SAINT VITALIS OF THE RETZGAU, HERMIT - 23 OCTOBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN OCTOBER

Saints celebrated on the 23rd of October

SAINT VITALIS OF THE RETZGAU, HERMIT

Saint Vitalis was a hermit in the Retzgau (Pagus hætlatensis) of the diocese of Nantes in France. He had migrated from England to Brittany, where he settled on a high mountain called Scobrit, and lived a most holy life, dead to this world.

Notwithstanding his hermit life, he did not fail to practice all sorts of works of spiritual and corporal mercy. Once, when he was carrying the timber for a church building, the woodcutters and draft animals came to a place that was without any source of water and hence suffered severe thirst. In this distress the saint prayed to God (in whose service he was labouring, after all) for water, and then confidently thrust his staff into the earth. A spring of water immediately gushed forth, which flows to this day, and is called Fontaine du St Vital. Even now, in times of great drought, the neighbouring parishes undertake pilgrimages to this place to beg God for the longed-for rain. 

St Vitalis died about the year 740. He was buried in a stone coffin near his cell on Mount Scobrit. Calvinists destroyed all the sanctuaries. An arm of the saint had been rescued and brought to St Vital in Brittany, and is still venerated there. At Nantes, St Vitalis is commemorated on October 23.

Another feast day of St Vitalis is October 16.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, Volume 5, Augsburg, 1882)

Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints - Sources and Abbreviations

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Vitalis 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.