King Hermenegild, son of Leovigild king of the Visigoths,
was converted from the Arian heresy to the Catholic faith by the preaching of
the venerable Leander, Bishop of Seville. His father, who continued in the
Arian heresy, did his utmost, both by promises and threats, to induce him to
apostatise. But Hermenegild returned him ever the same answer, that he never
could abandon the true faith after having once known it. The father, in a fit
of displeasure, deprived him not only of his right to the throne, but of
everything he possessed. And when even this failed to break the energy of his
soul, he had him put into close confinement with chains on his neck and hands.
Hereupon the youthful king Hermenegild began to despise the earthly, and
ardently to long for the heavenly, kingdom. Thus fettered and wearing a
hair-shirt, he besought the Omnipotent God to support him. As to the glory of
this fleeting world, he nobly looked on it with disdain, the more so as his
captivity taught him the nothingness of that which could thus be taken from
him.
It was the Feast of Easter. At an early hour of the night
when all was still, his wicked father sent an Arian Bishop to him with this
message: that if he would receive Communion from his hands (the Communion of a
sacrilegious consecration!) he should be restored to favour. True to his
Creator, the man of God gave a merited reproof to the Arian Bishop and with
holy indignation rejected his sinful offer, for though his body lay prostrate
in chains, his soul stood on ground beyond the reach of tyranny. The Bishop
therefore returned from where he had come. The Arian father raged, and immediately
sent his lictors, bidding them repair to the prison of the unflinching
Confessor of the Lord and murder him on the spot. They obeyed. They entered the
prison. They cleft his skull with a sword. They took away the life of the body,
and slew what he, the slain one, had sworn to count as vile. Miracles soon
followed by which Heaven testified to the true glory of Hermenegild, for during
the night, there was heard sweet music near to the body of the King and Martyr
— King indeed, because he was a Martyr.
It is said that lights were seen at the same time burning
in the prison. The Faithful were led by these signs to revere the body as being
that of a martyr. As to the wicked father, he repented for having imbrued his
hands in his son’s blood, but his repentance was
not to salvation inasmuch as, while acknowledging the Catholic Faith to be the
true one, he had not the courage to embrace it, for he feared the displeasure
of his subjects. When in his last sickness and at the point of death he
commended his son Reccared, a heretic, to the care of Leander the Bishop whom
he had hitherto persecuted, but from whom he now asked that he would do for
this son what he had by his exhortations, done for Hermenegild. Having made
this request, he died and was succeeded on the throne, by Reccared who, taking
not his wicked father but his martyred brother as his model, he abandoned the
impious Arian heresy and led the whole Visigoth nation to the true Faith. He
would not allow any man to serve in his armies who dared to continue the enemy
of the God of hosts by heresy. Neither is it to be wondered at that, being the
brother of a Martyr, he should have become a propagator of the true Faith, for
it was by Hermenegild’s merits that he has succeeded
in reconciling so many thousands to the great God of Heaven.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
It is through a Martyr’s palm-branch that we must today see the Paschal Mystery. Hermenegild, a young Visigoth Prince, is put to death by his heretical father because he courageously refused to receive his Easter Communion from an Arian Bishop. The Martyr knew that the Eucharist is the sacred symbol of Catholic unity and that we are not allowed to approach the Holy Table in company with them that are not in the true Church. A sacrilegious consecration gives heretics the real possession of the Divine Mystery, if the priestly character be in him who dares to offer Sacrifice to the God whom he blasphemes. But the Catholic who knows that he may not so much as pray with heretics, shudders at the sight of the profanation, and would rather die than share, by his presence, in insulting our Redeemer in that very Sacrifice and Sacrament which were instituted that we might all be made one in God.
The blood of the Martyr produced its fruit: Spain threw off the chains of heresy that had enslaved her, and a Council held at Toledo completed the work of conversion begun by Hermenegild’s sacrifice. There are very few instances recorded in history of a whole nation rising up in a mass to abjure heresy. But Spain did it, for she seems to be a country on which Heaven lavishes exceptional blessings. Shortly after this she was put through the ordeal of the Saracen invasion. She triumphed here again by the bravery of her children, and ever since then her Faith has been so staunch and so pure as to merit for her the proud title of The Catholic Kingdom.
* * * * *
We offer you, O brave witness to the truth of holy Faith, our admiration and gratitude. Your courageous death was proof of the love you had for Christ, and your contempt of earthly honours teaches us to despise them. Heir to a throne, a prison was your abode here below. It was from your prison that you ascended to Heaven, wearing on your brow the laurels of Martyrdom — a crown far brighter than that which was offered you on condition of your apostatising from the Faith. Pray now for us: the Church asks it of you by inserting your name in the Calendar of her Saints. The Pasch was the day of your triumph: obtain for us that this may be a true Pasch to us — a real resurrection, which may lead us to the Heaven above where we may enjoy, with you, the sight of our Risen Jesus. Intercede for us, that we may be firm in the Faith, obedient to the teachings of holy Church and enemies to every error and innovation. Protect Spain, your fatherland, which owes to your Martyrdom long centuries of loyalty to the true Faith. Pray for her that she may ever continue to merit her glorious title of The Catholic Kingdom.
Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Pergamus in Asia, the birthday of the holy martyrs
Carpus, bishop of Thyatira, Papylus, deacon, and his sister Agathonica, an
excellent woman, Agathadorus, their servant, and many others, who after various
torments were for their blessed confession crowned with martyrdom in the persecution
of Marcus Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus.
In this same persecution, there suffered at Rome that
remarkable man, Justin the Philosopher, who had addressed to the emperors his
second Apology in defence of our religion, and upheld it by strong arguments.
Being accused of professing Christianity by the intrigues of the Cynic
Crescens, whose conduct and immorality he had reproved, he obtained the reward
of a martyr as a remuneration for his faithful confession.
The same day, the martyrdom of the Saints Maximus,
Quinctillian and Dadas during the persecution of Diocletian.
At Ravenna, St. Ursus, bishop and confessor.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors
and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
