Saint Gregory, originally known as Theodore “Gift of God,” was born in Neocaesarea (now Turkey), of distinguished parents who were still engaged in the superstitions of paganism. His father had destined him for the legal profession, in which the art of oratory is necessary, and in this pursuit he was succeeding well, having learned Latin. He was introduced to the Christian religion at the age of fourteen, after the death of his father. Gregory and his brother Athenodorus, later to be a bishop like himself, on the advice of one of their tutors, were eager to study at the Berytus in Beirut, then one of the four or five famous schools in the Hellenic world. At this time, their brother-in-law was appointed assessor (legal counsel) to the Roman Governor of Palestine; the youths had therefore an occasion to act as an escort to their sister as far as Caesarea in Palestine. On arrival in that town they learned that the celebrated scholar Origen, head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria, resided there. Curiosity led them to hear and converse with the master. Soon both youths forgot all about Beirut and Roman law, and gave themselves up to the great Christian teacher, who gradually won them over to Christianity.
Origen discovered in them a remarkable capacity for knowledge, and more important still, rare dispositions for virtue. Gregory took up at first the study of philosophy; theology was afterwards added, but his mind remained always inclined to philosophical study, so much so indeed that in his youth he cherished strongly the hope of demonstrating that the Christian religion was the only true and good philosophy. For seven years he underwent the mental and moral discipline of Origen, who strove to inspire love for truth in them and an ardent desire to attain greater knowledge and the possession of the Supreme Good. Gregory studied also in Alexandria for three years, after a persecution drove his master, Origen, from Palestine, but returned there with the famous exegete in 238. He was then baptized, and in the presence of a large audience delivered a speech in which he testified to his gratitude towards his teacher, praising his methods, and thanking God for so excellent a professor.
When he returned to his native city of Neocaesarea in the Pont, his friends urged him to seek high positions, but Gregory desired to retire into solitude and devote himself to prayer. For a time he did so, often changing his habitation, because the archbishop of the region desired to make him Bishop of Neocaesarea. Eventually he was obliged to consent. That city was very prosperous, and the inhabitants were corrupted by paganism. Saint Gregory, with Christian zeal and charity, and with the aid of the gift of miracles which he had received, began to attempt every means to bring them to the light of Christ. As he lay awake one night an elderly man entered his room, and pointed to a Lady of superhuman beauty who accompanied him, radiant with heavenly light. This elderly man was Saint John the Evangelist, and the Lady of Light was the Mother of God. She told Saint John to give Gregory the instruction he desired; thereupon he gave Saint Gregory a creed which contained in all its plenitude the doctrine of the Trinity. Saint Gregory consigned it to writing, directed all his preaching by it, and handed it down to his successors. This creed later preserved his flock from the Arian heresy.
He converted a pagan priest one day, when the latter requested a miracle, and a very large rock moved to another location at his command. The pagan priest abandoned all things to follow Christ afterwards. One day the bishop planted his staff beside the river which passed alongside the city and often ravaged it by floods. He commanded it never again to pass the limit marked by his staff, and in the time of Saint Gregory of Nyssa, who wrote of his miracles nearly a hundred years later, it had never done so. The bishop settled a conflict which was about to cause bloodshed between two brothers, when he prayed all night beside the lake whose possession they were disputing. It dried up and the miracle ended the difficulty.
When the persecution of Decius began in 250, the bishop counseled his faithful to depart and not expose themselves to trials perhaps too severe for their faith; and none fell into apostasy. He himself retired to a desert, and when he was pursued was not seen by the soldiers. On a second attempt they found him praying with his companion, the converted pagan priest, now a deacon; they had mistaken them the first time for trees. The captain of the soldiers was convinced this had been a miracle, and became a Christian to join him. Some of his Christians were captured, among them Saint Troadus the martyr, who merited the grace of dying for the Faith. The persecution ended at the death of the emperor in 251.
It is believed that Saint Gregory died in the year 270, on the 17th of November. Before his death he asked how many pagans still remained in the city, and was told there were only seventeen. He thanked God for the graces He had bestowed on the population, for when he arrived, there had been only seventeen Christians.
These are some of the many miracles he worked. Through his prayer, a mountain that prevented the construction of a church moved, a lake that was the cause of dissension between two brothers dried, and the flooding of the Icus River that was devastating the fields stopped. His staff planted along the border of the river took root, and was transformed into a great tree beyond whose limits the water would not pass. Many times he expelled devils from the idols and the bodies of possessed persons. Some of the many miracles he worked caused multitudes to enter the Catholic Faith. He also had the spirit of the Prophets, foretelling many future events.
References and Excerpts
[1] M. P. Guérin, Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, Paris: Bloud et Barral, 1882.
[2] “Saint Gregory Thaumaturge – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_gregory_thaumaturge.html. [Accessed 30 October 2016].
[3] “Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Thaumaturgus. [Accessed 30 October 2016].
[4] P. P. C. d. Oliveira, “St. Gregory Thaumaturgus – November 17,” Tradition In Action, 2002. [Online]. Available: http://www.traditioninaction.org/SOD/j203sd_Gregory_11-17.html. [Accessed 30 October 2016].
[5] R. E. Guiley, Encyclopedia of Saints, New York City, NY: Facts on File, 2001.
Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. (Jeremiah 17:5)
It was year 64 AD, Rome was burning, and the prosecution of Christians about to reach its peak. St. Peter was fleeing from crucifixion in Rome at the hands of the government under Emperor Nero Augustus Caesar. Along the road outside the city he met the risen Jesus. St. Peter asks Jesus, “Quo vadis?” (“Where are you going?”) , to which Jesus replies, “Romam eo iterum crucifigi” (“I am going to Rome to be crucified again”). Peter thereby gained the courage to return to the city, continue his ministry and eventually be martyred by being crucified upside-down.
Today in the United States and all over the world, Neopaganism is showing its head. Faithless culture, Faithless economy, Faithless government, and Faithless society. The country that still has “In God we trust” on its currency is drifting away from God with increasing speed. Corrupt elites in government, media and pop culture are imposing all kinds of harmful ideologies on society, corrupting our hearts and endangering the salvation of our souls.
Should we flee the United States by locking ourselves in our houses and churches, or shall we turn around and continue the ministry started by our Lord and passed to us by St. Peter and successive generations.
We are not alone in this battle. Our Lord is with us. God, our loving Heavenly Father shows us the way to overcome obstacles in our struggle for salvation through chosen souls.
One of those chosen souls was Giulio Mancinelli. On august 14, 1608 in monastery Gesu Nuovo Italy, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to the Jesuit Giulio and asked him as gratitude for strong love and devotion to Her among Poles to call Her “ Queen of Poland”. Two years later the 72 year old Giulio, after an arduous walk from Italy, on May 8, 1610 brought this message to the Polish King in Cracow.
April 1, 1656, in Lvov Cathedral, King John II Casimir entrusted the Commonwealth under the Blessed Virgin Mary’s protection, whom he announced as The Queen of the Polish Crown.
Sadly this announcement didn’t move the hearts of the nobles, leaders of the Commonwealth. Pride, personal ambitions and self-interest created divisions and conflicts. It took the Poles 45 years to recognize the importance of this revelation. In 1648 Bohdan Khmelnitsky led rebellion of Zaporozhian Cossacks and Ukrainian peasants, it brought into focus the rivalry between Russia and the Commonwealth (Poland-Lithuania) for hegemony over Ukraine and over the eastern Slavic lands in general. In June, 1654, the forces of Tsar Alexis of Russia invaded the eastern half of Poland-Lithuania, starting the Russo-Polish War of 1654-67. In the summer of 1654, the Russians managed to capture most important cities and strongholds of today’s Belarus. July the next year, the Swedish Empire invaded and occupied the remaining half of the country. In the winter of the same year the Swedes attempted to capture the Jasna Góra monastery in Częstochowa. A small force consisting of monks from the Jasna Góra monastery led by their Prior and supported by local volunteers, mostly from the Polish nobility, fought off the numerically superior Swedish troops to save their sacred icon, the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. Their successful defense become the turning point of the war. On April first, 1656, during a holy mass in Lvov Cathedral (now Ukraine), conducted by the papal legate Pietro Vidoni, King John II Casimir, who just returned from exile, in a grandiose and elaborate ceremony entrusted the Commonwealth under the Blessed Virgin Mary’s protection, whom he announced as The Queen of the Polish Crown. A series of victories following this act allowed Poland to reclaim control over most of the lost territories. Today, the Blessed Virgin Mary is known as the Queen of Poland.
Beginning in the year 1930, our Lord Jesus began to demand, using the Venerable Rozalia Celakowna (whose beatification process is ongoing), that Poland recognize Him as King. September 1937 Rozalia starts to receive a series of prophetic visions in which Jesus’s demands of the Poland and the world are very clearly defined. Depending on the fulfillment of these demands, God subjected the fate of Poland and other nations. The essence of these revelations can be reduced to a condition: if Poland wants to save itself, it must accept Jesus as their King in the whole sense of the word by the Act of Enthronement. It is to be made by the entire nation, and especially by the state and ecclesiastical authorities, on behalf of the Nation, must worked together to make this Act in a solemn manner. If other nations will follow the example of Poland, and recognize Jesus, their King, they will be spared, otherwise they will perish.
May 2 2016 Knights of Christ the King marching in Warsaw, Poland.
After WW II, forty five years of communist dictatorship, and twenty six years of post-communist struggle, the polish episcopate established a draft of the enthronement of Jesus Christ, which resulted in Poland being placed under His rule as King on November 19, 2016. This Act was announced on the 1050th anniversary of the baptism of Poland at the Shrine of Divine Mercy in Lagiewniki-Cracow. Alongside the episcopate, cardinals and bishops, the act of enthronement was attended by the president of Poland and devoted Catholic Andrzej Duda, representatives of administration and leaders of congress. Outside of the sanctuary gathered crowd of over 200 thousand.
József Mindszenty (29 March 1892 – 6 May 1975) was the Prince Primate, Archbishop of Esztergom, cardinal, and leader of the Catholic Church in Hungary from October 2nd, 1945 to December 18th, 1973. For five decades, he personified uncompromising opposition to fascism and communism in Hungary in support of religious freedom. During World War II, he was imprisoned by the pro-Nazi Arrow Cross Party.
Prisoner, Cardinal Mindszenty with his guards.
After the war, he opposed communism and the communist persecution in his country. As a result, he was tortured and given a life sentence in a 1949 show trial that generated worldwide condemnation, including a United Nations resolution. After eight years in prison, he was freed in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and granted political asylum by the United States embassy in Budapest, where Mindszenty lived for the next fifteen years. He was finally allowed to leave the country in 1971. He died in exile in 1975 in Vienna, Austria. On 21 February 1946, Archbishop Mindszenty was elevated to Cardinal-Priest of Santo Stefano Rotondo by Pope Pius XII, who told him, “Among these thirty-two you will be the first to suffer the martyrdom symbolized by this red color.” In 1947 Cardinal Mindszenty professed that: If a million Hungarians will pray for the country, he will be calm about her fate.
In the face of a great social crisis (bloody riots, protests, in reminiscence of the 1956 revolution against ruling socialist party) in Hungary, Cardinal Erdö with the episcopate proclaimed 2006 the Year of Spiritual Renewal of the Nation and called all to a prayer crusade for the intentions of the homeland. More than a million Hungarians declared that they will pray for the moral renewal of the nation, which started the beginning of a great social transformation.
After more than 60 years from the words of the martyred Primate, Hungarians tend to recover the lost dignity of the once great nation. Four years after the start of a crusade – April 11, 2010, the patriotic camp led by Victor Orban won the election. One of the first actions of the new parliament was to change the constitution, guaranteeing the protection of life from conception to natural death and recognize the Christian roots of the state. The country now seems to have survived the crisis.
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia is a country at the northern tip of South America. Population 47 million, it enjoys over 40 mystics who experience the presence of the Lord Jesus, Our Lady and the saints.
Colombia, for many years was associated only with the production of cocaine, violence and terror on the part of the FARC (The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army. FARC is a guerrilla movement involved in continuing the Colombian armed conflict since 1964. Ideology: Marxism–Leninism), it is now the fastest growing country of the whole continent, and the capital Bogota is safer than many other cities in the world.
Through mystics Our Lady sent to the Colombians messages which said that: in Colombia there will be peace only when the entire nation and its leaders make the act of consecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Mary said that the suffering that affected Colombia, if lived in union with Christ, will transform the entire nation, which will become a light and witness to the world.
In 1990 the government of Colombia, together with the whole episcopate entrusted the nation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and this was enshrined in the Constitution. Sadly in 1991 the Constitutional Tribunal cancelled the act of consecration. Since then Colombia went through a period of intensified criminal actions from the communist guerrillas. There was then a general mobilization of the whole society, to make a spiritual and moral renewal of the nation and to put into power deeply religious people who would support this renewal. Colombians realized that without a strong faith in God and without prayer the nation has no future, and that is why in the democratic elections in 2002 chose the deeply religious president Álvaro Uribe. In 2003. The president signed a new constitution, which annulled the decision of the Constitutional Court of 1991. The army chief, General Padilla, proudly stated that the new Constitution of Colombia “reflects the order we received from God.”
Consecration to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (Bogotá).
After long preparations, on October 12, 2008 state authorities with the president Alvaro Uribe, Cardinal. Pedro Rubian, with the entire Colombian episcopate, in unity with the whole nation, made the solemn consecration of Colombia to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. This was the most important event in the country since Columbia gained its independence.
Catholic, conservative Álvaro Uribe is one of the few leaders who openly talks about their relationship with religion (Uribe is a member of Opus Dei), the faith that has an impact on political decisions and his conservative political views. In the presidential palace on the walls hangs a painting of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and the saints and blessed. In the center of the building there is a private chapel, where is the Blessed Sacrament present accompanied by the relics of many saints.
The most astonishing in talks with officials is that everyone is talking about God as someone very important to their lives.
Consecration of the applicants and police cadets to the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Colombians are not ashamed of their religion. On one of the skyscrapers of Bogota residents placed a huge painting of Jesus Crucified. The Audi dealership, next to the gleaming cars, placed a 2-meter image of the Lord Jesus. There are hundreds of crosses, statues and icons in private gardens, homes, courtyards, in state offices and private companies.
Against the darkness of sin which is enveloping the world, God chooses countries to be places of spiritual refuge and luminous signs for the world. This land-mark for Latin America is to be Colombia.
Our Lord Jesus Christ said, “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it”. (Matthew, 16: 18)
What Our Lord promises will happen but those who will decide to sit on the side line in this struggle should ask themselves the question, “Will the door to Heaven open for me?”
“It is you who have stood by me in my trials; and I confer a kingdom on you, just as my Father has conferred one on me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom; and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Luke 22:28-30)
During the Last Supper our Lord revealed to the apostles that God proclaimed Him the King, King of Kings. It is the duty of every Christian, enclosed in mandate, to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.”(Mark 16:15) To bring, by prayer and promotion, this message to everybody so that one day, by the Grace of God, Jesus Christ will be proclaimed and recognized as the King of the USA and the entire world.
Let us then proclaim the Son of God, our redeemer, our savior Jesus Christ the King, King of our hearts and King of our country and our Heavenly Mother Virgin Mary our Queen, surrendering as individuals and as a nation to their merciful, loving, most Holy Hearts, to become part of God’s salvation plan.
Let’s start with promoting a simple prayer:
Christ Our King
O Lord our God, Jesus Christ, Thee alone are our Most Holy King. For our many sins we have deserved Thy Just Judgment. Jesus, King of Mercy, forgive us, have mercy upon us. Protect, o Lord, us, our families and our country, the United States of America. May America and all nations declare Thee God and King; May they fall on their knees before Thee! Open their hearts, and lift up their souls to adore Thee! Amen.
2nd objection: Were the penalties of the Inquisition too harsh?
The answer is simple: if we wish to judge – by modern standards – the penalties inflicted by the Inquisition on heretics and enemies of Church and State, yes, they were undoubtedly severe. Penalties in our time are, more often than not, so lenient that they do not deter crimes, as the ever growing prison population proves ad nauseam. And yet, the penalties were no means harsh in the terms of the standards of the time.
Was the death sentence applied? Yes, it was. However, unlike the practice of the civil courts, the Inquisition often admitted appeals against the sentence, while most civil courts allowed no appeal against sentences for certain crimes. Truth is that relatively few encounters with the Inquisition ended at the stake. This was a fate reserved for the relapsed, the impenitent, and those convicted of attempting to overturn certain central doctrines of the Church and threaten the stability of the State. But even in these cases lesser forms of punishment often prevailed. The lesser punishments were generally medicinal and spiritual: public abjurations of error, penances, work in a charitable institution, a cycle of prayers and devotions, pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela or the Holy Land. The goal was the conversion of the heretic, not his destruction.
But who were the ones who were burned alive? That’s the question most often asked. If we leave aside the exaggerations of the anti-Catholic historians, it was only those unrepentant to the end who were burnt alive. The most common execution of dangerous heretics was made by hanging or beheading, long before the burning at the stake. But those overcritical historians systematically ignore the care taken by the Church took regarding conditions in Inquisition prisons.
I insist in reminding readers that the activity of the heretics was also criminal: When Christianity became the religion of the Empire, and still more when the peoples of Northern Europe became Christian nations, the close alliance of Church and State made unity of faith essential not only to the ecclesiastical organization, but also to civil society.
This is an important reality in those times: Heresy was a crime which secular rulers were bound in duty to punish. It was regarded as worse than any other crime, even that of high treason. For society in those times, allowing heresy to flourish, was the equivalent of allowing anarchy.
3rd Objection: The Catholic Inquisition was unique in History, as Protestants always respected the right of other people to interpret the Bible as they felt the Holy Spirit inspired them.
Reply: This is absolutely untrue, to put it mildly. First of all, Protestant punished their opponents exactly as Catholics dealt with theirs, but often far more cruelly, especially with sessions of prolonged torture on the rack. But do not think that those killed by the Protestant Inquisition were only Roman Catholics. Not at all! For instance, some Protestants regularly put Unitarian heretics to death for their heresy of disagreeing with the Protestant particular interpretation of the Bible! Those who preached the Bible alone with no Church magisterium made themselves their own magisterium and punished others who had their own interpretation of the Bible. Consistency was definitely in short supply those days.
For example, Calvin had Michael Servetus burnt at the stake in 1553; King James I, an Anglican, had two Unitarian heretics burnt at the stake in 1612; in Scotland, the Presbyterians hanged Unitarians until as late as 1696.
I insist on this point: The Protestant Inquisition was unjust not only by the excessive cruelty of their methods, but especially because it was contradictory: they preached the Bible alone, but it should only be interpreted as they did. They did not admit the Magisterium of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, but imposed a ‘magisterium’ of their own; yes, their severity of Protestants was indefensible, on their own grounds, since they maintained the liberty of private judgement and, therefore, admitted that their victim might be right and they themselves wrong. The Catholic Church never admitted the Bible alone, and was therefore consistent with her doctrine that She alone possess divine truth. Therefore, the heretic working amongst Catholics is necessarily a source of moral or spiritual infection, a slayer of souls, and is consequently, more dangerous than the thief or murderer.
It is easy for supposedly ‘charitable’ people today – even inside the Catholic Church – to criticize a ‘severity of the Inquisition in its attempts to eliminate error and evil from the midst of God’s people. Like in every human undertaking, there were abuses in the Inquisition. At times a penalty was more severe than the criminal deserved. There was a specific instance when a totally innocent person was burned at the stake – Saint Joan of Arc, the glorious Patroness of France! But abuses were rare, as the historical record proves it. And yet, the abuse does not destroy the use – the Church was always at work to prevent abuses and exercises Justice.
But are our times truly better? What will future generations think of the abortion industry, murdering millions of pre-born people every year? Just because it is “legal”? And the forced sterilization of women and men the enforced sterilization of handicapped people; the involuntary euthanasia of people deemed ‘useless’ (well documented in several countries, but never are the guilty doctors prosecuted); the destruction of children’s innocence through exposure to obscenity; the glorification of base immorality and gratuitous violence under the name of ‘entertainment’; the idolization of ‘stars’ who lead lives of sheer depravity; the widespread sale of mind-destroying drugs; the plague of divorce and the attendant abandonment of children; the degradation of motherhood and family; the relegation of many old people to a life of loneliness and isolation; the bombing of entire cities in wars—and countless other modern evils unimagined by past generations.
Add to this the crisis in the faith inside the Church herself, where we find heresy and teachings dissenting from the Gospel teaching spread everywhere by laymen and women, priests, bishops and even Cardinals! And this smoke of Satan goes on with impunity in so many places…!
Today’s critics of the Inquisition are, more often than not, like the Pharisees of old: do as I say, don’t do as I do… and Jesus called them hypocrites, whitewashed sepulchers and race of vipers!
Oh, yes, in comparison with today’s evils, the Inquisition was very moderate and lenient indeed!
Last but not least, even if we suppose that the Inquisition was horribly severe according to the anti-Catholic accusation, in the final analysis is does not touch the Church’s infallibility in her teaching Magisterium. It would only condemn the behavior of some of her members. It also proves that the misbehavior of some Catholics does not affect the vitality and growth of the Church in number and virtue, and the many saints prove ad nauseam. The parable of the fishermen shows that in the kingdom of God (the net) there are both good and bad fish…
David committed adultery and murder, and yet he is called a ‘Man after God’s own Heart” in the Bible. His religion remained untouched. Even the Apostles you find wrongdoings: the man in charge of the purse sold Jesus out; the first Pope denied Jesus three times; and the other ten run away like chickens when the going got tough… what a sorry lot Jesus chose to work with Him! And yet they were the Apostolic College, the foundation of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Raymond de Souza KM is available to speak at Catholic events anywhere in the free world in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Please email SacredHeartMedia@Outlook.com or visit www.RaymonddeSouza.com or phone 507-450-4196 in the United States
Saint Quentin was a Roman, descended from a senatorial family. Full of zeal for the kingdom of Jesus Christ, he left his country and went into Gaul, accompanied by eleven other apostles sent from Rome. They separated to extend their campaign of evangelization to the various regions of France. Saint Quentin remained at Amiens and endeavored by his prayers and labors to make that region part of Our Lord’s inheritance. By the force of his words and works he preluded the glory of his martyrdom. He gave sight to the blind, vigor to paralytics, hearing to the deaf, and agility to the infirm, in the name of Our Lord, simply by the sign of the Cross. At all hours of the day he invoked his God in fervent supplications.
But this apostolate could not escape the notice of Rictiovarus, the Roman prosecutor who at that time represented Maximian Herculeus in Gaul. Saint Quentin was seized at Amiens, thrown into prison, and loaded with chains. Rictiovarus asked him: How does it happen that you, of such high nobility and the son of so distinguished a father, have given yourself up to so superstitious a religion, a folly, and that you adore an unfortunate man crucified by other men? Saint Quentin replied: It is sovereign nobility to adore the Creator of heaven and earth, and to obey willingly His divine commandments. What you call folly is supreme wisdom. What is there that is wiser than to recognize the unique true God, and to reject with disdain the counterfeits, which are mute, false and deceiving?
When the holy preacher was found to be invulnerable to either promises or threats, the prosecutor condemned him to the most barbarous torture. He was stretched on the rack and flogged. He prayed for strength, for the honor and glory of the name of God, forever blessed. He was returned to the prison when the executioners who were striking him fell over backwards, and told Rictiovarus they were unable to stand up, and could scarcely speak. An Angel released the prisoner during the night, telling him to go and preach in the city, and that the persecutor would soon fall before the justice of God. His sermon, a commented paraphrase of the Apostles’ Creed, has been conserved. To his profession of faith in the Holy Trinity, he added that Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he adored, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, health to the sick and even life to the dead. At His voice, the lame leaped up and ran, paralytics walked, and water was changed into wine… He has promised to be forever with those who hope in Him, and He never abandons those who place their hope in Him; by His omnipotence He delivers them, whenever it pleases Him, from all their tribulations. His guardians discovered that he had disappeared, though all doors were barred, and found him in the city preaching. They were converted by the prodigy. But Rictiovarus was furious and said to them: You, too, have become magicians?
Brought back before the tribunal as a sorcerer, Saint Quentin said: If by persevering in my faith, I am put to death by you, I will not cease to live in Jesus Christ; this is my hope, I maintain it with confidence. He was again placed on the rack and beaten, and tortured with other demoniacal means; his flesh pierced with two iron wires from the shoulders to the thighs, and iron nails were thrust into his fingers, his skull and body. Finally, this glorious martyr was decapitated, after praying and saying: O Lord Jesus, God of God, Light of Light…, for love of whom I have given up my body to all the torments… ah! I implore Thee, in Thy holy mercy, receive my spirit and soul, which I offer Thee with all the ardor of my desires. Do not abandon me, O most kind King, most clement King, who livest and reignest with the Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, forever and ever!
His death occurred on October 31, 287.
His body was twice buried secretly, and twice it was rediscovered miraculously — in the year 338 Saint Eusebie, a blind woman, born of a senatorial family, came from Rome (following a divine order) and miraculously discovered the body. The intact remains of Quentin came into view, arising from the water and emanating an odor of sanctity. She buried his body at the top of a mountain near Augusta Veromanduorum (because the chariot on which the saint’s body lay could not go further). She built a small chapel to protect the tomb and recovered her sight.
The Second time was in 641, near the city of Augusta, by Saint Eloi. When he found the tomb, the sky night was lit and the odor of sanctity was evident, he also rebuilt the church (now the Saint-Quentin basilica). Saint Quentin remains in great honor in France above all, where more than fifty-two churches and as many localities were, at the beginning of the 20th century, dedicated to his memory; he is honored also in Belgium and in Italy. Charlemagne and the kings of France have gone to venerate the relics of Saint Quentin.
References and Excerpts
[1] M. P. Guérin, Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, Paris: Bloud et Barral, 1882.
[2] “Saint Quentin – Lives of the Saints,” Magnificat, 24 February 2016. [Online]. Available: http://sanctoral.com/en/saints/saint_quentin.html. [Accessed 5 October 2016].
[3] “Saint Quentin – Wikipedia,” Wikipedia, [Online]. Available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Quentin. [Accessed 5 October 2016].
Christ for King of the United States
