Roman Martyrology

The reading

March 16

At Rome, the martyrdom of the deacon St. Cyriacus, who, after a long imprisonment, was covered with melted pitch and stretched on the rack, to have his limbs distended with ropes, was beaten with clubs, and finally beheaded with Largus, Smaragdus, and twenty others, by order of Maximian. Their feast, however, is kept on the 8th of August, the day on which their bodies were taken up by the blessed pope Marcellus and reverently entombed. — At Aquileia, in the time of the emperor Numerian and the governor Beronius, the birthday of the holy bishop Hilary, and the deacon Tatian, who terminated their martyrdom with Felix, Largus, and Denis, after being subjected to the rack and other tortures. — In Lycaonia, the holy martyr Papas, who was scourged for the Christian faith, torn with iron hooks, then compelled to walk with shoes pierced with nails, and finally bound to a barren tree. In leaving this world to go to God, he rendered the tree fruitful. — At Anazarbum, in Cilicia, under the governor Marcian, the martyr St. Julian, who was a long time tortured, then put into a sack with serpents, and cast into the sea. — At Ravenna, St. Agapitus, bishop and confessor. — At Cologne, St. Heribert, a bishop, celebrated for sanctity. — At Clermont, in Auvergne, the demise of St. Patrick, bishop. — In Syria, St. Abraham, hermit, whose life has been written by the blessed deacon Ephrem.

Source: The Roman Martyrology, Baltimore, 1916, John Murphy Company; local raw text lines 2913-2948.