Saint Simon Stock

The father of Simon of Stock wished to direct his son's early studies himself. But the child, through his penetration, soon showed himself capable of following higher courses; it was thought necessary to have him continue his st udies at the col collège d'Oxford Academic institution of which she is the patron. lege of Oxford. Simon of Stock had barely reached the age of seven: he applied himself first to the study of belles-lettres with such success that he astonished all who witnessed it. Our Saint was learned at an age when children are beginning to study. Despite all his successes, the science of the saints was always much more to the taste of Simon of Stock than the science of men. His directors thought it right to admit him to the participation of the Sacraments at an age when ordinary children can barely discern good from evil. As he advanced in the knowledge of the love of God, his tender devotion toward the most holy Virgin was perfected and took on new growth. One day, while reading a treatise on the Immaculate Conception of the most holy Virgin, he conceived so much esteem, so much love for that perfect purity which the Church honors in Mary, that, moved by a holy inspiration from heaven and pressed by an ardent desire to have some resemblance to the purest of virgins, whom he always regarded as his mother, he consecrated his virginity to God. The fear of staining the purity of his soul and his body made him avoid with the greatest care the slightest occasions, and even the appearances of sin. Not only did he watch exactly over all his senses, constantly making, like Job, a pact with his eyes, never to fix his gaze on a dangerous object; but he also carried the delicacy of his conscience to the point of forbidding himself all familiarity even with children of his own age. When, at his meals, he could escape the vigilance of his parents, raw herbs, plain salads, vegetables, and the coarsest fruits with bread and water, taken in moderation, most often made up his entire diet. If sometimes he was surprised in these austere practices, he would cover his penance with the specious pretext that this sort of food was more analogous to his taste and his temperament.

Our Saint did not take long, however, to experience, like a new Joseph, the dire effects of the jealousy of his elder brother, who, enamored with the love of the world and little inclined to the wise counsel of his parents, viewed only with pain and sorrow the particular esteem they held for

16 MAL.

Simon; he heard only with spite the praises lavished from all sides upon this child of blessing. The striking contrast between the worldly and dissipated life of the young lord and the retired life and purity of manners of his brother often brought harsh reproaches upon the former: the virtue and holiness of young Simon became the silent censure and condemnation of his disorders; he resolved upon his ruin. At first, everything was done to corrupt the innocence of this incarnate angel. But, soon perceiving that he would gain nothing over the mind or heart of his brother through the traps he set for his innocence, he had recourse to the efforts of the most infernal malice and stirred up a kind of persecution that put his fidelity to God to the harshest tests. Sometimes he studied to harass him during his exercises of piety, sometimes he affected to cast ridicule upon his way of practicing virtue, occasionally striving to make it suspect to his parents, even daring to tax as singularity and illusion the graces and favors he received from heaven. He finally passed from reproaches and calumnies to contempt and outrages; he even went so far as to mistreat him. God permitted this to make the extraordinary virtue of this young plant, which was later to bloom in the garden of Carmel, shine forth all the more. Fearing the traps that the seductive world was already setting for his innocence, Simon of Stock felt strongly inspired to abandon his father's house to seek his salvation in some remote solitude. Encouraged and confirmed in his resolution by an inner voice, which bore witness to him that henceforth Mary would serve as his mother and guide in this new way of life to which heaven was calling him, Simon of Stock left without regret all the advantages to which he could lay claim in the world to retire into a dreadful solitude where God had prepared a dwelling for him.

When Simon of Stock directed his steps toward this projected solitude, he was barely twelve years old. It was in a vast forest belonging to the lords of Toubersville, situated in the county of Kent, in the vicinity of Oxford, that he chose the place of his retreat. Having encountered on his path a tree of prodigious size, whose cavity offered him an asylum, he sought his ordinary dwelling there and used it to shelter himself from the injuries of the air and the rigor of the seasons. The hollow of this tree was his oratory; he adorned it with a crucifix and an image of the most holy Virgin, the only objects he had brought from his father's house along with the Psalter, his favorite book, which served him to sing the praises of the Lord in his desert and to recite each day, according to his custom, the Little Office in honor of Mary. Deep in the secret of his desert, most often hidden and as if buried in the hollow of the tree that served as his retreat, Simon of Stock seemed to have forgotten that he was clothed in a mortal body and subject, like the rest of men, to the needs of life. Raw herbs, bitter roots, wild fruits produced by his desert, and the water that flowed there, all taken with moderation after the most rigorous fasting, this was his entire nourishment. But heaven, attentive to the needs of its servant, later tempered this austerity with the help of a few pieces of bread, which a dog, led by a miraculous instinct, brought him from time to time in his retreat, just as the raven did in the past that God sent to the holy prophet Elijah to feed him in his solitude. But the happiness of this angel of the desert soon excited the jealousy of Satan. The storm of temptation broke out on all sides; his alarmed conscience constantly reproached Simon for his departure as an imprudence that could give rise to injurious suspicions, perhaps even to dire accusations against his brother, to whom it would not fail to be imputed that he had attempted his life, by reason of the cruel jealousy he had conceived against him. He already believed himself responsible for the rigors of which the wrath of his parents would be capable against a degenerate son, whom they would henceforth regard in the family as a new Cain, and against all those who would be suspected of being his accomplices. Our saint triumphed over these first artifices of the enemy of salvation.

Satan had recourse to new stratagems: he added to artful reflections the most striking illusions. He affected, so to speak, the imagination of Simon of Stock and all his senses in such a way that it seemed to him he saw and heard in his desert his weeping mother, holding conversations analogous to the thoughts that agitated his mind. This second artifice at first made the most vivid impression on the mind of Simon of Stock. His heart was so softened that he saw himself on the point of succumbing to the temptation, deceived as he was by the illusions of the tempter; this is what he himself declared later to some of the Carmelite religious; he assured them that, in this encounter, he had escaped seduction only by a special assistance of the most holy Virgin, who revealed to him the traps that the demon was setting for his weakness and delivered him from them by her powerful protection. The proud spirit redoubled his efforts; he transformed himself again into an angel of light: Simon is delivered by the enemy of salvation to pains of mind, violent scruples, and cruel remorse regarding the dangers of this extraordinary path in which he walks, deprived as he is of the grace of the sacraments, devoid of all the means that the Church constantly lavishes upon the faithful, and exposed every day to dying in this dreadful solitude without help or consolation. The example of so many holy solitaries whom God has led by the same path revived his confidence; the memory of the graces with which heaven had favored him to confirm him in his resolution reassured him.

So many times defeated, confused by his defeat, Satan attacked him head-on. The memory of the free conversations he had heard in his father's house from the mouth of his brother, jealous of his virtue; the dangerous idea of the maneuvers that this young libertine had used to seduce him; the evil thoughts, the infamous images of criminal voluptuousness that he had wanted to inspire in him, all were recalled, all presented themselves to his mind, and everything that impurity has of the most attractive attacked his heart. These importunate thoughts followed him everywhere, his imagination heated up, his senses were moved, his soul was troubled. A prey to violent temptations, despite the horrors of his desert and the holy rigors of the most austere life, Simon of Stock already believed himself guilty. Saintly frightened by the appearances of evil by which he saw himself as if surrounded, he hastened to avenge upon his innocent body a sin of which God never saw the slightest stain in him. He tore his virginal flesh with stinging thorns; he clothed his body in a fabric of briars and nettles to blunt the sting of the flesh and defend himself, by this kind of armor, from the flaming darts of the impure spirit. In this state, a victim of the love of purity, Simon of Stock did not cease to invoke the holy name of Mary; it was by the all-powerful virtue of this name, formidable to all of hell, that he was, he tells us himself, delivered from these horrible temptations; it was by this means that he emerged victorious from the battles that the demon waged against him in his desert. A stranger on earth, our saint lived with God alone, in the most universal, the most perfect detachment, and even in the forgetfulness of every creature. Some authors tell us that the angels delighted in his company and charmed the horrors of his desert with their presence. He enjoyed there, the Legend of his Office tells us, with all the more abundance, the delights of the spirit and the sweetness of grace, amidst his frequent communications with God and the celestial spirits, as he was entirely dead to all the consolations of the earth and separated from all commerce with the rest of mortals.

It was at the moment when Simon of Stock was receiving the most graces and heavenly favors that the Blessed Virgin favored him, in his desert, with an apparition and, in an express revelation, taught him from her sacred mouth that God, content with the penances of his solitude, wished him to complete the work of his sanctification by unitin g himself with t religieux Carmes Religious order for which Albert wrote the primitive rule. he Carmelite religious and embracing their rule, when they would pass from Palestine to England to found monasteries there. But this good Mother also told him that he would have to endure all the contradictions to which the Carmelite Order would be exposed under his leadership.

Twenty years had passed among the consolations and rigors of the desert when Simon of Stock received from heaven, through the intercession of the divine Mary, orders that were, so to speak, formal to leave his solitude, to put himself in a state to fulfill the views of Providence for him, according to the plan that the most holy Virgin herself had traced for him. Despite his great attraction to retreat, he obeyed the voice of heaven and returned to Oxford, to his parents, to resume his studies. He studied theology with particular care, in order to be one day in a state to fulfill the ministry to which God destined him. Immediately after his ordination, to which he consented to conform to the orders of heaven, he returned again to his desert; he did not leave it entirely until the year 1212, that is to say, fifteen years after the revelation made to him by the most holy Virgin regarding the arrival of the Carmelites from Palestine in England to found monasteries of their Order there.

During this time, he sometimes appeared in the vicinity of Oxford to instruct the ignorant, to repress vice by the strength of his preaching, enlightening some with the lights of his entirely heavenly doctrine, animating others to the love of virtue by the example of his life, working effectively for the conversion of all sinners, and preparing the ways of the Lord by the first efforts of his zeal. The dispute that arose in the year 1207 between Pope Innocent III and the King of England, known as John Lackland, on the occasion of the election of the Archbishop of Canterbury, became the disastrous source of the greatest evils for the Church and for this kingdom. The dissatisfaction that the Pope received from the King on this subject having obliged him to cast a general interdict over all of England, the consequences of this event, bringing trouble and desolation everywhere, excited the zeal of Simon of Stock. To give more efficacy to the prayers he addressed to heaven for the conversion of the King of England, our Saint interested the most holy Virgin, his mediatrix, his ordinary refuge in the calamities of life; he addressed to her the vows of all those who were the object of his charity, through a short but energetic prayer, which begins with these words: Alma Redemptoris Mater, which some authors attribute to him and which he appears to have composed on this occasion. This prayer, dictated by the spirit of compunction, supported by the liveliest confidence in the powerful protection of the Mother of God, had all the desired effect, recited as it was with fervor by our Saint and by those he had engaged to join him. The anger of heaven allowed itself to be softened by the groans of the ardent charity of the servant of God and by the sentiments of penance of this afflicted people; when all things were in confusion and the most violent agitation, at court and among the people; when all seemed desperate and no way of accommodation appeared, the parties interested by reciprocal insults putting the greatest obstacles in the way, when one thought of it the least and the fire of war was igniting on all sides, one saw the Legate Pandolfo arrive in England, sent by Pope Innocent III to negotiate with King John the peace so ardently desired. He who holds the hearts of kings in his hand suddenly changed that of this unfortunate prince; he converted and accepted without delay all the conditions of peace that were proposed to him.

While Simon of Stock was occupied during the interdict with the work of God, he learned of the arrival of two English lords who, returning from the crusade, brought with them some hermits from Mount Carmel, with the intention of building them a monastery in England and thus beginning their first foundation in this kingdom. At this happy news, our Saint, who, according to the warning of the most holy Virgin, had been waiting for them in a prophetic spirit for fifteen years, hastened to obey the orders of heaven by entering the Carmelite Order. But the divisions between the King and the lords of the kingdom, the troubles that still agitated England for a long time after the lifting of the interdict, prevented the projected foundation at that time (1212). While waiting for a more favorable time, one of these pious solitaries of Mount Carme Raoul Fresburn English Carmelite religious, founder of hermitages. l, named Ralph Fresburn, an Englishman by nation, who still had great goods at his disposal in England, used a portion of them, on the advice of Simon of Stock, to form a Solitude in a forest of Aylesford in the county of Kent. It is in this place that our Saint retired as soon as the cells were built; it is there that he received the habit of the Order from the hands of the blessed Alan, then Prior of this solitude. Scarcely had one learned in Oxford of the religious commitment of our Saint, when the University of that city, perfectly informed of the talents and rare merit of Simon of Stock, made lively requests to the superiors of our Religious, in order to overcome the extreme reluctance he had to appear in the midst of the doctors; but he saw himself obliged to sacrifice humility to obedience. Simon appeared again at the college of Oxford, and immediately he was awarded the title of Doctor of Theology; his humility, always ingenious at hiding itself, always attentive to escaping the brilliance of honors, obtained through requests to his superior that he be permitted to limit himself to the grade of Bachelor of Theology, and immediately after he retired into his solitude. In the apprehension that one might again do violence to his humility, and his attraction to the solitary life leading him constantly to move away from everything that could distract him from it, he took advantage of a favorable opportunity presented to him by the foundation of a new solitude in the desert of Norwich, in the country of Northumberland, through the care and zeal of the Rev. Fr. Ralph Fresburn, who was elected prior. As soon as this solitude was in a state to receive some religious, Simon of Stock, with the consent of his superior, retired there with two or three other solitaries who had come from Mount Carmel.

Saint Brocard, the second Latin General of the Carmelite Order, being informed of the wonders that grace was working among the solitaries of Norwich, and especially of the fervor of Simon of Stock, wished to have him as coadjutor in the government of the Order (year 1215). Consequently, Saint Brocard, with the advice of the General Chapter, appointed Simon of Stock his vicar throughout Europe to take his place in the government of the religious; but the houses of the Carmelites, having multiplied in a very short time, gave offense to the clergy and soon caused an open persecution that nearly overturned everything. Satan, jealous of the piety of the Carmelites and fearing the great advantages that the Church could later derive from these new establishments for the salvation and education of her children, stirred up from all sides, against Carmel, men animated by an indiscreet zeal who, for lack of examination and under the pretext of attachment to the laws of the Church, claimed that the Carmelite Order should be suppressed as contrary to the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council and attacked at its very roots, both in the East and in the West, as an Order newly instituted and without a rule approved by the Church, although these claims were belied by convents that were already very ancient, even in Europe. As a wise, vigilant, and faithful pastor, Simon hastened to shelter the children of Mary from the unjust enterprises of those who persecuted them. Carmel, by his order, united in one spirit, first offered to God, above all things, fervent prayers to implore the help of heaven in their distress; and soon heaven allowed itself to be touched by the tears and groans of its children; Mary herself took up their defense. Simon of Stock sent messengers to Pope Honorius III to i nform him of th Pape Honoré III Pope who instructed the canonization cause. e unjust persecution that the Carmelite Order was experiencing; this Sovereign Pontiff, after a most favorable reception, summoned the quarrel stirred up by their adversaries to his tribunal. He immediately referred this matter to the examination of two commissioners, who, initially seduced by the artifices of the devil and influenced by the maneuvers of some members of the clergy, gave occasion, through affected delays, for new attacks. But Honorius III, enlightened from above by a miraculous vision, declared that he had received the order from the Most Holy Virgin to approve the Rule of the Carmelites, to confirm their Order, and to protect them against the enterprises of their adversaries. Convinced by himself of the goodness of a cause that the Mother of God favored in such a visible manner, he hastened to execute the orders of heaven by an express bull, in which he declared the legal existence of the Carmelite Order in the Church to be legitimate and in conformity with the decrees of the Lateran Council, and authorized them to continue their foundations in Europe. Upon the receipt of this bull, the leaders of the party were humiliated and, according to an ancient tradition, punished by heaven with a tragic event. After such a miraculous victory, won by the zeal of Simon of Stock over his enemies leagued against Carmel, our holy General, wishing to transmit to posterity this authentic miracle of the protection of the Most Holy Virgin in favor of the Carmelites, and to perpetuate the gratitude of her children, then established the feast of the Solemn Commemoration of the Most Holy Virgin, which the whole Order celebrates each year on July 16, the day which was later fixed by the Church as the feast of the Confraternity of the Holy Scapular.

However, the moment seemed to have arrived when the Order of Carmelites, in accordance with the revelation of the Blessed Virgin made to Saint Cyril some years earlier, was to be entirely uprooted from the Holy Land to be transported to more favorable regions. Consequently, our Saint received the order from the blessed Alan, then General of the Carmelites, to go to Mount Carm el to atten Mont-Carmel Place of retreat for the hermits for whom the rule was written. d the General Chapter convened to remedy the damages the Order had suffered throughout the Orient through the massacre of those who had been immolated by the sword of the infidels. After a happy voyage, he arrived at the foot of Mount Carmel; he contemplated with the liveliest joy this holy mountain to which his vows and desires had long transported him.

The General Chapter of the Order met, and there the matter of the general emigration of the Brothers to Europe was deliberated. Some maintained that in the present circumstances, none of them could in conscience leave the Holy Land, and that one could not even, without doing harm to religion, permit them to withdraw elsewhere and fix their dwelling there; finally, that they should not avoid the persecution to which the rest of the Christians who inhabited Palestine were exposed. Simon of Stock pointed out all the disadvantages of the proposed opinion and the indispensable necessity of following the contrary sentiment, founded on the rules of Christian prudence. He declared that it is a praiseworthy conduct to flee persecution for fear of losing the faith, and a very great evil to expose one's faith to the danger of persecution without an express order from heaven, according to this maxim of the Gospel: "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another." The general dispersion was decided. Soon there was no more safety on land or at sea; the Saracens cast terror and dread everywhere by the cruelties they exercised against the Christians. Several religious, on Carmel and elsewhere, perished by the sword for the name of Jesus Christ; those who escaped the cruelty of these barbarians took refuge in the city of Ptolemais, where the Christian army had gathered all its forces. Simon of Stock, by a particular conduct of divine Providence which destined him for another kind of martyrdom, fortunately found himself among the refugees.

Shortly after, the water sources of Ptolemais having been poisoned by the malice of the infidels, the Christian army, with the inhabitants of this city and all those who had taken refuge there, saw themselves on the point of perishing; but heaven, watching everywhere over the preservation of the Christian name, inspired the leaders of the army to give Simon of Stock and his religious a body of troops to bring them back and protect them on Mount Carmel, in the hope of finding an effective resource in the waters of the fountain of Elijah, which, according to an ancient tradition of the country, dried up by a miracle of heaven whenever the religious were forced by the violence of the infidels to leave this holy mountain, and, by a new miracle, let its waters flow in abundance upon their return as soon as they had begun to pray. The miracle took place indeed, to the great satisfaction of the Christian army, which, by this entirely divine aid, regained its strength and soon saw itself in a state to resist its enemies. After this wonder, of which Simon of Stock was the witness and cooperator through the fervor of his prayers, Carmel, protected as it was by the Christian army, immediately recovered its tranquility, and our saint took advantage of it to prolong his stay there; for he could not then expose himself at sea because of the persecution of the infidels. While waiting for a more favorable time to embark, he gave himself up entirely, according to his attraction, to the sweetness of contemplation. Drawn by a movement of the Spirit of God, he shut himself up alone in a cave on Mount Carmel, where, according to a constant tradition reported by several authors, he led, for the space of six years, an entirely angelic life, without any kind of communication with the rest of mortals, having conversation only with God, and often favored by the apparitions of the most holy Virgin, who each day nourished him with a miraculous manna brought from heaven.

The time marked by the decrees of divine Providence was drawing to a close, and God wished to accomplish, through the ministry of Simon Stock, the great work of the propagation of the Carmelite Order in Europe. Our Saint had been leading the life of an anchorite on Mount Carmel for six years when he learned that some English lords, after having fulfilled their vow to serve in the Holy Land, were preparing to set sail for England. Led by the hand of God, they came to offer to take him on board with all the religious who wished to follow him; he accepted their offer. Then the Blessed Alan, General of the Order, seeing almost no resources left to maintain himself in the Holy Land and without hope of being able to re-establish most of the monasteries, already ravaged by the infidels in Palestine, gave free rein to the emigration of the religious that had already begun. After providing for the safety and tranquility of those who wished to remain in Palestine, by leaving Father Hilarion as vicar, he embarked with a large number of religious, among whom was Simon Stock. Despite the dangers of a sea full of reefs and the continuous attacks of the infidels, they arrived safely in England, from where this religious colony from Carmel dispersed into the various solitudes and monasteries already founded in that country. The General, followed by Simon Stock, retired to the monastery of Aylesford, one of the largest of the two monasteries newly built by the pious liberality of some Englishmen. Informed of the progress of the Order in Europe since the general emigration of the religious, the Blessed Alan, after having examined the current state of the Order's affairs, formed from that moment the design to leave to Simon Stock the task of completing an enterprise whose happy beginnings and progress, miraculous so to speak, announced his skill for government on all sides. He consequently convened the General Chapter of his Order the following year (1245); it is the first to have been held in Europe. This respectable assembly, composed of all the superiors of the Order, having learned of the General's design, adopted it without difficulty, and after receiving his resignation, unanimously elected Simon Stock General of the Order. Our Saint was then eighty years old. Under the government of Simon Stock, the Order received a considerable increase, and a large number of foundations took place in France. They multiplied there, thanks above all to the esteem that King Saint Louis showed the religious since he had known them in the Holy Land. The pious monarch had been so struck by the angelic life that the solitaries led on Carmel, where he visited them, that he hastened to make a rich gift to France by propagating there the Carmelite religious he had brought with him. The peace enjoyed by Carmel was not at first universal, protected though it was by the Holy See, and despite the zeal of Simon Stock. For two years, the Carmelite Order had been solemnly recognized as a Mendicant Order, but this recognition had in no way stopped the fervor of its enemies. To the religious of other Orders were added the secular priests, and at all costs, the suppression of these Orientals was demanded, with customs unknown until then, and with pretensions too beautiful for them not to be made a crime. Despite his filial abandonment to the decrees of Providence, Simon did not cease to pour out his sorrow at the feet of Mary. To this end, he composed the antiphon Flos Carmeli, which he recited every day, and of which here is an excerpt: Flower of Carmel, Vine blossoming, Splendor of Heaven, Virgin-Mother astonishing, Sweet Star of the sea; O lily without stain and purer than snow, Give to Carmel a new privilege; Calm the bitter waves. After some years of supplications and prayers, of sighs and tears, he had the consolation of being answered in a surprising manner; his prayer, like that of the Prophet Elijah, opens the heavens and makes the Queen of Angels descend from them. Mary signals, in a famous vision, her kindness and her power in favor of Simon Stock; she comes to his aid through the singular benefit of a miraculous scapular that she gives him as a sign of her protection; a precious sign which, for several centur ies, has been for us scapulaire miraculeux Object of Marian devotion given by the Virgin to Simon. a source of the greatest wonders and of all kinds of blessings, whether in favor of Carmel or in favor of those who are clothed in it. Let us let Father Peter Swayngton, companion, secretary, and confessor of the Saint, speak: "The Blessed Simon," he says, "broken by old age, weakened by the austerity of his penitent life, very often spent the nights in prayer, groaning in his heart at the evils with which his brothers were afflicted. It happened that one day, being in prayer, he was filled with a heavenly consolation, which he shared with us in community, as follows: 'My dearest brothers, Blessed be God, who has not abandoned those who place their trust in him and who has not despised the prayers of his servants. Blessed be the most holy Mother of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who, remembering the ancient days and the tribulations whose weight has seemed too heavy and too overwhelming to some of you (not paying enough attention that those who wish to live with piety in Jesus Christ must expect to suffer persecution), addresses to you today, through my ministry, words of consolation, which you must receive in the joy of the Holy Spirit. I pray to this Spirit of truth that he may direct my tongue, so that I may speak appropriately, and that I may manifest with the most exact fidelity the work of God, and the favor that we have received from heaven. When I poured out my soul in the presence of the Lord, I who am but ash and dust, and when I prayed with all confidence to the holy Virgin, my Sovereign, that since she had deigned to honor us with the special title of Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary, she would also wish to show herself our mother, our protectress, by delivering us from our calamities, and by procuring for us consideration and esteem, by some sensible mark of her benevolence, from those who persecuted us, when I said to her with tender sighs: "Flower of Carmel, Flowering Vine, splendor of Heaven, O incomparable Mother-Virgin! O amiable and ever-Virgin Mother, give the Carmelites privileges of protection, Star of the seas!" the blessed Virgin appeared to me in a great procession, and holding in her hand the habit of the Order, she said to me: "Receive, my dear son, this scapular of your Order, as the distinctive sign and the mark of the privilege that I have obtained for you and the children of Carmel; it is a sign of salvation, a safeguard in perils, and the pledge of a peace and a special protection until the end of centuries. ECCE SIGNUM SALUTIS, SALUS IN PERICULIS. He who dies clothed in this habit will be preserved from eternal fires." And as the glorious presence of the holy Virgin rejoiced me beyond anything one can imagine, and as I could not, miserable as I am, sustain the sight of her majesty, she told me, while disappearing, that I only had to send a deputation to Pope Innocent, the vicar of her Son, and that he would not fail to bring remedies to our evils.'" (July 16, 1251.)

Magnificent as the first promise was, it was still only a part of what Saint Simon had asked for. To grant it fully, the Blessed Virgin made a second promise in favor of the Carmelite religious and the confreres of the Scapular, and this time it was to Pope John XXII. This Sovereign Pontiff, seeing that the Emperor Louis V of Bavaria was working for a long time to introduce schism into his States, was very afflicted by it; he addressed, with more fervor than ever, prayers to the Lord, that He might avert the evils with which the Church was threatened. One day, having risen early in the morning to pray, according to his custom, and finding himself on his knees in a kind of ecstasy, the Queen of Heaven, comforter of the afflicted, appeared to him, surrounded by light, wearing the Carmelite habit, and ordered him to confirm the Order of Carmel, to accept and ratify, on earth, the graces and privileges that her Son had granted him in heaven. The Pope, obeying the orders of the Blessed Virgin, dispatched, on March 3, 1322, the bull, called Sabbatine, under the terms of which the Blessed Virgin commits herself to deliver from purgatory the children of Carmel on the Saturday following their death.

Let us resume our narrative: The apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Simon of Stock was soon published wherever the Carmelites were already established. It became authentic through a multitude of wonders that occurred everywhere, and thus imposed silence on the adversaries of Carmel. They began little by little to look with a more favorable eye upon such privileged religious; many even, subsequently, hastened to participate in this signal privilege, with which Mary had favored her Order.

The Order of Carmel multiplied so prodigiously under the guidance of our saint, that a few years after his death, towards the end of the 13th century, according to the remark of William, Archbishop of Tyre, this Order already counted up to seven thousand five hundred monasteries or solitudes, filled with a very large number of religious, which the same author puts at the number of one hundred and eighty thousand.

No longer wishing to live except to consume the work of God which had been entrusted to him, Simon took the generous resolution to devote the little strength that remained to him to making the general visitation of the monasteries of his Order, desiring to see with his own eyes, before his death, the wonders that God had wrought in favor of Carmel. Europe saw with admiration this holy old man, already reached an extreme old age, bent under the weight of years, exhausted by the rigors of the most austere life, and diminishing nothing of it, even during the course of his travels, traversing with indefatigable courage the monasteries of his Order. It was during the course of this general visitation that Simon of Stock endowed a great number of cities with fervent Carmelite communities, such as Brussels, Liège, Mechelen, Ghent, Utrecht, Antwerp, in Belgium; Perth, in Scotland; Kildare, in Irelan d, etc. Bordeaux City and diocese of which Amand was bishop. It is also on this journey that he established in various places (in Bordeaux in particular) the Confraternity of the Holy Scapular. The holy general had this particularly admirable quality, that he preserved all his moral vigor until his blessed death, and one perhaps does not suspect that the works of which we have just spoken are those of a man who had passed his ninetieth year. Simon of Stock arrived in Bordeaux at the beginning of the year 1265; it is there that he ended his visits and finished his days by a death precious in the eyes of God, by pronouncing these words that the Church has added to the Angelic Salutation: *Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora mortis nostræ. Amen*, — showing himself, by this homage, until his last breath, a worthy brother and child of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (May 16, 1265.)

The following episodes of the life of Saint Simon have served as a theme for artists in the representations they have given of them: 1° Nature, docile to the orders of Simon, reverses its laws. To confound slander, at his prayer, cooked fish, which are presented to him to surprise his frugality, return to life and movement, bearing witness, by this wonder, to the spirit of penance that animates the servant of God. 2° In order to give glory to God and confound hell, and as if to glorify the Holy Eucharist, he makes the sign of the cross over water, which, by a diabolical artifice, had been substituted for the wine prepared for the holy sacrifice of the Mass, and immediately the water is changed into wine. 3° The Blessed Virgin appears to him and hands him the scapular; near him are souls from purgatory in the midst of flames.