Saint Potamiena

Potamiana was young and of rare beauty. The one she served, having conceived a violent passion for her, pressed her to consent to his infamous desires; but the Sai nt behave la Sainte Young Christian slave martyred in Alexandria. d in such a way as to leave him no hope. He employed a thousand artifices which succeeded no better than promises and threats. Resolved to take revenge, he delivered her to the prefect named Aquila, praying him, however, not to do her any harm if he could determine her to satisfy his passion, and promising him a considerable sum of money in case things turned out as he wished. The repeated efforts of the prefect had no success. Seeing then that Potamiana was unshakeable, he condemned her to various tortures; he then had a cauldron full of boiling pitch prepared, and threatened to throw her into it if she refused any longer to obey her master. The Saint replied to the judge in the following manner: "I conjure you, by the life of the emperor whom you respect, not to allow me to appear naked; order rather that I be lowered little by little into the cauldron with my clothes on, and you will see what patience Jesus Christ, whom you do not know, gives to those who hope in him." The prefect gave the order that was requested of him, and charged one of the guards to execute it.

This guard was named Basilides. He treated Potamiana with every consi deration Basilide Roman guard converted by Saint Potamiana. , and protected her along the way from the insolence of the populace, who insulted her with obscene words. He soon received the reward for his humanity. The Saint told him to take courage, assuring him that after her death she would obtain for him from God the grace of salvation. Scarcely had she finished speaking when they placed her feet in the boiling pitch, and lowered her into it little by little up to the top of her head. It was thus that she consummated her sacrifice. Marcella, her mother, was burned at the same time.

Among those who converted after this double martyrdom was Basilides, to whom Potamienna had promised to show her gratitude once she had been reunited with Jesus Christ. Shortly after the martyrdom of the Saint, the soldiers, his comrades, demanded that he swear by the false gods; which he refused to do, saying that he was a Christian. They first thought he was joking; but, seeing that he persisted in his resolution, they led him to the prefect who had him imprisoned. The Christians who visited him wanted to know the cause of such a sudden change. "Potamienna," he replied to them, "appeared to me in the night, three days after her martyrdom; she placed a crown on my head, telling me that she had obtained for me from the Lord the grace of salvation, and that soon I would be reunited with her in glory." The brothers, filled with joy, regenerated him through baptism. The next day Basilides confessed the faith again before the tribunal of the prefect, and was condemned to be beheaded. He is named in the Roman Martyrology, under June 28, with Saint Potamienna, Saint Plutarch, and his companions.

Paul I, Paul Ier Pope who transferred the relics of Melchiades. a Roman by birth and son of Constantine, succeeded his brother Stephen II, who died in the year 757, on the See of Saint Peter. He was consecrated on May 12 of the same year. Such a succession was unprecedented, but the rare merit of the elect was its sole and unique cause. Raised by Gregory, along with his brother Stephen, in the Lateran Palace, trained in Christian morals and instructed in ecclesiastical sciences, Paul was the man most capable of taking the helm of the Church's affairs after his brother. He petitioned Emperor Constantine Copronymus twice, thro ugh his legates, to Constantin Copronyme Byzantine iconoclast emperor and persecutor. return to the sound doctrine which he had abandoned for heresy; but the hardened prince refused to hear his apostolic voice: he continued to persecute Catholics, acting severely especially against the monks, many of whom took refuge in Italy, far from the persecuting tyrant. Paul received them with kindness, assigned them monasteries and churches provided with sufficient income, in which they could celebrate the holy mysteries in the rite of their homeland.

Whatever time the administration of Church affairs left him, he used to feed the poor of Jesus Christ, to console the sick, to visit prisoners, and to relieve those who were burdened with debt. He built several churches: one in his paternal home in honor of Saint Stephen, pope and martyr; another on the Sacred Way, near the temple of Romulus; and an oratory of the Blessed Virgin, within the precincts of the church of Saint Peter at the Vatican, where he placed a statue of Mary in gilded silver weighing one hundred pounds. In 761, he granted the monastery of Saint Hilary a privilege stating that in the future it would be under the jurisdiction of the Church of Ravenna, with a prohibition against anyone removing it from that authority. He granted another in the same year to the church and monastery he had founded in his paternal home in honor of the popes Saint Stephen, martyr, and Saint Sylvester, confessor. He transferred to the church a portion of the relics he had retrieved from the cemeteries outside Rome, which had been desecrated by the insults of the Lombards. To the monastery, he gave great wealth, with a prohibition against the abbot alienating any of it, and ordered that the monks sing the praises of God seven times a day. Finally, being ripe for heaven, he died in the eleventh year of his pontificate and was buried at the Vatican, in the chapel he had built in honor of the Blessed Virgin. He left the earth to ascend to heaven on June 21, 767. Nevertheless, the Roman Martyrology mentions him under the 23rd of the same month, for reasons unknown to us.

Several of his letters addressed to Pepin, King of the Franks, a re preserved. He give Pépin, roi des Francs King of the Franks whose accession to the throne was supported by Burchard. s thanks to this king, who was so good and who had so well deserved of the Roman Church by taking up its defense against the Lombards; at the same time, he exhorts him to always maintain this patronage.

Proper of Rome; History of Sacred and Ecclesiastical Authors, by Dom Ceillier.