Subj : October 24th - St. Felix of Thibiuca To : All From : rich Date : Wed Oct 23 2019 08:49:51 From: rich October 24th - St. Felix of Thibiuca Also known as Felix Africanus d. 303 At Venosa in Apulia, the birthday of the holy martyrs Felix, an African bishop, Audactus and Januarius, priests, and the lectors Fortunatus and Septimus.=C2 In the time of Diocletian, under the governor Magdellian, they were loaded with fetters and imprisoned for a long time in Africa and Sicily.=C2 Because Felix refused to deliver the sacred books, they were at last slain with the sword. In the beginning of Diocletian's persecution, numbers among the Christians delivered up the sacred books into the hands of the persecutors that they might be burnt.=C2 Many even sought for pretences to extenuate or excuse this crime, as if it ever could be lawful to concur in a sacrilegious or impious action. Felix, a bishop in Proconsular Africa, was so far from being carried away by the falls of others that they were to him a spur to greater watchfulness and fortitude.=C2 Magnilian, magistrate of Thibiuca, ordered him to give up all books and writings belonging to his church, that they might be burnt. The martyr replied that the law of God must be preferred to the law of man, so Magnilian sent him to the proconsul at Carthage. This officer, the passio tells us, offended at his bold confession, commanded him to be loaded with irons and, after he had kept him nine days in a foul dungeon, to be put on board a vessel to be taken to stand his trial before Maximinus in Italy. =C2 =C2 The bishop lay under hatches in the ship, between the horses= ' feet, four days without eating or drinking. The vessel arrived at Agrigentum in Sicily, and Christians of that island and in all the cities through which he passed treated the saint with great honour. When Felix had been brought as far as Venosa in Apulia, the prefect ordered his irons to be knocked off, and again put to him the questions whether he had the sacred writings and why he refused to deliver them up. Felix answered that he could not deny that he had the books, but that he would never give them up. The prefect without more ado condemned him to be beheaded. At the place of execution St Felix thanked God for all His mercies, and bowing down his head offered himself a sacrifice to Him who lives forever and ever. He was fifty-six years old, and one of the first victims under Diocletian. Nevertheless the story of the deportation of St Felix to Italy and his martyrdom there is no more than a hagiographer's fiction to make hi= m an Italian saint.=C2 There seems no doubt at all that he suffered at Carthage by order of the proconsul there, and his relics were subsequently laid to rest in the well-known basilica Fausti in that city. In the Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxxix (1921), pp. 241-276, Fr Delehaye published a remarkable study of the text of this passio.=C2 The materials previously edited in the Acta Sanctorum, October, vol. x, were insufficient.=C2 Delehaye, after printing representative forms of the two families into which the texts may be divided, supplies an admirable restoration of the primitive document that=C2 lies at the base of all.=C2 As stated above, the deportation of the martyr to Italy is a fiction of later hagiographers who unscrupulously embroidered the original text. Felix, as Delehaye very positively asserts (in agreement with M. Monceaux, Revue archeologique, 1905, vol. i, Pp. 335-340), was put to death by the proconsul at Carthage.=C2 The proper day of the martyrdom of St Felix would seem to be the 15th or possibly the 16th of July. For the confusions which led to its transference, first to July 30, and finally to October 24, see Delehaye, and more fully Dom Quentin, Les martyrologes historiques, pp. 522-532 and 697-698. Saint Quote: Not only do they offend thee, O Lady, who outrage thee, but thou art also offended by those who neglect to ask thy favors . . . He who neglects the service of the Blessed Virgin will die in his sins . . . He who does not invoke thee, O Lady, will never get to Heaven . . . Not only will those from whom Mary turns her countenance not be saved, but there will be no hope of their salvation . . . No one can be saved without the protection of Mary. --Saint Bonaventure, Cardinal-Bishop and Doctor of the Church Bible Quote: "I look up at your heavens, shaped by your fingers, at the moon and the stars you set firm--what are human beings that you spare a thought for them, or the child of Adam that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little less than a god, you have crowned him with glory and beauty, and made him lord of the works of your hands, put all things under his feet..." Psalm 8:3-6 <><><><> The easy roads are crowded, And the level roads are jammed; The pleasant little rivers With the drifting folks are crammed, But off yonder where it's rocky, Where you get a better view, You will find the ranks are thinning And the travelers are few. Where the going's smooth and pleasant You will always find the throng, For the many, more's the pity, Seem to like to drift along. But the steps that call for courage And the task that's hard to do, In the end results in glory For the never-wavering few. --- NewsGate v1.0 gamma 2 * Origin: News Gate @ Net396 -Huntsville, AL - USA (1:396/4) .