From: rich <
richarra@gmail.com>
October 24th - St. Felix of Thibiuca
Also known as Felix Africanus
d. 303
At Venosa in Apulia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Felix, an
African bishop, Audactus and Januarius, priests, and the lectors
Fortunatus and Septimus.=C2 In the time of Diocletian, under the
governor Magdellian, they were loaded with fetters and imprisoned for
a long time in Africa and Sicily.=C2 Because Felix refused to deliver
the sacred books, they were at last slain with the sword.
In the beginning of Diocletian's persecution, numbers among the
Christians delivered up the sacred books into the hands of the
persecutors that they might be burnt.=C2 Many even sought for pretences
to extenuate or excuse this crime, as if it ever could be lawful to
concur in a sacrilegious or impious action.
Felix, a bishop in Proconsular Africa, was so far from being carried
away by the falls of others that they were to him a spur to greater watchfulness and fortitude.=C2 Magnilian, magistrate of Thibiuca,
ordered him to give up all books and writings belonging to his church,
that they might be burnt. The martyr replied that the law of God must
be preferred to the law of man, so Magnilian sent him to the proconsul
at Carthage. This officer, the passio tells us, offended at his bold confession, commanded him to be loaded with irons and, after he had
kept him nine days in a foul dungeon, to be put on board a vessel to
be taken to stand his trial before Maximinus in Italy.
=C2 =C2 The bishop lay under hatches in the ship, between the horses=
' feet,
four days without eating or drinking. The vessel arrived at Agrigentum
in Sicily, and Christians of that island and in all the cities through
which he passed treated the saint with great honour. When Felix had
been brought as far as Venosa in Apulia, the prefect ordered his irons
to be knocked off, and again put to him the questions whether he had
the sacred writings and why he refused to deliver them up. Felix
answered that he could not deny that he had the books, but that he
would never give them up. The prefect without more ado condemned him
to be beheaded. At the place of execution St Felix thanked God for all
His mercies, and bowing down his head offered himself a sacrifice to
Him who lives forever and ever. He was fifty-six years old, and one of
the first victims under Diocletian.
Nevertheless the story of the deportation of St Felix to Italy and his martyrdom there is no more than a hagiographer's fiction to make hi=
m
an Italian saint.=C2 There seems no doubt at all that he suffered at
Carthage by order of the proconsul there, and his relics were
subsequently laid to rest in the well-known basilica Fausti in that
city.
In the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxix (1921), pp. 241-276, Fr
Delehaye published a remarkable study of the text of this passio.=C2 The materials previously edited in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. x,
were insufficient.=C2 Delehaye, after printing representative forms of
the two families into which the texts may be divided, supplies an
admirable restoration of the primitive document that=C2 lies at the base
of all.=C2 As stated above, the deportation of the martyr to Italy is a fiction of later hagiographers who unscrupulously embroidered the
original text. Felix, as Delehaye very positively asserts (in
agreement with M. Monceaux, Revue archeologique, 1905, vol. i, Pp.
335-340), was put to death by the proconsul at Carthage.=C2 The proper
day of the martyrdom of St Felix would seem to be the 15th or possibly
the 16th of July. For the confusions which led to its transference,
first to July 30, and finally to October 24, see Delehaye, and more
fully Dom Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques, pp. 522-532 and
697-698.
Saint Quote:
Not only do they offend thee, O Lady, who outrage thee, but thou art
also offended by those who neglect to ask thy favors . . . He who
neglects the service of the Blessed Virgin will die in his sins . . .
He who does not invoke thee, O Lady, will never get to Heaven . . .
Not only will those from whom Mary turns her countenance not be saved,
but there will be no hope of their salvation . . . No one can be saved
without the protection of Mary.
--Saint Bonaventure, Cardinal-Bishop and Doctor of the Church
Bible Quote:
"I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers, at the moon and
the stars you set firm--what are human beings that you spare a thought
for them, or the child of Adam that you care for him? Yet you have
made him a little less than a god, you have crowned him with glory and
beauty, and made him lord of the works of your hands, put all things
under his feet..." Psalm 8:3-6
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The easy roads are crowded,
And the level roads are jammed;
The pleasant little rivers
With the drifting folks are crammed,
But off yonder where it's rocky,
Where you get a better view,
You will find the ranks are thinning
And the travelers are few.
Where the going's smooth and pleasant
You will always find the throng,
For the many, more's the pity,
Seem to like to drift along.
But the steps that call for courage
And the task that's hard to do,
In the end results in glory
For the never-wavering few.
--- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2
* Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4)