[Rank]
S. Antonii Mariae Zaccaria Confessoris;;Duplex;;3;;vide C5

[RankNewcal]
S. Antonii Mariae Zaccaria Confessoris;;Duplex optional;;2;;vide C5

[Rule]
vide C5;
9 lectiones

[Oratio]
Make us able, O Lord God, in the Spirit of Thy blessed Apostle Paul, to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, wherein Thy blessed servant Anthony Mary was so wonderfully taught when he gathered together in thy Church new households of clerks and of virgins.
$Per Dominum

[Lectio4]
Anthony Mary Zaccaria was born (in 1502) of a noble family, at Cremona, on the Pau. Even in his childhood marks of his future holiness became manifest. There shone brightly in him, signs of excellent graces of childlike love toward God and the Blessed Virgin, and more especially of tenderness toward the poor, for the relief of whose needs he was ready more than once to strip off his own costly dress. He studied arts at his own home, philosophy at Ticino, and medicine at Padua, and as he excelled all others in goodness, so did he surpass all his companions in intellectual power. After taking his degree he returned home, and there understood from God that his call was to the healing of souls, rather than to that of bodies. He therefore began earnestly to study theology while he continued in the meantime to visit the sick, to teach Christian doctrine to children, to excite godliness among the young, and oftentimes even to exhort the aged to amend their ways. It is said that when he first said Mass after his ordination a light broke from heaven, and he seemed to the astonished bystanders to be surrounded by a circle of angels: from that time forth he laboured more earnestly for the salvation of souls, and the struggle against evil living. His fatherly love for strangers, for the needy, and for the afflicted, and the godly exhortations and alms wherewith he entertained them, made his house to become a refuge for the wretched, and earned for himself from his fellow -citizens the title of father of the fatherland and of angels.

[Lectio5]
While he was at Milan he bethought him that greater Christian good might be done if he gathered round him some fellow -labourers in the Lord's vineyard, and when he had conferred thereon with those noble and holy men Bartholomew Ferrari and James Morigia, he founded the brotherhood of Clerks Regulars, to whom on account of his own great love for the Apostle of the Gentiles he gave the name of Clerks of St. Paul. Under the approbation of the Supreme Pontiff Clement VII. and the confirmation of Paul III. this brotherhood was in a short time widely spread abroad. The Congregation of nuns who are called Angelicals also regard Anthony Mary as their Father and Founder. His own thought of himself was so lowly that he never would be at the head of his own Order. In great long-suffering he bore with patience the violent storms which were raised against his Institute. In the greatness of his charity he never ceased to enkindle the members of religious orders to love toward God, to exhort priests to live Apostolic lives, and to found guilds of married men, to the bringing forth of much fruit. Somewhiles he and his disciples would walk through the streets and squares with a Cross carried before them, and there by burning and vehement harangues call to salvation the wandering and the wicked.

[Lectio6]
It is to be remembered that in his burning love for Jesus Crucified he reminded all men of the Mystery of the Cross by the sound of a bell every Friday evening, and himself as a true disciple of Paul always bore about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, (2 Cor. iv. 10.) The holy Name of Christ is found everywhere in his writings and was ever in his mouth. He was moved by a singular love toward the Holy Eu charist. He established a custom of receiving it often, and is said to have brought in the practice of exposing the same upon a lofty throne for three days' adoration. Of his earnest modesty the appearance of life which was seen even in his dead body seemed a witness. Together with all these things he possessed the gifts of trance, of tears, of knowledge of things to come, of reading the thoughts of the heart, and of power against the enemy of mankind. He was worn out with toil when he was seized with his last illness at Guastalla, whither he had been called as a peacemaker. He was carried to Cremona amid the tears of his brethren and the embraces of his devoted mother, whose imminent death he foretold. He was comforted by a vision of the Apostles above, and predicted the increase of his Brotherhood. On the th day of July, in the year 1539, he died a holy death at the age of thirty-six. Christians forthwith began to honour him for his eminent sanctity and the number of his signs and wonders, which honour the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII. approved and confirmed, and on the Feast of the Lord's Ascension in the year 1897 solemnly enrolled his name among those of the Saints.

[Lectio7]
From the Holy Gospel according to Mark,
!Mark 10:15-21
At that time: Jesus said unto His Disciples: Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child: he shall not enter therein. (And He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them.) And when He was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to Him, and asked Him. And so on.
_
Homily by St. Augustine, Bishop (of Hippo.)
!Sermon 47: various.
That which the Lord commandeth hard and heavy seemeth: (Come, take up the Cross, and follow Me; and as it is written elsewhere,) If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. (Matth. xvi. 24.) But neither hard nor heavy is that which He commandeth when He that commandeth giveth help to fulfil. That is true which is said in Ps. xvi. 5, By the words of Thy lips I have kept me to strait paths. That which is hard in the commandment love maketh easy. How great is the power of love, we know. And what signifieth this, let him deny? Let him put no trust in himself, let him feel that he is man, and let him have regard unto that which was spoken of the prophet, (Jer. xvii. 5,) saying, Cursed be the man that trusteth in men. Let him mistrust himself, but not to sink; let him mistrust himself, that he may cleave unto God.

[Lectio8]
Whither are we to follow the Lord? Whither He is gone, we know. He is risen from the dead, and is gone up into heaven. Thither we must follow Him. And we must not despair of so doing, not because man is able to do anything, but because He is faithful That promised. (Heb. xi. n.) Why, then, should we despair, since we are members of His Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones, Who is the Head of the Church, and He is the Saviour of the body, (Eph. xxx. 23.) Good is it to follow Him, but whither we are to follow Him we must see. When the Lord Jesus uttered those words bidding us to follow Him, He had not Himself as yet arisen from the dead, He had not as yet suffered, there lay still before Him the cross, shame, mockery, scourging, thorns, wounds, outrages, insults, death. After He uttered those words, His way became very rough. Art thou slothful? willest thou not to follow Him, but follow Him all the same, for who would not follow unto glory?. All men love exaltation, but lowliness is the step to rise withal.

[Lectio9]
Take up thy cross, and follow the Lord, and the cross that the Lord commandeth us to carry after Him, that we may follow Him most speedfully, what is it but the death of this flesh? For it is this flesh that crucifieth us until death is swallowed up in victory, (i Cor. xv. 55.) Therefore must this our own cross itself be crucified and pierced with the nails of the fear of God, lest if it be free it hamper thee, in the carrying of it, and thou canst nowise follow the Lord save in carrying it. For how canst thou follow Him if thou be none of His. And they that are Christ's, saith the Apostle, have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, (Gal. v. 24.)

[Lectio94]
Born at Cremona of a noble family, Anthony Mary Zacharias even from his boyhood shone by his virtuous character and his mercy to the poor. During his education in the humanities, philosophy and medicine, he excelled his companions both in holiness of life and in keenness of mind. At a sign from God, he zealously cultivated the sacred sciences. After his ordination, the zeal of his priestly life soon earned for him the titles of Father and Angel of his country, bestowed on him by his fellow-citizens. At Milan, with the holy men Bartholomew Ferrári and James Morigia, he founded the Society of Clerks Regular named after St. Paul, and the society of nuns called the Angelicals. He was zealous in adoration of the Holy Eucharist and strongly promoted the public exposition of the most holy Sacrament. Enriched by God with heavenly gifts and worn out by his great labours, he contracted a serious illness, and he died a most holy death on the 5th day of July, 1539, at Cremona. Leo XIII approved and confirmed the cult already paid to him and enrolled him in the list of the Saints.
&teDeum