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ST. LICINIUS, CONFESSOR CALLED BY THE FRENCH,
LESIN, BISHOP OF ANGERS.
HE was born of a noble family, allied to the kings
of France, about the year 540. He was applied to learning as soon as
he was capable of instruction, and sent to the court of king Clotaire
I., (whose cousin he was,) being about twenty years of age. He
signalized himself by his prudence and valor, both in the court and
in the army, and acquitted himself of all Christian duties with
extraordinary exactitude and fervor. Fasting and prayer were familiar
to him, and his heart was always raised to God. King Chilperic made
him count or governor of Anjou, and being overcome by the
importunities of his friends, the saint consented to take a wife
about the year 578. But the lady was struck with a leprosy on the
morning before it was to be solemnized. This accident so strongly
affected Licinius, that he resolved to carry into immediate execution
a design he had long entertained of entirely renouncing the world.
This he did in 580, and leaving all things to follow Jesus Christ, he
entered himself among the clergy, and hiding himself from the world
in a community of ecclesiastics, found no pleasure but in the
exercises of piety and the most austere penance, and in meditating on
the holy scriptures. Audouin, the fourteenth bishop of Angers, dying
towards the year 600, the people, remembering the equity and mildness
with which Licinius had governed them, rather as their father than as
a judge or master, demanded him for their pastor. The voice of the
clergy seconded that of the people, and the concurrence of the court
of Clotaire II. in his minority, under the regency of his mother
Fredegonda, over came all the opposition his humility could make. His
time and his substance were divided in feeding the hungry, comforting
and releasing prisoners, and curing the bodies and souls of his
people. Though he was careful to keep up exact discipline in his
diocese, he was more inclined to indulgence, than rigor, in imitation
of the tenderness which Jesus Christ showed for sinners. Strong and
persuasive eloquence, the more forcible argument of his severe and
exemplary life, and God himself speaking by miracles qualified him to
gain the hearts of the most hardened, and make daily conquest of
souls to Christ. He renewed the spirit of devotion and penance by
frequent retreats, and desired earnestly to resign his bishopric, and
hide himself in some solitude: but the bishops of the province, whose
consent he asked, refusing to listen to such a proposal, he
submitted, and continued to spend the remainder of his life in the
service of his flock. His patience was perfected by continual
infirmities in his last years, and he finished his sacrifice about
the year 618, in the sixty-fifth of his age. He was buried in the
church of St. John Baptist, which he had founded, with a monastery,
which he designed for his retreat. It is now a collegiate church, and
enriched with the treasure of his relics. His memory was publicly
honored in the seventh age: the 1st of November was the day of his
festival, though he is now mentioned in the Roman Martyrology on the
13th of February. At Angers he is commemorated on the 8th of June,
which seems to have been the day of his consecration, and on the 21st
of June, when his relies were translated or taken up, 1169, in the
time of Henry II., king of England, count of Anjou. See his life,
written from the relation of his disciples soon after his death; and
again by Marbodius, archdeacon of Angers, afterwards bishop of
Rennes, both in Bollandus.
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