BIG C CATHOLICS

Saint Peter Damian was an 11th century reformer Benedictine monk, cardinal and scholar who advised Pope Leo IX. He was prayerfully pious and strident in his defense of orthodoxy. He observed that "when you spurn this life and its wisdom, you may deserve by happy exchange to be filled with the divine Spirit, who will urge you on to eternal glory." Here is a selection of his wisdom in 12 quotes. Through a woman [Eve] a curse fell upon the earth; through a woman [Mary] as well there returned to the earth a blessing. *** I scourge both flesh and spirit because I know that I have offended in both flesh and spirit. *** And what more should I say since it expels the whole host of the virtues from the chamber of the human heart and introduces every barbarous vice as if the bolts of the doors were pulled out. *** Truly, this vice is never to be compared with any other vice because it surpasses the enormity of all vices.... It defiles everything, stains everything, p

The following commentary is excerpted from The Fifty-Eighth Treatise of Saint Peter Damian entitled: Concerning True Happiness and Wisdom, Chapter 6. "And so, beloved, if you cannot yet be content with the life of the spirit alone as your only bride, but are held bound by the evil caresses and allurements of life in the world, at least let the love of everlasting life hold first place in the household of your heart, as befits the first-born; and let concern for earthly things be in a place of subjection, as an inferior to be kept in check. In the Song of Songs [Chapter 2:6] it is said: 'His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.' Now the left hand is said to be under the head when this life is scorned and despised by the mind, which is the head and source of our thoughts. He is held in the embrace of the right hand who at all times takes pleasure in longing for eternal life alone. And because Solomon also says: 'Give a portion to seven a

On February 21st, the Church celebrates the optional memorial of Saint Peter Damian (1007-72), the reforming bishop and cardinal who lived as an ascetic hermit, scholar and advisor to popes. Although the austerities that St. Peter Damian undertook during his life in the 11th century may seem extreme to us in the 21st, they nonetheless prepared him to be one of the great reformers of the Church in an era when it took great holiness and strength of character to prevail against the status quo. He was born in the city of Ravenna, Italy, in the year 1007, and lost both his parents while still a young boy. He was brought in by an older brother who, unfortunately, treated him more like a slave in his household than a member of the family. Fortunately, Peter's brother, the arch-priest of Ravenna, took pity on him and took him into his own household. There, he made sure his younger sibling attended good schools, and Peter, who proved to be an apt student, would became a professor of tre