The relics of four saints were placed in the St Mary’s Cathedral altar during the re-dedication ceremony on December 8.
Prudentius and St Paulina, were placed in the previous altar when the Cathedral was dedicated by Archbishop Launcelot Goody in 1973.
Both were early Roman martyrs about whom not a great deal is known definitively except that they were martyred and their remains were buried in the catacombs.
The custom of placing relics, particularly of martyrs, in church altars arose from the fact that in the catacombs Mass was said in the presence of many relics.
St Prudentius was possibly a pupil of St Peter, and his feast day is celebrated on May 19.
St Paulina was one of a group of Roman women martyred in one of the early persecutions, possibly under the Emperor Valerian. Her relics were enshrined in the catacombs of Via Salaria, Rome.
Her feast day is celebrated on December 31.
The two other Saints added to the altar of St Mary’s Cathedral are St Catherine of Alexandria and St Paul Miki.
St Catherine’s history is not documented, but her lively and widespread legend says she was born and raised a pagan, but converted to Christianity.
It is said that she visited the Roman Emperor Maximinus, and attempted to convince him of the error of his ways in persecuting Christians. She succeeded in converting his wife, the Empress, and many pagan wise men whom the Emperor sent to dispute with her.
Upon the failure of the Emperor to win Catherine over, he ordered her to be put in prison. When the people who visited her converted, she was condemned to death on the breaking wheel, an instrument of torture.
According to legend, the wheel itself broke when she touched it, so she was beheaded.
According to Christian tradition, angels carried her body to Mount Sinai, where in the 6th century, the Eastern Emperor Justinian established a monastery in her name. It still survives as a famous repository of early Christian art, architecture and illuminated manuscripts that is open to visiting scholars. Her principal symbol is the spiked wheel, which has become known in firework displays as the Catherine wheel. Her feast day is celebrated on November 25
St Paul Miki was born in 1562 at Tsunokuni, Japan, Saint Paul Miki was the leader of the famous Nagasaki martyrs.
He was born wealthy, the son of the military leader Miki Handayu.
He felt a call to religious life from his youth and was educated at the Jesuit colleges at Azuchi and Takatsuki.
He became a Jesuit in 1580 and was a successful evangelist. When the political climate became hostile to Christianity, he decided to continue his ministry but was soon arrested.
On his way to martyrdom, he and other imprisoned Christians were marched 600 miles so they could be abused by, and be a lesson to, their countrymen; they sang the
Te Deum on the way.
His last sermon was delivered from the cross. He and his companions were crucified on February 5, 1597 at Nagasaki.
He was beatified on September 14, 1627 by Pope Urban VIII and canonised on June 8, 1862 by Pope Pius IX. His feast day is February 6.