Saint Merry

If sometimes children were brought to the monastery by their parents before they could fully grasp the scope of this solemn act, it was not so for young Merry. For him, the oblation had been perfectly considered, free, and spontaneous; and it was soon seen that he had come to give himself entirely, body and soul, to God. The ordinary austerities of religious life did not suffice for his fervor. Never forgetting that he had offered himself, following the example of Jesus Christ, as a victim for his sins and those of others, he immolated his flesh every day with the sword of penance, taking only at long intervals a little barley bread or some other vile food and drinking only water. All the religious, his brothers, admired him as a prodigy that the ancient Fathers of the desert had not surpassed. And yet they did not know everything: the holy young man, as humble as he was mortified, carefully hid a very rough hair shirt under all his ordinary clothes. "This great servant of God," says his biographer, "remembered that the first man had been lost through sensuality and pride, and he wanted to expiate, he wanted to fight one of these two vices by depriving his body of almost the strict necessity, and the other, by hiding from the eyes of men all his mortifications through the holy artifices of humility." But the radiance of his virtues, despite the veils with which he strove to cover them, even crossed the walls of the abbey and did not take long to spread far and wide. Soon people flocked from all parts to see the holy religious whose fame published so many wonders, to be edified by his examples and his words, to consult his wisdom and carry away some good thoughts, fruits of the instructions that were gathered like oracles from his inspired lips. Thus, continues the historian, taking a tone of solemn emphasis, "the Queen of Sheba flocked from the ends of the earth to hear the wise Solomon; thus the multitudes, leaving their homes, pressed in the footsteps of the Savior, attracted by his miracles, by the charms of his word, by the charms of his goodness.

However, the abbot of the monastery fell ill, and, after long sufferings, went toward the God to whom, as a true religious, he had not ceased to strive through the aspiration of his whole life. Then the Bishop of Autun, who embraced everything in his pastoral solicitude, the sheep as well as the lambs, recommended to the monks to choose a man capable of preserving the flock of Jesus Christ from the teeth of the ravenous wolf and to guard the fold so well that the divine Master might one day find all the sheep that had been entrusted to his vigilant care. The choice was made in advance: Merry was elected abbot by acclamation, and the crowd that had flocked to the monastery greeted the news of the election with a thousand enthusiastic cries. Everyone was happy. The venerable bishop, who saw his dearest wishes fulfilled, was more so than anyone. Immediately turning toward the new abbot: "O torch of Christ," he said in a solemn voice! "O vessel chosen from the treasures of the Lord! Receive from the eternal God the measure with which you must distribute to his flock the spiritual food intended to nourish it. Guide it by the precepts and counsels of the Gospel, so that you may deserve to hear one day from the mouth of the merciful judge these words: 'Well done, good and faithful servant. Because you have been faithful in a few things, I will set you over many others: enter into the joy of your master.'"

Viewing the important office that had just been imposed upon him not as an honor, but solely as a duty, Merry redoubled his exactitude, if that were even possible, in the fulfillment of the smallest practices of religious life. "A superior," he would say, "is the rule personified, the living rule." A model for all, he was also their servant, in accordance with that divine word he loved to repeat unceasingly: "The Son of Man did not come into this world to be served, but to serve. Likewise, he who will be the first among you must be the servant of his brothers." Placed at the head of a religious family, he loved above all to show himself as its father. Never for himself, always for others, constantly attentive to the bodily and spiritual needs of his children, he watched not only over their outward conduct, but also over their hearts. "Guard yourselves," he often told them, "against evil thoughts as well as evil actions." And in order to be able to apply the remedy where the evil lay, he wanted everyone to reveal to him their inner state with childlike simplicity and complete filial abandonment. His merciful charity, his manner of treating souls, full of skill as much as gentleness, were so well known that everyone hastened to disclose to him their most intimate dispositions, and would withdraw better and happier. A monk, among others, tormented by a violent temptation, went to make the humiliating confession. Immediately the holy abbot wrapped him in his tunic, and addressing the demon who was complaining loudly about being forced to abandon his prey: "Be silent, wretch," he said to him, "and come out of this man. No, you shall no longer possess a vessel that Jesus Christ has purified with His divine blood." The poor religious, delivered from the infernal obsession, attained under Merry's direction such eminent holiness that God Himself wished to manifest it through wonders. Another monk, also a victim of the evil spirit, could not remain in the church for a single instant. As soon as he had entered, he was seen leaving immediately, even before he had knelt down. All warnings had been useless. Then Merry believed he must resort to supernatural remedies; he blessed a little bread and gave it to him. It took no more than that to heal this tormented soul.

However, our Saint, constantly taken away from himself by affairs, weary of the government of which he believed himself unworthy, besieged every day by a multitude of people drawn to him by the fame of his virtues and his miracles, groaned at a necessity that tore him away from his intimate communications with heaven and alarmed his humility. He had taken refuge in the cloister to flee the world, and now the world seemed to persist in pursuing him even into his retreat. It was too much: he could no longer live, he was suffocating in this atmosphere where his aspirations toward heaven were constantly hindered, where everything prevented him from following his irresistible attraction for the contemplative life; and he sought another that would be in harmony with his spiritual temperament. One day, therefore, without the community's knowledge, he left his monastery as Saint John of Réome had done before him, and ran to bury himself in the solitudes of the Morvan, to converse at last every day, at leisure and in full freedom, alone with God. After having wandered for some time in these wild places, deeply furrowed by numerous and dark valleys, enclosed by steep mountains covered with forests, whose vast silence is interrupted only by the sound of the torrent, he stopped a few leagues from Autun in a deserted wood and built himself a small hermitage. There, devoting himself day and night to intimate commerce with heaven, he remained for long hours immersed in prayer, poured out his soul in holy raptures, and aspired with long desires for eternal bliss. There, he thought, hidden in the secret of the face of the Lord, he could see his days pass, pious and calm, far from the worries of administration and all the noises of the world, unknown and forgotten, while awaiting the oblivion, the silence, and the rest of the tomb. His hope was deceived: the glory he fled attached itself in spite of him to his footsteps during his life, as it did to his memory after his death. The deserted place where he had pitched his tent to complete the pilgrimage of his life took a name, and that name was that of Celle, or the cell of Saint Merry, which it has always borne and still bears today. People went to visit the fountain where the man of God had quenched his thirst, the rock on which he went to pray. The desert itself had spoken, and it became populated. Pilgrims flocked from all sides, and a church replaced the humble cell. All around, cottages grouped together: the village of La Celle was created and attested that there, not long ago, a Saint had lived.

As soon as his sudden disappearance from the abbey was noted, all the brothers, sad and desolate like children who suddenly find themselves orphans, gave the first moments to grief; then, emerging from the gloomy and indecisive stupor in which they were plunged, they spread out in all directions searching for and asking after their father. Finally, after anxious and numerous investigations, they managed to discover the place of his retreat. The difficulty was to get him out of it. They did everything possible to win him over, alleging the most powerful reasons, putting forward the motives most capable of acting upon his tender and timid soul, addressing both his heart and his conscience. They begged him to return for the love of God and his spiritual sons, representing to him that he would acquire more merit for heaven by dedicating his life to the happiness of his brothers, to the edification of his neighbor, to the good of souls redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, to the fruitful works of zeal, than by working, in sterile isolation, for his own unique perfection. Prayers, representations, everything was useless.

The Saint believed that God wanted him in the desert, and his poor children, at first so happy to have found their father again, returned very sad: they were not bringing him back and remained orphans. What means could they take? Only one could succeed for them. They went, all in tears, to share t Ansbert Bishop of Autun who ordered Merry's return to the monastery. heir sorrow with the venerable Bishop of Autun. Ansbert, at this news, left immediately with them; and it took nothing less than an order supported by a threat of excommunication to tear the solitary from the sweetness of his Thebaid.

Merry, who wanted and sought only the salvation of his soul and the will of heaven, had seen the expression of this sovereign will in the very formal manifestation of that of his bishop: he therefore obeyed, but by offering to God his return to the midst of men as the greatest sacrifice of his life. Nevertheless, he fulfilled with renewed zeal all the functions of his office, spending as before, not by taste, but by duty, and consequently in a manner all the more meritorious, his entire life in the service of his neighbor; and never did his holiness shine with a brighter light. One did not know what to admire most in him, his charity or the miracles with which God rewarded it. At the same time that his humble and powerful prayer restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and the use of their limbs to the paralyzed, the words of salvation, burning with faith and perfumed with piety, that came from his mouth, healed the diseases of the soul, which were even sadder and often more stubborn than the diseases of the body. It is thus that, brought back to the active and public life, and giving himself to it through heroic efforts, through continuous struggles against his nature which called him to contemplation, he imitated the divine Master to the end in his sacrifices and in his kindness, and passed through life doing good.

But the day of deliverance and eternal rest was approaching. To prepare him for it, no doubt, God permitted, before calling his soul from the earth, that he be for some time relieved of the weight of his daily cares. Among the religious of the abbey was one named Frodulphe (commonly Saint Frou), whom Merry Frodulphe (vulgairement saint Frou) Preferred disciple and traveling companion of Saint Merry. esteemed and loved particularly. The holy abbot had once held him at the baptismal font and had since devoted himself to his education. He loved him as a son and cared for him as a disciple who knew how to understand him. Pouring his whole soul into this young soul, he had raised him to the highest perfection. Frodulphe returned in virtues and filial love what he received of sublime lessons and paternal affection. Moreover, he shared all the tastes of his cherished and venerated master, or rather of his father. Like him, little content with the common life of the cloister and aspiring only to the solitude of the desert; like him, loving to savor the delights of the contemplative life, a foretaste of heaven, to imitate in a mortal body the life of the seraphim. One day, out of pity and love for the holy abbot whose sorrows and most intimate desires he knew, and also to follow his own inclination, he proposed to him with lively insistence a pilgrimage to the tomb of the illustrious abbot of Saint-Symphorien, Saint Germain of Paris, his compatri saint Germain de Paris Bishop of Paris present at the consecration of the cathedral of Angoulême. ot and model. Merry accepted the invitation. There they were, both of them, setting out on foot toward the goal of their pious journey. Arriving at the monastery of Champeaux-en-Brie, near Melun, Merry could go no further. Forced by illness to stop in this holy house, he stayed there for a long time. Happy to be able to offer his sufferings to God, to converse freely with Him, to fast at his ease, and to spend long hours in the church day and night, he thanked Providence for having provided him these few moments of pious calm in a family of brothers. But soon reproaching himself for this quiet life, he left his forced rest as soon as his illness permitted, and sought in the exercise of Christian charity the opportunity to acquire new merits for heaven.

Having gone to Melun with the hope of finding there some peopl e wit Melun City whose evangelization and diocesan status are central to the work of Leo. h whom he could satisfy this sublime passion that pushed him to do good, the holy abbot heard from the church, at the moment the office was ending, the lamentable cries of the prisoners, poor people detained no doubt for not having been able to pay their debts to the treasury. Immediately moved by a deep feeling of pity, following the example of Saint Germain for whom he had a special devotion, he went to the custodian of public authority to ask for the release of the unfortunate captives. Not having found him, he addressed himself directly to the sovereign Master. His prayer was answered: the doors of the prison opened of their own accord. Immediately the crowd of people witnessing the miracle burst forth with a thousand enthusiastic cries of admiration and joy, while the Saint, author after God of this prodigy obtained through charity, hastened to return to the monastery of Champeaux to hide his glory.

He remained there for some time longer; but seeing that his illness was dragging on, and desirous of completing his pilgrimage, he procured a crude vehicle and left for Paris, regretting that he could not continue his journey on foot as he had begun it. His reputation was so great that the inhabitants of the region all ran to his path, their hands full of gifts. He accepted these gifts of popular piety with affability and gratitude and had them distributed to the poor, using for himself only the modest teams that took turns along the road to pull his poor chariot. This humble march was transformed by the brilliance of the miracles that accompanied it into a kind of ovation, and the miserable carriage into a triumphal chariot. Halfway there, a man named Ursus, who had made his way with great difficulty to Merry's path, returned entirely rid of a violent and stubbornly tenacious fever. A woman called Bénédicte, sick and possessed by the demon, was instantly healed and delivered. At the villa of Boneil and at Charenton, the Saint, whose heart formed by Christian piety always opened to compassion, asked for and obtained the grace of some unfortunate prisoners. During the journey from Melun to Paris, fatigue forced him to stop in a place then uninhabited and nameless. The piety of the people did not forget him: this little corner of land sanctified by the presence of the holy abbot of Autun kept his memory and his name. An oratory was built there, around which the pious faithful liked to group their dwellings; and the village of Saint-Merry was born. His memory was also honored not far from there, at Lynais, where a collegiate church was founded.

The servant of God was finally able to ente r Par Paris Place of birth, ministry, and death of the saint. is. He was suffering greatly, but the joy of finally reaching the long-desired goal of his pilgrimage made him forget all his pains. After having long poured out his soul in prayer, kneeling at the tomb of the former abbot of Saint-Symphorien, he went to rest his body, broken by fatigue and illness, in a small cell adjoining the church of Saint-Pierre, which was at that time outside the walls of the city, then still very modest, destined for such magnificence and grandeur. After having lived there as a recluse for nearly three years, able only to suffer and pray, the good and faithful servant heard the voice of the divine Master calling him to his eternal reward, gathered his disciples, revealed to them the day of his death, and completed, says the biographer, all his preparations for the mysterious passage from time to eternity, from earth to heaven. Then, having said farewell to his friends, to his spiritual children, to his dear Frodulphe, he breathed his last (August 29, 700) mingled with a final aspiration toward God: Inter verba orationis migravit ad Dominum. This great and beautiful soul, which had always felt like a stranger in this world and had aspired only to the heavenly homeland, was finally there forever.

Saint Merry is depicted holding chains, or having the door of a prison opened by angels. He is also seen looking at the sky from which several stars seem to descend towards him. The reason for this latter painting is that it was intended to express the heavenly notice he was given of his death.

## CULT AND RELICS.

The chapel of Saint-Pierre, where Merry was buried, became famous for the miracles performed there by the relics of the holy abbot and for the public cult established in his honor in the following century, under Charles the Bald. Being insufficient and moreover falling into ruins, it was rebuilt and transformed into a large church in 884 by Odon le Faucennier, the s Odon le Faucennier Rebuilder of the church of Saint-Merry in Paris in the 9th century. ame who distinguished himself two years later in the defense of Paris. Then the priest Théodebert, who served it, desirous of rendering to the venerated remains of the monk from Autun the honors they deserved, begged Gurlin, Bishop of Paris, to perform their solemn translation. The pontiff, hindered by the grave concerns of public affairs, had himself represented by his archdeacons. The ceremony was magnificent. All the clergy and all the religious of Paris attended with a great multitude of people. To the singing of the Te Deum and the psalms, the bones of the Saint were raised from the crypt where they had been placed at first, to be put into a silver shrine enriched with precious stones and supported by two angels, exposed above the high altar for public veneration. Adalard, Count of Autun and Abbot of Saint-Symphorien, made rich donations on this occasion to the new church, which was from then on placed under the double invocation of Saint Peter and Saint Merry. But it has kept only the latter name: it is still called today, in Paris, the church of Saint-Merry. The dioceses of Autun and Paris, which were already united by the intimate relations established by Saint Germain and Saint Dractevée, by the chapel and the cult of Saint Symphorien, thus saw the dear and sacred ties that already linked their respective histories to one another further tightened by Adalard, by the church and the cult of Saint Merry. Thus, wherever the Saints went, the memory, respect, and trust of the people followed them; thus were established currents which, starting from several main centers, made religious life circulate abundantly throughout the Middle Ages in the social body, from one end of France to the other. The Church of Champeaux received a portion of the relics of the Saint who had once illustrated it with his presence. The monastery of Autun, justly proud of having raised and then had as abbot such a great servant of God, founded a solemn mass in his honor, in order to consecrate the memory and obtain the help of a cherished brother, a venerated father, and a powerful protector before God.

Taken from the *Histoire de saint Symphorien et son culte*, by Abbé Dinet.