ST RIGOBERT, BISHOP - 4 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 4th 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 RIGOBERT, BISHOP

Saint Rigobert (Robert) was abbot of Orbais, afterward bishop of Rheims, was favoured with the gift of miracles, and suffered an unjust banishment under Charles Martel. 

PENANCE AND PRAYER

He was recalled by Pepin, but finding Milo in possession of his see, retired to Gernicour, a village four or five leagues from Rheims, where he led a retired life in the exercises of penance and prayer. 

He died about the year 750, and was buried in the church of St Peter at Gernicour, which he had built. 

THE TRANSLATION OF HIS RELICS

Hinomar, the fifth bishop from him, translated his relics to the abbey of St Theodoric, and nine years after, to the church of St Dionysius at Rheims. Fulco, Hincmar’s successor, removed them into the metropolitan church of our Lady, in which the greater part is preserved in a rich shrine; but a portion is kept in the church of St Dionysius there, and another portion in the cathedral of Paris, where a chapel bears his name. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)