| ST. ADRIAN, ABBOT AT CANTERBURY (Died 710 AD) |
| Feast: January 9
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| Divine
Providence conducted this holy man to Britain, in order to make him an
instructor of innumerable saints. Adrian was an African by birth, and was abbot
of Nerida. not far from Naples, when pope Vitalian, upon the death of St.
Deusdedit the archbishop of Canterbury, judged him, for his skill in sacred
learning, and experience in the paths of true interior virtue, to be of all
others the most proper person to be the doctor of a nation, zealous in the
pursuit of virtue, but as yet ignorant in the sciences, and in the canons of the
church. The humble servant of God found means to decline that dignity, by
recommending St. Theodorus as most capable, but refused not to share in the
laborious part of the ministry. The pope therefore enjoined him to be the
companion, assistant, and adviser of the apostolic archbishop, which charge
Adrian willingly took upon himself. In traveling through France with St.
Theodorus, he was stopped by Ebroin, the jealous mayor of the palace, who feared
lest the emperor of the East had given these two persons, who were his born
subjects, some commission in favor of his pretensions to the western kingdoms.
Adrian stayed a long time in France, at Meaux, and in other places, before he
was allowed to pursue his journey. St. Theodorus established him abbot of the
monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, afterward called St. Austin, near Canterbury,
where he taught the learned languages and the sciences, and principally the
precepts and maxims of our divine religion. He had illustrated this island by
his heavenly doctrine, and the bright example of his virtues, for the space of
thirty-nine years, when he departed to our Lord on the 9th of January, in he
year 710. His tomb was famed for miracles, as we are assured by Joscelin the
Monk, quoted by William of Malmesbury and Capgrave, and his name is inserted in
the English calendars. See Bede, 1. 4, c. 1, 1. 5, c. 21. Malmesb. de Pontif
Angl. and Capgrave.
(Taken from Vol. I of "The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints" by the Rev. Alban Butler, the 1864 edition published by D. & J. Sadlier, & Company) |
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