harmony was heard in the air, and the crowd saw a brilliant cloud coming down through the air, which came to rest over the altar in the Chapel of Saint Blaise in the Gennazano Church, where the restoration had begun. At the same time, all the church bells began to ring joyously. The cloud disappeared, and the marveling crowd saw a picture of Mary holding the Child Jesus, painted on a prepared surface, suspended in the air over the altar near the wall, without any natural support. It was duly verified that this picture had been miraculously transported from a church of Scutari, a city of Albania. Providence, wishing to preserve it from profanation by the Turks who were controlling that land, sent it as a reward for the faith of Petruccia and her fellow citizens of Gennazano.
A history of the marvels of all kinds which have been wrought since that time near this miraculous picture, suspended in the air, would require volumes. Often the picture has been seen to change its expression, the eyes of the Blessed Virgin taking on an appearance of joy or sorrow. How many illnesses and infirmities have been cured! How many spiritual graces have been obtained! Gennazano in Italy is still a venerated pilgrimage site, much frequented by the people of that land, and many pious pilgrims from other nations, when time permits it for them, arrange to visit this blessed sanctuary. The Sovereign Pontiffs have granted many indulgences to devotion to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and the title Mother of Good Counsel was included in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin by Pope Leo XIII.
Source: Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l’année, by Abbé L. Jaud (Mame: Tours, 1950).
SAINT CLETUS
Pope and Martyr
(†89)
SAINT MARCELLINUS
Pope and Martyr
(†304)
Saint Cletus was the third Bishop of Rome, succeeding to Saint Linus, which circumstance alone commends his eminent virtue among the first disciples of Saint Peter in the West. A church and a hospital founded by him, though ruined and rebuilt several times, survived until the 18th century, and the memory of his charity was so well conserved by the Romans, that the Crucifers who then were still serving in his hospice, considered him their founder.
Saint Cletus was martyred after the peaceful reign of the Emperor Titus, when Domitian replaced him; the date was April 26th of the year 89. He was buried near Saint Peter in the Vatican, where his relics are still.
Saint Marcellinus, who was of Roman origin, succeeded Saint Caius as bishop of Rome in 296, about the time that Diocletian set himself up for a deity, impiously claiming divine honors. In those stormy times of persecution, seventeen thousand Christians of all ages and both sexes were put to death in the various provinces, churches were destroyed, and heaven was populated with martyrs.
Saint Marcellinus was beheaded with three others, and their bodies remained without burial in the forum for thirty-six days, to strike fear into the hearts of their fellows. It was on the 26th of April in the year 304 that a priest named Marcel came at night, with other priests and deacons of Rome, to gather up their relics, which they laid to rest in the Priscilla catacomb.
Reflection. It is a fundamental maxim of Christian morality, and a truth which Christ has established in the clearest terms by innumerable passages of the Gospel, that the cross, sufferings and mortification are the road to eternal happiness. Our Lord Himself, our model and our Head, walked on that path, and His great Apostle reminds us that He entered into bliss only by His blood and His Cross. (Heb. 9:12)
Sources: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894); Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 5.