First Story:
404 A.D. A monk named Telemachus felt let by the Spirit of God to travel to Rome. He found himself following the crowds heading to the Colosseum. When he saw the horror of gladiators set to kill each other for the entertainment of the crowd, he was so moved with indignation that he jumped over the wall, confronted the gladiators, stood between them, and shouted, “In the name of Christ, forbear [stop].” He was obviously attacked and fatally wounded. But he kept repeating, “In the name of Christ, forbear,” until he died.
And the rest of the story—That was the last time gladiators fought in the Roman Colosseum.
Second Story:
In the late 1970’s I had a student named Katy Telemachus in my fourth grade class in Hollywood, Florida. She was sweet, but frail because she needed a liver transplant. The time came for a donor match, and the operation was successful (paid for entirely by her father, who owned an upscale restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale). Katy’s life was transformed, and she became a happy, lively girl. Her father showed his appreciation by treating us and the principal to a very special evening at the restaurant—a treasured memory.
And the rest of the story—A few years after we moved to Texas in 1990, we got a letter from friends in Florida, with a newspaper article. It told of three teenagers robbing a man’s home, resulting in his murder. Katy was one of the teenagers, and the man who was killed was her father. I have no information since.
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