ST DYFRIG - 14 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 14th 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 DUBRICIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR 

[St Dyfrig] How great soever the corruption of vice was which had sunk deep into the hearts of many in the degenerate ages of the ancient Britons before the invasion of the English Saxons, God raised amongst them many eminent saints, who, by their zealous exhortations and example, invited their countrymen by penance to avert the divine wrath which was kindled over their heads. 

One of the most illustrious fathers and instructors of these saints was St Dubricius, who flourished chiefly in that part which is now called South-Wales. 

HE ERECTED TWO GREAT SCHOOLS OF SACRED LITERATURE

He erected two great schools of sacred literature at Hentlan and Mochrhes, both places, situate upon the river Wye or Vaga, which waters Brecknockshire, Radnorshire and Monmouthshire. 

In this place St Samson, St Theliau, and many other eminent saints and pastors of God’s church, were formed to virtue and the sacred ministry under the discipline of St Dubricius; and persons of all ranks and conditions resorting to him from every part of Britain, he had a thousand scholars with him for years together. 

It was this great master’s first study, to cultivate well his own soul, and to learn the interior sentiments of all virtues by listening much to the Holy Ghost in close solitude and holy meditation on divine things. 

FIRST ARCHBISHOP OF LLANDAFF

He was consecrated the first archbishop of Llandaff, by St Germanus, in a synod about the year 444, and was afterwards constituted archbishop of Caerleon, which dignity he resigned to St David in the synod of Brevi in 522. 

After this, St Dubricius retired into the solitary island of Bardsey or Euly, on the coast of Caernarvonshire, where he died and was buried: twenty thousand saints (that is, holy hermits and religious persons) are said to have been interred in that island. 

The bones of St Dubricius were afterwards removed to Llandaff. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)