ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH
Saints celebrated on the 31st 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.
ST BALBINA OF ROME
Memorials of a Saint Balbina are to be found at Rome in three different spots which are connected with the early Christian antiquities of that city.
THE LEGEND
In the purely legendary account of the martyrdom of St Alexander mention is made of a tribune Quirinus who died a martyr and was buried in the catacomb of Praetextatus on the Via Appia. His grace was regarded with great veneration and is referred to in the old itineraries (guides for pilgrims) of the Roman catacombs.
HIS DAUGHTER
Tradition said that his daughter Balbina, who had been baptised by St Alexander who had passed her life unmarried, was buried after death near her father in the same catacomb. The feast of Saint Balbina is celebrated March 31.
ANOTHER BALBINA
Usuardus speaks of her in his martyrology; his account of St Balbina rests on the record of the martyrdom of St Alexander. There is another Balbina whose name was given to a catacomb (coem. Balbinae) which lay between the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina not far from the little church called Domine quo vadis. Over this cemetery a basilica was erected in the fourth century by Pope Mark. There still exists on the little Aventine in the city itself the old title of St Balbina, first mentioned in an epitaph of the sixth century and in the signatures to a Roman council (595) of the time of Pope Gregory I. This church was erected in a large ancient hall. Its titular saint is supposed to be identical with the St Balbina who was buried in the catacomb of Praetextatus and whose bones together with those of her father were brought here at a later date. It is not certain, however, that the two names refer to the same person.
(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
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