Some don’t know, and understandably so, that the Church recognizes many great figures of the Old Testament as saints, and she gives them feast days. They may not appear on the general calendar for liturgical observation, but they are listed in the Roman Martyrology.
As the first part of Advent closes and we move into the heavier Advent days of final preparation we have three ancient Prophets. On 16 Dec St. Haggai. On 18 Dec. St. Malachi.
Today, however, we have St. Daniel. And along with Daniel Sts. Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, the three boys in the fiery furnace. I think some sources placed them on 16 December.
Here is a shot of my Roman Curia wall calendar.
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My husband and son are Daniels. My son used to argue with his friends in defense of St. Daniel!
Also, I think Fiery Furnace Boys would be a great band name. They could sing about the four last things.
Thank you! I do delight in knowing about and commemorating these ‘OT’ Saints (as my Zed-moniker suggests) – I still have a list from aquinas138’s comment to your 1 July 2010 post on St. Anna tucked into one of my dictionaries of Saints.
The Fiery Furnace accent in this post somehow gets me wondering if there is any human liturgical mind at work in their coinciding with the beginning of the O Antiphons (whether on 16 or 17 December, variously!)? Fiery Furnace contrasting with limbus Patrum (and pointing to Heavenly Glory: cf. some Patristic exegesis of St. Matthew 27:52-53)?
As a Daniel, I have a special interest in this feast day! I am wondering, however, what to make of the fact that Web pages seem pretty consistent in saying that Roman Catholics mark July 21 as St. Daniel’s feast day, whereas Eastern Orthodox mark Dec. 17… and yet Fr. Z’s Roman Curia wall calendar clearly marks Dec. 17. Has there been a change?
What happened to; Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego? Is that just a different translation?
Titantom, the names you mention are the Chaldean names given to the three men. The other names are Hebrew.
Venerator: The OT saints are excellent. Elijah and his triumph over the Baal and Asherah crowd on Mt. Carmel, etc. If I recall there is a Litany to Old Testament Saints.
If only I could get one of these calendars. I want to gift one to a very Holy Priest.
Un-ionized: Thank you!
Semper Gumby,
It would be great to see that Litany: I wonder where one could conveniently find it online…? (I’m sure there are handy books – I just can’t think how to zoom in on one!)
Dan G.,
That is a bit bewildering – finding various dates without any further discussion or explanation. I tried moving across languages from his English Wikipedia article – and found this even more bewildering link in the German one:
https://www.heiligenlexikon.de/BiographienD/Daniel.htm
Again, I feel confident there must be some handy book – but what and where?
Venerator: This should work: catholic(dot)org/prayers/prayer.php?p=467
If that doesn’t work catholicsaints(dot)info probably has it. This site also has lists of patron saints of cities and education etc. Hope this helps.
Semper Gumby,
Many thanks! (I suppose I can ‘trope’ it to include St. Lot, in keeping with The Book of Wisdom 10:6 – ‘Haec justum a pereuntibus impiis liberavit fugientem, descendente igne in Pentapolim’?)
Your second suggestion is a favorite point of reference – very, variously, helpful, indeed!
On Sunday, my parish church dedicated a new icon of St Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Just beautiful, and I don’t think I’d ever seen an icon of her before.
Venerator: Thanks for another bible verse in Latin- good practice. Pentapolim, impiis, and justum helped to get a translation started, pereuntibus not so much. I’m familiar with Lot in Genesis, but unsure at first, with my meager Latin, where this was going in this verse from Wisdom. But all ended well before referring to my Bible.
Lot does bring to mind 2 Peter 3:10. Alas Venerator, I still cannot respond with writing a verse such as 2 Peter 3:10 in Latin- I’m still working with phrases and memorized sentences. However, here is a phrase (you probably know it) that has a double-meaning for the O Antiphons: ero cras.
Semper Gumby,
Alas, I am not so heartily Latinate myself: I delight to use:
http://drbo.org/
and various concordances – and searching for Scriptural references online from echoes in my memory of various translations (often, thanks to sung settings).
But today, ‘eros cras’ indeed!
(That verse from Wisdom is a fine point between Genesis and 2 Peter 2:6-8, in the depiction of St. Lot, too!)