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 COMGALL, ABBOT
Saint Comgall was one of the most illustrious founders of monastic Orders in Ireland. He was born of noble parents in the north of Ulster, in 516, and was brought up under St Fintan, in his monastery of Cluain-Aidhnech, at the foot of the Bladmahills, from whence arise two rivers, the Barrow and Nore in the Queen’s County.
THE GREAT ABBEY OF BANGOR
He came out of that school of piety and monastic discipline an accomplished master, and founded, about the year 550, the great abbey of Benchor or Bangor in the county of Down, which was the most numerous and most celebrated of all monasteries of Ireland, as that of Bangor in North Wales, was the most considerable among the Britons, which was in a flourishing condition soon after the death of St Dubritius, about the middle of the sixth century.
ST PATRICK HAD BEEN THE FIRST MISSIONARY TO INTRODUCE MONKS
Camden is mistaken when he writes that St Comgall first instituted monks in Ireland; it being certain that St. Patrick himself had founded monasteries there, having perhaps learned the monastic rule of St Martin in France.
A PROMOTER OF THE MONASTIC STATE
But St Comgall exceedingly propagated that state in Ireland. He is said to have governed in Benchor and other houses three thousand monks; all which religious men were employed in tillage or other manual labour.
Columban, who was his disciple at Benchor, settled his rule in Britain, France, and Italy; and many other abbots, bishops, and saints, came out of his nursery.
COMMENDATIONS
All the holy men of that age sought his friendship and acquaintance, and the ancient writers highly extol his sanctity and prudence. Notker says, he was, in an extraordinary manner, the heir of the virtues and merits of St Columba, or Columbkill. Jonas, in the life of St Columban, and St Bernard, in that of St Malachi, are very profuse in his commendations. The latter says, that the monastery of Benchor having been long before destroyed by pirates, St Malachi restored it, because the bodies of many saints reposed there. Usher thinks St Comgall to have been the same with St Congellus.
HIS MONASTERIES
Seven years after he had founded Benchor, he went to Wales, and there built a monastery, in a place then called the Land of Heth.
On his return to Ireland he founded another monastery, called Cell-Comgail, now Saynkille, at present annexed to the archbishopric of Dublin. He died on May 10, 601.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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