ST ENOCH, PATRIARCH - 3 JANUARY

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 3rd of 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 ENOCH, PATRIARCH

Saint Henoch (Greek Enoch) was the father of Mathusala (Genesis 5:18 ff.). At the time of the birth of Mathusala Henoch was sixty-five years of age, "and all the days of Henoch were three hundred and sixty-five years" (Genesis 5:23). 

Instead of the clause "and he died", added to the sketches concerning the other patriarchs, the text says of Henoch: "And he walked with God, and was seen no more: because God took him" (Genesis 5:24). 

BY FAITH ENOCH WAS TRANSLATED

The inspired writer of Hebrews 11:5 adds: "By faith Henoch was translated, that he should not see death." Sirach 44:16 and 49:16 intimates the same truth about the patriarch. The Epistle of Saint Jude (14-15) shows us Henoch in the light of a prophet, announcing the judgement of God upon the ungodly. 

Some writers have supposed that Saint Jude quoted these words from the so-called apocryphal Book of Henoch; but, since they do not fit into its context (Ethiopic), it is more reasonable to suppose that they were interpolated into the apocryphal book from the text of St Jude. The Apostle must have borrowed the words from Jewish tradition.

THE BOOK OF ENOCH

The BOOK OF ENOCH influenced not only later Jewish apocrypha, but has left its imprint on the New Testament and the works of the early Fathers. The Book of Henoch enjoyed a high esteem among them, mainly owing to the quotation in Jude. The so-called Epistle of Barnabas twice cites Henoch as Scripture. 

Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, and even St Augustine suppose the work to be a genuine one of the patriarch. But in the fourth century the Henoch writings lost credit and ceased to be quoted. After an allusion by an author of the beginning of the ninth century, they disappear from view. 

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)