Daily Martyrology for April 26

About 645, in the forest of Crecy, St. Riquier. Converted by Irish missionaries, he became a priest and missionary. As he grew older, he retired to live a solitary life in the forest of Crecy. A monastery grew up there. After his death it was united with the monastery at Celles, and renamed Saint Riquier.

In 865, at the abbey of Corbie, St. Paschasius Radbertus, abbot. He was a foundling raised by nuns at Soissons. He became a monk at Corbie, which had an excellent library. He studied theology there, and in 843 or 844 was elected abbot. He resigned in 849 and devoted the rest of his life to study and writing. He spent some years at the monastery of Saint Riquier. He wrote several biblical commentaries, the letter Cogitis me which was important in the development of the doctrine of the Assumption, and a book on the Eucharist which championed the real presence of Christ and taught that by receiving the Eucharist people became part of Christ’s mystical body, the church.

In 1396, St. Stephen of Perm, bishop. He was born of Russian Christian parents in an area about 500 miles northeast of Moscow occupied by the mostly pagan Zyryani people. He joined a monastery in Rostov and became an expert on Byzantine theology. He learned the Zyryani language, so he could become a missionary among them. He invented an alphabet for their language, so they wouldn’t have to pray in Russian.

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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.