ST HUGH, ABBOT OF CLUNY, CONFESSOR

ST HUGH, ABBOT OF CLUNY, CONFESSOR - 29 APRIL

ST HUGH, ABBOT OF CLUNY, CONFESSOR

Saint Hugh of Cluny was a prince related to the sovereign house of the dukes of Burgundy, and had his education under the tuition of his pious mother, and under the care of Hugh, bishop of Auxerre, his great uncle.

HIS LIFE WAS REMARKABLY INNOCENT AND HOLY

From his infancy he was exceedingly given to prayer and meditation, and his life was remarkably innocent and holy. The world he always looked upon as a tempestuous sea, worked up by the storms of human passions, and concealing rocks and shelves everywhere under its boisterous waves.

HE WAS SO MOVED THAT HE SET OFF IMMEDIATELY

In obedience to the will of his father, he learned the exercises of fencing and riding. But one day hearing an account of the wonderful sanctity of the monks of Cluny, under St Odilo, he was so moved, that he set out that moment, and going thither, humbly begged the monastic habit.

HE MADE HIS PROFESSION AT THE AGE OF SIXTEEN

After a rigid novitiate, he made his profession in 1039, being sixteen years old. His extraordinary virtue, especially his admirable humility, obedience, charity, sweetness, prudence, and zeal, gained him the respect of the whole community; and, upon the death of St Odilo, in 1049, though only twenty-five years old, he succeeded to the government of that great abbey, which he held sixty-two years.

He received to the religious profession, Hugh, duke of Burgundy, and died on April 29, in 1109, aged eighty-five. He was canonised twelve years after his death by Pope Calixtus II.

NOTE:

Several of the letters of St Hugh of Cluny are extant. In one to William the Conqueror, who had offered him for his house one hundred pounds for every monk he would send into England, he answered that he would give that sum himself for every good monk he could procure for his monastery, if such a thing were to be purchased. The true reason of his refusal was, his fear of the monks he should send falling into relaxations by living in monasteries not reformed. He left many wise statutes for his monks, and others for the nuns of Marcigni, of which monastery he was the founder.

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints - 🎨 St Hugh of Cluny in the Refectory of the Carthusians, Francisco de Zurbarán, 1633)

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