The Mutterology

Some Dominicans told me that of old time, the custom in their Melbourne priory was to have the Martyrology read out in the refectory during the meal; the clerical students deputed to this task termed it the Mutterology, as their Latin was perhaps faced by many a tonguetwister! They still joke about the saint(s) who died at "Too dirty in Umbria" [Tuderti, locative of Tuder, now Todi].

While in the old rite the 4th of September is a feria, there are a slew of saints whose anniversaries occur. From to-day's (1962) Martyrology (which I didn't get around to reading at Prime yester-day, hence my interest):

• St Moses the Prophet and Lawgiver of Israel;
• St Candida, said to have been first-fruits of Naples for Christ (and baptized by St Peter)*;
• St Marcellus, bishop of Treves and martyr*;
• SS Rufinus, Silvanus and Vitalicus, child-martyrs of Ancyra in Galatia*;
• SS Magnus, Castus and Maximus, martyrs*;
• St Marcellus, martyred at Chalons in the reign of the Emperor Antoninus by being buried up to his waist and left to die;
• St Thamel (previously a pagan priest) and companions, martyrs*;
• SS Theodore, Oceanus, Ammian and Julian, martyred by having their feet chopped off and their bodies thrown into a fire;
• Pope St Boniface I, Confessor (died 422);
• St Marinus, anchorite and deacon at Rimini, who converted many to the Faith of Christ (4th or 5th century);
• St Rosalia, Virgin, a 12th century native of Palermo, and of royal descent, who abandoned the pomps and comforts of court and fled rather to the mountains to live as a hermitess;
• St Rose of Viterbo, Virgin, whose relics were translated this day.

The modern Martyrology, observing many of these saints on different days, and omitting some so far as I can see (the ones marked with asterisks *), adds these other saints and beati, of local cultus only:

• St Caletrix, 6th century bishop of Carnuti in Neustria (where?);
• St Ida, widow of Duke Egbert, at Heresfeld in Saxony (died 825);
• St Fredald, bishop and martyr, at Mimatus in Aquitaine (9th century);
• St Irmgard, Countess of Süchteln, at Cologne (died circa 1089);
• Bl Catherine Mattei, Virgin and Dominican sister of penitence (died 1547);
• Bl Scipio Jerome Brigéat de Lambert, priest and martyr, starved to death in a prison hulk during the French Revolution in 1794;
• Bl Marie of St Cecilia Bélanger, Virgin, religious sister of the Congregation of Jesus and Mary (died 1929);
• BB Jose Paschal Carda Saporta and Francis Sendra Ivars, priests, and Bernard Bieda Grau, Capuchin, martyred in various parts of Spain during the Spanish Civil War.

Sancta Maria et omnes Sancti intercedant pro nobis ad Dominum...

(May Holy Mary and all the Saints intercede for us with the Lord....)

...ut nos mereamur ab eo adjuvari et salvari, qui vivit et regnat in sæcula sæculorum. Amen.

(...that we may deserve to be helped and saved by Him, Who liveth and reigneth world without end. Amen.)