ST SEVERINUS, ABBOT OF AGAUNUM - 11 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 Saints celebrated on the 11th of February

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.

SAINT SEVERINUS, ABBOT OF AGAUNUM 

Saint Severinus, of a noble family in Burgundy, was educated in the Catholic faith, at a time when the Arian heresy reigned in that country. 

HE FORSOOK THE WORLD IN HIS YOUTH

He forsook the world in his youth, and dedicated himself to God in the monastery of Agaunum [today's Saint-Maurice], which then only consisted of scattered cells, till the Catholic king, Sigismund, son and successor to the Arian Gondebald, who then reigned in Burgundy, built there the great abbey of St Maurice. 

THE KING'S ILLNESS

St Severinus was the holy abbot of that place, and had governed his community many years in the exercises of penance and charity, when, in 504, Clovis, the first Christian king of France, lying ill of a fever, which his physicians had for two years ineffectually endeavoured to remove, sent his chamberlain to conduct him to court; for he had heard how the sick from all parts recovered their health by his prayers. 

HIS PRAYERS RESTORED THE KING TO PERFECT HEALTH

St Severinus took leave of his monks, telling them he should never see them more in this world. On his journey he healed Eulalius, bishop of Nevers, who had been for some time deaf and dumb; also a leper at the gates of Paris; and coming to the palace, he immediately restored the king to perfect health, by putting on him his own cloak. The king in gratitude distributed large alms to the poor, and released all his prisoners. 

HIS HOLY DEATH

St Severinus returning towards Agaunum, stopped at Chateau-Landon, in Gatinois, where two priests [one of them was Paschasius] served God in a solitary chapel, among whom he was admitted, at his request, as a stranger, and was soon greatly admired by them for his sanctity. He foresaw his death, which happened shortly after, in 507. 

THE ABBEY

The place is now an abbey of reformed canons regular of St Augustine. The Huguenots scattered the greater part of his relics, when they plundered this church. He is mentioned in the Roman Martyrology, and a large parish in Paris takes its name from this saint, not from the hermit who was St Cloud’s master.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints - 📷 1. St Severinus, 2. At the Monastery of St Maurice)