ON S. CLAUDIUS THE MARTYR
TRANSLATED FROM ROME TO ANTWERP.
CommentaryClaudius, Martyr, translated from Rome to Antwerp (S.)
D. P.
The body with the body of S. Pontianus the Martyr The temple of our Society at Antwerp, in the year MDCLV, was augmented with notable splendor; the walls surrounding it, in the part where, from the cabinet-maker's work above the confessionals, they were bare up to the first paneling, being clothed with white and black marble; which, at certain intervals receding inward, displays fourteen thrones, destined to receive as many bodies of Saints. On the day therefore the XXV of July a solemn procession through the city was instituted, which from the Cathedral temple into ours brought thirteen reliquaries, to be described elsewhere more opportunely. There was still vacant the fourteenth place; which observing, R. P. William de Wael, before twice Provost of this Flanders-Belgian Province, from whom we had not so long before received the body of S. Pontianus the Roman Martyr, wished to complete his benefit, and to adjoin to the rest the body of S. Claudius which in the year MDCL likewise he had received from Rome. extracted in the year 1650 from the Cemetery of Calepodius Both had been sent by the Procurator of the German Assistancy, P. Lawrence Koler, obtained from the most Illustrious Vicegerent of Innocent X the Roman Pontiff, Alexander Bishop of Aletrium, who testified that he had extracted them from the Cemetery of Calepodius, by letters signed the IX of September. These when again the most Illustrious Bishop of Antwerp Fr. Ambrose Capello had seen, just as on the XXX day of April of the said year MDCLV he had judged the sacred bones of S. Pontianus to be of a true Martyr, and so by all to be venerated; as will be said on the XIX of July; so in the following year, on the day
XXIII of June he approved those things which, under the name of S. Claudius, translated in 1656. duly sealed, had been exhibited to him; decreeing that his Translation should be observed among us yearly on the IV Sunday after Easter; and proposing forty days' Indulgences to all, who on such a day, visiting the said church, should pray in it. But since the aforesaid Sunday, in the very year in which we received that treasure, MDCLVI, had fallen on this XIV of May, it pleased to affix the memory of this translation in our domestic Heortologium to such a day, by which the Priests might be admonished, to recur to one of the immediately preceding or following Sundays for celebrating the feast of this Martyr.