ST VITUS, MARTYR - 15 JUNE

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 15th of June

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SAINT VITUS, MARTYR

Saint Vitus appears in early lists of Christian martyrs, and probably died during the persecution of Diocletian, which reached its climax in 303.

He is a patron saint of Prague, coppersmiths and actors, and his intercession has been invoked against snake bites, lightning and sleeplessness. Chiefly, though, he has been associated with St Vitus’s Dance.

SAINT VITUS' DANCE

Historically this term has been used to describe all kinds of nervous disorders involving rapid, jerky, involuntary movements; it has also been applied to epilepsy. Today, Saint Vitus’s Dance is more austerely defined as Sydenham’s Chorea, a disease which induces grimacing and jerking in children and pregnant women, and which is often linked to rheumatic fever.

Nothing certain is known of Vitus, apart from the fact of his martyrdom. There is a legend that he expelled an evil spirit from Diocletian’s son, though it is not clear whether this is the cause or consequence of his association with neurological symptoms.

HE CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY

As to his origins, tradition relates that Vitus hailed from Sicily, where he was converted to Christianity while still a boy, to the great disgust and rage of his father, a senator.

Guided by an angel, and sustained with food brought by an eagle, the youth escaped to Italy with his tutor Modestus and his maid Crescentia. The miraculous cures he effected led to accusations of sorcery, while his refusal to worship pagan gods attracted the malignant attention of authority.

HIS MARTYRDOM

Flung into a cauldron of molten lead, Vitus apparently emerged as from a refreshing bath. Then a lion to which he was exposed crouched before him and licked his feet. Yet Vitus eventually perished from the tortures he suffered, as did Modestus and Crescentia.

TRANSFER OF THE RELICS

The church of Saint Vitus on the Esquiline Hill in Rome dates from the eighth century. In 775 his relics found a home at Saint Denis (now in Paris) until translated in 836 to Corvey in Saxony. Subsequently his cult became popular throughout Germany. In the early 10th century King Wenceslas obtained one of Vitus’s arms from the Emperor Henry I, and dedicated to the saint the cathedral he was building in Prague.

THE BLACK DEATH

During the Black Death, in the 14th century, there were outbreaks of hysterical dancing in Europe, seemingly caused by mental breakdown in the face of the irresistible incursion of mortality.

Prayers were offered to Saint Vitus in the hope of allaying this “dancing plague”, and he became recognised as one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers to those in extremis. Their group feast, on August 8, was abolished only in 1969.

THE WEATHER PREDICTION

‘If Saint Vitus’s Day be rainy weather, it shall rain for 30 days together, ‘ ran the old saw, a forecast applied with equal unreliability to the feast of Saint Swithin on July 15.

This article, entitled “Saint of the week”, was published in The Catholic Herald, paper edition, issue June 14, 2013.

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Vitus may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. 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.