Today, May 2, is the feast of:
Exsuperius/Hesuperius, Zoe, Cyriac, and Theodulus (d. c135) This couple were slaves to a Roman in Attalia in Pamphylia. They thoroughly annoyed their master by refusing to join in the celebration of the birth of his son - which included eating sacrificial meat. So they and their two sons were tortured and then roasted to death in a furnace. When their bodies were removed they were said to show no physical sign of their torment. Justinian erected in Constantinople a basilica dedicated to Zoe. Byzantine synaxaries, followed by the RM (the latter until recently calling H. Exuperius), commemorate this group of martyrs today.
Felix of Seville (d. c304, supposedly). This martyred Felix is recorded in Iberian calendars from the sixth century onward. The legendary Passio of St. Eulalia of Barcelona makes him a martyr under the well-traveled persecutor Datianus. Relics said to be his are displayed in the cathedral of Seville.
Victorinus of Pettau (d. c304) was bishop of Pettau (Pannonia; now Slovenia). He was martyred in Diocletian's persecution. Jerome reported Victorinus' great facility in explicating the Bible.
Athanasius of Alexandria/-the Great (d. 373) The theologian Athanasius, a Doctor of the Church, had been secretary to the previous archbishop of Alexandria and had been part of his entourage at the Council of Nicaea before he himself ascended to that see in 328 while in his early 30s. Already he was a noted theologian and church politician. Emperor Constantius did his best to eliminate Athanasius even stationing soldiers in Alexandria to try to kill the patriarch (he escaped and spent some time among the monks of the Thebaid). Arian influence in the imperial court caused him to be deposed and exiled five times during his lengthy episcopate. His Bios of St. Anthony Abbot is a hagiographic classic. Athanasius is one of the Alexandrian saints whose relics ended up in Venice. He was venerated immediately after his death as one of the first confessors among the saints, and his reputation as a doctor of the church also dates back to late antiquity.
Athanasius as depicted in the twelfth-century mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo: http://tinyurl.com/2eknhf5
Athanasius as depicted (at right; at left, St. Basil the Great; at center, St. Nicholas of Myra) in a poorly preserved fresco (c1160-1180) in the church of the Holy Apostles at Pera Chorio in the Republic of Cyprus: http://tinyurl.com/35nrxcq
Detail (Nicholas and Athanasius): http://tinyurl.com/3yohyoq
Athanasius' portrait (1192) in the restored apse paintings at Deir Mar Musa al-Habashi (near Nabk in Syria): http://tinyurl.com/2656lf9 .
That image comes from this page of views of the apse program: http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/MarMusaapsePaintings.html
Athanasius as depicted (at left; at right, St. Cyril of Alexandria) in a thirteenth-century menaion from Cyprus (Paris, BnF, ms. Grec 1561, fol. 77r): http://tinyurl.com/275pgqf
Athanasius as depicted c1300 in a fresco attributed to Manuel Panselinos in the Protaton church on Mt. Athos: http://tinyurl.com/2czzrc7
Athanasius as depicted in the frescoes (c1313-c1320) in the altar area of the King's Church (dedicated to Sts. Joachim and Anne) in the Studenica monastery near Kraljevo in southern Serbia: http://tinyurl.com/yeb9sut
Detail view: http://tinyurl.com/ycxhrv2
Athanasius as depicted in the (1330s) frescoes in the altar area 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:
Athanasius as depicted (at left; at right, St. Gregory of Nyssa) in the frescoes (betw. 1335-1350) of the altar area in the church of the Pantocrator at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of recent events, the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's Kosovo province of Kosovo and Metohija: http://tinyurl.com/28altj7
Detail view: http://tinyurl.com/27ndxmt
Athanasius as depicted (at left, writing a letter that is then delivered to pope St. Julius I) in an early copy (c1410-1412) of Marco Polo's Devisement du monde (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 2810, fol. 178r): http://tinyurl.com/yag7luq
Germanus the Scot (d. c460) According to a later tradition that seems to show well the continental habit of claiming *every* unidentified holy person as Irish, no matter how unlikely, Germanus was from either Scotland or Ireland, made his way to Auxerre where *that* Germanus converted him (Germanus appears in an awful lot of these legends, too; he must have been a *very* busy man), and Germanus the Scot ended up as a missionary bishop who was martyred near Dieppe.
Vindemialis, Eugene, and Longinus (d. c485) Victims of the Vandal Hunneric's persecution of catholic Christians in North Africa, all three of these figures were bishops, tortured and then executed.
Walbert (d. c668) According to his somewhat legendary tenth-century Vita by abbot Adso of Montier-en-Der, who had been oblated at Luxeuil and knew its traditions, the nobly born Walbert (also Waldebert, Gaubert) was born in the vicinity of today's Meaux (Seine-et-Marne) and had been a successful military man before entering the abbey of Luxeuil, to which latter he dedicated his armor (still preserved in Adso's time) and all of his possessions, in the time of abbot St. Eustasius (St. Columban's immediate successor). After a while Walbert withdrew to a cave a few kilometers away, where he lived as a hermit and from whence he was recalled by the brethren to succeed Eustasius. His forty-year rule was marked by the introduction of the Benedictine Rule, by pope John IV's declaration of Luxeuil to be an exempt abbey, by a considerable increase in the abbey's landed wealth, and by the continued development of its famous seventh-century scriptorium. Adso ascribes to him several lifetime miracles. Today is his dies natalis. Miracles occurred at his grave in the abbey church; in the ninth century he was viewed as Luxeuil's protector and his remains, then preserved in a chasse, were carried in procession.
Ultan of Fosse (7th century) Ultan and his more celebrated brothers, St Fursey and St Follian, were Irish monks who crossed over to East Anglia, where they founded the abbey of Burgh Castle, near Yarmouth, on territory bestowed upon them by King Sigebert I. Then Ultan moved to Belgium, to be chaplain at the convent of Nivelles before following his brother as abbot of Fosse and Peronne.
Wiborada (d926) was a Swabian of noble birth who became a recluse at St. Gall (Sankt Gallen). While her brother studied at the monastery of St Gall, Wiborada made his vestments and even helped in the covering of books in the abbey library. Her brother taught her Latin whereby she could join him in the saying of the offices. She was a noted spiritual counsellor and prophet; her prophecies included a warning of Magyar raiders, but she refused to leave her cell when the monks fled. The Magyars, unsurprisingly disturbed to find a wild-looking woman walled up in a small room, killed her. Pope Clement II canonized her in 1047 in the presence of the emperor Henry III. She is the first woman saint to have been formally canonized for the Church as a whole. She has a late tenth- or eleventh-century Vita by the monk Hartmann (BHL 8866) and an eleventh-century Vita et Miracula by the monk Herimann (BHL 8867, 8868).
In art, Wiborada is shown with a book, representing the precious books of Sankt Gallen that were transported to safety at Reichenau at her insistence, and with a halbard, representing the axe that is said to have killed her. Here's an example from c1430-1436: the title miniature of a German-language Vita of Wiborad (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 586, p. 230): http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0586/230/medium
And here's the only slightly later depiction (c1451-1460) of her suffering at p. 345 (fol. 163r) of St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 602: http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/csg/0602/345/medium
Conrad of Seldenburen (blessed) (d. 1126) was from near Zurich. He founded the monastery of Engelberg and became a lay brother there. Still, he was the obvious person to send to Zurich when it became necessary to defend the monastery's property there - and it was there that the rival claimants murdered him. He was venerated as a martyr. His body was incorrupt but was destroyed in a fire in 1729 along with the abbey that had sheltered it.
Nicholas/Nicolaus/Nils Hermansson (Blessed) (d. 1391) We know about the reforming bishop Nicholas chiefly from his early fifteenth-century Vitae, from the records of his canonization inquiry authorized at the Council of Konstanz, and from his surviving charters and literary texts. A native of Östergötland, who is said to have studied at Paris and at Orléans, he became a canon of Linköping and Uppsala in 1358 and became archdeacon of Linköping in 1361. In 1374 Ncholas was elected bishop of Linköping; opposition from the Crown prevented him taking possession until the following year. Energetic both in defending the rights and property of his church and in preaching and making visitations throughout his diocese, he was remembered as a person of upright character who sought to improve the moral standing of his clergy.
Early in his career Nicholas had tutored the sons of St. Bridget of Sweden. He supported her monastery at Vadstena, vigorously promoted her canonization cause, and wrote new Office for her. Nicholas' cult was immediate. Though his canonization process seems never to have been concluded, his cult was recognized by Alexander VI in 1497 and again in 1499, a translation of his relics at Linköping took place in 1515, and a Mass and Office for his feast there were printed in 1523. Formerly celebrated on July 24 (principal feast) and February 4 (translation feast), Nicholas entered the RM in 2001 as a Beatus and under today's date (his dies natalis).
Antonino Pierozzi/Antoninus of Florence (d. 1459) was born in 1389 in Florence and christened Antonius; the diminutive name-form by which he is known reflects his small physical stature. His father was a notary. At the age of fifteen Antoninus entered the Order of Friars Preacher at Florence's Santa Maria Novella, where he is said to have impressed Bl. Giovanni Dominici with his precocious legal knowledge (supposedly, he had memorized Gratian's Decretum). He was sent to Cortona to complete his novitiate and was ordained priest there in about 1413. He rapidly became subprior and then prior at Cortona and thereafter served in a number of important administrative roles within his Order. In 1436 Antoninus founded the monastery of S. Marco in Florence, and in 1446 he became bishop of Florence, where he had already founded a charitable society attending to needs of the poor. He distinguished himself by his preaching and by a corpus of legally oriented pastoral and theological writing; his major work is a Summa moralis. He was canonized in 1523. His remains repose in a display reliquary in the altar of the chapel dedicated to him in Florence's basilica di San Marco:
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
--
From the Book of Kerric:
"It requires great strength to be kind, whereas even the very weak can be brutal. Likewise, to speak hard truths fearlessly is often the hallmark of greatness. Bring me one who is both gentle and truthful, ...and I will show you an iron oak among hawthorns, a blessing on all who know them."