ST ROMARIC, ABBOT - 8th DECEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 8th of December

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 ROMARIC, ABBOT

Renouncing the court of Clotaire II. in which he enjoyed the highest honours and dignities, Saint Romaric sold great part of his estates for the benefit of the poor; and, with the residue, founded two monasteries, one for men the other for women, at the foot of Mount Vosge, now in Lorraine. 

HE FOUNDED TWO MONASTERIES

He took the monastic habit at Luxeu [Luxeuil], and procured St Amatus, a monk of that house, to be appointed first abbot at Remiremont, which was the name of the monastery which he had built. He spent several years under his direction in the same house, to which he removed. 

HE WAS ST AMATUS' SUCCESSOR

Upon the death of St Amatus he was compelled to take upon him the government of that abbey. 

The world, from which he fled, he viewed at a distance with a pious dread, and in his sanctuary enjoyed that peace which heaven alone can give. 

CHARITY, SWEETNESS, AND HUMILITY

The example of his life, and the severity which he used towards himself, were alone a censure of the slothful. Charity, sweetness, and humility formed the character of his virtue. 

Having made it his chief study, during the twenty-six years of his abbacy, to learn to die, he joyfully received the last summons, and departed from this life to a better in 653. 

His name is inserted in the Gallican and Roman Martyrologies. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)