ST ATHALIA, ABBESS - 20 DECEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 20th of December

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 ATHALIA, ABBESS

St Athalia (Attala, Atala, Athala, Aurelia),  first abbess of the monastery of St Stephan of Strasbourg, was the daughter of the Alsatian Duke Adalbert, brother of Abbess Odilia (December 13), and his first wife Gerlinde. 

SHE WAS EDUCATED IN THE HOHENBURG MONASTERY

Along with her two sisters Eugenia and Gundelind she was educated by her aunt, St Odilia, in the Hohenburg monastery in Alsace. 

When her father built St Stephen's Abbey in Strasbourg for 30 nuns in 717, he handed over the management of this foundation to his daughter Attala. 

A MODEL FOR THE SISTERS IN ST STEPHEN

For twenty years St Attala was a model for the sisters in St Stephen and did a lot of good for the poor. 

She died on December 3, 741 at the age of 54. Her mortal shell was displayed for veneration of the faithful for 5 weeks before being buried. At the end of the 8th century her public veneration was introduced and her name is found in the ancient martyrology of Strasbourg.

HER RELICS

Emperor Lothar calls her in 845 in a document "Most Holy Virgin". It is said that the abbot Merentrude von Hohenburg, a special friend of the saint,  asked a certain man to procure some relics for the monastery; he then secretly sneaked into the church and cut off the right hand of the saint. It was kept in St Stephen's Church in Strasbourg before the outbreak of the French Revolution, as was a black woolen cloak which the saint is said to have worn and which every abbess had to wear. [The Monks of Ramsgate give her feast day as December 20.] In the diocese of Strasbourg her feast is celebrated on November 3, on which day her hand is publicly displayed for veneration in the parish church of St Magdalena.

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