BL. ROBERT OF CASA DEI, ABBOT - 24 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 24th 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. ROBERT OF CASA DEI, ABBOT  

[First Abbot and founder of the great Benedictine Monastery of Chaise-Dieu, in Latin Casa Dei, in the diocese of Clermont, in Auvergne.]  

HE REBUILT ABOUT FIFTY CHURCHES

Blessed Robert was brought up among the clergy of St Julian’s, at Brioude, and made canon and treasurer of that church. He built an hospital in that town, rebuilt about fifty churches, and, out of a love of solitude and penance, retired with two companions to the spot where, three years after, he founded his abbey, in which he governed three hundred monks. 

HIS ABBEY

It became the head of a congregation of several Benedictine monasteries, and in 1640, was aggregated to that of St Maur. Bl. Robert died in 1067, on April 17,  and was interred on the 24th, on which he is honoured at Chaise-Dieu, and in other places in Auvergne. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)