A prayer to the Angels present on the altar at Mass:
Holy Angels, who surround this altar, my faithful Guardian,
and all ye Heavenly Hosts, I entreat you to bless God for the
numberless blessings I have received from Him. Offer Him
the Holy Mass, at which I am assisting, to acknowledge His
graces, and to obtain for me the gift of perseverance.
Blessed be the Holy Trinity!
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts, the earth is full of Thy
glory! Glory be to the Father, Glory be to the Son,
Glory be to the Holy Ghost!
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- Psalm 61:8 -
Then will I ever sing praise to your name
and fulfill my vows day after day.
________________________________________________________
David made a vow to praise God each day. He continually praised God
through
both the good and difficult times of his life. Do you find something to
praise God for each day? As you do, you will find your heart elevated from
daily distractions to lasting confidence.
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December 14th - Saint Venantius Fortunatus
or Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus (c. 530-c. 600/609) was a
Latin poet and hymnodist, and a Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.
Life
Venantius Fortunatus was born in northern Italy somewhere between
Valdobbiadene, [1] Ceneda, and Treviso. He grew up during the Byzantine
reconquest of Italy and was educated at Ravenna. His later work shows
familiarity not only with classical poets such as Virgil, Horace, Ovid,
Statius, and Martial, but also with Christian poets, including Arator,
Claudian, and Sedulius.
Fortunatus eventually migrated through Germany to Gaul in the mid-560s,
probably with the specific intention of becoming a poet in the Merovingian
court. After political cir***stances impeded his court career, Fortunatus
received patronage from various religious figures, including St Gregory of
Tours. He became bishop of Poitiers sometime before the year 600.
Works
He is best known for two poems that have become part of the liturgy of the
Roman Catholic Church, the Pange lingua gloriosi proelium certaminis
("Sing,
O tongue, of the glorious struggle"), a hymn that later inspired St Thomas
Aquinas's Pange Lingua. He also wrote Vexilla Regis prodeunt ("The banners
of the King are lifted"), which is a sequence sung at vespers during Holy
Week. This poem was written in honour of a large piece of the "True Cross"
that had been sent from the Byzantine Emperor Justin II to Queen Radegunde
of the Franks, who after her husband Chlotar I's death had founded a
monastery in Aquitaine. The Municipal Library in Poitiers houses an
eleventh
century manuscript on the life of Radegunde, copied from a sixth century
account by Fortunatus.
All in all, Venantius Fortunatus wrote eleven surviving books of poetry in
Latin in a diverse group of genres including epitaphs, panegyrics,
georgics,
consolations, and religious poems. His verse is im****tant in the
development
of later Latin literature, largely because he wrote at a time when Latin
prosody was moving away from the quantitative verse of classical Latin
towards the accentual meters of medieval Latin. His style sometimes
suggests
the influence of Hiberno-Latin, in learned Greek coinages that
occasionally
appear in his poems. He also wrote a verse hagiography of St Martin of
Tours
which is often considered the last epic of antiquity, and a hagiographic
life of his patron Queen Radegunde.
Feast Day
Fortunatus is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church, commemorated on
December
14, primarily in the diocese of Poitiers and certain churches of the
Veneto.
h
Further reading
* Brennan, B. "The career of Venantius Fortunatus" Traditio, Vol 41
(1985), 49-78.
* George, J. Venantius Fortunatus: Personal and Political Poems.
Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1995.
* George, J. Venantius Fortunatus: A Latin Poet in Merovingian Gaul.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.
* Reydellet, M. Venance Fortunat, Poèmes, 3 vols., Collection Budé,
1994-2004.
External links
* http://www.catholicforum.com/saints/saintv40.htm
* Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Venantius Fortunatus
* Poems at The Latin Library (Latin)
* Pange, Lingua, gloriosi proelium certaminis (Latin)
Saint Quote:
"As the Lord knows for what we all are adapted, He gives to all their
positions as He sees to be most for His glory, for their salvation, and
the
good of their neighbors. Our mistake, then, is in not submitting ourselves
totally to whatever He wishes to do with us ".
--St. Teresa
Bible Quote
24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge just judgment. (John
7:24)
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