Saints of the Day & More

Aurelius was the son of a Muslim father and a Christian mother. He was also secretly a follower of Christianity, as was his wife Natalia, who was also the child of a Muslim father. One of Aurelius's cousins, Felix, accepted Islam for a short time, but later converted back to Christianity and married a Christian woman, Liliosa. Under Sharia Law, all four of them were required to profess Islam. In time all four began to openly profess their Christianity, with the two women going about in public with their faces unveiled. They were all swiftly arrested as apostates from Islam. They were given four days to recant, but they refused, and were beheaded. They were martyred with a local monk, George, who had openly spoken out against the prophet Mohammed. He had been offered a pardon as a foreigner, but chose instead to denounce Islam again and die with the others.

Martyrs of Spain. Roderic, also called Rudericus and Rodrigo, was a priest at Cabra who was assaulted by his two brothers, one a Muslim and the other a lapsed Catholic. He was denounced by the Muslim brother and imprisoned for falling away from the Islamic faith. Roderic proclaimed that he had always been a Christian, but was charged with apostasy. In prison, he met Salomon, a man under the same charge. They were beheaded at Cordoba after a long period of imprisonment. There is another story which is very similar. Roderick is venerated as one of the Martyrs of Córdoba. Tradition states that he was a Christian priest of Cabra who had two brothers: one was a Muslim, the other had no religion. Once, after his brothers began to fight one another, Roderick attempted to break up the fight. However, they turned on him instead and beat him. When Roderick awoke, he found that his Muslim brother had reported to the authorities that Roderick had converted to Islam. When Roderick maintained his lo...