On account of many miracles that were wrought both before and after his interment, the citizens of Avignon built a rich chapel over his grave. The convent and church of the Celestines have been since built over that very spot, and in this church is the saint’s body at present enshrined under a stately mausoleum. The history of the miracles which have been wrought at his tomb fills whole volumes. A famous one in 1432, moved the city of Avignon to choose him for its patron. It is related as follows: A child about twelve years old fell from a high tower in the palace of Avignon upon a sharp rock, by which fall his skull was split, his brains dashed out, and his body terribly bruised. The father of the child, almost distracted at this accident, ran to the place, and falling on his knees with many tears, implored the intercession of St. Peter. Then gathering up the scattered bloody pieces of the child’s skull, he carried them with the body in a sack, and laid them on the saint’s tomb. The people and the Celestine monks joined their earnest prayers; and after some time the child returned to life, and was placed upon the altar that all might see him thus wonderfully raised from the dead. This miracle happened on the 5th of July, on which day the festival of the saint has ever since been celebrated at Avignon. After juridical informations on his life and miracles, the bull of his beatification was published by the true pope Clement VII. of the family of Medicis, in 1527.
St. Peter was a saint from the cradle, because he always strove to live only for God, and his divine honor. If one spark of that ardent love of God which inflamed the saints in their actions animated our breasts, it would give wings to our souls in all we do. We should devote ourselves every moment to God with our whole strength; and by our fidelity, and by the purity and fervor of our intention, we should with the saints make all our actions perfect sacrifices of our hearts to him.“God considers not how much, but with how ardent an affection the thing is given,” says St. Cyprian.[49] And, as St. Ambrose writes,[50] “Thy affection stamps the name and value on thy action. It is just rated at so much as is the ardor from which it proceeds. See how just is this judge—He asks thy own soul what value he is to set on thy work.”
SAINT MODWENA, A NOBLE IRISH VIRGIN.
Having led a religious life several years in her own country, she came into England in the reign of king Ethelwolf, about the year 840. That pious and great king being acquainted with her sanctity, committed to her care the education of his daughter Editha, and founded for her the monastery of Pollesworth, near the forest of Arden in Warwickshire, which flourished till the dissolution, bearing usually the name of St. Editha, its patroness and second abbess. St. Modwena had before established two famous nunneries in Scotland, one at Stirling, the other in Edinburgh. She made some other pious foundations in England, but to apply herself more perfectly to the sanctification of her own soul, she led during seven years in anachoretical life in an isle in the Trent, which was called Andresey from the apostle St. Andrew, in whose honor she procured her oratory to be dedicated. When the great abbey of Burton-upon-Trent was founded in the year 1004, it was dedicated under the patronage of the Blessed Virgin and St. Modwena, and was enriched with the relics of this saint, which were translated thither from Andresey; whence Leland calls the monastery of Burton Modwenestow. See Pinius the Bollandist, t. 2, Julij, p. 241. Tanner’s Notitia Mon. &c.
SAINT EDANA, OR EDAENE, IN IRELAND, V.
She is titular saint of the parish of new Tuamia, in the diocess of Elphin, and another in that of Tuam. A famous holy well bears her name, much resorted to by the sick. See Colgan, ad 5 Jul.