ST CLARUS, MARTYR - 4 NOVEMBER

 

SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 4th 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 CLARUS, MARTYR 

Saint Clarus was an Englishman by birth, of very noble extraction, was ordained priest, and leaving his own country led many years an angelical life in the county of Vexin in France. 

HE OFTEN PREACHED THE TRUTHS OF SALVATION

He often preached the truths of salvation to the inhabitants, and died a martyr of chastity, being murdered by two ruffians, employed by an impious and lewd lady of quality, about the year 894. 

He is named in the Roman and Gallican Martyrologies, and honoured with singular veneration in the diocese of Rouen, Beauvais, and Paris. 

HE IS NAMED IN THE MARTYROLOGIES

The village where he suffered martyrdom, situate upon the river Epte (which separates the Norman and French Vexins) nine leagues from Pontoise, and twelve from Rouen, bears his name, and is become a considerable town by the devotion of the people to this saint. 

His rich shrine is resorted to by crowds of pilgrims, who also visit a hermitage which stands upon the spot which was watered with his blood near the town. 

ANOTHER TOWN IS NAMED AFTER HIM

Another town in the diocese of Coutances in Normandy, which is said also to have been sanctified by his dwelling there before he retired to the Epte, is called by his name Saint Clair. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)