ST THALILÆUS, RECLUSE - 27 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 27th 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 THALILÆUS, RECLUSE 

(Saint Thalilæus, a Cilician, Recluse in Syria) He lived a recluse on a mountain in Syria, and shut himself up ten years in an open cage of wood. 

A RECLUSE ON A MOUNTAIN

Theodoret asked him why he had chosen so singular a practice? The penitent answered: “I punish my criminal body, that God seeing my affliction for my sins, may be moved to pardon them, and to deliver me from, or at least to mitigate, the excessive torments of the world to come, which I have deserved.” 

HE WEPT ALMOST WITHOUT INTERMISSION

John Mosch in the 'Spiritual Meadow', relates that Thalilæus, the Cilician, spent sixty years in an ascetic life, weeping almost without intermission; and that he used to say to those who came to him: “Time is allowed us by the divine mercy for repentance and satisfaction, and woe to us if we neglect it.”

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)