🕯️Saint Fabian, elected Pope miraculously when a dove landed on his head, governed the Church from 236 to 250, the year of his martyrdom under Emperor Decius, distinguishing himself by the administrative organization of Rome and his zeal for the tombs of the martyrs. Along with him, the Church celebrates Saint Sebastian, born in Narbonne and martyred in 288; a captain of the Praetorian Guard who, using his military position, sustained the faith of persecuted Christians until he was discovered, surviving firstly the torment of arrows and, after confronting the emperors again for their cruelty, surrendered his soul to God upon being beaten to death, becoming a distinguished protector against plagues and an example of a soldier of Christ.
🎼Introit (Ps 78; 11, 12 and 10 | ib. 1)
Intret in conspéctu tuo, Dómine, gémitus compeditórum: redde vicínis nostris séptuplum in sinu eórum: víndica sánguinem Sanctórum tuórum, qui effúsus est. Ps. Deus, venérunt gentes in hereditátem tuam: polluérunt templum sanctum tuum: posuérunt Ierúsalem in pomórum custódiam.
Let the sighing of the prisoners come in before Thee, O Lord; render to our neighbors sevenfold in their bosom; avenge the blood of Thy Saints, which hath been shed. Ps. O God, the heathens are come into Thy inheritance, they have defiled Thy holy temple: they have made Jerusalem as a tent of an orchard.
📜Epistle (Heb 11, 33-39)
Saint Paul the Apostle to the Hebrews. Brethren: By faith the Saints conquered kingdoms, wrought justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, recovered strength from weakness, became valiant in battle, put to flight the armies of foreigners. Women received their dead raised to life again. But others were racked, not accepting deliverance, that they might find a better resurrection. And others had trial of mockeries and stripes, moreover also of bands and prisons. They were stoned, they were cut asunder, they were tempted, they were put to death by the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins, in goatskins, being in want, distressed, afflicted: of whom the world was not worthy; wandering in deserts, in mountains, and in dens, and in caves of the earth. And all these being approved by the testimony of faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
✠Gospel (Lk 6, 17-23)
At that time, Jesus coming down from the mountain, stood in a plain place, and the company of His disciples, and a very great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast both of Tyre and Sidon, who were come to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases. And they that were troubled with unclean spirits, were cured. And all the multitude sought to touch Him, for virtue went out from Him, and healed all. And He, lifting up His eyes on His disciples, said: Blessed are ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are ye that hunger now, for you shall be filled. Blessed are ye that weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake. Be glad in that day and rejoice; for behold, your reward is great in heaven.
🩸The witness of faith and true beatitude
🛡️Today's liturgy unites the successor of Peter and the soldier of the empire under the same banner of blood shed for Christ, perfectly illustrating the doctrine of the Beatitudes proclaimed in the Gospel. While the world seeks temporal peace and the escape from pain, the Church, through the Epistle to the Hebrews, reminds us that the true conquest of faith often passes through "mouths of lions" and "bands and prisons," realities that both Fabian and Sebastian faced with the dignity of those for whom "the world was not worthy." Saint Augustine teaches that "the martyrs did not despise life, but they loved it so much that they did not want to lose it in eternity for a brief delay on earth" (Sermon 329), which echoes Jesus' promise: "Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you." The strength that emanated from Christ to heal the multitude is the same operative grace that sustained Fabian in the administration of the Church under persecution and Sebastian before the arrows and scourges, proving that the virtue of fortitude is not the absence of fear, but the subordination of human fear to divine love, for, as Saint Thomas Aquinas affirms, "martyrdom is the most perfect act of charity, since in it man despises bodily life, which is the most beloved good, for the love of God" (Summa Theologica, II-II, q. 124, a. 3).
🇺🇸See English version of the critical articles here.
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