ON SAINT LUKE CASALIUS, ABBOT OF AGIRA IN SICILY.
Preliminary Commentary.
Luke Casalius, Abbot of Agira in Sicily (Saint)
[1] Luke Casalius is venerated with ecclesiastical worship by the citizens of Nicosia and of Agira in Sicily: the former because they consider him born in their city; the latter because they had him as Abbot of the monastery of Saint Philip, famous for miracles, enrolled him among the saints of heaven, and have preserved his sacred body until now. Nicosia, Saint Luke born at Nicosia, or Nicosinum, is a populous and large town in the inland territory of the Val Demone, which Lombards and Gauls, as Fazellus testifies in his work on Sicilian affairs, Book 10 of the first decade, brought to Sicily with Count Roger, inhabited promiscuously, and its inhabitants still use the speech of both nations, albeit corruptly. That not far from Nicosia there are remains of a most ancient city, or at Herbita: the neighboring peoples attest, asserts Octavius Caietanus in the Life of this Saint, and it is believed that Nicosia was built from the stones of that ancient city, and that it was Herbita, mentioned by Cicero, Pliny, Diodorus Siculus, Ptolemy, and other authors; which they affirm was the homeland of Saint Luke according to ancient verses placed next to his image, which cannot even be read in their entirety:
Cities exult in their citizens; Herbita more, famous for its Saint Luke Casalius, its own illustrious native. Mocked by his brothers ... the orphan proclaims When the end is made, Amen, a new thing, the stones resound.
The same Caietanus, because in the Acts below he is said to have been born at Nicosia, reports in his Sicilian Martyrology at this day the following: At Nicosia, of Saint Luke the Abbot, Venerated on March 2, surnamed Casalius, of the Order of Saint Benedict, and adds that he is venerated with the permission of the Apostolic See. Menard transcribes Caietanus's Martyrology in his Benedictine Martyrology. Rocco Pirro in Book 3 of his Sacred Sicily, first notice, also indicates that his feast day is more solemnly celebrated on March 2 among his fellow Nicosians with papal permission. A church erected to him: The Acts to be given below add that a church was established by the Nicosians for their citizen Saint Luke, at the place where he had preached a sermon while the stones cried out.
[2] In the same district of Sicily, another city not very far from ancient Herbita and modern Nicosia is Agira, set upon a very lofty and pointed hill of the Val di Noto; which Cicero, Ptolemy, and other ancients have mentioned. In Stephanus's work On Cities it is written Agyrena: Abbot of the monastery of Saint Philip at Agira: whence the common modern name Agira seems to be derived. In the Acts below, Saint Luke is said to have been brought to Argyrium, to the monastery of Saint Philip. There is, says Fazellus in the already cited Book 10, at Agira a church of Saint Philip, most celebrated for the frequency of miracles and so renowned for the concourse of people that the very city has commonly derived from it the name of Saint Philip. Saint Philip, as the tables of the Roman Martyrology attest at May 12, was sent by the Roman Pontiff to that island and converted a great part of it to Christ. The rest, concerning the time of Saint Philip's mission, will need to be examined in his Acts. We read below in the Acts that the body of Saint Luke is kept in the same chest with Saint Philip the Priest. But Caietanus, Pirro, and others report another Philip the Deacon, born at Palermo, a disciple of the former, to whom perhaps the body of Saint Luke was joined. Certainly if Pirro is to be believed, in the upper chamber were found the bodies of Blessed Philip the Younger, a Deacon, of the monk Eusebius, and of the Abbot Luke; which from July 25 of the year 1596 began to be exposed for veneration in a nobler place. In it the body was elevated in 1596: In the same year, on January 21, in the lower chamber,
the sacred body of Saint Philip was unexpectedly found, and on July 15 of the year 1617 it was enclosed in a silver chest with solemn ceremony. So writes Pirro, who then, presenting a compendium of the Life of Saint Luke, narrates things which nearly all pertain to Saint Leo Luke, whose Acts we gave on the Kalends of March: such as the parents Leo and Theotistis, the eightieth year of monastic profession, the hundredth year of age, the Abbot Theodore appointed as successor, and Euthymius given to him as an assistant.
[3] A monk, a man worthy of his name, Bonus, is said below to have written the Life of Saint Luke: Life written: but we do not believe it has been found to date. Caietanus published the compendium of the Life which we give from Nicosian manuscripts written by hand, but, he says, written in barbarous language, and for that reason somewhat polished by him. Gabriel Bucelin in his Benedictine Menology presents another compendium of the Life, into which he inserted the encomium of Saint Leo Luke, Abbot of Mulea, the very same which we published on the Kalends of March from Lessons translated from the Greek, from Ferrarius, having supposed them to be one and the same man, This is wonderfully confused by Bucelin with the Acts of Saint Leo Luke: and that this Saint Luke, Abbot at Agira, died in the monastery of Saint Philip, and that Saint Leo Luke died in Hither Calabria, whose body, subsequently translated to the city of Monteleone, is preserved there to this day, just as the sacred bones of this holy Abbot Luke are exposed for veneration at Agira in his monastery. About these Bucelin thus begins: At Nicosia, of Saint Luke the Abbot, that is, of whom we treat here. Leo, who is also Luke (namely the Abbot in Calabria), surnamed Casalius, formerly Abbot in Sicily. Born at Corleone in Sicily of Christian and honorable parents, etc. — which, along with twenty-six lines that do not pertain here, are copied from the Life of the said Saint Leo Luke, or certainly piously drawn from it, such as these words: He was a great consolation to all who came to him, and he sent no one away from himself sad. Then, after narrating the miracles of Saint Leo Luke, he returns to this holy Abbot with these words: He reached a decrepit age, and finally, blinded by a film over his eyes, etc., down to the words: Holy Father, pray for us — which are given presently in the Life of Saint Luke the Abbot in Sicily. But what follows: When he had reached the hundredth year of age — down to the words: a fragrance of scent filling the cell — must be assigned from here to Saint Leo Luke in Calabria. Then the following is read: He was enrolled by the Supreme Pontiff in the number of the Saints, in whose honor the Nicosians built a church at the place called Amen — which from the above is certainly pertinent here; but the following pertains to Saint Leo Luke: And his memory is held celebrated in the city of Monteleone and the entire diocese of Mileto, and especially at Corleone. Behold what great confusion of matters, in confirmation of which Bucelin adds that he has the following from Sicilian records of Marchesius, Const. Caiet., Octav. Caiet., Philip. Ferrar., Hugh Menard, and the Annals of the great Benedictines. We omit these Annals of Bucelin lest the reader be overwhelmed with tedium; the words of Menard and Ferrarius in his General Catalog, both of whom distinguish the two, we have given both on the preceding day and on this one, together with the already cited Lessons translated from the Greek and published by the same Ferrarius in the Catalog of Saints of Italy, but which concern only Saint Leo-Luke. Octavius Caietanus, besides the Idea of Sicilian Saints published by him, had prepared two volumes recently published by Peter Salerno; which Constantinus Caietanus, brother of Octavius, had long kept in his possession. Marchesius was a subject and study companion of the Abbot Constantinus, and the heir of his many writings, which after the latter's death Bucelin obtained, and perhaps among them the Life of Saint Luke copied from the books of Octavius, because this one was believed to have been of the Order of Saint Benedict, and Saint Leo Luke to belong to the monks of Saint Basil.
[4] In what age or under what ruler Saint Luke flourished, Octavius Caietanus laments that neither from the author of the Life can it be ascertained, The time when he lived is uncertain; nor could he explore it by any other means. What if he lived in the city of Herbita, not yet destroyed, before the incursion of the Saracens? Then he would more conveniently have obtained the same burial as the monk Saint Eusebius, having professed the regular discipline of Saint Basil at approximately the same times, as the above-cited Pirro notes about Eusebius. But since the Acts report that he was born in the town of Nicosia, and that Saint Luke was brought to Nicosia in his old age to console his relatives and kinsmen, Octavius Caietanus considers that he lived after Count Roger founded Nicosia — if indeed it was then founded, since Fazellus only says that Lombards and Gauls, brought to Sicily with Count Roger, inhabited it promiscuously. Why should the manuscript Benedictine Chronicle, written around the year 1483, found in the same Octavius, volume 2, page 32, not be considered to treat of this Saint, in these words? Saint Luke, Abbot of the monastery of Saint Philip at Agira, located in Sicily, a man of admirable holiness, on the Kalends of March according to Usuard (or certainly the Martyrology of Usuard there augmented) departed to heaven — perhaps written as the day after the Kalends of March. The same Octavius lists this holy Abbot Luke in the Chronological Index at the year 800. So much for the time, whence it remains equally doubtful to which Order he should be assigned. Rocco Pirro, Abbot of Noto, at the frequently cited passage writes the following about Agira: as well as to which Order he belonged. That church, built in the form of a Cross by Belisarius and dedicated to Saint Philip, now collapsed, is being restored with new buildings and augmented with a monastery of Basilian monks. On the contrary, Octavius thinks that from the time of Count Roger that monastery was inhabited by Benedictine monks; to whom, if they shed greater light on this history, posterity will owe thanks.
LIFE
Extracted from manuscripts by Octavius Caietanus and published in a more polished style.
Luke Casalius, Abbot of Agira in Sicily (Saint)
BHL Number: 4979
[1] Luke, surnamed Casalius, was born in the town of Nicosia. Saint Luke Casalius born at Nicosia: From his earliest age he devoted himself to letters, educated under a venerable man who was the head of the monastery of Saint Philip at Agira, who at that time was residing in the suburb of Nicosia called Saint Michael. In his tenth year he was brought by the same master to the monastery of Saint Philip at Agira, A monk at Agira, where, ardently desiring to devote himself to God, he took the monastic habit.
[2] As a youth, having earned the good will of all by nothing but the highest virtues, A Priest, he shines with virtues and miracles: and pleasing both God and the monks, he was enrolled among the Priests. In the Priest such qualities of character and piety of soul shone forth that all accordingly ran to him as to a Father; whom he not only consoled with his words but also assisted with signs and sent away; nor did he suffer anyone to depart from him sad.
[3] From this it came about that no one else, with the willing approval and especially the earnest desire of all, passed to the headship of the monastery; but when the Abbot died, Luke was chosen by the burning votes and zeal of the monks to succeed in his place. He reluctantly accepts the headship of the monastery: He alone, out of his modesty, resisted and protested that he was not worthy of that honor. Therefore, as he stubbornly refused the office entrusted to him, that community of monks referred the matter to the Supreme Pontiff; to whose will Luke, being obedient, He becomes blind: accepted the headship of the monastery even against his will. While he administered it with great praise, he was deprived of his sight by a film over his eyes, so that the virtues of the holy Abbot might be tested by God through the affliction of blindness.
[4] One day Luke was returning from Nicosia, where he had been brought to console his relatives and kinsmen. He goes to Nicosia: By chance on the road a desire to mock the old man seized the monks who were his companions of the journey. Having left the town, Deceived by the monks, they stop beside a spring; they give mocking words to the blind man and persuade him that a multitude of townspeople is following, drawn by the desire to hear the Abbot preaching; let him therefore ascend the nearest hill and feed the people, eager for the word of life. The pious man readily obeys; He preaches with no one present, but God, showing that He was mocked in the mocking of one who bore His vicarious office, by one and the same deed both rebuked the monks' license and demonstrated the holiness of His servant Luke.
[5] For when he had preached to the people standing around him, as he had been persuaded to believe, The stones responding Amen: after he had finished speaking and concluded his address with the customary formula, "Through all ages of ages," all the surrounding stones responded, "Amen, Amen." The monks, terrified by the so dreadful voice, fell down; then on bended knees they cried out: Holy Father, pray to God for us, against whom we have sinned by mocking you. To those begging pardon he kindly answered: May God forgive you, my sons.
[6] Then, mounting their mules, they resumed their journey; and when the monks arrived at the monastery of Agira, He returns to Agira: they freely spread abroad the miracle that had happened, extolling God and the holiness of the old man; indeed they so corrected themselves for the better that whenever they began a conversation with the Abbot, they would always say: Holy Father, pray for us.
[7] The old man dies. Luke departed to the Lord in a good old age, on the 6th of the Nones of March, in the monastery of Saint Philip at Agira. His body is preserved there in the same chest with Saint Philip the Priest. He was enrolled in the number of the Saints by the Supreme Pontiff, at the earnest request of the town of Agira. A monk, a man worthy of his name, Bonus, wrote the Life of Blessed Luke; but the Nicosians, wishing to honor their homeland and their fellow citizen, established a church to Saint Luke at the place where he had preached his sermon while the stones cried out, which would proclaim the prodigy to posterity, to the glory of God, who reigns through all ages.