SAINTS DECEMBER 30

SAINTS DECEMBER 30

St. Anysia, Roman Catholic Martyr of Greece. She was a wealthy woman of Salonika, in Thessaly, who used her personal funds to aid the poor. A soldier accosted her in the street and tried to drag her to a pagan sacrifice. Anysia resisted and was killed when the soldier attacked her with his sword. Dec. 30

The Martyr Saints of China, or Augustine Zhao Rong and his 119 companions, are saints of the Roman Catholic Church. The 87 Chinese Catholics and 33 Western missionaries, from the mid-17th century to 1930, were martyred because of their ministry and, in some cases, for their refusal to apostatize. Many died in the Boxer Rebellion, in which xenophobic peasants slaughtered 30,000 Chinese converts to Christianity along with missionaries and other foreigners. Dec. 30

Bl. John Alcober, Roman Catholic Dominican Priest and Martyr in China. He was held in prison until strangled to death. He died with Blessed Peter Sanz and other Dominicans. Dec. 30

St. Egwin, 717 A.D. An English noble who became the bishop of Worcester, England, in 692. Chargedwith being overly strict by his clergy, Egwin went to Rome. Upon his return to England, he founded Eversham Monastery with the aid of the kingdom of Mercia. A vision of Mary prompted this founding. In 709, Egwin returned to Rome, accompanied by King Cenred of Mercia and King Offa of the East Saxons.

ST. FELIX I, POPE Dec. 30

A Roman priest, Felix reigned as Pope from 269 to 274. He celebrated Masses over the tombs that guarded the relics of the Christian martyrs, and strongly defended the doctrines of the Trinity of God and the Incarnation of the Word.  Dec.30

Holy Family