August XXXI

St. Raymund Nonnatus, C.

From the Chronicles of his Order, and other Memoirs collected by Pinlus the Bollandist, Augusti, t. 6, p. 729. See also Helyot, who chiefly copies Balliet.

a. d. 1240.

According to the rule laid down by our divine Redeemer,¹ that Christian approves himself his most faithful disciple, and gives the surest and greatest proof of his love of God, who most perfectly loves his neighbor for God’s sake. By this test of true sanctity we are to form our judgment of the glorious saint whom the Church honors on this day. Saint Raymund Nonnatus* was born at Portel in the diocess of Urgel, in Catalonia, in the year 1204, and was descended of a gentleman’s family of a small fortune. In his childhood he seemed to find no other pleasure than in his devotions and serious duties. Such was his application to his grammar studies, and so happy his genius, as to spare his preceptor much pains in his education. His father, resolving to cross his inclination to a religious or ecclesiastical state, which he began to perceive in him, took him from school, and sent him to take care of a farm which he had in the country. Raymund readily obeyed, and in order to enjoy the opportunity of holy solitude, by voluntary choice, kept the sheep himself, and in the mountains and forests spent his time in holy meditation and prayer, imitating the austerities of the ancient anchorets. Some time after he was pressed by his friends to go to the court of Arragon, where, by his prudence and abilities, he could not fail to make a fortune, being related to the illustrious houses of Foix and Cardona. These importunities obliged him to hasten the execution of his resolution of taking the religious habit in the new Order of our Lady of Mercy for the redemption of captives. Our saint could say with holy Job, that compassion for the poor or distressed had grown up with him from his childhood. The sufferings of the Christians, who, in neighboring provinces, almost under his eyes, groaned in the most inhuman slavery, under the Moors, particularly afflicted his tender heart; by compassion he bore all their burdens, and felt the weight of all their chains. But if he was moved at their corporal sufferings, and earnestly desired to devote himself, and all that he possessed, to procure them comfort and relief under their temporal afflictions, he was much more afflicted by their spiritual dangers of sinking under their calamities, and losing their immortal souls by impatience or apostasy from Christ. For this he never ceased to weep and pray, entreating the God of mercy to be himself the comfort and support of the weak and of the strong; and he wished with St. Paul,² to spend and be spent himself for their souls. In these dispositions he obtained of his unwilling father, through the mediation of the count of Cardona, leave to embrace the above-mentioned Order: and was accordingly admitted to his profession at Barcelona by the holy founder St. Peter Nolasco.

The extraordinary fervor of the saint in this new state, his perfect disengagement from the world, his profound humility, sincere obedience, wonderful spirit of mortification and penance, seraphic devotion, and constant recollection, rendered him the model and the admiration of his brethren. So surprising was the progress that he made in the perfection of his holy institute, that, within two or three years after his profession, he was judged the best qualified to discharge the office of Ransomer, in which he succeeded St. Peter. Being sent into Barbary with a considerable sum of money he purchased, at Algiers, the liberty of a great number of slaves. When all this treasure was laid out in that charitable way, he voluntarily gave himself up as a hostage for the ransom of certain others, whose situation was hardest, and whose faith seemed exposed to imminent danger. The magnanimous sacrifice which the saint had made of his own liberty served only to exasperate the Mahometans, who treated him with uncommon barbarity, till the infidels, fearing lest if he died in their hands they should lose the ransom which was stipulated to be paid for the slaves for whom he remained a hostage, upon a remonstrance made on that account by the cadi or magistrate of the city, gave orders that he should be treated with more humanity. Hereupon he was permitted to go abroad about the streets; which liberty in made use of to comfort and encourage the Christians in their chains, and he converted and baptized some Mahometans. Upon information hereof, the governor condemned him to be impaled, that is, to be put to death by thrusting a stake into the body through the hinder parts; this being a barbarous manner of executing criminals much in use among those infidels. However, the persons who were interested in the ransom of the captives, lest they should be losers, prevailed that his life should be spared; and, by a commutation of his punishment, he underwent a cruel bastinado. This torment did not daunt his courage. So long as he saw souls in danger of perishing eternally, he thought he had yet done nothing; nor could he let slip any opportunity of endeavoring to prevent their so frightful misfortune. He considered that, as St. Chrysostom says,³ “Though a person shall have bestowed an immense treasure in alms, he has done nothing equal to him who has contributed to the salvation of a soul. This is a greater alms than ten thousand talents; than this whole world, how great soever it appears to the eye, for a man is more precious than the whole world.”

St. Raymund had on one side no more money to employ in releasing poor captives; and, on the other, to speak to a Mahometan upon the subject of religion was capital by the standing laws of the Mussulmans. He could, however, still exert his endeavors, with hopes of some success, or of dying a martyr of charity. He therefore resumed his former method of instructing and exhorting both the Christians and the Infidels. The governor, who was immediately apprised of his behavior, was strangely enraged, and commanded the zealous servant of Christ to be whipped at the corners of all the streets in the city, his lips to be bored with a red-hot iron in the market-place, and his mouth shut up with a padlock, the key of which he kept himself and only gave to the keepers when the prisoner was to eat. In this condition he was loaded with iron bolts and chains, and cast into a dark dungeon, where he lay full eight months, till his ransom was brought by some religious men of his Order, who were sent with it by Saint Peter. Raymund was unwilling to leave his dungeon, or at least the country of the infidels, where he desired to remain to assist the slaves; but he acquiesced in obedience to the orders of his general, begging God would accept his tears, seeing he was not worthy to shed his blood for the souls of his neighbors.

Upon his return to Spain he was nominated cardinal by pope Gregory IX. But so little was he affected with the involuntary honor, that he neither changed his dress, nor his poor cell in the convent, nor his manner of living. Much less could he be prevailed upon by the nobility of the country to accept of a palace, to admit an equipage or train, or to suffer any rich furniture to be added to his little necessaries in his cell. The pope, being desirous to have so holy a man about his person, and to employ him in the public affairs of the Church, called him to Rome. The saint obeyed, but could not be persuaded to travel otherwise than as a poor religious man. He went no further than Cardona, which is only six miles from Barcelona, when he was seized with a violent fever, which, by the symptoms which attended it, soon appeared to be mortal. St. Raymund prepared himself for his last passage. Some historians relate that he was favored with a vision of angels, in which he received the holy viaticum. His death happened on the 31st of August, in the year 1240, the thirty-seventh year of his age. He was buried in a chapel of St. Nicholas, near the farm in which he had formerly lived. St. Peter Nolasco founded a great convent in that place, in 1255, and St. Raymund’s relics are still kept in that church. The history of many miracles wrought by his means is to be seen in the Bollandists. Pope Alexander VII. inserted his name in the Martyrology in 1657.

This saint gave not only his substance but also his liberty, and even exposed himself to the most cruel torments and death, for the redemption of captives, and the salvation of souls. But alas I how cold now-a-days is charity in our breasts, though it be the essential characteristic of true Christians! Far from the heroic sentiments of the saints, do not we, merely to gratify our prodigality, vanity, or avarice, refuse to give the superfluous part of our possessions to the poor, who, for want of it, are perishing with cold and hunger? Are not we slothful and backward in affording a visit or comfort to poor prisoners, or sick persons, or in using our interest to procure some relief for the distressed? Are we not so insensible to their spiritual miseries as to be without all feeling for them, and to neglect even to commend them to God with sufficient earnestness, to admonish sinners according to our circumstances and the rules of prudence, or to instruct, by ourselves and others, those under our care? By this mark is it not manifest that self-love, and not the love of God and our neighbor, reigns in our hearts, whilst we seek and pursue so inordinately our own worldly interest, and are sensible to it alone? Let us sound our own hearts, and take an impartial view of our lives, and we shall feel whether this test of Christ, or that of Satan, which is self-love, be more sensible in our affections, and whether is the governing principle of our actions.

St. Isabel, Virgin

This holy princess was daughter of Louis VIII., king of France, and Blanche of Castile, and only sister to St. Louis. She was born in 1225, and lost her father when she was but two years old. She was trained up in the purest maxims of religion, and in the heroic practice of all virtues, and attained so perfect a knowledge of the Latin tongue that she often corrected the compositions of her chaplains in that language. Her character, from her infancy, was a combination of every eminent virtue, and her whole life, from thirteen years of age, was almost one continued course of prayer, reading, and working. At that age she took a resolution to consecrate her virginity to God, and always shunned all vain amusements, and, as much as obedience to the queen would permit, all ornaments of dress. A match was proposed between her and the young Conrad, the emperor’s eldest son; and her mother, St. Louis, and the pope joined in persuading her, for the public good of the Church and State, to accept so advantageous an offer. But she considered matters in another light, alleged the consecration she had made of herself to another state, and answered the pope in a letter, that it was something much greater to be the last among the virgins who are consecrated to the divine service, than to be an empress, and the first woman in the world. Her courageous resolution was honored with congratulations from his holiness and St. Louis, and the sequel showed how much the better choice she made, in preferring the calm harbor of a retired life to the tempests and vices of such a court. Isabel fasted three days a week, and never ate but of the coarsest food, and only what seemed absolutely necessary for the support of nature. She sent from her table the nicest dishes to the poor and reserved for them almost whatever was at her disposal. St. Louis one day found her at her work, making a cap, and begged she would give it him as a token of her friendship, saying he would wear it for her sake. “This,” said she, “is the first work of the kind that I have spun; I therefore owe it to Jesus Christ, to whom all my first-fruits are due.” The king was exceedingly pleased with her answer, and desired she would spin another for him; which she accordingly did, after she had given the first to a poor man.

Humility was the favorite virtue of Saint Isabel, and she called the nunnery which she built at Longchamp, four miles from Paris, Of the Humility of our Lady, saying she chose that title because the Blessed Virgin was exalted to the dignity of Mother of God, chiefly on account of her profound humility. Our saint founded this house in 1252, for Minoresses or Clares, but obtained of Urban IV. a dispensation for them to be allowed to enjoy rents and possessions. After the death of her mother, she retired into this monastery. William of Nangis says she professed the Franciscan rule; but this is generally looked upon as a mistake; for all other writers assure us, that, on account of her frequent infirmities, she never made a religious profession, though she lived in the monastery, strenuously laboring to sanctify her soul by assiduous prayer, mortification, and patience under continual sickness for the six last years of her life. St. Louis, who tenderly loved her for her extraordinary virtue, frequently visited her. She died on the 22d of February, 1270, being forty-two years old. Her relics are enshrined at Longchamp. She was beatified by Leo X. in 1316. Urban VIII. granted an office in her honor. See her life, written by Agnes of Harcourt, her maid of honor. Ed. Du Cange, Joinville, Chalippe, Vie de S. François, t. 2, p. 285.

St. Cuthburge, Queen, Virgin, And Abbess

This saint was sister to king Ina, and was married to Alfred, who was crowned king of the Northumbers in 685. At her suit he allowed her to remain always a virgin, and to devote herself to her heavenly spouse in the monastery of Barking in Essex. She afterward founded that of Winburn, in Dorsetshire, which she governed, giving nerself up totally to fasting, watching, and holy prayer; humble both to God and man, meek and tender to others, but always austere to herself. She never ceased to exhort her sisters to live up to the dignity of spouses of the King of Heaven, to keep their hearts free from all affection to the things of this world, and ever to sigh after their heavenly home. Being purified by a long and painful illness, and strengthened with the viaticum of the precious body of Christ, she passed to everlasting bliss on the 31st of August, in the beginning of the eighth century. She is commemorated in the Sarum Breviary. See William of Malmesbury in king Ina, Leland, Harpsfield, Alford, and Cressy.

St. Aidan, or Ædan, Bishop of Lindisfarne, C.

When the holy king Oswald* desired the bishops of Scotland to send him a person honored with the episcopal character to preach the faith to his Anglo-Saxon pagan subjects, and plant the Church among them, the first person who came was of a rough austere temper, and therefore could do little good, and being soon forced to return home again, he laid the fault on the rude indocile dispositions of the English. Hereupon the Scottish clergy called a synod to deliberate what was best to be done. Aidan, who was present, told the prelate, on his blaming the obstinacy of the English, that the fault lay rather in him, who had been too harsh and severe to an ignorant people, who ought first to be fed with the milk of milder doctrine, till they should be able to digest more solid food. At this discourse the whole assembly turned their eyes upon him, as one endued with prudence, the mother of other virtues; and he was appointed to the great and arduous mission.

Aidan was a native of Ireland (then called Scotland), and a monk of Hij, the great monastery which his countryman, St. Columba, had founded, and to which the six neighboring islands were given, as Buchanan mentions. He was most graciously received by king Oswald, who bestowed on him for his episcopal seat the isle of Lindisfarne.* Of his humility and piety Bade gives an edifying account, and proposes him as an excellent pattern for succeeding bishops and clergymen to follow. He obliged all those who travelled with him, to bestow their time either in reading the scriptures, or in learning the psalms by heart. By his actions he showed that he neither sought nor loved the good things of this world; the presents which were made him by the king, or by other rich men, he distributed among the poor, or expended in redeeming captives. He rarely would go to the king’s table, and never without taking with him one or two of his clergy, and always after a short repast made haste away to read or pray in the church, or in his cell. From his example even the laity took the custom of fasting till none, that is till three in the afternoon, on all Wednesdays and Fridays, except during the fifty days of the Easter time. Our venerable historian admires his apostolic liberty in reproving the proud and the great, his love of peace, charity, continence, humility, and all other virtues, which he not only practised himself, but, by his spirit and example, communicated to a rough and barbarous nation, which he imbued with the meekness of the cross.^† Aidan fixed his see at Lindisfarne, and founded a monastery there in the year of our Lord 635, the hundred and eighty-eighth after the coming of the English Saxons into Britain, the thirty-ninth after the arrival of St. Augustine, and the second of the reign of king Oswald. From this monastery all the churches of Bernicia, or the northern part of the kingdom of the Northumbers from the Tyne to the Firth of Edinburgh, had their beginning; as had some also of those of the Deïri, who inhabited the southern part of the same kingdom from the Tyne to the Humber. The see of York had been vacant thirty years, ever since St. Paulinus had left it; so that St. Aidan governed all the churches of the Northumbers for seventeen years, till his happy death, which happened on the 31st of August in 651, in the royal villa Bebbord. He was first buried in the cemetery in Lindisfarne; but when the new church of St. Peter was built there, his body was translated into it, and deposited on the right hand of the altar. Colman, when he returned into Scotland, carried with him part of his bones to St. Columb’s of Hij.^‡ He is named on this day in the Roman Martyrology. See Bede: Leland Collect. t. 1, p. 512, alias 366.

¹ John 13:34, 35, 15:12, &c.

* The surname of Nonnatus, or Unborn, was given him, because he was taken out of the body of his mother after her death by the Cæsarian operation. M. Mery has started objections in theory against the possibility of such an operation, which deserves the attention of practitioners. (Mém. de l’Acad. an. 1708.) Nevertheless, it is justified by many remarkable instances: among others, Scipio Africanus, thence surnamed Cæsar, Manlius of Carthage, and according to some authors. Julius Cæsar, were by this means saved from perishing in the womb. See Heister’s Surgery on this article, &c. Such an operation is never to be attempted without undoubted marks that the mother is really dead, lest a like misfortune happen as that by which an eminent surgeon was so shocked, as to renounce from that moment his profession.

² 2 Cor. 12:15.

³ S. Chrys. Or. 3, contra Jud.

* See his life on the 5th of August

* Lindisfarne, so called from the river Lindis, is eight miles in circumference; it is only an island at high water, and remains a peninsula when the tide leaves the strand dry. From the great number of saints who lived and lie buried there, it was called by our ancestors holy island.

^† Bede relates many miracles and prophecies of St. Aidan (l. 3, c. 15), and gives the following portrait of the clergy and people of this nation soon after their conversion to the faith: “Wherever a clergyman or monk came, he was received by all with joy as a servant of God; and when any one was travelling on his way, they would run up to him, and bowing down, would be glad to be signed by his hand, or blessed by his prayer. They gave diligent attention to the words of exhortation which they heard from him, and on Sundays flocked with great eagerness to the churches or monasteries to hear the word of God. If any priest happened to come into a village, the inhabitants presently gathering together were solicitous to hear from him the words of life; nor did the priests or other ecclesiastics frequent the villages on any other account but to preach, visit the sick, and take care of souls; and so free were they from any degree of the bane of avarice, that no one would receive lands or possessions for building monasteries unless compelled to it by the secular power.” (Hist. l. 3, c. 26.)

^‡ The discipline of the Scottish monks, and of Lindisfarne, was derived from the oriental monastic rules, and very austere. Roger Hoveden, Simeon of Durham, and Leland in his Collectanea (t. 2, p. 158, alias 171), tell us that the monks of Lindisfarne used no other drink than milk and water till wine and beer were allowed them, from the rules of the western monks in 762, when Ceolwulph, king of the Northumbers, in the ninth year of his reign, resigned his kingdom to his nephew, and became a monk at Lindisfarne. He was buried at Ubba, and his body afterward translated to the church of Northam, where it is said to have been honored with miracles. He is mentioned in the English martyrologies on the 28th of October. Finan, the second bishop of Lindisfarne, built a new church there of hewn oak. which he covered with reeds; It was consecrated by St. Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury. Eadbert, bishop of Lindisfarne, afterward covered it all over with lead. Finan died and was buried at Lindisfarne, having held that see ten years. Colman succeeded him, and on the synod at Streneshault refusing to receive the Roman custom of celebrating Easter, which St. Wilfrid maintained, having been bishop three years, returned into Scotland. Colman retired with many English and Scottish monks that followed, from the western islands of Scotland into the west of Ireland, where he built a monastery for them in an Island called, in the Scottish or Irish language, Inisbofin, i.e. the island of the white calf. Tuda, a southern Scottish monk, succeeded him, but died of the plague in a year. Eata, one of the twelve English youths whom St. Aidan educated, was chosen to succeed him first as abbot, afterward also in the bishopric. Having governed this see fourteen years, he was removed to Hexham, and Saint Cuthbert chosen bishop of Lindisfarne. Eadbert succeeded him in 687, and died in 698. Eadfrid, then Ethe worth, and eight other bishops held this see, till the monastery and church being burnt down by the Danes, bishop Eardulf translated this see to Cunecester or Chester upon the Street; and, in 995, Aidhur, the eighth from him, removed this see from Chester to Durham. This prelate, with the assistance of the earl of Northumberland, and the people of the country, cut down a great wood which surrounded the spot which he chose for the church, and built a large city and stately church into which he, three years after translated the uncorrupted body of St. Cuthbert, in the three hundred and ninety-ninth year after his death, and the three hundred and sixty-first from the foundation of the see of Lindisfarne, by St. Aidan, as Leland relates, (in Collectan. t. 1, p. 528, ex Hist. aur. Joan Eborac.) The See of York having been restored in St. Cedde. St. Wilfrid, and their successors a bishopric being also erected at Hexham under Eata. Bosa. and St. John of Beverley, and their successors, till this church and city being laid waste by the Danes about the year 800, the see of Hexham became extinct in Panbricht, the last bishop who governed this see, though some give him a successor named Tidfrid (Lel. Collect. t. 2. p. 159, alias 174,) and the see of Carlisle in 1133, In the person of Athelwold, and lastly that of Chester in 1542 the thirty-third of Henry VIII the bishopric of Lindisfarne is long since parcelled out into many.

 Butler, A., The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints (New York 1903) III, 567-573.