ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 1st of September
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 JOSHUA, PROPHET
Saint Joshua [Josue], 15th century B.C. Patriarch; he is commemorated on September 1. Joshua is the leader of the Israelites into the Land of Chanaan. Beyond what we learn of him from the Pentateuch and from the Canonical Book entitled after him, we have no record of his life, nor any reliable traditions associated with him. He has been venerated as a Saint in the Christian Church from the earliest times. (1)
THE BOOK OF JOSHUA
The sixth book of the Old Testament; in the plan of the critics, the last book of the Hexateuch. In the Fathers, the book is often called "Jesus Nave". The name dates from the time of Origen, who translated the Hebrew "son of Nun" by "uios Naue" and insisted upon the Nave as a type of a ship; hence in the name Jesus Nave many of the Fathers see the type of Jesus, the Ship wherein the world is saved.
THE TWO PARTS OF THE BOOK
The Book of Josue contains two parts: the conquest of the promised land and the division thereof.
In the Jewish canon Josue is among the Early Prophets Josue, Judges, and the four Books of Kings. It was not grouped with the Pentateuch, chiefly because, unlike Exodus and Leviticus, it contained no Torah, or law; also because the five books of the Torah were assigned to Moses.
The Jews always kept a marked distinction between the Pentateuch and Josue, and rather linked Josue with Judges than with Deuteronomy. The well-known preface to Ecclesiasticus (Septuagint) separates the "Law" from the "Prophets".
IT IS ACCEPTED AS HISTORICAL
Did Josue write all save the epilogue? Catholics are divided. Most of the Fathers seem to have taken it for granted that the author is Josue; still there have ever been Catholics who assigned the work to some one shortly after the death of the great leader. Theodoret, Pseudo-Athanasius, Tostatus, Maes, Haneberg, Danko, Meignan, and many other Catholic authors admit that the Book of Josue contains signs of later editing; but all insist that this editing was done before the Exile.
Saints Paul (Hebrews 11:30-31; 13:5), James (2:25), and Stephen (Acts 7:45), the tradition of the Synagogue and of the Church accept the Book of Josue as historical. To the Fathers Josue is an historical person and a type of the Messias.
THE INFANT SACRIFICES OF THE CHANAANITES
As an antidote to accusations that Josue was cruel and murderous, etc., one should read the Assyrian and Egyptian accounts of the almost contemporary treatment of the vanquished. St Augustine solved the rationalistic difficulty by saying that the abominations of the Chanaanites merited the punishment which God, as Master of the world, meted out to them by the hand of Israel. These abominations of phallic worship and infant sacrifice have been proven by the excavations of the Palestine Exploration Fund at Gazer. (2)
(1) Information from The Book of Saints, 1921, by the Monks of Ramsgate
(2) From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913
🎨 Joshua's Curse, 1400 - 1410
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