ST EZRA, PROPHET - 13 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 13th of July

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 ESDRAS (EZRA), PROPHET

St Esdras (Ezra), Prophet, memorial July 13; he lived in the 6th century B.C.

TWO CANONICAL BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE

Two canonical Books of Holy Scripture bear his superscription, and two others, rejected by the Catholic Church and Apocryphal, were formerly attributed to him. 

He collected the inspired works of those who had preceded him, and is by many thought to have written the Books of Paralipomenon or Chronicles. 

HE LIVED TO A GREAT AGE IN JERUSALEM

The tradition is that he lived to a great age in Jerusalem after the return from the Captivity of Babylon. The ancient hypothesis that he was one and the same with the Prophet Malachi must be rejected. 

THE PRACTICE OF WRITING HEBREW UNIFORMLY FROM RIGHT TO LEFT

Esdras is said to have introduced the practice of writing Hebrew uniformly from right to left instead of, as was done before his time, alternately from right to left and from left to right.

(From The Book of Saints, 1921, by the Monks of Ramsgate)