SAINTS OF THE DAY: FEAST DAY ~ FEBRUARY 25TH

MEMORIAL OF SAINT WALBURGA, ABBESS AND BLESSED SEBASTIAN OF APARICIO, RELIGIOUS – FEAST DAY ~ FEBRUARY 25TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Walburga, Abbess (Patron Saint against plague, rabies and coughs, sailors, mariners, and farmers, and against hydrophobia, famine, and storms) and Blessed Sebastian of Aparicio, Religious (Patron Saint of Travelers, Drivers, Road builders and Transportation industry). Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints, we humbly pray for Saint Walburga to help all those who are sick and dying, particularly pray for the speedy recovery and Divine healing of our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, all those suffering from cancers and those who are terminally ill and may Blessed Sebastian intercede for all travelers, drivers and all those who work in the transportation industry, we pray for their safety and God’s protection especially during inclement weather🙏

Saint Walburga and Blessed Sebastian ~ pray for us🙏

SAINT WALBURGA, ABBESS: St. Walburga (710 – 779 A.D.) was born in 710 near Devonshire, in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex in southern England.  She was the daughter of St. Richard the Pilgrim (Saxon King)  and Wuna and sister to Sts. Willibald and Winebald. Her parents prayed with their family of at least six children at the cross on their country estate. In 720, when St. Walburga was about  eleven years old, her father and two elder brothers set off as pilgrims to the Holy Land in Rome. St. Richard died at Lucca, Italy, but the youths reached Rome where St. Wunibald (c.701-761) became a monk, while St. Willibald (c.700-787) went on to the Holy Land. While her father and family went on the pilgrimage, she was placed in a convent famous for its holiness. She was well educated according to her rank, became a nun, and lived there for twenty-six years. When Abbess of Heidenheim, St. Walburga chose her nun Huneberc, a kinswoman, to write their biographies.  Thus we discover that her great kinsman was St. Boniface (c.675-754), the Apostle of Germany, who needed missionaries. Her uncle, St. Boniface, then brought her to what is now Germany to help him evangelize that country and establish the Church there. In 741, St. Boniface created the diocese of Eichstätt, consecrating St. Willibald, also a Benedictine monk, as its first bishop. In 752 Walburga’s family founded a monastery at nearby Heidenheim with St. Wunibald as its abbot. In this missionary activity she joined her brothers who were also laboring for the faith in that country. Because of her education she was able to document the travels of her brother in the Holy Land, and for this work she became the first female author of England and Germany. According to Legend, in about 748, the zealous St. Walburga left England to aid the work of evangelization. She went to Tauberbischofsheim, Germany where St. Lioba, the Wimborne-educated abbess and fellow kinswoman of St. Boniface, was to help Saint Boniface in his missionary work. When St. Wunibald died in 761, she was asked to become abbess of Heidenheim.  Obediently she came with some nuns to face the difficult task of ruling both monks and nuns. One dark night, according to a legend significantly derived from a living tradition, she went alone to a noble’s home, prayed all night at this dying child’s bedside and by dawn the girl was healed. Prayerfully and patiently she persevered until her death on February 25, 779 and was buried at Heidenheim. She was known as a miracle worker and healer both in her life and after her death. St. Walburga’s relics have the miraculous property of exuding oil to which many cures have been ascribed through the centuries.

During the 870s, St. Walburga’s remains were solemnly brought to Eichstätt for re-interment in the cathedral beside St. Willibald’s.  However, the oxen drawing the cart refused to go further than a small church to which some canonesses were attached. This was taken as a sign from God, and there she was interred.  In 893 as some of her relics were being transferred elsewhere a cripple, on touching the holy reliquary, was healed and devotion to her developed rapidly. In 1035 the Eichstätt canonesses were replaced by the foundation of Abtei St. Walburg, a Benedictine monastery of nuns existing to our own day, and over the centuries countless pilgrims have prayed at her shrine.  From the 1850s these nuns have founded daughter houses in the U.S.A. and England, and devotion to her has spread far and wide. It is from this same monastery that the founding Sisters were sent forth to the “American missions” in 1931 at St. Vincent Archabbey, Seminary and College, Latrobe, PA. She is renowned for her powerful and compassionate intercession on behalf of the sick, the dying, the distressed and all who pray with deep faith, she was a noted healer. She was canonised on 1 May c. 870 by Pope Adrian II. Saint Walburga is the Patron Saint against plague, rabies and coughs, sailors, mariners, and farmers, and against hydrophobia, famine, and storms.

PRAYER: Saint Walburga, through your intercession, we pray for all those who are sick and dying with special intentions for those who are terminally ill and those suffering from the coronavirus disease… Amen🙏

BLESSED SEBASTIAN OF APARICIO, RELIGIOUS: Bl.Sebastian (January 20, 1502 – February 25, 1600) was born in 1502 into a poor family of Galicia, Spain, his parents were Spanish peasants. Bl. Sebastian worked at a domestic servant and laborer. In 1531, he emigrated to Mexico, settling first in Varacruz and later in Puebla of the Angels. After transporting freight and then mail, eventually he built roads to facilitate agricultural trading and other commerce. He became rich by building roads. Yet, he continued to lead a simple life, sleeping on a mat and eating the poorest food while contributing generously to the needy.  His 466-mile road from Mexico City to Zacatecas took 10 years to build and required careful negotiations with the indigenous peoples along the way.

In 1552, Bl. Sebastian retired to a place near Mexico City where he cultivated the ground and bred livestock. In time Bl. Sebastian was a wealthy farmer and rancher. Later at over sixty years of age he wed twice—but each time he was quickly widowed. His first wife’s motivation may have been a large inheritance; his was to provide a respectable life for a girl without even a modest marriage dowry. When his first wife died, he entered another virginal marriage for the same reason; his second wife also died young. At the age of seventy, he felt the call to the religious life. Giving all his wealth to the Poor Clares, he joined the Franciscans in Mexico City as a brother. Bl. Sebastian was sent to Tecali then assigned to the large community of more than 100-member of friars at Puebla de los Angeles south of Mexico City. St. Sebastian went out collecting alms for the friars and spent the last 25 years of his life as a begging brother. To obtain food for such a large community, he had to use large carts, drawn by oxen, and traveled donated by charitable people. His charity to all earned him the nickname “Angel of Mexico.” Bl. Sebastian worked day and night without complaining and in union with his Redeemer. as a result, the images of this venerable old man and his large cart have remained inseparably linked in the history and traditions of the City of Puebla of the Angels. Bl. Sebastian’s roads and bridges connected many distant places. His final bridge-building was to help men and women recognize their God-given dignity and destiny. He died on February 25, 1600, at the advanced age of ninety-eight and was beatified on May 17, 1787 by Pope Pius VI. He’s Patron Saint of Travelers, Drivers, Road builders and Transportation industry.

PRAYER: O God, You were pleased to give us Blessed Sebastian as a model and exemplar of Christian charity by sanctifying the activities of his daily life. Through his intercession, enable us to serve You ever with a pure heart in all the circumstances of our lives. Amen🙏