Saint of the day and Feast days-Part 2

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May 11

Today is the Feast day of
Saint Mammertus
Among many other saints
 
Saint Mammertus
Archbishop of Vienne.


Mammertus was born near Lyons, France. Year of birth not known or rather, I have not been able to find any information about him before he became prelate. He was Archbishop of Vienne, France in 461.
The saint is renowned for his sanctity, his learning, and his miracles. Reading about Saint Mammeritus, I was very interested to read that as Bishop, he brought back the tradition of rogation processions which soon gained papal approval and were used throughout Europe. I was interested because this is the first time I have came across the word “Rogation” and I had to look it up. Here is how Catholic Answers explains it.
Rogation Days are “Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God’s anger at man’s transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest….”
It appears that at the time that Mammertus was archbishop of Vienna, the city was ravaged by wars and various calamities such as earthquakes and fires as well as ravenous wild beasts which visited the city. All these calamities were interpreted as signs of God’s anger with the people who had grown indifferent to Him. As if to crown it all, a terrible fire broke out one Easter night in the city of Vienna. Nobody knew how the fire started; everybody knew the city was about to be consumed by the fire. The archbishop turned to God and pleaded for mercy and, lo and behold, the fire, that had been so threatening; so frightening, suddenly went out! This was a miracle and it strongly affected
the minds of the people. It was on this occasion that Saint Mammertus decided to restore the Rogations, which had long been forgotten. The practice was a yearly event in which all the faithful joined. There was fasting, prayers; confessions and genuine sorrow for sins. There were in addition processions and Psalms for three days preceding the feast of the Ascension. All these was aimed at appeasing the Lord.
Saint Mammeritus built a church in honor of Saint Ferreolus whose relics were discovered in his diocese.
Mammertus died of natural causes about the year 477 in Vienna, France. His body was
transported and interred in the cathedral of Orleans, France
It remained there in great veneration until 16th century
when it was burnt by the
enemies of the Church, the Huguenots.
Canonized-Pre-Congregation.

Saint Mammeritus,
Pray for us!
 
Reading about Saint Mammeritus, I was very interested to read that as Bishop, he brought back the tradition of rogation processions which soon gained papal approval and were used throughout Europe. I was interested because this is the first time I have came across the word “Rogation” and I had to look it up. Here is how Catholic Answers explains it.
Rogation Days are “Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God’s anger at man’s transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest….”

Saint Mammeritus,
Pray for us
!
More information on Rogation Days here.
Rogation Days, like their distant cousins the Ember Days, are days set aside to observe a change in the seasons. Rogation Days are tied to the spring planting. There are four Rogation Days: the Major Rogation, which falls on April 25, and three Minor Rogations, which are held on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday immediately before Ascension Thursday.
As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, Rogation Days are “Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God’s anger at man’s transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest.”
 
**Saint Pancras of Rome
**
Pancras was born in Phrygia ( somewhere in present day Turkey), in the year 290. We are told that by the time the lad had reached his fourteenth birthday, he had become an orphan. He was then taken to Rome by a pious uncle, Dionysius (now a saint) and converted to Christianity. Soon after this conversion, around the year 304, Pancras was martyred for publicly declaring the faith, these, as you will recall were hard times for Christians. It was the period that Emperor Diocletian was persecuting the Christians. The saint was beheaded in the Via Aurelia, together with three others namely, Saint Nereus, Saint Achilleus and Saint Domitilla.

Later on Pope Saint Vitalian sent some of Saint Pancras’ relics to England hopeful that they would help in the evangelization of England.
Saint Augustine of Canterbury dedicated the first church to Pancras. This became a tradition that soon spread across the country.and many churches throughout England were named after the Saint.

It seems that some of the relics of Saint Pancras were also presented to the king of Northumberland when he converted to Christianity. Those relics that were interred in Saint Pancras in Rome were destroyed in 1798. His head, however, is still in the Lateran Basilica.

His canonization was Pre-Congregation.

Saint Pancras is invoked against false witness, headaches and other maladies.

Saint Pancras,
Pray for us
 
Our Lady of Fatima

Many of you I am aware, are very familiar with the six famous apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a little town in Portugal between May 13 and October 13, 1917. Today is the day the Church identified for the commemoration of these apparitions all those years ago. It is, however an Optional Memorial.
In a nut shell, this is what happened.
Three children: Francisco and Jacinta Marto, brother and sister aged nine and seven respectively and their cousin Lucia dos Santos, (de Jesus) aged ten, were out tending sheep at the nearby Cova da Iria on May 13, 1917. The three lived in a tiny village called Aljustrel near Fatima, Portugal.
It was their habit to say the Rosary out there before coming home. On this day, after reciting the Rosary, the children saw a bright light and a woman, described by them as a “Lady brighter than the sun”
The Lady invited them to return the Cova da Iria for five consecutive months, on the 13th day.
The children went in June and July as instructed and the Lady appeared every time. In August, they were prevented from returning to the Cova da Iria by the mayor of Villa Nova de Ourem. On August 19th, while grazing sheep at another site, they received another apparition. The final apparition occurred on October 13 with seventy thousand people in attendance. During this last apparition, The Blessed Mother proclaimed herself “Our Lady of the Rosary”
A miracle then occurred. “The Miracle of the sun”. On that day, the sun “danced”!
Note:
The message of Our Lady to the three children and to the Christian Community can be summarized in the call to prayer and conversion.
You can read more at the link given.

The Apparitions
at Fatima


Our Lady of Fatima
Pray for us!
 
‘Pray, pray very much, and make sacrifices for sinners; for many souls go to hell, because there are none to sacrifice themselves and pray for them.’

Our Lady of Fatima
 
Reminds me of this wonderful hymn: O Come To The Throne Of Grace
Hymn to Our Lady of Fatima:

O COME TO THE THRONE OF GRACE
O come to the throne of grace,
O come to the heart most pure!
To Mary, our hope of life,
In whom salvation is sure.
O Lady of Fatima, hail!
Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today,
Thou hope of the human race!
Immaculate Heart! we kneel
To consecrate all to thee:
The present, its pain and joy-----
The future, all it may be.
O Lady of Fatima, hail!
Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today,
Thou hope of the human race!
The sun at thy royal word
Spun round like a splendid toy;
The rose petals showering down
Proclaimed thee cause of our joy.
O Lady of Fatima, hail!
Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today,
Thou hope of the human race!
The Rosary, white and gold,
We take from thy Virgin hand;
A pledge of the power of God
To heal and strengthen our land.
O Lady of Fatima, hail!
Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today,
Thou hope of the human race!
O Mother of Sorrows, hail!
We mourn for our evil done;
O soften our selfish hearts,
And lead us back to thy Son.
O Lady of Fatima, hail!
Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today,
Thou hope of the human race!
O Mother of priests in need,
For thine assistance we pray;
Thy graces flow: sweet the seed
Of Saints, thy Son to obey.
O Lady of Fatima, hail!
Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today,
Thou hope of the human race!
O Mother of all mankind,
Lead Russia back home again,
That over a peaceful world
Thy heart may graciously reign.
O Lady of Fatima, hail!
Immaculate Mother of grace;
O, pray for us, help us today,
Thou hope of the human race!
 
That is a new one for me Kelvin.I have never come across this hymn.🙂
I can understand. 🙂 I was actually amazed to have found the hymn on the Internet. I wanted to type if from my local hymnal but it wasn’t with me at the time of posting so I decided to google it and wow, I found it on the Internet–meaning people in other areas also sing it.
You know, how Catholics honour Mary varies from place to place. 15th August for example is a public holiday and a very, very important feast in some areas. Another example: in as much as the English version of the General Roman Calender puts forward today as the optional memorial of Our Lady of Fatima, the German version does not. Here, today is rather the feast of St. Servatius.

Actually for all the years I have been singing this hymn, I have never actually associated it to Our Lady of Fatima. :o But there are several possible reasons. As a kid, Our Lady of Fatima could have simply meant a name of a parish… It was only after watching the movie of Our Lady of Fatima that I really became more conscious. One day, while singing the hymn, it took me up to verse 7–to the part which reads “Lead Russia back home again” before I realised it was the hymn of Our Lady of Fatima. 🙂
 
From an emailed newsletter/blog I receive:
From Scott P. Richert, your Guide to Catholicism
For almost a century, May 13 has been an historic day. On this date in 1917, the Virgin Mary first appeared to the three shepherd children on a hillside outside of Fatima, Portugal. On this date in 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot by a would-be assassin in Saint Peter’s Square. And, in memory of both of those events, the Vatican has chosen this date to release a clarification of one of the defining documents of Pope Benedict’s pontificate.
That clarification is Universae Ecclesiae, and the document it clarifies is Summorum Pontificum, which restored the Traditional Latin Mass as one of the two forms of the Mass in the Roman Rite.
 
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