Today, November 13, is the feast of:
Mitrias/Mitrius/Mytrias (Latin)/Mitre (French) (early fourth century?) We first hear of Mitrias from St. Gregory of Tours, who in In gloria confessorum relates how he was regarded by the church of Aix as its miracle-working patron saint and who gives as an example from the time of king Sigibert (d. 575) his treatment of a powerful courtier who had used a court in his power to alienate land belonging to said church and to fine its bishop after he had protested: the malefactor was made to suffer from a wasting disease until at long last he repented and made restitution, whereupon he was deprived of life as punishment for his crime.
Prior to his narration Gregory says that in life Mitrias had been a slave and refers to an account of this Christian athlete's struggles and ultimate victory. The legendary Vita of Mitrias that we have now first appears in a later eighth-century collection of saint's lives in which it is part of a small group of early Vitae of saints of Provence. This makes him an emigrant from Thessalonica who worked as an agricultural laborer for a priest of Aix whom Mitrias did his best to dissuade from continuing an unholy life out of wedlock with a female companion. The priest would have none of this and when Mitrias operated a miracle he had him tried for sorcery. Convicted, Mitrias was executed by decapitation (said to have been thirty-three, he is also a type of Christ), after which he picked up his head and brought it to Aix's cathedral church. In art he is depicted as a layman carrying his head into Aix cathedral.
Prior to 1383 Mitrias' putative relics reposed in a series of bishop's churches dedicated to the BVM. In 1383 they were translated to Aix's cathédrale Saint-Sauveur. The cathedral also houses this later fifteenth-century (c1470-1475) panel painting of Mitrias by Nicholas Froment: http://tinyurl.com/yaf5lgg , http://leparisaquasistain.over-blog.com/article-35451870.html
Arcadius, Paschasius, Probus, Eutychian, and Paulillus (d. 437/8) We know about these martyrs of Africa from Prosper of Aquitaine's Chronicle and from a letter of the bishop of Cirta to Arcadius. The first four were military officers of Spanish origin; Paulillius was a young brother of Paschasius and Eutychian. They were all close to the Vandal king Genseric, who in 437 commanded them to become Arian. When they refused he dismissed them, had them exiled to Northern Africa, and later had the first four executed and had Paulillius, spared on account of his tender years, condemned to slavery. They were the first to be martyred in the Vandal persecution. They entered the historical martyrologies with Florus of Lyon, who placed them under November 12. Usuard changed their day to today.
Brice/Britius, bishop of Tours (d. 444) was a native of Turenne. According to Sulpicius Severus (Dialogues), he was brought up by St Martin of Tours, and became a very troublesome young man, claiming his master was insane; eventually he begged Martin's forgiveness, which was granted with the words, 'If Christ could tolerate Judas, surely I can put up with Brice'. He was educated at Marmoutier (Gaul). He ended up succeeding Martin as bishop of Tours in 397. He proved to be a bad bishop, with a reputation for ambition and licentiousness, including an accusation of adultery in his 33rd year in office, and finally he was expelled. His exile lasted seven years, during which Brice then went to Rome, where he repented, after which Tours let him come back again, and he was an enormous success. He was an active evangelist. Attested since the time of bishop St. Perpetuus (d. 491), Brice's cult is closely connected with that of his mentor. It spread to England - thus today is also the anniversary of the St. Brice's Day massacre of 1002, when Aethelred the Unready ordered the massacre of all Danes in England.
Here's a panel painting of him from 1483, showing him bringing coals to the tomb of the deceased Martin: http://www.mng.hu/en/collections/allando/181/oldal:3/962 . For an explanation of this scene, see: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/golden306.htm . And here they both are in a wooden sculpture of the same year, flanking St. John the Precursor:
http://www.mng.hu/en/collections/allando/181/oldal:3/961
Quinctian (d. 527) was a north African, who in c500 fled his homeland to escape persecution by the Arian Vandals. He relocated to southern Gaul, where he became the second bishop of Rodez. Quinctian ended up fleeing again - from the Visigoths of southern Gaul. He resettled in Clermont, where in 515 he was elected bishop there, too.
Devinicus (6th century) was from Aberdeen (Scotland), associated with the missionary work of St. Machar and other disciples of Colum Cille. He evangelized Caithness.
Caillin (7th century) was an Irish bishop, connected in legend to Aidan of Fearns. Caillin's most notable feat was turning a group of skeptical druids into a stone circle.
Himerius erem. Susingensis (Latin) /Imier or Himier (French)/Immer (German) of the Suze (d. 7th century?) is a poorly documented saint of the Bernese Jura. His cult is first attested from 884 when a chapel dedicated to him and said to have been built over his grave already existed at what is now St.-Imier. He has a legendary Vita (no witness earlier than the 15th century) that makes him a native of the Jura who became a hermit, went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, returned and established himself in the valley of the Suze (Suse; in German, Schüss), evangelized in the surrounding territory, and died on Nov. 12 of an unspecified year. Other chapels dedicated to him are recorded from nearby locales.
His cult arose in an area that from the end of the tenth century onward belonged ecclesiastically to the diocese of Lausanne and territorially to the diocese of Basel. He was venerated in both dioceses as well as in those of Geneva, Besançon, and Mainz. The center of his cult remained at St.-Imier, where in the twelfth century a collegiate church was erected in his honor.
Kilian (7th century) a native of Ireland, he visited his relative St Fiacre after a pilgrimage to Rome, and remained in the Artois region as a preacher.
Eugenius II of Toledo (d. 657) was the son of a noble Visigoth family, born in Toledo and became a monk at Engracia in Saragossa. In 646 he was named archbishop of Toledo. He hid in a cemetery to avoid ecclesiastical promotion, but this was in vain. Eugenius was noted for his musical gifts; he composed hymns and brought the liturgical music of his diocese to a high bloom. Many of his poems are still extant.
Maxellendis (d. c670) was a noble girl from the area of Cambrai. She refused to marry; her parents insisted and started planning the wedding; she ran away and took refuge with her old nurse. Maxellendus' betrothed found her hiding place and carried her off. But she broke loose and started to run away. Her intended was extremely angry by this time, so he whacked at her with his sword. She was killed and the thwarted bridegroom went blind on the spot. Miracles were reported at her tomb and when, three years later, her relics were translated, her would-be husband publicly confessed his crime and begged for forgiveness - his sight was immediately restored.
Nicholas I (d. 867) was a Roman, a trusted advisor of Benedict III and later one of the most important popes of the early Middle Ages (858-867). He was a vigorous defender of the Church's rights, and also those of the Roman see. With the Roman emperor in Constantinople, Michael III, he was strikingly unsuccessful, both in his campaign to secure the reinstatement of the patriarch Ignatius and in his attempt to influence the course of the church in Bulgaria, which led to the eastern bishops, led by Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, declaring Nicholas a heretic, excommunicating him, and declaring his deposition. He was strong in upholding the [new thought of the] permanence of marriage even in face of a threatened invasion by the disgruntled Lothar II of Lorraine, who was unable to obtain a divorce. His pontificate was marked by a series of actions in which he asserted papal primacy over his metropolitans, including John of Ravenna, Günther of Köln, and Theutgaud of Trier, all of whom he deposed, and Hincmar of Reims, whose own depositions and excommunications he reviewed and sometimes overturned. He was also very active in encouraging mission to Slavic and Scandinavian lands. Nicolas was the first pope in history to be crowned with the tiara. According to the Liber Pontificalis, he 'was patient and temperate, humble and chaste, beautiful in face and graceful in body ... he was devoted to penance and the Holy Mysteries, the friend of widows and orphans, and the champion of all the people'. He is sometimes called "the great," one of the three popes who has won the appellation. In 868 Nicholas' immediate successor, Hadrian II, urged bishops attending a synod at Troyes to include Nicholas' name in the payers of the Mass. But whatever cult he enjoyed then did not last. He entered the RM only in 1630.
Nicholas’ letters are in PL 119. Those to the emperor Michael and other important East Romans are literary masterpieces: concise, vigorous, and eloquent. Light years above the chancery standard of his remaining correspondence, they are apparently the product of a writing team whose chief member was Anastasius, a former anti-pope and a future papal librarian (Anastasius Bibliothecarius).
Abbo of Fleury (d. 1004) was born in c945 near Orleans and became a child oblate at Fleury. He studied at Paris and Rheims, then became a monk at Fleury. He had a great reputation for learning, and taught at Ramsey in England for two years before returning to Fleury. In 988 he was elected abbot there. He was much in demand as a diplomat. This learned abbot is most remembered for a collection of canons and a vita of St Edmund, king and martyr. As abbot of Fleury he became an active reformer, introducing reforms to a number of monasteries. He went to reform the monastery of La Reole - whose monks didn't want to be reformed. After chastising a monk for leaving the cloister, a revolt broke out and Abbo was killed (because of which Abbo is also venerated as a martyr).
Homobonus/Omobono of Cremona (d. 1197) was a married man, the son of a tailor, who became a cloth merchant of Cremona. He and his wife were both noted for their generosity and frequent prayer. Homobonus won the name "Father of the Poor" for his care of the poor during a famine, personal nursing of the sick (in hospitals he founded himself), and burying of the dead. When he was about 50 he gave up his business and devoted himself full-time to charitable works. Best of all (hagiographically speaking), he died during the Gloria at mass, stretching his arms out in the form of a cross as he did so. The bishop of Cremona went to Rome and immediately urged Homobonus's canonization, which followed in only two years. According to André Vauchez, Homobonus was the first lay saint of non-noble birth to be accorded papal canonization. His name (which means "good man") was given him at baptism; the people of Cremona also called him "Wonderworker." He is the patron of tailors and clothworkers in Italy, France and Germany, and of the cities of Cremona and Modena.
Here he is, after bishop St. Himerius and the Madonna Incoronata, in the loggia over the porch of Cremona's 12th – 14th-century cathedral: http://www.rccr.cremona.it/doc_comu/info/cattedrale/engl_cattedrale_img35.shtm . The two flanking statues are attributed to Gano da Siena (Gano di Fazio; d. before 1318). And here he is as depicted by the fifteenth-century Bolognese painter Pietro di Giovanni Lianori:
http://digilander.libero.it/gregduomocremona/immagini/omobono_lianori.jpg
Here's a relief (said to be in Venice) of him as the patron saint of tailors, courtesy of Cremona's Scuola Media Statale "A. Campi": http://www.rccr.cremona.it/campi/alunni/ipertesti/omobono/img/oimg15.jpg
This has photographs of a couple of other relatively early representations of the saint (locations unspecified):
http://www.rccr.cremona.it/campi/alunni/ipertesti/omobono/img/oimg05.jpg
Donatus of Montevergine (d. 1219) was an energetic abbot of Montevergine (in today's Avellino province of Campania), where he is celebrated in conjunction with a number of the monastery's other abbots.
Nicholas Tavelic and companions (d. 1391) Nicholas was a Dalmatian Franciscan who worked as a missionary in Bosnia for 20 years. He then went to Palestine, and was arrested for preaching to Muslims. He and three other friars were hacked to death at Jerusalem. They were canonized in 1970.
Didacus/Diego of Alcalá/of San Nicolas (1463) The Andalusian Diego was the son of poor people who lived near Seville. He was apprenticed to a hermit and is said to have spent some years as a young hermit before becoming a Franciscan lay brother at Arizafe near Córdoba. In 1441 he was sent as a missionary to the Canary Islands, then in the process of being conquered for Spain. Diego's defense of natives against conquistador interests caused him repeated difficulties and in 1449 he requested a transfer back to Spain. In 1450, having traveled to Rome for the canonization of St. Bernardino of Siena, he was in living in his Order's convent of Santa Maria in Capitolio (in Araceli) when a pestilence struck that house, sickening virtually all its inhabitants. Diego worked prodigiously to tend his brethren. After his return to Spain he lived in various convents, dying on this day at Alcalá de Henares. During the course of his life, he served as guardian of several convents, proved to be an outstanding nurse of sick brethren, and was credited with several miracles. Perhaps his most important posthumous miracle was healing the son of King Philip II, for which the king urged that Diego be canonized, as he was in 1588 – the same year as the Spanish Armada sailed for Britain. His feast was set at falling on November 13. That is still the day of his feast at Alcalá and was also his day of commemoration in the RM prior to the latter's revision of 2001. It is now held on November 12. His cult was restricted to local calendars in 1969.
Didacus (Diego) is the saint after whom the city of San Diego is named.
Stanislaus Kostka (1568) - a solitary youth who could not bear coarse talk or dancing, he became a Jesuit; had many fainting fits and visions; canonized in 1726
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
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“The nice thing about studying history is that you can always find people who are a lot weirder than you are.” – Delia Sherman