Hello, I am Lize Kergonan, today I will tell you about the life of Saint Brieuc.
Compared to Pol or Tugdual, Brieuc’s life does not a priori present anything original : born in Wales like most of his colleagues, in Cardigan, he is however one of the first Celtic «saints » trained by Germain the Auxerrois. Brieuc is from the generation of Patrick who converted Ireland. Their holiness was based on an austere life of fasting, prayer, and no entertainment : the only fun thing was miracles. They used them to convert people to the True God, the god of the Bible. For the rest, they were great pioneers, builders and great fighters, especially against heretics. Brieuc’s parents, Cerpus and Eldruda, were wealthy Welsh lords who happily clung to their pagan customs despite the evangelism that was growing in Britain. People tell stories, at least hagiographers tell stories… I remind you that a hagiographer is an author specializing in the lives of saints, his objective being to show the exemplarity of their lives while emphasizing their humility in the face of divine greatness.
So, Christian hagiographers say that while his mother, Eldruda, was pregnant, an angel appeared to her in a dream. He said to her : “Get up, woman, and faithfully worship the God of heaven, creator of all things, pray to him with all your heart and ask him to dispel the darkness from your mind and that of your husband ; pray to him that he may reveal to you both the light of truth. » He was lucky that she was asleep, otherwise she would have sent him away, the angel, because no one said «Get up, woman ! » to Eldruda.
But tell me, apart from being a rude person, wasn’t he half-heretic, the messenger of God ? According to the teaching of Saint Augustine, validated by the Councils of Carthage, God only grants his Grace to those he himself chooses. Others can pray to him as much as they want, if God is not decided, he will not save them, they will receive nothing at all.
To say that man (or woman !) can choose alone to go towards God is the doctrine of the Breton heretic monk Pelagius. The one that Germain of Auxerre fought all his life. Well, let’s admit that the angel expressed himself badly and wanted to say (emphatically) “God chose you to give birth to Brieuc ! » Much better ! Eldruda opens one eye, just astonished at the familiarities of an angel commissioned by the Most High who says to her “Get up, woman ! » and she goes back to sleep. The following night, the angel, aware of having risked excommunication, returned and corrected : “Woman, I am sent by God to announce to you what He has decided. You and Cerpus will generate a son dear to God and rich in merits who will become, in the practice of the Christian religion, a salutary example for the people through his holy morals, his remarkable chastity, his sincere piety, his sweet charity, his supernatural science and… his perfection. » Bordering on sycophancy, but much better ! “Announce this news to your husband. Warn him with all haste to break his idols and to worship with eagerness the true God who reigns in heaven. » Eldruda replies that she is willing to try but that on the one hand she respects her husband’s freedom of worship and that on the other hand he is a stubborn Breton type and very happy with his current gods.
The angel adds : “You will make three rods, two of silver, the first of which will be for you, the second for your husband, and one of gold for your son, which you will place in your treasury until the birth of this child.
Child. When he grows up, you will entrust him to Bishop Germain who will instruct him in the liberal arts and give him a good education.» What do the silver and gold wands do in this Annunciation ? No idea. A reminiscence of bargaining with local gods, perhaps ? As Eldruda predicted, Cerpus was reluctant to honor a Jesus from Palestine, who wrote in a non-Celtic langage, who was unproven in battle, and who sent an angel to his wife’s bedroom in the middle of the night… to give him orders ! Two nights in a row, he turned a deaf ear. But the third night was decisive : the angel gave him a good beating which “took him out of his torpor”.
Beaten up in the middle of the night, he had to admit that his gods were no match for the angelic brute and he said something like : “Okay, do what you want ! » In any case, Brieuc was born. His childhood passed without further incident.
Until the day when Germain, Saint Germain l’Auxerrois, arriving from Gaul, landed in Great Britain to eradicate the Pelagian heresy.
Eldruda reminded Cerpus of the promise made to the angel, but the latter had no intention of entrusting the education of his heir to a Gallo-Roman bishop according to whom there was only one god, his own ! What was this religion that worshiped a poor crucified victim ? The hard hitting angel reappeared… The next day, the three silver and gold wands were put in Brieuc’s bag, and shortly after he met Germain.
We are then around the year 430. When Germain left Great Britain to return to Gaul, to Auxerre, Brieuc accompanied him. When they arrived at the monastery, a dove fluttered in front of him. It is this dove that you see today on a stained glass window in the Notre-Dame de la Fontaine chapel in Saint-Brieuc, in Côtes-d’Armor.
It was his first mark of holiness ! Then comes the episode of the pitcher. As Brieuc was a little saint, he gave everything he had to the poors : coat, shoes, etc. One day, while he was going to fetch water, he came across some poor lepers who asked him for alms. He had nothing else with him, so he gave them the pitcher. Bad luck, one of his little comrades went after Germain. He said that Brieuc was squandering the monastery’s materials. Germain called him. Fortunately another classmate had warned him. Brieuc was desperate. He entered the Church and he prayed and prayed… He was preparing to disappoint his master when, turning around, he saw a magnificent jug, all carved, placed behind him. So he took it and brought it to Germain to apologize.
Germain looked attentively at this vase of rare beauty and guessed that some divine mystery was there. He turned to his companions and exclaimed : “This child is more righteous than us, since divine grace has thus filled his soul. » Nice, isn’t it ? Germanus returned to Britain in 448, again to oppose the heresy of Pelagius.
He asked Brieuc to accompany him. As an exercise, the latter had to convert his entire family to the Christian faith. When he arrived in front of his parents’ house, his mother ran to him and took him in her arms. He was so moved to feel her joy ! But he shouldn’t be moved, he had a mission. He looked for his father.
Cerpus was easy to find, you just had to find your way by sound level. This happened on the first of the year. First of January or first of November, according to historians, Roman tendency or Celtic tendency. Whatever the date, the New Year festivities are an ultra-pagan custom that Christian bishops wanted to put an end to. It was the occasion for feasts, drinking, bawdy songs, fights, bad behavior of all kinds ! Everything that pleases the Bretons ! These festivals only stopped “out of excess fatigue,” an ancient text modestly says. Cerpus did not consider denying the sense of ancestral hospitality in order to submit to the austerity of a Christian life. Brieuc found him completely drunk, very happy and lively with his guests. He suggested that his son join them, which he obviously refused. At that moment, one of the guests who was dancing with the passion of intoxication fell to the ground and broke his femur and wrist. It was the moment Brieuc had been waiting for. Commending himself to God, he performed the appropriate miracle and the man’s bones were repaired. The crowd acclaimed him with great enthusiasm and strong staggering, he ordered them to fast for seven days at the end of which he baptized them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Then he founded a monastery, transformed the pagan temples into churches and lived there for more than thirty years, multiplying miracles and conversions. Until the Angel Hard-hitting reappeared who informed him of God’s new decision : he had to cross the sea in order to give the Bretons who had migrated to Armorica the example of a religious and holy life. They lacked spiritual leaders.
With hindsight, we can wonder if God did not answer the urgent prayers of the Welsh chiefs who were having difficulty channeling the riotous ardor of their clans in Little Britain. God’s political vision is inscrutable ! Brieuc did not ask himself these questions, he crossed the Channel with sixty-eight monks. Or more, we don’t know.
They arrived in 485 on the coasts of Domnonée, located in the north of Armorica, in the Double Valley, at the mouth of Gouët, in the bay known today as “Saint-Brieuc”.
With the monks, they went back inland and built a hermitage near a spring with abundant waters. Today we see it leaning against the “Notre-Dame-de-la-Fontaine” chapel. Contrary to what some claim, Brieuc did not dedicate his oratory to Notre-Dame. He and his fellow “founding saints” were not really followers of a female cult. Perhaps because the Notre-Dame of this or that was too reminiscent of the animist goddesses that rural populations piously honored. But it was probably just a power rivalry. Because they had no animosity towards women.
Nothing to do with the bishops who followed to the letter the disgust of Paul of Tarsus and Augustine of Hippo. Moreover, after the death of Brieuc, two Breton priests were sharply reprimanded by the bishop of Tours and by Melaine of Rennes, two Gallo-Romans who defended the dogmas of “the Great Church”. Around 515, these two bishops wrote to the Bretons : “We have learned that you continue to carry among your compatriots, from cabin to cabin, certain tables on which you celebrate the divine Sacrifice of the mass, with the assistance of women to which you give the name conhospitae ; while you distribute the Eucharist, they take the chalice and dare to administer the blood of Christ to the people. » It was really making too much of a fuss about a few cases where priests asked their wives or concubines for help in celebrating mass. Not enough to brandish the threat of excommunication. Is it ? I resume my story.
We were at the fountain “of abundant waters”. At this moment a horseman arrives who mistakes them for brigands or Saxons. It is true that their outfit did not inspire confidence, with their goatskin coats and their long hair in the Celtic tonsure style, they were not immediately detected men of God. Without listening to them, the rider rushed to warn the leader of the country that thugs were settling on his land. Riwall sent troops to send them back across the sea. But, a small miracle, Riwall began to feel severe intestinal pain which he associated with the decision he had just made, he saw it as a bad omen. He ordered these strangers to be brought before him. And there, Alleluia, as soon as they saw each other : “Hello, cousin ! » Riwall had crossed the Channel several years earlier to settle with his troops, women and children in Armorica. He and Brieuc were from the same Welsh family. Brieuc cured Riwal of his stomach aches by giving him a little holy water to swallow, whereupon Riwal gave him his domain of Champ du Rouvre to found a monastery and he himself went to live in his castle of Hélion.
Brieuc and his monks cleared the land, taught the word of God, converted, performed miracles… Next time, I will tell you why we often see wolves represented at the feet of Brieuc in churches.
That’s it for today. See you !
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