Blessed Thomas Helye of Biville

However, once the Blessed one's studies were finished, he pondered before God how to usefully employ the knowledge he had acquired. Several honorable careers opened before him, but they all had a human goal: therefore they could offer him no attraction; moreover, following the example of the Savior of the world, Thomas loved childhood, youth. He felt a sensible joy in seeing himself surrounded by these little ones, to whom the Christian must be like, to obtain the kingdom of heaven. It was therefore the humble, but useful functions of a village schoolmaster that Thomas chose in preference to others more honorific and more lucrative, in order to devote himself body and soul to the instruction of youth. In the morning, anticipating the dawn, he would make his way toward the temple of the Lord, where he would remain to converse with the adorable Solitary of our altars, until the moment to begin his class. In the evening, he would come again to find the Beloved of his soul, in order to relax with Him from his fatigues of the day, and to quench his thirst at that source of living water which flows from the heart of God Himself. The life of the Blessed one had nothing austere about it then, but it was so regulated and so perfect that it excited not only the admiration of all those who were its happy witnesses, but also provoked in them a pious emulation to practice the commandments of the Lord.

In a few years, the small village of Biville was almost transformed into a Christendom, recalling the first ages of the Church. The inhabita nts of Ch Cherbourg City where the saint worked as a schoolteacher. erbourg, a town situated not far from Biville, hearing of all the wonders wrought in this obscure locality by the blessed Thomas, felt the desire to be themselves the objects of them: consequently, a deputation of the notables of Cherbourg was sent to Biville, in order to decide Thomas Hélye to come and carry the torch of his lights into a city so worthy of appreciating its benefits. The Blessed one yielded to their pressing entreaties and went to Cherbourg. His principal care was to inspire piety in his pupils and to teach them to fear God, without which science can only serve to make a man more inexcusable. He began and ended all his actions with prayer, and in his very exercise he often had his mind and heart raised toward God, to receive His lights and to conceive new flames of His love.

After he had practiced this work of charity for some time, he fell very gravely ill: which caused him to leave Cherbourg and return to his father's house. God inspired in him from then on a most extraordinary life. Scarcely had he recovered when he donned a hair shirt, began to fast three times a week on barley bread and pure water, and undertook three Lents per year with the same austerity. He was also almost always in prayer, and, as the parish priest had given him a key to the church, he often spent the greater part of the day and night there in this holy exercise. The Bishop of Coutances, his prelate, being informed of such holy conduct, exhorted him to embrace the ecclesiastical state, so as to be able to work for the salvation of souls, since many were perishing for lack of good shepherds to lead them. Thomas received this exhortation as an order from heaven; but he begged the bishop to allow him to consult the Lord at length before making a decision. The bishop raised him with kindness, and granted him the delay he requested with such touching insistence, making him promise, however, to come back to him to communicate the course of action that the Spirit of God would have inspired him to take. Thomas, after having received the blessing of his bishop, left him to return to his dear solitude. Some time later, he took the road to Coutances on foot, where the holy bishop welcomed him with the outpouring of a tender father who sees a beloved son again; upon learning from the mouth of the Blessed one all that had passed in his heart, Hugues de Morville adored i n silence the desi Hugues de Morville Bishop of Coutances who ordained Thomas Hélye. gns of God for this privileged soul; then he gave the tonsure to Thomas, who received successively from his hand, while keeping the intervals prescribed by the holy canons, the minor orders, the subdiaconate, and finally the diaconate. The good prelate could not persuade him to go any further. The Blessed one then begged his bishop to allow him to first make the journey to Rome and to Saint-Jacques, in Galicia, and then to come to take his theology course in Paris. The bishop easily granted him what he wished. He therefore made both pilgrimages with singular devotion, and, having returned in full health, he remained for another four years in Paris, to acquire there the lights that he was then to spread among the people.

After four years he returned to his country and was there promoted to the priesthood. If until then he had been very austere, it can be said that as a priest he became as if cruel and pitiless to himself. He never went to bed, and if he slept for a few moments, it was only on the corner of a church bench. He took the discipline very harshly every day, and however weak he was from the extreme rigor of his fasts, he did not fail to make his body bleed, in order to subject it perfectly to the desires of the spirit. He was in mental prayer for almost the entire night, savoring at leisure the inestimable delights of conversation with God. At the break of day he said his Matins, with the Office of the Dead, the Gradual, the seven Penitential Psalms, and seven other psalms that he recited with his clerk. He then celebrated Mass with angelic devotion, and sometimes with such an abundance of tears that it seemed his eyes would melt from the force of his weeping. He also had his hours for saying the Office of Our Lady, and he performed it likewise with such attention that the demon, unable to endure such great fervor, sometimes made horrible noises to distract him from it. For the rest of his time, he sacrificed it to the aid of his neighbor, to announcing the word of God, to teaching the catechism, to hearing confessions, to consoling the afflicted, to visiting the sick, to helping those who were in their agony, and to procuring relief for the poor; and, as if the diocese of Coutances had been too small to satisfy the ardor of his zeal, he extended it further through his evangelical journeys into those of Avranches, Bayeux, and Lisieux. Our Lord always gave a great blessing to his labors; he made conversions without number, and his word was so powerful, whether he was showing the malice and indignity of sin, or threatening the rigors of God's judgment, or proposing the rewards that are prepared for the righteous in heaven, that the most stubborn and hardened sinners could not resist it at all. One even saw his listeners, while he was preaching, or his penitents, when he was hearing their confession, shed torrents of tears, and one heard them cry for mercy, in the fear of God's judgment, with which they were penetrated. The King Saint Louis, being informed of the merits of such a great preacher, wished to see him near his person and called him to his court to be his ch Le roi saint Louis King of France whose chaplain was Thomas Hélye. aplain. Thomas Hélye did not dare at first to resist such a wise and pious prince; he came to find him and exercised for some time the office with which His Majesty had honored him; but, unable to accustom himself to the air of the court which, holy as it was, seemed to him very different from the amiable secret of his solitude, he finally asked for his leave to return to Biville, where, in his father's own house, he had made himself a sort of hermitage. Upon his return, his prelate charged him with the parish of Saint-Maurice, which he fulfilled with all the vigilance and solicitude of a good pastor. However, he kept it for only a short time; for, wishing to be free to run to the aid of souls who needed to be enlightened by the lights of the Gospel, he discharged himself of it to another ecclesiastic whom he judged worthy to fill it.

Shortly after, he fell into such a languor that he could not rise to say Mass. He did not, however, cease to receive Communion every day, and he did so with such great feelings of devotion that it seemed he was already enjoying the embraces of his Beloved in His glory. Finally, after having given many other testimonies of the eminence of his holiness, he received for the last time this bread of angels which filled him with a marvelous strength for the important journey of eternity. He had the Gospel of Saint John, the Passion of Our Lord, and the psalm *In te, Domine, speravi* read to him; and, when his clerk reached these words: « Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit », he ceased to live on earth to go and live eternally in heaven. This death occurred on Friday, October 19, 1257, at the castle of Vauville, where his final i llness had overtake château de Vauville Place of the saint's death. n him.

An ancient monument depicts him preaching in the presence of the two bishops of Coutances and Avranches. He is also represented, sometimes with hands joined, eyes raised and fixed toward heaven; sometimes assisting as chaplain, kneeling near Saint Louis, at the Mass of one of the royal chaplains.

## CULT AND RELICS.

At the news of the Blessed one's death, the people flocked from all sides to contemplate and venerate his mortal remains; gloves, belts, necklaces, and rings were placed upon his body to be kept as relics. An immense crowd attended his funeral procession, which resembled a triumphal march more than a funeral pomp. A miraculous incident further increased the pious enthusiasm with which the crowd was animated as the pious procession advanced toward Biville. The lady of Vauville, who had a withered hand, applied it with confidence to the hand of the Blessed one and was immediately healed. The body of Thomas was buried in the cemetery of Biville, just as he had requested.

In 1261, he was transferred to a chapel, built in 1260, near the parish church, from which it was however still separated in 1325. It was there that the Archbishop of Rouen, Eudes Rigaud, visited him in 1266. The church, according to Arthur Dumoustier, was rebuilt during the 16th century, and then, no doubt, the chapel was made into the current choir, in the middle of which the parish priest Michel Leverrier erected, in 1533, the monument in sculpted and painted tiles, which survived until 1778. At that time, Jacques Bogardin, lieutenant-colonel of artillery, lord of Biville, aided by the offerings of the parish priest and the parishioners, replaced this tomb, which the indiscreet piety of the faithful had mutilated, with the one we still see today and which, despite the marble tablet on which the relief image of the Blessed rests, is still very unworthy of containing such precious relics.

The holy body rested there until July 13, 1794. This treasure, so dear to Catholics, was about to be desecrated and scattered by some impious and senseless terr orists, when M. Lem M. Lemarié d'Yvetot Priest who saved the saint's relics during the French Revolution. arié d'Yvetot, former superior of the Hôpital de la Trinité in Paris, then vicar-general of Mgr de Talaru, Bishop of Coutances, then in exile for the faith, conceived, with some faithful and courageous Catholics, the plan to prevent this sacrilegious happiness. At the indicated hour (a quarter past ten in the evening), they all gathered together; the intrepid priest carried the holy Host on his chest, following the permission received from his bishop. They entered the devastated church; the revolutionary administrators had placed on the tomb, instead of the marble tablet, a sort of desk for their use: but two large superimposed stones still closed the monument. When they had yielded to the efforts of one of M. Lemarié's companions, they perceived with a mixture of joy and religious fear, the bones of the blessed Thomas well preserved and arranged almost all in their natural position. The confessor of the faith took them respectively from the stone coffin, and placed them in white linens with the dust with which they were surrounded. He then placed them in an oak coffin which he sealed with his seal, after having drawn up, in canonical form, a report which was signed by his co-operators, unimpeachable witnesses of this edifying translation. The holy body was placed in Virandeville, under an al tar, around Virandeville Place where relics were hidden during the French Revolution. which the persecuted Catholics gathered in secret, throughout the time of the revolution. Furious to see their odious projects thus thwarted, the terrorists brought legal proceedings, in order to know the authors of this alleged crime. All their efforts were useless, and only resulted in imprisoning the schismatic parish priest as suspected of having, at least by his negligence, favored the removal of the relics and as guilty of an obstinate refusal to name the authors.

On September 14, 1803, Mr. Closet, Vicar-General to Bishop Rousseau, in concert with Mr. Bunté, his colleague, authorized the inhabitants of Virandeville, in memory of their courageous devotion, to keep the head of the Blessed Thomas in their church, in accordance with the desire expressed by Mr. Lemarié. The rest of the holy body was returned to the inhabitants of Biville, except for a few bones granted to the parishes of Vanville, Saint-Maurice, and Yvetot. On September 16, Mr. Leverrier, parish priest of Biville, after having attended the opening of the coffin at Virandeville, deposited the holy relics in their ancient tomb, in the presence of several witnesses and according to all legal forms.

The head remained at Virandeville until 1811. Then (March 31), Bishop Dupont, ending a very long and very lively discussion between the two parishes, ordered that this distinguished relic be reunited with the other bones of the Blessed, which was carried out on Thursday, April 18 of the same year, with all the publicity and formalities prescribed. The tomb of Biville therefore contains today the precious remains of the holy priest, which remained, until October 18, 1859, in two separate boxes: one, containing the head, was provided with the seal of Bishop Dupont, and the other, containing the bones, was provided with the seal of Bishop Rousseau.

Let us add to these relics the chalice with the silver-gilt paten, and the chasuble that the church of Biville has regarded from time immemorial as having been given by Saint Louis to the Blessed Thomas, and some vestments, chasuble, alb, and cincture, that the parish of S aint-M Pie IX Pope who canonized Josaphat in 1867. aurice venerates as having belonged to its holy pastor. Pius IX beatified Thomas Hélye in 1859.

The power of intercession of the Blessed has not faltered since that time, which explains his glorious nickname of Thaumaturge and the popularity of his cult in this part of Normandy that gave him birth, and where everything recalls his blessed memory. Here is the fountain where he came to quench his thirst when he traveled from Cherbourg to his native land; there is the Charrière, the path by which the holy body of the Blessed was brought from the castle of Vanville to the church of Biville. The church, a part of which is formed by the old chapel, erected in the 19th century in honor of Thomas Hélye, is also a perpetual memorial to this great servant of God, and the thousand lights lit around his tomb, in particular on October 19, the day of his feast, testify to the confidence, gratitude, and love of the many pilgrims who flock to Biville to solicit the favors of the Blessed, or to thank him for those obtained through his mediation.

This biography is extracted from a small book published on the Blessed Thomas Hélye by Father Gilbert, Vicar-General of Coutances; and from the Life of the Blessed, by the Baroness de Chabannes.