 | |
| Thou shalt remember thy sister's birthday. |
Happy birthday, old bean. Sorry I can't make it later. Hope you have a nice day.
It was about then that I scrolled up to see that the last message I'd sent was frighteningly similar... and exactly a year old.
Is it terrible that I only text my sister once a year? When I looked further back in time, it turned out that the conversation before that took place in August 2012. I asked her a music question and she answered at great length on the topic of altered dominant scales.*
Not only is it my sister's birthday, but it's also the feast day of St Fructuosus (Wikipedia tells me). There's not a lot known about him, but it seems he was a bishop in Hispana (Spain) in the Third Century. Going to bed one night, he was arrested (presumably for being a bishop) and dragged (presumably not diagonally) in front of the Roman Governor, on the 21st of January, 269AD.
Rome at that time was ruled by an Emperor called Valerian, who didn't much like Christians. He thought that everyone ought to toe the linea Romana and get on with worshipping Jupiter and Bacchus and all the rest of those garlanded marble statues that never did very much. If you said no, it would probably be the last thing you said. Rebels weren't treated nicely in the Empire.
Fructuosus did ask if he could pop his shoes on though and the guards said that was OK. After a short interrogation, which I imagine went something like this:
Governor: So, still worshipping God then?
Fructuosus: Yup.
... someone hauled in some wood, tied the bishop and two of his acolytes to the pile and then set the whole thing alight.
"Officers were posted to prevent any demonstration because even the pagans loved Fructuosus due to his rare virtues. The Christians accompanied them with sorrow tempered with joy. The faithful offered Saint Fructuosus a cup of wine, which he refused because, being it was only 10:00 a.m., it was too early to break the fast."
- Catholic Saints of the Day
http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0121.shtml
He seems completely unconcerned that he's about to be martyred. He just carried on doing what he knew was right, fearlessly and faithfully. I really love that - he was operating on a different level.
I'm not even faithful enough to text my sister in between birthdays.
*She's a musician.
No comments:
Post a Comment