August XI

Saints Tiburtius, M. And Chromatius, C.

Abridged from the Acts of St. Sebastian, &c.

a. d. 286.

Agrestius Chromatius was vicar to the prefect of Rome, and had condemned several martyrs in the reign of Carinus; and, in the first years of Dioclesian, St. Tranquillinus being brought before him, assured him, that having been afflicted with the gout, he had recovered a perfect state of health by being baptized. Chromatius was troubled with the same distemper, and being convinced by this miracle of the truth of the gospel, sent for Polycarp, the priest who had baptized Tranquillinus, and receiving the sacrament of baptism, was freed from that corporal infirmity, by which miracle God was pleased to give him a sensible emblem of the spiritual health which that holy laver conferred on his soul; from that time he harbored many Christians in his house, to shelter them from the persecution, and resigned his dignity, in which he was succeeded by one Fabian. Chromatius’s son Tiburtius, was ordained subdeacon, and was soon after betrayed to the persecutors, condemned by Fabian to many torments, and at length beheaded on the Lavican road, three miles from Rome, where a church was afterward built. He is mentioned in several ancient Martyrologies with his father Chromatius, who, retiring into the country, lived there concealed in the fervent practice of all Christian virtues.

St. Susanna, V. M.

third age

She was nobly born in Rome, and is said to have been niece to Pope Caius. Having made a vow of virginity, she refused to marry; on which account she was impeached as a Christian, and suffered with heroic constancy a cruel martyrdom. No genuine acts of her life are now extant: but she is commemorated in many ancient Martyrologies, and the famous church which is at present served by Cistercian monks, has born her name ever since the fifth century, when it was one of the titles or parishes of Rome. St. Susanna suffered towards the beginning of Dioclesian’s reign, about the year 295.

Sufferings were to the martyrs the most distinguishing mercy, extraordinary graces, and sources of the greatest crowns and glory. All afflictions which God sends are in like manner the greatest mercies and blessings; they are the most precious talents to be improved by us to the increasing of our love and affection to God, and the exercise of the most heroic virtues of self-denial, patience, humility, resignation, and penance. They are also most useful and necessary to bring us to the knowledge of ourselves and our Creator, which we are too apt to forget without them. Wherefore whatever crosses or calamities befall us, we must be prepared to bear them with a patient resignation to the divine will; we ought to learn from the martyrs to comfort ourselves, and to rejoice in them, as the greatest blessings. How base is our cowardice, and how criminal our folly, if, by neglecting to improve these advantageous talents of sickness, losses, and other afflictions, we make the most precious mercies our heaviest curse! By honoring the martyrs, we pronounce our own condemnation.

St. Gery, or Gaugericus, C.

He was a native of Yvois, in the diocess of Triers, at present a small but strong town in the duchy of Luxemburg. He was brought up at home in the study of sacred learning, and in the assiduous practice of self-denial, watching, prayer, and almsdeeds. This private education preserved him from that corruption of morals and sentiments into which youth too often fall, whilst to fashion themselves to the polite and refined manners of the world they are trained up in pleasure and vanity, and frequently exposed to the most baneful influence of bad company. St. Magneric, the successor of St. Nicetas in the bishopric of Triers, coming to Yvois was much delighted with the sanctity and talents of St. Gery, and ordained him deacon; from that moment the saint redoubled his fervor in the exercise of all good works, and applied himself with unwearied zeal to the functions of his sacred ministry, especially to the instruction of the faithful.

The reputation of his virtue and learning raised him to the episcopal chair of Cambray and Arras, which sees remained united from the death of St. Vedast to the year 1093.* This saint continued his labors in that charge for thirty-nine years, and entirely extirpated out of that country the remains of idolatry. Lest through the multitude of affairs he should in any degree forget that the sanctification of his own soul was his first and most essential duty, and that, without attending to this in the first place, he could hope for little fruit of his labors for the salvation of others, and could not expect that God would make any account of them, he was careful to season them with assiduous recollection, prayer, and self-examination; but from time to time he betook himself to some retired solitude there to attend to God alone, and to recommend to him, by fervent prayer, the souls entrusted to his care. Among other miracles recounted of him, it is related by the author of his life, that at Yvois a leper was healed by being baptized by him; which aptly represented the interior cleansing of the soul from sin. St. Gery was called to eternal rest on the 11th of August, 619, and was buried in the church which he had built in honor of St. Medard. This being demolished by the emperor Charles V. for the building of the citadel, the canons were removed, and took with them the relics of our saint, to an old church of St. Vedast, which from that time has borne the name of St. Gery. See the authentic life of this saint written by the same judicious author who compiled the Chronicle of Cambray, also Chatillon, Series Episc. Camerac. et Atrebat. Boschius the Bollandist, ad 11 Aug. Buzelin.

St. Equitius, Abbot

He flourished in Abruzzo at the same time that St. Bennet established his rule at Mount Cassino. In his youth he was molested with violent temptations of the flesh, to which he opposed austerities and continual prayer; and at length God was pleased entirely to free him from the stings of that domestic enemy. He peopled the whole province of Valeria with fervent monks, who lived dispersed through the woods and fields, and were all employed in prayer and manual labor. St. Equitius visited and instructed them, and sometimes invited and exhorted the people in the towns and villages to the love and service of God. He being only a layman, this was misconstrued by some persons, as if the servant of God had thereby usurped an ecclesiastical function; but the pope, after being fully informed, forbade him to be interrupted in giving private exhortations, an office of charity in which the Holy Ghost seemed to be his master. He worked the whole day in the fields, except when he was taken up in the visitation of his disciples, and only returned to his hermitage in the evening fatigued with his labor. He went in coarse and ragged clothes, and his whole life breathed the air of austere penance and fervent charity and devotion. He took under his direction a numerous monastery of holy virgins, but never allowed any young monk to come near it. He was favored with the gift of prophecy, and died about the year 540. His remains are kept with honor in the church of St. Laurence in Aquila. See St. Gregory, Dial. l. 1, c. 4.

* Cambray is mentioned in the Itinerary ascribed to Antoninus, and in the tables of Peutinger, as a small town of the Nervil, whose capital was Bavai, in Haynault. St. Siagrius is said, in the Chronicle of Nuremburg, to have been consecrated first bishop of Cambray by pope Evaristus in 110. St. Superior in 337 is called bishop of the Nervii; but must have resided at Bavaium. the capital, till it was plundered by the Huns, Franks, Vandals, &c. St. Diogenes was bishop of Cambray and Arras in 390, martyred by the Vandals in 407: after whom, this see was vacant, till, in 490. St. Remigius sent St. Vedast bishop of Arras and Cambray. St. Dominic, chosen by him his coadjutor, governed the see twelve years after his death St. Vedulphus his successor resided at Cambray, where St. Gery was his successor, followed by Bertoald Adelbert, St. Aubert, St. Vindician, Hildebert, St. Hadulphus, also abbot of St. Vedast’s in Arras, who died the 19th of May in 729. Pope Urban I. separated the sees, and created Lambert, archdeacon of Terouanne, bishop of Arras, in 1094.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 3, pp. 348–350). New York: P. J. Kenedy.