[Salvation]

Interactive Saints for Kids

St. Flannan

 
Feast Day: December 18
Born/Died: (in the seventh century)

Flannan was born at Thomond in Ireland. He was the son of an Irish chieftain named Turlough. Flannan was educated by the monks and was the student of the monk St. Molua.

Although his family was against it, Flannan became a monk and went as a missionary preaching throughout Ireland, Scotland and the Herbides.

Flannan then decided to make a pilgrimage to Rome and there, Pope John IV made him a bishop. The pope did this because he saw great wisdom and holiness in Flannan.

When St. Flannan returned to Ireland, all the people of Killaloe, came to meet him. They were eager to learn the instructions the saint had brought back from the pope of Rome.

St. Flannan taught his people so well that even his father decided to become a monk. The old chieftain went to St. Colman to be instructed in the life of a monk.

At the same time, he asked for a blessing for his family, since three of his sons had been killed. St. Colman predicted: "From you shall seven kings spring." And so it happened.

St. Flannan was afraid that since he was one of the family, he, too, might be made king. So he prayed to become ugly, and his face was soon covered with big scars and rashes.

He made this unusual request because he wanted to be free to follow his vocation. He wanted to give himself completely to the service of God and his people.

[Salvation]

Catholic Culture

Daily Readings for: December 18, 2012
(Readings on USCCB website)

Collect: Grant, we pray, almighty God, that we, who are weighed down from of old by slavery beneath the yoke of sin, may be set free by the newness of the long-awaited Nativity of your Only Begotten Son. O God, Creator and Redeemer of human nature, who willed that your Word should take flesh in an ever-virgin womb, look with favor on our prayers, that your Only Begotten Son, having taken to himself our humanity, may be pleased to grant us a share in his divinity. Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

RECIPES

• Rum Balls

ACTIVITIES

• Advent and the Year of the Eucharist
• Advent House
• Christmas Plays, Los Pastores and Las Posadas
• Las Posadas II
• O Antiphon Days
• O Antiphon Tree Decorations
• O Antiphons - December 17 - 24
• Religion in the Home for Elementary School: December
• Religion in the Home for Preschool: December
• Veni, Veni, Emmanuel or O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

PRAYERS

• Advent Tower
• Advent Wreath Prayers I
• Christmas Novena
• Advent Wreath Prayers II
• Novena to the Infant Jesus
• Roman Ritual Blessing Before and After Meals: Advent (2nd Plan)
• December Devotion: The Immaculate Conception
• Christmas Anticipation Prayer

LIBRARY

• What's in a name? | Michael P. Foley

Advent: December 18th

Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent

Today is the second of the O Antiphons, O Adonai (O Almighty God). As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. "Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground . . . I am who am." "Come with an outstretched arm to redeem us." This is the cry of the Church for the second coming of Christ on the last day. The return of the Savior brings us plentiful redemption.

O Antiphons ~ O Lord and Ruler

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O Lord and Ruler
Thou art He "who didst appear to Moses in the burning bush." "I have seen the affliction of My people in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of the rigor of them that are over the works. And knowing their sorrow, I am come down to deliver them out of the hands of the Egyptians and to bring them out of that land into a good and spacious land, into a land that floweth with milk and honey" (Exod. 3:7 f.). Thus spoke the Lord to Moses from the bush which burned but was not consumed, which is a figure of God's condescension to assume the weakness of human nature. The human nature of Christ is united to the burning divine nature, and yet it is not consumed.

As Moses approached the burning bush, so we approach the divine Savior in the form of a child in the crib, or in the form of the consecrated host, and falling down we adore Him. "Put off the shoes from thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. . . . I am who am" (Exod. 3:5, 14).

O Adonai, almighty God! Mighty in the weakness of a child, and in the helplessness of the Crucified! Thou, almighty God, mighty in the wonders that Thou hast worked! Mighty in guiding, sustaining, and developing Thy Church! "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Matt. 16:18).

"Come with an outstretched arm to redeem us." This is the cry of the Church for the second coming of Christ on the last day. The return of the Savior brings us plentiful redemption. "Come, ye blessed of My Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you" (Matt. 25-34).

Excerpted from The Light of the World by Benedict Baur, O.S.B.

   

2nd O Antiphon:
And leader of the house of Israel, who Appeared to Moses in the bush's flaming fire, And gave to him the Law on Sinai,

COME
To redeem us with outstretched arm.

Today is Day Three of the Christmas Novena.

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