ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 27th 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 JAMES, SURNAMED INTERCISUS, MARTYR
Saint James [who died in A.D. 421] was a native of Beth-Lapeta, a royal city in Persia; a nobleman of the first rank, and of the highest reputation in that kingdom for his birth and great qualifications, both natural and acquired, and for the extraordinary honours and marks of favour which the king conferred upon him, and which were his most dangerous temptation.
For when his prince declared war against the Christian religion, this courtier had not the courage to renounce his royal master and benefactor’s friendship; and, rather than forfeit his favour, abandoned the worship of the true God, which he before professed.
His mother and his wife were extremely afflicted at his fall, which they ceased not every day bitterly to deplore before God, and earnestly to recommend his unhappy soul to the divine mercy.
THEY EARNESTLY RECOMMENDED HIS UNHAPPY SOUL TO THE DIVINE MERCY
Upon the death of King Isdegerdes they wrote to him the following letter: "We were informed long ago that, for the sake of the king’s favour, and for worldly riches, you have forsaken the love of the immortal God. Think where that king now lies, on whose favour you set so high a value. Unhappy man! behold he is fallen to dust, which is the fate of all mortals; nor can you any longer hope to receive the least succour from him, much less to be protected by him from eternal torments. And know that if you persevere in your crimes, you yourself, by the divine justice, will fall under that punishment, together with the king your friend. As for our parts, we will have no more commerce with you."
James was strongly affected by reading this letter, and began to reflect with himself what just reproaches his apostasy would deserve at the last day from the mouth of the great Judge.
He appeared no more at court, shunned the company of those who would have endeavoured to seduce him, and renounced honours, pomp, and pleasures, the fatal lure which had occasioned his ruin.
HE RENOUNCED HONOURS, POMP, AND PLEASURES
We see every day pretended penitents forget the danger they have just been rescued from; lay their hands again upon the hole of the aspic which stung them before, and unadvisedly put their foot into the snare out of which they had just escaped.
Every man who governs himself by reason or religion, or who sincerely abhors sin above all evils, fly all the approaches of his mortal enemy. This was the disposition of our true penitent: nor did he scruple, in the bitterness of his grief for his crime, openly to condemn himself.
His words were soon carried to the new king, who immediately sent for him. The saint boldly confessed himself a Christian.
THE SAINT BOLDLY CONFESSED HIMSELF A CHRISTIAN
Veraranes, with indignation and fury, reproached him with ingratitude, enumerating the many high favours and honours he had received from his royal father.
St James calmly said: "Where is he at present? What is now become of him?"
These words exceedingly exasperated the tyrant, who threatened that his punishment should not be a speedy death, but lingering torments.
"MAY MY SOUL DIE THE DEATH OF THE JUST"
St James said: "Any kind of death is no more than a sleep. May my soul die the death of the just."
"Death," said the tyrant, "is not a sleep; it is a terror to lords and kings."
The martyr answered: "It indeed terrifies kings, and all others who contemn God; because the hope of the wicked shall perish."
The king, whose wrath was more and more kindled, called together his ministers and the judges of his empire, in order to deliberate what new cruel death could be invented for the chastisement of so notorious an offender. After a long consultation the council came to a resolution, that, unless the pretended criminal renounced Christ, he should be hung on the rack, and his limbs cut off one after another, joint by joint.
THE WHOLE CITY FLOCKED TO THE SPOT OF EXECUTION
The sentence was no sooner made public but the whole city flocked to see this uncommon execution, and the Christians, falling prostrate on the ground, poured forth their prayers to God for the martyr’s perseverance, who had been carried out from the court without delay to the place of execution.
When he was arrived there, he begged a moment’s respite, and turning his face towards the east, fell on his knees, and, lifting up his eyes to heaven, prayed with great fervour.
HE PRAYED WITH GREAT FERVOUR
After waiting some time, the executioners approached the intrepid servant of Christ, and displayed their naked scimetars and other frightful weapons and instruments before his eyes; then they took hold of his hand, and violently stretched out his arm: and in that posture explained to him the cruel death he was just going to suffer, and pressed him to avert so terrible a punishment by obeying the king.
THE ONLOOKERS WERE MOVED TO TEARS
His birth, and the high rank which he had held in the empire, the flower of his age, and the comeliness and majesty of his person, moved the whole multitude of spectators to tears at the sight.
The heathens conjured him with the most passionate and moving expressions and gestures to dissemble his religion only for the present time, saying he might immediately return to it again.
The martyr answered them: "This death, which appeared to them to wear so dreadful a face, was very little for the purchase of eternal life."
"VERY LITTLE FOR THE PURCHASE OF ETERNAL LIFE"
Then, having his fingers individually cut off, and afterwards his toes, arms, legs, etc., he still continued to pray, and praise God with cheerfulness, till a guard, by severing his head from his body, completed his martyrdom. This was executed on November 27, in the year of our Lord 421, the second of King Vararanes. The Christians offered a considerable sum of money for the martyr’s relics, but were not allowed to redeem them. However, they afterwards watched an opportunity, and carried them off by stealth. They found them in twenty-eight different pieces, and put them with the trunk into an urn.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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