Saints – Page 21

Saint Isaiah, the Holy Prophet

The Prophet Isaiah lived nearly 700 years before the birth of Jesus. He genealogy names him as part of a royal lineage. We know from biblical study that Isaiah’s father Amos raised his son in the fear of God and in the law of the Lord. Isaiah weds the pious prophetess (Is 8:3) and had a son Jashub (Is 8:18).

God called Isaiah into His prophetic service during the reign of Uzziah, king of Judea, and he prophesied for 60 years during the reign of kings Joatham, Ahaz, Hezekiah and Manasseh. The start of his service was marked by the following vision: he beheld the Lord God, sitting in a majestic heavenly temple upon a high throne. Six-winged Seraphim encircled Him. With two wings they covered their faces, and with two wings they covered their feet, and with two wings they flew about crying out one to another, “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord Sabaoth, heaven and earth are filled with His glory!” The pillars of the heavenly temple shook from their shouts, and in the temple arose the smoke of incense.

Several important things are instructive for us today:

“Oh, an accursed man am I, granted to behold the Lord Sabaoth, and having impure lips and living amidst an impure people!” A Seraphim (one of the angels) was sent to him having in hand a red-hot coal, which he took with tongs from the altar of the Lord. He touched it to the mouth of the Prophet Isaiah and said, “Lo, this has touched thy lips, and will take away with thine iniquities, and will cleanse thy sins.” After this Isaiah heard the voice of the Lord, directed towards him, “Whom shall I send, and who will go to this people?” Isaiah answered, “Here am I, send me” (Is 6:1 ff).

Prophets announced to the people the consequences of their sin; denounces the Jews for their unfaithfulness to God and they call them back to relationship with God through the observance of the law and tradition. For example: turn from impiety and idol worship; repent.

Famously, Isaiah predicted the captivity of the Jewish people and their eventual return during the time of the emperor Cyrus (a pagan but seen as a messiah), the destruction and renewal of Jerusalem and of the Temple; predicts the historical fate also of the other nations bordering the Jews; and with clarity and certainty spoke of the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, the Christ as the Savior.

Christians rely on Isaiah because it is his vision and that we come to accept the birth of the Messiah from a Virgin, and the work of the Messiah: the Suffering of the Messiah for the sins of the world and resurrection

Isaiah died a martyr. King Manasseh him killed by a wood-saw. Initially, he was buried not far from the Pool of Siloam. In time, the relics of holy Isaiah transferred by the emperor Theodosius the Younger to Constantinople located in the church of Saint Laurence, Blachernae. Presently, the Hilandar monastery on Mount Athos has a portion of the prophet’s skull.

St Gianna Beretta Molla

Saint Gianna wrote various affirmations on the significance and value of a doctor’s mission on a prescription pad and titled it “The beauty of our Mission.”

“In one way or another, everyone in society works in the service of humanity. Physicians have opportunities that a priest does not have, for our mission does not end when medicine is no longer of help. There still remains the soul that must be brought to God. Jesus says, “Whoever visits the sick is helping me.” This is a priestly mission. Just as the priests can touch Jesus, so we doctors touch Jesus in the bodies of our patients: in the poor, the young, the old, and children. Jesus makes himself seen in our midst. Many doctors offer themselves to him. When you have finished your earthly profession, if you have done this well, You will enjoy divine life ‘because I was sick and you healed me.”

Four Norms for doctors

+To do our part well. Study our science well. Today there is a seeking after money.
+Be honest. Be doctors of faith.
+Have a loving care, thinking of each one as a brother. Have a certain delicacy.
+Never forget the patients soul. We who have a right to a certain confidence must be attentive never to profane the soul. This would be a betrayal. Take care to use superficial language. Instead always do well.

Prayer of St. Gianna

Jesus, I promise You to submit myself to all that You permit to befall me,make me only know Your will. My most sweet Jesus, infinitely merciful God, most tender Father of souls,and in a particular way of the most weak, most miserable, most infirm which You carry with special tenderness between Your divine arms,I come to You to ask You, through the love and merits of Your Sacred Heart, the grace to comprehend and to do always Your holy will, the grace to confide in You, the grace to rest securely through time and eternity in Your loving divine arms.

HT:DB

Saint Mark

The shortest of the gospels, the Tradition of the Church speaks of Saint Mark as the interpreter of Saint Peter. It is believed that he worked closely with Peter. So, we have a keen insight into the thoughts of Peter, the one chosen by the Lord to head the Church through Mark. Moreover, he founded the Church in Alexandria and is revered by the Church in Rome and Venice (where his relics rest) among other cities.

The liturgical biography for Saint Mark reads thusly:

Saint Mark, also named John, was the cousin of Barnabas. It seems that he belonged to the tribe of Levi. In the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 12:12), it is said that the Christians gathered in his mother Mary’s home to pray. Converted to the Christian faith by Saint Peter, he went to Antioch with Saint Paul and Saint Barnabas around the year 44 and afterwards went to Cyprus and Pamphylia, then returned to Jerusalem. He was with Saint Paul at the time of his first captivity, having followed Saint Peter to Rome to serve him as an interpreter. During Saint Paul’s second captivity, Mark was in Asia around 66 or 67. At the request of the Roman Christians, he wrote his Gospel in Greek-the second Gospel after that of Saint Matthew. According to the historian Eusebius and ancient tradition, he afterwards went to Egypt where he had preached the Gospel and founded the Church of Alexandria. He was martyred at an unknown date. His holy body was transferred to Venice by some travellers in 828. The symbol of the lion is reserved to him, the second of Ezekiel’s symbolic animals (Ezekiel 1:10). Perhaps for this reason alone his Gospel is second in the series of the Four Gospels.

From a treatise Against Heresies by Saint Irenaeus for the feast:

The Church, which has spread everywhere, even to the ends of the earth, received the faith from the apostles and their disciples. By faith, we believe in one God, the almighty Father who made heaven and earth and the sea and all that is in them. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became man for our salvation. And we believe in the Holy Spirit who through the prophets foretold God’s plan: the coming of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, his birth from the Virgin, his passion, his resurrection from the dead, his ascension into heaven, and his final coming from heaven in the glory of his Father, to recapitulate all things and to raise all men from the dead, so that, by the decree of his invisible Father, he may make a just judgment in all things and so that every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth to Jesus Christ our Lord and our God, our Savior and our King, and every tongue confess him.

The Church, spread throughout the whole world, received this preaching and this faith and now preserves it carefully, dwelling as it were in one house. Having one soul and one heart, the Church holds this faith, preaches and teaches it consistently as though by a single voice. For though there are different languages, there is but one tradition.

The faith and the tradition of the churches founded in Germany are no different from those founded among the Spanish and the Celts, in the East, in Egypt, in Libya and elsewhere in the Mediterranean world. Just as God’s creature, the sun, is one and the same the world over, so also does the Church’s preaching shine everywhere to enlighten all men who want to come to a knowledge of the truth.

Now of those who speak with authority in the churches, no preacher however forceful will utter anything different—for no one is above the Master—nor will a less forceful preacher diminish what has been handed down. Since our faith is everywhere the same, no one who can say more augments it, nor can anyone who says less diminish it.

Saint George

“your life was worthy of your name, Glorious George:
You have taken the cross of Christ on your shoulders,
You have benefited the ground which became barren by the deception of the devil
And, having removed as thorny bush the worship of idols,
You planted the seed of the true faith.
So, too, you can the cure the faithful of all the earth,
And you show yourself to be the good grower of the Most Holy Trinity.
Intercede, we ask you, for the peace of the world
And for the salvation of our souls.” (Byzantine Liturgy)

Saint George, pray for us.

Saint Maria Skobtsova of Paris

Today, the 71st anniversary of the transitus (the death) of Saint Maria Skobtsova of Paris (1891-1945). She was Latvian by birth. Saint Maria is an Orthodox nun who was killed in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, along with her son, Yuri. Saint Maria Skobtsova is known as the Orthodox Dorothy Day, or the Orthodox Woman of the Beatitudes.

Jim Forrest writes, “She was certain that there was no other path to heaven than participating in God’s mercy. As she wrote: “The way to God lies through love of people. At the Last Judgment I shall not be asked whether I was successful in my ascetic exercises, nor how many bows and prostrations I made. Instead I shall be asked did I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick and the prisoners. That is all I shall be asked. About every poor, hungry and imprisoned person the Savior says ‘I’: ‘I was hungry and thirsty, I was sick and in prison.’ To think that he puts an equal sign between himself and anyone in need…. I always knew it, but now it has somehow penetrated to my sinews. It fills me with awe.”

A short biography of her: “Mother Maria of Paris: Saint of the Open Door” by Jim Forest

A few icons of Saint Maria of Paris

A page of links relating to her and her co-workers

Blessed Alvaro del Portillo

“Early in the morning of March 23rd, 1994, God called his good and faithful servant to Himself. Bishop del Portillo had returned only a few hours before from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where, with deep prayer and piety, he had followed Jesus’ footsteps from Nazareth to the Holy Sepulcher. He had celebrated his last Mass on earth in the Church of the Cenacle in Jerusalem. Later that day, Pope John Paul II came to pray before Bishop del Portillo’s remains, which now lie in the crypt of the Church of the Prelature, Our Lady of Peace at Bruno Buozzi 75, Rome.”

Saint Joseph

Saint Joseph’s a prime example of what it means to be self-giving and faithful in one’s love. His feast today, is a good opportunity each of us to renew our commitment to the Christian calling God has given each of us. Consider praying on the theological virtues of faith, hope, love: these are the supports of Saint Joseph’s life and of all Christian lives.

O Glorious St. Joseph whose protection is so great, so strong,
so prompt before the Throne of God,
I place in you all my interests and desires.
O St. Joseph do assist me by your powerful intercession
and obtain for me from your Divine Son
all spiritual blessings through Jesus Christ, Our Lord;
so that having engaged here below your Heavenly power
I may offer my Thanksgiving and Homage
to the most Loving of Fathers.
O St. Joseph, I never weary contemplating you
and Jesus asleep in your arms.
I dare not approach while He reposes near your heart.
Press him in my name and kiss His fine Head for me,
and ask Him to return the Kiss when I draw my dying breath.
St. Joseph, Patron of departing souls,
pray for us, through Christ Our LORD. Amen.

Saint Patrick

Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.

“The Miracle of St. Patrick”

Saint Polycarp

Bishop of Smyrna (Asia Minor), Polycarp was martyred between 155 and 167. Aside from an epistle he wrote to the Philippians and a letter addressed to him by Ignatius of Antioch, he is known especially for the account of his martyrdom, the first such account to be written after the narrative of Stephen’s martyrdom in the Acts of the Apostles.This extraordinary narrative was composed shortly after Polycarp’s death. Many passages should be quoted here, like this one, where the governor invites Polycarp to curse Christ. Here is the bishop’s response: “For eighty six years I have been his servant and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme against my king and savior?” This text is also the first one where we find a mention of the cult of relics and of the celebration of the anniversary of the martyrdom: “Collecting the remains that were dearer to us than precious stones and finer than gold, we buried them in a fitting spot. Gathering there, so far as we can, in joy and gladness, we will be allowed by the Lord to celebrate the anniversary day of his martyrdom, both as a memorial for those who have already fought the contest and for the training and preparation of those who will do so one day.”

(H. Musurillo [ed.], The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Oxford, 1972, pp. 9, 17).

Illustr.: St Polycarp. Martyrdom of St Polycarp – Menologion of Basil II (Vatican).

Category: Saints