Constance and her Companions: the Martyrs of Memphis

This is from a website on saints in the Anglo Catholic tradition of the church. I offer it on this their feast day during another time of illness and death, courage and hope.    

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Hymn - from St. Mary's Cathedral, Memphis

Before the Icon

V. I will guard them to the utmost

R. But they know, and you know, that they are offering their lives

A Reading - From a letter on the death of Sister Ruth. She was 26 years old and had been professed only one year –

 "You have probably already heard to-day's heavy tidings that God has taken home to himself our dear Sister Ruth. Her short life has closed, as her Sister's life began, in devotion to God's poor and suffering. Only a year ago, in July, she was professed; but in this one year she has brought comfort to many suffering ones, and helped to lead back those who had strayed far out of the way. Many of the poor speak of her as the ‘Sunbeam’ that came to brighten their lives. Her last words, as she went off, were, ‘You will be good to my people;' and her first letter repeated the same message. Yet she was ready to leave her favorite work when God called. The same brave, single-hearted sense of duty breathes out in all her letters. I have the last one here, if you have not seen it. We can easily say, in this sad world, Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord; but it is very, very hard to say, when those who, we thought, would do Him such service are taken, Thy will be done."

 We give you thanks and praise, O God of compassion, for the heroic witness of Constance and her companions, who, in a time of plague and pestilence, were steadfast in their care for the sick and the dying, and loved not their own lives, even unto death. Inspire in us a like love and commitment to those in need, following the example of our Savior Jesus Christ; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, now and for ever.

Blessed Constance, Frances, Ruth, Thecla, Charles and Louis, servants of the dying, pray for us.

 Icon writer: Suzanne Schleck Web

A reflection by Sister Hannah, CSM

A reflection - CSM Associate Susan Nelson on the martyrs and today's pandemic

About the Martyrs of Memphis

From “Memphis: The City Magazine”

From Project Canterbury - The Sisters of St. Mary at Memphis: with the Acts and Sufferings of the Priests and Others Who Were There with Them during the Yellow Fever Season of 1878.

The website - The Anglo Catholics 

The Community of Saint Mary