ST JULIAN AND ST BASILISSA, MARTYRS - 9 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 9th 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 JULIAN AND ST BASILISSA, MARTYRS

According to their acts, and the ancient Martyrologies, though engaged in a married state, they by mutual consent lived in perpetual chastity, sanctified themselves by the most perfect exercises of an ascetic life, and employed their revenues in relieving the poor and the sick. For this purpose they converted their house into a kind of hospital, in which, if we may credit their acts, they sometimes entertained a thousand indigent persons: Basilissa attend those of her sex, in separate lodgings from the men, of whom Julian took care, who from his charity is surnamed the Hospitalarian. 

THEY SEEM TO HAVE SUFFERED IN THE REIGN OF MAXIMIN II.

Egypt, where they lived, had then begun to abound with examples of persons, who, either in cities or in deserts, devoted themselves to the most perfect exercises of charity, penance, and contemplation. Basilissa, after having stood severe persecutions, died in peace; Julian survived her many years, and received the crown of a glorious martyrdom, together with Celsus a youth, Anthony a priest, Anastatius, and Marcianilla the mother of Celsus. 

They seem to have suffered in the reign of Maximin II. in 313, on January 6; for, in the most ancient lectionary used in the church of Paris, under the first race of the French kings, quoted by Chatelain,  and several ancient calendars, their festival is marked on that day, or on the eve. On account of the concurrence of the Epiphany, it was deferred in different churches to [other dates]. 

Many churches and hospitals in the east, and especially in the west, bear the name of one or other of these martyrs.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)