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Aug 1 – The Holy Macchabees / BVM on Sat
Description
Sources Used Today:
- "Deep Contrition" — From Trinity Sunday to the Assumption
- "Ecône 2026: The Story of a Polish Pilgrim" (FSSPX.news)
- The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
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The Holy Maccabees are unique among the saints honored by the Church because they lived before the birth of Christ. They were faithful Jews of the Old Covenant, yet the Church has venerated them from the earliest centuries as martyrs whose courage pointed forward to the coming of the Savior.
Their story takes place about 170 years before Christ, when the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes attempted to erase the Jewish faith. He outlawed the worship of the true God, desecrated the Temple in Jerusalem, and ordered the Jewish people to abandon the Law of Moses. It was one of the darkest moments in Israel's history.
Among those brought before the king was an elderly man named Eleazar, whose story is remembered just before that of the Maccabees. Rather than pretend to obey the king in order to save his life, Eleazar refused, saying he would not leave a bad example for the young.
Then came the family the Church remembers today.
A mother and her seven sons were arrested and ordered to violate God's law by eating meat that had been sacrificed contrary to the Law of Moses. One after another, each son refused. One after another, each was tortured and killed before the eyes of his mother.
It's difficult even to imagine.
The king hoped that watching her children die would finally break the mother's resolve.
Instead, she encouraged them.
The Book of Second Maccabees records some of the most moving words in all of the Old Testament. She reminded her sons that God had given them life and that He was able to restore it again. Long bef