ON ST. SILVESTER, MONK, AT TROINA IN SICILY.
A.D. 1185, January 2 and May 2.
CommentarySilvester, Monk in Sicily (St.)
[1] Silvester, a monk of the Order of St. Basil, is venerated on January 2 and May 2 with a great concourse of people at Troina in Sicily, by a concession of Pope Julius III, as Octavius Caietanus, our confrere, testifies in his Idea of a Work on the Saints of Sicily, and Philippus Ferrarius in his general Catalogue of Saints. Troina (also called Trayna, Troina, Troyna, Troianopolis, Traianopolis, Dragina) is an inland city of Sicily situated on a high hill, formerly an episcopal see. Thomas Fazellus treats of it in his Sicilian Affairs, decade 1, books 1 and 10. But his view that it is the Traianopolis which Ulpian calls a colony of Italian right in the law "De censibus" (book 1) is not approved by others, who think one should read "in Cilicia" rather than "in Sicily." A little below the city, writes Fazellus in book 10, about two miles to the south, stands the church of St. Michael on a hill and the monastery of St. Basil adjoined to it, dedicated by Count Roger in thanksgiving for a victory won over the Saracens. In this monastery St. Silvester lived. I believe that a certain place called "St. Silvester's" mentioned by the same Fazellus, about a thousand paces from Troina, where the most illustrious remains of the ancient city — I mean buildings, walls, and pyramids of squared stone — are still visible, takes its name from him.
[2] Ferrarius describes the deeds of St. Silvester, from the lessons recited on his feast day, in his Catalogue of the Saints of Italy under May 2: St. Silvester becomes a monk. "Silvester, born at Troina of honorable and religious parents during the reign of William, King of Sicily, and piously raised, entered the monastery of St. Michael the Archangel of the Order of St. Basil, putting on the monastic habit. There he made such rapid progress that he surpassed all others in austerity of life and self-denial. Eager for pilgrimage, with the Abbot's permission, he came to Catania on February 9 to venerate the body of Blessed Agatha, Virgin and Martyr. He visits the tomb of St. Agatha. What was remarkable in this was that although Catania is forty miles from Troina (a distance a person on horseback could hardly cover in a day during summer), Silvester nonetheless set out on foot in winter for Catania, completed his prayers at the Virgin's tomb, and returned home the same day."
[3] "When a baker was about to bake bread and could not find the broom with which to clean the burning oven of its coals, He enters a burning oven. and was complaining that the delay was harming the bread, Silvester, protected by the sign of the Cross, entered the oven, swept the burning coals together, and cleaned it with the hem of his garment. When this was reported to the Abbot, he came running with the monks and saw Silvester emerging unharmed from the oven. From that day Silvester began to be held in veneration among the monks."
[4] "He traveled to Rome to visit the holy places and to kiss the feet of the Supreme Pontiff (by whom he was kindly received on account of his reputation for holiness). Having accomplished this and received the Pontiff's blessing, he boarded a ship and landed at Palermo. There, when the King's son was gravely ill, he approached the King, told him to be of good cheer, and, brought to the son who was already near death, said that he would soon recover safely. He knows hidden and future things. The physicians, thinking he was raving and wishing to make sport of him, had the urine of a sow brought, from which he was supposed to diagnose the patient's illness. Silvester immediately said it was the urine of a sow carrying ten piglets in her womb. When the sow was slaughtered and opened at the King's command, this was found to be true, and Silvester was believed. Having expelled everyone from the chamber and poured out prayers to God, He heals the sick by prayer. he restored the son to the King in good health. When the King urgently asked Silvester to request whatever he wished, he finally asked for a small quantity of tuna, of which an enormous catch is usually made, for his monastery. The King, amazed at so modest a request, decreed that several baskets of tuna be given perpetually every year; and they are said to enjoy them to this day."
[5] He flees honors. "Returning to the monastery, when the Abbot had died and they were planning to appoint Silvester in his place, he escaped into the forest not far from the city and hid himself; there he led the eremitic life for some time, devoted to prayers, fasting, meditations, and other bodily mortifications — until on the fourth day before the Nones of January, in the year of the Virgin's birth 1185, he surrendered his spirit to God. His body was buried there, with a sacred shrine built under his invocation, to which on this day and on January 11 an innumerable multitude of people flocks. For demoniacs and the infirm are customarily freed through his intercession." Miracles at his tomb.
[6] "In the year of our Lord 1575, when plague raged throughout all of Sicily and many were dying daily at Troina, The plague is quelled by invoking him. and the disease was raging most fiercely on January 2, the day on which his feast is celebrated, the citizens carried the image of St. Silvester in procession; immediately they were freed, the plague being entirely extinguished." For this reason Pope Julius III not only granted indulgences to those visiting the church of St. Silvester but also wished the feast to be celebrated by all in that city. So writes Ferrarius. But there is an obvious error in the year in which the plague is said to have been quelled through St. Silvester, since Julius III died in A.D. 1555. Either that miracle did not prompt the feast's establishment, as Ferrarius claims, or the date is wrong. Ferrarius again states in his Notes that Silvester died in 1189, though above and in his general Catalogue of Saints he asserts he died in 1185.