ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 26th of November
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 LEONARD OF PORT MAURICE, PRIEST
Saint Leonard of Port Maurice was a preacher and ascetic writer; he was born December 20, 1676, at Porto Maurizio on the Riviera di Ponente.
The son of Domenico Casanova and Anna Maria Benza, he joined after a brilliant course of study with the Jesuits in Rome (Collegio Romano), the so-called Riformella, an offshoot of the Reformati branch of the Franciscan Order.
HE JOINED THE RIFORMELLA
On October 2, 1697, he received the habit, and after making his novitiate at Ponticelli in the Sabine mountains, he completed his studies at the principal house of the Riformella, S. Bonaventura on the Palatine at Rome.
After his ordination he remained there as lector (professor), and expected to be sent on the Chinese missions.
SICKNESS CROSSED HIS PLANS
But he was soon afterwards seized with severe gastric haemorrhage, and became so ill that he was sent to his native climate of Porto Maurizio, where there was a monastery of the Franciscan Observants (1704).
After four years he was restored to health, and began to preach in Porto Maurizio and the vicinity. When Cosimo III de’ Medici handed over the monastery del Monte to the members of the Riformella, St Leonard was sent hither under the auspices and by desire of Cosimo III, and began shortly to give missions to the people in Tuscany, which were marked by many extraordinary conversions and great results.
His colleagues and he always practised the greatest austerities and most severe penances during these missions.
THE MONASTERY OF ICONTRO
In 1710 he founded the monastery of Icontro, on a peak in the mountains about four and a quarter miles from Florence, whither he and his assistants could retire from time to time after missions, and devote themselves to spiritual renewal and fresh austerities.
In 1720 he crossed the borders of Tuscany and held his celebrated missions in Central and Southern Italy, enkindling with zeal the entire population. Clement XII and Benedict XIV called him to Rome; the latter especially held him in high esteem both as a preacher and as a propagandist, and exacted a promise that he would come to Rome to die.
ABUNDANT CONVERSIONS
Everywhere the saint made abundant conversions, and was very often obliged both in cities and country districts to preach in the open, as the churches could not contain the thousands who came to listen.
He founded many pious societies and confraternities, and exerted himself especially to spread the devotion of the Stations of the Cross – the propagation of which he greatly furthered with the assistance of his brethren – the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the perpetual adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament, and devotion to the Immaculate Conception. One of his most ardent desires was to see the last-named defined as a dogma of faith by the Holy See.
THE POPE CALLED HIM TO ROME
Besides the celebrated stations in the Colosseum at Rome, St Leonard erected 571 others in all parts of Italy, while on his different missions. From May to November, 1744, he preached in the Island of Corsica.
In November 1751, when he was preaching to the Bolognese, Benedict XIV called him to Rome, as already there were indications of his rapidly approaching end. The strain of his missionary labours and his mortifications had completely exhausted his body.
He arrived on the evening of November 26, 1751, at his beloved monastery of S. Bonaventura on the Palatine, and expired on the same night at eleven o’clock at the age of seventy-five.
NUMEROUS WRITINGS
Pius VI pronounced his beatification on June 19, 1796, and Pius IX his canonisation on June 29, 1867. The Franciscan Order celebrates his feast on November 26, but outside this order it is often celebrated on November 27.
The numerous writings of the saint consist of sermons, letters, ascetic treatises, and books of devotion for the use of the faithful and of priests, especially missionaries.
(Excerpts from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
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