ST BARHADBESCIABAS, DEACON AND MARTYR

ST BARHADBESCIABAS, DEACON AND MARTYR - 21 JULY

Saints celebrated on the 21st of July

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.

ST BARHADBESCIABAS, DEACON AND MARTYR -

In the fifteenth year of the great persecution raised in Persia by king Sapor II by the command of Sapor Tamsapor governor of Adiabene, Barhadbesciabas, the zealous deacon of the city of Arbela, was apprehended and put on the rack.

Whilst he was tormented, the officers continually cried out to him: "Worship water and fire, and eat the blood of beasts, and you shall be immediately set at liberty."

INTERIOR JOY

But the blessed deacon Barhadbesciabas showed by the cheerfulness of his countenance, that the interior joy of his happy soul overcame the torments he felt in his body. He often said to the judge, "Neither you nor your king, nor any manner of torments shall ever be able to separate me from the love of Jesus: Him alone have I served from my infancy to this old age."

The tyrant at length condemned him to be beheaded, and commanded Aghaeus, an apostate Christian nobleman, to be his executioner. The holy deacon stood bound waiting with joy for the happy moment which was to associate him to the angels; but Aghaeus trembled so as not to be able to give the blow.

HIS MARTYRDOM

He struck, however, seven times at the martyr’s neck, and not being able to sever his head from his body, run his sword into his bowels; of which wound the holy deacon expired soon after.

The judge set guards to watch the blessed corpse; but two clerks carried it off in the night, and buried it after the Roman fashion. He suffered on the 20th day of the moon of July, in the year 354, of Sapor II.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

⬅️ Martyrs of Persia under Sapor II

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