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MARTYRS UNDER THE LOMBARDS - 2 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH 

Saints celebrated on the 2nd 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.

MARTYRS UNDER THE LOMBARDS 

(Sixth Age.) The Lombards, a barbarous idolatrous nation which swarmed out of Scandinavia and Pomerania, settled first in the countries now called Austria and Bavaria; and a few years after, about the middle of the sixth century, broke into the north of Italy. In their ravages about the year 597, they attempted to compel forty husbandmen, whom they had made captives, to eat meats which had been offered to idols. The faithful servants of Christ constantly refusing to comply, were all massacred. Such meats might, in some circumstances, have been eaten without sin, but not when this was exacted out of a motive of superstition. 

The same barbarians endeavoured to oblige another company of captives to adore the head of a goat, which was their favourite idol, and about which they walked, singing, and bending their knees before it; but the Christians chose rather to die than purchase their lives by offending God. They are said to have been about four hundred in number.   

HEROIC COURAGE

St Gregory the Great mentions, that these poor countrymen had prepared themselves for the glorious crown of martyrdom, by lives employed in the exercises of devotion and voluntary penance, and by patience in bearing afflictions; also, that they had the heroic courage to suffer joyfully the most cruel torments and death, rather than offend God by sin, because his love reigned in their hearts. 

TRUE LOVE MAKES A SOUL COURAGEOUS AND UNDAUNTED

“True love,” says St Peter Chrysologus, “makes a soul courageous and undaunted; it even finds nothing hard, nothing bitter, nothing grievous; it braves dangers, smiles at death, conquers all things.” 

If we ask our own hearts, if we examine our lives by this test, whether we have yet begun to love God, we shall have reason to be confounded, and to tremble at our remissness and sloth. We suffer much for the world, and we count labour light, that we may attain to the gratification of our avarice, ambition, or other passion in its service; yet we have not fervour to undertake anything to save our souls, or to crucify our passions. Here penance, watchfulness over ourselves, or the least restraint, seems intolerable. 

LET US BEGIN SINCERELY TO STUDY TO DIE TO OURSELVES

Let us begin sincerely to study to die to ourselves, to disengage our hearts from all inordinate love of creatures, to raise ourselves above the slavery of the senses, above the appetites of the flesh and all temporal interest; and in order to excite ourselves to love God with fervour, let us seriously consider what God, infinite in goodness and in all perfections, and whose love for us is eternal and immense, deserves at our hands; what the joys of heaven are, how much we ought to do for such a bliss, and what Christ has done to purchase it for us, and to testify the excess of his love; also what the martyrs have suffered for his sake, and to attain to the happiness of reigning eternally with him. 

LET US ANIMATE OURSELVES WITH THEIR FERVOUR

Let us animate ourselves with their fervour; “Let us love Christ as they did,” said St Jerome to the virgin Eustochium, “and everything that now appears difficult, will become easy to us.” 

SEEKING THE HIDDEN TREASURE OF DIVINE LOVE

To find this hidden treasure of divine love we must seek it earnestly; we must sell all things, that is, renounce in spirit all earthly objects; we must dig a deep foundation of sincere humility in the very centre of our nothingness, and must without ceasing beg this most precious of all gifts, crying out to God, in the vehement desire of our hearts, Lord, when shall I love thee!

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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