Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.
March 13
Not verified yet
Priest
Martyr
During the persecution of the Christians under the Moorish occupation of Spain, there was a priest in the village of Cabra, about five-and-twenty miles from Cordova, named Ruderick, who had two brothers, whereof one had renounced Christianity and become a Moslem. One night this apostate brother and the other were quarrelling, and came to blows, when Ruderick rushed between them to separate them, but was so mauled by both, that he fell senseless on the ground. The Mussulman brother then placed him on a litter, and had him carried about the country, walking by his side, and showing him off as a renegade priest.
Stay faithful when it costs you. This account is about holding firm under pressure.
Practise small acts of self-denial. The account dwells on fasting and penance; a skipped snack or a phone-free hour is a start.
Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.
During the persecution of the Christians under the Moorish occupation of Spain, there was a priest in the village of Cabra, about five-and-twenty miles from Cordova, named Ruderick, who had two brothers, whereof one had renounced Christianity and become a Moslem. One night this apostate brother and the other were quarrelling, and came to blows, when Ruderick rushed between them to separate them, but was so mauled by both, that he fell senseless on the ground. The Mussulman brother then placed him on a litter, and had him carried about the country, walking by his side, and showing him off as a renegade priest. Ruderick was too much bruised and strained to resist for a while, but he bore this with greater anguish than his bodily injuries, and as soon as ever he was sufficiently recovered, he effected his escape. The renegade meeting him some time after in the streets of Cordova, dragged him before the cadi, and denounced him as having professed the Mussulman religion, and then returned to Christianity. Ruderick indignantly denied that he had ever apostatized, but the cadi, believing the accusation, ordered him to be cast into the foulest den of the city prison, reserved for parricides. There he found a Christian, named Salomon, awaiting sentence on a similar charge of having conformed to the established religion for a while, and then returned to the worship of Christ. They were retained in prison for some time, the cadi hoping thus to weary them into apostasy. But the two confessors encouraged each other to stand fast. Being made acquainted with this, the cadi ordered them to be separated, but when this also failed, he sentenced them both to decapitation.
Feast: March 13
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from Sts. Ruderick and Salomon's story, and a nudge to keep going.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897), digitized text from Project Gutenberg. Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.