ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY
Saints celebrated on the 25th of January
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.
SS. JUVENTIUS AND MAXIMINUS, MARTYRS
(A.D. 363.) Saints Juventius and Maximinus were two officers of distinction in the footguards of Julian the Apostate.
THEY WISHED RATHER FOR DEATH THAN TO SEE THE PROFANATION OF HOLY THINGS
When that tyrant was on his march against the Persians, they let fall at table certain free reflections on his impious laws against the Christians, wishing rather for death than to see the profanation of holy things.
THEY WERE BEHEADED
The emperor being informed of this, sent for them, and finding that they could not be prevailed upon by any means to retract what they had said, nor to sacrifice to idols, he confiscated their estates, caused them to be cruelly scourged, and, some days after, to be beheaded in prison at Antioch, January 25, 363.
A TOMB WAS BUILT
The Christians, with the hazard of their lives, stole away their bodies, and after the death of Julian, who was slain in Persia on June 26 following, erected for them a magnificent tomb.
"... WHATEVER THEY ASK FROM THE KING OF HEAVEN"
On their festival St Chrysostom pronounced their panegyric, in which he says of these martyrs: “They support the church as pillars, defend it as towers, and repel all assaults as rocks. Let us visit them frequently, let us touch their shrine, and embrace their relics with confidence, that we may obtain from thence some benediction. For as soldiers, showing to the king the wounds which they have received in his battles, speak with confidence: so they, by an humble representation of their past sufferings for Christ, obtain whatever they ask of the king of heaven.”
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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