ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY
Saints celebrated on the 6th of February
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 on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.
ST AMANDUS, BISHOP [PATRON SAINT OF BARTENDERS]
St Amandus was born near Nantes, of pious parents, lords of that territory. At twenty years of age, he retired into a small monastery in the little isle of Oye, near that of Rhé. He had not been there above a year, when his father found him out, and made use of every persuasive argument in his power to prevail with him to quit that state of life. To his threats of disinheriting him, the saint cheerfully answered: “Christ is my only inheritance.”
"CHRIST IS MY ONLY INHERITANCE"
The saint went to Tours, and a year after to Bourges, where he lived near fifteen years under the direction of St Austregisilus, the bishop, in a cell near the cathedral.
HIS ASCETICISM
His clothing was a single sack-cloth, and his sustenance barley-bread and water. After a pilgrimage to Rome, he was ordained in France a missionary bishop, without any fixed see, in 628, and commissioned to preach the faith to infidels.
HE PREACHED THE GOSPEL IN FLANDERS
He preached the gospel in Flanders, and among the Sclavi in Carinthia and other provinces near the Danube: but being banished by King Dagobert, whom he had boldly reproved for his scandalous crimes, he preached to the pagans of Gascony and Navarre.
ST SIGEBERT'S BAPTISM
Dagobert soon recalled him, threw himself at his feet to beg his pardon, and caused him to baptise his new-born son, St Sigebert, afterwards king.
HE WAS OFTEN BEATEN UP - HE CONTINUED PREACHING
The idolatrous people about Ghent were so savage, that no preacher durst venture himself amongst them. This moved the saint to choose that mission; during the course of which he was often beaten, and sometimes thrown into the river: he continued preaching, though for a long time he saw no fruit, and supported himself by his labour.
THEY WERE CONVERTED BY HIS RAISING A DEAD MAN TO LIFE
The miracle of his raising a dead man to life, at last opened the eyes of the barbarians, and the country came in crowds to receive baptism, destroying the temples of their idols with their own hands.
TWO MONASTERIES
In 633, the saint having built them several churches, founded two great monasteries in Ghent, both under the patronage St Peter; one was named Blandinberg, from the hill of Blandin on which it stands, now the rich abbey of St Peter’s; the other took the name of St Bavo, from him who gave his estate for its foundation; this became the cathedral in 1559, when the city was created a bishop’s see.
THE GREAT ABBEY
Besides many pious foundations, both in France and Flanders, in 639, he built the great abbey three leagues from Tournay, called Elnon, from the river on which it stands; but it has long since taken the name of St Amand, with its town and warm mineral baths.
BISHOP OF MAASTRICHT
In 649 he was chosen bishop of Maastricht; but three years after he resigned that see to St Remaclus, and returned to his missions, to which his compassion for the blindness of infidels always inclined his heart.
HIS HOLY DEATH
He continued his labours amongst them till the age of eighty-six, when, broken with infirmities, he retired to Elnon, which house he governed as abbot four years more, spending that time in preparing his soul for his passage to eternity, which happened in 675. His body is honourably kept in that abbey.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
[St Amandus of Maastricht is the Patron Saint of bartenders, vintners and wine-sellers.]
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