MARIS, a nobleman of Persia, with his wife Martha, and two sons, Audifax
and Abachum, being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among
the poor, as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem, and came to Rome
to visit the tombs of the apostles. The emperor Aurelian then persecuted
the church, and by his order a great number of Christians were shut up
in the amphitheatre, and shot to death with arrows, and their bodies
burnt. Our saints gathered and buried their ashes with respect; for
which they were apprehended, and after many torments under the governor
Marcianus, Maris and his two sons were beheaded; and Martha drowned,
thirteen miles from Rome, at a place now called Santa Ninfa.[1] Their
relics were found at Rome in 1590. They are mentioned with distinction
in all the western Martyrologies from the sacramentary of St. Gregory.
Their relics are kept principally at Rome; part in the church of St.
Adrian, part in that of St. Charles, and in that of St. John of
Calybite. Eginhart, sole-in-law and secretary of Charlemagne, deposited
a portion of these relics, which had been sent him from Rome, in the
abbey of Selghenstadt, of which he was the founder, in the diocese of
Mentz.
* * * * *
The martyrs and confessors triumphed over the devil by prayer; by this,
poor and weak as they were, they were rendered invincible, by engaging
Omnipotence itself to be their comfort, strength, and protection. If the
art of praying well be the art of living well, according to the received
maxim of the fathers and masters of a spiritual life,[2] nothing is
certainly of greater importance, than for us to learn this heavenly art
of conversing with God in the manner we ought. We admire the wonderful
effects which this exercise produced in the saints, who by it were
disengaged from earthly ties and made spiritual and heavenly, perfect
angels on earth; but we experience nothing of this in ourselves. Prayer
was in them the channel of all graces, the means of attaining all
virtues, and all the treasures of heaven. In us it is fruitless: the
reason is plain; for the promises of Christ cannot fail: we ask, and
receive not, because we ask amiss.
Footnotes:
1. Ninfa, or Nympha, in the corrupted ages of the Latin tongue,
signifies water. In this place are several pools called by the
Italians from these martyrs, Santa Ninfa. See Chatelain, p. 340, and
Du Cange.
2. Vere novit recta vivere, qui recti novit orare. Inter Serm. S.
Augustini, Sermon 55, in Appendix, ed. Ben. t. 5, p. 101.
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