Icons of Englandhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
Some people argue there is no such thing as a shared English culture. They say all those invasions by the Normans and Romans simply left us with a ‘hotch potch’ of other people’s cultures. Paradoxically, this melting pot is what makes England unique. And today’s multicultural communities make this mix even more vibrant and interesting. (Icons of England website)
Mutter... The Romans never invaded "England" (in fact the Victorians were rather smug about the English being descended from the Germanic tribes under
Arminius who anihilated the legions sent to conquer them).
Being on an island and unified much earlier than other European nations England has in point of fact got much better claims to a shared culture than, say France, or Germany.
Still, although I feel they don't much like it, you can vote in favour of the
St George's Cross.
The Christian Catacombs of Rome
Virtual tour of the Roman
Catacombs
Martyrs and Saints are venerated and invoked in the local Churches on their dies natalis, i.e. on the day of their birthday into heaven. It is a constant practice of the Church to meet in liturgical assemblies either in the place of their martyrdom or close to their glorious sepulchres.
" Encouraged by the testimony of Martyrs and Saints, the Church, pilgrim on earth, faces everyday the good battle of faith to share the same crown of glory, and invokes the mercy of the Father, who reveals his power in the weak and gives the defenceless the strength of martyrdom"
Lapsi
The
Catholic Encyclopedia on the "
lapsi": Christians who had apostatised under fear of persecution.
The regular designation in the third century for Christians who relapsed into heathenism, especially for those who during the persecutions displayed weakness in the face of torture, and denied the Faith by sacrificing to the heathen gods or by any other acts. Many of the lapsi, indeed the majority of the very numerous cases in the great persecutions after the middle of the third century, certainly did not return to paganism out of conviction: they simply had not the courage to confess the Faith steadfastly when threatened with temporal losses and severe punishments (banishments, forced labor [smudged in my version]... death), and their sole desire was to preserve themselves from persecution by an external act of apostasy, and to save their property, freedom, and life. The obligation of confessing the Christian Faith under all circumstances and avoiding every act of denial was firmly established in the Church from Apostolic times. The First Epistle of St. Peter exhorts the believers to remain steadfast under the visitations of affliction (i, 6, 7; iv, 16, 17). In his letter to Trajan, Pliny writes that those who are truly Christians will not offer any heathen sacrifices or utter any revilings against Christ. Nevertheless we learn both from "The Shepherd" of Hermas, and from the accounts of the persecutions and martyrdoms, that individual Christians after the second century showed weakness, and fell away from the Faith. The aim of the civil proceedings against Christians, as laid down in Trajan's rescript to Pliny, was to lead them to apostasy. Those Christians were acquitted who declared that they wished to be so no longer and performed acts of pagan religious worship, but the steadfast were punished.
The seed of the Church
The BBC seems bizarrely unable to explain why the case of Abdul Rahman is significant to Christians in a way which straightforward discrimination isn't. A most peculiar episode of Reporting Religion on the World Service featured a solemn Q & A in which two reporters speculated that President Bush particularly objected to execution of Christians in Afghanistan because he felt America had paid for the government there. It seems not to have occurred to anyone that executing Christians who refuse to deny Christ is rather uniquely significant.
So, martyrdom through the ages:
St. PerpetuaScillitan MartyrsFabianAgnesVincent of SaragossaMartyrs of JapanPolycarpThe forty martyrs of SebasteJustinMartyrs of LyonsAlban
