ST. LEANDER was of an illustrious family, and born at Carthagena in
Spain. He had two brothers, St. Fulgentius, bishop of Ecija and
Carthagena, and St. Isidore, our saint's successor in the see of
Seville. He had also one sister, Florentia by name, who had consecrated
herself to God in the state of virginity. He set them an example of that
piety which they faithfully imitated. He entered into a monastery very
young, where he lived many years, and attained to an eminent degree of
virtue and sacred learning. These qualities occasioned his being
promoted to the see of Seville: but his change of condition made little
or no alteration in his method {479} of life, though it brought on him a
great increase of care and solicitude for the salvation of those whom
God had put under his care, as well as for the necessities of the whole
church, that of Spain in particular. This kingdom was then possessed by
the Visigoths, or Western-Goths; who, while Theodoric settled the
Ostrogoths, or Eastern-Goths, in Italy, had passed the Alps, and founded
their kingdom, first in Languedoc, and soon after, about the year 470,
in Spain. These Goths, being for the generality all infected with
Arianism, established this heresy wherever they came; so that when St.
Leander was made bishop, it had reigned in Spain a hundred years. This
was his great affliction: however, by his tears and prayers to God, and
by his most zealous and unwearied endeavors, both at home and abroad, he
became the happy instrument of the conversion of that nation to the
Catholic faith. But he suffered much from king Leovigild on this
account, and was at length forced into banishment; the saint having
converted, among others, Hermenegild, the king's eldest son and heir
apparent. This pious prince his unnatural father put to death the year
following, for refusing to receive the communion from the hands of an
Arian bishop. But, touched with remorse not long after, he recalled our
saint, and falling sick, and finding himself past hopes of recovery, he
sent for St. Leander, whom he had so much persecuted, and recommended to
him his son Recared, whom he left his successor, to be instructed in the
true faith; though out of fear of his people, as St. Gregory laments, he
durst not embrace it himself. His son Recared, by listening to St.
Leander, soon became a Catholic. The king also spoke with so much wisdom
on the controverted points to the Arian bishops, that by the force of
his reasoning, rather than by his authority, he brought them over to own
the truth of the Catholic doctrine; and thus he converted the whole
nation of the Visigoths. He was no less successful in the like pious
endeavors with respect to the Suevi, a people of Spain, whom his father
Leovigild had perverted. It was a subject of great joy to the whole
church to behold the wonderful blessing bestowed by Almighty God on the
labors of our saint, but to none more than St. Gregory the Great, who
wrote to St. Leander to congratulate him on the subject.
This holy prelate was no less zealous in the reformation of manners,
than in restoring the purity of faith; and he planted the seeds of that
zeal and fervor which afterwards produced so many martyrs and saints.
His zeal in this regard appeared in the good regulations set on foot
with this intent in the council of Seville, which was called by him, and
of which he was, as it were, the soul. In 589, he assisted at the third
council of Toledo, of seventy-two bishops, or their deputies, in which
were drawn up twenty-three canons, relating to discipline, to repair the
breaches the Arian heresy had made in fomenting disorders of several
kinds. One of these was, that the Arian clergy cohabited with their
wives; but the council forbade such of them as were converted to do so,
enjoining them a separation from the same chamber, and, if possible,
from the same house.[1] This council commanded also the rigorous
execution of all penitential canons without any abatement. The pious
cardinal D'Aguirre has written a learned dissertation ton this
subject.[2]
St. Leander, sensible of the importance of prayer, which is in a devout
life what a spring is in a watch, or the main wheel in an engine,
labored particularly to encourage true devotion in all persons, but
particularly those of the monastic profession, of which state it is the
very essence and constituent. His letter to his sister Florentina, a
holy virgin, is called his Rule of a Monastic Life. It turns chiefly on
the contempt of the world, and on {480} the exercises of prayer. This
saint also reformed the Spanish liturgy.[3] In this liturgy, and in the
third council of Toledo, in conformity to the eastern churches, the
Nicene creed was appointed to be read at mass, to express a detestation
of the Arian heresy. Other western churches, with the Roman, soon
imitated this devotion. St. Leander was visited by frequent distempers,
particularly the gout, which St. Gregory, who was often afflicted with
the same, writing to him, calls a favor and mercy of heaven. This holy
doctor of Spain died about the year 596, on the 27th of February, as
Mabillon proves from his epitaph. The church of Seville has been a
metropolitan see ever since the third century. The cathedral is the most
magnificent, both as to structure and ornament, of any in all Spain.
* * * * *
The contempt of the world which the gospel so strongly inculcates, and
which St. Leander so eminently practised and taught, it the foundation
of a spiritual life; but is of far greater extent than most Christians
conceive, for it requires no less than a total disengagement of the
affections from earthly things. Those whom God raises to perfect virtue,
and closely unites to himself, must cut off and put away every thing
that can be an obstacle to this perfect union. Their will must be
thoroughly purified from all dross of inordinate affections before it
can be perfectly absorbed in his. This they who are particularly devoted
to the divine service, are especially to take notice of. If this truth
was imprinted in the manner that it ought, in the hearts of those who
enrol themselves in the service of the church, or who live in cloisters,
they would be replenished with heavenly blessings, and the church would
have the comfort of seeing apostles of nations revive among her clergy,
and the monasteries again filled with Antonies, Bennets, and Bernards;
whose sanctity, prayers, and example, would even infuse into many others
the true spirit of Christ, amid the desolation and general blindness of
this unhappy age.
Footnotes:
1. Conc. t. 5, p. 998.
2. Diss. 3. in Conc. Hisp.
3. The church of Spain first received the faith from Rome, as pope
Innocent I. Informs us. (Ep. ad. Decent.) Whence St. Isidore says
their divine office was instituted by St. Peter, (l. l, c. 15, Eccl.
Offic.) Their ceremonies and discipline, as of fasting on Saturdays,
and other rites mentioned in their councils, are Roman. And the
Roman liturgy was used in Africa beyond Spain. But the Goths used a
liturgy formed by Ulphilas from the Orientals. St. Leander is said
to have compiled a liturgy from both, and also from the Gaulish and
oriental liturgies: St. Isidore and St. Ildefonse perfected it. When
the Saracens or Arabians became masters of Spain, the Christians of
that country were called Mixt-Arabs, and their liturgy, Mozarabic.
In the eleventh and twelfth centuries this liturgy gave place to the
Roman. Cardinal Ximenes re-established the daily use of the
Mozarabic in a chapel of the cathedral of Toledo: it is also used in
the same city by seven old Mozarabic churches, but on the days of
their patrons only. See Le Brun, liturg. t. 2, p. 272. F. Flores
thinks the Mozarabic liturgy was that of the Roman and African
churches retained by St. Leander, without any alteration or mixture
from the Orientals, except certain very inconsiderable rites. See
his Spans. Sagrada, t. 3, Diss. de la Missa Antigua de Espagna,
pp.187, 198, &c. But though it much resembles it, we are assured by
F. Burriel, the learned Jesuit, in his letter on the literary
monuments found in Spain, that in some parts there are considerable
differences. We shall be fully informed of this, also what masses
were added by St. Ildefonse, and of other curious particulars, when
we are favored with the collections he has made from the Gothic MSS.
in Spain on this subject, and the new edition of all the liturgies
of Christian churches which the Assemani are preparing at Rome in
fifteen volumes folio. The Mozarabic liturgy has been printed at
Rome in folio, by the care of F. Leeley, a Scotch Jesuit.