St. Simon, Infant Martyr
Name: St. Simon, Infant Martyr
Date: 31 March
“Hail, flowers of the martyrs!” the Church sings in her Office of the Holy Innocents, who were thefirst to die for Christ; and in every age mere children and infants have gloriously confessed His name. The Jews of the city of Trent, assuredly possessed at that moment by the demons of hell, determinedin 1472 to vent their hatred for the Crucified by slaying a Christian child at the coming Passover. One of their number was commissioned to trap a victim, and found a bright, smiling boy namedSimon playing outside his home, with no one guarding him. The boy, who was not yet two yearsold, began to call and cry for his mother when he found himself being led from home; it wasapparently these cries which led later to the discovery of the kidnappers. At midnight on HolyThursday the work of butchery began. Having gagged his mouth, they held his arms in the form of across, while they pierced his tender body with sharp-pointed instruments, in blasphemous mockery ofthe sufferings of Jesus Christ. After an hour’s torture the little martyr lifted his eyes to heaven andgave up his innocent soul. The murderers cast his body into a stream, after a search had begun for the child. Their crime wasdiscovered nonetheless, when they themselves, to appear innocent, advised the police that a child’sbody was floating in the water. A physician called to examine him wrote a report by order of thebishop, who afterwards transported his remains as a precious relic to the church of Saint Peter inTrent. A multitude of miracles followed, and the assassins were apprehended and punished. William of Norwich is another child martyr. His parents were simple country folk, but his motherwas instructed by a vision to expect in her son a Saint. As a boy he fasted three times a week andprayed constantly. He was only an apprentice twelve years of age, at a tanner’s in Norwich, whenhe won his crown. A little before Easter in the year 1137, he was enticed into the house of anenemy of Christ, and there gagged, bound, and crucified in hatred of the Saviour of all men. Fiveyears passed before the body was found, then it was buried as a saintly relic in the cathedralchurchyard. A rose tree, planted close by, flowered miraculously in mid-winter, and many sickpersons were healed of their diseases at Saint William’s shrine. |
