Daily Martyrology for May 17

In 1592, in Villareal, St. Paschal Baylon. He came from a family of shepherds and eventually joined the Observant Franciscans at Loreto. He performed various physical tasks in friaries in Spain. Once, during the religious wars in France, he was sent there with letters to the minister general of the order. He was known especially for his devotion to the Eucharist.

In 1935, Blessed Antonia Messina, martyr. She spent her life in Sardinia, where she was an exemplary girl who became active in a Catholic Action group. When she was twenty she was attacked while she and a companion were collecting wood. She resisted her attacker, who stabbed and stoned her to death. Antonia’s family prayed for him and expressed no desire for vengeance. He repented before he was executed and received the last sacraments.

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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.