🌹Saint Bibiana, an illustrious Roman virgin and martyr of the 4th century, stands out in the Catholic hagiology as a sublime example of fortitude and purity amidst the persecution waged by the Emperor Julian the Apostate. Belonging to a family of saints, she was the daughter of the prefect Flavian and Dafrosa, and the sister of Demetria, all of whom preceded her in martyrdom, leaving her alone before the tyranny of Governor Apronianus. After being handed over to a wicked woman named Rufina, who tried in vain to corrupt her chastity and shake her faith through seductions and mistreatment, Bibiana remained unshakable, sustained by prayer and fasting. Furious with her constancy, the governor ordered her to be tied to a pillar and scourged with whips loaded with lead until death, consummating her sacrifice around the year 363 AD, with her body later buried in her home, where Pope Simplicius erected a basilica in her honor.
📜Epistle (Sirach 51, 13-17)
O Lord, my God, Thou hast exalted my dwelling place upon the earth, and I have prayed for death to pass away. I called upon the Lord, the Father of my Lord, that He would not leave me in the day of my trouble, and that He would not leave me without help when the proud prevailed. I will praise Thy Name continually, and will praise it with thanksgiving, and my prayer was heard. And Thou hast saved me from destruction, and hast delivered me from the evil time. Therefore I will give thanks, and praise Thee, and bless the Name of the Lord.
✠Gospel (Mt 13, 44-52)
At that time, Jesus spoke to His disciples this parable: The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field. Which a man having found, hid it, and for joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again the kingdom of heaven is like to a merchant seeking good pearls. And having found one pearl of great price, he went his way, and sold all that he had, and bought it. Again the kingdom of heaven is like to a net cast into the sea, and gathering together of all kind of fishes. Which, when it was filled, they drew out, and sitting by the shore, they chose out the good into vessels, but the bad they cast forth. So shall it be at the end of the world. The angels shall go out, and shall separate the wicked from among the just, and shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Have ye understood all these things? They say to Him: Yes. He said unto them: Therefore every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like to a man that is a householder, who bringeth forth out of his treasure new things and old.
💭Reflections
💎The parable of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price, presented in today's Gospel, finds a perfect incarnation in the life of Saint Bibiana, who understood that possessing the Kingdom of Heaven requires a total dispossession of earthly goods, including one's physical life. The merchant who sells everything he owns does not do so with sadness, but with joy, for he recognizes the infinite disproportion between what he gives up and what he acquires; thus, the martyr did not consider the loss of her noble family, her youth, and her physical integrity as a loss, but as the necessary price to obtain Christ, the true pearl. Saint Augustine teaches us that the price of the Kingdom of Heaven is the person themselves: it is worth as much as you are, give yourself and you shall have the Kingdom (Saint Augustine, Sermon 105). Bibiana's radical decision reflects this theology of sacred exchange, where consecrated virginity and shed blood become the gold coin of perfect charity.
🛡️In the Epistle, the prayer of thanksgiving for deliverance from death does not refer merely to the preservation of biological life, since the saint was effectively killed, but to salvation from the "second death," the eternal perdition of the soul. The liturgy applies these words to the martyrs to demonstrate that God does not abandon His elect "in the day of trouble and when the proud prevail," but grants them the grace of final perseverance, which is true deliverance. Saint Thomas Aquinas elucidates that martyrdom is the most perfect act of virtue, for it is the greatest proof of love for God, surpassing the natural love for one's own life, and therefore, the martyr is immediately purified from all sins and punishment, entering directly into glory (Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 124, a. 3). The confidence expressed in the sacred text reveals the intimacy of the soul that, even under leaden scourges, praises the Name of the Lord continually, knowing that her dwelling has been exalted beyond the earth.
⚖️Finally, the image of the net cast into the sea reminds us of the eschatological judgment and the necessary separation between the good and the bad, a reality that Saint Bibiana faced seeing the apparent victory of the wicked in this world and the promise of divine justice in the next. The Church, like a net, gathers everyone in the present time, but the quality of the catch is only defined on the shore of eternity; the "instructed scribes" are those who, like the virgin saint, knew how to bring forth from their treasure "new things and old," uniting the ancient promise of the prophets to the new reality of Grace in Christ. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reinforces that the witness of the martyrs is the touchstone of the truth of the faith, for they sign with their own blood the veracity of the doctrine they profess, becoming perennial models for all Christians who must be ready to confess Christ before men (Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2473).
See English version of the critical articles here.
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