A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.
Read the essentials →A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.
August 23
July 20
Martyrs
Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 227 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
Now, among the Christians looking on was one Apollinaris, and he thought he saw two angels in white standing by the martyr and staying him up. When Jesus, the King of Martyrs, suffered His agony in the Garden, an angel was sent to comfort Him; and if He needed the staying hand of an angel, how much more a feeble servant ? Would He, who had in His sorrow felt the comforting arm, deny it to one suffering for His love ?
Pray a little every day. Prayer runs all through this account.
Learn from the kind of life it was. A whole community that stayed faithful to Christ when it cost everything.
Now, among the Christians looking on was one Apollinaris, and he thought he saw two angels in white standing by the martyr and staying him up. When Jesus, the King of Martyrs, suffered His agony in the Garden, an angel was sent to comfort Him; and if He needed the staying hand of an angel, how much more a feeble servant ? Would He, who had in His sorrow felt the comforting arm, deny it to one suffering for His love ?
Though men see it not, when men suffer for Him, His angels of comfort are standing by. To Apollinaris it was given to see the messengers of love; and he cried out, and burst through the ring into the open space where stood the rack, the fire of coals, the executioners and the martyr, and fell at the feet of Timothy, and said: — “ Good Timothy, pray for me. I saw two in shining garments comforting thee. Gladly will I also die for the name of Christ.” Then the governor angrily ordered Apollinaris to be seized, and boiling lead to be poured into his mouth to silence his tongue. And after that, both martyrs were carried to prison. But a multitude followed them weeping and praising God. And on the following day they were led forth outside the city, and died by the sword.
Feast: July 20
Traditional: August 23
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from Sts. Timothy and…'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, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.
From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). 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.