ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 17th 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 GREGORY THAUMATURGUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR
Theodorus [3rd century], afterwards called Gregory, and, from his extraordinary miracles, surnamed Thaumaturgus, or Worker of Wonders, was of Neocaesarea in Pontus, born of parents eminent for their rank and fortune, but engaged in the superstitions of idolatry.
"WONDER WORKER"
At fourteen years of age he lost his father, and from that time began to discover the vanity of the heathenish religion, as his reason grew more quick and manly, and was improved by education; and by this means his inclinations were insensibly turned towards the belief of the unity of the Deity and the Christian faith.
His mother pursued the plan, begun by his father, in giving him a literary education, with an intention of bringing him up to the bar, and the practice of oratory.
ORIGEN HAD ARRIVED THERE A LITTLE BEFORE
Origen had arrived there a little before, in 231, having left Alexandria to avoid the trouble which Demetrius gave him there. That great man opened a school at Caesarea with extraordinary reputation, and, at the first interview with our saint and his brother, discovered in them an admirable capacity for learning, and excellent dispositions to virtue; which encouraged him to inspire them with a love of truth, and an eager desire of attaining the sovereign or chief good of man. Charmed with his discourses they entered his school, and laid aside all thoughts of going back to Berytus.
Their studies of philosophy, logic, mathematics, geometry, and astronomy, were succeeded by lectures of morality, and St Gregory does justice to Origen by assuring us that he excited them to virtue no less by his example than by his discourses; and tells us that he inculcated to them, that, in all things, the most valuable knowledge is that of the first cause, and thus he led them on to theology.
GOD SPEAKS TO US
Upon this head he put into their hands and opened to their view all that the philosophers and poets had written concerning God, observing to them what was true and what was erroneous in the doctrine of each, and showing them the incompetence of human reason for attaining to certain knowledge in the most important of all points, that of religion, which manifestly appears from the capital errors into which the most considerable philosophers fell, whose monstrous opinions destroy one another, and by their absurdity and inconsistency confute themselves. Having brought them thus far on their way, he clearly set forth that, in what regards the Deity, we can only give credit to God himself, who speaks to us by his prophets, and he expounded to them the scriptures.
THEY MEANT TO MAKE GOD THE OBJECT OF THEIR THOUGHTS
Gregory and his brother were so charmed with this admirable light, that they were ready to quit every thing that interfered with their design of making God the object of their thoughts.
In the meantime the persecution broke out in the East under Maximian, which obliged Origen to leave Caesarea, in 235, and lie concealed that and the two following years.
HE REPAIRED TO ALEXANDRIA
Gregory in the meantime repaired to Alexandria, where then flourished a famous school of the Platonic philosophy and another of physic. His morals at Alexandria were so strict and regular, that the young students grew jealous of his virtue, and looked upon his behaviour as a tacit censure of their own irregularities.
To be revenged they instructed an infamous prostitute to affront him in the following manner: While Gregory was engaged in a serious discourse with some of his learned particular friends, she impudently went up to him and made a demand of arrears due to her, as she falsely pretended, upon contract for criminal familiarities.
THEY WERE FIRED WITH RESENTMENT AT SO BASE A CALUMNY
Those who knew his virtue, were fired with resentment at so base a calumny and aspersion; but he, without the least emotion, desired one of his friends to satisfy her demands that she might be gone, and their conversation might suffer no interruption by her importunities. This easy compliance made some of his friends suspect him guilty, and begin to reproach him: but God rewarded his patience and meekness by clearing his innocence; for no sooner had the strumpet received the money, but she was seized with an evil spirit, howled in a frightful manner, and fell down tearing her hair, foaming at the mouth, and staring with all the fury and distraction of a fiend. Gregory’s charity prompted him to call upon God in her favour; and she immediately recovered.
UPON HIS PRAYERS SHE RECOVERED
Gregory remained at Alexandria from 235 to 238, when the persecution being over, he returned to Caesarea, and finished his studies under Origen in two years more, so that he passed five years in his school and three at Alexandria—in all eight.
Whether he received baptism in this latter city, or after his return to Caesarea, is uncertain. Before he took leave of Origen, to testify his gratitude to such a master, he thanked him publicly by an oration. Here he clearly taught original sin, and the divinity of God the Son, and in the close prays that his guardian angel may conduct him in his way.
HE RETIRED TO A SOLITARY PLACE
Relinquishing all that he possessed in the world, he then retired to a solitary place in the country, there to converse solely with God and his own mind.
Phedimus, archbishop of Amasea, metropolitan of Pontus, cast his eye upon him to raise him to the episcopal dignity, judging that his ripe parts and piety more than made up for his want of age.
The good man, hearing of this, shifted his quarters, and no sooner was he sought for in one desert but he fled to another. However, at length he compounded that a delay should be allowed him, to prepare himself for that sacred character; after which he received the episcopal ordination with the accustomed ceremonies.
THE CREED
About the same time he received and committed to writing the famous creed or rule of faith, concerning the mystery of the Holy Trinity, which is extant in his works, and of which we have in Lambecius a most valuable ancient Latin translation, published from a copy which was sent by Charlemagne a present to Pope Adrian I. St Gregory of Nyssa assures us, that this creed was delivered to the saint by the Blessed Virgin and St John Evangelist, in a vision.
DELIVERED BY THE BLESSED VIRGIN AND ST JOHN EVANGELIST
The city of Neocaesarea was rich, large, and populous, but so deeply buried in vice, and so miserably addicted to superstition and idolatry, that it seemed to be the place where Satan had fixed his seat, and Christianity had as yet scarcely been able to approach its neighbourhood, though it was in a nourishing condition in many parts of Pontus.
St Gregory animated with zeal and charity, applied himself vigorously to the charge committed to him, and God was pleased to confer upon him an extraordinary power of working miracles.
The people of Neocaesarea, hearing of the miraculous actions of Gregory, were all ambitious to see so wonderful a man, and received him with great applause when he first arrived amongst them. But he passed unconcerned through the crowd, without so much as casting his eye on one side or another. His friends, who had accompanied him out of the wilderness, were solicitous where he should meet with entertainment. The saint asked them if they were banished the divine protection; and bade them not be solicitous concerning their bodies, but about their minds which are of infinitely greater importance, and are to be prepared and built up for heaven.
Many were ready to open their doors to so welcome a guest; and he accepted the invitation of Musonius, a person of great honour and esteem in the city, and lodged with him.
HE CONVERTED A NUMBER OF PEOPLE
That very day he fell to preaching, and, before night, had converted a number sufficient to form a little church. Early the next morning the doors were crowded with sick persons, whose distempers he cured, and at the same time he wrought the conversion of their souls.
The body of Christians soon became so numerous that the saint was enabled to build a church for their use, to which all contributed either money or labour. Though churches were afterwards demolished in the days of Diocletian, and though an earthquake threw down most of the neighbouring buildings, this escaped both dangers, and not a stone of it was shaken to the ground.
NOT ONE AMONGST THEM FELL
The persecution of Decius breaking out in 250, St Gregory advised his flock rather to save their souls by fleeing, than by abiding the fierce conflicts, to expose themselves to the danger of losing their faith; by which means, and by his zealous exhortation, not one amongst them fell.
Setting them an example, he withdrew himself into the desert, accompanied only with a Gentile priest whom he had before converted, and who then served him in the office of deacon.
THEY SENT SOLDIERS TO APPREHEND HIM
The persecutors were informed that he was concealed upon a certain mountain, and sent soldiers to apprehend him. These returned, saying they had seen nothing but two trees; upon which the informer went again to the place, and finding the bishop and his deacon at their prayers, whom the soldiers had mistaken for two trees, judged their escape to have been miraculous, threw himself at the bishop’s feet, and became a Christian, and the companion of his retreat and dangers.
The persecution ending with the life of the emperor, in 251, Gregory returned to Neocaesarea, and soon after undertook a general visitation of the whole country, made excellent regulations for repairing the damage done by the late storm, and instituted solemn anniversary festivals, in honour of the martyrs who had suffered in the persecution.
On a day devoted to the solemn worship of one of the heathen deities, the whole country flocked to the diversions at the theatre in Neocaesarea, and some of them finding the crowd troublesome, prayed that Jupiter would make room for them.
A DREADFUL PESTILENCE BROKE OUT
This being told the holy bishop, he said, they should soon have no reason to complain for want of room. At that time a dreadful pestilence broke out, which ravaged all Pontus. It was at length stopped in that part by the prayers of Gregory; upon which occasion most of the remaining infidels were converted to the faith.
In 264 a council was held at Antioch against the heresies broached by Paul of Samosata, who had been four years bishop of that city. He asserted that there was but one person in the Godhead, and that our Saviour was no more than a mere man, with other monstrous errors.
He was also one of the most haughty and vain of mortals, and caused hymns in his own praise to be sung in the church. In this synod St Gregory and his brother Athenodorus are named the first among the subscribers.
THE SECOND COUNCIL OF ANTIOCH
Paul only escaped personal censures by dissembling his errors, which he afterwards renewed; and was therefore condemned and deposed in the second council of Antioch, in 270, though he kept possession of the episcopal house till after the defeat of Zenobia, queen of the East, his protectress, in 272. Our saint seems to have passed to eternal glory in that interval; but the year is uncertain: it seems most probable to have been in 270 or 271, on November 17.
GRATITUDE
A little before his death, being sensible of its near approach, he inquired how many infidels yet remained in the city, and being told there were seventeen, he sighed, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, expressed his grief that any continued strangers to the true religion, but thankfully acknowledged, as a great mercy, that having found but seventeen Christians at his first coming thither, he left but seventeen idolaters.
Having then heartily prayed for the conversion of the infidels, and the confirmation and perfect sanctification of those who believed in the true God, he enjoined his friends not to procure him any peculiar place of burial, but that as he lived as a pilgrim in the world, claiming nothing for himself, so after death he might enjoy the portion of a stranger, and be cast into the common lot.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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