The commemoration of the prophet Obadiah.
In 379, St. Nerses I, patriarch of the Armenians. He was a married court official before being appointed patriarch of the Armenians. As bishop he founded monasteries and hostels for the poor and for lepers. He held a synod whose purpose was to organize the rapidly growing Armenian church. This aroused royal opposition. When he refused a king entry to the church until the monarch reformed his life, the king poisoned him.
In 815, at the abbey of Ottobeuren, Blessed Tuto.
About 1282, in Germany, St. Mechtilde of Magedeburg. She was a Beguine before retiring to the monastery of Helfta in her old age. At Magedeburg she was guided by a Dominican friar. She recorded her extraordinary mystical insights in the Book of the Flowing Light of the Godhead.
In 1895, in Armenia, Blessed Salvator Lilli, and his companions, martyrs. Salvator was born in Italy and joined the Franciscans when he was seventeen. He studied and served as a priest in Jerusalem before serving for fifteen years in a church in Armenia, where he was a very effective pastor. He and companions were arrested and bayoneted to death when they refused to convert to Islam.
Our daily martyrology was written by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB. Copyright © 2008 by the Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID 83338.
