ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER
Saints celebrated on the 10th 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.
ST JOHN OF BRIDLINGTON, CONFESSOR
Saint John of Bridlington, an eminent contemplative was born near Bridlington, or Burlington, a seaport in Yorkshire, and received from the example and instructions of his pious parents the precious inheritance of the most fervent piety and tender devotion, which he diligently improved during the course of his studies at Oxford.
HE TOOK THE RELIGIOUS HABIT
When he returned from the university, finding all employments distasteful which took off his mind from God, he took the religious habit in the monastery of regular canons of St Austin at Burlington.
"TO KNOW HIMSELF AND GOD"
In this solitude it was his great study to know himself and God: to discover and to wipe away with tears of compunction all the imperfections and stains of his soul, and to purge his affections from whatever could defile or distort them, that he might offer to God a continual sacrifice of obedience, love, and praise, with a perfect purity of heart. Thus he prepared his soul to let in those heavenly beams, which are always streaming from God upon minds fitted to receive them; and he advanced daily in the victory over himself, in the experimental knowledge of spiritual things, and in the fervent exercise of charity and all interior virtues.
HE RELIEVED THE NECESSITIES OF THOSE IN DISTRESS
He was successively precentor, almoner, and at length prior of his monastery. This last charge he had averted by his tears and importunities the first time he was chosen; but upon a second vacation, his brethren, who were ashamed of their former want of resolution, obliged him to take up the yoke.
It is incredible how plentifully he relieved the necessities of all persons in distress, to whom he looked upon everything as due that by frugality and prudent economy could be spared in the management of his temporal revenue.
PATIENCE, MEEKNESS, AND PRAYER
His patience and meekness, his constant mortification and penance, and his constant application to the holy exercises of prayer, showed how much his whole conduct was regulated by the spirit of God; and an extraordinary spiritual prudence, peace of mind, and meekness of temper, were the amiable fruits of his virtue.
When he had been seventeen years prior, he received with great joy the summons of his heavenly spouse, and was translated to eternal bliss on October 10, 1379.
MANY MIRACLES WERE WROUGHT
Many miracles wrought through his intercession are mentioned by the author of his life, and by Walsingham, who testifies, that by order of the pope, the Archbishop of York, assisted by the Bishops of Durham and Carlisle, performed the ceremony of the translation of his relics.
(Information from Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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