Today June 2

Today is the feast of some of my favorite martyrs. We really don't know that much about them, but what we DO know is inspiring. There's just something so neat about a little slave girl leading the pack of big, noble martyrs that is appealing, somehow. Today is the feast of the martyrs of Lyons (and its sister city across the Rhone, Vienne). The persecution started out subtly and then gained great speed until it ended in horrible excess and maliciousness. First the Christians were forbidden to go to the public baths, then to the common marketplace, then to public school. They were ostracized first; thus began a concerted persecution. Christians were then set upon by the mob, who in an outburst of fury, broke into their homes, stealing or breaking their possessions, insulting them and finally setting upon them, hitting them, kicking them, stoning them, "and everything that an infuriated crowd loves to do to those it hates." - quoted from a second-century letter in the annals of Eusebius of Caesarea. Christians were then rounded up, thrown into prison, tortured and sentenced to death.

Not all among them remained steadfast. Many repudiated their faith under torture and some, fearing to be burned or whipped like their co-religionists, accused them of cannibalism -- stealing pagan babies and eating them in their Masses, committing incest and other enormities -- on and on, each accusation more unbelievable than the last. But it got them off the hook and also turned even former supporters against them. I guess Hitler was right: people WILL believe the big lie. Many suffered public and private humiliations and tortures before their very public deaths in the amphitheater, but several have been singled out. Of note include Pothinus, their 90-year-old bishop, who was dragged before the tribunal and when asked who was the God of the Christians, replied, "If you are worthy, you shall know." Whereupon he was struck, kicked and pelted with debris until he lost consciousness and two days later died of his wounds in prison. Also Sanctus, a deacon from Vienne, who while having red-hot plates applied to the tenderest parts of his body would only reply: "I am a Christian!" He later was made to run the gauntlet of whips and finally roasted to death on the iron chair. Also mentioned by name was Maturus, a newly baptized; Attalus, a deacon of Pergamos, who endured the exposure to wild beasts. Ponticus, a boy of 15, is mentioned; a woman named Biblias, who, even during torture pointed out with eminent logic: "How can those eat children who are forbidden to taste the blood even of brute beasts?" and Alexander, the medical doctor, who had stood on the sidelines, encouraging all and who when asked, point-blank answered, "I am a Christian." Last of all came the Christian slave girl Blandina, who made "her confession boldly, endued with so much power that even those who in relays tortured her from morning till evening grew faint and weary." - Eusebius. Her confession, repeated over and over, was this: "I am a Christian, and nothing vile is done amongst us." She was scourged, burned with boiling-hot eggs shoved into her armpits (where the flesh is very tender), exposed to wild beasts, roasted in a frying pan and lastly tied up in a net and thrown to a wild bull who finally killed her. All the bodies of these saints were thrown into the Rhone to deny the Christians even the comfort of their relics, but their stories live on in the hearts and minds of men 1800 years later.