D

A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

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May 7 · Bishop

St. Domitian of…

St. Domitian of Maestricht

A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Traditional feast

May 7
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

Not verified yet

Represents

Bishop

Early life

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

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. A shepherd who stayed with his people through hard times.

Keep their day. Remember them on May 7 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

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The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Belgian Martyrologies. Authority ' Two lives, one of uncertain date. The other written after 1x83.] S. Domitian, the patron of Huy, on the Meuse, was born in France; he was made Bishop of Tongres, but on the see of Maestricht becoming vacant, he was elevated thereto by the people and clergy of that diocese. According to a popular tradition at Huy, he delivered the neighbourhood from an enormous serpent which infected with its venom the water of a fountain. He spent a long time at Huy, but died at Maestricht His body is preserved at Huy, in a magnificent mediaeval reliquary in the church of Notre-Dame. He is invoked against fever. Anciently, on May 7th, a procession carrying his shrine made the circuit of Huy, followed by all fever-struck patients in their shirts, candle in hand. To this day the shrine is borne processionally to the fountain where S. Domitian is said to have slain the serpent.

Feast days

Feast: May 7

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

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

Also on May 7
F

St. Flavia Domitilla

May 7 · Virgin, Martyr
B

St. Benedict II.

May 7 · Feast
St. John of Beverley, Abr

St. John of Beverley

May 7 · Feast
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). 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.