Today, 3 April, is the feast of ...
* Pancras, bishop of Taormina, martyr (c. 90?) - A native of Antioch,
Pancras was converted and baptized together with his parents by St Peter,
who sent him to evangelize Sicily, consecrating him the first bishop of
Taormina.
* Sixtus or Xystus I, pope and martyr (c. 127) - The *Liber Pontificalis*
credits him with having laid down as ordinances that none but the clergy
should touch the sacred vessels, and that people should join in when the
priest had intoned the Sanctus at Mass. (In regard to who could and could
not touch sacred vessels does anyone know of any studies pertaining to
this topic in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Northern Europe?)
* Agape, Chionia and Irene, virgins and martyrs (304) - Three
sisters martyred for refusing to give up their volumes of Holy
Scriptures.
* Burgundofara or Fare, abbess (657) - The convent of Evoriacum of which
she was abbess followed the Rule of St Columban. After the death of
Burgundofara, the convent was renamed in her honour and developed into the
celebrated Benedictine abbey of Faremoutiers.
* Nicetas, abbot (824) - Banished to an island for refusing to support the
iconoclastic Emperor Leo the Armenian.
* Richard of Wyche, bishop of Chichester (1253) - Invited by St
Edmund Rich and Robert Grosseteste to become their chancellor. Richard
accepted the offer and became the close companion and right-hand man of St
Edmund Rich. In the words of the Dominican Ralph Bocking, Richard's
confessor and biographer: "Each leaned upon the other - the saint upon the
saint: the master upon the disciple, the disciple upon the master: the
father on the son, and the son on the father." Richard was a strict
vegetarian, but would serve meat to his visitors; when he saw poultry or
young animals being conveyed to his kitchen he was wont to say: "Poor
little creatures, if you were reasoning beings and could speak, how you
would curse us! For we are the cause of your death, and what have you done
to deserve it?" (I think most guest probably took the hint and changed
their order to pasta instead.) Canonized only nine years after his death.
* Gandulf of Binasco, franciscan (1260) - Lived as a hermit only to emerge
from time to time to preach. Once while he was preaching at Polizzi, the
sparrows chattered so loudly that the congregation could not hear the
sermon. Gandulf appealed to the birds to be quiet and they kept silent
until the end of the service. On that occasion he told the people to whom
he was preaching that he would die soon. And immediately after leaving the
audience he become ill and died on Holy Saturday. Afterward, when his body
had been enshrined, a number of swallows flew into the church and sung the
Te Deum in alternating choirs.
* John of Penna, franciscan (1271) - Won all hearts by his exemplary life
and courteous manner.
* * * * * * * *
Carolyn Muessig
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Bristol
Bristol BS8 1TB
UK
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