Hello, I am Lize Kergonan, today I’ll tell you the life of Saint Malo d’Aleth, also called Maclou or Maclaw.
He is the youngest of the founding saints of Brittany. Aleth is today Saint-Servan, in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany, near… Saint-Malo. He was born in 502 in Gwent, a region of Wales. Malo’s parents were unable to have children ; his mother was sixty-seven years old when she conceived him. This time, no angel comes to announce the event to him, no hard hitting angel to encourage his father to convert. On the other hand, his birth is original : the day before Easter, his mother went to pray at the monastery of Saint Brendan, with thirty-three friends, also pregnant, and all gave birth during the night. Thirty-three boys ! It was Brendan himself who baptized Malo. At the age of twelve he went to the monastery school in Llancarfan. He loved to study. He preferred “the science of the saints to the vain philosophy of the wise men of the world.” It was in the spirit of the times : Christianity preferred faith to reason. Perhaps above all, the Lives of the Saints are more fun than philosophy. The thirty-three boys born the same night as him studied there as well.
His fervor was so great that despite the cold winter, while his fellow students were shivering in their coats, he went out in a simple shirt “so vehement was the flame of divine love that burned in his heart”. In any case, that’s what is said in books. But there is no reason to doubt the word of the hagiographer ☺ Brendan was a good teacher who took pleasure in developing the knowledge and faith of his students and who did not forget that they were children . As soon as the weather was nice, he let them play on the beach in the sun. One afternoon, Malo dozed off on a pile of seaweed, between some rocks. At dusk, his comrades returned to the monastery. Brendan noticed his absence but no one knew where he was. So Brendan got worried, he went to the beach and didn’t see the child. The sea was high. He imagined the worst : that the little one had slipped on the rocks, that a wave had carried him away. He returned to the monastery, devastated, and prayed all night. But Malo was not dead ! He had slept so soundly that he had not heard the sea rising and surrounding him. However, far from submerging him, the water had delicately lifted the seaweed and the patch of sand on which he was lying. When he woke up, he was in the middle of the sea on a small island, there was water everywhere around. He prayed to God to help him.
Meanwhile, his master was praying in his room. An angel appeared to him. Ah… there’s the angel. He told him : “Don’t worry, the child is out of danger and what’s more, God has created a new island to protect him. » Brendan was reassured, he rested while waiting for dawn. Then he returned to the shore and found Malo on his miraculous little islet, sitting praising God. Brendan was getting ready to go find a boat to take him back to shore but Malo felt so comfortable there that he asked permission to stay there in prayer all day. All he was missing was his psalter. Brendan told him the distance was too far to get it to him, but Malo replied to trust God and drop it on the water. Which he did. A new bundle of seaweed placed itself under the book, lifted it out of the water and brought it, well dry. Having sung the praise of our Lord all day, in the evening, at low tide, Malo returned to the monastery on dry foot. His parents were not very happy with the turn of events : they wanted a son to manage their estate, not a miracle worker. They decided to take him home. There was no question of it.
Malo quoted the Holy Scriptures : “And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven !” » Matthew, 23, 9 ! Clever, Malo ! This is how he was able to devote himself to monastic life. Well, it wasn’t always idyllic. His classmates were jealous of his special relationship with Brendan, and with God ! They were trying to harm him with some pranks. For example, they had to take turns lighting the fire in the common room before Brendan got up. One morning, ready to fulfill this office, Malo noticed that all the firebrands had been maliciously extinguished. Trusting in divine grace, he took some under his shirt and went into the room. On his skin, the coals had become incandescent and yet they had not burned him at all. He lit the fire…
Do you think that would have calmed the others ? No way ! They continued to bother him. So much so that one day, Brendan said : “Okay, that’s enough, we’re going on a trip !” Here they are embarked, with several other monks, on a “currach”, a sort of light boat made of wooden slats covered with sewn beef skins. They set off without a specific goal, on an adventure, carried by Providence. Brendan had the somewhat vague idea of finding the Fortunate Islands. They sailed like this for seven years… After seven years, they actually found an island, but it was not inhabited by Blessed Ones. When they landed they just discovered a tomb astonishing in its length. It contained the body of a giant. Brendan said : “O Malo, ask the Lord your God to resurrect the man who is buried in this tomb ! «.
Why didn’t he do it himself, why was it the God of Malo all of a sudden, why did they need to resurrect this dead man ? We don’t know, but Malo never questioned Brendan’s orders. So he resurrected him. He prayed to Our Lord, reminding him that He had done it for Lazarus, that it would be nice of him to do it again, it would please Brendan… and we saw the soul rejoin the body, something began to move in the tomb, the dead man rose again. He was a pagan called Milldu. As usual when they met a pagan, they baptized him directly, then asked him if he knew the Fortunate Isles. He said he saw some islands that might be a match and offered to take them there. They reboarded, Milldu held the rudder. But a storm arose, violent waves broke the rudder, they drifted and the current took them back to the giant’s island. It was surely a sign of Providence, so they landed the said Milldu, locked him in his tomb and left promising to pray for his soul. During the night, an angel appeared to Brendan, God was ordering to forget the islands and return to the monastery. All that for this ! On the other hand, they weren’t unhappy : seven years of currach, they couldn’t take it anymore.
On the way home, they realize that it is Easter Sunday. “On Easter Sunday, we must celebrate a mass ! » said Brendan. “Malo, put on your chasuble and say mass !” » “Why does it always fall on me ? » thinks Malo. “Master, we cannot say mass on this unstable currach ! » he tries. “Here, look, a little island ! » says a monk. Well, there’s no way to escape it, they land on the islet and Malo begins to say mass. But now, at the moment of Agnus Dei, the ground begins to shake. So violently that the monks become frightened and Brendan sees the intervention of the devil. Malo was having more than enough of their childishness. First of all, it wasn’t a devil but a big whale that was snorting ! They were installed on its back. Malo told them to get back on the currach and that he would join them when he had finished his mass. At the end, the whale gently carried him towards the boat and then followed them for a while, playing around them as they sailed.
Returning to the monastery after seven years of navigation, Malo immediately noticed the change in atmosphere. The annoying kids had left or had transformed into studious monks living for study, field work and prayer, one could breathe.
Brendan died and Malo was appointed abbot-bishop of the monastery.
Everything was calm, no war, no raids, the Saxons were not approaching. One day, while working in the vineyard, Malo took off his coat because he was too hot in the sun and hung it on a tree. Without him noticing, a small bird, a wren, laid eggs in his hood. In the evening, he wanted to take his coat back. But when he saw the eggs he left the coat in the tree until the chicks fly away. People made a big deal out of it, they saw it as a mark of his holiness, but it was the least he could do, for someone who didn’t suffer from the cold ! The monks lived in this rural atmosphere of Wales, until the day…
I forgot to tell you that Malo’s mother, Deruel, was the sister of Hamon, himself father of Samson de Dol. The latter played an important political rôle with Judual, the king of Domnonée. Now Samson had been dead for more than ten years when Waroc, the king of the Vannetais country, began to attack and pillage the countries of Nantes and Rennes. Judual, concerned about Waroc’s expansionist policies, sought help from the family of Great Britain. He needed a representative of religious power firm enough to support him in his battles and negotiations. They thought of Malo ! Malo, whose glory was due to the celebration of a mass on a whale’s back and the protection of wren eggs. But one does not discuss the orders of the family any more than those of God or Brendan, so he embarked for continental Brittany . He was fifty-eight years old. The legend claims that his father, opposed to this decision of the family on his mother’s side, refused to let him leave the country, forbidding anyone to take him on his boat under penalty of death, but a ship would have been waiting for him, piloted by a angel, or by Jesus himself, in any case a beautiful, resplendent young man, who would have taken charge of him and led him to safety. Frankly ! His father ! He would have been at least 125 years old ! The Welsh from the time of the saints had a good longevity, but hey… That said, the pilot of the crossing was indeed a handsome young man. In the next video, we will meet Malo upon his arrival in Armorica. Kenavo !
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