ST GOBAIN OF IRELAND - 20 JUNE

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 20th of June

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 GOBAIN OF IRELAND 

Having served God from his childhood in Ireland, his own country, and being there ordained priest by St Fursey, St Gobain travelled into France soon after that holy man, out of a desire more perfectly to consecrate himself to God. 

HE WITHDREW INTO THE FOREST

He made a short stay at Corbeny, before the abbey was there built, and afterwards at Laon. From there he withdrew into the great forest near the river Oise, where at the distance of two leagues from that river, and as far from Le Fere and Premontre, he built himself a cell, and afterwards, with the help of the people, a stately church, which was consecrated under the patronage of St Peter, but long since bears the name of St Gobain. 

HERE HE SERVED GOD

King Clotaire III, who reigned in Neustria and Burgundy from the year 656 to 670, had bestowed on him the land. Here the saint served God in watching, fasting, and prayer, till certain barbarians from the north of Germany plundering that country, out of hatred to his holy profession, beheaded him. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)