ST AMATUS OF SION, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR - 13 SEPTEMBER

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN SEPTEMBER

Saints celebrated on the 13th of September

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 AMATUS OF SION, BISHOP AND CONFESSOR 

Saint Amatus (Amé)  was born of a wealthy family, and had the happiness to learn the spirit of Jesus Christ, not that of the world, from the example and assiduous instructions of his pious parents. 

With the consent and advice of those to whom prudence or duty obliged him to listen, he embraced an ecclesiastical state. No sooner had he from the bottom of his heart said to God that he was his portion and his inheritance for ever, but prayer, sacred studies, and exercises of charity and other virtues, became his whole employment. 

HE PREPARED HIMSELF WELL 

It was his great comfort and joy that the very habit which he wore freed him from many dangers and importunities of the world, and exempted him from visits, amusements, and idle employments, which in other states various circumstances make sometimes necessary. 

He prepared himself afresh for every new step in holy orders by the fervent practice of virtue, and by all suitable dispositions, that when he was raised to the priesthood he might receive the plenitude of its graces. 

Out of a desire of greater perfection, he took the monastic habit at Agaunum, a monastery at that time famous both for regular discipline, and the sacred studies. 

St Amatus, with the leave of the abbot, dwelt in a little cell cut in a rock, with an oratory adjoining, which is now called our Lady's in the rock.  

AMATUS WAS CHOSEN BISHOP OF SION

Some time after, Amatus was chosen bishop of Sion, in the Valais, about the year 669. In this exalted station the example of his virtue shone forth with new lustre, and greater authority; he was enabled to deal his alms more plentifully among the poor, and was furnished with the means of every way exerting his zeal more powerfully in advancing the divine honour, and the spiritual good of souls.

He preached, instructed, comforted, and relieved all persons according to their particular necessities. In a word, he was an accomplished pastor, sanctifying both himself and those who were committed to his charge. 

TOO MUCH VIRTUE FOR THEIR LIKING

He had governed his diocese almost five years, when the devil, jealous of the victories which the holy pastor daily gained over his empire, stirred up against him certain wicked instruments, who could not bear in others that virtue which they had not courage to practise themselves.   

Theodoric III, son of Clovis II, king, first of Austrasia, afterwards of all France, was for several years abandoned to vice and evil counsellors, and is the first of those who, governing by the mayors of his palace, are called by some historians the Idle Kings. 

Ebroin, mayor of his palace, was one of the wickedest tyrants that ever had any share in the administration of the French kingdom; the murder of St Leodegarius, and the persecution and banishment of many other holy bishops and saints, of which he was the author, are instances of his injustice, cruelty, and irreligion. 

ACCUSATIONS

The enemies of St Amatus found it an easy matter to accuse him before such a king, and such a minister, of crimes which had not the least foundation in truth; some say, of accusing Ebroin of tyranny.

Theodoric, without further examination, or so much as allowing the holy man a hearing, banished him to St Fursey's monastery at Peronne, where St. Ultan, the abbot, treated him with all imaginable respect and veneration. 

HE NEVER COMPLAINED

The holy exile rejoiced in his disgrace to find the tranquillity of holy retirement, in which he enjoyed a sweet calm, with the happy means of living to himself and God, conversing always in heaven, and giving free scope to his zeal in the practice of the most rigorous penitential austerities. 

The flagrant injustice that was done him never drew from him the least complaint, though no synod had been assembled to hear him, no sentence of deposition issued out, no crime so much as laid to his charge in a juridical manner. The only circumstance which afflicted him was to see a wolf intruded by the king into his see, not to feed, but to devour his flock.   

A NEW ABBEY WAS BUILT

After the death of St Ultan, St Mauront was charged with the custody of St Amatus, and took him first to the monastery of Hamaye; but soon after built a new abbey upon an estate of his own, at a place called Breuil, or Broile, now Merville, (that is, Little Town,) upon the Lis, in Flanders. 

St Amatus removed with him to Breuil. St Mauront rejoiced to be possessed of such a guest, and resigned to him the government of that abbey. St Amatus, both by words and example, excited the monks to fervour and humility, and having settled the house in excellent order, shut himself up in a little cell near the church, in which he occupied his soul with so much ardour in heavenly contemplation, as scarcely to seem to be any longer an inhabitant of the earth. 

KING THEODORIC MADE SATISFACTION FOR HIS UNJUST PERSECUTION OF ST AMATUS

Thus he lived five years with these monks, and only left them to become an intercessor with Christ in his glory for them, about the year 690. Ebroin, who had sacrificed many innocent bishops and noblemen to his cruel policy, was himself massacred in 679. 

King Theodoric died in 691, but entering into himself some time before his death, had severely condemned himself for having unjustly persecuted St Amatus, and in satisfaction made several donations to the abbey of Breuil. 

Gramaye takes this house to have been a community of secular priests; but that they were monks is evident, since the Capuchin friars, in digging up the ground, found remains of their bodies buried in the monastic habit. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)