Daily Martyrology for July 22

In the first century, St. Mary Magdalene, who was the leader of the women who accompanied Jesus and the apostles on their journeys. She was present at Jesus' crucifixion, burial and resurrection. Jesus sent her to announce the resurrection to the others, and so she was called the "apostle of the apostles." In the West, her story was conflated with that of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet and with that of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus. Sts. Jerome and Gregory the Great accepted this identification, but St. Bernard and other early Cistercians did not. A medieval legend has it that after the resurrection, Mary Magdalene settled in France, but this has no historical basis.

In 668, at the abbey of Fontenelle in Normandy, St. Wandrille, abbot. He was a married court official when he and his wife decided to separate and become religious. He was successively a monk under St. Baudry at Montfaucon, a hermit, a visitor at St. Columban’s monastery at Bobbio, and a monk of the abbey of Romain-Moûtier. On the basis of this wide experience, he founded the monastery of Fontenelle, which followed the Rule of St. Columban.

From 1934 to 1939, during the Spanish Civil War, several hundred martyrs, killed for their faith, among the thousands of priests and religious executed during that time.

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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.