nal bliss in the next. St. Augustine
learned this truth by sad experience, and therefore exclaims: "Thou hast
created us for Thee, O Lord, and our heart is restless till it rests in
Thee."

_Prayer of the church_

GRANT us, almighty God, that whilst we celebrate the memory of Thy
blessed martyr St. Christophorus, through his intercession the love of
Thy name may be increased in us. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

VII

St. Dionysius, Bishop and Martyr

LEGEND

WHEN St. Paul the Apostle, in the year of Our Lord 51, came to Athens to
preach the Gospel, he was summoned to the Areopagus, the great council
which determined all religious matters. Among the members of this
illustrious assembly was Dionysius. His mind had already been prepared
to receive the good tidings of the Gospel by the miraculous darkness
which overspread the earth at the moment of Our Lord's death on the
cross. He was at that time at Heliopolis, in Egypt. On beholding the sun
obscured in the midst of its course, and this without apparent cause, he
is said to have exclaimed: "Either the God of nature is suffering, or
the world is about to be dissolved." When St. Paul preached before the
Areopagus in Athens, Dionysius easily recognized the truth and readily
embraced it.

The Apostle received him among his disciples, and appointed him bishop
of the infant Church of Athens. As such he devoted himself with great
zeal to the propagation of the Gospel. He made a journey to Jerusalem to
visit the places hallowed by the footsteps and sufferings of our
Redeemer, and there met the Apostles St. Peter and St. James, the
evangelist St. Luke, and other holy apostolic men. He also had the
happiness to see and converse with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and was so
overwhelmed by her presence that he declared, that if he knew not Jesus
to be God, he would consider her divine.

The idolatrous priests of Athens were greatly alarmed at the many
conversions resulting from the eloquent preaching of Dionysius, and
instigated a revolt against him. The holy bishop left Athens, and, going
to Rome, visited the Pope, St. Clement. He sent him with some other holy
men to Gaul. Some of his companions remained to evangelize the cities in
the south, while Dionysius, with the priest Rusticus and the deacon
Eleutherius continued their journey northward as far as Lutetia, the
modern Paris, where the Gospel had not yet been announced. Here for many
years he and his companions labore