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Sacred Calendar

The Roman year ordered for memory, penance, feasts, saints, and the daily pilgrimage of the faithful.

Calendar standard

Pre-1955 Roman usage

The calendar follows the universal Roman year under the rubrics of Pope St. Pius X, with the Roman Martyrology preserved as a distinct daily witness.

The day is presented for prayer, recollection, study, and perseverance in the City.

Daily observance

Today in the City of God

The Church keeps this day in holy time. The Pilgrim's Companion gathers the feast, daily quote, Martyrology, meditation, prayer, and related chapters into one daily path through the City.

Daily observance

Ss. Abdon and Sennen, Martyrs

Friday, July 30, 2027

Season: Time after Pentecost

The day is set within the Roman year so its feast, Martyrology, daily quote, prayer, and reading path may be received together without blurring their proper sources.

Today's pilgrimage

Ss. Abdon and Sennen, Martyrs

Rank: Simple

Color: red

Quote for the day

Our Lord Jesus Christ

“Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

John 15:13, Douay-Rheims

The pilgrim's devotional rhythm

Keeping the month and the weekday in prayer

This chosen devotional rhythm does not change the feast, rank, or obligations shown above. It gives the passing days a steady intention, helping the pilgrim honor God, intercede for souls, and carry one Catholic practice into the day. It is a household aid to devotion, not another law of the Roman Calendar.

July intention

The Most Precious Blood of Jesus

The price of our redemption forbids a careless life. Remember the Precious Blood poured out upon Calvary and offered upon Catholic altars, and ask that no grace purchased at so great a cost be received in vain.

Intention

For reverence toward the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the conversion of sinners, and the deliverance of souls from slavery to mortal sin.

A faithful act

Offer the day's sacrifices for sinners who are far from confession and sanctifying grace.

Prayer

Most Precious Blood of Jesus, cleanse us from sin, strengthen the weak, and bring wandering souls home.

Friday remembrance

The Passion and Sacred Heart of Jesus

Friday keeps Calvary before the Christian soul. Unite the day's labor and suffering to the Passion of Christ, remembering that His Sacred Heart was opened for sinners and that love proves itself by sacrifice and obedience.

Intention

In reparation for sin; for the conversion of sinners; and for those who suffer, are persecuted, or will die this day.

A faithful act

Keep the Church's Friday abstinence and add hidden self-denial in memory of the Passion.

Prayer

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, through Thy bitter Passion, have mercy on us and on poor sinners.

Roman Martyrology

Roman Martyrology - July 30

At Rome, in the reign of Decius, the holy Persian martyrs Abdon and Sennen, who were bound with chains, brought to Rome, scourged with leaded whips for the faith of Christ, and then put to the sword. — At Tuberbum Lucernarium, in Africa, the holy virgins and martyrs Maxima, Donatilla, and Secunda. The first two, in the persecution of Valerian and Gallienus, were forced to drink vinegar and gall, then scourged most severely, and stretched on the rack, burned on the gridiron, rubbed over with lime, afterwards exposed to the beasts with the virgin Secunda, twelve years old, but being untouched by them, they were finally beheaded. — At Assisi, in Umbria, St. Rufinus, martyr. — At Caesarea, in Cappadocia, St. Julitta, martyr. As she sought to recover through the courts the restitution of goods seized by an influential personage, the latter objected that, being a Christian, her cause could not be pleaded. The judge commanded her to offer sacrifice to the idols, that she might be heard. With great firmness, she refused, and being thrown into the fire, yielded her spirit to God, though her body remained uninjured by the flames. St. Basil the Great has proclaimed her praise in an excellent eulogy. — At Auxerre, St. Ursus, bishop and confessor.

Read and verify the full entry

Highlighted saint

Ss. Abdon and Sennen

Persian martyrs honored in Roman memory.

Ss. Abdon and Sennen are remembered by the Roman Martyrology as Persian martyrs brought to Rome and crowned there for Christ.

Their feast keeps before the faithful the breadth of Catholic witness: men from distant lands, honored in Rome, joined by martyrdom to the one Church and one Lord.

Virtue to practice

Universal fellowship in martyrdom.

Error to resist

The narrow memory that remembers only familiar saints and forgets the Church's wider witness.

For the pilgrim in exile

Let Ss. Abdon and Sennen widen the heart. The City of God gathers witnesses from every land, and martyrdom makes distant souls near in Christ.

Imitate today

  • Honor unknown and distant martyrs as members of the same Body.
  • Refuse the narrowness that forgets Catholic witness beyond one's own place.
  • Pray for courage to confess Christ wherever Providence places you.

Sources

  • St. Andrew Daily Missal, July 30.
  • Roman Martyrology, 1916 Baltimore edition, July 30.

From Matins

Persian martyrs who buried the abandoned dead.

Matins - Proper Ninth Lesson - Ss. Abdon and Sennen, Martyrs

Roman Breviary, Ninth lesson for Ss. Abdon and Sennen

“They abhorred and spat upon them.”

Doctrine taught

  • The Breviary remembers Abdon and Sennen as Persian martyrs accused under Decius because they buried the bodies of Christians that had been thrown out unburied.
  • They refused sacrifice to the false gods and persistently preached that Jesus Christ is God.
  • When dragged before the idols, they rejected them openly; beasts would not touch them, and they were finally slain with the sword before being buried by the deacon Quirinus.

For the pilgrim in exile

Honor the abandoned faithful and refuse idols without compromise. Ss. Abdon and Sennen teach reverence for Christian burial, courage before false worship, and confession of Christ even when power demands public apostasy.

Full Breviary lessons

Ninth Lesson - Complete Proper Lesson

Abdon and Sennen were Persians. In the reign of the Emperor Decius they were accused of interring, on their own farm, the bodies of Christians, which had been thrown out unburied. The Emperor commanded them to be arrested and ordered to sacrifice to the gods. This they refused to do, and persistently preached that JESUS Christ is God, whereupon they were put into strict confinement. When Decius afterwards returned to Rome, he had them led in chains in his triumph. Being thus dragged into the city and up to the idols, they abhorred and spat upon them, for which they were cast to bears and lions; the beasts were afraid to touch them. They were butchered with the sword, and the corpses, with their feet bound together, were dragged before the image of the sun. Thence they were stolen away, and the Deacon Quirinus buried them in his own house.

Breviary Homily from the Common of Many Martyrs - Seventh Lesson

The Lesson is taken from the Holy Gospel according to Luke (xxi. 9). At that time: JESUS said unto His disciples: When ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by. And so on.

Homily by Pope St Gregory the Great (35th on the Gospels). Our Lord and Redeemer willeth us to know what shall be the signs that the end of the world is at hand, to the end that ye may be the less terrified, when that cometh whereof ye have already had warning. Darts strike less which are seen coming: and the plagues of the earth will be to us more bearable, if we are harnessed against them with the shield of foreknowledge. Behold, how He saith: "When ye shall hear of wars and commotions be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by." It behoveth us to ponder these words of our Redeemer, wherein He warneth us of suffering, from without, and from within. Wars are the work of a foreign enemy, commotions of the citizens. Therefore, that He may let us know that we shall be troubled from within and from without, He showeth that our wrestling shall be in part against strangers, and in part against our brethren.

Breviary Homily from the Common of Many Martyrs - Eighth Lesson

But, when these woes come, the end is not by and by. And He saith further: "Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and pestilences, and famines, and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven." Before the last tribulation cometh, shall come many other tribulations: and, by the many woes which shall come first, shall be foreshadowed the everlasting woe which shall come in the end. And therefore, after wars and commotions, the end is not yet by and by: many woes must come first, to give warning of the woe that hath no end.

Breviary Homily from the Common of Many Martyrs - Ninth Lesson

But, forasmuch as the signs and troubles whereof the Lord speaketh are so manifold, we must needs shortly consider each: for, of necessity, we must suffer some things from heaven, some from the earth, some from the powers of nature, and some from men. For where He saith: "Nation shall rise against nation" - He speaketh concerning the troubling of men: where: "great earthquakes shall be in divers places" - concerning wrath from above: where: "and pestilences" - concerning the frailty of the body: where: "and famines" - concerning the barrenness of the earth: where: "fearful signs from heaven," and tempests - concerning commotions of the air. As, then, all things shall have an end, so, before the end, shall all things be troubled: and we who have sinned and come short in all things, shall in all things be afflicted, that it may be fulfilled that is written: "and the world shall fight with Him against the unwise." (Wisd. v. 21.)

Sources

  • The Roman Breviary, translated by John, Marquess of Bute, 1908, vol. III, Summer, office of July 30, Ninth Lesson of Ss. Abdon and Sennen, printed p. 769.
  • The Roman Breviary, translated by John, Marquess of Bute, 1908, vol. III, Summer, Common Office for Many Martyrs, Third Nocturn, St. Gregory the Great, Homily 35 on the Gospels, lessons vii-ix, printed pp. 427-429. This common homily is presented as a supplemental Breviary sermon for the martyrs and not as the proper Ninth Lesson.
  • Bute 1908 is used here as an accessible pre-Pius X Breviary witness and is cited distinctly from the 1936-1937 Benziger / Burns Oates edition.

Breviary Witness

Martyrs from afar honored in Rome.

Matins - Ss. Abdon and Sennen

Breviary witness

  • The Breviary remembrance of Ss. Abdon and Sennen keeps Persian martyrs in the Roman Church's public memory.
  • Their feast teaches the breadth of Catholic witness: distant lands, one confession, one Church, one crown in Christ.

For the pilgrim in exile

Let the memory of distant martyrs widen Catholic charity. The faithful are not a local club, but one Body gathered from every land by Christ.

Sources

  • Roman Breviary, Matins lessons for July 30, Ss. Abdon and Sennen.
  • Roman Martyrology, 1916 Baltimore edition, July 30.

Meditation

Martyrs Who Honored the Abandoned Dead

Ss. Abdon and Sennen buried Christians whose bodies had been abandoned and then refused sacrifice to false gods. Their witness joins reverence for Christ's members to public hatred of idolatry: love serves the forsaken and refuses the worship that would betray God.

Prayer

The day should become prayer.

O Lord, through Ss. Abdon and Sennen, make me reverent toward the faithful, courageous before idols, and steadfast in confessing Christ.

Thought for the pilgrim

Charity toward Christ's members and refusal of false worship spring from the same fidelity.

Practice

The day should become obedience.

Pray for the faithful departed and refuse every act of human respect that would soften Catholic truth.

Source notes

Universal Roman Calendar under the rubrics of Pope St. Pius X

Fasting and abstinence according to the laws observed in 1952

Daily quotations and pilgrimage excerpts ordinarily come from eligible Catholic sources issued no later than December 31, 1954: Scripture, Fathers, Doctors, saints, Roman Pontiffs, traditional catechisms, approved devotional works, and received liturgical texts. Legitimate additions promulgated under Pope Pius XII may be retained when identified precisely; this does not adopt the reformed Holy Week or later rubrical changes.

The Roman Martyrology, Baltimore, 1916, published by John Murphy Company; the local 1916 text is displayed and traceable to its source lines.

  • St. Andrew Daily Missal, Liturgical Calendar, pp. xvii–xxviii.
  • St. Andrew Daily Missal, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B., 1953 edition; proper Mass or devotion named in this entry.
  • 1 Peter 1:18-19, Douay-Rheims.
  • John 19:30-37, Douay-Rheims.
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