Building a community where people could actually live the Gospel.
September 24
Not verified yet
Abbot
…resolved to make away with him. At cockcrow every morning it was the custom of the community to rise and go to church and sing prime, and return to their beds only at daybreak. One morning whilst Geremar was in church some of the malcontents fastened a sharp knife in his bed with the haft attached to the laths, and the blade erect, so that when Geremar returned in the dusk to the dormitory, and flung himself on his bed, the knife would pierce him.
Build up the community you belong to. This life was lived with and for a community.
Make time for silence. Solitude and withdrawal to pray shape this life.
Choose mercy. Forgiveness and mercy are part of this story.
Learn from the kind of life it was. Building a community where people could actually live the Gospel.
…resolved to make away with him. At cockcrow every morning it was the custom of the community to rise and go to church and sing prime, and return to their beds only at daybreak. One morning whilst Geremar was in church some of the malcontents fastened a sharp knife in his bed with the haft attached to the laths, and the blade erect, so that when Geremar returned in the dusk to the dormitory, and flung himself on his bed, the knife would pierce him. But on this morning, contrary to his usual custom, he felt his bed before flinging himself on it, and thus discovered the knife. Disgusted at this attempt on his life, he determined to leave the abbey, but without publishing abroad the reason, lest it should cause scandal. He then found a cave and retired into it. Shortly after, news reached him that his son Amalbert, who had been in attendance on the king in Gascony, on his way home had been attacked by a mortal illness which had cut short his days in the flower of youth. Geremar, on receiving the news cried out, “O my God ! Thou hast been merciful towards me, in deigning to receive my son into Thy glory.*' He went to meet the funeral train, which was accompanied by the king and his nobles, and brought his son’s body to the monastery of ITsle. Having become master of his entire fortune by the death of Amalbert, he resolved to consecrate it to God. By the advice of S. Ouen he built and endowed a stately monastery at Flay in the forests of Bray, on the Epte, now called S. Germer. He became abbot of this monastery, and died in it, in the odour of sanctity.
Feast: September 24
One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Gere Mar's story, and a nudge to keep going.
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.