ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 13th of December
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.
BL. JOHN MARINONI, CONFESSOR
He was the third and youngest son of a noble family, originally of Bergamo, but was born at Venice, in 1490.
From his infancy it was his chiefest delight to be on his knees at the foot of the altar, and to hear as many Masses every day as his employments permitted.
HE SANCTIFIED HIS STUDIES BY FERVENT ACTS OF DIVINE LOVE
He usually studied before a crucifix, and sanctified his studies by most frequent fervent acts of divine love.
To beg of God the grace never to sully his baptismal innocence, he spent forty days in prayer and a rigorous fast in honour of the immaculate conception of the Mother of God.
HE BECAME SUPERIOR OF THE HOSPITAL OF INCURABLES
Having embraced an ecclesiastical state, he served among the clergy of St Pantaleon’s church: and when he was ordained priest, became chaplain and afterwards superior of the hospital of incurables, in which charitable employ he was a comforting angel to all who were under his care.
He was called hence to be admitted canon in the celebrated church of St Mark, where his life was the edification of his colleagues and of the whole city.
HE JOINED THE THEATINS
Out of a desire of serving God in a more perfect disengagement from earthly things, he demanded the habit of the regular clerks called Theatins, and made his profession in 1530, on May 29, being then forty years of age, under the eyes of their founders St Cajetan, and Caraffa, ancient bishop of Chieti or Theate, who had instituted this Order six years before.
St Cajetan being called from Venice to found the convent of St Paul at Naples, took with him our saint. In that great city, Marinoni never ceased to preach the word of God with admirable simplicity and zeal; and being chosen several times superior, settled and maintained in it the perfect spirit of his Order.
AN INSTRUMENT OF SALVATION TO MANY JUST AND SINNERS
Both by his prayers and sacrifices, in which his eyes were often bathed with tears, and by his exhortations in the pulpit and confessional, he was an instrument of salvation to many just and sinners.
He died of a violent cold and fever at Naples, on December 13, 1562. He was beatified by a bull of Clement XIII. in 1762, who in 1764, granted to his Order an office in his honour to be celebrated on December 13.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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