Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.
March 27
Not verified yet
Virgin
Martyr
Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 196 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.
He had a daughter named Augusta, young and fair, and her heart turned from the fierce gods of Germany to the Christ whom the bruised and suffering people of Serravalle adored, and to His spotless Mother, so pure and loving.
Share your faith, in words and by example. Preaching and conversion are central here.
Pray a little every day. Prayer runs all through this account.
Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.
There was once upon a time, when the Roman empire was tottering to its decline, a certain duke of Friuli, named Matrucus, of Gothic race, who built for himself a great castle on the mountain dominating Serravalle, the ruins of which remain to this day. Now the people of that part were Christians, but Matrucus was a heathen. He had a daughter named Augusta, young and fair, and her heart turned from the fierce gods of Germany to the Christ whom the bruised and suffering people of Serravalle adored, and to His spotless Mother, so pure and loving. And she sought means of receiving instruction, and was baptized secretly. Now there were many things in his daughter's conduct which roused suspicion in the mind of Matrucus, and he set spies to watch her. One day, he was told that she was in the church praying, and he rushed in upon her, dragged her forth, and locked her up in a chamber of the castle. In ungovernable fury he afterwards beat out her teeth, and executed her with his sword, reproaching her with having despised the gods of their ancestors and degraded the honour of his house.
Feast: March 27
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Augusta'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.