Santoral: which saints are commemorated this Thursday, March 16

A few decades, even centuries ago, the ancestors used to name their children with the name of the saint of the day of their birth, not in vain in the famous “Mañanitas” there is a stanza that says: “Today, because it’s your birthday, we sing them to you here…”.

He onomastic alludes to the day when a saint is celebrated, although it is common for many people to use it as a synonym for birthday, which is wrong, because when they talk about it, they only allude to the list of holy names.

Like every day of the year, today also commemorates the women and men who stood out for having special connections with the deities, who did good deeds for their neighbors and who had high ethics and morals, reasons that led them to to be canonized or beatified and be among the saints.

It is the day of the saint Thursday March 16.

The story of Abraham is found in the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis.

With Abraham, God founded the true religion in the world.

He was living in the city of Hur, near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, when God asked him to sacrifice himself in order to leave his land, which was very fertile and his beautiful city, and go to an unknown and deserted country, far from his family. and his friends. . Abraham accepted this sacrifice and God in payment promised him that his descendants would possess this land forever.

Abraham wanted a son to enlarge his family and God allowed his wife to be barren and at the age of 90 Abraham was still unable to have the son he so desired. However, Our Lord promised him that his offspring would be as numerous as the sand of the sea and Abraham believed in this promise of God and this faith was appreciated and rewarded.

God appears to him in the form of a traveling pilgrim (also accompanied by two angels in disguise) and Abraham assists them marvelously well. God promises her that in a year she will have a son. Sara the woman, who listens behind a curtain, scoffs at this promise, as it seems impossible to her since they are both very old. God commands that the child be named “Isaac”, which means “the son of the smile”. And when the boy is 12 years old, God asks Abraham to go to a mountain and offer the son to him as a sacrifice. Abraham accepted that the cuesta muchísimo y cuando ya va a matar à Isaac, un ángel detiene la mano y oye una voz del cielo que le dit: “He visto cuán grande es tu generosidad. Ahora te prometo que tu descendencia nunca se acabará in the world”. And then he sees a deer entangled in thorn bushes and offers it as a sacrifice to God.

Enemies attacked the city where Abraham’s nephew Lot lived, taking everyone prisoner. Then the patriarch gathered his workers (318) and attacked the enemies by surprise and freed all the captives. In thanksgiving, he brought to Melchizedek, priest of Jerusalem, a tenth of all he had obtained. Since then the custom of giving a tithe to God and the poor has remained, that is, one-tenth of what each earns.

Our Lord told his friend Abraham that he was going to destroy Sodom because sins of homosexuality were being committed in that city. Abraham pleaded with God not to destroy him if there were even ten good people there. But since there were none, a rain of fire fell and killed them all. Only Lot was saved because he was Abraham’s nephew. But Lot’s wife disobeyed the order of the angels and as she left the city she looked back and was turned into a pillar of salt.

Abraham was the father of Isaac, from whom Esau and Jacob were born. The sons of Jacob are called the twelve patriarchs, from whom the people of Israel were formed. God changed his name from Abram, which means “father”, to the name “Abraham”, which means: father of many peoples.

The S. Bible praises Abraham because he believed against hope and because he never doubted that God would accomplish what he promised, even when it seemed impossible.

Saint Patriarch Abraham, ask God to grant us faith as great as yours and to faithfully persevere in our religion until death.

With this character is other saints and martyrs which are also celebrated this Thursday, March 16 as follows:

San Abraham Kidunaia

Saint Eusebia

saint herbert

San Juan Sordy

San Julian de Anazarbo

holy popes

Saints are the group of people (women and men) who they are venerated by the Church when they are proclaimed saints or blessed on a certain calendar date.

On the path to canonization there are four stages: the first is to be named a servant of God, the second is to be venerable; the third step is to be blessed and finally the fourth step is to be a saint.

There beatification It can only be attained by the faithful who have died with the reputation of being saints in various places and this process can be achieved in two ways: by a cause of heroic virtues and the second is martyrdom, that is- ie if the person He died for his faith.

On another side, the process of becoming a saint This involves adding the name of the sanctified person in the canon (list of recognized saints) and with this the believing community is authorized to render public and universal worship to him, while a liturgical feast is assigned to him, altars, chapels and his power to intercede with God is recognized.

Although the Church has not given an exact figure, it is estimated that there are currently up to nine thousand recognized saints. According Roman Martyrologyupdated in 2005, the Catholic Church has at least seven thousand saintsalthough the martyrs are not counted, so many believe the figure could even be as high as 20,000.

In recent history, Pope John Paul II succeeded in canonizing 388 saints, while Pope Francis broke all records after that, to date, he canonized 898 saints, 800 of them at the same time.