Saints celebrated on the 29th of July
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 MARTHA WANG LUO MANDE, WIDOW AND MARTYR
On “…29th July, one of the saints remembered by the Church is St Martha Wang Luo Mande, who is one of the Chinese Martyrs canonised by Pope John Paul II in the year 2000. St Martha was born in 1812 in the town of Zunji and later lived with her husband in Qingyian, where they owned a small vegetable farm. Childless, they adopted two nephews.
ST MARTHA BECAME INTRIGUED BY THE MESSAGE OF JESUS
After her husband died the two adopted sons left home and St Martha moved to the edge of town where she operated a small inn. When a Catholic from Yoajiaguan came to catechize the people of Qingyian, St Martha became intrigued by the message of Jesus and she became converted to the Catholic Faith on Christmas Day 1852.
SHE BECAME CATHOLIC
Desiring a greater access to Mass and other Christians, St Martha moved to Guiyang where she worked as a cook in a Catholic hostel for young women. When Bishop Hu opened a seminary for the training of priests at Yaojiaguan, he hired St Martha as a cook and cleaning lady.
THEY SEMINARIANS WERE ARRESTED FOR BEING CHRISTIANS
When some soldiers, who were very anti-religious, arrived at the seminary in 1861, they took away three seminarians and arrested them for being Christians. These seminarians were sentenced to death and on 29th July St Martha decided to walk with the condemned seminarians to the place of execution.
SHE WAS ARRESTED TOO
Because she continued to offer support to the seminarians, despite threats from the soldiers, St Martha was arrested too. Along the way ‘all four showed on their faces the peace and joy that rose from courage to die for their Catholic Faith, as they prayed up to the last minute before entering the glory of martyrdom’. All four, including St Martha, were decapitated.
As Blessed John Henry Newman wrote, ‘No one is a martyr for a conclusion; no one a martyr for an opinion; it is faith that makes martyrs.'”
(From: Spiritual Thought from Father Chris)
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