MEMORIAL OF SAINT PHILOGONIUS OF ANTIOCH, BISHOP AND SAINT DOMINIC OF SILOS, ABBOT – FEAST DAY ~ DECEMBER 20TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of  Saint Philogonius of Antioch, Bishop and Saint Dominic of Silos, Abbot.

SAINT PHILOGONIUS OF ANTIOCH, BISHOP: Saint Philogonius of Antioch was Bishop of Antioch from 314 to 324. He was one of the first Church leaders to assail the evils of Arianism and  is commemorated of December 20. St. Philogonius was born in Antioch during the third century. He was educated for the law and practiced it with great success. While he was admired for his eloquence, he was esteemed for his integrity and sanctity of his life as he defended the poor, widowed, and orphaned. During the stormy times that the Church experienced under the emperors Maximin II and Licinius during the late third and early fourth centuries, the persecutions and imprisonment suffered by Philogonius earned him his title of Confessor.

After the death of his wife, Philogonius entered the Church. In view of his upright life and profound theological knowledge, Philogonius was chosen Bishop of Antioch, as an exception to the canons that required his having experience as a priest beforehand. He succeeded Bp. Vitalis the See of Antioch after his death in the year 318, the same year that the heresiarch Arius, at Alexandria, began to deny the Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. After Arius had expounded his heresy in Alexandria and was condemned by Bp. Alexander of Alexandria, Bp. Alexander communicated the sentence to Philogonius by a synodal letter. Philogonius immediately took notice and vigorously defended the Orthodox faith, and thus prevented unrest in the Church in Antioch..St. Philogonius died peacefully in about the year 324, leaving a legacy that inspired St. John Chrysostom to write an eulogy for St Philogonius in 386.

PRAYER: God, Light and Shepherd of souls, You established St. Philogonius as Bishop in Your Church to feed Your flock by his word and form it by his example. Help us through his intercession to keep the faith he taught by his word and follow the way he showed by his example. Amen.🙏
 
SAINT DOMINIC OF SILOS, ABBOT:  St. Dominic of Silos (1000–1073 A.D.) was defender of the faith. He was born in 1000 in Cañas, Navarre, Spain to a  peasant family. He grew up herding his father’s sheep in the Pyrenees mountains. His work as a shepherd in his youth endeared in him a love of solitude, leading him to enter the local Benedictine monastery in Navarre, San Millan de la Cogolla. King Garcia III of Navarre challenged him when he became abbot of the monastery, and Dominic refused to surrender part of the Benedictine lands to the crown. The king seized the lands and for this he was exiled, forced to leave the house with two other monks.

Dominic then fled to Old Castile, another monastery under the protection of King Ferdinand I of Leon and was welcomed by the king. The monastery of San Sebastian in Silos, though was a dilapidated abbey with a mediocre physical and spiritual regimen. St. Dominic became abbot of the St. Sebastian Abbey at Silos, now called St. Dominic’s and within a short period of time, restored it both materially and spiritually, turning it into a significant center of scholarship and charity to the poor. The funds of the monastery were used to ransom Christian captives who were enslaved by Muslims. He was known for miracles of healing, which he obtained through prayer and for his work of ransoming Christian prisoners from the Spanish moors. He often went to console them and pay their ransom, thus preluding the works of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom, founded in 1218, 145 years after his death. After many years of good works, Dominic felt the moment of the recompense approaching, and was advised of it by the Blessed Virgin. I spent the night near the Queen of Angels, he said one day to his religious. She has invited me to come in three days where She is; therefore I am soon going to the celestial banquet to which She invites me. In effect, he fell ill for three days, and then his brethren saw his soul rise in glory to heaven. He died on December 10, 1073 in Silos, Spain.

St. Dominic of Silos was known during his life and after death as a miracle worker, making him a popular Spanish saint. The Spanish mother of St. Dominic de Guzmán, founder of the Dominican Order, prayed for a son at St. Dominic of Silos’ shrine; when she conceived, she named her son after him. St. Dominic of Silos’ special patronage became connected with pregnancy, and until 1931 his crozier was used to bless the queens of Spain, and was placed beside their beds when they were in labor. St. Dominic of Silos is also the patron of prisoners and shepherds.

Saint Dominic of Silos, Abbot ~ Pray for us 🙏