ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 14th 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 PETER, ARCHBISHOP OF TARANTAISE
Saint Peter was a native of Dauphine. A strong inclination to learning, assisted by a good genius and a happy memory, carried him very successfully through his studies. At twenty years of age he took the Cistercian habit at Bonnevaux, a monastery that had been lately filled by a colony sent by Saint Bernard from Clairvaux.
THEY WORKED IN PERPETUAL SILENCE
They employed a great part of the day in hewing wood, and tilling the ground in the forest, in perpetual silence and interior prayer. They ate but once a day, and their fare was herbs or roots, mostly turnips of a coarse sort. Four hours in the twenty-four was the usual allowance for sleep; so that, rising at midnight, they continued in the church till it was morning, and returned no more to rest: which was the primitive custom of that Order.
Peter practised the greatest austerities with fervour and alacrity: he was most exactly obedient, obliging to all, humble and modest.
AMEDEUS BUILT FOUR MONASTERIES
The year after Peter had taken the monastic habit, his example was followed by Amedeus, nearly related to the Emperor Conrad III and sixteen other persons of worth and distinction.
Amedeus built four monasteries of his Order: among which was that of Tamies, or Stomedium, in the desert mountains of the diocese of Tarentaise, [Tarantaise] of which he procured his intimate friend St Peter, not then quite thirty years of age, to be appointed the first abbot, in 1128.
HE DIRECTED ALL HIS WORKS FOR THE GOOD OF HIS FLOCK
In 1142, the Count of Savoy procured his election to the archbishopric of Tarentaise, [now called Monstiers, in Savoy].
He directed all his fasts, his prayers, and labours, for the good of his flock: being persuaded that the sanctification of the people committed to his charge was an essential condition for securing his own salvation. He altered nothing in the simplicity of a monastic life, and looked on the episcopal character as a laborious employment rather than a dignity. His clothes were plain, and his food coarse; for he ate nothing but brown bread, herbs, and pulse, of which the poor had always their share.
HE DISAPPEARED
In 1155, after he had borne the weight of the episcopal character thirteen years, having settled his diocese in good order, he disappeared on a sudden; and made his way to a retired monastery of Cistercians in Germany, where he was not known.
In the mean time, his family and diocess mourned for the loss of their tender father. Strict inquiry was made in all the neighbouring provinces, especially in the monasteries, but in vain; till, after some time, a young monk discovered him.
A YOUNG MONK DISCOVERED HIM
The saint was inconsolable at being discovered, and was meditating a new escape, but he was so carefully watched, that it was not in his power; so that he was forced to go back to his diocese, where he was received with the greatest demonstrations of joy. He applied himself to his functions with greater vigour than ever.
After some time, because of his holiness, humility and peacemaking skills he was ordered by the pope to go into France and Normandy, to endeavour a reconciliation between the kings of England and France, who had made peace in 1169, but quarrelled again the next year. Though then very old, he preached wherever he went.
THE KING OF ENGLAND ARRIVED
On Ash-Wednesday, in 1171, St Peter being at the Cistercian Abbey of Mortemer, in the diocese of Rouen, the King of England came thither with his whole court, and received ashes from his hands. The archbishop prevailed on the two kings to put an end to their differences by a treaty of peace.
The holy man hereupon returned to his church, but was some time after sent again by the pope to the King of England.
HE FELL SICK ON HIS RETURN
He fell sick on his return, and died the death of the just, at Bellevaux, a monastery of his Order, in the diocese of Besancon, in 1174, being seventy-three years old. He was canonised by Pope Celestine III in 1191.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
Comments
Post a Comment