Saint of the Day – 19 January – Saint Lomer of Corbion (Died 593) Abbot

Saint of the Day – 19 January – Saint Lomer of Corbion (Died 593) Abbot of the Monastery he founded at Corbion near Chartres, friend of animals, Miracle-worker. Born in Neuville-la-Mare, Diocese of Chartres, France and died in January 593 of natural causes. Also known as – Laumer, Laudomarus, Launomar, Launomaro.

In his childhood and adolescence, Lomer kept his father’s sheep, in which employment he mortified his body by regular fasts and spent his time in studies and prayer.

He was initially trained for the Priesthood by a holy Priest named Chirmirius, was Ordained and then served in Chartres and the surrounds, where he was made both Canon and Bursar of the Cathedral Chapter.

After many years, Lomer withdrew to live a eremitic life in the forests of La Perche where, some brigands, who had come to rob him, left edified and spread the fame of his sanctity. . His reputation for great holiness and miracles, including the gift of prophecy, resulted in a number of disciples attaching themselves to his hermitage in the forest.

In c570 Lomer founded a Monastery at Corbion to house his many disciples, six leagues from Chartres. He died more than a hundred years old, in January. 593 (the actualy day, however, uncertain).

His body was buried in the Church of St-Martin-du-Val and Subsequently, IN 595, moved to Corbion. During the Norman invasions, his Relics were protect in Blois, where, in 924, the Monastery of St-Laumer was built, to which that of Corbion was joined. These two houses were destroyed in 1567 by the Huguenots and the Relics were lost. However, in 912, St Lomer’s skull was transferred to Moissat, where in 1284, St Simon of Bourges, carried out a new translation.

The Saint’s Feast has celebrated isince the 17th Century in the Diocese of Chartres and then, in that of Chartres and Séez. His name was inscribed in the French and Benedictine Martyrologies on 19 January. The iconography of the Saint depicts him as a teaching Abbot, as he appears in the 13th Century Statue im the South portal of Chartres Cathedral, in the guise of an Abbot, with a book in his right hand.

In the early 20th Century, an event in the life of St. Lomer – an incident involving the theft of the Saint’s favourite cow – was published in The Book of Saints and Friendly Beasts, a collection of brief tales for children, Lomer’s Vita states that the Abbot was so holy that “savage wild beasts obeyed when he commanded.”