BL. DIEMUT, ANCHORESS - 29 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 29th of March

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.

BLESSED DIEMUT, ANCHORESS 

Blessed Diemodis [Diemut,] (Diemundis, Diemudis), was a resident of the famous Wessobrunn monastery, which is situated in the Upper Bavarian part of the diocese of Augsburg (South Germany). She was a contemporary of the blessed Herluka of Epfach, with whom she was on friendly terms and in close correspondence. 

HER LONGING FOR HIGHER PERFECTION

Raised to be pious from a young age, she fled early on from the world and its dangers to innocence and virtue. She was one of the many 11th and 12th century religious who locked themselves up driven by a longing for higher perfection.The pious virgin grew so fond of solitude and communion with God in holy contemplation that she longed for, and obtained, separation from common life and confinement in a narrow cell; for when the abbot of the male monastery found her worthy of strict solitude because of her proven virtue, he complied with her request and locked her in a narrow cell at the church, where she prepared herself for the day of her departure by mortification and prayer.

HER CALLIGRAPHY

Furthermore, as she was well experienced in the art of calligraphy, she copied several books partly for the service, partly for the library of the monastery. Before the monastery was secularised, more than fifty volumes written by Blessed Diemut were found in the monastery library. The blessed servant completed her strict, godly and industrious life on March 29, probably at the beginning of the 12th century and was buried next to the blessed abbot and martyr Thiento and his six companions. In 1709 her relics were buried in a tin coffin in the monastery church.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858 - 🎨 From her works)

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of the blessed Diemut may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.