Saint Amatus of Grenoble

At the age of thirty, feeling drawn by God to a life entirely solitary and separated from the commerce of the world, he secretly left the monastery and retired into the hollow of a rock on a neighboring mountain, hoping to live there unknown to the world and known to God alone. However, his abbot sent religious men to look for him; they found him after three days which he had spent in perpetual abstinence. They urged him to return to the convent to continue his religious exercises there; but the Saint begged them to find it good that he remain in this cave and to have only the kindness to send him, every three days, a piece of barley bread and a little water to make all his meals. The abbot, informed of his desire, found it very agreeable, because the Holy Spirit was the author of it, and designated a religious man, named Bérin, to render him this office of charity.

The demon, unable to suffer such an extraordinary penance, appeared to him one day, and, having spilled the water that had been brought to him, he also carried off his bread, so that he would have nothing to nourish himself; but the Saint did nothing but praise God for it: "I give you thanks," he said, "my Lord Jesus Christ, that you are willing for me to prolong my fast, and that instead of three days, it should last six; for I know that the demon has only taken my bread from me by a very wise disposition of your divine Providence." The religious men, having a cell built for him, found the wood they wanted to use for it too short; but no sooner had he raised his heart to God than this wood miraculously lengthened, even more than was necessary, and he did not want the superfluous part to be cut, although the symmetry of the work was spoiled by it, because it was, he said, a gift of God. At the end of a year, having compassion for the trouble he was causing his charitable provider, he struck the rock with his staff and made a fountain spring from it.

He tilled the land around his hermitage and sowed barley for his subsistence; he had a small hand mill made to grind for himself the flour that was necessary for him to live: thus he was no longer a burden to anyone. When he was occupied with grinding, he placed his bare feet on small, sharp pebbles, in order to mortify himself in all things and to overcome, through pain, the temptations of the flesh. An enormous block of rock, detaching itself from the summit of the mountain, threatened to bury his cell under its ruins; he forbade it, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, to go any further, and at that very instant it stopped on the slope, above this small cell: it remained in this state for a long time.

The diocesan bishop, who was the Bishop of Sion, could not get enough of the amiable conversations of this excellent hermit, and he often left his palace and his cathedral to come and spend a few precious moments with him. One day, he offered him a considerable sum of money, both for his own needs and to distribute to those he knew to be in need: the Saint constantly refused it; he protested that, having renounced the goods of the earth, he no longer had any intention of burdening himself with them. The bishop, not wishing to take back his alms, placed them under the altar where the Saint, who was already a priest, was accustomed to say Mass; but this great servant of God, having noticed it after his departure and not wishing to have anything that might be a source of temptation, took the money and threw it into the depths of the valley, saying: "The Lord is my inheritance; I have no need of these coins." He was clothed only in sheepskins, and during Lent he abstained even from bread, contenting himself with five nuts, which he often did not even eat until after three days of continuous abstinence.

Saint Eustace Saint Eustase Abbot of Luxeuil who persuaded Amatus to leave his solitude. , abbot of Luxeuil, so famous for his great deeds, flourished at that time and spread the light of his holiness throughout all of France. While passing through Saint-Maurice on his way to Italy, he visited Saint Amé and formed a very close friendship with him. Upon his return, he begged him to leave his solitude, in which he had exercised himself in private virtues for quite some time, and to come to his abbey, where he could work usefully for the salvation of his neighbor. Amé yielded to his advice and went to the monastery of Luxeuil. It was a firmament filled with brilliant stars that gave off a marvelous light; but one can say that Amé eclipsed them all and made them disappear by the splendor of his virtues. His gentleness, his affability, his prudence, his humility, and his patience made him cherished by all the brothers; he also possessed a heavenly wisdom and eloquence, and spoke divinely of the mysteries of our faith. These rare qualities led to him being sent to preach the truths of the Gospel in Austrasia, where most of the people lived in very great ignorance. It was during this journey that he won Saint Romaric, a ri ch and powerf saint Romaric Noble converted by Amatus and co-founder of Remiremont. ul lord, entirely to God, and convinced him to leave all things to embrace the religious life. His goods served to found a monastery; Saint Amé placed a community of holy women there, of whom he established Saint Macteffède as abbess. He healed a cripple who had no use of his feet and hands, and he cast the demon out of the body of a nun who had been possessed for having eaten an apple without permission.

Amatus divided his nuns into seven choirs that relieved one another continuously to sing the praises of God, so that there was no time, neither day nor night, when one did not hear, in this edifying monastery, the singing of psalms and sacred hymns, and when the nuns did not adore the sovereign majesty of their Creator. Shortly after, Romaric founded a monastery for men nearby, which took and gave to the region the name of its founder, Romberg or Remiremont. Saint Amatus was place Remiremont Monastery founded by Romaric in the Vosges. d in charge of the latter, and at the same time entrusted with the spiritual direction of the nuns' monastery. To escape as much as possible from the distractions that the care of his monasteries could cause him, our Saint had established his dwelling on the mountainside, in a cave formed by a rocky outcrop, and so low and narrow that there was only just enough space for him to enter. It is there that the parish church of Saint-Amé (Vosges) stands today. A monk would lower by a rope, from the top of the rock, the piece of bread and the vessel of water that made up his food. He was notified by the sound of a small bell. He only left there on Sundays and feast days, to come and distribute to his dear daughters and his monks the bread of the word of God. His advice was given with such gentleness that no one could exempt themselves from obeying it. The sisters having one day put a swarm of honeybees in a different hive than the one he had marked for them, they all flew away and could not remain there; but when, having retrieved them, they had put them in the hive he had designated for them, they remained there and worked with activity to make their honey.

A year before his death, he predicted the time he would die, and having had a bed of ashes made for himself to complete the penance he had begun in his childhood, he made a humble confession of all his faults before all the Brothers, covered in a hairshirt and humbled in the dust. His life was a continual martyrdom, and even when he lay down, instead of finding rest, he found only a continuation or rather an increase of pains and torments; but he rejoiced in his sufferings, because he knew that they would last but a short time and that the reward for them would be eternal. He became so thin and emaciated that his bones pierced his skin, and he appeared as nothing more than a skeleton. Being near death, he had the famous Epistle of Saint Leo the Great to Saint Fla vian, Archbishop of Constantinople, read to h Épître de saint Léon le Grand à saint Flavien Theological text read to Amé on his deathbed. im, and, while it was being read, he said: "I believe it so, O ineffable Trinity: I confess all these truths, O almighty God; I have this sentiment of you, O Jesus Christ, Son of the living God; I think thus of your divinity, O Holy Spirit, eternal God. Finally, I believe and I confess one God subsisting in the trinity of Persons, and three Persons subsisting in the unity of a single divine nature."

His humility was so profound that he judged himself unworthy to be buried within the enclosure of the church; he ordered his body to be placed at the door of the basilica of the Mother of God, with an epitaph that he dictated himself, in which he prayed all passersby, who might have obtained the effect of their prayers in this temple, not to forget to intercede for the rest of his soul, because he recognized that his penances had been very light for the enormity of his faults. This is how this great man spoke of some venial sins he had committed out of fragility during his life. Finally, he died in the midst of his brothers, and revealed, after his death, the happiness his soul enjoyed in heaven.

Saint Amé was buried outside the monastery church, as his humility had led him to desire. But after a year, he revealed to one of his disciples that it was God's will that his precious body be transferred to the church of the Blessed Virgin. It was indeed done; and at his tomb there was a continuous gathering of pilgrims who often received relief from their illnesses, and many other things they asked of God through the intercession of His servant.

Around the year 910, his relics were removed, along with those of Saints Romaric and Adolphe, by Drogon, Bishop of Toul, who transferred them to the new monastery built at the foot of the mountain, on the other bank of the Moselle. In the following century, in 1051, Pope Saint Leo, ninth of the name, at t pape saint Léon Pope who visited the saint's sepulchre in 1049. he request of Oda, Abbess of Remiremont, delegated Hugh the Great, Archbishop of Besançon, and Udon, primicerius of the Church of Toul, to verify the virtues and miracles of Saints Amé, Romaric, and Adolphe, and of Saint Gébétrude. The investigation completed, the relics of the Saints were solemnly raised and placed in the same church, in a more suitable place. Then, the two delegates had the miracles whose authenticity they had verified confirmed by the Pope, and had their memory inserted into the office of these Saints. Leo himself consecrated the high altar of the church. At the monastery of Remiremont, the various translations of these Saints were commemorated on February 15, March 17, August 20, and November 13.

The first monastery built by the Saint at the summit of the Saint-Mont was destroyed by the Huns, and re-established by Emperor Louis III, beyond the Moselle, at the foot of the mountain; it became the nucleus of the city of Remiremont. Later, the nuns took the name and habit of canonesses, under the Rule of Saint B enedict. Only the abb Règle de Saint-Benoît Religious order occupying the monastery of Honnecourt. ess made solemn vows; the other nuns could return to secular life, and even marry. The establishment subsisted until the Revolution.

Acta Sanctorum; Mabillon; Surius; Vie des Saints de Franche-Comté; Histoire du diocèse de Toul et de celui de Nancy, by Abbé Guillaume.