Saints Rufina and Secunda

"Daughter of noble race, who could have led you to take such a low condition? Do you then prefer to live in the bonds of captivity rather than to lead a pleasant and free life with a husband?"

Rufina replied: "This temporal captivity preserves one from eternal captivity, and temporal bonds break the bonds of those other chains which will never be untied."

The prefect: "Leave aside these vain old wives' tales, and sacrifice to the immortal gods, so that you may then attain the happy possession of your fiancé."

Rufina: "You wish to persuade me of things that are useless, and you promise me another that is highly doubtful. For you tell me that I must sacrifice to idols, that is to say, that I must lose myself for eternity; and after that, take a husband, thus sacrificing the glory of my virginity. And after these proposals, so harsh for me and so opposed to my views, you promise me that I will reach old age in joy and pleasure, you who are so uncertain of life that you do not even know if you will see the day of tomorrow."

The prefect: "Put an end to these speeches, for the instruments of torture are ready. I believe, therefore, that I must exhort you to taste better counsel, to renounce these vain superstitions, and not to lose the time you can still enjoy."

Rufina: "I see that you are correcting your first statements a little. Indeed, when you speak of the time I have left to live, you imply that the life of man is not at all assured, and it is true that nothing is more uncertain. But I embrace this life

which is summed up in eternity, and which promises nothing uncertain to those who love it. It is this life that Christ, the master of truth, taught. When the hardened hearts of the Jews opposed only doubt or incredulity to his teachings, he brought the dead out of their tombs before them, ordering them to bear witness to the truth of his doctrine, so that those who did not want to believe his words might add faith to his miracles."

The prefect Junius Donatus then said to her: "Leave aside all these vain speeches and marry your fiancé."

Count Archelau replied: "This girl is guilty of sacrilege, she cannot contract a matrimonial union."

Rufina replied: "As you say, I cannot take the path of marriage; for, if I desired to become the wife of a man, it would not be sincerely that I have vowed my virginity to Christ, Son of God. That is why, listen, Count Archelau: seek someone else whom your threats might inspire with dread: as for me, they will be able neither to take from me the palm of virginity, nor to separate me from the love of Christ, Son of God."

The Prefect had Secun da brou Seconde Roman virgin and martyr of the 3rd century, sister of Rufina. ght in and ordered a harsh scourging to be inflicted upon her sister Rufina in her presence; for he hoped, in his sacrilege, that Secunda, yielding to fear, would give in to his persuasions. But she, seeing her sister being beaten with rods, began to cry out to the judge: "What are you doing, O perverse man and contemner of the kingdom of heaven? Why do you glorify my sister and dishonor me?"

The Prefect said to her: "From what I see, you are even more foolish than your sister."

Secunda: "My sister is not a fool, and I do not reason wrongly either; but we are both Christians. And since we confess the Lord Christ together, it is just that we be scourged together. The glory of the Christian name increases with the blows of the rods, and it counts as many eternal crowns as it will receive wounds here below."

The Prefect: "Exhort your sister, then, to surrender, so that you may be delivered from this infamy, and that you may be returned to your fiancés in all the glory of your nobility."

Secunda: "You torment yourself with vain terrors, and you worry about frivolous promises. As for us, we are so intimately enamored by the charms of virginity that we would much rather suffer death than lose it."

The Prefect: "And if this virginity is taken from you against your will, what will you do then with Christ?"

Secunda: "The virginity pleasing to Christ, the Son of God, consists in a pure heart. A virgin cannot lose her integrity as long as she does not consent to abandon purity: for violence produces suffering, and suffering prepares the palm of victory. You have taken up your weapons to obtain our consent, to constrain us to want what we do not want, and to take pleasure in things that we reject. Use, then, fire, whips, and the sword upon us: as many torments as you inflict upon us, so many subjects of glory I shall count in our martyrdom; and all the violence you use against us will be for us so many crowns. For it is a great glory for us to endure all kinds of pains for the love of Christ; and one cannot say that she has been defiled who, strong in the integrity of her soul, has lost that of her body through violence: it is by consent that one is judged before God, who loves the will when it is pure."

The Prefect ordered them to be locked in a dark place and for foul smoke to be introduced there. But after his orders were carried out, this smoke transformed into a perfume that delightfully pleased the sense of smell. The darkness of the prison had given way to a luminous day. The order then came to take them from there and lock them in the baths of their house. They were immediately thrown into a bathtub filled with boiling water. Two hours later, men returned to remove their bodies; but they found the bathtub cold and all the water evaporated. The Prefect, having learned of this, was astonished. Then he commanded that they be taken on a boat to the middle of the Tiber Tibre River into which the saints were thrown to be drowned. , and that they be cast into the water with a large stone attached to the necks of the two sisters. They remained submerged in this way for about half an hour; then these two virgins, whom they had thrown without clothes into the middle of the river, appeared on the bank, dressed in entirely dry garments, exalting the triumph of the Lord, and singing the glory of Christ. When this news was brought to the Prefect, he said to Count Archilaus: 'The girls you brought me are triumphing over us through the effects of magic art, or else holiness truly reigns within them. I return them to you as you delivered them to me; I leave it to you to either have them undergo their sentence or to release them.'

Archelaus had them led into a forest, on the Via Cornelia, ten miles from Rome, on a piece of land called Buxo, and he ordered that both be beheaded there, and that their bodies be left without burial, exposed to the teeth of wolves.

But the grace of the Lord, which had not failed those who believed in Christ, did not abandon them after their death either. A matron named Plautilla, on whose lands their ma rtyrdom h Plautilla Roman matron and convert who interred the bodies of the saints. ad been consummated, saw them in a vision, adorned with rich jewels and lying on a bed of rest; they said to her: "Plautilla, put an end to your idolatry and renounce your disbelief; believe in Christ; then come into your orchard, and you will find our bodies: you shall bury them in the same place where you discovered them." Plautilla, rising immediately, went to the indicated spot; having found the bodies of the holy virgins there without any foul odor and without any lesion, she prostrated herself, she believed, and had a tomb erected for the virgins of Christ.

The stone with which they were thrown into the Tiber is attributed to these Saints.

## CULT AND RELICS.

A chapel was built over their tomb, to which Pope Symmachus subst ituted a larg pape Simmacus Pope defended by Apollinaris. e church. A town was formed in this place which was called Silva-Candida, and wh ich became an Silva-Candida City and episcopal see formed around the tomb of the saints. episcopal see; but the church having been destroyed by the barbarians in the 13th century, the bishopric was united to that of Porto. In 1120, the relics of the holy Martyrs were transported to the Lateran Ba silica, near the Ba basilique de Latran Site of proclamation and architectural restoration. ptistery of Constantine.

The entire body of a Saint Rufina, virgin and martyr, was kept in the abbey church of Schwarzach, of the Order of Saint Benedict, in the diocese of Strasbourg. It is unknown if this is the Saint of whom we speak. The feast of the translation of her relics was celebrated there on August 27.

The body of Saint Rufina is now under the altar of the church dedicated to her and which bears her name in the Trastevere district. The French Ladies of the Sacred Heart occupy the house that is attached to this church.

We have substituted the true acts of our holy Martyrs, slightly abridged, for the account of Fr. Giry.