Listen Live
Pause
Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
Silverius was born in Italy in the late fifth century. He was a son of Pope St. Hormisdas, who had raised a family before he entered religious life as a widower and eventually ascended to the papacy. Silverius was a humble, unassuming man, and was only a subdeacon in Rome when the king of the Ostrogoths, seeking to prevent a papacy linked to Empress Theodora in Constantinople, influenced the election of Silverius as pope, in the year of Our Lord 536. The hastily consecrated Silverius did his best to uphold Catholic doctrine and the rights of the papacy in the face of constant physical and theological conflict, particularly with the Monophysite heretics, who were greatly favored by the eastern Empress. The beleaguered pontiff reigned for less than a year before he was taken prisoner by the Byzantine general Belisarius and exiled to the island of Palmarola. There Silverius was starved to death or otherwise martyred, and many miracles occurred at the shrine that stands there to this day. He is patron of the nearby island of Ponza, and “San Silverio” is enthusiastically celebrated there and wherever immigrants from the island have settled.
THE birthday [into heaven] of St. Silverius, pope and martyr. For refusing to reinstate the heretical bishop Anthimus, deposed by his predecessor Agapitus, he was banished to the isle of Pontia, by Belisarius, at the instigation of the wicked empress Theodora, and, consumed by many tribulations for the Catholic faith, he expired.
At Rome, the demise of St. Novatus, son of the blessed senator Pudens, and brother of the saintly priest Timothy, and of the holy virgins of Christ Pudentiana and Praxedes, who were instructed in the faith by the Apostles. Their house was converted into a church, and bore the title of Pastor.
At Tomis, in Pontus, the holy martyrs Paul and Cyriacus.
At Petra, in Palestine, St. Macarius, a bishop who suffered much from the Arians, and was banished to Africa, where he rested in the Lord.
At Seville, in Spain, the holy virgin Florentina, sister of the holy bishops Leander and Isidore.
℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
℟. Thanks be to God.