ST JOHN DE PRADO, PRIEST AND MARTYR - 24 MAY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY

Saints celebrated on the 24th 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 JOHN DE PRADO, PRIEST AND MARTYR

Saint John de Prado was a native of the kingdom of Leon, in Spain, and embraced in his own country the austere Order of the Bare-footed Observantine Franciscans. 

A ZEALOUS PREACHER

Being sent by the authority of the Congregation de Propaganda Fide to preach the faith in the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco, he discharged himself with such great zeal that the Mahometans cast him into a dungeon loaded with chains. 

TO STOP HIM PREACHING THE FAITH, HE WAS  KILLED

The holy confessor suffered with constancy and joy most cruel scourgings and other inhuman torments, and consummated his martyrdom by fire on the 24th of May, on which his name is inserted in the Franciscan Martyrology, by order of Benedict XIV. He was solemnly beatified by Benedict XIII in 1728. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who know how courageously your holy priest and martyr John 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.