ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 13th 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.
SAINT AUBERT, BISHOP OF ARRAS AND CAMBRAI, CONFESSOR
This great prelate was one of the greatest ornaments of the seventh age, and eminent promoters of learning and piety in the Gallican Church.
HE WAS PIOUS FROM A VERY YOUNG AGE
His youth, that most precious season of life, he dedicated to God by the mortification and the absolute conquest of sensual appetites; he was careful to employ all his time usefully, and was a great proficient in sacred learning.
Having with great zeal served the Church for many years, he was consecrated bishop of Arras and Cambray [Cambrai] on March 24, 633.
BISHOP OF ARRAS AND CAMBRAY
Though solitude, in which he conversed in heaven, and consulted God on his own necessities, and those of his people, was his delight, yet he knew what he owed to others; his door was always open to persons of all ranks and conditions, and he was ever ready to afford every one all comfort and assistance, spiritual and corporal, especially the poor, the sick, and distressed.
HE HELPED EVERYONE
With extraordinary watchfulness and sagacity he discovered the roots of the disorders which reigned among the people: his prudence and zeal applied the remedies, and all the obstacles he met with, he surmounted by his courage and constancy. His instructions, supported by the wonderful example of his own life, had incredible success in reforming the manners of his numerous flock.
HIS GOOD EXAMPLE
It was the first part of his care to train up a virtuous clergy, and to qualify them for their sacred functions by learning and good habits: ignorance, especially in those who are the teachers of others, being a most fatal enemy to virtue, and a rooted and experienced piety being necessary in all youth, that when they attain manhood and are exposed to the dangers of public life in a corrupt world, they may be able to resist the influence of vice and bad example.
HE INDUCED MANY PERSONS TO RENOUNCE THE WORLD
St Aubert converted to God innumerable sinners, and induced many persons of quality of both sexes, to renounce the world.
The great King Dagobert often resorted to the saint to be instructed by him in the means of securing to himself an eternal kingdom. He listened to him with respect and attention, always rejoiced exceedingly in his heavenly conversation, and received from it the greatest comfort and edification. Out of respect for him he bestowed on his church of our Lady the royal estate and manor of Oneng.
ST LANDELIN WAS CONVERTED BY HIS PRAYERS
St Landelin was drawn by St Aubert’s tears and prayers from apostasy from a religious state, and from a most abandoned course of life into which he fell, at the head of a troop of licentious soldiers, or rather robbers: and in expiation of his crimes, he founded four monasteries, Lobes on the Sambre in Haynault, in 653.
HE FOUNDED THE ABBEYS OF ANE, ST GUISLAIN'S, AND KRESPIN
In 686, leaving St Ursmar abbot of Lobes, he founded the abbeys of Ane, St Guislain’s, and Krespin, near Valenciennes, in which last he died.
St Aubert gave his benediction to St Guislain, and blessed his cell on the river Hannau or Haine, (which gave name to the province,) in the place which since bears his name, but was then called Ursdung or Ursidonc, i. e. Bear’s Kennel.
The blessed Count Vincent, called in the world Madelgare, his wife the blessed Waldetrude, and her sister St Aldegundes received the religious habit from the hands of St Aubert, and the latter founded the monastery of Maubeuge, the former that of Mons.
HE BUILT MANY CHURCHES
Our saint built himself many churches, and some monasteries, as Hautmont, in 652. The translation of the relics of St Vedast at Arras, was performed by him in 666, to a church at that time without the walls of the city, and St Aubert laid there the foundation of the great monastery which still flourishes.
It was soon after most munificently endowed by King Thierry or Theoderic III. who, dying in 691, after a reign of twenty-one years, was buried in this monastery with his second wife, Doda, where their monuments are seen to this day.
RELIGION AND SACRED LEARNING FLOURISHED EXCEEDINGLY
By St Aubert’s zeal, religion and sacred learning flourished exceedingly in all Haynault and Flanders. Having worthily sustained the burden of the episcopal charge for the space of thirty-six years, he died in 669, and was buried in St Peter’s church, now a famous abbey of regular canons in Cambray, which bears his name, founded in 1066, by St Lietbert, bishop of Cambray, who also founded the Benedictine abbey of St Sepulchre in Cambray, and died on June 23, 1076. St Aubert’s shrine is the richest treasure of this magnificent church and abbey.
His festival was kept from the time of his death, on December 13, as appears from the most ancient calendars of that and neighbouring churches.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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