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Building a community where people could actually live the Gospel.

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January 30 · Abbot

St. Adelelm of Burgos

St. Adelelm of Burgos

Building a community where people could actually live the Gospel.

Traditional feast

January 30
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1914)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Abbot

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1914 book gives only 189 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

S. Adelelm was a noble of Lyons in France, and served in the army, till God called him to a higher walk, then he renounced the world, and became a monk in the Abbey of Chaise-Dieu, after a visit to Rome. He was ordained priest by Ranco, Bishop of the Auvergne, but when he heard that the bishop had been suspended for having simonically obtained the see, he refused to execute the priestly office, till a successor was appointed. To see him, Adelelm started one stormy night.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Build up the community you belong to. This life was lived with and for a community.

Learn from the kind of life it was. Building a community where people could actually live the Gospel.

Read more

The full original · 189 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Authority: his life by Rudolf the monk, who died 1137. S. Adelelm is called also Elesmo or Elmo ; and is not to be confounded with another Adelelm or Elmo, who is only beatified.

S. Adelelm was a noble of Lyons in France, and served in the army, till God called him to a higher walk, then he renounced the world, and became a monk in the Abbey of Chaise-Dieu, after a visit to Rome. He was ordained priest by Ranco, Bishop of the Auvergne, but when he heard that the bishop had been suspended for having simonically obtained the see, he refused to execute the priestly office, till a successor was appointed. To see him, Adelelm started one stormy night. The way was dark, and the tempest raged with such fury that, but that it was necessary, he would not have started then. However, he took a candle, lighted it, and gave it to his comrade, and bade him lead the way. Notwithstanding the violence of the gale, the flame burnt steady, though not enclosed in a lantern, and illumined their road. From this, the electric lights seen at mastheads are called by sailors in the Mediterranean S. Elmo's lights. He was afterwards invited to Spain, and he was chosen abbot of his order in the monastery of Burgos, where he died.

Feast days

Feast: January 30

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Adelelm of Burgos's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on January 30
B

St. Barsas of Edessa

January 30 · Bishop, Confessor
A

St. Aldegund

January 30 · Virgin
St. Hyacintha

St. Hyacintha

January 30 · Virgin
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new and revised edition (Edinburgh: John Grant, 1914; first edition 1872). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.