Born in Rome around the year 310, Liberius was elevated to the Chair of Saint Peter in 352, succeeding Pope Julius I. He inherited a Church deeply fractured by the Arian heresy, which denied the full divinity of Jesus Christ. The Roman Emperor Constantius II, an ardent supporter of Arianism, sought to enforce theological uniformity across the Empire by forcing Western bishops to condemn the great champion of orthodoxy, Saint Athanasius of Alexandria.
Pope Liberius steadfastly refused to yield to imperial pressure. When the Emperor sent his grand chamberlain, the eunuch Eusebius, to bribe the Pope with a large sum of money, Liberius rejected the bribe with holy disdain and ordered the money thrown out of Saint Peter's Basilica. Enraged, Constantius ordered the Pope's arrest. To avoid a popular uprising among the faithful who loved their shepherd, imperial officers seized Liberius under the cover of night in 355 and dragged him to Milan.
In Milan, Liberius faced the Emperor in a dramatic confrontation, declaring that he would rather suffer exile and death than betray the true faith. True to his word, he was banished to Beroea in Thrace. During his two years of harsh exile, Liberius suffered intense physical and psychological torment. Meanwhile, the Emperor installed an antipope, Felix II, in Rome. However, the Roman faithful remained fiercely loyal to Liberius, refusing to enter the churches held by the imperial puppet.
Recognizing the failure of his scheme, and pressured by the Roman people who clamored for their true bishop with the cry, "One God, one Christ, one bishop!", Constantius recalled Liberius in 358. Though some historical accounts and disputed letters suggest Liberius may have signed a compromised theological formula under extreme duress during his exile, his return to Rome was a triumph of the orthodox faith. Upon his return, he immediately set about restoring order, eventually annulling the heretical decrees of the Council of Rimini and reconciling those who had fallen away.
It was during his pontificate, in August 358, that the miraculous snowfall occurred on the Esquiline Hill, leading to the construction of the Liberian Basilica, now known as Saint Mary Major. Liberius governed the Roman Church with pastoral wisdom and charity until his holy death on September 24, 366.
Let us imitate the unyielding courage of Pope Saint Liberius, standing firm in our Catholic faith even when pressured by the secular powers of our day.
Iz Butlerovih Života svetaca
Butlerovi Životi svetaca
APRIL 17 — ST. ANICETUS, POPE, MARTYR
The thirty-six first bishops of Rome, down to Liberius, and, this one excepted, all the popes to Symmachus, the fifty-second, in 498, are honored among the saints; and out of two hundred and forty-eight popes, from St. Peter to Clement XIII., seventy-eight are named in the Roman Martyrology. In the primitive ages, the spirit of fervor and perfect sanctity, which is now a-days so rarely to be found in the very sanctuaries of virtue, and in the world seems in most places scarce so much as known, was conspicuous in most of the faithful, and especially in their pastors. The whole tenor of their lives, both in retirement and in their public actions, breathed it in such a manner as to render them the miracles of the world, angels on earth, living copies of their divine Redeemer, the odor of whose virtues and holy law and religion they spread on every side. Indeed, what could be more amiable, what more admirable, than the perfect simplicity, candor, and sincerity; the profound humility, invincible patience and meekness; the tender charity, even toward their enemies and persecutors; the piety, compunction, and heavenly zeal, which animated all their words and their whole conduct, and which, by fervent exercise under sufferings and persecutions, were carried to the most heroic degree of perfection? By often repeating in our prayers sacred protestations of our love of God, we easily impose upon ourselves, and fancy that his love reigns in our affections. But by relapsing so frequently into impatience, vanity, pride, or other sins, we give the lie to ourselves. For it is impossible for the will to fall so easily and so suddenly from the sovereign degree of sincere love. If, after making the most solemn protestations of inviolable friendship and affection for a fellow-creature, we should have no sooner turned our backs, but should revile and contemn him, without having received any provocation or affront from him, and this habitually, would not the whole world justly call our p
Izvor:
Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints
