(ca. 500-570)
His life
+ Especially remembered as a teacher and historian, Gildas was born in England.
+ As a young man he settled in Wales and, following the death of his wife, he became a monk at a monastery founded by Saint Illtyd.
+ After making a pilgrimage to Rome, he founded a monastery in Brittany, where he died in the year 570.
+ Known as “the Wise,” Gildas is one of the most important of the early Welsh monks. His history of the Celtic people shows him to have been a learned man who was greatly distressed by the decadence and corruption of the monarchy and Church of his day.
+ Saint Gildas is especially honored in Brittany, where his feast is solemnly celebrated in the Diocese of Vannes.
For prayer and reflection
“Those who love me I also love,
and those who seek me find me.
With me are riches and honor,
wealth that endures, and righteousness.”—Proverbs 8:17-18
Spiritual bonus
On this day, the Church also remembers Blessed Daniel Altbella Gracia. A professed religious of the Marist Brothers, he was martyred during the anti-Catholic persecutions of the Spanish Civil War on January 29, 1939. He was beatified with other martyrs in 2013.
Prayer
O God, who in your kindness called your servant blessed Gildas to the following of Christ, grant, we pray, through his intercession, that, denying ourselves, we may hold fast to you with all our heart. 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.
(from The Roman Missal: Common of Holy Men and Women—For a Monk)
Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.
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