SS. BROTHEN AND GWENDOLEN - 18 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 18th of October

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.

SS. BROTHEN AND GWENDOLEN

Of these 6th century Welsh Saints we know little beyond their names and the fact of their existence, coupled with that of the cultus locally given to them after their deaths. 

St Brothen is Patron Saint of Llanbrothen in Merionethshire. 

According to the Welsh genealogies, he had a brother, Saint Gwynnin. 

The two churches of Llangwynnin and Dwygyfylchi, both in Carnarvonshire, may have been called thus after him. Dolwyddelen and Llanwyddelan in Montgomeryshire suggest a St Gwendolen [Gwendolyn]. This and similar names are diminutives of Gwen (white), and are equivalent to our Blanche and its allied forms.

(From The Book of Saints, 1921, by the Monks of Ramsgate - 📷 Dwygyfylchi Church)

PRAYER:

May the intercession of St Brothen and St Gwendolen commend us to you, so that through their merits we may obtain that which we cannot accomplish by our own. 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.