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

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СКАЧАТЬ hair shirt. He often slept upon the ground, and spent a considerable part of the night in prayer and meditation, chiefly on the passion of our Saviour. He was wont at times to go out in the night to pray before the church-doors, and in the morning waited before them till they were opened for matins. He was especially devout to the passion of our blessed Saviour, the very thought of which excited him to tears. He was no less piously affected towards the Sacrifice of the altar, at which he always assisted with such reverence and attention that he seemed in raptures. And as a mark of his singular devotion to the Blessed Virgin, he composed, or, at least, frequently recited, the long hymn that bears his name, a copy of which was, by his desire, buried with him. His love for Jesus Christ showed itself in his regard for the poor, who are His members, to whose relief he applied whatever he had, and employed his credit with his father, and his brother, Vladislas, king of Bohemia, to procure them succour.

      The nobles of Hungary, dissatisfied with Matthias Corvinus, their king, son of the great Huniades, begged the king of Poland to allow them to place his son Casimir on the throne. The saint, then not quite fifteen years of age, was very unwilling to consent; but in compliance with his father's will, he went at the head of an army of twenty thousand men to the frontiers in 1471. There hearing that Matthias had formed an army of sixteen thousand men to oppose him, and that pope Sixtus IV. had sent an embassy to divert his father from the expedition, and finding that his soldiers were deserting him in great numbers, he joyfully returned. However, his conduct gave such offence to his father, whose ambition had been roused, that he was forbidden by him to enter Cracow, and ordered to take up his residence in the castle of Dobzki. After this, nothing would again induce him to resume the attempt, though again pressed by the Hungarians, and urged by his father. As the old Russian churches were falling out of repair, Casimir, with more zeal than discretion, persuaded his father to pass an edict forbidding the restoration and reconstruction of churches which did not belong to the Latin rite.

      Falling into a decline, the physicians recommended that he should relax his rigid chastity, but the young prince indignantly refused to defile his virgin body on the chance of thus prolonging his life a few months; and he died at the age of twenty-three, on March 4th, 1484, and was buried at Wilna, where his body is still preserved.

      March 5

      S. Theophilus, B. of Cæsarea, in Palestine, circ. A.D. 200.

      S. Adrian, M. at Cæsarea, in Palestine, A.D. 308 (see S. Eubulus,March 7th).

      S. Phocas, M. at Antioch, in Syria, circ. A.D. 320.

      S. Gerasimus, Ab. in Palestine, A.D. 475.

      S. Kieran or Piran, of Saigir, B. of Ossory, circ. A.D. 552.

      S. Virgilius, Abp. of Arles, 7th cent.

      S Drausinus, B. of Soissons, after A.D. 675.

      S. Peter de Castelnau, Mk. M. at S. Gilles, in the Narbonnaise,

      A.D. 1209.

      S. John-Joseph of the Cross, C. at Naples, A.D. 1734.

S. PHOCAS, M(ABOUT A.D. 320.)

      [All the Latin Martyrologies, from the mention in which all that is known of him is derived.]

      At Antioch, after many sufferings endured for the name of Christ, Phocas triumphed over the Old Serpent, a victory which is testified, to this day, by a miracle. For whoever is bitten by a serpent, having touched, full of faith, the door of the basilica of the martyr, is immediately cured, the poison at once losing its power; so says the Roman Martyrology.

S. GERASIMUS, AB. IN PALESTINE(A.D. 475.)

      [Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on March 4th and 20th. Authorities: – Mention in the lives of S. Euthymius and S. Quiriacus, by Cyril the Monk, fl. 548]

      S. Gerasimus embraced the monastic life in Lycia; he afterwards passed into Palestine, at a time when Eutychianism prevailed, and he had the misfortune to embrace the errors of that heresy; but S. Euthymius (Jan. 20th) visited him, and restored him to the unity of the faith. He expiated his error by the most rigorous fasting. He became very intimate with S. Euthymius, S. John the Silentiary, S. Sabas, and S. Theoctistus.

      A great number of disciples placed themselves under his conduct, and he built a laura near Jordan, consisting of seventy cells, amidst which was a monastery for the lodging of those who were to live in community, and disciplined those who afterwards occupied the hermitages of the laura. The anchorites assembled in the church on the Sabbath and the Sunday to participate in the sacred mysteries, and on these two days they ate common food that had been cooked, and drank a little wine; on other days they ate only bread and dates, and drank water. Fires were never lighted in the cells, and the hermits slept on rush mats.

      S. Gerasimus carried his abstinence further than his brethren. Throughout Lent he took no other nourishment than the Divine Eucharist.

      One day as the old abbot was walking on the banks of the Jordan, he saw a lion limping, and roaring with pain. The lion, instead of attempting to escape, held up its paw, which was much swollen, and Gerasimus taking it on his lap, examined it, and saw that a sharp splinter had entered the flesh. He withdrew the piece of reed, and bathed the paw. The lion afterwards gratefully followed him to his cell, and never after left him, but was fed by the abbot. There was an ass belonging to the monastery which brought water from the Jordan, for the necessities of the brethren; and Gerasimus sent the ass out to pasture under the guardianship of the lion. One day the lion had gone away from his charge, and an Arabian camel driver passing by, stole the ass. In the evening the lion returned depressed in spirits to the monastery, without the ass. Gerasimus naturally concluded that the lion had eaten the animal, and he cried out, "Sirrah, where is the ass?" The lion stood still, and looked back over his shoulder. "You have eaten him!" said the abbot; "Let us praise God. Well, what the ass did, you shall do now." And thenceforth the lion carried the water for the brethren.

      Now one day a certain soldier came to the monastery, and seeing the lion toiling under the water bottles, he pitied the lordly beast, and gave some money to the abbot to buy an ass on the next opportunity, and release the lion from its office of water-carrier. Some days after this, as the lion was near Jordan, there came by the driver who had stolen the ass, with three camels, and the stolen beast itself. The lion set up its mane and roared, and made towards the man, whereupon the driver took to his heels. Then the lion caught the end of the ass's halter, and drew it along with the camels to the door of the monastery. And thus the abbot learned that he was wrong in accusing his dumb friend of having devoured his charge.

      For five years the lion was the constant companion of the old abbot, going in and out among the monks; and at the expiration of that time Gerasimus died. Now the lion was out when he departed to his rest; but when the lion returned home, he went about searching for the old man. Then the abbot Sabbatius, a disciple of the dead saint, seeing the uneasiness of the lion, said to him "Jordan, (for by that name the lion was called), our old friend has gone away and left us orphans, and has migrated to the Lord; but here is food, take and eat." But the lion would not and paced to and fro seeking the dead man, and every now and then throwing up his head, and roaring. Then Sabbatius and some of the other brethren came and rubbed his neck, and said, "The old man is departed to the Lord, and has left us." But this did not appease the lion; and the more they caressed him, and spake to him, the more agitated he became, and the louder he roared, "showing with mouth and eyes how great was his distress, because he saw not the old man."

      Then the abbot Sabbatius said to him, "Come along with me, as you will not believe me, and I will show you where our old friend is laid." And he led the lion to the place where Gerasimus was buried; and the abbot Sabbatius, standing at the tomb, said, "See here is where he is buried." And then he knelt and wept upon the grave. So when the lion saw this, he went, and stretched СКАЧАТЬ