Saint Remigius
First Point
Saint Remigius was born as if by miracle, his mother being beyond her childbearing years. From his youth he won the admiration of everyone as much by the liveliness of his spirit as by his good conduct and piety. To make this more firm, he left the world entirely while still quite young and shut himself up in a hermitage, where he lived a very penitential life. This is how God leads those he is preparing for something great, by seclusion and prayer, because it is in solitude or an entire separation from creatures that we learn to have a dislike for and to separate ourselves entirely from everything that pleases people who live in the world. We then learn how to converse with God, who willingly speaks to people when he finds them detached from everything else.For God loves to speak with them heart to heart, and the more he finds their hearts empty of the things of the world, the more he makes himself known to them and fills them with his Spirit. This is what happened to Saint Remigius, who was so highly favored by God in his seclusion that the renown of his virtues won for him a great reputation.It is not reputation that we ought to seek or to desire in this world but the fullness of the Spirit of God, in order to live rightly in our vocation and perform our work well. Be convinced that only alife of seclusion and prayer will enable you to possess this fullness of God’s Spirit. This is why you must love seclusion and pray with greatfervor.
Second Point
The great reputation Saint Remigius acquired by his piety made such an impression on the people of the area that they came to carry him off from his hermitage to make him archbishop of Reims, even though he was only 22 years old. He did all he could to oppose the choice they made of him, but the splendor of his virtue affected these people more deeply than all his objections, which did nothing to lessen their resolve. This saint showed great zeal for the good of the Church in the administration of the duties of his episcopal function; he omitted nothing of what he though might contribute to it. It is commonly the result of true seclusion that those who become filled there with the love of God seek to share this afterward with others when God, for the good of the Church, places them in a position where they are obliged to deal with the world. Then these great saints, filled completely with God’s Spirit, devote themselves with all possible care to make known and to cause others to value what they experience within themselves. Stirred up by the zeal that has hold of them, they successfully help a great number of souls to give themselves to God. You are in a work that requires much zeal, but this zeal would be of little use if it did not have its proper effect; this, however, it cannot have unless it is a product of the love of God living in you.
Third Point
The greatest good that Saint Remigius did for the Church during his episcopate was to convert and to baptize Clovis, the King. In this he was helped by the prayers and the efforts of Saint Clotilda. This also procured salvation for various provinces of the kingdom. As a result, the Pope admired him and congratulated him, as did all the other holy bishops of the time. Those who are called to procure the salvation of souls and are filled with God and his Spirit, as Saint Remigius was in his solitude, succeed in their work to the full extent of their desires. Nothing can resist them, not even God (if we may so speak), as we see in the case of Moses, who constrained God, in a certain manner, to do what he asked God to do for the people whom God had entrusted to his care.1 What a glorious thing it was for Saint Remigius, before God and before the world, to have contributed as much as he did to lead so many of the French people to become Christians and to have caused Jesus Christ to be adored where until then he was unknown. Your work does not consist in making your disciples to be Christians but in helping them to be true Christians. This is all the more useful because it would avail them little to have received Baptism if they did not live according to the Christian spirit. To give this spirit to others, you have to possess it well. Recognize what this requires of you; it is, without doubt, to put into practice the holy Gospel. Read the Gospel frequently, then, with attention and affection, and let this be your principal study, but study it especially in order to put it into practice.
Historical Context
Remigius (ca. 437–530) was born in France; his mother was Saint Celinie, who had another son also a saint, Principe, bishop of Soissons. Remigius was made archbishop of Reims, according to tradition, at the age of 22 and served in this role for more than 70 years. He baptized Clovis, King of the Franks, on Christmas day in 496. De La Salle had a special devotion to this patron of his native city. Blain tells us (CL 7: 229–30; CL 8: 281) that when he was struggling to learn what God wanted of him in the work of the Christian Schools, he would spend the whole night on Fridays and Saturdays at the tomb of Saint Remigius in the church dedicated to the saint.
Scripture Citation
- Ex 32:11–14