SAINT CONRAD OF PIACENZA and SAINT BARBATUS

SAINT CONRAD OF PIACENZA
Hermit
(†1351)

Saint Conrad was living peacefully as a nobleman of Piacenza. He had married when quite young and led a virtuous and God-fearing life. One day, when engaged in his usual pastime of hunting, he ordered his attendants to set fire to some brushwood where game had taken refuge. The prevailing wind caused the flames to spread rapidly, and the surrounding fields and forest were soon in a state of conflagration. A mendicant who happened to be found near the place where the fire had originated was accused of being the author; he was imprisoned, tried and condemned to death. As the poor man was being led to execution, Conrad, stricken with remorse, declared the man innocent and confessed his own guilt openly. In order to repair the damage of which he had been the cause, as he then volunteered to do, he was obliged to sell all his possessions. He repaid his neighbors for all the losses they had suffered, then retired to a distant region where he took the Third Order habit of Saint Francis, while his wife entered the Order of Poor Clares.

After visiting the holy places in Rome, he went to Sicily and dwelt for forty years in strict penance, sleeping on the bare ground with a stone for pillow, and with dry bread and raw herbs for food. God rewarded his great virtue by the gift of prophecy and the grace of miracles. He died while praying on his knees in 1351, surrounded by a bright light, in the presence of his confessor, who was unaware for some time of his death because of his position. He is invoked especially for the cure of hernias.

Sources: Les Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin (Bloud et Barral: Paris, 1882), Vol. 2; The Catholic Encyclopedia, edited by C. G. Herbermann with numerous collaborators (Appleton Company: New York, 1908).

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SAINT BARBATUS
Bishop of Benevento
(†682)

Saint Barbatus was born in the territory of Benevento in Italy, toward the end of the pontificate of Saint Gregory the Great, in the beginning of the seventh century. His parents gave him a Christian education, and Barbatus in his youth laid the foundation of the eminent sanctity which recommends him to our veneration. The innocence, simplicity, and purity of his manners, and his extraordinary progress in all virtues, qualified him for the service of the altar, to which he was admitted by receiving Holy Orders as soon as the canons of the Church would allow it. He was immediately employed by his bishop in preaching, for which he had an extraordinary talent, and, after some time, made parish priest of Saint Basil’s Church in Morcona, a town near Benevento.

His parishioners were steeled in their irregularities, and they treated him as a disturber of their peace, persecuting him with the utmost violence. Finding their malice conquered by his patience and humility, and his character shining still more brightly, they had recourse to slander. Here their virulence and success was such that their bishop was obliged to withdraw his charitable endeavors among them. Barbatus returned to Benevento, where he was received with joy.

When Saint Barbatus entered upon his ministry in that city, the Christians themselves still retained many idolatrous superstitions, which their duke, Prince Romuald, authorized by his example. They expressed a religious veneration for a golden viper and prostrated themselves before it; they also paid superstitious honors to a tree, in ceremonies ending in public games. Saint Barbatus preached zealously against these abuses. Finally he roused the attention of the people by foretelling the distress and the calamities which their city was to suffer from the army of the Emperor Constans, who, landing soon afterwards in Italy, laid siege to Benevento. The bishop of Benevento died during the siege, and after public tranquility was restored, it was Saint Barbatus who was consecrated bishop to replace him, in March of 663.

Invested with the episcopal character, Saint Barbatus pursued and completed the good work he had so fittingly begun, and destroyed every trace of superstition in the entire state. After nineteen years of these labors he died on February 29, 682, being about seventy years old.

Reflection. Saint Augustine says, “When the enemy has been cast out of your hearts, renounce him not only in word but in works; not only by the sound of the lips, but in every act of your life.”