Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXII, Issue 3, 21 January 1904, Page 31

Friends at Court

QLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK'S CALENDAR January 24, Sunday.— Third Sunday after Epiphany. St. Timothy, Bishop and Martyr. 25, Monday.— Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle. „ 26, Tuesday.— St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr. 27, Wednesday.— St. Vitalian, Pope and Confessor. „ 28, Thursday.— St. John Chrysostom, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church. „ 29, Friday.— St. Francis de Sales, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor of the Church. 30, Saturday.— St. Felix IV., Pope and Confessor. St. Timothy, Bishop and Martyr. St. Timothy was a disciple of St. Paul. He was Bishop of Ephesus, and martyr, and died in 97. Born at Lystra, Lyaconia ; attached himself about the year 51 to St. Paul, who associated him in all his apostolic labors' ; became the first Bishop of Ephesus in 65, where, being opposed to the celebration of a feast in honor of Diana, he was stoned to death. We have two Epistles of St. Paul to Timothy. Conversion of St. Paul, Apostle. St. Paul was born at Tarsus, of Jewish parents, and studied in Jerusalem, at the feet of Gamaliel. While still a young man he held the clothes of those who stoned the proto-martyr Stephen ; and in his- restless xeal he pressed on to Damascus, • breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of Christ.' But near Damascus a light struck him to the earth. He heard a voice which said : ' Why persecutist thou Me ? ' lie saw the form of Him Who had been crucified for his sins, and then for three days he saw nothing more. He awoke from his trance another man— a new creature in Jesus Christ. He left Damascus for a long retreat in Arabia, and then at the call of God, he carried the Gospel to the uttermost limits of the then-known world ; and for years he lived and labored with no thought but the thought of Christ crucified ; no desire but to spend, and be spent for Him. He became the Apostle of the Gentiles, whom he had been taught to hate ; and wished himself anathema for his own countrymen, who sought his life. Perils by land and sea could not damp his courage, nor toil and suffering and age dull the tenderness of his heart. At last he gave blood for blood. In his yoffth he had imbibed the false zeal of the Pharisees at Jerusalem, the holy city of the former dispensation. With St. Peter he consecrated Rome, our holy city, by his martyrdom, and poured into its Church all his doctrine with all his blood. St. Polycarp, Bishop and Martyr. St Polycarp was Bishop of Smyrna. He was the immediate contemporary and friend of St. Ignatius, but nothing certain is known as to his origin or the place of his birth Irenaeus, his disciple, tells us that he was instructed by the Apostle St. John, and appointed by him Bishop "of Smyrna. About the middle of the second century he lourneved to "Rome to consult with Pope Anicetus regarding the time of Easter. On this occasion he brought back to the Church many who had been led away by the Gnostics, Valentine and Marcion. It is recorded that on meeting Marcion in the streets of Rome, when the latter asked whether he knew him, he rep 1 led that he knew ' the first-born of Satan.' He was close on a hundred years old when he died the death of a martyr by the sword— having been miraculously preser\ed from death by fire— under Marcus Aurelius, about 166, or, according to others, about 155 or 156. Of his letters, which St. Polycarp, according to the testimony of St Irenaeus, wrote to the neighboring Churches and to particular persons, we possess only that to the Philippaans, whose authenticity is vouched for by Irenaeus and JRusebius, and by the fact that it was publicly read in the churches, and that its subject is quite in harmony with the doctrine of the Apostles and the circumstances of the time of the author.