Today’s feast commemorates together several saints, who lived at different times and in different countries. Saints Nazarius and Celsus were first century martyrs, whose bodies were found by St. Ambrose in 395. The town of St. Nazaire in France is named after Nazarius. St. Victory I was pope from 189 to 198; he regulated the…

Jesus liked to stay at the house of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, his friends at Bethany when He was in Judea. In one of these visits with which Jesus honored them, St. Luke tells us that St. Martha showed great solicitude to entertain and serve Him. She forgot the privilege of her rank and riches…

They were Persians, but coming to Rome, courageously confessed the faith of Christ in the persecution of Decius in 250. The Christians at Rome did not treat them as strangers but as brethren united to them in the hope of the same blessed country; and after their death carefully deposited their bodies in the house…

Born at Loyola in the Spanish Basque country in 1491, St. Ignatius was of a somewhat fiery and warlike nature so that it was not surprising that he adopted a military career; on being wounded in the leg at the siege of Pampeluna he was obliged to undergo a long convalescence during which the grace…