Today, April 26, is the feast of:
Cletus (1st century) A rather confused character, who seems to have been duplicated rather a lot. According to Irenaeus, Cletus was the second successor of Peter as bishop of Rome. He made it into the Roman martyrology twice: once as Cletus and once as Anacletus (see below). His cult was suppressed in 1969, but his name still appears in the Roman canon of the mass.
Anacletus, pope (d. ca91) was the second bishop of Rome after St. Peter. Both this form of his name and the (pseudo-) Hieronymian Martyrology's 'Aninclitus' are latinizations of Greek 'Anenkletos' ('Blameless'), the form given by such Greek writers as Irenaeus and Eusebius. He is also called Cletus, as in his commemoration in the Roman canon of the Mass, and in the Liberian Catalogue, followed by the Liber Pontificalis, he appears as two popes, Cletus and Anacletus. According to the Liber Pontificalis he erected a memoria over Peter's tomb (this is widely disbelieved; the similarly named pope St. Anicetus is a more likely choice) and was himself buried nearby. The tradition that he died a martyr seems unsupported.
Anacletusappears at one time to have been a saint of the Regno. At Ruvo di Puglia in Apulia a subterranean oratory beneath the present Chiesa del Purgatorio has been called the Grotta di San Cleto since at least the seventeenth century, when according to the ecclesiastical historian Ferdinando Ughelli the following inscription, written in crude "gothic" letters, was legible on one of its walls: "Cives Ruborum nolite timere, Ego sum Cletus Rubensis Episcopus, Tertius post Petrum, qui pro vobis oro" ("Do not fear, citizens of Ruvo. I am Cletus of Ruvo bishop, third after Peter, who prays for you").
Shown here, from a copy of Ivo of Saint-Denis' earlier fourteenth-century Vita et Passio Sancti Dionysii (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 2092, fol. 82v) are St. Sanctinus, bishop of Meaux and the latter's friend St. Antoninus reporting orally on the evangelization of Gaul to Anacletus (who in this text is actually called Anacletus and not Cletus): http://tinyurl.com/22jr5mj
On the theory that Anacletus (as Cletus) was the town's patron saint before the present one (San Biagio, i.e. St. Blaise), some have thought that the unidentified seated figure above the rose window on Ruvo's thirteenth-century cathedral (finished in 1237 and since rebuilt) is really he. Views of this putative Anacletus are here: http://tinyurl.com/3dq5gd
Marcellinus (d. 304) The cult of this early bishop of Rome was suppressed in 1969, apparently with more cause than many such suppressions: he apparently made an offering to the state gods in 303 at the emperor's demand, along with several important Roman clerics. His name was left out of Damasus' list of popes. His story was later cleaned up, reporting that he felt remorse and overcompensated by going and getting himself martyred.
Basil/ Basileus/Basilius of Amasea (d. c322) is recorded in St. Jerome's Latin-language version of Eusebius' Chronicon as a bishop of Amasea in Pontus (also Amaseia; today's Amasya in north central Turkey) martyred under Licinius in the 275th Olympiad (321-324). He was one of the signatories of the acta of councils held at Ancyra and Neocaesarea in 314. He has a probably later fourth-century Laudatio by Asterius of Amasea and a legendary Passio that a) has him singled out for persecution because he had given shelter to a young woman of Christian faith who had been in the service of Licinius' wife and with whom Licinius had fallen in lust and b) relates that after he had been executed by decapitation at Nicomedia his head and the remainder of his body, which had been thrown into the sea separately, were miraculously recovered together by fishermen near Sinope and from there brought to Amasea.
Peter of Braga (d. c350) Actually a fourth-century bishop of Braga (Portugal), legend makes Peter a disciple of St. James the Greater. He is supposed to have been martyred after he baptized the local ruler's daughter and cured her of leprosy.
Trudpert (d. c600, supposedly) is the rather legendary saint of the monastery named for him at today's Münstertal im Schwarzwald in Baden-Württemberg, about twenty kilometers south of Freiburg im Breisgau. According to his earliest Vita, he was an Irish missionary who settled here as a hermit and erected a small church consecrated to SS. Paul and Peter. Two serfs who had been sent by thte bishop of Constace were to have been his laborers, helping him in cutting wood and gathering hay. One day as Trudpert lay sleeping on a bench in the hot sun, one of the laborers clave his head with an axe. The monastery, which became very wealthy, grew up over what was said to have been his grave. He seems never to have graced the pages of the RM.
Richarius/Riquier (d. c645) was born at Celles in northern France. He protected two Irish missionaries, who ended up converting him. He then went on to become a priest, studied in England (?), then returned and started his own missionary work, getting so famous that King Dagobert I visited him. He is credited with founding the monastery of Celles, but more likely he only established a church, around which the abbey grew later. He was noted for receiving alms and spending the money to purchase the freedom of prisoners. Later he lived as a hermit in a forest near Crecy. His hermitage was the core of the monastery Foretmoutier. He ended his life as a hermit.
Paschasius Radbertus (d. c860) was a foundling, taken in by the nuns of Soissons. He became a monk at Corbie, serving as scholasicus, and in 822 helping to found the daughter house of Corvey in Westphalia, where he served in the same office. He was elected abbot of Corvey in 844 but resigned in 849. He had a reputation as one of the greatest religious authors of his age. He ventured into theology, probably best known for his De corpore et sanguine Domini, an exposition of the doctrine of the Real Presence, his commentary on Matthew in twelve books, and his Marian De partu Virginis. He was buried in the church of St. John at Corbie. In 1073, after miracles had been reported at his tomb, he was translated to the abbey's church of St. Peter at the order of Pope Gregory VII.
Hermann I of Baden (d. 1074) The subject of a popular cult, Hermann of Zahringen was count of Baden. He was born in c1040, married, but in 1073 abandoned his wife and son (with Church approval) and entered Cluny as a laybrother. He died in 1074.
William and Peregrine /in Italian, Guglielmo e Pellegrino, venerated at Foggia (d. 11th or 12th century). We know about these two saints of the Regno from lections from their incompletely preserved Office from Foggia in northern Apulia. According to this undated text, William and Peregrine were a father and his only son, both wealthy and very devout and living at Antioch on the Orontes. Peregrine, who from childhood had nurtured a desire to see Jerusalem, went there as a pilgrim when he had come of age and stayed there, tending the sick in a hospice. When he did not return as expected, William grew concerned and made inquiries that proved unavailing. He then went to Jerusalem himself, searched anxiously for his son, and fell ill in the process. He was brought to Peregrine's hospice, where Peregrine recognized him and they reunited. They returned to Antioch, where William sold his possessions and with the proceeds funded the hospice in Jerusalem and established others.
Thus far the Vita as we have it. From hymns, responsories, and antiphons sent in 1638 by the archpriest of Foggia to the early Bollandists, it appears that they came to Foggia, where they lived as hermits, visited the sick, made miraculous cures, and died simultaneously. Two of those whom they cured are named but not further identified: Riccardus and Maria. The combination of the first of these names with the Vita's making both William and Peregrine travelers to Jerusalem conduces to the view that this is a pilgrim-oriented cult of twelfth- or early thirteenth-century origin. Foggia was on a route taken by travelers from the north heading to the port cities of Apulia; from the reign of Frederick II onward it has been the chief city of its region, the Capitanata. William and Peregrine were given an Elevatio in the principal church of Foggia in 1630. They are secondary patrons of Foggia.
John of Valence (blessed) (d. 1145) was a native of Lyons. He started his career as a canon in his hometown, but became a monk at Clairvaux after making a pilgrimage to Compostela. He became first abbot of Bonnevaux on the Loir and bishop of Valence in 1141. His cult was approved in 1901.
Dominic and Gregory, venerated "at Besians" (d. late 13th or early 14th century) Early modern Dominican sources from Spain make Dominic and Gergory (Domingo y Gregorio) priests of their Order who preached in the county of Ribagorza in today's Huesca province of (Moorish) Aragón. While traveling, they were overtaken by a storm and sought shelter for the night under a rock that was struck by lightning and then collapsed and crushed them in its fall. A miraculous tolling of bells alerted the people of nearby Perarrúa, who on the following day recovered their bodies (surronded by lights and angelic music). These were brought to the parish church at Besians, where further miracles occurred and a cult grew up. In the seventeenth century their tombs at Besians were still a pilgrimage destination. They were beatified in 1854. The diocese of Barbastro-Monzón celebrates them on April 27 with an obligatory memorial.
Alda/Aude/Aldobrandesca (blessed) (d. 1309) was a Sienese. She married, and the very pious couple lived a continent marriage. After seven years of marriage she was widowed and entered the third order of the Humiliati, then spent the rest of her life in doing good deeds and self-mortification. Alda won great fame for her numerous healing miracles, and was also credited with the gift of prophecy and visions. She experienced visions of Jesus performing the deeds recorded in the gospels. Eventually, she gave away all of her possessions and used only a small gourd for a drinking cup.
She often experienced ecstasies. When she was first seen in a state of trance resembling catalepsy, some people were sceptical and started to pinch her, pierce her with needles and apply lighted candles to her hands. When she recovered consciousness she felt intense pain from the wounds that had been inflicted, but all she said to her tormentors was: "God forgive you."
Stephen of Perm (d. 1396) Stephen was born in Velikiy Ustyug (about 500 mi. NE of Moscow). The area was still for the most part non-Christian, although his own family was both Russian and Christian. After making his monastic profession at Rostov Veliky, where he studied Greek and Old Slavonic, the Komi-speaking Russian Stephen (also Stephen Hrap) became a missionary among the Zyrians, a Finno-Ugric people in the Komi region of the nothern Urals. He developed for them a script, the Old Permic alphabet, and translated Orthodox texts into Komi. Stephen was a very worthy successor of SS Cyril and Methodius, and his missionary methods are reminiscent of theirs. He believed that every people should worship God in its own tongue, since languages also are from God. He was successful as a missionary, and also as an icon painter. In 1383 he was appointed the first bishop of Perm, with his seat at his monastic center at Ust-Vym. He died while on a trip to Moscow and was buried there in what is now the Kremlin. He has a Life by Epiphanius the Wise (d. 1420). The Russian Church canonized S. in 1549.
Happy reading,
Terri Morgan
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From the Book of Kerric:
"It requires great strength to be kind, whereas even the very weak can be brutal. Likewise, to speak hard truths fearlessly is often the hallmark of greatness. Bring me one who is both gentle and truthful, ...and I will show you an iron oak among hawthorns, a blessing on all who know them."