 Secondly, there's another issue with the story that we were talking about. Ooh, okay, right. You see where I'm going? Mm-hmm. In regards to her martyrdom, which we'll talk about here in a second, maybe I'm jumping ahead, should I just wait until we actually speak about the martyrdom to get into this particular aspect? You want to leave him with a cliffhanger here? Let's leave him with a cliffhanger. Hey, I'm Jordan Burke. And I'm Kristen Briella. And this is Saints and Sages. Where we talk about the wisdom of the saints and how it's relevant for you. And real quick, before we start the show, we got a few announcements. Number one, go out and buy this book, This Present Paradise. Ooh. It's by Claire Dwyer. You know where you can get it? Sophie Institute Press. You know where else you can get it? It's spiritualdirection.com forward slash shop. You'll be doing yourself a really large favor so that you can learn about St. Elizabeth of the Trinity, of whom we have discussed before on the show. It's already sold out too. So go and get your copy before it sells out again. The other thing we'd like to tell you about very quickly before we start the show is the, ironically enough, Firelight Retreat, you'll see why that's ironic in a second because the story involves fire, but why don't you tell me about the retreat? I like that parallel. Yeah, the Silent Retreat is coming up February 20th, 2021. We would love for you to come if your age is 18 to 35. If you're 17, you're out of luck. If you're 36, you're out of luck. 18 to 35. Call us. Okay, email us actually. But yeah, definitely sign up online spiritualdirection.com slash events. We would love to have you. It's a Silent Retreat, so lots of silence, but we're also going to have some fellowship afterwards. It's at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, like we said, which is a pilgrimage in and of itself, Enhanceville, Alabama. So join us. We would love for you to come. Yeah, and if you're listening and you're like, what the heck is a Silent Retreat? Are we just going to go and not talk to anybody? Yes and no. Basically you go and you, personally, as an attendee, experience goodness and silence. But there are going to be speakers. So you're going to go and listen to talks, the whole thing. You're going to be silent. The speaker will speak. Sacraments. Yeah, mass. Confessions. There's going to be confession for sure. And you just reflect in silence on what's being taught about. So that's what that is. Yeah. Very powerful. Yeah, for sure, Jordan. I love that you said that. We really want to make space for you to have an encounter with the Lord. And what better opportunity to do that amongst other fellow young adults across the world? We actually have people flying in. So we would love to see you there. Yep. Good times. With that being said, I talked about fire and I think that means that it's time to get into the story of today's Saint. Saint Apollonia. Apollonia. Of Alexandria. I will admit, we had to Google check the pronunciation of this. And so if someone's like, That's not right. Take it up with Google. Don't take it up with us. And eerily enough. Did I pronounce that right? Eerily. Is that a word? Correct. Yeah, that's right. It was eerie. Eerily. Eerily. That's right. Jordan looked up the way that the person announces, I'm struggling. It's your facial expression. It's making me feel uncomfortable to read. I'm just waiting. I'm like, all right, where's this going? The mouth, it like moved up and down and it was just a mouth. So if you need to look up Apollonia and how to say that after this podcast, yeah, definitely check that out or not cause it was weird. We've already said like 12 times. So his feast day, her feast day, we're talking about she, her feast day is February 9th. She is a third century Saint, super early Saint and born in Alexandria, Egypt, Africa. So that's super cool. She is the patron saint of toothaches and dentists and we'll get into why that is in the story. But this one is really interesting, well, they're all interesting but this one's particularly interesting because we have basically the only thing we know about her is what was written by Saint Dionysus who was the Bishop of Alexandria at the time. And what was written about her was about a paragraph. Yes, we have very little documented from the church on this seat. And it is strictly on her martyrdom. It doesn't say, and we can, we'll talk a little bit about it where we're- There's speculation. Yeah, there's some speculation and some inference but yeah, it's mainly about her martyrdom. And the reason I mentioned that is because when we were comparing notes and we're comparing stories and our resources as we do before we go over the shows, one of the things that we found which was super interesting was that artist's renderings of Saint Apollonia, there's an issue with them. And the issue- Supposedly. Supposedly. According to what was written, according to how she was described, it's believed that the common teaching is that she was an older woman, potentially a widow, possibly consecrated either after being a widow or prior, or I guess you can be consecrated prior to being a widow but consecrated or a widow and then consecrated. Does that make sense? I got you, I'm following. This one's tough. So there is that. And what basically we're finding out is that, or as the story goes, because she was older, artists didn't want to paint her older. They wanted to like- Paint her in her youth. Anticize the story. And so they started painting her younger. Okay, and you might be thinking, Jordan, why the heck are you talking about that? Yeah, Jordan, let us know. What's going on? Because history is important. And then secondly, there's another issue with the story that we were talking about. Ooh, okay, right. You see where I'm going. They're in regards to her martyrdom, which we'll talk about here in a second. Maybe I'm jumping ahead, should I just wait until we actually speak about the martyrdom to get into this particular aspect? You want to leave them with a cliffhanger here? Let's leave them with a cliffhanger. Let's go more into the story and then we'll carry on. So keep in mind the artist's renderings of her younger probably is not correct. And then that's going to carry on. So. So a little back history. We've got Emperor Philip the Arabian and he was reigning 244 to 249. And there were actually a group of martyrs at that time because they were under persecution from him. He was not a fan of the Christians. There was a pagan prophecy apparently that occurred and it was claimed by a poet. And that poet really stirred up everything because the people became really against Christians after that prophecy was claimed. So the emperor was like off with their heads, you know, pretty much he didn't say that, but he was wanting to kill them all, huge persecution. And the uprise occurred almost immediately. People were dying left and right and fleeing the city except for a couple of holy Christians who were remaining there and standing their ground. And one of them was Apollonia. So this is where we get into the martyrdom. So again, this is written directly recorded or it was written by Saint Dionysus. So again, who was the Bishop of Alexandria at the time, this is his writing. He mentions two martyrs prior to Apollonia and in the mentioning of them, he kind of writes about how they were, I don't necessarily know if wealthy was the, they were Christians of high standing. I guess we could probably say. Educated probably? Yep, possibly. So he writes, and I'm just gonna outright read it here. At that time, Apollonia, most likely, and then it has a Latin, which I'm not even gonna attempt to pronounce, most likely meaning deaconess is what we're getting at, was held in high esteem. These men, this crowd, these pagans who were persecuting Christians, these men seized her and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. Then they then erected outside the city gates a pile of wood and threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them in pious words, either blasphemy against Christ or an invocation of the heathen gods. Given at her own request, a little freedom, she spring quickly into the fire and was burned to death. So we have a lot to break down there. Right. So this is where I was getting at with the other historical potential misrepresentation. And I say potential because this is an 100% fact, this is just what we can determine based on what was written. So you can imagine the upheaval that was occurring in this city because once that attack was launched and they were all like, exterminate the Christians. We don't want these people here. People were probably scurrying. I mean, it was probably loud, bloody, crazy, hectic. And she was threatened to be killed if she did not say. And two people just directly prior to her were martyred. Right, and that's written down. In the same writing prior to what I just read. I just didn't get the whole thing. I just for sake of time. Yeah, and you just read the Bishop of Alexandria and he was Bishop 247 and 265. Yes, yeah. St. Dionysius. And so he was actually writing a letter. I actually forgot, I wrote that down. And it's a letter to Fabius who was Bishop of Antioch when he was explaining to him what was going on and it was preserved in what is called the Eusebius's Historia Ecclesiae, which is just an early church document of the first fourth century. So that's where we found this writing. But anyway, there's an upheaval and everybody's going crazy. And they're like, you have to say blasphemies against your God. Or you can pretty much bow down and worship the pagan gods. And she paused, at least this is what is written in legend, she paused. After having her teeth knocked down. Oh yeah, yeah, so. Yeah, so that's what, sorry. That's the part where we're pausing for it. Yeah, so this is where I was talking about the historical representation in the painting. So we're tying this together now. I apologize if this was really scattered. There is a lot of reports that say that her teeth were pulled out by torture. I am always of the mindset, especially if you look at scripture for instance, every word of scripture was very purposely and particularly chosen. Like every word. I think it's the same with this. I personally believe, again, it doesn't mean it's fact, but this is my belief that if Saint Dionysus, Bishop at the time, would have wrote they pulled out her teeth or they tortured her in this way. But he very clearly said by repeated blows, which is a very specific wording, repeated blows broke all of her teeth. Why is that important? Again, it's just we're trying to give you the most historically accurate context of these saints. And there's a lot of stories that we both read that said her teeth were pulled out. And. With like pinchers. And then there's a lot of paintings that show her with pinchers, holding teeth. Yeah, so I guess the question is, is that problematic? I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think it's historically accurate, but I don't think it's problematic. Either way she had her teeth yanked or blown punched or shattered out of her mouth, which is excruciating. And so after that blow of her teeth coming out of her mouth, they asked her again to say these blasphemy words, blasphemies against God. And she said no that she wouldn't. And so she actually, I read somewhere that she paused and they all thought she was gonna finally say it. I read that as well. But then she actually jumped into the flames because they had built up a fire. They were building up a fire, throwing in all the logs and everything because they were ready to burn her alive. And so. As they had killed others prior. Like I said, there was two that St. Dionysus writes about directly prior to St. Apollonia who were murdered right after this. So context is they just murdered two of her friends, potentially her friends. I'm assuming so because clearly this bishop knew them all by name and is writing about it. Real talk, I wanna know what that prophet said. That pagan prophet, my goodness. What was he writing on poetry-wise? All these people dying. And so this leads us to the second part of this kind of breakdown that needs to be touched on. Of her martyrdom. Yeah, because you might be hearing this and say, well, wait a minute, isn't that suicide? Now- She threw herself into the flames so you're like, wait. And now it gets complicated. And as if this wasn't complicated anyway. Here's the deal, folks. There's a couple things that we have to take into account. One of them is the bishops' writings. Nowhere in the bishops' writings does he condemn her actions, nowhere. And that, to me, is a huge indication of this not being a, hey, you did wrong, you committed suicide. It's just a reflection of her story. And then later, St. Augustine actually writes about this in his book, The City of God, which by the way, Augustine is incredible. I can't wait until we do an episode on him. So bear with me as I read this because I don't dare try to put in a nutshell his words. Put in a nutshell his words. And if you ever read Confessions, he's a beautiful writer. The City of God is a little bit harder to get through. Did you attempt it? Well, no, I mean, you can, His writing style is very different in each book. Yeah, so what does he say? So he says, 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 preserved their threatened chastity. Pause. As we said, she was most likely consecrated virgin or in some way had committed herself to the church. We know that to be true. Either through whatever a deaconess means at that time or through consecrated life, right? Okay. And people were apparently doing heinous acts precisely towards Christians. So back to Augustine. Although they quitted life in this wise, nevertheless they receive high honor as martyrs in the Catholic church and their feasts are observed with great ceremony. This is a matter on which I do not pass judgment lightly, for I know not, but that the church was divinely authorized through trustworthy revelations to honor thus the memory of these Christians. And maybe that such as the case may it not be to that these acted in such a manner, not through human capricious, I swear I'm not saying that right, 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. I'm sorry if that was really complicated and I don't like condensing his words, which is why I gave you all of them. And I even hesitate to say, essentially he's saying, but essentially he's saying she's fine. Well, because even St. Augustine speculated on this and you might be wondering like, why does the church declare this woman a saint if she threw herself into the flames? Well, let's look at the preface of the situation. She was asked to say blasphemies against God or to worship the heretical gods. And so in that moment's time, she had an option. Do I jump into this fire? Are they gonna throw me into the fire? What if God inspired her to do so? Which we don't know. There are accounts of people who said that her actual body was glowing with what they believe the fire of the Holy Spirit within her was brighter than the fire itself, which I don't know exactly what that means, but you can imagine just like her inner body glowing too. And so these accounts are written down. The church has verified she is a saint. It is declared this was of the past. And we can note too, it was pre-congregation, which I didn't know what that was prior to reading about this saint. Jordan, did you know what pre-congregation? I had a brief understanding of it. You actually have a better understanding than I do because I was trying to stumble and bumble my way through it when we were talking about Saint Lucy and I just couldn't, I couldn't even remember the word pre-congregation. So that tells you how much I knew about it. Yeah, there's a lot to it. But you know, you have a good grasp of it. Only a little bit. I just, I looked it up because I was curious, what does this mean just pre-congregation? Why is this an important requirement to state? So it means that before there was an extensive process to become declared a saint through the Catholic Church, Saint Apollonia was canonized through the Catholic Church. So currently we have what is called the congregation for the causes of saints. Now, first I wanna note that there are more Christians in heaven than our declared saints that have been officially canonized by the church. So there are tons of people who are with Jesus right now who are not declared saints. There's an example, Blessed Peer of Georgia. Yes. Right, we know, and this is one of the ones that's easiest to explain, his body is incorrupt or it's either, I forgot the two different things but it's incorrupted, I think is the correct. And he's a blessed, right? So he's going through the process but hasn't officially been confirmed. But we can easily safely assume he is with Christ in heaven. So that's kind of an example. Yeah, and speaking of that, there are three steps to St. Hood, venerable, blessed, and then saint of course. And I don't know if I'm gonna go into exactly what all of those are unless you wanted me to Jordan. I think you should. You think I should, okay. Yeah, we got time. Well, prior to that, I wanna back up a little bit. The congregation is actually a congregation. So there are people who include recommendations to the Pope on beatifications, canonizations and they want it to be authorized. Like, all right, clearly this person was very devout, very holy, they were a servant of God. And so let's go into their life story and see, let's navigate, what did they do in their life? Now, you cannot even be put on the table for the congregation to be reviewed their life history until five years after death. And that's just so feelings can kind of get out of the way. You know, there could be a lot of hype after someone dies, especially just feeling really close to them and maybe they're a little holier than they actually were. I don't know, I guess that's why. And so the three steps, we've got venerable. So the title is given to a deceased person recognized formally by the Pope as having lived a heroically virtuous life. Venerable Fulton Sheen. Yeah, or offered their life. And so the beatification to become blessed, which is the next one, is one miracle acquired through the candidate's intercession is required in addition to recognition of heroic virtue or offering of their life. So the first miracle. So I said, bless appear, Giorgio. And we also have more recently, blessed Carlo Kuchis, exactly. So another example. So then the canonization to become a saint, which is the third step is the formal process by which the church declares a person to be a saint and worthy of universal veneration. And that actually, you have to have a second miracle occur. And those real quickly, I'm sorry, those are like heavily investigated. Very investigated. I think we touched on it scientifically. St. Edith, not Edith Stein. Who was the teacher? I apologize. Teacher. St. Elizabeth Anne Sheen. Like teacher? She was a teacher? Elizabeth Anne Sheen, yes, that's the one. I'm almost certain we touched on it with her. Probably so. Because there was a modern, you know, a modern. Oh, a scientist. You tried to figure it out? Well, there was a modern miracle and he talked about the process. Like Rome was calling, investigators from Rome were calling him and they're calling his doctors. Yeah, bring in the NCIS. It is an, it is, when we say like it is an in-depth intense, they basically have to go in and disprove any other potential option. And so, and you can imagine how long that might take. Yeah, and that's the cool part about the church that we can trust and that we have verified people who are really working hard to discover is this person with our Lord. And I love that we are not just haphazardly being like they're a saint, yep, stamp on, you know? It's very thoughtful. So the three stages and I'll end here. Stage one is examining the life of a candidate for sainthood like we mentioned. Stage two, beatification and stage three, canonization to say it in a nutshell. So we're talking about St. Apollonia. Apollonia. Pre-congregation, Apollonia. She's beautiful. She was not declared a saint through the congregation of the causes of saints but it was before it even existed. So there are popes that talk about pre-congregation and how it came about and just the different writings that occurred just so that we have more, I don't know, kind of more of a grasp of pre-congregation and what that actually was. And you guys can read up on those if you'd like. And then the question becomes does that mean that they're less of a saint? No. The answer is absolutely not. It's just you just trust in the church and it's a process. I mean, we probably have a better, we might have a better process now but we also don't know what happened to pre-congregation with those particular instances of beatification. We weren't involved and we just don't know and it's really not any use trying to decipher. Speculating on all that, Jez. Yep. You had some interesting notes on martyrdom. Would you like to touch on that? I mean, just a little bit. So I almost wrote more and I started doing research but it started getting kind of complicated and I was like, I don't know if we have time for this. But martyrdom is just an interesting declaration for the certain saints. The church does say that there are people who were martyred and we have a process for that too. But I just wanted to read this quote. The Christian martyr does not die out of hatred of the enemy as a soldier might but out of love for his killers as Jesus taught and lived in Matthew 5.43 through 48. No man has greater love than this to lay down one's life for one's friends and that's John 15.13. But for the Christian, our enemies are also our friends as long as their conversion is possible. And that was Father Peter Joseph. And I just wanted to say, it can be kind of confusing how we end up declaring someone a martyr versus not, whether it's white martyrdom or- And that's a process too. That's a process too. And it is extensive. And so you guys can go in and research about that if you're curious about more. But we just want you guys to know that you can have confidence and trust the Holy Catholic Church. You can trust that there are people who really want to discover whether these people were actually martyrs and there are requirements. There are stipulations to claim someone a martyr. You can't just say, I believe in Jesus and then die and then they're like, oh, they're a martyr for the faith. Well, that's what the world wants us to believe, right? And there's this weird, and I don't wanna go off on a rant, but there's this weird thing going around too where people are like, I'm ready to be a martyr and I'm gonna go do this. And it's like, well, listen, there's an actual process to declaring martyrdom. And one of the stipulations is you don't, you know, maybe I'm getting too complicated, but I don't, basically what I'm saying is this whole goofy idea of, I'm gonna go purposely put myself in danger so I can become a martyr. Oh, no, no, no. That's not how it works. No. So don't do that. It's foolish. It's really foolish. Yeah, don't do that. So that's all I'm saying. Like, Cause I've heard that a few times. I'm like, that's actually the process doesn't allow that. No. Yeah. And so, okay, think about, for example, maybe kamikazis, if you wanna give an example of like other religions who purposely ask their people to fly and kill themselves and kill other people, that's not martyrdom. Yeah, I don't necessarily think that was a religion, but yeah, I get where you're going with that. It could be tied to religious things, but yeah, maybe more. Historically, yeah, that'd be a fascinating conversation. Those guys were high off their minds. Historically speaking, lots of drugs before they committed the bombings, but yeah, I do understand what you're saying. It's still an apt comparison in that way where it's, they're dying for either a, some ideal, basically. And it's like, no. Success, victory, that kind of thing. That's not martyrdom. Whereas Jesus teaches that we lay down one's life for one's friends and out of love for our Lord, that is how one is declared a martyr for the church. Yeah, yep. So, St. Apollonia has a lot there. It's very simple. She's a simple saint, in my opinion, after researching simply what happened, her story. But if you ever see pictures with a woman with pinchers, Holding pictures in the tooth. You will know. And if you're headed to the dentist, my dad's a dentist by the way, you can ask for her intercession that everything goes well, that your teeth don't get knocked out. Yeah, I guess it shows that the Catholic Church has a bit of a sense of humor. Her teeth were knocked out and now she's the patron saint of two things. But yeah, well, now you have a fun party trick too if you're ever in a museum and you see her and you're like, she was probably older than what they're depicting in this brain. You sound really smart. So that being said, or you sound like a crazy person, I'm not sure. Yeah, let's see how many people believe you. Just go, saints and saints, just said it. Yeah, they're totally reliable. Really verified there. Yeah, that being said, St. Apollonia. Pray for us. Pray for us. Bye y'all, bye.