BL. FRANCIS XAVIER SEELOS - 5 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 5th 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.

BL. FRANCIS XAVIER SEELOS 

Born at Füssen, Bavaria, January 11, 1819; died at New Orleans, Louisiana, October 4, 1867. 

When a child, asked by his mother what he intended to be, he pointed to the picture of his patron, St Francis Xavier, and said: "I’m going to be another Saint Francis." 

He pursued his studies in Augsburg and Munich, and entered the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, offering himself for the American Mission; he arrived in America on April 17, 1843. 

That following year, May 16, 1844, he made his religious profession at the Redemptorist novitiate, Baltimore, and seven months later he was ordained by Archbishop Eccleston of Baltimore. 

He was assigned to St James, Baltimore. In May 1845, he was sent to Pittsburg, where he had as superior Ven. John Neumann. 

In 1851 Father Seelos was appointed superior of the Pittsburg community, where he laboured untiringly for nine years. His confessional was constantly besieged by crowds of people of every description and class. It was said by many that he could read their very souls. 

From Pittsburg, he was transferred to St Alphonsus’s, Baltimore, where he fell dangerously ill. On his recovery he was appointed prefect (spiritual director) of the professed students, and he succeeded in winning the love an esteem of all who were privileged to be under his spiritual guidance. 

In 1860 his name was proposed for the vacant Holy See of Pittsburg, but humbly refused the honour. The year 1862 found him again at mission work. In 1866 he was summoned to Detroit, and in September of the same year to New Orleans, Louisiana. The cause of his beatification is in progress.

[Pope John Paul II  beatified Father Seelos on the 9th of April 2000. Father Seelos is invoked against cancer, also for inoperable cases.]