The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): JanuaryBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Lives of the Saints, Volume 01 (of 16): January
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian saints
S. John the Calybite is the Eastern counterpart of the Western S.
Alexis. At an early age he met a monk of the Sleepless Ones, founded by
S. Alexander, as mentioned in the immediately preceding life; and he was
so struck with what he heard of the religious life, that he desired to
enter it. Returning home, he asked his parents, who were wealthy, to
make him a present of the Holy Gospels. They, surprised that the boy
desired a book, instead of some article of dress or of play, purchased
him a handsomely illuminated and illustrated book of the Gospels. The
boy read, "He that loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy
of me." Then he ran away from home, and made his way to Gomon, where he
entered the Sleepless order. The archimandrite, or abbot, thinking him
too young, objected to receive him, but when the boy persisted, he made
him undergo the discipline of the monks. He remained there, however, six
years, and then a longing came over him to see his father and mother
again; so he told the superior, who said, "Did I not say to thee, thou
art too young. Go in peace to thy home." So John left the monastery. But
returning home, he did not make himself known to his parents, but,
changing clothes with a beggar, he crouched at the gate of his father's
house and begged. Then his father gave him daily food from his kitchen;
but after a while his mother, disliking the presence of a squalid beggar
at the door, bade the servants remove him to a little cot, and thence he
took his name of Calybite, or Cotter. Three years after, as he was
dying, he sent for his mother, and revealed himself to her.
He was buried beneath the hut, and his parents built a church over his
tomb.
Relics, in the church dedicated to him at Rome; his head at Besançon, in
the church of S. Stephen.
S. MAURUS, AB. OF GLANFEUIL.
(A.D. 584.)
[The life of S. Maurus, professing to be by S. Faustus, is not of
the date it pretends to. It was written by Odo of Glanfeuil (D.
868); it is, however, probable that he used a previous composition
of S. Faustus, monk of Cassino (D. 620), amplifying and altering in
style. Other authorities are S. Gregory the Great, Dialog. II., and
a metrical life, falsely attributed to Paulus Diaconus.]
A nobleman, named Eguitius, gave his little son Maurus, aged twelve, to
the holy patriarch Benedict, to be by him educated. The youth surpassed
all his fellow monks in the discharge of his monastic duties, and when
he was grown up, S. Benedict made him his coadjutor in the government of
Subiaco. Placidus, a fellow-monk, going one day to fetch water, fell
into the lake, and was carried about a bow-shot from the bank. S.
Benedict seeing this from his cell, sent Maurus to run and draw him out.
Maurus obeyed, walked upon the water, without perceiving it, and pulled
out Placidus by the hair, without himself sinking.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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