Day: November 8, 2026

Posted in MARIAN TITLES

Octave Day of All Saints, Notre-Dame de Bellefontaine / Our Lady of the Blessed Fountain, Bellefontaine, France (12th Century) and Memorials of the Saints – 8 November

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Octave Day of All Saints

Notre-Dame de Bellefontaine / Our Lady of the Blessed Fountain, Bellefontaine, France (12th Century) – 8 November:

It was sometime in the 13th century when a man, who was hunting near the Benedictine Abbey, severely injured his hand. The injury was so severe, that the man feared that he might lose his life from the loss of blood which would not cease. Having with him a bowl, he filled it with fresh water he found nearby and placed his hand in it as he prayed devotedly to the Blessed Virgin Mary for her intervention The man’s faith was rewarded, as the hunter looked at his hand to witness the wound miraculously close as if he had never been injured at all.

In recognition of the miracle, he later returned to site, bringing with him, a Statue of the Blessed Virgin. When the news of the miracle became widely known. it attracted many pilgrims from all over Europe. Thus, starting in the 13th century, the Statue of the Virgin was venerated under the title of Notre-Dame-de-Bellefontaine. A small chapel was also built around the Statue of the Virgin Mary.

Shortly before the coming of the French Revolution, a church was built, whose care was entrusted to a local hermit. The Statue of the Blessed Virgin miraculously escaped the revolutionary turmoil and the place remained a place of celebration for the faithful of the two neighbouring counties. The nearby Benedictine Abbey, which had been founded at the end of the eleventh century, was plundered and confiscated by the state during the Revolution and then sold in the year 1791. In 1794 some of the buildings were set ablaze and the rest of the Abbey left in ruins. Some of the property was purchased on 17 january 1817, by a Trappist Monk, Urban Guillet and it once again became a flourishing Monastery.

The pool from which the hunter obtained the water still exists and is now protected behind a metal grate. There is also a modern statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary located in a grotto nearby, as the original statue disappeared during the fighting and chaos of World War I. Its current whereabouts is unknown.

St Adeodatus I, Pope
St Clair of Tours
St Cybi of Caenarvon
St Drouet

Blessed John Duns Scotus OFM (c 1265-1308) Doctor Subtilis (Subtle Doctor) Franciscan Priest and Friar, Theologian, Philosopher, Lecturer – known as “The minstrel of the Word Incarnate” and “Defender of Mary’s Immaculate Conception”.

St Gervadius
St Giuse Nguyen Ðình Nghi

St Godfrey of Amiens OSB (1066–1115) Bishop of Amiens, Reformer, Apostle of Prayer and Charity, Penitent.

St Gregory of Einsiedeln
St John Baptist Con
Bl Maria Crucified Satellico
St Martinô Tho
St Martinô Ta Ðuc Thinh
St Maurus of Verdun
St Moroc of Scotland
St Phaolô Nguyen Ngân
St Tysilio of Wales
St Willehad of Bremen (Died 789) Bishop Confessor
St Wiomad of Trèves
—
All Deceased Dominicans

All Saints of the Diocese of Evry: A regional memorial of all the saints and beati of the calendar who have a connection to the Diocese of Evry-Corbeil-Essonnes, France.
• Blessed Isabella of France, founded the Longchamp monastery
• Blessed Nicolas Gaudreau, pastor of Vert-le-Petit
• Blessed Pierre Bonse, pastor of Massy
• Our Lady of Good Guard, patron saint of the diocese, venerated in Longpont-sur-Orge, France
• Saint Corbinian, born in Saint-Germain-lès-Arpajon
• Saint Denis of Paris, evangelizer of part of Essonne and revered ni Longpont-sur-Orge
• Saint Eloi, who lived in Chilly-Mazarin
• Saint Germain of Paris
• Saint William of Bourges, son of Count Baldwin IV of Corbeil
• Saint William of Aebelholt, pastor of Brunoy
• Saint Wulfran of Sens, born in Milly-la-Forêt
• Blessed Nativelle, vicar of Longjumeau
• Blessed René Le Bris, pastor of Bris-sous-Forges
• Saint Spire of Bayeux, whose relics are in Corbeil in the cathedral that bears his name
All Saints of Wales

Augustinian Martyrs of Spain

Four Crowned Martyrs: Saint Castorus, Saint Claudius, Saint Nicostratus and Saint Simpronian. Skilled stone carvers in the 3rd century quarries. Martyred when they refused to carve an idol of Aesculapius for Diocletian. They were drowned in the River Sava in 305. Patronages – against fever, cattle, sculptors, stone masons, stonecutters.

Martyred in the Spanish Civil War
• BlessedAntolín Pablos Villanueva
• BlessedLaureano Pérez Carrascal
• BlessedManuel Sanz Domínguez
• BlessedMaximino Serrano Sáiz

Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 8 November – Saint Gervadius

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saint Gervadius, also known as Garnat, Garnet, Gernad, Gerardin, Gerardine, Gernard, Gernardius, Gervat, was a tenth century Irish hermit at at Kenedor and Holyman Head in Scotland, where he lived in a cave. He may have moved to Scotland to escape Viking raids on his home country. He would light torches at night to warn ships away from the dangerous rocks along the shore. His cave survived into the 19th century, being a place of pilgrimage before being quarried out. Once when he needed wood to complete construction of a church, a great storm struck upriver of him, washing enough timber down river to finish the work.

He died around 934.

Posted in Our MORNING Offering

Our Morning Offering – 8 November – May I Be United With You, Good Jesus

Posted on by AnaStpaul

May I Be United With You, Good Jesus
St Peter Canisius (1521-1597)
Doctor of the Church

Let my eyes take their sleep
but may my heart always
keep watch for You.
May Your right hand bless Your servants
who love You.
May I be united with the praise
that flows from You, Lord Jesus,
to all Your saints;
united with the gratitude
drawn from Your heart, good Jesus,
that causes Your saints to thank You;
united with Your passion, good Jesus,
by which You took away our guilt;
united with the divine longing
which You had on earth, for our salvation;
united with every prayer
that welled from Your divine heart, good Jesus
and flowed into the hearts of Your saints.
Amen

Posted in ONE Minute REFLECTION

One Minute Reflection – 8 November – The good grain and the weeds, mixed together in the Church until the Day of the Lord

Posted on by AnaStpaul

One Minute Reflection – 8 November – “Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory” – Readings: Jer 29:11-12; 29:14, Ps 84:2, Col 3:12-17,Matt 13:24-30

And the servants of the householder came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’

Matt 13:24-30

REFLECTION – It happened not long ago that a follower of Lucifer had a dispute with a son of the Church. His loquacity was odious and the language he employed most abusive. For he declared that the world belonged to the devil, and, as is commonly said by them at the present day, that the Church was turned into a brothel. His opponent on the other hand, with reason indeed, but without due regard to time and place, urged that Christ did not die in vain, and that it was for something more than a Sardinian cloak of skins that the Son of God came down from heaven. To be brief, the dispute was not settled when night interrupted the debate, and the lighting of the street-lamps gave the signal for the assembly to disperse. The combatants therefore withdrew, almost spitting in each other’s faces, an arrangement having been previously made by the audience for a meeting in a quiet porch at daybreak. Thither, accordingly, they all came, and it was resolved that the words of both speakers should be taken down by reporters.

2. When all were seated, Helladius the Luciferian said, I want an answer first to my question. Are the Arians Christians or not?

Orthodoxus. I answer with another question, Are all heretics Christians?

L. If you call a man a heretic you deny that he is a Christian.

O. No heretics, then, are Christians.

L. I told you so before.

O. If they are not Christ’s, they belong to the devil.

L. No one doubts that.

St Jerome

Ninety-five Theses, by Martin Luther

PRAYER – O Lord our God, grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love and to be only good influences to our neighbour. May the prayers of the Blessed Virgin, all the Saints and Angels, ever intercede for the Church Militant and the Church Suffering, Amen.

Posted in CATHOLIC Quotes

Quote/s of the Day – 8 November – the weeds appeared as well

Posted on by AnaStpaul

If you love the world you will be engulfed, for the world knows only how to shipwreck a soul, it knows not how to save it.

St Augustine

What are the miseries which worldlings have to endure? Alas! everything seems to conspire to make them groan without being allowed too complain.

Pere Croiset SJ

The world is that mass of wicked men and impious libertines who refuse to believe in the truths of the gospel, because they wage war with their vices, because they confute the Saviour’s maxims, despise His mysteries, ignore His precepts, and profane His sacraments. In short, the world is the majority who follow its maxims. It is this world which you have to hate in your baptism, and which you are taught to confute, condemn, and wage war against.

Massillion

All the land is infected through the wickedness of those who dwell on it. Blood has tasted blood, the father scandalise his child, the brother lays snares for his brother, and the husband seeks for a divorce.

Massillion

The chains that bind us to the world, are pleasing to look at but hard to bear, the harm they inflict is certain, the pleasure they promise very doubtful, Those who wear them are ever busy, but never exempt from dread. Those who follow the maxims of the world experience nothing but misery.

St Augustine

There are still some amongst us, who keep themselves unspotted from the world, who imitate the early Christians.

St John Chrysostom

Posted in NOVEMBER - Month of the SOULS in PURGATORY

Thought for the Day – 8 November – The wonderful wisdom of God

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Treatise on Purgatory

St Catherine of Genoa

CHAPTER VII

As the soul cleansed and purified finds no place wherein to rest but God, this being its end by creation, so the soul in a state of sin finds no place for it but hell, this being its end by the appointment of God. No sooner, then, does the soul leave the body in mortal sin than it goes straight to hell as to its allotted place, with no other guide than the nature of sin ; and should a soul not find itself thus prevented by the justice of God, but excluded altogether from His appointment, it would endure a still greater hell for God’s appointment partakes of His mercy, and is less severe than the sin deserves ; as it is the soul, finding no place suited to it, nor any lesser pain provided for it by God, casts itself into hell as into its proper place.

Thus, with regard to purgatory, when the soul leaves the body, and finds itself out of that state of purity in which it was created, seeing the hindrance, and
that it can only be removed by purgatory, without a moment’s hesitation it plunges therein : and were there no such means provided to remove the impediment, it would forthwith beget within itself a hell worse than purgatory, because by reason of this impediment it would see itself unable to reach God, its last end : and this hindrance would be so full of pain, that, in comparison with it, purgatory, though, as I have said, it be like hell, would not be worth a thought, but be even as nothing.