ST FRIDOLIN OF SÄCKINGEN, ABBOT

ST FRIDOLIN OF SÄCKINGEN, ABBOT - 6 MARCH

SAINT FRIDOLIN OF SÄCKINGEN, ABBOT

Saint Fridolin was an Irish or Scottish abbot, who, leaving his own country, founded several monasteries in Austrasia, Burgundy, and Switzerland: the last was that of Säckingen, in an isle in the Rhine, now one of the four forest towns belonging to the house of Austria. In this monastery he died, in 538.

THE TUTELAR PATRON OF THE SWISS CANTON OF GLARUS

He is the tutelar patron of the Swiss canton of Glarus, who carry in their coat of arms his picture in the Benedictine habit, though he was not of that order.

Source: Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints

THE CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA'S (1913) ENTRY ON ST FRIDOLIN

St Fridolin was a missionary, the founder of the Monastery of Säckingen, Baden (sixth century). In accordance with a later tradition, St Fridolin is venerated as the first Irish missionary who laboured among the Alamanni on the Upper Rhine, in the time of the Merovingians.

HIS VITA

The earliest documentary information we possess concerning him is the biography written by Balther, a Säckingen monk, at the beginning of the eleventh century. According to this life, Fridolin (or Fridold) belonged to a noble family in Ireland (Scottia inferior), and at first laboured as a missionary in his native land. Afterwards crossing to France, he came to Poitiers, where in answer to a vision, he sought out the relics of St Hilarius [St Hilary], and built a church for their reception.

ST HILARY APPEARED TO HIM IN A DREAM AND TOLD HIM TO MOVE ON

St Hilarius subsequently appeared to him in a dream, and commanded him to proceed to an island in the Rhine, in the territories of the Alamanni. In obedience to this summons, Fridolin repaired to the “Emperor” Clovis, who granted him possession of the still unknown island, and thence proceeded through Helion, Strasbourg, and Coire, founding churches in every district in honour of St Hilarius.

HE RECOGNISED THE ISLAND INDICATED IN HIS DREAM

Reaching at last the island of Säckingen in the Rhine, he recognised in it the island indicated in the dream, and prepared to build a church there. The inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, however, who used the island as a pasturage for their cattle, mistook Fridolin for a cattle-robber and expelled him.

THEY FIRST THOUGHT THAT HE WAS A CATTLE-ROBBER

On his production of Clovis’s deed of gift, he was allowed to return, and to found a church and monastery on the island. He then resumed his missionary labours, founded the Scottish monastery in Constance, and extended his mission to Augsburg.

HIS HOLY DEATH

He died on March 6, and was buried at Säckingen. The writer of this legend professes to have derived his information from a biography, which he discovered in the cloister of Helera on the Moselle, also founded by Fridolin, and which, being unable to copy from want of parchment and ink, he had learned by heart.

HE MUST HAVE RELIED ON VERBAL TRADITION

This statement sounds very suspicious, and makes one conclude that Balther was compelled to rely on verbal tradition for the information recorded in his work. Not a single ancient author mentions Fridolin, the life has no proper historical chronological arrangement, and the enumeration of so many wonders and visions awakens distrust. Consequently, most modern historians justly reject the life as unauthentic, and as having no historical foundation for the facts recorded, while the older historians believed that it contained a germ of truth.

In the early Middle Ages, there was certainly some connection between Säckingen and Poitiers, from which the former monastery received its relics, and this fact may have made the author connect Fridolin with the veneration of St Hilarius of Poitiers, and the churches erected in his honour. The only portion of the life that can be regarded as historically tenable, is that Fridolin was an Irish missionary, who preached the Christian religion in Gaul, and founded a monastery on the island of Säckingen in the Rhine.

THE MONASTERY FOUNDED BY ST FRIDOLIN

Concerning the date of these occurrences, we have no exact information. The monastery, however, was of great importance in the ninth century, since the earliest extant document concerning it states that on February 10, 878, Charles the Fat presented to his wife Richardis the Monasteries of Säckingen, and of St Felix and of Regula in Zürich.

(📷: Glarus coat of arms - https://www.heraldry-wiki.com/heraldrywiki/wiki/Glarus_(canton))

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Fridolin may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.

ST JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS - 13 AUGUST

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST Saints celebrated on the 13th of August WELCOME! SAINT JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS (Patron Saint of Altar Servers.) The eldest boy of a poor cordwainer, in a small Belgian town, John was ever a dutiful, prayerful, and studious child. Our Lord called him when but young to leave his father and his father’s house, to serve Him in the Society of Jesus. And because he was so good a son, it cost his father much to give him up to God; but he was too good a Christian to refuse outright. HE WAS SENT TO ROME John had hardly taken his religious vows when he was sent to the centre of Christendom, the holy city of Rome. His modesty, his purity, shone out as great virtue always does; and the young laymen who attended the lectures would come to gaze upon his beautiful and holy face, and go away the better for the sight. GREAT VIRTUE Three short years, and his last sickness found him sighing for heaven, and three days before the great feast of Mar...

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