ST BASSIANUS, BISHOP OF LODI - 19 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 19th 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.

ST BASSIANUS, BISHOP OF LODI 

Saint Bassianus, bishop of Lodi in Italy, was the son of a certain Sergius, a nobleman at Syracuse. His father sent him to Rome for his studies.

HE BECAME A CHRISTIAN

There Bassianus met a priest named Gordianus, who taught him the Christian faith and baptised him. His conversion could not long remain hidden; therefore, as soon as his father heard of it, he bade him come home and renounce his faith. 

FLIGHT TO RAVENNA

But he fled to Ravenna instead, where the bishop kindly received him and assigned him a post in his church. 

HE PREDICTED ST AMBROSE'S DEATH

When, after a few years, the episcopal seat of Lodi became vacant, he was raised to the same, in the year 377. He became a close friend of St Ambrose and eventually predicted his imminent end. He himself died around the year 409 (according to Migne 413), and his body was buried in the Church of the Apostles, which he had had built. 

HIS MORTAL REMAINS WERE TRANSLATED INTO THE REBUILT CITY

When Frederick Barbarossa destroyed Old Lodi (Laudum, Laus Pompeja) in 1163, St Bassianus' mortal remains were translated to the rebuilt Lodi.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)