HE was a Phrygian by birth, slave to Philemon, a person of note of the
city of Colossae, converted to the faith by St. Paul. Having robbed his
master, and being obliged to fly, he providentially met with St. Paul,
then a prisoner for the faith at Rome, who there converted and baptized
him, and sent him with his canonical letter of recommendation to
Philemon, by whom he was pardoned, set at liberty, and sent back to his
spiritual father, whom he afterwards faithfully served. That apostle
made him, with Tychicus, the bearer of his epistle to the Colossians,[1]
and afterwards, as St. Jerom[2] and other fathers witness, a preacher of
the gospel, and a bishop. The Greeks say he was crowned with martyrdom
under Domitian, in the year 95, and {419} keep his festival on the 15th.
Bede, Ado, Usuard, the Roman and other Latin martyrologists mention him
on the 16th of February.[3]
Baronius and some others confound him with St. Onesimus, the third
bishop of Ephesus, after St. Timothy, who was succeeded first by John,
then by Caius. This Onesimus showed great respect and charity to St.
Ignatius, when on his journey to Rome, in 107, and is highly commended
by him.[4]
* * * * *
When a sinner, by the light and power of an extraordinary grace, is
snatched like a firebrand out of the fire, and rescued from the gates of
hell, we cannot wonder if he is swallowed up by the deepest and most
lively sense of his own guilt, and of the divine mercy; if such a one
loves much, because much has been forgiven him; if he endeavors to
repair his past crimes by heroic acts of penance and all virtues, and if
he makes haste to redeem his lost time by a zeal and vigilance hard to
be imitated by others. Hence we read of the _first love of the church of
Ephesus_[5] as more perfect. The ardor of the compunction and love of a
true penitent, is compared to the unparalleled _love of Judah in the day
of her espousal_.[6] This ardor is not to be understood as a passing
sally of the purest passions, as a shortlived fit of fervor, or desire
of perfection, as a transient taste or sudden transport of the soul: it
must be sincere and constant. With what excess of goodness does God
communicate himself to souls which thus open themselves to him! With
what caresses does he often visit them! With what a profusion of graces
does he enrich and strengthen them! It often happens that, in the
beginning, God, either to allure the frailty of a new convert, or to
fortify his resolution against hazardous trials, favors him with more
than usual communications of the sweetness of his love, and ravishes him
by some glances, as it were, of the beatific vision. His tenderness was
not less, when, for their spiritual advancement, their exercise in
heroic virtues, and the increase of their victories and glory, he
conducted them through severe trials. On the other side, with what
fidelity and ardor did these holy penitents improve themselves daily in
divine love and all virtues! Alas! our coldness and insensibility, since
our pretended conversion from the world and sin, is a far greater
subject of amazement than the extraordinary fervor of the saints in the
divine service.
Footnotes:
1. Colos. iv.
2. Ep. 62, c. 2.
3. Tillem. t. 1, p. 294, and note 10, on St. Paul.
4. Ep. ad Ephes.
5. Apoc. 11. 4.
6. Jerem. 11. 2.