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Nothing so much scandalizes the very infidels, or shows the decay of piety, and loss of all sense of religion among Christians, as their disrespectful {663} behavior in the house of God and at the time of prayer. An awful, strict silence, the most profound exterior respect, and penetrating inward devotion of heart, must essentially accompany our homages when we present them before the throne of God, in whose presence the highest seraphims annihilate themselves. This silence we must observe not only with our tongues, but also with our bodies and all our limbs, both out of respect to the presence of God and his altar, and also not to give the least occasion of distraction to others. Prayer is an action so sublime and supernatural, that the church in her canonical hours teaches us to begin it by a fervent petition of grace to perform it well. What an insolence and mockery is it to join with this petition an open disrespect and a neglect of all necessary precautions against distractions! We ought never to appear before God, to tender him our homages or supplications, without trembling, and without being deaf to all creatures, and shutting all our senses to every object that can distract our minds from God. In the life of F. Simon Gourdan, a regular canon of St. Victor's at Paris, who died in the odor of sanctity, in the year 1729, the eighty-fifth of his age, it is related that king Louis XIV. came to see him, and to recommend himself to his prayers. The servant of God made him wait till he had finished his thanksgiving after mass, which edified that great prince, who said, "he does well; for he is employed in attending on a much greater king." Though St. Francis of Sales on the like occasions chose rather to forego or defer his own private devotions, than not to be ready immediately to wait on others, in order to give them all the spiritual advice they desired; yet at prayer at least he and all truly religious persons seemed in some degree to rival the heavenly spirits in their awe and reverence. Silence at that holy time, or place, has always been esteemed a thing so sacred, that when the temple of Solomon was building, God commanded that there should not be heard so much as the sound of a hamster, or any other instrument. Even when we come from conversing with God, we ought to appear all penetrated with the divine presence, and rather as angels than men. Sanctity, modesty, and the marks of a heavenly spirit, ought to shine in our exterior, and to inspire others by our very sight with religious awe and devotion.
Footnotes: 1. Some have, by mistake, confounded this place with Ferden, or Werden, beyond the Weser. 2. Voss. de histor. lat. l. 2, c. 3.
ST. BRAULIO, BISHOP OF SARAGOSSA, C.
HE was the great assistant of St. Isidore of Seville in settling the discipline of the church of Spain, and is one of those holy pastors to whose zeal, learning, and labors it has always professed itself much indebted. He died in 646, in the twentieth year of his episcopacy. He has left us two letters to St. Isidore, an eulogium of that saint, and a catalogue of his works; also a hymn in Iambic verse in honor of St. Emilian, and the life of that servant of God, who, after living long a hermit, was called to serve a parish in the diocese of Tarragon, where a famous monastery now bears his name.
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MARCH XXVII.
ST. JOHN OF EGYPT, HERMIT.
From Rufinus, in the second book of the lives of the fathers; and from
Pallaudius in his Lausiaca; the last had often seen him. Also St. Jerom,
St. Austin, Cassian, &c. See Tillemont, t. 10, p. 9. See also the
Wonders of God in the Wilderness, p. 160.