SAINT FEAST DAY 15 OCTOBER: ST HOSPICIUS, ANCHORET

Saints celebrated on the 15th of October

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

SAINT HOSPICIUS, ANCHORET

Saint Hospicius was eminently endowed with a spirit of zeal and penance. The place of his birth is not known; but that of his retirement was a rock near Villefranche, about a league from Nice, in Piedmont.

HE LIVED IN A LITTLE TOWER

Here he built a monastery, but lived himself in a little tower at some distance: from him the place is called St Sospit. The holy hermit loaded himself with a heavy iron chain, and his garment was a rough hair shirt, made of large hair of camels. His food was a little coarse bread, and a few dates, with water; in Lent it consisted only of the roots of certain Egyptian herbs, which merchants brought him from Alexandria to Nice.

THE KILLER'S ARM BECAME MOTIONLESS

He foretold distinctly the coming of the Lombards, and exhorted the inhabitants to save themselves by flight. When a troop of those barbarians plundered his monastery and mountain, finding him chained in his voluntary dungeon, they took him for some notorious malefactor, and asked him of what crimes he was guilty? He answered them of many of the deepest dye; meaning his sins, which in a spirit of humility he had always before his eyes. At these words one of the Lombards taking him for some murderer, lifted up his sword to despatch him; but his arm became suddenly benumbed and motionless, till the saint restored it sound.

THE EDIFYING EXAMPLE OF HIS LIFE

This and other miracles converted the rage of the barbarians into veneration for his person. St Gregory of Tours, who was contemporary with him, relates other predictions and miracles of this great saint; though the most wonderful of his miracles was the edifying example of his life, by which he preached to sinners a saving fear of the divine judgements still more powerfully than by his zealous exhortations.

His happy death occurred about the year 580, on October 15, on which day his festival is celebrated at Nice; though, on account of a translation of his relics, May 21 is consecrated to his memory in the Roman Martyrology.

(Information from Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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