Saint Guy of Pomposa

But while he was thinking of a way to make this journey, God inspired him to return to Ravenna and place himself under the discipline of a holy hermit named Martin, who lived in solitude on a small island in the Po River. He therefore came to find him, and, having taken the religious habit, he lived for three years under his guidance with great obedience and docility. At the end of three years, Martin, to whom the Pope had entrusted the care of the abbaye de Pompose Principal monastery led by Saint Guy. Abbey of Pomposa, and who governed it through a holy religious named William, who performed the office of abbot for him, had his disciple Guy enter it, so that he could learn, in this large company, the exercises of the monastic life. It was there that he brilliantly displayed the eminent virtues that the secrecy of a hermitage had hidden until then. Thus, after having passed through all the offices of the monastery and having discharged them to the entire satisfaction of all the religious, and after having also holily governed the convent of Saint Severus in Ravenna, which Martin, his master, had given him to direct, Abbot William having resigned his office to embrace the solitary life, and John the Angel, whom he had left as his successor, having died, Guy was unanimously elected Abbot of Pomposa.

His reputation suddenly became so great that many came to place themselves under his guidance; among others, Albert, his father, and Gerard, his brother. Obliged to build a new monastery, he saved from death, through his prayers, some workers who were about to be crushed under ruins. One day when the workers were loudly complaining that they were being left without provisions, he went out to fetch some in Ravenna; his journey was not long; he immediately encountered two boats loaded with wheat and wine that divine Providence was sending him in his need. He also caused a vessel full of wine that fell from a wall not to be broken, nor the wine spilled. Several other times, earthenware and glass vessels, falling from the hands of his disciples, did not break; the water with which he had washed his hands cured fevers and other illnesses; it was a fairly common occurrence for the water served to him at the table to change into wine: something that great prelates even experienced with admiration. His life, throughout the time of his ministry, was more angelic than human: he resigned from all temporal care and entrusted it to various abbots whom he successively made his vicars; as for him, he attended only to spiritual matters; to be more capable of raising souls to God, he always had his mind and heart in heaven. He usually retired to a solitude, a league from the monastery, where his abstinence was so great and his prayer so continuous that he seemed to live only on fasting and prayer. He treated his body with such severity, especially during Lent, that his historian has no difficulty in saying that tyrants and executioners would have had difficulty treating him with more rigor. However, he had extreme gentleness and truly paternal charity for his religious; and they, for their part, loved him very tenderly.

One of them, Martin, having died three or four leagues from the monastery, his body was brought there to be buried: but after the Mass and other prayers for the dead were finished, as they were about to lay him in the ground, he began to show signs of life and called out in a loud voice for his holy Abbot. The Saint asked him where he had come from, what he had seen, and what had restored his life. He replied: 'that he had seen a place of horrible torments, where several of his relatives and acquaintances were; as he looked upon them with horror, Saint Michael had appeared to him, and, after having him taste a honey of extraordinary sweetness, he had commanded him to return for three days to his body.' Indeed, this good religious lived for three more days, still having the taste of that honey in his mouth, and, at the end of this time, having received the blessing of his Abbot, he expired most holily.

Another, named Barthode, fell ill unto death. In his agony, he was so horribly tempted by demons that, in the pains he was suffering, he seemed to show signs of despair. The community was quite terrified by this: but the holy Superior did so much through his prayers that calm and serenity succeeded this great struggle. His brethren asked him what had caused such terrible fears and agitations; he told them: 'I saw the evil spirits in dreadful forms, and extremely fierce against me, although they had to reproach me for only one sin, which I committed a long time ago, and of which I had no more memory: it was having learned in the world a kind of magic, which I did not, however, practice. But by the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ and by the prayers of our holy Abbot and yours, they withdrew in shame, and left me in peace.' He then received absolution for this offense, and rendered his soul in great peace.

This blessed Abbot, with the consent of his Chapter, had ordered that no fish should be eaten on Wednesdays or Fridays. In his absence, the prior had some served: but at the same time, a herd from the abbey scattered so much in the forest that it was impossible to gather it, and it only returned after the Saint, having been informed of this transgression, had punished it with a severe penance.

But, although his holiness was so admirable, he was nonetheless exposed to persecution. Heribert, Archbishop of Raven na, con Ravenne Birthplace of the saint and site of his final mission. ceived such hatred against him that he resolved to ruin him and even led soldiers into his monastery to pillage and destroy it. Saint Guy did not wish to oppose this tyranny with any weapons other than the spiritual weapons of prayer and penance: he therefore ordered his monks to fast for three days on barley bread and pure water, and during that same time, to eat only on the ground, to always wear the hair shirt, and to frequently take the discipline very harshly; he himself served as their example, and this austerity, as the Blessed Virgin had revealed to one of her great servants, was so powerful that it disarmed this prelate, violent and furious as he was. He came to the monastery, accompanied by men-at-arms; Guy, at the head of his monks, went to meet him, received him with angelic gravity and modesty, led him to the church, according to custom, with great solemnity, and the Holy Spirit touched Heribert so deeply that, bursting into tears and asking forgiveness for this evil design, he swore to the Saint and his entire community perpetual friendship and protection.

Finally, this great man, having been summo ned by Emperor Henry l'empereur Henri III Holy Roman Emperor who accompanied Bruno during his accident. III, who wished to avail himself of his counsel in very important matters, went to Parma, where, three days later, having had only a very short illness, he rendered his spirit to God, in the year 1046 and the eighth of his government. As the monks were carrying his body back to their abbey, the Parmesans, having recognized, by the healing he performed on a blind man and by their bells which rang without any human agency, the greatness of the treasure they were taking away, seized it and made themselves masters of it. But the Emperor of Germany, Henry III, arriving thereupon, had it carried first to Verona, where it was placed in the church of Saint Zeno and performed many miraculous healings there. The following year, he h ad it Spire City in Germany where the saint's relics are kept. transported to Speyer, in Germany, to the church of Saint John the Evangelist, which, since that time, has also taken the title of Saint Guy or Saint Witen; this translation is celebrated there on May 4. As for the current day, it is that of his passing.

It should not be omitted that our Saint had a special bond of friendship with the blessed Peter Damian, and that he kept him for two whole years at Pomp osa to Pompose Principal monastery led by Saint Guy. teach Holy Scripture to his monks. It is the blessed Peter Damian who informs us that the religious abbot of Pomposa was numbered among the Saints, like Saint Romuald, shortly after his death, by the authority of the Church.

The convoy of boats that arrived near his monastery at the moment when provisions were about to run out for the workers busy building his abbey is the iconographic attribute of Saint Guy of Pomposa. — He is one of the patron saints of Speyer.

The continuators of the Bollandists have given us two lives of Saint Guy of Pomposa: both have served us in composing this one. — Cf. Proper of Mainz, for this day.