rendered it necessary to transfer the residence of the Ruler of the Church, from his ordinary dwelling, to a securer asylum. For this purpose Lucina’s house was chosen; and it continued to be so occupied, to her great delight, in that and the following pontificate, when the wild beasts were ordered to be transferred to it, that Pope Marcellus might feed them at home. This loathsome punishment soon caused his death.
Lucina admitted, at forty,[82] into the order of deaconesses, found plenty of occupation in the duties of her office. The charge and supervision of the women in church, the care of the sick and poor of her own sex, the making, and keeping in order of sacred vestments and linen for the altar, and the instruction of children and female converts preparing for baptism, as well as the attending them at that sacred rite, belonged to the deaconesses, and gave sufficient occupation in addition to domestic offices. In the exercise of both these classes of duties, Lucina quietly passed her life. Its main object seemed to be attained. Her son had offered himself to God; and lived ready to shed his blood for the faith. To watch over him, and pray for him, were her delight, rather than an additional employment.
Early in the morning of the appointed day, the meeting mentioned in our last chapter took place. It will be sufficient to say, that in it full instructions were given for increasing the collection of alms, to be employed in enlarging the cemeteries and burying the dead, in succoring those driven to concealment by persecution, in nourishing prisoners, and obtaining access to them, and finally in ransoming or rescuing the bodies of martyrs. A notary was named for each region, to collect their acts and record interesting events. The cardinals, or titular priests, received instructions about the administration of sacraments, particularly of the Holy Eucharist, during the persecution; and to each was intrusted one cemetery or more, in whose subterranean church he was to perform the sacred mysteries. The holy Pontiff chose for himself that of Callistus, which made Diogenes, its chief sexton, not a little, but innocently, proud.
A Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament.
The good old excavator seemed rather more cheery than otherwise, under the exciting forebodings of a coming persecution. No commanding officer of engineers could have given his orders more briskly, or more decidedly, for the defence of a fortified city committed to his skill to guard, than he issued his to the subordinate superintendents of the various cemeteries round Rome, who met him by appointment at his own house, to learn the instructions of the superior assembly. The shadow of the sun-dial at the Porta Capena was pointing to mid-day, as he issued from it with his sons, and found already waiting the three young men. They walked in parties of two along the Appian road; and at nearly two miles from the
Underground gallery in the Catacombs, from Th. Roller’s “Catacombes de Rome.”