ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 19th 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 PONTIAN, POPE AND MARTYR
The Liberian Calendar informs us that this pope sat five years from the death of St Urban, in 230, the church then enjoying peace in the reign of Alexander Severus.
A BLOODY PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANS
But Maximinus, who, by contriving the assassination of the best of the Roman emperors, in May, 235, opened to himself a way to the imperial throne, began his reign by raising a bloody persecution. He was by birth a barbarian, a native of Thrace, and of a gigantic stature: for his cruelty towards all men he is surnamed Busiris, Typhon, and Phalaris, and was a monster of gluttony.
THE HARDSHIPS OF HIS EXILE
Saint Pontian was banished by him in the beginning of his reign into the isle of Sardinia, where he died the same year, if not by the sword, at least by the hardships of his exile and the unhealthfulness of the air.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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