Saint Marcellina

Saint Athanasius the Great. We provide the account of the life of this illustrious virgin all the more willingly, as we have as a witness to what we say one of the most famous doctors of the Church, Saint Ambrose, her brother. Their father was also named Ambrose. He was Prefect of the Praetorium of the Gauls and considered in the empire for his positions and especially for the elevation and breadth of h is mind. M Marcelline Elder sister of Saint Ambrose, consecrated to virginity. arcellina, his daughter, came into the world under the reign of the great Constantine; she was the eldest of Saint Ambrose an d another br Urane Satyre Brother of Marcellina and Ambrose. other, named Uranius Satyrus, who is mentioned in the Sacred Annals on September 17th. History does not tell us the name of her mother; we only know that our Saint received a very good education from her, and that she lived with this pious lady in a country house far from all the noise and relations of the world. The Holy Spirit inspired this young virgin early on with the resolution to have no other spouse than Jesus Christ; she refused the numerous and noble suitors who offered themselves to her for marriage; she led the holiest life with a pious companion who had the same purpose and benefited from her examples. After the death of her father, she followed her mother who left the Gauls and retired to Rome where the ir f Rome Birthplace of Maximian. amily was. She even made it a pleasure and a duty, as the eldest, to take charge, in some way, of the education of her two brothers, Satyrus and Ambrose, the great bishop of Milan, of whom we have already spoken. She took great care to instruct them in all the principles of the Christian religion and to inspire in them the maxims of the most solid piety, similar in this to the illustrious Macrina, who did the same for her brother, Saint Basil, and then for her other brother, Saint Peter of Sebaste. It is no small glory for our Saint to have been, for some years, the director of Ambrose, her brother, and to have taken care of his education in his youth. This disciple gave her all the satisfaction possible; he profited so well from the lessons and the example of this holy sister, that he conceived and kept all his life, following her example, a very particular esteem for virginity, never tiring of publishing, on every occasion, the advantages, the rewards, and the glory of virgins. One only needs to open his writings to see the great praises he gives them, and especially what he composed in the three books entitled: De Virginibus De Virginibus Work by Saint Ambrose dedicated to his sister. , which he addresses to the holy virgin of whom we speak.

Marcellina could have, as many others did at that time, lived in piety and virginity while wearing the clothes of the world; nevertheless, being more generous and more learned in the ways of perfection, she left the world and publicly received the veil on Christmas Day in the year 332, from the hands of Po pe Liberius pape Libère Pope whose name is associated with the papal catalogue compiled by Philocalus. .

The ceremony took place in the Church of Saint Peter, in the presence of a great multitude of people. The Pope exhorted her to attach herself firmly to Jesus Christ, whom she chose as her spouse, to live in the perpetual practice of abstinence, mortification, silence, and prayer, and to always bear witness in the church to the vivid sentiments of respect with which she ought to be imbued. He cited to her the example of the page of Alexander the Great, who, so as not to disturb the solemnity of a pagan sacrifice, preferred to let his hand be burned to the bone rather than shake off the molten wax that had fallen upon it.

Saint Ambrose, who preserved this discourse for us, adds that it was less than what Marcelline practiced. She was not content with fasting every day until evening, but would also pass several days without eating, and when one tried to persuade her to leave the holy readings she was engaged in to come and take some nourishment, she would answer what the Savior had answered to the tempter: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God." This holy Doctor also teaches us that, when she was obliged to take some food, she chose the most common and least delicate things, so that, finding nothing that could flatter her taste, fasting would become more agreeable to her. He adds that she never drank anything but water, that she only took her rest when she found herself overcome by sleep, that she spent her vigils reading and praying, and that her prayers were usually accompanied by her tears.

Saint Ambrose, fearing that these extraordinary austerities would cause this beautiful model of Christian virgins, this dear object of his pious affection, to disappear from the earth too soon, begged her to moderate her zeal; he told her that, having publicly consecrated herself to her God, she should serve as a model for others; that, for this, she must present them with imitable examples.

Our Saint did not live, as do the virgins who have taken the veil today, in a community, but in a private house with the companion of whom we have spoken. When her brother Saint Ambrose was named Archbishop of Milan, she undoubtedly thought of go Milan Italian city where the saint has an altar and an annual feast. ing to live with him, in order to benefit from his lessons and his examples. But higher reasons made her resist this desire. She compensated for it through a frequent exchange of letters; one only has to open the writings of Saint Ambrose, and one will judge, by the letters he wrote to his sister Marcelline, what esteem he held for her. He does not hesitate to call her Saint in several places, and, knowing her penetration and the interest she took in the cause of the Church, our holy prelate took pleasure, in writing to her, in giving her an account of the battles that were waged against him by the heretics, and of the victories he won over the Arians; for her part, this pious sister ardently solicited this great bishop to in Ariens Heretical group opposed by Saint Ambrose. form her of the happy successes that came to his Church, to give glory to God for them; or of the adversities and misfortunes, to pray to heaven to avert or moderate them. Saint Ambrose had so much confidence in his sister's judgment that he even sent her copies of the sermons he had delivered in public, so that they might serve her and that she might tell him what she thought of them.

When their brother Satyrus died, whom they cherished tenderly for his excellent natural qualities and for the signal piety that everyone admired in him, Saint Ambrose delivered his funeral oration. In this discourse, after having explained to the people what they were losing in the death of this illustrious brother, he said to his listeners "that it is true that there remained to him a holy sister, worthy of all veneration for the integrity of her conduct, who always sustained herself equally by the probity of her morals, and whose external actions corresponded to the holiness of her hidden life": Superest soror sancta, integritate venerabilis, æqualis moribus, non impar officiis. These words alone are a beautiful eulogy of the virgin Marcellina. At the end of the funeral discourse, the holy doctor, after having addressed his dear brother Satyrus, whom he mourned, and having testified to the pain he felt at his death, adds: "What will become of our holy sister now? It is true that the fear of offending Divine Providence, which has disposed of Satyrus, obliges her to moderate the sorrow she has for the loss of so dear a brother; nevertheless, her love of piety makes her regret a brother whose advice was so useful to her for loving God." Licet fietum sermone suspendat, in oratione renovet. "One sees her," he says, "prostrate on the ground, embracing with all her heart the tomb of the deceased, overwhelmed with weariness, a prey to a holy sadness, spending days and nights in prayer." And, as if this great prelate wanted to answer the thought of those who might imagine that a virgin as pious and as submissive to the orders of God should not shed so many tears for the death of a brother, he pronounces this beautiful sentence at the end of his discourse: Flere in oratione virtutis est: "it is permitted for a virtuous person to weep before God."

Saint Marcellina sometimes interrupted her solitary life to visit her brother Ambrose in Milan, either to confer with him regarding the means to attain the highest perfection, or to render him the services he could expect from such a sister.

Having learned, in the year 378, that he was tormented by a cruel and very long illness, shortly after he had sent her the work entitled: De Virginibus, Marcellina made a journey from Rome to Milan to assist him. It is also known that she went to assist her brother Satyrus in his final illness. She undertook yet another journey out of a motive of charity, regarding a Christian virgin of Verona named Indicia, who had resided in Rome with the same S aint Ma Indicie Virgin of Verona defended by Marcellina. rcellina, and who had been accused and condemned before the local bishop by an unjust sentence, from which she found herself obliged to appeal to the tribunal of Saint Ambrose as metropolitan. Little is known about the rest of our Saint's life; it cannot be said how long she lived after the last journey she made from Rome to Milan to render service to the virgin of whom we have just spoken. What is certain is that she survived her two brothers, Satyrus and Saint Ambrose. The day of her feast is marked on July 17 in the Roman Martyrology.

It appears that she had gone to settle in Milan and that she ended her days there. Baronius asserts that she ended them in Rome; but he is contested on this point by Milanese writers and by several others. What is certain is that her tomb can be seen in the Ambros ian basilica, with he basilique ambrosienne Burial place of Saint Marcellina in Milan. r statue in white marble, and that her relics are preserved in this church. The martyrology also indicates Milan as the place of this Saint's death.

She is represented: 1st with a small cross in her hand, following the Greek custom which thus characterizes persons consecrated to God, and a life occupied with meditation and penance; 2nd receiving the veil from the hands of Pope Liberius.

Acta Sanctorum; Godescard; Baillet.