April 23
FEAST OF ST. GEORGE,
MARTYR; accounted Patron Saint of England. The year 285 has been
assigned as the date of his martyrdom; which event, however, has
likewise been attributed to the year 303.
By a conjecture St.
George is that certain man (mentioned but unnamed in history) of whom
it is related that in the city of Nicomedia he publicly tore to
shreds an edict of Diocletian, as impious and unworthy of observance.
For this act he forfeited mortal life, and went up to the glory of
the life immortal.
Far different from
so kindling yet sober a narrative is the career of our saint,
according to widespread romantic legend. Who does not think of St.
George as a quasi-impossible personage slaying a dragon and rescuing
a princess?
And by all means let
us so picture him, only turning the wild legend into a parable of
truth. Thus the dragon becomes the devil, whom the Christian champion
overcame by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of his testimony,
when he loved not his life unto the death; and the princess whom he
protected and served appears as no mortal bride of his own, but as
the Church, “the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”
Fabrications,
blunders, even lies, frequently contain some grain of truth: and
though life at the longest cannot be long enough for us to sift all,
one occasionally may repay the sifting.
Time Flies: A Reading Diary
Christina Rossetti
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