Chapter III: Part 3

He had no sooner taken possession of his church than with the suffragan, Bertrand, a Dominican, who was given him for his assistant, and consecrated bishop of Thessaly, he performed the visitation of his diocess, in which he everywhere corrected abuses, and gave astonishing proofs of his zeal, activity, and prudence. He divided his revenues into three parts, allotting one to his church, a second to the poor, and reserving a third for himself and family, though the greatest share of this he added to the portion of the poor. On fast-days commanded by the Church he took no other sustenance than bread and water; and he fasted in the same austere manner all Advent, and all Mondays, Fridays, and Saturdays throughout the year. When several towns had revolted from him and created for themselves new magistrates, his brother, the count of St. Pol, reduced them to their duty by force of arms. The holy bishop was exceedingly mortified at this accident, and out of his own patrimony made amends to every one even among the rebels for all losses they had sustained, which unparalleled charity gained him all their hearts. Though he was judged, by those who were best acquainted with his interior, during his whole life never to have stained his baptismal innocence by any mortal sin, he had so high an idea of the purity in which a soul ought always to appear in the divine presence, especially when she approaches the holy mysteries, that he went every day to confession with extraordinary compunction, and bewailed the least imperfections with many tears. The very shadow of the least sloth or failing in any action affrighted him. In the year 1384, Clement VII., soon after he had nominated him bishop, created him cardinal, under the title of St. George, and in 1386 called him to Avignon, and obliged him to reside there near his person. Peter continued all his former austerities in the midst of a court, till Clement commanded him to mitigate them for the sake of his health, which seemed to be in a declining condition. His answer was: “Holy Father, I shall always be an unprofitable servant, but I can at least obey.” He desired to compensate for what he lost in the practices of penance by redoubling his alms-deeds. By his excessive charities his purse was always empty; his table was most frugal, his family very small, his furniture mean, and his clothes poor, and these he never changed till they were worn out. It seemed that he could not increase his alms, yet he found means to do it by distributing his little furniture and his equipage among the indigent, and selling for them the episcopal ring which he wore on his finger. Everything about him breathed an extraordinary spirit of poverty, and published his affection for the poor. At his death his whole treasure amounted only to twenty-pence. In all his actions he seemed attentive only to God; and he fell into raptures sometimes in the street, or whilst he waited on the pope at court. An ancient picture of the saint is kept in the collegiate church of our Lady at Autun, in which he is painted in an ecstasy, and in which are written these words which he was accustomed frequently to repeat: “Contempt of the world, contempt of thyself: rejoice in thy own contempt, but despise no other person.”

Ten months after his promotion to the dignity of cardinal, the saint was seized with a sharp fever, which so much undermined his constitution that his imperfect recovery was succeeded by a dangerous slow fever. For his health he was advised to retire to Villeneuve, an agreeable town situate opposite to Avignon, on the other side of the Rhone. He was glad by this opportunity to see himself removed from the noise and hurry of the court. During his last illness he went to confession twice every day; never passed a day without receiving the holy communion; and the constant union of his soul with God, and the tenderness of his devotion, seemed continually to increase as he drew near his end. His brother Andrew coming to see him, the saint spoke to him with such energy on the vanity of the world, and on the advantages of piety, that his words left a deep impression on his heart during his whole life. This brother afterward taking holy orders was made bishop of Cambray, and became one of the most holy prelates of that age. Our saint recommended to him in particular his sister Jane of Luxemburg, whom he had induced to make a vow of perpetual chastity, and whose whole life was a perfect pattern of Christian perfection. Saint Peter sent her by this brother a small treatise containing certain rules of perfection, which he had drawn up for her. Finding his strength quite exhausted, he desired and received the last sacraments; after which he called all his servants, and as they stood weeping round his bed, he begged their pardon for not having edified them by his example as he ought to have done. He then conjured them all to promise to do for his sake one thing which he was going to ask of them. To this they most readily engaged themselves. But they were much surprised when he ordered them to take a discipline which lay under his pillow, and every one to give him many stripes on his back, in punishment for the faults he had committed in regard to them, who were, as he said, his brethren in Christ and his masters. Notwithstanding their extreme unwillingness they were obliged to comply with his request in order to satisfy him. After this act of penance and humiliation, he conversed with God in silent prayer till he gave up his innocent soul into his hands, on the 2d of July, 1387, being eighteen years old, wanting eighteen days. Though he had the administration of a diocess, he had not received priestly orders, but seems to have been deacon, and his dalmatic is shown at Avignon. He was buried without pomp, according to his orders, in the church-yard of St. Michael.

On account of many miracles that were wrought both before and after his interment, the citizens of Avignon built a rich chapel over his grave. The convent and church of the Celestines have been since built over that very spot, and in this church is the saint’s body at present enshrined under a stately mausoleum. The history of the miracles which have been wrought at his tomb fills whole volumes. A famous one in 1432, moved the city of Avignon to choose him for its patron. It is related as follows: A child about twelve years old fell from a high tower in the palace of Avignon upon a sharp rock, by which fall his skull was split, his brains dashed out, and his body terribly bruised. The father of the child, almost distracted at this accident, ran to the place, and falling on his knees with many tears, implored the intercession of St. Peter. Then gathering up the scattered bloody pieces of the child’s skull, he carried them with the body in a sack, and laid them on the saint’s tomb. The people and the Celestine monks joined their earnest prayers; and after some time the child returned to life, and was placed upon the altar that all might see him thus wonderfully raised from the dead. This miracle happened on the 5th of July, on which day the festival of the saint has ever since been celebrated at Avignon. After juridical informations on his life and miracles, the bull of his beatification was published by the true pope Clement VII. of the family of Medicis, in 1527.

St. Peter was a saint from the cradle, because he always strove to live only for God, and his divine honor. If one spark of that ardent love of God which inflamed the saints in their actions animated our breasts, it would give wings to our souls in all we do. We should devote ourselves every moment to God with our whole strength; and by our fidelity, and by the purity and fervor of our intention, we should with the saints make all our actions perfect sacrifices of our hearts to him. “God considers not how much, but with how ardent an affection the thing is given,” says St. Cyprian.[49] And, as St. Ambrose writes,[50] “Thy affection stamps the name and value on thy action. It is just rated at so much as is the ardor from which it proceeds. See how just is this judge--He asks thy own soul what value he is to set on thy work.”

SAINT MODWENA, A NOBLE IRISH VIRGIN.

Having led a religious life several years in her own country, she came into England in the reign of king Ethelwolf, about the year 840. That pious and great king being acquainted with her sanctity, committed to her care the education of his daughter Editha, and founded for her the monastery of Pollesworth, near the forest of Arden in Warwickshire, which flourished till the dissolution, bearing usually the name of St. Editha, its patroness and second abbess. St. Modwena had before established two famous nunneries in Scotland, one at Stirling, the other in Edinburgh. She made some other pious foundations in England, but to apply herself more perfectly to the sanctification of her own soul, she led during seven years in anachoretical life in an isle in the Trent, which was called Andresey from the apostle St. Andrew, in whose honor she procured her oratory to be dedicated. When the great abbey of Burton-upon-Trent was founded in the year 1004, it was dedicated under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin and St. Modwena, and was enriched with the relics of this saint, which were translated thither from Andresey; whence Leland calls the monastery of Burton Modwenestow. See Pinius the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 241. Tanner’s Notitia Mon. &c.

SAINT EDANA, OR EDAENE, IN IRELAND, V.

She is titular saint of the parish of new Tuamia, in the diocess of Elphin, and another in that of Tuam. A famous holy well bears her name, much resorted to by the sick. See Colgan, ad 5 Jul.

JULY VI.

SAINT PALLADIUS, B. C.

APOSTLE OF THE SCOTS.[51]

From St. Prosper and other historians, quoted by Usher,
Antiq. Brit. Eccles. c. 16, p. 416, 424; Keith. Cat. Episc.
Scot. p. 233; and the Bollandists 6 Jul. t. 2, Jul. p. 286.

ABOUT THE YEAR 450.

The name of Palladius shows this saint to have been a Roman, and most authors agree that he was deacon of the church of Rome. At least St. Prosper in his chronicle informs us, that when Agricola, a noted Pelagian, had corrupted the churches of Britain with the insinuation of that pestilential heresy, pope Celestine, at the instance of Palladius the deacon, in 429, sent thither St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, in quality of his legate, who, having ejected the heretics, brought back the Britons to the Catholic faith. The concern of Palladius for these islands stopped not here; for it seems not to be doubted, but it was the same person of whom St. Prosper again speaks, when he afterwards says, that in 431 pope Celestine sent Palladius, the first bishop, to the Scots then believing in Christ. From the lives of SS. Albeus, Declan, Ibar, and Kiaran Saigir, Usher shows[52] that these four saints preached separately in different parts of Ireland, which was their native country before the mission of St. Patrick. St. Ibar had been converted to the faith in Britain; the other three had been instructed at Rome, and were directed thence back into their own country, and according to the histories of their lives, were all honored with the episcopal character. St. Kiaran Saigir (who is commemorated on the 5th of March) preceded St. Patrick in preaching the gospel to the Ossorians, and was seventy-five years of age on St. Patrick’s arrival in Ireland. Hence it is easy to understand what is said of St. Palladius, that he was sent bishop to the Scots believing in Christ: though the number of Christians among them must have been then very small. St. Prosper, in his book against the _Author of the conferences_,[53] having commended pope Celestine for his care in delivering Britain from the Pelagian heresy, adds, that “he also ordained a bishop for the Scots, and thus, whilst he endeavored to preserve the Roman island _Catholic_, he likewise made a barbarous island _Christian_.” Usher observes that this can be understood only of Ireland; for though part of North-Britain was never subject to the Romans, and the greatest part of it was then inhabited by the Picts, yet it never could be called a distinct island. It is also clear from Tertullian, Eusebius, St. Chrysostom, and others, that the light of the gospel had penetrated among the Picts beyond the Roman territories in Britain, near the times of the apostles. These people, therefore, who had lately begun to receive some tincture of the faith when our saint undertook his mission, were doubtless the Scots who were settled in Ireland.

The Irish writers of the lives of St. Patrick say, that Palladius had preached in Ireland a little before St. Patrick, but that he was soon banished by the king of Leinster, and returned to North Britain, where they tell us he had first opened his mission. It seems not to be doubted but he was sent to the whole nation of the Scots, several colonies of whom had passed from Ireland into North Britain, and possessed themselves of part of the country, since called Scotland.[54] After St. Palladius had left Ireland, he arrived among the Scots in North Britain, according to St. Prosper, in the consulate of Bassus and Antiochus, in the year of Christ 431.[55] He preached there with great zeal, and formed a considerable church. The Scottish historians tell us, that the faith was planted in North Britain about the year 200, in the time of king Donald, when Victor was pope of Rome. But they all acknowledge that Palladius was the first bishop in that country, and style him their first apostle.[56] The saint died at Fordun, the capital town of the little county of Mernis, fifteen miles from Aberdeen to the south, about the year 450. His relics were preserved with religious respect in the monastery of Fordun, as Hector Boetius[57] and Camden testify. In the year 1409, William Scenes, archbishop of St. Andrew’s and primate of Scotland, enclosed them in a new shrine enriched with gold and precious stones. His festival is marked on the 6th of July in the Breviary of Aberdeen and the Scottish Calendars; but in some of the English on the 15th of December. Scottish writers, and calendars of the middle ages, mention St. Servanus and St. Ternan as disciples of St. Palladius, and by him made bishops, the former of Orkney, the latter of the Picts. But from Usher’s chronology it appears that they both lived later.

* * * * *

It is easy to conceive how painful and laborious the mission of this saint must have been; but where there is ardent love, labor seems a pleasure, and either is not felt or is a delight. It is a mark of sloth and impatience for a man to count his labors, or so much as to think of pains or sufferings in so glorious an undertaking. St. Palladius surmounted every obstacle which a fierce nation had opposed to the establishment of the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Ought not our hearts to be impressed with the most lively sentiments of love and gratitude to our merciful God, for having raised up such great and zealous men, by whose ministry the light of true faith has been conveyed to us.

ST. JULIAN, ANCHORET.

This saint was carried away captive from some Western country when he was very young, and sold for a slave in Syria. For some years he much aggravated the weight of his chains by his impatience under them; till having the happiness to receive the light of faith he found them exceedingly lightened by the comfort which religion afforded him. A right use of his afflictions from that moment contributed much to the sanctification of his soul. Not long after, he recovered his liberty by the death of his master, and immediately in the fervor of his devotion dedicated himself to the service of God in an austere monastery in Mesopotamia. He frequently resorted to the great St. Ephrem for advice and instructions in the exercises of virtue; and that holy man went often to see him, that he might edify himself by his saintly conversation. This learned doctor of the Syriac church tells us, that he could not forbear always admiring the sublime sentiments and spiritual lights with which God favored a man who appeared in the eyes of the world ignorant and a barbarian. Julian was of a robust body, inured to labor, but he weakened and emaciated it by great austerities. He worked with his hands, making sails for ships; and wept almost continually at the consideration of his past sins, and of the divine judgments. St. Ephrem tells us that he often admired to find that in the copies of the holy Bible after Julian had used them some days, several words were effaced, and others rendered scarcely legible, though the manuscripts were entire and fair before; and that the holy man candidly confessed to him when he one day asked him the reason, that the tears which he shed in reading often blotted out letters and words. Our saint always looked upon himself as a criminal, trembling, and expecting every moment the coming of his judge to call him to an account. It is easy to imagine how remote such a disposition of mind was from being capable of entertaining the very thought of amusements. His extreme humility appeared in his words, dress, and all his actions. He had much to suffer from certain tepid and slothful monks, but regarded himself as happy to meet with so favorable opportunities of redeeming his sins, and of exercising acts of penance, patience, meekness, and charity. Prayer was almost the uninterrupted employment of his heart. He made in his little cell a kind of a sepulchre, where he lived retired for greater solitude whenever his presence was not required at duties of the community. He assisted at the divine office without ever moving his body, keeping his whole attention fixed on God, as if he had been standing before the tribunal of his sovereign judge. Saint Ephrem assures us that God honored him with the gift of miracles. Sozomen writes[58] that his life was so austere, that he seemed almost to live without a body. Thus he spent twenty-five years in his monastery, purifying his soul by patience, obedience, and the labors of penance. He passed to a glorious immortality about the year 370. See his life written by his friend St. Ephrem, Op. t. 3, p. 254, ed. Vatic.

ST. SEXBURGH, ABBESS.

She was daughter of Anna the religious king of the East-Angles, and his devout queen Hereswide, sister to St. Hilda. A pious education laid in her the foundation of that eminent sanctity for which she was most conspicuous during the whole course of her life. She was given in marriage to Ercombert, king of Kent, a prince of excellent dispositions, which she contributed exceedingly to improve by her counsels and example. She had a great share in all his zealous undertakings for promoting virtue and the happiness of his people, especially in extirpating the last remains of idolatry in his dominions, and in enforcing the observance of Lent, and other precepts of the Church, by wholesome laws. Her virtue commanded the reverence, and her humility and devotion raised the admiration of all her subjects; and her goodness and unbounded charity gained her the love of all, especially the poor. She had a longing desire to consecrate herself wholly to God in religious retirement, and that others at least might attend the divine service for her night and day without impediment, she began in her husband’s lifetime to found a monastery of holy virgins in the isle of Sheppey, on the coast of Kent, which she finished after his death in 664, whilst her son Egbert sat on the throne. Here she assembled seventy-four nuns, but hearing of the great sanctity of St. Etheldreda at Ely, and being desirous to live in greater obscurity, and to be more at liberty to employ all her thoughts on heaven, she left the kingdom of Kent, and retired to Ely before the year 679, in which she was chosen to succeed her sister St. Etheldreda, or Audry, in the government of that house. Sixteen years after she caused the body of that saint to be taken up, and passed herself to bliss in a good old age, on the 6th of July, toward the end of the seventh century. Her monastery in Sheppey, called Le Mynstre in Sheppey, was destroyed by the Danes, but rebuilt in 1130, and consecrated by William, archbishop of Canterbury, in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Sexburgh; and it subsisted in the hands of Benedictin nuns till the dissolution of abbeys. St. Ermenilda, daughter of king Ercombert and St. Sexburgh, was married to Wulpher, king of Mercia, but after his death retired to Ely, near her mother and her two aunts St. Audry and St. Withburg, three daughters of king Anna. St. Wereburgh, daughter of St. Ermenilda and king Wulpher, was a nun at Hearburgh (which seems to have been near Stanford or Croyland). Her relics were venerated at Hearburgh, till in the ninth century they were removed to Leicester. See the life of St. Sexburgh in Capgrave; also Bede and Narratio de Sanctis qui in Anglia quiescunt, in Hickes, Diss. Epistol. p. 117. Thesaur. t. 1, and Monast. Anglic. t. 1, p. 88, et 152. Weever’s Funeral Monuments, p. 283, and Kalendarium in quo annotantur dies obitûs Sororum Monasterii de Sheppey. MS. Bibliot. Cotton.

ST. GOAR, PRIEST, C.

Aquitain gave this saint his birth and education; but out of a desire of serving God entirely unknown to the world, in 519 he travelled into Germany, and settling in the territory of Triers, he shut himself in his cell, and arrived at such an eminent degree of sanctity as to be esteemed the oracle and miracle of the whole country. He resolutely refused the archbishopric of Triers, and died in 575. Round his cell arose the town of St. Guver, on the left bank of the Rhine between Wesel and Boppard. See Brower and Pinius the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 328.

ST. MONINNA, VIRGIN.

Of Sliabh-Cuillin, _i. e._ Mount Cullen, where she led a most holy life in austere penance and heavenly contemplation. She died in 518, and is much honored in that part of Ireland. See Colgan ad 6 Jul.

JULY VII.

ST. PANTÆNUS.

FATHER OF THE CHURCH.

See St. Jerom, Catal. Clem. Alex. and Eusebius. Also
Ceillier, t. 2, p. 237.

This learned father and apostolic man flourished in the second age. He was by birth a Sicilian, by profession a stoic philosopher. For his eloquence he is styled by St. Clement of Alexandria the Sicilian Bee. His esteem for virtue led him into an acquaintance with the Christians, and being charmed with the innocence and sanctity of their conversation he opened his eyes to the truth. He studied the holy scriptures under the disciples of the apostles, and his thirst after sacred learning brought him to Alexandria in Egypt, where the disciples of St. Mark had instituted a celebrated school of the Christian doctrine. Pantænus sought not to display his talents in that great mart of literature and commerce; but his great progress in sacred learning was after some time discovered, and he was drawn out of that obscurity in which his humility sought to live buried. Being placed at the head of the Christian school some time before the year 179, which was the first of Commodus, by his learning and excellent manner of teaching he raised its reputation above all the schools of the philosophers, and the lessons which he read, and which were gathered from the flowers of the prophets and apostles, conveyed light and knowledge into the minds of all his hearers, as St. Clement of Alexandria, his eminent scholar, says of him. The Indians who traded to Alexandria, entreated him to pay their country a visit, in order to confute their Brachmans. Hereupon he forsook his school, and was established by Demetrius, who was made bishop of Alexandria in 189, preacher of the gospel to the Eastern nations. Eusebius tells us that St. Pantænus found some seeds of the faith already sown in the Indies, and a book of the gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which St. Bartholomew had carried thither. He brought it back with him to Alexandria, whither he returned after he had zealously employed some years in instructing the Indians in the faith. The public school was at that time governed by St. Clement, but St. Pantænus continued to teach in private till in the reign of Caracalla, consequently before the year 216, he closed a noble and excellent life by a happy death, as Rufinus writes.[59] His name is inserted in all Western Martyrologies on the 7th of July.

* * * * *

The beauty of the Christian morality, and the sanctity of its faithful professors, which by their charms converted this true philosopher, appear nowhere to greater advantage than when they are compared with the imperfect and often false virtue of the most famous sages of the heathen world.[60] Into what contradictions and gross errors did they fall, even about the divinity itself and the sovereign good! To how many vices did they give the name of virtues! How many crimes did they canonize! It is true they showed indeed a zeal for justice, a contempt of riches and pleasures, moderation in prosperity, patience in adversities, generosity, courage, and disinterestedness. But these were rather shadows and phantoms than real virtues, if they sprang from a principle of vanity and pride, or were infected with the poison of interestedness or any other vitiated intention, which they often betrayed, nay, sometimes openly avowed, and made a subject of their vain boasts.

SAINT WILLIBALD, BISHOP OF AICHSTADT, C.

He was son of the holy king St. Richard, and was born about the year 704 in the kingdom of the West-Saxons, about the place where Southampton now stands. When he was three years old his life was despaired of in a violent sickness; but when all natural remedies proved unsuccessful, his parents carried him and laid him at the foot of a great cross which was erected in a public place near their house, according to the custom in Catholic countries to this day. There they poured forth their prayers with great fervor, and made a promise to God that in case the child recovered they would consecrate him to the divine service. God accepted their pious offering, and the child was immediately restored to his health. St. Richard kept the child two years longer at home, but only regarded him as a sacred depositum committed to him by God; and when he was five years old placed him under the abbot Egbald, and other holy tutors in the monastery of Waltheim. The young saint, from the first use of his reason, in all his thoughts and actions seemed to aspire only to heaven, and his heart seemed full only of God and his holy love. He left this monastery about the year 721, when he was seventeen years old, and his brother Winibald nineteen, to accompany his father and brother in a pilgrimage of devotion to the tombs of the apostles at Rome, and to the Holy Land. They visited many churches in France on their road; but St. Richard died at Lucca, where his relics are still venerated in the church of St. Fridian, and he is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology on the 7th of February. The two sons went on to Rome, and there took the monastic habit.

Above two years after this, Winibald having been obliged to return to England, St. Willibald with two or three young Englishmen set out to visit the holy places which Christ had sanctified by his sacred presence on earth. They added most severe mortifications to the incredible fatigues of their journey, living only on bread and water, and at land using no other bed than the bare ground. They sailed first to Cyprus and thence into Syria. At Emesa St. Willibald was taken by the Saracens for a spy, was loaded with irons, and suffered much in severe confinement for several months, till certain persons who were charmed with his wonderful virtue, and moved with compassion for his disaster, satisfied the caliph of his innocence, and procured his enlargement. The holy pilgrims expressed their gratitude to their benefactors, and pursued their journey to the holy places. They resolved in visiting them to follow our Divine Redeemer in the course of his mortal life; and therefore they began their devotions at Nazareth. Our saint passed there some days with his companions in the continual contemplation of the infinite mercies of God in the great mystery of the incarnation; and the sight of the place in which it was wrought drew from his eyes streams of devout tears during all the time of his stay in that town. From Nazareth he went to Bethlehem, and thence into Egypt, making no account of the fatigues and hardships of his journey, and assiduously meditating on what our Blessed Redeemer had suffered in the same. He returned to Nazareth, and thence travelled to Cana, Capharnaum, and Jerusalem. In this last place he made a long stay to satisfy his fervor in adoring Christ in the places where he wrought so many great mysteries, particularly on the mountains of Calvary and Olivet, the theatres of his sacred death and ascension. He likewise visited all the famous monasteries, lauras, and hermitages in that country, with an ardent desire of learning and imitating all the most perfect practices of virtue, and whatever might seem most conducive to the sanctification of his soul. The tender and lively sentiments of devotion with which his fervent contemplation on the holy mysteries of our redemption inspired him at the sight of all those sacred places, filled his devout soul with heavenly consolations, and made on it strong and lasting impressions. In his return a severe sickness at Acon exercised his patience and resignation. After seven years employed in this pilgrimage he arrived safe with his companions in Italy.

The celebrated monastery of Mount Cassino having been lately repaired by pope Gregory II. the saint chose that house for his residence, and his fervent example contributed very much to settle in it the primitive spirit of its holy institute during the ten years that he lived there. He was first appointed sacristan, afterward dean or superior over ten monks, and during the last eight years porter, which was an office of great trust and importance, and required a rooted habit of virtue which might suffer no abatement by external employs and frequent commerce with seculars. It happened that in 738 St. Boniface coming to Rome begged of pope Gregory III. that Willibald, who was his cousin, might be sent to assist him in his missions in Germany. The pope desired to see the monk, and was much delighted with the history of his travels, and edified with his virtue. In the close of their conversation he acquainted him of bishop Boniface’s request. Willibald desired to go back at least to obtain the leave and blessing of his abbot; but the pope told him his order sufficed, and commanded him to go without more ado into Germany. The saint replied that he was ready to go wheresoever his holiness should think fit. Accordingly he set out for Thuringia where St. Boniface then was, by whom he was ordained priest. His labors in the country about Aichstadt, in Franconia and Bavaria, were crowned with incredible success, and he was no less powerful in words than in works.

In 746 he was consecrated by St. Boniface bishop of Aichstadt. This dignity gave his humility much to suffer, but it exceedingly excited his zeal. The cultivation of so rough a vineyard was a laborious and painful task; but his heroic patience and invincible meekness overcame all difficulties. His charity was most tender and compassionate, and he had a singular talent in comforting the afflicted. He founded a monastery which resembled in discipline that of Mount Cassino, to which he often retired. But his love of solitude diminished not his pastoral solicitude for his flock. He was attentive to all their spiritual necessities, he visited often every part of his charge, and instructed all his people with indefatigable zeal and charity. His fasts were most austere, nor did he allow himself any indulgence in them or in his labors on account of his great age, till his strength was entirely exhausted. Having labored almost forty-five years in regulating and sanctifying his diocess, he died at Aichstadt on the 7th of June, 790, being eighty-seven years old. He was honored with miracles, and buried in his own cathedral. Pope Leo VII. canonized him in 938. In 1270 the bishop Hildebrand built a church in his honor, into which his relics were translated, and are honorably preserved to this day; but a portion is honored at Furnes in Flanders. See the three lives of St. Willibald written by contemporary authors, especially that by a nun of his sister St. Walburga’s monastery. She gives from the saint’s own relation a curious and useful description of the Holy Land, as it stood in that age; which is rendered more curious by the notes of Mabillon, and those of Basnage in his edition of Canisius’s Lect. Antiquæ. On St. Willibald, see Solier the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 485.

ST. HEDDA, B. C.

He was an English Saxon, a monk of the monastery of St. Hilda, and was made bishop of the West-Saxons in 676. He resided first at Dorchester near Oxford, but afterward removed his see to Winchester. King Ceadwal going to Rome to be baptized died there, and was buried in the church of St. Peter in 688. His kinsman Ina succeeded him in the throne.[61] In his wise and wholesome laws, the most ancient extant among those of our English Saxon kings, enacted by him in a great council of bishops and ealdermen in 693, he declares that in drawing them up he had been assisted by the counsels of St. Hedda and St. Erconwald.[62] In these laws theft is ordained to be punished with cutting off a hand or a foot; robbery on the highway, committed by a band not under seven in number, with death, unless the criminal redeem his life according to the estimation of his head. Church dues are ordered to be paid under a penalty of forty shillings; and if any master order a servant to do any work on a Sunday, the servant is made free and the master amerced thirty shillings. St. Hedda governed his church with great sanctity about thirty years, and departed to the Lord on the 7th of July, 705. Bede[63] and William of Malmesbury assure us, that his tomb was illustrated by many miracles. His name is placed in the Roman Martyrology. See Solier the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 482.

ST. EDELBURGA, V.

She was daughter to Anna king of the East Angles, and out of a desire of attaining to Christian perfection, went into France, and there consecrated herself to God in the monastery of Faremoutier, in the forest of Brie, in the government of which she succeeded its foundress St. Fara. After her death her body remained uncorrupt, as Bede testifies.[64] She is honored in the Roman, French, and English Martyrologies on this day.[65] In these latter her niece St. Earcongota is named with her. She was daughter to Earconbercht king of Kent, and of St. Sexburga; accompanied St. Edelburga to Faremoutier, and there taking the veil with her, lived a great example of all virtues, and was honored after her happy death by many miracles, as Bede relates. Hereswide, the wife of king Anna, the mother of many saints, after the death of her husband, retired also into France, and consecrated herself to God in the famous monastery of Cale or Chelles, five leagues from Paris, near the marne (founded by St. Clotilda, but chiefly endowed by St. Bathildes), where she persevered, advancing daily in holy fervor to her happy death. See the history of the monastery of Chelles in the sixth tome of the late history of the diocess of Paris, by Abbé Lebeuf, and Solier on this day, p. 481, &c.

ST. FELIX, BISHOP OF NANTES, C.

The most illustrious among the bishops of Nantes was saint Felix, a person of the first rank in Aquitain, some say of Bourges in the First Aquitain; others more probably think of the Second Aquitain on the sea-coast and nearer Brittany. In the world he was more illustrious by his virtue, his eloquence, and learning, than by his dignities and high birth. The Greek language was as familiar to him as his own; he was a poet and orator, and seems from Fortunatus’s expression to have written a panegyric on the queen St. Radegundes in verse. He had been married when he was called to succeed Evemer, the holy bishop of Nantes, toward the close of the year 549, in the 37th year of his age. His zeal for discipline and good order appeared in the regulations he made for his own diocess, and in the decrees of the third council of Paris in 557, in the second of Tours in 566, and the fourth of Paris in 573. His charity to the poor had no other bounds but those of their necessities, and considering that the revenues of the Church were the patrimony of the poor, he reserved to himself only the prudent and troublesome administration of them for their use. He sold for them and the Church his own patrimony, and made it his study and earnest endeavor that no one in his diocess should pass unrelieved in distress. His predecessor had formed a project of building a cathedral within the walls of the city of Nantes, which Felix executed in the most magnificent manner. Fortunatus describes it to have been composed of three naves, of which the middle was supported by great pillars. A great cupola was raised in the middle. The church was covered with tin, and within was only azure, gold, mosaic, paintings, pilasters, foliages, various figures, and other ornaments. Euphronius archbishop of Tours, and the bishops of Angers, Mans, Rennes, Poitiers, and Angouleme performed the dedication; no bishop of the Britons was invited to the ceremony; for which it appears that their commerce with the French was not entirely free. The Britons were then possessed of no lands in the diocess of Nantes except the territory of Croisic, in which was the palace of Aula Quiriaca or Guerrande, vulgarly Warand, probably so called from Guerech I. the British count of Vannes, who resided there. Canao, one of his successors, when Felix was made bishop, had put to death three of his brothers, and held a fourth named Macliau in prison. St. Felix by his intercession saved his life, and obtained his liberty. St. Gregory of Tours complains that bishop Felix had been prepossessed by false informations against Peter, Gregory’s brother, and accused him of favoring an unworthy nephew; but in other places bears testimony to his eminent sanctity, which is much extolled by Fortunatus and others. Guerech II. count of Vannes, plundered the diocesses of Rennes and Vannes, and repulsed the troops which king Chilperic sent against him; but, at the entreaties of St. Felix, withdrew his forces, and made peace. The holy prelate died on the 8th of January in 584, the seventieth year of his age, of his episcopal dignity thirty-three.

He is honored at Nantes, of which he was the sixteenth bishop from St. Clair, on the 7th of July, the day of the translation of his relics. See Fortunatus, l. 3, c. 4, 5, 6, 7. St. Gregory of Tours, l. 5, c. 5. Ceillier, t. 16, p. 562. M. Travers, Histoire abrégée des Evêques de Nantes, tome 7, part 2, des Mémoires de Littérature recueillis par P. Desmolets de l’Oratoire. Stilting the Bollandist, t. 2, Jul. p. 470. Lobineau, Vies des SS. de Bretagne, p. 121.

ST. BENEDICT XI. POPE, C.

His family name was Nicholas Bocasini. He was a native of Treviso, which city was then an independent commonwealth, but since the year 1336 is subject to that of Venice. He was born in 1240, and studied first at Treviso, and afterwards at Venice, where, at fourteen years of age, he took the habit of St. Dominick. He seemed desirous to set no bounds to his fervor and fidelity in the practice of every means of improving his soul daily in virtue: and, during fourteen years, enriched his mind with an uncommon store of sacred learning. After this term he was appointed professor and preacher at Venice and Bologna, and with incredible fruit communicated to others those spiritual riches which he had treasured up in silence and retirement, being always careful by the same means to preserve and increase his own stock. He wrote several sermons and comments on the holy scripture, which are still extant. He was chosen provincial of Lombardy, and, in 1296, the ninth general of his Order. On that occasion, by a pathetic circular letter,[66] he exhorted his brethren to a love of poverty, humility, retirement, prayer, charity, and obedience. In 1297 he was sent by Boniface VIII. nuncio into France, to be the mediator of peace between that nation and the English; and was created cardinal during his residence there in 1298. Nothing but the strict command of his Holiness could have obliged him to accept that dignity, which cost him many tears. He was made soon after bishop of Ostia, and dean of the sacred college; and in 1301 went legate _a latere_ into Hungary, to endeavor to compose the differences which divided that nation into factions, and had already laid it waste by a dreadful civil war; in which cardinal Boncasini succeeded to a miracle. He also abolished in that country several superstitious practices, and other abuses and scandals. He afterward exerted his zeal in Austria and at Venice, being successively legate in both those places.

Boniface VIII. dying on the 11th of October, 1303, the cardinals entered the conclave on the 21st of the same month, and on the day following unanimously chose our saint pope. He was seized with trembling at the news; but being compelled to acquiesce, was crowned on the following Sunday. He continued his former practices of humility, mortification, and penance. When his mother came to his court in rich attire, he refused to see her till she had put on again her former mean apparel. Rome was at that time torn by civil divisions, especially by the factions of the Colonnas against the late pope, but the moderation, meekness, and prudence of our saint soon restored the whole country to perfect tranquillity. He pardoned the Colonnas and other rebels, Sciarra Colonna and William of Nogaret excepted, who remained under the former sentence of proscription. He pacified Denmark, and other kingdoms of the North, and appeased the State and Church of France. He reconciled the cities of Venice and Padua without effusion of blood. He joined his zealous endeavors with Helena, queen of Servia, in the conversion of her son Orosius. This good pope died the martyr of peace, to make which reign over the whole Christian world he seemed only to have lived. Having sat only eight months and seventeen days, he departed this life at Perugia, on the 6th of July, in the year of our Lord, 1304, of his age sixty-three. Some say he died of poison secretly given him by the contrivance of certain wicked men who were enemies to the public tranquillity. He was honored by miracles, examined and approved by the bishop of Perugia, and attested by Platina and other historians. See Conc. t. 10, also his life collected by Pagi, in his Annals, and in an express work by the late learned Dominican, F. Peter Thomas Campana; and Vie de S. Benoit XI. ou Caractère de la Sainteté du B. Benoit XI. à Toulouse, 1739. See also F. Touron, Hommes Illustres, t. 1, l. 7, p. 655, and Benedict XIV. de Canoniz, t. 4, Append. and in his new Roman Martyrology on the 7th of July.

JULY VIII.

SAINT ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF PORTUGAL.

From her Authentic Life, written by a Franciscan friar;
Mariana, and other Spanish historians. See Janning the
Bollandist, Julij, t. 2, ad diem 4, p. 169.

A. D. 1336.

St. Elizabeth was daughter of Peter III. king of Arragon, and grand-daughter of James I. who had been educated under the care of St. Peter Nolasco, and was surnamed the Saint, and from the taking of Majorca and Valentia, Expugnator or the Conqueror. Her mother, Constantia, was daughter of Manfred king of Sicily, and grandchild to the Emperor Frederic II. Our saint was born in 1271, and received at the baptismal font by the name of Elizabeth, from her aunt, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, who had been canonized by Gregory IX. in 1235. Her birth established a good understanding between her grandfather James, who was then on the throne, and her father, whose quarrel had divided the whole kingdom. The former took upon himself the care of her education, inspired her with an ardor for piety above her age, though he died in 1276 (having reigned sixty-three years), before she had completed the sixth year of her age.

Her father succeeded to the crown, and was careful to place most virtuous persons about his daughter, whose example might be to her a constant spur to all virtue. The young princess was of a most sweet and mild disposition, and from her tender years had no relish for anything but what was conducive to piety and devotion. It was doing her the most sensible pleasure if any one promised to lead her to some chapel to say a prayer. At eight years of age she began to fast on vigils, and to practise great self-denials; nor could she bear to hear the tenderness of her years and constitution alleged as a reason that she ought not to fast or macerate her tender body. Her fervor made her eagerly to desire that she might have a share in every exercise of virtue which she saw practised by others, and she had been already taught that the frequent mortification of the senses, and still more of the will, is to be joined with prayer to obtain the grace which restrains the passions, and prevents their revolt. How little is this most important maxim considered by those parents who excite and fortify the passions of children, by teaching them a love of vanities, and indulging them in gratifications of sense! If rigorous fasts suit not their tender age, a submission of the will, perfect obedience, and humble modesty, are in no time of life more indispensably to be inculcated; nor is any abstinence more necessary than that by which children are taught never to drink or eat out of meals, to bear several little denials in them without uneasiness, and never eagerly to crave anything. The easy and happy victory of Elizabeth over herself was owing to this early and perfect temperance, submissiveness, and sincere humility. Esteeming virtue her only advantage and delight, she abhorred romances and idle entertainments, shunned the usual amusements of children, and was an enemy to all the vanities of the world. She could bear no other songs than sacred hymns and psalms; and from her childhood said every day the whole office of the breviary, in which no priest could be more scrupulously exact. Her tenderness and compassion for the poor made her, even in that tender age, to be styled their mother.

At twelve years of age she was given in marriage to Dionysius, king of Portugal. That prince had considered in her, birth, beauty, riches, and sprightliness of genius, more than virtue; yet he allowed her an entire liberty in her devotions, and exceedingly esteemed and admired her extraordinary piety. She found no temptation to pride in the dazzling splendor of a crown, and could say with Esther, that her heart never found any delight in the glory, riches, and grandeur with which she was surrounded. She was sensible that regularity in our actions is necessary to virtue, this being in itself most agreeable to God, who shows in all his works how much he is the lover of order; also a prudent distribution of time fixes the fickleness of the human mind, hinders frequent omissions of pious exercises, and is a means to prevent our being ever idle and being governed by humor and caprice in what we do, by which motives a disguised self-love easily insinuates itself into our ordinary actions. Our saint therefore planned for herself a regular distribution of her whole time, and of her religious exercises, which she never interrupted, unless extraordinary occasions of duty or charity obliged her to change the order of her daily practices. She rose very early every morning, and after a long morning exercise, and a pious meditation, she recited matins, lauds and prime of the Church office. Then she heard mass, at which she communicated frequently every week. She said every day also the little office of our Lady, and that of the dead: and in the afternoon had other regular devotions after even-song or vespers. She retired often into her oratory to her pious books, and allotted certain hours to attend her domestic affairs, public business, or what she owed to others. All her spare time she employed in pious reading, or in working for the altar, or the poor, and she made her ladies of honor do the like. She found no time to spend in vain sports and recreations, or in idle discourse or entertainments. She was most abstemious in her diet, mean in her attire, humble, meek, and affable in conversation, and wholly bent upon the service of God in all her actions. Admirable was her spirit of compunction, and of holy prayer; and she poured forth her heart before God with most feeling sentiments of divine love, and often watered her cheeks and the very ground with abundant tears of sweet devotion. Frequent attempts were made to prevail with her to moderate her austerities, but she always answered that if Christ assures us that his spirit cannot find place in a life of softness and pleasure, mortification is nowhere more necessary than on the throne, where the passions find more dangerous incentives. She fasted three days a week, many vigils besides those prescribed by the Church; all Advent; a Lent of devotion, from the feast of St. John Baptist to the feast of the Assumption; and soon after this she began another Lent, which she continued to St. Michael’s day. On all Fridays and Saturdays, on the eves of all festivals of the Blessed Virgin and the apostles, and on many other days, her fast was on bread and water. She often visited churches and places of devotion on foot.