He mortified his body by fasting and watching, and applied his mind to the contemplation of heavenly things. He laboured incessantly for the salvation of souls and was gifted with a special grace for refuting heretics. He was so earnest when preaching that people used to go in crowds to hear him and numerous were the conversions that ensued. The ardour of his faith was such that he wished he might die for it, and earnestly begged that favour from God. His death, which he foretold a short time before in one of his sermons, was inflicted on him by the heretics. While returning from Como to Milan in the discharge of the duties of the holy Inquisition, he was attacked by a wicked assassin who struck him twice on the head with a sword. The Symbol of Faith which he had confessed with manly courage when but a child, he now began to recite with his dying lips, and having received another wound in his side, he went to receive a martyr’s palm in Heaven in 1252. Numerous miracles attested his sanctity. He was canonised by Pope Innocent IV in 1253.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
The hero deputed this day by the Church to greet our Risen Lord was so valiant in the Good Fight that martyrdom is part of his name. He is known as Peter the Martyr, so that we cannot speak of him without raising the echo of victory. He was put to death by heretics and is the grand tribute paid to our Redeemer by the thirteenth century. Never was there a triumph hailed with greater enthusiasm than this. The martyrdom of Saint Thomas of Canterbury excited the admiration of the faithful of the preceding century, for nothing was so dear to our forefathers as the Liberty of the Church. The martyrdom of Saint Peter was celebrated with a like intensity of praise and joy. Let us hearken to the fervid eloquence of the great Pontiff, Innocent IV, who thus begins the Bull of the martyr’s canonisation:
“The truth of the Christian Faith, manifested, as it has been, by great and frequent miracles, is now beautified by the new merit of a new Saint. Lo! a combatant of these our own times comes, bringing us new and great and triumphant signs. The voice of his blood shed (for Christ) is heard, and the fame of his martyrdom is trumpeted through the world. The land is not silent that sweats with his blood. The country that produced so noble warrior resounds with his praise. Yes, the very sword that did the deed of parricide proclaims his glory... Mother Church has great reason to rejoice, and abundant matter for gladness. She has cause to sing a new canticle to the Lord, and a hymn of fervent praise to her God: the Christian people has cause to give forth devout songs to its Creator. A sweet fruit, gathered in the garden of Faith, has been set upon the table of the Eternal King: a grape-bunch, taken from the vineyard of the Church, has filled the royal cup with new wine... The flourishing Order of Preachers has produced a red rose whose sweetness is most grateful to the King, and from the Church here on Earth there has been taken a stone which, after being cut and polished, has deserved a place of honour in the temple of Heaven.”
Such was the language wherewith the supreme Pontiff spoke of the new martyr, and the people responded by celebrating his feast with extraordinary devotion. It was kept as were the ancient festivals, that is, all servile work was forbidden upon it. The Churches served by the Fathers of the Dominican Order were crowded on his feast, and the faithful took little branches with them that they might be blessed in memory of the Triumph of Peter the Martyr. This custom is still observed, and the branches blessed by the Dominicans on this day are venerated as being a protection to the houses where they are kept.
How are we to account for all this fervent devotion of the people towards Saint Peter? It was because he died in defence of the Faith, and nothing was so dear to the Christians of those days as Faith. Peter had received the charge to take up all the heretics who, at that time, were causing great disturbance and scandal in the country round about Milan. They were called Cathari but in reality were Manicheans. Their teachings were detestable, and their lives of the most immoral kind. Peter fulfilled his duty with a firmness and equity which soon secured him the hatred of the heretics, and when he fell a victim to his holy courage a cry of admiration and gratitude was heard throughout Christendom. Nothing could be more devoid of truth than the accusations brought by the enemies of the Church and their indiscreet abettors, against the measures formerly decreed by the public law of Catholic nations, in order to foil the efforts made by evil-minded men to injure the true Faith. In those times no tribunal was so popular as that whose office it was to protect theFaith, and to put down all them that attacked it.
It was to the Order of Saint Dominic that this office was mainly entrusted, and well may they be proud of the honour of having so long held one so beneficial to the salvation of mankind. How many of its members have met with a glorious death in the exercise of their stern duty! Saint Peter is the first of the martyrs given by the Order for this holy cause: his name, however, heads a long list of others who were his brethren in religion, his successors in the defence of the Faith, and his followers to martyrdom. The coercive measures that were once, and successfully, used to defend the Faithful from heretical teachers have long since ceased to be used. But for us Catholics, our judge ent of them must surely be that of the Church. She bids us today honour as a martyr one of her Saints who was put to death while resisting the wolves that threatened the sheep of Christ’s fold. Should we not be guilty of disrespect to our Mother if we dared to condemn what she so highly approves? Far, then, be from us that cowardly truckling to the spirit of the age which would make us ashamed of the courageous efforts made by our forefathers for the preservation of the Faith! Far from us that childish readiness to believe the calumnies of Protestants against an institution which they naturally detest! Far from us that deplorable confusion of ideas which puts truth and error on an equality and, from the fact that error can have no rights, concludes that truth can claim none!
* * * * *
The victory was yours, Peter, and your zeal for the defence of holy Faith was rewarded. You ardently desired to shed your blood for the holiest of causes and by such a sacrifice to confirm the faithful of Christ in their religion. Our Lord satisfied your desire. He would even have your martyrdom be in the festive season of the Resurrection of our Divine Lamb that His glory might add lustre to the beauty of your holocaust. When the death-blow fell upon your venerable head and your generous blood was flowing from the wounds, you wrote on the ground the first words of the Creed for whose holy truth you were giving your life.
Protector of the Christian people, what other motive had you, in all your labours, but charity? What else but a desire to defend the weak from danger induced you not only to preach against error, but to drive its teachers from the flock? How many simple souls who were receiving divine truth from the teaching of the Church have been deceived by the lying sophistry of heretical doctrine, and have lost the Faith? Surely the Church would do her utmost to ward off such dangers from her children: she would do all she could to defend them from enemies who were bent on destroying the glorious inheritance which had been handed down to them by millions of martyrs! She knew the strange tendency that often exists in the heart of fallen man to love error, whereas Truth, though of itself unchanging, is not sure of its remaining firmly in the mind, unless it be defended by learning or by faith. As to learning, there are but few who possess it. And as to faith, error is ever conspiring against and, of course, with the appearance of truth. In the Christian Ages it would have been deemed not only criminal, but absurd, to grant to error the liberty which is due only to truth. And they that were in authority considered it a duty to keep the weak from danger by removing from them all occasions of a fall — just as the father of a family keeps his children from coming in contact with wicked companions who could easily impose on their inexperience and lead them to evil under the name of good.
Obtain for us, O holy Martyr, a keen appreciation of the precious gift of Faith — that element which keeps us in the way of salvation. May we zealously do everything that lies in our power to preserve it, both in ourselves and in them that are under our care. The love of this holy Faith has grown cold in so many hearts, and frequent intercourse with heretics or free-thinkers has made them think and speak of matters of Faith in a very loose way. Pray for them, O Peter, that they may recover that fearless love of the Truths of Religion which should be one of the chief traits of the Christian character. If they be living in a country where the modern system is introduced of treating all religions alike, that is, of giving equal rights to error and to truth, let them be all the more courageous in professing the truth and detesting the errors opposed to the truth. Pray for us, O holy Martyr, that there may be kindled within us an ardent love of that Faith without which, it is impossible to please God (Hebrews xi. 6). Pray that we may become all earnestness in this duty which is of vital importance to salvation, that thus our Faith may daily gain strength within us, till at length we will merit to see in Heaven what we have believed unhesitatingly on Earth.
Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Paphos in Cyprus, St. Tychicus, a disciple of the blessed Apostle St. Paul, who called him in his epistles most dear brother, faithful minister and fellow-servant in the Lord.
At Cirtha in Numidia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Agapius and Secundinus, bishops, who, after a long exile in that city, added to the glory of their priesthood the crown of martyrdom. They suffered in the persecution of Valerian during which the enraged Gentiles made every effort to shake the faith of the just. In their company suffered Æmilian, soldier, Tertulla and Antonia, consecrated virgins, and a woman with her twin children.
The same day, seven robbers, who, being converted to Christ by St. Jason, attained to eternal life by martyrdom.
At Brescia, St. Paulinus, bishop and confessor.
In the monastery of Cluny, the abbot St. Hugh.
In the monastery of Molesmes, St. Robert, first abbot of the Cistercians.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
