Volume II, Treatise VIII, Chapter XVI

Some Examples to Shew the Advantages of Hearing Mass Every Day

How careful priests ought to be to celebrate every day. With what respect we ought to assist at it.

Pore Pius II. relates (In sua Cosmogr. in descrip. Europ.) that a gentleman of the province of Istria, being continually molested ‘with the temptation of despair, which incited him to hang himself; and having been some times upon the point of giving way to it, went to a holy religious man, to reveal to him the state of his soul, and to beg his advice. The servant of God, after he had comforted and encouraged him in the best manner he could, counselled him always to have a priest in his house, to celebrate mass for him every day. The gentleman approving of this counsel very well, put it into execution, and retired into a castle, that belonged to him in the country. Having remained there a year, in very great quiet and repose of mind, it happened that the priest, whom he had taken to live with him, asked his leave to go to say mass in a neighbouring village, where there was a particular feast. This he readily granted, as he intended to go there to hear mass himself; but some business having occurred, he forgot himself and remained at home, till midday. Then seized with fear at the idea of losing mass, and feeling himself already tormented with his old temptation, he goes out, and having met upon the way a peasant of the village to which he designed to go, who told him that all the masses were said, this news was so painful to him that presently he began to lament his misfortune, and to cry out, that as he had lost mass he was ruined for ever. The peasant seeing him in this sad condition, told him not to give himself so much pain; for if he pleased he would sell him the mass he had heard, and all the merit he might thereby have gained in the sight of God. The gentleman having taken him at his word, the bargain was concluded between them, for a cloak, which he gave him; after which they parted one from the other. The gentleman, however, continued his journey, at least to say his _ prayers in the church; and when he was returning home, after he had finished his devotions, he found the peasant hanging from a tree, in the very place where the simony was committed; God having permitted that despair should carry him so far, as to hang himself in the place where he had committed it. The gentleman, surprised at this doleful spectacle, which shewed him the danger from which God had been pleased to deliver him, returned sincere thanks for it, and firmly resolved to hear mass every day during the rest of his life. In consequence, he felt himself so entirely freed from the temptation, with which he had been for so long a time tormented, that he never after felt the least attack from it.

We read of St. Elizabeth, queen of Portugal, niece of St. Elizabeth, queen of Hungary (Chron. S. Fr. p. 2. Lib. 8. cap. xxviii.) that she was so charitable towards the poor, that besides the order she had given to her almoner, never to refuse an alms to any one; she herself gave continual alms, either by her own hands, or,by the hands of her domestics. Having on those occasions usually employed one of her pages, in whom she had observed a very great piety, it happened, that another page, either through envy, or to shew his zeal to the king, accused him of having criminal commerce with the queen. Though the king did not entirely believe the report, yet having already conceived some displeasure against her, and some suspicions having passed in his mind, he secretly resolved to make away with the page. The means he adopted were as follows: happening to pass that very same day near a limekiln, he sent for the persons who had care of the fire, and told them that the next morning he would send a page to them, to ask them whether they had executed his orders; and that they should not fail presently to cast him into the fire. After this he returned home, and gave order to the queen’s page to go there next day very early with this message. But God, who has always care of his servants, permitted, that as he passed by a church to go thither, he heard the ringing of the elevation ball at mass, which having obliged him to enter into the church to adore the blessed sacrament, he heard the remainder of that mass, and afterwards two other masses, which were said one after another. In the mean time, the king, impatient to know whether the page had obeyed him, accidentally saw the other page who had accused the queen, and commanded him to go in all haste to ask the people that had care of the limekiln, whether they had obeyed his orders? He went immediately, but scarce had they heard the message he delivered them, but, judging him to be the person of whom the king had spoken, they took him and cast him into the fire. The other, who had in the mean time concluded his devotions, went also to deliver his message. Having received for answer, that they had executed the king’s orders, he returned home to give their answer to the king, who, enraged that the affair happened quite contrary to his intention, asked him why he stayed so long? The page answered him, that passing by a church, to go to the place he had commanded him, he heard the elevation bell, which had obliged him to enter, and stay there to the end of that mass; and another mass beginning before the other was ended, and a third beginning also before the end of the second, he had heard them all; because his father had earnestly recommended to him, on giving him his blessing a little before his death, that he should hear all the masses out, at the beginning of which he should be at any time present. Then the king entering into himself, undorstood that what had happened, could be nothing else but a just judgment of God; and perceiving, that without doubt, the queen was innocent, he effaced from his mind all these bad impressions, he had before conceived against her.

It is related likewise, of two tradesmen (In prompt. exempl. verb. Miss. Et. Sur. in vita S. Joan. Eleem.), who were of the same profession, and who lived in the same town, that one of them, though encumbered with a large and helpless family, never failed daily to hear mass, and yet lived very comfortably by his trade; but that the other, on the contrary, having only his wife and himself to maintain, hearing mass very seldom, and working night and day, nay, even upon holydays, felt it extremely difficult to earn a subsistence. This man, perceiving how well the other’s affairs went, asked him one day, on meeting him, how he was able to get wherewith to maintain so numerous a family as he had; since he himself, who had only a wife, and who worked night and day, was continually in want. The other told him, that the next day he would shew him the place whence he derived all his profit; and calling on him the next morning, he conducted him to the church to hear mass, after which he took leave of him, telling him to go home to his business. He did the same the next day; but calling on him a third day, for the same purpose; friend, says the other, if I have # mind to go to church, I need not come to you to lead me there; I know the way well enough myself; all I wished was to know the place where you found so much gain, to go there with you, to see if I too could find the same. I know no other place, answered the pious tradesman, where there is so much to be got, both for this life and for the next, as in the church; and in proof of what I say, adds he, have you never heard what Jesus Christ said in the gospel, ‘‘ seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all the rest shall be added unto you?”—(Mat. vi. 33.) These words shewed the other what the good man’s object was; and thenceforward, touched by the Holy Ghost, he resolved to change his life, and to hear mass every day, which he regularly observed, and with so good success, both as to his fortune in this world, and his salvation in the next, that in a very short time he came to live very much at his ease both in body and mind.

St. Anthony, archbishop of Florence, relates that two young men having agreed together to go to hunt on a holyday, only one of them took care to hear mass previously, and when they were both upon the way, the sky darkened in an instant. The roaring was so dreadful, the lightning so uninterrupted, ‘and the claps of thunder so loud, that every thing seemed to be threatened with immediate destruction. What alarmed iliem most, was, that amidst all these terrors, they heard from time to time a voice crying out, strike, strike; but the atmosphere brightening a little, they began to take courage and to go on their way, when on a sudden there came a clap of thunder, that killed him who had not heard mass that day. The other seized with fear, and almost senseless, knew not whether it was better for him to go or to return. Whilst he was in this trouble and suspense, he heard the same voice crying out, “strike him too;” at which his fears redoubled, insomuch as the example of his companion was still before his eyes. But a little after he was encehraged by another ‘voice he heard in the air, that said, “I cannot’ strike, because he has this day heard the ‘ Et verbum caro factum est.’”—( Anton. ii. p-. Theologie ix. cap. 10.) By these words of the gospel of St. John, which are commonly said at the end of every mass, the voice meant nothing else, than that the young man had heard the whole mass; so that it was the mass he heard that day, that saved him from so sudden and terrible a death.

We read in the life of St. Bonaventure, that considering on one hand his own extreme baseness; and on the other, the infinite greatness of God, he was for some days without daring to approach the holy sacrament of the altar, through fear of not bringing to it the requisite dispositions. But one day as he heard mass, and just at the time when the priest breaks the host, there came a particle of it into his mouth, and by this signal favour, which God did hin, he comprehended, that it was more pleasing to God to approach this holy table with love and respect, than to abstain from it through fear. ‘This opinion he left behind him in writing; and St. Thomas agrees with him therein.

It is related of Hernandez of Talvara, the first archbishop -of Granada, that king Ferdinand and Isabella, having confided to him the most important affairs of the kingdoms of Castille and Arragon, his enemies, anxious to find some blemish in his conduct, alleged against him that amid the embarrassment of his employ: ments and intricate affairs, he daily said mass, as if he had been in the retirement and repose of a monastery. One day as the cardinal of Mendoza spoke familiarly to him, of what they said of him; my king, answered the servant of God, has imposed a burthen upon

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