ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH
Saints celebrated on the 11th 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.
SAINT SOPHRONIUS, PATRIARCH OF JERUSALEM, CONFESSOR
Saint Sophronius was a native of Damascus, and made such a progress in learning that he obtained the name of the Sophist. He lived twenty years near Jerusalem, under the direction of John Moschus, an holy hermit, without engaging himself in a religious state.
THEY TRAVELLED TO EGYPT
These two great men visited together the monasteries of Egypt, and were detained by St John the Almoner, at Alexandria, about the year 610, and employed by him two years in extirpating the Eutychians, and in reforming his diocese.
John Moschus wrote there his Spiritual Meadow which he dedicated to Sophronius. He made a collection in that book of the edifying examples of virtue which he had seen or heard of among the monks, and died shortly after at Rome.
JOHN MOSCHUS WROTE THERE HIS SPIRITUAL MEADOW
Athanasius, patriarch of the Jacobites or Eutychians, in Syria, acknowledged two distinct natures is Christ, the divine and the human; but allowed only one will. This Demi-Eutychianism was a glaring inconsistency: because the will is the property of the nature. Moreover, Christ sometimes speaks of his human will distinct from the divine, as in his prayer in his agony in the garden. This Monothelite heresy seemed an expedient whereby to compound with the Eutychians. The Emperor Heraclius confirmed it by an edict called Ecthesis, or the Exposition, declaring that there is only one will in Christ, namely, that of the Divine Word: which was condemned by Pope John IV.
Cyrus, bishop of Phasis, a virulent Monothelite, was by Heraclius preferred to the patriarchate of Alexandria, in 629. St Sophronius, falling at his feet conjured him not to publish his erroneous articles; but in vain.
He therefore left Egypt, and came to Constantinople, were he found Sergius, the crafty patriarch, sowing the same error in conjunction with Theodorus of Pharan. Hereupon he travelled into Syria, where, in 634, he was, against his will, elected patriarch of Jerusalem.
THE COUNCIL DEALT WITH THE MONOTHELITE HERESY
He was no sooner established in this see, than he assembled a council of all the bishops of his patriarchate, in 634, to condemn the Monothelite heresy, and composed a synodal letter to explain and prove the Catholic faith. This excellent piece was confirmed in the sixth general council.
St Sophronius sent this learned epistle to Pope Honorius and to Sergius. This latter had, by a crafty letter and captious expressions, persuaded Pope Honorius to tolerate a silence as to one or two wills in Christ. It is evident from the most authentic monuments, that Honorius never assented to that error, but always adhered to the truth.
However, a silence was ill-timed, and though not so designed, might be deemed by some a kind of connivance; for a rising heresy seeks to carry on its work under ground without noise: it is a fire which spreads itself under cover.
POPE MARTIN CONDEMNED IT IN THE COUNCIL OF LATERAN
Sophronius seeing the emperor and almost all the chief prelates of the East conspire against the truth, thought it his duty to defend it with the greater zeal. He took Stephen, bishop of Doria, the eldest of his suffragans, led him to Mount Calvary, and there abjured him by Him who was crucified on that place, and by the account which he should give him at the last day, “to go to the apostolic see, where are the foundations of the holy doctrine, and not to cease to pray till the holy persons there should examine and condemn the novelty.” Stephen did so, and staid at Rome ten years, till he saw it condemned by Pope Martin I in the council of Lateran, in 649.
THE INVASION OF THE SARACENS
Sophronius was detained at home by the invasion of the Saracens. Mahomet had broached his impostures at Mecca, in 608, but being rejected there, fled to Medina, in 622. Aboubeker succeeded him in 634, under the title of Caliph, or vicar of the prophet. He died after a reign of two years. Omar, his successor, took Damascus in 636, and after a siege of two years, Jerusalem, in 638. He built a mosque in the place of Solomon’s temple, and because it fell in the night, the Jews told him it would not stand unless the cross of Christ, which stood on Mount Calvary, was taken away: which the Caliph caused to be done.
HE MENTIONED THE VENERATION OF THE CROSS
Sophronius, in a sermon on the exaltation of the cross, mentions the custom of taking the cross out of its case at Mid-Lent to be venerated.
HE DEPLORED THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION THAT HAD BEEN PLACED THERE
Photius takes notice that his works breathe an affecting piety, but that the Greek is not pure. They consist of his synodal letter, his letter to Pope Honorius, and a small number of scattered sermons. He deplored the abomination of desolation set up by the Mahometans in the holy place. God called him out of those evils to his kingdom on March 11, 639, or in 644.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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