ST FLORA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR -24 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 24th of November

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 FLORA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR

In the reign of Abderramene II, king of the Saracens at Cordoba (Cordova) in Spain, Saint Flora, because she was of Mahometan extraction by her father, but had been secretly instructed in the faith by her mother, was impeached by her own brother before the cadi, or judge of the city. 

This magistrate caused her to be scourged, and beaten on the head till in some parts her scull was bare. Then he put her into the hands of her brother, that he might overcome her resolution. 

SHE MADE HER ESCAPE

After some time she made her escape over a high wall, and took shelter with a sister at Ossaria. 

Having lain concealed some time, she ventured back to Cordova, and prayed publicly in the church of St Aciclus, the martyr. 

There she met with Mary, sister to the deacon Valabonsus, who had lately received the crown of martyrdom. 

THEY WERE CONFINED TO A DUNGEON

The zealous virgins agreed to present themselves in the court of the cadi, by whose order they were apprehended, and confined to a close dungeon, where no one had access to them but certain impious lewd women. 

St Eulogius, who was at that time detained in another prison, wrote and sent to them his Exhortation to Martyrdom. After a third examination, the cadi commanded them both to be beheaded. The sentence was executed on the same day, on November 24, 851. They are named in the Roman Martyrology. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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THEIR ENTRY IN THE ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:

"At Cordova [Cordoba], the saintly virgins and martyrs Flora and Mary, who were for a long time confined in prison and slain with the sword, in the persecution of the Arabs."