ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 29th 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.
SAINT RADBOD, BISHOP OF UTRECHT, CONFESSOR
This holy prelate was, by his father, of noble French extraction; and, by his mother, Radbod, the last king or prince of the Frisons was his great grandfather, whose name was given him by his mother.
The first tincture of learning and piety he received under the tuition of Gunther, bishop of Cologne, his uncle by the mother: his education was completed in the courts of the emperors Charles the Bald, and his son Lewis the Stammerer, to which he repaired not to aspire after honours, but to perfect himself in the sciences, which were taught there by the ablest masters.
"I, RADBOD, A SINNER..."
The hymns and office of St Martin, an eclogue on St Lebwin, a hymn on St Swidbert, and some other pious poems which are extant, are monuments of his piety and application to polite literature, as it was then cultivated: but the sacred duties principally employed him.
In a short chronicle which he compiled, he says upon the year 900; "I Radbod, a sinner, have been assumed, though unworthy, into the company of the ministers of the church of Utrecht; with whom I pray that I may attain to eternal life."
HE WAS CHOSEN BISHOP
Before the end of that year he was unanimously chosen bishop of that church; but opposed his election, understanding how much more difficult and dangerous it is to command than to obey.
The obstacles which his humility and apprehensions raised, being at length removed, he put on the monastic habit, his most holy predecessors having been monks, because the church of Utrecht had been founded by priests of the monastic Order.
THE COARSEST AND MOST INSIPID FARE
After he had received the episcopal consecration, he never tasted any flesh meat, often fasted two or three days together, and allowed himself only the coarsest and most insipid fare. His charity to the poor was excessive.
By a persecution raised by obstinate sinners he was obliged to leave Utrecht; and died happily at Daventer, on November 29, 918.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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