ST. ROMUALD, of the family of the dukes of Ravenna, called Honesti, was
born in that capital about the year 956. Being brought up in the maxims
of the world, in softness and the love of pleasure, he grew every day
more and more enslaved to his passions: yet he often made a resolution
of undertaking something remarkable for the honor of God; and when he
went a hunting, if he found an agreeable solitary place in the woods, he
would stop in it to pray, and would cry out: "How happy were the ancient
hermits, who had {371} such habitations! With what tranquillity could
they serve God, free from the tumult of the world!" His father, whose
name was Sergius, a worldly man, agreed to decide a dispute he had with
a relation about an estate by a duel. Romuald was shocked at the
criminal design; but by threats of being disinherited if he refused, was
engaged by his father to be present as a spectator: Sergius slew his
adversary. Romuald, then twenty years of age, struck with horror at the
crime that had been perpetrated, though he had concurred to it no
further than by his presence, thought himself, however, obliged to
expiate it by a severe course of penance for forty days in the
neighboring Benedictine monastery of Classis, within four miles of
Ravenna. He performed great austerities, and prayed and wept almost
without intermission. His compunction and fervor made all these
exercises seem easy and sweet to him: and the young nobleman became
every day more and more penetrated with the fear and love of God. The
good example which he saw, and the discourses of a pious lay-brother,
who waited on him, concerning eternity and the contempt of the world,
wrought so powerfully upon him, that he petitioned in full chapter to be
admitted as a penitent to the religious habit. After some demurs,
through their apprehensions of his father's resentment, whose next heir
the saint was, his request was granted. He passed seven years in this
house in so great fervor and austerity, that his example became odious
to certain tepid monks, who could not bear such a continual reproach of
their sloth. They were more exasperated when his fervor prompted him to
reprove their conduct, insomuch, that some of the most abandoned formed
a design upon his life, the execution of which he prevented by leaving
that monastery, with the abbot's consent, and retiring into the
neighborhood of Venice, where he put himself under the direction of
Marinus, a holy hermit, who there led an austere ascetic life. Under
this master, Romuald made great progress in every virtue belonging to a
religious state of life.
Peter Urseoli was then doge of Venice. He had been unjustly raised to
that dignity two years before by a faction which had assassinated his
predecessor Peter Candiano; in which conspiracy he is said by some to
have been an accomplice: though this is denied by the best Venetian
historians.[1] This murder, however, paved the way for his advancement
to the sovereignty, which the stings of his conscience would not suffer
him quietly to enjoy. This put him upon consulting St. Guarinus, a holy
abbot of Catalonia, then at Venice, about what he was to do to be saved.
The advice of St. Marinus and St. Romuald was also desired. These three
unanimously agreed in proposing a monastic state, as affording the best
opportunities for expiating his crimes. Urseoli acquiesced, and, under
pretence of joining with his family at their villa, where he had ordered
a great entertainment, set out privately with St. Guarinus, St. Romuald,
and John Gradenigo, a Venetian nobleman of singular piety, and his
son-in-law John Moresini, for St. Guarinus's monastery of St. Michael of
Cusan, in that part of Catalonia which was then subject to France. Here
Urseoli and Gradenigo made their monastic profession: Marinus and
Romuald, leaving them under the conduct of Guarinus, retired into a
desert near Cusan, and there led an eremitical life. Many flocked to
them, and Romuald being made superior, first practised himself what he
taught others, joining rigorous fasts, solitude, and continual prayer,
with hard manual labor. He had an extraordinary ardor {372} for prayer,
which he exceedingly recommended to his disciples, in whom he could not
bear to see the least sloth or tepidity with regard to the discharge of
this duty; saying, they had better recite one psalm with fervor; than a
hundred with less devotion. His own fasts and mortifications were
extremely rigorous, but he was more indulgent to others, and in
particular to Urseoli, who had exchanged his monastery for St. Romuald's
desert, where he lived under his conduct; who, persevering in his
penitential state, made a most holy end, and is honored in Venice as a
saint, with an office, on the 14th of January: and in the Roman
Martyrology, published by Benedict XIV., on the 10th of that month.
Romuald, in the beginning of his conversion and retreat from the world,
was molested with various temptations. The devil sometimes directly
solicited him to vice; at other times he represented to him what he had
forsaken, and that he had left it to ungrateful relations. He would
sometimes suggest that what he did could not be agreeable to God; at
other times, that his labors and difficulties were too heavy for man to
bear. These and the like attempts of the devil he defeated by watching
and prayer, in which he passed the whole night; and the devil strove in
vain to divert him from this holy exercise by shaking his whole cell,
and threatening to bury him in the ruins. Five years of grievous
interior conflicts and buffetings of the enemy, wrought in him a great
purity of heart, and prepared him for most extraordinary heavenly
communications. The conversion of count Oliver, or Oliban, lord of that
territory, added to his spiritual joy. That count, from a voluptuous
worldling, and profligate liver, became a sincere penitent, and embraced
the order of St. Benedict. He carried great treasures with him to mount
Cassino, but left his estate to his son. The example of Romuald had also
such an influence on Sergius, his father, that, to make atonement for
his past sins and enormities, he had entered the monastery of St.
Severus, near Ravenna; but after some time spent there, he yielded so
far to the devil's temptations, as to meditate a return into the world.
This was a sore affliction to our saint, and determined him to return to
Italy, to dissuade his father from leaving his monastery. But the
inhabitants of the country where he lived, had such an opinion of his
sanctity, that they were resolved not to let him go. They therefore
formed a brutish extravagant design to kill him, that they might keep at
least his body among them, imagining it would be their protection and
safeguard on perilous occasions. The saint being informed of their
design, had recourse to David's stratagem, and feigned himself mad upon
which the people, losing their high opinion of him, guarded him no
longer. Being thus at liberty to execute his design, he set out on his
journey to Ravenna, through the south of France. He arrived there in
994, and made use of all the authority his superiority in religion gave
him over his father; and by his exhortations, tears, and prayers,
brought him to such an extraordinary degree of compunction and sorrow,
as to prevail with him to lay aside all thoughts of leaving his
monastery, where he spent the remainder of his days in great fervor, and
died with the reputation of sanctity.
Romuald, having acquitted himself of his duty towards his father,
retired into the marsh of Classis, and lived in a cell, remote from all
mankind. The devil pursued him here with his former malice; he sometimes
overwhelmed his imagination with melancholy, and once scourged him
cruelly in his cell. Romuald at length cried out: "Sweetest Jesus,
dearest Jesus, why hast thou forsaken me? hast thou entirely delivered
me over to my enemies?" At that sweet name the wicked spirits betook
themselves to flight, and such an excess of divine sweetness and
compunction filled the breast of Romuald, that he melted into tears, and
his heart seemed quite dissolved. {373} He sometimes insulted his
spiritual enemies, and cried out: "Are all your forces spent? have you
no more engines against a poor despicable servant of God?" Not long
after, the monks of Classis chose Romuald for their abbot. The emperor,
Otho III. who was then at Ravenna, made use of his authority to engage
the saint to accept the charge, and went in person to visit him in his
cell, where he passed the night lying on the saint's poor bed. But
nothing could make Romuald consent, till a synod of bishops then
assembled at Ravenna, compelled him to it by threats of excommunication.
The saint's inflexible zeal for the punctual observance of monastic
discipline, soon made these monks repent of their choice, which they
manifested by their irregular and mutinous behavior. The saint being of
a mild disposition, bore with it for some time, in hopes of bringing
them to a right sense of their duty. At length, finding all his
endeavors to reform them ineffectual, he came to a resolution of leaving
them, and went to the emperor, then besieging Tivoli, to acquaint him of
it; whom, when he could not prevail upon to accept of his resignation,
the saint, in the presence of the archbishop of Ravenna, threw down his
crosier at his feet. This interview proved very happy for Tivoli; for
the emperor, though he had condemned that city to plunder, the
inhabitants having rebelled and killed duke Matholin, their governor,
spared it at the intercession of St. Romuald. Otho having also, contrary
to his solemn promise upon oath, put one Crescentius, a Roman senator,
to death, who had been the leader in the rebellion of Tivoli, and made
his widow his concubine; he not only performed a severe public penance
enjoined him by the saint, as his confessor, but promised, by St.
Romuald's advice, to abdicate his crown and retire into a convent during
life; but this he did not live to perform. The saint's remonstrances had
a like salutary effect on Thamn, the emperor's favorite, prime minister
and accomplice in the treachery before mentioned, who, with several
other courtiers, received the religious habit at the hands of St.
Romuald, and spent the remainder of his days in retirement and penance.
It was a very edifying sight to behold several young princes and
noblemen, who a little before had been remarkable for their splendid
appearance and sumptuous living, now leading an obscure, solitary,
penitential life in humility, penance, fasting, cold, and labor. They
prayed, sung psalms, and worked. They all had their several employments:
some spun, others knit, others tilled the ground, gaining their poor
livelihood by the sweat of their brow. St. Boniface surpassed all the
rest in fervor and mortification. He was the emperor's near relation,
and so dear to him, that he never called him by any other name than, My
soul! he excelled in music, and in all the liberal arts and sciences,
and after having spent many years under the discipline of St. Romuald,
was ordained bishop, and commissioned by the pope to preach to the
infidels of Russia, whose king he converted by his miracles, but was
beheaded by the king's brothers, who were themselves afterwards
converted on seeing the miracles wrought on occasion of the martyr's
death. Several other monks of St. Romuald's monastery met with the same
cruel treatment in Sclavonia, whither they were sent by the pope to
preach the gospel.
St. Romuald built many other monasteries, and continued three years at
one he founded near Parenzo, one year in the community to settle it, and
two in a neighboring cell. Here he labored some time under a spiritual
dryness, not being able to shed one tear; but he ceased not to continue
his devotions with greater fervor. At last being in his cell, at those
words of the psalmist; _I will give thee understanding, and will
instruct thee_, he was suddenly visited by God with an extraordinary
light and spirit of compunction, which from that time never left him. By
a supernatural light, the fruit of prayer, he understood the holy
scriptures, and wrote an exposition of the {374} psalms full of
admirable unction. He often foretold things to come, and gave directions
full of heavenly wisdom to all who came to consult him, especially to
his religious, who frequently came to ask his advice how to advance in
virtue, and how to resist temptations; he always sent them back to their
cells full of an extraordinary cheerfulness. Through his continual
weeping he thought others had a like gift, and often said to his monks:
"Do not weep too much; for it prejudices the sight and the head." It was
his desire, whenever he could conveniently avoid it, not to say mass
before a number of people, because he could not refrain from tears in
offering that august sacrifice. The contemplation of the Divinity often
transported him out of himself; melting in tears, and burning with love,
he would cry out: "Dear Jesus! my dear Jesus! my unspeakable desire! my
joy! joy of the angels! sweetness of the saints!" and the like, which he
was heard to speak with a jubilation which cannot be expressed. To
propagate the honor of God, he resolved, by the advice of the bishop of
Pola and others, to exchange his remote desert, for one where he could
better advance his holy institute. The bishop of Paienzo forbade any
boat to carry him off, desiring earnestly to detain him; but the bishop
of Pola sent one to fetch him. He miraculously calmed a storm at sea,
and landed safe at Capreola. Coming to Bifurcum, he found the monks'
cells too magnificent, and would lodge in none but that of one Peter, a
man of extraordinary austerity, who never would live in a cell larger
than four cubits. This Peter admired the saint's spirit of compunction,
and said, that when he recited the psalms alternately with him, the holy
man used to go out thirty times in a night as if for some necessity, but
he saw it was to abandon himself a few moments to spiritual consolation,
with which he overflowed at prayer, or to sighs and tears which he was
not able to contain. Romuald sent to the counts of the province of
Marino, to beg a little ground whereon to build a monastery. They
hearing Romuald's name, offered him with joy whatever mountains, woods,
or fields he would choose among them. He found the valley of Castro most
proper. Exceeding great was the fruit of the blessed man's endeavors,
and many put themselves with great fervor under his direction. Sinners,
who did not forsake the world entirely, were by him in great multitudes
moved to penance, and to distribute great part of their possessions
liberally among the poor. The holy man seemed in the midst of them as a
seraph incarnate, burning with heavenly ardors of divine love, and
inflaming those who heard him speak. If he travelled, he rode or walked
at a distance behind his brethren, reciting psalms, and watering his
cheeks almost without ceasing with tears that flowed in great abundance.
The saint had always burned with an ardent desire of martyrdom, which
was much increased by the glorious crowns of some of his disciples,
especially of St. Boniface. At last, not able to contain the ardor of
his charity and desire to give his life for his Redeemer, he obtained
the pope's license, and set out to preach the gospel in Hungary, in
which mission some of his disciples accompanied him. He had procured two
of them to be consecrated archbishops by the pope, declining himself the
episcopal dignity; but a violent illness which seized him on his
entering Hungary, and returned as often as he attempted to proceed on
his intended design, was a plain indication of the will of God in this
matter; so he returned home with seven of his associates. The rest, with
the two archbishops, went forward, and preached the faith under the holy
king, St. Stephen, suffering much for Christ, but none obtained the
crown of martyrdom. Romuald in his return built some monasteries in
Germany, and labored to reform others; but this drew on him many
persecutions. Yet all, even the great ones of the world, trembled in his
presence. He refused to accept either water or wood, without {375}
paying for it, from Raynerius; marquis of Tuscia, because that prince
had married the wife of a relation whom he had killed. Raynerius, though
a sovereign, used to say, that neither the emperor nor any mortal on
earth could strike him with so much awe as Romuald's presence did. So
powerful was the impression which the Holy Ghost, dwelling in his
breast, made on the most haughty sinners. Hearing that a certain
Venetian had by simony obtained the abbey of Classis, he hastened
thither. The unworthy abbot strove to kill him, to preserve his unjust
dignity. He often met with the like plots and assaults from several of
his own disciples, which procured him the repeated merit, though not the
crown, of martyrdom. The pope having called him to Rome, he wrought
there several miracles, built some monasteries in its neighborhood, and
converted innumerable souls to God. Returning from Rome, he made a long
stay at Mount Sitria. A young nobleman addicted to impurity, being
exasperated at this saint's severe remonstrances, had the impudence to
accuse him of a scandalous crime. The monks, by a surprising levity,
believed the calumny, enjoined him a most severe penance, forbid him to
say mass, and excommunicated him. He bore all with patience and in
silence, as if really he had been guilty, and refrained from going to
the altar for six months. In the seventh month he was admonished by God
to obey no longer so unjust and irregular a sentence pronounced without
any authority and without grounds. He accordingly said mass again, and
with such raptures of devotion, as obliged him to continue long absorbed
in ecstasy. He passed seven years in Sitria, in his cell, in strict
silence, but his example did the office of his tongue and moved many to
penance. In bis old age, instead of relaxing, he increased his
austerities and fasts. He had three hair-shirts which he now and then
changed. He never would admit of the least thing to give a savor to the
herbs or meal-gruel on which he supported himself. If any thing was
brought him better dressed, he, for the greater self-denial, applied it
to his nostrils, and said: "O gluttony, gluttony, thou shalt never taste
this; perpetual war is declared against thee." His disciples also were
remarkable for their austere lives, went always barefoot, and looked
excessive pale with continual fasting. No other drink was known among
them but water, except in sickness. St. Romuald wrought in this place
many miraculous cures of the sick. At last, having settled his disciples
here in a monastery which he had built for them, he departed for
Bifurcum.
The holy emperor St. Henry II., who had succeeded Otho III., coming into
Italy, and being desirous to see the saint, sent an honorable embassy to
him to induce him to come to court. At the earnest request of his
disciples he complied, but not without great reluctance on his side. The
emperor received him with the greatest marks of honor and esteem, and
rising out of his chair, said to him: "I wish my soul was like yours."
The saint observed a strict silence the whole time the interview lasted,
to the great astonishment of the court. The emperor being convinced that
this did not proceed from pride or disdain, but from humility and a
desire of being despised, was so far from being offended at it, that it
occasioned his conceiving a higher esteem and veneration for him. The
next day he received from him wholesome advice in his closet. The German
noblemen showed him the greatest respect as he passed through the court,
and plucked the very hairs out of his garments for relics, at which he
was so much grieved, that he would have immediately gone back if he had
not been stopped. The emperor gave him a monastery on Mount Amiatus.
The most famous of all his monasteries is that of Camaldoli, near
Arezzo, in Tuscany, on the frontiers of the ecclesiastical state, thirty
miles east from Florence, founded by him about the year 1009. It lies
beyond a mountain, {376} very difficult to pass over, the descent from
which, on the opposite side, is almost a direct precipice looking down
upon a pleasant large valley, which then belonged to a lord called
Maldoli, who gave it the saint, and from him it retained the name
Camaldoli.[2] In this place St. Romuald built a monastery, and by the
several observances he added to St. Benedict's rule, gave birth to that
new order called Camaldoli, in which he united the cenobitic and
eremitical life. After seeing in a vision his monks mounting up a ladder
to heaven all in white, he changed their habit from black to white. The
hermitage is two short miles distant from the monastery. It is a
mountain quite overshaded by a dark wood of fir-trees. In it are seven
clear springs of water. The very sight of this solitude in the midst of
the forest helps to fill the mind with compunction, and a love of
heavenly contemplation. On entering it, we meet with a chapel of St.
Antony for travellers to pray in before they advance any further. Next
are the cells and lodgings for the porters. Somewhat further is the
church, which is large, well built, and richly adorned. Over the door is
a clock, which strikes so loud that it may be heard all over the desert.
On the left side of the church is the cell in which St. Romuald lived,
when he first established these hermits. Their cells, built of stone,
have each a little garden walled round. A constant fire is allowed to be
kept in every cell, on account of the coldness of the air throughout the
year: each cell has also a chapel in which they may say mass: they call
their superior, major. The whole hermitage is now enclosed with a wall:
none are allowed to go out of it; but they may walk in the woods and
alleys within the enclosure at discretion. Every thing is sent them from
the monastery in the valley: their food is every day brought to each
cell; and all are supplied with wood and necessaries, that they may have
no dissipation or hinderance in their contemplation. Many hours of the
day are allotted to particular exercises; and no rain or snow stops any
one from meeting in the church to assist at the divine office. They are
obliged to strict silence in all public common places; and everywhere
during their Lents, also on Sundays, Holydays, Fridays, and other days
of abstinence, and always from Complin till prime the next day.
For a severer solitude, St. Romuald added a third kind of life; that of
a recluse. After a holy life in the hermitage, the superior grants leave
to any that ask it, and seem called by God, to live forever shut up in
their cells, never speaking to any one but to the superior when he
visits them, and to the brother who brings them necessaries. Their
prayers and austerities are doubled, and their fasts more severe and
more frequent. St. Romuald condemned himself to this kind of life for
several years; and fervent imitators have never since failed in this
solitude.
St. Romuald died in his monastery in the valley of Castro, in the
marquisate of Ancona. As he was born about the year 956, he must have
died seventy years and some months old, not a hundred and twenty, as the
present copies of his life have it. The day of his death was the 19th of
June; but his principal feast is appointed by Clement VIII. on the 7th
of February, the day of his translation. His body was found entire and
uncorrupt five years after his death, and again in 1466. But his tomb
being sacrilegiously opened, and his body stolen in 1480, it fell to
dust, in which state it was translated to Fabriano, and there deposited
in the great church, all but the remains of one arm, sent to Camaldoli.
God has honored his relics with many miracles. The order of Camaldoli is
now divided into five congregations, under so many generals or majors.
The life of the hermits is very severe, though something mitigated since
the time of St. Romuald. The {377} Cenobites are more like Benedictines,
and perhaps were not directly established by St. Romuald, says F.
Helyot.
* * * * *
If we are not called to practise the extraordinary austerities of many
saints, we cannot but confess that we lie under an indispensable
necessity of leading mortified lives, both in order to fulfil our
obligation of doing penance, and to subdue our passions and keep our
senses and interior faculties under due command. The appetites of the
body are only to be reduced by universal temperance, and assiduous
mortification and watchfulness over all the senses. The interior powers
of the soul must be restrained, as the imagination, memory, and
understanding: their proneness to distraction, and the itching curiosity
of the mind, must be curbed, and their repugnance to attend to spiritual
things corrected by habits of recollection, holy meditation, and prayer.
Above all, the will must be rendered supple and pliant by frequent
self-denial, which must reach and keep in subjection all its most
trifling sallies and inclinations. If any of these, how insignificant
soever they may seem, are not restrained and vanquished, they will prove
sufficient often to disturb the quiet of the mind, and betray one into
considerable inconveniences, faults, and follies. Great weaknesses are
sometimes fed by temptations which seem almost of too little moment to
deserve notice. And though these infirmities should not arise to any
great height, they always fetter the soul, and are an absolute
impediment to her progress towards perfection.
Footnotes:
1. Sanuti tells us, that St. Peter Urseoli, from his cradle, devoted
himself with his whole heart to the divine service, and proposed to
himself in all his actions the holy will and the greater glory of
God. He built in the church of St. Mark a chapel, in which the body
of that evangelist was secretly laid, the place being known by very
few. Being chosen doge, he refused that dignity for a long time with
great obstinacy, but at length suffered himself to be overcome by
the importunity of the people. He had held it only two years and
eight months, when he retired. Sanuti. Vite de Duchi di Venezia, c.
976. Maramri, Rerum Italicar. Scriptores, t. 22, p. 564.
2. Contracted from Campo Maldoli.