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ST WILLIAM OF MALEVAL, HERMIT - 10 FEBRUARY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

 Saints celebrated on the 10th 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.

ST WILLIAM OF MALEVAL, HERMIT 

(A.D. 1157. - Saint William of Maleval, Hermit, and Institutor of the Order of Gulielmites.) We know nothing of the birth or quality of this saint: he seems to have been a Frenchman, and is on this account honoured in the new Paris Missal and Breviary. 

HE WENT TO ROME

He is thought to have passed his youth in the army, and to have given into a licentious manner of living, too common among persons of that profession. The first accounts we have of him represent him as an holy penitent, filled with the greatest sentiments of compunction and fervour, and making a pilgrimage to the tombs of the apostles at Rome. 

A HOLY PENITENT

Here he begged Pope Eugenius III to put him into a course of penance, who enjoined him a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the year 1145. In performing this, with great devotion, the saint spent eight years. Returning into Tuscany in 1153, he retired into a desert. 

HE RETIRED INTO THE DESERT

He was prevailed upon to undertake the government of a monastery in the Isle of Lupocavio, in the territory of Pisa: but not being able to bear with the tepidity and irregularity of his monks, he withdrew and settled on Mount Pruno, till finding disciples there no less indocile to the severity of his discipline than the former, he was determined to pursue himself that rigorous plan of life which he had hitherto unsuccessfully proposed to others. 

A DESOLATE VALLEY

He pitched upon a desolate valley for this purpose, the very sight of which was sufficient to strike the most resolute with horror. It was then called the Stable of Rhodes, but since, Maleval; and is situated in the territory of Sienna, in the diocese of Grosseto. He entered this frightful solitude in September, 1155, and had no other lodging than a cave in the ground, till being discovered some months after, the lord of Buriano built him a cell. 

HE WAS JOINED BY A DISCIPLE

During the first four months, he had no other company but that of wild beasts, eating only the herbs on which they fed. On the feast of the Epiphany, in the beginning of the year 1156, he was joined by a disciple or companion, called Albert, who lived with him to his death, which happened thirteen months after, and who has recorded the last circumstances of his life. 

EXTREME SEVERITY

The saint in his discourses with others, always treated himself as the most infamous of criminals, and deserving the worst of deaths; and that these were his real sentiments, appeared from that extreme severity which he exercised upon himself. He lay on the bare ground: though he fed on the coarsest fare and drank nothing but water, he was very sparing in the use of each; saying, sensuality was to be feared even in the most ordinary food. 

PENANCE AND PERFECTION

Prayer, divine contemplation, and manual labour, employed his whole time. It was at his work that he instructed his disciple in his maxims of penance and perfection, which he taught him the most effectually by his own example, though in many respects so much raised above the common, that it was fitter to be admired than imitated. 

HE HAD THE GIFT OF MIRACLES

He had the gift of miracles, and that of prophecy. Seeing his end draw near, he received the sacraments from a priest of the neighbouring town of Chatillon, and died on February 10, in 1157, on which day he is named in the Roman and other Martyrologies.   

THEY STUDIED TO LIVE ACCORDING TO HIS MAXIMS

Divine Providence moved one Renauld, a physician, to join Albert, a little before the death of the saint. They buried St William’s body in his little garden, and studied to live according to his maxims and example. Some time after, their number increasing, they built a chapel over their founder’s grave, with a little hermitage.

THE GULIELMITES

This was the origin of the Gulielmites, or Hermits of St William, spread in the next age over Italy, France, Flanders, and Germany. They went barefoot, and their fasts were almost continual: but Pope Gregory IX mitigated their austerities, and gave them the rule of St Benedict, which they still observe. The Order is now become a congregation united to the hermits of St Augustine, except twelve houses in the Low Countries, which still retain the rule of the Gulielmites, which is that of St Benedict, with a white habit like that of the Cistercians.   

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

➡️ Saint William, Duke of Aquitaine

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