The Lives of the Saints, Volume II (of 16): February. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ his vices, and bade him baptize his son Sigebert. The young prince's education was entrusted to Pepin, mayor of the palace, who carried his charge into Aquitain, to his estates. But at the age of three, Sigebert was invested by his father with the kingdom of Austrasia, or Eastern France, including Provence, Switzerland, Bavaria, Swabia, Thuringia, Franconia, the Rhenish Palatinate, Alsace, Trèves, Lorraine, Champagne, Upper Picardy, and Auvergne.

      Dagobert died in 638, and was succeeded by Clovis II., in the kingdom of Western France. Pepin of Landen, was mayor of the palace to Sigebert, and strove to train the young king in godliness and Christian virtues. By his justice and temperance, S. Sigebert rendered himself in his youth greatly beloved and respected by his subjects.

      Pepin dying in 640, the king appointed Grimoald, mayor of the palace, in his father's room. The Thuringians revolting, Sigebert reduced them to their duty; and this is the only war in which he was engaged. His munificence in founding churches and monasteries, his justice in ruling, and the private virtues of his spotless life, made him to be regarded as a model of a saintly king. After a reign of eighteen years from the date of his father's death, he died at the age of twenty-five, and was buried in the abbey of S. Martin, near Metz, which he had built. His body was found incorrupt in 1063, and in 1170 it was enshrined in a silver case. When Charles V. laid siege to Metz, Francis of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, demolished all the monasteries and other buildings in the suburbs which could give harbour to the enemy, amongst others that of S. Martin. The relics of the saintly king were then removed to the collegiate church of Our Lady, at Nancy, where they repose in a magnificent shrine.

S. JOHN OF THE GRATE, B. C(A.D. 1163.)

      [His festival is observed as a double by the Church of S. Malo, in Brittany. His name is inserted in Saussaye's supplement to the Gallican Martyrology. Authorities: – The letters of S. Bernard and Nicolas of Clairvaux.]

      The illustrious prelate S. John, commonly called "Of the Grate," because of an iron grating which surrounded his sepulchre, was a Breton, the son of parents in a middle class of life. He was born about the year 1098; and from an early age gave indications of piety. In the schools to which he was sent, in a short time he made rapid progress. Peter, abbot of Celle, speaking of him, calls him "the holy bishop, faithful servant of God, a man of courage, loving poverty, a brilliant light, dissipating the densest darkness." His life, as a bishop, was spent in a series of lawsuits with the monks of Marmoutiers. His episcopal seat was at Aleth on the main land, but he desired to transfer it to the island of Aaron, now called S. Malo, on account of the peril to which Aleth was exposed through pirates, and the intestine wars which devastated Brittany. He claimed the island as belonging to the episcopal property of Aleth, but was opposed by the monks of Marmoutiers, who claimed the Church of S. Malo. The case was referred to the Pope, who ordered a commission of French bishops to try the case, and they decided against John. He considered that his cause had been prejudged by them, and visited Rome to carry his appeal in person to the Pope. But Lucius II. would not listen to him, and he was condemned to lose his see. He then retired under the protection of S. Bernard, to Clairvaux, till, on the decease of Lucius II., a monk of Clairvaux was elevated to the papal throne, under the title of Eugenius III. John at once appealed again, and was heard; a fresh commission was appointed, and he was restored to all his rights, and the monks of Marmoutiers were obliged to cede the Church of S. Malo to the bishop. John obtained decisions conformable to that of Eugenius III., from his successors, Anastasius IV. and Adrian IV. That the claim of John was reasonable appears certain. Only three years before he made it, the inhabitants of Aleth had been obliged to take refuge in the island of Aaron to escape the ravages of the Normans, who had already twice pillaged and burnt the city; and it is certain that several of the predecessors of John of the Grate had borne the title of bishop of S. Malo, as well as of Aleth.

      During his reign a strange heresy broke out. Eon de l'Etoile, a fanatic, took to himself the title of "Judge of the quick and dead," and armed with a forked stick, shared with God the empire of the universe. When he turned upwards the two prongs of his stick, he gave to the Almighty the government of two-thirds of the world, and when he turned the prongs downwards, he assumed them as his own. This poor visionary was followed by a number of peasants who pillaged churches, and committed all sorts of disorders. They were condemned, in 1148, by the Council of Rheims, and were reduced to submission by the temporal power. John exerted himself, by persuasion and instruction, to disabuse of their heresy such of the fanatics as over-ran his diocese, and succeeded in converting many of his wandering sheep.

      He died in the odour of sanctity on Feb. 1st, 1163, and was buried on the Gospel side of the altar in the Church of S. Malo. His reputation for virtue was so well established, that almost immediately he received popular reverence as a Saint. Numerous miracles augmented the devotion of the people. In 1517, one of his successors, Denis Brigonnet, ambassador of the king to Rome, obtained from Pope Leo X. permission for him to be commemorated in a solemn office, as a confessor bishop. This was the year in which began the schism of Luther.

      On the 15th October, 1784, Mgr. Antoine-Joseph des Laurents, last bishop of S. Malo but one, examined the relics of the blessed one. He found the bones of S. John enveloped in his pontifical vestments, his pastoral staff at his side, and ring on his finger. During the Revolution the relics of the Saint were ordered to be cast into the sea, but the order was countermanded, and the sexton was required to bury them on the common fosse in the cemetery. The grave-digger, whose name was Jean Coquelin, being a good Catholic, disobeyed the order so far as to lay the bones apart in a portion of the new cemetery as yet occupied by no other bodies. In November, 1799, he announced the secret to M. Manet, a priest who had remained through the Reign of Terror, in S. Malo; and this venerable ecclesiastic assisted by another priest and some religious, verified the relics. A sealed box received the precious deposit, and it was restored to its ancient shrine on 7th March, 1823. Unfortunately the loss of a document which supplied one necessary link in the chain of evidence authenticating the relics was missing, consequently they could not be exposed to the veneration of the faithful. By a strange accident this document was recovered later; whereupon the bishop wrote to Rome to state the proofs which were now complete. The necessary sanction having been received, the sacred relics were enshrined on the 16th November, 1839, with great ceremony; and are now preserved in the Church of S. Malo.

      In French, S. John is called S. Jean de la Grille; in Latin, S. Joannes de Craticula.

B. RAYMOND OF FITERO, AB. C(A.D. 1163.)

      [Cistercian Breviary. Authority: – Radez, Chronic de las ordines y Cavall. de Santiago, Calatrava, y Alcantara.]

      In the year a. d. 714, the Moors, having conquered King Roderick, took possession of Andalusia, and fortified the city of Oreto, to which they gave the name of Calatrava; of which they remained masters for nearly four hundred years, till Alfonso the Warlike took possession of it, in the year 1147, and gave it to the Templars, to guard against the irruption of the infidels. But they held it for only eight years. The forces which the Moors assembled to recover Calatrava so discouraged them, that they gave up the city into the hands of Don Sancho, who had succeeded to the kingdom of Castille, on the death of Alfonso, and withdrew from it. This prince announced to his court that if any nobleman would undertake the defence of the place, he should have and hold it, in perpetuity, as his own property. But no one offered; the host of the Moors which had so alarmed the Templars, caused equal dismay in the minds of the nobles at court. A monk of the order of Citeaux alone had courage to undertake the defence of the town. This was Don Didacus Velasquez, monk of the abbey of Our Lady of Fitero, in the kingdom of Navarre. He had borne arms before he assumed the white habit of Citeaux, and was well known to King Sancho, and this perhaps was the reason why his abbot, Don Raymond, had taken him with him on a visit to the king, about some matter concerning his monastery, at this very time. He entreated the abbot to allow him to ask permission of Sancho to undertake the defence of Calatrava. Raymond, at first, rejected the proposal, but at length, gained by the zeal and confidence of Didacus, he boldly asked the city of the prince. He was regarded as mad, but Sancho was prevailed upon by the evident assurance of the two monks to give the town of Calatrava to the Cistercian Order, and especially to the abbey of Fitero, on condition that the monks held it against the СКАЧАТЬ