Apostleship of Prayer         Saints

St Richard of Chichester          April 3

Bishop. Born in Droitwich in 1197, the son of a yeoman farmer, St Richard helped restore the family fortunes by working hard on the farm for several years. He refused the offer of an advantageous marriage and went to study canon law at Oxford, Bologna and Paris.
In 1235 he became chancellor of Oxford. He was ordained priest in 1242 after which he was made parish priest at Charing and at Deal. In 1244 he was chosen to be bishop but King Henry III refused to accept him. Pope Boniface refused the candidate the king had lined up. Both sides appealed to the Pope. In the meantime the king confiscated Richard's property. The Pope however said Richard should be bishop and he was consecrated at Lyon in 1245. It was another two years before his property was returned to him. In the meantime Richard lived in the parish house at Tarring and grew figs in his spare time.
During his lifetime Richard was considered a model bishop, strict with his priests but very generous and accessible to his people. During the plague he spent every day ministering to the sick.
He died on this day in 1253 and was canonised nine years later. A shrine was built to him at Chichester Cathedral which became a centre for pilgrimage until it was destroyed by reformers in 1538. His body is said to have been hidden secretly.
In art St Richard is represented by a chalice in memory of an occasion when he was saying Mass and dropped the chalice - which remained unspilled. There are murals of him at Norwich and Black Borton, Oxfordshire.
He is the patron of the coachmen's guild of Milan because he drove carts on his family farm. He is also seen as the type of academic who is skilled in agriculture as well as academic study.
St Richard wrote the prayer:

Thanks to thee my Lord Jesus Christ,
be all the benefits thou hast given me,
for all the pains and insults which thou has borne for me,
O most merciful redeemer,
friend and brother,
may I know thee more clearly,
love thee more dearly
and follow thee more nearly day by day.

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