Redigund

ON BLESSED REDIGUND, OR WEDIGUND, VIRGIN OF THE PREMONSTRATENSIAN ORDER, IN SPAIN.

Year 1152.

Redigund or Wedigund, Virgin of the Premonstratensian Order in Spain (B.)

[1] "Villamayor, a monastery of the diocese of Burgos," says Aubert Le Mire in his Premonstratensian Chronicle at the year 1177, "takes its name from the neighboring town called Villamayor. It is seven miles from the city of Burgos." It is also mentioned by Jean Page in the Premonstratensian Library, book 1, in the Circuit of Spain, Blessed Redigund the Virgin, and by Servatius Lairveltz, who places it in the diocese of Palencia. This monastery venerates as its patron S. Michael the Archangel, whence it is also called S. Michael de Trevino, to be distinguished from another monastery of the same order, S. Michael de Gros, in the diocese of Zamora, in the town of Toro, situated on the River Duero, which the same authors mention.

[2] Here is preserved the body of S. Paulina, Virgin and Martyr, brought from Italy with other relics of the Saints by Antonio de Padilla, of the Society of Jesus, and given to these most devout Fathers on 23 April 1612. Life. We shall treat of her on 6 June. Here also lies the body of Blessed Redigund, whom others call Wedigund, and some Radigund. We give her Life from the Premonstratensian Hagiologium, which the Most Reverend Lord Chrysostom vander Sterre, Abbot of the most ancient monastery of S. Michael in the city of Antwerp, having long prepared it for press and it being eagerly desired by all pious persons, while detained by various affairs both of his Order and of the commonwealth, delays to publish, but has in the meantime most graciously communicated these things to us.

[3] The same author in his Feasts of the Saints of the Premonstratensian Order, on the fourth day before the Kalends of February, writes thus about Redigund: "In the monastery of S. Michael de Trevino near Villamayor of the diocese of Burgos, feast day, of Blessed Redigund, a Spanish Virgin of the Premonstratensian Order. Who, crucified to the world with its lusts, while she subdued the flesh with rigorous austerities, germinated like a lily among thorns, and wonderfully pleased the heavenly Bridegroom with a pure heart and chaste body." Andrew du Saussay also records her in his Gallican Martyrology, but among the Blessed, with these words: "On the same day Blessed Redigund, a religious Virgin of the monastery of Trevino of the Premonstratensian Order in the diocese of Burgos, passed over to the Lord, most distinguished for the rigor of her austerity, the beauty of her purity, and her zeal for divine worship." We cannot, however, understand on what grounds he attempts to claim her for Gaul. In the Order for reciting the divine office printed at Madrid in the year 1635, among the feasts of the Canons Regular of the Premonstratensian Order, on the 26th (probably the 29th, with the numeral signifying nine erroneously turned upward veneration so as to form only a six) of January: "Redigund, Virgin, semidouble."

[4] The same Abbot Chrysostom mentions Redigund in his Life of S. Norbert, book 3, chapter 6, section 12. And in the book entitled The Echo of S. Norbert Triumphant, page 64, he has this: Relics. "But also recently, through the efforts of the Very Reverend Father Michael Maldonato, Procurator General of the Spanish Congregation, we have obtained one sacred rib of Blessed Redigund, a Spanish Virgin of our same Order, who reposes venerably in the monastery of S. Michael de Trevino, at the altar of S. Michael there, in a splendidly decorated urn, the same having been generously given to us by the Most Distinguished and Reverend Father Master Philip de Quintanilla, most worthy General Visitor of the Spanish Congregation of our same Order."

LIFE, from the Hagiologium of the Most Reverend Lord Abbot Chrysostom vander Sterre, not yet published.

Redigund or Wedigund, Virgin of the Premonstratensian Order in Spain (B.)

[1] The Blessed Virgin Redigund professed the white Order in a certain monastery called S. Paul, Blessed Redigund, a religious of the Premonstratensian Order, not far from the church of S. Michael, formerly situated at a distance, which has now ceased to exist. It will perhaps be better to understand from what has been communicated to me from Spain that that church of S. Paul was formerly a convent of Premonstratensian Virgins.

[2] At a distance of about two hundred paces from the monastery of S. Michael de Trevino near Villamayor there used to adhere a certain church called S. Paul, in the monastery of S. Paul, and it was formerly of nuns of the Premonstratensian Order: but on account of poverty it ceased to exist, its revenues being attributed to the monastery of the Religious, which still possesses them. And elsewhere: "In the monastery of S. Michael de Trevino near Villamayor of the diocese of Burgos of the Premonstratensian Order, and in all the surrounding places, there flourishes a most ancient, public, and notorious tradition, transmitted from ancestors to ancestors, from parents to children, that the church of S. Paul, which is situated in view of the said monastery, separated from it by about two hundred paces, was formerly a convent of Virgins of the said Order, which on account of poverty ceased to exist, its revenues being assigned to the monastery of the Religious, who still enjoy them."

[3] The last Religious of this convent was Blessed Redigund, who after visiting the shrines of the Saints at Rome, she makes a pilgrimage to Rome, with the permission of her Superiors, when she had completed her pilgrimage and was enriched with a precious treasury of sacred Relics, she devoted the rest of her life here most piously to God. On her return from Italy, the blessed Virgin enclosed herself in a certain cell, built next to the door of the church of S. Michael, from which through a small window she could see the high altar: and cutting herself off from all worldly commerce, she lives austerely as a recluse, she hid herself in the secret of the Lord's face, and established a life of extreme rigor and austerity, knowing that lilies are safe from being devoured by wild beasts only when they are properly surrounded and enclosed by thorns and briars; just as in the Canticles the Bridegroom praises his bride, when he proclaims her to be a lily among thorns. For when Virgins will take care to devote themselves diligently to afflictions and mortifications of the flesh, then they will be able to preserve the flower of their virginity long inviolate from the world and the devil. And therefore this most prudent Virgin, that she might be holy both in body and in spirit and always think on the things of the Lord, afflicted her flesh with painful labors in a wonderful manner: and with her mind collected in God, rising above all earthly and transitory things, she led a heavenly life on earth, until at last she reached the happy goal of her labors, she dies, and fell asleep in a blessed death in the Lord, in the year (as Father Michael Maldonato wrote to me) of the Incarnation of the Word 1152, which was the 33rd from the foundation of the White Order, and the 15th of the Reverend Father Emelinus, second Abbot of S. Michael.

[4] She died, moreover, with the reputation of extraordinary holiness, and as such was committed to burial. Her relics are translated, But after the passage of some years she was elevated and translated, and all her sacred bones and relics were enclosed in a certain chest, together with the cushion on which she used to work, the vessel from which she drank, her salt-cellar, and some other small possessions of hers, which, because they had belonged to the Saint, were held in great veneration. And all these things are placed in a certain altar and chapel of the said monastery, which, to distinguish it from the high altar, is called the old altar of S. Michael. It has been held in great veneration from time immemorial (as the Spanish Fathers testify in the cited rescript). And indeed seven villages, each on its own fixed day, and are publicly honored, come in public procession to her altar, and among other solemn prayers they recite, they also say an antiphon and prayer for the Virgin.

ON CHARLES VIII, ABBOT OF VILLERS IN BRABANT.

At the beginning of the thirteenth century.

Charles, Abbot of Villers, of the Cistercian Order in Belgium

[5] The same author adds concerning the effigy and relics of S. Aquilinus: "There exists to this day at Milan, in a most ancient church sacred to Lawrence the Martyr and Levite, a chapel of equal antiquity, dedicated to the same S. Aquilinus, relics elevated, in which his body was first placed and has been preserved down to our times: for a few years ago it was elevated and placed in a more honorable location, where it is now seen. In the vault of that same chapel there are about twenty-four images, or icons, painted, representing the entire life, martyrdom, burial, and miracles at the tomb of the Blessed Aquilinus himself. Nor can it be doubted that the images themselves are most ancient, dating from about six hundred years ago or more, as the images of Christ and the Apostles in the upper apse, painted in mosaic image or tessellated work, demonstrate. These images represent both Aquilinus himself and the Canons of Cologne and the Canons of S. Lawrence, with whom he dwelt at Milan both while living and after death, all in the same regular and customary habit which to this day the Lateran Canons Regular in Italy, the Victorines in Gaul, and the Canons of Neuss or Windesheim at Cologne and throughout Lower and Upper Germany wear; with precisely the same clerical tonsure and shaving on the upper and lower part of the head, in the manner of a crown, which the Regulars commonly wear; with this one exception, that in place of the white tunic which we Laterans and our Windesheimers wear, they wore a grey one; which was also the custom in Gaul and in other places in Italy, as in the monastery of S. Andrew at Vercelli, of S. Bernard on Mont Joux, of S. James of Cellevolan in the diocese of Comacchio."

LIFE, from the Offices of the Lateran Canons Regular.

Aquilinus, Priest and Martyr at Milan (S.)

From various sources.

[1] Aquilinus, born at Wurzburg in Franconia of distinguished parents, when as a boy he found that certain of his schoolfellows, sons of noblemen, S. Aquilinus as a boy rebukes heretics, were infected with heretical depravity, asserting that Christ was propagated from Mary by human seed, he took this so gravely that he did not fear to inveigh against that error. Whence it happened that when the matter was afterward discovered by the Bishop, through his diligence nearly all who were infected with that error returned to the Catholic truth. He becomes a Canon at Cologne. When he had grown up, he resolved to serve his Creator with his whole heart. Therefore, sent by his parents to Cologne for the sake of his studies, attaching himself to the Bishop of Cologne, he was deemed worthy to be admitted into the number of the Canons of that Church, who then lived according to a rule with the same Bishop.

[2] After some years, having returned to his homeland and finding that his parents had departed this life, he immediately sold his paternal inheritance and distributed the price to the poor, and returned to the Church of Cologne, where, then Provost, on account of the splendor of his blameless life, he was elected Provost. When the Bishop then died, he was unanimously chosen by all to succeed him; but lest he be compelled to assume the episcopal dignity, he flees the episcopate, he fled to Paris. Finding that city suffering from a grievous plague, by many labors, vigils, he frees Paris from the plague, and especially by constant prayers, he merited in a short time to free it from the disease. When the Bishop there also died and he was similarly chosen to fill his place, taking flight once again, he came to Pavia in Italy, where, devoting himself to the study of sacred letters, again he flees honors, he learned the common Italian tongue.

[3] Then, setting out for Milan to venerate the relics of the Blessed Ambrose, whom he honored with a special devotion, staying with the Canons of S. Lawrence, who were then likewise regular, he began so vehemently to rise up against the Arian heresy, which in that city was gradually regaining strength, with declamations and disputations, at Milan he rebukes the heretics, that through his efforts not a few were recalled from that error to the Catholic faith. The Arians, taking this grievously, attacked Aquilinus as he came to the Ambrosian church at first light for prayer, as was his custom, and having beaten him severely, left him half dead. And when they could in no way divert him from assailing their errors, he is killed by them, on another occasion, driving a sword into his throat, they immolated a most pleasing victim to God. They then attempted to hide his holy body, lest so great a crime be divulged, but were prevented by the intervention of a very dense fog. Wherefore the faithful, approaching and finding his body bathed in its own blood, carried it with hymns and canticles to the church of S. Lawrence, he is honorably buried, and honorably buried it in a chapel afterward dedicated to his name, where he shines with miracles.