SAINT FEAST DAY 1 APRIL: ST VALERY

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 1st of April

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 VALERY (WALERIUS), RELIGIOUS

A son of simple farmers in the Somme, France, Saint Valery tended his father's sheep in his childhood. He was seized by an ardent desire to learn to read and write and approached a local teacher who wrote the alphabet on a slate and explained it to him once. Valery took the slate back to his sheep and taught himself to read, until he was able to read the psalter. His uncle, a monk, eventually admitted him to the monastery of St Antony's at Autumo.

HE TAUGHT HIMSELF TO READ

As the years went by, he felt drawn to Luxeuil by the reputation of the penitential lives of its monks and the spiritual wisdom of St Columban. To test his humility and obedience, St Columban told him to tend to the monastery garden, which was at the time overrun with slugs and other pests. Under his care, however, the garden always yielded enough food for the monastery. 

HUMILITY AND PIETY

When St Columban was banished from Luxeuil by King Theodoric, the monastery was placed in Valery's hands until he was sent by St Eustasius to preach the Gospel in Neustria. There he was gifted land for a new monastery by King Clotaire II. Many souls were converted by St Valery's piety, humility and preaching. He died in 622. 

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)