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Today, May 13, is the feast of:
Glyceria (d. c177) A rather extravagant legend tells that Glyceria was the daughter of a Roman senator living in Trajanopolis (Thrace). She declared herself a Christian. The prefect had her taken to a temple of Zeus - but she refused to sacrifice and broke the cult statue. So she was tortured in a variety of ways and miraculously escaped unscathed. She was then thrown to the beasts, but died before they could sink a fang in her.
Abban of Abingdon (2nd century) Legend tells that Abban was an Irishman, in fact the first Irish saint. He is supposed to have come to Britain, where he was baptized in c. 165. He was so successful there that he was granted land to build a monastery(!)
Mocius/Mucius (d. 304/early 4th century?) According to his at least very largely legendary Passio (several versions: BHG 1298-1298e plus a shortish Latin version, BHL 6023) and to his Laudatio by the early ninth-century iconophile saint Michael the Syncellus (BHG 1298h), Mocius was a Christian priest of Amphipolis (today's Amfipoli in northeastern Greece) who during what seems to have been the Great Persecution was denounced by pagans and arrested. he then refused to sacrifice to the god Dionysius and broke the latter's idol in his temple, and was sent for judgment to Perinthus where he was subjected to various tortures that miraculously failed to kill him (he is said to have been broken on a wheel, exposed to beasts, and thrown into a fire), after which his tormentors died horrible deaths, and Mocius finally was sent to Byzantium where he was executed by decapitation.
Mocius’ martyrial church in Constantinople just to the west of the Constantinian walls is first attested from the early fifth century, when a burial recorded by Sozomen (Historia ecclesiastica, 8. 17) took place there. The tradition that it was founded by Constantine himself is at least as old as the central Middle Ages. Mocius is entered under May 10 in the (pseudo-)Hieronymian Martyrology, under May 11 in the Synaxary of Constantinople, and under today in the ninth-century martyrology of Usuard (whence he entered the RM under the same date).
Mocius (in the roundel at right) as depicted in the (1330s) frescoes of the church of the Hodegetria in the Patriarchate of Peć at Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija: http://tinyurl.com/2fbh5bj
Alexandria martyrs (d. 372) A large number of followers of Athanasius, killed when Athanasius was exiled for the *fifth* time, especially in a massacre in the Theonas church.
Servatius/Servaas/Servais (d. 384, supposedly) Servatius, says tradition, was an Armenian and yet somehow an anti-Arian bishop of today's Tongeren (Tongres) in today's Belgium. The first report of him comes from 343, when he appears as a bitter opponent of Arianism at the synod of Sardika. He also took part in the Council of Rimini (359). In between, he supported the exiled St. Athanasius the Great and worked with him in 346 for the removal of a bishop of Köln whose Christology was Arian. He built a fairly large church at Tongeren, remains of which have now been found, and is said also to have evangelized in today's Netherlands and to have founded a church at Maastricht. A legend reported by Gregory of Tours tells that Servatius hindered the Hun invasion with his prayer; he went to Rome to strengthen his prayer, but had there a vision of St. Peter, who told him that the Huns had been sent by God to punish the evil people of Gaul, but that he himself would die peacefully before the Huns got there. It is unknown whether he died in Maastricht or at Tongeren. In about 560 bishop St. Domitian, who moved the seat of the diocese from Tongeren to Maastricht, erected in that city a church dedicated to Servatius. This was the predecessor of today's Basiliek Sint Servaas, begun in 1039 and housing Servatius' putative remains in its crypt. He has a very impressive twelfth-century reliquary shrine. Legendarily, he was a relative of the Holy Family.
There was some confusion about st Servacius (Servais) and st Servanus (Servan, Serf) in the late Middle Age in Brittany : the city of Saint-Servan, close to Saint-Malo, was known in the 11th & 12th centuries as Sanctus Servacius, where relics of the saint were preserved. In the 13th century, a local poet versified a text about the (re)conquest of Brittany by Charlemagne over the Saracen king Aiquin ; this text has been partly rewritten in the late 14th or the beginning of the 15th century and the saint is no more st Servacius (the traditional protector of the Pippinides) but st Servan. The story of this Servan, as given in the above said poem, is fascinating, but also different from the story of the Scott saint who died in Culross. Another mistake could be found in lower Brittany regarding st Servais and a local saint named Jelvestr : Jelvestr has been also sometimes "translated" in French as Sylvestre (Sylvester).
Maastricht's Basiliek Sint Servaas’ reliquary shrine of Servatius: http://tinyurl.com/2dkb3fg , http://tinyurl.com/27cp5uv , http://www.nieuwsbronnen.com/veronakapel/servaas.jpg , http://www.heiligenlexikon.de/Fotos/Servatius-Schrein.jpg
Servatius (at right; at left, St. Sylvester I) in the Livre d'images de Madame Marie (c1285-1290; Paris, BnF, ms. Nouvelle acquisition française 16251, fol. 87r): http://tinyurl.com/yfmvotg
Not to miss this page on a very unusual mid-fifteenth-century Danish statue (view is expandable) of a holy person with Servatius as her attribute: http://tinyurl.com/32gbry
A larger image (one of these, prob. the one linked to from the English-language page, is reversed) of the same statue of Memelia and Servatius: http://www.vhm.dk/page.asp?sideid=200&zcs=2
A c1470 painting of the Holy Kinship in the treasury of the Basiliek Sint Servaas in Maastricht with the child Servatius and his legendary mother Memelia at lower left: http://tinyurl.com/qfarnb
Detail views: http://tinyurl.com/p8fhtz , http://tinyurl.com/p8dnnk , http://tinyurl.com/ovuypy
More views of this piece: http://tinyurl.com/qo48c6
A (1511)depiction of the child Servatius (mitred, as in the statue) with Memelia in a similar composition on the rear of the Sippenaltar in the Elisabethkirche in Marburg an der Lahn (Lkr. Marburg-Biedenkopf) in Hessen: http://tinyurl.com/occolj
More (illustrated; German-language text) on this piece: http://www.elisabethkirche.de/rundgang/ix-nss02.htm
Isaac the Great (d. c460) One of two saints of this name, the Isaac for today was a Syrian who became an abbot near Antioch. He is credited with an important set of ascetic works.
John Hesychastes the Silent (or Silentiary) (d. 558) The Armenian John was the son of wealthy parents; they died when he was 20 and he used his inheritance to build a monastery in Nicopolis. The monastery was such a success that at the age of 28 he was (much against his will) made bishop of Colonia. After nine years of mixed success, John resigned. He went to St. Sabas' monastery near Jerusalem and became a monk there, hiding his episcopal status. After a time doing the monastery's heavy work, Sabas tried to have John ordained (whereupon he had to confess that he was not just a priest but a bishop). Sabas kept the secret, and allowed John to become a hermit for the last 40 years of his life, remaining in voluntary silence until his death.
“Now when an incursion of the Saracens filled all the land with fear, the monks sent to him to take refuge in their fortified monastery; but he refused, saying, "If God will not protect me, why should I care?" And all the while the Saracens were devastating the land a lion paced in the glen, or couched on the rock before his cell, and none dared approach. He died at the age of one hundred and four [John, that is, not the lion].”
Agnes of Poitiers (d. 586) was abbess of the double monastery of the Holy Cross at Poitiers, founded by St. Radegund in 557. The poet Venantius Fortunatus was her friend and praised her sanctity in his writings.
Erconwald, bishop of London (686) - Founded a monastery for men at Chertsey in Surrey, and one for women at Barking in Essex.
Rolendis (8th century?) The cult of Rolendis developed around a sarcophagus of the eighth century that purportedly contained her relics. The legend that developed tells that Rolendis was the daughter of a Gallic king who fled to avoid marriage. She had intended to take refuge in Cologne, but died in Belgium on the way. She is invoked against gravel and lumbago.
Argentea and Wulfram of Cordoba (d. 931) Argentea was a Spanish Christian woman; Wulfram was a Frankish preacher who came down and riled the Muslim authorities by publicly preaching against Islam. He was arrested, and Argentea was arrested for joining him in public declaration of Christianity, and both were executed.
Euthymius the Illuminator (d. 1028) was the son of St. John the Iberian (= Georgia, not Spain). After a time as a hostage in Constantinople, he went with his father to Mt. Athos, where the two built Iviron Monastery for their fellow Iberians; he succeeded his father as abbot in c. 1002. He was a teetotaller although he allowed his monks their fair ration of wine. But Euthymius is best known for his work after he resigned from the abbacy. He devoted himself to translating religious works into Iberian, including the Bible, 60 treatises of Church fathers, commentaries, vitae, liturgies, etc.
Fortis Gabrielli (d. 1040) was from Gubbio (Umbria). He became a hermit and later joined the new monastery of Fonte Avellana. His cult was approved in 1756.
Gerard Mecatti of Villamagna (blessed) (d. 1245) A rare example of a crusading saint. Gerard was the son of a poor family from near Florence. He entered the service of a knight, and they both went crusading, and Gerard was captured. He was ransomed and went back home to become a hermit, but apparently also spent some time as a member of the Hospitallers. His cult was approved in 1833.
Julian/Juliana of Norwich ("Blessed") (d. c1416) The English mystic Julian is said to have taken her name from the church of St. Julian in Norwich, where by 1394 she had taken up life as a recluse in an adjoining cell. Her Book of Shewings, better known under its modern English title Revelations of Divine Love, meditates on a series of visions experienced on either May 8 (her day of commemoration in the Church of England) or May 13 (her unofficial day of commemoration among Roman Catholics).
Julia Bolton Holloway's learned and well illustrated site on Julian is here: http://www.umilta.net/julian.html
Gemma of Goriano Sicoli/Gemma della Terra di San Sebastiano/ Gemma virgo Sulmonensis (Blessed) (d. 1426 or 1429) has a cult that is documented from the sixteenth century onward. According to Febonio's account, she was the daughter of a peasant family that when she was born raised sheep and swine at today's San Sebastiano di Bisegna. Later they moved to Goriano Sicoli, continuing the family occupation there. She was taught needlework and other womanly skills. She was also very devout. When she was twelve the local lord, intending to use her sexually, brought her to work on his lands and there made sexual advances to her. These she denied and in the process shamed the lord into giving her what she really wished, namely a hermit's cell at Goriano Sicoli's church of St. John the Baptist with a window allowing a view of the altar. After obtaining her father's consent she moved into this cell and lived there austerely for over forty years. When she died at the age of fifty-four bells were heard to sound throughout Goriano Sicoli's valley (the Subequana). Other miracles confirmed her sanctity.
Still according to Febonio, one year after her death the bishop of the local diocese (Valva and Sulmona) conducted a recognition of her remains, at which time they were found to be incorrupt and she was given an elevation in the church with an altar of her own. Although Febonio gives the year of her death as 1429, the bishop he names was in office for only five months in 1427. If Febonio was correct about the identity of the bishop, then she will instead have died in 1426. Similarly, since her feast has been recorded from before Febonio's time as falling on May 12 (which is when it's still observed in Abruzzo), scholars early modern and modern, have concluded that her dies natalis as given by Febonio (May 13; again spelled out in words) is erroneous. Her cult was confirmed in 1890 at the level of Beata; locally she's considered a saint.
Peter Regulatus (d. 1456) was a native of Valladolid (Spain). He became a Franciscan at age 13 and became famous for his vigorous efforts to impose the reformed Franciscan rule (thus the nickname "Regulatus"), for asceticism, and for mystical manifestations.
Maddalena Albricci (blessed) (d. 1465) was born to a noble family in c. 1400 in Como (north Italy), and was already honored as a saint in her lifetime. She entered the order of Augustinian hermits in 1420, soon becoming abbess of Brunate near Como; she founded another convent in Como. She was a performer of many miracles during her lifetime,and miracles continued to occur at Maddalena's grave after death. She was beatified in 1907.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan