Life of Saints: San Policarpo, bishop and martyr

San Policarpo, bishop and martyr
c. 69-c. 155
February 23 - Memorial (Optional memorial if the day of the week of Lent)
Liturgical color: Red (Violet if the day of the week of Lent)
Patron of earache sufferers

The dramatic death of a venerable bishop puts an end to the sub-apostolic era

A Catholic bishop is brutally executed in Turkey. His assassin screams "Allahu Akbar", repeatedly stabbing his victim in the heart, and then cuts off his head. There are witnesses to the act. The few local priests and faithful fear for their lives. The Pope in Rome is shocked and prays for the deceased. Five thousand people participate in the solemn funeral Mass. An event from a long time ago? No.

The assassinated bishop was an Italian Franciscan named Luigi Padovese, the mourning pope was Benedict XVI and the year was 2010. Turkey is a dangerous territory for a Catholic bishop, whether he is a Padovese bishop or a saint today, Bishop Policarpo. For over a millennium, the Anatolian peninsula has been the cradle of Eastern Christianity. That era has long since come to an end. A few hundred miles and one thousand two hundred and eight years separate, or perhaps unite, the Paduan bishop with the bishop Policarpo. Whether spilled by the sharp knife of a modern Muslim fanatic, or spilled by a sword thrown by a pagan Roman soldier, blood still flowed red from the neck of a Christian leader, who crouched in the land of a hostile land.

The news of the martyrdom of San Policarpo, bishop of Smyrna, spread far and wide in his time, making him famous in the primitive Church as it is now. He was martyred around 155 AD, one of the few first martyrs whose death is verified by documents so precise as to prove even that he was executed on the exact day of his current feast, February 23. Polycarp was 86 when a persecution rash erupted against the local church. He patiently waited on a farm outside the city for his executioners to knock on his door. He was then brought before a Roman magistrate and ordered to reject his atheism. Imagine that. What an interesting twist! The Christian is accused of atheism by the pagan "believer". Such was the Roman perspective.

The Roman gods were more patriotic symbols than objects of belief. Nobody was martyred for believing in them. Nobody fought for their creeds, because there were no creeds. These gods did for Rome what flags, national anthems and civil holidays do for a modern nation. They joined him. They were universal symbols of national pride. Just as everyone represents the national anthem, they face the flag, put their hand on their hearts and sing the familiar words, so Roman citizens also climbed the wide marble steps of their temples to many columns, made a petition and then burns incense on the altar of their favorite god.

It required heroic courage for Polycarp and thousands of other early Christians, not to throw a few grains of incense into a flame that burned before a pagan god. For the Romans, not burning such incense was like spitting out a flag. But Polycarp simply refused to give up the truth of what he had heard from the mouth of St. John as a young man, that a carpenter named Jesus, who had lived a few weeks south of Smyrna, had risen from the dead after his decomposition the body was been placed in a guarded grave. And this had happened recently, in the days of Polycarp's grandparents!

Polycarp was proud to die for a faith he had adopted through well-deserved thought. His pedigree as a Christian leader was impeccable. He had learned faith from one of the Lord's apostles. He had met the famous bishop of Antioch, St. Ignatius, when Ignatius passed through Smyrna on the road to his execution in Rome. One of the seven famous letters of Saint Ignatius is even addressed to Polycarp. Polycarp, Saint Irenaeus of Lyon tells us, even traveled to Rome to meet the Pope on the question of Easter dating. Irenaeus had known and learned from Polycarp when Irenaeus was a child in Asia Minor. Polycarp's own letter to the Philippians was read in churches in Asia as if it were part of Scripture, at least until the fourth century.

It was this venerable gray-haired man, the last living witness of the apostolic age, whose hands were tied behind him to a stake and who stood "like a powerful ram" while thousands shouted for his blood. Bishop Polycarp nobly accepted what he had not actively sought. His body was burned after his death and the faithful kept his bones, the first example of relics was so honored. A few years after Policarpo's death, a man from Smyrna named Pionio was martyred for observing the martyrdom of San Policarpo. Precisely in this way are added, one after the other, the links with the chain of faith that extends through the centuries to the present day, where we now honor San Policarpo as if we were sitting within reach of the action in the stadium that fateful day.

Great martyr San Policarpo, make us firm witnesses of the truth in words and deeds, just as you witnessed the truth in your life and death. Through your intercession, you make our commitment to our long-lasting religion, a life project, which lasts until our life of faith ends with a death of faith.