ST DONATIAN, BISHOP OF REIMS, CONFESSOR - 14 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN 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 DONATIAN, BISHOP OF REIMS, CONFESSOR

St Donatian was the seventh bishop of Reims, and died about the year 389. 

Charles the Bald bestowed the relics of this saint on Baldwin, whom he had created earl of Flanders, to hold of him that rich province as a fief, in 863. 

The earl deposited them in the church of Bruges, which, thereupon, took the title of St Donatian’s, being before called our Lady’s. It was made a bishop’s cathedral in 1559. 

[St Donatian is patron saint of Bruges, Belgium, of West Flanders, Belgium, and of the Diocese of Reims, France. 

In art, St Donatian is represented as a bishop holding a wheel with candles.]

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Donatian, your blessed bishop, may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. 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.