From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   November 11th - St. Mennas, Martyr   
      
   THE outline of the legend of St. Mennas (Menas) is that he was an Egyptian   
   by   
   birth and a soldier in the Roman army.  He was at Cotyaeum in Phrygia when   
   the   
   persecution of Diocletian began, whereupon he deserted and hid himself in   
   the   
   mountains, where he led a life of prayer and austerity.   On the occasion of   
   some games at Cotyaeum he left his hiding-place and displayed himself in the   
   amphitheatre, announcing that he also was a Christian. He was arrested and   
   brought before the president who, after having him beaten and tortured,   
   ordered   
   him to be beheaded.   His remains were recovered and brought back to Egypt,   
   where the miracles reported at his tomb soon made it a great centre of   
   devotion.   
   The cultus of St. Mennas spread far and wide in the East, his true history   
   was   
   overlaid and distorted by fictions and embellishments which brought him into   
   the   
   ranks of the "warrior saints ", and he was credited with absurd wonders) one   
   of   
   them (which, however, he shares with SS. Cosmas and Damian) being, in the   
   words   
   of Tillemont, "in the highest degree scandalous ".   
      
       Father Delehaye is of the opinion that all that can be fairly certainly   
   known about St. Mennas is that he was an Egyptian who was martyred and   
   buried in   
   his native place.  Churches were built in his honour at, among other places,   
   Cotyaeum, and these gave rise to mythical duplicates of the martyr connected   
   with those cities.  The great shrine of St. Mennas, built over his tomb, was   
   at   
   flumma (Karm Abu-Mina), south-west from Alexandria, which was a principal   
   pilgrimage sanctuary until the Arab invasion in the seventh century.  Its   
   ruins,   
   basilica, monastery, baths, secular buildings, were excavated by Mgr K. M.   
   Kaufmann in 1905-08, who found innumerable traces of the former popular cult   
   us   
   of the martyr.  Among them were numerous phials bearing such inscriptions as   
   "   
   Souvenir of St. Mennas ", which were shown to have been made to contain   
   water   
   from a well near the shrine.   
      
   Such phials had been long previously found elsewhere in Africa and in   
   Europe,   
   and had hitherto been supposed to have contained " oil of St. Mennas  taken   
   from   
   the lamps in the church.  In 1943 the Orthodox patriarch of Alexandria,   
   Christopher II, issued an encyclical letter in which he attributed the   
   saving of   
   Egypt from invasion at the battle of Alamein to "the prayers to God of the   
   holy   
   and glorious great martyr Mennas, the wonder-worker of Egypt " ;  and he put   
   forward a project for restoring the saint's ruined sanctuary near Alamein as   
   a   
   memorial to the fallen.   
      
     The Roman Martyrology mentions to-day another ST MENNAS, who was a   
   solitary in   
   the Abruzzi.  He was a Greek from Asia Minor whose holiness and zeal are   
   spoken   
   of by Pope St. Gregory in his Dialogues.   
      
     As in the Vita of the great St. George, we have here to do with a martyr   
   of   
   whose historical existence, owing to his localized, wide-spread and early   
   cult,   
   we can hardly entertain a doubt, but whose story has been lost and supplied   
   at a   
   later date by deliberate fabrication.   Starting from this primitive fiction   
   it   
   has been transmitted to subsequent generations with endless varieties of   
   detail,   
   and translated into many languages, oriental and western.   
      
   <>  The Greek passio is known to us in three distinct families, but the   
   kernel   
   recognizable in all of them has been obtained by the simple process of   
   borrowing   
   the story of another martyr and giving him a new name.  The martyr in this   
   case   
   was St. Gordius, whose conflict is described to us in a panegyric preached   
   by   
   St. Basil.   An immense amount of research has been lavished upon St. Mennas   
   by   
   such scholars as Krumbacher, Delehaye, P. Franchi de' Cavalieri, K. M.   
   Kaufmann   
   and others.  What is of main interest is that the cradle of the cultus of   
   this   
   Egyptian martyr was brought to light in the present century through the   
   excavations of Mgr Kaufmann.   It has been described in his folio volume,   
   Die   
   Menas-stadt und das Nationalheiligtum der altchristlichen Aegypter (1910).   
   Father Delehaye in particular has written very fully on the subject. See the   
   Analecta Bollandiana, vol. xxix (1910), pp. 117-150; and vol. xliii, pp.   
   46-49;   
   Origines du culte des martyrs (1933), pp. 222-223 and passim; Les passions   
   des   
   martyrs et les genres litteraires, pp. 388-389 ; and CMH., pp. 595-596.  See   
   also Budge, Texts relating to St. Mena of Egypt (1909) ; P. Franchi de'   
   Cavalieri in Studi e Testi, vol. xix (1908), pp. 42-108 ; and H. Leclercq in   
   DAC., vol. xi, cc. 324-397,where also is a full bibliography.   
      
      
   Saint Quote:   
   O Merciful Lord Jesus, Our Savior, hear the prayers and petitions of Your   
   unworthy sinful servants who humbly call upon You and make us all to be one   
   in   
   Your one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Flood our souls with Your   
   unquenchable light. Put an end to religious disagreements, and grant that we   
   Your disciples and Your beloved children may all worship You with a single   
   heart   
   and voice. Fulfill quickly, 0 grace-giving Lord, your promise that there   
   shall   
   be one flock and one Divine Shepherd of Your Church; and may we be made   
   worthy   
   to glorify Your Holy Name now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.   
   -prayer for unity by Blessed Leonid Feodorov   
      
   Bible Quote:   
   Teach and admonish one another by psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing   
   in   
   your hearts to God.  (Col. 3:16)   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   THIRTY-ONE DAYS OF PRAYER FOR THE HOLY SOULS   
   FROM THE PURGATORIAN MANUAL   
    (Imprimatur 1946)   
      
   Twenty-Sixth Day   
      
   BY DELIVERING THE SOULS FROM PURGATORY WE PROMOTE THE HONOR OF GOD   
      
        According to St. Paul, the Apostle, the honor and glory of God should   
   be   
   the principal motive of all our actions: "Whether you eat or drink, or   
   whatsoever else you do; do all things for the glory of God" (I. Cor. x. 31.)   
   "The glorification of God" ought to be our special aim in our works, most   
   particularly in our acts of charity for the dead; and justly so, for, by   
   delivering these holy souls, we lead them to Heaven, where alone God is   
   perfectly known, loved, and glorified.   
      
        If St. Teresa and other saints have declared their readiness to suffer   
   all   
   tortures imaginable for the promotion of God's glory in a single degree,   
   what   
   should not we do and suffer for the deliverance of these souls from the   
   flames   
   of Purgatory, since by doing so we increase His glory by millions of   
   degrees,   
   and not for one moment only, but for eternity!   
      
   Prayer: Increase, O Lord! Thy honor and glory, that all created beings may   
   praise Thy mercy forever, because Thou hast shown clemency towards the souls   
   who   
   love Thee and ardently desire to behold Thee. Comfort them, then, O Lord!   
   Let   
   them behold Thy face in the land of the blessed, where they shall honor,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)