Daily Martyrology for January 17

In 356, in Egypt, St. Antony, who is well known from the Life which St. Athanasius wrote about him and from his own letters and sayings. He was born of Christian parents, orphaned young, and then felt called to leave everything to follow Christ. He retired to an old burial ground around 273, and in 286 to an abandoned hilltop fort where he stayed for twenty years. After visiting Alexandria in 311 to support those persecuted under Maximinus, he founded a monastery at Pispir and then retired to a more secluded place, called the "inner mountain". In art he is often shown with a t-shaped stick, a pig, or a cloak.

In 1329, in Provence, France, St. Roseline Villeneuve. She grew up in a castle, then became a Carthusian nun and prioress. Her tomb at Celle-Roubaud was a popular pilgrimage. It was destroyed along with her monastery during the French Revolution, but there is now a chapel there, decorated with a mosaic by Marc Chagall.

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Our daily martyrology was written by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB. Copyright © 2008 by the Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID 83338.