Christian

ON BLESSED CHRISTIAN,

AT DOUAI IN FRENCH FLANDERS.

Monday of Easter.

Christian, at Douai in French Flanders (B.)

G. H.

Arnold Raiss of Douai, Canon there at the church of the Archapostle St Peter, most well-deserving in the cult and veneration of Saints, among other little works edited a Supplement to the Natales of the Saints of Belgium of John Molanus, with an illustrious tablet printed in the frontispiece: in which the Virgin Mother of God is seen among various Saints, and St Christian of Douai stands at her right hand, The image of Blessed Christian: as the subscription declares: and on April 7, after other illustrious men related, he prefixes this title: "The Monday after the Lord's Resurrection. Concerning St Christian Confessor": and then from the information of Anthony L'Espaniol,

Licentiate of sacred Theology and Parochus of St Albinus at Douai, and others, he sets forth this series of his Life and veneration.

[2] "At Douai the festivity of St Christian Confessor. The conversation of his life is altogether unknown to me; only that I have come to know from trustworthy men by report, of alms, that he was profuse to the poor. He is religiously invoked by women laboring in childbirth, likewise by those afflicted with fevers. He is thought to have been a Cleric of the church of St Albinus: patronage in childbirth and fever. therefore he is painted bearing the keys of the church in his hand. A thing indeed worthy of admiration happened in the year in which I wrote these things, namely 1622, on the 13th of March: when the roof of the temple with its very vault collapsed entirely. That the brazen chest, in which the sacred head is kept, pressed down by the great mass of rubble, the enclosed head was in no way broken. There is also a certain congregation erected in his honor, which each year on this day (for the day of his death I nowhere found) takes care to have the Office of the Common of Confessor not Pontiff sung with solemn rite. A Congregation, On the Sunday next before the Vigil of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, in the procession around the city, the bier is carried, in which his sacred remains are kept, relics carried in procession. and the chest where the sacred head. Not far from the church of St Albinus one can still see a place, which is called the garden of St Christian." Thus there.

[3] Another elogium of him Buzelinus has in book 1 of Gallo-Flandria, chapter 37, page 178, which I subjoin here. He writes thus: "To these I subjoin the Priest of blessed memory Christinus or Christian, who not a little illustrated the parish of St Albinus while he lived. Of his Acts nothing is supplied, whether this happened by the carelessness of men, or by the injury of time or fire, I hold uncertain. That his images are so painted, Clerkship in St Albinus, that they bear keys in the hand, leads some to the thought, that he was a Cleric of the Albinian house. That the people of Douai cherish no small opinion of his sanctity is gathered from this, that his body and head separately enclosed in cases, with the other holy bodies and relics of this city, are carried in the anniversary and city-wide procession; that a Confraternity has been erected in his honor, which each year the day after Easter solemnly has a Mass sung in his praise in the temple of St Albinus; that women laboring with the difficulty and pains of childbirth, Mass customarily sung in his honor, then those with fevers, implore his aid with vows and prayers. But at what time he lived, on what day and year he met his death, no monuments reveal."

[4] Besides these two elogia, in the Hierogazophylacium Belgicum of the aforementioned Raiss this reiterated memory exists: "In the parish temple of St Albinus at Douai, relics in the greater altar. of Blessed Christian of Douai Confessor, most munificent to the poor and needy. His body is seen in a gilded wooden case; his head however above the high altar in a particular vessel of metal, with beautiful ornament, is seen."