Feast of the Holy Abbots of Cluny
With all due respect to Saint Catherine of Siena, one of my favourite saints and whose feast day is celebrated today on the calendar of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, today (at least on the Benedictine calendar!) is the feast of four great Abbots of the Benedictine Order: Saints Odo, Majolus, Odilo, and Hugh. They were all good and holy men, and during the course of their reigns over the Abbey of Cluny and its associated priories, they reformed western monasticism – indeed, it could be fairly said that together they saved western monasticism.
My Monastic Diurnal has the following antiphons for the psalms of Lauds:
Saint Odo was the second abbot of Cluny. He was born around the year 878 in Déols, France, and he died on 18 November, 942.
He had a devotion to Saint Martin of Tours and became a canon at Tours when he was only 19. Disgusted by the corruption of the clergy at this very wealthy basilica, he entered the reform monastery of Baume in 909. A few years later, he was transferred to the newly established Monastery of Cluny.
He was initially a librarian, but after the death of the founding Abbot of Cluny, Saint Berno, in 927, Odo was elected Abbot.
It was he who truly began the monastic reform in earnest.
Abbot Odo was authorized by Pope John XI in 931 to enact the Cluniac reforms throughout the Benedictine houses of Aquitaine, France, and Italy.
Saint Majolus was the fourth abbot of Cluny. He was born in 906 in Avignon and died in 994.
Continuing the work of Saint Odo, he reformed many German monasteries at the request of Emperor Otto the Great. Emperor Otto II wanted to make him pope in 974, but Majolus refused.
Saint Majolus has the distinction of having been captured by Saracen pirates in 972. He was ransomed back, and the local nobles were so outraged that they finally wiped out the pirates who had been plaguing the area for generations.
Saint Odilo was fifth abbot of Cluny. He born of a noble house of around 962 and died on the last day of 1048.
Under his stewardship, the number of monasteries in the Cluniac congregation increased from 37 to 65.
He is responsible for a truce system – the peace of God – that restricted warfare, and he saved thousands during a time of famine through his charity. Through his focus on the glories of the liturgy, he introduced the Feast of All Saints into the universal calendar.
In 1793 his relics, together with those of Saint Majolus, were burnt by the French revolutionaries “on the altar of the fatherland”.
Saint Hugh the Great the sixth abbot of Cluny, a position he was elected to at the tender age of twenty-five and held for more than sixty years.
He was born of the sovereign house of the dukes of Burgundy at Semur in 1024, and he died at Cluny on 28 April, 1109.
Abbot Hugh built the third abbey church at Cluny, the largest structure in Europe at the time.
With the Congregation of Cluny reaching now even into Spain, the funds for the construction were provided by King Ferdinand I of León.
In fact, under his stewardship, nearly 2,000 Cluniac monasteries were founded throughout western Europe.
A friend and ally of Pope Saint Gregory VII, Abbot Hugh played a key role in the reform of the clergy, and he was widely recognized for his sanctity even during his lifetime.
And here is today’s collect:
O God, Who dost gladden us
by the festival of Thy Saints
and dost urge us to advance by imitating them,
grant that as we venerate them with our homage
we may also follow in the example of their holy life.Through our Lord, Jesus Christ, Thy Son,
Who with Thee liveth and reigneth in the unity of the Holy Ghost,
God, world without end.Amen.
Holy Abbots of Cluny, pray for us!
