ON BL. JULIAN URIUS, AT PADUA IN ITALY.
CommentaryBl. Julian Urius, at Padua in Italy.
[1] The city of Padua, among the Cisalpine cities at once the most ancient and the most noble, imbued with the Christian faith by St. Prosdocimus, disciple of the Apostle Peter, Amid the frequent destructions of Padua manifold ruin afflicted again and again, but never so overthrew it that, when its inhabitants returned to their desolate seats, it did not rise again restored from its ashes. The temples suffered the same fortune as the city, and so did the bodies of the Saints religiously preserved in the temples: of which some, God preserving them and wonderfully revealing them for the consolation of the afflicted citizens, were restored to their former honor and to the altars; others were restored with even greater magnificence than ever before: the bodies of the Saints preserved. above all the most august basilica of St. Justina, which, visiting it in the year 1660, we admired with a singular sense of most delightful pleasure: yet in such a way that we grieved vehemently that the loss of the ancient records once written of those Saints whose bodies were distributed there among the altars could not be repaired in like manner. Yet not a few things survive here and there which may soften the longing for the missing Acts, and above all the history of the finding of SS. Maximus, Julian and Felicity.
[2] This, then, we receive from Cavaccio, an author indeed hitherto unknown to us, History of the finding in the year 147 but whose words, transcribing the matter as it was done from another, old, and perhaps then living author, we find faithfully counted out in Ferdinando Ughelli, volume 5 of Italia Sacra, column 414, where he treats of Bernard Maltraversus, in the year 1048 transferred from the most ancient family of the Counts of Padua to the insignia of the Church of Padua, and illustrating it for nine years with a remarkable praise of piety and glory of deeds. His labors, the Bishop being admonished through a vision, says the cited Cavaccio, which were to be compensated by eternal reward after his death, God willed to refresh with spiritual consolation even among mortals. Once, while the Bishop slept, an old man stood by him, displaying a heroic majesty and dignity beyond the condition of men, and asserted that he had come as a messenger from God, that the bodies of certain Saints should be dug out from hidden places, which, received with fitting veneration, would be a protection to the city of Padua, and, once subjected to dire things, would expiate it by their own merits. Then the Bishop seemed to have gone down with him into the church of St. Justina, and is bidden to look at the place between the altar of the holy Mother of God and the tomb of Blessed Prosdocimus; where were the bodies of St. Julian and of three Innocents, which the same man, having often set out to Jerusalem for the sake of devotion, had brought back to Padua. Then, under the old man's guidance, near the doors of the oratory on the left, he is taught that the bodies of St. Maximus the Bishop and of Felicity the Virgin were hidden: soon the sight of the old man and his sleep departed. who, a fast having first been held Bernard perceived from this that a divine matter was afoot, one which was to be sought from the very author of all good things with still greater observances. And so, having communicated to the Clergy and religious men what he had seen in his sleep, he also proclaimed a sacred fast to the people. When three days had passed, the same people came in throngs to the church of St. Justina, where Bernard, having celebrated the sacred rites, delivered a sermon to them, and besought God the best and greatest to be propitious to himself and to the people for these things.
[3] Taking a mattock, he began to dig in the places indicated in his sleep: he orders digging. following his example, very many religious men, after they had dug beyond six feet, found three marble chests fastened with iron clamps: and there are found St. Maximus, from which suddenly a very great splendor and a most sweet odor suffused the oratory. When the splendor had passed, the chests were opened: of which the first held the body of St. Maximus, and at his head a carved stone: Here rests Maximus, the second Bishop from Prosdocimus, who gave the life of this world to the Lord, that he might merit to have the everlasting life in the heavens. Another held the whole body of a man, and, set apart, the bones of three boys, with this inscription: Blessed Julian with 3 Innocents, Here is laid Julian, a most Christian man, who, when he had often returned from the sepulcher of the Lord, and Blessed Felicity: and at length had brought three Innocents with him, went forth to Christ: wherefore, placed together, they rest here. In another, in which the body of a woman was enclosed, was read: Here is buried Felicity, an illustrious woman, dedicated by the sacred veil, who, persevering day and night in the service of God, has been received into the heavens.
The inscriptions, as they savor of the same author, so also of the same age; namely, that in which the sacred bodies were hidden for fear of the barbarians. Of Blessed Julian, beyond what is related also by Scardeone, we have nothing. Ungacellus writes that Blessed Felicity presided over the nuns of the convent of St. Justina: Scardeone, that she led the eremitic life on the mountain of Robello. The bodies of the Saints, more fittingly placed, then shone forth with many miracles; whom Leo IX, passing through Padua, and very many blind, deaf and infirm are read in the Acts to have recovered, and many also possessed by demons to have received back their former quiet. These things are done in the year 1053, the 14th year of the Emperor Henry II, in which Pope Leo turned aside from Pannonia to Padua: where, received by Bernard, he is informed of the most recent revelation of the Saints and of the miracles wrought daily. enrolls among the Saints. These things moved Leo to learn of them in person, and to entreat the Saints of God as companions of the journey he had undertaken. Approaching the church of Blessed Justina, he blessed John the Abbot and the monks prostrate at his sacred feet, offered sacrifice with solemn rite, and released the city from anathema. And that the memory of the Saints might be more celebrated everywhere, he enrolled them in the Album of the Saints and honored them with a feast day: which is held solemn among us to this day on the 4th of the Nones of August: namely, the day on which their relics were found.
[5] So far he. Nearly the same things are written by Scardeone, who professes that they are had from ancient and trustworthy records: but while, having read these with a lighter eye, he tries to comprise them in his own briefer style, Scardeone's narration varies here and there: some circumstances of the matters and persons have been omitted which contribute not a little to the completeness of the narrative: and this above all, the chief point, what we have already heard about the three chests and as many inscriptions, has been changed in this way: A marble chest bound round with iron plates is dug up, which still survives, and a stone tablet carved with these letters: Maximus, second Bishop of Padua. Julian the Patrician, a noble man, who brought these holy Innocents here from Jerusalem, and Felicity, consecrated to God. The same writer had said before: that the aforesaid bodies had lain hidden within the altar of St. Mary the Virgin and of St. Prosdocimus: a conjecture about their age which he had read of Julian and the Innocents alone: and that they had once been buried there at the time of the destruction by Attila: which, although we do not wish to deny it, yet we do not dare to affirm it with enough certainty from this conjecture of his, perhaps. For after Padua was destroyed by sword and flame by Attila in the year 452, and after a continuous desolation of almost a hundred years, it was restored by Narses, and again overthrown by Agilulf, King of the Lombards, in the year 601: finally, after their empire was later destroyed, restored under Charlemagne and the Kings of the Franks, and twice burned by the Hungarians; and again rebuilt by the Germans who succeeded in the kingdom of Italy, it recovered its former beauty and splendor, not well enough founded. as Ughelli writes, comprising much in few words. And so it remains uncertain not only whether Julian and Felicity lived before Attila and were buried there, but even whether at all long before the irruptions of the Hungarians, which in the years 2, 24 and