ON ST. SISEBUTUS, ABBOT OF CARDEÑA IN SPAIN.
YEAR 1082.
CommentarySt. Sisebutus, Abbot, at Cardeña in Spain.
[1] Cardeña is an ancient monastery among the people of Burgos in Old Castile, destroyed in the year 834 by the Mohammedan King Zapha, when, as will be told on August 6, two hundred monks were killed in hatred of the Christian religion. It was afterwards begun to be restored around the year 884 by order of Alfonso III, called the Great, and around the year 900 was finally inhabited. All these things are set forth at greater length by Prudencio de Sandoval in a separate treatise on this monastery of Cardeña, dedicated to St. Peter. Afterwards there lived as Abbot of this monastery St. Sisebutus, who died on March 15, on which day he is inscribed in the Spanish Martyrology of Tamayo Salazar with these words: Sacred veneration "At Burgos in Hither Spain, of St. Sisebutus the Abbot, who, after he had governed the monastery of St. Peter of Cardeña for several years with admirable skill and had led an angelic and blameless life, conspicuous for the honor of piety and most celebrated for the performance of miracles, he merited the eternal acclaim of sanctity." More modestly Ménard in the monastic Martyrology: "In the monastery of Cardeña in Spain, of St. Sisebutus the Abbot." Bucelin gathers somewhat more. He is also venerated as a Saint by the already mentioned Sandoval and by Antonio de Yepes
in volume 6 of the Benedictine Chronicle, at the year 1076, chapter 2. The Acts of St. Sisebutus are preserved in the monastery of Cardeña on very ancient parchment, Life which Yepes testifies he received from there through Father Friar Juan de Arévalo, and published in the Spanish language; which in turn Tamayo had translated back into Latin, from which we publish them here.
"Sisebutus, who was the third Abbot, in the time of Bishop Don Gometius, flourished in the reigns of Ferdinand I, Sancho II, and partly in the reign of Alfonso VI, and governed this monastery of St. Peter of Cardeña for several courses of time, Virtues in governance conducting himself in the discipline of life, in the completion of religion, in the observance of the Rule, in the morals of the monks, in the care of the monastery, and in the exercise of his ministry, in such a way that to this day there is scarcely the memory of anyone who, before him or after him, so maintained monastic integrity or more felicitously carried out the standard of the institute. Those who lived in his company entirely neglected to commit to writing the order of his life, nor did they record for posterity the miracles which God performed through his intercession. There was therefore at that time among us a common negligence and a universal listlessness, just as there is now a lamentable indolence of our elders. And although diligence was lacking on papyrus documents, nevertheless they commended the greatness of the holy Abbot's sanctity to marble sarcophagi. For they did not bury his body among the other Abbots of the monastery, but, having deposited him in a tomb different from theirs, they offered him the veneration due to a Blessed one. The most holy Abbot Sisebutus died on the fifteenth of March in the Year of the Lord 1082. Burial The sacred relics lay in the chapel of St. James in a stone monument under a marble arch, where they remained exposed to the veneration of all. A paralytic woman is healed How many afflicted people, coming to his tomb, were freed from all miseries, and having fulfilled their vow, returned in good spirits! The miracle of Doña María Franca is remembered: she, deprived of her limbs by paralysis, daily commending her affliction to Blessed Sisebutus and clinging to his tomb, was immediately freed from her bonds and walked freely and nimbly through the church, giving thanks to God. Likewise a paralytic and a mute man This most illustrious woman, mindful of so great a benefit, had a hospice built at her own expense near the entrance to the Chapel for the aid of pilgrims, on the flat surface of whose wall she had the miracle expressed in the excellent colors of painting. And she set a lamp to burn perpetually before the holy Abbot's urn, and endowed it with a regular payment, and donated other things not to be despised by hereditary right — until, taken from the living, she ordered herself to be buried within the entrance of the hospice she had built, beneath the painting of the miracle. Tradition also still observes and affirms other miracles: namely of a certain paralytic and another mute man, who — the one his feet, the other his tongue — received back. The body is placed on the high altar After some time, during which the Saint's remains had been venerated there with honorable devotion and visited day and night by pilgrims attracted both by the affection of devotion and the reputation of miracles, the monks transferred the sacred relics from the Chapel of St. James, enclosed in an honorable and decorated reliquary, to the high altar beside the tabernacle of the sacrarium, where they rest."
[2] Moreover, as Tamayo adds, both before and after the translation, the Convent used to go every Saturday after the Office of Vespers to the sacred relics, where an antiphon and prayer were sung in its own proper form. Invocation of patronage Furthermore, in the Breviary of the year 1327, the name of St. Sisebutus is read in the Litanies among the Confessors, and in the Suffrages of the Saints with its own proper Collect. The same things are found in the Breviary revised in the year 1498.