ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH
Saints celebrated on the 30th of March
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 JOHN CLIMACUS, ABBOT
At the age of sixteen, Saint John Climacus retired to Mount Sinai, where he put himself under the direction of a holy monk. Never was novice more fervent, more unrelaxing in his efforts for self-mastery.
After four years he took the vows, and an aged abbot foretold that he would some day be one of the greatest lights of the Church.
Nineteen years later, on the death of his director, he withdrew into a deeper solitude, where he studied the lives and writings of the Saints, and was raised to an unusual height of contemplation.
LADDER OF PERFECTION
The fame of his holiness and practical wisdom drew crowds around him for advice and consolation. For his greater profit he visited the solitudes of Egypt.
At the age of seventy-five he was chosen abbot of Mount Sinai, and there "he dwelt in the mount of God, and drew from the rich treasure of his heart priceless riches of doctrine, which he poured forth with wondrous abundance and benediction."
He was induced by a brother abbot to write the rules by which he had guided his life; and his book called the Climax, or Ladder of Perfection, has been prized in all ages for its wisdom, its clearness, and its unction. At the end of four years he would no longer endure the honours and distractions of his office, and retired to his solitude, where he died, in 605.
REFLECTION:
"Cast not from thee, my brother," says the Imitation of Christ," the sure hope of attaining to the spiritual life; still hast thou the time and the means."
(Excerpts from Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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