http://www.zenit.org/article-12975?

l=english Go MAY JUN MAR

🗔 ⍰❎
11 captures 07 f🐦
7 Jun 2011 - 14 Mar 2018 2010 2011 2014 ▾ About this capture

INDEXED ARCHIVE | ADVANCED SEARCH |

THE WORLD SEEN FROM ROME

Zenit? Receive zenit Support zenit Participate FAQ Advertising Contact us

English > See information

Home page
ZE05051002 - 2005-05-10 Go back
Permalink: http://www.zenit.org/article-12975?l=english
Printer-friendly format

PDF format
POPE TO PROCLAIM CRY OF ABITENE MARTYRS
Send this to a friend
"We Cannot Live without Sunday!"
ZENIT by e-mail

BARI, Italy, MAY 10, 2005 (Zenit.org).- On his first trip outside the province of Rome, Benedict ZENIT in RSS

XVI will make known to the world the message left by the martyrs of Abitene: "We cannot live Give the gift of ZENIT
without Sunday." Spread ZENIT
Send your news or
The martyrs' message is the theme of the 24th Italian National Eucharistic Congress, to be held press releases
Comment on this
in Bari May 21-29. The Pope will preside at the closing Mass, confirmed the Vatican. article
Reprint permission
Martyred in 303, the Christians lived in Abitene, a city of the Roman province called "Africa
Proconsularis," today's Tunis. They were victims of Emperor Diocletian's persecution, initiated
after years of relative calm.
SUPPORT
The emperor ordered that "the sacred texts and holy testaments of the Lord and the divine
ZENIT
NOW!
Scriptures be found, so that they could be burnt; the Lord's basilicas were to be pulled down; and
the celebration of sacred rites and holy reunions of the Lord were to be prohibited" (Acts of the
WHY
Martyrs, I), explained the organizers of the eucharistic congress.
SUPPORT
ZENIT?
Disobeying the emperor's orders, a group of 49 Christians of Abitene (among them Senator
Dativus, the priest Saturninus, the virgin Victoria, and the reader Emeritus) gathered weekly in
one of their homes to celebrate Sunday Mass. RELATED INFORMATION

Cardinal: Pope Won't Attend

Taken by surprise during one of the meetings in Ottavio Felice's home, they were arrested and Quebec Conference
taken to Carthage to Proconsul Anulinus to be interrogated.
Aiming to Stoke Eucharistic
Fervor in Canada
When the Proconsul asked them if they kept the Scriptures in their homes, the martyrs answered
Cardinal: Quebec Will
courageously that "they kept them in their hearts," revealing that they did not wish to separate Complement Aparecida
faith from life.
"Sacramentum Caritatis" and
Liturgical Beauty
"I implore you, Christ, hear me," "I thank you, O God," "I implore you, Christ, have mercy" were
On the Eucharist
exclamations uttered by the martyrs during their torment. Along with their prayers they offered
their lives and asked that their executioners be forgiven. "Sacramentum Caritatis" a New
Step, Aide Says

Among the testimonies, is that of Emeritus, who affirmed fearlessly that he received Christians Eucharist Enables Mandate of
Love, Says Pope
for the celebration. The Proconsul asked him: "Why have you received Christians in your home,
transgressing the imperial dispositions?" The Exhortations of
"Sacramentum Caritatis"

"Sine dominico non possumus" ("We cannot live without Sunday"), answered Emeritus. A Look at "Sacramentum
Caritatis"

"The term 'dominicum' has a triple meaning. It indicates the Lord's day, but also refers to what Pope Pens Exhortation on the
Eucharist
constitutes its content -- his resurrection and presence in the eucharistic event," explained the
congress' organizers. "Sacramentum Caritatis"

Document on Eucharist Synod

The motive of martyrdom "must not be sought in the sole observance of a 'precept,'" as "in that Due March 13
period the Church had not yet established in a formal way the Sunday precept," noted Monsignor Distributing Communion to
Vito Angiuli, pro-vicar of the Archdiocese of Bari-Bitonto, in last Sunday's edition of the Vatican Concelebrants
daily newspaper L'Osservatore Romano. Papal Address to Archbishop of
Canterbury
"Deep down was the conviction that Sunday Mass is a constitutive element of one's Christian Vote Planned on Guidelines for
identity and that there is no Christian life without Sunday and without the Eucharist," he stressed. Holy Communion

This is clearly appreciated, he said, in the "commentary that the writer of the Acts of the Martyrs [ more information ]
made to the question posed by the Proconsul to martyr Felice: 'I am not asking you if you are a
Christian, but if you have taken part in the assembly or if you have a book of the Scriptures," he
stressed.

"O foolish and ridiculous question of the judge!" states the commentary of the acts. "As if a
Christian could be without the Sunday Eucharist, or the Sunday Eucharist could be celebrated
without there being a Christian! Don't you know, Satan, that it is the Sunday Eucharist which
makes the Christian and the Christian that makes the Sunday Eucharist, so that one cannot
subsist without the other, and vice versa?"

"When you hear someone say 'Christian,' know that there is an assembly that celebrates the
Lord; and when you hear someone say 'assembly,' know that a Christian is there," concludes the
quotation.

| More

© Innovative Media, Inc.

Reprinting ZENIT's articles requires written permission from the editor.

Themes: college of cardinals

Indexed key words: eucharist italy

Send this to a friend Comment on this article

Printer-friendly format PDF format

Home

ZENIT by e-mail | ZENIT in rss | ZENIT as a gift | Recommend ZENIT | Help ZENIT
change edition | Terms of use | Send news and press releases | Contact us | Home page
© Innovative Media, Inc.