In about the middle of the fifth century when
Attila, chief of the Huns, had been defeated at Chalons in his first
invasion of Gaul, he returned into Pannonia, and before crossing the
Rhine he attacked the city of Cologne. From his hatred of the
Catholic religion which greatly flourished there, he gave it up to
sack and slaughter. The savages, burning with lust, cruelly assaulted
the young virgins who were abiding there on their journey from
Britain, among whom the most famous is the virgin Ursula, who
exhorted her companions to endure all torments, and rather to suffer
the most cruel death than to submit to the loss of their virginity.
Ursula’s
band of virgins were slain by the Huns: some by the sword,
some pierced with arrows, and some felled with bludgeons. Ursula,
bending as a glorious victim over the piles of her slaughtered
companions as over heaps of heavenly pearls, red with the bloodshed
for faith and chastity, led triumphantly into Heaven the army crowned
with these double crowns. After the barbarian hordes had left, the
surviving residents of Cologne gathered up the bodies of the virgins
and other martyrs and buried them with all honour. On the field
stained with the blood of the martyrs where they were laid to rest, a
Church was erected in the seventh century and was named that of the
Holy Virgins.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Saint Hilarion was one of the first Confessors, if not the very first, to be honoured in the East with a public cultus like the Martyrs. In the West, the white-robed army led by Ursula adds to the glory of the holy monk who has the first honours of this day. On the 21st October 451 Cologne was made equal to the most illustrious cities by a spiritual glory. Criticism, and there is no lack of it, may dispute the circumstances which brought together the legion of virgins, but the fact itself that eleven thousand chosen souls were martyred by the Huns in recompense for their fidelity is now acknowledged by true science. From the earth where so many noble victims lay concealed, they have more than once been brought to light by multitudes, bearing about them evidence of the veneration of those who had buried them. For instance, by a happy inspiration, the arrow that had set free the blessed soul would be left, as a token of victory, fixed in the breast or forehead of the martyr.
Saint Angela of Merici confided to the patronage of this glorious phalanx her spiritual daughters, and the numberless children whom they will continue till the end of time to educate in the fear of the Lord. The grave Sorbonne dedicated its church to the holy virgins as well as to the Mother of God, and here, as in the Universities of Coimbra and Vienna, an annual panegyric was pronounced in praise of them. Portugal, enriched with some of their precious relics, carried their cultus into the Indies. And pious confraternities have been formed among the faithful for obtaining their assistance at the hour of death.Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Ostia, St. Asterius, priest and martyr, who suffered under the emperor Alexander, as we read in the Acts of the blessed Pope Callistus.
At Nicomedia, the birthday of the Saints Dasius, Zoticus, Caius and twelve other soldiers, who, after suffering various torments, were submerged in the sea.
At Maronia near Antioch in Syria, St. Malchus, monk.
At Lyons, St. Viator, deacon of blessed Justus, bishop of that city.
At Laon, St. Cilinia, mother of blessed Remigius, bishop of Rheims.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
