Saint Deicolus

In 585, our Saint followed Columbanus to France; the latter having been driven out of Luxeuil (610), only the Irish religious were permitted to follow him. Among their number was Desle, already advanced in age. Arriving with Saint Columbanus in a place filled with brushwood, a few miles from Luxeuil, on the road to Besançon, he felt his legs weaken and recognized that he could go no further; he threw himself at the feet of his abbot, asking for and obtaining, with his blessing, the faculty to finish his pilgrimage in this wilderness. Left alone after a tearful separation, he began to search through the forests for a shelter that could serve as his retreat. While searching through these thickets, he encountered a herd of pigs, whose swineherd was seized with fear at the sight of this tall stranger, dressed in a costume that was foreign to him.

"Who are you," he asked him, "where do you come from? What are you looking for? What have you come to do in these wild places without a guide or companion?"

— "Do not be afraid, my brother," said the old Irishman, "I am a traveler and a monk! And I would like it if, out of charity, you could show me some place around here where a man could dwell."

The swineherd told him that he knew of no place in the vicinity other than one that was quite marshy, but habitable thanks to the abundance of water, and which belonged to a powerful vassal named Werfaire. He refused, however, to lead him there, for fear that his herd might stray during his absence; but Desle insisted and said to him with that intrepid cheerfulness found in the Irish of today: "If you will do me this small favor, I promise you that you will not lose the least of your swine; here is my staff which will replace you and serve as their shepherd during your absence."

And with that, he stuck his traveler's staff into the ground, around which all the pigs came to crouch. Thereupon, they were both on their way through the woods, the Irish monk and the Burgundian swineherd, and thus was discovered and occupied the site of the current town of Lur Lure Location of the abbey directed by the saint. e, and of the famous monastery of that name, whose abbot, eleven centuries after this adventure, still counted among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire.

This retreat was all the more pleasant for Desle as there was a chapel nearby dedicated to Saint Martin, which served the shepherds and peasants of the surrounding area. He would go there every night, at the hour when the doors were closed; at his approach, they would open through the ministry of the Angels.

But this was viewed with great displeasure by a secular priest who served the chapel: "That monk," he said, "is going to do me harm"; and he turned the whole neighborhood against Desle, saying that he was a magician, that he hid in the woods to engage in his incantations. "At midnight," he added, "he comes, under the pretext of praying in my chapel, whose doors I close in vain; a single word from him is enough to open them." He then denounced him to the lord Werfaire. "Master," he said in conclusion, "is it your intention that this stranger should keep in peace the church that you have built, and which he has audaciously seized?"

Werfaire ordered that the stranger be seized, if possible, and that he be made to suffer a cruel mutilation. But he himself was seized by a shameful illness that caused him to die before his impious order could be carried out. When he was about to expire, Berth ilde, his Berthilde Wife of Werfaire, benefactress of the saint. wife, seeing that the finger of God was there, sent for Desle who, forgetting the insult, brought in all haste good for evil. When he arrived in the apartment where the deceased lay, he felt the need to rest a little, and began by taking off his cloak; one of the servants stepped forward to receive it, but at that very instant, the cloak was found suspended in the air on a sunbeam. This was not too much of a miracle for the honor of the holy man, outraged before the eyes of these barbarian populations. All those present were in admiration: Berthilde threw herself at Desle's knees, asked for forgiveness for her husband, and offered in exchange the land of Lutra with the church of Saint-Martin. She obtained this consoling answer: "that Werfaire, after having passed through the flames of Purgatory, would be put in possession of eternal glory, because, according to the words of the Apostle, an unbelieving husband is sanctified by a virtuous and wise wife."

A few years later, one could see at Lure a monastery where many disciples led, under the guidance of our Saint, a life of peace and prayer. Next to the dwelling of the religious, two churches were erected, one under the title of Saint Peter, the other under the title of Saint Paul; the wilderness disappeared to make way for an earthly paradise; "in this retreat where serpents once lived, greenery now unfolds..."

One day, this pious solitude, where no sound was heard other than that of prayer, the reading of the Holy Scriptures, and pious conversations, was disturbed by King Clotaire II. He had c ome to hunt in roi Clotaire II King of Neustria and later sole King of the Franks, protector of Columbanus after his exile. one of his domains near Lure; a wild boar he was pursuing went to take refuge right in the cell of Desle. The Saint placed his hand on the boar's head, saying: "Since you have come to implore my mercy, your life shall be spared."

The king, alerted by the trackers who had followed the beast's trail, wanted to see this wonder for himself. When he learned that the old recluse was a disciple of that Columbanus whom he had always honored and protected, he inquired affectionately about the means of subsistence that the abbot and his companions could find in this solitude. "It is written," replied the Irishman, "that those who fear God lack nothing; we lead a poor life, but it suffices for us with the fear of God."

Clotaire donated to the new community all the forests, pastures, and fisheries that the royal treasury possessed in the vicinity of Lure, which became, from that moment on, and remained forever one of the most richly endowed monasteries in Christendom.

The holy abbot, desiring to place his monastery under a more august and powerful protection than that of the king, undertook, at a very advanced age, the journey to Rome: he thus presented his request to Pape The authority in Rome to whom Daguin is sent for absolution. the Pope, who received him with open arms: "Holy Father, I have left my homeland, which is Ireland, and, through a chain of circumstances known only to Providence, I live today in a province of Gaul called Burgundy. Supported by the donations of the lord Clotaire and one of his vassals, I have been able to build there a monastery and two oratories which I have dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul. But the inhabitants of this country are very rapacious; and that is why, most holy Father, I do not believe I can maintain this work except by coming to place it under the high protection of the Apostolic See. I therefore humbly pray that you be pleased with the act by which I constitute the monastery of Lure as immediately dependent on the successors of Saint Peter, and bind myself, and my successors, to pay a tribute in money each year."

This prayer was granted.

Desle returned with a bull that maintained for the abbot of Lure the disposition in perpetuity and without contradiction of the monastery's goods; it launched an anathema against anyone, subject, lord, or king, who would dare to interfere in the administration of its goods or exercise vexations against the religious. After this step and other measures to ensure the prosperity of his monastery, he resolved to devote the rest of his life to his own salvation. He therefore entrust ed the governm saint Colombin Disciple and successor of Saint Desle as head of the abbey. ent of the community to Saint Colombin, his disciple and godson, and thought only of preparing for death, remaining in a small oratory, doing nothing but praying, accepting only bread and water for food. He thus merited to fall asleep in the Lord on January 18 of the year 625. He was buried in the very place he inhabited, in the oratory of the Holy Trinity.

Desle took care of his abbey in heaven as he had done on earth. When the Saracens, in the 8th century, ravaging Burgundy, tried to set fire to the abbey of Lure, the flame refused to obey them.

The church of Saint-Desle having been demolished in the 17th century, his relics were transported to the abbey church on May 24, 1676. They escaped the vandalism of '93, and are still exposed to the veneration of the faithful in the church of Lure. His feast is celebrated on January 24, under the semi-double rite.

The memory of Saint Desle and Saint Columbanus, his disciple, has been in great veneration since ancient times. Their cult spread throughout Franche-Comté, Burgundy, Alsace, and Lorraine. Saint Desle is still famous in Franche-Comté for the healing of the insane and the possessed.

Several localities in the vicinity of Lure bear the name of Saint-Desle, among others a spring that forms the small river of Magny-Vernois, and a fountain, located in a solitary valley between Lure and Saint-Germain. The infirm suffering from eye diseases went to the latter to draw water to which a marvelous virtue was attributed.

Even today, pilgrims from afar and particularly from the Vosges travel to Lure to ask God for some special grace through the intercession of Saint Desle.

Saint Desle can be represented sticking a staff into the ground around which piglets come to line up; taking a wild boar under his protection; healing the possessed.