Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 8.
Paschal Time.
Book II.
Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.
Martyr.
Feast Day 24 April.
Our Risen Lord would have around Him a bright phalanx of Martyrs. Its privileged members belong to the different Centuries of The Church’s existence.
Its ranks open today to give welcome to a brave combatant, who won his Palm, not in a contest with paganism, as those did whose Feasts we have thus far kept, but in defending his mother, The Church, against her own rebellious children.
They were heretics that slew this day’s Martyr, and the Century that was honoured with his triumph was the 17th-Century.
Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen.
Feast Day 24 April.
“Standing Up For The Faith.
When You Don't Want To”.
Available on YouTube
Fidelis was worthy of his beautiful name. Neither difficulty nor menace could make him fail in his duty. During his whole life, he had but the glory and the service of his Divine Lord in view: And, when the time came for him to face danger, he did so, calmly but fearlessly, as behoved a disciple of Jesus who went forth to meet his enemies.
Honour, then, be today to the brave son of Saint Francis ! Truly, he is worthy of his seraphic Patriarch, who confronted the Saracens, and was a Martyr in desire !
Protestantism was established and rooted by the shedding of torrents of blood; and yet Protestants count it as a great crime that, here and there, the children of the True Church made an armed resistance against them.
The heresy of the 16th-Century was the cruel and untiring persecutor of men, whose only crime was their adhesion to the old Faith — the Faith that had civilised the World.
The so-called Reformation proclaimed liberty in matters of Religion, and massacred Catholics who exercised this liberty, and Prayed and believed as their ancestors had done for long ages before Luther and Calvin were born.
A Catholic who gives heretics credit for sincerity when they talk about Religious toleration, proves that he knows nothing of either the past or the present. There is a fatal instinct in error, which leads it to hate the Truth; and the True Church, by its unchangeableness, is a perpetual reproach to them that refuse to be her children.
Heresy starts with an attempt to annihilate them that remain Faithful; when it has grown tired of open persecution, it vents its spleen in insults and calumnies; and when these do not produce the desired effect, hypocrisy comes in with its assurance of friendly forbearance.
The history of Protestant Europe, during the last three Centuries [Editor: Guéranger was writing circa 1875], confirms these statements; it also justifies us in honouring those courageous servants of God who, during that same period, have died for the ancient Faith.
Let us now, respectfully, listen to the account given us in today’s Liturgy, of the life and Martyrdom of Saint Fidelis; we shall find that The Church has not grown degenerate in her Saints.
Pray, O, Holy Martyr, for the children of The Church. Obtain for them an appreciation of the value of Faith, and of the favour God bestowed on them when he made them members of the True Church.
May they be on their guard against the many false doctrines which are now current through the World. May they not be shaken by the scandals which abound in this age of effeminacy and pride.
It is Faith that is to bring us to our Risen Jesus: And He urges it upon us by the words he addressed to Thomas: “Blessed are they that have not seen and have believed”.
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