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ST HUGH OF LINCOLN - 17th NOVEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER

Saints celebrated on 17th of November 

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST HUGH OF LINCOLN, BISHOP

Saint Hugh was born of a good family in Burgundy in 1140: lost his mother before he was eight years old, and was educated from that age in a convent of regular canons, situate near his father’s seat, who, after having served as an officer in the army, with great reputation for honour and piety, retired himself to the same place, and there ended his days in the exercises of a devout and penitential religious life.

A GREAT REPUTATION FOR HONOUR AND PIETY

Hugh, being blessed with a happy genius and good natural parts, made great progress in every branch of learning to which he applied himself. A venerable ancient priest was appointed by the abbot to instruct him in his studies and in religious discipline, whose serious admonitions made a deep impression on his soul. 

When he was nineteen years old the abbot took the saint with him to the Chartreuse near Grenoble, on an annual visit which he was accustomed to make to that holy company. 

The retirement and silence of the desert, and the assiduous contemplation and saintly deportment of the monks who inhabited it, kindled in Hugh’s breast a strong desire of embracing that institute.

HE WAS PERSUADED THAT GOD CALLED HIM TO THIS STATE

Nor were the canons, his brethren, able to dissuade him from this resolution after his return; so that being persuaded that God called him to this state, he secretly went back to the Chartreuse, and was admitted to the habit. 

The interior conflicts which he sustained, served to purify his soul, and make him more fervent and watchful. Under these trials he was often refreshed with consolations and great heavenly sweetness; and, by mortification and humble continual prayer, the fiery darts of the enemy were at length extinguished.

THE FIERY DARTS OF THE ENEMY WERE AT LENGTH EXTINGUISHED

The time approaching when he was to be promoted to priest’s orders, an old father whom he served according to the custom of the Order, asked him if he was willing to be ordained priest. 

Hugh answered him with simplicity, out of the vehement desire he had of offering daily to God the holy victim of the altar, that there was nothing in the world he more earnestly desired. 

The old man fearing the danger of presumption, and a want of the great apprehension which every one is bound to have of that tremendous function, said to him with a severe countenance: "How dare you aspire to a degree, to which no one, how holy soever, is advanced, but with trembling, and by constraint?" 

HUGH BEGGED PARDON WITH MANY TEARS

At this rebuke, St Hugh, struck with holy fear, fell on the ground, and begged pardon with many tears. The other moved at his humility, told him he knew the purity of his desires; and said he would be advanced not only to the priesthood, but also to the episcopal dignity. 

The saint had passed ten years in his private cell when the general procuratorship of the monastery was committed to him: in which weighty charge the reputation of his prudence and sanctity was spread over all France.

THE FIRST CARTHUSIAN HOUSE IN ENGLAND

King Henry II of England founded the first house of Carthusian monks in England, at Witham in Somersetshire; but so great difficulties occurred in the undertaking, under the two first priors, that the monastery could not be settled. 

The king, therefore, sent Reginald, bishop of Bath, with other honourable persons, to the great Chartreuse, to desire that the holy monk, Hugh, might be sent over to take upon him the government of this monastery. After much debating in the house it was determined that it became not Christian charity so to confine their views to one family as to refuse what was required for the benefit of many others; and though the saint protested that of all others he was most unfit for the charge, he was ordered by the chapter to accompany the deputies to England. 

HE COMFORTED THE MONKS

As soon as he landed, without going to court, he went directly to Witham, and wonderfully comforted and encouraged the few monks he found there. 

Being sent for by the king, he received from his royal bounty many presents, and a large provision of all things necessary for his monastery, and set himself to finish the buildings; at which he worked with his own hands, and carried stones and mortar on his shoulders. 

HUMILITY AND MEEKNESS

By the humility and meekness of his deportment, and the sanctity of his manners, he gained the hearts of the most savage and inveterate enemies of that holy foundation, and several persons, charmed with the piety of the good prior and his little colony, began to relish their close solitude, and abandoning the cares of the world, consecrated themselves to God under the discipline of the saint, who became in a short time the father of a numerous and flourishing family. 

"REGARD OUR DISTRESS AND AFFLICTION"

The king, as he returned with his army from Normandy to England, was in great danger at sea, in a furious storm which defeated all the art of the sailors. All fell to their prayers: but their safety seemed despaired of when the king made aloud the following address to heaven: "O blessed God, whom the prior of Wilham truly serves, vouchsafe through the merits and intercession of thy faithful servant, with an eye of pity to regard our distress and affliction." 

This invocation was scarcely finished when a calm ensued, and the whole company who never ceased to give thanks to the divine clemency, continued their voyage safe to England.

The confidence which King Henry reposed in St Hugh, above all other persons in his dominions, was from that time much increased. 

THE KING HAD MUCH CONFIDENCE IN HIM

The see of Lincoln having been kept by his majesty some years vacant, he was pleased to give leave to the dean and chapter to choose a pastor, and the election fell upon St Hugh. 

He receive the episcopal consecration in 1186, on September 21. As soon as he was raised to the episcopal chair, he engaged several clergymen of the greatest learning and piety to be his assistants: and he employed all the authority which his station gave him, in restoring ecclesiastical discipline, especially amongst his clergy.

HE LABOURED TO QUICKEN IN ALL MEN THE SPIRIT OF FAITH

By sermons and private exhortations he laboured to quicken in all men the spirit of faith, and in ordinary conversation incited others to divine love by instructions adapted to their particular condition and circumstances; but was always cheerful and affable, with decent gravity. 

In administering the sacraments, or consecrating churches he sometimes spent whole days, beginning before break of day, and persevering some hours in the night, without allowing himself any corporal refection. 

Good part of his time he always bestowed in inquiring into, and relieving the necessities of the poor, whom he frequently visited, and affectionately comforted. 

HE COMFORTED THE POOR

The hospitals of lepers he attended above others, and with singular tenderness kissed the most loathsome ulcers of the infected. To one who jeeringly said to him, that St Martin did so to heal their ulcers, which he did not do, the good bishop answered: "St Martin’s kiss healed the leper’s flesh: but their kiss heals my soul." 

Henry II, a prince most impatient of advice, and uncontrollable in his resolutions, stood in awe of this holy prelate, and received his admonitions with seeming deference, though it was only by afflictions in the decline of life that he learned effectually to reform his passions. 

The king’s foresters, or overseers of the royal forests and chases, exercised an inhuman tyranny in the country, putting to death, or maiming upon the spot, any one who had killed or maimed a wild beast, or any game, whatever loss the farmers sustained by the deer in their harvest or gardens; and these foresters, upon the slightest suspicion, put whomsoever they pleased to the water-ordeal trial, which, notwithstanding the prohibitions of the church, remained still in frequent use among these officers of the crown, who immediately put to death whoever was cast by that trial.

And by customs usurped a good while, or by unjust and tyrannical forest laws, as the learned and pious Peter of Blois (who lived some time at the court of Henry II) scruples not to call them, it was in the power of these foresters to require limb for limb, or life for life of that of a beast.

A company of these rangers had, upon a slight occasion, laid hands on a clerk, and condemned him in a considerable sum of money. St Hugh, after due summons, and a triple citation, excommunicated the head of them. This action King Henry took very ill. 

"TO BE CONFERRED UPON CLERKS, NOT UPON COURTIERS"

However, he dissembled his resentment, and soon after, by a messenger and letters, requested of him a prebend, then vacant in the diocese of Lincoln, in favour of one of his courtiers. St Hugh, having read the petition, returned this answer by the messenger: "These places are to be conferred upon clerks, not upon courtiers: nor does the king want means to reward his servants."

Neither could the bishop be prevailed upon, at the king’s request, to absolve the ranger till he acknowledged his crime, with signs of repentance. 

HE COMPLAINED BITTERLY

Hereupon his majesty sent for the bishop, and summing up the favours he had done him, upbraided him with ingratitude, and complained bitterly of the treatment he had received. 

The bishop, no ways troubled or daunted, with a grave and sweet countenance, demonstrated to him how, in the whole affair, he had had a regard purely to the service of God, and to the salvation of his majesty’s soul, which incurred manifest danger if oppressors of the church were protected, or ecclesiastical benefices rashly conferred on unworthy persons.

The king was so moved by his discourse as to remain perfectly satisfied. The ranger showed himself penitent, and was absolved by the bishop in the usual form, in a public manner, and by his exhortation appeared truly reformed, and from that time became the saint’s most steady friend. 

ST HUGH FINISHED THE BUILDING OF HIS CATHEDRAL

St Hugh finished the building of his cathedral. Henry II died in 1189, after a reign of thirty-four years.

Hugh, with the same liberty, exhorted King Richard I to shun incontinence and all oppression of his subjects, and defended the immunities of the church in his reign, and in that of King John, who came to the crown in 1199. 

St Hugh was sent ambassador by this latter into France, to King Philip Augustus, to conclude a peace between the two crowns; in which negotiation the reputation of his sanctity contributed greatly to the success. 

HE DID NOT LIKE TO PEDDLE NEWS TO THE RELIGIOUS

This important affair being finished he paid a visit to his brethren at the grand Chartreuse. In his return, whilst he lodged at a Chartreuse called Arneria, some of the monks asked him what news? At which question he was startled, and answered; that a bishop who is engaged in the commerce of the world, may sometimes hear and tell news; but that such inquiries in religious men are an idle curiosity, and a dissipation repugnant to their state. 

The saint arrived at London just as a national council was ready to be opened at Lincoln: it was his intention to assist at it, but he was seized with a fever which followed a loss of appetite he had been afflicted with some time. He distinctly foretold his death; spent almost his whole time in fervent addresses to God, or to the Blessed Virgin, or in devout colloquies with his angel-guardian, or the saints. 

HE RECEIVED THE VIATICUM AND EXTREME UNCTION

He received the viaticum and Extreme Unction and survived till November 17. His voice beginning to fail he ordered the floor to be swept, and a cross of blessed ashes to be strewed upon it; and whilst the ninetieth psalm at Compline was said, would be lifted out of bed, and laid upon that cross; in which posture, as he was repeating the canticle, Nunc dimittis, etc. he calmly expired in the year of our Lord 1200, of his age sixty, of his episcopal charge fifteen. 

HIS BODY WAS BROUGHT TO LINCOLN

His body was embalmed and with great pomp conveyed from London to Lincoln, where two kings, John of England and William of Scotland, (the latter, who had dearly loved the saint, bathed in tears,) three archbishops, fourteen bishops, above a hundred abbots, and a great number of earls and barons came out to meet the corpse, and the two kings put their shoulders under the bier as it was carried into the church. Three paralytic persons, and some others, recovered their health at his tomb. Saint Hugh was canonised by Honorius III or IV, and is named in the Roman Martyrology. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

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