Prayer:

All thy desires were satisfied, O glorious Martyr! Thou hast died for Jesus--thou art with Jesus. Rome's sons and daughters filled the Colyseum; their savage joy made it tremble with their cheers as they saw thee mangled by the lions. It was the hour thou hadst prayed for--thy sacrifice for Him, who had sacrificed himself for thee, is over, and thy soul is buried in his divine embrace! Generous and impetuous lover of Christ! thou wast ambitious to pay thy debt to the Crucified--the debt of suffering. It seemed to thee, that thou hadst no right to His kingdom, until thou hadst repaid his Passion by some cruel tortures endured for Him. O worthy companion of Stephen, Sebastian, Vincent, and Agnes! how rich and verdant is the Palm thou holdest over thy Jesus' Crib! Canst thou look upou us, weak Christian cowards, and not pity us? Pray for us that we may at least be faithful to our Lord, when we are persecuted by the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil; that we may, at least, give our hearts to his service, if we are not to be permitted to give our bodies to be tortured for His name. Thou wast chosen, when a little child, as the model of the simplicity which our Saviour was teaching to His Disciples, and this innocence never left thee:--ask for us from Him, who is the King of Little Children, that one of the graces of the Christmas we have been keeping, may be this holy Simplicity of heart.
Successor of Peter in the See of Antioch! pray for the Churches of thy Patriarchate, that they may return to the true Faith and Catholic unity. Intercede for the holy City of Rome, which thou didst water with thy blood, and which is now in possession of thy sacred Relics, that were saved from the lions' jaws. Watch over the maintenance of ecclesiastical discipline and order, of which thou hast left such admirable rules in thy Epistles; and obtain for the Church, that all the members of her hierarchy may be united in the bonds of duty and love, that thus she may be beautiful in the strength of her unity and terrible to the enemies of God, as an army set in array (1 Cant. vi. 3).