Saint of the Day – 26 December – Saint Theodore the Sacristan (Died c560).
Also known as – Theodorus.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Rome, St Theodore, Sacristan of St Peter’s Church, who is mentioned by the blessed Pope, St Gregory.”
That which is known of Theodore’s life comes from St Gregory the Great’s Dialogues, where he appears in Book III, Chapter 24. There, St Gregory records that Theodore once rose very early in the morning in order to tend the lamps which hung at the door of the Basilica. He was upon a ladder refilling the oil, when Saint Peter appeared to him vested in a white stole. The saint asked him, “Theodore, why have you risen so early?” a nd immediately disappeared. Theodore was struck by great anxiety and in his shock was unable to arise from his bed for the next several days.
St Gregory goes on, saying that the apparition was a sign of Saint Peter’s favour towards Theodore: “The blessed Apostle wished to show those who served him that whatever they did for his honour, he always and unceasingly observed it, for the recompense of their reward.”
When the interlocutor of the Dialogues, Peter the Deacon, questions why Theodore would have been shocked by having seen Saint Peter, St Gregory replies with a citation from Scripture in which the Prophet Daniel is likewise shocked into illness by a troubling vision: “And I Daniel languished, and was sick for some days: […] and I was astonished at the vision and there was none that could interpret it” (Daniel 8:27).
St Gregory mentions Theodore alongside another saintly Sacristan of St Peter’s, St Abundius.
Theodore died in c560. His body is believed to have been laid to rest in the Basilica where he served, although the precise location is not known.
AnaStpaul 