Blessed Alexander of Foigny

The young man le jeune homme Scottish prince who became a simple Cistercian monk and shepherd at Foigny. began to weep: the struggle between the flesh and the spirit was painful. In the end, he told his sister "to do with him what she would." The pious princess took him by the hand and led him to a farm where she had him learn to milk, to obtain butter, and to make cheese. When the apprenticeship was finished, both crossed the sea and came to Foigny, in France. The young man en Foigny Cistercian monastery in France where Alexander lived. tered the Cistercians as a shepherd and pro ved himself Cisterciens Monastic order to which Bertrand and the Abbey of Grandselve belong. very expert in the art of cheesemaking. He was accepted as such, lived, and died in this humble function. Saint Matilda, upon leaving her brother, had bid him an eternal farewell, observing to him that their sacrifice would be much more pleasing to God if they never saw each other again on earth.

Now, it happened after the death of the blessed Alexander that a religious, afflicted with a chest ailment, had the thought of going to pray at his tomb. The faith of the consumptive was rewarded: the blessed Alexander appeared to him shining like a sun, wearing two crowns, one on his head, the other in his hand. As the religious seemed to ask with his gaze what this double symbol meant, the Blessed one said to him: "The crown that I carry in my hand is the earthly crown that I abandoned for the love of Jesus Christ; the other is that of the elect; it is common to me with all the Saints. To give you confidence in this vision, be healed." He was indeed healed, but only revealed on his deathbed the apparition with which he had been favored. One then recalled a hunting promise of the monastery's shepherd; for one day when an enormous wild boar had crossed into his herd of cows, he asked for his knife from the breathless hunter who was pursuing it and, with a skillfully delivered blow, struck down the animal. By connecting this fact with the vision of the religious, one arrived at an almost certainty. Saint Matilda, moreover, was n Sainte Mathilde Mother of Otto I and a model of virtue for Adelaide. ot far away: she had retired to the surroundings in a place named Lapion and from her one learne Lapion Place of retreat for Saint Matilda near Foigny. d the whole truth.

Acta Sanctorum Acta Sanctorum Monumental hagiographic collection by the Bollandists. , May 3rd.