✣ Highlights from the week online
How a saint survived a hail of arrows St Sebastian is traditionally depicted apparently in the throes of martyrdom, being shot through with arrows. But according to churchpop.com, these depictions don’t tell the whole story. Sebastian was a 3rd-century Roman soldier and a clandestine Christian. “Due to his courage and skill as a soldier, he quickly rose in the ranks. What his fellow pagan soldiers didn’t know is that he used his position of influence to spread the Gospel and aid persecuted Christians.” Sebastian helped many to convert, which eventually led to his exposure. The Emperor Diocletian sentenced him to death in 286. And the sentence – that he be tied to a stake and shot through with arrows – was carried out. However, when St Irene of Rome went to take his body down, she discovered that he was still alive – and nursed him back to health. “When he was strong enough, Sebastian did not hide away or live a quiet life to avoid detection. Instead, he did what many saints have done: he went right back out into the public square and started proclaiming the Gospel.” As the story goes, Diocletian himself saw Sebastian on the street, and ordered him to be clubbed to death. This time, the martyrdom really did take place. The work-life balance of a medieval peasant At aleteia.com, Zelda Caldwell noted that medieval workers had one major advantage over us: the amount of holiday. Caldwell cited the historian Lynn Stuart Parramore, who found that “a peasant would take anywhere from eight weeks to six months off each year. That’s compared to the American worker’s paltry eight vacation days a year.” Caldwell said Passmore’s research suggested a number of causes: “The Church enforced mandatory holidays; time was taken off for weddings, wakes and births; a travelling carnival in town meant time off for everyone; nobody worked on Sundays; when there was no farm work to be done, a peasant had no work to do.” Partying and the Blessed Sacrament At Catholic World Report, KV Turley observed the Sisters of Life evangelising at St Patrick’s, Soho Square. The Canadian nuns stood outside the church, inviting Londoners to enter. “Their ready smiles attracted people. There was a curiosity, especially from young women, coupled with an instant desire to speak to these Sisters in religious habit. At one point, “a group of young female partygoers” came by, and two of the Sisters “invited them to go to St Patrick’s and light a candle and offer a prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. I watched as, minutes later, arm-in-arm with the Sisters, this noisy group of young women, dressed for a nightclub rather than a church service, entered St Patrick’s. Soon after, that same group was kneeling in prayer at the front of the church. And in the candlelight, I noticed it was not just prayers that were offered, but also tears.”
