Your Daily Martyr

YOUR DAILY MARTYR
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).

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

"The Roman Martyrology is an official and accredited record, on the pages of which are set forth in simple and brief, but impressive words, the glorious deeds of the Soldiers of Christ in all ages of the Church ; of the illustrious Heroes and Heroines of the Cross, whom her solemn verdict has beatified or canonized" (Taken from the "Introduction" from The Roman Martyrology).

The Roman Martyrology is, like the Roman Missal and the Roman Breviary, an official liturgical book of the Catholic Church. It provides an extensive but not exhaustive list of the saints recognized by the Church. The Roman Martyrology was first published in 1583 by Pope Gregory XIII, who in the year before had decreed the revision of the calendar that is called, after him, the Gregorian Calendar. A second edition was published in the same year. The third edition was made obligatory wherever the Roman Rite was in use.

In 1630 Pope Urban VIII ordered a new edition. 1748 saw the appearance of a revised edition by Pope Benedict XIV, who personally worked on the corrections: he suppressed some names, such as those of Clement of Alexandria and Sulpicius Severus, but kept others that had been objected to, such as that of Pope Siricius. Since then, the Martyrology has remained essentially unchanged, save for the addition of new saints canonized during the intervening years.

THE HONOR ROLL OF MARTYRS
for February 20th
taken from the entry for the day
from the Roman Martyrology

The blessed martyrs of Tyre, in Phoenicia, whose number is known only to God. They were slain by Veturius, military instructor under the Emperor Diocletian, with a great number and variety of torments. They were first lacerated with stripes, then given to divers kinds of beasts but as these, through the power of God, would not hurt them, they were savagely tortured anew with fire and iron and put to death. This glorious multitude were cheered on to victory by the bishops Tyrannio, Silvan, Peleus, and Nilus, and the Priest Zenobius, who by a happy contention, along with them, gained the same palm of martyrdom together with them.

On the same 20th day of February, were also born into the better life In the island of Cyprus, the holy martyrs St. Pothamius and St. Nemesius.

At Constantinople, in the year 490, the holy martyr St. Eleutherius, eighth Patriarch of that city. He had replaced Acacius, who favored the Eutychians.

In Persia, in the year 342, St. Sadoth, Archbishop of Seleucia and Ctesephon, in Persia, successor to St. Simeon, and an hundred and twenty-eight others who refused to worship the sun, under Sapor, King of the Persians, and by cruel deaths gained glorious crowns.

At Catania, in Sicily, in the eighth century, St. Leo, bishop of that see, who shone with graces and miracles.

On the same day, in the year 738, St. Eucherius, bishop of Orleans, who shone with more miracles the more he was belied by his enemies.

At Tournai, in Hainaut, in the year 531, the holy confessor St. Eleutherius, bishop of that see.

FEBRUARY 21st
The Martyr of the Day

ST. SEVERIANUS

Martyred in the Fifth Century, around the years 452 or 453

In the reign of Marcian and Queen St. Pulcheria, the council of Chalcedon, which condemned the Eutychian heresy, was received by St. Euthymius, and by a great part of the monks of Palestine. But Theodosius, an ignorant Eutychian monk, and a man of a most tyrannical temper, under the protection of the empress Endoxia, widow of Theodosius the Younger, who lived at Jerusalem, perverted many among the monks themselves, and having obliged Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, to withdraw, unjustly possessed himself of that important see, and in a cruel persecution which he raised, filled Jerusalem with blood, as the emperor Marcian assures us: then, at the head of a band of soldiers, he carried desolation over the country.

Many however had the courage to stand their ground. No one resisted him with greater zeal and resolution than Severianus, bishop of Scythopolis, and his recompense was the crown of martyrdom; for the furious soldiers seized his person, dragged him out of the city, and massacred him in the latter part of the year 452, or in the beginning of the year 453. His name occurs in the Roman Martyrology, on the 21st of February.

Palestine, the country which for above one thousand four hundred years had been God’s chosen inheritance under the Old Law, when other nations were covered with the abominations of idolatory, had been sanctified by the presence, labors, and sufferings of our divine Redeemer, and had given birth to his church, and to so many saints, became often the theatre of enormous scandals, and has now, for many ages, been enslaved to the most impious and gross superstition.

So many flourishing churches in the East, which were planted by the labors of the most chief among the Apostles, watered with the blood of innumerable glorious martyrs, illustrated with the bright light of the Ignatiuses, the Polycarps, the Basils, the Ephrems, and the Chrysostoms, blessed by the example and supported by the prayers of legions of eminent saints, are fallen a prey to almost universal vice and infidelity. With what floods of tears can we sufficiently bewail so grievous a misfortune, and implore the divine mercy in behalf of so many souls! How ought we to be alarmed at the consideration of so many dreadful examples of God’s inscrutable judgments, and tremble for ourselves! Let him who stands beware lest he fall. Hold fast what thou hast, says the oracle of the Holy Ghost to every one of us, lest another bear away thy crown.