Saint Guenole

One day when Fragan was walking in the countryside, to watch over some servants who were working there, over his shepherds and his flocks, and he was resisting within himself the inspiration that urged him to consecrate this dear child to God, as he had promised, the sky suddenly covered itself with thick clouds, and Fragan was surprised by a dreadful storm. He was struck down by a bolt of lightning that deprived him of the use of his senses, and his servants, having run to lift him up and help him, heard him heave deep sighs, and say to God, as if in a kind of ecstasy: "Lord! they are all yours, and I consecrate them all to you, without excepting any; not only Guénolé, Lord, but also his two older brothers, and Creirvie, their sister; not only the children, but the father and the mother also".

Returned from this transport, and back in his house, where shepherds had brought the terror, he revealed to his wife the event that had just struck him, and the resolution he had taken to go as soon as possible to offer his son Guénolé to the holy man Budoc, who lived on an island named the Island of Laurels. Guen, who had no less religion and piety than her husband, generously overcame all the natural feelings that opposed this sacrifice; so that, eight days later, the young Guénolé was led by his father to the monastery of Saint Budoc saint Budoc Bishop of Dol and son of Prince Jodual. , situated on the Island of Laurels.

This new disciple, although still very young, showed so much wisdom and piety in the answers he gave to Budoc's questions, and so much joy to find himself in this holy school, that his master drew from it from that moment happy omens of the good he was to expect from him. He learned the entire Holy Scripture in a very short time, for his memory was excellent, and it was noted that he learned perfectly, in a single day, the entire Latin alphabet. His fervor in singing the praises of God, his charity in instructing and relieving the poor, his activity in serving his companions, his assiduity in prayer, his vigils, and his other mortifications soon made him the admiration of his superior himself, who saw only with astonishment the amazing progress of his disciple, by which he was all the more surprised, as the gift of miracles was even granted to him.

This gift, in a young man like Guénolé, would have been a dangerous and delicate subject of temptation, had his humility not caused him to attribute all the glory to God. If one is to believe his historian, he performed surprising miracles at all hours, witness the sight he restored to his sister, and life to his father's squire. If he had any weakness on this occasion, it was that of wanting to hide himself, and of being afflicted that God used him to perform wonders, which drew esteem and respect toward him, so that he needed the wise counsel of Budoc to conform, on this point, to the divine will.

One day he felt a pressing desire to go to Hibernia to see the great S aint Patrick, saint Patrice Evangelizer of Ireland and spiritual master of Guigner. with the intention of benefiting from the examples and instructions of this apostolic man, whose great reputation was spreading everywhere. Having fallen asleep with the resolution to speak to his master about it in the morning, and to take advantage of the opportunity of some Breton-Cambrian merchants who were then in the harbor, he saw in a dream a venerable old man, shining with light, who said to him "that it was not the will of God that he should go to Hibernia; that he was the Patrick he so wished to see; and that without making such a long journey, he could learn, in his very solitude, the path of the highest perfection, one of the most important points of which was stability; that he must nevertheless soon leave the monastery of Budoc, his master, and go elsewhere to seek a solitude, to finish sanctifying himself there."

The saint, upon waking, uncertain if this vision was only a dream formed by his imagination, went to find his master who, divinely instructed of what had happened to him, assured him at once that what he had seen was a true revelation; that he must consequently obey the command of Patrick, and that the time had come when he must work on his own side in the vineyard of the Lord.

The very next day, Saint Budoc, who was extremely aged, chose for him, from among all his disciples, eleven of the most perfect, of whom he made him the superior, although he was still only twenty-one years old; and, after having tenderly embraced them all, and having given them his final instructions and his blessing while weeping, he abandoned them to divine Providence, without knowing where he was sending them, nor what place this adorable Providence had destined for them.

Having moved from the Island of Laurels to the mainland, they crossed all of Domnonia, and finally arrived at the edge of the gulf formed by the sea at the mouth of the Aven river, where, having discovered a small uninhabited island, which is called today Ti-bidi, they withdrew there and built huts to shelter themselves from the sea winds, which are furious there. This holy community spent three whole years there, devoid of all kinds of comforts, and subsisting only on herbs and roots that the monks cultivated in their garden, and the little barley that the small extent of the island allowed them to sow. The land, watered by the sweat and tears of these saints, responded quite abundantly to their labor; but the sea winds were so violent there, and the storms so frequent, that Saint Guénolé judged that they must transfer their dwelling to the other side of the river or gulf, to take shelter in the valley where the abbey of Landevenec was later locate d, three leagues fro abbaye de Landevenec Monastery founded by Saint Guénolé in Brittany. m Brest; which he did around the year 442.

The penitent and solitary life that Guénolé led in this new retreat, and the silence he kept continually, did not, however, diminish any of his gentleness and affability toward everyone; the rigors he exercised against himself did not prevent him from always appearing cheerful; and as this joy came from the depths of his charity, it did not in any way harm his restraint and modesty. Obliging and helpful to all those who turned to him, he attracted the love and admiration of everyone. King Grallon wished to know him; he saw him, s poke with him, Le roi Grallon Prince of Cornouaille and protector of Saint Corentin. and was so charmed by his conversation, and so penetrated by his holy instructions, that the ferocity of his nature finally changed into an evangelical gentleness, for the zeal of this prince for justice came as much from an imperious and rigid spirit as from a foundation of righteousness.

When this life, so precious before God, so dear to the disciples of the holy abbot, so useful to all of Lower Brittany, and so glorious to the Church, was near its end, an angel warned him to prepare for death, for which he indicated the day and the hour. The saint shared this news with his religious, and after having exhorted them to patience and perseverance, to the love of God, to mutual charity, to humility, and having given them the necessary advice for the election of his successor, he donned his priestly vestments, celebrated the Holy Mass, received the body and blood of Jesus Christ, and, having wished his disciples all kinds of blessings, he stood before the altar, supported by two of his religious, and surrounded by the others, who all together sang with him psalms and canticles of praise to God. He expired in the midst of these sacred canticles, without having felt the slightest attack of illness, full of merits and days, on the Wednesday of the first week of Lent, the third day of March; which corresponds to the year 504, in which, according to the Victorian Cycle, Easter was on April 4th. Saint Guénolé was about eighty-five years old, which was a great age for a man who, since his tenderest youth, had only thought of preserving his life to prolong his penance and his austerities.

He is represented: 1° praying, while a fleet of pirates advances, or while troops come to blows. He had predicted a pirate landing to the Bretons: after the disembarkation, his prayers obtained the defeat of the invaders; — 2° carried from the altar in the arms of his disciples after his death; — 3° crossing, on dry land, the sea between the island of Seyne and the Armorican mainland; — 4° in the costume of a hermit preaching to thieves who had broken into his monks' granary and whom he converted to the point of leading them to become religious; — 5° he is also given a wild goose as an attribute, to recall the following strange miracle: his young sister running after wild geese, one of these birds tore out one of her eyes and swallowed it. The Saint disemboweled the beast to retrieve the eye and put it back in place. The legend adds that neither the bird nor Saint Guénolé's sister were any the worse for the double accident; — 6° ancient paintings, which no doubt no longer exist, still represented him holding the abbatial crosier in his left hand, and in his right hand a small bell which was long popular: below this bell, one could see fish whose heads, emerging from the water, seemed to indicate that these creatures obeyed the call of the holy man.

Saint Guénolé is especially honored in Concarneau, Landevenec, and Le Croisic, in Brittany, and in Montreuil-sur-Mer, in Picardy.

## RELICS OF SAINT GUÉNOLÉ. — HIS DISCIPLES.

His body, buried in the church of his abbey, built at that time in the place since called the Pénity, and where the abbatial house was, was later transferred, on April 28, to the church that has survived to our day. The relics of Saint Guénolé, scattered at the time of the Norman invasions in various churches of northern France and Belgium, have everywhere procured, through numerous miracles, a great renown of holiness for the illustrious abbot of Landevenec. A portion of these relics was long preserved in Montreuil-sur-Mer, where a church was dedicated to him under the name of Saint-Waloy.

His tomb could still be seen in the church of Landevenec at the beginning of the 19th century; but it has been destroyed, and the church itself offers only ruins.

In the English litanies of the late 7th century, which Father Mabillon published, the name of Saint Guénolé stands out among those of the other Saints invoked therein.

The father and mother of Saint Guénolé, of whom nothing more is known than what we have said, are recognized as Saints in Brittany; Fracan, his father, was formerly the patron of the parish of Plou-Fragan, in the diocese of Saint-Brieuc, of which it is said he was the lord; and Guen, mother of Saint Guénolé, who is commonly called Saint Blanc he, is also ho sainte Blanche Mother of Saint Guénolé. nored with a public cult. There is, in the diocese of Quimper, a parish by her name, which formerly bore that of Léon; it is called Ploc-Guen, and another in the same diocese is named Saint-Frégan.

Saint Guénolé's two brothers are also in the liturgical calendars of the Bretons: Saint Jacot or Jacques, on February 5 or March 3; Saint Guethenoc, on November 5, and both together on July 5. Almost nothing can be said of them, because no details are known about their lives.

The feast of Saint Guénolé is marked with twelve lessons in the ancient Breviary of Saint-Méon, and with three in that of Saint-Brieuc, on March 3. In Château-du-Loir, there was a priory dependent on Marmoutier, which bore the name of Saint-Guingueloé. The diocese of Quimper had a succursal church that bore the name of Saint-Guénolé, and a parish of the same diocese is called Loc-Guénolé. The church of Quimper now honors this Saint on April 28, the day of the translation of his relics. His feast, restored in the diocese of Saint-Brieuc by M. de Bellescize in 1782, was suppressed by M. Caffarelli, his successor, although there were strong reasons to honor a Saint so famous and born in the region.

Here are the principal disciples of Saint Guénolé:

Saint Guenhac, his successor.

Saint Bioc. The Memoirs of Landevenec say nothing else of him, except that he was a priest when he became a religious in this monastery, and that he later restored life to his mother by casting upon her body water that Saint Guénolé had blessed.

Saint Idunet or Yonnet, who came to a cave in the mountain called at that time Nîs.

He could well be the same as Saint Guethenoc, brother of Saint Guénolé; this is said only by conjecture. This conjecture is based on these words from the cartulary of the abbey of Landevenec: "Saint Guénolé went to see his brother Saint Ediunet". For, although one might understand, by this word brother, a brother in Jesus Christ, it seems more just here to understand a brother according to the flesh; and the name Ediunet is not so far removed from that of Guethenoc as many other names, which are nonetheless of one and the same person, are different from one another. What is certain is that he is older than Saint Ethbin, whom some have nevertheless sought to confuse with him. Saint Idunet is the patron of Pluzunet, a parish of the ancient diocese of Tréguier, today of that of Saint-Brieuc. His feast is celebrated there on the fifth Sunday after Easter.

Saint Balay or Walay and Saint Martin are, in the cartulary of Landevenec, qualified with the title of disciples of Saint Guénolé. They withdrew, with the permission of their abbot, to live in the solitude of Ploërmellac near Le Faou; before their profession they were lords of Ros-Meur and Ros-Madeuc. The former had a chapel and a fountain of his name near the abbatial house; and it is probable that it is also his name that the parishes of Plou-Balai and Lan-Valai bear, in the ancient diocese of Saint-Malo, and whose body was at Montreuil-sur-Mer.

Saint Del, who dwelt in the place called because of him Loc-Tal or Loc-Dai, near Châteaulin.

Saint Ratian or Ratian, who dwelt in the place named Plé-Turch, and of whom it is said, in the cartulary of Landevenec, that he preserved by his prayers the neighbors of his hermitage from the contagious disease that afflicted the whole province.

Saint Winone, Saint Gezien, Saint Winwoud, Saint Harnul, Saint Petran, and Saint Berthwald are all mentioned in the same cartulary, and one formerly made memory of most of them in the proper office of the monastery, although they are almost all unknown elsewhere.

It is not thought, however, that it is necessary to say that all these Saints of Landevenec lived in the time of Saint Guénolé, although the cartulary of his abbey insinuates it; and the reason one has to doubt it is that one sees that it speaks in the same manner of Saint Morbret, who was a contemporary of Even, surnamed the Great, Count of Léon, posterior by several centuries to the Saint, founder of the abbey.

As for Saint Conocan, who united and associated a monastery that he had built to that of Landevenec, of which he even wished it to be dependent, and ceded to Saint Guénolé all the lands that King Childebert had given him, there is no doubt that he lived in the time of Saint Guénolé himself, and was as ancient as Saint Conocan or Conogan, Bishop of Quimper, if he is not the same person.

Saints of Brittany, by Dom Lobineau; Father Cahier and the Acta Sanctorum.