ST CEOLFRID, ABBOT - 25 SEPTEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 25th 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 CEOLFRID, ABBOT 

Ceolfrid is the same Teutonic name with Geoffrey, and signifies Joyful. The saint was nobly born in Bernicia, and related to Saint Benedict, with whom he joined in the generous resolution of quitting the world. With him he made a journey to Rome, partly out of devotion, and partly for improvement in sacred studies and divine knowledge. 

After their return he was Saint Benedict's assistant in the foundation of his monastery of St Peter at Wiremouth, on the north bank of the river, in the bishopric of Durham. 

When Saint Benedict built the monastery of St Paul at Jarrow, he sent Ceolfrid, with seventeen monks, to lay the foundation of that house, and appointed him abbot. Our saint governed this abbey seven years in Saint Benedict's lifetime, and was constituted at the desire of that saint, in his last sickness, abbot also of Wiremouth: from which time he presided, for twenty-eight years, over both those monasteries, which for their constant connexion were usually esteemed as one, and were generally subject to one abbot. 

St Ceolfrid was diligent and active in everything he took in hand, of a sharp wit, mature in judgment, and fervent in zeal.

Bede, who had the happiness to live under this admirable man, has left us most authentic testimonies of his learning, abilities, and extraordinary sanctity. He was a great lover of sacred literature, and enriched the libraries of his two monasteries with a great number of good books; but banished those which could only serve to entertain curiosity. 

To how great a pitch he carried the sacred sciences in his monasteries, Bede is an instance. He was himself very learned. Naitan, king of the Picts, sent to him, desiring to be informed concerning the right time of celebrating Easter, and the true form of the clerical tonsure. The holy abbot strongly proved and recommended to him the Catholic custom of observing Easter and the Roman tonsure called Saint Peter's, by a letter which Bede hath inserted in his history. The king received it with great joy and satisfaction, and commanded both points to be received and observed throughout his dominions. This king likewise desired our saint to send him builders, who might erect a stone church, after the manner of the Romans, promising to dedicate it in honour of St Peter. The abbot complied also with this request.

St Ceolfrid finding himself broken with age and infirmities, and no longer capable of teaching his monks, by word and example, the perfect form of monastic observance, resigned his abbacy. The monks entreated him on their knees to alter his resolution; but were obliged to acquiesce, and, upon his recommendation, chose Huthbert, or rather Hubert, a very learned priest, abbot of both monasteries, in which then lived six hundred monks. 

This being done, the saint having sung mass in the morning, made them a strong exhortation to mutual love and concord; and set out immediately with a design to perform a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles at Rome. 

On the road, besides the canonical hours, he every day sung the whole psalter twice over, and also offered to God the saving victim in the mass which he sung every day, except one when he was upon the sea, and the three last days of his life.

After travelling one hundred and fourteen days he arrived at Langres, in France, where, being stopped by sickness, he happily died on September 25, in the year of our Lord 716, of his age seventy-four, of his sacerdotal character forty-seven, and his abbatial dignity thirty-five. His relics were eventually removed to his monastery of Jarrow, and thence, in the time of the Danish devastations, to Glastonbury. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)