ON SAINT ROBERTUS,
ABBOT AT SYRACUSE IN SICILY.
24 OR 25 April.
CommentaryRobertus, Abbot at Syracuse in Sicily (St.)
G. H.
Octavius Cajetan, in volume 2 of the Lives of the Sicilian Saints page 32, proposes a title of Many Holy Confessors, Bishops, Abbots, and Monks in Sicily of uncertain age: and among other things has this: "At Syracuse on the 8th day before the Kalends of May, Saint Robert the Abbot: he indeed is mentioned in the sacred calendars of the Syracuse Church, and the MS Chronicle of Blessed the Monk of Saint Benedict, which was written about the year 1483. And Buggianus in his monastic history often commends an ancient Chronicle, in which is said: 'Saint Robert, Abbot of the monastery near the city of Syracuse: whose birth to heaven is venerated on the 8th day before the Kalends of May.'" So there. The 8th day before the Kalends of May is 24 April. Meanwhile the same Cajetan, in the Sicilian Martyrology, on 25 April, celebrates the memory of Saint Robert the Abbot at Syracuse, of the Order of Saint Benedict, and in the chronological Index places him about the year 800. Cajetan is followed by Ferrari in the general Catalogue, Menardus and Bucelin. Likewise Rocchus Pirrus in volume 2 of Sacred Sicily, in the Notitia of the Church of Syracuse page 204, reckons him among the Saints of the most ancient monastery there, illustrious under the title of Saint Lucy, and judges that he flourished in the times of Saint Gregory the Great.