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Jean-Gabriel was born in southern France to a farming family in the year of Our Lord 1802. He and his brother Louis both entered seminary, and in 1825 Jean-Gabriel was ordained a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, known as the Vincentians after their founder, St. Vincent de Paul. Fr. Jean-Gabriel became a professor of theology, and helped direct novices in the seminary. The priest was originally prevented from taking part in the actual missionary work he desired, due to his poor health, but in 1835 his brother Louis died on the way to China, and Fr. Jean-Gabriel successfully volunteered to take his brother’s place. The priest studied Chinese and made some progress in evangelization, until in 1839 a great persecution of Christians began. Fr. Jean-Gabriel was betrayed to the authorities by a former catechumen, and arrested. He was tortured horribly by various methods for his refusal to apostatize, and finally condemned to execution. On this day in the year of Our Lord 1840, Fr. Jean-Gabriel was strung up on a cross in Wuhan alongside seven criminals, before he was slowly strangled to death. He is one of the first recognized saints of the Church in China, beatified within fifty years of his death and canonized about a century later.
AT Rome, in the Cemetery of Basilla, on the old Salarian road, the birthday of the holy martyrs Protus and Hyacinth, brothers and eunuchs in the service of blessed Eugenia, who were arrested, in the time of the emperor Gallienus, on the charge of being Christians, and urged to offer sacrifice to the gods. But as they refused, both were most severely scourged, and finally beheaded.
At Laodicea, in Syria, the martyrdom of the Saints Diodorus, Diomedes, and Didimus.
At Leon, in Spain, St. Vincent, abbot and martyr.
In Egypt, the holy bishop Paphnutius, one of those confessors, who, under the emperor Galerius Maximinus, having their right eye plucked out and the joint of the left knee cut, were condemned to work in the metal mines. Afterwards, under Constantine the Great, he courageously combated for the Catholic faith against the Arians, and at leangth, being adorned with many crowns, rested in peace.
At Lyons, the demise of St. Patiens, bishop.
At Vercelli, St. AEmilian, bishop.
At Alexandria, St. Theodora, who having committed a fault through imprudence and repenting of it, remained unknown in a religious habit, and persevered until her death in practices of extraordinary abstinence and patience.
℣. And elsewhere many other holy martyrs, confessors, and holy virgins.
℟. Thanks be to God.