ST VANENG, CONFESSOR - 9 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 9th 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.

SAINT VANENG, CONFESSOR 

[Saint Waningus] From various fragments of ancient histories of his life, the most modern of which was compiled in the twelfth century, it appears that Vaneng was made by Clotaire III. governor of that part of Neustria, or Normandy, which was anciently inhabited by the Caletes, and is called Pais de Caux, at which time he took great pleasure in hunting. 

ST EULALIA APPEARED TO HIM IN A DREAM

Nevertheless, he was very pious, and particularly devout to St Eulalia of Barcelona, called in Guienne St Aulaire. One night he seemed in a dream to hear that holy Virgin and Martyr repeat to him those words of our blessed Redeemer in the gospel, that “it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to be saved.” 

"IT IS EASIER FOR A CAMEL TO PASS THROUGH THE EYE OF A NEEDLE, THAN FOR A RICH MAN TO BE SAVED"

Soon after this, he quitted the world, assisted St Vandrille in building the churches of SS. Peter and Paul at Fontenelles, and founded in the valley of Fécamp a church in honour of the holy Trinity, with a great nunnery adjoining, under the direction of St Owen and St Vandrille. 

HILDEMARCA WAS APPOINTED FIRST ABBESS

Hildemarca, a very virtuous nun, was called from Bourdeaux, and appointed the first abbess. Under her three hundred and sixty nuns served God in this house, and were divided into as many choirs as were sufficient, by succeeding one another, to continue the divine office night and day without interruption. 

PATRON OF SEVERAL CHURCHES

St Vaneng died about the year 688, and is honoured, in the Gallican and Benedictine Martyrologies, on January 9; but at St Vandrille’s and in other monasteries in Normandy, on January 31. This saint is titular patron of several churches in Aquitaine and Normandy; one near Touars in Poictou, has given its name to the village of St Vaneng. His body is possessed in a rich shrine, in the abbatial church of our Lady at Ham, in Picardy, belonging to the regular canons of St Genevieve. Fécamp is honoured by the dukes of Normandy above all their other monasteries, is the richest and most magnificent abbey in Normandy.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints - 📷 Interior of Trinity Abbey, Fécamp)