ST VIVENTIUS, PRIEST AND HERMIT - 13 JANUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JANUARY

Saints celebrated on the 13th 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 VIVENTIUS, PRIEST AND HERMIT

This holy priest of Vergey (Vergiacum) in Burgundy features in the Roman Martyrology on this day.

According to legend, he was a native of Samaria and was converted to the Christian faith by a bishop called  Georgius at Antioch. Eventually he was ordained a priest. 

He now began to preach the gospel in his homeland and, after converting his own parents, turned to Greece and Macedonia. 

HE EMBARKED TO ROME

At Thessalonica he smashed the idols in the house of governor Dacianus by merely making the holy sign of the cross. He freed the governor's daughter from demons, and converted her to the Christian faith along with 200 other people. 

After that, he embarked for Rome with 40 companions, with valuable church objects in his baggage, which were to be donated in Rome. 

HERMIT LIFE

After completing their mission and also visiting the tombs of the apostles, he and his companions moved to Gaul to henceforth live as hermits from then on. Here he visited the holy bishop Hilarius, and asked him permission to settle near the Castle Gravion, (later the monastery of Quincey in the Poitou countryside was built in that area). 

HE WENT TO AN EVEN LONELIER PLACE

Viventius himself did not stay there for too long, but went instead into the solitude of the island of Olonne (Olonia), now called Sables d'Olonne, where he is said to have died. Another story reports that he returned to Graoion in a very old age and died there. He died in A.D. 400. His relics, which had rested for a time at Amance (Amausum), where a monastery existed, were transferred to Vergey (Vergiacum). It is hardly necessary to add expressly that this legend has no historical authentication whatsoever.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858 - 📷 Statue of St Michael in Sables d'Olonne)