ON BLESSED PACIFICUS, CONFESSOR OF THE ORDER OF MINORS, AT LENS IN ARTOIS. ABOUT THE YEAR 1230.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
On the place of burial, the more obscure cult of the Blessed one, his memory in the more recent Martyrologies, and the uncertain year of his death.
Pacificus, of the Order of St. Francis, at Lens in Belgium (Bl.)
BY THE AUTHOR J. B. S.
[1] As celebrated as Blessed Pacificus is in all the histories of the Franciscan Fathers, This Blessed one buried at Lens so, for some time, has his cult been neglected in that very place in which he ceased to live, namely at Lens, otherwise Lendium, of the Castellany of Hélène or Hélenis, in Artois, a province of Belgium, of the diocese of Arras, a town very famous in the past and in former ages for various stormings, nay, for overthrows and destructions. It is situated in the part of Artois bordering on Flanders, distant from Arras and from Douai by an equal interval of four leagues, and by a somewhat greater from the city of Lille, being six leagues distant thence. Not to mention the older wars by which we know it to have been wretchedly afflicted, it was taken by the French and nearly consumed by flames in the year 1553. Twenty-nine years later, namely in 1582, it is said to have been plundered by a ravaging garrison of Cambrai, and eight days afterward recovered by the prince d'Espinoy, governor of the province. More recent are the things we have heard done within the memory of our fathers concerning the siege of Marshal Gassion in the year 1647, in which, wounded, he died at Arras; as also concerning the notable victory won there in the next following year by the French under the leadership of Condé; from which time, at least from the Pyrenean peace of the year 1658, it has remained subject to their dominion. The collegiate church there is dedicated to St. Vulganius, of whom there will be treatment on November 2, and there exists a monastery of the Minor Fathers, which was the first built in all Belgium, by him of whom we are treating, Blessed Pacificus, about the year, as they will have it, 1219.
[2] That the aforesaid Blessed one was buried in that place, all writers attest, he is distinct from others of the same name, both Minorites and external Belgians, except a few, cited by Arthur, who, deceived I know not whence, will have Blessed Pacificus buried at Venice or at Ripa, which Arthur and others refute. I set forth the matter as Wadding expressed it at the year 1212, num. 40, where, the eulogy of the Blessed one being premised, he continues thus: But where he was buried, Marianus confesses that he does not know. Rodulphus notes that at Venice, in the church of the Conventual Minors, there still survives a sarcophagus in which his body was laid, with the following words: In this tomb was laid the body of Blessed Pacificus, of the Order of Friars Minor, in the year of the Lord 1432, on the 21st day of July. The same Rodulphus also asserts that in the Veronese custody, at the place of Ripa, the same man was buried, and that by his working a spring of waters flows forth not far from the monastery of the Friars. But Franciscus Gonzaga says he was buried in the convent of Lens in Belgium, in a marble stone… The matter is confirmed by Ferreolus Locrius in his Belgian Chronicles, and by Joannes Molanus in the Belgian Nativities, who also transcribed the epitaph of the monument of this kind: Under this stone are kept, laid away, the sacred bones of Blessed Pacificus, of the Order of Minors, who himself was the first minister of the province of France.
[3] Here Wadding hesitates in doubt, whether he should admit one or two Pacificus; whatever few things about him survive, or rather should judge that a part of the relics was translated from Belgium to Venice or Ripa; as though he had been ignorant of another Blessed Pacificus of Cerreto in Insubria, of his own Order, concerning whom there is treatment in the Acts at June 4 and 6. But whatever be the case concerning that Venetian inscription, I judge it sufficiently manifest that it can by no means be fitted to our Blessed Pacificus, older by two whole centuries; so that accordingly
it is beyond controversy that he who was sent by St. Francis into Gaul put off his mortality at Lens, on whose tomb the aforesaid inscription was once inscribed, from which almost all who have hitherto spoken of this Blessed one contend for his ancient cult. But this is to be accurately noted, that the monastery of the Minorite Fathers at Lens once stood not in the same place where it is today seen, but in that where, near the suburbs, a spring is pointed out, named after him the spring of Blessed Pacificus, which they recall to be salutary against fevers and other ailments, so that even at this time it is frequented by pious faithful, as letters lately received thence have taught me; although concerning particular benefits they do not testify so distinctly. Now there are meadows where the monastery once was, it having been translated in the past century into the town: but that monastery, tossed by adverse chances, has today utterly lost the memory of the place where the Blessed one was laid.
[4] all monuments having long since been lost. So indeed I am compelled to think, for the Fathers of that place, asked more than once, candidly answered that no notice at all survives concerning the place of burial of Blessed Pacificus; so that I have often wondered that Gonzaga (whose work was published in 1587) wrote that the body of Blessed Pacificus was laid in a marble stone near the greater altar of the church; which, since it cannot be asserted of the present church, it follows that those words must be understood of the church of the old monastery outside the town, of which not even the ruins are now said to appear. I had also asked, among other things, whether nothing remained in their archive by which it could be proved that at some time an elevation or translation of the sacred body had been made by legitimate authority. But to this too it was answered, that no memory of that matter exists; so that I am fully led to think that the treasure, which ought to have been held in greater value by those Fathers, was kept with great carelessness. Yet I will gladly confess that these things can easily be attributed to the adverse chances by which perhaps the old monastery was more than once destroyed, as the praised Gonzaga rightly observed with these words: This convent sustained many and most grievous losses and injuries from the misfortunes of wars, and from the incursions of the French enemy, who twice burned and plundered this convent; once while the Emperor Charles V was still living; again in the year 1582, when by ambush they invaded the town. By which fires almost all the furniture, together with all the letters of the Pontiff and the monuments of antiquity, and the relics, was consumed.
[5] It was doubtful whether he could be numbered among the Blessed; I know also that various changes were introduced in that place, in that the aforesaid Fathers were now subject to the French, now to the Spanish, and accordingly transferred into different provinces, so that the monuments were scattered, carried to Douai and Lille, which without doubt lay neglected, and are perhaps at this time altogether lost. And this was the reason why I long doubted whether it was safe enough to insert Pacificus, as truly Blessed and held for such, into these our Acts, concerning whose deeds, death, elevation, translation, and cult so few things had been consigned to writing, that the whole matter came down almost to the mere name of the Blessed one and his burial, once more celebrated at Lens than today; however long a catalogue Arthur wove of writers who made mention of him as Blessed. There was added this too, that in that very place (Lens) so little account was taken of him, that scarcely any traces of Catholic veneration today exist, whether in altars erected there, pictures, relics, or other adornments of external cult of that kind; so much so that not even on the very day of his feast was any commemoration made in the ecclesiastical Offices, as the Reverend Father Felix de Sailly, Guardian of the monastery of Lens, candidly confessed in his reply to me, given December 20, 1720.
[6] but the veneration of the people prevailed, Nevertheless, all things being duly weighed, there prevailed the voice of the people and its constant reverence for the Blessed one for so many centuries, which those testified to me to be very widespread in that region, of whose good faith I could not doubt. Notable too seemed a tablet, sculpted to some extent and kept at Lens, on which the aforesaid inscription is inscribed; the year 1591 being indeed added, but taken without doubt from a much older one, which was most probably once carved on the monument itself. The cult, at least once shown to the Blessed one, is confirmed by a half wooden statue, representing a Minorite, into whose breast is inserted the lower jaw entire, with parts of the skull, which was wont to be carried about in procession, almost no one doubting that by that statue Blessed Pacificus was represented. My witness is the lately-praised Reverend Father Guardian of Lens, that a native lay brother survives there, who, before he became a religious, often saw shown to him by the keeper of the sacristy—himself of Lens origin—some bones, or notable relics of the head, to which an attached label made faith that they were the sacred remains of Blessed Pacificus, which thing he is ready to confirm by oath. But whether, through the said vicissitudes and migrations, some relics have not perished, there is now no one who can certainly ascertain, nor from what time that statue ceased to be carried through the city and exposed to public veneration. I know that a little chest still exists there, in which most of the bones are contained, and I judge them to be the same of which that brother spoke.
[7] Besides these things, the Martyrologies stand for the cult of the Blessed one, though a little more recent, and although the memory in the Martyrologies is recent: whose authority seemed sufficient for a place to be given here to Pacificus. Molanus indeed abstains from the title of Blessed, both in the additions to Usuard, and in the Nativities of the Saints of Belgium; but not in vain did he place him, received from older monuments, among the Saints. Thus he has in his first edition of the year 1568: In Gaul, in the town of Lens, died Pacificus, first Minister of the Friars Minor in France. In other editions, instead of "In Gaul" is read "In Artois," and there is added, "of whom Bonaventure makes mention." The encomium in the Nativities explains the matter more, an abridgment of the eulogy being premised, which below we shall give from the very life of St. Francis. He says therefore that many convents were erected by the Blessed one, among which those of Lens and Arras, the beginning of which last was adorned by much nobility of men. There was indeed among them the most noble Judocus de Maternes, before his conversion governor of Mons, who, drawing his kinsman to the same Order, saw him become the founder of the monastery of Ghent. But Pacificus died at Lens or Lendium, where in the suburb there is a slender but very ancient monastery, and the first Franciscan monastery of these regions, in whose church, outside the choir, a most ancient monument is seen, with an inscription of this kind: Under this stone are kept, laid away, the sacred bones of blessed Pacificus, of the Order of Minors, who himself was the first Minister of the province of France.
[8] From this observation of Molanus it is understood that in his age that most ancient monument with the aforesaid sepulchral inscription was still shown, likewise the asserted epitaph not near the greater altar of the church, as Gonzaga said, but outside the choir, without doubt in the ambulatory, or in the front part of the church, so that from this it can be conjectured that the body of the Blessed one, at least entire, was not raised from the earth. You will also gather that at that time that slender and very ancient monastery still existed in the suburb, whose destruction and ruin must be referred to the plundering of the town, and, unless I am mistaken, the burning of the monastery in the year 1582. The Friars, indeed disturbed by that calamity, yet did not wholly desert the monastery, but, returned to their place, without doubt in memory of that former sepulchral inscription, took care to have that tablet, today surviving, made for themselves in the year 1591, all the rest of the furniture, the Pontifical letters, the monuments of antiquity, and the relics having long since been consumed by fire. There was added the notable change of the Recollect Fathers who succeeded the others, and in the year 1609, the convent being utterly overthrown, built a new convent and church in the town, where the memory of all older things easily perished; so that it ought not to seem so wonderful, if at this time very many things pertaining to Blessed Pacificus are buried in an oblivion of almost a century and a half.
[9] and of very many writers For the rest, older is the commemoration of Blessed Pacificus in the German Martyrology under the name of Canisius, if indeed it was inserted in the edition of the year 1562, which Molanus mentions in his preface, but which we have not seen. In later ones he is announced almost in the words of Molanus himself, lately adduced from his first edition of Usuard. Briefer is the announcement of Ferrarius in the general Catalogue: At Lens in Artois, of blessed Pacificus, of the Order of Minors. Miraeus in the Belgian Fasti has, Blessed Pacificus of the Order of Minors, where he continues thus: Among the Belgian monasteries of the Franciscans, which are very many, older than the rest are reckoned those of Lendium, Arras, and Valenciennes, which were built in the times of Blessed Pacificus, the first Provincial minister in France. He had been drawn out of the waves of the world by St. Francis, and, after excellent work done for the Church and the Seraphic Order, died in the monastery of Lendium in Artois, where his monument is seen with this inscription, etc., so that you may see clearly enough that these men did not doubt that the title of Blessed should be attributed to Pacificus in so received a consensus of writers, although they bring nothing forward by which his constant cult is greatly proved.
[10] a consensus sufficiently unanimous; Meanwhile the glory of the Blessed one and the fame of his holiness and miracles so prevailed even in French Flanders, that Guillaume Gazet in his ecclesiastical history did not fear to add to Pacificus the title of Saint, with a French eulogy, which below we shall better relate from the source itself. Ferreolus Locrius in his Belgian Chronicle imitated Molanus. Let it be permitted to add our Balduinus Willot, in the Belgian Martyrology written in French, from which it probably passed into the Flemish additions to the Roman Martyrology. That I may pass over the Calendars and other more recent things, let a brief eulogy of this kind from Saussay in his Gallican Martyrology suffice: Likewise in the monastery of Lendium in Artois, by a pious end departed blessed Pacificus, first Provincial minister of the Friars Minor in France, who, drawn out of the waves of the world by St. Francis, after excellent work done for the Church and the Seraphic Order, thirsting for the cups of the eternal fountain, and ardent for the sight of the glory of Christ the King, at last happily obtained his wishes according to his merits. Whose bones are kept, laid away in the said monastery, with great repute of holiness: and Saint Bonaventure celebrated illustrious eulogies of him in the history of St. Francis, which he wrote. And these are the things which could be adduced for some degree of cult of the Blessed one.
[11] although nothing is known of his deeds in Belgium and of his death. About his age, his death, the series or time of the things done by him, one asks in vain. From his conversion, described by St. Bonaventure in chapter 4 of the life of St. Francis, this alone is clear, that he was then a celebrated poet, when he joined himself as a companion to the Seraphic Father about the year 1212, or a little earlier, at an age without doubt already manly and perhaps sufficiently advanced. That a few years later he was sent into France, and then into Belgium, all relate, where first
he built the first monastery of his Order at Lens in the year 1219 or 1220, and in the next following years at Arras and Valenciennes, aided by Belgian nobles, some of whom were enrolled in the sacred family, as the Reverend Father Benignus Fremaut more fully narrates from Wadding in his Belgian Legend of the Saints of the Order on this day. But what Blessed Pacificus did amid these things, in what precise year he was called to the reward of his labors, I have found nowhere handed down. That above, according to our custom, I have placed the year of his death about 1230, I seemed to conjecture this from the fact that he is said to have lived a few years after the most holy Father. But since he flew to heavenly glory in the year 1226, and I have shown that other companions of St. Francis were brought into Belgium by the powerful Bertholds in the Corollary to the Acts of St. Rumold, separately published, chapter 5, page 118, then probably, since some of the earlier ones had already departed from life, Blessed Pacificus does not seem to have prolonged his own life long beyond the year 1230. Behold now the eulogies pertaining to him.
ELOGIUM
From the life of St. Francis, chapter 4, in Surius.
Pacificus, of the Order of St. Francis, at Lens in Belgium (Bl.)
FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.
The merits of the virtues also increasing, the odor of good repute spread everywhere among the little ones of Christ, The wonderful conversion of Pacificus from a vision: drew very many from various parts of the world to see the presence of the holy Father. Among whom a certain curious composer of secular songs, who had been crowned by the Emperor, and thence called king of verses, resolved to approach the man of God, the despiser of worldly things. And when he had found him preaching at the castle of St. Severinus in a certain monastery, the hand of the Lord being made upon him, he saw the same Francis, preacher of the Cross of Christ, marked with two crossed swords, very shining, in the manner of a cross, of which one stretched from head to feet, the other from hand to hand crosswise through the breast. He did not know by face the servant of Christ; but, shown by so great a miracle, he soon recognized him. Suddenly astonished at the sight, he begins to propose better things: and at last, compunctious by the power of his words, as if pierced by the sword of the spirit proceeding from his mouth, the secular pomps being wholly despised, he clung to the blessed Father by profession. On account of which the holy man, seeing him perfectly converted from the unrest of the world to the peace of Christ, called him brother Pacificus. This man, afterward advancing in all holiness, before he became Minister in France (since he there discharged the office of ministry first) deserved again to see the great Thau on the forehead of Francis: which, distinguished by a variety of colors, beautified his face with a wondrous adornment. For this sign the holy man venerated with great affection, commended with frequent speech, and in the little letters which he sent, subscribed with his own hand, as if all his study were to sign the Thau, according to the prophetic saying, upon the foreheads of the men groaning and grieving, truly converted to Christ Jesus.
[2] And that this passage indeed is to be understood of Blessed Pacificus, whether another pertains to him. is most manifestly clear, but it is not so established that the things which are told of another vision in chapter 6 are to be referred to him, although some assert it. However it be, I judged that paragraph too should be described here. It runs thus: And because he preferred humility, both in himself and in his subjects, to all honors, God the lover of men judged him worthy of higher summits, according to what a vision shown from heaven revealed to one brother, a man of exceptional virtue and devotion. For when he was in the company of the man of God, and prayed together with him with fervent affection in a certain deserted church, being put in ecstasy, he saw among many seats in heaven, one more worthy than the rest, adorned with precious stones, and refulgent with all glory. Wondering within himself at the refulgence of the lofty throne, he began with anxious thought to inquire who ought to be raised to it. Amid these things he heard a voice saying to him: That seat was of one of those who fell, and now is kept for the humble Francis. The brother at last returning to himself from the excess of prayer, followed after his manner the blessed man going forth outside. And as they walked along the way and spoke to one another about God, that brother, not unmindful of his vision, skillfully asked him what he thought of himself. To whom the servant of Christ humbly: I seem, he says, to myself the greatest of sinners. To whom, when the brother said on the contrary that he could not with a sound conscience say or think this, he added: If Christ had attended a man however wicked with so great mercy, I truly judge that he would be much more pleasing to God than I. The brother was confirmed, from the hearing of so admirable a humility, concerning the truth of the vision shown, knowing, the sacred Gospel testifying, that to the excellence of glory, from which the proud one is cast out, the truly humble is exalted. These things from the life of St. Francis, the author being, as we said, St. Bonaventure.
FROM FRANCISCUS GONZAGA
On the origin of the Seraphic religion, part 3, in the province of St. Andrew, convent 9, page 1071.
Pacificus, of the Order of St. Francis, at Lens in Belgium (Bl.)
FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.
The convent of Blessed Francis in the suburbs of the town of Lens, in a most pleasant and most salubrious place, watered by springs, was built about the year of the Lord 1220, by blessed Pacificus, companion of our most blessed Father Francis, first Minister of France, by the work and the most generous alms of the noble Lord de Neuville, a man of the equestrian order. This convent sustained many and most grievous losses and injuries from the misfortunes of wars, and from the incursions of the French enemy, who twice burned and plundered this convent; once while the Emperor Charles V was still living, again in the year 1582, when by ambush they invaded the town. By which fires almost all the furniture, together with all the Pontifical letters and the monuments of antiquity, and the relics, was consumed. Except that there remained, out of so cruel a fortune, the body of blessed Pacificus, laid in a marble stone near the greater altar of the church. This Saint shone with many miracles, and still shines; for a most sweet odor proceeding from his tomb not rarely refreshes the friars dwelling here, although he is not yet canonized. His life, like also all the other writings of this convent, have perished. In this place gushes a spring famous by the name and miracles of blessed Pacificus, which is visited by many for the sake of religion and of recovering health. For its water, drunk, brings a most present remedy to those with fever. There were also once in this convent obediential letters of the same Pacificus, signed by brother Elias, the general Minister: but the Provincial Ministers of France transferred them hence to Péronne of the Picards. There commonly dwell in this convent fifteen Friars, of whom five are preachers, one a lector, the rest priests, young men, and lay brothers. It is incredible how much fruit the Friars of this house, in these most dangerous and worst times, by their most frequent sermons, in almost a hundred surrounding villages, have brought forth in the vineyard of the Lord; so that not even one out of so great a number has been infected with heresy. For on each Sunday and feast-day, every preacher of this convent visits three or four villages, and faithfully distributes to the faithful of Christ the provision of the divine Word; wherefore they are honored and loved by all, and liberally received, and carry back generous alms for the love of God. Thus Gonzaga, to which we have nothing left to add.
July, Volume III: 11 July.