Saints celebrated on the 20th of May
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 LUCIFER, BISHOP OF CAGLIARI
(Lucifer Calaritanus) [Saint Lucifer was] a bishop who must have been born in the early years of the fourth century; he died in 371.
THE COUNCIL OF MILAN
His birthplace and the circumstances of his youth are unknown. He first appears in ecclesiastical history, in full maturity of strength and abilities, in 354 when he was deputed by Pope Liberius, with the priest Pancratius and the deacon Hilary, to request the Emperor Constantius to convene a council, to deal with the accusations directed against St Athanasius and his previous condemnation.
STRONG LANGUAGE
This council was convened at Milan. Lucifer there defended the Bishop of Alexandria with much passion and in very violent language, thus furnishing the adversaries of the great Alexandrian with a pretext for resentment and further violence, and causing a new condemnation of Athanasius. Constantius, unaccustomed to independence on the part of the bishops, grievously maltreated Lucifer and his colleague, Eusebius of Vercelli. Both were exiled, Lucifer being sent to Germanica, in Syria, and thence to Eleutheropolis in Palestine; he was finally relegated to the Thebaid.
HE WAS BANISHED
In the course of this exile Lucifer wrote an extremely virulent pamphlet entitled “Ad Constantium Augustum pro sancto Athanasio libri II”, an eloquent defence of Catholic orthodoxy, but in such exaggerated language that it overshot the mark and injured the cause it was meant to serve.
THE EXILES RETURNED
Lucifer boasted of his work, and Constantius, tyrant that he was, refrained from further revenge. After the death of Constantius, Julian allowed all the exiles to return to their cities.
Lucifer went to Antioch, and at once meddled in the dissensions which divided the Catholic party. He prolonged and embittered them by consecrating a bishop who appeared to him capable of continuing the opposition to the bishop and party which he judged the weaker under the circumstances.
HE AGGRAVATED THE DISSENTERS
Incapable of tact, he aggravated the dissenters, instead of dealing cautiously with them in order to win them, and displayed special severity towards those Catholics who had wavered in their adherence to the Nicene Creed.
About this time a Council of Alexandria presided over by Saint Athanasius decreed that Arians renouncing their heresy should be pardoned and that bishops who, by compulsion, had temporized with heretics should not be disturbed.
Against this indulgence Lucifer protested, and went so far as to anathematize his former friend, Eusebius of Vercelli, who carried out the decrees of the Council of Alexandria.
HE WITHDREW TO SARDINIA
Seeing that his extreme opinions won partisans neither West nor East, he withdrew to Sardinia, resumed his see, and formed a small sect called the Luciferians. These sectaries pretended that all priests who had participated in Arianism should be deprived of their dignity, and that bishops who recognized the rights of even repentant heretics should be excommunicated.
The Luciferians, being earnestly opposed, commissioned two priests, Marcellinus and Faustinus, to present a petition, the well-known “Libellus precum”, to the Emperor Theodosius, explaining their grievances and claiming protection. The emperor forbade further pursuit of them, and their schism seems not to have lasted beyond this first generation. [St Lucifer died in A.D. 370.]
(From Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
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