Ordinary Time
Memorial Red
Pope and Bishop, Martyrs
From Ordo Veri · An essay
Why will we let a heart speak, but not a kidney? On the bodily language of Scripture, and what can disappear when a translation makes it easier.
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The editors
Cornelius, bishop of Rome, died in exile in 253. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, had stood by him when a rival claimed his see, and wrote to him as a brother.
Five years later Cyprian stood before the proconsul of Africa. When the sentence was read, death by the sword, he answered with two words: Deo gratias. Thanks be to God.
He was led out to a field beyond the city. His people spread linen cloths on the ground before him, and he told them to give his executioner twenty-five gold pieces. It was the fourteenth of September, 258.
The Church has never separated the two bishops. Their names stand side by side in the oldest prayer of the Roman Mass.
The 1962 Calendar keeps the same feast today, of the third class, with a commemoration of Saints Euphemia, Lucy and Geminianus. Read the day in the 1962 calendar