ST DOROTHY, VIRGIN AND MARTYR - 6 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 6th of February

WELCOME!

SAINT DOROTHY, VIRGIN AND MARTYR 

Saint Aldhelm relates from her acts, that Fabricius, the governor of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, inflicted on her most cruel torments, because she refused to marry, or to adore idols: that she converted two apostate women sent to seduce her: and that being condemned to be beheaded, she converted one Theophilus, by sending him certain fruits and flowers miraculously obtained of her heavenly spouse. 

FRUITS AND FLOWERS

She seems to have suffered under Diocletian. Her body is kept in the celebrated church which bears her name, beyond the Tiber, in Rome. 

SHE IS MENTIONED IN THE ANCIENT MARTYROLOGY

She is mentioned on this day in the ancient Martyrology under the name of St Jerome. There was another holy virgin, whom Rufin calls Dorothy, a rich and noble lady of the city of Alexandria, who suffered torments and a voluntary banishment, to preserve her faith and chastity against the brutish lust and tyranny of the emperor Maximinus, in the year 308, as is recorded by Eusebius and Rufinus: but many take this latter, whose name is not mentioned by Eusebius, to be the famous St Catharine of Alexandria.   

HUNDREDFOLD INCREASE

The blood of the martyrs flourished in its hundred-fold increase, as St Justin has well observed: “We are slain with the sword, but we increase and multiply: the more we are persecuted and destroyed, the more are added to our numbers. As a vine, by being pruned and cut close, shoots forth new suckers, and bears a greater abundance of fruit; so is it with us.”  

THE GOSPEL OVERCOMES ALL IMPEDIMENTS

Among other false reflections, the baron of Montesquieu, an author too much admired by many, writes: “It is hardly possible that Christianity should ever be established in China. Vows of virginity, the assembling of women in the churches, their necessary intercourse with the ministers of religion, their participation of the sacraments, auricular confession, the marrying but one wife; all this oversets the manners and customs, and strikes at the religion and laws of the country.” 

IN SPITE OF ALL WORLDLY OPPOSITION

Could he forget that the gospel overcame all these impediments where it was first established, in spite of the most inveterate prejudices, and of all worldly opposition from the great and the learned; whereas philosophy, though patronised by princes, could never in any age introduce its rules even into one city. In vain did the philosopher Plotinus solicit the emperor Gallienus to rebuild a ruined city in Campania, that he and his disciples might establish in it the republic of Plato: a system, in some points, flattering the passions of men, almost as Mahometism fell in with the prejudices and passions of the nations where it prevails. So visibly is the church the work of God.

From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints

A PRAYER TO ST DOROTHY

By the radiance

of your holy life

you did draw the two

sisters united in spirit

into Eternal Light;

and did send roses and apples from

Paradise to Theophilus.

O Dorothy, as fellow contestants

you were counted worthy of Divine glory.

Ask that we who praise

you may receive the

forgiveness of our sins.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.