MEMORIAL OF SAINT HARVEY, ABBOT, SAINT ALBERT CHMIELOWSKI; AND SAINT AVITUS, BISHOP AND SAINT EMILY DE VIALAR, RELIGIOUS ~ FEAST DAY: JUNE 17TH Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Harvey, Abbot, Saint Albert Chmielowski, Priest; Saint Avitus, Bishop and Saint Emily de Vialar, Religious. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the poor and the needy. We also pray for the sick, particularly those who are sick and dying and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for peace, love and unity in our families and our world. And we continue to pray for the Church, the Clergy, with special intention for all Priests, for persecuted Christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world.🙏🏽

SAINT HARVEY, ABBOT: St. Harvey (c. 521 – 556 AD), also known Saint Hervé, Herveus Houarniaule, or Huva, was a sixth-century Breton saint. Along with Saint Ives, he is one of the most popular of the Breton Saints and makes up a considerable part of the folklore of that area. According to a biography dating from the late Middle Ages, St. Harvey was the son of a British bard Hyvarnion; born in Brittany during the 6th century, St. Harvey was blind from birth. His father died while the Saint was still an infant, and his mother,  Rivanone, became an anchoress, she entrusted him at the age of seven to the care of his uncles and a renowned holy man called Arzian, with whom he stayed until his teenage years and herself retired to a monastery. He lived for a while as a hermit and after learning everything Arzian could teach him, St. Harvey joined his uncle Urzel who had founded a monastic school at Plouvien, France helping him out with the students and the farm. In time, he himself became Abbot of the community at Plouvien and it flourished under his leadership. He became an Abbot at Plouvien.

St. Harvey ultimately migrated with part of his community to found a new house in Lanhouarneau in Finistere and made it famous throughout the country. He was a Singer, Minstrel, Teacher, and  Miracle worker. As one of the most popular saints in Brittany, he figures in the area’s folklore. St. Harvey is portrayed as a wandering monk and minstrel, and many popular tales are told about his person. Reported to have a special ministry of healing animals, and to have a domesticated wolf as a companion. Legend says that the wolf killed and ate the ox that Herve used to plow his fields; Herve then preached such a moving sermon the wolf repented his ways, moved to Herve’s hermitage, and ploughed Herve’s fields in place of the ox. He was joined by disciples and was never ordained, refused any ordination or earthly honour, accepting only to be ordained as an exorcist. he performed some of his most outstanding miracles as the result of his order of Exorcist. He also took part in the condemnation of the tyrant Conover in 550. He died in 556 AD and was buried at Lanhouarneau. He is invoked for eye-troubles of all types. He’s Patron Saint of the blind; bards; musicians; invoked against eye problems, eye disease; invoked to cure sick horses

PRAYER: Lord, amid the things of this world, let us be wholeheartedly committed to heavenly things in imitation of the example of evangelical perfection You have given us in St. Harvey the Abbot. Amen🙏🏽

SAINT ALBERT CHMIELOWSKI, PRIEST: St. Albert was the Founder of the Albertine Brothers and Sisters, and one of the Saints who inspired the vocation of the young Karol Wojtyla, the future Saint Pope John Paul II. St. Albert was born on August 20, 1845 in (near Kraków) and Christened Adam Hilary Bernard Chmielowski. Born into a wealthy and aristocratic family, Adam was the oldest of four children. Actively involved in politics from his youth, Adam lost a leg fighting in an insurrection against Czar Alexander III at age 18 in 1864 revolt. Adam’s wounds forced the amputation of his left leg. His great talent for painting led to studies in Warsaw, Munich, and Paris and became a polar artist. A kind and compassionate person, Adam was always deeply aware of human suffering, and felt called to help those in need. Realizing that God was calling Him to a life of service, he returned to Krakow in 1874, determined to dedicate his talents to the glory of God. Instead of continuing his work as an artist, he decided to care for the poor and became a Secular Franciscan, taking the name Albert.

In 1887, Albert founded the Brothers of the Third Order of Saint Francis, Servants of the Poor, known as the Albertines or the Gray Brothers. They worked primarily with the homeless, depending completely on alms while serving the needy regardless of age, religion, or politics. Then, in 1891, he founded a community of Albertine sisters, known as the Gray Sisters. The Albertines organized food and shelter for the poor and homeless of any age or religion. Albert preached on the great crisis that results from a refusal to see and aid the suffering individuals in society. In 1949, Pope John Paul II, who was at the time Father Karol Wojtyla, wrote a well-received play about Albert called Our God’s Brother. Pope John Paul II later said that he found great spiritual support for his own vocation in the life of St. Albert, whom he saw as an example of leaving behind a world of art, literature, and theater to make a radical choice for the priesthood. Brother Albert died on Christmas Day, 1916. Pope John Paul II beatified Albert in 1983, and canonized him six years later on November 12, 1989. He’s the Patron Saint of  Painters, Servants of the Poor, Sisters Servants of the Poor, Franciscan tertiaries, Soldiers. The Church celebrates St. Albert’s feast day on June 17.

Saint Albert Chmielowski, Priest ~ Pray for us 🙏🏽

SAINT AVITUS, BISHOP: St. Avitus was bishop and confessor, whose faith, labors and admirable learning protected France against the ravages of the Arian heresy. St. Avitus was the child of a poor family of Orleans, France. From his youth he desired to consecrate himself to God, and he received the monastic habit at the abbey of Micy or Saint-Maximin in the diocese of Orleans, at that time still very small. Its first Superior, Saint Maximin, remarked the young monk’s virtue when he observed that he deprived himself of a great portion of his food each day in order to nourish the poor. After serving as steward for the monastery, Saint Avitus decided to leave in secret to go and live in solitude in a deserted place. Saint Maximin recognized in this flight a secret design of God and made no attempt to have him return. But when the holy Abbot died, Saint Avitus was chosen to succeed him by the unanimous consent of the religious. He was brought back despite his protestations of unworthiness, and was obliged to receive the episcopal consecration and his investiture from the bishop of Orleans.

He labored at his new duties with great assiduity, but saw with sorrow that the religious were becoming lax. He again thought of flight, considering himself the cause of the difficulties, and did indeed find a solitude in the diocese of Chartres, far from all village life, where he lived several years on fruits growing wild in the forest. One day a poor mute herdsman lost a pig in the forest, and when a severe storm broke out, lost his way until he saw a light in the distance. When he approached, he found himself facing the Saint. The latter not only lit his torch again for him and showed him the way to go, but made the sign of the cross on his mouth and restored to him the use of speech, which he had not had for long years. When this miracle was divulged, the hermit became known everywhere in the region, and the desert was soon transformed, as it were, into a city. The monastery which Saint Avitus built there and governed later bore his name. He left it from time to time to go to the city of Orleans for his works of mercy; his prayers cured many sick and handicapped persons. When he failed to persuade the cruel king Clodomir to liberate Saint Sigismond, king of Burgundy, with his wife and children whom he had captured and held prisoner and was intending to put to death, Saint Avitus told him that if he committed that crime, he himself would perish miserably in the first battle he would undertake. This indeed is what occurred. Saint Avitus one day resurrected one of his brethren who had died during his absence; all the monks saw the dead religious rise from his coffin and begin to sing with the others the infinite mercies of Our Lord. Saint Lubin or Leobin, bishop of Chartres, assured his people in a sermon that he had learned of this fact from the very monk who had been resurrected. Three famous religious, one of them the same Saint Leobin, who at that time was a simple monk, attended our Saint at his blessed death, which happened about the year 530. His body was carried to the church of Saint George in Orleans and interred there with great pomp. Afterwards king Childebert built a magnificent temple over this tomb, out of gratitude for the prayers of Saint Avitus.

Saint Avitus, Bishop ~ Pray for us🙏🏽

SAINT EMILY DE VIALAR, RELIGIOUS: St. Emily de Vialar (1797–1856) was born in Gaillac, France in 1797 to the physician of Louis XVIII, an aristocratic family in the years following the French Revolution. Because the Catholic faith was under severe persecution, she was baptized in secret by her parents and her religious instruction was given at home. She was a devout child who displayed an aptitude for prayer, and she shunned the luxuries of her state in life. After the death of her mother, her father arranged to find her a suitable husband when she reached 15 years of age. Emily, who desired to lead the religious life in service to the poor, resisted her father’s attempts and endured his anger at her refusal. She desired also to repair the harm caused by the Revolution by catechizing the local children. She cared for the children and sick of the town, trying to repair the harm done by the French Revolution, while also caring for her widowed father. Emily remained a virgin and privately consecrated herself to God while living in her father’s home.

When she was 21 she met a priest who helped her set up an out-patient service for the sick in her own home, which heightened her tense relationship with her father. When her grandfather died, Emily inherited a large fortune which allowed her independence in the service of God. She bought a large home in her town and began a religious order in service to the sick and poor, and to the education of children, which quickly flourished. In 1835, St. Emily and 26 women took religious vows, calling themselves the sisters of St. Joseph “of the Apparition.” (referring to The angel Gabriels’ telling St. Joseph to flee to Egypt). By the time Emily died in 1856, in about 40 years her order, called the Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition, established 40 houses throughout the world, in Europe, Africa, and Asia. Four years after her death her body was found incorrupt. She’s the Patron Saint of Single women. Saint Emily de Vialar’s feast day is June 17th.

Saint Emily de Vialar, Religious ~ Pray for us🙏🏽