ST CYRIACUS, DEACON AND MARTYR - 16 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 16th 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 CYRIACUS, DEACON AND MARTYR 

Today, we also commemorate St Cyriacus. The Roman Martyrology states:

"At Rome, the martyrdom of the deacon Saint Cyriacus, who, after along imprisonment, was covered with melted pitch and stretched on the rack, to have his limbs distended with ropes, was beaten with clubs, and finally beheaded with Largus, Smaragdus, and twenty others, by order of Maximian. Their feast, however, is kept on the 8th of August, the day on which their bodies were taken up by the blessed Pope Marcellus and reverently entombed."

PRAYER:

May the intercession of the holy deacon Cyriacus commend us to you, O God, so that through his merits we may obtain that which we cannot accomplish by our own. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.