ST DOCMAEL, CONFESSOR - 14 JUNE

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 14th 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 DOCMAEL, CONFESSOR 

Dom Lobineau, in his Lives of the Saints of Brittany, was at a loss to discover who this saint was. But the English and British calendars inform us that Saint Docmael [Dogmael] flourished in Pembrokeshire in the sixth century. 

HIS FERVOUR IN THE PRACTICE OF ALL VIRTUES

By his fervour in the practice of all virtues, especially prayer and penance, he was a living instance of the maxim laid down by St Bernard, that “the humiliations of the cross are sweet to a soul which is sensible of what she owes to him who was crucified for the love of her.” 

Ah! shall we set any bounds to our endeavours to love him every day and in every action with greater and greater fervour, seeing we shall never be able to love him so much either as he deserves or as he loves us, base and defiled as we are! 

ST TOËL

St Docmael is titular patron of the church of Pomerit-Jaudy, in the diocese of Trequier, in Brittany, where he is honoured under the name of St Toël. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)