ST CATALDUS, BISHOP OF TARENTUM - 10 MAY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY

Saints celebrated on the 10th of May

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 CATALDUS, BISHOP OF TARENTUM  

Saint Cataldus was a learned Irish monk, who was for some time regent of the great school of Lismore, soon after the death of its founder St Carthag. To this nursery of learning and virtue prodigious numbers flocked both from the neighbouring and remote countries. 

HIS JOURNEY TO THE HOLY LAND

St Cataldus at length resigned his charge in quest of some closer retirement, and travelled to Jerusalem; and, in his return into Italy, was chosen bishop of Tarentum, not in the sixth century, as some Italian writers have imagined, much less in the second, but in the decline of the seventh. 

HE IS TITULAR SAINT OF THE CATHEDRAL

He is titular saint of the cathedral, the only parish church of the city, though it is said to contain eighteen thousand inhabitants. St Cataldus is counted the second bishop. Colgan gives an epitaph placed under an image of St Cataldus at Rome, which declares his birth, travels, and death, as follows:

         Me tulit Hiberne, Solymæ traxere, Tarentum

Nunc tenet: huic ritus, dogmata, jura dedi.

Which are thus Englished by Harris in his edition of Ware’s Irish bishops:

         Hibernia gave me birth: thence wafted o’er,

I sought the sacred Solymean shore.

To thee, Tarentum, holy rites I gave,

Precepts divine; and thou to me a grave.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)