ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 19th 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 JANUARIUS, BISHOP AND MARTYR
Saint Januarius, a native some say of Naples, others of Benevento, was bishop of this latter city, when the persecution of Diocletian broke out.
Sosius, deacon of Miseno, Proculus, deacon of Puzzuoli, and Eutyches, and Acutius, eminent laymen, were imprisoned at Puzzoli for the faith, by an order of Dracontius, governor of Campania, before whom they had confessed their faith.
Sosius, by his singular wisdom and sanctity, had been worthy of the intimate friendship of St Januarius, who reposed in him an entire confidence, and for many years had found no more solid comfort among men than in his holy counsels and conversation.
Upon the news that this great servant of God and several others were fallen into the hands of the persecutors, the good bishop determined to pay them a visit, in order to comfort and encourage them, and provide them with every spiritual succour to arm them for their great conflict; in this act of charity no fear of torments or danger of his life could terrify him; and martyrdom was his recompense.
He did not escape the notice of the inquisitive keepers, who gave information that an eminent person from Benevento had visited the Christian prisoners.
Timothy, who had just succeeded Dracontius in the government of that district of Italy, gave orders that Januarius, whom he found to be the person, should be apprehended, and brought before him at Nola, the usual place of his residence; which was done accordingly.
Festus, the bishop’s deacon, and Desiderius, a lector of his church, were taken up as they were making him a visit. They had a share in the interrogatories and torments which the good bishop underwent at Nola.
Some time after the governor went to Puzzoli, and these three confessors, loaded with heavy irons, were made to walk before his chariot to that town, where they were thrown into the same prison where the four martyrs already mentioned were detained: they had been condemned, by an order from the emperor, to be torn in pieces by wild beasts, and were then lying in expectation of the execution of their sentence.
The day after the arrival of St Januarius and his two companions, all these champions of Christ were exposed to be devoured by the beasts in the amphitheatre; but none of the savage animals could be provoked to touch them.
The people were amazed, but imputed their preservation to art-magic, and the martyrs were condemned to be beheaded.
This sentence was executed near Puzzoli, as Bede testifies, and the martyrs were decently interred near that town. Some time after the Christian faith had become triumphant, towards the year 400, their precious relics were removed.
The bodies of SS. Proculus, Eutyches, and Acutius were placed in a more honourable manner at Puzzoli: those of SS. Festus and Desiderius were translated to Benevento: that of Sosius to Miseno, where it was afterwards deposited in a stately church built in his honour.
The city of Naples was so happy as to get possession of the relics of St Januarius. During the wars of the Normans they were removed, first to Benevento, and some time after, to the abbey of Monte-Vergine; but, in 1497, they were brought back to Naples, which city has long honoured him as principal patron.
Among many miraculous deliverances which it ascribes to the intercession of this great saint, none is looked upon as more remarkable than its preservation from the fiery eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, now called La Somma, which is only eight miles distant, and which has often threatened the entire destruction of this city, both by the prodigious quantities of burning sand, ashes, and stones, which it throws up on those occasions to a much greater distance than Naples; and, by a torrent of burning sulphur, nitre, calcined stones, and other materials, which like a liquid fire has sometimes gushed from that volcano, and, digging itself a channel, (which has sometimes been two or three miles broad,) rolled its flaming waves through the valley into the sea, destroying towns and villages in its way, and often passing near Naples. The intercession of St Januarius was implored at Naples on those occasions, and the divine mercy so wonderfully interposed in causing these dreadful evils suddenly to cease thereupon, especially in 685, Bennet II being pope, and Justinian the Younger emperor, that the Greeks instituted a feast in honour of St Januarius, with two yearly solemn processions to return thanks to God.
The protection of the city of Naples from this dreadful volcano by the same means was most remarkable in the years 1631 and 1707. In this last, whilst Cardinal Francis Pignatelli, with the clergy and people, devoutly followed the shrine of St Januarius in procession to a chapel at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, the fiery eruption ceased, the mist, which before was so thick that no one could see another at the distance of three yards, was scattered, and at night the stars appeared in the sky.
The standing miracle, as it is called by Baronius, of the blood of St Januarius liquefying and boiling up at the approach of the martyr’s head, is likewise very famous. In a rich chapel, called the Treasury, in the great church at Naples, are preserved the blood, in two very old glass vials, and the head of St Januarius. The blood is congealed, and of a dark colour; but, when brought in sight of the head, though at a considerable distance, it melts, bubbles up, and, upon the least motion, flows on any side. The fact is attested by innumerable eye-witnesses of all nations and religions.
The usual times when it is performed are the feast of St Januarius, September 19; that of the translation of his relics (when they were brought from Puzzoli to Naples) the Sunday which falls next to the calends of May; and December 20, on which, in 1631, a terrible eruption of Mount Vesuvius was extinguished, upon invoking the patronage of this martyr. The same is done on extraordinary occasions at the discretion of the archbishop.
From several circumstances this miracle is said to have regularly happened on the annual feast of St Januarius, and on that of the translation of his relics, from the time of that translation, about the year 400.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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