Daily Martyrology for November 2

The Solemnity of All Souls. 2 Maccabees 12.44-45 recommends prayers for the dead, and from earliest times Christians prayed for their dead. A feast for the dead, dedicated to prayers to help move them from what was later known as purgatory to heaven, first appeared in the seventh century. The commemoration of the dead on November 2 spread to the universal church from Cluny, where it was established by St. Odilo.

At Argentan, in 1521, St. Margaret of Lorraine. She was born into a noble family and married into another. Left a widow with three children when she was twenty-nine, she raised her children well and was a capable administrator of their patrimony. When her children were grown she retired to a convent, where she devoted herself to the poor and sick.

In 1583, at Andover, the martyrdom of Blessed John Bodey. When he was deprived of his position at Oxford because he was a Catholic, he went to Douai and studied law. He returned and was arrested and convicted. It is said that after his execution his mother gave a dinner for their friends to celebrate his glorious victory.

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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.