Readings & Reflections: Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time & St. Apollonia, February 12,2019

Readings & Reflections: Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time & St. Apollonia, February 12,2019

Jesus chastises the Pharisees and scribes: “This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me…. You nullify the word of God.” It is precisely that Word which brings forth creation: “Then God said….” We beg for the grace to leave behind our preconceptions and faulty “traditions,” and to have God remake our minds and hearts again and again in his own image and likeness.

AMDG+

Opening Prayer

“Lord, let me dwell in your presence and fill me with the knowledge of your truth and goodness. Instruct my heart that I may walk in your way of love and holiness.” In Jesus’ Mighty Name, I pray. Amen.

Reading 1
Gn 1:20-2:4a

God said,
“Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures,
and on the earth let birds fly beneath the dome of the sky.”
And so it happened:
God created the great sea monsters
and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems,
and all kinds of winged birds.
God saw how good it was, and God blessed them, saying,
“Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas;
and let the birds multiply on the earth.”
Evening came, and morning followed—the fifth day.

Then God said,
“Let the earth bring forth all kinds of living creatures:
cattle, creeping things, and wild animals of all kinds.”
And so it happened:
God made all kinds of wild animals, all kinds of cattle,
and all kinds of creeping things of the earth.
God saw how good it was.
Then God said:
“Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea,
the birds of the air, and the cattle,
and over all the wild animals
and all the creatures that crawl on the ground.”

God created man in his image;
in the divine image he created him;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them, saying:
“Be fertile and multiply;
fill the earth and subdue it.
Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air,
and all the living things that move on the earth.”
God also said:
“See, I give you every seed-bearing plant all over the earth
and every tree that has seed-bearing fruit on it to be your food;
and to all the animals of the land, all the birds of the air,
and all the living creatures that crawl on the ground,
I give all the green plants for food.”
And so it happened.
God looked at everything he had made, and he found it very good.
Evening came, and morning followed—the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth and all their array were completed.
Since on the seventh day God was finished with the work he had been doing, he rested on the seventh day from all the work he had undertaken. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy,
because on it he rested from all the work he had done in creation.
Such is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation.

The word of the Lord.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 8:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 
R. (2ab) O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you set in place—
What is man that you should be mindful of him,
or the son of man that you should care for him?
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
You have made him little less than the angels,
and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him rule over the works of your hands,
putting all things under his feet.
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!
All sheep and oxen,
yes, and the beasts of the field,
The birds of the air, the fishes of the sea,
and whatever swims the paths of the seas.
R. O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!

Gospel
Mk 7:1-13

When the Pharisees with some scribes who had come from Jerusalem
gathered around Jesus, they observed that some of his disciples ate their meals with unclean, that is, unwashed, hands. (For the Pharisees and, in fact, all Jews, do not eat without carefully washing their hands,
keeping the tradition of the elders.
And on coming from the marketplace
they do not eat without purifying themselves.
And there are many other things that they have traditionally observed,
the purification of cups and jugs and kettles and beds.)
So the Pharisees and scribes questioned him,
“Why do your disciples not follow the tradition of the elders
but instead eat a meal with unclean hands?”
He responded, “Well did Isaiah prophesy about you hypocrites,
as it is written:

This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching as doctrines human precepts.

You disregard God’s commandment but cling to human tradition.”
He went on to say,
“How well you have set aside the commandment of God
in order to uphold your tradition!
For Moses said,
Honor your father and your mother,
and Whoever curses father or mother shall die.
Yet you say, ‘If someone says to father or mother,
“Any support you might have had from me is qorban”‘
(meaning, dedicated to God), you allow him to do nothing more for his father or mother. You nullify the word of God in favor of your tradition that you have handed on. And you do many such things.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Reflection 1 – Sincerity vs. Hypocrisy

Today Mark’s gospel deals with the religious who came not to listen to Jesus but to investigate Him. They came to Jesus not to have a full understanding of His teachings and apply them to their lives but to reject them and find ways on how they can eliminate Him.

Sincerity vs. hypocrisy is the issue in today’s gospel.  State of
one’s heart and what flows from it vs. external rituals, what is beautiful and attractive to the world and what conforms to the world are issues we all have to resolve within us.

A hypocritical person is not far from the model of the scribes and Pharisees who placed great importance in honoring one’s parents yet uses the law to nullify God’s word in favor of traditions as they cling to the matter of the “qorban” just to avoid honoring both father and mother. Just like the scribes and Pharisees, a hypocrite can look great on the outside, religious and spiritual and soft-spoken but deep down in his heart has problems.

He chooses to be rigid in his ways and uses God and His law as reason not to do what is godly and good. He indiscriminately uses the letter of the law to get his way yet he cannot apply the same measure on himself. He appears to be of God yet he is so full of vengeance. He considers himself so close to God but if you trace his actions, one could hardly see any sign of God in him. He is totally caught up in the externals of religion and one could hardly find any connection between his outside appearance and the inside of his heart, between his words and his deeds. He is busy making himself acceptable and making good impressions knowing his imperfect state yet does not have the heart to accept other peoples’ brokenness and sinfulness. He cannot follow the leadings of the Spirit but has time and again led the Spirit towards his own version of righteousness.

Jesus is knocking on the door of our hearts today. Jesus is inviting us to look inward and not to be afraid at what we may see. There is serious work to be done inside all of us – no exceptions. But we won’t be working alone. The Spirit will guide our hands and give courage to our hearts. He is not putting us down when He portrayed to us how hypocritical we all have been, not only with our neighbor but also with Him.

God wants us to know that we only paid Him lip service and our hearts have been far from Him. We need to clean up our act, not cover it up. God knows the deepest sentiments of our hearts and we cannot hide from Him and the truth that binds every man. God wants us to change and it is all in our hands now.

God gave us the gift of His Son Who builds people from the inside out. He wants us to open the doors of our hearts and let Jesus in. If we do, He will make us strong inside and out and will transform us into authentic bearers of His Word whose words and deeds are one and whose heart bears the marks of Christ: authentic, humble and sincere.   

Direction
Our lives should reflect our faith in Christ.

Prayer
Heavenly Father make my heart your permanent dwelling place so that whatever I may say and do will flow from your goodness, love and mercy. In Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Reflection 2 – Rejecting the commandments of God

What makes a person unclean or unfit to offer God acceptable worship? The Jews went to great pains to ensure that their worship would conform to the instructions which God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. God’s call to his people was a call to holiness: “be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44; 19:2). In their zeal for holiness many elders developed elaborate traditions which became a burden for the people to carry out in their everyday lives. The Scribes and Pharisees were upset with Jesus because he allowed his disciples to break with their ritual traditions by eating with unclean hands. They sent a delegation all the way from Jerusalem to Galilee to bring their accusation in a face-to-face confrontation with Jesus.

God’s law teaches us how to love God and neighbor in holiness and truth
Jesus dealt with their accusation by going to the heart of the matter – by looking at God’s intention and purpose for the commandments. Jesus gave an example of how their use of ritual tradition excused them from fulfilling the commandment to honor one’s father and mother. If someone wanted to avoid the duty of financially providing for their parents in old age or sickness they could say that their money or goods were an offering “given over to God” and thus exempt from any claim of charity or duty to help others. They broke God’s law to fulfill a law of their own making. Jesus explained that they void God’s command because they allowed their hearts and minds to be clouded by their own notions of religion.

Allow God’s word to purify your thoughts, intentions, and actions
Jesus accused them specifically of two things. First of hypocrisy. Like actors, who put on a show, they appear to obey God’s word in their external practices while they inwardly harbor evil desires and intentions. Secondly, he accused them of abandoning God’s word by substituting their own arguments and ingenious interpretations for what God requires. They listened to clever arguments rather than to God’s word. Jesus refers them to the prophecy of Isaiah (29:31) where the prophet accuses the people of his day for honoring God with their lips while their hearts went astray because of their disobedience to God’s laws.

If we listen to God’s word with faith and reverence, it will both enlighten our mind and purify our heart – thus enabling us to better understand how he wants us to love and obey him rather than love and follow our own unruly desires and wrong behavior. The Lord invites us to draw near to him and to feast at his banquet table. Do you approach with a clean heart and mind? Ask the Lord Jesus to cleanse and renew you with the purifying fire of his Holy Spirit.

“Lord Jesus, let the fire of your Holy Spirit cleanse my mind and my heart that I may love you purely and serve you worthily.” – Read the source:  http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/readings/2019/feb12.htm

Reflection 3 – Tradition or stubbornness

Many of us can recall the musical Fiddler on the Roof, in which a Jewish father struggled with the desire to maintain the traditions of a lifetime, even when they threatened to separate him from his beloved daughters. One by one, the traditions failed him, until he was finally forced to confront his basic beliefs and to decide what he valued most in life.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus berates the Pharisees and scribes for their blind adherence to tradition – a tradition that ignores the core teachings of their faith. How is it possible that traditions founded on a people’s belief can stray so far from the essentials of those beliefs? Are we guilty of that same distortion?

The Genesis account of Creation offers an example of another biblical fundamental that seems to suffer at the expense of tradition. When God created man and woman, he commanded them to “have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” In the context of the creation story, it seems clear that God intends humans to be participants in the work of creation, maintaining the goodness of the earth and cultivating it to God’s glory.

Yet over time we have assumed our dominion over the creatures of the earth to mean that we are free to bend the earth and its inhabitants to our own will. We have established traditions and lifestyles that demean the earth and drain it of its bounty. We cling to our supposed superiority and resist those who call us to a responsible stewardship of God’s creation. We have become like the Pharisees: stubborn in our adherence to our adopted ways and deaf to those who call us to return to the core of our faith.

Let us not be afraid to let go of the traditions that keep us from following God’s will. (Source: Cecilia A. Felix, Weekday Homily Helps. Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger Press, February 10, 2009).

Reflection 4 – We cannot contain God in a box

A marvelous stained-glass window in the chapel at Mount St. Mary Seminary in Cincinnati features the holy of holies in the Temple in Jerusalem with an image of an extraordinary omnipotent God bursting out of the holy of holies, which cannot contain him. Nothing can contain God. This window echoes the words of King Solomon in today’s first reading (1 Kg 8:22-23, 27-30): “Can it be that God dwells on earth? If the heavens and the highest heavens cannot contain you, how much less this temple which I have built!”

How can our human intellect wrap itself around the reality of God? Even the greatest of theologians fail to do so. Perhaps the greatest of all Catholic theologians, St. Thomas Aquinas, said it best. Shortly before his death, Thomas was gifted with a transcendent vision. Afterward St. Thomas said of his Summa Theologica, one of the greates written works ever produced by humankind, “It’s all straw.”

As St. Thomas Aquinas understood after his vision, all theology is a meager attempt to define the indefinable – the utter magnificence of the reality that is God. Perhaps the closest any of us can get to encountering God is when we love, for God is the source of love and indeed love itself. Our God is a grand mystery who wills only the best for us. But we cannot keep God in a box. We can only stand in awe at his great mystery. (Source: Timothy J. Cronin, Weekday Homily Helps. Ohio: St. Anthony Messenger Press, February 9, 2010).

Reflection 5 – The Walking Purchase

In colonial North America, William Penn had a reputation as a benevolent Quaker who dealt fairly with Native Americans. When he returned to England, his sons stayed behind. They did not share his integrity. Soon they contrived a scheme to cheat a Delaware tribe. The sons produced an old contract in which the Indians had agreed to sell a portion of land that a man could walk in 1½ days.

When the tribe consented to honor their ancestors’ agreement, Penn’s sons were delighted. They hired three of the fastest runners they could find. One of the men covered a distance of 65 miles in 18 hours. They totally disregarded both the letter and the spirit of the agreement.

In Jesus’ day, the scribes and Pharisees rationalized their violation of the spirit of God’s law. Jesus exposed their hypocritical practice when He cited the commandment to “honor your father and your mother” (Mark 7:10-13). They were declaring a portion of their income as “a gift to God” to keep from using it to care for their aged parents.

The Bible is not a tool to get what we want. Instead, we must ask God to help us understand its intended purpose. Let’s be sure we don’t neglect the “weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith” (Matt. 23:23).  — Dennis Fisher

Obeying the letter of the law is good; obeying the spirit of the law is better (Source: Our Daily Bread, RBC Ministries).

Reflection 6 – Abandonment vs. Hypocrisy

“In order that abandonment might be authentic and engender peace, it must be total. We must put everything, without exception, into the hands of God, not seeking any longer to manage or “to save” ourselves by our own means: not in the material domain, nor the emotional, not the spiritual. We cannot divide human existence into various sectors: certain sectors where it would be legitimate to surrender ourselves to God with confidence and other where, on the contrary, we feel we must manage exclusively on our own. And one thing we know well: all reality that we have not surrendered to God, that we choose to manage by ourselves without giving carte blancheto God, will continue to make us more or less uneasy. The measure of our interior peace will be that of our abandonment, consequently of our detachment.

“Abandonment inevitably requires an element of renunciation and it is this that is most difficult for us. We have a natural tendency to cling to a whole host of things: material goods, affections, desires, projects, etc., and it costs us terribly to let go of our grip, because we have the impression that we will lose ourselves in the process, that we will die….

“He who accepts this death of detachment, of renunciation, finds the true life. The one who clings to something, who wishes to protect some domain in his life in order to manage it at his convenience without radically abandoning it into the hands of God, is making a very bad mistake: he devotes himself to unnecessary preoccupations and exposes himself to the gnawing sense of loss. By contrast, he who accepts to put everything into the hands of God, to allow him to give and take according to his good pleasure, this individual finds an inexpressible peace and interior freedom…. This is the way to happiness, because if we leave God free to act in his way, he is infinitely more capable of rendering us happy than we ourselves are, because he knows us and loves us more than we can ever know or love ourselves” (Fr. Jacques Pilippe, Magnificat, Vol. 16, No. 12, February 2015, pp. 146-147).

Reflection 7 – The love behind the rituals

Oh what a blessing we receive when rituals are changed or taken away, because it makes us analyze why we were doing them in the first place!

Take, for example, what happens when a parish that has always knelt during the Consecration of the Eucharist is told by the pastor that they will stand from now on. There’s usually a big uproar. Why?

Standing is an official posture of respect. That’s why we stand during the reading of the Gospel. Theologically, it signifies that we are an Easter people; the Lord has conquered sin and death and now we live in his risen glory. So why do we stubbornly refuse to accept a change from the kneeling posture to standing?

Personally, I would rather kneel. It reminds me to be humble. Well, can’t I be humble without it? Frankly, Jesus deserves the most respect that we can muster, which means I should lie prostrate on the floor, except I don’t want to draw attention to myself and away from Jesus.

Sadly, there are many Catholics who kneel because everyone else is kneeling, not from genuine, heart-felt reverence for Christ. For them, it’s merely a human tradition. Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading, “This people pays me lip service but their heart is far from me. Empty is the reverence they do me ….”

Every ritual gesture and body posture during Mass should change us. Making the sign of the cross should put us more in touch with the Lord who died on the cross for us. Blessing ourselves with holy water should renew our baptismal connection to God and separate us from the worldliness that’s outside the church. Praying the “Our Father” should unite us to the people next to us.

“Disregarding God’s commandment while clinging to human tradition” occurs whenever we consider a ritual to be more important than a person. In the hierarchy of Church laws, the rules that prescribe most rituals have always been changeable “human traditions” designed to drive home to the heart a true practice of the faith; they are of lesser importance than the unchangeable laws of faith and morality that prescribe how to treat one another.

The bottom-line question is: What are my motives for doing — or not doing — a ritual? Will it increase my humility? Will it enhance my relationship with God and with the community? Does it spring from the heart or is my heart far from God at this moment?

May love rule our rituals and may our actions never be empty tradition! – Read the source: http://gnm.org/good-news-reflections/?useDrDate=2018-02-06

Reflection 8 – You are a masterpiece of God!

[ Listen to the podcast of this reflection ]

In the Book of Genesis (1:20-2:4), God reaches the high point of his handiwork by creating you and me and every human person who was ever conceived. We are his masterpieces! Yes, even the unborn human who dies in miscarriage or abortion — God created each one as a masterpiece whom he treasures and wants to live with forever.

Do you feel like a piece of junk? That’s not his opinion of you. Okay, so you’re not perfect; big deal. When God looks at you, he doesn’t see the crud that tarnishes you; he sees the gem underneath — a beautiful, bright, multi-hued gem. Even when he looks at the most evil person on earth, he sees the goodness that he created, where it lies buried inside.

And he says, “This is very good!”

When Jesus took our crud with him to the cross, he made it easier for our gems to get cleaned up and polished. Baptism and Confession are sacraments that wash the crud from us as we give it all to Jesus. When our Father looks at you and me, he looks at us through these sacraments to see the masterpieces that he created.

So why do we have a hard time believing that God likes us? Why do we have a hard time liking ourselves? It’s because we project onto God the image and likeness of humans, specifically the people who’ve disliked us when we failed to live up to their expectations.

Our prayer life is affected by this. The Person of the Trinity to whom we entrust our prayers is Our Father. Yet, because our human fathers and other authority figures could not be trusted all the time (none are perfectly trustable), we assume that God will disappoint us, too. It’s not that we think God is incapable of answering our prayers; we just think we’re not good enough.

In truth, being “good enough” has nothing to do with it. We can’t earn his help and he doesn’t even want us to try. He gives his help freely and generously, simply because he loves us and, in the first place, because he cared enough to create us. The real reason why prayers don’t get answered is either because we’re blocking the help we need or because God is doing something far better for us and we can’t see it yet.

You’re not junk. You’re God’s masterpiece, and to deny that is to deny what Jesus did on the cross for you. It also denies that the Father said, “This is very good!” when he formed you in your mother’s womb. The Father’s creative genius is seen in all of nature, but you’re his ultimate creation! – Read the source:  http://gnm.org/good-news-reflections/?useDrDate=2019-02-12

Please follow Romeo Hontiveros at Twitter click this link: https://twitter.com/Trumpeta

Reflection 9 – St. Apollonia (d. 249 A.D.)

The persecution of Christians began in Alexandria during the reign of the Emperor Philip. The first victim of the pagan mob was an old man named Metrius, who was tortured and then stoned to death. The second person who refused to worship their false idols was a Christian woman named Quinta. Her words infuriated the mob and she was scourged and stoned.

While most of the Christians were fleeing the city, abandoning all their worldly possessions, an old deaconess, Apollonia, was seized. The crowds beat her, knocking out all of her teeth. Then they lit a large fire and threatened to throw her in it if she did not curse her God. She begged them to wait a moment, acting as if she was considering their requests. Instead, she jumped willingly into the flames and so suffered martyrdom.

There were many churches and altars dedicated to her. Apollonia is the patroness of dentists, and people suffering from toothache and other dental diseases often ask her intercession. She is pictured with a pair of pincers holding a tooth or with a golden tooth suspended from her necklace. St. Augustine explained her voluntary martyrdom as a special inspiration of the Holy Spirit, since no one is allowed to cause his or her own death.

Comment:

The Church has quite a sense of humor! Apollonia is honored as the patron saint of dentists, but this woman who had her teeth extracted without anesthetic surely ought to be the patron of those who dread the chair. She might also be the patron of the aging, for she attained glory in her old age, standing firm before her persecutors even as her fellow Christians fled the city. However we choose to honor her, she remains a model of courage for us.

Patron Saint of: Dentists, Toothache

Read the source:   http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1303

SAINT OF THE DAY
Catholic saints are holy people and human people who lived extraordinary lives. Each saint the Church honors responded to God’s invitation to use his or her unique gifts. God calls each one of us to be a saint. Click here to receive Saint of the Day in your email.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Apollonia
SAINT APOLLONIA
Francisco de Zurbarán 035.jpg

Saint Apollonia, by Francisco de ZurbaránMuseum of Louvre, from the Convent of the Order of Our Lady of Mercy and the Redemption of the Captives Discalced of Saint Joseph (Seville).
VIRGIN & MARTYR
BORN 2nd century
DIED 249
Alexandria, Egypt
VENERATED IN Coptic Orthodox Church
Eastern Orthodox Churches
Oriental Orthodox Churches
Roman Catholic Church
FEAST February 9
ATTRIBUTES Tongs (sometimes with a tooth in them), depicted holding a cross or martyr’s palm or crown
PATRONAGE Dentists
Tooth problems
AchterbosBelgium
AricciaItaly
Cuccaro MonferratoItaly

Saint Apollonia was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against theChristians prior to the persecution of Decius. According to legend, her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. For this reason, she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry and those suffering from toothache or other dental problems. French court painter Jehan Fouquet painted the scene of St. Apollonia’s torture in The Martyrdom of St. Apollonia.[1]

Martyrdom[edit]

Torture of Saint Apollonia (1513,Heilsbronn Cathedral, Bavaria).

Ecclesiastical historians have claimed that in the last years of Emperor Philip the Arab (reigned 244–249), during otherwise undocumented festivities to commemorate the millennium of the founding of Rome (traditionally in 753 BC, putting the date about 248), the fury of the Alexandrian mob rose to a great height, and when one of their poets prophesied a calamity, they committed bloody outrages on the Christians, whom the authorities made no effort to protect.

Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (247–265), relates the sufferings of his people in a letter addressed to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, of which long extracts have been preserved in Eusebius‘ Historia Ecclesiae.[2] After describing how a Christian man and woman, Metras and Quinta, were seized and killed by the mob, and how the houses of several other Christians were pillaged, Dionysius continues:

“At that time Apollonia, parthénos presbytis (mostly likely meaning a deaconess) was held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of fagots and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words (either a blasphemy against Christ, or an invocation of the heathen gods). Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and was burned to death.”[3]

This brief tale was extended and moralized in Jacobus de Voragine‘s Golden Legend (c. 1260).

Fresco of Saint Apollonia
(St. Nicholas Church, Stralsund).

Apollonia and a whole group of early martyrs did not await the death they were threatened with, but either to preserve their chastity or because they were confronted with the alternative of renouncing their faith or suffering death, voluntarily embraced the death prepared for them, an action that runs perilously close to suicide, some thought.Augustine of Hippo touches on this question in the first book of The City of God, apropos suicide:

“But, they say, during the time of persecution certain holy women plunged into the water with the intention of being swept away by the waves and drowned, and thus preserve their threatened chastity. Although they quitted life in this wise, nevertheless they receive high honour as martyrs in the Catholic Church and their feasts are observed with great ceremony. This is a matter on which I dare not pass judgment lightly. For I know not but that the Church was divinely authorized through trustworthy revelations to honour thus the memory of these Christians. It may be that such is the case. May it not be, too, that these acted in such a manner, not through human caprice but on the command of God, not erroneously but through obedience, as we must believe in the case of Samson? When, however, God gives a command and makes it clearly known, who would account obedience there to a crime or condemn such pious devotion and ready service?”[4]

The narrative of Dionysius does not suggest the slightest reproach as to this act of St. Apollonia; in his eyes she was as much a martyr as the others, and as such she was revered in the Alexandrian Church. In time, her feast was also popular in the West. A later narrative mistakenly duplicated Apollonia, making her a Christian virgin of Romein the reign of Julian the Apostate, suffering the same dental fate.

Veneration[edit]

Reliquary containing a tooth reputedly that of Saint Apollonia, in theCathedral of PortoPortugal.

The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches celebrate the feast day of St. Apollonia on February 9, and she is popularly invoked against the toothache because of the torments she had to endure. She is represented in art with pincers in which a tooth is held. In a late 14th-century illumination from a French manuscript, the tooth in her pincers glows from within, like a lightbulb.[citation needed]

Saint Apollonia is one of the two patron saints of Catania.

William S. Walsh noted that, though the major part of her relics were preserved in the former church of St. Apollonia at Rome, her head at the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, her arms at the Basilica di San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, parts of her jaw in St. Basil’s, and other relics are in the Jesuit church at Antwerp, in St. Augustine’s at Brussels, in the Jesuit church at Mechlin, in St. Cross at Liege, in the treasury of the cathedral of Porto, and in several churches at Cologne.[5]These relics consist in some cases of a solitary tooth or a splinter of bone. In the Middle Ages, objects claimed to be her teeth were sold as toothache cures. During the reign of Henry VI of England, several tons of these purported teeth were collected in an effort to stop the scam.[citation needed]

There was a church dedicated to her in Rome, near the Basilica di Santa Maria in Trastevere, but it no longer exists. Only its little square, the Piazza Sant’Apollonia remains. One of the principal train stations of Lisbon is also named for this saint. There is a statue of Saint Apollonia in the church at LocronanFrance. The island of Mauritius was originally named Santa Apolónia in her honor in 1507 by Portuguese navigators.[citation needed] A parish church in Eilendorf, a suburb of Aachen, Germany, is named in honor of Saint Apollonia.

Presence in England[edit]

The stained glass image in Kingskerswell church

In England, there are 52 known images of her in various churches which survived the ravages of the 16th century Commissioners. These are concentrated in Devon and East Anglia. Most of these images are on the panels of rood screens or featured in stained glasswith only one being a stone capital (Stokeinteignhead, Devon). She is also depicted in a tapestry of circa 1499 at St. Mary’s Guildhall, Coventry.

By county, some of the locations are:

Poundstock
  • Devon:
Alphington (now gone), AshtonCombe MartinExeter Cathedral(tapestry in St. Gabriel’s chapel), HolneKennKenton,Kingskerswell(see photo), ManatonPayhemburySouth Milton, Stoke-in-Teignhead, TorbryanUgboroughWhimple (now gone), Widecombe-in-the-MoorWolborough (Newton Abbot)
Long Sutton
Barton TurfDockingHorsham St FaithLudhamNorwich (St. Stephen’s), Norwich-over-the-water (church disused),Sandringham
  • Suffolk:
NortonSomerleytonWesthallChilton

Her image is the side support of the arms of the British Dental Association.

Notes[edit]

  1. Jump up^ Olmert, Michael (1996). Milton’s Teeth and Ovid’s Umbrella: Curiouser & Curiouser Adventures in History, p.66. Simon & Schuster, New York. ISBN 0-684-80164-7.
  2. Jump up^ Eusebius of CaesareaHistoria Ecclesiae, I:vi: 41.
  3. Jump up^ “St. Apollonia”Catholic Encyclopedia. Retrieved 29 January 2013.
  4. Jump up^ Augustine of HippoThe City of God, I:26
  5. Jump up^ William S. Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs And of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances, and Miscellaneous Antiquities