MEMORIAL OF SAINT WILLIAM OF VERCELLI, ABBOT; SAINT PROSPER OF REGGIO, BISHOP AND SAINT DOMINIC HENARES, PRIEST AND SAINT PROSPER OF AQUITAINE, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH ~ FEAST DAY: JUNE 25TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint William of Vercelli, Abbot; Saint Prosper of Reggio, Bishop; Saint Dominic Henares, Priest and St. Prosper of Aquitaine, Doctor of the Church. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary and the Saints on this feast day, we humbly pray for the sick and dying, especially those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for the poor and needy, for justice, peace and unity in our families and our world. And we continue to pray for the Church, the Clergy, our Holy Father, Pope Francis, the Cardinals, Bishops, all Priests, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world especily those suffering from political and religious unrest. May God protect us all and keep united in peace, love and faith… Amen 🙏🏽
SAINT WILLIAM OF VERCELLI, ABBOT: St. William of Vercelli (1085 – June 25th 1142 A.D.), also known as St. William of Monte Vergine or St. William of Monte Virgine, was Abbot and Founder of the Congregation of Monte-Vergine. He was born in Vercelli, a city of Lombardy, in the northern Italian region of Piedmont. He was born into a noble family, though he was orphaned very early on in his life, he lost his father and mother in his infancy and was brought up by a relative in great sentiments of piety. At fifteen years of age, having an earnest desire to lead a penitential life, he left his native region and made a long and austere pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Spain to the shrine of the Virgin founded by Saint James at Saragossa. While on the pilgrimage, he wore a ring of iron around his waist as an additional penance. After his return to Italy, St. William decided to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem and traveled as far as southern Italy. St. William would have made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem but he was accosted by brigands on the road and was beaten and robbed. St. William took this as a sign that God was calling him to a solitary life and wished him to stay in Italy and spread the Gospel there. He retired into the kingdom of Naples and chose for his abode an uninhabited mountain. He settled on the top of Monte Vergiliana near Naples, and lived there as a hermit, changing the name to Montevergine (Mount of the Virgin). He lived in perpetual contemplation and the exercises of rigorous penitential austerities. His holiness and piety attracted many followers. Many miracles were attributed to him including a miracle of healing a blind man by his prayers. He was discovered and his fame throughout southern Italy grew. His contemplation was interrupted, so he decided to move to another mountain, where he built a very beautiful church in honor of Our Lady. With several former secular priests who joined him there, in 1119 he began the establishment of the Congregation of Monte Vergine, or Mount of the Virgin. This site is between Nola and Benevento in the same kingdom of Naples.
These sons of Our Lady lived in great austerity. Seeing the progress in holiness of the good religious being formed there, the devil sowed division and criticism; but God drew good from the evil when Saint William went elsewhere and founded several more monasteries, both for men and women, in various places in the kingdom of Naples. He assisted the king of Naples, who greatly venerated him, to practice all the Christian virtues of a worthy sovereign, and the king in gratitude had a house of the Order built at Salerno opposite his palace, to have him near him more often. When Saint William died on the 25th of June, 1142, he had not yet written a Rule for his religious; his second successor, Robert, fearing the dissolution of a community without constitutions, placed them under that of Saint Benedict, and is regarded as the first abbot of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte-Vergine with a Rule based on the Benedictines. A portrait of the Virgin venerated there has been an unfailing source of holy compunction; pilgrims continue to visit it. Five other houses were formed during his lifetime, but only the original survives today. St. William of Vercelli is honored as a saint who was a leader in monastic life—both because he established a number of monasteries and because his rigorous discipline, prayer, and fasting were an example for many monks. He died June 25, 1142 of natural causes.
He’s the Patron Saint of Irpinia, Italy.
PRAYER: Grant us, O Lord, that amid the uncertainties of this world we may cling with all our heart to the things of heaven, for through the Abbot blessed William of Vercelli, you have given us a model of evangelical perfection. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever… Amen🙏🏽
SAINT PROSPER OF REGGIO, BISHOP: St. Prosper of Reggio, was a 5th/6th-century Saint shrouded in obscurity; beginning with the 9th century he was venerated in the Italian province of Emilia, although he may have been a native Spain originally. He was Fifth century bishop of Reggio in Italy. Tradition holds that he was a bishop of Reggio Emilia for twenty-two years and was much loved for his kindness and modesty. He cared so little about his own glory that he specially asked to be buried in the small church outside the city walls, rather than the city’s large cathedral.
When a rich young man asked Jesus: “What have I to do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus told him: “Sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.” According to tradition, Saint Prosper took this command so seriously he gave away all his possessions and goods to the poor in order to fulfill our Lord’s precept to the rich young man. He became a Bishop and his beneficent Episcopate lasted twenty-two years. In due time, Prosper passed on his heavenly reward, surrounded by his priest and deacons. He died on June 25 in 466 at Reggio Emilia and he was buried in the church of St. Apollinaris, which he had built and consecrated, outside the walls of Reggio. In 703, his relics were transferred to a great new church erected in his honor by Bishop Thomas of Reggio. And fittingly enough he is the principal Patron of that city. He is remembered for his sense of charity. He is the Patron Saint of Reggio Emilia, Italy; The Poor.
PRAYER: God, You made St. Proper an outstanding exemplar of Divine love and the faith that conquers the world, and added him to the roll of saintly pastors. Grant by his intercession that we may persevere in faith and love, and become sharers of his glory. Amen 🙏🏽
SAINT DOMINIC HENARES, PRIEST: St. Dominic Henares (1764-1838) was born to a poor family in Spain. He joined the Dominican Order and was ordained a priest in 1790. Ten years later he was sent as a missionary to the Far East. He went from Mexico to the Philippines, and finally to North Vietnam. He became Bishop of Phunhay, Vietnam, in 1803. In 1831 the Vietnamese emperor officially prohibited Catholicism and severely persecuted the Church. Whole villages were sent into exile; priests were arrested and subjected to the most terrible tortures before they were killed. Those who helped capture them were richly rewarded. Bishop Henares was arrested and beheaded in Nam Dinh on June 25, 1838; the soldiers and villagers who participated in his arrest received generous compensation. St. Dominic Henares is one of an estimated 130,000 to 300,000 Catholics martyred for the faith in Vietnam between the 15th and 20th centuries. They were canonized together by Pope St. John Paul II in 1988. St. Dominic Henares’ feast day is June 25, and the collective memorial for 117 of the Vietnamese Martyrs is November 24.
Saint Dominic Henares, Priest ~ Pray for us 🙏🏽
SAINT PROSPER OF AQUITAINE, DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH: St. Prosper of Aquitaine (390 – c. 455 AD), was a Christian writer and disciple of St. Augustine of Hippo, was the first continuator of Jerome’s Universal Chronicle. Saint Prosper was born in the Roman province of Aquitaine in the year 390. He is known chiefly through his writings, which reveal that in his youth he had applied himself to all branches both of sacred and secular learning. Because of the purity and sanctity of his manners, the writers of his time testify that he was a holy and venerable man. By his labors in France against the semi-Pelagian heretics, he was a strong collaborator of Saint Augustine in Africa. He was in correspondence with the African doctor, who wrote two of his works to refute and give light to the semi-Pelagians: On the predestination of the Saints and On the gift of perseverance. The enemies of Saint Augustine turned against Saint Prosper also, publishing fifteen errors which they attributed to the latter, then sixteen propositions supposedly clarifying Augustine’s true sentiments, and spread them widely. The Saint with gentleness answered all these writings without acrid reprisals.
Saint Prosper, insofar as is known, was not an ecclesiastic; but being of great virtue and possessing extraordinary talents and learning, he dealt with delicate questions with remarkable insight. Saint Leo the Great, when chosen Pope in 440, invited him to Rome, made him his secretary, and employed him in the most important affairs of the Church. It was primarily Saint Prosper who finally crushed the Pelagian heresy definitively, when it was raising its head in the see of Peter. Its complete overthrow is said to be due to his zeal, learning, and unwearied endeavors. The date of his death remains uncertain, but he was still living in 455, the date at which his Chronicle concludes.
Saint Prosper of Aquitaine, Doctor of the Church ~ Pray for us 🙏🏽