Timothy was born at Lystra in Lycaonia. His father was a Gentile and his mother a Jew. When the Apostle Paul came into those parts Timothy was a follower of the Christian religion. The Apostle had heard much of his holy life and was thereby induced to take him as the companion of his travels. But on account of the Jews who had become converts to the faith of Christ and were aware that the father of Timothy was a Gentile, he administered to him the rite of circumcision. As soon as they arrived at Ephesus, the Apostle ordained him Bishop of that Church. The Apostle addressed two of his Epistles to him — one from Laodicea, the other from Rome — to instruct him how to discharge his pastoral office. He could not endure to see sacrifice which is due to God alone, offered to the idols of devils. And finding that the people of Ephesus were offering victims to Diana on her festival, he strove to make them desist from their impious rites. But they, turning upon him, stoned him. The Christians could not deliver him from their hands till he was more dead than alive. They carried him to a mountain not far from the town and there, on the ninth of the Calends of February (January 24), he slept in the Lord.
Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Before giving thanks to God for the miraculous conversion of the Apostle of the Gentiles, the Church assembles us together for the Feast of his favourite disciple. Timothy — the indefatigable companion of Saint Paul — the friend to whom the great Apostle, a few days before shedding his blood for Christ, wrote his last Epistle — comes now to await his master’s arrival at the crib of the Emmanuel. He there meets John the Beloved Disciple, together with whom he bore the anxieties attendant on the government of the Church of Ephesus. Stephen, too, and the other Martyrs, welcome him, for he also bears a Martyr’s palm in his hand. He presents to the august Mother of the Divine Babe the respectful homage of the Church of Ephesus which Mary had sanctified by her presence and which shares with the Church of Jerusalem the honour of having had her as one of its number, who was not only, like the Apostles, the witness, but moreover, in her quality of Mother of God, the ineffable instrument of the salvation of mankind.
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In you, holy Pontiff, we honour one of the disciples of the Apostles — one of the links which connect us immediately with Christ. You appear to us all illumined by your intercourse with Paul the great Doctor of the Gentiles. Another of his disciples, Dionysius the Areopagite, made you the confidant of his sublime contemplations on the Divine Names, but now, bathed in light eternal, you yourself are contemplating the Sun of Justice in the face-to-face vision. Intercede for us, who enjoy but a glimpse of His beauty through the veil of His humiliations that we may so love Him as to merit to see Him, one day, in His glory. In order to lessen the pressure of the corruptible body which weighs down the soul (Wisdom ix. 15), you subjected your outward man to so rigorous a penance that Saint Paul exhorted you to moderate it: assist us in our endeavours to reduce our flesh to obedience to the spirit. The Church reads without ceasing the counsels which the Apostle gave to you and to all Pastors through you for the election and the conduct of the clergy: pray that the Church may be blessed with Bishops, Priests and Deacons endowed with all those qualifications which he requires from the dispensers of the mysteries of God. Lastly, we beseech you, who ascended to Heaven decked with the aureola of martyrdom, encourage us who are also soldiers of Christ that we may throw aside our cowardice and win that kingdom, where our Emmanuel welcomes and crowns His elect for all eternity.Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Antioch, in the persecution of Decius, the bishop St. Babilas, who frequently glorified God by his sufferings and torments and ended his holy life in chains, with which he ordered his body to be buried. Three boys whom he had instructed in the faith of Christ, Urbanus, Philidian and Epolonius, are said to have suffered with him.
At Neocaesarea, the holy martyrs Mardonius, Musonius, Eugenius and Metellus, who were burned to death, their remains being thrown into the river.
At Foligno, in the time of Decius, St. Felician, consecrated bishop of that city by Pope Victor. After many labours, he was crowned with martyrdom in extreme old age. Also, the holy martyrs Thyrsus and Projectus.
At Bologna, St. Zamas, the first bishop of that city, who was consecrated by Pope St. Denis, and there wonderfully propagated the Christian faith.
Also blessed Suranus, abbot, who lived in the time of the Lombards.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
