St. Fiaker (Fiacre or Fefre)
Anchoret and Confessor SEPTEMBER 1 A.D. 670
He was nobly born in Ireland, and had his education under
the care of a bishop of eminent sanctity, who was, according to some Conan,
bishop of Soder or the Western islands. Looking upon all worldly advantages
as dross, to gain Christ, he left his country and friends in the flower
of his age and with certain pious companions sailed over into France,
in quest of some close solitude, in which he might devote himself to God,
unknown to the rest of the world. Divine providence, which was pleased
to honor the diocese of Meaux with the happiness of furnishing a retreat
to this holy man, conducted him to St. Faro, who was the bishop of that
city, and eminent for sanctity. When St. Fiaker addressed himself to him,
the prelate, charmed with the marks of extraordinary virtue and abilities
which he discovered in this stranger, gave him a solitary dwelling in
a forest which was his own patrimony called Breuil, in the province of
Brie, two leagues from Meaux. In this place the holy anchoret cleared
the ground of trees and briers, made himself a cell, with a small garden
and built an oratory in honor of the Blessed Virgin, in which he spent
great part of the days and nights in devout prayer. He tired his garden,
and labored with his own hands for his subsistence. The life he led was
most austere, and only necessity or charity ever interrupted his exercises
of prayer and heavenly contemplation. Many resorted to him for advice,
and the poor for relief. His tender charity for all moved him to attend
cheerfully those that came to consult him; and he built, at some distance
from his cell, a kind of hospital for the reception of strangers and pilgrims.
There he entertained the poor, serving them with his own hands and he
often miraculously restored to health those that were sick. But he never
suffered any woman to enter the enclosure of his hermitage; which was
an inviolable rule among the Irish monks. St. Columban, by refusing queen
Brunehault entrance into his monastery, gave the first occasion to the
violent persecution which she raised against him. This law St. Fiaker
observed inviolably to his death; and a religious respect has established
the same rule, to this day, both with regard to the place where he dwelt
at Breuil, and the chapel where he was interred. Mabillon and Du Plessis
say, that those who have attempted to transgress it, were punished by
visible judgments, and that in 1620, a lady of Paris, who pretended to
be above this law, going into the oratory became distracted upon the spot,
and never recovered her senses.
Anne of Austria queen of France, out of a religious deference, contented herself to offer up her prayers in this place without the door of the oratory amongst other pilgrims. St. Chillen or Kilian, an Irishman of high birth, on his return from Rome, visited St. Fiaker, who was his kinsman, and having passed some time under his discipline, was directed, by his advice, with the authority of the bishops, to preach in that and the neighboring diocesses. This commission he executed with admirable sanctity and fruit, chiefly in the diocese of Arras, where his memory is in great veneration to this day, and he is honored on the 13th of November. St Fiaker had a sister called Syra, who died in the diocese of Meaux, and is honored there among the holy virgins. Dempster, Leland, Tanner, and others, mention a letter of spiritual advice which St. Fiaker wrote to her. She ought not to be confounded with St. Syra of Troyes, who was a married woman, and lived in the third century. Hector Boetius, David Camerarius, and bishop Leslie, relate that St. Fiaker being eldest son to a king of the Scots, in the reign of Clotaire II in France, was invited by ambassadors sent by his nation to come and take possession of that kingdom; but answered, that, for the inheritance of an eternal crown, he had renounced all earthly claims. This circumstance, however, is not mentioned in the ancient history of his life. He died about the year 670, on the 30th of August. His body was buried in his own oratory. He seems never to have had any disciples that lived with him.
The monks of St. Faro's for a long time, kept two or three
priests at Breuil to serve this chapel and assist the pilgrims; but at
length they founded there a priory, which subsists dependent of that abbey.
The shrine of St. Fiaker became famous for frequent miracles, and was
resorted to from all parts of France by crowds of pilgrims. The relics
of this saint were translated to the cathedral of Meaux, not in 1562,
as Mabillon mistook, but in 1568, though a part was left at Breuil or
St. Fiaker's. The grand dukes of Florence, by earnest importunities, obtained
two small portions in 1527 and 1695, for which they built a chapel at
Toppaia, one of their country-seats. Saint Fiaker is patron of the province
of Brie, and titular saint of several churches in most parts of France,
in which kingdom his name has been most famous for above a thousand years.
Du Plessis, among innumerable miracles which have been wrought through
the intercession of this glorious saint, mentions those that follow. M.
Seguier, bishop of Meaux, in 1649, and John I of Chatillon count of Blois,
gave authentic testimonies of their own wonderful cures of dangerous distempers
wrought upon them through the means of St. Fiaker. To omit many other
persons of rank both in the church and state, mentioned by our authors,
queen Anne of Austria attributed to the mediation of this saint the recovery
of Lewis XIII at Lyons, where he had been dangerously ill, in thanksgiving
for which, according to a vow she had made, she performed, in person,
on foot, a pilgrimage to Saint Fiaker's in 1641. She acknowledged herself
indebted to this saint for the cure of a dangerous issue of blood, which
neither surgeons nor physicians had been able to relieve. She also sent
to this saint's shrine a token in acknowledgment of his intervention in
the birth of her son Lewis XIV. Before that great king underwent a dangerous
operation, to implore the divine blessing, Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, began
a novena of prayers at St. Fiaker's, which the monks finished. See St.
Fiaker's ancient life in Mabillon, saec. 2; Stilting the Bollandist, t.
6 Augusti, p. 598; Dom Toussaint Du Plessis, the Maurist monk, Histoire
de l'Eglise de Meaux, 1. 1, n. 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, tom. 1, p.
55; also, t. 2, p. 174, 375; Usher, Antiqu. c. 17, p. 488, who proves
him to have come from Ireland, both by an old sequence, and by the saint's
own words to St. Faro, recorded by John of Tinmouth: "Ireland, the island
of the Scots, gave me and my progenitors birth."
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Above image 1 is from An early nineteenth-century
depiction of the saintly gardener. Jean-Loup Charmet
image 2 is from irelands eye.com
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