Saint Rieul of Arles and Senlis

Saint Rieul Saint Rieul First bishop of Senlis and bishop of Arles, a missionary of Greek origin. was a native of Argos, a city in Greece, and came from a very prominent family. When he was of an age to choose a path in life, he heard of the wonders performed in Ephesus by the beloved disciple of Jesus, Saint John the Ev saint Jean l'Évangéliste Saint to whom Zita had a great devotion. angelist; he went to find him there, and was so enraptured by his holiness and his doctrine that he renounced the idolatry he had professed until then, embraced Christianity, received holy baptism from him, and, having made a journey to his homeland to distribute to the poor the immense wealth he had inherited from his parents, he then attached himself inviolably to his person to assist him in the conversion of the infidels and the establishment of the Christian religion. The holy apostle, admiring more and more the virtue of this generous neophyte, gave him rank in the Church (it appears he ordained him a priest) and honored him with his greatest familiarity. But persecution soon tore the master from the disciple; for the Emperor Domitien Roman emperor who persecuted John. Domitian, who had succeeded his brother Titus, having been informed of the marvelous fruits that Saint John was producing in Ephesus against the worship of false gods, had him brought to Rome, and, after having him plunged into a cauldron of boiling oil, relegated him to the island of Patmos.

Saint Rieul remained for some time in Ephesus to support and confirm the Catholics; but he learned that Saint Denis the Areopagite had gone to Rome with the intention of carrying the faith to countries where it had not yet been brought. Animated by the same zeal and the same desire for the salvation of the infidels, he followed him and came to offer himself to Saint Clement, who had recently occupied the chair of Saint Peter. This great Pope received them with extraordinary joy; and, as he had an extreme desire for the conversion of the Gauls, whose borders, on the side of Italy and Spain, alone had received the Gospel, he composed a holy colony of several apostolic men for this great expedition. Saint Denis, whom his high erudition, his heavenly wisdom, and his dignity as Bishop of Athens made very considerable, was declared its leader; he was given Rusticus as deacon and Eleutherius as subdeacon, and there were joined to him, as his colleagues and co-workers, our Saint Rieul, with Lucian, Eugenius, and several others, of whom we shall have occasion to speak later in this collection.

One of the historians of Saint Rieul leads him all at once to Paris and Senlis; but the others, whom the ancient tradition of the churches of Provence strongly authorizes, teach us that this illustrious colony came first to Arles, where there we re al Arles Ecclesiastical metropolis of the province to which Constantine belonged. ready several Christians whom Saint Trophimus had converted and baptized, having been made bishop there by Saint Paul when he passed through with several excellent missionaries to go to Spain. Our holy preachers were therefore received by this holy society like Angels come from heaven, and they soon increased its number by the power of their sermons, their exhortations, and their miracles. Saint Denis even overturned, by the sole invocation of the name of Jesus Christ, the famous idol of Mars, which the people worshipped; and having, by this means, made himself master of the temple, he purified it and consecrated it to the true God in honor of the blessed apostles Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and had a baptistery made for the regeneration of those who would convert. It would not have been appropriate to abandon this nascent church, nor the rich harvest that one could hope for there in the future; that is why the same Saint Denis, having sent some of his other colleagues to various provinces of Gaul, consecrated Saint Rieul bishop and left him in Arles; he himself, who was destined for Paris, continued on his way and came to bring there the precious seed of the Gospel.

Our new Bishop worked with untiring courage to clear the field that had been assigned to him, and he did so with such success that he soon found himself at the head of a numerous church, whose piety spread the sweet fragrance of Jesus Christ throughout the entire country. Meanwhile, the blessed Areopagite and his two companions having been martyred in Paris, Rieul was warned of it on the same day in a completely supernatural manner; he was celebrating the divine mysteries before all the people. After reciting, in the canon, the names of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, he added, without thinking, those of these new martyrs, saying: "And of the blessed martyrs Denis, Rusticus, and Eleutherius," and he saw on the altar three doves, which bore these sacred names imprinted in the color of blood upon their breasts. After the Mass, he communicated his vision to the leaders of his clergy, and, having entrusted a bishop named Felicissimus with the charge of the church of Arles, he departed immediately to go and seek their relics in Paris.

Having arrived there, upon the information he was given, he went to the village of Chatou and fortunately met a lady na med Cat Catulle Christian woman from Chatou who buried Saint Denis and his companions. ulla; she was the one who had taken the bodies of the martyrs and buried them secretly. As he made himself known to her, she declared to him the whole story of their martyrdom and led him to the place where she had buried them. It was there that Saint Rieul, abandoning his heart to sorrow, shed a torrent of tears; but he did not weep so much for the torment of his master and his companions, as for his own misfortune in not having had a part in their triumph. He celebrated the divine sacrifice at the same place in their honor, and engraved upon a stone the account of what had happened during the course of their struggles. Meanwhile, the pious Catulla, desiring to be more perfectly instructed than she was in the mysteries of our religion, begged her holy guest not to leave her dwelling so soon, since, moreover, the persecution against the Christians not yet having abated, he could not appear without exposing himself needlessly to death. But three days later, the president Fescennius having departed upon the news of the death of the Emperor Domitian, she was able to have a wooden chapel built around the tombs of the holy martyrs, and Saint Rieul consecrated it in their name. This is the chapel that Saint Genevieve of Paris later had rebuilt in stone, as we have already noted in her life.

After reviving courage in the hearts of the faithful of Paris, scattered by the storm, and placing at their head the priest Malon whom he consecrated bishop, Saint Rieul, feeling called further, took the road to Senlis, and, passing through Louvres, six leagues from Paris, he found peasants there who worshipped the idol of Mercury. Their blindness gave him great compassion; he made the sign of the cross over this idol, touched it with his staff, pronounced the holy name of Jesus, and, at the same time, the idol fell to the ground and was reduced to dust. From there he took the opportunity to instruct these peasants and show them that they were wrong to render to an inanimate creature, or to a demon that appeared there, the sovereign worship that is due only to the one God, creator of heaven and earth; and his word was so powerful that it converted these poor people and led them to ask for holy Baptism. They even built a chapel that Saint Rieul later dedicated, and it is believed that it is still the one that can be seen near the parish; although one cannot doubt that, over so many centuries, it has had to be repaired several times. It bears the name of the Blessed Virgin.

This happy success gave Saint Rieul the courage to undertake the conversion of the inhab Senlis Birthplace and episcopal see of the saint. itants of Senlis. He was invited there by a lady who had a son possessed by a furious demon, who begged him with many tears to come and deliver him. This was the first miracle he performed in that city. Then, the doors of the prison having opened at his command, and the chains of the prisoners having broken, he drew them from this place of misery and gave them their freedom; these actions, which took place in the presence of all the people, caused many to recognize the truth of our holy faith, and they prayed to the Saint to baptize them. The president Quintilien President or governor of Senlis converted by Saint Rieul. Quintilian, being warned of this, ordered the priests of the idols to prepare, for the next day, a great sacrifice, with the intention of forcing Rieul to be present and to offer, like the others, incense to the false gods, or, if he refused to do so, to immolate him himself through cruel tortures; but Saint Denis and his companions, appearing to him at night, dissuaded him from such an unjust resolution and warned him that, if he wished to be saved, it was necessary that he embrace the religion that this new doctor was preaching. The next day, he communicated his vision to his wife, who, far from extinguishing these first sparks of conversion, on the contrary ignited them and strengthened them greatly with her words, having already herself received some tincture of the faith through those who had attended the preachings of Saint Denis.

Meanwhile, Rieul went early in the morning to the temple, built within the enclosure of the city walls. It was a sumptuous and magnificent edifice where there were all sorts of idols and figures of pagan divinities. But upon his arrival, and as soon as he had pronounced the adorable name of Jesus, all these figures fell to the ground and were broken. This accident caused trouble and consternation among the sacrificers: but during their agitation, the Saint, animated by the zeal and glory of his God, began to preach publicly the falsehood of paganism and the truth of the Gospel; and he did so with such ardor and strength that there was almost no one among those present who did not yield to his arguments. The president arrived thereupon with his wife and all his family, and testified that he wished to be a Christian: which finished winning over the principal inhabitants, whom the fear of such a terrible man could have greatly prevented from declaring themselves. The sacrificers themselves could not resist such an evident demonstration of their error; thus, after a fast of three days, and after the temple had been purified and dedicated in honor of the Blessed Virgin (it is still today the cathedral where the chapel and the famous image of Our Lady of Miracles are), a solemn baptism took place for an almost infinite number of people of all sorts of sexes, ages, states, and conditions. Saint Rieul also had a cemetery prepared at the gate of the city, for the burial of the faithful, and had a church built there under the names of Saint Peter and Saint Paul. This church and this cemetery now bear his name, and it has also been given to a fountain that is on the side of Compiègne, because it was he who miraculously made it spring forth, after having preached to the people in the open countryside.

Such were the beginnings of the conversion of the Senlis region. God increased its progress through great miracles, which the Saint performed on various occasions; for his history teaches us that he restored sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, the use of their feet to the lame, and health to many sick people. But it can be said that the greatest of his miracles was his entirely heavenly and angelic life. He possessed a very profound humility, which he based upon these words of the Son of God, of which he never lost the memory: "All those who humble themselves shall be exalted, and all those who exalt themselves shall be humbled." His zeal for the glory of God had no bounds, and there was nothing he would not undertake and nothing he was not ready to suffer to extend and increase it on all sides. His charity was immense, and it spread to all kinds of unfortunate people. No adversity was capable of casting him down. No prosperity and no good success were capable of swelling his heart. His modesty, joined to a majestic bearing and a venerable old age, inspired such great respect in the minds of all who looked upon him that they could not help but love and honor him. All the authors of his life report that the clergy and the people of Beauvais sent to beg him to come and consecrate as bishop their apostle, Saint Lucien, who was also one of the missionary companions of Saint Denis; but during the journey of their deputies to Senlis, this holy apostle was put to death for the faith of Jesus Christ, without having received the laying on of hands from him. If this is so, it must be said that Saint Lucien is called the first bishop of Beauvais only because he was elected, named, and designated bishop, and that, being sent by Saint Clement and Saint Denis, he had full episcopal jurisdiction, just as ecclesiastics named to a bishopric and instituted by the Pope have before their consecration. Be that as it may, the authors add that the news of this illustrious martyrdom, which was brought to Saint Rieul at his departure, did not prevent him from continuing his journey; in all the villages he encountered on his route, he preached Jesus Christ with marvelous success. Not far from Senlis, he healed a blind man, and, in memory of this miracle, a chapel was built at the same place, the vestiges of which can s till Rully Site of the miracle of the frogs. be seen in the village of Rully. Preaching in the open countryside, as the noise of the frogs prevented him from being heard, he forbade them all, except for one, to croak as long as his discourse lasted, and immediately he was obeyed, and he used the obedience of these animals without reason to advantage, to lead his listeners to obey the true God. At Brenouille, where he restored sight to a blind man, a church was raised which, later, was placed under his patronage. At Canneville, he raised an oratory which he dedicated to Saint Lucien of Beauvais. Finally, after having admirably consoled and strengthened the people of Beauvais by his presence, he returned to his first church.

He spent the rest of his life cultivating, through his visits, exhortations, and examples, the vineyard of which he was in charge. Finally, which is admirable in a time when martyrdom was almost inseparable from the episcopate, he died in peace in the midst of his people, in the year 130, under the Emperor Hadrian, after having worked for nearly forty years on these various missions. His body was buried in the church of Saint-Pierre and Saint-Paul, which has since taken his name, as we have said; and he performed, in the centuries that followed, a great number of miracles. His historians are obliged to omit the greater part of them, because the fire that occurred in the cathedral church of Senlis caused the records to be lost; but they report a few very considerable ones, which demonstrate the great merits and the extraordinary power of this holy Bishop.

Saint Rieul is represented with a donkey lying at his feet: here is the meaning of this representation which, moreover, is rarely found in the works of artists: Rieul having delivered a possessed man in Senlis, the devil, driven out by the exorcism, expressed the desire to enter the body of the donkey that served as the holy Bishop's mount. It was undoubtedly a compensation, like that of the demons who, according to the Gospel, asked to be allowed to inhabit the bodies of the swine. But, says the legend, the donkey, as a well-trained beast, made a sign of the cross with its hoof on the ground, and the devil was reduced to seeking elsewhere. — One also sees a stag and a doe in old paintings representing Saint Rieul, no doubt to recall the miracle of these animals going to kneel before his tomb, in the midst of the crowd, on the day of his feast. But there is perhaps a more allegorical explanation for this. Could it not be the, so to speak, hieroglyphic representation of the conversion of the region of Senlis, whose inhabitants were called inhabitants of the woods, Silvanectenses? — It goes without saying that the frogs, whose voices were silenced at the command of Saint Rieul, have appeared in his images. The inhabitants of Rully where this miracle took place, and whose Latin name, Reguliacus, comes from Regulus (Rieul), did not fail to have frogs represented on the painting in the chapel of Saint Rieul, their apostle.