The Lives of the Saints Volume 1 - St. Patrick's Basilica

domestic austerities, a reformation, obliging the members to go
barefoot, was established among them in the sixteenth century, and
approved by pope Clement VIII. It observes the strictest poverty,
recollection, solitude, and abstinence, and has two provinces in
Spain, and one in Sicily, besides several nunneries. It was erected
by F. John Baptist Gonzales, or of the holy sacrament, who died in
the year 1{}18, and is said to have been honored with miracles.
4. Podoniensis.
5. Ps. cx. 9.
6. S. Chrys. Hom. in illud: Vidua eligatur, &c. t. 3, p. 397. Ed. Ben.
ST. SERAPION, M.
HE was a zealous Englishman, whom St. Peter Nolasco received into his
Order at Barcelona. He made two journeys among the Moors for the ransom
of captives, in 1240. The first was to Murcia, in which he purchased the
liberty of ninety-eight slaves: the second to Algiers, in which he
redeemed eighty-seven, but remained himself a hostage for the full
payment of the money. He boldly preached Christ to the Mahometans, and
baptized several: for which he was cruelly tortured, scourged, cut and
mangled, at length fastened to a cross, and was thereon stabbed and
quartered alive in the same year, 1240. Pope Benedict XIII. declared him
a martyr, and proved his immemorial veneration in his Order, by a decree
in 1728, as Benedict XIV. relates. L. 2, de Canoniz. c. 24, p. 296.
SS. CYRUS AND JOHN, MM.
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CYRUS, a physician of Alexandria, who by the opportunities which his
profession gave him, had converted many sick persons to the faith; and
John, an Arabian, hearing that a lady called Athanasia, and her three
daughters, of which the eldest was only fifteen years of age, suffered
torments for the name of Christ at Canope in Egypt, went thither to
encourage them. They were apprehended themselves, and cruelly beaten:
their sides {318} were burnt with torches, and salt and vinegar poured
into their wounds in the presence of Athanasia and her daughters, who
were also tortured after them. At length the four ladies, and a few days
after, Cyrus and John, were beheaded, the two latter on this day. The
Syrians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Latins, honor their memory. See their
acts[1] by St. Sophronius commended in the seventh general council, and
published with remarks by Bollandus.
Footnotes:
1. St. Cyrus is the same as Abba-Cher, mentioned in the Coptic calendar
on this day, which is the 8th of their month Mechir. He is called
Abbacyrus in the life of St. John the Almoner, written by Leontius,
in many ancient Martyrologies, and other monuments of antiquity.