ST ISIDORE OF SCETE, PRIEST AND HERMIT - 15 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 15th 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 ISIDORE OF SCETE, PRIEST AND HERMIT 

Saint Isidore was priest of Scété, and hermit in that vast desert. He excelled in an unparalleled gift of meekness, continency, prayer, and recollection. 

AVOIDING THE OCCASION OF ANGER

Once perceiving in himself some motions of anger to rise, he instantly threw down certain baskets he was carrying to market, and ran away to avoid the occasion.  

When in his old age, others persuaded him to abate something in his labour, he answered; “If we consider what the Son of God hath done for us, we can never allow ourselves any indulgence in sloth. Were my body burnt, and my ashes scattered in the air, it would be nothing.” 

"NOR WOULD I CEASE IN THE SERVICE OF GOD"

Whenever the enemy tempted him to despair, he said: “Were I to be damned, thou wouldst yet be below me in hell; nor would I cease to labour in the service of God, though assured that this was to be my lot.” 

If he was tempted to vain-glory, he reproached and confounded himself with the thought, how far even in his exterior exercises he fell short of the servants of God, Antony, Pambo, and others. 

"I WEEP FOR MY SINS"

Being asked the reason of his abundant tears, he answered: “I weep for my sins: if we had only once offended God, we could never sufficiently bewail this misfortune.” He died a little before the year 391. His name stands in the Roman Martyrology, on January 15.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)