Wednesday, January 24, 2018

SS Timothy and Suranus, Abbot (Jan 24)



Today in the Office we celebrate in the Office the feast of St Timothy, of whom the martyrology says:

"At Ephesus, St. Timothy, disciple of the apostle St. Paul, who ordained him bishop of that city.  After many labours for Christ, he was stoned for rebuking those who offered sacrifices to Diana, and shortly after went peacefully to his rest in the Lord."

But also mentioned is St Suranus:

"Also, blessed Suranus, abbot, who lived in the time of the Lombards."

The saint is mentioned in Book I of St Gregory's Dialogues:

"At such time as I yet lived in the Monastery, I understood by the relation of certain religious men, that in the time of the Lombards, in this very province called Sura and not far off, there was an holy Abbot called Suranus, who bestowed upon certain prisoners, which had escaped their hands, all such things as he had in his Monastery: and when he had given away in alms all his own apparel, and whatsoever he could find either in the monks' cells or in the yards, and nothing was left: suddenly the Lombards came thither, took him prisoner, and demanded where his gold was: and when he told them that he had nothing, they carried him to an hill hard by, where there was a mighty great wood in which a certain prisoner that ran away from them had hid himself in an hollow tree. There one of the Lombards, drawing out his sword, slew the foresaid venerable Abbot, whose body as it fell to the ground, suddenly all the hill together with the wood did shake, as though the earth by that trembling had said, that it could not bear the weight of his holiness and virtue."

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