SS Chrysanthus & Daria

It's always good to go to Confession - there is a wise and kind old Vietnamese priest who hears confessions on Saturday afternoons over at Good Shepherd, Lockridge, and he it was who heard mine to-day: he reminded me that confession is eminently pleasing to Jesus Christ, for it increases in us humility.  I remember now that humility is very necessary, for the doorway into Heaven is very low, and only the lowly shall enter there...

While saying my prayers after Confession, I took the chance to invoke the holy martyrs commemorated this day - SS Chrysanthus and Daria, a noble married couple who bore witness to the Faith with constancy even unto death, and so won the immarcescible crown.  Their martyrdom took place on the Salarian Way; during the Roman Persecutions, an assembly of Christians gathered for Mass there at their tombs was surprised and buried alive, adding yet more souls to the glorious company of martyrs; in later ages the relics of Chrysanthus and Daria were translated to Prüm in the modern-day Rhineland-Palatinate.   According to legend, Chrysanthus, having become a Christian, was pressured by his pagan father to marry a Vestal Virgin, Daria - he did, but with the unexpected result that she too was converted and lived with Chrysanthus as brother and sister.   

The Byzantine Rite also celebrates this saintly pair, but on the 19th of March; here are their Troparion and Kontakion, which echo the traditional account of their lives and death:

Let us honor the like-minded pair of Martyrs, 

Chrysanthus scion of purity, and supremely modest Daria. 

United in holiness of faith, they shone forth as communicants of God the Word. 

They fought lawfully for Him and now save those who sing: 

Glory to Him Who has strengthened you; glory to Him Who has crowned you; 

glory to Him Who through you works healings for all.

O Chrysanthus, in the sweet fragrance of holiness 

thou didst draw Daria to saving knowledge. 

Together in contest you routed the serpent, the author of all evil,

 and were worthily taken up to the heavenly realms.