The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. January, February, MarchButler, Alban
Religion
The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Other Principal Saints. January, February, March
Butler, Alban
Christian patron saints -- Biography; Christian saints -- Biography
Dionysius and his companions, the apostles of
the country, frequently visited their tombs at the borough of
Catulliacum, which many think the borough since called Saint Denys's.
She also excited the zeal of many pious persons to build there a church
in {084} honor of St. Dionysius, which King Dagobert I. afterwards
rebuilt with a stately monastery in 629.[6] Saint Genevieve likewise
performed several pilgrimages, in company with other holy virgins, to
the shrine of St. Martin at Tours. These journeys of devotion she
sanctified by the exercise of holy recollection and austere penance.
King Clovis, who embraced the faith in 496, listened often with
deference to the advice of St. Genevieve, and granted liberty to several
captives at her request. Upon the report of the march of Attila with his
army of Huns, the Parisians were preparing to abandon their city, but
St. Genevieve persuaded them, in imitation of Judith and Hester, to
endeavor to avert the scourge, by fasting, watching, and prayer. Many
devout persons of her sex passed many days with her in prayer in the
baptistery; from whence the particular devotion to St. Genevieve, which
is practised at St. John-le-rond, the ancient public baptistery of the
church of Paris, seems to have taken rise. She assured the people of the
protection of heaven, and their deliverance; and though she was long
treated by many as an impostor, the event verified the prediction, that
barbarian suddenly changing the course of his march, probably by
directing it towards Orleans. Our author attributes to St. Genevieve the
first design of the magnificent church which Clovis began to build in
honor of SS. Peter and Paul, by the pious counsel of his wife Saint
Clotilda, by whom it was finished several years after; for he only laid
the foundation a little before his death, which happened in 511.[7] St.
Genevieve died about the same year, probably five weeks after that
prince, on the 3d of January, 512, being eighty-nine years old. Some
think she died before King Clovis. Prudentius, bishop of Paris, had been
buried about the year 409, on the spot where this church was built.
Clovis was interred in it: his remains were afterwards removed into the
middle of the choir, where they are covered with a modern monument of
white marble, with an inscription. St. Clotilda was buried near the
steps of the high altar in 545; but her name having been enrolled among
the saints, her relics were enshrined, and are placed behind the high
altar. Those of St. Alda, the companion of St. Genevieve, and of St.
Ceraunus, bishop of Paris, are placed in silver shrines on the altar of
S. Clotilda. The tombs of St. Genevieve and King Clovis were near
together. Immediately after the saint was buried, the people raised an
oratory of wood over her tomb, as her historian assures us, and this was
soon changed into the stately church built under the invocation of SS.
Peter and Paul. From this circumstance, we gather that her tomb was
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