Saints celebrated on the 3rd 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 GUNTHIERN, ABBOT
This saint flourished in the sixth century. He was a prince in Wales, which he left in his youth, and retired into Armorica to live as a recluse.
KEMPERLE
He stopped at the isle of Groie, which is about a league from the mouth of the Blavet. Grallon was then lord of the isle, and was so edified at his conversation, that he bestowed on him, for founding a monastery, the land between the confluence of the rivers Isol and Elle. For which reason even to this day, the abbey is called Kemperle, which in the old British language signifies the Conflux of Elle.
A MIRACLE
One year that a prodigious swarm of insects devoured the corn, Guerech I., count of Vannes, dreading a famine, deputed three persons of quality to engage the saint’s prayers to God for turning away the scourge.
THE INSECTS WERE DESTROYED
Gunthiern sent him water which he had blessed, which he desired to be sprinkled over the fields, and the insects were destroyed. The count, in gratitude for this extraordinary blessing, gave him the land near the river Blavet, which was then called Vernac; but is now known by the name of Hervegnac or Chervegnac.
DURING THE INCURSION OF THE NORMANS, HIS BODY WAS CONCEALED IN THE ISLE OF GROIC
The saint, it is thought, died at Kemperle. During the incursions of the Normans, his body was concealed in the isle of Groic. It was discovered in the eleventh century, and brought to the monastery of Kemperle, which now belongs to the Benedictine Order.
St Gunthiern is patron of this abbey as well as of many other churches and chapels in Brittany. He is mentioned in ancient calendars on June 29, but the moderns place his feast on July 3.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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