From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Contempt for Worldly Honors  [I]   
      
   CHRIST.   
    My son, do not be discouraged if you see others given honors and   
   advancement, while you are overlooked and humiliated. Lift up your   
   heart to Me in Heaven, and the contempt of men will not trouble you.   
      
   THE DISCIPLE.   
    Lord, we are blind and are easily deceived through vanity. If I   
   carefully examine my life, I find that no creature has ever done me   
   wrong and I have no right to complain.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 3 Ch 41   
      
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   June 28th - SS Plutarch, Potamiaena and Companions, Martyrs   
     (c. 206)   
      
   THE catechetical school of Origen at Alexandria was a training ground   
   in virtue: for the master, not content with lecturing on the sciences,   
   made a great point of inculcating upon his pupils the loftiest   
   principles of Christian perfection. The school furnished some   
   illustrious martyrs in the persecution of Severus which raged with   
   great fury from 202-the year before Origen was appointed   
   catechist-until the death of the emperor in 211.   
      
   The first to suffer was St. Plutarch, brother of St. Heraclas,   
   afterwards bishop of Alexandria. The two brothers had been converted   
   to the faith together, through listening to the lectures of Origen.   
   Being a prominent personage Plutarch was arrested at an early stage of   
   the persecution. He was visited and encouraged in prison by Origen,   
   who accompanied him to the place of execution and who was nearly   
   lynched by the mob because they held him responsible for Plutarch's   
   death. Serenus, another of the master's disciples, was burnt alive;   
   Heraclides, a catechumen, and Hero, a neophyte, were beheaded. A   
   second confessor of the name of Serenus was also decapitated after   
   undergoing torture. Women as well as men attended the catechetical   
   school, and three of them suffered martyrdom. Herais, a maiden who was   
   still a catechumen, was baptized by fire-to quote Origen's own words.   
      
   The other two, Marcella and Potamiaena, were mother and daughter.   
   Attempts were made to induce Potamiaena to purchase her freedom at the   
   expense of her chastity, for she was young, accomplished and   
   beautiful, but she rejected the proposals with scorn. She was then   
   condemned to be stripped and cast into a cauldron of boiling pitch.   
   Upon hearing her sentence, she said to the judge, "I beg of you, by   
   the life of the emperor whom you honour, not to oblige me to appear   
   unclothed; rather suffer me to be slowly lowered into the cauldron   
   fully dressed, that you may see the patience which Jesus Christ, whom   
   you know not, bestows upon those who trust Him." The magistrate   
   granted her request and charged Basilides, one of the guards, to lead   
   her to execution. The man treated her with respect, protecting her   
   from the insults and pressure of the crowd. She thanked him for his   
   courtesy and told him that after her death she would obtain his   
   salvation from God. The cruel sentence was then carried out. Her   
   mother suffered at the same time.   
      
   Shortly afterwards Basilides surprised his fellow soldiers by refusing   
   to take an oath when called upon to do so: he was a Christian, he   
   said, and could not swear by false gods. At first they thought he was   
   joking, but when he persisted they took him to the prefect, who   
   consigned him to prison. In reply to the inquiries of Christians who   
   came to visit him in gaol, he told them that Potamiaena had appeared   
   to him after her martyrdom and had placed on his head a crown which   
   she said she had won for him by her prayers. He received baptism in   
   prison and, having made a glorious confession of faith before the   
   magistrate, was beheaded. Several other persons in Alexandria are said   
   to have been converted to Christianity as the result of visitations   
   from St. Potamiaena who came to them in their dreams.   
      
   The authority for this narrative is the Ecclesiastical History of   
   Eusebius, bk vi, ch. 5· See also Delehaye, in the Analecta   
   Bollandiana, vol. xl (1922), pp. 9, 23, 89; and Augar, in Texte und   
   Untersuchungen, N.F., vol. xiii, part 4 (1905), pp. 17 seq.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   The days are coming when men will go mad; and, when they meet a man   
   who has kept his senses, they will rise up against him, saying, “You   
   are mad, because you are not like us.”   
   -- Saint Anthony the Abbot (aka Saint Anthony the Great)   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Golden apples in silver settings   
   are words spoken at the proper time.  [Prov 25:11]   
      
      
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   Prayer to continue to fight for God   
      
   Lord, if your people still have need of my services, I will not avoid   
   the toil. Your will be done. I have fought the good fight long enough.   
   Yet if you bid me continue to hold the battle line in defense of your   
   camp, I will never beg to be excused from failing strength. I will do   
   the work you entrust to me. While you command, I will fight beneath   
   your banner.   
   Amen    
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)