MARTYRS OF THE VIA CORNELIA - 19 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 19th of January

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SAINTS MARIS, MARTHA, AUDIFAX, AND ABACHUM (MARTYRS OF THE VIA CORNELIA)

Maris [Marius], a nobleman of Persia, with his wife Martha, and two sons, Audifax and Abachum, being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among the poor, as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem, and came to Rome to visit the tombs of the apostles. 

The emperor Aurelian then persecuted the church, and by his order a great number of Christians were shut up in the amphitheater, and shot to death with arrows, and their bodies burnt. 

DURING THE PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS

Our saints gathered and buried their ashes with respect; for which they were apprehended, and after many torments under the governor Marcianus, Maris and his two sons were beheaded; and Martha drowned, thirteen miles from Rome, at a place now called Santa Ninfa. Their relics were found at Rome in 1590. 

They are mentioned with distinction in all the western Martyrologies from the sacramentary of St Gregory. 

THEIR RELICS

Their relics are kept principally at Rome; part in the church of St Adrian, part in that of St Charles, and in that of St John of Calybite. 

Eginhart, son-in-law and secretary of Charlemagne, deposited a portion of these relics, which had been sent him from Rome, in the abbey of Seligenstadt, of which he was the founder, in the diocese of Mainz.

COMFORT, STRENGTH, AND PROTECTION

The martyrs and confessors triumphed over the devil by prayer; by this, poor and weak as they were, they were rendered invincible, by engaging Omnipotence itself to be their comfort, strength, and protection. 

If the art of praying well be the art of living well, according to the received maxim of the fathers and masters of a spiritual life, nothing is certainly of greater importance, than for us to learn this heavenly art of conversing with God in the manner we ought. 

DISENGAGED FROM EARTHLY TIES

We admire the wonderful effects which this exercise produced in the saints, who by it were disengaged from earthly ties and made spiritual and heavenly, perfect angels on earth. 

PRAYER

Prayer was in them the channel of all graces, the means of attaining all virtues, and all the treasures of heaven.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who know how courageously your holy Martyrs of the Via Cornelia confessed the faith, may experience their goodness as they intercede for us with you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

➡️ More information about these martyrs