In the same Lateran codex, folio 194 on the back, there likewise stands this sermon inscribed with the name of St. Maximus, with the title: 'On the birthday of very many martyrs.' We ought to rejoice and exult, brethren, because to our festival there has been added a great festival, and our vows have been heaped upon vows. For it is a great joy when, upon the birthday of the martyrs coming to us, a priest also has come. This, indeed, I think has been done by divine providence, so that, because the victims of the Saviour were to be prepared, a pontiff of the Saviour should arrive—namely, so that, since one could not suffice to unfold the glory of their preaching, the other might complete it; that he might both adorn the martyrs with his service, and also instruct your holiness with his discourses and soothe you with his blessings.
We must therefore give thanks and be glad, that Christ willed His own victims to be praised by the twofold mouth of priests; that as great as their glory was set forth before God, so great might their merit be praised among the people; that, because they are the more abundantly honoured in heaven, they might be the more copiously magnified on earth. Truly are the martyrs to be called victims, who by their suffering appeased God for us, and, as accepted libations, by their death conferred on us the propitiation of the Lord. There is plainly in the martyrs a sacrificial victim—not that by which a dumb animal, but that by which faithful simplicity is consecrated. Not that, I say, is the victim which is buried in the earth with sorrowful feeling, but that which is raised up into heaven with eager sense. There is plainly a victim, but not in him who offers about to profane the altar;
but in him who knowingly immolates himself, about to prove himself. Whence the prophet says: 'Offer to God the sacrifice of praise' (Ps. 49). The sacrifice of praise is truly martyrdom. And what the angels praise, the peoples praise, and even he himself who suffers praises. For he understands His glory; for unless understanding His praise, glory, and power, he would never offer himself in libation while others are afraid. And therefore it is said, as it were to the martyr himself: 'Offer to God the sacrifice of praise'; that is, as if He should say: 'Immolate thyself in thyself, sacrifice thyself; be thou to thyself both priest and victim, and by devotion of mind offer the soul of thy body by the office of a pontiff; let Christian faith lead thee to the altar of God.'
For although the members of Christians are laid low in the earth, yet the spirit is consecrated in heaven by that very death, and life is furnished where destruction is applied. Whence the holy prophet says: 'Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints' (Ps. 115). Precious plainly is the death which is honoured by a certain gain of immortality; of which also the blessed Paul says: 'For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain' (Phil. 1). Reckoning it gain, that through the death of martyrdom eternity succeeds frailty in him, life comes forth from destruction, and temptations are ended by justice. 'Precious,' he says, 'in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints' (Ps. 115). Precious is the death of the saints; more precious certainly is their life.
If, he says, the death of the saints is precious, the life of sinners is worthless; and those whose life is worthless, their death without doubt is also base. Whence those too, reckoning the Lord among sinners, said: 'Let us condemn Him to a most shameful death' (Wisd. 2). Ignorant of justice and enemies of truth, they attempted to condemn light along with darkness. By a most shameful death they slew the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth, because they hung Him on the gibbet with the wicked, in that both a shameful death and a more dreadful punishment might seem to Him beyond other punishments. The blessed martyrs imitated the example of this, and freely followed in His footsteps. But the death of the Lord was made glorious, and precious in the sight of all His saints;
and today, together with the pontiff who has arrived, we devoutly celebrate their annual feasts. O happy celebration of this day, which has merited to have the pontifical service! Today a twofold joy of solemnity has shone forth for us; both from the patronage of the saints, and also from the arrival of this pontiff. Therefore, brethren, let them rejoice in the Lord, who by the boundless mercy of His loving-kindness has deigned to bestow on us so great benefits, that we may be irradiated by the examples of those whose triumphs we rejoice in, and that we may be upheld by the protection of those whose merits we take delight in.
May the boundless Divinity grant us that, with pure heart and chaste body, we may be able to keep again the kindly festival of this day, and to receive the sacred mysteries from the hand of the priests of the height with an undefiled mouth, our Lord Jesus Christ bestowing it, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns unto the ages of ages. Amen.