ST FABIAN, POPE AND MARTYR - 20 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 20th 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 FABIAN, POPE AND MARTYR

⬅️ Saintly Popes - Index

Saint Fabian succeeded St Anterus in the pontificate, in the year 236. 

A DOVE SETTLED ON THE POPE'S HEAD

Eusebius relates, that in an assembly of the people and clergy, held for the election of a pastor in his room, a dove, unexpectedly appearing, settled, to the great surprise of all present, on the head of St Fabian; and that this miraculous sign united the votes of the clergy and people in promoting him, though not thought of before, as being a layman and a stranger. 

HE GOVERNED THE CHURCH SIXTEEN YEARS

He governed the church sixteen years, sent St Dionysius and other preachers into Gaul, and condemned Privatus, a broacher of a new heresy in Africa, as appears from St Cyprian. 

"AN INCOMPARABLE MAN"

St Fabian died a glorious martyr in the persecution of Decius, in 250, as St Cyprian and St Jerome witness. The former, writing to his successor, St Cornelius, calls him an incomparable man; and says, that the glory of his death had answered the purity and holiness of his life. 

"THOU ART MY PORTION"

The saints made God, and the accomplishment of his holy will, the great object of all their petitions in their prayers, and their only aim in all their actions. "God," says St Austin [Augustine], "in his promises to hear our prayers is desirous to bestow himself upon us; if you find any thing better than him, ask it, but if you ask any thing beneath him, you put an affront upon him, and hurt yourself by preferring to him a creature which he framed; pray in the spirit and sentiment of love, in which the royal prophet said to him: 'Thou, O Lord, art my portion.'  Let others choose to themselves portions among creatures, for my part, Thou art my portion, Thee alone I have chosen for my whole inheritance." 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)