ST LUCY OF VERDUN, HERMITESS - 19 SEPTEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 19th of September

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 LUCY OF VERDUN, HERMITESS 

This Saint Lucy was daughter to a king of the Scots, and retired into France to serve God in obscurity. 

She chose for herself a solitary place on the north side of the river Meuse in the diocese of Verdun, where she lived in the practice of the most sublime virtues, till God called her to a happy immortality in the year 1090. 

She was buried in a church built by herself on the summit of a mountain near her own cell; and was enrolled in the number of the saints by Henry, bishop of Verdun. 

Her relics are kept during the summer season in the church of Mount St Lucy, but in winter in the parish church of Sampigny ; of both which churches she is the titular patroness. The former belonging to the Minims was erected under her invocation, in 1625, by the Prince of Phalneburg, of the house of Guise, and by his wife, who was sister to Charles IV. duke of Lorraine. 

The shrine of St. Lucy is much resorted to by pilgrims; it was visited in 1609 by the Duchess of Lorraine of the house of Mantua, and in 1632 by Lewis XIII King of France, who was then at the siege of St Myhel in Lorraine. 

Note: This Henry, called Blois or Winchester, was brother to Stephen king of England, and nephew to the empress Matilda; he was obliged to quit the see of Verdun in 1129, but afterwards became bishop of Winchester and cardinal.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints - 📷 The parish church of Sampigny)