Saints celebrated on the 7th 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 FELIX, BISHOP OF NANTES
The most illustrious among the bishops of Nantes was St Felix, a person of the first rank in Aquitaine, some say of Bourges in the First Aquitaine; others more probably think of the Second Aquitaine on the sea-coast and nearer Brittany.
In the world he was more illustrious by his virtue, his eloquence, and learning, than by his dignities and high birth. The Greek language was as familiar to him as his own; he was a poet and orator, and seems from Fortunatus’s expression to have written a panegyric on the queen St Radegundes in verse.
A ZEAL FOR DISCIPLINE AND GOOD ORDER
He had been married when he was called to succeed Evemer, the holy bishop of Nantes, toward the close of the year 549, in the 37th year of his age. His zeal for discipline and good order appeared in the regulations he made for his own diocese, and in the decrees of the third council of Paris in 557, in the second of Tours in 566, and the fourth of Paris in 573.
HIS CHARITY TO THE POOR
His charity to the poor had no other bounds but those of their necessities, and considering that the revenues of the Church were the patrimony of the poor, he reserved to himself only the prudent and troublesome administration of them for their use. He sold for them and the Church his own patrimony, and made it his study and earnest endeavour that no one in his diocese should pass unrelieved in distress.
His predecessor had formed a project of building a cathedral within the walls of the city of Nantes, which Felix executed in the most magnificent manner.
THE CATHEDRAL
Fortunatus describes it to have been composed of three naves, of which the middle was supported by great pillars. A great cupola was raised in the middle. The church was covered with tin, and within was only azure, gold, mosaic paintings, pilasters, foliages, various figures and other ornaments. Euphronius, archbishop of Tours, and the bishops of Angers, Mans, Rennes, Poitiers, and Angouleme performed the dedication; no bishop of the Britons was invited to the ceremony; from which it appears that their commerce with the French was not entirely free.
The Britons were then possessed of no lands in the diocese of Nantes except the territory of Croisic, in which was the palace of Aula Quiriaca or Guerrande, vulgarly Warand, probably so called from Guerech I. the British count of Vannes, who resided there.
FALSE INFORMATION
Canao, one of his successors, when Felix was made bishop, had put to death three of his brothers, and held a fourth named Macliau in prison. St Felix by his intercession saved his life, and obtained his liberty. St Gregory of Tours complains that bishop Felix had been prepossessed by false informations against Peter, Gregory’s brother, and accused him of favouring an unworthy nephew; but in other places bears testimony to his eminent sanctity, which is much extolled by Fortunatus and others.
HE MADE PEACE
Guerech II. count of Vannes, plundered the dioceses of Rennes and Vannes, and repulsed the troops which king Chilperic sent against him; but at the entreaties of St Felix, withdrew his forces, and made peace. The holy prelate died on January 8, 584, the seventieth year of his age, of his episcopal dignity thirty three.
He is honoured at Nantes, of which he was the sixteenth bishop from St Clair, on July 7, the day of the translation of his relics.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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