ST ULPIAN, MARTYR - 3 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 3rd 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 ULPIAN, MARTYR  

Saint Ulpian [Vulpian, Vulpianus] was a young zealous Christian of Tyre, who, being encouraged by the example of St Apian and other martyrs at Caesarea, boldly confessed Christ before the cruel judge Urbanus. 

HE BOLDLY CONFESSED CHRIST

The enraged governor ordered him to be first severely scourged, and then tortured on the rack; his joints being thereby dislocated, his bones broken, and his body so universally sore, that the slightest touch occasioned excessive pain. 

HIS MARTYRDOM

He was sewed up after this in a leather bag, with a dog and an aspic, laid on a cart drawn by black bulls, carried to the sea-side, and cast into the waves. (See Eusebius on the Martyrs of Palestine.)

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

PRAYER:

O God, who gladden us each year by the feast of Saint Ulpian, your martyr, graciously grant that, as we rejoice in his merits, we may be inspired by his example. 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.