ST MODWENA, VIRGIN - 5 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 5th 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 MODWENA, VIRGIN

Saint Modwena [St Modwen] led a religious life several years in her own country, she came into England in the reign of King Ethelwolf, about the year 840. 

THE KING'S NUNNERY

That pious and great king being acquainted with her sanctity, committed to her care the education of his daughter Editha, and founded for her the monastery of Pollesworth, near the forest of Arden, in Warwickshire, which flourished till the dissolution, bearing usually the name of St Editha, its patroness and second abbess.

OTHER PIOUS FOUNDATIONS

St Modwena had before established two famous nunneries in Scotland, one at Stirling, the other in Edinburgh. 

She made some other pious foundations in England; but to apply herself more perfectly to the sanctification of her own soul, she led during seven years an anchoretical life in an isle in the Trent, which was called Andresey from the apostle St Andrew, in whose honour she procured her oratory to be dedicated. 

HER RELICS

When the great abbey of Burton-upon-Trent was founded in the year 1004, it was dedicated under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin and St Modwena, and was enriched with the relics of this saint, which were translated thither from Andresey; whence Leland calls the monastery of Burton Modwenestow. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)