ST PROCOPIUS, MARTYR - 8 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 8th 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 PROCOPIUS, MARTYR

Saint Procopius was a native of Jerusalem, but lived at Bethsan, otherwise called Scythopolis, where he was reader in the church, and also performed the function of exorcist, in dispossessing demoniacs, and that of interpreter of the Greek tongue into the Syro-Chaldaic. 

GREAT AUSTERITY

He was a divine man, say his acts, and had always lived in the practice of great austerity, and patience, and in perpetual chastity. He took no other sustenance than bread and water, and usually abstained from all food two or three days together. 

HE KNEW THE HOLY SCRIPTURES WELL

He was well skilled in the sciences of the Greeks, but much more in that of the holy scriptures; the assiduous meditation on which nourished his soul, and seemed also to give vigour and strength to his emaciated body.

He was admirable in all virtues, particularly in a heavenly meekness and humility. 

HE WAS ADMIRABLE IN ALL VIRTUES

Diocletian’s bloody edicts against the Christians reached Palestine in April, 303, and Procopius was the first person who received the crown of martyrdom in that country, in the aforesaid persecution. 

HE WAS APPREHENDED AT BETHSAN

He was apprehended at Bethsan, and led, with several others, bound to Caesarea, our city, say the acts, and was hurried straight before Paulinus, prefect of the province. The judge commanded the martyr to sacrifice to the gods. 

"THERE IS NO GOD BUT ONE"

The servant of Christ answered he never could do it; and this he declared with a firmness and resolution that seemed to wound the heart of the prefect as if it had been pierced with a dagger. The martyr added, there is no God but one, who is the author and preserver of the world. The prefect then bade him sacrifice to the four emperors, namely Diocletian, Herculius, Galerius, and Constantius. This the saint again refused to do, and had scarcely returned his answer than the judge passed sentence upon him, and he was immediately led to execution and beheaded. He is honoured by the Greeks with the title of The Great Martyr. 

THE PREVALENCE OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE

Note 1. Grotius and others demonstrate the Greek language to have been, in the first ages of Christianity, common in Palestine; but this cannot be extended to all the country people, as this passage and other proofs clearly show. Hence Eusebius wrote his Acts of the Martyrs of Palestine in Syro-Chaldaic; but abridged the same in Greek, in the eighth book of his Church History. 

Note 2. The old Latin Acts write his name Flavian, and some Fabian, by mistaking the Syriac name, which is written without vowels.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)