CONCERNING ST. MARIUS, ROMAN MARTYR, AT ANTWERP IN BELGIUM.
CommentaryMarius, Roman Martyr, at Antwerp in Belgium (Saint)
[1] We indicated the outstanding piety, learning, and industry of Jacobus Tirinus of Antwerp, of the Society of Jesus, on the third day of February, while treating of St. Fortunatus the Roman Martyr, whose sacred body is preserved in the church of the Professed House at Antwerp of the same Society, brought from Rome by the said Tirinus when in the year 1622 he had been sent to the City as Procurator from the Flandro-Belgian province. But because some years earlier he had attended the seventh General Congregation and with other Fathers had elected Reverend Father Mutius Vitelleschi as General Superior of the whole Society, he did not wish to return to his homeland without an illustrious treasury of sacred relics. He therefore obtained, with the supreme kindness in which he excelled, among other relics the bodies of St. Maximus the Martyr from the cemetery of St. Priscilla on the Via Salaria, and of St. Marius from the cemetery of St. Cyriaca in the Campo Verano, extracted with the permission of our most holy Lord Paul V and donated to the said Mutius Vitelleschi, General of the Society, to be placed in some church of the Society of Jesus. All of which the same Mutius attests in a letter subscribed by his own hand and sealed on the fifteenth of March in the year 1616, when the sacred bodies were handed over to the said Tirinus. Of these, St. Maximus is celebrated on the fourteenth of April, but St. Marius on this twenty-seventh of March: on which day his sacred bones are placed upon the high altar, and the Ecclesiastical Office with the Sacrifice of the Mass is recited for him as a Martyr, not a Pontiff, with the double rite: but for the rest of the year fourteen sacred bodies of Roman Martyrs, among which are those of the said Saints Maximus and Marius, are preserved placed in niches hollowed out in the triple wall of the church, among Ligurian marbles and more elegant paintings, wrought with rare craftsmanship, and lest they be defrauded of due honor, various lights are lit before these sacred Relics frequently throughout the year, especially on the more solemn feasts.