ST MEMMIUS, BISHOP - 5 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 5th of 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 MEMMIUS, BISHOP 

(In French Menge, First Bishop and Apostle of Chalons, on the Marne.)

The Catalaunian plains, according to Jornandes, one hundred leagues in length, and seventy in breadth, famous for the defeat of Attila, and other great victories, gave name to the whole province of Champagne, and were the theatre of the apostolic labours of St Memmius, the first bishop and apostle of Chalons, in the decline of the third century. 

Flodoard is our voucher that he was contemporary with St Sixtus, bishop of Rheims in 290. He is honoured on August 5, the day of his death. 

THE NEXT MORNING HE FOUND HIMSELF PERFECTLY WELL

His relics, after several translations, are deposited in a rich shrine of silver gilt, together with those of his sister St Poma, and famous for many miracles. St Gregory of Tours relates that when he was travelling through Chalons his servant fell dangerously ill of a fever: St Gregory, prostrate before the tomb of St Memmius, prayed earnestly for his recovery, and the next morning the youth found himself perfectly well.  

St Memmius’s two immediate successors, Donatian and Domitian, are also honoured among the saints, and their relics enshrined in the basilica of St Memmius. Likewise St Elasius and his brother and successor Laudomerus, or Lumier, the thirteenth and fourteenth bishops of Chalons from 565 to 590, are honoured, the former on August 19, the latter on October 2, though he died on September 30. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)