ST LAURENTIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR - 8 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER 

Saints celebrated on the 8th 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 LAURENTIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR 

The Bollandists mention St Laurentia, Virgin and Martyr on May 21 in their annex, remarking that her holy relics, along with those of St Secundinus, Martyr, had been translated to the Church of the Discalced Carmelites in Munich, together with vessels containing some of their blood. 

In this source, it is remarked further that the relics of Martyr St Laurentia were raised from the crypt of St Cyriaca in Rome and that the Congregation of Indulgences and Relics had certified them to be genuine. Although they then go on to say that she is venerated on October 8 - this may well have been the case earlier; but this does not mean that she is identical with St Laurentia, the companion of St Palatias, both of whom were martyred in Ancona, on October 8.

Both the Roman Martyrology and the Bollandists mention St Laurentia and St Palatias on October 8.

Probably our Laurentia is identical with St Laurentia, whose holy relics can be venerated in a private chapel in Augsburg, which also include a vessel that contains her blood, along with her own lamp and the sepulchral stone that bears her name and describes her as a five-year-old girl. 

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)