From: hildegard8@excite.com   
      
   February 25th - Sts. Victorinus and Companions, Martyrs   
      
   Died February 25, 284. Victorinus, Victor, Nicephorus, Claudian, Dioscorus,   
   Serapion and Papias were Corinthian who were exiled to Egypt after   
   confessing   
   their faith before the Proconsul Tertius. They were martyred at Diospolis in   
   the   
   Thebaid during the reign of Decius (Numerian?), under the governor Sabinus,   
   for   
   their Christian faith.   
      
   After various tortures, Victorinus was thrown into a great mortar (according   
   to   
   the Greeks, of marble.) Then the executioners began by pounding his feet and   
   legs, saying to him at every stroke: "Spare yourself, wretch. It depends   
   upon   
   you to escape this death, if you will only renounce your new God." The   
   prefect   
   grew furious at his constancy, and at length commanded his head to be beat   
   to   
   pieces. The sight of the atrocities committed against Victorinus heightened   
   the   
   fervor of his fellows, rather than tempering it as the governor had   
   intended.   
      
   When the tyrant threatened Victor with the same death as Victorinus, he only   
   desired him to hasten the execution; and, pointing to the mortar, said: "In   
   that   
   is salvation and true felicity prepared for me!" He was immediately cast   
   into it   
   and beaten to death. Nicephorus, the third martyr, was impatient of delay,   
   and   
   leaped of his own accord into the bloody mortar. The judge, enraged at his   
   boldness, commanded not one, but many executioners at once to pound him in   
   the   
   same manner. He caused Claudian, the fourth, to be chopped in pieces, and   
   his   
   bleeding joints to be thrown at the feet of those that were yet living. He   
   expired after his feet, hands, arms, legs, and thighs were cut off.   
      
   At one point in the proceedings, after Victorinus, Victor, Nicephorus, and   
   Claudian had already been executed, the governor tried to reason with the   
   remaining prisoners to abjure their faith. "We would rather ask you to   
   inflict   
   on us any still more excruciating torment than you can devise," they replied   
   in   
   unison. "We will never violate the fidelity we owe our God or deny Jesus   
   Christ   
   our Savior, for He is our God from whom we have our being and to whom alone   
   we   
   aspire."   
      
   The enraged tyrant commanded Diodorus to be burned alive, Serapion to be   
   beheaded, and Papias to be drowned. These martyrs are named in the Roman and   
   other western martyrologies on February 25; however, the Greek Menaea, and   
   the   
   Menology of the emperor Basil Porphyrogenitus honor them on January 21, the   
   day   
   of their confession at Corinth (Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Husenbeth).   
      
      
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   Whoever humbleth himself shall be exalted. -Lk. 14:11   
      
   "In my opinion, we shall never acquire true humility unless we raise our   
   eyes to   
   behold God. Looking upon His greatness, the soul sees better her own   
   littleness;   
   beholding His purity, she is the more aware of her own uncleanness;   
   considering   
   His patience, she feels how far she is from being patient; in fine, turning   
   her   
   glance upon the divine perfections, she discovers in herself so many   
   imperfections that she would gladly close her eyes to them"   
   -St. Teresa   
      
         This was, in truth, one of the principal fountains from which St.   
   Vincent   
   de Paul drew that humble opinion which he had of himself, as well as his   
   great   
   desire for humiliations. That is to say, he derived them from the profound   
   knowledge which he had of the infinite perfections of God, and of the   
   extreme   
   weakness and misery of creatures; so that he thought it a manifest injustice   
   not   
   to humiliate himself always and in all things. In a conference one day with   
   his   
   priests, he spoke thus: "In truth, if each of us will give his attention to   
   knowing himself well before God, he will find it to be the most just and   
   reasonable thing to despise and humble himself. For, if we seriously   
   consider   
   the natural and continual inclination we have to evil, our natural   
   incapacity   
   for good, and the experience we all have had that even when we think we have   
   succeeded well in something and that our plans are wise, the matter often   
   turns   
   out quite different from our anticipations, and God permits us to be   
   considered   
   wanting in judgment; and that, finally, in all we think, say, or do, both in   
   substance and circumstances, we are always filled and encompassed with   
   motives   
   for humiliation and confusion-how shall we not consider ourselves worthy to   
   be   
   repulsed and despised in reflecting upon such things, and in seeing   
   ourselves so   
   far from the holiness and sublime perfections of God, and from the marvelous   
   operations of His grace, and from the life of Christ our Lord?"   
      
   (Taken from the book "A Year with the Saints". February - Humility)   
      
      
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   Dies Iræ, dies illa   
   That Day Of Wrath, that dreadful day   
      
   Day of wrath! O day of mourning!   
   See fulfilled the prophets' warning,   
   Heaven and earth in ashes burning!   
      
   Oh what fear man's bosom rendeth,   
   when from heaven the Judge descendeth,   
   on whose sentence all dependeth.   
      
   Wondrous sound the trumpet flingeth;   
   through earth's sepulchers it ringeth;   
   all before the throne it bringeth.   
      
   Death is struck, and nature quaking,   
   all creation is awaking,   
   to its Judge an answer making.   
      
   Lo! the book, exactly worded,   
   wherein all hath been recorded:   
   thence shall judgment be awarded.   
      
   When the Judge his seat attaineth,   
   and each hidden deed arraigneth,   
   nothing unavenged remaineth.   
      
   What shall I, frail man, be pleading?   
   Who for me be interceding,   
   when the just are mercy needing?   
      
   King of Majesty tremendous,   
   who dost free salvation send us,   
   Fount of pity, then befriend us!   
      
   Think, good Jesus, my salvation   
   cost thy wondrous Incarnation;   
   leave me not to reprobation!   
      
   Faint and weary, thou hast sought me,   
   on the cross of suffering bought me.   
   shall such grace be vainly brought me?   
      
   Righteous Judge! for sin's pollution   
   grant thy gift of absolution,   
   ere the day of retribution.   
      
   Guilty, now I pour my moaning,   
   all my shame with anguish owning;   
   spare, O God, thy suppliant groaning!   
      
   Thou the sinful woman savedst;   
   thou the dying thief forgavest;   
   and to me a hope vouchsafest.   
      
   Worthless are my prayers and sighing,   
   yet, good Lord, in grace complying,   
   rescue me from fires undying!   
      
   With thy favored sheep O place me;   
   nor among the goats abase me;   
   but to thy right hand upraise me.   
      
   While the wicked are confounded,   
   doomed to flames of woe unbounded   
   call me with thy saints surrounded.   
      
   Low I kneel, with heart submission,   
   see, like ashes, my contrition;   
   help me in my last condition.   
      
   Ah! that day of tears and mourning!   
   From the dust of earth returning   
   man for judgment must prepare him;   
   Spare, O God, in mercy spare him!   
      
   Lord, all pitying, Jesus blest,   
   grant them thine eternal rest. Amen.   
      
   Words: Thomas of Celano, 13th cent.;   
   trans. William J. Irons, 1849   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)