ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 15th 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 LEOPOLD, MARQUIS OF AUSTRIA, CONFESSOR
Leopold, the fourth of that name, from his infancy commonly called The Pious, was son of Leopold III and Itta, daughter to the Emperor Henry IV.
By attending diligently to the instructions of God’s ministers, and meditating assiduously on the pure maxims of the gospel, he learned that there is but one common rule of salvation for princes and private persons: this he studied, and from his cradle he laboured to square by it his whole life.
"THE PIOUS"
In his youth he laid a good foundation of learning; but it was his chief study to live only for eternity, to curb his passions, to mortify his senses, to renounce worldly pleasures, to give much of his time to prayer and holy meditation, and to apply himself to the exercise of all manner of good works, especially those of almsdeeds and charity.
By the death of his father, in 1096, he saw it was become his indispensable duty to study and procure in all things the happiness of a numerous nation committed by God to his charge.
HE EARNESTLY ASKED GOD FOR WISDOM
The Austrians were then a very gross and superstitious people. The saint prepared himself for it by earnestly asking of God that wisdom which he stood in need of for it; and by active endeavours, through the divine blessing, succeeded beyond what could have been hoped for.
He was affable to all, studied to do good to every one, and eased as much as possible all public burdens of the people.
HIS PALACE SEEMED THE SEAT OF VIRTUE
His palace seemed the seat of virtue, justice, and universal goodness. When he was constrained to proceed to punishments, he endeavoured to engage the criminals to receive them with patience, and in a spirit of penance, and to acknowledge the severity which he used, to be necessary and just. He pardoned malefactors as often as prudence allowed him to do it: for he considered that the maintenance of justice and the public peace and safety depended upon the strict execution of the laws.
When the civil war broke out between the unnatural excommunicated emperor, Henry IV, and his own son, Henry V, Leopold was prevailed upon to join the latter, to whose cause he gave the greatest weight. Motives of justice and religion, and the authority of others determined him to take this step; yet Cuspinian tells us, that he afterwards did remarkable penance for the share which he had in those transactions.
HE MARRIED AGNES, A MOST VIRTUOUS PRINCESS
In 1106 he took to wife Agnes, a most virtuous and accomplished princess, daughter to the Emperor Henry IV, sister to Henry V, and widow of Frederic, duke of Suabia, by whom she had Conrad, afterwards emperor, and Frederic, father of Frederic Barbarossa.
THEY HAD EIGHTEEN CHILDREN
To St Leopold she bore eighteen children, of whom seven died in their infancy: the rest rendered their names famous by great and virtuous actions.
Albert, the eldest, having given uncommon proofs of his valour and military skill, died in Pannonia, a few days after his father. Leopold, the second, succeeded his father in Austria, and reigned also in Bavaria. Otho, the fifth son, made great progress in his studies at Paris, became first a Cistercian monk, and abbot of Morimond, was afterwards chosen bishop of Frisingen, accompanied the Emperor Conrad into the Holy Land, and died at Morimond in great sentiments of piety. His famous Chronicle from the beginning of the world, and other works, are monuments of his application to his studies.
TOGETHER, THEY READ THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
The Marchioness Agnes would have her part in all her husband’s good works. With him she read the holy scriptures, and with joy interrupted her sleep in the night to rise to the usual midnight devotions of the church, to which this religious couple added together long meditations on the truths of everlasting life.
THE MONASTERY OF THE HOLY CROSS
Leopold, in the year 1117, founded the monastery of the Holy Cross, of the Cistercian Order, twelve Italian miles from Vienna, near the castle of Kalnperg, where he lived.
The saint and his religious marchioness were desirous to have been able to watch continually at the foot of the altar in singing the divine praises; but being obliged by their station in the world often to attend other affairs, though in all these they found God, whose holy will and greater glory they proposed to themselves in every thing they did; they resolved to found a great monastery of fervent regular canons, who might be substituted in their places, to attend night and day to this angelical function. This they executed by the foundation of the noble monastery of Our Lady of New Clausterberg, eight miles from Vienna.
The marquis out of humility would not lay the first stone, but caused that ceremony to be performed by a priest. The church was dedicated in 1118 by the archbishop of Salzburg, assisted by the bishop of Passau, the diocesan, and the bishop of Gurck.
The foundation was confirmed by the pope, and by a charter of Leopold, signed by Ottacar, marquis of Stiria, and many other counts and noblemen, in presence of the bishops, who fulminated an excommunication, with dreadful anathemas, against any who should invade the rights or lands of this monastery, or injure or molest the poor servants of Christ, who there followed the rule of St Austin [Augustine].
THE INVASION BY STEPHEN II.
Stephen II, king of Hungary, invaded Austria, but was repulsed by St Leopold, who defeated his troops in a pitched battle. The Hungarians returned some years after, but were met by the holy marquis on his frontiers, and their army so ill handled that they were glad to save their remains by a precipitate flight.
Upon the death of Henry V in 1125, some of the electors and many others desired to see Leopold raised to the imperial dignity: but the election of Lothaire II duke of Saxony, prevailed.
A STRANGER TO JEALOUSY AND AMBITION
Conrad and Frederic, sons of the Marchioness Agnes by the Duke of Suabia, who had also stood candidates, raised great disturbances in the empire, to which they afterwards both succeeded. But Leopold adhered with such fidelity to Lothaire, as to give manifest proofs of his sincere disinterestedness, and to show how perfectly a stranger he was to jealousy and ambition. He attended the emperor as his friend in his journey into Italy.
A HAPPY DEATH
After a glorious and happy reign he was visited with his last sickness, in which he confessed his sins with many tears, received extreme unction and the other rites of the church, and, never ceasing to call on Christ his Redeemer, and to recommend his soul, through his precious death, into his divine hands, with admirable tranquillity and resignation, passed to a state of happy immortality on November 15, 1136.
He was buried at his monastery of New Clausterberg, two German miles from Vienna, and on his and his holy consort’s anniversaries two large doles are still distributed by the community to all the poor that come to receive it.
St Leopold was honoured by God with many miracles, and was canonised by Innocent VIII in 1485.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
Comments
Post a Comment