Skip to main content

BL. HERMAN JOSEPH OF STEINFELD, CONFESSOR - 7 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 7th of April

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.

BL. HERMAN JOSEPH OF STEINFELD, CONFESSOR  

Blessed Herman [Hermann] Joseph was born at Cologne, and at twelve years of age entered the monastery of Steinfeld of regular canons of the Premonstratensian Order in the duchy of Juliers, and diocese of Cologne. 

AN EMINENT GIFT OF CONTEMPLATION

His incredible fasts and other austerities, and his extraordinary humility, joined with assiduous prayer and meditation, raised him to an eminent gift of contemplation, which replenished his soul with the most profound sentiments of all virtues, and was attended with many heavenly favours: but, as it is usual, this grace was often accompanied with severe interior trials. 

HIS DEVOTION TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN

He was singularly devoted to the Blessed Virgin. At the very remembrance of the mystery of the incarnation, his soul seemed to melt in tender love; and he seemed in raptures whenever he recited the canticle Benedictus at Lauds. 

HIS HOLY DEATH

Such was his desire of contempt, that he one day desired a peasant to strike him on the face. The other in surprise asked the reason: “On account,” said he, “of my being a most filthy and abominable creature, and because I cannot meet with so much contempt as I deserve.” He died on April 7, 1226. 

HIS WRITINGS

He wrote a commentary on the book of Canticles, or Song of Solomon, and some other treatises on sublime contemplation, which may be ranked with those of other great masters in the contemplative way, as Thomas à Kempis, St Theresa, Thauler, Harphius, Blosius, Lanspergius, Hilton, etc.

VENERATION

Blessed Herman is honoured among the saints in his Order, and in some churches in the Low Countries. In the abbey church of Steinfeld he is titular saint of an altar, at which the priests who visit that church out of devotion to him, say a votive Mass in his honour before his relics, with proper prayers of the saint used in that abbey from time immemorial. 

HIS RELICS

Small portions of his relics have been given to several other churches. Some are enshrined and exposed to public veneration in the abbey of Premontré at Antwerp; a portion is kept in the abbey of Parc, at Louvain; another in the parish church of St Christopher, at Cologne, and another at the Chartreuse in the same city. 

HIS FEAST DAY

The Emperor Ferdinand II solicited his canonisation at Rome, and several proofs of miracles and other particulars have been given in for that purpose. His name is inserted on April 7, in the martyrology of the regular canons of St Augustine, approved by Benedict XIV. [May 24 - Premonstratensians, May 21 - Diocese of Cologne.]

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WELCOME

  Please pick your saints: January - Saints by date  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30    31   February - Saints by date  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17 18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29   March - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30    31   April - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30   May - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30   

ST JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS - 13 AUGUST

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST Saints celebrated on the 13th of August WELCOME! SAINT JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS   (Patron Saint of Altar Servers.) The eldest boy of a poor cordwainer, in a small Belgian town, John was ever a dutiful, prayerful, and studious child. Our Lord called him when but young to leave his father and his father’s house, to serve Him in the Society of Jesus.  And because he was so good a son, it cost his father much to give him up to God; but he was too good a Christian to refuse outright.  HE WAS SENT TO ROME John had hardly taken his religious vows when he was sent to the centre of Christendom, the holy city of Rome. His modesty, his purity, shone out as great virtue always does; and the young laymen who attended the lectures would come to gaze upon his beautiful and holy face, and go away the better for the sight. GREAT VIRTUE Three short years, and his last sickness found him sighing for heaven, and three days before the great feast of Mary’s Assumption in 1

ST LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR - 19 OCTOBER

  WELCOME! SAINT LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR   Laura, a widow and martyr of Cordoba in Spain, is mentioned in the Spanish martyrology of Tamajode Salazar, who refers to Luitprand, where it says the following: St Laura is said to have been of a noble family, and  according to the wishes of her parents she married an equally noble man and gave birth to two daughters.  After the death of her husband and her daughters, she went to the monastery of St Aurea, named St-Maria de Cuteclara, and after her martyrdom led the same for nine years as her successor.  After she had made wonderful progress in all virtues, she was finally summoned to renounce the faith before a Saracen judge. But since she remained steadfast, she was first beaten very cruelly and then thrown into a bath of boiling pitch, where she remained in praise of God for three hours and then flew to heaven on October 19, 864.   St Laura is of the 48 Martyrs of Cordoba. PRAYER: Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who