Saint Bavo, Count of Hesbaye

Such was Bavon; his soul, already shaken by the virtues of his wife and daughter, aspired to return to the right path when he felt struck to the heart at a time when Saint Amand had returned to these regions after one of his missions. His pious companion, like a flower harvested before its time, suddenly began to languish, to lose her strength, and soon she descended to the tomb. Bavon's grief could not be expressed. The tears, the sobs, the roars he let out in his sadness broke the hardest of hearts. It was the hour of grace: he was faithful to it this time. In these days of mourning, the name of Amand rang in his ears. Immediately, Bavon felt Amand Spiritual advisor to Gertrude. desires awaken within him that agitated and pressed him. He left his castle, too long a witness to his violence, and headed toward the monastery of Ghent. There, all in tears, he threw hi mself at the feet monastère de Gand City where Livinus stayed and of which he is the patron saint. of Amand, then, making a humble confession of his crimes, he asked for penance. "Holy pontiff," he cried out, "for the salvation of my soul, give me wise counsel. I wish to follow it; I wish to correct my entire life and purify it. I abandon myself to you, holy pontiff; have pity on me, save me." Saint Amand, at the height of happiness, raised Bavon, received him with charity like a sheep returning to the fold, and mixing tears of joy with those of repentance, he declared that he was ready to sacrifice himself, if necessary, to save him. After these first transports and mutual outpourings of the heart, the holy missionary addressed salutary warnings to Bavon. He represented to him the profound disgust that the Christian soul must have for a world plunged in malice, where virtues are despised and passions and vices are honored. He placed before his eyes the ineffable sweetness of the heavenly city, where the just will bless the Lord for eternity and where all those who have been holily united on earth will meet again before the throne of God. Amand also spoke to him of the efforts of the devil to turn men away from salvation, and the delicious consolations that God pours into the hearts of those who devote themselves to His service. Bavon listened to these words of the holy bishop: they fell upon his heart like a sweet and fertile dew, which was to produce abundant fruit. At that moment, all the memories of his past life appeared to his memory; he remembered the virtues of his wife, whom he would see again in the abode of happiness promised to repentance as well as to innocence; he remembered the sweet caresses and prayers of little Agitetrude, the living image of her mother; then, after turning his thoughts once again to the crimes of his youth, he gave free rein to the sobs that escaped from his chest and the tears with which his face was flooded. But Amand softened his pain and repeated to him incessantly that the Lord is good, full of mercy, and that He does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he should convert and live.

Bavon had unburdened his heart of the heavy weight of his iniquities; he began to taste the sweetness of peace in a purified conscience. After several days spent with Saint Amand, he returned to his castle. Arriving among his own, this man, until then the terror of the land, and whom even his servants approached only with trembling, began to distribute his goods to the poor, the infirm, and the unfortunate of every condition. His speech, once harsh and haughty, became gentle and full of kindness; his manners breathed benevolence and the most affectionate charity. The humility of his sentiments and the wisdom of his conduct edified all who saw him, and everyone repeated, while blessing God, that grace had touched Bavon and that he had become a new man.

Having shared his wealth with the poor and the churches of the region, Bavon finished putting his temporal affairs in order. Then he returned to Saint Amand, carrying the olive branch of peace, fleeing, like the dove, this world he had inhabited for too long. Amand, as prudent in the guidance of souls as he was zealous for the honor and service of God, received with kindness the humble penitent who asked him for the tonsure, in order to establish himself, by this free choice of his will, in the happy necessity of living better from then on. He reminded Bavon that he was free to remain in the world to lead a Christian life there, but that once admitted into the clerical or monastic militia, he would no longer be able to break this engagement, despite the temptations by which the devil would not fail to assail him. Nothing could shake the resolution of the noble Bavon.

Saint Amand, then embracing him as a beloved son, led him into the monastery church. There, prostrate before the altar, the penitent laid down all that remained of his warrior insignia and received, with a happiness that his tears betrayed, the humble tonsure of the clerics. From that moment, he submitted to religious discipline under the direction of Florbert, one of the disciples of Saint Amand. Sometimes he also asked the holy missionary to accompany him on his travels, in order to instruct himself more and more in his company and to expiate by all sorts of hardships and deprivations the disorders of his past life. Now, such was the fervor of Bavon that it did not let him miss any opportunity to testify to the vividness of his repentance. One day, he met one of his former servants whom he had, some years before, mistreated, struck, and had put in prison. At the sight of him, sorrow seized him: he approached this man and, throwing himself at his feet, he cried out with tears in his eyes: "I conjure you, forget the evil I have done to you and treat me as I treated you myself. Strike my body with rods; strip me of my hair like a thief, and lead me into prison, with my feet and fists bound." The former servant of Bavon, surprised and confused, refused to execute this order. He would not dare lay a hand on a man who was once his master and who appeared to him today with all the marks of a public penitent. But Bavon pressed him, solicited him, conjured him, and made such entreaties that he finally consented. The vassal therefore bound the terrible hands of this Count of Hesbaye; he cut his hair, put shackles on hi s feet and fist comte d'Hesbaye Saint whose tomb was visited by Livin, who also composed his epitaph. s, and led him in this state to a prison. Bavon blessed God for being able to give this satisfaction to him as well as to the men he had so often scandalized and outraged by his violence. He remained for some time in this place, shedding tears in abundance, then he returned to his monastery.

However, Bavon continued to give himself over to the most frightening macerations. Lying on the hard ground and with his body covered in a hair shirt, he took as food only barley bread soaked in water, into which he often mixed his tears. His feet were in shackles similar to those of criminals confined in dungeons; and as if these mortifications had been insufficient, he soon asked to lead the life of a recluse in a narrow dwelling. This prayer, dictated by the repentance of a generous soul, was granted. He therefore left the city of Ghent, and having retired to a wood called Beila, he enclosed himself in the hollow of an old elm tree that he found spacious enough to serve as his cell. He believed himself better housed in this home that nature had prepared for him than in the most beautiful palaces and under gilded ceilings. His poverty, which was extreme, seemed to him more abundant than the very abundance of princes and sovereigns. He lived there almost only on prayers and praises of God, which he repeated continually day and night; his bodily nourishment was very modest: it consisted of wild fruits, herbs, and roots. He was finally discovered in this place, and that was enough to attract an infinity of people who flocked there, some to listen to his instructions, others to ask for the help of his prayers, and still others, finally, to admire his way of life, similar to that of Saint John the Baptist and the first inhabitants of the deserts.

As he saw himself too disturbed by this multitude of people of all ranks and conditions, he fled at night into an extremely thick forest called Medmedung. Having cleared a small spot by cutting the brambles and thorns that were there, he built himself a poor cell of tree branches, pebbles, and mud. He remained there for some time without being known by anyone, having no more conversation than with God and the Saints. Oh! what joy he had to be thus separated from everything that could attach his heart and prevent him from rising at every moment toward heaven! Nuts and wild apples, which he gathered from the trees, made up his food; and, if thirst pressed him, he quenched it with the water of a stream that flowed near his hermitage. But, although he was so well hidden, he was nevertheless discovered; and as he was only two leagues from Ghent, he immediately saw the crowd making a path through the brush to have the happiness of coming to see him. This prodigious gathering made him believe that his solitude, which made him singular and caused him to be noticed among the clerics and monks, could be more harmful to him than the life of a community; thus, having learned that Saint Amand, who continued to work for the advancement of religion in the city of Ghent, had assembled religious under the guidance of the venerable Abbot Florbert, he asked to be admitted. The joy of his entry was mutual; as much as he had consolation to be received into this house of prayer and mortification, so much did the religious who had wished for it have gladness to see among them a man whom his birth, his virtue, and his entirely miraculous life already made so famous throughout the country. As they were building him a cell, the carter who was carrying stones and wood fell from his cart and had his legs crushed. The Saint prayed for him with such insistence that he healed him; which confirmed the whole people marvelously, not only in the esteem of his holiness, but also in the belief in the resurrection of the dead and in all the other points of our religion.

After a few years of penance in this cell, Bavo was inspired to undertake a new one, even harsher and longer than all those he had performed until then; he therefore fashioned for himself a cavern so low and so narrow that, for lack of height, he could not stand fully upright, and, for lack of space, he could not lie down or sit, but only remain bent; Bishop Saint Amand and Abbot Florbert approved his devotion and even led him solemnly to this place, accompanied by the clergy and the people who sang psalms and hymns. Bavo entered this horrible prison with a joy and consolation that cannot be expressed. His abstinence there was extreme: he ate only a little tasteless and unleavened bread, and drank only a little water. His sleep was very short, and, even during his sleep, his soul, accustomed to contemplation, did not cease to unite itself intimately with its Lord. His life was nothing but continuous prayer and love of God. Furthermore, one cannot conceive of the good he did for all this region. There were constantly people around his cave: he reconciled those who were angry with one another, settled lawsuits, converted sinners, instructed the ignorant, and inflamed the faithful with the fire of divine love. If his words were not strong enough to win over some hardened hearts, or to turn away the scourges of God's justice, he redoubled his abstinences and practiced unheard-of austerities. In a word, he was no less interested in the spiritual good of cities, dioceses, and individuals than if he had been charged with it by God, and if he had to render an account of it at the tribunal of His justice. The demon, unable to endure the great victories that this admirable soldier of Jesus Christ was winning over him, used all sorts of ruses and artifices to intimidate him, fill him with dread, and make him abandon his solitude. Sometimes he shook this frail building with dreadful winds and storms; at other times he surrounded it with fire and flames; sometimes also he made an infinity of dragons, lions, bears, wolves, and other wild beasts appear all around him. But Bavo mocked these specters, and, relying on the help of his God, he defied all of hell to tear him away and make him leave his voluntary prison. One day, after a harsh combat, he fell asleep from weariness, and during his sleep, an angel appeared to him in the form of a dove, and filled his soul and his senses with so many delights that he already believed himself to be in heaven. From then on, he thought only of leaving the earth to go and enjoy the happiness of the vision of God. He was further assured of his beatitude by a cross of light that descended upon his head in the presence of a great multitude of people, who had rushed to receive his instructions.

As the hour of his death approached, he wished to be assisted, in this final moment, by a holy priest named Domlin, parish priest of Turnhout. This priest was very far away, and the boy who was assisting our Saint did not know the way to his rectory; he nevertheless set out to go there; an angel having joined him, led him safely, and brought him back with this venerable ecclesiastic, whose presence Saint Bavon desired. Shortly after, a troop of blessed spirits descended into his cell to receive his soul and carry it to the abode of beatitude. "Farewell," he then said to those present, "farewell, holy company of servants of God; Jesus Christ is himself present. My soul, come out of your prison and go to meet him." Saying these words, he expired. It was the 4th of October, around 654. The religious were all bathed in tears; but they were consoled when they learned that this blessed soul had appeared to Saint Gertrude, in order to pray her to send shrouds sainte Gertrude Saint whose tomb is visited by Evermar. to bury his body. His funeral procession was surrounded not only by priests and religious, but also by lords and nobles, and above all by an infinite number of the poor, widows, orphans, and the miserable, who wept for his death no less bitterly than if they had lost their father and mother.

Saint Bavo is represented: 1st, withdrawn into the hollow of a tree which serves as his cell; 2nd, wearing, as a mark of his nobility, either armor or a rich costume, and a naked sword in his hand; 3rd, having a falcon on his left fist, as a sign of lordship; 4th, wearing a plumed cap, dressed in a long prince's cloak, and sometimes holding a book in his hand, to indicate the meditations to which he devoted himself in his retreat; 5th, healing, as we have said, a man who had had his legs broken by his chariot; 6th, carrying a church in his hand, as founder (at least through the intermediary of his disciples) of the Abbey of Saint Peter of Ghent, which later took the name of Saint Bavo; 7th, with the staff and walking stick of a hermit; 8th, sometimes having in his arms a large stone that he carries to his hermitage to use as a pillow. This stone was preserved for a long time in Mendonck (East Flanders), in memory of the Saint. Saint Bavo is invoked against whooping cough: he is the patron saint of Ghent and Haarlem. CULT AND RELICS. Sixty gentlemen, touched by the example that Saint Bavo had left them, dedicated themselves to the austerities of penance. They had the church of his name built in Ghent, whic h wa Gand City where Livinus stayed and of which he is the patron saint. s first served by canons, then by religious of Saint Benedict. Pope Paul III abolished the monastery in 1537, at the request of Emperor Charles V. This prince, having had a citadel built on this site Charles-Quint Emperor involved in the wars leading to the destruction of the convent. , transferred the chapter, three years later, to the church of Saint John, which, since that time, has possessed the relics and bears the name of Saint Bavo. This church became a cathedral when, in 1559, Paul IV erected a bishopric in Ghent, at the request made to him by Philip II, King of Spain. Saint Bavo is the patron saint of this city; he is also the patron of the church of Haarlem (North Holland), where a fair ly cons Haarlem City in Holland possessing relics of Saint Bavo. iderable part of his relics is kept with respect.

Saint Dominic c Saint Dominique Founder of the order whose rule Benvenuta follows and intercessor for her healing. onverted one hundred thousand Albigensians by making them know and love the adorable mysteries of the holy Rosary. Let us insist on the example of this great laborer for the temporal glories of the Queen of Angels, and we shall work fruitfully for the conversion of those Albigensians of the 19th century who blaspheme everything they are ignorant of and deprave themselves in things they study only for the profit of their abject passions.

Fr. Combeint, Instructions.

In thanksgiving for the victory won at Lepanto, a fortified city and port of modern Greece, by the Christians, on the first Sunday of October (the 7th of that month), in the year 1571, the holy Pope Pius V (1565-1572) instituted an annual feast under the title of Saint Mary of Victory. Two years later, Gregory XIII (1572-1585) changed this title to that of Our Lady of the Rosary, and approved a proper office for the feast for all churches where there was an altar dedicated under the invocation of Saint Mary of the Rosary. Clement X (1670-1676) extended the feast to all churches in the Spanish dominion. The army of Emperor Charles VI having defeated the Turks near Temeswar (Hungary) on the day of the feast of Our Lady of the Snows, in the year 1716, and these infidels having lifted the siege of Corfu (the ancient Corcyra, capital of one of the Ionian Islands) on the day of the Octave of the Assumption of the same year, Clement XII (1730-1740) made the office of the feast of the Rosary universal.

We have already spoken, in the life of Saint Dominic de Guzman, of the establishment of the holy Rosary, which recognizes this blessed Patriarch as its founder; but, as it is at this time that the Church makes mention of it in her martyrology, and its solemnity is celebrated in all the churches of the Order of Preachers and in many others that participate in the same devotion, we have believed it necessary to make a separate discourse here, in favor of those who compose this great Confraternity. We note, therefore, that there are three things to distinguish in the Rosary: its matter, its form, and the sacred and religious union of the faithful who bind themselves to recite it, which we call a Congregation or Confraternity.

As for its matter, it consists of the most holy and august prayers that could ever come from the mouth of a Christian, namely: the Symbol of the faith, composed by the Apostles at the time of their separation, through the lights and movement of the Holy Spirit; the Lord's Prayer, taught by Jesus Christ himself to his disciples when they asked him how they should pray; and the Angelic Salutation, which is the greeting that the angel Gabriel brought from heaven to the glorious Virgin to declare to her that she was to be the Mother of God, with the blessings that Saint Elizabeth, her cousin, gave her when she received her visit, and a supplication that the Church adds to it to implore her intercession with God, both during our life and at the hour of our death.

The Symbol comprises, in twelve articles, the principal mysteries of our faith, and one can even say that it comprises them all, since by confessing the holy Catholic Church, which is our mother and our mistress, it embraces all her doctrine and attaches itself inseparably to all her decisions. By reciting it, one makes an excellent act of faith and submission to all revealed truths; one adores the eternal Father as the principle of our creation; one adores his Son as the author of our redemption; one adores the Holy Spirit as the source of our sanctification. One is drawn to these three divine persons in the unity of their essence by a movement of pure love; one is filled with the mysteries of Jesus Christ being born, suffering, and glorious; one proposes to oneself the last ends, which are death, judgment, the reward of the good, and the punishment of the impious; one animates one's hope by the consideration of the help that the just render to one another in the union of charity that is between them, and by the sight of the remedies that God has placed in his Church for the remission of sins. Finally, one is consoled for the miseries of the present life by the expectation of the resurrection and a blessed life that will never end.

The Lord's Prayer is the most excellent and perfect of vocal prayers. It is the summary of all others, just as Jesus Christ, according to the prophet Isaiah, is the abbreviated word of the eternal Father. It contains with a marvelous order everything that one can legitimately ask for, whether spiritual or temporal, and as much for the exemption from evil as for the advancement in good. It extends to the benefits of nature, grace, and glory, and to what concerns the honor of our heavenly Father, our own interest, and that of our neighbor. It contains eminent acts of all virtues, such as faith, humility, detachment from temporal things, the ardent desire for eternal goods, trust in God, resignation to his will and to the orders of his Providence, the forgiveness of injuries, and charity toward one's neighbor. It has a marvelous force and virtue, since the eternal Father is not about to reject a prayer that his own Son puts into our mouths, and of which he is the author and master. Finally, it is the only prayer necessary for all Christians, and the model by which we must regulate everything we must ask for.

The Angelic Salutation, with all that accompanies it, is the rarest and most brilliant praise that we can offer to the glorious Virgin Mary. It reveals to us her greatness, it explains to us her perfections and virtues, it represents to us her infinite credit with God, it bears witness to us of her kindnesses and mercies toward us; it gives us the assurance to approach her throne and implore her help, it excites us to love and trust toward her. In a word, it makes us consider her, not only as the Mother of God, but also as our mother and as the most tender and lovable of all mothers.

As for the form of the Rosary, it consists in the order and disposition of these different prayers. And, first, after having made the sign of the cross to arm oneself against the temptations of the devil, to implore the help of the most holy Trinity, to refer this action to his greater glory, and to awaken in one's heart the memory of the passion and death of Our Lord Jesus Christ, one recites the Apostles' Creed, as is done at the beginning of the divine office, in order to dispose oneself to prayer by an act of faith, following the doctrine of Saint Paul and Saint James, who say that he who approaches God must believe, and that, to obtain what one asks for, one must ask with faith. Then one says a Pater Noster and three Ave Marias, to honor the relations of the Blessed Virgin to the three divine Persons: to the Father, of whom she is the beloved daughter; to the Son, of whom she merited to be the Mother; and to the Holy Spirit, who chose her as the first and most excellent of all his Spouses. Finally (which properly makes the body of the Rosary), one says fifteen decades of Ave Marias, beginning each decade with a Pater Noster, in memory of the five joyful mysteries, the five sorrowful mysteries, and the five glorious mysteries of Our Lady. The five joyful mysteries are: her annunciation and the conception of the divine Word in her chaste womb; her visitation and the influence of grace that her Son exerted on Saint John the Baptist, both being still in their mothers' wombs; her childbearing and the birth of Jesus Christ in the stable of Bethlehem; her purification, and the offering she made of the Savior of the world in the temple; her journey to Jerusalem, and the happiness she had to find her divine Child there, aged twelve, after having lost him. The five sorrowful mysteries are: the prayer and agony of Our Lord in the Garden of Olives; his cruel scourging after having been taken, bound, covered with blows, and shamefully stripped; his crowning with thorns and the opprobrium he received when he was presented to the people in such an ignominious state; his crushing under the burden of the cross, when they dragged him to Calvary, loaded with this instrument of his torture; his crucifixion between two thieves, followed by his death and burial. The five glorious mysteries are: the resurrection of the Savior, and the inestimable glory in which he showed himself at that instant to his most holy Mother, to wipe away her tears and share his happiness with her; his ascension into heaven, and the loving transports of this divine Mother, to accompany him there in spirit and heart, until she could be effectively reunited with him by her own glorification; the sending of the Holy Spirit, and the new fullness of graces with which this august Queen was filled in this great and ineffable mystery; the assumption of the same Virgin in body and soul into heaven; finally, the consummation of her glory, by the triple crown of greatness, power, and goodness that she received from the hands of her Creator.

It must therefore be noted that, to say the Rosary perfectly, it is not enough to recite with devotion the fifteen decades that compose it, but it is necessary to apply oneself to meditation, or at least to the remembrance and veneration of the Mysteries in whose honor one recites them: which is done in several different ways, the form of which will be found in the treatises that have been printed on this subject. Moreover, one must know that one can divide the Rosary into three parts, and recite each one separately. The first, in honor of the five mysteries that brought joy to the Blessed Virgin; the second, in memory of the five mysteries that filled her heart with bitterness and sorrow; the third, in remembrance of the five mysteries that began or completed her glory and beatitude; and then, one must begin each part with the Apostles' Creed, a Pater Noster, and three Ave Marias, and this is what we call the little chaplet of five decades.

This holy method of praying is undoubtedly an invention of the industrious charity of Saint Dominic. It is true that the custom of repeating the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation several times, and even of using strung beads to mark the number, is much older and that we have examples of it in the first centuries of the Church. It is said of Saint Bartholomew that he prayed a hundred times by day and a hundred times by night; which good authors understand as the recitation of the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria. Palladius, in his Lausiac History, chap. XXIII, and after him, Cassiodorus, Sozomen, and Nicephorus, report that Saint Paul, abbot of Mount Pherme in Libya, who lived in the time of Saint Anthony the Great, performed three hundred prayers a day, which were apparently Paters and Aves, and that he counted them by small stones that he drew for this purpose from his bosom. Polydore Vergil, in his book on the Invention of Things, assures that Peter the Hermit, wishing to dispose the people for the holy war under Pope Urban II, taught them the Lay Psalter, composed of several Paters and one hundred and fifty Ave Marias, just as the Ecclesiastical Psalter is composed of one hundred and fifty psalms, and that he had learned this practice from the solitaries of Palestine, among whom it had long been in use. Blessed Alan de la Roche, of the Order of Saint Dominic, in his Treatise on the Rosary, reports that, as early as the time of the Venerable Bede, who flourished in the year 700 of our salvation, images were made having rosaries in their hands. It was by the virtue of a rosary of fifty Ave Marias that Pope Leo IV, who had all his soldiers carry one, drove the Saracens from the gates of Rome and all of Italy in 854. We also read in Surius, on April 7, that Saint Albert, a religious of Crespin, performed one hundred and fifty genuflections every day, reciting the Angelic Salutation at each one. Strung beads have been found in the tomb of Saint Gertrude of Nivelles and in that of Saint Norbert, which appeared to be precious remains of the rosaries they used to mark the number of prayers they had prescribed for themselves. But although one can gather from these histories that, in the centuries that preceded Saint Dominic, there were sketches of the admirable devotion of the holy Rosary, it is certain that it is to him, after the Blessed Virgin, that the faithful owe the excellent disposition in which it is presently proposed to them. This is how Popes Leo X, Pius V, Gregory XIII, and Sixtus V speak of it in their bulls, where they marvelously praise this way of praying, because of its ease for all kinds of people, and because it applies the mind to the principal mysteries of our religion. What led this holy Patriarch to preach this new method of prayer with such zeal is that he noticed that the extraordinary progress that heresies were making in his time, both in France and in Spain, came from the fact that the faithful were in gross ignorance of the principles of our faith, and that most, not knowing how to read, had no use of prayer. He therefore wanted to remedy this disorder by teaching them a way of praying that was independent of reading and that would insinuate to them gently and without difficulty what we believe about Jesus Christ and his holy Mother.

It would take large volumes to report the wonders that have been performed by the recitation of the Rosary. Hardened sinners, whose salvation was almost desperate, have been converted; obstinate and malicious heretics have been enlightened; entire cities, provinces, and kingdoms have been happily changed, either by the reformation of morals or by the abjuration of the errors in which they were engaged. The dead have recovered life, the blind their sight, the deaf their hearing, the mute their speech, the lame and the paralyzed the use of their limbs, and all kinds of sick people, a health they could not expect from the ordinary remedies of medicine. Storms have been calmed, fires extinguished, seditions stifled in their greatest fury, important battles won, and peace re-established in times when one no longer dared to hope for it. By means of the Rosary, sometimes rain has been obtained to make the seeds of the earth fruitful, sometimes the excessive floods that threatened the countryside with universal desolation have been stopped. Women have used this devotion usefully either to have children, or to change the fierce and impracticable temper of their husbands, or to attract heavenly blessings upon their family, without which they were entirely ruined. Those who have had recourse to it, whether in their lawsuits, or in the rigorous and merciless pursuits of their creditors, or in the miseries of a long captivity, have received prodigious and entirely supernatural assistance from it. Many souls have been drawn from the flames of purgatory, and some even, by returning to their bodies, have avoided those of hell through its efficacy and virtue. One cannot count the fruits of holiness it has produced, not only in Europe, but also in the Indies and America; finally, the Church and the whole Christian world could say of this devotion what Solomon said of Wisdom: *Venerunt mihi omnia bona pariter cum illa*: "All kinds of goods have come to me with her."

This is what has led the sovereign Pontiffs to grant great indulgences, either plenary or limited, to those who would piously recite the Rosary, as can be seen in the leaflets or rituals printed on this subject. But it must be observed that the name *Rosary* was not given to this method at first: it was first called the *Psalter of Our Lady*, because one repeats the Angelic Salutation one hundred and fifty times, in conformity with the one hundred and fifty psalms that compose the Psalter of David: for as for the *Pater* and the three *Ave Marias* that one says immediately after the Apostles' Creed, and before the fifteen decades, they are not properly of the Rosary nor of the institution of Saint Dominic, but they have been added to it on the model of the chaplet of the seven Paters and Ave Marias, where they are placed at the beginning. It was also called the Sacred Fifty, because one ordinarily divides the Rosary into three fifties, just as the Psalter, and one recites them separately, as we have already noted. Finally, it has been given the name Rosary, which signifies a flowerbed or a field covered with roses, because in effect the Lord's Prayers and the Angelic Salutations that one repeats there are like so many roses of unparalleled beauty and fragrance that marvelously rejoice the heart of God.

It remains for us to speak of the Confraternity or Congregation of the Rosary, erected for those who wish to bind themselves to recite it. It is held for certain that Saint Dominic established it only by the order and instructions of the Blessed Virgin, when he was looking for the means to reduce the Albigensians and to exterminate the heresies that were defiling the whole face of the Christian world. It was from then on a powerful preservative that maintained the religion of the faithful and prevented them from falling into these errors, and it also served for the conversion of an infinity of heretics. Having been published on all sides by this glorious patriarch and by his children, and confirmed by a great number of miracles, it produced marvelous fruits, not only in France and in Spain, where it had begun, but also in Italy, in Germany, in Russia, in Muscovy, and as far as the islands of the Aegean Sea. Almost everyone enrolled in it and learned in this holy congregation to meditate on our mysteries and to honor Jesus and Mary. After the death of this great man and the first heirs of his zeal, this excellent devotion slowed down, partly by the negligence of Christians, partly by the artifice of the devil, who spared nothing to destroy it and to abolish its memory; but, in 1460, Blessed Alan de la Roche, after various apparitions and commands, both from the Blessed Virgin and from his father Saint Dominic, re-established it, or, to speak better, resurrected it. For this purpose, he traveled for fifteen years through France, England, Flanders, and the northern countries, and he did so with such success that more than one hundred thousand people entered this holy Congregation and bound themselves to recite their Rosary. Since that time, the sovereign Pontiffs have given it praise and granted it very special favors and privileges. The indulgences and participations it enjoys are so considerable that they should suffice to attract everyone to it. They can be seen in the Bull of Sixtus V: *Dum ineffabilia*, dated the year 1586, where this pope reports and confirms all the graces that his predecessors had conferred upon it; and he makes no difficulty in calling the faithful who have given their name to it, not the servants or the friends of the Blessed Virgin, but her brothers and sisters: *Confratres et consorores*. It is divided into two main branches, the first of which is the Confraternity of the ordinary Rosary, which obliges one to say the fifteen decades every week, to confess and receive communion on the first Sunday of each month; and, if it can be done, to attend the solemn procession that takes place in the places where the Confraternity is established. The second is the Confraternity of the perpetual Rosary, which is a holy union of several people who agree together not to let a single hour or a single moment pass in the whole year when one of them is not reciting this excellent prayer. As for the rest, these obligations are not under pain of sin, but remain always optional: only the confreres lose, by not fulfilling them, the indulgences that are attached to them, and which are nevertheless treasures more considerable than all the goods that one can possess on earth.

APOSTLE OF TOURNAI AND MARTYR (circa 287).

Saint Piat Saint Piat Apostle of Tournai and beheaded martyr. was born in Benevento, a fortified city in the kingdom of Italy, to rich and noble parents. Having received the gift of faith and the knowledge of the truth, he believed he could not better show his gratitude to God than by sacrificing his life to obtain similar graces for those to whom he had been inspired to bring the light of the Gospel. He left his country with this view, like Saint Lucian and several other great Saints, to come to the extremities of Gaul and fulfill an obligation that his charity alone imposed upon him; accompanied by Saint Chrysole or Chrysseuil and Saint Eugene, he arrived in Tournai, a fortified city in Belgium (Hainaut). It is said that he first went to Chartres to preach the holy Gospel there; but, finding the hearts hardened, he moved on and went to Tournai. In two months he converted thirty thousand pagans to the faith of Jesus Christ, not including women and children. The first to receive Baptism was a man named Irenaeus, who gave his house to serve as a church: our Saint dedicated and consecrated it to God. It is today the church of Notre-Dame of Tournai.

As Saint Piat was preaching in the middle of the square, he caught sight of the guards of Riciovare, president and governor of Gaul, who had orders to seize him and put him to death. He warned the Christians who were listening to him and withdrew, accompanied by a few devoted disciples; but the executioners pursued and arrested him, and, after killing those of his retinue in his presence and on the spot, they threw him into prison. Among the torments they made him endure, it is certain that they pierced his fingers, between the nails and the flesh, with large burning nails. Then, seeing his unshakable constancy, they cut off the top of his head in the middle of the public square of Tournai, where he fell dead, on the first day of October in the year 287.

His death was accompanied by several miracles, the greatest of which was that the Martyr stood up on his feet, gathered the top of his head with his hands, left Tournai, and carried it to Seclin (Nord), where he fell to the ground, died for the second time, and was buried by the Christians. It is in this village, located two leagues from Lille, towards the south, and four leagues from Tournai, that his body was found, in the 7th century, by Saint Eligius, bishop of Noyon, who pulled out the nails of which we have spoken, showed them to the people as testimony of the martyrdom of Saint Piat, gave him a new and honorable burial in the same place, and erected a magnificent mausoleum over his tomb. He did not spare silver, gold, or precious stones there, as Saint Ouen recounts. It also appears that a church was built there, dedicated under the name of Saint-Piat; but the body of the holy Martyr was removed from it, around 881, to be transported to Saint-Omer, because of the Normans, and then to Chartres where a collegiate church was built under his invocation. This treasure, which was intact, was torn from its reliquary by the revolutionaries in 1794 and buried with other relics in a nearby cemetery; quicklime was thrown over it. It was found in 1816, recognized by those who had been charged with burying it, and placed honorably in the church from which it had been taken, and which is today the cathedral church of Chartres. There exists, three leagues from Chartres, a village that bears the name of Saint-Piat (Eure-et-Loir, arrondissement of Chartres, canton of Maintenon), and whose church is under the invocation of this Saint. One finds in the same diocese a large number of churches or chapels placed under the patronage of Saint Piat. The cathedral church in particular celebrates his feast with solemnity. The city of Tournai has also distinguished itself at all times by its devotion to Saint Piat. Besides the church dedicated to him, it possessed a cross that was called the cross of Saint Piat, and which was placed in the neighboring cemetery. On the eve of the Saint's feast, the entire clergy of the episcopal city would go in procession to his church to invoke him. Even today, in the different parts of the cathedral, one encounters his image, either opposite the portal of the nave, or on the frontispiece of the rood screen, in the transept, and on the stained glass windows of the choir.

But it is above all in the town of Seclin that the cult of Saint Piat has been famous for centuries. Cousin, in his History of Tournai, says that all the parishes of the deaneries of Lille, numbering ninety-four, came there every year in procession. After having fulfilled their religious duties, many pilgrims would go to draw water from the fountain that is in the crypt of the church, near the ancient tomb of Saint Piat. The faith of the Seclinois has often been rewarded by miraculous healings, or by other favors from heaven.

Saint Piat is represented: 1st, undergoing the torture of having burning nails driven under his nails; 2nd, decapitated and carrying his head between his hands.

He is invoked against rain and bad weather.

Acta Sanctorum, October 1st. — Cf. Notice historique sur saint Piat, by M. Rétisson, lawyer. Chartres, 1816, in-8°.