ST PHILIBERT, ABBOT - 20 AUGUST

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST

Saints celebrated on the 20th 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 PHILIBERT, ABBOT 

Saint Philibert was born in Gascony. His father educated him and then sent him to the court of Clotaire II where the example and instructions of Saint Ouen made so deep an impression on him, that, disgusted with the world, he, at the age of twenty years, took the habit in the abbey of Rebais in the diocese of Meaux, founded by Saint Ouen. 

After some time he retired into Neustria, now called Normandy. Clovis II and queen Matilda gave him ground in the forest of Jumieges, where he founded the monastery which bears his name. 

HE REPROACHED THE MAYOR OF THE PALACE

He inured his subjects to hard labour, obliging them to remove the rocks and drain the morasses which covered the country; and the community of Jumieges increased in a short time to such a degree, that it consisted of nine hundred monks. He also built a monastery for women at Pavilly. 

St Philibert having some business at the court in 674, boldly reproached Ebroin, mayor of the palace, for his many acts of injustice. This brought on him persecution so violently that he was obliged to quit Jumieges. 

HE RETIRED TO HERO AND FOUNDED A MONASTERY

The saint then retired to Poitiers, and afterwards to the little island of Hero, on the coast of Poitou, where he founded a monastery, formerly called Hermoutier, now Nermoutier or Noirmoutier. He shut himself up at Hermoutier, where he died in 684. 

In the Norman incursions the monks of Hermoutier translated his relics to the monastery of Tournus in the diocese of Macron; which house, together with other possessions, was the gift of Charles the Bald. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)