Saint Goar

These happy developments having brought much reputation to Saint Goa saint Goar Priest and hermit of Aquitanian origin, famous for his hospitality and miracles on the Rhine. r, his bishop believed that he would procure a great advantage for the Church if he brought him into the ecclesiastical order. He ordained him priest and entrusted him with the office of evangelical preaching. This honor was a new spur to his zeal. He mounted the pulpit and waged public war against the vices and disorders that reigned in his time. He fought against luxury, discord, vengeance, homicide, incest, simony, and other similar monstrosities that then disfigured the entire face of Christianity; and his labors had such success that, through them, a considerable change was made in the morals of the faithful. However, the love of God and the contempt for all things of the earth continued to increase in his heart, which had become entirely heavenly; he sighed only for the goods of eternity: he therefore took the resolution to leave his parents, his friends, his country, and all that he possessed, and to retire to an unknown place where, a stranger to the world, he might be a true citizen of heaven (549). The place of his retreat was on the banks of the Rhine, a few leagues from Trier, near a small Trèves Birthplace of the saint. stream called Wochaire. The Bishop of Trier, whom the history of his life calls Felix, and who was rather Saint Fibice, who is mentioned saint Fibice Bishop of Trier who authorized the settlement of Goar. on November 3rd, having permitted him to settle there, he had a hermitage and a small church built there, which he enriched with several very precious relics that he had brought from his country.

His retreat into this solitude was a source of graces and blessings for the entire region; for, after having long exercised himself in vigils, fasts, prayers, and other practices of Christian piety and mortification, which rendered him worthy of the apostolic spirit, he began to travel through all the surrounding places, from which idolatry and the worship of false gods had not yet been entirely banished, and he preached there with such success the unity of God and the mysteries of Jesus Christ, that many pagans opened their eyes to the truth of the Gospel, and, abandoning their errors, embraced Christianity. His preaching was supported by miracles: there were sick people whom he healed by the invocation of the Savior's name, and one saw persons who had lost the use of their limbs recover it happily through his prayer and the sign of the cross that he made over the wounded parts.

He had made for himself an inviolable law to say Mass every day, for the common good of the Church, and also to recite the entire Psalter: which he did with marvelous reverence and attention. After having fulfilled these duties, he applied himself to the instruction and relief of the poor and the pilgrims, of whom there were always a good number at his hermitage. He gave them a great horror of vice, encouraged them in virtue, and warned them to prepare for that formidable hour when it will no longer be time to do penance, and which will be the decision of a blessed or unhappy eternity; but because he knew, by experience, that the way to win the poor to God was to exercise corporal charity toward them, he received them with joy, lodged them comfortably, and also gave them dinner and supper with all the abundance that his poverty could permit. Indeed, there is no Saint who had more zeal for hospitality than Saint Goar; although all his other virtues were very eminent, it is nevertheless mainly in this one that he excelled and distinguished himself from other Saints. When the pilgrims who had slept at his house wished to continue their journey, often, after Mass and the recitation of his prayers, he would order his disciple to set the table to give them something to eat: this was a favorable occasion to speak to them of heavenly things, and to confirm them in faith and piety; becoming all things to all men, according to the practice of the apostle Saint Paul, he would sit at the table with them, keep all the rules of the most severe sobriety, and eat only what was necessary to preserve his life; at the same time, he administered to them the delicious food of the word of God.

Such charitable conduct, from which the whole country received such great relief, nevertheless displeased some envious men, especially Albiwin and Adalwin, officers or servants of the Bishop of Trier, na med Rust Rustique Bishop of Trier who slandered Goar before being confounded by a miracle. icus. They came to the hermitage of Saint Goar, under the pretext of collecting a tribute for the maintenance of the lamps of the church of Saint Peter; and, having seen the number of pilgrims who were there, and how, after the recitation of the divine offices and the celebration of the awesome mystery of the Mass, he began to dine with them, they made a rash judgment of it, and resolved to denounce him to the bishop. They returned to Trier with this intention; they told Rusticus that Goar did not follow the custom of holy hermits who took only a little food at noon or even at the hour of Vespers, but that he ate much earlier and took part in true feasts. No doubt he preached with success; but it was probable that he only did so to better hide his intemperance and his libertinism; this disorder should by no means be suffered in the diocese, especially on the part of a foreigner. They were of the opinion that he should be judged and punished. The Bishop of Trier, giving credence to these slanders, charged the slanderers themselves to bring him the alleged culprit.

When they presented themselves at the dwelling of the Saint to enjoin him to follow them, Goar received them with his ordinary kindness. He offered them hospitality for the night, which he spent according to his custom in prayer; for he slept almost not at all: and, at the break of day, he began his office of chanting the Psalms and canticles to the praise of God Almighty, and celebrated the adorable mystery of the Mass with all the calm and devotion of a man perfectly united to Jesus Christ. After his thanksgiving, he again invited his guests to take a small meal with him before setting out on the road. They refused and told him insultingly that it was wrongly that he bore the name of hermit and solitary, since against the rule of the monks, he made no difficulty of eating so early, and of inviting them to do the same. The Saint was not discouraged by this reproach, but, after having pointed out to them that monastic rules were not contrary to those of hospitality, he had a pilgrim enter, had him sit at his table, and breakfasted with him. His slanderers wishing to leave, he gave them provisions for the road, although they were on horseback; as for him, he followed them quietly on foot, his mind raised to God and his heart disposed to all the orders of divine Providence.

Our Lord soon began to show that He was the protector of the innocence of His servant; for, scarcely had his envious enemies gone a league or two when they were seized with such a strange hunger, thirst, and weariness that they believed themselves to be at death's door. Having communicated their ailment to one another, they looked for a stream that they knew to be nearby, in order to quench their thirst; but they could no longer find it. They had recourse to the provisions that the Saint had given them, in order to appease their hunger; but they had disappeared. They wanted to spur their horses to arrive promptly at Trier; but their weariness made them unable to advance, and even caused one of them to fall half-dead to the ground. All they could do in this extremity was to wait for the Saint who was coming after them, and to humbly implore his assistance, although they had rendered themselves unworthy of it by their malice. Goar, who had learned from the Gospel to love his enemies and to do good to those from whom he received evil, after having pointed out to them very gently that this discomfort had happened to them to give them more esteem for charity, miraculously restored to them the strength they had lost; convinced then of the holiness of the servant of God, they presented themselves before the Bishop of Trier, no longer as the adversaries and denouncers of Goar, but rather as his panegyrists and the admirers of his virtue.

Rusticus, far from believing the miracle that his two priests recounted to him, accused them of having allowed themselves to be deceived by some prestige, and, persevering in his ill-disposition against the hermit, he ordered that upon his arrival he be brought into his council chamber, where the greater part of his clergy was assembled. The first thing Goar did upon his entry into Trier was to go to the church to adore the sovereign majesty of God and to commend to Him his own person and that of his disciple, who was with him. Then, he went to the episcopal palace and into the chamber of his prelate with angelic gravity and modesty. Having taken off his cloak, he hung it on a sunbeam which he took for a bar or a rope. The bishop, far from being touched by this prodigy, used it, on the contrary, as proof that the Saint was a magician, and reproached him for it as an effect of his pride and his communication with the demon; he then told him that he could not be a good priest nor a good solitary, since, far from exercising himself like the ancient hermits in fasts, abstinence, and other mortifications of the body, he took a completely opposite path, and ate early in the morning with pilgrims. The Saint was a little surprised by the miracle he was reproached for and of which he had not been aware; he made excuses to his prelate, and told him "that he took God as his witness, He who knows the most hidden things, and to whom the most secret intentions of the heart are manifest, that he had never had commerce with the demon, and that, if he had performed any supernatural actions, it was by divine virtue alone that he had done them. As for the gluttony he was accused of, he felt in no way guilty of it. If he had sometimes advanced the morning meal on days when fasting was not commanded, he had done so out of charity toward his guests, and not out of intemperance. Furthermore, it was a great error to place all perfection in fasting and abstinence, since the greatest Saints have always recognized that charity was preferable."

While he was defending himself with his ordinary gentleness and calm, a clerk of the bishop brought a child that had been found in the cathedral; for there was a marble basin intended to receive children that their mothers wished to expose, and they were brought to the bishop who took it upon himself to have them raised. Then, this prelate, whom God wished to humble and correct, turning toward his ecclesiastics, said to them: "We shall see now if the works of Goar are of God or of the demon: let him make this child speak, and let him make him declare who is his father and who is his mother, and we shall believe that the miracles he has performed until now are effects of divine power; but, if he cannot do it, we shall have an evident mark that he has done nothing but by magic and by commerce with the infernal spirit." The Saint shuddered at this proposal; he replied to Rusticus "that one should not demand such a great wonder of him; he was but a miserable sinner, to whom it did not belong to undertake such an extraordinary thing; moreover, it was useless and could only serve to uncover the shame and infamy of those who had brought this child into the world; charity had made him perform some miracles by the will of God; but the same charity prevented him from performing this one." Rusticus mocked these reasons, and, persuading himself that by ordering the Saint to do something he could not execute, he would cover him with confusion, he commanded him, if he did not wish to pass for an impostor and a magician, to make the child speak on the spot. Goar, in this extremity, lifted his eyes to heaven, and, God having made him know at that moment that it was only by a secret conduct of His providence that his bishop was obliging him to this action, he asked the clerk who was carrying the child how long it had been since he was born; the clerk answered him that it had been three days. Then, addressing the child himself, he said: "I adjure you, little child, in the name of the most holy Trinity who created you, that you declare to us on the spot, distinctly and by their name, the father and the mother who brought you into the world." Scarcely had he finished these words, when the tongue of this little creature was loosened; he stretched his hand toward the bishop, and, pointing at him with his finger, he said: "There is my father, Bishop Rusticus, and my mother is named Flavia." O terrible blow of divine justice! l'évêque Rustique Bishop of Trier who slandered Goar before being confounded by a miracle. Rusticus wants to ruin Goar by imputing to him a crime of which he is innocent, and God confounds him Himself by making known the crime of which he was guilty, and which he believed was known on earth only to his accomplice. Shame and confusion immediately covered his face, and, unable to deny a disorder of which heaven itself rendered such evident testimony, he threw himself at the feet of the servant of God, recognized his innocence and his virtue, and, confessing, on the contrary, his own iniquity, he begged him to serve as his intercessor before Our Lord to obtain mercy.

Our Saint was extremely surprised to have been the occasion for the publication of his bishop's crime; he wept bitterly over it, he groaned for it from the depths of his heart; and, addressing the prelate, he said to him: "It would have been much more appropriate for you to have washed away this offense by a confession and a secret penance that would not have dishonored the ecclesiastical order: but, since God has permitted that your crime be discovered, the advice I can give you is to enter into the sentiments of true contrition; there is no sin that is not remissible, and one must never despair of the mercy of our God, which infinitely surpasses the greatness of our malice; but it must be earned by sincere sorrow and by a holy severity against oneself. It is by this means that your crime, as enormous and scandalous as it is, will be forgiven. As for me," he added, "I offer to perform seven years of penance for you, although I do not doubt that there are many people more perfect and more pleasing to God than I am, who will willingly employ their tears with the austerities of a penitent and mortified life, to reconcile you with heaven." These words charmed all the ecclesiastics of the assembly: the bishop was at the same time confused and consoled by them; and he profited from them so well that, after having spent several years in the rigors of canonical penance, he gloriously resumed the functions of his office, and has become a great Saint who is honored in this capacity in the diocese of Trier.

However, the news of this great event having spread on all sides, Sigebe rt I, son of Sigebert Ier King of Austrasia, husband of Brunhilda. Chlothar I and King of Austrasia, was informed of it. To be more certain, he wished to learn it from the very mouth of Saint Goar, and sent deputies to him who brought him to him. When he was in his presence, he asked him to tell him everything that had passed between him and the Bishop of Trier; but the Saint, whose modesty was incomparable, and who took care not to say anything that would be to his own praise and to the dishonor of his neighbor, answered nothing and kept a religious silence. The king was indignant at this and commanded him, by all the authority that his royal power gave him, to reveal to him what he was asking. Goar, forced by this command, begged His Majesty to tell him what he already knew of this affair and what others had told him about it. The king having explained it to him, Goar replied that he was obliged to obey him; but that he could not tell him anything more than what he had just reported to him. A response so humble and so judicious filled this prince with astonishment; the whole court also admired his wisdom and discretion, and everyone cried out that Goar was worthy of the episcopate, and that he must be put in the place of Rusticus. The servant of God was the only one who opposed it: he represented that, man being fragile, one should not dispossess this bishop of his see for a first fault for which he was disposed to do penance; that, for his part, he was in no way fit for such a great dignity; that God was calling him to solitude, and not to the employments of pastoral charge, and that he would rather die than suffer that one should proceed to his consecration.

As these sentiments only increased the inclination of the king and the nobles to make him bishop, he asked for a delay of twenty days to retire to his cell and consult the oracle of the Holy Spirit there. Having obtained this delay, he returned to his dear hermitage, from which only obedience had torn him, and having prostrated himself on the ground, his face bathed in tears, he urgently prayed to Our Lord to send him an illness that would render him incapable of undergoing the burden of the episcopate. His prayer was answered: for at the same time he was seized with a violent fever and a languor that lasted seven years, without his being able to leave the room where he was: which meant that he was no longer pressed to consent to his nomination. During such a long infirmity, this entirely heavenly man had no other occupation than prayers and tears: he groaned assiduously for himself, recognizing himself as a very great sinner, and he groaned for his bishop, remembering the offer he had made him to do seven years of penance for him; he groaned for the Church, in order to draw upon it the blessings of heaven and to make it victorious over all its adversaries. After these seven years which acquired for him infinite treasures of merit, the king, believing that he was better, renewed his requests to make him accept the bishopric that he had offered, and of which Rusticus, who had shut himself up in the church of Saint-Marie-aux-Martyrs, had not yet resumed the functions: but the Saint replied to him that the time of his death had come, and that the only grace he could ask of him was that he send him the priests Agrippinus and Eusebius, to assist him at this last hour. The king did not fail to satisfy his desire. Thus this blessed hermit, after having participated in all the Sacraments of the Church, and having worthily prepared himself for this great passage by all the acts that Christian piety can inspire, died peacefully in his hermitage, on July 6, 575.

Saint Goar is depicted: 1° hanging his cloak on a sunbeam; 2° accompanied by three does that run to his voice. As he was going to the Bishop of Trier, three men who were spying on him, overcome by hunger and thirst, asked him for some help. The holy hermit called three does that were passing through the forest, began to milk them, and sent them away; 3° trampling a dragon under his feet, to symbolize the souls he snatched from paganism, or the demon of slander over which he triumphed with the weapon of patience and that of miracles; 4° crowned with a small canopy, as the founder of a chapel, or, according to a more modern interpretation, simply to indicate that he is admitted into the eternal tabernacles, that is to say, into heaven; 5° making a newborn child speak, in the presence of his slanderers; 6° having near him a vessel for domestic use, either to recall that he miraculously provided milk to his slanderers who were seized by thirst, or because he is honored in the region of Trier as the patron saint of potters, though it is not entirely clear why; 7° having at his side, on the tombstone, angels holding a small model of a fortified gate flanked by towers, to recall that he is the founder and patron of the city that bears his name, Saint-Goar, near Koblenz.

## CULT AND RELICS.

His body was buried in the small church he had built, by the priests Agrippinus and Eusebius, who had come to visit him; but King Pepin the Short, father of Charlemagn e, having l Charlemagne Emperor of the Franks and uncle of Saint Folquin. ater built a larger and more magnificent one in the same place in memory of this holy confessor, these august remains were transferred there with great honor. The miracles that occurred in this new place were numerous; it has often appeared through terrible punishments how displeasing to God was the contempt for the cult of Saint Goar. Those who violated the immunity of his church were either seized by the devil, or struck with sudden death, or afflicted with long illnesses that exhausted their strength and their goods; it was a common occurrence that those who passed before this temple, on foot, or on horseback, or by boat, without going to pay their respects, promptly received punishment for it. It is even said that the Emperor Charlemagne, a prince so religious, having neglected to do so because the journey he was making on the Rhine was very urgent, his vessel was immediately agitated by such a great storm, and surrounded by such a thick fog, that he wandered for the rest of the day on the water, and could not arrive at the place he had marked, but only at a small village, where he and his men suffered great inconveniences. The very next day, he sent twenty pounds of silver to the church of Saint-Goar, with two silk carpets, to expiate his fault. Two of his children, on the contrary, who turned off the path to go there, received so many blessings that, having been in discord for a long time, they were perfectly reconciled there; and the Empress Fastrada, his wife, having gone there another time, was delivered from a toothache that was tormenting her cruelly; which caused this prince to give to the house of Saint Goar the land and lordship of Nasson, which belonged to it for a long time.

It remains for us to add that King Pepin, having founded the f amous abbey of abbaye de Pruym Abbey that received the relics in 842. Prüm, wanted the abbot of this monastery to be the perpetual superior of the house of Saint-Goar; which was ratified and confirmed by a solemn decree of the same Emperor Charlemagne, notwithstanding the oppositions of the Bishop of Trier. The collegiate church and the town of Saint-Goar rose up at the place where his cell w as once Coblentz City housing relics of the saint. located (between Koblenz and Mainz). This collegiate church was abolished at the time of the Reformation, when the country fell into the power of the Landgrave of Hesse, and the body of Saint Goar itself, which had previously rested in the crypt of the church that is now Lutheran, was lost. The church of Saint-Castor, in Koblenz, alone still possesses some relics of the Saint.

*Acta Sanctorum*. — Cf. *Vies des Saints du Limousin*, by Abbé Labiche de Reignefort.