ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL
Saints celebrated on the 11th 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.
BL. SYMFORIAN DUCKI, MARTYR
Blessed Symforian was born Felix Ducki in 1888 and belonged to the Reformed branch of the Capuchin Ordo Fratrum Minorum Capuccinorum - OFMCap. He was a lay brother in the Capuchin monastery in Warsaw and lived in Christian simplicity and the Franciscan spirit. [He took his final vows in 1925 and served the Community as a cook.]
HE WAS SENT TO AUSCHWITZ
He was arrested in 1941 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. There he was brutally killed on April 11, 1942 by the guards in the camp.
HE MADE THE SIGN OF THE CROSS WITH HIS LAST STRENGTH
"... One of the [guards] hit him on the head with a stick. He fell on his knees, stood up again and made the sign of the cross with his last strength. Maybe he did not know who he blessed, maybe he forgave those who killed him in faithfulness to his Master. He said something that we, who stood so close, could not understand, and with these words he fell between us and the prison guards, so that he blocked the way between the prisoners and the murderers"(Czeslaw Ostankowicz).
HIS MEMORIAL DAY
He was beatified on June 13, 1999 by Pope John Paul. His memorial day is the day of his death on April 11, while the memorial day of the 108 Martyrs of World War II (Bl. Symforian is one of those martyrs) is June 12.
(Information from katolsk.no, Fr Per Einar Odden
http://www.katolsk.no/biografier/historisk/sducki)
Comments
Post a Comment