March 31: Saint Balbina

Nigra sum sed formosa. Cant. I.
I am black but beautiful.
Gloriatur sponsa propter adversa, nigram esse humano formosam vero divino et angelico ludico. S. Bern. serm. 25. in cant.
The wife glorifies herself in her adversities: such that if she is black at the judgement of man, she is beautiful in the eyes of God by the witness of her resignation to His Holy Will.

Example: Saint Balbina the Virgin was renowned for her beauty, and for this reason was greatly loved by her father Quirinus the Tribune. The same Quirinus who held Pope Alexander captive for his faith. God, desiring to avenge the impiety of the father by punishing him in the person of his daughter, stripped her of her beauty through a terrible tumor on her throat. Quirinus, reduced to desperation by this change in fortune, promised Alexander that he would embrace Christianity if he would heal Balbina. As soon as the pontiff so much as touched the girl with her chains, she was delivered from her illness and from her unfaithfulness. Her father was also delivered from his unfaithfulness, and he renounced the cult of false gods. Ceremonies were held -- the nuptuals of Balbina. A young man appeared before her, holding a lit torch to turn her away. From that moment on, she wanted to be the spouse of Jesus Christ alone. She kissed the chains of Alexander and those of Saint Peter a thousand times over. After the deaths of Alexander and Quirinus, Balbina bore witness to their virtue in her own life: particularly their resignation to the Will of God.

Practice: Lover of God, it is easy to resign oneself to the loss of the face's beauty by illness or age. After all, there's not really all that much being lost there. Nonetheless, we see that even then we worry too much over something so insignificant. Oh, what extreme foolishness! We should rather tear ourselves up over a loss of grace, which is the beauty of the soul. That is what we need to worry about, for iniquity breeds sin, which is an abominable deformity -- one for which we must forment repulsion. We abhor iniquity and flee from it without losing faith in God's promise to us. Our calamities will one day come to an end, and all of our days will be joyful.