ST FANCHEA, VIRGIN - 1 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 1st 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 FANCHEA, VIRGIN

Saint Fanchea (Faine) is a Virgin of Ireland. Her feast has been kept for time immemorial in the parish church of Rosairthir, in the diocese of Clogher, in Ulster; and at Kilhaine near Mount Bregh, on the borders of Meath, where her relics have been in veneration. [St Enda of Aran was converted by her.]

SHE IS VENERATED AT KILHAINE

She seems to have been an abbess, and is thought to have flourished in the sixth century, when many eminent saints flourished in Ireland. Her name was not known to Bollandus or Sir James Ware. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)