ST MAXIMINUS OF AIX EN PROVENCE - 8 JUNE

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 8th of June

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 MAXIMINUS OF AIX EN PROVENCE 

(Saint Maximinus, First Archbishop of Aix, Confessor.)

He planted the faith in that country, probably before the close of the first century, about the same time it was first preached at Marseilles. 

HE IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN ONE OF OUR LORD'S DISCIPLES

He is said by some moderns to have been one of the disciples of our Lord. St Sedonius was his successor, and second bishop of Arles, supposed by the people of the country to have been the man born blind whom our Redeemer healed. Their relics are shown with those of many other saints at St Maximin’s, a town six leagues from Aix, built at the place where this saint was buried. 

THE MONASTERY

The monastery, which was formerly of the Order of St Benedict and dependent on St Victor’s at Marseilles, was given by St Lewis’s brother, Charles, count of Provence, to the Dominicans, who enjoy it with extraordinary privileges, and an exemption of the whole town from the spiritual jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Aix. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Maximinus, your blessed bishop, may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. 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.