This week commemorates several martyr saints in the Church calendar. Each day tells us of the courage and faith of early Christians. Could we be so brave? Could we refuse to convert to Islam knowing we would die? Could we, if muslim, dare to convert to Christianity, knowing we would be under threat of death? I wonder.
The history of the early Church is filled with holy martyrs, their blood the seed of Christianity. The stories of many of the martyrs have come down to us through the ages in writings of their contemporaries, from inscriptions on their tombs and in the catacombs.
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January 18 - St. Prisca suffered cruelly at the age of thirteen under Emperor Claudius in the first century. She refused to adore idols and was killed. She is celebrated as virgin and martyr.
January 19 - Marius and Martha were Persian nobles. With their two sons Audifax and Abachum, they went to Rome to pray at the tombs of Peter and Paul (it was known that those two were killed and buried in Rome, even from the earliest years. Their burial spots were places of prayer and devotion.) and to visit Christians cast into prison by Claudius II. The whole family was tortured and put to death in the year 270 A.D.
The Offertory of the day's Mass is Psalm 123. 7 - Our soul hath been delivered as a sparrow out of the
snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are delivered.
On the same day, St. Canute IV is commemorated. He ascended the throne of Denmark (1080-1086) and tried to spread the faith. His charity and zeal for religion made him enemies who put him to death while he was praying at the foot of the altar in the church of St. Alban. As it was, so it is today. Christians are being slain in their churches, even during their worship.
January 20 - Saints Fabian and Sebastian, two Romans: Fabian was killed in 250 under Decius, Sebastian in 284 under Diocletian. At Fabian's Baptism a dove hovered over his head, the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Fabian, because of his holiness, became one of the early popes. Sebastian was an officer in the imperial household and commander of a cohort. He encouraged his brothers in arms to become Christian. Diocletian ordered him killed by arrows. He survived, reproached the emperor and was then flogged to death.
Janury 21 - St. Agnes, a daughter of a noble family in Rome, dedicated herself and her virginity to Christ at the age of ten. She refused the hand of a son of the prefect of Rome. They tried to do her violence, but God kept her safe. They threw her onto a burning pile, but the flames did not touch her. Finally, condemned to be beheaded, she told her executioner, "Strike without fear, for the bride does her spouse an injury if she makes him wait." She took Christ as her spiritual spouse and never wavered. At age thirteen, about 304 A.D., she met her Lord. A beautiful basilica stands over her grave in Rome, named for her. She is always portrayed as holding a lamb, symbol of purity and of Christ. Each January 21st two lambs are blessed. They are then given to the nuns of St. Agnes, who keep them until Good Friday and weave from their wool the palliums (insignias of archbishops), a narrow band of white woollen cloth worn over the chasuble.
St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews 11: 33-39, is read in the Mass for January 20.
It says it all.
"Brethren, the saints through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered strength from weakness, became valiant in battle, put to flight the armies of foreigners: women received their dead raised to life again: but others were racked, not accepting deliverance that they might find a better resurrection; and others had trial of mockeries and stripes, moreover also of bands and prisons; they were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword, they wandered about in sheep-skins, and in goat-skins, being in want, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy; wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth. And all these were found approved by the testimony of faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Might we one day be wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth?
I've been making a novena to St. Paul, the glorious martyred Apostle to the Gentiles, for the sake of our country.
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St. Paul, pray that America follows in your footsteps.
O glorious St. Paul, after persecuting the Church you became, by God's grace, Her most zealous Apostle, to carry the knowledge of Jesus, our Divine Savior, to the uttermost parts of the earth.
You joyfully endured prison, scourgings, stonings, and a shipwreck, as well as all manner of persecutions, culminating in the shedding of the last drop of your blood for Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Obtain for us the grace to labor strenuously to bring the Faith to others and to accept any trials and tribulations that may come our way. Help us to be inspired by your Epistles and to partake of your indomitable love for Jesus, so that after we have finished our course we may join you in praising Him in heaven for all eternity.
Amen.
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