WHAT MEMORIES, WHAT RESPECT, WHAT DEVOTION THESE OBJECTS INSPIRE!

Eugene’s discoveries in Rome filled him with reverence – he certainly was a pilgrim open to seeing God’s handiwork all around him.

I had the devotion to go and offer the holy sacrifice on the tomb of Saint Bibiana whose feast the Church celebrates today. This church is situated between Saint Mary Major and Holy Cross of Jerusalem in the middle of the fields where we can no longer find any traces of the magnificent palaces which adorned these places in Roman times. It was originally built by Saint Olympia, close to the Licinian palace where Saint Bibiana used to live and where she buried Saint Dafrosa, her mother, and Saint Demetria, her sister, both martyrs.

The saint’s body, and those of her sister and mother, were placed under the main altar in a superb urn of oriental alabaster as large as the altar. At the lower end of the church, one sees the column to which Saint Bibiana was attached and scourged to death… What memories, what respect, what devotion these objects inspire!

Eugene’s Roman Diary, 2 December 1825, EO XVII