January 20 | Saint Sebastian

Welcome, young history buffs and curious minds, to My Daily Saint, the podcast that digs deep into the incredible lives of the saints, those remarkable people who shaped history and continue to inspire us today. Forget dusty old portraits and boring stories. Imagine standing tied to a wooden post. You are unable to move. Your hands are bound behind your back. Standing in front of you isn't an enemy army, but your fellow soldiers. They raise their bows, they notch their arrows, and they aim at you.

You close your eyes. You hear the strings snap. You feel the impact. One arrow. Two. 10. Most people would assume this is the end of the story. For almost anyone in history, it would be. But for the man we are celebrating today, being used as human target practice was just the beginning of his legend. Meet Saint Sebastian. To understand Sebastian, we have to travel back to the year 283. The Roman Empire is in charge, and the emperor, Diocletian, is absolutely ruthless.

Being a Christian in these days wasn't just unpopular, it was a death sentence. Legend tells us that Sebastian grew up in southern France, but he made a daring choice. He traveled to Rome and joined the Roman army. Now, why would a faithful Christian join the army of the people persecuting him? He was going undercover.

Sebastian believed that by wearing the uniform, he could help protect other Christians from the inside. He thought he could serve them much better as a spy within the ranks than as a civilian on the outside. And he was good at it. He was such a model soldier that he was actually promoted to the Praetorian Guard, the elite unit assigned to protect Emperor Diocletian himself. Imagine the tension. Every day, Sebastian is guarding the man who wants his people destroyed. Tradition holds that during his time as a guard, he even managed to convert many people to Christianity right under the emperor's nose.

But in a spy thriller, the spy eventually gets caught, and that's what happened to Sebastian. When Diocletian found out that one of his elite guards was a Christian, he was absolutely furious. He didn't just want Sebastian executed, he wanted to make an example of him. The emperor ordered Sebastian to be tied to a post and used as target practice for the military archers.

Witnesses said it was a gruesome scene. The soldiers shot so many arrows into him that they claimed he looked like a sea urchin or a hedgehog. Assuming no human could survive that, they left him tied to the post for dead. But he wasn't dead. A courageous Christian woman named Irene came to collect his body, but found him alive and nursed him back to health. Once he recovered, he did something that sounds like it's straight out of a superhero movie. He went to the palace.

He found a stairwell that he knew the emperor would pass through, and he waited. When Diocletian walked down those stairs, he stopped cold. Standing there, blocking his path, was the man he thought he had killed. Sebastian looked the emperor in the eye and condemned him for persecuting Christians. The emperor was shocked. It must have been like seeing a ghost. Then the emperor's shock turned back into rage. He recovered his wits and ordered Sebastian's death again.

This time, the emperor didn't take chances with arrows. He ordered the holy martyr to be beaten severely until he died. His body was thrown into a ditch, but once again, brave Christians collected him to be properly preserved. Sebastian's courage made him unforgettable. But there is a strange postscript to his story. If you look at art from the Renaissance, you often see Saint Sebastian with arrows in his body. You might also see him in paintings of people suffering from the plague. Why?

Well, according to historical records, Sebastian defended the city of Rome against the plague in the year 680. In the ancient pagan world, people believed that pestilence and disease were delivered by arrows shot by the gods. Even Christian Romans appreciated the symbolism. Who better to protect you from the arrows of sickness than the soldier who survived a firing squad of real arrows?

Sebastian lived undercover for a while, but when it mattered most, he stopped hiding. He literally stood on the staircase and spoke the truth to power, even though he knew it would cost him everything. This week, find one moment where you can stop hiding your faith or your values.

Have the courage to stand up for what is right, even when you feel like the arrows of peer pressure are pointed at you. When you feel like giving up, Thank you for joining us on My Daily Saint. We look forward to sharing another incredible story of faith and courage with you tomorrow.