July Martyrs

THE MARTYRS OF JULY
Living With The Daily Martyrology of the Church

“Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink? … My chalice indeed you shall drink!” (Matthew 20:22-23).

JULY 1ST
The Martyr of the Day
ST. RUMOLD
Martyred in the Eighth Century, around 775

St. Rumold renounced the world in his youth and embraced a state of voluntary poverty, being convinced that whatever exceeds the calls of nature is a useless load and a perfect burden to him who bears it. He was the most declared enemy to voluptuousness, and by frugality, moderation, and a heart pure and disengaged from all seducing vanities, and desires of what is superfluous, he tasted the most solid pleasure which virtue gives in freeing a man from the tyranny of his passions, when he feels them subjected to him, and finds himself above them. Victorious over himself, by humility, meekness, and mortification, he reaped in his soul, without any obstacles from self-love or inordinate attachments, the sweet and happy fruits of assiduous prayer and contemplation, whereby he sanctified his studies, in which he made great progress, and at the same time advanced daily in Christian perfection.

He had faithfully served God many years in his own country, when an ardent zeal for the divine honor and the salvation of souls induced him to travel into Lower Germany to preach the faith to the idolaters. He made a journey first to Rome to receive his mission from the chief pastor, and with the apostolic blessing went into Brabant, great part of which country about Mechlin he converted to the faith. He was ordained a regionary or missionary bishop without any fixed see. He frequently interrupted his exterior functions to renew his spirit before God in holy solitude.

In his retirement he was slain on the 24th of June in 775, by two sons of Belial, one of whom he had reproved for adultery. His body was thrown into a river; but being miraculously discovered, it was honorably interred by his virtuous friend and protector, Count Ado. A great and sumptuous church was built at Mechlin to receive his precious relics, which is still possessed of that treasure, and bears the name of this saint. The city of Mechlin keeps his feast a solemn holiday, and honors him as its patron and apostle. Janning the Bollandist gives a long history of his miracles. His great church at Mechlin was raised to the metropolitical dignity by Paul IV. Ware says that the feast of St. Rumold was celebrated as a double festival with an office of nine lessons throughout the province of Dublin before the reformation. It was extended to the whole kingdom of Ireland in the year 1741.

It was from the spirit of prayer that the saints derived all their light and all their strength. This was the source of all the blessings which Heaven through their intercession showered down on the world, and the means which they employed to communicate an angelical purity to their souls. “This spirit,” says a father of the Church, “is nourished by retreat, which in some manner may be called the parent of purity.” This admirable transformation of our souls produced by prayer is to be attributed to God’s glory, which by prayer he makes to shine in the secret of our hearts. In fine, when all the avenues of our senses are closed against the creature, and that God dwells with us, and we with God; when freed from the tumult and distractions of the world we apply all our attention to interior things and consider ourselves such as we are, we then become capable of clearly contemplating the kingdom of God, established in us by that charity and ardent love which consumes all the rust of earthly affections; for the kingdom of Heaven, or rather the Lord of Heaven itself, is within us, as Jesus Christ himself assures us.

JULY 2ND
The Martyr of the Day
ST. PROCESSUS & ST. MARTINIAN
Martyred in the First Century, around 68

By the preaching and miracles of Saints Peter and Paul at Rome, many were converted to the faith, and among others several servants and courtiers of the emperor Nero, of whom St. Paul makes mention. In the year 64 that tyrant first drew his sword against the Christians, who had in a very short time become very numerous and remarkable in Rome. A journey which he made into Greece in 67, seems to have given a short respite to the Church in Rome.

He made a tour through the chief cities of that country, attended by a great army of singers, pantomimes, and musicians, carrying instead of arms, instruments of music, masks, and theatrical dresses. He was declared conqueror at all the public diversions over Greece, particularly at the Olympian, Isthmian, Pythian, and Nemæan games, and gained there one thousand eight hundred various sorts of crowns. Yet Greece saw its nobility murdered, the estates of its rich men confiscated, and its temples plundered by this progress of Nero.

He returned to Rome only to make the streets of that great city again to stream with blood. The apostles Saints Peter and Paul, after a long imprisonment were crowned with martyrdom. And soon after them their two faithful disciples Processus and Martinian gained the same crown. Their acts tell us that they were the keepers of the Mamertine jail during the imprisonment of Saints Peter and Paul, by whom they were converted and baptized.

St. Gregory the Great preached his thirty-second homily on their festival, in a church in which their bodies lay, at which he says, the sick recovered their health, those who were possessed by evil spirits were freed, and those who had foresworn themselves were tormented by the devils. Their ancient church on the Aurelian road being fallen to decay, Pope Paschal I. translated their relics to St. Peter’s church on the Vatican hill, as Anastasius informs us. Their names occur in the ancient Martyrologies.

JULY 3RD
The Martyr of the Day
ST. PHOCAS THE GARDENER
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 303

St. Phocas dwelt near the gate of Sinope, a city of Pontus, and lived by cultivating a garden, which yielded him a handsome subsistence, and wherewith plentifully to relieve the indigent. In his humble profession he imitated the virtue of the most holy anchorets, and seemed in part restored to the happy condition of our first parents in Eden. To prune the garden without labor and toil was their sweet employment and pleasure. Since their sin, the earth yields not its fruit but by the sweat of our brow.

But still, no labor is more useful or necessary, or more natural to man, and better adapted to maintain in him vigor of mind or health of body than that of tillage; nor does any other part of the universe rival the innocent charms which a garden presents to all our senses, by the fragrancy of its flowers, by the riches of its produce, and the sweetness and variety of its fruits; by the melodious concert of its musicians, by the worlds of wonders which every stem, leaf, and fiber exhibit to the contemplation of the inquisitive philosopher, and by that beauty and variegated luster of colors which clothe the numberless tribes of its smallest inhabitants, and adorn its shining landscapes, vying with the brightest splendor of the heavens, and in a single lily surpassing the dazzling luster with which Solomon was surrounded on his throne in the midst of all his glory.

And what a field for contemplation does a garden offer to our view in every part, raising our souls to God in raptures of love and praise, stimulating us to fervor, by the fruitfulness with which it repays our labor, and multiplies the seed it receives; and exciting us to tears of compunction for our insensibility to God by the barrenness with which it is changed into a frightful desert, unless subdued by assiduous toil! Our saint joining prayer with his labor, found in his garden itself an instructive book, and an inexhausted fund of holy meditation. His house was open to all strangers and travelers who had no lodging in the place; and after having for many years most liberally bestowed the fruit of his labor on the poor, he was found worthy also to give his life for Christ. Though his profession was obscure, he was well known over the whole country by the reputation of his charity and virtue.

When a cruel persecution, probably that of Diocletian in 303, was suddenly raised in the church, Phocas was immediately impeached as a Christian, and such was the notoriety of his pretended crime, that the formality of a trial was superceded by the persecutors, and executioners were despatched with an order to kill him on the spot wherever they should find him.

Arriving near Sinope, they would not enter the town, but stopping at his house without knowing it, at his kind invitation they took up their lodging with him. Being charmed with his courteous entertainment, they at supper disclosed to him the errand upon which they were sent, and desired him to inform them where this Phocas could be most easily met with? The servant of God, without the least surprise, told them he was well acquainted with the man, and would give them certain intelligence of him next morning. After they were retired to bed he dug a grave, prepared everything for his burial, and spent the night in disposing his soul for his last hour.

When it was day he went to his guests, and told them Phocas was found, and in their power whenever they pleased to apprehend him. Glad at this news, they inquired where he was. “He is here present,” said the martyr, “I myself am the man.”

Struck at his undaunted resolution, and at the composure of his mind, they stood a considerable time as if they had been motionless, nor could they at first think of imbruing their hands in the blood of a person in whom they discovered so heroic a virtue, and by whom they had been so courteously entertained. He indirectly encouraged them, saying, that as for himself, he looked upon such a death as the greatest of favors, and his highest advantage. At length recovering themselves from their surprise, they struck off his head. The Christians of that city, after peace was restored to the church, built a stately church which bore his name, and was famous over all the East. In it were deposited the sacred relics, though some portions of them were dispersed in other churches.

St. Asterius, bishop of Amasea about the year 400, pronounced the panegyric of this martyr, on his festival, in a church, probably near Amasea, which possessed a small part of his remains. In this discourse he says, “that Phocas from the time of his death was become a pillar and support of the churches on earth: he draws all men to his house; the highways are filled with persons resorting from every country to this place of prayer. The magnificent church which (at Sinope) is possessed of his body, is the comfort and ease of the afflicted, the health of the sick, the magazine plentifully supplying the wants of the poor. If in any other place, as in this, some small portion of his relics be found, it also becomes admirable, and most desired by all Christians.”

He adds, that the head of St. Phocas was kept in his beautiful church in Rome, and says, “The Romans honour him by the concourse of the whole people in the same manner they do Peter and Paul.” He bears testimony that the sailors in the Euxine, Ægean, and Adriatic seas, and in the ocean, sing hymns in his honor, and that the martyr has often aided and preserved them; and that the portion of gain which they in every voyage set apart for the poor is called Phocas’s part.

He mentions that a certain king of barbarians had sent his royal diadem set with jewels, and his rich helmet a present to the church of St. Phocas, praying the martyr to offer it to the Lord in thanksgiving for the kingdom which his Divine Majesty had bestowed upon him.

Chrysostom received a portion of the relics of St. Phocas, not at Antioch, as Baronius thought, and as Fronto le Duc and Baillet doubt, but at Constantinople as Montfaucon demonstrates. On that solemn occasion the city kept a great festival two days, and St. Chrysostom preached two sermons, only one of which is extant. In this he says, that the emperors left their palaces to reverence these relics, and strove to share with the rest in the blessings which they procure men. The emperor Phocas built afterwards another great church at Constantinople in honour of this martyr, and caused a considerable part of his relics to be translated thither. The Greeks often style St. Phocas hiero-martyr or sacred martyr, which epithet they sometimes give to eminent martyrs who were not bishops, as Ruinart demonstrates against Baronius.

JULY 4TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. ANTHONY DANIEL
Martyred in the Seventeenth Century, around 1648

St. Antoine (Anthony) Daniel, was a French missionary to the Huron Indians, who was born at Dieppe, in Normandy, France, on May 27th, 1601, and was slain and martyred by the Iroquois at Teanaostae, near Hillsdale, Limcoe County, Ontario, Canada, on July 4th, 1648.

His parents wanted him to be a lawyer, but God had other plans for him. He completed his classical studies, and after having completed two years of study in philosophy and one year of law, at twenty-years-of-age, Anthony entered the Society of Jesus, in Rome, on October 1st, 1621. He was a teacher of junior classes at the Collège in Rouen from 1623 to 1627.

That same year, 1621, Amantacha, a young Huron from one of the missions of New France was attending the college at Rouen. Fr. Jerome Lalemant had sent Amantacha to the College of Rouen so that when he was well taught, he would be useful in making the way easy for the missionaries in New France, to visit the different Huron tribes. Amantacha was baptised and given the name Louis. While at the college, Antoine taught him, and the ease with which Louis learned, undoubtedly gave his teacher the desire to work in the Huron missions of New France. A few years later, in 1627, Fr. Charles Lalemant returned to the College of Clermont, in Paris. Our saint was sent there to take theology and his meeting with Fr. Lalemant (also a future North American martyr) also heated his desires to join the missions. After Antoine was ordained to the priesthood in 1630, his desire to join the Indian missions was even greater, but he was obliged to wait for two years, while teaching at the College of Eu, before he could leave for New France (Canada) in 1632.

Daniel’s brother Charles was a sea-captain in the charge of the De Caen Company of France, representing Protestant-Huguenot interests. Captain Daniel had founded a French fort on Cape Breton Island in 1629. In 32 they arrived at St. Anne’s Bay, Cape Breton, where the two Jesuits remained for a year ministering to the French who had settled there, and began their ministry among the few French colonists and fishermen who had not been able to receive the Sacraments. For a whole year the two priests lived with these poor people providing them with the Mass and the Sacraments. They went to Quebec in June 1633, and there, Fr. de Brébeuf helped them learn the Huron tongue. It was the wish of all three to start for Georgian Bay immediately, but the danger of falling into the hands of the Iroquois along the route, stopped them from taking the journey. So they decided to spend time studying the Huron language until the next year.

In the spring of 1633, Fr. Antoine Daniel and Fr. Ambroise Davost joined Samuel de Champlain on his way to Quebec, and arrived there on June 24th. Fr. Davost stopped at Tadoussac on the way, a French trading settlement at the confluence of the Taddoussac and St. Lawrence rivers.

The Jesuits wanted to send more young native boys to France with the hope that when the boys had been fully instructed in the Catholic Faith and civilized ways, and had returned to their villages, their words and examples would help to convert the older members of their tribe. But in time it was found that sending Huron Indians to France was not the best idea, so a plan was made to carry out this idea in New France.

Meanwhile the missionaries kept themselves busy among the Hurons. Fr. Brébeuf especially liked the plan and was promised twelve intelligent Huron boys who would be sent to Quebec. The important task of taking the youths down to Quebec and acting as father and teacher to them while there was entrusted to Fr. Daniel. But when the time came for the boy’s departures, the mothers cried so much that in the end, only three boys went to Quebec.

In 1634 Fr. Daniel travelled to Wendake with Fr. Jean (John) de Brébeuf and Fr. Daoust. Fr. Daniel studied the Wendat (Huron) language and made rapid progress. He translated the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and other prayers into the Huron native tongue and set them to music. There he founded a school for the boys and young men of the Huron indians, and was very successful in this mission. For two years, in what is now Quebec, he was in charge of the school for Indian boys. Apart from this, he was also connected with the Mission at Ihonatiria, in the Huron country, from July, 1634, until his death fourteen years later.

In August 1636, Antoine and the three youths first arrived at Trois-Rivières. A few days later, three more boys were added to the group and Fr. Daniel continued on down to Quebec, full of hope that one of the problems of the missions was about to be solved. Meanwhile, other Indian boys nearer home had been encouraged to enter the school and soon fifteen boys were gathered together at Note Dame des Anges, two miles from Quebec.

But the crosses and trials, which usually go hand in hand with all works undertaken for God, were about to begin for the Huron school. Two of the students became ill and died. Because of this, Fr. Daniel worried himself sick, wondering what the Huron parents and relatives would say when they heard that their sons were dead. But in time our saint got better and continued his work at the school. In time the Jesuits realized that the school must be established among most of the French population, so that the French children may attract the Indians. Since 1635, a college had been built in Quebec and to this place the Indians were sent. It was hoped that their contact with the people of New France would civilize them and cause the conversion of their countrymen. But unhappily, this mixing of races never worked out and after experimenting for five years, the Jesuits had to abandon the project.

Fr. Daniel did not stay long enough in Quebec to witness the failure of the school. In the fall of 1637, he handed over to others his class work among the French and Hurons, and in the spring of 1638 started out for the missions. After weeks of hardship and suffering, our saint reached Huronia on July 19, 1638. He went to reside at Ossossané, which had been opened the year before and which was already well protected against the attacks of the Iroquois. Brébeuf, Le Mecier, Ragueneau, and Garnier occupied this fort.

With Simon Le Moyne as assistant, Fr. Daniel had under his pastoral care, both Teanaostaye and Cahiagué. For nine years our saint worked in these two places. The number of good Christians grew so rapidly that there was enough work for at least six priests. So these two priests had to work hard, walk many miles to the other places and were often open to attack by wandering Iroquois.

So successful was our saint’s ministry along the border of Lake Simcoe that a permanent house might have been set up at Cahiagué, had not the Iroquois begun to come around. This village lie in route to and from Iroquois country. Because of this, many Hurons moved to St. Joseph’s mission at Teanaostaye where it was somewhat safer to live than Cahiagué.

The Iroquois had grown more daring by the spring of 1648, especially along the frontiers of Huronia. Small parties of them appeared here and there and then disappeared, only after having scalped a few Hurons, whom they left for dead or carried off as prisoners. They had now begun to raid Huron territory, so the Jesuits and their converts; especially those at St. Ignace, drew nearer to Fort St. Marie where they looked for better protection.

Towards the close of the month of June 1648, Fr. Daniel had gone to Fort St. Marie to make his annual retreat. After making an eight-day retreat, he was then inspired to hurry back to his mission at Teanaostaye. Shortly thereafter, in the summer of 1648, the Iroquois made a sudden attack on the mission while most of the Huron men were away in Quebec trading. On the morning of July 4th, he had just said Mass, when a swarm of Iroquois appeared behind the walls of the village. The pious Hurons were still saying their prayers when a cry rang out: “To arms! The enemy is here!”

Terror seized the poor Hurons. Fr. Daniel did all in his power to aid his people. Our saint, realizing the desperate situation, stood up in their midst and encouraged them to defend themselves. Before the fence surrounding the settlement had been scaled, Fr. Daniel hurried to the chapel where the women, children, and old men were gathered gave them general absolution and told the catechumens present, to prepare for baptism, which they had not yet received. Unable to give the sacrament on each one singly, he grabbed a handkerchief, plunged it in water, raised it over his head and sprinkled dozens of kneeling Hurons before him, while saying the words of baptism.

While the Iroquois were killing, and destroying the village, our saint ran from hut to hut to baptize, to absolve the old and sick, and encourage them to die bravely. Fr. Daniel then raced back to the church, which was now filled with terrified Hurons. Closely at his heels rushed the terrible Iroquois. After a second absolution and a word of consolation to his flock, the holy priest, made no attempt to escape, but, still in his vestments, took up a cross and calmly and fearlessly advanced to meet the advancing enemy Iroquois at the door.

Seized with amazement the Iroquois savages halted for a moment, at the sight of the calm and fearless Blackrobe standing before them and suddenly drew back from him. Then, recovering themselves, a moment later, they surrounded him from every side, aimed their arrows and guns at him, and fired. As our friend crumpled to the ground, his soul sped to Heaven. The enraged Iroquois washed their hands and faces with our saint’s blood, because it was formed in so brave a heart. Then they stripped his body naked; covered it with blows and having set fire to the church, threw the body of the martyr into the flames.

Daniel was the second to receive the martyr’s crown among the Jesuits sent to New France, and the first of the missionaries to be martyred among the Hurons. He gave his soul to God bravely and dutifully, as a good pastor, sacrificing his life for the salvation of his flock. Of our saint, one priest said, “He seemed to have been born only for the salvation of these people; he had no stronger desire than to die for them…” Fr. Ragueneau, his superior, speaks of him in a letter to the general of the order as “a truly remarkable man, humble, obedient, united with God, of never failing patience and indomitable courage in adversity” (Thwaites, translation of the Jesuit journal Relatio, XXXIII, 253-269).

Not long after his death, Heaven gave its stamp of approval to Fr. Daniel’s holiness. He appeared twice to Fr. Chaumonot who had been his intimate friend and who had been his companion at various times: once in a dream and once in an apparition. In the dream our saint encouraged Fr. Chaumonot to, “Forgive us our trespasses!” and during the apparition when Fr. Chaumonot complained about the fact that there were no relics of our friend, since he had been burned, Fr. Daniel told him that, “God, holy and adorable, had considered his death and sufferings and made them a great help to the souls in Purgatory.”

Fr. Daniel and seven other martyrs were canonized by Pope Pius XI on June 29th, 1930 as Martyrs of North America. Fr. Daniel was the first martyr of the missionaries to the Hurons. Father Ragueneau, his superior, wrote of him in a letter to the Superior General of the Jesuits as “a truly remarkable man, humble, obedient, united with God, of never failing patience and indomitable courage in adversity.”

God grant that we too may sacrifice our lives for others, living and dead; at least in little ways, during our daily life.

JULY 5TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. ANASTASIUS THE DEACON OF JERUSALEM
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 303

Athanasius was a deacon in the church of the Resurrection in Jerusalem in the first half of the fifth century. During the Council of Chalcedon (451) a monk named Theodosius took advantage of the absence of the bishop, Juvenal, at the council to rouse the people of Jerusalem against it. He declared himself to be the leader of the Eutychians, a group that had formed itself around Eutyches of Constantinople, who denied the true humanity of Christ and had been condemned and exiled by the council.

In general the monks of Palestine rejected Chalcedon’s solution to the disputes about Christ’s two natures and wanted a new bishop elected. Athanasius publicly rebuked Theodosius for the scandal that he was causing in dividing the Church and firmly upheld the council’s findings. Theodosius regarded Athanasius as an embarrassment and an obstacle to his leadership and so had him murdered, or even murdered him himself.

Athanasius was not listed in the Eastern synaxaries and did not feature in the Greek liturgy. His name was added to the Roman Martyrology by Baronius in the sixteenth century under today’s date as a champion of orthodoxy and a martyr in its cause.

JULY 6TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. MARIA GORETTI
Martyred in the Twentieth Century, around 1902

St. Maria Goretti was born in 1890, one of six children from an impoverished farming family in Corinaldo, Italy. In the never-ending winter of 1897, the blustery Alpine cold whipped down along Italy’s eastern edge. Italy’s backbone, the Apennine Mountains, deflected all the warmth from the Mediterranean and the African Continent from the area where the Goretti family lived. Luigi Goretti, Assunta’s hard working farmer husband, was discouraged. The pure mountain air, steep paths and craggy landscape were appealing. Even the beauty of the Adriatic Sea could be seen from the church tower in their little village of Corinaldo. But it was not enticing now. Enduring the long winters of heavy snows and bitter cold wind while gathering precious fuel was no way to live. Luigi was a man of action. God helps those who help themselves. He wanted more for his family than the meager existence the mountains provided. Assunta felt a knot of fear and panic at the thought of leaving her ancestral home. But Luigi, in his youthful travels as a soldier, had seen what lay beyond the mountains. There was the milder Mediterranean climate, fertile plains, and a chance for a man to make a living for his family, rather than the constant battle against nature.

In 1899 Maria Goretti’s father, Luigi Goretti, and her mother, Assunta, packed what little they had, along with their four children, Angelo, nine, Maria, six, Marino, four and new born Allesandro, and moved the family to Le Ferriere di Conca, 40 miles from Rome. Across the Apennines they traveled, two hundred miles in two weeks, due westward on steep, treacherous mountain paths until at last the Roman Campagna spread before them.

Into the city they headed, overwhelmed by the size, the multitudes of people and a strange, noisy life. They found comfort inside the city’s numerous churches, praying, lighting candles, imploring the saints for guidance that they would find fruit and not folly in their adventure.

By chance they learned of rich farm lands owned by Count Mazzoleni south west of the city near the coastal town of Nettuno. They were told to stop and inquire at Ferriere. The land could be rented reasonably, or perhaps worked on a profit-sharing basis. The family was eager to settle. The boys were becoming restless. Only Maria remained sweet and uncomplaining as the city pavement fell away to a landscape of vineyards, and fields of wheat and corn. But as they continued, the Mediterranean coastal plain was very different. The “fertile” farmland had first to be wrestled away from marshes and swamps. The air was hot and always heavy and damp from the sea.

It was mid-afternoon when they entered the village of Ferriere on the edge of the Pontine Marshes. Not a soul was on the street to greet them; no church, no shops. The heat of the day was intense, the children thirsty and tired after the day’s journey. Luigi swallowed his disappointment as he knocked on a door. Looking around him he felt unwelcome, as if all the sidewalks had been pulled up and locked away.

Finally after several attempts to arouse someone, Luigi heard the slow shuffling of feet. An elderly woman unbolted the door and directed him in the direction of the Count’s “estate”: the “old cheese factory” at the end of town.

The Goretti’s found the oblong two story building perched on a small rise surrounded by flat, swampy, treeless land. The outbuildings consisted of a shed, stable and hen house, abandoned, empty of all life. With minimal fuss and bother, the Goretti’s became sharecroppers for Count Mazzoleni. In exchange for farming work, the Goretti’s lived in the landowner’s abandoned factory on the property. Assunta quickly took over the cares of the house and made it home for her family.

Luigi began to work immediately to make a success of his endeavor. The farmland was poor, swampy, mosquito infected, and difficult to work. His first project was to drain the neglected land. All summer he continued with tireless effort and by fall had tilled enough land to plant eight acres of wheat and barley. But the summer of backbreaking work, the change in climate and the proximity of the malarial-infested Pontine had put Luigi in grave danger. At first, he ignored a slight chill and fever. With so much to be done how could he rest? There was work at the quarry to patch the roadway, hedges to trim, firewood to secure, buildings and roofs to repair, lofts to clean, and task after task after task. A troublesome cough followed him day and night, but he never stopped.

Harvest time came and Count Mazzoleni came to inspect the yield. He found Goretti’s grain half cut, limp in the fields. The Count angrily stormed into the house. Luigi lay ill, prostrate with fever. He could only admit that he could not bring in the harvest by himself. Without waiting for further explanation, the Count said he would send Giovanni Serenelli and his son to complete the work for a share of the crop. Thus they would have to share their residence with another poor family, the Serenelli’s, which consisted of Giovanni, a widower, and his son, Alessandro.

Luigi fought back bitter disappointment. Now he must share half his harvest and expect Assunta to care for two more people. How could he ask his lovely Assunta to do more? Already she was overburdened with his illness, the children, a new baby, and the cares of the farm. As Luigi and Assunta prayed together before retiring, Luigi knew he must tell Assunta, but first he must sleep.

Early the next morning, the Serenelli’s arrived. Giovanni was a man about sixty and his youngest son, Alessandro, was a strong and well-built young man of eighteen. The Serenelli’s lived upstairs while the Goretti’s lived downstairs. Anything above their crop quota the families could keep for their own needs. In this way they survived poverty and hunger, working side by side.

Giovanni Serenelli came from Assunta Goretti’s own country and spoke lovingly of the people and places that were dear to her heart. He also had a well-practiced and touching litany of his own miseries: his wife’s death in the asylum and a son’s confinement there, his other children following their own lives back home. He was now left with his youngest, destitute and alone, but willing to work with Luigi—for half of the profits and a communal life with the Goretti’s.

As the Serenelli’s diligently began to work to get the harvest under control, a bit of joy returned to the Goretti household. Assunta prepared her best meals. The children were happily amused with Alessandro’s prowess at catching birds and making reed whistles. But as autumn’s labors turned to the rainy, idle days of winter, the Serenelli’s dispositions soured.

Giovanni had taken a liking to the strong, local wines and became irritable and overbearing. Alessandro began to act vile, hostile and sullen, the result of years of maternal neglect and a youthful, depraved apprenticeship among the stevedores. He now shunned the children and spent his time locked in his room brooding over seamy magazines. Assunta discovered his hoard of pornographic books as she cleaned his room one day. She worried about Alessandro’s influence on her oldest son, Angelo, but unwilling to start a quarrel, she swallowed her first impulse to burn every piece of trash she found. Their home did not need more trouble. Luigi regretted their move from the mountains and especially repented of taking these two strangers into his home.

One day Luigi Goretti was bitten by a mosquito carrying the malaria virus. The malaria was doing its subtle job through the winter. As spring beckoned with endless work, Luigi attempted to meet its rigors uncomplainingly. He came in from the fields pallid and exhausted. Each night the children knelt about the bed in prayer; Luigi looked at his beautiful little Maria, with her limpid eyes and rosy cheeks. Why had he not noticed her maturity and grace? Silently she prayed and wept for her family. As April 1902 ended, so did Luigi’s earthly life. As he lay surrounded by family and neighbors, he whispered haltingly to Assunta: “Go back to Corinaldo...”

Giovanni Serenelli became master of the farm. He was harsh and ruthless. He allowed Assunta and the children to stay and work for him. She desperately longed to go back to home and family, back to the fresh mountain life. She could not fulfill Luigi’s dying wish now. A woman traveling over two hundred miles alone with seven young children and no money was unthinkable. Giovanni insisted Maria, assume all the household duties while Assunta took her husband’s place and worked in the fields.

Her father’s illness and death, the Serenelli’s sinister cruelty, the never-ending labors of the farm had made Maria far too serious for her age. Her devotion to Jesus and her obedience to her mother was extraordinary. Even the other village children noticed her piety as she walked to town to sell eggs. It was with admiration and a touch of envy that they referred to Maria as “The Little Old Lady.”

Maria cooked, cleaned, did the laundry, and cared for her younger siblings. Additionally, she cooked and cleaned for the two Serenelli men. Maria never complained about the extra work she had to do, and instead was a source of encouragement to her mother’s worry, assuring her mother that Jesus would provide for them.

Maria was a pious child. Only a few months before, in 1901, Maria, although she could neither read nor write, had completed her Catechism instructions in order to receive her First Holy Communion on the feast of Corpus Christi.. How she had longed to take Jesus into her heart often! Once a week on Sunday just did not seem like enough. Maria managed the rigors of life because she had her Jesus for strength. This serious little girl had matured spiritually beyond her years, too. She went to Mass as often as possible, and grew in virtue, sanctity, maturity, and beauty.

Assunta noticed her young daughter’s character changing. There was no childish playfulness left in Maria. The cares of the world clouded her eyes with sadness. Her night prayers become longer. She examined her conscience repeatedly for occasions of sin, her small body trembled with fear and bitter sobs. Alessandro Serenelli had been stalking her for months now, prowling about with evil in his heart, threatening to kill her if she told a soul. She did not take Assunta into her confidence for fear of burdening her mother with more cares and creating more trouble with the Serenelli’s.

Alessandro, the young man with whom her family shared an adjoining residence, was a rough young man with a poor religious upbringing. Since his mother died in a psychiatric hospital when he was a baby, and his father was an alcoholic. Alessandro himself was given to drinking, swearing, and callous behavior. He had impure thoughts toward Maria, and when he would find her alone in the kitchen, which the two families shared, he would speak to her crudely and make sexual advances. Maria, in her great love for God, abhorred his behavior, rebuked his evil suggestions, and told him, “No, never, that is a sin! God forbids that and we would go to Hell!”

This harassment continued for months, and Maria and did her best to avoid him. She was in a precarious situation that was manipulated by Alessandro. Maria kept quiet about the abuse because Alessandro would help his mother with the more difficult tasks in the field; and even if she did speak up to her mother about what was happening, the family had nowhere else to go. Instead, Maria entrusted herself to Jesus.

On July 5th, 1902, Alessandro’s evil intentions came to a head. The intense summer sun burned down on the farm yard. Assunta watched her children playfully helping with the threshing. She gazed upon them with intense love. They were her last joy left in this life. Maria was up on the porch outside of the kitchen, fingers flying with needle and thread, baby Theresa asleep at her feet.

Maria was lost in thought, too. She was rejoicing in eager anticipation of going to Mass. Tomorrow was Sunday and the Feast of the Precious Blood of Jesus. How she longed to share herself with Him in Confession and Communion. Maria was working on the sewing and caring for the children while everyone else was out threshing in the fields. Seizing an opportunity for evil, Alessandro left his work, came up the steps. Then suddenly, Maria was startled by the sound of footsteps behind her. It was Alessandro. He demanded she come into the kitchen. She froze in terror. Maria’s silence further inflamed his foul passions. He grabbed her arm, dragged her into the kitchen, pressed a file used to sharpen farm tools, the end of which he had sharpened to a point, to her throat and bolted the door. He told her that if she did not finally allow him to have sexual relations with her, he would kill her. Maria, now a strong child rooted in her love for Jesus, refused. She fought him fiercely and screamed, “No! No Alessandro! It is a sin. God forbids it. You will go to Hell, Alessandro. You will go to Hell if you do it!” All went unseen and unheard.

As he moved to overtake her, Maria fought him off bravely. She told him she would rather die than allow him to do what he wanted to do to her. In a rage, Alessandro stabbed Maria nine times. The file passed through Maria’s tiny body from the front all the way through her back, again and again. Alessandro was 20 years old, and Maria was 11.

After the attack Maria lost consciousness. Maria awoke with the sun streaming through the kitchen window. She heard the children playing and the monotonous sound of the threshing. The baby Theresa was crying at the edge of the porch. Maria attempted to lift herself to the open kitchen door. Her call for help was more a submission to the searing pain.

Alessandro, thinking he had killed her, went into his room and shut the door. However, Maria soon regained consciousness and managed to crawl over to the door and open the latch in order to cry out for help. Alessandro, hearing the creak of the latch, came back and stabbed her five more times. He attacked her with such force that the file bent when it hit her spine.

A napping Giovanni heard the infant crying, and in an instant of exasperation for what he thought was Maria’s neglect, headed up the stairs. Maria was found by Giovanni, Alessandro’s father, in a pool of blood. Miraculously, Maria was still alive and conscious. His shout brought Assunta and the neighbors running, hearts pounding. They found Maria, tortured with pain, badly bruised and lying in a pool of blood. Assunta, recovering from shock questioned her Maria, as to what had happened. When her mother asked her who had done this to her, Maria was able to identify Alessandro as her attacker. “It was Alessandro, Mama... Because he wanted me to commit an awful sin and I would not.”

Maria was laid on a bed while a neighbor summoned the ambulance. She was then rushed to the hospital while Alessandro was taken off to jail. Assunta tried to soothe her daughter’s agony as the ambulance wagon bumped along on that torturous trip to the hospital in Nettuno.

The doctors attempted to repair the extensive damage and save Maria’s life, but could give Assunta no encouragement. She was badly dehydrated due to her large loss of blood, and she begged again and again for water. Because her intestines were pierced with their contents seeping into her body, the doctors couldn’t give her any water as this would only exacerbate her already life-threatening condition. A parish priest was called to give Maria her Last Rites and the Viaticum, before a risky operation was begun to save her life. The priest showed Maria a crucifix and told her that Jesus was also very thirsty as he suffered his torture on the cross; he asked Maria if she would offer up her thirst to Jesus for the salvation of sinners. Maria agreed, and didn’t ask for water again.

Maria unconsciously cried as she resisted Alessandro’s demands over and over. When she opened her eyes, they were transfixed upon the Statue of Our Lady placed at the foot of her bed. Awake she seemed to remember nothing of the previous day’s horrors and wished only to know of the well-being of her family. The parish priest reminded Maria that Jesus had pardoned those who had crucified Him. As she gazed at the crucifix on the far wall, she said without anger or resentment, “I, too, pardon him. I, too, wish that he could come some day and join me in Heaven.” Assunta’s tears flowed hot and heavy as she gave her sweet Maria her last earthly mother’s kiss.
The doctors began their surgery on each of Maria’s fourteen wounds. Because she was so weak, they couldn’t use any anesthesia. Maria was fully conscious as they widened each of her wounds in order to sew them up from the inside out. She didn’t cry out in pain once. She endured her agony in quiet and perfect patience, offering it all up to Jesus.

Despite the efforts of the doctors, they couldn’t control Maria’s bleeding or infection. After twenty excruciating hours of suffering, Maria died the next day on July 6th at the age of 11 years and 8 months. In her last moments the priest asked Maria to forgive her attacker. Her last words were: “I forgive Alessandro Serenelli … and I want him with me in Heaven forever.” As the bells throughout the city were proclaiming the vespers hour, Jesus came to gather sweet Maria into His eternal protection, her reward for strength and virtue beyond her tender years.

A week after Maria died, Assunta, with destitution now added to her poverty, no longer had any means to support her remaining five children while also raising them. She had to give each of them up for adoption.

Alessandro, when he was brought before the judge, pleaded innocent. He claimed that he was defending himself against Maria attacking him. Of course the judge knew Alessandro was lying, and as he was still a minor, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison instead of a life sentence. Alessandro’s bad behavior continued in prison. Because he was an angry young man in constant fights, he was placed in solitary confinement. He was completely unrepentant for his crime and his heart was hardened.

However, six years later, Maria appeared to Alessandro in a dream while he was in prison. She handed him 14 white lilies, the symbol of purity, without speaking a word—one flower for each time he stabbed her. Alessandro understood this to mean that Maria had forgiven him for his crime and that she was with God in Heaven. As a result, his heart was miraculously converted. He called for the bishop, confessed his crime, and lived out the rest of his sentence as a reformed man and model prisoner. In fact, he was let out of prison three years early due to his good behavior. Maria had become his special patron and intercessor.

After Alessandro was released from prison, now 27 years after the attack, he went right away to see Assunta, Maria’s mother. It was Christmas Eve. He knocked on her door and asked her if she knew who he was. She did in fact recognize him as Alessando Serenelli, the man who killed his daughter and destroyed her family.

Alessandro asked Assunta for her forgiveness for what he had done to her. Assunta replied, “If Maria forgives you, and God forgives you, how can I not also forgive you?” The two went together to Midnight Mass and received Holy Communion kneeling side by side. Alessandro also confessed his sin before the congregation and asked for their pardon as well. Assunta then adopted Alessandro as her own son.

After obtaining Assunta’s forgiveness, Alessandro went to live at a Franciscan monastery as a Lay Brother. He did odd jobs and helped the monastery as a porter and gardener. He also helped with the Franciscan-run school, and was so gentle with the children that they called him “Uncle.” He was known for living a quiet, peaceful, and holy life. Alessandro’s great devotion to Maria Goretti continued until his death in 1970. It is believed by some that Alessandro will also be declared a saint one day, that God did in fact grant Maria’s dying wish that he would be with her in Heaven.

The cause for Maria’s canonization opened in 1935, with Alessandro himself testifying to her sanctity and heavenly intercession on his behalf. Maria was then beatified in 1947. Assunta, a woman so destitute during her life, was now very rich. She remarks about her daughter’s beatification: “When I saw the Pope coming, I prayed, ‘Madonna, please help me.’ He put his hand on my head and said, blessed mother, happy mother, mother of a Blessed!”

One of the first miracles attributed to St. Maria Goretti’s intercession, aside from Alessandro’s conversion, was a construction worker who had his foot crushed by a stone. It was unable to be repaired and an amputation was scheduled for the next day. At that time holy cards with a prayer for Maria’s canonization were being distributed around Italy. The worker’s wife took one of these holy cards and wrapped it in the bandages on her husband’s foot. The next morning, when the doctors came to amputate, they found the man’s foot completely restored. He returned to work the same day.

Three years after her beatification, Maria Goretti was canonized by Pope Pius XII on June 24th, 1950. Alessandro Serenelli was in attendance at that historic ceremony, where the young girl he murdered, and to whom he was now so strongly devoted, was declared a saint—confirming what he already knew to be true.

Maria’s canonization Mass was also attended by Assunta, the first time in history that a mother was present to witness the canonization of her own child. Also present were Assunta’s four remaining children.

JULY 7TH
The Martyrs of the Day
SAINTS ASTIUS, PEREGRINUS, LUCIAN, POMPEIUS, HEYSCHIUS, PAPIUS, SATURNINUS & GERMANUS
Martyred towards the end of the First Century

The martyr St. Astius was born an Illyrian. Astius was bishop of the city of Durrës (Dyrrachium), during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98–117). The saint once had a dream, a foreboding of his impending suffering and death for Christ. He was arrested by the Roman governor of Durrës, Agricola around the year 98.

He was beaten with leaden rods and ox-hide whips, but St. Astius did not renounce Christ. They smeared his body with honey, so as to increase his suffering with the stings of hornets and flies, and crucified him for refusing to worship the pagan god Dionysus. The martyr’s body was reverently buried by Christians.

His feast day is July 4th in Albania, he is commemorated on July 6th in the Orthodox calendar.

During this period, many Christians fled to Albania to escape persecution in Italy. Among them were the seven holy martyrs: Peregrinus, Lucian, Pompeius, Hesychius, Papius, Saturninus and Germanus. Witnessing the martyrdom of Bishop Astius, who was crucified by the Romans, they openly praised the courage and firmness of the holy confessor.

Because of this, they were seized, and as confessors of Faith in Christ, they were arrested, thrown into chains, and subsequently drowned in the Adriatic Sea. Their bodies, carried to shore by the waves, were hidden in the sand by Christians.

The martyrs appeared to the Bishop of Alexandria ninety years later, ordering him to bury their bodies and to build a church over them. Their feast day is the 7th of July.

JULY 8TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. PROCOPIUS
Martyred in the First Century, year unknown

He was a native of Jerusalem, but lived at Bethsan, otherwise called Scythopolis, where he was reader in the church, and also performed the function of exorcist, in dispossessing demoniacs, and that of interpreter of the Greek tongue into the Syro-Chaldaic.

He was a divine man, say his acts, and had always lived in the practice of great austerity, and patience, and in perpetual chastity. He took no other sustenance than bread and water, and usually abstained from all food two or three days together. He was well skilled in the sciences of the Greeks, but much more in that of the holy scriptures; the assiduous meditation on which nourished his soul, and seemed also to give vigor and strength to his emaciated body. He was admirable in all virtues, particularly in a heavenly meekness and humility.

The Roman Emperor Diocletian’s bloody edicts against the Christians reached Palestine in April, 303, and Procopius was the first person who received the crown of martyrdom in that country, in the aforesaid persecution. He was apprehended at Bethsan, and led, with several others, bound to Cæsarea, our city, say the acts, and was hurried straight before Paulinus, prefect of the province.

The judge commanded the martyr to sacrifice to the gods. The servant of Christ answered he never could do it; and this he declared with a firmness and resolution that seemed to wound the heart of the prefect as if it had been pierced with a dagger. The martyr added, there is no God but one, who is the author and preserver of the world. The prefect then bade him sacrifice to the four emperors, namely Diocletian, Herculius, Galerius, and Constantius. This the saint again refused to do, and had scarcely returned his answer than the judge passed sentence upon him, and he was immediately led to execution and beheaded. He is honored by the Greeks with the title of The Great Martyr.

JULY 9TH
The Martyrs of the Day
THE HOLY MARTYRS OF GORCUM
Martyred in the Sixteenth Century, around 1572

Nineteen priests and religious men, who were taken by the Calvinists in Gorcum, after suffering many insults, were hanged on account of their religion at Brielle, on the 9th of July, 1572. They had upheld the authority of the Roman Catholic Church and the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist in the face of heretics.

As of 1572, Lutheranism and Calvinism had spread through a great part of Europe. In the Netherlands this was followed by a struggle between the two denominations in which Calvinism was victorious. On 1 April of the next year, Calvinist forces and a rebel group called the Watergeuzen (Sea Beggars) conquered Brielle (Den Brielle) and later Vlissingen (Flushing).

In June, Dordrecht and Gorkum fell, and at the latter the rebels captured nine Franciscans: Nicholas Pieck, guardian of Gorkum; Hieronymus of Weert, vicar; Theodorus van der Eem of Amersfoort; Nicasius Janssen of Heeze; Willehad of Denmark; Godefried of Mervel; Antonius of Weert; Antonius of Hoornaer, and Franciscus de Roye of Brussels. To these were added two lay brothers from the same friary, Petrus of Assche and Cornelius of Wijk bij Duurstede. At almost the same time the Calvinists arrested the parish priest of Gorkum, Leonardus Vechel of Hertogenbosch, and his assistant.

Also imprisoned were Godefried van Duynsen of Gorkum, a priest in his native city, and Joannes Lenartz of Oisterwijk, a canon regular from a nearby priory and spiritual director for the monastery of Augustinian nuns in Gorkum. To these fifteen were later added four more companions: Joannes van Hoornaer (alias known as John of Cologne), a Dominican of the Cologne province and parish priest not far from Gorkum, who when apprised of the incarceration of the clergy of Gorkum hastened to the city in order to administer the sacraments to them and was seized and imprisoned with the rest; Jacobus Lacops of Oudenaar, a Norbertine, who became a curate in Monster, South Holland; Adrianus Janssen of Hilvarenbeek, a Premonstratensian canon and at one time parish priest in Monster, who was sent to Brielle with Jacobus Lacops. Last was Andreas Wouters of Heynoord.

In prison at Gorkum, from June 26th to July 6th, 1572), the first 15 prisoners were transferred to Brielle, arriving there on July 8th. On their way to Dordrecht they were exhibited for money to the curious. The following day, William de la Marck, Lord of Lumey, commander of the Gueux de mer, had them interrogated and ordered a disputation. In the meantime, four others arrived. It was demanded of each that he abandon his belief in the Blessed Sacrament and in papal supremacy. All remained firm in their Faith. Meanwhile, there came a letter from the Prince of Orange, William the Silent, which enjoined all those in authority to leave priests and religious unmolested. On July 9th, they were hanged in a turf-shed.

Among the eleven Franciscan friars, called “Recollects”, of the convent of Gorcum, was Nicholas Pick the guardian, of the convent. He was thirty-eight years old, an eminent preacher, and a man imbued with the primitive spirit of his Franciscan order, especially the love of holy poverty and mortification. He feared the least superfluity even in the meanest and most necessary things, especially in meals; and he would often say: “I fear if St. Francis were living, he would not approve of this or that.” He was most zealous to preserve this spirit of poverty and penance in his house, and he used to call property and superfluity the woe of a religious state. His constant cheerfulness rendered piety and penance itself amiable. He often had these words in his mouth: “We must always serve God with cheerfulness.” He had frequently expressed an earnest desire to die a martyr, but sincerely confessed himself altogether unworthy of that honor.

The other martyrs were a Dominican, two Norbertines, one Canon Regular of St. Austin, called John Oosterwican, three curates, and another secular priest.

The first of these curates was Leonard Vechel, the elder pastor at Gorcum. He had gained great reputation in his theological studies at Louvain, under the celebrated Ruard Tapper; and, in the discharge of pastoral duties at Gorcum, had joined an uncommon zeal, piety, eloquence, and learning with such success, that his practice and conduct, in difficult cases, was a rule for other curates of the country, and his decisions were regarded as oracles at the university itself. For the relief of the poor, especially those who were sick, he gave his temporal substance with such tenderness and profusion as to seem desirous, had it been possible, to have given them himself. He reproved vice without respect of persons; and, by his invincible meekness and patience, disarmed and conquered many who had been long deaf to all his remonstrances, and added only insults to their obstinacy.

Nicholas Poppel was the second pastor at Gorcum, and though inferior in abilities, was in zeal worthy to be the colleague of Vechel, and to attain to the same crown with him.

John Oosterwican was director to a convent of nuns of the same order in Gorcum; he was then very old, and had often prayed that God would honor him with the crown of martyrdom.

The rest of this happy company had made their lives an apprenticeship to martyrdom. They were declared martyrs, and beatified by Pope Clement X, in 1674. The relation of several miracles performed by their intercession and relics which was sent to Rome in order to their beatification, is published by the Bollandists. The greater part of their relics is kept in the church of the Franciscan friars at Brussels, whither they were secretly conveyed from Brielle.

A shrub bearing 19 white flowers is said to have sprung up at the site of the martyrdom. Many miracles have been attributed to the intercession of the Gorkum martyrs, especially the curing of hernias. The beatification of the martyrs took place on November 14th, 1675, and their canonization on June 29th, 1867. They were canonized on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, as part of the grand celebrations to mark the 1800th anniversary of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul AD 67.

For many years the place of their martyrdom in Brielle has been the scene of numerous pilgrimages and processions. The reliquary of their remains is now enshrined in the Church of Saint Nicholas, Brussels, Belgium.

The 19 Martyrs
There were 11 Franciscan friars or Minderbroeders (Friars Minor); one Dominican friar or Predikheer (Preacher); two Norbertine canons regular; a local canon regular or witheren; and five wereldheren (secular clergy). The 19 put to death on July 9th, 1572 were as follows:

1. Leonard van Veghel (born 1527; died aged 45), spokesman, secular priest, and since 1566 pastor of Gorkum
2. Peter of Assche (born 1530; died aged 42), Franciscan lay brother
3. Andrew Wouters (born 1542; died aged 30), secular priest, pastor of Heinenoord in the Hoeksche Waard
4. Nicasius of Heeze (born 1522; died aged 50), Franciscan friar, theologian and priest
5. Jerome of Weert (born 1522; died aged 50), Franciscan friar, priest, pastor in Gorcum
6. Anthony of Hoornaar, Franciscan friar and priest
7. Godfried van Duynen (born 1502; died aged 70), secular priest, former pastor in northern France
8. Willehad of Denmark (born 1482; died aged 90), Franciscan friar and priest
9. James Lacobs (born 1541; died aged 31), Norbertine canon
10. Francis of Roye (born 1549; died aged 23), Franciscan friar and priest
11. John of Cologne, Dominican friar, pastor in Hoornaar near Gorkum
12. Anthony of Weert (born 1523; died aged 49), Franciscan friar and priest
13. Theodore of der Eem (born c. 1499–1502; died aged 70-73), Franciscan friar and priest, chaplain to a community of Franciscan Tertiary Sisters in Gorkum
14. Cornelius of Wijk bij Duurstede (born 1548; died aged 24), Franciscan lay brother
15. Adrian van Hilvarenbeek (born 1528; died aged 44), Norbertine canon and pastor in Monster, South Holland
16. Godfried of Mervel, Vicar of Melveren, Sint-Truiden (born 1512; died aged 60), Franciscan priest, vicar of the friary in Gorkum
17. Jan of Oisterwijk (born 1504; died aged 68), canon regular, a chaplain for the Beguinage in Gorkum
18. Nicholas Poppel (born 1532; died aged 40), secular priest, chaplain in Gorkum
19. Nicholas Pieck (born 1534; died aged 38), Franciscan friar, priest and theologian, Guardian of the friary in Gorkum, his native city

JULY 10TH
The Martyrs of the Day
THE SEVEN HOLY BROTHERS &
THEIR MOTHER FELICITY
Martyred in the Second Century, year unknown

The illustrious martyrdom of these saints has been justly celebrated by the holy fathers. It happened at Rome under the emperor Antoninus, that is, according to several ancient copies of the acts, Antoninus Pius.

The seven brothers were the sons of St. Felicity, a noble pious Christian widow in Rome, who brought them up in the most perfect sentiments and practice of heroic virtue. After her husband’s death, she laid aside all worldly magnificence and vowed to live in perfect chastity for the remainder of her life and employed herself wholly in prayer, fasting, and works of charity.

The education of her sons was her greatest care, and as at that period, the Christians were most cruelly persecuted, she directed all her exhortations and instructions in such a manner, that she might impress deeply into their hearts constancy to the true Faith, contempt of temporal happiness, and even of life itself, and, at the same time, a high estimation of eternal happiness and a great desire to obtain it. She frequently spoke to them of the torments of the Christian martyrs in and out of Rome, and the great glories which therefore had been prepared for them in Heaven; of the happiness of suffering or dying for Christ’s sake.

“How happy should I be,” said she, “if I should, one day, see you give your blood and life willingly out of love for Christ! How happy would you yourselves be for all eternity!” By these and similar words she awakened in the hearts of her sons a fervent desire to suffer and die for the Faith of Christ. They spoke of nothing more frequently than of martyrdom, and declared to each other how they would despise all flatteries and caresses, all honors and riches of the world, and how gladly they would suffer pains and tortures. The pious mother listened with great inward joy to these words, and prayed daily to the Almighty to receive her children as an agreeable sacrifice.

By the public and edifying example of this lady and her whole family, many idolaters were moved to renounce the worship of their false gods, and to embrace the Faith of Christ, which Christians were likewise encouraged by so illustrious a pattern only to profess.

The idolatrous priests had observed that many were converted to the Christian Faith by the edifying example of St. Felicitas and her sons. This infuriated the pagan priests, who complained to the Emperor that the boldness with which Felicity publicly practiced the Christian religion, drew many from the worship of the immortal gods who were the guardians and protectors of the empire, and that it was a continual insult on them; who, on that account, were extremely offended and angry with the city and whole state. They added, that in order to appease them, it was necessary to compel this lady and her children to sacrifice to them.

The Emperor being himself superstitious was prevailed upon by this remonstrance to send an order to Publius, the prefect of Rome, to take care, the Prefect of the city, to attend to the request of the priests, and see that what they desired should be done and that the gods appeased in this matter.

Publius caused the mother and her sons to be apprehended and brought before him. Publius, who greatly esteemed the Saint on account of her high birth and many noble qualities, sent for her, and, informing her of the Imperial command, entreated her to comply and used the strongest inducements to bring her freely to sacrifice to the gods. He endeavored to persuade her by flatteries and promises, and at last, finding them of no avail, he proceeded to the most frightful menaces.

But she returned him this answer: “Do not think to frighten me by threats, or to win me by fair speeches. The spirit of God within me will not suffer me to be overcome by Satan, and will make me victorious over all your assaults. Your menaces have no more power over me than your flatteries. Neither I nor my sons will ever forsake the true Faith”

Publius said in a great rage: “Unhappy woman, is it possible you should think death so desirable as not to permit even your children to live, but force me to destroy them by the most cruel torments?”

“My children,” said she, “will live eternally with Christ if they are faithful to him; but must expect eternal death if they sacrifice to idols.”

Publius would say nothing further on that day, but dismissed her with the injunction to consider the matter well. The pious mother told her sons what had happened and spent the night with them in prayer, as she was convinced that they would suffer martyrdom.

On the following day, Publius repaired to the Place of Mars, and taking his seat as Judge, had Felicitas and her seven sons brought before him. All appeared cheerful, encouraging each other to bear bravely the approaching tortures.

Publius, addressing the mother, said: “I presume that you have already changed your mind; but if not, look upon your children and take pity on them. In your power lies all their future happiness.”

“Say rather,” exclaimed Felicitas, solemnly addressing the Prefect, “that you will be the cause of their eternal ruin with your treacherous happiness. Your pity is really impiety, and the compassion to which you exhort me would make me the most cruel of mothers.”

Then, turning towards her children, she encouraged them to constancy, like the heroic mother of the Maccabees, and said: “My beloved sons, look not upon the tyrant, but raise your eyes to Heaven, and behold your God and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. He expects you, to place on your heads the crown of glory. As He has given His blood for your salvation, may you likewise give yours to His honor. Do not regard the torments with which you are menaced here below, but consider the joys which God promises you in Heaven. Fight bravely, be not faint-hearted, but continue faithful in your love to Christ.”

Publius, furious that Felicitas dared in his presence to incite her children to disobey the imperial command, ordered her to be beaten most barbarously, saying: “You are insolent indeed, to give them such advice as this in my presence, in contempt of the orders of our princes.”

Then, calling the children to him, one after another, and used many artful speeches, mingling promises with threats to induce them to adore the gods. Publius said: “Come, my dear children, I will procure you the happiest lot upon Earth, if you are obedient to the emperor; but I am compelled to treat you most cruelly, should you oppose his commands.” He endeavored to win them with alternate promises and menaces.

To the first, Januarius, the eldest, he said: “Be wise, my son, obey the command of the emperor! If not, I shall have you scourged till you are dead!”

Januarius endured the assaults of Publius and resolutely answered: “You advise me to do a thing that is very foolish, and contrary to all reason; but I confide in my Lord Jesus Christ, that he will preserve me from such an impiety. My mother has spoken wisely, and I should act foolishly if I preferred the emperor’s command to God’s command. I do not fear scourging. My God will aid me that I may remain faithful, even unto death.”

Enraged at this dauntless answer, Publius ordered him to be stripped, cruelly scourged and cast into a dungeon.

Felix, the second brother, was called next, and commanded to sacrifice. But the generous youth replied: “There is one only God. To him we offer the sacrifice of our hearts. We will never forsake the love which we owe to Jesus Christ. Employ all your artifices; exhaust all inventions of cruelty; you will never be able to overcome our Faith.”

The same was done to the other brothers, as their answers breathed the same spirit as that of their brothers, that they feared not a passing death, but everlasting torments; and that having before their eyes the immortal recompenses of the just, they despised the threats of men.

Publius, then, left nothing untried to at least induce the two youngest, Vitalis and Martialis, to forsake Christ, but found that they were not less brave and constant than the others.

Vitalis said: “I am ready rather to give my life than sacrifice to the devils, your gods.”

Martialis, the youngest, fearing that they might spare him on account of his tender age, cried aloud: “I too am a Christian, like my brothers. I despise the idols as they do, and if their lives are taken, mine must be taken also. All who do not confess Christ to be the true God, shall be cast into eternal flames.”

Publius, astonished at such unprecedented heroism of the brothers, had them scourged and sent to the dungeons. Publius, despairing to be able ever to overcome their resolution, then laid the whole process before the emperor, giving a report of the whole proceedings.

The Emperor, having read the interrogatory accounts, gave an order that they should be sent to different judges, and be condemned to different deaths. Thus they were delivered over to four judges, who condemned them to various modes of death. The division of the martyrs among four judges corresponds to the four places of their burial. She implored God only that she not to be killed before her sons, so that she might be able to encourage them during their torture and death in order that they would not deny Christ. According to God’s Providence, it so happened. With joy, this wonderful mother accompanied her sons one by one until she had witnessed the death of all seven sons.

Januarius was scourged to death with whips loaded with plummets of lead. The two next, Felix and Philip, were beaten with clubs till they expired. Sylvanus, the fourth, was thrown headlong down a steep precipice. The three youngest, Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were beheaded, and the same sentence was executed upon the mother four months after. St. Felicity is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 23rd of November; the sons on the 10th of July, on which day their festival is marked in the old Roman Calendar, published by Bucherius.

JULY 11TH
The Martyr of the Day
POPE ST. PIUS I
Martyred in the Second Century, around 155 to 157

According to the pontificals, Pius was the son of Rufinus, and a native of Aquileia, Italy. He had served the church as a priest among the clergy at Rome for many years under Adrian and Antoninus Pius (see below), when, according to Tillemont, in the fourth year of the reign of the Antoninus Pius, he succeeded St. Hyginus in the papacy in 142.

He condemned the heretic Valentinus, and rejected Marcion, who came from Pontus to Rome, after the death of Hyginus. The conflicts, which St. Pius suffered and sustained, obtained for him the title of martyr, which is given him not only in Usuard’s Martyrology, but also in many others more ancient martyrologies; though Fontanini, a most judicious and learned critic, strenuously maintains, against Tillemont, that Pope Pius died by the sword. He passed to a better life in 157, and was buried at the foot of the Vatican hill on the 11th of July.

Among all the pagan emperors of Rome, Titus, the two Antonines, and Alexander deserved the best of their subjects, and the three last gained a great reputation for moral virtue.

The Antonines were eminent for their learning, and devoted themselves to the Stoic philosophy. Arrius Antoninus, who had distinguished himself by his moderation and love of justice in several magistracies, was adopted by the Emperor Adrian in 138, and upon his death in the same year ascended the imperial throne.

He was truly the father of his people during a reign of twenty-two years, and died in 161, being seventy-seven years old. He obtained the surname of Pius, according to some, by his gratitude to Adrian; but, according to others, by his clemency and goodness.

He had often in his mouth the celebrated saying of Scipio Africanus, that he would rather save the life of one citizen than destroy one thousand enemies. He engaged in no wars, except that by his lieutenants he restrained the Daci, Alani, and Mauri, and by the conduct of Lollius Urbicus quieted the Britons, confining the Caledonians to their mountains and forests by a new wall.

Yet the pagan virtues of this prince were mixed with an alloy of superstition, vice, and weakness. When the senate refused to enroll Adrian among the gods, out of a just detestation of his cruelty and other vices, Antoninus, by tears and entreaties, extorted from it a decree by which divine honors were granted that infamous prince, and he appointed priests and a temple for his worship. He likewise caused his wife Faustina to be honored after her death as a goddess, and was reproached for the most dissolute life of his daughter Faustina the Younger, whom he gave in marriage to his adopted son, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.

Xiphilin writes that the Christians shared in the mildness of his government. Yet though he did not raise by fresh edicts any new persecution, it is a notorious mistake of Dodwell and some others, who pretend that no Christians suffered death for the Faith during his reign, at least by his order. Tertullian informs us (l. ad Scapul. c. 4,) that Arrius Antoninus, when he was only proconsul of Asia, put in execution the old unjust rescript of Trajan; and having punished some Christians with death, dismissed the rest, crying out to them: “O wretches, if you want to die, have you not halters and precipices to end your lives by?”

St. Justin, in his first apology, which he addressed to Antoninus Pius, who was then emperor, testifies that Christians were tortured with the most barbarous cruelty without having been convicted of any crime. Also St. Irenæus, (l. 3, c. 3,) Eusebius, (l. 4, c. 10,) and the author of an ancient poem which is published among the works of Tertullian, are incontestable vouchers that this emperor, whom Capitolinus calls a most zealous worshipper of the gods, often shed the blood of saints.

By the acts of St. Felicitas and her sons, it appears what artifices the pagan priests made use of to stir up the emperors and magistrates against the Christians. At length, however, Antoninus Pius, in the fifteenth year of his reign, of Christ 152, according to Tillemont, wrote to the states of Asia, commanding that all persons who should be impeached merely for believing in Christ, should be discharged, and their accusers punished according to the laws against informers, adding, “You do but harden them in their opinion, for you cannot oblige them more than by making them die for their religion. Thus they triumph over you by choosing rather to die than to comply with your will.” Nevertheless, it is proved by Aringhi (Roma Subterran. l. 3, c. 22,) that some were crowned with martyrdom in this reign after the aforesaid rescript, the pusillanimous prince not having courage always to protect these innocent subjects from the fury of the populace or the malice of some governors.

JULY 12TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. FELIX & ST. NARBOR
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 303

The relics of these holy witnesses to the Faith rest in Milan, where a church has been erected over their tomb. St. Ambrose extolled the virtues of these two martyrs who were originally from Africa. In later times, legendary Acts of these saints have appeared, which are imitated from the Acts of other martyrs (Victor, Firmus, and Rusticus). According to these legends, which are without historical value, Nabor and Felix were soldiers from Mauretania Caesariensis, who were serving in the army of the Maximian Herculeus, and were condemned to death in Milan and beheaded in Laus Pompeia (Lodi Vecchio), around the year 303 or 304. Even though they were foreigners and guests, St. Ambrose considered them the mustard seed from which the Church of Milan arose.

To that Church of Milan a pledge from the distant lands of Western Africa was given. They were Mauri genus, that is they came from Mauritania and perhaps belonged to that tribe of Gaetuli that constituted one of the reserves which the armies of the Lower Empire drew on in preference. They were stationed in Milan, then residence of the Augustus Maximian Herculean and also of his choice troops. “Guests of our soil, and passing through our lands”, St Ambrose says of them. Yet they are par excellence the the Milan martyrs, because their true birthday (dies natalis) did not occur in the Gaetulianblood of their bodily mother, but in the blood of martyrdom. Two small glass containers still conserve traces of the blood that, with care, as so often happened, some Christians had gathered.

They were slain by the sword, after being identified as Christians, in that anticipation of Diocletian’s persecution of 297 involving the purging of the army, or in any case by degrading methods for those who refused idolatrous worship.
Nothing of the fabulous or fabricated in this and many other martyrdoms of soldiers.

The army had been for some time then, at least since the mid-third century, the center of imperial power, and along with it, the other power point that was considered essential by the imperial power at that time, was the recovery of ancient religious [pagan] traditions: fidelity to which was demanded from all.

Not by chance had Diocletian and Maximian―the two Augustus’, heads of the Empire―assumed since 289 the titles respectively of Iovius and Herculius, wanting to base their authority through auto-adoption into the family of traditional Roman divinities—in other words, they wanted to be looked upon as gods. This would put them in direct opposition to Christianity with its One True God.

So, Nabor and Felix ― who seem to have been Christians already, as their Passio of the fifth century recounts: and therefore they didn’t even receive the Faith in Milan, as on the other hand St Ambrose seems to suggest in his Inno ― underwent the ritual of interrogation and were pressed into sacrificing to the gods of the Empire. Their refusal involved the capital punishment of execution by decapitation in Lodi, where perhaps an even more conspicuous Christian community to terrorize existed. Their remains, however, removed surreptitiously by a matron, were brought back to Milan and began to be objects of great veneration. Until, that is, Ambrose discovered close to their graves the bodies of Saints Gervasius and Protasius, whose traces had been lost, even though not entirely unknown to the memory of the oldest among the Milanese Christians.

“The old repeat that they have heard the names of these martyrs [Protasius and Gervasius] and read an inscription. The city that stole the martyrs of others had lost its own [Protasius and Gervasius]” writes St. Ambrose. The cult of the ‘re-found’ martyrs supplanted the cult that had been given to Nabor and Felix and so did the new Basilica, built by St Ambrose for Protasius and Gervasius, compared to the small and ancient Naborian Basilica, of which then in modern times, the very traces themselves were lost.

They couldn’t have had any other fate, as St. Ambrose writes: “A mustard seed is indeed a very humble and simple thing: only if you take and break it does it spread its power... A grain of mustard seed are our martyrs Felix, Nabor and Victor: they possessed the fragrance of Faith, but in secret. The persecution came, they laid down their arms, bent their necks; killed by the sword, they spread the grace of their martyrdom to the ends of the world, so that it can be rightly said: in each land their voice was spread.”

But whereas Victor took permanent residence in Milan and separate from his companions in the militia and in martyrdom, the ‘grain’ of the saints Nabor and Felix had not finished spreading its strength to the ends of the world.
The place where they still reposed, increasingly downgraded, had become, by 1200, home to a church and then a Franciscan monastery. In the autumn of 1797, it was used as a barracks first for the Cisalpine cavalry and then for the French troops passing through. Nabor and Felix, “torn away from impious barracks” before their martyrdom― as Saint Ambrose says in the Inno dedicated to them ― ended up in barracks once again!

Burial & Relics
Their bodies were first interred without the walls of the city, but afterwards brought into it, and deposited in a place where a church was built over their tomb, to which great multitudes of people resorted with wonderful devotion, as Paulinus testifies in his life of St. Ambrose. In the same church St. Ambrose discovered the relics of SS. Gervasius and Protasius, as himself relates in his letter to his sister Marcellina. The people continued to venerate the relics of Saints Nabor and Felix with the same ardor of devotion, as that holy doctor assures us. They are still honored in the same church, which at present bears the name of St. Francis.

A pair of saints “Nabor and Felix” were also said to have been martyred at Nicopolis in Lesser Armenia in AD 320 alongside SS “Januarius and Marinus”. They may be distinct, or may have been a merging of the story of the Italian saints with the local couple Januarius and Pelagia. The feast day of Januarius and Pelagia was observed on July 11th and that of the quartet on July 10th.

In early 4th-century, their relics were translated, probably by the Bishop of Milan Maternus from their place of interment to a place outside the walls of Milan, placed a few hundred meters north of the present Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio. A church (Basilica Naboriana) was built over their new tomb, as recorded by Paulinus of Milan in his life of Saint Ambrose. Tradition states that Savina of Milan died while praying at the tomb of Nabor and Felix. Saint Ambrose wrote a hymn about them.

When Emperor Frederick Barbarossa captured Milan in 1158, he gave some of the relics of Saints Felix and Nabor to Rainald of Dassel, archbishop of Cologne, who brought them to his episcopal see. The relics associated with Felix and Nabor are situated in a chapel in Cologne Cathedral. Nabor and Felix are depicted on the 1181 “Shrine of the Three Kings” by Nicholas of Verdun in Cologne Cathedral.

In 1258 their relics were moved to the church of Saint Francis of Assisi that was erected in place of the Basilica Naboriana. On 14th-16th of April, 1798, shortly before the demolition of the church of Saint Francis of Assisi, their relics were transferred to the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio. Their relics are placed today in an ancient sarcophagus in the right nave of Sant’Ambrogio Basilica along with the relics of Saint Maternus and of Saint Valeria.

Feast day
The Roman Catholic Church recognizes Nabor and Felix as martyr saints, inserting them, under the date of July 12th, in the Roman Martyrology, its official list of saints. They were also included in the General Roman Calendar from before the 12th century. with a feast day that was reduced to a commemoration when Saint John Gualbert was added to the calendar in 1595. The 1969 revision removed mention of Nabor and Felix from the General Roman Calendar, but the rules in the Roman Missal published in the same year authorizes celebration of their Mass on their feast day everywhere, unless in some locality an obligatory celebration is assigned to that day.

JULY 13TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. SILAS
Martyred in the First Century, year unknown

Who is Saint Silas?
Though he was never actually martyred in the strict sense, Silas is mentioned in today’s Martyrology on account of his great sufferings in spreading the Faith of Christ. His name occurs twelve times in the Acts of the Apostles; and, in its Latin form Silvanus, once in St. Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians (1:19), once in each of his two Epistles to the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:1), and once in St. Peter’s First Epistle (5:12).

Silas is traditionally assumed to be the Silvanus mentioned in four epistles. Some translations, including the New International Version, call him Silas in the epistles. Paul, Silas and Timothy are listed as co-authors of the two letters to the Thessalonians. Second Corinthians mentions Silas as having preached with Paul and Timothy to the church in Corinth (2 Corinthians 1:19) and Peter’s first epistle regards Silas as a “faithful brother” (1 Peter 5:12).

There is some disagreement over the proper form of his name: he is consistently called “Silas” in Acts, but the Latin Silvanus, which means “of the forest,” is always used by Paul and in the First Epistle of Peter; it may be that “Silvanus” is the Romanized version of the original “Silas,” or that “Silas” is the Greek nickname for “Silvanus.” Silas is thus often identified with Silvanus of the Seventy. Fitzmyer points out that Silas is the Greek version of the Aramaic “Seila,” a version of the Hebrew “Saul,” which is attested in Palmyrene inscriptions.

Silas was one of the leaders of the Church of Jerusalem, who was sent with St. Paul and St. Barnabas to Antioch to communicate the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem to the Gentile community in Syria. When Paul and Barnabas quarreled over John Mark, Silas was chosen by Paul to accompany him on his second missionary journey to Syria, Cilicia, and Macedonia. Silas was beaten and imprisoned with Paul at Philippi, was involved with Paul in the riot of Jews at Thessalonica that drove Paul and Silas from the city to Berea, remained at Berea with Timothy when Paul left, but rejoined him at Corinth. The Silvanus mentioned with Timothy by Paul and who helped him preach at Corinth is believed to be the same as Silas, since Silvanus is a Greek variant of the Semitic Silas. Silvanus is also mentioned as the man through whom Peter communicated and is considered by some scholars to be the author of that epistle. Tradition says he was the first bishop of Corinth and that he died in Macedonia.

1. JERUSALEM
The Apostolic Council. Acts 15. 1-29.
Silas is first mentioned in Acts 15:22, where he and Judas Barsabbas (known often as ‘Judas’) were selected by the church elders to return with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch following the Jerusalem Council. Silas and Judas are mentioned as being leaders among the brothers, prophets and encouraging speakers.

About twenty years after our Lord’s Ascension, Paul and Barnabas, at the end of their first missionary journey, appeal to “the apostles and elders” at Jerusalem for a decision about the pressing question of Gentile converts to Christianity―is it necessary that they should submit to circumcision as well as baptism in order to become members of the Church, and that they should obey the Jewish Law in all its other details? Paul and Barnabas strongly urge the Gentile claim to freedom, and are supported by Peter and by James, “the Lord’s brother,” the “apostle” of the local church of Jerusalem.

Judas Barnabas and Silas, described as “chief men among the brethren,” are chosen to go with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch (where the question was causing great dissension) as bearers of a letter announcing the decision of the council in favor of the Gentiles. They set out northwards to Antioch in Syria. This first appearance of Silas coincides with the last mention of Peter in Acts. Later we shall find them together again in Rome.

2. ANTIOCH
Joy among the Gentiles. Acts 15:30; 16:8.
After the reading of the letter Judas and Silas, “being prophets also themselves,” explain the decrees of the council, amid great con solation. Judas returns to Jerusalem, but Silas prefers to stay in Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. Soon Paul’s thoughts turn anxiously towards the converts of his recent journey, and he plans with Barnabas to re-visit them.

Barnabas wants to take with them again his young relative John Mark, but Paul objects because Mark had suddenly left them during the first journey (Acts 13:13). The disagreement is so sharp that they part company. Barnabas takes Mark and sails to Cyprus, their home, and is heard of no more in Acts. Paul chooses Silas in place of Barnabas, and, “being recommended to the grace of God,” they set off on the second missionary journey.

They pass through Syria and Cilicia (a single Roman province), confirming the churches already founded. Thence they go up through the grim passes of the mighty Taurus Mountains-four or five days’ hard travel, then down to the cities of the plain of Lycaonia in the province of Galatia-Derbe, Lystra, Iconium, re-visiting the churches and delivering the decrees of the council. Here the young Timothy is chosen to join them, taking the place of John Mark. Now the time has come to break new ground. Being “forbidden of the Holy Ghost” to preach in the provinces of Asia and Bithynia, they go on, waiting for divine guidance, until they reach the coast of Mysia at the port of Troas. They have travelled some nine hundred miles on foot since leaving Antioch.

3. TROAS
A man of Macedonia. Acts 16:9-11.
Here at last God’s will is made known to them. At night in a vision a man of Macedonia appears to Paul, beseeching him―”Come over into Macedonia, and help us.” St. Luke, the author of Acts, now for the first time uses the words “we” and “us” in describing events; this is generally taken to mean that he joined Paul, Silas and Timothy here in Troas. They waste no time, but take ship and go by the island of Samothracia to the port of Neapolis, making the passage of 125 miles in two days. At Neapolis they are now in Europe, treading the Egnatian Way on the main route towards Rome. Four heralds of Christ―St. Paul, St. Silas, St. Timothy and St. Luke―enter for the first time upon the scene of his greatest future victories.

4. PHILIPPI
Stripes and Imprisonment. Acts 16:12-40.
Here, in “the chief city of that part of Macedonia, and a colony,” the missionaries preach to a body of women by a river-side, as there is no synagogue. Among the Macedonians, a tough and hardy race, women enjoyed unusual independence. One of the number, Lydia, “a seller of purple,” is baptized with her household, and Paul and his companions make their headquarters in her home.

Trouble begins when an evil spirit, speaking through a girl medium who repeatedly hails the missionaries as “the servants of the most high God,” is exorcized by Paul. Her employers, seeing the hope of their gains gone, drag Paul and Silas to the market-place and accuse them before the magistrates of teaching customs unlawful for Romans to observe. The opposition is on personal and civic grounds, not directly religious ones. With the arrest St. Luke drops the “we” and speaks only of “Paul and Silas,” seeming to show that neither he nor Timothy is involved.

Paul and Silas, without trial, are stripped and beaten with many stripes, and thrown into the inner prison, their feet being made fast in the stocks.

At midnight the other prisoners hear them praying and singing praises to God in the midst of their affliction. Suddenly there is a great earthquake, breaking their chains, shaking the prison to its foundations and wrenching the doors out of their sockets. Silas is thus sometimes depicted in art carrying broken chains.

The prison-governor, waking up in his house and rushing out, sees the prison doors open and draws his sword to kill himself, thinking that the prisoners have escaped in the darkness and confusion, and that he will be put to death for negligence. Paul restrains him, assuring him that all the prisoners are there. The governor falls trembling at the feet of Paul and Silas, asking, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They tell him to “believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.” He takes them to his house, washes their stripes and gives them food, while they speak “the word of the Lord” to him and his household, and baptize them.

In the morning the magistrates send word to the governor by the sergeants (lictors) to release Paul and Silas. But Paul refuses to be dismissed in this way, saying that the magistrates, having broken the law by beating Roman citizens uncondemned, should come themselves and make some amends by formally conducting them out. The magistrates are alarmed when they hear that Paul and Silas are Roman citizens; they come and implore them to go away quietly. Paul and Silas return to Lydia’s house, and, after comforting the brethren, set out again on their travels.

They leave at Philippi two church-households, Lydia’s and the prison-governor’s, to be the nucleus of that church for which later Paul in his epistle to them gives thanks for their fellowship in the gospel from this first day “until now” (about ten years later). From them, and from them alone, he could bring himself to accept money for his own needs (Philippians 1:4-5, 4:15-18).

5. THESSALONICA
Labor and Work. Acts 17:1-10.
They pass westwards along the Egnatian Way through Amphipolis and Apollonia to Thessalonica (the modern Saloniki), the capital of the province of Macedonia. The Epistles written later to the Thessalonians suggest a longer stay than the three weeks mentioned in v.2, and St. Paul says that he and Silas and Timothy worked for their own living while they were there (1 Thessalonians 2:9). It was the Jewish custom to teach all boys some manual trade, and Paul’s was tent-making (Acts 1:3).

At Thessalonica there is a synagogue, where Paul preaches that Jesus is Christ. Some converts are made, not only among the Jews, but also “of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few.” But unbelieving Jews stir up a rabble and attack the house of Jason, expecting to find Paul and Silas who are, however, in hiding. The Jews drag Jason and others before “the rulers of the city” (politarchs), crying, “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also; whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus.”

This Jewish opposition takes its stand outwardly on civic grounds, and recalls the words of our Lord’s accusers before Pilate―“We have no king but Caesar!” The rulers of the city are not so hasty as the magistrates at Philippi; they take security of Jason and the others, and let them go. Paul and Silas are smuggled out by night and sent to Berea, about forty miles to the southwest.

Note on “politarchs.” This title has not been met with in classical literature, and so it was once quoted as a proof of St. Luke’s inaccuracy, not to say powers of invention. In fact it proves to be exactly the reverse. The scholars who made that criticism were unaware that, at the very time they were writing, there was standing at Saloniki a Roman triumphal arch, erected probably in the first century after Christ, on which the word ‘politarch’ was engraved in large letters. Unfortunately the arch was destroyed in 1867, but the block containing the word was rescued and is now to be seen in the British Museum.

6. BEREA
Jews more Noble. Acts 17:11-14.
At Berea (the modern Verria) there is a synagogue, and here the Jews are “more noble” than those at Thessalonica, listening readily to the Gospel, and searching the scriptures daily. Many of them are converted; “also of honorable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few.” But Jews from Thessalonica come along and stir up strife, and Paul is sent away in haste with an escort “to go as it were to the sea.” Silas and Timothy remain; this is the first mention of Timothy by name since he joined the others. Those who conducted Paul take him to Athens; they return with an urgent message for Silas and Timothy to join him there. It is while he waits impatiently for them at Athens that his spirit is stirred in him as he sees the great city “wholly given to idolatry.” But soon after they arrive he sends them back to Macedonia, because of his anxiety for the converts there. Timothy goes to Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 3:1-3), but nothing is said about Silas. The “we”―of 1 Thessalonians 3:1―may refer to both Paul and Silas as thinking it good to be left at Athens alone; but if Silas came he left again, for later both he and Timothy arrive at Corinth “from Macedonia.”

7. CORINTH
Two Epistles. Acts 18:1-11.
Paul leaves Athens and goes to Corinth. Silas and Timothy return from Macedonia, the latter with good news of the steadfastness of the converts in Thessalonica (1 Thessalonians 3:6). This is the last mention of Silas in Acts. Paul stays here for eighteen months, working at his trade. During this time “Paul and Silvanus and Timothy” address the two Epistles to the Thessalonians. Paul, writing back to the Corinthians after he had left, reminds them of the teaching given to them by himself and Silvanus and Timothy (2 Corinthians 1:19).

8. ROME
The Faithful Brother.
The First Epistle General of Peter is written from Rome (“Babylon”), and is sent “by Silvanus, a faithful brother.” Some authors, commenting on 1 Peter, say that there is no reason for disputing the identity of this Silvanus with the one who is named in the two Epistles to the Thessalonians, nor the identity of Silvanus with the Silas of Acts. The “bearer” of an epistle was much more than a post-man, and Peter’s phrase “I have written briefly” suggests that Silas is to explain the letter, as Judas and Silas were directly commissioned to explain the letter from Peter and the other Apostles at Jerusalem about fourteen years before.

Silas leaves Rome and travels eastwards again, carrying the letter to the churches to whom it is addressed in “Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.” In these last two provinces Paul and Silas had previously been forbidden to preach by the Holy Ghost.

“In Macedonia (the death) of blessed Silas, who, being one of the first brethren and sent by the Apostles to the churches of the Gentiles with Paul and Barnabas, was full of the grace of God, and readily fulfilled the office of preaching; and, glorifying Christ in his sufferings, was afterwards at rest.” (From the Roman Martyrology for July the thirteenth, the date on which the feast of Saint Silas is generally observed).

JULY 14TH
The Martyr of the Day
BLESSED RICHARD LANGHORNE
Martyred in the Seventeenth Century, around 1679

An English martyr, Blessed Richard was educated in the Inner Temple and was a lawyer. He helped the Jesuits with legal and financial advice. Married to a Protestant woman, both of Blessed Richard’s sons became priests.

Over the years, Blessed Richard was arrested and held in prison for long periods of time on “trumped up” charges. In the end, he was arrested in connection with the so-called “Popish-Plot”, sentenced to death and executed.

Here follows an ancient account of the whole affair.

Richard Langhorne was an eminent counsellor at law, an upright and religious man; who being a zealous catholic was pitched upon by Oates and his associates, as a proper person to impeach as a ring-leader in their pretended plot. He was therefore apprehended among the first that fell into the hands of those miscreants and committed to Newgate prison, October the 7th, 1678, and after above eight months close imprisonment, he was tried at the Old Bailey courthouse on Saturday the 14th of June, 1679.

Here Oates swore, that he (Mr. Langhorne) was acquainted with the consultations for killing the king, and was consenting to them and that he had in his custody the patent for the lords in the Tower (Powis, Stafford, Petre, Arundel, and Bellasia) and one for himself to be advocate of the army. And Bedloe swore that he had seen him register treasonable letters relating to the plot. In answer to this evidence he called the same witnesses that had been brought the day before (by the five Jesuits) to prove Oates perjured.

And whereas Oates had named Mrs. Groves’ house, in which he said he lay daring the time of the consult, he produced Mrs. Grove to testify he never was there about that time, which was confirmed by her maid. He argued also many things relating to the improbability of the evidence, but the times were not yet cool enough to bear reason: no that he was brought in guilty, and condemned with the five Jesuits, who were tried the day before him.

He was reprieved for some time in hoped that he would make discoveries; but he persisted to the last in affirming that he could make none, and that all that was sworn against him was false. He spent the time allowed him in writing some devout and well-composed meditations. So far the continuator of Baker’s Chronicle.

The Minutes of the Trial
The following minute copied from the journals of the House of Lords verifies the statement of close imprisonment:

“Die Mortis 17 Decembris, 1679. The Earl of Shaftesbury reported that the Lords who had leave of this house to examine a prisoner in Newgate, had some conversations with Mr. Langhorne, but could get nothing from him, but found by reason of the great strictness he is kept under, that he did not know of the execution of Mr. Coleman, the opinion of their Lord-ships is, that the said Mr. Langhorne may have some liberty given him, whereby he may have such access of friends, as is necessary for him to have.”

Mr. Langhorne was a man of considerable talents and learning. A manuscript history of the Anglo-Saxon Church, supposed to have been written by him, is preserved in the London library of the English Benedictines, and his devotional tracts published in the Remonstrance of Piety and Innocence, are written in such an affecting strain of piety and of perfect submission to the divine will, that they cannot fail of producing a sensible emotion in the heart of even the most volatile reader. It was Mr. Langhorne’s misfortune to be married to a lady of very different dispositions to himself she was also a Protestant and a most bitter enemy to the religion of her husband, and to such a length was she carried by her prejudices, that casting off the feelings of a mother, she had the hardihood to appear at the bar of the house of lords a willing witness against her own son, for no other reason than because he was a Roman Catholic.

The following minutes copied from the journals of the House of Lords, furnish some particulars relative to this affair:

“Die luvia 31 Octobris, 1678. Post Meridiem.—Mary White, upon oath, deposed at the bar, that about Christmas last, she did hear Richard Langhorne say, that if one thing did hit, his father would be the third man in the kingdom hereupon the house made this order. Upon oath made at the bar, that Richard Langhorne, son to Mr. Langhorne now prisoner in Newgate, hath uttered dangerous words, It is ordered by the lords spiritual arid temporal in parliament assembled, that Sir Edward Carteret, gentleman, usher of the black rod, attending this house, or his deputy, do forthwith attack the body of the said Richard Langhorne, and bring him in safe custody to the bar of this house, and this shall be a sufficient warrant on that behalf.”

“Die Jovis Septima Novembris, 1678. Next Richard Langhorne the younger, was brought to the bar, and Mary White was produced as a witness against him, who being asked whether she did know the said Richard Langhorne and what she had to any concerning him, she answered, that ahe did know the said Richard Langhorne, and she did hear the said Richard Langhorne say he did not doubt, but if one thing hit, his father would be the third man in the kingdom — Langhorne confessed he knew the said Mary White, but denied he spoke any such words, and said, why should he say anything to her, who was an enemy to Catholics.

“Then Mary Phinner, upon her oath, said that she was told by Mrs. Langhorne, mother to the said Richard, that she went recently to her son’s chamber, and found him very jovial, whereupon she asked him how he could be merry, seeing there was a warrant against him upon account of bringing the commission to his father to be judge advocate, he replied, he did not fear, nor would he flee; at which Mrs. Langhorne said, none but a prince could make generals; to which he said, let them bring it to that.

“Then Mrs. Langhorne said, she was at her son Richard’s chamber, and he said to her those words as Mary Flintier had deposed. Ordered, that Richard Langhorne be returned to the prison of Newgate; and the keeper of Newgate was called in, and charged he should have a great care of this prisoner, and not suffer any person to speak with him.” [Here end the minutes taken during the trial]

Martyrdom and Final Speech
Mr. Langhorne was drawn to Tyburn on the 14th day of July, 1679 where he delivered to Mr. How, the sheriff, the speech which he had prepared, desiring it might be published. It still exists in print (published with Mr. Langhorne’s memoirs and devotions) and contains:

1. An ample declaration of his allegiance to the king.
2. A solemn profession of his innocence, as to all the matters of which he was accused by Oates and Bedloe.
3. A declaration, that he believed it would be a damnable sin in him, to conceal any treason or treasonable design whatsoever against his majesty’s person and government, and that no power in earth or even in Heaven could dispense with him to tell a lie, or to commit any sin, or do any evil that good might come of it.

All which, as he solemnly professed in the presence of God, and as he hoped for any benefit from the passion of Christ, was understood by him in the plain and ordinary sense and acceptation of the words, without any evasion, or equivocation, or mental reservation. After which he goes on as follows:

“Having made this declaration and protestation in the most plain terms that I can possibly imagine to express my sincere loyalty and innocence, and the clear intention of my soul, I leave it to the judgment of all good and charitable persons whether they will believe what is here in this manner affirmed, and sworn by me in my present circumstances, or what is aware by my accusers.

“I do now further declare, that I die a member (though an unworthy one) of that Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, mentioned in the three holy and public creeds of which Church our Lord Jesus Christ is the invisible head of influence, to illuminate, guide, protect and govern it by His Holy Spirit and grace, and of which Church the Bishop of Rome, as the successor of St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, is the visible head of government and unity.

“I take it to be clear, that my religion is the sole cause which moved my accusers to charge me with the crime, for which upon their evidence I am adjudged to die, and that my being of that religion which I here profess, was the only ground which could give them any hope to be believed, or which could move my jury to believe the evidence of such men.

“I have had not only a pardon, but also great advantages, as to preferments and estates offered unto me, since this judgment was against me, in case I would have forsaken my religion, and owned myself guilty of the crime charged against me, and charged the some crimes upon others: but blessed be my God, who by his grace hath preserved me from yielding to those temptations, and strengthened me rather to choose this death, than to stain my soul with sin, and to charge others against truth, with crimes of which I do not know that any person is guilty.

“Having said what concerns me to say as to myself, I now humbly beseech God to bless the king’s majesty with all temporal and eternal blessings, and to preserve him and his government from all treason and traitors whatsoever, and that his majesty may never fall into such hands, as his royal father of glorious memory fell into.

“I also humbly beseech thee, O God, to give true repentance and pardon to all my enemies, and most particularly to the said Mr. Oates and Mr. Bedloe, and to all who have been any ways accessary to the taking away of my life, and the shedding of my innocent blood, or to the preventing the king’s mercy from being extended onto me and likewise to all those who rejoiced at the judgment given against me, or at the execution of the said judgment; and to all those who are or shall be no unchristianly uncharitable, as to disbelieve, and to refuse to give credit unto my now protestations.

“And I beseech Thee, O my God, to bless this whole nation, and not to lay the guilt of my blood unto the charge of this nation, or of any other particular person or persons of this nation, Unite all, O my God, unto Thee and Thy church, by true Faith, Hope, and Charity, for Thy mercies’ sake.

“And for all those who have showed charity to me, I humbly beg, O my Jesus, that Thou wilt reward them with all blessings both temporal and eternal.”

So far his printed speech, of which he could speak but a small part at the place of his execution.

When the hangman was patting the rope over his head, he took it into his hands and kissed it. Then after having spoken something to the sheriff, he asked the executioner whether the rope was right or not? He said, “Yes!” and asked him whether he did forgive him; to which Mr. Langhorne replied, “I freely do!” Then he betook himself to his prayers, recommending himself to God in silence.

The writer said to him, “The Lord have mercy on your soul!” Mr. Langhorne answered, “The Lord in Heaven reward your charity!” Then crossing himself, he prayed again. “Blessed Jesus, into Thy hands I recommend my soul and spirit; now, at this instant, take me into Paradise. I am desirous to be with my Jesus. I am ready, and you need stay no longer for me!” So that the cart was drawn away, and he was executed.

After these trials and executions, and the dying protestations of so many men, to whose lives and morals nothing could be objected, the people began by degrees to open their eyes, and not to give such full credit to the oaths of those profligate wretches Oates and Bedloe. So that when Sir George Wakeman, and the three monks, Mr. Corker, Mr. Marsh, and Mr. Rumley, were brought upon their trial at the Old Bailey courthouse, July the 16th, both judge and jury plainly discovered that no regard was to be had to the swearing of those miscreants; and the prisoners were all brought in “not guilty”. And from this time the credit of the plot very much declined. However, the persecution against Catholics still continued, by which many priests were condemned to die for their character, of whom we shall later treat, according to the order of time in which they suffered.

JULY 15TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. ANTIOCHUS OF SULCIS
Martyred in the First Century, around 127

St. Antiochus of Sulcis was an early Christian martyr of Sardinia, who was martyred around 127 AD. The island and town of Sant’Antioco are named after him.

Antiochus, a native of Cappadocian Sebastea, was the brother of the holy Martyr Platon (feast day November 18th), and he was a physician. He came from a region of North Africa, Mauritania, which today corresponds to the current Morocco in Algeria.

At that time it was a Roman province during the reign of Hadrian and Christians were persecuted. Antiochus was a doctor who he believed and professed Christ’s word so he had no choice but to emigrate. He was forced to embark on a journey of luck that brought him into the Sardinian coast. The Emperor Hadrian was not particularly bad, but at that time there were too many riots in North Africa and to quell the riots he decided to put the saint in a boat along with a centurion named Cyriacus and reached Sulcis, a Roman city.

Antiochus was condemned to work the mines on the island that now bears his name. The island, inhospitable and isolated during this period, was named Plumbaria at the time, after its source of lead (plumbum). He had converted many people in Cappadocia and Galatia to the Christian religion, and was therefore tortured and sent into exile by the authorities.

The pagans learned that he was a Christian, and they brought him to trial and subjected him to fierce tortures. Thrown into boiling water, the saint remained unharmed. He was then given over to be eaten by wild beasts, but they did not harm him. Instead, the beasts lay peacefully at his feet.

Through the prayers of the martyr many miracles were worked and the idols crumbled into dust. The pagans then beheaded St Antiochus. Witnessing the terrible treatment of the innocent saint and upon seeing milk flowing from his wounds instead of blood, Cyriacus, his executioner, was converted to Christ. He confessed his Faith in Christ before everyone and was also beheaded. They buried the martyrs side by side.

Some say he was martyred in Sardinia rather than Sebaste.

JULY 16TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. ATHENOGENES
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 350

The lesser-known saints of the Church have been brought to light primarily through the efforts of studious monks and scholars after hours of diligent research and considerable shuffling of church papers from which the facts are gleaned. In the case of St. Athenogenes, it is quite another matter. He was of such inestimable value to the cause of Christianity, and such an eminent and beloved churchman, that his feats have been recorded, not only by scholarly researchers, but by the great St. Basil as well. No greater tribute could be paid a man of the Church than to be recognized and acknowledged as a man of God by another later and better-known man of God. St. Basil’s honorable place in the history of saints is assured for eternity.

All indications are that Athenogenes, who was born in the third century in Sebasteia and who served as bishop of Pidathoa in Armenia, was one of Christendom’s most compassionate clerics. He was a man whose gentle sincerity was evident throughout a lifetime of service to God and mankind in an outpouring of love and understanding, meriting the plaudits of his people and St. Basil. His short life was a fulfillment of a pledge to Jesus Christ when he was quite young, and his death in flames was a sacrifice which was made with the joy of the Holy Spirit in his heart.

Athenogenes has been immortalized in the hymns of the noted hymnographer Joseph who attests in liturgy to the quiet courage and enduring Faith of one of Christianity’s most noble martyrs. Athenogenes is said to have gone to his death singing the evening Vespers hymn entitled “Phos Hilaron” (Joyful Light). The hymn he chose to chant as he was about to die has been sung for centuries in Vespers of the Byzantine liturgy.

Athenogenes would rather have been known for his pious work while alive, but he is best remembered for his courageous tribute to the Lord in his final moments. The entire hymn bears quotation, even though it lacks the solemnity of the chant. Its words are: “Joyful light of the Holy Glory of the Immortal Father, the Heavenly, the Holy, the Blessed Jesus Christ, we have come to the setting of the sun and beholding the evening light, praise God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is meet at all times that thou shouldst be hymned with auspicious voices. Son of God, Giver of Life; wherefore the world glorifieth thee.”

Of Athenogenes, the great St. Basil had this to say. “The people use these ancient words, and no one accuses them of blasphemy for singing ‘We praise Father, Son and God’s Holy Spirit.’ If you are familiar with the hymn of Athenogenes, which he left as a gift to his disciples as he went to his martyrdom by fire, then you know what the martyrs think concerning the Spirit” (St. Basil, On the Holy Spirit, Chapter 29).

When Athenogenes was arrested, the form of death prescribed for him was fire. But the fiery consummation is subordinated to the fact that he approached this ghastly end with a joyous countenance, praising Jesus Christ for whom he gave his life on July 16th, in 305 AD. Athenogenes was laid to rest in the Chapel of St. George in Kyparissia in a remote mountain region of Asia Minor. What ensued after his death was a departure from the expected creation of a shrine. In fact, it was a highly unusual phenomenon that started when he was still alive.

It is said that when Athenogenes received prior knowledge of his death sentence, he went to warn his followers in a monastery which he found empty. As he was leaving, a young deer emerged from the woods and Athenogenes, surprised that the timid creature did not bolt as he approached, stroked the animal and blessed it as he left.

On the first anniversary of his death, a liturgy in his memory was being offered in the Chapel of St. George, when a young fawn walked into the church and stood stock-still as though in reverence of the saint. It was assumed the creature happened to stray into the church, but that was not the habit of timid deer. When it occurred again the following July 16th and on subsequent anniversaries, it was a certainty that this was not an accident, but a divine sign which can be interpreted only as an act of God.

JULY 17TH
The Martyrs of the Day
THE SIXTEEN CARMELITE SISTERS OF COMPIÈGNE
Martyred in the Eighteenth Century, around 1794

The French Revolution reveals the titanic struggle between good and evil. During the terror, over 40,000 Frenchmen were executed just for holding fast to the Catholic Faith and objecting to the worst excesses of the Committee of Public Safety. The blood lost in the years of 1792-1794 staggers the imagination even in the retelling and the campaign against the Church was as diabolical as it was cruel.

Contemplative religious communities had been among the first targets of the fury of the French Revolution against the Catholic Church. Less than a year from May 1789 when the Revolution began with the meeting of the Estates-General, these communities had been required by law to disband. But many of them continued in being, in hiding.

Among these were the community of the Carmelite nuns of Compiègne, in northeastern France, not far from Paris ― the fifty-third convent in France of the Carmelite sisters, who followed the reform of St. Teresa of Avila, founded in 1641, noted throughout its history for fidelity and fervor.

Their convent was raided in August 1790, all the property of the sisters was seized by the government, and they were forced to discard their habits and leave their house. They divided into four groups which found lodging in four different houses all near the same church in Compiègne, and for several years they were to a large extent able to continue their religious life in secret. But the intensified surveillance and searches of the “Great Terror” revealed their secret, and in June 1794 most of them were arrested and imprisoned.

They had expected this; indeed, they had prayed for it. At some time during the summer of 1792, very likely just after the events of August 10 of that year that marked the descent into the true deeps of the Revolution, their prioress, Madeleine Lidoine, whose name in religion was Teresa in honor of the founder of their order, by all accounts a charming, perceptive, and highly intelligent woman, had foreseen much of what was to come. At Easter of 1792, she told her community that, while looking through the archives she had found the account of a dream a Carmelite had in 1693. In that dream, the Sister saw the whole Community, with the exception of 2 or 3 Sisters, in glory and called to follow the Lamb. In the mind of the Prioress, this mean martyrdom and might well be a prophetic announcement of their fate.

Mother Teresa had said to her sisters: “Having meditated much on this subject, I have thought of making an act of consecration by which the Community would offer itself as a sacrifice to appease the anger of God, so that the divine peace of His Dear Son would be brought into the world, returned to the Church and the state.” The sisters discussed her proposal and all agreed to it but the two oldest, who were hesitant. But when the news of the September massacres came, mingling glorious martyrdom with apostasy, these two sisters made their choice, joining their commitment to that of the rest of the community. All made their offering; it was to be accepted.

After their lodgings were invaded again in June, their devotional objects shattered and their tabernacle trampled underfoot by a Revolutionary who told them that their place of worship should be transformed into a dog kennel, the Carmelite sisters were taken to the Conciergerie prison, where so many of the leading victims of the guillotine had been held during their last days on earth. There they composed a canticle for their martyrdom, to be sung to the familiar tune of the Marseillaise. The original still exists, written in pencil and given to one of their fellow prisoners, a lay woman who survived.

“Give over our hearts to joy, the day of glory has arrived,
Far from us all weakness, seeing the standard come;
We prepare for the victory, we all march to the true conquest,
Under the flag of the dying God we run, we all seek the glory;
Rekindle our ardor, our bodies are the Lord’s,
We climb, we climb the scaffold and give ourselves back to the Victor.
O happiness ever desired for Catholics of France, To follow the wondrous road
Already marked out so often by the martyrs toward their suffering,
After Jesus with the King, we show our Faith to Christians,
We adore a God of justice; as the fervent priest, the constant faithful,
Seal, seal with all their blood Faith in the dying God....
Holy Virgin, our model, August queen of martyrs, deign to strengthen our zeal
And purify our desires, protect France even yet, help; us mount to Heaven,
Make us feel even in these places, the effects of your power. Sustain your children,
Submissive, obedient, dying, dying with Jesus and in our King believing.”

On July 17 the sixteen sisters were brought before Fouquier-Tinville. All cases were now being disposed of within twenty-four hours as Robespierre had wished; theirs was no exception. They were charged with having received arms for the émigrés; their prioress, Sister Teresa, answered by holding up a crucifix. “Here are the only arms that we have ever had in our house.”
They were charged with possessing an altar-cloth with designs honoring the old monarchy (perhaps the fleur-de-lis) and were asked to deny any attachment to the royal family.
Sister Teresa responded: “If that is a crime, we are all guilty of it; you can never tear out of our hearts the attachment for Louis XVI and his family. Your laws cannot prohibit feeling; they cannot extend their empire to the affections of the soul; God alone has the right to judge them.”

They were charged with corresponding with priests forced to leave the country because they would not take the constitutional oath; they freely admitted this.
Finally they were charged with the catchall indictment by which any serious Catholic in France could be guillotined during the Terror: “fanaticism.”
Sister Henriette, who had been Gabrielle de Croissy, challenged Fouguier-Tinvile to his face: “Citizen, it is your duty to respond to the request of one condemned; I call upon you to answer us and to tell us just what you mean by the word ‘fanatic.’”
“I mean,” snapped the Public Prosecutor of the Terror, “your attachment to your childish beliefs and your silly religious practices.”
“Let us rejoice, my dear Mother and Sisters, in the joy of the Lord,” said Sister Henriette, “that we shall die for our holy religion, our Faith, our confidence in the Holy Roman Catholic Church.”

While in prison, they asked and were granted permission to wash their clothes. As they had only one set of lay clothes, they put on their religious habit and set to the task. Providentially, the revolutionaries picked that “wash day” for their transfer to Paris. As their clothes were soaking wet, the Carmelites left for Paris wearing their “outlawed” religious habit. They celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in prison, wondering whether they would die that day.

It was only the next day they went to the guillotine. The journey in the carts took more than an hour. All the way the Carmelite sisters sang: the “Miserere,” “Salve Regina,” and “Te Deum.” Beholding them, a total silence fell on the raucous, brutal crowd, most of them cheapened and hardened by day after day of the spectacle of public slaughter. At the foot of the towering killing machine, their eyes raised to Heaven, the sisters sang “Veni Creator Spiritus.” One by one, they renewed their religious vows. They pardoned their executioners. One observer cried out: “Look at them and see if they do not have the air of angels! By my Faith, if these women did not all go straight to Paradise, then no one is there!”

Sister Teresa, their prioress, requested and obtained permission to go last under the knife. The youngest, Sister Constance, went first. She climbed the steps of the guillotine “With the air of a queen going to receive her crown,” singing Laudate Dominum omnes gentes, ”all peoples praise the Lord.” She placed her head in the position for death without allowing the executioner to touch her. Each sister followed her example, those remaining singing likewise with each, until only the prioress was left, holding in her hand a small figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The killing of each martyr required about two minutes. It was about eight o’clock in the evening, still bright at midsummer. During the whole time the profound silence of the crowd about the guillotine endured unbroken.

Two years before when the horror began, the Carmelite community at Compiègne had offered itself as a holocaust, that peace might be restored to France and the Church. The return of full peace was still twenty-one years in the future. But the Reign of Terror had only ten days left to run. Years of war, oppression and persecution were yet to come, but the mass official killing in the public squares of Paris was about to end. The Cross had vanquished the guillotine.

These sixteen holy Carmelite nuns have all been beatified by Pope St. Pius X, May 27th. 1906, which is the last step before canonization. Blessed Carmelites of Compiègne, pray for us!

JULY 18TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. SYMPHOROSA & HER SEVEN SONS
Martyred in the Second Century, around 150

Trajan’s persecution, in some degree, continued during the first year of Adrian’s reign, in which Sulpicius Severus places the fourth general persecution under this emperor. However, he put a stop to the persecution about the year 124, moved probably both by the apologies of Quadratus and Aristides, and by a letter which Serenius Granianus, proconsul of Asia, had written to him in favor of the Christians. He had Christ in veneration, not as the Savior of the world, but as a wonder or novelty, and kept his image together with that of Apollonius Tyanæus. God was pleased to permit, that his afflicted Church might enjoy some respite.

It was, however, again involved in the disgrace which the Jews (with whom the Pagans at these times in some degree confounded the Christians) drew upon themselves by their rebellion, which gave occasion to the last entire destruction of Jerusalem in 134. Then, as St. Paulinus informs us, the Emperor Adrian had a statue of Jupiter to be erected on the place where Christ rose from the dead, and a marble Venus on the place of his crucifixion; and at Bethlehem, a grotto consecrated in honor of Adonis or Thammuz, to whom he also dedicated the cave where Christ was born.

This prince towards the end of his reign abandoned himself more than ever to acts of cruelty, and, being awakened by a fit of superstition, he again drew his sword against the innocent flock of Christ.

He built a magnificent country palace at Tibur, now Tivoli, sixteen miles from Rome, upon the most agreeable banks of the river Anio, now called Teverone. Here he placed whatever could be procured most curious out of all the provinces. Having finished the building he intended to dedicate it by heathenish ceremonies, which he began by offering sacrifices, in order to induce the idols to deliver their oracles. The demons answered: “The widow Symphorosa and her seven sons daily torment us by invoking their God; if they sacrifice, we promise to be favorable to your vows.”

This lady lived, with her seven sons, upon a plentiful estate, which they enjoyed at Tivoli, and she generously used her treasures in assisting the poor, especially in relieving the Christians who suffered for the Faith. She was widow of St. Getulius or Zoticus, who had been crowned with martyrdom, with his brother St. Amantius. They were both tribunes of legions or colonels in the army, and are honored among the martyrs on the 10th of June. Symphorosa had buried their bodies in her own farm, and, sighing to see her sons and herself united with them in immortal bliss, she prepared herself to follow them by the most fervent exercise of all good works.

Adrian, whose superstition was alarmed at this answer of his gods or their priests, ordered her and her sons to be seized, and brought before him. She came with joy in her countenance, praying all the way for herself and her children, that God would grant them the grace to confess his holy name with constancy.

The emperor exhorted them at first in mild terms to sacrifice. Symphorosa answered: “My husband Getulius and his brother Amantius, being your tribunes, have suffered divers torments for the name of Jesus Christ rather than sacrifice to idols; and they have vanquished your demons by their death, choosing to be beheaded rather than to be overcome. The death they suffered drew upon them ignominy among men, but glory among the angels; and they now enjoy eternal life in Heaven.”

The emperor changing his voice, said to her in an angry tone: “Either sacrifice to the most powerful gods, with thy sons, or thou thyself shalt be offered up as a sacrifice together with them.”

Symphorosa answered: “Your gods cannot receive me as a sacrifice; but if I am burnt for the name of Jesus Christ my death will increase the torment which your devils endure in their flames. But can I hope for so great a happiness as to be offered with my children a sacrifice to the true and living God?”

Adrian said: “Either sacrifice to my gods, or you shall all miserably perish.”

Symphorosa said: “Do not imagine that fear will make me change; I am desirous to be at rest with my husband whom you put to death for the name of Jesus Christ.”

The emperor then ordered her to be carried to the temple of Hercules, where she was first beaten on the cheeks, and afterwards hung up by the hair of her head. When no torments were able to shake her invincible soul, the emperor gave orders that she should be thrown into the river with a great stone fastened about her neck. Her brother Eugenius, who was one of the chief of the council of Tibur, took up her body, and buried it on the road near that town.

The next day the emperor sent for her seven sons all together, and exhorted them to sacrifice and not imitate the obstinacy of their mother. He added the severest threats, but finding all to be in vain, he ordered seven stakes with engines and pulleys to be planted round the temple of Hercules, and the pious youths to be bound upon them; their limbs were in this posture tortured and stretched in such a manner that the bones were disjointed in all parts of their bodies.

The young noblemen, far from yielding under the violence of their tortures, were encouraged by each other’s example, and seemed more eager to suffer than the executioners were to torment.

At length the emperor commanded them to be put to death, in the same place where they were, different ways. The eldest called Crescens had his throat cut; the second called Julian was stabbed in the chest; Nemesius the third was pierced with a lance in his heart; Primativus received his wound in the stomach, Justin was stabbed in the back, Stacteus was stabbed on his sides, and Eugenius the youngest died by his body being torn asunder into two parts across his breast from the head downwards.

The emperor came the next day to the temple of Hercules, and gave orders for a deep hole to be dug, and all the bodies of these martyrs to be thrown into it. The place was called by the heathen priest, The seven Biothanati; which word signifies in Greek and in the style of art magic, such as die by a violent death, particularly such as were put to the torture.

After this, a stop was put to the persecution for about eighteen months. During which interval of peace the Christians took up the remains of these martyrs, and interred them with honor on the Tiburtine road, in the midway between Tivoli and Rome, where still are seen some remains of a church erected in memory of them in a place called to this day, The Seven Brothers. Their bodies were transferred, by Pope Stephen, into the church of the Holy Angel of the Pool (Sant’angelo della Piscina) in Rome, where they were found in the pontificate of Pius IV with an inscription on a plate which mentioned this transferal.

St. Symphorosa set not before the eyes of her children the advantages of their riches and birth, or of their father’s honorable employments and great exploits; but those of his piety and the triumph of his martyrdom. She continually entertained them on the glory of Heaven, and the happiness of treading in the steps of our Divine Redeemer, by the practice of humility, patience, resignation, and charity, which virtues are best learned in the path of humiliations and sufferings. In these a Christian finds his solid treasure, and his unalterable peace and joy both in life and death. The honors, riches, applause, and pleasures with which the worldly sinner is sometimes surrounded, can never satiate his desires; often they do not even reach his heart, which under this gorgeous show bleeds as it were inwardly, while silent grief, like a worm at the core, preys upon his vitals. Death at last always draws aside the curtain, and shows them to have been no better than mere dreams and shadows which passed in a moment, but have left a cruel sting behind them, which fills the mind with horror, dread, remorse, and despair, and racks the whole soul with confusion, perplexities, and alarms.

JULY 19TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. JUSTA & ST. RUFINA
Martyred in the Third Century, around 287

St. Justa and St. Rufina, Virgins and Martyrs, were two Christian women living at Seville in Spain, in the neighborhood of Triana. Tradition states that they were sisters and natives of Seville. Justa was born in 268 AD, Rufina in 270 AD, of a poor but pious Christian family. The sisters supported themselves by making and selling beautiful clay pots (they are today the patron saints of potters). They always gave some of their earnings to people in need. Like many other merchants, they sold their pottery from booths set up out of doors in the village where people could see them.

People who were celebrating a pagan festival, honoring the Roman gods, came to the sisters’ booth. They wanted to buy pots to use in their ceremonies of worship. Justa and Rufina refused, explaining that they were followers of Christ and did not believe in false gods. The pagan worshippers became angry. They broke all of the Justa’s and Rufina’s pottery, smashing everything to the ground. The sisters responded to this by breaking an image of Venus, one of the pagan gods. They were arrested immediately.

The sisters were brought before the governor, Diogenianus. He demanded that they give up their Faith. They refused by boldly and fearlessly confessing Christ in the presence of the governor. Diogenianus then commanded them to walk barefoot to the Sierra Morena; when this did not break their resolve, they were imprisoned without food or water, whereby they suffered greatly from hunger and thirst, but they stayed firm in the confession of their Faith.

Still failing to break their resolve, Diogenianus ordered that they be tortured and stretched on the rack and their sides to be torn with iron hooks. An idol was placed near the rack, with incense, with the condition that if they would offer sacrifice to the false god, they would be released; but their fidelity was not to be shaken. Justa died on the rack and her body was thrown into a well, later to be recovered by the local bishop, Sabinus.

Diogenianus believed that the death of Justa would break the resolve of Rufina. However, Rufina refused to renounce her Faith and was thus thrown to the lions. The lions, in the amphitheater, however, refused to attack Rufina, remaining as docile as house cats. Infuriated, Diogenianus had Rufina strangled, her neck broken and her body burned. Her body was also recovered by Sabinus and buried alongside her sister in 287 AD.

They are greatly venerated in Spain, and there is no doubt as to them being historical martyrs in that place. Only St. Justa is mentioned in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, but in the historical martyrologies Rufina is also mentioned, following the legendary Acts. The two saints are highly honored in the medieval Hispanic liturgy (also known as Mozarabic Liturgy).

La Seo Cathedral (Zaragoza, Spain) contains a chapel dedicated to Justa and Rufina. Agost, in the Valencia province of Spain, is the location of a hermitage dedicated to these saints (Ermita de Santa Justa y Rufina), built in 1821. Toledo, Spain, also has a church dedicated to them.

According to tradition, they are protectors of the Giralda and the Cathedral of Seville, and are said to have protected both during the Lisbon earthquake of 1755.

JULY 20TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. MARGARET OF ANTIOCH
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 303

Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr in the East, is celebrated as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church on July 20th and on July 17th in the Orthodox Church. According to the ancient Martyrologies, St. Margaret suffered at Antioch in Pisidia, in the last general persecution under the Roman emperors. According to the version of the story in Golden Legend, she was a native of “Antioch” and the daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. Her mother having died soon after her birth, Margaret was nursed by a Christian woman 17 to 20 miles from Antioch. She is said to have been instructed in the Faith by this Christian nurse. Having embraced Christianity and consecrated her virginity to God, Margaret was disowned and prosecuted by her pagan priest father, and was adopted by her Christian nurse. Shen then retired to the country, in what is now modern day Turkey, keeping sheep with her foster mother.

Olybrius, Governor of the Roman Diocese of the East, asked to marry her, but with the demand that she renounce Christianity. Upon her refusal, she was cruelly tortured, during which various miraculous incidents occurred. After many torments, she gloriously finished her martyrdom by the sword and was put to death in AD 304.

Her name occurs in the Litany inserted in the old Roman order, and in the most ancient calendars of the Greeks. From the East her veneration was exceedingly propagated in England, France, and Germany, in the eleventh century, during the holy wars. Her body is now kept at Monte-Fiascone in Tuscany. Vida, the glory of the Christian muses, has honored St. Margaret who is one of the titular saints of Cremona, his native city, with two hymns; begging of God through her prayers, not long life, riches, or honors, but the grace of a happy death and a holy life, that he might be admitted, with a devout and pious heart, to praise God in the choir of his holy servants.

Her historical existence has been questioned. She was declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I, in 494, but devotion to her revived in the West with the Crusades. She was reputed to have promised very powerful indulgences to those who wrote or read her life, or invoked her intercessions; these no doubt helped the spread the devotion to her. She is still currently commemorated in the Mass for July 20th.

The devotion to Saint Margaret became very widespread in England, where more than 250 churches are dedicated to her, most famously, St. Margaret’s, Westminster, today the parish church of the British Houses of Parliament in London. Some consider her a patron saint of pregnancy. In art, she is usually pictured escaping from, or standing above, a dragon.

She was also included from the twelfth to the twentieth century among the saints to be commemorated wherever the Roman Rite of the Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated. Margaret is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and is one of the saints who spoke to Joan of Arc.

The Eastern Orthodox Church knows Margaret as Saint Marina, and celebrates her feast day on July 17. She has been identified with Saint Pelagia, “Marina” being the Latin equivalent of the Greek “Pelagia” who ― according to her hagiography by James, the deacon of Heliopolis ― had been known as “Margarita” (“Pearl”). We possess no historical documents on St. Margaret as distinct from St. Pelagia. The Greek Marina came from Antioch in Pisidia (as opposed to Antioch of Syria), but this distinction was lost in the West.

JULY 21ST
The Martyr of the Day
ST. VICTOR OF MARSEILLES
Martyred in the Third Century, around 290

The Emperor Maximian, reeking with the blood of the Thebæan legion, and many other martyrs whom he had massacred in different parts of Gaul, arrived at Marseilles, the most numerous and flourishing church in those provinces. The tyrant breathed here nothing but slaughter and fury, and his coming filled the Christians with fear and alarms.

In this general consternation, Victor, a Christian officer in the troops, went about in the night time from house to house visiting the faithful, and inspiring them with contempt of a temporal death and the love of eternal life. He was caught and uncovered in this action, so worthy a soldier of Jesus Christ, and brought before the prefects Asterius and Eutychus, who exhorted him not to lose the fruit of all his services and the favor of his prince for the worship of a dead man―which is what they called Jesus Christ. He answered, that he renounced those recompenses if the enjoyment of them meant he had to be unfaithful to Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, Who had kindly become man for our salvation, and Who raised Himself from the dead, and now reigns with the Father, being God equally with Him. The whole court heard him with tumultuous shouts of indignation and rage.

However, the prisoner being a person of distinction, the prefects sent him to Maximian himself. The incensed countenance of an emperor did not frighten the champion of Christ; and the tyrant seeing his threats to have no effect upon him, commanded him to be bound hands and feet and dragged through all the streets of the city, exposed to the blows and insults of the people. Every one of the pagans seemed to think it a crime not to testify their false zeal, by offering some indignity or other to the martyr. Their goal was to intimidate the Christians, but the example of the martyr’s resolution only served to encourage them.

Victor was brought back, bruised and bloody, to the tribunal of the prefects, who, thinking his resolution must have been weakened by his sufferings, began to blaspheme our holy religion, and pressed him again to adore their gods. But the martyr, filled with the Holy Ghost, and encouraged by His presence in his soul, expressed his respect for the Emperor and his contempt of their gods, adding: “I despise your deities, and confess Jesus Christ; inflict upon me what torments you please.” The prefects only disagreed about the choice of the tortures.

After a heated debate Eutychius withdrew, and left the prisoner to Asterius, who commanded him to be hoisted on the rack, and most cruelly tortured a long time. The martyr, lifting up his eyes to Heaven, asked patience and constancy of God, Whose gift he knew it to be. Jesus Christ appeared to him on the rack, holding a cross in His hands, gave him his peace, and told him that He suffered in His servants, and crowned them after their victory. These words dispelled both his pains, and his grief; and the tormentors being at last weary, the prefect ordered him to be taken down, and thrown into a dark dungeon.

At midnight God visited him by His angels; the prison was filled with a light brighter than that of the sun, and the martyr sang, with the angels, the praises of God. Three soldiers who guarded the prison, seeing this light, were surprised at the miracle, and casting themselves at the martyr’s feet asked his pardon, and desired baptism. Their names were Alexander, Longinus, and Felician. The martyr instructed them as well as the short time would permit, sent for priests the same night, and going with them to the seaside he led them out of the water, that is, was their godfather, and returned with them again to his prison.

The next morning Maximian was informed of the conversion of the guards, and, in a transport of rage, sent officers to bring them all four before him in the middle of the market-place. The mob loaded Victor with injuries, and wanted to compel him to bring back his new converts to the worship of their gods; but he said: “I cannot undo what is well done.”

And turning to them he encouraged them saying: “You are still soldiers; behave with courage, God will give you victory. You belong to Jesus Christ; be faithful. An immortal crown is prepared for you.” The three soldiers persevered in the confession of Jesus Christ, and by the emperor’s orders were forthwith beheaded.

Victor, in the meantime. prayed with tears that he might, by being united with them in their happy death, be presented in their glorious company before God; but after having been exposed to the insults of the whole city as an immovable rock lashed by the waves, and been beaten with clubs and scourged with leather-thongs, he was carried back to prison, where he continued three days, recommending to God his martyrdom with many tears.

After that term the emperor called him again before his tribunal, and having caused a statue of Jupiter, with an altar and incense, to be placed by him, he commanded the martyr to offer incense to the idol. Victor went up to the profane altar, and by a stroke of his foot threw it down. The emperor ordered the foot to be forthwith chopped off; which the saint suffered with great joy, offering to God these first fruits of his body.

A few moments after the emperor condemned him to be put under the millstone and crushed to death. The executioners turned the wheel, and when part of his body was bruised and crushed, the mill broke down. The saint still breathed a little; but his head was immediately ordered to be cut off. His and the other three bodies were thrown into the sea, but being cast ashore by Divine Providence, they were retrieved and buried by the Christians in a grotto, hewn out of a rock. The author of the acts adds: “They are honored to this day with many miracles, and many benefits are conferred by God and our Lord Jesus Christ on those who ask them through their merits.”

JULY 22ND
The Martyr of the Day
ST. PLATO (PLATON)
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 306

The Holy Martyr Plato, brother of the holy Martyr Antiochus the Physician, was born at the city of Ancyra in Galatia. While still a youth he left home and went through the cities, preaching the Word of God to pagans, amazing his audience with the persuasiveness and beauty of his speech, and his profound knowledge of Greek learning.

Because of his preaching he was arrested and brought for trial to the temple of Zeus before the governor Agrippinus. At first, the judge attempted to persuade the saint to turn away from Christ by flattery. He assured the youth that he might be on a par of intellect with the greatest of the philosophers Plato, if only he worshipped also the pagan gods. To this St Plato answered, that the wisdom of the philosopher, although great, was but ephemeral and limited, whereas the true, eternal and unbounded wisdom comprised the Gospel teachings. Then the judge promised to give him his beautiful niece for his wife if he would deny Christ. He also threatened him with torture and death if he refused.

When the governor counseled him to avoid death and save his life by worshiping the idols, Plato said: “There are two deaths, the one temporal and the other eternal; so also are there two lives, one of short duration and the other without end.” Then Agrippinus subjected him to even harsher tortures. Among other tortures, red-hot cannon balls were set on the saint’s naked body; then they cut strips from his skin. “Torture me more harshly,” the martyr cried out to the torturers, “so that your inhumanity and my endurance may be seen more clearly.”

The patience of the governor was exhausted, and he gave orders to mercilessly beat the martyr, and then send him off to prison.

When they led St Plato off to prison, he turned to the people gathered about the temple, and he called on them not to forsake the Christian Faith. Seven days later they again led the Martyr Plato for trial before Agrippinus in the temple of Zeus, where they had the implements of torture already prepared: boiling cauldrons, red-hot iron and sharp hooks. The judge offered the martyr a choice: either to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods, or to feel the effects of these implements of torture on his body. Again the saint steadfastly refused to worship idols, and after his tortures they threw him in prison for eighteen more days without bread or water.

When the guards were amazed that Plato was able to live in hunger for so long, he told them: “You are satisfied by meat, but I, by holy prayers. Wine gladdens you, but Christ the True Vine gladdens me.”

But seeing that this did not shake the martyr, they offered him his life and freedom if he would only say: “Great is the god Apollo.” The martyr refused to deny Christ or to sacrifice to the idols. Therefore, Agrippinus ordered the holy Martyr Plato to be beheaded.

JULY 23RD
The Martyr of the Day
ST. APPOLONARIS
Martyred in the First Century, around 79

Apollinaris of Ravenna (Italian: Apollinare) is a Syrian saint, whom the Roman Martyrology describes as “a bishop who, according to tradition, while spreading among the nations the unsearchable riches of Christ, led his flock as a good shepherd and honored the Church of Classis near Ravenna by a glorious martyrdom.”

According to tradition, he was a native of Antioch in Roman Province of Syria. As the first Bishop of Ravenna, he faced nearly constant persecution. He and his flock were exiled from Ravenna during the persecutions of Emperor Vespasian (Other accounts have him martyred under the Emperors Valens, or Nero). On his way out of the city he was identified, arrested as being the leader of the Christians of Ravenna. He was then tortured and martyred by being run through with a sword. Centuries after his death, he appeared in a vision to Saint Romuald.

The early 20th-century Catholic Encyclopaedia gives the traditional version as follows:

“He was made Bishop of Ravenna, Italy, by Saint Peter himself. The miracles he wrought there soon attracted official attention, for they and his preaching won many converts to the Faith, while at the same time bringing upon him the fury of the idolaters, who beat him cruelly and drove him from the city. He was found half-dead on the seashore, and kept in concealment by the Christians, but was captured again and compelled to walk on burning coals and a second time expelled. But he remained in the vicinity, and continued his work of evangelization. We find him then journeying in the Roman province of Aemilia [in Italy].

“A third time he returned to Ravenna. Again he was captured, hacked with knives, had scalding water poured over his wounds, was beaten in the mouth with stones because he persisted in preaching, and was flung into a horrible dungeon, loaded with chains, to starve to death; but after four days he was put on board a ship and sent to Greece. There the same course of preachings, miracles and sufferings continued; and when his very presence caused the oracles to be silent, he was, after a cruel beating, sent back to Italy.

“All this continued for three years, and a fourth time he returned to Ravenna. By this time Vespasian was Emperor, and he, in answer to the complaints of the pagans, issued a decree of banishment against the Christians. Apollinaris was kept concealed for some time, but as he was passing out of the gates of the city, was set upon and savagely beaten, probably at Classis, a suburb, but he lived for seven days, foretelling meantime that the persecutions would increase, but that the Church would ultimately triumph. It is not certain what was his native place, though it was probably Antioch. Nor is it sure that he was one of the seventy-two disciples of Christ, as has been suggested. The precise date of his consecration cannot be ascertained, but he was Bishop of Ravenna for twenty-six years” (Catholic Encyclopaedia).

However, the acts of the martyrdom of Saint Apollinaris have scarcely any historical value; they were probably written by Archbishop Maurus of Ravenna (642-671), who presumably wanted to publicize the alleged apostolic origin of the See of Ravenna, and also to abet his political aspirations against the influence of both Rome and Constantinople. However, Christian inscriptions dating from the 2nd century have been discovered near Classe, confirming the presence of Christianity in Ravenna at a very early date. According to the list of the bishops of Ravenna compiled by Bishop Marianus (546-556), the 12th Bishop of Ravenna was named Severus; and he is among those who signed at the Council of Sardica in 343. Thus, the epoch of Saint Apollinaris may be estimated as possibly to the last decades of the 2nd century, placing his martyrdom possibly under Emperor Septimius Severus.

Veneration
A noted miracle worker, Saint Apollinaris is considered especially effective against gout, venereal disease and epilepsy. His relics are at the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo (which housed his relics from the 9th century until the 1748 reconsecration of Sant’Apollinare in Classe) and the 6th century Benedictine Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe (on the traditional site of his martyrdom), both in Ravenna and in Saint Lambert’s church, Düsseldorf, Germany. There are also churches dedicated to him in Aachen, Burtscheid and Remagen in Germany, where his veneration was probably spread by Benedictine monks. The Frankish king Clovis built a church dedicated to him in Dijon, and another dedicated to Saint Apollinaris also existed in Bologna, but was destroyed in 1250. Bořivoj II, Duke of Bohemia, founded a church with a collegiate chapter dedicated to Saint Apollinaris in Sadská (then an important center of the Czech state) in 1117-1118. On behalf of Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, the chapter was later transferred from Sadská to recently founded New Town of Prague in 1362 and another church of St Apollinaris built there. Both of these churches in Bohemia stand to the present time.

In the Tridentine Calendar his feast day is July 23rd, his birthday into Heaven (i.e., the day of his martyrdom). The present General Roman Calendar devotes this day to Saint Bridget of Sweden, since it is also her birthday to Heaven and she is now better known in the West than Saint Apollinaris, being one of the patron saints of Europe. Owing to the limited importance of Saint Apollinaris’ feast worldwide, his liturgical celebration was in 1969 removed from the General Roman Calendar, but not from the Roman Martyrology, the official list of saints. His memorial was restored to the General Roman Calendar in the 2002 edition of the Roman Missal, with the date of celebration changed to July 20th, the nearest day not taken up with other celebrations. The Roman Martyrology mentions Saint Apollinaris both on July 20th and also more briefly on July 23rd.

JULY 24TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. WULFHAD & ST. RUFFIN
Martyred in the Seventh Century, around 675

Wulfhad and Ruffin were two brothers, the sons of Wulfere, the King of Mercia (today’s central portion of England, also known today as “The Midlands”, and also including what is today called “Greater London”—being London and all its outlying suburbs).

Wulfere was the second brother and successor of King Peada. Having been privately baptized by St. Chad, bishop of Litchfield, about the year 670, Wulfhad and Ruffin were both slain whilst they were at their prayers by their father’s order, who, out of political views, at that time favored idolatry, though he afterwards did remarkable penance for this crime. Wulfere’s father, Peada, had persecuted the Christians; but his elder brother Penda had begun to establish the Faith in his dominions.

Florence of Worcester says, Wulfere was only baptized a little before his death, in 675, consequently after this murder; but Bede testifies that he was godfather to Edelwalch, king of the West-Saxons, almost twenty years before. But either he relapsed, (at least so far as to be for some time favorable to idolatry,) or this murder was contrived, by some Pagan courtiers, without his knowledge.

The queen, Emmelinda, mother of the two young princes, had their bodies buried at Stone, which place took its name from a great heap of stones which was raised over their tomb, according to the Saxon custom. She afterwards employed these stones in building a church upon the spot, which became very famous for bearing the names of these martyrs, who became patrons of the town, and of a priory of regular canons there.

The procurator of this house, in a journey to Rome, prevailed on the pope to enroll these two royal martyrs among the saints, and left the head of St. Wulfhad, which he had carried with him, in the church of St. Laurence at Viterbo. After this, Wulfere and his brother and successor Ethelred, abolished idolatry over all of Mercia.

JULY 25TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. JAMES THE GREAT, APOSTLE
Martyred in the First Century, click here for the account of his martyrdom

JULY 25TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. CHRISTOPHER, PATRON OF TRAVELERS
Martyred in the Third Century, around 251

St. Christopher suffered martyrdom under Decius in Lycia, and is honored on this day in the Martyrology which bears the name of St. Jerome, and in other western Calendars, but is commemorated by the Greeks and other Oriental nations on the 9th of May. The Mosarabic Breviary, attributed to St. Isidore, mentions the translation of St. Christopher’s relics to Toledo, from where they were later brought into France, and are at present shown enshrined at the abbey of St. Denys near Paris.

Christopher’s name, meaning “Christ-bearer”, foretells his adult life. He seems to have taken the name of Christopher upon a similar motive that St. Ignatius would be called Theophorus, to express his ardent love for his Redeemer, by which he always carried him in his breast as his great and only good, his inestimable treasure, and the object of all his affections and desires. His most famous deed, tells that he carried a child, who was unknown to him, across a river before the child revealed himself as Christ. Therefore, he is the patron saint of travelers.

Christopher was initially called Reprobus. He was a Canaanite, 5 cubits (7.5 feet tall and with a fearsome face. While serving the king of Canaan, he took it into his head to go and serve “the greatest king there was”. He went to the king who was reputed to be the greatest, but one day he saw the king cross himself at the mention of the devil. On thus learning that the king feared the devil, he departed to look for the devil. He came across a band of marauders, one of whom declared himself to be the devil, so Christopher decided to serve him. But when he saw his new master avoid a wayside cross and found out that the devil feared Christ, he left him and enquired from people where to find Christ.

He met a hermit who instructed him in the Christian Faith. Christopher asked him how he could serve Christ. When the hermit suggested fasting and prayer, Christopher replied that he was unable to perform that service. The hermit then suggested that because of his size and strength Christopher could serve Christ by assisting people to cross a dangerous river, where they were perishing in the attempt. The hermit promised that this service would be pleasing to Christ.

After Christopher had performed this service for some time, a little child asked him to take him across the river. During the crossing, the river became swollen and the child seemed as heavy as lead, so much that Christopher could scarcely carry him and found himself in great difficulty. When he finally reached the other side, he said to the child: “You have put me in the greatest danger. I do not think the whole world could have been as heavy on my shoulders as you were.” The child replied: “You had on your shoulders not only the whole world but Him who made it. I am Christ your king, whom you are serving by this work.” The child then vanished.

Christopher later visited Lycia and there comforted the Christians who were being martyred. Brought before the local king, he refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods. The king tried to win him by riches and by sending two beautiful women to tempt him. Christopher converted the women to Christianity, as he had already converted thousands in the city. The king ordered him to be killed. Various attempts failed. He was beaten with iron rods. He was cast into the fire but preserved from the flames by the power of Christ, and finally transfixed with arrows, and then beheaded, and so finished his testimony and completed his martyrdom.

JULY 26TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. HYACINTH
Martyred in the Second Century, around 108

Hyacinth was a young Christian living at the start of the second century, who is honored as a martyr and a saint by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.

According to tradition, he was a native of Caesarea in Cappadocia, a member of a Christian family. As a boy, he was appointed to serve as an assistant to the chamberlain to the Emperor Trajan. His failure to participate in the ceremonial sacrifices to the official Roman gods soon came to be noticed by other members of the Imperial household.

When he was denounced as a Christian, Hyacinth proclaimed his Faith. As a result, he was imprisoned and underwent numerous scourgings and tortures. He was deliberately served only meat which had been blessed for sacrifice to the gods, the eating of which was banned by both Judaism and Christianity. Thus, he starved to death in 108 AD, dying at the age of twelve. Just before his death, legend says, his jailers saw him being comforted by angels, who bestowed a crown on him.

Hyacinthus died in the city of Rome. Later, the saint’s relics were transferred to Caesarea.

A body identified as his is preserved and venerated in the abbey church of the former Cistercian Abbey of Fürstenfeld, of which the church is the only surviving structure.

JULY 27TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. PANTALEON
Martyred in the Fourth Century, around 305

St. Pantaleon (whose name means “all-compassionate”), was listed in the West among the late-medieval “Fourteen Holy Helpers” and in the East as one of the “Holy Unmercenary Healers”. He was a martyr of Nicomedia in Bithynia during the Diocletian persecution of 305 AD.

According to the martyrologies, Pantaleon was the son of a rich pagan, Eustorgius of Nicomedia, and had been instructed in Christianity by his Christian mother, St. Eubula; however, after her death he fell away from the Christian church, while he studied medicine with a renowned physician Euphrosinos; under the patronage of Euphrosinos he became physician to the Emperor Maximian or Galerius.

He was won back to Christianity by St. Hermolaus (characterized as a bishop of the church at Nicomedia in the later literature), who convinced him that Christ was the better physician, signaling the significance of the exemplum of Pantaleon that Faith is to be trusted over medical advice, marking the direction European medicine was to take until the 16th century.

St. Alphonsus Liguori wrote regarding this incident: “He studied medicine with such success, that the Emperor Maximian appointed him his physician. One day as our saint was discoursing with a holy priest named Hermolaus, the latter, after praising the study of medicine, concluded thus: ‘But, my friend, of what use are all thy acquirements in this art, since thou art ignorant of the science of salvation?’”

By miraculously healing a blind man by invoking the name of Jesus over him, Pantaleon converted his father, upon whose death he came into possession of a large fortune, but freed his slaves and, distributing his wealth among the poor, developed a great reputation in Nicomedia. Envious colleagues denounced him to the emperor during the Diocletian persecution. The emperor wished to save him and sought to persuade him to apostasy. Pantaleon, however, openly confessed his Faith, and as proof that Christ is the true God, he healed a paralytic. Notwithstanding this, he was condemned to death by the emperor, who regarded the miracle as an exhibition of magic.

According to the later hagiography, Pantaleon’s flesh was first burned with torches, whereupon Christ appeared to all in the form of Hermolaus to strengthen and heal Pantaleon. The torches were extinguished. Then a bath of molten lead was prepared; when the apparition of Christ stepped into the cauldron with him, the fire went out and the lead became cold. Pantaleon was now thrown into the sea, loaded with a great stone, but the stone, rather than sinking beneath the surface, floated on the water. He was then thrown to wild beasts, but these fawned upon him and could not be forced away until he had blessed them. He was bound on the wheel, but the ropes snapped, and the wheel broke. An attempt was made to behead him, but the sword bent, and the executioners were converted to Christianity.

Pantaleon implored Heaven to forgive them, for which reason he also received the name of Panteleimon (“mercy for everyone” or “all-compassionate”). It was not until he himself desired it that it was possible to behead him, upon which there issued forth blood and a white liquid like milk.

From early times a phial containing some of his blood has been preserved at Constantinople. On the feast day of the saint the blood is said to become fluid and to bubble. St. Alphonsus wrote: “At Ravello, a city in the kingdom of Naples, there is a vial of his blood, which becomes blood every year [on his feastday], and may be seen in this state interspersed with the milk, as I, the author of this work, have seen it.”

Though some dispute his existence, the fact of his martyrdom itself seems to be supported by a veneration for which there is testimony in the 5th century, among others in a sermon on the martyrs by Theodoret (died c. 457); Procopius of Caesarea (died c. 565?), writing on the churches and shrines, constructed by Justinian I, tells that the emperor rebuilt the shrine to Pantaleon at Nicomedia; and there is mention of Pantaleon in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum.

The Eastern tradition concerning Pantaleon follows more or less the medieval Western hagiography, but lacks any mention of a visible apparition of Christ. It states instead that Hermolaus was still alive while Pantaleon’s torture was under way, but was martyred himself only shortly before Pantaleon’s beheading along with two companions, Hermippas and Thermocrates. The saint is canonically depicted as a beardless young man with a full head of curly hair.

Pantaleon’s relics, venerated at Nicomedia, were transferred to Constantinople. Numerous churches, shrines, and monasteries have been named for him; in the West most often as St. Pantaleon and in the East as St. Panteleimon; to him is consecrated the St. Panteleimon Monastery at Mount Athos, and the 12th-century Church of St. Panteleimon in Gorno Nerezi, in the Republic of Macedonia.

Armenians believe that the Gandzasar Monastery in Nagorno Karabakh contains relics of St. Pantaleon, who was venerated in eastern provinces of Armenia.

At the Basilica of the Vierzehnheiligen near Staffelstein in Franconia, St. Pantaleon is venerated with his hands nailed to his head, reflecting another legend about his death.

After the Black Death of the mid-14th century in Western Europe, as a patron saint of physicians and midwives, he came to be regarded as one of the fourteen guardian martyrs, the Fourteen Holy Helpers. Relics of the saint are to be found at St. Denis at Paris; his head is venerated at Lyon. A Romanesque church was dedicated to him in Cologne in the 9th century at latest.

In the British Library there is a surviving manuscript, written in Saxon Old English, of The Life of St Pantaleon, dating from the early eleventh century, possibly written for Abbot Ælfric of Eynsham. In France, he was depicted in a window in Chartres Cathedral. In southern France there are six communes under the protective name of Saint-Pantaléon. Though there are individual churches consecrated to him elsewhere, there are no communes named for him in the north or northwest of France.

JULY 28TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. NAZARUS & ST. CELSUS
Martyred in the First Century, year unknown

The actual concrete historical information regarding these two martyrs is the discovery of their bodies by St. Ambrose. According to St. Paulinus the Deacon’s Vita Ambrosii (The Life of Ambrose), Ambrose, at some time within the last three years of his life, after the death of the Emperor Theodosius (d. 395), discovered in a garden outside the walls of Milan the body of St. Nazarius, with severed head and still stained with blood, and that he caused it to be carried to the Basilica of the Apostles. In the same garden Ambrose likewise discovered the body of St. Celsus, which he caused to be transported to the same basilica. Obviously a tradition regarding these martyrs was extant in the Christian community of Milan which led to the finding of the two bodies.

St. Nazarius, born in Rome, was the son of a pagan military man who was a Jew and held an important post in the Roman army. His mother, honored by the Church as Saint Perpetua, was a zealous Christian, instructed by Saint Peter, or his disciples, in the most perfect maxims of Christianity. No doubt it was thanks to her prayers that Nazarius, upon coming of age, chose to embrace the Christian Faith. Nazarius, at the age of nine, embraced the Faith with so much ardor that he copied in his own young life all the great virtues he saw in his teachers. He was baptized by St. Linus, who would later become Pope.

Nazarius showed himself to be desirous not only of his own salvation but also that of others. He was very generous in alms-giving and in leaving Rome for Milan he gave away his possessions to the poor and used his inheritance to ease the lot of those Christians suffering in prison as a result of Nero’s persecutions. Among those who benefited from Nazarius’ devout conversations and material aid, were the twin brothers and future saints, Gervasius and Protasius, who had been imprisoned and who longed for a martyr’s crown. St. Nazarius met Protasius and Gervasius when he was visiting Christians in the Mediolanum prison. He felt such love for these two, that he regretted having to part from them and would have preferred to die in their place.

The regional governor, Anulinus, soon heard of Nazarius’ activities among the prisoners and commanded that he be brought to trial. Learning that Nazarius was a Roman by birth, Anulinus tried to persuade him to respect his ancestors’ idols which Romans from antiquity had honored with sacrifices and obeisances. Nazarius boldly reproaced the governor and ridiculed the pagan religion, whereupon the governor ordered that he be beaten on the mouth. When Nazarius persisted in confessing the One True God, he was beaten still more and banished from the city in dishonor. St. Nazarius was grieved over his separation from his friends Gervasius and Protasius, but he rejoiced that he had been found worthy to suffer for Christ and found comfort in His words: “Blessed are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake” (Matt. 5:11).

The following night his mother appeared to him in a dream and told him to go to Gaul, and there to labor in spreading the Gospel. His pagan father was touched by his son’s virtue and seconded his project to preach the Gospel. During the persecutions of Nero, out of zeal for the salvation of others, Nazarius fled Rome, his native city, and willingly journeyed westward, preaching Christ and enlightening many with knowledge of the True God in many places―including Lombardy, visiting Piacenza and Milan―with a fervor and disinterestedness fitting for a disciple of the Apostles.

He traveled to Gaul, where, in the city of Melia, a young a three year-old boy, Celsus, was entrusted to his care by a certain noble and believing woman. The boy’s mother asked Nazarius to teach and baptize her son. The child was docile, so Nazarius had him baptized and educated him in piety and raised him as a Christian. His efforts were crowned with success, for when the boy grew older he worked alongside his preceptor in preaching the Gospel and they were never separated. Their mutual zeal made them a vulnerable target.

When conversions multiplied, the local governor was alarmed and the apostle was again arrested, beaten and tortured. The wife of this governor was a Christian, however, and succeeded in obtaining liberty for the two young innocents. They were freed on condition they would not preach at this place any longer. They were released on condition they would not preach at this place any longer.

The two fervent Christians went to the Alpine villages, where only a few solitary settlers braved the rigors of the climate and the altitude. They were not rebuffed and went as far as Embrun. There they built a chapel to the true God, and then continued on to Geneva, and to Treves (Trier), where they preached and converted many to Christianity. St. Nazarius was arrested and imprisoned. Celsus followed him in tears, longing to share his captivity. Celsus was entrusted to the care of a pagan lady, who attempted to make him abjure his Faith. Celsus refused, and was eventually returned to Nazarius. When after a few days the prefect ordered them brought before him, they were treated cruelly but appeared before the magistrate, their faces shining with glory. The prodigies which followed caused fear in the pagans, and they were released and told to leave the region.

St. Nazarius returned, with his disciple St. Celsus, to Milan where he resumed his preaching of the GospeI. On this account he was brought once again before the governor Anulinus who, on learning that Nazarius had been in the hands of Nero himself, marveled that he was still among the living, for he knew Nero’s tyrannical cruelty. In vain did the governor try to force Nazarius and Celsus to worship the pagan gods. Thrown into prison, they were overjoyed to find themselves in the company of Gervasius and Protasius.

In time, however, Nero learned of Nazarius’ and Celsus’ miraculous escape from the jaws of death; greatly angered, he sent a decree to Anulinus ordering their immediate execution, and the heads of these two martyrs were cut off with a sword. The pagans threw the saints to wild animals to be eaten, but the beasts would not touch them. Afterwards, they tried to drown the martyrs in the sea, but Almighty God was pleased to show favor towards His beloved confessors, and He caused them to walk upon the water as on a flat field. The soldiers, who carried out the orders, were so amazed that they believed Christ to be the true God and they themselves accepted Christianity and were baptized by St. Nazarius. The converted soldiers released the holy martyrs and did not return to Nero’s court, but began to serve their new Lord and Master, as soldiers for Jesus Christ.

Nazarius and Celsus returned to Milan, but were soon arrested there also. When they would not sacrifice to the gods of the empire, after several tortures in which God again preserved them, they were sentenced to be beheaded. They embraced one another in transports of joy and praise to God for this grace. It was during the reign of Nero, in about the year 56, that these generous Martyrs added their blood to the treasure of the Christians.

A Christian living in the city environs secretly obtained their holy remains and brought them to his home. Upon his arrival, his ailing daughter rose up from her bed as though she had never been ill. The family rejoiced at this miracle and reverently buried the bodies of the martyrs in a fresh grave in their garden.

Shortly after the beheading of St. Nazarius and St. Celsus, there arrived in the city of Milan the military leader Astasius who was anxious for a victory in the war against Moravia to the north. The pagan priests suggested that to win the favor of the gods Astasius force Gervasius and Protasius to sacrifice to the idols. Gervasius died under the beatings, and Protasius was finally beheaded. And so they joined their beloved friends St. Nazarius and St. Celsus in the choir of martyrs. A Christian by the name of Philip took the martyrs’ bodies and buried them at his home.

The relics of all four martyrs lay hidden in the earth until they were discovered late in the 4th century by St. Ambrose of Milan. The finding of the relics of St. Nazarius is described by the presbyter Paulinus in his Life of St. Ambrose:

“We saw in the grave ... blood as though it had just flowed out of the body. The head with hair and beard was so preserved that it was as if it had just now been placed into the grave. The face was radiant ...” The relics of the martyr St. Celsus were found nearby and the remains of both martyrs were solemnly transferred to the Cathedral of the Holy Apostles in Milan.

St. Ambrose himself describes the vision which led to the discovery of the relics of the four holy martyrs St. Nazarius, St. Celsus, St. Gervasius and St. Protasius. One night, during a time of prayer and fasting, St. Ambrose fell into such a state that, he says, “although wanting to, I did not sleep, nor did I feel anything. I then saw two youths in white garments, raising their hands upwards and praying. Possessed with drowsiness, I was unable to speak with them , and when I came to myself they were no longer visible.” Not knowing if this were a revelation from God or a delusion sent by the devil, St. Ambrose intensified his fast and begged God to make it clear to him. A second night the youths appeared to him as before. The third night they appeared again together with a man resembling the Apostle St. Paul, as he is portrayed in his icons. Pointing to the youths, he said to St. Ambrose: “These are those who, hearing my words, despised the world and its riches, and followed our Lord Jesus Christ .... Their bodies you will discover lying in a tomb beneath the very place you are standing and praying. Remove them from the earth and build a church in their honor.”

Summoning his brother bishops, St. Ambrose related to them his vision, and they began to dig. They found the bodies of the martyrs, which emitted a most wonderful fragrance. In the grave near their heads was a small book written by the slave of God, Philip, who had preserved for posterity the names of these martyrs and certain details from their life. The parents of St. Gervasius and St. Protasius, Vitaly and Valeria, both died as confessors of the Faith. St. Gervasius and St. Protasius had sold their belongings, freed their slaves, and for ten years gave themselves wholeheartedly to prayer, fasting and spiritual reading. In the eleventh year they were imprisoned by Anulinus and suffered the death of their bodies for the sake of eternal life with Jesus Christ.

When their holy relics were taken from the earth, the sick began to receive healing, demons were driven out of people, the blind received sight. Then the St. Ambrose remembered that in the city was a well-known blind man by the name of Severgnus; as soon as he touched the edge of the garments on the martyrs’ relics, the darkness of the blind was scattered and he saw the light of day. This particular miracle is mentioned by St. Augustine in his book, The City of God.

JULY 29TH
The Martyr of the Day
ST. CALLINICUS
Date of Martyrdom unknown

The Holy Martyr St. Callinicus, a native of Cilicia, was raised from childhood in the Christian Faith. Grieving that many misguided people would perish for eternity because they worshiped idols, he went through the cities and villages to proclaim Jesus Christ and His teachings to the pagans, and with the Word of God he converted many to Christianity.

In the Galatian city of Ancyra the holy confessor was arrested and brought to trial before a governor named Sacerdonus, a fierce persecutor of Christians. The governor, threatening tortures and death, ordered the saint to offer sacrifice to the idols. The saint fearlessly declared that he was not afraid of martyrdom, since every believer in Christ receives from Him strength in ordeals, and through death inherits an eternal blessed life.

They cruelly beat the saint with ox thongs and tore at his body with iron hooks, but he endured everything with patience and calm. This aroused still greater fury in Sacerdonus, and he ordered that sandals with sharp nails be placed on the saint’s feet, and that they should drive the martyr with whips to the city of Gangra to be burned.

The pathway was arduous, and the soldiers who accompanied the condemned man were weak from thirst. In despair they began to implore the saint to pray the Lord for water. The saint, taking pity on his tormentors, with the help of God caused a miraculous spring of water to gush forth from a stone. The astonished soldiers were filled with sympathy for their rescuer, and they wanted even to set him free. Fear of execution, however, compelled them to bring the martyr farther. In Gangra, St. Callinicus joyfully offered thanks to the Lord, Who had vouchsafed him the crown of martyrdom. He went into the blazing fire and gave up his soul to God. His body, remaining unharmed, was reverently buried by believers.

JULY 30TH
The Martyrs of the Day
ST. ABDON & ST. SENNEN
Martyred in the Third Century, around 254

The emperor Decius, enemy of Christians, had defeated the king of Persia and become master of several countries over which he reigned. He had already condemned to torture and death Saint Polychrome, with five members of his clergy. Saint Abdon and Saint Sennen, illustrious Persian dignitaries of the third century whom the king of Persia had highly honored, were secretly Christian; it was they who had taken up the body of the martyred bishop, which had been cast contemptuously before a temple of Saturn, to bury it at night, with honor. The two royal officials, now fallen under the domination of Rome, were grieved to witness the emperor’s cruelty towards the faithful, and believed it their duty to make known their love for Jesus Christ; thus, without fear of their new sovereign, they undertook by all possible means to spread and fortify the Faith, to encourage the confessors and bury the martyrs.

Decius, learning of their dedication, was extremely irritated. He sent for the two brothers to appear before his tribunal, and attempted to win them over to sacrifice to the gods, by appealing to his recent victory as a sign of their favor. The Saints replied, however, that this victory was not at all a proof of such power, since the unique true God, Creator of Heaven and earth with His Son, Jesus Christ, gives victory to some and defeat to others, for reasons hidden in the designs of His providence. They said they could never adore any but Him, and Decius imprisoned them. Soon afterwards, when he learned of the death of the viceroy he had left to govern in his place at Rome, he returned to Rome and took his two captives with him to serve as splendid trophies of his Persian victory. In effect, these magistrates were wearing jewels and rich fabrics under their chains.

He arraigned them before the Senate, in whose presence they again testified to the divinity of Christ, saying they could adore no other. The next day they were flogged in the amphitheater; then two lions and four bears were released to devour them. But the beasts lay down at their feet and became their guardians, and no one dared approach for a time. Finally the prefect sent out gladiators to slay them with the sword, which with the permission of God was done. Their bodies remained three days without burial, but a subdeacon, who afterwards wrote their history, took them up and buried them on his own terrain.

Under Constantine the Great, their tombs were discovered by divine revelation and their relics reburied in the Pontian cemetery, which afterwards was called by their names. We see them in a picture of the catacombs, crowned by Our Lord Himself. Their glorious martyrdom occurred in the year 254.

JULY 31ST
The Martyr of the Day
ST. HELENA OF SKÖVDE (SKOFDE)
Martyred in the Twelfth Century, around 1160

St. Helena was a noble lady of Westrogothia, who was converted to the Faith by St. Sigfrid, apostle of that province in Sweden, who died in 1045. She was born around 1101. She was of noble family and is generally believed to have been the daughter of the Jarl Guthorm. In adult life, she married and bore children. After the death of her husband, she lived on his farm at Våmb. She also gave her belongings to the poor and undertook a pilgrimage to Rome and Jerusalem. She returned and settled on the farm where she dedicated herself to spiritual and kind actions. According to legend, it is Helena who built Våmbs Church (Våmbs kyrka) in the Skara diocese at the farm in Våmb. The church in Skövde, now called St. Helena Church (Sankta Helena kyrka), was also largely built as a result of generous donations from Helena.

Helena had a daughter who had married, and was beaten and abused by her husband. After a time, the servants at Helena’s farm united and killed the husband. His relatives blamed Helena for the murder, even though she was on a pilgrimage to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem at the time. To avenge his death they killed Helena at Götene, while she was on her way to church in 1160.

Helena was canonized in 1164 or 1165 by the Pope Alexander III with the sponsorship of Stefan, the first Archbishop of Uppsala. Her legend was first written down by Brynolf Algotsson, Bishop of Skara. Her feast was fixed on the 31st of July.
She is honored on the 31st of July with extraordinary devotion in that country, and in the isle of Seland in Denmark, especially in the church which bears her name, where her body was kept in a rich shrine, eight miles from Copenhagen, near the sea, in which place there is a famous miraculous well, still visited, even by the Lutherans, and called to this day St. Lene Kild, or St. Helen’s Well.