Saints celebrated on the 12th of May
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.
SAINTS NEREUS AND ACHILLEUS, MARTYRS
"O miracle of faith! Suddenly they cease their fury and desert their wicked leader.
They throw away their shields, their armour and their blood-stained spears.
Confessing their faith in Christ, they rejoice to bear testimony to its triumph."
(Pope Damasus: Epitaph for Nereus and Achilleus)
TWO CHAMBERLAINS
Saints Nereus and Achilleus were eunuchs or chamberlains belonging to St Flavia Domitilla, zealous Christians, and with her were banished by Domitian into a little isle on the coast of Terracina, called Pontia. Their acts say, that they were afterwards beheaded at Terracina, under Trajan.
THEIR FESTIVAL
Their festival was kept at Rome with great solemnity in the sixth age, when St Gregory the Great spoke on it his twenty-eighth homily, in which he says: “These saints before whose tomb we are assembled, despised the world and trampled it under their feet, when peace, plenty, riches, and health gave it charms.”
THEIR OLD CHURCH IN ROME
Their old church in Rome lay in ruins, when Baronius, to whom it gave the title of cardinal, rebuilt it with splendour, and restored to it their relics, which had been removed to the chapel of St Adrian.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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SS NEREUS, ACHILLEUS, DOMITILLA THE VIRGIN, AND PANCRATIUS, MARTYRS (12 MAY)
The brothers Nereus and Achilleus were eunuchs who served Flavia Domitilla. They were baptised with Domitilla’s mother, Plautilla, by St Peter, and the brothers persuaded Domitilla to consecrate her virginity to God.
Because of this, Aurelian, who had been engaged to her, accused them of being Christians, and they were banished to the isle of Pontia.
THEY WERE ACCUSED OF BEING CHRISTIANS
To force them to sacrifice to idols, they were scourged and then taken to Terracina where they were beheaded after being racked and burned. Their disciple Auspicius brought their bodies to Rome and they were buried on the Ardeatine Way.
Flavia Domitilla, who had received the veil from blessed Pope Clement, was also banished to Pontia. After a long imprisonment she was taken in chains to Terracina where the judge ordered her lodging set afire.
THE PAGAN JUDGE ORDERED HER LODGING TO BE SET ON FIRE
She and her foster sisters, the virgins Theodora and Euphrosyne, thus died gloriously on the Nones of May in the reign of Trajan. The deacon, Caesarius, buried them.
Pancratius [St Pancras], who was born in Phrygia of a noble family, was baptised at Rome when a boy of fourteen. In the reign of Diocletian and Maximian, he was apprehended, and after he firmly refused to sacrifice to the pagan gods, offered his neck to the executioner and was martyred. A lady named Octavilla secretly buried his body on the Aurelian Way.
PRAYER:
May the holy feast of your Martyrs, Nereus, Achilleus, Domitilla and Pancras, ever comfort us, we beseech you, O Lord, and make us worthy to serve you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…
(From: An Approved English Translation of the Breviarium Romanum, Burns & Oates, London, 1964)
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