| SS. ROMANUS AND LUPICINUS, ABBOTS |
| Feast: February 28
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| Romanus
at thirty-five years of age left his relations, and spent some time in the
monastery of Ainay (called in Latin Athanacense), at Lyons, at the great church
at the conflux of the Saone and Rhone, which the faithful had built over the
ashes of the famous martyrs of that city: for their bodies being burnt by the
pagans, their ashes were thrown into the Rhone, but a great part of them was
gathered by the Christians, and deposited in this place. Romanus a short time
after took with him the institutions and conferences of Cassian, and retired
into the forests of Mount Jura, between France and Switzerland, and fixed his
abode at a place called Condate, at the conflux of the rivers Bienne and Aliere,
where he found a spot of ground fit for culture, and some trees which furnished
him with a kind of wild fruit. Here he spent his time in praying, reading, and
labouring for his subsistence. Lupicinus, his brother, came to him some time
after in company with others, who were followed by several more, drawn by the
fame of the virtue and miracles of these two saints. Here they built the
monastery of Condate, and, their numbers increasing, that of Leuconne, two miles
distant to the north, and, on a rock, a nunnery called La Beaume (now St. Romain
de la Roche), which no men were allowed ever to enter, and where St. Romanus
chose his burial place. The brothers governed the monks jointly and in great
harmony, though Lupicinus was more inclined to severity of the two. He usually
resided at Leuconne with one hundred and fifty monks. The brethren at Condate,
when they were enriched with many lands, changed their diet, which was only
bread made of barley and bran, and pulse dressed often without salt or oil, and
brought to table wheat-bread, fish, and variety of dishes. Lupicinus being
informed hereof by Romanus, came to Condate on the sixth day after this
innovation and corrected the abuse. The abstinence which he prescribed his monks
was milder than that practiced by the oriental monks and by those of Lerins,
partly because the Gauls were naturally great eaters, and partly because they
were employed in very hard manual labour. But they never touched fowls or any
flesh-meat, and only were allowed milk and eggs in time of sickness. Lupicinus,
for his own part, used no other bed than a chair or a hard board; never touched
wine, and would scarce ever suffer a drop either of oil or milk to be poured on
his pulse. In summer his subsistence for many years was only hard bread
moistened in cold water, so that he could eat it with a spoon. His tunic was
made of various skins of beasts sewn together, with a cowl: he used wooden
shoes, and wore no stockings unless when he was obliged to go out of the
monastery. St. Romanus died about the year 460, and is mentioned in the Roman
Martyrology on the 28th of February. St. Lupicinus survived him almost twenty
years, and is honoured in the Roman Martyrology on the 21st of March. He was
succeeded in the abbacy of Condate by Minaucius, who, in 480, chose St. Eugendus
his coadjutor.
See the lives of the two brothers, SS. Romanus and Lupicinus, and that of St. Eugendus or Oyend, compiled by a monk of Condate of the same age; St. Gregory of Tours, lib. de Vitis Patr. c. I, Mabill. Annal. Ben. lib. i. ad an. 510, t. i. p. 23; Tillemont, t. 16, p. 142; Bulteau, lib. i. (Taken from Vol. II 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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