ST EUSEBIUS, POPE - 17 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 17th of August

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 EUSEBIUS, POPE 

⬅️ Saintly Popes - Index

Pope St Eusebius was successor of Marcellus, 309 or 310. The Liberian Catalogue gives his reign's duration as only four months, from April 18 to August 17, 309 or 310. 

THE EPITAPH

We learn some details of his career from an epitaph for his tomb which Pope Damasus ordered. This epitaph had come down to us through ancient transcripts. A few fragments of the original, together with a sixth-century marble copy made to replace the original, were found by De Rossi in the Papal Chapel, in the catacombs of Callistus. 

It appears from this epitaph that the grave internal dissentions caused in the Roman Church by the readmittance of the apostates (lapsi) during the persecution of Diocletian, and which had already arisen under Marcellus, continued under Eusebius. 

APOSTATES SHOULD BE READMITTED ONLY AFTER DOING PROPER PENANCE

The latter maintained the attitude of the Roman Church, adopted after the Decian persecutions (250-51), that the apostates should not be forever debarred from ecclesiastical communion, but on the other hand, should be readmitted only after doing proper penance.

This view was opposed by a faction of Christians in Rome under the leadership of one Heraclius - a party made up of apostates and their followers, who demanded immediate restoration to the body of the Church. Both Eusebius and Heraclius were exiled by Emperor Maxentius. 

Eusebius, in particular, was deported to Sicily, where he died soon after. Miltiades ascended the papal throne July 2, 311. The body of his predecessor was brought back to Rome, probably in 311. 

A MARTYR

Pope Eusebius' firm defence of ecclesiastical discipline and the banishment which he suffered therefore caused him to be venerated as a martyr, and in his epitaph Pope Damasus honours Eusebius with this title. 

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)