Saint Tarcisius
His feast is celebrated on August 13.
Saint Tarcisius is the Patron Saint of Altar Servers and Children of Nocturnal Adoration. He is known as the Martyr of the Eucharist for a reason.
Valerian was a tough and bloodthirsty emperor. He had become convinced that the Christians were the enemies of the Empire and had to be done away with. The Christians, in order to celebrate their cults, were forced to hide in the Roman catacombs or cemeteries. The tragic scene was frequent that while they were celebrating the cults the soldiers arrived, caught them unawares, and, right there, without further trials, beheaded them or inflicted other martyrdoms. They all confessed faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Little Tarcisius had witnessed the execution of the Pope himself while he was celebrating the Eucharist in one of these catacombs. The macabre image was strongly engraved in his soul as a child and he decided to follow the fate of the elders when his time came, which hopefully, he said, would be “right now”.
One day they were celebrating the Eucharist in the Catacombs of San Callisto. Pope Sixtus remembers the other prisoners who do not have a priest and who for the same reason cannot strengthen their spirit for the struggle that lies ahead, if they do not receive the Body of the Lord. But who will be that generous soul that offers to bring them the Body of the Lord? There are lots of hands that are extended by venerable old men, strong young men and also little hands of angelic children. All are willing to die for Jesus Christ and for his brothers.
One of these tender children is Tarsicio. Faced with so much innocence and tenderness, the old Sixto exclaims full of emotion: “You too, my son?”
And he says: And why not, Father? No one will suspect my few years.
Faced with such intrepid faith, the old man does not hesitate. With a trembling hand, he takes the sacred forms and places them in a reliquary with great devotion while giving them to little Tarcisius, barely eleven years old, with this recommendation: “Take good care of them, my son.”
-“Don’t worry, Father, before they will pass through my corpse that nobody dares to touch them”.
He leaves the catacombs fervently and quickly and shortly after he meets some children his age who were playing
-“Hello, Tarsicio, play with us. We need a partner”.
– “No, I can’t. It will be another time”, he said as he pressed his hands fervently on his chest.
And one of those youngsters exclaims. “Let’s see, let’s see. What do you have hidden there?”
It must be what Christians call “The Mysteries” and try to see it.
They knocked him down to the ground, the lads putting their legs on his chest in order to exert leverage to open his little arms and snatch the Sacred Forms, they threw stones at him, and Tarcisio not only resisted but God performed the miracle that they remained his arms hermetically closed in such a way that they could never be opened (not even after his death) they keep hitting him with stones, and he is shedding his blood. All useless. They don’t get away with it. For nothing in the world does he allow those Mysteries he loves more than himself to be stolen from him…
Moments later, Cuadrado passes by, a burly soldier who is in the catechumenate period and that is why he knows Tarsicio. The children run away while Tarcisius, carried on his shoulders in agony by Cuadrado, reaches the Catacombs of San Callisto on the Via Appia. Upon arrival, he was already a corpse.
Since then, the cold marble keeps those sacred relics about which San Damaso wrote, “Saint Tarcisius wanting brutal souls of Christ to snatch the sacrament, his tender life he preferred to deliver, rather than the heavenly Mysteries”
The feast of Saint Tarcisius was celebrated on August 15, but since the Church instituted in 1950 that the glorious Assumption of the Virgin Mary body and soul into heaven be celebrated on August 15, his feast was moved to August 13 .
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