St. Sabinus was Bishop of Assisi and a holy martyr (early 4th century).
BACKGROUND
The cruel edicts of Emperors Diocletian and Maximian against the Christians, published in 303 AD, brought about the most intense and widespread persecution ever seen in the Roman Empire against the disciples of Christ. Many of the ancient martyrs we continue to honor today suffered during this period. (And yet it is prophesied that an even far worse persecution awaits those who remain faithful to our Lord. It seems clear that time is fast approaching…)
WITNESS TO THE FAITH
According to the records, St. Sabinus was bishop of Assisi (central Italy). He and several of his clergy were apprehended and kept in custody until the governor of Etruria and Umbria arrived to deal with them. His name was Venustianus. As he sat in mock judgment over the holy man, St. Sabinus made a glorious confession of his faith. Veustianus mocked him for worshipping a dead man, but Sabinus responded that Christ had conquered death and risen on the Third day. In response, Venustianus challenged Sabinus to do the same thing. He had St. Sabinus’ hands cut off. He then sought to give the holy bishop further opportunity to “perform a miracle” by inflicting cruel sufferings and torments upon his spiritual children. The deacons Marcellus and Exuperantius were brought forth. They were alternately scourged, beaten with clubs and their flesh finally torn apart with iron hooks. In the interment between each successive and worsening torture, Sabinus was given the choice of ending the tortures by apostatizing or by ‘raising them to life’. Hard as it was to see his faithful sheep suffer, Sabinus kept the faith. Both deacons then expired from the savage brutality.
MIRACLES PROVE THE FAITH
St. Sabinus was then taken to prison. There he was cared for by a woman named Serena. Her child was blind from birth and St. Sabinus cured him of his blindness with the Sign of the Cross. It so happened that Venustianus suffered from a similar ailment and overheard the soldiers speaking of this miracle. Although Venustianus was not blind, he had a ‘weakness of the eyes.’ St. Sabinus prayed for him and cured him of this disease. What a powerful witness of truly loving one’s enemies and praying for those who persecute us! Venustianus thereupon converted. It was such a sincere and whole hearted conversion, that the former governor was willing to undergo martyrdom – he was beheaded for holding fast to the Christian faith. Following his healing, Venustianus freed and gave shelter to St. Sabinus.
MARTYRDOM AND VENERATION
In Rome the Emperor Maximian heard of these strange occurrences. He was infuriated and ordered the tribune of the area, Lucius, to deal with the matter. Lucius stripped Venustianus of all his family’s estate and holdings. He then proceeded to have Venustianus, his wife and his two sons beheaded in the marketplace of Assisi. Lucius was determined to put an end to Sabinus and to not succumb to his ‘spell.’ He refused to meet with him or to judge him fairly. Instead from afar he commanded that Sabinus be transferred to the city of Spoletto and there, far from his flock, be beaten to death. The sentence was carried out and this saintly bishop earned the martyr’s crown.
St. Sabinus was buried a mile from Spoletto. His relics were later transferred to Faenza. St. Gregory the Great speaks of a chapel built in his honor near Fermo, in which he placed some of his relics which the pope had obtained from Chrysanthus, then Bishop of Spoletto. St. Sabinus and his companions are remembered today in the Roman Martyrology.
REFLECTION
From Butler’s Lives of the Saints: “How powerfully do the martyrs cry out to us by their example, exhorting us to despise a false and wicked world! What have all the philosophers and princes found by all their researches and efforts in quest of happiness in it? They only fell from one precipice into another. [Consider Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Sartre, Darwin, Jung and so many others…] Departing from its true center, they sought happiness in every other object, but in their pursuits only wandered further and further from it. A soul can find no rest in creatures. How long shall we give false names to objects round about us, and imagine a virtue in them which they have not? Is not the experience of near six thousand years enough to undeceive us? Let the light of heaven, the truths of the gospel, shine upon us, and the illusions of the world and of our senses [the flesh] will disappear. But were the goods and evils of this world real, they can have no weight if they are compared with eternity. They are contemptible, because transient and momentary. In this light the martyrs viewed them. [Is this not also the Christmas lesson taught to us by the Divine Infant? Although the King of kings, He is willing to be born with nothing – in all humility, poverty, cold, and hiddenness. His kingdom is not of this world and with all His power and love He calls us to set our sights upon the goods of His kingdom and not of this fading, passing world.]