ST WILLIAM, BISHOP - 29 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 29th 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 WILLIAM, BISHOP OF S. BRIEUC IN BRITTANY, CONFESSOR 

Saint William Pinchon, of an illustrious family in Brittany, was, by the innocence of his manners, his admirable meekness, humility, chastity, mortification, charity and devotion, an accomplished model of all virtues. 

HE RECEIVED THE TONSURE

He received the tonsure, and some years after the holy orders of deacon and priest, at the hands of Josselin, bishop of S. Brieuc; served that church under his two successors, Peter and Sylvester, and succeeded the latter in the episcopal dignity about the year 1220. 

THE POOR WERE HIS TREASURERS

The poor were his treasurers, and not content to exhaust on them whatever he possessed, he often borrowed great stores of corn and other necessary provisions for their relief. 

HE SLEPT ON BARE BOARDS

The bare boards were usually his bed; for his domestics discovered that he never made use of the soft bed which they prepared for him. The assiduous application to all the functions of his charge, was no hindrance to his nourishing within himself the spirit of recollection and holy prayer. 

HIS BODY WAS FOUND INCORRUPT

He died about the year 1234, on July 29, on which his name occurs in the Roman Martyrology. His body was deposited in his cathedral, and taken up incorrupt in 1284. He was canonised by Innocent IV in 1253, according to Baronius. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints - 📷 S. Brieuc)