MEMORIAL OF SAINT MARTIN I, POPE AND MARTYR; SAINT HERMENEGILD, MARTYR AND BLESSED MARGARET OF CASTELLO, RELIGIOUS: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr and defender of Church doctrine; Saint Hermenegild, Martyr, who was converted from Arianism to Chalcedonian Christianity and Blessed Margaret of Castello, Religious (Patron Saint of Pro-life movements, against poverty, and of the disabled, handicapped, blind people and unwanted). Through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the Church, for persecuted christians and the conversion of sinners and for all Christians. We ask for the grace to pray for those who hurt us, frustrate us, or persecute us as St. Martin I, one of the last popes to be martyred, did for his persecutors.
SAINT MARTIN I, POPE AND MARTYR: St. Martin I, was Pope, Martyr and defender of Church doctrine. Saint Martin I, pope from 649 to 653 and died of abuse and starvation in 655 as a result of his defense of the church against heresy. He was the last pope to be martyred for defending the faith. Saint Martin I was considered a man of great intelligence, piety, and charity. A member of Roman clergy, St. Martin was sent to Constantinople. Upon the death of Pope Theodore he was elected to succeed him, in the year 649. In the following October he held a Council in the Lateran Church in which he condemned the leaders of the heresy of the Monothelites, a modification of that of the Eutychians. A document emanating from the Emperor Constans was also censured. This incensed the Emperor, and he sent Olympus, his chamberlain, to Italy with orders to cause the Pope to be put to death, or to send him to the East as a prisoner. An attempt on the Saint’s life in the Church of St. Mary Major was miraculously frustrated. Olympus now bcame reconciled to the Pope and went over to Sicily.
The Emperor then sent Calliopas and Pellurus to Rome, with orders to seize St. Martin. The Pope, who lay sick, was seized, carried down the Tiber at midnight, and conveyed to the East. After three months he arrived at the island of Naxos, where his guards kept him a whole year and subjected him to many indignities. In 654, Martin reached Constantinople, and for three months he was confined in a dungeon. His suffering were extreme, but like St. Stephen, he hoped that his persecutors would be brought to repentance. He was banished to Chersonesus in 655, while a terrible famine raged in that region. In his exile, Martin’s sorrow was the greater because he regarded the Church as having abandoned him by electing a new Pope. Nonetheless, he prayed constantly for his successor, Eugene I. Martin died in 656, and is the last Pope to be venerated as a Martyr.
Quotes of Saint Martin I, Pope and Martyr:
“The Lord is near. Why then am I anxious? I put my hope indeed in his mercies that the Lord will not delay to bring my course to an end in whatever way he has commanded.”
“If anyone in word and mind does not properly and truly confess according to the holy Fathers all even to the last portion that which has been handed down and preached in the holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church of God…let him be anathema.”
“If anyone does not in accord with the Holy Fathers acknowledge the holy and ever virgin and immaculate Mary was really and truly the Mother of God, inasmuch as she, in the fullness of time,and without seed, conceived by the Holy Spirit, God in the Word Himself, who before all time was born of God the Father, and without loss of integrity brought Him forth, and after His birth preserved her virginity inviolate, let him be condemned.”
PRAYER: Almighty God, help us to bear worldly adversities with an unconquerable spirit. For You did not let St. Martin Your Pope and Martyr be terrified by threats or conquered by pains. Amen🙏
SAINT HERMENEGILD, MARTYR: St. Hermenegild was converted from Arianism to Chalcedonian Christianity. When St. Hermenegild refused to accept Arianism he was tortured and subsequently beheaded on April 13 in the year 586. Leovigild, Arian King of the Visigoths, had two sons, Hermenegild and Recared, who were reigning conjointly with him. All were Arians, but Hermenegild married a zealous Catholic, the daughter of Sigebert, King of France, and by her holy example was converted to the faith. His father, on hearing the news, denounced him as a traitor, and marched to seize his person. Hermenegild tried to rally the Catholics of Spain in his defense, but they were too weak to make any stand; and after a two years’ fruitless struggle, Hermenegild surrendered on the assurance of a free pardon. Once he was safely in the royal camp, the king had him loaded with fetters and cast into a foul dungeon at Seville. Tortures and bribes were in turn employed to shake his faith, but Hermenegild wrote to his father that he regarded the crown as nothing, and preferred to lose scepter and life rather than betray the truth of God. At length, on Easter night, an Arian bishop entered his cell, and promised him his father’s pardon if he would receive Communion from his hands. Hermenegild indignantly rejected the offer, and knelt with joy for his death-stroke, praying for his persecutors. The same night a light streaming from his cell told the Christians keeping vigil nearby that the martyr had won his crown and was celebrating the Resurrection of the Lord with the Saints in glory.
King Leovigild, on his death-bed, was changed interiorly. He had been witness to the miracles that had occurred after his son’s cruel death, and he told his son and successor Recared to seek out Saint Leander, whom he himself had persecuted. Recared should follow Hermenegild’s example, said the king, and be received by the bishop into the Church. Recared did so; and although his father himself had not had the courage to renounce the false faith publicly, after his father’s death the new king labored so earnestly for the extirpation of Arianism that he brought over the whole nation of the Visigoths to the Church. Nor is it to be wondered, says Saint Gregory, that he came thus to be a preacher of the true faith, since he was the brother of a martyr, whose merits helped him to bring so many into the haven of God’s Church. St. Hermenegild was beheaded on April 13, 586. He is the Patron Saint of Converts, Seville, Spain.
PRAYER: O God, You taught blessed Hermenegild, Your martyr, to value the kingdom of Heaven more than an earthly throne; grant, we pray you, that, following his example, we may despise all transitory things and seek those that are eternal… Amen🙏
BLESSED MARGARET OF CASTELLO, RELIGIOUS: Bl. Margaret of Castello (1287–1320) was an Italian Roman Catholic and professed member of the Third Order of Saint Dominic. She was born 1287 at Castello della Metola, Papal States to noble Italian parents who were awaiting the birth of the child of their dreams. Instead, they bore a daughter who was blind, dwarfed, lame, and hunchbacked. Bl. Margaret’s parents were horrified by the physical appearance of their newborn child, so they hid her and kept her existence secret. A servant had her baptized and named her Margaret, meaning, “Pearl.” When she was six years of age she was nearly discovered, so that her father confined her to a cell inside the wall of a church with her necessities given through a window. The parish priest took it upon himself to educate Margaret. She lived in this way until age sixteen, when her parents took her on pilgrimage to a shrine famous for miraculous healings. There they prayed earnestly for their daughter to be cured of her deformities, which they loathed. When no cure came, her parents abandoned her in the streets and returned home, never to see her again.
Bl. Margaret begged for food and was helped by the town’s poor who took turns sheltering her in their homes. Nuns later offered her a home at their convent but soon came to detest her presence and cast her out, prompting the town’s poor to once again take her in and care for her. But she met with Dominican friars and was accepted as a secular member in their third order; she became a Dominican Tertiary and took up the work of serving the sick, dying, and imprisoned. She started a school for children to teach them in the faith and often took care of children while their parents were out at work. Bl. Margaret was known for her great joy, sanctity, and profound mystical experiences. She died at the age of 33 on April 13, 1320 at Città di Castello, Papal States and hundreds of miracles were credited to her intercession both before and after her death. Her body is incorrupt. Bl. Margaret’s holiness was apparent to all in her life that people lobbied for her to be buried in the local church which was an honor reserved for few – this was a clear demonstration people believed in her holiness. Her beatification received approval from Pope Paul V on 19 October 19, 1609 at Saint Peter’s Basilica, Papal States. Pope Francis later declared her a s
Saint through equipollent canonization on April 24, 2021 at Apostolic Palace, Vatican City. She is the Patron Saint of Pro-life movements, against poverty, and of the disabled, handicapped, blind people and unwanted. Her feast day is April 13th.
Blessed Margaret of Castello, Religious ~ Pray for us🙏