BL. SYBILLINA OF BISCOSSIS, VIRGIN - 19 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 19th of March

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.

BL. SYBILLINA OF BISCOSSIS, VIRGIN 

Blessed Sybillina of Biscossis became blind at the age of ten, and for a long time she asked for her sight to be restored through the intercession of St Dominic, not being able to resign herself never again to see the light of Heaven. 

THE CONTEMPLATION OF THE MYSTERIES OF HEAVEN

At last she understood from God that He had sent this blindness in order that she might be more free for the contemplation of the mysteries of our Redemption, and then she accepted it gladly. 

SPIRITUAL WISDOM

Received first among the Tertiary Sisters, she afterwards passed sixty-four years apart from all intercourse with the world, in a little cell close to the church of the Friars Preachers. There God enlightened her with such spiritual wisdom that she understood perfectly the “Soliloquies” of St Augustine and the “Meditations” of St Bernard. 

SHE CONVERTED A NUMBER OF SINNERS

Devout people vied with each other for the privilege of even a few moments’ conversation with her at the window of her cell, and they always came away the better for their interview. From this little window she also converted a number of sinners by representing to them plainly, with a holy liberty and at the same time with wonderful tact, according to their dispositions, sometimes the justice of God in order to rouse them to repentance, sometimes His mercy to give them confidence. In some countries she is invoked as the patroness of servants. (1361)

(From Saints and Saintly Dominicans, by Hyacinthe-Marie Cormier)