Happy Feast of St. Evaristus

Happy St. Evaristus' Day. St. Evaristus was the son of a Greek Jew from Bethlehem and the sixth pope. He is buried in the Vatican grottoes near St. Peter, the first pope. By assigning churches to each priest of Rome and establishing a "board" (for lack of a better term) of seven deacons to serve as key advisors, Evaristus set in motion factors that would later lead to creation of the College of Cardinals. He was beheaded for Christ on 25 October 108, around the same time as St. Ignatius of Antioch. (The latter was a disciple of John the Evangelist and is best known for being the first to call the Church "Catholic." In his Letter to the Smyrneans, Ignatius gives some of the earliest evidence that the early Christians believed the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ and not just a symbol of Jesus.)