December XIII

St. Lucy, virgin, martyr

Abridged from her Acts, older than St. Aldhelm, who quoted them in the seventh century.

a. d. 304.

The glorious virgin and martyr St. Lucy, one of the brightest ornaments, of the church of Sicily, was born of honorable and wealthy parents in the city of Syracusa, and educated from her cradle in the faith of Christ. She lost her father in her infancy, but Eutychia, her mother, took singular care to furnish her with tender and sublime sentiments of piety and religion. By the early impressions which Lucy received, and the strong influence of divine grace, Lucy discovered no disposition but towards virtue, and she was yet very young when she offered to God the flower of her virginity. This vow, however, she kept a secret, and her mother, who was a stranger to it, pressed her to marry a young gentleman who was a pagan. The saint sought occasions to hinder this design from taking effect, and her mother was visited with a long and troublesome flux of blood, under which she labored four years without finding any remedy by recourse to physicians. A length she was persuaded by her daughter to go to Catana, and offer up her prayers to God for relief at the tomb of St. Agatha. St. Lucy accompanied her thither, and their prayers were successful. Hereupon our saint disclosed to her mother her desire of devoting herself to God in a state of per petual virginity, and bestowing her fortune on the poor; and Eutychia. In gratitude, left her at full liberty to pursue her pious inclinations. The young nobleman with whom the mother had treated about marrying her, came to understand this by the sale of her jewels and goods, and the distribution of the price among the poor, and in his rage accused her before the governor Paschasius as a Christian, the persecution of Dioclesian then raging with the utmost fury. The judge commanded the holy virgin to be exposed to prostitution in a brothel-house; but God rendered her immoveable, so that the guards were not able to carry her thither. He also made her an overmatch for the cruelty of the persecutors, in overcoming fire and other torments. After a long and glorious combat she died in prison of the wounds she had received, about the year 304. She was honored at Rome in the sixth century among the most illustrious virgins and martyrs, whose triumphs the church celebrates, as appears from the Sacramentary of St. Gregory, Bede, and others. Her festival was kept in England, till the change of religion, as a holiday of the second rank, in which no work but tillage or the like was allowed. Her body remained at Syracusa for many years, but was at length translated into Italy, and thence, by the authority of the emperor Otho I., to Metz, as Sigebert of Gemblours relates. It is there exposed to public veneration in a rich chapel of St. Vincent’s church. A portion of her relics was carried to Constantinople, and brought thence to Venice, where it is kept with singular veneration. St. Lucy is often painted with the balls of her eyes laid in a dish: perhaps her eyes were defaced or plucked out, though her present acts make no mention of any such circumstance. In many places her intercession is particularly implored for distempers of the eyes.

It is a matter of the greatest consequence what ideas are stamped upon the ductile minds of children, what sentiments are impressed on their hearts, and to what habits they are first formed. Let them be inured to little denials both in their will and senses, and learn that pleasures which gratify the senses must be guarded against, and used with great fear and moderation: for by them the taste is debauched, and the constitution of the soul broken and spoiled much more fatally than that of the body can be by means contrary to its health. Let them be taught that, as one of the ancient philosophers said, Temperance is the highest luxury; for only its pleasures are easy, solid, and permanent. It is much easier to conquer than to satisfy the passions, which, unless they are curbed by a vigorous restraint, while they are pliable, will be harder to be subdued. Obstinacy, untractableness, sloth. and voluptuousness, are of all dispositions in youth the most dangerous.

Children like tender osiers take the bow.

And as they first are fashioned, always grow.

There are few Lucies nowadays among Christian ladies, because sensuality, pride, and vanity are instilled into their minds by the false maxims and pernicious example of those with whom they first converse. Alas’ unless a constant watchfulness and restraint produce and strengthen good habits, the inclinations of our souls lean of their own accord towards corruption.

St. Jodoc, or Josse, C.

Those Britons who, flying from the swords of the English-Saxons, settled in Armorica in Gaul, upon the ruins of the Roman empire in those parts, formed themselves into a little state on that coast till they were obliged to receive the laws of the French. Judical, commonly called Giguel, eldest son of Juthael, became king of Brittany about the year 630.^* This prince soon after renounced this perishable crown to labor more securely for the acquisition of an incorruptible one, and retired into the monastery of St. Meen, in the diocese of St. Malo, where he lived in so great sanctity as to be honored after his death with the title of the Blessed Judical. When he resigned the crown he offered it to his younger brother Jodoc, called by the French Josse. But Jodoc had the same inclinations with his elder brother. However, to consult the divine will, he shut himself up for eight days in the monastery of Lanmamiont, in which he had been brought up, and prayed night and day with many tears that God would direct him to undertake what was most agreeable to him, and most conducive to his divine honor and his own sanctification. He put an end to his deliberation by receiving the clerical tonsure at the hands of the bishop of Avranches, and joined a company of eleven pilgrims who purposed to go to Rome. They went first to Paris, and thence into Picardy in 636, where Jodoc was prevailed upon by Haymo, duke of Ponchieu, to fix upon an estate of his, which was at a sufficient distance from his own country, and secure from the honors which there waited for him Being promoted to priest’s orders, he served the duke’s chapel seven years, then retired with one only disciple named Vurmare, into a woody solitude at Ray, where he found a small spot of ground proper for tillage, watered by the river Authie. The duke built them a chapel and cells, in which the hermits lived, gaining by the tillage of this land their slender subsistence and an overplus for the poor. Their exercises were austere penance, prayer, and contemplation. After eight years thus spent here they removed to Runiac, now called Villers-saint-Josse, near the mouth of the river Canche, where they built a chapel of wood in honor of St. Martin. In this place they continued the same manner of life for thirteen years; when Jodoc having been bit by an adder, they again changed their quarters, the good duke who continued their constant protector, having built them a hermitage, with two chapels of wood, in honor of SS. Peter and Paul. The servants of God kept constant enclosure, except that out of devotion to the princes of the apostles, and to the holy martyrs, they made a penitential pilgrimage to Rome in 665. At their return to Runiac they found their hermitage enlarged and adorned, and a beautiful church of stone, which the good duke had erected in memory of St. Martin, and on which he settled a competent estate. The duke met them in person on the road, and conducted them to their habitation. Jodoc finished here his penitential course in 669, and was honored by miracles both before and after his death. Winoc and Arnoc, two nephews of the saint, inherited his hermitage, which became a famous monastery, and was one of those which Charlemagne first bestowed on Alcuin in 792. It stands near the sea, in the diocese of Amiens, follows the order of St. Bennet, and the abbot enjoys the privileges of count. It is called St. Josse-sur-mer. St. Jodoc is mentioned on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See the life of this saint written in the eighth century; Cave thinks about the year 710. It is published with learned notes by Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 566: Gall. Chr. Nov. t. 10, pp. 1289, 1290.

St. Kenelm, King, M.

Kenulph, a prince of the blood royal of Mercia, was in the fourth degree of descent from Wibba, father of king Penda, and Egfert, the son of Offa, having reigned only half a year, was called to the throne of Mercia, which he filled twenty-two years. Dying in 819, he left his son Kenelm, a child only seven years old, heir to his crown, under the tutelage of his sister Quindride. This ambitious woman committed his person to the care of one Ascobert, whom she had hired to make away with him. The wicked minister decoyed the innocent child into an unfrequented wood, cut off his head, and buried him under a thorn-tree. His corpse is said to have been discovered by a heavenly ray of light which shone over the place, and by the following inscription:

In Clent cow-pasture, under a thorn,

Of head bereft, lies Kenelm king born.^*

Higden, in his Polychronicon, says the body was thrown into a well; the place was called Cowdale Pasture, and situate in the south part of Staffordshire, on the borders of Worcestershire, where in following ages he was honored with great devotion, but with greater resort of pilgrims at the abbey of Winchelcombe in Gloucestershire, which his father had founded, and in which his relics were enshrined, having been translated thither immediately after their discovery. The unnatural sister seized the kingdom, but was outed by her uncle Ceolwulph, (pronounced Colwulph) and in penance became a nun, as appears from the council of Cloveshoe in 822. St. Kenelm’s death happened in 820. See Higden, Will, of Malmesbury. Tyrrell, p. 252; Cowper in the life of St. Werburge, p. 21.^†

St. Aubert, Bishop of Cambray and Arras, C.

This great prelate was one of the greatest ornaments of the seventh age and eminent promoters of learning and piety in the Gallican church. His youth, that most precious season of life, he dedicated to God by the mortification and the absolute conquest of sensual appetites; he was careful to employ all his time usefully, and was a great proficient in sacred learning. Having with great zeal served the church for many years, he was consecrated bishop of Arras and Cambray on the 24th of March, in 633.^* Though solitude, in which he conversed in heaven, and consulted God on his own necessities, and those of his people, was his delight, yet he knew what he owed to others; his door was always open to persons of all ranks and conditions, and he was ever ready to afford every one all comfort and assistance, spiritual and corporal, especially the poor, the sick, and distressed. With extraordinary watchfulness and sagacity he discovered the roots of the disorders which reigned among the people his prudence and zeal applied the remedies, and all the obstacles he met with, he surmounted by his courage and constancy. His instructions, supported by the wonderful example of his own life, had incredible success in reforming the manners of his numerous flock. It was the first part of his care to train up a virtuous clergy, and to qualify them for their sacred functions by learning and good habits: ignorance, especially in those who are the teachers of others, being a most fatal enemy to virtue, and a rooted and experienced piety being necessary in all youth, that when they attain manhood and are exposed to the dangers of public life in a corrupt world, they may be able to resist the influence of vice and bad example. St. Aubert converted to God innumerable sinners, and induced many persons of quality of both sexes, to renounce the world. The great king Dagobert often resorted to the saint to be instructed by him in the means of securing to himself an eternal kingdom. He listened to him with respect and attention, always rejoiced exceedingly in his heavenly conversation, and received from it the greatest comfort and edification. Out of respect for him he bestowed on his church of our Lady the royal estate and manor of Oneng. St. Landelin was drawn by St. Aubert’s tears and prayers from apostacy from a religious state, and from a most abandoned course of life into which he fell, at the head of a troop of licentious soldiers, or rather robbers; and in expiation of his crimes, he founded four monasteries, Lobes on the Sambre, in Haynault, in 653, which was long very famous; but being secularized, the canons removed their chapter, in 1408, to Binche, three leagues from Mons, towards Charleroi. In 686, leaving St. Ursmar abbot of Lobes, he founded the abbeys of Ane, St. Guislain’s, and Krespin, near Valenciennes, in which last he died. St. Aubert gave his benediction to St. Guislain, and blessed his cell on the river Hannau or Haine, (which gave name to the province,) in the place which since bears his name, but was then called Ursdung or Ursidonc, i.e. Bear’s Kennel.

The blessed count Vincent, called in the world Madelgare, his wife the blessed Waldetrude, and her sister St. Aldegundes, received the religious habit from the hands of St. Aubert, and the latter founded the monastery of Maubeuge, the former that of Mons. Our saint built himself many churches, and some monasteries, as Hautmont, in 652, &c. The translation of the relics of St. Vedast at Arras, was performed by him in 666, to a church at that time without the walls of the city, and St. Aubert laid there the foundation of the great monastery which still flourishes. It was soon after most munificently endowed by king Thierry or Theodoric III., who, dying in 691, after a reign of twenty-one years, was buried in this monastery with his second wife, Doda, where their monuments are seen to this day.

By St. Aubert’s zeal, religion and sacred learning flourished exceedingly, in all Haynault and Flanders. Having worthily sustained the burden of the episcopal charge for the space of thirty-six years, he died in 669,^* and was buried in St. Peter’s church, now a famous abbey of regular canons in Cambray, which bears his name, founded in 1060, by St. Lietbert, bishop of Cambray, who also founded the Benedictin abbey of St. Sepulchre in Cambray, and died on the 23d of June, 1076. St. Aubert’s shrine is the richest treasure of this magnificent church and abbey.

His festival was kept from the time of his death on the 13th of December, as appears from the most ancient calendars of that and neighboring churches: from the Libellus Annalis Domini Bed Presbyteri, published by Martenne from a MS. of St. Maximin’s at Triers, upwards of eight hundred years old, (Anec. t. 3, col. 637,) &c. This festival is a holiday at Cambray, where are also kept two other annual feasts in his honor: the elevation of his relics when they were first enshrined on the 24th of January; and that of their translation the 5th of July. When Guy or Guiard of Laon was bishop of Cambray,^† William the abbot of St. Aubert’s in 1242, removed them into a new rich shrine which he had caused to be made by Thomas, a goldsmith of Douay, as we are informed by an inscription on the shrine. From which time this feast has been kept. The same inscription mentions that this shrine was enlarged and improved in 1275 by James, a goldsmith at Eskierchin, then a considerable town. Gerard I. the learned and zealous bishop of Cambray and Arras, about the year 1020 employed the most eminent Doctor Fulbert to write the life of St. Aubert. This could be no other than Fulbert the celebrated bishop of Chartres, who died in 1028, and had been fellow-scholar with Gerard, in the great school at Rheims under Gerbert of Orleans, afterwards archbishop of Ravenna, and lastly pope Sylvester II.^‡ This life of St. Aubert is given imperfect by Surius: copied in MS. entire with notes and preliminary disquisitions, by M. Henry Dionysius Mutte, dean of the metropolitical church of Cambray and vicar-general of the diocese; who added three authentic relations, of miraculous cures of persons struck with a palsy, blind, lame, &c., with a particular detail of the circumstances of each, wrought by the intercession, and by the touch or presence of the relics of St. Aubert: the first written under the same bishop Gerard I. and by his order; the second was compiled in the eleventh; and the third relation of miracles in the twelfth century, in part by eye-witnesses. We have also an account of miracles wrought by the intercession of this saint in the parish church of Hennin Lietard, in which is preserved the relic of his jaw-bone.

We have another accurate life of St. Aubert in the Chronicon Camaracense et Atrebatense, published by Dr. Colvenerius at Douay, in 1615, under the name of Baldericus, bishop of Noyon and Tournay. But the author declares that he had been brought up and had always lived in the service of the church of Cambray, and that he wrote it by the order of his bishop, Gerard l. Whereas the clergy of Noyon, in their letter concerning the election of Baldericus, to the clergy and church of Arras, (apud Balus, Miscell, t. 5, p. 309,) assure us that he had always lived in the church of Noyon. Baldericus of Noyon was only a boy when Gerard I. died. The author of this Chronicon afterwards compiled the life of St. Gerry, as appears from the preface. See Boschius the Bollandist, Prv. Comment, in vitam S. Gaugerici, 11 Aug.^* Also see the life of St. Aubert, written by a nonk in Mabillon, Act. Ben. t. 2, p. 873.

B. John Marinoni, C.

He was the third and youngest son of a noble family, originally of Bergamo, but was born at Venice, in 1490. From his infancy it was his chiefest delight to be on his knees at the foot of the altar, and to hear as many masses every day as his employments permitted him. He usually studied before a crucifix, and sanctified his studies by most frequent fervent acts of divine love. To beg of God the grace never to sully his baptismal innocence, he spent forty days in prayer and a rigorous fast in honor of the immaculate conception of the mother of God. Having embraced an ecclesiastical state, he served among the clergy of St. Pantaleon’s church: and when he was ordained priest, became chaplain and afterwards superior of the hospital of incurables, in which charitable employ he was a comforting angel to all who were under his care. He was called hence to be admitted canon in the celebrated church of St. Mark, where his life was the edification of his colleagues and of the whole city. Out of a desire of serving God in a more perfect disengagement from earthly things, he demanded the habit of the regular clerks called Theatins, and made his profession in 1530, on the 29th of May, being then forty years of age, under the eyes of their founders, St. Cajetan, and Caraffa, ancient bishop of Chieti or Theate, who had instituted this order six years before. St. Cajetan being called from Venice to found the convent of St. Paul at Naples, took with him our saint. In that great city, Marinoni never ceased to preach the word of God with admirable simplicity and zeal; and being chosen several times superior, settled and maintained in it the perfect spirit of his order.

Both by his prayers and sacrifices, in which his eyes were often bathed with tears, and by his exhortations in the pulpit and confessional, he was an instrument of salvation to many just and sinners. He died of a violent cold and fever at Naples, on the 13th of December, 1562. He was beatified by a bull of Clement XIII. in 1762, who, in 1764, granted to his order an office in his honor to be celebrated on the 13th of December. See St. Andrew Avellino’s letter on his heroic virtues, written in 1600; his short life written by Castaldi, sixty years after his death, printed at Vicenza in 1627: also the annals of the order, by Tuffo, bishop of Acerra; those by Silos, t. 1; the life of this saint by F. Bonaglia, printed at Rome in 1762; that by F. Blanchi, at Venice, in quarto; and that compiled in French by F. Tracy, Theatin at Paris, yet in MS.

St. Othilia, V. Abbess

She was a native of Strasburg, and of an illustrious family, but was baptized at Ratisbon, by St. Erhard, bishop of that see. Her father erected a great nunnery in Alsace, in which Othilia conducted one hundred and thirty holy nuns in the paths of Christian perfection, and died in 772. See Canisius, Raderus, t. 4, p. 7; Ado, Molanus, and the Roman Martyrolog on the 13th of December.

^* Conan is called the first prince of Lesser Brittany, or Armorica, and is said to have died in 421. In the reign of Theodosius the Younger: having founded the dioceses of Cornouaille, or Quimper, and of Vannes. Solomon I., his grandson, succeeded him, and after thirteen years was murdered by his own subjects, for his zeal in reforming their immoralities. Some think him the prince whose name occurs in some calendars of Brittany, rather than Solomon III., who was a murderer and usurper. Grallon, or Gallon, (from Gallus, or Wallus,) was the third prince, and seems to have governed for his little nephew Audren. He could not have founded the monasteries of Landevenec and Ruis; for he died in 445, and St. Gildas arrived in Brittany only in 530. Audren, son to Solomon, Guerich, and Eusebius then reigned successively, and sometimes aided the Roman forces against the Goths and Burgundians. Budic, seventh prince of Brittany, founded the church of St. Cyr, now St. Leonard’s In Nantes, and is thought to have been slain by Clovis I., who, about the year 506, made Brittany a province of his kingdom. Hoel I., or Riuval, son of Budic, is called by many the first king or prince of Brittany; having assembled the Britons dispersed in the islands, drove out the Prisons whom Clovis had settled in Armorica, and recovered the inheritance of his ancestors, but held It of king Childebert, whom he waited on at Paris in 522. Hoel II., called also Riuval, and Riguald succeeded, persecuted St. Malo, bishop of Aleth, and was murdered in 546, by his brother Canao, who seized the crown; but thirteen years after was slain by Clotaire I., who conquered Rennes, Vannes, and Nantes. Macliau, son of Hoel I., recovered the sovereignty; but was killed in 577. Judnal, son of Hoel II., got possession of part of Brittany, Varoc of Guerech, son of Macliau, of Vannes and the largest part, and Theodoric, son of Budic, of a third part. They refused the usual tribute to the French; the kings Chilperic. Contran, and. in 594, Childebert, sent armies to compel them; but these were defeated by Varoc and Judual in several battles; Childebert, after 594, left them independent and unmolested. Only Judual had a successor, Juthael, or Hoel III., who reigned over all Brittany. He had twenty-two children, among whom three are honored as saints, Judicaël or Giguel, Jodoc or Josse, and Winoc. Guzelun or Solomon II., fourth son to Juthael, succeeded to the crown, and died without issue, about the year 632. His eldest brother Judicaël had received the monastic tonsure at the hands of St Meen, and retired into his monastery of Gaël in the territory of Vannes. Upon the death of Guzelun, he was obliged to leave the monastery in which he had spent fifteen years, but without making any vows, and mount the throne. St. Owen in his life of St. Eligius, an eye-witness, tells us, that the Britons having plundered certain vassals if the French, Dagobert. In 636, sent Eligius, then a layman at court, to King Judicaël to demand satisfaction. Judicaël readily engaged to make it to the injured, and accompanied him back to Dagobert’s court, by whom he was received with honor. About the year 638, he resigned his kingdom, and returning to his monastery of Gaël, he there served God twenty years with great fervour and died in the odor of sanctity on the 17th of December, 658. See on the pedigree and history of them princes, Dom Morice, Hist. de Bretagne; Lobineau, Vies des SS. de la Bouquet pp. 143, 152; Dom Banquet &c.

^* In the original English Saxon

In Clent Cow-batch Kenelm king baarne,

Lieth under a chorn, heaved bereaved.

^† In Clent valley where St. Kenelm was murdered in the utmost south borders of Staffordshire, is a famous sprint called St. Kenelm’s well, to which extraordinary virtues have been attributed, says Dr. Cowper.

^* His predecessor, Ablebert or Adelbert, the fifth bishop of Cambray and Arras, from St. Vaast or Vedast, and second from St. Gerry, was born in Brabant; being son of Witger, count of Condate, near Antwerp, (who died a monk at Lobes,) and of St. Amalberge, who in her widowhood received the religious veil at the hands of St. Aubert, died a nun at Maubeuge, and was buried at Lobes: her relics were translated to Binche, three leagues from Mons. She is honored at Binche and Maubeuge, on the 10th of July Adelbert was brother to St. Raineld, virgin, martyred by the Huns at Santhes, (which manor she had given to Lobes, where her relics were honored, and her festival kept the 16th of July,) and to St. Gudule, virgin, patroness of Brussels, honored the 8th of January. Some make two other holy virgins their sisters, St. Pharalldes. (whose relics are at St. Bavo’s in Ghent, and whose feast is kept on the 4th of January,) and St. Ermelinde, virgin, who served God at Merdaert, on the frontiers of Brabant, and is honored on the 29th of October.

This holy bishop died at Ham, in Brabant, about the year 633. His remains were afterwards translates to Maubeuge, where the canonesses kept an office in his honor on the 15th of January. Molanus, Miræus, and some others place the consecration of St. Aubert in 640, or later. But king Dagobert died on the 19th of January, 639, and Fulbert and all other authors testify that St. Aubert was bishop some years before his death. Le Cointe. Abbé Motte. &c. show he must nave been called to that dignity in 633.

^* Thierry III. succeeded his brother Clotaire III. In 670. and soon after appointed Hatta the first abbot of St. Vedast’s at Arras. St. Aubert died in December the foregoing year, while Clotaire III. still reigned. See Mutte, Præv. Comment. § 2.

^† Guiard, descended from the counts of Laon, and Charibert whose daughter was married to king Pepin, father of Charlemagne, was chancellor of Paris made bishop of Cambray in 1238. and died in 1248. Guiard was eminent for his great learning and piety wrote on the Divine Offices, on the Duties of Priests; on the Passion of Christ, and Sermons. See Oudin. t. 3, p. 126. He assisted at the famous conference at Paris on the plurality of benefices. In 1238, and declared that he would not be possessed of two benefices one single night for all the gold of Arabia.

^‡ Fulbert of Chartres left us several monuments of his learning in his epistles, sermons, penitentiary, sacred hymns, &c.

^* The epistle and inscription, upon the authority of which Colvenerius ascribed the Chronicon of Cambray and Arras to Baldericus of Noyon, precentor of Terouenne, are spurious. See Boschius In vitam S. Gaugerici, 11 Aug Aug. et Mutte, § 1; Comment, prævii in vitam S. Auberti. Upon the same apocryphal authority Colvenerius. Foppens, &c., mention a Chronicon Tarvanense of Balder cus; but no such book appears ever to have existed.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) IV, 710-717.