On the Wedding Garment

Then the king said to the waiters: Bind his hands and feet, and
cast him into the exterior darkness: there shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth.

The man without a wedding garment is a figure of the unrepentent
sinner in mortal sin who stands before God without the wedding garment
of sanctifying grace. The binding of his hands and feet and casting
into the exterior darkness represents God punishing the sinner and
condemning him to hell. [Matt 22: 13]

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November 6th – St. Winnoc, Abbot
d. 717?

WINNOC was probably of British origin. When a young man he, with 3
companions, came to the newly founded monastery of St. Peter at Sithiu (Saint-Omer). He was so edified with the fervour of the monks and the
wisdom of their abbot, St. Bertin that he and his companions agreed to
take the habit together. Soon, as the chronicler of the monastery
testifies, St. Winnoc shone like a morning star among the hundred and
fifty monks who inhabited that sanctuary.

When it was judged proper to found a new monastery in a remoter part
of the country of the Morini, for the instruction and example of the inhabitants of that part, Heremar, a man who had lately embraced the
faith, bestowed on St. Bertin some land at Wormhout, near Dunkirk,
very convenient for that purpose. Bertin sent thither his four British
monks to found the new monastery. St. Winnoc and his brethren worked
tirelessly in building their church and cells, together with a
hospital for the sick, and the place soon became an important
missionary centre. Many miracles were attributed to Winnoc, who was
always foremost in the service of his monastic brethren and his
heathen neighbours. Even in his old age he ground corn for the poor of
his community, turning the hand-mill himself without any assistance.
When others were astonished that he should have strength enough to do constantly such hard labour, they looked through a chink into the barn
and saw the quern turning without being touched, which they ascribed
to a miracle.

St. Winnoc died on November 6, the year, according to the 14th-century tradition, being 717. Count Baldwin IV built and founded at Bergues an
abbey, which he peopled with a colony from Sithiu and enriched with
the relics of St. Winnoc. The lands of the monastery of Wormhout were
settled upon this house, and the town bears the name of
Bergues-Saint-Winnoc.

In curious contrast to St. Illtud, St. Winnoc, though his direct
connection with Great Britain is very slight, is commemorated in
nearly all the English calendars of the 10th and 11th centuries (see
those edited for the Henry Bradshaw Society by F. Wormald in 1934).
What is more, his name is mentioned and the miracle of the corn
grinding described in detail in the Old-English martyrology of c. 850.
Three Latin lives of St. Winnoc have been printed in the Acta
Sanctorum, November, vol. iii, but only the first, which may have been
written as early as the eighth century, is of much account, the other
two being obviously based upon this. This first life has also been
edited by Levison in MGH., Scriptores Merov., vol. v. See also Van der
Essen, Étude critique sur les Saints méroving., pp. 402 seq. Flahault,
Le culte de St. Winnoc a Wormhout (1903) and Duine, Memento, p. 64.
St. Winnoc is apparently the titular of Saint Winnow in Cornwall, and
in an excellent monograph (1940) Canon Doble gives reasons for
thinking he was a Welshman who founded this Cornish church and
subsequently came to Sithiu, no doubt via Brittany.


Saint Quote:
Those who lived according to the old order of things have come to a
new hope, no longer keeping the sabbath, but the Lord's Day, in which
our life is blessed by him and by his death.
--Saint Ignatius of Antioch

Bible Quote:
But he that heareth and doth not is like to a man building his house
upon the earth without a foundation: against which the stream beat
vehemently. And immediately it fell: and the ruin of that house was
great. (Luke 6:49) DRB


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Daily Thoughts and Prayers for Our Beloved Dead

"Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you my friends, because
the hand of the Lord hath touched me" Job. 19-21.

SIXTH DAY

The Souls in Purgatory are powerless to help themselves. They cannot
do penance, nor offer satisfaction, nor gain indulgences, nor receive
the Sacraments. They cannot pray for themselves. We, who are still on
earth, can share with them the Graces which God so generously and
abundantly gives us.

Prayer: Our Father, Three Hail Marys, Gloria, De Profundis.

De Profundis

Out of the depths, I have cried to Thee,
O Lord, Lord, hear my voice.
Let Thine ears be attentive to the
voice of my supplication.
If Thou, O Lord, shalt mark my iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand it?
For with Thee there is merciful
forgiveness: and by reason of Thy
law I have waited for Thee, O Lord.
My soul hath relied on His word; my soul
hath hoped in the Lord.
From the morning watch even until
night; let Israel hope in the Lord.
Because with the Lord there is mercy;
And with Him plenteous redemption.
And He shall redeem Israel from
all its iniquities.
Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord,
And let perpetual light shine upon them:
May they rest in peace. Amen.

Most beloved Jesus, by the merits of Thy five wounds, hear the pleas
and release from the torments of Purgatory the faithful soul that did
the most good on earth. Place it today at Thy heavenly throne that it
may join in honoring Thee and in guiding me to live according to its
dictates.

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