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ST BRUNO, BISHOP OF SEGNI - 18 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 18th of July

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 BRUNO, BISHOP OF SEGNI, CONFESSOR

He was of the illustrious family of the lords of Asti in Piemont, and born near that city. From his cradle he considered that man’s happiness is only to be found in loving God: and to please him in all his actions was his only and his most ardent desire. 

A MAN'S HAPPINESS IS ONLY TO BE FOUND IN LOVING GOD

He made his studies in the monastery of St Perpetuus, in the diocese of Asti. Bosch proves that he never was canon of Asti, but enjoyed some years a canonry at Sienna, as he himself informs us. 

In the Roman council in 1079, he defended the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the blessed Eucharist against Berengarius; and Pope Gregory VII nominated him bishop of Segni in the ecclesiastical state in 1081. 

BISHOP OF SEGNI

Bruno, who had been compelled to submit, after a long and strenuous resistance, served his flock, and on many important occasions the universal church with unwearied zeal. 

Gregory VII who died in 1085, Victor III formerly abbot of mount Cassino, who died in 1087, and Urban II who had been scholar to St Bruno (afterwards institutor of the Carthusians) at Rheims, then a monk at Cluni, and afterwards bishop of Ostia, had the greatest esteem for our saint. 

HE ASSISTED AT THE COUNCIL OF TOURS

He attended Urban II into France in 1095, and assisted at the council of Tours in 1096. 

HE WITHDREW TO MONTE CASSINO

After his return into Italy he continued to labour for the sanctification of his soul and that of his flock, till not being able any longer to resist his inclination for solitude and retirement, he withdrew to mount Cassino, and put on the monastic habit. 

The people of Segni demanded him back; but Oderisus, abbot of mount Cassino, and several cardinals, whose mediation the saint employed, prevailed upon the pope to allow his retreat. 

BRUNO WAS CHOSEN ABBOT

The abbot Oderisus was succeeded by Otho in 1105, and this latter dying in 1107, the monks chose bishop Bruno abbot. He was often employed by the pope in important commissions, and by his writings laboured to support ecclesiastical discipline and to extirpate simony. This vice he looked upon as the source of all the disorders which excited the tears of all zealous pastors in the church, by filling the sanctuary with hirelings, whose worldly spirit raises an insuperable opposition to that of the gospel. 

WHAT WOULD HE HAVE SAID?

What would this saint have said had he seen the collation of benefices, and the frequent translations of bishops in some parts, which serve to feed and inflame avarice and ambition in those in whom above all others, a perfect disengagement from earthly things and crucifixion of the passions ought to lay a foundation of the gospel temper and spirit? 

Paschal II formerly a monk of Cluni, succeeded Urban II in the pontificate in 1099. 

By his order St Bruno having been abbot of mount Cassino about four years, returned to his bishopric, having resigned his abbacy, and left his abbatial crozier on the altar. 

HIS HAPPY DEATH

He continued faithfully to discharge the episcopal functions to his death, which happened at Segni on August 31, 1125. He was canonised by Lucius III in 1183, and his feast is kept in Italy on July 18. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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