Saint Placidus And His Comrades. Martyrs. Feast Day 5 October. Red Vestments.

Text from The Roman Breviary.

Translated out of Latin into English by
John, Marquess of Bute, K.T.
Volume II.
Summer.
1879.

Feast Day Of Saint Placidus
and his Comrades.
Martyrs.
5 October.

Simple.

All from the Simple Office for Many Martyrs (page 841) except the following:

Prayer throughout the Office:

“O God by Whose mercy, etc” (page 836).

Mattins.

First and Second Lessons from Scripture, according to the Season.

Third Lesson.

Placidus was the son of Tertullus, one of the noblest persons of Rome.

He was offered to God [by his father] when a child [only seven years of age] (This practice was forbidden by a Decretal of Pope Innocent III) and given over to Holy Benedict, in whose teaching and Rule of Monks he so profited that he was reckoned among the chiefest of his disciples.

By him, he was sent to Sicily, where he Founded near the Port of Messina a Church and Monastery in honour of Saint John the Baptist, and lived therein with his Monks in wonderful holiness.

Thither there came to see him his brothers Eutychius and Victorinus and his Virgin sister Flavia, and while they were together, there landed there a certain brutal Pirate, named Manucha, who took the Monastery, and when he could in no wise prevail upon Placidus and the others to deny Christ, he commanded him his brothers, and his sister to be cruelly murdered.

With them, Donatus, Firmatus (a Deacon), Faustus, and 

thirty other Monks brought the conflict of testimony to the Blessed end of Martyrdom, upon 5 October in the Year of Salvation 509 A.D. [Editor: This date and the names of the Martyrs are disputed by other authors.]