Prayers to St. Sebastian in a time of pandemic

“Remember, Lord, thy covenant, and tell the striking angel: “Now stop thy hand, and let not the land be desolated, and do not destroy every living soul.”
—From the introit to a Plague mass attributed to Clement VI in the mid 14th century

Who was St. Sebastian?

St. Sebastian was a third-century confessor and martyr who drew the ire of the Roman emperor Diocletian by working to convert pagan Romans to Christianity. As retribution, the emperor condemned him to be tied to a stake and executed by archers. Sebastian somehow survived his wounds only to be later clubbed to death and thrown in a sewer. He became the go-to saint in A.D. 680 when a virulent epidemic swept through Rome, perhaps because he had survived being skewered with arrows; in pagan belief, pestilence was delivered by arrows shot from above by the gods. (Digression: the old depiction of little Cupid with his bow and arrows tells you what the ancients thought about romantic crushes—more of a debilitating affliction than a stroke of good fortune.) In any event, Sebastian has been invoked as a protector against plagues since antiquity.

Sebastian to the rescue

In June of 1463, the Plague returned to the small Italian town of San Gimignano. The local government responded with a decree that every church should offer prayers invoking St. Sebastian. In a book about Renaissance artist Benozzo Gozzoli, art historian Diane Ahl describes how he was ordered to suspend work in the local church of Santa Maria Assunta and turn immediately to painting a fresco honoring Sebastian. The inscription at the bottom reads: “SANCTE SEBASTIANAE INTERCEDE PRO DEVOTO POPULO TUO,” (Saint Sebastian intercede for your devoted people.) According to town records, the fresco turned out to be miraculously therapeutic: “…on the very day of its dedication in July 1464, pestilence is recorded to have ceased through Sebastian’s intercession, and 38 inhabitants were freed from the plague.”

Here are two 14-century prayers invoking Sebastian:

“O St. Sebastian, guard and defend me, morning and evening, every minute of every hour, while I am still of sound mind; and, Martyr, diminish the strength of that vile illness called an epidemic which is threatening me. Protect and keep me and all my friends from this plague […] O martyr Sebastian! Be with us always, and by your merits keep us safe and sound and protect from plague. Commend us to the Trinity and to the Virgin Mary, so that when we die we may have our reward: to behold God in the company of martyrs. Amen”

Here’s another that also invokes St. Anastasia:

“Lord God, Jesus Christ, merciful redeemer, have mercy on me, a sinner. Lord, you hold me in this tribulation, but you have said, ‘I do not want the death of the sinner, but that he convert and live and confess and make amends for all his sins.’ I beg you for mercy, Lord; by the love you have for the Virgin Mary, your blessed mother, and by the merits of the blessed martyrs, Saint Sebastian and all the other martyrs and the virgin Saint Anastasia, save me from this epidemic. Amen”