Saint Fidelis of Sigmaringen M

In 1604, Mark Rey was teaching philosophy at the University of Freiburg-in-Breisgau, when he was appointed tutor to a small party of noble Swabian men who wanted to finish their education with supplementary studies in the chief cities of western Europe. During the six-year tour, Rey became greatly esteemed by his companions. He set them an example of religious devotion and goodness to the poor, to whom he sometimes literally gave the clothes off his back.

When he returned to Germany, he took his doctorate in law and began to practice as an advocate at Ensisheim in Upper Alsace. He gained a reputation for honesty and his refusal to use the vituperative language often then employed to level an opponent. His support of the poor led to the moniker "the Poor Man's Lawyer."

Repulsed by the unscrupulous measures used by his colleagues in practicing law, in 1612, he decided to enter the reformed Capuchin branch of the Franciscan Order, which his brother George had already joined. Mark Rey donated his wealth to the poor and to needy seminarians. After receiving holy orders, he took the name Fidelis. Upon completion of his theological course, he preached and heard confessions. Fidelis was successively appointed superior of Rheinfelden, Frieburg, and Feldkirch. During this last appointment, he reformed the town and outlying districts, and converted many Protestants. He also wrote a book of spiritual exercises that was translated into several languages.

His reputation grew due to his devotion to the sick, many of whom he cured during an epidemic. The bishop of Chur requested that his superiors send him, with eight other Capuchins, to preach among the Zwinglian Protestants in the Grisons of Switzerland. This was the first attempt since the Reformation to recover the area from heresy. Fidelis courageously pretended to disregard threats of violence. From the very beginning, the mission made inroads, and the newly established Congregation for the Spreading of the Faith formally appointed him leader of the Grison enterprise.

So great were his powers of preaching that he enjoyed tremendous success, which enraged his adversaries. They then worked to turn the peasants against him by representing him as an agent of the Austrian emperor, and avowing to him an intention to balk their national aspirations for independence. Forewarned, Fidelis spent several nights in prayer before the Blessed Sacrament preparing for death.

On April 24, 1622, he preached at Grüsch. He then travelled to Sewis, where, in the middle of a sermon on "One Lord, one faith, one baptism," a Protestant fired his musket at Fidelis. The bullet missed and lodged in a wall. In the following confusion the Austrian soldiers who were in the vicinity were attacked. When a Protestant offered to harbor Fidelis, the saint replied that his life was in God's hands. Fidelis attempted to return to Grüsch but was beset by opponents who demanded that he repudiate his faith. He refused, and as his murderers stabbed him with their weapons he called out to God to forgive them. (Another source says that one assassin's bullet missed him, but a second killed him.) A Zwinglian minister who was present was converted. The body of Fidelis now rests in Coira cathedral (Benedictines, Bentley, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Walsh, White).

Fidelis is depicted in art with a club set with spikes or a whirlbat (White). He emblem is heretics. Generally, he is portrayed with Saint Joseph of Leonissa. Saint Fidelis tramples on "Heresy" and an angel carries the palm of martyrdom. The Morning Star may also be shown in his icon (Roeder).

However, about 1001, this story was attached to some bones with a bishop's insignia found in Slepe (near Ramsey abbey). Saint Ivo may have had no historical existence, though Saint Ives in Huntingdonshire is named for him. Goselin ("Vita S. Yvonis" in Patrologia Latina, ed. J. P. Migne, civ. 84 ff), who died about 1107, says that Ivo's cultus had been extant for a century. Following a peasant's dream, these episcopal bones were unhesitatingly identified as those of Ivo.

The four bodies, including those presumed to be Ivo, were translated to Ramsey Abbey, where a holy well sprung up, at which many miracles were performed as recorded by Ramsey's third abbot, Whitman. About a century later, light appeared at night reaching from Ramsey to Slepe, which was interpreted as meaning that the bones of Ivo's companions should be translated back to Slepe, where a new foundation from Ramsey could enjoy this subsidiary shrine.

The Saint Ives, formerly Porth Ia, in west Cornwall, however, is named for Saint Ia (Attwater, Benedictines, Bentley, Farmer, Husenbeth).

In art, Saint Ivo is portrayed as a Persian hermit with the attributes of a bishop. He is venerated at Huntingdonshire (Saint Ives, Ramsey) (Roeder).

Rose Virginia Pelletier, one of ten children of a refuge doctor of the Vendée wars, studied at Tours and in 1814 joined the Institute of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge, founded by Saint John Eudes in 1641 to help wayward and endangered women. She was professed in 1816, taking the names Marie-Euphrasie, was elected superior in 1825 (age 29), and, at the bishop's invitation made a new foundation at Angers in 1829. Two years later, Mother Euphrasia founded a contemplative community to complement the active social work of the others.

Having done this successfully, Mother Euphrasia returned to Tours; but experience had suggested to her the desirability of radical changes in her congregation's organization. She decided that a new congregation under a central authority was needed rather than individual foundations under separate bishops. Of course, Mother Euphrasia met with opposition and was accused of being an ambitious, insubordinate innovator. Even her detractors, however, said that "she was capable of ruling a kingdom."

With modesty and determination she rode out the storm, and in 1835, papal approval was given to the Institute of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, dedicated to working with wayward girls, at Angers. The institute spread rapidly and by the time of Mother Euphrasia's death had thousands of sisters in 110 convents on four continents.

In all her work, Euphrasia provided the compassion and solicitude of the Good Shepherd to her sisters, penitents, and young girls in difficult family situations. Her strength and cheerfulness during the stormy times offer us an example of effectuating the gift of hope (Attwater, Benedictines, Bernoville, Delaney, Encyclopedia, Farmer).

In 604, after three years of mission work in Kent, Mellitus was consecrated the first bishop of the East Saxons, with his see in London. As bishop, Mellitus travelled to Rome to consult with Pope Saint Boniface IV. While in Rome Mellitus participated in a synod of Italian bishops concerning the life of monks and their relationship to bishops. The decrees of the synod he carried back to England, together with letters from the pope to Archbishop Saint Laurence of Canterbury and King Ethelbert of Kent, who had built the first church of St. Paul in London.

Mellitus converted the king of the East Saxons, Sabert (Sigebert or Saeberht). Unfortunately, his royal sons did not follow suit. When Sabert died about 616, his three pagan sons (Sexred, Seward, and Sigebert) succeeded him and drove Mellitus out; for they had asked him to give them the "white bread" (the Eucharist), and he had refused because they were not baptized (or had apostatized according to some). Mellitus withdrew to Gaul for a year with Saint Justus of Rochester, who had experienced a similar setback in Kent.

Laurence recalled them both. Soon after Mellitus's return in 619 he was made archbishop of Canterbury, in 619, to succeed Saint Laurence. Bede says of him that he suffered from gout but that in spirit he was healthy and active, ever reaching out to the things of God: "Noble by birth, he was yet nobler in mind." Bede attributes the change of wind that saved the church of the Four Crowned Martyrs in Canterbury from incineration to Mellitus's being carried into the path of the flames to pray. It was Saint Mellitus who built Saint Mary's church at Canterbury, of which a fragment remains outside the east end of the foundations of the abbey church of SS. Peter and Paul (now Saint Augustine's).

The feast of Saint Mellitus was observed on numerous English calendars before and after the Norman conquest. He is also mentioned in the commemoration of the dead in the Stowe Missal, together with Laurence and Justus. His relics can be found near those of Augustine in the abbey church of Saints Peter and Paul in Canterbury (Attwater, Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Farmer, Husenbeth).

Saint Mellitus is portrayed in art as Saint Peter brings him a salmon to present to the king (Roeder).

In art, Saint William thrusts his arm in a fire. He may also be represented with a raven that shows him the way to the Promised Land. He is invoked against headache (Roeder).