ST MONCAIN, ABBOT - 1 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 1st 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 MONCAIN (MOCHUA), ABBOT

Having served his prince in the army, Saint Moncain (St Mochua, St Claunus) renounced the world, and devoted himself to God in a monastic state, with so much fervour as to become a model of perfection to others. 

HE IS SAID TO HAVE FOUNDED THIRTY CHURCHES

He is said to have founded thirty churches, and one hundred and twenty cells, and passed thirty years at one of these churches, which is called from him Teach Mochua, but died at Dayrinis on January 1, in the ninety-ninth year of his age, about the sixth century. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

THE TOWER

The Round Tower in Clondalkin village goes back to St Moncain. The structure is 27,5m high, and is thought to be one of Ireland's slenderest round towers.