ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 19th 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.
ST ANASTASIUS I., POPE
(Some calendars commemorate St Anastasius on April 27.)
Pope Saint Anastasius I was by birth a Roman, and had, by many combats and labours, acquired a high reputation for his virtues and abilities.
He succeeded Siricius in the papacy, in 398. St Jerome calls him a man of a holy life, of a most rich poverty, and endued with an apostolic solicitude and zeal.
STOPPING THE PROGRESS OF ORIGENISM
He exerted himself in stopping the progress of Origenism. When Rufinis had translated the dangerous books of Origen, On the Principles, he condemned that translation as tending to weaken our faith, built on the tradition of the apostles and our fathers, as he says in his letter on this subject, to John, bishop of Jerusalem.
As to Rufinus, he leaves to God his intention in translating this work.
In this epistle he calls all people and nations scattered over the earth, the parts of his body.
HE SAT THREE YEARS AND TEN DAYS
He sat three years and ten days, dying on December 14, 401.
St Jerome says, that God took him out of this world lest Rome should be plundered under such a head: for in 410, it fell into the hands of Alaric the Goth.
The remains of this holy pope have been often translated: the greater part now rest in the church of St Praxedes.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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