ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 2nd 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 WILLIAM OF ROSKILDE, BISHOP
Saint William was an English priest of eminent sanctity and zeal, and chaplain to king Canutus. In one of the voyages which that prince made from England to Denmark, the zealous servant of God who attended him, was so moved with compassion at the sight of the ignorance, idolatry and superstition under which that nation groaned, that he desired to stay behind to preach Christ, and the pure maxims of the gospel. He gained innumerable souls to God, and was advanced to the episcopal see of Roschild [Roskilde] in the island of Zealand.
HE GAINED INNUMERABLE SOULS TO GOD
King Swein, having once caused some persons to be put to death without a public or legal trial, the saint met him at the church door the next day, and holding out his pastoral staff, forbade him to enter the house of God till his hands were cleansed from the blood he had unjustly spilled; and seeing some of the courtiers draw their swords, he presented his neck, saying he was ready to die in defence of the church of God.
HE WAS READY TO DIE IN DEFENCE OF THE CHURCH OF GOD
The king, who had always the highest veneration for the holy prelate, entered into himself, bitterly bewailing his sin, and after doing penance and making satisfaction, was conducted into the church by the bishop himself.
THE CAUSE OF PIETY AND RELIGION
From that time the saint and the penitent concurred, with all their strength, in the most perfect union of hearts, to promote the cause of piety and religion. Upon the death of the king his corpse was conveyed to Roschild, the burial place, and at that time the ordinary residence of the kings of Denmark. St William, dying at the same time, was interred together with him, and in the same place, in 1067, having passed forty years in Denmark.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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