Part 72 (1/2)

Cuthbert returned with Eata to Mailros; and St. Boisil dying of the great pestilence, in 664, he was chosen provost or prior in his place.

In this station, not content by word and example to form his monks to perfect piety, be labored a.s.siduously among the people to bring them off from several heathenish customs and superst.i.tious practices which still obtained among them. For this purpose, says our venerable historian, he often went out, sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, to preach the way of life to such as were gone astray. Parochial churches being at this time very scarce in the country, it was the custom for the country people to flock about a priest or ecclesiastical person when he came into any village, for the sake of his instructions; hearkening willingly to his words, and more willingly practising the good lessons he taught them. St. Cuthbert {626} excelled all others by a most persuasive and moving eloquence; and such a brightness appeared in his angelical face in delivering the word of G.o.d to the people, that none of them durst conceal from him any part of their misbehavior, but all laid their conscience open before him, and endeavored by his injunctions and counsels to expiate the sins they had confessed, by worthy fruits of penance. He chiefly visited those villages and hamlets at a distance, which, being situate among high and craggy mountains, and inhabited by the most rustic, ignorant, and savage people, were the less frequented by other teachers. After St. Cuthbert had lived many years at Mailros, St. Eata, abbot also of Lindisfarne, removed him thither, and appointed him prior of that larger monastery. By the perfect habit of mortification and prayer the saint had attained to so eminent a spirit of contemplation, that he seemed rather an angel than a man. He often spent whole nights in prayer, and sometimes, to resist sleep, worked or walked about the island while he prayed. If he heard others complain that they had been disturbed in their sleep, he used to say, that he should think himself obliged to any one that awaked him out of his sleep, that he might sing the praises of his Creator, and labor for his honor. His very countenance excited those who saw him to a love of virtue. He was so much addicted to compunction, and inflamed with heavenly desires, that he could never say ma.s.s without tears. He often moved penitents, who confessed to him their sins, to abundant tears, by the torrents of his own, which he shed for them. His zeal in correcting sinners was always sweetened with tender charity and meekness. The saint had governed the monastery of Lindisfarne, under his abbot, several years, when earnestly aspiring to a closer union with G.o.d, he retired, with his abbot's consent, into the little isle of Farne, nine miles from Lindisfarne, there to lead an austere eremitical life. The place was then uninhabited, and afforded him neither water, tree, nor corn.

Cuthbert built himself a hut with a wall and trench about it, and, by his prayers, obtained a well of freshwater in his own cell. Having brought with him instruments of husbandry, he sowed first wheat, which failed; then barley, which, though sowed out of season, yielded a plentiful crop. He built a house at the entry of the island from Lindisfarne, to lodge the brethren that came to see him, whom he there met and entertained with heavenly conferences. Afterwards he confined himself within his own wall and trench, and gave spiritual advice only through a window, without ever stirring out of his cell. He could not, however, refuse an interview with the holy abbess and royal virgin Elfleda, whom her father, king Oswi, had dedicated to G.o.d from her birth, and who, in 680, succeeded St. Hilda in the government of the abbey of Whitby. This was held in the isle of c.o.c.ket, then filled with holy anch.o.r.ets. This close solitude was to our saint an uninterrupted exercise of divine love, praise, and compunction; in which he enjoyed a paradise of heavenly delights, unknown to the world.

In a synod of bishops, held by St. Theodorus at Twiford, on the river Alne, in the kingdom of Northumberland, it was resolved that Cuthbert should be raised to the episcopal see of Lindisfarne. But as neither letters nor messengers were of force to obtain his consent to undertake the charge, king Egfrid, who had been present at the council, and the holy bishop Trumwin, with many others, sailed over to his island, and conjured him, on their knees, not to refuse his labors, which might be attended with so much advantage to souls. Their remonstrances were so pressing, that the saint could not refuse going with them, at least to the council, but weeping most bitterly. He received the episcopal consecration at York, the Easter following, from the hands of St.

Theodorus, a.s.sisted by six other bishops. In {627} this new dignity the saint continued the practice of his former austerities; but remembering what he owed to his neighbor, he went about preaching and instructing with incredible fruit, and without any intermission. He made it everywhere his particular care to exhort, feed, and protect the poor. By divine revelation he saw and mentioned to others, at the very instant it happened, the overthrow and death of king Egfrid, by the Picts, in 685.

He cured, by water which he had blessed, the wife of a n.o.ble Thane, who lay speechless and senseless at the point of death, and many others. For his miracles he was called the Thaumaturgus of Britain. But the most wonderful of his miracles was that which grace wrought in him by the perfect victory which it gave him over his pa.s.sions. His zeal for justice was most ardent; but nothing seemed ever to disturb the peace and serenity of his mind. By the close union of his soul with G.o.d, whose will alone he sought and considered in all things, he overlooked all temporal events, and under all accidents his countenance was always cheerful, always the same; particularly in bearing all bodily pains, and every kind of adversity with joy, he was invincible. His attention to, and pure view of G.o.d in all events, and in all his actions, arose from the most tender and sweet love, which was in his soul a constant source of overflowing joy. Prayer was his centre. His brethren discovered sometimes that he spent three or four nights together in that heavenly exercise, allowing himself very little or no sleep. When St. Ebba, the royal virgin, sister to the kings St. Oswald and Oswi, abbess of the double monastery of Coldingham, invited him to edify that house by his exhortations, he complied, and stayed there some days. In the night, while others were asleep, he stole out to his devotions according to his custom in other places. One of the monks who watched and followed him one night, found that the saint, going down to the seash.o.r.e, went into the water up to the armpits, and there sung praises to G.o.d. In this manner he pa.s.sed the silent time of the night. Before the break of day he came out, and having prayed awhile on the sands, returned to the monastery, and was ready to join in morning lauds.

St. Cuthbert, foreseeing his death to approach, resigned his bishopric, which he had held two years, and retired to his solitude in Farne Island, to prepare himself for his last pa.s.sage. Two months after he fell sick, and permitted Herefrid, the abbot of Lindisfarne, who came to visit him, to leave two of his monks to attend him in his last moments.

He received the viatic.u.m of the body and blood of Christ from the hands of the abbot Herefrid, at the hour of midnight prayer, and immediately lifting up his eyes, and stretching out his hands, sweetly slept in Christ on the 20th day of March, 687. He died in the island of Farne: but, according to his desire, his body was buried in the monastery of St. Peter in Lindisfarne, on the right side of the high altar. Bede relates many miracles performed at his tomb; and adds, that eleven years after his death, the monks taking up his body, instead of dust which they expected, found it unputrefied, with the joints pliable, and the clothes fresh and entire.[2] They put it into a new coffin, placed above the pavement, over the former grave: and several miracles were there wrought, even by touching the clothes which covered the coffin. William of Malmesbury[3] writes, that the body was again found incorrupt four hundred and fifteen years afterwards at Durham, and publicly shown. In the Danish invasions, the monks carried it away from Lindisfarne; and, after several removals on the continent, settled with their treasure on a woody hill almost surrounded by the river Were, formed by nature for a place of, defence. They built there a church of stone, which {628} Aldhune, bishop of Lindisfarne, dedicated in 995, and placed in it the body of St. Cuthbert with great solemnity, transferring hither his episcopal see.[4] Many princes enriched exceedingly the new monastery and cathedral, in honor of St. Cuthbert. Succeeding kings, out of devotion to this saint, declared the bishop a count palatine, with an extensive civil jurisdiction.[5] The great king Alfred, who honored St.

Cuthbert as his particular patron, and ascribed to his intercession some of his greatest victories, and other blessings which he received, was a special benefactor to this church.[6] The present cathedral was built in 1080. When the shrine of the saint was plundered and demolished by the order of king Henry VIII., the body of St. Cuthbert, which was found still entire, as Harpsfield testifies, met with greater regard than many others; for it was not burnt, as were those of St. Edmund, king and martyr, St. Thomas, and others. After the king's officers had carried away the plunder of his shrine, it was privately buried under the place where the shrine before stood, though the spot is now unknown. His ring, in which a sapphire is enchased, was given by lord viscount Montaigne to the bishop of Chalcedon,[7] who had long been sheltered from the persecution in the house of that n.o.bleman,[8] and was by him left in the monastery of English canonesses at Paris, which is also possessed of a tooth of St. Cuthbert. A copy of St. John's gospel, which, after the example of his master St. Poisil, he often read to nourish the fire of divine love in his soul, was put into his coffin when he was buried, and found in his tomb. It is now in the possession of Mr. Thomas Philips, canon of, Tongres, on whom the present earl of Litchfield bestowed it.

The copy is judged undoubtedly genuine by our ablest Protestant antiquaries, who carefully examined it.

The life of St. Cuthbert was almost a continual prayer. There was no business, no company, no place, how public soever, which did not afford him an opportunity, and even a fresh motive to pray. Not content to pa.s.s the day in this exercise, he continued it constantly for several hours of the night, which was to him a time of light and interior delights.

Whatever he saw seemed to speak to him of G.o.d, and to invite him to his love. His conversation was on G.o.d or heavenly things, and he would have regretted a single moment, which had not been employed with G.o.d or for his honor, as utterly lost. The inestimable riches which he found in G.o.d, showed him how precious every moment is, in which he had it in his power to enjoy the divine converse. The immensity of G.o.d, who is present in us and in all creatures, and whom millions of worlds cannot confine or contain; his eternity, to which all time coexists, and which has neither beginning, end, nor succession; the unfathomed abyss of his judgments; the sweetness of his providence; his adorable sanct.i.ty; his justice, wisdom, goodness, mercy, and love, especially as displayed in the wonderful mystery of the Incarnation, and in the doctrine, actions, and sufferings of our Blessed Redeemer, in a word, all the incomprehensible attributes of the Divinity, and the mysteries of his grace and mercy, successively filled his mind and heart, and kindled in his soul the most sweet and ardent affections, in which his thirst {629} and his delight, which were always fresh and always insatiable, gave him a kind of antic.i.p.ated taste of paradise. For holy contemplation discovers to a soul a new and most wonderful world, whose beauty, riches, and pure delights, astonish and transport her out of herself.

St. Teresa, coming from prayer, said she came from a world greater and more beautiful beyond comparison, than a thousand worlds, like that which we behold with our corporal eyes, could be. St. Bernard was always torn from this holy exercise with regret, when obliged to converse with men in the world, in which he trembled, lest he should contract some attachment to creatures, which would separate him from the chaste embraces of his heavenly spouse. The venerable priest, John of Avila, when he came from the altar, always found commerce with men insipid and insupportable.

Footnotes: 1. Cuthbert signifies Ill.u.s.trious for skill: or G{}bbertus, Worthy of G.o.d.

2. Bede, Hist. b. 4, c. 30.

3. L. 4, Pontif. Angl.

4. Dunelm, or Durham, signifies a hill upon waters, from the Saxon words Dun, a bill, and Holme, a place situate in or among the waters.

5. See Dugdale's history of the cathedral of Durham; and Dr. Brown Willis on the same.

6. See Hickes, Thes. Ling. Septentr. Praef. p. 8.

7. Bp. Smith, Flores Hist. Eccles. p. 120.

8. Dr. Richard Smith, bishop of Chalcedon, relates in his life of Margaret lady Montaigne, that queen Elizabeth, out of her singular regard for this lady, from the time she had been lady of honor in the court of queen Mary and king Philip, tacitly granted her house a kind of privilege, by never, allowing it to be searched on account of religious persecution; so that sometimes sixty priests at once lay hid in it.

ST. WULFRAN, ARCHBISHOP OF SENS.

AND APOSTOLIC MISSIONARY IN FRISELAND.

HIS father was an officer in the armies of king Dagobert, and the saint spent some years in the court of king Clotaire III., and of his mother St. Bathildes, but occupied his heart only on G.o.d, despising worldly greatness as empty and dangerous, and daily advancing in virtue in a place where virtue is often little known. His estate of Maurilly he bestowed on the abbey of Fontenelle, or St. Vandrille, in Normandy. He was chosen and consecrated archbishop of Sens, in 682, which diocese he governed during two years and a half with great zeal and sanct.i.ty. A tender compa.s.sion for the blindness of the idolaters of Friseland, and the example of the English zealous preachers in those parts, moved him to resign his bishopric with proper advice, and, after a retreat at Fontenelle, to enter Friseland in quality of a poor missionary priest.

He baptized great mult.i.tudes, with a son of king Radbod, and drew the people from the barbarous custom of sacrificing men to idols. The lot herein decided, on great festivals, who should be the victim; and the person was instantly hanged, or cut in pieces. The lot having fallen on one Ovon, St. Wulfran earnestly begged his life of king Radbod: but the people ran tumultuously to the palace, and would not suffer what they called a sacrilege. After many words, they consented that if the G.o.d of Wulfran should save Ovon's life, he should ever serve him, and be Wulfran's slave. The saint betook himself to prayer, and the man, after hanging on the gibbet two hours, being left for dead, by the cord breaking, fell to the ground; and being found alive was given to the saint, and became a monk and priest at Fontenelle. Wulfran also miraculously rescued two children from being drowned in the sea, in honor of the idols. Radbod, who had been an eye-witness to this last miracle, promised to become a Christian, and was instructed among the catechumens. But his criminal delays rendered him unworthy such a mercy.

As he was going to step into the baptismal font, he asked where the great number of his ancestors and n.o.bles were in the next world. The saint replied, that h.e.l.l is the portion of all who die guilty of idolatry. At which the prince drew back, and refused to be baptized, saying, he would go with the greater number. This tyrant sent afterwards to St. Willebrord, to treat with him about his conversion; but before the arrival of the saint, was found dead. St. Wulfran retired to Fontenelle, that he might prepare himself for death, and died there on the 20th of April, in 720. His relies were removed to Abbeville, where he is honored as patron. See his life, written by Jonas, monk of Foutenelle, eleven years after his death, purged from spurious additions by Mabillon, {630} saec. 3, Ben. Fleury, b. 41, t. 9, p. 190. See also the history of the discovery of his relics at St. Vandrille's, accompanied with miracles, and their translation to Rouen in 1062, well written by an anonymous author who a.s.sisted at that ceremony, several parts of which work are published by D'Achery, Spicil. t. 3, p. 248, the Bollandists, and Mabillon. The Bollandists have added a relation of certain miracles, said to have been performed by the relics of this saint at Abbeville.

MARCH XXI.

ST. BENEDICT, ABBOT,

PATRIARCH OF THE WESTERN MONKS.

From St. Gregory, (Dial. l. 2, c. 1,) who a.s.sures us that he received his account of this saint from four abbots, the saint's disciples; namely, Constantine, his successor at Monte Ca.s.sino, Simplicius, third abbot of that house, Valentinian, the first abbot of the monastery of Lateran, and Honoratus, who succeeded St. Benedict at Subiaco. See the remarks of Mabillon, Annal. Ben. l. 1, p. 3, and l. 2, p. 38. and Act.

Sanct. Bened. t. 1, p. 80. Also Dom. Mege, Vie de St. Benoit, avec one Histoire Abregee de son Ordre, in 4to. An. 1690. Haeften's Disquisitions, and abbot Steingelt's abridgment of the same, and Ziegelbauer and Legipont, Historia Literaria Ord. S. Benedicti, Ann. 1754, t. 1, p. 3, and princ.i.p.ally t. 3, p. 2.

A.D. 543.

ST. BENEDICT, or KENNET, was a native of Norcia, formerly an episcopal see in Umbria, and was descended from a family of note, and born about the year 480. The name of his father was Eutropius, and that of his grandfather, Justinian. When he was fit for the higher studies, he was sent by his parents to Rome, and there placed in the public schools. He, who till that time knew not what vice was, and trembled at the shadow of sin, was not a little shocked at the licentiousness which he observed in the conduct of some of the Roman youth, with whom he was obliged to converse; and he was no sooner come into the world, but he resolved to bid an eternal farewell to it, not to be entangled in its snares. He therefore left the city privately, and made the best of his way towards the deserts. His nurse, Cyrilla, who loved him tenderly, followed him as far as Afilum, thirty miles from Rome, where he found means to get rid of her, and pursued his journey alone to the desert mountains of Sublac.u.m,[1] near forty miles from Rome. It is a barren, hideous chain of rocks, with a river and lake in the valley. Near this place the saint met a monk of a neighboring monastery, called Roma.n.u.s, who gave him the monastic habit, with suitable instructions, and conducted him to a deep narrow cave in the midst of these mountains, almost inaccessible to men.

In this cavern, now called the Holy Grotto, the young hermit chose his abode: and Roma.n.u.s, who kept his secret, brought him hither, from time to time, bread and the like slender provisions, which he retrenched from his own meals, and let them down to the holy recluse with a line, hanging a bell to the cord to give him notice. Bennet seems to have been about fourteen or fifteen years old when he came to Sublac.u.m; St.

Gregory says, he was yet a child. He lived three years in this manner, known only to Roma.n.u.s. But G.o.d was pleased to manifest his servant to men, that he might s.h.i.+ne forth as a light to many. In 497, a certain pious priest in that country, while he was preparing a dinner for {631} himself on Easter-Sunday, heard a voice which said: ”You are preparing for yourself a banquet, while my servant Bennet, at Sublac.u.m, is distressed with hunger.” The priest immediately set out in quest of the hermit, and with much difficulty found him out. Bennet was surprised to see a man come to him; but before he would enter into conversation with him, he desired they might pray together. They then discoursed for some time on G.o.d and heavenly things. At length the priest invited the saint to eat, saying it was Easter-day, on which it is not reasonable to fast; though St. Bennet answered him, that he knew not that it was the day of so great a solemnity, nor is it to be wondered at, that one so young should not be acquainted with the day of a festival, which was not then observed by all on the same day, or that he should not understand the Lunar Cycle, which at that time was known by very few. After their repast the priest returned home. Soon after certain shepherds discovered the saint near his cave, but at first took him for a wild beast; for he was clad with the skins of beasts, and they imagined no human creature could live among those rocks. When they found him to be a servant of G.o.d, they respected him exceedingly, and many of them were moved by his heavenly discourses to embrace with fervor a course of perfection. From that time he began to be known, and many visited him, and brought him such sustenance as he would accept: in requital for which he nourished their souls with spiritual instructions. Though he lived sequestered from the world, he was not yet secure from the a.s.saults of the tempter.

Wherever we fly the devil still pursues us, and we carry a domestic enemy within our own b.r.e.a.s.t.s. St. Gregory relates, that while St. Bennet was employed in divine contemplation, the fiend endeavored to withdraw his mind from heavenly objects, by appearing in the shape of a little black-bird; but that, upon his making the sign of the cross, the phantom vanished. After this, by the artifices of this restless enemy, the remembrance of a woman whom the saint had formerly seen at Rome, occurred to his mind, and so strongly affected his imagination, that he was tempted to leave his desert. But blus.h.i.+ng at so base a suggestion of the enemy, he threw himself upon some briers and nettles which grew in the place where he was, and rolled himself a long time in them, till his body was covered with blood. The wounds of his body stifled all inordinate inclinations, and their smart extinguished the flame of concupiscence. This complete victory seemed to have perfectly subdued that enemy; for he found himself no more molested with its stings.

The fame of his sanct.i.ty being spread abroad, it occasioned several to forsake the world, and imitate his penitential manner of life. Some time after, the monks of Vicovara,[2] on the death of their abbot, pitched upon him to succeed him. He was very unwilling to take upon him that charge, which he declined in the spirit of sincere humility, the beloved virtue which he had practised from his infancy, and which was the pleasure of his heart, and is the delight of a G.o.d humbled even to the cross, for the love of us. The saint soon found by experience that their manners did not square with his just idea of a monastic state. Certain sons of Belial among them carried their aversion so far as to mingle poison with his wine: but when, according to his custom, before he drank of it he made the sign of the cross over the gla.s.s, it broke as if a stone had fallen upon it. ”G.o.d forgive you, brethren,” said the saint, with his usual meekness and tranquillity of soul, ”you now see I was not mistaken when I told you that your manners and mine would not agree.” He therefore returned to Sublac.u.m; which desert he soon peopled with monks, for whom be built twelve monasteries, {632} placing in each twelve monks with a superior.[3] In one of these twelve monasteries there lived a monk, who, out of sloth, neglected and loathed the holy exercise of mental prayer, insomuch that after the psalmody or divine office was finished, he every day left the church to go to work, while his brethren were employed in that holy exercise; for by this private prayer in the church, after the divine office, St. Gregory means pious meditation, as Dom. Mege demonstrates. This slothful monk began to correct his fault upon the charitable admonition of Pompeian, his superior; but, after three days, relapsed into his former sloth. Pompeian acquainted St.