ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 21st 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.
ST JONAH THE PROPHET
Jonah is the fifth of the Minor Prophets.
Apart from the book traditionally ascribed to him, Jonah is mentioned once in the Old Testament: 2 Kings 14:25.
The chief interest in the Prophet Jonah centres around two remarkable incidents narrated in the book which bears his name. In the opening verse it is stated that "the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amathi, saying: Arise and go to Ninive, the great city, and preach in it: for the wickedness thereof is come up before me."
But the Prophet, instead of obeying the Divine command, "rose up to flee into Tharsis from the face of the Lord" that he might escape the task assigned to him. He boards a ship bound for that port, but a violent storm overtakes him, and on his admission that he is the cause of it, he is cast overboard.
He is swallowed by a great fish providentially prepared for the purpose, and after a three day’s sojourn in the belly of the monster, during which time he composes a hymn of thanksgiving, he is cast upon dry land.
After this episode he again receives the command to preach in Ninive, and the account of his second journey is scarcely less marvellous than that of the first. He proceeds to Ninive and enters "after a day’s journey" into it, foretelling its destruction in forty days.
A general repentance is immediately commanded by the authorities, in view of which God relents and spares the wicked city. Jonah, angry and disappointed, wishes for death. He expostulates with the Lord, and declares that it was in anticipation of this result that on the former occasion he had wished to flee to Tharsis.
He withdraws from Ninive and, under a booth which he has erected, he awaits the destiny of the city. In this abode he enjoys for a time the refreshing shade of a gourd which the Lord prepares for him.
Shortly, however, the gourd is stricken by a worm and the Prophet is exposed to the burning rays of the sun, whereupon he again murmurs and wishes to die. Then the Lord rebukes him for his selfish grief over the withering of a gourd, while still desiring that God should not be touched by the repentance of a city in which "there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left, and many beasts."
[In the Gospels], the Jews asked a "sign" - a miracle to prove the Messiahship of Jesus. He made answer that no "sign" would be given them other than the "sign" of Jonah the Prophet. For as Jonah was in the whale's belly three days and three nights: so shall the Son of man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights. The men of Ninive shall rise in judgment with this generation and shall condemn it: because they did penance at the preaching of Jonah. And behold a greater than Jonah here (Matthew 12:40-1; 16:4; Luke 11:29-32).
(Excerpts from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)
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