Day: August 18, 2026

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 18 August – Saints Florus and Laurus

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saints Florus and Laurus  were twin brothers who worked as stonemasons. They were originally from Byzantium but settled in Ulpiana, Dardania, south of modern Pristina, Kosovo. They were educated in masonry by two men named Maximus and Proculus, who were Christians, and who were later sentenced to death for being so.

Novgorod icon of Sts. Florus and Laurus

Likaion, the prefect of the district, employed the brothers in the construction of a pagan temple. The brothers gave their salaries to the poor. When the son of a local pagan priest named Mamertin was blinded by a chip of stone from the saints’ temple, Florus and Laurus cured the boy after he converted to Christianity. Mamertin also converted to Christianity as a result of his son’s recovery.

After the temple was finished, the twins brought together many local Christians. The group smashed all of the statues of the pagan gods, and a cross was set up in the temple, then they spent the whole night in prayer within it. As a result of this action, the local authorities had 300 Christians, including Mamertin and Mamertin’s son, burned to death.

Florus and Laurus were executed differently; Likaion had them thrown down an empty well, which was then covered with earth. Many years later their relics were recovered and transferred to Constantinople.

See how you lie prostrate unto death, while John who was killed is alive. You have lost the purple that received its colour from dye, John is forever gloriously clothed with the radiant purple from his blood.

St Peter Chrysologus

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Memorials of the Saints – 18 August

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Within the Octave of the Assumption of Our Lady

St Agapitus the Martyr (c 259- c 274) Roman Youth aged 15

St Helena (c 250 – c 330) Mother of Constantine the Great

St Macarius the Wonder-Worker (Died 850) Monk, Abbot, Defender of Icons, Miracle worker 

St Crispus of Rome
St Daig Maccairaill
Bl Domenico de Molinar
St Eonus of Arles
St Ernan
St Evan of Ayrshire
St Firminus of Metz
St Florus of Illyria
Bl Francus of Francavilla
Bl Gaspar di Salamanca
St Hermas of Rome
St John of Rome
St Juliana of Myra
St Juliana of Stobylum
St Laurus of Illyria
St Leo of Myra
Bl Leonard of Cava
St Maximus of Illyria
Bl Milo of Fontenelle
St Polyaenus of Rome
St Proculus of Illyria

Blessed Rinaldo of Concorezzo (c 1245 – 1321) Bishop of Vicenza from 1296 until his 1303 appointment as the Archbishop of Ravenna-Cervia holding that until his death, Doctor of Canon Law, Papal envoy, Arbitrator and Peace-maker. Archbishop Rinaldo was also a close friend of Dante Alighieri.

St Ronan of Iona
St Serapion of Rome

Massa Candida: Also known as Martyrs of Utica and the White Company: Three hundred 3rd century Christians at Carthage, who were ordered to burn incense to Jupiter or face death by fire. Martyrs. Saint Augustine of Hippo and the poet Prudentius wrote about them. They were forced to cast themselves into a pit of burning lime c 253 at Carthage, North Africa.

Happy, indeed, is she
to whom it is given to share this sacred banquet,
to cling with all her heart to Him
whose beauty all the heavenly hosts admire unceasingly,
whose love inflames our love,
whose contemplation is our refreshment,
whose graciousness is our joy,
whose gentleness fills us to overflowing,
whose remembrance brings a gentle light,
whose fragrance will revive the dead,
whose glorious vision will be the happiness
of all the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem

St Clare of Assisi

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 18 August – To Thee, O Master

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Our Morning Offering – 18 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” and the Memorial of St Macarius the Wonder-Worker (Died 850)

To Thee, O Master
Morning Offering
By St Macarius the Wonder-Worker (Died 850)

To Thee, O Master,
who loves all mankind
I hasten on rising from sleep.
By Thy mercy,
I go out to do Thy work
and I make my prayer to Thee.
Help me at all times and in all things.
Deliver me from every evil thing of this world
and from pursuit by the devil.
Save me and bring me to Thy eternal Kingdom,
For Thou art my Creator,
Thou inspire all good thoughts in me.
In Thee is all my hope
and to Thee I give glory,
now and forever.
Amen

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection – 18 August – The love of God produces love of our neighbour

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One Minute Reflection – 18 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” – Within the Octave of the Assumption – Readings: Ps 69:2-3, Ps 69:4, 2 Cor. 3:4-9, Luke 10:23-37

‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, I, on my way back, will repay you.’

Luke 10:23-37

REFLECTION – As God created man to his own image and likeness, so did he appoint for man a love after the image and resemblance of the love which is due to His own divinity. He said: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart; this is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Why do we love God? “The cause for which we love God,” says S. Bernard, “is God Himself;” as though he had said: we love God because He is the most sovereign and infinite goodness. And why do we love ourselves in charity? Surely because we are the image and likeness of God; and whereas all men are endowed with the same dignity, we love them also as ourselves, that is, as being holy and living images of the divinity.

For it is on that account that He makes no difficulty about calling Himself our father and us His children; it is on that account that we are capable of being united to His divine essence by the fruition of His sovereign goodness and felicity; it is on that account that we receive His grace, that our spirits are associated to His most Holy Spirit and made, after a fashion, a participant of His divine nature. And therefore the same charity which produces the acts of the love of God produces at the same time those of the love of our neighbour. And even as Jacob saw that one same ladder which touched heaven and earth serving the angels both for descending and ascending, so we know that one same charity extends itself to both the love of God and our neighbour.

Saint Francis de Sales

PRAYER – O Lord, we beseech Thee, forgive the transgressions of Thy servant, and, forasmuch as by our own deeds we cannot please Thee, may we find safety through the prayers of, the Mother of Thy Son and our Lord. Through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son our Lord, Who lives and reigns with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen 

Posted in CATHOLIC Quotes

Quote/s of the Day – 18 August – Let us run to Mary

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Quote/s of the Day – 18 August – “The Month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” – Within the Octave of the Assumption

“No matter how sinful
one may have been,
if he has devotion to Mary,
it is impossible that he be lost.”

St Hilary of Poitiers

“The very fact
that God has elected her,
proves, that none was ever
holier than Mary;
if any stain had disfigured her soul,
if any other virgin
had been purer and holier,
God would have selected her
and rejected Mary.”

St Jacob of Sarug

At the mention of this name
[the Blessed Virgin Mary],
the Angels rejoice
and the devils tremble.
Through this invocation,
sinners obtain
grace and pardon.

St Peter Canisius SJ

Let us run to Mary
and, as her little children,
cast ourselves into her arms
with a perfect confidence.

St Francis de Sales

It is Mary alone to whom God has given the keys of the cellars of divine love, and the power to enter into the most sublime and secret ways of perfection, and the power likewise to make others enter in there also. It is Mary alone who has given to the miserable children of Eve, the faithless, the entry into the terrestrial paradise, that they may walk there agreeably with God, hide themselves there securely against their enemies, and feed themselves there deliciously, without any more fear of death, on the fruit of the trees of life and of the knowledge of good and evil, and drink in long draughts the heavenly waters of that fair fountain, which gushes forth there with abundance; or rather she is herself that terrestrial paradise, that virgin and blessed earth, from which Adam and Eve, the sinners, have been driven, and she gives no entry there except to those whom it is her pleasure to make Saints.

St Louis de Montfort

St. Bonaventure says that Mary sends the archangel Michael, with all the angels, to the defence of her dying servants, to protect them from the assaults of evil spirits, and to receive the souls of all those who have especially and constantly recommended themselves to her.

St Alphonsus Liguori

Posted in AUGUST - The Immaculate Heart of Mary

Thought for the Day – 18 August – Mary’s Heart, the Temple of Jerusalem

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St John Eudes – The Admirable Heart of Mary

Mary’s Heart, the Temple of Jerusalem Part One

In the time of the Mosaic Law one of the greatest wonders of the world was the temple of Jerusalem. Yet this stupendous temple was merely a figure and an image of the multitude of temples to be found in the Christian world. It prefigured particularly the Sacred Humanity of the Son of God, for Christ referring to His own body said to the Jews: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”

The temple of Jerusalem was a figure of Holy Church and a figure of each Christian. It prefigured our churches and cathedrals, but was also a representation of a temple far more holy and august than any material structure. What then is the true temple? It is the Holy Heart of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. The Church says of her person that Mary is “the temple of the Lord, the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost,” and we can apply these words with still better reason to her admirable Heart, having seen that it is the source of all the qualities and excellences with which she is adorned. If, according to the divine Word, the body of each Christian is the temple of God, who will dare to deny this characterization to the most worthy Heart of the Mother of all Christians? I affirm, therefore, that the Holy Heart of Mary is the true temple of the Divinity, the sanctuary of the Holy Ghost, the Holy of Holies of the Blessed Trinity.


This temple was not like Solomon’s built by a host of workmen, but by the Almighty Hand of God, Who can achieve greater wonders in a single instant than all the powers of Heaven and earth can accomplish during the whole of eternity. The temple of Mary’s Heart was consecrated by the Sovereign Pontiff, Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It was never profaned by the slightest sin and stood adorned with a tremendous wealth of ordinary and extraordinary graces, and by all Christian virtues practised in the highest degree.

Not only is her Heart entirely covered with King Solomon’s gold, but it is itself wrought of the finest and purest gold, of a metal infinitely more precious than all the material gold to be found in the universe. The Heart of our amiable Mother is filled with love of God and charity towards us. It is entirely transformed into love and charity, and completely identified with the purest love and the most perfect charity. Its love is more ardent, more pure and divine, its charity more fervent, holier and more excellent than the love and charity of all the Seraphim. The temple of Mary contains all the riches of God together with all the treasures of Heaven and earth because it keeps within its cloister all the mysteries of the life of the Son of God. “His Mother kept all these words in her heart.” Her Heart possesses the very Son of God Himself, the treasure of the Eternal Father, Who encompasses all the wealth and beauty of the Most Holy Trinity.

In this temple Christ, the Sovereign Priest, offered His first sacrifice at the time of the Incarnation. Christ, the Doctor of doctors and the Preacher of preachers, Who taught and preached so often in the temple of Jerusalem, imparts to us from the temple of His Mother’s Heart as many instructions and lessons as there are virtues exemplified in this virginal Heart.

In this temple God is adored more profoundly and worthily, praised and glorified more perfectly than in all other material or spiritual temples that ever were and shall be in Heaven and on earth, the sacred humanity of Jesus alone excepted. The smallest acts of virtue and even the prayerful thoughts of Mary’s holy Heart are more agreeable to the Divine Majesty and render God greater honor and glory than the greatest actions of the foremost among the Saints.

The Heart of the heavenly Mary is indeed a temple and a temple filled with rarest marvels. God entrusted to King David a description of the temple of Jerusalem written by His own hand, as recorded in the words: “All these things came to me written by the hand of the Lord.” The Eternal Father willed to place several remarkable objects in this temple to foreshadow and represent many great and wondrous mysteries that were to be found in the admirable Heart of His holy Mother. Among them I notice seven principal objects that add significance to this symbolic picture, namely: the golden candlestick, the table with the loaves of proposition, the altar of perfumes, the Ark of the Covenant, the Tables of the Law, the Propitiatory and Oracle which reposed on the Ark, and the Altar of Holocausts.