The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March

It is almost needless to point out the utter worthlessness of this fable. That there was a S. Fingar, and that he suffered under Corotic is likely enough. The violence and murders committed by this piratical prince are established historical facts. But if S. Fingar had been a king's son, he would certainly have been mentioned in some of the lives of S. Patrick, which he is not. Anselm says that his father, Clito, was the most noble and powerful of the seven Irish kings who received S. Patrick. Now there is nothing better authenticated than that the head king at that time was Leogaire. The chief difficulty according to Colgan, consists in the name Theodoric; but the name was not unknown among the Britons. A Teudric, or Theodoric, was king of Glamorgan, about the latter end of the sixth century, (Usher, p. 562.) But Albertus Magnus maintains (De Sanctis Britan. Armor), that the Cornubia spoken of in Fingar's Acts was Cornouaille, in Brittany, and informs us that Fingar's festival is celebrated at Vannes, on December 13th. Lobineau, in his History of Brittany, mentions a Theodoric son of Budic, and count of Cornouaille, but he lived late in the sixth century. But probably Theodoric is a mistake for Corotic, made by some copyist.

S. VICTORIAN AND OTHERS, MM(ABOUT A.D. 484.)

[Usuardus, Ado, Notker, ancient and modern Roman Martyrologies. Authority: – Victor of Utica's History of the Vandal Persecution.]

Victorian, proconsul of Carthage, a native of Adrumetum, was one of the wealthiest men in North Africa, and had discharged several important offices under Hunneric, the Vandal king, son of Genseric. But Hunneric being resolved to trample out the faith in the Godhead of Christ, and establish the Arian heresy throughout his dominions, offered Victorian the highest honours, and his own special favour, if he would regard Christ as a creature. Victorian replied, "Nothing can separate me from the faith and love of our Lord Jesus Christ. In the confidence that I have in so mighty a master, I am ready to suffer all kinds of torments rather than to consent to Arian impiety. You may burn me or expose me to wild beasts, or kill me by other tortures; but never will you prevail on me to desert the Catholic Church in which I was baptized." This reply so exasperated the tyrant that he made the saint undergo the worst and most protracted torments his ingenuity could devise. Victorian endured them all with a good courage, and gained the martyr's crown.

In the city of Tambala also many suffered for the right faith, and in that of Aquæ regiæ two brothers exhibited great constancy. They were hung up by their wrists, with heavy weights attached to their feet. After having thus hung all day, the endurance of one brother gave way, and he cried out to be released. Then the other exclaimed, "Do not so, brother! or I will accuse thee at the judgment seat of Christ; for have we not sworn over His Body and Blood to suffer together for Him?" Then the weaker brother was strengthened to endure, and the Vandals incensed at their obstinacy, applied red-hot plates of iron to their flesh, and tore them with iron rakes, and so, they entered into the joy of their Lord.

Two merchants of Carthage, both named Frumentius, also sold all that they had, even to their lives, to gain the most precious pearl of eternal life.

The Church honours also on the same day S. Liberatus, his wife, and sons, who suffered in the same persecution. Liberatus, a physician of Carthage, was exiled, along with his wife, on account of his faith. He felt keenly the being separated from his children, but his wife consoled him, saying, "Think no more of thy children, Jesus Christ will be their guardian." The husband and wife were incarcerated in separate prisons, so as not to see one another. "Thy husband has submitted to the orders of the king," said the Arians to the wife: "therefore do thou yield also." But she answered, "Let me see him and speak with him." Then she was conducted to where he was, and she reproached him for his apostasy. But he exclaimed, "They have deceived thee, O my wife, never have I renounced my faith." Then she gave praise to God. It is not known how these saints suffered, but they are honoured by the Church as martyrs.

S. ETHELWOLD, H(ABOUT A.D. 723.)

[Menardus on Jan. 6th. Edward Mayhew in his Trophæa Cong. Anglic. O.S.B. on March 23rd. So Heronymus Porter in his Flores Vitarum Sanct. Angliæ, Scotiæ, and Hiberniæ. The revised Anglican Martyrology of 1640, on same day. Authority: – Bede in his life of S. Cuthbert.]

S. Ethetwold, or Ethelwold, was for some time a monk at Ripon, "where having received the priestly office," says Bede, "he sanctified it by a life worthy of that degree. After the death of that man of God, Cuthbert, this venerable priest succeeded him in the exercise of a solitary life, in the cell which the saint had inhabited in the islet of Farne, before he was made bishop." He found the oratory of Cuthbert so rudely put together, that the sea-wind shrieked in through the joints of the planks, and though patched up with clay and stubble, the chapel was so full of draughts that Ethelwold asked for and obtained a calf's skin, and this he nailed against the wall where he was wont to pray, to keep the wind from blowing into his ear. Bede says, "I will relate one miracle of Ethelwold, which was told me by one of the brothers who was concerned, and for whose sake it was wrought, Guthfried, the venerable servant and priest of Christ, who afterwards presided in quality of abbot over the church of Lindisfarne, in which he was educated. I came, said he, to the islet of Farne, with two other brothers, desiring to speak with the most reverent father Ethelwold; and when we had been comforted by his discourses, and having asked his blessing, were returning home, when on a sudden, as we were in the sea, the fair weather that was wafting us over changed, and so great and furious a storm fell on us, that neither sail nor oars availed, and we despaired of life.

"Having a good while struggled in vain with the wind and waves, we looked back at last to see if by any means we might return to the island, but found that we were equally beset with the tempest on all sides; but we could perceive Ethelwold at the mouth of his cavern, contemplating our danger. For, hearing the howl of the wind, and the roar of the sea, he came forth to see how we fared. And when he saw our desperate condition, he bent his knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to pray for our life and safety. As he finished his prayer, the swelling sea immediately abated its violence, and the rage of the winds ceased, and a fair gale springing up bore us over the smooth waters to the shore. But no sooner had we arrived, and drawn our boat out of the water, than the same storm began to rage again, and ceased not all that day; to the end that it might plainly appear, that this small intermission had been granted from heaven at the prayer of the man of God, that we might escape."

S. Ethelwold spent twelve years at Farne, and died there; but he was buried in Lindisfarne, in the Church of S. Peter, near the bodies of SS. Cuthbert and Eadbert. His bones were afterwards taken up in the time of the Danish ravages, 875, and were translated to Durham in 995, and more honourably enshrined in 1160.

March 24

S. Latinus, B. of Brescia, 2nd cent.

SS. Mark and Timothy, MM. at Rome, 2nd cent.

SS. Timolaus, Dionysius, and Others, MM. at Cæsarea, A.D. 303.

S. Pigmenius, P.M. at Rome, A.D. 373.

S. Domangart, of Slieve Donarth, B. in Ireland.

S. Hildelitha, V. Abss. of Barking, in Essex, circ. A.D. 720.

S. Bernulf, B.M. of Aste, 9th cent.

S. Simon, Child M. at Trent, A.D. 1475.

SS. TIMOLAUS, DIONYSIUS, AND OTHERS, MM(A.D. 303.)

[Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on March 15th. Authority: – Eusebius on the Martyrs of Palestine.]

Eusebius writes of the persecution under Dioclesian, at Cæsarea, – "Who could fail to be struck with admiration at the sight or recital of the things that then took place? For, as the heathen in every place were on the point of celebrating their accustomed games and festivals, it was much noised abroad that besides the other exhibitions, those who had been condemned to wild beasts were to be made to fight. This report having gained ground, there were six young men, who, first binding their hands, hastened to Urbanus (the governor of the province), to prove their readiness to endure martyrdom, as he was on his way to the amphitheatre. Their names were Timolaus, a native of Pontus, Dionysius of Tripolis in Phœnice, Romulus, a subdeacon of the church at Diospolis Paesis, and Alexander, both Egyptians; and another Alexander from Gaza. They were immediately committed to prison. Not many days after, two others were added to the number, of whom one had already witnessed a good confession several times, under various dreadful tortures. His name was Agapius, but the other, who supplied them with the necessaries of life, was named Dionysius. All these, being eight in number, were beheaded in one day at Cæsarea, on the twenty-third day of the month Dystrus, that is, the ninth of the Kalends of April."

S. DOMANGART OF SLIEVE DONART, B(UNCERTAIN.)

[Irish Martyrologies. He is not to be confounded with S. Domangart, the brother of S. Domnoch, or Modomnoc (Feb. 13th.) Giraldus Cambrensis calls him Dominick. Usher, thinking this S. Dominick was the same as Dominick of Ossory mentioned elsewhere by Giraldus, and not acquainted with the history of S. Domangart, fell into the mistake of making the mountain Slieve Slainge, called afterwards Slieve Donart, to be Grenore point, in Wexford. Ware followed Usher. Archdall calls the saint S. Domangard of Ossory, whereas the saint of Ossory was Domnoc, or Modomnoc, and not Domangart at all, and makes the promontory Carnsore.]

S. Domangart is said to have been the son of Euchodius, king of Ulster, in the latter part of the 5th century, and during a part of the 6th. In the Tripartite Life of S. Patrick he is represented as a bigoted heathen and a persecutor. His two daughters having embraced Christianity made a vow of perpetual virginity, and their father, highly incensed, ordered them to be cast into the sea. Therefore S. Patrick cursed him and his seed for ever, excepting, however, his unborn son, at the petition of the queen, who was with child. The son born to him after this was Domangart, and his birth is placed a short time before the foundation of Armagh, and it is added that he afterwards became a disciple of the apostle. But, as Dr. Lanigan has proved in his "Irish Ecclesiastical History," S. Patrick did not survive the foundation of Armagh more than about ten years. How then could Domangart have been his disciple? Then we are given to understand, that Domangart was not born till after his father's death, which the Four Masters assign to A.D. 503 (504.) This sets aside the whole story; for S. Patrick was dead many years before this date. Jocelin, who follows the Tripartite as to Euchodius, Domangart, &c., omits what is said of the latter having been a disciple of S. Patrick. There is a fable concerning S. Domangart having been raised from the dead at Rome by S. Patrick, according to which he would have lived in the 5th cent. Such contradictory stories show what little reliance can be placed in the accounts of the saint. All that we can be certain of is that he founded a monastery on the promontory of Slieve Slainge, where in Colgan's time stood two churches dedicated to him.

S. HILDELITHA, V. ABSS. OF BARKING(ABOUT A.D. 720.)

[Ancient Anglican Martyrologies, and Gallican Martyrology. Authority: – Bede, Ecc. Hist. l. iv. c. 10.]

Hildelitha was one of the first virgins of the English nation who consecrated herself a spouse to Christ, going abroad to a French monastery, there being, at that time, none in England. When S. Erkonwald had founded the monastery of Chertsey for himself, and the convent of Barking, in Essex, for his sister Ethelburga, he sent to France for S. Hildelitha, and committed his sister to her care, to be by her instructed in monastic discipline. Thus S. Ethelburga herself, who was the first abbess of Barking, was a disciple of S. Hildelitha, though she died before her, and was succeeded by her in the government of the community. Bede highly commends the piety of this saint, and that she was highly esteemed by others we may gather from S. Aldhelm having addressed to her his poetical treatise on virginity, and from mention of her in one of the epistles of S. Boniface, where he relates what great things he had learned of her.

S. Hildelitha departed to our Lord in a good old age, but the date of her death is undetermined.

S. SIMON, BOY M(A.D. 1475.)

[Roman Martyrology. Authority: – The Acts of Canonization by Benedict XIV., and the Acts published in the Italian immediately after the event took place.]

Through the Middle Ages, in Europe the Jews were harshly treated, suffering from sudden risings of the people, or from the exactions of princes and nobles. This nourished in them a bitter hatred of Christians and Christianity, and in some instances led to cruel reprisals. Such was, perhaps, the case in Trent, where on Tuesday in Holy Week, 1475, the Jews met to prepare for the approaching Passover, in the house of one of their number named Samuel, and it was agreed between three of them, Samuel, Tobias, and Angelus, that a child should be crucified, as an act of revenge against their tyrants, and of hatred against Christianity. The difficulty, however, was how to get one. Samuel sounded his servant Lazarus, and attempted to bribe him into procuring one, but the suggestion so scared the fellow, that he packed up all his traps and ran away. On the Thursday, Tobias undertook to get the boy, and going out in the evening, whilst the people were in church during the singing of Tenebræ, he prowled about till he found a child sitting on the threshold of his father's door in the Fossati Street, aged twenty-nine months, and named Simon. The Jew began to coax the little fellow to follow him, and the boy did so, and he conducted him to the house of Samuel, where he was put to bed, and given raisins and apples to amuse him.

In the mean time the parents, Andrew and Mary, missing their child, began to seek him everywhere, but not finding him, and night falling darkly upon them, they returned, troubled and alarmed to their home.

During the night, when all was still, a Jew named Moses took the child from its bed, and carried it into the vestibule of the synagogue, which formed a part of the house of Samuel, and sitting down on a bench began to strip the infant; a handkerchief being twisted round its throat to prevent it from crying. Then stretching out his limbs in the shape of a cross they began the butchery of the child, cutting the body in several places, and gathering his blood in a basin. The child being half dead, they raised him on his feet, and whilst two of them held him by the arms, the rest pierced his body on all sides with their awls.

When the child was dead, they hid the body in a cellar behind the barrels of wine.

All Friday the parents sought their son, but found him not, and the Jews, alarmed at the proceedings of the magistrates, who had taken the matter up, and were making investigations in all quarters, consulted what had better be done. They could not carry the body away, as every gate was watched, and the perplexity was great. At length they determined to dress the body again and throw it into the stream which ran under Samuel's window, but which was there blocked by an iron cage in which the refuse was caught. Tobias was to go to the bishop and chief magistrates and tell them that there was a child's body entangled in the grate, and he hoped that by thus drawing attention to it all suspicion of having been implicated in the murder would be diverted from him and his co-religionists.

This was done, and when John de Salis, the bishop, and James de Sporo, the governor, heard the report of the Jew, they at once went, and the body was removed before their eyes, and conveyed to the cathedral, followed by a crowd. As, according to a popular mediæval superstition, blood is supposed to flow from the wound when the murderer approaches, the officers of justice examined the body as the crowds passed it; and they noticed that blood exuded as Tobias approached. On the strength of this the house of Samuel and the synagogue were examined, and blood and other traces of the butchery were found in the cellar, and in the place where the deed had been done, and the bowl of blood was discovered in a cupboard. The most eminent physicians were called to investigate the condition of the corpse, and they unanimously decided that the child could not have been drowned, as the body was not swollen, and as there were marks on the throat of strangulation. The wounds they decided were made by sharp instruments like awls and knives, and could not be attributed to the gnawing of water-rats. The popular voice now accusing the Jews, the magistrates seized on the Jews and threw them into prison, and on the accusation of a renegade Jew named John, who had been converted to Christianity seven years before, and who declared that the Jews had often sought to catch and kill a child, and had actually done this elsewhere, more than five of the Jews were sentenced to be broken on the wheel, and then burnt.

The blood found in the basin is preserved in the cathedral of Trent, and the body of the child is also enshrined there in a magnificent mausoleum.

March 25

Memorial of the Crucifixion.

The Penitent Thief, A.D. 33.

S. Quirinus, M. at Rome, A.D. 269.

S. Irenæus, B.M. at Sirmium, A.D. 304.

S. Pelagius, B. of Laodicæa, end of 4th cent.

S. Dula, V.M. at Nicomedia.

S. Camin, Ab. of Iniskeltra, in Ireland, circ. A.D. 653.

S. Humbert, P.C. at Marolles, in Hainault, circ. A.D. 680.

SS. Barontus and Desiderius, HH. at Pistoria, circ. A.D. 725.

S. Hermeland, Ab. of Hindre, in France, 8th cent.

S. Alfwolf, B. of Sherborne, A.D. 1075.

S. William, Child M. at Norwich, A.D. 1144.

S. Richard, Child M. at Paris, A.D. 1179.

S. Ida, Abss. of Argensolles, in the diocese of Soissons, circ. A.D. 1250.

THE ANNUNCIATION OF S. MARY

In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David, and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, "Hail, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee: Blessed art thou among women."87

The angel, to manifest his reverence and love, saluted the holy virgin with an "Ave," or Hail, and he named not her proper name, Mary, but gave her the title "Full of Grace." This he did that we might understand, that as Almighty God gave to the Messiah the names of "Wonderful, Counsellor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,"88 so also He gave to the Virgin a new and most glorious name, which, for excellency, is to be attributed to her in the Church; so that as we call Solomon "the Wise," and S. Paul "the Apostle of the Gentiles," so we should call the Blessed Virgin the "Full of Grace," and the "Blessed among women."

The festival of the Annunciation is at least as ancient as the Council in Trullo (A.D. 680), and is supposed, on the authority of a sermon attributed to S. Cyril, to have been kept in the 5th century. It has always been very highly observed in England. The Synod of Worcester, A.D. 1240, by one of its canons, forbade all servile work upon it, and this was afterwards confirmed by various provincial and diocesan councils in all respects except agricultural labour.

The tenth council of Toledo, in 656, ordered that this festival should be solemnized on December 18th, eight days before Christmas, because of its proper day arriving in Lent, and sometimes in Holy Week. Nevertheless, it has been observed on its proper day, but is transferred in the Western Church to after Easter, whenever it occurs in Holy Week or on Easter-day.

It is said that in the church of Notre Dame du Puy en Valey has the privilege of making it over-ride Good Friday, when it occurs on that day; and that on that day there are great indulgences as a jubilee in that church. The Council of Constantinople, in "Trullo," already mentioned, ordered that the mass of the pre-sanctified should be said on all days in Lent except the Sabbath, the Lord's day, and the Feast of the Annunciation. Pope Urban II., in a council held at Clermont, in 1095, ordered that every day the church bell should be rung, morning, noon, and evening, and that each time it was rung the faithful should recite the Angelic Salutation. This is called the Angelus. The object of the Holy Father was to stir up the faithful to thank God for the benefit of the Incarnation. Popes John XXII., Calixtus III., Paul III., Alexander VII., and Clement X., have recommended this practice and attached indulgences to it. These were confirmed by Benedict XIII.

The Greeks observe the same day as the Latins. In the Menologium of the emperor Basil the younger, it is thus described: "On the 25th day of March, the Annunciation of the most holy Mother of God. Our God, most loving and merciful to human salvation, who ever careth for the sons of men, when He beheld man, the work of His hands, brought under the bondage of Satan, willed to send His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, into the world, to pluck man out of the power of the devil. But willing not that Satan, nay, nor the celestial powers should know thereof, he committed this secret to one of the archangels, Gabriel the Glorious. And having made by His providence that a Virgin pure and immaculate should be born meet for so high an honour, to her was Gabriel sent, and he came to the city called Nazareth, and said to her, 'Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee!' But she asked, 'How shall these things be?' To whom he made reply, 'The Holy Ghost shall descend on thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee.' And she said, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.' And having thus spoken, she conceived above nature a son, the Word of God; and thereafter were fulfilled all the mysteries of the Word of God incarnate pertaining to our salvation."

In the Greek Menæa also, it is said, "March 25th, the commemoration of the Annunciation of the most holy Mother of God, our Lady, when the arch-warrior, Gabriel, captain of the celestial armies, being instructed in the secret from eternity and unknown to angels, the mystery hidden of the divine incarnation of the Son of God, was sent to the most pure Mary, unstained with any spot of sin, in the city of Nazareth, that he might declare to her the will of God the Father, and the favour and efficacious help of the life-giving Spirit for the salvation of man. And he said to her, 'Hail, Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee.'"

This is the exordium of a Greek hymn on the Annunciation, by S. Joseph, the hymnographer: – "When Gabriel, the great archangel, saw thee, O pure one! the living book of Christ, sealed with the Holy Ghost, he cried to thee, 'Rejoice, oh house of joy! through whom is abolished the malediction pronounced on our first parents.'"

The ancient Arabian-Egyptian church also observed this festival. In an Arabic martyrology, the entry on March 25th is as follows, "The memorial of the Annunciation of the Mother of God, and the Incarnation of the Son of God, this day the first-fruits of our salvation and the manifestation of a mystery kept hidden from all ages. The Son of God issued forth Son of the Virgin, and Gabriel announced the favour. And now we with him exclaim, 'Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee!'" The same festival is observed by the Copts, and found in the Syriac and Chaldee, and Russian Kalendars.

In the sacramentary of S. Gregory the Great, the proper preface for this day runs thus: "… through Christ our Lord, whom Gabriel, the archangel, announced was to be born for man's salvation, the Virgin Mary, by the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, conceived; that what angelic sublimity announced, virginal purity might believe, and ineffable Deity might perform. And thus we hope, by Thy assistance, to behold His face without confusion, in the solemnity of whose Incarnation we now rejoice."

In the Church of Milan, according to the Ambrosian rite, "throughout the whole of Lent, no festival of any saint is observed, and the office for the Annunciation of S. Mary is celebrated on the last Sunday in Advent."