Saint Remaclus

This new dignity only increased his reputation as well as his virtue: it was represented to the king that it would be advantageous, to him and to his entire State, to have him near him to make use of his counsel. It was then Sigebert who reigned: he willingly listened to this proposal, and, without delay, he ordered our Saint to come to his person as soon as possible. It was only with regret that this blessed abbot left his dear solitude, to enter into the embarrassments of the world and especially to live at court, where life is as different from that of the cloister as the sea agitated by winds and storms is different from the calm and tranquility of the port. He was nevertheless forced to obey, and the king, who already had such a high idea of his merit, received him with all sorts of testimonies of friendship and confidence.

He therefore remained with this prince, assisting him with his advice in the most important affairs of his kingdom, with no other design than to procure the glory of God, the relief of the people, the peace of the State, and the preservation of the monarchy. At this time, Sai nt Amand, Maëstricht Final destination of the pilgrimage of Evermar. Bishop of Maastricht, seeing that, neither by his prayers, nor by his threats, nor by the force of his exhortations, could he gain anything over his diocesans to make them leave their disorders and live according to the rules of Christian discipline, had shaken the dust from his feet upon them, and had retired to another country to spread the light of the Gospel there. The inhabitants of Maastricht, after having long awaited his return, weary of seeing themselves without a pastor, and resolved to change their lives, sent deputies to the king to beg him to give them Rémacle in his place. He was the man in the world who best deserved this prelacy, and who, alone, could compensate for the loss that this people had suffered of the great Saint Amand. The king, touched by their prayers, had him called, and, having exposed to him the desire and the entreaties of this abandoned flock, begged him to be willing to take care of it. Rémacle excused himself as much as he could from this charge, alleging that it far surpassed his strength, and that he was in no way capable of the functions attached to the episcopate; but the princes and the great men of the court, joining their remonstrances to those of the king, did so much that they obliged him to defer to the election that the clergy and the people of that city had unanimously made of his person.

As he had imbibed the holiness and sweetness of monastic life from his childhood, religious were the primary objects of his veneration and tenderness. He founded several monasteries, the conduct of which he entrusted to holy persons. King Sigebert also had several abbeys built upon his advice, among others that of Malmedy, in the diocese of Cologne, and that of Stavelot, within the ext Stavelot Abbey where Lambert went into exile for seven years. ent of his own jurisdiction: he called the first Malmundarium, because he had previously delivered the place from evil spirits, and, for the second, he left it the name of Stabuletum, because it was a place where animals previously gathered, as in a stable, to take their pasture. The demon opposed himself primarily to the establishment of this latter monastery, and he often brought all around a great quantity of wild beasts which, by their cries, their howlings, and their frightful bellowings, cast terror into the minds of the religious. But the Saint fortified them against these attacks with his exhortations full of fire: "Fear nothing, my children," he said to them, "observe inviolably the law of God; preserve the innocence of your soul, pray without ceasing, sing the praises of your Creator with fervor, watch at night, read the holy Scriptures, often imprint upon your forehead the salutary sign of the cross, and you will see all the phantoms that your enemy makes appear vanish. It is thus that our Fathers, the first inhabitants of the desert, drove him from the solitudes of Egypt, the Thebaid, and Nitria, and you must not doubt that the same weapons will produce a similar effect in your hands."

The incomparable wisdom of this great prelate attracted to him disciples of very great merit: among others Saint Theodard, Saint Lambert, and Saint Trudo, whose names are in singular veneration throughout all Flanders. Saint Trudo expressed to him the desire to give his wealth, which was very considerable, to some church; the Saint did not propose his cathedral, nor any of his monasteries to be his donees, but he advised him rather to bestow his liberality upon the church of Saint Stephen of Metz, which he knew to be in indigence. Notger exclaims that he undoubtedly, in this, surpassed the virtue of all the priests and all the bishops of his time, since any other would have prayed and solicited for his own church, and would have preferred its interest to all other houses.

When Saint Remaclus had filled the vast solitudes of the Ardennes with this multitude of earthly angels, he returned to take up the care of his flock at Maastricht. There was indeed a difference between the morals of his diocesans and those of these innocent troops of religious whom he left in these monasteries; but he knew that he was a debtor to the weak and to the strong, and that, following the example of Saint Paul, he had to make himself all things to all men to win them all; thus, he applied himself with a zeal entirely new to polish these spirits that the ancient barbarism of the country rendered little tractable: he succeeded happily. The King then ordered him to go and consecrate the newly built churches, as much in his own diocese as in that of Cologne: which he did in the presence of Prince Grimoald, Mayor of the Palace, after nevertheless having obtained the permission of Saint Cunibert, Archbishop of Cologne, for those that were within his jurisdiction.

The desire for retirement finally made him prefer the monastic life to episcopal functions. He obtained the approval of the court for this, and he proposed to his people Saint Theodard, his disciple, to succeed him. The farewell he bade his flock nearly drowned them in their tears; cries and groans were heard on all sides, and everyone asked for mercy from heaven, as if the city were about to be destroyed. He tried in vain to appease them, pointing out that he would always pray to God for their preservation, and that, far from losing by the change of pastor, they would on the contrary gain much, because they would be governed by a Saint. These remonstrances only increased their sorrow. The wisest among them spoke and said to him: "If the sad state in which you see us reduced, holy priest of Jesus Christ, does not have enough strength to make you change your design, we appeal from this resolution to the tribunal of your own justice. Judge for yourself, just judge, if it is permitted for a pastor to leave his flock when God still gives him enough strength to lead it, and when it is willing to profit from his instructions. Those who hear of your retirement will either condemn you for cowardice, for having preferred rest to work, and your own inclination to the salvation of your flock, or, casting the blame on us, they will imagine that we are rebels who cannot suffer spiritual domination, and who, after having forced Saint Amand, your predecessor, to shake the dust from his feet against us, have again rendered ourselves guilty of so many crimes that you have been forced to exercise the same vengeance against us." Saint Remacle interrupted them to tell them that heaven and earth were witnesses to the profit they had made from his care, and that no one was unaware that he loved his people and was greatly loved by them; but he begged them to allow him, after having spent the greater part of his life in the service of others and in the office of Martha, to employ some remainder for his own satisfaction and the exercises of Mary; most of the bishops, his predecessors, had acted in this manner, and he wished to imitate, at least in this, their example; he would not move away from the diocese, but would choose a solitude to assist them in their needs: Moses was not useless to his people while retired on the mountain, while Joshua fought his enemies. Finally, he was still willing to serve as a spiritual father to those who had the courage to follow him and to the young clerics who were destined for the Church and who would be placed under his guidance. It was thus that he moderated the sorrow of his children, and that they finally allowed him to retire to his monastery of Stavelot.

Several people, touched by his example and desiring to live under such an excellent director, left the world at the same time to become religious there: among others, Saint Babolin, whom he made abbot of Malmédy and who was, later, his successor in this same abbey of Stavelot. King Sigebert ceded to him several beautiful lands for the subsistence of his monastery: a cession confirmed after the death of this prince by King Childeric, his nephew. One cannot express the holiness with which they lived in this house; it was there that, later, the great Saint Lambert, who ascended the see of Maastricht after Saint Theodard, retired when he was driven from his throne for having spoken the truth.

Finally, Saint Remacle, foreseeing the hour of his death, called around him his religious who were in great number, and said to them: "Most holy Fathers and dearest brothers, whom I carry in my heart, and who are half of my soul, I am on the point of leaving you to see you no more until heaven. Death has nothing terrible for me, and I do not fear its approach: it is not pernicious to him who has placed his trust in God; it is not unforeseen to him who has thought of it all his life, and it cannot be miserable to him who has prepared for it at all times. You are the only thing in the world that I have difficulty leaving, because I fear that the enemy of our salvation may make you relax from your first fervor after my death. But if the last words of a father who loves you and whom you love have any force on your spirit, I pray and conjure you to flee the slightest appearances of vice, and to practice faithfully all the virtues. Preserve the faith, purity of heart, and concord among yourselves. Let the holy books almost never leave your hands. Be assiduous in prayer and in the meditation of eternal truths. Vigorously repel temptations from their very birth. Confess your sins with humility to God and to your prelates. Love poverty, chastity, obedience, and temperance. Farewell, my dear children, may the sorrow by which you appear touched make you better remember and practice what I recommend to you in dying; remember that you must all die, and that a day will come when you might regret the precious moments that you have lost; for we are but ash and dust, and our years flee almost imperceptibly."

After this admirable exhortation, he received the holy Viaticum and died in the kiss of the Lord, in the hands of his disciples. His body was buried in a chapel of his abbey dedicated to Saint Martin. The whole Church of Stavelot now has him as its patron. An infinity of miracles has been performed through his intercession, of which Notger, who gave us his life, composed two large books; Surius makes an abridgment of it which he reports on this day, September 3rd. It suffices to say that the blind, the deaf, the mute, the paralyzed, and all sorts of other sick people have been cured at his tomb; that the afflicted have been consoled there, the penitents absolved, and the hardened sinners and libertines punished in a terrible manner.

Aigulphe Aigulphe Abbot of Lérins and martyr, known for the translation of the relics of Saint Benedict. , commonly known as Ayou, was born in Blois around the year 630 and embraced monastic life at the Benedictine abbey of Fleury, or Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire (Floriacum ad Ligerim), in the diocese of Orléans. He was received among the other religious by Saint Momble, the second abbot of this house, who is sometimes called Saint Memmol or Memmolin. This superior chose him for the execution of the plan he had long formed to have the relics of Saint Benedict, buried under the ruins of the abbey of Monte Cassino in the kingdom of Naples, rem Mont-Cassin A location in Italy where the relics of Saint Scholastica were kept. oved.

Ayou departed, accompanied by a few people from Le Mans, and took such good measures that, after having successfully discovered the tomb of Saint Benedict and that of his sister, Saint Scholastica, he removed the bones and transported them to France. Those of Saint Benedict were placed in the abbey of Fleury, and those of Saint Scholastica were sent to Le Mans.

Later called to govern the monastery of Saint-Honorat of Lérins, in Provence, Aigulf attempted to restore discipline there; but his virtuous efforts drew upon him the animosity of the wicked; some perverse men, encouraged by the lord of Nice, hatched a plot against the holy abbot and assassinated him on the island of Amatune. The Church, and in particular the diocese of Blois, his homeland, honors him as a martyr on September 3rd.

Pious hands gathered his mortal remains and deposited them at Lérins, where several miracles came to proclaim their sanctification. In the 11th century, a Benedictine priory was founded in the city of Provins (in Brie), under the invocation of Saint-Ayou, through the piety of Thibault, Count of Blois, Brie, and Champagne. Some portions of the body were brought there from Lérins. The church of Provins has preserved, to this day, an ancient statue of Saint Ayou, along with a reliquary containing his bones. Every year, on September 4th, this reliquary is exposed; and pilgrims continue to flock there, as in the past.

In the desire to offer peoples the means to work out their salvation and to propagate his Order, Saint Francis of Assisi sent, in 1219 and 1220, several of his companions into the different regions of Europe. Spain was assigned to John of P erugia, a pries Jean de Pérouse Franciscan priest and martyr in Spain. t, and to Peter of Sassoferrato, a brother. Arriving in Teruel (Turbula), in the kingdom of Aragon, they built themselves two poor cells near a church, and began to travel through the country, which they evangelized and edified by their holy life. They soon acquired a great reputation for holiness. Their zeal led them to Valencia, a city occupied by the Moors. There reigned a bitter enemy of the Christian name, named Azot e. Th Azote Moorish prince of Valencia, initially a persecutor who later converted to Christianity. e two missionaries were not long in being arrested. This prince did everything in his power to make them abjure their faith, but, furious to see his efforts useless, he had their heads cut off (1230). Miracles did not take long to prove the holiness of the two disciples of Saint Francis.

Azote was at war with the Christians, and from that moment the fortune of arms was constantly unfavorable to him; attributing these reverses to the protection of the God of the Christians, he resolved to treat with the king; he offered to cede his kingdom to him provided that he provided him with the means to live honorably and to become a Christian. The King of Aragon accepted. Azote was baptized, and the palace of Valencia was assigned to him for his dwelling. Faithful to his promises, Azote banished Mohammedanism from Valencia, re-established the worship of the true God there, and called the Friars Minor to it, to whom, with the assent of the King of Aragon, he gave his palace to found a convent there. It is thus that the Franciscans were established in Valencia after Clement XI and Bened Pie VI Pope cited as having approved the cult of Julie in 1821. ict XIV had approved the cult of the two martyrs. Pius VI beatified them on April 2, 1783. Their relics are kept in Teruel.

Acta Sanctorum.