Saints celebrated on the 20th 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 JOSEPH BARSABAS, CONFESSOR
He was one of the seventy-two disciples of our Lord, and was put in competition with St Matthias to succeed the traitor Judas in the apostleship.
HE REJOICED IN THE LORD
St Chrysostom remarks that St Joseph was not displeased, but rejoiced in the Lord to see the preference given to St Matthias.
After the dispersion of the disciples he preached the gospel to many nations; and among other miracles, drank poison without receiving any hurt, as Papias, and from him Eusebius, testify. This saint, from his extraordinary piety, was surnamed the Just.
A SENSIBLE EFFECT OF GOD'S GRACE
The lives of the apostles and primitive Christians was a miracle in morals, and a sensible effect of Almighty grace. Burning with holy zeal, they had no interest on earth but that of the divine honour, which they sought in all things; and being warmed with the expectation of an eternal kingdom, they were continually discoursing of it, and comforting one another with the hopes of possessing it; and they did little else but prepare to die.
DO OUR LIVES GLORIFY GOD IN THIS MANNER?
Thus by example, still more than by words, they subdued their very enemies to the faith, and brought them to a like spirit and practice. Their converts, by a wonderful change of manners, became in a moment new creatures. Those who had been the most bitter enemies, long bent to lust and passion, became the most loving, forgiving, and chaste persons in the world.
Has grace wrought in us so perfect a conversion? Do our lives glorify God’s name in this manner, by a spirit and practice agreeable to the principles of our divine faith?
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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