CONCERNING ST. WALHER THE MARTYR,
PASTOR IN THE TERRITORY OF NAMUR AMONG THE BELGIANS.
His cult at Onhaye, his Acts more recently collected by Giles Monæus.
Walher the Martyr, Pastor in the territory of Namur (St.)
BY THE AUTHORS G. H. AND D. P.
The memory of St. Walher the Martyr and Pastor of Onhaye, in the County of Namur, commonly called Saint-Vohi, is inscribed in the Births of the Saints of Belgium, exactly collected by John Molanus, in the Belgic and Burgundian Fasti of Aubert Miraeus, His memory in the Fasti, in the Gallican Martyrology of Saussay, the General Catalogue of Ferrarius, the Flowers of the Church of Liège of Fisen, the Sanctuary of Namur by an Anonymous author, and others. His deeds, martyrdom, and the translation of his body Giles Monæus or du Monin of our Society wrote in the year 1603 in the History of the Saints of Namur not yet printed, and asserts that what he sets forth he partly drew from the cited Births of Molanus, and from the writings of John Rede, Pastor of Hastière, sent to him, and partly learned by being present at the place and seeing, and from the account of the Pastor of the same place, in this manner.
[2] St. Walher, born at Bouvignes, the ancient castle on the Meuse of the County of Namur, Born at Bouvignes, was piously educated by his parents in the fear of God at once from boyhood. Whence it came to pass that, although born in a humble place, he afterward turned out illustrious by quite noble piety and the glory of Martyrdom. For when, without the dye of vices, he grew in humility and the other virtues; and, the pleasures of the world despised, dedicated himself wholly to the service of God; ordained a Priest, a Priest, Pastor, first promoted at Onhaye to a lawful Pastor, a little after, on account of the holiness of his life, was canonically instituted Dean of the council of Florennes. Dean, Which is to be understood of the Dean of the Pastors and of the Christian community, or rural Archpriest, not of the Superior of the Canons. While Walher diligently applied himself to this office, visiting his nephew, a Priest of the Church of Hastière—whom others write to have been his Vicar—he often and gravely rebuked his unchaste morals. But he, not bearing with an even mind the good admonitions of his uncle, while at the same time they were crossing the Meuse one morning in the still thick darkness, a Martyr. the Priest, moved with gall, openly seized the rower of the boat, and, striking the Dean with the blade of the oar, with reversed hand, killed him.
[3] The lifeless body came to the bank of the Meuse at that place where a fountain flows, which, as they say, never suffers itself to be submerged by the waves of the river. The body for some time immovable, There came at once from Bouvignes very many, hoping to obtain the sacred body of Blessed Walher, that, carrying it with them, they might commit it to burial in the place of his birth with honorable pomp. But the body could never be moved from the place of his martyrdom. There was in the territory of Onhaye a faithful widow, who had at her home two heifers of untouched neck. By the help of these, namely, notwithstanding the very high mountains and a journey of truly difficult ascent, with God alone as guide, and miracles illustrating that journey, laid to rest at Onhaye the venerable relic was carried off to Onhaye, to the basilica of St. Martin, which, living, St. Walher worthily administered by his vocation. In which place too, by his merits, wondrous and many benefits of God are bestowed, and from the free offerings of the people an edifice of the temple, in part new and very ample, has been built. In the middle of the choir, in the place in which he was first buried, and thence afterward raised up, in a marble tomb, a marble tomb is seen placed, upon which St. Walher is seen carved in the figure of a Priest, proceeding to the altar to celebrate Mass, with an inscription made in French, thus rendered in Latin: "This is the burial of Lord Saint Walher the Martyr, born at Bouvignes, Dean of the council of Florennes, Pastor of Onhaye and Hastière, slain by the Chaplain there." Now Onhaye is a village distant half a mile from Hastière, once of the diocese of Liège and the Deanery of Florennes, but now of the Bishopric, and, as also otherwise always, of the County of Namur and the Deanery of Bouvignes.
[4] But when, concerning the boundaries of the County of Namur, there was, under Henry VII, carried off on account of the wars of Waulsort, a grave discord and civil war arisen between the people of Liège and the Count of Namur (as otherwise often happened several times); the bier or coffin of St. Walher, lately an unbearable burden, a certain Chaplain carried on his shoulders to Waulsort (an Abbey of the Benedictine Order very little distant from Onhaye); whence the Church of Waulsort, honored by the Relics of so great a Patron, by his merits, as is believed, was enriched with certain territories. But long ago his sacred Body was brought back to Onhaye: where on a wooden bier, adorned with prominent paintings and various colors, his martyrdom is carved. brought back to Onhaye, The head, from the altar, enclosed in a gilded bronze head of the figure of a Priest, is offered to pilgrims to be kissed. St. Walher suffered for justice on the 23rd day of June, but in what year is not found.
[5] What is here read of the fountain and the immovable body carried off by two heifers, is not touched on by Molanus, except in these words: "The lifeless body, God working miracles, was carried to Onhaye." Bartholomew Fisen in the History of the Church of Liège reports this martyrdom in book 11, number 31, at the year one thousand two hundred and nine; whether he suffered in the year 1209. and both there and in the Flowers of the Church of Liège describes with great amplification his zeal in correcting the perverse morals of the Priest, by whom for that reason he was slain; asserting that the body of St. Walher is celebrated by very many miracles from God down to this age of ours, which we would wish had been handed down in writing, or hereafter be handed down, if any happen anew. Meanwhile we hear that, besides the church of Onhaye, honored by the deposit of the Saint's body, there are three chapels under his name; one near the leper-house of Bouvignes, 3 chapels dedicated to him. going toward Namur; another, near the very bank of the Meuse, between Waulsort and Hastière, surnamed "of the Valley," where the aforesaid fountain is; and the third near Onhaye, in the place where the tradition is that the heifers, which were drawing the holy corpse upward, stopped a little.
[6] Thus far Henschen; who being dead, I gave my effort, A stone cenotaph placed in the year 1552 that, since so little was held written about the Saint himself, I might receive accurately delineated all things which were found there painted or sculpted; the Reverend Lord Lambert Ergo, Chaplain of Bouvignes, lending his hand to it. From him, therefore, see the sepulchral stone, placed by Lord Peter de Harroy, likely Pastor of Onhaye, in the very place where the Saint had been buried, for a cenotaph; under the note of the year 1552. And this (if I am not mistaken) long after the sacred bones were raised thence and placed in a wooden chest of old work and art, after the translation of the bones into a wooden chest because the people did not cease to hold in honor the very place of the first burial, whence many graces flowed forth. But the sides of that chest were adorned with carvings also of wood, of which three contained the memory of human redemption, the other three regarded the history of the Saint himself; so that in the first the Chaplain is seen bringing the little boat, over which a demon, suggesting the crime, looms from the bank; of carved work, in the second the Saint, carried in the same little boat, receives from behind the parricidal blow; but in the third the two heifers strain up the steep, carrying up the venerable body to Onhaye. These six carvings are even now preserved, and aptly composed within two columns, to which others have lately been substituted the panels hold a place in the altar: while meanwhile the sacred bones themselves are kept in an elegantly sculpted chest of new work, about twenty-four years ago translated and sealed by the then most illustrious Bishop of Namur, Grobbendonk. This new chest the smaller picture represents, so that the three aforementioned carvings serve it as a base; but upon it stands a reliquary, it is here represented. in which is enclosed the sacred cranium, which is wont to be sought to be kissed by those suffering from headache, not without a salutary effect for the most part. The seals which you see hung on each side represent each face of the bronze medals wont to be distributed at Onhaye to the pilgrims flocking there from everywhere.
[7] Furthermore, from the very body of St. Walher the Parish of Bouvignes has a notable part of the elbow-bone enclosed in a bronze arm in such a way that it can be offered to be kissed by those asking, visible through glass. Another notable part also our College at Dinant possesses, Relics at Bouvignes and Dinant. received in the year 1644 from Lord Nicholas Turbis, Vicar of the Bishop of Namur; for whose sake there, on the Vigil of St. John,
the Baptist, they recite the Office of Walher as a Martyr with a double rite. The feast transferred to the nearest Sunday. But the Church of Onhaye, with the permission of its Superiors, defers an Office of this kind together with the feast to the nearest Sunday after the nativity of St. the Baptist, that it may be easier for the people, free from work, to run there. And the people run together in such great frequency to the plenary Indulgence which is then offered, that Lord John Porineaux, who lives there as Curator of souls from the year 1680, testifies in his letters to me that the church, otherwise sufficiently ample, is by no means capable of the multitude: nor only then but often through the year, when some public necessity presses. Certainly through the months of October and November in his third year, there was so great a concourse that from the offerings then collected a new sacristy could be made, and various paraments of the altars.
[8] For the people of the Ardennes, even from more remote places, a frequent pilgrimage there make their processions thither, for the sake of averting pestilence, especially from horned cattle, whom the Saint is believed singularly to patronize, by occasion of the service rendered to him by this kind of animals in carrying up the body to Onhaye. There is extant with the Pastor, and was sent by him, a memorial written in testimony, that in the year 1669 in the month of August, on the day of St. Bartholomew, the Vicar of Marche in Famenne came to Onhaye, accompanied by fifteen or twenty citizens; especially for the safety of animals. because, with more than a hundred and twenty horned beasts having died among them, and very many others being sick, when both in vain they had sent to certain other Saints, and to St. Hubert in the Ardennes to make supplication, at last they turned to St. Walher by the counsel of the Abbot of St. Hubert, who also added to them two of his own Religious as companions of the votive pilgrimage, to offer a nine-day sacrifice. They asserted, moreover, that from the year 1631, this being done, the mortality of animals ceased among them, and all that were sick recovered. So wrote and testified by his own signature the one who was there as Curator before this man, Lord John Auxbrebis, with several other graces which follow: from a certain other note of whom it is held that that Vicar's name was Everard, and, sent the first time, he came on the 2nd of August with an offering of two Imperials on behalf of those citizens.
CERTAIN CURES
Obtained by the invocation of St. Walher, from the manuscripts of John Auxbrebis, Pastor of Onhaye.
Walher the Martyr, Pastor in the territory of Namur (St.)
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE CURATE.
[9] The aforesaid Lord John Porineaux excuses himself that he can supply no miracles of an earlier time, although he constantly holds that there were very many; for the Pastoral house being burned by the French, Health bestowed all the writings whatsoever kept there, pertaining to the church, were consumed by fire. Yet he found, and sent to me, these things which follow, noted to memory by the hand of his aforenamed predecessor on various sheets: for the understanding of which it is to be known that from the above-mentioned fountain water blessed in the name of St. Walher is wont to be carried far and wide; and likewise bread consecrated under the same invocation. "A certain woman dwelling at Malonne on the Sambre," he says, "testified, around the year 1667, that a certain cow of hers had lain stretched out beyond hope of longer life: but when she had violently thrust into its jaws a little piece of the bread of St. Walher, it rose at once strong, to a dying cow, and returned to the manger; as several of the same village also attested." That woman in another sheet is named Helena de Malon, wife of Lambert le Berger, to a feverish youth, and is said to have testified the matter on the last of June. Also in the year 1669, a woman born at the same Malonne, Margaret de Fosse, told me that when she had a son, named Bertwin, laboring with fevers, which no aids of physicians had been able to dispel: as soon as he drank of the Saint's fountain, he was free of all feverish affection.
[10] Moreover the same woman asserted to me that, when in the month of March the under-gardener of the Abbey of Floreffe had gone out to gather sprouts of hops, for the salad of the religious; silent for three days, and those who awaited him in the kitchen wondered that he tarried longer than usual; he was found after three hours in the garden all rigid, and remained such for a whole three days, without speech. But as soon as a certain woman, who had experienced in herself the virtue of the Walherian water, offered it to him, the sick man immediately began to speak, and recovered, as she says she is ready to affirm by oath; and several pilgrims here from Floreffe asserted to me that it had so altogether happened. There came here too a woman from the village which is called Mostier on the Sambre, about to offer the Imperial which she had vowed to St. Walher in place of a calf, to a dying cow, when the cow which had borne it was at its last, and the butcher, called, was present to strip off the skin. For it had then come into her mind to invoke St. Walher; which when she did, and bade the cow, struck in his name, to rise; she saw it rise, and led it into the stall quite well: of which matter she alleged as witnesses several of her neighbors.
[11] On this day, July 26, 1670, before me and the witnesses subsigned, appearing, Anna Cuvellier, to a paralytic girl betrothed to Giles d'Artoy, at present dwelling at Crupet, deposed that around the year 1632, when she was twelve or thirteen years old, she was afflicted with so grave a torment of the nerves that she was continually compelled to lie in bed, nor could be moved except carried; whence many said she was held impeded by enchantments. But this lasted for her three or four months, until it was said to her mother in sleep that if she would now promise to set out with her daughter to St. Walher, if God should grant her the grace of health, she would obtain the same. When the mother had urged this on her daughter, and she had invoked the Saint, her knees bent as best she could upon the bed, and leaning on both her hands, the Lord's Prayer said several times, she at once felt herself to be lighter; and a little after, after a vow of going to Onhaye, though with great difficulty, set out on the journey to St. Walher on his very feast. There, under the preaching somewhat lulled and then roused, she found herself entirely healed: and cheerfully returned, she was led to the place of the wedding feast, where her brother was playing the fiddle, and without any difficulty danced; with great admiration of the same her brother, and of others who had known her. And all these things she affirmed with an oath, before William d'Artoy and Joanna de Pernode his wife, dwelling at Crupet, and corroborated by the sign of her hand. But again in the year 1672, the same Anna on the feast of St. Walher asserted the same thing before the Reverend Lord Dean of Bouvignes, and Father Richard the Recollect Preacher, and also the Curate of Gerin. These last words are afterward read added by the hand of the same who had subscribed the first attestation two years before, between the signature of William d'Artoy, and the Crosses formed by the hands of Anna and Joanna, who did not know how to write, as the last subsigned, the Pastor of Onhaye, John Auxbrebis, gave faith.
[12] Moreover the same Anna asserted that when a certain young man, Giles Dave, lay in bed wholly immovable, and by her counsel, to the same young man who vowed, that Anna told his father and mother of the health which she had received by the help of St. Walher, the young man himself also invoked the same; and, health immediately obtained, undertook the votive journey, together with his father of the same name, dwelling at Folerie of Crupet. likewise to a boy, But I, John Auxbrebis, attest that Walher Collet, son of John Collet and Elisabeth de Suisse, now steward at Gerin, and joined in marriage to Joanna d'Or, when he was still five years old, was so weak in his whole body that he could form no step, but was always carried in arms: wherefore his mother took care to have a Mass said in honor of St. Walher: and one or two days after I saw him running and playing with the other boys. Moreover I write to memory that a certain girl of Fallais, N., maidservant of John de St. Hubert, steward at Leuze, paralytic on one side, and therefore rendered useless for continuing her service, returned to Fallais to her widowed mother, N.: and to a rustic maidservant; who, by the counsel of another woman of Fallais, asserting that she had been cured by St. Walher of an entirely similar evil, came with the aforesaid daughter to Onhaye; and came, with the same quite weary, to my house, to take a little breath from the labor of the way, and asked that, the stipend received, I celebrate a Mass for the same: which done, she was without trouble: and after two days returned to her service.
[13] A memorial that, going to Biesme to the synod, I met and recognized a certain man born at Ghasleri, likewise to a man for ten years thus weak, a stone-mason by trade, coming from Stauve: who, walking with me as far as Biesme, related that he had his wife's brother-in-law dwelling at Praille, named Remigius Gobaux, who had been as it were paralytic for about ten years, and impeded in all his limbs; who through a dream seemed to himself to be healed by St. Walher: which, awakened, he related to his wife, who, equally as he himself, was ignorant who St. Walher was. But when morning came he asked that clothes be given to him, and, marveling, put them on by himself; and within three days he began to labor at pruning the vines. having seen himself healed in a dream. But when he himself had come from Stauve to the house of this his kinsman, to do some of his own work, he found Remigius quite conveniently well. And to him relating what he had seen in sleep, and that he did not know who that St. Walher was; the mason told him that he rested in the parts of Dinant, and that his wife had promised to set out to him for the safety of her cows. And so Remigius's wife came to her sister at Stauve, and with her went to St. Walher. I was then absent from home: but she related what had been done to the Mambour of our village; and he, on my return, recounted it to me in the very same manner in which I had heard from the mason on the way, I John Auxbrebis.
[14] A memorial that Joanna Remy of Onhaye, married at Philippeville, related to me A cow fallen from a height is saved. that a certain soldier's wife had only one cow; which, returning in the evening from the pastures over the bridge of the town, another cow pushing it, fell into a very deep ditch. The woman therefore asked a certain carter to bring a cart and carry the fallen cow back home: but he answered that it could not be that one which had fallen from so high a place should be kept alive: wherefore he urged that, slaughtered on the spot, she sell it, or otherwise convert it to her own use: and thus the gates were closed. But when that poor little woman lamented her loss, the aforesaid Joanna urged that she invoke St. Walher. She obeyed with great confidence, and the next morning the cow was found standing safe and unharmed before the gate: wherefore that woman came to Onhaye, to give thanks to the Saint. Which I attest the aforesaid Joanna, daughter of Adam Remy and Barbara Adam, a woman worthy of faith, affirmed to me. John Auxbrebis.
[15] A memorial that when Henry Dion had come by vow to St. Walher, whither he had otherwise come on behalf of the inhabitants of his village, The mortality of cattle is stopped, because several horned beasts were dying there, I asked him whether that mortality still lasted; he answered that from that day on which he had come here, it had ceased; but that now he came by the vow of a certain woman, whose still-suckling calf had been reduced to death, and which she was dragging out of the stall, seized by the feet: when it came into her mind to invoke St. Walher, and to promise a pilgrimage to him, with a Mass to be said in his honor: a dying calf is saved, and immediately the calf raised its head: which, lifting up, she led to the manger, and goes on to rear it sound thenceforth; and this, she says, is the cause of my return here: and this happened around the year 1668. So it is, John Auxbrebis the Pastor. Moreover very many asserted to me that, carrying water from the fountain of St. Walher, and giving it to drink to a certain young man suffering fevers, son of a certain Giles or Lambert du Pachy of Marche, at the very moment in which the trembling seized him, they immediately drove the fever from him.
[16] Also in the year 1670 several citizens of Marche came here likewise as pilgrims, on the Sunday after the feast of St. Walher, in the Octave of St. Peter, a fever is driven off, of whom one, and likewise one young lady, asserted to me, after confession made, that in the preceding year she gave water brought from the aforesaid fountain to drink to many feverish persons, who, a Novena made, all recovered: which I testify I so heard, John Auxbrebis. A memorial: 2 dying cows rise up, that in the year 1671 the widow of the late Claude Lanoy, dwelling at Gerin, who was dragging out her cow which she believed dead, found it on the threshold of the door still somewhat breathing. And when she had thrust into it some bread blessed under the invocation of St. Walher, and helped it a little; it rose, and ate, to the astonishment of all who a little before had seen it rigid and as if dead. a stubborn rheum is taken away. That entirely the same had happened in the same place and in the same manner to another widow, Goselette de Livoy, several pilgrims coming thence asserted to me, John Auxbrebis, Curate of Onhaye, on this May 21, 1671, among whom were the children of the aforesaid widow, attesting the deed.
[17] In the year 1673 Leonard Ponslet, dwelling at Crupet of the domain of Liège, affirmed that, cast down by a certain grave rheum so that for nearly two months he had to keep his bed, because he could neither move himself nor turn from one side to the other without another's help. And when he had felt no relief from medicines or unctions applied to his loins; from a certain woman of the same village, who remembered herself cured by St. Walher, named Joanna, he received counsel to invoke him: wherefore he undertook a Novena of certain prayers to be recited in his honor. And this finished, he felt himself suddenly heard, and began to recover. Furthermore, confirmed, he came in person to give thanks, on March 19, the feast of St. Joseph: and since he did not know how to write, signing a Cross ✠ with his own hand, he gave faith to his words, before me and Agnes Auxbrebis and Margaret Francis, witnesses required for this by me, John Auxbrebis, Curate of Onhaye.
[18] Thus far the sheets of the aforenamed Parish-priest, rendered into Latin from the French autographs: Yet all these things are not reported as miracles: by whose example if the successor had persisted, by thus noting down certain principal and more attested things every year, this Collection could have turned out much more prolix: but his greater care was for adorning his church from the offerings. Perhaps also the aforesaid sheets had not yet come into his hands so that he might take an example from them: but since they were written outside the legal form, and without the presence of a Notary, nor corroborated by the authority of the ordinary, after the examination prescribed by Trent, let no one demand that that faith be given to them which is owed to duly approved miracles. because they are held only as described by private authority. Yet, considering the circumstances of a poor place, and of a time most disturbed amid resounding arms, I do not think those to be accused of excessive credulity by the discreetly prudent, who will piously judge that the relation of a good Pastor is to be esteemed truthful, although it is not yet legally defined whether the aforesaid cures are to be ascribed to miracles, or only to be numbered among the graces piously attributed to the intercessions of the Saint, as they were received by private authority and committed to those sheets. For the rest, I would advise those whom it concerns, henceforth to enter all things of this kind consequently into a book prepared for this, the form of law being observed as much as time and place will allow; from which thereafter let certain more notable and more attested things be separated, to be offered to the ordinary, that they may be published with the title of a miracle.
APPENDIX
On Onhaye and its situation, and the Confraternity of SS. Martin and Walher there.
Walher the Martyr, Pastor in the territory of Namur (St.)
FROM THE MANUSCRIPTS OF THE CURATE.
[19] As I wondered that in the topographical table of the County of Namur Onhaye was nowhere expressed, The situation of Onhaye, now a very slight village, and therefore desired to be more distinctly informed of its situation; the same Curate as above, Lord John Porineaux, wrote back that the place seemed to be passed over on account of its slightness; inasmuch as it numbers scarcely more than eighty communicants, and those of quite scanty fortune; so that from this the celebrity of a cult nonetheless most frequent is the more to be esteemed, and the care of the Pastors in adorning the church from the proceeds of the offerings, while they themselves, as among a poor populace, live content with little, more solicitous about spiritual food. Yet it must be that the village was once far more populous, since from its parish, others lying around and named in the table, were either once torn away, or even now depend on it. For Gerin, which is distant only a quarter of an hour toward the West from Onhaye, it had to be distinguished from its appendages. was reckoned to this before the year 1560; then the same, withdrawing itself by I know not what pretext or right, fifteen years after received as Pastor Lord John Haguenne, before that the Parson at Onhaye, by the authority of the most illustrious Hauvin, the first Bishop of Namur; who erected the Chapel of Gerin, the fourth of those subject to Onhaye, into a Parish. Another chapel of the same dependency at Wellien is distant half a league to the north, and even now is reckoned a daughter of the church of Onhaye, to which both infants are carried to be baptized, and those to be joined in matrimony have recourse to receive their testimonials, although a vicar Priest resides at Wellien. Freÿr too, a village on the Meuse with a castle, distant three-quarters from Onhaye, between South and East, is an appendage of our Parish, says the same Curate. But to the very south, one quarter or a little more, is the parish of Porenne. And from these four it is easy to find the situation of Onhaye itself, between the Sambre and the Meuse, distant a great hour from Dinant, and about half a league from each Hastière.
[20] But the same Church of Onhaye venerates as its first and older Patron St. Martin, The Confraternity of St. Walher Bishop of Tours, of whom it also possesses a notable Relic, namely a part of the Jaw, enclosed in a silver monstrance of old work, the gift of a noble matron, the Lady de Salmyr, who there at the Gospel side has an Epitaph in marble with arms. The same patronage of St. Martin the Fraternity there constituted in honor of St. Walher claims for itself, by the authority of the sixth Bishop of Namur, under the tenor of a diploma of this kind. "John Dauvin, by the grace of God and the Apostolic See Bishop of Namur, to all who shall see these things, who shall read them, and likewise who shall hear them read, greeting in the Lord. We willingly attend to those by whose help true piety toward God, and the veneration of His Saints, is not only kept whole, but also augmented and amplified with happy increases. Hence it is that, earnestly requested, on the part of our beloved in Christ the Pastor of Onhaye, that in his parish church we would wish and deign to erect a Confraternity or Sodality of the faithful of both sexes, under the title and honor of SS. Martin and Walher, and to ordain statutes to be observed by the Confreres; and since we have judged the said suppliant petition just and very useful to the salvation of souls, we willingly satisfied it, and the requested Confraternity, to the honor of SS. Martin and Walher, in the aforesaid church, by our ordinary authority, and by the tenor of the present, we have erected and established; and that according to the following statutes and rules.
[21] In the first place, those wishing to enter this Confraternity, shall give their names to be inscribed in the register of the Confreres; and its laws, and on the day of their entrance they shall confess, and be refreshed with holy Communion.
The Confreres shall also esteem it of their duty and office to be present devoutly at the sacred rites, and to accompany the processions, when they are held, with all modesty, and to follow and escort with a light the venerable Sacrament when it is carried to the sick.
On the first Sunday of each month, or otherwise at least once a month, they shall confess and be refreshed with holy Communion.
Let the Confreres also remember, on the day of their entrance, or at any other time, to bestow some alms, for the maintenance of the ornaments and other necessities of the church.
And since it is a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, as often as any of the Confreres shall have departed from this life, let them pour out pious prayers to God for the refreshment of his soul; let them be present, if they have leisure, at the Vigils and Masses; as also let them strive to the best of their power to be present at the general Anniversary, which will be celebrated once a year for the deceased Confreres.
[22] But that the faithful of Christ may the more willingly enter this Confraternity, the more they know that they are to be more liberally rewarded with spiritual goods and rewards; we, trusting in the mercy of almighty God, and the power of the keys handed by our Lord Jesus Christ to His blessed Apostles, and to their successors the Catholic Bishops, grant in the Lord to all Confreres, on the day of their entrance into the said sodality, confessed and refreshed with holy communion, forty days of true indulgence in the customary form of the church: likewise to the same, visiting the church of the said place, on the festivities of Saints Walher and Martin, and on the day of the Dedication of the same church, and Indulgences and to those who on the first Sunday of each month, or otherwise once a month, shall have communicated to the honor of the said Saints, we liberally impart another forty days of like indulgence. But to those who shall have accompanied the venerable Sacrament when it is carried to the sick, or, if impeded, shall have been unable to do this, shall have recited five times the Our Father and Hail Mary, or one Rosary, for the health of the sick person; and who shall have brought back the discordant to peace, and converted the erring to better things, and who shall take care that boys be present at the catechetical lesson, or shall teach them themselves, and who shall have visited the sick, and consoled and refreshed them with good admonitions or by their own means, if they need it, and who shall accompany the processions when they are held; granted in the year 1628 as often as they shall have done one of these things, we grant and impart in the Lord twenty days of indulgences. In faith of all which we have caused the present letters, subscribed by our own hand, to be corroborated by the appending of our seal. Given at Namur, July 17, the year 1628."
[23] In the sixth year after an institution of this kind, Pope Urban VIII, also asked to impart the effect of his munificence, caused a Brief of this kind to be issued for the aforesaid Confraternity, for the perpetual memory of the matter.
"Since, as we have received, in the parish church of Onhaye, of the diocese of Namur or another, one pious and devout Confraternity of the faithful of Christ of both sexes, under the invocation of St. Walher the Martyr, not however for men of one special craft, canonically instituted, exists; Urban VIII augments the same whose Confreres and Consoeurs have agreed to exercise very many works of piety and charity: we, that a Confraternity of this kind may receive greater increases day by day; trusting in the mercy of Almighty God and the authority of His blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, grant to all the faithful of Christ of both sexes, who shall enter the said Confraternity, on the first day of their entrance, if, truly penitent and confessed, they shall have received the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, a plenary indulgence; and also to the Confreres and Consoeurs described and to be described in the same Confraternity, in the article of death of any of them, if, truly penitent and confessed, and refreshed with holy Communion, or insofar as they cannot do this, at least contrite, they shall have devoutly invoked the Name of Jesus with the mouth, if they can, but if not, with the heart, also a plenary one: and to these now, and for the time being, Confreres and Consoeurs, also truly penitent and confessed, and refreshed with holy Communion, who shall have devoutly visited the Church or Chapel or Oratory of the aforesaid Confraternity, on the Sunday immediately following after the feast of the same St. Walher the Martyr, from the first Vespers to the setting of the sun of this feast, each year, and there shall have poured out pious prayers to God for the concord of Christian Princes, the extirpation of heresies, and the exaltation of holy Mother Church, we mercifully grant in the Lord likewise a plenary indulgence and remission of all their sins.
[24] Moreover to the same, truly penitent and confessed and refreshed with holy Communion, visiting a Church or Chapel or Oratory of this kind on the feast days of the Dedication of the same church, in the year 1634 of the Nativity and Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of St. Martin, as aforesaid, and praying, on the day they shall have done it, seven years and as many quarantines; but as often as they shall have been present at Masses and other divine Offices for the time being to be celebrated and recited in the said Church or Chapel or Oratory, or at public or private sermons of the same Confraternity to be made anywhere, or shall have received the poor into hospitality, or shall have made or caused or procured to be made peace among enemies, and also who shall have accompanied to burial the bodies of the deceased, both of Confreres and Consoeurs of this kind, and of others; or shall have accompanied any processions to be made with the license of the ordinary, and the most holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, both in processions, and when it is carried to the sick, or elsewhere wherever, and however for the time being it shall be carried, or if impeded, the bell-signal being given for this, shall have once said the Lord's Prayer and the Angelic Salutation, or also five times shall have recited the same prayer and salutation, for the souls of the deceased Confreres and Consoeurs aforesaid, or shall have brought back some stray one to the way of salvation, and shall have taught those ignorant of the precepts of God and the things that are for salvation, or shall have exercised any other work of piety or charity, as often, for any of the aforesaid works, we relax sixty days of the penances enjoined on them or in any way owed, in the customary form of the church, the present to be valid for perpetual times… Given at Rome at St. Mary Major, under the Fisherman's ring, on the 19th day of July, 1634, in the eleventh year of our Pontificate."