badlydrawnsaints

[badlydrawnsaints]

St. Vitalis of Gaza

In America we have a holiday for the many laborers who’s precious work keeps us alive, “Labor Day”, it’s tomorrow, and unfortunately many of these laborers are not off to celebrate the holiday specifically for them. I thought for Labor Day I would talk about a very important saint, who just so happens to be the patron saint for laborers but also those who sell their ‘company’ to others.

St. Vitalis of Gaza was a hermit and a monk who lived around 600 AD, he traveled to the city to do difficult day labor, and with the money he earned he would purchase a woman for company. The people in the city thought he was despicable, a man of God, a monk who would hire woman after woman to accompany him every night! He was disliked, hated even, and was the subject to many obvious rumors and eventually was killed when a man was so disgusted and angry by his visits to the brothels, he struck St. Vitalis in the head.

During his burial, many of these women came weeping to his grave with candles, explaining to the people that he was not in fact buying their company for the evening, but preaching to them how precious and loved they were by God, feeding them, clothing them, and even giving them money or finding them husbands so they could leave the work of selling themselves. He did this and told the woman to keep it a secret, because if the owners of the brothels had discovered not only would he have been kept from buying time with the women every night, but the women may have been beaten or killed. These many women now had lives with husbands and children who loved them.

I imagine how the towns people must have felt in hearing this, especially the man who had killed him for making the assumption that he was hiring these woman to keep him “company”, in reality he was saving their lives and even their souls.

May we all have the grace to see others as St. Vitalis did, knowing that all people are loved by God, and all people are most precious. May we avoid making assumptions, and live for God without so much as a care for our reputation with other Catholics and Christians. Our precious brother St. Vitalis please pray for us!

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St. Monica and her son, St. Augustine of Hippo

“God loves each of us as if there were only one of us.” - St. Augustine of Hippo

“Son, nothing in this world now affords next delight. I do not know what there is now for me to do or why I am still here, all my hopes in this world being now fulfilled.” -St. Monica on the conversion of her son St. Augustine

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“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” - St. Thérèse of Lisieux

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“No one in the world can change Truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it. The real conflict is the inner conflict. Beyond armies of occupation and the hetacombs of extermination camps, there are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we are ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?” – St. Maximilian Kolbe

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“For your daily transgressions, humble yourself, humble yourself, always humble yourself.” - St. Pio of Pietrelcina

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“There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you in silence, I entrust them to you in the way that you know best.” - St. Pope John Paul II

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“Be not afraid”- St. Pope John Paul II