Saint-Amé,
Commune du canton de Remiremont (Vosges) / Vosges department in Grand Est in
northeastern France.
Photo
personnelle du 1er juillet 2006. Copyright © Christian Amet
Saint Aimé
Évêque de Sion (+ v. 690)
ou Amé de Sion (et non de Sens).
Il s'acquitta de ce ministère pastoral avec grand
soin, veillant assidûment sur son peuple, et en particulier les plus pauvres et
les moins instruits. Il connut la disgrâce et l'exil à Péronne, puis dans un
monastère de Flandre. Il accepta cela comme une grâce de Dieu.
- Paroisse Saint-Morand-Saint-Amé à
Douai, nos saints patrons
Depuis plus d'un millénaire, Saint Maurand et
Saint Amé se trouvent réunis dans la prière des douaisiens qui se confièrent à
eux tout au long de leur histoire et de leurs épreuves. Maurand et Amé restent
liés aux origines de la ville de Douai, vers la fin du VIIe siècle. Maurand,
fils de Sainte Rictrude et
notable de Douai, jouissait d'une autorité qui lui avait été conférée par le
roi. A ce titre, on lui confie la garde d'un prisonnier, Amé, évêque exilé de
sa ville de Sion en raison de sa participation à un complot politique. Amé,
condamné à une vie de pénitent, purge sa peine dans la cellule d'une abbaye,
conformément aux lois de l'époque. Maurand se laisse impressionner par la vie
exemplaire de ce prisonnier: il éprouve à l'égard d'Amé une telle estime qu'il
finit par lui confier la responsabilité de ce monastère, celui-là même où il
avait été condamné à la réclusion.
A la mort de Maurand, c'est Amé qui reprend la
direction du monastère. C'est ainsi que Maurand et Amé furent unis dans la
vénération des moines comme leurs communs protecteurs et que cette vénération
fut transmise aux douaisiens. En plébiscitant largement Saint Maurand Saint Amé
comme patrons de leur paroisse nouvelle, les chrétiens de Douai centre ont
manifesté le désir de garder à la source de leur vie chrétienne un puissant
triptyque évangélique: un proscrit accueilli; un pénitent rentre en grâce; un prisonnier
révèle à son geôlier un chemin de sainteté.
Un internaute nous signale que, lors des invasions
normandes, les reliques de saint Amé ont été transférées à Douai, dont il est
devenu l’un des patrons. C’est grâce à la vie de sainte Rictrude, écrite par Hucbald de
Saint-Amand, au Xe siècle, que nous connaissons relativement bien saint Amé.
Au monastère de Bruel sur la Lys, dans le pays de
Thérouanne, vers 690, le trépas de saint Amé, évêque de Sion en Suisse. Envoyé
en exil sur l’ordre du roi Théodoric III, il mourut là quelques années plus
tard.
Martyrologe romain
Saint Amatus de Sion
Premier Évêque de Sion (Valais)
Fête le 13 septembre
† abbaye de Breuil, diocèse d’Arras, v. 690
Autre graphie : Amatus de Sens
Amatus est présenté par les sources comme un évêque de Sens, que Thierry
III aurait exilé en 672. Toutefois, il est plus vraisemblable qu’Amadus fut
évêque du Valais comme l’atteste le martyrologue de Sion (fête le 13
septembre).
September 13
St.
Amatus, Bishop and Confessor
ST.
AMATUS, called in French Amé, was born of a wealthy family, and had the
happiness to learn the spirit of Jesus Christ, not that of the world, from the
example and assiduous instructions of his pious parents. Being applied young to
his studies, he discovered in them a clear apprehension, and a solid judgment;
but set bounds to his curiosity in his application to profane sciences,
religiously practising the maxim of Saint Jerom, that it is better never to
learn what cannot be known without danger. In the mean time his ardour was
unquenchable in learning the true science of the saints—that is, the knowledge
of God and himself: and in the most profound humility of heart he never ceased
to ask of God the grace of his most pure and holy love. His parents were careful
to fence his mind from his infancy against the love of vanity and pleasure, and
against the other snares that are incident to youth; they watched to remove out
of his way all dangers of bad company, and whatever could in the least sully
the purity of his mind, take him off from the gravity of his deportment, and
his application to his studies, or damp his ardour in the pursuit of virtue. In
this they were to him themselves a constant spur, being aware that the
corruption of a young man’s mind in one particular, generally draws others
after it, and that to fall from fervour into slackness, or into the least
habitual infidelity to divine grace, is to slide insensibly, and, as it were,
blindfold into the broad way of vice.
Amatus,
formed by these maxims to virtue, seemed in his youth to have already attained
to perfection; but this consists in more and more strenuous endeavours always
to advance higher. He some time deliberated with himself what course of life to
steer, in which every desire of his soul, every action of his life might be a
step advancing in a direct line towards that happiness for which he was created
by God; and him he consulted, by earnest and humble prayer, upon this important
and critical choice. The issue of his deliberation was, that, with the consent
and advice of those to whom prudence or duty obliged him to listen, he embraced
an ecclesiastical state. No sooner had he from the bottom of his heart said to
God that he was his portion and his inheritance for ever, but prayer, sacred
studies, and exercises of charity and other virtues, became his whole
employment. It was his great comfort and joy that the very habit which he wore
freed him from many dangers and importunities of the world, and exempted him from
visits, amusements, and idle employments, which in other states various
circumstances make sometimes necessary, and which, though they may be
sanctified by a good intention, yet are often dangerous, and always great
consumers of the little time we have here, to purge our affections, to
strengthen our souls in habits of virtue, and to lay in a due provision for
eternity, by actions which are the most conducive to those great purposes. Such
being his inclinations and views, there was no danger of his entertaining any
superfluous commerce with the world, by frequenting its company or amusements:
a commerce always pernicious and contrary to the spirit of ecclesiastics, and
which the world itself is just enough to condemn, even though by allurements it
invited them into the snare. The closest retirement afforded our saint leisure
and means for all those exercises of compunction, devotion, and heavenly
contemplation, and for laying in a good store of sacred learning and practical
knowledge, by which he qualified himself for the high functions of the
ministry, to which he aspired. He prepared himself afresh for every new step in
holy orders by the fervent practice of virtue, and by all suitable
dispositions, that when he was raised to the priesthood he might receive the
plenitude of its graces. Out of a desire of greater perfection, he took the
monastic habit at Agaunum, a monastery at that time famous both for regular
discipline, and the sacred studies. St. Amatus, with the leave of the abbot,
dwelt in a little cell cut in a rock, with an oratory adjoining, which is now
called our Lady’s in the rock.
Some
time after, Amatus was chosen bishop of Sion, in the Valais, 1 about
the year 669. In this exalted station the example of his virtue shone forth
with new lustre, and greater authority; he was enabled to deal his alms more
plentifully among the poor, and was furnished with the means of every way
exerting his zeal more powerfully in advancing the divine honour, and the
spiritual good of souls. He preached, instructed, comforted, and relieved all
persons according to their particular necessities. In a word, he was an
accomplished pastor, sanctifying both himself and those who were committed to his
charge. He had governed his diocess almost five years, when the devil, jealous
of the victories which the holy pastor daily gained over his empire, stirred up
against him certain wicked instruments, who could not bear in others that
virtue which they had not courage to practise themselves.
Theodoric
III., son of Clovis II., king, first of Austrasia, afterwards of all France,
was for several years abandoned to vice and evil counsellors, and is the first
of those who, governing by the mayors of his palace, are called by some
historians the Idle Kings. Ebroin, mayor of his palace, was one of the
wickedest tyrants that ever had any share in the administration of the French
kingdom; the murder of St. Leodegarius, and the persecution and banishment of
many other holy bishops and saints, of which he was the author, are instances
of his injustice, cruelty, and irreligion. The enemies of St. Amatus found it
an easy matter to accuse him before such a king, and such a minister, of crimes
which had not the least foundation in truth; some say, of accusing Ebroin of
tyranny. Theodoric, without further examination, or so much as allowing the
holy man a hearing, banished him to St. Fursey’s monastery at Peronne, where
St. Ultan, the abbot, treated him with all imaginable respect and veneration.
The holy exile rejoiced in his disgrace to find the tranquillity of holy
retirement, in which he enjoyed a sweet calm, with the happy means of living to
himself and God, conversing always in heaven, and giving free scope to his zeal
in the practice of the most rigorous penitential austerities. The flagrant
injustice that was done him never drew from him the least complaint, though no
synod had been assembled to hear him, no sentence of deposition issued out, no
crime so much as laid to his charge in a juridical manner. The only
circumstance which afflicted him was to see a wolf intruded by the king into
his see, not to feed, but to devour his flock.
After
the death of St. Ultan, St. Mauront was charged with the custody of St. Amatus,
and took him first to the monastery of Hamaye; but soon after built a new abbey
upon an estate of his own, at a place called Breüil, or Broile, now Merville,
(that is, Little Town,) upon the Lis, in Flanders. St. Amatus removed with him
to Breüil. St. Mauront rejoiced to be possessed of such a guest, and resigned
to him the government of that abbey. St. Amatus, both by words and example,
excited the monks to fervour and humility, and having settled the house in
excellent order, shut himself up in a little cell near the church, in which he
occupied his soul with so much ardour in heavenly contemplation, as scarcely to
seem to be any longer an inhabitant of the earth. Thus he lived five years with
these monks, and only left them to become an intercessor with Christ in his
glory for them, about the year 690. Ebroin, who had sacrificed many innocent
bishops and noblemen to his cruel policy, was himself massacred in 679. King
Theodoric died in 691, but entering into himself some time before his death,
had severely condemned himself for having unjustly persecuted St. Amatus, and
in satisfaction made several donations to the abbey of Breüil. Gramaye takes
this house to have been a community of secular priests; but that they were
monks is evident, since the Capuchin friars, in digging up the ground, found
remains of their bodies buried in the monastic habit, as Castillion remarks. 2 In
the incursions of the Normans these monks retired with the relics of St.
Amatus, first to Soissons, but soon after to Douay. 3 This
translation was made on the 1st of May, in 870, by Eruannicus, abbot of Breüil,
and St. Bainus, fifth bishop of Tarvanne, 4 when
these relics were deposited in the chapel which St. Mauront had built in honour
of St. Amatus, soon after his death, in the church of our Lady, which, four
years after, began to be called St. Amatus’s, or St. Amé’s, when these monks
obtained of John, bishop of Arras and Cambray, King Charles the Bald, and
Baldwin I., surnamed the Iron-armed, (who had been made by that prince
sovereign count of Flanders and Artois, or the Morini,) proper authority to
remove from Breüil, and fix their residence at this church in Douay. The
monastery thus settled at Douay, was secularised, and converted into a college
of canons in 940. A priory and a holy chapel subsisted long after this at
Breüil, on the spot where St. Mauront received St. Amatus, and where both led
an anchoretical life. The land to this day belongs to this church of St.
Amatus, or Amé, in Douay. The relics of St. Mauront were translated to St.
Amé’s, in Douay, from Marchiennes, in 1485. See the life of St. Amatus, written
before the translation of his relics, or the destruction of the monastery of
Breüil, or Merinville, or Merville. Also Bulteau, l. 3, c. 36, Gramaye, Antiqu.
Duac., p. 202. Castillion, Chronol. Eccl. Belgic. seu Episc. Belgic. in Duaco,
p. 38, 39, and D. Henry and D. Tachereau, in the last part of Gallia
Christiana, and the Bollandists, p. 120–133.
Note
1. The chronicle of Auxerre calls St. Amatus
bishop of Sens, (Senonensis,) which mistake has been followed by many, even the
Bollandists, Baillet, &c. But Hucbald, a monk of St. Amand’s, in the tenth
age, in his life of St. Rictrudes, assures us, that he was bishop of Sion
(Sedunensis) in the Valais; and that he was abbot of St. Maurice’s at Agaunum,
before he was made bishop of Sion, appears from the lists and registers of both
places, says Mabillon. (Annales Bened. t. 1, l. 16, p. 521.) This is fully
proved by L’Abbé Baiffé, (Merc. Fr.) and the Journalists of Trevaux, for June,
1753, who draw an argument that St. Amatus came from Agaunum, because certain
relics of the Thebæan martyrs are kept at St. Amé’s church. The old Gallia
Christiana, published in 1656, by the two brothers of Ste. Marthe, calls St.
Amatus archbishop of Sens; but the new more accurate Gallia Christiana,
compiled by the Maurist monks, D. Dennis of Ste. Marthe, D. Brice, and their
associates, has in the latter volumes corrected this mistake. It is mentioned
(t. 9,) that St. Amatus, bishop of Sion, was banished by King Theodoric, at the
instigation of Ebroin, and was received at St. Fursey’s in Peronne, by St.
Ultan, who was made first abbot of that house in 409. It is related in the
tenth tome, printed in 1751, that St. Bainus, fifth bishop of the Morini or
Tarvanne, performed the translation of the body of St. Amatus, formerly bishop
of Sion, who died in 690, and who was buried at Breüil, in Latin Broïlus,
otherwise called Maurontivilla and Merinvilla, now called by the French
Merville, and by the Flemings Mergem, on the Lis. D. Henry, and D. Tachereau,
the present learned Maurist continuators of Gallia Christiana, prove more fully
that St. Amatus was the sixteenth bishop of Sion, which also appears from F.
Bucelin’s Germania Sacra, Smiler’s Vallesia Sacra, Briguet’s Vallesia
Christiana, Murer’s Helvetia Sacra, &c.; nor is his name found in the
ancient catalogues of the archbishops of Sens, as those of Fontenelle and the
Vatican, both compiled in the tenth age. [back]
Note
2. Chronol. Belg. in Duaco, pp. 38, 39. [back]
Note
3. Some improbably pretend that Douay was the
metropolis of the Catuaci in Cæsar’s time, as Guicciardin takes notice.
Hucbald, and several other writers quoted by Gramaye, testify, that Douay was
the patrimony of St. Rictrudes, and that her husband, Adalbald, the most noble
duke, founded there the church of our Lady, now called of St. Amé, and rebuilt
upon the same hill, a castle which was fallen to decay. From this time Douay
was called a castle, and always mentioned as a place of strength. St. Mauront
gave this hill and church to the monks of Breüil, but the castle was kept by
the lords, afterwards counts, of Ostrevant, with the title of Advocates of this
abbey and church. This was called the castle of Douay, and the quarter about
St. Albin’s church, Old Douay. The town on the other side of the Scarp was
built afterwards, and called New Douay. At that time Lambras, now a small
village, a mile from Douay, was the most considerable place in the territory of
Ostrevant, famous for its mart, its harbour or station for boats on the river,
the royal treasury, &c. Meierus says Douay was destroyed by the Normans and
Danes in 879; but it soon recovered itself, has been ever since one of the most
considerable towns in Flanders, and was for some time the residence of the
sovereign counts of Flanders. The collegiate church of St. Peter was founded by
those counts in the twelfth century. See Gramaye, Antiquitates Flandriæ, in
Duaco, p. 201. Castillion, Chronol. Sacra Belgii, p. 39. [back]
Note
4. Gallia Christiana, t. 10, col. 1531. [back]
Rev.
Alban Butler (1711–73). Volume IX: September. The Lives of the Saints. 1866.
Sant' Amato di Sens (o di
Sion) Vescovo
13
settembre
Etimologia: Amato = caro,
benvoluto, dal latino
Emblema: Bastone
pastorale
Martirologio Romano: A
Breuil-sur-le-Lys nel territorio di Amiens, in Francia, transito di sant’Amato,
vescovo di Sion nell’odierna Svizzera, che per ordine del re Teodorico III fu
mandato in esilio e vi morì.
Una sua Vita dell'XI sec.
e una menzione nella Vita Rictrudis (X sec.) lo dicono vescovo di Sion nel
Vallese (Svizzera) non prima del 660. Egli sarebbe stato esiliato dal re
Thierry o Teodorico III (675-91) prima a Péronne nel monastero di s. Ultano, e
successivamente, alla morte di questi, a Bruel-surla-Lys, presso s. Mauronte
figlio di s. Rictrude, dove morì intorno al 690. Le reliquie di Amato furono
traslate da Bruel-sur-la-Lys a Douai in una chiesa a lui dedicata in questa
città. La sua festa si celebra il 13 settembre.
Intorno a questo santo
non mancano, tuttavia, alcune confusioni, verificatesi col tempo nella
tradizione. Il Martirologio di Sion (XII sec.) lo confonde con s. Amato, abate
di Remiremont, mentre il Martirologio Romano nomina al 13 settembre un Amato,
vescovo di Sens (lat. Senonensis) tra il 614 e il 627: il nome di questo
vescovo appare nei cataloghi episcopali compilati nel sec. XII (nei
cataloghi anteriori è evidente che esso sia stato inserito in un secondo
tempo). E' chiaro, però, che nella tradizione bisogna supporre una
confusione tra Senonensis (Sens) e Sedunensis (Sion), poiché nelle liste dei
vescovi di Sens del VII sec., che sono ben conosciuti, è impossibile inserire
il nome di questo Amato.
Autore: Alfonso
Codaghengo
SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/dettaglio/70200
