ON THE HOLY ROMAN MARTYRS
VICTOR AND SCYRENEUS
AT TOURNAI IN BELGIUM.
From a letter of the Rev. Father Joseph Ignatius of S. Antony, Discalced Carm.
CommentaryVictor, Roman Martyr, at Tournai in Belgium (S.)
Scyreneus, Roman Martyr, at Tournai in Belgium (S.)
D. P.
Tournai, an Episcopal city of Belgium on the Scheldt, has a notable Convent of Discalced Carmelite nuns, in the year MDCXIX under the title of S. Joseph erected and founded. To the church of this nunnery from the city of Rome, Innocent X the Supreme Pontiff assenting, in the year one thousand six hundred and fiftieth, on the twenty-ninth day of May, which was the Sunday after the Ascension of the Lord, were translated the bodies of the holy Martyrs Victor and Scyreneus, with great pomp, and concourse of people: the day of which Translation and Deposition each year is solemnly celebrated on the Sunday within the Octave of the Ascension of the Lord, which almost always falls in the month of May, the biers of the Martyrs, with the highest artifice from gilded wood fabricated, being exposed on the high altar.
[2] So several years ago to me wrote the Rev. Fr. Joseph Ignatius of S. Antony, Discalced Carmelite Gallo-Belgian, praised for nobility, erudition, and skill in ancient matters, before Volume 12 of the Spicilegium of d'Achery; to us also singularly to be praised for diligence and zeal in aiding our labor, and transcribing with his own hand, what he believed pertained hither, monuments. He was living, when the first part of May was printed; and though by a few weeks before the printing was finished he departed from life, yet already printed were all things, in which to be named by me more specially he was; unless such a commendation, as much as among fair estimators of praise, so much envy it would have had among others, more pertinaciously adhering to those, to which he himself attributed less, prejudices. But now, since death immature for age, mature for merit, the great hopes of the Order and ours cut down; this at least of solace left to us, that openly henceforth, and without fear of creating trouble to him, I can profess, that scarcely is there anyone in the whole Order, to whom I owe more, and that he should live longer would more have been for the common good. Which here for the sake of gratitude is added; may they take it in good part who knew him living.