ST VIGILIUS, BISHOP OF TRENT, MARTYR

ST VIGILIUS, BISHOP OF TRENT, MARTYR - 26 JUNE

Saints celebrated on the 26th 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 VIGILIUS, BISHOP OF TRENT, MARTYR

Saint Vigilius succeeded Abundantius in the episcopal see of Trent in 385. He begged of St Ambrose, who was his metropolitan, rules for his conduct in his ministry, which that holy prelate gave him in a long letter, in which he exhorted him vigorously to oppose the practice of usury, and the custom of Christians intermarrying with infidels.

MANY IDOLATERS

There remained still many idolaters in the valleys of the diocese of Trent, who adored Saturn and other false divinities.

St Vigilius sent SS. Sisinnius, Martyrius, and Alexander, to preach the faith to them, and afterwards wrote their acts, or a narrative of their martyrdom in a short letter to St Simplician, St Ambrose’s successor, and in another longer to St Chrysostom.

THE MARTYR'S CROWN

He looked on their glory with a holy envy, and condemned himself as a mercenary and a coward so long as he saw his own crown deferred. His labours, however, were at length recompensed with the happiness of laying down his life for Christ.

The ancient calendars rank him among the martyrs, and Fortunatus tells us, that in seeking death he found life, being slain for the faith by a troop of infidel peasants. Usuardus says, they murdered him by a shower of stones, and places his martyrdom in the consulship of Stillico, which happened in 400 or 405. Surius confounds this saint with another of the same name, who lived one hundred years later.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

WELCOME

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BL. LUKE KIRBY, PRIEST AND MARTYR - 30 MAY

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY Saints celebrated on the 30th of May WELCOME! BLESSED LUKE KIRBY, PRIEST AND MARTYR 16th century houses, painted by Auguste Mayer He was born in the bishopric of Durham, according to Raissius ; others say at Richmond, in Yorkshire. He was master of arts in one of our universities; but going abroad to Douay, in Flanders, was received into the English college there, 1576, and made priest in 1577; and the year following sent upon the mission. Where he had not been long before he again went abroad, and travelled to Rome, partly for devotion, and partly for further improvement in learning. Here he remained in the English college till 1580, when he returned into England, and was not long after apprehended: for I find by a printed diary of things transacted in the Tower of London from 1580 till 1585, that on the 5th of December, 1580, Luke Kirby, Thomas Cottam , and other priests, were brought to the Tower from other prisons; and that these two, on the 10th...

BL. RICHARD NEWPORT, PRIEST AND MARTYR - 30 MAY

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY Saints celebrated on the 30th of May WELCOME! BLESSED RICHARD NEWPORT, PRIEST AND MARTYR Richard Newport, alias Smith , was born in Northamptonshire and performed his studies abroad, partly in the college of Rheims (if he be the Richard Smith whom I find in the Douay diary sent to Rome in 1586) and partly in that of Rome, where he was made priest. From thence he was sent upon the English mission, and behaved himself in such a manner as justly to acquire the character of a laborious missionary; being withal remarkably successful in bringing home many strayed sheep to the fold of Christ, to which his apostolical way of living did not a little contribute. He was several times apprehended and cast into prison, and twice banished. His name occurs amongst those who were transported in 1606; at which time, we are told, he took that opportunity of making a pilgrimage to Rome, there to pour forth his prayers at the tombs of the apostles, in behalf of thi...

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