ST NATHALAN, BISHOP - 8 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 8th of 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 NATHALAN, BISHOP OF ABERDEEN, CONFESSOR

Saint Nathalan [St Nachlan] possessed a large estate, which he distributed among the poor: and seeing that agriculture is an employment best suiting a life of contemplation, he made this an exercise of penance, joining with the same, assiduous prayer. 

HE BECAME BISHOP

He was a proficient in profane and sacred learning, and being made bishop, (to which dignity he was raised by the pope, in a journey of devotion which he made to Rome,) he continued to employ his revenues in charities as before, living himself in great austerity by the labour of his hands, and at the same time preaching the gospel to the people. 

By his means Scotland was preserved from the Pelagian heresy. He was one of the apostles of that country, and died in 452. 

HE IS FAMOUS FOR MIRACLES

He resided at Tullicht, now in the diocese of Aberdeen, and built the churches of Tullicht Bothelim, and of the Hill; in the former of these he was buried, and it long continued to be famous for miracles wrought by his relics, which were preserved there till the change of religion. See King, the Chronicles of Dumferling, and the lessons of the Aberdeen Breviary on this day.  

THE SEE OF ABERDEEN

The see of Aberdeen was not then regularly established; it was first erected at Murthlac by St Bean, in the beginning of the eleventh century, and translated thence to Aberdeen by Nectan, the fourth bishop, in the reign of king David. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)