SS. CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA, MARTYRS - 25 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 25th of October

 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 CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA, MARTYRS

(Third century.) Chrysanthus and Daria were strangers, who came from the East to Rome, the first from Alexandria, the second from Athens, as the Greeks tell us in their Menaea. They add, that Chrysanthus, after having been espoused to Daria, persuaded her to prefer a state of perpetual virginity to that of marriage, that they might more easily, with perfect purity of heart, trample the world under their feet, and accomplish the solemn consecration they had made of themselves to Christ in baptism. 

The zeal with which they professed the faith of Christ distinguished them in the eyes of the idolaters; they were accused, and, after suffering many torments, finished their course by a glorious martyrdom, according to their acts in the reign of Numerian; Baillet thinks rather in the persecution of Valerian, in 237. 

Several others who, by the example of their constancy, had been moved to declare themselves Christians, were put to death with them. St. Gregory of Tours says, that a numerous assembly of Christians, who were praying at their tomb soon after their martyrdom, were, by the order of the prefect of Rome, walled up in the cave, and buried alive. 

SS. Chrysanthus and Daria were interred on the Salarian Way, with their companions, whose bodies were found with theirs in the reign of Constantine the Great. This part of the catacombs was long known by the name of the cemetery of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria. 

Their tomb was decorated by Pope Damasus, who composed an epitaph in their honour. Their sacred remains were translated by Pope Stephen VI in 866, part into the Lateran basilica, and part into the church of the Twelve Apostles. This at least is true of the relics of their companions. Those of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria had been translated to the abbey of Prom, in the diocese of Triers, in 842, being a gift of Sergius II. In 844, they were removed to the abbey of St Avol, or St Navor, in the diocese of Metz. 

The names of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria are famous in the sacramentaries of St Gelasius and St Gregory, and in the both of the western and eastern churches. The Greeks honour them on March 19 and October 17: the Latins on October 25.  

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)