Part 22

In 622 Clotaire II. divided his dominions, and making his son Dagobert king of Austrasia, appointed St. Arnoul duke of Austrasia and chief counsellor and Pepin of Landen mayor of his palace. The reign of this prince was virtuous, prosperous, and glorious, so long as Arnoul remained at the helm; but the saint anxiously desiring to retire from all business, that he might more seriously study to secure his own salvation before he should be called hence, never ceased to solicit the king for leave to quit the court. Dagobert long refused his consent, but at length, out of a scruple lest he should oppose the call of heaven, granted it, though with the utmost reluctance. St. Arnoul resigned also his bishopric, and retired into the deserts of Vosge, near the monastery of Remiremont, on the top of a high mountain, where a hermitage is at this day standing. Here the saint labored daily with fresh fervor to advance in the path of Christian perfection; for the greater progress a person has already made in virtue, the more does the prospect enlarge upon him, and the more perfectly does he see how much is yet wanting in him, and how great a scope is left for exerting his endeavors still more. Who will pretend to have made equal advances with St. Paul towards perfection? yet he was far from ever thinking that he had finished his work, or that he might remit anything in his endeavors. On the contrary, we find him imitating the alacrity of those who run in a race who do not so much consider what ground they have already cleared, as how much still remains to call forth their utmost eagerness and strength. Nor can there be a more certain sign that a person has not yet arrived at the lowest and first degree of virtue, than that he should think he does not need to aim higher. In this vigorous pursuit St. Arnoul died on the 16th of August in 640. His remains were brought to Metz, and enrich the great abbey which bears his name. The Roman Martyrology mentions him on the 18th of July, on which day the translation of his relics was performed; the Gallican on the 16th of August. See his life, faithfully compiled by his successor, in Mabillon, Act. Bened. t. 2, p. 150. Also Calmet, Hist. de Lorraine, t. 1, l. 9, n. 10, &c. p. 378, 381, &c. Bosch the Bollandist, t. 5, Jul. p. 423; and D. Cajot, Benedictin monk of St. Arnoul’s Les Antiquités de Metz, an. 1761.

ST. ARNOUL, M.

He preached the faith among the Franks after St. Remigius had baptized king Clovis. He suffered much in his apostolic labors, and was at length martyred in the Aquilin forest between Paris and Chartres, about the year 534. His name is highly reverenced at Paris, Rheims, and over all France. See Cuper the Bollandist, Julij, t. 4, p. 396.

SAINT FREDERIC, BISHOP OF UTRECHT, M.

He was descended of a most illustrious family among the Frisons, and according to the author of his life, was great-grandson to Radbod, king of that country, before it was conquered by the French. He was trained up in piety and sacred literature among the clergy of the church of Utrecht. His fasts and other austerities were excessive, and his watchings in fervent prayer were not less inimitable. Being ordained priest, he was charged by bishop Ricfrid with the care of instructing the catechumens, and that good prelate dying in 820, he was chosen the eighth bishop of Utrecht from St. Willibrord.[206] The holy man, with many tears, before the clergy and people, declared, in moving terms, his incapacity and unworthiness, but by the authority of the emperor Louis Debonnaire was compelled to submit. He therefore repaired to his metropolitan, the archbishop of Mentz, and at Aix-la-Chapelle received the investiture by the ring and crosier, and was consecrated by the bishops in presence of the emperor, who zealously recommended to him the extirpation of the remains of idolatry in Friesland. The new bishop was met by the clergy and others of his church, and by them honorably conducted from the Rhine to Utrecht. He immediately applied himself to establish everywhere the best order, and sent zealous and virtuous laborers into the northern parts, to root out the relics of idolatry which still subsisted there.

Charlemagne, by treating with severity the conquered Frisons and Saxons, had alienated their minds from his empire; but upon his death in 814, Louis his son, whom he had made in his own life-time king of Aquitain, came to the empire, by excluding his little nephew Bernard, king of Italy, grandson of Pepin, elder brother to this Louis, whom their father made king of Italy, but who died in 810, leaving that kingdom to his son and grandson both named Bernard. Louis upon his accession to the throne eased the Saxons of their heavy taxes, and showed them so much lenity that he gained their hearts to the empire for ever, and from his courtesy and from this and other actions of clemency was surnamed _The Debonnaire_, or the Gracious. He lost his queen Irmingarde, who died at Angiers in 818, by whom he had three sons, Lothaire, Pepin, and Louis. The first he made king of Italy,[207] the second king of Aquitain, and Louis king of Bavaria; reserving to himself the rest of Bavaria and France. In 819 he married Judith, daughter of Guelph, count of Aldorff, by whom he had Charles _the Bald_, afterward emperor and king of France. She was an ambitious and wanton woman; her adulteries gave great scandal to the people, and her overbearing insolence and continual intrigues embroiled the state, and drove the three eldest sons into open rebellion against their father.[208] Nothing can excuse the methods to which these unnatural princes had recourse, under pretence of remedying the public disorders, which sprang from the weakness of their father, and the malice of a hated mother-in-law. But the scandals of her lewdness stirred up the zeal of our holy pastor to act the part of a second John the Baptist. The contemporary author of the life of Wala, abbot of Lorbie, who was deeply concerned in the secret transactions of that court, confidently charges her with incest and adultery with her relation and favorite minister, Bernard count of Barcelona. The author of the life of St. Frederic says, her marriage with Louis was incestuous, and within the forbidden degrees of affinity; but this circumstance could not have escaped the censure of her enemies; and from their silence is rejected by Mabillon and others as fabulous.

Whatever the scandals of her gallantries were, St. Frederic, the neighborhood of whose see gave him free access to the court, then chiefly kept at Aix-la-Chapelle, admonished her of them with an apostolic freedom and charity, but without any other effect than that of drawing upon himself the fury and resentment of a second Jezebel, if we may believe the historians of that age. Our saint suffered also another persecution. The inhabitants of Wallacria, now called Walcheren, one of the principal islands of Zealand, belonging to the Netherlands, were of all others the most barbarous, and most averse to the maxims of the gospel. On which account St. Frederic, when he sent priests into the northern uncultivated provinces of his diocess, took this most dangerous and difficult part chiefly to himself; and nothing here gave him more trouble than the incestuous marriages contracted within the forbidden degrees, and the separation of the parties. To extirpate this inveterate evil he employed assiduous exhortations, tears, watching, prayer, and fasting; summoned an assembly of the principal persons of the island, and earnestly recommended the means to banish this abuse from among them, broke many such pretended marriages, and reconciled many persons that had done sincere penance to God and his Church. He composed a prayer to the Blessed Trinity with an exposition of that adorable mystery against heresies, which for many ages was used in the Netherlands with great devotion. The reputation of his sanctity made him to be considered as one of the most illustrious prelates of the Church, as appears from a poem of Rabanus Maurus, his contemporary, in praise of his virtue, published with notes among his poetical works, together with those of Fortunatus by F. Brower, S. J.[209]

Whilst this holy pastor was intent only upon the duties of his charge, one day when he came from the altar having said mass, as he was going to kneel down in the chapel of St. John Baptist to perform his thanksgiving and other private devotions, he was stabbed in the bowels by two assassins. He expired in a few minutes, reciting that verse of the hundred and fourteenth psalm,--_I will please the Lord in the land of the living_. The author of his life says these assassins were employed by the empress Judith, who could not pardon the liberty he had taken to reprove her incest. William of Malmesbury[210] and other historians assert the same; and this seems clearly to have been the true cause and manner of his martyrdom; William Heda,[211] Beka,[212] Emmius,[213] and many others confirm the same. Baronius in his annals, Mabillon, Le Cointe, and Baillet think these assassins were rather sent by some of the incestuous inhabitants of Wallacria, but this opinion is destitute of the authority of ancient historians. The martyr’s body was buried in the same church of St. Saviour, called Oude-Munster, at Utrecht. His death happened on the 17th of July, 838, as Mabillon has proved. See the life of St. Frederic with the notes of Cuper the Bollandist, Julij, t. 4, p. 452, and Batavia Sacra, p. 99. Also Heda’s History of the Bishops of Utrecht, Beka and Emmius.

ST. ODULPH, CANON OF UTRECHT, C.

He was born of noble French parents, and distinguished in his youth by the innocence of his manners, and his remarkable progress in learning and piety. Being ordained priest, he was made curate of Oresscoth in Brabant. St. Frederic afterward, by urgent entreaties, engaged him, for the greater glory of God, to be his strenuous assistant in reforming the manners of the fierce Frisons; in which undertaking it is incredible what fatigues he underwent, and what proofs he gave of heroic patience, meekness, zeal, and charity. Contemplation and prayer were the support and refreshment of his soul under his continual labors and austerities. Several wonderful predictions of things which happened long after his death, are recorded in his life. In his old age he resided at Utrecht, and died canon of the cathedral. To his last moments he allowed himself no indulgence, and never relaxed his fervor in labor; but rather redoubled his pace the nearer he saw his end approach, knowing this to be the condition of the Christian’s hire, and fearing to lose by sloth and for want of perseverance the crown for which he fought. His fasts, his watchings, his assiduity in prayer, his almsdeeds, his zeal in instructing the people, and exhorting all men to the divine love and the contempt of all earthly things, seemed to gather strength with his years. Being seized with a fever, he with joy foretold his last moment, and earnestly exhorting his brethren to fervor, and commending himself to their prayers, he promised, by the divine mercy, never to forget them before God, and happily departed this life in the ninth age, on the 12th of June, on which day his festival was kept with great solemnity at Utrecht and Staveren. Several churches and chapels bear his name; but the chapel at the New Bridge in Amsterdam, called Olofs-Kapel, was erected by the Danish sailors in memory of St. Olaus, king of Norway and Martyr, not of St. Odulph, as the Bollandists and some others have mistaken. See the life of St. Odulph in the Bollandists, Junij, t. 2, and Batavia Sacra, p. 106.

ST. BRUNO, BISHOP OF SEGNI, C.

He was of the illustrious family of the lords of Asti in Piemont and born near that city. From his cradle he considered, that man’s happiness is only to be found in loving God; and to please him in all his actions was his only and his most ardent desire. He made his studies in the monastery of St. Perpetuus in the diocess of Asti. Bosch proves that he never was canon of Asti, but enjoyed some years a canonry at Sienna, as he himself informs us. In the Roman council in 1079, he defended the doctrine of the Catholic Church concerning the blessed eucharist against Berengarius; and pope Gregory VII. nominated him bishop of Segni in the ecclesiastical state in 1081. Bruno, who had been compelled to submit, after a long and strenuous resistance, served his flock, and on many important occasions the universal Church, with unwearied zeal. Gregory VII. who died in 1085, Victor III. formerly abbot of mount Cassino, who died in 1087, and Urban II. who had been scholar to St. Bruno (afterward institutor of the Carthusians) at Rheims, then a monk at Cluni, and afterward bishop of Ostia, had the greatest esteem for our saint. He attended Urban II. into France in 1095, and assisted at the council of Tours in 1096. After his return into Italy he continued to labor for the sanctification of his soul and that of his flock, till not being able any longer to resist his inclination for solitude and retirement, he withdrew to mount Cassino, and put on the monastic habit. The people of Segni demanded him back; but Oderisus, abbot of mount Cassino, and several Cardinals, whose mediation the saint employed, prevailed upon the pope to allow his retreat. The abbot Oderisus was succeeded by Otho in 1105, and this latter dying in 1107, the monks chose bishop Bruno abbot. He was often employed by the pope in important commissions, and by his writings labored to support ecclesiastical discipline[214] and to extirpate simony. This vice he looked upon as the source of all the disorders which excited the tears of all zealous pastors in the Church, by filling the sanctuary with hirelings, whose worldly spirit raises an insuperable opposition to that of the gospel. What would this saint have said had he seen the collation of benefices, and the frequent translations of bishops in some parts, which serve to feed and inflame avarice and ambition in those in whom, above all others, a perfect disengagement from earthly things and crucifixion of the passions ought to lay a foundation of the gospel temper and spirit? Paschal II. formerly a monk of Cluni, succeeded Urban II. in the pontificate in 1099. By his order St. Bruno having been abbot of mount Cassino about four years, returned to his bishopric, having resigned his abbacy, and left his abbatial crosier on the altar. He continued faithfully to discharge the episcopal functions to his death, which happened at Segni on the 31st of August in 1125. He was canonized by Lucius III. in 1183, and his feast is kept in Italy on the 18th of July. See his anonymous authentic life, and Leo of Ostia and Peter the deacon in their chronicle of mount Cassino, with the notes of Solier the Bollandist, t. 4, Julij, p. 471. Also Dom. Maur Marchesi, dean of mount Cassino, in his apparatus (prefixed to the works of this saint) printed at Venice in 1651; Mabillon, Annal. Bened. l. 70, Ceillier, t. 21, p. 101.

JULY XIX.

ST. VINCENT OF PAUL, C.

FOUNDER OF THE LAZARITES, OR FATHERS OF THE MISSION.

From his edifying life written by Abelly, bishop of Rodez, and again by the celebrated continuator of Tournely’s Theological Lectures, Dr. Peter Collet, in two volumes, quarto, Nancy, 1748. See also Perrault, Hommes Illustr. Helyot, Hist. des Ord. Relig. t. 8, p. 64, and the bull of his canonization published by Clement XII. in 1737, apud Bened. XIV. de canoniz., t. 4, Append. p. 363.

A. D. 1660.

Even in the most degenerate ages, when the true maxims of the gospel seem almost obliterated among the generality of those who profess it, God fails not, for the glory of his holy name, to raise to himself faithful ministers to revive the same in the hearts of many. Having, by the perfect crucifixion of the old man in their hearts, and the gift of prayer, prepared them to become vessels of his grace, he replenishes them with the spirit of his apostles that they may be qualified to conduct others in the paths of heroic virtue, in which the Holy Ghost was himself their interior Master. One of these instruments of the divine mercy was St. Vincent of Paul. He was a native of Poul, a village near Acqs in Gascony, not far from the Pyrenæan mountains. His parents, William of Paul and Bertranda of Morass, occupied a very small farm of which they were the proprietors, and upon the produce of which they brought up a family of four sons and two daughters. The children were brought up in innocence, and inured from their infancy to the most laborious part of country labor. But Vincent, the third son, gave extraordinary proofs of his wit and capacity, and from his infancy showed a seriousness and an affection for holy prayer far beyond his age. He spent great part of his time in that exercise when he was employed in the fields to keep the cattle. That he might give to Christ in the persons of the poor all that was in his power, he deprived himself of his own little conveniences and necessaries for that purpose in whatever it was possible for him to retrench from his own use. This early fervent consecration of himself to God, and these little sacrifices which may be compared to the widow’s two mites in the gospel, were indications of the sincere ardor with which he began to seek God from the first opening of his reason to know and love him; and were doubtless a means to draw down upon him from the author of these graces other greater blessings. His father was determined by the strong inclinations of the child to learning and piety, and the quickness of his parts, to procure him a school education. He placed him first under the care of the Cordeliers or Franciscan friars at Acqs, paying for his board and lodging the small pension of sixty French livres, that is, not six pounds English, a year.

Vincent had been four years at the schools when Mr. Commet, a gentleman of that town, being much taken with his virtue and prudence, chose him sub-preceptor to his children, and enabled him to continue his studies without being any longer a burden to his parents. At twenty years of age, in 1596, he was qualified to go to the university of Toulouse, where he spent seven years in the study of divinity, and commenced bachelor in that faculty. In that city he was promoted to the holy orders of subdeacon and deacon in 1598, and of priesthood in 1600, having received the tonsure and minor orders a few days before he left Acqs. He seemed already endowed with all those virtues which make up the character of a worthy and zealous minister of the altar; yet he knew not the full extent of heroic entire self-denial, by which a man becomes dead and crucified to all inordinate self-will; upon which perfect self-denial are engrafted the total sacrifice of the heart to God, perfect humility, and that purity and ardor of divine charity which constitute the saint. Vincent was a good proficient in theology and other sciences of the schools, and had diligently applied himself to the study of the maxims of Christian virtue in the gospel, in the lives of the saints, and in the doctrine of the greatest masters of a spiritual life. But there remained a new science for him to learn, which was to cost him much more than bare study and labor. This consists in perfect experimental and feeling sentiments of humility, patience, meekness, and charity; which science is only to be learned by the good use of severe interior and exterior trials. This is the mystery of the cross, unknown to those whom the Holy Ghost has not led into this important secret of his conduct in preparing souls for the great works of his grace. The prosperity of the wicked will appear at the last day to have often been the most dreadful judgment, and a state in which they were goaded on in the pursuit of their evil courses; whilst, on the contrary, it will then be manifested to all men that the afflictions of the saints have been the greatest effects of divine mercy. Thus, by a chain of temporal disasters, did God lay in the soul of Vincent the solid foundation of that high virtue to which by his grace he afterward raised him.