In Canada, in 1649, St. John de Brébeuf and companions, martyrs. John and a group of companions went to Quebec as missionaries in 1625, shortly after its founding. He ministered for some years in great hardship among the Algonquins and the Hurons. When the Iroquois waged all-out war on the Hurons, John de Brébeuf and his companions were captured, brutally tortured and killed. Brébeuf endured it all quietly.
In 680, at the Abbey of Hamage, in France, St. Eusebia, daughter of St. Adalbald and St. Rictrudis (May 12). She was sent as a child to Hamage, where her great-grandmother St. Gertrude was abbess. She was elected abbess when she was twelve, but her mother thought she was too young, so her mother merged Hamage with the monastery of Marchiennes, of which she was abbess. Later, the community moved to Hamage and Eusebia led it wisely.
In Vicenza, in 1181, Blessed John Sordi, Benedictine bishop and martyr. He entered the monastery of St. Lawrence in Cremona when he was 16; he later served as prior there and at another abbey. He was expelled by Frederick Barbarossa for his support of Pope Alexander III and lived as a hermit at Mantua. He later became the well-beloved bishop of Vicenza. He was stabbed by a tenant whom he rebuked for not paying his rent.
Our daily martyrology was written by Fr. Hugh Feiss, OSB. Copyright © 2008 by the Monastery of the Ascension, Jerome, ID 83338.
