May 25th - Gregory VII, Bede the Venerable, Mary Magdalen of Pazzi

A busy Day for saints (as are most days), but ones well worth our time. I do not often recall multiple saints but these three show the diversity and unity of the Church throughout time and place. Each was a monastic, showing the rich monastic tradition within and the importance of that tradition to the Church and how it is rarely running away from the world, as the world so often views it.
Each also approached the world and the needs of the Church (and World) differently. Each dedicated themselves to the improvement and betterment of others, each on different scales. Gregory, caught amidst the turmoil of the politics of his time sought reform of both Church and king. Bede focused on a true education of those around him to remove ignorance and superstition and encourage veneration and holiness and stability amidst chaos. Mary cultivated her personal interior garden and that of her sisters to the salvation of the world amid the fracturing of the Church.
All of theses things should be considered even amidst the foibles of human weakness.

---

So now, my dearly beloved brothers, listen carefully to what I say to you. All who in the whole world bear the name of Christian and truly understand the Christian faith know and believe that Saint Peter, the prince of the apostles, is the father of all Christians and their first shepherd after Christ, and that the holy Roman Church is the mother and mistress of all the Churches. If, then, you believe and unshakably hold this, such as I am, your brother and unworthy master, I ask and command you by Almighty God to help and succor your father and mother, if through them you would have the absolution of all your sins, and blessing and grace in this world and in the world to come.

-- From a letter of Pope St Gregory VII

On the Tuesday before Ascension, Bede began to suffer greater difficulties in breathing and his feet began to swell slightly. Nevertheless, he continued to teach us and dictate all day, and made jokes about his illness: “Learn quickly,” he would say, “because I don’t know how long I’ll last: my Creator may take me very soon.” But it seemed to us that he was perfectly conscious of his approaching end.
...“It is time – if it is my Maker’s will – to return to him who made me, who shaped me out of nothing and gave me existence. I have lived a long time, and the righteous judge has provided well for me all my life: now the time of my departure is at hand, for I long to dissolve and be with Christ; indeed, my soul longs to see Christ its king in all his beauty.” This is just one saying of his: he said many other things too, to our great benefit – and thus he spent his last day in gladness until the evening.

-- Cuthbert's narration of the death of Bede

Come, Holy Spirit. May the union of the Father and the will of the Son come to us. You, Spirit of truth, are the reward of the saints, the refreshment of souls, light in darkness, the riches of the poor, the treasury of lovers, the satisfaction of the hungry, the consolation of the pilgrim Church; you are he in whom all treasures are contained.
Come, you who, descending into Mary, caused the Word to take flesh: effect in us by grace what you accomplished in her by grace and nature.
Come, you who are the nourishment of all chaste thoughts, the fountain of all clemency, the summit of all purity.
  Come, and take away from us all that hinders us from being absorbed in you.

-- From the writings on revelation and temptation by St Mary Magdalene de Pazzi