July 23, 2018: ST. LIBORIUS

July 23, 2018: COMMEMORATION OF ST. LIBORIUS, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR

Behold a great Prelate, who in his days pleased God, and was found righteous: and in time of wrath became an atonement.

Prayer (Collect).

Grant, we beseech thee, O Almighty God, that the venerable solemnity of blessed Liborius, thy Confessor and Bishop, may improve our devotion, and strengthen in us the hopes of salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

While Apollinaris adorns holy Mother Church with the bright purple of his martyrdom, another noble son crowns her brow with the white wreath of a Confessor-Pontiff. Liborius, the heir of Julian, Thuribius, and Pavacius, was a brilliant link in the glorious chain connecting the Church of Le Mans with Clement, the successor of St. Peter; he came to bring peace after the storm, and to restore to the earth a hundred-fold fruitfulness after the ruin caused by the tempest. The fanatical disciples of Odin invading the west of Gaul, had committed more havoc in this part of our Lord's vineyard than had the proconsuls with their cold legalism, or the ancient druids with their fierce hatred. Liborius, defender of the earthly fatherland, and guide of souls to the heavenly one, brought the enemy to be citizen of both by making him Christian. As a Pontiff, he laboured with purest zeal for the magnificence of Divine worship, which renders homage to God, and gives health to the earth; as apostle, he took up again the work of evangelization begun by the first messengers of the faith, driving idolatry from the strongholds it had reconquered, and from the country parts, where it had always reigned supreme: his friend St. Martin had not in this respect a more worthy rival.

Five centuries after the close of his laborious life, his blessed body was removed from the sanctuary where it lay among his fellow-bishops, and scattering miracles all along the way, was carried to Paderborn; pagan barbarism once more fled at the approach of Liborius, and Westphalia was won to Christ. Le Mans and Paderborn, uniting in the veneration of their common apostle, have thus sealed a friendship which a thousand years have not destroyed.

Another account of St. Liborius.

(End of 4th Century)

S. Liborius was bishop of Sens in Gaul, and a friend of S. Martin, who buried him. This is really all that is known of this saint. His relics were translated to Paderborn in 836. He is invoked against gravel and the stone, and is represented holding calculi on a book in his hand.

Taken from: The Liturgical Year - Time after Pentecost, Vol. IV, Dublin, Edition 1901;
The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints, Vol. VIII; and
The Divine Office for the use of the Laity, Volume II, 1806.

Also Read – July 23, 2018: St. Apollinaris, Bishop and Martyr.

St. Liborius, pray for us.