The blood of the martyrs flourished in its hundred-fold increase, as St.
Justin has well observed: "We are slain with the sword, but we increase and multiply: the more we are persecuted and destroyed, the more are added to our numbers. As a vine, by being pruned and cut close, shoots forth new suckers, and bears a greater abundance of fruit; so is it with us."[4] Among other false reflections, the baron of Montesquieu, an author too much admired by many, writes:[5] "It is hardly possible that Christianity should ever be established in China. Vows of virginity, the a.s.sembling of women in the churches, their necessary intercourse with the ministers of religion, their partic.i.p.ation of the sacraments, auricular confession, the marrying but one wife; all this oversets the manners and customs, and strikes at the religion and laws of the country." Could he forget that the gospel overcame {368} all these impediments where it was first established, in spite of the most inveterate prejudices, and of all worldly opposition from the great and the learned; whereas philosophy, though patronized by princes, could never in any age introduce its rules even into one city. In vain did the philosopher Plotinus solicit the emperor Gallienus to rebuild a ruined city in Campania, that he and his disciples might establish in it the republic of Plato: a system, in some points, flattering the pa.s.sions of men, almost as Mahometism fell in with the prejudices and pa.s.sions of the nations where it prevailed. So visibly is the church the work of G.o.d.
Footnotes: 1. L. de Laud. Virgin. c. 25.
2. L. 8, c. 14.
3. L. 1, c. 17.
4. Apol. 2, ol. 1.
5. L"Esprit des Loix, b. xix. 18.
ST. VEDAST, BISHOP OF ARRAS, C.
From a very short life of his, written soon after his death, and another longer, corrected by Alcuin, both published by Henschenius, with remarks, p. 782, t. 1. Febr. See Alcuin"s Letter ad Monachos Vedastinos, in Martenne, Ampl. Collectio, t. l, p. 50. Gallia Christ. Nova, t. 3, p.
3.
A.D. 539.
ST. VEDAST left his own country very young, (which seems to have been in the west of France,) and led a holy life concealed from the world in the diocese of Toul, where the bishop, charmed with his virtue, promoted him to the priesthood. Clovis I., king of France, returning from his victory over the Alemanni, hastening to Rheims to receive baptism, desired at Toul some priest who might instruct and prepare him for that holy sacrament on the road. Vedast was presented to his majesty for this purpose. While he accompanied the king at the pa.s.sage of the river Aisne, a blind man begging on the bridge besought the servant of G.o.d to restore him to his sight: the saint, divinely inspired, prayed, and made the sign of the cross on his eyes, and he immediately recovered it. The miracle confirmed the king in the faith, and moved several of his courtiers to embrace it. St. Vedast a.s.sisted St. Remigius in converting the French, till that prelate consecrated him bishop of Arras, that he might re-establish the faith in that country. As he was entering that city in 499, he restored sight to a blind man, and cured one that was lame. These miracles excited the attention, and disposed the hearts of many infidels to a favorable reception of the gospel, which had been received here when the Romans were masters of the country: but the ravages of the Vandals and the Alans having either dispersed or destroyed the Christians, Vedast could not discover the least footsteps of Christianity, save only in the memory of some old people, who showed him without the walls a poor ruinous church, where Christians used to hold their religious a.s.semblies. He sighed to see the Lord"s field so overgrown with bushes and brambles, and become the haunt of wild beasts; whereupon he made it his most earnest supplication to G.o.d, that he would in his mercy vouchsafe to restore his worship in that country. A national faith is so great a blessing, that we seldom find it granted a second time to those, who, by imitating the ingrat.i.tude of the Jews, have drawn upon themselves the like terrible chastis.e.m.e.nt. St. Vedast found the infidels stupid and obstinate; yet persevered, till by his patience, meekness, charity, and prayers, he triumphed over bigoted superst.i.tion and l.u.s.t, and planted throughout that country the faith and holy maxims of Christ. The great diocese of Cambray, which was extended beyond Brussels, was also committed to the care of this holy pastor, by St. Remigius, in 510, and the two sees remained a long time united. St.
Vedast continued his labors almost forty years, and left his church flourishing in sanct.i.ty at his decease, on the 6th of February, in 539.
He was buried in the cathedral, which is dedicated to G.o.d, under the patronage {369} of the Blessed Virgin; but a hundred and twenty-eight years after, St. Aubertus, the seventh bishop, changed a little chapel which St. Vedast had built in honor of St. Peter, without the walls, into an abbey, and removed the relics of St. Vedast into this new church, leaving a small portion of them in the cathedral. The great abbey of St. Vedast was finished by St. Vindicia.n.u.s, successor to St.
Aubertus, and most munificently endowed by king Theodoric or Thierry, who lies buried in the church with his wife Doda. Our ancestors had a particular devotion to St. Vedast, whom they called St. Foster, whence descends the family name of Foster, as Camden takes notice in his Remains. Alcuin has left us a standing monument of his extraordinary devotion to St. Vedast, not only by writing his life, but also by compiling an office and ma.s.s in his honor, for the use of his monastery at Arras, and by a letter to the monks of that house, in 769, in which he calls this saint his protector. See this letter in Martenne, Ampliss.
Collect. t. 1, p. 50.
SAINT AMANDUS, B.C.
HE was born near Nantes, of pious parents, lords of that territory. At twenty years of age, he retired into a small monastery in the little isle of Oye, near that of Rhe. He had not been there above a year, when his father found him out, and made use of every persuasive argument in his power to prevail with him to quit that state of life. To his threats of disinheriting him, the saint cheerfully answered: " Christ is my only inheritance." The saint went to Tours, and a year after to Bourges, where he lived near fifteen years under the direction of St.
Austregisilus, the bishop, in a cell near the cathedral. His clothing was a single sackcloth, and his sustenance barley-bread and water. After a pilgrimage to Rome, he was ordained in France a missionary bishop, without any fixed see, in 628, and commissioned to preach the faith to infidels. He preached the gospel in Flanders, and among the Sclavi in Carinthia and other provinces near the Danube:[1] but being banished by king Dagobert, whom he had boldly reproved for his scandalous crimes, he preached to the pagans of Gascony and Navarre. Dagobert soon recalled him, threw himself at his feet to beg his pardon, and caused him to baptize his new-born sort, St. Sigebert, afterwards king. The idolatrous people about Ghent were so savage, that no preacher durst venture himself among them. This moved the saint to choose that mission; during the course of which he was often beaten, and sometimes thrown into the river: he continued preaching, though for a long time he saw no fruit, and supported himself by his labor. The miracle of his raising a dead man to life, at last opened the eyes of the barbarians, and the country came in crowds to receive baptism, destroying the temples of their idols with their own hands. In 633 the saint having built them several churches, founded two great monasteries in Ghent, both under the patronage of St. Peter; one was named Blandinberg, from the hill Blandin on which it stands, now the rich abbey of St. Peter"s; the other took the name of St. Bavo, from him who gave his estate for its foundation; this became the cathedral in 1559, when the city was created a bishop"s see. Besides many pious foundations, both in France and Flanders, in 639, he built the great abbey three leagues from Tourney, called Elnon, from the river on which it stands; but it has long since taken the name of St. Amand, with its town and warm mineral baths. In 649 he was chosen bishop of Maestricht; but three years after he resigned that see to St.
Remaclus, and returned to his missions, to which his compa.s.sion for the blindness of infidels always inclined {370} his heart. He continued his labors among them till the age of eighty-six, when, broken with infirmities, he retired to Orion, which house he governed as abbot four years more, spending that time in preparing his soul for his pa.s.sage to eternity, which happened in 675. His body is honorably kept in that abbey. The Sarum Breviary honored St. Amandus and St. Vedast with an office of nine lessons. See Buzelin, Gallo-Flandria, and Henschenius, 6 Feb. p. 815, who has published five different lives of this saint.
Footnotes: 1. See Henschenius. p. 828.
ST. BARSANUPHIUS, ANCh.o.r.eT.
HAVING renounced the world, he pa.s.sed some years in the monastery of St.
Seridon, near Gaza in Palestine, in the happy company of that holy abbot, John the prophet, the blessed Dorotheus, and St. Dositheus. That he might live in the constant exercise of heavenly contemplation, the sweetness of which he had begun to relish, he left the monastery about the year 540, and in a remote cell led a life rather angelical than human. He wrote a treatise against the Origenist monks, which Montfaucon has published in his Bibl. Coislin. The Greeks held this saint in so great veneration, that his picture was placed in the sanctuary of the church of Sancta Sophia in Constantinople, with those of St. Antony and St. Ephrem, as we are informed by the Studite monk who wrote the preface to the Instructions of St. Dorotheus, translated into French by abbot Rance of la Trappe. The relics of St. Barsanuphius were brought in the ninth century to Oria, near Siponto in Italy, where he is honored as princ.i.p.al patron, on the 7th of February. The Greek Synaxaries have his office on the 6th of this month. Baronius placed his name in the Roman Martyrology on the 11th of April. See on him Evagrius, (who finished his history in 593,) l. 4, c. 33. Pagi ad an. 548, n. 10. Bulteau, Hist.
Mon. d"Orient. l. 4, c. 9, p. 695.
FEBRUARY VII.
ST. ROMUALD, ABBOT, C.
FOUNDER OF THE ORDER OF CAMALDOLI.
From his life, written by St. Peter Damian, fifteen years after his death. See also Magnotii, Eremi Camaldol. descriptio, Romae, an. 1570.
Historarium Camaldulensium, libri 3. anth. Aug. Florentino, in 4to.
Florentiae, 1575. Earumdem pans posterior, in 4to. Venetiis, 1579.
Dissertationes Camaldulenses, in quibus agitui de inst.i.tutione Ordinis, aetate St. Romualdi, &c. auth. Guidone Grando, ej. Ord. Lucae, 1707. The Lives of the Saints of this Order, in Italian, by Razzi, 1600, and in Latin, by F. Thomas de Minis, in two vols. in 4to. an. 1605, 1606.
Annales Camaldulenses Ordinis St. Benedicti, auctoribus Jo. Ben.
Mittarelli, abbate, et Ans. Costadoni, presbyteris et monachis e Cong.
Camald. Venetiis, in four vols fol., of which the fourth is dedicated to pope Clement XIII., in 1760.
A.D. 1027.
ST. ROMUALD, of the family of the dukes of Ravenna, called Honesti, was born in that capital about the year 956. Being brought up in the maxims of the world, in softness and the love of pleasure, he grew every day more and more enslaved to his pa.s.sions: yet he often made a resolution of undertaking something remarkable for the honor of G.o.d; and when he went a hunting, if he found an agreeable solitary place in the woods, he would stop in it to pray, and would cry out: "How happy were the ancient hermits, who had {371} such habitations! With what tranquillity could they serve G.o.d, free from the tumult of the world!" His father, whose name was Sergius, a worldly man, agreed to decide a dispute he had with a relation about an estate by a duel. Romuald was shocked at the criminal design; but by threats of being disinherited if he refused, was engaged by his father to be present as a spectator: Sergius slew his adversary. Romuald, then twenty years of age, struck with horror at the crime that had been perpetrated, though he had concurred to it no further than by his presence, thought himself, however, obliged to expiate it by a severe course of penance for forty days in the neighboring Benedictine monastery of Cla.s.sis, within four miles of Ravenna. He performed great austerities, and prayed and wept almost without intermission. His compunction and fervor made all these exercises seem easy and sweet to him: and the young n.o.bleman became every day more and more penetrated with the fear and love of G.o.d. The good example which he saw, and the discourses of a pious lay-brother, who waited on him, concerning eternity and the contempt of the world, wrought so powerfully upon him, that he pet.i.tioned in full chapter to be admitted as a penitent to the religious habit. After some demurs, through their apprehensions of his father"s resentment, whose next heir the saint was, his request was granted. He pa.s.sed seven years in this house in so great fervor and austerity, that his example became odious to certain tepid monks, who could not bear such a continual reproach of their sloth. They were more exasperated when his fervor prompted him to reprove their conduct, insomuch, that some of the most abandoned formed a design upon his life, the execution of which he prevented by leaving that monastery, with the abbot"s consent, and retiring into the neighborhood of Venice, where he put himself under the direction of Marinus, a holy hermit, who there led an austere ascetic life. Under this master, Romuald made great progress in every virtue belonging to a religious state of life.
Peter Urseoli was then doge of Venice. He had been unjustly raised to that dignity two years before by a faction which had a.s.sa.s.sinated his predecessor Peter Candiano; in which conspiracy he is said by some to have been an accomplice: though this is denied by the best Venetian historians.[1] This murder, however, paved the way for his advancement to the sovereignty, which the stings of his conscience would not suffer him quietly to enjoy. This put him upon consulting St. Guarinus, a holy abbot of Catalonia, then at Venice, about what he was to do to be saved.
The advice of St. Marinus and St. Romuald was also desired. These three unanimously agreed in proposing a monastic state, as affording the best opportunities for expiating his crimes. Urseoli acquiesced, and, under pretence of joining with his family at their villa, where he had ordered a great entertainment, set out privately with St. Guarinus, St. Romuald, and John Gradenigo, a Venetian n.o.bleman of singular piety, and his son-in-law John Moresini, for St. Guarinus"s monastery of St. Michael of Cusan, in that part of Catalonia which was then subject to France. Here Urseoli and Gradenigo made their monastic profession: Marinus and Romuald, leaving them under the conduct of Guarinus, retired into a desert near Cusan, and there led an eremitical life. Many flocked to them, and Romuald being made superior, first practised himself what he taught others, joining rigorous fasts, solitude, and continual prayer, with hard manual labor. He had an extraordinary ardor {372} for prayer, which he exceedingly recommended to his disciples, in whom he could not bear to see the least sloth or tepidity with regard to the discharge of this duty; saying, they had better recite one psalm with fervor; than a hundred with less devotion. His own fasts and mortifications were extremely rigorous, but he was more indulgent to others, and in particular to Urseoli, who had exchanged his monastery for St. Romuald"s desert, where he lived under his conduct; who, persevering in his penitential state, made a most holy end, and is honored in Venice as a saint, with an office, on the 14th of January: and in the Roman Martyrology, published by Benedict XIV., on the 10th of that month.
Romuald, in the beginning of his conversion and retreat from the world, was molested with various temptations. The devil sometimes directly solicited him to vice; at other times he represented to him what he had forsaken, and that he had left it to ungrateful relations. He would sometimes suggest that what he did could not be agreeable to G.o.d; at other times, that his labors and difficulties were too heavy for man to bear. These and the like attempts of the devil he defeated by watching and prayer, in which he pa.s.sed the whole night; and the devil strove in vain to divert him from this holy exercise by shaking his whole cell, and threatening to bury him in the ruins. Five years of grievous interior conflicts and buffetings of the enemy, wrought in him a great purity of heart, and prepared him for most extraordinary heavenly communications. The conversion of count Oliver, or Oliban, lord of that territory, added to his spiritual joy. That count, from a voluptuous worldling, and profligate liver, became a sincere penitent, and embraced the order of St. Benedict. He carried great treasures with him to mount Ca.s.sino, but left his estate to his son. The example of Romuald had also such an influence on Sergius, his father, that, to make atonement for his past sins and enormities, he had entered the monastery of St.
Severus, near Ravenna; but after some time spent there, he yielded so far to the devil"s temptations, as to meditate a return into the world.
This was a sore affliction to our saint, and determined him to return to Italy, to dissuade his father from leaving his monastery. But the inhabitants of the country where he lived, had such an opinion of his sanct.i.ty, that they were resolved not to let him go. They therefore formed a brutish extravagant design to kill him, that they might keep at least his body among them, imagining it would be their protection and safeguard on perilous occasions. The saint being informed of their design, had recourse to David"s stratagem, and feigned himself mad upon which the people, losing their high opinion of him, guarded him no longer. Being thus at liberty to execute his design, he set out on his journey to Ravenna, through the south of France. He arrived there in 994, and made use of all the authority his superiority in religion gave him over his father; and by his exhortations, tears, and prayers, brought him to such an extraordinary degree of compunction and sorrow, as to prevail with him to lay aside all thoughts of leaving his monastery, where he spent the remainder of his days in great fervor, and died with the reputation of sanct.i.ty.
Romuald, having acquitted himself of his duty towards his father, retired into the marsh of Cla.s.sis, and lived in a cell, remote from all mankind. The devil pursued him here with his former malice; he sometimes overwhelmed his imagination with melancholy, and once scourged him cruelly in his cell. Romuald at length cried out: "Sweetest Jesus, dearest Jesus, why hast thou forsaken me? hast thou entirely delivered me over to my enemies?" At that sweet name the wicked spirits betook themselves to flight, and such an excess of divine sweetness and compunction filled the breast of Romuald, that he melted into tears, and his heart seemed quite dissolved. {373} He sometimes insulted his spiritual enemies, and cried out: "Are all your forces spent? have you no more engines against a poor despicable servant of G.o.d?" Not long after, the monks of Cla.s.sis chose Romuald for their abbot. The emperor, Otho III. who was then at Ravenna, made use of his authority to engage the saint to accept the charge, and went in person to visit him in his cell, where he pa.s.sed the night lying on the saint"s poor bed. But nothing could make Romuald consent, till a synod of bishops then a.s.sembled at Ravenna, compelled him to it by threats of excommunication.
The saint"s inflexible zeal for the punctual observance of monastic discipline, soon made these monks repent of their choice, which they manifested by their irregular and mutinous behavior. The saint being of a mild disposition, bore with it for some time, in hopes of bringing them to a right sense of their duty. At length, finding all his endeavors to reform them ineffectual, he came to a resolution of leaving them, and went to the emperor, then besieging Tivoli, to acquaint him of it; whom, when he could not prevail upon to accept of his resignation, the saint, in the presence of the archbishop of Ravenna, threw down his crosier at his feet. This interview proved very happy for Tivoli; for the emperor, though he had condemned that city to plunder, the inhabitants having rebelled and killed duke Matholin, their governor, spared it at the intercession of St. Romuald. Otho having also, contrary to his solemn promise upon oath, put one Crescentius, a Roman senator, to death, who had been the leader in the rebellion of Tivoli, and made his widow his concubine; he not only performed a severe public penance enjoined him by the saint, as his confessor, but promised, by St.
Romuald"s advice, to abdicate his crown and retire into a convent during life; but this he did not live to perform. The saint"s remonstrances had a like salutary effect on Thamn, the emperor"s favorite, prime minister and accomplice in the treachery before mentioned, who, with several other courtiers, received the religious habit at the hands of St.
Romuald, and spent the remainder of his days in retirement and penance.
It was a very edifying sight to behold several young princes and n.o.blemen, who a little before had been remarkable for their splendid appearance and sumptuous living, now leading an obscure, solitary, penitential life in humility, penance, fasting, cold, and labor. They prayed, sung psalms, and worked. They all had their several employments: some spun, others knit, others tilled the ground, gaining their poor livelihood by the sweat of their brow. St. Boniface surpa.s.sed all the rest in fervor and mortification. He was the emperor"s near relation, and so dear to him, that he never called him by any other name than, My soul! he excelled in music, and in all the liberal arts and sciences, and after having spent many years under the discipline of St. Romuald, was ordained bishop, and commissioned by the pope to preach to the infidels of Russia, whose king he converted by his miracles, but was beheaded by the king"s brothers, who were themselves afterwards converted on seeing the miracles wrought on occasion of the martyr"s death. Several other monks of St. Romuald"s monastery met with the same cruel treatment in Sclavonia, whither they were sent by the pope to preach the gospel.
St. Romuald built many other monasteries, and continued three years at one he founded near Parenzo, one year in the community to settle it, and two in a neighboring cell. Here he labored some time under a spiritual dryness, not being able to shed one tear; but he ceased not to continue his devotions with greater fervor. At last being in his cell, at those words of the psalmist; _I will give thee understanding, and will instruct thee_, he was suddenly visited by G.o.d with an extraordinary light and spirit of compunction, which from that time never left him. By a supernatural light, the fruit of prayer, he understood the holy scriptures, and wrote an exposition of the {374} psalms full of admirable unction. He often foretold things to come, and gave directions full of heavenly wisdom to all who came to consult him, especially to his religious, who frequently came to ask his advice how to advance in virtue, and how to resist temptations; he always sent them back to their cells full of an extraordinary cheerfulness. Through his continual weeping he thought others had a like gift, and often said to his monks: "Do not weep too much; for it prejudices the sight and the head." It was his desire, whenever he could conveniently avoid it, not to say ma.s.s before a number of people, because he could not refrain from tears in offering that august sacrifice. The contemplation of the Divinity often transported him out of himself; melting in tears, and burning with love, he would cry out: "Dear Jesus! my dear Jesus! my unspeakable desire! my joy! joy of the angels! sweetness of the saints!" and the like, which he was heard to speak with a jubilation which cannot be expressed. To propagate the honor of G.o.d, he resolved, by the advice of the bishop of Pola and others, to exchange his remote desert, for one where he could better advance his holy inst.i.tute. The bishop of Paienzo forbade any boat to carry him off, desiring earnestly to detain him; but the bishop of Pola sent one to fetch him. He miraculously calmed a storm at sea, and landed safe at Capreola. Coming to Bifurc.u.m, he found the monks"
cells too magnificent, and would lodge in none but that of one Peter, a man of extraordinary austerity, who never would live in a cell larger than four cubits. This Peter admired the saint"s spirit of compunction, and said, that when he recited the psalms alternately with him, the holy man used to go out thirty times in a night as if for some necessity, but he saw it was to abandon himself a few moments to spiritual consolation, with which he overflowed at prayer, or to sighs and tears which he was not able to contain. Romuald sent to the counts of the province of Marino, to beg a little ground whereon to build a monastery. They hearing Romuald"s name, offered him with joy whatever mountains, woods, or fields he would choose among them. He found the valley of Castro most proper. Exceeding great was the fruit of the blessed man"s endeavors, and many put themselves with great fervor under his direction. Sinners, who did not forsake the world entirely, were by him in great mult.i.tudes moved to penance, and to distribute great part of their possessions liberally among the poor. The holy man seemed in the midst of them as a seraph incarnate, burning with heavenly ardors of divine love, and inflaming those who heard him speak. If he travelled, he rode or walked at a distance behind his brethren, reciting psalms, and watering his cheeks almost without ceasing with tears that flowed in great abundance.
The saint had always burned with an ardent desire of martyrdom, which was much increased by the glorious crowns of some of his disciples, especially of St. Boniface. At last, not able to contain the ardor of his charity and desire to give his life for his Redeemer, he obtained the pope"s license, and set out to preach the gospel in Hungary, in which mission some of his disciples accompanied him. He had procured two of them to be consecrated archbishops by the pope, declining himself the episcopal dignity; but a violent illness which seized him on his entering Hungary, and returned as often as he attempted to proceed on his intended design, was a plain indication of the will of G.o.d in this matter; so he returned home with seven of his a.s.sociates. The rest, with the two archbishops, went forward, and preached the faith under the holy king, St. Stephen, suffering much for Christ, but none obtained the crown of martyrdom. Romuald in his return built some monasteries in Germany, and labored to reform others; but this drew on him many persecutions. Yet all, even the great ones of the world, trembled in his presence. He refused to accept either water or wood, without {375} paying for it, from Raynerius; marquis of Tuscia, because that prince had married the wife of a relation whom he had killed. Raynerius, though a sovereign, used to say, that neither the emperor nor any mortal on earth could strike him with so much awe as Romuald"s presence did. So powerful was the impression which the Holy Ghost, dwelling in his breast, made on the most haughty sinners. Hearing that a certain Venetian had by simony obtained the abbey of Cla.s.sis, he hastened thither. The unworthy abbot strove to kill him, to preserve his unjust dignity. He often met with the like plots and a.s.saults from several of his own disciples, which procured him the repeated merit, though not the crown, of martyrdom. The pope having called him to Rome, he wrought there several miracles, built some monasteries in its neighborhood, and converted innumerable souls to G.o.d. Returning from Rome, he made a long stay at Mount Sitria. A young n.o.bleman addicted to impurity, being exasperated at this saint"s severe remonstrances, had the impudence to accuse him of a scandalous crime. The monks, by a surprising levity, believed the calumny, enjoined him a most severe penance, forbid him to say ma.s.s, and excommunicated him. He bore all with patience and in silence, as if really he had been guilty, and refrained from going to the altar for six months. In the seventh month he was admonished by G.o.d to obey no longer so unjust and irregular a sentence p.r.o.nounced without any authority and without grounds. He accordingly said ma.s.s again, and with such raptures of devotion, as obliged him to continue long absorbed in ecstasy. He pa.s.sed seven years in Sitria, in his cell, in strict silence, but his example did the office of his tongue and moved many to penance. In bis old age, instead of relaxing, he increased his austerities and fasts. He had three hair-shirts which he now and then changed. He never would admit of the least thing to give a savor to the herbs or meal-gruel on which he supported himself. If any thing was brought him better dressed, he, for the greater self-denial, applied it to his nostrils, and said: "O gluttony, gluttony, thou shalt never taste this; perpetual war is declared against thee." His disciples also were remarkable for their austere lives, went always barefoot, and looked excessive pale with continual fasting. No other drink was known among them but water, except in sickness. St. Romuald wrought in this place many miraculous cures of the sick. At last, having settled his disciples here in a monastery which he had built for them, he departed for Bifurc.u.m.
The holy emperor St. Henry II., who had succeeded Otho III., coming into Italy, and being desirous to see the saint, sent an honorable emba.s.sy to him to induce him to come to court. At the earnest request of his disciples he complied, but not without great reluctance on his side. The emperor received him with the greatest marks of honor and esteem, and rising out of his chair, said to him: "I wish my soul was like yours."
The saint observed a strict silence the whole time the interview lasted, to the great astonishment of the court. The emperor being convinced that this did not proceed from pride or disdain, but from humility and a desire of being despised, was so far from being offended at it, that it occasioned his conceiving a higher esteem and veneration for him. The next day he received from him wholesome advice in his closet. The German n.o.blemen showed him the greatest respect as he pa.s.sed through the court, and plucked the very hairs out of his garments for relics, at which he was so much grieved, that he would have immediately gone back if he had not been stopped. The emperor gave him a monastery on Mount Amiatus.
The most famous of all his monasteries is that of Camaldoli, near Arezzo, in Tuscany, on the frontiers of the ecclesiastical state, thirty miles east from Florence, founded by him about the year 1009. It lies beyond a mountain, {376} very difficult to pa.s.s over, the descent from which, on the opposite side, is almost a direct precipice looking down upon a pleasant large valley, which then belonged to a lord called Maldoli, who gave it the saint, and from him it retained the name Camaldoli.[2] In this place St. Romuald built a monastery, and by the several observances he added to St. Benedict"s rule, gave birth to that new order called Camaldoli, in which he united the cen.o.bitic and eremitical life. After seeing in a vision his monks mounting up a ladder to heaven all in white, he changed their habit from black to white. The hermitage is two short miles distant from the monastery. It is a mountain quite overshaded by a dark wood of fir-trees. In it are seven clear springs of water. The very sight of this solitude in the midst of the forest helps to fill the mind with compunction, and a love of heavenly contemplation. On entering it, we meet with a chapel of St.
Antony for travellers to pray in before they advance any further. Next are the cells and lodgings for the porters. Somewhat further is the church, which is large, well built, and richly adorned. Over the door is a clock, which strikes so loud that it may be heard all over the desert.
On the left side of the church is the cell in which St. Romuald lived, when he first established these hermits. Their cells, built of stone, have each a little garden walled round. A constant fire is allowed to be kept in every cell, on account of the coldness of the air throughout the year: each cell has also a chapel in which they may say ma.s.s: they call their superior, major. The whole hermitage is now enclosed with a wall: none are allowed to go out of it; but they may walk in the woods and alleys within the enclosure at discretion. Every thing is sent them from the monastery in the valley: their food is every day brought to each cell; and all are supplied with wood and necessaries, that they may have no dissipation or hinderance in their contemplation. Many hours of the day are allotted to particular exercises; and no rain or snow stops any one from meeting in the church to a.s.sist at the divine office. They are obliged to strict silence in all public common places; and everywhere during their Lents, also on Sundays, Holydays, Fridays, and other days of abstinence, and always from Complin till prime the next day.
For a severer solitude, St. Romuald added a third kind of life; that of a recluse. After a holy life in the hermitage, the superior grants leave to any that ask it, and seem called by G.o.d, to live forever shut up in their cells, never speaking to any one but to the superior when he visits them, and to the brother who brings them necessaries. Their prayers and austerities are doubled, and their fasts more severe and more frequent. St. Romuald condemned himself to this kind of life for several years; and fervent imitators have never since failed in this solitude.
St. Romuald died in his monastery in the valley of Castro, in the marquisate of Ancona. As he was born about the year 956, he must have died seventy years and some months old, not a hundred and twenty, as the present copies of his life have it. The day of his death was the 19th of June; but his princ.i.p.al feast is appointed by Clement VIII. on the 7th of February, the day of his translation. His body was found entire and uncorrupt five years after his death, and again in 1466. But his tomb being sacrilegiously opened, and his body stolen in 1480, it fell to dust, in which state it was translated to Fabriano, and there deposited in the great church, all but the remains of one arm, sent to Camaldoli.
G.o.d has honored his relics with many miracles. The order of Camaldoli is now divided into five congregations, under so many generals or majors.
The life of the hermits is very severe, though something mitigated since the time of St. Romuald. The {377} Cen.o.bites are more like Benedictines, and perhaps were not directly established by St. Romuald, says F.
Helyot.
If we are not called to practise the extraordinary austerities of many saints, we cannot but confess that we lie under an indispensable necessity of leading mortified lives, both in order to fulfil our obligation of doing penance, and to subdue our pa.s.sions and keep our senses and interior faculties under due command. The appet.i.tes of the body are only to be reduced by universal temperance, and a.s.siduous mortification and watchfulness over all the senses. The interior powers of the soul must be restrained, as the imagination, memory, and understanding: their p.r.o.neness to distraction, and the itching curiosity of the mind, must be curbed, and their repugnance to attend to spiritual things corrected by habits of recollection, holy meditation, and prayer.
Above all, the will must be rendered supple and pliant by frequent self-denial, which must reach and keep in subjection all its most trifling sallies and inclinations. If any of these, how insignificant soever they may seem, are not restrained and vanquished, they will prove sufficient often to disturb the quiet of the mind, and betray one into considerable inconveniences, faults, and follies. Great weaknesses are sometimes fed by temptations which seem almost of too little moment to deserve notice. And though these infirmities should not arise to any great height, they always fetter the soul, and are an absolute impediment to her progress towards perfection.
Footnotes: 1. Sanuti tells us, that St. Peter Urseoli, from his cradle, devoted himself with his whole heart to the divine service, and proposed to himself in all his actions the holy will and the greater glory of G.o.d. He built in the church of St. Mark a chapel, in which the body of that evangelist was secretly laid, the place being known by very few. Being chosen doge, he refused that dignity for a long time with great obstinacy, but at length suffered himself to be overcome by the importunity of the people. He had held it only two years and eight months, when he retired. Sanuti. Vite de Duchi di Venezia, c.
976. Maramri, Rerum Italicar. Scriptores, t. 22, p. 564.
2. Contracted from Campo Maldoli.
ST. RICHARD, KING AND C.