Saint Ulpha

During this short sleep, the young fugitive saw the Blessed Virgin appear to her, resplendent with light, a crown on her head, holding the child Jesus in her arms and followed by a phalanx of virgins. "Ulphe, my daughter," she said to her, "since you have chosen this child as your spouse on earth, your wedding with him will last as long as eternity: but you must first undergo the struggles of hell. It is here that you must remain, to sanctify your days. Know that after your death your house will become an asylum for holy nuns who will follow in your footsteps." The vision vanished and Saint Ulphe, frightened by her solitude, begged the Virgin to come to her aid. Her prayer was soon answered.

An old man, named Domice, a for Domice Hermit and former canon of Amiens, spiritual guide to Saint Ulphia. mer canon of Notre-Dame, had renounced his prebend to devote himself to the solitary life. From his hermitage located two and a half leagues from Amiens, he went every night to the Matins of the Notre-Dame church, located at the current site of Saint-Acheul, and returned to his dwelling with the pittance that had been given to him. Our Saint, who is believed to have been born in the territory of Amiens, was obliged, on each daily journey, to pass a bowshot from the fountain where Saint Ulphe had stopped. She was still immersed in her pious meditation, when a mysterious voice said to her: "Rise quickly and go to meet your father who is approaching." And immediately the virgin raised her eyes and caught sight of the holy man, dressed as a hermit, who was descending from a small mountain. His face breathed an angelic sweetness, his beard and hair were as white as snow, and he walked leaning on a staff, because of his great age. Having gone to meet him, she prostrated herself at his feet and conjured him, in the name of God, to be willing to take charge of her guidance.

The man of God, who was very prudent, and who until then had not seen any woman in this solitude, was very surprised by this meeting, and, fearing that it might be some trap of Satan to ruin him, he told her that he would not give her an answer until the next day, upon his return from church; then, taking leave of her, he continued his way toward his cell, and Ulphe returned to her fountain to commend her affair to Our Lord. Saint Domice, having entered his hermitage, began to pray; but sleep having taken hold of him, he fell asleep, and the angel of God committed to the care of Saint Ulphe appeared to him and assured him that it was the will of God that he should take charge of the guidance of this young virgin, and that Jesus Christ was entrusting her to him. After that, the angel disappeared, and Domice, being assured of what God asked of him, came to find Ulphe, who was praying by the fountain. Ulphe welcomed him with joy: "Be welcome, my father and my friend," she said to him, "I am happy to see you fulfill your obligations toward me whom Our Lord has committed to your care." Domice gave her some of his small provision to eat, then exhorted her to perseverance. Evening having come, Domice, to spare himself the fatigue of returning to his dwelling, waited for the approaching hour of Matins, and encouraged his spiritual daughter to surrender herself to sleep.

Around midnight, he went to wake her and encouraged her to accompany him to Matins. Upon arriving at the church, Domice was very astonished when he heard the most solemn Matins of the Common of Virgins being sung, and learned that the bishop, who was attending this office, had ordered it himself, expressing the hope of receiving some divine revelation that night. The good canon, who had left his companion at one of the portals, led her into a small corner of the church so that she could receive the episcopal blessing, and went to take his accustomed place in the choir. Matins being finished, Bishop Christian retire l'évêque Chrétien Bishop of Amiens who consecrated Saint Ulphe. d to a chapel to pray. His prayer ended, he left his oratory and met the holy old man Domice. The bishop, taking him by the hand, returned with him to the chapel where they had a long spiritual conversation: the pious prelate then told him that he had had a vision the day before in which a young girl had offered herself to him to be consecrated a virgin, and that in his ardent desire to see its fulfillment, he had had the office of Virgins celebrated with solemnity. Saint Domice, thinking that this girl was none other than the virgin Ulphe, made her known to the bishop. Led immediately to the place where she had remained in prayer, he recognized the virgin of his vision: "Be welcome, dear daughter, you who, from your youth, have consecrated yourself to Jesus Christ. You fulfill my vision. Thanks to you, I will be able to bless and consecrate a virgin whose example will undoubtedly be followed by many others."

Questioned about her age, Ulphe replied that she was twenty-eight years old; probed about her desires, she said while shedding tears of compunction: "Reverend father, I cannot change the will of God who entrusted me to my father Domice: it is therefore to him that I must first obey and then to you, as to my bishop. I humbly pray you to do everything that may be profitable to my soul." Domice having then requested the consecration of his protégé, the bishop gave her the ring and the veil of virgins, and returned her to Domice so that she might remain under his care. The latter retired to his hermitage, and the Saint to her fountain where the bishop had a cell built for her, where the high altar of the church of the Paraclete is today.

However, Saint Ulphe grew admirably in perfection and holiness, under the guidance of Saint Domice, practicing all kinds of virtues with great fervor. Her prayer was fervent, sublime, and continuous; her humility deep, her chastity angelic, her poverty extreme, her charity eminent, her modesty singular, her obedience simple and without question, her temperance extraordinary, her silence perpetual, and generally all her virtues seemed to be at the highest degree. Each night, Domice, going to the Matins of Our Lady, would call out to Saint Ulphe as he passed by. The hermitage of our Saint was situated in the middle of marshes populated by frogs. On a very hot summer night, they had redoubled their croaking so much that Saint Ulphe could not fall asleep until around midnight. That time, it was in vain that Domice knocked at the dwelling and called his companion. Supposing that she had gone ahead, the old man quickened his pace, but he did not find in the cathedral the one he was looking for. Saint Ulphe was therefore deprived, that day, of attending the divine office; which caused her to offer a prayer to Our Lord, so that He might impose silence upon these animals. All the biographers of the Saint note the muteness of the frogs found in the valley of the Paraclet, and even today this strange silence is observed.

Domice, feeling his end approaching, went to Notre-Dame with Ulphe, and received with her the Holy Communion from the hands of a priest who had just said Mass; he had to prepare his companion for the loss she was about to experience, and dry her tears with religious considerations. Having returned to his cell, under the guidance of Saint Ulphe, the good canon received Extreme Unction from the hands of a priest who had, during the night, received a revelation of this imminent end. He commended his daughter to all those who had attended this supreme ceremony, and rendered his beautiful soul to God on October 23.

Saint Ulphe, withdrawn into her cell, mourned the death of her protector, and, as if she had done nothing until then, she redoubled all her penances and exercises of devotion, believing herself all the more obliged to watch over the guarding of herself as she saw herself henceforth deprived of her ordinary support and the assistance of her spiritual father. In this, she acted very prudently, for the demon, that roaring lion who never ceases to seek some prey, seeing this girl deprived of support, attacked her with harsher temptations than she had yet experienced in her solitude; which made her enter into some doubt as to whether she should not leave it to avoid the dangers that a girl who is alone may encounter. But God, who never permits his elect to be tempted beyond their strength, touched another girl from Amiens named Aurea, and inspired h er to Aurée Companion of Saint Ulpha and first superior of her community. imitate the virtuous Ulphe, of whom everyone said such wonders. She therefore came to throw herself at her feet, one morning when she was coming as usual to the church; and, although it was still night, nevertheless Aurea recognized her by the favor of a divine light that surrounded her face. The Saint thanked Our Lord for the help he was sending her; then, embracing this dear companion, she led her with her to her hermitage.

We have recounted, in the life of Saint Aurea, the foundation that Saint Ulphe made of a convent of virgins, first in her hermitage, and then in Amiens, in an orchard located near the Castillon, the current Rue des Vergeaux. When our Saint had organized this house, she left the direction of it to Aurea, and returned to her solitude. Each day she went to visit and instruct the nascent community, from where she would bring back some nuns to lead them back, the next day, after having confirmed them in their pious dispositions.

Saint Ulphe, having grown old and knowing that her end was near, wished to receive communion in Amiens; there, she gave her final instructions to her nuns, returned with two of them, and immediately threw herself onto her bed, from which she was never to rise again. She rendered her beautiful soul to her Creator on January 31.

At the moment of her passing, Saint Domice appeared to the virgin Aure, in the habit of a deacon, as if for a great solemnity, and made known to her the death of his dear spiritual daughter, adding that the angels were carrying her blessed soul into paradise. At this news, Aure awoke, warned her companions, and hastened to go with them to the cell of Saint Ulphe. Arriving at the break of day, she knocked at the door and awakened the two nuns, who had just seen in their sleep a numerous procession of virgins, clerics, and laypeople heading toward the cell of the Saint. Upon entering the room, still perfumed with mysterious scents, they saw the Saint lying on her bed, her arms crossed over her chest, appearing more asleep than dead: one could not tire of admiring the serenity of her features and the smile of happiness that blossomed on her lips. Saint Ulphe was buried in the cell that she had sanctified for about fifty years.

In the cathedral of Amiens, one can see a very beautiful statue of Saint Ulphe, with a veiled head and holding a book in her hand. — In the same monument, one can see two gilded wooden bas-reliefs representing Saint Ulphe and Saint Domice, above the two doors adjacent to the altar of the chapel formerly called the Chapel of Saint Ulphe. — The cathedral of Amiens also possesses a painting that was given to it in 1474. On the two shutters of this painting, the painter represented, on one side, the figure of Saint Domice, dressed in a red cassock, with a green and brown cloak, tending toward violet, on his shoulders; he gave him a large skullcap pulled down over his ears and his curly, rather long hair. This holy canon holds in his hand a book also covered in red; one also sees, near him, his hermitage built in the depths of a forest. On the other side of the shutter, the painter represented the figure of Saint Ulphe, dressed in a nun's habit, such as those of the Paraclet of this city wear today. One sees Saint Ulphe near her small cell, placed in a marshy place, similar to the one described in her history. He did not even forget to paint the frogs with which this place is filled and which caused the miracle reported in her Life. — On the pediment of the Abbey of Notre-Dame du Paraclet in Amiens, one could see Bishop Chrétien giving Saint Ulphe the nun's veil that a pious woman had just brought to her. Inside the church, a statue of the Patroness faced that of the Blessed Virgin. — One sees the statue of Saint Domice at the portal of Saint-Firmin the Martyr, at the cathedral of Amiens, between two holy bishops of this diocese. He wears the maniple on his arm and holds the book of the Gospels in his capacity as a deacon.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS. — MONUMENTS.]

The cult of Saint Ulphe was established almost immediately after her death, but never exceeded the limits of the diocese of Amiens. Bishop Arnould, who died in 1247, bequeathed sixty sols to the cathedral so that the feast of Saint Ulphe could be celebrated there with greater solemnity. Around the year 1677, a certain number of pious girls from Amiens gathered into a congregation under the name of Daughters of Saint Ulphe. Their goal was to honor their patroness especially and to encourage one another to live in the world in a truly Christian manner.

Indulgences were granted by Pope Innocent XII to this congregation, which had its seat in t he chapel dedicat pape Innocent XII Pope who beatified Saint Zita in 1696. ed to Saint Ulphe in the cathedral of Amiens. It disappeared during the Revolution and was reorganized in 1836 in the church of Bussy-lès-Daours, where a chapel was dedicated to Saint Ulphe. A special office for this local association was approved in 1841 by Mgr Miodand. This association, having been transferred to a domestic chapel, thereby lost the privileges conferred in 1837 by Pope Gregory XVI. Moreover, this chapel was interdicted in 1864 by the diocesan authority.

It is in a somewhat too broad sense that Saint Ulphe is sometimes designated as the patroness of the church of Amiens; she was only the patroness of the Abbey of the Paraclet, where a chapel was under her invocation. At the cathedral, her feast was celebrated solemnly on January 31; her large reliquary chest was then exposed in the choir, and her head in the chapel dedicated to her. There was a gathering of devotion in this sanctuary every Tuesday, with an indulgence of forty days.

The name of Saint Ulphe is inscribed on January 31 in the martyrologies of Molanus, Ferrarius, Canisius, Calemot, du Saussay, etc. Her translation on May 16 is marked in some calendars. She is the only Saint who appears in the Amiens litanies that were sung in the Middle Ages during Lent, before the Mass on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Her feast is semi-double in all Amiens breviaries, manuscript or printed, with the exception of that of Fr. Faure (1669), and the current Proper, where she is honored with the double rite.

Shortly after her death, but at a date that is not known, the miracles performed at her tomb led to the transfer of her relics to the cathedral. On May 16, 1279, at the invitation of the Bishop of Amiens, Guillaume de Mâcon, the cardinal-legate, Simon de Brie, proceeded with the ceremony of the translation of the Saint's relics into a gilded silver chest. At the beginning of the 14th century, Isabella, daughter of Philip the Fair and wife of Edward II, King of England, gave the cathedral of Amiens a gilded silver reliquary in the shape of a bust, bearing the arms of France and England, to hold the head of Saint Ulphe. On December 31, 1654, Bishop Fr. Faure opened the Saint's chest to extract some bones intended for the Abbey of the Paraclet and for Anne of Austria. This chest was restored in 1667. In 1718, Canon Langlois presented the church of Molliens-Vidame with a reliquary containing some bones of Saint Ulphe and Saint Domice.

At the Abbey of the Paraclet, transferred from Boves to Amiens in 1630, were kept: 1st, an arm of Saint Ulphe; 2nd, the veil that a pious woman had given Boves Site of the solitude of Saint Ulphe and the first foundation of the Paraclete. to the Saint at the moment of her consecration; 3rd, a brown silk shoe, embroidered with gold, whose luxury attested to the opulence of Saint Ulphe's family. It is with this shoe that she is said to have arrived in the solitude of Boves after leaving her father's house; 4th, a small yellow earthenware vase from which Saint Ulphe drank, which is possessed today by Mlle Delacheux, of Bussy-lès-Daours.

The Abbey of Saint-Acheul possessed an altar cloth, worked with a needle, it was said, by the hands of the recluse of Boves. The two chairs of Saint Ulphe were sent to the revolutionary crucible; but a small reliquary was saved, which is today kept at the cathedral behind the high altar. The church of Dommartin-Fouencamps obtained from the Bishop of Amiens, on October 27, 1861, some fragments of the relics of Saint Domice and Saint Ulphe. Some small relics of the Saint are still kept at the church of Mailly and at the Louvencourt convent in Amiens.

Two hundred years after the death of Saint Ulphe, and while her relics had been transferred to the cathedral, a chapel was erected on her burial site. It gave way to the high altar of the church of the Paraclet, built in 1218. Another chapel was erected in the garden of this monastery, near the fountain of Saint Ulphe, which was recently rebuilt in the ogival style on the property of M. Cannet. People go there to pray to the holy recluse and to draw water from the spring where she quenched her thirst during a stay of fifty years.

In 1218, Enguerrand II, Lord of Boves, wished to show his gratitude to God for having been preserved, along with his entire family, from the dangers to which he had been exposed in the Crusades in 1191 and 1202. To this end, he founded an abbey of the Cistercian Order in the very place where Saint Ulphe had spent her days. The first nuns came from the Abbey of Saint-Antoine-des-Champs in Paris, and the monastery received the name of Paraclet-des-Champs, because it was founded in the week of Pentecost; it was called in Latin: *Abbatia sancta Maria ad Paraceltum*.

In 1630, during the invasion of Picardy by the Spanish, the Abbey of the Paraclet-des-Champs, isolated in the countryside, was exposed without defense to the continual insults of the enemies. The nuns retired to a house of refuge they possessed in Amiens, on the Rue des Jacobins. Some time later, they bought properties in the vicinity and decided to remain in the city, where they subsequently built a new monastery. Some nuns continued to reside in the old abbey where they still celebrated the offices; but in 1714, they obtained from M. de Nointel, Lord of Boves, successor to the founders, permission to demolish even the church, with the exception of a chapel in which a priest was to say Mass. The finest materials were sold and transported by water to Amiens. Today, the Paraclet is a vast farm, whose main building in cut stone, one story high, has seven windows on each of its facades and a circular pediment in the center. All that remains of the old constructions are a few gables divided by buttresses and opened with semicircular windows.

The church of the Paraclet of Amiens, built in 1676 and consecrated three years later, was demolished in 1835 when the Rue Napoléon was cut through. The memory of this monastery is now recalled only by an inscription placed on the facade of the institution directed by M. Michel Vion.

At the cathedral of Amiens, opposite the chapel of Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs, is the location of the well of Saint Ulphe, which was plugged and covered with a stone in 1761. One sees there, against a pillar, a black marble plaque with this inscription: "Well of Saint Ulphe." It is at this fountain, enclosed by the constructions of the cathedral, that Saint Ulphe, according to tradition, often went to quench her thirst. It is even added that the nuns of the Rue des Vergeaux went there to draw the water they needed. A 13th-century biographer says that the water necessary for the oblations of the Masses was taken from this well, in memory of the chaste virgin who had shown herself so devout to the Holy Sacrament of the altar. This custom seems to have persisted until the middle of the 18th century. A special well had the same purpose at the church of Saint-Germain in Amiens.

There was formerly a chapel dedicated to Saint Ulphe on the steps of the staircase leading to the upper treasury of the cathedral. Another chapel, built in 1373, was designated by the name of Saint-Ulphe. It is the first one encountered when entering through the Saint-Firmin portal. Among the eight bells contained in the clock tower at Notre-Dame, there was one called *Domice* and the other *Ulphe*: one could read this inscription: "A fulgure et tempestate, foentibus sanctis Domitio et Ulphio, hanc ecclesiam libera, Domine, anno 1697."

The cult of Saint Domice, localized in the diocese of Amiens, seems to date back to the very century of his death. Bishop Arnould bequeathed sixty sols to the cathedral so that the feast of Saint Domice could be celebrated under the semi-double rite. It was Canon Adrien de Henencourt who founded his office under the double rite that the current Proper of Amiens has restored. His office is found on October 23 in all manuscript or printed breviaries of the diocese of Amiens. Saint Domice is especially honored in Boves, in Fouencamps and its surroundings, as well as in Molliens-Vidame. Formerly, on Palm Sunday, the chapter of the cathedral would go to sing an octave at the Jacobins' cross, carrying the chest of Saint Domice. On October 23, it was exposed in the choir of Notre-Dame.

Saint Domice had been buried in his hermitage of Fouencamps (current canton of Sains), where the piety of the faithful soon erected an oratory. We do not know the precise time when the elevation of his body took place; it was probably from the 8th to the 9th century. The relics of the holy de acon were Fouencamps Site of the hermitage and burial place of Saint Domitius. transferred to the cathedral at the same time as those of Saint Ulphe. Before the Revolution, they were enclosed in a vermeil chest; the head, set aside, was in a silver reliquary in the shape of a cup, on which the twelve signs of the zodiac were engraved. His chest was opened in 1656, two years after the extraction that had been made from that of Saint Ulphe.

In 1718, Canon Langlois having presented the church of Molliens-Vidame with a reliquary containing bones of Saint Ulphe and Saint Domice, a special cult was established in that parish for the two Saints, and people went there on pilgrimage on the first two Sundays of May.

An arm of Saint Domice, which comes from the former priory, is kept at the parish of Saint-Médard de Lihons. The church of Langpré-les-Corps-Saints possesses a relic of Saint Domice, coming from the former collegiate church. The relics of the Saint were saved in 1793 by M. Lecouvé, mayor of Amiens, verified by M. Voclin, vicar general, and entrusted to M. Lejeune, constitutional priest of the cathedral. Returned by him in 1802, they were recognized in 1816 and 1829, and are today in the large chest known as that of Saint-Honoré.

The current chapel of Saint-Eloi, at the cathedral, was formerly under the invocation of Saint Domice. The chapel erected in Fouencamps, near the Avro river, on the burial site of the holy deacon, was designated in the 13th century by the name of House of Saint Domice. From this chapel, which was united to the treasury of Lihons, starts a path, known by the name of Saint-Domice, which leads to Saint-Acheul. It is the one that the holy canon followed to go to the night office, which was still celebrated at Notre-Dame-des-Martyrs after the cathedral was transferred inside the city. Since a part of this path has been put under cultivation, the villagers of the surroundings point out on its route the relative superiority of the vegetation. In 1734, the chapel of Saint-Domice was falling into ruin; rebuilt in 1755, it is today maintained by two pious families of Fouencamps and visited by numerous pilgrims. Mass is celebrated there on October 23.

Two cadastral sections, dependencies of Dommartin-Fouencamps, bear the name of Mountain and Meadow of Saint-Domice. One of the bells of the cathedral bore the same name and united its voice to the bell of Saint Ulphe, just as the holy deacon and his spiritual daughter had once mingled their songs and prayers in the first basilica of Amiens.

Excerpt from the Hagiography of the diocese of Amiens, by Father Corblet.