ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL
Saints celebrated on the 16th 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.
ST FRUCTUOSUS, ARCHBISHOP OF BRAGA, CONFESSOR
Saint Fructuosus was a prince of the royal blood of the Visigoth kings in Spain; but, from his youth, desired to consecrate his life to the divine service in a holy retreat beyond the reach of that whirlpool of business, faction, pleasure, and sin, called the world.
INSTRUCTION IN THE SACRED SCIENCES
After the death of his parents, he found himself at large, and at full liberty to dispose of himself according to his desire. He therefore procured himself to be instructed in the sacred sciences, in the great school which the bishop of Palencia had established for the education of his clergy.
HE FOUNDED SEVERAL MONASTERIES
He sold the greater part of his estate, and bestowed the whole price upon the poor, and with the rest founded several monasteries, especially a great one on his estate upon the mountains near Vierzo, under the title of SS. Justin and Pastor, martyrs of Complutum, or Alcala; whence he called this abbey Complutum. He put on the monastic habit, and governed this house as abbot till he saw it settled in good order.
GREATER SOLITUDE
He then appointed another abbot, and retired into a wilderness, where he led a most austere life, clothed with the skins of beasts in imitation of the ancient hermits. He afterwards founded several other monasteries, and a great nunnery called None, because nine miles from the sea.
TWO MONASTIC RULES WERE COMPILED BY HIM
We have two monastic rules compiled by him, the one called Of Complutum, the other the common rule. He was consecrated bishop of Duma, near Braga, and, in 656, archbishop of Braga.
MEEKNESS AND PATIENCE
His innocence and virtue were no security from the shafts of envy: but he overcame injuries by meekness and patience: and died laid on ashes before the altar, as he desired, on the April 16, 665. His body now rests at Compostella.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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