ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL
Saints celebrated on the 27th of April
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.
BLESSED OSANNA OF CATTARO, ANCHORESS
Jovana Kosić was born on November 25, 1493 in a village in Zeta to a Serb Orthodox priestly family, and was baptised in that tradition. She was a shepherdess in her youth, and developed the habit of spending her solitary hours in prayer.
SOLITARY PRAYER
Jovana was favoured with apparitions. When she was 14 years old, her visions began to be followed by an odd desire to travel to the coastal Venetian town of Cattaro in Albania Veneta (Bay of Kotor, modern-day Montenegro), where she felt she could pray better. Her mother did not understand, and grudgingly arranged a position for Jovana as a servant to the wealthy renowned Catholic Bucca family, who allowed the girl as much time as she wished for church visits.
In Cattaro, Katarina abandoned Serbian Orthodoxy and converted to Roman Catholicism, and took the name Katarina (Catherine Cosie). Katarina learned to read and write during her free time. She read religious books in both Latin and Italian, especially the Holy Scriptures.
SHE WAS WALLED UP IN A CELL
In her late teens, Katarina felt a call to live the life of an anchoress. Though she was considered very young for such a calling, her spiritual director had her walled up in a cell built near St Bartholomew's church in Cattaro. It had a window through which Katarina could hear Mass and another window to which people would occasionally come to ask for prayers or give food. Katarina made the customary promises of stability and the door was sealed.
HER NEW CELL
After an earthquake destroyed her first hermitage, she moved to a cell at St Paul's church, and became a Dominican tertiary, taking the name Osanna in memory of Blessed Osanna of Mantua. She would follow the Dominican rule for the last 52 years of her life. A group of Dominican sisters took up residence near her, consulting her for guidance, and came to consider her their leader. Osanna soon had so many followers that a convent was founded for them.
HER PRAYERS
A convent of sisters founded at Cattaro regarded her as their foundress because of her prayers, although she never actually saw the place. When the city was attacked in August 1539 and Cattaro was threatened, the citizens of Cattaro ran to her for help. They credited their deliverance to her prayers and counsel. And yet another time, her prayers were credited to saving them from the plague. She died on April 27, 1565.
HER BEATIFICATION
The incorrupt body of Blessed Osanna was kept in the Church of St Paul until 1807, when the French Army converted the church into a warehouse. Her body was then brought to the Church of St. Mary. The people of Kotor venerated her as a saint. In 1905, the process for her beatification began in Kotor and was successfully completed in Rome. In 1927, Pope Pius XI approved her cultus, and in 1934, she was formally beatified.[
(Source:
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/11864346)
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