ST PETER OF VERONA, MARTYR - 29 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 29th 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.

SAINT PETER OF VERONA, MARTYR 

Saint Peter of Verona is a patron saint against headache.

[Saint Peter, Martyr] was born at Verona, 1206; died near Milan, April 6, 1252. His parents were adherents of the Manichaean heresy, which still survived in northern Italy in the thirteenth century. 

HE WAS SENT TO A CATHOLIC SCHOOL AND MET ST DOMINIC

Sent to a Catholic school, and later to the University of Bologna, he there met Saint Dominic, and entered the Order of the Friars Preachers. 

HIS VIRTUES AND HIS ZEAL

Such were his virtues, severity of life and doctrine, talent for preaching, and zeal for the Faith, that Gregory IX made him general inquisitor, and his superiors destined him to combat the Manichaean errors. In that capacity he evangelized nearly the whole of Italy, preaching in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Genoa, and Como. 

NOTHING WAS LEFT UNTRIED

Crowds came to meet him and followed him wherever he went; and conversions were numerous. He never failed to denounce the vices and errors of Catholics who confessed the Faith by words, but in deeds denied it. The Manichaeans did all they could to compel the inquisitor to cease from preaching against their errors and propaganda. Persecutions, calumnies, threats, nothing was left untried.

"CREDO IN DEUM"

When returning from Como to Milan, he met a certain Carino who with some other Manichaeans had plotted to murder him. The assassin struck him with an axe on the head with such violence, that the holy man fell half dead. Rising to his knees he recited the first article of the Symbol of the Apostles, and offering his blood as a sacrifice to God he dipped his fingers in it and wrote on the ground the words: “Credo in Deum” [I believe in God]. The murderer then pierced his heart. The body was carried to Milan and laid in the church of St Eustorgio, where a magnificent mausoleum, the work of Balduccio Pisano, was erected to his memory. He wrought many miracles when living, but they were even more numerous after his martyrdom, so that Innocent IV canonised him on March 25, 1253.

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who know how courageously your holy martyr Peter confessed the faith, may experience his goodness as he intercedes for us with you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.