Today the Church commemorates Saint Sebastian, a 3rd-century member of the Pretorian Guard of the pagan emperor Diocletian, who, on discovering that his personal soldier was a Christian, ordered him to be shot by archers. They, believing Sebastian to have been finished off, left the scene. Along came Irene, a fellow Christian known to Sebastian, who took him to a secret location, tended his wounds and nursed him back to health.
Thereafter, Sebastian risked all for his faith and confronted Diocletian, rebuking him publicly for persecuting Christians. The alarmed emperor ordered his arrest yet again, demanding that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and his body dumped in a public sewer.
