Forty-Two Old Testament Saints
Today is the feast day of Abel the Just, son of Adam and Eve, and the first man to die. He was killed by his brother Cain out of a jealous rage, a jealousy all the worse because it was spiritual. God accepted the sacrifice of Abel because he offered it with Faith. God must have revealed the proper sacrifice and Abel obeyed offering the firstlings of his flock with the fat, being a shepherd. In other words, Abel held nothing back but offered the best of his lambs, even the fat of the lamb. Saint Paul explains: “By faith Abel offered to God a sacrifice exceeding that of Cain, by which he obtained a testimony that he was just, God giving testimony to his gifts; and by it he being dead yet speaketh” (Hebrew 11:4). Cain offered the fruits of his own toil. This was not much because even though the sin of Adam forced man to earn his bread by tilling the soil rather than just plucking it off the trees as Adam and Eve did in Paradise, the soil, having more nutrients then, produced fruit more easily than after the flood. After Cain murdered his brother he received a personal curse on his labor with the earth: “When thou shalt till it, it shall not yield to thee its fruit: a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be upon the earth” (Genesis 4).
Next, following the chronology of the feast days, we have the last of the Old Testament prophets, Malachias (January 14) who lived in the fifth century B.C.. He prophesied the coming of Christ and the Savior’s precursor, John the Baptist. “Behold I send my angel, and he shall prepare the way before my face. And presently the Lord, whom you seek, and the angel of the testament, whom you desire, shall come to his temple (Malachias 3:1). And, too, he prophesied the Holy Mass as a sacrifice. “Behold he cometh, saith the Lord of hosts. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down, my name is great among the Gentiles, and in every place there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my name a clean oblation: for my name is great among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts” (1:11).
The prophets Micheas and Habacuc have a feast day on January 15. Micheas announced the place where the Savior would be born and Habacuc revealed His Holy Name “AND THOU, BETHLEHEM Ephrata, art a little one among the thousands of Juda: out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be the ruler in Israel: and his going forth is from the beginning, from the days of eternity” (Micheas 5:2). And Habacuc “But I will rejoice in the Lord: and I will joy in God my Jesus” (3:18).
March 31 is the feast day of Amos the prophet. He was a shepherd of Juda sent by God just before the first Babylonian captivity (c. 721 B.C.) to warn Israel of its coming chastisement if the nation did not convert and do penance. He was hated by the evil King Jeroboam II and the high priest Amasias for his admonitions. His prophecy was fulfilled with the dispersion of Israelites of the ten tribes in the northern kingdom throughout Assyria. One tradition has it that Amos was martyred.
Ezechiel’s feast day is April 10. He is one of the four major prophets, Isaias, Jeremais, Ezehiel, and Daniel. He prophesied the fall of the Kingdom of Juda and the invasion of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple (and its restoration), and the second Babylonian captivity under the Assyrian King Nabuchadonosor in 587 B.C. For now I will just list the other Old Testament saints and their feast days as they are listed in Saints to Remember by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Each of these forty-two are called “Saints” on their feast days.
Jeremias (May 1) Martyr
Job (May 10)
Eliseus (June 14)
Aaron (July 1)
Osse and Aggeus (July 4)
Isaias Martyr (July 6) “Behold a Virgin shall conceive and bear a son and His Name shall be called Emmanuel” (7:14)
Joel and Esdras (July 13)
Elias (July 20) Taken up in a chariot without dying
Daniel (July 21)
Samona and her Seven Sons (Agust 1) Martyrs
Samuel (August 20)
Joshue and Gideon (September 1)
Moses (September 4)
Zacharias (September 6)
Jonas (September 21)
Abraham (October 9)
Abdias (November 19)
Nahum (December 1)
Sophonias (September 3)
Ananias, Azarias, and Misael (December 16)
Adam and Eve (December 24)
Baruch (December 28)
King David (December 29)
