Saint of the Day – 13 November – Saint Brice of Tours (c370-444) Bishop, disciple of St Martin of Tours, Penitent, Miracle-worker. Born in Gaul, modern France and died in Tours, France of natural causes.
Patronages – against colic, against stomach diseases, of Tours, of Calimera and Samperone in Italy. Also known as – Briccius, Brictius, Britius, Brixius, Brizio, Brizo.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “At Tours, St Brice, Bishop, disciple of the blessed Bishop Martin.”
St Martin, whose Feast we kept two days ago, was succeeded in the See of Tours, as he had predicted, by a Monk named Brice, a singularly unpromising candidate to succeed such a holy Bishop.
Martin had spent as much time as his Episcopal duties permitted among a monastic community at Marmoutier near Tours, into which he himself had taken the orphaned Brice. St Gregory of Tours describes Brice as “proud and vain” and St Martin’s Biographer, St Sulpicius Severus, tells the story in his Dialogues (3.15) of Brice being led by devils to “vomit up a thousand reproaches against Martin” even daring to assert that he, himself, was much holier for being raised from childhood in a Monastery, while Martin was raised in a military camp. Although Brice repented of this (as St Sulpicius believed, due to Martin’s prayers) and asked for the Saint’s forgiveness, he continued to be a very difficult character. Martin refused to remove him from the Priesthood, lest he would be judged to do so, as an act of vengeance but, expressed his tolerance in less than-complimentary terms: “If Christ could put up with Judas, why should I not put up with Brice?”
St Martin had predicted, not only that Brice would succeed him as the Bishop, but, that he would suffer much in the Episcopacy, words which Brice dismissed as “ravings.” Both predictions were fulfilled in the following manner. Although Brice was vain and proud, he was “chaste in body” and yet, he was accused of fathering a child. The revised Butler’s Lives of the Saints says, with characteristic reticence that he vindicated himself by “a very astonishing miracle” without saying what the miracle was. St Gregory of Tours tells us that Brice called together the faithful and before them ordered the month-old infant to say whether or not he was the father, at which the child did indeed say, “You are not my father!” The people ask Brice to make the infant say who its father was but Brice replied, “That is not my job. I have taken care of the part of this business which pertains to me; if you can, ask for yourselves.”
This miraculous event was attributed, perhaps understandably, to the use of magic, rather than holiness and so Brice attempted to vindicate himself by carrying hot coals in his cloak to the Tomb of St Martin; when he arrived his cloak was not burnt. But this sign was also not accepted and so he was driven from his See, “that the words of the Saint might be fulfilled, ‘Know that, in the Episcopate, you will suffer many adversities.’ …
Then Brice sought out the Pope of Rome, weeping and mourning and saying ‘Rightly do I suffer these things because I sinned against God’s Saint and often called him crazy and deluded and, seeing his virtues, I did not believe.’ ” After staying in Rome for seven years and purging his sins by the celebration of many Masses, he was restored to his See which he governed for a further seven years as a man “of magnificent sanctity,” according to St Gregory, very much changed for the better by the experience.
His popularity in the medieval period was very great and his Feast is found on most calendars, although not that of Rome. This is due in part to his association with St Martin but perhaps more, as an example of something which the medievals understood very well and loved to dwell upon – it is never too late for God’s grace to bring us away from sin to sanctity and even to Sainthood. And so we ask St Brice to assist us by his intercession, in our repentance and our growth in holiness. (Adapted from Gregory DiPippo’s article on NLM).
AnaStpaul 