31 December 2025
Is Assisted Suicide More Merciful Than God?
"Every Catholic should have a basic understanding of the Church’s teaching on suffering so as not to fall for assisted suicide’s masquerade as an improvement on God’s plan."
From CrisisBy Patti Armstrong
Assisted suicide encourages a global participation in rejecting Jesus as the Messiah in its denial of redemptive suffering.
There is supernatural power in suffering beyond our understanding. But the fear of suffering has become a weapon in the devil’s toolbox to increasingly drive state-abetted suicide as an improvement on God’s plan.
On December 12, Illinois became the 12th state to enact legislation to provide terminally ill patients with an exit ramp from life through physician-assisted suicide. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s December 17 announcement revealed that New York is lined up to be unlucky state number 13 (along with the District of Columbia).
A Merciful Option?
In the New York newspaper Times Union, Hochul described the measure as simply speeding up the inevitable, since they will only accept terminal patients with no more than six months to live. She calls it “a merciful option, for those in pain,” ignoring that there are measures for pain relief and compassionate care.
Reflecting on the issue during a Catholic funeral Mass, Hochul shared, “I was taught that God is merciful and compassionate, and so must we be. This includes permitting a merciful option to those facing the unimaginable and searching for comfort in their final months in this life.”
Hochul is confused. She refers to God as merciful and claims we must be merciful as well; but she extrapolates that to mean we should play God and define mercy in our own terms.
Saying that for us to be merciful we must help people to die is to claim that God’s mercy is insufficient and, thus, we should take matters into our own hands.
But if God is so merciful, then why does He permit suffering? Every Catholic should have a basic understanding of the Church’s teaching on suffering so as not to fall for assisted suicide’s masquerade as an improvement on God’s plan. Nowhere in the Bible did Jesus instruct us to skip over suffering to meet up with Him sooner in the next life.
A Year-Long Holy Week
In Michelle Duppong: Hope in the Depths of Suffering that I authored along with Stephanie Parks, we looked at the life of Servant of God Michelle Duppong and how she used her cancer diagnosis not just for her own holiness but to wrap those around her in the supernatural power of redemptive suffering to bring them closer to God. Stephanie is getting a master’s in theology with a focus on redemptive suffering. We ended the book with a chapter on its power, understanding that suffering scares most of us. So how do we make sense of it?
Michelle’s life clearly taught that through suffering the supernatural enters in, bringing with it real freedom and peace, not the sort legislated by scheduling a person’s death. When Michelle left the Cancer Center of America in the Chicago area to return home to North Dakota for hospice, it took four hours for staff at the hospital to say goodbye to her. Everyone knew and loved her. She had offered up her suffering in union with that of Jesus on the Cross and put herself at His disposal. The love poured out.
She never stopped praying for healing, but she accepted God’s plan. Instead of fighting it, she united herself to it for the best possible outcome. I once heard a priest say that suffering without offering it up just hurts. But can we skip the hurt, as Hochul and other’s claim, without paying a price in some other way? Can we override God’s plan for our own, for a quick start into Heaven? How foolish such thinking is.
Msgr. Thomas Richter was rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit and Michelle’s spiritual director when she became the director of faith formation for the Bismarck Diocese after eight years as a FOCUS missionary. He administered last rites to Michelle mere days before she died at age 31 on Christmas in 2015, and he presided over her funeral Mass. At the end, Michelle still prayed for healing. So why did God refuse her a miracle?
“We need to understand that the last year of Michelle’s life was her Holy Week,” Msgr. Richter explained during his funeral homily. “She experienced a twelve-month Holy Week. This painful experience was not an interruption to her mission of evangelization; it was a continuation and, in fact, the fulfillment of her work of evangelization.”
“We make sense of Michelle’s suffering the way we make sense of all suffering: through the suffering and death of Jesus, His paschal mystery,” Msgr. Richter said.
Jesus, the innocent one, was not preserved from suffering and death. Michelle’s innocent suffering was a share in Jesus’. She suffered not because she was distant from Jesus. He was close to her, and she was close to Him. He was loving her, and she was loving Him at the Cross. Redemptive suffering is not the experience of someone who is alone and unloved but of someone who has drawn so near to God that just as Jesus’ suffering and death brought the saving and healing love of God to us, so does that happen through the person’s nearness to Jesus. Michelle was not alone and unloved; she was near God. We can see in her another Christ.
“Jesus did not save the world when He was healing people and performing miracles,” Msgr. Richter noted.
Salvation came to us on Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. I think how we interpret this last year of Michelle’s life determines whether we actually believe that, especially in our own lived experience of suffering. Do we believe the mysterious suffering experienced by Michelle in the last year of her life was an interruption or a fulfillment of her mission? As a fruit of her being close to Jesus or forgotten by Him? These are the questions every person must confront when confronting his own cross.
Was there suffering? For sure. But in the midst of this it was very clear in Michelle that she grew in her concern for others, and she grew in great trust of God. She was sharing in the paschal mystery of Jesus.
Making Up for What Is Lacking
St. Paul expressed his understanding of redemptive suffering: “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh, I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Colossians 1:24).
As noted in the book, this might seem like a puzzling statement: Is there something “lacking” about Jesus’ work on the Cross? Of course not. Nothing about Christ’s offering was lacking. What St. Paul means is that the salvation of the world is still not yet complete because time is still unfolding and people are still being redeemed as they come to know and accept Jesus’ salvation through faith in this life. Our suffering, when offered to Jesus, can call down grace to soften someone’s heart toward God; it can bring about an encounter with God that can spark conversion.
Just as our prayers for others are heard by God and incorporated into His loving action in the world, so, too, is our suffering incorporated into His plan of salvation when we offer it to Him. Our suffering is not meaningless. When we suffer, we are, in fact, “carrying out an irreplaceable service” for the kingdom of God.
The Church teaches that suffering is an experience of evil, and God cannot will evil. But theologians make the distinction between God’s active will and His permissive will, or what He allows to happen. For example, He does not expressly will that someone get cancer, but, in His mysterious ways, He can permit the laws of nature to produce such an illness; and He can bring about greater transformation and grace through it.
Even Jesus, in the Garden of Gethsemane, cries out for the suffering allowed by God to be removed; and yet He surrenders Himself to God’s will: “Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). How often these words must have been on Michelle’s heart, in imitation of her beloved Jesus.
Even in her acceptance of God’s will for her, Michelle did not cease praying for healing. Her family gathered around her every night to pray together for her healing. Holding on to great hope, they also submitted themselves to God’s permissive will, trusting that if God did not heal her, He would bring about a greater victory.
Assisted suicide is not a greater victory. It is a rejection of God’s will. Hochul was correct that God is merciful. So, rejecting God’s plan to replace it with our own will is rejecting God’s mercy in ways we cannot fully understand in this world. It moves us away from Him and more into ourselves. We are not our own savior, and assisted suicide is not God’s plan for us.
Medieval Man
Maritain was a major drafter of the Satanic, anti-God, anti-Christian Universal Declaration of Human Rights, even though he began as a Maurassian Integriste.
From The Imaginative Conservative
From The Imaginative Conservative
By Jacques Maritain
The whole theological thought of the Middle Ages was dominated by St. Augustine, especially by the positions taken by Augustine in opposition to Pelagius. And in this the Middle Ages were purely and simply Catholic and Christian.
For mediaeval thought (and in this it only showed that it was Christian), man was not simply an animal endowed with reason, according to the famous Aristotelian definition, which one can truly regard as a definition “naturally Catholic”—and this commonplace concerning human nature already goes very far, for, making of man a spirit by the principal part of him, it shows that he must have superhuman aspirations; but it also shows, since this spirit is the spirit of an animal, that it must be the weakest of spirits, and that in fact man will live most often not in the spirit but in the senses.
For mediaeval thought, man was also a person; and one must remark that this notion of person is a notion, if I may so speak, of Christian index, since it was disengaged and clarified thanks to theology. A person is a universe of spiritual nature endowed with freedom of choice and constituting to this extent a whole which is independent in face of the world—neither nature nor the State can lay prey to this universe without its permission. And God himself, who is and acts within, acts there in a particular manner and with a particularly exquisite delicacy, which shows the value He sets on it: He respects its freedom, at the heart of which He nevertheless lives; He solicits it, He never forces it.
And moreover, in his concrete and historical existence, man, for mediaeval thought, is not a simply natural being.
He is a dislocated being, wounded—by the devil who wounds him with concupiscence, by God who wounds him with love. On the one hand, he bears the heritage of original sin; he is born divested of the gifts of grace, and not, doubtless, substantially corrupted, but wounded in his nature. On the other hand, he is made for a supernatural end: to see God as God sees himself, he is made to attain to the very life of God; he is traversed by the solicitations of actual grace, and if he does not oppose to God his power of refusal, he bears within him even here below the properly divine life of sanctifying grace and its gifts.
Existentially considered, one can therefore say that man is at once a natural and a supernatural being.
Such is, in a general manner, the Christian conception of man; but what is important for us to note is the special character that this conception had taken on in mediaeval thought as such, considered as a historical moment. Let us say that these primarily theological knowledges sufficed for the Middle Ages. They enveloped a very powerful psychology, but not in the modern sense of the word: for it was from the point of view of God that all things were regarded then. The natural mysteries of man were not scrutinized for themselves by a scientific and experimental knowledge. In short, the Middle Ages were just the opposite of a reflex age: a sort of fear or metaphysical modesty, and also a predominant concern to see things and to contemplate being, and to take the measures of the world, kept the gaze of mediaeval man turned away from himself. This characteristic we shall find everywhere.
If it is a question now, no longer of the anthropological problem, but of the theological problem of grace and freedom, here again we must distinguish that which belongs to Christian thought in general and as such, and that which characterizes in a particular manner the thought of the Middle Ages.
The whole theological thought of the Middle Ages was dominated by St. Augustine, especially by the positions taken by Augustine in opposition to Pelagius. And in this the Middle Ages were purely and simply Catholic and Christian.
When they affirmed at once the full gratuitousness, the sovereign liberty, the efficacy of divine grace, and the reality of human free will; when they professed that God has the first initiative of all good, that He gives both the will and the execution, that in crowning our merits He crowns His own gifts, that man cannot save himself by himself alone, nor begin by himself alone the work of his salvation, nor prepare himself for it by himself alone, and that by himself alone he can do only evil and error—and that nevertheless he is free when he acts under the divine grace; and that, interiorly vivified by it, he freely posits good and meritorious acts; and that he is alone responsible for the evil that he does; and that his freedom confers on him in the world a role and initiatives of an unimaginable importance; and that God, who has created him without him, does not save him without him—well then, when the Middle Ages professed this conception of the mystery of grace and freedom, it was purely and simply the orthodox Christian and Catholic conception that it professed. At the highest point of mediaeval thought, St. Thomas Aquinas elaborated theologically the solutions that St. Augustine had discerned in his great contemplative intuitions.
But it is not difficult nevertheless to find here again the particular note of this age of Christian civilization, the note of which I was just speaking apropos the anthropological problem, namely, this absence of the deliberately reflexive glance of the creature on itself.
The Middle Ages kept its eyes fixed on the luminous points which St. Augustine revealed in the mystery of grace and liberty, and which concerned the divine depths of this mystery. The vast regions of shadow which remained, and which concerned the created and human depths of this mystery, in particular all that which relates to the divine permission of the evil act and to the engendering of evil by the creature, as also to the meaning and proper value, I say in the philosophical and theological order itself, of the temporal and “profane” activity of the human being—the Middle Ages laid down forcefully, on the threshold of these regions, the principles of solution; they entered but little into the obscurities and the problems here, they let much of the terrain lie fallow and left a whole problematic unexplored.
The result was that certain parasitic representations, taking the place of the more elaborate solutions which were lacking, were able in this domain to superimpose a particular and momentary imprint on the eternally Christian conceptions of which I was speaking just now. I am thinking of a certain too facilely pessimistic and dramatic imagery concerning fallen human nature, and of a certain too simple and too summary image of the divine election and of the comportment, if I may so speak, of the divine personality vis-à-vis created destinies. I am thinking of a certain theological inhumanity of which mediaeval Catholicism—while in other respects maintaining within the limits of orthodoxy these deficient elements that by themselves asked (one has seen this well from subsequent events) only to become aberrant—was naturally and constantly tempted to seek a justification in the less sound parts of the Augustinian synthesis. St. Thomas put everything in order again, but too late for mediaeval thought to be able to profit from his principles and bring them to fruition.
It would be absurd to pretend that in the Middle Ages the prise de conscience of the creature by itself was not accomplished implicitly in the very movement of metaphysical or theological thought toward being and toward God, or of poetical and artistic thought toward the work to be created. But it was on the side of a deliberately and expressly reflexive scrutiny that this prise de conscience was lacking. We find a striking example of this in the mystics themselves. The Middle Ages are rich in incomparable mystics, but if we possessed only the documents left by them, if we did not know the works of a St. Teresa, of a St. John of the Cross, of a Marie de l’Incarnation, we would know little about the interior states, trials, and nights of the souls who have entered upon this way; and we could think that the mystics of the Middle Ages were unaware of them. They were not unaware of them, they lived them; they were not “interested” in them, and, except at the decline of the Middle Ages, at the time of Ruysbroeck and of Tauler, they did not judge it useful to speak of them.
Likewise the Middle Ages had a profound and eminently Catholic sense of the role of the sinner and his own initiatives, of his resistances, and of the mercies of God with regard to him in the economy of divine Providence. They had a profound sense of nature, of its dignity as well as of its weakness; they knew better than any other epoch the price of human pity and tears. But all this was for them lived rather than conscious, rather than the object of reflex knowledge. And if we considered only the documents of the mediaeval theological tradition (I am not speaking of Thomas Aquinas, who is much too great to characterize an epoch), we could think, and this would be an error, that mediaeval thought knew the human creature only in terms of soteriological problems and the divine exigencies with regard to man, in terms of the objective laws of the morality required of him, and not in terms of the subjective resources of his grandeurs or of the subjective determinism of his miseries.
__________
This essay is taken from “Medieval Man,” in Integral Humanism.
The featured image is “Young Man in Medieval Costume” (1840–1920), by Ferdinand Roybet, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
Bishop Challoner's Meditations ~ January 1st
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ON NEW YEAR'S DAY
Consider first, that on this day we keep the Octave of the birth of Christ, together with the festivity of his circumcision. when being yet but eight days old, he began to shed his sacred blood in obedience to his Father's will; subjecting himself to that most painful and most humbling ceremony, and bearing therein the resemblance of a criminal, as if he, like the rest had stood in need of the circumcising knife for the expiation of sin. Christians, learn here, from your infant Saviour, the lessons he desires to teach you in his circumcision; his unparalleled humility, his perfect obedience and conformity to his Father's will; his patience in suffering, and his ardent love and charity for us. He came to discharge the immense debt we owed by our sins to his Father's justice, by shedding the last drop of his blood in expiation of them; and behold he has here given us an earnest of this payment, by submitting himself this day to the knife of circumcision.
Consider 2ndly, and set before your eyes this divine infant, this innocent lamb of God, this beloved of your souls, beautiful beyond the children of men, all embrued in his own most sacred blood; and suffering in that tender age the cruel smart of a most sensible wound. O how sensible indeed to him! O how sensible to the loving heart of his blessed Virgin Mother! See with what affection she embraces him: se with what anguish of heart she bewails his sufferings: see with what tender compassion she strives to afford him all the comfort she is able. Learn of her the like affections of love and compassion for your suffering Lord.
O my soul, embrace, with her, thy infant Saviour, bleeding for thee. 'A bloody spouse thou are to me,' said Sephora to Moses, Exod. iv. 25: when to deliver him from the hand of the angel that threatened him with death, she touched his feet with the blood of her child whom she had just then circumcised. O how truly is our dear Redeemer a sponsus sanguinum, a bloody spouse to our souls, for whom he gives now this first fruit, and for whom he will one day give all his blood, to rescue us from the hand of the destroying angel! O blessed be his divine charity for ever!
Consider 3rdly, that it is the duty of all Christians to imitate our Lord's circumcision, by a spiritual circumcision of the heart, which God so often calls for in the Scriptures, and always preferred before the carnal circumcision. This spiritual circumcision requires of us a cutting off, or retrenching, all disorderly affections to the world and its pomps; to the mammon of iniquity, and to the flesh, and its lusts; and a serious application of our souls to a daily mortification of our passions and corrupt inclinations. My soul, let us heartily embrace, and daily put in practice, this circumcision of the heart.
Conclude to make a return of thy heart to thy infant Saviour, who began on this day to shed his blood for thee; but see it be a heart purified, by a spiritual circumcision, from all such affections as are disagreeable to him.
1 January, Antonio, Cardinal Bacci: Meditations For Each Day
The New Year
1. This is a new gift which God in His infinite goodness gives to us. But every gift of God demands on our part a generous expression of gratitude, which should result in positive acts of virtue. Gratitude is an empty and short-lived sentiment unless it is accompanied by a sincere intention of performing good works.
Time is the price of eternity, because with time we can purchase an eternity of happiness or misery.
Consider this great truth. Every year is like a ladder in our lives. Now, it is necessary that this ladder should lead us, not perilously downwards towards evil, but upwards towards Heaven, even if with faltering footsteps.
The New Year opens today as a blank page in the diary of our lives. What do we intend to write there? The usual inanities and sins, perhaps? Let us reflect before God and in the light of the eternity which awaits us. This is the time for great decisions. It is necessary that we should offer our resolutions to God along with a humble and fervent prayer that He will strengthen us to comply faithfully with His grace.
2. During these days it is customary to exchange, verbally or in writing, good wishes for the New Year. But these poor greetings are often nothing more than conventional phrases. Men lack the power to transmute such good wishes into reality. God alone is the source of every material and spiritual good; therefore He alone can ensure that these benevolent expressions are translated into deeds of Christian renovation. Since today is the beginning of the New Year, it is especially important for us to ask God more fervently and insistently to bless the resolutions which we are making for ourselves and the good wishes which we are showering on our friends.
These wishes have no meaning, and these resolutions have no force, if they are not accompanied by fervent and persevering prayer.
3. It is suggested in “The Imitation of Christ” that if we were to get rid of at least one habit of sin every year, we should soon be holy. If we have not tried to do this in the past, let us propose to do it in the future. This year let us select the principal defect which we possess, the sin into which we are most accustomed to fall. Let us seek to eradicate it with all the strength of our soul, assisted by the grace of God which will certainly not be denied us. Let us request for this purpose the most powerful patronage of Mary Most Holy. Let us pass this day in close union with God and under the maternal mantle of our Heavenly Mother. Finally, let us promise earnestly that all the days of the New Year will follow the same pattern.
Eastern Rite ~ Feasts of 1 January AM 7534
Today is the Feasts of the Circumcision of Our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ and of Our Father Among the Saints Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia.
On the eighth day after His Nativity, our Lord Jesus Christ was circumcised in accordance with the Old Testament Law. All male infants underwent circumcision as a sign of God’s Covenant with the holy Forefather Abraham and his descendants [Genesis 17:10-14, Leviticus 12:3].
After this ritual, the Divine Infant was given the name Jesus, as the Archangel Gabriel declared on the day of the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos [Luke 1:31-33, 2:21]. The Fathers of the Church explain that the Lord, the Creator of the Law, underwent circumcision in order to give people an example of how faithfully the divine ordinances ought to be fulfilled. The Lord was circumcised so that later no one would doubt that He had truly assumed human flesh, and that His Incarnation was not merely an illusion, as certain heretics had taught.
In the New Testament, the ritual of circumcision gave way to the Mystery of Baptism, which it prefigured [Colossians 2:11-12]. Accounts of the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord continue in the Eastern Church right up through the fourth century. The Canon of the Feast was written by Saint Stephen of the Saint Savva Monastery.
In addition to circumcision, which the Lord accepted as a sign of God’s Covenant with mankind, He also received the Name Jesus [Saviour] on the eighth day after His Nativity as an indication of His service, the work of the salvation of the world [Matthew 1:21; Mark 9:38-39, 16:17; Luke 10:17; Acts 3:6, 16; Philippians 2:9-10]. These two events -- the Lord’s Circumcision and Naming -- remind Christians that they have entered into a New Covenant with God and “are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” [Colossians 2:11]. The very name “Christian” is a sign of mankind’s entrance into a New Covenant with God.
Troparion — Tone 1
Enthroned on high with the Eternal Father and Your divine Spirit, / O Jesus, You willed to be born on earth of the unwedded handmaid, your Mother. / Therefore You were circumcised as an eight-day old Child. / Glory to Your most gracious counsel; / glory to Your dispensation; / glory to Your condescension, O only Lover of mankind.
Kontakion — Tone 3
The Lord of all accepts to be circumcised, / thus, as He is good, excises the sins of mortal men. / Today He grants the world salvation, / while light-bearing Basil, high priest of our Creator, / rejoices in heaven as a divine initiate of Christ.
Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, “belongs not to the Church of Caesarea alone, nor merely to his own time, nor was he of benefit only to his own kinsmen, but rather to all lands and cities worldwide, and to all people he brought and still brings benefit, and for Christians, he always was and will be a most salvific teacher.” Thus spoke Saint Basil’s contemporary, Saint Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.
Saint Basil was born in the year 330 at Caesarea, the administrative centre of Cappadocia. He was of illustrious lineage, famed for its eminence and wealth, and zealous for the Christian Faith. The saint’s grandfather and grandmother on his father’s side had to hide in the forests of Pontus for seven years during the persecution under Diocletian.
Saint Basil’s mother Saint Emilia was the daughter of a martyr. On the Greek calendar, she is commemorated on May 30. Saint Basil’s father was also named Basil. He was a lawyer and renowned rhetorician and lived in Caesarea.
Ten children were born to the elder Basil and Emilia: five sons and five daughters. Five of them were later numbered among the saints: Basil the Great; Macrina (July 19) was an exemplar of ascetic life, and exerted a strong influence on the life and character of Saint Basil the Great; Gregory, afterwards Bishop of Nyssa (January 10); Peter, Bishop of Sebaste (January 9); and Theosebia, a deaconess (January 10).
Saint Basil spent the first years of his life on an estate belonging to his parents at the River Iris, where he was raised under the supervision of his mother Emilia and grandmother Macrina. They were women of great refinement, who remembered an earlier bishop of Cappadocia, Saint Gregory the Wonderworker (November 17). Basil received his initial education under the supervision of his father, and then he studied under the finest teachers in Caesarea of Cappadocia, and it was here that he made the acquaintance of Saint Gregory the Theologian (January 25 and January 30). Later, Basil transferred to a school at Constantinople, where he listened to eminent orators and philosophers. To complete his education Saint Basil went to Athens, the centre of classical enlightenment.
After a four or five year stay in Athens, Basil had mastered all the available disciplines. “He studied everything thoroughly, more than others are wont to study a single subject. He studied each science in its very totality, as though he would study nothing else.” Philosopher, philologist, orator, jurist, naturalist, possessing profound knowledge in astronomy, mathematics and medicine, “he was a ship fully laden with learning, to the extent permitted by human nature.”
At Athens, a close friendship developed between Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzus), which continued throughout their life. In fact, they regarded themselves as one soul in two bodies. Later on, in his eulogy for Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian speaks with delight about this period: “Various hopes guided us, and indeed inevitably, in learning... Two paths opened up before us: the one to our sacred temples and the teachers therein; the other towards preceptors of disciplines beyond.”
About the year 357, Saint Basil returned to Caesarea, where for a while he devoted himself to rhetoric. But soon, refusing offers from Caesarea’s citizens who wanted to entrust him with the education of their offspring, Saint Basil entered upon the path of ascetic life.
After the death of her husband, Basil’s mother, her eldest daughter Macrina, and several female servants withdrew to the family estate at Iris and there began to lead an ascetic life. Basil was baptized by Dianios, the Bishop of Caesarea, and was tonsured a Reader (On the Holy Spirit, 29). He first read the Holy Scriptures to the people, then explained them.
Later on, “wishing to acquire a guide to the knowledge of the truth”, the saint undertook a journey into Egypt, Syria and Palestine, to meet the great Christian ascetics dwelling there. On returning to Cappadocia, he decided to do as they did. He distributed his wealth to the needy, then settled on the opposite side of the river not far from his mother Emilia and sister Macrina, gathering around him monks living a cenobitic life.
By his letters, Basil drew his good friend Gregory the Theologian to the monastery. Saints Basil and Gregory laboured in strict abstinence in their dwelling place, which had no roof or fireplace, and the food was very humble. They themselves cleared away the stones, planted and watered the trees, and carried heavy loads. Their hands were constantly calloused from the hard work. For clothing Basil had only a tunic and monastic mantle. He wore a hairshirt, but only at night, so that it would not be obvious.
In their solitude, Saints Basil and Gregory occupied themselves in an intense study of Holy Scripture. They were guided by the writings of the Fathers and commentators of the past, especially the good writings of Origen. From all these works they compiled an anthology called Philokalia. Also at this time, at the request of the monks, Saint Basil wrote down a collection of rules for the virtuous life. By his preaching and by his example Saint Basil assisted in the spiritual perfection of Christians in Cappadocia and Pontus, and many indeed turned to him. Monasteries were organized for men and for women, in which places Basil sought to combine the cenobitic (koine bios, or common) lifestyle with that of the solitary hermit.
During the reign of Constantius (337-361) the heretical teachings of Arius were spreading, and the Church summoned both its saints into service. Saint Basil returned to Caesarea. In the year 362, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Meletius of Antioch. In 364 he was ordained to the holy priesthood by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. “But seeing,” as Gregory the Theologian relates, “that everyone exceedingly praised and honoured Basil for his wisdom and reverence, Eusebius, through human weakness, succumbed to jealousy of him, and began to show dislike for him.” The monks rose up in defence of Saint Basil. To avoid causing Church discord, Basil withdrew to his own monastery and concerned himself with the organization of monasteries.
With the coming to power of the emperor Valens (364-378), who was a resolute adherent of Arianism, a time of troubles began for Catholicism, the onset of a great struggle. Saint Basil hastily returned to Caesarea at the request of Bishop Eusebius. In the words of Gregory the Theologian, he was for Bishop Eusebius “a good advisor, a righteous representative, an expounder of the Word of God, a staff for the aged, a faithful support in internal matters, and an activist in external matters.”
From this time church governance passed over to Basil, though he was subordinate to the hierarch. He preached daily, and often twice, in the morning and in the evening. During this time Saint Basil composed his Liturgy. He wrote a work “On the Six Days of Creation” (Hexaemeron) and another on the Prophet Isaiah in sixteen chapters, yet another on the Psalms, and also a second compilation of monastic rules. Saint Basil wrote also three books “Against Eunomius,” an Arian teacher who, with the help of Aristotelian concepts, had presented the Arian dogma in philosophic form, converting Christian teaching into a logical scheme of rational concepts.
Saint Gregory the Theologian, speaking about the activity of Basil the Great during this period, points to “the caring for the destitute and the taking in of strangers, the supervision of virgins, written and unwritten monastic rules for monks, the arrangement of prayers [Liturgy], the felicitous arrangement of altars and other things.” Upon the death of Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil was chosen to succeed him in the year 370. As Bishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil the Great was the newest of fifty bishops in eleven provinces. Saint Athanasius the Great (May 2), with joy and with thanks to God welcomed the appointment to Cappadocia of such a bishop as Basil, famed for his reverence, deep knowledge of Holy Scripture, great learning, and his efforts for the welfare of Church peace and unity.
Under Valens, the external government belonged to the Arians, who held various opinions regarding the divinity of the Son of God and were divided into several factions. These dogmatic disputes were concerned with questions about the Holy Spirit. In his books Against Eunomios, Saint Basil the Great taught the divinity of the Holy Spirit and His equality with the Father and the Son. Subsequently, in order to provide a full explanation of Catholic teaching on this question, Saint Basil wrote his book On the Holy Spirit at the request of Saint Amphilochius, the Bishop of Iconium.
Saint Basil’s difficulties were made worse by various circumstances: Cappadocia was divided in two under the rearrangement of provincial districts. Then at Antioch, a schism occurred, occasioned by the consecration of a second bishop. There was the negative and haughty attitude of Western bishops to the attempts to draw them into the struggle with the Arians. And there was also the departure of Eustathius of Sebaste over to the Arian side. Basil had been connected to him by ties of close friendship. Amidst the constant perils, Saint Basil gave encouragement to the Catholics, confirmed them in the Faith, summoning them to bravery and endurance. The holy bishop wrote numerous letters to the churches, to bishops, to clergy and to individuals. Overcoming the heretics “by the weapon of his mouth, and by the arrows of his letters,” as an untiring champion of Catholicism, Saint Basil challenged the hostility and intrigues of the Arian heretics all his life. He has been compared to a bee, stinging the Church’s enemies, yet nourishing his flock with the sweet honey of his teaching.
The emperor Valens, mercilessly sending into exile any bishop who displeased him, and having implanted Arianism into other Asia Minor provinces, suddenly appeared in Cappadocia for this same purpose. He sent the Prefect Modestus to Saint Basil. He began to threaten the saint with the confiscation of his property, banishment, beatings, and even death.
Saint Basil said, “If you take away my possessions, you will not enrich yourself, nor will you make me a pauper. You have no need of my old worn-out clothing, nor of my few books, of which the entirety of my wealth is comprised. Exile means nothing to me since I am bound to no particular place. This place in which I now dwell is not mine, and any place you send me shall be mine. Better to say: every place is God’s. Where would I be neither a stranger and sojourner (Ps. 38/39:13)? Who can torture me? I am so weak, that the very first blow would render me insensible. Death would be a kindness to me, for it will bring me all the sooner to God, for Whom I live and labour, and to Whom I hasten.”
The official was stunned by his answer. “No one has ever spoken so audaciously to me,” he said.
“Perhaps,” the saint remarked, “ that is because you’ve never spoken to a bishop before. In all else, we are meek, the most humble of all. But when it concerns God, and people rise up against Him, then we, counting everything else as nought, look to Him alone. Then fire, sword, wild beasts and iron rods that rend the body, serve to fill us with joy, rather than fear.”
Reporting to Valens that Saint Basil was not to be intimidated, Modestus said, “Emperor, we stand defeated by a leader of the Church.” Basil the Great again showed firmness before the emperor and his retinue and made such a strong impression on Valens that the emperor dared not give in to the Arians demanding Basil’s exile. “On the day of Theophany, amidst an innumerable multitude of the people, Valens entered the church and mixed in with the throng, in order to give the appearance of being in unity with the Church. When the singing of Psalms began in the church, it was like thunder to his hearing. The emperor beheld a sea of people, and in the altar and all around was splendour; in front of all was Basil, who acknowledged neither by gesture nor by glance, that anything else was going on in the church.” Everything was focused only on God and the altar-table, and the clergy serving there in awe and reverence.
Saint Basil celebrated the church services almost every day. He was particularly concerned about the strict fulfilling of the Canons of the Church and took care that only worthy individuals should enter into the clergy. He incessantly made the rounds of his own church, lest anywhere there be an infraction of Church discipline, and setting aright any unseemliness. At Caesarea, Saint Basil built two monasteries, a men’s and a women’s, with a church in honour of the Forty Martyrs (March 9) whose relics were buried there. Following the example of monks, the saint’s clergy, even deacons and priests, lived in remarkable poverty, to toil and lead chaste and virtuous lives. For his clergy, Saint Basil obtained an exemption from taxation. He used all his personal wealth and the income from his church for the benefit of the destitute; in every center of his diocese he built a poor-house; and at Caesarea, a home for wanderers and the homeless.
Sickly since youth, the toil of teaching, his life of abstinence, and the concerns and sorrows of pastoral service took their toll on him. Saint Basil died on January 1, 379 at age 49. Shortly before his death, the saint blessed Saint Gregory the Theologian to accept the See of Constantinople.
In some countries, it is customary to sing special carols today in honour of Saint Basil. He is believed to visit the homes of the faithful, and a place is set for him at the table. People visit the homes of friends and relatives, and the mistress of the house gives a small gift to the children. A special bread (Vasilopita) is blessed and distributed after the Liturgy. A silver coin is baked into the bread, and whoever receives the slice with the coin is said to receive the blessing of Saint Basil for the coming year.
Troparion — Tone 1
Your proclamation has gone out into all the earth / which was divinely taught by hearing your voice / expounding the nature of creatures, / ennobling the manners of men. / O holy father of a royal priesthood, / entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion — Tone 4
You were revealed as the sure foundation of the Church, / granting all mankind a lordship which cannot be taken away, / sealing it with your precepts, / O venerable and heavenly Father Basil.
✠✠✠✠✠
On the eighth day after His Nativity, our Lord Jesus Christ was circumcised in accordance with the Old Testament Law. All male infants underwent circumcision as a sign of God’s Covenant with the holy Forefather Abraham and his descendants [Genesis 17:10-14, Leviticus 12:3].
After this ritual, the Divine Infant was given the name Jesus, as the Archangel Gabriel declared on the day of the Annunciation to the Most Holy Theotokos [Luke 1:31-33, 2:21]. The Fathers of the Church explain that the Lord, the Creator of the Law, underwent circumcision in order to give people an example of how faithfully the divine ordinances ought to be fulfilled. The Lord was circumcised so that later no one would doubt that He had truly assumed human flesh, and that His Incarnation was not merely an illusion, as certain heretics had taught.
In the New Testament, the ritual of circumcision gave way to the Mystery of Baptism, which it prefigured [Colossians 2:11-12]. Accounts of the Feast of the Circumcision of the Lord continue in the Eastern Church right up through the fourth century. The Canon of the Feast was written by Saint Stephen of the Saint Savva Monastery.
In addition to circumcision, which the Lord accepted as a sign of God’s Covenant with mankind, He also received the Name Jesus [Saviour] on the eighth day after His Nativity as an indication of His service, the work of the salvation of the world [Matthew 1:21; Mark 9:38-39, 16:17; Luke 10:17; Acts 3:6, 16; Philippians 2:9-10]. These two events -- the Lord’s Circumcision and Naming -- remind Christians that they have entered into a New Covenant with God and “are circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ” [Colossians 2:11]. The very name “Christian” is a sign of mankind’s entrance into a New Covenant with God.
Troparion — Tone 1
Enthroned on high with the Eternal Father and Your divine Spirit, / O Jesus, You willed to be born on earth of the unwedded handmaid, your Mother. / Therefore You were circumcised as an eight-day old Child. / Glory to Your most gracious counsel; / glory to Your dispensation; / glory to Your condescension, O only Lover of mankind.
Kontakion — Tone 3
The Lord of all accepts to be circumcised, / thus, as He is good, excises the sins of mortal men. / Today He grants the world salvation, / while light-bearing Basil, high priest of our Creator, / rejoices in heaven as a divine initiate of Christ.
✠✠✠✠✠
Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, “belongs not to the Church of Caesarea alone, nor merely to his own time, nor was he of benefit only to his own kinsmen, but rather to all lands and cities worldwide, and to all people he brought and still brings benefit, and for Christians, he always was and will be a most salvific teacher.” Thus spoke Saint Basil’s contemporary, Saint Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium.
Saint Basil was born in the year 330 at Caesarea, the administrative centre of Cappadocia. He was of illustrious lineage, famed for its eminence and wealth, and zealous for the Christian Faith. The saint’s grandfather and grandmother on his father’s side had to hide in the forests of Pontus for seven years during the persecution under Diocletian.
Saint Basil’s mother Saint Emilia was the daughter of a martyr. On the Greek calendar, she is commemorated on May 30. Saint Basil’s father was also named Basil. He was a lawyer and renowned rhetorician and lived in Caesarea.
Ten children were born to the elder Basil and Emilia: five sons and five daughters. Five of them were later numbered among the saints: Basil the Great; Macrina (July 19) was an exemplar of ascetic life, and exerted a strong influence on the life and character of Saint Basil the Great; Gregory, afterwards Bishop of Nyssa (January 10); Peter, Bishop of Sebaste (January 9); and Theosebia, a deaconess (January 10).
Saint Basil spent the first years of his life on an estate belonging to his parents at the River Iris, where he was raised under the supervision of his mother Emilia and grandmother Macrina. They were women of great refinement, who remembered an earlier bishop of Cappadocia, Saint Gregory the Wonderworker (November 17). Basil received his initial education under the supervision of his father, and then he studied under the finest teachers in Caesarea of Cappadocia, and it was here that he made the acquaintance of Saint Gregory the Theologian (January 25 and January 30). Later, Basil transferred to a school at Constantinople, where he listened to eminent orators and philosophers. To complete his education Saint Basil went to Athens, the centre of classical enlightenment.
After a four or five year stay in Athens, Basil had mastered all the available disciplines. “He studied everything thoroughly, more than others are wont to study a single subject. He studied each science in its very totality, as though he would study nothing else.” Philosopher, philologist, orator, jurist, naturalist, possessing profound knowledge in astronomy, mathematics and medicine, “he was a ship fully laden with learning, to the extent permitted by human nature.”
At Athens, a close friendship developed between Basil the Great and Gregory the Theologian (Nazianzus), which continued throughout their life. In fact, they regarded themselves as one soul in two bodies. Later on, in his eulogy for Basil the Great, Saint Gregory the Theologian speaks with delight about this period: “Various hopes guided us, and indeed inevitably, in learning... Two paths opened up before us: the one to our sacred temples and the teachers therein; the other towards preceptors of disciplines beyond.”
About the year 357, Saint Basil returned to Caesarea, where for a while he devoted himself to rhetoric. But soon, refusing offers from Caesarea’s citizens who wanted to entrust him with the education of their offspring, Saint Basil entered upon the path of ascetic life.
After the death of her husband, Basil’s mother, her eldest daughter Macrina, and several female servants withdrew to the family estate at Iris and there began to lead an ascetic life. Basil was baptized by Dianios, the Bishop of Caesarea, and was tonsured a Reader (On the Holy Spirit, 29). He first read the Holy Scriptures to the people, then explained them.
Later on, “wishing to acquire a guide to the knowledge of the truth”, the saint undertook a journey into Egypt, Syria and Palestine, to meet the great Christian ascetics dwelling there. On returning to Cappadocia, he decided to do as they did. He distributed his wealth to the needy, then settled on the opposite side of the river not far from his mother Emilia and sister Macrina, gathering around him monks living a cenobitic life.
By his letters, Basil drew his good friend Gregory the Theologian to the monastery. Saints Basil and Gregory laboured in strict abstinence in their dwelling place, which had no roof or fireplace, and the food was very humble. They themselves cleared away the stones, planted and watered the trees, and carried heavy loads. Their hands were constantly calloused from the hard work. For clothing Basil had only a tunic and monastic mantle. He wore a hairshirt, but only at night, so that it would not be obvious.
In their solitude, Saints Basil and Gregory occupied themselves in an intense study of Holy Scripture. They were guided by the writings of the Fathers and commentators of the past, especially the good writings of Origen. From all these works they compiled an anthology called Philokalia. Also at this time, at the request of the monks, Saint Basil wrote down a collection of rules for the virtuous life. By his preaching and by his example Saint Basil assisted in the spiritual perfection of Christians in Cappadocia and Pontus, and many indeed turned to him. Monasteries were organized for men and for women, in which places Basil sought to combine the cenobitic (koine bios, or common) lifestyle with that of the solitary hermit.
During the reign of Constantius (337-361) the heretical teachings of Arius were spreading, and the Church summoned both its saints into service. Saint Basil returned to Caesarea. In the year 362, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Meletius of Antioch. In 364 he was ordained to the holy priesthood by Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. “But seeing,” as Gregory the Theologian relates, “that everyone exceedingly praised and honoured Basil for his wisdom and reverence, Eusebius, through human weakness, succumbed to jealousy of him, and began to show dislike for him.” The monks rose up in defence of Saint Basil. To avoid causing Church discord, Basil withdrew to his own monastery and concerned himself with the organization of monasteries.
With the coming to power of the emperor Valens (364-378), who was a resolute adherent of Arianism, a time of troubles began for Catholicism, the onset of a great struggle. Saint Basil hastily returned to Caesarea at the request of Bishop Eusebius. In the words of Gregory the Theologian, he was for Bishop Eusebius “a good advisor, a righteous representative, an expounder of the Word of God, a staff for the aged, a faithful support in internal matters, and an activist in external matters.”
From this time church governance passed over to Basil, though he was subordinate to the hierarch. He preached daily, and often twice, in the morning and in the evening. During this time Saint Basil composed his Liturgy. He wrote a work “On the Six Days of Creation” (Hexaemeron) and another on the Prophet Isaiah in sixteen chapters, yet another on the Psalms, and also a second compilation of monastic rules. Saint Basil wrote also three books “Against Eunomius,” an Arian teacher who, with the help of Aristotelian concepts, had presented the Arian dogma in philosophic form, converting Christian teaching into a logical scheme of rational concepts.
Saint Gregory the Theologian, speaking about the activity of Basil the Great during this period, points to “the caring for the destitute and the taking in of strangers, the supervision of virgins, written and unwritten monastic rules for monks, the arrangement of prayers [Liturgy], the felicitous arrangement of altars and other things.” Upon the death of Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil was chosen to succeed him in the year 370. As Bishop of Caesarea, Saint Basil the Great was the newest of fifty bishops in eleven provinces. Saint Athanasius the Great (May 2), with joy and with thanks to God welcomed the appointment to Cappadocia of such a bishop as Basil, famed for his reverence, deep knowledge of Holy Scripture, great learning, and his efforts for the welfare of Church peace and unity.
Under Valens, the external government belonged to the Arians, who held various opinions regarding the divinity of the Son of God and were divided into several factions. These dogmatic disputes were concerned with questions about the Holy Spirit. In his books Against Eunomios, Saint Basil the Great taught the divinity of the Holy Spirit and His equality with the Father and the Son. Subsequently, in order to provide a full explanation of Catholic teaching on this question, Saint Basil wrote his book On the Holy Spirit at the request of Saint Amphilochius, the Bishop of Iconium.
Saint Basil’s difficulties were made worse by various circumstances: Cappadocia was divided in two under the rearrangement of provincial districts. Then at Antioch, a schism occurred, occasioned by the consecration of a second bishop. There was the negative and haughty attitude of Western bishops to the attempts to draw them into the struggle with the Arians. And there was also the departure of Eustathius of Sebaste over to the Arian side. Basil had been connected to him by ties of close friendship. Amidst the constant perils, Saint Basil gave encouragement to the Catholics, confirmed them in the Faith, summoning them to bravery and endurance. The holy bishop wrote numerous letters to the churches, to bishops, to clergy and to individuals. Overcoming the heretics “by the weapon of his mouth, and by the arrows of his letters,” as an untiring champion of Catholicism, Saint Basil challenged the hostility and intrigues of the Arian heretics all his life. He has been compared to a bee, stinging the Church’s enemies, yet nourishing his flock with the sweet honey of his teaching.
The emperor Valens, mercilessly sending into exile any bishop who displeased him, and having implanted Arianism into other Asia Minor provinces, suddenly appeared in Cappadocia for this same purpose. He sent the Prefect Modestus to Saint Basil. He began to threaten the saint with the confiscation of his property, banishment, beatings, and even death.
Saint Basil said, “If you take away my possessions, you will not enrich yourself, nor will you make me a pauper. You have no need of my old worn-out clothing, nor of my few books, of which the entirety of my wealth is comprised. Exile means nothing to me since I am bound to no particular place. This place in which I now dwell is not mine, and any place you send me shall be mine. Better to say: every place is God’s. Where would I be neither a stranger and sojourner (Ps. 38/39:13)? Who can torture me? I am so weak, that the very first blow would render me insensible. Death would be a kindness to me, for it will bring me all the sooner to God, for Whom I live and labour, and to Whom I hasten.”
The official was stunned by his answer. “No one has ever spoken so audaciously to me,” he said.
“Perhaps,” the saint remarked, “ that is because you’ve never spoken to a bishop before. In all else, we are meek, the most humble of all. But when it concerns God, and people rise up against Him, then we, counting everything else as nought, look to Him alone. Then fire, sword, wild beasts and iron rods that rend the body, serve to fill us with joy, rather than fear.”
Reporting to Valens that Saint Basil was not to be intimidated, Modestus said, “Emperor, we stand defeated by a leader of the Church.” Basil the Great again showed firmness before the emperor and his retinue and made such a strong impression on Valens that the emperor dared not give in to the Arians demanding Basil’s exile. “On the day of Theophany, amidst an innumerable multitude of the people, Valens entered the church and mixed in with the throng, in order to give the appearance of being in unity with the Church. When the singing of Psalms began in the church, it was like thunder to his hearing. The emperor beheld a sea of people, and in the altar and all around was splendour; in front of all was Basil, who acknowledged neither by gesture nor by glance, that anything else was going on in the church.” Everything was focused only on God and the altar-table, and the clergy serving there in awe and reverence.
Saint Basil celebrated the church services almost every day. He was particularly concerned about the strict fulfilling of the Canons of the Church and took care that only worthy individuals should enter into the clergy. He incessantly made the rounds of his own church, lest anywhere there be an infraction of Church discipline, and setting aright any unseemliness. At Caesarea, Saint Basil built two monasteries, a men’s and a women’s, with a church in honour of the Forty Martyrs (March 9) whose relics were buried there. Following the example of monks, the saint’s clergy, even deacons and priests, lived in remarkable poverty, to toil and lead chaste and virtuous lives. For his clergy, Saint Basil obtained an exemption from taxation. He used all his personal wealth and the income from his church for the benefit of the destitute; in every center of his diocese he built a poor-house; and at Caesarea, a home for wanderers and the homeless.
Sickly since youth, the toil of teaching, his life of abstinence, and the concerns and sorrows of pastoral service took their toll on him. Saint Basil died on January 1, 379 at age 49. Shortly before his death, the saint blessed Saint Gregory the Theologian to accept the See of Constantinople.
In some countries, it is customary to sing special carols today in honour of Saint Basil. He is believed to visit the homes of the faithful, and a place is set for him at the table. People visit the homes of friends and relatives, and the mistress of the house gives a small gift to the children. A special bread (Vasilopita) is blessed and distributed after the Liturgy. A silver coin is baked into the bread, and whoever receives the slice with the coin is said to receive the blessing of Saint Basil for the coming year.
Troparion — Tone 1
Your proclamation has gone out into all the earth / which was divinely taught by hearing your voice / expounding the nature of creatures, / ennobling the manners of men. / O holy father of a royal priesthood, / entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion — Tone 4
You were revealed as the sure foundation of the Church, / granting all mankind a lordship which cannot be taken away, / sealing it with your precepts, / O venerable and heavenly Father Basil.
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1 January, The Chesterton Calendar
January
Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused.
'Orthodoxy.'
NEW YEAR'S DAY
The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul and a new nose; new feet, a new backbone, new ears, and new eyes. Unless a particular man made New Year resolutions, he would make no resolutions. Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective. Unless a man starts on the strange assumption that he has never existed before, it is quite certain that he will never exist afterwards. Unless a man be born again, he shall by no means enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
'Daily News.'
1 January, The Holy Rule of St Benedict, Patriarch of Western Monasticism
PROLOGUE OF OUR MOST HOLY FATHER SAINT BENEDICT TO HIS RULE
1 Jan. 2 May. 1 Sept
Hearken, O my son, to the precepts of thy Master, and incline the ear of thine heart; willingly receive and faithfully fulfil the admonition of thy loving Father, that thou mayest return by the labour of obedience to Him from Whom thou hadst departed through the sloth of disobedience. To thee, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever thou art that, renouncing thine own will, dost take up the strong and bright weapons of obedience, in order to fight for the Lord Christ, our true king. In the first place, whatever good work thou beginnest to do, beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect; that He Who hath now vouchsafed to count us in the number of His children may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds. For we must always so serve Him with the good things He hath given us, that not only may He never, as an angry father, disinherit his children, but may never, as a dreadful Lord, incensed by our sins, deliver us to everlasting punishment, as most wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.
2 January, The Roman Martyrology
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Quarto Nonas Januárii Luna tértia décima Anno Dómini 2026
The morrow is the Octave of holy Stephen the Proto-Martyr. At Rome are commemorated upon the same day many holy martyrs who defied the edict of the Emperor Diocletian whereby it was commanded to give up the holy books, they being willing rather to give over their own bodies to the executioners than to give unto dogs that which was holy.
January 2nd 2026, the 13th day of the Moon, were born into the better life:
At Antioch, blessed Isidore, Bishop (in the year 420).
At Tomi, in Pontus, under Emperor Licinius, the three holy brethren, Argeus, Narcissus, and Marcellinus.
Argeus and Narcissus were slain with the sword. Marcellinus was a boy, he was taken among the recruits, and for as much as he would not be a soldier he was grievously flogged, and after suffering long in prison was drowned in the sea (in the year 320.)
At Milan (after the year 431), holy Martinian (17th) bishop of that see.
At Nitria, in Egypt, the blessed confessor Isidore (Bishop of Hermopolis in the fourth century).
Upon the same day the holy Bishop Siridion.
In the Thebaid the holy Abbot Macarius of Alexandria (about the year 395.)
℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
℟. Thanks be to God.
January 2nd 2026, the 13th day of the Moon, were born into the better life:
At Antioch, blessed Isidore, Bishop (in the year 420).
At Tomi, in Pontus, under Emperor Licinius, the three holy brethren, Argeus, Narcissus, and Marcellinus.
Argeus and Narcissus were slain with the sword. Marcellinus was a boy, he was taken among the recruits, and for as much as he would not be a soldier he was grievously flogged, and after suffering long in prison was drowned in the sea (in the year 320.)
At Milan (after the year 431), holy Martinian (17th) bishop of that see.
At Nitria, in Egypt, the blessed confessor Isidore (Bishop of Hermopolis in the fourth century).
Upon the same day the holy Bishop Siridion.
In the Thebaid the holy Abbot Macarius of Alexandria (about the year 395.)
℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
℟. Thanks be to God.
