ST ANTHERUS, POPE - 3 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 3rd January

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 ANTHERUS, POPE

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Saint Antherus (Anteros) reigned November 21, 235 to January 3, 236). We know for certain only that he reigned some forty days, and that he was buried in the famous "papal crypt" of the cemetery of Saint Calixtus at Rome. 

HE WAS MARTYRED

The "Liber Pontificalis" says that he was martyred for having caused the Acts of the martyrs to be collected by notaries and deposited in the archives of the Roman Church. This tradition seems old and respectable; nevertheless the best scholars maintain that it is not sufficiently guaranteed by its sole voucher, the "Liber Pontificalis", on account, among other things, of the late date of that work’s compilation. 

THE PREVALENCE OF GREEK IN THE EARLY CHURCH

The site of his sepulchre was discovered by De Rossi in 1854, with some broken remnants of the Greek epitaph engraved on the narrow oblong slab that closed his tomb, an index at once of his origin and of the prevalence of Greek in the Roman Church up to that date. 

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)