FEBRUARY 21 – ST. SEVERIANUS, MARTYR, BISHOP.

• St. Peter Damian, Bishop, Doctor of the Church. (Current)

IN the reign of Marcian and St. Pulcheria, the council of Chalcedon, which condemned the Eutychian heresy, was received by St. Euthymius, and by a great part of the monks of Palestine. But Theodosius, an ignorant Eutychian monk, and a man of a most tyrannical temper, under the protection of the empress Eudoxia, widow of Theodosius the Younger, who lived at Jerusalem, perverted many among the monks themselves, and having obliged Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, to withdraw, unjustly possessed himself of that important see, and in a cruel persecution which he raised, filled Jerusalem with blood; then, at the head of a band of soldiers, he carried desolation over the country. Many, however, had the courage to stand their ground. No one resisted him with greater zeal and resolution than Severianus, bishop of Scythopolis, and his recompense was the crown of martyrdom; for the furious soldiers seized his person, dragged him out of the city, and massacred him in the latter part of the year 452, or in the beginning of the year 453.

REFLECTION: With what floods of tears can we sufficiently be wail so grievous a misfortune; and implore the divine mercy in behalf of so many souls! How ought we to be alarmed at the consideration of so many dreadful examples of God’s inscrutable judgments, and tremble for ourselves! “Let him who stands beware lest he fall. Hold fast what thou hast,’ says the oracle of the Holy Ghost to every one of us, “lest another bear away thy crown.”

WORD OF THE DAY

SYNOD. An assembly of ecclesiastics, not necessarily all bishops, gathered together under ecclesiastical authority to discuss and decide on matters pertaining to doctrine, discipline, or liturgy under their jurisdiction. The words synod and council were for centuries synonymous, and the terms are still interchangeable. At the Council of Trent, synod referred to a diocesan assembly, which the council decreed should be held once every year. In the Code of Canon Law, diocesan synods were legislated to be held every ten years at least, at which only a bishop was to have legislative authority, everyone else being only a consultor. (Etym. Latin synodus,from Greek sunodos, meeting: sun-, together + hodos, road, way, journey.)

Modern Catholic Dictionary, Fr. John Hardon SJ (Get the real one at Eternal Life — don’t accept abridged or edited version of this masterpiece!)

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