A fabulously wealthy heiress of Thessalonika, upon her parents' death she sold everything to help the poor. She was run through with a sword for trying to go to mass.
Confusingly, it's also the feast of St. Anysius, bishop of Thessalonika, who was a friend of Ambrose & one of St. John Chrysostom's defenders when he was falsely accused of heresy. They lived about 100 years apart --she at the turn of the 3rd century, he at the 4th.
And we have at least 45 new martyrs in the Congo today --although who killed them is unclear.
To read today: Robert Royal on Three Clergymen who've been in the news this week --and how the press didn't get any story right (worst abused was the Archbishop of Canterbury).
A faith whose Founder was crucified should not expect gentle treatment by the world. But when the very people who repeatedly tell you that “hate is not a family value” indulge in this degree of childish name-calling, you don’t expect it to be picked up in respectable journalism, any more than you’d expect professional journalists to indulge in angry partisanship or crude misrepresentation about the major faith of the West.
Or do we now?
