Saint of the Day – 22 December – Saint Ischyrion (Died c250) Martyr of Alexandria, Officier of the Imperial Army in Egypt. Also known as – Ischirione
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Alexandria, the holy Martyr, Ischyrion. Because he despised all the cruelties they made him suffer to force him to sacrifice to idols, they transpierced his bowels with a sharp pointed stake and thus put him to death.”
Ischyrion was a subordinate Officer serving under a Magistrate in Egypt. His master commanded him to offer sacrifice to the idols and because he refused to commit that sacrilege, reproached him in the most abusive and threatening language.
Giving way to passion and superstition, the Commanding Officer at length worked himself up to such a degree of frenzy as to run a stake into the entrails of the meek servant of Christ, who by his patient constancy attained to the glory of Martyrdom.
Reflection: It is not a man’s terrestrial condition but his virtue which can make him truly great and truly happy. However lowly a person’s station or circumstances may be, the road to both greatness and happiness, is open to him. And, there is not a servant or slave, whom God will not sustain, if he is enflamed with the laudable ambition of arriving at the summit of Christian perfection. (Rev Fr Alban Butler).
AnaStpaul 