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 ...