Saint Simeon (Simon) of Trent

They hired one of their own, called To bias, Tobie Individual accused of having abducted the child. to commit this detestable theft, and to bring them, at any price, one of the small Christian children he might find in the city. He did not fail to do so; encountering this little Simeon, who was as beautiful as an angel, aged only twenty-nine months, less three days, he stole him from the very door of his parents' house, in that place of the Fossato, and brought him quietly to a Jew called Samuel, where all the others of this reprobate nation had an appointment. It is not easy to express the howls that these wolves let out upon seeing this innocent lamb in their power.

On the evening of Maundy Thursday to Good Friday of Holy Week, they carried him into their synagogue to an old m Moïse Prophet representing the Old Law, appearing alongside Jesus. an named Moses, who first stripped him, and, for fear that by his little cries he might be heard by the neighbors and thus reveal their cruelty, this wretch wrapped a handkerchief around his neck to stifle his voice. Holding him thus on his knees, after cruelties that chaste ears cannot hear, he cut a piece from his right cheek, which he placed in a basin; then all those present each removed a piece of his living flesh and collected his blood to suck and feed upon it.

When the miserable leader of these infanticides had sated himself with the flesh and blood of this child, he stood him upright on his feet, although he was already half-dead; and, having ordered one of his executioners, named Samuel, to hold his arms extended in the form of a crucifix, he exhorted all the others to pierce him with needles in all his innocent limbs, without leaving a single spot, from the soles of his feet to his head, that did not have its own wound. This martyrdom lasted no less than an hour, during which these furious tigers, so as not to be touched by the dying moans of this poor child, howled themselves like madmen, saying these words in their language: 'Let us kill this one like Jesus, the God of the Christians, who is nothing, and thus may our enemies be forever confounded.' Finally, this innocent Martyr raised his eyes to heaven as if to call it to witness the torments he was unjustly made to endure, then, lowering them toward the earth, he rendered his spirit to Him for whose glory he was dying. This was on Good Friday, March 24, in the year of Our Lord 1475.

The Jews, believing they could cover up their crime, hid this little body under wine barrels in a cellar; but the rumor was already spreading through the city, by the voices of other children who, seeing Simeon's parents in distress, cried out publicly that he must be sought in the houses of the Jews. These wretches, for fear of being discovered, threw him into a stream that flowed below the synagogue; and to appear even more innocent, notified the judges that in such a place a body appeared on the water. The authorities went there and found this victim treated in the manner just described. The bishop, assisted by his clergy, had him transported as a precious relic to the church of Saint Peter. God, wh om this blessed Simeon église de Saint-Pierre Place where the child's body was transported as a relic. , virgin, martyr, and innocent, had glorified, not by speaking, but by suffering, as formerly the little innocents whom Herod had massacred in Judea; God, I say, also glorified him in turn, by the multitude of miracles that were performed by the touch and in the presence of his sacred remains. As for the Jews who had committed this murder, they did not escape, even in this world, the avenging hand of God; because justice, having seized them, made them pay the penalties that were due for such unheard-of cruelty.

The martyrdom of this most holy Innocent is excellently written in the second volume of Surius, by J ean Mathias Tiberinu Jean Mathias Tibérin Doctor of medicine who examined the body and wrote the account of the martyrdom. s, a doctor of medicine, who had examined his holy body by order of the bishop, and who dedicated his history to the Senate and th e peopl Brescia City of origin of Blessed Sebastian Maggi. e of Brescia. The Roman Church has held it in such high regard that it has inserted it into its martyrology on March 24, the day on which it occurred. See Surius and the Bollandists, who have inserted the instruction of the trial and the report of the physician Tiberinus, who examined the body of the young Martyr. See also Martène, amp. coll., vol. 21; B enedict XIV, De servorum D saint Guillaume de Norwich Another child martyr cited for comparison. ei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione, book 1, ch. 14, and the life of Saint William of Norwich, which we provide for this day.