Today, June 6, is the feast of:
Philip the Deacon (1st century) This saint appears in the Acts of the Apostles as one of the first deacons appointed. He became a missionary in Samaria, and is credited with starting Christianity in Ethiopia when he converted an important Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8). A late tradition tells that Philip ended up as bishop of Tralles in Lydia and is supposed to have baptized Simon Magnus.
Vincent of Bevagna (d. 303, supposedly) is the legendary protobishop of Bevagna (anciently, Mevania) in Umbria. According to his legendary Passio, he and his brother St. Benignus were both martyred under Diocletian. Today is his dies natalis. He is Bevagna's patron saint. Vincent is said to have had a fourth-century church at his gravesite that in the early Middle Ages served as Mevania's / Bevagna's cathedral. In the twelfth century this structure was abandoned as ruinous and his relics were moved into the town's then-new collegiate church of St. Michael the Archangel. His cult spread not only in Umbria but also, through the transfer of relics, to Lucca, to Urbino, to Capua and to Benevento and, outside Italy, to Metz, where as recently as the 1960s he is said to have had not only a feast today but also a translation feast on 4 July (Metz' abbey of St-Vincent, on the other hand, housed relics said to be those of the better known St. Vincent of Saragossa).
Artemius, Candida, and Paulina (d. 304, supposedly) Artemius and Candida, husband and wife, and their daughter Paulina are characters in the legendary Passio of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter, said to have been converted to Christianity by Peter, to have been baptized by the priest Marcellinus, and to have been martyred during the Great Persecution. Artemius is said to have been a jailer and to have been scourged and then decapitated; Candida and Paulina are said to have been buried alive. Their late antique places of veneration would indicate that Artemius and Candida, however related one to another (if at all), are martyrs of the cemetery of Calepodius and that Paulina is a martyr of Via Portuensis. Paulina is the patron saint of Santa Paolina in Campania, where a church dedicated to her is recorded from the thirteenth century onward.
The martyrdom of Artemius, Candida, and Paulina as depicted in a copy from 1463 of Vincent of Beauvais' Speculum historiale in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 67v): http://tinyurl.com/24xaase
Nilammon (5th century) was an Egyptian monk. Legend tells that he was chosen to become bishop. Going rather further than the ritual protests required on such occasions, he barricaded himself into his cell and died in prayer while the bishops were waiting outside to consecrate him.
Ceratius/Cerase (d. c455) was bishop of Grenoble. Unreliable sources add that he was driven from Grenoble by the Arian Burgundians and founded the see of Auch in Aquitaine.
Eustorgius II of Milan (d. ca. 517/18) is the traditional twenty-fourth bishop of Milan; depending upon whose reconstruction of events one follows, he succeeded St. Laurentius I either in 508 or in about 512. St. Ennodius of Pavia, who also had hoped at this time to be named bishop of Milan, notes in a letter his disappointment over Eustorgius' preferment. Eustorgius successfully urged king Theoderic to order his governor in Sicily to afford strict protection to the properties there of the Milanese church. Writing in 518, St. Avitus of Vienne records both Eustorgius’s expenditure of great sums of money to free prisoners taken by Theoderic during his war against the Franks & the Burgundians and his personal appeal to Theoderic to send a mission to inspect and remedy wartime damage in southern Gaul. Ennodius tells us that he restored Milan's baptistery of St. Stephen.
Gudwal (6th century) was probably from Wales or Britain and was one of the early missionaries to Brittany. He founded the monastery of Plecit near Locoal as well as several other monasteries. He retired from active life into a cave by the seaside with one disciple. He is now thought to be the same person as Gurval, who succeeded St. Malo as bishop of Aleth.
Jarlath (d. c550) Jarlath was from the Galway district of Ireland. He founded a monastery at Cluain Fois near Tuam and served there as both abbot and bishop. He is regarded as the founder of the archdiocese of Tuam and the monastic school he established there became famous. He is the principal patron of the archiocese of Tuam (Galway).
Claude of Condat /-of the Jura / Claudius of Besancon (d. in or after 699) was a soldier who became a priest and canon at Besancon. He went on to be a monk at Condat, and as abbot introduced the Benedictine Rule. In 685 he became bishop of Besancon, but retired to die to his monastery (later named St. Claud in his honor). He is the traditional twelfth abbot of the monastery of Condat (for most of the Middle Ages called Saint-Oyend; today's Saint-Claude in Franche-Comté). One of that institution's medieval lists of abbots styles calls him "archbishop and abbot" and a dubious tradition, expressed in his perhaps thirteenth-century Vitae makes him archbishop of Besançon. Charter evidence has him alive in 699. At some time between 1160 and 1213 there was a formal Inventio of his remains, which were found to be incorrupt. Said to be wonder-working, these brought many pilgrims to Saint-Claude before their disappearance or destruction in 1794. His tomb had been a major pilgrimage attraction, and Claudius was one of the most honored saints of France for centuries. He is currently the patron saint of toymakers. Also of Burgundy (the territory, not the wine).
Claude in effigy on his late medieval tomb plaque: http://www.racinescomtoises.net/IMG/jpg/St-Claude25.jpg
Agobard of Lyons (d. 840) Agobard was a Spanish refugee from the Moors who served as a priest at Lyons and became archbishop in 813. He was an important politician as well as a liturgical theologian.
Alexander of Fiesole (d. early 9th century?) has a brief Vita in several versions that makes him a bishop of Fiesole who went to a ruler in Pavia to obtain the restoration of some possessions of his church that had been confiscated by some nobles. Successful in that endeavor, he was on his return journey drowned by those same nobles in the piccolo Reno near Bologna. He is considered a martyr. According to the version in the Acta Sanctorum, the ruler was the emperor Lothar, whose attention he gained by taking off his hat and having it supported for half an hour by the sphere of the sun (this seems borrowed from St. Donatus of Fiesole's account of St. Bridget of Ireland hanging her cloak on a sunbeam). Alexander's body was returned to Fiesole, where it was interred in a church dedicated to him. The existence of such a church is said to be documented from 966 onward.
Bogumil of Gniezno (blessed) (d. 1092) became archbishop of Gniezno (Poland) in 1075. Because of clerical misdeeds he resigned in 1080 and lived the rest of his life as a hermit. He was beatified in 1925.
Norbert of Xanten (d. 1134) came from a well-off noble family who saw to his early endowment with comfortable benefices. But he had a Paul-like experience when caught in a thunderstorm and thrown by his horse, after which he converted to a seriously religious life. He sold his estates and gave the proceeds to the poor, wandered around repenting and preaching - even gave up his position as almoner at the imperial court – and was ordained priest in 1115, then began a failed attempt to reform the life of his fellow canons at Xanten in the Rheinland. In 1120 he was given some land at a place in the diocese of Laon called Prémontré, where he founded the order of canons regular we know as the Premonstratensians. In 1126 he was appointed bishop of Magdeburg and his new Order received papal approval. With Bernard of Clairvaux, he backed Innocent II's claims to the papacy. From 1133 Norbert served as chancellor of Italy for the German emperor. He died on this day. His relics were later translated to Prague, where they still remain. He was canonized in 1582.
The ex-monastery of San Severo at Orvieto has what is sometimes said to be the oldest surviving portrait of Norbert (a fourteenth-century fresco): http://tinyurl.com/6o7mre
Though this depiction of Norbert receiving the Rule from St. Augustine in a manuscript of his Vita B (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 17144) seems rather older: http://tinyurl.com/6n6vgz
Falco of La Cava (d. 1146) was a member of the Cavensian community who after having been prior of La Cava's important dependency at Cersosima in Basilicata and of other dependencies in Calabria, became in 1141 abbot of the mother house of the Most Holy Trinity at today's Cava de' Tirreni in coastal Campania. Renowned for his oratorical gifts, he expanded the community through the acquisition or erection of numerous dependencies. His cult was confirmed in 1928.
Gilbert of Neuffontaines (d. 1152) was a nobleman from Auvergne. He went on the Second Crusade and on his return he and his wife both became Praemonstratensians. He was the founding abbot of Neuffontaines near Clermont-Ferrand on land that he owned, hence he is shown with a portion of land in his outstretched hands.
Gerard Tratorio of Monza (d. 1207) A layman of Monza (Lombardy), Gerard used his wealth to found a hospital, where he worked with the sick, especially lepers. Once in mid-winter he asked permission to spend the night in prayer in a church, but the doorkeepers said he could do so only if he would get them some cherries; he accepted their condition, and the next day presented them with a bunch of fresh ripe cherries as he left the church (hence his portrayal as a saint holding cherries in his hand).
Bertrand of Aquileia (blessed) (d. 1350) Bertrand, born in c1260 in St. Genies (France) became patriarch of Aquileia (northern Italy) in 1334. After Aquileia was destroyed by an earthquake, he transferred his see to the nearby Udine. He opposed simony and the alienation of church property by local nobles - for which he was killed. On the orders of a local nobleman. Bertrand is regarded as a martyr.
Lorenzo of Villamagna (1535) a famous preacher, who would scourge himself severely before delivering his sermons. He too had a 'cherry miracle' very similar to that of Gerard.
John Davy and companions (d. 1537) John Davy was a Carthusian deacon at the Charterhouse in London, part of the small group of clerics in England who refused to accept Henry VIII as head of the Church. He and his companions were chained to a wall in Newgate prison and starved to death.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
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" Nobility depends not on parentage or place of birth, but on breadth of compassion and of loving-kindness. If we would be noble, let us be greathearted."