Feast of St. Justin Martyr

Today the Church celebrates the early Christian martyr, St. Justin Martyr. A Platonist philospher, he converted to Christianity and wrote two well known treatises defending the faith. For his staunch adherence to the Christian religion, he was beheaded in Rome in 165.

Saint Justin is the patron saint of apologists because of his written defense for the Christian faith. Some of his writings support the Eucharistic doctrine and are often used in my blog to illustrate just how early the Church was describing the sacrifice of the altar as the real Flesh and Blood of Christ.

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).


St Justin, pray for us that we would defend the faith, not just in word, but in deed as you showed by your life and death as a martyr for Christ.

O God, through the folly of the Cross You taught the Blessed Martyr Justin, the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ; grant us, by his intercession to avoid all the deceits of error, and to become steadfast in faith. Through the same, Amen.