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ST FERREOL OF VIENNE, MARTYR - 18 SEPTEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 18th of September

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 FERREOL OF VIENNE, MARTYR 

Saint Ferreol was a tribune or colonel, lived at Vienne in Gaul, and was secretly a Christian. St Julian of Brioude, a native of that city, and a person of high birth, lodged in his house, and made public profession of the Christian faith. 

When the persecution began to rage, St Julian withdrew into Auvergne, and lay some time concealed in the house of a widow at Vinicelle near the town of Brioude, upon the banks of the Allier.

HE DISCOVERED HIMSELF TO THEM TO PROTECT THE WIDOW WHO HAD CONCEALED HIM

Certain pursuivants having got information about him, the servant of Christ discovered himself to them, that the widow who had concealed him might not be brought into danger. The soldiers cut off his head upon the spot, and carried it back with them to Vienne that his execution might strike a terror into the rest of the Christians. 

HE WAS APPREHENDED

Crispin, governor of that part of Gaul, caused St Ferreol to be apprehended upon suspicion. Finding him refuse to offer sacrifice, he told him, that as he had the honour to serve his country in so eminent a station, it became him to set to others an example of obedience. 

TO LIVE AND TO SERVE GOD

The martyr answered: "I do not so much overrate the honours and riches which I enjoy. If I may be allowed to live and to serve God, I am well satisfied; if even this seem too much, I am willing to resign my life itself rather than to abandon my religion." 

HIS CHAINS FELL OFF

The judge commanded that he should be scourged, and then laid in the dungeon loaded with chains. On the third day after this, his chains fell off his hands and legs, and seeing the door of the prison open, and his guards asleep, he made his escape, and went out of the city by the gate which led to Lyons. 

HE ESCAPED, SWIMMING OVER THE RIVER RHONE

He swam over the river Rhone, and was got as far as the river Geres which falls into the Rhone two leagues above Vienne, when he fell again into the hands of the persecutors, who tied his hands behind his back, and led him part of the way with them, till being seized with a sudden fit of savage cruelty, they cut off his head near the banks of the Rhone, about the year 304. 

PRAYERS AT HIS TOMB

The Christians of Vienne interred his body with great veneration near the same river, and the citizens experience his protection by frequent benefits which they receive from God, through the prayers which they put up at his tomb, says the author of his acts. 

A CHURCH WAS BUILT TO HOUSE HIS RELICS

The relics of Saint Ferreol are kept in the great church which is built in his honour near the river, at Vienne. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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