Novena to the Holy Deacons, Day 3: Saint Andrew of Crete

O glorious Saint Andrew, preacher, monk, and poet of the Faith, filled with compassion for those who invoke you, I kneel at your feet and humbly beg you to take my present need under your special protection and to make your prayer mine:

Listen, O heaven, and I will speak. O earth, hear the cry of one returning to God and singing His praises.

Look down on me in Your mercy, O compassionate God and Saviour, and accept my fervent confession.

More than all have I sinned; I alone have sinned against You, O God my Saviour, but have compassion on me, Your creature.

V Most holy Saint Andrew, pray for us
R That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.

Saint Andrew of Crete

Young monk at Mar Sabas. Monk at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem at the age of 15. Sent to Constantinople by Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem in 685 to accept the decrees of the Council of Constantinople. He stayed there as head of an orphanage and a men’s home for aged.

Deacon at the church of Santa Sophia in Constantinople. Later ordained as Archbishop of Gortyna, Crete c.700.

Noted and eloquent preacher, he wrote Greek liturgical poetry and many idiomela (short hymns). May have introduced the Byzantine litugical hymn form known as kanon; his Great Kanon, a penitential Lenten hymn, is still sung in the Byzantine liturgy.

Died c.740 in Crete of natural causes.