Episode Details

It's the Feast of St. Januarius and Companions, 3rd Class, with the color of Red. In this episode: the meditation: "Sunday Rest", today's news from the Church: "France: Will Convents Disappear?", and today's thought from the Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre. Have feedback or questions about the DD or our other shows? podcast@sspx.org

Sources Used Today:

• • • "Sunday Rest" — From the Assumption to Advent
      • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-trinity-sunday-to-the-assumption
      
      
    • "France: Will Convents Disappear?" (FSSPX.news)
      • https://fsspx.news/en/news/france-will-convents-disappear-61083
      
      
    • The Spiritual Life — Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
      • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
      
      
    
    
  
  

Please support our new project, the Archbishop Lefebvre Biography Audiobook:

• Learn more:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-Wp4MQdK2o
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Saint Januarius is one of those early martyrs whose death is remarkable, but what has happened to his blood afterward has made him one of the most famous saints in Italy.

Januarius, or San Gennaro as the Italians call him, was Bishop of Benevento during the persecution of Emperor Diocletian around the year 305. When several Christians were arrested near Naples, Januarius didn't keep a safe distance.

He went to visit them.

That got him arrested too.

Among those caught up in the persecution were the deacons Festus and Proculus, the lector Desiderius, and the laymen Sosius, Eutyches, and Acutius. Ancient traditions vary on some details, but all seven came to be remembered together as companions in martyrdom.

According to one popular account, they were thrown before wild beasts.

The animals refused to attack.

So the authorities settled on something considerably more reliable.

They beheaded them.

Januarius's body was eventually brought to Naples, where he became the city's great patron. But sometime afterward, another tradition appeared. A Christian woman named Eusebia was said to have collected some of Januarius's blood after his execution and preserved it in small glass ampoules.

Those ampoules still exist.

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