June 28: Vigil of Sts. Peter & Paul - Domine Quo Vadis?

A few years ago, I read the "The Interior Castle" by St. Teresa of Avila.  For anyone who has not read it, I highly recommend it.  It is a beautiful work, in which she gives us the benefit of her deep and penetrating knowledge into the life of prayer, and demonstrates her extraordinary insight into human frailty and the stumbling blocks which hinder us on our path toward spiritual perfection.

In the last chapter (7th Mansion, Ch. 4), as she is recapping the book, and speaking of the trials and sufferings of those to whom Our Lord grants intense spiritual visions and aspirations, she mentions the famous "Quo vadis" legend regarding St. Peter.  The translator of the edition that I was reading (E. Allison Peers, Sheed & Ward, 1946) puts a footnote there, and states:

"In the old Carmelite breviary, which St. Teresa would have used, the Antiphon of the Magnificat at 1st Vespers on June 29 runs "The Blessed Apostle Peter saw Christ coming to meet him.  Adoring Him, he said: 'Lord, whither goest Thou?' ' I am going to Rome to be crucified afresh.'"  The story has it that St. Peter returned to Rome and was crucified.

Since the Carmelite and Dominican liturgical books sprang from the same medieval use that was widely diffused throughout France in the 13th Century, I decided to look up June 29 in my Dominican Breviary (1967) to see if that antiphon had survived through the centuries.  And sure enough, it did.  (See here...bottom left side of p. 574.)

Than antiphon at 1st Vespers for the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul is:

Beátus Petrus Apóstolus vidit sibi Christum occúrrere, et adórans eum ait:  Dómine, quo vadis?  Vénio Romam íterum crucifígi.

The blessed apostle Peter saw Christ coming towards him, and adoring him, said, “Lord, where are you going?” “I go to Rome to be crucified again.”

This antiphon is not in the 1962 Monastic or Roman breviaries.  Whether or not the legend is true, it has been borne through the ages in the Dominican breviary and is, in my opinion, a wonderful subject for meditation.  This is particularly true in these dark days when living a faithful Catholic life can at best be full of obstacles and, at worst, lead to outright persecution by the State or groups who align themselves with the eternal Enemy of the Church.

June 22: Blessed Innocent V, P, C, O.P., Comm.

Today, in the 1962 Dominican Rite Calendar, we celebrate the commemoration of Blessed Innocent V, one of the four Dominican Popes.  From “Short Lives of the Dominican Saints” (London, Kegan Paul, Trench, and Trübner & Co., Ltd., 1901):

Blessed Innocent V., known before his elevation to the Papacy by the name of Peter of Tarantaise, was born of noble parents at that town, situated at the foot of the Alps, on the confines of Savoy, a territory then dependent on the Dukes of Burgundy, about A.D. 1225.  Whilst still quite a child, he was sent to study at the University of Paris, where he received the Dominican habit from the hands of Blessed Jordan, the second Master-General of the Order of Preachers, when only nine years old.  He is believed to have been one of those young postulants admitted on occasion of the General Chapter of 1234.  To the remonstrances of the capitular Fathers, who complained that these children were so ignorant of Latin as scarcely to be able to read a lesson of Matins even after much previous preparation, the holy Master-General gently replied: “Suffer these little onese to come, and forbid them not.  Know that you will see many, yea, most of them, acquit themselves gloriously of the office of preaching; and God will make use of them for the work of saving souls, in preference to many others of cultured mind.”  In none was this prophecy more brilliantly fulfilled than in little Peter of Tarantaise.  To the extraordinary beauty of person he joined the highest gifts of mind and heart; and in the shadow of the cloister, like the child Jesus in the holy house at Nazareth, he daily “grew in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men.”  When only twenty-eight, he was judged capable of teaching theology in the University at the same time as his intimate friend, Saint Thomas Aquinas; and we are particularly told that his merit was not in the least eclipsed by that of the Angel of the Schools.   He also composed Commentaries on the Four Books of the Sentences of Peter the Lombard and on Holy Scripture, and other learned works, which in their day were scarcely less prized than those of Saint Thomas himself.  Hence, in the year 1259, he was chosen with [Saint] Albert the Breat, Saint Thomas, and two other distinguished religious, to draw up a general plan of studies to be followed in all Dominican schools.