ST JAMES THE HERMIT - 28 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 28th 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 JAMES THE HERMIT - 28 JANUARY

Saint James the Hermit was a Syrian Solitary of the sixth century who passed fifteen years in a cave on a slope of Mount Carmel in exercises of penance and fervent piety; but from over-trust in himself, at the end of that period, yielded to the temptations of the flesh, and fell into heinous sins, incurring even the guilt of homicide. 

GOD'S MERCY

Yet God’s mercy came to him as to King David; and for the ten years he survived, repentant and humbled, he ceased not to deplore the evil that he had done. He redoubled his austerities, and in the end attained to true and high sanctity, to which many miracles bore witness.

(From The Book of Saints, 1921, by the Monks of Ramsgate)