ON ST. NAZARIUS, MONK, AT CUSAN IN SPAIN.
CommentaryNazarius, monk in Spain (St.)
From various sources.
[1] Nazarius succeeded St. Victorian in the government of the monastery of Asana, as Martin Carillo writes. He is perhaps the same who is venerated at Cusan on January 12; The feast of St. Nazarius. of whom Ferrarius in his general catalogue of the Saints: "At Cusan, in the territory of Roussillon, of St. Nazarius, monk." We treated of the monastery of Cusan on January 5, in connection with St. Flamidian. Concerning St. Nazarius, Antonio Vicente Domenec writes as follows in his history of the Saints of Catalonia, and from him Antonio Yepes, volume 3 of the Chronicle of the order of St. Benedict, at the year 745, chapter 4:
[2] "Life of St. Nazarius, Confessor (whose holy body the monastery of St. Michael of Cusan, The Life, from Domenec; of the order of St. Benedict, in the diocese of Elne, preserves with great veneration), excerpted from the Matins Lessons of that same monastery.
[3] St. Nazarius was a Spaniard by nation. When he had reached mature age, and had now found out the deceits of the world, monastic profession, he resolved to flee from them. Nor did he long put off this pious decision: he soon took the religious habit. It is not easy to determine of which institute above all he was: yet he is commonly believed to have been a Benedictine monk; but since this is not altogether ascertained by me, I have not entered him in the catalogue of the Saints of that order.
[4] From the very novitiate of the religious life he set himself to amass great treasures and riches in heaven. virtues, To this his great charity and mercy were directed. He received pilgrims, therefore, with hospitality, clothed the naked, refreshed the hungry with food, helped the afflicted with every aid. miracles, How pleasing these actions of his were to the Deity was made manifest by great miracles. For with his habit, and that wholly unharmed, he put out a burning furnace. At length, having led a most religious life and heaped up with many merits, he died most holily, to live forever in heaven. feast. He is venerated in that monastery on the 12th day of January with the celebration of a double feast."