ON SAINT ABUNDIUS, MANSIONARY OF THE CHURCH OF ST. PETER AT ROME.
SIXTH CENTURY.
CommentaryAbundius, Mansionary of the Church of St. Peter at Rome (St.)
BY G. H.
[1] The Most Holy Pontiff Gregory the Great, in book III of the Dialogues, chapter 22, writes thus of St. Abundius: "Another here, not long before, as our elders report, was the Custodian of the church, called Abundius, a man of great humility and gravity, serving almighty God so faithfully; that the same blessed Peter the Apostle showed by signs what esteem he had for him. For when a certain paralytic girl, He heals a paralytic woman sent to him by St. Peter. remaining in his church, was creeping with her hands, and with loins dissolved was dragging her body across the earth, and was for a long time asking the same blessed Apostle that she might deserve to be healed; one night he stood by her in a vision, and said: 'Go to Abundius the Mansionary, and ask him, and he himself will restore health to you.' And when she was certain about so great a vision, but was ignorant who Abundius was; she began to drag herself hither and thither through the places of the church, to investigate who Abundius was. Suddenly he himself, whom she sought, met her, and she said to him: 'I beg you, Father, indicate to me who is Abundius the Custodian?' To whom he answered: 'I am he.' But she said: 'Our Shepherd and nourisher, Peter the Apostle, sent me to you, that you might free me from this infirmity.' To whom he answered: 'If you are sent by him, rise': and he held her hand, and forthwith raised her to her own state. And thus from that hour all the nerves and members in her body were made solid, so that no signs of that infirmity thenceforth remained. But if we try to unfold all things which we know were done in his church, we are now without doubt silent from the narration of all." Thus St. Gregory.
[2] The sacred cultus of this Saint persists in the Vatican church, in which the Ecclesiastical Office is prescribed of SS. Tiburtius, Valerian and Maximus the Martyrs; with the commemoration of St. Abundius the Confessor, He is venerated with ecclesiastical office. Mansionary of St. Peter, in first Vespers and Lauds: and these things are recited about him in the Tables of the Roman Martyrology: "At Rome, of St. Abundius, Mansionary of the Church of St. Peter." The memorial also of the deposition of St. Abundius is referred to this day by Molanus in the first edition of his enlarged Usuard, and by Canisius in the German Martyrology. Ferrari has some elogium of him taken from the aforesaid Dialogue in the Catalogue of the Saints of Italy, and Brautius Bishop of Sarsina celebrates him with this distich:
A girl contracted by holy Peter was sent to him, Safe, the unknown maiden returns restored.
[3] Galesinius, and Ferrari following him, in the General Catalogue on January 4 hold these things: "At Rome, of St. Agontius, Custodian of the church of blessed Peter the Apostle." Where in notes both allege the cited passage of St. Gregory, so that it seems that Galesinius, from a faulty codex, wrote Agontius in place of Abundius. He is referred also to January 4. Both add that he rested in the Lord in the year of salvation 564.