St. Callistus I, Pope/Martyr

SAINT CALLISTUS I
Pope and Martyr
 (†223AD)

Today we honor yet another Martyr for the Faith, Pope St. Callixtus I. There seemed to be a change in things during and after his reign as the successor of St. Peter. Ground rules started to be laid down. He laid rules for marriage, for one thing. Maybe we should ask his help now, especially during this past ridiculous Synod that was going on last year, which threatens the teaching of the Church pertaining to marriage.  You know that the final battle against evil will include those things pertaining to marriage rights and families.  Look up Fatima, Portugal and Akita, Japan. Anyway...

Callixtus was a Roman by birth. Early in the 3rd century, it was to Callistus, then a deacon, that Pope St. Zephyrinus confided the government of the clergy, as well as the creation and maintenance of the Christian cemeteries, which at that time were the catacombs of Rome. At the death of the Sovereign Pontiff, Callistus succeeded him as Head of the Church.

'He ruled the Church when she was at the first stage in her career, and was marching forward to new and greater triumphs. The Christian Faith before this time had only been embraced by individuals, and had now become the Faith of families; and fathers made profession of it in their own and their children's name. These families already formed almost the majority in every town; the Religion of Christ was on the eve of becoming the public religion of the nation and the empire. How many new problems concerning Christian social rights, ecclesiastical law, and moral discipline, must have daily arisen in the Church, considering the greatness of her situation at the time, and the still greater future that was opening before her! Pope Callixtus solved all these doubts; he drew up regulations concerning the deposition of clerics; took the necessary measures against the deterring of catechumens from Baptism, and of deterring sinners from repentance; and defined the notion of the Church, which St. Augustine was afterwards to develop. In opposition to the civil laws, he asserted the Christian's right over his own conscience, and the Church's authority with regard to the marriage of the Faithful. He knew no distinction of slave and freeman, great and lowly, noble and plebian, in that spiritual brotherhood that was undermining Roman society, and softening its inhuman manners. For this reason, his name is so great at the present day; for this reason, the voice of the envious, or of those who measured the times by the narrowness of their own proud mind, was lost in the cries of admiration, and was utterly despised.'    Commandant de Rossi 1866

He is the first one to bring the empire to recognize officially the rights of the Christian community. It is he who made obligatory for the entire Church, the fast of the Ember Days which the Apostles had instituted, to bring down blessings on each season of the year. During his time, the Christians began to build churches, which though destroyed during the various persecutions, were eventually rebuilt. Among the catacombs owed to his government, is the one on the Appian Way which bears his name. Many precious memories are conserved there; in it are found the tomb of St. Cecilia, the crypts of several popes, and paintings which attest the perfect conformity of the primitive Faith with that of the present-day Church. The virgin martyr Cecilia had yielded to the Church its first sepulchre, which was then used for martyrs. With this venerable crypt, the State for the first time recognized the Church's right to earthly possessions. And, the Church had a burial ground for its deceased.

During the pontificate of St. Callistus, several very striking conversions occurred among the very officers of the persecuting emperor Alexander Severus. At one time an officer, his family and household, forty-two persons in all, were baptized by the Pope on the same day. Many others asked him for Baptism; among them a Senator and sixty-eight persons of his household, and a guardian of the saintly Pope, whose name was Privatus, after the prayers of the Holy Father had cured him of an ulcer. Even a prison guard was converted after receiving a healing at the prayers of Callixtus. All these new Christians were martyred, and their heads were exposed at the various gates of Rome to discourage any who would propagate the Faith of Christ in that city. Despite the continuing pursuits and his constant solicitude for all the churches, St. Callistus found the means to have a diligent search made by fishermen for the body of a priest of his clergy, which had been cast into the Tiber after his martyrdom. When it was found he was filled with joy, and buried it with hymns of praise.

During the persecution St. Callistus was obliged to take shelter in the poor and populous quarters of the city. The martyred priest, Calipodius, appeared to him soon afterwards, saying: "Father, take courage; the hour of the reward is approaching; your crown will be proportionate to your sufferings." Soon afterwards he was discovered there, and the house was guarded by soldiers who received the order to allow no food to enter it for several days. And St. Callistus was martyred in his turn. With a rock suspended from his neck, he was thrown from a window into a well on October 14, 223. The priest Asterius recovered and buried his body in the catacomb named for Calipodius, on the Aurelian Way, three miles from Rome. He didn't even get to be buried in the tomb which had been named for him. A week later Asterius too was arrested and thrown into the Tiber. The Christians interred this martyr also.


'...He did, then, steer the ship of Peter towards it glorious destination. The more satan hates thee and pursues thee even to the present day, the more mayst thou be glorified forever. Give thy blessing to us, who are thy sons and thy disciples.' (Taken from a prayer in 'The Liturgical Year' by the Abbot Gueranger)