ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 10th 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 EULALIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR
Prudentius has celebrated the triumph of Saint Eulalia who was a native of Merida, then the capital city of Lusitania in Spain now a declining town in Estremadura, the archiepiscopal dignity having been translated to Compostella.
Eulalia, descended from one of the best families in Spain, was educated in the Christian religion, and in sentiments of perfect piety, from her infancy distinguished herself by an admirable sweetness of temper, modesty, and devotion, showed a great love of the holy state of virginity, and by her seriousness and her contempt of dress, ornaments diversions, and worldly company, gave early proofs of her sincere desire to lead on earth a heavenly life.
LEADING A HEAVENLY LIFE ON EARTH
Her heart was raised above the world before she was thought capable of knowing it, so that its amusements, which usually fill the minds of young persons, had no charms for her, and every day of her life made an addition to her virtues.
She was but twelve years old when the bloody edicts of Diocletian were issued, by which it was ordered that all persons, without exception of age, sex, or profession, should be compelled to offer sacrifice to the gods of the empire.
SHE MADE HER ESCAPE BY NIGHT
Eulalia, young as she was, took the publication of this order for the signal of battle; but her mother, observing her impatient ardor for martyrdom, carried her into the country. The saint found means to make her escape by night, and after much fatigue arrived at Merida before break of day.
As soon as the court sat, the same morning, she presented herself before the cruel judge, whose name was Dacianus, and reproached him with impiety in attempting to destroy souls, by compelling them to renounce the only true God.
SHE WAS SEIZED
The governor commanded her to be seized, and first employing caresses, represented to her the advantages which her birth, youth and fortune gave her in the world, and the grief which her disobedience would bring to her parents.
Then he had recourse to threats, and caused the most dreadful instruments of torture to be placed before her eyes, saying to her, "All this you shall escape if you will but touch a little salt and frankincense with the tip of your finger."
SHE THREW DOWN THE IDOL
Provoked at these seducing flatteries, she threw down the idol, trampled upon the cake which was laid for the sacrifice, and, as Prudentius relates, spat at the judge; an action only to be excused by her youth and inattention under the influence of a warm zeal, and fear of the snares which were laid for her.
At the judge’s order two executioners began to tear her tender sides with iron hooks, so as to leave the very bones bare. In the mean time she called the strokes so many trophies of Christ. Next, lighted torches were applied to her. The fire at length catching her hair, surrounded her head and face, and the saint was stifled by the smoke and flame.
THE EXECUTIONERS WERE TERRIFIED
Prudentius tells us, that a white dove seemed to come out of her mouth, and to wing its way upward when the holy martyr expired: at which prodigy the executioners were so much terrified that they fled and left the body.
A great snow that fell covered it and the whole forum where it lay; which circumstance shows that the holy martyr suffered in winter.
HER RELICS
The treasure of her relics was carefully entombed by the Christians near the place of her martyrdom: afterwards a stately church was erected on the spot, and the relics were covered by the altar which was raised over them, before Prudentius wrote his hymn on the holy martyr in the fourth century He assures us that "pilgrims came to venerate her bones; and that she, near the throne of God, beholds them, and, being made propitious by hymns, protects her clients."
Her relics are kept with great veneration at Oviedo, do, where she is honoured as patroness. The Roman Martyrology mentions her name on December 10.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
The Roman Martyrology, on this day, also mentions Saint Julia: "Again, in the same city, St Julia, virgin and martyr, the companion of blessed Eulalia, who would not be separated from her when the latter went to suffer."
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