ST BURCKARD, BISHOP OF WÜRZBURG

ST BURCKARD, BISHOP OF WÜRZBURG - 14 OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 14th 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.

ST BURCKARD, FIRST BISHOP OF WÜRZBURG

(Würzburg, in Franconia [Germany], in Latin, Herbipolis)

Boniface standing in need of fellow-labourers powerful in words and works in the vast harvest which he had on his hands in Germany, about the year 732, invited over from England St Lullus and St Burckard (St Burchard), who seem by this circumstance to have come from the kingdom of Wessex: they were both persons of an apostolic spirit.

St Boniface consecrated St Burckard with his own hands the first bishop of Würzburg in Franconia, where St Kilian had preached the word of life, and suffered martyrdom about fifty years before. This whole country was by his ministry converted to Christ.

Excessive fatigues having, in ten years time, exhausted his strength, with the consent of King Pepin, and by the approbation of St Lullus, (St Boniface being gone to preach in Friesland,) he resigned his bishopric to Megingand, a monk of Fritzlar, and disciple of St Wigbert, in 752.

Retiring into a solitude in that part of his diocese called Hohenburg, he spent the remaining part of his life with six fervent monks or clergymen in watching, fasting, and incessant prayer.

He died on February 9, 752, and was buried near the relics of St Kilian at mount St Mary’s or Old Würzburg, where he had built a monastery under the invocation of St Andrew.

Hugh, bishop of Würzburg, chancellor to the emperor Otho IV. authorised by an order of Pope Benedict VII about the year 983, made a very solemn translation of his relics; October 14, the day on which this ceremony was performed, has been regarded as his principal festival.

Out of veneration for his sanctity, King Pepin, in 752, declared the bishops of Würzburg Dukes of Franconia, with all civil jurisdiction. The emperor Henry IV alienated several parts of Franconia, but the bishops of Würzburg retain the sovereignty of this extensive diocese, though it was much larger before St. Henry II erected the bishopric of Bamberg.

Source: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints

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