Saint Julian the Hospitaller
by VP
Posted on Thursday January 09, 2025 at 12:00AM in Saints
Saint Julian the Hospitaller with Christ the Redeemer (1451) by Andrea del Castagno
ALMSGIVING.--St. Julian had dedicated himself to God; but being compelled to marry in order to content his family, he was careful to inspire his young spouse, Basilissa, with an esteem for the virtue of continence equal to that which possessed his own soul, and on the day of their union they both pronounced the vow of which Mary and Joseph had given the example. They superadded a vow to devote both their life and property to the comforting of pilgrims, of the poor and the sick, and turned their abode into a hospital, becoming the first ministering servants thereof. Such great charity and devotion could not fail to attract the attention of the persecutors of the Christian faith. Basilissa was the first who had to encounter the ordeal; but she outlived the trial, and died peacefully in the midst of her good works. Julian, being denounced in his turn, underwent martyrdom some years afterwards, at Antioch, with many confessors of the faith, on the 9th day of January, 313. A miraculous cure effected by him at the very moment when he was to suffer failed to bend the minds of his judges, and he was beheaded.
MORAL REFLECTION.-In imitation of the holy martyr, we should know how to put in practice the injunction of the prophet Daniel, "Redeem your sins by almsgiving, and your iniquities by mercy to the poor."-(Dan. iv. 24.) (Pictorial half hours with the saints. by abbe Auguste François Lecanu)
