Saints celebrated on the 30th 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 JULITTA, MARTYR
Emperor Diocletian, by the first edicts which he issued out against the Christians in 303, declared them infamous, and debarred from all protection of the laws, and from all the privileges of citizens. The tyrant hoped to see their very name extinguished; but he was not aware that this divine religion then triumphs when its adherents seem to be overcome by death, and that by it human weakness is made victorious over the power of death.
SHE WAS CHARGED WITH BEING A CHRISTIAN
Saint Julitta is an instance. She was a rich lady of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, and was charged with being a Christian. The judge commanded her to offer sacrifice to the idols; but she courageously made him this answer: "May rather my body be cut in pieces, rather than that by the least impious word I should offend God who made me. If you take from me a little portion of this earth, I shall gain heaven for it."
THE JUDGE CONDEMNED HER TO THE FLAMES
The judge was extremely exasperated at the undaunted resolution with which she spoke, and condemned the servant of Christ to the flames. Upon hearing this sentence, a kind of heavenly joy and most amiable cheerfulness flushed her countenance, which she could not refrain from expressing by continual thanksgiving to God to her last breath.
SHE EXHORTED THE CHRISTIANS TO CONSTANCY AND FERVOUR
She exhorted the Christians in the most moving manner to constancy and fervour. The Pagans were amazed to see a lady of her rank, age, and fortune, possessed of all the advantages necessary to please the world, and yet in a condition to enjoy all that is in it most flattering, to contemn all this, and life itself, with such an heroic constancy.
THE FLAME DID NOT TOUCH HER BODY
When all things were ready for the execution, Julitta laid herself cheerfully upon the pile, and there expired, being, as it seems, stifled by the smoke; for the flame rising in an arched vault round her body, did not touch it, and the Christians took it up entire. It was afterwards interred in the porch of the principal church in the city; and St Basil wrote a homily about St Julitta the year 375.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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