Saint William of Bourges

After having edified this house, of which he became the claustral prior, his virtues earned him new honors and later called him to direct, as abbot, two monasteries of the filiation of Pontigny: that of Fontaine-Jean, in the diocese of Sens, then that of Chalis, fou nded i Chalis Cistercian monastery of which William was abbot. n 1136 near Senlis by King Louis the Fat, where he continued to enjoy the sweetness of retreat until the year 1199.

At that time, Archbishop Henri de Sully, who had occupied the see of Bourges afte siège de Bourges City where Leopardin received his episcopal blessing. r Guérin de Galardon, having passed away, the canons assembled to choose a successor for him, and spent an entire first day without being able to reach an agreement.

There were three ways of proceeding in such a matter: postulation or the way of the Holy Spirit, compromise, and scrutiny. One began with postulation, and a canon was tasked with indicating a candidate. If all the voters stood up, this unanimous assent, attributed to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, ended the trial. In the contrary case, one moved to compromise, that is to say, one entrusted the nomination either to a member of the chapter or to a person outside the chapter; but, in this case, it was necessary that the proxy be designated by all the votes. Finally, failing a result by this second means, one had recourse to scrutiny and the votes were counted.

Postulation having been attempted in vain, they approached the compromise, and they agreed to entrust the election to the Archbishop of Paris, Eudes de Sully, who, having retai ned his title Eudes de Sully Archbishop of Paris who appointed Guillaume to Bourges. of cantor of the church of Bourges, was part of the college. However, they limited his choice to the names of three abbots of Cîteaux, and, night having fallen, they postponed the designation until the next day.

Eudes, not daring to settle the question himself, had recourse to a sort of drawing of lots known as sortes sanctorum, regarded by some as an appeal to the judgment of God, but suspected by certain others as hazardous and uncanonical. When the day came, he went alone to the church of Notre-Dame-de-Sales, placed under the altar cloth three slips of paper, each bearing the name of one of the three Cistercian abbots, then, after having celebrated Mass, he withdrew one of the slips, on which was inscribed the name of William, the worthy abbot of Chalis.

The chapter had gathered from the morning in the church of Saint-Étienne, and, in its impatience to know Eudes' decision, had sent him several messages, begging him to cast his choice on William. The messengers arrived at the moment when the Archbishop of Paris had just unfolded the slip whose designation, conforming to the general desire, appeared a miraculous manifestation. Eudes hurried to Saint-Étienne, and, from the top of the high altar, recounted to the canons and the people what had just happened, and when he proclaimed that the will of heaven placed the abbot of Chalis on the see of Bourges, the entire assembly, filled with joy, burst into loud thanksgiving.

The news of his election was received by William with surprise mixed with dread; it took nothing less than the orders of the Abbot of Cîteaux and the papal legate to determine him to leave his dear retreat. He sadly took the road to Bourges, where he was awaited by all the bishops of Aquitaine, who vied for the honor of consecrating him.

Upon taking possession of his diocese, William's first care was to regulate his exterior as well as his interior according to the maxims of the Gospel, for he was convinced that every man, and especially a bishop, must begin by establishing the reign of Christ within himself. He redoubled his austerities because he had to expiate, he said, his own sins and those of his people. Winter and summer, he kept his monastic habit, under which he wore a hair shirt continuously. Faithful to the Cistercian rule, he forbade himself the use of meat forever, although he had it served to the strangers who ate at his table, and whom he believed he could treat with honorable and generous hospitality without sin.

At the beginning of his pontificate, William had to endure cruel and dangerous trials. He drew the wrath of Philip Augustus by executing in his diocese the sentence of interdict launched by Pope In nocent III agains pape Innocent III Pope who commissioned Pierre de Castelnau against the Albigensians. t this monarch, who had just repudiated his wife Ingelburge to unite in adulterous bonds with Agnes of Merania. Far from bending before the threat or joining those who begged the Holy Father to revoke his decree, William, with tears in his eyes, ordered the suspension of worship. At his voice the organs fell silent, the chants ceased in the churches, burial was refused to the dead, and the city, given over to terror, soon offered the most lugubrious spectacle. Vainly the courtiers, more concerned with the favors of this world than those of the world above, advised him with apparent benevolence to appease the king as quickly as possible through prudent submission; vainly, passing from caresses to violence, they threatened him with deposition and the confiscation of his goods, but the pillar of the Church remained unshakable. And yet, he who separated the creature from the Creator, the ancient enemy of men, prepared for him other sorrows no less cruel, by stirring up the most regrettable conflicts between him and the clerics of the cathedral, to such an extent that they, forgetting all restraint, afflicted the holy prelate with grave insults. But, with time, God brought back harmony between the father and his children; He changed the heart of the king, who, repentant and submissive, returned to the bosom of the Church and restored to William his esteem and friendship. For their part, ashamed of their errors, the clerics came to humble themselves before their bishop, and, passing from rebellion to the deepest obedience, wished to abandon to him, as well as to his successors, the right to confer prebends which, according to canonical laws, then belonged to the universality of the clerics. Full of joy, the holy prelate hastened to raise them up and embrace them, while refusing, however, offers that infringed upon the prerogatives of the Church.

Nevertheless, this excessive leniency, this tender love of neighbor, was marvelously combined in him with a sense of duty, which he never forgot. He had the opportunity to give new proof of this when, in 1204, he witnessed the severe reparations imposed by the Church on his niece's son, Pierre de Courtenay, the s Pierre de Courtenay Great-nephew of the saint and Emperor of Constantinople. ame who was later emperor of Constantinople, and whose domains the bishop of Auxerre had placed under interdict following violent disputes. A distraught mother having appeared before him with the corpse of her child, which had been refused burial because of the interdict, the count, irritated, had it buried in the very room of the prelate. Such an affront exceeded all measure; the hour of expiation arrived, and, weary of the struggle, he had to submit. On Palm Sunday, in the presence of an immense crowd, Pierre went barefoot, in his shirt, to the bishop's apartment, and had to exhume with his own hands and carry to the public cemetery the body of the child. During this long and mournful ceremony, Saint William stood beside his nephew, never ceasing to exhort him to patience and resignation, and drinking for himself the greater part of this bitter chalice.

And yet, like all the great predestined, the illustrious archbishop had received from above the gift of miracles, of which he never made a vain display and which he used only for the glory of God, for the benefit of the sick and the afflicted. Without disturbing the elements, his salutary miracles softened the rigid laws of nature. It was a dying child whom he returned full of life and strength to his charmed mother, a paralytic whose limbs were loosened by his blessing, a demoniac to whom he restored the peace of body and soul, a prisoner whose chains he broke. At the mere touch of his hand, the blind, the deaf, and the mute regained possession of their senses.

One day, after the dedication of a church, he had retired to a meadow to take a little rest and some food with his clerics, when a pregnant woman named Humberge appeared before him in tears and expressed her fears regarding her upcoming delivery, for four previous births had given her only four dead children. William, touched by the woman's pain, had her taste his food and drink, and blessed the child she carried in her womb. Scarcely had she returned home when the pious Humberge gave birth to a son who had every appearance of health, and subsequently had several other children who were equally robust and lively.

Father Labbe reports another tradition, which he says he has not encountered in any writing, but which the memory of the people and the beautiful sculptures of Saint William's tomb have perpetuated.

There was in the city of Bourges a wretched demoniac, a sort of raving madman, who ran about on all sides, attacking passersby and challenging them to fight. In order to take revenge on Saint William, of whom he had much to complain, the devil resolved to surreptitiously carry off this wandering sheep. Taking on a human form, he stationed himself in the path of the demoniac, accepted his challenge, threw him to the ground, seized him by the throat, and was on the point of making him give up his soul in a state of mortal sin. But, warned of the scene taking place at the Gourdaine gate, the holy pastor hastened to run and exorcise the impure demon, who immediately released his prey while roaring and withdrew full of confusion and empty-handed, like a thief before a judge.

At the time when the pestilentia l heresy of the Albig hérésie des Albigeois Religious context that prompted Peter Nolasco to leave the Lauragais region. ensians was raging most fiercely, turning churches into stables and threatening to extinguish the faith, Pope Innocent III had first tried to overcome it through persuasion, by dispatching religious of the Cistercian Order to the schismatics, who were repelled with grave insults. Forced to resort to other means, the pontiff had sent a pressing letter to all provinces, urging the people to rise for the destruction of the scourge and the maintenance of the faith.

Guillaume, responding among the first to the call, had taken the cross, and, despite his age, was preparing to march in person at the head of the Catholic faithful of his diocese, when, at the beginning of January 1209, the Sunday before the Epiphany, he caught a chill while preaching the holy war in a part of the cathedral exposed to all the winds, and returned to the episcopal palace with a violent fever. The next day, despite this indisposition which he believed to be temporary, he wished to resume his preaching, which a redoubling of the fever forced him to interrupt.

On the 5th of the Ides of January, he took to his bed for the last time, and the frightening progress of the illness announcing his near end, he made his will and requested Extreme Unction. Indeed, the moments were pressing and the agony was beginning. Yet, when the body of Christ was presented to him, Guillaume left his bed with a supreme effort and knelt on the floor, saying that he could not receive his divine master otherwise.

After communion and when he had been placed back on his bed, he begged the canons to allow his body to be taken by the brothers of Chalis, and only consented to take a little rest after having extracted this promise from them. Then, he commended his church and his dear flock to them, blessed them one last time, and dismissed them, for the shadows of death were thickening around him.

Remaining with a few faithful servants, confidants of his thoughts, he had himself dressed in his pontifical vestments, asking that the ornaments used on the day of his consecration be brought to him, and with which he desired to be buried. He examined them, turned them over in his hands, and placed his pastoral rings on his fingers. He bequeathed his other jewels and clothing to the church, his treasures to the poor, and a precious memento to each of his servants. This distribution completed, he crossed his hands, turned his gaze to heaven, and became absorbed in prayer. His eyes already shone with a celestial light, his smiling mouth murmured vague and sweet words; he was conversing with the angels, his future companions.

The hour for the morning office having struck, he ordered the customary prayers to be said, and he himself, making the sign of the cross, tried to intone the *Domine, labia*; but at that moment, his voice failed him, he could not continue, and a venerable priest finished the verse. Then, the patriarch signaled for him to be lifted from his bed and placed on the ground on a hairshirt covered with ashes. Scarcely was he laid there than he clearly saw the angels beating their wings above his head. He reached out his arms to them, called to them, and his soul, exhaled in a melodious sigh, flew away with them toward the celestial regions, on Friday, the fourth day of the Ides of January (January 10) in the year of grace 1209, under the reign of Philip Augustus and the pontificate of Innocent III.

At the news of the death of the blessed William, the city was moved and rose up in its entirety. Men, women, old people, and children, in mourning clothes and armed with candles, followed the body to the church of Saint-Étienne where it was exposed, face uncovered, on a brilliant catafalque. Day and night were spent in singing and weeping. On Saturday, at daybreak, the people from the countryside joined those of the city, leaving their houses abandoned and doors open, without concern for earthly interests. Mothers, carrying their nursing children, swelled the procession; others, fearing to miss the hour, forgot their infants, who remained exposed to the attacks of domestic animals or wild beasts; a pious negligence for which they would not have to repent, for, upon their return, they found their households intact and their children sleeping quietly under the wing of their guardian angel.

And so that the earth would not be ignorant of his triumph, a globe of fire, like the most beautiful star, detaching itself from the firmament, hovered above the church during the funeral, and new wonders proved that the power of the glorious bishop survived him.

A young boy who, for three years, could not use his feet or hands, had nevertheless wanted to be carried to the church to kiss the body of the Saint like the others. While he performed this pious duty, a great cracking sound that dominated the noise of the crowd was heard in his limbs. The ceremony finished, the mother set out toward her home, still holding her son in her arms, when, a few steps from the church, he said to her:

— Mother, the blessed William was truly the friend of God, and his benefits exceed all words. Why tire yourself carrying me? Weep no more, dear mother, put me on the ground, and look at the effect of the virtues of our father.

Upon hearing these words, the astonished mother placed the child on the ground, who began to run toward the church where he entered, proclaiming his healing and the praises of the illustrious deceased.

At the sight of this miracle, the monks of Chalis, who had rushed in all haste with a cart to take the body of their former abbot, but who were beginning to be swayed by the regrets of the canons and the threats of the people, withdrew, convinced that the will of heaven was that these precious remains should remain the property of the church of Bourges.

And now, let us leave to legend the task of preserving the memory of the countless miracles which, for centuries, were accomplished at the tomb and through the merits of Saint William. At the mere contact with this sacred stone, at the simple invocation of this venerated name, diseases and mortal wounds are healed, the possessed are delivered, the insane recover their reason, the mute speak, the deaf hear, the blind see, prisons open, chains fall, children snatched by wolves are found safe and sound, playing with the young and in the den of wild beasts. Each day gives birth to new wonders, and I find myself forced to decline a task for which the pen and vellum of the monks did not suffice.

Finally, the fame of the new saint grew to such an extent that Guy-Coquille, the historian of the Nivernais, recalls "that in the University of Paris, the nation of France, which is one and the principal of the four nations forming the body of the said University, had taken him as patron and protector".

It was on these striking proofs that in 1218 the blessed William had the honor of being inscribed on the catalogue of saints, by the hand of Pope Honorius III.

Saint William is represented as an archbishop, with the pallium; a star shines above his head. — He i pape Honorius III Pope who instructed the canonization cause. s also found kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament, or holding a monstrance in his hand, a symbol of his devotion to Our Lord Jesus Christ. — He was formerly the patron of the University of Paris.

[APPENDIX: RELICS OF SAINT WILLIAM.]

At the time of the canonization, in 1218, the body of Saint William, deposited in the first vault of the catacombs of the cathedral, was enclosed by Archbishop Gérard de Cros in a magnificent gold and silver reliquary, and transferred behind the high altar of the nave itself. This imposing ceremony, approved by a new bull of the Holy Father, took place on May 7, 1218.

Girard or Géraud, his successor, performed the translation of his relics in 1217, and Honorius III gave the decree of canonization in 1218. The feast of Saint William was moved after the Octave of the Epiphany, and fixed on January 16, although the Roman Martyrology mentions it on the 10th of the same month.

In 1222, the Countess of Nevers, great-niece of the Saint, gave the church of Bourges income from her lands in the Nivernais so that a lamp could be lit that was to burn in perpetuity before the tomb of her uncle.

A few years later, the abbey of Châlis obtained an arm bone of Saint William, and the college of Navarre, in Paris, one of his ribs.

Father J. Branche, in his Life of the Saints of Auvergne and Velay, says (January 10) that the church of Saint-Léger, in Auvergne, in the bishopric of Le Puy, was honored with the greater part of the relics of Saint William. They were, like those of Bourges, dispersed by the Calvinists. But the inhabitants collected some parts: the femur, the two sickles of the legs, the greater part of the skull, with some other pieces of the head, some ribs and a large number of small bones of the fingers and other parts of the body; "they have since been placed in a wooden reliquary, covered inside with a beautiful linen, outside with tin, and closed with a good key, raised high behind the high altar, where I have had the honor of seeing them recently and conferring about them with the priests of Saint-Léger and Saint-Paul, and with Messire Guillaume Molinar, priest, who swore to me on their faith that several sick people going to perform their devotion before this holy Sepulcher recover their health there, and namely those who are troubled by fever. Small children who cannot walk at the time marked by nature obtain their healing on the spot, and others after having made a vow to be carried there, or to go visit the holy relics. Right next to this church there is a fountain whose water heals goiter, by bathing in it".

We addressed the bishopric of Le Puy to know what remains today of all the things that Father Branche speaks of. Mr. Alirol had the kindness to give us the following information: "Saint Léger was, before the great Revolution, a small parish of the diocese of Le Puy. At the restoration of worship, the church was ruined, the population did not exceed 150 souls. Saint-Léger was united to the parish of Sembadel. These two localities are in the neighborhood of La Chaise-Dieu, which, before the Revolution, belonged to the diocese of Clermont.

"The relics that the church of Saint-Léger possessed were dispersed, perhaps burned, in 1793. I thought that they might have been collected at Sembadel, and I consulted the pastoral visit reports of this latter church. I find only these three words on this subject:

**Relics without authentications.**

What remained of the relics in the cathedral of Bourges was burned in 1562 and the ashes thrown to the wind by the Huguenots".

There are several lives of Saint William: one written by an ecclesiastic who had known him particularly well in Bourges, Surius abridged it; the other was made by Pierre, a monk of Châlis, shortly after the canonization of the blessed one; Du Fossé made one of the two in our language, and Dom le Nain followed them in his *Histoire de l'Ordre de Cîteaux*, vol. VII. See also the notes of Bellandoz who reported a fragment of a third life of Saint William; the authors of the *Gallia christiana nova*, vol. II, p. 60, *l'Hagiographie nivernaise*, by Mgr Crosnier; the *Pieuses légendes du Berri*, by M. Veillat.

--**SAINT NICANOR, MARTYR (1st century).**

Saint NICANOR, one of the 72 disciples; one of the first 7 deacons; one of the immediate witnesses of J.-C.; one of the first martyrs, persecuted first with Saint Stephen in Jerusalem; then put to death on the island of Cyprus. — The traditions about Saint Nicanor appear opposed in that some place the martyrdom of Saint Nicanor under Vespasian, the year 76 A.D., and others in the 34th or 35th year A.D. But these traditions are reconciled very well if one admits that Saint Nicanor suffered persecution first with Saint Stephen and that he consumed his martyrdom on the island of Cyprus under the reign of Vespasian, when he had carried the Gospel to various places. Baronius gives a different opinion: he thinks that the Cypriots transferred the relics of Saint Nicanor to their home and that for this reason they celebrated the memory of his martyrdom on the day of this translation.

Cf. *Histoire des soixante-douze disciples*, etc.