|
|
|
June 7
Spiritual Bouquet: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them and they follow Me. St. John 10:27
SAINT CLAUDE
Archbishop
(607-699)
The province of Eastern Burgundy has received great luster from this glorious Saint. He was born at Salins in the early seventh century, and was recognized from his youth as having a lively mind, a solid judgment and great docility. He read with devotion the sacred books, the lives of the Martyrs and holy Confessors, and the sermons of the Doctors of the Church, all of which were then far more frequently found in the hands of the faithful. He spent many hours praying in the church and attended Mass daily; he was careful to avoid any places which could be a danger for his faith, and took pleasure in frequenting pious persons who could give solid nourishment to his soul.
At the age of 20 he became a member of the cathedral chapter of Besançon, where he remained for twelve years, following the examples of the archbishop, Saint Donatian. Afterwards he retired to the monastery of Condat or Saint Oyend, where he became Abbot at the age of 37, in 644; and under his government many Saints were formed.
He had become both the model and the oracle of the clergy of Besançon when, upon the death of Archbishop Gervase in the year 685, he was named as his successor. Fearing the obligations of that charge, he fled to a retreat, but was discovered and compelled to accept the burden. During seven years he acquitted himself of the pastoral functions with the zeal and vigilance of an apostle. It was said that his sermons had so great a force that they tore vice out of the hearts of the most hardened.
When he was eighty-six years of age, he retired once more to the monastery of Saint Oyend, of which he had always retained the title of Abbot, and where he then remained in authority as its head for several more years. Such was the sanctity of his life and his zeal in conducting his monks in the paths of evangelical perfection, that he was compared to the great abbots of Egypt, Saint Anthony and Saint Pachomius, and his monastery, to those of ancient Egypt. Manual labor, silence, prayer, reading of pious books, especially the Holy Bible; fasting, watching, humility, obedience, poverty, mortification, and the close union of their hearts with God made up the whole occupation of these fervent servants of God. These virtues were the rich patrimony which Saint Claude left to his disciples.
Saint Claude died in 699 at the age of ninety-two, and his body was found intact in the 12th century. Since then pilgrimages and miracles have abounded at his tomb, placed in the monastery where he died, which afterwards bore his name. His feast has been celebrated since the end of the 15th century.
Source: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 6.
ST. ROBERT of NEWMINSTER
Abbot
(† 1159)
In 1132 Robert was a monk at Whitby, England, when news arrived that thirteen religious had been violently expelled from the Abbey of Saint Mary in York, for having proposed to restore the strict Benedictine rule. He at once set out to join them, and found them on the banks of the Skeld near Ripon, living, in the midst of winter, in a hut made of woven branches and roofed with turf. In the spring they affiliated with Saint Bernard’s reform at Clairvaux, and for two years struggled on in extreme poverty.
Eventually the fame of their sanctity brought another novice, Hugh, Dean of York, who endowed the community with all his wealth, and thus laid the foundation of Fountains Abbey. In 1137 Raynulph, Baron of Morpeth, was so edified by the example of the monks at Fountains that he built them a monastery in Northumberland, called Newminster, of which Saint Robert became Abbot. The holiness of his life and his instructions guided his brethren to perfection, and within the next ten years three new communities migrated from this one house, to become centers of holiness in other parts.
The abstinence of Saint Robert at table sufficed to maintain the mortified spirit of the community. One Easter Day his stomach, weakened by the fast of Lent, could take no food, but he finally consented to try to eat some bread sweetened with honey. Before it was brought, however, he felt this relaxation would be a dangerous example for his monks, and sent the food untouched to the poor at the gate. The plate was received by a young man of shining countenance, who straightway disappeared. What the Saint had sacrificed for his brethren had been accepted by Christ.
At the moment of Saint Robert’s death in 1159, Saint Godric, a hermit of Finchale, saw his soul like a globe of fire, borne up by the Angels in a pathway of light, while the gates of heaven opened before them.
Reflection. Reason and authority prove that virtue ought to be practiced. But facts alone prove that it is practiced, and this is why our individual actions are of such grave importance for others as well as for ourselves.
Source: Little Pictorial Lives of the Saints, a compilation based on Butler’s Lives of the Saints, and other sources by John Gilmary Shea (Benziger Brothers: New York, 1894).