ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST
Saints celebrated on the 9th of August
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 ROMANUS, MARTYR
He was a soldier in Rome at the time of the martyrdom of St Laurence. Seeing the joy and constancy with which that holy martyr suffered his torments, he was moved to embrace the faith, and addressing himself to St Laurence, was instructed and baptised by him in prison.
HIS MARTYRDOM
Confessing aloud what he had done, he was arraigned, condemned, and beheaded, the day before the martyrdom of St Laurence. Thus he arrived at his crown before his guide and master.
HIS REMAINS WERE TRANSFERRED TO LUCCA
The body of St Romanus was first buried on the road to Tibur, but his remains were translated to Lucca, where they are kept under the high altar of a beautiful church which bears his name. St Romanus is mentioned on this day in the Antiphonary of St Gregory, and in ancient Martyrologies.
BY THEIR EXAMPLE, THE HEATHENS BECAME AFFABLE
The example of the martyrs and other early saints, by the powerful grace of God, had not less force in converting infidels than the most evident miracles. St Justin observed to the heathens, that many of them by living among Christians, and seeing their virtue, if they did not embrace the faith, at least were worked into a change of manners, were become meek and affable, from being overbearing, violent, and passionate; and by seeing the patience, constancy, and contempt of the world which the Christians practised, had learned themselves some degree of those virtues.
THUS ARE WE BOUND TO GLORIFY GOD BY OUR LIVES
Thus are we bound to glorify God by our lives, and Christ commands that our good works shine before men. St Clement of Alexandria tells us, that it was the usual saying of the apostle St. Matthias: "The faithful sins if his neighbour sins." Such ought to be the zeal of every one to instruct and edify his neighbour by word and example. But woe to us on whose hearts no edifying examples or instructions, even of saints, make any impression! And still a more dreadful woe to us who by our lukewarmness and scandalous lives are to others an odour not of life, but of death, and draw the reproaches of infidels on our holy religion and its divine author!
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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