The Lives of the Saints, Volume III (of 16): March. Baring-Gould Sabine
venerable Bede says, "Owen was a monk of great merit, having forsaken the world with the pure intention of obtaining the heavenly reward; worthy in all respects to have the secrets of our Lord revealed to him, and worthy to have credit given by his hearers to what he said; for he came with Queen Etheldreda from the province of the East Angles, and was her prime minister, and governor of her household. As the fervour of his faith increased, resolving to renounce the world, he did not go about it slothfully, but quitting all he had, clad in a plain garment, and carrying an axe and hatchet in his hand, came to the monastery of S. Chad, at Lastingham: denoting that he did not go to the monastery to live idly, as some do, but to labour, and this he confirmed by his practice; for as he was less capable of meditating on the Holy Scriptures, he the more earnestly applied himself to the labour of his hands. In short, he was received by the bishop into the house aforesaid, and there entertained with the brethren, and whilst they were engaged within in reading, he was without doing such things as were necessary.
"One day, when he was thus employed abroad, and his companions were gone to the church, the bishop was alone, reading or praying in the oratory of that place, when, on a sudden, as he afterwards said, he heard voices singing most sweetly, and rejoicing, and appearing to descend from heaven. And this sound seemed to come from the south-east, and it afterwards drew nigh him to the oratory, where the bishop then was, and entering therein, filled the same and all around. He listened attentively to what he heard, and after about half an hour noticed the same strain of joy ascend from the roof of the oratory, and return to heaven the same way it came, with inexpressible sweetness. When he had stood some time wondering, the bishop opened the window of the oratory, and, making a noise with his hand, ordered him to come in to him.
"Then the holy Chad told him that the day of his death was at hand, and that the angelic spirits had told him that in seven days they would return and take him with them. And so it was: seven days after, S. Chad entered into his rest." Nothing more is known of Owen. A stone cross put up by Owen remains at Ely, and is preserved in that cathedral.
[Treves and Cologne Martyrologies; Molanus and Greven. Authority: – His Life by Nizo, Abbot of Metloch (Mediolanum) on the Saar, 11th cent., which is very untrustworthy.]
Basinus, of the illustrious family of the Dukes of Austrasia, was received as monk into the monastery of S. Maximin, at Treves. He was afterwards made abbot, and later, when S. Numerian, bishop of Treves, was dead, he was constrained to assume the mitre in his room. He held the see in the reign of Childebert II., king of Austrasia. He was a friend of S. Willibrord. After his death, his body was laid in the basilica of S. Maximin, under the high altar. It was taken up in 1621, and placed in a more conspicuous position.
He was succeeded by his nephew, S. Lutwin.
[Aberdeen Breviary. Authority: – The Lections from the same.]
S. Adrian, bishop of S. Andrews, in Scotland, was a native of Pannonia. He laboured to spread the faith among the Picts, together with his companions, Clodian, Caius, Monan, and Stobrand. As they were in the island of May, the Danish pirates landed in it, and put Adrian and Clodian to death.
[Roman Martyrology. Authorities: – Zacharias Ferrier, Papal Legate in Poland, A.D. 1525.]
S. Casimir was the second son of Casimir III., king of Poland, and of Elizabeth of Austria, daughter to the emperor Albert II., a most virtuous woman, who died in 1505. He was born in 1458, on the 5th of October. From his childhood he was remarkably pious and devout. His preceptor was John Dugloss, called Longinus, canon of Cracow, a man of extraordinary learning and piety, who constantly refused all bishoprics, and other dignities of the Church and state which were pressed upon him. Vladislas, the eldest son, was elected king of Bohemia in 1471, and became king of Hungary in 1490. Casimir was the second son; John Albert, the third son, succeeded his father in the kingdom of Poland in 1492; and Alexander, the fourth son, was called to the same in 1501. Casimir and the other princes were warmly attached to the holy man who was their preceptor; but Casimir profited most by his pious maxims and example. He consecrated the flower of his age to the exercises of devotion and penance; his clothes were plain, and under them he wore a hair shirt. He often slept upon the ground, and spent a considerable part of the night in prayer and meditation, chiefly on the passion of our Saviour. He was wont at times to go out in the night to pray before the church-doors, and in the morning waited before them till they were opened for matins. He was especially devout to the passion of our blessed Saviour, the very thought of which excited him to tears. He was no less piously affected towards the Sacrifice of the altar, at which he always assisted with such reverence and attention that he seemed in raptures. And as a mark of his singular devotion to the Blessed Virgin, he composed, or, at least, frequently recited, the long hymn that bears his name, a copy of which was, by his desire, buried with him. His love for Jesus Christ showed itself in his regard for the poor, who are His members, to whose relief he applied whatever he had, and employed his credit with his father, and his brother, Vladislas, king of Bohemia, to procure them succour.
The nobles of Hungary, dissatisfied with Matthias Corvinus, their king, son of the great Huniades, begged the king of Poland to allow them to place his son Casimir on the throne. The saint, then not quite fifteen years of age, was very unwilling to consent; but in compliance with his father's will, he went at the head of an army of twenty thousand men to the frontiers in 1471. There hearing that Matthias had formed an army of sixteen thousand men to oppose him, and that pope Sixtus IV. had sent an embassy to divert his father from the expedition, and finding that his soldiers were deserting him in great numbers, he joyfully returned. However, his conduct gave such offence to his father, whose ambition had been roused, that he was forbidden by him to enter Cracow, and ordered to take up his residence in the castle of Dobzki. After this, nothing would again induce him to resume the attempt, though again pressed by the Hungarians, and urged by his father. As the old Russian churches were falling out of repair, Casimir, with more zeal than discretion, persuaded his father to pass an edict forbidding the restoration and reconstruction of churches which did not belong to the Latin rite.
Falling into a decline, the physicians recommended that he should relax his rigid chastity, but the young prince indignantly refused to defile his virgin body on the chance of thus prolonging his life a few months; and he died at the age of twenty-three, on March 4th, 1484, and was buried at Wilna, where his body is still preserved.
March 5
S. Theophilus, B. of Cæsarea, in Palestine, circ. A.D. 200.
S. Adrian, M. at Cæsarea, in Palestine, A.D. 308 (see S. Eubulus,March 7th).
S. Phocas, M. at Antioch, in Syria, circ. A.D. 320.
S. Gerasimus, Ab. in Palestine, A.D. 475.
S. Kieran or Piran, of Saigir, B. of Ossory, circ. A.D. 552.
S. Virgilius, Abp. of Arles, 7th cent.
S Drausinus, B. of Soissons, after A.D. 675.
S. Peter de Castelnau, Mk. M. at S. Gilles, in the Narbonnaise,
A.D. 1209.
S. John-Joseph of the Cross, C. at Naples, A.D. 1734.
[All the Latin Martyrologies, from the mention in which all that is known of him is derived.]
At Antioch, after many sufferings endured for the name of Christ, Phocas triumphed over the Old Serpent, a victory which is testified, to this day, by a miracle. For whoever is bitten by a serpent, having touched, full of faith, the door of the basilica of the martyr, is immediately cured, the poison at once losing its power; so says the Roman Martyrology.
[Roman Martyrology. By the Greeks on March 4th and 20th. Authorities: – Mention in the lives of S. Euthymius and S. Quiriacus, by Cyril the Monk, fl. 548]
S. Gerasimus embraced the monastic life in Lycia; he afterwards passed