Daily Martyrology for January 20

In the third century, at Rome, St. Fabian, pope, martyred under Decius, and Sebastian, a soldier, martyred under Diocletian. A late legend said Sebastian was tortured by being shot full of arrows. He was invoked as a protector against plague.

In 1107, at Vallombrosa, near Florence, Blessed Benedict of Coltiboni, a hermit attached to the monastery founded there by St. John Gualbert.

In 1468, in Sicily, St. Eustochia Calafato, the abbess of an Observant Franciscan monastery near Messina. She was very devoted to Christ’s Passion; her body remains incorrupt to this day.

In 1964, Blessed Cyprian Michael Iwene Tansi. He was one of the first ten Nigerians to be ordained a priest. He was an ascetic and an excellent preacher. In 1950 he joined Mount St. Bernard Trappist abbey in England. He had hoped to be part of a foundation in Nigeria, but died before that was possible. Cardinal Arinze, whom he baptized and to whom he gave first communion, promoted his canonization.

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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.