ST LUCIAN OF BEAUVAIS, MARTYR - 8 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 8th of January

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 LUCIAN, APOSTLE OF BEAUVAIS, MARTYR  

Saint Lucian preached the gospel in Gaul, in the third century; came from Rome, and was probably one of the companions of St Dionysius of Paris, or at least of St Quintin. 

HE WAS CROWNED WITH MARTYRDOM

He sealed his mission with his blood at Beauvais, under Julian, vicar or successor to the bloody persecutor Rictius Varus, in the government of Gaul, about the year 290. 

Maximian, called by the common people Messien, and Julian, the companions of his labours, were crowned with martyrdom at the same place a little before him. 

HIS RELICS

His relics, with those of his two colleagues, were discovered in the seventh age, as St Owen informs us in his life of St Eligius. They are shown in three gilt shrines, in the abbey which bears his name, and was founded in the eighth century. Rabanus Maurus says, that these relics were famous for miracles in the ninth century.   

WAS HE A BISHOP?

St Lucian is styled only martyr, in most calendars down to the sixteenth century, and in the Roman Martyrology, and the calendar of the English protestants, in all which it is presumed that he was only priest; but a calendar compiled in the reign of Lewis le debonnaire, gives him the title of bishop, and he is honoured in that quality at Beauvais. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)