| ST. HONORATUS, ARCHBISHOP OF ARLES |
| January 16
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| He was
of a consular Roman family, then settled in Gaul, and was well versed in the
liberal arts. In his youth he renounced the worship of idols and gained his
elder brother, Venantius, to Christ, whom he also inspired with a contempt of
the world. They desired to renounce it entirely, but a fond Pagan father put
continual obstacles in their way: at length they took with them St. Caprais, a
holy hermit, for their director, and sailed from Marseilles to Greece, with the
design to live there unknown, in some desert. Venantius soon died happily at
Methone; and Honoratus, being also sick, was obliged to return with his
conductor. He first led an eremitical life in the mountains, near Frejus. Two
small islands lie in the sea near that coast; one larger, at a nearer distance
from the continent, called Lero, now St. Margaret's; the other smaller and more
remote, two leagues from Antibes, named Lerins, at present St. Honore, from our
saint, where he settled; and being followed by others, he there founded the
famous monastery of Lerins, about the year 400: Some he appointed to live in
community; others, who seemed more perfect, in separate cells, as anchorets. His
rule was chiefly borrowed from that of St. Pachomius. Nothing can be more
amiable than the description St. Hilary has given of the excellent virtues of
this company of saints, especially of the charity, concord, humility,
compunction, and devotion which reigned among them, under the conduct of our
holy abbot. He was, by compulsion, consecrated archbishop of Arles in 426, and
died, exhausted with austerities and apostolical labors, in 429. The style of
his letters was clear and affecting: they were penned with an admirable
delicacy, elegance, and sweetness, as St. Hilary assures. The loss of all these
precious monuments is much regretted. His tomb is shown empty under the high
altar of the church which bears his name at Arles; his body having been
translated to Lerins in 1391, where the greatest part remains. See his panegyric
by his disciple, kinsman, and successor, St. Hilary of Arles; one of the most
finished pieces extant in this kind. Dom Rivet, Hist. Lit. t. 2, p. 156.
(Taken from Vol. I of "The Lives or 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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