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The Catholic Church has recognized over ten thousand saints. Most people couldn't name five. Everyday Saints tells the real stories — not the stained-glass versions. Every week, host John O'Connor sits down with the life of one saint, told in plain language for regular people with real jobs, real doubts, and real lives. No theology degree required. Just honest stories about flawed, complicated humans who somehow became extraordinary. Whether you're a lifelong Catholic, a curious skeptic, or somewhere in between — pull up a chair. These stories are worth knowing.
A comedian is on a stage in front of the emperor.
He's playing a dying man getting baptized,
milking every gesture for laughs in a packed
theater in Rome. Another actor playing a priest
says the words of baptism over him, the same
words as a joke, same as always. Genesius
says them back, and for a second, he's not acting
anymore. He means them.
Hi, my name is John O'Connor and this is Everyday
Saints. This is Saint number 14 in the series,
so 14 weeks, 14 saints. If you are new, welcome
to the porch. Stick around and if this hits
you, subscribe so you don't miss next week,
a new saint every Thursday. This week, we are
back with another almost forgotten saint. Almost
nobody has ever heard of Saint Genesius of
Rome, but if you have ever mumbled a prayer
before a meal or rattled off the Our Father
or said, love you on your way out the door so
many times the words have just lost their weight.
And then one ordinary day, those same words
just suddenly hit different. Like they finally
meant something real. Well, you have already
felt a little of what happened to this man.
Genesius lived in Rome in the late third century,
right around 300 AD. He was an actor. and a
good one. He owned and directed his own theater
group. In that world, that meant he wasn't
scraping by in some black alley theater. He
was booking real work in real venues for real
money, and eventually, the kind of work that
gets you noticed by the most powerful man in
the empire. The emperor at the time was Diocletian.
We have talked about him before, back in the
Nicholas episode last week. He ran the worst
crackdown on Christians in Roman history. Starting
in the year 303, he issued a series of official
orders, historians usually call them edicts,
stripping Christians of legal rights, burning
their scriptures, tearing down their churches,
and eventually demanding that anyone suspected
of being a Christian make a public sacrifice
to the Roman gods or face arrest. People were
tortured and killed for their faith. all across
the empire and it wasn't hidden. It was public.
The emperor wanted people to see it. Fear was
the point. So when Diocletian wanted a night
of entertainment in the middle of running that
campaign, he could ask for anything. And what
he asked Aeneas for, at least once, was a joke
at the Christian's expense. The bit was simple
enough. Genesius would play a sick man on his
deathbed. Other actors would play priests around
him, going through a mock version of a Christian
baptism, the ceremony where a person is washed
with water and formally becomes a Christian.
The joke was in the exaggeration. Big, dramatic
gestures, fake, solemn voices, pitched a
little too high, a little too serious, so the
crowd would catch the joke and laugh at the
people they have been taught to see as foolish.
Genesius had performed the scene before. He
knew every step, every pause, every place the
laughs always landed. By every account, he
was good at it. Good enough that this wasn't
just another night for him. This was something
he'd done many times, and the crowd expected
a performance. This time, in front of Diocletian,
something went wrong. Or, depending on how you
look at it, something finally went right. Before
we get to that night, it's worth knowing what
it actually meant to be an actor in Rome at
that time, because it's not what you would guess.
Today, an actor who performs for the emperor
sounds like someone at the top of his field.
Back then, it was closer to the opposite. Actors
in the Roman world were looked down on. Many
of them were slaves or former slaves. The law
treated them as a lower class of citizen, sometimes
barely as citizens at all. Respectable Roman
families did not want their sons or daughters
even marrying into that world. So, Genesius
wasn't some celebrated star living a life of
comfort and status. He was a working performer
in a trade most people looked down their nose
at, doing what that trade required to get booked,
which, under an emperor like Diocletian, sometimes
meant mocking the people that same emperor
was trying to wipe out. Entertainment like this
wasn't rare in that era. Making fun of Christians
on stage was a normal part of Roman comedy at
the time, especially with an emperor in power
who wanted the public laughing at the very people
he was having killed. These weren't quiet,
small performances either. Roman theaters held
thousands of people at once, and a acting theater
such as Genesius's would have performed the
same handful of popular bits over and over.
city to city, the way a torn comedy act might
work a circuit today. Laughing at someone,
it is a short step away from deciding they don't
matter. Diocletian understood that. So, did
the people writing these plays. Genesius knew
all of this. He built a career inside it. And
on that one particular night, doing the exact
same job he'd done plenty of times before,
that career collided head-on with the thing
he had been mocking. So now I want you to picture
the scene. Torches lighting the stage, packed
theater laughing along, waiting for the punchline
they already know is coming. Genesius is lying
on a fake deathbed, playing his part exactly
the way he played it before. The other actors
lean in, dressed up like priests, robes a
little too big, and voices pitched a little
too dramatic on purpose. They say the words
of the baptism ceremony over him, the same words
a real priest would say, but here is meant
as a joke. And Genesius, still in character,
still performing, says his line back, except
this time the words don't come out like a joke.
He says, according to the earliest accounts,
that he saw something as the water touched him
in the scene. Men in white robes standing where
a moment ago there was nothing but stage lights
and the edge of the crowd. A book held open
in front of him with every wrong thing he'd
ever done written down inside it. And then
right as the mock baptism finished, the writing
in that book being washed clean line by line
until the page was blank. The laughter and the
fear slows down before it stops completely.
Something is off and the crowd can feel it before
anyone understands why. A few people in the
back keep laughing for a second, thinking this
is still part of the bit, maybe a new twist
on the old joke, before it becomes clear that
the man on the stage has stopped performing.
Genesius stops moving. He gets up off the fake
deathbed, slowly, still in his costume and
turns to face the emperor. and the rest of the
theater. And in front of all of them, he says
he believes the words that he just spoke, not
as a joke this time, but for real. And he tells
them he wants to be baptized because what he
just said as a bit or a comedy show, he now
means with everything in his soul. Sit with
that room for a second. An emperor who has
spent years killing people for exactly this
belief is sitting in the crowd. watching his
own hired entertainer stand up in his stage
makeup and announce out loud that he is now
one of them. Diocletian has him arrested before
the scene is even cleared off the stage. What
happens next doesn't take long. Genesius is
brought before an official and told to take
it back. Say it was a mistake. Say the joke
got away from him. That was the standard offer
during this persecution to almost anyone accused
of being Christian. A way out, if they just
deny it, usually by making a small offering
to the Roman gods in front of witnesses. Plenty
of people took that offer. Genesius does not.
He's tortured in an attempt to change his mind.
He's asked again. He refuses again. He's beheaded
a short time later. likely still in the year
303 or 304, right in the middle of the worst
years of that persecution. Here's what gets
me about this one. Most of the saints we've
covered had years, sometimes decades, to grow
into their faith. Genesius had minutes. He stood
up in the middle of his own joke and said something
he never planned to say. By the time that stretch
of days was over, he was dead for it. I don't
know many people who could hold a decision like
that under that kind of pressure. A decision
made in seconds with no time to think it through
in front of the one man who could kill him
on the spot for it. That's part of why the story
has stuck with people for 1700 years. He didn't
get years to prepare an answer. He gave one
anyway right there and he never took it back.
There's a reason actors of all people ended
up claiming him. For most of the church's history,
the acting profession carried the same low reputation
it had in Genesius' own lifetime. Looked down
on, sometimes even barred from receiving the
sacraments in certain times and places. Genesius
became the answer to that, proof that God could
reach someone in the middle of the one profession
everyone assumed he couldn't. actors have looked
to him ever since, not as someone who left
the stage behind for something holier, but as
someone who found the real thing while he was
still standing on that stage. His story didn't
stay locked in old church records either.
Centuries later, a Spanish playwright named
Lope de Vega, one of the most famous writers
of his time, wrote an entire play about Genesius.
In English, the title is usually translated
as that pretended truth. Think about that title
for a second. That's the whole story of this
man in three words. He was pretending, and then
it was true. A quick word on how solid this
story actually is, historically speaking. It
comes from early Christian martyr accounts.
The kind of records that the church kept about
people who died for their faith, some more
reliable than others. This one isn't the best
documented story we have covered. It's closer
to the Nicholas and Aria situation than the
Nicholas in prison situation, if that comparison
means anything to you from last week. Old, widely
repeated, not something you can prove line
by line. I'm telling it anyway because whether
every detail happened exactly this way or not,
the core of it, a Roman actor executed under
Diocletian for converting on stage. sits on
solid enough ground that the church has honored
him as a martyr for over a thousand years.
All right, back on the porch. Genesius, well,
he spent his whole career playing other people,
pretending on purpose for a living. And the
one time it became real, it happened in the
middle of a scene built to make fun of the very
thing that ended up saving him. I think a lot
of us do a smaller version of this without noticing.
I know I do. We say things out of habit. A
prayer before dinner. A line in church we said
so many times it barely registers anymore.
A God bless you we toss out without thinking
twice. And every once in a while, without any
warning at all, one of those lines catches us
off guard. We say it, and for one second, We
actually mean it. We feel the weight of it
land the way it probably should have landed
the first hundred times we said it. Genesius
didn't plan for that moment. He couldn't have.
That's kind of the whole point of what happened
to him. Grace doesn't wait for you to be ready.
It doesn't check your schedule first. It shows
up in the middle of whatever you happen to
be doing. Even when what you are doing is making
fun of the very thing that's about to save
you. There's something else worth sitting with
here. Genesius wasn't looking for God that
night. He was looking for a laugh. He was doing
his job, the same job he'd done dozens of times
before, with no plan to change anything about
his life. And that's exactly when grace found
him. Most of the saints on this show made some
kind of choice to go looking for God. Genesius
didn't go looking for anything. Grace came looking
for him instead. In the last place, anyone
would expect to find it. The middle of a joke.
So here's the question this week. Is there
a line in your own life, something you say out
of habit, something you've said a hundred times
without thinking about it, that might actually
be true if you let it be? What happens if you
stop performing it and start meaning it? And
now it is time for the closing prayer. Lord,
thank you for Genesius. Thank you for showing
up in the middle of a joke and making it real.
For anyone who has been saying the same words
for years without feeling them, give them one
honest moment, the way you gave him. And for
anyone afraid of what it might cost them to
mean it, give them his courage, even though
it cost him everything. Amen. Genesius is the
patron saint of actors, comedians, and lawyers.
People whose work involves saying words that
aren't fully their own. He's also the patron
saint of converts, printers, and secretaries.
His feast day is August 25th. Well, that is
episode 14. If this one surprised you, send
it to somebody who needs to hear it. And here's
a real ask, not something I just tack on at
the end. If you are listening on Apple Podcasts
or Spotify, hit follow if you haven't yet.
Then, if you've got just 30 seconds, please
leave a rating. I know it sounds small, but
it's not. That's how someone new finds their
way to this porch. Apple shows the show to
more people the more you follow and rate it.
I'd to see this thing crack the top 200 in
religion in the US someday. And that happens
because of you, not me. So, If these stories
have meant anything to you these past 14 weeks,
that's the one favor I'd ask. And a big thank
you to Spain, the Philippines, and Kenya for
letting me break into the top 200 in your respective
countries. Hopefully that didn't sound too pushy.
I meant it as a nudge, not a push. Next week,
we're back to a known saint. Someone you will
recognize right away with a story most people
never got the real version of. I'm John O'Connor.
Thanks for sitting on the porch with me. and
I will see you next week.