30 JULY – SAINTS ABDON AND SENNEN (Martyrs)

Abdon and Sennen were two nobles born in Persia early in the third century. They were brought to Rome by Decius as captives on his return from his first campaign against the Persians. Abdon and Sennen devoted themselves to the service of imprisoned Christians and to giving the bodies of martyrs reverent burial. They were cruelly tormented and martyred in 250 AD. Their feast day is the day on which their bodies were interred in the Catacombs of Saint Pontianus on the Via Portuensis. In the ninth century Pope Gregory IV translated the remains of Saints Abdon and Sennen to the ancient Basilica of Saint Mark at the Capitol.

Dom Prosper Guéranger:

The decrees of Eternal Wisdom ordained that the West should be honoured before the East with the glory of martyrdom. Yet when the hour had come, Jesus was to have, beyond the Tigris, millions of witnesses by no means inferior to their forerunners, astonishing Heaven and Earth by new forms of heroism. Impatient of the delay, two noble Persians won their palm on this day by the command of Rome. By shedding their blood they paid tribute for their native land to the eternal City, and now they protect our Latin Churches and receive the prayers and praise of the West. France received a goodly portion of their sacred relics, and the city of Arles-sur-Tech, in Roussillon, can show to an incredulous generation the sarcophagus, from which flows a mysterious liquor, a symbol of the continual benefits bestowed on us by these holy martyrs.

Hearken to our earnest prayers, O blessed martyrs! May the faith at length triumph in that land of Persia whence so many flowers of martyrdom have been culled for Heaven. Before the time appointed for the struggle to begin in your native land, you went to meet death elsewhere, and thus you gained a new fatherland on which to bestow your love. Bless us, the fellow-citizens of your choice, and bring us all to the eternal fatherland of all the children of God.

Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Tuberbum Lucernarium in Africa, the holy virgins and martyrs Maxima, Donatilla, and Secunda. The first two, in the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus, were forced to drink vinegar and gall, then scourged most severely, and stretched on the rack, burned on the gridiron, rubbed over with lime, afterwards exposed to the beasts with the virgin Secunda, twelve years old, but being untouched by them, they were finally beheaded.

At Assisi, in Umbria, St. Rufinus, martyr.

At Caesarea in Cappadocia, St. Julitta, martyr. As she sought to recover through the courts the restitution of goods seized by an influential personage, the latter objected that, being a Christian, her cause could not be pleaded. The judge commanded her to offer sacrifice to the idols, that she might be heard. With great firmness she refused, and being thrown into the fire, yielded her spirit to God, though her body remained uninjured by the flames. St. Basil the Great proclaimed her praise in an excellent eulogy.

At Auxerre, St. Ursus, bishop and confessor.

And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.

Thanks be to God.