Letter 33: We should acknowledge and embrace the divine blessings, dear brothers, by which the Lord has seen fit to adorn and...

We should acknowledge and embrace the divine blessings, dear brothers, by which the Lord has seen fit to adorn and honor His Church in our times — granting peace to His good confessors and glorious martyrs so that those who bravely confessed Christ may afterward serve in Christ's clergy. Rejoice with me, then, as I write to tell you that Celerinus, our brother — glorious both in courage and in character — has been added to our clergy. He was not promoted by human recommendation but by divine appointment. When he hesitated to accept, the Church herself urged him in a vision at night not to refuse. She had the stronger claim, and she prevailed, because it wasn't right that a man honored by God with the dignity of heavenly glory should go without ecclesiastical honor on earth. This man was the first to fight in the struggle of our time. He was the leader among Christ's soldiers. In the burning opening days of the persecution, he engaged with the very author and chief of the assault. He conquered the adversary with invincible firmness and blazed a trail for others to follow by his victory. He endured nineteen days in prison, in chains and irons. But though his body was confined, his spirit remained free and unbowed. He was racked and beaten, but it was his torturers who were defeated. His resistance outlasted their cruelty. And he doesn't come from nowhere. His family had already given martyrs to the faith: his grandmother Celerina, his uncle Laurentinus, and another uncle Egnatius had gone before him in glory. He followed in their footsteps — and proved himself their equal. I have appointed him as a reader. His voice, which confessed the Lord under torture, deserves to be heard proclaiming the Gospel in the assembly. May the Lord bring him, in due time, to still higher honor.

Epistle 33