Saint Fiacre, sculpture en pierre du XVe siècle, provenant de l'église de Sacy (Yonne), abbaye Saint-Germain d'Auxerre, Auxerre, Yonne, Bourgogne, France
Saint-Germain abbey, Auxerre, Yonne, Burgundy, France
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
Wenceslaus Hollar (1607–1677), Sancte Fiacre, 9 x 6, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library,
Wenceslas
Hollar Digital Collection
Saint Fiacre
Solitaire
VIe siècle
Saint Fiacre, fils d'un
roi d'Écosse, vivait au VIè siècle; il fut élevé dans la science et la piété
par des maîtres habiles. Jeune encore, il sentit son âme enflammée par l'amour
de la solitude et le désir de ne vivre que pour Dieu. Il s'embarqua pour la
France, à l'insu de son père, et se choisit, près de Meaux, un lieu retiré,
dans une forêt, où l'évêque lui concéda une portion de terre.
Saint Fiacre y bâtit un
couvent, qu'il consacra à la Sainte Vierge, à laquelle il avait voué dès son
enfance, une dévotion singulière. Là il mena une vie angélique, tant par son
application à Dieu que par la pratique de la plus rude mortification et le soin
de subjuguer les moindres saillies des passions mauvaises. Sa sainteté ne
manqua pas d'attirer en foule vers lui les pauvres et les pèlerins.
Fiacre mangeait peu et
employait presque tout le produit du travail de ses mains à la subsistance de
ses pieux visiteurs. On lui amenait des possédés et des malades, et il les
délivrait ou les guérissait en grand nombre. Cependant le petit terrain qu'il
occupait étant devenu insuffisant pour subvenir à tant d'aumônes et à une si
généreuse hospitalité, Fiacre fut obligé d'implorer de l'évêque une nouvelle
concession de terre, et le prélat lui permit de prendre et d'utiliser tout ce
qu'il pourrait entourer d'un fossé dans l'espace d'une journée. Chose
merveilleuse, Dieu vint au secours du travailleur: la terre se fendait
d'elle-même comme par enchantement, et un seul jour suffit au Saint pour
entourer une étendue considérable.
C'est sans doute à cause
des travaux de jardinage dont il occupait les loisirs que lui laissaient la
prière et le service de Dieu, que saint Fiacre est regardé comme le patron des
jardiniers.
Tandis qu'il jouissait
tranquillement des délices de la solitude, des envoyés écossais vinrent lui
offrir la couronne royale, dont son frère s'était rendu indigne. Fiacre avait
eu révélation de leur approche et obtint de Dieu, à force de larmes et de
prière, de ne pas permettre qu'il sortît de sa chère solitude pour être exposé
aux dangers des honneurs du monde. Il devint aussitôt semblable à un lépreux.
Quand les ambassadeurs furent arrivés près de lui, ils ne purent voir sans
horreur ce visage défiguré, et ils n'eurent plus aucun désir de le faire monter
sur le trône de ses pères. Fiacre mourut dans son ermitage; il opéra de grands
miracles après sa mort.
Abbé L. Jaud, Vie des Saints pour tous les jours de l'année, Tours, Mame, 1950
SOURCE : http://magnificat.ca/cal/fr/saints/saint_fiacre.html
Saint Fiacre (à gauche) et sainte Syre (à droite), vitrail Renaissance de l'église de Saint-Julien-du-Sault (Yonne)
LA LÉGENDE DE SAINT-FIACRE
Les légendes de la vie de
Saint Fiacre sont nombreuses. Voici celle que nous donne, en 1829, l’historien
provinois Michelin.
« ……. Un ermite célèbre
est regardé comme le fondateur de ce village, c’était un Irlandais appelé Fèfre
dont le nom a été converti en celui de Fiacre. Cet ermite, né de race royale,
fut élevé par Saint Conan, évêque de Sadorre qui jeta de profondes
racines dans son cœur. Elles fructifièrent de telle sorte que, bientôt, il
abandonna, sans la moindre réserve, tout ce que les qualités du corps et
de l’esprit, jointes à une auguste naissance, pouvaient lui promettre de plus
flatteur et de plus brillant dans le monde.
Il vint en France, auprès
de Saint Faron, évêque de Meaux, qui lui donna la terre de Breuil, dans les
environs de sa terre épiscopale. Là, le prince anachorète vécut du travail de
ses mains et se construisit un oratoire dans lequel les étrangers étaient
accueillis.
Il soignait les malades
et guérissait miraculeusement un grand nombre d’infirmités.
Les femmes étaient
sévèrement exclues de son ermitage. Elles lui adressaient leurs vœux en dehors
et ne dépassaient jamais le seuil.
Il paraît que cette règle
avait été imitée de celle de Saint Colomban, mais on l’a expliquée par une
aventure à laquelle se rapportent deux miracles qui contribuèrent à étendre
singulièrement la réputation de l’ermite :
Saint Fiacre était, dit
l’historien du diocèse de Meaux (1), fort à l’étroit dans sa solitude, de sorte
que, dans certains temps où les hôtes lui survenaient en plus grand nombre que
de coutume il ne pouvait ni les nourrir, ni les loger tous. Saint Faron,
à qui il fit part de sa peine, lui accorda dans la forêt voisine, tout le
terrain qu’il pourrait défricher et environner de fossés pendant vingt-quatre
heures.
Sur cette parole, le Saint
part : il trace sur la terre, avec sa bêche, l’enceinte qu’il se propose de
joindre à son ermitage.
A mesure qu’il avançait,
les arbres tombaient de part et d’autre et le fossé se creusait de lui-même.
Il y avait là, par
hasard, une femme à qui le menu peuple a donné le surnom de Becnaude, mot
injurieux qui est encore en usage dans quelques provinces de la France. Etonnée
de ce prodige dont elle ne connaissait pas la cause, elle chargea le saint
d’opprobres et courut l’accuser de magie et de sortilège devant Saint Faron qui
retournait à Meaux. Le Saint évêque revient aussitôt sur ses pas ; Fiacre,
livré à la tristesse, abandonne son ouvrage et s’assied sur une pierre qui se
trouvait auprès de lui : la pierre s’amollit comme la cire et reçoit
l’empreinte de son corps.
Ce second miracle auquel
il ne s’attendait pas lui-même fait éclater son innocence. Saint Faron en
glorifie le Seigneur et l’injuste accusatrice est confondue. On conserve depuis
plusieurs siècles, dans le monastère de St Fiacre, une grosse pierre de figure
ronde et creusée vers le centre de sa surface ; elle est placée à main gauche
en entrant dans la nef de l’église qui porte aujourd’hui son nom quoique dédiée
sous l’invocation de la Sainte Vierge… ».
Complétons cette histoire
par les miracles que nous conte Roger Lecotté :
Le roi, son père, venant
à mourir … « des ambassadeurs écossais prennent la route pour offrir la
couronne à St Fiacre mais le solitaire, pour les décourager, prie Dieu de lui
envoyer la lèpre, laquelle guérit dès que la délégation a repris le chemin de
l’Ecosse.
Bientôt le bienheureux
aura la révélation du jour de sa mort. Il prévient Saint Faron. Sur le chemin
du retour, Saint Fiacre, épuisé et assoiffé, s’arrête aux Mimeaux et prie.
C’est alors que l’eau de
source jaillit, cette même eau qui ne cesse de couler à la Fontaine Saint
Fiacre depuis 670. »
Parmi les variantes
inévitables de la légende de St Fiacre on peut citer celle de sa naissance :
certains auteurs le donnent comme étant le fils du roi d’Ecosse Eugène IV (2).
A son arrivée en France,
il aurait été accompagné de sa sœur Syre (laquelle deviendra Ste Syre) et que
St Faron envoya à l’abbaye de Faremoutiers nouvellement fondée par la sœur de
l’évêque Ste Fare. (L’on suppose d’ailleurs que cette dernière a habité Poincy.)
On attribue à St Fiacre
un premier miracle alors qu’il était au monastère auprès de St Faron : des
tonneaux vides se remplissent de vin à sa prière.
Enfin, l’interdiction
faite aux femmes de pénétrer dans son ermitage persiste après sa mort : «
On raconte qu’en 1622, une parisienne du faubourg St Germain enfreignit la
règle et pénétra dans la chapelle du saint ; sur le champ, elle en fut punie ;
frappée d’un accès de fureur, elle devint folle et sa folie dura le reste de sa
vie. »
Je passerai sous silence
les tribulations des reliques du saint dues tant aux guerres de Religion et à
la Révolution qu’aux exigences pressantes de personnages de haut rang.
On admet que dès 1234,
lors de la mise en reliquaire du corps de vénéré, les pèlerinages prirent leur
essor. Dans cet esprit une communauté de religieux fut établie au village de St
Fiacre en 1313.
En 1478, Louis XI offrit
au prieuré une châsse richement décorée (3). La reine Anne d’Autriche vint,
parait-il, faire un pèlerinage à St Fiacre pour obtenir, après 18 ans de
mariage, de donner un héritier à la couronne de France. A la même époque, et
dans la même intention, elle alla, nous dit André Billy dans une de ses
chroniques, prendre les eaux à Forges. Comme en 1637, elle fit faire une
neuvaine à Féricy et y but des eaux de la fontaine Ste Osmane, laquelle avait
le pouvoir de rendre les femmes fécondes, on ne sait à quelle intervention la
France est redevable de Louis XIV.
Nous la voyons encore,
lors d’un de ses séjours à Montceaux en 1641 « accomplir à pied un pèlerinage
d’environ ¾ de lieue à l’église de St Fiacre, auquel en qualité de voisin, elle
avait une dévotion particulière. Elle attribuait à son intercession la
guérison d’une maladie dont avait failli mourir, à Lyon, l’année précédente, le
roi qui toutefois ne survécut guère. Elle lui attribuait aussi la naissance de
Louis XIV, venu après de longues années de stérilité et elle fit hommage au
saint de langes bénis que le Pape lui avait envoyés de Rome pour son fils. »
Selon le journal de Jean
Raveneau, bachelier de théologies de Faculté de Paris, curé de Saint Jean les
deux Jumeaux : « le lundy 19 juillet 1683 » le roi Louis XIV, venant de la
Ferté passe à St Jean puis à « St Fiacre où la dévotion de la Reyne appela
toute la cour», et «où il entendit la messe et disna».
Enfin «Bossuet, en 1689,
inaugura à St Fiacre une neuvaine pour la guérison du roi qui souffrait d’une
fistule.»
L’importance de ces
personnages nous aide à comprendre le culte qui était rendu au saint,
tant en Ile de France qu’en Normandie, Bretagne, Picardie, Champagne et
Bourgogne.
A Provins notamment, la
corporation des jardiniers célèbre toujours avec éclat la fête de l’anachorète.
Elle jouit d’ailleurs du rare privilège (4) de régler les affaires et les
comptes de la confrérie dans l’église St Ayoul et d’y vendre des brioches.
Nous savons que du
XIIIème au XVIIIème siècle, les pèlerinages à St Fiacre connurent un succès
grandissant. Une enseigne, trouvée à Boulogne sur Mer nous renseigne sur
l’emblème des pèlerins :
«Celle-ci, attribuée au XVème siècle, est en
étain, carrée, à sommet triangulaire, avec quatre anneaux ou bélières pour
l’attacher aux vêtements. Dans le champ on voit St Faron en habits
épiscopaux, crosse à senestre et mitré ; à droite St Fiacre vêtu de l’habit
monastique et portant la bêche traditionnelle ; à gauche la Becnaude qui
accusait l’anachorète de sortilège ; on lit autour de l’enseigne la légende :
St Fiacre, St Faron, Hovopdé.” (5)
Les pèlerins qui venaient
au tombeau du Saint n’avaient garde d’oublier la fontaine «dite de St Fiacre de
temps immémorial». En effet on en trouve trace dès 1157. L’actuelle chapelle,
dernière de celles qui furent établies sur la source porte la date 1852 et le
bassin qui lui est adjoint fut posé en 1732. La fontaine est proche de la ferme
Mimeaux.
Les archéologues nous
enseignent que cet endroit fut probablement «le milieu géographique et sacré du
peuple melde à son origine».
L’on sait que les
peuplades anciennes attribuaient à pareil centre un caractère de sanctuaire, le
lieu consacré. Des rites de caractères païens y ont sans doute été pratiqués.
Que faut-il donc
retenir de cette légende ? Sans doute, quelques bribes de vérité.
Il est vraisemblable que
le christianisme s’est, à l’origine, propagé dans les villes et les vallées ;
les hauteurs et les lieux boisés, moins accessibles, restant sous l’influence
du paganisme.
On peut supposer que
c’est précisément pour en faire disparaître les croyances que St Faron envoya
St Fiacre en plein centre païen.
L’opposition à une
nouvelle religion est, ici, personnifiée par la Becnaude, cet antipathique
personnage légendaire que Bossuet lui-même repoussait, bien qu’il admit la
dévotion au saint. Ne répondait-il pas le 20 mai 1703 au père Mabillon qui lui
soumettait une vie de St Fiacre : «Il faudrait un peu adoucir l’endroit de la
Becnaude et en supprimer le nom qui n’est pas assez sérieux pour être imprimé.»
St Fiacre a été choisi
comme patron par les confréries de jardiniers maraîchers, horticulteurs par la
seule vertu, semble-t-il de la bêche, car le fait de cultiver la terre ou de
vivre à son contact était le lot de beaucoup de saints campagnards.
Quoiqu’il en soit, nos
amateurs de jardins découvriront, s’ils ne les connaissent, les mérites du
haricot St Fiacre et peut-être invoqueront-ils le saint pour le succès de leurs
récoltes ou la guérison de leurs maladies.
La petite histoire nous
apprend qu’à Paris, entre les numéros 79 et 81 de la rue St Martin, s’ouvre
l’étroite et sordide impasse St Fiacre. Un loueur de coches. Nicolas Sauvage, y
logeait au XVIIème siècle, à l’enseigne du saint. De là, viendrait
l’appellation de fiacre donnée aux voitures de louage.
Pour terminer cette
chronique, je voudrais signaler la découverte récente, entre St Fiacre et
Boutigny, non loin du ru des Cygnes, de deux polissoirs néolithiques,
christianisés vraisemblablement plusieurs siècles après la mort de St Fiacre.
L’un d’eux porte, gravée sur une face, celle tournée vers le village du saint,
la bêche légendaire du Patron de la Brie.
Source : chronique
rédigée par l'Abbé A. CAYLA dans le bulletin de la paroisse de Trilport en
Seine et Marne (N°7 Juin 1970 et N°8 Juillet - Août 1970)
(1) Duplessis, tome 1,
livre 1, page 54
(2) Les Scots sont les
ancêtres communs des Irlandais et des Bossais.
(3) Nous avons sur cette
époque un renseignement sur la valeur des choses : la paire de souliers des
religieux de St Fiacre valait de 2 sol 6 deniers à 3 sols (1410-1490)
(4) Il s’agit là de la
persistance d’une coutume devenue légale que des ordonnances royales
préciseront plusieurs fois au 17è siècle.
(5) Nom picard de
Becnaude.
SOURCE : https://www.ferrieres-sur-sichon.fr/page/la-legende-de-saint-fiacre
Chapelle
Saint-Fiacre de Plouider : statue de saint Fiacre.
Also
known as
Fefvre
Fevre
Fiachrach
Fiacrius
Fiaker
Fiachra
Fiacrio
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
–
–
Saint-Fiacre, Seine-et-Marne, France
man carrying a spade and
a basket of
vegetables beside him, surrounded by pilgrims and blessing the sick
Benedictine monk with
a shovel
Benedictine monk with
a heavy staff interceding
for sick
people
Benedictine monk with pilgrims
Benedictine monk with
a basket of vegetables
Additional
Information
Book of
Saints, by the Monks of
Ramsgate
Lives
of the Saints, by Father Alban
Butler
books
Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints
Oxford Dictionary of Saints, by David Hugh Farmer
Saints
and Their Attributes, by Helen Roeder
Some Patron Saints, by
Padraic Gregory
other
sites in english
1001 Patron Saints and Their Feast Days, Australian
Catholic Truth Society
images
videos
sitios
en español
Martirologio Romano, 2001 edición
sites
en français
Plouguerneau
d’Hier et d’Aujourd’hui
fonti
in italiano
MLA
Citation
“Saint Fiacre“. CatholicSaints.Info.
16 June 2024. Web. 11 November 2025.
<https://catholicsaints.info/saint-fiacre/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-fiacre/
Article
FIACRIUS (FIACRE, FIAKER,
FEFVRE) (Saint) (August 30) (6th century) Claimed by both the Scots and Irish
as their countryman, he crossed to Gaul early in the sixth century, and being
kindly received by Saint Faro, Bishop of Meaux, he thenceforth lived the life
of an anchoret in a neighbouring forest. His cell, to approach which, however,
was strictly forbidden to women, soon became a place of pilgrimage, and in life
as after death, he worked many miracles. He is especially noted for his charity
and helpfulness to the poor. He passed away about A.D. 670. As Patron of
gardeners, he is often represented carrying a shovel. The Paris cabs took the
name of “fiacres” from having been started from a house with a statue of this
Saint over the door.
MLA
Citation
Monks of Ramsgate.
“Fiacrius”. Book of Saints, 1921. CatholicSaints.Info.
11 August 2018. Web. 11 November 2025.
<https://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-fiacrius/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/book-of-saints-fiacrius/
Statue
de saint Fiacre à l'église Saint-Taurin d'Évreux.
New Catholic
Dictionary – Saint Fiacre
Article
Confessor (died 670).
Of noble Irish lineage, he was ordained to the priesthood, and embraced the
eremitical life at Kilfera. He went to France, 628,
and settled at Breuil, near Meaux, where he led a life of prayer and
mortification, later founding a monastery for
the many disciples who flocked to him. He was famous for his miracles and after
his death his tomb became a place of pilgrimage. Patron of Brie, of numerous
churches throughout France,
of gardeners, and French cab-drivers. The Hotel de Saint-Fiacre, Paris, which
had as its sign his image, was the first to have coaches for hire, and so his
name became the word for cab. Represented in monastic garb, holding a spade in
his hand. His relics were preserved in the cathedral at
Meaux. Feast, 30
August.
MLA
Citation
“Saint Fiacre”. New Catholic Dictionary. CatholicSaints.Info.
30 January 2013. Web. 11 November 2025. <https://catholicsaints.info/new-catholic-dictionary-saint-fiacre/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/new-catholic-dictionary-saint-fiacre/
La
pierre ronde dite « de Saint-Fiacre » et le tombeau à l’église
Saint-Fiacre de Saint-Fiacre. Saint-Fiacre (Seine-et-Marne)
St. Fiacre
Feastday: September 1
Patron: of
Gardeners and Cab-drivers
St. Fiacre (Fiachra) is
not mentioned in the earlier Irish calendars, but it is said that he was born
in Ireland and
that he sailed over into France in
quest of closer solitude, in which he might devote himself to God, unknown to
the world. He arrived at Meaux, where Saint Faro, who was the bishop of
that city, gave him a solitary dwelling in a forest which was his own
patrimony, called Breuil, in the province of Brie. There is a legend that
St. Faro offered
him as much land as he could turn up in a day, and that St. Fiacre, instead of
driving his furrow with a plough, turned the top of the soil with the point of
his staff. The anchorite cleared the ground of trees and briers, made himself a
cell with a garden, built an oratory in
honor of the Blessed Virgin, and made a hospice for
travelers which developed into the village of Saint-Fiacre in Seine-et-Marne.
Many resorted to him for advice, and the poor, for relief. His charity moved
him to attend cheerfully those that came to consult him; and in his hospice he
entertained all comers, serving them with his own hands, and sometimes
miraculously restored to health those that were sick. He never allowed
any woman to
enter the enclosure of his hermitage, and Saint Fiacre extended the prohibition
even to his chapel; several rather ill-natured legends profess to account for
it. Others tell us that those who attempted to transgress, were punished by
visible judgements, and that, for example, in 1620 a lady of Paris, who claimed
to be above this rule, going into the oratory, became distracted upon the spot
and never recovered her senses; whereas Anne of Austria, Queen of France, was
content to offer up her prayers outside
the door, amongst the other pilgrims.
The fame of Saint
Fiacre's miracles of healing continued after his death and crowds visited his
shrine for centuries. Mgr. Seguier, Bishop of Meaux in
1649, and John de
Chatillon, Count of Blois, gave testimony of their own relief. Anne of Austria
attributed to the meditation of this saint, the recovery of Louis XIII at
Lyons, where he had been dangerously ill; in thanksgiving for which she made,
on foot, a pilgrimage to the shrine in 1641. She also sent to his shrine, a
token in acknowledgement of his intervention in the birth of her son, Louis
XIV. Before that king underwent a severe operation, Bossuet, bishop of
Meaux, began a novena of prayers at Saint-Fiacre to ask
the divine blessing. His relics at Meaux are
still resorted to, and he is invoked against all sorts of physical ills,
including venereal disease. He is also a patron saint of gardeners and of
cab-drivers of Paris. French cabs are called fiacres because the first
establishment to let coaches on hire, in the middle of the seventeenth century,
was in the Rue Saint-Martin, near the hotel Saint-Fiacre, in Paris. Saint
Fiacre's feast is kept in some dioceses of France, and throughout Ireland on
this date. Many miracles were claimed through his working the land and
interceding for others. Feast
day is September 1st.
SOURCE : https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=276
Saint Fiachra’s Garden In 1999 the Irish National Stud created a commemorative garden to St. Fiachra, Patron Saint of Gardeners, to celebrate the Millennium. It was designed by Professor Martin Hallinan, award winning landscape architect. He created a garden which presents visitors with a similar natural environment to that which inspired the spirituality of the monastic movement in Ireland during the 6th and 7th centuries.
_(29366884654).jpg)
Saint Fiachra’s Garden In 1999 the Irish National Stud created a commemorative garden to St. Fiachra, Patron Saint of Gardeners, to celebrate the Millennium. It was designed by Professor Martin Hallinan, award winning landscape architect. He created a garden which presents visitors with a similar natural environment to that which inspired the spirituality of the monastic movement in Ireland during the 6th and 7th centuries.
Calendar
of Scottish Saints – Saint Fiacre, Hermit
Article
7th century. He was born
in Ireland about the year 590. A hermitage and holy well near Kilkenny are
called after him, and were frequented as late as the beginning of this century
by pilgrims who wished to pay him honour. After labouring as a missionary in
Scotland, Saint Fiacre ended his days at Breuil, near Meaux, in France, where
he became famous for miracles both before and after his death; he was invoked
as the patron saint of the province of Brie, and his shrine became a famous
place of pilgrimage.
Saint Fiacre’s day was
kept with devotion in Scotland. The Breviary of Aberdeen contains the office
for the saint’s feast. Several Scottish churches bore his name. Among these may
be mentioned the ancient church and burial ground of Saint Fiacre, or, as he is
often styled, Saint Fittack, at Nigg, Kincardineshire, on the opposite bank of
the Dee from Aberdeen. The bay in the vicinity is known as Saint Picker’s Bay,
and Saint Fittack’s Well, a clear spring near the roofless ruins of the old
church, still recalls his memory. Its existence is a strong proof of the
saint’s residence in the neighbourhood at some time in his life. The fame of
this well for healing powers survived the downfall of religion, and it became
necessary to prevent recourse to it by severe penalties. Thus in the records of
the Kirk Session of Aberdeen for 1630 we read:—”Margrat Davidson, spous to
Andro Adam, fined L5 for sending her child to be washed at Saint Fiackre’s Well
and leaving an offering.”
The large numbers of
pilgrims conveyed in hackney coaches to the French shrine of this saint at
Breuil, caused those vehicles to be known as fiacres, a designation they still
bear.
MLA
Citation
Father Michael
Barrett, OSB.
“Saint Fiacre, Hermit”. The Calendar of Scottish
Saints, 1919. CatholicSaints.Info.
21 May 2017. Web. 11 November 2025.
<https://catholicsaints.info/calendar-of-scottish-saints-saint-fiacre-hermit/>
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/calendar-of-scottish-saints-saint-fiacre-hermit/
Statue
de saint Fiacre dans l'église paroissiale Saint-Brandan de Trégrom (Côtes-d'Armor).
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
Master of Jean Rolin II (fl. from 1440 until 1465), St. Fiacre of Meaux holding a book and a spade - miniature from folio 085r from the Book of Hours of Simon de Varie - KB 74 G37, 1455, 55 x 35,, B National Library of the Netherlands,The Hague,
Master of Jean Rolin II (fl. from
1440 until 1465), St. Fiacre of Meaux holding a book and a spade - miniature
from folio
085r from the Book of Hours of Simon de Varie -
KB 74 G37, 1455, 55 x 35,, B National Library of the Netherlands,The Hague,
Article
Here followeth the Life
of Saint Fiacre.
Saint Fiacre, the
glorious hermit, made many virtuous deeds in the territory or country of Meaux
in the protection of Saint Pharon, that time bishop of the city of Meaux. Many
miracles needful and necessary as then he made in this world, as the legend of
the lessons of his faits show clearly enough, and to the end that this present
narration that maketh of it mention, be not too much prolonged, and that the
life of Saint Fiacre and of Saint Pharon assembled together may appear to them
that shall read it, it is good as to me seemeth, that at this beginning I make
mention of the excellence of Saint Fiacre, how for the love of our Lord he left
his country, both father and mother, and all his goods, and came into the parts
of France. On that time that the glorious Saint Pharon left and relinquished
the worldly knighthood, and that he was ordained and made bishop of Meaux, the
same monk named Fiacre, of the nation of Scots, being in his country, and moved
by devotion to serve our Lord more straitly, departed with such fellowship as
fortune gave to him, and came unto Meaux in France, where he prayed the holy
bishop there that he might dwell under his protection. When Pharon had heard
his demand, right gladly he accorded to it, and as a piteous pastor, granted
that Fiacre should dwell with him after his own pleasure as long as he would.
When the hermit Fiacre had impetred his petition or demand, he went and cast
his sight low towards the earth, and onely, with all his heart and thought, and
without speaking, made his prayer to God that of his grace he would have pity
on him. And so fervently he besought and prayed that his face rendered great
drops of water, and was over red and sore chauffed. And when the blessed Saint
Pharon saw him in such estate, he began to be marvelled, and weened that he was
aggrieved of something, and anon he called to him one of his servants and said
to him: Go to yonder man and make him come secretly to speak with me. The
messenger did as to him was commanded, and led Saint Fiacre unto the bishop.
When he was before his presence, the holy man Pharon, full of virtuous
thoughts, to the end that better he might declare his intention, said to Fiacre
in this manner: My brother, I require thee that thou wilt put from thee this
sorrow and heaviness which is in thine heart, to the end that thou mayst better
receive my words. Then said Saint Fiacre to him; Fair father reverend, if thou wilt
have pity and compassion on me, thou shalt mowe make me to cease this heaviness
at thy commandment, but to the end that thou mayst the better understand my
answer, proceed forth on thy demand. Then the right reverend bishop Pharon,
beholding on Fiacre said to him: First, my right dear brother, I require of
thee to tell me in what land thou wert born, and the cause why thou departedst
from thy country, also where thou art bound for to go, and what thy name is.
Furthermore if thou have need of counsel, of words, or of other things that I
may do, I call God to my record that right gladly I shall endeavour me to
fulfil it. Saint Flacre then, kneeling, rendered to him thanks and mercies, and
after said to him: My father and my mother engendered or begat me in an isle of
Scotland named Ireland, and forasmuch that I desire to lead my life solitary, I
have relinquished and left my land and my parents, and I do seek a place for to
lead my life hermitic and solitarily, and by my right name I am called Fiacre,
and therefore meekly I beseech thine high and ineffable paternity that, if
there be in some part of thy bishopric a little place within a wood where I
might use and employ my life in prayers and in orisons, that thou wilt not
defer to me the grant of it. When Saint Pharon heard this, he was thereof
joyful and glad, and said to Saint Fiacre: I have a wood far enough from hence
which is within our own heritage, and is called by the folk of the country
Brodile, the which wood, as I suppose, is convenable for to lead life solitary,
and if it be so that thy desire is to see it, let us two go thither together
for to behold and see the place. Then answered Saint Fiacre: So as thy
paternity commandeth, I desire that it be done anon. Then the piteous and holy
bishop, as soon as he might, led Fiacre unto the right desired place. And when
they were come thither Saint Pharon said to Saint Fiacre: My brother, this
place is belonging to me by mine own heritage, coming from mine ancestry, and
if it seem to thee good and pleasant for to dwell and abide in, as much of it
as behoveth to thee, devoutly and with good heart I present it to thee, and
full gladly I give it to thee for to do withal thy good pleasure. And when thus
he had granted and said, Fiacre fell to his feet, and for great joy weeping,
rendered to him graces and thankings, saying: O right blessed father, the same
place only of right pleaseth me and delighteth right greatly, for it is a holy
place and far from abiding of any folk. After these words they took their refection
or food of nouriture divine, and soon after returned together unto the city of
Meaux. And on the morn next, Saint Fiacre took his leave of Saint Pharon, which
gave to him his blessing, and when Saint Fiacre had received it, he departed
and went to the place beforesaid, where he founded a church in the honour and
reverence of our Blessed Lady, and beyond it, a little way thence, he builded a
little house wherein he dwelled, and there harboured he the poor that passed
foreby. When then he had done and accomplished all that to him seemed necessary
for the time, this very friend of God, Fiacre, continually without cease
laboured and watched into the service of our Lord Jesu Christ, and ever in good
virtues from better to better multiplied, and much victoriously against his
adversary the enemy resisted, and against his flesh, and that that he had,
right heartily to the poor gave and distributed. If some there were that time
that had lost their strength, or that were dumb, deaf, counterfaited, blind or
vexed with the enemy, or of whatsomever sickness that it had been, they all
came, or made them to be borne, to this holy man, and anon after that he had
laid his hands on them, by the grace of our Lord, and by his prayers, they
returned homewards as whole as ever they were; and in such wise flourished the
odour of the renomee of the miracles that our Lord showed by him through all
the bishopric of Meaux, that they began all to have great hope in his suffrages
and prayers. Among all other things it happed that a holy man named Killenus,
born in Scotland, that was come from Rome as a pilgrim, and was arrived within
the territory or country of Meaux, when he heard speak of the good renomee of
the holy man Fiacre, he anon went towards him, and Saint Fiacre much benignly
received him, and when he understood that they were both of one land, and by
affinity of blood nigh parents, instantly prayed him that he would abide with
him certain days, which Killenus accorded to it, and as they were together, and
that they had rehearsed the extraction of their parents, and spake of the sweet
sentences of the holy scriptures wherewith they nourished and fed themselves by
the great joy that they took when they spake of it, they recommended each other
to our Lord, and took leave to depart one from the other. And for certain, the
renomee of him grew so much, and flew so far that, from far countries much
people came daily to him for to recover their health in so much that the holy
man saw that of needs he must make his habitation or housing more spacious and
greater than it was, and thought to him good and necessary to make a great
garden, wherein he should have all manner of herbs good for to make pottage
with, for to feed the poor when they should return towards him, and so he did.
And howbeit that Saint
Pharon before that time gave to him leave to take as much of his wood as to him
needed, nevertheless he durst not take on him the hardiness for to make his
house greater ne more than it was tofore till he had spoken again with Saint
Pharon, for to demand leave of him to throw down the trees and other things
growing about his house, to whom the venerable and courteous bishop gave of his
wood as much as he might pick and delve, and throw down with his own hands, to
do withal as of his own livelihood. Saint Fiacre then inclined his head and
rendered thanks to Saint Pharon and took his leave of him, and returned into
his hermitage. And when he had made his prayer he drew his staff over the
earth. Now may ye understand thing much marvellous and of great miracle, for,
by the will of our Lord, wheresoever the holy hermit Fiacre drew his staff, the
trees fell down both on one side and on other, and round about where he drew
his staff was a ditch suddenly made. And in the meanwhile that he drew so his
staff, there came a woman which marvelled much how the earth clave and ditched
by itself only by the touching of the holy man’s staff, and with great haste
she ran towards Meaux, and denounced this thing to the bishop Pharon,
testifying and insuring that the holy man Fiacre was full of wicked and evil
art, and not servant of the sovereign God; and when she thus had said she
returned forthwith towards the holy man, and with an evil presumption went and
said many injuries and villainies to Fiacre, contumelying and blaspheming him,
and commanded him by the bishop that he should cease of his work, and that he
were not so hardy to be any more about it, and that for the same cause the
bishop should come there.
When the holy man saw
that he was thus accused to the bishop by a woman, he ceased his work that he
had begun, and made no more of it, and sat on a stone much thoughtful and
wroth. Wherefore if our Lord had before showed great miracles by him, yet
greater and more marvellous miracle was made for him, for the stone whereon he
sat, by the will of God waxed and became soft as a pillow to the end that it
should be more able and easy for him to sit on, and it was caved somewhat as a
pit thereas he sat on, and for testification and proof of this miracle, the said
stone is as yet kept within his church, and many sick folk have been and are
daily healed there of divers sicknesses only to touch and to have touched the
said stone. The bishop then by the provocation of the said woman’s words came
towards the holy man Fiacre, and when he saw the marvels that God showed by
him, as well of the trees that by themselves were thrown down to the earth of
either part, also how the earth only by fraying of his staff was ditched about,
as of the stone that was thus caved and made soft like a pillow, he knew well
that he was a man of great merit towards our Lord; and from thence forthon he
loved the hermit Saint Fiacre more than before, and honoured him much. The
ditches, beforesaid, be yet as now showed to them that go to visit his church.
When then Fiacre, as is above said, sat on the stone, full sorry and wroth that
the woman had so accused and blasphemed him to the bishop, also for the
injuries and villainies that she had said to him, he made his prayer to our
Lord that no woman should never enter into his church, without she be punished
by some manner of sickness.
Wherefore it happed on a
time that a woman, of much noble and rich estate, desired to know what thereof
should befall if a woman had entered into his church. The which woman took her
maiden or servant and shoved her suddenly within the chapel. And anon, seeing
all they that were there, the said woman lost one of her eyes, and the maid
innocent as to the deed, came out again with her plein health.
On another time, another
woman of Latininak put one of her feet within the said chapel or church, but
her foot swelled by such manner that all the leg, knee, and thigh of it was
grieved with sickness. And many other miracles have been thereof showed,
wherefore the women shall ne ought not enter into it. The good and holy Saint
Fiacre in his lifetime resplendished by miracles and virtues, and after,
rendered right gloriously his soul unto our Lord, and sith after his temporal death, at his
own grave by his merits and prayers, our Lord showed, and as yet now showeth,
many miracles, as to restore in good health the poor sick folk languishing of
their members of whatsoever sickness or languor that it be, who with good and
contrited heart cometh to the church where the said grave or tomb is, and
devoutly beseecheth and prayeth God, and the good and holy Saint Fiacre, the
which by his glorious merits may be unto us good friend toward our said Lord
and God. Amen
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/the-golden-legend-the-life-of-saint-fiacre/
.jpg)
Saint
Fiacre, patron des jardiniers, carreaux à Séville.
Saint
Fiacre, patron des jardiniers, carreaux à Séville.
St.
Fiaker of Ireland, Anchoret and Confessor
[Called
by the French Fiacre, and anciently Fefre.] 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 honour the diocess 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 Breüil, in the province of Brie,
two leagues from Meaux. In this place the holy anchoret cleared the ground of
trees and briars, made himself a cell, with a small garden, and built an
oratory in honour of the Blessed Virgin, in which he spent great part of the
days and nights in devout prayer. He tilled his garden, and laboured 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 who 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 who
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. 1 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 Breüil, 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 neighbouring diocesses. This commission he executed with
admirable sanctity and fruit, chiefly in the diocess of Arras, where his memory
is in great veneration to this day, and he is honoured on the 13th of November. 2 St. Fiaker had a sister called
Syra, who died in the diocess of Meaux, and is honoured 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. 3 Hector Boetius, David
Camerarius, and bishop Leslie, 4 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 Breüil to serve this chapel and assist the pilgrims; but at
length they founded there a priory, which subsists dependant on that abbey. The
shrine of St. Fiaker became famous or frequent miracles, and was resorted to
from all parts of France by crowds of pilgrims. 5 The relics of this saint were
translated to the cathedral of Meaux, not in 1562, as Mabillon mistook, but in
1568, 6 though a part was left at
Breüil 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. St. Fiaker is patron of the province of
Brie, and titular saint of several churches in most parts of France, in which
kingdom his name was 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. 7 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 St. 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, sæc. 2. Stilting the Bollandist, t. 6. Augusti, p.
598. Dom. Toussaint’s Du Plessis, the Maurist monk, Histoire de l’Eglise de
Meaux, l. 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.”
Note
1. Mabill.
Acta SS. Bened. t. 2, pp. 19, 20, 318. [back]
Note 2. Co
Note
3. See Du Plessis, n.
30, t. 1, p. 684. [back]
Note 4. Boet. Hist. Scot. l. 9, fol. 173;
Camerar. l. 3, de Scotor. Fortitud. p. 168; Leslæus, De Rebus Scot. l. 4, p.
156. [back]
ote
5. Du Plessis (note 29, t. 1, p. 683,)
shows, that the name Fiacre was first given to hackney coaches,
because hired coaches were first made use of for the convenience of pilgrims
who went from Paris to visit the shrine of this saint, and because the inn
where these coaches were hired, was known by the sign of St. Fiaker. This is
also, in part, the remark of Menage, (Dict. Etym. v. Fiacre) who, for his skill
in the Greek and Roman antiquities, as well as those of his own country, was
called a living library, and the Varro of the seventeenth century. (See Abbé
Goujet, Bibliothèque Françoise, t. 18, Vie de Menage.) Before the modern
invention of spring-coaches, the ancient lofty chariots or cars were chiefly
used in war, or on certain solemn occasions only; they being too painful
vehicles for ordinary journeys of pleasure. Our queens rode behind their
masters of horse; our members of both houses of parliament came up to London on
horseback with their wives behind them. In France, in 1585, the celebrated M.
de Thou, first president of the parliament of Paris, appeared in the fourth
coach which had ever been seen in that kingdom. The military men used horses;
but those who belonged to the parliaments, or professed the law, rode on mules.
In M. de Thou’s time, three brothers, all eminent for their honourable
employments in the law, had but one mule amongst them. See Boursault’s
letters. [back]
Note 6. See Du Plessis, note 29, p.
684. [back]
Note
7. B. 1, n. 70, t. 1, p. 57, et t. 2, p.
672. [back]
Rev. Alban Butler
(1711–73). Volume VIII: August. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
Bannière
de procession à l'effigie de saint Fiacre dans l'église Saint Calixte à
Mailly-Champagne (Marne, France).
Saint Fiacre ; Église Saint-Calixte
de Mailly-Champagne ; Processional banners in Marne
Pictorial
Lives of the Saints – Saint Fiaker, Anchorite
Saint
Fiaker 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, he left
his country and friends in the flower of his age, and with certain pious
companions sailed over to France, in quest of some solitude in which he might
devote himself to God, unknown to the rest of the world. Divine Providence
conducted him to Saint Faro, who was the Bishop of Meaux, and eminent for
sanctity. When Saint 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 called Breuil, which was his
own patrimony, two leagues from Meaux. In this place the holy anchorite 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 tilled 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. But,
following an inviolable rule among the Irish monks, he never suffered any woman
to enter the inclosure of his hermitage. Saint Chillen, or Kilian, an Irishman
of high birth, on his return from Rome, visited Saint 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 dioceses. This commission he executed with admirable sanctity and
fruit. Saint Fiaker died about the year 670, on the 30th of August.
Reflection – Ye who love
indolence, ponder well these words of Saint Paul: “If any man will not work,
neither let him eat.”
SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/pictorial-lives-of-the-saints-saint-fiaker-anchorite/
Saladier
à décor corporatif, Saint Pierre et Saint Fiacre, patrons des jardiniers, Faïence
au grand feu. Paris ou Saint-Cloud, 1727, Musée Carnavalet
Saint Fiacre
Medieval saints handled
many tasks for the needy faithful. Saint Apollonia took care of toothaches
because the Romans had ripped out her teeth one at a time in an effort to make
her renounce Christ. Saint Genevieve, who protected grain against rats and
mice, naturally became the patron saint of cats. Saint Wilgefort helped rid
women of brutal husbands because when her father tried to marry her off after
she had vowed virginity, she prayed for deliverance and in consequence grew a
thick beard that revolted the proposed groom.
Saint Fiacre enjoyed a
special niche. He was an Irish monk who, like other Irish Christians of his
time, went off to the continent to do missionary work among the barbarians. He
settled among the Franks near Meaux, not far from Paris, where he told the local
bishop, Saint Faro, that he sought silence and solitude.
But Saint Fiacre was no
hermit. He wanted to build a monastery, for that is what missionaries did.
According to one tale, Saint Faro promised Saint Fiacre all the land he could
enclose with a ditch to be dug in one day. Saint Fiacre spent a day using an
ivory cane to draw a line in the dirt around a large plot of ground, and the
ditch miraculously dug itself. The monastery that he built within this
perimeter sheltered him until his death.
His intercession cured
diseases, and after his death miracles of healing occurred at the monastery.
Pilgrims flocked to it for cures and devotion. The miraculous ditch remained,
pointed out with humble pride to visitors and shielding the monks from
intrusion by the surrounding world. Women were said to have been excluded from
the monastery on pain of divine punishment, sometimes being afflicted with
madness if they transgressed. (But here, as so often in medieval lore, stories
contradict each other. Women are recorded as coming to the monastery to be
healed of afflictions common and bizarre. One woman with a stomach ache was
made to vomit out a green snake; another in similar pain disgorged a red worm.
A third's daughter was raised from the dead.)
The saint specialized in
urology and proctology. Hemorrhoids were called "figs of Saint
Fiacre." As late as the seventeenth century, Cardinal Richelieu, who
suffered agonies from that malady, made a pilgrimage to beg that the saint's
reliquary be opened and the bones applied to his ailment. Afterwards he wanted
to take some of the bones with him, presumably to apply when needed to his
afflicted parts.
At least one medieval
miracle story is recorded of a gentleman from Provence whose membrum
genitale was afflicted with a large sore that no physician could heal.
After suffering for two years, he went on pilgrimage to the monastery of Saint
Fiacre, where a wax replica of the diseased organ was made and pledged in a vow
to the saint--whereupon the gentleman was cured and remained so. The wax form
may have been burned on the altar as a candle.
The saint was called on
to cure worms, fistulas, kidney stones, some forms of cancer, afflictions of
the skin, and--later--venereal diseases, especially syphilis. Forty years ago,
in his great, multivolume Iconographie de l'art chrétien, Louis Réau mused
in apparent chagrin that Saint Fiacre was an anomaly, a popular French saint
whose name was seldom bestowed on children. Somehow, given his connection with
the nether parts of the human anatomy, this neglect does not seem surprising.
Saint Fiacre remained
popular until after the French Revolution. Then his devotion faded, although it
has never entirely died. Some pilgrims still make their way to Meaux seeking
cures, but Lourdes has long since replaced it in popularity.
For a long time,
compilers of saints' lives and their iconography held that Saint Fiacre was the
patron of Paris cab drivers--who could use a saint to protect them and their
passengers. Alas, even this palm has been lifted from him. Coaches for hire in
Paris began to be called fiacres in the seventeenth century. They
were tough, high-wheeled vehicles made to navigate muddy streets, and got their
name from the Hôtel St. Fiacre, established around 1640. Both Louis Réau and
the Bibliotheca Sanctorum ordered compiled by Pope John XXIII
denounce as a canard the story that Parisian cabbies claimed the saint as their
own.
But one glory still rests
on Saint Fiacre's brow. He remains the patron saint of gardeners, especially
those who grow vegetables. The vegetables he grew around his monastery were
said to be superb. Naturally enough, he has been claimed also by florists and
by potters. His image stands solemnly in many a church in Paris, northern and
western France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. He always holds a spade at his
side, and his effigy is frequently dressed in the coarse clothing and shoes of
the peasants in his region. He often seems to be looking at the ground, where
he will dig. He is the saint whose aid may be implored in clearing weeds and
brush and stones from the garden, and if he does not help with the digging and
the heavy lifting, he can at least grant patience and persistence in labor that
is never done. He is a saint for lowly things and for increase, and his
blessings are welcomed by those who love springtime and planting, summer, and
harvest, the smell of turned earth, and the joy of a flowering land.
Richard Marius, "Vita
– Saint Fiacre", Harvard Magazine (1998).
Senior lecturer on
English Richard Marius has just completed a large work on Martin Luther for
Harvard University Press's Belknap Press.
SOURCE : https://web.archive.org/web/20200216151802/https://harvardmagazine.com/1998/07/vita.html
_01.jpg)
Alessandro
Allori, Les Miracles de saint Fiacre, 1596, église Santo Spirito de Florence (Sacristy of Santo Spirito)
San Fiacrio (Fiacre)
Non si sa molto della
vita di questo asceta di origine irlandese del VII secolo, che una sola fonte
indica come vescovo. Nella «Vita» di Farone, vescovo di Meaux, in Francia,
morto nel 670, si narra come questi donò a un uomo di nome Fefrus (il nostro
santo) una proprietà nella zona del Breuil. Questi vi edificò un monastero, da
cui nacque una cittadina: Saint Fiacre-en-Brie. Le reliquie di Fiacrio furono
trasferite dal cenobio alla cattedrale di Meaux, dove sono tuttora. Il suo
culto si estese in Francia, Belgio, Lussemburgo e Renania. È patrono degli
ortolani. (Avvenire)
Patronato: Giardinieri,
Ortolani, Tassisti, Malati di sifilide
Martirologio
Romano: A Breuil sempre nel territorio di Meaux, san Fiacrio, eremita, che
originario dell’Irlanda, condusse vita solitaria.
Un'aggiunta non anteriore
al sec. X del Martirologio Geronimiano, al giorno 30 agosto riporta: "In
pago Meldensi natalis s. Fiacrii, episcopi et confessoris". E' la sola
fonte che menzioni il carattere episcopale di questo asceta del VII sec. di
origine irlandese; gli antichi martirologi irlandesi d'altra parte ignorano
completamente Fiacrio; il Martirologio di Gorman (intorno al 1170) è il primo a
ricordarlo. Nel Martirologio Romano è celebrato al 30 agosto come confessore.
Non c'è dunque da
meravigliarsi che si ignori quasi tutto della sua vita. La Vita di Farone,
vescovo di Meaux, morto nel 670, racconta che costui diede a un sant'uomo di
nome Fefrus una proprietà situata a tre miglia da Meaux nel Breuil per crearsi
un monastero il quale sviluppandosi, divenne il centro di una città che prese
il nome di S. Fiacre-en-Brie. Le reliquie di Fiacrio, che erano rimaste nella
cappella del monastero, furono trasferite nel 1568 nella cattedraLe di Meaux,
dove si conservano ancor oggi.
Il culto del santo,
dapprima limitato a S.Fiacreen-Brie, frequentato luogo di pellegrinaggio, si
estese in Francia (Bourges, Parigi, Bretagna, Le Puy-en-Velay) come in Belgio,
nel Lussemburgo e nella Renania. Lo si invocava per la guarigionc delle emorroidi,
chiamate "fic saint Fiacre" (forse per un semplice gioco di parole).
Siccome nella Vita di s.
Farone è detto che il vescovo di Meaux avrebbe promesso al santo di dargli per
la fondazione del suo monastero tanto terreno quanto ne poteva circoscrivere
con un fosso in una giornata di lavoro, Fiacrio era venerato come patrono degli
ortolani.
Autore: Joseph-Marie
Sauget
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/Detailed/68200.html
_%C3%89glise_Notre-Dame_du_Grouanec_11.JPG)
Église
Notre-Dame du Grouanec en Plouguerneau (29). Statue de Saint-Fiacre ornant la
porte du transept sud.
Noël L’Hour, SAINT FIACRE (Saint FEFRE), Ermite – Patron des jardiniers, Plouguerneau d’Hier et d’Aujourd’hui, 2025 : https://plouguerneau.net/saint-fiacre/
