Chapter XLVI: Appendix: ON (2)

St. Romuald built many other monasteries, and continued three years at one he founded near Parenzo, one year in the community to settle it, and two in a neighboring cell. Here he labored some time under a spiritual dryness, not being able to shed one tear; but he ceased not to continue his devotions with greater fervor. At last being in his cell, at those words of the psalmist; _I will give thee understanding, and will instruct thee_, he was suddenly visited by God with an extraordinary light and spirit of compunction, which from that time never left him. By a supernatural light, the fruit of prayer, he understood the holy scriptures, and wrote an exposition of the {374} psalms full of admirable unction. He often foretold things to come, and gave directions full of heavenly wisdom to all who came to consult him, especially to his religious, who frequently came to ask his advice how to advance in virtue, and how to resist temptations; he always sent them back to their cells full of an extraordinary cheerfulness. Through his continual weeping he thought others had a like gift, and often said to his monks: "Do not weep too much; for it prejudices the sight and the head." It was his desire, whenever he could conveniently avoid it, not to say mass before a number of people, because he could not refrain from tears in offering that august sacrifice. The contemplation of the Divinity often transported him out of himself; melting in tears, and burning with love, he would cry out: "Dear Jesus! my dear Jesus! my unspeakable desire! my joy! joy of the angels! sweetness of the saints!" and the like, which he was heard to speak with a jubilation which cannot be expressed. To propagate the honor of God, he resolved, by the advice of the bishop of Pola and others, to exchange his remote desert, for one where he could better advance his holy institute. The bishop of Paienzo forbade any boat to carry him off, desiring earnestly to detain him; but the bishop of Pola sent one to fetch him. He miraculously calmed a storm at sea, and landed safe at Capreola. Coming to Bifurcum, he found the monks' cells too magnificent, and would lodge in none but that of one Peter, a man of extraordinary austerity, who never would live in a cell larger than four cubits. This Peter admired the saint's spirit of compunction, and said, that when he recited the psalms alternately with him, the holy man used to go out thirty times in a night as if for some necessity, but he saw it was to abandon himself a few moments to spiritual consolation, with which he overflowed at prayer, or to sighs and tears which he was not able to contain. Romuald sent to the counts of the province of Marino, to beg a little ground whereon to build a monastery. They hearing Romuald's name, offered him with joy whatever mountains, woods, or fields he would choose among them. He found the valley of Castro most proper. Exceeding great was the fruit of the blessed man's endeavors, and many put themselves with great fervor under his direction. Sinners, who did not forsake the world entirely, were by him in great multitudes moved to penance, and to distribute great part of their possessions liberally among the poor. The holy man seemed in the midst of them as a seraph incarnate, burning with heavenly ardors of divine love, and inflaming those who heard him speak. If he travelled, he rode or walked at a distance behind his brethren, reciting psalms, and watering his cheeks almost without ceasing with tears that flowed in great abundance.

The saint had always burned with an ardent desire of martyrdom, which was much increased by the glorious crowns of some of his disciples, especially of St. Boniface. At last, not able to contain the ardor of his charity and desire to give his life for his Redeemer, he obtained the pope's license, and set out to preach the gospel in Hungary, in which mission some of his disciples accompanied him. He had procured two of them to be consecrated archbishops by the pope, declining himself the episcopal dignity; but a violent illness which seized him on his entering Hungary, and returned as often as he attempted to proceed on his intended design, was a plain indication of the will of God in this matter; so he returned home with seven of his associates. The rest, with the two archbishops, went forward, and preached the faith under the holy king, St. Stephen, suffering much for Christ, but none obtained the crown of martyrdom. Romuald in his return built some monasteries in Germany, and labored to reform others; but this drew on him many persecutions. Yet all, even the great ones of the world, trembled in his presence. He refused to accept either water or wood, without {375} paying for it, from Raynerius; marquis of Tuscia, because that prince had married the wife of a relation whom he had killed. Raynerius, though a sovereign, used to say, that neither the emperor nor any mortal on earth could strike him with so much awe as Romuald's presence did. So powerful was the impression which the Holy Ghost, dwelling in his breast, made on the most haughty sinners. Hearing that a certain Venetian had by simony obtained the abbey of Classis, he hastened thither. The unworthy abbot strove to kill him, to preserve his unjust dignity. He often met with the like plots and assaults from several of his own disciples, which procured him the repeated merit, though not the crown, of martyrdom. The pope having called him to Rome, he wrought there several miracles, built some monasteries in its neighborhood, and converted innumerable souls to God. Returning from Rome, he made a long stay at Mount Sitria. A young nobleman addicted to impurity, being exasperated at this saint's severe remonstrances, had the impudence to accuse him of a scandalous crime. The monks, by a surprising levity, believed the calumny, enjoined him a most severe penance, forbid him to say mass, and excommunicated him. He bore all with patience and in silence, as if really he had been guilty, and refrained from going to the altar for six months. In the seventh month he was admonished by God to obey no longer so unjust and irregular a sentence pronounced without any authority and without grounds. He accordingly said mass again, and with such raptures of devotion, as obliged him to continue long absorbed in ecstasy. He passed seven years in Sitria, in his cell, in strict silence, but his example did the office of his tongue and moved many to penance. In bis old age, instead of relaxing, he increased his austerities and fasts. He had three hair-shirts which he now and then changed. He never would admit of the least thing to give a savor to the herbs or meal-gruel on which he supported himself. If any thing was brought him better dressed, he, for the greater self-denial, applied it to his nostrils, and said: "O gluttony, gluttony, thou shalt never taste this; perpetual war is declared against thee." His disciples also were remarkable for their austere lives, went always barefoot, and looked excessive pale with continual fasting. No other drink was known among them but water, except in sickness. St. Romuald wrought in this place many miraculous cures of the sick. At last, having settled his disciples here in a monastery which he had built for them, he departed for Bifurcum.

The holy emperor St. Henry II., who had succeeded Otho III., coming into Italy, and being desirous to see the saint, sent an honorable embassy to him to induce him to come to court. At the earnest request of his disciples he complied, but not without great reluctance on his side. The emperor received him with the greatest marks of honor and esteem, and rising out of his chair, said to him: "I wish my soul was like yours." The saint observed a strict silence the whole time the interview lasted, to the great astonishment of the court. The emperor being convinced that this did not proceed from pride or disdain, but from humility and a desire of being despised, was so far from being offended at it, that it occasioned his conceiving a higher esteem and veneration for him. The next day he received from him wholesome advice in his closet. The German noblemen showed him the greatest respect as he passed through the court, and plucked the very hairs out of his garments for relics, at which he was so much grieved, that he would have immediately gone back if he had not been stopped. The emperor gave him a monastery on Mount Amiatus.

The most famous of all his monasteries is that of Camaldoli, near Arezzo, in Tuscany, on the frontiers of the ecclesiastical state, thirty miles east from Florence, founded by him about the year 1009. It lies beyond a mountain, {376} very difficult to pass over, the descent from which, on the opposite side, is almost a direct precipice looking down upon a pleasant large valley, which then belonged to a lord called Maldoli, who gave it the saint, and from him it retained the name Camaldoli.[2] In this place St. Romuald built a monastery, and by the several observances he added to St. Benedict's rule, gave birth to that new order called Camaldoli, in which he united the cenobitic and eremitical life. After seeing in a vision his monks mounting up a ladder to heaven all in white, he changed their habit from black to white. The hermitage is two short miles distant from the monastery. It is a mountain quite overshaded by a dark wood of fir-trees. In it are seven clear springs of water. The very sight of this solitude in the midst of the forest helps to fill the mind with compunction, and a love of heavenly contemplation. On entering it, we meet with a chapel of St. Antony for travellers to pray in before they advance any further. Next are the cells and lodgings for the porters. Somewhat further is the church, which is large, well built, and richly adorned. Over the door is a clock, which strikes so loud that it may be heard all over the desert. On the left side of the church is the cell in which St. Romuald lived, when he first established these hermits. Their cells, built of stone, have each a little garden walled round. A constant fire is allowed to be kept in every cell, on account of the coldness of the air throughout the year: each cell has also a chapel in which they may say mass: they call their superior, major. The whole hermitage is now enclosed with a wall: none are allowed to go out of it; but they may walk in the woods and alleys within the enclosure at discretion. Every thing is sent them from the monastery in the valley: their food is every day brought to each cell; and all are supplied with wood and necessaries, that they may have no dissipation or hinderance in their contemplation. Many hours of the day are allotted to particular exercises; and no rain or snow stops any one from meeting in the church to assist at the divine office. They are obliged to strict silence in all public common places; and everywhere during their Lents, also on Sundays, Holydays, Fridays, and other days of abstinence, and always from Complin till prime the next day.

For a severer solitude, St. Romuald added a third kind of life; that of a recluse. After a holy life in the hermitage, the superior grants leave to any that ask it, and seem called by God, to live forever shut up in their cells, never speaking to any one but to the superior when he visits them, and to the brother who brings them necessaries. Their prayers and austerities are doubled, and their fasts more severe and more frequent. St. Romuald condemned himself to this kind of life for several years; and fervent imitators have never since failed in this solitude.

St. Romuald died in his monastery in the valley of Castro, in the marquisate of Ancona. As he was born about the year 956, he must have died seventy years and some months old, not a hundred and twenty, as the present copies of his life have it. The day of his death was the 19th of June; but his principal feast is appointed by Clement VIII. on the 7th of February, the day of his translation. His body was found entire and uncorrupt five years after his death, and again in 1466. But his tomb being sacrilegiously opened, and his body stolen in 1480, it fell to dust, in which state it was translated to Fabriano, and there deposited in the great church, all but the remains of one arm, sent to Camaldoli. God has honored his relics with many miracles. The order of Camaldoli is now divided into five congregations, under so many generals or majors. The life of the hermits is very severe, though something mitigated since the time of St. Romuald. The {377} Cenobites are more like Benedictines, and perhaps were not directly established by St. Romuald, says F. Helyot.

* * * * *

If we are not called to practise the extraordinary austerities of many saints, we cannot but confess that we lie under an indispensable necessity of leading mortified lives, both in order to fulfil our obligation of doing penance, and to subdue our passions and keep our senses and interior faculties under due command. The appetites of the body are only to be reduced by universal temperance, and assiduous mortification and watchfulness over all the senses. The interior powers of the soul must be restrained, as the imagination, memory, and understanding: their proneness to distraction, and the itching curiosity of the mind, must be curbed, and their repugnance to attend to spiritual things corrected by habits of recollection, holy meditation, and prayer. Above all, the will must be rendered supple and pliant by frequent self-denial, which must reach and keep in subjection all its most trifling sallies and inclinations. If any of these, how insignificant soever they may seem, are not restrained and vanquished, they will prove sufficient often to disturb the quiet of the mind, and betray one into considerable inconveniences, faults, and follies. Great weaknesses are sometimes fed by temptations which seem almost of too little moment to deserve notice. And though these infirmities should not arise to any great height, they always fetter the soul, and are an absolute impediment to her progress towards perfection.

Footnotes:
1. Sanuti tells us, that St. Peter Urseoli, from his cradle, devoted
himself with his whole heart to the divine service, and proposed to
himself in all his actions the holy will and the greater glory of
God. He built in the church of St. Mark a chapel, in which the body
of that evangelist was secretly laid, the place being known by very
few. Being chosen doge, he refused that dignity for a long time with
great obstinacy, but at length suffered himself to be overcome by
the importunity of the people. He had held it only two years and
eight months, when he retired. Sanuti. Vite de Duchi di Venezia, c.
976. Maramri, Rerum Italicar. Scriptores, t. 22, p. 564.
2. Contracted from Campo Maldoli.

ST. RICHARD, KING AND C.

THIS saint was an English prince, in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, and was perhaps deprived of his inheritance by some revolution in the state or he renounced it to be more at liberty to dedicate himself to the pursuit of Christian perfection. His three children, Winebald, Willibald, and Warburga, are all honored as saints. Taking with him his two sons, he undertook a pilgrimage of penance and devotion, and sailing from Hamble-haven, landed in Neustria on the western coasts of France. He made a considerable stay at Rouen, and made his devotions in the most holy places that lay in his way through France. Being arrived at Lucca in Italy, in his road to Rome, he there died suddenly, about the year 722, and was buried in St. Fridian's church there. His relics are venerated to this day in the same place, and his festival kept at Lucca with singular devotion. St. Richard, when living, obtained by his prayers the recovery of his younger son Willibald, whom he laid at the foot of a great crucifix erected in a public place in England, when the child's life was despaired of in a grievous sickness and since his death, many have experienced the miraculous power of his intercession with God, especially where his relics invite the devotion of the faithful. His festival is kept at Lucca, and his name honored in the Roman Martyrology on the 7th of February. See the Life of St. Willibald by his cousin, a nun of Heidenhelm, to Canisius's Lectiones Antiquae, with the notes of Basnage. Henschenius, Feb. t. 2, p. 70.

ST. THEODORUS OF HERACLEA, M.

AMONG those holy martyrs whom the Greeks honor with the title of Megalomartyrs, (_i.e._ great martyrs,) as St. George, St. Pantaleon, &c., four are {378} distinguished by them above the rest as principal patrons, namely, St. Theodorus of Heraclea, surnamed Stratilates, (_i.e._ general of the army,) St. Theodorus of Amasea, surnamed Tyro, St. Procopius, and St. Demetrius. The first was general of the forces of Licinius, and governor of the country of the Mariandyni, who occupied part of Bithynia, Pontus, and Paphlagonia, whose capital at that time was Heraclea of Pontus, though originally a city of Greeks, being founded by a colony from Megara. This was the place of our saint's residence, and here he glorified God by martyrdom, being beheaded for his faith by an order of the emperor Licinius, the 7th of February, on a Saturday, in 319, as the Greek Menaea and Menologies all agree: for the Greek Acts of his martyrdom, under the name of Augarus, are of no authority. It appears from a Novella of the emperor Manuel Comnenus, and from Balsamon's Scholia on the Nomocanon of Photius,[1] that the Greeks kept as semi-festivals, that is, as holydays till noon, both the 7th of February, which was the day of his martyrdom, and that of the translation of his relics, the 8th of June, when they were conveyed soon after his death, according to his own appointment, to Euchaia, or Euchaitae, where was the burial-place of his ancestors, a day's journey from Amasea, the capital of all Pontus. This town became so famous for his shrine, that the name of Theodoropolis was given it; and out of devotion to this saint, pilgrims resorted thither from all parts of the east, as appears from the Spiritual Meadow,[2] Zonaras,[3] and Cedrenus.[4] The two latter historians relate, that the emperor John I., surnamed Zemisces, about the year 970, ascribed a great victory which he gained over the Saracens, to the patronage of this martyr: and in thanksgiving rebuilt in a stately manner the church where his relics were deposited at Euchaitae.[5] The republic of Venice has a singular veneration for the memory of St. Theodorus of Heraclea, who, as Bernard Justiniani proves,[6] was titular patron of the church of St. Mark in that city, before the body of that evangelist was translated into it from another part of the city. A famous statue of this St. Theodorus is placed upon one of the two fine pillars which stand in the square of St. Mark. The relics of this glorious martyr are honored in the magnificent church of St. Saviour at Venice, whither they were brought by Mark Dandolo in 1260, from Constantinople; James Dandolo having sent them to that capital from Mesembria, an archiepiscopal maritime town in Romania, or the coast of Thrace, when in 1256 he scoured the Euxine sea with a fleet of galleys of the republic, as the Venetian historians inform us.[7] See archbishop Falconius, Not. in Tabulis Cappon. and Jos. Assemani in Calend. Univ. on the 8th and 17th of February, and the 8th of June;[8] also Lubin. Not. in Martyr. Rom. p. 283, and the Greek Synaxary.

Footnotes: 1. Tit. 7, c. 1, Thomassin, l. 1, c. 7, n. 3. 2. Prat. Spir. c. 180. 3. Zonar. 3, parte Annal. 4. Ced. in Joanne Zemisce Imp. 5. See Baronius in his notes on the Martyrology, (ad 9 Nov.,) who justly censures those who confound this saint with St. Theodoras Tyro, as Fabricius has since done. (t. 9, Bibl. Graecae, p. 147.) Yet himself falsely places Tyro's shrine at Euchaitae, and ascribes to him these pilgrimages and miracles which certainly belong to St. Theodorus Stratilates, or of Heraclea. 6. De Rebus Venetis, l. 6. 7. Sansovin, l. 13, Hist. &c. 8. The modern Greeks have transferred his feast from the 7th to the 8th of February.

ST. TRESAIN, IN LATIN, TRESANUS, PRIEST, C.

He was a holy Irish priest, who, having left his own country, preached with great zeal in France, and died curate of Mareuil upon the Marne, in the sixth century. His relics are held in great veneration at Avenay in Champagne. See his life in Colgan and Bollandus.

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ST. AUGULUS, B M.

HIS name occurs with the title of bishop in all the manuscript copies of the ancient Western Martyrology, which bears the name of St. Jerom. That of the abbey of Esternach, which is very old, and several others, style him martyr. He probably received that crown soon after St. Alban. All martyrologies place him in Britain, and at Augusta, which name was given to London, as Amm. Marcellinus mentions; never to York, for which Henschenius would have it to be taken in this place, because it was at that time the capital of Britain. In the ancient copy of Bede's martyrology, which was used at St. Agnan's at Orleans, he is called St. Augustus; in some others St. Augurius. The French call him St. Aule. Chatelain thinks him to be the same saint who is famous in some parts of Normandy under the name of St. Ouil.

FEBRUARY VIII.

ST. JOHN OF MATHA,

FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF THE TRINITARIANS

From several bulls of Innocent III. and the many authors of his life, especially that compiled by Robert Gagnin, the learned general of this Order, in 1490, collected by Baillet, and the Hist. des Ordres Relig. by F. Helyot. See also Annales Ordinis SS. Trinitatis, auctore Bon. Baro, Ord. Minor. Romae. 1684, and Regula et Statuta Ord. SS. Trinitatis, in 12mo. 1570.

A.D. 1213.

ST. JOHN was born of very pious and noble parents, at Faucon, on the borders of Provence, June the 24th, 1169, and was baptized John, in honor of St. John the Baptist. His mother dedicated him to God by a vow from his infancy. His father, Euphemius, sent him to Aix, where he learned grammar, fencing, riding, and other exercises fit for a young nobleman. But his chief attention was to advance in virtue. He gave the poor a considerable part of the money his parents sent him for his own use: he visited the hospital every Friday, assisting the poor sick, dressing and cleansing their sores, and affording them all the comfort in his power.

Being returned home, he begged his father's leave to continue the pious exercises he had begun, and retired to a little hermitage not far from Faucon, with the view of living at a distance from the world, and united to God alone by mortification and prayer. But finding his solitude interrupted by the frequent visits of his friends, he desired his father's consent to go to Paris to study divinity, which he easily obtained. He went through these more sublime studies with extraordinary success, and proceeded doctor of divinity with uncommon applause, though his modesty gave him a reluctancy in that honor. He was soon after ordained priest, and said his first mass in the bishop of Paris's chapel, at which the bishop himself, Maurice de Sully, the abbots of St. Victor and of St. Genevieve. and the rector of the {380} university, assisted; admiring the graces of heaven in him, which appeared in his extraordinary devotion on this occasion, as well as at his ordination.

On the day he said his first mass, by a particular inspiration from God, he came to a resolution of devoting himself to the occupation of ransoming Christian slaves from the captivity they groaned under among the infidels: considering it as one of the highest acts of charity with respect both to their souls and bodies. But before he entered upon so important a work, he thought it needful to spend some time in retirement, prayer, and mortification. And having heard of a holy hermit, St. Felix Valois, living in a great wood near Gandelu, in the diocese of Meux, he repaired to him and begged he would admit him into his solitude, and instruct him in the practice of perfection. Felix soon discovered him to be no novice, and would not treat him as a disciple, but as a companion. It is incredible what progress these two holy solitaries made in the paths of virtue, by perpetual prayer, contemplation, fasting, and watching.

One day, sitting together on the bank of a spring, John disclosed to Felix the design he had conceived on the day on which he said his first mass, to succor the Christians under the Mahometan slavery, and spoke so movingly upon the subject that Felix was convinced that the design was from God, and offered him his joint concurrence to carry it into execution. They took some time to recommend it to God by prayer and fasting, and then set out for Rome in the midst of a severe winter, towards the end of the year 1197, to obtain the pope's benediction. They found Innocent III. promoted to the chair of St. Peter, who being already informed of their sanctity and charitable design by letters of recommendation from the bishop of Paris, his holiness received them as two angels from heaven; lodged them in his own palace, and gave them many long private audiences. After which he assembled the cardinals and some bishops in the palace of St. John Lateran, and asked their advice. After their deliberations he ordered a fast and particular prayers to know the will of heaven. At length, being convinced that these two holy men were led by the spirit of God, and that great advantages would accrue to the church from such an institute, he consented to their erecting a new religious order, and declared St. John the first general minister. The bishop of Paris, and the abbot of St. Victor, were ordered to draw up their rules, which the pope approved by a bull, in 1198. He ordered the religious to wear a white habit, with a red and blue cross on the breast, and to take the name of the order of the Holy Trinity. He confirmed it some time after, adding new privileges by a second bull, dated in 1209.

The two founders having obtained the pope's blessing and certain indults or privileges, returned to France, and presented themselves to the king, Philip Augustus, who authorized the establishment of their Order in his kingdom, and favored it with his liberalities. Gaucher III., lord of Chatillon, gave them land whereon to build a convent. Their number increasing, the same lord, seconded by the king, gave them Cerfroid, the place in which St. John and St. Felix concerted the first plan of their institute. It is situated in Brie, on the confines of Valois. This house of Cerfroid, or De Cervo frigido, is the chief of the order. The two saints founded many other convents in France, and sent several of their religious to accompany the counts of Flanders and Blois, and other lords, to the holy war. Pope Innocent III. wrote to recommend these religious to Miramolin, king of Morocco; and St. John sent thither two of his religions in 1201, who redeemed one hundred and eighty-six Christian slaves the first voyage. The year following, St. John went himself to Tunis, where he purchased the liberty of one hundred and ten more. He returned into Provence, and there received great charities, which he carried into Spain, and redeemed many in captivity {381} under the Moors. On his return he collected large alms among the Christians towards this charitable undertaking. His example produced a second order of Mercy, instituted by St. Peter Nolasco, in 1235.

St. John made a second voyage to Tunis in 1210, in which he suffered much from the infidels, enraged at his zeal and success in exhorting the poor slaves to patience and constancy in their faith. As he was returning with one hundred and twenty slaves he had ransomed, the barbarians took away the helm from his vessel, and tore all its sails, that they might perish in the sea. The saint, full of confidence in God, begged him to be their pilot, and hung up his companions' cloaks for sails, and, with a crucifix in his hands, kneeling on the deck, singing psalms, after a prosperous voyage, they all landed safe at Ostia, in Italy. Felix, by this time, had greatly propagated his order in France, and obtained for it a convent in Paris, in a place where stood before a chapel of St. Mathurin, whence these religious in France are called Mathurins.

St. John lived two years more in Rome, which he employed in exhorting all to penance with great energy and fruit. He died on the 21st of December, in 1213, aged sixty-one. He was buried in his church of St. Thomas, where his monument yet remains, though his body has been translated into Spain. Pope Honorius III. confirmed the rule of this order a second time. By the first rule, they were not permitted to buy any thing for their sustenance except bread, pulse, herbs, oil, eggs, milk, cheese, and fruit; never flesh nor fish: however, they might eat flesh on the principal festivals, on condition it was given them. They were not, in travelling, to ride on any beasts but asses.[1]

* * * * *

St. Chrysostom[2] elegantly and pathetically extols the charity of the widow of Sarepta, whom neither poverty nor children, nor hunger, nor fear of death, withheld from affording relief to the prophet Elias, and he exhorts every one to meditate on her words, and keep her example present to his mind. "How hard or insensible soever we are," says he, "they will make a deep impression upon us, and we shall not be able to refuse relief to the poor, when we have before our eyes the generous charity of this widow. It is true, you will tell me, that if you meet with a prophet in want, you could not refuse doing him all the good offices in your power. But what ought you not to do for Jesus Christ, who is the master of the prophets? He takes whatsoever you do to the poor as done to himself." When we consider the zeal and joy with which the saints sacrificed themselves for their neighbors, how must we blush at, and condemn our insensibility at the spiritual and the corporal calamities of others! The saints regarded affronts, labors, and pains, as nothing for the service of others in Christ: we cannot bear the least word or roughness of temper.

Footnotes:
1. A mitigation of this rule was approved by pope Clement IV. in 1267,
which allows them to use horses, and to buy fish, flesh, and all
other necessaries: on which mitigations see Historia prolixior
Priorum Grandimont, published by Martenne, Ampliff. Collectio, t. 6,
p. 138. This order is possessed of about two hundred and fifty
monasteries, divided into thirteen provinces, in France, Spain,
Italy, and Portugal. That formerly in England had forty-three
houses; that in Scotland nine, and that in Ireland fifty-two. The
general of the order is chosen by a general chapter, which is always
held at Cerfroid. Each house is governed by a superior who is called
minister. Those in the provinces of Champagne, Normandy, and Picardy
(which last includes Flanders) are perpetual but to Italy and Spain,
triennial. Their rule is that of the canons regular of St. Austin.
Their principal exercises are to sing the divine office at the
canonical hours, praising and glorifying the adorable Trinity, as
angel of the earth; and to gather and carry alms in Barbary for the
redemption of slaves, to which work one third of the revenues of
each house is applied. A reformation was made in this order in the
years 1573 and 1576, which, by degrees, has been introduced into the
greater part of the convents, and into that of Cerfroid itself.
These never eat meat except on Sundays, sing matins at midnight, and
wear no linen. The reformation of the barefooted Trinitarians, still
much more severe, was set on foot in Spain, in 1594, by John Baptist
of the Conception, who suffered many persecutions in the
undertaking, and died in 1613, in great reputation for sanctity and
miracles, the examination of which has been commenced in order to
his beatification.
2. Hom. de Eila et Vidua Sarept. pp. 33, 338, ed. Montf.

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ST. STEPHEN OF GRANDMONT, ABBOT.

His life was written by Stephen de Liciaco, fourth prior of Grandmont, in 1141: but this work seems now lost. Gerard Ithier, seventh prior, and his abridger, fell into several anachronisms and mistakes, which are to be corrected by the remarks of Dom Martenne, who has given us a new and accurate edition of this life, and other pieces relating to it, Ver. Scriptorum Ampliff. Collectio, t. 6, p. 1043. See also Dom Rivet, Hist. Litter. de la France, t. 10, p. 410. Gallia Christ. Nova, t. 2, p. 646.

A.D. 1124.

ST. STEPHEN was son of the virtuous viscount of Thiers, the first nobleman of Auvergne. From his infancy he gave presages of an uncommon sanctity. Milo, a pious priest, at that time dean of the church of Paris, was appointed his tutor, and being made bishop of Beneventum in 1074, kept the saint with him, continued to instruct him in sacred learning, and in the maxims of Christian perfection, and ordained him deacon. After his death in 1076, Stephen pursued his studies in Rome during four years. All this time he seemed to himself continually solicited by an interior voice to seek a sanctuary for his soul in holy solitude, considering the dangers of the pastoral charge, the obligations of leading a penitential life, and the happiness of the exercises of holy retirement. He desired to imitate the rigorous institute of a certain monastery which he had seen in Calabria, and obtained leave of pope Gregory VII. to embrace an eremitical life. He therefore returned to the castle of Thiers, the seat of his late parents, to settle his affairs. He had always been their favorite child, and regarded by them as the blessing bestowed on their prayers and fasts, by which they had begged him of God. Being both exceeding pious, they had rejoiced to see him so virtuously inclined; but they being now dead, his other friends vehemently opposed his design of renouncing the world. Stephen left them privately, and travelling through many deserts, arrived at Muret, a desolate, barren mountain, in the neighborhood of Limoges, haunted by wild beasts, and of an exceeding cold situation. Here he took up his abode, and, by a vow, consecrated himself to the divine service, in these words: "I, Stephen, renounce the devil and his pomps, and do offer and dedicate myself to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, one God in three Persons." This engagement he wrote and kept always by him with a ring as the symbol. He built himself a hut with the boughs of trees, and in this place passed forty-six years in prayer, and the practice of such austerities as almost surpassed the strength of a human body.[1] He lived at first on wild herbs and roots. In the second summer he was discovered by certain shepherds, who brought him a little coarse bread; which some country people from that time continued to do as long as he lived. He always wore next his skin a hair-cloth with iron plates and hoops studded with sharp spikes, over which his only garment, made of the coarsest stuff, was the same both in summer and winter. When overcome by sleep, he took a short rest on rough boards, laid in the form of a coffin. When he was not employed in manual labor, he lay prostrate on the ground in profound adoration of the majesty of God. The sweetness which he felt in divine contemplation made him often forget to take any refreshment for two or three days together. When sixty years of {383} age, finding his stomach exceeding weak, he suffered a few drops of wine to be mixed with the water which he drank.

Many were desirous to live with him and become his disciples. Though most rigorous to himself, he was mild to those under his direction, and proportioned their mortifications to their strength. But he allowed no indulgence with regard to the essential points of a solitary life, silence, poverty, and the denial of self-will. He often exhorted his disciples to a total disengagement of their hearts from all earthly things, and to a love of holy poverty for that purpose. He used to say to those who desired to be admitted into his community: "This is a prison without either door or hole whereby to return into the world, unless a person makes for himself a breach. And should this misfortune befall you, I could not send after you, none here having any commerce with the world any more than myself." He behaved himself among his disciples as the last of them, always taking the lowest place, never suffering any one to rise up to him; and while they were at table, he would seat himself on the ground in the midst of them, and read to them the lives of the saints. God bestowed on him a divine light, by which he often told others their secret thoughts. The author of his life gives a long history of miracles which he wrought. But the conversions of many obstinate sinners were still more miraculous: it seemed as if no heart could resist the grace which accompanied his words.

Two cardinals coming into France, as legates to the king from the pope, one of whom was afterwards pope Innocent II., paid the saint a visit to his desert. They asked him whether he was a canon, a monk, or a hermit. He said he was none of those. Being pressed to declare what he was: "We are sinners," said he, "whom the mercy of God hath conducted into this wilderness to do penance. The pope himself hath imposed on us these exercises, at our request, for our sins. Our imperfection and frailty deprive us of courage to imitate the fervor of those holy hermits who lived in divine contemplation almost without any thought for their bodies. You see that we neither wear the habit of monks nor of canons. We are still further from usurping those names, which we respect and honor at a distance in the persons of the priests, and in the sanctity of the monks. We are poor, wretched sinners, who, terrified at the rigor of the divine justice, still hope, with trembling, by this means, to find mercy from our Lord Jesus Christ in the day of his judgment." The legates departed exceedingly edified at what they saw and heard. Eight days after the saint was admonished by God of the end of his mortal course, after which he most earnestly sighed. He redoubled his fervor in all his exercises, and falling sick soon after, gave his disciples his last instructions, and exhorted them to a lively confidence in God, to whom he recommended them by a humble prayer. His exhortation was so moving and strong that it dispelled their fears in losing him, and they seemed to enter into his own sentiments. He caused himself to be carried into the chapel, where he heard mass, received extreme unction and the viaticum: and on the 8th day of February, 1124, being fourscore years old, expired in peace, repeating those words: "_Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit_." He had passed in his desert fifty years, bating two months. His disciples buried him privately, to prevent the crowds of people breaking in. But the news of his death drew incredible numbers to his tomb, which was honored by innumerable miracles. Four months after his death, the priory of Ambazac, dependent on the great Benedictin abbey of St. Austin, to Limoges, put in a claim to the land of Muret. The disciples of the holy man, who had inherited his maxims and spirit, abandoned the ground to them without any contention, and retired to Grandmont, a desert one league distant, carrying with them his precious remains. From this place the order {384} took its name. The saint was canonized by Clement III., in 1189, at the request of king Henry II. of England. See Gallia Christ. Nova, t. 2, p. 646.