October 25, 2022: SS. CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA

October 25, 2022: COMMEMORATION OF SS. CHRYSANTHUS AND DARIA, MARTYRS

I will give to My saints a place of honour in the kingdom of My Father, saith the Lord.
(1st antiphon of the 2nd Nocturn for martyrs)

Prayer (Collect).

May the prayers, O Lord, we beseech thee, of thy holy Martyrs Chrysanthus and Daria, be assisting to us; that we may be happily sensible of the effects of their charity, whose memories we honour on this festival. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

Chrysanthus was united, in his confession of our Lord, with her whom he had won to Christianity and to the love of the angelic virtue. Our forefathers had a great veneration for these two martyrs, who having lived together in holy virginity, were together buried alive in a sand-pit at Rome for refusing to honour the false gods…

The following is the liturgical legend of the feast.

Chrysanthus and Daria were husband and wife, noble by birth, and still more by their faith, which Daria had received together with Baptism through her husband’s persuasion. At Rome they converted an immense multitude to Christ, Daria instructing the women and Chrysanthus the men. On this account the prefect Celerinus arrested them, and handed them over to the tribune Claudius, who ordered his soldiers to bind Chrysanthus and put him to the torture. But all his bonds were loosed, and the fetters which were put upon him were broken.

They then wrapped him in the skin of an ox and exposed him to a burning sun; and next cast him, chained hand and foot, into a very dark dungeon; but his chains were broken, and the prison filled with a brilliant light. Daria was dragged to a place of infamy; but at her prayer God defended her from insult by sending a lion to protect her. Finally, they were both led to the sand-pits on the Salarian Way, where they were thrown into a pit and covered with a heap of stones; and thus they together won the crown of martyrdom.

Another account of Ss. Chrysanthus and Daria.

(In the Third Century)

Chrysanthus and Daria were strangers who came from the east to Rome, the first from Alexandria, the second from Athens, as the Greeks tell us in their Menæa. They add that Chrysanthus, after having been espoused to Daria, persuaded her to prefer a state of perpetual virginity to that of marriage, that they might more easily, with perfect purity of heart, trample the world under their feet, and accomplish the solemn consecration they had made of themselves to Christ in baptism. The zeal with which they professed the faith of Christ distinguished them in the eyes of the idolaters; they were accused, and, after suffering many torments, finished their course by a glorious martyrdom, according to their acts in the reign of Numerian: Baillet thinks rather in the persecution of Valerian, in 237. Several others who, by the example of their constancy, had been moved to declare themselves Christians, were put to death with them. St. Gregory of Tours says, that a numerous assembly of Christians, who were praying at their tomb soon after their martyrdom, were, by order of the prefect of Rome, walled up in the cave, and buried alive. Ss. Chrysanthus and Daria were interred on the Salarian Way, with their companions, whose bodies were found with theirs in the reign of Constantine the Great. This part of the catacombs was long known by the name of the cemetery of Ss. Chrysanthus and Daria. Their tomb was decorated by Pope Damasus, who composed an epitaph in their honour. Their sacred remains were translated by Pope Stephen VI in 866, part into the Lateran basilic, and part into the church of the twelve apostles. This at least is true of the relics of their companions. Those of Ss. Chrysanthus and Daria had been translated to the abbey of Prom, in the diocess of Triers, in 842, being a gift of Sergius II. In 844, they were removed to the abbey of St. Avol, or St. Novor, in the diocess of Metz.

Taken from: The Liturgical Year - Time after Pentecost, Vol. V, Edition 1910;
The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Vol. II; and
The Divine Office for the use of the Laity, Volume II, 1806.

Ss. Chrysanthus and Daria, pray for us.