F

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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February 3 · Martyr

St. Fortunatus

St. Fortunatus

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

February 3
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

December 14
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Martyr

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 99 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

S. Fortunatus is mentioned, together with many other martyrs, in the Roman and other Martyrologies on Feb. 2nd, as having suffered at Rome; but their Acts have not been preserved. The body of S. Fortunatus was found in 1606, in the cemetery of S. Callixtus, and was given by Pope Paul V. to the Rev. Jacobus Tirinus, S.J., for the new and beautiful Jesuit church he had built in Antwerp, in the year 1622.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on February 3 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 99 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

S. Fortunatus is mentioned, together with many other martyrs, in the Roman and other Martyrologies on Feb. 2nd, as having suffered at Rome; but their Acts have not been preserved. The body of S. Fortunatus was found in 1606, in the cemetery of S. Callixtus, and was given by Pope Paul V. to the Rev. Jacobus Tirinus, S.J., for the new and beautiful Jesuit church he had built in Antwerp, in the year 1622. On account of Feb. 2nd being the Feast of the Purification, the commemoration of S. Fortunatus has been postponed in that church till Feb. 3rd.

Feast days

Feast: December 14
Traditional: February 3

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Fortunatus's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on February 3
C

Sts. Celerinus

February 3 · Deacon, Confessor, Martyrs
St. Blaise

St. Blaise

February 3 · Bishop, Martyr
L

St. Laurence the…

February 3 · Bishop
← All 1727 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

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.