ST XENE, VIRGIN - 24 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 24th 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 XENE, VIRGIN 

Saint Eusebia (Xene) is commemorated on January 24. Her name is derived from the Greek. εὐσεβής = godly, pious etc. 

SHE GAVE AWAY ALL HER WORLDLY POSSESSIONS

Born in Rome of noble parents, St Eusebia, at a very young age, renounced all the joys and riches of the world, proclaimed to her two maids the resolution of perpetual chastity, secretly bestowed all her possessions on the poor, and fled with her companions to Alexandria, wearing a man's outfit in order to be safe from unwanted male attention, and thence to the island of Kos (now Longo), where she took the religious dress and was called Xene (the stranger). 

THEY BUILT A MONASTERY

At the request of the holy bishop Paul of Mylasa (Melasso), a town in Caria, she went there and built a monastery with him. Distinguished by holiness and miracles, she at length entered eternal rest. She lived during the fifth century.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints)