ST SWITHBERT, BISHOP - 1 MARCH

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MARCH 

Saints celebrated on the 1st of March

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SAINT SWITHBERT, BISHOP

Saint Suibertus [Swithbert] is commemorated on March 1 and also on March 2. This holy bishop in Friesland, an Anglo-Saxon, was a disciple of Saint Egbertus. (His name is also spelled Suithbertus, Suidbertus, Swibertus, Suuibertus, and Suuitbrecht. Through his apostolic activity, accompanied by numerous miracles (he healed the blind, the lame, the possessed, brought a drowned man back to life, etc.), he truly shone like a star, which his mother had seen him as even before his birth, and earned the honorary title of "Apostle of the Frisians and Boructuarii" (the inhabitants of the former County of Berg). Saint Radbod writes of him: "In everything he taught, he gave his listeners an example of himself." He was ordained a bishop around 693 by Bishop Wilfrid of York, who was then living as an exile in Mercia.

When the pagan Saxons destroyed his mission in 694, he was forced to retreat to an island in the Rhine (called in littore) given to him by Pepin and Plectrudis. The monastery he founded here, where he was also buried, is today's Kaiserswörth [Kaiserswerth] and was already called Werda at that time. Among his ten companions, Blessed Wicbertus (Victbercht) is particularly well known. They are also said to have worked particularly beneficially in the province of Geldern and in Münster in Westphalia, founding many churches. Some historians date his death to 713, others as early as 694. In 803, Pope Leo III canonized him. In the Peter's Abbey in Kaiserswörth, he is venerated as a co-patron (Kampschulte, p. 91). At the opening of his grave in 1626, a man suffering from fever was cured by touching his holy head. Church art of him depicts either the aforementioned face of his mother, or he appears as a bishop raising a dead man, or as the redeemer of the captives. He often wears the star on his chest or in his hand, sometimes on his pastoral staff. 

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, Volume 5, Augsburg, 1882, pp. 397-98

Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints - Sources and Abbreviations

PRAYER:

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

Sources of these articles (in the original German): books.google.co.uk, de-academic.com, zeno.org, openlibrary.org