ST ZAIRA, MARTYR - 21 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 21st of October

 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 ZAIRA, MARTYR 

St Zaira is mentioned today's catalogue of feast days as being martyred in Spain, during the occupation of the Moors and as remembered on October 21.

Very little else is handed down to us about this saint, but making some reflections we can deduce some circumstances of her saintly life. 

The name derives from the Arabic Zahirah and means "the rose" and often occurs in oriental literature, even in the form Zara. 

In Spain, the occupation of the Muslim Moors, which lasted from 711 to 1212 for a large part of Spain, ending fully only with the loss of Granada in 1492, provoked a strong religious persecution against the pre-existing Christians and their institutions, with the aim of imposing the islamic religion. During this ordeal, there were many Christian martyrs, who resisted the injunctions, defending the Christian faith, which thanks to them was never suppressed.

In that period of forced coexistence and slavery of Christians, several Arabs converted to Christianity, changing their Arabic name to a Christian name; for example St Bernard of Alzira who was called Hamed, St Mary of Alzira who was called Zaida and St Grace of Alzira who was called Zoraide, converts who became martyrs at the hands of Muslim relatives. Our St Zaira is likely also to have been known by another Christian name, which cannot be matched, because she was most probably a convert.

(Source:

http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/91584)