Lessons 4 - 6 from the Divine Office of St. George, Martyr: Book 2, Epistle 6 from the Epistle to Martyrs and Confessors by St. Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr.
Lessons 4 - 6 from the Divine Office of St. George, Martyr: Book 2, Epistle 6 from the Epistle to Martyrs and Confessors by St. Cyprian, Bishop and Martyr.
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How can I find words to praise you, O valiant Martyrs? Where can I find speech eloquent enough to extol your great-hearted courage and stedfast faith? Ye endured pitiless torment until it was consummated in glory. The tormentors did not wear you out. Nay, rather ye wore out your tormentors. When they gave you no rest from suffering, ye did suffer until ye gained the crown. And the torments, no matter how dread, diminished not the might of your faith, and did but accomplish more quickly the sending home to God of God's own.
They that stood by looked in wonder at your heavenly conflict, that holy battle of God, that spiritual wrestling, that Christ-honouring combat. They saw his servants stand, unshaken in speech, unbroken in spirit, strong in God's strength, naked indeed to the weapons of this world, but nonetheless clothed in the whole armour of God, and equipped with the fiery weapons of faith. There they that were tortured stood bolder than they that tortured them. Their bruised and mangled bodies overcame the instruments of cruelty that bruised and mangled them. The bloody stripes, often laid on, could not beat them down who were such impregnable towers of faith, even when the covering of their bowels was broken, and that which was being tortured in God's servants was no longer a body but a mass of wounds. O glorious blood which flowed in such wise as to put out the fires of persecution, and to quench even the flames and fire of hell!
How noble in the sight of the Lord is such a spectacle! O how precious in the sight of God is the faith and loyalty of his soldiers! As it is written in the Psalms, the Holy Ghost therein both speaking to us and warning us: Right dear in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints. Right dear indeed is that death which, with the price of its own blood, buyeth the life that can never die, and receiveth the crown which is the consummation of its own courage! O how joyful was Christ in that place! How gladly did he, the Keeper of their faith, when he found servants like these, fight and triumph in them! Then did he give to all those that thus believed in him whatever each one believed himself to have received. He it was who was there when they fought. He it was who raised them up to be his warriors, and endued them with might to become champions of his holy Name. For he who once conquered earth in his own Person on our behalf, liveth for ever now to conquer death in the person of each of us.