Saint Vulphy, Patron of Rue

He did so with marvelous success, and he even surpassed the expectations of the people of Rue. But, oh weakness of our nature! Oh inconstancy of our heart! Oh misery of our mortal condition! Vulphy, forgetting the holiness of his ministry, had carnal relations with his wife, whom he should have regarded only as his sister. This fall became known: it surprised and scandalized everyone. But God, who is rich in mercy, did not leave Vulphy in this shameful state for long. He opened his eyes, he recognized his fault, he conceived a true regret for it: knowing that the Canons forbade the sacrilegious priest from approaching the holy altars any further, he condemned himself to this punishment before his superiors could impose it upon him. He therefore left his parish; and, after having provided for the subsistence of his wife and daughters, he undertook the journey to the Holy Land as penance, with no other company than that of his guardian angel, and no other provision than a great trust in the care of divine Providence. He watered his entire path with his tears, and he took fewer steps than he uttered sobs and groans toward heaven. When he arrived in Palestine, he visited the H oly Place Palestine Region where the saint obtained a miraculous rain. s with marvelous humility and composure. He was not content with washing with his tears the places that Our Lord stained with His blood; he wanted it to cost him blood as well through the rigor of the whips with which he chastised his body; finally, his fervor was so great that God, to show him that He had forgiven his crime, gave him the grace of miracles, which he used for the healing of several illnesses.

He would have well wished to spend the rest of his days at the foot of Calvary; but the Holy Spirit, who had led him to Palestine, inspired him to return to France to do penance in the same place where he had sinned, and to edify by his austerity and his heroic virtues those whom he had scandalized by his bad example. He therefore returned to Ponthieu, and, having addressed himself to Saint Riquier, his former director, he begged him to allow him to live in solitude in a wilderness belonging to his abbey of Centule, which has since been called R egnière-Écluse. Regnière-Écluse Site of the hermitage of Saint Vulphy. Having obtained this permission, he built a cell in this wilderness: he shut himself up there to spend the rest of his days in tears, in the contemplation of the mysteries of our religion, and in the praises of the sovereign Author of all things. His austerities were so prodigious that it is surprising that a human body could have supported them. His fasts and vigils were continual, and one could almost say that he did not eat, that he did not drink, and that he did not sleep.

He was especially afflicted by a great thirst; however ardent it might be, he could only relieve it by going to fetch water from a fountain half a league away from his cell; but all these steps were counted, and God showed that He found them pleasing, because the path by which he went to this fountain, although no one passed there, remained for a very long time without grass or thistles growing on it, and without even the seeds that fell there germinating or taking root. Thus, one saw in Saint Vulphy the truth of what Saint Paul says: 'That all things work together for good to those who are called to holiness by the will of God'; Saint Augustine does not exclude sins from this, because the predestined draw from them matter for humility, penance, shame for themselves, and greater fervor.

However, the demon did not leave our Saint in peace; on the contrary, he made every effort to inspire in him a disgust for solitude and to make him abandon this austere life that he had embraced. He excited in his mind a thousand dangerous images to alter the purity of his soul and to tear from him either a consent, or a connivance, or a cowardice in repelling these attacks and in ridding himself of these thoughts. He placed before his eyes, sometimes the pleasures he could enjoy in the world, sometimes the need his daughters had of his presence and his help, sometimes the difficulty of persevering for a long time in such great rigor, sometimes the little hope he should have of the forgiveness of his fault; in a word, his combats were so violent and so importunate that he needed great courage to repel them and to emerge victorious; but the Saint, being armed with the sign of the cross, with assiduous prayer, and with a holy cruelty against himself, dissipated all this war and became so formidable to his adversary that the latter no longer dared to attack him. On the other hand, the inhabitants of Rue, who had formerly been his children, came in crowds to visit him to share in his instructions; they were all the more effective because he drew them through prayer from the source of all lights, from the spirit of wisdom that God gives to all those who ask for it. They even often obtained from his charity the healing of their illnesses, consolation in their afflictions, and a thousand other good offices that this great servant of God could not refuse them. The English also wished to have a share in the effects of his benevolence, and there were some who crossed the sea and came to France to have the happiness of conversing with him and of profiting from the abundance of his blessings.

Finally, after having been long purified in the furnace of divine love, he found himself beautiful and radiant enough to be placed in the dwelling of the Bridegroom's pleasures, that is to say in heaven, where his soul was transported on June 7, a year or two before Saint Riquier, around 643.

He is the patron of Ponthieu and especially of the church of Rue.

## CULT AND RELICS OF SAINT VULPHY.

His body was buried in the place he had for so long bathed with his tears and sanctified by his penance. He performed many miracles there; but since then, the body of Saint Riquier having been transported from Forest-Moutiers to the church of the abbey of Centule, which thereafter bore his name, this same body of Saint Vulphy was transferred to Forest-Moutiers, and it remained there until the end of the 9th century: it was then carried to Montreuil-sur-Mer, to save it from the hands of the Barbarians who had thrown themselves into France. It was still, before '93, in that city, in the abbey of Saint-Sauve, which Father Giry calls a sanctuary, because of the great number of holy bodies that rested there; but, in the year 1635, on April 20, it was removed from its old reliquary and placed in a new one, covered with very well-crafted silver plates, and an old silver nut was found where these words were: *Hic continetur sancti Vulphayli Hermit and priest of Ponthieu, patron saint of the town of Rue. corpus sancti Vulphayli confessoris*; that is to say, here is enclosed the body of Saint Vulphy. On September 28, 1635, there were removed from the Saint's reliquary: his lower jaw for the church of Rue, and two fragments of tibia for the cathedral. The reliquary of the Saint-Sauve church went to the revolutionary crucible: the parish church now possesses only a few vertebrae of the Saint. One of his relics is still preserved today at Le Crotoy.

Here is the abridged history of the crucifix crucifix de lino Miraculous image of Christ that arrived by sea at Rue in 1101. of Lino. Saint Helena, mother of the great Constantine, the first Christian emperor, had excavations carried out by her son's order in various places in Jerusalem, around the year 327. Having learned through the tradition of the country that the house of Nicodemus, an ancient and secret disciple of Jesus Christ, had once been built near the Golgotha gate, she had an excavation made there, where three images of Our Lord Jesus Christ crucified were found. The place of this discovery and the skill of the workman's chisel, which had carved them perfectly alike, led the Christians who accompanied this pious queen, and those who lived in the ruins of Jerusalem, to believe that heaven had destined these three images to serve as silent preachers of the great mystery of our Redemption. They were all three kept in the house of a Christian named Gregory, a Syrian by nation, until the time when the Christians of the West found the way open to go freely to the Holy Land.

Among the many pilgrims who visited the Holy Places of Jerusalem, a citizen of the city of Lucca, in Tuscany, named Stephen, made this journey at the time when the French were taking up the cross with the other Catholic princes, under the reign of Philip I (1060-1108), at the solicitation of Pope Urban II. This devout pilgrim took lodging in the house of Gregory, guardian of these three images, and contracted with his host a friendship so sincere and so close that the latter told him the story. Stephen begged him insistently and for the love of God to give him one of these three images, in order to enrich his country with this precious treasure. Gregory did not wish to part with a portion of his treasure until he had consulted the other Christians of the country: they decided unanimously, and as if by divine inspiration, that these three images would be exposed on the sea in three different small boats, without sails, without rudders, and without pilots, in order to recognize the will of God. This resolution was no sooner taken and executed than the three boats set sail by themselves into the open sea and took their route toward the West: the first arrived happily near the city of Lucca; the second passed to the coasts of Normandy, in a small town called Dives, and as under the name of Saint-Sauveur de Dives, where it was surrounded with great veneration until the fury and impact of the Calvinists reduced it to ashes; but its initial memory has always been preserved there. The third image came to land on the shore of the city of R ue, where it wa troisième image Miraculous image of Christ that arrived by sea at Rue in 1101. s spotted by an individual who happened to be in that area on a first Sunday of the month of August, in the year of grace 1101. He returned to the city announcing this news with all its circumstances. The inhabitants went out with the clergy to see this adorable sign of the Redemption. This sacred image was honorably deposited in the parish church now known under the title of Saint-Vulphy, in which a magnificent chapel was built under the most august name of the Holy Spirit, to serve as a repository for this precious image.

As soon as this wonder had spread through the country, the mayors, aldermen, and bourgeois of Abbeville, jealous that the city of Rue possessed this treasure, presented their petition Abbeville Site of the subsequent translation of the relics. to the parliament of Paris, representing to it that this image, so venerable, would be much more revered in their city which, in its capacity as capital of Ponthieu, was much larger and more populous than the small city of Rue. Their petition was heard, and the bourgeois of Abbeville came in good order and with force in hand to remove this image; which they did with great clamor and in the midst of joyful concerts, while the bourgeois of Rue, desolate to see themselves deprived of such an inestimable treasure, their consolation and the honor of their city, struck the heavens with clamors that resounded in all the surroundings, imploring the Saint of Saints in this deplorable fatality. The Abbevillois, triumphant in their conquest, were returning with joy; but they had barely left the city when the four horses that were pulling the chariot remained motionless, without all the strength and industry of men being able to make them advance a step. It was soon recognized that the finger of God was working this miracle. The horses were struck down, with the exception of one, which turned its bridle instantly, and which, without anyone interfering, promptly led this image back to the foot of the parish church, and it was returned to the place from which it had been removed. This fact was recognized and attested by Jean Bertrand, cardinal, legate in France, in his bull of 1323, dep Jean Bertrand Cardinal and legate who attested to the miracle of the crucifix. osited in the literal treasury of the said church, and this miraculous history is carved in mosaic and in relief on the frontispiece of the chapel, *perpetuum rei memoriam*.

Pilgrims were drawn from all parts by the multitude of miracles that God performed in this holy chapel. Some were even seen coming from foreign kingdoms, among others Isabella of Portugal, who made her pilgrimage in the month of July 1440. The Sovereign Pontiffs, namely Alexander III and Urban III, Clement VI and Nicholas V, Innocent XII, favored this holy place with an infinity of privileges amply described in a bull of the same Pope Innocent VII, dated Febru Innocent VII Pope who granted privileges to the sanctuary of Rue. ary 15, 1455. And our most Christian kings, who yielded to no one in piety and devotion, did not omit this pilgrimage during their neuroses and personal illnesses. It is to the protection of God and in favor of our miraculous image that the city has been preserved from its destruction several times. There is no help or grace that the Lord does not grant to those who implore Him at the feet of this crucifix. His goodness is manifested in favor of all those who, with devotion and piety, visit this holy place. The paralyzed receive their healing there, the afflicted their consolation, the weak-minded recover their good sense, and sterile women have obtained their fertility there. There is no kind of illness that can afflict those who, with faith and piety, come to offer their hearts and prayers to God at the feet of this holy image.

The magnificent chapel of the Holy Spirit now contains only the remains of the miraculous wooden crucifix whose history you now know. The fat of the legs and some pieces torn off by the revolutionaries in '95 are in a large gilded reliquary above a new, very beautiful, and very rich altar. The right hand, which had been exposed for a very long time behind the altar for the veneration of the faithful, was placed, in the presence of the whole city, in a more suitable reliquary on June 11, 1859.

The pilgrimage has, I believe, never been interrupted since it was possible to replace the remains of the crucifix in the chapel, even when divine service was not possible. Today, as the chapel is well on the way to restoration and the interior has already received its main ornaments, the number of pilgrims increases every year. It is especially on Pentecost Sunday and Monday that the crowd is immense.

Information received from the parish priest of Rue. — 1863.