ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL
Saints celebrated on the 16th 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.
ST JOACHIM OF SIENA, CONFESSOR
(Saint Joachim of Sienna of the Order of Servites, Confessor) He was a native of Siena, of the noble family of Pelacani.
A SINGULAR DEVOTION TO OUR LADY
No sooner had he attained to the use of reason, than he discovered a happy inclination to piety. He seemed to have sucked in with his mother’s milk a singular devotion to the Blessed Virgin; and it was his greatest pleasure in his childhood to pray before her image or altar, and to repeat often, and in all places, the angelical salutation, Ave Maria.
HIS CHARITY
His charity for the poor was not less extraordinary than his devotion. He stripped himself to clothe and relieve them: whatever was given him for his pocket he bestowed in alms. Moreover, he never ceased to solicit his parents in favour of the distressed. His father one day checked him, and told him that prudence ought to set bounds to his liberality, or he would reduce his whole family to poverty. The compassionate youth modestly replied: “You have taught me that an alms is given to Jesus Christ, in the persons of the poor: can we refuse him anything? And what is the advantage of riches, but that they be employed in purchasing treasures in heaven?” The father wept for joy to hear such generous sentiments of virtue from one of so tender an age, and so dear to him. He sometimes caught his little son at his devotions at midnight, for which he secretly rose from his bed whilst others slept.
HE RECEIVED THE RELIGIOUS HABIT
The saint, at fourteen years of age, received the religious habit from the hands of St St Philip Benizi, in 1272, and out of devotion to the mother of God took the name of Joachim. Such was his fervour, from the first day he entered the convent, that the most advanced looked upon him as a perfect model. All virtues were in him most conspicuous; but none more admirable than the spirit of prayer, and an extraordinary humility and love of abjection. He strenuously resisted the utmost endeavours that could be used to promote him to the priesthood: which dignity he always looked upon with trembling.
HIS HUMILITY
To serve at Mass was the height of his ambition: and he often assisted at that adorable sacrifice in raptures of devotion. The meanest and most painful offices and drudgery of the house were his great delight: for true humility is never more pleased than in humiliations and obscurity, as pride finds its pleasure in public and great actions, which attract the eyes of others. The whole life of this saint seemed a continual study to conceal himself from men, and to lie hid from the world: but the more he fled the esteem of others the more it followed him. Seeing himself too much respected and honoured at Siena, he earnestly entreated his general to remove him to some remote house of the Order, where he hoped to remain unknown.
HIS HAPPY DEATH
Arezzo was allotted him: but as soon as his departure was known, the whole city of Siena was in a tumult, till, to appease the people, he was recalled into his own country, of which he continued to his death the glory, and, by his prayers and example, the support and comfort. God honoured him with miracles both before and after his death, which happened on April 16, in the year 1305, of his age the forty-seventh. The popes, Paul V and Urban VIII granted to his Order the licence of celebrating his festival with an office.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
Comments
Post a Comment