St. Sebastian COLLECTION (SNV 24 )

St. Sebastian (3rd cent), patron of soldiers, was a career military man in the Roman army... and a Christian. If you ask most people how he died, they’d say that he was shot to death with arrows. They’d be wrong. Though left for dead on an archery practice range, thanks to the ministrations of St. Irene he survived that “first” martyrdom. The “second”, however, proved fatal: he was beaten to death with clubs, his body thrown in a sewer. Because of his physical resilience, dogged determination, and capacity for endurance, St. Sebastian is also patron of athletes. + See: http://catholicsaints.info/saint-sebastian/ + Feast: January 20