Timothy: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Timothy came from Lystra, a city of Lycaonia in Asia Minor. When the Apostle Paul first preached there and healed a man who had been lame from birth, many in the city believed in Christ, among them young Timothy, his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. Timothy became Paul’s disciple, then his constant companion and fellow worker in preaching the Gospel. In his letters Paul calls him his beloved son and praises his faithfulness, and two of his epistles are addressed to Timothy. Paul made him Bishop of Ephesus, where he shepherded the faithful for fifteen years. When Paul sat in prison awaiting his own death, he called Timothy to come to him for a last farewell. At Ephesus the pagans held a festival with a procession of idols, songs and rites. Timothy went out to stop it and to preach the true faith in Christ, and the crowd fell on him, beat him, dragged him along the ground and stoned him. So he finished his course as a martyr. In the fourth century his relics were carried to Constantinople and laid in the Church of the Holy Apostles, near those of St Andrew and St Luke. The Church honors him as one of the Seventy Apostles and keeps his memory on 22 January (4 February on the Old Calendar). The faithful ask his prayers for young people growing in the faith, for those who teach and shepherd others, and for courage to speak of Christ.

What the faithful pray for

• young people growing in the faith
• children raised in faith by their mothers and grandmothers
• bishops, clergy and all who teach the faith
• faithfulness to a spiritual father
• courage to speak of Christ