Maurus was by birth a Roman. His father Eutychius, a Senator, placed him, when a little boy, under the care of Saint Benedict. Trained in the school of such and so great a Master of holiness, he attained to the highest degree of monastic perfection even before he had ceased to be a child, so that Benedict himself was in admiration and used to speak of his virtues to everyone, holding him forth to the rest of the house as a model of religious discipline. He subdued his flesh by austerities such as the wearing a hair-shirt, night watching and frequent fasting, giving, meanwhile, to his spirit the solace of assiduous prayer, holy compunction and reading the Sacred Scriptures. During Lent he took food but twice in the week, and that so sparingly as to seem rather to be tasting than taking it He slept standing, or, when excessive fatigue obliged him to it, sitting or, at times, lying down on a heap of lime and sand over which he threw his hair-shirt. His sleep was exceedingly short, for he always recited very long prayers, and often the whole of the Psalms before the midnight Office. He gave a proof of his admirable spirit of obedience on the occasion of Placid having fallen into the lake and being nearly drowned. Maurus, at the bidding of the Holy Father, ran to the lake, walked dry-shod on the water and, taking the child by the hair of his head, drew him safe to the bank, for Placid was to be slain by the sword as a martyr, and our Lord reserved him as a victim which should be offered to Him. On account of such signal virtues as these, the same Holy Father made Maurus share the cares of his duties for, from his very entrance into the monastic life, he had had a part in his miracles. He had been raised to the holy order of Deaconship by Saint Benedict’s command, and by placing the stole he wore on a dumb and lame boy, he gave him the power both to speak and walk.
Maurus was sent by his Holy Father into France. Scarcely had he set his foot on that land than he had a vision of the triumphant entrance of that great saint into Heaven. He promulgated in that country the Rule which Saint Benedict had written with his own hand and had given to him on his leaving Italy, though the labour and anxiety he had to go through in the accomplishment of his mission were exceedingly great. Having built the celebrated monastery which he governed for 40 years, so great was the reputation of his virtues that several of the noblest lords of King Theodobert’s court put themselves under Maurus’ direction and enrolled in the holier and more meritorious warfare of the monastic life. Two years before his death, he resigned the government of his monastery and retired into a cell near the Oratory of Saint Martin. There he exercised himself in most rigorous penance with which he fortified himself for the content he had to sustain against the enemy of mankind who threatened him with the death of his monks. In this combat a holy Angel was his comforter who, after revealing to him the snares of the wicked spirit and the designs of God, bade him and his disciples win the crown prepared for them. Having, therefore, sent to Heaven before him as so many forerunners, a hundred and more of his brave soldiers, and knowing that he, their leader, was soon to follow them, he signified his wish to be carried to the Oratory where, being strengthened by the Sacrament of Life and lying on his hair-shirt as a victim before the Altar, he died a saintly death. He was upwards of 70 years of age. It would be difficult to describe the success with which he propagated monastic discipline in France, or to tell the miracles which both before and after his death, rendered him glorious among men.
Dom Prosper Gueranger:
Saint Maurus — one of the greatest masters of the Cenobitical Life and the most illustrious of the Disciples of Saint Benedict, the Patriarch of the Monks of the West — shares with the First Hermit the honours of this fifteenth day of January. Faithful, like the holy Hermit, to the lessons taught at Bethlehem, Maurus has a claim to have his Feast kept during the 40 days which are sacred to the sweet babe Jesus. He comes to us each January to bear witness to the power of that babe’s humility. Who, forsooth, will dare to doubt of the triumphant power of the poverty and the obedience shown in the crib of our Emmanuel when he is told of the grand things done by those virtues in the cloisters of fair France? It was to Maurus that France was indebted for the introduction into her territory of that admirable Rule which produced the great saints and the great men, to whom she owes the best part of her glory. The children of Saint Benedict by Saint Maurus struggled against the barbarism of the Franks under the first race of her kings. Under the second they instructed, in sacred and profane literature, the people in whose civilisation they had so powerfully co-operated. Under the third — and even in modern times when the Benedictine Order, enslaved by the system of Commendatory-Abbots and decimated by political tyranny or violence, was dying out amid every kind of humiliation — they were the fathers of the poor by the charitable use of their large possessions and the ornaments of literature and science by their immense contributions to ecclesiastical science and archaeology, as also to the history of their own country.
Saint Maurus built his celebrated Monastery of Glanfeuil, and Glanfeuil may be considered as the mother house of the principal monasteries in France, Saint Germain and Saint Denis of Paris, Maimoutier, Saint Victor, Luxeuil, Jumieges, Fleury Corbie, Saint Vannes, Moyen-Moutier, Saint Wandrille, Saint Waast, La Chaise-Dieu, Tiron, Cheza: Benoit, Le Bee, and innumerable other monasteries in France gloried in being daughters of Monte Cassino by the favourite Disciple of Saint Benedict. Cluny, which gave several Popes to the Church —and among them, Saint Gregory the Seventh and Urban the Second — was indebted to Saint Maurus for that Rule which gave her her glory and her power. We must count up the Apostles, Martyrs, Bishops, Doctors, Confessors and Virgins who were formed, for 1200 years, in the Benedictine cloisters of France. We must calculate the services, both temporal and spiritual, done to this great country by the Benedictine monks during all that period, and we will have some idea of the results produced by the mission of Saint Maurus — results whose whole glory redounds to the Babe of Bethlehem and to the mysteries of His humility which are the source and model of the Monastic Life. When, therefore, we admire the greatness of the saints and recount their wonderful works, we are glorifying our Jesus, the King of all Saints.
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How blessed was your mission, O favourite and worthy disciple of the great Saint Benedict! How innumerable the Saints that sprang from you and your illustrious Patriarch! The Rule you promulgated was truly the salvation of that great country which you and your disciples evangelised, and the fruits of the Order you planted there have been indeed abundant. But now that from your throne in Heaven you behold that fair France which was once covered with monasteries and from which there mounted up to God the ceaseless voice of prayer and praise, and now you scarce find the ruins of these noble sanctuaries — turn towards our Lord and beseech Him that he make the wilderness bloom once more as of old. Oh what has become of those cloisters in which were trained Apostles of Nations, learned Pontiffs, intrepid defenders of the Liberty of the Church, holy Doctors and heroes of sanctity — all of whom call you their second Father? Who will bring back again those vigorous principles of poverty, obedience, hard work and penance which made the Monastic Life be the object of the people’s admiration and love and attracted tens of thousands of every class in society to embrace it? Instead of this holy enthusiasm of the ages of faith, we, alas, can show little else than cowardice of heart, love of this life, zeal for enjoyment, dread of the cross and, at best, comfortable and inactive piety. Pray, great Saint, that these days may be shortened, that the Christians of the present generation may grow earnest by reflecting on the sanctity to which they are called, that our sluggish hearts may put on the fortitude of knowing and doing, at least, our duty. Then, indeed, will the future glories of the Church be as great and bright as our love of her makes us picture them to ourselves — for, all the Church needs in order to fulfil her destinies, is courageous hearts. If our God hears your prayer and give us once more the Monastic Life in all its purity and vigour , we will be safe and the evil of faith without earnestness which is now producing such havoc in the spiritual world will be replaced by Christian energy. Teach us, O Maurus, to know the dear Babe of Bethlehem and to get well into our hearts His life and doctrine, for we will then understand the greatness of our Christian vocation, and that the only way to overcome our enemy the world is that which He, our Master and Guide, followed.Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
In Judaea, the holy prophets Habacuc and Michaeas, whose bodies were found by divine revelation in the days of Theodosius the Elder.
At Anagni, St. Secundina, virgin and martyr, who suffered under the emperor Decius.
At Cagliari in Sardinia, St. Ephisius, martyr, who, in the persecution of Diocletian and under the judge Flavian, having, by the assistance of God, overcome many torments, was beheaded and ascended to heaven.
At Nola in Campania, St. Maximus, bishop.
At Clermont in Auvergne, St. Bonitus, bishop and confessor.
In Egypt, St. Macarius, abbot, a disciple of St. Anthony, very celebrated for his life and miracles.
Also blessed Isidore, renowned for holiness of life, faith and miracles.
At Rome, St. John Calybites. For some time living unknown to his parents in a corner of their house, and later in a hut on the Tibertine Island, he was recognised by them only at his death. Being renowned for miracles, he was buried where he had died and a church was subsequently erected in his honour in the same place.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
