Saint Junien of Mairé

What was known of our Saint awakened around him a legitimate and praiseworthy admiration. As always, his examples excited the zeal of a certain number of the righteous and sinners who, whether to advance in goodness or to work toward their conversion, turned toward him and implored him to take care of their souls. Junien found himself troubled by this in his love for absolute solitude: his dear cell was no longer for him a place of tranquil meditation, and he resisted these meritorious assaults that threatened to change his vocation. But he could not hold out for long against repeated and daily more numerous entreaties: he therefore consented to receive disciples, and as they multiplied around him, where they lived in separate cells, they obtained that, to be more useful to them, he would consent to receive the priesthood. The Saint understood well that, indeed, this august dignity, of which he had always believed himself unworthy, was becoming an indispensable resource for his zeal, and he received Holy Orders, probably from the hand of Daniel or Saint Pient, two bishop saint Pient Bishop of Poitiers in the 6th century. s who succeeded each other immediately at that time on the see of Poitiers.

These powers only increased his family of anchorites, and changed his solitary habits into a true apostolate. Scarcely had some time passed when their desert of Chaunay was no longer sufficient: it was necessary to think of a dwelling where religious life would have more uniformity, through the observance of a better-followed regularity. Near there was a secluded place shaded by woods and hills, towards which he did not hesitate to move. But he was unaware that this place belonged to King Clotaire I, an d as soon as he roi Clotaire Ier King of the Franks who supported the foundation of the monastery. had begun the establishment there, his design was thwarted by some of those adversaries that good works always encounter in their progress and especially at their origin: he was contested the right to take possession of this land, he was accused of usurpation of the royal domain. Did this opposition come from the king's people or from certain inhabitants of the country who were forgetting the counsels of charity towards him a little too much? History has not said. But the man of God was not discouraged by these obstacles that heaven allowed to test his constancy. Clotaire, whom the stay of Saint Radegunde in Poitiers had then attracted to the region, was at the castle of Javarzay, a fortified place that belonged to him, and where one of his mints was operating. Junien went there, justified himself before the prince, who was initially ill-disposed, and won his good graces so well that the latter, while maintaining him in the contested territory, also made him a gift of one of his lands where another castle surrounded by walls stood, then called Mariacum, and which we still know today under the name of Mairé (Mairé -l'Évêcault). This took p Mairé (Mairé-l'Évêcault.) Site of the foundation of the abbey of Junien. lace in 559. At the height of his wishes and put in possession of an important site, and almost a ready-made monastery, the Saint did not have to think about pursuing his first enterprise on still uncultivated land, and he established himself at Mairé with his brothers. From then on, t he Rule of Saint Bene Règle de Saint-Benoît Monastic rule adopted by Germer for the Abbey of Flay. dict was followed there, which its perfection caused to be adopted throughout the West, and it was one of the first houses in France to receive it.

After having thus provided for the salvation of his fervent cenobites, Junien, invested with the title of Abbot, worked only with greater ardor for his own sanctification. What would be the use of helping others advance if one forgot to walk the path oneself? This is why, feeling well that he needed to recollect himself more in order to find in union with God the lights for his own direction and that of his neighbor, he wished to withdraw as much as possible into his hermitage of Chaunay, and he spent there at frequent intervals all the time that he did not owe to the instruction and conduct of the monastery. There, by assiduous prayer, by a fast more rigorous than that of the community, and by manual labor, he maintained his soul at the height of his duties, sustained himself in the practice of mortification and silence, and, indulgent toward all, he refused his own senses everything that was not strictly necessary to nature.

God did not fail to manifest how pleasing to Him was this conduct so elevated. To the gift of miracles, He added for His servant the spirit of prophecy. One day, not far from Chaunay, a poor pregnant woman asked for alms from the holy abbot who, while giving them to her, assured her that she would have a son of whom he would be the godfather. This son, having indeed been born, was brought to him: he held him at the baptismal font, where he was named R Ruremond Godson, disciple, and successor of Junien as abbot of Mairé. uremond. From that moment, the Saint watched over him, and when the age had come to receive him into the monastery of Mairé, he had him instructed there in human sciences and in the things of God: the young man became attached to the holy house, savored the teachings of his master there, and having taken the monastic habit there, he sanctified himself in the exercise of the virtues that later earned him the abbatial office and finally the honors that the Church renders to the Blessed.

Another time, walking alone in the vicinity of his abbey, he was attacked by a fairly large number of peasants whose malicious intentions appeared to him to be feared. In vain he sought to calm them with observations full of gentleness; the furious men redoubled their insults and mixed threats with them. Forced then to provide for his safety, the Saint followed a sudden inspiration, and, changing his tone, he forbade these madmen to cross certain boundaries that he indicated to them. Some, having nevertheless advanced toward him, were instantly struck dead; this was the signal for the flight of the others.

This ill will that the friends of God have always had to endure from His enemies, and which the divine Master Himself had not wished to avoid, did not trouble a soul that such a visible grace protected. The Saint knew how to avenge himself for it only by services, which not all failed to recognize, moreover, and when a deadly famine devastated this region where some seemed to appreciate the gifts of heaven so poorly, he contributed, through his devotion and that of his brothers, to diminish the rigors of this cruel scourge.

However, the years had multiplied amidst so many labors and macerations, and the Saint, always ready to render an account of his administration to the Prince of shepherds, felt death approaching with the serenity of a heart that hopes for its reward. One day, his strength seemed to abandon him for the last time in his cell at Chaunay. He summoned his brothers there and exhorted them to maintain, after he was gone, the integrity of their usual life, the love of the rule, and the charity that united them. He designated the blessed Ruremond to succeed him, that faithful disciple who had shown himself so worthy of belonging to him; then he wished for his death to be ann ounced to Radegonde Queen of the Franks and founder of the Sainte-Croix monastery in Poitiers. Saint Radegonde, according to the promise he had made to her. Ruremond entered into his office by executing the last order of the holy abbot. Now, at that very hour, Radegonde, herself expiring, took the same care and asked that Junien be informed of it immediately: so that, by a touching disposition of Providence, these two souls who had loved each other so holily were not to be separated here below, and met again at the threshold of their eternal happiness. By another no less admirable coincidence, the two messengers met halfway, and as each explained to the other the cause of his journey, they realized that on the same day and at the same moment, heaven had opened for both friends: it was August 13 of the year 587. At that place which is currently called La Troussaie, a la Troussaie Meeting place for the messengers announcing the deaths of Junien and Radegonde. nd which is noted in the parish of Geaux, following the road from that village to Champagné-Saint-Hilaire, a church and a priory were founded shortly after in honor of Saint Radegonde, and attached to it the imperishable memory of these memorable events.

Saint Junien is depicted: 1st, having a fox return the hen it had stolen; 2nd, in a group with Saint Radegonde, to recall the pious relationship they had together.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

The body of Saint Junien was carried from his hermitage in Chaunay to the church of Mairé, where he received burial, not without several sudden healings occurring among the sick whom pious confidence had led to accompany him. He was honored there for nearly three centuries.

In this interval, the priory of Nouaillé, dependent on Saint-H Nouaillé Abbey where the relics of Junien were transferred in 830. ilaire of Poitiers, had become in 799 an abbey protected by Charlemagne. That of Mairé, destroyed under Charles Martel during the war of which Aquitaine was the theater, had been united with the new foundation, and the remains of the Saint, which had been preserved through great precaution and vigilance by hiding their first burial place, were transported on November 6, 830, to the famous abbey church of which he later became the patron. Placed in a stone tomb behind the high altar, under the shelter of a walled space, they escaped the ravages of the Normans who pillaged the abbey in 863.

A council having been held at Charroux in 996 to remedy the disorders of the lay concile s'étant tenu à Charroux, en 996 Council held in 996 where the relics of Junien were displayed. lords, the Fathers, in order to make their assembly more solemn and wishing to draw inspiration from the memories of one of the finest models of regular life, desired that the relics of Saint Junien should, in a way, preside over their deliberations: they were indeed transported there, but returned to Nouaillé immediately afterward to remain there forever, visited by the piety of the great and the small.

Five centuries passed in this way, and the monastery, respected even in the midst of the long wars that raged around it between the parties disputing France, was not to succumb later to its most cruel trials except under the blows of Frenchmen and Christians revolted against the Church. In 1569, the Huguenots, threatening the abbey with their fury, which they effectively exercised there soon after with a barbarity worthy of them, the monks had time to bury the holy body along with the sacred vessels and other precious objects: a few days later, the new barbarians set fire to the buildings, pillaged the church, and massacred the religious, whose remains were scattered by flight; and those who had secretly cooperated in the removal of the holy treasures having died or being unable to return, nothing could later indicate where they were hidden.

Some less considerable portions had fortunately been distributed to various churches: the nuns of the Trinity of Poitiers possessed some, which, after the restoration of the abbey, they shared with it. It is these remains which, saved from the profanations of the revolutionaries of '93, were returned by faithful hands to the competent authority, and Bishop Pie, having recognized their authenticity, permitted the continuatio n of th Mgr Pie Bishop of Poitiers who made a pilgrimage in 1851. e cult that they had never ceased to receive from the beginning.

Mairé, upon losing its title of monastery, took that of parish church, which it still bears under the name of Mairé-l'Évêque, because it has belonged since then, and for a very long time, to the bishops of Poitiers. As for Saint Junien, the patron of this parish, he became that of several others in the vicinity, and testifies, by the eagerness with which he was adopted from the beginning, to the filial confidence that the whole region placed in the Saint who had consoled it through his miracles and edified it by his virtues.

Taken from the Lives of the Saints of the Church of Poitiers, by Abbé Auber.