From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   June 2nd - St. Photinus (Pothinus) and Companions, Martyrs   
      
   After a miraculous victory obtained by the prayers of a Christian legion under   
   Marcus Aurelius in 174, the Church was enjoying a kind of peace, which was   
   nonetheless often disturbed in various places by popular commotions, or by the   
   superstitious fury of pagan governors. These factors become evident in the   
   persecution which was raised at Vienne and Lyons in 177, three years after the   
   victory of the legion. Saint Pothinus was then Bishop of Lyons, and Saint   
   Irenaeus, still a young priest, had recently come to Lyons with several other   
   Christians, sent from Asia Minor by Saint Polycarp; soon Irenaeus would replace   
   Saint Pothinus.   
      
   The Christians of the region were forbidden to frequent the baths and the   
   forum,   
   and they were tracked everywhere, becoming the subject of popular uprisings,   
   stonings, outrages and imprisonments. A justly famous letter attributed to   
   Saint   
   Irenaeus, addressed by the churches of Lyons and Vienne to their mother-church   
   in Asia, narrates in detail the martyrdom of these heroic Christians. The   
   citations which follow are from that letter.   
      
   Many of the principal Christians were brought before the Roman governor. "Saint   
   Pothinus himself was ninety years old, weak and infirm; in fact he could   
   scarcely talk, but his zeal and desire for martyrdom sustained him. He was   
   taken, or rather carried, to the tribunal amidst insults... The governor asked   
   him who the god of the Christians was: "You will know Him if you are worthy of   
   it," he replied. The multitude became furious; those around him struck him with   
   their hands and feet, showing no respect for his age; those farther away threw   
   at him everything they could find, imagining they were avenging their gods. The   
   holy bishop scarcely had a breath of life left when he was thrown into prison,   
   where he expired soon afterwards."   
      
   With Attalus, a deacon "who was always the pillar and support of our church,"   
   three martyrs were subjected to cruel torture for two days in the amphitheatre,   
   as "a diversion for the people." One was a young slave, Blandina; her mistress,   
   also a Christian, feared she would lack strength to brave the torture. But when   
   she was tormented, suspended from a cross, tossed about by a bull, she bore it   
   all with joy, until the executioners gave up, confessing themselves outdone.   
   She   
   was the last one to die after a glorious combat. The letter says: "Like a   
   generous mother who, having inspired her children during the combat, has sent   
   them victorious ahead of her to the King of Glory, she was rejoicing at being   
   about to join them in the heavens. She bore the series of tortures with so   
   radiant a joy, that one would have said she was invited to a wedding feast   
   rather than condemned to the lions..."   
      
   "Human language could not describe the tortures that the Saints were made to   
   endure, in the hope of making them admit the impious things we were charged   
   with." They had been accused of eating human flesh. Red-hot plates were held to   
   the sides of Sanctus, a deacon of Vienne, until his body became one great sore,   
   and he no longer looked like a man; but amidst his tortures he said to his   
   tormentors that it was such torments which consumed human flesh, whereas   
   Christians did no harm to their fellow men. The letter says he was   
   "strengthened   
   by the stream of heavenly water which flows from the side of Christ."   
      
   In the meantime, many confessors were kept in prison, and among them were some   
   who had been terrified into apostasy. Even the pagans could perceive in the   
   Christians the joy of martyrdom, contrasting with the misery of the apostates.   
   But the faithful confessors brought back all but one of those who had fallen,   
   and the Church rejoiced when she saw her children live again in Christ. Some   
   died in prison, the rest were martyred one by one, giving their God their blood   
   in loving exchange for His.   
      
   Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud   
   et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 6; Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a   
   compilation based on Butler's Lives of the Saints, and other sources by John   
   Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   Anxiety proceeds from an ill-regulated desire to be delivered from the evil we   
   experience, or to acquire the good to which we aspire; nevertheless, nothing   
   aggravates evil and hinders good so much as anxiety and worry.   
   --St Francis de Sales   
      
   Bible quote:   
   Unless you do penance, you will all perish. (St. Luke 13:3)   
      
      
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   Actus Spei / Act of Hope   
      
   Domine Deus, spero per gratiam tuam remissionem omnium   
   peccatorum, et post hanc vitam aeternam felicitatem me esse   
   consecuturum: quia tu promisisti, qui es infinite potens,   
   fidelis, benignus, et misericors. In hac spe vivere  et mori   
   statuo. Amen.   
      
   O my God, relying on Thy almighty power and infinite mercy   
   and promises, I hope to obtain pardon for my sins, the help of   
   Thy grace, and life everlasting, through the merits of Jesus   
   Christ, my Lord and Redeemer. Amen.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)