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THE FOUR CROWNED BROTHERS, MARTYRS - 8 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 8th of November 

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

THE FOUR CROWNED BROTHERS, MARTYRS

Four brothers in the persecution of Diocletian, employed in offices of trust and honour at Rome, were apprehended for declaring against the worship of idols, and whipped with scourges loaded with plummets of lead, till they expired in the hands of their tormentors. 

THEY WERE APPREHENDED FOR DECLARING AGAINST THE WORSHIP OF IDOLS

They were buried on the Lavican Way, three miles from Rome, and were at first called the Four Crowned Martyrs: their names were, Severus, Severianus, Carpophorus, and Victorious. 

AN OLD CHURCH OF THE FOUR CROWNED MARTYRS

Pope Gregory the Great mentions an old church of the four crowned martyrs in Rome. Pope Leo IV. in 841, caused the church to be repaired, and the relies of these martyrs to be translated thither out of the cemetery on the Lavican Way.

When this church had been consumed by fire Paschal II. rebuilt it; upon which occasion the relics of these martyrs were discovered under the altar in two rich urns, the one of porphyry, the other of serpentine marble, deposited in a stone vault. 

THEIR RELICS WERE DISCOVERED UNDER THE ALTAR

The new altar was built upon the same spot; and these relics were again found in the same situation under Paul V. This church is an ancient title of a cardinal-priest. 

THE MARTYRS SEALED THE FAITH WITH THEIR BLOOD

The rage of tyrants, who were masters of the world, spread the faith which they vainly endeavoured, by fighting against heaven, to extinguish. The martyrs, who died for it, sealed it with their blood, and gave a testimony to Jesus Christ, which was, of all others, the strongest and most persuasive. 

Other Christians, who fled, became the apostles of the countries whither they went. Whence St Austin compares them to torches, which, if you attempt to put them out by shaking them, are kindled, and flame so much the more. 

THEY RESISTED EVIL UNTO DEATH

The martyrs, by the meekness and fervour of their lives, and their constancy in resisting evil to death, converted an infidel world, and disarmed the obstinacy of the most implacable enemies of the truth. 

But what judgements must await those Christians who, by the scandal of their sloth and worldly spirit, dishonour their religion, blaspheme Christ, withdraw even the faithful from the practice of the gospel, and tempt a Christian world to turn infidel! 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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