Hard to Beat

Rome has a lot of martyrs. That’s been dawning on me.

The city of Ravenna has just one. We commemorate him today--Sant’Apollinare.

He probably should have known better: he hung out with those twelve guys whose leader had been killed, and they sure didn’t seem to have better prospects. Apparently, being born in Antioch, he got to know Saint Peter when he was in town, and then Peter sent him off to be bishop of Ravenna.

Ravenna apparently was the school of hard knocks, since they apparently didn’t take to Christians well. Beaten up three times and run out of town, he kept coming back. Finally, after Emperor Vespasian decided to just up and out banish Christians, Appolinaris was beaten again and left for dead. Left for dead isn’t good enough when it comes to guys like these—he was still alive, though he finally did die from the mauling he had gotten.

Here are some closeups of the apse--you can't quite make them out in the photo above.































Here's Peter ordaining Apollinaris.






And then of course, up above you have the crew that just hangs out.


























'Hanging out' being a technical term for angelic being.





Cappuccino seeking post-Mass brought us past this little construction.












What was the name of this place?