is comments on the life of St. Aigulph, t. 1. Sept.,
by pope Benedict XIV., De Servor. Dei Beatif. and Canoniz. l. 4,
part 2, c. 24, n. 53, t. 5, p. 245, and Macchiarelli, the monk of
Camaldoli. Soon after Mount Cassino was restored, pope Zachary
visited that monastery and devoutly venerated the relics of St.
Benedict and St. Scholastica in 746, as he testifies in his Bull.
When pope Alexander II. consecrated the new church of that abbey in
1071, these sacred bones were inspected and found all to remain
there, as we learn from his Bull, and by Leo of Ostia, and Peter the
deacon. The same is affirmed in the acts of two visitations made of
them in 1545 and 1650. Nevertheless, Angelus de Nuce (who relates in
his Chronicle of Mount Cassino, that, in 1650, he saw these relics,
with all the monks of that house, in the visitation then made) and
Stilting allow that some of the bones of this saint were conveyed
into France, not by St. Aigulph, but soon after his time, and this
is expressly affirmed by Paul the Deacon, in his History of the
Lombards, l. 6, c. 2.
14. Habitavit secum.
15. S. Bened. Reg. c. 7.
16. S. Thos. 2. 2. qu. 161. a. 6.
17. No one can, without presumption, pride, and sin, prefer himself
before the worst of sinners; first, because the judgments of God are
always secret and unknown to us. (See St. Aug. de Virginit. St. Thos
2.2. qu. 161. ad 1. Cassian, St. Bern., &c.) Secondly, the greatest
sinners, had they received the graces with which we have been
favored, would not have been so ungrateful; and if we had been in
their circumstances, into what precipices should not we have fallen?
Thirdly, instead of looking upon notorious sinners, we ought to turn
our eyes towards those who serve God with fervor, full of confusion
to see how far so many thousands are superior to us in every virtue.
Thus we must practise the lesson laid down by St. Paul, never to
measure ourselves with any one so as to prefer ourselves to another;
but to look upon all others as superior to us, and less ungrateful
and base than ourselves. Our own wretchedness and sinfulness we are
acquainted with; but charity inclines us to judge the best of
others.
18. Luke xviii. 18.
19. Orat. ejus inter Apocryph.
20. St. Bened. Reg. p. 210.

ST. SERAPION,

CALLED the Sindonite, from a single garment of coarse linen which he
alwa