Category: Saints

A just man honored from above,

A silent man, a man of love,

Saint Joseph served the Lord alone

On exile’s road, in family home.

 

A man who acted on the word,

He carried out what he had heard:

He took the Mother and he Child

From scorner’s stone and tyrant wild.

 

A man of faith, a man of trust,

He bore whatever loss he must

To keep the Mother and he Son

Until his life’s great work was done.

 

We praise you, God of majesty,

One holy, threefold Mystery;

Be Father, Son, and Spirit blest

By all who share in ev’ning’s rest.

 

(Sr. Genevieve Glen, OSB, Abbey of Saint Walburga, Virginia Dale, CO, 1998.)

The Lord led the just in right paths. And showed him the Kingdom of God.

 

 

We beseech Thee, almighty God, grant us through the intercession of Thy blessed Bishop Cyril, so to know Thee, the one true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou has sent, that we may deserve to be numbered forever among the sheep that hear His voice.

 

 

Since Christ Himself has said, “This is My Body” who shall dare to doubt that It is His Body? (Saint Cyril of Jerusalem)

 

Saint Cyril’s catechetical lectures now available online.

God our Father, You sent Saint Patrick to preach Your glory to the people of Ireland. By the help of his prayers, may all Christians proclaim Your love to all men.

 

Saint Patrick’s Breast-Plate

(or “Lorica”)

 

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of the Invocation of the Trinity:
I believe the Trinity in the Unity
The Creator of the Universe.

 

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the Incarnation of Christ with His Baptism,
The virtue of His crucifixion with His burial,
The virtue of His Resurrection with His Ascension,
The virtue of His coming on the Judgment Day.

 

I bind to myself today
The virtue of the love of seraphim,
In the obedience of angels,
In the hope of resurrection unto reward,
In prayers of Patriarchs,
In predictions of Prophets,
In preaching of Apostles,
In faith of Confessors,
In purity of holy Virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.

 

I bind to myself today
The power of Heaven,
The light of the sun,
The brightness of the moon,
The splendor of fire,
The flashing of lightning,
The swiftness of wind,
The depth of sea,
The stability of earth,
The compactness of rocks.

I bind to myself today
God’s power to guide me,
God’s Might to uphold me,
God’s Wisdom to teach me,
God’s Eye to watch over me,
God’s Ear to hear me,
God’s Word to give me speech,
God’s Hand to guide me,
God’s Way to lie before me,
God’s Shield to shelter me,
God’s Host to secure me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the seduction of vices,
Against the lust of nature,
Against everyone who meditates injury to me,
Whether far or near,
Whether few or with many.

 

I invoke to-day all these virtues
Against every hostile merciless power
Which may assail my body and my soul,
Against the incantations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,
Against the spells of women, and smiths, and druids,
Against every knowledge that binds the soul of man.

 

Christ, protect me today
Against every poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against death-wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left,
Christ in the fort,
Christ in the chariot seat,
Christ on the deck,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

 

I bind to myself today
The strong virtue of an invocation of the Trinity.
I believe the Trinity in the Unity,
The Creator of the Universe.

 

(This prayer is believed to have been composed by Saint Patrick in preparation for this victory over paganism. The saint died on this day in 493)

Theirs is the kingdom of heaven who despising a worldly life have attained the rewards of the kingdom, and have washed their robes in the Blood of the Lamb.

 

We beseech You, O Lord our Savior, grant us to revere with unceasing devotion the glorious victories of Your holy Martyrs Perpetua and Felicity; may we at least honor with lowly homage those whose praises we can not sing worthily.

 

Read more on these third century Martyrs of North Africa. Today’s saints have been honored by the Church since the fourth century in Rome. History tells us that Saint Perpetua was of Carthaginian nobility and Saint Felicity was a slave girl but both were equal in their Christian faith. The Roman martyrology says that they were sent to their deaths because of their Christian faith in A.D. 203. Since the wild beasts would not eat them they were put to death by the sword. They are both mentioned in the Roman Canon of the Mass.

All-powerful God, to serve You is to reign: by the prayers of Saint Casimir, help us to serve You in holiness and justice.

 

 

He was the son of King Casimir IV and Queen Elizabeth, monarchs of Poland and Lithuania. In contrast to he other members of the royal court, he was a shining example of faith, piety, humility, and chastity. He had a great love for the Eucharist and for the Virgin Mary. He is the patron saint of Poland and Lithuania.

A while ago, a friend contacted me and said, “we ought to find out about Anne Line!” She had learned something of her story and wanted to know more. We set out together by car from my house in the southern suburbs and — after, I’m afraid, a couple of dreadful muddles — we eventually arrived at Dunmow in Essex on the other side of London, where Anne, who was martyred in 1601, is honored.

 

She grew up at Dunmow, the daughter of William Heigham, who was a staunch supporter of Calvinist doctrines, and who disowned both her and her brother when they announced their conversion to Catholicism as young adults. Anne married a fellow convert, Roger Line, but their time together was short, as not long after the wedding he was arrested for attending Mass — at that time a serious offense — and exiled. He died abroad in 1594.

 

Anne devoted the rest of her life to harboring priests and making arrangements for them to say Mass. It is thanks to women of her caliber that the Faith was preserved in England, and the risks she took were great. Eventually, she was arrested when she had arranged for Mass to be celebrated by a Jesuit, Father Francis Page, in her house. It was Candlemas Day, 1601. Tried at the Old Bailey, she was hanged on February 27, 1601, affirming her faith and refusing to express regret at having helped a priest.

 

Today, there are two churches in Essex named after Anne Line — both modern and very ugly, but with real devotion to the saint. On our little pilgrimage, we visited both of these, met with great friendliness — cups of tea, warm welcome from clergy and from various parishioners who were about — and realized that there is a genuine local cult that reflects a real gratitude for the gift of the Catholic Faith that has been passed on to us.

 

Joanna Bogle

The Women Saints of Britain

For 86 years I have served Jesus Christ and he has never abandoned me. How could I curse my blessed King and Savior?  (a quote from Saint Polycarp used as the Benedictus antiphon)

 

O God, Who does gladden us by the annual solemnity of blessed Polycarp, Thy Martyr and Bishop; mercifully grant that we may rejoice in the protection of him whose heavenly birth we celebrate.

 

 

“Amidst the sweetness he is enjoying from the contemplation of the Word made Flesh, John, the Beloved Disciple, beholds coming towards him his dear Polycarp, the Angel of the Church of Smyrna [Apoc. 2:8], all resplendent with the glory of martyrdom. This venerable Saint has in his soul the fervent love that made him say in the amphitheatre, when asked by the Proconsul to curse his Divine Master: “Six-and-eighty years have I served Him, and He has never done me any wrong; nay, he has laden me with kindness. How could I blaspheme my King, who has saved me?” After having suffered fire and the sword, he was admitted into the presence of this King his Saviour, in reward for the eighty-six years of his faithful service, for the labours he had gone through in order to maintain faith and charity among his flock, and for the cruel death he endured.”

“He was a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, whom he imitated by zealously opposing the heretics, who were then striving to corrupt the faith. In obedience to the command of his holy Master [2 John 1:10], he refused to hold intercourse with Marcion, the heresiarch, whom he called the first-born of Satan. This energetic adversary of the proud sect that denied the mystery of the Incarnation, wrote an admirable Epistle to the Philipians, in which we find these words: Whosoever confesses not that Jesus Christ came in the flesh, is an Antichrist. Polycarp, then, had a right to the honour of standing near the Crib, in which the Son of God shows himself to us in all his loveliness, and clothed in flesh like unto our own. Let us honour this disciple of John, this friend of Ignatius [of Antioch], this Bishop of the Apostolic Age, whose praise was pronounced by Jesus Christ Himself in the Revelations of Patmos. Our Saviour said to him by the mouth of St. John: Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life [Apoc. 2: 10]. Polycarp was faithful even unto death, and has received his crown; and whilst we are celebrating the coming of his King among us, he is one of the Saints who assists us to profit by the holy season.”

(From Dom Prosper Guéranger’s The Liturgical Year for the feast of Saint Polycarp (in the old calendar the feast was 26 January), Volume III, translation by the Benedictines of Stanbrook, 1983.)

 

All-powerful God, help us to follow the teachings and example of Peter Damian. By making Christ and the service of His Church the first love of our lives, may we come to the joys of eternal light.

 

St Peter Damien was the soul of the “Riforma gregoriana“, which marked the passage from the first to the second millennium and whose heart and driving force was St Gregory VII. It was, in fact, a matter of the application of institutional decisions of a theological, disciplinary and spiritual character which permitted a greater libertas Ecclesiae in the second millennium. They restored the breath of great theology with reference to the Fathers of the Church and in particular, to St Augustine, St Jerome and St Gregory the Great.

 

With his pen and his words he addressed all:  he asked his brother hermits for the courage of a radical self-giving to the Lord which would as closely as possible resemble martyrdom; he demanded of the Pope, Bishops and ecclesiastics a high level of evangelical detachment from honours and privileges in carrying out their ecclesial functions; he reminded priests of the highest ideal of their mission that they were to exercise by cultivating purity of morals and true personal poverty.

 

In an age marked by forms of particularism and uncertainties because it was bereft of a unifying principle, Peter Damien, aware of his own limitations – he liked to define himself as peccator monachus – passed on to his contemporaries the knowledge that only through a constant harmonious tension between the two fundamental poles of life – solitude and communion – can an effective Christian witness develop.

 

(Pope Benedict XVI, Letter to the Camaldolese Order, 20 February 2007)

 

A brief bio of this important Benedictine saint