Saint John Francis Regis

On December 8, 1616, in his nineteenth year, he entered as a novice in Toulouse into the Society of Jesus. From the v Compagnie de Jésus Religious order to which Peter Canisius belonged. ery first days, he made himself admired by the most fervent. He found nothing difficult in the Rule, having long been accustomed to all that it prescribes: silence, recollection, humility, obedience, self-denial, and mortification. One of the trials to which novices are subjected in the Society of Jesus is to be sent to the hospital to accustom them to overcoming their delicacy and to exercising the most arduous ministries of Christian charity. Regis was admirable in this exercise. The most repulsive sick were those to whom he attached himself by preference: he consoled them, he helped to dress their wounds, he made their beds, and this with an outpouring of heart that showed clearly enough that he saw only Jesus Christ in the person of the poor.

His novitiate finished, Regis resumed his studies of eloquence and philosophy, as is the custom among the Jesuits. The ardor he had put into making himself pious, he brought likewise to acquiring knowledge. However, a rather unusual thing, his application to study did not diminish his piety in the least. The reputation of his holiness spread abroad, and when he went out, those who saw him pass pointed him out under the name of the Angel of the College. It was while he was studying philosophy at Tournon that he began his career in the missions, where he was later to perform so many wonders. He undertook the sanctification of the town of Andance. The success of this first mission of the great servant of God was admirable. One saw the vices that reigned most in this town—drunkenness, swearing, impurity—banished, and the frequent use of the Sacraments restored. The odor of sanctity that he left there still subsists today. It was there that he established, for the first time, the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, to bring back among the faithful the worship of the divine Eucharist. He himself drew up the regulations for such a holy institution, which has since spread everywhere, but of which one must recognize Regis, aged only twenty-two, as the founder.

Although Regis had gathered such abundant fruits in this first mission, his superiors called him, however, at least for a time, to other occupations. In 1625, he was designated to go and teach belles-lettres in the city of Le Puy. There h e was the mo ville du Puy Birthplace of the saint in France. del of professors: entirely devoted to his students, he occupied himself only with what could make them advance in science and virtue. He prepared to teach his class as if it were a matter of the greatest importance; the preparation to which he was most faithful was to go and pray before the Blessed Sacrament. Exhortations to piety, short and lively, mingled themselves with his teachings and produced the happiest effects on the minds of the young people. He had for his students the tenderness of a mother. He was particularly eager to relieve those who were poor. One of them, Jacques Gigon, being dangerously ill, Regis approached his bed, made the sign of the cross over him, saying: "Take courage, my son, you will recover; God wants you to serve Him henceforth with more fervor than you have done." Immediately the child felt better, and in a few days he was cured.

In 1628, he was sent to Toulouse to study theology there. At night, he would secretly leave his room and go to the house chapel. The superior was informed of this. "Do not disturb," he replied, "the conversations of this angel with his God. This young man is a Saint, and I would be very much mistaken if his feast were not celebrated one day in the Church." There was no doubt that this superior, who was Father François-Tarbes, a very pious and very austere man, had been extraordinarily enlightened by God regarding the eminent holiness of the young theologian.

Regis was ordained a priest in 1630. He celebrated his first mass with such tender devotion that he did nothing but melt into tears during the sacred mysteries: those present could not help but weep themselves. They believed they saw an angel at the altar, by his modesty and by the divine fire that shone on his face. The respect and holy fear that the presence of Jesus Christ imprinted in his soul appeared in his whole person.

The plague victims of Toulouse had the first fruits of our Saint's ministry. His superiors, who feared exposing his youth, only granted him, after much insistence on his part, permission to go and serve and console the victims of the scourge. But the permission obtained, the heroic young man hardly spared himself. He wanted to die a martyr and gain heaven by a unique and violent effort.

As piety is worth even more than science, it is through exercises of piety that Saint Ignatius wished not only to begin, but also to finish and complete the instruction and formation of his children. A whole year, devoted solely to piety, happily crowns the admirable education of the Jesuit Fathers. It is useless to say how Regis spent this last year of novitiate; as there are no limits to holiness, his increased even more on this occasion.

An order from the General of the Society drew him from his retreat and sent him to Fontcouverte to settle certain family affairs. However, the things of heaven continued to occupy him much more than those of the earth. In the mornings, he preached to the people and taught catechism to the children: after which he heard the confessions of all who presented themselves. In the evening, a little before nightfall, he gave a second sermon. The rest of the day was spent visiting the poor, and even begging for them. His brothers blushed at this and reproached him for forgetting his birth. One day, as he was crossing the square, carrying a straw mattress on his shoulders for a sick person, the Saint was jeered by soldiers to whom this spectacle appeared novel.

Régis's brothers then resolved to set limits to this zeal which exposed him to public ridicule. They spoke to him of propriety. He replied that all the ignominies of the world would not turn him away from the exercises of charity. “Very well,” the brothers replied, “exercise the works of mercy; but can you not do so without covering us with confusion, by making yourself ridiculous through the scenes you create in public?” Régis then replied that it is not by humbling themselves that the ministers of the Gospel dishonor their character; that, for his part, he was firmly resolved to regulate his conduct by the virtues of the Gospel and not by the maxims of the world. But what justified him better than any words he could have said was the change in morals he brought about throughout the city.

The numerous conversions that took place in Fontcouverte led Regis's superiors to destine him solely for missions: in the summer he evangelized the cities, and in the winter the countryside.

He began with Montpellier; his language was simple and popular, but the fire of charity, with which he was consumed within himself, gave his speeches such power that the whole city came to hear him, and no one could listen to him without melting into tears. People left his instructions with contrition in their hearts; they converted in crowds. An eloquent and renowned preacher, having heard him, said: "It is in vain that we all work to adorn our speeches. While the catechisms of this holy Missionary convert, our beautiful language only amuses without producing any fruit."

Regis addressed all conditions of people; he had a preference only for the poor: "Come, my dear children," he would say to them, "you are my treasure and the delight of my heart."

Often he remained in his confessional surrounded by the poor until evening, without taking any food. Someone having made the observation to him: "I assure you," he replied with simplicity, "that when I am occupied with these poor people, I cannot think of anything else." He was seen again in Montpellier, as in Fontcouverte, going through the streets, loaded with bundles of straw that he had begged to provide bedding for the poor sick. The gathered children made fun of his strange appearance; and someone having told him that he had made himself ridiculous: "So be it," he replied, "one gains doubly when one relieves one's brothers at the price of one's own humiliation."

A large number of sinful women were corrupting the youth of Montpellier; the Saint converted a good number of them, and, joining prudence to zeal, he ensured their conversion by entrusting them to the care of charitable persons. The particular difficulties of this work did not prevent the Saint from working at it all his life and obtaining wonderful successes. Later, as the number of conversions increased, he created houses of refuge to receive them, the care of which he entrusted to holy nuns. He later founded a refuge of the same kind in the city of Le Puy, which became the center of his labors. He encountered unheard-of obstacles and disappointments in this enterprise, which was twenty times put in peril by pitfalls of all kinds, and twenty times saved by his zeal and perseverance.

The apostolic career of Father Regis lasted ten years, during which he made religion flourish again in Montpellier, in Languedoc and the Vivarais, in the city of Le Puy, and throughout the Velay. He brought about a true transformation in the lands devastated by heresy and by the corruption of morals, which is its natural consequence.

Irreligion and disorder were very great in Sommières, the capital of a beautiful region called the Lavonage, which is four leagues from Montpellier. One mission was enough to change everything. The servant of God, himself astonished by the miracles of conversion that God worked through his ministry, wrote after his mission to his General that the fruit had surpassed his expectations, and that he had no words to explain it. One would have said that the inhabitants had become other men, so pious and orderly had the city become.

The holy man instituted the Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament in Sommières and in all the towns and villages of the Lavonage. He brought peace to all families; he established evening and morning prayer in every household; he regulated the way of helping the poor of each parish; he finally took all the necessary measures to maintain the good he had done in the country.

The rigor of the season did not prevent him from penetrating into the most inaccessible places of the whole country. His austerities were extraordinary. All his food was reduced to bread and water; sometimes he added a little milk and some fruit. From that time on, he had forbidden himself meat, fish, eggs, and wine. He never left off his hair shirt; and the little rest he granted to nature, he took on a bench or on the floor. Calvinist soldiers preparing to pillage a church, he advanced toward them with crucifix in hand, and he spoke to them with such force that they desisted from the sacrilegious resolution they had taken. Another time, he went to ask an officer, also a Calvinist, for the restitution of goods that had been taken from a poor man. The officer, informed of the bad treatment that Regis had endured at the hands of the soldiers, was so edified by the silence he kept regarding what concerned him personally that he granted his request.

No country in France had suffered as much from the Calvinist heresy as the diocese of Viviers and the entire Vivarais. Religion was almost extinguished there. The churches of this country, which were not lacking in pastors, were served by ignorant and scandalous priests. The most abominable vices reigned everywhere.

The mission of Father Regis in the Vivarais lasted three years: what labors and fatigues for the holy man in these mountains that he traversed in all seasons and in all weather! But also what an abundant harvest came to reward his toil! At the end of these three years, the country was no longer the same: heresy defeated and almost stifled, religion universally known and practiced, good morals restored, churches raised from their ruins and provided with instructed and pious pastors, divine and human authority respected: this is what had been done in the space of three years.

Among the many conversions worked by the Saint, there were especially two that led to many others. This was that of the Count of La Mothe-Brion, who, after having lived like the wise men of the world, entered the path of penance and devoted himself entirely to the practice of good works, and that of a very rich comte de La Mothe-Brion Nobleman converted by the saint and witness to his missions. Calvinist lady who lived in the village of Usez. She was known for her zeal for heresy. Father Regis went to find her.

— "Madame," he said to her upon approaching her, "God has been calling you for a long time; do you wish to be forever rebellious to the grace that presses upon you inwardly? Do you intend to lose your soul, for which a God was willing to shed his blood on the cross? Have you ever understood what it is to be lost for an eternity?"

This lady appeared a little surprised; but charmed by the modest air of the man of God, she replied to him:

— "God forbid, my Father, that I should want to lose my soul! I have nothing more at heart than to save it.

— "You must then," replied the Saint, "embrace the Catholic religion, which was the religion of your fathers, and which is the only one founded by Jesus Christ, the only one where one finds salvation.

— "You ask for my conversion," she said, "and I am astonished to have nothing to reply. I have resisted until now all those who have spoken to me; but I do not know what interior impulse of the Holy Spirit forces me to surrender at this moment. I want to be Catholic: instruct me, I abandon myself to your direction. Something supernatural is happening in me that I do not understand and of which I cannot give an account."

She did indeed abjure in the hands of the Bishop of Viviers. This last conversion gave a new luster to the holiness of Regis and confirmed the people in the opinion they already held that God was visibly acting through his ministry.

Around the same time, heaven permitted a violent storm to rise against the holy missionary. He was accused of disturbing the peace of families through indiscreet zeal, of filling his speeches with personalities and invectives contrary to decency. The Bishop of Viviers at first took his side; but in the end, he listened to the repeated complaints brought to him. Believing that they were at least partially founded, he wrote to the superior of the Jesuits so that he would recall Regis. At the same time, he sent for him; then, after having given him severe reprimands, he told him that he was obliged to dismiss him. Regis did not have recourse to any of the reasons that could have justified him; he was content to reply that he was only too guilty before God, and that, given his lack of light, many faults had undoubtedly escaped him. "For the rest," he added, "God, who sees the depths of my heart, knows that I have had no other end than his glory." The prelate, charmed by such a humble and modest response, suspected that he might have been deceived. The clarifications that were given to him afterward made him entirely return from his prejudices. He publicly paid homage to the virtue of Father Regis, until the beginning of the year 1634, the time at which the latter was called to Le Puy by his superiors. The prelate, in sending back the missionary, wrote to the provincial a letter in which he gave great praise to the virtue and prudence of the worthy worker who had labored in his diocese, and only one reproach, that of squandering his health too much. "It is the only thing," he added, "on which we could never agree; I always reproached him that he was doing too much; and he claimed that he was not doing enough. I return him to your hands; it is for you to use your authority to force him to spare himself more than he does, and to prevent the most charitable of all men toward others from having so much harshness for himself."

Régis, after taking leave of the bishop, went to Le Puy, according to the order he had received from his superiors. It was then that he expressed the desire to go and bring the Gospel to the Canadians. He wanted to go and seek in North America, among the savages, the palm of martyrdom, the supreme object of his ambition. But God willed to keep him for France.

At the beginning of 1635, the Count of La Mothe, having at heart the desire to bring back to the true faith the town of Le Cheylard, infected with the errors of Calvin, remembered the one to whom he himself owed his return to the truth, and he called for Father Régis. The latter found at Le Cheylard only a sad assembly of heretics and bad Catholics. After some time, the same miracle of conversion and return to God, which followed the preachings of Régis everywhere, was accomplished. He did not confine his zeal within the walls of the town. He made frequent excursions into the surrounding villages and isolated dwellings. He would lose his way on the unknown paths of these mountains; he was several times obliged to spend the night in the woods.

The zeal of the holy man communicated itself to the entire population. It was a touching spectacle to see, in the middle of winter, entire villages abandoning their homes and domestic affairs, traveling three or four leagues through snow and ice, to have the consolation of hearing the servant of God and of going to confession to him. Moreover, their efforts were never in vain. At whatever hour of the day or night they came, Régis was theirs. One day, as he was leaving the church, very tired after finishing the morning's duties, he found a group of people who had arrived from very far away. "My Father," one of them said to him, "for the love of God, do not refuse us the help of your charity. We have walked all night, and we have traveled twelve leagues since yesterday over horrible roads to benefit from your instructions: give us the consolation we have come so far and with so many inconveniences to seek." The holy missionary, moved to tears by this speech: "Come, my children," he said to them, "I carry you all in my heart." Sustained by his zeal, which gave him strength, he preached all over again, as if he had done nothing that day; he heard their confessions; and, after giving each one salutary advice, he sent them away filled with joy and animated by the desire to live as true Christians.

After this mission, the Saint went to conduct one at Privas, which produced no fewer fruits. He never refused the benefit of his ministry to those who came to seek it from afar, except when his fidelity to his word and his punctuality, which he placed above all else, stood in the way. One day, while he was giving a mission at Sainte-Aggrève, a numerous troop of peasants presented themselves to him, asking to hear his instructions. But he had had the mission announced for the next day at Saint-André, and nothing could prevent him from leaving. One then saw a marvelous thing, which recalls quite well the journeys of Our Lord Jesus Christ through the mountains of Judea. These good people, eager for the word of God, decided to accompany him: they followed him all day to go to confession to him without thinking of eating. The journey was a kind of mission: the Saint stopped from time to time to produce and make the troop produce acts of contrition and love of God; all the surrounding mountains resounded with sacred hymns and cries of joy, which announced the coming of the holy apostle; as he advanced, the inhabitants of the villages that were on the route came to swell the number of those who had followed him.

Father Clément, procurator of the Jesuits of Tournon, was then passing through these mountains. Seeing from afar so many people walking together, he asked what it could be, and what so many confused voices that he heard meant: "It is," he was told, "the Saint who is passing by, accompanied by the inhabitants of several villages." Continuing his way, he saw at the entrance of a large town many people who were coming out and running with precipitation: he still had the curiosity to inquire where these people were going: "They are going," he was answered, "to meet the Saint who is approaching." He then entered the village of Saint-André, and, having perceived in front of the church a prodigious crowd of people, both from the village and from the neighboring places, he asked some of them what they were doing there: "We are waiting for the Saint who is coming to conduct the mission," they said.

"He explained the Christian truths," said the Count of La Mothe, on the occasion of this mission of which he was a witness, "with a clarity and simplicity that made them sensible to the most stupid; with a solidity and strength that convinced the most stubborn; with a divine unction that forced the most insensitive to love them. His holy life gave a new efficacy to his speeches: without speaking, he persuaded and touched.

Another mission took place at Marlhes.

Some days after he had arrived there, a woman, seeing his cloak pierced on all sides, and which was fall ing int Marlhes Site of a mission marked by the miracle of the broken leg. o rags, begged him to allow her to sew it and put patches on it: to which he consented. The opinion that this woman had of his holiness made her keep the torn pieces and guard them preciously. She was soon paid for her charity by a double miracle that God worked on two of her children. One was sick with a developed dropsy, the other with a very burning continuous fever; she applied to each of them one of the pieces she had kept; on the spot they recovered perfect health. These same pieces of cloth were since then a fertile source of miraculous healings. The fruits of the mission responded to this beginning: "After the mission," said the parish priest of Marlhes, "I no longer recognized my parishioners, so much did I find them changed and transformed into other men. In the space of a month, he alone heard, in my parish, more than two thousand confessions, almost all general. Not content with sacrificing himself entirely to the service of my parish, he made trips throughout the neighborhood, with a courage that astonished all those who saw him. I saw him myself, in the most rigorous times, obliged to stop in the middle of the forests, to satisfy the avidity of those who wanted to hear him speak of salvation. I saw him on the top of a mountain, raised on a heap of snow hardened by the cold, distributing to the people the bread of the word of God, spending entire days in this exercise, and still occupying himself all night with hearing confessions."

He employed the last four years of his life in the sanctification of the Velay. During the summer, he preached at Le Puy; in the winter, he traveled through the villages and the mountains. The city of Le Puy soon changed its aspect through the apostolate of the holy man. Every day, he gave an instruction to the children on the catechism. The crowd was so great that places were held two or three hours in advance. Soon the church of the Jesuit college being too small, he moved to that of Saint-Pierre-le-Moustiers, which belonged to the Benedictines. The catechisms of Father Régis attracted up to five thousand listeners to this church. Here is what Father Mangeon, who later became confessor to the Duchess of Orléans, reported about it.

"The catechisms of Father Régis," he said, "were touching and eloquent, but with an eloquence more infused than natural or acquired. Father Jean Filleau, provincial, although he had to leave the next day, wanted me to take him to the church where Father Régis gave them: it was about half-past twelve; as I told him that there would no longer be room for him and for me: 'No matter,' he replied, 'I want to have once more the consolation of seeing this infinite crowd of people who gave me so much pleasure yesterday.' We went there and I found him a place, not without much difficulty. He listened to him standing for an hour. He shed so many tears and was so touched that he said to me upon leaving: 'If this Father were preaching forty leagues from here, I would go to hear him on foot. This man is full of God and of the love of Jesus Christ; there is no one like him.'"

But nothing made as much impression as the holiness of his life, which shone nowhere as much as at Le Puy. He redoubled his austerities: he took only one meal a day, which consisted of a few fruits or some vegetables. "During the two years that I lived with him," said Antoine de Mangeon, "I never saw him eat meat. As for wine, everyone knows that he had forbidden it to himself for a long time."

To his preaching, Father Régis added a continuous and tireless application to helping the poor.

Hardly had he finished the catechism, when, completely exhausted and covered in sweat, he would go to visit them in their homes, in prisons, and in hospitals. He would assemble all those of the city three times a week, and as he never separated instruction from almsgiving, he would begin by having them pray, which was followed by a fervent exhortation; he would then distribute bread or money. He would finish this exercise of charity with the thanksgiving offered to God. He founded among the ladies of the city a charitable association for the relief of poor families. Not content with this, he would incessantly solicit the rich in favor of those who were in need. He thus obtained considerable alms. Money, wheat, clothing, beds, linen, everything was useful to him. He had a room where he deposited all of this, and which truly became the treasure of the poor.

He had a store of wheat where all the needy of the city came to draw. They were never turned away. The store always contained enough to satisfy them. There was a famine during which the Saint miraculously fed all the poor. Marguerite Baud, a pious woman, was the guardian and distributor of his wheat. One day when Marguerite Baud had warned him that she had neither wheat nor money to buy any, he did not fail to send her a poor woman burdened with several children, with orders to give her the wheat she was asking for. Marguerite, surprised by this order, went to find him immediately, and told him that it seemed strange that he should give her such an order, knowing full well that she was unable to carry it out. "Go," he replied, "return and fill the sack of this poor woman." Marguerite replied that she did not have a grain of wheat left. — "Go, I tell you," the Saint replied, "you will find an abundance of wheat for her and for several others." Marguerite obeyed; and, having gone, she found her store overflowing with wheat. This miracle of multiplication was repeated several times during the same famine: and all the poor who turned to Régis were helped.

Assisting the dying was a work to which he devoted himself with particular zeal and success. When he was called to hear the confessions of the sick, he would leave everything immediately. God had given him a special grace to dispose them to die holily. Thus, the sick all wanted to have the consolation of dying in his arms. To be more ready to run where the need demanded, he never undressed at night.

Several miracles are recounted that God performed at the prayer of Régis to manifest His own power with the virtue of His servant.

He had heard the confession of a woman abandoned by the doctors and who was, in fact, on the point of expiring. The parents implored him to ask for her healing. Régis, touched by their faith, put the medal of his rosary into a vase of water, and, after having blessed the water, he had the dying woman drink it, who found herself at the same moment without fever and in health as perfect as if she had not been sick at all.

A young lady who had helped him in his charitable works was at the point of death. Father Régis threw himself at her knees, and, in the name of the poor, he implored the good God not to take away from them the one they loved as their mother. After this prayer, he stood up, and, calling the dying woman by her name: "Give thanks to God," he said, "who has the kindness to prolong your days, so that you may serve Him, and the poor, His children, with more fervor." Having returned then as if from a deep sleep, and regaining her senses at the sight of the holy man: "Ah! my Father!" she said to him, "in what state do you find me?" — "Well," he replied, "you are healed; make good use of the health that it has pleased God to restore to you."

There was nothing he would not do to oppose evil and sin, of whatever nature it might be. He would expose his life to it without the slightest hesitation. One day, he learned that a man of quality had lured a young orphan into a house, where he was seeking to seduce her with his promises. The Saint went there instantly: his sight at first troubled this man; but he recovered and said to him haughtily: "What are you coming to look for here, my Father? You meddle in many things that do not concern you at all." — "I come," replied Régis, "to seek this innocent sheep that you are taking away from God like a ravenous wolf." — "Withdraw," replied this furious man; "otherwise your imprudence could cost you dearly." — "I will not withdraw until I have saved this orphan; as for the threats you make to me, know that they are not capable of shaking me, and that I will make it my glory to be exposed to your blind fury." This man, no longer in control of himself, drew his sword and advanced on the Saint to pierce him with it. — "Ah! very willingly," cried the servant of God, "I will shed my blood for Jesus Christ." And, uncovering his chest: "Strike," he said, "I will die content, provided that God is not offended." Surprised by such intrepidity, the libertine withdrew, completely confused. The young girl was placed in a pious house, where she lived and died holily.

He made several prophecies that all came to pass. Marcellin du Fornel, a young gentleman from Saint-Didier, in the Velay, passing through Le Puy, visited him, and told him that he was going to be received as a doctor of law in Valence.

"Do you have no other design?" the holy man replied. — "I am thinking of getting married," replied the young gentleman; "I am offered a considerable match, and the affair should be concluded any day now." — "In a few days," the Saint told him, "your hopes will vanish with your ambitious projects; and before the year is out, you will be a novice of our Company."

The marriage was soon broken off; the young man, disgusted with the world, gave himself to God in the Company, just as Father Régis had predicted to him.

During the winters of the last four years of his life, our Saint traveled through the towns and villages of the dioceses of Le Puy, Valence, and Viviers, which are located in the Velay. He conducted his first mission in the small town of Fay and in the surrounding areas at the beginning of the year 1636. He restored sight to a fourteen-year-old young man, Claude Sourdon, at whose father's house the holy man had accepted lodging; then to a man in his fortieth year who had been blind for eight years. These two miracles wonderfully disposed the minds of the people, and the mission produced the most abundant fruits. To give a fair idea of the conduct Régis maintained there, we shall insert here what Claude Sourdon legally deposed in the presence of the bishops of Le Puy and Valence.

"Everything about him inspired holiness. One could neither see him nor hear him without feeling inflamed with divine love. He celebrated the holy mysteries with a devotion so tender and ardent that one believed they were seeing at the altar, not a man, but an angel. I have sometimes seen him in familiar conversation suddenly fall silent, recollect himself, and become inflamed, after which he spoke of divine things with a fire and vehemence that showed his heart was transported by a celestial impulse. He expressed himself, in the instructions he gave to the people, with an unction that penetrated all his listeners. He spent the day and a considerable part of the night hearing confessions, and one had to use a kind of violence to force him to take a little food. He never complained of fatigue or of the inconvenient manners of those who approached him.

"After having worked with tireless ardor for the salvation of the inhabitants of Fay, he gave himself entirely to that of the neighboring peoples. He left every day early in the morning to visit the peasants scattered in the woods and on the mountains. The rains, the snow, and the other rigors of the season could not hold him back. Throughout the day, he went from cottage to cottage, and this on foot and fasting, unless my mother sometimes forced him to take an apple that he would put in his pocket. We only saw him again at night, and then all the fatigues of the day did not prevent him from resuming his ordinary duties; he only relaxed from work through new labors. The Calvinists followed him with as much eagerness as the Catholics."

In the month of November of the year 1637, he went to Marlhes to conduct a second mission. The paths he traveled would have frightened the boldest of people. One had to climb over rocks covered in ice, descend into deep valleys filled with snow, and walk through brambles and thorns. As he was climbing with great difficulty one of the highest mountains in the Velay, having no support other than the brushwood he held onto, his hand and foot suddenly failed him; he fell and broke his leg. This accident did not prevent him from continuing his journey with his usual tranquility, and from walking another two leagues leaning on his staff and supported by the one who accompanied him. Arrived at Marlhes, it did not even cross his mind to send for a surgeon. He went straight to the church, where a great multitude of people awaited him, and he heard confessions there for several hours. The parish priest, warned by Régis's companion of the accident that had befallen him, begged him, but in vain, to retire. After the Saint had fully satisfied his charity, he allowed his leg to be examined, which was found to be perfectly healed.

To these immense labors, he added astonishing macerations. The rector of the college of Le Puy, having been informed of this, ordered him to obey the parish priest of Marlhes in all that concerned the care of his health. The Saint did what his superior required of him; he submitted with the utmost exactitude to everything the priest chose to prescribe, although the care taken for his person was a burden to him. The priest sometimes rose at night to observe him: he saw him sometimes on his knees, his face prostrate against the ground and bathed in tears; sometimes standing, his eyes turned toward heaven, absorbed in deep contemplation; at other times he heard him heave deep sighs and cry out in the transports of his love: "What is there in the world that can attach my heart, if not you, O my God?" It happened that he often saw him, while he prayed, inflamed like a seraph, motionless for several hours, appearing to have neither feeling nor consciousness. This is what he later attested in a legal deposition. He added further that the Saint had healed in his presence, by a simple blessing, a man who had dislocated his shoulder, and that, by the sign of the cross, he had delivered from the demon a possessed person who had suffered for more than eight years, without the repeated exorcisms of the Church having provided any relief.

Régis being at Saint-Bonnet-le-Froid, the local priest, who noticed that he left his room secretly every night, had the curiosity to examine where he went and what he did. After having searched for him in the house in vain, he advanced toward the church, which was not far away; he found him in prayer before the door, on his knees, hands joined and head bare, despite the cold which was excessive. He pointed out the danger to which he was exposing his health; but seeing him determined to continue his conversations with God, he gave him the key to the church, so that he might be sheltered from the inclemencies of the weather.

Returning to Le Puy at the end of the winter, he stopped at the home of the priest of Vourcy, who had formerly been his student and who was tenderly attached to him. The latter, representing to him that he was not sparing his health and that it was important for the sanctification of souls that he measure his work according to his strength, the holy man told him in confidence what had happened to him a few months earlier, when, having broken his leg, God had healed him miraculously. "After such a visible mark of the goodness of God," he added, "should I not put my life into his hands, and rely entirely on him for the care of my health?"

In the winter of 1638, he resumed his country missions, beginning with the town of Montregard. Having arrived at this place at night, he went, according to his custom, straight to the church, which he found closed. He knelt before the door; he prayed there for so long, and with such deep recollection, that he did not notice he was completely covered in the snow that was falling in abundance. Peasants who saw him in this state urged him to enter a nearby house to take a little food.

The harvest was very abundant at Montregard. Régis brought back from error a great number of Calvinists, among others Louise de Remezin. She was a young widow of twenty-two years, who was singularly esteemed in her sect for her knowledge and her birth. The holy missionary made himself esteemed by her in various conversations they had together. He clarified the difficulties she proposed to him on points of controversy, and mainly on the Eucharist, dissipated all her prejudices, and brought her to the point of making an abjuration of heresy. The news of her change stirred her family and all the leaders of the Huguenot party against her. They wanted to re-engage her in the sect she had abandoned; but her faith was too solid to yield to such a trial.

Toward the end of the autumn of 1639, the Saint went to resume his missions in the vicinity of Montregard, at Issengeaux, at Marcoux, at Le Chambon, at Monistrol, where he had, so to speak, only appeared. In the month of January 1640, he went to the small town of Montfaucon, which is seven leagues from Le Puy. Success answered his zeal and his desire, when the work was interrupted by the ravages of the plague. Régis devoted himself generously to the service of those who were attacked by this scourge. When, while crossing the streets, he found a sick person abandoned, he carried him on his shoulders to the hospital. His charity revived that of the ecclesiastics. The danger to which he exposed himself caused deep concern to the priest of Montfaucon; he ordered him to leave the city, for fear that he might become the victim of his zeal, as had already happened to several ecclesiastics. He obeyed, but it was while shedding a torrent of tears. "What!" he said then, "is one then jealous of my happiness? Must one envy me, through a false compassion, the merit of such a precious death, and take away my crown, when I am on the point of receiving it?"

The plague having ceased shortly after at Montfaucon, Régis went there to resume his mission; but he was soon recalled by the rector of the college of Le Puy, in order to replace a professor who was missing. This setback filled him with the deepest sorrow. He obeyed, however, out of respect for the order of his superior; but he wrote to his general to ask for permission to devote the rest of his days to the country missions, and to employ at least six months each year there. The general, who knew his zeal, did not hesitate to subscribe to his desires.

At the beginning of the autumn of 1640, Father Régis resumed his mission at Montfaucon. The happy dispositions he found among the people redoubled his fervor and his courage. After a month of work, he went to Raucoules, and from there to Veirines, where he applied himself to the sanctification of souls with the same ardor and the same success; he then announced the mission of La Louvesc for the last day of Advent; but having known by a celestial light that he was approaching his end, he went to make a retreat at Le Puy, to prepare himself for death. At the end of three days, spent in complete solitude, he made his general confession as if he were to die that day; then, speaking with his confessor, he expressed to him, with the most tender and vivid sentiments, the impatience he felt to possess God. He sighed only for eternity. He told one of his friends in confidence that he would not return from the mission he was about to undertake; he also declared the same thing to other people, but it was only in mysterious terms.

He left Le Puy on December 22, in order to be at La Louvesc for Christmas Eve. Besides the fact that he had much to suffer from the difficulty of the road, it also happened that he lost his way on the second day. Night having surprised him in the middle of the woods, he walked for a long time without knowing where he was going. Finally, he found hims elf near t la Louvesc Place of death and burial of the saint. he village of Veirines. Overwhelmed by fatigue, he retired into an abandoned house that was open on all sides and falling into ruins; he spent the night there lying on the ground and exposed to the violence of a very biting north wind. The sudden passage from cold to heat caused him a pleurisy, which was accompanied by a very burning fever. His pains soon became very sharp. The sight of the house where he was lying reminded him of the stable of Bethlehem, and he considered himself happy to be able to imitate in the same season the poverty and the sufferings of his divine Master.

The next morning, he reached La Louvesc with great difficulty, and opened the mission there with a speech that in no way betrayed the weakness of his body. He preached three times on Christmas Day and on Saint Stephen's Day, and spent the rest of the time in the confessional. After the third sermon on Saint Stephen's Day, he had two fainting spells while he was hearing confessions. The doctors judged that his illness was without remedy. He began his general confession again, then asked for the holy Viaticum and Extreme Unction, which he received as a man all inflamed with divine love. As they then presented him with some broth, he refused it, saying that he wished to be nourished in the same way as the poor, and that they would please him by giving him a little milk; he then asked, as a favor, that they leave him alone.

He suffered violent pains; but the sight of a crucifix, which he held between his hands and which he kissed continually, softened his sufferings. His face was always tranquil, and one heard nothing coming from his mouth but tender and affectionate aspirations, and ardent sighs toward the celestial homeland. He asked to be carried into a stable, in order to have the consolation of expiring in a state similar to that of Jesus Christ born on the straw. They made him understand that the extreme weakness he was in did not allow him to be transported. He thanked God incessantly for the happiness he had of dying at the feet of the poor.

He remained all the last day of December in perfect peace, his eyes tenderly fixed on Jesus crucified, who alone occupied his thoughts. Toward evening, he said to his companion with an extraordinary transport: "Oh! my brother, what happiness! that I die content! I see Jesus and Mary who deign to come to meet me to lead me into the abode of the Saints." A moment later, he joined his hands, then lifting his eyes to heaven, he pronounced distinctly these words: "Jesus Christ, my Savior, I recommend my soul to you, and entrust it into your hands." Upon finishing them, he gently gave up his spirit toward midnight on the last day of the year 1640. He was nearly forty-four years old, and he had spent twenty-four in the Company of Jesus. He was buried on January 2 in the church of La Louvesc. There was at his funeral a prodigious gathering of the clergy and the people.

The sorrow that his death had caused soon turned into veneration. People flocked from all sides to visit his tomb, where many miracles were soon performed. We shall report a few of them. In 1656, a nun from Le Puy, named Madeleine Arnaud, struck with dropsy and paralyzed in her whole body, unable to move, was so ill that she was administered the last Sacraments. She grew so weak that it was believed she was about to expire, and the doctors gave her only half an hour to live. As she was still fully conscious, she was presented with a relic of the servant of God. Having prayed with fervor, she placed it on her chest, and in that moment she found herself perfectly healed. This fact was attested, under oath, by fourteen eyewitnesses. A bourgeois of Le Puy obtained by the same means the healing of an absolutely incurable disease. Two blind women, several paralytics, and other sick people of every kind were also healed by the intercession of the servant of God. Among these sick people were persons distinguished by their birth.

In the presence of so many wonders, twenty-two archbishops and bishops of Languedoc wrote to Pope Clement XI: "We are witnesses that before the tomb of Father Jean-François Régis, the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the mute speak, and the fame of these astonishing wonders is spread among all nations."

The heroism of Father Régis's virtues having been maturely examined in Rome, and the truth of the miracles performed by his intercession having been juridically attested there, he was beatified in 1716 by Clement XI. Clement XII canonized him in 1737, at the request of Louis XV, King of France, Philip V, King of Spain, an Clément XI Pope who authorized the public cult of Salvador of Horta. d the clergy Clément XII Pope who canonized Catherine in 1727. of France, assembled in Paris in 1733. His feast day was set for June 16.

He is represented sometimes with the leather pilgrim's cape and the staff surmounted by a crucifix; sometimes with a crucifix in his hand as a missionary.

## CULT AND RELICS. — ASSOCIATION OF SAINT-FRANÇOIS RÉGIS.

The body of Saint François Régis, having been raised from the ground by the Archbishop of Vienne on September 30, 1716, was placed on an altar dedicated to him in the church of La Louvesc. Before the Revolution, the relics were in a wooden box and enclosed in a silver shrine. At that disastrous time, four young men of the place, who were brothers and belonged to a Christian family, entered the church at night with the consent of their parish priest, opened the shrine, removed the relics in order to preserve them from profanation, and took them to the home of their father, named Buisson, where they remained hidden for several years. Shortly after this pious theft, the silver shrine was taken and destroyed by the revolutionary authorities.

When the Church of France had recovered some tranquility after the publication of the Concordat, thought was given to restoring the precious remains of Saint Jean-François Régis to the veneration of the faithful. On July 13, 1862, Mgr de Chabot, Bishop of Mende, in whose diocese La Louvesc was then located, went to this village and proceeded to the verification of the relics, which were found in the state indicated by the official report. The head was intact, with the exception of the lower jaw, and there were about half of the bones. They were carried in procession to the church, exposed in the middle of the choir, and then replaced in the place they had previously occupied. Since that moment, the pilgrimage of La Louvesc has not ceased to be frequented by a very large number of the faithful, who flock from all sides to seek the protection of God through the holy apostle of the Velay.

Saint François Régis is the patron of a pious association, formed in our day, for the purpose of rehabilitating illegitimate unions and putting a stop to the moral disorders that afflict civil and religious society.

A pious layman, M. Gossi n, then v M. Gossin Parisian magistrate and founder of the Association of Saint-François Régis. ice-president of the court of first instance of the Seine, and later a counselor at the royal court of Paris, founded this association in 1826, which has since spread to a great number of cities in France and abroad.

We shall let M. Gossin himself report the vow he made at the tomb of Saint François Régis and the consequences that resulted from it:

"In the name of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit:

"I, the undersigned, vice-president of the court of first instance of the department of the Seine, residing in Paris, having been afflicted for several months with various serious infirmities and fearing for the restoration of my health;

"Went to the tomb of Saint Jean-François Régis, in the village of La Louvesc, diocese of Viviers, on Tuesday, June 29, 1824, the feast day of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, with the intention of asking God, with firm faith, for my healing through the powerful intercession of the holy Apostle of the Velay and the Vivarais. After having, immediately upon my arrival, said my prayer at the tomb of this great servant of God, having confessed in the sacristy of the church, and having conferred about it with my confessor who gave me his approval, I have put in writing the vow below to be placed upon the altar and to be made by me, from the heart, at the moment of the consecration, during the Mass at which I shall have, if it pleases God, the happiness of receiving communion today, June 30, 1824, the feast of the commemoration of Saint Paul, at six o'clock in the morning.

Tenor of the vow. — "If it pleases God to restore to me the fullness of my former strength and my former health, I make the vow to undertake immediately and to continue until my death, for the extirpation of concubinage and the celebration of religious marriages in the capital of this kingdom, the execution of the projects that God knows I have been meditating upon for this purpose for a number of years, without having had, until this day, the courage to try to realize them. This work will be the principal goal of my thoughts, my labors, and my efforts; I will devote myself entirely to it, under the direction of the ecclesiastical authority, in the moments that my other and older duties will allow me to dispose of. Everything that, at the present moment, would be considered unfeasible in this regard, I will attempt again in better times. If I cannot succeed in founding forever the work whose conception has been, for so many years, fixed in my mind, I will occupy myself unceasingly (to console myself for this lack of success) with the isolated rehabilitation of a certain number of illicit unions by means of the holy Sacrament of Matrimony. If I cease to live in Paris, I will carry this work and all its consequences to the place of my new residence.

"In a word, if I return to health, I will live only to procure, according to my weak means, the glory of God and the edification of my neighbor, notably regarding the improvement of morals and the cessation of scandals, as is explained above.

"May it please the divine Goodness to grant me, in this case, the intelligence, strength, perseverance, humility, and confidence that I will need for the accomplishment of the present vow, and to agree that this work (placed immediately under the protection of the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph) receive the name of Saint-François Régis. If it enters into the designs of God to reject this vow and to leave me in my state of suffering and illness, or even to put an end to my days, may His infinite mercy grant me above all the spirit of patience, repentance, mortification, and resignation which is and will be so necessary for me to sanctify the rest of my life and the formidable passage from life to eternity. — So be it.

"Done at La Louvesc, June 30, 1824, before the six o'clock Mass."

Health was restored to the pious magistrate, and he occupied himself from then on with putting his vow into execution. On February 12, 1826, His Lordship the Archbishop of Paris gave his approval to the work, which from then on bore the name of Saint-François Régis. To this day, in the city of Paris alone, the Society of Saint-Régis has restored order in more than fifteen thousand families. M. Gossin was particularly assisted in his holy enterprise by M. P.-X. Fougeroux, head of the office at the Ministry of Finance, who died in the odor of sanctity in the year 1838. M. Gossin wrote the life of this servant of God, and of several other of his worthy collaborators of the Society of Saint-Régis (1 vol. in-18, Paris, Gaume brothers, 1839). He himself, after a life full of labors and merits, rendered his soul to God on April 1, 1855, at the age of sixty-six.

Life of Saint Jean-François Régis, by Fr. Daubenton, Jesuit; Lives of the Saints, by Fr. Croizot; Godescard; Local notes.