Pope and Martyr (d. ca 91)
His life
+ Saint Irenaeus of Lyons relates that Clement was lived in Rome and was of Jewish ancestry. He had been converted to Christ by the preaching of Saints Peter and Paul.
+ According to tradition, he had been ordained a priest by Saint Peter and he succeeded Saint Cletus as bishop of Rome around the year 91.
+ Pope Clement I is especially remember for his letter to the Christians in Corinth, which contains the earliest surviving record of an intervention by the church in Rome in the affairs of another local church.
+ Around the year 99, Clement was arrested and exiled to the Crimea, where he was forced to work in the mines until he was eventually martyred by being thrown into the sea with an anchor tied around his neck. His relics were reported to have been recovered by Saints Cyril and Methodius who brought them back to Rome in the ninth century.
+ Saint Clement is among the early martyrs whose name is included in the Roman Canon (the First Eucharistic Prayer).
For prayer and reflection
“Love does everything in harmony… without love, nothing is pleasing to God. In love the Master received us. Because of the love that he had for us, Jesus Christ our Lord, in accordance with God’s will, gave his blood for us, and his flesh for our flesh, and his life for our lives.”—Saint Clement of Rome, First Letter to the Corinthians 49:5b-6
Prayer
Almighty ever-living God,
who are wonderful in the virtue of all your Saints,
grant us joy in the yearly commemoration of Saint Clement, who, as a Martyr and High Priest of your Son,
bore out by his witness what he celebrated in mystery
and confirmed by example what he preached with his lips.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.
(from The Roman Missal)
Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.
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