ON BL. GODFREY, PRESBYTER OF THE CISTERCIAN ORDER,
AT VILLERS IN BRABANT.
ABOUT THE END OF THE 12TH CENTURY OR THE BEGINNING OF THE 13TH.
PRELIMINARY COMMENTARY.
The Blessed man's Life, Age, Commemoration and various Translations, and sacred Memory.
Godfrey, presbyter of the Cistercian Order, at Villers in Brabant. (B.)
BY J. B.
God in His providence, says Fisen in book XI of the History of the Church of Liège at the year 1197, raised up most sweet men, [A French Life of the Blessed man exists in d'Assignies; a Latin one in a Ms. of Rouge-Cloître] who, while the principal pillars of the church of Liège neglected their parts, should not only sustain Christian discipline as it tottered, but also adorn it with most illustrious examples. Of this kind the cenobium of the Cistercian institute of Villers (whose site and origin Papebroch relates in Tome V of June, page 606) produced not a few above all. To pass over the Charleses, Conrads, Abundiuses and Arnulfs who illumined Villers with the splendour of their virtues about these times, our Godfrey above all confirms the saying of Fisen, famous for the integrity of his life, for gifts received from heaven, and for the glory of prodigies. His manuscript Life is read to have existed at Villers, written in the Latin tongue almost from the time of his death, which John d'Assignies published in French in the last century, as Manrique witnesses at the year of Christ 1170, chap. 6; with some things, however, added at the end which happened much later, unless perhaps he published another Life of Godfrey besides that which he inserted in book 1 of the Monks of the sacred Cistercian Order, chap. 46. There is extant with us also a certain manuscript Life, excerpted from the Ms. of Rouge-Cloître, part 1 of the Novale of the Saints, as the note prefixed to it in the margin has, which agrees plainly with that which John d'Assignies, praised above, published, if you take away the things which were added at the end and are to be referred to more recent times.
[2] As regards its antiquity, I will not deny that it is later than the year 1333, written about the year 1333; if, however, one and the same author carried the deeds of the abbots of Villers up to the year 1333 and wrote the Life of Godfrey: for the author of the book on the Deeds of the illustrious men of the cenobium of Villers, from whose chap. 4 the Life of Godfrey is taken, professes in the preface that he did not come down to describing the illustrious deeds of the monks and lay brothers of the cenobium of Villers until he had in some fashion dispatched the narration of certain deeds of the venerable abbots of Villers, which extends to the year of the Lord 1333, in which John of Brussels was elected thirtieth abbot of Villers. Yet some indication of greater antiquity occurs in the Life of Godfrey. Behold it: immediately after narrating Godfrey's death the author subjoins this: His body having been stripped for washing, his back was found so livid with the strokes of rods that we all marvelled; of how great religiousness, how great holiness, how fervent in the discipline of the Order he was, the Lord does not cease to show to this very day through his sacred relics. Lately his sacred bones were raised by revelation and placed in the sacristy. He who was occupied in writing Chronicles about the year 1333 could not have stood by the dying Godfrey, nor have mentioned as though it had lately happened the elevation of the body, which Caesarius had already committed to writing a whole century before. But our Dolman rightly observes and proves in tome IV of August, page 372, that it is not unusual for this writer to say that things befell himself and his own which befell his cenobium even at a time when he was not yet a part of it. Besides, this text, as much of it as there is, seems to have been transferred hither from elsewhere by I know not whom: Caesarius indeed relates almost all these things in the same words (in whom, however, is read: they would marvel), and they are lacking in the Life of Godfrey in Martène, tome 3 of the Anecdota. That he lived in the thirteenth century, and had conversation with Gisla, a contemporary of Godfrey, who could have seen and known him, these words of his betray not obscurely: I heard from the same (Gisla) that by the touch of his (Godfrey's) garment the desired health was restored to many sick and languishing. Further, that Gisla already from the year 1201 founded the abbey of La Cambre near Brussels will be plain below.
[3] and in Martène, a certain mistake of whose is uncovered: Caesarius also mentions Godfrey in book 1 of the Dialogues, chap. 35, about 25 years after he flourished. For we shall say below that Godfrey flourished about the year of Christ 1197. And Caesarius, in book 10 of the Dialogues, chap. 48, testifies that he wrote them in the year 1222. Add to these the Life which Martène exhibits in tome 3 of the Anecdota, History of Villers, book 2, chap. 4, from a manuscript codex of the monastery of Bonnefontaine of the Cistercian Order in the diocese of Reims; in which, if it is compared with ours, the deeds are the same, and the words here and there the same: yet some things are to be read in ours which this leaves untouched. The author of book 2 of the aforesaid History seems to have been no other than he who carried the Chronicles of the cenobium of Villers to the year 1333: for so he speaks in the Prologue: Having dispatched in some fashion the narration of certain Deeds of the venerable abbots of Villers, let us come down to describing the illustrious deeds of the strong and virtuous men, namely of the monks and lay brothers of the same cenobium. And below: And first indeed we shall set out the Life of the most reverend lord Charles, eighth abbot of Villers, more fully than it was described in its place, because, etc. But that he lived in the time of Abbot William, who took up the pastoral staff in the year 1221 and bore it until the year 1236, Martène wrongly gathers in the prefatory Admonition from certain texts which he falsely thinks to be this author's, since they are known to be of Cantipratanus, On Bees, book 1, chap. 9; likewise book 2, chap. 25 and 26.
[4] In what year of Christ Godfrey first saw the light the cited monuments are silent, as are the other authors whom I have seen. He had Cologne of Agrippina as his homeland, where he laid the foundations of the sacred warfare in the monastery of St. Pantaleon of the Order of St. Benedict; but thence, somewhat later, led by the desire of a holier life and by divine guidance, he passed over to the monks of Villers, [and each relates that the Blessed man flourished about the year 1197 and died a little after Caesarius,] probably about the year of the Lord 1170, says Manrique in the Cistercian Annals at this year, chap. 6, while Gerald held the prelacy. The same perhaps seemed right to Miraeus in the Cistercian Chronicle, and in the Belgian and Burgundian Fasti, and to others, who wrote that Godfrey flourished about this year. That he lived and was famous while Charles, the eighth abbot, presided over the monks of Villers is certain and indubitable from the Acts; namely about the year 1197, in which it is clear from the Chronicle of Villers that Charles succeeded Abbot William; and to which year Fisen, in the Flowers of the church of Liège (from whose diocese Villers has now been transferred to that of Namur), at the 2nd day of October, fixed Godfrey's coming to the monks of Villers, perhaps later than is right. That Godfrey's death fell on the Monday of Easter is drawn from the Life: but the year of his death is uncertain. It could be fixed in some fashion if it were established who that Caesarius was, and when he died, whom, the Life narrates, Godfrey did not long survive.
[5] Was it Caesarius of Heisterbach, whom Miraeus in the Ecclesiastical Library reports to have completed the third book on the Life and Passion of St. Engelbert, not of Heisterbach, as d'Assignies, Miraeus archbishop of Cologne, in the year of the Lord 1237? So indeed John d'Assignies in the Life of Godfrey, or whoever is the author of the Notes added in the margin. But if this is so, how could Caesarius have narrated the death of Godfrey and made mention of his relics, while he himself was surviving? Miraeus also reports in the Cistercian Chronicle that he was of Heisterbach; but I, with Henriquez in the Cistercian Menology at the XXIII of February, and with Fisen in part 1 of the Paralipomena, judge that the two are to be distinguished. Let us hear Miraeus. He (Caesarius of Heisterbach), he says, was Prior of Villers under William, VII abbot of Villers, formerly prior of Heisterbach, and he was very familiar with the venerable Godfrey. Concerning whom and other monks of Villers the same Caesarius records many things in his books of Dialogues. But whence did Miraeus draw these things? From the manuscript Chronicle of Villers, he says. What if I should prove the opposite, partly from the Chronicle of Villers, partly from Caesarius himself? Behold the words of the Chronicle of Villers: Under him (Abbot William, the VII) the ninth Prior was Caesarius, of whom it is written in the Life of the lord Godfrey the sacristan, laid up behind the rails of the high altar: of whom also Caesarius writes praiseworthy things in his treatise. You see that that first Caesarius discharged the office of Prior under Abbot William the VII, and so before the year 1197, in which Charles, William's successor, was raised to the dignity of abbot. Let us now go to Caesarius: in book 2, chap. 10, he has thus: It is now the twenty-second year, more or less, from the time at which I came to the Order, which was the one thousand two hundredth
less one from the Incarnation of the Lord. Either, therefore, Caesarius of Heisterbach acted as Prior of Villers while not yet enrolled among the Cistercians, or faith must be denied him when he speaks of himself, both of which are absurd, or he must be distinguished from him of whom the Chronicle of Villers speaks.
[6] Whence you may also correct Manrique, who at the year 1201, chap. 5, num. 6, warns and Manrique would have it, but of Villers, that John d'Assignies must be corrected in the Life of Godfrey, in so far as he says that Caesarius, who had discharged the office of Prior in the same house, and had died long since (read: not long since, depuis naguères), stood by Godfrey, appearing in the infirmary, as he was dying: for, he says, Caesarius, who writes of Godfrey's death and of the elevation that followed after his death, could not have died before him. That is right indeed: but the things which d'Assignies narrates of Caesarius are to be understood not of the Caesarius of Heisterbach, but of the other one, of Villers. Likewise at num. 6 he partly agrees with Miraeus, partly contradicts him: agrees, when he writes: It is nevertheless true, as Aubert Miraeus narrates, taken from the Chronicle of Villers, that Caesarius (namely of Heisterbach) was very familiar with Godfrey when he discharged the office of Prior there. But contradicts, when he says that Caesarius was summoned by Abbot Charles, having scarcely professed at Heisterbach, whereas Miraeus affirms that he was at Villers under William, Charles's predecessor. But since antiquity has left us scarcely anything of the Caesarius distinct from the one of Heisterbach, as Fisen has it in the place cited, besides his name, the dignity of Prior, and the excellent innocence of his morals, the last year of Godfrey must be tracked down by another way.
[7] about the year 1200; but they do not determine the year: Charles, abbot of Villers, once took the venerable Godfrey with him to Heisterbach, says Caesarius in book 1, chap. 35; which certainly could not have happened before the year 1197, in which William was still among the living. And from what the Life of Godfrey sets forth at num. 14 concerning the nun Gisla, it is concluded that he died before the house of Bunebeke (elsewhere it is read Pennebeke) near Brussels was founded by her. And it was founded in the year 1201, as is clear from the diploma of Henry I, duke of Brabant, which Miraeus reports in the Notitia of the churches of Belgium, page 512, expressed in these words: I, Henry, by the grace of God duke of Lotharingia, with the assent of my beloved consort the duchess Machtild, have conferred on the religious sister Gisla the place near Brussels which is called Pennebeke, for building therein a cenobium of nuns in honour of God and of the blessed Virgin Mary. I have also conferred on the same sister, near the aforesaid place, three manses of uncultivated land and woodland of my own property, most free of all secular right, and my part of the tithe of Russebroeck, and twenty bonniers of land, with the rent which the aforesaid Gisla bought from Walter Kibus. Which, that it may be held ratified, we have sealed the present page with the impression of our seal, and secured it with the subscription of witnesses, whose names are these: Sigerus archdeacon, master Michael, Arnold the Notary, Godfrey the Castellan. Done in the year MCCI. Neither before the year 1197, therefore, nor after the year 1201 did Godfrey pass from this life: wherefore we have assigned his death to the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the thirteenth.
[8] wherefore, as is probable, not all on the same day The unknown fatal year of Godfrey is the cause why the month also and the day of the month on which he died are unknown: yet, since his death fell on the Monday of Easter, it is drawn from the Paschal calculation that it is to be ascribed to the month of April or March. Hence also it happened, not improbably, that the commemoration of Godfrey varies among various writers. And first, Molanus mentions him in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium on the XXX day of June, but on the occasion of Bl. Arnulph Cornibout, venerated on that day; Ménard in the Benedictine Martyrology and Antonio de Heredia in the Lives of the Benedictine Saints on the XXXI of March, one day later than is proper if he is supposed to have died in the year 1198, in which Easter fell on the XXIX of March. But Gelenius in book 4 of the sacred and pious Fasti, Raissius in the Auctarium to the Natales of the Saints of Belgium, and Fisen in the Flowers of the church of Liège record him on the 2nd day of October. Finally Bucelinus in the Menology of the Benedictines, Henriquez in the Cistercian Menology, Chalemot in the Series of the Saints and Blesseds of the sacred Cistercian Order, du Saussay, the manuscript Kalendar of Villers, the Cistercian Kalendar printed at Dijon in the year 1617, the Kalendar of the most illustrious Saints and Blesseds of the Cistercian Order which came out at Brussels in the year 1620 from the press of Hubert Anthony, and the Catalogue of the Saints, Blesseds, etc. of the Cistercian Order by Sigismund Alberti, a monk of the same Order, report Godfrey on the III day of October. Another cause of such variety is perhaps the elevation and translation of the body, which was not one.
[9] For that Godfrey's bones were first raised not very long after his death as also on account of various translations, is understood from Caesarius, who was engaged in writing the books of Dialogues in the year 1222. For so he writes in book 1, chap. 35: Lately, he says, his bones were raised by revelation and placed in the sacristy, and they are kept as relics. And again they were translated under Almeric, abbot of Villers. The lord Almeric, monk of Foigny, XVIII abbot of Villers, says the Chronicle of Villers, given to us by the lord of Clairvaux, was abbot in the year of the Lord MCCLXVIII. In the second year of his rule there were placed behind the rail of the high altar the bodies of the most holy brothers Abundus of Huy, monk, and Arnulph Cornibout, and certain others; that the body of Godfrey is of their number the inscription of the mausoleum makes plain in verse 4:
You are enclosed here in a chest, Godfrey, blessed sacristan.
Of this translation Henriquez writes thus in the Cistercian Menology: Here mention is made only of those who formerly obtained a place behind the high altar, and were for a long time venerated with pious veneration, whose names are these: Bl. Godfrey the sacristan, Bl. Arnulph Cornibout (of whom treatment was given on the XXX of June), Bl. Juliana (of whom on the V of April), Bl. Boniface, Bl. Marchina, Bl. Mary of Gravio, Bl. Heldwig, Bl. Henry, Bl. William. Their sacred remains Abbot Almeric formerly set forth with the greatest reverence to be venerated by the people.
[10] The same Henriquez in that place also mentions a more recent translation in these words: of which the chief took place in the year 1599, report the Blessed man, For many years the sacred bodies lay there, but on account of the internal tumults of these provinces, not with the affection which was deserved (of which Molanus also complains in the Natales of the Saints of Belgium published at Louvain in the year 1595), until, the state of affairs being gradually softened, and in a calmer time, Robert Henrion, prelate of that house, decided to transfer them to a more seemly place: for which cause he had ordered the chapel of father Bernard (a description of which you have from Francis Moschus in tome V of June, page 606) to be adorned with jasper and marble. The bodies of the Blessed ones, therefore, having been moved, the abbot and community, in the presence of a great multitude of people, a form of supplication having been held, and with great solemnity, transferred them to the marble sepulchre, and there placed them in a chest of black marble skilfully polished, with what reverence they could; but promiscuously and indistinctly, as Raissius in the Auctarium to the Natales of the Saints of Belgium at the 2nd of October signifies, not without grief, that he had learned from a monk of Villers who was present at the last translation made. Further, that that solemn translation took place in the year 1599, on the XVII day of January, the feast of St. Anthony, abbot in the Thebaid, the verses inscribed on the wall of the chapel disclose:
In the year one thousand and nine, and ten times nine, After five hundred, while Anthony adorns January, Robert bearing the pastoral staff and the mitre, The bones of ten Blessed ones, taken up from a lowly little place, Are laid up in this sacred shrine, which you, O reader, look upon.
[11] whose sacred memory Nor are these the only monuments by which the memory of Godfrey is rendered illustrious; frequent and honourable mention is also made of him in the sacred Fasti. To pass over the ancient Lives and various Kalendars of the Cistercian Order, it may suffice to bring forward some of the writers with whom he has obtained the title of Blessed; for instance Ménard, Gelenius (who says in the Preface of book 4 On the Greatness of Cologne of Agrippina that he is so moderate and cautious in adding the title of beatitude to anyone that he himself deems very many, who are called Blessed by others, worthy only of the name of Venerable or Religious), Raissius, Bucelinus, Fisen, Chalemot, Henriquez, Antonio de Heredia, cited at num. 8, Sartorius, tit. 6, Willot in the French compendium of the Belgian Hagiology; to whom usage itself is also added. From these I transcribe a few and shorter eulogies of Godfrey. Ménard has thus: In Brabant, in the monastery of Villers, of blessed Godfrey of the Cistercian Order, famous for the grace of tears and the spirit of prophecy. Bucelinus praises Godfrey in the same words on the XXXI of March, and in more extended ones on the III of October. Willot on the 2nd of October: There died at Villers Bl. Godfrey, sacristan of this monastery, who had great familiarity with the Lord. For he had Christ as his companion, as d'Assignies writes in his Life: Rosweyde also relates the same in the Preface to St. Eucherius On the Praise of the desert; but he ascribes it to another sacristan of Villers. Of our Godfrey he has this: Equal or even greater familiarity with Christ had the other sacristan Godfrey, to whose worshipper He showed the type of the Pasch, and, as once to St. Peter, so to Godfrey He offered water ministering to his feet. Henriquez says much in few words: In Brabant, the Natalis of blessed Godfrey, sacristan and monk of Villers, illustrious for innumerable miracles and the gift of prophecy, and accustomed to frequent and heavenly consolations, whose feet the King of angels Himself deigned to wash by an unwonted favour of divine loving-kindness. Who, often visited by the blessed Virgin and the citizens of heaven, venerable for the purity and severity of his life, after a happy struggle, foretelling the hour of his death, rested in a most holy end, and his body, the Lord divinely commanding, was placed among the relics of the Saints.
[12] and cult are assigned. And the bones of Bl. Godfrey, first placed in the sacristy by divine admonition and held in the place of relics, then again and again exposed with solemn pomp to the veneration of the people, the mausoleum magnificently erected to him and others, and finally the common prayer to him and the others enclosed in the same mausoleum hung up in the church of Villers (see tome V of June, page 443, letter A), seem sufficiently to indicate a cult begun already from the times of Caesarius, carried on up to the times of Almeric, and at length, having suffered some detriment from time to time, restored in full by Abbot Henrion. Receive now, reader, the Life of Bl. Godfrey from the Ms. of Rouge-Cloître, as it exists with us, purged of errors, though not of all.
LIFE
By an anonymous ascetic of the cenobium of Villers.
From the Apograph of Rouge-Cloître.
Godfrey, presbyter of the Cistercian Order, at Villers in Brabant. (B.)
BHL Number: 3580
By an anonymous monk of Villers
CHAPTER I.
Godfrey's coming to the monks of Villers, the fervour of his virtue, miracles wrought while he was living, Christ's favours towards him.
Having left the monastery of St. Pantaleon, There is a monastery of saint Pantaleon a in holy Cologne, of black monks serving God under the Rule of blessed Benedict, in which a certain monk named Godfrey girded himself for every work of piety, gracious through this
to God and men. He from his first years despised those things by which temporal life is cherished, and, from desire of the immortal life, nourished his youth with the virtues by which it is obtained. How pure and just his works were shines out more clearly from his good pursuits. Inwardly suffused with the unction of the Holy Spirit, he despised the world while he was in his flower, and, placed in the flesh, would not live after the flesh, but, being no deaf hearer of that apostolic saying, "If you live according to the flesh, you shall die," though placed amid delights, he would not consent to them, considering that the heart of man often cleaves to the things which it frequents, and easily acquiesces in deceptive pleasure. Lest, therefore, he should lose the fruit of past labour, he resolved, altogether from desire of a stricter life, to pass over to some house of the Cistercian Order b, that in it he might render to the Lord the vows which his lips had uttered. And when he besought the Lord more affectionately that He would direct his way, He showed him beforehand in spirit the state of the cenobium of Villers, which he, while still placed at Cologne, had so foreknown, not only the persons and their manner of life, but also the site of the place and all the utensils of that house, as if he had dwelt in it his whole life.
[2] This place, therefore, he chose beforehand in his mind, praying the Lord, the Blessed man goes to Villers; where he so advances in virtue, which he also obtained, namely that it might be granted him to await in it the end of his life. Arriving there c, he girds himself as a new recruit of Christ for the spiritual combat, and puts on arms mighty to God, the humility of holy poverty, the rigour of cenobitic discipline, the leisure of contemplating, and assiduity in praying. From the first day of his entrance he seemed so to have subjugated his own flesh that, placed in the flesh, he did not live after the flesh, so that those who dwelt with him took from his holy conversation and the urgency of his good works examples and incentives by which their inner man was formed to the love of truth and the seeking of the heavenly homeland.
[3] There used to come to the gate of the monastery a boy who was sustained by the alms of the house, that, even unknowing, who had lost his sense d, whose misery the lord Henry, at that time cellarer e, pitied very much; who, moved by the affliction of the sufferer and the tears of his father, secretly took the girdle of the mentioned Monk, whom he greatly venerated for the merit of his life, and had the boy himself bound round with it by a lay brother; who immediately felt his health restored to him, and his soundness gladdened his father and friends, whom his infirmity had saddened. Near Namur f a certain pregnant matron, at the time of giving birth, from excessive weakness always thought death was hanging over her. She, by the help of the aforesaid cellarer, obtained the girdle of the Man of God, and with the girdle the remedy of health and the desired heir. The same matron applied the girdle to her brother's eye, which he had almost lost, and he received it back sound, which he thought he had lost.
[4] he works miracles; In the Teutonic parts the wife of a certain knight, Gebergis by name, beloved by all for the honourableness of her life, having very often conceived, anticipated the just and natural order, suffering miscarriage, and was so weakened that those who were present awaited only her last breath. An intolerable grief vexed her because she had not seen the fruit of her womb purified by the wave of sacred baptism for the solace of her grief. And when on a certain occasion, the hour of her delivery coming upon her, she was grievously afflicted, she sent a messenger to brother Wiger, her maternal uncle, at Villers, asking him for help for her safety. He, pitying her misery, sent her loaves blessed by the sacred hand of the venerable Godfrey; and when she had tasted of them she brought forth a boy to be purified by the wave of sacred baptism, nor afterwards did she incur the affliction already mentioned. This same woman, after a long time, told her uncle already mentioned that she had kept some of that bread still, and yet it had contracted nothing of corruption from so great an age.
[5] Christ washes his feet, as once the Disciples'; The Man of the Lord discharged the office of sacristan, in which he merited the greater solaces of divine regard, and, like gold which passes through the fire, he was made purer day by day. He so burned with love of the heavenly homeland that he held the supports of temporal life in contempt, and toiled in desire of the immortal, forming himself in those virtues by which the heavenly kingdom is obtained. On a certain day g, therefore, the Canonical hours having been fully celebrated, when the other brethren lay down on their beds, he remained alone in prayer, and beside the altar poured out his heart before the face of the Lord his God, beseeching the Saviour from the inmost marrow of his soul as much for his own as for the excesses of all. And so the Lord Jesus Christ appeared to him in that very hour, neither clad in purple nor flashing with a diadem, but in that form in which, when the hour of the Passion was at hand, girded with a linen cloth, He washed the feet of the disciples. Approaching him, then, and holding a vessel of water, for he had been hebdomadary h of the kitchen and according to custom was to wash the feet of the monks, the Lord said to him: Sit down, that I may wash thy feet i, because thou hast long washed My feet. He answered with trembling voice: Lord, Thou shalt not wash me. And the Lord said: If I wash thee not, thou shalt have no part with Me; and He constrained him, and washed him in his amazement, and, when he was washed, spoke sweetly to him, saying: As I laid down My life for thee, so thou also must lay down thy life for the brethren; and having said this, He at once disappeared.
[6] From then on, like a fruitful tree adorned with its fruit, a candle is lit divinely before him, he did not occupy the ground in vain, but, burning inwardly with the flame of the Holy Spirit, he made all to despise him, tortures, and showed himself a sedulous minister to small and great in all things. Solicitous, therefore, about the office entrusted to him, on a certain night he came before the time of Matins in the church, and as he went through the choir, groping and seeking a candle, he found the lamp which was wont to burn before the altar of the blessed Virgin extinguished; and as he was carrying it to relight it, suddenly a candle divinely lit went before him up to the place of the aforesaid lamp. He therefore, putting down the lamp, lit it with the fire which the divine loving-kindness had ministered.
[7] And while he rested under the shadow of the wings of Jesus, and, devoted to God, preferred the everlasting banquet to bodily delights, [and he asks and obtains to see Christ in the form of a child, like another Simeon.] and abiding joys to fleeting gladness, on a certain day he offered on the altar the Sacraments of our salvation, and while he held in his hands the Saviour of all, the loving Jesus, and foretasted in his heart the sweetness of His most sweet spirit, strengthened in himself, yet not by himself but by Him who made him, he prayed with humble prayer in his inner man that in that form in which His Mother had cherished Him in her lap, and Simeon the Just had received Him in his arm according to his desire, He would deign to appear to him also, though unworthy, under the visible appearance of flesh. And so there appeared to him the One beautiful in form above the sons of men, not as He will appear terrible in the judgment, nor as bloody and despised on the cross, but in the form of a most sweet child, suffusing the inner recesses of His servant with more abundant watering by His glorious and friendly aspect. He held in his hands Him by whom he was held; and after a little space of time the Saviour of all, whom he had first seen standing by him in human form, is shown to him on the altar to be received under that appearance of bread and wine under which He is received by the faithful.
ANNOTATIONS.
CHAPTER II.
Godfrey's heavenly gifts, favour from the Bl. Virgin, pious death, miracles following his death.
The Blessed man's gifts and virtues increasing daily, At a certain time the lord Charles, abbot of Villers, coming into the parts of Germany a, took with him the same venerable Man, where, as those who saw it reported, He conferred on him such grace of devotion at Mass that drops of tears from his eyes dripped upon the altar or his breast; and when the lord Theoderic of Lurke b, then a novice of a certain house of the Cistercian Order of those parts, formerly a canon of Bonn, asked him how he ought to pray, he answered: You ought to say nothing in prayer, but only think of the Saviour's nativity, passion and resurrection, and of the other things which are known to you c; what he himself frequently had in use, this he also strove to teach others. He also had the spirit of prophecy, so that sometimes he foretold to monks temptations to come, and admonished them to prepare their hearts through patience. How great consolations he had, and how wonderful visions, He alone fully knew who was their author. Inebriated in soul with the abundance of so great grace, placed in the flesh he savoured nothing fleshly any longer; but, wearing down the flesh more than can be said with fasts and vigils, cold and nakedness and other afflictions, he took increases of spiritual virtues, holding the edge of his mind fixed alike in the fear and in the love of the Creator of all.
[9] he learns from the Bl. Virgin that his death is at hand; Whence it came about that, when on the Annunciation of the blessed Virgin he was singing solemnly in the night vigils, and was delighted most of all in the harmony of the brethren standing with him, he saw the blessed Virgin going round the choir of monks and strengthening the brethren, and going out by the same side of the choir by which she had entered. How great tranquillity and sweetness in spirit he who saw this felt, there is no man whose tongue can worthily utter. And so, following her as she went out of the choir, he received from the loving Mother of Jesus a friendly answer in this manner: Return to thy brethren, and follow me no further, because soon thou shalt follow me wholly, to receive the reward of thy labour, the donative of thy warfare, and the happiness of all the Saints in the kingdom. Having returned, then, to the choir, the promise of so great blessedness
he awaited for some days, and from then on he was more and more solicitous how he might reach the harbour of the desired rest and of so great salvation.
[10] not many days after he is seized by sickness, which growing heavier, On the Friday, therefore, which immediately precedes the Pasch of the Lord, on which the true Lamb was immolated for the salvation of the world, and on which the Sacrament of the Lord's Passion is specially recalled, an infirmity coming upon him, he began suddenly to be deprived of the strength of his body. And although he was begged with all urgency to enter the infirmary, so that he might cherish with a little rest his limbs weary from long labour, he refused to acquiesce in counsels in this respect, but overcame the troubles of the body by strength of mind, persevering in the community of the brethren until the vigil of Easter. Then for the first time, as a sick man, he was associated with the sick, but by force and compelled, as one who scarcely ever acquiesced in anyone's counsel concerning the care of his body. On the Monday of the Lord's Resurrection, when he felt that the hour of his happy passing was at hand, in which, the girdle of the flesh being laid aside, he was to pass from the prison of the body to another house far different, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, he asked that his failing limbs, which had always served the spirit, be anointed with the sacred liquor of Oil.
[11] Little by little, therefore, the strength of his body failed, while yet his mind was freely occupied with God, he is duly fortified with the sacred aids of the dying, coming before the face of the Lord in confession, and setting himself before himself in diligent examination, whatever he knew to be reprehensible in himself before the eyes of the strict Judge he corrected with rigid invective. Immense pain wearied the body exhausted by long penance, so that, proved by this refining, he might worthily merit to be engraved in the diadem of the supreme King. Further, immense grief vexed the hearts of the brethren of Villers when they saw him who invited them to life wrapped in the common dissolution of the dying, and they showed their sorrow by the pallor of their faces and by much outpouring of tears. They grieved that the presence of such a Fellow-citizen was being withdrawn from them, in whose face holiness shone again, in whose mouth was truth, in whose morals honourableness, in whose counsels maturity, in whose words usefulness, in whose flesh and spirit integrity, in all things to be loved a lavish charity, so that the greatness of his virtue exceeded the measure of frail nature, and the norm of that heavenly conversation of his held forth the norm of the immortal life. Prayer was made by the brethren that the Lord would dispose his journey in peace, and that he might be transferred by Him who called and justified him from the shipwrecking sojourn of the world to the place of a peaceful mansion; and so they anoint him with the liquor of the sacred Oil.
[12] After the anointing, animated in a body still half-alive, and having redeemed the pledge he had given the infirmarian, he attended with his whole mind to heavenly things, awaiting the consummation of his struggle by a happy departure. About the end of supper, therefore, when, the pain growing heavier, he was tending towards death, nay rather drawing near to the palm, and the community was rising from table, the attendant assigned to him addressed him with a tearful voice: Lord, this necessity strikes me with heavy grief, for I fear that, if I go away from you, I shall not see you again; and therefore I go unwillingly to eat, fearing lest you die in the meantime. He answered him with serene face: Go secure, for thou shalt yet see me; nor put off the custom of the Order on my account. He obeyed, and, sitting at table with face cast down, he saw two persons of reverend habit, namely the Prior Caesarius, lately deceased d, and another, the lord Godfrey. This Caesarius indeed, a man of great age and of approved conversation and of wonderful fervour in the service of God, when the hour of his happy calling was at hand, turning to those standing round, broke out into these words: I will sing with those who sing, I will chant psalms with those who chant, I will chant to Him who has joined me to Himself; sweetness from His mouth, honey and milk. And having said this he expired. These two, therefore, entering by the door of the refectory before the brother, the lord Godfrey said to him: Behold, thou seest me, as I had promised; peace to thee, I depart.
[13] joyfully he passes to the Lord, and is buried at Villers, Scarcely had they gone out by the door, and behold, immediately the board is struck e, at which the brethren assemble and commend the holy soul to God with psalms; and the holy angels lead him with hymns into the mountain of the Lord and into His tabernacle; the soul is freed from the body, the reverence of due honour having been provided, in the sacred time of the Resurrection, when the true Lamb restored liberty to Israel. He passes from this world to the Father, where he sees that the Lord is sweet, not through a glass in a dark manner, for the former things have passed away; but he walks in the light of God's countenance with those choirs of the Blessed who persevered in the struggle of the contest, happily inebriated amid the embraces of the Bridegroom with the plenty of the house of God; who, although secure of the lot of his own blessedness, is yet held fast by care for our peace and salvation, interceding for us that we may escape the snares of the enemies and come to true blessedness. His body having been stripped for washing, his back was found so livid with the strokes of rods that we all marvelled; of how great religiousness, how great holiness, how fervent in the discipline of the Order he was, the Lord does not cease to show to this very day through his sacred relics; lately his sacred bones were raised by revelation and placed in the sacristy f. To Him be glory, who thus magnifies those converted to Him, unto the ages of ages. Amen.
[14] famous also for miracles after death. A certain nun of Brussels, Gilla g by name, of the black habit under the Rule of blessed Benedict, but of much devotion, aspired by all means, from desire of a stricter life, to ascend to the Cistercian Order, having no helper of her desire except the lord Charles, at that time abbot of Villers. She came, therefore, to the gate of the cenobium of Villers, disturbed and anxious, complaining to brother Wiger, at that time vestiarian, how great tribulations she was suffering from the clergy, who threatened her with the sentence of excommunication if she took up the Cistercian habit. The monk said to her: You are a nun under the Rule of St. Benedict, nor can such a sentence proceed against you through the clergy; and he held out to her a cowl which he thought had been the lord Godfrey's, which she put on and withdrew; nor afterwards did she suffer impediments from her rivals. I heard from the same woman that by the touch of that garment the desired health was restored to many sick and languishing. That nun therefore advanced in her desire, and, with the help of the lord Charles of excellent memory, the aforesaid abbot, founded k and built the house of Bunebeke h near Brussels, which is now called La Cambre i. Now therefore, blessed Man, implore for me who write these things pardon of sins, and obtain fuller grace, and bring me, labouring in the perilous billows of this sea, by the oarage of thy prayer to the desired harbour; and those who shall read these things I most urgently admonish and suppliantly ask that they commend me, who wrote these things, to the supreme Father, that He may so guard me in the valley of misery that I may at length be able to be gathered to the citizens of heaven in the region of the living.