ST SYRA, VIRGIN, OF IRELAND - 8 JUNE

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 8th of June

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 SYRA, VIRGIN, OF IRELAND 

Saint Syra [Syre] was sister to St Fiacre, fired by whose example she left all to follow Christ. To make this sacrifice more entire she sailed from Ireland, her native country, and going after her brother into France, addressed herself to his patron and protector, St Faro, bishop of Meaux. 

A PERFECT PATTERN OF HUMILITY

That holy prelate recommended her to his sister Fara, abbess in Brie. Syra, under so eminent a directress, became a perfect pattern of humility, meekness, charity, and devotion. From her cell she was translated into paradise in the seventh century, and is honoured at Troyes and in some parts of Ireland on the 8th of June; and at Meaux on the 23rd of October. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

PRAYER:

O God, who gladden us with the annual feast of blessed Syra, mercifully grant that, while honouring the anniversary of her death, we may also imitate her deeds. 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.