Feast of St. Sebastian

Today is the feast of St. Sebastian, who is also the patron of the church I attend. In honor of our patron, our pastor and our director music collaborated on a hymn, which we sang last Sunday and will sing this Sunday. Afterall, it’s not like there are lots of St. Sebastian hymns to choose from!

St. Sebastian was a Guard during the time of Diocletian. He was responsible for converting many to Christianity and many miracles were attributed to the saint.

He is most often pictured bound with arrows poking out of his body.

He was seriously injured and left for dead. St. Irene found him barely alive and carefully tended him back to health, and I might add, without the help of antibiotics! She must have been extraordinarily gifted.

Nonetheless he recovers his health and goes back to persuade/confront Diocletian and is successfully murdered that time. I often ponder how St. Irene must have felt about that!

He is the patron of soldiers, athletes, and police officers.

Usually my parish hands out chocolate arrows to the school children and PSR students. But as a family, red velvet cake is always a nice way to celebrate a martyr.

A few years ago our parish’s contemporary music group sang a song about the saints and I wrote a verse specifically about St. Sebastian:

St. Sebastian the soldier who bravely lead
The people to Jesus until his heart bled
From arrows that pierced it and left him for dead
On the feast of our patron martyr the vestments are red!

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