ST CORNELIUS THE CENTURION - 2 FEBRUARY

  

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 2nd of February

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 CORNELIUS THE CENTURION

"At Caesarea, in Palestine, Saint Cornelius, a centurion, whom the blessed Apostle Peter baptised, and  raised to the episcopal dignity in that city."

(From the Roman Martyrology - 🎨 St Peter Baptising the Centurion Cornelius, by Francesco Trevisani)

ACTS 10:1-8

One of the centurions of the Italica cohort stationed in Caesarea was called Cornelius. He and the whole of his household were devout and God-fearing, and he gave generously to Jewish causes and prayed constantly to God.

One day at about the ninth hour he had a vision in which he distinctly saw the angel of God come into his house and call out to him, 'Cornelius!' He stared at the vision in terror and exclaimed, 'What is it, Lord?' The angel answered, 'Your prayers and charitable gifts have been accepted by God. Now you must send some men to Jaffa and fetch a man called Simon, known as Peter, who is lodging with Simon the tanner whose house is by the sea.'

When the angel who said this had gone, Cornelius called two of the slaves and a devout soldier of his staff, told them all that had happened, and sent them off to Jaffa.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTERWARDS?

Peter, prepared for this by a heavenly vision, came to Caesarea with some friends, was reverently received by Cornelius, and when, during his speech, the Holy Spirit came upon those present, all of them were baptised in the name of the Lord. 

THE FIRSTBORN OF THE GENTILE WORLD

This means that Cornelius was the firstborn of the Gentile world to enter Christianity, and Peter, the head of the church, thus received the first Gentile into the Church, just as he was the first at Pentecost to increase the Lord's congregation with believers from Judaism. 

"BISHOP OF CAESAREA"

The manner of the conversion of Cornelius suggests that the rest of his life corresponded to such a miraculous conversion, although we know nothing more about it. The Bollandists take him for a bishop of Caesarea; others believe that he was a bishop in Phrygia in Asia Minor or elsewhere; the Roman Martyrology, too, advocates his episcopal dignity in Caesarea. His memory is celebrated on February 2 in the Latin Church, but on September 13 in the Greek. 

HIS RELICS

Details of the discovery and transfer of his body, which is thought to have happened under Theodosius (the disciple of Bishop Silvanus in Phrygia), is just as uncertain as everything else that is mentioned here and there about his life and labours after his conversion.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)