Memorial of Saints (September 4)

Obligatory and Optional Memorials on September 4:

• Marcellus and Valerian, martyrs;
• Marinus;
• Boniface I, pope;
• Ultan of Ardbraccan, bishop;
• Ida of Herzfeld, widow;
• Rosalia, virgin;
• Rose of Viterbo, virgin

St. Marcellus (d. ca. 178 A.D.) was a priest at Lyons when the persecutions of Christians was launched in 177 A.D. He was imprisoned but managed to escape together with a fellow prisoner named Valerian. He sheltered in a home of a pagan whom he converted to the faith. Marcellus then met Priscus, a governor, who invited him to his home. But when Priscus began preparing for the rituals to their pagan gods, Marcellus refused to join. Priscus thus had him buried to his waist near Chalon-sur-Saone and he died three days later. Valerian was recaptured and beheaded at Tournus.

St. Marinus (4th century A.D.) was born in Dalmatia and became a stonemason together with St. Leo, a fellow stonemason. They converted many who were sentenced to labor in the quarries in which they worked. Leo soon became a priest and Marinus a deacon. When Marinus was accused by a Dalmatian woman of being the husband who deserted her, Marinus fled into the mountains and became a hermit. A monastery grew up around his hermitage. This area grew to what is now San Marino - a tiny republic in Europe.