Spes

CONCERNING ST. SPES, ABBOT NEAR NURSIA IN ITALY.

YEAR 513

Spes, Abbot near Nursia in Italy (Saint)

[1] Among the patron Saints of the city and diocese of Nursia in Umbria, the Abbot St. Spes is reckoned, whose image is seen there in the hall of the forty Conservators of the Nursians with this inscription at the feet: St. Spes of Nursia, Abbot. The patronage and image of St. Spes He is depicted in a monastic habit of black with an aged face, wearing a miter on his head and holding an Abbatial staff in his hand. A similar image is also seen in the Eutychian monastery, about five or six miles distant from Nursia toward the north, which is traditionally said to have been originally founded by the said Abbot Spes: altar where his body was buried with due veneration in the underground church beneath the altar dedicated to the same Saint. But when in succeeding times a new church was built there, the body of St. Spes was elevated from its former place and enclosed in a marble mausoleum, and placed beneath the high altar. But the sacred head, then removed, translation of relics is preserved with other relics of this monastery with worthy honor and veneration. The feast of this translation is celebrated there with an Ecclesiastical Office under the double rite, and the proper lessons which are recited at Matins were approved at Rome by the Sacred Congregation of Rites in the year 1602. Ecclesiastical Office This Abbey of St. Euthymius is at this time commended and usually to one of the Cardinals, under whose jurisdiction a Prior and three secular Canons dwell in it. But for many centuries before, the order and rule of St. Benedict flourished in it: before whose birth the said monastery is said to have been built by the Abbot St. Spes around the year of Christ 471, according to Jacobilli in his work On the Saints and Relics of Umbria, monastery built around the year 471 from whom we have drawn what has been related thus far. The Abbot St. Spes lived forty-five years after building the monastery, of which he was blind for a full forty, dying according to Jacobilli's reckoning in the year 517. After one of his disciples had presided for about ten years, death in the year 517 the Abbot St. Euthymius succeeded around the year 526, but these matters can be discussed more accurately on the 23rd of May, the day on which the name of the Abbot St. Euthymius is inscribed in the sacred calendars. Concerning the Abbot St. Spes, the following is found in the Roman Martyrology at the 28th of March: name in the sacred calendars Near Nursia, St. Spes the Abbot, a man of wonderful patience, whose soul, when it was departing from this life, was seen by all the Brothers ascending to heaven in the form of a dove. Almost the same is read in the monastic Martyrologies of Wion, Dorgan, and Menard. We treated of a certain St. Spes the Confessor on the 28th of January on account of some of his relics, epitome of the Life written by St. Gregory which were transported from Aachen to Hartesburg, and when that was destroyed, to a certain neighboring monastery. But we were unable to determine that he was the same as this Abbot St. Spes. The notable virtues of this St. Spes were written by Pope St. Gregory in book 4 of the Dialogues, chapter 10, which others have everywhere copied from him, and which we give here.

EPITOME OF THE LIFE

From book IV of the Dialogues of St. Gregory, chapter X.

Spes, Abbot near Nursia in Italy (Saint)

[1] He builds a monastery: While I was still in the monastery, I learned what I am about to say from the account of a certain very venerable man. For he said that a venerable Father, named Spes, built a monastery in a place called Campi, which is separated from the ancient city of Nursia by an intervening distance of about six miles.

[2] The almighty and merciful God protected him by chastising him with an eternal scourge, blindness of 40 years and preserved for him the greatest security and grace of His dispensation, and showed how much He loved him first by chastising, and afterwards by perfectly healing him. For He pressed his eyes with the darkness of continuous blindness for a period of forty years, opening to him no light even of the slightest vision. But because no one stands firm in the scourge when His grace abandons him, and unless the same merciful Father who inflicts the punishment also bestows patience, soon through impatience the very correction of sins increases sin for us, and it comes about in a wretched way that our fault, from which it ought to have hoped for an end, takes increase from it: for this reason God, beholding our infirmities, mixes custody with His scourges, and in His striking He is now mercifully just to His elect children, patiently endures so that there may be those to whom He must afterwards be justly merciful. Whence, while He pressed the venerable old man with exterior darkness, He never deprived him of interior light. While he was wearied by the scourge of the body, he had consolation of the heart through the guardianship of the Holy Spirit. But when the time of the fortieth year in blindness had been completed, with sight restored, he visits the monasteries the Lord restored his light, and announced to him his approaching death, and admonished him to preach the word of life to the monasteries built round about: so that, having received the light of the body, by visiting the Brothers in the surrounding area he might open the light of the heart. And immediately obeying the commands, he went around the monasteries of the Brothers, and preached the precepts of life which he had learned by doing.

[4] On the fifteenth day, therefore, the preaching having been completed, he returned to his monastery, having received the Eucharist, he dies and there, having called the Brothers together and standing in their midst, he received the Sacrament of the Lord's Body and Blood, and immediately began to sing with them the mystical chants of the Psalms: and while they were singing, intent on prayer, he gave back his soul. All the Brothers who were present saw a dove go forth from his mouth, which immediately, going out through the opened roof of the oratory, penetrated heaven as the Brothers watched. a dove flying out from his mouth It is to be believed that his soul appeared in the form of a dove so that Almighty God might show by this very form with how simple a heart that man had served Him.