Friends at Court

New Zealand Tablet, 27 November 1913, Page 3

Friends at Court

GLEANINGS FOR NEXT WEEK’S CALENDAR November 30, Sunday. First Sunday in Advent, December I, Monday.— St. Andrew, Apostle. ~ 2, Tuesday. — St. Bibiana, / Virgin and . Martyr.. ■ ~ 3, Wednesday.—St. Francis Xavier, Confessor, and Patron of Australia. ~ 4, Thursday. —St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop, Confessor, and Doctor. ~ 5, Friday. —St. Martin, Pope and Martyr. Fast Day. ~ 6, Saturday.—St. Nicholas, Bishop and Confessor.

St. Bibiana, Virgin and Martyr.

St. Bibiana was the daughter of a Roman noble named Flavian, who himself gave his life for the faith. The confiscation of her property, with its consequent privations, having failed to shake her constancy in the profession of Christianity, she was subjected to cruel tortures, and finally scourged to death, A.D. 363.

St. Martin, Pope and Martyr.

St. Martin, a native of Tuscany, succeeded Pope Theodore in 649. Owing to his uncompromising hostility to the Monothelite heresy, he was seized by order of the Emperor Constans, and conveyed to Constantinople, whence, after being treated with the utmost indignity and barbarity, he was banished to the Crimea. He died in 655, having suffered with heroic constancy the rigors of imprisonment and exile.

St. Nicholas, Bishop and Confessor.

St. Nicholas was Archbishop of Myra, in Asia Minor, in the early part of the fourth century. ‘He is called particularly the patron of children,’ says Butler, ‘ not only because he made their instruction a principal part of his care, but chiefly because he always retained the virtues, the meekness, the simplicity without guile or malice, and the humility of his tender age, and because, from his very infancy, he devoted himself to God by an heroic piety.’ His feast was formerly kept with great solemnity in many of the schools and colleges of England.

GRAINS OF GOLD PRAY FOR ME. I beg of you, I beg of you, my brothers, For my need is very sore; Not for gold and not for silver do I ask you, But for something even more; From the depths of your hearts’ pity let it be — Pray for me !

I beg of you, calm souls, whose wondering pity . Looks at paths you never trod: I beg of you who suffer—for all sorrow Must be very near to God—• .And the need is even greater than you see Pray for me !

I beg of you, oh, children, for He loves you, And He loves your prayers the best: Fold your little hands together, and ask Jesus That the weary may have rest, That a bird caught in a net may be set free— Pray for me !

The holiness of children is the very type of saintliness ; and the most perfect conversion is but a hard and distant return to the holiness of a child.—Cardinal Manning. Ask any Catholic, on his death-bed facing eternity, which would he prefer, a wreath for his coffin or a Mass for his soul. Our tribute for our dead should be worthy of our faith.