St. Paul Aurelian
Also known as Paulinus or Pol of Léon
Feast day: March 12
Born in Cornwall;
Died March 12, 575.
The vita of Saint Paul was finished in 884 by a monk of Landévennec, Brittany, named Wrmonoc. It is one of the few of British Celtic saints written prior to the late middle ages.
Saint Paul was a noble Briton, cousin of Saint Samson, and his fellow-disciple under Saint Illtyd. He was educated at Llantwit with Saints David and Gildas. We need no other proof of his wonderful fervor and progress in virtue, and all the exercises of a monastic life, than Illtyd's testimony, by whose advice Paul left the monastery to embrace a more perfect eremitical life.
Some time after, our saint sailing from Cornwall, passed into Armorica, and continued the same austere eremitical life on Caldey Island on the coast of the Osismians, a barbarous idolatrous people in Armorica, or Little Britain. Prayer and contemplation were his whole employment, and bread and water his only food, except on great festivals, in which he took with his bread a few little fish. The saint, mourning over the blindness of he pagan inhabitants on the coast, migrated with twelve companions to Brittany, and instructed them in the faith. Withur, count or governor of Bas, and all that coast, seconded by king Childebert, procured his ordination to the episcopal dignity, notwithstanding his tears to prevent it. His see is now called after him, Saint-Pol-de- Léon.
Count Withur, who resided in the Isle of Bas (Ouessant), bestowed his own house on the saint to be converted into a monastery; and St. Paul placed in it certain fervent monks, who had accompanied him from Wales and Cornwall. He was himself entirely taken up in his pastoral functions, and his diligence in acquitting himself of every branch of his obligations was equal to his apprehension of their weight. When he had completed the conversion of that country, he resigned his bishopric to a disciple, and retired into the isle of Batz, where he died in holy solitude at the age of nearly 100.
During the inroads of the Normans, his relics were removed to the abbey of Fleury, or St. Benet's on the Loire, but were lost when the Calvinists plundered that church. The story related by Wrmonoc is full of legendary material, but there is no doubt that Paul was a powerful evangelist in Finistère. The vita incorporates some traditions of Welsh and Celtic origin, and there are considerable traces of the saint in Wales, where, as in Brittany, he was sometimes called Paulinus. The ancient church at the village of Paul, near Penzance, is dedicated in honor of Pol de Léon. His festival occurs in the ancient breviary of Léon, on the 10th of October, perhaps the day of the translation of his relics. For in the ancient breviary of Nantes, and most others, he is honored on the 12th of March
Also known as Paulinus or Pol of Léon
Feast day: March 12
Born in Cornwall;
Died March 12, 575.
The vita of Saint Paul was finished in 884 by a monk of Landévennec, Brittany, named Wrmonoc. It is one of the few of British Celtic saints written prior to the late middle ages.
Saint Paul was a noble Briton, cousin of Saint Samson, and his fellow-disciple under Saint Illtyd. He was educated at Llantwit with Saints David and Gildas. We need no other proof of his wonderful fervor and progress in virtue, and all the exercises of a monastic life, than Illtyd's testimony, by whose advice Paul left the monastery to embrace a more perfect eremitical life.
Some time after, our saint sailing from Cornwall, passed into Armorica, and continued the same austere eremitical life on Caldey Island on the coast of the Osismians, a barbarous idolatrous people in Armorica, or Little Britain. Prayer and contemplation were his whole employment, and bread and water his only food, except on great festivals, in which he took with his bread a few little fish. The saint, mourning over the blindness of he pagan inhabitants on the coast, migrated with twelve companions to Brittany, and instructed them in the faith. Withur, count or governor of Bas, and all that coast, seconded by king Childebert, procured his ordination to the episcopal dignity, notwithstanding his tears to prevent it. His see is now called after him, Saint-Pol-de- Léon.
Count Withur, who resided in the Isle of Bas (Ouessant), bestowed his own house on the saint to be converted into a monastery; and St. Paul placed in it certain fervent monks, who had accompanied him from Wales and Cornwall. He was himself entirely taken up in his pastoral functions, and his diligence in acquitting himself of every branch of his obligations was equal to his apprehension of their weight. When he had completed the conversion of that country, he resigned his bishopric to a disciple, and retired into the isle of Batz, where he died in holy solitude at the age of nearly 100.
During the inroads of the Normans, his relics were removed to the abbey of Fleury, or St. Benet's on the Loire, but were lost when the Calvinists plundered that church. The story related by Wrmonoc is full of legendary material, but there is no doubt that Paul was a powerful evangelist in Finistère. The vita incorporates some traditions of Welsh and Celtic origin, and there are considerable traces of the saint in Wales, where, as in Brittany, he was sometimes called Paulinus. The ancient church at the village of Paul, near Penzance, is dedicated in honor of Pol de Léon. His festival occurs in the ancient breviary of Léon, on the 10th of October, perhaps the day of the translation of his relics. For in the ancient breviary of Nantes, and most others, he is honored on the 12th of March
No comments:
Post a Comment