ST FINA, VIRGIN - 12 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 12th 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 FINA, VIRGIN 

[She is the patron saint of those suffering from pressure sores.] Saint Fina [Seraphina, Serafina] was the daughter of poor but noble parents in Hetruria, and a humble, chaste virgin, dead to "self". Though poor herself, she did all she could in charity to the poor, depriving herself of some of her meal daily to feed a starving man. 

HER ILLNESS

During a most tedious and protracted illness she showed wonderful patience, during which she once saw the devil in the form of a huge serpent. She drove him away by the Sign of the Cross.

[In those days the bedridden used to be nursed on a wooden board, due to the problems associated with the amount of labour-intensive laundry caused by a person being completely bedbound. St Lidwina, too, was nursed on a board.] Fina could no longer get up from the hard board on which she was lying, she was plagued by pressure sores, her rotting body clung firmly to it. 

ST GREGORY THE GREAT APPEARED TO HER

In one apparition St Gregory the Great assured her that she would die on March 12. On the date announced by the Saint, in 1253, Fina passed away. The bells announced the event by beginning to ring of their own accord; the foul odour of her body turned into the most delicious fragrance; everywhere the most beautiful flowers sprouted from the rotten board and formed a bed for her corpse. 

MIRACLES

At her grave many sick people were healed, the mute began to speak, demoniacs freed from the devil and a boy raised from the dead. 

Some mistook St Fina for a nun according to the Rule of St Benedict, while she only led as monastic a life as possible in her father's house, which even before her illness she never left except to hear the Holy Mass, or  when otherwise the greatest necessity pressed. She is particularly venerated in Sangeminiano, a town in Tuscany.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints)