ST FIRMINUS II, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR - 1 SEPTEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 1st 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 FIRMINUS II., BISHOP AND CONFESSOR 

Saint Firminus was the third bishop of Amiens. His father, Faustinian, prefect of Gaul, who had been baptised by St Firman, the martyr, in his honour gave him his name. 

HE ADMINISTERED THE SEE WITH GREAT ZEAL

Eulogius, the second bishop of Amiens, who had assisted at the council of Cologne in 346, and at that of Sardica in 347, being dead, St Firminus II was placed in that see, which he administered with great zeal and sanctity during forty years.

HE WAS BURIED IN THE CHURCH OF OUR LADY

He was buried in the church of our Lady, now called of St Acheul, a martyr of that country, which he had built; from which St Salvius in the seventh age translated it into the cathedral on the 2nd of January. The dispute concerning them, raised by the regular canons of St Acheul, was determined in favour of the secular canons of the cathedral by the opening of his shrine in 1715. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)