• January 29th -St. Gildas the Wise, Abbot

    From rich@1:396/4 to All on Tue Jan 28 08:27:38 2020
    From: rich <richarra@gmail.com>

    January 29th -St. Gildas the Wise, Abbot
    d. 570

    THIS famous man seems to have been born about the year 500, in the
    lower valley of the Clyde. He must have travelled south at a somewhat
    early age, and we may reasonably trust the tradition which describes
    him as practising asceticism at Llanilltud. He was no doubt younger
    than either St. Samson or St. Paul Aurelian, but all three, either simultaneously or successively, lived under St. Illtud, we are told.
    How long Gildas remained in Britain cannot be determined, but the
    terrible indictment of the scandalous lives of his contemporaries,
    both ecclesiastics and laymen, which he left in his De excidio
    Britanniae was written probably on British soil somewhere about the
    year 540. Severely as this work has been criticized as a mere jeremiad
    (even Bede calls it sermo flebilis, a pitiful tale) and as an often
    incoherent patchwork of the most denunciatory texts to be found in
    both the Testaments, it should be remembered that there is no reason
    to suppose that the author's object was to write a history. On the
    contrary, he tells us himself that his main purpose was to make known =E2=80=9Cthe miseries, the errors and the ruin of Britain=E2=80=9D.

    He is often called "Badonicus" because he was born in the year the
    Britons defeated the Saxons near Bath. He may have married and been
    widowed, but he eventually became a monk at Llanilltud in southern
    Wales, where he was trained by Saint Illtyd together with Saint Samson
    and Saint Paul Aurelian, though he was much younger. Well-known Irish
    monks, including Saint Finnian, became his disciples. He made a
    pilgrimage to Ireland to consult with his contemporary saints of that
    land and wrote letters to far-off monasteries. He seems to have had considerable influence on the development of the Irish church.

    Around 540 he wrote the famous work =E2=80=9CDe excidio et conquestu Britanniae=E2=80=9D with the purpose of making known "the miseries, the
    errors, and the ruin of Britain." The work laid bare and severely
    criticized the lives of Britain's rulers and clerics, blaming their
    moral laxity for the triumph of the Anglo-Saxon invaders. Although the fierceness of its rhetorical invectives has been criticized the wide
    scriptural scholarship that it reveals is uncontested. It also shows
    that he was knowledgeable about Virgil and Ignatius. This work was
    cited by Saint Bede.

    He is considered to be the first English historian. He lived as a
    hermit for some time on Flatholm Island in the Bristol Channel, where
    he copied a missal for Saint Cadoc and may have written =E2=80=9CDe excidio= =E2=80=9D.
    Gildas made a pilgrimage to Rome and on his return founded a monastery
    on an island near Rhuys (Rhuis or Morbihan) in Brittany, which became
    the center of his cult. Though he lived for a time on a tiny island in
    Morbihan Bay, he gathered disciples around him and does not seem to
    have cut himself off entirely from the world; he did travel to other
    places in Brittany. He is said to have died on the isle of Houat,
    though this is uncertain.

    The =E2=80=9CDe excidio=E2=80=9D, which very influential in the early Middl=
    e Ages, may
    not have been written entirely by Gildas. Some of it may have been a
    forgery shortly after his time. The work serves as an example of the
    classical and early Christian literature that was then available in
    England. Gilda's writings were used by Wulfstan, archbishop of York,
    in the 11th century in his Sermon of the Wolf to the English people
    during the disordered reign of Ethelred the Unready.

    The chronology of Gildas's life has been disputed. Some say that the
    lives of two men of the same name have been confused. Some early Irish martyrologies commemorate his feast as does the Leofric Missal (c.
    1050) and Anglo-Saxon calendars of the 9th through 11th centuries
    (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Gill, Farmer, Walsh, White).

    He is portrayed in art with a bell near him (White).

    Taken from:
    http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06557c.htm

    See longer version found at:
    http://www.cin.org/saints/gildas.html


    Saint Quote:
    Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament is half my life. The other half
    consists in loving Jesus and winning souls for Him.
    -- Saint Mary Hermina Grivot

    Bible Quote:
    Yet he was merciful; He forgave their iniquities and did not destroy
    them. Time after time, He restrained his anger and did not stir up His
    full wrath. He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze
    that does not return. (Psalm 78:38)


    <><><><>
    To the Eternal Father

    Father of mercy and God of all consolation, graciously look upon me and
    impart to me the blessing which flows from this Sacrament; encompass me wit=
    h
    Your loving kindness and let this Holy Mystery bear fruit in me. I extol
    Thee, almighty and all-merciful Father, I praise and magnify Thee for the superabundant mercy wherewith Thou has had compassion on me, cleansed me
    from sin and admitted me to participate in this sacred union with Thee. May
    it avail for the remission of my past sins, as a remedy of those which stil=
    l
    cling to me, and preventive of all which I might commit in future, You Who lives and reigns God for endless ages. - Amen.

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