Dear Father, following your column on some of the saints in the Roman Canon, who are the saints mentioned after the consecration?
After the Consecration in the Roman Canon, or Eucharistic Prayer I, we find a list of 15 saints: eight men and seven women.
The first one is John. But which John? Since the three following saints are Stephen, Matthias and Barnabas, all of whom are mentioned in the New Testament, and since John the apostle was already mentioned before the Consecration, this must be John the Baptist.
The argument is strengthened by the Eastern practice in the early centuries of commemorating both John the Baptist and Stephen, the first martyr, in the prayer for the dead, and the fact that the prayer where they are mentioned in the Roman Canon immediately follows the memento of the dead.
John is followed by Stephen, who is clearly the deacon and first martyr, whose death is described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 6:8-7:60). His feast is celebrated on December 26.
Then come Matthias, the one chosen as an apostle to replace Judas Iscariot (cf. Acts 1:15-26), and Barnabas, the companion of St Paul on his missionary journeys.
They are both considered to be apostles, as we see in the liturgical celebration of their feast days, on May 14 and June 11 respectively.
The next saint mentioned is Ignatius, undoubtedly St Ignatius of Antioch who, on his way to Rome to be martyred in 107 AD, wrote seven letters to churches in which he revealed his great longing to die and to be with Christ.
His feast is celebrated on October 17.
Ignatius is followed by Alexander, and again there is some uncertainty about who this is.
A likely candidate is the Alexander listed by some early writings as the fifth Pope, who was martyred, like St Ignatius, during the reign of the emperor Trajan (98-117).
In 1855, a semi-subterranean cemetery of the martyrs Alexander, Eventulus, and Theodulus was discovered near Rome, at the spot where the tradition declares the Pope to have been martyred.
Next come Marcellinus and Peter, two martyrs whom ancient sources consider to be a priest and exorcist respectively.
Although there was a Pope Marcellinus, who reigned from 296 to 304, it is more likely that the Marcellinus in the Canon is a priest of the same name, since it is known that a priest named Marcellinus and an exorcist named Peter were martyred at the time of Pope Marcellinus, during the persecution of Diocletian.
That brings us to the seven women saints, all of whom were martyrs and all well known.
Saints Felicity and Perpetua were martyred in Carthage on March 7, 203. Perpetua was a 22-year-old married woman of noble birth and Felicity a slave.
When she was arrested, Perpetua was nursing a young son and was pregnant with a daughter, to whom she gave birth shortly before her death.
Perpetua and Felicity were martyred by being attacked by a wild cow and then being put to death by the sword.
Their feast is celebrated on March 7.
St Agatha is one of the most venerated virgin martyrs of the early centuries.
She was put to death for her faith in Catania, Sicily, probably during the persecution of Decius (250-253). Her feast is celebrated on February 5.
St Lucy is another virgin martyr, from Syracuse in Sicily, put to death according to the tradition in the year 303 during the persecution of Diocletian. One tradition has it that her mother Eutychia was cured of an illness after praying before the tomb of St Agatha in Catania.
St Lucy’s feast is celebrated on December 13.
St Agnes, another virgin martyr, was from a noble Christian family in Rome.
She was put death at the age of 12 or 13 on January 21, 304, during the persecution of Diocletian, for refusing to marry the son of the Prefect.
Her feast is celebrated on January 21.
St Cecilia, another much venerated virgin martyr from a noble Roman Christian family, was killed by a sword sometime towards the end of the second or first half of the third century.
Her feast is celebrated on November 22.
Finally, St Anastasia was martyred at Sirmium in present-day Croatia, perhaps during the persecution of Diocletian, although little is known about the circumstances or time of her death.
For a long time she was commemorated in the second Mass on Christmas day.