SAINTS OF THE DAY: FEAST DAY ~ JANUARY 17TH

FEAST OF OUR LADY OF PONTMAIN (OUR LADY OF HOPE) 1871 | MEMORIAL OF SAINT ANTHONY OF EGYPT, ABBOT – FEAST DAY ~ JANUARY 17TH: Today, we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of Pontmain (Our Lady of Hope) and the Memorial of Saint Anthony of Egypt, Abbot.

OUR LADY OF PONTMAIN (OUR LADY OF HOPE) 1871: In 1871, France was being devastated by the Franco-Prussian war. The Prussians were close to the town of Laval when on the evening of January 17, Eugene Barbedette and his brother Joseph saw an apparition of our Lady. A crowd gathered but only children could see the apparition, not adults. After the town gathered praying and singing, she told them that “God heard their prayers and fears and would answer their needs.” That same day, the Prussians halted their advances when their commander encountered an “invisible Madonna barring the way.” In May that same year, a peace treaty was signed. The local Bishop approved the apparition in 1872 and in 1908 the church was dedicated as a Basilica to Our Lady of Hope of Pontmain. Patron Saint of: Pontmain, France and Hope. Feast Day is January 17th

Our Lady of Hope of Pontmain ~ Pray for us 🙏

SAINT ANTHONY OF EGYPT, ABBOT: St. Anthony of Egypt (251–356 A.D.), founder of Monasticism, also known as St. Anthony the Great and St. Anthony of the Desert, was a leading figure among the Desert Fathers, the early Christian monks who lived in the Egyptian desert in the 3rd and 4th centuries. The story of his life was written by St. Athanasius of Alexandria. Saint Anthony was born in the year 251, in Upper Egypt to wealthy and virtuous Christian parents. After their death St. Anthony desired to conform himself to the manner of life of the Apostles and early Christians. On hearing these words from the Gospel of Matthew in church, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me,” St. Anthony gave away all his vast possessions — staying only to see that his sister’s education was completed — and retired into the desert. He left everything behind to live a life of prayer, fasting, self-denial, and labor. He then begged an aged hermit to teach him the spiritual life, and he also visited various solitaries, undertaking to copy the principal virtue of each. Whenever he heard of other holy people living in this manner, he would visit them to learn from their virtues in order to imitate them. To serve God more perfectly, He eventually removed himself from all society and became the first Christian to live a life of consecrated solitude. St. Anthony immured himself in a ruin, building up the door so that none could enter. Here the devils assaulted him furiously, appearing as various monsters, and even wounding him severely; but his courage never failed, and he overcame them all by confidence in God and by the sign of the cross. One night, while Anthony was in his solitude, many devils scourged him so terribly that he lay as if dead. A friend found him in this condition, and believing him dead carried him home. But when Anthony came to himself he persuaded his friend to take him back, in spite of his wounds, to his solitude. Here, prostrate from weakness, he defied the devils, saying, I fear you not; you cannot separate me from the love of Christ. After more vain assaults the devils fled, and Christ appeared to Anthony in His glory.

Saint Anthony’s only food was bread and water, which he never tasted before sunset, and sometimes only once in two, three, or four days. He wore sackcloth and sheepskin, and he often knelt in prayer from sunset to sunrise. His admirers became so many and so insistent that he was eventually persuaded to found two monasteries for them and to give them a rule of life. In 305, he founded a religious community of cenobites who lived in detached cells. These were the first monasteries ever to be founded, and Saint Anthony is, therefore, the father of cenobites of monks. He occasionally left his hermitage for pressing matters, once to encourage persecuted Christians, and another time to support Pope Athanasius against the heresy of Arius. In 311 he went to Alexandria to take part in the Arian controversy and to comfort those who were being persecuted by Maximinus. This visit lasted for a few days only, after which he retired into a solitude even more remote so that he might cut himself off completely from his admirers. When he was over ninety, he was commanded by God in a vision to search the desert for Saint Paul the Hermit. He is said to have survived until the age of a hundred and five, when he died peacefully in a cave on Mount Kolzim near the Red Sea. In keeping with his instructions, two of his disciples buried his body secretly in an unmarked grave. Saint Athanasius, his biographer, says that the mere knowledge of how Saint Anthony lived is a good guide to virtue. He’ s Patron Saint of Amputees; animals; basket makers/weavers; brushmakers; butchers; gravediggers; cemetery workers; domestic animals; eczema; epilepsy; epileptics; ergotism (Saint Anthony’s fire); erysipelas; gravediggers; hermits; hogs; monks; pigs; relief from pestilence; skin diseases; skin rashes; swine; swineherds. St. Anthony’s feast day is January 17th.

PRAYER: Lord God, You gave St. Anthony the Abbot the grace of serving in the desert in prayer with You. Aided by his intercession, may we practice self-denial and hence always love You above all things. Amen🙏