Sunday, October 5, 2014. What's going on?

[Bert45]

This was the day I left Santiago after walking to Finisterre and catching a bus back. I went to my favourite watering-hole, the Cafetería Paradiso, 29 Rúa do Vilar. I took a photo of the calendar. Now I'd like to know what's going on. Who is having rocks thrown at him? It could be St Stephen, but his day is 26 December.


I've tried googling the various saints listed below the picture, but nothing seemed to match up. The Thirty Martyrs of Messina have been suggested, but there's only one man being stoned (rocked?). Were the Thirty Martyrs stoned?

 

[mspath]

Bert45,

Try a little research. Using the on-line
Catholic Encyclopedia
check out each name at the bottom of that yellow print. Please tell us what you discover.
Good luck and Buen camino

 

[Deleted member 86813]

This was the day I left Santiago after walking to Finisterre and catching a bus back. I went to my favourite watering-hole, the Cafetería Paradiso, 29 Rúa do Vilar. I took a photo of the calendar. Now I'd like to know what's going on. Who is having rocks thrown at him? It could be St Stephen, but his day is 26 December.
View attachment 95918

I've tried googling the various saints listed below the picture, but nothing seemed to match up. The Thirty Martyrs of Messina have been suggested, but there's only one man being stoned (rocked?). Were the Thirty Martyrs stoned?

Perhaps the stoning of Stephen.

 

[Kathar1na]

They look like pirates. My guess is that it's the graphic artist's interpretation of the martyrdom of San Placido and/or Placido de Subiaco. There is very little knowledge about the actual events on Sicily at the time. Some pretty gruesome paintings have been produced since then.

See also the Wikipedia entry in Spanish and the links related to the article, and in Italian.

 

[Bert45]

OK. I checked all the names given as martyrs: Atilano to Caritina. A bit late, I realised that I didn't need to check the female saints. The Catholic Encyclopedia was not a lot of use. Half of the names weren't included. The way that they were martyred was not given for those that were. The only information given was the year of death and sometimes the year of birth. So I turned to Wiki, and found that several of the saints had feast days (FD) other than 5 October. Several saints had more than one Feast Day. Asterio was beheaded, FD 3 March; Aurea drowned, FD 20 May, 18 July, 24 August; Eutiquio, killed by pirates, FD 29 September, 11 December; Victorino FD 2 November; Donato, beheaded with 40 others, FD 4 July, 7 August; Firmato, FD 17 February; Palmacio, killed in an unspecified manner with 11 companions.
I need to find the publisher of the calendar.

 

[Bert45]

They look like pirates. My guess is that it's the graphic artist's interpretation of the martyrdom of San Placido. There is very little knowledge about the actual events on Sicily at the time. Some pretty gruesome paintings have been produced since then.

Plácido is not listed as a martyr on the calendar, but his name is there as a monk. I found his name listed when I googled Eutiquio (Eutychius). But he was killed by pirates, as you said, with 36 others (seven named and "30 others" – Wiki), so it seems a bit unlikely that the artist would show only one man being stoned. I don't know what pirates have looked like at various times through history, but the gentlemen holding the rocks don't look particularly piratical to me. Stoning doesn't seem to be a very piratical form of execution, either. Drowning would seem more likely.
Perhaps the illustrations in the calendar have nothing to do with the date. I will try to find the publisher.

 

[Kathar1na]

Stoning doesn't seem to be a very piratical form of execution, either

They raided Sicily, according to the various stories. They are also described as invaders in some short descriptions. And I don't assume that the artist who illustrated this calendar had an in-depth knowledge of scholarly research about the centuries around the year 500 or of martyrology. I corrected my earlier message and added a second link to the Placidos. They remind me of the various Jameses as they, too, often got and still get mixed up in popular religious belief.

 

[Kathar1na]

General question: What do the three men holding rocks look like? Country/region? Era? Profession if any? Do their clothes including their headgear and their facial features tell you anything? What's the artist trying to convey to those who look at this image for a 5th of October in Galicia if anything other than this happened elsewhere a long time ago when a saint got killed.

 

[drvnsmiln]

The illustration has to do with the readings for that day: http://www.godgossip.org/calendar-of-readings/daily-gospel/?f=2014-10-05
Third reading (the Gospel) tells the parable depicted

 

[Bert45]

Wow! That's brilliant! A perfect solution. Even the illustration practically matches! How on earth did you find that? Are the readings for the day the same all over the world?
Consider my question answered!

 

[Bala]

In the Catholic church (and some Protestant faiths), the daily readings are the same all over the world. They are on three year cycles, then start over again. (Sunday readings are on a three-year cycle). So what was read on Oct. 5, 2014, was not read in 2015, but returned again in 2016.

 

[drvnsmiln]

In the Catholic church (and some Protestant faiths), the daily readings are the same all over the world. They are on three year cycles, then start over again. (Sunday readings are on a three-year cycle). So what was read on Oct. 5, 2014, was not read in 2015, but returned again in 2016.

I think there is cycle C as well....

 

[Bert45]

In the Catholic church (and some Protestant faiths), the daily readings are the same all over the world. They are on three year cycles, then start over again. (Sunday readings are on a three-year cycle). So what was read on Oct. 5, 2014, was not read in 2015, but returned again in 2016.

Do you mean a two-year cycle, or the readings of October 5 returned in 2017? But would a Sunday reading always be a Sunday reading, i.e. October 5 2014 was the first Sunday in October, so would the same readings be made on Sunday, 2nd October 2016, or Sunday, 1st October 2017?

 

[Deleted member 73526]

Do you mean a two-year cycle, or the readings of October 5 returned in 2017? But would a Sunday reading always be a Sunday reading, i.e. October 5 2014 was the first Sunday in October, so would the same readings be made on Sunday, 2nd October 2016, or Sunday, 1st October 2017?

Here's some more detail

Choosing the Word: How and why Mass readings are chosen

If you wander into a Catholic Mass in Parramatta, New York, Rome, London, a tiny country church in outback Australia or a European village on any given day, you will generally hear the same ...

catholicoutlook.org

People who want to know which readings to expect on a given day can consult a missal:

What is a Catholic Missal and How to Choose One | The Catholic Company®

A Catholic missal allows Roman Catholics to follow along during Mass. There are both Sunday Missals and Daily Missals. Learn how to choose at The Catholic Company.

www.catholiccompany.com

Since the readings are aligned (for the most part) all over the world, I guess it's an intercontinental missal. ;-)

Because of moveable feasts (e.g. Easter), the readings in a particular year will not be in exactly the same calendar weeks as three years earlier.

 

[Bala]

I think there is cycle C as well....

Sorry, I didn't connect that the post says "Sunday, Oct. 5". I just read "weekdays" in the post. You are correct. For Sundays, yes, Cycles A, B, C. On weekdays, only two cycles, I and II. @Raggy's post above goes into more detail, for those interested .