Ambrose of Milan

 

Saint Ambrose of Milan

 

Also known as

•              The Honey Tongued Doctor

•              Ambrogio of Milan

•              Ambrosius of Milan

 

Memorial

•              7 December

Profile

As you all probably know by now, my Wife, The Whip, is a convert to the True Faith from Lutheranism.   A few years ago we went on a couple’s religious retreat together, her first retreat of any kind, ever.   She was naturally nervous as she had never been on retreat before and did not know what us cradle Catholics knew (or so she thinks).    Naturally being the  supportive husband I am... I fanned the flames of her fear by implying that the first night of every retreat they gave a written test of Catholic knowledge and the Patron Saint matching column is usually easy.   They ask simple ones like “The Patron Saint of Beekeepers, everyone knows that one…”    well here he is……  

 

Ambrose was born to Roman nobility and was, like the Whip, a convert to Christianity.   During his service as governor of  Milan, Italy he was still a catechumen; studying the faith. As Governor, when the bishop of Milan died, a dispute over his replacement led to violence among the Christians.    Ambrose intervened to calm both sides; he impressed everyone involved so much that though he was still an unbaptized catechumen, he was chosen as the new bishop.   

 

Naturally he resisted, claiming that he was not worthy, but to prevent further violence, he assented, and on 7 December 374 he was baptized, ordained as a priest, and consecrated as bishop all in one day.  This is like being elected as the highest Executive in the land having never served as an executive officer of anything……but maybe I digress.  Our Saint immediately gave away his wealth to the Church and the poor, both for the good it did, and as an example to his flock.

 

He was a noted teacher and preacher, in fact his teachings and preaching led to the conversion of Saint Augustine of Hippo, no less, whom Ambrose instructed, baptized and brought into the Church.     Augustine’s mother, Saint Monica loved Ambrose’s homilies; she said his words were like honey.    Monica’s observation on his preaching led to the nickname “The Honey Tongued Doctor,” this cognomen led to the use of a beehive and bees in his iconography, symbols which also indicate wisdom.    This led to his association with bees, beekeepers, chandlers, wax refiners, etc.  Now you will ace the patron saint matching column on your next retreat……

 

Before the days of the Council of Trent, in 1545 or so, there was a lot of disorder in the Church about the form of our celebrations…even the celebration of Mass had no standard form.  Ambrose fixed that for his jurisdiction in Milan a millennium before the Council of Trent fixed it for the rest of the Church.  He put together and formalized what we call The Ambrosian Rite.  It is different and older than the Rite we are used to almost everywhere else in the west…the Roman Rite.   The Ambrosian Rite is practiced among some five million Catholics in the greater part of the Archdiocese of Milan, Italy, in some parishes of the Diocese of Como, Bergamo, Novara, Lodi and in about fifty parishes of the Diocese of Lugano, in Switzerland.

 

Even though some Church Officials did not like Milan and the rest doing their own thing, particularly after Trent, and threatened to suppress or ban the distinctive Ambrosian Rite it survived; it survived Trent, and even the wild and whacky Vatican II.  It has been reformed after the Second Vatican Council though, partly because then-Pope Paul VI belonged to the Ambrosian "rite," having previously been Archbishop of Milan.   I have never seen it done, but I hear it is beautiful.    Red, not the Roman-Rite green, is the standard color of vestments from Pentecost to the third Sunday of October, and there are a lot of other differences in more than just liturgical colors or the Mass.

 

Ambrose was proclaimed one of the first four Doctors of the Latin Church by Pope Boniface VIII in 1298.

 

Born

•              c.340 in Trier, southern Gaul (modern Germany)

Died

•              Holy Saturday, 4 April 397 at Milan, Italy of natural causes

•              relics at basilica of Milan

Patronage

•              bee keepers

•              bees

•              candlemakers

•              chandlers

•              domestic animals

•              French Commissariat

•              learning

•              schoolchildren

•              students

•              wax melters

•              wax refiners

Representation

•              beehive

•              bees

•              bishop holding a church in his hand

•              dove

•              human bones

•              man arguing with a pagan

•              ox

•              pen

•              scourge