April XXX

St. Catharine of Sienna, Virgin

From her life by Raymund of Capua, her confessor, afterwards general of the Dominicans; also by Stephen, prior of the Carthusians, near Pavia, who had intimately known the saint, and from other contemporary authors. Likewise Divæ Catharinæ Senensis Vita per Joan. Pinum, Tolosanum, Bononiæ, 4to, 1505. See her history judiciously and elegantly compiled by F. Touron, t. 2, a writer justly extolled in the Journal de Scavants, and honored with great encomiums by pope Benedict XIV. Her life by her confessor, containing things omitted in other editions, is printed in Italian at Florence, in 1477, 4to., in a Gothic character; yet this is a translation from the Latin: also another printed at Sienna, in 1524, 4to. See also Papebroke’s Remarks, Apr. t. 3, p. 851.

A. D. 1380.

St. Catharine was born at Sienna, in 1347. Her father, James Benincasa, by trade a dyer, was a virtuous man; and though blessed with temporal prosperity, always chiefly solicitous to leave to his children a solid inheritance of virtue, by his example, and by deeply instilling into them lessons of piety. Her mother, Lapa, had a particular affection for this daughter above her other children; and the accomplishments of mind and body with which she was adorned made her the darling and delight of all that knew her, and procured her the name of Euphrosyna. She was favored by God with extraordinary graces as soon as she was capable of knowing him. She withdrew very young to a solitude a little out of the town, to imitate the lives of the fathers of the desert. Returning after some time to her father’s house, she continued to be guided by the same spirit. In her childhood she consecrated her virginity to God by a private vow. Her love of mortification and prayer, and her sentiments of virtue, were such as are not usually found in so tender an age. But God was pleased to put her resolution to a great trial. At twelve years of age, her parents thought of engaging her in a married state. Catharine found them deaf to her entreaties that she might live single; and therefore redoubled her prayers, watching, and austerities, knowing her protection must be from God alone. Her parents, regarding her inclination to solitude as unsuitable to the life for which they designed her, endeavored to divert her from it, and began to thwart her devotions, depriving her in this view of the little chamber or cell they had till then allowed her. They loaded her with the most distracting employments, and laid on her all the drudgery of the house, as if she had been a person hired into the family for that purpose. The hardest labor, humiliations, contempt, and the insults of her sisters, were to the saint a subject of joy; and such was her ardent love of crosses, that she embraced them in all shapes with a holy eagerness, and received all railleries with an admirable sweetness and heroic patience. If any thing grieved her, it was the loss of her dear solitude. But the Holy Ghost, that interior faithful master, to whom she listened, taught her to make herself another solitude in her heart; where, amidst all her occupations, she considered herself always as alone with God; to whose presence she kept herself no less attentive than if she had no exterior employment to distract her. In that admirable Treatise of God’s Providence, which she wrote, she saith, “That our Lord had taught her to build in her soul a private closet, strongly vaulted with the divine providence, and to keep herself always close and retired there; he assured her that by this means she should find peace and perpetual repose in her soul, which no storm or tribulation could disturb or interrupt.” Her sisters and other friends persuaded her to join with them in the diversions of the world, alleging, that virtue is not an enemy to neatness in dress, or to cheerfulness; under which soft names they endeavored to recommend the dangerous liberties of worldly pastimes and vanities. Catharine was accordingly prevailed upon by her sister to dress in a manner something more genteel; but she soon repented of her compliance, and wept for it during the remainder of her life, as the greatest infidelity she had ever been guilty of to her heavenly spouse. The death of her eldest sister, Bonaventura, soon after confirmed her in those sentiments. Her father, edified at her patience and virtue, at length approved and seconded her devotion, and all her pious desires. She liberally assisted the poor, served the sick, and comforted the afflicted and prisoners. Her chief subsistence was on boiled herbs, without either sauce or bread, which last she seldom tasted. She wore a very rough hair-cloth, and a large iron girdle armed with sharp points, lay on the ground, and watched much. Humility, obedience, and a denial of her own will, even in her penitential austerities, gave them their true value. She began this course of life when under fifteen years of age. She was moreover visited with many painful distempers, which she underwent with incredible patience; she had also suffered much from the use of hot baths prescribed her by physicians. Amidst her pains, it was her constant prayer that they might serve for the expiation of her offences, and the purifying her heart. She long desired, and in 1365, the eighteenth year of her age, (but two years later, according to some writers,) she received the habit of the third order of St. Dominic, in a nunnery contiguous to the Dominicans’ convent. From that time her cell became her paradise, prayer her element, and her mortifications had no longer any restraint. For three years she never spoke to any one but to God and her confessor. Her days and nights were employed in the delightful exercises of contemplation: the fruits whereof were supernatural lights, a most ardent love of God, and zeal for the conversion of sinners. The old serpent, seeing her angelical life, set all his engines at work to assault her virtue. He first filled her imagination with the most filthy representations, and assailed her heart with the basest and most humbling temptations. Afterwards, he spread in her soul such a cloud and darkness that it was the severest trial imaginable. She saw herself a hundred times on the brink of the precipice, but was always supported by an invisible hand. Her arms were fervent prayer, humility, resignation, and confidence in God. By these she persevered victorious, and was at last delivered from those trials which had only served to purify her heart. Our Saviour visiting her after this bitter conflict, she said to him: “Where wast thou, my divine Spouse, while I lay in such an abandoned, frightful condition.” “I was with thee,” he seemed to reply. “What!” said she, “amidst the filthy abominations with which my soul was infested!” He answered: “They were displeasing and most painful to thee. This conflict therefore was thy merit, and the victory over them was owing to my presence.” Her ghostly enemy also solicited her to pride, omitting neither violence nor stratagem to seduce her into this vice; but invincible humility was a buckler to cover her from all his fiery darts. God recompensed her charity to the poor by many miracles, often multiplying provisions in her hands, and enabling her to carry loads of corn, oil, and other necessaries to the poor, which her natural strength could not otherwise have borne. The greatest miracle seemed her patience in bearing the murmurs, and even the reproaches, of these ungrateful and importunate people. Catharine dressed, and served an old woman named Tocca, infected to that degree with a leprosy, that the magistrates had ordered her to be removed out of the city, and separated from all others. This poor wretch nevertheless made no other return to the tender charity of the saint, but continual bitter complaints and reproaches: which, instead of wearying out her constancy, only moved the saint to show her still greater marks of sweetness and humility. Another, whose infectious cancer the saint for a long time sucked and dressed, published against her the most infamous calumnies; in which she was seconded by a sister of the convent. Catharine bore in silence the violent persecution they brought upon her, and continued her affectionate services till, by her patience and prayers, she had obtained of God the conversion of both these enemies, which was followed by a retraction of their slanders.

The ardent charity of this holy virgin made her indefatigable in laboring for the conversion of sinners, offering for that end continual tears, prayers, fasts, and other austerities, and thinking nothing difficult or above her strength. All her discourses, actions, and her very silence, powerfully induced men to the love of virtue, so that no one, according to pope Pius II., ever approached her who went not away better. Nannes, a powerful turbulent citizen, being brought to our saint to be reclaimed, all she could say to him to bring him to a right sense of his duty was of no effect; upon which she made a sudden pause in her discourse, to offer up her prayers for him: they were heard that very instant, and an entire change was wrought in the man, to which his tears and other tokens bore evidence. He accordingly reconciled himself to all his enemies, and embraced a most penitential life. When he afterwards fell into many temporal calamities, the saint rejoiced at his spiritual advantage under them, saying, God purged his heart from the poison with which it was infected by its inveterate attachment to creatures Nannes gave to the saint a stately house which he possessed within two miles of the city. This, by the pope’s authority, she converted into a nunnery. We omit the miraculous conversion of James Tholomei and his sisters, of Nicholas Tuldo, and many others; particularly of two famous assassins going to die with blasphemies in their mouths, and in transports of rage and despair, who were suddenly converted in their last moments, on the saint’s praying for them, confessed their crimes to a priest with great signs of repentance, and appeared thoroughly resigned to the punishment about to be inflicted on them. A pestilence laying waste the country in 1374, Catharine devoted herself to serve the infected, and obtained of God the cure of several; amongst others, of two holy Dominicans, Raymund of Capua, and Bartholomew of Sienna. The most hardened sinners could not withstand the force of her exhortations to a change of life. Thousands flocked from places at a distance in the country to hear or only to see her, and were brought over by her words or example to the true dispositions of sincere repentance. She undertook a journey to Monte Pulciano to consecrate to God two of her nieces, who there took the religious veil of Saint Dominic: and another journey to Pisa, by order of her superiors, at the earnest suit of the citizens. She there restored health to many in body, but to a far greater number in soul. Raymund of Capua and two other Dominicans were commissioned by pope Gregory XI., then residing at Avignon, to hear the confessions at Sienna, of those who were induced by the saint to enter upon a change of life; these priests were occupied, day and night, in hearing the confessions of many who had never confessed before; besides those of others who had acquitted themselves but superficially of that duty. While she was at Pisa, in 1375, the people of Florence and Perugia, with a great part of Tuscany, and even of the Ecclesiastical State, entered into a league against the holy see. The news of this disturbance was delivered to Catharine by Raymund of Capua, and her heart was pierced with the most bitter sorrow on account of those evils, which she had foretold three years before they came to their height. The two furious factions of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, who had so disturbed and divided the state of Florence, then a powerful commonwealth, united at last against the pope, to strip the holy see of the lands it possessed in Italy. The disturbance was begun in June, 1373, and a numerous army was set on foot: the word Libertas, written on the banner of the league, was the signal. Perugia, Bologna, Viterbo, Ancona, and other strongholds, soon declared for them. The inhabitants of Arezzo, Lucca, Sienna, and other places, were kept within the bounds of duty by the prayers, letters, and exhortations of St. Catharine, and generously contemned the threats of the Florentines. Pope Gregory XI., residing at Avignon, wrote to the city of Florence, but without success. He therefore sent the cardinal Robert of Geneva, his legate, with an army, and laid the diocese of Florence under an interdict. Internal divisions, murders, and all other domestic miseries amongst the Florentines, joined with the conspiracy of the neighboring states, concurred to open their eyes, and made them sue for pardon. The magistrates sent to Sienna to beg St. Catharine would become their mediatrix. She could not resist their pressing entreaties. Before she arrived at Florence, she was met by the priors or chiefs of the magistrates; and the city left the management of the whole affair to her discretion, with a promise that she should be followed to Avignon by their ambassadors, who should sign and ratify the conditions of reconciliation between the parties at variance, and confirm every thing she had done. The saint arrived at Avignon on the 18th of June, 1376, and was received by the pope and cardinals with great marks of distinction. His holiness, after a conference with her, in admiration of her prudence and sanctity, said to her: “I desire nothing but peace. I put the affair entirely into your hands; only I recommend to you the honor of the church.” But the Florentines sought not peace sincerely, and they continued to carry on secret intrigues to draw all Italy from its obedience to the holy see. Their ambassadors arrived very late at Avignon, and spoke with so great insolence, that they showed peace was far from being the subject of their errand. God suffered the conclusion of this work to be deferred in punishment of the sins of the Florentines, by which means St. Catharine sanctified herself still more by suffering longer amidst a seditious people.

The saint had another point no less at heart in her journey to Avignon. Pope John XXII., a Frenchman, born at Cahors, bishop, first of Frejus, then of Avignon, lastly of Porto, being made pope in 1314, fixed his residence at Avignon, where John’s successors, Benedict XII., Clement VI., Innocent VI., and Urban V., also resided. The then pope Gregory XI., elected in 1370, continued also there. The Romans complained that their bishops had for seventy-four years past forsaken their church, and threatened a schism. Gregory XI. had made a secret vow to return to Rome; but not finding this design agreeable to his court, he consulted the holy virgin on this subject, who answered: “Fulfil what you have promised to God.” The pope, surprised she should know by revelation what he had never discovered to any person on earth, was immediately determined to carry his good design into execution. The saint soon after left Avignon. We have several letters written by her to him, to press him to hasten his return; and he shortly after followed her, leaving Avignon on the 13th of September, in 1376. He overtook the saint at Genoa, where she made a short stay. At Sienna, she continued her former way of life, serving and often curing the sick, converting the most obstinate sinners, and reconciling the most inveterate enemies, more still by her prayers than by her words. Such was her knowledge of heavenly things, that certain Italian doctors, out of envy, and with the intent to expose her ignorance, being come to hold a conference with her, departed in confusion and admiration at her interior lights. The same had happened at Avignon, some time before, where three prelates, envying her credit with the pope, put to her the most intricate questions on an interior life, and many other subjects; but admiring her answers to all their difficulties, confessed to the pope they had never seen a soul so enlightened, and so profoundly humble as Catharine. She had many disciples: among others, Stephen, son of Conrad, a senator of Sienna. This nobleman was reduced by enemies to the last extremity. Seeing himself on the brink of ruin, he addressed himself to the saint, who, having first made a thorough convert of him from the world and its vanities, by her prayers miraculously, on a sudden, pacified all his persecutors, and calmed their fury. Stephen, from that time, looked upon as dust all that he had formerly most passionately loved and pursued; and he testified of himself, that by her presence, and much more by her zealous discourses, he always found the divine love vehemently kindled in his breast, and his contempt of all earthly things increased. He became the most fervent among her disciples, made a collection of all her words as oracles, would be her secretary to write her letters, and her companion in her journeys to Avignon, Florence, and Rome; and at length, by her advice, professed himself a Carthusian monk. He assisted at her death, and wrote her life at the request of several princes having been witness of her great miracles and virtues, and having experienced often in himself her spirit of prophecy, her knowledge of the consciences of others, and her extraordinary light in spiritual things.

St. Catharine wrote to pope Gregory XI., at Rome, strongly exhorting him to contribute by all means possible to the general peace of Italy. His holiness commissioned her to go to Florence, still divided and obstinate in its disobedience. She lived some time in that factious place, amidst daily murders and confiscations, in frequent dangers of her own life many ways; in which she always showed herself most undaunted, even when swords were drawn against her. At length she overcame that obstinate people, and brought them to submission, obedience, and peace, though not under Gregory XI., as Baillet mistakes, but his successor, Urban VI., as her contemporary historian informs us. This memorable reconciliation was effected in 1378; after which Catharine hastened to her solitary abode at Sienna, where her occupation, and, we may say, her very nourishment, was holy prayer: in which intercourse with the Almighty, he discovered to her very wonderful mysteries, and bestowed on her a spirit which delivered the truths of salvation in a manner that astonished her hearers. Some of her discourses were collected, and compose the treatise On Providence, under her name. Her whole life seemed one continual miracle; but what the servants of God admired most in her, was the perpetual strict union of her soul with God. For, though obliged often to converse with different persons on so many different affairs, and transact business of the greatest moment, she was always occupied on God, and absorbed in him. For many years she had accustomed herself to so rigorous an abstinence, that the blessed eucharist might be said to be almost the only nourishment which supported her. Once she fasted from Ash-Wednesday till Ascension-day, receiving only the blessed eucharist during that whole time. Many treated her as a hypocrite, and invented all manner of calumnies against her; but she rejoiced at humiliations, and gloried in the cross of Christ as much as she dreaded and abhorred praise and applause. In a vision, our Saviour is said one day to have presented her with two crowns, one of gold and the other of thorns, bidding her choose which of the two she pleased. She answered: “I desire, O Lord, to live here always conformed to your passion, and to find pain and suffering my repose and delight.” Then eagerly taking up the crown of thorns, she forcibly pressed it upon her head. The earnest desire and love of humiliations and crosses was nourished in her soul by assiduous meditation on the sufferings of our divine Redeemer. What, above all things, pierced her heart was scandal, chiefly that of the unhappy great schism which followed the death of Gregory XI. in 1378, when Urban VI. was chosen at Rome, and acknowledged there by all the cardinals, though his election was in the beginning overawed by the Roman people, who demanded an Italian pope. Urban’s harsh and austere temper alienated from him the affections of the cardinals, several of whom withdrew; and having declared the late election null, chose Clement VII., with whom they retired out of Italy, and resided at Avignon. Our saint, not content to spend herself in floods of tears, weeping before God for these evils of his church, wrote the strongest and most pathetic letters to those cardinals who had first acknowledged Urban, and afterwards elected another; pressing them to return to their lawful pastor, and acknowledge Urban’s title. She wrote also to several countries and princes in his favor, and to Urban himself, exhorting him to bear up cheerfully under the troubles he found himself involved in, and to abate somewhat of a temper that had made him so many enemies, and mollify that rigidness of disposition which had driven the world from him, and still kept a very considerable part of Christendom from acknowledging him. The pope listened to her, sent for her to Rome, followed her directions, and designed to send her, with St. Catharine of Sweden, to Joan, queen of Sicily, who had sided with Clement. Our saint grieved to see this occasion of martyrdom snatched from her, when the journey was laid aside on account of the dangers that were foreseen to attend it. She wrote however to queen Joan: likewise two letters full of holy fire to the king of France, also to the king of Hungary, and others, to exhort them to renounce the schism.

We pass over the ecstasies and other wonderful favors this virgin received from heaven, and the innumerable miracles God wrought by her means. She has left us, besides the example of her life, six Treatises in form of a dialogue, a Discourse on the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, and three hundred and sixty-four Letters, which show that she had a superior genius, and wrote perfectly well. While she was laboring to extend the obedience of the true pope, Urban VI., her infirmities and pains increasing, she died at Rome on the 29th of April, in 1380, being thirty-three years old. She was buried in the church of the Minerva, where her body is still kept under an altar. Her skull is in the Dominicans’ church at Sienna, in which city are shown her house, her instruments of penance, and other relics. She was canonized by pope Pius II. in 1461. Urban VIII. transferred her festival to the 30th of this month.

When we read the lives of the saints, and consider the wonderful graces with which God enriched them, we admire their happiness in being so highly favored by him, and say to ourselves that their labors and sufferings bore no proportion to the sweetness of heavenly peace and love with which their souls were replenished, and the spiritual joy and consolations which were a present superabundant recompense and support. But it was in the victory over their passions, in the fervor of their charity, and in the perfection of their humility, patience, and meekness, that their virtue and their happiness chiefly consisted. Nor are we to imagine that God raised them to these sublime graces without their assiduous application to the practice both of exterior and interior mortification, especially of the latter. Self-denial prepared them for this state of perfect virtue, and supported them in it. What pity is it to hear persons talk of sublime virtue, and to see them pretend to aspire after it, without having studied in earnest to die to themselves. With out this condition, all their fine discourses are mere speculation, and their endeavors fruitless.

St. Maximus, Martyr

From his original acts in Surius, Baronius, Henschenius, Ruinart, Fleury, Tillemont &c.

A. D. 251.

Maximus was an inhabitant of Asia, and a merchant by profession. De eius having formed an impious but vain design of extirpating the Christian religion, published edicts over the whole empire to enforce idolatry, commanding all to adore idols. Maximus having openly declared himself a Christian, he was immediately apprehended and brought before Optimus, the proconsul of Asia, who, after asking him his name, inquired also after his condition. He replied: “I am born free, but am the slave of Jesus Christ.” Proconsul. “What is your profession?” Maximus. “I am a plebeian, and live by my dealings.” Proconsul. “Are you a Christian?” Maximus. “Yes, I am, though a sinner.” Proconsul. “Have not you been informed of the edicts that are lately arrived?” Maximus. “What edicts, and what are their contents?” Proconsul. “That all the Christians forsake their superstition, acknowledge the true prince whom all obey, and adore his gods.” Maximus. “I have been told of that impious edict, and it is the occasion of my appearing abroad.” Proconsul. “As then you are apprized of the edicts, sacrifice to the gods.” Maximus. “I sacrifice to none but that God to whom alone I have sacrificed from my youth, the remembrance of which affords me great comfort.” Proconsul. “Sacrifice. as you value your life: if you refuse to obey, you shall expire in torments.” Maximus. “This has ever been the object of my desires: it was on this very account that I appeared in public, to have an opportunity offered me of being speedily delivered out of this miserable life, to possess that which is eternal.” Then the proconsul commanded him to be bastinadoed, and in the mean time said to him, “Sacrifice, Maximus, and thou shalt be no longer tormented.” Maximus. “Sufferings for the name of Christ are not torments, but comfortable unctions:* but if I depart from his precepts contained in the gospel, then real and eternal torments would be my portion.” The proconsul then ordered him to be stretched on the rack, and while he was tortured, said to him, “Renounce, wretch, thy obstinate folly, and sacrifice to save thy life.” Maximus. “I shall save it if I do not sacrifice; I shall lose it if I do. Neither your clubs, nor your iron hooks, nor your fire, give me any pain, because the grace of Jesus Christ dwelleth in me, which will deliver me out of your hands to put me in possession of the happiness of the saints, who have already, in this same conflict, triumphed over your cruelty.^† It is by their prayers I obtain this courage and strength which you see in me.” The preconsul then pronounced this sentence on him: “I command that Maximus, for refusing to obey the sacred edicts, be stoned to death, to serve for an example of terror to all Christians.” Saint Maximus was immediately seized by the executioners and carried without the city walls, where they stoned him on the 14th of May. Thus his acts. The Greeks honor him on the day of his death: the Roman Martyrology on the 30th of April. He suffered in 250 or 251.

St. Sophia, V. M.

She suffered for the faith in the third age, at Firmo, in Italy, where her festival is kept on the 30th of April with great devotion. Her head is shown in a rich case in the cathedral. See Ughelli, (in Episc. Firmanis,) who places her martyrdom under Decius: also Ferrarius, in Catal. Sanctor. Ital. and the Roman Martyrology.

SS. James, Marian, and Companions,

martyrs in numidia

From their authentic acts, written by a bishop, their companion, and commended by St. Austin, Serm. 284, t. 5, p. 1140.

A. D. 259.

The persecution of Valerian raged nowhere with so much cruelty as in Numidia, in 259. At Lambesa, the greatest city of the province, next to Cirtha, great numbers, both of the laity and clergy, suffered martyrdom. St. James was a deacon of that place, and remarkable for his singular chastity and austerity of life. St. Marian was only reader, but endued with a particular eminence of grace. He had an excellent mother, called Mary, as we learn from St. Austin. They were companions, and probably relations, and came from some remote province of Africa into Numidia. James received on the road a vision, that gave them previous notice of their martyrdom. They arrived at a place called Muguas, near Cirtha, the capital, where the persecution was very violent. Two bishops, named Agapius and Secundinus, who had been banished for their faith, were at the same time brought thither, from the place of their exile, to stand a second trial for their lives. This was a new and unprecedented injustice, practised only against Christians, for persons already condemned to banishment to be again tried and condemned to death. As they were detained here for some days, James and Marian enjoyed their conversation, which excited them to an eager desire of martyrdom: insomuch that, when the two bishops left Muguas to continue their journey, James and Marian were fully determined to follow them. Two days after their departure, pursuivants arrived at Muguas, which was looked upon as the retreat of Christians, and by an order from the governor, apprehended James and Marian, and conducted them to Cirtha, together with a bishop, the author of the acts of their martyrdom, and presented them to the city magistrates, who put them to the most cruel tortures. James confessed boldly that he was not only a Christian, but also a deacon; though the law of Valerian, in 258, condemned to death, without hopes of pardon, even though they should deny their faith, all deacons, priests, and bishops. They were both put to the torture; and Marian in particular was hung up, not by the hands, which was the usual method of torture, but by his thumbs, which was far more painful, weights being also hung to his feet. Amidst his torments, the more his body suffered, the more was his soul strengthened by God. The martyrs having undergone the torture as long as the persecutors thought proper, were sent to prison, with several other Christians. Some were daily called out of this blessed company and crowned with martyrdom; and among others, the two holy bishops, Agapius and Secundinus, honored on the 29th of April. The survivors passed some time in the darkness and honor of the dungeons of Cirtha tormented also with hunger; but the word of God, say the acts, was a spiritual food that supported them. God was pleased, moreover, to comfort them in their prison, by a vision vouchsafed to Marian, to whom St. Cyprian appeared sitting at the right hand of a great judge, who was Christ, and presenting Marian to drink of a fountain of which that holy bishop had first drunk himself: giving Marian thereby to understand that he was also to suffer martyrdom. God gave an assurance of the same favor to this whole company of prisoners, by a second vision, with which he favored another of these confessors, called Emilian, of the Equestrian Order, near fifty years old, who had lived till that age in strict continency. His occupation in prison was chiefly prayer. He fasted much, and often abstained from food by choice for two days successively. He acquainted this blessed company with what he had also seen in his vision; namely, that his heathen brother asked him how they liked the dark dungeons and hunger. He answered, that the word of God served both for light and nourishment to the soldiers of Jesus Christ. His brother said: “You know that as many of you as continue obstinate can expect nothing but death. But do you all hope for equal rewards?” Emilian* said: “Lift up your eyes to heaven: have all the stars you see there the same lustre? Don’t they differ in brightness, though they have all the same light? Those in like manner who shall have suffered most, and have had the greatest difficulties to struggle with, shall receive the most glorious crown.” All these visions contributed not a little to keep up the spirits of the Christian prisoners. The magistrates of Cirtha, seeing the confessors invincible, sent James, Marian, and a great part of the prisoners to Lambesa, to the governor of the province. They suffered much on the way, it being twenty-four miles distant from Cirtha, and the roads very rough. They were lodged in the dungeons of Lambesa, and every day some were called out to martyrdom; the laity first, whom the pagans hoped more easily to vanquish. Among them a woman and her two little children, twins, were martyred on the 2d or 3d of May. Also Tertulla and Antonia, two holy virgins, whom St. Agapius had a singular regard for. He prayed long in prison that they might not be deprived of the glory of shedding their blood for Christ, and at length received from heaven this answer: “You need not ask by so many prayers what you have obtained by the first.” St. James and the other clergy were grieved to see their victory retarded; but it was not long before he saw in his sleep the bishop Agapius preparing a great feast, and expressing much joy, and cheerfully inviting him and Marian to it, as to one of the ancient Agapæ, or love-feasts. Here they met an infant who was one of the twins that had suffered with their mother three days before. He had round his neck a crown of roses, and a very green palm in his right hand; and he bade them rejoice, for they should all sup together the day following, the same on which James, Marian, and several others of the clergy were condemned to die. They were accordingly brought to the place of execution, which was a valley, through which ran the river Pagydus, with hills on each side convenient for the spectators. The martyrs were placed in rows on the banks of the river, that the executioner might pass conveniently from one to the other in cutting off their heads. While they had their eyes bound, they had most of them some token given them by God of their approaching felicity. Marian also foretold the wars, and other evils which threatened the empire in revenge of the innocent blood of the just This was verified,—the persecuting emperor Valerian being taken and most barbarously treated by the Persians, in 260; not to mention the thirty tyrants, a dreadful pestilence, and other calamities which afflicted the empire. Mary, the mother of this blessed martyr, like the mother of the Maccabees says St. Austin, followed her son to the place of execution to encourage him: on seeing him dead, she embraced his corpse, and oftentimes kissed his neck, and blessed God for having made her the mother of such a son. Their triumph happened in 259, or 260, probably on the 6th of May, on which the ancient calendar of Carthage, drawn up in the close of the fifth century, mentions them. The other Latins honor them on the 30th of April. SS. James and Marian are patrons of Eugubio, in the duchy of Urbino, the ancient Umbria, and their bodies are said to be kept in the cathedral there The names of these martyrs are consecrated in the Roman Martyrology.

St. Erkonwald, Bishop of London, C.

He was a prince of the royal blood, son of Annas, the holy king of the East-Angles, or, as some say, of a certain prince named Offa. The better to disengage himself from the ties and encumbrances of the world, he forsook his own country, and retired into the kingdom of the East-Saxons, where he employed his large estate in founding two great monasteries, one at Chertsey, in Surrey, near the Thames,* the other for nuns, at Barking, in Essex;^† of this latter he appointed his sister, Edilburga, abbess. The former he, governed with great sanctity, till he was forced out of his dear solitude by king Sebba, in 675, and consecrated bishop of London by St. Theodorus. He much augmented the buildings and revenues of St. Paul’s, and obtained for that church great privileges from the king. Dugdale, in his history of that cathedral, proves that it had originally been a temple of Diana, from many heads of oxen dug up when the east part of it was rebuilt, and from the structure of the chambers of Diana, near that place. Bede bears witness that God honored St. Erkonwald with a great gift of miracles, and that his horse-litter, or chips cut off from it, cured distempers to his own time: and his sanctity has been most renowned through all succeeding ages. He sat eleven years, according to his old epitaph, which Mr. Weever has preserved.¹ His tomb, in the cathedral of St. Paul’s, was famous for frequent miracles, as is mentioned by Bede, Malmesbury, &c. His body was removed from the middle of the church, by a solemn translation, on the 14th of November, in 1148,² and deposited above the high altar, on the east wall. Dugdale³ describes the riches and numerous oblations which adorned his shrine, and laments⁴ that they had lately seen the destruction of this magnificent church, which was the glory of our nation; the monuments of so many famous men torn to pieces, and their bones and dust pulled out of their graves. In which barbarous search the body of the holy king Sebba was found embalmed with perfumes, and clothed with rich robes: also several bishops in their proper habits. But, says that diligent author, I could never hear that they found more than a ring or two with rubies, and a chalice of no great value. He adds: Under part of the choir was the subterraneous parish church of St. Faith, called S. Fides in Cryptis. At the change of religion, the body of St. Erkonwald disappeared, in 1533, says Weever.⁵ F. Jerom Porter, in his lives of the English saints, testifies, that it was then buried at the upper end of the choir, near the wall. No mention is made of it in any accounts since the new fabric was erected. See Wharton, Hist. Episcoporum Londin. p. 16, and Maitland, Hist. of London, b. 2, p. 486; also the notes of Papebroke upon the life of St. Erkonwald in Capgrave, Apr. t. 3, p. 780, and Leland, Collect. t. 1, pp. 22 and 23.

Saint Ajutre, or Adjoutr, C.

recluse, at vernon in normandy

He was a Norman gentleman, who, upon motives of holy zeal and piety, followed the Christian standards in the holy war in the East. Being taken by the Saracens, he suffered great hardships and torments, nothing being able to shake his constancy in the confession of his faith, and in the exercises of his religious duties. Having recovered his liberty, he returned home, where, having consecrated himself and his estate to God, he led an anchoretical life at Vernon upon the Seine, in the assiduous practices of penance and fervent prayer. He consummated his sacrifice by a happy death on the 30th of April, in 1131, and is commemorated on this day in the new accurate Martyrology of Evreux, and in the calendars of many other churches in Normandy.

May

* Hæc non sunt tormenta, sed sunt unctiones.

^† Omnium sanctorum orationibus qui in hac colluctatione certantes, vestras superaverunt insanias, no bisque virtutum exempla reliquerunt. Ruin. p. 145.

* This St. Emilian occurs in the Martyrologies on the 29th of April.

* Chertsey (anciently Ceortesei) monastery was founded by St. Erkonwaid, about the year 666. The abbot and ninety monks being killed, and the abbey burnt to the ground, during the Danish wars. It was refounded by King Edgar and bishop Ethelwold, to the honor of St. Peter. At the dissolution, it was valued, according to Speed, at 744l. 13s. 4d. per ann. See Monast. Anglic. t. 1, p. 75, and bishop Tanner, Notit. Monastica, p. 534.

^† Barking nunnery was founded by the same saint, in 675, or, according to the Chertsey-book, in 666; but was not the first nunnery in England, as Weever, Dugdale, (in Warwicks, p. 1107,) and Newcourt assert: for that of Folkestone in Kent was founded in 630 by Eadbald, king of Kent, and his daughter, St. Eanswithe, was made first abbess, as bishop Tanner takes notice. Barking nunnery was valued at the dissolution at 1084l. per annum, which would be now eight times as much. Those authors are mistaken who call Barking the richest nunnery in England, those of Sion and Shaftsbury being much richer.

¹ Funeral monuments.

² See Hearne, note on Robert of Gloucester’s Chronicle, t. 2, p. 467.

³ History of the cathedral of St. Paul’s, pp. 22, 23, 24.

⁴ Ib. p. 51.

⁵ p. 359.

 Butler, A. (1903). The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (Vol. 2, pp. 187–203). New York: P. J. Kenedy.