ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 7th of September
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SAINT CLOUD, PRINCE AND PRIEST
Saint Cloud, called in Latin Chlodoardus, is the first and most illustrious saint among the princes of the royal family of the first race in France. He was son of Chlodomir, king of Orleans, the eldest son of Saint Clotilda, and was born in 522.
HIS FATHER WAS KILLED
He was scarcely three years old when his father was killed in Burgundy in 524; but his grandmother, Clotilda, brought up him and his two brothers, Theobald and Gunthaire, at Paris, and loved them extremely.
Their ambitious uncles, Childebert, king of Paris, and Clotaire, king of Soissons, divided the kingdom of Orleans between them, and stabbed with their own hands the two eldest of their nephews, Theobald and Gunthaire, the former being ten, the latter seven years old. Cloud, by a special providence, was saved from the massacre, and cut off his hair with his own hands, by that ceremony renouncing the world, and devoting himself to the service of God in a monastic state.
HUMILITY, MEEKNESS, AND PATIENCE
He had many fair opportunities of recovering his father’s kingdom; but, young as he was, he saw by the light of grace that all that appears most dazzling in worldly greatness is no better than smoke, and that a Christian gains infinitely more by losing than by possessing it.
The pious prince constantly maintained by humility, meekness, and patience, by austerity of life, watchfulness, assiduous prayer, and holy contemplation. By this means he enjoyed in a little cell a peace which was never interrupted by scenes of ambition or vanity.
HE DAILY THANKED GOD WHO HAD DRAWN HIM OUT OF BABYLON
Coarse clothing gave him more satisfaction than the richest purple could have done; he enjoyed in his own breast and in his cell all he desired to possess in this world, and he daily thanked God who had drawn him out of Babylon before he was infected with its corruption and intoxicating Circean wine. His contempt of all earthly things increased in proportion as he advanced in virtue and heavenly light.
HE WAS ORDAINED PRIEST BY EUSEBIUS
After some time he removed from his first abode to put himself under the discipline of Saint Severinus, a holy recluse who lived near Paris, from whose hands he received the monastic habit. He was ordained priest by Eusebius, bishop of Paris, in 551, and served that church some time in the functions of the sacred ministry.
HE EXHORTED THEM ALL TO VIRTUE
He afterwards retired to Nogent, on the Seine, now called Saint Cloud, two leagues below Paris, where he built a monastery dependent on the church of Paris. In this monastery he assembled many pious men, who fled out of the world for fear of losing their souls in it. Saint Cloud was regarded by them as their superior, and he animated them to all virtue both by word and example. All his inheritance he bestowed on churches, or distributed among the poor.
HIS HOLY DEATH
St Cloud was indefatigable in instructing and exhorting the people of the neighbouring country, and piously ended his days at Nogent about the year 560. He is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on September 7, which seems to have been the day of his death.
Source: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints
PRAYER:
May the intercession of Saint Cloud commend us to you, so that through his merits we may obtain that which we cannot accomplish by our own. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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