ST EVERILDIS, VIRGIN - 9 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 9th 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 EVERILDIS, VIRGIN

Kinegils, king of the West-Saxons, having been baptised by St Berinus in 635, this holy virgin had the happiness of being brought to the knowledge of Christ. 

In order to devote herself most perfectly to the service and love of her heavenly spouse, she fled secretly from the house of her parents to seek some holy monastery of nuns, and was joined in the way by two other virgins named Bega and Wuldreda. 

SHE FLED SECRETLY FROM THE HOUSE OF HER PARENTS

St Wilfrid gave her a spot called before the Bishop’s Dwelling, but since her time Everildisham, that is, the dwelling of Everildis. 

Here she trained up many virgins to the perfection of divine love, the summit of Christian virtue, by animating them with the true spirit, and continually encouraging them in the most fervent and most faithful discharge of all the duties, and application to all the exercises of their holy profession. 

SHE TRAINED UP MANY VIRGINS TO THE PERFECTION OF DIVINE LOVE

She went to God on July 9, on which day Solier the Bollandist found her name in an ancient copy of Usuard’s Martyrology. F. Alford sent to Bollandus a transcript of lessons used formerly in some church now unknown. Her name does not occur in any English or Irish Calendar now extant, nor has Alford mentioned her in his annals. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)