APRIL 21ST, SAINT ANSELM, BISHOP, CONFESSOR, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH

Month in honor of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

From the RB —

Anselm was born of noble and Catholic parents, named Gundulph and Hermenberga, at Aosta, in Piedmont, about the year of our Lord 1033. From his tenderest years his diligence in study, and his aspirations to a more perfect state of life, gave no indistinct foreshadowing of the holiness and learning to which he afterwards attained. The heat of youth drew him for a while into the snares of the world, but he soon returned to his first courses, and, forsaking his country and his goods, betook himself in 1060. to the monastery of Bee, under the rule of St. Benedict. There he made his profession as a monk, and under the rigid discipline of Herluin, the Abbot, and the learned instruction of the profound Lanfranc, with great zeal of spirit and eager obedience to the Rule, he made such progress in learning and godliness, that he shone before all others as an example of holiness of life, and power of doctrine. Abstinence and continence were his marked characteristics, and by constant fasting all taste for food seemed to have died in him. He spent the day in the monastic work, in teaching, and in answering hard questions upon religion, and he took away from sleep during what remained to him of the night, that he might refresh his soul by thoughts of God, wherein he was always comforted by an unceasing flow of tears. When he was chosen Prior of the monastery, he so won over by his charity, lowliness, and wisdom, some brethren who looked ill upon him, that from men consumed by envy, as he had found them, he turned them into lovers of God and of himself likewise, with exceeding gain to the strictness of observance of the Rule in that Abbey. After the death of the Abbot, in AD 1078, Anselm, though against his own will, was chosen to succeed him. In this high place the light of his learning and holiness so shone all round about, that he was reverenced not only by Kings and Bishops, but was taken up by the holy Pope Saint Gregory VII., who, amid the great persecutions which were then trying him, wrote with words of great love to Anselm to recommend himself and the Catholic Church to his prayers. After the death in 1089 of Lanfranc, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Anselm (whose teacher Lanfranc had formerly been) was driven by William II., King of England, supported by the entreaties of the clergy and people (though sorely against his own wishes) to take upon him the government of that Church. Raised to that See upon the 4th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1093, he straightway set himself to reform the corrupt manners of the people, and, first by his word and example, and then by his writings and the Councils which he held, succeeded in restoring the ancient godliness and discipline of the Church. But when the aforesaid King William tried by force and threats to seize on the rights of the Church, Anselm withstood him as beseemed a Priest, and after that he had suffered the plundering of all his goods and been sent into banishment, he betook himself to Rome to Urban II. There he was received with great worship, and won high praise for that in the Council of Bari, in 1098, he maintained by countless proofs from Scripture and the holy Fathers, against the error of the Greeks, that the Holy Ghost proceedeth from the Son also. When William lived no more, his brother Henry I., King of England, in the year 1100, called back Anselm thither, and there he fell asleep in the Lord, upon the 21 st day of April, 1109. His is a name illustrious not for miracles only, nor for holiness, and indeed he had a wondrous love for his Lord Who had suffered for him, and for the Blessed Virgin, Mother of the same our Lord, but also for the deep learning which he used for the defence of the Christian Religion and the good of souls. That wonderful knowledge of theology which he had, and which is shown in all the books which he wrote, seemeth to have been given him from heaven for the teaching of all writers on the same subject, who have used what is called the Scholastic method.