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| St. Tryphaine the Martyr (Feast Day - January 31) |
Verses
A bull Tryphaine breaks your flesh,
And sends you undefiled to luxury.
And sends you undefiled to luxury.
Saint Tryphaine came from Cyzicus on the Hellespont. The daughter of Anastasios, a Roman senator, she was brought up in the Christian faith by her mother Sokratia. She was brought to martyrdom not by pagans or idolaters, but she herself went to the pagans and ridiculed the idols and criticized their wicked practices, which the senseless ones thought that by these they were honoring their false gods. Not only this, but she taught them to abandon their religion of vain idols, and turn to faith in Christ.
The prefect Caesar had her seized and thrown into a fiery furnace, but she emerged unscathed, protected by the grace of Christ. He then had her thrown from a high place onto a bed of nails. With her body pierced by these, she was delivered to the wild beasts to be devoured. After several had shied away from her she was gored by a maddened bull and thus the blessed one received the unfading crown of martyrdom.
At the place where the holy blood of the Martyr was shed, there is said to have welled up a spring of clear water which, when taken by women whose milk had dried up, it restored its flow for the benefit of their nursing newborn children. And this not only happened for women, but also for female irrational animals, when they did not produce milk, after drinking the water, they received grace and produced milk.