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Saint Landelin, fondateur de l'abbaye
d'Aulnes (pierre se trouvant sur un mur de l'ancienne abbaye).
Saint Landelin
Abbé
à Crespin, près de Valenciennes (✝ v. 686)
Ses brigandages le
rendaient célèbre en Artois. Puis, poussé par la grâce, il se convertit et
décida de vivre en reclus à Lobbes dans le Hainaut, puis à Crespin. Ces
ermitages devinrent, par la suite, d'intenses foyers de vie monastique.
C’était du temps du roi Dagobert, les frontières n’étaient pas les mêmes. Aujourd’hui le village de Crespin jouxte la frontière belge, sur les bords de l’autoroute Valenciennes - Bruxelles. Landelin, moine évangélisateur de la Sambre, finira ses jours à Crespin.
Bien que de grande famille Landelin bascule dans la débauche et devient bandit des grands chemins dans les forêts de l’Avesnois. Mais la vision apparue au cours d’une nuit retourne notre bandit sur lui-même et il revient vers sa famille en particulier son parrain Saint Aubert.
Saint Landelin va vivre la phrase de l’évangile: «Convertissez-vous.» Cela va l’amener à une nouvelle vie, pleine de création d’abbayes et d’annonce de l’évangile.
*Extrait du livret «Chemins des Hommes, Chemin de Dieu». (diocèse de Cambrai)
Abbaye Saint Landelin: Fondée en 646, par Saint Landelin, un moine envoyé par le Pape Martin pour prêcher l'évangile dans les Gaules et en Belgique, c'est vers 673 que l'église abbatiale fut bâtie. Il ne reste plus que quelques vestiges de cette église… Venu pour évangéliser la région, Saint Landelin et ses compagnons traversèrent la grande forêt d'Emblise. La légende raconte : "Landelin ayant fiché son bourdon en terre, pria Dieu et aussitôt jaillit une source abondante." (Ville de Crespin - 59154 - Commune du Nord Pas de Calais - >> Patrimoine et Bâtiments Historiques)
À Crespin en Hannonie, vers 686, saint Landelin, abbé. Célèbre brigand converti à l’exercice des vertus par l’évêque saint Aubert, il fonda le monastère de Lobbes, puis gagna celui de Crespin, où il mourut.
Martyrologe
romain
Landelinus, OSB Abbot (RM)
Born at Vaux near Bapaume, France, c. 625; died c. 686. Though carefully raised
by Bishop Saint Aubert of Cambrai, Saint Landelinus went astray for a time. We
often take it for granted that we must teach children about the lures and
dangers of the world and the need for continual prayer and watchfulness to
avoid the pitfalls. Apparently, Bishop Aubert instilled only innocence and
virtue into Landelinus. Unprepared to handle the seductions of the world,
Landelinus fell in with bad company and became a robber. He was struck with
terror when one of his companions died suddenly. Recognizing his error, he flew
to Saint Aubert and threw himself at the feet of the good bishop who had never
ceased praying for Landelinus's repentance.
Aubert gave him the penance
of making reparations in a monastery for some years. This Landelinus undertook
with fervor and contrition. His zeal became such that Aubert ordained him
deacon and, at the age of 30, priest. He was assigned to preach but begged to
be allowed to continue his penitential life as a hermit. With Aubert's
permission, Landelinus retired to Laubach on the banks of the Sambre.
He attracted several
disciples to him, who each lived in a separate cell. In 654, they joined in
community life by founding the Lobbes (Lanbacum) Abbey. When the abbey was
complete, the brothers tried to convince Landelinus to govern them. Feeling
himself unworthy to lead saints, he left them under the direction of Saint
Ursmar and again sought solitude. A second time, disciples gathered leading to
the establishment of Aulne Abbey in 656, which now belongs to the Cistercians.
The pattern repeated itself with the founding of the abbey at Walers (657).
Finally, Landelinus and his companions Saints Domitian and Hadelinus erected
some cells in a thick forest between Mons and Valenciennes. Again, disciples
found them and Créspin (Crepy, Crespiacum) Abbey was founded in 670. Realizing
that God might be telling him something, Landelinus agreed to govern this
flock, which he did until his death. While continuing his penitential courses,
Landelinus began preaching in the nearby villages. Thus, he fulfilled God's
plan for his life (Benedictines, Encyclopedia, Husenbeth).
In art, Saint Landelin is
portrayed as he is dying in sackcloth and ashes, while the devil carries his
former companion to hell. He might also be shown in Mass vestments, striking
water from the earth with his pastoral staff (Roeder). Landelinus is venerated
in Cambrai (Roeder).
SOURCE : http://www.saintpatrickdc.org/ss/0615.shtml
Autore: Albert D'Haenens
June 15
St. Landelin, Abbot
HE was nobly born at Vaux near Bapaume in 623, and educated in learning
and piety under the care of St. Aubert, bishop of Cambray; for it was then the
laudable custom for noblemen to commit the education of their sons to some holy
and learned bishop or abbot, insomuch that many houses of bishops as well as
monasteries were seminaries of youth. It is a point of the utmost importance
that youth coming out of such sanctuaries of innocence and virtue, enter the
world well apprised of its dangers, and infinitely upon their guard against bad
company and the love of vanities and pleasures, which they cannot fortify
themselves too much against. They must bring along with them all their
religion, nourish it in their hearts by assiduous meditation, and confirm it in
their minds by pious reading and consideration, and by the daily exercises of
all the other duties of that virtue. A neglect of this precaution proved for
some time fatal to Landelin. Through the seduction and example of certain
relations, whose flatteries unfortunately struck in with his passions, he
insensibly began to walk in the broad way of the world, and, from a life of
pleasure and diversions, fell at length into great disorders. But the sudden
death of one of his companions struck him with such a terror, that he entered
seriously into himself, like the prodigal son, and in the deepest compunction
went and cast himself at the feet of St. Aubert, who had never ceased to pray
for his conversion. The bishop placed him in an austere monastery to do penance
for some years; in which, so extraordinary were his fervour and contrition,
that St. Aubert ordained him deacon, and, when he was thirty years of age,
priest, and appointed him to preach to the people. But the holy penitent having
his past sins always before his eyes, begged leave to weep for them in solitude
and severe penance: which, when he had obtained, he retired to Laubach, now
called Lobes, a desert place on the banks of the Sambre. Several persons
resorting to him, and imitating his manner of life, though at first they lived
in separate cells, gave rise to the great abbey of Lobes, about the year 654.
Landelin, regarding himself as unworthy, could not bear to see himself at the
head of a religious community of saints; and when he had laid the foundation of
this house, he left his disciple, St. Ursmar, to finish the building, and
constituted him the first abbot. Landelin afterwards founded Aune, which is at
present a house of Cistercians. The French kings bestowed on him great estates,
the chief part of which he settled on his first monastery of Lobes. In quest of
closer solitude, he with his two companions, SS. Adelin and Domitian, erected
some cells of the branches of trees in a thick forest between Mons and
Valenciennes. Here also disciples flocked to him, and he founded the abbey of
Crespin, which he was at length obliged to govern himself. By preaching in the
village he instructed the people in the science of salvation, but he never
interrupted his penitential courses. He died in sackcloth and ashes in 686. His
name occurs in the Roman Martyrology on the 15th of June. See his life in Mabillon, sæc. 2. Ben. p. 873.
Rev. Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume VI: June. The Lives of the Saints. 1866
San Landelino
Abate
m. 686 circa
Martirologio Romano: A Crespin nell’Hainault, nel territorio
dell’odierna Francia, san Landelino, abate, che, convertito dal vescovo
sant’Autberto da una vita di ruberie all’esercizio delle virtù, fondò un
cenobio a Lobbes e si spostò poi a Crespin, dove finì i suoi giorni.
Di nobile
famiglia, Landelino fondò le abbazie di St-Crespin e di Lobbes; spesso gli si
attribuisce anche la fondazione delle abbazie di Aulne e di Wallers-en-Fagne.
Durante la sua giovinezza avrebbe vissuto da brigante e sarebbe stato
convertito da s. Uberto di Cambrai. Mori verso il 686 a St-Crespin. La sua
festa si celebra il 15 giugno.
Autore: Albert D'Haenens
