Today, August 20, is
the feast of:
Amator / Amadour
of Rocamadour (?) In 1166 an incorrupt body was found under the floor of a
church in Rocamadour, France, and a cult of "St. Amadour" soon became popular.
Who the owner of this body may have been is a complete mystery; popular belief
makes him a hermit from the region, “The first hermit of Gaul”.
Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) A well-educated scion of a
knightly family in Burgundy, Bernard was born at Fontaines in 1090, and
entered religion at Citeaux at the age of twenty-two, bringing with him as
fellow postulants close to thirty relatives and friends. A few years later he
was the founding abbot of Clairvaux. A voluminous and talented writer, his
sermons on the Song of Songs are medieval classics, and an ardent reformer,
the personally ascetic Bernard played a leading role both in the rapid growth
of his Cistercian Order and in ecclesiastical matters more generally (e.g. the
condemnation of Abelard in 1141). His support of Innocent II against Anacletus
II brought him to Italy several times and, as papal legate, to Germany. It was
probably at the council of Pisa (1134) that he met a local canon, also named
Bernard, who later followed him to Clairvaux and who in 1145 would become the
first Cistercian pope, taking the name Eugenius III. Bernard vigorously
endorsed Eugenius' call for what is now known as the Second Crusade and his
eloquence in that cause at the diet of Speyer in 1146 helped to secure the
participation of the emperor Conrad III. His writing seems to have stopped in
about 1148 with his De consideratione, addressed to Eugenius (whom he
outlived by less than two months) and showing his characteristic combination
of mystic spirituality and concern for the affairs of the church in the world.
He founded 68 monasteries and was acclaimed as a living saint.
He died ‘very shortly before the third
hour’ on Thursday, Aug 20, 1153. Bernard was canonized in 1174. In 1830 he was
declared a Doctor of the Church. He is the patron saint of Gibraltar
(reconquered for Christendom on August 20, 1462) and a patron of Queens'
College, Cambridge.
And here are two depictions of him, one from a
north Italian antiphonary in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (W. 412
b.):
http://cistercians.shef.ac.uk/image_gallery/pages/0276.php
and one from a Catalan breviary of the late
fourteenth/early fifteenth century in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris (ms.
Rothschild 2529, "Breviary of Martin of Aragon", f. 374): http://www.aquiweb.com/templiers/images/bernard2.jpg
Bernardo Tolomei (Ptolemaeus)
(blessed) (d. 1348) The Sienese nobleman and contemplative Giovanni Tolomei
was born in 1272. Trained as a lawyer, Bernard underwent a "sudden" conversion
in 1312, when instead of giving a lecture on philosophy he gave a sermon on
the contempt of the world; after the sermon he resigned his position and moved
away from his hometown of Siena to the solitude of the woods of
Mont'Amiata. He then joined the Confraternity of the BVM attached to his
city's hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. In 1313, seeking a more ascetic
lifestyle, he resigned his position, took the name Bernardo in honor of
Bernard of Clairvaux and together with other nobles withdrew to a family
property in the Accona desert of central Tuscany where they lived eremitically
in shallow caves. There he was soon joined by Ambrose Piccolomini and Patrick
Patrizi. Their hermit-like existence aroused suspicion and they were reported
to the authorities, which caused them to be summoned before Pope John XXII at
Avignon. They were able to demonstrate their orthodoxy to the pope's
satisfaction; but the pope instructed them to put themselves under one of the
approved religious rules. They adopted the Benedictine rule to which a number
of austerities were added, including a total abstinence from wine. In 1319 the
group, which had grown larger, was permitted by the bishop of Arezzo to erect
a Benedictine monastery of Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto. The monks, as they
now were, elected their abbot annually and a Patrizi and a
Piccolomini each served for a year before Bernardo was elected in 1321,
after which time he was re-elected annually for the remainder of his
life.
This initial Olivetan community found willing
adherents elsewhere and before his death Bernardo established ten priories,
all called Santa Maria di Monte Oliveto and all strictly bound to the mother
house. In 1344 the Benedictine congregation so formed received papal approval
from Clement VI. In 1348 Bernardo moved to the priory at Siena to assist in
the care of his monks who had been stricken by the Black Death and died there
in the same year (traditionally, on August 20). He was buried at the Sienese
priory; the location of his gravesite is now unknown. In 1462 the Olivetans at
the mother house were said to be venerating his relics there. Bernardo’s cult
was confirmed by the Congregation of Rites in 1644 and approved in 1681. He
was canonized papally in 2009.
Burchard of Worms (d. 1026) A
native of Hesse, Burchard was born in 965, became a monk at Lobbes and was
made bishop of Worms in 1006 by Henry II. He was a famous compiler of canon
law.
Christopher and Leovigild
(d. 852) Our information about Christopher and Leovigild comes from St.
Eulogius of Córdoba's Memoriale sanctorum_, 2. 11. They were monks of
different houses from the vicinity of Córdoba who during the mid-ninth-century
wave of Christian challenges to Muslim superiority in that city presented
themselves before a judge, proclaimed their Christianity, and, knowing that
this was a capital offence, called Mohammed a false prophet. Adjudged guilty,
Christopher and Leovigild were incarcerated, beaten, and executed by
decapitation. Although their corpses were burned, Christians managed to
salvage some physical relics of them and deposited these in Córdoba's basilica
of St. Zoilus.
Eulogius, who
had been Christopher's teacher, records today as their dies
natalis. So does Usuard, who had been in Spain in 858 and who had
met Eulogius then.
Edbert of Northumbria (d. 768) ruled Northumbria for 21
years, then abdicated, became a priest, and spent the last decade of his life
in prayer and ascetic practices.
Herbert of Conza/-of Middlesex) (d. 1181, probably) is
thought, on the basis of a confused notice in the Ymagines historiarum
of Ralph of Diceto (a.k.a. Ralph of Diss), to have been an Englishman who
moved to the kingdom of Sicily and was appointed archbishop of Conza by
William II. Ralph actually says that Herbert was made archbishop of Cosenza in
Calabria and that he perished in a great earthquake there (1184). But Herbert
is documented in the see of Conza from 1169 through 1179 (when he took part in
Lateran III) and his death date was inscribed, presumably from local records,
on a pilaster in the old cathedral of Conza (the one destroyed by the
earthquakes of 1694 and 1732) as August 20 1118 (presumably a mistake for
1181). He was interred beneath a side altar there and moved to the high altar
in 1684 in connection with a canonical recognition of his relics. A
sarcophagus said to be his was housed until recently in the Museo Provinciale
Irpino at Avellino but is now back at Conza. Herbert has no surviving Life and
no medieval Office.
Heliodorus, Dausa, and companions (d. 362) The Persian
ruler Shapur II deported 9000 Christians, but selected 300 of them and
"invited" them to apostatize. 275 of them refused and were martyred - the
group commemorated today.
Maximus of Chinon (in French:
Maxime, Mesme, Mexme) (d. 5th century) All that is known about the
historical Maximus comes from chapter 22 of St. Gregory of Tours' De gloria
confessorum. According to this, he was a disciple of St. Martin of Tours
who left the Touraine to live humbly as a monk on the Île-Barbe at Lyon. When
growing fame compelled him to move on and he was crossing the Saône, his boat
sank to the bottom but he was able to cross without difficulty to the other
shore, all the while carrying the Gospels, a chalice, and a paten. Maximus
returned to the Touraine, where he founded a monastery at today's Chinon
(Indre-et-Loire). He is said to have aided besieged and thirsty people of the
town by causing the occurrence there of a massive downpour. An
eleventh-century Vita et Miracula adds nothing about him his own
lifetime.
Maximus’ monastery
at Chinon was rebuilt in the tenth century and was expanded and rebuilt at
various times in the succeeding centuries. The collapse in 1817 of the
transept tower of its collégiale Saint-Mexme entailed the destruction of the
building's east end.
Oswin/Oswine of Deira (d. 651) was the last king of
independent Deira. We know about him chiefly from Bede with regnal dates
furnished by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. He became king in 643 or 644. Bede
tells a story in which Oswin humbly accepts a reproof from St. Aidan. Oswin
was killed in 651 by men in the service of the Northumbrian king Owsiu, whose
seizure of Deira the militarily outnumbered Oswin chose not to contest,
instead Oswin disbanded his war host and went into hiding before he was
discovered and killed. Oswiu's wife Eanflæd, a member of the Deiran royal
house, is said to have persuaded him to show penitence by founding a monastery
at the place of Oswin's murder, Ingetlingum (generally said to be Gilling in
Richmond [West Yorks]). Oswin's entry for today in the early
eighth-century Calendar of Saint Willbrord attests to his early cult in the
North. Bede writes of Oswin: "King Oswin was
a man of handsome appearance and lofty stature, pleasant in speech and
courteous in manner. He was generous to high and low alike, and soon
won the affection of everyone by his regal qualities of mind and body, so that
nobles came from almost every province to enter his service. But among his
other especial endowments of virtue and moderation the greatest was what one
may describe as the singular blessing of humility." (Ecclesiastical
History, book 3, Ch. 14)
In about 1111 a monk of St. Albans wrote
a Vita, Inventio, and Miracula of Oswin asserting that
his body had in 1065 been discovered at the monastery of Tynemouth (since 1090
a dependency of St Albans). Symeon of Durham (which also claimed the monastery
at Tynemouth) relates a slightly different story asserting Durham's claim to
the relics through a gift to the monks of Jarrow who later formed the initial
community of St Cuthbert's monastery in Durham. On August 20 (Oswin's
traditional dies natalis) 1110 his putative remains at Tynemouth were
translated to that town's newly finished church of St. Mary. Oswin was venerated as a martyr; as a 12th-century
homilist explained, it was because he died "if not for the faith of Christ, at
least for the justice of Christ" (Farmer). His shrine there was
dismantled in 1539.
In
at least post-Conquest England Oswin's feast day was celebrated on August 20.
He's not in the RM but is in the Roman Catholic church dedicated to him at
Tynemouth (in Roman Catholic contexts a preference for tomorrow's date would
be trumped by tomorrow's St. Bernard of Clairvaux). His feast was indicated
for August 20 in a 15th century missal which apparently belonged to York
Minster.
Philibert (d. 685) The Gascon
Philibert was a son of Philibald, who became the bishop of Aire when Philibert
was about four years old. Philibald had his son educated and then sent him to
the Merovingian court. But Philibert became a monk at the age of 20 in St.
Ouen’s monastery of Rebais. He was abbot for a while but was too inexperienced
for the office, so retired to Neustria. Clovis II gave him land there and he
founded the monastery of Jumieges in 654. He ran into trouble when he
criticized the notorious mayor of the palace Ebroin, and was imprisoned and
then expelled from his monastery. So he went and founded another one, later
called Noirmoutier, in 676, and restored Quincay. He also built a monastery
for women at Pavilly. Besides his work as monastic founder, he is credited
with evangelizing the region of Vendee. His feast day is attested in the Paris
Missal c. 1380, listing him for France and Trier. He is venerated as apostle
and patron of the Vendée. Philibert's shrine in Tournus was a great pilgrimage
goal until the seventeenth century, and still attracts pilgrims.
His name is
the origin of the name 'filbert' for hazelnuts.
Rognvald / Ronald (d. 1158/9)
was earl of Orkney. In 1137 he began building the cathedral of St. Magnus at
Kirkwall in thanksgiving for gaining the earldom (a kinsman had taken it from
him). Rognvald went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land; on his way home, he was
murdered in Caithness. A popular cult grew up around his tomb, venerating him
as a martyr, although he is not formally canonized.
Severus, martyred at Bizya in Thrace (?) Prior to its
revision of 2001 the RM celebrated on August 20 the martyrs Severus and Memnon
the Centurion, put to death in a fiery furnace or oven and recorded in various
Greek synaxary notices. According to the latter, Severus was the son of a
Roman prefect of Side in Pamphylia who had been born at Philippopolis
(in Thrace; now Plovdiv in Bulgaria) and of his wife Mygdonia (i.e., of the
Mygdones, an ancient people of Thrace), both of whom had been baptized by a
bishop Xenophon. The family having returned to Philippopolis during a
persecution, Severus was motivated by a vision to meet the centurion Memnon,
whom he readily converted to Christianity. Severus and Memnon were arrested
and were conducted by a Roman proconsul first to Adrianople (now Edirne in
Turkey) and then to Bizya (now Vize in Turkey). There Memnon met his death by
fire and Severus underwent several tortures prior to being
decapitated.
The absence of any record of an ancient cult
of a martyr Memnon, coupled with the knowledge that the converted centurion is
a stock character in legendary Passiones, seems to have led to Memnon's recent
ejection from the RM. Severus remains, but apart from his Thracian connection
we know nothing about him. It has been proposed, not altogether convincingly,
that he is identical with the Severus who is one of the companions in
martyrdom, at Adrianople, of St. Philip of Heraclea (Oct 22) in the latter's
Passio.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
--
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit; Wisdom is not
putting it in a fruit salad. - Anon
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