ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY
Saints celebrated on the 10th of January
Prayer to the Angels and the Saints
Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.
In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.
Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.
Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.
ST MARCIAN, PRIEST
Saint Marcian, treasurer of the church of Constantinople, in the fifth age, was born at Constantinople, though of a Roman family related to the imperial house of the Theodosiuses. From his childhood he served God in continual watching, fasting, and prayer, in imitation of St John the Baptist; and for the relief of the necessitous he gave away immense occult alms.
PRIESTLY ORDINATION
The time which was not employed in these charities, he spent in holy retirement and prayer. In the reign of the emperor Marcian, Anatolius the archbishop, offering violence to the saint’s humility, ordained him priest. In this new state the saint saw himself under a stricter obligation than before of labouring to attain to the summit of Christian perfection; and whilst he made the instruction of the poor his principal and favourite employment, he redoubled his earnestness in providing for their corporal necessities, and was careful never to relax any part of his austerities.
LABOURING TO ATTAIN THE SUMMIT OF CHRISTIAN PERFECTION
The severity of his morals was made a handle, by those who feared the example of his virtue, as a tacit censure of their sloth, avarice, and irregularities, to fasten upon him a suspicion of Novatianism; but his meekness and silence at length triumphed over the slander. This persecution served more and more to purify his soul, and exceedingly improve his virtue. This shone forth with greater lustre than ever, when the cloud was dispersed; and the patriarch Gennadius, with the great applause of the whole body of the clergy and people, conferred on him the dignity of treasurer, which was the second in that church.
HE BUILT AND REPAIRED A GREAT NUMBER OF CHURCHES
St Marcian built or repaired in a stately manner a great number of churches in Constantinople, confounded the Arians and other heretics, and was famous for miracles both before and after his happy death, which happened towards the end of the fifth century. He is honoured both in the Greek Menaea, and Roman Martyrology, on January 10.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
Comments
Post a Comment