BL. TOTO, ABBOT - 19 NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER 

Saints celebrated on the 19th of November

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. TOTO, ABBOT 

Blessed Toto (Totto) was the first abbot of the monastery Ottobeuren (Ottenbeuern, Otinburra). He was by birth a Swabian (Alemanni) from an old noble family; the father's name was Silach, the mother Erminswint (Eriswinde).

THREE HOLY BROTHERS

They had three sons: Gaucipert, Bishop of Cammerich (Cambrai?), Blessed Toto, Abbot, and Tagebert, who remained a layman. About A.D. 764 they founded the above-mentioned monastery on the estate belonging to them, and placed it under the protection of St Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and St Alexander, Martyr.

ABBOT TOTO MOVED INTO THE NEWLY FOUNDED MONASTERY

The foundation was later confirmed by Emperor Carl the Great (Charlemagne). Blessed Toto moved into the site with twelve monks of the order of St Benedict.  He soon enriched it with the relics of St Alexander, which he had acquired from from St Moritz [Maurice] in Valais.

"A MODEL OF PIOUS AND RELIGIOUS LIFE"

His later biographers call him "a model of a pious and religious life", "a father of the poor", "a wise and faithful steward of God". According to the tradition of the monastery, he died on November 19, 815.

HIS RELICS

His relics were raised for the first time in 1163 under Abbot Isengrin and buried under the high altar. At the time of the Peasants' War in the 16th century, they were stirred up and scattered. Abbot Leonhard buried what was left of them with other relics in a niche next to the St Martin altar.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858 - 📷 From the Ottobeuren Monastery, Kapitelsaal)