St. Peter Damian, Bishop and Doctor of the Church used to say that the best penance is to bearing and accepting with patience the punishments that God sends us.
Newroom (22/02/2022 8:20 PM, Gaudium Press) Saint Peter Damian was born in Ravenna, Italy in 1007. While still a youth he dedicated his life to prayer, vigil and fasting. After discerning his vocation to religious life, he entered the Camaldolese Order, in the Monastery of Fonte Avellana, in Umbria, where he lived the austere life of a hermit.
He did penance with a hair shirt, scourging, and fasting with bread and water to subdue his passions, but his body weakened and he began to suffer from insomnia. However, he eventually understood that these punishments should not be so severe and that the best penance is to accept with patience the punishments that God sends to each one.
After the abbot died, St. Peter took over, out of obedience, the direction of the community. In view of the rules and of what he saw and perceived, a renewal was needed, beginning with him. He founded five other communities of hermits, always recommending to the other monks the spirit of retreat, charity, and humility. Among them were St. Dominic Loricato and St. John of Lodi.
After advising several Popes, Saint Peter Damian was ordained a cardinal and bishop of Ostia in the year 1057, although he preferred the hermitic life. Later his request to return to the convent as a simple monk was granted. He died on February 22, 1072, and was declared Doctor of the Church in the year 1828.
Saint Peter Damian Quotes
01 – “The high holiness of the Seraphim themselves is overshadowed by the brilliance of Mary’s virtues.”
02 – “No religiosity, no mortification or perfection of life tainted by filthy impurity will be considered worthy in the eyes of the Heavenly judge.”
03 – “He does not love Christ, who does not love the cross of Christ”.
04 – “O Blessed Cross venerate you, preach you, honor you the Faith of the patriarchs, the prophets’ prophecies, the judging senate of the apostles, the victorious army of the martyrs, and the multitudes of all the saints.”
05 – “If our Redeemer so loved the flower of intact purity, that he not only wanted to be born from a virginal womb, but also wanted to be entrusted to the care of a virgin guard, and this, while still a child crying in the cradle, tell me: To whom would he want to entrust his body, now that he reigns in the immensity of heaven?”.
06 – “Wait confidently for the joy that comes after sorrow. May the hope of that joy revive you, and charity kindle fervour in you, so that your spirit, sanctimoniously intoxicated, forgets the external sufferings and longs with enthusiasm for what it contemplates interiorly.”
07 – “The divine temple grows in fact, in silence, because when the mind of man does not dissipate in conversations with others, the summit of the spiritual edifice rises on high; and the more it grows and rises upwards, the more it is guarded by the discipline of silence and is not distracted by what is outside.”
08 – “The hermitage cell is the locus in which God converses with men. The hermitic life is the apex of the Christian life, it is at the apex of the states of life, because the monk, now free from the bonds of the world and of his own self, receives the anticipation of the Holy Spirit and his soul is happily united with the heavenly Spouse.”
09 – “Therefore Christ must be at the center of the monk’s life: Christ be heard on our tongue, Christ be seen in our life and felt in our heart.”
10 – “The Church of Christ is united by the bond of charity to the extent that, since it is one in many members, so it is all mystically in each member; in this way the whole universal Church was rightly called the one Spouse of Christ in the singular, and each elect soul, by the sacramental mystery, is considered fully Church.”
Prayer of Saint Peter Damian
O our dear Advocate Mary, you have such a tender heart that you cannot see the unfortunate without sympathy. At the same time you have so much influence with God, that you can save all those whom you defend; do not despise us, whatever our misery. In you we place all our hopes. Show us your power; for the Lord made you so powerful that you would always be ready to do us good and show us your mercy. Amen. (EPC)
Compiled by Camille Mittermeier
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