ST SARA, MATRIARCH - 19 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 19th 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 SARA, MATRIARCH 

Saint Sara [Sarah] (Hebrew for "princess"; another form, Sarai, the signification of which is doubtful, is found in passages occurring before Genesis 17:15).

THE WIFE OF ABRAHAM

Sara was the wife of Abraham and also his step-sister (Genesis 12:15; 20:12). We do not find any other account of her parentage. 

When Abraham goes down to Egypt because of the famine, he induces Sara, who though sixty-five years of age is very beautiful, to say that she is his sister; whereupon she is taken to wife by the King of Egypt, who, however, restores her after a Divine admonition (Genesis 12). In a variant account (Genesis 20), she is represented as being taken in similar circumstances by Abimelech, King of Gerara, and restored likewise to Abraham through a Divine intervention. 

ISAAC'S BIRTH

After having been barren till the age of ninety, Sara, in fulfilment of a Divine promise, gives birth to Isaac (Genesis 21:1-7). 

Later we find her through jealousy ill-treating her handmaiden Agar the Egyptian, who had borne a child to Abraham, and finally she forces that latter to drive away the bond-woman and her son Ishmael (Genesis 21). 

MOTHER OF THE CHOSEN PEOPLE

Sara lived to the age of one hundred and twenty-seven years, and at her death was buried in the cave of Macphelah in Hebron (Genesis 23). 

Isaiah 51:2 alludes to Sara as the mother of the chosen people; St Peter praises her submission to her husband (1 Peter 3:6). Other New Testament references to Sara are in Romans 4:19; 9:9; Galatians 4:22-23; Hebrews 11:11.

(From "Catholic Encyclopedia", 1913 - 📷 Abraham and Sara's Journey Through Canaan, silver work, 1567)