SAINTS OF THE DAY: FEAST DAY ~ FEBRUARY 9TH

MEMORIAL OF SAINT TEILO, BISHOP; SAINT APOLLONIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR AND BLESSED ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH, RELIGIOUS: FEAST DAY ~ FEBRUARY 9TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Teilo, Bishop; Saint Apollonia, Virgin and Martyr and Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, Religious. Through the intercession of our blessed Mother Mary, St. Apollonia (Patron Saint of Dentists, tooth disease, toothache) and all the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the sick and dying, for a courageous and holy death, especially the elderly, may beseech her to strengthen their faith as they weaken and approach death. And for people suffering from toothache and other dental diseases.

“O Glorious Apollonia, patron saint of dentistry and refuge to all those suffering from diseases of the teeth, I consecrate myself to thee, beseeching thee to number me among thy clients. Assist me by your intercession with God in my daily work and intercede with Him to obtain for me a happy death. Pray that my heart like thine may be inflamed with the love of Jesus and Mary, through Christ our Lord. Amen. 0 My God, bring me safe through temptation and strengthen me as thou didst our own patron Apollonia, through Christ our Lord….Amen.”🙏

SAINT TEILO, BISHOP: St. Teilo was a sixth-century monk and bishop who led the Church in the Llandaff area of present-day Cardiff. His time as bishop included a major disease outbreak, which forced the local church and its leader into temporary exile. St. Teilo was an important and revered figure, who became a popular namesake for churches in Wales. St. Teilo is sometimes known under alternate versions of his name, including Theliau, Elios and Eliud. According to tradition Teilo was born about the year 480 AD at either Gumfreston or Penally in south Pembrokeshire. There are indications that St. Teilo’s father was a man named Usyllt, who may have been canonized as “Saint Issell.” A clearer connection exists between St. Teilo and the well-known Welsh patron Saint David, Teilo’s fellow monk and bishop, who was also his cousin. Finally, it appears that Teilo’s nephew, St. Oudaceus, succeeded him as the Bishop of Llandaff.

St. Teilo’s education took place at two institutions directed by saints. The first was established by the renowned Church leader and educator Saint Dubric (or Dyfrig), while the second was the school directed by Saint Paulinus of Wales. Later, St. Teilo himself became a monk and headed a monastic school in Llandaff. According to tradition, St.Teilo’s made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with St. David and their companion St. Padarn, and that the three were made bishops by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in approximately 518. Afterward, St. Teilo purportedly went to France, serving the Church there for several years alongside his friend St. Samson of Brittany. St. Teilo became the bishop of Llandaff, he took over leadership after its previous bishop St. Dubric retired to a hermitage on Bardsey Island. St. Teilo earned the acclaim of the faithful as a worthy successor to St. Dubric. The depth of their trust became clear in 547, when a severe disease (Yellow Fever) outbreak prompted Teilo to lead a large portion of his flock into exile for several years to escape its effects. He and his followers fled to Cornwall, from Cornwall they travelled to Brittany, staying with St. Samson and waiting for the plague to pass. Almost eight years passed, during which time Teilo and his followers are said to have planted three miles of fruit trees before they returned to Wales. His admirable leadership continued in Llandaff for several years after the crisis, and he died peacefully in a local monastery in 566 AD. In the centuries that followed, St. Teilo was honored in parts of France as well as in  and Wales. Several churches in south Wales and Brittany are dedicated to St Teilo. A town in northwestern France, “Saint-Thelo,” still bears his name. He’s Patron Saint of Horses and fruit trees.

Saint Teilo, Bishop ~ Pray for us 🙏

SAINT APOLLONIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR: St. Apollonia was a deaconess of advanced age and noted sanctity. She was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the persecution of Decius about 250. After a life spent in self-sacrifice and works of charity, this holy woman fell prey to a howling mob venting its fury on any Christians it could find. Enraged at St. Apollonia’s courageous refusal to sacrifice to idols, some in the mob struck out at her and knocked out all her teeth. St. Apollonia was then threatened with being burnt alive in a fire that was enkindled. She asked for a few moments to think things over. Then, so anxious was she embrace martyrdom that she tore free from the hands of her tormentors and, prompted by the Holy Spirit, leapt into the fire before they were ready. And the pagans remained amazed to see a weak woman more anxious to die for Christ than the cruel pagans were to torment her.

The story of St. Apollonia’s martyrdom was told to Fabius, the Bishop of Antioch, by St. Dionysius, the Bishop of Alexandria (died 265), a contemporary. The Martyrology reads: “At Alexandria the holy virgin Apollonia—under the Emperor Decius (249-251) her teeth were beaten out; then the executioners built and lit a funeral pyre, and threatened to burn her alive unless she would repeat their blasphemies. After some reflection she suddenly tore herself loose from her tormentors and threw herself into the flames. The fire of the Holy Spirit that glowed within her was more intense than the burning pyre. Her executioners were astounded to see a weak woman willingly embracing death with such determination before they were ready to carry out their threats.”

Theologians have debated about whether St. Apollonia’s act of throwing herself on the fire could be considered suicide. This would have been the “honorable” choice of good pagan Romans or Greeks when public humiliation or fall from power was inevitable. But the Church has never condoned suicide and St. Augustine, among others, defended the saint’s actions as noble, showing that she preferred martyrdom to giving up her faith and that she was merely proceeding with the inevitable. As was true for many of the early martyrs, St. Apollonia was immediately revered as a saint. She was especially venerated in the West and, in the Middle Ages, became known as the saint whose intercessions could help with problems of the teeth. She is invoked against toothaches and dental diseases. She’s the Patron Saint of Dentists; tooth disease; toothache. We praise God for the fearless courage of those early saints and ask that those who are in danger of mob violence in our day may be aided by the prayers of St. Apollonia.🙏

PRAYER: Lord God, You showered heavenly gifts on St. Apollonia. Help us to imitate her virtues during our earthly life and enjoy eternal happiness with her in heaven. Amen🙏

BLESSED ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH, RELIGIOUS: Bl. Anne Catherine was born “Anna Katharina” on September 8, 1774 in Flamsche, Westphalia, Germany. She was a German nun and mystic whose visions were recorded in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1833) and The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary (1852), by the German Romantic writer Clemens Brentano. Bl. Anne Catherine was the fifth of nine children born to a poor farming family. Parents were Bernard Emmerich, Anne Hiller. From her earliest years she demonstrated religious devotion and the desire for a life of prayer. At that young age she received divine knowledge imparted to her through extremely detailed visions of the lives of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and the saints. As a child her guardian angel often appeared to her, and Jesus Himself visited her while she was tending sheep. The suffering souls in purgatory often called upon her assistance to offer prayers and penances on their behalf. Bl. Anne Catherine worked on the family farm which afforded her little opportunity to learn to read and write, however, her attempts to join a religious community were largely unsuccessful because of her family’s poverty. Bl. Anne Catherine’s failure to learn to play the organ undermined her admission to the Poor Clares, a Franciscan order in Münster. Finally, in 1802, at the age of 28, after many years of longing for the religious life, Anne Catherine entered the novitiate with the Augustinian community at Agnetenberg, but her poverty and intense devotion alienated her from the other nuns. In 1811 the convent was suppressed by order of Napoleon as part of his secularization of church property, and Bl. Emmerick was taken in as a housekeeper for a priest in Dülmen. She devoted her life to waging a spiritual battle for suffering souls, and in her great charity she accepted extreme physical, yet supernatural, sufferings which ultimately left her bedridden in 1813 after long suffering from illness and in great pain and remained so until her death 11 years later; her only nourishment during this time was the communion wafer. This strange phenomena of physical suffering for the spiritual condition of other souls was not always accepted by others, and she endured much ridicule due to the astonishing manner in which her experiences displayed themselves.

Bl. Anne Catherine soon received the stigmata and began to experience mystical visions of the Virgin Mary and, especially, of the sufferings and Passion of Jesus. Her experiences became widely known, and her visions were recorded and published by Brentano, who stayed with her from 1818 until her death. Brentano’s posthumously published The Life of the Blessed Virgin Mary discusses Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerick’s visions of a house near the ancient Greek city of Ephesus (now in western Turkey) in which Mary, according to one tradition, spent her last years. In 1881 ruins of a house answering Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerick’s description were discovered by a French priest, and the site subsequently became a shrine. The house was visited by several Popes including, Pope Paul VI in 1967, Pope John Paul II in 1979 and Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 visited the house and treated it as a Shrine and Holy Place.  Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich died on February 9, 1824 (aged 49) at Dülmen, Germany. She was Beatified on October 3, 2004 by Pope John Paul II, who emphasized her suffering, especially the stigmata and her generosity. She was beatified solely on the basis of her own personal sanctity and virtue. She had supernatural insight when working with the sick and poor. She was a model of heroic virtue for her contemporaries, and for us today. 

Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich, Religious ~ Pray for us 🙏