ST ILDEFONSUS, BISHOP OF TOLEDO - 23 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 23rd January

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 ILDEFONSUS, BISHOP

Saint Ildefonsus was a learned Benedictine abbot of a monastery called Agaliense, in a suburb of Toledo, promoted to the archbishopric of that city after the death of Eugenius, in December, 657; he sat nine years and two months, and died on January 23, 667, in the eighteenth year of king Rescisvintho. 

ON THE VIRGINITY OF OUR BLESSED LADY

His most celebrated work is a book on the Spotless Virginity of the Virgin Mary, against Helvidius, Jovinian, and a certain Jew: he breathes in it the most tender devotion to her, and confidence in her intercession with her Son. 

A SINGULAR DEVOTION TO ST LEOCADIA

He had a singular devotion to St Leocadia, patroness of Toledo. Certain sermons of St Ildefonsus on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and some letters, are published by F. Flores. Some of his letters, which were first given us by D’Achery, were reprinted by cardinal D’Aguirre. 

THIRTY-FIRST BISHOP OF TOLEDO

In Spanish this saint is called Ildefonso, and by the common people Alanso, for Alphonsus, which is an abbreviation of Ildefonsus. (See his short life by St Julian, bishop of Toledo, twenty-three years after his death.) Flores reckons St Ildefonsus the thirty-first bishop of Toledo, from St Eugenius, the disciple of St Dionysius of Paris, whom, with the writers of his country, he counts the first in the year 112. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)