MAY 12TH, SAINTS NEREUS AND ACHILLEUS, ST. DOMITILA, VIRGIN, AND ST. PANCRATIUS, ALL MARTYRS

Month in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Nereus and Achilles were brothers, and both were eunuchs belonging to Flavia Domitilla, who were baptized by Saint Peter, along with her and her mother Plautilla. They had advised Domitilla to consecrate her virginity to God, and on this account Aurelian, to whom she was betrothed, accused them of being Christians. They nobly confessed the faith, and were banished to the island of Ponza. Then they were again put to the torture, and after being scourged, were taken to Terracina. At Terracina, Minutius Rufus tormented them with the rack and with fire, but as they constantly affirmed that having once been baptized by the blessed Apostle Peter, no torture could ever make them sacrifice to idols, they were beheaded. Auspicius, their own disciple and the tutor of Domitilla, took their bodies to Rome, where they were buried on the road to Ardea. The Virgin Flavia Domitilla was a Roman, the niece of the Emperors Titus and Domitian, and was veiled by the blessed Pope Clement. Aurelian, son of the Consul Titus Aurelius, to whom she was betrothed, accused her of being a Christian, and the Emperor Domitian banished her into the island of Ponza, where she long suffered and testified in prison. At length she was taken to Terracina, where she again confessed Christ, and as she seemed ever to grow firmer, the judge, under the Emperor Trajan, caused her chamber to be set on fire, and there Domitilla, with her foster-sisters the maidens Theodora and Euphrosyne, finished the race of faith by grasping the crown of glory, on the 7th day of May. Their bodies were found whole, and were buried by the Deacon Caesarius. This, the twelfth day of May, is that whereon the bodies of Nereus and Achilles, and that of Domitilla, were carried from the Deaconry of St. Hadrian, and laid in the Church which is properly called by the name of these holy martyrs, but formerly by that of “St. Peter's Bandage.” Pancras was the son of a noble family of Phrygia. He came to Rome in the reign of the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian, being then a boy of fourteen years of age. There he was baptized by the Bishop of Rome, and Drought up in the Christian faith. On this account he was soon after taken, and having constantly refused to sacrifice to the gods, he offered his neck to the -executioner with manly courage, and won a glorious crown of martyrdom. The Lady Octavilla took his body by night, embalmed it with precious ointments, and buried it on the Aurelian Way.