From Dom Guéranger's The Liturgical Year.
The twentieth of September marks one of the saddest events in history. At the height of her power, in the glorious days of Pepin and Charlemagne, the eldest daughter of the Church had crowned her mother; and the Church, in the person of her Head, reigned in reality, as well as by right, until, a thousand years later, satan took advantage of the fallen state of France to despoil Peter of the patrimony which ensured his independence. The holy cross is still shedding its rays upon us!
To-day a group of martyrs, and this time a whole family, father, mother, and sons, take up their position around the standard of salvation. While the antiquity of their cultus in both east and west rests on the best authority, the details of their life are extremely vague. Could Placid the tribune, whose exploits are recorded by Josephus in his Wars of the Jews,[1] be the same as the Eustace we are celebrating to-day? Does the genealogy of our saint connect him with the Octaviafamily, from which Augustus sprang? Again are we to recognize as his direct descendant the noble Tertullus, who confided to St. Benedict his son Placid, the favourite child of the holy patriarch, and the proto-martyr of the Benedictine Order?[2] Subiaco long possessed the mountain designated by ancient tradition as the site of the apparition of the mysterious stag; Tertullus may have bequeathed it to the monastery, as his son's patrimony. But we have not space enough to do more than record the fact that these questions have been raised.[3]
There could hardly be a more touching legend than that of our martyrs.
Eustachius, qui et Placidus, genere, opibus et militari gloria inter Romanos insignis, sub Trajano imperatore magistri militum titulum meruit. Cum vero sese aliquando in venatione exerceret, ac fugientem miræmagnitudinis cervum insequeretur, vidit repente inter consistentis feræ cornuaexcelsam atque fulgentem Christi Domini e cruce pendentis imaginem, cujus voce ad immortalis vitæ prædam invitatus, una cum uxore Theopista, ac duobus parvulis filiis Agapito et Theopisto, Christianæ militiæ nomen dedit.
Mox ad visionis pristinæ locum, sicut ei Dominus præceperat, regressus, illuni prænuntiantem audivit, quanta sibi deinceps pro ejus gloria perferenda essent. Quocirca incredibiles calamitates mira patientia perpessus, brevi in summam egestatem redactus est. Cumque clam se subducere cogeretur, in itinere conjugem primum, deinde etiam liberos sibi miserabiliter ereptos ingemuit. Tantis obvolutus ærumnis, in regione longinqua villicum agens, longo tempore delituit, donec cœlesti voce recreatus, ac nova occasione a Trajano conquisitus, iteruin bello præficitur.
Illa in expeditione, liberis simul cum uxore insperato receptis, victor urbem ingenti omnium gratulatione ingreditur. Sed paulo post inanibus diis pro parta victoria sacrificare jussus, constantissime renuit. Cumque variis artibus ad Christi fidem ejurandam frustra tentaretur, una cum uxore et liberis leonibus objicitur. Horum mansuetudine concitatus imperator, æneum in taurum subjectis flammis candentem eos immitti jubet, ubi divinis in laudibusconsummato martyrio, duodecimo calendis Octobris ad sempiternam felicitatem convolarunt. Quorum illsesa corpora religiose a fidelibus sepulta, postmodum ad ecclesiam, eorum nomine erectam, honorifice translata sunt.
Eustace, otherwise called Placid, was a Roman, illustrious for his birth, wealth, and military renown, so that under the emperor Trajan he became general of the army. Once while hunting, he was chasing a stag of remarkable size, which suddenly halted, and showed him between its horns a large and bright image of Christ our Lord hanging upon the cross and inviting him to make everlasting life the object of his pursuit. Thereupon together with his wife Theopista and his two little sons Agapitus and Theopistus, he entered the ranks of the Christian warfare.
Some time afterwards he returned to the place of the vision, in obedience to the command of our Lord, from whom he there heard how much he was to suffer for God’s glory. He underwent, with wonderful patience, such incredible losses that in a short time he was reduced to the utmost need, and was obliged to retire privately. On the way he had the unhappiness to see first his wife, and then his two sons taken from him. Overwhelmed by all these misfortunes, he lived for a long time unknown, in a distant country, as a farm bailiff; until at length a voice from heaven comforted him; and soon after, a fresh occasion of war arising, Trajan had him sought out and again placed at the head of the army.
During the expedition, he unexpectedly found his wife and children again. He returned to Rome in triumph amidst universal congratulations; but was soon commanded to offer sacrifice to the false gods in thanksgiving for his victory. On his firm refusal, every art was tried to make him renounce the faith of Christ, but in vain. He was then, with his wife and sons, thrown to the lions. But the beasts showed nothing but gentleness; whereupon the emperor, in a rage, commanded the martyrs to be shut up in a brazen bull heated by a fire underneath it. There, singing the praises of God, they consummated their sacrifice, and took their flight to eternal happiness on the twelfth of the kalends of October. Their bodies were found intact, and reverently buried by the faithful, but were afterwards translated with honour to a church erected to their names.
Our trials are light compared with yours, O blessed martyrs! Obtain for us the grace not to betray the confidence of our Lord, when He calls us to suffer for Him in this world. It is thus we must win the glory of heaven. How can we triumph with the God of armies, unless we have marched under His standard? Now, that standard is the cross. The Church knows it, and therefore she is not troubled even by the greatest calamities. She knows, too, that her Spouse is watching over her, even when He seems to sleep; and she looks to the protection of such of her sons as are already glorified. And yet, O martyrs, for how many years has the sorrowful shadow of a sacrilegious invasion hung over the day of your triumph! Rome honoured you with so much love! Take vengeance on the audacity of hell, and deliver the holy city!
[1] Joseph. De bello Jud. iii. 3, 4, 13; iv. 2; v. 3.
[2] Greg. Dial. ii. 3.
[3] Kirchcr Historia Eustochio-Mariana, P. ii, iii.