ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY
Saints celebrated on the 7th 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 RICHARD THE PILGRIM
(Saint Richard, King in England, and Confessor)
This saint was an English prince, in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and was perhaps deprived of his inheritance by some revolution in the state: or he renounced it to be more at liberty to dedicate himself to the pursuit of Christian perfection.
HIS SAINTLY CHILDREN
His three children, Winebald, Willibald, and Walburga, are all honoured as saints. Taking with him his two sons, he undertook a pilgrimage of penance and devotion, and sailing for Hamblehaven, landed in Neustria on the Western coasts of France.
HE VISITED THE HOLY PLACES ALONG THE WAY
He made a considerable stay at Rouen, and made his devotions in the most holy places that lay in his way through France.
HIS FESTIVAL IS KEPT AT LUCCA WITH SINGULAR DEVOTION
Being arrived at Lucca in Italy, in his road to Rome, he there died suddenly, about the year 722, and was buried in St Fridian’s church there. His relics are venerated to this day in the same place, and his festival is kept at Lucca with singular devotion.
HIS PRAYERS
St Richard, when living, obtained by his prayers the recovery of his younger son Willibald, whom he laid at the foot of a great crucifix erected in a public place in England, when the child’s life was despaired of in a grievous sickness: and since his death, many have experienced the miraculous power of his intercession with God, especially where his relics invite the devotion of the faithful.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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