ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 5th of November
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 BERTILLE, ABBESS
Saint Bertille [St Berthild] was born of one of the most illustrious families in the territory of Soissons, in the reign of Dagobert I., and by her piety acquired the true nobility of the children of God.
From her infancy she preferred the love of God to that of creatures, shunned as much as possible the company and amusements of the world, and employed her time in serious duties, and chiefly in holy prayer. As she grew up, by relishing daily more and more the sweetness of conversing with God, she learned perfectly to despise the world, and earnestly desired to renounce it.
SHE PREFERRED THE LOVE OF GOD TO THAT OF CREATURES
Not daring to discover this inclination to her parents, she first opened herself to St Ouen, by whom she was encouraged in her resolution; but they both took some time to pray the Father of lights that he would guide her according to his holy will. These means having been employed, the saint’s parents were made acquainted with her desire, which God inclined them not to oppose.
SHE CONFIDED IN ST OUEN
They conducted her to Jouarre, a great monastery in Brie, four leagues from Meaux, founded not long before, about the year 630, by Ado, the elder brother of St Ouen, who took the monastic habit there with many other young noblemen, and established a nunnery in the neighbourhood, which became the principal house.
St Thelchildes, a virgin of noble descent, who seems to have been educated or first professed in the monastery of Faremoutier, was the first abbess of Jouarre, and governed that house till about the year 660. By her and her religious community St Bertille was received with great joy and trained up in the strictest practice of monastic perfection.
Our saint looking upon this solitude as a secure harbour, never ceased to return thanks to God for his infinite mercy in having drawn her out of the tempestuous ocean of the world: but was persuaded she could never deserve to become the spouse of Jesus Christ, unless she endeavoured to follow him in the path of humiliation and self-denial.
A MODEL OF HUMILITY
By her perfect submission to all her sisters she seemed every one’s servant, and in her whole conduct was a model of humility, obedience, regularity, and devotion.
Though she was yet young, her prudence and virtue appeared consummate, and the care of entertaining strangers, of the sick, and of the children that were educated in the monastery was successively committed to her.
PRUDENCE AND VIRTUE
In all these employments she had acquitted herself with great charity and edification when she was chosen prioress to assist the abbess in her administration. In this office, her tender devotion, her habitual sense of the divine presence, and her other virtues shone forth with new lustre, and had a wonderful influence in the direction of the whole community.
Every one, by her example, was ashamed to fail in any part of the practice of the like devotion, or in the most punctual and scrupulous observance of the least rule of monastic discipline.
SCRUPULOUS OBSERVANCE OF MONASTIC DISCIPLINE
When St Bathildes, wife of Clovis II., munificently refounded the abbey of Chelles, which St Clotildis had instituted near the Marne, four leagues from Paris, she desired St Thelchildes to furnish this new community with a small colony of the most experienced and virtuous nuns of Jouarre, who might direct the novices in the rule of monastic perfection.
Bertille was sent at the head of this holy company, and was appointed first abbess of Chelles, in 646, or thereabouts.
THE FIRST ABBESS OF CHELLES
The reputation of the sanctity and prudence of our saint, and the excellent discipline which she established in this house drew several foreign princesses thither. Among others Bede mentions Hereswith, queen of the East-Angles. She was daughter of Hereric, brother, or brother-in-law, to St Edwin, king of Northumberland, and married the religious King Annas, with whose consent she renounced the world, and passing into France in 646, became a nun at Chelles, and there happily finished her earthly pilgrimage.
THE QUEEN RECEIVED THE RELIGIOUS HABIT FROM HER
Queen Bathildes, after the death of her husband, in 655, was left regent of the kingdom during the minority of her son Clotaire III.; but as soon as he was of age to govern, in 665, she retired hither, took the religious habit from the hands of St Bertille, obeyed her as if she had been the last sister in the house, and passed to the glory of the angels in 680.
SHE STROVE TO REDOUBLE HER PENANCES
St Bertille governed this great monastery for the space of forty-six years with equal vigour and discretion. In her old age, far from abating her fervour, she strove daily to redouble it both in her penances and in her devotions. In these holy dispositions of fervour the saint closed her penitential life in 692.
(Excerpts from Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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