ST MELITO, BISHOP OF SARDES - 1 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 1st 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 MELITO, BISHOP OF SARDES 

Saint Melito, Bishop of Sardes [Sardis] in Lydia, Confessor.

(In the reign of Marcus Aurelius.) To that emperor, in 175, he addressed an elegant and modest apology for the faith. From an eminent spirit of prophecy with which he was endued by God, he was surnamed The Prophet, as St Jerome and Eusebius testify. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

QUOTES FROM ST MELITO'S HOMILIES 

(ABOUT OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST)

I have abolished death, I have crushed hell, I have raised humanity to the highest heavens, Yes I, the Christ... I am your forgiveness, I am the Passover of salvation, I am your light, I am your resurrection. 

This is Jesus, this is the Commander, this is the Lord, this is He Who rose from the dead, this is He who sits at the right hand of the Father, He bears the Father and is borne by Him. To Him be the glory and the might for ever. Amen.

For he was born a son, and led as a lamb, and slaughtered as a sheep, and buried as a man, and rose from the dead as God, being God by his nature and a man.

He is the mute lamb, the slain lamb, the lamb born of Mary, the fair ewe. He was seized from the flock, dragged off to be slaughtered, sacrificed in the evening, and buried at night.

On the tree no bone of His was broken; in the earth His body knew no decay. He is the One who rose from the dead, and who raised man from the depths of the tomb.