The Lives of the Saints, Volume 02 (of 16): FebruaryBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
The Lives of the Saints, Volume 02 (of 16): February
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Christian saints
with a red and blue cross on the breast, and to take the name of the
Order of the Holy Trinity. He confirmed it some time after, adding new
privileges by a second bull, in 1209.
The two founders having obtained the Pope's blessing and certain
indulgences, returned to France, presented themselves to the king,
Philip Augustus, who authorized the establishment of their Order in
his kingdom, and favoured it with his liberalities. Gauthier III.,
lord of Châtillon, gave them land whereon to build a convent. Their
number increasing, the same lord, seconded by the king, gave them
Cerfroid, near Grandlieu, the place in which S. John and S. Felix
concerted the first plan of their institute. It is situated in Brie,
on the confines of Valois. This house of Cerfroid, or De Cervo
frigido, was the chief of the order. The two saints founded many other
convents in France, and sent several of their religious to accompany
the counts of Flanders and Blois, and other lords, to the Crusade.
Pope Innocent III. wrote to recommend these religious to the Emir of
Morocco; and S. John sent thither two of his religious in 1201, who,
on the first voyage, redeemed one hundred and eighty-six Christian
slaves. The year following, S. John went himself to Tunis, where he
purchased the liberty of one hundred and ten more. He returned into
Provence, and there received great charities, which he carried into
Spain, and redeemed many in captivity under the Moors. On his return
he collected large alms among the Christians towards this charitable
undertaking. His example produced a second order of Mercy, instituted
by S. Peter Nolasco, in 1235.
S. John made a second voyage to Tunis, in 1210, in which he suffered
much from the infidels, enraged at his zeal and success in exhorting
the poor slaves to patience and constancy in their faith. As he was
returning with one hundred and twenty slaves he had ransomed, the
barbarians took away the helm from his vessel, and tore all its sails,
that they might perish in the sea. The saint, full of confidence in
God, begged Him to be their pilot, and hung up his companions' cloaks
for sails, and, with a crucifix in his hands, kneeling on the deck,
singing psalms, after a prosperous voyage they all landed safe at
Ostia, in Italy. Felix, by this time, had greatly propagated his order
in France, and obtained for it a convent in Paris, in a place where
stood before a chapel of S. Mathurin, whence these religious in France
were called Mathurins.
S. John lived two years more in Rome, which he employed in exhorting
all to penance with great energy and fruit. He died on the 21st of
December, in 1213, aged sixty-one. He was buried in his church of S.
Thomas, where his monument yet remains, though his body has been
translated into Spain.
[26] For an account of the conflict with S. Wilfrid, and the
opposition of the Northumbrian Church and princes to his innovations,
see his life, Oct. 12.
[27] Montalembert, Monks of the West, iv. p. 412.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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