St. Tarsicius (3rd century)

Feast day: August 26

First Communicants have as their patron St. Tarsicius, a young boy whose faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament was so unshakable that he gave his life to protect the Host.

St. Damasus I (reigned 366-384) honored the martyrs above all the other saints. When he was elected he used his office to encourage to popular devotion to the men, women, and children who had testified to the Faith with their lives. He had air shafts opened up to admit light and fresh air to the catacombs, widened the passageways to make it easier for crowds of pilgrims to visit the graves of the martyrs, and constructed stairways to the tombs of the greatest saints. The tomb chambers he had adorned with marble and frescoes, and he wrote inscriptions that detailed the life and merits of about sixty martyrs. One of these inscriptions Damasus wrote for the tomb of St. Tarsicius.

Damasus says that Tarsicius was an Acolyte, an altar server. At the time an Acolyte was not a temporary office for young boys but one of the minor orders, a step toward ordination to the priesthood. Damasus does not tell us Tarsicius’ age, but a tradition that dates back at least to the sixth century portrays Tarsicius as a boy in his early teens.

Tarsicius had been entrusted with the responsibility of bringing the Blessed Sacrament to Christians in prison. Although it was a dangerous assignment, the Roman clergy believed a boy visiting prisoners would arouse less suspicion than a man. Furthermore we know that it was the custom of the time for acolytes to carry part of the Blessed Sacrament consecrated at the Pope’s Mass to the other priests in Rome, and to bring the Eucharist to those who could not come to Mass.

On the Appian Way outside the walls of Rome Tarsicius met a group of pagans. They could see that he was holding something concealed beneath his clothes but when they asked what he had there Tarsicius refused to tell them or show them what he was carrying. St. Damasus’ inscription puts it this way: he refused to “surrender the Sacred Body [of Christ] to rabid dogs.”

Someone struck Tarsicius with a club, by way of encouraging him to reveal his secret. Still he refused, and now the crowd grew angry. As they beat Tarsicius with clubs and stones he fell to the ground, face down, still protecting the Blessed Sacrament.

When he was dead several members of the mob rolled him over. They pried open Tarsicius’ hands and searched his clothes but they found nothing. Whatever the boy had been carrying had vanished.

The Christians of Rome retrieved the martyr’s body and buried it in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus on the Appian Way, not far from the place where he had been killed. Centuries later St. Tarsicius’ relics were moved to the Church of San Silvestro in Capite where pilgrims come to venerate a martyr who gave his life for the Blessed Sacrament.