Saint Cassian of Autun

Cassian, who came to our lands as a missionary bishop, was born in A lexandria, Alexandrie Place of refuge and study during the persecution. Egypt, to noble and wealthy parents. His education, entrusted to th e holy bishop Zoni saint évêque Zonis Bishop of Alexandria and master of Cassian. s, whom others call Zeno or Theon, was eminently Christian. Thus, from his tenderest years, he gave himself entirely to God, whom he loved with all his heart, says the historian of his life. Faith and piety, sown early in his young soul and cultivated by skillful hands, took such deep roots that neither the pull of example, nor the thousand seductions of a pagan life, nor the furies of the great and final persecution could shake them. He spent long vigils in prayer, invoking the martyrs, asking through their intercession for the grace to practice their virtues, the strength to imitate their courage, and the happiness of sharing their fate. Soon, two dominant virtues manifested in him to a high degree: charity for his neighbor and zeal for the glory of God, which, moreover, merge in great apostolic souls into an admirable unity. Not believing that it was permitted for him to be rich for himself alone, he spread benefits around him, freed his slaves, and created, by associating with Saint Hilarin, a kind of hospice where poor travelers were welcomed with touching kindness. With his own hands, he washed their feet, according to the precept and example of the Savior, served them at table, and cared for them in their illnesses. Besides the relief he lavished upon the suffering or needy members of Jesus Christ, the worship of God and the salvation of souls also occupied him. He had a church built, says the legend, in the city of Orthe, endowed it richly, and placed a numerous clergy there to ser ve it. When t ville d'Orthe City in Egypt where Cassian was first bishop. he monument was completed, he consecrated it to God under the patronage of Saint Lawrence. It was the illustrious martyr himself who had made the request of him in a mysterious vision. Already, Cassian deserved that heaven should enter into communication with him.

However, his reputation continued to grow: people spoke of his holiness and his admirable works, not only in the place of his residence but also in the entire province: *In tota Ægypti provincia*. His name was on every tongue, and the admiration for his virtues in every heart. People delighted in praising his tender and compassionate charity, the noble and holy use he made of his riches. All eyes were drawn by such a new spectacle; for paganism had not accustomed the world to such examples. Finally, such were soon the esteem, love, and veneration of the people for Cassian that the city of Orthe wanted him for its bishop. The admirable Christian, whose profound humility surpassed even his eminent merit, frightened by the weight of the episcopate, refused with a holy obstinacy. But the faithful arrived in crowds. Men, women, children, the elderly, all cried out at once while rushing toward him: "Cassian bishop! Cassian bishop!" It took nothing less than this kind of violence that an entire city did to him to triumph over his long resistance. Having become bishop, that is to say, pastor, teacher, and father, he used all the rest of his fortune to help the poor, aspiring to no other treasures than those he was amassing in heaven for eternity. But while nourishing the flock entrusted to his care with material bread, he assiduously distributed to them the spiritual bread of evangelical doctrine; and thanks to his active solicitude, discipline, purity of morals, and piety flourished in his Church. For his lessons were listened to because his examples spoke even louder; and his labors became wonderfully fruitful because his fervent prayers, during the silence of the nights, drew the heavenly dew upon them. Moreover, everything in him conspired to win hearts: a gentle word, a calm and affable air, a face of majestic serenity and perfect beauty, the reflection of a soul even more beautiful, beautiful as an angel, says the author of his life. He never saddened anyone, and everywhere, on the contrary, his presence brought contentment, peace, and joy.

However, the most terrible of persecutions had just struck its final blows, and the holy bishop Zonis had been among the victims immolated for the name of Jesus Christ. Cassian gathered with pious love and affectionate respect the body of his former master, the father of his soul; and these venerated remains, which had received a second baptism, the baptism of blood, a double consecration—that of holiness and that of martyrdom—he buried in the church where seventeen priests and a deacon already rested, who had also died in a previous persecution for their faith, for their God. From then on, he made mention of him every day and brought his name to the altar of the divine sacrifice. These Christians, so fervent, so strong in the faith, were at the same time full of tenderness: they did not forget their friends, their benefactors. For the piety that opens souls to the love of God also opens them to the love of neighbor, to all beautiful, to all generous sentiments, to all memories, to all legitimate affections, and it even purifies, supernaturalizes, and sanctifies them. It is the sweet and faithful guardian of gratitude and friendship; it maintains in all the freshness of their first days these two daughters of the heart, which too often wither and perish very quickly when religion does not come to their aid to preserve them by blessing them, by supernaturalizing them.

Cassian had aspired to the glory of also giving his blood for the Gospel; and one might say, if it were permitted to compare two such different ambitions, that the palms of the victors would not let him sleep. Especially since the glorious death of the holy pontiff who had taken half his soul with him, all his desires, all his vows had turned even more vividly toward martyrdom. Until then, he had been able to nourish this heroic hope; but he had to renounce it. Peace had just been restored to the Church and the emperor was a Christian. At any cost, however, he wanted to suffer for the faith and offer the divine Master greater sacrifices than those of continual prayer, a pure heart, the daily works of Christian piety and charity, the efforts of the most persevering zeal, and the most active devotion to the salvation of the little people entrusted to his care. The ordinary labors of a laborious but tranquil episcopate, the care of a few souls entrusted to his solicitude, did not seem to him painful enough, meritorious enough, or worthy enough of the divine Shepherd who had spent his life running after so many stray sheep and shedding his sweat and blood for them. The great soul of Cassian aspired higher, embraced a vaster horizon, and felt the need for a more generous, more sublime devotion. He required the fatigues and dangers of an extraordinary mission, peoples to conquer on distant shores, in unknown lands: he required the apostolate.

For a long time he examined, he reflected in the secret of his heart; for a long time he questioned the divine will through prayer. Finally, in his intimate communications with heaven, he heard that voice of God, at once sweet and strong, which the Saints know how to understand and which enlightens, draws, and subjugates them; he saw, beyond any doubt, that Providence wanted to make him a missionary bishop, an Apostle. Thus his desire was to be a reality, a duty. "I shall go, then," he said to himself, "I shall go in search of infidel nations, and I shall find, if perhaps not the bloody and instantaneous martyrdom that God has refused me and of which I was not worthy, at least the martyrdom of every day, through which I will pour out at every moment a few drops of my life with my sweat. Let us depart: God wills it." As soon as he was well persuaded that this holy thought came from heaven, he attached himself to it with all the strength of his soul and thought only of realizing it. But before that, he prayed again to know what place divine Providence, to which he offered himself as a docile, albeit miserable instrument, would wish to employ the efforts of his zeal. One day, finally, it was revealed to him that Gaul was to be the theater of his apostolic labors.

Nothing from then on prevented him from manifesting and executing the great design he had long nurtured in secret. Having therefore gathered several of his colleagues in the episcopate and all his clergy, he spoke: "Heaven," he said, "has inspired in me the resolution to leave my homeland, my family, my Church, to go across the seas, into the vast regions inhabited by the Gauls and the Sicambri, to announce the evangelical word." At these words, struck with astonishment, understanding nothing of a determination that seemed to them strange and without motive, fearing above all to lose such a holy bishop, they all interrupted him sharply: "What!" they cried, "does your Church not claim your care and does it not need you? Does your zeal find nothing more to do here? And what has your homeland done to you that it no longer has any charm for you, no right to your love, no share in the works of your devotion? Do you have no more devoted neighbors, no more affectionate friends left, that you would abandon these places that saw you born, that nourished you?" Cassian replied with a deeply felt accent, in a voice moved but firm, with an air grave, yet sweet and modest: "Our Lord has said that whoever for the love of him will leave his house, his family, his fields, will receive a hundredfold here below and will have eternal life in addition; that whoever does not know how to renounce everything cannot be his disciple." No one dared to reply. All, yielding to these high motives of faith and subjugated by the irresistible ascendancy of a great heart, laid down their arms, could only admire such virtues and say: "May the will of God be done! Depart, since heaven commands it." It is thus that the same evangelical words which, in the same places, had made Saint Anthony fly to the desert, sent us Saint Cassian.

The new apostle, having no more to fight, immediately addressed a touching farewell to his venerable brothers, took with him two priests, Domitian and Didymus, two deacons, Orian and Neonas, with seven minor clerics, all like him in the prime of life, all animated by that supernatural zeal and courage that make the missionary, and prepared for departure. A celestial joy, the joy of a great sacrifice accomplished, radiated on his brow. But at the last moment, his heart had to sustain a very harsh assault. For one could not believe, says the biographer, what the mourning of the clergy and the whole city was at the moment of separation. One saw only tears, one heard only groans, lamentations, and sobs. All said while weeping: "Tender and good father, why do you leave your children orphans like this? Who then will have for us henceforth the assiduous and vigilant care that you lavished upon us? Who will pray for us! Who will instruct us! Who will guide us in the way of salvation, when we no longer have you, O you our guide and our light? Good shepherd, what! You abandon this flock that you have long nourished and that loved so much to live under your guard, to walk under your guidance! And you leave it to go to a distant land that we have never seen, of which we have barely heard! Ah! What will become of you? You are lost to us forever." The man of God was certainly not insensitive to the heartbreaking complaints of this good people; but if his heart was deeply touched, his courage was not weakened, nor his resolution shaken. Soaring, elevated and sustained by faith, in a superior region where nothing earthly could reach him, and knowing how to put, when necessary, the love of God far above the love of country and family, above all human affections, even the most legitimate, the most holy as well as the dearest, he answered with sublime complaints to the tender complaints of the grieving crowd: "What are you doing?" he said. "Why, by your tears, do you trouble my heart?" He wanted to continue, but his emotion betrayed him and stopped the words on his lips. He could only give a paternal blessing to this spiritual family so loved, so loving, and so desolate. Then, having recovered a little, he added: "Fear nothing for us, for God who sends us will himself be of the journey and will accompany us everywhere." And he embraced his clergy, flooding them with his tears. However, a supernatural joy shone in his moist eyes: the sweetest, and at the same time the noblest, the most sublime sentiments of earth and heaven softened and exalted at once his heart of bishop, of pastor and of father, his great soul of an apostle. We read in the Acts of the Apostles that Saint Paul, after having made his final recommendations and his final farewells to the main representatives of the Church of Ephesus, at the moment of embarking for new regions where his zeal called him, knelt down to pray with the faithful, his spiritual children. And all then shed abundant tears, throwing themselves on his neck and embracing him. They were especially heartbroken by a word they had just heard. The Apostle had said to them: "You will see me no more." And they accompanied him, very sad, to the ship.

After having let fall from his mouth the last words that we have just heard and mingled his tears with the tears of his people, the Saint headed with his traveling companions toward the vessel ready to leave the port. When he was alone with the worthy co-operators who were going to share with him the fatigues and the dangers, the sacrifices, the devotions, and the merits of a distant apostolate, he said to them, to strengthen them at the moment of the supreme farewell to the native land, while nature suffers and groans, while the heart beats harder and seems to want to attempt a final assault against the supernatural side of the soul: "The sovereign and all-powerful master, our help and our protector, will always be with us. Courage then, my brothers, my beloved children! Let us depart! To the care of God!" Then, while the ship was moving to leave the shore of the homeland, he added, raising his eyes to heaven and with an inspired air: "Lord, open yourself before us the way where we are going to walk, direct our steps in the paths of peace, keep us under the shelter of your wings and lead us for the glory of your great and holy name, which deserves to be known, praised, glorified by all the earth and to the ends of the world." The priests and the young clerics all answered: "So be it!" Then Cassian, raising his hands, blessed them, saying: "Lord Jesus, preserve your servants who put all their trust in you!" And the land was already fleeing far from them. It was the eve of the Kalends of April (March 31), probably around the year 320. — Such as we still see in our days a bishop with some priests too, some clerics and some catechists, intrepid missionaries that the always fertile bosom of the Church brings forth and that its inexhaustible charity nourishes, boarding a ship to go seek even to the depths of another hemisphere, under new skies, inhospitable coasts or some islets cast in the middle of the immense solitudes of the Ocean, and to plant there the cross, the cross that makes of the savage a man, a Christian, a son of God, an heir of the celestial kingdom.

The journey of Cassian and his companions lasted six months, because they made it as apostles, sowing everywhere on their passage the word of God, destroying idols, administering baptism, opening in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit the door of heaven to a numerous people, visiting in all the cities the tombs of the martyrs and carrying with them precious relics for their consolation and the salvation of souls. Finally, after having traveled part of the African shores, escaped with divine protection from the hands of the infidels, having come out safe and sound from all the dangers of land and sea, they arrived happily at Marseille. Upon touching the desired shore toward which, says the pious legend, Jesus Christ had directed the course of their ship, they fell to their knees to gi ve thanks Marseille Birthplace of the saint. to the divine Master.

But the apostolic band did not think that this city should be the goal of their long pilgrimage. They aspired to the center of Gaul, where they thought Christianity was less known; and still under the guidance of the angel of the Lord, they directed their steps toward Au tun, Autun Burgundian diocese associated with the saint's burial. drawn no doubt by the reputation of this famous city, the center of old Druidism and still covered with pagan temples at that time. Cassian judged that it was there, preferably to any other city in the land of the Celts, that he should deploy his zeal; to go, at the beginning of his apostolic labors, to draw inspirations of piety, faith, and courage from this land bathed in the blood and consecrated by the relics of Saint Symphorian, to inflame his evangelical ardor, and to seek heavenly support for the success of his mission. Thus, he had barely arrived when he was seen heading to the martyr's tomb. "He went," says the historian B. Goujon, "to the very place where Saint Symphorian had suffered death and passion, and entered the oratory that the Christians had already built there, to offer his prayer."

It was there that, humbly prostrate, he did not cease to offer and recommend his work to the illustrious Saint, the protector and glory of the Aeduan Church; there, that days passed for him like hours; there, near those sacred remains, that he seemed to have fixed his dwelling, asking God, from morning until evening and during long vigils, through the merits of the young victim immolated on this very soil, to bless the city that had given him to the earth and to heaven, to open the eyes of the poor blind people it still contained in great numbers. Who will tell us of the rapture of his ecstasies during his fervent orisons in the small sanctuary and on the tomb of Saint Symphorian, the fervor of his prayers, the vividness of his desires, the ardor of his vows? But how can one fathom the mysteries of heaven in the depths of an apostle's soul? It was thus that the pious and devoted missionary sanctified the first days that followed his arrival in Autun, persuaded that he could do nothing if he did not first place in his interests the sovereign Master of hearts and the Saints, our protectors before Him.

However, Rhetici Rhétice Bishop of Autun and predecessor of Cassian. us, having learned that a holy man, a bishop, had just arrived from the East, immediately went to find him in the oratory of Saint-Symphorian. And when Cassian, in this first interview and before beginning his evangelical labors, offered him his services and his cooperation, already informed and struck by all that he had been told about the stranger, the illustrious pontiff received him with profound respect, with great honors and pious joy, to the singing of hymns and sacred canticles, not forgetting to give him the kiss of the Saints, the fraternal embrace, as to a dear and venerable colleague who seemed to come to him from heaven to assist him in the exercise of the pastoral ministry. The two men of God understood and appreciated each other immediately. Together they gave thanks to heaven that had reunited them; together they worked for the conversion of the city. Rheticius, happy to have found such a collaborator, cherished him as a friend, as a brother, as a support that Providence sent to his old age. Learning every day to esteem him more, he had only one desire, that of being able to keep him both for his own consolation and especially for the good of his dear Church of Autun. A friend, a saint is such a great treasure! But after having worked with the illustrious prelate for several years and greatly advanced the work of God, Cassian, whose devouring zeal always demanded new nourishment, said to him one day: "Most holy brother, I have formed the project of carrying the Gospel into Britain: here now Jesus Christ is known, while there is a people who do not yet know Him." It was thus that Cassian wanted to go seek the Gallic race everywhere and pursue Druidism to the limits of the world then known. He had left Egypt with this idea worthy of an apostle; and he probably only desired to pass into Britain because he saw this ancient cult almost forgotten and discredited in Autun, or at least on the point of being so. While in the distant island of the Britons he thought he would find it still vibrant, in the midst of ignorant and half-barbarous populations, to study it and fight it with missionary zeal, tormented incessantly by the thirst for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. Rheticius, saddened not to be able to keep until death by his side the one who was another himself, an incomparable coadjutor, a support for his episcopal old age, and to bequeath him as his successor to the Church of Autun, said to him with the accent of the deepest sorrow: "My brother, I have no doubt but a very small number of years left to spend on earth, and God, who sent you here, wants you to stay with me. The hour has therefore not yet come when He must open to you the path in which you wish to enter: wait a little longer." Cassian saw a manifestation of the divine will in the desire and words of the venerable prelate. Moreover, it would have cost him so much to afflict his heart! He therefore remained. The two Saints lived and worked together for three more years: it was death alone that separated them. The soul of Rheticius ascended to heaven; and Cassian buried his body with episcopal pomp and fraternal piety in the cemetery located in front of the city. There, every day, in memory of him, he immolated the heavenly victim, he deposited a prayer on his tomb: *Sacrificium pro eo immolabat per singulos dies*.

A full year was given to mourning and regret, after which all the clergy and all the people, rich and poor, called with one unanimous voice for Cassian to take the dignity of first pastor of the holy and apostolic Church of Autun. This unanimity was a tribute rendered at once to Cassian, whose merit it so solemnly proclaimed, and to Rheticius, whose memory it honored by the elevation of the coadjutor of his choice. And who else could have been more worthy to succeed the great bishop whose loss was being mourned, than he who had long shared his labors during his life, and subsequently supported and continued his work, having earned such high trust and occupied such a large place in so great and holy a heart? Cassian would have liked to decline the honor, or rather the heavy burden of the episcopate, which was henceforth to weigh upon him. He dreaded the immense responsibility for so many souls for whom he would answer before God; but at the same time, did such universal, such spontaneous wishes, by imposing a necessity upon him and doing him a sort of violence, not provide him with a striking, indubitable proof of the intentions of Providence? He therefore had to submit and renounce his great plan to go and evangelize Brittany. His humility was consoled by the thought that He who had called him would know how to support him.

Raised to the see of Autun, Cassian showed himself an eminent bishop, a good pastor, while remaining the apostle and tireless missionary who had come from the banks of the Nile to win souls for Jesus Christ. After having lent the aid of his active zeal to the old age of Rheticius for the conversion of the infidels, he seemed to redouble his efforts when he found himself alone at the head of the flock; and the great work, the object of his constant preoccupations, made new progress. Affable to all, doing good to idolaters as well as to Christians, he was loved by all, because all saw that they were loved by him. This reciprocity of affection, this drawing together of hearts in mutual love, served as an evangelical preparation. As at Orthe in the past, his gentleness, his paternal kindness, his frank, open, cordial, and welcoming manner, and his immense charity won him souls, and Jesus Christ received a great number from his hands. Thus, the divine Shepherd wished to honor his worthy minister in the eyes of the people with the greatest glory that exists on earth: he rewarded, and at the same time sanctioned, the zeal of Cassian and increased the power of his action over the infidels by an eminently privileged gift, the gift of miracles. How many times, through the ministry of the holy Bishop, did the sovereign Master of nature not restore sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf; and to the infirm and the sick of every kind, strength and health? And the pagans, struck by this brilliant, this perpetual intervention of heaven, flocked in crowds to the foot of the cross.

After having, during a laborious episcopate of twenty years since his elevation to the see of Autun, worked with incessant activity, watched with pious solicitude over the care of the flock that the sovereign Shepherd had entrusted to him, and introduced into the divine fold a multitude of new sheep, Cassian was called to eternal rest (around the year 335). His soul flew to the bosom of God whom he had loved so much; and his body, the perishable instrument of immortal works, remains venerated as that of a Saint, deposited in the cemetery of the Via strata, awaiting the general resurrection and celestial glorification near that of Saint Rheticius, his illustrious predecessor, and not far also from the small oratory guarding the relics of Saint Symphorian, where he spent such long hours in prayer that he seemed to have made it his dwelling.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The memory of the great bishop remained in blessing throughout the province. In addition to the feast of August 5, which recalled his entry into heaven, the memory of his ordination was also celebrated on February 9. Several churches, among others that of Atte-sous-Moûtier, two leagues from Semur-en-Auxois, those of Savigny, Veilly, and Écutigny, were placed under the patronage of this illustrious Saint. The memory of his charity, his kindness, his zeal fertile in conversions, and the miracles he had performed during his lifetime was perpetuated, passing through tradition from one generation to the next; and the wonders that continued to mark his tomb constantly came, throughout the ages, to revive the devotion and confidence of the people. It is his tomb, surrounded by truly extraordinary veneration, which, along with that of Saint Symphorian, gave the most renown to this little corner of land truly worthy of being called the dwelling of the saints, loci sanctorum, the sacred places of Autun, and which, for centuries, attracted so many pious and even so many famous visitors there. The gathering of pilgrims coming from all parts to implore the intercession of the holy bishop was immense, since, as early as the time of Gregory of Tours, the stone that covered his precious relics was almost entirely worn away. Everyone detached a few particles from it and withdrew happy to carry away with them this dust which performed wonders. Even in modern times, confidence in Saint Cassian had not ceased, and his powerful intercession still performed miracles.

T he abbot of S Saint-Quentin City where the relics were transported before being destroyed in 1557. aint-Quentin, in Vermandois, touched by the marvels that were continually taking place at the Saint's tomb, asked for and obtained from Madon, Bishop of Autun, in 829, the body of Saint Cassian to transport it to his church. He first placed it in various places that did not seem decent enough for such a precious treasure. That is why Charles t Charles le Chauve Emperor who confirmed the rights of the priory in the 9th century. he Bald had a magnificent reliquary prepared for him in the underground vault of the basilica of Saint-Quentin and took care to have it placed there honorably. Although the body of Saint Cassian no longer rested in Autun, King Robert erected a very beautiful chapel in the place where he had been buried. One can still see today, in the church of Saint-Quentin, the tomb of Saint Cassian; but it is empty. What remains of his relics is enclosed in a too modest reliquary which is exposed, on feast days, on a small credence table next to the high altar.

We have drawn this biography from a work by Abbé Dinot, entitled: Saint Symphonien et son culte, avec tous les souvenirs historiques qui s'y rattachent. — Cf. Légendaire d'Autun, by M. Fouquepot