Saint Hubert of Liège.
Stained-Glass Window,
Saint Patrick’s Basilica, Ottawa, Canada.
Made By: Mayer Co., Munich. 1898.
Photo: July 2011.
Source: Own work.
File licensed under the
Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.
Author: Wojciech Dittwald.
(Wikimedia Commons)
Text from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 15.
Time After Pentecost.
Book Six.
Rome, wishing to admit as few interruptions as possible into the present great Octave, gives but a brief notice of Saint Hubert in the Martyrology.
It is fitting that we should imitate her reserve. Were we, however, to omit all mention of him, Christian huntsmen, so faithful in proclaiming their glorious Patron, would not forgive us.
It is right, also, to satisfy popular piety, and the gratitude of numberless clients saved from hydrophobia and led to the feet of the Saint by a Tradition of a thousand years’ standing.
A few words suffice to recount his life.
Saint Hubert Abbey (French: Abbaye de Saint-Hubert), officially the Abbey of Saint Peter in the Ardennes (Abbaye de Saint-Pierre en Ardennes), was a Benedictine Monastery Founded in the Ardennes in 687 A.D., and suppressed in 1797.
The former Abbey Church is now a Minor Basilica
in the Diocese of Namur, Belgium.
Photo: 21 April 2005.
Source: Own work.
Licensed under the
Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.
Author: Jean-Pol GRANDMONT
(Wikimedia Commons)
After the mysterious Stag had revealed Christ to him, he became, from a hunter of wild animals, a hunter of Souls; and merited to be called the Apostle of the Ardennes, whose forests had often echoed to the baying of his hounds.
He became the disciple and successor of Saint Lambert; and transferring from Maestricht both the Relics of the holy Martyr-Bishop and the Episcopal See, he raised Liège from an obscure village to a great Town.
His Blessed death took place on 30 May 727 A.D. And, on
3 November 743 A.D., his precious remains were taken up for the first time, which led to the Celebration of his Feast on this day.
In the following Century, the Abbey of Andain (Andage) was put in possession of the Sacred deposit, and took from him the name of Saint Hubert, as did likewise the Town which sprang up around and soon became a centre for pilgrimages.
Two Orders of Knighthood were established in honour of Saint Hubert; the first perished with the fall of the Bourbons, its last Chiefs; the other still exists, and the Kings of Bavaria are its Grand-Masters [Editor: Abbot Guéranger was writing in the Late-19th-Century].
