Saints celebrated on the 2nd 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 NICHOLAS, BISHOP OF LINKÖPING, CONFESSOR
[Fr Butler calls him "Saint"; other sources refer to him as "Blessed".] Herman and Margaret, the parents of our saint, were citizens of Skänningen in Sweden, and held a distinguished rank in the country, which they rendered more illustrious by their virtue.
THE ROBE OF INNOCENCE AND GRACE
By their care, Nicholas was imbued from the cradle with the perfect spirit of Christian piety, and taught to dread nothing so much as whatever could tarnish the robe of innocence and grace with which he had been clothed in the sacred laver of baptism.
HIS STUDIES
In these happy dispositions, he studied at home the first elements of grammar, and whilst yet very young was sent to Paris, in order to accomplish himself in the sciences.
ARCHDEACON OF LINKÖPING
Thence he removed to Orleans, where he both completed his theological course, and took his degrees in civil and canon law. Perfectly qualified by learning and virtue for the service of the church he returned home, and was soon after appointed archdeacon of Linköping.
HIS AUSTERITIES
His whole life was a perfect sacrifice of penance and devotion. On Fridays he took no other nourishment than bread with a little salt and water, and sometimes passed that whole day from Thursday evening till Saturday noon without food.
THE RULES OF VIRTUE AND ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE
In the discharge of his office he suffered, with unshaken constancy and patience, many grievous persecutions from the tyranny of great men and incorrigible sinners, reformed the manners of a savage and ignorant people, and established the rules of virtue and ecclesiastical discipline.
Herbert, the first bishop of Linköping, some pretend to have been contemporary with Charlemagne; but the more accurate antiquarians place him about the year 1000, something younger than St Sigfrid.
The history of the bishops of Linköping, in Swedish verse, informs us, that Gottschalk, the sixteenth bishop of Linköping, dying, St Nicholas was advanced to that see.
EVERYTHING FOR THE SERVICE OF GOD
This dignity was a fresh spur to his zeal in promoting the divine honour, and to his fervour in every religious exercise. Raised above all views to his own private interest, in every thing he laid himself out for the service of God and his neighbour, and for the maintenance of peace among all men.
MEEKNESS AND PATIENCE
His meekness and patience were proof to all trials: and prayer and heavenly meditation were to him a source of spiritual light, comfort, and strength.
HIS WRITINGS
The study of the holy scriptures was principally his private entertainment: out of the most useful sentences of the canon law and fathers he compiled an excellent book, which he called Huitebook. He wrote short comments on the Morals of St Gregory, certain works of St Anselm, and the writings of St Bridget, whose canonisation he warmly promoted, but died in the year in which that affair was finished. He wrote the lives of St Bridget, St Anscarius [Ansgar] and some other holy servants of God: and compiled a book of flowers out of the psalms.
How highly Pope Urban VI honoured his sanctity, appears from a letter written by that pope in 1381, quoted by Benzelius. His successor, bishop Canut [Knut], speaks of his sanctity with great veneration.
St Nicholas died in our Lord, in 1391, and was honoured in Sweden among the titular saints of the kingdom, with St Sigfrid, St Brinolph, St Bridget, St Helen of Scoduc, St Catharine, and St Ingridie of Scheningen, who died in 1282, who are invoked together in the prayer of the mass for the feast of St Nicholas, in the old Swedish Missal quoted by Benzelius. See the long particular office and lessons in honour of this saint, formerly used in the church of Linköping.
(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)
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