Saints celebrated on the 8th 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 WITHBURGE, VIRGIN
Saint Withburge was the youngest of the four sisters, all saints, daughters of Annas the holy king of the East-Angles.
AN AUSTERE LIFE
In her tender years she devoted herself to the divine service, and led an austere life in close solitude for several years at Holkham, an estate of the king her father, near the sea-coast in Norfolk, where a church, afterwards called Withburgstow, was built.
After the death of her father she changed her dwelling to another estate of the crown called Dereham. This is at present a considerable market town in Norfolk, but was then an obscure retired place.
AN OBSCURE PLACE
Withburge assembled there many devout virgins, and laid the foundation of a great church and nunnery, but did not live to finish the buildings.
SHE DID NOT LIVE TO FINISH THE BUILDINGS
Her holy death happened on March 17, 743. Her body was interred in the church-yard at Dereham, and fifty-five years after, found incorrupt, and translated into the church.
One hundred and seventy-six years after this, in 974, Brithnoth, (the first abbot of Ely, after that house, which had been destroyed by the Danes, was rebuilt,) with the consent of King Edgar, removed it to Ely, and deposited it near the bodies of her two sisters.
TRANSLATION OF THE RELICS
In 1106 the remains of the four saints were translated into the new church and laid near the high altar. The bodies of SS. Seaxburga and Ermenilda were reduced to dust, except the bones. That of St Audry was entire, and that of St Withburge was not only sound but also fresh, and the limbs perfectly flexible. Warner, a monk of Westminster, showed this to all the people, by lifting up and moving several ways the hands, arms, and feet. Herbert, bishop of Thetford, who in 1094 translated his see to Norwich, and many other persons of distinction were eyewitnesses hereof.
A SPRING OF CLEAR WATER
This is related by Thomas, a monk of Ely, which he wrote the year following, 1107. This author tells us, that in the place where St Withburge was first buried, in the church-yard of Dereham, a large fine spring of most clear water gushes forth. It is to this day called St Withburge’s well, was formerly very famous, and is paved, covered and enclosed; a stream from it forms another small well without the church-yard.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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