Saturday 16 March 2024

16 MARCH – FERIA OF LENT

On this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

At Rome, the martyrdom of the deacon St. Cyriacus, who, after a long imprisonment, was covered with melted pitch and stretched on the rack to have his limbs distended with ropes, was beaten with clubs, and finally beheaded with Largus, Smaragdus and twenty others, by order of Maximian. Their feast, however, is kept on the eighth of August, the day on which their bodies were taken up by the blessed Pope Marcellus and reverently entombed.

At Aquileia, in the time of the emperor Numerian and the governor Beronius, the birthday of the holy bishop Hilary, and the deacon Tatian, who terminated their martyrdom with Felix, Largus and Denis, after being subjected to the rack and other tortures.

In Lycaonia, the holy martyr Papas, who was scourged for the Christian faith, torn with iron hooks, then compelled to walk with shoes pierced with nails, and finally bound to a barren tree. In leaving this world to go to God, he rendered the tree fruitful.

At Anazarbum in Cilicia, under the governor Marcian, the martyr St. Julian, who was a long time tortured, then put into a sack with serpents and cast into the sea.

At Ravenna, St. Agapitus, bishop and confessor.

At Cologne, St. Heribert, a bishop, celebrated for sanctity.

At Clermont in Auvergne, the demise of St. Patrick, bishop.

In Syria, St. Abraham, hermit, whose life has been written by the blessed deacon Ephrem.

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

Thanks be to God.