BL. JOSEPHA OF THE PURIFICATION, VIRGIN AND MARTYR - 22 SEPTEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 22nd of September

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.

BL. JOSEPHA OF THE PURIFICATION, VIRGIN AND MARTYR (AUGUSTINIAN FEAST) 

Blessed Josefa da Purification was born in Algemesí (Valencia, Spain) on June 10, 1887, and professed in the monastery of the Discalced Augustinian Sisters of Beniganim (Valencia). Together with her mother Teresa Ferragut and her Capuchin sisters Maria Jesus, Maria Veronica and Maria Felicidad, she obtained the palm of martyrdom in Alcira (Valencia), on October 25, 1936.

All of them, along with hundreds of other believers, were victims of the hatred of the Catholic faith brought about by the "revolutionaries" of the infamous Spanish Civil War in 1936.

When she had finally been forced to abandon her convent, Josefa, together with her three sisters, who had also been expelled, had taken refuge in the home of their eighty-three year old mother, Maria Teresa Farragut. Here all five had sought to live an authentic monastic life of prayer, recollection and silence over a period of several months until they had been taken to prison.

Like the Maccabean mother of the seven brothers, Blessed Maria Teresa had watched her daughters being shot one by one, with the cry of "Viva Cristo Rei" on their lips, as she had encouraged them to accept death with love and forgive their enemies.

When it had been her turn to be shot, one of her killers said: "Old woman (she was 84 years old), aren't you afraid to die?" To which she replied: "I ardently desire to go where my daughters are already: with the Lord."

As she fell to the ground, one of her executioners had said, "This woman was really a saint."