BL. PIERRE-MICHEL NOEL, PRIEST AND MARTYR - 5 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 5th of August

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.

BL. PIERRE-MICHEL NOEL, PRIEST AND MARTYR 

Blessed Pierre-Michel Noel was born on February 23, 1754 in Pavilly, Seine-Maritime, France. A priest in the Diocese of Rouen, Father Noel died aboard the prison ship "Two Associates" on August 5, 1794.

THE MARTYRS OF THE HULKS OF ROCHEFORD

The martyrs of the hulks of Rocheford were beatified by Pope John Paul II on October 1, 1995; the priest John Baptist Souzy (the Vicar General of La Rochelle), and 63 companions, who died as victims of suffering for the faith during the anti-Catholic persecutions of the French Revolution.

They were held on two boats that served as prisons: "The Two Associates" (Deux-Associes) and the "Washington", which were based in Rochefort, in the department of Rochelle. They were left on the hulks, cut off, and died of illness, starvation, neglect.

TRUE TO THE TRUE FAITH

There were in all 827 priests and religious prisoners, the majority of whom had refused to swear the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which would be considered an apostasy of the faith.

MOVING WRITTEN TESTIMONY

542 of them died during the months of captivity from April 11, 1794 to February 7, 1795. 285 survivors were liberated on February 12, 1795. Some of them left moving written testimony about the heroic examples of their martyred companions. 

 (📷 An early Victorian prison hulk)