ST DUTHAC, BISHOP OF ROSS - 8 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 8th 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 DUTHAC, BISHOP OF ROSS 

(Saint Duthak, Bishop of Ross, in Scotland, Confessor.)

St Duthak's [Duthac's] zeal and labours in preaching the word of God, his contempt of himself, his compassion for the poor and for sinners, his extreme love of poverty, never reserving anything for himself, and the extraordinary austerity of his life, to which he had innured himself from his childhood, are much extolled by the author of his life. 

MIRACLES AND PROPHECY

The same writer assures us, that he was famous for several miracles and predictions, and that he foretold an invasion of the Danes, which happened ten years after his death, in 1263, in the reign of Alexander III. when with their king Achol, they were defeated by Alexander Stuart, great grandfather to Robert, the first king of that family. This victory was ascribed to the intercession of St Andrew and St Duthak. 

HIS RELICS

Our saint, after longing desires of being united to God, passed joyfully to bliss, in 1253. His relics, kept in the collegiate church of Thane, in the county of Ross, were resorted to by pilgrims from all parts of Scotland. Lesley, the pious bishop of Ross, (who, after remaining four years in prison with Queen Mary, passed into France, was chosen suffragan of Rouen, by Cardinal Bourbon, and died at Brussels, in 1591,) had an extraordinary devotion to this saint, the chief patron of his diocese. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)