ST ALEXANDER I., POPE - 3 MAY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY

Saints celebrated on the 3rd of May

WELCOME!

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 ALEXANDER I., POPE 

⬅️ Saintly Popes - Index

Saint Irenaeus of Lyons, writing in the latter quarter of the second century, reckons him as the fifth pope in succession from the Apostles, though he says nothing of his martyrdom.

ACCORDING TO THE LIBER PONTIFICALIS, HE WAS MARTYRED

His pontificate is variously dated by critics, e.g. 106-115 (Duchesne) or 109-116 (Lightfoot). In Christian antiquity he was credited with a pontificate of about ten years and there is no reason to doubt that he was on the “catalogue of bishops” drawn up at Rome by Hegesippus before the death of Pope Eleutherius (c. 189). According to a tradition extant in the Roman Church at the end of the fifth century, and recorded in the Liber Pontificalis he suffered a martyr’s death by decapitation on the Via Nomentana in Rome, 3 May.

HE IS SAID TO HAVE INTRODUCED THE USE OF BLESSING WATER MIXED WITH SALT

The same tradition declares him to have been a Roman by birth and to have ruled the Church in the reign of Trajan (98-117). It likewise attributes to him, but scarcely with accuracy, the insertion in the canon of the Qui Pridie, or words commemorative of the institution of the Eucharist, such being certainly primitive and original in the Mass. He is also said to have introduced the use of blessing water mixed with salt for the purification of Christian homes from evil influences (constituit aquam sparsionis cum sale benedici in habitaculis hominum). Duchesne calls attention to the persistence of this early Roman custom by way of a blessing in the Gelasian Sacramentary that recalls very forcibly the actual Asperges prayer at the beginning of Mass.

THE ANCIENT TOMB

In 1855, a semi-subterranean cemetery of the holy martyrs SS. Alexander, Eventulus, and Theodulus was discovered near Rome, at the spot where the above mentioned tradition declares the Pope to have been martyred. According to some archaeologists, this Alexander is identical with the Pope, and this ancient and important tomb marks the actual site of the Pope’s martyrdom. Duchesne, however denies the identity of the martyr and the pope, while admitting that the confusion of both personages is of ancient date, probably anterior to the beginning of the sixth century when the Liber Pontificalis was first compiled.

HIS REMAINS ARE SAID TO HAVE BEEN TRANSFERRED TO FREISING

The difficulties raised in recent times by Richard Lipsius (Chronologie der römischen Bischofe, Kiel, 1869) and Adolph Harnack concerning the earliest successors of Saint Peter are ably discussed and answered by F.S. (Cardinal Francesco Segna) in his “De successione priorum Romanorum Pontificum” (Rome 1897); with moderation and learning by Bishop Lightfoot, in his “Apostolic Fathers: Saint Clement” (London, 1890) I, especially by Duchesne in the introduction to his edition of the “Liber Pontificalis” (Paris, 1886). His remains are said to have been transferred to Freising in Bavaria [South Germany] in 834. His so-called “Acts” are not genuine, and were compiled at a much later date.

(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)