MEMORIAL OF SAINT ROBERT OF NEWMINSTER, PRIEST AND ABBOT AND BLESSED ANNE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW, RELIGIOUS ~ FEAST DAY: JUNE 7TH: Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Robert of Newminster, Priest and Abbot and Blessed Anne of Saint Bartholomew, Religious. 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 who are sick with the coronavirus disease and those suffering from cancers and other terminal diseases. We pray for an end to violence and war and for those going through difficulties especially during these incredibly challenging times, we pray for the poor and the needy, for peace, love and unity in our families and our world. And we continue to pray for the Church, the Clergy, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world.🙏🏽
SAINT ROBERT OF NEWMINSTER, PRIEST AND ABBOT: St. Robert of Newminster ( c. 1100–1159) was born at Gargrave, Yorkshire, England, at the beginning of the 12th century. He studied at the University of Paris, was ordained a priest and served as a parish priest at Gargrave. He spent the early years of his priesthood as rector of his hometown but later joined the Benedictine community at Whitby and then the Cistercians at Fountains. In 1132 he helped to establish Fountains Abbey which embraced the Cistercian rule of St Bernard of Clairvaux. Fountains was to have a daughter abbey at Newminster near Morpeth, Northumberland and St. Robert became the first abbot in 1138/9. The Abbey of Newminster at Morpeth, Northumberland became a place of pilgrimage.
As Abbot, St. Robert founded several new monasteries and also provided a fine example leading his monks to sanctity. He was known for his kindness, austerity and holiness. He was a great man of prayer, a spiritual writer and exorcist. He recited the entire Psalter of 150 psalms daily and he ate sparingly to maintain his self-denial. This holy man was endowed with special power over evil spirits and he cured many possessed persons; he is sometimes pictured as holding the devil in chains and taming him with an upright crucifix. He led a strict way of life and fasted from food and drink, especially during Lent. One Easter Day his stomach, weakened by the fast of Lent, could take no food. Finally he consented to try to eat some bread sweetened with honey. Before it was brought, he changed his mind and sent the food, untouched, to the poor at the gate. The plate was received by a young man who took the bread and disappeared.
St. Robert was a close friend of the simple holy hermit, Saint Godric of Finchale and often visited him in his lonely hermitage at Finchale, where they would discourse about heavenly mysteries. At the moment of St. Robert’s death, on June 7, 1159, his friend, St. Godric saw his soul ascending to heaven like a ball or globe of fire, taken up by the Angels in a pathway of light, while the gates of heaven opened before them. St. Robert took his name from Newminster Abbey, where he and his monks lived until his death on June 7, 1159. He was buried at St Robert of Newminster’s R C Church, Morpeth, United Kingdom.
PRAYER: Lord, amid the things of this world, let us be wholeheartedly commited to heavenly things in imitation of the example of evangelical perfection You have given us in St. Robert the Abbot. Amen🙏🏽
BLESSED ANNE OF SAINT BARTHOLOMEW, RELIGIOUS: Bl. Anne of St. Bartholomew (1549–1626) was a Spanish Roman Catholic professed religious and a professed member from the Discalced Carmelites. She was favoured with innumerable mystical graces from childhood, she imbibed the Teresian spirit at its very source, being the nurse, secretary, and travel companion of the great reformer of Carmel, Saint Teresa of Ávila. Bl. Anne led the establishment of new monasteries of in France and the Lowlands. Bl. Anne was born Ana García Manzanas on October 1, 1549 at Almendral de la Cañada, Old Castile, Crown of Castile in Spain, one of seven children. Her parents died when the plague swept through Spain, leaving her an orphan at the age of ten. She then became a shepherdess tending her brother’s sheep. From a young age she had an extraordinary spiritual life, including being graced with many visions. In one of them the Blessed Virgin Mary told her she would become a nun, which was further encouraged by a vision of Jesus. When she tried to enter the monastery she was turned away for being too young. Years later, when her family tried to arrange her marriage, she finally entered the Carmelite monastery at the age of 21, the same one in which St. Teresa of Avila lived. St. Teresa chose Bl. Anne as her personal secretary and assistant, even though she had to teach Bl. Anne how to write. For five years Bl. Anne was the companion of St. Teresa of Avila, traveling with her and assisting her in the establishment of new foundations. She was a close friend and aide to Saint Teresa of Ávila and it was in Bl. Anne’s arms that St. Teresa died on October 4, 1582. On her deadbed, sensing her last moment approaching, St. Teresa confessed, received the Viaticum and expired with her head resting in the arms of the faithful Anne, who had attended her day and night.
After St. Teresa’s departure for eternity, Bl. Anne became a reference point for those who, both inside and outside the Order of Carmel, wished to come to better know the Teresian soul and her epic feat. And it soon became evident how much that faithful witness had allowed herself to be shaped by her superior and assimilated her spirit. Out of obedience, she received the black veil, which meant she was no longer a simple lay sister, and she was sent to France, together with other religious, to introduce the Order of Discalced Carmelites there. Bl. Anne assisted in the foundation of several other monasteries in France, becoming prioress at three of them. She sometimes struggled with her superiors as she set about setting new convents and holding her position as a prioress. Bl. Anne spent the final years of her life in Belgium in the Netherlands, where she founded the Carmel of Antwerp and remained until her death. At that time, the Belgians were at war with the Dutch. Her reputation for sanctity became so widespread that many soldiers, before leaving for the war front, came to ask her for some object of hers, to use it as a relic and an assurance of God’s protection. God spared one soldier from death who carried in his breast pocket a paper bearing the writing of the holy mother. A bullet passed through the thick cloth of his uniform, but was stopped by the fine sheet of paper! Furthermore, on two occasions, in 1622 and 1624, when the city was about to be seized by enemy troops, the prayers of Mother Anne miraculously saved it, justifying what was said some time before by the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, daughter of Philip II, who was at that time governing the Low Countries: “I fear nothing concerning the Castle of Antwerp or this city, for I am more assured by the prayers of Mother Anne of St. Bartholomew than by any number of armies that I could have there.” On June 7, 1626 this courageous soul, Bl. Anne finished her course in this world to enter into the joys of Heaven, where, certainly at the side of her beloved Mother Teresa of Jesus, she continues to help those who work for the glory of God and His Church. After her death over 150 approved miracles (and more that have not been officially approved) were attributed to her intercession. Bl. Anne died on June 7, 1626 (aged 75) Antwerp, County of Flanders, Spanish Netherlands. She was Beatified on May 6, 1917, Saint Peter’s Basilica, Kingdom of Italy by Pope Benedict XV. She’s the Patron Saint of Antwerp. Her feast day is June 7th.
PRAYER TO BL. ANNE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW: Father, rewarder of the humble, you blessed your servant Anne of Saint Bartholomew with outstanding charity and patience. May her prayers help us, and her example inspire us, to carry our cross and be faithful in loving you, and others for your sake. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen🙏🏽