Hi! I’m Meredith, and I only sometimes do this banner thing, which is probably really confusing for the people who read this regularly (bless you). Earlier this week, I described my family like this: “We’re the family at the 9 a.m. Mass with the five blond kids who look like we’re doing ‘okay.’” I’d love to hear your stories about kids being kids in church!
Today is the feast of Saint Sebastian.
He’s an early Roman martyr (died c. 284 A.D.), so the details have been both obscured and glorified by the passage of time, but it may have gone something like this : Sebastian, a devout Christian, enlisted in the army of the Roman Emperor Diocletian. Although Sebastian was an excellent soldier, his real purpose was to aid his fellow Christians (whose existence was—erm—unappreciated by the current command). This all went well until his real religious leanings were discovered. The enraged emperor (Maximian—Diocletian had business on the other side of the empire) ordered the soldier sentenced to death by arrows, telling his archers to hit everywhere except the heart and the stomach. He wanted Sebastian’s death to be as slow and excruciating as possible. The experience was slow and excruciating but wasn’t fatal—Sebastian’s (almost lifeless) body was abandoned by the archers and then found by other Christians, who nursed him back to health. Upon revival, Sebastian decided the first thing he needed to do was… go back for more. He marched to Maximian’s palace and told him to stop persecuting Christians. Maximian then ordered Sebastian clubbed to death right in front of him (it worked that time).
Even though it wasn’t the arrows that killed him, the primary image of Saint Sebastian is, undeniably, the one where he’s filled with arrows. He’s the patron of athletes (either because archery is a sport or because his ordeal required endurance—I need to get more proactive about my understanding of what patronage is and how it works). He’s also the patron of porcupines and pincushions (I’m joking!). What we know is that Saint Sebastian gave his life for his faith, and he did so willingly and joyfully.
My kids love gory Saint stories like his, so I found several bamboo skewers to set around the table along with their forks. Just for today, the skewer is a utensil, too. Celebrating Saint Sebastian’s feast with skewers or kabobs is another idea from Kendra Tierney (Catholic All Year Compendium, Ignatius). In the spirit of my recent promise to not expect too much of myself on these feast days, I’m not changing the menu, I’m just adding something fun and low effort. On Saturday mornings, we have biscuits and gravy. So this should be interesting.
Any kind of celebration of the Saints, especially the martyrs, involves this celebratory way of looking at death. Is this weird? It’s totally weird. But what it points to is this: we do not believe that death gets the last word. Instead, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). Christ will win the final victory. So the death of any martyr—and the death of Christ himself, for that matter—is not defeat at all.
And this wild joy breaks through when celebrating the feast of any of the Saints, even the totally bizarre ones, or the ones who died awful deaths, or the ones who suffered terrible pain. Back when we were in RCIA, I chose Saint Jane of Chantal to be my confirmation Saint. One of Saint Jane’s patronages is forgiveness, which is what drew me to her. I needed some help in that arena, and Saint Jane had the pedigree. She was a wife and mother of four children who lived in France during the late 16th century. On a hunting trip, her husband was accidentally shot by another member of the party. And Jane took it upon herself to forgive the man. It was gradual—first, she waved to him in the street, then, she invited his family to her house for dinner, and so on. Ultimately, the man asked her to be godmother to one of his children, and she said yes. I used to think that I was trying to be like Saint Jane. I’ve realized that I also need to be more like the man who shot her husband—forgiveness must be accepted before it can be extended.
Saint Jane’s feast is on August 12. On that day last year, I happened to remember this when I glanced at the calendar while I was in the kitchen. I hadn’t planned anything. But French Dip sandwich meat was already cooking in the InstantPot. That afternoon, a package arrived with some “just because” presents—plastic guns that fired foam bullets. Perfect.
I’m not saying that we can skip over the horror or the injustice or the pain. But the stories of the Saints do not end there. They end in the embrace of Christ. What remains is joy: “‘Oh death, where is thy sting? O, grave, where is thy victory?’” (1 Corinthians 15:55). There is nothing He cannot redeem. There is nothing beyond His reach—in their stories or in ours.
Finally being able to forgive someone is one of the best feelings in the world!
Did I just look up whether porcupines have a patron saint? Sure did (apparently all the animals just get St. Francis, HOWEVER I did find a reference to St. Jerome as the “porcupine saint” because he could be a bit prickly 😆).