From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   February 24th - St. Pretextatus, Martyr   
   (Also known as Praetextus or Prix)   
      
   He was chosen archbishop of Rouen in 549, and in 557 assisted at the third   
   council of Paris held to abolish incestuous marriages, and remove other   
   crying abuses: also at the second council of Tours in 566.   
      
    By his zeal in reproving Fredegonda for her injustices and cruelties, he   
   had incurred her indignation. King Clotaire I., in 562, had left the French   
   monarchy divided among his four sons. Charibert was king of Paris, Gontran   
   of Orleans and Burgundy, Sigebert I. of Austrasia, and Chilperic I. of   
   Soissons. Sigebert married Brunehault, younger daughter of Athanagilde, king   
   of the Visigoths in Spain, and Chilperic her elder sister Galsvinda; but   
   after her death he took to wife Fredegonda, who had been his mistress, and   
   was strongly suspected to have contrived the death of the queen by poison.   
   Hence Brunehault stirred up Sigebert against her and her husband. But   
   Fredegonda contrived the assassination of king Sigebert in 575, and   
   Chilperic secured Brunehault his wife, her three daughters, and her son   
   Childebert. This latter soon made his escape, and fled to Metz, where he was   
   received by his subjects, and crowned king of Austrasia. The city of Paris,   
   after the death of Charibert in 566, by the agreement of the three surviving   
   brothers, remained common to them all, till Chilperic seized it. He sent   
   Meroveus, his son by his first wife, to reduce the country about Poitiers,   
   which belonged to the young prince Childebert. But Meroveus, at Rouen, fell   
   in love with his aunt Brunehault, then a prisoner in that city; and bishop   
   Prix, in order to prevent a grievous scandal, judging circumstances to be   
   sufficiently cogent to require a dispensation, married them: for which he   
   was accused of high treason by king Chilperic before a council at Paris, in   
   577, in the church of St. Peter, since called St. Genevieve.   
      
   St. Gregory of Tours there warmly defended his innocence, and Prix confessed   
   the marriage, but denied that he had been privy to the prince's revolt; but   
   was afterwards prevailed upon, through the insidious persuasion of certain   
   emissaries of Chilperic, to plead guilty, and confess that out of affection   
   he had been drawn in to favor the young prince, who was his godson.   
   Whereupon he was condemned by the council, and banished by the king into a   
   small island upon the coast of Lower Neustria, near Coutances. His   
   sufferings he improved to the sanctification of his soul by penance and the   
   exercise of all heroic Christian virtues.   
      
   The rage and clamor with which his powerful enemies spread their slanders to   
   beat down his reputation, staggered many of his friends: but St. Gregory of   
   Tours never forsook him. Meroveus was assassinated near Terouanne, by an   
   order of his stepmother Fredegonda, who was also suspected to have contrived   
   the death of her husband Chilperic, who was murdered at Chelles, in 584. She   
   had three years before procured Clovis, his younger son by a former wife, to   
   be assassinated, so that the crown of Soissons devolved upon her own son   
   Clotaire II.: but for his and her own protection, she had recourse to   
   Gontran, the religious king of Orleans and Burgundy. By his order Prix,   
   after a banishment of six years, was restored with honor to his see;   
   Ragnemond, the bishop of Paris, who had been a principal flatterer of   
   Chilperic in the persecution of this prelate, having assured this prince   
   that the council had not deposed him, but only enjoined him penance.   
      
   St. Prix assisted at the council of Macon in 585, where he harangued several   
   times, and exerted his zeal in framing many wise regulations for the   
   reformation of discipline. He continued his pastoral labors in the care of   
   his flock, and by just remonstrances often endeavored to reclaim the wicked   
   queen Fredegonda, who frequently resided at Rouen, and filled the kingdom   
   with scandals, tyrannical oppressions, and murders. This Jezabel grew daily   
   more and more hardened in iniquity, and by her secret order St. Prix was   
   assassinated while he assisted at matins in his church in the midst of his   
   clergy on Sunday the 25th of February.   
      
   Happy should we be if under all afflictions, with this holy penitent, we   
   considered that sin is the original fountain from whence all those waters of   
   bitterness flow, and by laboring effectually to cut off this evil, convert   
   its punishment into its remedy and a source of benedictions. St. Prix of   
   Rouen is honored in the Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. Those who with   
   Chatelain, &c; place his death on the 14th of April, suppose him to have   
   been murdered on Easter-day; but the day of our Lord's Resurrection in this   
   passage of our historian, means no more than Sunday.   
      
   See St. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc. 1. 5, c. 10, 15. Fleury, 1. 34, n.   
   52. Gallia Christiana Nova, t. 11, pp. 11 and 638. Mons. Levesque de la   
   Ravaliere in his Nouvelle Vie de S. Gregoire, Eveque de Tours, published in   
   the Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, An. 1760, t.   
   26, pp. 609, 60. F. Daniel, Hist. de France, t. 1, p. 242.   
      
   (Taken from Vol. II of "The Lives or the Fathers, Martyrs and Other   
   Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D.   
   & J. Sadlier, & Company)   
      
      
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   Whoever humbleth himself shall be exalted. -Lk. 14:11   
      
   "To bear abasement and reproach is the touchstone of humility, and, at the   
   same time, of true virtue. For in this, one becomes conformed to Jesus   
   Christ, who is the true model of all solid virtues"   
   -St. Francis de Sales   
      
         The blessed Seraphino, a Capuchin lay-brother, being gate keeper, was   
   accustomed to pass much time in prayer in a little chapel in the garden,   
   opposite to the gate. One day the Father Guardian, passing that way with a   
   visiting Father, said to his companion, "Would you like to see a saint?"   
   Then approaching the chapel, he reproved Seraphino severely, saying: "What   
   are you doing here, hypocrite? The Lord teaches us to pray in a room with   
   closed doors, and do you pray in public to be seen? Get up, rascal, and be   
   ashamed of deceiving poor strangers in such away!" Delighted with these   
   reproofs, Brother Seraphino kissed the ground, and then went away with a   
   countenance as full of satisfaction as if he had just heard some news which   
   was much to his pleasure or advantage. Another day, he was asked by a   
   companion for a needle and a little thread. He replied that he had a needle   
   but no thread; when the other said angrily: "It is plain that you are a   
   fool, and were never good for anything! What can the Order do with such an   
   incapable man as you are? Go away, for I cannot bear to look at you!" Then,   
      
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