ST THILLO, RECLUSE - 7 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 7th 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 THILLO, RECLUSE 

[Called in France Theau, in Flanders Tilloine, or Tilman.]  Saint Thillo was by birth a Saxon, and being made captive, was carried into the Low Countries, where he was ransomed and baptised by Saint Eligius. That apostolical man sent him to his abbey of Solignac, in Limousin. 

HIS MISSION

St Thillo was called thence by St Eligius, ordained priest, and employed by him some time at Tournay, and in other parts of the Low Countries. The inhabitants of the country of Isengihen, near Courtray, regarded him as their apostle. 

HE RETURNED TO SOLIGNAC TO LIVE AS A RECLUSE

Some years after the death of St Eligius, St Thillo returned to Solignac, and lived a recluse near that abbey, in simplicity, devotion, and austerities, imitating the Antonies and Macariuses. He died in his solitude, about the year 702, of his age ninety-four, and was honoured with miracles. 

HE WAS ONE OF THE SEVEN DISCIPLES OF ST ELIGIUS

His name is famous in the French and Belgic calendars, though it occurs not in the Roman. St Owen, in his life of St Eligius, names Thillo first among the seven disciples of that saint, who worked with him at his trade of goldsmith, and imitated him in all his religious exercises, before that holy man was engaged in the ministry of the church. 

MANY CHURCHES BEAR HIS NAME

Many churches in Flanders, Auvergne, Limousin, and other places, are dedicated to God, under his invocation. The anonymous life of St Thillo, in Bollandus, is not altogether authentic; the history which Mabillon gives of him from the Breviary of Solignac, is of more authority. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)