Today, 4 September, is the feast of ...
* Marcellus, martyr (c. 178?)
- he accepted an invitation to go to a party hosted by the Roman
governor, then got indignant when the governor started to fulfil
religious rites; surprisingly, Marcellus was killed -- by being buried
up to his waist in the earth on the banks of the Saone river, dying
three days later of exposure
* Marinus (fourth century?)
- how many saints have a republic named after them? this one does
* Boniface I, pope (422)
- elected at an advanced age, he was on very good terms with
Augustine; had a devotion to St Felicitas
* Ultan, bishop (657)
- while feeding children with his right hand, he put Nordic
invaders to flight with his left hand; an early Irish writer said of
him: 'Had it been the right hand that noble Ultan raised against them,
no foreigner would ever have come into the land of Erin'
* Ida of Herzfeld, widow (825)
- to remind herself of her all-too-human destiny, she had a stone
coffin made for herself, which she would fill daily with food before
distributing it to the poor
* Rosalia, virgin (1160?)
- had a popular cult in Sicily in the later Middle Ages; became
patron of Palermo in 1624, after being credited with clearing the city
of the plague
* Rose of Viterbo, virgin (1252?)
- a visionary child saint, who preached in the streets at age 12;
canonized in 1457; her body is carried in rpocession through the streets
of Viterbo on this day
* Catherine of Racconigi, virgin (1547)
- a Piedmontese Dominican nun; in the breviary lesson for her
feast, it is written: 'between Racconigi and [Catherine of] Siena there
is only the difference of canonization'
*************
Dr Carolyn Muessig
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Bristol
Bristol BS8 1TB
UK
phone: +44(0)117-928-8168
fax: +44(0)117-929-7850
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
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