ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST
Saints celebrated on the 11th 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 GERY, OR GAUGERICUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR
Saint Gaugericus (Gery) was a [7th century] native of Yvois, in the diocese of Triers, at present a small but strong town in the duchy of Luxembourg.
He was brought up at home in the study of sacred learning, and in the assiduous practice of self-denial, watching, prayer, and almsdeeds.
HE WAS PRESERVED FROM CORRUPTION OF MORALS AND SENTIMENTS
This private education preserved him from that corruption of morals and sentiments into which youth too often fall, whilst to fashion themselves to the polite and refined manners of the world they are trained up in pleasure and vanity, and frequently exposed to the most baneful influence of bad company.
St Magneric, the successor of St Nicetas in the bishopric of Triers, coming to Yvois was much delighted with the sanctity and talents of St Gery, and ordained him deacon; from that moment the saint redoubled his fervour in the exercise of all good works, and applied himself with unwearied zeal to the functions of his sacred ministry, especially to the instruction of the faithful.
HE BECAME BISHOP
The reputation of his virtue and learning raised him to the episcopal chair of Cambray and Arras, which sees remained united from the death of St Vedast to the year 1093. This saint continued his labours in that charge for thirty-nine years, and entirely extirpated out of that country the remains of idolatry.
FROM TIME TO TIME HE BETOOK HIMSELF TO SOME RETIRED SOLITUDE
Lest through the multitude of affairs he should in any degree forget that the sanctification of his own soul was his first and most essential duty, and that, without attending to this in the first place, he could hope for little fruit of his labours for the salvation of others, and could not expect that God would make any account of them, he was careful to season them with assiduous recollection, prayer, and self-examination; but from time to time he betook himself to some retired solitude, there to attend to God alone and to recommend to him, by fervent prayer, the souls intrusted to his care.
HE HEALED A LEPER BY BAPTISING HIM
Among other miracles recounted of him, it is related by the author of his life, that at Yvois a leper was healed by being baptised by him; which aptly represented the interior cleansing of the soul from sin.
THEY TOOK HIS RELICS WITH THEM
St Gery was called to eternal rest on August 11, 619, and was buried in the church which he had built in honour of St Medard. This being demolished by the emperor Charles V. for the building of the citadel, the canons were removed, and took with them the relics of our saint, to an old church of St Vedast, which from that time has borne the name of St Gery.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
Comments
Post a Comment