Saint Mamertus
by VP
Posted on Saturday May 11, 2024 at 12:00AM in Saints
An engraving of Saint Mamertus from an 1878 book, Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints
PUBLIC PRAYER. Public prayer is the remedy for public calamities, even as private prayer is for individual evils. Towards the middle of the fifth century, Gaul was the victim of multiplied woes, civil wars, epidemics, inundations, earthquakes and conflagrations. All nature was in throes, and seemed awaiting still greater disasters; wild beasts, quitting their forest haunts, roamed at large in the midst of the thronging cities; every event was converted into dread forebodings, and the inhabitants generally were out of heart and sunk in discouragement. The church of Vienne then possessed a holy bishop who was the model, the hope, and object of love to all his flock. He directed that solemn supplications, not then usually resorted to, should be instituted in order to revive the courage of the faithful and turn aside the wrath of Heaven; he further ordered fasting and prayer to be combined. God, who had already favoured him with miracles, gave heed to these supplications, and the calamities ceased. Hence originated the "Rogation days, which were afterwards adopted by the Church at large. St. Mamertus, their founder, died in 477.
MORAL REFLECTION.-There is no instance of public
prayer having remained without result. "All that you ask in my name
shall be given unto you," has Jesus Christ promised.—(John xvi. 23.) Pictorial Half Hours with the Saints, Abbe Lecanu
