Episode Details

It's a Feria, 4th Class, with the color of Green. In this episode: the meditation: "The Extent of Charity", today's news from the Church: "Read About God's Love for Us", a preview of this week's episode of The SSPX Podcast: "Audiobook Chapter 13: Herald of Christ the King", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org

Sources Used Today:

• "The Extent of Charity" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption
  
  
• "Read About God's Love for Us" (FSSPX.news)
  • https://fsspx.news/en/news/read-about-gods-love-us-60522
  
  
• The SSPX Podcast: "Audiobook Chapter 13: Herald of Christ the King" (SSPX Podcast)
  • View on YouTube
  • Listen & Subscribe on SSPXpodcast.com
  
  
• The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
  
  

Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:

• Learn more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Wp4MQdK2o
• Donate:https://sspx.gifts/audiobook

Saint Macarius of Pelekete lived during one of those periods of Church history when possessing a religious image could actually get you arrested.

He was born in the eighth century in the Byzantine Empire and was originally named Christopher. As a young man, he entered monastic life, received the name Macarius, and eventually became abbot of the monastery of Pelekete, near the Sea of Marmara in what is now Turkey.

This was the age of Iconoclasm.

Several Byzantine emperors had decided that sacred images of Christ, Our Lady, and the saints encouraged idolatry. Icons were removed from churches, destroyed, or burned. Monks were particularly troublesome to the government because many of them refused to cooperate.

Macarius was one of them.

To understand why he cared so much, it's important to remember that Christians weren't worshipping pieces of wood and paint. The controversy touched something much deeper. If Christ truly became man, then He really possessed a human face. Christians believed that depicting that face was a way of defending the reality of the Incarnation.

So Macarius refused to surrender the icons.

And it cost him.

Under Emperor Leo V, the persecution became especially severe. Macarius was arrested and pressured to accept the emperor's religious