Saint Yves

It was in Rennes that he received holy orders, with the exception of the priest hood. However Alain de Bruc Bishop of Tréguier who ordained Yves as a priest. , Alain de Bruc, Bishop of Tréguier, claimed Yves as an asset that belonged to him. Our Saint answered his bishop's call, changing not his office, but his tribunal. In 1285, our Saint was appointed parish priest of Trédrez by Alain de Bruc, who ordained him a priest. To better fulfill his duties as a pastor, he resigned from the office of official (1288). After having remained for eight years in the parish of Trédrez, he was placed in charge of that of Lohanec until his death.

This worthy ecclesiastic possessed such profound humility that he could not bear for anyone to say the slightest thing to his advantage; and never was he heard to say anything that might attract praise to himself. Although he possessed such sublime knowledge that everyone held him to be an oracle, he nonetheless believed himself to be the most ignorant on earth: and, while serving as a parish priest, even though he was a very skillful preacher, if religious men came to his church, he would willingly yield his pulpit to them, even when he had prepared himself to preach. He did the same in other churches where he had been asked to announce the word of God, saying, through an excess of modesty, that he was not worthy to speak in their presence: which had often been the cause of a holy contest of humility. It was from this low opinion of himself that his lack of care for his own person proceeded. He always made his visits on foot, even when he was in the retinue of his bishop. When he left Rennes, the archdeacon, in recognition of the services he had received from him, presented him with a horse for his journey; but he sold it, gave the money to the poor, and went on foot to his own country. He wore a rough hair shirt against his bare skin, and a shirt of coarse tow cloth on his back. His cassock and hood were of coarse grey wool, the fabric of which was so vile and common that the meter cost only about two sous; he wore sandals like the religious of Saint Francis, whose Third Order he had embraced out of devotion.

From the time he was studying in Paris, he began to abstain from meat, giving to the poor that which was served to him in his boarding houses; at Orléans, he ceased to drink wine and undertook the fast of every Friday; then, increasing his mortifications day by day, he fasted on bread and water every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of the year, in addition to Advent and Lent, the other fasts of the Church, the vigils of the feasts of Our Lady, of the twelve Apostles, and from the Ascension of Our Lord until Pentecost. At other times, his entire meal consisted only of a piece of hard, black bread with a few poorly seasoned vegetables, and he ate only once a day, except on the days of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, and the feast of All Saints: on those days he would have two meals and sometimes eat a little fish.

The respect he bore for these solemnities also meant that he would treat poor students to a meal, and that he would sit at the table with them. His bed was but a little straw on a hurdle woven of thick osier rods, and he had no other pillow than his Bible, or a stone. He often slept on a bench, or on the ground in the sacristy of the church of Tréguier, in order to prevent the violence of the officers of Philip the Fair, King of France, who wanted at every moment to Philippe le Bel King of France who opposed the establishment of the diocese of Pamiers. carry off its treasures and silverware. Saint Tugdual, to whom this church is dedicat ed, in recogn Saint Tugdual Apostle of the region for whom Saint Yves had a great devotion. ition of such a good office, appeared to him one night while he was praying before the high altar, and expressed his gratitude to him. One day, while traveling with a man named Maurice du Mont, and lodging in the same room, he slipped away from him secretly in the middle of the night to go into the cemetery; but a voice from heaven awakened Maurice and told him that he was going to the cemetery, and that he would find Yves lying on a stone, which was the one where Saint Thelau, patron of the place, had done penance. Having noticed that a poor man had spent the night at the door of his house, he felt such displeasure that, as if he had been guilty of it, he gave him a good bed the following night and went to sleep outside himself, in the place where that member of Jesus Christ had rested.

He spent almost the entire night in prayer or reading. He said Mass every day, and his soul received admirable divine consolations there, particularly at the Confiteor, the Canon, and the Communion: he would usually shed torrents of tears. Once, when he held the precious body of Jesus Christ in his hands, a globe of fire was seen around him, which dissipated as soon as he had consecrated the chalice.

Another time, as he was making his thanksgiving after Mass, a brilliant dove came to rest on his head, and from there flew onto the high altar and disappeared. He kept his chastity inviolably until death. Auffroi, a priest of holy life who had heard his general confession at the end of his life, protested after his death that he had not found a single mortal sin; but that, regarding chastity, he had not even noticed a venial one: he had found a powerful safeguard in devotion to Mary. His innocence was so great that even animals venerated him: one day when he was dining at home with a large number of the poor, a bird of extreme beauty and great brilliance entered the room, and, fluttering gently around his head, finally came to rest on his hand, and did not fly away until it had received his blessing.

These favors from heaven are as many very evident proofs that the virtues of this good priest were not feigned, but genuine. We have so far only seen those that concern him personally: let us see the others that touch his neighbor.

He often kept an open table for the poor, and not only for those who presented themselves, but also for others whom he charitably sought out. He was delighted to receive religious travelers in his home; he even had a special room to lodge them, and took pleasure in serving them at the table. He distributed, with holy profusion, the income from his benefice and his patrimony to the poor, which amounted to sixty pounds of rent (this was then a very notable sum, particularly in Lower Brittany). He supported several orphans; he instructed some in his own house and kept others as boarders with masters who taught them trades. He could not bear to see the poor naked; visiting a hospital one day, he found several poorly clothed; he gave them all his garments and was forced to wrap himself in a blanket until others could be brought to him. He performed these kinds of excesses of liberality more than once: for another day, while a tailor was fitting him for a garment, having noticed a half-naked poor man in his courtyard, he had that new garment given to him and kept only his old ones.

One day, while he was walking in the countryside, a poor man lying under a miserable shed asked him for alms, assuring him that he was dying of hunger. As he had no money on him, he took off his hood and gave it to him. But it is said that God performed a miracle to reward his charity. Indeed, a few moments later, two women with whom he was traveling, looking up at him, noticed that his head was covered with a hood similar to the one they had seen him give away. Great was their astonishment. As for Saint Yves, frightened by this signal favor, he bent his knees and struck his breast. "Lord Jesus," he said, "I give you thanks for the gift you have deigned to bestow upon me." This action, this profound humility, this ardent charity, and finally this miracle touched the hearts of these women singularly, and they began to weep. Yves then turning to them: "Go, my daughters," he said to them, "go with the blessings from above; do good, and God will return it to you."

Having another time found a wretch at the door of his house, covered with a horrible leprosy, he had him come up to his room, gave him something to wash with, had him sit first at the table, and sat beside him; but, in the middle of dinner, this leper appeared so resplendent that the room became all luminous; then, looking fixedly at the Saint, he said to him: *The Lord is with you*, and disappeared immediately, leaving this charitable soul filled with joy and consolation. But one should not be surprised if Yves gave such great alms, since Our Lord often multiplied them in his hands: it is said that, in a time of scarcity, he gave dinner abundantly to more than two hundred poor people with only seven or eight sous worth of bread, and another time he had enough with a piece worth two deniers to satisfy twenty-four.

If he took such care to provide bodily nourishment to the poor, he took even greater care to distribute to them spiritual nourishment, that is to say, the word of God; for, not content with dispensing it to his parishioners, he also preached to their neighbors and sometimes gave three or four sermons in a single day, and it was noted that on one Good Friday he preached the Passion in seven different churches. He applied himself with such zeal to these apostolic functions that he often forgot to eat and drink, and upon returning home in the evening, he could barely stand due to his extreme weakness.

He preached in Breton or in French, depending on the nature of his audience; and, in synodal assemblies, he also did so in Latin. When he was in the countryside, he catechized the villagers, taught them the mysteries of the faith, instructed them in how to properly recite the rosary, to examine their conscience, and to practice the other exercises of a good Christian. His sermons were not fruitless: besides the good they did for the people of his parish, they drew many other persons away from their disorders. A usurer named Thomas de Kerrimal, touched by the exhortations of this h oly priest, abando Thomas de Kerrimal Usurer converted by the preachings of Saint Yves. ned his unjust trade and became a religious in the Abbey of Bégor, which was then under a strict reform. He also converted several clerics who were leading scandalous and libertine lives by instilling in them a great terror of the judgments of God. He found the material for his sermons more in the fervor of prayer than in books. Indeed, his prayer was continuous; it served not only as food for his soul but also as sustenance for his body: for he sometimes remained for five days, and at other times seven, absorbed in prayer without drinking, eating, or sleeping. His most common ejaculatory prayers were these: 'Jesus Christ, Son of God; Lord, create in me a pure heart.' And he repeated these words almost at every moment.

But what made Saint Yves more illustrious was the inviolable integrity with which he exercised for so long the dangerous office of official, whether in Rennes or in Tréguier. He never pronounced sentences without his eyes bathed in tears, because he considered that he, who was then judging others, would himself be judged in turn. He tried to reconcile the parties when he saw them on the point of entering into a lawsuit; and, when they wished to plead, he always favored those whom he knew to have the better right. From judge he sometimes became an advocate in favor of the poor, the widows, and the orphans whom powerful parties wished to oppress; and this example is usually reported. Having come to Tours to support some sentences he ha Tours Place of retirement for Clotilde near the tomb of Saint Martin. d already pronounced, and against which there was an appeal, he stayed with a virtuous widow who was accustomed to receiving him; but he found her extremely distressed, because two crooks, who were posing as merchants, had given her a suitcase to keep, in which they claimed there were twelve hundred gold pistoles, on the condition that she would not return it unless they were both present. One of the two, however, six days later, had skillfully retrieved it from her hands, and she had returned it to him in good faith. However, the other, who was in league with him, had summoned the widow to court to have her condemned to give him his suitcase or the value of what it contained; she was, in fact, about to be condemned when Saint Yves, who had made himself her defender, represented in open court that the widow was ready to produce the suitcase just as it had been entrusted to her, and to return it to the plaintiff, but with the condition under which it had been entrusted to her, and which the opposing party himself did not deny, namely: in the presence of the two persons who had deposited it with her. The judge approved this conclusion, and ordered that the plaintiff produce his companion. But the crook was so troubled by this unforeseen sentence that, changing countenance, he began to shudder and tremble before the whole assembly; which the judge having observed, had him arrested. He then confessed that in the suitcase there were only old nails and scrap metal; so that, three days later, he was punished as a thief.

Saint Yves was not content with leaving the office of judge to become the advocate of widows, orphans, and the poor; he also provided them with money to pay the costs of the lawsuits they were obliged to sustain for the preservation or recovery of their property. And when he had pronounced some sentence in their favor, and there was an appeal, because their opponents hoped to find less incorruptible judges, he himself pursued the confirmation of his sentence, the justice of which he clearly demonstrated: this was not difficult for him, since it is asserted that, in the great number of judgments he rendered and causes he supported, there was never a single unjust one: a conduct all the more admirable as, in that great affection he had for the poor, it seemed that it would have been easy for him to let himself be deceived in their favor.

He knew in advance (and told Typhaine de Pestivien, Lady of La Roche-Derrien) that his death was approaching. He fell ill some time after Easter; but, although his illness increased continuously, he would not consult any physician other than a crucifix he had in his room, which he looked at incessantly. His extreme weakness did not prevent him, on the eve and the day of our Lord's Ascension, from giving exhortations to his people, from celebrating Holy Mass, supported on one side by the Abbot of Beaup ort and on the o abbé de Beauport Abbey whose abbot attended Yves at his final mass. ther by Alain, Archdeacon of Tréguier, and from hearing once more the confessions of those who asked him for that grace; afterwards, he lay down on his hurdle, in his ordinary clothes, without wishing to relax any of his rigors and penances, saying as an excuse to those who urged him to take some relief that he was well as he was and that he did not deserve to be otherwise.

On Saturday, May 18, he had the last Sacraments of the Eucharist and Extreme Unction administered to him, and after having received them with perfect consciousness, he lost his speech and spent the whole night with a face so cheerful that it clearly showed the joy he had in his heart to see himself so close to going to the house of the Lord; finally, he rendered his beautiful soul to God on the 19th of the same month, within the octave of the Ascension, in the year 1303, aged only fifty years: the poor, the orphans, and all the unfortunate mourned him as their foster father, their advocate, and their comforter.

The tradition of Saint Yves's incorruptible equity is the one that has been perpetuated most prominently in the memory of the people. In Lower Brittany in particular, it has taken shape in crude and artless representations, modest and naive testimonies of popular gratitude. Thus, in the church of Minihy-Tréguier, nea r the modern ho Minihy-Tréguier Place of worship and memory of Saint Yves. use that replaced the ancient manor of Kermartin, where the memory of Saint Yves is still alive, one sees a group composed of three wooden statues, of a workmanship that betrays an unskilled hand. One of these statues is the image of Saint Yves. He is shown wearing an ermine-trimmed surplice, with a camail and a square cap. To his right and left, two litigants appear to be soliciting a favorable decision from him. One, the rich man, with an arrogant air and a confident gait, a hood on his head, wearing with ease a magnificent scarlet houppelande, holds a roll of papers in one hand: it is obviously the file of his case that he wants to entrust to the Saint; the other hand almost touches his future defender, whom he does not fear to offend with this importunate familiarity. The second litigant, the poor man, half-covered in a wretched jacket, legs bare, hat in hand, barely dares to make his humble grievances heard. He has neither schedules nor marked or stamped paper to present; but the goodness of his cause can be read on his honest face. The Saint stands upright, in the attitude of a man listening with attention. His features breathe gentleness and benevolence; one guesses that he will incline toward the one who has no rhetoric other than a convinced tone, no arguments other than the just pity he inspires.

The same scene is presented with similar details in the pretty little church of La Roche-Maurice, near Landerneau. The contrasts are even more sharply defined. The rich man wears golden clothes; he holds a large purse full of crowns, which he seems to offer brazenly to Saint Yves to win him over. As for the poor man, the rags that hide his nakedness indicate extreme destitution.

Let us also briefly mention wooden sculptures of the same kind found in the parish church of Faou. If the transformation of the rich man is complete, it must be a titled gentleman, a duke or a marquis, at the very least, gallantly wearing a court costume, a French-style coat with gold facings, knee breeches, a splendid vest, a bicorne hat, sparkling shoe buckles: are they rubies, diamonds, what do I know?

To explain the multiplicity of these humble monuments, whose anachronism should not be surprising, one must remember that at the time when Saint Yves lived, the great were all-powerful, quite inclined to abuse their immense influence, and justice was too often venal.

We have seen him represented in the costume of a lawyer, holding in his hand a roll of papers to recall his principal title, which is that of defender of the poor. — A bird, which often takes the form of a dove, flutters around his head. — He crosses an overflowing torrent on dry feet.

Saint Yves is everywhere the patron of men of law: jurisconsults, lawyers, notaries, bailiffs, and orphans.