ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH
Saints celebrated on the 19th 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.
ST ALCMUND, MARTYR
Saint Alcmund was son of Eldred, and brother of Osred, kings of the Northumbrians. During his temporal prosperity, the greater he was in power so much the more meek and humble was he in his heart, and so much the more affable to others. He was poor amidst riches, because he knew no greater pleasure than to strip himself for the relief of the distressed.
HIS BANISHMENT
Being driven from his kingdom, together with his father, by rebellious subjects, in league with Danish plunderers, he lived among the Picts above twenty years in banishment; learning more heartily to despise earthly vanities, and making it his whole study to serve the King of kings.
HE WAS MURDERED
His subjects groaning under the yoke of an insupportable tyranny, took up arms against their oppressors, and induced the royal prince, upon motives of compassion for their distress and a holy zeal for religion, to put himself at their head. Several battles were prosperously fought; but at length the pious prince was murdered by the contrivance of King Eardulf, the usurper, as Matthew of Westminster, Simeon of Durham, and Florence of Worcester say.
HIS RELICS
Dr Brown Willis, in his Notitia of parliamentary boroughs, writes, with some ancients, that he was slain by the Danes, about the year 819. His body was interred at Lilleshult, in Shropshire: but afterwards translated to Derby, where he was honoured with great devotion as patron of the town, on March 19. An old manuscript sermon preached in his church at Derby, about the year 1140, extant in a manuscript collection of sermons of that age in my hands, gives a particular history of this translation of his relics to Derby, where his church became famous for miracles, and for the resort of pilgrims.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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