Saint Fiacre
Ermite près de Meaux (+ 670)
Fils d'un roi d'Écosse ou d'Irlande (on s'interroge sur ses origines), il émigra en France à l'époque mérovingienne. Il fut ermite dans la forêt de Brie, accueilli par saint Faron, évêque de Meaux. Son ermitage donna naissance à la localité de 77470 Saint Fiacre. On lui prêta beaucoup de vertus guérisseuses après sa mort. Moine défricheur, son ermitage devint un hospice pour les pauvres qu'il nourrissait des fruits et légumes qu'il cultivait pour eux. C'est pourquoi il est spécialement honoré par les jardiniers et les maraîchers de l'Ile-de- France.
Un hôtel particulier portait son nom à Paris. Et, détail pittoresque, c'est
ainsi que les voitures parisiennes prirent le nom de "Fiacre" car
elles étaient garées non loin de cet hôtel(*).
(*) Il peut y avoir confusion avec un frère Fiacre, lire Notre-Dame
de Grâces et la naissance de Louis XIV. Un roi, une reine et toute une nation
implorent Dieu de donner un héritier au trône.
- Vidéo réalisée à l’occasion de la Saint Fiacre à Lisieux sous la présidence de Mgr Boulanger (webTV de la CEF)
À Breuil, au pays de Meaux, vers 670, saint Fiacre, ermite venu d’Irlande qui
mena là une vie de solitaire.
Martyrologe romain
SOURCE : https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/1763/Saint-Fiacre.html
Saint Fiacre
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/saint_fiacre.html
Also known as
Fevre
Fiachrach
Fiacrius
Fiaker
Profile
Brother of Saint Syra of Troyes.
Raised in an Irish monastery, which in
the 7th century were
great repositories of learning,
including the use of healing herbs,
a skill studied by
Fiacre. His knowledge and holiness caused followers to flock to him, which
destroyed the holy isolation he sought.
Fleeing to France, he
established a hermitage in
a cave near a spring, and was given land for his hermitage by Saint Faro of Meaux,
who was bishop at
the time. Fiacre asked for land for a garden for
food and healing herbs.
The bishop said
Fiacre could have as much land as he could entrench in one day. The next
morning Fiacre walked around the perimeter of the land he wanted, dragged his
spade behind him. Wherever the spade touched, trees were toppled, bushes
uprooted, and the soil was entrenched. A local woman heard
of this, and claimed sorcery was
involved, but the bishop decided
it was a miracle.
This garden, miraculously obtained,
became a place of pilgrimage for
centuries for those seeking healing.
Fiacre had the gift of healing by
laying on his hands; blindness,
polypus, and fevers are
mentioned by the old records as being cured by his touch; he was especially
effective against a type of tumour or fistula later
known as “le fic de S. Fiacre”.
Fiacre’s connection to cab drivers is
because the Hotel de Saint Fiacre in Paris, France rented
carriages. People who had no idea who Fiacre was referred to the cabs as Fiacre
cabs, and eventually just as fiacres. Those who drove them
assumed Fiacre as their patron.
18
August 670 of
natural causes
his relics have been
distributed to several churches and cathedrals across Europe
man carrying a spade and a basket of vegetables beside
him surrounded by pilgrims and blessing the sick
shovel
spade
Storefront
Commercial
Links related to Saint Fiacre
Additional Information
Boerner
Botanical Gardensby Leona Woodring Smith
Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints, by Matthew
Bunson, Margaret Bunson, and Stephen Bunson
MLA Citation
“Saint Fiacre”. Saints.SQPN.com. 26 September 2010. Web.
{today’s date}. <http://saints.sqpn.com/saint-fiacre/>
SOURCE : http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/index2.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsaints.sqpn.com%2Fsaint-fiacre
St. Fiacre
Abbot, born in Ireland about
the end of the sixth century; died 18 August, 670. Having been ordained priest,
he retired to a hermitage on the banks of the Nore of which the
townland Kilfiachra, or Kilfera, County Kilkenny, still preserves
the memory. Disciples flocked to him, but, desirous of greater
solitude, he left his native land and arrived, in 628, at Meaux,
where St. Faro then heldepiscopal sway. He was generously
received by Faro, whose kindly feelings were engaged to the Irish monk for blessings which
he and his father's house
had received from the Irish missionaryColumbanus. Faro granted
him out of his own patrimony a site at Brogillum (Breuil) surrounded by
forests. Here Fiacre built an oratory in honour of
the Blessed
Virgin Mary, a hospice in which he received strangers, and a
cell in which he himself lived apart. He lived a life of great mortification,
in prayer, fast, vigil,
and the manual labour of the garden. Disciples gathered around him
and soon formed a monastery.
There is a legend that St. Faro allowed him as much land as
he might surround in one day with a furrow; that Fiacre turned up the earth
with the point of his crosier,
and that an officious woman hastened
to tell Faro that he was being beguiled; that Faro coming
to the wood recognized that the wonderworker was a man of God and
sought his blessing, and that Fiacre henceforth excluded women,
on pain of severe bodily infirmity, from the precincts of his monastery.
In reality, the exclusion of women was
a common rugin the Irish foundations.
His fame formiracles was
widespread. He cured all manner of diseases by laying on his hands; blindness,
polypus, fevers are mentioned, and especially a tumour or fistula
since called "le fic de S. Fiacre".
His remains were interred in
the church at Breuil, where his sanctity was
soon attested by the numerous cures wrought at his tomb.
Many churches and oratories have
been dedicated to him throughout France.
His shrine at Breuil is still a resort for pilgrims with
bodily ailments. In 1234 his remains were placed in a shrine by Pierre, Bishop of Meaux,
his arm being encased in a separatereliquary.
In 1479 the relics of
Sts. Fiacre and Kilian were placed in a silver shrine, which was
removed in 1568 to the cathedral
church at Meaux for safety from the
destructive fanaticism of theCalvinists.
In 1617 the Bishop of Meaux gave
part of the saint's body
to the Grand Duke of Tuscany,
and in 1637 the shrine was again opened and part of
the vertebrae given to Cardinal
Richelieu. Amystery play of the fifteenth century celebrates St.
Fiacre's life and miracles. St.
John of Matha, Louis XIII, and Anne of Austria were among his most famous
clients. He is the patron of gardeners. The French cab
derives its name from him. The Hôtel de St-Fiacre, in the Rue
St-Martin, Paris, in the middle of the seventeenth century first let these
coaches on hire. The sign of the inn was an image of the saint,
and the coaches in time came to be called by his name. His feast is
kept on the 30th of August.
Mulcahy, Cornelius. "St. Fiacre." The
Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton
Company, 1909. <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06067a.htm>.
Transcription. This article was transcribed for
New Advent by Elizabeth T. Knuth. In honor of Dan and Cydney Setzer.
Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. September
1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop
of New York.
Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight.
Dedicated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
SOURCE : http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newadvent.org%2Fcathen%2F06067a.htm
