They blessed Jan. 29

As I complete three decades (plus nine months) of living on God’s good earth at 5:23 p.m. today, I hope that one way or another my little efforts at becoming the man the good Lord made me to be have made this planet a little bit better than it was that Friday when by his grace I exited my mother’s womb and the number one song on radio according to a Facebook application was Olivia Newton John’s “Physical.”

Is the world better now? Only the Omniscient One can tell, He whose eyes pierce through physical matter all the way to the boundaries of soul and spirit. I can only thank God, my family, friends and everyone whom I encountered so far for their contribution to the shaping of my life and pray that they ever cleave at least in their heart of hearts to me, leaving to God’s merciful judgment my conduct so far.

Let me turn my thoughts now to four of the exemplary men and women whose gifts of living and dying (we know through the clear insight of Spirit-guided Mother Church) were seeds that kept the Catholic faith in an eternal harvest season. The four are just a handful of the many saints and blesseds, martyrs or otherwise, whose deaths or entry into heaven the Church remembers every Jan. 29 if the date falls outside a Sunday, every Sunday being an extension of Easter.

I chose to read and write about them not only because their shedding of blood and final breath hallowed my birthday but because in our day when technology has made many of us not only more anthropocentric but also more narcissistic than our forebears (no judgment here; I, too ,spend time changing my Facebook profile picture, though I hope less often as time passes), I have this nagging suspicion that we shortchange ourselves by selfishly vying against one another, consciously or otherwise, to wrest a prime spot in the center of the universe instead of learning how to live, not just from living models in our circles of influence, but from those souls who now and forever circle God’s throne and sing him praise.

Among them are Saints Bebaia and Sarbelius, the first saints to enter heaven on a Jan. 29 as recorded in the Roman Martyrology. They were siblings (Sarbelius was a pagan high priest) who lived in Mesopotamia but converted to Christianity in the time of Emperor Trajan under whom they were tortured with red hot irons before they were executed in A.D. 101.

Saint Constantius was the first bishop of Perugia in Italy. A prelate at the age of 30, he energetically spread the gospel to non-believers and improved the lot of the poor. During the reign of Emperor Antoninus or Marcus Aurelius, he and other Christian companions were arrested, whipped and shoved into a stove from which they escaped unscathed. The saint converted to Christianity his jail guards, who set him free. Eventually he was arrested again, tortured in various prisons and finally beheaded in A.D. 107.

Saint Gildas the Wise lived from A.D. 517 to A.D. 571. He was born to nobles in England’s north, probably in Wales, among many brothers and sisters. One of his brothers was killed by King Arthur. Saint Gildas forgave the monarch. The saint was known for his self-denial but also for his scholarly wisdom and courage. While he lived for a long time on an island following Celtic monastic ways, he also wrote the historical “The Destruction of Britain,” and brushing aside the threat of the sword took to task the rulers of his day over their sins, which he blamed for the nation’s decline. When it became necessary, he stepped in between opposing political factions to stop war.

Caradoc of Llangarfan thus describes Saint Gildas’ death: “He fell sick at last, and was weighed down with illness. He summoned the abbot of Glastonia to him, and asked him, with great piety, when the end of his life had come, to cause his body to be borne to the abbey of Glastonia, which he loved exceedingly.

“When the abbot promised to observe his requests, and was grieved at the requests he had heard, and shed copious tears, Saint Gildas, being now very ill, expired, while many were looking at the angelic brightness around his fragrant body, and angels were attending upon his soul.”

Take time to read about and know the blesseds and saints, martyrs or otherwise, with whose shedding of blood and final breath Jesus Christ sanctified your birthday. You will be inspired.