May 16 Saint Simon Stock
Superior General of the Carmelite Order
(†1265)
Saint Simon Stock was born of one of the most illustrious Christian families of England, at the castle of Harford in 1164. Certain prodigies marked him, while an infant in the cradle, as a soul chosen by the Mother of God for Her own. Not yet one year old, he was heard to say the Angelic Salutation distinctly, before he had reached the age to learn it. As soon as he could read he began to recite the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, and he would never cease to do so daily. He read Holy Scripture on his knees at the age of six. He became the object of the jealous persecution of one of his brothers, and at the age of twelve determined to leave and go to live in a forest.
He found a very large hollow tree which became his oratory; and there Simon Stock lived like an angel of the desert. There he triumphed over the demon, as he would later tell his religious, only by the assistance of the Most Holy Virgin. When, deprived in his retreat of the Sacraments, he suffered sharp remorse and fear of his danger amid demoniac visions of criminal pleasures, Mary showed him the wiles of his enemy’s intentions in these harassments.
After twenty years he returned to his parents and resumed his studies, in particular those of theology. He was ordained a priest to obey the orders of Heaven, then went back to his retreat, which he left definitively in the year 1212. The incentive for his departure was a revelation the Blessed Virgin made to him that the Carmelite Fathers of Palestine would come to found monasteries in England. When two Carmelite monks arrived in the company of two English lords returning from a crusade, he hastened to join them, but troubles prevented the foundation of their projected monastery. The three hermits therefore lived in cells near Oxford. The University of Oxford, by recourse to obedience, prevailed upon Simon’s Superiors to allow him to teach theology there, but he did not remain for long.
During a time of difficulty for England which resulted from the Britannic king’s conflicts with the Pope, he composed the famous hymn, Alma Redemptoris Mater, in honor of the Mother of God, to ask for the king’s conversion; his prayers were heard and suddenly the prince accepted all conditions of peace which a papal legate proposed. Saint Simon was soon made Vicar General of his Order for all of Europe. But opposition to the spread of the ancient Order of the Virgin was raised up by the enemy of souls, until Pope Honorius III put an end to it by bulls approving, confirming and protecting the Order from its enemies. He did so, he said, to conform to a command of the Mother of God Herself.
When a General Chapter of the Order was assembled on Mount Carmel itself, Saint Simon attended it. The question of the flight of the monks from the persecutions of the infidels was debated; Saint Simon won out over another opinion by saying that it was a great evil to expose one’s faith to the dangers of persecution without a specific order from heaven, according to the Gospel: “When you are persecuted in one city, flee to another.” The Order had already lost many of its houses, burnt and desecrated. So the monks dispersed to join an army of Crusaders, not without suffering the loss of the lives of several among them at the hands of the infidels. The Christian army, however, found its waters were poisoned by the hand of its enemies, and retired with Saint Simon and his religious to the Mountain of Carmel once again; there the ancient fountain of Elias gave water in abundance, in answer to their prayers. For six years Saint Simon remained on Carmel before returning to Aylesford in England.
The Order afterwards multiplied its foundations, making several in France, under its pious king Saint Louis IX. So prodigiously did it multiply under Saint Simon, that a few years after his death, towards the end of the 13th century, it numbered, according to William of Tyre, several thousand monasteries or solitudes, which the same author estimated were peopled with some 125,000 religious. Saint Simon visited many of them in his extreme old age; he died at Bordeaux during his journeys in 1265.
Source: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 5.

May 16 Saint Andrew Bobola
Jesuit, Martyr
(1592-1657)
Saint Andrew Bobola, born in Poland in 1592, was sent while still young to the Jesuit school at Sandomir; his family had always protected the Jesuits and shown itself very liberal towards them. God blessed both the family and the Jesuits in this future martyr, who would bring both of them great glory. He entered that Order in 1611.
As a student he showed great talent, and after studying philosophy for three years taught it in their institutes. In 1622 he was ordained a priest. Three years later he was employed in preaching at the church of Saint Casimir at Wilna; in 1630 he became Superior of the residence of Bobruisk. During a pestilence he spared himself no pains in caring for the sick, without contracting the malady.
Saint Andrew in 1636 resigned his post as Superior to preach for twenty-one years along all the roads of Lithuania, which he was evangelizing. Poland and Lithuania, its neighbor, were being ravaged in those days by the Cossacks, Russians and Tartars, and the Jesuits suffered much from these invaders, who did not like them and their religion. The people were enduring great misery; Father Andrew sustained their courage and helped to combat the invading religious errors.
At Pinsk the Jesuits were offered a refuge by a Catholic prince. When Saint Andrew went there, he was already certain that he was going to martyrdom, as this was a center for the enemies of the Latin Church. Everywhere he was hooted and harassed, and the organized bad treatment continued for several years. Even the children hounded him, instructed by their elders. The holy priest considered it a joy to resemble his Master, for is not that the happiness of every disciple?
One day his enemies decided to put an end to him. They waited for him after he had said Mass, pursued him and attached him to a tree, where they beat him, then led him to their leader with a cord around his neck. The barbaric soldiers, at their chief's orders, tore out one of his eyes, nearly severed his hand with a blow from a saber, then burnt him with torches, telling him to renounce his faith. He was then strangled and the skin of his head and back hacked off. Like the great Canadian martyr John de Brebeuf, his nose and lips were cut off, and he was thrown on a heap of rubble; but two hours later it was still necessary to end the life of the victim for Christ with a blow from a saber. He was buried by the Catholics at the Jesuit College at Pinsk.
Forty-five years later, by a miracle, God revealed the whereabouts of his forgotten tomb to the Jesuit Fathers, who had seen the continuing evils of war ruin many of their works. His tombstone, then buried underground, was found after the Saint appeared twice in vision to the Rector of the College, saying he wished to protect his brethren and the students, and indicating to him the location of his grave. His mutilated body was incorrupt, and a fine fragrance came from the open tomb. Saint Andrew was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1853, and canonized in April of 1938 by Pope Pius XI.
Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 5

May 16 Saint John Nepomucene
Priest and Martyr
(1330-1383)
Saint John Nepomucene was born in 1330, in answer to the prayer of his parents, who were poor folk of Nepomuc in Bohemia. In gratitude they consecrated him to God. His holy life as a priest led to his appointment as chaplain to the court of the Emperor Wenceslaus, where he converted many by his preaching and example.
Among those who sought his advice was the virtuous empress, who suffered much from her husband’s unfounded jealousy. Saint John taught her to bear her cross with joy; but her piety only incensed the emperor, and he tried to extort an account of her confessions from the Saint. He threw Saint John into a dungeon but gained nothing; then, inviting him to his palace, he promised him riches if he would yield, and threatened death if he refused. The Saint was silent. He was racked and burnt with torches; but no words except the holy names of Jesus and Mary fell from his lips. At last set free, he spent time in preaching and preparing for the death he knew to be near.
On Ascension Eve, May 16th, Wenceslaus, after a final and fruitless attempt to alter the constancy of the faithful priest, ordered him to be cast into the river. That night the martyr’s hands and feet were bound, and he was thrown from the bridge of Prague into the Moldau River. Heavenly lights shining on the water and from under it, revealed the whereabouts of the body, which was soon buried with the honors due to a Saint.
A few years later, Wenceslaus was deposed by his own subjects, and died an impenitent and miserable death. In 1618 the Calvinist and Hussite soldiers of the Elector Frederick tried repeatedly to demolish the shrine of Saint John in Prague. Each attempt was miraculously frustrated, and once the persons engaged in the sacrilege died suddenly on the spot. During a battle in 1620 the imperial troops recovered the city by a victory which was ascribed to the Saint’s intercession, since he was seen on the eve of the conflict, radiant with glory, guarding the cathedral. When his shrine was opened three hundred and thirty years after his decease, the flesh had disappeared, and one member alone remained incorrupt, the tongue, which thus, still in silence, gave glory to God.
Reflection. Saint John Nepomucene, who by his invincible sacramental silence won his crown, teaches us to prefer torture and death to offending the Creator with our tongue. How many times each day do we forfeit grace and strength by sins of speech!
Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 5; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).