Saint Peter Lampsacus
by VP
Posted on Wednesday May 15, 2024 at 12:00AM in Saints
HORROR OF UNCHASTITY. It was at Lampsacus, a town of the Hellespont, during the persecution of the emperor Decius, that a youth, named Peter, was denounced to the proconsul as a Christian. He was ordered to burn incense in honour of the goddess Venus. "Would you have me," replied the generous confessor of the faith, "honour her whom you yourselves acknowledge to be dishonoured by her vices? The actions you impute to her strike me with disgust, and are punishable even by your own laws. No! I despise a woman of bad life, and I honour only the One God, my Lord Jesus Christ, the God made man for the expiation of the sins of the world." The proconsul caused torture to be applied, which racked, his limbs while wrenching them with most cruel grasp; but, at length, seeing his perseverance and the joy he manifested to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ, he shortened his torments by causing his head to be struck off.
MORAL REFLECTION. -How is it that, while despising
vice, the worldly-minded hold in respect the persons of the vicious;
and, while condemning vice, pardon it in their own case? "Know you not,"
says the Apostle, "that the unchaste shall not enter the kingdom of
Heaven?"-(1 Cor. vi. 9.) The Pictorial Half Hours with the Saints by Abbe Lecanu
