Today the Church remembers Saint Onesimus, Bishop.
Ora pro nobis.
Saint Onesimus was a slave of Philemon, a person of note of the city of Colossae in Phrygia who had been converted to the Faith by St. Paul. Having robbed his master, and being obliged to flee, he met with St. Paul, then a prisoner for the Faith at Rome, who converted and baptized him, and entrusted him with his canonical letter of recommendation to Philemon.
By him, it seems, Onesimus was pardoned, set at liberty and sent back to his spiritual father, whom he afterwards faithfully served, for apparently St. Paul made him, with Tychicus, the bearer of his epistle to the Colossians, and afterwards, as St. Jerome and other Early Church Fathers witness, a preacher of the gospel and a bishop.
It is he who succeeded Saint Timothy as bishop of Ephesus.
He was cruelly tortured in Rome for eighteen days, by a governor of that city, infuriated by his preaching on the merit of celibacy. His legs and thighs were broken with bludgeons, and he was then stoned to death. His martyrdom occurred under the reign of Emperor Domitian during the persecution of Christians under Trajan in the year AD 95.
We thank you, Lord Jesus, for faithful witnesses like Onesimus who were willing to give their lives as living witnesses of the Faith. We pray, Lord, that St. Onesimus and St. Paul and all the saints in heaven will pray for us that we also may be strong in the Faith and by your Holy Spirit be able to stand firm as witnesses.
Amen.
