ST PONTIUS OF CIMIEZ, MARTYR - 14 MAY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY

Saints celebrated on the 14th 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 PONTIUS OF CIMIEZ, MARTYR 

(Saint Pons of Cimiez - French: Pons de Cimiez, Ponce de Cimiez.)

Saint Pontius suffered in the persecution of Valerian about the year 258, at Cimele, a city in the Alps, which was afterwards destroyed by the Lombards; when, from its ruins, arose in the neighbourhood the town of Nice in Savoy. 

HIS RELICS

Of the old city, only the famous abbey of St Pons at Cimile, or Cimies, subsists; and the relics of the holy martyr were translated to the monastery of Tomieres in Languedoc, where Pope John XXII erected an episcopal see, called St Pons de Tomieres. 

MIRACLES

The abbey of Tomieres was secularised in 1625. St Valerian, bishop of Cimele in the fifth century, in the three panegyrics which he has left us of this martyr, assures us that many miracles were wrought at his relics. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

PRAYER:

Grant to your Church, we beseech you, O Lord, through the intercession of your holy Martyr Pontius, not to think high-mindedly, but to grow in humility pleasing to you; that, despising what is base, she may with unbounded love diligently do whatever is right. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.