Saint Benedicta of Rome

After crossing the Alps, they spent some time in the Lyonnais Gauls, from where they finally traveled to the capital of the Vermandois. After devoutly visiting the tombs of their holy compatriots there, they parted ways to go to various places to work for the conversion of souls. Benoîte, who took Léobérie with her, was led by the Spirit of God to Origny-sur-Oise, in the diocese of Soi ssons: there, b Origny-sur-Oise Place of mission, martyrdom, and burial of the saint. y the example of her virtues and by the familiar exhortations she gave with admirable fervor, she won a great number of people to the Christian religion. Her ordinary retreat was in a small cell that she had built on a hill, outside the town, on the side of the river. She spent the nights there in prayer and in the contemplation of divine truths, and, having, through this holy practice, filled herself with graces and unction, she then traveled through the neighboring places to spread the lights that the Holy Spirit had communicated to her.

The new conquests she made every day for Jesus Christ could not remain hidden from the prefect of the province, named Matrocles: he had o Matrocle Prefect of the province, of Jewish origin, persecutor of Saint Benedicta. rders from the Emperor Julian th e Apostate to sp Julien l'Apostat Roman emperor and persecutor of Christians. are no believer; furthermore, he was Jewish by origin and consequently a sworn enemy of the Christians. No sooner was he informed of the conversions our Saint was effecting than he had her arrested and brought before him. He first employed artifice and gentleness to try to make her renounce Our Lord; but, finding her unshakable in the faith and insensible to all his fine words, he had her slapped and then whipped, which was executed with such cruelty that the body of this innocent virgin was covered with a universal wound. After this torture, she was thrown into a dark dungeon to be reserved for a new torment. But she had barely entered it when a brilliant angel appeared to her, and, after having consoled her and encouraged her to persevere, healed her perfectly of all her wounds. Fifty-five people who had seen her before in this pitiful state, seeing her entirely healed without any human remedy, recognized the omnipotence of the true God and embraced the Christian religion.

The tyrant, unable to suffer these admirable advances, had her appear a second time before his tribunal and tried again to seduce her. But, having been unable to make any impression on her heart, he had her put on the rack, and after having made her endure several torments, he sent her back to prison while waiting to invent some other kind of torture. The angel of the Lord came to visit her there immediately, filled her with joy by his presence, healed her once again of all her wounds, and finally delivered her from her dungeon: which was the cause of the conversion of a great number of idolaters. But the prefect, remaining always in his blindness, and despairing entirely of being able to overcome her who had already triumphed over his cruelty, condemned her to death and, in a detestable fury, became her executioner by dealing her at that very moment a blow of an axe that severed her head, on October 8, in the year 362 of the Incarnation.

A great number of miracles having been obtained through the intercession of our Saint, we shall cite a few of them, taken from a very ancient and very rare book: The Mirror of Ori Le miroir d'Origny Ancient book recording the miracles of Saint Benoîte. gny. This book has always been considered authoritative.

A girl from Origny, named Alix, was cured of a cruel illness of eighteen months, at the time of a visit to the chapel then existing in honor of Saint Benoîte. Many witnesses testified to it. But the abbess, full of gratitude, wishing to thank God in the Saint's chapel through a public demonstration, invited the canons of the Chapter to accompany her community. Two of them refused to believe in the marvelous healing, and said that they would only believe it if they saw a poor man from the region, named Gauthier, cured. This unfortunate man was deformed, unable to walk, and dragged himself along the ground to beg for alms. Brought to the Saint's chapel, he also obtained his healing. This man lived thereafter at the monastery where he remained for several years, seen and known by everyone.

A woman from Regny, a league from Origny, suffered from a frightful ailment; she had been seized by the pains of childbirth in the countryside, alone and without help to deliver her, her intestines had protruded, corruption set in, it was an infection. Two women brought her to the abbey church and she was soon completely cured.

A girl from a distant land had twisted legs to the point of being almost unable to stand. Her father having taken her to the abbey church, she made a novena there and recovered her health.

A goldsmith from the city of Angers was cured of a serious accident. During his sleep, worms had entered his ears. He suffered incredible pain for eight to nine months. Science and its remedies had been powerless. He came to visit the church where the body of Saint Benoîte rested, and after several steps and prayers near the shrine of the Saint, he was heard, and never again did he suffer from his ailment.

In 1589, a poor infirm girl whose limbs were as if dislocated, was cured after a novena, a few days before Pentecost. She was seen with admiration attending the great procession of Wednesday in the Octave. Another woman named Marsson, born in Origny, suffered from a swelling in her throat, such that the unfortunate woman was a horror to behold. After several novenas, she finally obtained a complete healing and lived more than twenty years afterward in perfect health.

[APPENDIX: CULT AND RELICS.]

Her body was buried by the Christians on a small hill near the place where she had suffered martyrdom. This place, according to local tradition, is still called today the Arbres du Thil. It is an enclosure of sixty-five rods, surrounded by trees and living hedges. This place is visited daily by a large number of people; on certain days, and even every Sunday, there are processions of visitors brought by the universal trust in the patron saint of the country.

After remaining hidden for the space of three hundred years, the body was fortunately discovered by the following miracle:

A blind man, who lived in Paris, having had a revelation that he would recover his sight through the merit of Saint Benoîte if he traveled to the place where her body was, had himself led toward Origny, and, by divine inspiration, he stopped at the very spot where this precious treasure was hidden. There happened to be in this place, by a particular guidance of Providence, eighteen bishops from various provinces, to whom this blind man revealed the subject of his journey, and how God had made him know that, in the spot he designated by placing his staff in the ground, rested the body of a holy virgin and martyr, through whose intercession he was to be healed.

As these prelates were speaking together about having it excavated, they were entirely confirmed in this design by the appearance of a dove, which, after fluttering for some time around the trees, came to land, in their presence, on the very spot that the blind man had marked for them. They had it dug up and they effectively found the body of our Saint with the account of her martyrdom. It was carried to Origny, into a church of Canons Regular, dedicated to Saint Peter; it has since been changed into a famous abbey of nuns of the Order o f Saint Benedict, which still possessed, before '93, the célèbre abbaye de religieuses de l'Ordre de Saint-Benoît Benedictine monastery founded on the site of the saint's relics. rich remains of this illustrious virgin; from which it comes that this place is commonly called Origny-sainte-Benoîte.

On May 26, 1246, a solemn translation of these holy relics took place, performed by Garnier, Bishop of Laon, to place them in a silver shrine that Emmeline de Manny, Abbess of Origny and sister of Anselme de Manny, also Bishop of Laon, had commissioned, except for the head which he placed in a separate reliquary. However, as this shrine had lost all its beauty from having been frequently transported to various places due to wars, both civil and foreign, mainly during those of the Huguenots, when it remained hidden in the ground for a long time, Marie-Catherine de Montluc, abbess of this monastery, had another one made of silver-gilt, which is compared, for its magnificence, grandeur, and artistry, to that of Saint Genevieve in Paris, and, in the year 1619, the precious bones of the Saint were solemnly deposited therein by the grand vicar of the Bishop of Laon.

The very rich shrine of Saint Benoîte was transported to Saint-Quentin during the sacking of the royal abbey of Origny, along with the riches and other precious objects it possessed. Two local carters, requisitioned to transport these rich spoils, assisted with great heartache in the wood-working of the magnificent shrine; they furtively seized a bone from the forearm of the Saint, shared it, and later returned it to the church of Origny; the facts were authentically verified, and the records of the time attest to it.

The church of Mont-d'Origny possesses a portion of the precious bones; it is, as is assured, the gift of a former canon of Saint-Quentin, at the beginning of this century. It is since then that this church also holds an annual procession to the Arbres du Thil, carrying this relic, on the first Sunday of October.

At Origny, the solemn procession still exists, but it has been transferred to Trinity Sunday. Until recent years, a small, simpler procession was also held on the Wednesday of Pentecost. One could still see some people there who had come from distant lands. During the great procession, what is possessed of the relics of Saint Benoîte is carried, a pious subtraction by the two carters whose names are preserved, Moret and Paris. Other holy relics are also carried, precious remains of the abbey's numerous riches in this regard. This procession is very solemn; an immense crowd accompanies it and it is a celebration for the whole region.

During the wars of the Burgundians and the Spaniards, desolation was everywhere, the plague decimated the populations, and most of the houses were deserted. The shrine of Saint Benoîte was carried as if to a place of refuge in Laon, in 1635, and it was noted that the plague spared the o nly Laon Location of Gelduin's first monastery. street where it was deposited, the Rue du Bloc, a street still known today by this name by all the old inhabitants of Laon.

Nothing remains at Origny of the magnificent abbey that saw princesses of royal blood at its head, nor of its church; the land is still recognizable; it is surrounded by walls with the same enclosure, and the people still call it the Abbey. Everything was destroyed, ransacked, and ruined with furious passion during the revolution of '93. The last abbess, Madame de Narbonne, died on straw in the prisons of Saint-Quentin.

We have supplemented Father Giry with notes provided by the parish priest of Origny-Sainte-Benoîte.