ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST
Saints celebrated on the 28th 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 EDMUND ARROWSMITH, PRIEST AND MARTYR
[St Edmund Arrowsmith, SJ, is one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.]
Father Arrowsmith [born in 1585, educated at the English College, Douai, ordained in Arras in December 1612] came to the English Mission in 1613, the year after his ordination, and resided for the most part with relatives of his family at Denham Hall.
HE RESIDED AT DENHAM HALL
About 1622 Father Arrowsmith was apprehended and brought before Dr Bridgeman, Bishop of Chester, with whom he had a controversy before being committed to Lancaster Castle. Thence he was released about the time of the negotiations for a marriage between Prince Charles (later Charles II) and a Spanish Princess.
HE JOINED THE SOCIETY OF JESUS
Shortly afterwards he joined the Society of Jesus, as he had long desired, making his novitiate on the mission, but spent two or three months in Essex before his profession under the name of Rigby in 1624.
HE WAS APPREHENDED IN 1628
From that date he continued to serve the Mission at Brindle and the neighbourhood till his apprehension in 1628. He was arraigned at Lancaster, condemned to death for being a priest, and martyred August 28, 1628, aged forty-three. The martyr’s right hand was secured by the Gerards of Bryn, and to this day is held in great veneration, at Ashton-in-Makerfield.
(Excerpts from Dom F. O. Blundell, O.S.B., Old Catholic Lancashire, Burns Oates & Washbourne Ltd., London 1925)
➡️ Eighty-five Martyrs of England and Wales
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