Today, 20 November, is the feast of ...
* Dasius, martyr (303?)
- beheaded for not accepting the role of 'lord of misrule'
in pre-Saturnalia celebrations
* Nerses, bishop of Sahgerd, and other martyrs (343)
- killed by Sapor II of Persia for refusing to worship the
sun
* Maxentia, virgin and martyr (?)
- an Irish princess, she fled to France (place now known as
Pont-Sainte-Maxence, near Senlis) to escape a suitor; he
tracked her down and cut off her head
* Edmund, martyr (870)
- at age 14, elected king by nobles and clergy of Norfolk;
a talented leader and pious man, he memorized the Psalter
as a way of emulating king David; part of his martyrdom
involved being shot with arrows by Danes until he looked
'like a hedgehog whose skin is closely set with quills, or
a thistle covered with thorns'; buried in Bury St Edmund's
* Bernward or Berward, bishop of Hildesheim (1022)
- guardian of the young emperor Otto III; the Hildesheim
Gospels are supposedly written and illuminated by the
saint's own hand; was also a fine metal-worker
* Felix of Valois (1212)
- co-founder of the Trinitarian Order, with his disciple St
John of Matha, dedicated to redeeming captives
* Ambrogio Traversari, abbot (1439)
- a true Renaissance man, he collected a fine library for
Camaldolese monastery of Our Lady of the Angels, Florence
(not Paris); became abbot general of the Camaldolese Order,
then helped achieve short-lived union between Western and
Eastern churches
* * * * * * * * *
Carolyn Muessig
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