Skip to main content

ST WALSTAN, CONFESSOR - 30 MAY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY

Saints celebrated on the 30th 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 WALSTAN, CONFESSOR 

(A.D. 1016.) Saint Walstan was formerly much honoured at Cossey and Bawburgh, commonly called Baber, two villages four miles from Norwich. He was born at Baber, and of a rich and honourable family. The name of his father was Benedict, that of his mother Blida. 

HE DEVOTED HIMSELF TO GOD

By their example and good instructions he, from his infancy, conceived an ardent desire to devote himself to God with the greatest perfection possible. In this view, at twelve years of age he renounced his patrimony, left his father’s house, and entered a poor servant at Taverham, a village adjoining to Cossey. 

HIS SPIRIT OF PENANCE 

He was so charitable that he gave his own victuals to the poor, and sometimes even his shoes, going himself barefoot. 

FARM LABOUR IN THE FIELDS

He applied himself to the meanest and most painful country labour in a perfect spirit of penance and humility; fasted much, and sanctified his soul and all his actions by assiduous, fervent prayer, and the constant union of his heart with God. He made a vow of celibacy, but never embraced a monastic state. 

HE DIED AT WORK

God honoured his humility before men by many miracles. He died in the midst of a meadow where he was at work, on May 30, 1016. His body was interred at Baber: it was carried thither through Cossey or Costessye, where a well still bears his name, as does another which was more famous at Baber, a little below the church. 

PILGRIMAGES

These places were much resorted to by pilgrims, especially to implore the intercession of this saint for the cure of fevers, palsies, lameness, and blindness. His body was enshrined in the north chapel of that church, which chapel was on that account pulled down in the reign of Henry VIII though the church is still standing. All the mowers and husbandmen in these parts constantly visited it once a year, and innumerable other pilgrims resorted to it, not only from all parts of England, but also from beyond the seas. The church is sacred to the memory of the Blessed Virgin, and of St Walstan.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WELCOME

  Please pick your saints: January - Saints by date  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30    31   February - Saints by date  1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17 18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29   March - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30    31   April - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30   May - Saints by date: 1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10    11    12    13    14    15    16    17   18    19    20    21    22    23    24    25    26    27    28    29    30   

ST JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS - 13 AUGUST

  ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST Saints celebrated on the 13th of August WELCOME! SAINT JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS   (Patron Saint of Altar Servers.) The eldest boy of a poor cordwainer, in a small Belgian town, John was ever a dutiful, prayerful, and studious child. Our Lord called him when but young to leave his father and his father’s house, to serve Him in the Society of Jesus.  And because he was so good a son, it cost his father much to give him up to God; but he was too good a Christian to refuse outright.  HE WAS SENT TO ROME John had hardly taken his religious vows when he was sent to the centre of Christendom, the holy city of Rome. His modesty, his purity, shone out as great virtue always does; and the young laymen who attended the lectures would come to gaze upon his beautiful and holy face, and go away the better for the sight. GREAT VIRTUE Three short years, and his last sickness found him sighing for heaven, and three days before the great feast of Mary’s Assumption in 1

ST LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR - 19 OCTOBER

  WELCOME! SAINT LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR   Laura, a widow and martyr of Cordoba in Spain, is mentioned in the Spanish martyrology of Tamajode Salazar, who refers to Luitprand, where it says the following: St Laura is said to have been of a noble family, and  according to the wishes of her parents she married an equally noble man and gave birth to two daughters.  After the death of her husband and her daughters, she went to the monastery of St Aurea, named St-Maria de Cuteclara, and after her martyrdom led the same for nine years as her successor.  After she had made wonderful progress in all virtues, she was finally summoned to renounce the faith before a Saracen judge. But since she remained steadfast, she was first beaten very cruelly and then thrown into a bath of boiling pitch, where she remained in praise of God for three hours and then flew to heaven on October 19, 864.   St Laura is of the 48 Martyrs of Cordoba. PRAYER: Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who