ST GERMANUS AND ST RANDAUT OF GRANFELDEN, MARTYRS - 21 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 Saints celebrated on the 21st 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 earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST GERMANUS AND ST RANDAUT OF GRANFELDEN, MARTYRS 

(Saints German, Abbot, and Randaut, or Randoald, Martyrs - About the Year 666.) Saint German, or Germanus, was son of a rich senator of Triers, and brought up from the cradle under the care of Modoald, bishop of Triers. At seventeen years of age, he gave all he could dispose of to the poor, and with Modoald’s consent applied himself to St Arnoul, who having resigned his dignities of bishop of Metz, and minister of state under Dagobert, then led an eremitical life in a desert in Lorrain, near Romberg, or Remiremont. 

That great saint, charmed with the innocence and fervour of the tender young nobleman, received him in the most affectionate manner, and gave him the monastic tonsure. 

HE MADE GREAT PROGRESS IN THE SPIRITUAL LIFE

Under such a master the holy youth made great progress in the spiritual life, and after some time, having engaged a younger brother, called Numerian, to forsake the world, he went with him to Romberg, or the monastery of St Romaric, a prince of royal blood, who, resigning the first dignity and rank which he enjoyed in the court of King Theobert, had founded in his own castle, in concert with his friend St Arnoul, a double house, one larger for nuns, the other less for monks; both known since under the name of Remiremont, situated on a part of Mount Vosge. 

St Romaric died in 653, and is named in the Roman Martyrology on December 8, on which his festival is kept at Remiremont, and that of the Blessed Virgin deferred to the day following. He settled here the rule of Luxeuil, or of St Columban. 

HE JOINED LUXEUIL

St German made the practices of all manner of humiliations, penance, and religion, the object of his earnest ambition, and out of a desire of greater spiritual advancement, after some time passed with his brother to the monastery of Luxeuil, then governed by the holy abbot, St Walbert. 

THE MONASTERIES

Duke Gondo, one of the principal lords of Alsace, having founded a monastery in the diocese of Basel, called Granfield [Granfelden], and now more commonly [Münster-Granfelden].

St Walbert appointed St German abbot of the colony which he settled there. Afterwards the two monasteries of [Ursitz - named after St Ursicinus] and of St Paul Zu Werd, were also put under his direction, though he usually resided at Granfelden. 

THE SUCCESSOR

Catihe, called also Boniface, who succeeded Gondo in the duchy, inherited no share of his charity and religion, and oppressed both the monks and poor inhabitants with daily acts of violence and arbitrary tyranny. The holy abbot bore all private injuries in silence, but often pleaded the cause of the poor. 

The duke had thrown the magistrates of several villages into prison, and many ways distressed the other inhabitants, laying waste their lands at pleasure, and destroying all the fruits of their toil, and all the means of their poor subsistence. 

THEIR MARTYRS' CROWNS

As he was one day ravaging their lands and plundering their houses at the head of a troop of soldiers, St German went out to meet him, to entreat him to spare a distressed and innocent people. The duke listened to his remonstrances and promised to desist; but whilst the saint staid to offer up his prayers in the church of St Maurice, the soldiers fell again to killing, burning and plundering: and whilst St German was on his road to return to Granfelden, with his companion Randoald, commonly called Randaut, they first stripped them, and then, whilst they were at their prayers, pierced them both with lances, about the year 666. Their relics were deposited at Granfelden, and were exposed in a rich shrine till the change of religion, since which time the canonries, into which this monastery was converted, are removed to Telsberg, or Delmont.   

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)