ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY
Saints celebrated on the 13th 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 MARTINIAN, HERMIT AT ATHENS
Saint Martinianus (Martinian) was born at Caesarea in Palestine, during the reign of Constantius. At eighteen years of age he retired to a mountain near that city, called, The place of the Ark, where he lived for twenty-five years, among many holy solitaries in the practice of all virtues, and was endowed with the gift of miracles.
THE TEMPTATION
A wicked strumpet of Caesarea, called Zoe, hearing his sanctity much extolled, at the instigation of the devil undertook to pervert him. She feigned herself a poor woman, wandering in the desert late at night, and ready to perish. By this pretext she prevailed on Martinianus to let her remain that night in his cell.
SHE INDUCED HIM TO ABANDON HIS PURPOSE
Towards morning she threw aside her rags, put on her best attire, and going in to Martinianus, told him, she was a lady of the city, possessed of a large estate and plentiful fortune, all which she came to offer him with herself. She also instanced, in the examples of the saints of the Old Testament, who were rich and engaged in the conjugal state, to induce him to abandon his purpose.
HE LISTENED TO HER ENCHANTING TONGUE
The hermit, who should have imitated the chaste Joseph in his flight, was permitted, in punishment perhaps of some secret presumption, to listen to her enchanting tongue, and to consent in his heart to her proposal.
HE COULD NOT FORBEAR CRYING OUT ALOUD
But as it was near the time that he expected certain persons to call on him to receive his blessing and instructions, he told her he would go and meet them on the road and dismiss them. He went out with this intent, but being touched with remorse, he returned speedily to his cell, where making a great fire, he thrust his feet into it. The pain this occasioned was so great, that he could not forbear crying out aloud.
HOW CAN I ENDURE THE FIRE OF HELL?
The woman at the noise ran in and found him lying on the ground, bathed in tears, and his feet half burned. On seeing her he said: “Ah! if I cannot bear this weak fire, how can I endure that of hell?”
SHE BEGAN A LIFE OF CONTINUAL PENANCE
This example excited Zoe to sentiments of grief and repentance, and she conjured him to put her in a way of securing her salvation. He sent her to Bethlehem to the monastery of St Paula, in which she lived in continual penance, and lying on the bare floor, with no other sustenance than bread and water.
HE RETIRED TO A MUCH SAFER PLACE
Martinianus, as soon as his legs were healed, which was not till seven months after, not being able all that time to rise from the ground, retired to a rock surrounded with water on every side, to be secure from the approach of danger and all occasions of sin. He lived here exposed always to the open air, and without ever seeing any human creature, except a boatman, who brought him twice a year biscuit and fresh water, and twigs wherewith to make baskets.
A GIRL ARRIVED, FLOATING ON A PLANK
Six years after this, he saw a vessel split and wrecked at the bottom of his rock. All on board perished, except one girl, who, floating on a plank, cried out for succour. Martinianus could not refuse to go down and save her life: but fearing the danger of living on the same mountain with her till the boatman should come, as was expected in two months, resolved to leave her there to subsist on his provisions till that time, and she chose to end her days on this rock in imitation of his penitential life.
HE SHUNNED THE OCCASION OF SIN
He, trusting himself to the waves and Providence, to shun all danger of sin, swam to the main land, and travelled through many deserts to Athens, where he made a happy end towards the year 400, being about fifty years old. His name, though not mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, occurs in the Greek Menaea, and was in great veneration in the East, particularly at Constantinople, in the famous church near Sancta Sophia.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
Comments
Post a Comment