BL. SALOME OF CRACOW - 17 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 17th 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.

BL. SALOME, WIDOW AND ABBESS

Blessed Salome was a daughter of Duke Lesko of Cracow and, beginning at the age of three, was brought up as the promised bride of Prince Colomann, later King of Croatia, at the court of King Andrew of Hungary. 

The marriage was concluded, but Salome ordered the prince to take the vow of abstinence with her and to live in constant chastity. Both spouses competed in the exercises of piety, humility, mortification, and charity. The soft court life had given way completely to the strict life of the follower of the crucified. 

SHE TOOK THE VEIL 

When she became a widow around 1235 (her husband had died in the battle of the Haide de Mohi between Pesth and Tokai against the Mongols), she surrendered to the service of the poor and the sick, used her money and assets to built monasteries for the Order of St Francis, and last entered the order house of the Poor Clares of Zavichost herself. She took the veil in 1240. After some time, she was asked become abbess at Scalan. 

Just as she had lived in the world as a model of renunciation and piety in the midst of the high and mighty of the world, so she shone in the monastery through humility and maternal love for her fellow sisters. 

NUMEROUS MIRACLES

She died on November 17, 1269 at the age of 68. At her request, her body was buried at the side of her blessed husband in the Franciscan Church in Cracow. Numerous miracles glorified her resting place. 

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)