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Night
Office Saints,
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Tuesday,
July 30, 2013
St. Peter Chrysologus
(406-450?)
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A
man who vigorously pursues a goal may produce results far beyond his
expectations and his intentions. Thus it was with Peter of the Golden
Words, as he was called, who as a young man became bishop of Ravenna, the
capital of the empire in the West.
At
the time there were abuses and vestiges of paganism evident in his diocese,
and these he was determined to battle and overcome. His principal weapon
was the short sermon, and many of them have come down to us. They do not
contain great originality of thought. They are, however, full of moral
applications, sound in doctrine and historically significant in that they
reveal Christian life in fifth-century Ravenna. So authentic were the
contents of his sermons that, some 13 centuries later, he was declared a
doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XIII. He who had earnestly sought to
teach and motivate his own flock was recognized as a teacher of the
universal Church.
In
addition to his zeal in the exercise of his office, Peter Chrysologus was
distinguished by a fierce loyalty to the Church, not only in its teaching,
but in its authority as well. He looked upon learning not as a mere
opportunity but as an obligation for all, both as a development of
God-given faculties and as a solid support for the worship of God.
Some
time before his death, St. Peter returned to Imola, his birthplace, where
he died around A.D. 450.
COMMENT:
Quite likely, it was St. Peter Chrysologus’s attitude toward learning that
gave substance to his exhortations. Next to virtue, learning, in his view, was the
greatest improver of the human mind and the support of true religion. Ignorance
is not a virtue, nor is anti-intellectualism. Knowledge is neither more nor
less a source of pride than physical, administrative or financial prowess.
To be fully human is to expand our knowledge—whether sacred or
secular—according to our talent and opportunity.
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The following extract is taken from the
sermons of St Peter Chrysologus:
Man, why do you have so low an opinion
of yourself, when you are so precious to God? Why do you so dishonour yourself
when you are so honoured by God? Why
do you enquire about where you were made
and do not ask why you were made?
Has not the household of the whole
universe which you see been made for you? For you the light is produced to
dispel the surrounding darkness; for you the night
is regulated; for you the day is measured
out; for you the sky shines with the varied brilliance of sun, moon and stars;
for you the earth is embroidered with flowers, groves and fruit; for you is
created a beautiful, well-ordered and marvellous multitude of living things, in
the air, in the fields, in the water, lest a gloomy wilderness upset the joy of
the new world.
Moreover he who made you devises means
to increase your honour: he places his
Likeness in you so that this visible likeness
may bring the invisible Creator present on earth. In earthly things he has
given you the marks of his handiwork, so that you, the Lord's representative,
may not be beguiled by such a generous endowment
in this world.
Adapted from Saint of the Day by L Foley,
OFM,
Vol. 2,pp. 28-9, and The Divine Office, vol. III, p. 140.
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