ST EUGENIUS, BISHOP IN IRELAND - 23 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 23rd 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.

ST EUGENIUS, BISHOP IN IRELAND 

➡️ St Eoghan of Ardstraw, Bishop

The first establishment of the see of Derry was at a place called Ardfrath, on the river Derg, of which this saint [Eugenius, Eugene, Owen] was the first bishop. 

AN EXCELLENT AND ASSIDUOUS PREACHER

He was an excellent and assiduous preacher, and is said to have been of the royal blood of the kings of Leinster. 

He died on this day in 618, and was buried in his own churchyard, over whose sepulchre a chapel was afterwards built. Other writers place his death in 570. 

LONDONDERRY

Notes: Derry is called in the old Roman Provincial, Darrich, and by ancient writers, Doire Chalgaich; i. e. the Oak grove of Calgaich; from whence Adamnan, translating the name into Latin, calls it Roboretum Calgachi. It is also called Doire Choluim-chille, or Columbkill’s oak-grove, from the monastery of that saint planted there. It has now the name of Londonderry, from a colony of Londoners settled there in the reign of James I. 

Derg is a river rising out of a lake of the same name, in the barony of Tirhugh and county of Donegal. 

( From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints - 📷 1. St Eugenius, 2. Detail from St Eugenius, Co. Derry)