January 15th - St. Maurus, Abbot

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January 15th - St. Maurus, Abbot
d. 584

AMONG other noblemen who placed their sons under the care of St.
Benedict to be brought up in piety and learning a certain Equitius
left his son Maurus, then but twelve years old; and when he was grown
up St. Benedict made him his assistant in the government of Subiaco.
The boy Placid, going one day to fetch water, fell into the lake and
was carried the distance of a bow-shot from the bank. St. Benedict saw
this in spirit in his cell, and bade Maurus run and draw him out.
Maurus obeyed, walked unknowingly upon the water, and dragged out
Placid by the hair. He attributed the miracle to the prayers of St.
Benedict; but the abbot declared that God had rewarded the obedience
of the disciple. Not long after, the holy patriarch retired to Monte
Cassino, and St. Maurus may have become superior at Subiaco.

This, which we learn from St. Gregory the Great, is all that can be
told with any probability regarding the life of St. Maurus. It is,
however, stated upon the authority of a pretended biography by
pseudo-Faustus--i.e. Abbot Odo of Glanfeuil--that St. Maurus, coming
to France, founded by the liberality of King Theodebert the great
abbey of Glanfeuil, afterwards called Saint-Maur-sur-Loire, which he
governed until his seventieth year. Maurus then resigned the abbacy,
and passed the remainder of his life in solitude to prepare himself
for his passage to eternity. After two years he fell sick, and died on
January 15 in the year 584. He was buried on the right side of the
altar in the church of St. Martin, and on a roll of parchment laid in
his tomb was inscribed this epitaph

“Maurus, a monk and deacon, who came into France in the days of King
Theodebert, and died the 18th day before the month of February.” That
this parchment was really found in the middle of the ninth century is
probable enough; but there is no reliable evidence to establish the
fact that the Maurus so described is identical with the Maurus who was
the disciple of St. Benedict.

He is mentioned in St.. Gregory the Great's biography of the latter as
the first oblate; offered to the monastery by his noble Roman parents
as a young boy to be brought up in the monastic life. Four stories
involving Maurus recounted by Gregory formed a pattern for the ideal
formation of a Benedictine monk. The most famous of these involved St.
Maurus's rescue of Saint Placidus, a younger boy offered to St.
Benedict at the same time as St. Maurus. The incident has been
reproduced in many medieval and Renaissance paintings.
Saints Maurus and Placidus are venerated together on 5 October.


Saint Quote:
We must begin with a strong and constant resolution to give ourselves
wholly to God, professing to Him, in a tender, loving manner, from the
bottom of our hearts, that we intend to be His without any reserve,
and then we must often go back and renew this same resolution.
--St. Francis de Sales

Bible Quote
Now about the midst of the feast, Jesus went up into the temple, and
taught. 15 And the Jews wondered, saying: How doth this man know
letters, having never learned? 16 Jesus answered them, and said: My
doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. (John 7:14-16)

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Father, I abandon myself into Thy hands;
Do with me whatever Thou willst.
Whatever Thou may do, I thank thee.
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only Thy will be done in me,
And in all Thy creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into thy hands I commend my spirit;
I offer it to Thee, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into Thy hands,
Without reserve and with boundless confidence,
For Thou are my Father.