February 15th: the anniversary of Teresa Higginson's death

February 15th, the day that Teresa Higginson went to join her Divine Spouse in an eternal embrace is also the feastday of the entry into glory of two other very great servants of God, intimately connected with the Sacred Heart.  They are the French Jesuit Saint Claude de La Colombière, and the Polish canon Blessed Michal Sopoćko.  Both of these priests were the respective spiritual directors of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque to whom Our Lord revealed his Sacred Heart, and of St. Faustina Kowalska to whom Our Lord revealed his Heart's overflowing Divine Mercy.

This has enormous significance for the Sacred Head devotion: Teresa was to state that God arranges everything beautifully.  The Sacred Head of Our Lord which was revealed to Teresa is the seat of the Divine Wisdom that governs the motions of the Sacred Heart. These two great and holy priests as it were acted as the Sacred Head in their guidance of the revelations of the love of the Sacred Heart.  It was through the exercise of their priestly authority and their considerable erudition in directing the two great mystics that they were to fulfill such a role.  And like the Sacred Head, both of them in their lives were to wear a severe crown of thorns and to suffer very greatly, for God ordained a very great glory for them in heaven.

Saint Claude de La Colombière

Saint Claude de La Colombière (Saint-Symphorien-d'Ozon, 2 February 1641–Paray-le-Monial, 15 February 1682) was born of noble parentage at Saint-Symphorien-d'Ozon in 1641 between Lyon and Vienne. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1659, and after fifteen years of religious life in the Jesuits, he made a vow as a means of attaining the utmost possible perfection, to observe faithfully the Rule and Constitutions of his order under penalty of sin. Those who lived with him attested that this vow was kept with great exactitude.

In 1674, Claude was made superior at the Jesuit house at Paray-le-Monial, where he became the spiritual director of Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque and was thereafter a zealous apostle of the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1676, he was sent to England as preacher to Mary of Modena, Duchess of York, afterwards Queen of Great Britain. He lived the life of a religious even in the Court of St. James's (the official residence of the British Monarchy), and was as active a missionary in England as he had been in France. Although encountering many difficulties, he was able to guide Saint Margaret- Marie by letter.

His zeal soon weakened his vitality and a throat and lung infirmity seemed to threaten his work as a preacher. While awaiting his recall to France he was suddenly arrested and thrown into prison, denounced as a conspirator against the English throne. Thanks to his title of "Preacher to the Duchess of York" and to the protection of the King of France, Louis XIV, whose subject Claude was, he escaped death but was condemned to exile in 1679. The last two years of his life were spent at Lyon where he was spiritual director to the young Jesuits, and at Paray-le-Monial, where he returned to improve his health. His principal works, including "Pious Reflections", "Meditations on the Passion", "Retreat and Spiritual Letters", were published under the title, "Oeuvres du R. P. Claude de la Colombière" (Avignon, 1832; Paris, 1864).

He was beatified by Pope Pius XI on June 16, 1929, and canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 31, 1992.  His relics are preserved in the Jesuit Church around the corner from the monastery of the Visitation nuns at Paray-le-Monial.

Blessed Michal Sopoćko

Blessed Canon Michal Sopoćko (November 1, 1888 in Vilnius Region – February 15, 1975 in Bialystok,

Poland was a professor of pastoral theology at Vilnius University in Vilnius, Lithuania.  He was born  in 1888 in Nowosady near Valozhyn in the Polish and Lithuanian border areas. He entered Vilnius Priest Seminary in 1910 and was ordained in 1914. He was a priest in Vilnius (1914–1918), then a chaplain in the Polish Army in Warsaw and Vilnius during World War I. After obtaining his doctorate in theology in 1926 he became the spiritual director at the seminary in  Vilnius. and 1928 professor of pastoral theology at Stefan Batory University in Vilnius.

St. Faustina Kowalska in her diary (Notebook V, item 1238) stated: "This priest is a great soul, entirely filled with God." Since 1931 Faustina had been trying without success to find someone to paint the Divine Mercy image until Sopoćko became her confessor in the middle of 1933.  In January 1934 he arranged for the artist Eugene Kazimierowski (who was also a professor at the university) to paint the image.  In 1942, during World War II he and other professors and students had to go into hiding near Vilnius for about two years. However, he used this time to establish a new religious congregation based on the Divine Mercy messages reported by Faustina Kowalska. After the War, Sopocko wrote the constitution for the congregation and helped the formation of what is now the Congregation of the Sisters of the Divine Mercy.

In her diary on February 8, 1935, (Notebook I, item 378) Faustina had written that the Divine Mercy devotion would be suppressed for some time after her death, but would be accepted again, although Sopocko would suffer very greatly for it. In 1959 the Vatican forbade the Divine Mercy devotion and put Sopocko under severe ecclesiastical censure. But in 1965 Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Kraków and later Pope John Paul II opened a new investigation and submitted documents in 1968, which resulted in the

reversal of the ban in 1978.

Until 1962 Sopoćko remained a professor of pastoral theology at Vilnius University and the seminary in Bialystok, Poland. He died on February 15, 1975 in Bialystok and was buried there: exactly 70 years after the death of Teresa Higginson. In 1988 his remains were transferred to the Church of Divine Mercy in Białostoczek Bialystok. His case for beatification was started at the Vatican in 1987. In 2004, Pope John Paul II issued a decree on the virtues of Father Sopocko. In December 2007, Pope Benedict XVI approved of a miracle through his intercession. His solemn beatification took place on Sunday September 28, 2008 at the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Bialystok.

St. Winefride

St. Winefride, Virgin and Martyr, was a saint that Teresa was deeply devoted to and had many connections with.  Teresa was born in the saint's shrine town of Holywell, lies buried in the churchyard of St. Winefride's, Neston, Cheshire, and had a mystical life and piety much in common with St. Winefride.  And it could be said that having been decapitated and brought to life again, St. Winefride is connected to the devotion to the Sacred Head.  The details of her life are gathered from a manuscript in the British Museum, said to have been the work of the British monk, Elerius, a contemporary of the saint, and also from a manuscript life in the Bodleian Library, generally believed to have been compiled (1130) by Robert, prior of Shrewsbury.

St. Winefride, from  a window in the Holy Name, Oxton

She was born at Holywell, Wales, around 600 and died at Gwytherin, Wales, on 3 November 660.  Her father was Thevit, a Cambrian magnate, her mother Wenlo, a sister of St. Beuno. St. Beuno had led at first a solitary life, but afterwards established a community of cenobites at Clynog-vawr. While in search of a suitable place for a monastery he came to visit his sister's husband whose lands lay on a bluff overlooking the town of Holywell on the valley side of the well.  Tradition points this out as the spot on which the convent of St. Winefride was afterwards built. From this eminence there is a steep incline down to the stream and the well, and beneath this incline St. Beuno lived and built a chapel in which he said Mass and preached to the people. 

St. Beuno

Winefride was then one of his most attentive listeners. Though only fifteen years old she gave herself to a life of devotion and austerity, passing whole nights watching in the church. Prior to the conquest of Wales the saint was known as Guenevra; after that her name was changed to the English form of Winefride. She was a maiden of great personal charm and endowed with rare gifts of intellect. Under the guidance of St. Beuno, Winefride made rapid progress in virtue and learning and with her parents' consent prepared to consecrate herself to God.

The fame of her beauty and accomplishments had reached the ears of Caradoc, son of the neighbouring Prince Alen, who resolved to seek her hand in marriage. Coming in person to press his suit he entered the house of Thevit, and found Winefride alone, her parents having gone early to Mass. The knowledge that Winefride had resolved to quit the world and consecrate herself to God seemed only to add fuel to his passion, and he pleaded his cause with extraordinary vehemence, even proceeding to threats as he saw her turn indignantly away. At length, terrified at his words and alarmed for her innocence, the maiden escaped from the house, and hurried towards the church, where her parents were hearing Mass, that was being celebrated by her uncle, St. Beuno. Maddened by a disappointed passion, Caradoc pursued her and, overtaking her on the slope above the site of the present well, he drew his sword and at one blow severed her head from the body. The head rolled down the incline and, where it rested, there gushed forth a spring.

St. Beuno, hearing of the tragedy, left the altar, and accompanied by the parents came to the spot where the head lay beside the spring. Taking up the maiden's head he carried it to where the body lay, covered both with his cloak, and then re-entered the church to finish the Holy Sacrifice. When Mass was ended he knelt beside the saint's body, offered up a fervent prayer to God, and ordered the cloak which covered it to be removed. Thereupon Winefride, as if awakening from a deep slumber, rose up with no sign of the severance of the head except a thin white circle round her neck. Seeing the murderer leaning on his sword with an insolent and defiant air, St. Beuno invoked the chastisement of heaven, and Caradoc fell dead on the spot, the popular belief being that the ground opened and swallowed him.

Miraculously restored to life, Winefride seems to have lived in almost perpetual ecstasy and to have had familiar converse with God. In fulfillment of her promise, she solemnly vowed virginity and poverty as a recluse. A convent was built on her father's land, where she became the abbess of a community of young maidens, and a chapel was erected over the well. St. Beuno left Holywell, and returned to Cærnarvon. Before he left the tradition is that he seated himself upon the stone, which now stands in the outer well pool, and there promised in the name of God "that whosoever on that spot should thrice ask for a benefit from God in the name of St. Winefride would obtain the grace he asked if it was for the good of his soul." St. Winefride on her part made agreement with St. Beuno that so long as she remained at Holywell, and until she heard of his death, she would yearly send him a memorial of her affection for him.

After eight years spent at Holywell (reckoning from the departure of St. Beuno), St. Winefride, hearing of his death, received an inspiration to leave the convent and retire inland. She was welcomed at Gwytherin, near the source of the River Elwy, by St. Elwy (Elerius), who gives his name to the River Elwy, and by whom the first life of the saint was written. She brought her companion religious with her, and found there other nuns governed by an abbess. She seems to have lived at Gwytherin as an acknowledged saint on earth, first in humble obedience to the abbess, and, after the latter's death, as abbess herself until her own death. Her chief feast is observed on 3 November, the other feast being that of her martyrdom held on June 22nd. Her death was foreshown to her in a vision by Christ Himself. 

During her life she performed many miracles, and after her death, up to the present day, countless wonders and favours continue to be worked and obtained through her intercession.  After her death Winifride was interred at her abbey.  In 1138, her body was translated to Shrewsbury Abbey to form the basis of an elaborate shrine. On its way there it was laid in the hamlet of Woolston near Oswestry in Shropshire overnight, and a spring sprang up out of the ground.  The water is supposed to have healing powers and be good at healing bruises, wounds and broken bones.  The well is covered by a 15th-century half-timbered cottage, which is maintained by the Landmark Trust. 

St Winefride's Well Woolston

Another spring arising from the laying down of Winifred's body is at Holywell Farm, midway between Tattenhall and Clutton, Cheshire. There is a spring in the garden of this non-working farm which supplies two houses with their drinking water. The shrine at  Shrewsbury Abbey became a major pilgrimage goal in the Late Middle Ages, but it was to be destroyed by Henry VIII in 1540, and most the relics destroyed.  However one survived throughout penal times which is now at the Catholic parish church in Holywell above the well.

Shrewsbury Abbey