Saints of the day december 18
Our Lady of Hope
In this third week of advent, it is impossible to prepare for Christmas without the contemplation of the hopeful unspeakable joy which Holy Mary possessed by the immediate future of her giving birth. That is what you want to express with "The expectation of delivery", or "The day of Holy Mary" as it was called also at another time, or "Our Lady of O" as it is popularly also called today. It was in Spain, particularly in Toledo, in the tenth Council held in the year 656, Saint Eugenio III being the Bishop of that location, and later a very devoted to the Virgin Mary - Saint Ildefonso--took quite seriously to spread. The intuition of people naming the Young Maiden in waiting "Virgen de la O" is based on the direct contemplation of pictorial or sculptural works that present naturally piously bulging roundness of the Virgin pregnant. The origin of the title is more spiritual however, finer, and less somatic and more liturgical. It originated in the Marian antiphons of Vespers begining with the O: O Sapientia, O Adonai, O Emmanuel ... Veni!
View moreSaint Gaciano (s. III)
In Tours, the Gallia Lugdunensis, saint Gaciano, first bishop, who, reportedly, was sent from Rome to that city, and buried in the Christian Cemetery of the same population (s. III).
Saint Flananio (s. VII)
In Killaloe, Ireland, St. Flananio, Bishop (s. VII).
Saint Malaquías
Commemoration of St. Malachy, Prophet, who, after the Babylonian exile, announced the great day of the Lord and his coming in the temple, and offer you the pure oblation who always and everywhere.