The 7 Holy Servite Founders

Servite Holy Founders.jpgThe collect prayed by the priest at Mass for today’s
optional memorial of the 7 holy founders of the Servite Order asks the Lord for
same “love which inspired the seven holy brothers to honor the Mother of God
with special devotion and to lead your people to you.” Servites, a 13th century mendicant order inspired by the first Dominican martyr, Saint Peter of Verona, are devoted to
the Our Lady of Sorrows and are to live a life of penance.  Theirs, like what all Christians live, is a life
discipleship with Christ Crucified. The is the key to our salvation. And the
Servite founders remind us that following Christ necessarily means bearing the
cross.

Saint Valentine


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The Church’s hagiographical
tradition (lives of the saints) the Roman Emperor Claudius prohibited
young men from getting married because he wanted them for his army. Valentine,
a priest of Rome, contradicted the Emperor’s wishes and married couples in
secret. This act of deviance, and the fact that he helped martyrs at the time of persecution, landed Valentine in prison with a death
sentence. He was beaten and beheaded. Saint Valentine’s relics repose in the Church of Saint Praxedes (near to the papal basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore). Corresponding with some married couples Valentine would sign his
letters, ‘Your Valentine’.

Valentine was martyred in 269 at Rome and buried on
the Flaminian Way. He is the patron saint of beekeepers, engaged couples,
epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague,
travelers, and young people. Valentine is often portrayed with birds and roses
in iconography.

As a cultural note, the Flaminian Way is one of the principal Roman roads leading from
Rome to Gaul. The road’s construction was begun in 220 BC by Caius Flaminius.

Saints Cyril and Methodius

Ss Cyril & Methodius.jpgO Cyril Methodius, glorious teachers, with brilliance you taught
the Moravians to bless God in their own words, by translating the law of the
Lord from Greek into Slavonic. You taught His righteousness. Therefore, the
Slav peoples now give glory to God in joy.


Who can proclaim the wonders of the
Lord, which Cyril and Methodius did to his glory? They overcame the poison of the Saracens. They tore apart the heavy nets. Their language closed the mouths of the corrupt
Khazars with the faith of the Lord. They made sweet the bitter waters and
delighted the good people that had sat in darkness.

Stichera at the Praises,
Tone 8

Saint Blase and the Blessing of Throats

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Lord, hear the prayers of Your martyr Blase. Give us the joy of Your peace in this life and help us to gain the happiness that will never end.

The Church has few exact details of the life of Saint Blase (also Blaise, Biago, Sveti Vlaho) but we have the experience of his popularity through the centuries in the churches of the East and West. What we know is that Blase was a physician, the Bishop of Sebaste, Armenia and martyr. The Roman Martyrology tells us that he was beheaded in 316.

More info on Saint Blase is found here and here.

The Blessing of Candles on the feast of St Blase can be found here.

The Blessing of Bread, Wine, Water and Fruit for the feast.

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From the Golden Legend again: 

And when this good widow, which by S. Blase had recovered her swine, heard thereof, she slew it, and the head and the feet with a little bread and a candle, she brought to S. Blase, and he thanked God and ate thereof, and he said to her that every year she should offer in his church a candle, and know thou that to thee and to all them that so shall do shall well happen to them, and so she did all her life, and she had much great prosperity.

Even after imprisonment, he refused to worship the prince’s gods, and for punishment his flesh torn by wool combs. He was finally beheaded, martyred along with seven women and two children.

Today, due to the cure of the boy’s throat when the boy was choking, Saint Blase is patron against diseases or any other trouble of the throat.

The priest will bless two candles in honor of Saint Blase.

Saint Brigid of Ireland


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O holy Brigid, you became sublime through your humility, and flew on the wings of your longing for God. When you arrived in the eternal City and appeared before your Divine Spouse, wearing the crown of virginity, you kept your promise to remember those who have recourse to you. You shower grace upon the world, and multiply miracles. Intercede with Christ our God that He may save our souls. (Troparian, tone 1)


Lord, you
inspired in Saint Brigid such whole-hearted dedication to your work that she is
known as Mary of the Gael; through her intercession bless our country; may we
follow the example of her life and be united with her and the Virgin Mary in
your presence.


More on Saint Brigid here.

Formerly ex-communicated saints

Much is made of canonization of Saint Mary MacKillop with her sordid past of being an ex-communicated Catholic.
Whether by ex-communicated we mean official ecclesiastical punishment or a punishment imposed by a religious superior. One’s being cut off from the Christian community sacramentally is strikingly painful but sometimes a needed medicine for the cure of some spiritual sickness typically demonstrated in an act of disobedience to the Church’s authority based on intellectual separation from some dogma or doctrine of the Church. You’ll see this with matters pertaining to abortion and certain healthcare matters. One simple example is that the medicine of excommunication is automatically imposed by the act itself for threatening the life of the pope. For more information see Book VI of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, canons 1364-99 outline
Some good examples of saints who were once excommunicated and then restored to communication in the Church are:
Saint Cyprian
Saint Hippolytus of Rome
Saint Joan of Arc
Saint Gerard Majella – by St Alphonsus Liguori
Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop – by the bishop in Australia
Saint Theodore Guerin by her bishop

Saint Joan of Arc


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Saint Joan of Arc is a confusing figure for some these days. I think she’s abused by the feminists who dash-off with her story for their own agenda which runs contrary to the authentic Christian woman, Joan. If you miss the fact of Joan’s rootedness in Christ and the Church, then you miss the point of her life and work. The synthesis of the Pope’s teaching is given here. The full texts follows below.


Our catechesis
today deals with Saint Joan of Arc, one of the outstanding women of the later
Middle Ages. Raised in a religious family, Joan enjoyed mystical experiences
from an early age. At a time of crisis in the Church and of war in her native
France, she felt God’s call to a life of prayer and virginity, and to personal
engagement in the liberation of her compatriots.
At the age of seventeen, Joan
began her mission among the French military forces; she sought to negotiate a
just Christian peace between the English and French, took an active part in the
siege of Orleans and witnessed the coronation of Charles VII at Rheims.
Captured by her enemies the next year, she was tried by an ecclesiastical court
and burnt at the stake as a heretic; she died invoking the name of Jesus. Her
unjust condemnation was overturned twenty-five years later. At the heart of
Saint Joan’s spirituality was an unfailing love for Christ and, in Christ, for
the Church and for her neighbour. May the prayers and example of Saint Joan of
Arc inspire many lay men and women to devote themselves to public life in the
service of God’s Kingdom, and encourage all of us to live to the fullest our
lofty calling in Christ.

Saint Henry


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Almighty God, your
servant Henry of Uppsala brought the light of the gospel to the people of
Finland and confirmed his preaching by martyrdom: Shine, we pray, in our
hearts, that we, also, in our generation may show forth your praise, who called
us out of darkness into your marvelous light.

Saint Margaret of Hungary


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Saint Margaret of Hungary’s “… friends and acquaintances petitioned for her to be acclaimed a saint almost immediately after her death. Among them was her own servant, Agnes, who rightly observed that this daughter of a monarch showed far more humility than any of the monastery’s maids. Although their testimony expressed Margaret’s overpowering desire to allow nothing to stand between her and God, the process of canonization was not complete until 1943.

The island where her convent stood, called first the ‘Blessed Virgin’s Isle,’ was called ‘Isle of Margaret’ after the saint.”

(Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Coulson, Dorcy, Farmer)

 

 

Saint Ita


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Lord God, it was through the power of your Spirit that Saint
Ita was tireless in caring for the afflicted, and in guiding the young toward
holiness, and so we pray: prepare in our hearts, as you prepared in hers, a
home where you will dwell.