Our Lady of Guadalupe

Date: February, 9

While most of the Christians were fleeing the city following the persecution of Christians which began in Alexandria during the reign of the Emperor Philip, leaving all their worldly possessions, an old deaconess, Apollonia, was seized.

About c. 248, the fury of the Alexandrian mob rose to a great height, and when one of their poets prophesied a calamity, they committed bloody outrages on the Christians, whom the authorities made no effort to protect.

Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (247–265), relates the sufferings of his people in a letter addressed to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, of which long extracts have been preserved in Eusebius’ Historia Ecclesiae.

After describing how a Christian man and woman, Metras and Quinta, were seized and killed by the mob, and how the houses of several other Christians were pillaged, Dionysius narrates that at that time, Apollonia, a deaconess, was held in high esteem.

The men seized her and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of wood and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words.

Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and was burned to death.

Apollonia and a whole group of early martyrs did not await the death they were threatened with, but either to preserve their chastity or because they were confronted with the alternative of renouncing their faith or suffering death, voluntarily embraced the death prepared for them.

The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches celebrate the feast day of St. Apollonia on February 9, and she is popularly invoked against toothache, because of the torments she had to endure.

PRAYER:

0 My God, bring me safe through temptation and strengthen me as you did strengthen Apollonia.

May we display the same courage in giving up our life when faced with tyranny and persecution because of our faith, if you so will it, through Christ our Lord. Amen