ST PATERNUS, BISHOP OF AVRANCHES, CONFESSOR - 15 APRIL

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN APRIL

Saints celebrated on the 15th of April

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SAINT PATERNUS, BISHOP OF AVRANCHES, CONFESSOR 

Called by the French Patier, Pair, and Foix. [St Padarn.]  Saint Paternus was born at Poitiers, about the year 482. His father, Patranus, with the consent of his wife, went into Ireland, where he ended his days in holy solitude. 

MONASTIC LIFE

Paternus, fired by his example, embraced young a monastic life in the abbey of Ansion, called, in succeeding ages, Marnes, and at present, from the name of a holy abbot of that house, St Jovin des Marnes, in the diocese of Poitiers. 

HE MOVED TO WALES

After some time, burning with a desire of attaining to the perfection of Christian virtue, he passed over to Wales, and in Cardiganshire founded a monastery called Llan-patern-vaur, or the church of the great Paternus. 

He made a visit to his father in Ireland: but being called back to his monastery of Ansion, he soon after retired with St Scubilion, a monk of that house, and embraced an austere anchoretical life in the forest of Scicy, in the diocese of Coutances, near the sea, having first obtained leave of the bishop and of the lord of the place. 

HE CONVERTED THE IDOLATERS

This desert, which was then of a great extent, but has been since gradually gained upon by the sea, was anciently in great request among the Druids. St Pair converted to the faith the idolaters of that and many neighbouring parts, as far as Bayeux, and prevailed with them to demolish a pagan temple in this desert, which was held in great veneration by the ancient Gauls. 

St Senier, called in Latin Senator, St Gaud, and St Aroastes, holy priests, were his fellow hermits in this wilderness, and his fellow labourers in these missions. St Pair, in his old age, was consecrated bishop of Avranches by Germanus, bishop of Rouen. 

HE WAS CONSECRATED A BISHOP

The church of Avranches was exceedingly propagated in the reign of Clovis, or his children, by St. Severus, the second bishop of the see, who built the famous abbey which still bears his name, in the diocese of Coutances, and is honoured at Rouen on February 1, at Avranches on July 7. 

HIS HOLY DEATH

St Pair governed his diocese thirteen years, and died about the year 550, on the same day with St Scubilion. Both were buried in the same monument, in the oratory of Scicy, now the parish church of St Pair, a village much frequented by pilgrims, near Granville, on the sea-coast. In the same oratory was inferred St Senator, or Senier, the successor of St Pair, in the see of Avranches, who died in 563, and is honoured on September 18. 

THE RELICS

This church is still enriched with the greater part of these relics, and those of St Gaud, except those of SS. Severus and Senier, which have been translated to the cathedral at Rouen, and portions of St Senier’s are at St Magloire’s and St Victor’s at Paris. St Pair is titular saint of a great number of churches in those parts. 

NOTES:

Near this oratory stood the ancient monastery of Scicy, which Richard I, duke of Normandy, united to that of St Michael on Mount Tumba, which he founded in 966, upon the spot where before stood a collegiate church of canons, built in 709, by St Aubert, bishop of Avranches. It is called St Michael’s on the Tomb, or at the Tombs, because two mountains are called Tombs, from their resemblance to the rising or covering of graves. On one of these, three hundred feet high, which the tide makes an island at high water, stands this famous monastery, enriched with many precious relics, and resorted to by a great number of pilgrims. 

(From Fr Butler's Lives of the Saints)

➡️ Saint Paternus' entry in the Roman Martyrology