ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH
Saints celebrated on the 27th 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 RUPERT, BISHOP OF SALZBURG
(In Austria, Saint Rupert is celebrated on 24th September, the day of the translation of his relics.) St Rupert, or Robert, was, by birth, a Frenchman, and of royal blood; but still more illustrious for his learning, and the extraordinary virtues he practised from his youth. He exercised himself in austere fasting, watching, and other mortifications; was a great lover of chastity and temperance; and so charitable as always to impoverish himself to enrich the poor.
THE PEOPLE COULD NOT BEAR THE LUSTRE OF SUCH SANCTITY
His reputation drew persons from remote provinces to receive his advice and instructions. So distinguished a merit raised him to the episcopal see of Worms.
But that people, being for the most part, idolaters, could not bear the lustre of such sanctity, which condemned their irregularities and superstitions. They beat him with rods, loaded him with all manner of outrages, and expelled him the city.
A MESSAGE FROM THEODON
But God prepared for him another harvest. Theodon, duke of Bavaria, hearing of his reputation and miracles, sent messengers to him, earnestly beseeching him to come and preach the gospel to the Baioarians, or Bavarians.
This happened two years after his expulsion from Worms; during which interval he had made a journey to Rome.
He was received at Ratisbon by Theodon and his court with all possible distinction, in 697, and found the hearts both of the nobles and people docile to the Word of God.
HE WAS RECEIVED AT RATISBON
The Christian faith had been planted in that country two hundred years before, by Saint Severinus, the apostle of Noricum. After his death, heresies and heathenish superstitions had entirely extinguished the light of the gospel.
Bagintrude, sister of duke Theodon, being a Christian, disposed her brother and the whole country to receive the faith. Rupert, with the help of other zealous priests, whom he had brought with him, instructed, and, after a general fast, baptised the duke Theodon and the lords and people of the whole country. God confirmed his preaching by many miracles. He converted also to Christianity the neighbouring nations.
HE CONVERTED ALSO THE NEIGHBOURING NATIONS
After Ratisbon, the capital, the second chief seat of his labours was Laureacum, now called Lorch, where he healed several diseases by prayer, and made many converts. However, it was not Lorch, nor the old Reginum, thence called Regensburg, now Ratisbon, the capital of all those provinces, that was pitched upon to be the seat of the saint’s bishopric, but the old Juvavia, then almost in ruins, since rebuilt and called Salzburg.
The duke Theodon adorned and enriched it with many magnificent donations, which enabled St Rupert to found there several rich churches and monasteries. After that prince’s death, his son, Theodebert, or Diotper, inheriting his zeal and piety, augmented considerably the revenues of this church.
HE FETCHED MORE MISSIONARIES
St Rupert took a journey into France to procure a new supply of able labourers, and brought back to Salzburg twelve holy missionaries, with his niece St Erentrude, a virgin consecrated to God, for whom he built a great monastery, called Nonnberg, of which she was the first abbess.
St Rupert laboured several years in this see, and died happily on Easter-day, which fell that year on March 27, after he had said Mass and preached; on which day the Roman and other Martyrologies mention him.
His principal festival is kept with the greatest solemnity in Austria and Bavaria on September 25, the day of one of the translations of his relics, which are kept in the church under his name in Salzburg.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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