“On this day, July 17 in 1794, in the midst of the French Revolution, 16 Carmelite sisters were guillotined: 11 Discalced Carmelite nuns, three lay sisters, and two tertiaries. They were executed near the end of the “Reign of Terror,” and are venerated as true saints and martyrs for the faith.
One of the nuns, 78 year old Sister Mary of Jesus Crucified, was heard to say to her executioners, “I forgive you, my friends. I forgive you with all that longing of heart with which I would that God forgive me!”
Collectively, these nuns are now remembered as the Martyrs of Compiègne.
In the years of the French Revolution many thousands of other Catholics were killed by the guillotine, shootings, mob violence, forced drownings in the Vendee, and other forms of butchery.
Two years earlier, in August 1792, the government ordered all women's monasteries closed; the seizure and removal of the Compiègne convent's furnishings occurred on 12 September, and the sisters were forced to leave the convent. Their superior, Mother Teresa. made arrangements for the 20 sisters living in the convent at the time to hide in the city in four separate apartments and find civilian clothes for them to wear, since the wearing of habits and religious apparel had been outlawed.
There are no surviving relics of the Martyrs of Compiègne because their heads and bodies were buried, along with 128 other victims executed that day, in a deep, 30-feet square sand-pit in the Picpus Cemetery.
They were beatified by Pope St. Pius X on May 27, 1906, and canonized by Pope Francis on December 18, 2024. We ask the Martyrs of Compiègne — pray for us!”
Source: Dr. Scott Hahn
Juan Gone really lived up to his nickname in the 1993 Home Run Derby 💣
He brought the house down at Camden Yards with seven homers in the first round. It took a second swing-off, but Gonzalez defeated Ken Griffey Jr. to join Ruben Sierra (who split the prize with Eric Davis in ‘89) as the only Rangers to win the competition!
🎥: MLB