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ST WALTER OF PONTOISE, ABBOT - 23 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH

Saints celebrated on the 23rd 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 WALTER, ABBOT 

(Saint Walter, Abbot of Saint Martin’s, Near Pontoise.) He was a native of Picardy, and took the habit of St Benedict at Rebais in the diocese of Meaux. 

HIS APPOINTMENT 

The counts of Amiens and Pontoise having lately founded the rich abbey of St German, now called St Martin’s, adjoining to the walls of Pontoise, King Philip I, after a diligent search for a person equal to so important a charge, obliged Walter to take upon him the government of that house, and he was appointed the first abbot in 1060. 

HE TRIED TO FLEE THE DANGERS OF VAINGLORY

He was always highly honoured by the king, and by other great personages; but this was what his humility could not bear. To escape from the dangers of vainglory, he often fled secretly from his monastery, but was always found and brought back again; and, to prevent his escaping, the pope sent him a strict order not to leave his abbey. 

ASSIDUOUS PRAYER AND CONTEMPLATION

There he lived in a retired, small cell in great austerity, and in assiduous prayer and contemplation, never stirring out but to duties of charity or regularity, or to perform some of the meanest offices of the house. His zeal, in opposing the practice of simony, drew on him grievous persecutions: all which he bore not only with patience, but even with joy. 

HIS HOLY DEATH

His death happened on the 8th of April, in 1099. The bishops of Rouen, Paris, and Seniis, after a diligent scrutiny, declared several miracles wrought at his tomb authentic; and performed the translation of his relics on May 4. The abbot Walter Montague made a second translation in 1655, and richly decorated his chapel. 

CONTINUALLY ADVANCING TOWARDS GOD

St Walter, from the first day of his conversion to his death, made it a rule every day to add some new practice of penance to his former austerities; thus to remind himself of the obligation of continually advancing in spirit towards God. His life, written by a disciple, may be read in the Bollandists, with the remarks of Henschenius.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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