ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 11th of September
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.
SS. PROTUS AND HYACINTH, MARTYRS
The saints whose victory the church commemorates on this day are honoured among the most illustrious martyrs that ennobled Rome with their blood, when the emperors of the world attempted, with the whole weight of their power, to crush the little flock of Christ. Their epitaph, among the works of Pope Damasus, calls them brothers, and informs us that Hyacinthus sustained the first conflict, but that Protus obtained his crown before him.
THEY WERE BROTHERS
They are said, in the Acts of St Eugenia, to have been eunuchs and retainers to that virtuous lady and martyr, who is honoured on December 25. Their martyrdom, and that of Eugenia, is placed in these acts under Valerian, in 257, but the Liberian Calendar assures us, that St Basilla, who seems to have been a companion of St Eugenia, received her crown on September 22, in the persecution of Diocletian, in 304, and was buried on the Salarian Way.
THEIR FEAST DAY
The ancient calendar, drawn up in the pontificate of Liberius, mentions the festival of SS. Protus and Hyacinthus on September 11, as celebrated at their tomb on the old Salarian Way, in the cemetery of Basilla, who lay buried at some distance. Her name ought rather to be written Bassilla, as it is in the Liberian Calendar; for it is derived from Bassus.
This cemetery was afterwards comprised under that of St Priscilla, who was buried not far off on the new Salarian Way.
SS. Protus and Hyacinthus are honoured in the sacramentary of St Gregory, in the ancient martyrology, published by F. Fronto, and in those of Bede, Usuard, Vandelbert, etc.
THE CHURCH
Pope Damasus, in 366, removed the earth which hid the tomb of these two martyrs from the view of the faithful; and, during his pontificate, a priest named Theodorus built over it a church, as appears from an ancient epitaph, published by Baronius. Anastasius relates, that Pope Symmachus afterwards adorned it with plates and vessels of silver.
THE 16th CENTURY TRANSLATION
Pope Clement VIII., in 1592, caused the sacred remains of SS. Protus and Hyacinthus to be removed from this church into the city, and to be deposited in the church of St John Baptist, belonging to the Florentines; of which translation an account is given us by Sarazanius, an eye-witness, in his notes on the poems of Pope Damasus. A considerable part of their relics was given to the Benedictine abbey at Mühlheim, now called Seligenstadt (i. e., seat of the blessed), in the diocese of Mainz, in 829, as Eginhard and others relate; part to the church of St Vincent, at Metz, about the year 972.
THEY WERE UNDAUNTED
What words can we find sufficiently to extol the heroic virtue and invincible fortitude of the martyrs! They stood out against the fury of those tyrants whose arms had subdued the most distant nations; to whose yoke almost the whole known world was subject, and whose power both kings and people revered. They, standing alone, without any preparation of war, appeared undaunted in the presence of those proud conquerors, who seemed to think that the very earth ought to bend under their feet.
ARMED WITH VIRTUE AND DIVINE GRACE
Armed with virtue and divine grace, they were an over-match for all the powers of the world and hell; they fought with wild beasts, fires, and swords; with intrepidity and wonderful cheerfulness they braved the most cruel torments, and by humility, patience, meekness, and constancy, baffled all enemies, and triumphed over men and devils. How glorious was the victory of such an invincible virtue! Having before our eyes the examples of so many holy saints, are we yet so dastardly as to shrink under temptations, or to lose patience under the most ordinary trials?
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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