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.
* * * * * * * *
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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